Wind Power in Vermont, After the Election: Guy Page Guest Post

Since Election Day,  the future of Vermont wind power is less certain

 Guest post by Guy Page

Election Day, November 8, 2016, was bleak for the future of ridgeline wind power in Vermont. The outcome of local, state and national voting signaled a vote of no confidence in the growth of utility-scale wind power in the Green Mountain State.

Local voting
Iberdrola, developers of the 24 turbine Styles Brook project, promised host towns Grafton and Windham there would be no development without voter approval by referendum. On November 8, Grafton voted 235-158 and Windham 180-101 against construction, and Iberdrola has said it will honor its commitment.

Local Vetoes a Harbinger
The Windham-Grafton vote was the latest in a line of anti-wind development referenda. Unimpressed by the 2016 Vermont Legislature’s conditional gift of slightly more say in the energy siting process, municipalities are now bypassing Montpelier. If this trend of “permission by referendum” continues, towns will have carved out a local veto power for themselves over ridgeline wind development. A new precedent is being set. This is Vermont, after all. One way or another, local people will jealously protect their control of the landscape.

State Results
During the governor’s race, candidate Phil Scott promised a moratorium on ridgeline wind development if elected governor. His opponent, Sue Minter, did not. Voters chose Scott by a nine-point margin. Minter even lost hometown Waterbury, where just 34 percent of residents (Waterbury Town Plan, page 65) support local development of utility-scale wind power. Of course, many others issues stirred voters, but the impact of the unpopularity of ridgeline development cannot be denied.

Statewide Policy
Gov. Scott is expected to keep his promise of a moratorium. He will almost certainly appoint a like-minded commissioner to lead the Department of Public Service, the state’s energy regulator. Most importantly, the term of Vermont Public Service Board Chairman James Volz expires in March 2017. Under his watch, ridgeline wind projects in Lowell, Georgia and Sheffield were approved and constructed. Governor-elect Scott’s choice to chair the PSB is anyone’s guess, but the logical choice would be a fellow ridgeline wind skeptic.

Presidential Election
President-elect Donald Trump has said wind power kills too many eagles and is an inefficient energy source, according to many media outlets. Trump also publicly called global warming a hoax and said he would restore the U.S. coal industry. In December 2015, he lost a lengthy battle to stop a wind turbine project offshore from his Scotland golf course.

National Outlook
The wind industry can be thankful that Congress extended the 2.3 cent/kilowatt-hour Production Tax Credit in 2015, even though it drops 20% every year and expires in 2019. In an impromptu interview with VTEP in Montpelier on November 22, U.S. Congressman Peter Welch said the Republicans who now control both houses of Congress “hate renewables” and that Trump supports fossil fuels. Wind power backers should not expect any new help from Congress or the new administration, he said.

This is especially likely to be true if Trump’s next Secretary of the Energy is his energy advisor, Oklahoma billionaire Harold Hamm. According to a November 19 Forbes article citing him as a leading DOE Secretary candidate, Hamm is the son of a poor sharecropper who built a trucking empire and then earned another fortune by hydrofracking oil and natural gas. Far from supporting wind subsidies, Hamm says wind should be taxed similarly to oil and gas – two percent on production in the first three years, and seven percent thereafter.

None of these local, state and national developments mean ridgeline wind has no future in Vermont. What government giveth, it taketh away, and may someday giveth back again. Thus, the next two state and federal election cycles may have different results. Still, one must wonder about the long-term sustainability of an industry that must rely not only on the ever-changing winds of nature, but also on the fickle winds of electoral politics.

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Guy Page with Great Grandfather
Urban Woodbury
Vermont Governor and
Civil War "empty sleeve"

Guy Page, a Berlin resident, is the Communications Director of the Vermont Energy Partnership, a coalition of Vermont individuals, trade, development and labor organizations, and businesses committed to clean, safe, affordable, reliable power in Vermont.  He is a frequent guest blogger at this blog.  His most recent post described how the Vermont Yankee decommissioning fund is supporting local schools.

The Distribution Grid: Christine Hallquist on Grid Controversies

Hallquist and the grid

Christine Hallquist, CEO of Vermont Electric Cooperative, presented the third class in my course: The Grid: What Your Electricity Bill Won't Tell You.

On May 3, 2016 at my class on grid issues, Hallquist described the grid  from the perspective of a rural electric cooperative in Vermont. She heads Vermont Electric Cooperative (VEC). This utility was one of the rural Cooperatives of the Rural Electrification movement: it was founded in 1938 to bring electricity to rural Vermont.  It is now the largest locally-owned electric distribution utility in Vermont.  VEC is dwarfed by Green Mountain Power, a utility with a very Vermont-y name. However, Green Mountain Power is actually a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gaz Metro of Quebec.

In my opinion, Vermont Electric Cooperative is the quintessential Vermont utility. It started in the Rural Electrification movement of the 30s, and and it is a cooperative in which the owners and the consumers are the same people.

Update 2018: The videos still exist, but their URLs have changed. Here's the link to this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zN0D_CAkKE


As CEO of VEC, Hallquist is concerned with the cost shifts involved in net metering, since  VEC's service area includes low income areas of Vermont. When your owners are your customers, you pay sincere attention to the economic issues.

Late in the talk, Hallquist also discusses grid stability.  Intermittent power tends to be destabilizing: the grid was set up for rotating electric machinery. Rotating machinery has a healthy inertia which helps keep the grid stable. Starting at about 1:20 (1 hour 20 minutes into the talk), Hallquist shows the jagged effects of wind and solar, and the almost un-analyzable harmonics of the intermittents on the grid.  Few utilities collect this type of data.

I am very grateful to Christine Hallquist for sharing her information and her wisdom with our class.

It happens first in a village

Agatha Christie's Miss Marple is able to solve crimes because she has carefully analyzed many (supposedly) smaller issues in a small village.

To a large extent, Vermont Electric Cooperative is a "village" for the growth of renewables.  The owner/customers are not rich, and they need to keep electricity costs low.  While places like Germany can boast of their renewables while simultaneously building lignite-fired plants, VEC is actually adding renewables and dealing directly with the costs and stability issues that renewables  present.

For example,  the owner/customers have made decisions, very recently,  on how to keep wind energy from being curtailed on their grid.  They are making decisions, right now, on how much net metering the customers can afford.

VEC is hopeful about advances in energy storage and weather forecasting and so forth. (See Hallquist's last slide on "What are we doing about it.")  But right now, there are very real limits for renewables on a small grid, and VEC is reaching those limits.

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Previous sessions 

The first session was The Grid: Power and Policy Introduction, and Howard Shaffer on the Physical Grid.  The second session was Payments on the Grid: What Every Citizen Should Know.  This post is the third session.  The fourth session was a field trip to ISO-NE, the grid operator headquarters.

Payments on the Grid: What Every Citizen Should Know

Payments on the Grid

In my opinion, payments and policy on the grid will determine our future energy mix.

Most people believe that they know about power sources: gas, nuclear, hydro, coal, solar, wind.  We know what the plants look like, and we have opinions.

In contrast, most people know almost nothing about the grid: how plants are dispatched, how plants are paid, what the controversies are.  Yet these grid-level decisions will determine our power mix in the future.


Update 2018: The video still exists, but its URL has changed.
Here's the new URL.
http://reflect-catv.cablecast.tv/vod/4853-OSHER-Grid-Class-2-April-2016-Medium-v1.mp4

I think that most people will learn something from watching this video, and pro-nuclear people will find it especially interesting.

(The first class session consisted of an introduction to the course, followed by an introduction to the physical  grid. Howard Shaffer gave the guest lecture on the physical grid. The entire first class session is posted at The Grid: Power and Policy Introduction and Shaffer on the Physical Grid.)

Nuclear Blogger Carnival 298, at Yes Vermont Yankee

Once again, we are proud to host the Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers, right here at Yes Vermont Yankee. The Carnival is a compendium of nuclear blogs that rotates from blog site to blog site, and it is always a pleasure and an honor to host it.

Let's start with blog posts directly about nuclear energy.  Nuclear power is moving forward, world-wide, despite opposition.

Fukushima Updates--Leslie Corrice

Takahama unit #3 restart

Takahama unit #3  has restarted, and this has spurred  numerous FUD-based press reports. The main reason is the use of MOX fuel bundles in 15% of the core. The postings also focus on allegedly inadequate emergency planning, the lack of a national nuclear waste disposal option, the inference that the only benefit of nukes is making money, and citizens claiming a violation of their human rights.

Neutron Bytes - Dan Yurman

SMR developers form advocacy group in DC

Leading developers and potential customers of small modular reactors (SMR) have formed a consortium, called SMR Smart, to advance the commercialization of the innovative light water reactor designs.

Also, developers of advanced nuclear reactors are pleased with their DC summit meeting held last week.

Next Big Future--Brian Wang

China plans on at least 110 Nuclear Reactors by 2030
Many will be 1400 MW or larger.  The Chinese supply chain is well in place.

Lightbridge is making progress on improved nuclear fuel
This fuel should increase energy production by 17% in existing reactors.

Bad air quality in Japan from lack of nuclear energy and air pollution in China
Hopefully, reactor restarts in Japan will ease the problem. But right now it is pretty bad, with 60% of monitoring sites in Japan above the particulate pollution standard. 

Neutron Bytes - Dan Yurman

French gov’t struggles to overcome a panic attack about UK’s Hinkley Point nuclear power project

French energy group EDF has postponed giving final approval for construction of the twin 1600 MW Areva EPRs in Somerset, UK. The current cost estimate, which is a work in progress, is pegged at between $18-20 billion.

The move to delay the final investment decision is said to have been made as a result of concerns within the French government and by investors about whether the financing was firmly in place for the huge project and whether costs could be contained over a decade long period of construction of the reactors.

Next:  Can renewables replace fossil fuel and nuclear?  Well, no. Here are some posts on that issue.

Forbes--James Conca
Exxon Believes That Global Use Of Oil And Gas Will Continue To Increase
The largest fossil fuel company in the world predicts our energy mix won’t change a whole lot over the next 25 years. In fact, Exxon Mobil projects that oil and gas will actually increase by 2040, even as coal decreases a bit. This unfortunate future stems from the age-old conundrum of trying not to eat sugar when your pockets are full of candy. The Earth has so much fossil fuel, and it has become so cheap to extract it, that it defies logic to think that humans will not keep burning it as their main source of energy.

Northwest Clean Energy--Meredith Angwin
Reality: Less nuclear means more natural gas
Vermont Yankee and San Onofre closed recently. Natural gas-fired plants took over and made the electricity that replaced the nuclear outputs.  Meanwhile, paper after paper, and study after study, trumpet the coming world of renewables.  These are just studies.  Though renewables maybe would'a, could'a, should'a replaced the closed plants, the reality is that less nuclear means more natural gas.

Atomic Insights--Rod Adams
Another day, another model “proving” capabilities of weather-dependent power

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) jointly published a paper about a new model they've created to simulate using weather-dependent energy sources to reduce greenhouse gas production from the US electricity sector. 

Their scenarios include generous amounts of natural gas, a nationwide HVDC transmission network,  and other conditions. Some news outlets have published headlines citing  the large reduction without noting the required conditions. Shocking, isn't it?

The Atomic Show (podcast)---Rod Adams

Atomic Show #249 - All Electric America by S. David Freeman and Leah Y Parks

Freeman has been actively doubting the value of nuclear energy since the mid 1970s. He's now in his 90s. Leah Y Parks is a writer who earned an MS in environmental engineering and has some experience in developing water infrastructure projects. She, like Freeman, believes that wind, solar and water can do it all, even if all energy now supplied by burning fossil fuels is converted to electricity.  The conversation is civil, even though the participants have unresolvable disagreements. 

Yes Vermont Yankee--Guest Post

Overreach at the Attorney General's Office: Guest post by Deborah Bucknam

In this case, strong-arm tactics are being used to promote renewable use, whether people want it or not. Recently, the Vermont Attorney general's office announced that they were investigating Annette Smith for possibly "practicing law without a license." Ms. Smith is a prominent anti-wind advocate.  In this guest post, Vermont lawyer Deborah Bucknam explains that the preposterous charge will likely be thrown out. Nevertheless, the charge will  hamper free speech and encourage wind developers. 

Updated: Overreach at the Attorney General's Office: Guest Post by Deborah Bucknam

I need to update this post with a link:

As described in the blog for Vermonters for a Clean Environment, the complaint about Annette Smith originated with David Blittersdorf, a wind developer in Vermont. 
https://vermontersforacleanenvironment.wordpress.com/2016/01/31/i-represent-david-blittersdorf/

Overreach at the Attorney General’s office 
By Deborah T. Bucknam, Esq.

Vermont’s Attorney General has filed a complaint against Annette Smith, the activist who helps Vermonters opposed to Industrial Wind, navigate the administrative jungle that best describes the Public Service Board proceedings. I have represented folks opposed to Industrial Wind at the Public Service Board, and the hearings are overrun by lawyers—most of whom favor the government’s and the developer’s positions on Industrial Wind. Neighbors opposed to an Industrial Wind project face a phalanx of government and industry lawyers in a proceeding that is costly, time consuming and often confusing. In other words, the fix is in.

Now the Attorney General is siding with Vermont’s large law firms and big lobbyists to deprive opponents of Industrial Wind the advice of a person who knows the intricacies of the proceedings and can help those who cannot afford the high priced lawyers the developers can. And make no mistake: even though this is a preposterous charge, and will likely be thrown out, its purpose will be fulfilled: to chill anyone’s free speech rights who dares to question the powerful in Montpelier.

“Practicing law without a license” is a hoary concept left over from the medieval guilds where skilled tradesmen (including lawyers) sought to keep out competition. It was revived in the early 20th century when the newly organized Bar attempted to persuade legislatures to define the practice of law and regulate it—to the Bar’s advantage. Legislators were wary of such a regulatory scheme, so the effort waned until the Great Depression, when lawyers’ incomes plummeted, and the organized Bar launched a new effort to keep out those who were in competition for their services. This time the Bar sought the help of the Judiciary, which took up the cause. That is where it stands today: the unauthorized practice of law is regulated in large part by the Judiciary. Over the years, lawyers targeted different groups: realtors, bankers, and investment advisors, with varying success. The reason for this effort was supposedly to protect consumers from service providers who did not adhere to the strict professional conduct rules of the Bar. However, with the advent of strong consumer protection statutes and competition among providers, this “protection” is mostly a red herring.

The concept of unauthorized practice of law is so vague as to call into question its constitutionality. The practice of law is, according to the Vermont Supreme Court, "the rendering of services for another involving the use of legal knowledge or skill on his behalf -- where legal advice is required and is availed of or rendered in connection with such services.” Under that standard, hundreds of public servants in Vermont provide “legal advice”—providing information about relevant statutes, procedures and regulations---to the public and to Vermont attorneys smart enough to get the information directly from those in the know at state agencies. Yet these public servants will not –and certainly should not--be prosecuted. Only Ms. Smith, who provides similar information to those who cannot pay for those high priced lawyers is prosecuted by the Attorney General. This is precisely the constitutional issue: a rule violates the Due Process clause of the constitution because it is too vague to put the public on adequate notice as to when a violation occurs, and it opens the door for selective prosecution—exactly what has happened here. The Attorney General’s action appears to be an effort to silence opposition to Industrial Wind, and to help the large Burlington law firms and their clients to keep from having to deal with pesky Vermonters who oppose their clients’ projects.

Vermonters are being strangled by government overreach. The Attorney General’s action is a disgraceful example. If you don’t agree with the powerful and well-connected in this state, then just shut up, or you may be the target of the Government and its unlimited resources.

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About the Author

Deborah Bucknam, Esq. has practiced law for 37 years, and has a private practice in St. Johnsbury, Vermont

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About the post

In the last two weeks, opponents of industrial wind have rallied in Vermont, and the Vermont administration is beginning to "investigate" them.   Below is a brief summary and history.

A bill against industrial wind

Two Vermont legislators introduced a bill to ban industrial wind on our ridge lines.  They held a press conference in Montpelier on January 21: the press conference was attended by many supporters.  The supporters wore green vests and cheered for banning industrial wind.  

The Ethan Allen Institute (my Energy Education Project is part of the Institute) made made a three-minute video of the highlights of the press conference.  Ethan Allen Institute posted a blog post with the video, and Rod Adams posted about the conference at his blog: Vermonters Say They Want Industrial Wind to Go the Way of the Billboard. Both posts have lively comment streams.  I have also posted the video at the bottom of this post.

The Administration strikes back

 The press conference and the Ethan Allen Institute post took place on January 21, 2016. Perhaps purely by chance, on January 22, the Vermont Attorney General opened an investigation into whether Annette Smith, the highest-profile anti-wind advocate in Vermont, is "practicing law without a license."  This was reported in a VtDigger article by Mike Polhamus on January 23: AG's office investigating complaints against Annette Smith, anti-wind advocate.  As Polhamus points out: this is a charge with penalties left entirely to the court's discretion.  He also quotes Ms. Smith: "I believe this has the potential to shut down my organization of 16 years. It clearly falls under the definition of harassment.”

There are (at this writing) 147 comments on the Digger post. The vast majority are in support of Annette Smith. An early comment was written by Peter Galbraith, a former Senator in Vermont (and a Democrat). A short quote: "Annette Smith is a person of integrity who has helped the weaker party in what would otherwise be a very uneven contest. This investigation will have a chilling effect on all citizen advocates."

This post:

I wanted to write something really powerful about this issue: about the environment, about freedom of speech, about government harassment of dissenting views, about crony capitalism.  Then, to my great relief, I received this press release from Deborah Bucknam in my email inbox.  I have never met Ms. Bucknam, but she said it all, much better than I could.  Thank you, Ms. Bucknam. 

 Video by Ethan Allen Institute

Public Service Commissioner: Vermont Green Energy Plan Not About Global Warming. Guest post by Bruce Parker

By Bruce Parker  /   October 23, 2015

As Vermont races to become the nation’s first green-energy economy, the head of the Public Service Department says the state’s renewable energy plan is about economic matters, not global warming.

On Wednesday, the Vermont Public Service Department completed the third of five public hearings for the state’s 2015 Comprehensive Energy Plan. The 380-page document, set to be completed and adopted by Jan. 1, charts a course for Vermont to get 90 percent of its energy from renewables by 2050.

While Vermonters are struggling to see the benefit in siting hundreds of utility-scale solar and wind projects in neighborhoods and atop mountain ridgelines, the benefit most commonly associated with embracing green energy — combating global warming — is conspicuously absent from Vermont’s plan.

“I disagree with the characterization that the reason we’re doing this is to try and improve global warming,” Chris Recchia, commissioner of the Public Service Department, told Vermont Watchdog.

“It is certainly a byproduct of it, and a help, but primarily why we’re doing it is to have stable energy pricing and really secure energy resources that are renewable in our state.”

Recchia, appointed by Gov. Peter Shumlin in 2013 to lead the department responsible for regulating energy development, said Vermont is too small to make a difference in the nation’s carbon footprint. As result, the commissioner says Vermont needs to embrace an all-renewable-energy future to have a strong economy, a stable energy supply and stable energy pricing.

“If everybody else in the United States and around the world did what we’re doing, it would have a tremendous impact on climate change. The problem is we can only do what we can do,” he said.

Since Shumlin made renewable energy a top priority of the state, towns have found themselves fighting green-energy companies eager to profit from taxpayer subsidies and regulation-free land use policies.

Swanton, which is battling a proposal from Swanton Wind LLC to construct seven 500-foot wind turbines on a local ridgeline, has scheduled a Nov. 17 townwide vote to give residents a say in the matter.

“We’re definitely against it. The Selectboard, we do not support this project. We are for renewable energy if it’s the right thing for our communities, but this is not the right thing for our communities,” Swanton Selectboard Chair Dan Billado told Vermont Watchdog.

“These towers are 100 feet or more taller than any turbines in New England — they’re 499 feet. That equates to 50-story structures on a ridgeline that’s already a 345-foot ridgeline above the lake. Tell me anywhere in Vermont where we have 50-story structures.”

On the year’s windy days, the project will provide power to an estimated 7,800 homes. Despite that benefit, Billado said people in the town are worried about the project’s negative effect on wildlife, public health, water quality, property values and aesthetics.

“We already know that windmills kill birds and bats. It’s devastating on that, not to mention the rest of the wild animals — deer, bear, coon, fox, you name it,” he said. “It drives them away. They say they’ll come back, but nobody can give us an answer when.”

At the town’s Tuesday night Selectboard meeting, more than 50 residents met with Recchia to express concerns about the turbines. According to Billado, when the board asked for a show of hands to see how many people opposed the project, all but five people threw up their hands.

“The five people for it were Mr. Belisle, his wife, his lawyer, and, I believe, his sister and brother-in-law that were there — they’re the developers.”

Billado said the vote could have as big a turnout as the Oct.1 vote in Irasburg, which saw residents fill Town Hall to overflowing to vote 274-9 against 500-foot windmills on the Kidder Hill ridgeline west of the village center. Although non-binding, such townwide votes send a loud message that developers need to go someplace else.

RELATED: Revolt: Vermont town votes 274-9 against giant wind turbines

Vermont Watchdog asked Recchia if towns could be expected to sacrifice their landscapes for a plan

Chris Recchia
Commissioner
DPS

that offers negligible environmental benefits and significant environmental damage.

“It is not a huge sacrifice compared to what the people of West Virginia have been dealing with for 100 years in terms of coal mining and mountaintop removal and a variety of other things. It just is not the same scale,” he said.

For environmentally minded Vermonters, Recchia’s perspectives may seem out of touch.

“To say, ‘OK, it’s really about having stable energy prices; it isn’t about having some sort of impact — even local — on global climate change,’ you’re missing the boat with me,” said Michael Keane, a Selectboard member in the Town of Bennington.

“Prices are always going to go up and down. There’s not going to be any absolute control of prices. … If all we’re thinking of is stable prices, we’ve let ourselves be horse-traded in sort of a Wild West situation.”

The “Wild West” in Bennington includes a plan to clear-cut 27 acres of forest for a two-plot solar farm in the Apple Hill residential area along Route 7, within eyeshot of the town’s welcome center.

The project’s developer, New York City-based Allco Renewable Energy, angered residents when the CEO criticized a Bennington woman who decided to intervene against the project due to aesthetic and procedural concerns. In 2010, the CEO himself campaigned to stop an offshore wind farm from being sited in Nantucket Sound near his summer home in Martha’s Vineyard.

In August, the Bennington Selectboard voted against the arrays due to “the inevitable damage to environmental, historical, safety, visual, and aesthetics of the surroundings.” Two weeks ago, board members sent the Public Service Board a letter saying its decisions “appeared to ride roughshod” over the concerns of the people of Bennington.

Recchia may be listening to towns’ complaints. He said he would oppose “random applications being submitted by developers that don’t have any relationship to what towns and communities want.” He also said he would work to help residents “be part of the solution and really engage in the process.”

Going forward, Recchia said the department plans to enlist all regional planning commissions in the state to conduct smart energy planning with communities in the upcoming year.

Swanton needs answers sooner rather than later, according to Billado.

“When they start blasting ridgelines, what’s that do to surrounding wells? You’re fracking the ground (and) breaking up flows of water that feed people’s wells. What’s that going to do to everybody’s drinking water? Nobody knows. They say they have to do studies,” he said.

According to Keane, if the state’s energy plan is about economic issues, Vermonters need to rethink the real benefits of moving forward.

“If we’re doing this for stable energy prices in the year 2020 or 2030, then let people know that. Let’s disabuse them of the goodwill intentions that they have to have a benefit on the environment,” he said.

“If, in fact, we are not having some sort of useful impact on the environment that we can either have bragging rights about or be thought of as a model for other political entities, then what the hell are we doing?”

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Bruce Parker

This post by Bruce Parker first appeared in Vermont Watchdog, October 23, and is reprinted here by permission. Parker has frequent guest posts at this blog: his most recent guest post was Vermont town protests renewable energy credits for MA and CT.

You can reach Bruce Parker at bparker@watchdog.org

Slow Renewable Growth Means We Must Retain Existing Power Sources: Guy Page Guest Post

With renewable growth slow, Vermont and New England must retain existing, diverse power sources

In an April 13 Associated Press story, a prominent renewable energy advocate said Vermont’s wind power industry is “just taking a little hibernation here as federal policy gets the tax credits right.”

While Vermont waits for Congress to act, now is a good time to examine the status of the state and regional supply of low-cost, low-carbon, reliable electricity. Vermont’s power needs changed dramatically in March 2012, when Vermont Yankee, per its contract, stopped providing one-third of the state’s power – every kilowatt of it low-carbon and low-cost. But not to worry, Vermonters were assured: new, renewable power would fill the gap.

Slow Growth

Three years later, the promise is being fulfilled slowly, and with great uncertainty. Based on state, utility and media sources, here’s an update on instate renewable power generation built since March 2012:

• Three ridgeline industrial wind turbine developments (in Lowell, Sheffield, and Georgia) contribute about 4% of the state’s total electricity load.
• A rapid proliferation of photovoltaic solar power generators, from small rooftop projects to big developments, contributes 1-2 percent.
• Four farm bio-digesters contribute about 0.2 percent, and a small biomass generator and a hydro dam total about 0.1 percent. 

By rough count, in-state renewable generation built since March 2012 comprises about six percent of total demand. Currently, only solar is growing. The others have almost stalled since January, 2013 due to opposition, weak incentives, or cheaper energy alternatives. Yet even the “Solar Express” may slow if Congress lets a 30 percent construction tax credit expire. Through 2016, for example, the builder of a $10,000 solar power generator will pay $3000 less in federal taxes. Whether Congress continues,

eliminates, reduces to 10 percent or phases out this crucial credit is anyone’s guess. Some solar experts believe the declining cost of production has moved solar power almost to the point of tax credit independence.

Wind is Treading Water

Visiting a wind turbine
In New Hampshire

The wind power industry is indeed treading water, waiting on Congress. The three projects cited above
were sufficiently completed by December 31, 2012, just in time to receive an expiring 2.3 cents per kilowatt hour Production Tax Credit (PTC). Congress has since granted the PTC a couple of grudging one-year extensions, hardly the confidence builder the industry needs. The U.S. Senate voted against a five year extension this January. Some pro-wind senators now want a five-year PTC “phase-out.”  

The owner of Vermont’s only unbuilt but permitted project – Deerfield II in Searsburg – must have a power buyer under contract before construction begins, a spokesperson told VTEP in 2013. Ground remains unbroken. A proposed Northeast Kingdom (NEK) wind farm was rejected in a multi-town referendum. Also, transmission lines in the NEK cannot accommodate another large wind power generator, a senior state energy official said last month. Finally, most of the tri-county region’s senators, newspaper editors, and development officials have publicly opposed more ridge line wind projects in the NEK.

Three serious proposals to build instate biomass-burning power plants are unbuilt due to lack of support from neighbors, power-buying utilities and/or regulators.

It's Hard to Build New, So We Need to Keep What We Have

For one reason or another, it’s hard to build new power generation in Vermont. Therefore we must protect the low-cost, low-carbon power generation we already enjoy. With the exception of encouraging the departure of Vermont Yankee, Vermont is pretty good at this. Long-term Hydro Quebec contracts were renewed, as was a permit for a biomass plant in Ryegate. Small, defunct dams are making power again. Active dams have been re-licensed. Burlington declared itself “100 percent renewable” last year after buying a large, existing Winooski River dam. Green Mountain Power has long-term contracts for New Hampshire wind and nuclear power, and owns a small share of a Connecticut nuclear plant.

Throughout New England, hydro and nuclear power plants provide base-load, low-cost, low-carbon electricity. However, their future is jeopardized by policies favoring natural gas, New England’s dominant fuel, including a New England governor’s agreement last week that called for more natural gas infrastructure but was virtually silent on retaining existing nuclear power. Vermont must urge the rest of New England to keep its low-cost, low-carbon power.

Vermont must seek new reliable, affordable, clean power. But first – let’s keep what we already have.

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Guy Page

Guy Page is a frequent guest blogger at this blog.  He is  Communications Director of the Vermont Energy Partnership (www.vtep.org) , a Montpelier-based coalition of individuals, businesses, and labor and development organizations promoting clean, safe, affordable and reliable electricity for Vermont. Vermont Yankee is a VTEP member.

This article also appeared in Vermont Digger and other newspapers in Vermont. 

The Local Grid: Pictures at the Edge

It's minus 24 at my house this morning, and here are some pix I snapped of the ISO-NE Real-Time system page.

To me, the first one is the most telling: 20,000 MW demand, 243 MW in reserve.  That's too little reserve!

The rest are more typical winter ISO.

Grid running at over $200/MWh.

Actually, it has been bouncing up to over $300/MWh, in the five-minute market.  I just didn't get a screen shot at the higher levels.

And here's the fuel mix: Lots of coal and oil, of course: total of 27%.  Renewables hanging in at 6%.

And the renewables chart. Wind is actually a reasonable part of it, since this has been windy weather.  Wood and refuse dominate, of course.  Of course, what is "reasonable"?  Wind is 17% of 6% on a day the grid  is struggling.

Our summer peak is above 20,000 MW, and today is only 19,000.  However, in the summer, you can get natural gas to the gas-fired plants.

Nuclear Energy Blog Carnival 218: Here at Yes Vermont Yankee

Once again, we are proud to host the Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers here at Yes Vermont Yankee.  The Carnival is a compendium of nuclear blogs that rotates from blog site to blog site, and it is always a pleasure and an honor to host it.  So let's get started on some of the very best blog posts from some of the very best bloggers.

The first post is back-to-basics.  How much energy do we use, and where can we get it?

How carbon-heavy are your personal assistants?

If you want to know why America is among the world’s biggest destinations for immigrants, look at the country’s energy supply. Each American citizen has at her disposal, on average, an annual block of energy of more than 81,000 kilowatt-hours. That is like having a retinue of about 92 human assistants at her beck and call at any hour of the day. These personal assistants heat and transport her water, light her lights, run her computer and Internet, and move her car. As Steve Aplin of Canadian Energy Issues points out, there is nothing inherently wrong with the average American having a block of energy this size. In fact, it is profoundly good that she does. 

However, it is possible to have a retinue of personal assistants who do not emit so much CO2: America’s current use of energy, after all, adds, every 19 months, 1 part per million to the CO2 concentration in the planet’s atmosphere. Aplin urges the de-carbonization of the 28 billion personal assistants serving America, through a known and proven energy technology.  Nuclear energy.

http://canadianenergyissues.com/2014/07/18/how-carbon-heavy-are-your-personal-assistants/

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Next, a completely different look at potentially dangerous technologies.

Comparative dangers?  How about those crystal doorknobs?

At Nuke Power Talk, Gail Marcus discusses a fire in a home in the UK caused by a crystal doorknob concentrating the rays of the sun. Her post is titled "The risk of just about everything."   Marcus reflects on how humankind responds to unexpected risks from technologies, be they simple ones, like a crystal doorknob, or complex ones, like nuclear power plants.

http://nukepowertalk.blogspot.com/2014/07/nuclear-power-and-crystal-doorknobs.html

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Well, while we are considering danger, let's look at the news from Japan.

How safe is “safe enough” in Japan?
The question of “how safe is safe enough” has suddenly emerged in Japan. A few news outlets try to provide an objective answer, relying on the Nuclear Regulatory Authority decisions on restarts. But most seem to opine that no nuclear plant will ever be safe enough. The most extreme news source seems to be Asahi Shimbun. The Asahi makes what are tantamount to fabrications about the situation, and makes no attempt to provide an iota of balance. Les Corrice covers the coverage in his blog, Hiroshima Syndrome.
http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/fukushima-commentary.html

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Asahi Shinbun is not the only source of myths.

• The price of electricity in Germany is pretty hard to determine, what with the taxes and the tariffs and the special breaks for industry. 
• Speaking of "special breaks," there's a whole movement against the Export Import Bank.  

Nuclear Energy Institute takes on these issues, in two blog posts.

A third post at NEI is a very upbeat look at being a woman and a nuclear engineer.  (Sigh.  I personally love this sort of post.)

• Being a nuclear engineer at Areva.

5 Myths About the Export-Import bank
Rep. Jeb Hensarling is leading the charge against the reauthorization of the U.S. Ex-Im Bank. The bank is crucial to nuclear exports, and NEI decided to confront some of the myths about the bank that Hensarling has been promoting recently.
http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2014/07/5-myths-about-export-import-bank.html

Higher and Higher: EEI Uncovers The Cost of Electricity in Germany
Ever since Germany decided to phase out nuclear energy in the wake of Fukushima, local activists have been touting the results of the shift, known in German as the "Energiewende." But what has the cost been to the nation's economy. NEI's Mark Flanagan looks at a recent EEI report that's full of interesting details.
http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2014/07/higher-and-higher-eei-uncovers-cost-of.html

Being a Nuclear Engineer at AREVA

Abbey Donahue is a Design Project Engineer for AREVA TN, and the professional development chair of the North American Young Generation in Nuclear (NA-YGN). In her blog post to NEI Nuclear Notes, Abbey talks about what she does, why it matters, and why she has such a passion for engineering, energy, and making a positive impact on the world.

http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2014/07/being-nuclear-engineer-at-areva.html

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There are other types of nuclear energy, also. Brian Wang at Next Big Future looks at fusion.

Helion's Fusion Engine
Helion Energy's Fusion Engine is the only demonstrated fusion energy source capable of producing both on demand and baseload power at low cost and with minimal environmental impact. Employing a patented staged electromagnetic compressor and direct energy conversion, the Fusion Engine efficiently harnesses fusion energy employing fuel derived solely from water. This IAEA award winning and DOE validated prototype generated the required fusion energy output that allows for
commercialization of economical fusion by 2019. By removing complex tritium systems and steam turbines, the Fusion Engine can be constructed faster and with reduced capital costs. And unlike current nuclear systems, Helion’s fusion technology is inherently safe and generates only clean byproducts. Helion holds the key to unlock the long sought after promise of endless fusion energy.

They got $5 million from DOE and are raising $35 million. The chief researcher John Slough also has a NASA funded direct fusion propulsion project.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/07/helion-energy-plans-to-enable.html
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Meanwhile, there's a lot of wind in some parts of the country. Jim Conca at Forbes looks at the energy  possibilities of Tornado Alley.

Wind Turbines Could Rule Tornado AlleyTornado Alley is the optimal place for wind turbines in the United States, pushing capacity factors beyond 40%, and making wind the second largest generator of electricity in Kansas, South Dakota and Iowa. But political forces seek to stop expansion.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2014/07/19/wind-turbines-could-rule-tornado-alley/

Renewable Energy Mandates Pose a Threat to Nuclear : Guest Post by Jeff Walther

Renewable Energy Mandates, and How They Threaten Nuclear Energy and the Grid

Guest post by Jeff Walther


I think the most immediate threat to clean nuclear electricity generation, right now, is not anti-nuke protests, nor corporate indifference, but state “Renewable” Energy Mandates. The clause in the states’ RE mandates which require that “RE” be taken on the grid in preference to other energy sources is the greatest danger to affordable base load generators, and to the whole institution of reliable, affordable electricity for the consumer.

This is how it works. When wind or solar generation start supplying 10% – 15% of total electricity, their theoretical generating capacity is much higher because they have capacity factors of about 20%. So wind installations which supply 15% of the energy needed in a year, have a name-place generating capacity of 75% of the power needed at any given time. They don’t generate 75% of the energy because the wind mostly doesn’t blow.

But, fairly frequently, for brief periods, those wind installations, which can only supply 15% of yearly energy needs, will all get good wind, and then, they’ll generate 75% of the power the grid needs. When that happens, for that brief period, the RE Mandate requires that steady, constant, reliable generators, such as nuclear shut down or otherwise stop generating.

The Base Load Generators Suffer

Shutting down and starting up again are expensive and even damaging for base load generators. Now, this might be an okay situation: why not drive the inflexible base load off the grid? But the grid cannot do without the base load. Because, most of the time, the wind isn’t supplying 75% of the power. A lot of the time, it’s not even supplying 15%. That’s just what it averages out to over the year.

So the grid cannot do without steady, reliable, affordable generators, but it could do quite nicely without expensive intermittent wind and solar.

Yet, state legislated RE Mandates are pushing the necessary and affordable base-load off the grid.

I cannot think of a single piece of legislation better designed to drive up the cost of electricity and drive away grid reliability, even if I was legislating from scratch. “RE” Mandates are the enemy of the consumer.

The problem is that the connection is subtle and the public still believes that RE Mandates exist to benefit them and the environment. The truth is, that RE Mandates, combined with the recent “privatizing” of grids and generating capacity, are designed to drive out grid reliability and drive up energy costs for all consumers.

Renewable Energy "Maturity"

Given public perception, the goal should be to modify RE Mandates, so that “RE” does not receive priority on the grid; sell this as “proving” RE maturity, and get nuclear electricity generation included in the definition of “Renewable Energy”. Repealing them entirely is probably impossible.

The true opponent in the near and short term is the requirement in RE Mandates that intermittent sources be given priority on the grid. Changing that should be the single most immediate target of pro-nuclear activists. Public opinion about nuclear, and the NRC regulatory framework matter almost not at all, when existing nuclear generation can be driven off the grid by this single point of legislation and a small percentage of Unreliables penetration.

Amateur Rocket Launch

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Late last month, I wrote about my sorrow at Vermont Yankee closing in the post We are not Spock: Emotion and Nuclear Power, published at ANS Nuclear Cafe.  There were very insightful comments on that post. I obtained permission to use some of these comments as guest posts on my own blog.

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Jeff Walther possesses two B.S. degrees in engineering: aerospace and electrical. He also holds a J.D. degree and is licensed to practice law in Texas. All his degrees are from the University of Texas at Austin.  He used to work as an aerospace engineer, and currently is an electrical engineer at a medium-size start-up.

Walther describes his leisure activities as follows: "On the weekends, when I'm not coaching one of my son's baseball games, I try to make it out to Hutto, TX for one of the Austin Area Rocketry Group's rocket launches."

Wind on the Grid: Location, Location, Location.

Wind Farm in Austria

The Plan and the Reality

The Vermont Comprehensive Energy Plan calls for a great expansion of renewable electricity. Can we achieve it? Some of the difficulties the state may encounter came to light this summer in the Northeast Kingdom.

The biggest renewable project to come online recently is the Kingdom Community Wind Project — commonly known as Lowell Mountain — which is owned by Green Mountain Power. During the mid-July heat wave, the regional grid operator, ISO-NE, did not allow Lowell Mountain to put all of its power on the grid. The wind was blowing, but the transmission lines were running at full capacity, and the grid operator told Lowell Mountain that the grid could not accept all of its power. The wind farm had to back off and not generate as much electricity as it could. It was “curtailed” by the grid operator.

As you can imagine, this incident led to quite an outcry. First off, it didn’t look good for the future of renewables. While Lowell Mountain has been controversial, it has also been a showcase for major new renewables being built in Vermont. If Lowell can’t send all of its power to the grid, it doesn’t bode well for the future growth of renewables.

In response, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin wrote a letter to ISO-NE, asking why the grid operator had called upon the generating capacity of fossil-fuel plants but not that of Vermont renewables, pointing out that Vermont is very committed to renewables, etc., etc. Shumlin was clearly grandstanding. On a hot day, ISO-NE did what it is supposed to do: keep the grid functioning. To understand why that overriding concern led ISO-NE to shun power from Lowell Mountain, it’s helpful to realize that, in one regard, the grid is like the real estate market: It’s all about location, location, location.

The Reality of the Grid

ISO-NE’s first responsibility is to keep the grid meeting its physical and reliability requirements. It matches power generation with power use and avoids overloading lines. ISO-NE’s secondary responsibility is to dispatch power from generators according to various economic and contractual priority rules. These rules tend toward priority dispatch for renewables. (Though the grid operator is strictly fuel-agnostic, the rules tend to favor renewables.) However, such priority rules come second, after the grid’s physical constraints are met.

Those physical constraints are often about location, location, location.

Wind farms are usually located in rural areas, which generally do not have transmission lines capable of handling large amounts of power. In the case of Lowell Mountain, the nearest high-voltage lines also carry Hydro-Quebec and power from other sources. On a high-electricity-use day, these power sources fill the transmission capacity.

Two Kinds of Upgrades

Transmission capacity in that area would have to be upgraded significantly to accommodate all the power generated by the wind turbines on a high-use day. At the time the Lowell turbines were built, it apparently was known that the turbine power sometimes would have to be “curtailed.” However, “curtailment” has happened more often than some expected. (That’s the simple version; it’s always more complicated on the grid.) There are other factors. Depending on the type of generator, its location and the transmission lines, additional equipment may be needed to match a generator to the grid. Lowell Mountain needs something called a synchronous condenser to “tune up” its output and match it to the grid. The Lowell Mountain developers persuaded the Public Service Board to let them connect to the grid without this expensive piece of equipment, but now the grid operator says that it will have to be installed. The condenser is now being built, and it will cost $10 million. With it, Lowell will be able to put power on the grid more often.

However, without additional upgrades of local transmission lines, Lowell may still be kept off the grid when power use is high. So, two upgrades would be needed for Lowell Mountain to have reliable access to the grid. Electricity consumers ultimately will pay for the work, but which consumers?

Green Mountain Power consumers will pay for the synchronous condenser, because GMP owns the plant. Determining payment for transmission line upgrades is more complicated because transmission lines are shared across states. If a transmission upgrade makes the entire New England system more reliable, Vermont ratepayers will pay about 4 percent of its cost. If an upgrade is considered to be only of local benefit, local ratepayers pay its entire cost. ISO-NE decides whether transmission lines are needed for grid reliability as part of its reliability planning process. At this point, it is unclear which group of ratepayers would pay.

Another question: Why is the system dealing with these problems now? Why did the Public Service Board authorize turbines without also requiring an adequate connection? For whatever it is worth, many other wind farms in other parts of the world have the same problem.

Location, Location, Location

Which gets us back to location, location, location. Wind farms face some unique transmission challenges. Throughout the world, wind turbines are located in rural areas, often far from large transmission lines or large-scale users of electricity. Wind turbines also have highly variable outputs. If you build a transmission line in a rural area and build a line that is capable of taking a considerable amount of wind energy on a day when the grid is almost full, you are going to have to build an expensive line.

Building a transmission line that can always accept wind energy can be like building a freeway that is big enough to avoid congestion if a football game lets out at rush hour. We don’t do that. It would just be too expensive to build all roads big enough to avoid congestion for the infrequent occasions of abnormally high use. As a partial solution to this problem, the grid has location-dependent congestion fees.

Meanwhile, ISO-NE officials responded to Shumlin’s accusation with their own strongly worded letter. They said that Green Mountain Power knew full well that the Kingdom Community Wind Project did not meet all of ISO-NE criteria for full grid connection.

I am sure that Green Mountain Power (and others, such as the Public Service Board) must have known that the new wind farm wasn’t meeting ISO-NE connection criteria. Though such grid issues as congestion fees and synchronous condensers are arcane to most of us, there are many competent electrical system engineers who could have foreseen these problems. They almost certainly did foresee them.

Paying for the Upgrades

What should we do now to put wind on the grid? Since Kingdom Community Wind is built, I think Green Mountain Power should take the steps necessary to be sure its energy gets on the grid more reliably. It will be expensive, but that is the only option.

However, the costs and whatever environmental impact those upgrades entail should be ascribed to the wind project. More important, these costs should be considered when other projects are proposed. That does not mean that other projects should not be built. However, Vermont now has experience with a large wind farm, and it should learn from this experience.

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Meredith Angwin is a physical chemist who worked for electric utilities for more than 25 years and now heads the Energy Education Project of the Ethan Allen Institute.
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I wrote this op-ed for the Valley News. It appeared in print on Sunday, September 22, 2013 as When Location Rules the Grid.

Wind Turbine Construction Slows: Guest post by Willem Post

This guest post by Willem Post appeared as a letter to the editor in our local paper, the Valley News.  (I have a subscription, but the letter may be behind a paywall for most people.)  Post has allowed me to republish it in this blog.

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To the Editor:

Things are looking up. There is a major slowdown in wind turbine construction all over the U.S.

In the first quarter of 2013, only 1.6 megawatts of wind turbine capacity was built and in the second quarter, zero was built. The main reason is the expiration of the Section 1603-c program at the end of 2012, which gave federal cash grants of about 30 percent of the project capital cost to wind turbine project developers.

This infusion of cash grants to Big Wind under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 changed the economics of the industry overnight. Projects that made no economic sense became viable with the cash grant (Lowell Mountain, etc.) In many cases, applications were rushed to take advantage of the cash grants before deadlines. The industry’s project pipeline was emptied, rushed to approval and built by the end of 2012.

During the cash grant program period, about 30,000 megawatts of new wind turbine capacity was built, more than doubling U.S. wind turbine capacity. The U.S. had never experienced that rate of growth with just the production tax credit (PTC).

With domestic, abundant, low-CO2 emitting (compared with coal), no-particulate emitting, low-cost natural gas , and continued flat demand for electricity, it’s no surprise the cash-grant-induced wind turbine bubble collapsed and will likely push installations back to mid-2000s levels, or less, if the PTC is finally allowed to expire after 24 years.

If extended, the PTC, set to expire at the end of 2013, will offset above-market wholesale prices for wind energy, but will drive just moderate levels of wind turbine capacity growth.

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Willem Post is a frequent guest blogger on this blog.  His most recent post was Off-Shore Wind Versus Nuclear. Another recent guest post is Wind in Vermont is Oversold.  Many of his posts appear at The Energy Collective, where he is a high-ranked blogger.

Curtailment by any other name -- would be ordinary

Time for an opinionated blog post about framing and word usage.   Today's weasel-word: curtailment.

Lowell Mountain Curtailment

Wind Turbines in New Zealand

During the recent heat wave, Lowell Mountain wind farm was "curtailed" by ISO-NE, the grid operator.  In other words, although there was wind available, ISO-NE did not allow Lowell Mountain to send its power to the grid.

After this event, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin sent a complaining letter to ISO-NE. Fossil plants were putting power on the grid but the wind farm had to stop operating temporarily.  Shumlin asked ISO: Doesn't the grid operator understand the importance of Vermont's move to renewables? Note: Andrew Stein has an article about Shumlin's letter at Vermont Digger.  There are close to 100 comments.

Many people realize that the grid operator had good reasons not to dispatch the wind power during the heat wave.  For example, you might want to read the Burlington Free Press editorial: Not Ready for Prime Time. ( The idea is that renewables are not ready for prime time.) The Burlington Free Press is generally in favor of renewable energy.

Curtailment Means Dispatch

In the meantime--- What the heck is curtailment? It means that wind was available, but the grid operator did not allow the wind farm to put power on the grid.  In other words, the wind farm was not "dispatched."  Dispatch is the fate of most plants on the grid.

The rules for dispatch include physical imperatives:

• matching load
• not over-loading transmission lines
• taking into account how quickly various plants can come on-line.

Secondary rules for dispatch include economics and other non-physical issues:

• dispatching the least expensive plants first
• giving renewables a favored position in the line-up.

To keep the grid in balance, the physical imperatives take precedence.

However, the non-physical issues are also part of dispatch.  For example, coal is now more expensive than natural gas.  Five years ago, our local coal plant, Merrimack Station,  ran 75% of the time. Today it runs about 30% of the time. Merrimack Station is no longer one of the least expensive power plants.  It's almost a peaking plant, nowadays.  (Jeremy Blackman, Concord Monitor, Extreme Weather a Testament to Bow's Plant Relevance?)

Yes, even coal plants only run when dispatched.

Wind Turbines and the Weasel Word

Wind turbines have been high on the list for  dispatch, because they are renewables. However, dispatching renewables is a secondary issue, not a physical imperative. Despite this fact, in my opinion, the turbine owners have developed a serious case of entitlement.   If the wind turbine doesn't get dispatched, someone is going to hear about it from the Governor.

What an attitude!  This attitude isn't good for the future, either.  The Vermont Comprehensive Energy Plan says that 90% of all our energy is supposed to come from renewables.  Does this mean that people will use the power whenever the renewables can send it?  Perhaps we will have alarms in our house: "It's 2 a.m. and the turbines are spinning.  Time to do your wash and bake some goodies." Or are the wind turbines willing to be dispatched, just like a power plant?

In my opinion, the first thing we can do to encourage the wind farm owners to understand their place on the grid is---we can stop using the weasel word, curtailment.  We can call the situation what it is. "Due to inadequate transmission capabilities in the area of Lowell Mountain, the wind turbines were not dispatched."

There.  Doesn't that sound better?

The Underpinnings of Energy Choices: Philosophy and Power

ANS Plenary Session, from ANS blog

Showing Up and Paying Attention

I returned recently  from the American Nuclear Society meeting in Atlanta. The plenary session featured chief executives from many facets of nuclear energy.  However, in my opinion, there was a pall over the meeting, due to the recent permanent closing of four American nuclear plants.

I have a blog post up today at ANS Nuclear Cafe: Philosophy, Shale Gas and the ANS Annual Meeting.

In this post, I discuss the statements of the industry executives in terms of the philosophy; Show Up, Pay Attention, Tell the Truth, and Don't be Attached to the Consequences.

 Fair Share

Clearing for a wind turbine

Earlier this month, my friend Howard Shaffer had a post at the ANS Nuclear Cafe: A Dangerous Precedent or a Slippery Slope.  This was also cross posted at The Energy Collective.

In this post, Howard looks at local control over energy projects, and discusses when this is a good thing, and when it is the slippery slope to unbridled nimby-ism.  The philosophical question: What is a community's "fair share" of a common burden? He includes extensive discussion of wind energy regulations in Vermont.

The 90% Solution: What 90% Renewables Would Look Like in Vermont

What going to 90% renewable energy would do to Vermont’s landscape

In 2011, the Vermont Department of Public Service published a Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP) for Vermont’s future. The CEP states that Vermont will get 90% of all its energy, including the energy we use to drive our cars and heat our homes, from renewables by 2050.  There’s another section titled “25 by 25”, meaning that Vermont should get 25% of its energy from renewables by 2025.  There are no concrete directions or roadmaps for accomplishing either of these goals.

In a hearing before the newly formed Energy Siting Board, one woman stated that the CEP was a collection of slogans, not a plan.  She was correct. Nevertheless, it does represent the goals Montpelier has made for our state, they are acting on it, and we have to take it seriously. I am attempting to see how we could possibly meet these goals, and to answer the question what does moving to 90% renewable energy – or trying to – really mean? In particular, what impact would it have on our natural environment and signature Vermont landscape?

Here’s the reality: If we are going to build enough renewables to generate 90% of our energy needs, we will have to devote much of our state land resources to the cause of energy production.

Renault ZE  electric car

Consider that to “get away from fossil fuels” we will have to convert to mostly electric vehicles and electric heat-pump heated homes. How much more electricity will we need?  Right now, Vermont uses 6000 GWh of electricity per year.  For the “renewable” future, my preliminary estimate is that we we will need at least three times this much, or 18,000 GWh. In an op-ed in the Valley News, Charles McKenna, a Sierra Club member and retired engineer, estimated Vermont would require 15,000 GWh. (He was making the case for building renewables quickly.) In short we’re looking at a lot more electricity generation. What are the renewable options for obtaining this power?

Let’s take wind turbines. Most people are immediately struck by how big the things are. A 3 MW wind turbine has blades that sweep the entire area of a football field.  The Vestas at Kingdom Community Wind (Lowell Mountain) have blades that sweep 112 meters  (367 feet). Why so big?  Because wind is not energy-dense.  Think about it: a windy day can blow some trash around, but the wind usually can’t lift even a tiny dog and blow it around.  If you want to make electricity with wind — enough electricity to make it worth the trouble to put in a transmission line — you have to capture a lot of wind. So, you build turbines that sweep more than the area of a football field.

Solar and Wind at Lempster NH

To make 18,000 GWh of electricity, my rough estimate (I’ll have more detailed numbers ready for publication later this spring) is that Vermont would need to build 140 wind farms with the approximate output of Lowell Mountain’s 21-turbine facility. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory web site and other comparisons, 21 turbines of this size would usually cover 5 miles of ridgeline.  These 140 wind farms would use 2,240 industrial turbines over 700 miles of ridgeline. Lowell claims to use only 3 miles of ridge line: in this case, ”only” 420 miles of ridgeline would be required for the turbines. However, not all ridges have wind as good as Lowell, so more turbines would probably be needed. Keep in mind, the entire state of Vermont is 158 miles long and 90 miles across at its widest.

If we do move to a 90% renewable energy portfolio, much of Vermont’s high country would need to be sacrificed to meet the CEP’s goals. Still, that wouldn’t cover the electricity we would need, because sometimes the wind doesn’t blow.

Logs at Springfield NH
biomass plant

What about solar? A 2.2 MW solar facility was recently installed in White River Junction. An area of 15 acres was cleared for this facility. Do to our northern locations and frequent cloud cover, this can be expected to generate only 2,755 MWh or 2.8 GWh per year. Making 18,000 GWh per year with solar would require 6,700 such facilities or 100,000 acres of solar installations. They would cover an area approximately one-fourth the size of the Green Mountain Forest. And, of course, they would not provide any power when the sun isn’t shining.

Biomass? It is difficult to calculate the wood required by biomass plants. Using information from the McNeil and Ryegate biomass plants gives different results from calculations based on wood heat content and power plant efficiencies. Basically, making 18,000 GWh with wood biomass will require between 8 and 14 million cords per year. In contrast, the current wood harvest from Vermont is about 1 million cords per year.

At the Springfield plant

How much forestland does, say, 12 million cords represent?  Estimates of a sustainable wood harvest vary from 0.5 to 2 cords per year per acre. Assuming one cord per acre, we would need 12 million acres to be devoted to wood for the biomass power plants. The total area of the state of Vermont is 5.9 million acres, of which 4.6 million is forested.

Any (or any combination) of the above mentioned options necessary to meet a 90% renewable policy would have a tremendous impact on the look and feel of Vermont for generations to come. Tourism plays a very important role in the economy of this state, and a pristine and rural landscape is an important part of the Vermont brand. We really have to decide if “90%” is worth its tremendous cost to our environment. (And to our pocketbooks. Electricity made from renewables costs two to ten times as much as standard “grid” electricity. We can expect Vermont’s electricity prices to double or triple, if the CEP is actually put into effect.)

People who are against large-scale renewable energy development are often ridiculed as NIMBYs.  However, they may simply be aware that achieving renewable-energy goals will have huge effects on Vermont’s landscape and ecosystem, and they don’t want that to happen.  In other words, people opposed to renewable developments are often true environmentalists. It is time to reject the impossible goals of the CEP, and implement only the renewables that are reasonable and cost-effective for the citizens of our state.

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This is a preliminary version of the Vermont Land Use report that George and I are writing for the Ethan Allen Institute.  This post first appeared on the Ethan Allen Institute site.