Tom Konrad’s Posts

• 'Heretic' battles straw man 1

  Posted 2 days, 4 hours agoJohn Farrell has been promoting the Energy Self-Reliant States study as a "Heresy on Transmission." Rather than a heretic attacking misguided establishment shibboleths, this flawed study attacks a simplistic misunderstanding of why we need transmission. Farrell and his co-author David Morris are either intentionally promoting this misunderstanding, or they simply fail to grasp the reasons behind long distance transmission's necessity.

• Green jobs: debunking the debunkers 5

  Posted 4 months, 1 week ago

  In response to my recent article digging into green jobs, a reader sent me a copy of a March paper by Andrew Morriss et al at University of Illinois that attempts to debunk green jobs myths. While I see major flaws in most green jobs papers I read, many of the myths cited by this paper are irrelevant to what I consider the most important questions.

• Not all green jobs are created equal 2

  Posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago

  The stimulus package and the climate bill recently passed by the US House and now being considered in the Senate will create jobs while delivering a boost to our economy. A "green" stimulus will create approximately three times as many jobs as the same amount of spending in traditional energy industries. But clean energy is too diverse to consider a single industry. What are the differential jobs creation effects of different types of clean energy and are the most effective sectors getting the most money?

• Making the grade

  The candidates on clean energy 0

  Posted 1 year, 9 months ago

  Politicians will always have an influence on the stock market, through regulation, tax policy, incentives, and more. This truism is only more certain in energy policy, where electricity markets and transport are highly regulated and the next administration is widely expected to enact some sort of carbon regulation, if not a tax.

  This weekend, I heard the head of the Colorado Governor's Energy Office speak on what the state administration is doing on energy policy (PDF). Our current governor, Bill Ritter, ran on a three-part platform: working to fix Colorado's healthcare, transportation, and energy policies. Last year,… Read More

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Tom Konrad’s Recent Comments

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  Re: Assumption T&D

  The savings in transmission and distribution come because aggregate peak loads in areas with PV will be lower due to the distributed generation... although these areas still need to be connected to the grid, the lower level of electricity transmission leads to lower line losses and the ability to delay T&D upgrades.On Are solar incentives a subsidy for the rich? posted 1 year, 8 months ago 11 Responses

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  Best use of Funds?

  Your question as to if this is the best use of limited funds is precisely the one I've been trying to answer for years... I used to think difinitively "no" as you seem to, but now I'm on the fence.

  A better use of funds would be $100 for a smart meter in every home, buildign energy awareness at a much lower cost... but it would be much harder to acheive politically.  

  Frankly, solar is popular, and so it can often be the thin ened of the wedge to free up funds that would otherwise be used even more foolishly.  A case in point is Colorado's Amendemnt 37, the first citizen passed RPS.  I know many of the key players involved personally, and I can assure you that it would not have made it past the ballot box if it did not contain a set-aside for customer-sited PV.

  No, this is not the best use for "limited funds" but solar does have the effect of removing some funding limits.On Are solar incentives a subsidy for the rich? posted 1 year, 8 months ago 11 Responses

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  we agree

  Sean, your math and mine agree... my point was that the owner was getting a bad deal from PV. My question was if society was getting a bad deal (maybe, maybe not.)On Are solar incentives a subsidy for the rich? posted 1 year, 8 months ago 11 Responses

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  Sean

  I agree with all your points about how cellulosic ethanol with cogen would be far better than corn ethanol.  

  However, in the comparison between biomass cofiring and biomass/cellulosic cogen, I think we're both suffering from a paucity of numbers... the question we have to ask is how far we could drive in a PHEV powered by your cellulosic ethanol+electricity vs. how far you could get in an EV powered by electricty from cofiring.

  There's probably more energy in the cellulosic ethanol+electricity scenario, but would the lower efficiency of an ICE lead to lower miles?

  I don't know the answer to this... there are probably too many variables to pin down.

  On the subject of large CHP, I once had a tour of the Coors coal fired power plant in Golden... it provides all the electricity and process heat for the brewery, as well as providing some space heating to the School of Mines 1/2 mile away.On Tom Konrad on cellulosic electricity posted 1 year, 10 months ago 14 Responses

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  Biopower or Cellulosic Ethanol

  Sean, thanks for your thoughtful comment.  

  You're right, my assertion that "there isn't enough biomass" is an oversimplification.  Yet, no matter how much biomass there is, it is destined to become a valuable resource.  Given a valuable resource, the invisible hand of economics will push that resource towards the most effective use, which is biopower.

  Transport costs and heterogenous feedstocks will send some biomass to various uses.  For instance, Citrus Power's cellulosic ethanol from orange rinds seems like an efficient use of this relatively high quality feedstock.

  I also agree that cellulosic ethanol will probably provide more transportation energy than electricity in the short term, but I expect the electricity share to grow quickly in the medium term, which, as an investor, makes cellulosic companies much less appealing.

  As for your point of biopower/cellulosic ethanol synergies, I'll need to think about it some more... it does seem a good use of waste heat where there is no other industrila use.  On the other hand, the distributed nature of the feedstock means that in many cases even small uses of heat, such as rural schools and hosipitals, may be sufficient heat loads.

  On the infrastructure shift to electricity for transport, it is formidable, but then so is the shift required to get ethanol to market... this will probably be decided in the political realm: the fuel with the most subsidies will win.  Sad but, likely, true.On Tom Konrad on cellulosic electricity posted 1 year, 10 months ago 14 Responses