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natural gas

Image of broken mirror with text that reads '24-7 carbon-free energy hall of mirrors'

24-7 Carbon-Free Energy Hall of Mirrors

By Energy Rant No Comments
The ESG cabal seems to be drawing up another hall of mirrors to persuade credulous stakeholders and bystanders that they are siphoning only carbon-free energy (CFE) from the electric grid. The Electric Power Research Institute calls it 24-7 carbon-free energy, oddly enough. “Large companies from Starbucks to eBay have pledged 100% renewable energy targets to offset greenhouse gas emissions from their electricity use. Recently, several large companies, including Google, Microsoft, and others, have started procuring something called carbon-free energy that more closely matches their corporate electricity load on a 24/7 hourly basis. This is known as 24/7 carbon-free energy.” Unquestionably,…
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Micro Rant Harvest

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It’s fall, and that means it’s harvest season. So, this week, we’re providing a cornucopia of micro rants and information. I’m Alexa, and I’m Here to Help This headline caught my eye, ‘Alexa, I’m cold’: Government teams up with Amazon for energy saving campaign. The world’s fifth largest company, dominant retailer, data center behemoth, and tech giant partners with the government to use its in-home listening device. What could possibly go wrong? I recommend 1984, the book. EV Repair Black Market The Wall Street Journal reported, via email, that totaled Teslas from Western nations are being shipped to Ukraine and a…
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The TRC Is Calling – Has Anyone Seen 1979?

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Last week Michaels Energy delivered a webinar, Achieving Grid Resiliency with Thermal Energy Storage. There are about 70 gigawatts of refrigeration load in the United States frozen storage and chilled-water HVAC systems alone. That 70 GW does not include distributors like Sysco or U.S. Foods, grocery distribution centers like Walmart or Kroger, food manufacturers like Tyson or Nestle, grocery stores, convenience stores, or restaurants. Add it all up, and well over 10% of the total peak load in the U.S. is sitting there in bags, boxes, and buckets of food, waiting to be used as a flexible load-shifting and management…
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Renewable Interconnection Chaos

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A couple of weeks ago, I drove across Southern Minnesota, starting in the SW where wind alley is, and therefore, hundreds, or maybe thousands of wind turbines. The following was my observation while cruising I-90. Since the turbines were not spinning, I can only assume that excessive wind forced the Midcontinent Independent System Operator to curtail several hundred megawatts of wind generation. This, for one reason, is why net zero is as worthless as a three-dollar bill, but also, utilities have power purchase agreements with these non-spinning resources, right? Who pays? The MISO hub prices were as follows that day.…
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Phony Avoided Cost Models in a Free-Agent Market

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The last two posts, Nuclear Power over the White Rabbit and the Clean Power Plan Corpse, demonstrated the fruits of an undiversified baseload fleet of power generation. Electricity prices, which were so low during most of my career that few cared about them, are soaring as natural gas - the basket in which all eggs lie - has become a global fuel. I predicted this as recently as 2017; Reverse Diversification Coming to a Utility Near You. Solar, wind, and storage will never compete with thermal baseload power generation in our lifetimes. I’m covering three things in this post due…
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Channeling Patton for Energy Policy

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Of 34 personality characteristics, my top strength, according to Gallup CliftonStrengths®, is “context.” What does context mean, according to Gallup? History. Gallup describes the history strength: “You look back. You look back because that is where the answers lie. You look back to understand the present. From your vantage point, the present is unstable, a confusing clamor of competing voices. It is only by casting your mind back to an earlier time when the plans were being drawn up that the present regains its stability. The earlier time was a simpler time. It was a time of blueprints.” Hmm. This…
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Profiles in Decarb – I Call Ham

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When I started at Michaels millennia ago, we had a brilliant walking encyclopedia of knowledge and engineering know-how. His name was Dave Hamilton, or Ham for short. He was probably 30 years older than me. My boss at the time said Ham knew the answer to any problem. Younger engineers would spend a few weeks to prove he was right. Scaling Electrification A couple of weeks ago, in the final of a series on electrification prompted by the EPRI conference in Charlotte, I wrote in Electrification at Scale that decarb fans need to 1) brace for consequences such as 9,000…
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Rant Revelations Unleashed

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This week in concert with critical thought prompted by the EPRI electrification conference, I introduce Rant Revelations. Some are not new, but it is time to start a list. Profit Rules Decarbonization can only happen if it is profitable. That is how we decarbonized to current levels. Whether it’s production tax credits for wind energy that make coal not competitive or high natural gas prices that make coal competitive, profit wins. In time the piper will be paid as intermittent and subsidized renewable energy will run out its string of lowering energy prices requiring new thermal generation to avoid grid…
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Managing Utility Bills with Automation and Information

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Another week and we have two more dire warning shots of forecast blackouts this summer. These come from The Wall Street Journal and describe challenges from the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) region to California. Michigan’s Palisades Nuclear Generating Station shut down permanently on May 20th taking out 6.5% (800 MW) of the state’s electricity supply (gulp). The Journal notes it is part of Michigan’s transition to all renewable energy. They also write that it was slated for closure for five years, but Governor Whitmer waited to throw a last-minute Hail Mary just one month before closure to the federal…
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100 Years and 50,000 Feet Over Ukraine

By Energy Rant No Comments
I’m breaking my word from last week’s natural gas shakedown in which I noted I would write about customer intolerance for high energy prices this week. Since then, a kerfuffle has broken out in the Eurasian landmass. I was asked if I might be interested in writing about that, especially regarding energy. No! I don’t know much about it; it won’t impact our energy supply, and we should not get involved. After listening to some podcasts and news clips, my Gallup “strengths” got the best of me. My top four strengths are posted on the left, with a layperson’s definition…
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