New Challenges for Renewables

2013 has served as a benchmark for solar and wind, as they have reached the long-awaited point where they are cost-effective and cost-competitive with most other sources of electricity generation.  Utilities everywhere, here and abroad, are jumping on the renewables wagon because they are now appearing to be the “best” new source of generation.  Led by California, and an ever-growing list of commercial and industrial entities such as Apple, Google, Oracle, Ebay, even Walmart) “microgrids are emerging as a credible threat to the dominance of America’s 100-year-old-plus utility monopoly. The small-scale versions of centralized power systems, once just used against blackouts, are now gaining thousands of customers as homeowners in states with high power costs turn to them as a way to manage rooftop solar systems, cut electricity bills and, in some cases, say goodbye to their power companies” (1) This is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, and its rapid growth has identified two major issues that will need to be seriously addressed.

First is the “problem” of intermittency of generation.  The sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow; so the harvesting and storage of electricity from these sources is the next big challenge.  Up to now, solar has been very effective in supplying “peak electricity,” displacing costly fossil fuel generators.  But it has worked so well, that we are approaching times in some places where there is way more renewable electricity available than is demanded. (2) 

Electricity storage is not really a new concept (remember, we are using stored energy from photosynthesis in our oil and gas), and a variety of new and diverse systems will be needed in the future.  Back in the early years of nuclear power in California, PG&E proposed building the 2200MW Diablo Canyon twin nuclear reactors.  At that time, this power plant would produce about 20% of PG&E’s supply.  As with other large steam-driven generators, one cannot simply turn the system on or off to meet demand, such as a night.  If Diablo Canyon came on line, it would create a major problem with all the other generators in the state.  The solution was the construction of the Helms Project. (3) Two lakes at different elevations were identified in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and a large tunnel was drilled between them.  The water from the upper lake is controlled and during the day is released through the shaft to spin generators below to make electricity.  However, this would eventually deplete the upper reservoir.  So at night, the 2200MW from Diablo Canyon is used to reverse-pump the water in the lower lake back up to the upper lake, so it can be re-released again the next day when the demand for electricity was up.  Pretty nifty!  Helms produces about 1000MW when running during the day, and requires about 2000MW for back-pumping; so it around 50% efficient…1000MW of nuclear electricity is “lost,” but that is electricity for which there is no demand in the California grid system, and is deemed “losable.”

California, and other states and utilities, are exploring a wide variety of energy storage systems.  Aside from pumped-storage of water, other technologies include compressed air storage in large cavities (such as those created by the extraction of oil and gas), batteries, ultra-high energy capacitors, and a whole range of new ideas.  My bet is on Hydrogen…use renewable electricity to hydrolyze water into H2, store it on site, and then run it in a fuel cell to created electricity and a waste product of pure water, which can then be reused.  Clean, fairly simple technology that already exists.  Inefficient?  Probably no worse that the 33% efficiency we get from traditional steam generation; and of course, the fuel is free and clean.  The main argument is cost, and the implementation of this technology…but this too, will be addressed and overcome as the true value of the benefits of renewable electricity is slowly absorbed into our energy economic reality.

The other big issue created by this rapid growth of local, micro-generation is its impact on utilities, who claim they are forced to maintain large, inefficient grids supplying fewer and fewer customers.  Also of concern is the price paid to individual generators who wind up putting electricity into the grid as their meters spin backwards. (4) This is reminiscent of what the automobile did to the horse industry, or what the cell phone has done/is doing to the land-line companies.  One main challenge is to modernize and upgrade our national and local grids to accept the new energy resources of the future.  Right-wing, fiscal conservative opposition is in full swing to defeat any recommended changes; but as renewables become mainstream, for economic and/or environmental reasons, electricity

supply and distribution will be very different in the future.  Already, California is leading the way with new regulatory ideas and laws to encourage the continued growth of renewables. 

The transition many have dreamed about is now upon us.  It will not be easy, and not without mistakes and problems.  It will take time, ingenuity, money, and most of all commitment for a safe, clean, affordable, and sustainable future.  And most important of all – it produces local jobs.  It is happening!

Some references:

1. http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2013/07/02/apple-to-build-massive-solar-plant-to-power-data-centers/

http://www.newstimes.com/news/article/Google-makes-1-billion-investment-in-renewable-4655834.php

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-17/ebay-to-ellison-embrace-microgrids-in-threat-to-utilities.html

2. http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=13-P13-00042&segmentID=1

http://polizeros.com/2013/10/10/renewable-energy-calif-faces-supply-problems-says-grid-operator/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PoliticsInTheZeros+%28Politics+in+the+Zeros%29

       3. http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20014426-54.html

http://www.pgecurrents.com/2013/04/23/video-electricity-out-of-thin-air-pge-exploring-new-type-of-clean-energy/

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_24316359/california-poised-adopt-first-nation-energy-storage-mandate

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/07/14/2297591/gamechanger-next-generation-of-wind-turbines-storage-are-cheap-reliable-brilliant/

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/07/14/2297591/gamechanger-next-generation-of-wind-turbines-storage-are-cheap-reliable-brilliant/

3. http://www.forbes.com/sites/uciliawang/2013/09/10/how-utilities-use-solar-energy-to-woo-customers/?ss=business:energy

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/us-utility-chooses-wind-and-solar-cheaper-and-more-reliable-79876

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/in-tampa-a-power-company-fights-the-squeeze-of-slower-growth/2145558

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/10/16/in-sunny-arizona-a-battle-over-solar-power/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/25/solar-arizona-net-metering_n_4164731.html

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/10/arizona-solar-dark-money-aps-net-metering-sean-noble

Nuclear Update

Nuclear power has again been making the headlines on the international front.  Britain has supposedly approved building two reactors at the Hinckley site for $26 billion (US).  What’s interesting is that this is being financed by Chinese and French money, and the reactor technology and construction will be handled by the French company Areva.  This reactor design is currently being built at two projects in Finland and France, and both are behind schedule and way over cost; and the design is untested technology.  Quite a gamble for Britain!  The “selling” points are that it will create a lot of jobs until its projected completion date of 2023; and that the British government will guarantee buying the electrical output at about $0.15/kwh.  This is pretty expensive, but their rationale is that all energy will be expensive 10 years from now.  And again, this “cost” does not realistically include decommissioning and waste disposal costs in the future.  We’ll see if this deal really goes through, or if it turns into another boondoggle down the road.  As with other countries, the Brits are just beginning to deal with the closure of current nuclear plants, and getting a glimpse of what the huge back-end decommissioning and wastes costs will be.  Maybe that’s why they can’t finance this themselves.

The other much bigger news comes from Fukushima in Japan.  Two and a half years after the meltdowns and loss of cooling at the four reactors, the government and the utility in charge are throwing up their hands and admitting they don’t have a clue of what to do.  The fuel is extremely hot and radioactive, so water has to be continually pumped in to cool and shield it from the environment.  However, the buildings and most of the equipment was severely damaged by the earthquake and tsunami, so that much of the water that is pumped in (which now contains radioactive particles) is leaking out into the groundwater and making its way to the Pacific Ocean.   There have been all kinds of suggested solutions: a two mile ice dam around the facility, a major pipeline to pump the contaminated water to a distant storage site where rapidly constructed leaky tanks won’t threaten the ocean, etc, etc.  They are asking for international help.  You’d think that after two and a half years, the British, French, Americans, even the Chinese would have offered some advice.  No clue!

The significance of this is mind-boggling.  This is an accident that is now not limited to a local geographic or national site; the contamination of the Pacific Ocean goes against all the treaties signed in the past to protect the Ocean commons.  Aside from the ecological damage, the impact of fisheries and seafood production, the source of livelihood for millions of people, is at risk.  Enjoy your sushi!  Don’t worry; as Fox News once reported, “a little radiation is good for you!”

On the home front, “decommissioning” now appears to be a daily concern.  Hearings and public meetings for San Onofre and Vermont Yankee lead the charge in identifying what is involved with both time and money.  Concerns with New York’s Indian Point, Comanche Peak, Monticello…the list goes on and is growing, are now being addressed, and the public is finally appearing to realize the Faustian Bargain they were sold years ago, as the true costs are beginning to be revealed.

As for the new Hinckley reactors, British Energy Secretary Ed Davey states "It is going to be really good value for money, because by the time you get to 2023 when it starts generating, in 10 years' time, we are going to live in a very different world for electricity and energy generally."  I hope his kids enjoy their inheritance.

Just a few readings:

1.      Britain’s new nukes.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/uks-first-new-nuclear-plant-in-a-generation-confirmed-at-hinkley-point.1382334172

2.      Fukushima

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2013/1005/Fukushima-101-5-questions-answered-about-Japan-s-crippled-nuclear-reactors

http://www.channel4.com/news/fukushima-dai-ichi-nuclear-japan-what-is-happening

3.      US decommissioning and reactor problems

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2013/08/12/Calif-utility-says-customers-should-pay-for-nuclear-plant-shutdown/UPI-37391376339868/

http://www.ydr.com/ci_23969122/residents-voice-concerns-cost-decommission-tmi-unit-2

http://www.ydr.com/ci_23969122/residents-voice-concerns-cost-decommission-tmi-unit-2

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2013/10/18/3266570/xcel-energy-defends-monticello.html

http://www.readability.com/read?url=http%3A//www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/06/south-carolina-mox-plant-fiscal-hawks

Dealing With Our Nuclear Spent Fuel

Over the last couple of months, there has been a lot of talk about finally doing something with the spent fuel inventory that is steadily increasing on site at our nuclear reactors.  The problem is, there is no solution to permanently dispose of this waste, and there is no realistic technology available to even render it less dangerous.  It simply must be isolated from the environment.

Spent fuel is the “used up” fuel from a nuclear reactor.  A fresh fuel rod contains 97% Uranium 238, and 3% U235 (the fissionable form of Uranium.)  After about 2 years of use in a reactor, it is “spent,” and now has a composition of about 96% Uranium 238, 1% U235, 1% Plutonium 239 (which is created by neutron capture of U238), and 2-3% fission products (formed when U235 fissions.)  The fuel rods are typically removed and stored in a pool to keep them cool, and provide shielding from the high levels of radioactivity that they emit.  Hence, it is called high-level waste.  After about five years, the fuel has somewhat stabilized with many of the fission products having decayed; but the remaining ones, as well as the Plutonium, remain highly radioactive for many thousands of years.  This material needs to be contained and shielded, and continues to give off heat as a byproduct of its radioactive decay. 

There is about 70,000 tons of spent fuel stored at reactor sites in the U.S., and utilities are running out of room in their fuel pools as they keep adding to the volume.  Many are opting to place these fuel bundles into dry-cask storage…large heavily shielded canisters that typically sit on a pad outside, and are air-cooled.  At Humboldt Bay, there are 6 casks, and it cost close to $70 million to put the fuel into dry storage.  It costs about $12 million/year for security, monitoring, and maintenance.  It is estimated that we would need some 6000+ casks to contain our current spent fuel inventory.  $80 billion + ??? in today’s dollars.

Nuclear fuel is owned by the government’s Department of Energy, and it is “rented” out to nuclear utilities.  The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act mandated that by 1998, the government would have a deep geologic repository ready, and would take possession of the spent fuel.  This has not happened…not even close.  Many years, and $15 billion have been spent on Yucca Mountain, a possible repository site north of Las Vegas.  Aside from all the politics, the bottom line is that the DOE could not meet the EPA criteria and standards for containment of radioactivity at this site.  This isolation from the environment needs to be for a minimum of 10,000 years, even though radioactivity will remain there for 100,000 years or more.  The sealed central storage of so much radioactivity would produce high amounts of heat that would unpredictably create changes in the geology of the mountain, and threaten the integrity of the casks themselves.  Cask failure could lead to the release and mixing of fuel that could trigger fission processes, explosions, contamination of ground water, and a host of other unknown reactions during the thousands of years this material is active.  Allison MacFarlane (the new chairwoman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and a noted geologist) concludes the obvious in her excellent book “Uncertainty Underground.”   We do not know enough to be able to model and predict what will happen so many years into the future.

The recent push by the nuclear industry, wanting to rid themselves of the responsibility of spent fuel, is pushing for a new “independent” review of Yucca Mountain.  President Obama’s Blue Ribbon Committee of a few years ago came to the conclusion that there is no solution to this waste problem.  Congress will now form another committee to “come up with a solution.”  This is not a political problem.  It is the scientific reality that radioactivity is an atomic-level process, and not a molecular one that can be manipulated and neutralized.  We cannot make it go away.  The early nuclear pioneers understood this, but in the glory days of nuclear bombs and “electricity too cheap to meter,” they rushed ahead hoping that someday, someone would figure it out.  70 years down the road, we don’t even have a clue.  Oh, what to do?

There are several possible courses of action, which will be looked at and proposed over the next couple of years.  The first is to continue characterizing Yucca Mountain or finding some other geologic site somewhere…Texas, New Mexico, Mississippi ???   We are not alone, since other countries are also beginning to look at solutions for their wastes.  Sweden, with its relatively small amount of spent fuel, is currently storing it in copper casks in a geologic cave, with the idea that it can be retrieved when a better solution is found.  Problems have already begun to surface.  Germany has recently reopened their  investigations, going back to the drawing board.  Japan doesn’t have a clue with what they are going to do…right now they’re “underwater.”

A second option is an idea that has been around for a while and involves creating a central Monitored Retrievable Site.  Take all the casks, and ship them to one location.  The leading contender is Skull Mountain in Utah, where the 35 members of the Goshute Indian Rancheria were offered $50 million to use a portion of their land for this purpose.  Too bad it is directly in the flight path of an Air Force practice bombing range!  Placing all this material in one place is very risky, especially with current terrorist and climate change possibilities.  Transporting 6000+ casks and storing them in the open air…???!!!  And then transporting them again if/when a repository is built, or maintaining/re-casking the spent fuel 50-60 years down the road?  Security?  Very expensive and dangerous.

A third option, which the nuclear industry wants, is probably more insane than the initial creation of the entire nuclear power business.  Reprocessing, or recycling as they call it, involves taking the fuel rods, grinding them up and dissolving them in acids, and then separating out the U238, the unused U235, and the Plutonium, which would then be put into new fuel.  This is what was done in Hanford to acquire the Plutonium for our nuclear bombs. The remaining liquids, containing the highly radioactive fission products, would then be concentrated, and “vitrified”…converted into a glass/ceramic log that will have to be disposed of in a geologic repository for thousands of years.  Sounds great?  Ed Lyman, a prominent scientist with the Union of Concerned  Scientists says “reprocessing actually increases, not decreases, the total volume of long-lived nuclear waste that must be stored and eventually buried in a geologic repository  It only slightly reduces the volume of high-level nuclear waste that must be disposed of in a repository.”  Can we really do this?  At what cost?  The “new” vitrification plant under construction at Hanford is half completed, 12 years behind schedule, and 13X over budget at a current $13 billion. How many of these plants would we have to build, and where?  How would we be transporting all this dangerous material around?  We’d have to build new power plants to burn the “new” mixed-oxide fuel and Plutonium fuel?  How much would it cost to build this whole new infrastructure?  We tried this in West Valley, New York back in the 70’s and it turned into an economic and environmental disaster.  

Reprocessing produces more problems that it can solve.  It hasn’t worked for England, Germany, and Japan.  The French are reprocessing for the Japanese, and are nowhere near dealing with their own spent fuel.  We don’t know much about the Russian program, but are very concerned with the possibility of Iran and North Korea developing the process to build nuclear weapons. The bottom line is that reprocessing would be a very, very expensive proposition that the taxpayer would wind up funding.  Hundreds of billions of dollars.

There are other options out there…putting it in rockets and shooting it into the sun, dumping it in the deep sea trenches, drilling a deep hole into the earth’s crust and dropping the canisters down.  The most recent moronic idea comes from the chairman of the Oregon Republican Party…”sprinkle nuclear waste over the oceans from airplanes…”

The best strategy seems to be to place spent fuel in dry-cask storage, and keep that material on site until a better solution comes up…which may be never, meaning that the 30+ nuclear sites would become defacto waste dumps.  At least the casks can be monitored, maintained, and repaired if need be.  There are several sites, such as California’s Humboldt Bay, Diablo Canyon, and San Onofre, where special safety issues  such as earthquake, tsunami, and flooding, might require moving these casks to a more secure location. 

Whatever we decide to do, it will be very EXPENSIVE for a very long time.

Some source material:

http://allthingsnuclear.org/fact-fiction-and-faith-the-endless-debate-over/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/30/utilities-nuclear-yuccamountain-idUSL2N0GV2AC20130830

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/Aug/22/nuclear-fuel-pools-scrutinized/2/?#article-copy

http://www.ocregister.com/taxdollars/waste-520410-nuclear-storage.html

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/08/oregon-gop-art-robinson-nuclear-waste-airplanes

And then, there is Low-Level Radioactive Wastes…a whole other story:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-04/nuclear-trashmen-gain-from-record-u-s-reactor-shutdowns.html

Fukushima Update, August 2013

Water, water everywhere, and not a drop…

 

Two and a half years after the nuclear accidents at Fukushima, things are in worse shape than when the earthquake and tsunami hit.  Although it is difficult to really know what is going on there, we know the containment and cleanup is going rather poorly.

The six reactors there each suffered different kinds of accidents.  The two most serious ones were the damage to the core of the reactor in Unit 1, and the damage to the spent-fuel pool of Units 2&3.  In both cases, the immediate need has been, and continues to be cooling the fuel to keep it from melting.  Hence, large amounts of water continues to be pumped into these two facilities, resulting in the outflow of large amounts of radioactive contaminated water.  Under ideal conditions, this water would be captured, filtered, and then released.  A few glitches have come into play.

First of all, the buildings and structures are severely damaged, and the contaminated water is flooding the below-grade basements, and leaking into the groundwater below the plants.  Second, the earthquake altered some of the groundwater flows, so that it is now leaking in to some of the substructures of the plants, increasing the amount of water that has to be dealt with.  Third, the volume of radioactive water to be treated is far greater than the technical capacity available.  They have built over a thousand tanks to store the water for future treatment; and they will continue to add more tanks  for more water.  The problem is that some of the early tanks are already starting to leak.  “Tokyo Electric Power Co. says about 300 tons (300,000 liters, 80,000 gallons) of contaminated water leaked from one of the tanks, possibly through a seam (1),” and that highly radioactive water is getting into the groundwater, which will eventually reach the ocean.  The site of one of the leaks has soil contamination at such a high concentration, that a worker dealing with that leak would receive in one hour his maximum exposure dose allowable in five years.  “Masked workers found puddles with radiation readings of 100 millisieverts an hour near makeshift tanks that store contaminated water – enough to induce radiation sickness in less than 12 hours (2).” 

What to do?  Tepco has suggested building an ice dam all around the entire plant…they would put pipes down several hundred feet, and 24 inches apart, pump a refrigerant through it, and freeze the soil, blocking the flow of water.  Another option is to put a mechanical barrier down to divert the flow of water to somewhere…!  They are obviously going to have to repair the leaky tanks…maybe they should call on the folks who built the tanks at Hanford. 

The problem boils down to the fact that whatever is going to be done, it will be done in a dangerous, highly radioactive environment that will be technically challenging, very expensive, and putting thousands of workers at risk of the potential biological damages from radiation.  The Japanese government is willing to step in and take its budget surplus of several billion of dollars to help out.  However, this accident will run for decades, and will cost in the hundreds of billions of dollars…far more than the worth of the entire Japanese nuclear program.  Add to that the decommissioning cost of the 50 other idle reactors just in that country alone, and …well nuclear is cheap!

But, it’s only money.  Of greater concern is the potential long-term radioactive contamination of the Pacific Ocean, and the concentration of radioactivity in biological systems and fisheries that the world population is so highly dependent on.

(1)   http://news.yahoo.com/water-leaks-may-become-japan-132004111.html

(2)   http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/nuclear-crisis-fukushima-threat-level-raised-to-serious-as-plant-leaks-300-tonnes-of-radioactive-water-from-storage-tank-8775962.html

Update on Renewables

As we enter the second half of 2013, we find that renewable energy is alive, well, cost-competitive, and significantly gaining in the addition of new electricity generation here in the US, as well as the rest of the world.  The war has been won, although major battles continue to be launched and fought.  The current issue now is the fight which the Conservative, Big Fossil Fuel Industry, Republican, Anti-Environmental, Big Money…the Koch Brothers, Exxon, etc, all the players which I will now call the FFs…are launching against solar, wind, and energy efficiency.  Lots of money being spent by ALEC, the Heritage Foundation, and the like; but they seem to be losing their battles. 

Many states have imposed mandatory renewable quotas for their utilities, which created rate increases and general political upheaval over the years.  Subsidized energy!  Well, all that is changing.  In a landmark decision, Michigan (that wonderful sunny state) is now saying solar and wind are cost-competitive, and is reducing the ratepayer fees which helped bring these resources online.

            http://www.sfgate.com/business/energy/article/Green-energy-fees-disappearing-from-utility-bills-4739883.php

FF attacks on state renewable mandates are not having much success.

            http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/08/state-renewable-energy-laws-turn-out-to-be-really-hard-to-repeal/

            http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/08/08/2399121/corporations-clean-energy-standards/

The big FEAR the FFs have is the loss of money, and control and power over their customers who rely on aged utilities to supply them with electricity.  More and more individuals, as well as businesses, are installing their own solar systems, and selling power back to the utilities.  Obviously, this creates a huge new technical, economic, regulatory, and monopoly-busting nightmare for the electricity generating industry.  What to do, what to do?  Fight the change…or join the club.  We’re seeing major utilities, even in Georgia, getting into renewable generation.

            http://www.forbes.com/sites/uciliawang/2013/08/05/why-edison-wants-a-piece-of-the-rooftop-solar-business/?ss=business:energy

            http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-22/dominion-resources-buys-three-indiana-solar-projects.html

This is just business common sense.  If a utility is in business to supply electricity to its customer, then it can do so in a variety of ways…build a large central power plant, whether it is gas fired or solar, or wind…but it can also offer that generation potential in small packages on individual rooftops, commercial complexes, basically any appropriate site.  That is what many small solar businesses are already doing in California and many other states.  In other words, instead of fearing the “new age,” they should see opportunity to profit from it.  A good example is ATT and the telephone land-line.  More and more people are abandoning their old land-lines and going cellular.  The cost of maintaining land-line service is being paid for by a smaller and smaller share of customers.  We may eventually do away with those “telephone poles and wires,” but for now, ATT is very much into cell phones; making that positive transition to the “future.”  The same will be true for the electric utilities…at least those that survive.

            http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/08/us-utilities-threat-idUSBRE92709E20130308

Renewables are surging.  We need to keep in mind that the transition will take a certain amount of time.  We can go from 2% renewable electricity to 20-30% in the next 10 years if WE want to. It is an incredible opportunity to create jobs, allow for incredible technical innovation in the industry for production, storage, and cost reduction, be environmentally sustainable, and lead us into the future just as the computer chip has brought us to where we are today.

            http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/15/1231375/-Chart-2-3rds-of-global-solar-PV-has-been-installed-in-the-last-2-5-years#

            http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-08/solar-shipments-surge-in-second-quarter-as-demand-in-asia-swells.html

The battles will continue with the FFs pushing the lies and mis-statements that solar and renewables are too expensive; they are intermittent and thus cannot be trusted; the new small modular nuclear reactors are the wave of the future; global climate change is a hoax…all those clichés that are slowly getting worn out. 

As my friend says, ”follow the money!”

Cracks in the Economics of Renewables Myth

This has been an amazing week with a significant shift in the perceived ECONOMICS of renewables.  The myth (lie) that solar and wind are too expensive is starting to fall apart.  The blockbuster decision this week by Georgia’s Public Service Commission to force Georgia Power to add 525 megawatts of solar by 2016 is a major step (an economic step) forward, and will lead to the revelations that renewables are/will be truly affordable, cost effective, and environmentally sustainable.

The powers that be, namely the Koch brothers, Exxon, Fox News, etc. have for years pushed the lies and misstatements.  In Georgia last week, Americans For Prosperity-GA, the nation’s premiere grassroots organization for promoting “economic freedom,” launched a project asking activists to urge PSC members to “Keep The Lights On In Georgia” by opposing renewable energy mandates that have been shown to raise the cost of electricity.
http://americansforprosperity.org/georgia/newsroom/immediate-release-afp-ga-launches-keep-the-lights-on-in-ga-project/#ixzz2Z2RQ93Mk

After the Commission voted 3-2 in favor of renewables, “Georgia Power, in a surprising about-face, backed off that argument on Thursday after months of making that case. Instead, its attorney said for the first time that the added solar likely wouldn’t affect power bills.”  Yowie Zowie!

In another surprise move, “Xcel’s Southwestern Public Service unit is asking regulators for permission to buy almost 700 megawatts of power from wind farms in Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico.  The deal will save customers $590 million in fuel expenses over 20 years and the wind farms will generate power at costs lower than most of Xcel’s natural gas plants, according to Riley Hill, president and chief executive officer of Southwestern Public Service. “We are making these acquisitions purely on economics and the savings we can deliver to our customers,” Hill said in the statement.” WOW!  Saving money for its customers with renewables?  What a concept!

The “conservatives” fight against renewables has been going on for the last 30 years and more.  They fear the loss of profits by the status quo because the fuel is FREE!  No money to be made in exploration, extraction, transportation, processing, more transportation, and finally in some retail sales.  Less cost to the consumer…less profit.

In another arena this week, Republicans in the House blocked a bill to increase light bulb efficiency.  Again, the efficient use of energy, saving energy, means less profit for the fossil energy giants.  It’s all about money, and as my friend says “follow the money!”

So, today, we’ve taken another small step in the right direction…seems like we’re taking more and more larger steps…but we still  have a long way to go.

Some interesting insights:

1. Another of the Koch brother’s organizations: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/23/1218301/-ALEC-Strikes-again-by-Resolving-to-Free-Electrity
2. Fear for the traditional electricity producers: http://grist.org/climate-energy/solar-panels-could-destroy-u-s-utilities-according-to-u-s-utilities/
3. A nice summary of the anti-renewables campaigns: http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/201303/grapple-renewable-energy-electricity-freedom-act.aspx
4. More on the Koch brothers: http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/201303/grapple-renewable-energy-electricity-freedom-act.aspx
5. Our democracy in full action: http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/201303/grapple-renewable-energy-electricity-freedom-act.aspx
6. Energy efficiency?  One of the basic problem sets I had my students do was a cost analysis between a 100 watt incandescent light bulb and a 23 watt compact florescent.  Basic math!  Things have even gotten better. http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/310167-house-again-blocks-enforcement-of-light-bulb-standards

The Sun is Shining

I had a wonderful 4^th of July reflecting and discussing how fortunate we are to live in this great nation of America, in spite of all its ongoing problems, and its more recent polarization.  This past week has been a major turning pointing for solar energy in California, and is likely to set precedent for the rest of the country.

The Southwest suffered through an incredible heat wave, which now appears to be subsiding.  Energy pundits were predicting disaster in the state; the two reactors at San Onofre were gone, one unit at Diablo Canyon developed a weld crack and was shut down, and low precipitation in the winter diminished available hydropower.  The loss of some 4000MW of electricity would plunge the state into blackouts, brownouts…industry, people would suffer.  It didn’t happen!  The availability, pricing, and dispatch of electricity is a very complex process, but here are a few things to consider.

The Cal ISO is responsible for keeping the electrons flowing in the wires.  The System Status page on their website is crucial to understanding what is going on.  http://www.caiso.com/SystemStatus.html

shows electricity use for the entire day.  At night, use is low, hitting a low of 24,000MW around 4am.  The peak usually occurs around 4-5pm, and is normally around 34,000MW.  When it is really hot, for the few weeks out of the year, the peak can reach 44,000MW, mainly due to air conditioning, as it did earlier in the week. This demand has to be met, but here are a few key points in this equation.  There was a 20% buffer…available electricity, which can be called upon when needed.  In the case last Tuesday, the amount of electricity available at peak was 55,000MW, 11,000 more than what was needed or used.  These small generators are called “peakers” and are usually small jet turbines that can be turned on/off in a matter of minutes.  They are expensive to run because they only operate for a short period of time when fuel costs are at their highest.  http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2013/jun/29/peaking-units/#axzz2XiYZW5H3

The main point is that we have a lot of generating capacity that is unused during most of a 24 hour period and during most of the year…all there to meet the peak demand when it is hot because the sun is shinning.

Scroll down the page, and look at the renewables contribution to the demand.  The state has about 2000MW from utility grade solar, and an estimated 1500MW from small-scale rooftop systems.  This made up for the loss of nuclear electricity, and because the fuel is free, was actually cheaper than running the natural gas peakers.

Solar is too expensive!  How often have we heard that?  How do we quantify the economics of solar…nuclear…any kind of energy.  That is a great mystery, but the basic economic principles account for Capital investment (design and construction costs), O & M (cost of fuel, operation, and maintenance), End costs (dismantlement, waste disposal, etc), and Profit (utilities are guaranteed a profit after they have paid taxes, insurance, depreciation, public programs, advertising, etc, etc.).  Solar has very low O&M costs (the fuel is free), minimal End costs, but has had high Capital costs.  All that is rapidly changing.  The recent rash of bankruptcies in the solar manufacturing industry worldwide has been due to dramatic reduction in the cost of the final product…the PV cell.  Major blame can be placed on China for “subsidizing” their solar industry, and now dominating the global solar market.

Here are some quotes from recent reading:

“The EIA has historically overestimated the cost of renewables, and underestimated the cost of conventional fuels. The new 50-MW Macho Springs solar plant under construction by First Solar in New Mexico will deliver power for $50.79/MWh (that’s 5 cents/kwh) under its Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), and other US solar projects have come in this year in the range of $70 to $90/MWh.”

“The price of power in the Mid-Columbia was $18.85 per megawatt hour last year (mainly due to cheap hydro), but Energy Northwest’s nuclear power cost was about $47.30 per megawatt hour, said Robert McCullough, of McCullough Research.”

“EIA suggests a minimum cost for advanced nuclear of $104.40, an average of $108.40, and a maximum of $115.30/MWh.”  PG&E’s Diablo Canyon nuclear electricity was 14 cents/kwh back in 2000 during deregulation…that ultimately resulted in their bankruptcy.
 “Three or four years ago, the solar industry was targeting one dollar per watt costs in 2013; today we are at 50 cents per watt.”
“The cost of photovoltaic solar panels is expected to drop to 36 cents per watt by 2017”
Today, solar is almost cost-competitive with grid-tied electricity, not only here in the US, but in Germany, Spain, and Italy, and soon in most parts of the world.  The key to its deployment is POLITICS and not economics. 

Again, California leads the way.  “This week, Los Angeles started the biggest urban rooftop solar program in the country, with the goal of powering 30,000 homes. [LA Times]”   “The California Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee overwhelmingly approved SB 43, a groundbreaking new program that would give millions of Californians who currently don’t have access to renewable energy the opportunity to use 100% clean energy for the first time.”  These are major steps to empowering the up-coming solar revolution.

Up to now, there have two kinds of solar deployment.  Large-scale utility grid projects have been constructed out in the deserts feeding solar electrons into our wires.  True, these have been expensive, and have required a new learning curve for their integration into the system.  The other type of solar system has been on the roof of the individual homeowner…some providing stand alone power, and many being grid-tied, feeding electricity back into their local grid.  Most of these are/were expensive, required subsidies to make them affordable, and were limited to appropriate rooftops and clientele.

A new third type of solar system will be somewhere in the middle…accessible to the majority of residents wanting to use solar energy, but more importantly, now being able to do so with the fuss and mess of having to do it yourself; or if you are a renter; or if your don’t have the right kind of south facing rooftop.  Suppose you have $10,000 and you want to invest that money in a social and environmentally responsible instrument.  You could put that money into a company that is installing a large solar system on the roof of a local warehouse.  You either get electricity credit for what is produced, or get a payout from the sale of that electricity on the grid.  Most small systems today have a 7-8 year payback (that’s a 10% return on your money).  Larger systems are cheaper, and with the costs coming down, your investment will generate more interest than what is available in most saving accounts or CD’s.  You’re investing in a product that is necessary, and has value; and you will hopefully be bypassing the big-business big-money energy mentality that has worked so hard to strangle renewables for decades.  Their fight is now becoming more desperate, but their economic argument is slowly fading towards extinction.

The potential for smaller, local solar deployment is enormous.  Manufacturing jobs, installation jobs, sales and financing jobs, less costs and more efficiency for maintaining the huge grid system, less CO2 and other environmental problems…on and on. 

Besides the political blockade, there is a major issue/obstacle with solar…the sun doesn’t always shine.  We do have solutions for storing renewable energy, which is crucial for our future…more on that later.  But for now, we need to value the solar electricity that we can easily harness…a value that soon, even the fiscal conservatives will see as a money-making opportunity.

Apple (one of the world’s biggest companies) is heavily investing in solar, primarily as a means of reducing peak demand for the massive air conditioners they are running at their server sites in Nevada and North Carolina.  This will save them money, reduce the strain on the grid, and more importantly, provide a huge push for solar from the “big-money” players. 

Power to the people!  The best is yet to come.

Some interesting reads if you wish to follow up on this discussion.

1.      Apple’s solar projects  http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2013/07/02/apple-to-build-massive-solar-plant-to-power-data-centers/

2.      Heat wave in California   http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2013/0701/Heat-wave-tests-California-power-grid.-Why-no-blackouts-so-far

3.      Excellent energy article in Time magazine  http://business.time.com/2013/06/27/grid-politics/

4.      The “hard energy boys” strike out   http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/23/1218301/-ALEC-Strikes-again-by-Resolving-to-Free-Electrity

5.      Even Jim Cramer is beginning to see the light…just wait..  http://www.thestreet.com/story/11911544/1/solar-scores-a-big-win-over-nuclear.html?cm_ven=RSSFeed

6.      It’s the economy…jobs…  http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-green-jobs-20130319,0,2962980.story

7.      Cost of solar   http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/deutsche-bank--sustainable-solar-market-expected-in-2014_100010338/#axzz2LyRXuVHd