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clean power plan

May 09
Love29
Image shows graphics of leaves and co2 with a down arrow, along with text "Chevron Going Down"

Chevron Going Down

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last year I wrote that the Supreme Court of the United States, SCOTUS, ruling in the West Virginia case, is a sign of things to come. That case buried a fork in the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. The legislative and executive branches would have to modify the Clean Air Act to pass such limits. In response to the ruling, Politico quoted SCOTUS Chief Justice Roberts: “Capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible ‘solution to the crisis of the day. But…
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Sep 17
Love0
climate

Little People Take on the Climate Industrial Complex

By Energy Rant No Comments
My undergraduate mechanical engineering curriculum at South Dakota State University included requirements for six credits of humanities and nine credits of social sciences. What is this? Who needs this stuff? Walk on the Slippery Rocks I actually enjoyed most of these courses, one of which was philosophy. What a flaky class. There was no work. There were no exams. The goofball professor spewed philosophy and moderated discussions of paradoxes and whatnot. One of those discussions was whether South Dakota should be America’s garbage dump, for princely fees of course. Essentially, should we trade self-induced exploitation for money so we can…
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Apr 16
Love0

Question: Carbon and Benefits? Answer: Efficiency

By Energy Rant 3 Comments
“Don’t drink the Kool-Aid” and being as objective as possible are how I roll. If you feel otherwise, by all means, let me know. Driving across Southern Minnesota recently, a billboard like the image nearby caught my eye. I thought this would be worth looking into to see what they have to say. As I expected, the paper it promotes is jaded against wind energy. But what arguments do they make? Are they legitimate? Wind is Fuel When thinking about wind-driven power generation, it has a lot of hurdles to overcome to be cost-effective. One near the top of the…
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Jun 12
Love0

Paris: The Bumbling Abominable Snow Monster

By Energy Rant 4 Comments
June 1, 2017.  Does that ring a bell?  To many, it is a day of infamy – the day Trump bid adieu to the Paris climate deal, accord, treaty, or whatever (Paris).  Since then, I have read many an article, LinkedIn posts, and Tweets filled with wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Was Paris that good?  Does anyone reading this know the details?  I decided to dig in and synthesize it to hors devours, which seems kind of French.  Right? The broad objectives of the agreement include three things: Hold temperatures to well within 2 degrees C relative to pre-industrial temperatures.…
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Jul 11
Love0

FERC 745 – The Worst Order Ever Produced?

By Energy Rant One Comment
Robert Borlick writes in Public Utilities Fortnightly that FERC Order 745 is “one of the worst orders FERC has ever produced” – “a time bomb for electricity consumers”. Whoa! I better sharpen my axes. That is a more lethal statement than I would even write, and it isn’t even in the opinion section. It’s a featured article. Let’s take this a step at a time. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is adorned with the authority to regulate “the sale of electric energy at wholesale in interstate commerce”. As noted in DC Smackdown of FERC, regulation of interstate commerce is…
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Jun 20
Love0

Market Forces Give (Carbon Reduction); Market Forces and Flawed Policy Take Away

By Energy Rant No Comments
What is the purpose of the Clean Power Plan? To reduce emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030? No. It has major flaws for actual, as in reducing tons of carbon dioxide release to the atmosphere, but I will come back to that later. As reported in Clean Power Plan Coma Phase, the country is already half way to the CPP goal, and it hasn’t even taken hold yet. Instead, it has begun the decades long legal battles with an initial vote of confidence handed down by the Supreme Court. How did we achieve 50% of the progress already?…
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Feb 29
Love0
Electricity Supply – Listen and Watch the Herd or Prepare for an Ugly Ending

Electricity Supply – Listen and Watch the Herd or Prepare for an Ugly Ending

By Energy Rant One Comment
Ross Shafer delivered the keynote speech at AESP’s 2016 National Conference in Phoenix a few weeks ago. Mr. Shafer is a former late night talk-show host/comedian, game show host, author, and speaker. His message for AESP was excellent. He was engaging and funny, but most importantly, he presented sound, valuable advice for business; specifically customer satisfaction and experience. I cannot recall a single thing of substance he said that I disagree with. In fact, I passed along much of his advice to our team at Michaels via The Daily, our employee-only blog. One area of advice from Mr. Shafer was:…
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Feb 22
Love0

Clean Power Plan (CPP) III – The Coma Phase

By Energy Rant One Comment
Roughly a year and a half ago in Clean Air Act 111(d) – Machete Required, I outlined why the Clean Power Plan (CPP) was poorly constructed because it is unworkable under the Clean Air Act as written. Then, of course, earlier this year, a month ago to be more precise, I started to investigate how the final plan would work in the January 25th and February 1st posts. On February 9, at 10:58 AM, I replied to an internal email about a tangential subject of grid stability that the CPP would probably be upheld because Chief Justice Roberts has demonstrated…
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Feb 01
Love0
cpp

Clean Power Plan (CPP) – The Next Layer

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week, we scratched the surface of demons in the Clean Power Plan (CPP) details.  Let’s see what lies on the second layer below. There are two methods for counting, scoring, and achieving compliance in the plan: mass based and rate-based plans.  To recap, mass based is the simpler of the two. For starters, it includes one metric: tons of CO2 emissions from stationary power suppliers.  The second is, I believe, far more complicated.  Why?  Glad you asked. The rate based approach would appear to be an itty bit more complicated, like steaming broccoli versus steaming carrots.  The only difference…
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Jan 25
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clean power plan

A Wee Bit of Clean Power Plan Knowledge

By Energy Rant No Comments
Everyone reading this knows about the EPA’s Clean Power Plan (CPP). You probably know the final rule was released in August 2015, and the plan calls for reducing CO2 emissions by 32% from a baseline of 2005 to the goal-achieving euphoria in 2030. From there, I’ll bet a survey for CPP knowledge falls like a Wile E Coyote Acme anvil.Answers to basic questions are very hard to find. The EPA’s website mainly provides fluff and spin describing how great the plan is and how flexible and easy it will be to “glide” to success. Instead, I conducted my research from…
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We talk a lot about energy – from the serious to the satirical.

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