Energy Policy

Free Range: allowed to range and forage with relative freedom
(Merriam-Webster)

Residents of the developed nations have largely been “free range” people, free to live where they choose to live, work where they choose to work, travel when and where they choose to travel, eat what they choose to eat and buy what they choose to buy within their means.

Those freedoms were interrupted, to one extent or another, by government edicts in response to the COVID19 pandemic. Travel was restricted, “non-essential” businesses were forced to close, offices and schools were closed and employees and students worked and studied from home over the internet.  In retrospect, it appears that much of this interruption of individual freedoms was unnecessary and, in some cases, counterproductive.

The pandemic lockdowns, however, resulted in a small but measurable decrease in global CO2 emissions. Government officials and climate change alarmists realized that similar, more extensive and longer-term lockdowns had the potential to reduce CO2 emissions to assist in achieving Net Zero emissions goals. There appeared to be little concern regarding the losses of freedom which would result from such actions.

There is growing discussion regarding climate lockdowns of various forms, including travel restrictions. Air travel restrictions are already in place in France, requiring shorter trips to be taken by train.

A climate initiative proposed by a group of major city mayors has proposed banning meat and dairy consumption, banning personal vehicles and limiting clothing purchases to three items per year per person. Producers are conducting major promotions for “veggie burgers”, “Frankenmeat” and nut-based dairy substitutes, while some governments are taking actions to remove farmland from production and to destroy meat and dairy animals.

The New York Times has declared the end of vacations to eliminate the associated CO2 emissions. So far, that demand has not been adopted by governments.

Urban Planners are touting the benefits of 15-Minute Cities, discussed here and here. One obvious “benefit” would be elimination of the need for personal vehicles, since most products and services would be available in the 15-minute city. While those who are interested in living in a 15-minute city should have the opportunity to do so, those not interested should not be pressured into moving into a highly concentrated urban environment.

Governments are imposing bans on internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and power equipment, natural gas and propane appliances, and fossil-fueled electric power generation and the use of fossil fuels in industrial production. In the US, the goal is to move to all-electric everything by 2050, with fixed dates for the elimination of coal (2030) and natural gas (2035) power generation.

The Ration Book shown in the cartoon below is unfortunately only a slight exaggeration of the measures which have been proposed to reduce CO2 emissions by restricting personal freedoms on a permanent basis.

There is growing pressure on the US federal government to declare a “climate emergency”, though there is clearly no such emergency. However, such a declaration would arguably empower the President to take many of the actions discussed above by executive fiat, avoiding the need for congressional action.

“Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”, Lord Acton

Several narratives have evolved around the issue of climate change. The narratives originate in the science, but focus on different aspects of the science and different interpretations of its meaning.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 scientific narrative focuses on global temperature anomalies, climate sensitivity, climate forcings and feedbacks, and climate model projections of future warming. The AR6 narrative attributes most or all of the measured warming to anthropogenic CO2 emissions. It projects that the globe would warm by 2.5 – 4.5°C if global annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions are not reduced toward zero in the future.

The IPCC scientific narrative is the basis for the IPCC political narrative, which evolves through the development of the Summary for Policymakers and the Synthesis Report. The AR6 political narrative declares climate change to be a “crisis”, an “existential threat” and an “emergency”. The need to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions in the future evolves into the professed need to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions to Net Zero by 2050 through the elimination of fossil fuel combustion for all energy end uses. This political narrative proclaims the worsening of extreme weather events, though the IPCC scientific narrative does not detect any significant trends in extreme weather frequency, intensity or duration.

The skeptical narrative includes scientific results ignored or excluded by the IPCC in the development of AR6. These include studies suggesting significantly lower climate sensitivity to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentrations and studies which establish that the effect of CO2 as a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is essentially saturated. These studies suggest that further climate warming would be less than 1°C. The skeptical narrative also focuses on the positive results of increased atmospheric CO2 concentration, such as the greening of the globe, reduced plant sensitivity to drought, longer growing seasons and increased crop yields.

The renewables narrative extols the perceived benefits of a transition to a renewable energy economy, including reduced energy costs and reduced air pollution. Combined with the political narrative, it perceives a transition to an “all-electric everything” energy economy by 2050, based almost solely on wind and solar generation.

The energy equity narrative defends the right of developing nations to continue to rely upon and increase their use of fossil fuels in support of their economic development objectives. The support for continuing and expanding fossil fuel use flies in the face of the scientific and political narratives which call for reductions in fossil fuel use. It also flies in the face of the renewables narrative, since it acknowledges that renewable generation is not the best economic development option for these nations. Clearly, if renewables were the path to a lower cost, reliable energy economy with lower air pollution these financially constrained developing nations would not choose to develop a fossil fuel infrastructure which would then be replaced by renewable infrastructure at a later date at additional cost.

The energy equity narrative is more consistent with the skeptical narrative, which is far less concerned about increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

From: Robert Bryce - SubStack

By: Robert Bryce

Date: July 1, 2023

The Energy Transition Isn't

Despite $4.1 trillion spent on wind and solar, they aren't even keeping pace with the growth in hydrocarbons

We are inundated with claims about the “energy transition.”

In February, E&E News, reporting on the State of the Union speech said,  “President Joe Biden laid out his vision for the energy transition Tuesday night.” In March, a reporter for Politico declared “The U.S. energy transition is well underway.”

Also in March, during a speech at the CERAWeek conference in Houston, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said that "As this transition progresses, our energy mix will change." Or consider the March 9 press release from the White House, which said “The Administration is continuing to implement the Inflation Reduction Act, which is already galvanizing our clean energy transition and making clean and energy efficient technologies more affordable for American families.”

I could list many more examples like the ones above. But the hard truth is this: the energy transition isn’t. The numbers from the just-released Statistical Review of World Energy show, once again, that despite rapid growth in wind and solar, those two forms of energy are not even keeping pace with the growth in hydrocarbons. That’s true both globally and in the U.S. (continue reading)

The Energy Transition Isn't

Developers of renewable energy generation installations frequently focus their marketing efforts on estimates of the number of homes the installations would serve. The developers’ estimates are not based on consistent assumptions and cannot be directly compared.

Orsted’s recently approved Ocean Wind 1 development, to be located off the New Jersey coast near Atlantic City and Ocean City, would consist of one hundred 11MW wind turbine generators, for a total capacity of 1,100 MW. This would suggest annual generation, at a 100% capacity factor, of 9,600 GWh. The International Energy Agency uses a capacity factor of 50% for offshore wind. We will use that figure here, since there is no offshore wind capacity factor data for the US East Coast. This suggests annual production of approximately 4,800 GWh for Ocean Wind 1.

Orsted projects that Ocean Wind 1 would serve 500,000 homes. The US Energy Information Administration reports average US residential electricity consumption as 10,600 kWh per year. Based on these numbers, Ocean wind would have to generate 5300 GWh per year, or a capacity factor of approximately 55%.

Dominion Energy’s proposed Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) development, to be located off the Virginia coast near Norfolk, would consist of one hundred seventy-six 15 MW wind turbine generators, for a total capacity of 2,600 MW. This would suggest annual generation, at a 100% capacity factor, of approximately 22,800 GWh, or approximately 11,400 GWh at a 50% capacity factor.

Dominion projects that CVOW would serve 660,000 homes, which would require generation of approximately 6,996 GWh based on the EIA residential consumption figure. That would suggest a capacity factor of approximately 30%, far lower than the IEA figure, and even lower relative to the Orsted estimate for Ocean Wind 1.

The estimates above are based on a number of averages: average wind resource; average capacity factor; average maintenance and repair allowances; and, average residential electricity consumption. The available wind resource varies on time scales from minutes to hours to days to seasons, as does residential energy consumption and demand. The use of averages loses a lot of the detail of the match between customer load and generator output.

Since each of these industrial wind installations would be connected to a grid with a far larger customer base than the claimed number of residential customers served, above average output would be absorbed by other loads on the grids, displacing a portion of the output from some form(s) of conventional generation. Below average generator output would require support from some form(s) of conventional generation.

Arguably, fluctuations in generator output and customer load could also be compensated for by additions to and withdrawals from some type of energy storage capacity. However, there is no energy storage capacity included in either of the wind projects discussed above. The issue of storage can be deferred as long as there is sufficient excess conventional generating capacity available to compensate for the fluctuation of the output of the wind facilities and maintain a capacity reserve margin. However, as conventional generating capacity is retired due to age or regulation, and additional intermittent renewable generating capacity is added, addressing the issue of storage cannot be avoided.

There has not been a successful demonstration of a renewable plus storage grid, even with generation support from fossil, nuclear, geothermal and biomass generators. Previous commentaries (here, here and here) have described a conceptual demonstration of a renewable plus storage grid without support from fossil generation, its documentation and reporting. However, this demonstration began with installed and operational renewable generation and conceptual storage. There is growing concern that such a renewable plus storage grid, even with physical storage, would be unreliable and extremely expensive.

Recently, New York State Senator George Borrello proposed legislation in New York State which would prohibit the use of fossil fuels in the manufacturing of renewable energy equipment. This legislation would extend the conceptual demonstration discussed above one step upstream, requiring demonstration that the components of a renewable plus storage grid could be manufactured using predominantly renewable energy, without fossil fueled backup.

However, there is the potential to extend the conceptual demonstration several more steps upstream. The Administration proclaimed that the transition to renewables would result in millions of new, high-paying union jobs, presumably in the US. They also assured that this transition would result in dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Analyzing the success of the transition in achieving these goals requires starting at the beginning of the supply chain and expanding upon Senator Borrello’s proposed legislation.

The supply chain begins with the use of electric mining equipment to mine the raw materials required to fabricate the wind, solar and storage components of the renewable plus storage grid in US mines and the use of electric transportation to move these raw materials to the manufacturing facilities at which the components of the system would be fabricated. The fabrication of the components would occur in US plants using electric processing equipment.

The steel and cement required for installation of the system components would also be produced in US plants. In the case of the calcining of limestone to produce cement, carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems would be required to capture the CO2 released from the limestone.

Preparation of the installation sites for the wind and solar generators and the storage systems would be performed by US manufactured electric earthmoving equipment. The system components would be transported to the installation sites by US manufactured electric trucks or electrified trains and erected using US manufactured electric cranes.

The supply chain described above would be drastically different from the current supply chains for wind turbines, solar collectors and storage batteries, all of which currently require mining and processing of minerals in Asia and Africa and frequently rely on foreign manufacture, particularly of solar collectors and wind turbines. The current supply chain effectively limits US jobs to system installation and maintenance, and excludes mining, processing and manufacturing jobs. The mining and processing jobs exist mostly in Asia and Africa, while the manufacturing jobs exist in Asia and Europe.

The mining and processing jobs in Asia and Africa and the manufacturing jobs in Asia reputedly rely on child, forced and prison labor, which substantially reduces their costs.

From: Watts Up With That

By: Don Ritter

Date: August 1, 2023

Abandon Fossil Fuels, Empower China

Autocratic Producers (primarily Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Russia, Iran, Qatar, Venezuela and China) and certain democratic (or semi-democratic) Consumers (fossil fuel-dependent nations, mostly in the Global South), are uniting over oil, gas, coal, petrochemicals, natural gas-derived fertilizers and wind-solar-battery raw materials that are essential for building and maintaining modern industrial nations.

The implications are enormous, for global commerce, and especially for America.

China straddles both worlds. It’s the world’s largest coal producer and consumer – and the second-largest fossil fuels consumer after the USA.Although the United States remains the planet’s largest oil and gas producer, government policies are restricting investment in future domestic production, forcing U.S. companies to scour the world to increase production.

The autocratic Producers clearly benefit from America’s declining production, because major Consumers (India, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa and others) that buy oil, gas and petrochemicals must feed their people, fuel their vehicles, and sustain or grow their economies at reasonable cost.

Giant energy Producer Russia continues to sustain its economy and finance its war in Ukraine, as it waits for Western electorates to lose patience and reduce military aid. Moscow counts on continued fossil fuel sales to Consumercountries, particularly China.

China is importing record amounts of oil and gas from Russia, making it the largest financier of Russia’s Ukraine war. China’s dual-use technologies also enter indirectly into the Russian war machine. Courtesy of Saudi Arabia’s Aramco, China is building new refineries and becoming a major petrochemicals producer – even as Biden energy policies curtail U.S. refinery and petrochemical investments.

Petrochemicals fuel or provide building blocks for just about everything. They therefore add tremendous value to the crude oil China imports from Russia.

Meanwhile, America and the West pursue sweeping policies on “manmade climate change.” That means they deride and downgrade the value of fossil fuels that are the lifeblood of all industrialized nations: Producers, Consumers and those fortunate or wise enough to play both roles. (continue reading)

Abandon Fossil Fuels, Empower China

From: Watts Up With That

By: Willis Eschenbach

Date: July 7, 2023

Fossil and Non-Fossil Fuels

In my previous post, The Myth Of Replacing Fossil Fuels, I looked at the new BP global use of fossil and non-fossil fuels. In this post, I’ll take a more detailed look at individual countries, and then return to world values. To start with, here’s what I learned along the way.

Figure 1. Population by Country

Given that, let me look at the energy usage by source of the most populous countries. You may recall from my previous post that in many analyses they use what are called “input-equivalent” values for non-fossil fuels. These are the true values multiplied by 2.5 or more. Why use those? I’ll repeat BP’s explanation.

While there are indeed uses for those artificially inflated energy values, what they don’t do is show us just how much energy is actually coming from each source. So let me go through the biggest countries, showing the true energy usage by source. We’ll start with China, although by the very latest figures, India is now the most populous country. (continue reading)

Fossil and Non-Fossil Fuels

From: Watts Up With That

By: Bob Irvine

Date: July 5, 2023

Does Wind Intermittance Over Short Hourly Periods Gives a Clearer Picture?

Cheap intermittent renewables appear to be very expensive.

The current Australian Government has ruled out nuclear energy and is committed to phasing out all fossil fuel base load power with gas seen as a transition fuel to an energy grid run entirely by intermittent wind/solar with battery or pumped hydro storage, with a small contribution from direct hydroelectric base load.

Can any of the electrical engineers at this site estimate the cost to consumers of a system run in this way. Is such a system even possible?

I live in Queensland, Australia. Until 30/6/23 our power bill for general usage was 25.559 Aus cents per kwh. On the 1/7/23 it jumped to 31.724 Aus cents per kwh a rise of about 24%. This is up from about 19 cents per kwh a few years ago.

The long-term picture is not much better. The Australian power price history has a close correlation with the penetration of intermittent generation into the system. See Figure 1, below.

Figure 1, Australian Energy prices compared to intermittent wind/solar penetration into the grid.

The Australian Energy market Operator (AEMO) has been singing the praises of “low cost” wind/solar for many years now.

To counter these assertions, I decided to collate the daily wind energy input to the Main Australian Grid, referred to here as simply the “grid”. This Main Australian Grid has an enormous area but does not include the Western Australian grid which is separate and about 8% of the size of the main grid.

My data source is this great site compiled over many years by Anton Lang. Thanks Anton. (continue reading)

Does Wind Intermittance Over Short Hourly Periods Gives a Clearer Picture?

From: Watts Up With That

By: Willis Eschenbach

Date: July 3, 2023

The Myth Of Replacing Fossil Fuels

A hat tip to the commenter on one of my posts who was kind enough to give me a heads-up as follows:

Mark BLR June 30, 2023 2:23 am

BP handed over the production of their “Statistical Review of World Energy” to an outfit called the “Energy Institute” at the end of last year.

They released the new version, with annual data updated to 2022, on Monday (4 days ago).

The latest (.xlsx) spreadsheet can be downloaded from the following URL :
https://www.energyinst.org/statistical-review/resources-and-data-downloads

Since I had the new data, I thought I’d update the following graphic that I made a few years ago, which only covered up to 2019.

Figure 1. The 2019 version of energy consumption.

When I put that out, people were saying things like “You don’t understand. Solar and wind are growing exponentially! Just wait a few years and you’ll see!”

So, having now waited a few years, here’s the 2022 version. This time I’ve split out fossil fuels as a separate line. I’ve also added a line for traditional biomass. All the data is from the BP spreadsheet linked above except traditional biomass, which is from Our World In Data.

Figure 2. The 2022 version, including traditional biomass and fossil fuels as separate lines.

There are some very interesting things about this graphic. First, all the solar and wind in the world combined doesn’t provide even a third of the energy we get from wood and dung. (continue reading)

The Myth Of Replacing Fossil Fuels

Six Phases of a Project

1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic
4. Search for the guilty
5. Punishment of the innocent
6. Praise and honors for the non-participants

This “smart joke” apparently originated in computer science in the 1970s and spread rapidly from there. It provides a humorous perspective on the history of a failing project and the fallout from its failure. It also provides a perspective from which we can analyze the current state of the “Net Zero by 2050” project.

The Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario is an International Energy Agency scenario which identifies a potential path for all nations of the globe to achieve net zero annual CO2 emissions by 2050 to achieve the objectives of the Paris Accords. The almost universal agreement to the objectives of the Paris Accords by UN member nations led to great enthusiasm regarding potential future emissions reductions.

“The Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario is built on the following principles:

• The uptake of all the available technologies and emissions reduction options is dictated by costs, technology maturity, policy preferences, and market and country conditions.
• All countries co-operate towards achieving net zero emissions worldwide. This involves all countries participating in efforts to meet the net zero goal, working together in an effective and mutually beneficial way, and recognising the different stages of economic development of countries and regions, and the importance of ensuring a just transition.  
• An orderly transition across the energy sector. This includes ensuring the security of fuel and electricity supplies at all times, minimising stranded assets where possible and aiming to avoid volatility in energy markets.”

Disillusionment followed enthusiasm as night follows day as the violation of the above principles developed. Issues of the cost of technologies and emissions reduction options were offset by government subsidies and incentives, technology maturity was replaced by technology forcing regulations and market and country conditions were ignored. The only unaffected component of the first principle above was policy preferences.

The all-country cooperation called for in the second principle above succumbed to economic development priorities in the developing nations and disagreements over the requirements of a just transition. China, India, Indonesia and numerous African nations prioritized economic development over net zero pursuit and chose to base much of their economic development on increased use of coal and other fossil fuels. There are also continuing concerns over development funding from the developed nations to the developing nations.

The orderly transition across the energy sector fell prey to the intermittency of renewable generation, the immaturity of the storage technologies necessary to support renewable generation during periods of low/no renewable generation, the premature closure of conventional generation capacity, the Russian war in Ukraine and the US Administration war on the fossil fuels industries. Significant volatility in the energy markets in Europe, North America, Japan and Australia has resulted.

The failure of the IEA principles has led to panic in Europe and the UK as energy supplies have decreased and energy prices have increased rapidly. Numerous European industries have shut down or reduced production as the result of energy supply shortages and rising energy prices.

The political classes in the developed nations have focused the search for the guilty on Russia, though there is plenty of guilt to go around and they will ultimately share in it.

The punishment of the innocent is focused on the citizens and industries in the developed nations exposed to rising energy prices and the possibility of major energy shortages.

So far there has been no apparent effort to provide praise and honors for the non-participants, whoever they are.

From: Watts Up With That

By: Roger Caiazza

Date: July 2, 2023

RGGI Investment Report Lessons for Cap and Invest Programs

Cap-and-invest emission reduction programs are supposed to effectively reduce emissions and generate revenues.  The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is an electric sector cap-and-invest program in the NE United States that can provide insight into the potential of these programs.  This post reviews the latest RGGI annual Investments of Proceeds report to determine how well the investments are producing emission reductions and the lessons that should be kept in mind from the observed results.

Background

RGGI is a market-based program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to RGGI:

"The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a cooperative effort among the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia to cap and reduce power sector CO2 emissions.

RGGI is composed of individual CO2 Budget Trading Programs in each participating state. Through independent regulations, based on the RGGI Model Rule, each state’s CO2 Budget Trading Program limits emissions of CO2 from electric power plants, issues CO2 allowances and establishes participation in regional CO2 allowance auctions. (continue reading)

RGGI Investment Report Lessons for Cap and Invest Programs

By: The Aspen Institute

The United States energy independence achieved in 2020 has been sacrificed on the altar of climate change, terminated with malice as part of an effort to “end fossil fuels”. This effort would ultimately make the entire US energy economy dependent upon intermittent renewable generation, some form of energy storage plus existing nuclear, hydro, geothermal, biomass generation and as yet undefined “Dispatchable Emission-Free Resources”.

The ”end fossil fuels” effort has proceeded faster on the supply side than on the demand side, causing the US Administration to go “hat in hand” to OPEC, Venezuela and even Iran seeking to arrange imports of foreign oil to fill the growing gap between domestic supply and demand. This Administration effort has not been well received by those potential suppliers. OPEC has recently announced a 1 million barrel per day reduction in production. US dependence, in this case, is amplified by sales of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve which have left the SPR dangerously depleted.

The transition to a largely renewables plus storage energy economy increases our dependence on weather, as well as on foreign supplies of key materials required for the manufacture of wind turbines, solar collectors and storage batteries. Many of these materials are rare earth minerals, most of which are not currently available in the quantities which would be required to repower the US energy economy and some of which might not ever be available in those quantities. Many of those minerals are primarily controlled by nations which are unfriendly to the US, leaving us dependent on our enemies for our future wellbeing.

The requirement for energy storage in the renewables plus storage energy economy leaves us dependent upon technology which, for the most part, does not exist today and might never exist. The large seasonal variation in wind and solar generator output creates a requirement for long-duration storage capable of storing energy over a period of months when generation is in surplus for use during months when generation is inadequate to meet grid demand. The only established technology for such storage currently in use is pumped hydro storage. However, there has been major environmentalist resistance to the construction of pumped hydro storage facilities, particularly flow of stream facilities which require damming existing waterways.

Elimination of fossil fuel use also faces major challenges in several industries for which there is no existing electric alternative process, such as the production of iron and the calcining of coal. The impact of the “end of fossil fuels” on industrial processes which rely on fossil fuels for their process chemistry, on the synthetic fertilizer industry and on the production of the thousands of products made from derivatives of oil remains uncertain.

Our growing dependence is purportedly driven by a perceived need to avoid the adverse effects of climate change resulting from the emissions of CO2 and CH4 from fossil fuel production and use. However, numerous other nations of the world are increasing their consumption of fossil fuels in the interests of economic development and energy independence. As a result, our growing dependence on weather, renewable energy and energy storage, the increasing cost of energy in our economy and the decreasing reliability and resilience of our electric grid will have no measurable effect on future climate change, but will likely result in economic de-development.

“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”

H. L. Mencken

Government regulators periodically issue regulations which they are fully aware cannot be met with currently available technology; that is, the regulations force the development of the new technology needed to satisfy them within some defined time frame. In some cases, the regulation is expected, not to result in new technology development and implementation, but rather to drive non-compliant equipment and processes from the market when the technology forcing is unsuccessful or the resulting technology is uneconomic.

Government’s climate change efforts include several cases of technology forcing, some clearly intended to drive equipment and processes from the market. One very recent example is US EPA’s proposed tightening of PM 2.5 emission standards to a level which would make compliance of coal-fired generating stations either impossible or uneconomic. The Administration goal to terminate coal-fired electric generation by 2030 virtually guarantees that, even if complying technology became available, it would not be economically justified to install it in a power plant required to cease operation in 2030.

Similarly, requirements to reduce CO2 emissions from natural gas combined-cycle powerplants by applying high level Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) systems would likely drive most or all such generators from the market by the administration’s 2035 goal, since design and installation cost recovery would be virtually impossible over the next 12 years. CCUS would significantly reduce power plant capacity and efficiency and increase operating costs.

The electricity generating system intended to replace coal and natural gas generation is also facing technology forcing. Wind and solar generators operate intermittently and require electricity storage to provide continuous output. There are currently batteries which can provide output smoothing for wind and solar generation for periods of approximately 4 hours. Research is underway on batteries capable of operation over approximately 8 hours. However, the only technologies capable of long-duration support for intermittent generators are pumped hydro and compressed air storage.

The largest current pumped hydro storage facility in the US, the Bath County Pumped Storage Station (BCPSS) has a generating capacity of 3 GW and a storage capacity of 24 GWh. Therefore, it could support intermittent generation with a capacity of 3 GW for a period of 8 full load hours. It would require 15 such storage facilities to replace 3 GW of wind generation with a 50% capacity factor through a 10 day “wind drought”. There has been significant resistance to the construction of such large pumped hydro storage facilities in the US.

Another example of technology forcing is EV batteries. Current light duty EVs are range limited, particularly in very hot and very cold weather. Medium duty trucks and transit buses and similar vehicles require larger batteries to permit full day operation without recharging. Long-haul, over-the-road tractors require sufficient battery capacity to haul maximum legal loads for the maximum number of miles and hours their drivers are permitted to operate. These requirements must be met by 2035 if production of ICE vehicles of those classes is to be banned then.

Finally, while there has been some development effort regarding battery-powered railroad engines, it appears likely that electrification of freight rail will follow the development of electrified passenger rail, drawing power from overhead catenaries using pantographs.

While technology forcing can be effective, there is significant risk to the overall enterprise if the required technology does not become available on the required schedule or its capabilities do not meet the required performance parameters.

Preference :the act, fact, or principle of giving advantages to some over others
:priority in the right to demand and receive satisfaction of an obligation

The federal government, state governments and state utility regulators have established preferences for wind and solar electric generators, requiring that they be the first generators in line to supply power to the grid when weather conditions permit, while essentially freeing them from the obligation to serve since they are understood to be intermittent generators which cannot be dispatched. They are “source of opportunity” power generators, used when they are available and replaced by conventional generation when they are not available.

Wind and solar are widely acclaimed as being the lowest cost source of electricity. They are also preferred because their operation does not result in CO2 emissions which might contribute to climate change. The availability of production tax credits allows wind and solar generators to consistently bid low wholesale prices into utility, ISO (Independent System Operators) and RTO (Regional Transmission Organizations) supply bidding processes. However, their intermittency requires the grids they serve to provide smoothing services and to maintain rapid response generation capacity to compensate for longer interruptions. These services and generation resources add to the real cost of wind and solar generation.

The output of wind and solar generation facilities displaces a portion of the generating capacity of conventional generation in the generation mix. However, the intermittency of wind and solar generation require that conventional generation capacity be available to meet grid demand during periods when wind and solar are not generating, or are not generating at capacity.

Utilities, ISOs and RTOs must maintain operating conventional generation capacity to replace the output of wind and solar facilities when they are not generating, as well as capacity to replace the capacity of the largest conventional generator in operation should it experience an unscheduled outage to assure grid reliability.
 
As the generating capacity of wind and solar increase, the operating outputs of the conventional generators are decreased, though they must remain in operation, ready to satisfy grid demand if wind and/or solar generator output decrease. This increases their cost of operation per MWh generated. The wholesale electricity price is determined by the cost of the next unit of capacity required to meet grid demand. Therefore, as the cost of operation of conventional generation increases, the cost of wholesale power also increases, as does the profitability of wind and solar generation.

Most of the coal-fired conventional generation capacity is utility owned. However, much of the natural gas combined-cycle generation capacity is owned and operated by merchant generators. The utilities are generally able to negotiate rates which maintain the profitability of their coal generation assets. However, the merchant generators might require proportionally higher prices to maintain profitability, further moving them down the dispatch order and further increasing wholesale electricity prices.

The combination of these factors are the reason why intermittent wind and solar generation, while supposedly less costly than conventional generation, have not resulted in reduced electricity rates as promised.