NewEnergyNews: WINDPOWER 2008, DAY 2: WIND IS CLEAN AND PLENTIFUL BUT ABOUT ‘CLEAN’ COAL THERE ARE QUESTIONS/

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YESTERDAY

THINGS-TO-THINK-ABOUT WEDNESDAY, August 23:

  • TTTA Wednesday-ORIGINAL REPORTING: The IRA And The New Energy Boom
  • TTTA Wednesday-ORIGINAL REPORTING: The IRA And the EV Revolution
  • THE DAY BEFORE

  • Weekend Video: Coming Ocean Current Collapse Could Up Climate Crisis
  • Weekend Video: Impacts Of The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current Collapse
  • Weekend Video: More Facts On The AMOC
  • THE DAY BEFORE THE DAY BEFORE

    WEEKEND VIDEOS, July 15-16:

  • Weekend Video: The Truth About China And The Climate Crisis
  • Weekend Video: Florida Insurance At The Climate Crisis Storm’s Eye
  • Weekend Video: The 9-1-1 On Rooftop Solar
  • THE DAY BEFORE THAT

    WEEKEND VIDEOS, July 8-9:

  • Weekend Video: Bill Nye Science Guy On The Climate Crisis
  • Weekend Video: The Changes Causing The Crisis
  • Weekend Video: A “Massive Global Solar Boom” Now
  • THE LAST DAY UP HERE

    WEEKEND VIDEOS, July 1-2:

  • The Global New Energy Boom Accelerates
  • Ukraine Faces The Climate Crisis While Fighting To Survive
  • Texas Heat And Politics Of Denial
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    Founding Editor Herman K. Trabish

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    WEEKEND VIDEOS, June 17-18

  • Fixing The Power System
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  • Weekend Video: The Way Wind Can Help Win Wars
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    email: herman@NewEnergyNews.net

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  • WEEKEND VIDEOS, August 24-26:
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  • The Virtual Power Plant Boom, Part 1
  • The Virtual Power Plant Boom, Part 2

    Wednesday, June 04, 2008

    WINDPOWER 2008, DAY 2: WIND IS CLEAN AND PLENTIFUL BUT ABOUT ‘CLEAN’ COAL THERE ARE QUESTIONS

    With apologies to Hamlet, Prince of Denmark:

    To keep the lights on or turn the heat off, is that the question?
    Though it’s better for the climate to suffer the slings and arrows
    Of changing to New Energy, will the changing
    Put the lights out? Though by changing save us?
    Ay – there’s the rub…


    John Podesta (President/CEO, Center for American Progress & former White House Chief of Staff to President Clinton), General Wesley Clark (former Supreme Allied Commander, NATO Europe), Pat Wood (Texas energy and transmission authority and former head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) and Jeff Goodell (Author, Big Coal – The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future), guest presenters for the Day 2 plenary session of WindPower 2008, the wind energy industry’s annual conference and exhibition, agreed wind energy now offers something better than the Hamlet-like choices between inadequate energy supplies or global climate change and its accompanying economic and national security problems.

    Mr. Podesta spoke first. Picking up on introductory remarks from moderator Gregory Wetstone of the
    American Wind Energy Association about the urgency of building New Energy (and especially wind energy) in a climate change-challenged world, Podesta reframed the crisis as an opportunity: “Doing nothing about global warming presents a far greater cost than acting.”

    Podesta then offered a Washington insider’s insights into the cap-and-trade legislation currently being debated by the Senate: “Finally, after years of delay and denial, we’re seeing, I think, a new bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill calling for a new energy strategy for real reductions in greenhouse gases…”


    A crucial detail of cap-and-trade is what percent of the allowances are auctioned. (click to enlarge)

    Podesta also offered an observation on the Senate’s climate change legislation: ‘This is a much more aggressive bill than the one considered just a few years ago…because it’s clear that the challenge is even greater.”

    On the positions of Senators Obama and McCain, Podesta repeatedly said the main issue that separates them is McCain’s stronger advocacy of nuclear energy.

    He described at some length the ways Europe had raced ahead of the U.S. in New Energy in the last decade-and-a-half and attributed Europe’s progress to favorable polices and incentives like Renewable Electricity Standards and feed-in tariffs: “I think the U.S. would be even further behind…if states had not stepped up to the challenge…while the private sector will produce the results we need, good policy matters.”


    click to enlarge

    He concluded with a call for extension of wind energy’s production tax credit (PTC) and for a complete change in the Congress’s direction: ‘We have to reorganize lobbying in this country and break the stranglehold the fossil fuel industry has on the Congress and show the tremendous benefits that can accrue…”

    General Clark spoke next, describing his own participation with international wind developer
    EWT and his excitement about the 600 to 700 jobs his company will bring to the U.S.: “You can do well and do good in this business.” And later: “Bringing those jobs in is the most exciting thing I’ve done since I got out of the military.”

    He talked about having been interested and involved in New Energy development all the way back to the early 1970s when, as a young Captain, he suffered military ostracism for writing that U.S. dependence on imported oil might eventually cause the country to be drawn into a military role in the Middle East: “My scars on this go back a long way.”

    General Clark stressed the national security aspects of energy and outlined the many harms now done by dependence on imported oil (from war in Iraq to economic stresses at home) and the harms that could be done by dependence on fossil fuels like dirty coal that aggravate global climate change. It all leads him to one conclusion: “The near term opportunity I see is wind energy.”

    General Wesley Clark. (click to enlarge)

    He concluded with an enthusiastic description of the potential of “clean” coal technology as used in the oil industry to enhance production. He said carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology is proven and urged the development of it.

    Pat Wood, a dynamic moderate Republican who led the restructuring of the Texas electricity market that turned it into the most competitive energy market in the U.S. and was brought into the Bush administration in 2001 to lead the Federal Energy Regulatory Commision through the cleanup of the Enron mess, dramatically described the nation’s current situation as “Two Jihads.”

    The first is a transportation sector “jihad” against “Petro-Totalitarians” (a term he attributed to the NY Times’ Tom Friedman). The second is a “jihad” against coal: “…on the power generation side it’s about telling coal ‘you don’t get a seat at the table.'”

    Wood offered some historical perspective, pointing out that while gas pump prices have tripled since the early 1990s, power prices have climbed only 1/3. He then took an optimistic look ahead. He sees the year 2100 being fueled entirely by solar, wind and nuclear energies. He sees natural gas and coal as the bridges to them. His conservative nature inclines him to think it will be a difficult process but his optimism makes him believe it is doable.

    He described the present moment as a moment of change, a moment when concerns over national security, economic issues and environmental matters are all driving the country in the same direction, “…a very pregnant moment.”

    Like many other energy experts from the Department of Energy to NewEnergyNews, Wood sees wind as ready to expand to meet its 20%-by-2030 goal.

    The last speaker of the morning was Jeff Goodell, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone whose book, Big Coal – The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future, was widely praised. Goodell was succinct and penetrating. While Pat Wood had described coal as a bridge to New Energy and General Clark had praised the potential of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology to provide emissions-free power generation, Goodell – who has studied the coal industry and CCS technology carefully – asked some pointed questions about “…the 800-pound gorilla in the room when it comes to energy policy…”


    click to enlarge

    He referenced wind’s 2007 5000+ megawatt’s of new capacity and asked: “How many megawatts of carbon-free energy did the coal industry build last year? Zero…” He then referenced the wind industry’s goal to build 300 GIGAwatts of capacity by 2030: “What do you think the chances are of 300 gigawatts of carbon-free energy from coal by 2030? I think…they would be very lucky to see 30 gigawatts…”

    Goodell then raised what he called “the fundamental questions that underlie the whole debate.” First, he suggested the estimates of U.S. and world coal reserves are too high. “The cheap, easy-to-get coal is gone. So what’s left is going to be far more expensive to get out of the ground and far more environmentally destructive. Have you seen West Virginia?”

    Second, he expressed serious doubt about the viability of CCS: “I think that there are a lot of questions about that. I think there are a lot of questions about the economics of it. I think there are a lot of questions about the scalability of it…when you think about scaling it up to really make it part of the solution…I think there’s a lot of questions…”

    He described the public debate about CCS as political gamesmanship: “We’re not going to find out the real truth about carbon capture and storage until we get a price on carbon…”

    After their presentations, AWEA’s Wetstone led the four speakers in a wide-ranging discussion.

    Podesta pointed out that the changes needed to drive New Energy growth could come from a new mood in the electorate: "…that’s forcing politics in Washington to seek change…” He predicted cap-and-trade legislation will be enacted by the next Congress.


    From one of Mr. Podesta's papers. (click to enlarge)

    General Clark said change depended on keeping the constituency seeking it a “big tent.” With or without change, Clark retains his commitment to wind: "The near term opportunity is wind.”

    Pat Wood doubted the possibility of building a consensus, calling it “very difficult.” But he said the PTC extension might be passed as a consolation measure pushed through by the current Congress as a sort of apologia for not doing anything else.

    Goodell pointed out that the economy is a “wild card…the harder times are, the harder it is to get change…”

    When the conversation turned to specific legislative issues, all agreed it is important for members of the wind industry to make their voices heard in Washington.

    (Tell Congress to act at Support Renewable Energy Tax Credits)

    Near the end, John Podesta made a simple yet remarkable observation, putting a full close on General Clark’s opening comment that in the wind business it’s possible to both do well and do good.

    Podesta: “On a bipartisan basis, people who embrace the future and embrace a clean technology approach to their economy are succeeding politically and they’re succeeding economically."

    Nothing could better explain the enormous and growing success of the men and women of the wind energy industry, as is undeniably demonstrated by WindPower 2008.

    Because the convention this year is in Houston, Texas, the capital of the traditional energy industries, the WindPower 2008 logline is “Wind – Thriving at the Epicenter of Energy.” Thriving is exactly the right word.


    On the floor: An Acciona 3-megawatt turbine nacelle (the thing that sits atop the tower on which the blades fasten). Big. (click to enlarge)


    WindPower 2008: Conference and Exhibition
    June 1 – 4, 2008 (American Wind Energy Association)

    WHO
    - General Session (Tuesday): John Podesta (President/CEO, Center for American Progress & former White House Chief of Staff to President Clinton); General Wesley Clark (former Supreme Allied Commander, NATO Europe); Pat Wood (Texas energy and transmission authority and former head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission); Jeff Goodell (Author, Big Coal – The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future)

    WHAT
    Day 2 of the annual wind industry conclave started with a set of lively presentations and affirmations of the importance of extending the production tax credits and developed an undercurrent of debate among the presenters about how soon legislation incentivizing New Energy would come and about whether “clean” coal was clean or desirable.

    WHEN
    - Day 2: June 3, 2008
    - Schedule-at-a-glance

    The George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas. A state-of-the-art facility. (click to enlarge)

    WHERE
    - Deep in the heart of Texas and in the center of the energy world at the Geroge R. Brown Convention Center
    1001 Avenida de las Americas
    Houston, TX 77010
    - Directions

    WHY
    - Wind energy is steadily moving into coal’s space in the American energy mix.
    - WindPower is the most significant wind energy industry gathering of the year.
    - This year’s event has almost 800 exhibitors, up from 420 last year.
    - There are 12,000+ attendees.
    - Wind energy capacity grew 27% in 2006 and 45% in 2007.
    - Wind was second only to natural gas as a source of new electricity generation in the U.S. in 2007.
    - What AWEA is doing to make the event environmentally friendly
    - Transportation and accommodations by Cindy Lou of Austin
    - Scheduling and financial services by Teri Lee of La Crescenta

    click to enlarge

    QUOTES
    - Randall Swisher, Executive Director, American Wind Energy Association (AWEA): “The report shows that wind power can provide 20% of the nation’s electricity by 2030…[it] identifies the central constraints to achieving 20% - transmission, siting, manufacturing and technology - and demonstrates how each can be overcome. As an inexhaustible domestic resource, wind strengthens our energy security, improves the quality of the air we breathe, slows climate change, and revitalizes rural communities.”

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