Willem Post's Blog (689)

The General Assembly enacted a Renewable Portfolio Standard, RPS, mandate requiring 55% of utility retail electricity supplies to be from renewable sources by 2017, and 75% by 2032, per Act 56. 

On a contracted and self-production basis, GMP’s RE was about 34.7 + 5.6 +18.1 = 58.4% of its retail electricity supplies in 2016, of which RECs were retained or sold. GMP’s electricity mix was about as follows:

The main purpose of this article is to show a large quantity of hydro energy can be obtained from Canada at much less cost and environmental damage to the New England economy and environment than building out wind energy on ridgelines. In this article, I assumed the ISO-NE energy from wind would be either 100% on shore, or 50% offshore and 50% onshore.

Most New England coal, oil, and nuclear plants likely would be phased out over the next 20 - 30 years. Those 3 sources were…

ECONOMICS OF BATTERIES FOR STABILIZING AND STORAGE ON DISTRIBUTION GRIDS

It appears the world has ample fossil fuels for at least the next 100 years, even with a growing gross world product and population. A worldwide, full-scale transition away from fossil fuels likely would take at least 100 years. It would not be wise to subsidize the build-out of technologies that have very little potential to provide the world with abundant, low-cost…

In violation of the spirit of Act 250, VT has been shamelessly trashing its pristine ridge lines with 500-ft tall, environmentally destructive, noise-making, property-value-reducing, health-damaging industrial wind turbine power plants that produce unsteady, grid-disturbing, variable, intermittent (i.e., non-dispatchable) energy at a cost of about 10 c/kWh (with subsidies), and about 15 c/kWh (without subsidies); NE average wholesale prices have been about 4.5 – 5.0 c/kWh for the past 5…

The Vermont Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP) states a goal of 90% renewable energy of ALL energy by 2050, not just electrical energy, which is only 35% of all energy. The plan includes proposals to increase wood-for-fuel logging by 132% over 2014 levels. To set the stage, well-known pro-logging consultants performed various studies to determine wood-for-fuel quantities. The standard assumption in such studies is the CO2 from wood burning is not counted, because unfounded claims are made “it…

The Vermont media site, VTDigger, had a recent comment: “Just a single 25 megawatt (MW) wood chip plant could provide some 4 percent of Vermont’s consumption, 24/7/365, and would contribute to the Vermont economy in the form of jobs and money in circulation from the wages, taxes — wealth created in the state that stays in the state.”

Special Report: New Renewable…

Almost all modern electrical systems have three categories of generating plants: base-loaded, intermediate, and peaking. The base-loaded plants produce at least 65% of all energy, are run 24/7/365, and have the lowest unit energy cost, about $40 - $45/MWh, included are the “must-run” plants. The intermediate plants produce about 30% of all energy, are run as needed to satisfy the daily variations of demand, and have higher unit energy costs, about $55/MWh. The peaking plants produce the…

East Europe and the US Southeast still have significant areas with forests. Starting about 2005, major parts of these forests have been harvested by means of clear-cutting. In 2016, about 6.5 million metric ton of wood pellets will be shipped from the US Southeast to Europe for co-firing in coal-fired power plants.

The EU has declared these coal plants in compliance with EU CO2/kWh…

Germany has a goal to have almost all of its domestic electricity consumption from renewable sources by 2050. The Energiewende goals are: