Weekend Digest #15
A Curated Assortment of Scrolls
Rise and shine, Barbarians.
Destiny awaits us.
Housekeeping
Below Zero Blackouts? ft. Isaac Orr. Isaac Orr of the Center of the American Experiment returns to talk about his latest article on MISO's potential for cold weather blackouts this winter. We dive into what's happening with solar in Minnesota, grid unreliability, coal, how wind turbines can be net consumers of energy in cold weather, phony environmental justice language, and more.
News
ERCOT Confident Generators Deficient During Uri Freeze Debacle Ready for Winter. I can’t stop thinking about ERCOT and Uri, it seems. Sonal Patel’s latest looks into ERCOT’s attempts to harden its grid after last year’s blackouts. Lots of helpful detail here, but Patel rightly points out that the shocking thing about Uri is that ERCOT, along with everyone else, was forewarned that a storm was coming. Let’s hope ERCOT’s winterization meets muster.
California’s plan to slash solar subsidies seems backwards. It’s not. Grist’s Shannon Osaka wrote this helpful look at California’s new fight over “net metering”—the state’s program for rewarded homeowners who install solar panels. Over time, the program has become quite regressive. It makes lower-income people pay homeowners for the power their panels provide. This week, the CPUC held a meeting about changing this policy. Sources tell me it was heated—solar defenders are pissed. I also heard that someone spoke favorably of Angwin’s Shorting the Grid at the end. Make of that what you will, but do read the piece.
US judge cancels auction of Gulf of Mexico offshore drilling leases. The Biden admin opened their term by banning the leasing of federal lands for O&G. Then that band was struck down on legal grounds. So, some swatch of the Gulf of Mexico got auctioned off for drilling. But now a circuit judge in DC ruled that the environmental impact study didn’t cut the mustard. Now it looks like the drilling won’t begin. As ever, nothing is straightforward when it comes to energy.
Indiana Senate bill will have state consider SMRs. Two Republicans have put a bill on the state senate floor. The bill’s aim is to help utilities get everything they need to build SMRs if they want them. I feel ambivalent about this rush for SMRs. On the one hand, I just want nuclear built. On the other, I’m worried that trying to build things we’ve never built before will mean nuclear runs into delays and overages worse than what we’ve seen and thus deflate support for the technology.
Swedish government gives go-ahead for used fuel repository. In America, some people act like there’s no solution possible for long-term nuclear storage. This line of thinking is built on shaky arguments and fear-mongering about radiation. In Sweden, they’re moving ahead on the issue. Good for them. It brightens my day to see this kind of pragmatism in action.
Commentary
A provocative thread from someone named Joe LaRusso popped up on my timeline. Here it is:
It’s a short thread, I suggest you read it. The long and the short if it is that ISONE left out information about Millstone 2 NPP being down in their 21-day forecast. A Nor’easter is set to sweep through New England. Maybe some of my readers haven’t experienced a New England nor’easter. Let me tell you: they can be goddamn biblical. One time, I saw lightning rip through snow clouds dumping down metric tons of snow. I’m from the Midwest and I’d never even heard of such a thing.
Here’s the salient part: NE is reliant on the global LNG and oil market. They’ve been vulnerable to the wildness in the global market provoked by the European energy crisis. They’ve been burning through lots of oil. Earlier this month, PJM and ISONE witnessed shocking discrepancies between day ahead and actual prices. I’m talking hockey sticks here. This likely bespeaks a level of fragility on the grid.
That ISONE left Millstone 2 off its report gives me a queasy feeling—why? It can’t be that they somehow didn’t notice. But it also makes me wonder what the point of a forecast document is if it’s not going to factor in things like this much generation loss going into a cold snap. Either way, let’s hope things don’t go south in New England.