Good luck with that ! :lol:LeftieBiker said:I agree that costs to close coal-fired plants should not come from the pockets of consumers.
They are not new, and they are not 'perfectly good."Oilpan4 said:As in close down perfectly good power plants even if they are new
True either way.pay back the investors
Money spent either way since the fossils are not free.spend billions of dollars we don't have to replace the conventional power plants with renewables.
Since people's lives are shortened by pollution, isn't that state-sanctioned theft of years of life, plus health care dollars that otherwise wouldn't need to be spent, not to mention any decrease in tourism due to poor visibility/air quality? Let's get a FULL accounting of who owes whom. Then the plant owners can decide if they want to keep the plant open, while also paying all the costs they've avoided to date (beyond the cost of the pollution controls they've had to install over the years - the plants are less polluting now than when they were new, but still pollute).Oilpan4 said:The renewable energy mandate has to pay back investors for power plants it forces closed or it amounts to state sanctioned theft. Then it will go to court, be a open and shut case, lose, the ruling like likely be leave the power plants alone or pay the investors. Then as we know all costs are passed on to the consumer or tax payer.
Take it to court and good luck, maybe they will see it that way too.GRA said:Since people's lives are shortened by pollution, isn't that state-sanctioned theft of years of life, plus health care dollars that otherwise wouldn't need to be spent, not to mention any decrease in tourism due to poor visibility/air quality? Let's get a FULL accounting of who owes whom. Then the plant owners can decide if they want to keep the plant open, while also paying all the costs they've avoided to date (beyond the cost of the pollution controls they've had to install over the years - the plants are less polluting now than when they were new, but still pollute).Oilpan4 said:The renewable energy mandate has to pay back investors for power plants it forces closed or it amounts to state sanctioned theft. Then it will go to court, be a open and shut case, lose, the ruling like likely be leave the power plants alone or pay the investors. Then as we know all costs are passed on to the consumer or tax payer.
As I said, let's include ALL the costs on all sides. If people's health insurance costs are higher because of pollution, and taxes are higher to pay for uninsured emergency room visits and hospital stays (for asthma etc.), that all needs to be figured in. To date, polluting power plants have been given a free ride on past costs of these externalities. Cost of pollution controls only reduces the future costs of those externalities.Oilpan4 said:Take it to court and good luck, maybe they will see it that way too.GRA said:Since people's lives are shortened by pollution, isn't that state-sanctioned theft of years of life, plus health care dollars that otherwise wouldn't need to be spent, not to mention any decrease in tourism due to poor visibility/air quality? Let's get a FULL accounting of who owes whom. Then the plant owners can decide if they want to keep the plant open, while also paying all the costs they've avoided to date (beyond the cost of the pollution controls they've had to install over the years - the plants are less polluting now than when they were new, but still pollute).Oilpan4 said:The renewable energy mandate has to pay back investors for power plants it forces closed or it amounts to state sanctioned theft. Then it will go to court, be a open and shut case, lose, the ruling like likely be leave the power plants alone or pay the investors. Then as we know all costs are passed on to the consumer or tax payer.
On the flip side if electricity becomes more expensive, overall lowering people's standard of living that could end up shortening their lives too. It's a slippery slope. 1 in 4 households struggles to keep up with their power bill and 1 in 7 received a disconnection notice in 2017, according to a power company mailer asking for charity money to help with bill relief for needy homes during the winter.
We make right at 3 times the average household income for this area so it doesn't effect me.
I sincerely doubt that Oil-y has the faintest idea what an externality is.GRA said:Cost of pollution controls only reduces the future costs of those externalities.
https://www2.greencarreports.com/ne...proval-could-bring-ev-drivers-more-wind-powerPowerline approval could bring EV drivers more wind power
Also see: https://www2.greencarreports.com/news/1119903_wind-and-solar-cost-less-than-coal-for-powerIn the efforts of Green New Deal and electric car advocates, a new permit for power transmission lines may knock down one of the biggest hurdles to bringing more renewable power to electric cars.
Last week, a major new power transmission line from Wyoming to the Hoover Dam won final approval from Wyoming, the last of the states it traverses to approve it.
The transmission line is key for two reasons:
- - Wind is the fastest growing source of renewable energy and the most likely source to provide large quantities of renewable energy. But the biggest source of wind is in the center of the country, while the biggest demand for electricity, especially to charge electric vehicles, is in California and on the coasts.
- In something of a virtual stress test of renewable grid capacity during this winter's polar vortex, energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie produced a study in February showing that one of the biggest obstacles to getting enough renewable power to homes and businesses during such a period of high demand is transmission capacity. Giant wind farms in the Midwest may not have enough transmission capacity to feed the coasts during high demand periods, just as abundant solar capacity in the Southwest may not have enough transmission lines to reach frozen regions of the upper Midwest in a deep freeze.
Battery and hydro storage can address some of this demand, but more transmission makes it easier.
The new $3 billion power line, called the TransWest Express Transmission Project, is slated to be completed in 2023 and carry 3 gigawatts of power from two western Wyoming wind projects 730 miles to West Coast power markets. It will run from southwestern Wyoming through Colorado and Utah to Nevada to connect to existing transmission lines at Hoover Dam. . . .
California, which has set a goal to be carbon free by 2045, currently gets 29 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, including about 10 percent each from wind and solar. It gets nearly another 15 percent from hydro power (some imported from the Pacific Northwest), 9 percent from nuclear power, 34 percent from natural gas, and about 4 percent from coal.
In 2018, more than 10 percent of the cars sold in the state were plug-in or electric vehicles. . . .
3 GW is a good start, although my WAG is that 30 GW will be needed since NM is being retarded. Perhaps this line will wake NM up to the opportunity they are squandering.GRA said:More or less on-topic given its drift, via GCR:https://www2.greencarreports.com/ne...proval-could-bring-ev-drivers-more-wind-powerPowerline approval could bring EV drivers more wind power
SageBrush said:3 GW is a good start, although my WAG is that 30 GW will be needed since NM is being retarded. Perhaps this line will wake NM up to the opportunity they are squandering.GRA said:More or less on-topic given its drift, via GCR:https://www2.greencarreports.com/ne...proval-could-bring-ev-drivers-more-wind-powerPowerline approval could bring EV drivers more wind power
Pay attention, Oil-y, you might learn something yet. Regional sharing of wind and PV.
And since I realize you have difficulties with arithmetic, I'll just tell you that the capitalized transmission cost per kWh (not including O+M or financing presuming a 50 year lifetime works out to 0.37 cents a kWh. Wind at the source is around 2 cents a kWh while Rocky Mountain Coal is over 4 cents a kWh.
Keep Trumpers out of the way, and the entire Western US will have reliable, clean energy delivered to the local utilities for ~ 2.5 cents a kWh.
What part of that do you not understand?Oilpan4 said:I have already said that construction of wind power assets does not appear to increase rates in most markets.
It is simple. The high final retail cost is not due to the renewable component. Californians are still paying off the debt they took on to bail out their utilities after Enron.Oilpan4 said:If renewables are so cheap then why do the people of California get 29% of their electricity from renewables and pay an average over 18 cents per kwh for Jan 2019?
I'm going to call BS on that.SageBrush said:It is simple. The high final retail cost is not due to the renewable component. Californians are still paying off the debt they took on to bail out their utilities after Enron.Oilpan4 said:If renewables are so cheap then why do the people of California get 29% of their electricity from renewables and pay an average over 18 cents per kwh for Jan 2019?
Read instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisisOilpan4 said:I'm going to call BS on that.SageBrush said:It is simple. The high final retail cost is not due to the renewable component. Californians are still paying off the debt they took on to bail out their utilities after Enron.Oilpan4 said:If renewables are so cheap then why do the people of California get 29% of their electricity from renewables and pay an average over 18 cents per kwh for Jan 2019?
https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/04/20190430-epic.htmlEPIC: state-level renewable electricity mandates increase electricity prices up to 17% over 12 years; cost more expensive than benefit
As states take the lead in confronting climate change, a flagship policy is often Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS). RPS programs, which require that a certain percentage of the state’s electricity come from renewable sources, currently cover 64 percent of the electricity sold in the United States. A new study analyzing data from the 29 states and District of Columbia with mandatory RPS policies finds that the policies come at a high cost to consumers and are inefficient in reducing carbon emissions.
- The increasing urgency of climate challenge means that the case for ruthlessly seeking out the least expensive reductions in carbon emissions is rapidly strengthening. This study joins a growing body of evidence that demonstrates that when climate policies favor particular technologies or target something other than the real enemy—carbon emissions—the result is less effective and more expensive than is necessary. In contrast, the global experiences from carbon markets and taxes make clear that much less expensive ways to reduce CO2 are available right now.
—co-author Michael Greenstone, the Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and director of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC)
Greenstone and his co-author, Ishan Nath from the University of Chicago, compare states with and without RPS policies using the most comprehensive dataset compiled to date.
They find that RPS programs significantly increase retail electricity prices, with prices rising by 11% seven years after the policy became law and 17% twelve years afterwards. The cumulative effect seven years after the passage of the legislation initiating an RPS, consumers in the 29 states studied had paid $125.2 billion more for electricity than they would have in the absence of the policy.
On the other side of the ledger, RPS programs increase renewable generation. In states with RPS policies, renewables’ mandated share of generation increased by about 1.8 percentage points seven years after passage, and 4.2 percentage points twelve years afterwards. The paper estimates that this increased renewable generation reduced the carbon intensity (i.e., carbon emissions per unit of electricity) of these state’s electricity generation and, in turn, their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
However, these reduced emissions came at a high cost. The study found that the cost of abating carbon emissions through an RPS policy is more than $130 per metric ton of CO2 abated, and as much as $460 per metric ton. This is several times higher than conventional estimates of the benefits of reducing a metric ton of CO2 emissions, a measure known as the social cost of carbon (SCC). The Obama Administration’s central estimate of the SCC would be approximately $50 per ton in today’s dollars.
A second point of comparison comes from the cost of abating a metric ton of CO2 in current cap-and-trade markets in the US: it is about $5 in the northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and $15 in California’s cap-and-trade system.
The study explains that RPS policies raise electricity prices more than previously thought, because several hidden costs have typically been ignored:
- The intermittent nature of renewables means that back-up capacity must be added;
Since renewable sources take up a lot of physical space, are geographically dispersed and are frequently located away from population centers, they require the addition of substantial transmission infrastructure; and
By mandating an increase in renewable power, baseload generation is prematurely displaced, and some of the cost is passed to consumers.
- While the retail price for wind and solar has dropped in recent years, our research suggests that the majority of RPS programs’ costs are through these indirect channels associated with their integration into a highly-complex electricity grid. We think the next frontier in making renewables an important part of the grid globally is to focus on policies and technology mechanisms that facilitate the integration of these intermittent sources onto the grid, such as advanced storage technologies and time-of-use pricing.
—Michael Greenstone
Greenstone and his co-authors note that at least some RPS policies also have goals beyond reducing carbon emissions, such as spurring improvements in renewable technologies and improving job growth in the renewable sector. They were not able to analyze the extent to which portfolio standards have succeeded in meeting these goals. However, they noted that “If they do drive down generation costs industry-wide, then this would alter any cost-benefit analysis. . . .”
- Overall, our study finds that as of today these policies have proven to be expensive ways to reduce CO2 emissions. The global experiences from carbon markets and taxes, however, make clear that much less expensive ways to reduce CO2 are available right now.
—Michael Greenstone
The latest data fromthe Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook (EIA, 2019) suggests that solar
and wind plants can produce electricity at about 6 cents per kWh, while a natural gas combined
cycle plant produces at roughly 4 cents per kWh. Since to date RPS policies have only increased
renewable penetration by a few percentage points, it is this type of comparison of LCOEs that lead
observers to suggest that RPS policies have had only a minimal impact on electricity prices; one
recent study found that they increase retail electricity bills by about 2% (see, e.g., Barbose (2018)).
However, this comparison of LCOEs misses three key ways in which renewables impose costs on
the electricity generation system that need to be covered and are reflected in retail prices but can
be difficult to observe directly or measure systematically. First, and most obviously, renewables by
their very nature are intermittent sources of electricity. Solar plants cannot provide power when
the sun doesn’t shine and wind plants cannot provide it when the wind isn’t blowing. On average,
utility scale solar plants have a capacity factor (i.e., average power generated divided by its peak
potential supply over the course of a year) of about 25% and wind plants are not much higher at
34% according to the EIA. This means that a comparison of LCOEs between these intermittent
sources and “baseload” technologies that “always” operate (e.g., natural gas combined cycle plants
have capacity factors of 85%) is very misleading with respect to total system costs, because they
do not account for the additional costs necessary to supply electricity when they are not operating.
For example, given current cost structures, the installation of renewables are frequently paired with
the construction of natural gas “peaker” plants that can quickly and relatively inexpensively cycle
up and down, depending on the the availability of the intermittent resource.
Second, renewable power plants require ample physical space, are often geographically dispersed,
and are frequently located away from population centers, all of which raises transmission costs above
those of fossil fuel plants. A literature review of transmission cost estimates for wind power by the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) finds a median estimate of about $300 per kW,
or about 15% of overall wind capital costs (Mills et al., 2009). This is approximately equivalent to
adding 1.5 cents per kWh to the levelized cost of generation for wind. More generally, a separate
analysis by the Edison Electric Institute in 2011 found that 65% of a representative sample of
all planned transmission investments in the US over a ten-year period, totaling almost $40 billion
for 11,400 miles of new transmission lines, were primarily directed toward integrating renewable
generation.4 The highly disproportionate share of transmission requirements for renewables relative
to their share of generation highlights the importance of accounting for the associated costs as part
of the total cost of renewable energy.
Third, RPS driven increases in renewable energy penetration can also raise total energy system
costs by prematurely displacing existing productive capacity, especially in a period of flat or declining
electricity consumption. Adding new renewable installations, along with associated flexibly
dispatchable capacity, to a mature grid infrastructure may create a glut of installed capacity that
renders some existing baseload generation unnecessary. The costs of these “stranded assets” do not
disappear and are borne by some combination of distribution companies, generators, and ratepayers.
Thus, the early retirement or decreased utilization of such plants can cause retail electricity
rates to rise even while near zero marginal cost renewables are pushing down prices in the wholesale
market. The incidence of excess capacity costs on ratepayers is likely greater in regulated markets
with vertical integration, although even in deregulated markets there are various mechanisms for
direct payments to producers unconnected to actual generation that can contribute to the rates
consumers face.5 Overall, there exists no comprehensive source of data on payments to displaced
electricity producers, and even the availability of such information would not provide an obvious
path to attributing these costs to the integration of renewables. Like many of the other ancillary
costs of renewable energy integration, directly observing the total costs associated with stranded
capacity is unlikely to be feasible. . . .
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