High-Voltage Lines Wouldn’t Need State Action Under Senate Plan

(Here is an update on legislation pertaining to the transmission corridors meant to bring renewable energy from the central U.S. to the coasts):

March 10 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. regulators would take from states the authority to approve certain high-voltage power lines in order to speed development of renewable energy, under draft legislation released by a Senate panel today.

The proposal by the Democratic staff of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, posted online, would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission authority to approve lines that would carry electricity such as wind and solar energy.

President Barack Obama has called for the U.S. to build 3,000 miles of new transmission lines and double renewable energy use by 2012. The proposed legislation would eliminate an obstacle to the goal that has been cited by builders of power lines: individual states blocking multi-state projects.

“This is only one step toward a truly comprehensive energy security bill, but it is an important one,” said Robbie Diamond, president of Securing America’s Future Energy, a nonpartisan group that supports reducing U.S. oil dependence.

The draft measure would increase the authority FERC gained under 2005 legislation, which let it approve power lines if states failed to act within a year of an application. Federal siting authority would apply to power-line projects of 345 kilovolts or higher that are included in a FERC-designated group’s regional transmission plan.

Economic stimulus legislation signed last month by the president includes $11 billion for new transmission lines and improving the nation’s power grid.

The energy committee, led by Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, plans to hold a hearing on March 12 to consider new transmission-line legislation.

“It’s not a Bingaman draft, necessarily,” David Marks, spokesman for the committee, said of the proposal in a telephone interview. “These are ideas that the committee staff has proposed.”

Reid’s Plan:
The committee will also consider transmission legislation offered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Reid, a Nevada Democrat, last week introduced legislation that would give FERC authority to step in to approve transmission projects in areas designated as “renewable energy zones.”

Rob Thormeyer, a spokesman for the Washington-based National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, said in an e-mail his group is “still analyzing” the legislation.

Renewable-power supporters, including wind-power developer T. Boone Pickens, have called for greater federal authority over high-voltage transmission. Renewable-energy projects such as wind and solar power are often located in areas far from major urban centers, where the demand for power is greatest.

A study released last month by regional grid operators estimated that more than $80 billion in new transmission infrastructure spending would be needed to get 20 percent of the eastern U.S.’s electricity from wind by 2024.

Source: Bloomberg.com

Wind Power Brings Down the Clearing Price of Electricity

I will beging working as a wind developer after graduating from UT in May. In doing my preliminary research for my Master's thesis, I stumbled upon a white paper that discusses the central issue that my thesis will examine: how has introducing wind power into the ERCOT grid (i.e. the Texas grid) impacted wholesale electricity prices (and ultimately the prices paid by the end consumer).

It turns out that, contrary to wind opponent claims that developing wind power actually increases the power price on a given power grid, wind actually brings down the clearing price of electricity by offsetting the most expensive generators. Studies of the German grid have shown this to be the case, and I will be doing some simple modeling to try to estimate the effect in ERCOT.

The paper is worth a look. It can be found by clicking here.

Can We Staff a Cleaner Energy Industry?

This article brings up a side of the climate change mitigation effort that doesn't get a whole lot of attention. If we want to make all of these changes to how we create and use energy, who is going to do the work? For some efforts, changes to the labor force may be simple, such as farmers switching to fuel crops or grid operators learning to better handle intermittent power supply from renewable energy sources. For others, entire new industries need to be created, recreated, or grown at astronomical rates.

According to the linked article, we are building wind turbines faster than we can train technicians with the knowledge of weather and wind power and the grit to climb and service the 200ft towers in day, night, rain, sleet, and snow. Some of these issues may be unique to the wind power industry, but it is not the only technology that could suffer such a shortage. I have also heard Dr. Bryant, PGE Professor at UT and head of that department's CO2 Storage research group, speak strongly for the dire need to educate and train an entirely new breed of engineer if CO2 storage is to be feasible at a large scale. This issue is entirely separate of any concerns with the technology itself. I read an article in Manufacturing & Technology News a while back that stressed that even if public perception and policy barriers to new nuclear power were removed today, the U.S. no longer has the level of expertise or the manufacturing capability to drive a rapid resurgence in that industry.

However the world decides to approach climate change mitigation over the course of this century, it will involve a major restructuring of our material infrastructure as well as of our labor force. A breakthrough technology can be created by one team in a lab, but it takes an army to commercialize it. Lack of a properly trained workforce can be as big a hurdle as any in commercializing new technology, so it will be interesting to see if labor shortages prove to rival other technological and political barriers to energy technologies that seek to mitigate climate change.

Deep Water Wind in Scotland is a good sign for Texas

The Wall Street Journal ran an interesting story today about the installation of the world's two largest wind turbines in deep water off the east coast of Scotland. The United Kingdom has rapidly declining oil and gas production in the North Sea, requirements to generate 20% of their power from renewable sources by 2020, and excellent off-shore wind. Because they are concerned about unemployed energy sector workers from the loss of oil and gas production, the idea is to convert them into wind energy workers, which also allows industry to take advantages of its deep-water assets (that is, its platforms), while making progress towards their renewable targets. Seems promsing.

I often joke that the wind is where the people are not, because no one wants to live where it's windy. Except for the Scots. And now they can turn their hardy indifference to wind into a money maker.

Sounds like a great idea, and Texas can do something similar. We have extensive expertise in offshore construction, excellent wind in the Gulf of Mexico, and declining oil and gas production. Maybe it's time for us to accelerate our offshore wind farm construction? The only thing we lack are similarly aggresive renewable power targets for 2020...

....oh, and a whole lot of money. Deep water wind capacity is almost a factor of ten more expensive per kilowatt than wind-fueled capacity in the West Texas flatlands. But, at least it doesn't ruin any rachers' views.