I talk with a scholar & activist in Australia who has spent her career thinking about how communities can share in the benefits of renewable energy development, thus securing their support & speeding up the process.
You wrote: "To hit its climate targets, the US must build an enormous amount of new clean energy infrastructure."
DOE has just released a report showing that adoption of geothermal heat pumps (GHP) could dramatically reduce the need for energy infrastructure investment in the USA -- including significant reductions in transmission capacity needs. They estimate that GHP could reduce consumer nominal dollar costs by over $1 trillion through 2050.
Also, that:
"If the emissions that are avoided from the building sector through the avoided on-site fuel combustion are applied as a decarbonization credit to the grid, the net effect of GHP deployment is to achieve the emissions reduction goal of decarbonizing the grid by the year 2035"
EIA's profile for Washington State used to mention "Almost three-fifths of Washington households rely on electricity as their primary heating fuel, and about one-third depend on natural gas."
If true and if those electric heaters are mostly old resistance coil type (which my unscientific travels say yes) it should be possible to release an enormous winter peak electricity supply-- at least in Washington State-- apart from converting gas heat to clean sources.
Yet another report, detailing geothermal heat pumps' (GHP) importance in limiting grid peak demand, was recently published by the Ontario Clean Air Alliance. Entitled "An Analysis of the Impacts of All-Electric Heat Pumps and Peak Mitigation Technologies on Peak Power Demand in Ontario", the report estimates that during winter peaks, GHP units would, on average, draw less than half as much electricity as air-source heat pumps. Thus, the grid infrastructure required to support GHP is much less than that required to support air-source systems.
While today there are many who advocate replacing fossil fuel systems with any kind of heat pump, I think we'll find that at some point in the future, the same effort will be invested in convincing people to convert from air-source to geothermal heat pumps.
In this study, multiple nationwide scenarios are modeled and either bundled or compared. However, in either of the two scenarios with electrified buildings and clean electricity there is still "an enormous amount of clean energy infrastructure." There is still the replacement of the existing 65% fossil generation with clean generation plus load growth for other uses.
In the study, it's a little confusing to clearly see apples to apples, the effects of "geothermal," typically ground-source, HPs (GSHPs) vs. air-source HPs (ASHPs). But not impossible. E.g. Table ES-1. There are two groups of scenarios, one with GSHPs and one with other efficient heating systems. The sub-scenario (not sure what else to call it) of EFS is the one we should probably compare w/ or w/o GSHPs. That's efficient, retrofitted buildings in both cases, with ASHPs, in a large fraction of buildings in the "No GHP Deployment" section.
Table ES-1 Total nationwide generation goes from:
1829 GW in the "Base" w/an un-decarbonized grid and mostly gas heating
So this does not bear out that their is some scenario of efficient and distributed stuff that does not require lots of clean infrastructure. There are a few similar tables with similar conclusions for demand, transmission, etc. Don't get me wrong, 400 GW savings in capacity is great. I'm a fan of GHPs in cold and cold/hot climates. I'm not convinced of great advantages in cool/hot climates vs. ASHPs
I'm not sure those are in contradiction. To start with a personal physical baseline: my total consumption of energy declined significantly with the replacement of natural gas home and water heating with a ground source heat pump (COP 4.99). Despite a massive reduction in total energy consumption my electricity consumption increased significantly (~40%). Enough that my 200A panel service was severely limiting (not in steady state, but in peak theoretical draw as required by code). If every home in my area did the same, we'd easily blow through our local distribution line's ability to deliver power (peak, one could do something clever with load shifting but our current infra is not clever and making it clever would also be an enormous investment). The last meters, at your distribution line and your panel, are an essential part of both community buy in and the grid's overall performance, reception, and value. Like the example of the dairy farmer asked to make room for clean energy while at the same time supporting the business with diesel generators because the farm's electrical service sucks. This technical report doesn't get that close to the ground, not mentioning distribution lines or panels at all. At 100 pages... every study needs bounds, this one might have misplaced an important one for viability of community adoption and regional requirements.
It is a long report but it looks like the best case is the SE area. I'll admit the SE is about as far from my personal PNW intuition as you can be in the continental USA in terms of energy mix, and the population weight is over there as well. For instance we don't have ubiquitous AC in the PNW and it isn't too warm too often; in contrast we do burn a lot of fuels for heat. From that respect the model looks light on impacts in the mountain west. Again, population weight is over in the east so it may still be the case that the USA needs less grid capacity but the 4 different regions will each have different responses and spare capacity in the SE isn't doing anything for anyone in the PNW - even if as a whole the total requirement is lower across the USA the physical distribution of those demands is changing.
There is something in the modelling scenarios that doesn't fit cleanly or obviously with the designed scenario - newbuilt vs. total service transition. The newbuilt rates are a priori insufficient to have a significant impact because we're not building enough with or without GHP contributions - the installed base will dominate with a fixed deployment rate of 3.6% and I'm not sure what to do with the duct sealing note as newbuilt shouldn't benefit from a retrofit. 1 page on the construction of the 6 modelling scenarios over 13 regions from a 100 page report isn't enough - too much is left as secret sauce.
I too would love a deep dive on this, but don't think this study leads to an avoidance of significant new clean energy infrastructure build out. An update in expectations in that direction would be a really big deal, if this is really just a story about AC replacement that's probably not controversial or surprising at all - and still very important in the coming years.
The report would be better, but longer, if it considered local distribution infrastructure in addition to transmission and generation. There are significant costs in transformers, substations, service lines, meters, etc. that should be considered.
However, adoption of GHP may require new infrastructure to handle increased winter peak demand, the infrastructure requirement to support any other form of electric heat (electric resistance, or air-source heat pumps) would be much greater. GHPs use grid-provided electrical energy much more efficiently than the alternatives. (i.e. if a GHP operates at COP = 4, then 3 units of renewable, site-sourced heat are harvested and delivered to the home for every 1 unit of grid energy consumed.) Also, unlike air-source systems whose efficiency is very dependent on outside air temperature, GHP system efficiency is largely independent of outside air temperature. Air-source systems are dramatically less efficient than normal on the coldest and hottest days of the year -- which are precisely the times when we need the most efficient systems to be running.
There are a lot of variations on how HPs will affect the local distribution network, not all bad. In the SE, a lot of homes now have crappy ASHPs with resistance heat backup, causing winter peaks. Replacing these with ccASHPs w/o strip heat will reduce winter peaks. In many mixed climates, the winter peak from replacing gas with ccASHPs will be close to or smaller than the current summer AC peak.
In cold places, where AC is not common, HPs will increase the building, distribution and system peaks. Assuming some rational pricing and policies, various DER and VPP and efficiency strategies and some GSHPs will be used to minimize the associated cost. Maybe distribution upgrades are needed, maybe not. An excellent recent post from Canary covers how peak load minimization is being done on the micro level to electrify homes w/o increasing panel size. Lots of work in the PNW on aspects of this.
Is the baseline electric resistance heating (e.g. trivially decarbonized grid and consumption)? I can't on my own, decode "...building sector energy consumption is consistent with Annual Energy Outlook (AEO) 2022 projections, and the CO2 emission policy remains the same as existing state policies, including renewable portfolio standards, clean energy standards, and CO2 emissions policies." but think of today's energy mix rather than some not yet realized usage mix as a baseline scenario. Since different states have different policies at the end of the day, this reads like the anything goes current state.
Against resistance heating, sure GHPs are going to look amazing in nearly every dimension (renters, for instance, aren't going to have a solo GHP option). This choice really begs the question.
To suggest that infrastructure investment required to facilitate the transition is proportional to total national electricity demand is to think like a utility that can only monetize CapEx. That's a big implicit assumption in the starting point for the analysis, and would likely benefit from reviewing the content of today's podcast.
I keep thinking that, just maybe, a workable answer might be better provided by smaller economic units, like isolated homesteads, providing their own power. The individual then has more control over energy use and production at any instant. This requires and rewards individual responsibility. I remember when I lived in a large dormitory, for instance, that we would often have to open the windows wide in winter because the heat, though regulated building- and zone-wide, was excessive.
I've been thinking the same thing lately, as a way to avoid delivering more power to the borg to feed useless economic activity like mining cryptocurrency or other Jevon's paradox behaviors. An ideal farmstead might use agrivoltaics to increase farm yield and reduce water consumption, with electricity overages shunted to electrolyzers to generate hydrogen, for fuel or ammonia for fertilizer in a closed loop, displacing fossil fertilizer. Independent farmers might get excited about harvesting more from the land and producing their own inputs if the time and complexity could be kept low. Or, in a small community that shares resources, provides benefits and shows respect.
It seems you're all in for high-tech solutions, and aggrandizing or grouping "small farmers," but I'm not sure we really need all the power production. The big question involves production and consumption in smaller groupings, along with high moral standards for all.
I spent Thursday at a community meeting in central North Carolina, talking with town leadership to explain the potential benefits and allay worries around a future utility-scale solar installation coming to the area.
Exactly as Dr. Hicks described, we were a collection of nonprofit organizations that work here in the state, as well as the project manager and community engagement team from the solar developer (I've had a long relationship with this developer as well, from my days working in engineering). It also helped that my organization, and the org that held the community meeting, are made up of people of color who have family in small towns just like the one we were visiting. An excellent discussion was held, and I think the town's leadership and citizens who were able to attend are a lot more receptive to not only this project, but others as well.
For my organization, this is a process we've been replicating for a little over a year here, previously around engaging very rural (and often very red) local governments and groups around Inflation Reduction Act programs and opportunities, but now around any other potential programs that will be available in the near future.
If anybody's interested in the work we're doing, feel free to reach out:
Listening to this podcast, the reconciliation process with our indigenous communities seems to be a relevant parallel challenge: growing community resistance to business initiatives & the need for bespoke and patient engagement.
Take the time to determine how much, lithium, copper and silver, will be needed to produce zero emissions world you are contemplating. You will find it will take up to 10 times the current production level for the next 30 years. It is an impossible task. Before you label me a Denver you should know I have not paid a dime to the electric company because of my solar system, and have had a Tesla for 2 years.
I still have enough sense to see solar, wind and batteries are an impractical solution for the country and the world. Particular when China and India are adding coal fired electric plants at a prodigious rate.
Hi Hudson, this comment is inappropriate/caustic. It'll probably be deleted, or possibly I may leave it up so people can get an idea of what isn't appropriate for a Volts comments section.
You are calling a solution to global climate crises self-promotion? All information shared is to help initiate dialogue on the true path to a regenerative future.
Hmmm, on topic. I'm not sure how much local buy-in constitutes enough? How long and inclusive process is enough? In AZ very recently, after a 15 year process, a tribe got powerline construction stopped, though only for a month. Claiming, of course, lack of consultation, cultural destruction, etc. The hysterical preservation society in Newport RI is suing about offshore wind turbines already under construction. Just FYI, the offshore wind industry is on the hook for all kinds of training, good wages, community impact funds...
When I listen to community NGO/education types, there always seems to be a LOT of process involved in organizing, meetings and distributing benefits. I really like the approach of Octopus Energy; if you live close to our wind/solar farms you get dirt cheap electricity when we are producing. AND we'll help set up DERs so you can take advantage of that.
There are some good insights here, but like here, down under the anti-renewables PR and politicking is making more and more and seemingly effective noise. The renew biz folks there write about the capture of at least one state planning department by anti-wind sentiment, or maybe just fear. In US states, we are seeing town and county gov'ts passing regs essentially banning renewables before they even see a proposal. I just read about one with a two-mile setback to wind or solar I think.
Sadly, the seemingly natural allies of renewables are flaking out. I just read a post from a leader of a major Colorado environmental organization saying that renewable generation doesn't save any electricity, it just enables more electricity use. And that progressive enviros should stop "carbon tunnel vision" and support RFK Jr who will return us to some distant golden age of bipartisan environmental kumbaya.
It is of CRITICAL IMPORTANCE to understand that all the effort now being exhausted on reducing emissions is WORSENING THE CLIMATE CRISIS. The only way we can reverse climate change quickly is to DRAW DOWN CO2 from the atmosphere with regenerative agriculture (The Australian Key Line plow is an essential part of this solution.), holistic (Savory method) livestock management, agricultural "waste" fuel logs for cooking fuel in the developing world to prevent burning wood (which is the number one cause of worldwide deforestation) and other draw down methods. The Heart Mind Alliance (.com) has had ten years of experience fuel log production in El Salvador and Bolivia (heartmindalliance@gmail.com). The greenhouse effect cannot be reduced by cutting back on emissions only as doing so will take hundreds of years the planet would not survive due to an irreversible extinction collapse by reaching a tipping point within 5 years, or so, according to scientists worldwide. National energy policies must address this truth now avoided as it is not as profitable as replacing automobiles, building solar and wind farms and transmission lines. We must get the word out and change our national policies to reverse climate change now. We know the way out of hell. Looking forward, Bob Dunsmore Founder and president of the Heart Mind Alliance (.com) which has launched the block-chain secured direct vote website: https://wethepeople.directvotedemocracy.com now asking the nation the First Question. Based on the Australian FLUX party direct vote platform.
Producer of the documentary "Bolivia Beyond Belief" (on You Tube) regarding the Bolivian Democratic Revolution I witnessed while living in Bolivia from 2005 to 2008
Initiated as an Andean Cosmovision Amauta
After working in 20 countries in community development Bob created a You Tube channel with 135 videos of the most successful appropriate technologies solving critical development needs in those countries: "Community-based Appropriate Technologies"
Served as Area Director for South America and the Caribbean for Habitat for Humanity
Reflexologist certified by the International Institute of Reflexology
Founder of Colorado's San Luis Valley Solar Energy Association and Alamosa Childrens' School
Founder of the Rio Arriba Bioregional Council and the Espanola Valley Community Council, New Mexico
Author of I Am: A Journey Through Times and Spaces and the book The Great Mandate (available via Kindle)
Hey Bob, this comment is a little bit too off-topic, which isn't necessarily cause for moderation, but it goes over the edge due to the self-promotion. I think it may have a place in our monthly community thread. It'll probably be deleted, or possibly I may leave it up so people can get an idea of what isn't quite appropriate for this Volts comments section.
It is exactly relevant. Pushing local communities to spend on uneconomic solar and windmills is a waste of time and money. Of course if I am right there is no need for Volts.
Hi Hudson, this comment is inappropriate/caustic. It'll probably be deleted, or possibly I may leave it up so people can get an idea of what isn't appropriate for a Volts comments section.
You wrote: "To hit its climate targets, the US must build an enormous amount of new clean energy infrastructure."
DOE has just released a report showing that adoption of geothermal heat pumps (GHP) could dramatically reduce the need for energy infrastructure investment in the USA -- including significant reductions in transmission capacity needs. They estimate that GHP could reduce consumer nominal dollar costs by over $1 trillion through 2050.
Also, that:
"If the emissions that are avoided from the building sector through the avoided on-site fuel combustion are applied as a decarbonization credit to the grid, the net effect of GHP deployment is to achieve the emissions reduction goal of decarbonizing the grid by the year 2035"
See: https://www.osti.gov/biblio/2224191/
David, would you consider asking the authors of this study to present on the podcast?
I'll take a look!
EIA's profile for Washington State used to mention "Almost three-fifths of Washington households rely on electricity as their primary heating fuel, and about one-third depend on natural gas."
https://web.archive.org/web/20200603054545/https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=WA
If true and if those electric heaters are mostly old resistance coil type (which my unscientific travels say yes) it should be possible to release an enormous winter peak electricity supply-- at least in Washington State-- apart from converting gas heat to clean sources.
Yet another report, detailing geothermal heat pumps' (GHP) importance in limiting grid peak demand, was recently published by the Ontario Clean Air Alliance. Entitled "An Analysis of the Impacts of All-Electric Heat Pumps and Peak Mitigation Technologies on Peak Power Demand in Ontario", the report estimates that during winter peaks, GHP units would, on average, draw less than half as much electricity as air-source heat pumps. Thus, the grid infrastructure required to support GHP is much less than that required to support air-source systems.
While today there are many who advocate replacing fossil fuel systems with any kind of heat pump, I think we'll find that at some point in the future, the same effort will be invested in convincing people to convert from air-source to geothermal heat pumps.
https://www.cleanairalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Heat-Pump-Peak-Report-FINAL.pdf
In this study, multiple nationwide scenarios are modeled and either bundled or compared. However, in either of the two scenarios with electrified buildings and clean electricity there is still "an enormous amount of clean energy infrastructure." There is still the replacement of the existing 65% fossil generation with clean generation plus load growth for other uses.
In the study, it's a little confusing to clearly see apples to apples, the effects of "geothermal," typically ground-source, HPs (GSHPs) vs. air-source HPs (ASHPs). But not impossible. E.g. Table ES-1. There are two groups of scenarios, one with GSHPs and one with other efficient heating systems. The sub-scenario (not sure what else to call it) of EFS is the one we should probably compare w/ or w/o GSHPs. That's efficient, retrofitted buildings in both cases, with ASHPs, in a large fraction of buildings in the "No GHP Deployment" section.
Table ES-1 Total nationwide generation goes from:
1829 GW in the "Base" w/an un-decarbonized grid and mostly gas heating
3568 GW w/decarbonized grid, etc., efficient bldgs and mostly ASHP heat
3158 GW w/decarbonized grid, etc., efficient bldgs and mostly GSHP heat
So this does not bear out that their is some scenario of efficient and distributed stuff that does not require lots of clean infrastructure. There are a few similar tables with similar conclusions for demand, transmission, etc. Don't get me wrong, 400 GW savings in capacity is great. I'm a fan of GHPs in cold and cold/hot climates. I'm not convinced of great advantages in cool/hot climates vs. ASHPs
I'm not sure those are in contradiction. To start with a personal physical baseline: my total consumption of energy declined significantly with the replacement of natural gas home and water heating with a ground source heat pump (COP 4.99). Despite a massive reduction in total energy consumption my electricity consumption increased significantly (~40%). Enough that my 200A panel service was severely limiting (not in steady state, but in peak theoretical draw as required by code). If every home in my area did the same, we'd easily blow through our local distribution line's ability to deliver power (peak, one could do something clever with load shifting but our current infra is not clever and making it clever would also be an enormous investment). The last meters, at your distribution line and your panel, are an essential part of both community buy in and the grid's overall performance, reception, and value. Like the example of the dairy farmer asked to make room for clean energy while at the same time supporting the business with diesel generators because the farm's electrical service sucks. This technical report doesn't get that close to the ground, not mentioning distribution lines or panels at all. At 100 pages... every study needs bounds, this one might have misplaced an important one for viability of community adoption and regional requirements.
It is a long report but it looks like the best case is the SE area. I'll admit the SE is about as far from my personal PNW intuition as you can be in the continental USA in terms of energy mix, and the population weight is over there as well. For instance we don't have ubiquitous AC in the PNW and it isn't too warm too often; in contrast we do burn a lot of fuels for heat. From that respect the model looks light on impacts in the mountain west. Again, population weight is over in the east so it may still be the case that the USA needs less grid capacity but the 4 different regions will each have different responses and spare capacity in the SE isn't doing anything for anyone in the PNW - even if as a whole the total requirement is lower across the USA the physical distribution of those demands is changing.
There is something in the modelling scenarios that doesn't fit cleanly or obviously with the designed scenario - newbuilt vs. total service transition. The newbuilt rates are a priori insufficient to have a significant impact because we're not building enough with or without GHP contributions - the installed base will dominate with a fixed deployment rate of 3.6% and I'm not sure what to do with the duct sealing note as newbuilt shouldn't benefit from a retrofit. 1 page on the construction of the 6 modelling scenarios over 13 regions from a 100 page report isn't enough - too much is left as secret sauce.
I too would love a deep dive on this, but don't think this study leads to an avoidance of significant new clean energy infrastructure build out. An update in expectations in that direction would be a really big deal, if this is really just a story about AC replacement that's probably not controversial or surprising at all - and still very important in the coming years.
The report would be better, but longer, if it considered local distribution infrastructure in addition to transmission and generation. There are significant costs in transformers, substations, service lines, meters, etc. that should be considered.
However, adoption of GHP may require new infrastructure to handle increased winter peak demand, the infrastructure requirement to support any other form of electric heat (electric resistance, or air-source heat pumps) would be much greater. GHPs use grid-provided electrical energy much more efficiently than the alternatives. (i.e. if a GHP operates at COP = 4, then 3 units of renewable, site-sourced heat are harvested and delivered to the home for every 1 unit of grid energy consumed.) Also, unlike air-source systems whose efficiency is very dependent on outside air temperature, GHP system efficiency is largely independent of outside air temperature. Air-source systems are dramatically less efficient than normal on the coldest and hottest days of the year -- which are precisely the times when we need the most efficient systems to be running.
There are a lot of variations on how HPs will affect the local distribution network, not all bad. In the SE, a lot of homes now have crappy ASHPs with resistance heat backup, causing winter peaks. Replacing these with ccASHPs w/o strip heat will reduce winter peaks. In many mixed climates, the winter peak from replacing gas with ccASHPs will be close to or smaller than the current summer AC peak.
In cold places, where AC is not common, HPs will increase the building, distribution and system peaks. Assuming some rational pricing and policies, various DER and VPP and efficiency strategies and some GSHPs will be used to minimize the associated cost. Maybe distribution upgrades are needed, maybe not. An excellent recent post from Canary covers how peak load minimization is being done on the micro level to electrify homes w/o increasing panel size. Lots of work in the PNW on aspects of this.
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/electrification/yes-its-possible-to-electrify-a-home-on-just-100-amps
Over and out!
Is the baseline electric resistance heating (e.g. trivially decarbonized grid and consumption)? I can't on my own, decode "...building sector energy consumption is consistent with Annual Energy Outlook (AEO) 2022 projections, and the CO2 emission policy remains the same as existing state policies, including renewable portfolio standards, clean energy standards, and CO2 emissions policies." but think of today's energy mix rather than some not yet realized usage mix as a baseline scenario. Since different states have different policies at the end of the day, this reads like the anything goes current state.
Against resistance heating, sure GHPs are going to look amazing in nearly every dimension (renters, for instance, aren't going to have a solo GHP option). This choice really begs the question.
To sum myself up.
To suggest that infrastructure investment required to facilitate the transition is proportional to total national electricity demand is to think like a utility that can only monetize CapEx. That's a big implicit assumption in the starting point for the analysis, and would likely benefit from reviewing the content of today's podcast.
I keep thinking that, just maybe, a workable answer might be better provided by smaller economic units, like isolated homesteads, providing their own power. The individual then has more control over energy use and production at any instant. This requires and rewards individual responsibility. I remember when I lived in a large dormitory, for instance, that we would often have to open the windows wide in winter because the heat, though regulated building- and zone-wide, was excessive.
I've been thinking the same thing lately, as a way to avoid delivering more power to the borg to feed useless economic activity like mining cryptocurrency or other Jevon's paradox behaviors. An ideal farmstead might use agrivoltaics to increase farm yield and reduce water consumption, with electricity overages shunted to electrolyzers to generate hydrogen, for fuel or ammonia for fertilizer in a closed loop, displacing fossil fertilizer. Independent farmers might get excited about harvesting more from the land and producing their own inputs if the time and complexity could be kept low. Or, in a small community that shares resources, provides benefits and shows respect.
It seems you're all in for high-tech solutions, and aggrandizing or grouping "small farmers," but I'm not sure we really need all the power production. The big question involves production and consumption in smaller groupings, along with high moral standards for all.
I'm all in for solutions that displace fossil fuels, that work in the real world, technically and culturally.
Talk about perfect timing for an episode to drop!
I spent Thursday at a community meeting in central North Carolina, talking with town leadership to explain the potential benefits and allay worries around a future utility-scale solar installation coming to the area.
Exactly as Dr. Hicks described, we were a collection of nonprofit organizations that work here in the state, as well as the project manager and community engagement team from the solar developer (I've had a long relationship with this developer as well, from my days working in engineering). It also helped that my organization, and the org that held the community meeting, are made up of people of color who have family in small towns just like the one we were visiting. An excellent discussion was held, and I think the town's leadership and citizens who were able to attend are a lot more receptive to not only this project, but others as well.
For my organization, this is a process we've been replicating for a little over a year here, previously around engaging very rural (and often very red) local governments and groups around Inflation Reduction Act programs and opportunities, but now around any other potential programs that will be available in the near future.
If anybody's interested in the work we're doing, feel free to reach out:
https://commondefense.us/2022-climate-briefing
Ted, that's awesome! Thanks for doing this work, it's so important.
Listening to this podcast, the reconciliation process with our indigenous communities seems to be a relevant parallel challenge: growing community resistance to business initiatives & the need for bespoke and patient engagement.
Take the time to determine how much, lithium, copper and silver, will be needed to produce zero emissions world you are contemplating. You will find it will take up to 10 times the current production level for the next 30 years. It is an impossible task. Before you label me a Denver you should know I have not paid a dime to the electric company because of my solar system, and have had a Tesla for 2 years.
I still have enough sense to see solar, wind and batteries are an impractical solution for the country and the world. Particular when China and India are adding coal fired electric plants at a prodigious rate.
The only practical solution is nuclear power.
Fritz, this generic Nuke Bro boilerplate is not relevant to the topic of the podcast. Please keep your comments relevant or we'll ask you to leave.
Hi Hudson, this comment is inappropriate/caustic. It'll probably be deleted, or possibly I may leave it up so people can get an idea of what isn't appropriate for a Volts comments section.
You are calling a solution to global climate crises self-promotion? All information shared is to help initiate dialogue on the true path to a regenerative future.
Hmmm, on topic. I'm not sure how much local buy-in constitutes enough? How long and inclusive process is enough? In AZ very recently, after a 15 year process, a tribe got powerline construction stopped, though only for a month. Claiming, of course, lack of consultation, cultural destruction, etc. The hysterical preservation society in Newport RI is suing about offshore wind turbines already under construction. Just FYI, the offshore wind industry is on the hook for all kinds of training, good wages, community impact funds...
When I listen to community NGO/education types, there always seems to be a LOT of process involved in organizing, meetings and distributing benefits. I really like the approach of Octopus Energy; if you live close to our wind/solar farms you get dirt cheap electricity when we are producing. AND we'll help set up DERs so you can take advantage of that.
There are some good insights here, but like here, down under the anti-renewables PR and politicking is making more and more and seemingly effective noise. The renew biz folks there write about the capture of at least one state planning department by anti-wind sentiment, or maybe just fear. In US states, we are seeing town and county gov'ts passing regs essentially banning renewables before they even see a proposal. I just read about one with a two-mile setback to wind or solar I think.
Sadly, the seemingly natural allies of renewables are flaking out. I just read a post from a leader of a major Colorado environmental organization saying that renewable generation doesn't save any electricity, it just enables more electricity use. And that progressive enviros should stop "carbon tunnel vision" and support RFK Jr who will return us to some distant golden age of bipartisan environmental kumbaya.
It is of CRITICAL IMPORTANCE to understand that all the effort now being exhausted on reducing emissions is WORSENING THE CLIMATE CRISIS. The only way we can reverse climate change quickly is to DRAW DOWN CO2 from the atmosphere with regenerative agriculture (The Australian Key Line plow is an essential part of this solution.), holistic (Savory method) livestock management, agricultural "waste" fuel logs for cooking fuel in the developing world to prevent burning wood (which is the number one cause of worldwide deforestation) and other draw down methods. The Heart Mind Alliance (.com) has had ten years of experience fuel log production in El Salvador and Bolivia (heartmindalliance@gmail.com). The greenhouse effect cannot be reduced by cutting back on emissions only as doing so will take hundreds of years the planet would not survive due to an irreversible extinction collapse by reaching a tipping point within 5 years, or so, according to scientists worldwide. National energy policies must address this truth now avoided as it is not as profitable as replacing automobiles, building solar and wind farms and transmission lines. We must get the word out and change our national policies to reverse climate change now. We know the way out of hell. Looking forward, Bob Dunsmore Founder and president of the Heart Mind Alliance (.com) which has launched the block-chain secured direct vote website: https://wethepeople.directvotedemocracy.com now asking the nation the First Question. Based on the Australian FLUX party direct vote platform.
Producer of the documentary "Bolivia Beyond Belief" (on You Tube) regarding the Bolivian Democratic Revolution I witnessed while living in Bolivia from 2005 to 2008
Initiated as an Andean Cosmovision Amauta
After working in 20 countries in community development Bob created a You Tube channel with 135 videos of the most successful appropriate technologies solving critical development needs in those countries: "Community-based Appropriate Technologies"
Served as Area Director for South America and the Caribbean for Habitat for Humanity
Reflexologist certified by the International Institute of Reflexology
Founder of Colorado's San Luis Valley Solar Energy Association and Alamosa Childrens' School
Founder of the Rio Arriba Bioregional Council and the Espanola Valley Community Council, New Mexico
Author of I Am: A Journey Through Times and Spaces and the book The Great Mandate (available via Kindle)
Grandfather of three
Hey Bob, this comment is a little bit too off-topic, which isn't necessarily cause for moderation, but it goes over the edge due to the self-promotion. I think it may have a place in our monthly community thread. It'll probably be deleted, or possibly I may leave it up so people can get an idea of what isn't quite appropriate for this Volts comments section.
It is exactly relevant. Pushing local communities to spend on uneconomic solar and windmills is a waste of time and money. Of course if I am right there is no need for Volts.
Hi Hudson, this comment is inappropriate/caustic. It'll probably be deleted, or possibly I may leave it up so people can get an idea of what isn't appropriate for a Volts comments section.