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Empowering power consumers: Google beta tests software to give consumers real-time info

February 17th, 2009 No comments

“If you cannot measure it;

You cannot improve it.”

— Lord Kelvin

Consistent with its mission to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” Google, whose climate change-related efforts I’ve blogged about previously, is trying to help consumers to measure and track their real-time electric usage, thereby allowing them to make better choices as to when and how they use electricity.

Google is now beta testing new “PowerMeter” software – a secure iGoogle Gadget that it plans to give away free (though no doubt there will be a buck or two for Google in advertising and data services later) – that will provide near real-time power usage information to consumers who have advanced “Smart Meters”.  This information will make it easy for consumers to figure out when and how they are using electricity, to manage such use by device and to better match such use to the pricing programs of their utilities.  So far, Google testers have found that the software allows them to relatively easily cut use (by an average of 15%), and to save on their electricity bills by an even greater percentage.

The availability of such software will motivate consumers everywhere to push their utilizing to establish Smart Meter programs, for access to the information generated by such meters, and for an array of services and pricing programs.  There should be a boom smart meters, as the Obama Administration’s proposed stimulus package targets supporting their installation in over 40 million U.S. homes
over the next three years.

While Smart Meter / Smart Grid programs have been growing, there is still considerable market fragmentation and rights of consumers have not been clearly spelled out. According to Google, while some state regulators have ordered utilities to deploy smart
meters, their focus has been on their use by utilities and grid
managers, and not on consumer rights to the information they generate.  As a result, Google is engaged in policy advocacy as well; says Google:

“deploying smart meters alone isn’t enough. This needs to be coupled
with a strategy to provide customers with easy access to energy
information. That’s why we believe that open protocols and standards
should serve as the cornerstone of smart grid projects, to spur
innovation, drive competition, and bring more information to consumers
as the smart grid evolves. We believe that detailed data on your
personal energy use belongs to you, and should be available in an open
standard, non-proprietary format. You should control who gets to see
your data, and you should be free to choose from a wide range of
services to help you understand it and benefit from it. For more
details on our policy suggestions, check out the comments we filed yesterday with the California Public Utility Commission.”

While it’s not clear yet how significant a role Google will end up playing in this market, Google is to be commended, as both its PowerMeter software and its advocay efforts will help pave the way to greater consumer choice and freer markets.

What we need in addition is for the Obama Administration and Congress to give a kick in the pants to electric power market reform and deregulation along the lines of proposals that I have noted elsewhere.  Consumers need not only better information, but greater competition in who is providing them electricity and in the sources that are used to generate it.

Christian Science Monitor summary here:

New York Times

Wired

The Google Blog

Google’s PowerMeter website

[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dx38hzRWDQ:550:0]

Categories: Google, obama, power, smart grid Tags:

Paul Joskow: What electric power regulatory reforms are need? A Federal Power Act of 2009

February 8th, 2009 No comments

Further to my previous posts, excerpted below are the recommendations that Paul Joskow (energy expert, MIT economist and current president of the Alfred P Sloan Foundationn) recently made in a speech at the National Press Club:

What is to be done?

 

We need to stop dealing with the electric power sector by placing band aids on the Federal Power Act of 1935. We need a comprehensive national policy for the electric power sector — a Federal Power Act of 2009 to replace the Federal Power Act of 1935. A policy that respects legitimate state rights but also reflects the contemporary attributes of electricity generation, transmission and distribution technologies, opportunities for innovation, and the public policy demands that are or will be placed on the electric power sector. While, I recognize that there are many technical differences between them, the restructuring of the U.S. natural gas industry provides a very successful basic organizational model to start with for the electric power industry. The special attributes of electricity and electricity networks can be layered on top of this model.

 

What provisions might a Federal Power Act of 2009 contain?

 

1. The economic, planning, reliability, and siting review and regulation of high voltage transmission facilities with voltages above, let’s say, 69 kv, should be federalized and the prices for transmission service over this network fully unbundled from generation and distribution service and made transparent. This would follow the structural and regulatory reform model associated with interstate pipeline transportation of natural gas and the successful implementation of electricity sector reform models introduced in other countries. Recent federal legislation effectively “federalized” reliability rules and made them mandatory. This is a step in the right direction.

 

2. The key provisions of FERC Order 2000 should be put into law. This would require the creation of [additional] TROs [regional transmission organizations] that manage the operation of large regional transmission networks, implement FERC’s transmission access, pricing, and planning regulations, and operate voluntary wholesale markets for electric energy, ancillary services, capacity and transmission rights. There is abundant evidence (a) that RTOs are needed to support efficient competitive markets, (b) that expanding the geographic expanse of RTOs and improving the market designs for energy, ancillary services and capacity lead to efficiency improvements, (c) and that wholesale market designs built around what is generally referred to as the “standard market design,” augmented by capacity obligations and capacity markets, promote economic efficiency.

 

3. Vertically integrated utilities should be required to unbundled generation service from distribution service so that their respective costs or prices are transparent. They should also be required at least to move their generation facilities to a separate generation affiliate. Existing cost-of-service arrangements governing existing generating capacity can be replicated through properly structure long-term wholesale contracts between distribution and generation affiliates that are regulated by FERC. This will preserve the imbedded economic benefits (or costs) of existing generating capacity for retail consumers. These contracts would be transparent wholesale power contracts and regulated by the FERC.

 

4. The states would be free to decide whether or not they wanted to introduce retail competition for some or all customer classes. Where distribution companies continue to have obligations to serve retail customers at regulated retail prices, however, they would be required to meet at least their incremental power supply needs through competitive wholesale market solicitations managed by the states using procurement mechanisms that meet reasonably flexible FERC competitive procurement criteria. In states that have already restructured and adopted a competitive wholesale market model, all default retail supply obligations would be met through approved competitive procurement programs.

 

5. Any federal loan guarantees available for financing nuclear, CCS, or renewable generation would be available only for “merchant” generating facilities and not to facilities subject to traditional cost-of-service regulation. Generators should get loan guarantees only once. Regulated generators can effectively get loan guarantees through cost of service regulation. Merchant generators can get similar financing relief from federal loan guarantees. This would roughly place regulated and merchant generation investment options on a level playing field.

 

6. [Assuming that a cap and trade program is enacted,] Any free CO2 allowances allocated to the electric power sector should go directly to electricity consumers through non-distortionary lumpsum distributions based on, say, historical consumption in a base period. All generators that emit CO2 would be required to buy allowances in the market to cover their emissions. Generators subject to cost-of-service arrangements would be allowed to pass the associated costs through the retail price regulatory process and they would be reflected in retail prices. Consumers would get a lump sum “dividend” on their bills each month for the value of the allowances allocated to them. That is, consumers would face the efficient retail price on the margin, while receiving a dividend that would not depend on whether their consumption increases or decreases, but would lower their total bills. This would then provide better retail price signals on the margin where it matters for stimulating wise consumption decisions.

 

7. State regulatory jurisdiction and regulation would continue over distribution facilities, sub-transmission facilities below 69 say kv, whether and how retail competition will be permitted, energy efficiency programs, and competitive procurement of generation consistent with FERC procurement criteria. This is no different from the states’ jurisdiction in the natural gas industry.  …

 

It will take significant political courage to design and implement a comprehensive electricity sector reform program because there are powerful interest groups that benefit from the status quo. 

 

(emphasis added)

 

I encourage interested readers to see Joskow`s full written remarks, linked above.

 

H/T Lynne Kiesling.

MIT economist Paul Joskow describes our current electricity regulatory framework

February 8th, 2009 2 comments

I believe that a key problem – and thus a key opportunity – that our country faces is over-regulation and misregulation of the electric power sector.  Regulatory reform in this area is a middle ground, both for enviros and those whose principle concerns are economic liberty and healthy markets.

As I noted previously, Paul Joskow, current President of the Alfred P Sloan Foundation and former head of the MIT Department of Economics (now on leave) and former director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, laid out a history of the electric power regulation and a series of regulatory reform proposals in a speech given at the National Press Club in September last year.

Here is an excerpt of his remarks on the evolution and current status of electric power regulation

For almost 50 years this sector was stuck in an organizational and regulatory framework that may have been well matched to the electricity generation and transmission technology available in 1935, but was surely poorly matched to changes in technology, new technological opportunities, contemporary investment needs, or current economic and environmental challenges. Then in the early 1980s, electricity sector reformers began to stir, responding to concerns about the system of regulated vertically integrated monopolies inherited from the 1930s. The “good old days” of regulation represent a view to the past with rose colored glasses. The system of regulated vertically integrated monopoly was plagued by cost overruns associated with nuclear power plants, poor operating performance for both nuclear and large fossil-fueled plants, poor fuel procurement decisions, wide price differences between neighboring areas, excess generating capacity, inefficient dispatch and economy energy trading between generating companies, regulatory incentives to keep old inefficient plants operating rather than retiring them, too many small utilities to take advantage of economies of scale, institutional and technological barriers to using the transmission network to access lower cost power, productivity lags, and inefficient retail prices. The system …was unnecessarily costly and inefficient.

Reformers looked to the favorable experience with restructuring, competition, and regulatory reform in other sectors and with electricity in other countries to help to solve the problems associated with the fragmented electric power sector made up of over 100 vertically integrated geographic monopolies. Municipal distribution companies and large industrial customers were especially aggressive at promoting reforms focused on open transmission access, the creation of transparent organized regional competitive wholesale markets, and (in the case of large industrial customers) retail competition.

A large number of states initially embraced this restructuring, competition, and regulatory reform vision and began to implement it. In 2000 it looked like restructuring and competitive market reforms were going to sweep the U.S. electric power industry.

Then came the California electricity crisis, the collapse of Enron and a number of merchant generating companies, increased volatility to natural gas markets and associated volatility in wholesale electricity market prices, and a long march upward in fossil fuel prices ultimately resulting in rising retail electricity prices in both regulated and restructured states. Most of the states that were leaders in restructuring during the late 1990s, when natural gas prices were low and there was excess capacity, initiated reforms during a period when regulated prices for generation service were expected to be much higher than perceived comparable competitive wholesale market prices. The expectation was that over time retail prices would fall. This forecast was based on the assumption that low prices for natural gas in particular would continue and that a new system built on efficient CCGT technology would evolve. At that time, a major “problem” that many of these states had to cope with were the “stranded generation costs,” primarily associated with what were perceived to be costly nuclear power plants, that were expected to result from the introduction of real wholesale and retail competition. This was expected to be a “transition problem” because it was expected that competition would result in market prices that would fall to levels below the embedded costs of nuclear plants and older fossil plants that would have otherwise been used to calculated (higher) regulated retail prices.

However, as natural gas and coal prices continued to rise far above anyone’s expectations, many of these states soon found that competitive market prices were rising dramatically along with natural gas prices (which affect competitive wholesale electricity prices in most regions of the country) — arguably rising to levels above what regulated prices would have been today under the status quo ante (though this requires a difficult counterfactual analysis). This, of course does not mean that these electricity sector reforms were a failure. In states that adopted the restructuring, wholesale and retail competition model, retail prices now reflect marginal supply costs, as they should to give consumers the right price signals to use electricity wisely. Rather it means that regulated prices are or would have been too low to give consumers appropriate incentives to make wise consumption decisions.

In evaluating restructuring, competition and regulatory reform one must understand all of its efficiency and distributional properties, not just at short run price effects. From an efficiency perspective, the restructuring reforms implemented at the federal level and in some states have led to numerous cost reducing successes in the face of rising fossil fuel prices.  These include dramatic improvements in the performance of divested nuclear plants, significant improvements in the performance of fossil plants that now face market incentives, roughly 200,000 GW of new (mostly merchant) gas-fired generation has been added to the system between 1999 and 2004, while the risk of cost overruns, fuel price fluctuations, demand variations, and availability problems experienced by some of these plants were shifted to their owners through the market rather than borne by consumers through cost-of-service regulation. There is good empirical evidence that the expansion of the boundaries of RTOs (e.g. PJM) have led to significant changes in power flows and more efficient dispatch of power plants, while inefficiencies are observed at the boundaries of RTOs that have not agreed to be consolidated (e.g. NY/NE). Gradual improvements in wholesale market designs have increased the efficiency of these markets and have restored investment incentives. Moreover, retail prices now respond quickly to changes in wholesale market prices, providing consumers with the right price signals rather than the wrong price signals resulting from retail price regulation. And these price signals are properly differentiated by time and location to reflect marginal supply costs, rather than the depreciated original cost of generating plants built 50 years ago. Demand management programs linked to short-term supply and demand conditions are expanding quickly as well in the reform regions.

Of course, the full reform program has not been implemented in large areas of the South, the West, and portions of the Midwest. The partial electricity reform equilibrium that we appear to be in now will not serve the country well and is potentially quite unstable. We have a system that is 1/3 reformed and 2/3 stuck in the structural and regulatory paradigm of the 1935s or somewhere in between.

The problems created by an antiquated industry structure and incompatible mix of state and federal regulation have not gone away. They are lurking out there to undermine achieving the goals that I enumerated earlier. Absent a comprehensive national electricity policy framework this sector is and will perform poorly in meeting the four sets of goals that I discussed earlier.

More later.

Paul Joskow on needed changes to power regulation, particularly if climate legislation is passed

February 6th, 2009 No comments

A hodge-podge of state and federal regulations is keeping costs high and interfering with the development of competitive power markets.

Paul L. Joskow, current President of the Alfred P Sloan Foundation and former  Head of the MIT Department of Economics (now on leave) and former Director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, laid out a history of the electric power regulation and a series of regulatory reform proposals in a speech given at the National Press Club in September last year.

The speech is well worth reading; I will provide excerpts later. 

In the meanwhile, allow me to quote an direct summary by Lynne Kielsing at Knowledge Problem.  Kielsling, whom I have referred to before, is a well-known expert on the electric power sector, author of “Deregulation, Innovation and Market Liberalization; Electricity regulation in a continually evolving environment”, and Senior Lecturer in Northwestern U‘s Department of Economics and Kellogg School of Management.  Says Kiesling:

In brief, Joskow supports completing the task of restructuring the electric power industry by unbundling transmission, distribution, and generation in places where that action has not yet been taken, and installing voluntary RTO-type wholesale power markets in areas not yet served by an RTO.  Also, Joskow urges federal loan guarantees for merchant power companies to match the implicit loan guarantees available to state-regulated electric utilities, and wants any carbon permits given away free to go directly to consumers rather than to electric utilities.

But, you say, Joskow’s proposal would run roughshod over existing jurisdictional boundaries between state and federal government.  Yes, I say, and I think that is part of Joskow’s point.

He wrote, “Unlike every other energy sector, the electricity sector lacks a comprehensive national policy framework consistent with achieving [current policy] goals.”  Much of the nation remains stuck in an organizational and regulatory framework first established in the Federal Power Act of 1935, and federal action is required to help reorganized the industry in a manner better suited to current conditions.  Hence his suggestions for a “Federal Power Act of 2009.”

(emphasis added)

More later.

Categories: deregulation, Joskow, Kiesling, power Tags:

MIT’s "Technology Review" on the regulatory obstacles to a "smart grid" needed for open, competitive electricity markets

February 6th, 2009 No comments

David Talbot, chief correspondent for the MIT Technology Review, has an excellent, long piece in the January/February online issue that explores some the of intra- and inter-state regulatory hurdles that frustrate both the expansion of renewable power and a truly free power market.

I’d like to excerpt some portions of the article here:

When its construction began in the late 19th century, the U.S. electrical grid was meant to bring the cheapest power to the most ­people. Over the past century, regional monopolies and government agencies have built power plants–mostly fossil-fueled–as close to popu­lation centers as possible. They’ve also built transmission and distribution networks designed to serve each region’s elec­tricity consumers. A patchwork system has developed, and what connections exist between local networks are meant mainly as backstops against power outages. Today, the United States’ grid encompasses 164,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines–those familiar rows of steel towers that carry electricity from power plants to substations–and more than 5,000 local distribution networks. But while its size and complexity have grown immensely, the grid’s basic structure has changed little since Thomas ­Edison switched on a distribution system serving 59 customers in lower Manhattan in 1882. …

While this structure has served remarkably well to deliver cheap power to a broad population, it’s not particularly well suited to fluctuating power sources like solar and wind. First of all, the transmission lines aren’t in the right places. The gusty plains of the Midwest and the sun-baked deserts of the Southwest–areas that could theoretically provide the entire nation with wind and solar power–are at tail ends of the grid, isolated from the fat arteries that supply power to, say, Chicago or Los Angeles. Second, the grid lacks the storage capacity to handle variability–to turn a source like solar power, which generates no energy at night and little during cloudy days, into a consistent source of electricity. And finally, the grid is, for the most part, a “dumb” one-way system. Consider that when power goes out on your street, the utility probably won’t know about it unless you or one of your neighbors picks up the phone. …

The U.S. grid’s regulatory structure is just as antiquated. While the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) can approve utilities’ requests for electricity rates and license transmission across state lines, individual states retain control over whether and where major transmission lines actually get built. In the 1990s, many states revised their regulations in an attempt to introduce competition into the energy marketplace. Utilities had to open up their transmission lines to other power producers. One effect of these regulatory moves was that companies had less incentive to invest in the grid than in new power plants, and no one had a clear responsibility for expanding the transmission infrastructure. At the same time, the more open market meant that producers began trying to sell power to regions farther away, placing new burdens on existing connections between networks. The result has been a national transmission shortage.

These problems may now be the biggest obstacle to wider use of renewable energy, which otherwise looks increasingly viable. Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO, have concluded that there’s no technical or economic reason why the United States couldn’t get 20 percent of its elec­tricity from wind turbines by 2030. The researchers calculate, however, that reaching this goal would require a $60 billion investment in 12,650 miles of new transmission lines to plug wind farms into the grid and help balance their output with that of other electricity sources and with consumer demand. The inadequate grid infrastructure “is by far the number one issue with regard to expanding wind,” says Steve Specker, president of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in Palo Alto, CA, the industry’s research facility. “It’s already starting to restrict some of the potential growth of wind in some parts of the West.”

The Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator, which manages the grid in a region covering portions of 15 states from Pennsylvania to Montana, has received hundreds of applications for grid connections from would-be energy developers whose proposed wind projects would collectively generate 67,000 megawatts of power. That’s more than 14 times as much wind power as the region produces now, and much more than it could consume on its own; it would represent about 6 percent of total U.S. electricity consumption. But the existing transmission system doesn’t have the capacity to get that much electricity to the parts of the country that need it. In many of the states in the region, there’s no particular urgency to move things along, since each has all the power it needs. So most of the applications for grid connections are simply waiting in line, some stymied by the lack of infrastructure and others by bureaucratic and regulatory delays. …

Utilities, however, are reluctant to build new transmission capacity until they know that the power output of remote wind and solar farms will justify it. At the same time, renewable-energy investors are reluctant to build new wind or solar farms until they know they can get their power to market. Most often, they choose to wait for new transmission capacity before bothering to make proposals, says Suedeen Kelly, a FERC commissioner. “It is a chicken-and-egg type of thing,” she says. …

Smart-grid technologies could reduce overall electricity consumption by 6 percent and peak demand by as much as 27 percent. The peak-demand reductions alone would save between $175 billion and $332 billion over 20 years, according to the Brattle Group, a consultancy in Cambridge, MA. Not only would lower demand free up transmission capacity, but the capital investment that would otherwise be needed for new conventional power plants could be redirected to renewables. That’s because smart-grid technologies would make small installations of wind turbines and photovoltaic panels much more practical.  …

The good news is that many utilities have begun installing the requisite meters–ones that intelligently monitor power flow out of a house as well as into it. The question now is how to move beyond the blizzard of pilot projects, install smarter technologies across the grid, and begin integrating more renewable power into the new infrastructure. “The smart-grid vision is nice; we all have our color PowerPoint slides,” says Don Von Dollen, who manages intelligent-­grid research at EPRI. “I think people kind of get the vision by now. Now it’s time to get stuff done.”  …

Last summer, former vice president Al Gore began arguing that the country needed to implement an entirely carbon-free electricity system within a decade to avert the danger of global warming. As part of his vision, Gore called for a “unified national smart grid” that would move power generated from renewable sources to cities, increase the efficiency of electricity use, and allow for greater control over renewable resources. He estimated that the grid overhaul would cost $400 billion over 10 years.  …

While pilot projects like the one in Boulder are worthwhile as a way to demonstrate new technologies, they’ve been implemented in hodgepodge fashion, with different utilities deploying different technologies in different states. Transmission projects are advancing incrementally, but they’re often complicated by conflicts between the states. “What we have today is this patchwork of rules and regulations that vary by state,” says Peter Corsell, CEO of GridPoint, a startup in Arlington, VA, that makes smart-grid software and is participating in the Boulder project. “We are all entrenched in this broken system, and there is no agreement on how to fix it. It’s a vicious circle.

Some think that the answer is to give FERC more ­authority. Today, the agency can overrule states’ decisions on where to site transmission lines, but only in regions that the U.S. Department of Energy has designated as critical for the security of the elec­tricity supply. So far, only two such corridors have been designated: one in the mid-Atlantic states and another in the Southwest. Even in those regions, delays continue. Southern California Edison has proposed a major transmission line in the southwest corridor; stretching from outside Los Angeles to near Phoenix, AZ, it would be able to handle power generated by future photovoltaic and solar-thermal power plants. But Arizona rejected the idea, so the utility is preparing to take its plans to FERC.

Others think the solution is a new federal policy that would make the market for renewable power more lucrative, perhaps by regulating carbon dioxide emissions, as the cap-and-trade policy proposed by Obama would do. Under such a policy, wind energy and other carbon-free electricity sources would become much more valuable, providing an incentive for utilities to expand their capacity to handle them (see “Q&A,” p. 28). “It could all change very fast,” says Will Kaul, vice president for transmission at Great River Energy in Minnesota, who heads a joint transmission planning effort that includes 11 utilities in the Midwest.  …

[A]n explosion in the use of renewables will depend heavily on upgrading the grid. That won’t come cheap, but the payoff may be worth it. “We should think about this in the same way we think about the role of the federal highway system,” says Ernest Moniz, a physics professor at MIT who heads the school’s energy research initiative. “It is the key enabler to allow us to modernize our whole electricity production system.”

(emphasis added)

One would think that deregulation of state utilities would also be a step in the direction of freeing up markets, introducing competiion and incentivizing both new grid investments and profitting from efficiency improvements.

In any case, I hope to vist this subject in other posts.

Categories: power, regulation Tags:

WSJ on "green" power: Us Grinches HATE Green indoctrination! We also don`t like consumer choice and free markets!

December 30th, 2008 No comments

A post on the Wall Street Journal`s enviro blog, Environmental Capital, reports on one disgruntled reaction to a recent school play called “Santa Goes Green”, and reports on a new children`s book (and website) by the same name.

The post closes with the sarcastic note, “No word yet on what kind of electricity is powering the web site’s servers. “

One wonders if the WSJ has heard of consumer choice or free markets (and is in favor of supporting either), since it doesn`t even raise the issue of parental/consumer preferences, which underlie the subject of the post.  Those who oppose the message of the book can peruse it and simply refuse to buy it for their child if they wish.  Similar principles apply to their child`s school play: they have some ability to object, although the degree of influence they may have may depend on whether the school is public or private.  Surely this would be an interesting point worth having readers think about.

Finally, of course, there is the final note of sarcasm – why does it not occur to the author to consider the legitimacy of consumer preferences for “green” power, and the difficulties that consumers face, in a regulated power market, for buying electricity sourced (and priced) the way they wish?  As Lew Rockwell points out, with truly free electricity markets, people would be able to put their money where their preference lie.   This is exactly the “Smart Grid” market that Google and GE have recently been targetting.

Why is the WSJ uninterested in discussing free markets, much less making the point that “green” consumers ought to be fans of free and competitive electricity markets?  So much easier to diss others` preferences, than to consider how to make allies for the free markets that would better allow all to satisfy their own preferences!

Bush’s Advent message on Appalachian coal: "Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low"

December 8th, 2008 No comments

Just in time for last Sunday’s readings at Advent liturgies of Isaiah 40:4, on December 2 the White House and EPA approved the final issuance by the Department of the Interior of industry-backed changes in the 25-year-old stream “buffer zone” rule.  The revised rule, which the NYT describes as one of “the most contentious of all the regulations emerging from the White House in President Bush’s last weeks in office”, will make it much easier for coal companies to fill in streams and valleys with the rock and dirt produced by mountaintop removal mining operations.  As I described in an earlier post, these mining practices create direct physical effects on nearby communities, and produce extensive and long-lasting alterations to streamflows and aquatic life, leaching of heavy metals into streams and wells and leave behind dangerous leach ponds.  

It is clear from a review of the proceedings that the decisions of the DOI and EPA were based on the premise that mountaintop removal mining would proceed, with stream buffers not being required if the alternative to stream and valley fill were not economically practicable.  Largely because of the damage such mountaintop removal and fill operations have been proven to do to the interests of local and state residents in stream and groundwater quality and flows, the changes were strongly opposed by the public and by the governors of Kentucky and Tennessee.

Nobody seems to have swallowed the rather Orwellian announcement by the DOI’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement that the new rule will “tighten” restrictions on excess spoil, coal mine waste, and mining activities in or near streams – least of all the coal firms, who praised the new rule!

One wonders if in all the litigation over federal rules, residents who bear the impacts of mountaintop mining have considered bringing direct claims against the mining firms for damage under the common law – as opposed to struggling over the substance of federal and state regulations and whether regulators and prosecutors will try to enforce them.

While I noted this issue last week, I was gently reminded of President Bush’s Christmas gift to the coal companies by the perversely coincidental appropriateness of a church reading on Sunday (the second Sunday of Advent) of Isaiah 40:4:

Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.

Bush and the coal companies are doing God’s work!

Pickens, with "a mission" as a wind crusader, shakes John Kerry’s hand

September 2nd, 2008 No comments

More from the National Review‘s “Planet Gore” corner.

My reaction?  While we do need investments in power transmission infrastructuredo it with your own money, T. Boone.

While I, along with many others, could support a rebated carbon tax that would spur investments in energy efficiency and in GHG-lite technologies, we certainly don’t need the government to be picking and choosing technologies, a la synfuels, ethanol or “clean coal”.  But there probably is a role for the federal government in encouraging the states to deregulate local power generation and transmission (and to take other actions that encourage capital investments, such as allowing immediate depreciation).

 

NYT on capacity problems in our regional/national power distribution grids; do we regulate or deregulate?

September 1st, 2008 No comments

The New York Times has an interesting article that points out how the use of new wind and solar capacity is being hobbled by power distribution limitations, which limits result in part from the reluctance of state regulators to approve projects that might lead local power producers to seek higher returns by selling power out-of-state.  Can the federal government play a useful role in pressuring the states to further deregulate the power industry?

Of course, bottlenecks in distribution also create incentives for markets to find ways to store locally produced, off-peak energy and sell it later on-peak.  Another recent NYT article discusses plans recently announced by PSE&G,  New Jersey’s largest power distributor, to invest in compressed air storage as a way of stoing off-peak power.

H/T Lynne Kiesling‘s “Knowledge Problem” blog.

Categories: distribution, Kiesling, power, storage Tags:

Almost levelled, West Virginia: Crooked justice allows mountain-top removal practices to freely injure homes and health

March 3rd, 2008 3 comments

… with the federal government, state and union all firmly
in the pocket of coal firms.

This seems to be a classic case, on a huge scale, of the difficulties individual property owners and communities face when confronting clearly wrongful acts by large
corporations with deep pockets
– and how easily our
governments and courts are suborned from their duties to enforce property rights or other
laws protecting lives, health and property.

The influence and corruption goes all the way up, as this discussion of recusals and non-recusals by W. Va. Supreme Court  justices illustrates: 

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/2/20/11531/8589

[Note: desnarked in light of fair comment.]

 

Background:

Here is a partial list  – just scratching the surface – of resources on this topic:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountaintop_removal_mining

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Mountaintop+removal+mining

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080219/cm_thenation/769287429

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/us/23coal.html?ex=1345521600&en=3d104863e0d4d655&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6462-2004Aug16.html

http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/007/mountaintop-removal-mining-permits-illegal.html

 

http://www.ilovemountains.org/ – this site has great Google Earth links 

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/you-are-connected-to-mountaintop.html

http://www.700mountains.org/

 

http://www.kftc.org/our-work/canary-project/campaigns/mtr/MTR-generalinfo

http://www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal/007/

http://www.stopmountaintopremoval.org/

http://www.mountainjusticesummer.org/facts/steps.php

 

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/8/21/11552/5722

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/2/16/142954/768

http://grist.org/news/maindish/2006/02/16/reece/index.html

http://grist.org/news/maindish/2006/02/16/caskey/index.html#spadaro

http://grist.org/news/daily/2000/10/18/top/index.html

 

http://www.appvoices.org/index.php?/site/mtr_overview/

http://www.christiansforthemountains.org/

 

Multimedia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7Zb3Tb0oSM

http://www.blackdiamondsmovie.com/Trailer.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPixjCneseE

http://www.vbs.tv/player.php?bctid=494918454&bccl=NDEzMjk4MjU0X19ORVdT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZoQ5Gw0r7Q&feature=user

http://www.hawriverfilms.com/id2.html

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22Mountain+Top+Removal%22+&search_type=

 

http://www.ilovemountains.org/multimedia

 

http://www.wvculture.org/history/buffcreek/buff1.html

http://www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal/007/