Energy Policy

The US Department of Energy (US DOE) has published Decarbonizing the U.S. Economy by 2050: A National Blueprint for the Buildings Sector, which contains a link to the full study.

The first strategic objective in the Blueprint is: Increase building energy efficiency - Reduce onsite energy use intensity in buildings 35% by 2035 and 50% by 2050 vs. 2005.This objective poses two distinct challenges: identifying the ideal characteristics of carbon-free buildings, as the basis for establishing building codes which assure that newly constructed buildings will be and will remain carbon-free; and, identifying the changes which can reasonably be made to existing buildings to achieve the required reductions in on-site energy use intensity.

The logical first focus of these efforts is on the building envelope. For new buildings, all components of the building envelope are candidates for optimization, including slabs, foundations, framing, sheathing, glazing, insulation, interior surface materials, weatherstripping and roofing. Building orientation is also a significant consideration with regard to solar and wind exposure, with particular emphasis on the ability to collect and store solar energy at the site.

The DOE Blueprint assumes that all new buildings would be all-electric. Buildings would be wired for electric appliances and equipment, including heat pump HVAC systems, heat pump water heaters, electric ranges and ovens, electric laundry driers and EV chargers. Buildings would also be prewired for the installation of solar panels and storage batteries.

The larger challenge is the upgrading of the existing building stock. Ceiling insulation and crawl space insulation improvements are relatively straightforward and inexpensive, as are caulking and weatherstripping. Adding insulation to uninsulated exterior walls is also straightforward and relatively inexpensive. Improving the insulation values of already insulated exterior walls is problematic unless the exterior wall surfaces of the building are also being replaced. Replacing existing windows is expensive and might not be economically justified if the existing windows are double glazed.

Upgrading existing all-electric buildings with forced air HVAC systems should not require any modification to existing appliance and equipment connections. However, buildings with electric baseboard heating systems or steam or hot water radiator systems would require major modifications. Buildings with natural gas or propane appliances and equipment would require installation of electric appliance and equipment connections and might require upgrading of utility electric service and building power panels.

Almost all existing buildings would require installation of connections for EV charging systems. Buildings suitable for the installation of solar collectors would also require installation of the wiring and controls necessary to interface the solar collector system to the building power panels, on-site storage batteries and the utility service.

Achieving on-site emissions reductions would require replacing all natural gas, propane and oil appliances and equipment with electric appliances and equipment. This would likely be accomplished by banning the manufacture and sale of natural gas, propane and oil appliances and equipment and allowing the appliance and equipment replacement cycles to complete the process.

Tripling demand flexibility would likely require that all major appliances and equipment be internet connected to permit remote control of their operation; and, that all buildings be equipped with smart meters to facilitate creation of virtual powerplants. DOE envisions that this would also permit power to be drawn from EV batteries and solar storage batteries if required to support the grid.

As the decarbonization plan comes together, it is likely to include a combination of “carrots and sticks” intended to assure that the plan goals are achieved.

Capacity factor:  The ratio of the electrical energy produced by a generating unit for the period of time considered to the electrical energy that could have been produced at continuous full power operation during the same period. (EIA)

The US EIA Electric Power Monthly uses the above definition for both fossil and non-fossil generators. However, the definition is more appropriate for intermittent renewable generators (wind and solar) than for other types of generation, since the output of these renewable generators have first priority on the grid. Their full output is used, except in circumstances when that output exceeds the contemporaneous demand on the grid. Therefore, their capacity factors are an accurate measure of what they are capable of generating “for the period of time considered”.

The output of wind and solar generators varies uncontrolled over timeframes of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, month, seasons and years. In the shorter timeframes, output can vary from 100% of rating plate capacity to zero. Over the longer timeframes, wind generator output can vary from approximately 24 – 47% on a monthly basis and from approximately 32 – 35% on an annual basis. Over the longer timeframes, solar output can vary from approximately 12 – 33% on a monthly basis and from approximately 23 - 26% on an annual basis. These numbers represent national averages for existing generating facilities.

The non-renewable generators supplying the grid are operated to generate the difference between the contemporaneous grid demand and the output of the intermittent renewable generators. Therefore, their “capacity factors” are not weather limited, as is the case with the intermittent renewable generators, but rather are “utilization factors” controlled by the output of the intermittent renewable generators and the contemporaneous grid demand. Therefore, the “capacity factors” of the non-renewable generators decrease as the quantity of renewable generation supplied to the grid increases, with the exception of the nuclear generators which are typically operated at full capacity because the variable cost of the generation they provide is low.

Nuclear generators are typically capable of operating at rated capacity approximately 95% of the year, natural gas combined-cycle generators approximately 90% of the year and coal generators approximately 85% of the year. The portion of the year when they are unavailable is typically scheduled for the shoulder months of the year, when grid demand is well below peak demand.

The lower “capacity factors” (utilization factors) reported by EIA are directly driven by contemporaneous grid demand and indirectly driven by weather impacts on intermittent renewable generation output.

Ultimately, the Administration goal is to replace dispatchable fossil generation with renewable generation plus storage. Assuming that storage can be recharged at approximately the same rate that it can be discharged, the maximum capacity factor for storage would be approximately 50%, in situations in which storage was discharged and recharged daily. However, in situations in which longer duration storage was charged during periods of high monthly or seasonal renewable availability for use during periods of lower monthly or seasonal renewable generation availability, storage capacity factor would be significantly lower. That has economic consequences, since storage is currently significantly more expensive than renewable generation.

It is broadly, though not universally, acknowledged that a Net Zero electric grid powered predominantly by intermittent renewable generation sources such as wind and solar would require support from dispatchable generation sources to “fill in the blanks” when wind and solar were unavailable or inadequate to meet the demands of the grid. These sources are generally referred to as Dispatchable Emission-Free Resources (DEFRs).

There are fundamentally two classes of DEFRs, those that depend on the output of the intermittent renewable resources for their operation and those which are able to function independent of the renewable generation.

The primary dependent DEFRs are storage batteries, pumped hydro dam complexes and Green Hydrogen systems. The primary independent DEFRs include hydroelectric dam systems, geothermal steam systems, biomass generation systems, wave energy systems, ocean thermal energy systems and small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs).

Battery storage systems and pumped hydro storage systems are currently in use on a limited basis. Green Hydrogen is being pursued as a possible long-duration storage solution to cope with weekly, monthly, seasonal and annual renewable availability variations. However, current battery storage is extremely expensive and most suitable for short-term storage (2-4 hours). Pumped hydro systems are also expensive, but have faced strong resistance from citizen groups in the US. Green Hydrogen is the most complex potential storage solution, requiring sea water desalination, water hydrolysis, hydrogen compression, transmission and storage and either combustion turbine or fuel cell power generation resources.

The dependent DEFRs require the availability of surplus renewable electricity to be stored for later use. Their charging cycles are parasitic to the renewable grid. Battery systems have the highest round-trip efficiency (~95%) and thus require the least surplus energy per unit of delivery capacity. Green Hydrogen has the lowest round-trip efficiency of the dependent DEFRs (~50%) and thus requires nearly twice as much surplus energy per unit of delivery capacity.

Hydroelectric dam systems, geothermal generation and biomass generation are currently in use on the US grid, although they are currently used primarily to supply baseload generation rather than as DEFRs. There is strong environmentalist resistance to new hydroelectric dams and strong pressure to remove existing dam systems. The availability of natural geothermal steam sources is limited, though there is significant potential for expansion into dry hot rock geothermal with the application of hydraulic fracturing. Biomass generation is of questionable environmental benefit and its expansion is likely to be limited. There are numerous RD&D programs underway to develop small modular nuclear reactors which would be inherently safe and have the ability to load follow, which would make them ideally suited as DEFRs, assuming that the environmentalist resistance to new nuclear generation can be overcome and system costs can be reduced.

The independent DEFRs do not require the availability of surplus renewable electricity. In fact, the independent DEFRs would not require the existence of intermittent renewable generation to support a reliable grid. They effectively render the renewable generators redundant; and, redundancy is expensive.

Candor : unreserved, honest, or sincere expression : forthrightness : freedom from prejudice or malice : fairness

The proposed global energy transition to “all-electric everything” and Net Zero by 2050 is not unfolding as we were told it would. Rather, it is unravelling as many of us thought it would. Rising energy costs, declining energy reliability, fuel selection mandates, reduced freedom of movement, dietary changes and other real and perceived issues have spawned resistance to the transition. The lack of candor regarding the transition is palpable. It is clearly time for climate candor.

The UNFCCC and the IPCC need to be candid about the continued existence and influence of natural climate variation and include research into the causes of natural variation in their programs.

The IPCC Working Group authors need to be fair in including all relevant research in their evaluations, not just research which supports the consensus narrative.

The consensed climate science community needs to cease its efforts to prevent publication of climate research which does not comport with the consensus narrative.

The IPCC Working Group authors need to insist that the IPCC Summary for Policymakers is a real summary of the conclusions of the Working Groups and not a gross exaggeration describing the current situation as a “crisis” or “existential threat” of an emergency.

The UN Secretariat needs to tone down the “earth on fire” and “boiling oceans” rhetoric intended to scare the population into precipitous action.

NOAA and NASA need to justify why and explain how they repeatedly “adjust” historic temperature anomalies.

The renewable generation developers need to tone down the “cheapest electricity” rhetoric, acknowledge that their generation systems are redundant capacity and will remain so until hey are combined with sufficient storage capacity to render their generating capacity dispatchable.

Electric utilities need to clearly communicate their need for dispatchable capacity sufficient to meet current and projected future peak demand.

Electric utilities and their ISOs and RTOs need to clearly communicate to both government and regulatory agencies that existing coal and natural gas generation cannot be shuttered until sufficient alternative dispatchable generation has been commissioned to replace their generating capacity and accommodate growth in expected peak demand.

Electric utilities and their ISOs and RTOs need to clearly communicate that additional natural gas generation capacity might be necessary to accommodate peak demand growth if dispatchable renewable generation capacity is not connected to the grid rapidly enough to meet growing demand resulting from “all-electric everything”

Federal and state agencies responsible for the energy transition need to acknowledge that the Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFRs) they are relying upon to supplement renewable generation do not exist and are therefore not currently available for deployment. These agencies also need to acknowledge that the future availability of these DEFRs is uncertain.

Federal and state agencies also need to acknowledge that DEFRs, if and when they become available, render intermittent renewable generation redundant capacity to the extent that they are employed as backup capacity to renewable generation.

Federal and state agencies need to acknowledge that the promise of reduced energy costs resulting from the energy transition is a fraudulent fantasy.

While the above actions need to occur in the interest of candor, it seems highly unlikely that they will occur before there is a major grid outage followed by a self-serving “blame game”.

A repetition of the “Six Phases of a Project” appears inevitable.

From: Master Resource

By: Robert Bradley Jr.

Date: July 30, 2024

Project 2025: Environmental Policy

“A more conservative EPA … will prevent unnecessary expenditures by the regulated community [and] … deliver savings to the American taxpayer. Improved transparency will serve as an important check … [to] deliver tangible environmental improvements to the American people in the form of cleaner air, cleaner water, and healthier soils.” ( – Heritage Foundation, Project 2025)

Last week’s post examined the energy section of the Heritage Foundation’s 922-page Mandate for Leadership: 2025. This post reproduces the environmental section of the same document (1,200 words) calling for a return to the basics of clean air and water–and away from the cancer of climate policy as ecological.

As explained below, EPA needs to prioritize achievable, definable environmental improvement, not engage in wasteful, futile climatism and forced energy transformation.

The challenge of creating a conservative EPA will be to balance justified skepticism toward an agency that has long been amenable to being co-opted by the Left for political ends against the need to implement the agency’s true function: protecting public health and the environment in cooperation with states. Further, the EPA needs to be realigned away from attempts to make it an all-powerful energy and land use policymaker and returned to its congressionally sanctioned role as environmental regulator.

Not surprisingly, the EPA under the Biden Administration has returned to the same top-down, coercive approach that defined the Obama Administration. There has been a reinstitution of unachievable standards designed to aid in the “transition” away from politically disfavored industries and technologies and toward the Biden Administration’s preferred alternatives. This approach is most obvious in the Biden Administration’s assault on the energy sector as the Administration uses its regulatory might to make coal, oil, and natural gas operations very expensive and increasingly inaccessible while forcing the economy to build out and rely on unreliable renewables…. (continue reading)

Project 2025: Environmental Policy

The capacity of the US electric grid has historically been designed to meet peak demand, with limited additional generating capacity equal to +/- 20% of peak demand or sufficient to replace the capacity of the largest generating unit on the grid in the event of an unscheduled shutdown. That additional generating capacity can be considered to be redundant in that it is necessary on peak only in the event of an unscheduled generator shutdown. The conventional generators on the grid have capacity factors of ~85% (coal), ~90% (gas CCT) and ~95% (nuclear). The maintenance and repair downtime of these generators is typically scheduled for the shoulder months of the year when grid demand is expected to be well below peak. However, unscheduled shutdowns do occur.

The grid generation transition currently underway is intended to replace existing coal and natural gas generation with intermittent wind and solar generation plus electricity storage. However, most of the wind and solar generating capacity which has been installed to date has not included the electricity storage capacity required to replace dispatchable coal and natural gas generation. Therefore, the wind and solar generator output is capable only of displacing output from coal and natural gas generators when the wind and solar generators are operating. Wind generators currently on the grid have capacity factors ranging from ~24 – 46.6% depending on location, mounting height and season. Solar generators currently on the grid have capacity factors ranging from ~12.5 – 33.2% depending on location and season.

Wind and solar generators which are not paired with sufficient electricity storage capacity to render them dispatchable are, by definition, redundant capacity since conventional dispatchable generating capacity must remain available to provide backup during periods when the wind and solar generators provide low/no output. Redundant capacity always increases costs because of increased investment in generation and transmission infrastructure. Redundant generation also increases costs by reducing the output of conventional generators, which causes their fixed costs to be allocated across lower generator output, thus increasing the prices necessary to maintain profitable operation. These higher prices, in turn, increase the wholesale power prices paid to the renewable generators.

Installing sufficient storage to render the currently installed wind and solar generation dispatchable would make a portion of the existing conventional generating capacity redundant, which would be essential if that capacity is to be decommissioned as envisioned by the Administration. Installing sufficient storage capacity to render all additional wind and solar generation capacity dispatchable would allow replacement of additional conventional generation as it became redundant. However, the pace of replacement of conventional generating capacity would have to be slower than the pace of commissioning of new dispatchable renewable generation to accommodate the demand growth expected as the result of the Administration’s push for “all-electric everything”.

It appears increasingly unlikely that the dispatchable generating capacity required to replace current conventional generation as well as to meet the consumption and demand growth expected to result from the transition to “all-electric everything” would be installed and operational by 2050. It appears even less likely that the result would be reduced energy costs.

From: Climate Realism

By: Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling

Date: July 29, 2024

Why Nuclear is Cheaper than Wind and Solar

Editors’ Note: This guest post explains how nuclear is actually cheaper than wind and solar, contrary to what most renewables advocated claim. Climate Realism has explained previously how wind and solar are actually far more costly than activists claim, here and here, and that they are not as “green” as advertised, here.

Wind and solar supporters have a nasty habit of pretending that their preferred energy sources are the “cheapest forms of energy.” The problem, of course, is that they use unrealistic Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) estimates—see Cooking the Books for wind and solar—and they conveniently forget to mention the large system costs needed to reliably serve electricity demand using these unreliable energy sources.

That’s why, despite its high up-front capital costs, powering an electric grid with nuclear power is cheaper than using wind, solar, and battery storage.

Before we jump into the benefits of nuclear power, it’s important for our readers to understand that building a fleet of nuclear power plants will be very expensive, which will increase costs for ratepayers. A forced energy transition of any kind is going to increase costs inherently, and nuclear is no different.

If your main priority is reliable, low-cost power, keeping the existing coal and natural gas plants online and building new natural gas plants as needed will be the more affordable option. If decarbonizing the electric grid is your main priority, building new nuclear power plants will deliver a superior value to electricity customers, with reliable service at a lower cost than a grid powered largely by wind, solar, and battery storage. (continue reading)

Why Nuclear is Cheaper than Wind and Solar

The US government currently subsidizes utility scale wind and solar generation, transmission and electricity storage, in competition with coal, natural gas and nuclear generation. The government also subsidizes on-site residential and commercial solar generation installations in competition with the electric utility grid. In some cases, state government requires the utility and its non-generating customers to subsidize solar generating customers through net metering.

The government is planning to subsidize building efficiency improvements for residential and commercial buildings, including insulation and weatherstripping, window upgrades and appliance replacement. Subsidies for on-site solar would be expanded to include on-site storage.

Government also subsidizes light duty electric vehicles and their public charging infrastructure; and, would also subsidize on-site EV charging systems.

Subsidies – Undeniable Facts of Life

Subsidies distort markets by changing the relative transaction prices of competing options. For example, the subsidy offered for the purchase of electric vehicles reduces the transaction price of EVs relative to alternative ICE vehicles. This issue is compounded by the fact that manufacturers increase the prices of ICE vehicles to partially offset the losses incurred in the production and sale of EVs, raising the transaction price of ICE vehicle purchases.

Subsidies disadvantage competitors. In the example above, a manufacturer which does not produce EVs is forced to compete with the subsidized price of competitors EVs. Also, the subsidies available for wind and solar support installations which displace the generation output of existing coal and natural gas generation, reducing sales from those generators and increasing the prices at which their output must be sold to remain profitable.

Subsidies increase societal costs. The subsidies available for renewable generation encourage the expansion of renewable generation infrastructure, which is redundant capacity since it requires full capacity backup from dispatchable generation. This increases the total investment in generation capacity with no corresponding increase in generation output, thus increasing the cost of electricity.

Subsidies transfer costs from participants to non-participants. The subsidies available for residential and commercial on-site solar installations frequently include net metering, which transfers a portion of the utilities’ fixed costs of service to solar generators who sell surplus electricity back to the grid. This requires the utility to recover that portion of its fixed costs through increased rates which affect non-generating customers.

Subsidies encourage sub-optimal decisions by making the uncompetitive appear competitive. This has recently been demonstrated in the states which have eliminated simple net metering, which eliminates or reduces the transfer of utility fixed costs to solar generators, thus reducing the price paid to the solar generators by the utilities. The loss of this subsidy has had a dramatic negative impact on solar residential and commercial installations because the economics are no longer as attractive. This has also been demonstrated recently in Germany, where the elimination of EV incentives has caused a dramatic decrease in EV sales.

Government cannot subsidize everything forever. The grossly misnamed Inflation Reduction Act will likely result in an increase in the US national debt of approximately $1 trillion, which will be taken from others in the future.

"The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.", Ronald Reagan

From: Climate Etc.

By: Joachim Dengler

Date: July 10, 2024

Implications of the Linear Carbon Sink Model

This post is the first of two extracts from the paper Improvements and Extension of the Linear Carbon Sink Model.

Introduction – Modelling the Carbon Cycle of the Atmosphere

When a complex system is analyzed, there are two possible approaches. The bottom-up approach investigates the individual components, studies their behavior, creates models of these components, and puts them together, in order to simulate the complex system. The top-down approach looks at the complex system as a whole and studies the way that the system responds to external signals, in the hope to find known patterns that allow conclusions to be drawn about the inner structure.

The relation between anthropogenic carbon emissions, CO2 concentration, and the carbon cycle has in the past mainly been investigated with the bottom-up approach. The focus of interest are carbon sinks, the processes that reduce the atmospheric CO2 concentration considerably below the level that would have been reached, if all CO2 remained in the atmosphere. There are three types of sinks that absorb CO2 from the atmosphere: physical oceanic absorption, the photosynthesis of land plants, and the photosynthesis of phytoplankton in the oceans. Although the mechanisms of carbon uptake are well understood in principle, there are model assumptions that cause divergent results.

The traditional bottom-up approaches are typically box-models, where the atmosphere, the top layer of the ocean (the mixed layer), the deep ocean, and land vegetation are considered to be boxes of certain sizes and carbon exchange rates between them. These models contain lots of parameters, which characterize the sizes of the boxes and the exchange rate between them. The currently favored model is the Bern box diffusion model, where the deep ocean only communicates by a diffusion process with the mixed layer, slowing down the downwelling carbon sink rate so much, that according to the model 20% of all anthropogenic emissions remain in the atmosphere for more than 1000 years. (continue reading)

Implications of the Linear Carbon Sink Model

All freight rail and most long-distance passenger rail is powered by Diesel-electric locomotives. Some short-distance passenger rail (commuter rail) is powered by electric locomotives. Light rail is typically powered electrically, as are subway systems.

Decarbonization of the rail sector and the transition to “all-electric everything” would require replacement of Diesel-electric locomotives with electric locomotives or locomotives fueled by Green Hydrogen.

The technology required to electrify freight rail is currently available, though it would need to be adapted to the more stringent requirements of freight rail. Long freight trains frequently use two to four 3,000 – 4,000 kW locomotives, which would determine the required current capacity of the overhead power lines. Freight rail is not suitable for the application of third-rail power supply because of the unrestricted access to the railbed.

The US Class 1 rail system comprises approximately 90,000 miles of track. Cost estimates for the electrification of freight rail vary widely depending on terrain, but would likely exceed $1,000,000 per mile, which would result in an investment requirement exceeding $90 billion, not including the investment in the electric generation and storage capacity required to reliably power the system. Conversion of other classes of rail systems would add additional costs.

There are also efforts underway to develop battery powered electric locomotives. These would likely be restricted to railyard and railcar placement duty and could be recharged from extensions of the overhead power lines in railyards. The locomotives could be paired with tenders holding larger batteries to extend their range.

Hydrogen could be used to fuel either Otto-cycle or Diesel-cycle combustion engines to power electric alternators or generators. However, the most efficient approach would be direct electric conversion in Hydrogen fuel cells. Each locomotive would be paired with a fuel tender carrying approximately 20,000 gallons of liquid Hydrogen for long-haul service. Railyard and railcar placement locomotives could use onboard fuel storage.

The technology required to produce a liquid Hydrogen fueled railroad locomotive largely already exists, with the exception of a durable, long-life 3,000 – 4,000 kW hydrogen fuel cell suitable for railroad application. Argonne National Laboratories is leading a project to develop a Hydrogen fuel cell powered locomotive. Matching the cost and durability of the Diesel engines with fuel cells is a major technical challenge. Matching the cost of Diesel fuel with liquid Green Hydrogen is also a major challenge, since Green Hydrogen is currently more than three times the cost of Diesel fuel.

It is difficult to estimate the investment required to store liquid Hydrogen throughout the Class 1 rail system and the investment required to transport the liquid Hydrogen from the liquefaction plants to the rail system storage facilities. Transportation of liquid Hydrogen at that scale is unprecedented and untested.

It is very likely that a liquid Hydrogen fuel system for the rail sector would be part of a larger system to produce Green Hydrogen for use as a long-duration energy storage medium, although the liquefaction facilities would be specific to the rail sector.

The US electric utility grid has typically operated at a load factor of approximately 40% of peak demand. US utility scale generating capacity in 2023 was 1,141 GW, of which 341 GW were renewable generation. The nominal annual potential generation from this generation fleet would be 9995 TWH (1141 GW * 8760 hrs/yr). However, 252 GW of the generating capacity consisted of intermittent renewables with a capacity factor of approximately 30%, reducing the expected total annual generation potential to approximately 8,450 TWH. Therefore, the actual load factor on the grid was approximately 47%.
 
The Administration’s intent to transition the US energy economy to “all-electric everything” would require a rough tripling of electric generation and of the capacity of the electric grid. However, achieving an additional 17,000 TWH of generation potential with intermittent renewables would require installation of approximately 6,000 GW of additional intermittent renewable generation plus the storage capacity required to render the intermittent generation dispatchable.

The additional intermittent generation capacity required is sensitive to the round-trip efficiency of the supporting storage. Current battery storage has a round-trip efficiency of 90+%. However, Green Hydrogen storage has a round-trip efficiency closer to 50%, which would require additional generation capacity to compensate for the higher round-trip energy losses.

Significant reductions in the required expansion of grid capacity would be possible if the load factor on the grid could be increased by shaping the grid demand profile. However, it is unlikely that the grid load factor could be increased beyond 60% without significant disruptions, such as rotating blackouts and the activation of virtual powerplants. Utilities and regulatory commissions have attempted to use tools such as demand-side management, time-of-day rates, demand charges and interruptible rates to shape grid demand profiles, with limited success.

US DOE has produced a document entitled “Decarbonizing the U.S. Economy by 2050: A National Blueprint for the Buildings Sector” which outlines several approaches to shaping the electricity demand profiles for the buildings sector. No such document has been produced for the other sectors of the economy, particularly the industrial sector, in which massive transitions from direct fossil fuel end uses to electric end uses would be required to occur. In many cases, the required electric end use technologies do not currently exist or are in their infancy.

There is also no blueprint for the transportation sector, particularly medium and heavy-duty trucks and railroads. Commercialization of EV medium and heavy-duty trucks is in its infancy. There is significant concern about vehicle range and about the increased vehicle weight and its effect on allowable cargo loads. There is also interest in Green Hydrogen as a medium and heavy-duty truck fuel, although its cost appears to be prohibitive.

Passenger rail and light rail electrification is an established technology for densely populated inter-urban transportation corridors and urban mass transit. However, electrification has not been applied to long-haul freight operations, which involve both longer distances and much heavier loads.  

The data on which this analysis is based may be found in the following tables in the EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2023.
Table: Table 9. Electricity Generating Capacity
Table: Table 10. Electricity Trade
Table: Table 16. Renewable Energy Generating Capacity and Generation

From: National Review

By: Mario Loyola

Date: June 13, 2024

Our Coming Energy Famine

Economic change and Biden’s hostility to fossil fuels are setting up an electricity crisis
Most Americans are unaware of a grave danger looming on the horizon: a historic — and entirely self-inflicted — energy-scarcity crisis. The “transition from fossil fuels” presupposes that “clean energy” substitutes will be ready when needed. But while the war on fossil fuels is making real gains, at least in the electricity sector, the effort to deploy renewable substitutes is failing catastrophically. Add soaring demand, and America is facing the worst energy shortfall in its history.

The nation’s grid regulators are already sounding the alarm. “I am extremely concerned about the pace of retirements we are seeing of generators which are ... (continue reading)

Our Coming Energy Famine

The Internet of Things refers to the variety of devices which are remotely accessible from the internet. At their most basic, these devices include wall switches, electrical outlets and plug-in outlet adaptors which can be used to power connected devices on a predetermined schedule or remotely at will.

Electronic heating and cooling thermostats can also be connected, allowing remote access to change equipment operating schedules, temperature setpoints and other system settings.

High efficiency electric heat pump water heaters, laundry dryers and induction ranges have also been added to the internet of things.

Security systems are now also accessible from the internet, allowing the systems to be set remotely to secure and unsecure the property and to remotely authorize secure access to the property. Garage door operators are also available in internet connected versions.

While these functions of the Internet of Things (IOT) were intended to provide owner/occupant convenience, they also provide an opportunity for others, including utilities and government to control energy end uses remotely in response to high grid demand or low renewable energy availability. The Internet of Things could be used to interrupt the operation of building heating and cooling systems or to limit those systems to low-capacity operation, or to adjust the set temperatures to reduce demand or to enforce minimum and maximum temperature control settings. It could also be used to prevent the operation of water heating systems or laundry equipment during periods of high demand or low energy availability.

In installations including solar photovoltaic collectors, solar storage batteries and electric vehicles and chargers, the IOT could also be used to direct solar collector output to the grid and to direct stored solar energy in on-site batteries to the grid. The IOT could also be used to control the operation of EV charging systems to periods of low grid demand and to direct energy stored in EV batteries to the grid when needed.

While this flexibility to control individual customer energy use might be useful to utilities forced to rely on intermittent renewable generation plus storage to meet grid demand, it also represents the potential to interfere with the lifestyles of individual residential customers and the operation of the businesses of commercial and industrial customers. EV owners could be faced with the situation in which they could not drive to work on a given day because the grid had drawn down the charge in their EV battery. Solar customers could also be faced with the unavailability of power from their on-site storage batteries in the event of a power failure because the grid has drawn charge from those batteries.

These issues are clearly a concern because of the perceived need to minimize the investment in renewable generating capacity, grid-scale storage, transmission and distribution capacity and “last mile” transformer, service line and building electrical system capacity.

The issue is further complicated by the federal focus on providing advantages to disadvantaged communities, which would almost certainly result in applying disadvantages to advantageed communities in what appears to be a zero sum game, or perhaps even a negative sum game.

The energy transition currently being pursued by the current Administration imposes several types of societal costs, many of which are ignored.

The cessation of fossil fuel use would strand approximately $60 trillion of coal, oil and natural gas resources, depriving the owners of those resources of their profitable sale and depriving the nation of their beneficial use.

The replacement of natural gas end uses with electric end uses would result in abandonment of billions of dollars of natural gas production, transmission and distribution infrastructure. It would also require development of additional electric generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure. The replacement of oil and gasoline end uses with electric end uses would result in abandonment of oil production, refining and distribution infrastructure and require further increases in electric infrastructure.

Consumer replacement of typical gas and electric appliances and equipment with high efficiency electric appliances and equipment such as heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, heat pump laundry dryers and induction ranges adds significant consumer cost, as those appliances are approximately twice as expensive as their conventional counterparts. While it is true that these high efficiency appliances would offer lower operating costs than their conventional counterparts, it is questionable whether their higher costs would be recovered through energy cost savings over their useful lives.

Upgrading residential and commercial buildings to reduce their energy consumption by the DOE 50% target would be extremely expensive and it is doubtful that the cost would be recovered through energy savings. Replacing windows in buildings with windows which reduce undesirable heat gain and heat loss is particularly expensive. It is also a classic case of “broken window economics”.

Adding solar photovoltaic collectors to those residential and commercial buildings which are suitably oriented for such installations is also expensive, as is the addition of storage batteries to store solar generated electricity for later use.

Replacing ICE vehicles with electric vehicles also involves a significant cost premium, as well as a reduction in vehicle utility. It would also require significant electric generation, transmission and distribution investment as well as electric service upgrades to support vehicle chargers.

Interestingly, DOE’s Decarbonizing the U.S. Economy by 2050: A National Blueprint for the Buildings Sector views the storage batteries in both electric vehicles and building solar installations as “generators”, available to supply power to the grid during periods of peak demand or reduced renewable generation output, potentially reducing the value of these assets to their owners.

It is unclear the extent to which government would choose to incentivize the above actions or subsidize the incremental costs. However, while such government actions might reduce the direct costs of the actions for individual building owners or vehicle purchasers, they would not reduce the societal costs of the actions.

The current situation with electric vehicles provides a compelling societal cost example. If a vehicle manufacturer prices a vehicle at approximately $60,000 and experiences a loss of approximately $60,000 on each vehicle sold and the government offers an approximate $7,500 subsidy for each vehicle purchased by an ultimate consumer, the ultimate consumer pays approximately $52,500 for the vehicle, but the societal cost of the vehicle is approximately $120,000 ($52,500 + $7,500 + $60,000). Actually, the societal cost is higher, whether the government subsidy is paid from tax revenues or from borrowing, because of the administrative costs incurred by the government and, in the case of borrowed funds, because of the interest expense over the life of the financial instrument.

From: CO2 Coalition

By: R. Lindzen, W. Happer, and W. A. van Wijngaarden

Date: June 11, 2024

Net Zero Averted Temperature Increase

June 2024

Many people are surprised by how little warming would be averted from adoption of net zero policies. For example, if the United States achieved net zero emissions of carbon dioxide by the year 2050, only a few hundredths of a degree Celsius of warming would be averted. This could barely be detected by our best instruments.  The fundamental reason is that warming by atmospheric carbon dioxide is heavily “saturated,” with each additional ton of atmospheric carbon dioxide producing less warming than the previous ton.

Abstract:

Using feedback-free estimates of the warming by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and observed rates of increase, we estimate that if the United States (U.S.) eliminated net CO2 emissions by the year 2050, this would avert a warming of 0.0084 ?C (0.015 ?F), which is below our ability to accurately measure. If the entire world forced net zero CO2 emissions by the year 2050, a warming of only 0.070 ?C (0.13 ?F) would be averted. If one assumes that the warming is a factor of 4 larger because of positive feedbacks, as asserted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the warming averted by a net zero U.S. policy would still be very small, 0.034 ?C (0.061 ?F). For worldwide net zero emissions by 2050 and the 4-times larger IPCC climate sensitivity, the averted warming would be 0.28 ?C (0.50 ?F). (continue reading)

Net Zero Averted Temperature Increase