Suppose you began this morning by learning that some investors and developers had stepped forward with a reportedly new type of commercial grade electrical power called “Zephyr Integrated Power” (ZIP). Being clever, they are spending a LOT of time and money marketing ZIP, knowing that this is their chance to break into the grid in a BIG way.
Their message– ZIP is “FREE, CLEAN, AND GREEN”–sounds great! Oh yes, and for good measure, ZIP will create oodles of jobs.
So the basic question is this: exactly what do we do before we allow these people and their new product on the electric grid?
We wouldn’t be so gullible to just take their word for it, would we? Yet this is exactly what we are doing today!
And there is more: our politicians are so enamored with ZIP that they tell these promoters that we will not only allow them on the grid, we will FORCE utilities to use ZIP.…
Continue ReadingIn the face of a changing fiscal and political environment, Congress and various states are belatedly rethinking their far-flung efforts to restructure and regulate the nation’s energy markets. The opportunity is to change course and base their actions on facts, not emotion–and slow down and even reverse governmental largesse. The global warming scare has been cut down to size, after all, and the problems of politically dependent energies are more evident than ever.
Too many legislators and interventionists cling to basic energy myths, however. Here are five major ones.
Myth: Foreign Oil Provides Most of Our Energy
According to the U.S. Department of Energy and the Energy Information Administration, oil represents less than 40% of our energy use. A full two-thirds of that oil comes from North America, primarily Canada, not the Middle East.…
Continue ReadingThe typical pulverized coal power plant in the U.S. is about 35 years old, yet the fleet will continue to operate for many years to come. New coal-fired plants, meanwhile, will continue to enter service but at a slow rate. There may not be a future price for carbon dioxide (CO2) given the dramatic scientific and political developments that we are going through, but cheap natural gas makes it difficult to justify the higher up-front costs of a new coal plant.
Still, there is significant new electricity generation capacity is possible from these older plants, perhaps as much as 30,000 MW–twice EIA’s projected growth of coal power over the next two decades. In addition, new technology upgrades have the potential of improving the operating efficiency by 3% to 5%. But the impediment for such win-wins is the risk of a New Source Review violation, years of litigation, and possibly fines.…
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