Master Resource https://www.masterresource.org/ A Free-Market Energy Blog Tue, 19 Mar 2024 02:27:17 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.masterresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/big-nji-ier-brnd-masterresourcefavicon_512x512-150x150.png Master Resource https://www.masterresource.org/ 32 32 Energy & Environmental Review: March 18, 2024 https://www.masterresource.org/alliance-for-wise-energy-decisions/energy-environmental-review-march-18-2024/ https://www.masterresource.org/alliance-for-wise-energy-decisions/energy-environmental-review-march-18-2024/#respond Mon, 18 Mar 2024 06:00:00 +0000 https://www.masterresource.org/?p=82918 Ed. Note: This post excerpts energy and climate material from the Media Balance Newsletter, a free fortnightly published by physicist John Droz Jr., founder of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions. The complete Newsletter for this post can be found here.

Unreliables (General):
Report: Green Guardrails
America’s Energy Scam
Green Tyrants Get Horrible News as Finance Giants Pull Out Left and Right
High Costs, Greenlash Hit Europe
Transition? What Transition?

Wind Energy — Offshore:
CFACT says offshore wind violates Clean Air and Clean Water Acts
Renewed push to put wind turbines in Lake Erie gets blowback in Hamburg

Wind Energy — Other:
*** Taking the Wind Out of Climate Change (referencing 60± studies)
*** French Council of State annuls wind turbine permits, major impact on energy future
*** Irish High Court Slams Wind Turbine Operator for Noise “Like planes that Never Land”

Solar Energy:
US Solar Factories Are In for ‘Rude Awakening,’ Report Warns

Fossil-Fuel Energy:
Policymakers are clueless that all energy sources came after the discovery of oil

Electric Vehicles (EVs):
EVs lose market share across Europe in January

Miscellaneous Energy News:
*** Short video: Energy and the Poverty of Nations
*** These 10 Charts Caused an NGO Hissy Fit at NARUC
*** Net Zero Emergency Power
America Is Running Out Of Power, Is Rationing And Soaring Energy Prices Ahead?

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Ed. Note: This post excerpts energy and climate material from the Media Balance Newsletter, a free fortnightly published by physicist John Droz Jr., founder of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions. The complete Newsletter for this post can be found here.

Unreliables (General):
Report: Green Guardrails
America’s Energy Scam
Green Tyrants Get Horrible News as Finance Giants Pull Out Left and Right
High Costs, Greenlash Hit Europe
Transition? What Transition?

Wind Energy — Offshore:
CFACT says offshore wind violates Clean Air and Clean Water Acts
Renewed push to put wind turbines in Lake Erie gets blowback in Hamburg

Wind Energy — Other:
*** Taking the Wind Out of Climate Change (referencing 60± studies)
*** French Council of State annuls wind turbine permits, major impact on energy future
*** Irish High Court Slams Wind Turbine Operator for Noise “Like planes that Never Land”

Solar Energy:
US Solar Factories Are In for ‘Rude Awakening,’ Report Warns

Fossil-Fuel Energy:
Policymakers are clueless that all energy sources came after the discovery of oil

Electric Vehicles (EVs):
EVs lose market share across Europe in January

Miscellaneous Energy News:
*** Short video: Energy and the Poverty of Nations
*** These 10 Charts Caused an NGO Hissy Fit at NARUC
*** Net Zero Emergency Power
America Is Running Out Of Power, Is Rationing And Soaring Energy Prices Ahead?
America’s Energy Scam: A Deliberate Exploitation of Humanity that Only Increases Emissions!
Heat Pumps Could Quadruple Your Electricity Consumption
Robert Bryce: A Sunday Roundup
When Technocrats Intentionally Sabotage A Nation’s Energy Supply

Manmade Global Warming — Some Deceptions:
*** Experts: Trillions Spent on ‘Climate Change’ Based on Faulty Temperature Data
*** The “climate disclosure” fraud
The Continuing Albedo Change Warms the Earth More Than Twice as Much as CO2
The Sad Joke of Climate Change Politics
Did Exxon Make It Rain Today?

Manmade Global Warming — Miscellaneous:
Climate Fact Checks: 2024
Methane is Responsible for 30%± of the Current Rise in Global Temperature
New Book: Everything Reminds Me of Tim: Biography of Tim Ball

Manmade Global Warming — Farming:
Why Not to Worry about Farming’s Contribution to Global Warming
The Battle for our Grasslands and Livestock
The Big Squeeze: Over 140,000 U.S. Farms Lost In 5 Years

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Offshore Wind Bribe Falls Short https://www.masterresource.org/offshore-windpower-issues/offshore-wind-bribe-falls-short/ https://www.masterresource.org/offshore-windpower-issues/offshore-wind-bribe-falls-short/#comments Fri, 15 Mar 2024 06:00:00 +0000 https://www.masterresource.org/?p=82876

“Respectfully, the future of the Town of Ocean City cannot be bought [by offshore wind interests] and we intend to continue to do what is necessary to protect the interests of our residents, property owners and future generations.” – Mayor Rick Meehan, Ocean City, Maryland

The $2 million bribe was turned down–flatly, by the mayor of Ocean City, Rick Meehan. This “opportunity” spread out over 20 years came with this request from US Wind: “local government officials… [refraining] from making any negative comments or objections.”

Here is the story reported in UtilityDive:

“In December 2023, I received an email from Jeff Grybowski, Chief Executive Officer for US Wind, offering Ocean City the same opportunity that has been extended to the Delaware Beach Towns,” [Ocean City Mayor] Meehan said. “My response was, ‘Respectfully the future of the Town of Ocean City cannot be bought and we intend to continue to do what is necessary to protect the interests of our residents, property owners and future generations.’”

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“Respectfully, the future of the Town of Ocean City cannot be bought [by offshore wind interests] and we intend to continue to do what is necessary to protect the interests of our residents, property owners and future generations.” – Mayor Rick Meehan, Ocean City, Maryland

The $2 million bribe was turned down–flatly, by the mayor of Ocean City, Rick Meehan. This “opportunity” spread out over 20 years came with this request from US Wind: “local government officials… [refraining] from making any negative comments or objections.”

Here is the story reported in UtilityDive:

“In December 2023, I received an email from Jeff Grybowski, Chief Executive Officer for US Wind, offering Ocean City the same opportunity that has been extended to the Delaware Beach Towns,” [Ocean City Mayor] Meehan said. “My response was, ‘Respectfully the future of the Town of Ocean City cannot be bought and we intend to continue to do what is necessary to protect the interests of our residents, property owners and future generations.’” …

The story continued:

Meehan said he found the idea “unconscionable.” ….

That leaves US Wind as the only company currently developing a wind project offshore near Ocean City, and the town’s only opponent in its “battle of the proposed construction of wind turbines off our coast,” according to Ocean City’s official website. “As of January 2024, The Town of Ocean City does not support any turbines built off our coast,” a release from the town said. “As of January 2024, US Wind is the only company with proposed plans to build turbines off the coast of Ocean City.”

Ever the crony, US Wind tried to paint a happy face on the situation.

Nancy Sopko, US Wind’s senior director of external affairs, said in an email that while Ocean City chose not to discuss a community benefit agreement, the company wants to continue to work with the city as “good neighbors.” … “As a member of this community, we believe it’s important to do what we can to help it thrive,” Sopko said. However, she added, “Ocean City’s position on community benefits has no impact on our project plans.”

Final Comment

Nancy Sopko is quoted at the end of the story: “We’re very confident that we will build Maryland’s first offshore wind farm and deliver clean energy to the people of Delmarva for years to come.”

Nope. Real environmentalists are standing up, knowing also that the electricity rate increases from offshore wind will be substantial, even after U.S. taxpayers get soaked via the U.S. Department of Energy grants and the Production Tax Credit.

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Marine Power?  More Magical Thinking https://www.masterresource.org/tidal-wave-power/marine-power-magical-thinking/ https://www.masterresource.org/tidal-wave-power/marine-power-magical-thinking/#respond Thu, 14 Mar 2024 06:00:00 +0000 https://www.masterresource.org/?p=83176

“Too many moving parts in a corrosive environment, requiring too much routine maintenance of large moving components. This is wildly unrealistic, fails the KISS Principle!” ( – Ed Thiel)

“[Stephen] Salter invented the ‘duck’ [system that converts into electricity some of the natural energy contained in waves] in 1974, wave energy has been just round the corner ever since. Tell me when and if it ever happens.” ( – Chris Wagstaffe)

A recent exchange on social media about the prospects of marine (aka tidal or wave) electricity brought some reality into energy magical thinking, the belief that what is technologically possible is a “green” solution to thermal power generation. Either now or about to be ….

An Optimistic Take

Russ Bates, founder of NXTGEN Clean Energy, excitedly announced: “Another step towards a sustainable future and another blow to #fossilfuels!”…

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“Too many moving parts in a corrosive environment, requiring too much routine maintenance of large moving components. This is wildly unrealistic, fails the KISS Principle!” ( – Ed Thiel)

“[Stephen] Salter invented the ‘duck’ [system that converts into electricity some of the natural energy contained in waves] in 1974, wave energy has been just round the corner ever since. Tell me when and if it ever happens.” ( – Chris Wagstaffe)

A recent exchange on social media about the prospects of marine (aka tidal or wave) electricity brought some reality into energy magical thinking, the belief that what is technologically possible is a “green” solution to thermal power generation. Either now or about to be ….

An Optimistic Take

Russ Bates, founder of NXTGEN Clean Energy, excitedly announced: “Another step towards a sustainable future and another blow to #fossilfuels!” He continued:

The Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change has found that #waveenergy converters could harvest 29,500 terawatt-hours of renewable electricity from the ocean every year. In the US alone, the technically recoverable amount of wave power has been estimated at 1,170 TWh, which is about 30% of the nation’s annual electricity consumption. This is great news for coastal communities, including #military facilities, as additional  #cleanenergy solutions.

Bates’s optimism was based on an article in CleanTechnica, “Wave Energy is (Really, Finally) Coming for Your Fossil Fuels,” which , however, admitted to prior failure in marine power:

If you’re guessing that a gigantic €9 million wave energy project under the wing of the firm Pelamis was the major disappointment, it sure was. In September of 2008 Pleamis launched an ambitious plan to float 25 wave energy converters into the Atlantic Ocean off the northern coast of Portugal, at Aguçadoura in the Porto district. The project started with the installation of three converters, and that’s where it ended. By December of 2008 all three devices were hauled into port after they sprouted leaks. The whole project ran out of funding in 2009, and Pelamis itself was shuttered in 2014.

BUT, a new generation of wave technology is ready for deployment! (it is always … always … coming)

Criticisms Float In

LinkedIn is populated by on-the-spot experts working in the different energy industries. So criticisms quickly followed. Stated Doug Houseman:

“I have worked on more than 20 wave power projects. Here are the issues to overcome to be successful:

1) the materials need to be immune to corrosion, including from sea water, bird poop, and seals.

2) mechanisms need to be immune to barnacles, sea weed and small sea life.

3) the systems need to not anger fisherman and be immune from drift nets and other fishing gear.

4) The system needs to work with just the force of gravity.

5) The system needs to make power from sea state one to sea state six, and survive sea state six with no damage

6) floating logs and other floating debris needs to not damage the system.

7) The system needs minimal cost for monitoring and communications, but it needs to have some monitoring

8) It needs to be clear of shipping channels and highly visible to any boats at sea.

9) It cannot leak any fluids, nor can it flake off toxic metals.

10) it needs to not interfere with swimming or other activities (surfing), nor can it be seen from the shore.

If you can solve these problems and have the system have a life of at least 20 years, you have a chance of making money with it.”

Added Thomas Marihart:

The bird poop alone is a major issue just for other technologies like floating solar. One of the last posts I recall on LinkedIn showcasing floating solar had a hard time getting a picture of the panels without any bird poop. I wonder what the solar output degradation is per year simply because of bird poop? Nature has a funny way of abusing anything artificial imposed on its environment.

The more complex and exotic these technologies get to make renewable energy, the more expensive they become, and the more they jump the proverbial shark. Green energy proponents seem to think that ‘happy days’ are just around the corner, but there is still a lot of work to do just to keep energy costs down and the lights on.

Engineer Joe Steinke, drawing from this article, considered economics and payback:

Until numbers are posted on the upfront CAPEX, operational maintenance, and capacity factors to calculate MWh, an accurate comparison can’t be made. Technologies with posted information like the “Blowhole” operated at a 20% capacity factor, cost millions, and produce small amounts of electricity (40 kw average) for a cost of $12 million. At a sell price of $0.25/kwh, it’s only 136 years to pay off the CAPEX at zero interest and O&M. Shore based system will take a km to produce 1MW with massive armoring, structure, and maintenance budgets.

Chris Bright, electrical system specialist living in Nottingham, England, added to Houseman (above) with gusto:

Wave power remains uncompetitive with other sources of power. The main reasons are:

1. The cost of building and maintaining devices that can withstand the full fury of storms.
2. Corrosion and bio-fouling.
3. The difficulty of converting the slow frequency low amplitude oscillatory motion to the high rotational speeds necessary to generate electricity, that being the most suitable vector for transmission ashore and beyond.

Possibly, the economics could be improved by combining wave power with coastal erosion defence, where the costs of the wave power devices could be defrayed by savings in conventional defences.

Anyone wishing to develop wave power should study the findings of R&D in the UK and Ireland. That would avoid much futile work.

We enjoy some of the better wave resource in the world. We have studied wave power since the Yom Kippur Arab-Israeli war in 1973 …. Wave power devices developed at that time included the Salter “nodding duck”, the oscillating water column, and the Cockerell contouring raft.

In simpler terms? Ed Thiel commented:

Too many moving parts in a corrosive environment, requiring too much routine maintenance of large moving components. This is wildly unrealistic, fails the KISS Principle!

Enough, another dead horse. But to the magical thinkers there is always hope. “Every technology will have some role in energy transition,” stated Mansoor Khan. “Considering the urgency to transition, newer technologies will need support to bring them to project deployment stage.” And Russ Bates thanked him.

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“Prove It” CO2 Tariffs: The Wolf Is At the Door https://www.masterresource.org/carbon-co2-protectionism/prove-it-co2-tariffs-the-wolf-is-at-the-door/ https://www.masterresource.org/carbon-co2-protectionism/prove-it-co2-tariffs-the-wolf-is-at-the-door/#comments Wed, 13 Mar 2024 06:00:00 +0000 https://www.masterresource.org/?p=83295

“It is shocking that legislators would contemplate advancing policy that would increase taxes, drive up prices for American families, harm workers and those on fixed incomes, and punish energy use. Yet this is precisely what a carbon tariff does.” (Free Market Letter, below)

Government intervention expands and expands from its own shortcomings. And in the service of “global climate change,” where deep-ecology alarmism prevails and economics is demoted, regulation is open-ended and increasingly strident.

Open international trade has been the gold standard for hundreds of years in theory and in practice. Adam Smith noted how the international division of labor produces the most goods and services for the greatest number, increasing the Wealth of Nations. His logic remains today.

Pricing carbon dioxide (CO2) is the weapon of the anti-industrial, anti-energy “Progressives.”…

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“It is shocking that legislators would contemplate advancing policy that would increase taxes, drive up prices for American families, harm workers and those on fixed incomes, and punish energy use. Yet this is precisely what a carbon tariff does.” (Free Market Letter, below)

Government intervention expands and expands from its own shortcomings. And in the service of “global climate change,” where deep-ecology alarmism prevails and economics is demoted, regulation is open-ended and increasingly strident.

Open international trade has been the gold standard for hundreds of years in theory and in practice. Adam Smith noted how the international division of labor produces the most goods and services for the greatest number, increasing the Wealth of Nations. His logic remains today.

Pricing carbon dioxide (CO2) is the weapon of the anti-industrial, anti-energy “Progressives.” Those with termite aspirations want to substitute dilute, intermittent, infrastructure-bloated energies for what the sun’s work over the ages naturally gave us: oil, natural gas, and coal.

An international tariff regime based on the CO2 content of goods and services is a fool’s errand—a promotion for the grifter side of the economy where experts-plus-politics displaces economic freedom.

The free-market community is aligned in opposition to this sea-change step-up in government control over the domestic and world economies. Their letter of January 16, 2024, to Members of Congress follows.

As the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is reportedly going to mark-up the PROVE IT Act (S. 1863) this week, the undersigned organizations want to express strong opposition to carbon tariffs and the PROVE IT Act. This legislation is a gateway for a carbon tax on imported goods and a domestic carbon tax.

It is shocking that legislators would contemplate advancing policy that would increase taxes, drive up prices for American families, harm workers and those on fixed incomes, and punish energy use. Yet this is precisely what a carbon tariff does. A carbon tariff is two taxes in one. First, a carbon tariff is a tax on imported goods, borne by American consumers, workers, and businesses. Once the structure for imposing a carbon tariff has been established, it can then be used to impose a domestic carbon tax.

To think that the government would develop the administrative infrastructure to impose a domestic
carbon tax without following through is naïve, at best. If the United States were to impose a tax on imports based on their carbon intensity, then there would be an expectation that domestic goods would be subjected to a comparable tax-based scheme. In fact, a domestic carbon tax might be required to meet international trade obligations.

The PROVE IT Act is not a benign government measurement scheme that will exist for knowledge purposes. It would create a detailed carbon-emissions measuring system for domestic and foreign goods, putting into place exactly what is needed to implement a carbon tariff and a domestic carbon tax.

Some proponents assert that the PROVE IT Act will help respond to the European Union’s (EU) carbon tax, otherwise identified as a carbon border adjustment mechanism. The United States should push back against the EU’s extreme green policies and not, under any circumstances, accept their disastrous environmental and energy policies.

The EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism and carbon tariffs are a way to impose extraterritorial
regulations. Recently, we have seen these types of regulations domestically, as American farmers know
all too well. Some states have imposed barriers to selling goods, such as eggs and pork, based not on the
nature of the goods but due to moral and ethical preferences on how food should be produced.

Just imagine foreign countries trying to impose their moral preferences on Americans by using tariffs as leverage over how the U.S. uses energy or how American farmers produce food. Carbon tariffs and the PROVE IT Act will help establish this precedent.

Maybe even worse than the imposition of all these new taxes is the purpose of the taxes. They are taxes to punish energy use. Since more than 80 percent of the world’s energy comes from coal, natural gas, and
oil, which produce carbon dioxide emissions, a carbon tariff is a tax on the energy that makes modern life
possible.

It would make medical care, housing, communications, food, and transportation less affordable, especially for people who already struggle to pay their bills. It would have a disproportionate impact on the poor and hurt those on fixed incomes, the elderly, and local institutions like hospitals, libraries, and schools.

The PROVE IT Act and carbon tariffs are not just bad policy, but bad politics. After all, supporting new taxes and opposing affordable and reliable energy is a toxic concoction. A new survey sponsored by the American Energy Alliance and the Committee to Unleash Prosperity found that most Americans opposed a carbon tariff on imported goods, with 63 percent of Republicans opposed.

This opposition to paying carbon or energy taxes becomes even clearer when respondents were asked what they are willing to pay each year to address climate change. The median response was just $10, and 35 percent (including 17 percent of Democrats) said they are unwilling to pay anything. American Energy Alliance president Thomas Pyle captured the results very well:

The results reconfirm what we already knew: voters are not willing to pay any tax associated with carbon dioxide or energy – including a carbon dioxide or energy tax on imported goods. Those who believe in limited government and free energy markets continue to be allied with the vast majority of voters concerning the destructive and pointless nature of carbon dioxide taxes and on the fundamentals of the climate change issue.

As the markup of the PROVE IT Act approaches, there may be disingenuous gimmicks such as amending
the bill to say it may not be used to impose a carbon tariff. Such a provision does not change the fact that
the foundation would have been created to impose a carbon tariff and domestic carbon tax. Any new
legislation could easily get rid of such a prohibition, and that is exactly what would happen.

The PROVE IT Act and other carbon tariffs efforts show a complete disregard for what matters to Americans. They want affordable, reliable energy to power their homes and lives, not government
meddling that drives up their household bills. They don’t want federal schemes that treat energy use as a
sin.

We strongly urge legislators to oppose the PROVE IT Act and any other legislation dealing with carbon tariffs.

Sincerely,
Daren Bakst: Director, Center for Energy and Environment, Competitive Enterprise Institute
John Droz, Jr.: Founder, Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED)
Phil Kerpen: President, American Commitment
Kristen Walker: Policy Analyst, The American Consumer Institute
Thomas J. Pyle: President, American Energy Alliance
Jason Isaac: CEO, American Energy Institute
Margaret Byfield: Executive Director, American Stewards of Liberty
Richard Manning: President, Americans for Limited Government
Brent Gardner: Chief Government Affairs Officer, Americans for Prosperity
Grover Norquist: President, Americans for Tax Reform
David T. Stevenson: Director, Center for Energy & Environment, Caesar Rodney Institute
Ryan Ellis: President, Center for a Free Economy
Daniel Mitchell: President, Center for Freedom and Prosperity
Jeffrey Mazzella: President, Center for Individual Freedom
Isaac Orr: Policy Fellow, Center of the American Experiment
Craig Rucker: President, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT)
Elizabeth Stelle: Director of Policy Analysis, Commonwealth Foundation
Matthew Kandrach: President, Consumer Action for a Strong Economy
E. Calvin Beisner: President, Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation
Dr. Steven J. Allen: Vice Chairman, The Conservative Caucus
Jerry R. Simmons: President/CEO, Domestic Energy Producers Alliance
Kristen A. Ullman: President, Eagle Forum
Craig Richardson: President, Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal)
Adam Brandon: President, FreedomWorks
George Landrith: President, Frontiers of Freedom
Cameron Sholty: Executive Director, Heartland Impact
James Taylor: President, The Heartland Institute
Ryan Walker: Executive Vice President, Heritage Action for America
Mario H. Lopez: President, Hispanic Leadership Fund
Tom Harris: Executive Director, International Climate Science Coalition
Annette Olson: Chief Executive Officer, The John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy
Jon Sanders: Director, Center for Food, Power, and Life, John Locke Foundation
Seton Motley: President, Less Government
Bob Barr: Chairman, Liberty Guard, Member of Congress, 1995-2003
Brandon Arnold: Executive Vice President, National Taxpayers Union
Daniel C. Turner: Founder & Executive Director, Power The Future
Donna Jackson: Director of Membership Development, Project 21 Black Leadership Network
Paul Gessing: President, Rio Grande Foundation
Bette Grande: CEO and President, Roughrider Policy Center
The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley: Deputy Director (Intelligence), Strategic Threat Assessment Group
David Williams: President, Taxpayers Protection Alliance
Derrick Max: President, Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy
Ben Zycher: Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute

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Exploding Energy Prices in California https://www.masterresource.org/goreham-steve/exploding-energy-prices-california/ https://www.masterresource.org/goreham-steve/exploding-energy-prices-california/#comments Tue, 12 Mar 2024 06:00:00 +0000 https://www.masterresource.org/?p=83046

“California leaders know that rising prices are a huge problem. The state is now considering a plan to tie utility rates to personal income so that the rich pay more and low-income residents pay less. Costly California looms as an example of poor energy policy.”

Energy prices are skyrocketing in California. The state’s electricity, gasoline, and natural gas prices are amongst the nation’s highest and rising. Green energy policies are the primary cause for high and escalating California energy prices.

Electricity

California electricity prices increased by 98.2 percent over the last 15 years, the highest rise in the nation. No other state comes close in terms of price increases. US average electricity prices rose 30.6 percent over the same period. California power prices rose to a level that is the second highest in the nation, only lower than Hawaii.…

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“California leaders know that rising prices are a huge problem. The state is now considering a plan to tie utility rates to personal income so that the rich pay more and low-income residents pay less. Costly California looms as an example of poor energy policy.”

Energy prices are skyrocketing in California. The state’s electricity, gasoline, and natural gas prices are amongst the nation’s highest and rising. Green energy policies are the primary cause for high and escalating California energy prices.

Electricity

California electricity prices increased by 98.2 percent over the last 15 years, the highest rise in the nation. No other state comes close in terms of price increases. US average electricity prices rose 30.6 percent over the same period. California power prices rose to a level that is the second highest in the nation, only lower than Hawaii. In contrast, prices in Texas have actually declined since 2008 due to a focus on retail competition and a sharp decrease in natural gas prices, more than offsetting wind and solar additions. [1]

California is the epicenter of green energy in the United States. The state established the first renewable portfolio standard in 2002, mandating that 20 percent of electricity be from renewable sources by 2017. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger instituted a 33 percent renewable requirement by 2020. In 2018, Governor Jerry Brown signed an executive order mandating 100 percent zero-carbon electricity by 2045.

The transition from traditional power plants to renewables has been a top priority for California for the last 20 years. By the start of 2023, California’s grid contained more than 6 gigawatts(GW) of wind, 17.5 GW of utility-scale solar, and 14 GW of residential rooftop solar.

Over the last two decades, the state retired 11 coal-fired power plants and converted three other coal plants to burn biomass fuel. The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station closed in 2013, and the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, the state’s last nuclear plant, has been scheduled for closure.

In 2022, natural gas provided 42 percent of California’s in-state electricity generation, with other sources providing: solar (27%), nuclear (8%), hydroelectric (8%), wind (7%), geothermal (6%), and biomass (2%). The state imports about one-fifth of its electricity from surrounding states.

Solar and wind generators are more expensive than traditional coal, gas, and nuclear generators. Wind and solar occupy huge amounts of land, perform poorly during winter months, and suffer from intermittent output.

Vaclav Smil’s book Power Density points out that wind and solar systems use about 100 times the land area of traditional generators to produce the same electricity output. Renewable facilities also tend to be far from population centers, requiring expensive buildouts of transmission systems. Land and transmission costs boost the price of electricity from these generators.

The intermittency of wind and solar generation has the largest cost impact. Cloudy days and nights eliminate solar output and windless days idle wind turbines. Winter solar output drops to about half the available summer output. About 90 percent of traditional coal or natural gas generators must be maintained as backup for intermittent wind and solar systems, boosting power prices.

Batteries

California leads the US in deployment of grid-scale batteries. The plan is to use batteries to store electricity when wind and solar generation is high and then release the stored power back to the grid when wind and solar output is low. Wind and solar plus battery systems are being deployed as a low-carbon alternative to coal and gas power plants.

But the use of grid-scale batteries to backup renewable generators multiplies the cost of electricity. Utility-scale solar systems cost about $1 million per megawatt (MW) of rated capacity. Grid-scale batteries with four hours of discharge duration cost about $1.5 million per megawatt of capacity. These batteries can back up solar for only about four hours.

To replace a gas-fired power plant, a battery system would need to back up a solar installation for one or more days. A battery that can back up a $1 million one-megawatt solar facility for a single day would cost about $9 million. Grid-scale batteries only have a 12-year lifetime, about one-half of the solar lifetime. Adding batteries to backup solar for a single day boosts the total capital cost by more than a factor of ten.

Gasoline

February 29 found California regular gasoline prices at $4.74 per gallon, the highest in the nation. California drivers pay 40 percent more than the national average. The state has its own blend of gasoline, and claims that the blend will emit fewer greenhouse gases when burned. Higher gasoline taxes and a shortage of local refineries also factor into the high prices.

Natural Gas

California also consistently ranks in the top 10 in natural gas prices. Prices are high because the state has long discouraged local production, importing more than 90 percent of its gas from other states. There is a also a shortage of gas storage facilities.

Green energy policies affect not only electricity and fuel prices, but also housing utility and construction costs. Many regulations aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from buildings. The California Air Resources Board passed a regulation outlawing new residential gas heaters by 2030. San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other cities have voted to ban gas appliances in new construction. Only electric heat pumps, water heaters, and stoves may be used. These measures further boost the cost of energy for homeowners.

Housing Costs

Housing prices are rising because of green energy mandates. The 2020 California Solar Mandate requires newly constructed homes to have solar panels and wiring for electric appliances. The California Building Standards Commission enacted standards that require electrical conduit for level two EV charging in single-family homes and parking facilities with EV chargers for multi-family homes and hotels. These additional requirements make the cost of housing less affordable for low-income residents.

Conclusion

Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric, and San Diego Gas & Electric, the big California utilities, have all asked for 2024 rate increases, in part needed to bury hundreds of miles of transmission lines to reduce the threat of forest fires. Residents already pay $300-500 per month for energy. There seems to be no end in sight to rising California energy prices.

California leaders know that rising prices are a huge problem. The state is now considering a plan to tie utility rates to personal income so that the rich pay more and low-income residents pay less.

But affordable energy is clearly not as important as efforts to try to stop global warming. Costly California looms as an example of poor energy policy.

—————–

[1] Storm Uri (February 2021) rate spikes of $10 billion or more have been paid by floating bonds and/or are in legal limbo, which would make Texas’s electricity rates higher than recorded.


Steve Goreham is a speaker on energy, the environment, and public policy and the author of the new bestselling book Green Breakdown: The Coming Renewable Energy Failure. His previous posts at MasterResource can be found here.

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Electricity: Have I ‘Tarnished’ my Reputation and ‘Marginalized’ Myself? (Giberson’s huff) https://www.masterresource.org/kiesling-lynne/giberson-bradley-reputation/ https://www.masterresource.org/kiesling-lynne/giberson-bradley-reputation/#comments Mon, 11 Mar 2024 06:00:00 +0000 https://www.masterresource.org/?p=83149

“But messages [against] … Lynne [Kiesling] … just serve to marginalize you. …. I’d encourage you to divert your efforts to re-establishing the reputation you have had, because your existing approach has tarnished and is tarnishing it.” (Michael Giberson, below)

“Lynne and Mike’s modus operandi is tweak, tweak and continue down the road of climate alarmism – forced energy transformation – centrally planned electricity.”

Keep your eye on the ball. In recent days, I have noted the irony of the “Queen of Power Markets” Lynne Kiesling presiding over a Public Choice conference where her central planning electricity model (Independent System Operators/Regional Transmission Organizations) is not teed up for some serious Public Choice application. That’s the situation going into the conference, judging from the scheduled panels and talks.

Such was my Friday post, “Public Choice and Electricity: Kiesling Ducks Again (Plano, Tx.

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“But messages [against] … Lynne [Kiesling] … just serve to marginalize you. …. I’d encourage you to divert your efforts to re-establishing the reputation you have had, because your existing approach has tarnished and is tarnishing it.” (Michael Giberson, below)

“Lynne and Mike’s modus operandi is tweak, tweak and continue down the road of climate alarmism – forced energy transformation – centrally planned electricity.”

Keep your eye on the ball. In recent days, I have noted the irony of the “Queen of Power Markets” Lynne Kiesling presiding over a Public Choice conference where her central planning electricity model (Independent System Operators/Regional Transmission Organizations) is not teed up for some serious Public Choice application. That’s the situation going into the conference, judging from the scheduled panels and talks.

Such was my Friday post, “Public Choice and Electricity: Kiesling Ducks Again (Plano, Tx. meeting next week).” I sent this post to dozens of classical liberals who I have known over the years/decades, as well as those associated with the conference that I have not ever met, with the note:

I write in hopes that you will share this communication with others and try to get (President) Lynne Kiesling to address the central topic of the Plano conference next week in regard to electricity, her area of specialty. She is simply ‘in denial’ about applying free market economics and public choice to her governmental central planning model of electricity. 

A free market in electricity would avoid both the ‘knowledge problem’ of ISO/RTOs and the politics of governmental organization. And with electric reliability now a wild card (yes, government intervention did this), it is time for serious open debate (something Lynne has a studiously avoided).

Classical liberals of all stripes need to understand and debate the ‘virtual power plant’, which is open-ended wind/solar displacement of reliable generation with battery backup and ‘smart meters’ in the home that will surge-price to rescue the wounded supply side. And all (per Lynne) in the name of Hayek, Coase, Ostrom, etc.

No complaints, either. A lot of folks are suspicious of her techno-eco analysis but do not want to get into the intricacies of electricity. I am trying to change that, one step at a time.

Some Background

Classical liberalism has been hijacked by Lynne Kiesling and her faithful follower, Michael Giberson. Both purposefully bypassed a long tradition in free-market electricity thought in their writings, with Lynne substituting “my synthetic theory of regulation and technological change.”[1] They have resisted pushback (from me and others) against the theoretical and operational flaws of such a contrived market. Lynne and Mike’s modus operandi is tweak, tweak and continue down the road of climate alarmism – forced energy transformation – centrally planned electricity.

I have been following Lynne for decades and attended two of her electricity conferences as a last minute addition at the request of one of her major funders. I was told at one meeting that the conference premise of climate alarmism (thus forced energy transformation, conservationism) was not to be debated. At the other, with a room of mostly left-of-center electricity specialists debating how to regulate/price power inside the home, I commented, “I want to just leave the temperature at 72 degrees and pretty much be done with it.” My point–which the large majority of Americans would have also uttered at the experts–was curtly dismissed by Lynne: “You can already do that.” (Transaction costs, anyone?)

I put up with Lynne’s peculiar technocratic approach to electricity until the Texas Blackout of February 2021, which she and Giberson blamed on record cold as an Act of God, a force majeure event. Except that wind and solar predictably disappeared. Except it happened despite on-the-shelf weatherization technology for thermal generation (yes, ruined margins and crowding out from $60 billion in wind/solar forcing was causal). Except that is happened within a government system with major planner error. Except that the ‘obligation to serve’ got lost in the transfer to PUCT/ERCOT. And except that Texas’s planning setup was Lynne’s model for the country.

Giberson’s Complaint

My efforts on social media to get Lynne to frontally challenge her central planning (ISO/RTO) model with Public Choice resulted in this email to me yesterday from Michael Giberson:

I was asked about your email regarding Lynne Kiesling. My reply was to say I don’t know why you can’t see this is an unprofessional manner of engagement. 

Keep writing your blog (but focus on the issues rather than attacking people you disagree with). Write a op-ed. Write a scholarly paper. Present at an academic conference. Write a policy paper, you have written for Cato in the past and the folks at TPPF share some of your concerns. Try them. These are reasonable ways to advance your concerns.

But messages like the email and your frequent Facebook “challenges” to Lynne in response to unrelated posts just serve to marginalize you. They make you seem like a tiresome and impotent outsider rather than an independent free-market scholar, long-time liberty proponent, and well-known energy expert.

I’d encourage you to divert your efforts to re-establishing the reputation you have had, because your existing approach has tarnished and is tarnishing it. 

I answer Giberson as follows:

Keep your eye on the ball, Mike. The obvious opportunity here is to get a very reluctant Lynne to frontally address the obvious issue of politicized electricity markets via Public Choice analysis. Lynne, the ‘expert’ in both, should be challenged to address the obvious. And with a lot of folks in the audience eager to hear just this, tell Lynne to do so!

Second, I find it peculiar that you are more interested in my “reputation” than I am. I am about to enter my seventieth summer. For nearly a half-century, I have stated my views with a lot of history and theory–and nary considered what others (often the political majority or “establishment”) think. I am not a second hander. “Speaking truth to power” is an old refrain of classical liberalism, and Lynne is certainly at the throne of power.

I do realize, however, that there is a new generation that may be taken aback by my frontal challenges to a person they consider as a real classical liberal in the complex field of electricity. Problem is that she misinterprets (or, to be charitable, selectively interprets) different classical liberal literatures to justify central planning for electricity. It does not work.

If you were really concerned about my reputation, why didn’t you chime in to tell the audience (such as on a particular Facebook post) that I have expertise and represent the free market tradition in electricity? Why write an email to me rather than intervene at the point of engagement, if it concerns you?

Regarding your point about scholarly output, yes, I am building up to a major article–probably for The Review of Austrian Economics–on a praxeological, classical liberal view of electricity in theory and practice. But this is the article that you should write (should have written years ago)! You once thought for yourself without the hubris of defending political electricity. Instead, you have gone the other way.

Lynne Kiesling (and to a lesser extent you) have purposefully “raised rival’s costs” in my (and others’) effort to understand synthetic regulation and political power. Lynne says she “hates monopoly.” Yet not unlike a political monopolist, she tries to protect her “synthetic theory of regulation” and pronouncement of the “grid [to be] a common pool resource in which it is literally—literally—impossible to define and enforce property rights.” A real free market? She refuses to even define it and arrogantly dismisses her rivals.

But …. I have created a long, point-by-point evidentiary record to get to my future article. And other position papers are on their way. Stay tuned ….

Final Comment

The floor belongs to Lynne Kiesling starting this Thursday in Plano, Texas at 61st annual conference of the Public Choice Society. May the conference be great! And surely it would be greater if President Kiesling would share her expertise on the theory and practice of the second most regulated sector of the American economy next to money and banking. Go for it, Lynne!

—————

[1] Of the approximately 300 references in Kiesling’s major book, Deregulation, Innovation and Market Liberalization: Electricity Regulation in a Continually Evolving Environment (2009), there is a glaring absence of those in the free-market electricity tradition, including

Stigler, George, and Claire Friedland. “What Can Regulators Regulate? The Case of Electricity.” Journal of Law and Economics 5: 1-16, 1962

Demsetz, Harold. “Why Regulate Utilities?” The Journal of Law and Economics. Vol. 11, No. 1 (April 1968), p. 56.

Poole, Robert W. Jr. Unnatural Monopolies: The Case for Deregulating Public Utilities. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1985.

Primeaux, Jr., Walter J. Direct Electric Utility Competition: The Natural Monopoly Myth. New York: Praeger, 1986.

Moorhouse, John, ed. Electric Power: Deregulation and the Public Interest (San Francisco, CA: Pacific Research Institute, 1986.

Bradley, Robert L., Jr. “The Origins of Political Electricity: Market Failure or Political Opportunism?” Energy Law Journal. Vol. 17, no. 1 (1996), pp. 59–102.

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Public Choice and Electricity: Kiesling Ducks Again (Plano, Tx. meeting next week) https://www.masterresource.org/kiesling-lynne/public-choice-society-kiesling/ https://www.masterresource.org/kiesling-lynne/public-choice-society-kiesling/#respond Fri, 08 Mar 2024 07:00:00 +0000 https://www.masterresource.org/?p=80505

“Maybe in her Presidential Address (if enough people have read this critical post) she will be compelled to broach the subject of Public Choice and Electricity Planning. And maybe include a mea culpa that she finds herself admitting from time to time. Here’s hoping….”

The strange intellectual case of Lynne Kiesling–the technocratic ‘classical liberal’ championing a government planned, monopolistic electricity market–continues. Think seven Independent System Operators (ISOs) and Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) that regulate the in-and-out and pricing of grid electricity over multiple utility areas.

Public Choice Society Meeting

Next week is the 61st annual conference of the Public Choice Society, a stellar organization that applies Economics 101 to governmental institutions. “Methodological Individualism … Rational Choice … Politics-as-exchange.” A great tradition, a great conference ahead….

But … Kiesling is presiding as President of an 80-session, 220-presentation conference without a session in her pet area, governmental electricity planning.

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“Maybe in her Presidential Address (if enough people have read this critical post) she will be compelled to broach the subject of Public Choice and Electricity Planning. And maybe include a mea culpa that she finds herself admitting from time to time. Here’s hoping….”

The strange intellectual case of Lynne Kiesling–the technocratic ‘classical liberal’ championing a government planned, monopolistic electricity market–continues. Think seven Independent System Operators (ISOs) and Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) that regulate the in-and-out and pricing of grid electricity over multiple utility areas.

Public Choice Society Meeting

Next week is the 61st annual conference of the Public Choice Society, a stellar organization that applies Economics 101 to governmental institutions. “Methodological Individualism … Rational Choice … Politics-as-exchange.” A great tradition, a great conference ahead….

But … Kiesling is presiding as President of an 80-session, 220-presentation conference without a session in her pet area, governmental electricity planning.

Electricity, the second most regulated sector of the U.S. economy, is chock full of public choice issues. So why didn’t she organize a session on “Public Choice and Electricity” with a specific session on, say, “Sovereign Immunity: ERCOT and the Texas Blackout”?

The answer? She is in denial about the failure of her electricity planning model. The Electricity Reliability Council of Texas got off the hook for tens of billion of dollars worth of planning error in regard to The Great Blackout of February 2021, the most deadly and costly economic failure in U.S. history. What a case study–and Lynne (and disciple Michael Giberson) know where the bodies are buried in the “governance failures” (her term) of ISO/RTOs.

For more than a year, with her “market socialism” model besieged by the ‘knowledge problem‘ and Public Choice, I have begged her to show her cards. She refuses to consider a real free market in electricity (“I will not dance to your tune,” she says). She will not simply define what a free market in electricity is, instead blurring the subject with hidden assumptions and peculiar notions about what is government-versus-market. Now, she refuses to even engage with her critics on social media. She is hiding something, a lot.

————-

Back to the the Public Choice Society meeting this week in Plano, Some eighty panels cover just about everything except for electricity. The closest is “Corruption and Political Institutions” Friday at 9:30 am, that includes a presentation, “Green but Corrupt? Evidence of Bribery in the Renewable Energy Sector by Cristina Strango (discussant Jeff Milyo). Nice topic, but what about electricity writ large? Digitization (a favorite theme of Kiesling) has its own session (see Appendix A below), But what about the elephant in the room, Mandatory Open Access politics and ISO/RTO planning.

Maybe in her Presidential Address (if enough people have read this critical post) she will be compelled to broach the subject of Public Choice and Electricity. And maybe include a mea culpa that she finds herself admitting from time to time. [1] Here’s hoping….

Technocratic Rent-Seeker?

Kiesling is a politically correct player in the government sandbox. She collects academic positions and other associations for her tacit-to-direct support of climate alarmism and forced energy transformation. She wants government intervention to work, including, in the case below, with electric vehicles (EVs) propping up the wind/solar-wounded grid.

A constant self-promoter, she announced on LinkedIn:

I’m pleased to report that 7 other researchers & I have been awarded a National Science Foundation research grant in their Strengthening American Infrastructure program, to develop new knowledge about using digital technologies and market institutions for buildings and electric vehicles as energy resources. I’m looking forward to working with Serena KimRimvydas BaltaduonisMoatassem Abdallah, Farnoush Barnaei-Kashani, Fernando Mancilla-David, Manish Shirgaokar, & Tyler Svitak on this project! https://lnkd.in/gg2kihbC

SAI focuses on how knowledge of human reasoning and decision-making, governance, and social and cultural processes enables the building and maintenance of effective infrastructure that improves lives and society and builds on advances in technology and engineering.

If this project sounds like a central-planner design, it is!

This project explores how people can benefit from improving the flow of energy and information between electric vehicles (EVs) and the electric grid. Many Americans are experiencing frequent power outages and rising energy costs. EVs offer a promising solution as they can serve as backup power sources during outages, charge at cheaper times, support the grid, and promote the integration of renewable energy. However, to fully harness the advantages of EVs, encouraging EV charging practices that prioritize grid stability and economic incentives is vital.

This SAI research project combines economic, behavioral, and technical concepts to develop a Vehicle-Grid Integration (VGI) system that maximizes the advantages of EVs in addressing power outages, reducing energy costs, and creating a strong and sustainable energy system. This project explores the potential benefits of VGI, the costs and challenges associated with its implementation, and how best to share the benefits among people. Additionally, this project examines how people most prefer to participate and be compensated for using their buildings and EVs as resources to make the electric grid more resilient.

And still more scientism:

Building on existing collaborations with policymakers, industry, and nonprofits, this SAI project is organized into four research thrusts.

Thrust 1 focuses on finding pricing mechanisms and institutional arrangements that promote user-friendly VGI services. Thrust 2 performs power flow studies to ensure the power grid can handle VGI and designs a system for optimizing EV charging and discharging schedules. Thrust 3 examines socio-economic disparities in benefiting from VGI and explores consumer willingness to participate in bidirectional EV charging.

Thrust 4 develops a machine learning model and a synthetic dataset that includes data on how consumers adopt and use VGI services, as well as the impact of these adoption and usage patterns. By combining data from laboratory experiments, surveys, interviews, and real-world implementations of VGI infrastructure, this project offers a model for predicting the effects and patterns of widespread adoption of VGI systems across the country.

Vehicle-Grid Integration (VGI)? Electric vehicles (per government) on the grid (per government)? From the garage to the grid … Big Biden, Big Government Energy Transition. To real classical liberals, this is naked rent-seeking and scientism by a Woman of System.

Final Comment

How much longer can Lynne Kiesling lead a double life championing Electricity Statism on the one hand and classical liberalism on the other? So far, she goes with the governmental flow of more intervention to address the problems of prior intervention, favoring the “virtual power plant” of open-ended wind/solar subsidies/penetration, battery storage, and–her favorite–surge pricing in the home and business. So no matter how wounded the supply side with the grid, price spikes will solve the supply problem.

Far better would be to reverse course. Kiesling should stop the bleeding, refute her governmental model (with the classical liberal literatures she claims support it) and begin anew. But will she?

—————-

[1] Here are some Kiesling statements in reference to the Texas planning debacle. A mea culpa:

“I spend most of my time thinking about and working on electricity technology and institutions, and as an economist focused on market institutions I have long been an analytical advocate of the Texas model…. February 2021 provided a traumatic challenge to the operational and regulatory institutions of the past 15 years, and in my opinion since then, the Texas legislature and ERCOT have made many wrong decisions and have politicized grid operations, market operations, and business decisions.”

But she needs to blame herself as woman of system, not the system. Consider this about face:

“By facilitating decentralized coordination instead of imposing specific outcomes, the institutions designed in Texas became the most market-oriented in the country, and the most likely to be resilient and adaptive in the face of unknown and charging economic, technological, and environmental conditions.” (with Andrew Kleit, 1999)

“(oops!) There is now a need to revise the scarcity pricing framework in the light of recent events [in Texas], and to reflect ever-changing market conditions.” (June 30, 2021)

————————–

Appendix A: Presidential Session – Digital Public Choice

The session is technocrat Kiesling’s approach to electricity institutions and public policy, a sort of a now-we-have-computers-for-market-socialism for a governmentally coordinated electricity market. The technology and economics of digitization is a non sequitur for forgoing a real free market in electricity because entrepreneurs would have access to digitization for their market discovery process. Here is the session:

Session Chair: Chris Berg
Session Organizer: Lynne Kiesling


The Limits of Automating Fiduciary Responsibilities
Presenter: Eric Alston
Co-Author(s): Sophia Cossar, Morshed Mannan
Discussant: Aaron Lane


Implementing property rights in digital economies
Presenter: Jason Potts
Co-Author(s): Chris Berg
Discussant: Eric Alston


The political economy of digital economies
Presenter: Jason Potts
Co-Author(s): Ellie Rennie
Discussant: Thibault Schrepel


Computation and antitrust
Presenter: Thibault Schrepel
Co-Author(s): Nicolas Petit
Discussant: Jason Potts

Appendix B: Critical Posts on Kiesling and Electricity

The Great Texas Blackout of 2021: Triumph of the Unreliables (February 20, 2024)

Kiesling vs. Cato’s Fisher on Free Market Electricity: For the Record (February 8, 2024)

Kiesling: ISOs/RTOs Suffer from “The Knowledge Problem” (November 1, 2023

Horwitz vs. Kiesling on Climate (October 3, 2023)

Renewable Tax Credits: Kiesling Ducks Again (July 20, 2023)

Free Market Electricity: End the Blackout (Kiesling bobs and weaves) (July 11, 2023)

Will Lynne Kiesling Show More Cards? (electricity in crisis, time for debate!) (May 18, 2023)

Electricity Policy: An Exchange with Lynne Kiesling (more evasion, statism from a “classical liberal”) (May 11, 2023)

Are Electricity ISOs/RTOs Government Central Planning? (February 17, 2023)

“Electricity Restructuring: The Texas Story” (revisiting a book gone sour) (August 18, 2022)

Classical Liberalism and Electricity: Ten Questions for Lynne Kiesling (August 17, 2022)

Classical Liberalism and Electricity: An (Unfinished) Exchange with Lynne Kiesling (August 16, 2022)

Appendix C: Critical Posts on Giberson and Electricity

Giberson: Mandatory Open Access (ISO/RTO) is “a very regulated market” (!) (November 2, 2023)

Stealth Electricity Statism: Giberson Exchange (for the record) (October 12, 2023)

Giberson on Negative Wind Pricing (2008) (October 11, 2023)

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Market Environmentalists vs. Wind/Solar/Battery Industrialization, Sprawl https://www.masterresource.org/free-market-environmentalism/free-market-vs-wind-solar-industrialization-sprawl/ https://www.masterresource.org/free-market-environmentalism/free-market-vs-wind-solar-industrialization-sprawl/#comments Thu, 07 Mar 2024 07:00:00 +0000 https://www.masterresource.org/?p=83018

“These aforementioned groups and individuals are standing tall against the Climate Industrial Complex and Big Government Wind, Big Governmental Solar, Big Government Batteries, and the I-want-to-control-your-energy-life elitists. The real environmentalists speak from the grassroots, not from Washington, D.C.”

The article by Dave Anderson for the Energy and Policy Institute, (EPI), “Blocking Renewable Energy Is a Top State Legislative Priority for Network of Pro-Fossil Fuels Think Tanks,” lists the names of many organizations and individuals who should be applauded for their efforts to spare the living, green space from industrialization and energy sprawl.  

Dense energy is the most environmental, as pointed out by the late Peter Huber in Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists (New York: Basic Books, 1999):

The greenest fuels are the ones that contain the most energy per pound of material that must be mined, trucked, pumped, piped, and burnt.

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“These aforementioned groups and individuals are standing tall against the Climate Industrial Complex and Big Government Wind, Big Governmental Solar, Big Government Batteries, and the I-want-to-control-your-energy-life elitists. The real environmentalists speak from the grassroots, not from Washington, D.C.”

The article by Dave Anderson for the Energy and Policy Institute, (EPI), “Blocking Renewable Energy Is a Top State Legislative Priority for Network of Pro-Fossil Fuels Think Tanks,” lists the names of many organizations and individuals who should be applauded for their efforts to spare the living, green space from industrialization and energy sprawl.  

Dense energy is the most environmental, as pointed out by the late Peter Huber in Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists (New York: Basic Books, 1999):

The greenest fuels are the ones that contain the most energy per pound of material that must be mined, trucked, pumped, piped, and burnt. [In contrast], extracting comparable amounts of energy from the surface would entail truly monstrous environmental disruption….

The greenest possible strategy is to mine and to bury, to fly and to tunnel, to search high and low, where the life mostly isn’t, and so to leave the edge, the space in the middle, living and green.

Anderson in his article also fails to understand that the “Pro-Fossil Fuel Think Tanks” are less pro-fossil fuels than they are pro-consumer, pro-taxpayer, pro-freedom, and pro-environment. The problem of massive industrial wind turbines and solar acreage is that consumers do not like them and they are bad neighbors as judged by real local grassroots environmentalists.

Back to the article. Dave Anderson provides the following list for real environmental applause:

The State Policy Network (SPN) announced on its website last month that it will focus on working with state lawmakers to prevent states from adopting wind and solar power in 2024. 

SPN is the national organization that serves as the central hub of a network of affiliated think tanks located in all 50 states, and is funded by right-wing and corporate donors that include fossil fuel interests. The network also includes associate groups like the Donald Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute and multiple organizations backed by Charles Koch, such as Americans for Prosperity. 

Koch is the billionaire CEO and chairman of Koch Industries, which operates in multiple sectors of the fossil fuel industry. His Stand Together Trust contributed $5 million in 2022 to SPN-affiliated think tanks and millions more to SPN associates like the American Legislative Exchange Council and Cato Institute, according to the Center for Media & Democracy.  

The Energy and Policy Institute is publishing new research profiles of SPN and several affiliated think tanks involved in coast-to-coast efforts to block renewable energy projects. Highlights and links to the new profiles can be found below: State Policy Network: SPN has brought on Amy Oliver Cooke, a political consultant who previously worked for a SPN-affiliated think tank in Colorado that was funded by coal producers in Wyoming, to lead its Energy Policy Working Group.

Sponsors of SPN’s annual meeting in Chicago last year included the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, Stand Together Trust, and the Koch-backed group Americans for Prosperity. Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF): TPPF, which received more than $3 million from Stand Together Trust and the Charles Koch Institute in 2021 and 2022, ran an online fundraising campaign last year that featured false claims about offshore wind farms “beaching whales” and aimed to raise $500,000.

Ten of the nineteen individuals listed on TPPF’s board of directors web page have direct financial connections to the fossil fuel industry. Caesar Rodney Institute (CRI): CRI is leading SPN’s national campaign against offshore wind power. The Delaware-based SPN affiliate received $162,500 from the du Pont family’s Longwood Foundation in 2022.

The Longwood Foundation’s president Thère du Pont is a director for the DuPont Company, which sells products used by coal and methane gas power plants, and the foundation’s chairman Charlie Copeland works for CRI. Ben du Pont chaired a $150-per-person fundraising dinner for CRI’s anti-offshore wind campaign in November.

Cascade Policy Institute: The Oregon-based SPN affiliate published a report, “Quantifying the Unreliability of Wind and Solar Power in the Northwest,” last year by Eric Fruits. Fruits is also a senior scholar for the International Center for Law & Economics, which received $500,000 in 2022 from Koch’s Stand Together Trust.

Other SPN affiliates and associate groups have also been ramping up efforts to block renewable energy The Buckeye Institute, an Ohio-based SPN affiliate, has made the Frasier Solar project and Knox County officials the latest targets of its campaign against Ohio’s Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) program.

PILOT payment arrangements provide renewable energy developers with tax certainty, while ensuring counties benefit from reliable revenue from wind and solar projects for local schools and services. Frasier Solar has faced opposition from Knox Smart Development, an anti-solar LLC that has connections to the gas industry and has used the Buckeye Institute’s flawed analysis in its efforts to derail the solar project. 

The Buckeye Institute’s Board of Trustees includes Mark Jordan, the president of the gas exploration and production company Knox Energy. Jordan also serves on the board of the Kirkpatrick Jordan Foundation, which contributed $35,000 to $40,000 annually to the Buckeye Institute in recent years, according to IRS Form 990s

The Center of the American Experiment, which received $250,000 from Koch’s Stand Together Trust in 2022, has run multiple anti-wind and anti-solar ad campaigns on Facebook. The Minnesota-based SPN affiliate also received $20,000 from Americans for Prosperity in 2021, when it published an anti-renewables report, “Not in Our Backyard,” by Robert Bryce, a leading purveyor of anti-renewable energy disinformation. 

Center of the American Experiment’s Facebook ads The John Locke Foundation, a North Carolina-based SPN affiliate, is busy fighting solar farms and offshore wind. The group received $100,000 in 2022 from “the dark money ATM of the right,” Donors Trust, which contributed $19.3 million to SPN affiliates that year.  The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, Michigan’s SPN affiliate, received $525,000 from Stand Together Trust in 2022.

The group is supporting the Citizens for Local Choice ballot initiative, which aims to repeal Michigan’s new law aimed at streamlining renewable energy siting in the state. The leaders of the ballot initiative include longtime anti-wind and solar activist Kevon Martis.  Martis is also listed as a Senior Policy Fellow at the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal), a Virginia-based SPN associate that’s received funding from the coal industry.

Martis and Bryce spoke last month at a Knox Smart Development anti-solar event in Ohio. E&E Legal received nearly $950,000 in 2022 from Donors Trust.  The Cato Institute, a national SPN associate, received $1.8 million from Stand Together Trust in 2022. Cato hired former Trump Department of Energy politico appointee Travis Fisher, a longtime foe of renewables, last year. Fisher spoke in January at an anti-offshore wind meeting in Maryland led by several Republican members of Congress. 

Linnea Luekin of the Heartland Institute, another SPN associate located in Illinois, called for 2-mile setbacks for wind turbines in an appearance last month before state lawmakers in West Virginia. Heartland received more than $1.25 million from Donors Trust in 2022.  The Manhattan Institute, an SPN affiliate based in New York, received $495,000 from Stand Together Trust and $1.6 million from hedge funder Paul Singer’s foundation in 2022.

Adjunct fellow Jonathan Lesser has churned out a steady stream of anti-renewables opinion pieces featured in Forbes, the New York Post, and the Wall Street Journal.  Lesser is also president of the consulting firm Continental Economics, where his clients have included multiple pipeline companies, and the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, the group backed by Oxbow Carbon CEO Bill Koch that fought Cape Wind. 

These aforementioned groups and individuals (and many more) are standing tall against the Climate Industrial Complex and Big Government Wind, Big Governmental Solar, Big Government Batteries, and the I-want-to-control-your-energy-life elitists. from the grassroots, not from Washington, D.C.

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Enron and Greenpeace: An Exchange with Martin Porter https://www.masterresource.org/linkedin-climate-energy-debates/enron-greenpeace-martin-porter-exchange/ https://www.masterresource.org/linkedin-climate-energy-debates/enron-greenpeace-martin-porter-exchange/#respond Wed, 06 Mar 2024 07:00:00 +0000 https://www.masterresource.org/?p=82855

“Enron was the ‘greens’ favorite company, remember? Enron, in the words of a Greenpeace ex, was ‘the company most responsible for sparking off the greenhouse civil war in the hydrocarbon business.'”

Greenpeace was a fan of “green” Enron in the old days. Today, a Greenpeace UK leader has been trying to debunk me, based on my prior association with Enron and Ken Lay. And it has backfired with him just like it backfired when Joe Romm of Climate Progress tried the same thing 15 years ago.

Here is our exchange. I report, you decide. My final comment follows.

Martin Porter: so, tell us what it was like working for one of the most corrupt companies in US history? Did you ever visit your old Enron boss in jail??!?

Porter: … Do you miss those Enron days Rob Bradley??!?…

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“Enron was the ‘greens’ favorite company, remember? Enron, in the words of a Greenpeace ex, was ‘the company most responsible for sparking off the greenhouse civil war in the hydrocarbon business.'”

Greenpeace was a fan of “green” Enron in the old days. Today, a Greenpeace UK leader has been trying to debunk me, based on my prior association with Enron and Ken Lay. And it has backfired with him just like it backfired when Joe Romm of Climate Progress tried the same thing 15 years ago.

Here is our exchange. I report, you decide. My final comment follows.

Martin Porter: so, tell us what it was like working for one of the most corrupt companies in US history? Did you ever visit your old Enron boss in jail??!?

Porter: … Do you miss those Enron days Rob Bradley??!?

Bradley: Enron was the “greens” favorite company, remember? Enron, in the words of a Greenpeace ex, was “the company most responsible for sparking off the greenhouse civil war in the hydrocarbon business.” [Jeremy Leggett, The Carbon War (London: Penguin Books, 1999, p. 204)]. And the Kyoto memo:

———-

Bradley: Profitable opportunities will trump DEI emotionalism. Fossil fuels are for the masses, remember. Not the climate elite driving their Teslas.

Martin Porter: Says the guy who used to work for a crook

Bradley: Ken Lay? The beloved ‘green’ chairman of Enron? Remember: Enron’s first crime that set the tone for what followed was with a wind farm. But I repeat myself with an issue that backfires on you/Greenpeace.

Porter: why? Just because a bunch of crooks tried to make themselves look green it’s nothing to do with Greenpeace. The whole sorry story does ask questions on ‘green capitalism’ though.

Bradley: You forgot my quotation from Greenpeacer Jeremy Leggett. didn’t you. [“the company most responsible for sparking off the greenhouse civil war in the hydrocarbon business.” Jeremy Leggett, The Carbon War (London: Penguin Books, 1999, p. 204)].

Porter: hardly a ringing endorsement though, was it?

Bradley: Read his book for context. Leggett was surprised and elated! (The more homework you do, the more you might question the Climate Industrial Complex.)

Porter: I think we were all very pleased Enron was accepting climate science when most others in the oil industry weren’t, and it did help break up the united front of denial by the fossil fuel industry. Unfortunately it was all bullshit to cover massive fraud.

Bradley: Actually, internally, it was the other way around. The science behind climate alarmism was exposed as speculative. An executive on the renewables side even asked if the implication was that CO2 should be subsidized, not penalized, because of settled CO2 science. Please stop guessing … wrong.

Bradley: Yes, “Unfortunately it was all bullshit to cover massive fraud.” That’s politicized energy and a reason you should be as critical of the Climate Industrial Complex as you are of fossil fuels. You might even change your views!

Martin Porter: Well, we tried business without government control and the result was the Credit Crunch and Enron, but you were there for that so I don’t need to tell you.

Bradley: Just the opposite, sir. Government intervention created an Enron and fooled just about everyone. Enron: The Perils of Interventionism – Econlib

Final Comment

With thousands of connections on LinkedIn and free market conversations ongoing, at times I have to push back on ad hominem, one being my past association with Enron where I worked for 16 years. My Political Capitalism website anticipates and debunks this line of attack. No doubt many of my detractors have had to realize that ol’ Bad Enron was all “green” with climate alarm and big investments in wind and solar.

Enron Energy Services also was promising “Kyoto compliant” energy efficiency gains (10 percent reduced usage) in its long-term energy outsourcing contracts. It was a fraud based on ‘mark to model’ net present value accounting.

Enron was the epitome of fake ‘green’ energy. ‘Green’ energy today is Enron on a much larger scale. Not good for the anti-CO2, anti-industrialization worldview, after all.

A funny story in this regard concerns Enron CEO Jeff Skilling, who had to quell the concern of a newly hired coal executive that Enron was going to hide its coal push. “Mike,” Skilling assured, “we are a green energy company, but the green stands for money.” [1] And calculator-driven business ethics it is!

————

[1] Bradley interview with Michael Beyer and George McClellan, Enron Corp., April 10, 2021. Quoted in Bradley, Capitalism at Work: Business, Government, and Energy (M&M Scrivener Press, 2009), p. 310.

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Alaska’s “Green” Plan B: Political Energy is Back https://www.masterresource.org/alaska-policy/alaska-green-plan-b/ https://www.masterresource.org/alaska-policy/alaska-green-plan-b/#comments Tue, 05 Mar 2024 07:00:00 +0000 https://www.masterresource.org/?p=82766

“The prospect of Alaska becoming Germany energy-wise is a troubling concept to imagine. At least Germany had industry and an economy to destroy…. It’s up to us to elect common-sense realists instead of ideologues.”

Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy’s plan for a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to mandate unreliable and costly sources of energy has stalled out, thanks to Jesse Bjorkman, Chair of the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee. But sinister private interests and ethically corrupt bureaucrats are out to force a Green New Deal on taxpayers and ratepayers under a new guise.

Governor Dunleavy has now teamed with the Alaskan House Energy Committee to push for an equally bad Clean Energy Standard (CES). Introduced February 20, House Bill 368 is titled “An Act relating to clean energy standards and a clean energy transferable tax credit; and providing an effective date.”…

The post Alaska’s “Green” Plan B: Political Energy is Back appeared first on Master Resource.

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“The prospect of Alaska becoming Germany energy-wise is a troubling concept to imagine. At least Germany had industry and an economy to destroy…. It’s up to us to elect common-sense realists instead of ideologues.”

Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy’s plan for a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to mandate unreliable and costly sources of energy has stalled out, thanks to Jesse Bjorkman, Chair of the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee. But sinister private interests and ethically corrupt bureaucrats are out to force a Green New Deal on taxpayers and ratepayers under a new guise.

Governor Dunleavy has now teamed with the Alaskan House Energy Committee to push for an equally bad Clean Energy Standard (CES). Introduced February 20, House Bill 368 is titled “An Act relating to clean energy standards and a clean energy transferable tax credit; and providing an effective date.”

Putting the Fix In

A year ago, Governor Dunleavy tasked the Alaska Energy Security Task Force to create an energy plan (government plan) to lower Alaskan electricity rates to 10¢/kWh (his “moonshot”). Currently, Alaskans pay about 24¢/kWh, one of the highest rates in the country. RPS was a key component of the original draft plan, but at the 11th hour, CES became the new Trojan Horse. 

The fix was in. No stakeholders relevant to the development of our reliable sources of energy were on the task force assigned to create a comprehensive statewide energy plan. “Stakeholders” who actually have invested in, know well, and are ready to extract and utilize readily available local coal and gas were excluded from planning and considerations. The result? An energy plan to “Adopt a Clean Energy Standard with incentives to diversify generation.”

Dueling Plans

The Regulatory Commission of Alaska (RCA) unanimously opposed the RPS legislation in December 2023. House Bill 368, a Clean Energy “Standard,” appears to be the first of many standards tied to what is to come from the Electric Reliability Organization (ERO).  

Although this legislation comes ahead of the ERO Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), new standards and modifications are subject to the review by the RCA. The ERO concept was signed into law in 2020 and was heavily supported by our friends at the Renewable Energy Alaska Project (REAP). The duties of the ERO include developing reliability standards that provide for an adequate level of reliability of an interconnected electric energy transmission network and the development of integrated resource plans. In part, the ERO legislation states:

An electric utility must participate in an electric reliability organization if the utility operates in an interconnected electric energy transmission network served by an electric reliability organization certificated by the commission.

The idea, according to REAP, is for ERO to

remove barriers to renewable energy development in a number of ways. It will mandate non-discriminatory access by independent companies that wish to sell renewables into the grid, take a first step toward eliminating redundant fees to transmit power along the grid and establish a transparent, public “integrated resource planning” process to determine what new generation projects the region will build in the future.”

Many climate alarmist groups that are demanding mandates to Alaskan energy were involved in the creation of the ERO. The Alaska Institute for Climate and Energy (ALICE) provided a study on a ~5 billion dollar Eklutna Pumped Energy Storage Solution, per Governor Dunleavy’s request. According to ALICE

The science is clear: the world, including Alaska, must reduce Greenhouse Gas (GhG) emissions from burning fossil fuels to net zero by 2050 to keep our planet below 1.5-degree Celsius warming and avert dangerous run-away climate change.

And

The interest of consumers are not best served by relying on private companies with a profit motive as the only potential actors. IPPs, member-owned utilities, and the state should all be able to pursue beneficial renewable energy, storage, and transmission projects

Moving the Railbelt utility system off fossil fuels (currently 85% of our generation) to a fully integrated and resilient wind-solar-storage powered system serves the highest public interest as we face the existential threat of climate change. We urge the RCA to do everything in its power to facilitate that immediate and rapid transition on the Railbelt and throughout Alaska.

More central planning where we can least afford it.  Witness the devastation that occurred in 2021 with Winter Storm Uri in Texas under the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT)’s central planning of electric utilities.

Alaska’s Electric Reliability Organization is Railbelt Reliability Council, RRC, whose mission is

Serve the public interest and provide the greatest long-term value to the Railbelt by working collaboratively and transparently to establish and uphold protocols that sustainably balance safety, reliability, cost, and environmental responsibility. 

The RRC will insert themselves into the process and centrally plan for the utilities on the railbelt that provide power to 75% of Alaska’s population. The utilities under their planning purview include Homer Electric Association (HEA), Chugach Electric Association (CEA), Matanuska Electric Association (MEA), and Golden Valley Electric Association (GVEA) which currently have boards that represent the needs of the rate payers. 

The council is made up of a 15-member board, many with questionable proclivities as it relates to the future reliability and affordability of our power, given their backgrounds and roles they currently occupy at their day jobs.

This central planning “service” comes to us with a surcharge. Although the surcharge has already made it onto the bills of rate payers—(see ERO Surcharge on your electric utility bill)—the RCA has suspended the tariff and has approved the surcharge on an interim basis. The current interim surcharge for Chugach Electric ratepayers is $0.00054 per kilowatt hour (kWh).

With reliability being the key word to the Railbelt Reliability Council, what does allowing renewables onto the grid have to do with reliability?  Nothing. All the central planning processes that are being rapidly established, along with the allowance by the RCA for independent power producers to enter onto the grid will come at great costs with no clarity or accountability as to who represents the rate payer. This is done on purpose to avoid liability. 

The development of the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) will be key to the transformation of our grid. The ERO must consider reliability and cost factors, however they will be able to weigh in on other interests that will have a negative impact on rate payers such as the narrative that the earth has reached global boiling and the installation of windmills and solar will have an effect on the sun.

In a white paper by REAP on the need for an Independent System Operator, the word affordability appears zero times; reliability appears two times (and not in reference to reliability as a priority); renewable appears at least twenty times. and climate appears five times. It is abundantly clear how these competing priorities will be weighed when you have the likes of Chris Rose with REAP and IPPs with self-serving interests to sell their renewable energy representing this “reliability council.”

Independent Power Producers

The ability for Independent Power Producers (IPPs) to enter onto the grid and amendments to regulations to facilitate integration were adopted and approved by the RCA in late 2015.  Utilities are rapidly being compelled to sell off their generating capacity to independent power producers. 

Much of this is due to unrealistic decarbonization goals that are being adopted by utilities. IPPs are allowed to steal money from ratepayers by supplying unreliable energy paid for with special funding and subsidies, while the host utilities bear the costs to make them reliable. In other words, IPPs are opportunistic ticks on the backsides of humanity, allowable only by coopted, feckless, corrupted politicians and bureaucrats.

Present an IPP whose intent is to serve the interests of the country and state, provide reliable and affordable energy that stands on its own without reliance on the utility and I will stop complaining.

Clean Energy” Standards

In a conversation with a member of the House Energy committee, it was stated that Governor Dunleavy wants an RPS because he needs assurances for investors from the lower 48. The narrative? This CES bill is a compromise from the mandates within the RPS bill. As RPS appears to have died in the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee, the governor is taking another run at compliance and preparation for his investors. But Governor Dunleavy’s trumped letter to Warren Buffet (please read it) is a subterfuge for the politically correct in place of the economically correct.

Clean Energy Standards require that a minimum share of a utilities electricity to be generated from “clean” sources.  They require utilities to buy wind and solar power regardless of their cost. The idea has been sold by using half-truths that these clean sources are cheaper. They are “cheaper” on the backs of our children and grandchildren through taxpayer subsidies, only to later compromise the reliability of the grid, eventually resulting in costly increases to the ratepayer.  (Think of a “cheaper” car with a trick motor having a lot of problems down the line.)

Similar to how electric vehicles are sold as being cheaper, the costs are hidden with everyone else paying for the infrastructure, the same concept applies here where our utilities foot the bill for making the grid 100% reliable. Wind and solar cannot compete with conventional energy such as natural gas and coal, so the greens need a law to force utilities to adopt the use of their whirligigs and whatnots. Clean Energy Standards are hidden energy taxes. 

CES is being sold as an acceptable stand-in for RPS because there are no mandates to reach a certain percentage of renewables as of a certain date. This too is a half-truth. 

The legislation states the load-serving entity’s portfolio shall include clean energy in the following percentages:  35 percent by December 31, 2036, and 60 percent by December 31, 2051. 

Clean energy is defined as follows:

  • When generated by a load-serving entity, does not release carbon dioxide or releases carbon dioxide in an amount that is offset by the amount of carbon dioxide the load-serving entity absorbs or removes from the atmosphere;
  • Is generated from coal with a sulfur content of one percent or less by weight;
  • Is generated from renewable energy resources; or
  • Is generated from nuclear energy;

The bill states that new construction of a large power facility cannot be detrimental to meeting the clean energy standard.  This means that we cannot bring new sources of energy found in abundance in our own state unless we play the unproven and wildly expensive game of carbon offsets or carbon capture.  One of the main priorities laid out by the Alaska Energy Security Task Force is to “significantly increase load to drive down energy rates” couple that with this CES mandate that new sources must fall into the clean energy category, I see this hardly different from the RPS mandated percentages. 

While we have more time allowed to meet the percentages and the utilities have no fee per se, but when you combine the Railbelt Reliability Council and their interests, the Independent Power Producers and their interests, the result isn’t necessarily a mandate but our co-ops being under the gun to adapt to the whims of investors and environmental special interests to integrate their toy things onto our grid. Our co-ops have boards that represent the rate payers and our needs.  This process and legislation usurps that completely.

Intermittency Risks

Weather happens in Alaska regularly. And when it does, wind and solar are absolutely useless. An example of this is the CIRI wind farm. When we were most desperate for the power in late-January, its fairytale 17MW nameplate was nowhere to be seen. At the most critical time, in a 24-hour period, 2% of name plate was achieved. It was nothing but a big hunk of ugly yard art.

Imagine any other endeavor where an 2% success rate is acceptable. The gas plants held up their end of the bargain that day. Eklutna hydro was spooled up to 100% capacity and generated 100% of nameplate capacity. As far as the Railbelt Reliability Council should be concerned …. Reliably renewable is an oxymoron.

All of these policies and processes together are critical to compromising the system, disenfranchising and separating the ratepayer from ownership. In turn, this will allow for more renewable generation such as wind and solar farms with our co-ops transforming into nothing more than a beat down and unreliable billing function.

What comes during and after the co-ops are rendered useless surely won’t be fun to live though. Jenn Miller with Renewable IPP, gleeful about the construction of the largest solar panel farm in Willow, Alaska, said it best “The state’s power portfolio could be more like Germany’s – Germany gets a similar amount of sunlight to Alaska, but about 10% of its power comes from solar energy….”  The prospect of Alaska becoming Germany energy-wise is a troubling concept to imagine. At least Germany had industry and an economy to destroy. I suppose it is better to be a has been than a never was. Poor Alaska never stood a chance.

In August of 2023, the North American Reliability Corporation (NERC) identified energy policy and grid transformation as the top two risks among five significant evolving and interdependent risks to grid reliability. According to the report:

Existing resource sufficiency requirements and underlying studies are based on a pre-decarbonization paradigm that traditionally focused on peak capacity requirements and assumed energy sufficiency would result; traditional resource adequacy planning is capacity focused…. With a higher proportion of variable and renewable fueled resources evolving, this aspect of resource adequacy must be more specifically assessed.” 

Hint: We are warned. Clean Energy Standards is energy policy to be avoided. 

What Can Be Done?

In a state where we are in an “energy crisis,” shoehorning our utilities to buy unreliable sources of energy is the last concept that we need to adopt.  House bill 368 for CES is in the special energy committee.  Call and email the chair, Representative George Rauscher. 907-465-4859.  Representative.George.Rauscher@akleg.gov

To date, two hearings have been held on this bill.  The hearing held on February 29th was from invited testimony from Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation who stated there is no source of uranium, no current spent fuel storage capability, no known deployment timeframes and provided no costs.  The next hearings are scheduled for March 5th and 6th at 10:15 AM for more invited testimony.  If you do not have time to call in or email, you can submit a Public Opinion Message (POM).  The Public Opinion Messaging System allows you to send a fifty word message to individual legislators and entire committees. 

Coal. The Alaska Energy Security plan states that Alaska’s known coal reserves could “power the entire country for decades if not centuries.”  218 pages with a 1714 page appendix and nothing stated about expanding the use of coal in our energy crisis.  Rejuvenate Healy Coal. 

Natural Gas. What is the yearly cost to make the gas field viable compared to all of these other fairy tales that have received far more attention than expanding and upgrading the generation infrastructure and production we already have?

Alaska should be more like Kansas.  Declare sovereignty:  Article XIII of the Kansas Republican Party Platform States:

Kansas leaders should not be allowed to arbitrarily deny permits to build new power and energy-producing plants. Carbon dioxide, one of the most common gases on earth, should not be declared a pollutant nor used as an excuse to deny the construction of new power plants. We oppose so-called Cap and Trade legislation. We oppose efforts to force communities to engage in sustainable development under guidance from the federal government or the United Nations.

Adopt resolutions.  “Whereas irrefutable evidence demonstrates that ill-health effects to mankind and the environment are occurring due to the side effects of industrial scale wind installations. These occurrences are widespread, wherever these installations have been constructed; Therefore, be it resolved, the Republican Party of Kansas, in view of the preponderance of evidence, will support candidates and legislative intent regarding energy policy that will serve to provide protection to our citizens security, physical health, financial health, access to reliable energy and property rights across all Kansas counties.”

Support common sense candidates in your local utility board elections. The incumbents up for reelection at Chugach Electric voted to support decarbonization initiatives and Renewable Portfolio Standards.  These concepts have been proven to dismantle utilities and co-ops across the country when implemented. Chugach Electric has elections beginning mid-April with two candidates that fit that bill. Please make a plan to vote and support Todd Lindley and Dan Rogers. Visit their website at https://www.votechugachstability.org/  

It’s up to us to elect common-sense realists instead of ideologues. Let’s challenge our friends and neighbors to increase turnout this year from 16% to 18%. 

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