What if a state, er the ratepayers, spent billions of dollars building infrastructure that didn’t actually do anything—unless the right chain of speculative events happened afterward in an absolute best-case scenario?
Thank you for your well-informed analysis, GLF. Your description of the Colorado utility bureaucracy also describes the abysmal California situation. California is distinguished by typically having the most expensive electric power in the continental 48 states. The state has had expensive electricity for several decades.
Meredith Angwin's 2020 book Shorting the Grid - the Hidden Fragility of our Electric Grid has several sections focused on the lack of California electric grid reliability.
Since its founding in 2013, Independent intervenor Californians for Green Nuclear Power, Inc. (CGNP) has been advocating for the environmental and ratepayer benefits of nuclear power. CGNP has been an intervenor since 2016. Our arguments are informed by scientific, engineering, and legal expertise. The big problem is that the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has developed creative methods for us to not be paid for our advocacy. Instead, the CPUC lavishly funds opponents to nuclear power. For additional details, please see the GreenNUKE Substack at https://greennuke.substack.com/
Seems Colorado isn't the only one to dump taxpayer money. New Mexico's former U.S. Secretary of the Interior is now running for Governor. The candidate proposed an eastern New Mexico power corridor while Biden’s Secretary. It would be proposed to terminate close to the border of Colorado. The great beneficiary will be the wind darling Siemens whose machines will see future tax money stripped from the poor and from long term in New Mexico. That, coupled with a potential selloff of the PNM regulated electric monopoly will see the already poor in the state's major cities get increased bills. As for the "climate benefits", well one might say the loss of power from long distance transmission lines will be something to consider in such a scheme. Personally, the failures of attacking the supply side of energy is big. Conservation should be paramount but the
IOT and AI push is what I believe is why projects like these are being pushed.
The cost figure for the 550 mile high voltage line is a little low. PG&E's unit cost guide lists the cost per mile for 230 kV. at about $4.5 million per mile with adders for terrain. I expect this line will be 500 or 745 kV with a substantial price premium over 230. Lets say 5.5 million per mile comes out to about 3 billion base case. there'll be some difficult terrain which can double the cost per mile, helicopters and all that.
They'll get it in the rate base with this stupid estimate and then pass the cost overruns to the rate payers instead of the people using the line to transmit power 20% of the time. Meredith is quite right about the perverse incentives for utilities. the more they spend the more the shareholders make.
I agree with your analysis. The Colorado plan is insanely expensive. It's like California's High Speed Rail which starts in the middle of nowhere and ends in the middle of nowhere. I remain optimistic that with greater publicity, GLF's analysis will help to sink this Colorado boondoggle.
Academic papers in the period 2013-2014 (see note) introduced the concept of Energy Return on Energy Invested EROEI and the Concept of buffered EROEI which considered the energy required to provide storage for intermittent supplies. Key values were established Nuclear 75 ; Hydro 35 ; Coal 30 ; Closed-Cycle Gas Turbine 28 ; Solar Thermal 9 ; Wind 4 ; Biomass 4 and Solar PV 2. The value may have shifted a little over time but even if some are halved or others doubled Wind and Solar PV are bottom of the class.
One of the reasons for the disparity between variable renewable energy (VRE) and ‘conventional’ energy is the average running hours per day. Nuclear runs continuously except or exceptional maintenance so has a capacity factor of say 99%. By comparison the average capacity factor of wind is between 23 and 29% and the average capacity factor for PV is between 11 and 13%. (Carbajales-Dale 2014)
Nuclear has a design lifetime of 60 or more years so creates all the energy used to construct it in its first year of running, the next decades all deliver net energy. By comparison solar which has a design life or 15-20 years will take half of that time just to remake the energy used to construct it; wind needs about 5 years.
Electricity demand must always be matched by supply. Variable renewable energy needs to be backed-up with alternative sources that can be turned on when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun does not shine.
It would appear that $1.7 billion has been invested in Colorado’s Power Pathway Project and a large amount of energy expended in its construction in order to be ready for variable renewable energy (VRE) sources which will only start to deliver net energy 5 or more years after being connected to the grid. The project also needs access to dispatchable power. Colorado’s Power Pathway Project appears to offer few benefits except for some investors.
Note about information sources
i) Forbes 2015 summarised paper ii) and is quite readable
ii) Weißbach (2013) - the key academic paper,
iii) Carbajales-Dale 2014 analysed the question ‘if the wind and PV industries had to ‘pay’ the energetic cost of deploying storage, would these industries be providing a net energy surplus to society?’
Thank you for your well-informed analysis, GLF. Your description of the Colorado utility bureaucracy also describes the abysmal California situation. California is distinguished by typically having the most expensive electric power in the continental 48 states. The state has had expensive electricity for several decades.
Meredith Angwin's 2020 book Shorting the Grid - the Hidden Fragility of our Electric Grid has several sections focused on the lack of California electric grid reliability.
Since its founding in 2013, Independent intervenor Californians for Green Nuclear Power, Inc. (CGNP) has been advocating for the environmental and ratepayer benefits of nuclear power. CGNP has been an intervenor since 2016. Our arguments are informed by scientific, engineering, and legal expertise. The big problem is that the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has developed creative methods for us to not be paid for our advocacy. Instead, the CPUC lavishly funds opponents to nuclear power. For additional details, please see the GreenNUKE Substack at https://greennuke.substack.com/
Seems Colorado isn't the only one to dump taxpayer money. New Mexico's former U.S. Secretary of the Interior is now running for Governor. The candidate proposed an eastern New Mexico power corridor while Biden’s Secretary. It would be proposed to terminate close to the border of Colorado. The great beneficiary will be the wind darling Siemens whose machines will see future tax money stripped from the poor and from long term in New Mexico. That, coupled with a potential selloff of the PNM regulated electric monopoly will see the already poor in the state's major cities get increased bills. As for the "climate benefits", well one might say the loss of power from long distance transmission lines will be something to consider in such a scheme. Personally, the failures of attacking the supply side of energy is big. Conservation should be paramount but the
IOT and AI push is what I believe is why projects like these are being pushed.
The cost figure for the 550 mile high voltage line is a little low. PG&E's unit cost guide lists the cost per mile for 230 kV. at about $4.5 million per mile with adders for terrain. I expect this line will be 500 or 745 kV with a substantial price premium over 230. Lets say 5.5 million per mile comes out to about 3 billion base case. there'll be some difficult terrain which can double the cost per mile, helicopters and all that.
They'll get it in the rate base with this stupid estimate and then pass the cost overruns to the rate payers instead of the people using the line to transmit power 20% of the time. Meredith is quite right about the perverse incentives for utilities. the more they spend the more the shareholders make.
I agree with your analysis. The Colorado plan is insanely expensive. It's like California's High Speed Rail which starts in the middle of nowhere and ends in the middle of nowhere. I remain optimistic that with greater publicity, GLF's analysis will help to sink this Colorado boondoggle.
Academic papers in the period 2013-2014 (see note) introduced the concept of Energy Return on Energy Invested EROEI and the Concept of buffered EROEI which considered the energy required to provide storage for intermittent supplies. Key values were established Nuclear 75 ; Hydro 35 ; Coal 30 ; Closed-Cycle Gas Turbine 28 ; Solar Thermal 9 ; Wind 4 ; Biomass 4 and Solar PV 2. The value may have shifted a little over time but even if some are halved or others doubled Wind and Solar PV are bottom of the class.
One of the reasons for the disparity between variable renewable energy (VRE) and ‘conventional’ energy is the average running hours per day. Nuclear runs continuously except or exceptional maintenance so has a capacity factor of say 99%. By comparison the average capacity factor of wind is between 23 and 29% and the average capacity factor for PV is between 11 and 13%. (Carbajales-Dale 2014)
Nuclear has a design lifetime of 60 or more years so creates all the energy used to construct it in its first year of running, the next decades all deliver net energy. By comparison solar which has a design life or 15-20 years will take half of that time just to remake the energy used to construct it; wind needs about 5 years.
Electricity demand must always be matched by supply. Variable renewable energy needs to be backed-up with alternative sources that can be turned on when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun does not shine.
It would appear that $1.7 billion has been invested in Colorado’s Power Pathway Project and a large amount of energy expended in its construction in order to be ready for variable renewable energy (VRE) sources which will only start to deliver net energy 5 or more years after being connected to the grid. The project also needs access to dispatchable power. Colorado’s Power Pathway Project appears to offer few benefits except for some investors.
Note about information sources
i) Forbes 2015 summarised paper ii) and is quite readable
ii) Weißbach (2013) - the key academic paper,
iii) Carbajales-Dale 2014 analysed the question ‘if the wind and PV industries had to ‘pay’ the energetic cost of deploying storage, would these industries be providing a net energy surplus to society?’
Links:
i) https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/02/11/eroi-a-tool-to-predict-the-best-energy-mix/
ii) https://festkoerper-kernphysik.de/Weissbach_EROI_preprint.pdf
iii) https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2014/ee/c3ee42125b
The only thing that's green appears to be the dollars flowing to the special interests that lobbied for this massive expenditure..