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From: Watts Up With That

By: Kevin Kitty

Date: November 5, 2023

Setting Utility Rates

Until about a year ago, I thought about public utility regulation as too boring, too far outside my education, and unrelated to my ...

The Biden/Harris position on climate change has been shifting (shifty?) as their political campaign has “progressed” toward election day. The Green New Deal is one of the key issues on which the campaign has shifted with regard ...

From: Climate Etc.

By: Russ Schussler

Date: May 3, 2023

Silence of the Grid Experts

There are many reasons why grid experts within the electric utility industry have not spoken out when unrealistic “green” goals ...

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 ...

Broken Window Economics: an event that seems to be beneficial for those immediately involved can have negative economic consequences for many others.

The US and most countries have energy economies based on fossil fuels, plus contributions...

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 ...

Subsidy: a grant by a government to a private person or company to assist an enterprise deemed advantageous to the public.

The US federal government, several state governments and numerous local governments offer subsidies to assist ...

The Administration goal of a fossil free grid by 2035 would require that the renewable portion of grid energy supply be supported by additional renewable generation plus electricity storage. The hourly, daily, monthly and seasonal ...

The capacity factor of solar photovoltaic generation systems varies as a function of geography, season, time of day, weather conditions and solar collector type. The most common utility scale solar array consists of numerous parallel rows ...

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 ...

A reliable electric grid supplied predominantly or exclusively by intermittent renewable generators such as wind turbines and solar arrays would require massive energy storage to provide continuous power to the grid when the output of the ...

“Technology forcing is a regulatory strategy that establishes currently unachievable and uneconomic performance standards to be met at some future point in time. ... Basically, technology forcing sets regulatory standards and provides...

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 ...

“Technology forcing is a regulatory strategy that establishes currently unachievable and uneconomic performance standards to be met at some future point in time. ... Basically, technology forcing sets regulatory standards and provides...

We have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving and much about which to be concerned.

We can be thankful that the much-predicted “climageddon” has not occurred and does not appear to be imminent, or even reasonable, despite ...

From: edmhdotme

Date: April 4, 2023

The contradictory Green policies to limit CO2 emissions

Summary

Currently the burning of Biomass is designated as “CO2 neutral” by Western Nations to give the appearance of reducing CO2 ...

From: Friends of Science Calgary

By: Ken Gregory, P.Eng.

Date: December 21, 2021

The Cost of Net Zero Electrification of the U.S.A.

Executive Summary

Many governments have made promises to reduce greenhouse gas ...

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...

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 ...

From: Forbes

By: Tilak Doshi

Date: January 29, 2024

The Folly Of Climate Leadership

Lessons of UK Energy Policy Failure

Citing an International Energy Agency report, The Daily Telegraph reported on Wednesday that UK ...

From: Manhattan Contrarian

By: Francis Menton

Date: December 10, 2022

The Impossibility Of Bridging The "Last 10%" On The Way To "100% Clean Electricity"

As my last post reported, the Official...

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...

The US electric utility industry has historically sought to achieve “four nines” (99.99%) reliability of service. One key to achieving very high system reliability has been maintaining an approximate 20% capacity reserve margin ...

By: PragerU

From: Net Zero Watch

By: Ross Clark

Date: February 8, 2024

The Retreat from Net Zero

Introduction

The UN meetings on climate change have become renowned for their platitudes, with national leaders falling over each ...

From: Eurasia Review

By: Dr. Lars Schernikau

Date: January 17, 2024

The ‘Energy Trilemma’ And The Cost Of Electricity – OpEd

Why “Renewables” cannot save but cost Billions

Over the last 150 years...

From: Thunder Said Energy

Date: November, 2023

Thermal energy storage: cost model?

This data-file captures the costs of thermal energy storage, buying renewable electricity, heating up a storage media, then releasing the heat ...

From: Thunder Said Energy

Date: December 12, 2023

Thermodynamics of prime movers: energy from first principles?

A highlight of 2023 has been going back to first principles, to study the underpinnings of prime movers in ...

From: Climate Etc.

By: Planning Engineer (Russ Schussler)

Date: February 16, 2024

Time to Retire the Term “Renewable Energy” from Serious Discussions and Policy Directives: Part II

“Renewables”:  some ...

Timing is not a particular issue in market-driven product, process or service transitions. The existing technology applications remain in the market and the new technology applications enter the market and replace them over time. The new ...

The Biden Administration has established targets of reducing US GHG emissions by 50-52% by 2030 and achieving net zero emissions from the electricity sector by 2035. The Administration has not yet publicized a plan to achieve these targets....

I believe that the demonstration project described in the previous commentary should be conducted rigorously and transparently, with broad website access to hourly, daily, monthly and annual data.

The first step in this process would be ...

From: National Review

By: Bjorn Lomborg

Date: March 3, 2022

Turning Down the Climate-Change Heat

The fixation on warming is harming the planet

We live in an age of fear — particularly, a fear of climate change. ...

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 ...

Definition of uncertain (Merriam-Webster)

1a : not known beyond doubt : dubious an uncertain claim
b : not having certain knowledge : doubtful remains uncertain about her plans
c : not clearly identified or defined a fire of uncertain ...

The US currently has approximately 1,250GW of electric generating capacity. Approximately 200GW of that capacity is coal generating capacity, of which approximately 50GW is scheduled to be retired through 2029. The remaining approximately ...

The US currently generates more than 500,000,000 Megawatt-hours, or approximately 25% of annual electricity production, in coal-fueled generating stations. Coal generation has decreased by more than half over the past 10 years, largely ...

“We need to make green energy much cheaper.”, Bjorn Lomborg

Global policymakers appear to have adopted a uniform approach to the green energy transition – making fossil energy unavailable through supply restriction or ...

The previous commentary on USA Climate Priorities discussed priorities regarding climate science, specifically regarding: accurate temperature measurement; establishment of specific values for climate sensitivity and feedbacks; and, ...

One of the most contentious issues in utility ratemaking has been the issue of allocation of both capital and operating costs among customer classes. This allocation has been accomplished through monthly service charges, time of day rates, ...

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 ...

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 ...

By: PragerU

From: Watts Up With That

By: Roger Caiazza

Date: March 28, 2024

Which Power Source is Best

Bud’s Offshore Energy blog highlighted a new national energy report card that is of interest to readers here.  According to ...

By: Clear Energy Alliance

The Administration goal of a fossil free grid by 2035 would require that the renewable portion of grid energy supply be supported by additional renewable generation plus electricity storage. The hourly, daily, monthly and seasonal ...

The capacity factor of wind generation systems varies as a function of geography, season of the year and time of day. The capacity of wind generation systems varies as a function of swept area, wind speed and turbine height. The current US ...

From: Master Resource

By: Robert Bradley Jr.

Date: April 26, 2022

“A Promise Kept: Biden’s War on American Energy”

Some policy statements and summaries are valuable for the historical record. The ...

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...

From: Master Resource

By: Mark Krebs

Date: January 11, 2024

“Green” Weaponization in Missouri: Ameren vs. Ratepayers, Taxpayers

“Ameren Corporation claims, putting in SO2 scrubbers would cost more than securitizing ...