Wow. Yet another "3rd way" kinda guy or gal. They are starting to (OK, keep on) annoying me. Clearly he and his staff are hanging around with the usual suspects.
Much jive. First, "China copies, doesn't invent/innovate like the awesome USA." Wrong. They are kicking our ass in energy research, patents, manufacturing, etc. EVs, PHEVs, EREVs, drones, batteries... In some cases they just buy out our IP, it's true. While not a "critical" tech, see what just happened w/Roomba. All our kids went into finance tech instead of real engineering. And turns out they aren't even very good at fintech.
Anyway, at least he's talking "renewables" and "solar" specifically.
All the military and ex-military folks see "SMRs" on Navy ships, but they don't realize they produce power at $0.50+/kWh. Also, floating in a sea of cooling water. AZ has no more water to cool reactors.
Texas. OK, TX's advantage is twofold: Connect at your risk (of being curtailed) to the grid and also state law that says energy development on private property is "use by right." Thus no county commissions saying willing landowners can't build wind and solar. And yes, less fed land.
AZ actually has a decent solar electric fraction. It's in the top 10 of solar/consumption. Maybe 7 or so. Higher than Colorado! Higher than Texas. TX has Yuge kWh/capita. AZ has lots of solar and batteries planned. AZ exports a lot of electricity. Some states with high solar fractions (RI, VT) are rated by calc'ing at solar/generation, but they import 50% of their consumption.
Anyway. Full court press on storage/battery "innovation." Put 10x more $s in.
"Innovation" is not usually "revolutionary," it's incremental. Ask Tom Edison.
Nuclear elsewhere! Catch it via innovative agrivoltaics (Yugely water-saving as per Barron-Gifford at ASU's inadequately funded center at the old Biosphere), grid-forming inverters, meter collars, sodium-ion batteries based on lithium-ion manufacturing, ADLS and bird/bat sensing for wind turbines with noise suppressing trailing edge blades, hail/wind resistant solar, magic balls & linevision and enhanced conductors for GETS...)
I actually find this focus on "innovation" being fusion/SMRs as kind of insulting to the 100s of 1000s beavering away on continuous improvement and cost reductions for real active decarbonization. Bloomberg has a recent article on how the FF folks have helped whip up nuke optimism.
If you want quick-acting, visible, tangible, affordable, local renewable energy delivered directly to your rate-paying political constituents, just do what France & South Korea have done. Mandate solar canopy micro grids at ALL large (>80 spaces) parking lots, NATIONWIDE, within 5 years. Or, map the locations of all the parking lots in your town that are suitable for micro grids, and create expedited permitting that allows microgrid developers to rapidly construct multiple projects with pre-approved modular system designs & engineering. That's how school districts have rapidly installed new modular classrooms at existing school sites in California for decades. Not moon-shots.
Enhanced & Advanced Geothermal energy are more likely to capture the bulk of the 24/7 firm power market than small modular nuclear reactors. If only because they're already much further along on the cost reduction phase, and they don't have the nuclear waste/ recycling problem. US BigOil&Gas can rapidly monopolize both US geothermal and offshore wind resources and use the surplus energy to produce synthetic ammonia & jet fuel whenever they choose to do so.
Loved this interview--very knowledgeable, refreshingly direct politician. Who knew this existed? Bit of a blind spot on the nuclear but not at the expense of established, fast, cheap renewables so we can live with that. Ezra Klein "Abundance" is considered by some climate people as a bit of a corporate trojan horse, ie. the latest strategy from oil and gas to delay transition and loosen regs.
Senators Manchin & Synema effectively blocked, delayed the start of national investment in renewables manufacturing, jobs by 1 year in 2021, to 2022. IMO that was a crucial year lost re: progress of domestic renewables manufacturing & jobs.
OK, this probably belongs in a comment on the first of these three pods with "moderate" climate people and groups, the Giving Green guy. But it's an Arizona story, solar story, ag story, water story, politics story so...
The "Semi-Arid Lab for Scaling Agrivoltaics" at Univ Az, was defunded of $5M by the feds, and a Tucson-based family office stepped in and just replace that $ for the next three years. Beautiful! Worth checking out what they do! (SALSAV.org)
What’s interesting here is how much of the political narrative assumes that households and individuals can absorb transition costs incrementally, even as many people are already operating with very little slack.
There’s a growing gap between policy ambition and the lived reality of people trying to make long-term decisions about work, housing, and family under uncertainty. Pieces like this help clarify where that gap is opening.
Just a thought on "innovation" or not. Geothermal and fission and fusion are all thermal powerplants and IMHO are archaic, not innovative. The 3rd Way, etc., types are trying so hard to duplicate existing jobs in thermal coal powerplants, and w/geo, drilling jobs, that they are looking backwards. Unless cogen can be utilized, thermal powerplants are inherently inefficient, throwing away 60% of nuclear heat and 85% of geothermal heat. (Sure PV & wind "throw away" some of their sites' sun and wind, but they don't actually collect it first. And PV, OMG, straight from photons to electrons!)
I do think we (the energy transition folks) have kinda failed at providing replacement jobs/industry at some of the retiring coal plants. It's very difficult because the operating engineers at powerplants are sort of the royalty of union labor. And with good reason, they screw up and they or others get scalded or worse, and tens of millions of dollars of equipment goes boom.
IMHO, one industry that might make sense for these workers would be building big honking custom natural refrigerant heat pumps. Firstly, rotating machinery is involved. Second, toxic, high pressure and flammable fluids are used. (R717-ammonia, R744-carbon dioxide, Rxyz-hydrocarbons.) Subsidies would be needed at the more remote coal plants, as they aren't in current manufacturing regions.
For a while I thought that coal miners would be redeployed to build tunnels for pumped hydro energy storage. Didn't happen. But PHES might be rendered obsolete now by fast to install and cheapish first cost batteries with much better round trip efficiency, again partly by avoiding losses of conversion from electricity to rotation to pressure and back.
But, really, just send all the staff and lobbyists on a month long trip to Australia. Especially those from the Western US. The Aussies have their rural anti-transition "backlash" too. But the biggest debate in the electric sector seems to be grid-forming inverters vs. synchronous condensers to allow "engines off" operation while wind solar and batteries carry the load. No nuke nonsense or geo jive.
By the way, the Government still hasn't cleaned up the Ratheyon/ Boeing, Box Canyon/ Santa Susana Pass Radiation Area in Los Angeles and Ventura California. NASA dumped radiation on us and it's still causing cancer and contaminating the water table. If you are not responsible for things like this, why should we support future nuclear power. Go to Thorium and avoid meltdowns. And clean up this meltdown AT LAST!!!
Trumps' largest recent employment deficits are in construction & manufacturing, the two most prominent sectors that were targeted for widely distributed growth by Biden's IRA, and which Trump has conspicuously throttled, by disinvesting in huge aggregate green energy projects. There's a big difference between the number & geographic distribution of scuttled IRA projects and the limited, centralized AI & crypto data center projects Trump is promoting, most of which are planned to be powered by new fossil gas generation, not massive new off-shore wind or other renewable resources.
Eventually, like maybe by 2040, they'll be powered by a combination of solar, wind & 24/7 advanced geothermal energy, but not now. BigOil&Gas got the reprieve they paid Trump for. China & Europe aren't buying it, and if Moody's reporting is accurate, neither are most long term investors. Republicans would have done themselves a huge favor by simply claiming credit for all the IRA developments and re-branding them as their own creation. They obviously aren't smart enough to do that. Look how they keep trying to kill Obama-Care for their own voters.
Look into Thorium Powered Plants. And Data Companies are making money off my personal information which I did not give them permission to use or distribute. In addition they're getting my tax money to inflict themselves on me and monitor my every breath. Big Brother is not desirable.
Wow. Yet another "3rd way" kinda guy or gal. They are starting to (OK, keep on) annoying me. Clearly he and his staff are hanging around with the usual suspects.
Much jive. First, "China copies, doesn't invent/innovate like the awesome USA." Wrong. They are kicking our ass in energy research, patents, manufacturing, etc. EVs, PHEVs, EREVs, drones, batteries... In some cases they just buy out our IP, it's true. While not a "critical" tech, see what just happened w/Roomba. All our kids went into finance tech instead of real engineering. And turns out they aren't even very good at fintech.
Anyway, at least he's talking "renewables" and "solar" specifically.
All the military and ex-military folks see "SMRs" on Navy ships, but they don't realize they produce power at $0.50+/kWh. Also, floating in a sea of cooling water. AZ has no more water to cool reactors.
Texas. OK, TX's advantage is twofold: Connect at your risk (of being curtailed) to the grid and also state law that says energy development on private property is "use by right." Thus no county commissions saying willing landowners can't build wind and solar. And yes, less fed land.
AZ actually has a decent solar electric fraction. It's in the top 10 of solar/consumption. Maybe 7 or so. Higher than Colorado! Higher than Texas. TX has Yuge kWh/capita. AZ has lots of solar and batteries planned. AZ exports a lot of electricity. Some states with high solar fractions (RI, VT) are rated by calc'ing at solar/generation, but they import 50% of their consumption.
Anyway. Full court press on storage/battery "innovation." Put 10x more $s in.
"Innovation" is not usually "revolutionary," it's incremental. Ask Tom Edison.
Nuclear elsewhere! Catch it via innovative agrivoltaics (Yugely water-saving as per Barron-Gifford at ASU's inadequately funded center at the old Biosphere), grid-forming inverters, meter collars, sodium-ion batteries based on lithium-ion manufacturing, ADLS and bird/bat sensing for wind turbines with noise suppressing trailing edge blades, hail/wind resistant solar, magic balls & linevision and enhanced conductors for GETS...)
I actually find this focus on "innovation" being fusion/SMRs as kind of insulting to the 100s of 1000s beavering away on continuous improvement and cost reductions for real active decarbonization. Bloomberg has a recent article on how the FF folks have helped whip up nuke optimism.
If you want quick-acting, visible, tangible, affordable, local renewable energy delivered directly to your rate-paying political constituents, just do what France & South Korea have done. Mandate solar canopy micro grids at ALL large (>80 spaces) parking lots, NATIONWIDE, within 5 years. Or, map the locations of all the parking lots in your town that are suitable for micro grids, and create expedited permitting that allows microgrid developers to rapidly construct multiple projects with pre-approved modular system designs & engineering. That's how school districts have rapidly installed new modular classrooms at existing school sites in California for decades. Not moon-shots.
Enhanced & Advanced Geothermal energy are more likely to capture the bulk of the 24/7 firm power market than small modular nuclear reactors. If only because they're already much further along on the cost reduction phase, and they don't have the nuclear waste/ recycling problem. US BigOil&Gas can rapidly monopolize both US geothermal and offshore wind resources and use the surplus energy to produce synthetic ammonia & jet fuel whenever they choose to do so.
Loved this interview--very knowledgeable, refreshingly direct politician. Who knew this existed? Bit of a blind spot on the nuclear but not at the expense of established, fast, cheap renewables so we can live with that. Ezra Klein "Abundance" is considered by some climate people as a bit of a corporate trojan horse, ie. the latest strategy from oil and gas to delay transition and loosen regs.
Is there still a ~5 year backlog to receive a combined cycle gas turbine?
Senators Manchin & Synema effectively blocked, delayed the start of national investment in renewables manufacturing, jobs by 1 year in 2021, to 2022. IMO that was a crucial year lost re: progress of domestic renewables manufacturing & jobs.
OK, this probably belongs in a comment on the first of these three pods with "moderate" climate people and groups, the Giving Green guy. But it's an Arizona story, solar story, ag story, water story, politics story so...
The "Semi-Arid Lab for Scaling Agrivoltaics" at Univ Az, was defunded of $5M by the feds, and a Tucson-based family office stepped in and just replace that $ for the next three years. Beautiful! Worth checking out what they do! (SALSAV.org)
https://sbs.arizona.edu/news/funding-agrivoltaics-fuels-energy-food-and-water-futures
What’s interesting here is how much of the political narrative assumes that households and individuals can absorb transition costs incrementally, even as many people are already operating with very little slack.
There’s a growing gap between policy ambition and the lived reality of people trying to make long-term decisions about work, housing, and family under uncertainty. Pieces like this help clarify where that gap is opening.
Just a thought on "innovation" or not. Geothermal and fission and fusion are all thermal powerplants and IMHO are archaic, not innovative. The 3rd Way, etc., types are trying so hard to duplicate existing jobs in thermal coal powerplants, and w/geo, drilling jobs, that they are looking backwards. Unless cogen can be utilized, thermal powerplants are inherently inefficient, throwing away 60% of nuclear heat and 85% of geothermal heat. (Sure PV & wind "throw away" some of their sites' sun and wind, but they don't actually collect it first. And PV, OMG, straight from photons to electrons!)
I do think we (the energy transition folks) have kinda failed at providing replacement jobs/industry at some of the retiring coal plants. It's very difficult because the operating engineers at powerplants are sort of the royalty of union labor. And with good reason, they screw up and they or others get scalded or worse, and tens of millions of dollars of equipment goes boom.
IMHO, one industry that might make sense for these workers would be building big honking custom natural refrigerant heat pumps. Firstly, rotating machinery is involved. Second, toxic, high pressure and flammable fluids are used. (R717-ammonia, R744-carbon dioxide, Rxyz-hydrocarbons.) Subsidies would be needed at the more remote coal plants, as they aren't in current manufacturing regions.
For a while I thought that coal miners would be redeployed to build tunnels for pumped hydro energy storage. Didn't happen. But PHES might be rendered obsolete now by fast to install and cheapish first cost batteries with much better round trip efficiency, again partly by avoiding losses of conversion from electricity to rotation to pressure and back.
But, really, just send all the staff and lobbyists on a month long trip to Australia. Especially those from the Western US. The Aussies have their rural anti-transition "backlash" too. But the biggest debate in the electric sector seems to be grid-forming inverters vs. synchronous condensers to allow "engines off" operation while wind solar and batteries carry the load. No nuke nonsense or geo jive.
Minor correction, Kari Lake is a former News Reader, never a Governor.
By the way, the Government still hasn't cleaned up the Ratheyon/ Boeing, Box Canyon/ Santa Susana Pass Radiation Area in Los Angeles and Ventura California. NASA dumped radiation on us and it's still causing cancer and contaminating the water table. If you are not responsible for things like this, why should we support future nuclear power. Go to Thorium and avoid meltdowns. And clean up this meltdown AT LAST!!!
Trumps' largest recent employment deficits are in construction & manufacturing, the two most prominent sectors that were targeted for widely distributed growth by Biden's IRA, and which Trump has conspicuously throttled, by disinvesting in huge aggregate green energy projects. There's a big difference between the number & geographic distribution of scuttled IRA projects and the limited, centralized AI & crypto data center projects Trump is promoting, most of which are planned to be powered by new fossil gas generation, not massive new off-shore wind or other renewable resources.
Eventually, like maybe by 2040, they'll be powered by a combination of solar, wind & 24/7 advanced geothermal energy, but not now. BigOil&Gas got the reprieve they paid Trump for. China & Europe aren't buying it, and if Moody's reporting is accurate, neither are most long term investors. Republicans would have done themselves a huge favor by simply claiming credit for all the IRA developments and re-branding them as their own creation. They obviously aren't smart enough to do that. Look how they keep trying to kill Obama-Care for their own voters.
Look into Thorium Powered Plants. And Data Companies are making money off my personal information which I did not give them permission to use or distribute. In addition they're getting my tax money to inflict themselves on me and monitor my every breath. Big Brother is not desirable.