June 4 Energy Roundup: Hickenlooper vs. EPA, New Mexico enviro officials cast doubt on Clean Power Plan, and the return of 'green' billionaire Tom Steyer
The Independence Institute’s Amy Oliver Cooke will moderate a free panel on June 17 in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, discussing the embattled Colowyo Coal Mine in northwest Colorado: “The Coming Storm of Federal Energy Regulations and Their Impact on Colorado Business” Are you concerned about the future of the Colowyo Coal Mine? Want to know more […]
Testimony Against Divestment at CU Regent Board Meeting
Delivered April 16: · Thank you for the opportunity to speak today on the issue of fossil fuel divestment. My name is Michael Sandoval. I am a proud graduate of CU Boulder and CU Denver. I graduated with degrees in history and marketing. I am here today speaking as both a proud alumnus as well […]
Sputtering Wind Energy Prompts Transmission Cost Concerns from Xcel
Growing transmission costs for wind-generated electricity have prompted Xcel Energy to seek approval for rate hikes to smaller utilities using Xcel’s transmission lines to reach their consumers: Xcel wants the utilities to pay for its costs associated with having supplies of reserve power ready to go in case the wind suddenly dies, said Terri Eaton, […]
Fried Birds: Green Energy Involves Tradeoffs Too
The Ivanpah solar plant went online last week, but the cost to wildlife–particularly birds–won’t be known for at least two more years. Reports that the giant solar thermal array featuring more than 300,000 reflective panels and steam-driven turbine towers have been “killing and singeing” birds by heating the air to around 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit near […]
Emails Show EPA's Denver "Listening Tour" Stop A Collaboration Between Agency, Environmentalist Orgs
Emails published this week by the Washington Free Beacon’s Lachlan Markay illustrate a pattern of coordination and cooperation between the Environmental Protection Agency and external environmentalist groups, including the use of at least one agency event to “pressure” an Xcel Energy executive at the Denver stop of a 2013 “listening tour”: The emails, obtained by […]
Emails Show EPA’s Denver “Listening Tour” Stop A Collaboration Between Agency, Environmentalist Orgs
Emails published this week by the Washington Free Beacon’s Lachlan Markay illustrate a pattern of coordination and cooperation between the Environmental Protection Agency and external environmentalist groups, including the use of at least one agency event to “pressure” an Xcel Energy executive at the Denver stop of a 2013 “listening tour”: The emails, obtained by […]
The Limits of Wind Power
Environmentalists advocate wind power as one of the main alternatives to fossil fuels, claiming that it is both cost effective and low in carbon emissions. This study seeks to evaluate these claims.
Existing estimates of the life-cycle emissions from wind turbines range from 5 to 100 grams of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour of electricity produced. This very wide range is explained by differ- ences in what was included in each analysis, and the proportion of electricity generated by wind. The low CO2 emissions estimates are only possible at low levels of installed wind capacity, and even then they typically ignore the large proportion of associated emissions that come from the need for backup power sources (“spinning reserves”).
Wind blows at speeds that vary considerably, leading to wide variations in power output at different times and in different locations. To address this variability, power supply companies must install backup capacity, which kicks in when demand exceeds supply from the wind turbines; failure to do so will adversely affect grid reliability. The need for this backup capacity significantly increases the cost of producing power from wind. Since backup power in most cases comes from fossil fuel generators, this effectively limits the carbon-reducing potential of new wind capacity.
The extent to which CO2 emissions can be reduced by using wind power ultimately depends on the specific characteristics of an existing power grid and the amount of additional wind-induced vari- ability risk the grid operator will tolerate. A conservative grid operator can achieve CO2 emissions reduction via increased wind power of approximately 18g of CO2 equivalent/kWh, or about 3.6% of total emissions from electricity generation.
The analysis reported in this study indicates that 20% would be the extreme upper limit for wind penetration. At this level the CO2 emissions reduction is 90g of CO2 equivalent/kWh, or about 18% of total emissions from electricity generation. Using wind to reduce CO2 to this level costs $150 per metric ton (i.e. 1,000 kg, or 2,200 lbs) of CO2 reduced.
Disgraced EPA Official Joins Sierra Club
The disgraced former EPA regional official forced out after Senator James Inhoff (R-Oklahoma) posted a video of his enforcement philosophy for fossil fuel companies has found a home with the Sierra Club and its anti-coal campaign. EENews reports: Al Armendariz will take over leadership of the group’s “Beyond Coal” campaign office for Austin, Texas, on July […]
Energy by the Numbers
Sound energy policy must be rooted in fact rather than fiction and reason rather than emotion. Recently, the Institute for Energy Research released a well-researched, extensively-cited, easy-to-read primer on energy. We encourage you to read all 68 pages of Hard Facts: An Energy Primer. For those who want a cliff notes version, a few key […]
EPA bans construction of new coal plants
Today, the EPA announced new limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. For once, industry and environmental groups are in agreement: these new limits, they say, will effectively ban the construction of new coal plants. As Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, put it, the new limits mark the “end of an […]
CDPHE’s Regional Haze State Implementation Plan: At Least $100 Million Too Expensive
On January 15, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) submitted to the General Assembly a State Implementation Plan (SIP) to comply with the Regional Haze provision of the Clean Air Act. The General Assembly must approve the SIP before it can be sent to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for final review. […]
Caldara grades Ritter on energy policy
Independence Institute president Jon Caldara tells Energy Now that out-going Governor Bill Ritter gets an “F” for energy policy. Needless to say, that’s not the same grade Ritter would give himself. In the Governor’s interview with Energy Now, he touted his “fuel-switching” bill designed to kill the coal industry and the renewable energy mandate which forces […]
