Any rational person in the energy industry I believe realizes that coal and natural gas will continue to be a large part of North America's generation infrastructure for decades to come yet. Given your message that a blend of sources that INCLUDES clean tech and renewables and energy efficiencies will be needed for the future begs the question what should huge money be invested in.

Coal, nuclear, and natural gas are relatively mature and profitable technologies already, and improving their efficiencies or reducing their carbon footprints each deserve SOME development money. But the growing supply-demand disconnect crisis, the lack of economical consumer technologies to foster much more conservation and efficiencies, and the lack of economical renewable generation sources on the huge scale of conventional sources, are far BIGGER problems. If the latter are not addressed or developed sufficiently to become economical in the long run, we wont realize the blend you are saying is needed for the future.

One of the chronic problems in our utility industry is its historic snail's pace of technological change. In a heavily regulated industry a utility company has negative incentive to invest in any substantial development or in new generator construction because in doing so they must apply for unpalatable across-the-board customer rate increases to pay for it. They wait to make critical decisions, wanting to "get it right the first time" and thus minimize having to re-invest down the road. Their apparent indecisiveness is also accompanied by confusion too because anything new and unproven economically is also risky - viewed as a bad for our electricity system, inciting debate.

This whole scenario is compounded by huge external pressures from public environmental concerns and the growing economic crisis in the US in general. The old concepts of simply building much more conventional large coal or nuclear generators, and ignoring potential conservation and efficiency gains, just don't feel right anymore with average citizens let alone environmentalist or hi-tech industry people. Investment in development and approving generation sources become heavily politicized as a result, rightly or wrongly.

If the grid becomes unreliable from the emerging crisis, and the public is forced into a third-world society with widespread rotating blackouts, you can bet the political pressures to do much more, read invest much more money in conventional generators, will surely happen anyway.

In my view, and based upon my own experience working within the industry, Mark’s article accurately describes the complexity of the power generation industry as a whole. Bob’s comment, particularly from the third paragraph onwards, adds to this by highlighting some of the ills that beset the industry. I would like to contribute by posing a question which has troubled me for quite some time.

Why, oh why, is the power industry so reluctant to adopt any developed technology, available here and now, to increase efficiencies and thus reduce the fuel consumed to produce a given unit of electric power?

Let me narrow this down to the area of most interest to me – any thermoelectric power generation using a steam cycle somewhere in its process.

As a general rule, we accept that some 10% of the fuel’s total heating value will be lost up the stack and a far larger 40% will be lost via the plant’s cooling system. We cannot do much about the heat up the stack without upsetting other essential conditions, but the heat dissipated by plant cooling is a different matter altogether.

The potential for augmenting electric power production, by exploiting this waste heat without incurring a corresponding increase in fuel consumption, is truly enormous. A significant increase in power generation efficiency can lead only to lower emissions and higher revenues for each MW dispatched. An all around win-win situation. Isn’t this what we would all like to see?

I think the answer to the last question in your comments above is yes, lower emissions and more profitable generators can only benefit everyone in the long run.

Being from the electronics industry I know next to nothing (in spite of my thermodynamics courses back in university) about the technical aspects of the latest technology available to augment a large central thermoelectric generation station that would achieve the greater efficiencies you talk about. Perhaps it is the case that the technology costs much more to retrofit into an existing plant than it does to build into a brand new plant from scratch. If so, there is much more inclination to build new plants and not invest money to upgrade older existing ones, especially if the older plants have more limited lifetimes left in them anyway. And building brand new plants as we all know is fraught with the political problems.

The same sad case is pervasive in the use of new technologies to improve efficiencies and promote conservation with the use of electricity. It is always more expensive to retrofit buildings and homes with new technologies than it is to build them in from scratch.

Most new technologies always get more attention and financial support for new construction of infrastructure. Old infrastructure usually needs government or other investment incentives to foster any interest in upgrading them.

I will use Wabash for my examples. I find it interesting that they state several times the overall thermal efficiency was 40% rather than simply saying what the heat rate actually is. My conjecture from the lack of a net heat rate being given is that it is unimpressive. I assume this means that the 296 MW gross plant output had a heat rate of 8500 BTU/KW if my simple calcs are correct. When this is corrected to a net at 262 MW the hate rate is around 9600 BTU/KW good traditional coal can make 9800. It appears it is an improvement of about 2%. Even a 5% improvement compared to 11000 BTU/KW coal is not impressive to me. If I am wrong someone please correct me.

Given a pure oxygen-blown gassifier, I see no reason an IGCC coal plant should have a significantly lower heat rate than an IGCC gas-fired plant, other than the energy cost of the oxygen separation. Also, IGCC gas-fired may need to start looking at CO2 sequestration, a probable requirement if anyone's serious about meeting even USA's stated 2050 CO2 targets.

Point is, I see no reason to transfer the heat from the exhaust (steam + CO2) into a separate steam cycle with a second turbine when it is necessary to condense the steam from the exhaust anyway. Using pure oxygen + recycled CO2 from turbine exhaust as working fluid in the combustion turbine, and operating the gassifier at very high pressure to provide sufficiently high pressure fuel flow (easy since the gassifier's oxidizer input is liquid oxygen from the cryogenic oxygen separation plant) should mean that a properly designed combustion turbine could extract full energy from the working fluid flow without a separate steam Rankine cycle.

Moreover, where this wind thing is concerned, I don't see the problem: the point is to use it where it can be used, and not where it shouldn't be used. That's what they are trying to do in this country (Sweden), although the not-so-great unlearned want the highly effective nuclear installations massacred and replaced by wind, regardless.

If you believe as I believe that nuclear makes the most economic sense, but it is inevitable that more coal will be used, then use the (excess) profits from nuclear to help finance clean - or cleaner - coal - whatever that means. "Excess profits", where do they come from? Well, if you can go from "ground break" to "grid power" in 4 years (or less) as Len Gould mentioned once, I think that excess profits is the right expression.

Tom Butler

This is to follow on from the earlier thread resulting from my question.

"So it is the typical quandary a large quantity of low grade energy and no practical way to recover it."

Agreed, but now we do have a practical way to recover it.

" Low grade energy is always difficult to use and the recovery costs offset the benefits or again it would be in place already."

The proposed energy conversion technology produces a source of pressurized water or air (112 psig.) at a estimated cost of roughly $0.4 million per MW, or $1.6 million per MW if electric power is to be the final deliverable.

" If Alan or anyone has a economical and efficient way to use low grade heat energy it should be a wind fall to more than just traditional steam cycle plants the steam solar folks should be lining up to sign up for this since their major problem is getting the energy quality up to reasonable levels."

This should be the case, but unfortunately it isn’t. A probable reason is that, in the power industry at least, there appears to be little or no vertical communication between those of us who create and those of us who control the fortunes of the constituent companies. For example, how many of you who have contributed comments here, and those who have done so in the past, actually drive a power company at Board level? On second thoughts, don’t disclose this. The typical rule would no doubt apply, “duct tape over mouth and don’t talk to the media”, regardless!

No hard feelings on my part. In engineering a negative answer is just as valid as a positive one. However, there is a serious hang-up here and it is up to myself and others to find ways around it so that we can move forwards with what is far more important than a mere academic exercise.

Tom thanks.

Len, when I mentioned Nat Gas burners I was referring to standard combined cycle plants many of these plants can do 6600 heat rates and it is my conjecture that many assume Integrated Coal Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) approaches these efficiencies and furthermore I feel that those who took stake in this technology do little to dispel this myth. In reality they are much more expensive and complex and only marginally more efficient the traditional steam plants. In the real world Nat Gas and air fired combustion turbine exhaust is around 78% heated nitrogen with a few percent water vapor and 10% CO2 and 10-12% oxygen give or take a couple of percent. Current IGCC technology does little to change this it is still air and syngas fired. However, I can envision a process recycling exhaust gas to maybe double the CO2 concentration. I can even in theory imagine a process with a huge air separation plant producing pure oxygen for all combustion with CO2 recycled as the working fluid to control firing temp. But with 10% of plants output feeding air separation for just gasification what would it take for total O2 firing? I am guessing 50% maybe more of the plants output. That would leave a pretty sad heat rate in the 14-17,000 BTU/KW range. I do not have empirical data these are just guesses. Maybe I am way off. If I am in the ball park I do not think it is good policy to throw efficiency out the window even with coal. But if I am envisioning I can imagine a traditional type of steam plant with a 10,000 psi header and 2200 degree main steam temp burning coal with an efficiency as good as combined cycle Nat Gas. The much lower cycle through put with the higher temps and pressures would greatly reduce condenser losses. If willing to take the big air separation hit on efficiency one could recycle CO2 and add combustion Oxygen only and make almost pure CO2 to sequester just like an IGCC. More complex and more expensive is not always better. I do not take much stock in Occam’s razor but it does have some merit on occasion.

You are a nobody? You are not even an engineer? I don’t know your circumstances, but your response to Tom Butler tells me otherwise. You are practicing engineering, so you are indeed somebody essential. Keep up the good work!

As for my technology, I have a high degree of confidence in it, based on the equations which mathematically describe the process from one end to the other. In addition to the specific reviews I have commissioned, these equations have been peer-reviewed on each of the four occasions I have had the honor of presenting conference papers on the subject.

There is research by various OEMs on oxy-firing of coal as you described. You have the added cost of the oxygen plant and flue gas (CO2) recycle, but you don't need an amine scrubber to remove CO2.

However you remove the CO2, it's going to be expensive. I don't think any technology (precombustion removal with IGCC, oxy-fuel, or post combustion scrubbing) is a clear winner at this time.

Alan, could you provide information so I could look up your technical papers, or links to them?

I am in the initial stages of writing a descriptive article to update the whole venture. I hope Energy Central’s Topic Center will accept this for publication. Can you wait some three weeks or so?

I read Mark Gabriel’s article when Warren Causey wrote the article “If you want the utility industry to join the financial industry, keep up the anti-coal drumbeat!,” which has not been mentioned here and should be mentioned, as there are at the moment five comments under it, only one of which was almost repeated by Jeff.

The last comment (my second one) introduces the EWPC article “Is the Anti-Coal Drumbeat Worthy?,” whose summary says: “By following the insights of Cardiff University sociologist, Harry Collins, readers will be able to decide whether or not the anti-coal drumbeat is worthy.”

A part of my first comment to Warren’s post that is also repeated in the mentioned EWPC article says:

… I suggest the EWPC article "Is Gore's Revolutionary Leadership Challenge Feasible?,” whose summary reads: "Al Gore leadership challenge is based on leading expert advice. EWPC is the first holistic step ready to be implemented in an Energy Policy Act that satisfies the non-trivial power system requirements laid out by the leading experts [and] power industry insiders the late Fred C. Schweppe and Jack Casazza."

One thing that needs to become clear is that the fossil fuel "fueled" society system needs to be restructured out by opening the power industry to competition. Maybe 10 years could become 12 or 15 years transition, the whole point about EWPC is that it has a bridging function. It does that by letting generation competition work its way out, by having fossil fuels taxed in accordance with rules at the WTO. All those like Mark Gabriel and you [Causey] that feel that clean power will not make a dent should favor such free competition under in a power business without price controls.

Unlike the financial industry and deregulation, which are prone to systemic risks, EWPC has a controlled transportation market that is associated with short run and long run systemic risks. Please take a look at the article "Rethinking Electricity Restructuring as EWPC." Long run systemic risk is known in the power industry system adequacy.

Regarding the anti-coal drumbeat, I understand Fred is against it, when he writes “Lets inject a little econ 201 into this discussion. Namely, the voters/television-audience are not going to turn their back on coal in order to avoid a bad scene that might - or might not - take place in a hundred years (or thereabout). I mean, let's try to stay real.”

In contrast, I will copy another part of the text of the EWPC article as in the next post:

Is it really an inconvenient truth? Does it have to do with today’s unsustainable system?

I read Mark Gabriel’s article when Warren Causey wrote the article “If you want the utility industry to join the financial industry, keep up the anti-coal drumbeat!,” which has not been mentioned here and should be mentioned, as there are at the moment five comments under it, only one of which was almost repeated by Jeff.

The last comment (my second one) introduces the EWPC article “Is the Anti-Coal Drumbeat Worthy?,” whose summary says: “By following the insights of Cardiff University sociologist, Harry Collins, readers will be able to decide whether or not the anti-coal drumbeat is worthy.”

A part of my first comment to Warren’s post that is also repeated in the mentioned EWPC article says:

… I suggest the EWPC article "Is Gore's Revolutionary Leadership Challenge Feasible?,” whose summary reads: "Al Gore leadership challenge is based on leading expert advice. EWPC is the first holistic step ready to be implemented in an Energy Policy Act that satisfies the non-trivial power system requirements laid out by the leading experts [and] power industry insiders the late Fred C. Schweppe and Jack Casazza."

One thing that needs to become clear is that the fossil fuel "fueled" society system needs to be restructured out by opening the power industry to competition. Maybe 10 years could become 12 or 15 years transition, the whole point about EWPC is that it has a bridging function. It does that by letting generation competition work its way out, by having fossil fuels taxed in accordance with rules at the WTO. All those like Mark Gabriel and you [Causey] that feel that clean power will not make a dent should favor such free competition under in a power business without price controls.

Unlike the financial industry and deregulation, which are prone to systemic risks, EWPC has a controlled transportation market that is associated with short run and long run systemic risks. Please take a look at the article "Rethinking Electricity Restructuring as EWPC." Long run systemic risk is known in the power industry system adequacy.

Regarding the anti-coal drumbeat, I understand Fred is against it, when he writes “Lets inject a little econ 201 into this discussion. Namely, the voters/television-audience are not going to turn their back on coal in order to avoid a bad scene that might - or might not - take place in a hundred years (or thereabout). I mean, let's try to stay real.”

In contrast, I will copy another part of the text of the EWPC article as in the next post:

I infer that according to Cardiff University sociologist, Harry Collins, that SK as a leading expert and industry insider, while he cannot "walk the walk," he does a lot more than just "talk the talk," as Causey and Gabriel do, SK can "walk the talk." The difference between Causey and Gabriel on one side and SK in the other is scientific expertise. Also according to Collins Koonin can contribute, while Causey and Gabriel cannot. To support the worth of the anti-coal drumbeat, I selected two interchanges from the interview:

TR: When you look at public policy decisions, what are some other mistakes you've seen?

SK: One is confusing transportation with stationary sources of power and heat. What problems are we trying to solve? If it's carbon dioxide emissions, there are cheaper ways to do it than improving transportation. If you improve the efficiency of a vehicle to reduce fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions, for many vehicle technologies it will take several hundred dollars per ton of carbon dioxide. But transport is only 20 percent of energy-related emissions. Heat and power from stationary sources are most of it. At $50 a ton, there's a lot of carbon that can be wrung out of stationary sources. When you start cranking the price up to $100 to $200, that's when you start to affect transport, whereas we can shift to lower-emissions heat and power at $50 a ton.

TR: Why the difference?

SK: There are about twice the emissions, per unit of useful energy, from coal as from gasoline.

Koonin concludes the interview with "We really need major changes in the ways we produce and use energy if we're going to prevent concentrations from rising. I don't think people understand that." I believe important and intelligent people don't understand it because it is a non-trivial matter, which means that they do not have the interactional expertise Koonin has to be able to walk the talk.

Koonin says "One of the things I have learned, which was surprising but makes sense in retrospect, is that companies are wonderful optimizers of their situation. If the government sets the playing rules appropriately, they will respond strongly and rapidly. So it is a question of getting the right policies in place, as well as a push from within the company."

By walking the talk, as a power utility insider and researcher, I claim that the EWPC market architecture and design paradigm will enable the mayor changes with the right Energy Policy Act for the power industry. In that respect, I suggest readers to consider my humble contributions on the EWPC Blog articles' summary EWPC Blog's First Year Anniversary: Electricity for the Digital Era.

As The National Coal Council annually points out, the EIA overestimates in the late 90's and early 2000's put us in a position where ng power plants were being built - too many too fast. Many ng plants now sit idle because they are too expensive to run.

Russia and others look to create an ng OPEC like cartel, the price volatilty alone of ng is killing us - in a peak oil world, this will alone get worse. Clean coal needs the funding (check out the CRS 2008 report on funding). As one Chinese official said to a question of how you are going to meet coming energy needs, "coal, coal, coal." Even Biden changed his stance on clean coal in tonights debate. McCain's "all of the above" is the answer, but we need to prioritize - satisfying alarmists, such as Gore, is killing us.

What Koonin is effectively saying is that we need to change the system to prevent the concentration from rising in the first place. One way to change the system is by introducing an Energy Policy Act to implement EWPC and negotiate at the WTO an agreement to tax fossil fuels to actually reduce concentrations after a transition period.

Jude Clemente’s one side arguments claim that renewable energy will not make a dent. So, let’s eliminate the obsolete price control business model and let them compete under an EPAct based on EWPC. Let taxed coal, taxed oil, and taxed gas compete with renewable energy in the open market. As EWPC provides system adequacy, customers will not be left without juice under the changed system.

Question: If political decisions can't be informed by careful science, does this spell trouble for democracy as the world grows more complex?

I do not think that there has to be any trouble for democracy, but we live in dangerous times. The argument goes back at least as far as Plato's suggestion that the Republic should be controlled by "philosopher-kings." We now know that cannot work--experts are too fallible, and too much power corrupts. In the last resort, all decisions have to be made through the machinery of democratic politics if we want to preserve a society like ours.

On the other hand, it is vital to preserve the separate spheres of the technical and the political. In practice this can never be achieved, but if we don't try we will destroy the very idea of science and of expertise as a whole. I would say that the danger to democracy that my own discipline--social studies of science--is not doing enough to combat is the collapse of the idea of expertise. Current social studies of science has difficulty with the notion of expertise. The attitude that anyone's opinion on any topic is equally valuable could spread, and there are some indications, such as widespread vaccine scares, that suggest it is happening. A world in which there is said to be no difference between those who know what they are talking about and those who don't is not one that anyone who thinks about it wants. Such a society would be like one's worst nightmare, exhibiting many of the characteristics of the most vile epochs of human history.

Philosopher-king fascism won't work, but a reaction to it that creates technological populism is just as bad. It is very hard to work out how to find a rationale for a middle position which does not replace one extreme with the other. Our studies of expertise perhaps indicate how we might establish a middle view now that we know that science and technology cannot deliver the kind of certainties that politicians need at the speed that policy unfolds.

Did you you "talked your talked" when you said "Jerry: You're right. Sorry, I was forgetting that even current oxy-blown gassifier IGCC uses air as the oxidizer in the turbine. Strike all above."?

The Chinese claim to be the top annual investor in renewable energy and are embarking on an unprecedented attention to “green” energy. In 2006, the country announced it was poised to spend $200 billon on renewables over the next 15 years. Despite this substantial investment, the country’s carbon dioxide emissions will increase by 75%, according to the EIA.

I have a number of problems with the Pickens Plan, but will just add a link to a great article about wind power. Author Paul Driessen really nails it: The chasm between hype and reality. I am not a philosopher, except when it comes to Football, but I know one thing: We need a reality check, and Mark's article does just that.

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/driessen012905.htm

My response to your intent of a rebuttal have enable me to complete the EWPC article The Next Energy Secretary, whose summary states "The insights to enable the next energy secretary succeed are laid in black and white."

Thank you,

José Antonio

Once again, all together and at the top of your voices: the important thing isn't to come up with new ideas - you can find plenty of these in every wine bar in the world - but to get rid of the bad ideas as quickly and expeditiously as possible.

"the important thing isn't to come up with new ideas - you can find plenty of these in every wine bar in the world - but to get rid of the bad ideas as quickly and expeditiously as possible"

It should be apparent that new ideas abound for our electricity industries, since the wine bars are doing a great business around the world with many of their patrons brain storming over their drink glasses. In some areas of the industry too, lots of investment is being poured into some of them. The bar patrons must all realize that something is terribly wrong and new ideas are desperately needed, don't you think so?

The problems besetting our electricity industries can all be traced back to its regulation and our government leaders. The industry moves at a snail's pace to adopt new ideas or technologies, or build new generators and infrastructure, all because regulation demands that our utility companies must apply for highly unpalatable rate increases across the board for all consumers to pay for them. A utility executive once told me a few years ago that they don't want pay one dollar more for a new metering technology than they really have to, nor do they want to charge one dollar more to their customers than they really have to.

Our electricity industries suffer from paralysis when faced with new additional problems like global climate change and growing consumption demand outstripping supply, and the escalating prices of fossil fuels. The efforts to address them and speed that new ideas are developed and adopted pale in comparison to other industries. In the electronics world that I live in, companies routinely survive on innovation and its relatively fast development and commercialization investment in the absence of stifling market regulations. Sure there are many bad ideas that fail, but without the new ideas to start with over the glasses of wine, there IS NO INNOVATION, PERIOD.

With the intention to get raid of the bad (specially scientific or fundamental) ideas (not just any bar idea)...Harry Collins said "The attitude that anyone's opinion on any topic is equally valuable could spread, and there are some indications, such as widespread vaccine scares, that suggest it is happening. A world in which there is said to be no difference between those who know what they are talking about and those who don't is not one that anyone who thinks about it wants. Such a society would be like one's worst nightmare, exhibiting many of the characteristics of the most vile epochs of human history."

In the EWPC article The Next Energy Secretary, I quote EnergyBiz Editor in-Chief Martin Rosenberg, who wrote “Well, if you are asking who it SHOULD BE, cast our vote for John Rowe.” In the article I show that is a very bad idea, since as far as electric power fundamentals, Rowe doesn’t know what he is talking about.

To get out of the big mess and the “paralysis when faced with new additional problems like global climate change and growing consumption demand outstripping supply, and the escalating prices of fossil fuels,” not to mentioned the large value destruction all over the world of today’s system that needs urgently to changed.

That change will be the result of systemic leverage as EWPC restructures the power industry into two separate and mutually reinforcing components one centered on the whole of electricity and the other on the whole of business. The electricity component is subject to regulation (the natural transportation T&D monopoly) which should evolve to the smart grid compact with responsibility to transport reliable electricity. This is the space for the EWPC article Engineers Needed for Lower Prices, whose summary states "The paradigm shift from the vertically integrated utilities to the electricity without price control paradigm will lead to lower costs, lower profits and lower prices after a reasonable delay. To accomplish that engineers need to take the transpotation function that allow the market between supply and demand run efficiently."

The business component as a vibrant open market (supply and demand) on the wholesale and retail value chain of commercial transactions. That business open market enables all the potential of the “electronics world that” you “live in,” where “companies routinely survive on innovation and its relatively fast development and commercialization investment in the absence of stifling market regulations.”

With wholesale and retail commercial competition set up under an EWPC EPAct, competing generators and Second Generation Retailers, could develop their practical ideas with the aim of survival. The market will weed out bad ideas, such as that of John Rowe that asks "Are we going to be in an era when politics written with a Capital 'P' continues to make it so difficult to accomplish those large projects that we become dependent on smaller technologies, even though the smaller ones are more expensive? One bad idea like that, which at some point was held by Fred and many other people writing in this media as a fact, had IBM lose their power on mainframes to Microsoft PCs.

It is like in a dirty house we clean our kitchen (our nation) but the rest of the house (the world) is dirty. Because we live in the kitchen we think the rest of the house is clean. (Kinda of a stupid analogy put I think it captures what I am trying to say) We may feel good, but in reality, we are "shooting ourselves in the foot" - as many coal companies put it. They are right. These companies are now building ports to ship our coal - this is a serious problem, because everytime a coal project gets shut down, it offers an other nation to buy our most abundant energy source.

By not using coal, we are opening up our major companies (Peabody, etc) to sell it to those countries that will use it. Other countries will be using our most important domestic source of energy, we won't be using it!!! The environmental relentless push is doing this. They are against everything!!! Read the blogs on line - solutions are never offered. Wind and solar simply cannot contribute what we need - they never tell you that part. Even NASA, a major renewable advocate, realizes the limitations these "greens" never acknowledge.

The coal industry is not real concerned about this tug of war in the energy fight. They know that America has to turn to coal, they know that there is no chance renewable energy can win. Regardless of the false claims Greenpeace and Sierra Club, etc, puts out there - we have to use coal (and we will).

Again, we should be looking at all possible options - that is "all the above" concept. But the priority concept has to be installed.

I disagree. The next energy secretary does not have an easy job, simply by following a "black and white" plan. Tough decisions must be made. It starts with more funding for carbon capture research.

Nobdy wants business as usual. But the bottom line is our discussions must be realistic. Clean coal is hardly business as usual - the technology is in its infancy and many experts claim it could come online by 2020. US DOE officials 2015 is realistic. This is way way sooner than any contribution wind and solar could make - especially because the progress has not been there for 35 years. Yet they claim, the renewable sector is "booming" on "a commercial reality" "beyond Kitty Hawk and into the jet age" . It is simply not true. There is so much more to this story, I am working on an article detailing all this bs the wind and solar sector has been spewing for 35 years, but we need to realize stopping coal plan projects is, in the end, an opportunity lost. And more reliance on a limited contributor - wind and solar (both of whom I support) We need to open the doors of reality - that is what I am trying to say.

Just remember one thing: India has some 800 million people without a refrigerator. Imagine when they get one. Imagine when the average person in China or India can drive. These levels are increasing everyday. Car companies are today builting smaller and cheaper cars for them. These developments are on such a large scale, the average American cannot imagine it. The type of power they will need is simply without precedent.

"Changing the system" Jose is quite difficult and will open doors for these countries to buy our coal because they need all of it. Climate change is a debatable subject - thousands upon thousands of published scientists do not subscribe. It is a theory - trying to change our system to "save the earth" is downright silly to me. Peak oil is the only catalyst that should make us change direction. Despite better technology, production remains flat. That is our main problem when it comes to energy. CTL offers a pretty good solution.

Eventually of course, when their net worth began increasing, the engineers/managers changed their tune, but that doesn't bother me. Wouldn't you have done the same thing if you were in their place?

(1) Regulation: close the electricity side of the power industry, by building a strong smart T&D grid at least cost for the whole electricity sector (including all customers costs) to enable maximum social welfare under tolls (transportation) price controls and

(2) Markets: open the business side of the power industry to innovation, by letting the market decide on generation, retail and end-use, to implement said maximum social welfare, under an environment similar to the electronics industry, and under prudential regulations instead of price controls.

Clean coal, “clean gas,” and nuclear bets should compete with the resources of the demand side (not then just renewable). The recipe is to change the global system with the above recipe and the place to do it is the Doha Round that should implement a global prudential regulations and global carbon tax system as part of a single undertaking. I am sure that past GHG "exports" should be an integral part of the agreement to get the buy in of developing countries.

I cannot see what would be so wrong with regulators continuing to regualte energy prices for all consumers but free up the utility industry for targetted billing to any consumer who is willing to pay extra for more than just their electricity supply.

Please explain to readers how competition is involved in the statement "In particular it massively discourages utility companies from becoming involved in any new technology beyond their billing meters in consumers' homes, since regulators do not generally permit utility companies to commercialize in-home technologies to only those consumers that want to buy them."

Do regulators need to make a bet on the in-home technology?

Do regulators keep their price control power for that subset of customers that "choose" in home technology?

Why not follow the electronics industry model of letting customers choose instead of a regulator what the in-home technology they prefer?

I agree regulators should not be making these bets, but unfortunately that is what many of them are preferring to do.

Take for instance the communicating thermostat systems for demand response. In Ontario for example they are offered free of charge to any consumer that wants one. The cost of setting up their systems at the utility offices, and the cost of each thermostat including installation is several hundred dollars per house, all paid for by either direct government funds given to the utilities or with general rate increases. The vast majority of the public however don't want one because they are viewed as an invasion of privacy given the utility company pays for and controls them.

There would probably be far more consumers interested in using them if they were individually paid for and controlled by interested consumers at their own discretion. They would also then realize that they would not be unfairly forced to share their total cost if not interested in having one.

Here's another wild idea for you to chew on.

The article here clearly defends the use of coal for electricity generation for many years to come, and are still being vigorously built in places like China. There are many competing views and politics about coal, here in Ontario our provincial government is actively phasing them out by planning to shutter them all within several years from now. They are instead big on building new and refurbishing our old nuclear plants, which I'm sure you will agree with, and so would I to some degree realizing their potential economy over decades of service.

If it were technologically possible to give all residential consumers complete choice of their generator source, I wonder which (type of) generators would be snapped up to their full capacity first. I'll bet all the renewables would get used up first followed by nuclear, natural gas, and then coal probably last, mainly because the environment is very big and growing on the public's radar screen these days. And for any consumer that invests in and owns their own micro-generator, said generator would be at the top of their own list.

Coal may have stark realities that will give it years of lifetime to come yet, but to the uneducated public voter they are an increasing evil, witness all the blocked coal plants in the US recently.

BTW Len Gould's IMEUC market reform proposals combined with real-time technology in the hands of consumers would theoretically enable the choice scenario above for consumers. It's another one of the good "ideas" (in my view) that a few glasses of good wine have helped to create on this website.

Do regulators keep their price control power for that subset of customers that "choose" in home technology?

Why not follow the electronics industry model of letting customers choose instead of a regulator what the in-home technology they prefer?

Did you see in one post above “A world in which there is said to be no difference between those who know what they are talking about and those who don't is not one that anyone who thinks about it wants. Such a society would be like one's worst nightmare, exhibiting many of the characteristics of the most vile epochs of human history.” I think you missed it from the earlier post.

Yes, the Ontario regulators maintain price controls for electricity even for those consumers that "choose" in-home technologies.

Currently the only in-home technology widely available in Ontario that operates by communicating with the local utility company is the communicating thermostats. Other stand-alone products have been available for some time that consumers are free to purchase elsewhere, such as an independent energy display that connects to your service panel or attaches to the outside of a service meter for sensing energy consumption, but lacking communications with the local utility company makes them almost useless for future demand responses or real-time pricing.

I suspect the electronics industry commercial model is not permitted within our utility industry because it would require a complete change in regulations for them. Currently all consumers here are billed uniformly with common energy rates plus additional utility operating charges forming their total bill. Indeed it would seem utilities here are pressured to make their added operating charges as low as possible, since some utility companies will often boast how efficient they are over others.

Ironically however utilities here are free to consider new investment in their operations or in any additional consumer commercial interaction, but they must by law recover all additional costs they incur by applying for and adding approved charges across the board to ALL their customers. To adopt the electronics industry model of charging individual customers for selling additional them products or services is effectively disallowed, and I suspect the same is true in much of the US.

It might be worth considering which category, "... those who know what they are talking about and those who don't...", one fits into himself before he arrogantly classifies others as belonging in one set or the other. This seems particularly important for folks who demonstrate that they are quantitatively and factually challenged.

Since Koonin, an expert that knows what he is talking about, suggest that we need to change the unsustainable system, to prevent the concentration of GHG from rising in the first place, and that is a global issue that should be handled (for example) at the World Trade Organization, today’s practices will be really unimportant in the near future. That’s what the Secretary of Energy of the USA needs to know. Once the USA takes the lead, Canada and all the other countries will follow.

Vertically-integrated electric systems – not the unreliable generators – do have economies of scale of reliable service.

Responding specifically to Don Giegler on his misunderstanding of economies of scale, about a year ago In the EWPC article Extra, Extra… Goliath is Defeated Once Again! I wrote the following:

In the posted link Lowest Cost Electricity Generation is Just Intuitive, the message is that generation economies of scale were not the key to reliable electricity service. I believe that the economy of scale of interconnected power systems development, discovered in 1921, not by insull, but by what’s today PJM, is the essential requirement that I call ultraquality transportation.

Lowest cost electricity generation does not make any sense to a system engineer, nor to the end customers that pay for it. As an old system planner, I will tell facts and the origin of the idea.

Under vertical integration, systems engineers made long run least cost expansion plans and as a result came up with a generation mix adapted to the forecasted long term demand. Such optimization was to minimize the costs of investments, operation, maintenance and [customer] outages to produce reliable electricity.

An excerpt of the posted link on “lowest cost generation is just intuitive,” about expert knowledge which Don Giegler arrogantly said that it “Seems like a pretty close-minded lecture, Jose.... “ follows:

To produce reliable electricity is a property of the whole system not of the parts. To have 24 hours of loss of load probability [in 10 years] - as many systems were designed - generation reserves of 20 or 25 percent resulted for many systems.

I read that PJM had recently more than 30 percent reserves. That is one of the main reasons that demand response is not attractive, because it makes obsolete a lot of generating units.

That is also why retail customers get rates which are way above the cost of base load generation. They have a lot of coal units, but ask what is the retail rate residential customers are paying for.

Hydro and nuclear seems a good mix. However, with a very uncertain future demand and with a lot of climate changes working out, I would not bet on it and have some gas installed. Or better yet, I would develop the resources of the demand side to integrate it as active demand, or said in other words develop an effective rationing system or still in another way change demand from inelastic to elastic.

Sorry for the class. But I fell it was needed for some of the people posting their ideas without sufficient understanding of electric power system planning.

Going against the flow, VIUs are in the process of extending the useful life of the price control business model under the watch of regulators making “big bets with questionable data,” as can be seen in the video WSJ: How Growth Succeed by JEANNE M. LIEDTKA, that explain that they “will end up with expensive fiascos,” that will be added to the rate base.

Being “obsess with bigger is better” and needing to “cite evidence” by getting involved in analysis, regulators are pushing what Leidtka calls the Greek Tragedy. This has been dealt in another light in the EWPC article Utilities and Regulators’ Value Destruction, whose summary says: “Excessive marketing costs are identified by Marty Agius, under today’s regulations, which make utilities and regulators unable to add customer value as will be done under EWPC. Added to his arguments is the large value creation waiting to happen with the emergence of business model innovations, to be develop by retail marketers (2GRs) to integrate demand to power system planning, operation and control, since market research doesn’t work yet.”

EWPC restructuring enables competition among Second Generation Retailers to find better value for customers in the market where as Leidtka explains “all the real learning happens” with “customer feedback” while avoiding the Greek Tragedy.

Carol Hymowitz: Does the emphasis that companies put on data also hurt? Jean Leidtka: Absolutely! We see something in organizations that we called growth gridlock and a growth gridlock happen because organizations want analysis done to prove that an idea it's a good one before they're willing to invest in resources. Well the problem is that the only data you got with to predict the future is data from the past and that growth opportunities are all about making sure that the future diverges from the past. So when we extrapolate past data to try and justify growth projections it just doesn’t work very well. So growth leaders spend all of their time it just doing power point presentations in conference rooms trying to convince the doubters that they should let them move forward and in that process nobody learns anything, because all of the real learning happens when you get to the marketplace.

I am too busy praising nuclear and cursing electric deregulation to know as much as I should about coal, even though I once wrote a book on coal. (Actually I wrote two, but forgot to publish the other).

Anyway, the situation here is abolutely and totally clear cut: AS MUCH RENEWABLES AS POSSIBLE, BUT NO MORE. You see, what Ms Palin called Joe Six Pack and his Significant Other think that they have a choice, when in reality - according to mainstream economics - they don't. Given their resources (i.e. incomes) they cant turn their back on the energy in coal, regardless of whether they would like to or not. .

A large number of German war prisoners were taken to the US during the war, where they spent their time arguing about what had taken place in Germany, and what should have taken place, and this and that and all the rest. It was explained to them by their hosts in the US that that country had been just about ruined by the allied air force and the Russian army, but they were too busy theorising and philosophising to pay attention to that kind of 'rumour'. What they saw in the German cities when they got back though clarified and focused.

The same thing is true here. No matter what Joe and frau think about energy, the bottom line is that high quality energy (of the kind they dream about) is scarce. The present finance crisis is educating many of our colleagues about the logic of the marketplace, but that is nothing compared to what could happen when the present crisis disappears and energy prices begin to escalate again.

Interconnected power systems are a different animal, which allows electric service to be designed for example for of an expected loss of load of accumulated 24 hours in 10 years. That is not a property of central stations. I am sorry that is probably non-trivial concept for most people.

This is what you need to respond to Fred.

Vertical integration under price controls is just plainly inefficient. However, deregulation is just unstable. The power industry needs to go to efficient pricing, which technology now enables by a large reduction in transaction costs.

EWPC emerged with transportation (T&D) regulation to make the whole power system stable and to enable maximum social welfare also for the whole in the open market. The open market develops the resources of the demand side (the supply side is very developed already) to introduce a lot of elasticity (to respond in case of price escalation) and thus increase the efficiency of the whole power system by emulating the electronics industry.

Deregulation has been demonstrated in past to be very unstable partly because consumers don't have the technology or knowledge to handle real-time prices. However there are those in the utility industry that continue studies of real-time prices with consumers using emerging advanced metering technology, and they are learning that it does foster less energy consumption. And if anything like Len Gould's IMEUC proposal gets implemented where consumers can choose their generator source, we may see deregulation attempted some day again. I am not brave enough however to predict how stable or efficiently it would work. Todd McKissick and Len have a better understanding of this subject than I do.

Vertical integration of the electricity system may very well be inefficient compared with other possible system designs Jose, but vertical integration is what has evolved over decades, and we are likely stuck with it for a long time to come yet. Changing it to some other system design in the name of better efficiency would be non-trivial to say the least, and would probably be riddled with vested interests trying to keep it as it is now.

One thing is clear me. Fred is agonizingly correct again; once the current economic crisis passes in the money markets, energy prices will resume their escalation and the electricity demand supply disconnect will continue to grow from years of new generation not getting built. Their combination will create tremendous pain in some places where there could be rolling blackouts with increasingly expensive electricity rates, making many voters think we are sliding into a third world society. Keeping coal generators running in many places will be demanded for a long time yet as a result.

I view this as an opportunity for the electronics industry. The consumer will need every tool and incentive they can get to stave off demand growth with conservation measures and greater efficiencies in energy use. Investment in much more localized micro-generation also has huge potential. If I'm correct, just watch the demand for these things skyrocket when the public is informed the pain must last for many years to come before massive new generation can be brought on line to moderate prices and restore reliability.

BP's chief scientist, Steven Koonin, said "We really need major changes in the ways we produce and use energy if we're going to prevent concentrations from rising. I don't think people understand that." I think that what we need is that at least world leaders understand it to initiate the major changes needed. This is the key issue for humanity is that our GLOBAL society should choose to succeed by initiating those changes as Jared Diamond suggest. EWPC is set to support such change to enable maximum social welfare.

Maximum social welfare requires considering all costs, as well as the resulting value that electricity provides. Among the very large costs are the long term investment costs of all customers. Short term shopping with very low transaction costs by themselves doesn’t result in maximum social welfare. Deregulation is unstable because it lacks the maximum welfare aim. EWPC is stable, by mixing regulation and market.

By the way, John Rowe and Don Giglier are very important and intelligent persons. As far as I know John is also very powerful. I should say now that what I wrote above should be restricted to the issue of whether they were experts or not on electric power systems economies of scale. That has nothing to do with them as human beings. Expert advice is not to confuse the interconnected power system economies of scale with that of central station economy of scale. If I hurt any feelings, please consider this apology.

Best regards for all of you.

http://home.comcast.net/~bpayne37/pnmelectric/altreport/altreport.htm#altreport

PNM forecaster iSteve Martin identifies reasons for increased electrical demand.

Does this mean you've read the references? Seems doubtful. Too bad. Had you read them, you might have had a chance to understand John Rowe. Tell us, Jose. Just how does one design electric service for "...an expected loss of load of accumulated 24 hours in 10 years."? Don't forget "...just a part on a power system...". Or perhaps, as you say, that's non-trivial. As far as I am concerned, you'll never have to apologize for being non-trivial.

I don't need to read such an old reference. Time have changed for good. Unlike the good old days, when loads were lights and motors, and 99.9 % reliability was excessive. Today, reliable service for the digital economy requires 99.9999 to 99.999999 % reliability, can only be provided by having extra generation/storage very close to the load to bridge the deficit of central stations. Similar to mainframe computers, central stations are in the process of losing their magic. Sorry again!

The Electric Power System Is Unreliable (Galvin Electricity Initiative)

The U.S. electric power system is designed and operated to meet a “3 nines” reliability standard. This means that electric grid power is 99.97 percent reliable. While this sounds good in theory, in practice it translates to interruptions in the electricity supply that cost American consumers an estimated $150 billion a year.

In other words, for every dollar spent on electricity, consumers are spending at least 50 cents on other goods and services to cover the costs of power failures.

The need for increased reliability Jose is describing is not an issue with the public. The difference between 99.97% and 99.999% reliability is meaningless because the public has always expected and lived with localized service interruptions, e.g. from storms, grid maintenance, etc.. Achieving 99.999% is and will continue to be unrealistic in practice.

The far BIGGER issues coming will be escalating energy prices combined with greater incidence of rotating blackouts and brownouts from the growing demand supply disconnect in some places. These will foster much more consumer interest in investing in their own micro-generators, and adopting more conservation and efficiency measures, especially when the public is told there will be no quick fixes. This will also lead to growing public pressures on politicians to keep existing coal plants running and build many more large central generators.

Lo and behold don't we have his IMEUC proposal.

While my last comment says that reliability is not normally an issue with consumers, IT WILL BECOME A BIG ISSUE if reliability starts dipping below the 99.97% levels we have come to live with and expect. The growing supply disconnect threatens to do exactly this. So over time you can add simply MAINTAINING reliability to what we enjoy now will be a motivation for consumers to look for alternative solutions on their own, like maybe IMEUC.

“This blog will be hard to swallow for many but when push comes to shove, it describes sobering reality. In fact, I would go further to say that during the good times most utility companies cannot afford the massive infrastructure changes they have been under pressure to consider without massive rate increases for all customers. And historically regulators won't allow massive rate increases over short time frames, so if anyone thinks the utility industry will plunge ahead in a timely manner during bad OR good times, they are in for massively frustrated expectations. The country's only option will be for "everyone else to hunker down", meaning much more adoption of conservation and efficiency measures, and maybe even investment in local micro-generators to mitigate the looming crisis.”

What follows is about an expert who can "walk the talk" of reliability. It is not a personal matter.

I n fact, from my exposure on EnergyPulse, I think that you are a very intelligent and important person that can "talk the talk" of reliability. But, Do you feel that you can also "walk the talk"?

It depends on what exactly you mean by "walk the talk".

Over the past few years I was personally involved in developing real-time in-home energy display technology that communicated with one the state-of-the-art smart meters being commercialized in North America. For reasons of confidentiality I cannot describe much more about it but I can tell you I invested much of my own time and even a substantial amount of my own personal funds to create working prototypes of it. I along with the people that helped me were told it was the first ever in-home energy display to communicate with a smart meter. Since then of course other products have emerged, since I am no the only camp to recognize the need for them.

Clearly therefore I have had a personal and vested interest in promoting the commercialization of advanced metering for in-home technologies and all the consumer benefits it can realize. I quickly learned however of the many barriers that exist in our utility industry to commercialize things like this. Participation in discussions on EnergyCentral here (where I have talked the talk) have taught me very much also about our energy industries and its economics, having come from the electronics industry.

As an average residential consumer of electricity, I also believe I have a pretty good understanding of many issues talked about here on EnergyCentral, and have developed the courage to comment on many other topics besides just advanced metering related topics.

So I consider myself to have walked the walk already unless you mean something else. As a design engineer in the electronics industry, I do not readily see how else I can walk the walk, so please feel free to explain otherwise.

There are now at least several other products developed for real-time in-home energy displays that communicate with a smart meter, either directly to its AMI radio network or using optional radio communications modules, like Zigbee, built into the meter. At least half of them originate from Canadian companies by the way. Some are enjoying pilot field testing in some North American utilities, but none are mass deployed on a widespread basis, in part because of the barriers I mentioned.

Coal will therefore continue to play a big part and deserves investment in efficiency and greening its emissions.( If I sound like he is bound to win the election, I’m betting he will.)

Len Gould's IMEUC reform proposals detailed on this website deserves a conference all to itself for debate, and representative industry regulators should be panel members on stage in it. It is the only proposal (that I have seen) that realistically would encourage sufficient structural and regulatory changes to simultaneously foster much more commercialization of consumer-owned micro-generators, renewable generation sources, smart grid and in-home technologies, and greater incentives for conventional large central generators to invest much more in developing efficiencies and greener emissions.

Implementing IMEUC reforms would lead to more investment in improving coal to stay competitive with other sources, if for nothing else to minimize penalties from carbon taxes or Cap & Trade systems looming in the future plans of governments.

EXELON CEO OUTLINES TOP FIVE ENERGY POLICY IMPERATIVES FOR THE NEXT PRESIDENT

In a major energy policy address delivered at Harvard University's Center for the Environment last night, Exelon Chairman and CEO John Rowe outlined the five elements he believes are imperative to the next U.S. president's energy policy. - (COMTEX) --> http://www.energycentral.com/global/news_text.cfm?id=11190801

Very refreshing address from Exelon. I note it is riddled with key words like "economy-wide legislation", "financial support", "new standards", "tax credits", "commitment to competitive electricity markets", all from the federal government.

My oh my, doesn't it sound a lot like what Len's IMEUC would complement, and a lot like more help is necessary to foster true commercialization of what's needed, not just discussion of it.

Well timed comment direction Don, I'm impressed.

I appreciate your sincere response. That’s a way to learn. And as a long time teacher, I will try to give you and the readers a lesson in the positive sense of the word.

In one of my posts of 10.2.08, I explained the meaning of “walk the talk.” The insight unveiled by Harry Collins, that should guide the discussions on a medium like this, delves on the old theory vs. practice dilemmas. Theory is the plain “talk the talk” that we can make, whether we know what we are talking about or not. By the same token, practice is the plain “walk the walk.” Collins gives us a great insight into what he calls interactional expertise that experts have and even if they are unable to “walk the walk,” they know what they are talking about or simply know how to “walk the talk.”

My explanation was: “I infer that according to Cardiff University sociologist, Harry Collins, that SK as a leading expert and industry insider, while he cannot "walk the walk," he does a lot more than just "talk the talk," as Causey and Gabriel do, SK can "walk the talk." The difference between Causey and Gabriel on one side and SK in the other is scientific expertise.

My question to you was based on the observation that first you “talk the talk” as “The need for increased reliability Jose is describing is not an issue with the public.” And after Len’s post you changed your “talk the talk” to “While my last comment says that reliability is not normally an issue with consumers, IT WILL BECOME A BIG ISSUE if reliability starts dipping below the 99.97% levels we have come to live with and expect.”

But if you look carefully to my quote of the Galvin Electricity Initiative, you will see that without “reliability starts dipping below the 99.97% levels we have come to live with and expect,” the quote says “While this sounds good in theory, in practice it translates to interruptions in the electricity supply that cost American consumers an estimated $150 billion a year.” In fact, Don Giglier is one of the greatest “walk the walk” leaders about saying nothing while continuously confusing readers.

Don Giegler is truly an expert, that not only “walk the talk,” but “walk the walk” of confusion. With the estimated $150 billion a year impacting on customers’ wallets, the reliability issue is the key issue missing in John Rowe’s Harvard lecture, when he “elaborated on how the new administration can develop a long-term plan to reconstruct our nation's energy infrastructure and secure our energy future without unduly impacting the economy.”

Best regards,

José Antonio

A review of Rowe’s suggested national energy policy should include the following five elements:

1. Global climate legislation.

2. Instead of under inefficient price control regulation, energy efficiency should be left to the market through efficient pricing.

3. Production tax credit for renewable energy sources will be much less when a global tax is applied to fossil fuels.

4. All generation and retail should be left to market competition at a global level, under prudential rules negotiated at the World Trade Organization.

5. Increased commitment to implement complete and fully functional competitive electricity markets to spur investment and innovation

First, this all said EWPC in my opinion is a simplistic solution for multitude of complex problems. It appears to me the basic concept is the unleashing of greed and allowing the Darwinian nature of business select the best solution. The real world is more complex than survival of the “fittest.” One could write volumes on just what determines “fitness” in business. Again, I am not an expert but I do hold a Masters Degree in Management so I have had some academic and occupational provided exposure. At a bare minimum, fitness encompasses Reserves of Capital, Depth of Expertise, Regulatory Environment, and External Environment. All this is tempered with an element of Random Chance. To quote a Solomon: “the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” Solomon showed and early understanding of complex systems and their ability to move against the natural predictable order. Quoting Solomon, I should mention my upbringing was Pentecostal where the King James version of the bible was considered the infallible word of God. However, I am not an expert on the infallible word of God, the bible, or being Pentecostal. All though dated at this point, I do have a good deal of detailed knowledge about the later two but not a clue as to even what is the infallible word of God. On the brighter side it has made me immune to dogma to large extent whether it be religious, environmental, or EPWC. I take very little on faith no matter how many supporting opinions are quoted.

Continued on next post

Jerry

I don’t think the concepts behind EWPC or any other reform proposals like Len Gould's IMEUC are intended to be an excuse to spend a lot more money on consultants, software, or smart meters. They are both I believe sincere attempts to explain proposed changes to avert the mess we're getting into in our electricity systems. I'm sure most would like to continue enjoying our standards of living cheap energy has enabled for decades, and pretend fossil fuel price escalation, peak oil production, global climate change, generator and transmission infrastructure aging, and the growing demand supply disconnect crisis all do not exist. But reality says they do, and SOMETHING must change to address them, or our standards of living will go the way of the dodo bird in time.

I for one am less of an expert than you, not having worked anywhere in the energy industries. But as an electrical engineer and an average consumer of electricity, it's not difficult to form educated opinions on each one.

I tend to view as you do that EWPC appears to be an overly simplistic philosophy for structural change in the utility industry, which Jose predicts is a natural evolution of the current system of regulation and business entities. I do not believe the structural changes he proposes will ever be easily adopted. Electricity is far too political, run by heavy government regulation, and would face large opposition from vested interests. The issue of re-assigning ownership of infrastructure, especially those that are already paid for, shareholders interests, etc. will be bitterly opposed in the courts and by political lobbyists if EWPC or any other proposal were imposed that impacted this.

IMEUC is a restructuring proposal that also would face considerable opposition but for different reasons. The biggest is the cost to put much more technology in the hands of consumers, especially since service meters are already owned by the utilities. In my humble opinion IMEUC has much potential to solve our problems, the question it begs is how does it get implemented without the utility industry spending a lot of money on consultants, software, and smart meters.

I propose that consumers spend the money. As consumers witness the threats to our standards of living as the mess unfolds, many consumers would gobble up IMEUC offering the chance to have a greater ability to practice more conservation and adopt more efficiencies in energy use, educate themselves about the results of these efforts, buy power from the generator source of their choice at any time they choose, and some will even consider investing in their own micro-generators.

One idea of getting interested consumers to pay for IMEUC is by adopting commercial rules like we have in most other industries. Regulators would have to allow utility companies to sell technology and data services from the electricity system to those consumers willing to pay for it over and above their energy costs. It's exactly like the electronics industry models where for instance a CATV or telephone company provides a basic service, as utilities currently provide energy, and then offer targeted billing to consumers who want extra devices and data services for example like call-display, voicemail, internet access, etc. The commercialization of these things would pay for the extra activities and infrastructure that utilities implement to handle them. And most importantly IMEUC's fostering of generator competition for every customer would ensure the most efficient generators get utilized first, and likely promote greater investment in renewables and distributed micro-generators.

It's fine to criticize proposals on this website, but in all fairness it should solicit offered suggestions for alternatives.

Jerry Watson has a very interesting comment to discredit Harry Collins insights on expertise and to critique EWPC as being simplistic. In Harry behalf, I would simply quote “A world in which there is said to be no difference between those who know what they are talking about and those who don't is not one that anyone who thinks about it wants. Such a society would be like one's worst nightmare, exhibiting many of the characteristics of the most vile epochs of human history.” So if Jerry doesn’t consider himself to be an expert in many of the topics he covered on the post, it seems to me that he may not know what he is talking about.

I am sorry to say that EWPC is not simplistic. Albert Einstein said "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." Take a highly complex system and divide it two of lesser complexity. The reduction in complexity is very large resulting in a stable architecture.

EWPC emerged by following many experts that knew what they were talking about, the most important of which was the late Fred C. Schweppe, the leading researcher of Spot Pricing of Electricity, who as myself (being humble) could “walk the walk.” It is sad to say that “experts” that didn’t know what they were talking about led the deregulation efforts. That’s why the deregulation architecture is unstable.

The first part of EWPC keeps the natural transportation monopoly regulated and let technology improve it to become a smart grid with a compact under a responsibility to transport reliable electricity. That is as simple as it can get at every local jurisdiction.

The second part are the commercial activities, that doesn’t justify a monopoly, generation, retail and end-use (including resources like generation and storage) result in value chain on wholesale and retail without price controls, under prudential regulation. That is also as simple as it can get and each end-customer has one and just one interface its retailer. A global market is waiting to happen for innovators.

The problem with price controls I have experienced first hand. Price controls separate "end-use" from the system increasing complexity. In my country, which is ahead of the U.S. as a third world electricity service, a very large Everyone For Himself (EFH) market emerged, due to only 99% reliability at the best locations, when many (not all) customers need better service than that in today’s world and can buy complements in a wide open market. Such EFHs that produce large value destruction are “flying under the radar” with exponential growth everywhere in the world.

Only eliminating price controls, can the EFH market be efficiently integrated to power system planning, operation and control, through unleashing innovation and resulting in large coordination savings. If any candidate in-home technology does not require every customer to purchase it, under an imposed monopoly, and accepts an opportunity to try to compete for a market niche, then EWPC restructuring enables an environment as they do in the electronics industry.

Just like on the issue of reliability, what follows is about an expert who can "walk the talk" of IMEUC. It is not a personal matter either.

In fact, from my exposure on EnergyPulse, and your last post, I am more certain that you are a very intelligent and important person that can "talk the talk" of IMEUC. But, as Len is not longer defending IMEUC, Do you really feel that you can also "walk the talk"?

Here in Ontario we already have generators separated from our utility companies, they are no longer total monopolies. They were separated several years ago when our provincial government broke them up, but this is not precisely your EWPC because we still have consumer rates tightly regulated. They are reviewed twice each year by regulators and adjusted if necessary to ensure generators don’t lose money on average over the year. Generators sell into the utility market with real-time wholesale prices that are highly variable from hour to hour.

Our utility companies are also responsible for providing reliable transport distribution like in your EWPC. The consumer rates they charge are broken out into regulated energy charges common to everyone in the province, plus their own added operating charges. These operating charges vary somewhat from one utility to another depending on their efficiencies etc., but energy charges are still the largest component on a customer’s bill.

The biggest barrier for utilities to commercialize any new products or services to consumers, or make heavy investments in their grid infrastructure, is their mandate to recover any costs they bear in doing so, they are effectively not permitted to lose money. They are strongly encouraged by the province to minimize their operating charges as much as possible, and they must apply to regulators if they want to increase them for ANY reason. Rate increases are avoided like a plague because they are unpalatable with consumers and the government.

This situation has led our utilities to only consider spending on new infrastructure if they are mandated to do so to maintain grid reliability, or to enable Time-Of-Use billing with smart meters, etc., or if the government pays them directly with grants to implement new projects.

So you see Jose even if the utility companies were to become divorced from consumer retailing of energy and services as proposed in your EWPC, electricity is so heavily politicized that our government would insist on maintaining their interventionist policies with heavy regulation.

Thanks for trying to explain the Ontario power sector structure which is different from EWPC. However, your forgot the last part of the response, which I repeat below.

Just like on the issue of reliability, what follows is about an expert who can "walk the talk" of IMEUC. It is not a personal matter either.

In fact, from my exposure on EnergyPulse, and your last post, I am more certain that you are a very intelligent and important person that can "talk the talk" of IMEUC. But, as Len is not longer defending IMEUC, Do you really feel that you can also "walk the talk"?

Jose Antonio, I believe I already am "walking the talk", but what I believe and what you believe may differ. I also believe I understand much but not all of what your EWPC is intending to propose, but I don't see how it will ever be allowed to happen by our regulators and governments.

On the other hand, if there is a way for IMEUC to be implemented by harnessing the purchasing power of consumers, and avoid somehow the barriers to participation from utility companies, it has much potential to happen.

For anyone who might be interested here is brief synopsis of my perception of that summer. In 1998 a convergence point occurred, the first flaw was the basic regulatory assumption that the unleashing massive greed would produce a viable energy market. Another case of the old “free market solves all logic,” it sounds good but is lacking in actual practice in complex systems. This assumption coupled with NERC rules that require reliability to overrule economics was bound to create a runaway train. Power market deregulation essentially boiled down to a process in which risk that had previously been socialized across ratepayers for a given utility was now managed directly by the generator. It was the magnitude of the risk (price volatility) that the utilities and regulators had greatly underestimated. The train left the depot with FERC Order 888 Adopted in 1996, this order required utilities to allow everyone access to transmission lines (OASIS) to move wholesale power. The purpose was to encourage low-cost power to flow to high cost areas. The rule makers themselves to spite there good intentions were not experts in the energy markets and overlooked many things in their rule changes. At the time the new rules were considered prudential. It is hard if not impossible to create a rules to take into account such things as the wide variation in the level of sophistication among the traders and the full ramifications of the free movement of power. Free movement of power enabled traders to bypass covenants between neighboring control areas. I assume this flaw was not addressed or considered as an issue. The inappropriate reaction to escalating prices by the less experienced players in the fledgling market created a feeding frenzy. The previous atmosphere of cooperation had been replaced by greed among amateurs driven mainly by dollars. The traders were making decisions that would effect reliability and to a greater degree prices. I myself was one of those amateurs but luckily my employer was a little long for most of the spikes and we were sharp enough to avoid being spanked.

Continued

Jerry

You are indeed an expert that is able to "walk the talk" on what you wrote. You demonstrated what you are talking about. I forgot to tell you that Harry Collins has identified several kinds of experts and you fit to one.

In Chapter 5 of the book Spot Pricing of Electricity, entitled “A Possible Future: Deregulation,” Fred C. Schweppe, et al, developed a scenario of a deregulated energy marketplace in four steps. Step I was “The Regulated Energy Marketplace,” which the authors said “is the topic of the remainder of this book. We strongly advocate its implementation.”

The problem with deregulation was that step was bypassed. The aim of that step in EWPC language is the need of the development of the resources of the demand side, to integrate demand to power system planning, operation and control. In the process you enable demand elasticity.

In fact, the experts, Schweppe and his colleagues warned:

"We believe the deregulation which considers only the supply side of the supply-demand equation is dangerous and could have very negative results."

“A second major difference between this chapter and most of the rest of deregulation literature lies in our concern that the economics and physical security of the power systems not be destroyed or compromised.”

This last statement fits your sentence: “This assumption coupled with NERC rules that require reliability to overrule economics was bound to create a runaway train,” to see a flaw of deregulation.

I suggest that you take a look at my presentation at Carnegie Mellon University A Generative Dialogue to Reach the End-State of the Power Industry and please reply back.

I disagree politely with Bob statement that he knows what he is talking about on IMEUC. Take a look at the EWPC article IMEUC False Facts and you will see many instances that classify as "talk the talk" that the writer did not know what he was talking about.

To prove it, one big example on an essetial feature of EWPC suffices. One outstanding example is the first false fact, which I just discussed with Jerry: the NERC reliability requirement. Do you agree that IMEUC doesn’t need to satisfy the Ultraquality Transportation requirement?

Jerry's quotation of Solomon was priceless. The good king must have anticipated "black swans". Or, perhaps, chaos.

I also personally would very much demand a lot of design input from people like Jerry Watson before even implementing a trial of it. Jerry, if you get a chance I'd really appreciate your feedback on my (definitely very high-level, eg. view from the stratosphere) articles describing aspects of IMEUC at these links.

Independent Market for Every Utility Customer - Preliminary Business Case

Independent Market for Every Utility Customer - Part 2 - Market Operation

Independent Market for Every Utility Customer - Part 3 - Alternative Market Operation

Energy Central Blogs - IMEUC - Independent Market for Every Utility Customer

Thanks

Thanks

I was asking Bob very politely if he knew what he was talking about. Since yow wrote that IMEUC doesn’t need to satisfy the Ultraquality Transportation requirement (the same as NERC reliability requirement), which according to Jerry is a must , I wondered if Bob's IMEUC would satisfy it.

For lack of meeting NERC reliability requirement, IMEUC is bound to hit some of Don's "black swams."

Best regards,

José Antonio

This is a soft strategy to help coal transtion slowly to a convinient truth.

ATLANTA, GA, Oct. 10, 2008 -- Canada NewsWire

International electricity leaders are announcing today an International Electricity Partnership to deliver advanced electric technologies to reduce global carbon emissions. These technologies can stabilize carbon emissions from all sources, and with an aggressive application, carbon emissions reductions could reach 60 to 80 percent by 2050.

This is the objective advanced by electricity leaders during the 2008 International Electricity Chief Executives Summit held in Atlanta, Georgia on October 6 and 7. The leaders also agreed on 11 key strategies to lower carbon emissions.

"This partnership is great news for the industry and for the environment. Electricity is the backbone of the world's largest economies and we believe that electricity can be the solution to climate change," said Pierre Guimond, President and CEO of the Canadian Electricity Association (CEA) during the summit.

In their final statement, the leaders underlined the need for a strong commitment from industry and governments to deploy and encourage investments in low-carbon technologies such as carbon capture and storage. The importance of a public policy framework to balance security of energy supply, economic competitiveness and environmental objectives for the benefit of customers was also highlighted.

The 2008 International Electricity Chief Executives Summit gathered executives from the major electric industry association in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, on October 6-7. The industry associations included the Edison Electric Institute, Eurelectric, Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan, the Canadian Electricity Association and the Energy Supply Association of Australia.

Founded in 1891, the Canadian Electricity Association is the voice of the Canadian electricity industry, promoting electricity as the critical enabler of the economy and Canadians' expectations for an enhanced quality of life.

For the complete joint statement please visit the association's Web site at: http://www.canelect.ca.

SOURCE: CANADIAN ELECTRICITY ASSOCIATION

Mountain View, CA, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- October 6, 2008 - The development of a smart grid is one of the key pillars of an ambitious energy plan for the United States put forward last week by Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

The plan, Clean Energy 2030, claims to offer a potential path to reducing fossil fuel-based electricity generation by 88 percent by replacing it, as well as about half of that from natural gas, with renewable electricity. This would include 380 GW of wind power and 250 GW of solar power.

Other proposals in the plan include deploying aggressive end-use electrical energy efficiency measures to reduce demand by 33 percent, and increasing the sales of plug-in vehicles – both hybrids and pure electric – to 90 percent of new car sales, i.e. 22 million plug-in vehicles, by 2030.

The deployment of a smart electricity grid that empowers consumers and businesses to manage their electricity use more effectively, along with a long-term commitment to energy efficiency by the federal government and states are seen as key to meeting the energy efficiency targets, while public policies supporting the accelerated deployment of fuel-efficient vehicles and investment in the infrastructure necessary to support massive deployment of plug-ins, including charging stations and development of new power management hardware and software, will be required to meet the plug-in vehicle proposals.

“To successfully put millions of plug-in cars on the road and fuel them with green electricity, we need a smart grid that manages when we charge and how we’re billed,” said Google climate experts Dan Reicher and Jeffery Greenblatt in a blog post on the plan last week. “A smart grid could also provide for the two-way flow of electricity, as well as large scale integration of intermittent solar and wind energy.”

Two weeks ago Google and GE announced a partnership to help accelerate the development of the smart grid and support building new transmission lines to harness the nation's renewable energy resources.

Clean Energy 2030 is calculated to cost no less than $4.4 trillion, but the savings are estimated at $5.4 trillion, providing a net saving of $1 billion over the 22-year life of the project.

Under EWPC transmisison investment is much lower than under today's open transmission access. That means a lot of less NIMBY to fight.

For an example tying GSEs and energy policy together, I did an offhand calculation for the cost of replacing TVA's coal production with wind power. At $2,000/kW and using a national average for capacity factor, getting rid of coal would quaduple the taxpayers' indebtedness, just for TVA.

Hopefully, the hysteria about global climate change is about to run its course and we can get back to sober discussion of America's energy policy. Coal will remain a key part of it.

Completely bogus.

BTW, there exists in artic permafrosts far more methane than would be needed to absolutely guarantee catastrophic global consequences for present human support systems. A recent scientific team traversed the Russian artic passage measuring methane content above the sea surface and no only found areas of dramatic increased local content levels but broad areas hundreds of kilometers in dimension with visible evidence of bubbling methane rising from the seabed.

Yawn.

Canadian Academy of Engineering Evaluation Summary The ProGrid Evaluation was coordinated by Dr. Clem Bowman recent winner of the 2008 Global International Energy Prize. Eight individuals experienced in the energy field agreed to participate in the evaluation on a voluntary unpaid basis, to assist the inventor in identifying strengths and weaknesses in the concept and in defining potential next steps. All evaluators noted the novelty of this early stage concept. None stated that the underlying principles violated any known laws of science. Many major advances in science have arisen from ideas that were clearly “out-of-the-box” at the time of initial introduction.

Go to the website for comments by the individual evaluators of for PDF version.

Len, You are being wilfully dishonest again. From my article before last on this site on the subject of AGW, you know of Beck's data showing great fluctuations of carbon dioxide in relatively recent times to well above 400 ppm; you have ignored the execrable 'science' upon which you base your belief that carbon dioxide drives temperature rather than the honest science showing that temperature drives carbon dioxide; and you continue to ignore too much data. However, nice try with the recent uptick in arctic ice being an anomalous sawtooth in an upward trend. For myself, I'd like to get back to the weather of the Medieval Warm Period, but with the demonstrated ocean cooling for the last few years and unusually cold summer and last winter, and the continual behind the scenes adjustments of the IPCC predictions downward as they have to acknowledge errors and deficiencies in data and models, I doubt that we will get there soon.

The above shows another occasion in which Len is misinformed, this time about the meaning of system reliability. I agree that Len doesn't need to be dishonest; he just once again doesn’t know what he is talking about system reliability, which is a property of the system as a whole, not a property of its parts.

The circumstances that entities may want to get together are the “black swans” situations that Don Giegler mentioned earlier. I repeat what I wrote on the 10th: “For lack of meeting NERC reliability requirement, IMEUC is bound to hit some of Don's "black swans."

I do not see coal plants disappearing any time soon from the worlds electricity production facilities. In fact more are being constructed as we speak with lifetimes of at least 50 years...so as much as we may think it is a good idea to close these plants it just is not going to happen.

Alan Belcher raised an interesting point concerning waste heat usability. Unfortunately the laws of thermodynamics being what they are steam turbines are only about 40% efficient at best...the most engineers can squeeze out of the Rankine Cycle. That means that 6 tons out of every 10 are used to heat the sea or the lake or the air depending on the cooling method used. In a nuclear plant that doesn't matter all that much since Uranium cannot be used for anything else. But coal can and to that extent it is a very wasteful technology where coal is the primary energy source.

High temperature reactor technology from the "pebble bed" design of nuclear reactor promises to by pass steam turbine technology by using the output gas directly to drive a gas turbine.. This should lead to higher efficiencies and therefore less energy wasted condensing steam back to water.

These reactors are a few years away from commercial deployment but do offer significant advantages over conventional steam plants and I suspect will be the most common reactors around the world in 10 to 20 years....especially as demand for Uranium goes up.

But even with much larger nuclear deployment and better technologies I cannot envisage coal plants being phased out for at least another 75 - 100 years.

Also one has to consider the high capital cost of replacing any generating capacity. In an era when credit is harder to come by and bonds difficult to sell the utility business is going to have a very hard time raising the necessary capital to fund even those plants necessary to meet demand growth let alone replacing coal.So I fully xpect coal plants to be around for a very long time.

Very good article based on realism and not pie in the sky wishes.

Malcolm

I know a lot about system reliability as a whole, speaking about electronic systems, and I'm certain the basic theories apply to electricity systems. System reliability DOES heavily mostly depend on individual component reliabilities. It’s true system reliability is determined in part by the system’s design, particularly when there are multiple designs potentially possible using the same set of components. But in practice the only system design that maximizes system reliability uses heavy amounts of redundancies and minimizes external variables like temperature extremes and so on.

Our electricity systems are indeed far more complex than any electronics system, because they have many external variables BEYOND designers' control, like future fossil fuel prices and extreme weather events for example. I suggest to you that if “ultraquality transportation” under your EWPC proposals require 100% system reliability with no chances of service interruptions, it is unfeasible and impractical.

Vested interests WILL invest in electricity system component reliabilities, and even redundancies where practical, to maximize system reliability, but ONLY if they are economically incented to do so. They will not do so if they are legislated or are morally asked to do so. Len's IMEUC proposal sounds to me like the only proposal that will provide these economic incentives.

The world is full of designers that would love to design highest possible reliabilities into their systems, but inreality is they must have the economics incentives to do it. Why do think consumer products suffer from poor reliability compared say with military ones. The answer is simple – military products are given far more money to design with AND they sell for much more money than consumer products do. The electricity system design and its components are subject to the same economic rules, unless you expect a communist government or something else to emerge that forces them to without paying them.

I tend to agree with you that existing coal plants are going to be very tough to shutter in Ontario in the near future. Our Ontario Power Authority has plans to shutter them all for example in northwestern Ontario, expecting only renewable sources and some NG to replace them in that part of the province. Our new OPA CEO has a speech posted on the OPA's website that he gave just a few weeks ago describing these very plans to the people and utilities up there.

I suppose you for one would claim the OPA is dreaming just a bit.

I believe in Ontario they will close eventually but not all will until massive new generation is in place to replace them, renewable and nuclear. When the crunch time comes the "plans" by the government will simply be pushed out a few years.

In other parts of the world however like the US and China, there are so many coal plants that it is just not physically possible to replace them for decades to come yet.... unless their governments want to conscript the masses to join the military and then embark on a massive military-style spending spree to build huge numbers of replacement generating stations.

Bob and Jerry,

I disagree politely with Bob statement that he knows what he is talking about on IMEUC. Take a look at the EWPC article IMEUC False Facts [see above] and you will see many instances that classify as "talk the talk" that the writer did not know what he was talking about.

To prove it, one big example on an essetial feature of EWPC suffices. One outstanding example is the first false fact, which I just discussed with Jerry: the NERC reliability requirement. Do you agree that IMEUC doesn’t need to satisfy the Ultraquality Transportation requirement?

“What we remember depends on what we believe…. ‘People build mental models,’ explains Stephan Lewandowsky, a psychology professor at the University of Western Australia, Crowley. ‘By the time they receive a retraction, the original misinformation has already become an integral part of that mental model, or worldview, and disregarding it would leave the worldview a shambles.’ Therefore, he and his colleagues conclude in their paper, ‘People continue to rely on misinformation even if they demonstrably remember and understand a subsequent retraction’…. Even many of those who remember a retraction still rated the original claim as true.”

"Of course the metaphor is imperfect. Our situation today differs in important respects from that of Eastern Islanders in the 17th century. Some of those differences increase the danger for us: for instance, if mere thousands of Eastern Islanders with just stone tools and their own muscle power sufficed to destroy their environment and thereby destroyed their society, how can billions of people with metal tools and machine power fail to do worse? But there are also differences in our favor, differences to which we shall return in the last chapter of this book."

The last chapter is "The World as a Polder," which ends with reasons for hope. I suggest readers take a look at least at those reasons if we are to have a society that choose to succeed.

The greatest problem in systemic parlance is the systemic time delay for an expert who is wrong about fossil fuels damage and that is found out only when it is too late. I know, it may be already too late.

I challenge you to read it and try to understand it before the IPCC and the UN control the economies of the world. It is reproduced on Philip Stotts web site. Stott is one of debaters who slaughtered the AGWers in debate in New York, including Schmidt. That is why neither Gore nor any of these flim flam artists will ever engage in debate on this issue again.

http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Global_Warming_Politics/A_Hot_Topic_Blog/Entries/2008/10/17_Guest_Essay%3A_Lysenkoism_and_GW_.html

John.

I'm afraid you gave the doubt too much benefit. Doesn't "...system reliability, which is a property of the system as a whole, not a property of its parts." warrant a change in your "...From what we've learned from you thus far its more likely yourself who 'again doesn’t know what he is talking about'..."? I suggest "...it's yourself..." is more appropriate.

From that point, the levels of reliability become economic decisions for the participants, with the ISO / market manager imposing financial penalties for "failures to deliver as contracted" on generation whose transmission may fail, and generation maintaining the transmission system at a level according to economic calculations. Of course one of generation's earlier moves might probably be to get together to install AC-DC-AC isolation points at key interconnection points such as Niagra and Detroit, to avoid having faults in other regions cascading into their areas and causing financial penalties for non-delivery.

I realize Jose Antonio will refuse to understand this explanation, but otherwise don't see why it needs revisiting, (or even needed it this time).

If this perfect energy storm materializes as such, the days of electricity being a consumer bargain are numbered.

Given so much more money being sucked into the electricity system from rate payers, I predict too that the economic incentives of all this extra cash flowing will make Len's IMEUC reform proposals look incredibly appealing to private investors, the educated voters, and eventually our politicians. The inherent temptation to get a piece of the growing gravy train should inspire increasing demand for competition in the electricity generation business, and even increasing demands on our politicians to enable ways for consumers to mitigate the pain on their energy bills.

John, I followed your link (learn to do the arefs though...) Here's a good guideline:

Commie HTML Guide

and was yet again, disappointed. Yes, sometimes science makes mistakes. Yes, they are worse in dictatorships. We are not in a dictatorship, yet. If proof dismissing AGW is in the offing, then it should be clear in the next 20 years or so. What's the rush? In the interim, perhaps we should build nuclear plants and not so many more coal plants.

Believe it or not, I have been on the wrong side of technical beliefs as well, and it does seem like an orthodoxy at times. But it's not. Take hydrogen. That failed (or at least failing) religion was pretty strong even 5 years ago. But if you continuously work on them with FACTS, then even these hardened structures can fall, and do. The latest now is that PHEVs are only a transition strategy as full EVs are in the offing. I do not believe that to be the case either.

If I was to work on the problem is dismissing AGW, I would look hard and long for the few core facts that bring it into question. To date, I haven't seen all that much, except for the problems of forecasting climate changes in general. I could perhaps follow the notion that "sometimes the climate changes quickly anyway", but this (to me) is an argument for more sustainable stewardship in general, and probably less people on the planet. It doesn't really get away from some really hard choices we are facing. Neither does the reality of Peak Oil, for that matter. Yet you spit vinegar all day at the AGW proponents because it means that people might use less coal in the future. With or without AGW, we seem to be in for a rough ride.

NOTE TO THE WEBSITE PEOPLE: You really oughta have a preview button for EnergyPulse. That would allow for us to check on typos that might make references fail, etc. Besides, all the cool websites are doing it now, so you should too!

I sympathize, one of the problems with blogging on any open website forum is that you can get all kinds of misinformation or opposing interests often bashing each other, much akin to politician debates. Just look at some on-line newspaper blogs sometime, they make this website look angelic by comparison. I'm probably as narrow minded and uneducated on many topics here as any other author on this website, finding it's easy to believe almost anything once it is publicly printed.

This thread is one of many on EnergyPulse that has diverged from the main article's theme, but it makes for interesting debate even if it does get ugly at times. If nothing else it shows just how inter-related and complex energy issues are in many articles published here.

Full EV's - buses and maybe golf carts - have been around as long as the electric street trolley, but you are probably the best person on this website to explain the transition of gasoline autos to PHEV's and perhaps why full EV's are not necessarily in the cards. Perhaps it deserves your own article on PHEV's (if the website editor hasn't already invited you to publish one). I suspect the underlying facts are all about battery technology evolution, specifically it's inability yet to reach an economical energy-to-weight ratio to displace gasoline entirely.

AGW may not be proven conclusively but there’s plenty of smoke around to suspect a fire and believe it’s true. Regardless, I agree we’re in for a rough ride with or without AGW.

Here’s a fact to chew on – our Ontario provincial government has publicly stated long-range plans to shutter all of our coal plants within the next several years, they’re tendering bids right now for huge new nuclear spending, they’re pushing hard in parallel to foster a culture of conservation and energy efficiency with the public, and they’re incenting substantial investment in renewable generation sources. Right or wrong, AGW true or not, coal in Ontario is doomed to extinction.

Maybe Ontario’s politicians see the writing on the wall in China – don’t follow the same path the Chinese are on (or the US has in past been on) with massive coal, or else risk eventually being all in the same boat, possibly named the Titanic.

A few quick points:

Regarding EVs:

People expect about 300 miles in range. Or in the least, after a smaller range, the ability to refuel quickly and be on your way. A vehicle with 300 miles of batteries needs 7.5X the batteries compared to a PHEV with 40 mile range. The PHEV can be quickly refueled as well.

All the could change if batteries get MUCH better and MUCH cheaper, but I don't see that in the offing. Truth be told, batteries are still too expensive even for PHEVs. EV advocates get wrapped up in the purity and aesthetics of pure electric vehicles, but they simply don't make economic sense, and probably won't. If we hadn't been tinking with IC engines for 100+ years, we might not have had such a good handle on that technology. But we did, and we do.

Drivers could also change their driving practices, but that's hard to do as well.

Ugh! Why are they shutting down coal plants? It's a waste if it before their time. Lost capital. I don't think I'd advocate that. Maybe delay building new one (efficiency measures anyone?) and of course more nuclear power. I favor letting coal plants run their natural lifetimes before shutting any down. And having the replacement power in place as well.

Thanks for the insight on PH-EV's. Next to Len Gould, you (and probably Todd McKissick too) always have the most thought provoking comments on this website - probably related to intelligence and education. Notice I refrained from stating mudslinging provoking comments.

Ontario's largest coal plant at Nanticoke on the north shore of Lake Erie, I believe, was one of the largest and state-of-the-art when it was built decades ago. It's still a huge plant by today's standards, and had (or still has) a reputation for being one of the largest SOx polluting emitters in North America, something the government has not been particularly proud of. On a hot summer afternoon it makes up a substantial portion of fast-ramp-up capacity on the grid here, and you can literally see its smokestack's yellow-brown emission plume a hundred miles downwind.

Ontario was an early adopter of big coal.

Part of their latest reasoning is that massive investment would be needed to refurbish and then bring Nanticoke and our other smaller coal plants up to ideal emissions standards, let alone sequestering CO2. Another reason is we have long had public health care for all Canadian citizens here, it represents a whopping 50% of the Ontario provincial budget spending, and medical experts have warned them about air pollution be one place they can target health care spending reduction by foster more prevention measures. Reducing any air pollution sources is a big one.

Facing massive investments, they've decided to place their bets on what they think the longer rage future mix should have - lots of nuclear, renewables, and no fossil at all.

The wisdom of the various decisions and massive subsidies will not emerge for years. For instance, pushing solar energy in Canada (subsidized to the tune of ~$42/mWh) is peculiar from the standpoints of cost, reliability and efficiency.

One thing is certain, however, the cost of energy to industry and the consumer is going to get a lot higher. Couple this with the loss of Canada's historical edge of lower labor costs and one can not help but become uneasy about the future of Ontario.

I must whole heartedly agree with you even though it pains me a bit to do so. I am not particularly touting the virtues of Ontario's government, but living here forces me to watch what they do, comment on it, and hope and pray their wisdom will emerge positively in the future. They, like many other governments who regulate the industry so tightly, have a very tough job on their hands to choose a successful path to follow. I don’t envy their job much.

Check out my EnergyBlogs page two articles titled “Electricity Rate Crisis” posted today and yesterday. Although I may sound like it, I am not trying to be an alarmist, but I do feel I have some different and perhaps common-sense perspectives on consumers’ interests than most other authors here. Like Jim Beyer has said many times on this website, we are in for a rough ride in future, both in the US and Canada.

You need to take a look at the EWPC article Power Customers Begging Superior Solution Path. The summay is:

Restructuring has been done without an effective purpose: which is maximum social welfare. The Christmas tree purpose, as a result of the same flawed political system, which also led to the positive feedback financial debacle, was what set both financial and power industry into an inferior solution path.