Patti Poppe is CEO of Consumer’s Energy, Michigan’s largest utility, which has been a quintessential, conservative, coal based, rust belt generator for decades, up until just a few years ago.
Now things are changing. See if you can detect it.
Talk is 20 minutes, followed by Q and A.
Below, David Saggau is Chair of Minnesota’s second largest utility. I’ve titled the short clip from his 2017 talk “Wind is the New Baseload”.
This is total BS. At the moment, in the MISO, of which Minnesota is an integral part, average emissions per kwh are 481 g CO2. Over the border in Ontario, they are 19 grams. MISO wind is running at about a third of it’s capacity, making less than half as much power as nuclear, running at 95% of capacity, and with similar emissions per watt/hr to wind. Meanwhile there is ample capacity of coal and gas to make good any shortfall.
With the reconfiguration of the grid control paradigm (real-world adaptation with batteries and use management), I think we’ve got some utilities across the chasm.
https://miro.medium.com/max/1600/1*JzEpa6aK92q5KTyJGYDn_g.png
Patti Poppe of Consumers Energy is the new S David Freeman of today. We need more of both of them.
Consumers Energy. That’s the electric utility that is causing Palisades Nuclear Generating Station to close, replacing zero-emission nuclear energy with natural gas combustion. Right?