ENERGIES Preview: A Rebel With A Cause, Grid-Scale Energy and Nuclear Fusion
Billy Idol's unbridled energy shows exactly why he has become a Rebel With A Cause.
Say the name Billy Idol and what comes to mind? Punk icon. Spiked blond hair. Head-to-toe black leather – and you can’t forget that famous curled lip.
How about water conservationist, activist and devoted grandfather?
We didn’t see that coming either. But that doesn’t stop Idol, 68, from continuing to rock out. In fact, he recently found a way to blend his music, activism and love of history at the first concert ever held at the Hoover Dam.
Click here for the cover story
At the risk of repeating myself, as I said in the EIC letter published in the March/April edition of OILWOMAN Magazine (one of the companion publications under the umbrella of U.S. Energy Media), we joke at the (virtual) U.S. Energy Media offices that we’ve “gone Hollywood.” It all started when actor and environmental activist Jeff Bridges graciously agreed to appear on the cover of the Winter 2022 edition of ENERGIES Magazine. That was followed by an inside feature in the Winter 2023 edition of ENERGIES with Ed Begley, Jr., another actor long known for his environmental activism.
And, with our big cover reveal for this issue, writer Michele Wojciechowski talks to singer and conservationist Billy Idol. To say we were a little surprised at Idol’s commitment to creating awareness and education around water conservation is an understatement, but it goes to show that people are much more than their public persona. Read more to find out about the four driving forces behind Idol’s activism and a behind the scenes look at his historical concert at the Hoover Dam.
Click here for Letter from the Editor
The Inflation Reduction Act has grid-scale energy storage adoption underway. Industry experts and stakeholders in the sector know significant changes are coming, but is there enough evidence to prove nebulous trends?
Environmental advocates, renewable industry leaders and C-suite professionals can all rejoice in these suspected 2024 trends because many incite positive outlooks for sustainable development.
Real-time work collaboration is nothing new for office workers and white-collar professionals. From chat programs to interactive document sharing to video conferencing, office workers use these valuable tools to enhance their productivity on a daily basis.
But what about remote field workers? The applicability, usability and effectiveness of these office tools for field workers are not exactly a raging success. Field workers, especially those in green energy, generally don’t get to share in the benefits of these office collaboration tools.
The distributed workforce required to operate and maintain green energy production facilities faces many challenges. These include unique site requirements, complicated processes, cryptic instructions, lack of access to information, government regulations, company policies, and poor real-time support, all of which can complicate and impede the execution of their work. These issues are exacerbated by the physical separation of workers from management. Furthermore, the use of contracted and subcontracted resources complicates these issues.
In January, OpenAI’s Sam Altman took the 2024 World Economic Forum in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, by storm. He’s bullish in the belief that artificial intelligence (AI) will make remarkable headway in medicine, the way we work, and robotics manufacturing within the next five years. But without significant changes to our ability to harness energy, these AI advancements won’t be possible. The vast amounts of data used to train models like Google’s Bard or OpenAI’s GPT currently account for two to three percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
Altman believes that with investments in clean energies, like solar energy and nuclear fusion, technology companies can reach their energy demands without adding to the poor climate conditions. In 2021, he personally invested $375 million in Helion Energy, a U.S.-based company that is developing the world’s first nuclear fusion plant. Helion’s fusion generator raises fusion fuel to greater than 100 million degrees Celsius and directly extracts electricity with a high-efficiency pulsed approach.
The city of Houston, Texas, with 2.3 million residents, is the fourth most populous city in the United States behind New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. It is third only to New York and Chicago in its concentration of Fortune 500 companies. Yet, this might have been the profile of another Texas city – Galveston – were it not for a hurricane more than a century ago. The Galveston hurricane was, and remains, the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history.
On the morning of September 8, 1900, Galveston was the fourth largest city in Texas, slightly behind San Antonio and Dallas. It had the biggest port in the state, it boasted the first telephones and electric lights, and it had the most millionaires. Then everything changed. The city was all but destroyed when a category four hurricane bore down upon it. Tragically, the natural disaster was compounded by a disaster of weather forecasting.
The water/energy nexus is a powerful commodity and never is it more evident than in California and in disaster relief situations. In California, it is estimated that 20 percent of the electrical use and 30 percent of the natural gas use is to move water.
“As the largest single consumer of electricity in California, the State Water Project (SWP) pump load ranges from 6,000,000 megawatt hours (MWh) to 9,500,000 MWh depending on the type of water year (dry, average, wet). The electricity is used to operate the SWP pumping plants, which are needed to deliver the water throughout the State.” (Source: California Department of Water Resources.)
Wow.
Critical infrastructure sectors are becoming increasingly complex and interdependent and so, too, are the physical and socioeconomic landscapes in which they operate. This in turn has increased the possibility of disruptions and subsequent compounding disruptions. Climate change adds an additional layer of uncertainty and disruption to these evolving interconnected networks. And, for the power grid, this shifting threat landscape is exacerbated by increased demand from electrification, decarbonization, population growth, and an overall increase in reliance on electricity. Climate change is also affecting energy usage patterns. For example, Texas has seen spikes in energy demand and intense strain on the power grid from both unexpected cold snaps and intense heat waves.
The increase in electric demand is not occurring in isolation. The grid edge is also changing. These changes are in turn stressing the grid from two angles: capacity and control. The first, capacity, falls under the purview of NERC and is regularly studied and planned for through Reliability Assessments.
The world is at a critical juncture, as Robert Frost eloquently wrote about “two roads diverging in a yellow wood.” Sadly, we cannot travel both. While cutting 41 million trees per day there is little forest left to tread, and the only thing yellow is our pollution filled skies.
This global crisis has been characterized by staggering and shocking facts that bring home the stark reality of its devastation: World temperatures are the warmest in 125,000 years. At this rate, 200 million refugees will seek asylum from natural disasters by mid-century, and one million plant and animal species are marching toward extinction (we are on this list; we just don’t see that yet). We ask ourselves: What can I do? I am just one person.
That should not be the attitude we have when we go to the ballot boxes on election day. Every action counts. We cannot sit idle, having a business-as-usual approach in the face of such alarming truths.
Will turning off fossil fuels and replacing [them] with renewables solve all of this? Unfortunately, not quite. Industry uses up about 40 percent of global energy supplies, in the form of electricity, high temperature heat or to make the feedstock (ingredients needed for making something). And herein lies the problem: Simply switching to renewable electricity will not get rid of all the emissions; clean electricity is not a replacement for feedstocks. All these manufactured materials, the literal building blocks of our society, suck up energy in the process of becoming a product dash and energy has a financial and environmental cost, even if it is clean.
ENERGIES Magazine is an all-the-above energy energy magazine professionals trust for the latest information on industry trends, innovation, technology, software, interviews and insights into the daily business shaping the solar, wind, hydro, and alternative energy market.
ENERGIES Magazine is published by U.S. Energy Media.
U.S. Energy Media is a leading digital media platform dedicated to providing insightful and engaging content for professionals in the energy industry. With a focus on the oil and gas sector, renewable energy, and the achievements of women in the energy field, our digital magazines offer a comprehensive view of the latest trends, technologies, and career opportunities in the energy sector.
Click here for U.S. Energies Media website.
For those interested in more information on ENERGIES Magazine or to set up a marketing call, contact Connie Laughlin at 800-562-2340 #7 or connielaughlinconsulting@gmail.com
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