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Home My WebLink AboutICG Special Meeting Port Townsend Rick Dunn Carbon-Free Electricity Policies Impacts and Perspectives October 10 2024 FINALCarbon-Free Electricity Policies Impacts & Perspectives Your Trusted Energy Partner Intergovernmental Collaborative Group Rick Dunn, General Manager/CEO October 10, 2024 1 rickdunn.substack.com 2 Began Publishing November 2023 Optional & Free to Subscribe Artistic Collaboration: Marjean Allen-Dunn https://rickdunn.substack.com/ 2 Northwest Close to Blackouts – How did we get here? WA & OR Clean Energy Policies – Global & U.S. Perspectives WA Energy Strategy – We’re Coming for you Montana & Wyoming! Where Do We Go from Here? – Near and Long Term Agenda 3 Northwest Close to Blackouts 4 Northwest Imported Electricity for all 120 Hours of Cold Snap Hydro short on water & wind power collapsed to zero Demand grew 2% to 6% since December 2022 winter event +2,000 MW of coal retirements so far Northwest electric grid & natural gas pipeline systems are at immediate risk with no margin for the unexpected No Net Generation Imports from CA Nuclear, Natural Gas & Coal Imports Multiple Utilities Declared Energy Emergencies 4 Northwest has Long Exported Electricity to California 5 Pacific Interties went into service 1968 - 1970 Path for Hydropower surpluses in the Northwest to flow to California High Voltage Direct Current (DC) allows more precise control of power flow and lower losses; but more complicated Canada & Montana Interconnections becoming more important Pacific DC & AC Interties 8,000 MW U.S. – Canada Interconnections Montana – Colstrip 5 Northwest Beginning to Import Electricity via CA 6 Graphs below zero indicate flows from CA to NW January 2024 Cold Weather Event DC Line Outage for Maintenance 6 Power Grid Basics: A Service Like No Other! 7 Electricity is simultaneously: Produced Delivered Consumed 7 Alternating Current (AC) Electricity 8 60 cycles per second sine waves All Generators must be Synchronized Increasing Demand Tends to Decrease Speed of Rotation Decreasing Demand tends to Increase Speed of Rotation Speed of rotation precisely controlled Rotating Magnetic Field 8 Demand/Supply Balancing: Physics 9 Electrical Demand and Supply Must Be Equal at All Times ‘Cruise Control’ set at 60 No over supply No under supply The Laws of Power Grid Physics are Unforgiving Consequences of not maintaining supply & demand balance are blackouts 4,000 MW OF FIRM GENERATION IS BEING RETIRED IN THE NWPP. THERE IS NO ORGANIZATION IN THE NORTHWESTERN UNITED STATES RESPONSIBLE FOR RESOURCE ADEQUACY PLANNING ONLY RELIABILITY REQUIREMENTS ARE OPERATIONAL ANTI FOSSIL FUEL AND ANTI NUCLEAR SENTIMENT COMBINED WITH STRONG WIND AND SOLAR POWER ADVOCACY HAS PUSHED UTILITIES INTO A GAME OF CHICKEN. 9 Controllable Supply: Blackout Insurance 10 Uncontrollable Low Effective Capacity Controllable High Effective Capacity Effective Capacity = % of Installed Nameplate Generation that can be Counted on During Hours of Maximum Demand Coal & Natural Gas 50% of Effective Capacity Hydro 40% of Effective Capacity 10 NW Coal Plant Closures Colstrip(1) 716 MW in 2019 Centralia(1) 730 MW in 2020 Boardman 600 MW in 2020 Centralia(2) 730 MW in 2025 2,776 MW by 2025 +3,000 MW more in ? Coal = 16% of U.S. Electricity 11 Source: epa.gov/egrid/data-explorer Total generation (MWh) by plant Coal =12% of PNW 11 Natural Gas = 43% of U.S. Electricity 12 Natural Gas 23% of PNW 5,000 MW Interstate-5 Population Centers 100% CO2-Free Impacts? Controllable & Power/Energy Dense High MW/MWh Per Acre 12 13 U.S. Electricity: Coal to Natural Gas Fuel Switching 36% CO2 Reduction Down 869 MMT since 2005 Natural Gas 50 to 60% less CO2 than Coal Plus, Wind & Solar Emissions Trending Downward https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks-1990-2022 Electricity Generation Flattened 13 Hydropower = 5.7% of U.S. Electricity 14 Northwest Hydropower Like Nowhere Else: Electricity Provided 50% of PNW Region 60% of Washington Hydro-Based 100% CO2-Free Electricity does not scale to the rest of the U.S. 14 Nuclear = 18.6% of U.S. Electricity 15 Total generation (MWh) by plant, 2022 Nuclear 3% of PNW Controllable & Power/Energy Dense High MW/MWh Per Acre 15 Wind = 10.2% of U.S. Electricity 16 Total generation (MWh) by plant Wind 10.5% of PNW Source: epa.gov/egrid/data-explorer Uncontrollable & Power/Energy Dilute Low MW/MWh Per Acre 16 Northwest Wind Power Effective Capacity 17 Washington Wind Lowest Winter Effective Capacity of any Region ELCC = Effective Load Carrying Capability 5.5% Montana 30% 17 Solar = 3.9% of U.S. Electricity 18 Total generation (MWh) by plant Solar 0.9% of PNW Source: epa.gov/egrid/data-explorer Uncontrollable & Power/Energy Dilute Low MW/MWh Per Acre 18 Northwest Solar Power Effective Capacity 19 Northwest Solar Extremely Low Effective Capacity in Winter ELCC = Effective Load Carrying Capability 2% to 3% 19 NW Supply & Demand Balancing: January 2024 Cold Snap 20 38 Balancing Area Authorities in Western Power Grid Maintain supply & demand balance including scheduled generation imports and exports Expanded “Northwest” Footprint 20 NW Electricity Demand: January 2024 Cold Snap 21 Electricity Demand Cold Winter Days January 2024 Daily Rhythm of Life Demand Curve is Power & Must be Precisely Matched Controllable Effective Capacity Area Under Curve is Energy 21 NW Electricity Supply: January 2024 Cold Snap 22 Future Concerns with Shutting Down Coal & No New Natural Gas More Dependence on Drought Susceptible Hydropower Overbuilding Wind & Solar (Low Effective Capacity) Playing a Costly Probability Game Wind Drops by 94% between January 11th and 14th Solar is zero at night and bubble shaped during the day Uncontrollable Wind & Solar are parasitic to the “reliable grid” 22 NW Hydro: Flexes Polar Vortex Muscle 23 WA & OR Wind Power at Zero or Less During Coldest Temperatures https://rickdunn.substack.com/p/northwest-hydro-flexes-its-polar 23 Northwest Close to Blackouts – How did we get here? WA & OR Clean Energy Policies – Global & U.S. Perspectives WA Energy Strategy – We’re Coming for you Montana & Wyoming! Where Do We Go from Here? – Near and Long Term Agenda 24 WA Clean Energy Transformation Act (CETA) 25 20% of utility portfolio can be CO2 emitting generation with offsets Has effectively eliminated investment in new natural gas generation so far 25 Oregon Clean Energy Bill 26 Directs two largest utilities to deliver 100% clean electricity to customers by 2040 Stairstep from 80% clean electricity by 2030, to 90% percent by 2035 and 100% by 2040 Prohibits new or expanded natural gas-fired power plants in the state (also illegal to build nuclear plants) Most ambitious timetable in the nation 26 Washington & Oregon: What Dirty Energy Problem? 27 Source: https://www.epa.gov/egrid/data-explorer % of U.S. Total (1,745 MMT) WA = 10.8 MMT (0.62%) OR = 9.13 MMT (0.52%) 27 Washington & Oregon: What Dirty Energy Problem? 28 Table Based on US Energy Information Administration 2021 Data. Similar % apply to average data between 2007 and 2021 during which U.S. Total Emissions dropped from 5,998 MMT to 4,911 MMT. 28 As We Push Grid to Blackout: Global CO2 Emissions Rise 29 Since 2007 U.S. decreased by 1,070 MMT China increased by 4,420 MMT China 2 new coal plants per week in 2022 In 2023, new coal plant construction hit an eight-year high. 11,400 MMT +37,000 MMT per Year 5,060 MMT 29 Rapid Global “Energy Transition” ? 30 5% Wind and solar 83% Fossil Fuels & Biomass 6.3% Hydro 3.8% Nuclear Source: https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption Electricity is 16% of Global Energy Consumed 30 U.S. Electricity Generation Fossil Fuels = 60% Renewables = 21.4% Wind & Solar = 14.1% Hydro = 5.7% Nuclear = 18.6% 39% Non-CO2 Emitting 31 Source: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/ 31 U.S. Total Energy Consumption in 2023 Fossil fuels = 83% Wind & Solar = 2.6% Hydro = 0.9% Total Renewables = 9% Nuclear = 9% Electricity Represents 34% of total U.S. Energy 32 Wind was 18%x 9% =1.62% & Solar was 11%x9%=0.99% Wind & Solar combined were 2.6% of U.S. primary energy consumption in 2023 32 Northwest Close to Blackouts – How did we get here? WA & OR Clean Energy Policies – Global & U.S. Perspectives WA Energy Strategy – We’re Coming for you Montana & Wyoming! Where Do We Go from Here? – Near and Long Term Agenda 33 We’re Coming for You MT & WY! 34 Washington State Energy Strategy +10,000 aMW = 10 x Columbia Generating Station Nuclear Plant 34 WA Energy Strategy: Everywhere but Here 35 63,000 MW onshore wind +100 Seattle-sized farms 38,000 MW solar +116 million panels WA Wind = 2,000 MW 35 Washington’s Vision for the Northwest 36 Total generation (MWh) by plant Source: epa.gov/egrid/data-explorer Texas +37,000 MW Southwest Power Pool +31,000 MW WA Vision for NW +63,000 MW 36 Wind & Solar: Land Use Impacts 37 Assumes 100% of Existing Hydropower stays in Place Transmission Lines Needed to Bring Wind and Solar Power to Population Centers Source: Public Generating Pool study by E3 Consulting submitted to WA State Legislature prior to passage of CETA 37 Transmission Lines: Development & Operations Friction 38 High up front capital costs & long siting, permitting & construction lead times 15 years or more not uncommon Wildfire legal and financial risks Risk mitigation includes preemptive shutoffs and blackouts 38 Boardman-to-Hemingway: Tx Line Case Study 39 300 miles Need identified 2002 1,000 MW Capacity Project defined 2006 Complete by 2026? Raises serious questions about WA doubling electricity capacity and counting on Montana & Wyoming Wind & Solar Idaho Power & PacifiCorp joint ownership BPA not participating in construction or ownership 39 Land-Use Conflicts: Development Friction 40 Source: https://www.americanexperiment.org/reports/not-in-our-backyard Tally Of US Wind & Solar Rejections Hits 735 - Robert Bryce (substack.com) 40 Not-In-My-Backyard: NIMBY Case Study 41 Benton County, Washington 850 MW Wind Project 244 Turbines up to 600 feet tall 112 square miles Overwhelming local opposition Local Electricity > 95% CO2 Free Today Developer using state EFSEC to bypass “locals” 133% x Seattle Land Area 280 avg MW 47 MW of January Effective Capacity 41 Endangered Species: Just Another NIMBY 42 Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife has identified “collision with wind turbines” as one of several direct sources of mortality Nowhere to Hide 42 Inflaming the Rural/Urban Divide: “Green Tyranny” 43 Step 1 Replace Environmentalism with Climatism Wrecking the Planet to “Save It” Step 2 Regulatory Reforms Eminent Domain on Steroids Step 3 Push the Grid to a Reliability Cliff More wind & solar over a bigger area … and fast! Step4 Propaganda Our “bold actions” will change the future of the planet & there’s no price too high for others to pay "You've got to break a few eggs to make an omelette". https://rickdunn.substack.com/p/bold-action-or-green-tyranny 43 Northwest Close to Blackouts – How did we get here? WA & OR Clean Energy Policies – Global & U.S. Perspectives WA Energy Strategy – We’re Coming for you Montana & Wyoming! Where Do We Go from Here? – Near and Long Term Agenda 44 NW Utility Balancing Act: Becoming Increasingly Difficult 45 Hydropower Erosion Increased spill & threats of dam breaching Eliminating CO2 valued above all factors Coal-plant retirements & no new natural gas in WA & OR Wind & Solar: Weather Dependent & Energy Dilute Located remotely from population centers & require vast swaths of land due to need for extreme overbuild Increasing Costs & Risk of Blackouts 45 Northwest Demand +30% in 10 Years 46 Winter & Summer Firm Peak Requirements Could Increase Nearly 10,000 MW in 10 yrs “Averages are the enemy of reliability planning” Randy Hardy 46 Utility Forecasts: Highly Uncertain 47 Status Quo High Electrification Load Forecast Scenarios Which is it? What about Data Centers & other Electricity Intensive Loads? Drives need for scalable, rapidly deployable, CO2-free, & reliable generation 47 Pacific Northwest Generating Capacity Now & Possible Future 48 Source: https://www.nwcouncil.org/energy/energy-topics/power-supply Average Year Energy WA & OR Vision Eliminate Natural Gas & Coal -12,000 aMW x2 Electrification +16,000 aMW Unprecedented Development in an Anti-Development Era In 25 years construct +28,000 aMW =100 years of Hydro, Natural Gas & Coal Development Nameplate Capacity 48 PNW Hydro is Great! But Highly Variable 49 +3,000 to +9,000 aMW +4,000 to +7,000 aMW https://www.bpa.gov/energy-and-services/power/resource-planning Firm Generation Spoken For Surplus May or May Not Show Up 3 to 9 X CGS Nuclear Plant In Some Months 49 Lower Snake River Dams 50 LSRD’s Not Expensive (Hydro is least cost by far) Not Outdated (world class fish bypass) Not Surplus (+130 not-for-profit utility portfolios) As much as 25% of BPA Operating Reserves Blackout Insurance We need every drop of hydropower we can get 100% Carbon Free CETA Mandates Controllable Effective Capacity 50 BPA Transmission Lines: Critical to All Utilities 51 BPA Owns & Operates 75% of NW Grid Source: BPA April 2023 Presentation “The Evolving Grid Update on the State of Transmission” 51 BPA Transmission: Interconnection Frenzy 52 BPA hasn’t built significant new transmission lines in decades 300 52 Land-Use vs. CO2 Footprint: Finding Common Ground 53 What if we built: As Little Transmission as Absolutely Necessary Reliable Generation Plants Small-footprint Low or no-CO2 Closer to where people live Natural gas is 100 to 1,000 X more power dense than wind and solar New nuclear with safety perimeter at fence line will increase power density Up to 60% less CO2 than coal 53 Land-Use vs. CO2 Footprint: Finding Common Ground 54 Energy contained in a gummy bear pellet of uranium fuel = 2,000 pounds of coal 54 Small Footprint Nuclear: Long-Term Solution 55 1,000 aMW of wind power = 500 to 1,000 square miles of land 720 MW Small Modular Reactor Complex = 0.05 square miles of land Source: https://www.americanexperiment.org/reports/not-in-our-backyard 55 New Nuclear: Gaining Momentum 56 ARDP Grant Recipient #1 ARDP Grant Recipient #2 56 New Nuclear: Gaining Momentum 57 ARDP Grant New Recipient #1 Breaking Ground in 2026 “completed by end of decade” ARDP Grant Recipient #2 Breaking Ground Now 2030 Operational Goal 57 Washington State: Site-1 SMR Project 58 Proposed Site-1 SMR Original ARDP Grant #1 Now Being Financed through DOE Loan Program Office Puget Sound Energy Providing $10 M WA Legislature $25 M Conditional CCA Funding Major Development Funding Announcement Expected Soon 58 10/9/2024 X-energy XE-100 Site-1 SMR Project: Technology High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR) Helium cooled TRISO fuel 12 Modules 80 MWe/module (net) Up to 960 MW, always-on, CO2-Free 60-year design life; 100+ year asset Continuous on-line refueling Modularized components built off-site, transportable via rail/road Walk-away-safe & meltdown proof Scalable & rapidly deployable in the future Xe is the right technology because: Variable fuel cost Process heat for other revenue stream potential, example H2 production Ramp rates to match renewables 59 $-1.4B Benefits of zero-emitting firm capacity at 100% GHG reductions Adding Avoids +1.2 GW CGS -9.5 GW Storage -44.8 GW Wind -37 GW Solar +6.5 GW Firm -91 GW Non-firm CGS + NuScale SMRs reduce system costs by almost $8B per year relative to RE + Storage 100% GHG Reduction Portfolios +5.3 GW SMRs Avoids 80 to 150 Seattle-Sized Wind Farms & 112 M solar panels 60 Data Centers: Need Baseload Generation Now 61 Big Tech’s “Dirty Little Secret” Natural Gas Power + Renewable Energy Certificates “Greenwashing” Driving Nuclear Renaissance https://rickdunn.substack.com/p/wind-and-solar-green-industry-fantasyland 61 Capital Costs: Low & No-CO2 Emissions Generation 62 Combined-cycle natural gas plants: $1.4 billion per 1,000 MW +90% nameplate annual average energy possible 94% Average Effective Capacity Wind: $2.3 billion per 1,000 MW 30% to 40% nameplate annual avg. Solar: $1.4 billion per 1,000 MW +30% nameplate annual avg. East WA Costs: U.S. EIA Northwest Power Pool 2022 $ Currently no plans for new gas plants in WA or OR 2.5 Years to Construct Must overbuild due to low effective capacity 1,000 MW of January Effective Capacity Requires: 18,000 MW of WA wind 3,300 MW of MT wind 62 Wind & Solar Grids: Cautionary Tale from Germany 63 Residential/Industrial Avg. ¢ per kWh Germany: 40/26.4 Germany leads on: concentration of wind & solar per capita Highest priced electricity California: 28.9/18.8 United States: 15.9/8.0 Washington: 10.9/6.3 Sources: Statista & U.S. Energy Information Administration 2023 63 WA & OR Residential Rates Increasing 64 West Coast Residential Rates Increases Since May 2019 WA, OR & CA = 12¢, 15¢ & 34¢ per kWh California 82% Increase Oregon 34% Increase Washington 24% Increase CA is 280% x WA Rates 28% wind & solar 64 Unspoken Environmental Costs: Cradle-to-Grave 65 Source: https://www.prageru.com/video/whats-wrong-with-wind-and-solar/ All Energy Conversion Technologies involve Environmental Tradeoffs Social cost of carbon should not be the only environmental metric 65 Wind & Solar: Land & Mineral Intensive 66 Mark Mills Manhattan Institute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgOEGKDVvsg 500% to 1,800% Increase in Mining 66 Energy Transition: Mining Reality Check 67 Mining critically needed and OK as long as it’s somewhere else 67 Things to Consider 68 Cost-effective and reliable energy is the key to human flourishing food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education, etc. What global difference can a wind & solar energy strategy conceivably make? What does it look like when we get there? What about emissions produced by China and other developing nations? Beware of climate catastrophizing as the basis for energy policies Intellectually honest life-cycle financial and ecological cost versus benefit analysis 68 It’s a Great Time to be Alive! 69 “We live longer, healthier, safer, wealthier, freer, more peaceful and more stimulating lives than those who came before us.” Steven Pinker, Harvard Psychologist 69 Natural-Gas-to-Nuclear – N2N 70 “How about an energy future of abundance and human flourishing, not one based on unprecedented land grabs, intermittency, variability, and scarcity.” “I know it might seem like a long shot, but we must create a “safe space” for natural gas to be put back on the table in Washington and Oregon.” 70