While California has committed economic suicide with their ridiculous carbon trading plan that nobody wants, Maryland seems to think that magically, green jobs and non baseload power sources will “improve reliability” of electric power. From my perspective, seeing how well such ideas have worked out elsewhere, they are living in la-la land. They should ask Texas how wind power works out for them in peak demand times.
The reliability projections don’t instill confidence:
Maryland Climate Plan Passes Key Tests in UMD Studies
Improves Electric Reliability; Negligible Impact on Manufacturers
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Maryland’s plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2020 meets a series of benchmark tests set by state lawmakers, concludes a new pair of studies by the University of Maryland Center for Integrative Environmental Research (CIER). The findings should help clear the way for adoption of a full Climate Action Plan next year, the researchers say.
Maryland’s 2009 Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act ordered independent studies to make sure that its provisions won’t hurt the reliability of the state’s electricity supply or damage the manufacturing sector of the economy. The CIER studies give State plans a passing grade on these scores and project some upsides:
- Improves reliability of electric service for consumers and industry;
- No expected loss of jobs;
- May stimulate some “green” jobs;
- No economic harm to Maryland’s manufacturing sector.
“We can allay critics’ fears,” says University of Maryland School of Public Policy Professor Matthias Ruth, the study’s principal investigator and CIER director. “Our studies confirm that sound environmental responses to climate change do not have to come at the expense of Maryland’s economy, or put a crimp in the availability of electricity in the State. To the contrary, we see net benefits.”
These reports come as part of an ongoing effort by the state to assess the impact of Maryland’s developing Climate Action Plan (CAP) on the manufacturing sector and the wider state economy. Future studies are expected to assess manufacturing-specific and economy-wide impacts.
For example, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act requires an additional independent study by 2015, with oversight from an industry-represented task force, evaluate climate policy effects on manufacturing.
“We expect manufacturing in Maryland, and its economy as a whole, to be agile enough to make the necessary changes in technologies and business practices to absorb what has been portrayed as a policy-induced shock on the economy,” concludes one of the new University of Maryland reports. “At worst, the CAP will become an indistinguishable part of a larger and longer-term trend of declining manufacturing employment in the state. At best, the CAP will generate new business opportunities and jobs.”
New “green” jobs would likely grow out of the work involved in emissions reductions, the study says. It does not forecast a specific number, but suggests the economic and policy atmosphere is ripe for green job growth: “Maryland stands to benefit from new employment opportunities that will support mitigation policies associated with the state’s CAP. Maryland must ensure that it continues to capitalize on its talented and skilled workforce and that policies and strategies are in place to support growth and attract new green jobs.”
The Maryland Department of Environment commissioned the studies. It is charged with submitting a tentative Climate Action Plan (CAP) to Gov. O’Malley by the end of 2011.
“These reports provide essential information about the early effects of implementing Maryland’s Climate Action Plan,” says Sean Williamson, CIER researcher and report co-author. “They should remove potential roadblocks and advance the process.”
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Meeting Maryland’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Goals: Electrical Reliability Impacts from Maryland’s Climate Action Plan
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Meeting Maryland’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Goals: Manufacturing Costs, Employment and Economic Effects from Maryland’s Climate Action Plan
In their analyses, the CIER researchers, along with colleagues from Towson University’s Regional Economic Studies Institute and Johns Hopkins University Professor Benjamin F. Hobbs, analyzed the impact resulting from implementation of the following climate remediation programs, including:
- Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard: requires electricity suppliers to meet a portion of retail electricity sales from renewable energy sources;
- Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative: first market-based regulatory program in the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Maryland is one of 10 Northeast States in the program;
- EmPower Maryland: Energy conservation initiatives.
SPECIFIC FINDINGS
Manufacturing Economic Impact
2009 Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act (GGRA) requires that cuts in emissions may not cause a significant increase in costs to the manufacturing sector.
Finding: No significant increase in capital or energy costs for the manufacturing sector. Large, electricity-intensive industries, such as chemical plants, will see the greatest energy cost increases – between 1 and 2 percent. Small, less energy-intensive industries, such as printing, could see cost savings as a result of participation in energy conservation programs, such as EmPower Maryland.
Jobs
GGRA says greenhouse gas reduction requirements may not cause reductions in existing manufacturing jobs.
Finding: “Job losses in the manufacturing sector attributable to select CAP policies will be minimal and may not occur at all,” says the economic report. It notes that Maryland’s manufacturing sector has lost jobs since the 1970s, a trend expected to continue with or without the CAP.
Green Jobs
GGRA requires reduction measures to produce a net increase in jobs in Maryland, and encourage new employment opportunities in the State related to energy conservation, alternative energy supply, and greenhouse gas emissions reduction technologies – so called “green jobs.”
Finding: New jobs in each of these categories are expected to grow. Currently, green jobs make up about 3 percent of the state’s workforce. Green job opportunities will be available to those who enhance or modify existing skills.
Electric Reliability
GGRA requires the Maryland Department of the Environment to “ensure the plan does not decrease the likelihood of reliable and affordable electrical service and statewide fuel supply.”
The researchers define “electric reliability” as having adequate amounts of electricity to meet peak summer demand plus a safety margin. These needs can be met by either in-state generation capacity, power importation or by managing demand. Reliability does NOT pertain to disruptions in electricity service caused, for example, by downed wires from fallen trees and branches.
Finding: “We find electricity reliability in Maryland…will improve with the implementation of specific mitigation policies originally identified in the 2008 Climate Action Plan,” the report concludes. “Despite uncertainties in future electricity transmission in Maryland, electricity reliability in the state will be improved with the addition of the three climate mitigation policies.”
By the end of the decade, Maryland will have to import electricity because of the retirement of old generating plants, the researchers explain. Planned projects, such as the Mid-Atlantic Power-Pathway, will help satisfy the state’s needs, if brought on line by 2015. Climate Action planning can improve this picture due to conservation measures that will reduce peak-demand, the researchers say. Increases from renewable sources such as offshore wind will help too.
MEDIA CONTACTS
Matthias Ruth
CIER Director, Principal Investigator
(202) 701-6484 (cell)
Sean Williamson
CIER Researcher, Co-Investigator
301-405-9436
Neil Tickner
UMD Public Affairs
301-405-4622
ntickner@umd.edu
Shevva says:
November 3, 2011 at 4:40 am
Do you think digging holes then filling them in again is a green job because you give me enough subsidy and I’ll cut the US unemployment figure like you wouldn’t believe….
__________________________________
If you are going to that, I have some fence post holes I have to dig this winter in very rocky soil….
Might as well get some REAL PRODUCTIVITY out of the make-work (snicker)
Tall metal structures, sitting hapazardly in rows, blades frozen in place, are the Stonehenges of the future. Anybody want to bet that archeologists will assign some kind of god-cult to the structures?
As a MD resident, I can confirm that neo-Marxists have extended tendrils from Wash DC outward to infect the entire state. Much or most of the state is now employed/controlled by these people, including our children’s education.
Just like a legalized mafia syndicate complete with extortion, payoffs, money laundering, strong-arming, etc.
lol, it won’t impact jobs if they’re not expecting any growth……. Notice the barely more than 10% increase in peak demand in ten years. That doesn’t even keep up with population increase much less job growth. Economies have to grow at about 2% just to break even. Electricity use is a proxy for general economic activity.
So, yes, if Maryland is looking forward to further impoverishment of its populace, then the whirly gigs, pinwheels and sun catchers shouldn’t impact their prospects.
Pamela Gray says:
November 3, 2011 at 7:00 am
Tall metal structures, sitting hapazardly in rows, blades frozen in place, are the Stonehenges of the future. Anybody want to bet that archeologists will assign some kind of god-cult to the structures?
========================================================
lol, that would be the obvious conclusion. In that the functionality of such gizmos would only serve a ceremonious function.
I can tell you tht BGE was real popular this past summer for the way they rationed energy duringthe early summer heat wave. Customers who volunteered for the program that allowed BGE to cycle off their A/C during peak energy usage discovered were shocked and irate after BGE turned off the A/C for 12 hours at a time during the hottest weekend of the year with temps exceeding 100 degrees. They were under the false impression that their A/C would be cycled on and off every 15 minutes to an hour thinking they could tolerate the stuffiness for that period of time in exchange for a $300 credit per year. Many dropped the program after that first weekend.
Martin O’Malley is definitely in the Obama wing of politics; an idealist who makes dramatic changes consequences be damned. I have no idea how a study can conclude that green energy will produce lots of jobs yet not increase costs. Whose paying for those new jobs? Consumers, because there’s no enough manufacturing jobs left to impact.
Is there a School of Public Policy at any university in the country which isn’t a mennace to society?
“…By the end of the decade, Maryland will have to import electricity because of the retirement of old generating plants, the researchers explain. Planned projects, such as the Mid-Atlantic Power-Pathway, will help satisfy the state’s needs, if brought on line by 2015. Climate Action planning can improve this picture due to conservation measures that will reduce peak-demand, the researchers say. Increases from renewable sources such as offshore wind will help too.”
Yet the study says in the electrical link:
1) “Maryland lacks sufficient in-state generation resources to meet summer peak demand ..”
and
2) “Maryland is a net importer of electricity with imports amounting to as much as 30% of its electrical needs during 2002 – 2007..”
It also talks of relying on increasing its import capability but one of those projects (PATH) was suspended this last February.
Someone’s not looking at the big picture here.
vboring says:
November 2, 2011 at 2:35 pm
“The electric grid relies on the rotational inertia of controllable spinning machines to maintain frequency. Grid tied solar and wind plants don’t provide this rotational inertia.
This is what caused the San Diego outage a few weeks ago. When the first line tripped, San Diego was relying too much on renewables and was unable to maintain frequency. When the frequency problems got bad enough, the connection to the rest of Ca tripped and San Diego went black.”
I’m not as current on this stuff as I should be, and was unaware of the interesting fact about the SD outage that you mentioned. Do you have a link for that?
So imagine Maryland with lots of windmills and lots of snow and ice like this past weekend and thing about turbines shedding blades in the ice.
Maryland had 29,000 power outages due to the recent storm. Imagine what that number would be if they relied on wind farms?
http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2011/10/30/power-outages-could-last-for-days-after-deadly-snowstorm-hits-northeast/
School of public policy professor? Why not School of Engineering?
Loooook, they have a foolproof plan to stop generating dirty electricity in Maryland: ***Hand waving, hand waving, ill advised conservation schemes that wont take, assumption of no growth, hand waving, hand waving*** buy electricity from out of state.
Are these guys sharp or what? If we could just extend this plan to the rest of the world, oh wait…
I live and work where I can look out the window and see hundreds of wind turbines. In my experience, especially in the summer, the wind almost never blows when power is most needed. Fall and winter, when peak demand is lower, there is better correlation between wind speed and power usage. But don’t take my word for it, be skeptical and look at the link (below) to California grid information. In summertime, the wind power curve is almost exactly opposite the demand curve.
http://www2.caiso.com/outlook/SystemStatus.html
As I type this, California’s wind power production is more than 3% of demand (877 MW of 27,600 MW). Take *that* Maryland!
“They should ask Texas how wind power works out for them in peak demand times.”
You just can’t stop yourself even when you know better, can you?
The February 2nd, 2011 rolling blackout was caused by record cold temperatures that froze and burst water pipes at two coal powered electric plants causing them to shut down. These plants supplied power to booster pumps for natural gas pipelines. The reduced pressure in the natural gas pipelines caused 11 natural gas plants to reduce output. Altogether a whopping 7,000 megawatt shortfall. That state has 9,000 megawatts of wind power which kept on producing at some 3,000 megawatts all the way through the period.
The blame, as usual for blackouts, was severe weather causing equipment failures. If you know any of the weather forecasters who missed those record low temperatures by so much that night send them some Tarot cards and suggest testing to see if that helps. It sure can’t hurt.
If you’re interested in actual data instead of continually and mistakenly blaming the
boogeyman hobbyhorse scapegoat-of-choicewind turbines you might try some real data for a change regarding power outtages by region, state, duration, number affected, and cause. Try the link below. Very informative.http://powerquality.eaton.com/blackouttracker/default.asp
Or not. It doesn’t seem like you really want any facts to get in the way of your rants on this particular topic.
I’m sorry you made the gross miscalculation of remaining a resident in Californicate but it’s your choice. I bailed out 20 years ago and have lived in Texas ever since. Haven’t regretted it for a minute despite the fact that we have 3 times the wind generating capacity of California now and lead the nation in it with some 25% of the nation’s total nameplate capacity. The government that Californians keep reelecting is incapable of managing conventional electricity to say nothing of alternative sources which require much better planning. Remember when Enron gamed the dummies in Sacremento in 2000/2001 causing the price of electricity to go up by 2000%, bankrupting PG&E because the law wouldn’t allow them to pass on the losses, and almost bankrupting Southern California Edison too? Boy was I laughing – Enron was based in Houston, Texas.
Glad I wasn’t a Enron stockholder though. Enron gamed Wall Street too. They don’t call those good old boys “The Smartest Guys in the Room” for nothing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron:_The_Smartest_Guys_in_the_Room
In case you haven’t been following along:
Fastow gets out of the clink next month after serving 4 years of a ten year sentence in a low security prison and gave up $23M in ill-gotten booty that he didn’t manage to hide. Skilling is cooling his heels in federal prison in Colorado. The Supreme Court just vacated (nullified) most of the charges that Skilling was convicted of and sent the remainder back to lower court so he’ll probably be getting out with “time served” any day now too. Ken Lay died of a heart attack at age 66 while skiing in Colorado, three months before his sentencing.
So far not mentioned is that Maryland already has the worst electric grid reliability in the region, maybe in the country. The snowstorm last weekend barely grazed them with an inch or two and they still lost 29k The problem is they are too socialist to allow the power company to raise rates to fix the problem because they are afraid they might make a little extra profit on the deal. Meanwhile the power company spends its money advertising on the radio about how hard they are trying. Like green power, Maryland’s electricity is all talk and no substance.
Eric (skeptic) says:
November 3, 2011 at 3:50 pm
“So far not mentioned is that Maryland already has the worst electric grid reliability in the region, maybe in the country. The snowstorm last weekend barely grazed them with an inch or two and they still lost 29k The problem is they are too socialist to allow the power company to raise rates to fix the problem because they are afraid they might make a little extra profit on the deal. Meanwhile the power company spends its money advertising on the radio about how hard they are trying. Like green power, Maryland’s electricity is all talk and no substance.”
It didn’t look particularly different from anywhere else.
http://powerquality.eaton.com/blackouttracker/default.asp
They did have three power outages caused by squirrels this fall though and one cause by copper thieves which both stood out. Otherwise it looks like the usual bag of winds and lightning and ice storms and falling tree branches and equipment failures and human error. Maybe more planned outages than average.
fact about the SD outage that you mentioned. Do you have a link for that?
Wayne Delbeke says:
November 3, 2011 at 12:28 pm
“So imagine Maryland with lots of windmills and lots of snow and ice like this past weekend and thing about turbines shedding blades in the ice.”
The only place those turbines will shed blades due to ice IS in your imagination. They have deicing systems on the turbine blades. Flying shards of ice when the deicers kick on might be a problem though. Make the best of it by putting targets on the ground and get betting pools going around which targets get beaned by turbine ice shed first. Something different to put a few bucks down on in the local watering hole instead of sports.
More DS drivel.
The Tx outage wasn’t caused by windmills, but they provided power only during that night, when it wasn’t needed. Next morning, when the state fired up, they were MIA because the wind didn’t blow.
Tits on a bull.
It is economically illiterate to argue that increasing the cost of a product without increasing the economic utility of that product can increase macro-economic growth.
Larry Fields says:
November 3, 2011 at 10:21 am
vboring says:
November 2, 2011 at 2:35 pm
“The electric grid relies on the rotational inertia of controllable spinning machines to maintain frequency. Grid tied solar and wind plants don’t provide this rotational inertia.
This is what caused the San Diego outage a few weeks ago. When the first line tripped, San Diego was relying too much on renewables and was unable to maintain frequency. When the frequency problems got bad enough, the connection to the rest of Ca tripped and San Diego went black.”
I’m not as current on this stuff as I should be, and was unaware of the interesting fact about the SD outage that you mentioned. Do you have a link for that?
———————————————————————————————————————
A common complaint about wind power is it displaces spinning reserves which can be called upon instantly for frequency regulation and load balancing. This requires better management practices or some system modifications or both or you lose a fraction of a percent of efficiency which ends being a fraction of a percent higher cost for customers since the consumer is the one paying for the cost of generation at the end of the day.
It’s not that big of a deal to fix it mechanically. You can feed some of your wind power backward into a generator which turns it into a motor and keep your reserve spinning without using gas or coal for the motive power. This can be a generator that is normally shaft-powered by a coal or gas heated steam turbine. Or use the wind power as a secondary heat source for the boiler on your spinning reserve saving the gas that would otherwise be used to keep the boiler pressure at operating level. Typically about 2% of peak demand is kept in reserve so if you take 2% of your wind power and route it into inertial spinning reserve there’s no need to reduce your coal or gas spinning reserve. There are other tricks that are also done like draw excess available power off the grid and use it to pump water uphill into a reservoir that’s already got hydro generators somewhere downstream. Hydro power is very fast response, great for load following and frequency regulation. All these same problems occur with nuclear power which doesn’t respond very quickly to load changes as there’s all kinds of chemistry changes to diddle with, neutron poisoning, and so forth as control rods go in and out to regulate reaction rate, nukes takes weeks to start and stop, and are thus used almost exclusively used for baseload power at full rated output. Another problem with nukes is they are rather expensive compared to gas & coal and you really want base power coming from your least expensive source.
There are a great many tradeoffs to consider and most people, like the thorium cheerleaders that frequent (and own/adminstrate) this blog, or the electric car fruitloops who troll it, don’t have a clue about any of these tradeoffs.
And of course the more geographically spread out your wind generation becomes the more even becomes the output. Wind gusts at 20mph over average wind speed take twenty minutes to move across a 20 mile wide turbine field. Day and night are offset by 3 hours between right and left coasts, and so forth. I don’t think we have much in the way of connections between eastern and western grids but they’re at least in being built out as we speak. So once you get a lot of wind generation spread out across an area as big as the United States and a turbine in Seattle that slows down can be offset by one in Florida that sped up at the same time you get a much more predictable, constant output from the whole enchilada. 20% of total electrical demand eventually met by wind power doesn’t appear to me to be overly optimistic and the turbines become more cost effective due to manufacturing improvements, economy of scale, and just basically getting over the learning curve. Every new industry goes through growing pains.
independent studies? that should be humorous.
I suppose everyone has noticed that AGW and “Tooth Fairy Economic” theories are connected at the hip.
David Springer
“So once you get a lot of wind generation spread out across an area as big as the United States and a turbine in Seattle that slows down can be offset by one in Florida that sped up at the same time you get a much more predictable, constant output from the whole enchilada.”
Transmission losses. Don’t forget transmission losses. That is why electricity is regional.
Never mind that the Pacific Northwest is exclusively 90%+ on hydro.