Report from local Phoenix NBC station.
Below, Phoenix TV Meteorologist Amber Sullins on how heat is a “silent killer”.
Month: June 2022
Biden Breaks Solar Logjam: ReBooting Build Back Better?
President Joe Biden ordered emergency measures Monday to boost crucial supplies to U.S. solar manufacturers and declared a two-year tariff exemption on solar panels from Southeast Asia as he attempted to jumpstart progress toward his climate change-fighting goals.
His invoking of the Defense Production Act and his other executive actions come amid complaints by industry groups that the solar sector is being slowed by supply chain problems due to a Commerce Department inquiry into possible trade violations involving Chinese products. Word of the White House’s actions caused solar energy companies to gain ground on Wall Street.
The Commerce Department announced in March that it was scrutinizing imports of solar panels from Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia, concerned that products from those countries are skirting U.S. anti-dumping rules that limit imports from China.
Asked at the White House if Biden’s pause in tariffs was not a gift to China, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said he was invoking the Defense Production Act, “to make sure that he’s delivering for the American people.”
“He is putting the full force of the federal government behind supporting American clean energy producers,” Jean-Pierre said.
Continue reading “Biden Breaks Solar Logjam: ReBooting Build Back Better?”In an effort to speed up that growth even more, Biden is also invoking the Defense Production Act to help expand American solar panel manufacturing, as well as other clean energy technology like building insulation, efficient heat pumps for buildings, equipment for fuel cells and power grid infrastructure like transformers. The president is also directing the federal government to increase the amount of U.S.-made solar panels and clean technology products it buys, as well.
Texas Grid Breaking Summer Demand Records, and It’s Still Spring
Energy twitter riveted on Texas.
UPDATE:
End of Life for Solar Panels – What’s That Look Like?
Tommy Cleveland is author of “Health and Safety Impacts of Solar Photovoltaics”, a handy and authoritative guide from North Carolina State University, that covers all aspects of solar safety. I interviewed Mr Cleveland a few years ago, and this clip is one of many at my Sun101.org website, a repository of good materials for clean energy advocates.
You can also down load the publication there as well. It’s dense, but here’s a couple of relevant passages.
Health and Safety Impacts of Solar Photovoltaics:
As with many electronic industries, the solder in sil- icon PV panels has historically been a leadbased solder, often 36% lead, due to the superior prop- erties of such solder. However, recent advances in lead-free solders have spurred a trend among PV panel manufacturers to reduce or remove the lead in their panels. According to the 2015 Solar Scorecard from the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, a group that tracks environmental responsibili- ty of photovoltaic panel manufacturers, fourteen companies (increased from twelve companies in2014) manufacture PV panels certified to meet the European Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) standard. This means that the amount of cadmium and lead in the panels they manufacture fall below the RoHS thresholds, which are set by the European Union and serve as the world’s de facto standard for hazardous substances in man- ufactured goods.8 The Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) standard requires that the maximum concentration found in any homog- enous material in a produce is less than 0.01% cadmium and less than 0.10% lead, therefore, any solder can be no more than 0.10% lead.
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Continue reading “End of Life for Solar Panels – What’s That Look Like?”On Texas’ Grid: Gas, Electric Prices Soar in Tandem
Dallas Morning News has a series on the squeeze consumer’s in that state are in, due to rising energy prices, primarily oil and gas. It offers yet another example of just how shameless Texas politicians can be. Paywalled, I chose to subscribe so I could excerpt some of it here.
Dallas Morning News: (paywall)
There’s no escaping rising oil prices. They’ve driven up the cost of gasoline, and the higher expense registers every time people fill up the tank.
The price of natural gas has increased even more than crude oil, but many consumers may not have noticed. They will soon enough — in higher electric bills.
How much higher? Over 70% higher than a year ago for residential customers in Texas’ competitive market, according to the latest rate plans offered on the state’s Power to Choose website.
This month, the average residential rate listed on the site was 18.48 cents per kilowatt hour. That’s up from 10.5 cents in June 2021, according to data provided by the Association of Electric Companies of Texas.
It also appears to be the highest average rate since Texas deregulated electricity over two decades ago.
Energy Twitter has been giving this series a boost.
The Weekend Wonk: Small Reactors Step Out. Can They Overcome Hurdles?
Hear me out for a minute.
We’re going to see American versions of small modular nuclear reactors sometime in the 2028-30 time frame, with good luck.
The first unit, probably the first few units, are going to be producing electricity that is quite a bit more expensive than where wind and solar are right now.
The business case for SMRs has been that, they will be mass produced, in factories with assembly lines, and thus create economies of scale. That’s a bedrock principle of economics – mass production brings prices down. We’ve seen it with flat screen TVs, computers, hard drives, iPhones,..well, maybe not iPhones, but you get what I mean. We’re seeing with EVs right now.
So my question is, how many nuclear reactors do you have to produce to get to that economy of scale?
Hundreds? Thousands? Honestly, help me out. I don’t know.
But to make it happen, somebody has to finance the construction of those first hundreds or thousands of reactors. (we’ll need thousands if we expect them to make the dent in carbon emissions that developers hope)
You get the problem? I spoke to Arjun Makhijani PhD about this a couple years ago – he’s President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, and has an Electrical Engineering PhD from Berkeley. He’s thought about this stuff a lot, and he likens the supply chain for SMRs to that for airliners, which seems like a fair comparison.
The leading U.S. developer of SMR technology went public last month, the first company of this kind to do so. The revamped NuScale Power entered the stock market May 3 after merging with a special purpose acquisition company Spring Valley Acquisition. NuScale is the farthest along in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s approval process of any company developing SMR technology.
John Hopkins, NuScale president and chief executive officer, said during an announcement of going public that being the first publicly-traded company to design and deploy SMR technology was “a historic moment” for the company, enabling it to accelerate its “efforts to help meet the world’s urgent clean energy needs.” Fluor Corporation is the company’s majority investor.
But reactions to NuScale being traded on the New York Stock Exchange have been mixed. Some analysts have heralded the prospects of the company’s small reactors helping to meet clean energy goals with carbon-free nuclear power in the U.S. and abroad. Others insist that NuScale’s reactors are just a smaller version of the current dangerous and costly nuclear power plants, which create long-lived radioactive waste.
Ahead of competitors
Continue reading “The Weekend Wonk: Small Reactors Step Out. Can They Overcome Hurdles?”The company is ahead of its competitors in the SMR space because it is using existing light water reactor technology but it is also “fighting against economies of scale,” said Edwin Lyman, the Union of Concerned Scientists’ director of nuclear power safety. While this kind of SMR at 77 MW is less expensive than a large light water reactor, the electricity from the SMR is more expensive because its projected costs are steep and far less power would be sold, he added. That is causing NuScale to look to “cut costs to the bone,” compromising safety, he said.
PBS Newshour: Update on Drought, Lake Mead, Water and Energy
Above, new PBS report updates on Lake Mead, source of water and power for the southwest.
Just upstream of Lake Mead, Lake Powell is in even more dire straits, – report here from Phoenix local TV.
Trees: A Help, not a Cure, for Climate Change
Zeke Hausfather, the scientist’s scientist, has a piece on carbon capture in the New York Times. I’ll excerpt key points here.
Zeke Hausfather in New York Times:
Trees are our original carbon removal technology: Through photosynthesis, they pull carbon dioxide out of the air and store it. They have lately been touted as a climate savior, a way to rapidly reduce the carbon dioxide that has accumulated in the atmosphere as we cut our emissions. A “trillion trees” initiative was launched with much fanfare at the World Economic Forum in Davos back in 2020, and it was one of the few climate solutions embraced by the Trump administration. Planting trees and protecting forests are a major part of many corporate efforts to offset emissions.
But there’s a catch. Carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere is only temporarily stored in trees, vegetation and soil, while a sizable part of our emissions today, will remain in the atmosphere, much of it for centuries and some of it for millenniums to come.
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Companies using trees to offset their emissions often sign a 40-year contract. But the companies selling and buying carbon credits may not be around in 40 years. There is a real risk that no one will be left holding the bag if tree plantations are clear-cut for development, go up in flames or are devoured by mountain pine beetles a few decades hence. In short, the timelines over which carbon removal needs to occur are fundamentally inconsistent with the planning horizons of private companies today.
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How much carbon removal will ultimately depend on how quickly and fully we can cut emissions. Most of our models show that to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, we’ll need to remove around 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year by 2050 — a bit more than annual U.S. emissions today. Over the next 80 years, we may need to remove more than 600 billion tons, an amount greater than 15 years of current global emissions.
Continue reading “Trees: A Help, not a Cure, for Climate Change”Why will we need so much carbon removal? The science is clear that to stop the world from continuing to warm, we need to get emissions to “net zero.” But there will always be some remaining emissions and some greenhouse gasses will be extremely difficult and costly to fully eliminate. Our models suggest we will need at least a few billion tons of carbon removal each year to counterbalance the remaining hard-to-eliminate emissions. Emerging technologies have the potential to meet this need.
EVs are Cheaper, but Still Come with Challenges
The rising cost of gasoline and diesel is both a frequent headline and an ongoing financial drain for many, let alone a major issue in the upcoming November midterm elections. But unlike previous gas crunches, some consumers now have options about the energy source that powers their driving.
Not long ago, electric vehicles were the domain of early-adopters and wealthy consumers, but times are changing fast. Moderately priced EVs range from $27,400 to $34,000, and as gasoline prices climb, EVs can offer respite from rising fuel costs.
As of June 1, 2022, the U.S. average price of regular gasoline was $4.67, according to AAA, and gas prices have climbed 41% percent since the start of this calendar year. Experts are saying those prices will continue increasing in days and weeks ahead The cost of electricity, meanwhile, has remained fairly stable – and relatively inexpensive compared with gasoline and diesel fuels. The U.S. average price for residential electricity is 13 cents per kilowatt hour. How does the cost of driving an EV compare to driving a gasoline-powered car?
The short answer is that it costs only $1.41 per “gallon” to drive an EV. That’s a 70% discount compared with gasoline.
Continue reading “EVs are Cheaper, but Still Come with Challenges”The EV-to-gasoline cost comparison varies state-to-state, because the prices of electricity and gasoline differ in each state. The table below lists the breakdown of costs, by state.
On Shooting, On Blackouts: Texas Governor Mislead, or Misleading?
Above, compare Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s performance following the tragic shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and also after the deadly Valentine’s Day Blackout of 2021.
Mislead, misleading, or both?