ISO-NE, our regional power grid managers, issued a new report warning of dire consequences unless we build out for MOAR GAS. Rolling blackouts! “Appeals to the public to reduce energy usage” … horrors. I suspect we’ll get full scrutiny of that report’s assumptions and predictions in short order: When you’re modeling the future, a little tweak can make an enormous difference.
From the Acadia Center’s Mark Le Bel:
I’d bet if heating demand for gas grows by 1% per year instead of 2% (as assumed in study), the problem would pretty much go away. I also forgot addressing methane leaks and grid modernization investments as solutions!
— Mark LeBel (@morelebel) January 19, 2018
In the environmental movement, we’re now used to negotiating, to looking for win-win situations: Green jobs! Efficiency saves money! As the saying goes, “If it’s good for everybody, it’s good for everybody.”
But I don’t want to hide my bottom line here:
Promoting use of more natural gas is an absolute non-starter, from a climate change perspective.
I don’t know how to tell people, any more than I do, that this is the most important thing; that the entire world is at stake; that everything we care about depends on the decisions we make at large, today. And that we are fast running out of time; that we don’t have time for a 40-year go-along-to-get-along with a powerfully destructive industry. The answer is no, hell no, never, over my dead body, no. And my political loyalties will reflect that; if you imagine that my opposition to Governor Baker is based on mere rooting for partisan laundry, well, here it is.
So, if this were a really difficult decision, we’d have to make major sacrifices in the short term — maybe we do anyway, but not for the issue at hand. ISO-NE’s Gordon van Welie, Charlie Baker, and the usual gang of corporate types live in a culture of skepticism about the power and scope of renewables and greater energy efficiency. In fact, the growth of renewables is chronically underestimated — more here. Why not build even more offshore wind than the 1600MW already agreed to? Why not plug leaks and insulate houses at an unprecedented pace? Why not un-cap solar? Why not green the grid and promote efficient electric heat? Have we truly maxed out on these things?
So we’ve got palatable, profitable, and popular options on one hand, and a totally unacceptable option on the other. Eversource can complain about the “actions of a few” (that’s me!) preventing more fossil infrastructure; but actually it’s the suits that are standing out in the cold.
People like to say “Natural gas (methane) is a bridge fuel.” Nope. Methane will always be with us. Cows belch methane, people fart methane, decomposition produces methane. Any time we are thinking about methane (natural gas) infrastructure we should be considering the capture and use of biological methane sources – feedlots, landfills, et cetera – and working within a framework of zero emissions as an approachable goal. You know, as in Six Sigma or Total Quality Management where zero defects on a production line is also considered as an approachable goal.
What is the best way to heat my home on a cold, windless New England night? Assuming I have spent the money to switch to electric heat (which I have not), from what source will the grid draw its power?
I think this is a sort of a troll question, but the answer is that if you have electric heat, then electric heat is what you’ve got. That means the market determines what power plants are dispatched to meet demand, unless you have more other arrangements in advance.
Fortunately for the hypothetical you, electrical demand peaks during the day, so at night the grid is not likely to be too stressed out. You’d be advised to improve the energy efficiency of your home, however, to reduce your heating and lighting costs. Ratepayers fund a program that helps with that.
I think Charlie’s point is that even if the market makes some short term choices that are not in some ways optimal, the environmental and economic consequences of subsidizing gas pipelines are worse.
Your answer is non-responsive. There are two points to this question. First, most New England homes are built to be heated by oil or gas. What will be the cost of changing that? Second, renewables cannot meet the demand for home heating at night.
Thanks for the tip. My home already has been insulated.
You’re a troll if you don’t follow the script. My house is all electric. Gas is not available, I didn’t want a tankful of oil in my basement (I live on the water) so electric is my option. I don’t trust propane. After having two energy audits and max insulation my backup heating is old school.
I have a wood stove and have been forced to live for days using it. It really doesn’t hurt to live off-the-grid occasionally, just to be sure you can if need be.
Net zero energy buildings are practical and affordable now. They can produce as much energy as they consume on an annual basis. CA, the EU, and Cambridge, MA are on track to have all construction be net zero energy (and emissions in Cambridge) by 2030 but I suspect it will be much sooner than that given the marketplace today. Battery storage on the grid is also practical now and becoming more affordable very quickly. Heat storage is an older method which is also coming back into use. Green Mountain Power has been running an experiment in Rutland, I think, where they are using electric hot water heaters as heat storage; when energy is cheap, the heaters heat water for later. Bornholm, Denmark, site of the EU’s Grid 2.0 project, is also doing the same thing.
Back in the 1970s, I remember reading about a Danish solar house project which was so energy efficient that it could be heated by a candle or two and the body heat of the occupants.. Our technology is better now.
Germany’s University of Kässel has been operating a virtual grid of 100% renewables for over a decade. Their energy sources are solar in the South, wind in the North, and biomass. It seems that, in the model, they can meet their needs consistently with few outages (Germany and Denmark have outages of between 10 and 15 minutes per YEAR, the best in the world).
According to a recent study (https://cleantechnica.com/2018/01/12/new-study-looks-managing-grid-frequency-fluctuations-renewables/), frequency “fluctuations from power trading were larger than those from renewables. In other words, the grid is already dealing with frequency fluctuations that are larger than those caused by renewables.” Frequency adjustments are one of the arguments against greater renewable use by critics but this study seems to prove that such an argument doesn’t stand up.
This doesn’t answer your specific questions but gives you some context as to what the state of the art is now. I’ve been collecting links to net zero buildings for years and you can see all the references at http://solarray.blogspot.com
If we’re smart, a very debatable proposition, we can supply all our energy needs from renewables. In fact, nationally, our energy use has plateaued at around 100 quadrillion btus per year and remained at that level or below since 2000 while our GDP continues to grow. Additionally, over 60% of the energy we produce does no useful work, is “rejected” as waste heat, through friction, and by the limitations of Carnot efficiencies. There’s still quite a lot we could do by becoming more energy efficient, even in the #1 energy efficient state, Massachusetts.
We are building a ‘net zero’ school in my town. If anything, ‘net zero’ should be more easily achievable for large buildings that have the economy of scale.
http://lexington.wickedlocal.com/news/20170817/lexington-leaders-back-green-design-for-hastings-school-despite-cost
The building will be all-electric, and will use geo-thermal wells. The cost premium for geo-thermal wells over a conventional air-cooled chiller and condensing boiler plant was $2,2M, for a 110,000 sq ft building, and in a total project cost of $65.2M. The energy consumption, with the geo-thermal wells., will be 60.7% over the alternative .
The building will be solar-panel ready, but solar panels are to be installed later, at a separate cost.
Yet, even if the building will be state of the art, with geo-thermal wells and solar panels, technically, it will still need substantially more energy from the grid than the solar panels will put back into the grid. It is called a ‘net zero’ building, but it’s not really going to use zero energy.