Beyond The Light Switch

Theres a whole lot of quality tips within this document. I will be opting-in to your rss feed.

Hi! nice art! i'm Annette and i "Liked" your facebook page!

Hi, this is actually a nice article. You receive my vote for this and also I'll bookmark your blog now.

I agree with Scott. A few years ago I worked with a group of contractors that were building a new energy facility just outside of Queens. I had an opportunity to meet with a few of the guys at the nuclear energy plant in Pennsylvania to look at a facility. The costs related to waste are huge, and your right it really isn't a concern for them. Sometimes I just think we are focusing on the wrong things.

I think climate change is the elephant in the room here.

Keep it up, Nice post!

decommissioning and radioactive waste storage WERE addressed. Examples of what other countries are doing were included as well. Did you hear the part about recycling used fuel rods? Why is it that people always shout "bias" when reasonable people (or in this case a large panel of experts) express opinions they disagree with...

Good day! Would you mind if I share your blog with my twitter group? There's a lot of folks that I think would really enjoy your content. Please let me know. Thanks!

Yes, either play me some music or talk to me; don't try to do both simultaneously!

I just saw the first hour and think you've done a splendid job. In the second hour I hope to see some mention of: Tidal / Wave, more geothermal and much more about electric transportation. 70% of all oil is used for transportation. If we but converted all highway and rail to electric we could provide that power with any home grown form of power, and kiss imported oil goodbye forever! Even a half-step would be beautiful! And don't give any ground to the "long exhaust pipe" argument. Even if all these electric cars and trains were running on coal produced power it would still be cleaner than each of use burning stuff in our individual car to make it go; how stone-age!

I was curious if you ever considered changing the page layout of your site? Its very well written; I love what youve got to say. But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better. Youve got an awful lot of text for only having one or 2 pictures. Maybe you could space it out better? Thanks a lot again...

If the problem with renewable is merely one of them not being online all the time and batteries aren't an efficient solution why not just go back to hydro-electric storage/reclamation. The conclusions reached were that "we know how to split atoms safely"? Does the fact that you are underwritten by nuclear energy have anything to do with the fact that you failed to conclude that the nuclear industry wants no share in the enormous costs of decommissioning and radioactive waste storage for the next half million years.

Firstly, I want to thank you for the useful and informative entry. I am so glad that I have found this your post. The information which you have shared for us is really good explained and I will definitely use it in my work.

Very nice site!

Actually, decommissioning and radioactive waste storage WERE addressed. Examples of what other countries are doing were included as well. Did you hear the part about recycling used fuel rods? Why is it that people always shout "bias" when reasonable people (or in this case a large panel of experts) express opinions they disagree with? I feel badly for your students; their teacher is obviously narrow-minded.

I was disappointed by this biased program. The conclusions reached were that "we know how to split atoms safely"? Does the fact that you are underwritten by nuclear energy have anything to do with the fact that you failed to conclude that the nuclear industry wants no share in the enormous costs of decommissioning and radioactive waste storage for the next half million years? This is the elephant in the room. Program grade: D- . I would only show this to my students as an example of misinformation and bias by large corporations who put their own interests ahead of people.

I learned a lot. Thanks.
But the sound track, with that inane maddening banging gong/bell/bamboo zylophone music was the worst, most maddening thing I've ever heard. I couldn't possibly endure another minute of it.... and I damn sure won't watch it or recommend it!

Why is everyone trying so hard to make the grid 'smart'? This just adds a highly complex layer to the system. Why not use a strategy whereby every utility is expected to preserve itself?

(New York City is a handy example so I'll use it.) One of the transmission lines which serves New York is protected by a faulty relay, and the relay trips. As things are now, all the other lines going into the city will try to make up the difference, and overload their power sources. Eventually those power sources trip-out. Each power source which trips out puts more strain on the ones that remain until all the power sources for New York are down, leaving New York, and 50 million other people in a 300 mile arc unlucky enough to be part of New York's power system, in the dark.

Instead, when that first relay becomes faulty and trips, as the other transmission lines start to overload because of demand from the city, the utilities which own them would recognize they are about to be shutdown, and disconnect the offending line. This would guarantee that New York suffers a blackout, which would have happened anyway, but protects the surrounding areas and their equipment. None of this requires a 'smart' grid.

Hi Mike,

Thank you for the inquiry.We intend to roll out a pre-order form for DVDs next week, and to have DVDs ready to ship by Memorial Day (end of this month). If you would like to do a public screening (at the school where you teach, for instance), we may be able to send you a pre-screener copy for that purpose. If this is the case, please email email@dptv.org with your contact information. Thanks again!

-BTLS Braintrust

Willis- it was never the intent of the producers to take a position for or against global climate change. However, reduction of CO2 emissions is a factor that must be considered when analyzing our future energy mix. Whether you believe that CO2 is causing global warming is irrelevant to our approach. Both the federal government AND the electric utilities have stated that in the next couple of decades, reductions in CO2 emissions will begin to be mandated and this will affect how we generate electricity, which energy sources we will be most reliant upon and what technologies will be needed to mitigate further CO2 emissions.

We will be making Light Switch available for sale very soon. Check out our website in a week or so with a target date of when the DVDs will be ready.

even if you don't believe in "global warming" or "climate change", i'd like to invite you to the "coal fields" of Appalachia. we are being destroyed so everyone can have electricity and don't tell me about jobs, those jobs aren't sustainable. when the coal is gone, so are the jobs, the economy, the forests, the water, the wildlife, everything....

It is a shame that you chose to accept and repeat as "Gospel Truth" the wholly unproved hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming. Climatology is a comparatively young field and is, in many respects, a primitive science in its infancy. As Phil Jones of the CRU of the University of East Anglia admitted on the BBC last year, there has been no statistically significant warming. Your decision to interview Joe Roamm, a genuine foaming-at-the-mouth evangelical of the CAGW religion, was disappointing. If you're going to provide him a broadcast platform, why not at least counter-balance it with an interview of Dr. Lindzen of M.I.T., Dr. Judith Curry of Georgia Tech or any of the dozens of climate scientists who dissent from Romm's apocalyptic fear-mongering.

Quote:
Scientists are in broad agreement that the earth has been slowly warming for about three centuries. We don’t know why, which should give us a clue about the depth of our understanding of the climate.

More to the point, there is no agreement about such basic, rudimentary, fundamental, all-important questions as the sign and size of the cloud feedbacks. A change of 2% in cloud cover would wipe out any CO2 effect. Since we don’t understand the clouds, that most basic and critically important part of climate science, the idea that we understand why the earth is currently warming, or the idea that we can forecast climate a hundred years in advance, is hubris of the first order. We don’t know why it warmed in Medieval times. We don’t know why it warmed in Roman times. We don’t know why it has warmed since the “Little Ice Age". We don’t understand the climate, and you folks’ claims that you do understand it well enough to make century-long forecasts just makes rational, reasonable people point and laugh.

-Willis Eschenbach

I AM AN INSTRUCTOR AT A VOCATIONAL SCHOOL. I WOULD LIKE TO BUY A COPY OF THE 2 PART SERIES TO SHOW IN CLASS. I THINK IT IS VERY EDUCATIONAL AND TODAYS YOUNG PEOPLE NEED TO BE AWARE OF WHAT IS GOING ON AND WHAT THEIR FUTURE MAY HOLD.

I am a member of WLRN in South Florida and your show was listed in our membership pack. However I don't have a TV. Can this be seen online?

The program seems important and should have more running times than once, and ideally should be available online.

thanks

I really enjoyed this program...until the very end when those hypocritical, Mercury laden CFL's were mentioned. Why is it that these are carted out as such a wonderful resource for saving on electricity with little or no mention of the environment impact of the mercury. Oh sure, you can recycle but how many end up in landfills do to laziness or ignorance? Did you know that I can buy the tube fluorescents from Home Depot but if I try to take them back to recycle them when I need new ones they won't take them? Did you know that each tube fluorescent light costs $15 to recycle? Did you know that Mercury is the most caustic non-radioactive substance known to man? Yet we so flippantly advocate its use. WHY?

No broadcast scheduled in Southern NE. How can we see this documentary?

No broadcast scheduled in Southern NE. How can we see this documentary?

This looks interesting - one of the rare times I wish I had TV, but have no reception for any channel that would be airing it, at any rate.

Good point, Philip. Pumped (hydro) storage has been used across North America and Europe to help deal with the mismatch between generating capacity of renewables and system demands. Other good storage technologies include compressed air energy systems and flywheels. Advanced batteries will play a part of this equation (when not near a river/dam) but there are certainly alternatives.

I enjoy reading your website, your posts are generally very helpful and the way in which you lay everything out makes it simple to understand. I don't ordinarily comment but I decided I should at least say thank you for doing a really good job. Thank you and keep up the fantastic work.

Super animation indeed, but it looked as if the wind turbine fan blades spun backwards... no biggey at all though it appeared ackward.

If the problem with renewables is merely one of them not being online all the time and batteries aren't an efficient solution why not just go back to hydro-electric storage/reclamation? Simply use pumps during peak supply periods to pump water uphill and let gravity generators reclaim the energy asset when or as it's needed later? Hydro electric capacitors of this sort, easily ramped up and down, seem to be an ideal simple and efficient solution to that issue.

Great! From Italy...many bravo bravo Eddie!
Ciao Giannina, Romina, Gianfra, Gianlu

hey...super cool animation!