Energy Policy

From: Manhattan Contrarian

By: Francis Menton

Date: December 8, 2022

Looking For The Official Party Line On Energy Storage

If you’ve read my energy storage report, or just the summaries of parts of it that have appeared on this blog, you have probably thought:  this stuff is kind of obvious.  Surely the powers that be must have thought of at least some of these issues, and there must be some kind of official position on the responses out there somewhere.

So I thought to look around for the closest thing I could find to the Official Party Line on how the U.S. is supposedly going to get to Net Zero emissions from the electricity sector by some early date.  The most authoritative thing I have found is a big Report out in August 2022 from something called the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, titled “Examining Supply-Side Options to Achieve 100% Clean Electricity by 2035.”  An accompanying press release with a date of August 30 has the headline “NREL Study Identifies the Opportunities and Challenges of Achieving the U.S. Transformational Goal of 100% Clean Electricity by 2035.”  

What is NREL?  The Report identifies it as a private lab “operated by Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract.”  In other words, it’s an explicit advocacy group for “renewable” energy that gets infinite oodles of taxpayer money to put out advocacy pieces making it seem like the organization’s preferred schemes will work.

Make no mistake, this Report is a big piece of work.  The Report identifies some 5 “lead authors,” 6 “contributing authors,” and 56 editors, contributors, commenters and others.  Undoubtedly millions of your taxpayer dollars were spent producing the Report and the underlying models (which compares to the zero dollars and zero cents that the Manhattan Contrarian was paid for his energy storage report).  The end product is an excellent illustration of why central planning does not work and can never work.

So now that our President has supposedly committed the country to this “100% clean electricity” thing by 2035, surely these geniuses are going to tell us exactly how that is going to be done and how much it will cost.  Good luck finding that in here.  From the press release: (continue reading)

Looking For The Official Party Line On Energy Storage

From: Manhattan Contrarian

By: Francis Menton

Date: December 4, 2022

My Energy Storage Report: Hydrogen As An Alternative To Batteries

As mentioned in the last post, my new energy storage report, The Energy Storage Conundrum, mostly deals with issues that have previously been discussed on this blog; but the Report goes into considerable further detail on some of them.

One issue where the Report contains much additional detail is the issue of hydrogen as an alternative to batteries as the medium of energy storage.  For examples of previous discussion on this blog of hydrogen as the medium of storage to back up an electrical grid see, for example, “The Idiot’s Answer To Global Warming: Hydrogen” from August 12, 2021, and “Hydrogen Is Unlikely Ever To Be A Viable Solution To The Energy Storage Conundrum” from June 13, 2022.

At first blush, hydrogen may seem to offer the obvious solution to the most difficult issues of energy storage for backing up intermittent renewable generation.  In particular, the seasonal patterns of generation from wind and sun require a storage solution that can receive excess power production gradually for months in a row, and then discharge the stored energy over the course of as long as a year.  No existing battery technology can do anything like that, largely because most of the stored energy will simply dissipate if it is left in a battery for a year before being called upon.  But if you can make hydrogen from some source, you can store it somewhere for a year or even longer without significant loss.  Problem solved!

Well, there must be some problem with hydrogen, or otherwise people would already be using it extensively.  And indeed, the problems with hydrogen, while different from those of battery storage, are nevertheless equivalently huge.  Mostly, to produce large amounts of hydrogen without generating the very greenhouse gas emissions you are seeking to avoid, turns out to be enormously costly.  And then, once you have the hydrogen, distributing it and handling it are very challenging.

Unlike, say, oxygen or nitrogen, which are ubiquitous as free gases in the atmosphere, there is almost no free hydrogen available for the taking.  It is all bound up either in hydrocarbons (aka fossil fuels — coal, oil and natural gas), carbohydrates (aka plants and animals), or water.  To obtain free hydrogen, it must be separated from one or another of these substances by the input of energy.  The easiest and cheapest way to get free hydrogen is to separate it from the carbon in natural gas.  This is commonly done by a process called “steam reformation,” which leads to the carbon from the natural gas getting emitted into the atmosphere in the form of CO2.  In other words, obtaining hydrogen from natural gas by the inexpensive process of steam reformation offers no benefits in terms of carbon emissions over just burning the natural gas.  So, if you insist on getting free hydrogen without carbon emissions, you are going to have to get it from water by a process of electrolysis.  Hydrogen obtained from water by electrolysis is known by environmental cognoscenti as “green hydrogen,” because of the avoidance of carbon emissions.  Unfortunately, the electrolysis process requires a very large input of energy. (continue reading)

My Energy Storage Report: Hydrogen As An Alternative To Batteries

The electric utility industry functions within the framework of federal, state and local legislation and regulation. The legislators and regulators are influenced by the renewable energy industry and by numerous environmental advocacy groups. In this environment, the utilities have been required to connect wind and solar generation to the grid and to accept all of the electricity generated by these intermittent renewables on a priority basis whenever it is available.

This intermittent renewable electricity displaces output from conventional electric generators owned and operated by the utilities and their wholesale suppliers to the extent that it is available. However, the conventional generators are still required to provide power during periods when the renewable sources are not generating. Therefore, the fixed costs of the conventional generation are largely unaffected, but the revenue from generation and the associated variable costs are reduced. The net result in an increase in the cost of the power produced by the conventional generators.

Increasing renewable generation further decreases the cumulative output of the conventional generators, but does not reduce the conventional generation capacity required to satisfy grid demand when renewable generation is unavailable. In fact, increased electric demand from customer load growth and fuel switching would increase the capacity of conventional generation required to support the grid even as renewable generation capacity increased, though a portion of the increased conventional capacity requirement could be offset by the addition of electricity storage.

Utilities have agreed to accept the output of renewable generation as produced, without smoothing to eliminate the frequent fluctuations in renewable output or storage capacity sufficient to render the renewable generators dispatchable. This approach reduces the apparent cost of the renewable electricity, but increases the cost and complexity of utility operations.

Utilities could have and likely should have fought to require renewable generators to provide smoothed and dispatchable power meeting the same requirements as their own and their wholesale suppliers’ generators. That approach would have reflected the full cost of renewable generation, which would have been several times the cost of “source of opportunity” generation.

This issue will become critical as renewable generation proliferates and conventional coal and natural gas generators are required to discontinue operation under federal mandates over the next 13 years. The grid support currently provided by the conventional generators would have to be provided by electricity storage, while the stability provided by the inertia of the large rotating turbine generators would have to be provided by power electronics.

Electric utilities earnings are based on an allowable rate of return on net physical plant in service. Electric utility physical plant is typically 70-80% generation. Displacement of utility coal and natural gas generation with third party generation reduces utility earnings potential. This is currently causing utilities to seek to invest in renewable generation capacity, as well as to focus on the investment required to provide electricity storage to support the grid through periods of low/no renewable generation. These investment requirements will be substantially increased by the federal push for “all-electric everything”.

It appears highly unlikely that pursuing this path would result in the long-promised reduced energy costs.

From: The Global Warming Policy Foundation

By: Francis Menton

Date: December, 2022

THE ENERGY STORAGE CONUNDRUM

Introduction and Executive Summary

Advanced economies – including most of Europe, much of the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and others – have embarked upon a quest to ‘decarbonise’ their economies and achieve ‘Net Zero’ emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The Net Zero plans turn almost entirely on building large numbers of wind turbines and solar panels to replace generation facilities that use fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) to produce electricity. The idea is that, as enough wind turbines and solar panels are built, the former coal, oil, and gas-burning central stations can gradually be closed, leaving an emissions-free electricity system.

But wind and solar facilities provide only intermittent power, which must be fully backed up by something – fossil fuel generators, nuclear plants, batteries, or some other form of energy storage – so that customer demand can be matched at times of low wind and sun, thus keeping the grid from failing. The governments in question have then mostly or entirely ruled out fossil fuels and nuclear as the backup, leaving some form of storage as the main or only remaining option. They have then simply assumed that storage in some form will become available. Their consideration of how much storage will be needed, how it will work, and how much it will cost has been entirely inadequate.

Energy storage to back up a predominantly wind/solar generation system to achieve Net Zero is an enormous problem, and very likely an unsolvable one. At this time, there is no proven and costed energy storage solution that can take a wind/solar electricity generation system all the way to Net Zero emissions, or anything close to it. Governments are simply setting forth blindly, without any real idea of how or whether the system they mandate might ultimately work or how much it will cost. The truth is that, barring some sort of miracle, there is no possibility that any suitable storage technology will be feasible, let alone at affordable cost, in any timeframe relevant to the announced plans of the politicians, if ever.

This report seeks to shine a light on the critical aspects of the energy storage problem that governments have been willfully ignoring.

Section 1 shows that full backup is indispensable in an electricity grid powered mainly by intermittent generation. Without it, there would be frequent blackouts, if not grid collapse. It doesn’t matter if one builds wind and/or solar facilities with capacity of ten or one hundred or even one thousand times peak electricity usage. On a calm night, or during days or weeks of deep wind/sun drought, those facilities will produce nothing, or close to it, and only full backup of some sort – that is, backup sufficient to supply all of peak demand for as long as it takes – will keep the grid from failing. (continue reading)

THE ENERGY STORAGE CONUNDRUM

Electric utilities find themselves positioned between the renewable generation industries (wind and solar) and electricity end users. Their relationships with these groups are controlled or influenced by legislation and regulation at the federal, state and local levels. Utilities are coming to regret some decisions they have made in this highly politically charged environment as the percentage of renewable energy generation increases.

Several electric utilities agreed to serve residential and small commercial customers with on-site solar generation capacity using simple net metering, in which the customers’ electric meters run backwards when customer generation exceeds on-site energy demand. This was viewed as a trivial issue when on-site solar installations were  less common, but has become a significant issue as on-site solar generation has proliferated.

Residential and small commercial electric rates typically consist of a fixed monthly service charge and a variable consumption charge. These charges are set in rate cases filed with state utility commissions. It is common for the fixed monthly service charge to recover only a fraction of the utilities’ fixed costs (25-50%). The remainder of the fixed costs are recovered in the variable portion of the rate, based on the quantity of electricity sold to each customer class during a “test year”.

Simple net metering allows the on-site generating customers to be compensated not only for the current wholesale cost of avoided incremental electricity generated or purchased by the utilities, but also for the portion of the utilities’ fixed costs included in the variable portion of the rate. This causes the utilities to under-recover their fixed costs until the next rate case, when that portion of the fixed costs could be reallocated, increasing the variable rate paid by all customers in the class.

Simple net metering results in a subsidy from non-generating customers to on-site generating customers. Several electric utilities have approached their regulatory commissions to switch from simple net metering to an arrangement which compensates the on-site generating customers for only the utilities’ avoided wholesale cost of power. These efforts have been aggressively resisted by the solar energy industry and by on-site generation consumer groups and climate advocacy groups, because this compensation approach significantly reduces the on-site generation customers’ annual electricity cost savings.

Many customers’ solar purchase decisions were and are based on the assumption of continued simple net metering. Compensation at a reduced rate decreases the attractiveness on on-site solar for both existing and potential future solar generation customers. Existing on-site generation customers believe they are entitled to continue to benefit from the cost shifting to non-generating customers, since their purchase decisions were based on this compensation approach. Solar contractors see their future business volumes threatened by the reduced customer compensation per kilowatt hour returned to the grid.

Several state utility commissions have attempted to take the Solomonic approach to resolving the issue, suggesting customer compensation somewhere between the wholesale and retail cost of electricity. However, such an approach only reduces, but does not eliminate, the cross subsidy from non-generating to on-site generating customers. It remains unfair to the utilities and their non-generating customers.

From: Climate Etc.

By: Planning Engineer (Russell Schussler)

Date: November 28, 2022

Exploiters Versus Experts

The unfolding saga around FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange currently in bankruptcy, appears to share some similarities with factors which led to the demise of Enron. Enron and FTX both initially achieved success because they were able to exploit some of the inefficiencies present in a complex system.

While it is a great thing to identify and correct inefficiency, the abilities of those who do so may be greatly overestimated at times.  As with Enron, it may have taken a special brilliance for Sam Bankman-Fried to capitalize on some shortcomings in crypto markets. But is the influence he received, the many speaking engagements and the adoring press commensurate with accomplishments and abilities?

You don’t have to be an overall expert in regards to a complex system in order to discover and tinker with particular inefficiencies and shortcomings within that system. In fact, successful exploiters may be grossly ignorant or worse, misinformed about major factors of the complex system. The ability to exploit a system does not mean that the exploiter is capable of redesigning the system, building a system ground up or even maintaining their edge. This post examines the initial success and ultimate failure of Enron’s attempt to transform the energy market before concluding with some thoughts around exploiters and experts.

Before Enron

In the period prior to the emergence of Enron and other power marketers, utilities operated in a more isolated fashion when developing, operating and scheduling their power supply. While there were power sales between utilities which might be triggered by supply and demand imbalances, the concept of short-term sales of energy based on incremental cost differentials was not even on the radar of many within the power industry. (continue reading)

Exploiters Versus Experts

The principal thrust of the UNFCCC and the IPCC has been on climate change mitigation through reductions in global annual emissions of CO2 and other ‘Green House Gases’ (GHGs). The focal point of their efforts has been keeping the increase in the global average temperature anomaly to 2°C (later 1.5°C), primarily through reductions in global annual CO2 emissions. Increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations are believed to be driving the global average temperature anomaly increase and to be exacerbating the frequency, intensity and duration of extreme weather events.

The EU nations, the US, Canada and Australia have adopted goals to reduce annual CO2 emissions and to achieve net zero annual CO2 emissions by 2050. The path to achieving these emissions reductions involves closing coal and natural gas generating units, and in some cases nuclear generating units, and replacing them with intermittent renewable wind and solar generation, supported by electricity storage and “Dispatchable Emission-Free Resources” (DEFRs).

The UN has determined that these nations are not achieving the emissions reduction pledges they have made and is calling for “greater ambition” on their part. These efforts are being bolstered by declaration of a “red alert” and repeated cries of “climate crisis”, “existential threat" and “climate emergency”. The response of these nations, in the face of a global energy crisis, has been “lip service”, delays in planned nuclear and fossil generating plant closures and an increase in fossil generation.

The increased CO2 emissions resulting from the developed nations response to the energy crisis are being swamped by rapid increases in developing nation CO2 emissions, primarily from increases in coal-fired generation, but also from increases in natural gas generation. The result has been an unabated rate of increase of global annual CO2 emissions, rather than the reduction perceived to be necessary to reduce or eliminate climate change.

This situation is focusing increased attention on efforts to adapt to climate change by adapting to the impact of severe weather events which might be affected by climate change. Severe weather events, such as droughts, floods, tropical cyclones and tornadoes are not new occurrences and any affect of climate change on the frequency, severity and duration of those events is questionable at best. Wildfires are not severe weather events but are often triggered by weather events such as lightning storms.

Adaptation efforts can include construction of reservoirs to retain flood waters to prevent or lessen downstream damage and provide additional supplies of water for irrigation and residential, commercial and industrial consumption. Adaptation can also include avoiding placement of infrastructure on shorelines and in flood plains. Structures can be hardened to resist the effects of tropical cyclones and tornadoes. Forests can be cleared of underbrush and debris to reduce the availability of combustibles in the path of fires.

Mitigation efforts will not end climate change, which has been occurring for the entire history we have been able to study, though they might reduce or eliminate any anthropogenic component of future climate change. Adaptation efforts will not eliminate losses from severe weather events, though they reduce the resulting loss of life and property damage.

Fascism
1: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control

Elements of fascism have reared their ugly heads in the US response to climate change including autocratic government, economic regimentation and forceable suppression of opposition.

Examples of autocratic federal government actions include: ordering an end to coal-fired electric generation by 2030; ordering an end to natural gas-fired generation by 2035; ordering an end to fossil fuel combustion by 2050; terminating oil and gas leasing and revoking oil and gas production permits; ordering half of vehicles sold to be EVs by 2030; and, ordering all new vehicles sold to be EVs by 2035.

Ending coal and natural gas generation will shutter numerous generators which have not yet reached the ends of their useful lives, destroy the primary market for bituminous coal and a major market for natural gas, terminate the employment of numerous powerplant workers, coal miners and oil and gas field workers and strand $ trillions of coal and natural gas reserves. The federal government is effectively expropriating the property of the power plant and coal mine owners, likely with no compensation for their losses. Shuttering the coal and natural gas generating stations will also remove the primary sources of the power required to compensate for the intermittency of wind and solar generation.

Terminating oil and gas leasing and operating permits will cause oil and gas availability to decline as existing producing wells are depleted. The federal government has made no obvious provisions to assure that oil and gas supplies will remain sufficient to meet demand as supplies are depleted.

The federal government and several state governments have mandated a transition from ICE vehicles to EVs. Manufacturers are being forced to transition their product lines to EVs until all new vehicles sold must be EVs. Purchasers will face declining vehicle choices, higher vehicle prices, reduced vehicle utility and expensive battery replacement. This transition is being forced in the face of unresolved issues with spontaneous battery fires in personal vehicles, light duty trucks and transit buses. Owners retaining ICE vehicles will be faced with challenges regarding fuel and maintenance availability.

The federal government is also coordinating with the broadcast and print media and with internet social media organizations to suppress skepticism regarding the government’s climate change initiatives. The various media organizations are employing “fact checkers” to suggest that information from skeptical sources is labeled as disinformation or misinformation. The federal government has also acted against numerous climate scientists who question the government’s narrative regarding the future dangers of climate change. These scientists’ employers have been periodically harassed by senators and congressmen. Some scientists have been removed from state and federal government positions for refusing to support the government narrative.

Precautionary Principle: An expression of a need by decision-makers to anticipate harm before it occurs. Within this element lies an implicit reversal of the onus of proof: under the precautionary principle it is the responsibility of an activity-proponent to establish that the proposed activity will not (or is very unlikely to) result in significant harm.

Murphy's Law: An observation: anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Environmental activists have frequently asserted the Precautionary Principle as the basis for immediate and aggressive actions to limit climate change despite the manifold uncertainties in climate science’s projections of future climate conditions. Their approach frequently appears to be based in part on Murphy’s Law.

While environmental activists have been very vocal regarding the uncertain, projected future dangers of climate change based on the outputs of unverified climate models, they have been far less vocal regarding the clear and present dangers of Lithium battery fires, both in EVs and in grid-scale storage installations.

Fortunately, there appear not to have been any fatalities in EV fires, except when the vehicle was involved in a crash. However, there have been numerous instances of spontaneous vehicle fires, some during charging and others when the vehicle was parked. There also appear to have been no fatalities in EV transit bus fires, which have occurred both when the buses were being charged and when they were parked waiting to begin a scheduled route. (here, here and here) There have been no reported battery fires in transit buses while carrying passengers. There have so far been no reported incidents of battery fires in EV school buses.

A fire aboard the trans-Atlantic vehicle ship Felicity Ace, which was carrying approximately 4,000 vehicles including numerous EVs, destroyed the ship and its cargo. The cause of the fire is uncertain, though it appears likely that a spontaneous EV battery fire was the cause. EV batteries were certainly a major contributor to the fire, which the ship’s crew were not able to control.

There have also been Lithium battery fires in grid-scale storage batteries. (here, here) In both cases, these incidents appear to have been triggered by malfunctions of the battery cooling systems.

Numerous owners and operators are considering banning parking and charging of EVs in parking structures, including the basements of apartment complexes and shopping centers because of the fire risk and the extreme difficulty of extinguishing Lithium battery fires.

It would seem that environmental activists promoting the application of the Precautionary Principle regarding potential future climate change should be at least as concerned regarding the clear and present danger of EV battery fires. There is no urgent need to adopt EVs for a variety of uses until the issue of spontaneous battery fires has been addressed and resolved. These fires are a particular concern in school buses and transit buses because the fires are so intense and spread so quickly that evacuation might be hindered or even prevented. This is also the case for parking and charging EVs under apartment buildings.

Dominion Energy has proposed to build Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) a 176 wind turbine farm off the Virginia coast. The Virginia Legislature had predetermined that such a project was in the public interest. The Virginia State Corporation Commission (VSCC) has approved a rate increase related to funding of CVOW, though many project details remain to be finalized and many environmental approvals are outstanding.

The rating plate generating capacity of CVOW is 2.6 GW. Project output would be expected to range from 0 GW to 2.6 GW. The International Energy Agency estimates an annual capacity factor of 50% for offshore wind turbines. I will use that estimate here, since there is no significant US experience with wind farms off the US East coast. Therefore, CVOW would be expected to generate an annual average of ~1.3 GW, ranging from ~1.6 GW in Winter to ~0.8 GW in Summer.

The daily and seasonal output variations would require significant long-duration storage to allow the output of CVOW to be dispatchable. For example, the stored electricity required to make up the difference between annual average capacity and average summer capacity (1.3 GW – 0.8 GW = 0.5 GW) for a single Summer month would be approximately 372 GWh (0.5 GW * 24 hours/day * 31 days), while the capacity required to make up the difference between average winter capacity and average summer capacity would be approximately 595 GWh (0.8 GW * 24 * 31).

Dominion Energy is the majority owner of the Bath County Pumped Storage Station (BCPSS), which was frequently described as “the largest storage battery in the world”. BCPSS has a generating capacity of 3 GW and a total storage capacity of 24 GWh. Therefore, BCPSS could replace the full capacity of CVOW for approximately 9 hours (24 GWh / 2.6 GW). It would require 15-25 storage stations like BCPSS to render CVOW dispatchable seasonally based on storage capacity.

Construction of a pumped storage facility with the capacity of BCPSS would cost approximately $4 billion, or approximately $160 per kWh ($4,000,000,000 / 24,000,000 kWh), or approximately half the NREL estimated cost of battery storage. The cost of each new storage station would be approximately 40% of the estimated cost of CVOW.

Of course, the above calculations are all estimates since all of the inputs to the calculations are estimates. However, the largest uncertainty regarding the overall project is the amount of storage capacity which would be required in the Dominion Energy grid to maximize the value of the contribution of CVOW on an annual basis. Determining the optimal storage capacity would require a detailed analysis of the generating capacity mix planned for the future Dominion Energy renewable plus storage grid, including allowances for load growth resulting from population increases and from accommodating the federal goal of Net Zero by 2050.

The 2050 Net Zero Dominion Energy grid would be expected to exhibit annual electricity demand and consumption approximately 4 times current demand and consumption. That would be a massive technical and economic challenge.

From: RealClear Energy

By: Joseph Toomey

Date: September, 2022

Energy Inflation Was by Design

FOREWORD
by Rupert Darwall

The West is experiencing its third energy crisis. The first, in 1973, was caused by the near-quintupling of the price of crude oil by Gulf oil producers in response to America’s support for Israel in the Yom Kippur war. Their action brought an end to what the French call the trente glorieuses-the unprecedented post-World War II economic expansion. The second occurred at the end of the 1970s, when Iran’s Islamic revolution led to a more than doubling of oil prices. This again inflicted great economic hardship, but the policy response was far better. Inflation was purged at the cost of deep recession. Energy markets were permitted to function. High oil prices induced substitution effects, particularly in the power sector, and stimulated increased supply. In the space of nine months, the oil price cratered from $30 a barrel in November 1985 to $10 a barrel in July 1986. It’s no wonder that the economic expansion that started under Ronald Reagan had such long legs.

This time is different. The third energy crisis was not sparked by Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies or by Iranian ayatollahs. It was self-inflicted, a foreseeable outcome of policy choices made by the West: Germany’s disastrous Energiewende that empowered Vladimir Putin to launch an energy war against Europe; Britain’s self-regarding and self-destructive policy of “powering past coal” and its decision to ban fracking; and, as Joseph Toomey shows in his powerful essay, President Biden’s war on the American oil and gas industry.

Hostilities were declared during Joe Biden’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. “I guarantee you. We’re going to end fossil fuel,” candidate Biden told a climate activist in September 2019, words that the White House surely hopes get lost down a memory hole. Toomey’s paper has all the receipts, so there’s no danger of that. As he observes, Biden’s position in 2022 resembles Barack Obama’s in 2012, when rising gas prices threatened to sink his reelection. Obama responded with a ruthlessness that his erstwhile running mate lacks. He simply stopped talking about climate and switched to an all-of-theabove energy policy, shamelessly claiming credit for the fracking revolution that his own EPA tried to strangle at birth.(continue reading)

Energy Inflation Was by Design

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
George Santayana

“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Winston Churchill

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."
Albert Einstein

History: a chronological record of significant events (such as those affecting a nation or institution) often including an explanation of their causes
Merriam-Webster

History does not repeat itself identically because too many factors surrounding events differ or are subject to change during and after the events. History is easier to understand the more recent it is because more detail regarding an event is available for analysis and the factors surrounding the event have had less time to change. The ideal situation is the ability to analyze a series of events as they unfold in real-time, on their way to becoming history.

We currently have the opportunity to analyze several series of events regarding the transition from conventional sources of energy to renewable plus storage energy systems based on wind and solar generation. These series of events have occurred in two different states in the US and in two different nations in Western Europe. While each series of events was and is impacted by a unique set of surrounding factors, they share several common characteristics.

Each series of events involved aggressive introduction of renewable generation, while virtually ignoring electricity storage and relying on conventional generation to provide backup power when the intermittent renewable generation was either unavailable or operating below rating plate capacity.

Each series of events involved premature closure of conventional generating capacity, primarily coal and nuclear generation, thus reducing the backup capability of the remaining conventional generation.

Each series of events involved an unusual, but not unprecedented, weather event which significantly reduced the availability of the intermittent renewable generation capacity for a period of several days. These weather events included wind droughts in California and western Europe and unusually cold weather in Texas.

Each of these series of events has been accompanied by a significant increase in electric energy prices, despite government assurances that the transition to renewable generation would reduce electricity prices. These price increases are largely the result of the fact that the renewable generation is redundant capacity, since it continues to require equivalent conventional generation capacity as backup.

The consequences of these series of events in Western Europe have been aggravated by Russian reductions in natural gas deliveries, which then reduced the available natural gas combined-cycle generation output. This has resulted in numerous business and industry closures or output reductions due to reduced competitiveness or insufficient energy availability. Several Western European nations have altered planned conventional generation closures and begun reopening closed conventional generation.

States and nations which have not yet experienced similar series of events and their effects have the opportunity to learn from this history as it unfolds around them in real-time. Scheduled conventional generation plant closures are being deferred and expansion of electricity storage capacity is being re-evaluated. Continuing to do the same things is being questioned.

“That's why I think we need to recognize it has to be about innovation instead. If we focus on making green energy so cheap that eventually everyone will want it, then we can get everybody on board, and we can do so very, very cheaply. So, we can spend less money and do much more good by investing in research and development, rather than focusing on what has failed for the last 20 years”. - Bjorn Lomborg

Energy has been a critical factor in improving humans’ quality of life and lifespan. Lomborg has repeatedly emphasized the importance of the availability of adequate energy, clean water and sanitation to improve the quality of life in developing nations. He has also criticized the developed nations’ focus on investments in current technology intermittent renewable electricity generation, which he views as relatively less important.

Lomborg’s focus on innovation to make “green energy so cheap that eventually everyone will want it” makes eminent good sense. Unfortunately, that is the exact opposite of the path being followed by the UN, EU, UK, US, Canada and Australia. The UN is demanding and the developed nations are forcing an accelerated conversion of their energy economies to reliance on intermittent wind, solar and electricity storage. These conversions are being driven, not by citizen demand, but rather by legislation and regulations requiring replacement of fossil fuels for all energy end uses with renewable generation and storage. They are also being supported by government incentives which have been available for decades.

This enforced transition has resulted in dramatic increases in energy prices in these countries, despite government and developer assertions that wind and solar are the cheapest sources of electricity. It is also leading to impending shortages of energy, energy consumption restrictions and electric grid unreliability and instability. These issues are also being aggravated in Western Europe by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s use of the natural gas it sells to those nations as a geopolitical bargaining tool, reducing gas deliveries below contracted volumes.

The current situation, rather than “making green energy so cheap that eventually everyone will want it”, is making green energy so expensive that eventually no one will want it. In the process, it is also making fossil fuel generation more expensive, since fossil generators are required to provide backup for the intermittent renewables when they are not generating, causing the fossil generators to be operated for fewer hours and to generate less power while their fixed costs remain constant.

The same governments are also forcing a transition to electric vehicles, again driven by legislation and supported by incentives for vehicle purchase and for installation of vehicle charging stations. However, the EVs are more expensive than internal combustion engine vehicles and there are growing concerns about battery cost and life. EVs have also been plagued recently by a rash of battery fires in personal vehicles, light trucks and transit buses. These fires spread rapidly and are virtually impossible to extinguish. Several jurisdictions are considering banning parking and charging EVs in parking structures because of this issue.

Intermittent renewable generation displaces a portion of the output of conventional coal and natural gas generators, but does not replace those generators. However, depending on intermittent renewable market penetration, the annual output of the conventional generators is reduced and the operation of some generators might be suspended, particularly during the shoulder months.

The reduced operation of these conventional generators increases the unit cost of their output because the fixed costs of the plants and the labor costs of operating and maintaining the plants remain relatively unchanged, but must be allocated to lower generation output. Unit fuel costs also increase slightly as modulated or intermittent operation reduce generator efficiency.

Uncertainty regarding required generator output creates fuel supply issues for the conventional generators. Coal plants maintain a coal pile on the generation site, from which coal is moved to the steam boiler. The coal in the pile represents an unrecovered expense for the generator. Therefore, the pile must remain large enough to meet demand without burdening the generator with excessive unrecovered expense throughout the year. While coal generators can load-follow over a wide range of output, restarting a coal generator from a “cold start” can take 10 or more hours. A decision to shut down a coal plant must take this restart time into account.

Natural gas generators do not maintain on-site fuel supply, but rely on contemporaneous pipeline fuel delivery. This typically has not been an issue when adequate pipeline capacity and adequate gas quantities are available. However, with variable or interruptible generator operation, the generator cannot enter into firm, fixed-price contracts for natural gas delivery and is reluctant to contract for firm pipeline capacity. Therefore, natural gas generators typically rely on interruptible pipeline capacity and purchase their natural gas in the spot market as required.

However, changes in the market are having an impact on this gas supply scenario. Numerous utilities with significant coal generation capacity will be required to retire those generators by 2030 to meet the Administration’s emission reduction goals. Several of these utilities are considering adding natural gas generators to replace the coal generating capacity. However, the Administration’s actions limiting oil and gas exploration and production will limit future gas availability, while its resistance to new natural gas pipeline construction will limit access to natural gas for future natural gas generators.

As natural gas production declines, the quantity of natural gas available in the spot market will also decline, increasing the spot market price and reducing generator access to fuel when required. This situation manifested in Texas in 2021, when high gas demand for heating in very cold weather dramatically reduced spot market gas availability and restricted gas plant generation. This problem was compounded by difficulties in restarting inoperative gas generators which had not been winterized.

This issue will become more critical as the market penetration of intermittent renewables increases and as the US energy market transitions to ‘all-electric everything” until grid-scale storage is available to support the intermittent generation. There remains a risk that storage capacity additions lag behind the loss of conventional generation capacity.

From: American Energy Alliance

By: Thomas Pyle

Date: May 26, 2022

100 Ways Biden and the Democrats Have Made it Harder to Produce Oil & Gas

Joe Biden and the leadership of the Democratic party have a plan for American energy: make it harder to produce and more expensive to purchase. Since Biden took office, his administration and Congressional Democrats have taken over 100 actions deliberately designed to make it harder to produce energy here in America.

32 of these anti-energy proclamations were enacted after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which Biden regularly touts as an excuse for rising gas prices.

This is exactly what the Green New Deal agenda is, making the sources of energy needed every day for families around the country too expensive to afford.

The Democratic plan for lower gas prices is simple: blame everyone else, buy an electric vehicle, and don’t be poor. The Biden administration has made it clear they value the support of the radical environmental lobby more than lowering prices at the pump.

Below is a list of 100 explicitly anti-energy actions taken by the administration since Biden took office last January. (continue reading)

100 Ways Biden and the Democrats Have Made it Harder to Produce Oil & Gas