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Jan 17
Love12

Decarb Warriors

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week I read a statement from a retail energy provider. It said, “100% green rates, always.” It doesn’t work that way. An aggregation of power sources, including renewable, nuclear, coal, and natural gas, are supplying the grid at any given time. The little electrons aren’t tagged by source and routed to any given customer(s). Second, even if that were impossible, er, I mean, possible, it’s shoving more hydrocarbon electricity onto someone else. In this way, it’s the same as the net zero con. Cheap but Unreliable Generating renewable power is easy and inexpensive, but as described in the net-zero…
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Jan 03
Love9

2022’s Lucky Seven Lookback

By Energy Rant No Comments
This post features the results of my Lucky 7 predictions I made a year ago, a grade for each omen, and a little sass here and there. Coal Record Prediction: Annual worldwide coal consumption will pass the all-time high set in 2014. Result: The Internation Energy Agency, on 16 December, reported, “Global coal use is set to rise by 1.2% in 2022, surpassing 8 billion tonnes in a single year for the first time and eclipsing the previous record set in 2013(sic), according to Coal 2022, the IEA’s latest annual market report on the sector.” This is remarkable, considering “For…
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Nov 29
Love5

Demand Response Primer

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week I described how net zero sounds grand, it’s easy to do, but it doesn’t work to support the transition to a clean-energy grid. The reason is that everyone, whether utilities or customers, overproduces simultaneously, and then later, customers all need energy from thermal power plants simultaneously. We have an exploding deficit of customers to take that overproduction and shift load or store it for use when intermittent renewable supplies shut down. In Renewables at Scale, I described how renewable supply and batteries would never be sufficient. The gaps in intermittent renewable supply are too big for batteries to…
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Nov 07
Love4

Renewable Interconnection Chaos

By Energy Rant No Comments
A couple of weeks ago, I drove across Southern Minnesota, starting in the SW where wind alley is, and therefore, hundreds, or maybe thousands of wind turbines. The following was my observation while cruising I-90. Since the turbines were not spinning, I can only assume that excessive wind forced the Midcontinent Independent System Operator to curtail several hundred megawatts of wind generation. This, for one reason, is why net zero is as worthless as a three-dollar bill, but also, utilities have power purchase agreements with these non-spinning resources, right? Who pays? The MISO hub prices were as follows that day.…
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Sep 27
Love3

Nuclear Power over White Rabbits for a Reliable, Affordable, Zero-Carbon Future

By Energy Rant No Comments
I update my electrification slides for the Wisconsin Public Utilities Institute’s Utility Basics course every year with the latest technologies, sales data, and energy, commodity, and equipment/vehicle prices. Year over year, electricity prices at my home have increased 15%, for now, based on fuel alone. That is minuscule compared to what is proposed in the Northeast. EnergyCentral.com linked to a Patch article that said Eversource Massachusetts is filing for a 38% hike on top of a 22% jump last winter. National Grid is filing for an unprecedented (in my world) “increase from last winter's 14.82 cents per kilowatt-hour rate to…
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Aug 17
Love0
Big Tech

Chasms of Big Tech and Utilities

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last month, Utility Dive posted an article describing how big tech (Google, Amazon, etc.) is taking the lead for home automation and energy management. But there is still hope for utilities – they have trusted relationships with customers, Dive says. Chasms of Risk Tolerance There may not be a pair of industries more dissimilar than big tech and utilities. Big tech has so much cash flow they can afford to have half their products bomb: Amazon failures include Fire, Destinations, Local, Register, and Importer. I only recognize Fire and none of these other boondoggles. Too bad, so sad for Mr.…
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May 01
Love0
Wind Production Tax Credit

Capacity Market v Energy Market – What’s the Diff?

By Energy Rant 3 Comments
We are taking a break from exergy this week, and we are going to examine what is happening in distorted electricity markets around the country. This will be somewhat of a sequel to Regulating Deregulation and Wind's Other Big Subsidy. Too much of a good thing, or as they say, unintended consequences, is pushing the grid in some places toward instability. By the way, I scoff at the term “unintended consequences.” There are only two types of consequences: intended and ignorant ones.Utility Dive notes that Texas (Electricity Reliability Council of Texas – ERCOT) and the Southwest Power Pool are the…
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May 31
Love0
cannabis

Cannabis – A Big Issue Coming to a Utility Near You

By Energy Rant One Comment
Every kilogram of marijuana produced has a carbon bigfoot print of 4.3 metric tonnes (4.7 tons) of CO2. Marijuana production (U.S) consumes the annual electricity production of 1.7 million homes. Marijuana production consumes 1% of the nation’s electricity, and it’s growing rapidly. Data centers consume 3% of electricity worldwide. Mother Jones reports a growth module that four measly plants consume as much power as 29 refrigerators – probably not even efficient ones at that. Ok. Now that we have some context, you can bet this is a serious post. Public Service Announcement I can’t help but mention that older marijuana…
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All things energy. That’s our jam.

We talk a lot about energy – from the serious to the satirical.

All things energy. That’s our jam.

We talk a lot about energy – from the serious to the satirical.

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