Category: Policy

How More Extreme Heatwaves will Harm Transportation Infrastructure

How More Extreme Heatwaves will Harm Transportation Infrastructure

10/24/18

“How will transportation infrastructure be harmed by more extreme heat waves?”

With the ascent of more extreme temperatures, heatwaves will more frequent and more deadly. This will affect all sectors of critical infrastructure systems, transportation being one of them. With these new temperatures, railroads will buckle, cement will be deformed, and transit schedules will be vastly transformed. This is How More Extreme Heatwaves will Harm Transportation Infrastructure.

Image credit https://www.ucsusa.org

Why The Grid Needs to be Repaired to Ensure Climate Change Resilience

Why The Grid Needs to be Repaired to Ensure Climate Change Resilience

10/23/18

“Why can’t we truly have a resilient grid until repairs are made?”

With the ascent of global temperature change, the grid will need to adapt to ensure proper resilience. However, to building against higher temperatures and more extreme weather events will require much more than putting more batteries on the main grid. The current components of the grid will also need to be repaired since much of it has already run its life cycle. As a result, The Grid Needs to be Repaired to Ensure Climate Change Resilience.

Image credit spectrum.ieee.org

How Extreme Weather Events Can Cause Energy Prices to Skyrocket

How Extreme Weather Events Can Cause Energy Prices to Skyrocket

10/22/18

“How can extreme weather events cause energy prices to go out of whack?”

When the weather gets too hot or too cold, people will turn on HVAC systems to compensate. This will cause greater demand on the electricity system, which in turn will lead to more constraints and therefore higher costs for everyone. This is How Extreme Weather Events Can Cause Energy Prices to Skyrocket. The advent of climate change will only exacerbate this, as extreme weather events will become far more frequent. So in the end, it will pay in the long term to upgrade critical infrastructure systems to more resilient standards.

Image credit Bigerna, S. (2018). Estimating temperature effects on the Italian electricity market. Energy Policy, 118, 257-269.

Why We Need to Expand Coastal Barriers for Climate Change Resilience

Why We Need to Expand Coastal Barriers for Climate Change Resilience

10/21/18

“Why should we expand coastal barriers to withstand against climate change?”

As the global average temperatures and sea levels continue to rise, the world will need to adapt in response. Part of this will include expanding coastal barriers to prevent against widespread destruction as seen in New Orleans and Houston.

Image credit images.arcadis.com

How Recontouring the Baylands can Make the Bay Area More Resilient

How Recontouring the Baylands can Make the Bay Area More Resilient

10/17/18

“How can making the sediment in the Baylands help protect the Bay Area against climate change?”

The Bay Area has a problem. Decades of infill developments in the Baylands have changed its sediment runoff cycle and left it exposed to flooding from rising sea levels. However, a consulting group has found that by reversing things to its natural order through softening its edges, tidal wave energy can be dissipated and upgradings the Bay’s safety by an order of magnitude. This is How Recontouring the Baylands can Make the Bay Area More Resilient!

[Image: Public Sediment/courtesy Resilient by Design]

Why Rooftop Solar Could be Greatly Beneficial for India

Why Rooftop Solar Could be Greatly Beneficial for India

10/16/18

“How could India greatly benefit from rooftop solar initiatives?”

India’s urban population is massive. Totaling over 300 million people, It is nearly equal to that of the entire United States! This in turn will lead to a massive consumption of energy, which could result in further air pollution and carbon emissions. However, this can be challenged by implementing rooftop solar. This will result in locally generated, clean power that will bright up the cities. As a result, Rooftop Solar Could be Greatly Beneficial for India.

How Microgrids Can Help Indigenous Communities

How Microgrids Can Help Indigenous Communities

10/14/18

“How can indigenous communities benefit from the deployment of microgrids?”

The freedom brought by Distributed Energy Resource technologies such as microgrids can benefit almost anyone. But one group which can greatly reap the rewards are indigenous communities. By being able to generate their own non-pollutive energy independent of any outside regulator, they will be able to develop more resource independence and greatly enhance their quality of life.

Photo credit http://www.pembina.org

The Port of Long Beach is Getting a Microgrid

The Port of Long Beach is Getting a Microgrid

10/12/18

“How is the port of Long Beach becoming more sustainable?”

Big news everyone! The Port of Long Beach, one of the largest in the United States and right by my hometown of Los Angeles, is receiving a big upgrade. Specifically, it will soon be receiving a brand new microgrid designed by the world famous Schneider Electric! This project, consisting of a 300-kW solar array, a 250-kW microgrid-extending mobile battery energy, A 500-kW diesel generator, and a plethora of power monitoring and control technologies, which go towards making the port resilient in the face of a power outage and achieving its goal of becoming a net-zero green port. All I can say is that I am super stoked that The Port of Long Beach is Getting a Microgrid.

Image credit http://pacifictycoon.info

How Microgrids will Help Rural and Remote Communities

How Microgrids will Help Rural and Remote Communities

10/08/18

“How will Microgrids be useful for rural and isolated communities?”

Traditional power transmission infrastructure is not beneficial for rural and remote communities. Long power lines from centralized generation sources are prone to failure and are expensive to maintain. Plus, due to their limited lifespan, they will have to be replaced which can greatly drive up costs!

To solve this, we need to completely rethink how we transmit electricity. One possible solution is to implement microgrids with distributed energy resources. This will take away the need for complicated transmission, and can enable grid independence. This is How Microgrids will Help Rural and Remote Communities.

Image credit: smedia2.intoday.in