THE POLITICAL REALITY THAT SLOWS THE CLIMATE CHANGE FIGHT

US CO2 goals 'to be compromised'
Roger Harrabin, May 21, 2009 (BBC News)
and
16 Times Louder
A Siegel, May 21, 2009 (Daily Kos)

SUMMARY
Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Steven Chu told the BBC News that U.S. efforts to establish a greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs) reductions program will be compromised by the Obama administration’s political opponents. (See SUMMER ON CAPITOL HILL WITH THE ENERGY/CLIMATE BILL and SENATE COMMITTEE REMAINS COMMITTED...)

To avoid what Secretary Chu told the BBC is a rapidly approaching climate change tipping point, at which it will become impossible to reverse the changes and become necessary to adapt to them, it is urgent for the U.S. to begin cutting its emissions. Because of an adamant political opposition, it has been necessary for the Obama administration to accept the need for compromise and environmentalists must accept this political reality as well.

Having accepted the political reality of the situation, Secretary Chu indicated he is ready to take what he can get from the administration’s opponents and make it better in the coming years. He said this left him optimistic for the first time in his life because he saw the U.S. finally ready to make real emissions reductions efforts.

One specific compromise he mentioned was the acceptance of new coal plants ahead of the development of proven carbon capture and sequestration (CCS, or “clean” coal) technology. As Secretary Chu pointed out to the BBC, the UK government made the same compromise in proposing new coal plants that are “clean” coal-ready.

From BBC News

A Greenpeace USA spokesman fired back angrily at Chu's remarks about "clean" coal, calling them “contradictory and illogical…” and saying Chu knows the US should stop burning dirty coal because there is no way the U.S. can substantially cut its emissions while it is doing so.

Chu said the first U.S. step toward GhG reductions should be the most readily attainable, the instituting of Energy Efficiency standards and incentive policies wherever possible. He said efficiency alone could cut U.S. emissions dramatically.

In the longer term, Secretary Chu sees the U.S. powered by New Energy, especially solar energy and wind power. Though he says the solar resource is entirely adequate, Chu sees high cost and inadequate transmission as obstacles to implementing solar energy widely. The obstacle to more and faster wind development is also transmission. Both solar and wind, Chu said, would benefit from a cost-effective storage technology.

Ample sun. (click to enlarge

When the BBC told Secretary Chu that recent calculations from a major UK investment bank showed China to have made twice the investment in New Energy as the U.S., he could only say the Obama administration is working to change that.

The lecture Secretary Chu can’t take back. From k21desmog via YouTube

COMMENTARY
Secretary Chu’s observations come with a unique authority because he was a Nobel laureate in physics and Director of DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory before being appointed to head the Energy Department by President Obama.

President Obama seems to be operating on the same set of assumptions as Secretary Chu. While environmental groups responded to last week’s passage of an energy and climate bill by a key Congressional Committee with muted or withheld praise, the President hailed the bill’s approval by the House Energy and Commerce Committee as a victory, moving the country “one step closer” to a New Energy economy.

The Sierra Club response to the bill’s passage exemplified muted praise. Sierra Club seemed to be struggling to accept the harsh realities of “…a committee historically dominated by those with ties to the oil, coal, and other polluting industries…” It recognized that the bill put the country “…on the path…” to cut emissions 80% by 2050. It said the committee’s plan “…establishes a framework…” but the fossil fuel industries compromised the effort.

In Greenpeace’s response there was no praise, muted or otherwise. It called for new leadership from the President and Congress and described the bill as “…drastically weakened…” on behalf of fossil fuels and other polluting industries.

click to enlarge

Of all the environmental voices responding to the passage of the compromised energy bill, that of 1Sky's Gillian Campbell was perhaps the most moving. After explaining that oil, coal, and natural gas companies' lobbyists outspent environmental groups 16 to 1 ($79 million to $4.7 million) in the 3 months leading up to the Committee vote on the bill, she said her organization was resolved to keep working to make the legislation better and "...to be 16 times louder..." in pursuit of a law that is (1) scientifically sound, (2) makes polluters pay and (3) is socially equitable.

click to enlarge

QUOTES
- U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, on poltical pragmatism: "With each successive year the news on climate change has not been good and there's a growing sensation that the world and the US in particular has to get moving…As someone very concerned about climate I want to be as aggressive as possible but I also want to get started. And if we say we want something much more aggressive on the early timescales that would draw considerable opposition and that would delay the process for several years…But if I am going to say we need to do much, much better I am afraid the US won't get started."
- Chu on solar: "…The amount of energy hitting the Earth - if you looked at it, if you could convert (with photovoltaic cells) 20% of the Sun's energy into electricity you would need 5% of the world's deserts. This is not much land. So the opportunity is enormous…You have to transport this long distances because people don't live in deserts."
- Chu, on wind: "The good news is that many of the areas with good wind are where there aren't many people, so there are fewer objections to wind farms. The bad news is that there aren't many people. So we are planning to look at how you get an interconnecting (transmission) system, to allow us to develop these great resources."

From 1Sky

- President Obama, on the victory in committee of the energy/climate bill: “I commend Chairman Waxman and the Members of the Energy and Commerce Committee for a successful effort…We are now one step closer to delivering on the promise of a new clean energy economy that will make America less dependent on foreign oil, crack down on polluters, and create millions of new jobs all across America. The bill is historic for what it achieves…[And] all the more historic for bringing together many who have in the past opposed a common effort, from labor unions to corporate CEOs, and environmentalists to energy companies. I applaud the committee…”
- From the Sierra Club statement: “is a laudable victory and truly historic accomplishment. Chairmen Waxman and Markey have led the way and it is certain that this feat never could have happened without their extraordinary leadership…the plan approved by the committee establishes a sound framework for achieving its vital goals, Big Oil, Big Coal, and dirty power companies like Southern Company extracted a steep price at the expense of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other provisions critical to protecting both the planet and the public interest. As this piece of legislation moves forward we will work with our allies to mount a vigorous effort to strengthen this bill…”
- Damon Moglen, spokesman, Greenpeace USA: "Obama has had something of a honeymoon with environmentalists…But we are getting very concerned. Professor Chu is a good man and a good scientist, but the science on global warming is clear and he should be guided by the science not the politics…





BIG SOLAR POWER PLANT ACTION UNDER AZ SUN
2nd APS solar plant may surpass target set for green energy
Ryan Randozzo, May 22, 2009 (Arizona Republic)

SUMMARY
The 290-megawatt, $1.5 billion Starwood Solar I power plant, a solar power plant that will occupy 3 square miles of farmland 75 miles west of the Phoenix, AZ, city limits, will be built and run by Lockheed Martin Corp., financed and owned by Starwood Energy Group of Connecticut, and secured by a power purchase agreement (PPA) from Arizona Public Service Co. (APS).

Starwood Solar I – expected to be in operation by 2013 – will supply enough electricity to power ~72,500 homes while the sun shines and will have a storage capacity to drive turbines for 6 hours beyond sunset.

Though the project will not cost APS anything until it begins generating electricity, the PPA is estimated to be worth $100+ million a year and $4 billion over 30 years.

The solar power plant technology chosen by Lockeheed Martin and APS for Starwood Solar I is the parabolic trough mirror concept. It focuses sunlight reflected by the mirrors onto tubes of fluid. The heated fluid flows through the tubes to heat watrer-filled boilers to make steam that drives turbines that generate electricity.

The parabolic trough mirror technology to be used at Starwood Solar I. (click to enlarge)

During the day, the system will produce more heat than is needed to drive the turbine. The excess will be used to heat stored molten salts. Each day, as the sun’s potency fades, the healted salts will be circulated to the boiler to continue driving the turbine. The capability of the molten salts to hold heat is estimated to be able to provide power generation for 6 hours.

Schematic of the molten salts storage concept. (click to enlarge)

The Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC), which regulates the state’s utilities, must approve the PPA. APS will ask ACC for an increase – it has not said how much – on the $3.17 per month it now adds to residential ratepayer bills for New Energy. The present cost of solar power plant-generated electricity is estimated to be 8% over that of electricity generated by natural gas. The utility’s justification for the price increase is that building solar capacity now will make future rates lower when there is a price on the emissions from fossil fuel sources.

APS sees no alternative to solar power plants and natural gas. It believes coal will be too expensive when there is a price on emissions and nuclear is just too expensive. The Chair of ACC believes nuclear is, at present, more expensive than solar energy.


COMMENTARY
The APS commitment to solar energy and solar power plant development in Arizona is altering the New Energy landscape there.

Starwood Solar I will be larger than the 250-megawatt Solana Generating Station announced last year for construction south of Phoenix in Gila Bend by multinational Spanish solar power plant developer Abengoa Solar Inc. and secured by a PPA with APS.

Schematic of Abengoa's Solana solar power plant.

With the 2 projects, APS will have twice the installed 4.5% New Energy capacity equired by Arizona’s short-term (2014) Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) and be well on its way to meeting the 25% long-term (2025) requirement. The projects will secure APS its incremental RES requirements through 2019.

Meeting the terms of the state RES a driving force behind the APS commitment to solar power plants. The only obstacle to meeting the 2014 RES requirement with them is the availability of financing. With the economic downturn, financial institutions that were gobbling up projects like Solana no longer had any need for the investment tax credits that were their main interest in participation. As a result, the Abengoa project is still looking for financing and APS has moved back its operational date to 2011.

AZ has a solar crave-out in its RES - and APS will double it with its solar power plant plans. (click to enlarge)

Starwood Energy says that between its affiliated private-equity firm and DOE and stimulus funds financing will not be an obstacle for Starwood Solar I.

The choice of Lockheed Martin to build and operate Starwood Solar I is based on the defense company’s engineering experience in satellite and missile programs. Solar technology is high on the Lockheed Martin agenda because of its take on New Energy as a national-security issue, a way of developing domestic resources.

Both Abengoa’s Solana installation and Starwood Solar I will use the parabolic trough mirror technology. It is the most established of the solar power plant technologies, having been first tried in California’s Mojave Desert in the late 1980s.

There are several other prominent solar power plant technologies. The solar power tower concept also heats liquid to boil water and drive a turbine but it uses a field of flat plate mirrors to concentrate the sun’s heat at one point instead of flowing the liquid through the field of parabolic mirrors. Like the parabolic mirror concept, the solar power tower concept allows for molten salt heat storage. Abengoa is developing solar power tower projects in Spain.

The solar power tower concept, another solar power plant technology compatible with storage. (click to enlarge)

Stirling Energy Systems (SES) has developed a unique generator that uses mirrors to focus the sun’s heat on a small hydrogen-powered engine. In trials, the SES device has demonstrated higher efficiencies than the other concepts. It remains unproven in real world circumstances but has won PPAs for 1,500+ megawatts from San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) and will soon get a big test in the California deserts outside San Diego.

Solar power plants have also been built using the familiar rooftop photovoltaic (PV) solar panels made from polysilicon or more advanced, thin-film materials. PV materials capture the light of the sun and transform it directly into electricity instead of using the sun’s heat to drive a turbine. They are more tested and proven but are not as appealing for usage in solar power plants because the electricity they generate cannot be stored except in batteries. Battery storage is smaller in scale and more expensive than the molten salt heat storage concepts being tested by APS.

A SunEdison PV solar power plant. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- Don Brandt, CEO, APS: "We've set our business plan in place, and solar is it…We view solar power and energy efficiency as our best alternatives now and in the best interest of our customers."
- Brad Nordholm, CEO, Starwood Energy: "The markets have been very thin but will be improving…For a project that has a strong (purchase agreement), strong sponsor and strong construction contracts, like we have, we believe the markets are open."
- Brandt, APS, on meeting the AZ RES: "We've got limited options between now and 2020…Coal is not viable because of the carbon costs and the expense, and I don't think anybody believes this country will build a new nuclear reactor before 2020."
- Kris Mayes, Chair, AZ Corporation Commission: "If we didn't build these renewable projects, rates would go up even more because we'd be reliant on coal-fired power generation, which is about to be taxed by Congress…I am a believer in investing in nuclear energy, but when you look at the cost, it is actually more expensive megawatt for megawatt compared with solar."
- Chris Myers, vice president of energy programs, Lockheed-Martin: "We view energy as a national-security issue…We are a global security company…We work on products that help protect the U.S., our friends and our allies. This (solar-power plant) still is part of the global security environment in my view."