Smart Energy

Typical synchrophasor hierarchy

Just how exactly will the smart grid get smart? Anyone who really wants to know can learn about the latest smart grid technology on Friday, March 16, when Washington State University will host the first conference on a key smart grid component, synchrophasors.

Synchrophasors may sound like something out of a sci-fi movie, but they play an increasingly significant role in helping the power grid run efficiently. Synchrophasors at power substations measure electric signals several times a second. The data is synchronized by a GPS unit, time-stamped and then reported back to grid control centers. By having the information synced and timed, operators eventually will be able to transmit more electricity over transmission lines, maximize efficiency and more quickly diagnose problems because they will know exactly what is happening throughout the system at any moment. Synchrophasors also aid in the smooth addition of diverse, renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, to the electric power grid.

Last year, WSU signed a contract to become one of just a few testing labs in the U.S. for synchrophasors and other smart grid technology.

“WSU has a long history of playing a leadership and collaborative role with the power industry, and now we’re bringing our important work in smart grid technology to utilities around the country,’’ said Behrooz Shirazi,  Huie-Rogers chair, professor and director of the WSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “By helping to develop a more efficient and better electric power grid, WSU will have an impact on the lives of every Washington state resident who uses electricity.’’ Read the rest of this entry »

This is hilarious.

Back in 2007, I presented a paper at an academic conference arguing that it should be possible to read clues about previous climate regimes in literary works. My paper was short and only offered a few examples from 18th century English-language novels, but the idea, I think was sound. And thus was climato-criticism born.

So I was especially interested to see that a group of Spanish scholars are mining 8th – 10th century Arabic manuscripts for hints about past climate regimes and events. According to a news release on Eureka Alert, “The sources, from historians and political commentators of the era, focus on the social and religious events of the time, but do refer to abnormal weather events.

” ‘Climate information recovered from these ancient sources mainly refers to extreme events which impacted wider society such as droughts and floods,’ said lead author Dr Fernando Domínguez-Castro. ‘However, they also document conditions which were rarely experienced in ancient Baghdad such as hailstorms, the freezing of rivers or even cases of snow.’ ”

I think that’s a great approach, natch, and it is pretty much the one I took in examining early Gothic novels: the weather (it was the tail end of the Little Ice Age) heavily influenced the tone of these works, and heavy cloud cover, extreme storms, and the like dominate the descriptions of the natural world therein.

We saw Tower of Power last night at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival at the University of Idaho (KJ and I are both alums) in Moscow. They started at 11 p.m. and funked the house till 1 a.m.

I love what Larry Braggs, the lead singer, had to say last night about the group’s 45th anniversary DVD: “We know you college kids are broke and are gonna copy it. We’re kinda OK with that. It’s your parents we get mad it for copying.”

It turns out a group of psychics believe Apollo 16 might have found an alien ship on the moon. Plus, the sun is spitting giant magnetic bubbles of radiation at the Earth like we talked about its sister! Enjoy This Week in Discovery News.

via Psychics on the Moon and Incoming Sun Spit : Discovery News.

Backyard accessory dwelling units (ADUs) such as this one by Portland, Oregon, builder Hammer & Hand, are part of the trend towards greater urban density. (PRNewsFoto/Earth Advantage Institute)

Earth Advantage Institute, a nonprofit green building resource that has certified more than 12,000 homes, announced its annual prediction of 10 green building trends to watch in 2012.

The trends, which range from a boom in certified multi-family construction to the advent of consumer friendly home energy technology, were identified by Earth Advantage Institute based on discussions with a broad range of audiences over the latter part of 2011. These sectors included policymakers, builders, developers, architects, real estate brokers, appraisers, lenders, and homeowners.

“While the economy has not been kind to most new home builders, we have seen a surging interest in home energy management and energy improvement among homeowners,” said Sean Penrith, executive director, Earth Advantage Institute. “Those builders and remodelers who have adopted a transparent green message have been quite successful.” Read the rest of this entry »

Climate change in the form of reduced snowfall in mountains is causing powerful and cascading shifts in mountainous plant and bird communities through the increased ability of elk to stay at high elevations over winter and consume plants, according to a groundbreaking study in Nature Climate Change.

The U.S. Geological Survey and University of Montana study not only showed that the abundance of deciduous trees and their associated songbirds in mountainous Arizona have declined over the last 22 years as snowpack has declined, but it also experimentally demonstrated that declining snowfall indirectly affects plants and birds by enabling more winter browsing by elk. Increased winter browsing by elk results in trickle-down ecological effects such as lowering the quality of habitat for songbirds.

via Dramatic links found between climate change, elk, plants, and birds.

There’s been a lot of buzz in the science blogosphere recently about the Research Works Act, a piece of legislation that’s been introduced in the U.S. that may have big impacts on open access publishing of scientific results. John Dupuis has an excellent round-up of posts on the subject and Kevin Zeinio has a great rant on the topic of keeping scientific knowledge open and accessible, too. What follows is an analysis by Janet D. Stewwedel from the Scientific American blog. Read the rest of this entry »

A new University of Florida study shows genomes of a recently formed plant species to be highly unstable, a phenomenon that may have far-reaching evolutionary consequences.

the study is the first to document chromosomal variation in natural populations of a recently formed plant species following whole genome doubling, or polyploidy. Because many agricultural crops are young polyploids, the data may be used to develop plants with higher fertility and yields. Polyploid crops include wheat, corn, coffee, apples, broccoli and some rice species.

“It could be occurring in other polyploids, but this sort of methodology just hasn’t been applied to many plant species,” said study co-author Pam Soltis, distinguished professor and curator of molecular systematics and evolutionary genetics at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus. “So it may be that lots of polyploids — including our crops — may not be perfect additive combinations of the two parents, but instead have more chromosomes from one parent or the other.”

Researchers analyzed about 70 Tragopogon miscellus plants, a species in the daisy family that originated in the northwestern U.S. about 80 years ago. The new species formed naturally when two plants introduced from Europe mated to produce a hybrid offspring, and hybridization was followed by polyploidy.

via Newly formed plants could lead to improved crop fertility.