The focus of this blog

Hi!  This blog will focus on various matters relating to the topic - sustainability.  Mostly, I'll be focusing on issues of resource sustainability, like water, energy, and so forth.  There's a veritable plethora of information on sustainability, as you likely know.  As my blog takes shape, I'll probably re-visit this description.  Come back and watch it morph.

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What is Sustainability?

To some extent, this term suffers from the same problems as does the term - natural, or, better yet, "Green."  What is natural versus what isn't natural?  It's not defined in law, and as a result, to a large extent, what it means is in the eye of the beholder.  Here are some takes on it's meaning. The project in Sustainable Management of the Presidio Graduate School starts by stating the obvious "There are many ways to measure or define sustainability."  One particularly inciteful definition is "the property of being sustainable."  The AFSC defines it thus: "Sustainability: Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."   Scripps Colleg e for Women takes a similar approach - "Sustainability: Sustainability seeks to provide the best outcomes for the human and natural environments both now and into the indefinite future."  The NADA also takes this approach...
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Recently, a friend sent me a copy of Bakke’s book, The Grid.  Two days ago, after getting a draft journal article off my desk, I took it off my stack and cracked its cover.  My hope is that the remainder of it is as good as its introduction and first chapter.  It's quite an accomplishment; and a very well written one.  She quickly gets to the heart of the challenge posed by integrating intermittent renewables (a tautology, once hydro is excluded) on p. 13.  She writes ”Power production isn’t just an industry, it’s an ecology.  And renewable resources are not just about the planetary good kept from public offer by corporations with other visions for their own profitable futures.  Making American power is about how technological, biological, and cultural systems work in concert to keep our lights on, our basements and roadways clear of flood water, and fresh fish on our tables. It’s delicate in all sorts of ways….it does the reader well to remember tha...
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An Overview Article on Deep De-Carbonization of the Electric Grid

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One paper that recently crossed my desk helps immensely with keeping track of all the numerous studies conducted on deep de-carbonization of the electric grid.  It's well written, concise, and provides an even-handed review of the challenges shifting to a high level of renewables use.  In the process, it discusses in a very readable and straightforward way various stages in shifting the electric sector from where it is today to different levels of future renewable electricity generating sources. Click this link to read the study. image courtesy of c|net
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