In the competition to be the most ethical of all states on the “carbon-free” electricity metric, the race is on between California and New York. In 2018 California issued invoice named “SB100” which sets a mandatory target of 60% of electricity from “renewables” by 2030 (and 100% by 2045). Not to be outdone, New York responded by enacting the “Climate Leadership and Communities Act” in 2019. set its own statutory goals 70% of electricity from renewables by 2030 (and 100% by 2040).
So are any of these real? Or is it just so much trying to match the current fashion, all of which will be forgotten with time that the deadline approach seems so far away? For New York, I had multiple posts (e.g.: this and this) explains how supposedly mandated goals are completely unrealistic in terms of feasibility and cost, and how those responsible for achieving them have no idea what they’re doing.
Does California have less of a secret?
The short answer is no.” However, a major report is trying to convince us by convincing us otherwise.Indeed, the Report advocates that California can not only achieve its goals. The current statutory target is 60% carbon-free electricity by 2030, but an even more ambitious 85% – as indicated in the title of the press release announcing the Report, it is “Achieving 85 Percent Clean Electricity By 2030 In California.” The Report itself is titled “Reliably Achieving California’s Clean Energy Goals.” The consulting organizations that include their names in the Report are Renewal energy, Telos Energyand GridLab. Report authors have been identified as Derek Stenclik and Michael Welch of Telos and Priya Sreedharan of GridLab.
Also identified is a large “Technical Review Committee” of about 13 members. Do you think these people can be experts who are sure that this project will give honest technical and technological answers on how to achieve ambitious goals? Don’t make fun of yourself. Five of the 13 are California energy officials (three from the California Energy Commission and two from the California Community Choice Association); and the rest are advocates for the environment and “green energy” in various forms, ranging from the Environmental Defense Fund, Vote Solar, Jas Energies, Sharply Focused, etc. Even a few are listed listed as an “independent consultant” who also has a background in wind and solar advocacy.
And then there’s the weird combination of “Disclaimer” and sponsorship disclosure:
The views expressed in this report do not represent those of any technical review committee organization and cannot be attributed to any technical review committee member. This work was supported by funds from Climate Imperative.
In other words, “you can’t blame me for none of this working.” And, have you heard of the sponsoring organization, Climate command? Me neither. But a few seconds with the search engine will give you the answer. Two of the six members of the Board of Directors are Laurene Powell Jobs and John Doerr. Yes, it’s Laurene Jobs, the heir to Apple’s money, and John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins, who just dropped a billion dollars into Stanford University to create a new school of “Sustainability.”
The report is about 89 pages long, much of it written in seemingly technical terms. The goal is to convince you that the goal of 85% carbon-free electricity by 2030 can easily be achieved with full confidence. We have a “model” that includes all relevant variables. We ran “stress tests” for every possible extreme situation. The following is from the Report advertising ad found on the Energy Innovation website:
Modeling from GridLab and Telos Energy shows that California could achieve 85% clean energy by 2030 without sacrificing reliability, even under stressful conditions. . . . Engineering Research has developed three 85% clean electricity portfolios by 2030, reflecting disparate resource building and accelerated electrification. These portfolios have been tested against stressors including decommissioning state natural gas units, replacing coal in the West with renewables, and storing energy. , while also mimicking the August 2020 heatwaves that caused power outages. The study assessed all the stressors together, including import restrictions that were stricter than usual, finding a future clean grid capable of serving loads under these extreme conditions. .
So the message to Californians is, invest hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes and taxpayers’ money over the next eight years in the blind faith that our models took everything into account. errors may occur. And by the way, don’t expect any kind of cost prediction from us – that’s beyond the scope of this project.
As readers here know, I have a simple answer for these kinds of fantasies, which is to show me the demonstration project in action, even for a small town of 5000 or 10,000 people, from there we can evaluate the feasibility and cost of doing this for a large state of 40 million. Needless to say, none of that exists.
To see if there is any seriousness behind this effort, see how the scenarios in the Report address two questions: (1) capacity over-building and (2) power storage. quantity.
With its modest credit rating, the Report acknowledges that reaching the 85% carbon-free electricity target would mean retaining about 15% of emissions from natural gas. But how much wind and solar capacity will be needed to provide the rest?
And the Report also makes at least some recognition that large amounts of storage space will be required. But how much storage and at a cost?
The focus of information addressing these questions appears in this chart from page 24:
As for the point of view, California’s all-time high electricity usage reached 50.27 GW on 24 July 2006. In most recent years, the peak has been in the 46 – 47 GW range. The current detected power from all sources is about 82 GW, represented substantial overbuilding to cope with the potential for disruption of large amounts of wind and solar. These scenarios from the Report for 2030 suggest building capacity up to about 140 – 160 GW, or approximately three times peak usage. A natural gas capacity of about 30 GW would be almost sufficient to supply all average usage and about two thirds of peak usage, but the obvious recommendation is to keep it fully maintained and ready, but off about 85% of the time.
As for the amount of memory that would be needed for these scenarios, the graph shows a range from about 20 GW in the “diverse clean resources” scenario, to about 25 GW in the “highly electrified” scenario. OK, but how many gigawatts hour you will need, and how much will that cost? While that is the most far-fetched and important question that must be addressed in any attempt to build a primarily wind/solar/storage power system, you won’t find it. that are addressed in this Report. Like the New York Council for Climate Action scoping Plan, this Report is simply underpowered. (Or maybe the authors were aware of the problem and avoided solving it because they knew that solving it would prove impossible for the project and displease pay managers. It’s hard to know. there.). The only discussion in the Report on Energy Storage in gigawatt-hours appears on page 79, where it is clear from the context that the storage being discussed is solely for the purpose of balancing the day and even cannot begin to mention the seasonality of wind and solar.
So what will the cost of all of this be? Increase capacity to three times higher usage; keep the entire backup natural gas system fully maintained but idle at least 85% of the time; and add enough storage to cope with the seasonal nature of wind and sun? Three times the cost of the current system would seem conservative. Five times is more likely. And of course, this Report does not address the issue of costs.
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