Utility scale developers of solar, wind, and storage power plants compete in an industry with razor-thin margins, sky-high capital expenses, and drawn-out timelines. Every new development is a gamble that reveals its odds only after years and millions of dollars. Given the historic nature of the industry, most of the tools used to evaluate these developments are artefacts of the 20th century. However, “clean tech” branding has drawn the attention of big-data savvy firms entering the data-rich industry with a strong competitive advantage. …

When learning data science, environment management consistently presents itself as a thorn in my side. Whether it’s getting code that previously ran to work again, trying to share an application I built with the rest of my team, or wondering why none of my command prompts work anymore, I have only learned about programming management whilst cursing under my breath. To save some late nights and headaches, here is a breakdown of what a program environment is and how data scientists can make them work for them instead of against them.

Definition

A program’s environment is the collection of software and…

What is the cloud?

The cloud sounds like a magical place, where data lives entangled in the fabric of reality. It’s beautiful branding because the reality is a lot less exciting. Most people have heard of Data Centers, the warehouses filled with computers (fancily called servers) that big tech companies use. What many miss, is that the cloud and data centers are one in the same. When you save your photos to the cloud, you are sending them to a data center to be stored on one of the servers there. When you want to look at your photo, your phone sends a request…

The hardest part of learning data science is deciding which language you wish to learn first. Too often, professionals looking to expand their data analysis toolbox are so paralyzed by this decision that they never make any progress. This is a tragedy that I wish to prevent. By the end of this article, you will know the best choice for you.

It’s important to your health that you know off the bat that there is no wrong answer. Both languages are Turing complete (which means they are both capable of solving any computational problem), both are widely used, and both…

Renewable Energy Project Engineers have a lot of responsibility. They have to accurately predict the weather over the next 30+ years, design a power plant to minimize both construction and operation costs, and manage studies covering air space 500’ above ground to soil characteristics 30’ below it. With this diversity in workload comes a pressure for accuracy; small mistakes with these studies can be very costly. A 1% error in energy prediction for a 100MW facility can cost over $2 million in lifetime revenue.

Due to the range of tasks required, the ideal engineer must be well-rounded, with a strong…

Winter: Starting The Year With High Ambitions

Shivering as I make my way through the breathtaking skyline of downtown Chicago, I started my year investigating the origins of the universe. I listened to “pop science” audiobooks like A Brief History of Time and Until the End of Time while commuting to and from work. At home, on planes, and in hotels, I made my way through the occasional mathematical formula with books like The New Quantum Universe and Quantum Mechanics and Experience. If the place where Quantum Physics meets General Relativity is the “Physics of God”, I wanted to be able to talk to God directly. Hawking…