Sustainability - - A Focus On Carbon

Not exactly. Let me explain. Our lack of even the most basic understanding of how the elecricity system operates (explained below) allows us to mistakenly imagine we are taking actions that will shut down CO2 emitting generators. A number of headlines read something like "California Poised To Require All Its Electricity To Come From Renewables."  SB100  appears to be a bit more complicated, however.  Plus, electricity complies to the laws of physics, not the laws we mere mortals devise. Hoefully, this post will identify several important implications of these distinctions. Recognize that electrons (what electricity consists of) going over the wires thorughout California flow from all generators located everywhere within what’s called the Western Interconnect (WECC).  Electrons are already present throughout all the electric wires in every building in every community at every moment in time. When you flip a light switch on, more electricity gets generated ...

The often cited study by Mark Jacobson et. al. that asserts it's economic to replace every fossil fuel use with either electricity from wind, water, and sun (WWS-only) or hydrogen produced using WWS-only in 139 countries over the next 33 years implies a massive construction program the likes of which we may not have ever seen. I find it useful to compare the implied construction program to what we have experienced in the recent past. Click  here  to see his paper on the 50 U.S. states. Over the next 33 years, even under his extraordinary drop in total electric load, he envisions approximately 5.8 million MW of new generation are needed (plus an additional 600GW for peaking and system stability). He reports that as of 2013, 2.71% (of 5.8 million MW) is currently installed, or approximately1.6 million MW. Such quantities indicate an extraordinary construction program, especially since the U.S. installed capacity rose by only about 177,400MWs over the eight year pe...

Surely, defining a carbon footprint isn't difficult, right?  There are various on-line tools available to allow anyone to do just that. This is an issue I've been investigating.  My reason for doing so arises from a concern that policy analysis and decision-making is as solid as the data are upon which they rest.  Recently, I came across a passage in a report titled Carbon Emissions – a Northwest Perspective that summed up the challenge, "There are multiple ways to tabulate a carbon footprint and this report’s approach will differ from others.  If carbon regulations are passed on the state or regional level then agreeing on a methodology for defining a carbon footprint will be critical."  This excerpt zeros in on the issue of using data that are consistent in their development. To date, my review of methods in California, Oregon, and Washington indicate that each state uses somewhat different approaches to develop the raw data used to define carbon footpri...

A bill (SB1547) signed into law in March '16 does not contain language banning coal-fired electricity from delivery to Oregon's retail customers.  Even so, the Oregon Global Warming Commission’s 2017 Biennial Report to the Oregon legislature (Report) erroneously reports the existence of such a ban after 2030.   It also erroneously reports that both Portland General Electric (PGE) and PacifiCorp (PAC) are prohibited from allocating to Oregon retail customers any cost or benefit from coal-fired plants.  Figures 7-9 in the Report illustrate past and future CO2 emissions by these two utilities (Fig. 7 for PAC and Fig. 8 for PGE) and the statewide CO2 emission levels (Fig. 9) assume that Oregon takes credit for lowered CO2 emissions, even though SB1547 did not address coal plant operation in any way.  Furthermore, the statute in question expressly permits PGE to continue to include costs of its portion of Coalstrip in Oregon retail rates after 2030.  The law als...

As   this   paper explains, RECs - bundled with the electricity or unbundled from it - transfers ownership of the   attributes  (not electricity if unbundled)  of the renewable to the REC purchaser.  Earlier in the same paper, the authors note that the Superior Court of New Jersey has ruled, " One Renewable Energy Certificate represents the   environmental benefits   or attributes   of one megawatt-hour of generated renewable energy."[Emphasis added] One cheap way to achieve that goal is for Portland to buy RECs.   Let's figure out how many REC's Portland needs to purchase to reduce its carbon footprint 100%.  Keep in mind that all the vehicles, industrial processes, commercial processes, how electricity is generated, and other uses for fossil fuels from lawn mowers, Vespas, gas grills, and on and on would still be in use.   We need four pieces of information: (1) where the renable project assocaited with one REC i...

Coal is a major source of carbon emissions.  According to the Energy Information Agency (EIA), coal has a higher carbon content than other fossil fues typically employed to generate electricity. Pounds of CO2 emitted per million British thermal units (Btu) of energy for various fuels: Coal (anthracite) 228.6; Coal (bituminous) 205.7\; Coal (lignite) 215.4 Coal (subbituminous) 214.3; Diesel fuel and heating oil 161.3; Propane 139.0; Natural gas 117.0 See : https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=73&t=11 How much carbon is burned per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity depends on the efficiency of the electric generator, called the heat rate, measured in but/kWh.