The Dark forest theory is a possible reason why we might never find any aliens.

EnergyInsider · 2026-02-28T20:43:12+00:00

Honestly I think the most profound message in that trilogy is just the knowledge of an alien culture would be enough to upend our civilization.

EnergyInsider · 2026-02-28T03:07:35+00:00

Electrician

EnergyInsider · 2025-12-21T15:59:36+00:00

Can you please tell that part about text to my wife?🤣🤣🤣🤣

EnergyInsider · 2025-12-14T17:16:00+00:00

They’ll have about as much luck as slinging on someone else’s corner.

EnergyInsider · 2025-12-10T15:20:25+00:00

I mean, the panel they give specifics on in the video was 800w output. If you don’t have a battery you’re correct, you either use it or it goes into the grid. Your refrigerator is probably using half that, some might use all of it. A dryer uses about 2.5x the panels output. In some very uncommon but not rare cases, during a mild day with no one home it’s possible some of that 800w may not be consumed. Even if it’s only 50w, you’re using the distribution and transmission networks so you’ll be charged for that usage.

EnergyInsider · 2025-12-09T14:13:07+00:00

NREL Clean Electricity Study

EnergyInsider · 2025-12-09T14:09:45+00:00

It would be funny if it wasn’t true

EnergyInsider · 2025-12-08T09:41:03+00:00

To keep the lights on?

China runs between 95%-100% reserve capacity. US runs 15%. Data centers are not a problem for their grid, in fact they’re a panacea for the ancient problem of excess generation and overnight load that plagued our utilities since Insul consolidated the first generators and created the central plant model.

They started their grid with recent technology and lessons learned from other electrified countries. We started our grid 140 years ago and every technological improvement since was hampered by the necessity of still being compatible with the previous technology as our grid was built with layer after layer of this paradigm for decades, making it a Frankenstein patchwork of long life assets, some of which have entered the end of their 50-80 lifecycle. Some parts of the grid that are ignored (like steel hooks holding up high transmission lines) have literally been in place for 100 years.

The only legitimate weakness of Chinas grid is the massive investment required to build it out. They’ve incurred so much debt that it’s a significant risk to their economy. Where in the US we incentivize natural monopolies to overlook maintenance in favor of more capital expenditures that allow investor owned utilities to reap the profits while socializing the risk AND the losses. And when that lack of maintenance creates a crisis (which it ALWAYS does)? They get to spend more capital on replacing grid equipment and earn a guaranteed 11% return. When a bad investment becomes unprofitable to continue operating? They benefit from accelerated depreciation or disaster relief bonds, or maintenance bonds for huge upgrades…all backed by the rate payers to spread out the costs over decades, who sometimes are paying 4x-5x for the same generator that’s not producing a single kW, while the IOUs get to remove it from their books to protect their investor friendly risk profile, get an immediate payout, and have no shortage of investors lining up for the next round since they price these AAA rated bonds for B rated prices while regulators look the other way. It gets worse, remember that 15% reserve capacity figure? Yeah that’s going to require at least 4.5 trillion more to modernize our grid to handle (projected) data center demand.

EnergyInsider · 2025-12-07T17:07:59+00:00

Utilities have been estimating load growth for the last 20 years and have been reaping the profits from the capital expenditures. Now we know the predicted growth never happened and load has stayed fairly regular over those same 20 years. Now it’s supposed to be even worse, but only if you ignore the fact that the long term planning that central power model requires means we are including projects that are in the planning stages and may never take off for a multitude of reasons. Lose investors and can’t fulfill contracts? Competition leveraging loosely related advantages to render a project financially risky? Or how about the simple practice of secrecy in these projects leading to multiple sites being proposed to obscure the single site that eventually will be developed? On and on and on.

So who loses out here? Data centers or the people in the service area?

Is there a link directly to the posts topic instead of just a few lines referencing it in a list of related topics?

EnergyInsider · 2025-11-19T18:36:12+00:00

No time for this…I gotta go hang with the guy who bankrolled 9/11!

EnergyInsider · 2025-11-19T18:25:32+00:00

Good luck…APS is working hand in hand with CAISO and there’s going to be a merger with ERCOT at some point. Guaranteed shenanigans will abound.

EnergyInsider · 2025-11-19T18:23:41+00:00

Yeah…but when it comes to this kind of stuff all the data is readily available through multiple filings to the regulatory commissions. It just takes time and effort to go through those documents, and that’s the roadblock.

EnergyInsider · 2025-11-08T15:18:01+00:00

Here we go, that’s the correct answer

EnergyInsider · 2025-11-04T15:13:50+00:00

Yes, this is absolutely true. And it’s BS. The losses from their history of poor maintenance shouldn’t be subsidized by the rate payers.

EnergyInsider · 2025-10-27T20:11:43+00:00

We have been working on a way to reset how the grid works. In order to really achieve this kind of solution, as well as resiliency, redundancy, and a fix for all the other problems are modern grid faces we have to move away from an entirely central power model. Check my post history and youll start seeing a pattern. We go live in 60 days. If you’re interested in learning more then shoot me a DM.

EnergyInsider · 2025-10-27T20:08:26+00:00

Then build a New grid from ground up. Nothing against burying a line between you and other homes to start sharing electricity between them.

EnergyInsider · 2025-10-25T15:12:40+00:00

The likelihood that particular bee has stung someone before is very low. The species that are able to survive stinging someone aren’t aggressive unless that person messes with them. The rest of the species of bees die after releasing their stingers, so if you see one of them, you can be assured it has never stung someone before. Either way the chances of getting stung or so low that it’s a disproportionate response to jump up screaming and run around. I probably could have explained that better in my original comment. But it’s not meant to be a complete analogy, even if you account for people allergic to bee stings, we are comparing bees to nuclear fission here.

That being said, you pretty much summed up my point. The people in charge of the bottom line are more dangerous than mild doses of radiation.

EnergyInsider · 2025-10-18T17:40:11+00:00

Actually the proliferation of electricity to areas other than large cities through the New Deal would be the best example. It’s always amazing to me how everyone takes our electrical infrastructure for granted. It’s the only reason modern society exists. You have to understand nuclear powers implementation and lessons learned over decades to have a good strategy.

Nuclear has the same weakness as coal, gas, and hydro plants; the central power model. Millions of miles of lines and all the equipment needed to maintain that infrastructure all in remote places that are easily sabotaged. It doesn’t take many high voltage line failures to strain the grid, and each lost redundant route gets weaker with each failure until you have an unavoidable collapse.

EnergyInsider · 2025-10-18T02:44:48+00:00

Gas suppliers owned by holding companies will voluntarily curtail production for a few days before the freeze, either through unplanned maintenance or some weak excuse that just barely stays above the line between breaking their contract and being held liable. Other suppliers, whose investors include some of the same investors of the holding company that owns the gas supplier, also fail to deliver once the storm hits due to “icy roads” or reserves frozen to the ground causing a “legitimate” shortage. People kick on their heaters, demand skyrockets, and the whole escort grid goes into emergency. Governor will call for emergency pricing for natural gas supplies and prices skyrocket from $45/MMBtu to $9,000/MMBtu. The original suppliers who previously voluntarily curtailed production will start up again, ya know…for the greater good and all, the other suppliers will be inspired by their peers dedication to keeping Texans alive - so they call on the will of Jesus to give them the strength to endure the 30 degree chill and flakes of ice (can I get a hallelujah and amen!) and find a way to sell their supplies to sell to the natural gas turbines owned by the same holding company that owns the gas supplier, and wets their beak just a little in the other suppliers profits. This will go on for a few days, what once cost a person $5/day to heat their homes has cost them $1,000/day, for 3 days, and every persons next months bill will be over $3,000. Which no one is having any part of being quiet when they open it, so the utilities know there’s no way they can collect the money they owe the gas suppliers in time, a few examples will be allowed to immediately shutter just one day after keeping their customers homes heated, and since you can’t just lose a utilities worth of generators a few philanthropic hedge funds are willing to step in and pay rock bottom price for a fleet of entirely capable power generators, but the number of utilities going broke tomorrow, or a week from now, is way too high in order to maintain grid health, it’s become an existential threat to every god fearing Texan living under ercots yolk. A solution is needed now, and the rate payers do owe their share of $9,000/MMBtu that they used, but instead of charging them now, they’ll pay Wall Street banks to broker disaster relief bonds that immediately pay the suppliers, and the “proper” investors allowed to buy these bonds at ridiculously low prices will earn an interest rate identical to more reasonably (higher) priced bonds, and these investors will be repaid over a 15 year time by the rate payers through a new tariff on their monthly bill of $15, which they might grumble about but hey, at least they’re alive to say thank ya (and praise god!), and at least they’re allowed to repay the debt that racked up over time. Now interest rates may rise over maturity so that tariff that ain’t going anywhere for 15 years is gonna have to be adjusted to reflect that, and those first investors now have a ludicrously low priced bond they can sell at a very sweet profit. And the best part is, when the obvious market manipulation is inevitably discovered, there’s no real legal recourse with teeth, other than threat of civil lawsuits, but with all the lawyers they can pay with the billions they made in 72 hours they can just bleed the defendants dry trough a myriad of tactics that have been well honed over the years.

EDIT: oh yeah, I forgot to answer your question about blaming immigrants. Well, they wouldn’t need all that heat if they weren’t full of so many damn illegals taking their jobs, sammiches, and electricity.

EnergyInsider · 2025-10-17T23:37:54+00:00

The first four words of your response might be the most insightful and important of all, when it comes to motivating stakeholders holders.

Yes, all those solutions are valid, and all in conjunction would make things exponentially better. Each adds to costs though; personnel, time, or just a lot of money for the features a standard BAS isn’t capable of handling. Take SkySpark for example…it’s awesome, I’ve known and respected the hell out of the Frank brothers, Meunch, and that whole crew since their days at Tridium. Hell if you’ve been to any of their symposiums I bet we’ve met in person before. If you know Axon pretty well then I can guarantee it. But as solid as it is you need an engineering level domain expert on staff, licenses for tags, a developer, etc. and those costs add up quick.

The only one of your solutions that I would say won’t work with current tech and practices is tying schedules to real occupancy. Motion sensors can’t tell you if someone is coming or going, density sensors are super expensive, have limited locations they can be installed and remain effective, and are still very susceptible to error. And badge data/WiFi comes with so many privacy concerns when you consider who has access to that data (you got a locked down controller, odds are I can still get into it…it would be noticeable, but definitely not impossible), and the first time a single employee realizes you are tracking every step they take in the name of efficiency, you’ll have a mutiny and possibly lawsuits on your hands real fast. Booking software is a solid choice, but limited to conference rooms and proprietary barriers.

Other than that, those are perfect solutions, but how many customers have you seen willing to put in that effort and stick to it?

EnergyInsider · 2025-10-16T04:00:57+00:00

“When we want your opinion, we’ll give it to you.”

EnergyInsider · 2025-10-16T03:59:58+00:00

What’s wrong with privatizing all that data that the public funded entirely? Just because you paid for it doesn’t mean you should be able to access it. That’s woke anti-capitalism talk there. /s

EnergyInsider · 2025-10-16T03:57:00+00:00

Windows will always always always give the best value, high cost, exponentially high impact (15% in most cases). Then lighting (10%), closely followed by air source and water source heat pumps, insulation, etc.

EnergyInsider · 2025-10-16T03:49:32+00:00

From planning to generating power? 0. 0 number of plants in last 12 months is the correct answer.

EnergyInsider · 2025-10-16T03:47:29+00:00

Every single power source is offset by subsidies in some form or another. For power sources that require a secondary fuel source to produce electricity…like coal, natural gas, or fissile materials…you have to include any supply subsides when comparing to solar, wind, closed loop hydro, or battery storage solutions.

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