Below is an attempt to investigate the developments in the Smart Home space from the economic point of view, not from the IT point of view. Is one possible without the other? I don’t know. Home This is what our homes looked yesterday. A number of home electric appliances are connected to the electrical central … Continue reading Economics of Smart Homes
Author: Vitaly Kazakov
PHEV: Update
This note is a follow up on the earlier note on the developments in the automotive industry, motivated by the recent scandal with Volkswagen emission violations. Dieselgate What happened (wiki): “On 18 September 2015 the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a Notice of Violation to German automaker Volkswagen Group, after determining that the company … Continue reading PHEV: Update
American Renaissance
The recent volatility on the financial markets is not your typical market volatility. In my view it is rather indicative of the ongoing shifts in the global economy. Some emerging market economies face structural challenges on their growth trajectories, whereas USA may be facing another dawn. The list of problems typically associated with the US … Continue reading American Renaissance
PHEV
Oil is not Gas In my previous writings on the developments in the energy industry I didn’t really make much of a difference between oil (used for transportation) and natural gas (used for electricity generation). Yet there is a significant one worth a separate investigation. In electricity generation there is a clear alternative to conventional … Continue reading PHEV
Energy: A graphical account
This note is a graphical account of the developments in the energy industry described in more detail here. Simple charts showing interaction between supply and demand curves on the energy market can convey most of the message. For the purposes of this note, by ‘energy market’ I mean an abstract market corresponding (with different degrees … Continue reading Energy: A graphical account
Distributed Energy
Energy systems of the near future, responding to economic signals, are set to become more local in comparison with today’s paradigm of centralised energy production: Solar, an exception to the trend, will largely migrate from the enthusiasts’ rooftops to centralized industrial locations. Large-scale electricity generation based on gas combustion, now one of the cores of … Continue reading Distributed Energy
Storage Update
Intermittent nature of solar energy has been one of the major areas of criticism of the nascent energy source especially when contrasted with traditional gas-fired electricity generation. Strictly speaking comparing the costs of gas-fired vs. solar electricity is an apple-to-orange comparison, and the right reference points would be the cost of (solar+storage) against the cost … Continue reading Storage Update
Relative Prices of Energy Sources
The prices of electricity, oil, and gas have been interlinked for a long time. Such price connections are often fundamental in nature (energy sources having a common market, energy sources interconnected vertically), and are the basis of some existing business models (gas fired electricity generation, gas to liquids conversion, etc). The ongoing developments in the energy … Continue reading Relative Prices of Energy Sources
Future of Energy: FAQ
This post is a follow-up to my earlier note on the future of energy. Q: Why do you put Water in the "plentiful" bucket when it's becoming a scarce resource for which pricing is likely to increase? A: There is abundant and free seawater, and we have existing technology to desalinate it. However energy requirements of … Continue reading Future of Energy: FAQ
Future of Energy
Status quo: more of the same Energy sector is not widely considered to be the sector undergoing any significant changes. Oil, gas, and coal demand are all expected to grow steadily over the next 20 years (IAE forecasts below). Renewables, while growing faster than sector average, leave the fossil fuel market share drop from about … Continue reading Future of Energy
Energy, Tech, Macro 