energy – This is Not Cool

As Winter Sets in, European Emissions Keep Dropping as Renewables Soar

European wind energy production, January 2, 2024

German emissions were at their lowest point in around 70 years, as Europe’s largest economy managed to reduce its dependence on coal faster than expected, a study published Thursday showed.

Europe’s biggest economy emitted 673 million tonnes of the greenhouse gases last year, 73 million tonnes fewer than in 2022, according to the energy think tank Agora Energiewende.

The figure was at its lowest point “since the 1950s”, Agora said in a statement, while warning that Germany had work to do to further reduce its emissions.

The drop was “largely attributable to a strong decrease in coal power generation”, Agora said.

Germany resorted to the fuel in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when Moscow cut off gas supplies to the European giant. But since then, Berlin has managed to pare back its use significantly.

Electricity generation from renewable sources was over 50 percent of the total in 2023 for the first time, while coal’s share dropped to 26 percent from 34 percent, according to figures published by the federal network agency on Wednesday.

The cut in coal use accounted for a reduction of 46 million tonnes in CO₂ emissions, the think tank estimated.

The renewables record brought Germany closer to its target to produce 80 percent of its electricity from wind and solar by 2030, Agora chief Simon Mueller said.

“When it comes to the generation of electricity, we are on a very good path,” Economy Minister Robert Habeck said in a statement.

Bloomberg:

Strong wind generation and low demand during the holiday period sent electricity prices below zero in Germany, while wholesale markets turned negative for some hours in France, Denmark and Britain.

Let’s Talk Football. And Energy: When Not Rigging NFL Games, Jerry Jones Jacks Up Prices on Desperate, Dying Texans

“Be a man and take responsibility”

Rex Ryan just went off on the Refs and everyone blaming the players from last night’s botched call 🤯 pic.twitter.com/IqgNThhSO2
— Woodward Sports Network (@woodwardsports) December 31, 2023

It’s New Year’s Eve, so let’s talk football. And, ok, also electricity production.
Up front I admit I’m still pissed off, as a Lions fan, about last night’s result.

But I’m also biased as an energy nerd, and someone who hates to see one of the nation’s largest utility service provider (ERCOT – Energy Reliability Council of Texas) act as a solely owned subsidiary of the oil/gas oligarchy. What’s the common thread? Dallas Cowboys owner and gas billionaire Jerry Jones.

As mainstream NFL commentators come unglued about the obvious robbery of the Lions last night, energy geeks remember that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones profited enormously from 2021’s deadly Texas blackouts, (in which hundreds of Texans died), which happened primarily almost half of Texas’ gas generation (as well as coal and one nuclear plant) froze up when it was most needed. And THAT happened because the energy industry (still – see below) will not be bound by any lefty/communist regulations to disaster-proof the grid.

NPR February 18 2021:

The winter storms gripping much of the United States have devastated many families and businesses, with frigid temperatures and power outages causing particularly dire conditions in Texas.

But for oil and gas producers that have managed to keep production going, this is proving to be a big payday. Jerry Jones, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Cowboys, appears to be one of the beneficiaries.

Comstock Resources Inc., a shale driller that operates in Texas and Louisiana, told investors on an earnings call this week that the surge in natural gas prices was providing it with a major — albeit almost certainly temporary — financial boost. The company is publicly traded but Jones holds a majority of the shares.

“Obviously, this week is like hitting the jackpot,” President and Chief Financial Officer Roland Burns said Wednesday.

Sports Illustrated:

Jerry Jones is doing what he has always done: trying to cash in. He is damn good at it. He is a billionaire for a lot of reasons: business acumen, luck, fearlessness and the willingness to do things like jack up the price of natural gas at a time when the people of Texas need it the most.

Shadowy Groups Funding Clean Energy Opposition

More evidence for what we already knew. Above, local TV reporting from Iowa.
Below, new reporting from Midwest Energy News.
Shadowy tentacles of the oil/gas industry reaching into local communities to slow the development of solar energy.

Energy News:

An anonymously funded group is spreading misinformation about a rural Ohio solar project, according to project backers and others who reviewed claims made at a recent event.

Knox Smart Development was incorporated last month by Jared Yost, a Mount Vernon resident and opponent of the planned 120 megawatt Frasier Solar project. Three weeks later, on Nov. 30, the group hosted a catered “town hall meeting” at a Mount Vernon theater that included speakers with ties to fossil fuel and climate denial groups.

A company official with the solar developer, Open Road Renewables, was denied entry to the event, which was attended by approximately 500 people and featured complimentary food and drinks following the program.

It’s unclear who funded Knox Smart Development so it could pay for the event.

“There are people with concerns who are helping us, and they’ve all asked to remain anonymous,” Yost said when asked about its funding sources as people left the theater. “So we have local concerned citizens who are helping to fund this, including myself.”

A Dec. 7 filing advised developer Open Road Renewables and others that the Ohio Power Siting Board was ready to start review of the application for the Frasier Solar Project, which was filed in October. The project would be located in Clinton and Miller townships, both in Knox County. Yost and Knox Smart Development filed to participate in the case as parties on Dec. 8.

An early version of Knox Smart Development’s website included the text, “Our mission: Empowering America,” with a hyperlink to a page for an organization called The Empowerment Alliance. Research by the Energy and Policy Institute, an energy and utility watchdog group, has linked the Empowerment Alliance to the natural gas industry.

Dave Anderson, the institute’s policy and communications director, found a National Review Ideas Summit program guide that characterized The Empowerment Alliance as a project of Karen Buchwald Wright and her husband, Tom Rastin. Wright is the board chair of Ariel Corporation, which makes compressors for the natural gas industry. Its headquarters is in Mount Vernon.

The Empowerment Alliance’s highest paid contractor for the past four years, according to Internal Revenue Service filings, has been a group called Majority Strategies. Its chief strategist, Tom Whatman, emceed the Nov. 30 event for Knox Smart Development. Whatman is also the former executive director of the Ohio Republican Party.

“Michael & Me” Just went Boom

UPDATE: There is more on this story that you can read here.

You can read my own account of meeting Moore, long before he was “the”
Michael Moore, here.

Joanne Doroshow on Facebook:

I was not going to step into this mess, which many people have contacted me about over the last couple weeks. But because of my anti-nuclear background and my familiarity with all that went down in Midland, this one particularly pained me. So I am breaking my silence. I was involved in the research and fact checking process for various of Michael’s film, TV and book projects from the 1990s through 2007. During that period, Michael cared enough about the accuracy of his films that he complied when others told him he had to make changes to reflect facts and reality. I personally factually annotated some of these films and put entire “fact check bibles” on film websites. I dealt with studio lawyers doing fact and libel checks until they were satisfied. Believe me, by the time these projects saw the light of day, they were airtight. The director of this new film was someone we never let near the fact checking process. In my experience, he seemed attracted to conspiracy theories and information that was not factual, and I believed his influence on Michael could be damaging to his films. I cannot speak to what happened to Michael’s films after I stopped helping to ensure their accuracy but it is excruciating to see what has happened now – although it is not surprising. People disturbed by inaccuracies in this film are not “haters.” They, like I, are pained by them. The factual errors should never have happened.

Drought/Heat Clobbers Texas Fossil Fuel plants. Wind Keeps on Spinning.

When the Earthquake/tsunami closed down all of Japan’s nuclear power plants, I reported that wind was one of the only remaining reliable, tsunami proof sources of power.

Now, Dallas Morning News quotes ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state’s electrical systems:

The Texas electrical grid operator began emergency procedures to prevent total blackout on Tuesday as the heat lead to record electricity demand, and told customers to brace for a repeat in the next few days.

The high temperatures also caused about 20 power plants to stop working, including at least one coal-fired plant and natural gas plants.

..such outages aren’t unusual in the hot summer, and Texas is getting some juice from surrounding states and from Mexico.

According to an ERCOT spokesman, conventional power plants suffer in this kind of heat.

“They can’t really efficiently condense the steam that’s used to make electricity, so that causes unit deratings that they can’t generate as much as they could if the lake were cooler.”

The American Wind Energy Association notes:

Meanwhile, some 1,800 MW of wind generation were available yesterday, more than double the 800 MW that ERCOT counts on during periods of peak summer demand for its long-term planning purposes. 1,800 MW is enough to power about 360,000 homes under the very high electricity demand seen yesterday.

Continue reading “Drought/Heat Clobbers Texas Fossil Fuel plants. Wind Keeps on Spinning.”

Number One Threat to Birds. Hint – it’s not Wind Turbines.

From the New York Times:

While public attention has focused on wind turbines as a menace to birds, a new study shows that a far greater threat may be posed by a more familiar antagonist: the pet house cat.

A new study in The Journal of Ornithology on the mortality of baby gray catbirds in the Washington suburbs found that cats were the No. 1 killer in the area, by a large margin.

Nearly 80 percent of the birds were killed by predators, and cats were responsible for 47 percent of those deaths, according to the researchers, from the Smithsonian Institution and Towson University in Maryland. Death rates were particularly high in neighborhoods with large cat populations.

This is, of course, more confirmation of what my own research for a pair of wind energy videos showed.
(I’ve embedded them below the fold)

Continue reading “Number One Threat to Birds. Hint – it’s not Wind Turbines.”

Graph of the Day: US Wind Resources

How much is there? More than we thought.

According to Dennis Elliott, NREL’s (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) principal scientist in wind resource assessment, “areas with gross capacity factor of 30% and greater are generally considered to have suitable wind resource for wind development with today’s advanced wind turbine technology. The new estimates for 80-m height and capacity factor of 30% and greater indicate about 10,500 gigawatts (GW) developable potential in the contiguous United States, compared to previous estimates of 7,000 to 8,000 GW for 50-m height and power Class 3 and greater.”

How much is that?

Well, a very large nuclear reactor might put out one gigawatt.