A 21st-Century Reinvention Of The Electric Grid Is Crucial For Solving The Climate Change Crisis | Talking Points Memo

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It first appeared at The Conversation.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1400816
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Nice discussion. For incumbent hydrocarbon extractors like Russia and Saudi the failure to mention blue or grey hydrogen must be disconcerting, however.

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I’m so old that I can remember when the United States used to proudly proclaim itself as a technology “leader”, an “innovator”, and talk about its “nimble” businesses. Can we get back to that?

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Is that where you “make” hydrogen out of petroleum products? Sounds suboptimal…

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The climate crisis cannot be solved as your headline suggests. It can only be somewhat ameliorated but mostly just endured

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No worries. For the past 60 years, nuclear fusion has only been 20 years away. I’m reading reports that this time, as opposed to all the other times, it might actually be true, just like they said all the other times.

I all seriousness, though, our electrical grid is so massively outdated even if we ignore the transition to renewables completely. I mean, just look at Texas! They’re among the nation’s leaders in wind energy, but their grid is so outdated and unreliable that it’s killing people when the temps drip below freezing. As far as BBB goes, completely replacing our grid could/should be its own independent legislation.

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We’ve known this kind of stuff for decades. And even known that the rate of return is good. But somehow there’s never enough capital to do the work, because it’s going to CDOs or NFTs or some other rathole idiocy.

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Our electric utilities are regulated monopolies. We are beholden to them to keep the lights on at affordable prices. Replace the grid and the rates go up, leaving granny to die in the blazing heat or freezing cold.

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John Oliver did a great spot on this a month or two ago. Even if we do manage to eliminate gas-powered autos and trucks, how do we get enough electricity (and charging stations) to power them all?

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That’s what they want you to think. But in many places (Texas, California as examples) “deregulation” has set things up so that the rates go up when demand goes up, already leaving granny to die in the blazing heat or freezing cold (because granny’s load is the first to be shed).

PUCs control (among other things) what gets added to the rate base and what doesn’t. Thank goodness for regulatory capture.

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Buckminster Fuller, a great American, was on this many decades ago.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-06-09/future-of-world-energy-lies-in-uhvdc-transmission-lines

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I grew up a mile or so from a “flying saucer” home he built back in the day. I remember my dad asked I wanted to see it before they moved it to a museum somewhere but I was too young to appreciate his work so I missed out.

This is the same house.

image

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The power grid has been undergoing some changes that will help with the transition. Because of NIMBY opposition to large power plants, and the footprint of gas-powered plants being significantly smaller, in the last couple of decades new electrical generation plants are smaller and distributed across a region in place of large centralized power plants.

This distribution has helped make the electrical grid a bit more robust, and has added capability to integrate and manage more, smaller, power sources.

More work needs to be done, but it’s a step in the right direction…

[Coal plants are huge because they need rail terminals to offload coal, coal storage areas, preprocessors to grind the coal fine and transport it to boilers for burning, which then produce steam to run the power turbines, and storage areas for coal ash to cool and then be stored until transported offsite for disposal. In comparison, gas power plants burn natural gas directly in the power turbines - no boilers, etc, required.]

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A couple years ago I saw Elon Musk (love him or hate him) unveil the Tesla Solar Roof. He actually made a very good and effective point regarding the necessity to decentralize the production of electricity. Imagine if every home produced the majority of their own electricity, enough, even to power their car(s). Make the volume of electricity your home produces into a selling point. “My home produces 15 kWh of its own electricity. How much does yours produce?”

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The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law makes the most transformative investment in electric vehicle charging in U.S. history that will put us on the path to a convenient and equitable network of 500,000 chargers and make EVs accessible to all Americas for both local and long-distance trips. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes $5 billion in formula funding for states with a goal to build a national charging network. 10% is set-aside each year for the Secretary to provide grants to States to help fill gaps in the network. The Law also provides $2.5 billion for communities and corridors through a competitive grant program that will support innovative approaches and ensure that charger deployment meets Administration priorities such as supporting rural charging, improving local air quality and increasing EV charging access in disadvantaged communities.

This is a solvable problem with enough investment. Much of that is already occurring in the private sector (as noted in the article with renewables), but additional government investment would help speed up the process.

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Most problems are; we lack only the political willpower to do things. Thanks, #moscowmitch.

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The utilities just ask for a ten percent increase when they really want a 5% increase. The PUCs cut the ten percent request down to 5 or 6 percent and everybody wins!!! Except for us.

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The Texas grid is designed to extract as much money as possible from the customer.

What we saw last winter wasn’t a bug, it was a feature.

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Anyone know if Biden extended the solar tariffs?

Changes in government trade policy also impact prices. In January 2018, President Trump imposed a four-year tariff on imported solar cells and panels that started at 30% and was set to drop 5% each year until February 2022. In 2020, the tariff rate for the fourth year was raised from 15% to 18%. The tariff resulted in a 16 cent per watt increase for the average consumer in 2018, which translated to an overall increase of $960 for a six-kW system, according to EnergySage.

They are set to expire in February, If he hasn’t already decided, it should be soon.

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Here in New Mexico, it’s a constant battle between PNM (the main electric company) and the regulators regarding rights and responsibilities. Other places have “nationalized” the power companies and run them as a municipal/regional SERVICE, not a for-profit enterprise with its necessary big costs for advertising, lobbying, and keeping its executives in the top 0.1%.

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