May 25th, 2018 · Comments Off on Good Politics Trump Good Policy? (Gas Price edition #372)
That feeling at the pump …
When it comes to energy prices, gasoline has been and remains the most visceral touch point for Americans (and, well, likely drivers around the world). Few really connect the turning on of a light bulb to that monthly electricity bill while essentially everyone with a (non-electric) car has experienced the smelly hands while watching the dollars go up far faster than the gallons while filling up the car.
Almost no Americans have internalized that, whether at $2.50, $3.50, or more per gallon, the “price” paid at the pump is only a fraction of the true price that we pay per gallon — in terms of health security risks, and environmental damage. (And, of course, it is far below the price at the pump paid in other industrialized nations.) Without internalizing the true cost (more likely in ballpark of $15 per gallon or so), Americans react to marginal price increases: talk of abundant oil and price drops, SUV sales skyrocket … prices increase and screaming begins.
Gasoline prices are going up … a lot … under Trump despite the ‘drill, baby, drill’ mentality of the fossil-foolish Republican Party and extremely high US oil production.
Since Trump’s inauguration, U.S. gas has jumped 60 cents per gallon, meaning the average American household is paying nearly $300 more a year for gas. In that time, gas has risen from $2.33 to $2.92 per gallon as of the week of May 21, 2018, a 25.7 percent increase.
Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) is ripping the White House over high gas prices, arguing President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal is putting a pinch on middle-class wallets.
“According to energy analysts and experts, President Trump’s reckless decision to pull out of the Iran deal has led to higher oil prices.”
And, others have joined this assault. Public Citizen’s campaign is to “Blame Trump at the Pump”
With a 15-foot tall inflatable oil barrel and signs saying “Blame Trump at the Pump,” Public Citizen activists alerted motorists passing the Exxon station southeast of Union Station in Washington, D.C., to the fact that their wallets will take a bigger hit than in years past, and that Trump is partly to blame. …
“As Americans fuel up to visit friends and family this Memorial Day weekend, they should blame Trump at the pump for the highest prices in four years,” said Madeline Page, campaign coordinator for Public Citizen’s clean cars program. “Trump should reverse course on his dangerous policies that threaten to steal billions from hardworking families.”
The Trump Factor in Oil Prices: Geopolitical Risk could drive prices to over $100 per barrel according to Total’s CEO
To be clear, it is far from simply political partisans associating rising oil (and, thus, gas) prices with Trump (anti-)diplomacy. Last week, Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman and CEO of Total S.A., spoke last week at CSIS. He sees a real potential for over $100 per barrel oil due to increased geopolitical risk.
you have geopolitics and the announcement on Iran clearly is pushing the price up. … you have many impacts on the supply for many geopolitical events not linked to supply and demand … I would not be surprised to see $100 per barrel in the coming months because, clearly, you will have impacts.
Thus, there is truth and reality here:
Team Trump’s shoot-from-the-hip disruption of international relations and ripping up of treaties is creating geopolitical risk that is increasing oil (and, therefore, gas) prices.
These increased gas prices do impact consumers.
Increased payments at the pump are higher, for middle class Americans, than money received due to the Trump tax program to benefit the wealthiest of Americans (and, well, overseas investors in the US stock market).
The politics are superb: bash Trump over the head, legitimately, for hurting Americans in the pocket book (and worsening the US trade deficit) for its (anti)diplomacy driving up oil prices.
However, those superb politics clash with a fundamental reality: low gas prices do not (as per above) reflect actual costs (as fossil fuel company profiteer with “external” costs ‘socialized’ and not in the price paid at the pump). And, those externalized costs have extremely serious impacts … and lower prices at the pump, a priori, worsens and increases those external costs since lower gasoline prices fosters higher gasoline consumption with more pollution. (And, not just near term: SUV sales go up with lower gasoline prices.)
As per all the times of increased gasoline prices and politicking over them, the loudspeaker noise misses the fundamental issue: high gasoline prices isn’t ‘the’ problem, the problem is that those ‘high’ prices are going to enrich foreign powers (including adversaries like Putin’s Russia) and increase oil company profits and not to helping address (reduce) the externalities from burning fossil fuels and drive a more prosperous future for America and Americans.
The gasoline tax has not increased in a quarter-century — seemingly multiple lifetimes ago, well before the era of iPhones, Facebook, and Dancing With The Stars. Revenue from that tax, degraded by inflation, doesn’t come close to covering highway construction and maintenance costs. With inflation, that 18 cents per gallon should be in the 30-35 cent range — simply to have kept pace with inflation. It should be in the 50-60 cent range simply to keep up with the increased costs and requirements for having a 21st century road system. And, as a user fee to cover true costs, it should be significantly higher than that to account for the costs of burning gasoline — from cancer to asthma to climate change.
To rail against high gasoline prices (even with the legitimate attribution of (at least some causation) to bad Trump policy) is to undermine efforts to boost transportation funding resources through (at a minimum) inflation adjusting the gas tax and, even more importantly, efforts to address the external costs from burning fossil fuels (especially climate impacts).
Whether Democratic politicians, activist groups like Public Citizen or otherwise, those concerned about fostering a better funded US infrastructure program, desirous of policies that foster a better American future for all, and understand the need to #ActOnClimate should be extremely cautious about seeking to exploit gas prices for political purposes.
Comments Off on Good Politics Trump Good Policy? (Gas Price edition #372)Tags:Energy · gasoline
May 1st, 2018 · Comments Off on DC’s electric buses — for tourists and for urban health
The District of Columbia is taking serious steps forward in line with its Climate Change plans . These include strengthening building codes for greater energy efficiency, sustainability, and livability; programs for cleaning up the electricity sourcing (including solar on 50 government buildings); and investments to make the urban environment quieter and cleaner with more effective public transit.
Eliminate more than 243,980 lbs of CO2 emissions annually
Provide cost savings of more than $6 million during a 12 year lifetime.
Reduce noise pollution throughout the District
In terms of that cost savings, this is both due to using electricity rather than diesel (perhaps a savings of 50 percent on fuel costs — but not sure of exact figures) and due to (greatly) reduced maintenance costs (electric engines don’t have the moving parts and other problematic maintenance issues of internal combustion engines.
Not mentioned there:
Diesel pollution has serious health impacts within cities — going electric eliminates that pollution load from these buses.
Every diesel bus replaced by electric means that less much mediocre/horrible odor on the streets.
Figuratively and literally in the United States market, diesel buses stink.
There are also significant performance improvement elements of going electric.
The buses batteries can, as what are called “V2G” (vehicle-to-grid) systems come into more common use, provide grid services when not operating to improve electrical system performance while earning revenue for the Circulator system.
Electric vehicles have higher performance — in terms of braking and acceleration — which could help improve bus service (on time and such) and potentially improve safety.
Electric buses provide, well, simply a far more comfortable passenger experience and could well lead to boosting use of public transit.
Truly, electric buses are a very smart (major) first step for electrification of road transit (the top candidate for electrification: railroads) with tremendous benefits for the urban environment.
Thus, kudos to the District of Columbia government for moving forward to making electric buses part of the DC transit solution. And, a plea to Virginia jurisdictions to follow DC’s lead.
April 24th, 2018 · Comments Off on Individuals can change world: Mumbai man drives beach clean ups, species return
To live in interesting times … we face the cursed reality that we live in a highly interesting time. Tremendous technology advances both create opportunity and threaten us. Communications leaps forward enable humans to have incalculable amounts of information at our finger tips while also enabling/facilitating the Putin’s interference in other nations’ democracies and elections. Humans are developing technologies and means to improve lives while reducing environmental impacts even as humanity is increasing greenhouse gas emissions and worsening climate catastrophe risks and impacts. As per (a paraphrased) Dickens,
It is the best of times, it is the worst of times, it is the age of wisdom, it is the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it is the epoch of incredulity, it is the season of Light, it is the season of Darkness, it is the spring of hope, it is the winter of despair, we have everything before us, we have nothing before us, we are all going direct to Heaven, we are all going direct the other way …
Amid all this, we need heroes — whether they are the neighbor who organizes a great youth volleyball program or are voting rights advocates fighting for free electionsor medical researchers discovering disease cures or entrepreneurs delivering innovative means to accelerate clean energy penetration to address energy poverty — and we need to recognize them.
This post is to share a new hero to me — someone who dedicated much of his own time and motivated others to join him in fighting pollution. And, well, has shown a remarkable success.
Bombay High Court lawyer Afroz Shah has led a three-year effort to clean up Mumbai’s (once) incredibly filthy Versova Beach. This effort, which pulled in thousands of volunteers (Versova Beach Volunteers), is credited with “removing more than 13 million kg of toxic waste” (13,000 tons) since 2015. Shah spent every single weekend in that time collecting trash — helping spark those 1,000s of unnamed others (perhaps 30-50 people in a typical weekend) in transforming a devastated space into something headed toward a living ecosystem.
?“On the left, a photograph of part of Versova beach taken on August 6, 2016. On the right is an image of the beach tweeted on May 20, 2017.” CNN
As to that living ecosystem, after two decades of absence, turtles have returned to the beach.
On a breezy morning of March 22, 2018, Bombay High Court lawyer Afroz Shah was strolling on Mumbai’s Versova beach when he witnessed an incredible sight: nearly 100 olive ridley sea turtle hatchlings waddling towards the sea.
Week 127 .
Fantastic news for Mumbai .
We got back Olive Ridley Sea Turtle after 20 years. Historic moment
Nested and Hatched at our beach. We facilitate their journey to ocean.
The core to a pure libertarian thinking could be …
Absolute liberty of individual action … as long as …
that does no harm to others.
Absent encounters with the real world (such as how the complexity of the modern world makes ‘total knowledge’ for decision making essentially impossible for individuals so that they can consciously choose their level of risk in purchases in the market place), perhaps like how Communism might appeal to many absent considering how the ideology has confronted reality, this Libertarian conception has great appeal.
For too many self-proclaimed libertarians, the ‘anti-government’ element of “absolute liberty” drives out actual consideration of that second bullet: the do no harm. The most egregious space likely arises when it comes to “externalities” of pollution and environmental impacts: such as diseases from chemical industrial plant waste, damaged ecosystems from agricultural runoff, and leeching chemicals from trash threatening drinking water. Prominent among this are the major impacts from the burning of fossil fuels, most notably the climate impacts.
When considering motivations for climate science denial, many libertarians are driven toward denying climate change science for core ideological reasons: admitting to the reality of climate change and the scope of the problem drives one toward ‘governmental’ roles in finding paths forward to address these risks. While ideology shapes almost everyone’s perspective on the world, problems/opportunities, and best paths forward, when it comes to to many self-proclaimed libertarians and climate science, the ideology requires rejecting reality.
That caveat, “to many”, matters. There are many libertarians who are honest to data and seek to promote paths forward honest with that data, honest with reality, that align (at least partially) with their ideological preferences. When it comes to climate change, that ‘honest to data’ strain of Libertarian is best represented by the Niskanen Center’s climate science and policy work within the Climate Unplugged project. As Niskanen has explained,
Why would a think tank chock-full of libertarian expats join with environmentalists and represent local governments in a lawsuit [about climate change]? Because we take property rights and the rule of law seriously.
For many (most) concerned about climate change risks, a strong hope has been to have basic common ground as to the science, some commonality as to risks, and then debate/fight/work together toward ‘best paths forward’. While perhaps having realms of disagreement with Niskanen Center staff’s basic preferences and ideological perspectives, (almost all of) those with fidelity to climate science and seeking action on it are absolutely ready to sit down and work with Niskanen Center staff to debate paths forward and find arenas of common ground for collaboration.
While long aware of Niskanen Center work, this post is spark by news that hit the inbox yesterday. Around the world, there are a growing number of legal challenges about climate change, lawsuits seeking faster government action, government prosecution of Corporations for misleading the public (critically, for legal reasons, their shareholders and investors), and against companies (primarily fossil fuel firms) for their share of climate damage. These include, in the United States alone, lawsuits against “big oil” by cities and counties (San Mateo, Marin, Imperial Beach, San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz County, City of Richmond, New York City, City of Boulder, Boulder, San Miguel) and youth lawsuits in multiple states (AK CO FL ME MA NM NC WA).
The full discussion as to why Niskanen is doing this is well worth a read. In terms of being honest to their ideology and perspective as to how best deal with ‘externalities’, this might be the key paragraph:
conservative and libertarian intellectuals who embrace what is known as “free market environmentalism” have long argued that pollution is a trespass on private property that is best dealt with whenever possible by common law action—not by legislators acting to referee such trespasses via sweeping environmental laws with (heavily politicized) utilitarian calculations in mind. By representing the interests of their constituents in this case, that’s exactly what these municipalities are trying to do.
The Niskanen discussion makes clear allegiance to honest evaluation of data and scientific analysis
There is little factual dispute about the fundamentals. Despite the omnipresent drumbeat of climate denialism from some corners of the right, the oil industry concedes that climate change is real, that it is largely if not entirely driven by the industrial emissions of greenhouse gases, and that the products they manufacture are the source of much of those emissions.
Addresses inadequacies in the U.S. political response
Even the most limited, half-hearted policy measures are now being rolled back by the Trump administration. Sorry Boulder and San Miguel, say ExxonMobil and Suncor, but the politicians have decided that we get to destroy property and impose costs on taxpayers without consequence or complaint.
And, provides a thoughtful examination of why industry (oil producers and refiners) should bear responsibility, not consumers;
But aren’t oil consumers, rather than oil producers, really the responsible parties here? No. Courts have repeatedly ruled that manufacturers are liable for the damages their products cause, especially when they know in advance that their products, if used as intended, will cause that harm. And that’s exactly the case here. The oil industry has known since a least 1957 that burning fossil fuels will eventually warm the planet to dangerous levels, and that the cost of that warming would prove monumental. Rather than alert the public and engage in good-faith conversation about how society should respond, the oil industry sought to mislead and deny what they knew about the risks of fossil fuel consumption until very recently.
The Niskanen Center’s Climate Unplugged project, their active involvement in these climate lawsuits, and their well argued announcement of that involvement make clear that there is ground for commonality and actual ‘bipartisan’ (across the political spectrum) collaboration and cooperation when honest and truthful engagement exist across the parties.
The Niskanen announcement — along with much of their other work — is well worth a read across that political spectrum.
Note: For an indication as to some ‘rejection’ of/reaction to Niskanen Center’s moves among their ideological peers, see this twitter interaction.
as faceplate generating capacity, roughly 20% of the total US faceplate capacity;
note: faceplate capacity can be deceiving as this does not make clear how much a plant can/will produce in a given year. Solar, in the Kingdom, might be in the low 20 percent in terms of electricity generation capacity (thus, for ever 10 units of ‘faceplate’, there is an average of 2-2.5 units of production averaged 24/7) while US nuclear power plants can top 95 percent. E.g., one would need roughly four units of solar faceplate to match one unit of nuclear power plant faceplate in terms of produced electricity provided to the grid.
100 times larger than the second largest announced solar project;
a sign of the massive market advantage of solar over other electricity options.
Desert Solar Power: SoftBank to Build World’s Largest Solar Park In Saudi Arabia
Along with places like the Chilean desert, the Mexican desert, the Southwest U.S. desert, and Australian desert areas, Saudi Arabia is the Saudi Arabia of solar resources.
rapidly growing electricity demand
along with national industrial policy that roadmaps for continued (essentially indefinite) growth in electricity usage
heavy dependence on fossil fuel electricity
including burning oil, which has much higher value for other uses.
significant financial reserves
enabling a bank to commit to a major project with reasonable confidence that project financing will be repaid.
Okay, so, again, WOW! A huge project that is a serious bump to the projected solar deployment in the coming decade (although we are likely to see ever more of these ‘bump ups’).
Such a large project is a good moment to reflect on
What does it really mean?
First, this project (alone) could impact on the world‘s oil markets. By displacing oil currently burned for electricity, this project might (by initial back-of-the-envelope estimates) add about one million barrels a day to oil available on the market by the mid-2020s or roughly one percent of total world use. (Along with proposed nuclear power plants, burning of crude and diesel seems likely to nearly disappear from the Kingdom’s electricity grid by the 2030 period.) One percent might seem like a small amount, but this provides a significant amount in terms of potential margin to help reduce price and supply shocks due to demand exceeding supply. With other ‘efficiency’ paths also driving down oil demand, such as introduction of electric transportation into the Kingdom to take advantage of cheap electricity, the share of Saudi oil available for export might grow even more. Globally, such displacement of oil demand could moderate oil prices and, even with those moderate prices, lead to a peaking of oil demand far earlier than current forecasting from EIA, IEA, IEEJ, BP, Exxon Mobil, and others (and in line with others forecasting much earlier peaks).
Second, in addition to impact on oil markets, this 200GW project could have significant global manufacturing and industrial impacts. This project is estimated at $200B for 200GW or $1 per watt. Considering recent bid prices for solar electricity below two cents per kilowatt hour (under $20 per mWh) (in Mexico, Colorado, and the Arabian Peninsula) along with the continuing plunging of solar costs and that this huge project will enable economies of scale never seen before, it seems likely that the LCOE (levelized cost of electricity) from this project will be below $15 per megawatt once deployed (and could even approach $10).
With electricity prices in that range (perhaps delivered to industrial users at $20 per megawatt hour), there are panoply of new industrial options open. As the U.S. “Shale Revolution” created disruption due to plunging natural gas prices, so too will such low solar electricity prices. And, unlike the shale, there is essentially zero risk profile looking into the future as to the cost and reliability of the solar electrons (as opposed to the potential for natural gas reserves to be less than anticipated, cold weather driving price spikes, etc …). Someone connecting their solar system today essentially knows exactly what their electrons from that system will cost 15, 20, 25 years from now.
And, those electrons are getting cheaper and cheaper … ballpark $50 per mWh a few years ago, $20 today, and perhaps $15 mWh before 2020. As it plunges below $20 per mWh, that electricity is quite interesting for a range of high-energy demand industrial processes (such as aluminum smelting or making fertilizer (and displacing natural gas and coal-based fertilizer production)). Essentially unlimited amounts of reliable (and reliably) cheap electricity could be a critical tool to enable the Kingdom’s industrialization drive, the Vision 2020 strategic concept, to become reality.
Throughout the industrial age, industry has chased cheap, reliable energy.Absent significant investment for low-cost long-range movement and storage of electrons (a la the DeserTec concept), the solar [r]evolution will likely see market disruption as firms move their industrial processes to where energy costs are cheapest and most predictable. The plunging clean energy prices could combine with explosive growth additive manufacturing to dramatically shift the global footprint of high-energy intensive industries.
Thus, while the 200 gigawatt announcement is WOW in size and scale, the true ‘wow’comes from contemplating what this signals about potential (likely?) disruption of the global economy due to ever cheaper solar power resources.
March 1st, 2018 · Comments Off on When it comes to solar/wind, is it past time to stop leading with carbon savings …
For years, going solar and/or buying wind came at a financial cost in most situations. Putting aside off-grid or unreliable grid situations, people ‘went solar’ because they saw it as the right thing to do even if those electrons would end up costing them more. Solar installations were so expensive that the invariable advice, from a true professional, was “maximize efficiency before installing a watt of solar” since the efficiency might end up ‘costing’ 4-5 cents per watt in a life-cycle analysis and the solar would be several multiples (likely 5x or more) of that. In this ‘high-
Solar system’s environmental benefits
cost’ environment, the payoff for many: they were reducing carbon emissions. Projected carbon reductions were prominent in the sales pitches when I put solar on my house … in many ways, more emphasized that financial benefits. And, according to Enphase, my system has offset the equivalent of two acres of trees.
This sort of measure, that carbon benefit, is often prominent in press releases of clean-energy deployments. Hewlett Packard Enterprises, which has made a RE100 (a 100% renewable electricity supply) target, just announced a 30-megawatt solar agreement in India. From that announcement,
This will result in an annual reduction in excess of 40,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, equivalent to powering more than 35,000 households in India for one year.
This is great that Corporations are deploying clean energy, rather than dirty energy, systems to meet their electricity demand requirements. And, that they are valuing the reduced emissions and publicizing them. After all, at least to some extent, what you talk about reflects on what you value and see others as valuing.
The days of that pain decision (deciding to incur costs for clean electrons) are increasingly behind us. In bid after bid, solar and wind projects are coming in well (actually, far) below fossil-fuel polluting electricity options. Solar and wind prices, in market after market, are coming in so low that building new wind turbines and installing new solar panels (even with storage (batteries or otherwise) has a lower price tag that buying power from existing natural gas and coal plants. (Forget diesel, price wise, diesel just can’t compete …) And, amid continued plunging renewable prices, this will be true in more markets tomorrow than today and even more the day after tomorrow.
Hewlett Packard’s press release provides a good statement about the vision for sustainability in the information technology and data center market.
As the demand for computing power grows exponentially, there has been a push from both outside of, and within the IT sector to reduce the carbon emissions and energy consumption associated with the world’s rapidly expanding IT infrastructure, which consists largely of data center facilities. The reality is that efficiency improvements won’t be enough to meet the exploding demand for data, and the compute power necessary to provide it. Renewable energy sources—such as wind and solar—are continuing to play an increasingly important role in the energy sourcing plans of many large IT companies on their quest to reduce their use of carbon-intensive energy, particularly in rapidly developing countries where coal is still the predominant source of power.
What is not in that announcement is any indication of the financial value Every day that passes makes it more likely that firms will ‘make more green ($US) by going green’. For the hard-nosed green-eye shade accountant, clean energy pencils out as the better investment — even without consideration of the substantive environmental benefits. It is perhaps past time for firms to emphasize those financial benefits at least as strongly as the environmental ones.
“Greening” is no longer simple a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) concern, but one about delivering better returns to the shareholder. Making that clear in press releases, investment briefings, and internal strategy documents will make tomorrow’s ‘no-brainer’ clean-energy choice that much easier to make.
Comments Off on When it comes to solar/wind, is it past time to stop leading with carbon savings …Tags:economics · solar
Various military forces around the world have adopted a variety of energy efficiency and clean-energy approaches, from how they run permanent bases to experiments with fueling combat equipment with biofuels. With reason, many of those concerned about a clean-energy future and the need to take action to mitigate human-driven climate change have embraced these. While there are substantive reasons to point to the military’s embrace of clean-energy, in no small part because military forces are powerful interest groups in essentially every nation and are among the most respected institution in many nations, too often people mistakenly make a leap from military leveraging clean energy to ‘they are climate warriors’. “Green” rhetoric from militaries, such as former U.S. Secretary of the Navy’s promotion of the “Great Greeen Fleet” and the Danish “Green Defence Strategy“, did nothing to assuage the mistaken impression that militaries were somehow ‘going green to be green’.
While there are, in many military forces, elements and individuals who do wish to see climate action, who do care about reducing environmental impacts, to view military efficiency and clean-energy moves through this lens truly misses the boat. These measures need to be viewed from a utilitarian lens: improving capabilities; reducing costs; and reducing risks.
And, a clear-headed look will never forgot a core reality: military forces are, at their essence, about destroying things and killing people. Military forces are the absolute embodiment of the state’s monopoly on power. Everything else about militaries is simply a LIC: lesser-included case of this fundamental reality.
To understand this intersection, that clean-energy is about capabilities, costs, and reduced risks and not, principally, about improving environmental footprints for footprint, it is useful to look at a case where renewable energy is integrated into an environmentally destructive military activity.
China has spent years building military outposts on a group of contested islands in the South China Sea — a project that has left the country at odds with many of its neighbors and the United States.
First, there was the dredging, in which ships sucked sediment from the seabed and pumped it atop formerly undeveloped reefs. Then came the buildings — once said to be for civilian purposes but which analysts now say are small military installations — followed quickly by international uproar.
But the building continued. Now, some of the islands that are part of the group known as the Spratlys, where China began large-scale development in 2013, have been transformed from barren reefs into military outposts
These military facilities are a highly provocative move to expand (de facto) Chinese territory (to control resources and for military purposes) and, in any decent interpretation out there, in violation of international law and of agreements with other nations (ASEAN).
The above were already well known and established facts. Recently released photos make public many previously unknown details. The Philippine Daily Inquirer‘s exclusive story had a number of photos of the facilities, annotated about details. Look at the photo below and consider the point of this post.
Note that clean energy, the wind turbines … those clean electrons that are ever so good for the planet or, well, … And, it isn’t just wind turbines …
Facilities here include a small port, two helipads, three possible satellite communication antennae, two possible radar towers, six possible security and surveillance towers for weapons, four possible weapons towers, a lighthouse, a solar farm and two wind turbines, AMTI says.
The Chinese military (whether the PLA or the PLAN) did not put wind turbines and solar panels on these constructed islands out of some good-hearted desire to be environmentally friendly. A reminder: these are incredibly destructive projects, with dredging through and concrete covering fragile reefs.
Islands are on the leading edge for renewable energy as the standard electricity supply is from diesel generators — between the raw cost of the fuel, the transport, and storage, the FBCE (full-burdened cost of energy/electricity) for diesel generators on islands can often exceed $0.50 per kilowatt hour or roughly 5x what it costs on, for example, the US mainland electricity grid.
For military forces, even more importantly, that fuel delivery creates risks — a logistics pipeline that can be disrupted by natural (storms) events or attacked by adversaries amid conflict.
Thus, putting wind turbines solar panels on these constructed military base islands has almost certainly (little to) nothing to do with “green” and everything to do with cutting costs and reducing risks (increasing capabilities).
And, if the wind turbines are there for ‘greening’ purposes/credit somehow within the Chinese system, they are tiny greenwashing cherries placed on top of a massive environmental damage sundae.
The basic point:
Military forces — at their core — are about killing people and destroying things.
Yes, they can do other things: maintain civil order, provide disaster relief, enforce laws (interdict smugglers), … But, these are LIC (lesser included cases) enabled by buying/building/maintaining forces that can kill people and destroy things.
Renewable energy and energy efficiency are valued most by military forces when they (directly or indirectly) strengthen the force’s ability to do those things.
E.g., the military has a job to do, and if renewable energy helps them to do it, then they’re all for it.
In short, military renewable energy and energy efficiency investments are NOT about ‘green’ or some sort of environmental activism but are paths to strengthen the military forces.
The power of military adoption of clean energy paths remains important, however, for moving forward to a more sensible energy future. Not because those in uniform are “green hippies” but explicitly because military organizations (writ large) are not. They are utilitarian and increasingly find that going ‘clean’ makes them more effective at a lower-cost than the polluting energy options. This clear utility model for clean energy is increasingly true across economies and societies.
The CPAC meeting has become a gathering of the worst of American and, sigh, global society. Whether white supremacists, gun lunatics, or science deniers, this is a ground central for those enamored with the Trump kakistocracy* and the destruction it is reigning on the United States and humanity.
From CPAC emerges glimpses of the immoral, unethical, corrupt, authoritarian threads that have taken control of “conservative” American politics. Whether the hosting of French fascist Marion Maréchal-Le Pen or the rantings of the NRA president, thinking people can’t think seriously about CPAC without getting sick to the stomach.
Amid all this comes news about the heartless Heartland Institute, a leader purveyor of climate/tobacco/pesticides science denial gibberish and go-to space for Trump-ista ‘science’ policy concepts.
“We want to make the future as the past was. We are here because of coal, and we need it going forward,” said Fred Palmer, a Heartland fellow who previously worked as an executive at Peabody Energy Corp., America’s largest publicly traded coal company.
Consider that, consider CPAC, consider #MAGA … “we want to make the future as the past was …”
Amid massive technological advances that offer innumerable opportunities for improving economies and societies, Heartland is directly stating that the past is where they want to take us (the US).
There is a simple reality that is lost to many. Donald Trump likes to express his love for miners. While that affirmation of love is likely simply because he ‘loves’ anyone who expresses adoration for him, he cannot deliver.
First, for decades, the key objective of mining companies is to get miners out of mining. From mountain-top removal to huge automated machines in strip mines, fewer miner hours are required for every ton removed.
Secondly, even more importantly, coal is dead — even as the pollution continues, virtually every single day brings bad news for coal (e.g., good news for humanity).
Did you know that with Trump in his second year of Oval Office occupation, that coal power plants are being retired at a faster rate in the United States than during President Barack Obama’s Administration. This has nothing to do with some sort of fantasized US government ‘war on coal’ and climate action but everything to do with economics:
“The economics for coal just aren’t working anymore… Coal is not competitive with clean energy anymore, even in Missouri. That’s what regulators will listen to.”
It is half the price to buy new solar and wind electricity (even with storage) than it is to build new coal plants.
It is cheaper to buy new solar and wind electricity (even with storage) than it is to run existing coal plants.
And, by the way, those coal numbers will get worse — the older the plant, the more expensive it becomes due to maintenance and repairs (even without considering upgrades to meet new regulatory requirements).
Those economics are driving change … change to the future not back to a polluting past.
If Heartland’s influence has increased in Washington, the weight of its arguments is on the wane in C-room suites.
Power companies have retired a third of America’s coal-generating capacity since 2010, …
In February alone, two major Midwestern utilities announced plans to dramatically cut back coal generation and replace the retired units with natural gas and renewables. Consumers Energy, a Michigan utility, said this week it will eliminate coal from its fuel mix by 2040. That followed an announcement by American Electric Power Co. that it intends to slash its emissions 80 percent of 2000 levels by midcentury, in part by reducing its coal use.
And in Texas, where power generators are retiring some 4 gigawatts of coal capacity this year, researchers expect wind power to overtake coal as the state’s second largest provider of electricity next year. Texas is the largest domestic market for coal used to generate electricity.
Heartland is fighting against reality. They are fighting to weaken the US electricity system, to drive higher prices into the US economy, weaken US competitiveness, kill Americans through increased coal pollution, and worsen our climate challenges. Truly, a wonderful agenda for patriotic Americans to pursue.
Truth be told, Heartland — and its fossil-fuel sponsors — will manage to put sand into the gears to move the nation Beyond Coal. They will confuse the system with deceptive analysis, find sympathetic utility commissioners so enamored with Trump-ism that they will buy into higher-cost electricity for their consumers and communities, and otherwise make the work of moving the US energy system into a more efficient, more reliable, more globally competitive, and cleaner future that much harder.
* Kakistocracy: Government by the least ethical, least principled, least competent of society.
February 21st, 2018 · Comments Off on Discontinuity critical for ‘tale of two technologies’ (nuclear, solar) and a clean-energy future
Nuclear power was going to provide electricity ‘too cheap to meter’. Many around the world, decades ago (many today), viewed peaceful nuclear power as the path forward to, well, solve more or less all the world’s problems. While nuclear power provides over 10 percent of the world’s electricity, those dreams remained dreams (if not utter fantasies).
Today, many are looking to solar energy’s plunging prices and are already analyzing ‘what can you do with it when it becomes too cheap to meter’. There are many who see solar as the path to, well, solve more or less all the world’s problems (from monopoly power to climate change to economic disparity to …). As solar provides little more than 1 percent of the world’s electricity, many see these dreams as little more than fantasies (even as many see them as reality coming at us at full speed).
An interesting set of parallels which suggests that there might be value to exploring these two low-carbon electricity sources for potential lessons — technical, business, financial, communications, and policy. This is a conversation that Varun Sivaram opened with A Tale of Two Technologies: What nuclear’s past might tell us about solar’s future.
While quite interesting to read, this interesting read is also quite troubling.
For example, in this ‘tale of two technologies’, Sivaram raises a concern that solar power’s pace of penetration could stall, perhaps combined solar and wind electricity plateauing (hitting a penetration ceiling) in the 10 percent of total electricity demand, and thus cripple our chances to achieve a climate-friendly energy system. Core to this, for Sivaram, is ‘value deflation’, with solar’s value (financial and in energy terms) falling with greater penetration as its production is limited to just a few hours per day and thus a high-solar penetration grid could have solar providing more than 100% of demand as the sun shines and zero percent in the night. While mentioned, Sivaram gives short-shrift to all of the developments (policy, business model, technical) to address this very set of challenges — from pricing to drive time-shifting demand; to larger grid interconnections to move power across regions; to smart devices; to a variety of storage options ranging from electric cars to Tesla Powerwalls to new pumped hydro storage to a range of technical leap-forward opportunities (such as in hydrogen production and storage).
Sivaram also asserts (okay, concludes from his research) that nuclear and solar are natural — necessary — partners for a low-carbon future. In short, that nuclear power can easily flex to meet electricity demands when solar isn’t producing. Clearly, this point is at odds with how nuclear power currently operates: baseload power that is rather inflexible in terms of ramping up and ramping down production to meet short-cycle demand signals. While it is possible to develop nuclear power systems that can work effectively at just a few hours a day at full output and much of the day sitting idle, this simply doesn’t reflect the operating realities of the world’s nuclear power plants.
Sivaram raises concerns that solar could be locked into a less-than-optimal silicon based technology for a number of reasons. For example, Sivaram looks at investments in solar R&D, highlighting that the cutthroat nature of the Chinese firms fighting for market share has fostered a very low level (1 percent) of internal investment. He also discusses how market conditions could create lock-out for new market entry. With that, he raises a parallel for how Admiral Rickover’s choice of light-water reactors locked out alternatives from the nuclear power marketplace.
Sivaram’s piece is intriguing with the call to look at the parallels with nuclear power for lessons to strengthen solar’s future; even amid disagreement it sparked thinking. When doing analogies, however, a critical tool is to make sure and clear not just continuity but also discontinuity, to foster understanding of where/why the analogy might fall short. To a certain extent, Sivaram does this as per these paragraphs:
The two energy sources are complementary — intermittent solar power that only works when the sun shines will likely come to depend on the reliability of nuclear energy to balance out its fluctuations in a decarbonized electricity system. Both are necessary for a global clean energy transition. And only by learning the lessons from nuclear’s meltdown can solar avoid its own.
This isn’t an obvious comparison. Accidents, activists, and ascending costs have plagued nuclear, stymieing plans for new reactors across the developed world. From this perspective, the history of nuclear power has very little to do with how the future of solar power might unfold. It’s hard to imagine a solar farm melting down and inciting an equivalent political backlash as was seen after Fukushima, for instance, while the costs of solar have steadily fallen and will likely continue to decline.
a solar panel is a panel, whether next to a yurt off the grid or with 10,000s in a multi-mw field.
in commercial applications, nuclear power plants are measured in 100s of megawatts to gigawatts and, despite some great cartoons, aren’t deployed to power cars or provide lights on camping trips.
Generations / evolutionary time scale
the time between nuclear power plant generations is, essentially, well over a decade. There is learning and development, but it is slow and long-term.
solar power systems, when considered what is deploying around the world, are changing rapidly. What is ‘deployed’ one year might be, at least in some components, obsolete the next.
ANALOGY: an appropriate analogy here might be evolutionary: nuclear power is large mammals and solar might be insects. Solar power might have orders-of-magnitude more ‘generations’ with innovation and learning than nuclear power. (In this analogy, information technology (software) might be bacteria …)
Learning curve/speed:
due to scale and generation time, nuclear learning curves for reduced costs take long time and are constrained (if they are ever achieved).
solar’s curve is steep, with rapid change and innovation across its systems.
Risks as factor
Nuclear power is, inherently, a high-risk endeavor with very serious safety concerns. Every single component is (or at least should be) seriously studied and tested as part of a system-of-systems, which slows innovation and raises development costs.
Solar is relatively low-risk domain and components (whether racks, wires, monitors, panels, etc …) can be developed with relative independence from developments from other components.
Security/Political Constraints:
due to security (weapons/proliferation and outright safety) issues, nuclear power is highly ‘constrained’ and controlled (regulatory, political, treaty).
solar is a wide-open space, with very limited constraints on technological development and transfusion.
Market entry
Nuclear has limited ‘innovator’s dilemma’-like market entry options (Navy ships (CVN/SSN/SSBNs) perhaps the clearest one) to prove new technologies, to enter in small scale in market-valuable ways to prove commercially and reduce risk..
Solar can carve out from high-cost markets (islands, off-grid, high-cost markets) and can be introduced at small scale en route path for innovation.
And, as per technology components above, it is very easy to demonstrate new components to enable ‘piecemeal’ innovation that is an element of the over industry’s dizzying innovation path.
And, people can take equipment from a lab and test it in real-world conditions without much bureaucratic challenge and at (relatively) low cost.
Competitive landscape:
Nuclear power has relatively few players, with about a dozen serious players globally (Russian, Chinese, European, American) who have the designs for and capacity to construct a nuclear power plant.
Solar has a raft of players. While panels are dominated by a relative few, these panel producers don’t control inverter options, control systems, racking, storage, installation, and other components of the solar eco-system.
When considering the serious nature of discontinuities between nuclear power and solar power, the case for the analogy seems weakened. It is still of interest to see if parallels and lessons exist, but these discontinuities suggest serious caution in drawing those lessons. With that caution in mind, read Sivaram’s Tale of Two Technologies as a tool to understanding how to better strengthen the potential for a clean-energy future.
February 14th, 2018 · Comments Off on Here comes the sun … even as Virginia continues to straggle when it comes to solar
Former Governor Terry McAuliffe exclaimed, more than once, that Virginia was a true leader in solar power, with growth rates that should amaze one and all. While McAuliffe deserves credit for a number of actions, recognizing the reality of a GOP run legislature and heavy Dominion Power opposition to solar, reality didn’t seem to match the rhetoric.
Pulling back the curtains on Virginia solar left one scratching one’s head trying to figure out the justification for this. Yes, there was growth — primarily because of two things: the starting point (due in no small part to Dominion Virginia Power (primarily) working its magic in the legislature to suppress solar) was so low; and major players (such as Amazon data centers and universities) demanding solar (often, as with Amazon, as part of their choice to develop in Virginia). McAuliffe pointed to high percentage growth and then pointed to all the potential projects in the pipeline with wording that would make most casual observers think that those ‘maybe’ projects were done deals and, well, perhaps even already generating electrons. Show-barker exclamations, however, didn’t represent the reality of Virginia’s renewable energy world.
As Powered by Facts, a group heavily involved in supporting legislative movement toward a clean(er) Virginia energy future, explained in a January 2018 report.
Virginia now has 290.89 megawatts (MW) of solar installed, which represents approximately .037% of its total electricity generated. This is an increase from last year’s total of 192.4 MW, and represents the state moving more than half of the way towards Dominion’s goal of building facilities to generate 400 MW of solar energy by 2020. Despite the increase in MW, Virginia’s national ranking for solar and renewable energy slipped from 17th in 2016 to 20th in 2017. This indicates that other states have embraced this highly competitive industry and are reaping its rewards, while Virginia has lagged behind. Our state also ranks 13th in growth projections for the next five years
While ’20th’ rank of current status with 13th in growth might not seem so bad, putting Virginia in the upper half of the 51 states and DC, we shouldn’t be fooled into any form of complacency.
Each year Solar Power Rocks, a firm that focuses on helping homeowners and small businesses go solar, analyzes those 51 as to solar attractiveness for those potential customers.
The Solar Power Rocks 2018 Solar Power Ranking
In the 2018 ranking, as in 2017, Virginia is ranked 38th and earns a merited D.
Virginia, 38th in nation
“Solar in Virginia: about as bad as you might think!” The state’s big utility company, Dominion Power, offers an anemic performance payments program, which will help homeowners now but isn’t guaranteed to be there in a few years. All in all, the “D” grade is earned …
How Virginia earns its D
With the exception of relatively smooth connection into the grid and straightforward net metering rules, there isn’t much good news as to Virginia solar as ‘the’ system continues to favor polluting centralized energy over distributed, clean-energy.
The troubling (for many reasons) energy legislation that has passed (in two variations) the Virginia House and Senate offers a potential breakthrough when it comes to solar. Within the legislation is a declaration that 4,000 megawatts of utility-scale and 500 megawatts of distributed solar (though, owned/operated by utility …) is in the public interest. While this is overly weighted toward large systems (roughly, in the United States, 1/3rd of total solar deployment is in under 1 megawatt systems), overwhelming favorable to the utilities, and the devil will certainly be in the details, this is viewed as creating an agreed-upon based objective that would increase Virginia’s solar electric resources by more than an order of magnitude in less than a decade. If the legislative and regulatory changes are made to enable this to become reality, perhaps Virginia’s report card might be a bit better and Terry McAuliffe’s claims about Virginia solar might just become substantive reality.
NOTE:
The Solar Power Rocks annual report is a quite useful tool to compare the states in terms of their market attractiveness for small solar installations. Utility can range from the purchaser trying to understand their potential return on investment (ROI) to the activist/legislator seeking to understand where/how they could focus to improve the solar situation in their own state/community. So, to be clear, kudos and thanks for the Solar Power Rocks team for doing this.
There are, however, issues where this summary could mislead. For example, when it comes to that ROI, the annual report card fails to include several (potentially) financially important items that improve the ROI:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBL) analysis of actual market activity found that solar installations have a significant impact on home sales prices. In California, a $4 increase for every watt installed and elsewhere in the nation about $3 per watt. Thus, install a house with a 5 kilowatt system would have an increased sales price in the range of $15k-$20k.
In ‘the community’, there has been a general rule of thumb that there is a $10 increased sales price for every $1 of energy savings. That rule of thumb helps account for differing electricity prices and allows evaluating solar hot water systems as well.
To take my home system, my savings are about $700/year from solar pv and perhaps $150/year from solar hot water, the two systems combined should boost the sales price in the range of $8-$9k.)
Solar installations can increase roof longevity and save money on replacement.
Some insurers will reduce home insurance costs due to lower hail damage to roofs that have solar installations. (Note that this is relatively minor. An acquaintance in Maryland who is in process of doing a solar installation has been quoted a $8.23 annual reduction in his home-owners’ insurance.)
The ROI evaluation, therefore, almost certainly is too pessimistic.
Comments Off on Here comes the sun … even as Virginia continues to straggle when it comes to solarTags:Energy · solar · virginia
With a 15-foot tall inflatable oil barrel and signs saying “Blame Trump at the Pump,” Public Citizen activists alerted motorists passing the Exxon station southeast of Union Station in Washington, D.C., to the fact that their wallets will take a bigger hit than in years past, and that Trump is partly to blame. …
