The Big Beautiful Bill has passed. I am trying to keep up as best as a multi-value chain, policy-adjacent economist can. I am a professional skeptic, and therefore, am pretty sure that regardless of the new policy, we will forge … Continue reading →
On a total energy consumption basis, the United States hovers just above 10 percent that is sourced from renewable fuels; wind, solar, biomass, hydroelectric, and geothermal feedstocks. On a recent road trip, it was clear that the Midwest States were … Continue reading →
Ben Laine, Terrainag.com wrote an interesting report dairy digester sustainability. One graphic message in an animated version of this map shows US dairy digester growth since 2001. Dairy digesters keep growing in size. The most recent digesters dwarf the earlier … Continue reading →
After all is said and done, this residential solar array in the non-winter months offset 67 percent of home power production. This chart is monthly solar production and household consumption in kilowatt hours (kWh). While it required both the solar … Continue reading →
The joy of finding a new dataset to explore enflamed my modeling focus more than was justified. IT WAS GREAT TO BE LOOKING FOR STORIES IN A BRAND NEW DATASET! Challenge #1: Monthly data from the power utility was too … Continue reading →
Modeling tools are used for more than forecasting. To complete the analysis of household energy consumption, forensic data modeling was required. Data from two different datasets were needed, and was in slightly different formats that prohibited a smooth alignment. The … Continue reading →
In February, I asked my Electric Cooperative for help in understanding our solar panel output for 2024. They responded with 10,000 data hourly power consumption points over the 12 months of 2024 and the first two months of 2025. As … Continue reading →
This post continues the deeper dive into power production of a residential solar array. The last post on solar output looked at daily variability of this solar array in June 2024. Variability from cloud cover in this geographic location, 45 … Continue reading →
As the 2025 Easter weekend approaches, the Biomass Rules winter compost pile nears ready-to-apply status. This photo illustrates all the undervalued organics from 2024, being prepared to add organic matter to the ancient clay soils, which after last year’s construction, … Continue reading →
Conceptually solar energy is straight-forward. The sun shines and power is produced. Solar power production has much more variability. This chart reflects 30 days of solar power production recorded every 5 minutes each day. The data was collected each day … Continue reading →
