Thoughts on the EPA Carbon Plan

[DevilsBrew]

I hate the government. lol. I truly do.

 

[begreen]

Lke it or not, the govt R US.

In this case, on the state level I am for a carbon tax to help us reach our goals coupled with a reduction in the the B&O taxes and sales tax.

 

[jebatty]

Only seven things are impeding the EPA and preventing the US from achieving a clean, healthy and safe energy future:

• Lust – having an intense desire or want for more and more comforts and possessions

• Gluttony – excesses in energy consumption beyond anything needed to sustain a healthy life

• Greed - excessive or reprehensible acquisitiveness of creature comforts

• Laziness/sloth – apathy, disinclined to activity or exertion, stuck in the status quo, unwilling to change behaviors which would result in a healthier world

• Wrath – strong vengeful anger or indignation directed against those who remind us of the danger faced by current excesses in consumption and inaction

• Envy – painful or resentful awareness of an apparent advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same apparent advantage gained from wasteful energy consumption

• Pride - quality or state of being proud – inordinate self esteem based on self-indulgence and consumption

 

[semipro]

Only seven things are impeding the EPA and preventing the US from achieving a clean, healthy and safe energy future:

• Lust – having an intense desire or want for more and more comforts and possessions

• Gluttony – excesses in energy consumption beyond anything needed to sustain a healthy life

• Greed - excessive or reprehensible acquisitiveness of creature comforts

• Laziness/sloth – apathy, disinclined to activity or exertion, stuck in the status quo, unwilling to change behaviors which would result in a healthier world

• Wrath – strong vengeful anger or indignation directed against those who remind us of the danger faced by current excesses in consumption and inaction

• Envy – painful or resentful awareness of an apparent advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same apparent advantage gained from wasteful energy consumption

• Pride - quality or state of being proud – inordinate self esteem based on self-indulgence and consumption

Maybe an 8th deadly sin would be "bureaucracy" in this case.

 

[begreen]

Extraordinary lobbying and disinformation efforts backed by almost limitless funds are impeding more than just the EPA.

 

[BrotherBart]

Only seven things are impeding the EPA and preventing the US from achieving a clean, healthy and safe energy future:

Ya left out Profit.

 

[jebatty]

Nothing wrong with profit, but profit wrapped into lust, gluttony and greed clearly would be an impediment.

 

[sloeffle]

I know this an old topic but I was reading through our local electric co op magazine. Personally I would call this a scare tactic, but that might be taking it a little too far:

http://www.countryliving.coop/departments/electric-bills-bring-pain-members-gain/

And every month since the proposed plan our wonderful President and CEO of our co op has been writing about how the world is coming to an end because we can no longer burn coal and not have to deal with the effects:

http://www.countryliving.coop/department/viewpoint/

I hope the American public does not buy into this garbage and they see that we need to make renewables apart our energy mix along with coal, NG, nuclear etc.

 

[woodgeek]

O such whining!

His first piece: http://www.countryliving.coop/departments/epas-lack-perspective/ basically talks about how the regulatory environment changes every decade or two and he has to change his business model. Waah. He decided to spend billions to upgrade pollution controls on his coal plant a few years ago, which anyone familiar with climate change science would consider to be a bad investment, and now look, the EPA is telling him its a bad investment. Did HE look at the regulatory environment coming down the pipe, like the EPA rules written 5 years ago about new coal plants, and choose accordingly? Nope. In his mind, of course, he the CEO made the right choice, and the lost billions are someone else's fault!

He cites and interview by oil-man Yergin http://www.countryliving.coop/departments/daniel-yergin-future-energy/ in some place called the 'Wall Street Journal'. Yergin states that maybe the world in 20 years will get 5% more of its energy from RE, otherwise it will be just a big fossil-fuel party. See, says the CEO, I was right all along!

The good news is Ohio has great RE resources....do you think this guy is ready for a glut of cheap wind and (coming) cheap solar and (coming) cheap grid storage to blow away his business model?

 

[woodgeek]

As for the original thread topic....

BO did indeed crow about this policy in front of the UN, while 300,000 people were marching against climate change a few miles away. There was talk about the US and China making their own joint climate deal, and then bringing it to the big climate meeting in a year as a fait accompli.

My thoughts on the plan have evolved. Originally I was disappointed that they were only proposing a 15% reduction in 15 years, when the US had been dropping almost that much since 2005 anyway without a plan. Unlike many such 'political plans' however, it was not backloaded....the plan actually wants most of the reduction on the front end. Of course, when the much predicted healthy economy shows up, any reduction will be a lot more difficult. The plan is also flexible, in that once its set up, the EPA can turn the screw, and decide that CO2 reductions have to be steeper. The plan as written is broadly popular in polls, and the projected costs sound low.

So, one conclusion is that the administration is betting that the politics of CO2 reduction will get easier with time....more millenial voters, state plans already set up, more/cheaper RE, more reliable cost estimates, more avoided malinvestments (thus fewer counter-lobbyists), more global agreeements, etc.

IOW, an easy to swallow sugar pill to get the process started. Once it is politically feasible, this system provides a means of ramping up the reductions.

 

[CaptSpiff]

Does your plant get cycled seasonally to meet varying loads? Does it get throttled on a daily cycle, or flat out? Can it throttle?

I thought the only plants that do not get throttled daily were the nukes.
Don't all of the Coal and Heavy Oil plants have to come down to half load at night to "rap & shake" their particulate capture equipment?
Not a pollution control issue, but I know for a fact that the Plants on Long Island all come down to "half boiler" levels a couple of nights a week just to shovel mussels out of the cooling condensers.

 

[begreen]

Coal and nukes are base load plants. They run at steady state unless maintenance is required. It's quite costly to cycle them.

(broken link removed to http://www.ipautah.com/data/upfiles/newsletters/cyclingarticles.pdf)

 

[DBoon]

Yergin states that maybe the world in 20 years will get 5% more of its energy from RE, otherwise it will be just a big fossil-fuel party.

In 7 years, US solar PV production has increased by an order of magnitude, from 0.1% to 1% of total electrical generation. This is a >30% growth rate. In some states, solar PV is 10% of total generation. With wind, renewables are at about 3% today.

It is projected that growth will continue at 30% for at least another few years, despite the elimination of federal tax incentives. If this is the case, then it won't take 20 years for solar PV to reach 5%. Discounting wind generation additions, solar PV alone will reach 5% in 6 years. With wind, we should be at 5% in 3 to 4 years. Sure, the growth rate has to slow down - we can't be at >100% in 15 years - but even a 10% growth rate for 20 years gets us to 5%, and a 15% growth rate gets us to 15%.

Exciting times. You can slow the growth but it will be difficult to stop. Democratizing and distributing power production will result in change far faster than established players can even begin to comprehend. The electric power industry today (and to some extent, the oil and gas industry) are the equivalent of AT&T and MCI in 1995 - big players with little comprehension of the changes coming their way and what it means for their core business.

 

[woodgeek]

Agreed.

I have US wind around 4.5% and Solar is 0.5% of electrical energy in 2014, so we are at 5% total for those right now. Biomass is also huge.

Solar PV is >5% electrical energy in HI and is approaching 5% in CA, with a 30% annual growth rate over the last several years, and continuing.

Yup. Yergin's full of it.

Sadly, the EIA figures look much like his. Their approach is to extrapolate current RE trends linearly (rather than exponentially), and then to asymptote them over to some figure like 5-10% in the future without any explanation.

 

[OhioBurner©]

Coal and nukes are base load plants. They run at steady state unless maintenance is required. It's quite costly to cycle them.

(broken link removed to http://www.ipautah.com/data/upfiles/newsletters/cyclingarticles.pdf)

Almost all coal plants go up and down daily or many times per day. The lesser efficient ones now-a-days spend most of the time at min load. Nukes are the only ones that do not get dispatched. Coal plants were mostly designed for base load but that is a thing of the past, except for very very cheap ones. A lot of coal plants are even used for regulation now, and the larger amount of wind and other non-frequency responsive and non-regulating generators put even more strain on moving coal plants around. The cost of coal has gone up recently, and the cheaper NG prices has priced a lot of them 'on the bubble'.

Cycling is usually the term used when talking about shutting plants down overnight and bringing back on the next day. Typically only gas plants do that, as it takes many more hours and a lot more work to shut down and start coal plants.

I thought the only plants that do not get throttled daily were the nukes.
Don't all of the Coal and Heavy Oil plants have to come down to half load at night to "rap & shake" their particulate capture equipment?
Not a pollution control issue, but I know for a fact that the Plants on Long Island all come down to "half boiler" levels a couple of nights a week just to shovel mussels out of the cooling condensers.

Yes there are all sorts of reasons they come down at night. Usually every few days coal plants have to deslag the boiler. Some units have to rap their ESPs (electrostatic precipitators), backwash condensers and intake screens and all sorts of things.

 

[woodgeek]

As for the original thread topic....
BO did indeed crow about this policy in front of the UN, while 300,000 people were marching against climate change a few miles away. There was talk about the US and China making their own joint climate deal, and then bringing it to the big climate meeting in a year as a fait accompli.

So the 'secret' plan with China was announced, with slightly steeper cuts than in the original EPA plan:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/w...column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
the loyal opposition thinks its a bad deal:
(broken link removed to http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/11/12/obama-vows-us-will-cut-emissions-by-at-least-26-percent-over-next-11-years/)

I think 'climate' is the one of BO's agenda items, but the one he left for last. Cutting a deal with China will make the US look like a leader in Paris next year, before the meeting even starts off. I think this is a good approach, because those meetings tend to be circuses...let the narrative be all about the US-China deal and the global response to it, rather than whatever other noise it would have been about.

BO's timing is also selected as a pick me up after the midterms, to enrage his opponents even more, and to provide some 'backup' if/when it comes time to veto whatever bill congress sends his way with the 'defund the EPA' rider attached. As in...."The EPA and its carbon reduction plan for the US is central to our recent historic agreement with China to reduce global carbon emissions, and I hope the beginning of a new approach to this critically important problem to be realized at the global climate talks in Paris next year. This plan represents the critical first step in delivering a livable planet to our children and grandchildren. For this reason, I am forced to veto...."

Two interesting questions...(1) will the more extreme 'enviros' like McKibben deride this agreement as too little too late, or make (IMO the better strategy) rally their followers to making this deal a priority. (2) will the deal provide political cover for BO to agree to the Keystone pipeline, perhaps as a compromise, but one that risks losing support from the enviros.

 

[woodgeek]

Interesting stat.....to keep their end of the deal, China will have to field an amount of wind and solar generation (and/or nukes) that would be sufficient to run the entire US, and do so in the next 15 years.

 

[sloeffle]

Interesting stat.....to keep their end of the deal, China will have to field an amount of wind and solar generation (and/or nukes) that would be sufficient to run the entire US, and do so in the next 15 years.

That will make Germany's adoption of solar look like childs play if they can pull it off. I hope they can do it. That will hopefully get the US's a$$ in gear.

 

[woodgeek]

Indeed. But on a percentage basis that is only 20% of China's projected energy (not electric) usage in 2030. Germany could be well ahead of them on a percentage basis at that point. As could and should be the US. After all, developed countries should get there first, on a percentage basis.

 

[dougstove]

Have you seen the cunning Dutch are installing solar panels embedded in...bicycle paths?
They point out that bicycle paths (30,000 km in the Netherlands) can be connected continuously and with standard components, rather than individual grid ties for every house rooftop

 

[Doug MacIVER]

as china becomes the usa raising their middle class, they spew what you say we can't, ours disappears?i don't get it. 97% say it almost to late, what china spews makes no difference what we save. other big economies not even mentioned. in 2030 china will release some 30 what gazillion tons? in the mean time the USA grabs it's groin.








































5

 

[woodgeek]

Ok Doug. They've got 4x the population, and are currently emitting less than 2x what we are, that is about 40% of our emissions per capita. Projections I've seen say their peak emissions will be 60-80% of our current emissions per capita, and then decline. Of CO2 emissions in the last century, close to 30% have come from the old USA, about 8% from China.

Based on the above #s, what would you propose would be the fair approach going forward....I think us both 'doing what we can' is pretty fair.

As for timeline...everyone assumes it will take decades to get emissions down...the rush is to get started on the path.

 

[Doug MacIVER]

Ok Doug. They've got 4x the population, and are currently emitting less than 2x what we are, that is about 40% of our emissions per capita. Projections I've seen say their peak emissions will be 60-80% of our current emissions per capita, and then decline. Of CO2 emissions in the last century, close to 30% have come from the old USA, about 8% from China.

Based on the above #s, what would you propose would be the fair approach going forward....I think us both 'doing what we can' is pretty fair.

As for timeline...everyone assumes it will take decades to get emissions down...the rush is to get started on the path.

keep telling youself that we are worse and see where that leads your grandkids? per cap b/s keep your gc's in the style you have. let's give the middle finger to china and give the forgotten continent electricity

 

[woodgeek]

How are we worse? Where did I say that?

There is this thing called the 'development curve' and all countries are on it marching to the right, say in GDP/capita or standard of living or wealth/capita. Right now we've got the US, Western Europe and Japan all on a par development-wise. The only place in China that is close to that GDP/capita or wealth/capita is Hong Kong...the rest of China is much lower. By our standards the Chinese are **poor**.

Less developed places grow faster, but their growth slows down as they get more developed....we've seen that happen in Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc. Even the US growth followed the same pattern a century earlier.

The US is farther along the growth curve, so our emissions are growing more slowly, and can be pushed down by improvements in efficiency. The Chinese will get caught up eventually, maybe in a few decades. Luckily, with improved technology, they will emit less C per person during their development than the US did.