Month: November 2022

Wind, Solar Prices Set to Plummet. Small Nukes, Not so Much

Utility Dive:

Wind and solar paired with battery storage is in the $20/MWh to $30/MWh range, making them competitive with natural gas-fired generation, said Matt Pawlowski, NextEra Energy Resources executive director of business management and regulatory affairs.

Later this decade, with the IRA, NextEra expects wind coupled with a 4-hour battery system will cost $14/MWh to $21/MWh, according to a Nov. 4 company presentation. Solar with batteries will cost $17/MWh to $24/MWh, the company estimates. An existing natural gas-fired power plant will cost $35/MWh to $47/MWh to operate, assuming gas is in the $4/million British thermal units to $5/MMBtu range, according to NextEra.

The prices for solar and batteries and wind and batteries are about 35% to 44% lower than cost estimates NextEra provided in a mid-June presentation before the IRA was released.

Although the IRA’s tax credits run for at least a decade, some of the law’s programs end sooner, Sam Walsh, Department of Energy general counsel, said.

“We have a once-in-a-lifetime set of incentives that are on the table. The biggest risk for ratepayers would be a failure to capitalize on that right now,” Walsh said. “Even for that 10-year tax credit window, the planning has to start now.”

Before the IRA, wind and solar were constrained by their cost-competitiveness, according to Farbes. Now, they are limited only by how fast they can be built, he said.

State utility regulators will need to change their resource planning practices, panelists said.

Instead of top-down load forecasting of modest load growth, regulators will need bottom-up forecasting to account for a pending surge in electric vehicle and building load, according to Farbes.

Since the late 2000s, load growth has been generally flat, Farbes said. However, the IRA could spur 3.1% annual load growth this decade, or about 30% growth by 2030, he said.

Electrified transportation could account for about 15% of electric demand in 2030, and electric heating could make up 5% of demand, according to the REPEAT Project modeling.

Transmission may be the biggest limit on renewable energy development, even with the IRA, according to the panelists.

“It’s probably one of the largest obstacles to building more renewables on the grid,” Pawlowski said. “We’re already behind on transmission.”

The U.S. high-voltage transmission system needs to grow 2.3% a year, up from its 1% annual growth rate over the last decade, to meet the IRA’s potential, Farbes said.

Continue reading “Wind, Solar Prices Set to Plummet. Small Nukes, Not so Much”

Music Break: Is “Tomorrow Never Knows” the Most Revolutionary Song in Pop History?

Witnessing the End of Beauty

Incredible time lapse above underlines all the more vividly the stakes for us in this decade.

My own pictures from 2015 and 2022 in Greenland.

This Old House: How to Avoid Solar Scammers

I get asked all the time how to find a good solar installer.

Given that I”ve posted about crooked solar installers who are operating all over the country. My best advice on how to spot a crook is, if the company CEO has a picture like this on his wall, beware.

Anyhow, PBS’ “This Old House” has a good discussion above.

Insane Snowfall in Western New York

Some areas could see another 10 to 20 inches before sunday night.

CNN:

Snowfall totals of over 6 feet have been recorded in two locations, according to the National Weather Service. Orchard Park, where the NFL’s Buffalo Bills play, has picked up 77.0 inches in the last 48 hours, and Natural Bridge, just east of Watertown, has picked up 72.3 inches – historic numbers for the area.

Winter weather alerts are still in effect for over 6 million people across six Great Lakes states Saturday morning – Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.

Forecasters and officials have been sounding the alarm on the life-threatening nature of this snowstorm, which is historic even for the Buffalo region where heavy snow is the norm during winter months. And the forceful snowfall is expected to continue through the weekend with little periods of relief.

Lake Effect Snow has a Razor’s Edge

Coldplay: Hot Thread on Sub-Freezing Heat Pumps

I’m looking at having to replace my ducted gas furnace and AC in the next few years, so have been following news about air source heat pumps, which are now reaching high levels of efficiency, even in cold climates.

Continue reading “Coldplay: Hot Thread on Sub-Freezing Heat Pumps”

Young Voters Show that Climate Matters

Above, report from a Seattle TV station.

Media Matters:

Despite Fox News’ claims to the contrary, climate change was among top voter concerns during the recent 2022 midterm elections. 

The issue of climate change took center stage during the general election for the first time in 2020. Since then, poll after poll has found that climate change is top of mind for manyvoters, and exit polls found that it was a key issue for 2022 midterm voters. Even Fox had to briefly acknowledge this reality, though it won’t likely have any material impact on the network’s climate coverage.

CNN’s exit poll found that 71% of voters stated that climate change is a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem, while 61% of voters in Fox News’ voter analysis survey were “very/somewhat concerned” about climate change. Regarding whether climate has become a viable election issue, InsideClimateNews suggested that “the political dynamics around climate in the 2022 midterms could stand out as a milestone.” Or as The New Republic summarized:

This year, more “climate voters,” people whose top issue is the climate crisis, showed up to cast ballots than in any other election in U.S. history. Exit polls show that, contrary to conventional Democratic consultant-class wisdom, climate was the top issue for 8 percent of voters, a share surpassed only by “inflation/economy,” immigration, and abortion (the latter two are tied at second place). You’d never guess it from media coverage, but climate and crime were tied for third place. The percentage of voters prioritizing climate had jumped by four points from 2020, the first year that voters were even asked at the polls about “climate” as opposed to “environment.” There are probably several factors behind this impressive showing.

Climate could play an important role in the Georgia Senate runoff election, especially among socially marginalized communities that have been bearing the brunt of climate-driven extreme weather events and environmental pollution. In addition to grassroots organizing efforts, Climate Monitor noted that “LCV [League of Conservation Voters] has already launched a new video ad supporting Sen. Raphael Warnock in his runoff election on December 6th. Environmental Voter Project is also already spending in Georgia’s Senate runoff.”

This belies Fox News’ attempts to downplay climate change as a concern for voters. This summer, the network, among other right-wing media outlets, cherry-picked data from a Siena College and New York Times poll to claim that Americans did not care about climate change. For example, the July 20 episode of America’s Newsroom featured Kellyanne Conway, former White House counselor under President Donald Trump, claiming that President Joe Biden is focusing on climate and the poll shows voters “don’t think that he’s connected to them in a way that he is listening to them and hearing their concerns.”

During the July 24 episode of Fox & Friends Weekend, co-host Pete Hegseth claimed, “They’re using the blue checkmark woke brigade to attempt to cudgel the White House to declare a crisis based on 1% of Americans who believe it’s their religion, which could change all of our lives, and change it rapidly, if he caves to groups like this.”

In the months and weeks leading up to the November 8 midterm elections, Fox News continued to downplay voter concerns about climate change. For example, during the September 14 episode of The Story With Martha MacCallum, Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich led off a segment that attacked the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act by using a Gallup poll to claim that “voters are far more concerned with the economy than they are with climate.” Fox News hosted commentator Angela Morabito on the September 27 episode of Fox News at Night, where she claimed that climate change was a “luxury problem” above a chyron that read “Midterm Motivators.”

Inside Climate News:

Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a 25-year-old community organizer, has become the first member of Generation Z elected to Congress after winning a House seat in Florida’s 10th Congressional District.

The young Democrat’s victory came as his generation was also getting credit for helping to stop a red wave of Republican victories in Tuesday’s national midterm elections.

This historic win in the Orlando-area district will do more than just bring down the average age of a House member, which is currently 58. It will also highlight the importance of two issues credited with motivating Gen Z voters to turn out: gun violence and climate change. 

In an interview with iGen Politics in October, Frost said that the climate crisis is one of the reasons he decided to run for Congress. He spoke about experiencing Hurricane Ian, a monstrous Category 4 storm that slammed into Florida’s southwest coast on Sept. 28, killing more than 100 people in the state. In the morning before the interview, he worked to distribute donated food and supplies to families displaced by the catastrophic storm. 

Continue reading “Young Voters Show that Climate Matters”