by David Brooks | May 23, 2017 | Blog, Newsletter
I am a Baby Boomer, which means I grew up with the Chevy Vega and Chevy Chevette, two of the all-time worst cars ever made, and I sneered at all GM models as they nose-dived during the ’80s and ’90s. The idea that I’d ever be excited about a new car...
by David Brooks | May 23, 2017 | Blog, Newsletter
The Valley News has a nice profile of the new owner of a 1,35 megawatt hydropower dam in Claremont. Among other issues in resurrecting it was fixing gear boxes (“Gear boxes are notoriously finicky”) and getting permission from grid operator ISO-New England...
by David Brooks | May 22, 2017 | Blog, Newsletter
We’re all familiar with streets and roads, and turnpikes and highways – but are we ready for the “highly instrumented roadway”? We’d better be, because it’s coming to the F.E. Everett Turnpike. That’s the start of my story today in the Monitor, about a...
by David Brooks | May 17, 2017 | Newsletter
The uncertainty over what the federal government will do to health care has the New Hampshire Insurance Department (which oversees the insurance side of the Affordable Care Act’s operation in the state) on edge, so it’s asking for help from the most...
by David Brooks | May 17, 2017 | Newsletter
Concord Steam, the company that heats the State House and more than 100 other buildings in Concord via underground steam pipes powered by wood-fired boilers, is going out of business on May 31. I’ll have a story in an upcoming edition of the Monitor looking at...
by David Brooks | May 15, 2017 | Blog, Newsletter
In the latest installment of their interesting collaboration, Vermont’s Green Mountain Power and Tesla have announced a low price for home backup batteries ($15 per month) with the utility hoping to recoup the cost partly by linking all the batteries into a...