One thing liberals and conservatives agree on

We're often told how far apart the red states and blue states are. Aside from the obvious stalemates and squabbles in Washington, conservative and liberal Americans watch different TV shows, eat different foods, drive different cars and listen to different music. But there is one thing lefties and right-wingers seem to agree on: Using less energy is a good thing.

Because when you inform an American about exactly how much energy they are consuming, it doesn't matter whether they voted for Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. Either way, they want to use less electricity.

Given the news stories about compact fluorescents vs. incandescent light bulbs or hybrid cars vs. sport utility vehicles, this might come as a surprise. However the evidence — as gathered by Opower — backs it up.

The survey examined the energy use habits of customers across party lines (conservative, liberal and unaffiliated) from several regions of the country. The differences between political ideologies and geographical locations were quite close. All saved energy, and it didn't much matter how they were affiliated politically.

In the Mountain West region, liberals saved a little more than others, but only by a single percentage point. In the Northeast and Southeast, conservatives saved a little more than the liberals or the unaffiliated. So, in the end, people will save energy when they participate in programs that inform them of their electricity use, but the exact percentages can vary a bit from place to place.

There is, however, a "backfire" effect the surveyors noticed that is exclusive to conservative users. It seems that when a customer learns they are using less energy than average, the liberal-minded customer will continue doing what they are doing. The conservative-leaning one, however, will sometimes increase their energy use — perhaps feeling they're off the hook. This behavior was not observed in liberals or the unaffiliated.

The reason for this backfire effect was not fully explained by the analysis, but it appears that providing detailed information on energy use to customers who are already energy efficient is still well worth it. The more information people have, the more behavioral changes they will make in the interest of using less energy.

When it comes to trying to encourage customers to make positive behavioral changes on energy use, tech firms and energy companies can leave politics out of the equation. This is good news because making human beings of any ideological bent change their behaviors is already difficult enough.

Speeding up solar power

Many renewable energy projects, once a site is found and construction begins, deal with a lot of land, a lot of labor and a lot of building materials and equipment. Imagine an entire range of rolling hills that slowly becomes a wind farm, or an empty expanse of desert badlands gradually filling up with row upon row of 10,000 or more photovoltaic panels. The finished product can be a majestic sight, sure, but before the control room fires up and power starts flowing onto the grid, there's still the matter of all that construction that has to happen first.

Companies that can cost-effectively speed up this process while still producing a reliable and long-lasting product could probably clean up with the renewable energy market performing as strongly as it is right now.

A colleague of mine, James Montgomery of RenewableEnergyWorld.com introduced me to Alion Energy (pronounced like the words "a" and "lion"). This company's process builds solar photovoltaic panels into a sort of ramp structure that uses fewer materials to put together than other methods, and the entire process is done with robots.

And why not use robots? Similar processes using robots are already used to lay traintracks or build sidewalks. Alion's president and CEO Mark Kingsley is a veteran of ABB's robotics unit, Trina. 

During construction, the "Rover" installation robot (seen above, courtesy to Alion Energy) travels along a concrete railing built for the project that also serves as the mounting for the solar panels. To begin with, Rover is loaded up with solar panels. Rover fixes the solar panel legs into the concrete railing with a high-strength, high-durability epoxy that is used in bridge construction. The panes and their preattached mountings come next, attached to the legs. With that, the robot moves on to the next solar panel.

One of the big advantages to this approach is using fewer materials. The concrete that the railings are shaped out of is cheap and can be acquired on a local basis. There's no large panes of glass to worry about transporting, unbroken, to the site. No bulky metal frames or fasteners are needed.

Labor costs, similarly, can be reduced this way. No trenches have to be dug, no nuts and bolts need tightening. Plus, the robots don't get fatigued by repetitive work in areas where the sun beats down with a lot of heat, either.

As far as scalability goes, Alion told RenewableEnergyWorld.com that the benefits of the approach only increase when applied to bigger solar projects. Essentially, the bigger the project, the more money can be saved. The railing system can be used in areas with high winds or prone to storms, and in rocky areas or urban brownfields, according to the company.

With Rover's job done and the solar power feeding onto the power grid, another robot takes over to perform maintenance duties. A smaller robot named "Spot" (above) performs automatic cleaning of the mounted solar panels so dust and dirt do not accumulate and cause a loss of generation efficiency. Spot has his own solar-powered battery and his own solar panel, and when he isn't working, he "lives" near one end of of the concrete rail system before sliding across the panels to perform his duties. Spot can also use a hedge-clipping attachment for vegetation management, where and when it is needed.

Automated, efficient construction could potentially mean a lot for the renewable energy sector when and where it can be used. Increasing a generation technology's speed-to-market can only make it more attractive to the prospective investor — the people without which a project can't reach fruition.

How much of a setback is San Onofre's closure?

The word "uncertainty" has become quite a buzzword in business and financial reporting, but it's perhaps nowhere more aptly used than it is when talking about the state of the U.S. nuclear power industry. Uncertainty is the stated reason why Edison International's Southern California Edison decided to permanently retire its already shut down San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).

This uncertainty stems from low natural gas prices, the lingering memory of Fukushima, cheaper alternatives, nervous investors and capital costs that seem to start out high only to be revised higher — as is the case with both the SCANA Corp.'s V.C. Summer Nuclear Station expansion and Southern Co.'s Plant Vogtle expansion.

The uncertain environment is in no way helped by the spate of awful headlines that is plaguing the industry as of late — everything from cracked equipment and plant closures to the strange case of how two goldfish wound up in a juice pitcher in a restricted area of FirstEnergy's Perry nuclear plant.

Headlines such as these (and others, as the parade of bad news for the nuclear industry has been almost too overwhelming to keep track of lately) have a cumulative negative impact on public opinion, and the nuclear sector has always had to be more concerned about public goodwill than most other businesses.

So call it navel gazing, soul searching or just a much-needed conversation, but people are wondering about the long-term future of this industry. Proponents of nuclear generation are hoping the technology didn't peak in 2001 when it produced more than 20 percent of all power in the U.S., though that figure has since fallen to 19 percent.

What are the bright spots for nuclear? Well, one advantage that will never go away is the technology's superior carbon emissions profile — namely, it releases none. However, there are alternatives to nuclear that release no pollution, are easier to install, suffer from less of a NIMBY effect and are generally better-liked by the public.

Another area where nuclear proponents are holding out hope for is small modular reactors. The Department of Energy is backing R&D for SMR technology, and several big-name companies are looking into getting involved or are already involved. The benefit of the SMR is safety and scalability, but developers still need to prove they can get an SMR up and running. The advantages of SMRs don't mean much if they prove every bit as hard to get deployed and operating as conventional reactors are.

For California, the permanent loss of SONGS' nuclear generation capacity means a less diverse generation portfolio overall, to be sure, however, all is not lost on that score. Around the same time SCE announced they were throwing in the towel on SONGS, the California ISO announced that the Golden State was now capable of producing more than 2 GW of solar energy.

Normally when nuclear power plants are taken offline, for whatever reason, the only feasible solution is to replace the lost baseload with coal-fired power or natural gas power. California, though, is one of the top 10 economies in the world and in possession of an incredible variety of natural resources and geological variety. The potential for developing geothermal assets, hydropower facilities and solar and wind farms is more promising in California than in many other areas of the world. The state already generates more than 23 percent of its power from renewable sources, including hydropower.

What California does or doesn't do about its generation mix, though, is cold comfort to the nuclear industry at large. The economics of power generation is changing as fuel prices fluctuate and new regulations kick in. Coal as well as nuclear energy — both proven ways to generate baseload power — are becoming liabilities to their owners instead of assets.

Given the economics of the situation, it's hard to blame Southern California Edison's for its decision on San Onofre. The plant had become a money pit. However, even now that the decision to close it has been made, the plant itself will continue to cost its owners a significant sum. Safely disassembling the facility will take decades — perhaps even a half century. You have to wonder what things will look like for the American nuclear power industry by the time the plant has been completely taken apart.

An Oklahoma perspective on deadly tornadoes

Oklahomans have a strange kind of relationship with our surroundings. Many of our cities were put on the map by the oil we discovered in our ground. Before that, the earth dried up and blew away. And at just about every point in our history, we've been living with tornadoes. The word itself is synonymous with the name of our state.

It must come as a surprise to people who aren't from here when they hear people who have lived through such destructive storms say things like, "It's just part of living here."

It also surprises me when I'm reminded that people think of Oklahoma City as a hard-luck town, but why wouldn't they? Just about all anyone who isn't from here has heard about our capital in my lifetime has been tragedy on a national scale, whether it has been bombings or lethal storms. In the first Moore tornado of 1999, wind speeds were measured at 312 mph — among the fastest every recorded on the earth. The one that hit Moore last night struck with 600 times the destructive power of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

I can assure you, though, that those of us who call this state home don't see things the same way. Every one of us who has lived here for any significant period of time know what it is like to go through a series of storms similar to the ones that came through May 20. As I type this, there's still thunder rumbling over my head, and there will probably be more alerts as the night goes on.

We know the difference between a tornado watch and a tornado warning. We learned the names of many of the state's smaller towns (like Greasy, Bushyhead and Hogshooter) by watching National Weather Service radar displays on TV. We know where you're supposed to go (basements, interior rooms), and where you're not supposed to go (highway overpasses, near windows) in a tornado. We know all the familiar meteorologist buzzwords, like "rotation," "rain-wrapped" and "straight-line winds." Sometimes we joke about it. Black humor helps take a lot of the pressure off.

Last year, when a series of earthquakes rumbled through the central and eastern parts of the state, I remember thinking that I didn't have a clue what to do in an earthquake. Had it been a tornado, I'd have immediately known how to respond, but neither me nor anyone in my family had the slightest idea how to handle an earthquake.

It's because we know what it is like to go through these storms that makes it easier to live here. Not just because we tend to get numb to all the warnings from time to time, but also because storms like the one that hit Moore, a prosperous and populated suburb of Oklahoma City, remind us of how serious these storms can be. They remind us of times when we pulled together to help out others who had to put their towns back together.

I remember three tornado seasons ago, it was Joplin, Missouri that was forever changed by a tornado. The very next day, there were big trucks in front of my grocery store with people gathering up food to ship across the state line where it was needed. Boxes were set out at my office, and quickly filled with badly needed supplies. Blood drives sprang up everywhere, with hand-painted signs facing busy roadways. On social media, people gave numbers and addresses of where you could donate your money, your goods or your time. When other need help, we step up — because we know what it's like.

This time around, the people of Missouri will be helping us, I'm sure. As will Texans and Kansans and Arizonans and Californians, New Yorkers and people from around the world. Knowing that others will be there for you when it counts is part of what makes living here such a great thing.

From Electric Light & Power and POWERGRID International magazines, our thanks go out to the emergency responders who are conducting search and rescue in Oklahoma, as well as to the utility staff and work crews laboring to restore electricity to those who have been cut off by severe weather.

If you are so inclined, you can offer something to help the relief efforts in Oklahoma, you can donate to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund here.

Springtime for Tesla

In my past couple blog posts, I've written about the electric car market and inventor Nikola Tesla, but I'd be remiss if I didn't take a moment to talk about Telsa Motors and the very big waves the company has been making lately.

Tesla is having a very, very good May so far. Stock prices raised eyebrows on Wall Street, the company turned its first profit, and its first quarter sales have exceeded those of luxury competitors Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi.

The cars are not only seen as high-tech and cool, but increasingly they're also viewed as being a smart buy. Personal finance guru Clark Howard owns a Tesla car (he switched from a Nissan Leaf), and Consumer Reports gave the Tesla Model S a near-perfect score, calling it one of the finest cars made since 2007. To be widely accepted by prospective car buyers, electric cars must be seen as practical and reliable to justify their price tags.

So while stock prices might go up and down, the embrace of a magazine like Consumer Reports could be invaluable to Tesla — even more meaningful to the accolades given by Automobile Magazine and Motor Trend in 2012.

By Consumer Reports' math, owning a Tesla is like traveling back to the days when you could buy gas for $1.20 per gallon. The company itself, on its website, touts their vehicle's reasonable cost of ownership. Still, the vehicles themselves remain undeniably expensive (the Model S has a base price of about $62,000), and consumers that don't live in areas with plentiful charging stations still have justifiable concerns about range — even if the cars can take you more than 200 miles per charge, handily beating out other plug-ins that are limited to 75 to 80 miles per charge.

Elon Musk, Telsa's founder and probably the closest thing the planet has to a real-life Tony Stark (the alter ego of Iron Man), is a tech guy first and foremost. Not only did his space travel company SpaceX become the first privately funded company to send a cargo payload to the International Space Station, but Musk's renewable energy company SolarCity is also projecting growth. Going further back, he became a multimillionaire by selling his start-up company PayPal to online auction site EBay for $1.5 billion.

Given that Musk has sold his ideas at top dollar before, there have been rumblings that he might sell off Tesla to a cash-rich, tech-savvy company looking to get into the electric vehicle industry — perhaps even Apple, Inc. Musk, however, says he began Tesla with the goal of mass-marketing an electric car that is affordable. He adds that he will not step away from Tesla until this goal is reached.

What could be limiting factors in Tesla's rise? The loss of government subsidies is one and manufacturing capacity is another. Tesla benefits from manufacturing credits (state and federal) that give breaks to manufacturers of vehicles that produce zero emissions. Should these subsidies and tax breaks be cut or eliminated, Tesla's bottom line would suffer, and the now-soaring stock prices that were fueled by said profitability would likely fall as well.

Furthermore, there's the potential problem of production constraints. According to reports, Tesla is capable of rolling out about 400 cars per week. At this rate, demand is likely to outstrip supply. Now, this might actually be good for a company that markets its products as "cool" and "exclusive," but I don't think Musk has any interest in building EVs just for the super-rich. To succeed in his goal of making the "Model T of electric cars," he'll have to boost his production capacity at some point.

I remember when the Prius had a similar problem. People wanted them, but weren't able to buy them. There were waiting lists for the first couple generations of Prius hybrids, and I think the same thing happened with the Honda Insight. Then again, Tesla is a different kind of company than Toyota or Honda. Everything operates on a much smaller scale.

There is one more thing that could cause trouble for Tesla and other electric vehicle makers in the long term. What if the EV charging infrastructure simply doesn't materialize? Range anxiety remains a problem for people who are the target audience for buying this sort of vehicle, and it is a real problem. As is always the problem in the electricity delivery industry — somebody's got to pay for it.

For the time being, though, there are apparently a lot of people who are willing to pay for an electric car — enough for one company to beat the odds and stand out in a field that has seen so many recent bankruptcies and disappointing sales figures. That alone makes what is happening at Tesla Motors pretty big news, and for the moment at least the electric vehicle market's lone success story.

Honoring the inventor behind alternating current

Credit where it's due is a simple and remarkable thing, although unfortunately history has a way of shortchanging people of it. It's hard to think of a better example of this tendency than one Nikola Tesla — the person who, by rights, ought to be considered the father of the electronic age, but more often is remembered as a mad scientist who died penniless and alone.

In recent years, however, there's been a growing acknowledgement of the many contributions made to modern life by this Serbian-American genius. Two "crowdfunding" projects are attempting to honor Tesla with statues and museums from Shoreham, New York (the site of one of Telsa's old laboratories) to Silicon Valley, California, a place whose very existence would be difficult to imagine without Tesla's inventions.

Crowdfunding, by the way, is a way to combine social media with traditional fundraising. One such campaign, begun on Kickstarter by start-up veteran Dorrian Porter, seeks to commemorate Telsa with a bronze statue, a mock-up of which can be seen here. Should enough money be raised by the Kickstarter campaign, the statue would be erected in Palo Alto, California. As of this writing, 34 backers have pledged about $3,800 to build the statue.

Another, perhaps more ambitious, campaign was started by Internet cartoonist and blogger Matthew Inman, whose comic strips on The Oatmeal are frequently shared all over the internet. Inman wants to use another crowdfunding site called Indiegogo to collect funding to transform Tesla's old laboratory called Wardenclyffe into a museum that will educate the public about his contributions to energy transmission and wireless communications. The campaign succeeded in meeting its original $850,000 goal, and has since expanded into a project not just to build a museum, but a Telsa Science Center at Wardenclyffe.

History doesn't always remember the people who made the present possible. Particularly if the people in question didn't devote themselves to making a fortune or at least spreading their name far and wide before passing on. During his life, Tesla was too busy pursuing his ideas to bother with making money or gaining notoriety. Still, companies like General Electric, Westinghouse and others would not exist without his innovations. Commonplace technologies such as the hydroelectric dam or the electric car or the radio, even if Tesla is not remembered for having contributed to them, are nevertheless the products of his brain.

It's true genius is seldom recognized in its own time, but to break out a different cliche: "Better late than never."

A coda for another electric car maker

After selling just 100 units of its product, electric car manufacturer Coda Holdings has filed for Chapter 11 in a Delaware bankruptcy court.

Coda Automotive's only vehicle was its Coda Car, an all-electric sedan with four doors and a battery pack. The company has its headquarters in Los Angeles. Coda Cars have an EPA-rated battery range of about 88 miles to a charge — less than electric vehicles made by competitor Tesla Motors.

The future for Coda could take a different shape, however, provided a successful restructuring. According to a Reuters report, the company may elect to exit the automobile industry entirely and instead license its battery technology to the electric utility industry, which has a need for battery energy storage.

As potentially interesting as this might be to the power generation and delivery sector, it's hard to explain consumer's reluctance to embrace electric vehicles — even as the price at the pump could leap just as high or higher than it has in the past.

Economic analysts have blamed the overall economy as well as "range anxiety" — a prospective drivers' worry of running out of charge far away from a charging station.

Personally, I'd like for my next car to be a plug-in, but range is a concern. If I were to buy such a car, I would like it to have a range of at least 115 miles per charge — the distance I would drive from Tulsa to visit relatives in Oklahoma City.

There are other problems too. If I had a plug-in, I'd like to have a charging station in my own garage. I know there are stores that sell conversion kits so you can install one, but truth be told I'm not sure how the install would work, how much it would cost, and how heavily the charging would affect my electric bill. Questions like these, I'm sure, are pretty common.

Maybe it's unanswered consumer questions that are sinking companies like Fisker Automotive, which could, like Coda, soon go before a bankruptcy court. Fisker had to return $21 million worth of Department of Energy loan support after failing to make a payment on the loan. Things started to go south for Fisker when the company's battery maker, A123 Systems (itself a DOE loan recipient that later had part of its loan revoked), declared bankruptcy.

It's a bit of a catch-22 for electric car makers. Customers have legitimate questions about what it's like to own an electric vehicle. They want to know if they are reliable, easy to charge, fun to drive and cheap to own. Questions like these could be answered if they had a friend, neighbor or family member that owned one. But nobody seems to know one because the cars aren't selling.

There is a bright spot, perhaps. At least, to the extent that the stock market can be an indicator. Shares in Tesla Motors have surged to a new high as of this writing, and the company has sold about 7,000 of its Model S, a premium electric sedan that sells for about $95,400. The stock market can turn on a dime, though, so it's impossible to say whether the good times will last for the Fremont, California-based company.

I realize I have not mentioned the established automakers, like Ford and Nissan for example, which are marketing their own electric vehicles. Their advantage, obviously, is that they are able to dip a toe into the market without having to go "all in" and start a company from the ground up, as many others have. Still, sales have been disappointing so far, and fans of electric vehicles are left to hope that the larger manufacturers are taking the long view and remain willing to take a risk on electric vehicle technology as consumers grow more comfortable with the idea of a car you plug in.