Thursday, April 28, 2011

Renewable Energy Industry Distributes Intentional Misinformation (Revised)


 At last Saturday’s, Earth Day celebration at Grandin Village, I greeted a director of the local Sierra Club and long-time acquaintance who was manning their booth adjacent to the Blue Ridge Mountain Defenders’ booth. In our conversation, I mentioned that we shared a common goal that day, which was to celebrate and protect our natural environment. I explained that as residents of Bent Mountain, we were committed to good stewardship of the earth. We have been described as self-interested NIMBY’s due to our skepticism of the viability of industrial scale wind turbines in the Appalachian Mountains.

My friend acknowledged that members of our community have been inappropriately described. However, with regard to industrial scale wind turbines, he said, "We need to start somewhere to wean ourselves from fossil fuel dependence, because we are fast running out of fossil fuel."

We agreed. I told him that we should pursue such a goal with a well developed strategic plan of action.

“How long will it be before we run out of fossil fuel?” I asked.

“About twenty years,” he replied, “according to my understanding.”

“If our government calls for only 20% of all energy to come from renewable resources by 2030, what will we do if we have no fossil fuels to supply the remaining 80%?”, I asked. My friend shrugged his shoulders.

My friend's understanding of the challenge has been largely influenced by information provided to him by fellow Sierra Club directors and Invenergy, LLC.

Diana Christopulos, a financially supported advocate for renewable energy developers and also a director of the local chapter of the Sierra Club for almost five years, stated in a recent Roanoke Times commentary that, “coal-fired power plants,..... deliver only about one-third of the total energy they produce. Most of the energy is lost in transmission….”

The same drawback applies to all sources of electricity produced for distribution over the grid, not only coal.

Christopulos’ statement is an extremely exaggerated condemnation of coal use, however, the point of losses through  transmission and distribution is very germane to discussion of energy conservation.
A more accurate understanding of the loss problem is provided annually by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. In the United States we lose between 25-30% 6.5-11% (edit) of all electricity generated through transmission and distribution losses, each year .


In 2008, Architecture 2030, an organization founded by Edward Mazria, issued The 2030 Challenge for Planning asking the global architecture and planning community to adopt the following targets:


• All new and renovated developments / neighborhoods / towns / cities / regions immediately adopt and implement a 60% reduction standard below the regional average for fossil-fuel operating energy consumption for new and renovated buildings and infrastructure and a 50% fossil-fuel reduction standard for the embodied energy consumption of materials.

The fossil-fuel reduction standard for all new buildings, major renovations, and embodied energy consumption of materials shall be increased to:

         o 70% in 2015

         o 80% in 2020

         o 90% in 2025

         o Carbon-neutral in 2030 (using no fossil fuel GreenHouseGas emitting energy to operate or construct).

These targets may be accomplished by implementing innovative sustainable design strategies, generating on-site renewable power and/or purchasing renewable energy (20% maximum).

• All new and renovated developments / neighborhoods / towns / cities / regions immediately adopt and implement a 50% reduction standard below the regional average for:

         o Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) for auto and freight and

         o water consumption.

The part of the strategy being missed or glossed over by local advocates of the proposed Poor Mountain industrial scale wind turbine project is "on-site renewable power," because through this implementation, we'll save most, if not all, of the 25-30% loss through transmission.


So, why are advocates of industrial scale wind overlooking the benefits of on-site generation?

Sadly, because it will reduce dependence on the energy grid and eliminate excessive profits based upon federal capital outlay subsidies, federal loan guarantees, and a system of false market demand for renewable energy based upon renewable portfolio standards (RPS) in 31 states. All of which has been lobbied heavily for by renewable energy developers over the past two decades.

In the energy industry, all corporate players profit handsomely from renewable energy developed for distribution across the “grid.” The renewable energy producers profit through federal and state subsidies and fabricated demand for their product. Power companies and grid distribution managers profit by higher energy rates forced by renewable portfolio standards. And even fossil fuel companies profit by exacerbated inefficiency created by a requirement for base load backup.

And our politicians profit from the “green, feel-good syndrome” produced for their constituency.

The intentional distribution of misinformation is a management consulting strategy for large corporations to achieve enhanced profits and is designed to cloud our empirical thought process.

Monday, April 25, 2011

TRUTH & TRANSPARENCY-

Google provides stats on page views on blogs. I have enjoyed following this data to develop an understanding of the potential impact of the information I am distributing. I also have noticed that each new post seems to provoke additional "page views" on older posts.

After nearly a year of posting, I realize that my personal growth of understanding has changed. Since the publication of earlier posts, I therefore feel an obligation to update, reinforce, or reverse my expressed position on previous issues.

Reader comments are crucial to the effectiveness of this blog. TRUTH and TRANSPARENCY must prevail. If you have an alternative view of my statements, please make comments that provide an opportunity for civil response.

Just today, an attorney called to request my testimony to the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors regarding a small residential scale wind turbine installation. The attorney was seeking opposing views regarding a recent action of the Roanoke County Planning Commission to permit a variation to a maximum height restriction for small wind turbines. I agreed to speak to the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors regarding this issue on the condition that I would honor, first, my standards of personal integrity.

I will periodically review and comment on old posts to the blog to reconsider previous statements. Through this process, my intent is to correct, modify or supplement my previous understanding to assure that I am honest and completely transparent with my growth of understanding regarding viable "renewable energy sources." NOTE: All resources are renewable; it's a question of time.

The most important message of this dialog must be that we MUST conserve our energy use for the sake of posterity.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Larry Summers Advised Obama Regarding Industrial Scale Wind Turbine Projects

On October 25, 2010 Larry Summers and top Obama economic advisors produced a memo examining the viability of industrial scale energy production from wind generators. The following link provides a record of that document:
http://www.masterresource.org/2010/11/government-gluttony-awea/

When you examine this, you should realize that the issue of industrial scale electricity production from wind should not be addressed as a political preference. There are thoughtful objections from all political camps. Further, it should not be framed as an "either/or" or philosophical issue. These are all strategies developed by "management consultants" for huge financial interests.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Beech Ridge Field Trip

Trip Record

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Putting Wind on Trial

By David Schnare • Mar 31st, 2011


David Schnare serves (pro bono) as the Director of the Center for Environmental Stewardship at the Thomas Jefferson Institute, Virginia’s premier independent public policy foundation. He is a Senior Attorney and Environmental Scientist in the Office of Regulatory Compliance at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He holds an appointment to the Environmental Quality Advisory Council of Fairfax County, the largest urban county in the nation. He is CEO of Schnare and Associates, Inc., a professional corporation providing legal representation, legal and policy analysis and is Chairman of the Environmental and Land Use Committee of the Occoquan Watershed Coalition, an organization of 143 homeowners associations in western Fairfax County, Virginia. Bringing his “balanced” environmental views to his community, Dr. Schnare Co-Chaired the Occoquan Watershed Task Force, a group appointed by the Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to make a thorough assessment on the status of the watershed and to make recommendation on how to ensure its continued protection. Dr. Schnare’s honors include: Two Gold and four Bronze Medals from the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Vice President’s Hammer Award and multiple U.S. Department of Justice Certificates of Commendation. His academic achievements include Law Review at George Mason University School of Law; Inns of Court (GMUSL); Sigma Xi (Science Honorary); Delta Omega Service Award (Public Health Honorary); National Science Foundation Research Fellowship; LEGIS Fellowship; and the U.S. Public Health Fellowship. He is an Honorary Member of the Water Quality Association. Dr. Schnare earned his JD in 1999 from George Mason University School of Law. While attending law school (and working full-time at EPA) he was the Hogan (Environmental) Essay winner and served on the Law Review and the Inns of Court. He graduated Cum Laude (Order of the Coif). He holds his PhD in Environmental Management from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, a Master of Science in Public Health-Environmental Science from the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, and a Bachelor’s Degree from Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa where he majored in chemistry and mathematics.







Why would a putative environmental law center choose to put wind on trial? As director of the law center prosecuting the State of Colorado, arguing that the State’s renewable energy mandates, ostensibly requiring wind energy, are unconstitutional, I have been asked this question by colleagues, by the news media, by family members, and my dog has been looking at me funny too. So, why did we do it?We are putting wind on trial because we are an environmental law center. We are committed to using the law to promote environmental quality. Assuredly, we have other purposes too. For example, we advocate economic liberty – a traditional American value. But in this case, the only value we need to have as a public interest law center is an interest in the environment.

And, why publish this essay in a Virginia policy publication; after all we are suing Colorado? In part, because while 31 states have mandatory renewable energy standards, 30 of which we believe are unconstitutional, the rest of the states, including Virginia, have voluntary standards that the public has been led to believe make sense. Because Virginia seems to be going down the “all of the above, including wind energy” path, Virginians also need to understand how Colorado made its mistakes – in part to make sure Virginia doesn’t do so as well. And, I live in Virginia, so I admit, it’s personal to me.

Hard facts have emerged from the noise of environmental activism, from the hush of subsidy-driven self-interested energy company green-washing and from the increasingly grumpy offices of the state public utility commissions.

Wind is not affordable and it is not clean.

Let’s dispense with the cost issue first, in part because without economic success we can’t afford environmental improvements. And, because economics helps frame this policy issue. By 2020, Colorado rate-payers are supposed to be purchasing at least 20 percent renewable energy. The cost of renewable energy will be over $700 million, nearly 23 percent of the total retail electricity sales, as calculated using the fuzzy math of the public utility commission. That is to say, to get the benefit of wind and solar energy, Coloradans will pay nearly $500 per year per ratepayer for wind, a large portion of which is more than if their electricity companies were allowed to simply use coal and natural gas. That is a very conservative estimate. Our own studies show the number is more than double that amount. We estimate that over the decade from now until 2020, these ratepayers will each have to spend an additional $12,000 above the cost of fossil fuel energy.

These aren’t hidden costs. They already show up on the electricity bill and they come out of the take-home pay of Colorado workers.

And there will be fewer employed workers too. Well documented facts indicate a state loses two jobs for every job it creates when investing in wind energy. Our study of the Colorado renewables mandate shows the state’s workforce will shrink by about 18,000 jobs and perhaps as many as 30,000 jobs by 2020, and due to increased electricity costs, annual wages will fall by about $1,200 per worker – this on top of the $500 to $1,000 increase in home electricity bills.

Nearly 600,000 Coloradans live in poverty and over 200,000 are out of work. Half of Colorado families make less than $71,000 in income, and 12 percent make less than $22,000. The cost of the renewable energy mandate is not affordable to many hundreds of thousands of Coloradans. So what do all these dollars buy? Where’s the environmental benefit?

That’s the problem. There aren’t any environmental benefits from wind energy in Colorado.

Yes, you read it correctly. Wind power causes more pollution than it prevents.

I am not writing about the adverse human health effects of living in the shadow of wind mills. I’m not writing about all the birds and bats they kill. I’m not writing about the oil leaks at the base of the towers that, in some ecosystems, propagate downwind ecological harm. Let’s leave that for another day.

Wind energy on the electrical grid causes fossil fuel generators to operate in ways for which they were never designed, forcing them to cycle up and down to fill in for when the wind blows down and up. The result is that these coal and gas generators emit more air pollution than they would if allowed to simply run in a steady, even manner, as they would if windmills were not connected to the grid.

How bad is it? As a brief reminder, the two most significant pollutants regulated under the federal Clean Air Act, and emitted by fossil fuel electricity generation units, are sulfur dioxide (SO2) which causes acid rain and nitrogen oxides (NOx) which causes smog. With wind on the grid Colorado gets more of each.

Looking only at the incremental increase in pollution, subtracting out the emissions avoided by wind energy, the result is that due to wind generation, SO2 and NOx emissions are significantly higher (approximately 23 percent and approximately 27 percent, respectively) than they would have been if the coal plants had not been cycled to compensate for wind generation. And, these figures are not from old, dirty coal plants. The plants already have all the pollution controls a new plant requires. Indeed, the annual increases in SO2 appear to be larger than allowed under their permits and larger than allowed under the basic requirements of the Clean Air Act, and thus should probably require the facilities to obtain new permits (and pay some fines in the process).

But that’s not all.

Concerns about global warming stand behind all the hoopla of renewable energy mandates, so, how many tons of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide) does Colorado wind eliminate?

Well – none. Rather, CO2 emissions increased by about 2 percent more than if the erratic variability of wind had not caused the fossil-fueled plants to be cycled.

As a scientist, I had to ask, could these increases in pollution actually be true? After all, the many models and extrapolations and forecasts and estimates – they all said pollution would go down. Well, OK, not all of them, but most of them did.

But they were predictions based on assumptions that, upon honest inspection, were found lacking. Hard data, real observations – these are the stuff of science and engineering. Once we had hard data in hand, the facts became clear. Wind is dirtier than coal and natural gas. Soon to be published additional engineering studies confirm the initial research.

So, what is a fellow to do? I’ve been an environmental scientist for 37 years and I’ve been suing companies to stop air pollution for nigh on a dozen years. I don’t see any reason to stop now, just because it is politically incorrect. Wind is scientifically incorrect. It is environmentally incorrect. It is economically incorrect. In a court of public opinion wind may find a way to look good, but in a court of law, the facts will out and reason ought to prevail. The ATI Environmental Law Center represents the public interest and that interest demands putting wind on trial.

ATI will file its complaint in federal court on Monday, April 4th. Copies of that complaint and associated materials will be available on the ATI website immediately after we file.

Virginia’s environmental policy makers should find this legal challenge of great interest as they look to the future and our Commonwealth’s energy needs.

Link: http://baconsrebellion.com/