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(Bloomberg) — Data center developers in Northern Virginia are asking utility Dominion Energy Inc. for as much power as several nuclear reactors can generate, in the latest sign of how artificial intelligence is helping drive up electricity demand.

Dominion regularly fields requests from developers whose planned data center campuses need as much as “several gigawatts” of electricity, Chief Executive Officer Bob Blue said Thursday during the company’s first-quarter earnings call. A gigawatt is roughly the output of a nuclear reactor and can power 750,000 homes.

Electric utilities are facing the biggest demand jump in a generation. Along with data centers to run AI computing, America’s grid is being strained by new factories and the electrification of everything from cars to home heating. The surge in demand is complicating utility efforts to turn off carbon-emitting power plants and meet their climate goals.

Over the past five years, Dominion has connected 94 data centers that, together, consume about four gigawatts of electricity, Blue said. That means that just two or three of the data center campuses now being planned could require as much electricity as all the centers Dominion hooked up since about 2019.

Source: Finance.yahoo.com

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People in developed nations take abundant electricity for granted. When asked where electricity comes from, most will point to their wall outlet. But many states in the U.S. are headed for a serious and prolonged shortage of electrical power not seen in decades, driven by rising demand from the artificial intelligence revolution and mandates to adopt green energy.

For 20 years, U.S. electrical power policy has been dominated by efforts to try to “mitigate” global warming, believed to be caused by human greenhouse gas emissions. In 2021, President Joe Biden called for achieving a 100% carbon-free electric sector by 2035. Twenty-three states have enacted statutes or issued executive orders to achieve net-zero electricity generation by 2050.

Because of net-zero mandates, grid operators spent the last two decades replacing coal-fired power plants with natural gas plants, wind turbines, and solar installations. More than 200 coal plants have been closed, reducing electricity output from coal by almost 60% since 2007. From 2000 to 2023, wind and solar output rose from near zero to a combined 14.1% of production. Over the same period, natural gas rose from 16.2% to 43.1% of power generation.

But grid operators in many states now face an unprecedented ramp in electricity demand.

The forced transition to green energy drives three new sources of power demand. First, 22 states have zero-emissions vehicle mandates, which intend to ban the sale of gasoline cars by 2035. This March, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized regulations to force about 40% of new light vehicles sold by 2030 to be electric. To the extent that electric vehicles are adopted, the grid will need to deliver large amounts of additional power.

Second, cities and counties in seven states have banned gas appliances in new housing, such as New York City. In 2022, ISO New England concluded that a shift from gas appliances to electric appliances in New England would require more new electricity than a shift to EVs.

Third, the U.S. federal government proposes to establish a new green hydrogen fuel industry. Seven billion dollars has been earmarked for “regional hydrogen hubs” to try to stimulate hydrogen production. Green hydrogen is produced by electrolysis of water and uses large amounts of electricity. To produce a single kilogram of hydrogen from electrolysis requires 50 to 55 kilowatt-hours of electricity, which is about double the daily electricity used by a typical U.S. home.

But the electricity needed for the new artificial intelligence revolution will be greater than that needed for EVs, electric appliances, and green hydrogen combined. Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, and dozens of other firms are building massive new multi-acre data centers. In addition to new facilities, servers in the nation’s 2,700 data centers are being upgraded with new high-performance processing cards, boosting power consumption by six to 10 times. Today, data centers use about 4% of U.S. electricity, but the AI revolution is expected to boost that demand to more than 20% of electricity consumption within the next 10 years.

Rapidly rising power demand from the AI revolution, along with EVs, home appliances, and the proposed hydrogen fuel industry, caught U.S. grid operators unprepared. We are now entering a decade in which electricity demand will exceed what can be supplied by a large margin.

The coming power shortage will produce two big economic impacts. First, electrical utilities will cease the premature shutdown of coal, gas, and nuclear power plants. It will be impossible to construct enough new wind and solar generators to provide electricity to meet the new demand for AI data centers, let alone the needs of electric vehicles, electric appliances, and hydrogen electrolyzer.

The second economic impact will be rapidly rising electricity prices, driven by a growing disparity between power demand and supply. Higher prices will reduce the demand for heat pumps endorsed by the green energy movement, which will remain more expensive than natural gas and propane furnaces in cold regions. EVs will be more expensive to charge and public EV charging facilities will struggle to be profitable. Gasoline cars will hold cost advantages for decades to come. Efforts to establish a green hydrogen fuel industry will remain costly and produce only a tiny market.

The biggest impact will be on efforts to transition to a net-zero electrical grid. The coming power shortage will cripple these efforts. It will be impossible to serve both the AI revolution and pursue a transition to wind and solar systems. The green energy transition will be sacrificed in favor of generating enough electrical power.

Source: Washingtonexaminer.com

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The post The looming electrical power shortage appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

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ADNOC increased its oil production capacity to 4.85 million bpd ahead of the next OPEC meeting.
The country’s stated aim is to reach 5 million bpd capacity by 2027.
OPEC’s current production cuts are set to run through the end of June, but the group may decide to extend those cuts at its next meeting.

The United Arab Emirates state-owned oil company, Adnoc, has updated its maximum crude oil production capacity figure—and without much fanfare.

ADNOC has quietly updated the figure on its website but did not make an official announcement. The new capacity is 4.85 million barrels per day (bpd)—up from the 4.65 million bpd that it published in 2023. Its published natural gas production capacity is 11.5 bcf per day.

ADNOC has plans to increase its oil production capacity to 5 million bpd by 2027—a target the state-owned oil company set years ago.

The production capacity hike comes as the UAE’s oil production fell in March, according to OPEC’s secondary sources as the group struggles to bring production down to agreed-upon levels in hopes of balancing the global oil markets.

The UAE—OPEC’s third-largest producer—has clashed with the OPEC group in the past as it is anxiously waiting to boost its oil production and tap its increased capacity. Last summer, the UAE said it would not join in OPEC’s voluntary production cuts and has argued for years that it should be allowed to pump more as it lifts its production capacity. And last June, OPEC+ caved and revised the UAE’s quota up to 3.219 million bpd for 2024.

OPEC’s current production cuts—a “precautionary” measure—are set to run through the end of June, although a June 1 OPEC+ meeting will determine whether OPEC should extend the cuts further or whether they should begin the gradual process of unwinding them.

But OPEC’s Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais warned those who were predicting the beginning of the end of oil should be careful lest those dangerous predictions “foster energy policies that stoke energy chaos.”

OPEC has insisted forecasts that predict the EV revolution and green transition as a whole are not grounded in reality—and that counting on this fictitious oil demand drop-off could lead to policies that would eventually cause the oil supply and demand balance to swing to a deficit, leading to higher oil prices.

Source: Oilprice.com

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TOKYO — Southeast Asian countries’ transition to liquefied natural gas and the expected surge in demand for the fuel is spurring Japanese companies to expand their LNG business in the region as their home market’s needs shrink.

Natural gas is becoming an important resource for ASEAN’s 10 members. Vietnam and the Philippines began importing LNG in 2023 to fuel their gas-fired power plants.

In Southeast Asia, “a realistic energy solution for lower carbon emission is to reduce coal-fired power generation and shift to gas-fired [power plants] along with renewable energy,” Michiaki Hirose, former president of Tokyo Gas, told Nikkei Asia in an interview.

Hirose, a leading figure in Japan’s energy industry, spoke up as the country deepens its involvement in the region’s energy transition.

Tokyo Gas and Philippine energy company First Gen are expected to start jointly operating an LNG terminal in the Philippines as soon as they get government approval. The LNG terminal provides gas to a local gas-fired power plant.

Philippine Secretary of Energy Raphael Lotilla, who met with Japanese government officials and private sector executives in Manila on April 1, said he welcomed Japanese investments in LNG as a transition fuel.

In December, Japan, Australia and ASEAN member states held the first summit of the Asia Zero Emission Community in Tokyo. The AZEC framework is meant to facilitate financial and technical support to help members transition to less-polluting energy sources.

Tokyo Gas has been importing LNG and operating terminals in Japan since 1969. “Japan became an LNG powerhouse over half a century,” said Hirose, formerly the chairman of the Japan Gas Association. “The ‘LNG era’ will also come to Southeast Asia via [each country’s] renewable energy strategies.”

Hirose projects that the transition from fossil fuels to renewables will last until 2050 or 2060. Tokyo Gas, which handles around 19 million tonnes of LNG annually, is seeking to expand its business in Southeast Asia, including Vietnam and Indonesia.

According to an International Energy Agency projection, natural gas demand in Southeast Asia will increase to 332.73 billion cubic meters, or bcm, in 2050 from 163.7 bcm in 2020. Shell LNG Outlook 2024 estimates global LNG demand to rise by more than 50% by 2040 due to growing demand in Asia and industrial coal-to-gas switching.

“Having an advantage in economies of scale is the key to LNG procurement,” Hirose said. “It is crucial to foster win-win relationships to reduce the price. Japanese energy companies will look for partnerships with foreign companies.”

The notion that gas is key to the globe’s energy transition has gained traction over the past few years, according to Hitoshi Kaguchi, representative director at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which holds the top share in the market for gas turbines used in power plants.

Orders for the company’s gas turbines from Southeast Asia increased by more than 50% in megawatt terms in 2023 compared to 2022, with especially robust demand coming from Singapore. The company is also eyeing developments in neighboring countries.

“The upstream oil and gas companies, who were previously worried about how to survive in the green era, seem to have gained confidence that fossil fuels will still continue to be a business from an energy security perspective,” Kaguchi told Nikkei. “The most major part [of Asia’s decarbonization effort] is the shift from coal to gas power, and eventually renewables will follow.”

Kagushi also noted that geography is working against Asia’s efforts to harness solar and wind power.

“To boost demand abroad, Japanese companies are investing heavily in new gas and LNG infrastructure in prospective markets like the Philippines,” Sam Reynolds, head of Asia LNG/gas research at U.S.-based think tank Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said in a report.

According to the think tank, Japan’s LNG imports have fallen since 2018 by 20% to 67 million tonnes, the lowest level in a decade, and the country’s large consuming companies will have a growing surplus of contracted LNG supplies through 2030.

Reynolds said Japanese companies are eager to “shore up LNG supplies for resales and trading, in pursuit of overseas expansion opportunities.”

Source: Asia.nikkei.com

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The Biden FTC’s approval of the Exxon-Pioneer deal comes amidst scrutiny from lawmakers concerned about energy price increases.
Exxon pledges to lower production costs and achieve net-zero emissions from Pioneer operations by 2035.
Approval of the merger is seen as easing tensions between the Biden administration and the oil industry amidst rising domestic crude prices and Middle East tensions.

Having adversely intervened in virtually every other M&A deal in the past 3 years, the Biden FTC will reportedly allow Exxon’s $60 billion purchase of Pioneer to go through after the companies agreed to minor concessions, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the matter. The announcement of the deal will likely come any moment, and the resulting deal will make Exxon – a company which Biden once said makes money money than god – far and away the biggest oil and natural gas producer in the Permian Basin, North America’s largest US oil field, and also the biggest energy company in the US.

Pioneer shares that had been down more than 2% on the day reversed those losses and were trading up as much as 0.9% on the news. Hess Corp, the target of a takeover bid by Chevron, also climbed 0.9% although the probability of that deal passing is far lower especially in light of the ongoing arbitration with Exxon over Guyana.  Chevron, Occidental and Chesapeake are among companies with large pending takeovers that are undergoing in-depth reviews before the FTC.

The Pioneer deal will combine two fast-growing Permian operations, lifting Exxon’s production in the basin to the equivalent of about 2 million barrels a day by 2027, up from about 600,000 last year.

More than 50 lawmakers – obviously mostly communists, pardon, democrats – urged the FTC in March to increase scrutiny on concerns a $230 billion wave of consolidation in would increase energy prices for consumers, squeeze suppliers and suppress wages. In short: enforce more Soviet-style central planning and crush conventional capitalism. As a result, investors had feared the agency, which has become more a ruthless enforcer of authoritarian anti-capitalism under Democrat admin puppet Lina Khan, would stand in the way of several large deals, especially in an election year when the Biden administration is seeking to prove its climate credentials and contain gasoline prices at all cost.

In response to the ruling communists, oil executives have claimed the deals will benefit shareholders, consumers and the environment. Exxon CEO Darren Woods said the Pioneer deal would lower its cost of production, making US barrels more competitive in the global market, and provide a strong platform for growth, which would ultimately benefit consumers. Exxon also pledged to reduce climate-warming emissions from Pioneer operations to net zero by 2035, accelerating the prior target by 15 years.

The Biden administration has constantly been at odds with the oil industry, but easing through what many executives see as necessary consolidation is likely to improve relations. With domestic crude prices up roughly 14% this year and tensions rising the Middle East, the administration is vulnerable to Republican attacks on measures that hurt the oil industry and raise fuel prices.

Source: Oilprice.com

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I came across a news item in early April that not only caught my attention, it actually gave me hope that the various factions in the energy industry can work together to accomplish what the American Coal Council deems an essential next step in our country’s energy plan – the creation of a multi-faceted approach to satisfying our nation’s expanding energy needs.

The news flash in question concerned an update to the 2023 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) of Rocky Mountain Power (RMP), the subsidiary of PacifiCorp that operates in Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. Rocky Mountain Power suddenly restated its plans and is now considering building the second commercial scale carbon capture project in the U.S.

The company’s initial IRP, which was released in March 2023, called for the retirement of Utah’s last two remaining coal-fired power plants by 2032. That was anticipated.

But what was the surprise was the contents of the updated plan calling for Utah’s Hunter and Huntington plants to continue operating until 2036 and 2042, respectively, which reverts back to the vision laid out in RMP’s 2021 IRP. This new approach would also involve retrofits to several of its Wyoming coal plants, despite RMP’s previously stated concerns about the cost and viability of the technology.

RMP and its parent corporation said the change of plans were largely driven by developments concerning the Environmental Protection Agency’s Ozone Transport Policy, which is designed to prevent ozone-causing pollution generated in one state from increasing the ozone levels in adjacent states. Notably, last July the United States Court of Appeals granted a stay in a case brought against the EPA by the state of Utah, preventing enforcement of policy which could have put limits on how much coal the two Utah plants could burn — while the lawsuit plays out.

But there are other reasons, too. They include extensions to the assumed operational life of new natural gas generating resources, as well as energy storage acquisition strategy, forecast load demand, higher coal prices, and natural gas and wholesale power market price updates. In other words, which all point to the need for diversity of energy options in a market that demands multiple resources.

Stated directly in the IRP, “PacifiCorp’s coal resources will continue to play a pivotal role in following fluctuations in renewable energy as the remaining coal units approach retirement dates,” the company said in a statement. “EPA’s approval of Wyoming’s ozone plan and the stay of EPA’s disapproval of Utah’s ozone plan results in fewer restrictions on coal-fired operation than were assumed in the 2023 IRP.”

It is noted that the additional investments in the updated plan also include new wind and solar resources, the conversion of two coal-fired units to natural gas peaking units, growth in demand response and energy efficiency programs, an advanced nuclear resource and energy storage.

RMP’s decision to extend the retirement of their two Utah power plants and also-employing technology on their Wyoming plants should be a blueprint for other utilities to ensure reliable electricity for an ever-expanding energy market. The goal of our national energy policy should be to ensure that we have the power to drive economic growth, provide shelter and comfort for our citizens and ensure that electricity is consistently available when needed.  Elimination of the United States coal-fired electrical generation fleet does not accomplish those objectives – but energy diversification most likely will.

Perhaps, but our point is that coal needs to be included in a balanced national energy plan.

Source: Realclearenergy.org

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Get ready for more energy shortages. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) power plant rule was finalized last week, and it is bad news for America’s energy supply.

Under the new rule, all coal plants that plan to stay open beyond 2039 and any new natural gas plant would have to cut or capture 90% of their carbon dioxide emissions by 2032.

Plants that expect to retire by 2039 face less stringent standards but still would have to capture some emissions. And while current natural gas plants are safe for the time being, any new plant will have to adhere to these regulations.

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is the idea that CO2 can be captured, transported and then stored in underground wells. But despite decades of research and development, CCS remains extremely expensive and largely unsuccessful. Only a handful of functioning CCS facilities operate worldwide, and they only capture a small fraction of what experts had projected.

Bottom line: These projects are nowhere near ready for wide-scale adoption and implementation.

But the lack of progress is not the only impediment.

Less than a month ago, the House Climate Solutions Caucus sent a letter to the head of the EPA expressing deep concerns about the underground CO2 storage permitting delays which “are actively crippling U.S. efforts to deploy vital clean energy and carbon capture infrastructure alike.”

It is vital that the infrastructure is made available in time frames that align with decarbonization goals. Now that the power plant rule is finalized, the permit backlog is only sure to worsen if no action is taken.

The EPA is setting power plants up for failure. But perhaps this is the plan all along?

Fossil fuels have been under attack since Biden’s first day in office. This regulation will force many power plants to shut down, precisely what this administration hopes to achieve. Their end goal is a transition to renewables.

A study published last year concluded that switching to a mostly renewable electric grid would cause electricity prices to soar more than threefold. The demand for hydrocarbons is not falling. Restricting supply would only lead to sustained increases in oil and gas prices, delivering “body blows to the economies of the West.”

The truth is fossil fuels can and do dispatch uninterrupted, cost-effective and resilient energy, which in turn fosters and supports strong economic activity. Renewables are not a technological or sound replacement, and nowhere near capable of being a major energy source. Their intermittence and unreliability have already caused some unfortunate events.

Several years ago, Winter Storm Uri left millions without power and several hundred dead. Weather-dependent sources failed, and without readily available coal, the Texas power grid was minutes away from total collapse.

Storm Elliot in December 2022 ripped through the Southeast, where several major utilities had to implement rolling outages to preserve supply. To prevent system collapse, coal provided nearly 40% of the critically needed energy.

California has experienced its share of rolling blackouts and has even asked its residents to conserve energy for fear of further electricity deficits. Roughly a quarter of the Golden State’s energy comes from wind and solar, having the most ambitious green agenda on the books.

According to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), risks of blackouts are increasing across America due to state and federal mandates for carbon-free electricity. Potential energy deficiencies are “projected in areas where the future resource mix could fail to deliver the necessary supply of electricity under energy-constrained conditions.” Coal-heavy regions like the Midcontinent Independent Systems Operator (MISO) are at very high risk.

During a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing a year ago, NERC’s CEO was asked whether energy sources forced to retire early under EPA’s regulations could be replaced by suitable renewables. “No. Not in the timeframe we’re looking at.”

The new EPA rule is sure to face legal challenges. Eerily similar to the West Virginia v. EPA verdict, in which the government agency lost big, lawsuits will likely also claim “the emissions rule far surpasses the EPA’s legal authority, triggers the major questions doctrine and violates administrative law.”

Fossil fuels are and will continue to be in the foreseeable future the reliant and resilient backbone of the energy grid. We cannot place our fate in the hands of technology that currently fails to demonstrate commercial viability.

The EPA’s final rules will impact grid reliability and put American’s safety and livelihoods at risk.

Source: Foxnews.com

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Ukrainian drones hit a major oil refinery owned by state-controlled Rosneft PJSC in Ryazan, southeast of Moscow, just as the facility’s crude-processing had recovered from a previous strike.

The overnight attack caused a fire at the plant, a person in the Ukraine military who is familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to discuss the information publicly.

“The Ryazan region was attacked by an unmanned aerial vehicle,” regional Governor Pavel Malkov said on his Telegram account Wednesday, without giving further detail. Videos posted on Russian Telegram channels purported to show the plant on fire, but they couldn’t immediately be verified by Bloomberg.

Rosneft, the nation’s largest oil producer, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment during a public holiday in Russia.

Oil-processing, one of Russia’s most important industries, has been a target of Ukrainian drone attacks since late January. Kyiv is seeking to curb fuel supplies to Russian forces on the front line and cut the flow of petrodollars to the Kremlin’s coffers as Moscow’s invasion continues into its third year.

Ukraine has targeted some of Russia’s key refineries, at times causing partial or complete shutdowns, with recent strikes at the Slavyansk and Ilsky plants in southern Russia. Driven by drone-inflicted damage and seasonal maintenance, Russia’s average daily processing rates were close to an 11-month low as of late April.

The Ryazan refinery, located some 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the Russian capital, was damaged by another Ukrainian drone in mid-March, and had been gradually ramping up its oil-processing operations since then.

In the period from April 18-24, the facility exceeded the operational level seen before the March attack, processing more than 300,000 barrels a day, according to a person familiar with Russian industry data. The plant has a nameplate capacity of 17.1 million tons of crude per year, equivalent to around 340,000 barrels a day, making the refinery one of Russia’s largest.

Russia has been targeting major Ukrainian cities with missile and drone strikes since it began the February 2022 invasion. It has claimed a recent deadly bombing campaign that has killed dozens in Ukraine is retaliation for attacks on its territory.

At least three people were killed and three injured when the southern city of Odesa came under ballistic missile attack early Wednesday, regional Governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram. Civil infrastructure was also damaged in the strike, he said.

On Monday, a ballistic missile struck one of Odesa’s parks, killing five civilians.

Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv and the surrounding region have also faced relentless Russian strikes using so-called guided bombs. Local authorities said early Wednesday that 10 residential buildings were damaged.

Source: Rigzone.com

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Three and a half years into the Biden Administration, and to an ordinary citizen on the ground it might seem like not that much has changed as to energy. Despite hundreds of government actions and initiative in an all-of-government regulatory onslaught to transform the energy economy, the important things have been remarkable stable. Production of oil and gas are actually up, and prices increases have been relatively modest — far less than one might have anticipated from the extreme regulatory hostility to production. The percentage of what is called “primary energy” (that is, energy for everything, not just electricity) coming from fossil fuels has remained nearly unchanged. EIA data here for 2022 (latest I can find) show about 79% of U.S. primary energy from fossil fuels, barely changed since Biden took office, and indeed very stable for decades.

Perhaps this situation of stable energy production and consumption results because it reflects what markets and consumers want and need to satisfy their demand for energy. So do you think that the hyperactive regulators might just relax and let the consumers have what they want?

Unfortunately, that is not how this works. Even as the energy producers and consumers have figured out endless workarounds to avoid the fossil fuel suppression that the Bidenauts attempt to impose, the little regulatory tyrants have been busy preparing new bouts of punitive restrictions. Last week saw a round of some of the most sweeping regulatory edicts yet. The regulators really plan to put the people in their place this time.

In the new round, the regulators have gotten farther and farther away from anything realistic, anything consistent with the laws of physics or thermodynamics, anything that might actually work. We are now well into the world of fantasy and delusion.

On last Thursday (April 25), the Administration, via the EPA, announced a suite of no fewer than four final rules “to Reduce Pollution from Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Plants.” Essentially, this is the replacement for the Obama Administration’s so-called “Clean Power Plan,” that ordered a complete re-do of the electricity generation system to gradually shutter fossil fuel plants and replace them with unworkable “renewables.” That Plan got struck down by the Supreme Court in June 2022 for being far beyond anything the EPA was authorized to do under its statutes.

So here is the new Rule covering the comparable subject. The title is “New Source Performance Standards for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from New, Modified, and Reconstructed Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units; Emission Guidelines for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Existing Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units; and Repeal of the Affordable Clean Energy Rule.” The document is 1020 pages long because, hey, we’re the EPA, and anything worth doing around here deserves a Rule of at least a thousand pages.

And how does this new Rule achieve the goal of reducing “greenhouse gas emissions”? You could probably spend all week trying to read the thing without ever figuring that out. EPA’s press release makes the following claim:

“EPA’s final Clean Air Act standards for existing coal-fired and new natural gas-fired power plants limit the amount of carbon pollution covered sources can emit, based on proven and cost-effective control technologies that can be applied directly to power plants.”

And what is the “proven and cost-effective control mechanism” they are talking about? The AP summarizes it here in a few words:

Coal-fired power plants would be forced to capture smokestack emissions or shut down under a rule issued Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency.

It’s the “capture of smokestack emissions” — otherwise known as carbon capture and storage, or CCS. I had a post last August at the time this Rule had been proposed and comments were being received. In my August post I highlighted some of the comments, including those from the states of Ohio and West Virginia. Those comments made mincemeat of any possible claim that CCS technology was either “proven” or “cost-effective.” Not only has it never been proven, but it’s impossible for it ever to work economically. There are many long quotes from comments in that post. Here are just a few.

From the Ohio comment, page 4:

A study of 263 carbon-capture-and-sequestration projects undertaken between 1995 and 2018 found that the majority failed and 78% of the largest projects were cancelled or put on hold.  After the study was published in May 2021, the only other coal plant with a carbon-capture-and-sequestration attachment in the world, Petra Nova, shuttered after facing 367 outages in its three years of operation. . . . [T]his [SaskPower] facility is the world’s only [remaining] operating commercial carbon capture facility at a coal-fired power plant.   And it has never achieved its maximum capacity.  It also battled significant technical issues throughout 2021—to the point that the plant idled the equipment for weeks at a time.  As a result, the plant achieved less than 37% carbon capture that year despite having an official target of 90% . . . . 

From the West Virginia comment, pages 24 – 25:

Take efficiency to start. CCS units run on power, too. An owner can get that power from the plant itself. But this approach makes the plant less efficient by increasing its “parasitic load”—and CCS more than triples combustion turbines’ normal parasitic load. . . . This is the cause the Wyoming study analyzed that showed installing CCS technology would devastate plants’ heat rates and lower net plant efficiency by 36%.

There is endless more of same. The fact is that CCS technology is neither “proven” nor “cost-effective.” It is nowhere after 30 years of trying because it cannot be done economically. It cannot be done economically because it is, in effect, a war against the Second Law of Thermodynamics. To capture more and more of the CO2 from the plant takes more and more of the plant’s output of energy, until in the limiting case you use all the energy of the plant and still some small amount of the CO2 escapes. The whole idea of CCS is to avoid having the disorder of the universe increase by the method of putting sufficient energy into trying. Won’t ever work. See also, perpetual motion machines.

Well, the sensible comments have all been rejected and EPA has just gone ahead and done what it was always planning to do, which is to order up something that can’t ever work economically and can only result in forcing the closure of an energy system that works without any idea of something realistic to replace it.

The deadlines for this start around 2030. Most likely between now and then either the Supreme Court will strike this down, or we’ll get a Republican administration that will sweep it all away. In the meantime we have completely ignorant and tyrannical regulators ordering up an energy system that can’t possibly work and heedless of the enormous destruction that they will likely cause if not stopped.

And that’s only part of what these fools were up to last week on the energy front. Here from Wednesday (April 24) is a “Fact Sheet” issued by the White House on another totally delusional effort: “Biden-⁠Harris Administration Sets First-Ever National Goal of Zero-Emissions Freight Sector, Announces Nearly $1.5 Billion to Support Transition to Zero-Emission Heavy-duty Vehicles.”

I’ve got some news for them: the freight transportation sector (trucks and railroads) is not going to convert to electricity any time soon. At least this announcement was not a regulation mandating the conversion, but only the supposed setting of a “national goal,” with no idea of how it could possibly be achieved or at what cost. The $1.5 billion mentioned is an irrelevant rounding error of a figure that maybe could buy 10,000 new electric trucks (in a sector with at least 3 million existing non-electric ones), and the 10,000 trucks would be mostly useless for the purposes in question.

These people become more and more detached from reality with each passing day. They seem to have no idea how much damage they are doing, and they don’t care a bit. Somehow they have convinced themselves that they are “saving the planet,” when if they could do even a little arithmetic they would know that their efforts cannot possibly move the needle on that effort. It’s just another week in the Biden Administration energy clown show.

Source: Manhattancontrarian.com

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The post The Biden Administration Ever More Delusional On Energy appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

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Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm battled House Republicans at a budget hearing on Wednesday, defending the Department of Energy’s efforts on grid reliability, electric vehicles and natural gas exports.

It was Granholm’s third appearance before a Capitol Hill committee this year, and it might have been her toughest yet.

The Energy and Commerce Committee features some fierce Biden administration critics, including Energy, Environment and Grid Subcommittee chair Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.).

“The Department of Energy has pursued a radical climate agenda to impose new federal regulations for household appliances electrical equipment, voting, construction and natural gas usage,” Duncan said. “It’s putting the ‘American Dream’ further and further out of reach for many struggling families.”

Duncan and other Republicans criticized the administration’s proposed fiscal 2025 budget, released earlier in March, which they said was an unreasonably large ask for DOE considering stubborn inflation and high interest rates.

But despite the partisan fury, the hearing offered Granholm a chance to provide meaningful updates on a number of controversial issues like EV charger infrastructure, EPA power plant regulations, the liquefied natural gas-export pause and others.

Here are some takeaways:

Where are the EV chargers?

Republicans lambasted the secretary over the slow rollout of EV chargers, despite a healthy federal investment.

A bipartisan infrastructure law program that provided $7.5 billion to support charging infrastructure has resulted in only 7 charging stations. Even Democrats expressed displeasure with the program.

“Despite the significant investment, the rollout has progressed slower than anybody wants,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) “We need to be perfectly frank about this.”

Granholm said DOE has provided 35 states with funding and expects the program to produce 1,000 charging stations by the end of the year.

She pinned the slow rollout time on connecting chargers to the grid, which she said can take up to 18 months due to permitting timelines and missing grid infrastructure.

“There are permitting issues at the state level, so the states are finding a little bit of difficulty,” Granholm said. “But all of these solicitations are out and the states now have their plans, so we’re going to start to see more and more of the public chargers available throughout the course of this year and beyond.”

Republicans asked if such developments suggest the White House should slow its push to increase EV ownership. Two recent reports say EV sales are facing a slower rate of growth due to stalling consumer interest and a lack of available charging stations.

But Granhom said that the administration remains bullish on EVs.

“We are not concerned that we are moving too fast,” she said. “In fact, we are seeing a great uptake in EVs — a 30 percent increase year over year — which I think any automaker would be happy to have.”

New details on LNG study

In response to Republican questions, Granholm revealed new details on the administration’s pause on liquefied natural gas export permitting as it reviews climate and price concerns.

The DOE secretary said she personally recommended the LNG pause to President Joe Biden due to the unprecedented rise in exports in the last five years.

“That was my recommendation,” Granholm said. “In 2018, we were exporting 4 BCF [billion cubic feet per day] at that point. Today, we have the capacity to do 14 BCF.”

Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), who recently led a bill through the House to overturn the LNG pause, H.R. 7176, said many energy companies have expressed to him and to DOE that the pause could be disastrous due to the uncertainty created in future export contracts.

“I understand that some in the industry who may have pending authorization requests are not happy,” Granholm responded. ” But our review is in the public interest, and not in the interest just of the oil and gas industry.”

Granholm also revealed which labs were doing the study: the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Morgantown, West Virginia, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington.

The study should wrap up, she added, by “the end of this year, maybe the beginning of January of next year.”

Grid reliability

Republicans asked if DOE could take a larger role in advising EPA over power plant rules that could result in a greater number of retiring fossil fuel generation in the next decade.

Those questions speak to a concerted effort by Republicans to focus on grid reliability, as they believe Biden administration regulations could result in grid blackouts due to disappearing, at-the-ready fossil fuel plants.

“Are you comfortable allowing EPA to take actions that effectively dictate the electricity generation mix and negatively affect the energy policy of the nation,” committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) asked Granholm.

Granholm said DOE is fully behind the EPA’s initiative to limit emissions from existing plants. The department and EPA already have a memorandum of understanding that allows the two to coordinate on reliability issues.

“I’m very comfortable that what they have proposed is doable, and that it will, in fact, increase our energy security,” said Granholm.

She did concede, however, that the nation could use more pipeline infrastructure, something that House Republicans have been urging for years.

“I think we definitely need to build new pipelines for hydrogen, for the movement of CO2, as well as traditional energy,” Granholm said.

Energy efficiency week

Democrats pushed back on Republican messaging on energy efficiency, arguing such rules are commonsense wins for all Americans.

“Of course, committee Republicans continue to target these standards, passing ridiculous bills that are nothing more that gifts to their corporate polluter friends that will raise prices for middle class Americans,” said ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.).

Pallone indicated that House Republicans could bring back a slate of bills targeting a variety of energy efficiency rules for floor votes as soon as next week.

In April, Republicans were planning to vote on six bills that would prohibit DOE from implementing or enforcing efficiency standards for home appliances if they are not “technically feasible or economically justified” and if they do not result in “significant conservation of energy.”

The measures targeted everything from air conditioners to clothes dryers and refrigerators.

Floor votes on the bills were canceled after Republicans took up Israel foreign aid and Iran oil sanction bills. Now, Democrats and Granholm are again gearing up to defend DOE’s energy efficiency agenda against potential upcoming Republican legislative attacks.

“We have been doing this since 1975, … and we have saved consumers trillions of dollars,” Granholm said. “I would say to those who criticize, don’t underestimate the ingenuity of the private sector to reach these standards and to provide consumers with lower cost appliances and more efficient appliances.”

Source: Eenews.net

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