"[T]here is no companion prerequisite that such renewable programs be cost-effective or deliver reliable power...This program appears designed for the privileged few to enjoy a subsidized electric energy existence, provides those ‘green bragging rights’ mentioned by a solar installer in this courtroom last September, but little else.”
Last May, Dominion Virginia Power petitioned the Virginia State Corporation Commission to introduce a voluntary ratepayer program to support up to 3 MW from distributed solar installations. Dominion seeks to offer the public an alternative to an existing, net-metering, residential solar panel program. This voluntary test Solar Panel Program would be guaranteed for five years at a “buy all/sell all” $0.15/kWh. It would be limited to an initial maximum scale of 0.2 percent of 2010 peak load.
Solar is an intermittent power source that would require storage to be on a stand-alone basis. The Dominion program offers a solar energy buyback on a firm (non-interrupted) basis, which requires cross subsidization from conventional energies.
The $0.15/kWh price is below what the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates to be the cost of distributed solar, which is north of $0.25/kWh. Multiple tax breaks explain the difference ($0.022/kWh production tax credit; accelerated depreciation, etc.). Solar executive David Bergeron has estimated that the as much as 90 percent of lifecycle solar costs are hidden, due to special government subsidies.
The program would be funded, in part, by customers participating in Dominion’s voluntary Green Power Program (GPP), which accepts donations from those wishing to promote renewable energy programs. The Dominion representative would not commit to a guarantee that, should the voluntary GPP donations fail to fully fund the solar program, that a general electric rate increase would not be requested in the future.
Background and Hearing
The Virginia legislature has enacted over several years a number of enabling acts which provide incentives to energy producers to promote their use of renewable energy. These included a goal to “to promote solar energy through distributed generation.” Such programs claim benefits of enhanced fuel diversification, environmental benefits associated with zero-emissions generation sources, and job and tax benefits. In this case, the additional claimed benefit is that of a distributed power generation system. Savings in transmission line losses and increased reliability from multiple local sources of power were two claimed benefits.
Public comments were held on February 12, 2013. About a dozen parties spoke to the desirability of the proposed residential solar program, although with some reservations. Most were homeowners with existing solar systems who related the generous income they were already receiving from selling solar credits (Renewable Energy Credits) in the open market, as well from Dominion’s existing net-energy-metering rates.
A solar panel installer spoke of the job-producing ripple effect of new residential customers anxious to take advantage of the financial rewards of residential solar. He stressed the “green bragging rights” attached to solar programs as another selling point.
The primary objection of these solar supporters to the Dominion structured proposal was that the 15 cent/kWh purchase price was too low since Dominion was benefiting from avoiding (higher) peak grid rates. (Supporting Dominion documents indicate that this residential, distributed solar energy supply is anticipated to coincide with peak energy demands during hot summer months.)
This select group, described as “sophisticated investors” by one solar panel installer, was concerned with return-on-investment issues and maximizing their multiple, tax-advantaged solar panel installations. They requested that the 15 cent/kWh buy-rate be increased by Dominion to offset the anticipated Federal and State income tax burden.
Otherwise, the net after-tax-return would be about the same as for the current net energy metering plan, thus there would be no monetary incentive to participate in the solar plan. Rather than five years, some wanted a 20-year (or more) guaranteed contract term so as to make commercial financing of their project more appealing.
This cynical observer concluded that it “pays to be green” only when it pays enough.
There was only one person (yours truly) who spoke against the Dominion proposal on fundamental philosophical and scientific grounds. My testimony against the Dominion Virginia Power program provided real-world evidence that such solar plans are neither cost-effective nor beneficial to the general public.
My testimony against the Dominion Virginia Power program follows:
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Members of the State Corporation Commission: PUE-2012-00064
Richmond, VA February 12, 2013
There is no need for another solar test program. Much like the existing track record for commercial solar power, there is abundant existing technical and practical information concerning residential solar power issues.
Germany is an acknowledged promoter and pioneer of solar energy. Guaranteed long-term governmental subsidies at over-market rates were provided to commercial German solar energy providers. This has resulted in over 600,000 households now being unable to pay their electric bills. Residential electricity rates have become so unaffordable during this severe winter that many Germans are illegally taking down forest trees to burn for home heating.
Closer to home, Hawaii experienced a surge in rooftop solar power systems because of promotion of solar energy through an aggressive renewable energy program, and one of the country’s most generous tax credits. One result is that Hawaiian Electric Co. now warns that the electric grid is vulnerable to power fluctuations and blackouts because so much of the grid energy (six per cent) consists of intermittent solar power. Citing unsustainable budget costs, the Hawaii Department of Taxation announced that the solar tax credit would be cut in half, effective Jan 2013.
Phase II of a Bad Program
The bill before the Commission today is the second phase of an economically indefensible solar test program...this one aimed at the residential market. It does provide cover for Dominion Power to fulfill Virginia-sourced renewable energy incentives and to placate environmentalism activists.
The application makes reference to Virginia enabling legislation from 2011. Chapter 6 of the “Virginia Energy Plan 2007” and 2010 both contain a list of incentives intended to promote renewable energy. The 2010 Virginia Energy Plan includes:
An enhanced rate of return for utility investments in renewable electric generating facilities. A renewable portfolio standard calling for 15 percent of 2007 base-line electric production from renewable sources, with utilities eligible to receive an enhanced rate-of-return for meeting the standard.
However there is no companion prerequisite that such renewable programs be cost-effective or deliver reliable power. This loophole provides profit-making incentives without either cost or performance constraints, save the action of the Commission here acting on behalf of the general public.
Climate Alarmism
The origins of renewable energy portfolios and their legislative support were based on a “the science is settled” attitude towards computer modeled global warming. Fossil fuel generated carbon dioxide was de facto targeted as the villain. Other less politically attractive possible factors, known and unknown, were excluded.
This tunnel vision version of science has been used to promote these renewable energy sources to the public, even as they are demonstrably not cost-effective, nor climate changing. Ignored are the millions of pounds of toxic carcinogenic sludge waste inherent in the solar panel manufacturing process.
The Dominion (www.dom.com) website states:
1 MWh of renewable energy, equal to a single REC, purchased through Dominion’s Green Power program prevents more than 18,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions. Also, when you participate in the Dominion Green Power program, you are doing more than just creating environmental benefits. You are helping make renewable energy generation more cost-competitive with other energy sources by providing the renewable energy generator an additional source of revenue.
Indeed, natural gas has become so cheap that it has made nuclear and other fossil fuels less competitive, and renewables non-competitive. Yet, in these tough economic times the consumer is encouraged to make up this growing cost-gap, and make what is admittedly not cost-competitive, artificially competitive. I can only wonder why?
The saving of carbon dioxide emissions is posited as an assumed benefit. In reality this claim is scientifically unsubstantiated in regards to identifiable manmade, global-climate impacts.
With respect to global warming fears, the actual record shows no detectable warming in either the atmosphere or the ocean for over a decade. Climate models remain faulty in their representations of nature, and overstate the warming effect of carbon dioxide by overestimating the climate sensitivity. They are unable to account accurately for the critical influences of cloud formation.
Over the last 16 years, global average temperature, as measured by both thermometers and satellite sensors, has displayed no statistically significant warming, even as atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased by 10%. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Reference Network has belatedly corrected the erroneous initial claim in the “2012 State of the Climate Report” that 2012 was the warmest “La Niña year” on record; it is now re-ranked number nine or ten.
15 cent Power: Too Much
The Dominion Virginia Power distributed solar generation plan under consideration today would lock-in a 15 cent per kWh purchase price for approved residential solar installations for five years.
The 15 cent level is the chosen “appealing” number after bargaining with potential participants. The plan is promoted to “allow the company to further study the impacts and assess the benefits of distributed solar generation to its distribution system.”
There is no need to do so. Germany and Hawaii document that grid instability becomes a demonstrable problem when solar (or wind) becomes more than just a few per cent of the energy make-up. This Dominion proposal specifically excludes any upgrades to the existing electrical grid to deal with the inherently intermittent nature of solar energy.
The proposed maximum scale of 0.2 per cent of 2010 peak load is purposely so small as to avoid grid problems that would occur were it implemented on a larger scale. So what is the public benefit?
If the Dominion-estimated 114 to 475 potential customers participating in this program are able to meet all their energy needs via solar, the examples given by Ms. Corsello suggest that they would be paid to do so at the 15 cent rate, and pay nothing other than a monthly meter fee for the convenience of a Dominion conventional-fueled, back-up power connection.
These same lucky customers are likely to have already exploited all available solar tax and cash rebates, and incentive financing subsidized by other taxpayers. How many low income citizens will be able to participate in this elite project? Will the public eventually see lower electric bills as a beneficial result?
Does Dominion guarantee not to seek future general rate increases should its projections for the avoided cost energy component and Green Power Program contribution prove inadequate?
In summary, this program appears designed for the privileged few to enjoy a subsidized electric energy existence, provides those “green bragging rights” mentioned by a solar installer in this courtroom last September, but little else.
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Charles Battig, a retired physician and post-graduate electrical engineer, is a member of Virginia Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment (VA-SEEE). See more here
Crunch time for the world’s most important carbon market
Feb 16th 2013
ON FEBRUARY 19th Europe’s emissions trading system (ETS) faces a potentially fatal vote. It could not only determine whether the world’s biggest carbon trading market survives but delay the emergence of a worldwide market, damage Europe’s environmental policies across the board and affect the prospects for a future treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Quite a lot for a decision which as is the way of things European sounds numbingly technical.
The vote is due to take place in the environment committee of the European Parliament. If the committee approves the proposal before it (and the parliament in full session as well as a majority of national governments agree with the decision), this would give the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, the power to rearrange the ETS’s schedule of auctions. Its plan is to delay the sale of about 900m tonnes of carbon allowances from around 2013 to 16 to 2019 to 20.
The vote matters, its sponsors argue, because the ETS could collapse if the commission’s proposal is rejected. The ETS is the only EU wide environmental instrument. It trades allowances to produce carbon equal to about half the EU’s total carbon emissions. When the system was set up, its designers thought these allowances would now cost roughly 20 Euros per tonne of carbon. The current price is around 5 Euros ($6.7), and in January it fell by 40% in a few minutes after a negative, but legally meaningless, parliamentary vote (see chart above).
The low prices reflect a chronic oversupply of carbon allowances, which the commission puts at 1.5 billion to 2 billion tonnes, roughly a year’s emissions. When the ETS was designed in the mid 2000s, growth was strong and demand for carbon allowances was expected to be high. Their number was therefore fixed (at 16 billion tonnes for 2013 to 20). But demand has crashed. Other temporary factors are also driving prices down: more frequent auctions mean that allowances which once sat unused for months now come onto the market immediately; a special reserve for new entrants has boosted supply; and hedging by power stations has dried up.
Yet none of this justifies interfering in the market, opponents of the commission’s plan say. The ETS remains liquid; the emissions cap stays in place. A low carbon price simply means the aims of the ETS are being met cheaply. What’s the problem?
The commission highlights two. First, if the proposal is thrown out, the ETS could collapse completely: ie, the carbon price could fall to zero. Second, and more likely, even a further, temporary slide in the price could do permanent damage.
When carbon prices are low, coal is cheap relative to cleaner forms of energy, such as gas. As a result power suppliers build more coal-fired plants and Europe emits more carbon. This is already happening. In the long run carbon prices are likely to rise again: industrial demand will pick up (one day); and the cap (the supply of carbon allowances) is due to be lowered by 1.7% each year. But by the time this has an effect not before 2026, says Guy Turner of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a firm of market analysts the coal plants will be running and expensive to turn off. Their owners will be lumbered with ‘stranded costs’. Power generators, which are the main buyers of ETS allowances, say a higher carbon price would help them avoid this problem by spurring investment in new technologies.
A lot of people beyond Europe are anxiously awaiting next week’s vote. Australia’s carbon price, which it established in 2012, is currently fixed. If the ETS remains weak, Australia’s carbon price will not soar in 2015 when it will be allowed to float and the country’s carbon market will be linked to the larger European one. But if the ETS collapses, it will encourage further opposition to the already controversial Australian scheme, worries Tom Brookes of the European Climate Foundation, an environmentalist group.
A collapse could also affect California, which set up a carbon market in 2012, as well as China and South Korea, which are putting together theirs. And it would undermine the chances that all these markets might one day form a global carbon trading system.
Back in Europe, other environmental policies could suffer. A low carbon price would slow down Germany’s ambitious plan to boost renewable energy and a high one would speed it up. Perhaps reflecting this, the German government is split on the vote. A collapse of the EU’s flagship policy would also throw into disarray European plans for future environmental reforms and its hopes of leading other countries by example.
Even if the proposal goes the commission’s way, that would not change the ETS fundamentally. The oversupply of allowances would continue unless the auctions were cancelled, not just rescheduled. But that is a battle for another day.
CO2 is a beneficial gas and we should do everything to increase the levels of CO2 as it would encourage more vigorous plant growth and crops that are more drought resistant. I am thinking of starting an organization to counter that numbskull McKibben of 350.org called 1000.org (any help appreciated) encouraging more emission of CO2. CO2 is currently 0.039% of the atmosphere. The oceans, land and man add CO2 to the air. The oceans are a major sink for CO2 (colder water). Vegetation uses CO2 with water and sunlight to build plant cells through photosynthesis. Man is responsible for just 3.22% of the CO2 added to the atmosphere each year (about 0.06ppm of the 1.5 ppm it increases). To put that is perspective for you, that is 18.78 people out of the population of the US of 313,000,000. And the criminal enviros want us to shut down industry and energy production to save the planet. John Coleman was so correct when he called it the greatest scam in history.
By Pierre Gosselin, NoTricksZone
Big, embarrassing news for German climate scientists.
With 11 days remaining, Germany this year is set for its 5th colder-than-normal winter (DJF) in a row (a record), this according to high-profile German meteorologist Dominik Jung at www.wetter.net here (photo above). Jung is an often-quoted meteorology expert of the German media.
I’m really quite (pleasantly) surprised because I recall sharply criticizing, even berating, Jung in a post about a year or two ago for believing all the warmist rubbish. I guess five cold, snowy winters in a row have been enough to get Jung to take closer look. His tone and music have changed completely.
Jung begins his post with:
“Just a few years ago climate experts prophesied that Germany would no longer experience winters with ice and snow in the future. In the 1990s there had been an entire series of milder and stormier winters. [...] However, this trend has not been observed over the last years. To the contrary: winters have again gotten considerably colder and the huge storms like those in the 1990s have more or less disappeared. [...]. Climate experts prophesied in the year 2000 that winters with snow and ice in Germany would cease to exist.”
Jung then presents the data for Germany’s last 4 winters and that of the current winter, and compares them to the 1980-2010 mean winter temperature, which was 0.8C above the 1960-1990 mean.
- 2008/2009: 1.0 C cooler
- 2009/2010: 2.0 C cooler
- 2010/2011: 1.3 C cooler
- 2011/2012: 0.1 C cooler
- 2012/2013 (so far): 0.4C. cooler
We should recall that whatever applies for Germany, also applies for much of Central Europe. Moreover, Jung mentions that the results are the same if you compare the five winters to the 1970 -2000 period. Jung summarizes the results:
With the current winter, we now have 5 winters in a row that have been colder than the long-term average! Crafty scientists at first explained that climate warming was just taking a timeout. Strangely, this timeout has now been going on for 5 years without interruption. Accordingly things have gotten very quiet in the climate warming debate.”
Yes indeed it has. Germanys prestigious research institutes and leading climatologists, such as “internationally recognized” Prof. Dr. Mojib Latif, Head of both the Research Division Ocean Circulation and Climate Dynamics and the Research Unit Marine Meteorology of the IFM-GEOMAR of Kiel, Germany, and “renowned” Prof. Dr. Stefan Rahmstorf of the influential Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research (PIK), or Prof. Dr. Jochem Marotzke of the Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg are now stumped, baffled and confused by this unexpected development, which completely contradicts their earlier super-computer models. Indeed, most of the German warmist modellers have since gone back and revamped their models, and are now suddenly claiming that the colder winters are actually a sign of global warming! But for much of the remaining German science community, these once prestigious scientists are beginning to increasingly look like laughing stocks of the new century.
Jung did his homework, and also checked to see how the earlier models have been doing for the summers (JJA). Jung writes:
“By the way, according to many climate projections, also summers in Germany were supposed to get increasingly drier and hotter. Over the last 10 summers, only one summer was too dry, and that was the summer of 2003. Otherwise all summers were either average or much too wet.”
The models got the summers wrong 9 consecutive years in a row! So expect the Latif and the other hapless scientists to roll out new models soon. Jung continues:
The earlier climate projections and prognoses of the 80s and 90s are more or less way off, at least for Germany and Europe. Because of the current situation with the facts, they simply no longer fit and must be urgently revamped, otherwise we will wind up with credibility problems here.”
Too late. As mentioned above, the scientists are already laughing stocks and many of us have been rolling on the floor with laughter for quite some time. Jung:
People aren’t stupid and they recognise what the facts are. So let’s look and see just how much longer this timeout is supposed to go.”
If he hasn’t done so already, Jung ought to pick up a copy of Die kalte Sonne. It’ll remove any remaining doubts he may have.
There you have it. The climate models have been wrong in the winter 5 years in a row, and wrong in the summer nine years in a row. That’s even far worse then random guessing. This is an incredible performance.
Send thanks for this report to Wetternet.de e-mail address: info@qmet.de.
Photo credit Dominik Jung: https://twitter.com/WetterExperte
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Icecap Note: Winters in the US the last 15 years have grown colder in all 9 climate zones. The warmer winter last year and the variable winter this year due to the very cold eastern Pacific will flatten the trend after this year but there will be no warming.
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German Meteorology Professor Expects Cooling For The Decades Ahead..."Climate Protection Is Ineffective”
Meteorologist Prof. Dr. Horst Malberg has an article posted at the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) here. He tells us we ought to be preparing for a cooler 21st century first half.
Meteorologist Prof. Horst Malberg. Photo credit: EIKE
Professor Malberg starts his article by showing and discussing various solar activity charts. Today I’m a little short on time, and so I’ve translated his outlook and conclusion part of the article, which sums it up nicely.
Outlook
The sun is currently at the start of a quiet phase of activity and will likely reach the critical mean value of 50 sunspots during the current cycle, or even fall below it, i.e. the boundary value between a warm and a cold period. Analogous to the climate conditions during the time of the Dalton Minimum of 200 years ago, we have to expect a climate cooling for the decades ahead.
Only the “fickle” sun will decide the general extent of the expected cooling and when the temperature again will gradually start to increase. The latter is expected to occur in the second half of the 21st century, when the sun returns to a more active phase.
Both the 200-year De Vries cycle and the 80 to 90-year Gleissberg solar activity cycle point to an imminent drop in solar activity that will have consequences for global climate and food supply.
Russian scientist I. Abdussamatov of the Russian Pulkovo Observatory near St. Petersburg (www.eike.eu) has reached the same conclusion. Also according to his results, the solar minimum - which corresponds to the peak in cooling - is expected to be reached during the solar sunspot cycle around the year 2055.
CO2 will neither be able to keep Europe nor the globe from cooling. At most it will help temper the temperature decrease a bit.
Global temperature has not risen in 15 years. It has stagnated, and in recent years has even shown a downward trend - despite the massive annual increases in CO2 emissions. (Why hasn’t the public been informed of this by the media?) For the politically motivated IPCC and its followers, it is now time to give up the dogma of CO2′s climate dominance and the marginalization and branding of those who differ with climate science. Just because one belongs to the mainstream does not mean he automatically has a better knowledge of the science.
Predicting a global warming of 4C and associated apocalyptic consequences by 2100 by the CO2-dominated climate models (World Bank, PIK) is pure hypothesizing. As long as the solar effects and associated interactions are underestimated and the effects of CO2 exaggerated, no realistic climate conclusions can be expected.
The earlier analyses of climate allow only one conclusion to be made:
Compared to the integral solar climate effect, with all its complex, non-linear interactive mechanisms (ocean, clouds, albedo, biosphere, cosmic ray...), the anthropogenic greenhouse/CO2 effect is only of subordinate significance. Also the media attempts to trace back singular weather events to an anthropogenic influence has no merit. History shows that hurricanes, tropical storms, tornadoes, droughts and floods have occurred on and off over the centuries as a result of synoptic constellations. However, because of the population growth to 7 billion, more and more people and their goods are being impacted by natural catastrophes.
Instead of attempting over-rated and ineffective climate protection, all efforts should concentrate on global environmental protection: clean air, clean water, uncontaminated soil and an intact ecosystem are among the fundamental rights of people. Measures for reducing CO2 can be justified by the limited fossil fuel resources and pollution that comes from combustion processes. So-called climate protection is, on the other hand, the least effective of all measures. There never has been a stable climate over the course of history, and there isn’t going to be one in the future.”