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via climate science
September 20, 2023 at 01:35AM
Month: September 2023
“While limited, customer choice and utility switching in Georgia has a large impact on the utility behavior and regulatory policies. Because of options, utilities try to treat customers like, well, customers. But it is time to promote markets in place of remaining governmental mandates and controls.”
The prevailing goals sought by those seeking reform in the power market are mandated access and common carriage for state regulated utilities. However, this alternative is at odds with unleashing entrepreneurship in this power market. The far better development would be the spontaneous, voluntary, indigenous, bottom-up approach for the development of market relationships rather than government mandates.
The state of Georgia has a system that is near such a market. With a few changes, a truly liberalized market is possible. The ninety different utilities in the state share the high voltage system in common. There is active and vigorous competition for new customers with a connected load of 900 kilowatts or more in most of the territory. The changes needed are to drop any minimum load requirements and allow the choice of serving utility to be perpetual instead of a one-time choice.
This sharing of transmission facilities has precedent with petroleum pipelines. Oil companies are very competitive on the gasoline retail level but developed sharing arrangements long ago for intrastate and interstate pipelines. It was in their common interest to avoid duplicate, single-owner pipelines. This came about without regulation, in contrast to the natural gas pipelines that developed under regulation.
The development of the Georgia transmission sharing system has a unique history and shows how the lack of government interference allows beneficial market relationships to develop. By the 1970s, a consortium of electric membership cooperatives and municipal electric systems already had partial ownership in certain generating plants with Georgia Power.
Georgia Power began construction of a nuclear plant and soon ran into serious cost overruns. At that time the doctrine of “used and useful” was in effect for allowing capital recovery of new generating assets. Despite some efforts by the state regulatory agency to provide some relief, the utility faced bankruptcy. In a period when interest rates were high, Georgia Power sought partnerships with the EMCs and municipals that had access to low-interest borrowing to bailout their problem. The potential partners had some transmission assets and demanded that all transmission be accessible for all the owners of a common system.
This was a negotiated, not mandated, solution to the various problems and the interests of the parties. This agreement was not ordered by either the state regulatory agency or by a legislative directive. The sharing agreement happened in 1974 when the court-ordered breakup of AT&T included the common mandated carriage by non-owners of the AT&T and “Baby Bells” long-distance systems. Unfortunately, this mandated carriage with recovery of stranded assets model was followed in wholesale electricity market.
In Georgia there are 47 municipal power systems. Long ago these utilities attracted cautious big power users by agreeing to allow them to switch to the big investor-owned utility if they found municipal service was unsatisfactory. The 39 EMCs in the Georgia Power territory (there are three on TVA) have also make the switch option available to large new customers. In fact, a number of customers have indeed exercised this option. The Georgia Public Service Commission in recent years has declared, at Georgia Power’s urging, that such contract provisions are not allowed. However, the court case law which trumps the PSC has yet to be overturned.
Georgia Munies like Georgia Power have a strategy of going long on power generation in hopes of selling extra generation off-system. The wholesale group for Municipals has successfully sold their share of current very costly Vogtle nuclear capacity under construction to other utilities in Florida and Alabama for 20 years. This relieves them of collecting capital recovery for the nuclear plant and thereby can offer lower bids for competitive new customers.
Georgia Power meanwhile adopted a strategy of building more generation than they needed to sell into the wholesale market. The strategy included building cheaper combined-cycle gas-fired plants under their unregulated sister company while building risky nuclear capacity under almost certain recovery state regulation. However, the wholesale power market is turning to hourly-priced commodity exchanges, and the long run demand does not look good for Georgia Power who must now try to recover unneeded capacity cost from captive domestic customers.
Meanwhile the EMCs adopted a strategy of being short on capacity and being net buyers from the wholesale market. Unlike the high customer density of the Munies and Georgia Power, the EMCs still have room for growth and are gaining far more new customers than the land-locked, flat-growth competitors. EMCs buy from various wholesale suppliers. Individual EMCs are acting like marketers by, in effect, giving their customers access to the wholesale market which does not tolerate any nuclear surcharges. The EMCs can beat Georgia Power in competitive situations.
The enabling legislation for this sharing of transmission and serving customers in other distributor’s territories was sponsored by the utilities themselves and is a weaking of the exclusive franchisee policies in force throughout the rest of the country. This is a demonstration of what could be the polices of the future.
The proper aim of consumer groups and free market advocates should be not to force utilities to allow others to use their private property but to reduce the impediments to competition between existing and new suppliers. Franchisee territories should be completely abolished, and all customers should have the right to pick and change their electric utility. The government action needed is only to get out of the way and let a freed-up market develop. Abolish state and federal utility regulation along with the enabling legislation. Then going forward the best utility public policy is no public policy.
Some may worry about the old utility false warning concerning duplicate wiring. But it is in the mutual interest of the parties to share facilities, including the last mile distribution wiring. Let’s say a stubborn utility starts losing customers in a subdivision to a neighboring utility with better rates and policies. At first the aggressor will expand its wiring into the incumbent’s territory. The incumbent soon realizes stranded wiring is being created and realizes they can at least get some recovery by selling what would otherwise be abandoned wiring. Or they can agree to sharing as a means of getting partial revenue instead of nothing.
While limited, customer choice and utility switching in Georgia has a large impact on the utility behavior and regulatory policies. Because of options, utilities try to treat customers like, well, customers. But it is time to promote markets in place of remaining governmental mandates and controls.
The post Electricity Competition in Georgia appeared first on Master Resource.
via Master Resource
September 20, 2023 at 01:06AM
By David Wojick
There are two groups specializing in trying to protect the severely endangered North Atlantic Right Whale, of which only about 340 critters remain alive, fewer every month, it seems. One is new and small, while the other is old and big.
The small group says that offshore wind development is killing whales, which I, too, believe, but NOAA denies. The big group, which includes NOAA and some of their funded researchers, is now up to thinking about the possibility that offshore wind might actually affect the whales. This dramatic difference is worth exploring a bit.
The small group is the Save Right Whales Coalition (SRWC) at https://saverightwhales.org/. The really big group, founded in 1986, is the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium (NARWC) at https://www.narwc.org/. The members of NARWC are a wealthy lot indeed.
The small Coalition is focused on wind, saying, “We are an alliance of grassroots environmental and community organizations, scientists, and conservationists working to protect the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale and other marine life from the industrialization of our ocean habitat through large-scale offshore wind energy development.”
The big Consortium says its mission is to “Eliminate human-caused mortality to right whales in critical habitats and migration corridors”. But their focus is on the old threats of fishing gear entanglement and ship strikes, never mentioning that both can be caused by the new and ongoing whale harassment noise from wind development.
Mind you, the big Consortium is now at least thinking about offshore wind. Their upcoming annual meeting has a session on it. Here are the presentations:
Session 2: Offshore Wind Interactions and Mitigation
— Upcalling behavior and patterns in North Atlantic right whales, implications for wind energy development
— Recommendations for real-time passive acoustic monitoring near offshore wind energy development activities to help mitigate risks to North Atlantic right whales
— From wind to whales: Potential hydrodynamic impacts of offshore wind on Nantucket Shoals region ecosystems
— Exploring overlap between NARW and ocean features: An autonomous-based oceanographic and ecological baseline
— BOEM-NOAA North Atlantic right whale and offshore wind strategy
Not exactly ‘save the whales from death’ stuff. Note that two of the five talks are by NOAA people, and the rest are their well-funded researchers. Regarding the so-called strategy in the last talk, I wrote about that: https://www.cfact.org/2022/12/21/ten-whale-groups-slam-atlantic-osw/. There is no strategy.
In dramatic contrast, the Save Right Whales Coalition recently sent a letter of deep concern to NOAA Administrator Richard Spinrad. The Coalition has been doing its own research on harmful sonar noise, with disturbing results. Here is the beginning of their letter:
“Dear Dr. Spinrad: We are writing to alert your attention to urgent and credible information involving offshore sonar activity occurring within wind lease areas in the Atlantic. Specifically, our data show that the sonar is producing Level B harassment noise levels at distances that exceed those set by NOAA Fisheries (NMFS). Consequently, the protective distances adopted in NMFS issued Incidental Harassment Authorizations (IHAs) for offshore wind sonar work are not protective at all. Rather, marine mammals are likely getting much closer to the sonar than should be allowed. We believe this is a major factor behind the recent spate of whale deaths in the Atlantic Ocean since December 1, 2022 and the ongoing Unusual Mortality Events (UMEs) dating back to 2017-18. The only mitigation for noise is distance. The shortened Level B the IHAs have, in effect, rendered any expected mitigations useless.”
A 5-page summary of these disturbing findings follows. See https://iowaclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/9b909-srwc-noaaletter2023-09-08final.pdf
This is by no means the first time NOAA has been given technical information regarding the threat of excessive noise from offshore wind development. Such noise can easily cause deadly behavior by whales, including ship strikes, entanglements, and reproductive decline.
We shall see how NOAA responds to this serious letter of concern from the Save Right Whales Coalition. Their ongoing research is also of great interest to us, especially since the rich North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium seems to be doing little or nothing about offshore wind.
Author
David Wojick
David Wojick, Ph.D. is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science, technology and policy. For origins see http://www.stemed.info/engineer_tackles_confusion.html For over 100 prior articles for CFACT see http://www.cfact.org/author/david-wojick-ph-d/ Available for confidential research and consulting.
via Watts Up With That?
September 20, 2023 at 12:05AM
Essay by Eric Worrall
In the midst of large New York climate protests, Biden has decided to skip the UN summit and send John Kerry in his place.
Biden to skip U.N. climate summit
By Sara Schonhardt, Robin Bravender | 09/15/2023 04:09 PM EDT
President Joe Biden is expected to skip a U.N. summit next week where global leaders were asked to bring their ambitious plans to tackle climate change.
“Currently, the president is not scheduled to participate in the U.N. climate summit on Wednesday,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Friday.
Biden is sending climate envoy John Kerry to represent the United States, a State Department spokesperson said Friday, but Biden’s absence is noteworthy at a forum where global leaders were invited to make sweeping climate commitments and highlight action ahead of global climate talks known as COP28 that kick off in late November.
“It’s a missed opportunity,” said Alden Meyer, a senior associate at climate think tank E3G. “To not have major leaders from developed countries there [at the U.N. summit] … it’s not a good signal when you’re trying to build momentum in the run-up to COP28 in Dubai and get other countries on board.”
…
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has secured a speaking slot, the E.U. delegation in New York confirmed.
But other leaders of some of the world’s major polluters aren’t expected to be in attendance, including British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
…
Read more: https://www.eenews.net/articles/biden-to-skip-u-n-climate-summit/
I think it hilarious that even greens describe Kerry’s attendance in place of Biden as “a missed opportunity”. No word yet if Kerry plans to shake the hand of anyone on the DEA most wanted list at this week’s climate conference.
Regarding the climate protests, the media has made a lot of noise but I’m not sure how widespread the allegedly worldwide climate protests actually are. Apparently there is quite a presence in New York, but I haven’t exactly seen anyone in my town holding any banners.
The Guardian claims “10s of thousands” attended the New York protest, to listen to speeches by AOC, though it is difficult to judge numbers from the Guardian photos. I also looked at NPR, they also have a poor quality photo which makes it difficult to judge numbers. New York Times has a short video, but the video is strangely lacking in viewpoints which would allow us to be impressed by the 10s of thousands of marchers. Judge for yourself.
The Guardian report on AOC speaking at the conference;
Tens of thousands in NYC march against fossil fuels as AOC hails powerful message
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the crowd must become ‘too big and too radical to ignore’ as Biden came under fire for oil projects
Dharna Noor and Aliya Uteuova in New YorkMon 18 Sep 2023 07.18 AEST
Tens of thousands of climate activists took to the streets of New York City on Sunday in a “march to end fossil fuels”, with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez telling the crowd that the movement must become “too big and too radical to ignore”.
To cheers from the crowd, the progressive Democrat criticized the US continuing to approve fossil fuel projects, something which the Biden administration did earlier this year with the controversial Willow project in Alaska.
“We are all here for one reason: to end fossil fuels around the planet,” Ocasio-Cortez told a rally at the finish of the march, which ended close to the UN headquarters where world leaders will gather this week. “And the way we create urgency is to have people around the world in the streets.”
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/17/march-to-end-fossil-fuels-new-york-city
The Guardian picture of AOC speaking at the climate protest shows AOC wearing what appears to be mostly fossil fuel based synthetic clothing. But I guess it is not easy to explain to someone who thinks all her political critics want to sleep with her, that she is acting like an ignorant green hypocrite.
via Watts Up With That?
September 19, 2023 at 08:03PM
Iowa Climate Science Education 