POST-ELECTION THOUGHTS
Let the sunshine!!!
Monday, November 16, 2020
POST-ELECTION THOUGHTS
Friday, October 9, 2020
PRE-ELECTION THOUGHTS
With all the craziness going on in so many aspects of our lives, here are just a few updates on what is going on with energy. Next year looms to be a breakout year for renewables, regardless of who wins, but especially if the Green New Deal comes through. Solar and wind installations are growing, in spite of Covid and the political denial. The nuclear industry continues to tout the promise of cheap, safe new tiny modular reactors, which will not have any major inroad in our electricity generation compared to the renewables potential.
Enough for now. We
just voted by mail yesterday, and anxiously await the next few months to see if
the America we’ve lived and believed in will survive. Stay safe..in so many ways!!!!
Friday, July 24, 2020
WE REALLY NEED NUCLEAR POWER!!!!
Nuclear power, climate change, renewables…It’s all been dictated by a small handful of powerful, greedy, and corrupt people in this country and the world. It has nothing to do with common sense, affordability, or sustainability. It’s been obvious to many of us all along.
So much for the nuclear renaissance…
Saturday, July 18, 2020
SOME REALLY GREAT NEWS
Some
really great news in these troubled times.
As the US
struggles through its chaos, the rest of the world is not standing still, and
continues to move towards a more sustainable future. Recent events have peaked my optimism that
there are a lot of smart people in this world.
Here is some of my joy!
I’ve always admired
the son of a close friend of mine, who went to work for Nextracker, a small
company in the Bay Area, that specializes in solar tracking. He writes software for them, and about a year
and a half ago, they moved him and his family to Australia, to work on what he
said was a fabulous solar project. The 120MW
Bomen Solar Farm has been completed and is up and running.
https://www.westpac.com.au/news/making-news/2020/06/renewable-life-solar-farm-sets-sail-post-ppas/
Just the
other day, he told his dad that the contract was signed for 6 square miles! of solar
surface, for which he will program the solar tracking! This is part of a $20 billion project in Northern
Australia which will produce 10,000MW of solar electricity on about 60 square
miles of land, and coupled with battery storage, will send electricity to
Singapore via a 2400-mile undersea cable.
Many years in the planning, this project is constantly morphing and growing,
as more private investors see the emission-free future, and are expanding the
renewables potential for this part of the world. Vestas is looking at building 5MW of wind, and
other investments in various technologies are looking at Green Hydrogen
production.
My prediction
of hydrogen as the future carrier of energy is now making a very big inroad in
many parts of the world. Years ago, the argument
was over a plutonium or a hydrogen economy.
Sanity and common cents will eventually prevail!
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-and-hydrogen-9-billion-to-spend-as-strategy-is-revealed/a-53719746
Wednesday, June 3, 2020
RENEWABLES IN A TURBULENT TIME
At the risk of
overstating the obvious, these are historic times on all the fronts of
pandemic, climate change, economic instability, and social justice. I can write and speak volumes, but the focus
here is on what has been happening in the area of energy production and use,
and the rather positive news regarding solar and wind. We will always need electricity production,
and the upward trend in renewables capacity is happening in this country, as
well as worldwide. Almost all new generation now and planned is in wind and
solar. Basic economics, which is good
for jobs, the environment, and sustainability.
Coal is continuing
its rapid decline in use, primarily because of its industry cost, not even
taking into account all of its true costs.
Latest figures from whatever powers that be shows coal at 6-8 cents/kwh,
solar PV at 4-5 cents, offshore wind 5-6 cents, and nuclear at 14+ cents. Surprisingly, large scale battery storage is
coming in at 15 cents, with those costs in a fairly rapid decline. Renewables beat coal in electricity
production in the US for the first time in 130 years, and the same is happening
all over the world. The 2250MW Navajo
coal plant recently shut down is being re-powered with PV. The first phase is 200MW, with 550MW more in
the works for now. Not only does this
mean electricity generation worth money, but local jobs and a much cleaner
environment. (1)
In Nevada, Warren
Buffet, who owns the utility, has committed to 600MW near Las Vegas, with
battery storage. (2) Here in Humboldt
County, a new contract has been signed to purchase 100MW of power from a
to-be-built facility near Bakersfield.
This is part of our Community Choice Aggregation which supplies
electricity to whoever wants it in the County.
It is currently comparable with PG&E costs, and will ultimately be
cheaper and more reliable, as PG&E continues to struggle to survive in its
bankruptcy, and ratepayers are on the hook for bailing them out. (3) Coupled with supplying electricity, utilities
are now making serious efforts in the demand-side for electricity via energy
efficiency, which most often is a lot cheaper that production. (4)
The biggest news
comes in the infant technology of storage.
Battery technology is making amazing strides, and virtually all new
large-scale renewable projects include battery back-up. California alone is committing to over
1000MW of new storage. (5) Hawaii,
Arizona, and even Florida are taking part in developing this new technology in
earnest. Costs are high right now (true
costs compared to what?) but as with the other renewable components, the more
that is produced and implemented, the lower the final costs. I still believe Hydrogen will be the ultimate
storage medium, and a lot of research is now heading in that direction. Though the use of hydrogen-fuel cell vehicles
is important, I still feel that large-scale hydrogen production on site at PV
and wind farms will eventually be key to smoothing out the intermittency of
renewable production. (6)
Another shift in conducting energy business is the adoption of microgrids in place of the old model of a large centralized power plant sending electricity in all directions to users. Whether it is Humboldt County, the City of Napa, a school district in the valley…so many entities are seeing the economic value of “small is beautiful” in providing lower costs, more reliability, more local control, more jobs, and less stranglehold from large corporate energy conglomerates.
The complex world of
energy and electricity production is probably the largest financial entity in
the world. Aside from oil, where
individual companies control the entire chain from exploration, extraction,
transportation, refining, and distribution, renewables offer a different
picture, mainly because the fuel is FREE.
This cuts into control and profits, and is the main reason renewables
have been held back for so long by the powers that be. There is still a lot of money to be made in
the future, and it is those that understand how to develop and implement the
technologies that will do well. Here is
an idea I purported many years ago, and it may be time. JinkoSolar in China is spending $1.6 billion
building a facility that by 2022, will produce 16,000MW of solar panels per
year!. (7) What does that mean? It means
that by 2022, panels capable of generating 16,000MW will be available to be
sold and installed wherever. That’s the
equivalent of 16 large nuclear of coal plants, which would cost 10x as much
just to build, take 8+ years, and when on line will only produce +/-1000MW of
electricity. Each year that one
manufacturing facility will an additional 16,000MW of panels. A lot of panels…it would take many years to
produce the 6TW of worldwide generating capacity, but this is just one
technology to be used when appropriate.
We should be building PV manufacturing facilities here in the US and
around the world…JOBS, sustainable energy technology to be developed and put
into operation…over time, this as well as other generating technologies,
storage, efficiency, etc. can get us to
the sustainable future so may bigwigs say is impossible.
One last bit of bright
news is my following a company called Enphase, which originated in the little
town of Petaluma (once the egg capital of the US). They made the inverters used in both my solar
PV systems I installed about three years ago.
They work great. At that time, the publicly traded stock (ENPH) was
selling for around $4.50. This company
has grown, and is actively involved worldwide in microgrids, new inverter
technology partnership with Panasonic, and a bunch of other things. The stock has fluctuated a lot in the past
couple of months…from a high of $64…this morning down to $58.32. There is money to be made in renewables…from
the products themselves to the usage.
The revolution (in
all its fronts) is starting, and my optimism is that people are not really
self-destructive, and we eventually will come out of all this mess in a better
place because we do have the knowledge and technology to do so. What we need is the moral courage to fight
the greed and politics in place now. Let
the sun shine!!!!
Sunday, May 17, 2020
NUCLEAR UPDATE during the pandemic
NUCLEAR UPDATE during the pandemic
As most of the world is in turmoil and a great variety of
businesses and industries look to evolve and adapt to the uncertain future,
life goes on in those many essential services.
The recent dramatic changes in energy use demonstrates that major shifts
in supply and demand can happen very quickly, either by choice or through
unforeseen factors. The recent over-drilling
for oil coupled by a sharp drop in demand and use has shown not only the
vulnerable complexity of artificial price structures; but also a significant
decrease in air pollution, which will be a driving force in our future attempts
to deal with climate change as we rebuild our societies. The continued decline of coal due to cheaper
renewables continues here and across the globe.
That, too, is encouraging. The
nuclear industry continues to drain our dollars, this time not for energy
production, but for costly shutdowns, decommissioning, and waste
management. The current administration
still subsidizes the unattainable myth of cheaper and safer small modular
reactors, the boondoggle of fusion power, and even the expansion of uranium
mining on public lands. The fight for
money goes on!
Here in California, we are still bumbling through the
bankruptcy of PG&E, and the impacts that it is having and will continue to
have on our high electricity and gas prices. The future of the Diablo Canyon
nuclear complex is very unclear as to when it will shut down, will PG&E
sell the license, when decommissioning will actually begin, how long will it
take, and most importantly, how much will it cost and who will pay for it. There is also the unsolved dilemma of the
high-level spent fuel, the hundreds of dry casks to be stored on site, and the
unknown impacts of climate change, earthquakes, etc. Similar issues are facing
the San Onofre units, and the shutdown of Indian Point unit 2 in New York, with
unit 3 to soon follow. Other cleanups
continue at a handful of shuttered plants, as well as difficult and costly cleanup
at the many military and industrial facilities throughout the nation.
The future does not bode well for the supply side of the
nuclear industry. If we remember back to
around 2005, when the “nuclear renaissance” was put forth by the Bush
Administration, guaranteeing subsidies for construction of new plants that were
then deemed to be necessary, and could be built on time and on budget.. Out of the 30+ plans that were submitted, 5
units were chosen. One in Texas never
broke ground, the two units in South Carolina were abandoned after being about
50% completed and billions of dollars over budget, leaving the two Vogle units
in Georgia currently still in process.
Fifteen years later, and at a current estimated cost of $25 billion (up
from the original $8 billion) and still only 60% constructed, here is another
glitch. The foundation of unit 1 is
sinking!!!!! Read the article below…mindboggling!!!! The rest of the nuclear industry continues to
suck up taxpayer dollars for the development of small modular reactors which
supposedly will be built by the hundreds to provide cheap electricity. That will not happen…it is the same myth/hoax
the industry has plied us with for over half a century. Those reactors suffer with not only their costs,
but the main issue not addressed, which is the creation, management, and disposal
of all the high-level and low-level nuclear wastes that are produced through
the vast infrastructure and supply chain.
Low-level wastes are currently disposed of in a handful of
waste dumps in Utah, Texas, Idaho, and Nevada.
The nuclear industry is currently optimistic about the storage of high-level
spent fuel, with a couple of companies taking the lead. The biggest is Holtec, a private company that
back in the early 2000’s just manufactured dry casks. Humboldt Bay bought 6 of these, and the spent
fuel from the decommissioned reactor is encased in these huge cannisters in a
facility located on Humboldt Bay. At the
time, the casks were rated to last about 40 years, the idea being that they
would eventually go to Yucca Mountain for permanent disposal. Politics aside, that is not going to happen,
since the geology of that repository is unsuitable for containment of the
wastes for a minimum of 10,000 years.
Holtec has almost cornered the market today for dry casks (some 15,000
at $1million/cask will eventually be needed) and has ventured out into the full
range of decommissioning business. They
have bought up licenses from utilities with shut down plants, and are making
money in their dismantlement and low-level waste disposal. Their latest attempt is currently in process
to buy Indian Point. I would not be
surprised if they try for Diablo Canyon!
But the real clincher is their attempt to receive approval from the
various federal and state agencies to build a facility in southern New Mexico,
which would accept dry casks from all over the US, and place them on a very
large pad out in the desert. This
concept, called Monitored Retrievable Storage, was proposed about 30 years ago
for a site in Utah, but was dismissed as a potential environmental, economic,
technological, military, etc. disaster.
Picture thousands of casks concentrated out in the open…for how
long? Transportation issues—getting them
there, eventually shipping them to a permanent place? What is the time frame - how long will the
cask survive, how will they be repackaged, monitored, safeguarded from natural
and terrorist attacks??? How much will
all this cost, who will pay…all this is great for Holtec! They can be in
position to control the whole decommissioning process…dismantle the plants, use
their products to transport and store both high and low-level wastes, and have
citizens and ratepayers foot the bill. This
will be a booming business over the next 50 years.
In the very near future we will be forced to re-examining all
our energy systems. The old school, big
money utilities, large scale centralized power plants and the grid, the
incredible impacts on air, water, land, and public health will all be in the
forefront as we seriously address climate change, and embrace the cheaper (in
so many ways) and sustainability of small scale local microgrids and the
continued development of solar, wind, and other renewables, and the coming
surge of electricity storage. As a peer
of mine once said, we are transitioning from a hunter-gatherer society (keep
your hands off of that oil…I found it…it’s mine) to energy farmers, capturing
the solar energy available to us in so many forms, and learning to manage and
store it as nature did for us over the millions of years. At the forefront is an amazing new economy
with jobs, lower costs in every aspect, and a verdant sustainable future. It is just common sense, but will depend on changing
the current politics of greed and capitalism. Let the sun shine.!!!!!
Saturday, January 11, 2020
New Decade Update
On a cold rainy morning waiting for the 49er game to come
on, I want to summarize some of the energy issues that I am following. Without getting into the politics of climate
change, fossil fuel development, degradation of our air, water, and land via
massive environmental deregulation, I still track the ongoing lies and
misconceptions about nuclear power and renewables. All of that is incredibly
connected.
The nuclear industry continues to push for billions of
dollars in subsidies and the folly pursuit of solving the radioactive waste
problems. The Vogle reactors in Georgia
continue to drain consumer and taxpayer coffers in an attempt to put those
reactors on line. Not going to happen!
(1) The two abandoned plants in South
Carolina continue to suck money, even though they definitely will never operate.
(2) The promise of small modular
reactors is really no solution, and their proponents are having a hard time
finding private investment. Even Bill
Gates is backing off his nuclear goals.
The dreams of thorium and fusion continue to fade, although their
proponents continue to demand research money with false promises.
Even without all these construction stumbling blocks, the
real cost of nuclear power is beginning to be understood with the hugely
expensive and difficult processes of decommissioning Diablo Canyon, San Onofre,
Vermont Yankee, Indian Point, Three Mile Island…the list goes on. What to do with the wastes…the high level
spent fuel which has no solution, and now of new concern, the tremendous volumes
of low-level wastes which will be transported all over the country. Good for business for a few private companies
like Holtec. The high-level stuff is
stymied by the billions of dollars spent trying to get a handle on the military
wastes at Hanford, South Carolina, and a host of other sites in the US. The much-touted vitrification plant at
Hanford is 14 years behind schedule, about 2/3 complete, and gone from
$2billion to estimated $25billion…and a lot of concern over it will even work!
(3)
The fossil fuels are also being hammered by economics and
the potential of renewables. Oil is
being threatened by electric vehicles, and coal is on the verge of collapse
because of not only direct economic uncompetitiveness, but it’s huge CO2
footprint. The closure of the Navajo
Generating station in Arizona is portrayed by the media as a disaster in terms
of job loss. It sits in the middle of a
hot, sunny desert. It has the infrastructure
to generate steam with new solar heat technologies, and a huge amount of land
to employ workers installing and developing solar technologies. China recently announced that they are investing
$1billion in building a new PV manufacturing plant, which will manufacture
15,000MW of solar capacity PER YEAR!!! The
Navajo tribe should invest in manufacturing as well as applications. Jobs! $$$s! The future!!!
I am still an optimist in these dire times. The goal for those that care should be
awareness and education as to what is happening, and more important to the
positive solutions of what can be. The
economic value of renewables development is generating some economic push
Goldman Sachs is investing $750billion in renewables, not because they want to
do their good deed in fighting climate change, but because there is MONEY to be
made in this inevitable transition. (4) The huge push now is in electricity storage. Batteries are still in the forefront,
although hydrogen is becoming more and more attractive because of its
potentially low cost when all factors are put into play. (5) More on this later!!
So, in spite of the reduction of that damn solar tax credit
from 30% to $26%, the economics of solar, as well as wind, are leading the path
into the future. Now, if we can just get
the old school big money powers out of the way…or better still, have them
understand that they, too, can make money on the new energy technologies the world
needs. It just means investing in the
future, as opposed to short term huge profits.
Friday, January 3, 2020
Happy New Year
Starting out the new year with some great positive news, at least for me. I have two PV solar systems...one on my house installed in late 2014, and one on the rental, installed in the middle of 2018. This year's generation results are very nice:
My house: initial investment in 2014 was $14,000 after the solar tax credit.
This past year (2019) it generated 4,346KWH of electricity. At the average cost of $0.28/KWH that PG&E charges, I saved $1,217 dollars. This equates to an 11.5% return this past year on my original investment. Or for those still stuck on not really understanding what that really means, an 8.7 year pay back before my investment pays for itself.
My rental: initial investment in 2018 was $6,000 after the solar tax credit.
This past year (2019) it generated 3,952KWH of electricity. At the average cost of $0.28/KWH that PG&E charges. I saved $1,107 dollars. This equates to an 18.5% return this past year on my investment. Or for those still stuck on not really understanding what that really means, a 5.4 year pay back before my investment pays for itself.
An analysis of all this shows that many things have changed in the very recent years. PG&E is in bankruptcy. Everything leading up to that caused the price of electricity they charge to skyrocket. Ten years ago, the retail price for residential was about $0.14/KWH. Mismanagement, political ploys, cost of earlier long-term renewable contracts, ongoing issues with the Diablo Canyon nuclear units, the decommissioning of the Humboldt Bay nuke, and all the changes in energy policy with coal, fossil fuels, etc. on a national level have contributed to this higher cost. Rates are expected to go up another 3.7% soon, and whatever happens to PG&E in the future will not likely bring rates down. Good news for me!!! Good news, that all this is forcing a rethinking, restructuring, etc. in the electricity markets not only in California, but throughout the nation and the world. Good news down the line for consumers and ratepayers; bad news for the corporate bottom line, where PG&E is currently guaranteed a 10.7% profit margin (they recently wanted to raise that to 16.5% so they could "entice" investors and pay their executives more). All this is going to change in the coming year. I still can hear one of the managers at the Humboldt nuke spouting off about those "damn solar subsidies!"
The second major point is that all the costs of solar, and all renewables, are continuing to decline to where today, they are the cheapest way to generate electricity. Cheaper that oil, coal, nuclear, and rapidly approaching natural gas. And if we look at the true price, it is more than just dollars and cents, but now includes CO2, emissions and all the other wastes from the various fuel chains. The major impediments remain..politics, big money from the fossil fuel industries, disinformation and lies, and of course the need for electricity storage. More on that later...big things happening on many fronts, and I am thrilled that Hydrogen (H2) is finally appearing more and more in the energy technology domain.
All of this is so complex and ongoing; but my main point right now is that I just saved a lot of money (tax-free), saved a bunch of emissions from going into the atmosphere, and have done my tiny little bit to support the solar industry and the imminent New Green Energy Deal! Beats having my money in a 1.5% savings account or CD, or depending on a (it was 3.8%, taxable) dividend from PG&E. And, no maintenance fees or costs, other than hosing down the panels a couple of times a year. But then again, the cost of water is going up!
Let the sun shine!!!!!!!!!
My house: initial investment in 2014 was $14,000 after the solar tax credit.
This past year (2019) it generated 4,346KWH of electricity. At the average cost of $0.28/KWH that PG&E charges, I saved $1,217 dollars. This equates to an 11.5% return this past year on my original investment. Or for those still stuck on not really understanding what that really means, an 8.7 year pay back before my investment pays for itself.
My rental: initial investment in 2018 was $6,000 after the solar tax credit.
This past year (2019) it generated 3,952KWH of electricity. At the average cost of $0.28/KWH that PG&E charges. I saved $1,107 dollars. This equates to an 18.5% return this past year on my investment. Or for those still stuck on not really understanding what that really means, a 5.4 year pay back before my investment pays for itself.
An analysis of all this shows that many things have changed in the very recent years. PG&E is in bankruptcy. Everything leading up to that caused the price of electricity they charge to skyrocket. Ten years ago, the retail price for residential was about $0.14/KWH. Mismanagement, political ploys, cost of earlier long-term renewable contracts, ongoing issues with the Diablo Canyon nuclear units, the decommissioning of the Humboldt Bay nuke, and all the changes in energy policy with coal, fossil fuels, etc. on a national level have contributed to this higher cost. Rates are expected to go up another 3.7% soon, and whatever happens to PG&E in the future will not likely bring rates down. Good news for me!!! Good news, that all this is forcing a rethinking, restructuring, etc. in the electricity markets not only in California, but throughout the nation and the world. Good news down the line for consumers and ratepayers; bad news for the corporate bottom line, where PG&E is currently guaranteed a 10.7% profit margin (they recently wanted to raise that to 16.5% so they could "entice" investors and pay their executives more). All this is going to change in the coming year. I still can hear one of the managers at the Humboldt nuke spouting off about those "damn solar subsidies!"
The second major point is that all the costs of solar, and all renewables, are continuing to decline to where today, they are the cheapest way to generate electricity. Cheaper that oil, coal, nuclear, and rapidly approaching natural gas. And if we look at the true price, it is more than just dollars and cents, but now includes CO2, emissions and all the other wastes from the various fuel chains. The major impediments remain..politics, big money from the fossil fuel industries, disinformation and lies, and of course the need for electricity storage. More on that later...big things happening on many fronts, and I am thrilled that Hydrogen (H2) is finally appearing more and more in the energy technology domain.
All of this is so complex and ongoing; but my main point right now is that I just saved a lot of money (tax-free), saved a bunch of emissions from going into the atmosphere, and have done my tiny little bit to support the solar industry and the imminent New Green Energy Deal! Beats having my money in a 1.5% savings account or CD, or depending on a (it was 3.8%, taxable) dividend from PG&E. And, no maintenance fees or costs, other than hosing down the panels a couple of times a year. But then again, the cost of water is going up!
Let the sun shine!!!!!!!!!
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