This article was first published on Clean Energy Wonk.

California's RETI process lends insight into the near-term prospects of solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass.  

In September, California's Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative (RETI) released their Phase 2A report, which outlined potential transmission corridors to collect renewable energy from Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ) that had been identified in previous phases. As part of Phase 2A, they also screened each CREZ for environmental impact, and the potential difficulty of obtaining land for renewable energy development.  

I previously looked at the results from Phase 1A and gained some insight into the cost of renewable energy technologies. However, what renewable energy projects actually get built has to do with a lot more than just economics. If it raises too many environmental concerns, such as infringing on endangered Mojave Ground Squirrel habitat, it isn't going to get built.

Drawing on the spreadsheet "Supplemental Materials, CREZ Data" I put together the following charts, graphing the economics of each type of renewable energy in each CREZ against the expected environmental impact of that CREZ.  

Each circle represents one type of renewable energy at one of 35 CREZs. Concentric circles in different colors appear where a single CREZ offers multiple types of renewable energy development. The only difference between the two graphs is the size of the circles. In the first graph, circle sizes represent the potential annual energy production (GWh/yr) of a CREZ, while circle sizes in the second shows power rating (MW.) Geothermal and biomass resources are relatively larger in the first graph because these are typically baseload technologies generating electricity near peak capacity all the time, while solar and wind are variable.

The cluster of circles in the middle right represent resources outside California: they were not rated for environmental concerns, so I assigned them an arbitrary value in the middle of the range in order to display them on the charts.

Economic/environmental tradeoff?

I found it surprising that there is little evidence of a tradeoff between economic viability of CREZ's and environmental impact. In fact, the circles in the graphs above are generally clustered along a line from the lower left (high environmental impact, bad economics) to the upper right (little environmental impact, good economics). A tradeoff between economic viability and environmental concerns would manifest itself in a clustering along a line from the upper left (bad economics, little environmental impact) to the lower right (good economics, large environmental impact.)

Considering these four major renewable energy technologies, as they might be deployed in California, there is no real tradeoff between economics and the environment.  The best economics coincide with the least environmental impact. If we were to include energy efficiency in the analysis, the trend would be even more pronounced: energy efficiency has the best economic profile of all, yet avoids the use of energy and hence does less harm to the environment.

The exception here is biomass. The small green dots don't show a pronounced trend in any direction, meaning that there may be some tradeoff for biomass. Such a tradeoff would not be surprising, because harvesting plant matter on a large scale is bound to have significant ecosystem impacts. Note that biomass here does not include such technologies as waste to energy, which can be environmentally benign, or even an improvement compared to land filling. In this study, the biomass in remote regions that do not yet have transmission, since lack of sufficient transmission was one of the requirements to be a CREZ.

With clean energy, it may actually be possible to do well while doing good.

Related Links:

Environmental education in Guinea Bissau

‘Heretic’ battles straw man

A Penny Saved Is…

Energy Self-Reliant States [PDF], a flawed study on local Renewable Energy availability from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ISLR) found that 18 of the 50 states could not meet their electricity needs with local renewables. In fact, no state can meet its electricity demand through local renewables without expensive electricity storage. On a national basis, such storage would cost an estimated $13 trillion, or over 65 times the cost of the transmission investments they oppose.

One of the study authors, John Farrell, has been promoting the 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.

Their straw man is the false choice between states relying on local renewables such as PV on rooftops which supposedly would require only "minimal transmission upgrades" and far-off wind farms requiring expensive long distance transmission.  They say, for example,

[I]f Ohio's electricity came from North Dakota wind farms -- 1,000 miles away -- the cost of constructing new transmission lines to carry all that power and the electricity losses during transmission could result in an electricity cost to the consumer that is about the same, or higher, than local generation with minimal transmission upgrades.

This ignores most of the benefits which would flow from new transmission lines connecting North Dakota and Ohio. A 1,150 mile transmission line from Bismark to Cincinnati would also connect Fargo, Minneapolis, Eau Claire, Madison, Chicago, and Indianapolis running along Interstate Highway corridors (Google maps.) It also ignores the study's own finding that Ohio would only be able to generate 29 percent of the electricity it needs with local renewables. 

Incidentally, their national map shows Ohio being able to generate 33 percent of its electricity from local renewables, but adding up their own numbers for the renewables they identify gives 29 percent. I looked closely at their numbers for only six states, so there may be other arithmetic errors as well.

The states along this hypothetical route are North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. The study found that these states can generate the following percentages of local demand with in-state renewables:

If each of these states attempted to meet their local electricity needs with the renewables in the study, Ohio and Indiana would still need to import some electricity from other states. Although Ohio would not need to import power from as far away as North Dakota, they would have to tap into Minnesota's wind resources if demand were to be satisfied along this corridor. An attempt to meet that demand with the nearest resources might look like this:

You'll note that the total above exceeds 600 percent because the states with renewable energy surpluses have much lower local demand. The magnitudes of this demand are my best guess. Keep in mind that I did not choose this corridor to make my example work; the suggestion came directly from the transmission example in the study.

The Consequences of Timing

By the study's own methodology, both Ohio and Illinois need interstate transmission, because they cannot generate all their renewable electricity locally.  Yet, as I will demonstrate, even though North Dakota and Minnesota would be generating electricity for export, they will often need to import renewable electricity as well.  

Using the Correlation Maximization tool on Energy Timing (note: Energy Timing has been taken down, see comment here.), I generated the best portfolio of North Dakota wind and solar farms to meet the needs of Square Butte Electric Coop, an electric utility in Grand Forks, N.D.  The results are shown below:

Composition of Optimal Portfolio of North Dakota Renewable Energy: 

This combination of three wind farms represents the best fit between electric output from existing wind farms and solar sites in Energy Timing's database, and local demand.  Even though this is the best fit, the correlation between supply and demand is only 13.2 percent. Solar sites do not appear in the optimal portfolio because they do not lead to a better fit.

As you can see from the bottom graph, wind output is strongest in the morning, when demand is relatively low, and falls off in the afternoon, as demand rises.  Hence, unless North Dakota builds far more wind farms than it needs to supply local demand (an expensive proposition which could only be justified by electricity exports), they would not have enough electrify in the afternoon and early evening, when the wind typically dies down.  This would be the situation on a typical day.  On any given day, wind power is even more variable than it is on average, leading to large and frequent swings from oversupply to undersupply.

In the case of Minnesota electrical demand, solar sites turn out to be a better fit than wind sites.  In reality, if Minnesota were to attempt to meet local demand with renewable energy, a mix of wind and solar sites would be used, since wind is so much less expensive than solar.  But since solar sites are the best fit for local demand, a mix of wind and solar would produce a worse match than the 24.5 percent correlation we see in the scenario above.

Benefits of Transmission

We can now see how both Minnesota and North Dakota would benefit with a high capacity transmission connection between the states. In the early morning, before the sun rises, Minnesota will not be producing any domestic renewables, so it makes sense to import electricity from North Dakota, where production is far in excess of demand all morning. Minnesota will in turn be able to supply excess solar power to North Dakota in the afternoon before the sun gets low and cuts solar output.  

In short, even though both Minnesota and North Dakota can easily produce enough local renewable electricity for their needs, the timing of that electricity causes problems of both oversupply and unmet demand. If we build transmission connecting states regions, these problems are reduced, and less storage is needed to make up the difference.

As we increase the interregional connections, we will be able to bring in power from farther afield that better meets demand.  For instance, both these states don't have enough local renewables in the evening, even when combined. The worst period is just around dusk, from about 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. CST, before the wind begins to pick up at night in North Dakota. But in the sunny Mojave Desert of southern California, the sun is still up (it's two hours earlier, Pacific Time), and large Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plants can use relatively cheap thermal storage to continue producing power for hours after sunset.

We can also see that both North Dakota and Minnesota typically have spare production capacity in the summer months, so they could export electricity back to the Southwest during these months, when Southwest electricity demand peaks due to air conditioning loads.

As we increase the length of regional transmission networks, each state along the path gains, both as an electricity exporter and as an importer depending on the season and weather conditions. Ohio does not need to pay for giant transmission lines from North Dakota to import which "could result in an electricity cost to the consumer that is about the same, or higher, than local generation."  North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana would also benefit from such a line, and all could be asked to contribute.

Costing Storage vs. Transmission

The study's authors also invoke electricity storage to "solve" the problem of timing, saying

Some renewable fuels, like sunlight and wind, are variable. Thus, the estimates, especially for wind, assume a significant level of storage or on-demand distributed generation.

Unfortunately, they make no attempt to account for the price tag of such storage. They state only, 

This report does not examine storage and its implications, but in our analysis of variable renewable energy potential, we assume that sufficient storage is available.

"On-demand distributed generation" could come from natural gas or biomass. Renewable generation relies on the availability of the natural resource, few of which can be stored. Even incremental hydropower is typically not on-demand, because it is usually the result of adding generation to existing dams and comes with obligations to maintain flow rates.

Biomass based power is typically baseload, not on-demand. Furthermore, the study authors explicitly rule out the large scale use of biomass for electricity because they expect the amount of biomass-based electricity to be "modest." Even if large scale, on-demand distributed biomass based generation were available, it would only be available in those states with a large biomass resources.  See the map below.

Natural gas is an incomplete response to climate change in that it is a fossil fuel, may not even be available in the necessary quantities, and must be imported by the vast majority of states.  What is the point in pushing for reliance on locally generated renewable electricity if it only increases our dependence on imported natural gas which may not be available and produces greenhouse gas emissions? 

Given the not only daily, but seasonal mismatches between local electricity production and demand, states which are locally self-sufficient in electricity would have to invest in a month or more worth of storage. While electric vehicles may be able to provide some daily or hourly storage, they will not be available for seasonal electricity storage, since the vehicle owners will need to drive them, and so cannot keep them fully charged for months or even days on end.

The cheapest large scale electricity storage solutions, (Pumped Hydropower, Compressed Air Energy Storage, and Molten Salt Thermal Storage) typically cost $10 to $50 per kWh of storage.  Unfortunately, all three of these options are limited in where they can be located, so restricting transmission will also restrict the use of these cheaper forms of storage. The cheapest battery and flow battery storage technologies cost about $100 to $150 per kWh. To be generous, I will assume that all states can build as much electricity storage as they want at $50 per kWh, or $50,000 per MWh. I will also assume that geothermal, hydropower, combined heat and power, and efficiency gains will mean that solar and wind will need to supply only 50 percent of our current electricity usage. 

According to the Energy Information Administration, total electricity production in 2007 was 4,156,745 thousand MWh. An average monthly production was thus 346,395,000 MWh, and the cost of a month's worth of national electricity storage to meet half of a month's demand would be $8,665 billion under the assumptions above. In contrast, the ILSR study states that "FERC, Congress, and environmental groups ... rush to accelerate the construction of a new $100-$200 billion interregional transmission network."  

If such a network cost $200 billion, and reduced the need for storage by only 10 percent, then it would have paid for itself more than eight times. Given less conservative (and I think more realistic) assumptions of reducing the need for storage by 50 percent, and a per MWh cost of storage of $75,000, a regional transmission network would pay for itself in reduced storage needs by 65 to 1.

Conclusion

To me, 65-to-one, or a savings of approximately $13 trillion, seems worth the price of stringing wires. For comparison, $700 billion has been spent on the war in Iraq since 2001. In other words, the ILSR study is suggesting that we pay for eighteen wars in Iraq in order to avoid building an interregional transmission network, costing about as much as we spent in Iraq in 2008. 

In fact, the price for local self-reliance on renewable energy would likely be higher. Thirteen trillion dollars does not include the cost savings that the report's authors tried to address: Transmission allows us to exploit less expensive renewable generation. Furthermore, the variability of both wind and solar generation can be vastly reduced by combining the output of dispersed wind and solar farms. Less variability reduced the need for costly spinning reserves to stabilize the grid if wind power suddenly drops or a cloud passes above a solar farm.

Not all self-styled heretics are fighting a just cause against an oppressive consensus.  To the extent that a consensus exists in favor of an improved national transmission grid, it is based on sound science and economics.  It is unfortunate that so many environmentalists are seduced by the mirage of renewable energy self-reliance.

Related Links:

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

Solar’s rapid evolution makes energy planners rethink the grid

Gore on the Daily Show: extended dance remix

You know how sometimes Jon Stewart gets all smarmy and sycophantic when he has on a guest he actually admires? And you know how Al Gore has a reputation for being a bit stiff on occasion? Let’s just say they seemed to bring out those qualities in each other last night—or, as Stephen Colbert “jokingly” put it later, there was “no Al-Gore-rhythm.”

Still, Gore spoke clearly about the energy and technology solutions that exist, what it will take to actually implement them, and why it ain’t happenin’. The Daily Show published a two-part extended interview on its site—here’s part one:

... and here’s part two:

Related Links:

Fair, Ambitious & Binding: Essentials for a Successful Climate Deal

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

‘Heretic’ battles straw man

Last week, blasting began on Coal River Mountain in West Virginia. This is a part of the country where dynamite routinely goes off—turning the region’s historic mountain ranges into dust for the tiny coal seams that lie beneath their surface.

But Coal River Mountain is special, or, rather, you can decide whether it becomes special. Right now, Coal River Mountain represents the best and worst our country has to offer. It is one of the most dangerous examples of blasting for dirty coal and one of the most profound examples of hope that exist in our country. It is a crossroads.

Coal River Mountain can be a wind farm that provides 85,000 households with electricity, creates 700 long-term green jobs, gives back $1.7 million in annual county taxes and stands as a model for clean energy across coal country. Or, it can be a 6,000-acre dirty energy wasteland.

Stretching across thousands of acres of diverse and pristine hardwood forests, Coal River Mountain is one of the last intact mountains in the vicinity. It is also home to some of the few remaining headwater streams that have not been polluted with heavy metal-laden mine waste. To local residents, the mountain is a last stand.

When blasting began on Coal River Mountain this week, explosives began going off less than 100 yards from the largest coal sludge impoundment in the country. To put this in perspective, we are talking about more than eight billion gallons of coal slurry held back by an earthen dam. Were the dam to fail, and it has happened in the past, hundreds of people would have less than five minutes to save their lives.

It’s unfathomable to think that there are people in Coal River Valley who went to sleep last night fearful that a tidal wave of toxic coal sludge could break down their door. Or, it should be.

But almost as hard to fathom is why any political leader paying attention would allow a coal company to obliterate intact mountain ranges, sacrifice precious drinking water or risk losing people to a tsunami of coal sludge, when the mountain could be a wind farm instead?

Coal River Mountain’s real economic worth isn’t underground, but up in the sky. It is for this reason that Coal River Mountain is a major test for our country’s climate and energy future. It’s not that we lack alternatives to fossil fuels. It’s that while our nation’s leaders debate which solutions to put in place and at what rate and by what time, the fossil fuel industry continues to build more pipelines, belch out more pollution, and destroy more mountains. We are moving backwards even as we talk of a better future. But we don’t have to be.

In the last several months, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken some good steps to curb mountaintop removal mining, largely through strict oversight of mining permits. But now it’s time for leaps.

To save Coal River Mountain and preserve our nation’s clean energy potential, it’s critical that the Obama Administration, in particular the EPA, the Council for Environmental Quality and the Army Corps of Engineers, hear from all of us to counter the pressure that they are getting from coal lobbyists and coal industry-pocketed politicians. The Obama Administration can and will intervene if we decide that Coal River Mountain is where we draw a line in the sand.

Over the next two days, Credo Mobile, Sierra Club, NRDC, 350.org, the Center for Biological Diversity, Appalachian Voices and Rainforest Action Network among others have asked our supporters to contact those in the Obama Administration who have the power to immediately stop the blasting on Coal River Mountain and to protect our clean energy resources. With your help we can build the national outcry necessary for immediate action.

I was going to tell you that there are two important reasons to help save Coal River Mountain: because people are in danger, and because we are blowing up, literally dynamiting, one of our most promising sources of energy. But really, the most important reason for you to act is because you can. It is time stop talking about a clean energy future and start living in a clean energy present.

To help save Coal River Mountain and protect our clean energy resources visit, www.savecoalrivermountain.org.

Related Links:

What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?

Kids just say no—to fossil fuels

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

With all eco-eyes focused on the action (or, more properly, inaction) on a climate bill, other critical components of a clean energy economy can be overlooked. That was the case on Monday as the dominant news story concerned speculation about whether Republican members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works would show up for Tuesday's climate bill markup session (they didn't).

While that tragicomedy played out, a forum at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House went largely unnoticed. The "Clean Energy Economy Forum" was hosted by the Department of the Interior, which manages one-fifth of all land in the nation (and 1.7 billion acres on the outer continental shelf). Given the sheer immensity of these lands, DOI policies play an enormous role in greenhouse-gas emissions and in shaping what our nation's energy future will look like. The forum was only the latest of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's efforts to make DOI policies conform to the realities of climate change and the parallel need to develop renewable sources of energy.

In his second month in office (March), Salazar issued an order making renewable energy development a top DOI priority.

More recently, in mid-September, Salazar signed a secretarial order establishing a framework to coordinate climate change efforts throughout the vast DOI bureaucracy. Policy, data gathering, and public education will all be coordinated by the newly formed Climate Change Response Council.

Moral of the Story

Not to put too fine a point on it, but ... the DOI’s actions are a reminder that the legislative branch is only one of three on our governmental tree. The executive can flex its muscles in other ways if Congress isn’t up to the task. The EPA—another part of the executive branch—has already signaled its willingness to regulate CO2 under provisions of the Clean Air Act. Perhaps EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson will step up to the plate with a regulatory solution to climate change if a legislative one fails.

In the end, we do need a comprehensive climate change bill from Congress. But Republican obstructionism, combined with the Democratic failure to govern as a majority party on the most important issue of the day, may force President Obama to bravely go where no Congress has gone before—or appears to be going anytime soon, for that matter.

That would require bold action, measures carrying significant political risks. But isn’t that the platform on which Obama was elected in the first place?

Related Links:

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

‘Heretic’ battles straw man

Gore on the Daily Show: extended dance remix

As the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee began hearings on carbon regulation, debate ran along traditional battle lines, but with a new script. Democrats Barbara Boxer (CA) and John Kerry (MA) moved away from discussing the environmental impacts of climate change - - and the reason, therefore, to take action to reduce carbon emissions - - and focused instead on the economic benefits of a domestic clean energy economy. Meanwhile, Republicans James Inhofe (OK) and Lamar Alexander (TN) complained that energy bills would rise and Americans would lose jobs.

It’s a good thing that Congress is finally looking at the economics of climate change and carbon reductions, because the overwhelming amount of data - - buttressed by common sense - - shows that reducing carbon will be very good for our economy overall. One of the biggest sources of carbon reductions will be in the area of energy efficiency and that doesn't cost money, it saves money. Walmart, for example, said that if each of their 100 million customers bought just one compact florescent light bulb to replace an incandescent bulb, those consumers would save over $3 billion in electricity costs over the life of the bulbs (after deducting the higher up-front cost of the new bulbs).

Renewable energy, another carbon-reducing technology, creates jobs in the US and saves money too. Alan Horn, President and CEO of Warner Brothers, told me recently that his studio is covering large soundstages with enough solar to provide up to 10% of their massive energy needs. After a 7 to 10 year payback, they will get that amount of their electricity free for decades to come. Moreover, that multi-million dollar project put people to work in Burbank, California, not China or India, and didn’t take away a single job from anyone.

It’s misleading when some Senators focus on trivial or entirely bogus costs, but especially troubling when their carbon smokescreen obscures a bigger truth - - inaction will cost far more than tackling the problem. No better example of the mammoth costs associated with denial can be found along our coastlines.

As discussed at a the recent H209 Water Forum in New York, cities around the world are building barriers to protect against rising sea level and increased storm activity that is related to the impacts of climate change and it costs real money - -  Venice: $7 billion; London: $8 billion; New Orleans: $700 million; the California coast: $14 billion, plus $1.4 billion a year for maintenance.

In New York itself, $400 million was just spent to upgrade pumps that remove rising waters out of subways. Experts at the conference predicted billions more will be needed to protect telecommunications, power lines, and other NY infrastructure that sits below sea level. Even at the lowest end of the range of catastrophic climate impacts predicted, NY will suffer massive street flooding and property damage unless more protections are built. Further inaction on reducing carbon will only drive these costs higher.

“I'm sure the worker at a cement plant, when he loses his job, won't find much consolation in green welfare programs," said Senator Inhofe at the hearing. Ironically, building this entire additional infrastructure to deal with rising waters will use a lot of cement, so Inhofe was aimed in the wrong direction again. In fact, companies like W.L. Gore make devices to scrub carbon and other pollution from cement kiln smokestacks and create lots of American jobs in the process (and valuable exports too!).

Given all of the obvious economic benefit of evolving to energy that is considerably more efficient/clean/domestic, one can only be left to wonder if Inhofe’s positions mean that Oklahoma just doesn’t like New York? Or California? Or Venice? Maybe the Senator is just jealous that his state doesn’t have a coastline, but unless he and his colleagues start making decisions based on real economic data, his state may also be left without a share of the 21st century industries that will power the globe and lead us out of the current recession.

Related Links:

Making buildings more efficient: rationalizing retrofit markets

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

A scientific hack job that won’t cripple climate talks

The Investigative Reporting Workshop released a report on Thursday detailing how one of the first big chunks of money for clean energy under the stimulus package is actually being spent. Our findings (I was the lead reporter on the story) can be found here.

Most interestingly, we found that the program, which is designed to reimburse companies for 30 percent of the cost of building a renewable energy facility, has given out $1.05 billion since Sept. 1. Almost all of it (91 percent) has gone to 11 wind farms (a mix of solar, geothermal and biomass projects collected the rest).

The 11 wind farms are scattered throughout the United States, but the companies who own them and ultimately benefited from U.S. taxpayer funds are scattered across the globe. In fact, 84 percent of the total - $849 million – went to projects owned by foreign companies.

On one level, it's very much an old-fashioned "How-Are-Your-Tax-Dollars-Being-Spent?" story. We looked at who owned the projects, what country they call home and who built the wind turbines that were installed (turbine manufacturing is where you find most of the long-term economic activity associated with building wind energy). We also looked at who lobbied Congress for renewable energy incentives the stimulus bill. We found a mixed crowd of international companies, including huge conglomerates like BP and Alstom -- better known for their carbon and nuclear programs, all eager to come to America and take advantage of the package's benefits for clean energy (hardly a secret).

We also examined how this money was disbursed with virtually no strings attached (there is no obligation for any of this $1.05 billion to be reinvested, though several of the companies have said they will).

But there is more than this one level to the story, and the deeper issues have serious implications for anyone interested in clean energy's future in America. In a nutshell, the fact that European companies are lining up to collect stimulus money is indicative of something bigger: the American clean energy sector is not in great shape. There are only two major U.S.-owned manufacturers of wind turbines (GE Energy and Clipper Wind), and they produced less than half of the turbines installed last year. Even less this year.

The biggest developer of wind farms is still NextEra Energy Resources, a subsidiary of Florida Power & Light, but the Spanish firm Iberdrola is second. Foreign companies riddle the rest of the top ten. (Fascinating charts showing market share can be found on pages 14 and 15 of the American Wind Energy Association's 2008 annual report.) Since the economic crisis of last fall, U.S. companies have pulled back their investment and foreign companies have charged ahead.

So, how did we get here?

It's not a secret. Once upon a time, American innovators invented the modern turbine. After a brief moment of patriotic pride in the accomplishment, we mostly abandoned it until recently when we decided wind should be a bigger part of the renewable energy mix. Even in those brief periods when Americans did support wind, we loved other energy forms more (here's a great chart illustrating federal incentives for various energy sources through 2003).

Numerous attempts to get wind going were made through the 1980s and 1990s, and numerous American wind companies stumbled and fell. Meanwhile, European countries were subsidizing their wind industries and pouring money into their technology development.

It is not a coincidence that the No. 1 supplier of wind turbines globally (and largest foreign supplier in the United States) is Denmark-based Vestas. Denmark set ambitious goals for their wind industry and backed them.

Other European countries did the same, and now Asia and China are following suit, pumping money into their industry and watching as they spring from nothing to major players. Indian companies have been selling turbines in the U.S. for several years now, and minutes before our report was released on Thursday, the first major deal to bring Chinese-built turbines to the U.S. was announced.

Does it matter that we have to rely on foreign companies to build our wind power?

Several people I spoke to about this story -– analysts and other journalists -– have made a comparison to the auto industry. One person asked me, "Is a Honda Odyssey manufactured in Lincoln, Alabama, a Japanese car?"

On the one hand, we live in a global economy where international borders are increasingly meaningless. Money knows no borders and so much of our economic system is based on international trade and manufacturing. And when it comes to many of the leaders in wind energy (Denmark, Spain, etc.), we don't face the sort of geopolitical issues like we do with oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Nobody worries about an addiction to Danish wind technology.

And in the midst of the worst recession in decades, a job is a job. Micheline Maynard's new book argues that in many cases, it does not matter who owns the company, because it is the jobs we need.

An industry analyst I interviewed asked me why, if you're talking about creating direct economic benefit -- jobs and investment, here and now -– would you care if a turbine plant in Iowa is Spanish owned?

"The only thing that goes back to Spain is the corporate profits," he said.

Well, the corporate profits and the fact that Americans are dependent on foreign technology, of course.

With the Senate beginning to debate a comprehensive climate and energy bill, President Obama has begun speaking out, very explicitly, on the need for the United States to assert its dominance in the clean energy sector -– i.e. to control the profits and the technology.

One week ago today, speaking at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Obama challenged the nation to be the clean energy leader:

If a comprehensive climate and energy bill passes with a requirement that 15 to 20 percent of our energy should come from renewables by 2020 or 2030 (as various drafts circulating Congress currently do), we're going to be buying a lot of turbines. So, it seemed to us at the Workshop that now would be a good time to talk about who we'll be buying them from.

View the full report on the Investigative Reporting Workshop's Web site. You'll also find charts, an interactive map of wind farms currently under construction and audio of administration officials describing how recipients can use their stimulus funds. The Workshop is a non-profit investigative journalism organization, based at the American University's School of Communication. It's mission is to provide high-quality investigative journalism reports and make the results available to the public and other news organizations to use.

Related Links:

Obama administration officials grateful for early spring

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

‘Heretic’ battles straw man

The Danes have an enduring relationship with wind. This is symbolized by the big, honking wind turbine that looms like a bird of prey over the parking lot outside the Bella Center, the venue for the U.N. Climate Change Conference Denmark is hosting in December.

It was a Dane, physicist H.C. Oersted, who discovered electrical induction, the principle at work inside wind and other electric generators. Danish farmers brag they were the first in the world to generate electricity from wind.

The Danes are now hard at work cracking one of the great challenges of wind power: the fact that the wind blows when it darn well pleases. Sometimes it blows hard when there isn't much need for the resulting electricity. Sometimes the air is becalmed when electricity is needed the most.

Wouldn't it be nice if households in Denmark had nice batteries to store the wind power coming off the country's wind farms?

Denmark's plan is to get those batteries into households using a Trojan horse strategy. The batteries will be mounted on four tires. If lots of Danish people switch from gasoline cars to all-electric plug in cars, each of those cars will have a nice set of batteries that can suck in wind power when the wind blows and use the power whenever there is a need to drive somewhere.

If this tactic of sneaking batteries disguised as new cars into Danish garages is to work, the electric car has to become a mass market item. For that, two big things have to happen. First, electric cars have to be capable of driving longer distances. To do that, a California company, Better Place, has come up with pit stops equipped with robots that will quickly swap out depleted batteries for charged ones.

Second, for electric cars to become widespread, they need to be comparatively cheap. The Danish government is pulling that off by making new electric cars exempt from a huge (180 percent!) environmental tax that applies to gas cars.

If all goes well, Danish roads could be swarming with mainly Renault-Nissan electric cars in a couple of years (Better Place has a strategic partnership with the carmaker). If all goes especially well, Denmark could eventually end the import of oil, courtesy of the wind.

Watch David Brancaccio's report on Green Denmark -- airing this week on PBS stations nationwide (schedule).

Related Links:

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

Copenhagen, U.S.A. December 7

‘Heretic’ battles straw man

One of the many tasks of running an electric utility is maintaining operating reserves and spinning reserves to handle seasonal peaks, and occasional generation failures.

Between peak demand that only occurs a few times a year, and the occasional shutdown for routine maintenance and response maintenance, utilities have to keep operating reserves -- backup equipment that is only run a few hours or at most a few days per year. This is not only a capital cost, but a maintenance cost and an administrative cost. Such capability may not be run often, but when it is needed, it is really needed. This means regular inspection and even occasional cold starts to make sure such backup will work when needed. Further this means administration and management to make sure such tests are actually done, since they are the sort of thing that can slip through the cracks.

Utilities also need spinning reserves: either power that is generated in excess of that consumed, or special types of storage and generation that can be brought online within milliseconds or nanoseconds. Some spinning reserves compensate for routine variations in demand. But, like operating reserves, a significant amount of spinning reserve exists as backup for equipment failure and for unexpected extreme demand spikes.

If you were a utility, wouldn't you love to buy power as needed for many operating reserve purposes thus needing to own, maintain, and administrate less of this seldom used equipment? Also, wouldn't you love to greatly reduce your need for spinning reserves?

Well if electric vehicles ever come into widespread use, electric utilities will get their chance to do this. Both battery electric vehicles (BEV) which run entirely on batteries charged from the grid, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) which run some of the time on batteries charged from the grid, and some of the time on liquid fuel could provide storage to substitute for most operating reserves and a significant portion of spinning reserves. On average, automobiles are on the road only an hour or two a day. (Yes some cars are driven much more than this, but others much less.) That means that a high percent of this battery capacity will be plugged into the grid 24 hours, even during peak automobile usage. For occasional use, such as seasonal peaks, demand spikes, and equipment failure, it would be quite possible to pull a little power from all or most cars plugged into the grid without taking too much from any single car. Car owners who let utilities do this would set their equipment so as not let their batteries be drained enough to cause them problems. As operating reserves were brought on line over the course of two to four hours, the power that had been taken would be restored. (The ability to rent battery use reduces but does not eliminate the need for operating reserves.)

Now there is an important point. Batteries today are expensive, BEV and PHEV battery packs even more so. In addition to cell costs, automobile battery packs need battery management, cooling, and shock protection - among other requirements. So at today's prices you would not use precious battery cycles for daily use. It makes no sense to meet daily peaking and routine spinning reserve needs with today's technology at today's cost. This is not a knock on two way connections between electric cars and the grid - often called V2G. Handling seasonal peaks, out of parameter demand spikes, and occasional equipment failures is amazing enough. There are other kinds of technology that can handle daily needs at a lower cost than V2G - utility scale batteries of various types. The profit in using car batteries to replace other forms of storage, or to replace generation, comes from displacing capital that can't be fully amortized in a reasonable period of time. It makes no sense to use it as a replacement for equipment that is run daily.

What about the improvements in electric car battery technology? I would indeed expect this. But I would also expect improvements in utility scale storage. Right now utility scale batteries are less expensive than electric car batteries for several reasons. They are bigger than car batteries, and thus provide economies of scale. Some utility scale batteries are much heavier per kWh than car batteries - a minor inconvenience for utility storage, a deal killer as the power source for an automobile. Utility scale batteries will continue maintain the first advantage of economies of scale, and depending on technology may maintain the second as well - a greater tolerance for high battery mass per unit of power than car makers can afford.

I would not emphasize this point, except that many in the renewable community confuse the potential of V2G to replace occasionally used capital with the ability to handle daily peaking, and to replace spinning reserves that protect against routine daily demand variations.

I recently ran into this statement from a staff member at the Institute for Local Self Reliance:

This makes it sound as though V2G could pretty much let the SMUD become mostly renewable based. Not quite. First of all a high percentage of SMUD power is hydroelectric. Hydroelectric power is highly dispatchable, good for base load, load following and peaking. So SMUD is already in good shape to add a lot of variable renewable energy. So what about 250 MW of wind? Well SMUD has about 2,500+ MW of power. 250 MW is a bit less than 10% of total of SMUD capacity.

Nameplate capacity is not a great way to compare power sources anyway. Wind generators (like other sources) don't run all the time, and mostly run at a lower rate than nameplate output. New large wind farms produce on average 35% to 40% of theoretical nameplate capacity (which is a big improvement over even a few years ago). SMUD sales in 2008 were slightly less than 13.4 million megawatt hours. 250 MW of wind farms at 40% utilization would supply about 876,000 megawatt hours, less than 7% of total consumption. This concrete example shows that V2G is extremely valuable, but does not fill the same functions as really large scale storage or long distance transmission. V2G, if electric car use was widespread enough to make it practical, would replace some extremely expensive functions. But, if we expect renewable electricity to replace most fossil fuels, we still need either larger scale storage than V2G can provide or long distance transmission, probably both.

Again, the misconception I'm correcting has  never been spread by the V2G community. V2G advocates, quite correctly, are excited about what car batteries could legitimately do to add grid stability and lower grid costs for either conventional or renewable sources.  It seems to be renewable advocates who are not V2G experts, and don't read work by V2G experts carefully enough who expect V2G to substitute for other technologies it is not suited to replace,  who get over-excited and attribute magic powers the V2G community has never claimed.

Related Links:

Freeing the grid

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

‘Heretic’ battles straw man

Editor's Note: This post was written in response to a comment by Gar Lipow in his post on 10/20.

We all agree that a 100 percent renewable energy system is preferable.  But we don't need a new, high-voltage transmission network now to reach that goal, and it's far from clear that we'll need it in the future. 

We currently get less than 10 percent of our electricity from wind and solar.  The industry goal for wind is 20 percent by 2030 and the solar target is likely less given the smaller installed base.  Every state can reach the 2030 renewable energy targets without an new, interstate transmission superhighway or significant storage -- and that's 20 years away.

But let's be more optimistic and assume we'll exceed these goals significantly (as we must to successfully solve global warming).  All else being equal, we have to find the best method to deliver renewable power everywhere on demand, whether that's a smarter grid (with demand response), storage, or new transmission. 

But all else is not equal.  I quote Gar Lipow (We Need Transmission to Solve Global Warming):

Another trick here is that [ILSR doesn't] consider electricity needs if we substitute electricity for a large portion of transportation energy, and possibly for industrial needs.

More electric vehicles means more electricity demand, but it also means storage.  In Driving Our Way to Energy Independence, ILSR author David Morris notes that the Sacramento Municipal Utility District studied the impact of plug-in hybrid vehicles and found that the storage in a local PHEV fleet could fill in for 250 MW of wind power for 8 hours.  If we electrify transportation nationally, we put millions -- billions -- of kilo-watt hours into car batteries. 

Pursuing a new high-voltage transmission superhighway puts the ($100-200 billion) cart before the horse. Do we really want to build a new, costly transmission network that could be orphaned by a fleet of distributed batteries in cars?

Additionally, pursuing a new high-voltage transmission superhighway by using federal preemption is a tactical error.  It risks alienating clean energy allies in states that prefer self-reliance to import-dependence. How will we solve global warming with renewable energy if citizens see wind and solar power as indistinguishable from large, undesirable transmission lines in their backyard?

We must have ambitious renewable energy goals and, ultimately, transform our electricity system to 100 percent renewable.  But a new interstate high-voltage transmission network is not a prerequisite.  Rather, it may prove a costly financial and political distraction from the clean energy transition.

Related Links:

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

‘Heretic’ battles straw man

Gore on the Daily Show: extended dance remix

The new version of Energy Self-Reliant States manages to duplicate the fallacies of their previous reports, and adds new ones. Their takeaway: "… 3 in 5 states could get all of their electricity from in-state renewable resources." Their statistics actually support the need for transmissions. Some states can produce surplus power. Some states can't meet all their own needs. If we are going to move to 100 percent renewable energy (or nearly 100 percent), we need transmission lines to get power from states with surpluses to states without.

There are a few other tricks here. The New Rules Institute considers storage cost for meeting 20 to 35 percent of electricity needs via renewables; for that small a percent of the grid you can get by with between zero new storage or at worst a few minutes of peak power. But if we are to supply really high percentages of power from renewables we will need hours of storage. That gets expensive. Given both daily and seasonal variation in delivery of renewables, transmission (which can reduce the need for storage drastically) is the cheaper alternative. New Rules skews the numbers by not including storage needs when comparing the cost of a local mostly renewable grid to a national mostly renewable grid. A smart grid, while useful, reduces but does not replace either transmission or storage. That is because transmission and storage can both handle cases where there is zero or nearly zero power available for a brief period of time, whereas a smart grid can never reduce demand to zero or close to zero.

Other tricks: a lot of this "renewable energy" is "combined heat and power" -- parasitic electricity generated by using waste heat from industrial process. To the extent we can make the industrial processes more efficient, or run them on renewable electricity, CHP resources are lower than estimated. Similarly they have high estimates for small scale hydro, without considering how much of that small scale hydro damages the environment in ways that compare to large scale hydropower per kWh.

Another trick here is that they don't consider electricity needs if we substitute electricity for a large portion of transportation energy, and possibly for industrial needs. I know that the New Rules Institute tends to be optimistic about biomass, and possibly they think that biomass can drive transportation and industry. But when we consider both returning nutrients to the soil, and not displacing food or wilderness, I think we will find biomass potential limited compared to renewable electricity for these purposes.

Here is the bottom line: we should learn from nature in reconstructing our infrastructure to be sustainable. And nature is not purely local, not "self-reliant". Salmon migrate thousands of miles, as do many fish species. Gray Whales travel around the globe. Birds and insects cross continents.  Many local plants depend on nutrients transported thousands of miles by rivers. We should try to rest lightly on the land, making it sustainable and beautiful, efficient, robust and reliable. And if we do that we will find the right balance between local and global without prejudging where that balance lies.

Related Links:

Climate Denial Crock of the Week: The big mist take

What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

The last thing renewable energy needs right now are new transmission lines.

This statement is heresy in the green community, but there's a danger that the increasing focus of green energy advocates on a new nationwide transmission superhighway may undermine the pursuit of near-term renewable energy goals.

People are excited by renewable energy.  It's clean.  It's limitless.  It's local.  It's the one kind of energy source that anyone can harness.  Public polls show substantial majorities of Americans in every state favoring more renewable energy.

And states have an abundance of renewable energy assets.  A new report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance -- Energy Self-Reliant States -- shows that every state has the potential to meet its renewable energy goal or mandate and that 3 in 5 states could get all of their electricity from in-state renewable resources.  Almost every state could get at least 20 percent of its electricity from rooftop solar photovoltaics (PV) alone.

These renewable assets can be tapped for significant local benefits.  A single wind turbine, for example, creates $1 million in economic activity, according to the American Wind Energy Association.  And that's just a generic, utility size turbine.  Locally owned wind projects can create twice the jobs and 3 to 4 times the economic impact of absentee owned projects.  

The benefits from locally harnessed renewable energy create a feedback loop, building even greater public support for clean energy.

People are not so excited about new high-voltage transmission lines. 

Transmission legislation moving through Congress would preempt longstanding state regulatory authority over transmission line approval and siting.  The goal is to speed the construction of a $100 to 200 billion interstate transmission superhighway, bringing solar power from the Southwest and wind from the Great Plains to the coasts. 

Why is this problematic?  Let's ignore for a moment that most people wouldn't care to live by a 150 foot tower running through a 200 foot swath of denuded landscape.  Or to have their land seized for this purpose by eminent domain. 

Many states oppose the new transmission superhighway for two reasons.  One, it's expensive.  Two, it undermines efforts to reap the economic rewards of renewable energy self-reliance.

In a New York Times Op Ed, the Massachusetts Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Ian Bowles, wrote:

Lawmakers should resist calls to add an extensive and costly new transmission system that would carry electricity from remote areas like Texas, the Great Plains, and Eastern Canada to places with high energy demands like Boston, Chicago, and New York ... Renewable energy resources are found all across the country; they don't need to be harnessed from just one place.

In May 2009, the governors of 10 East Coast states wrote to senior members of Congress to protest.  Requiring their residents and businesses to pay billions of dollars for new transmission lines that would import electricity from the upper Midwest and Southwest into their region "could jeopardize our states' efforts to develop wind resources ... "  They added, "it is well accepted that local generation is more responsive and effective in solving reliability issues than long distance energy inputs."

Nine of the 10 Eastern states whose governors signed the May 2009 letter could get over 80 percent of their electricity from in-state renewable resources, according to Energy Self-Reliant States.  And local energy also means fewer legal battles over the siting of unsightly transmission towers, a fact that politicians in that region are unlikely to have overlooked.

It's not just state energy self-reliance and economic benefits hanging in the balance.  A recent study released by Duke University's Climate Change Policy Partnership throws cold water on the renewable energy transmission passion.  It found that the proposed interstate transmission links from regions with low-cost electricity (e.g. the Great Plains) to regions with high-cost electricity (e.g. the East Coast) could enable coal power as easily as renewables, with poor results for carbon emission reductions and other environmental goals.

The evidence undermines the conventional wisdom about high-voltage, long-distance transmission and should raise red flags among advocates.  To the people in affected states, a new transmission superhighway is costly, anathema to local energy generation, and a potential enabler of coal-fired power.  It creates winners (in the sunny Southwest) and losers (in the "import states" on the East Coast). 

A victory for interstate transmission may be at the expense of broader public support for renewable energy. 

Renewable energy does not have to be harnessed in a few, select areas and shipped across country.  And public support for clean energy may hinge on the opposite.

The ubiquity of renewable energy means that the transition to a clean energy economy can also be a transition to a new, local energy future, where the economic and environmental benefits of powering the economy are everywhere the sun shines. 

Related Links:

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

‘Heretic’ battles straw man

Feed-in tariffs—the new school of thought

Silicon Valley is by nature an optimistic place. After all, inventing the carbon-free future and making boatloads of money along the way is fun. And even though California is slouching toward apocalyptic collapse these days, there's always another innovation wave to ride.

In Chu We Trust? It may take big bucks from the U.S. Dept. of Energy to fun some of the renewable energy projects that California entrepreneurs have on the drawing boards.Photo Illustration / Tonya RicksSo it's always interesting to get a more-or-less unvarnished assessment of the state of green tech, as happened last week when a group of regulators, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs gathered at the University of California, Berkeley's business school. They were there for the Cleantech Institute, one of those pricey, closed-door seminars for executives and government officials. (I was present to "facilitate.")

The good news: Speakers reported that investors are starting to turn on the taps again when it comes to funding green tech startups.

But don't expect a return to the halcyon days of 2008 when $4 billion poured into all manner of green technology companies. In the wake of the "Great Recession," VCs are reassessing their investment strategies as it becomes clear that the success of their portfolios will be influenced to a large degree by government policy and incentives.

"This has been the biggest August in 10 years," said Annette Finsterbusch, director of Applied Ventures, the investment arm of semiconductor and solar equipment maker Applied Materials. "September didn't slow down at all and October is looking pretty hot and heavy as well. Things are feeling different -- there is a happy ending to this sluggish time."

Alex Kinnier is a partner at Silicon Valley venture capital firm Khosla Ventures, which recently raised $1.1 billion to invest in green tech startups. He said Khosla currently has investments in 65 companies, many of them in stealth mode or "what you might call sponsored research at universities."

These days Khosla is taking a harder look at renewable energy companies that will require billions of dollars in startup costs before they begin generating revenue -- like getting a utility-scale solar power plant online.

"The questions we're asking have changed," he said. "For investments that require huge amounts of capital for big plants and need massive changes in infrastructure, you need to take a collaborative approach."

That's VC-speak for using other people's money to spread the risk around.

"The scary thing is that anything that is a game-changer will take a billion dollars to just to test whether the technology will scale," said Neal Dikeman, a partner at Jane Capital Partners, a San Francisco merchant bank.

Google, meanwhile, is taking a different tact, as Google does.

Luis Arbulu, a member of the investment team for Google.org -- the search giant's philanthropic arm -- said the company is not fixated on making a killing on its investments. (No surprise there: Sergey Brin and Larry Page could probably fund a slew of green startups from the change rattling around the coin compartment of their Priuses.)

"You want to be binary," said Arbulu. "You want a technology to either blow it out of the water and be the next big thing or collapse."

But disruptive startups will depend on government policies and largesse, given credit-crunched investors' aversion to bankrolling new technologies to the tune of billions of dollars.

Take BrightSource Energy, a solar power plant builder backed by Google and a clutch of Big Oil companies. It is depending on securing a federal loan guarantee to build its first solar farm. The project, to be built in the Southern California desert, will deploy a new technology untried on a commercial scale.

"There are no disruptive technologies in energy, only disruptive polices and incentives that make technologies look disruptive after the fact," Dikeman declared.

I'm not sure the other panelists bought that line, but they did appear to be in agreement that the U.S. Department of Energy will guide renewable energy technologies in the coming years.

Pam Contag is a serial entrepreneur now running a startup called Cygnet Biofuels. "I've been out looking for funding and investors are asking, 'What are your chances of getting DOE money,'" she told the Cal audience, noting the first thing she did at her last startup was to hire a lobbyist in Washington.

Thomas Glascock, an attorney in the global finance practice of San Francisco-based law firm Orrick, said federal loans will backstop startups that scare away conservative bankers unwilling to finance a $2 billion solar thermal farm deploying a novel technology.

He said solar power companies generating power from tried-and-true technologies like photovoltaic panels may be able to obtain loans to finance 70 percent of a project. But a new solar thermal technology with greater "equipment risk" may only secure enough bank financing to pay for 40 percent of the construction cost.

"Photovolatics have a couple of advantages," Glascock noted. "PV is not viewed as a risky. PV is scalable. You can do a power plant in chunks."

In other words, you can just keep adding solar panel arrays to generate more electricity and profits. On the other hand, a solar thermal power plant, which uses mirrors to concentrate the sun's energy on a liquid to create steam to drive an electricity-generating turbine, doesn't begin producing power until the entire project is completed.

There was a reason the seminar agenda was heavy with top officials from the California Energy Commission, the California Public Utilities Commission and the California Environmental Protection Agency: No matter how good your green technology, if you can't navigate the Golden State's environmental bureaucracies you're dead in the desert.

Regulators said many of the dozens of massive megawatt solar power plants planned for the arid Southwest are not going to get built; there's simply not enough deep-pocketed bankers to finance all the projects, enough transmission lines to connect them to cities or enough water to cool them. Inevitably, some projects will die on the drawing board as regulators start taking harder looks at untried technologies.

"Our strategy has been to let a thousand flowers bloom but we have realized that more is not necessarily better and we're now being more selective on procurement strategies," said Paul Douglas, an official the California Public Utilities Commission, which must approve large-scale solar green energy projects.

"We're taking a 100-year-old electrical infrastructure, turning it on its head and asking it to connect thousands of renewable energy sources, many of them out in the desert."

Related Links:

Fair, Ambitious & Binding: Essentials for a Successful Climate Deal

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

‘Heretic’ battles straw man

Related Links:

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

‘Heretic’ battles straw man

Climate talks timeline: From 350 to Kyoto to Copenhagen and beyond

Send your question to Umbra!

Q. Dear Umbra,

I've been hearing about carbon offsets for awhile and even have purchased some for my car emissions through Terrapass. But I just got an email from my local power company saying that I can pay to offset my own carbon emissions at the low rate of just $8 per month. Is this a good idea? I hear such conflicting stories about the "greening" of coal power plants. How do I know what they are doing with the money?

Mary B.
Winston-Salem, N.C.

A. Dearest Mary,

Is your power company partying in the tropics thanks to you?If a utility is offering carbon offsets or "green power" to their customers, details are usually available on the utility's web site. A customer must then wade through the self-congratulatory text on the site and determine whether or not the utility is actually taking Acapulco vacations with their $8 a month.

Don't put too much emphasis on this being a power company issue, though -- carbon offsets are a puzzle no matter how and where you buy them. There are a variety of "certifiers" and ratings for offsets, and some generally accepted ideas about what makes an offset project acceptable, but as of yet no overarching body with one stamp of approval.

Offsets themselves are an interesting and contentious issue, as you may have seen in these pages. (Check out our recent special series on offsets for a taste.) I got a bit harrumphy about offsets this past weekend, as I drove past a car with a boasting bumpersticker. Not that I could throw any stones (though we did have five people in the car, hooray). I ranted for a while, but am now prepared to offer a calm assessment of how we might all view offsets: Purchasing an individual carbon offset from a company, which then supports renewable energy development, is great. It is a wonderful chance to financially support projects that would not otherwise be able to get up and running. It does not erase whatever emissions we are emitting. So driving around in an SUV with a "My emissions are compensated for" kind of bumpersticker is ... is ... is -- ooh! I'm getting agitated again. Let's just say I think it misleads the uninformed.

If we think of our offset purchases as a charitable contribution to renewable energy development, then the question about whether we purchase them gets a little clearer. Without worrying too much about the financial logistics of green power credits (though they are clearly explained here by moi) we can simply ask: Will my money help create new, long-term projects that otherwise would not have happened (also called "additionality"), and are these projects approved and vetted by somebody? There are other questions, too (a good introduction can be found at CORE) but these are the basics. The answer should be yes.

In North Carolina you have an unusual opportunity to support renewable power generation in your very own state. NC GreenPower is your statewide non-profit green power program, supported and created by your state government, power companies, and fellow citizens. Utilities can offer offsets to consumers such as yourself, then pass the fees over to NC GreenPower, which then uses about a quarter of the money for administration and gives the rest as production incentives to renewable power producers. The idea is to slowly build up North Carolina's renewable energy capacity through what amounts to a small grant system. I found all this out by following the trail from Duke Energy. It all looks legitimate. And if you hate your power company and their coalish ways, you can support NC GreenPower directly.

Locally,
Umbra

Related Links:

Ask Umbra’s video advice on composting

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Turn your turkey carcass into a spectacular gumbo

Cross-posted from Wind-Works.

The world's largest single political jurisdiction to date, India, has made a strategic move to use a comprehensive system of feed-in tariffs to develop its renewable energy potential.

China had previously announced feed-in tariffs for wind energy only. The country is expected to reveal feed-in tariffs for solar energy later this year.

India's Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) in New Delhi announced Sept. 17 new regulations launching a system of feed-in tariffs for renewable energy, including both wind and solar energy.

India's 1.1 billion people together with China's 1.3 billion and the bulk of Europe's 300 million inhabitants -- about one-third of the world's population -- have committed to developing renewable energy with feed-in tariffs.

It was not clear from CERC's press release [PDF] that the feed-in tariff regulations were in response to the National Action Plan on Climate Change. The action plan calls for five percent of electricity generation in India to be from renewable sources by 2010 and to increase one percent per year for the next ten years. Yet, the move by CERC on feed-in tariffs strengthens India's position in the run up to the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen.

China's introduction of feed-in tariffs this year and recent pronouncements by the government are also seen as positioning the developing world, especially Asia's two economic powerhouses as taking action in regard to laggards in the developed world, such as the U.S., Canada, and Australia.

Neither the U.S. nor Canada has a climate change action plan nor a national goal of renewable energy in either nation's electricity supply.

However, it remains uncertain whether CERC would set specific tariffs or whether each project would apply for tariffs individually. In most jurisdictions, feed-in tariffs are specified for each technology or application.

CERC's regulations are a merely a primer on how to calculate tariffs for each technology. CERC said they focused on setting preferential tariffs for the period of debt repayment while maintaining an "adequate IRR" or internal rate of return. Yet there are no tariffs in CERC's published documents.

Interestingly, CERC specifies the tariffs before tax. Unlike the practice in the U.S., where federal tax subsidies play such an important part in project finance, the Indians specify a "normative return on equity" used in the calculations of 19 percent pre-tax during the first 10 years, and 24 percent after 10 years. This is comparable to the method used in Europe.

CERC also said that developers can approach the commission for project-specific tariffs as well as take the posted tariffs.

If Indian practice follows that in North America, CERC will open a regulatory docket to determine specific tariffs. And in fact, CERC has posted a public notice on its web site dated September 23, 2009 calling for comments on the regulations.

The new regulations spell out what assumptions need to be made to calculate the tariffs. For example, the regulations say that the discount rate used in determining the tariff will be the average weighted cost of capital. Further, the tariffs, defined as the levelized cost of energy, are derived from the specific "useful life" of each technology.

Wind projects will only receive the tariffs if they are located on sites with a minimum of 200 W/m² at 50 m. This is equivalent to a Class 2 or 5.5 m/s wind resource in the Battelle system of wind classes.

As successfully used in Germany and France and now proposed in China, India's new regulations will vary the tariff for wind energy based on resource intensity. CERC does this in an unusual way. They specify the capacity factor, or Capacity Utilization Factor in Indian English, to be used in four bands of wind power density in watts/m&sup2.

The first band represents Class 2 wind resources, the second band is between Class 2 and Class 3, the third band is in Class 3, and the final band is greater than Class 3 in the Battelle system.

Below is a summary of key elements in the Indian program.

In an unusual degree of synchronicity, the contract term for small hydro projects less than 3 MW is 35 years. Ontario's new feed-in tariffs for small hydro are for a contract term of a remarkably similar 40 years.

Related Links:

The U.S.-India climate ‘partnership’

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

‘Heretic’ battles straw man

Send your question to Umbra!

Q. Dear Umbra,

We are a family of five, with three little boys growing bigger every day. Which is the better environmental investment for our family: to replace our existing hot water heater with a solar model, or to switch to an on-demand, "instantaneous" hot water system?

Thanks!
Gillian and Grant
Toronto, Ont.

A. Dearest Gillian and Grant,

Whaddaya mean, my bath is heated with coal?Solar hot water is the better choice and would still be so if your children grew not one inch taller. Solar hot water takes advantage of the sun hitting your roof, which hopefully happens regularly without costing you money, nor the Earth anguish. A tankless heater will still use a polluting energy source to heat the water. It is a rare ratepayer who gets electricity from all-renewable sources, and Torontoians (?) seem to have the usual mix of coal, gas, nukes, hydro, and so forth.

All a tankless model does differently from your (I assume conventional) hot water heater is heat water as you need it, rather than storing hot water for hours. Like your tank heater, it uses either an electric coil or a gas fire to do this. A tankless on-demand model is, in the best scenario, a bit more efficient than your existing hot water heater. But it still has all the problems of using a non-renewable resource: pollution, greenhouse gas production, a sufficient power generation and delivery system, and of course reliance on the supply of whatever resource is used. You might be interested in reading my earlier column on tankless heaters.

A solar hot water system, on the other hand, can provide the bulk of your hot water needs without using any non-renewable resources (other than those used to make the equipment). Solar hot water is neither a new nor a highly complex technology, so you need not be a brave early adopter to have a system installed. There are a wide variety of systems (again, see a previous Umbra solar water love-fest) to choose from, and there are often financial incentives from one's city or state. Toronto seems to have a solar hot water initiative heating up right now, in fact, and here is a list of system suppliers to peruse.

The two potential drawbacks that I see are the initial financial outlay and whether your roof and home are well situated. But you won't know whether these are actual or theoretical drawbacks for your specific situation until you investigate the systems available where you live, their costs, and the fabulous financial incentives that might be coming your way. Here are some resources from the U.S. government on solar water heaters and how to calculate their costs.

Always choose the sun over the coal mine.

Sootily,
Umbra

Related Links:

Ask Umbra’s video advice on composting

Freeing the grid

Making buildings more efficient: rationalizing retrofit markets

In some hopeful news for sustainable energy advocates, the latest production numbers from the federal government are out -- and they show that the growth rate of renewable sources continues to outpace nuclear and fossil fuels.

The data come as Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) are expected to introduce legislation today designed to curb man-made climate change, with hearings on their bill  -- a counterpart to the one that narrowly passed the House in June -- expected to begin early next month.

While the politics of the climate bill are likely to be even more contentious than health reform, some note with optimism that a shift toward renewables is already underway.

"As Congress debates energy funding priorities and climate legislation, it would do well to take note of the clear trends in the nation's changing energy mix," says Ken Bossong, executive director of the SUN DAY Campaign, a Maryland-based nonprofit research organization that promotes sustainable energy technologies. "Renewable energy has become a major player -- growing rapidly and nipping at the heels of nuclear power -- while fossil fuel use continues to drop."

According to the latest issue of the Monthly Energy Review published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, renewable energy sources -- biofuels, biomass, geothermal, hydroelectric, solar and wind -- provided 11.37% of domestic U.S. energy production in June 2009, the most recent month for which data is available. That represents a gain since the first half of 2007, when renewable sources accounted for 9.89% of domestic energy production, and from the same period last year, when they represented 10.2% of production.

At the same time, EIA's latest Electric Power Monthly reports that renewable energy sources provided 11.18% of net U.S. electrical generation for the first six months of 2009 -- a significant gain over renewables' 9.9% share for the first half of 2008.

Renewable energy sources grew by 4.62% during the first half of this year compared to the same period last year. Most of that growth came from wind and hydropower, which expanded by 24.54% and 7.14% respectively in the first half of 2009 compared to the first half of 2008.

In comparison, nuclear power increased by only 1.38%, while domestic fossil fuel production actually dropped by 0.7%. Meanwhile, overall consumption of fossil fuels -- including imports -- declined 7.67%.

The numbers for renewable energy are likely to grow even more in the coming months as planned projects get underway.

Those include a new North Carolina effort to develop offshore wind power. Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke Energy and UNC-Chapel Hill are finalizing a contract that would have the company build one to three wind towers in Pamlico Sound while UNC researchers would study environmental impacts, maintenance and other related issues.

At the same time, though, Duke Energy is still investing heavily in new generation from polluting sources, constructing a new $2.4 billion coal-fired power plant at its Cliffside facility in western North Carolina. The Cliffside plant is expected to release to the air annually 6 million tons of carbon dioxide as well as large quantities of chemicals toxic to human health.

Meanwhile, the rate hike the company requested to help pay for the plant has met opposition at public hearings across the state this month, with one local newspaper describing the scene at this week's public hearing in Macon County, N.C. as "a seeming never-ending procession of citizens stating their considered opposition" to the increase, which is also opposed by a grassroots coalition of 25 environmental and public-health advocacy groups.

(This story originally appeared at Facing South.)

Related Links:

China, India, US Commit to Seal Copenhagen Deal

Climate Denial Crock of the Week: The big mist take

What to make of the new climate poll

One often hears opponents of clean energy say that renewable sources are too expensive; they can't get by without subsidies; they can't compete in a "free market." One of the many reasons this is a daffy argument is that there is no such thing as a free market, certainly not in energy. Existing energy sources, fossil fuels, have benefited from a century of subsidies and supporting infrastructure -- and are still subsidized lavishly relative to their scrappy little competitors.

This is a point enviros often make, but a new report from the Environmental Law Institute and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars puts some teeth in it. "Estimating U.S. Government Subsidies to Energy Sources: 2002-2008" makes a fairly simple point, captured in this graphic:

Publicly funding climate change.

Related Links:

What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

When it comes to sustainability, Los Angeles has its work cut out for it.

Sure, they are world leaders in recycling … if you count dialogue. Or plot lines. But it is going to take awhile for the famously car-centric city to develop climate-friendly transit, and the utility is the dirtiest in the state. So it is welcome news to see the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power continue to work on solar initiatives.

You may remember last spring, when Measure B failed at the polls. This was widely seen as a referendum on the process, not on solar per se, as many constituents felt they had no say in developing the Measure B program, and did not know what the initiative would cost.

To rectify those issues, LADWP is doing a couple of things. First, instead of hiring consultants to guestimate the price of solar, LADWP is demonstrating low costs by signing low cost contracts. Take a look at this one, 55 MW with First Solar [pdf]. It comes in at 12 cents/kWh, with an escalator. Why, it seems like only yesterday that consultants would reliably cite solar’s costs as 40 cents/kWh. In any event, 12 cents is in the wheelhouse of palatability. You can do a lot with 12 cents.

Secondly, to combat the appearance of not taking public input, LADWP is conducting a series of public workshops to solicit public input. Check them out here. If you do go, here’s a list of our recommendations.

It's not every day that your utility asks you how much solar you want.

Related Links:

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

‘Heretic’ battles straw man

Solar’s rapid evolution makes energy planners rethink the grid