Paul Fundingsland
Three climate related initiatives were decided in Washington recently. Initiative 2066 was a referendum to repeal laws and regulations that discourage natural gas use and would require current natural gas customers to switch to electric heating. Initiative 2117 was another referendum to repeal the state’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 95% by 2050 in the Climate Commitment Act. Finally, the Horse Haven Wind, Solar and Battery Complex permit was approved.
Initiative 2066
The bright spot was the successful passage of Initiative 2066 which ensures access to natural gas in homes and other buildings and repeals a state law requiring plans to transition from the use of natural gas to electricity. The final tally was 52% yes, 48% no.
Washington is basically a one-party blue state – Kamala Harris won by a lopsided 58% of the presidential vote. Even though only a third of the residents rely on natural gas with the bulk of the populace (58%) using electricity, the “yes” vote prevailed in a surprising outcome given the political demographics.
I think there were several reasons for the outcome. The main issue that resonated with all the gas users was the extreme cost of a switch over from gas appliances to all electric they would be expected to finance almost entirely by themselves. Since Washingtonians have been using gas with no significant identifiable adverse effects for decades, it was hard to convince them that demonizing the use of gas was now all of a sudden, a threat to their health and wellbeing. There also may have been a fair number of the electric heat users who preferred using gas for cooking and in their fireplaces.
The “vote no” people took the main tack that using gas was a pollutant, a health hazard and would prevent the State from achieving its Climate Commitment Act goals.
Despite the result there still is a maybe part of the passage of this initiative. The “no vote campaign” intends to take this issue to the State Supreme Court. They are claiming it should be voided because it violates the State rule that an initiative should not embrace more than one subject. They have deep pockets to fight this vote of the people. The sore losers include the Sierra Club, Statewide Poverty Action Network, Front and Centered, plus “unnamed” renewable energy groups (no surprise there).
The “yes” campaign claims the initiative was written very carefully expecting successful passage to be challenged in court. The “no” campaign started putting their challenge together months before the final vote just in case it passed.
It will be interesting to see if passage of I-2066 by the voters is brought before the State Supreme Court. Voiding the obvious majority of the people on some sort of technicality could prove problematic in coming elections by raising rational voter ire. That might give the “no” campaign second thoughts as to how this may play out in the long run if they pursue this avenue of opposition.
Initiative 2117
On the losing side of the “one for three” pragmatic climate issues was voting down Initiative 2117 which would have essentially ended funding for the State’s Climate Commitment Act (CCA) resulting in lower gas prices at the pump. It really did not have a chance of passage once the big money came rolling in advertising against it.
The five biggest donors against passage were all essentially billionaires. They included Steve and Connie Ballmer, Bill Gates, Microsoft (the company) and the 4-billion-dollar Nature Conservancy. Their media ads were very slick, very professional and appeared all over the TV channels at all times of the day and night but especially during the evening news, sports (football, soccer etc.). They were even on the Fox Business News channel.
It really didn’t matter what time of day or what channel you were watching, there would be an ad to defeat this measure that would show up. The amount of money spent to defeat this measure must have been eye-popping.
The main selling point was that voting for I-2117 would cause unclean air, unclean water, worse wildfires, a dirtier environment with worse roads and transportation. Voting it down would mean cleaner air, cleaner water, better wildfire management, a cleaner environment, and even better roads and transportation. There was, of course, no mention of just how much less global warming would result from a no vote.
One of the ads featured individuals wearing their respective professional garbs advocating voting no (doctor, fireman, construction worker, forest ranger, Tribal member, etc.) An observation was that these are the very same special interest groups who have recently been getting money from the CCA fund so of course they don’t want to see those funds go away.
One of the ads accused the promoter of this measure (and three of the other measures) of being just a greedy millionaire out for himself. Never mind the billionaires who funded the campaign against it and how or whether they might benefit somehow from it being defeated.
It was obvious the campaign for passage of I-2117 did not have the requisite funding to successfully get their message across with the necessary effective media advertising. The ads were spread too thinly between several issues. The ads were somewhat rudimentary, lacking a professional look, and they appeared sparsely. They just didn’t have the money and the focus to get their message across.
My personal opinion is that had the “yes” ads concentrated on the fact that no matter how much you were paying for a gallon of gas (whether a high price or low one) $10 would be going to the state for every 20 gallons of gas they bought. I think that would have made a much bigger impact on the voters by helping them understand just how much they were sending to the State every time they filled up.
Sadly the billionaires won this one.
There is a chance this issue could be brought up for a statewide vote again at a later date, perhaps when Washington surpasses California for the cost of gas at the pump which may not be all that far off. If it is brought up again, the people behind it now know what they are up against and will have to adjust accordingly, being a lot more clever with their focus and their financing.
Horse Haven Wind, Solar, and Battery Complex
The other one of the three climate-related issues is our Governor’s final approval of the “Horse Haven Wind, Solar and Battery Complex” in Eastern Washington. It’s a huge complex stretching 24 scenic miles long and 8 miles wide covering 72,000 acres with 5,000 of those farmland acres surfaced with solar panels. The final proposal is to have either 172 five-hundred-foot towers or 113 six hundred seventy foot tall towers. The battery complex is yet to be determined as to size and placement.
A valiant opposition movement (here) of Benton County residences, tribal members and wildlife advocates has been so far unsuccessful in stopping this monstrosity from happening. The Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council confirmed the Governor’s approval in a 4-3 vote. There is now only one more avenue to pause or stop the building of this grotesque complex…the court system.
And that is exactly what has just happened. Benton county has filed suit against the state over this project.
One other long shot outside possibility that might stop this atrocious wind project from being built could be when the new national administration takes office in January. Indications are that the new administration intends to terminate subsidies for wind and solar projects. If that does happen, it is likely the Horse Haven Wind Farm may become unprofitable to build.
Washington prides itself on being an enlightened, leading energy progressive state. This wind/solar/battery complex is anything but progressive. It is an exorbitantly expensive energy system at $1.7 billion (2021 estimate and counting) for the amount of intermittent power it can produce. It regressively degrades and seriously threatens the reliability of the existing electric grid by providing only non-dispatchable erratic weather dependent electricity.
A leading enlightened progressive State would be planning on installing a small modular nuclear system such as NuScale’s Voygr-12 module complex of SMRs. The NuScale SMR system was developed in Oregon and is the only one so far to receive design approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Or the State could support the expansion or duplication of Amazon and Energy Northwest’s planned Central Washington installation of X-energy’s 12 module system.
Ironically, Energy Northwest is headquartered in Richland Washington. Their potential SMR site is a mere 50 miles from the planned wind farm next to the Columbia Nuclear Generating station (Washington’s only functioning nuclear plant). This gives their planned site close, easy access to the electrical grid.
Both SMR systems can deliver dispatchable electricity under all weather conditions 24/7/365. They are CO2 free and can generate approximately 924 MWe (roughly equivalent to the wind farm). Their respective footprints use only a miserly 0.06 square miles of land in contrast to the wind farm’s approximately 100 square miles. So their environmental footprint is small, scenically unobtrusive and non threatening to birds of prey.
Both SMR products have a passive safety system so they can not melt down or blow up. Each one of the 12 SMRs composing either company’s modular complex are built in a factory and can be delivered by truck, rail or barge in three sections.
There is a serious disconnect between the “Energy Magical Thinking” flowing from the Capitol in Olympia versus pragmatic, modern, non-invasive solutions available. This is especially disconcerting considering Portland Oregon (the headquarters of NuScale) is only 114 miles away from the capitol building in Olympia.
On the Washington boarder to the east, the state of Idaho is embracing and promoting nuclear with it’s Idaho National Laboratory Frontiers Initiative.
In their words:
“Eight states are developing economic development plans focused on advanced nuclear energy deployment with the help from Idaho National Laboratory’s (INL) Frontiers Initiative.
Frontiers was established in 2021 to help stakeholders identify and capitalize on key economic opportunities afforded by early adoption of advanced nuclear energy. The initiative also helps stakeholders leverage advanced nuclear to capture emerging global market opportunities in low-emission industries.
The 2024 Frontiers Initiative Impacts Report, released today, (Oct. 24) highlights the initiative’s impacts on first-mover states identified as actively pursuing advanced nuclear energy to encourage economic development.
We have strengthened our partnerships with stakeholders in first-mover states – Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and Alaska – while adding engagements where increasing interest in advanced
Nuclear energy intersects industry needs, including in Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota and South Carolina,” said Steven Aumeier, senior advisor at INL.”
Discussion
For all the rhetoric coming out of the Capitol in Olympia about being a leader in a clean energy transition, shamefully Washington State is not among these “first-mover states”.
If Washington was serious about being a modern enlightened energy progressive state, they also might want to look at what is happening in Tennessee. Their General Assembly created a $60 million fund (The Tennessee Nuclear Energy Fund) that has attracted four projects in the last six months headed by Orono USA, a company specializing in:
“Uranium. Mining/conversion/enrichment, used nuclear fuel management and recycling, decommissioning shutdown nuclear energy facilities, federal site cleanup and closure and developing nuclear medicines to fight cancer”
Oak Ridge is determined to become “the place the nation is looking for to lead the next nuclear race”. Oak Ridge and Knoxville are now home to some 154 nuclear companies.
Oregon, Idaho and Tennessee have blown past Washington in the enlightened pragmatic electric energy transition. It leaves our state in the dustbin of yesterday’s expensive, environmentally invasive, dysfunctional grid threatening Wind/Solar/Battery energy systems.
The jury is still out on whether Washington residents can hold on to their current right to use the energy of their choice for heating/cooking. And whether an out-of-date, environmentally destructive dysfunctional grid threatening Wind/Solar/Battery system gets installed against the wishes of the impacted citizens.
The state seems most focused on keeping money from it’s CCA (Climate Commitment Act) flowing from the hike in gas prices at the pump this act has caused. The state needs the money given that it was just announced it is currently around $10 billion in debt. My cynical side wonders just how much of that CCA money is going to end up being diverted towards reducing that debt rather than “fighting “Climate Change” as it was advertised to be used for.
Conclusion
Washington state has many enlightened social programs to be proud of. There is a rational, pragmatic program supporting parents (both wife and husband) of newborns with a generous paid leave time so they can tend to their new child. A State sponsored long term care program has just been enacted designed for those elderly who do not have such means helping them towards the end off their days.
But when it comes to the State’s energy policy, it’s a whole different story. “Magical Thinking” prevails forcing rationality and pragmatism to go right out through the ozone hole.
So much for Washington leading the nation with a modern, clean, reliable, environmentally friendly electrical energy transition path. It’s much more enlightening to watch what states like Idaho and Tennessee are doing to find out where the future of rational, pragmatic energy systems are going.
Paul describes himself as a “Free Lance writer with a two decade long obsession with all things climate change.” Although he is a retired professor, he has no scientific or other degrees specific to these kinds of issues that can be cited as offering personal official expertise or credibility. What he does have is a two-decade-old avid, enthusiastic, obsession with all things Climate Change related.
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Another issue is that Washington State has universal mail in ballots. The Carter-Baker commission pointed out the problems with mail in ballots, and a permanent one-party state seems to be one outcome.
They achieved that with the election of our dear ‘Governor’ Christine Gregoire – a pioneering use of recounts-until-Democrat-wins, with ‘unexpected’ appearances of new boxes of ballots to achieve that goal.
Line for drop boxes is long, oh wait, that’s for Teslas needing a charge due to power failures.
https://www.tiktok.com/@waynejones6228/video/7439641139784731934
I lived in the Democratic Peoples Republic of California till 2005, and I wonder if I am still registered there.
Sure you are. And your vote is being cast, just not by you.
I live and vote in Washington State and in the ~20 years since mail ballots became the norm, I have not heard of any non-trivial concern about the process.
The modern history of Washington State shows migration patterns of workers that were left-leaning. The high density of such types in the east Puget Sound manufacturing area (in contrast to most of the State) persists. Learning of this history takes some time, but here is a place to start:
Mapping Washington Labor and Civil Rights History – Civil Rights & Labor History Consortium
You are vastly more trusting than I am. As there is very little chain of custody assurance in a all mail system, you could actually live in a swing state, and have no way of telling what the real situation was. And of course the ruling party will never ever check for any cooking of ballots that benefits them.
I made that same point with election officials in 2022.
There are some minor tweaks, such as padlocking the boxes, being made, but nothing addressing chain of custody and that non election officials are handling ballots.
I suggested putting drop boxes outside each post office with 24/7 video monitoring and that only certified election officials could empty the boxes and transport the ballots.
We are not there.
That is assuming the ballots are going to live, eligible voters who are still resident in that district. As there are minimal checks on citizenship or even that the person is still living, the Magic Mail-in Ballot Machine can do wonders.
It will be interesting to see if passage of I-2066 by the voters is brought before the State Supreme Court.
A pretty likely event. Our elected Supreme Justices are from the same breed-stock that votes blue to maintain the sacred one-party dominance. Disgusting, actually.
The so-call threat to democracy (we are a Constitutional Republic, not a liberal democracy) is the breaking up of the 1 party authoritarian rule.
With thousands of new tech workers streaming into Seattle on super inflated salaries, the city is shockingly $10billion in the red (AND despite exorbitant property taxes). One in twelve are said to be millionaires.
Unfortunately, the opposition appears to be in hibernation.
Washington state seems a mostly lost cause. But that is not all bad, since states like it and California are needed as bad examples if this foolishness is ever to end in the US. Hopefully one DOGE contribution will be the end of all climate modeling as repeatedly shown to be useless.
No, let them model all they want. Just prevent any policy decisions being informed by models.
Let them model, but insist they propagate model uncertainties through their projections.
They’ll be forced to face the crockness of what they call science.
This article is well written, proving that an interested person with commonsense, but without scientific expertise, can reach a sound decision concerning energy-climate issues. Thus, there is NO excuse for Washington state voters (mail-in or walk-in) to make ignorant choices.
The situation in Washington state illustrates a number of points.
“there is NO excuse for Washington state voters to make ignorant choices.”
They are mostly Democrats… Ignorance and virtue-seeking are in-built.
Rational common-sense is not in their nature.
You made some really good, obvious points here. The main one being that “the state of Washington bought the wrong power system”. One of the issues lurking in the background of this grotesque project is that there so far seems to be no definitive information as to just who is going to get this intermittent power. The power produced may not even be designed to service Washington State which makes this boondoggle even more sinister. Ruin our environment with this monstrosity and then send the power to Oregon or California. Of course if that is the case, then we could look on the bright side that at least this erratically intermittent grid destabilizing energy wouldn’t be messing with our grid.
“They are CO2 free and can generate approximately 924 MWe (roughly equivalent to the wind farm).”
No, they are not “roughly equivalent to the wind farm”, anywhere nor any time. Nuclear reactors can produce electricity any time and all the time at full rated power. Wind farms cannot and do not. At best Horse Haven will produce about 300 or 400 MWe on average and at many times, none at all and the amount of power they produce swings wildly from nil to maximum as often as hourly and daily. The reactors provide 60Hz electricity at their rated power and inherently include frequency stabilization capacity. Wind farms of any description and size cannot and do not. Reactors can operate for many decades and can have their lives extended. Wind farms cannot and do not operate for more than about 20 years because of the beating their machinery takes from wind. Wind power plants require a full backup power generating system when the wind is not blowing, greatly increasing the cost of the electricity they produce. Batteries cannot provide such backup. Reactors require no such backup. It is simply false to claim that wind energy is in any way comparable, roughly or not, to reactor power or fossil power for that matter.
Thing to do is you are stupid enough not to want to use COAL and GAS, is to gradually build up the NUCLEAR electricity fleet.
No more subsidies or plans for wind and solar… they are a weather-dependent dead-end technology.
Remove grid wind and solar as they die their short, natural death, and do not replace them.
In 20 or so years , it will be interesting to see what they do with all by-then-defunct roof-top solar.
You are right about this. From what I have run across, the very best that windfarms can average out is somewhere around 40% of their nameplate produced intermittently and inconveniently throughout the day, week month. Were I to re-write and edit my article, I would have made this point as you have done. I would have written something like “They are CO2 free and can generate at an average of 80% of their nameplate 924 MWe 24/7/365.Whereas the windfarm can, at best, average 40% of a same nameplate of 924 MWe and only on an erratically intermittent schedule creating havoc with the stability of the grid system. There is no comparison as to the amount, kind and quality of electrical energy being produced by these two different systems. One works all the time and produces what it is advertised to do and the other does not.”
Anyway, the edit would be something like that. Thanks Dennis for pointing out this rather serious omission.
I found this graph in an old folder, it used, iirc, 5 minute time steps and shows the percentage of time that German wind was above a given percentage of nameplate for 2015 and 2016
Data below 5 percent of time was based only a few point of data.. so suspect.
So it looks like wind was above 40% of nameplate for only 10% of the time
But below 20% of nameplate for around 60% of the time.
Not a very useful source of electricity, is it !!!!
You might like to look at this 5-minute chart:
BPA Balancing Authority Load and Total VER
There can’t be that many ignorant folks in WA state. Can there? I lived in Seattle and along the west coast for a good long time. State started going down hill when CA started moving in and buying up the real estate forcing prices up and their politics into the system. Oh well, it was fun for a while.
Please see my comment at 8:26 am (above, reply to Tom H.)
” many ignorant folks” Channeling George Carlin – – half of the people are below average. That would be in a random sample. The population of WA is not a normally distributed random sample. Because of its migrations into the State, it is very biased.
They are going after the dams too. Dams are bad, windmills are good. Also, 90% of Washingtonians don’t make it past the mountains to the east of Seattle and have no idea of the land in use for farming and agriculture. The windmills are out of sight and out of mind. Put the windmills in Olympia and listen to the libtards scream.
Nuclear power being low cost does not provide the profits to the techno-fascists like Bill Gates. That’s why it won’t happen.
Olympia magical thinking, I like that, it explains a lot. Follow the money.
As I recall, as few years ago BPA had to release water from their dams in power generating mode to comply with federal oxygen limits. Spilling the water over the dams would not do that. That meant the wind generators had to back down their power production because the grid could not handle it.
The amount of screaming and groaning from the wind sector was breathtaking. I thought, “Welcome to real world of power generation.”
Actually Bill Gates has a lot invested in Nuclear with his financial backing of TerraPower. For starters, check out his involvement here and here. I’m thinking the reason he spent big bucks to help defeat I-2117 is because he hopes to tap into the CCA funds if, in the future, he is able to expand his nuclear project into Washington State.
Beta Blocker’s Topic for the Day #1: Links to Reports and Presentations
I live in the Middle of Nowhere, southeastern Washington State, roughly fifty miles east of the Horse Heaven Hills. I’ve been doing nuclear stuff for 35 plus years in various capacities: construction, facility operations, regulatory compliance, nuclear quality assurance, and nuclear project planning.
Here are some links to several presentations and reports published in recent months concerning energy reliability in the US Northwest.
Benton PUD Presentation, October 2024, Richland, Washington:
Here in southeastern Washington State, the Benton PUD held a series of forums in late October to inform its customers that affordable reliable electricity is in jeopardy in our state. I attended one of these forums held in Richland. These topics were included:
— Northwest is Close to Blackouts – How Did We Get Here?
— Washington and Oregon Clean Energy Policies – Global & U.S. Perspectives
— Washington Energy Strategy – Challenges and Concerns
— Where Do We Go From Here? – Near and Long Term
If you have been following the numerous issues surrounding the future of reliable electricity in the Pacific Northwest, you will find that many of the topics you’ve been reading about for the last ten years are included in the following two presentations:
Link: Benton PUD: Carbon-Free Electricity Policies Impacts and Perspectives (October 2024)
Link: Benton PUD: Q and A Session (October 2024)
The Benton PUD’s manager, Rick Dunn, has his own blog on Substack. An extended discussion of nuclear versus wind & solar can be found in the comments section of this Rick Dunn blog post:
Link: The Increasingly Precarious Northwest Utility Balancing Act (Rick Dunn, August 2024)
Needless to say, the position the Benton PUD and its management is taking on these electricity reliability issues doesn’t sit well with the politicians on the west side of the state — Jay Inslee, Bob Ferguson et al.
However, it is the west-siders in Oregon and in Washington State who are most likely to be first to feel the adverse consequences of the region’s Net Zero energy policies.
Discovery Institute Report:
Another useful report can be downloaded from the Discovery Institute headquarted in Seattle:
Link: The Crippling Costs of Electrification and Net Zero Energy Policies in the Pacific Northwest (September 2024)
This report independently confirms and amplifies many of the concerns expressed by the Benton PUD and its management.
Further Remarks:
I will remark further that in my humble opinion, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, and its supervisory agency, the Western Electricity Coordination Council headquartered in California, are both living in some kind of alternate universe where the hard reality of what is now facing us never intrudes.
IMHO, the many documents and reports these two agencies produce, and the extensive grid modeling these two agencies perform, serve only to cloud the basic issues of energy reliability in the western US rather than to illuminate them.
At any rate, if the Net Zero energy policies now being pushed by the region’s politicians continue unchecked, we are in for a very rough ride indeed as the decade progresses into the late 2020’s.
Not only here in Washington State, but also in every state and region in the Western US which counts on the Western Interconnect for a reliable supply of electricity.
Thanks Beta B.,
I’m served by the Kittitas (county) PUD*, getting power via the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA).
PUD = Public Utility District {not-for-profit, community-owned utilities providing energy, water, sewer, and wholesale telecommunications services.} There are 28 of these in WA State.
Thanks for posting this reply containing all of these useful and insightful links concerning this issue. I will be checking them out and adding them to my inventory.
Paul, one of the links in my post above doesn’t work, the one to Rick Dunn’s substack blog. Try this one:
https://rickdunn.substack.com
Rick Dunn is the Benton PUD’s general manager. The articles he has posted on his own substack blog cover many of the Pacific Northwest energy reliability topics you are interested in.
Thanks, that link worked. These sorts of links help fill a lot of holes in my overall knowledge about the intricacies of what is going on in this stat.
Thank you so much for those links! I’ll have to explain them to my liberal friends. Unfortunately, west coasters can’t do math.
Good luck with that. I have close relatives in New York State and in California who are climate activists and also anti-nuclear. They’ve been drinking gallons of the renewable energy Kool Aid for more than twenty years.
It is next to impossible to communicate facts and data to these people. They will not acknowledge that their energy lifeboats are sinking; and they will not acknowlege what is happening in their respective states even as the cold waters of electricity blackouts begin swirling around their feet.
I’d like to encourage you to send the post you sent to me in it’s entirety to Roger Caiazza at the following email address: NYpragmaticenvironmentalist@gmail.com
I think he would be very interested in your experience in the nuclear area with your forthright, detailed, engaging writing style and your overall interest in what is going on in Washington State. Roger is currently deeply engaged in trying to make practical sense of New York’s energy policy. NY has come up with a “Magical Energy System” they feel is essential to make their renewable quest of Wind/solar/battery work that they have not been able to identify yet. They call it DEFR or Dispatchable Energy Free Resourse. These folks haven’t caught on yet that DEFR is actually Nuclear which of course they seem to hate for all the wrong historical reasons which is why they won’t admit this is the energy they are lookin for. Roger’s point is that if they use Nuclear as their DEFR energy, Wind/solar/Battery is not needed. His latest post on WUWT is still on the front page towards the bottom. If it’s not there anymore, it is here if you can’t find it. Tell him I told you to send your post to him.
Paul, thanks for the kudos. Roger Caiazza post articles here on WUWT a regular basis and I add my own comments to those articles if they involve a topic I’m personally interested in.
Roger knows that I follow his work, that I have close relatives in New York State who have a different opinion than I do about the serious issues presented by New York’s Climate Act, and that I will add my own observations and interpretations to his articles when he posts them.
Another blog I follow closely is the Cliff Mass Weather Blog at https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/ . Dr. Mass is a professor of atmospheric sciences at UW and posts articles here on WUWT occasionally. One of his favorite pastimes is disputing the climate alarmism nonsense published in The Seattle Times.
As it regards politics in our state, Bill Bruch has a Substack blog at All Things Politics.
He notes that the state is becoming more blue with every passing year because more and more Democrats are moving into the state while more and more Republicans are choosing to leave.
I’ve been following Cliff Mass ever since I moved to Olympia in 2010. He really caught my attention when he wrote a comprehensive science based article countering a Seattle Times glossy piece claiming climate change was killing oysters on the WA coast. I think I remember that they canceled his column over this.
Washington state is a poor choice for wind energy as a person can see by looking at this resources map. Nearly the entire state has no resource at all or is marginal. Also the wind resource is likely to be highly seasonal. About the time that air conditioning needs reach a peak (I lived on the “wet” side of the state for eight years, and when the sun does come out June-September temperatures can reach 100+) the average capacity factor probably dips below 15%. Of course, even seasonal averages mean nothing as summer has extended wind drought periods everywhere in North America.
Also, if the land dedicated to this project is really 8×24 in miles then that is nearly 130,000 acres of scenic real estate spoiled.
You made some very good points here and thanks for the wind resources map site. To me, the main point in not that our state (or any state for that matter) is a poor choice for wind energy. It is that wind energy is an extremely poor choice period.
Beta Blocker’s Topic for the Day #2: A Hypothetical 3000 MW Wind & Solar Capacity Expansion for the US Northwest
PART 1 — DESCRIPTION OF THE HYPOTHETICAL WIND & SOLAR EXPANSION
Here in the US Northwest, the regional power planning council’s 2021 long range plan calls for the addition of 3,000 MW of intermittent wind and solar capacity plus 720 MW of firming capacity. Comparatively little backup storage is projected to be needed.
The council’s 2021 plan does not come close to accounting for currently expected increases in the US Northwest’s regional power demand.
In order to account for those expected increases, suppose we simply assume that the 3,000 MW expansion of wind & solar intermittent generation must now become 3,000 MW of wind & solar baseload generation operating 24/7/365.
SYSTEM SPECIFICATION:
— The hypothetical wind & solar expansion matches the 24/7/365 performance of four new-build 1,100 MW nuclear reactors.
— The expanded wind & solar capacity produces 72,000 megawatt-hours daily; 3,000 megawatts instantaneous demand; for a total of 26,280,000 megawatt-hours per year.
— The integrated wind-solar-battery system includes 9,000 MW of nameplate wind;9,000 MW of nameplate solar; and 3,600,000 MW-hours of battery storage.
— A 6X combined wind & solar overbuild yields 18,000 MW total nameplate capacity. Assume a combined 25% annual capacity factor based on the BPA’s experience within its area of load balancing authority.
— Battery storage capacity is driven by seasonal requirements. A substantial drawndown occurs in late fall and winter, a substantial recovery occurs in early spring.
— Battery operating range: 0-100% full; 0-3.6 TWh stored; 0-50 days reserve at 72,000 MWh per day; 8% loss on charge; 12% loss on discharge.
— Winter storage is exhausted once every decade for periods of up to 7 days. Output then falls to 6,000 MWh per day.
— The hypothetical system supplies all ancillary grid support services; e.g. frequency & voltage stabilization, reactive power, inertia, etc.
This first graphic illustrates the wind & solar capacity factors experienced by the Bonneville Power Administration within its area of load balancing authority between 06/21/2022 and 06/21/2024.
A second graphic illustrates the performance of the above-specified hypothetical wind & solar expansion, an expansion which matches the 24/7/365 performance of four new-build 1,100 MW nuclear reactors over a similar 24-month period:
Note that the second graphic illustrates: (1) which portion of the daily generation goes directly to baseload; (2) which portion goes into battery storage; (3) which portion is either exported or else curtailed; and (4) which portion is drawn from battery storage in order to reliably produce 72,000 megawatt-hours per day.
Note as well that the ‘battery’ portion of the second graphic represents a theoretical energy storage construct. Designing a real-world practical implementation of this nominal 3.6 TWh ‘battery’ would be among the most difficult tasks ever assigned to competent battery storage technologists.
COSTS:
I haven’t yet gotten into doing a detailed analysis of the costs of the hypothetical 3,000 MW 24/7/365 wind and solar expansion. That’s the next item on my casual wintertime task agenda.
However, under very highly optimistic assumptions for what wind systems, solar systems, and especially battery systems, will cost within the next ten years, a rough guess would place just the initial capital cost of this expansion at upwards of 600 billion dollars, probably more. In other words, roughly ten times the initial capital cost of four new-build 1,100 MW reactors at 15 billion dollars per reactor.
The bulk of the cost for this 3000 MW expansion is for battery storage, nominally 3,600,000 megawatt-hours of storage. ‘Wilpost’ made an observation concerning my previous version of this analysis that nothing of this magnitude has ever been attempted. More than 3,600,000 megawatt-hours will be needed to reliably cover that 3.6 TWh nominal requirement, possibly much more.
ADDITIONAL REMARKS:
See my additional remarks in two comments, Parts 2 and 3, posted as replies directly below. These remarks add further informational detail concerning this topic.
PART 2 — BETA BLOCKER’S ADDITIONAL REMARKS on the HYPOTHETICAL 3,000 MW 24/7/365 WIND & SOLAR EXPANSION:
Referring again to this graphic:
Restating the basic assumption in the comment directly above, the 3,000 MW expansion of wind & solar intermittent generation as described in the US Northwest’s 2021 power plan must now become 3,000 MW of wind & solar baseload generation operating 24/7/365.
In other words, equivalent to the expected performance of four new-build 1,100 MW AP1000 nuclear reactors like those constructed at Vogtle 3 & 4 in Georgia.
Referring to my comments in the previous post directly above:
1: The current plan for the US Northwest is to cover Montana and Wyoming with wind turbines and solar panels and to construct new transmission capacity through Idaho to serve the states of Washington and Oregon where most of the new capacity will be consumed.
2: The incoming Trump Administration will not be friendly to covering Montana and Wyoming with wind turbine farms and solar farms. (Nor would many Montanians and Wyomians, if they actually understood what is being expected of their two states.) It is likely the climate activist state governments of Oregon and Washington will be faced with siting their proposed new-build wind & solar infrastructure entirely within their own state borders.
3: Overall capacity factor for the combined wind & solar system is 25% on an annual basis. The above graphic illustrates the pattern of generation for a combined wind & solar system for a hypothetical 24-month period. Even for a period as short as 24 months, this graphic displays highly seasonal variation in combined wind & solar output.
4: A 6X wind & solar overbuild factor — 18,000 MW total plus a nominal 3.6 TWh battery storage to produce 3,000 MW reliably 24/7/365 — is used to reduce energy storage requirements for fall and winter battery drawdown periods. For example, a 4X overbuild as opposed to a 6X overbuild would require from 12 to 15 terawatt-hours of nominal storage as opposed to the 3.6 terawatt-hours nominally specified.
5: An even balance of wind & solar capacity is specified. Several factors are at play here, including the availability of infrastructure siting locations suitable for each specific type, plus the political requirement to support wind energy suppliers and solar energy suppliers equally well in terms of contracts and dollars spent.
6: The graphic above illustrates two periods of extended battery drawdown & recovery. The volume of megawatt-hours drawn in the second drawdown period (4,300,000 megawatt-hours) is substantially larger than that drawn in the first (2,500,000 megawatt-hours). An extended lull in wintertime wind and solar output, as would be expected to occur roughly every decade, would completely exhaust the entire 3.6 TWh of storage for periods lasting seven days or longer.
7: The battery storage system operates between zero and 100% full. The volume of storage is so large, as demanded by seasonal drawdown & recovery requirements, that daily and weekly charge/discharge cycles can be spread among large numbers of battery packs. That said, no grid-scale battery storage facilities of this magnitude have ever been engineered or constructed. More than 3.6 TWh will be needed to fulfill the nominal 3.6 TWh requirement, possibly much more.
8: The wind & solar power generation system supplies every grid stabilization service that the legacy system currently supplies. e.g. frequency & voltage stabilization, reactive power, inertia, etc. Where direct inversion technology isn’t up to the task of supplying the necessary grid stabilization services, large DC-powered electro-motor units turn large rotating AC generation units thus covering any inertia and reactive power requirements which can’t be handled through direct inversion.
9: The use of motor-driven DC to AC conversion, where necessary, is an exceptionally inefficient and expensive approach to supplying grid stabilization services. That said, the cost of a nominal 3.6 TWh of battery storage is so large that in the grand scheme of things, the costs and inefficiencies of motor-driven DC to AC conversion are a comparatively minor component of the total system cost.
And, as I said above, I haven’t yet gotten into doing a detailed analysis of the costs of this hypothetical 3,000 MW 24/7/365 wind and solar expansion. That’s the next item on my casual wintertime task agenda.
PART 3 — WILPOST’s COMMENTS ON THE HYPOTHETICAL 3,000 MW WIND & SOLAR EXPANSION:
In previous remarks concerning an earlier version of this analysis, ‘Wilpost’ raised issues which are central to establishing what the real-world configuration for the 3,600,000 megawatt-hours of battery storage specified in the 3,000 megawatt wind & solar expansion might actually look like — the numbers and types of physical storage units needed and their individual rated capacities. Referring again to this graph:
The part of the graph labeled ‘Battery’ illustrates how much dispatchable energy is in storage at the end of any given day within the two-year period covered by the graph.
This ‘battery’ is a theoretical energy storage system with a nominal capacity of 3,600,000 megawatt-hours. (With emphasis here on ‘nominal’.)
The graphic is geared towards illustrating seasonal requirements as opposed to illustrating throughput activity which occurs every hour inside of a 24-hour tracking window.
A thorough technical study performed by qualified battery technologists would be needed to establish the actual numbers and capacities of the energy storage battery packs needed to service the storage patterns shown in the graphic.
The theoretical capacity figure is 3.6 terawatt-hours. But the actual capacity needed would be larger than 3.6 TWh. Possibly much larger depending on what the technical study determined.
Wilpost said:
— Tesla recommends not discharge below 20% and not charge above 80%, to achieve 15 year life with normal aging.
— Almost all battery systems operate at less than 10% throughput.
— Battery systems used to shave midday solar peaks will deliver 80% of the electricity taken from the high voltage grid, to the HV grid, in late afternoon/early evening, the peak hours. Such battery systems could reach up to 40% throughput
— 40% throughput, the cost of the throughput will be about 35 c/kWh for very large battery systems, on top of the cost of the electricity taken from the HV grid, based on 2024 pricing.
Note from the graphic that it contains two general classes of battery storage activity: One class in which the theoretical battery is 100% full during late spring and summer; and a second where the ‘battery’ is being systematically drawn down in fall and winter in order to maintain 72,000 MWh output per day.
While this hypothetical battery is 100% full during the late spring and summer, daily/weekly activity can be distributed among the many thousands of battery packs which make up the ‘cells’ of the battery.
The problem of managing the distribution of charge/recharge activity becomes more complicated when the battery is being drawn down in late fall and winter and then is being seasonally recharged to full capacity in early spring. Daily/weekly operational requirements must be managed within the context of a larger seasonal drawdown and its following seasonal recovery.
How much more complicated does the problem become?
I’m suspecting that it becomes significantly more complicated. A thorough study by qualified experts is needed to address this topic. To my knowledge, no such study has been done for long-term energy storage using current or proposed battery technologies, as opposed to using hydro-based pumped storage solutions such as Snowy 2.
Wilpost said: “Battery systems for long term storage, say a month, have not been built yet.”
Wind and solar advocates are telling us that energy storage is the key to solving the problem of wind and solar intermittency. The often-heard refrain is “The cost of battery storage is coming down rapidly.”
Yeah. Right.
Here in the US Northwest, hydro-based long-term energy storage is maxed out. No more dams or large reservoirs will be built in the region.
Optimal locations for hydro-power dams already have dams present in them. There are too many competing demands on the region’s water resources. Furthermore, there is too much opposition from a variety of political, business, tribal, and other stakeholder groups. The opposition to new dams and new large resevoirs also crosses Democrat/Republican political lines. .
In a context where the US Northwest cannot rely upon outside sources of electricity to cover regional shortfalls in RE generation occurring on a seasonal basis, the only zero-carbon solution which isn’t nuclear involves massive volumes of battery storage and very large RE capacity overbuilds.
No one among the wind and solar advocates here in the US Northwest has a clue about what it will take to make their vision for the future happen.
It’s either that, or else these people do actually have a clue and are simply lying through their teeth in promoting their zero carbon agenda for the region.
This is great. One point is that the energy shortfall characteristics preclude using short-term battery shortage. To address them you need the dispatchable emissions-free resource I keep ranting about.
Here’s the thing. New York agencies responsible for a reliable energy system agree that a wind, solar, and energy storage system needs DEFR, if a feasibility analysis finds that the only viable candidate for DEFR is nuclear power, then a wind and solar energy system must include nuclear power as the DEFR backup technology. However, economics suggest nuclear resources should be used as much as possible instead of as a backup. Using nuclear as the backbone of the electric system eliminates the need for the massive wind , solar and energy shortage development proposed. These wind, solar, and energy storage systems are a dead end.
This is wonderfully comprehensive. Looking forward to when you do the detailed analysis of the costs.
This is perhaps the most egregious project ever sited. It is in the backyard of a metropolitan area of over 300,000 people. If any reader knows of a project this big and this close to this many people, please respond to this comment because I would like to find out where it is. Over 100000 people are within 5 miles. Many residents have turbines barely a mile away, looming 2000 feet above their property. There are about a dozen endangered threatened or listed species of concern within the project area.
This is a case where a governor that worships at the altar of climate change and with enough power can do anything he wants. The state siting council originally cut the project back significantly. That was after over three years of meetings, hearings, public comment, adjudication with expert witnesses, more public comment, and then subsequently approved the project after directing them to return it to near original size.
I have read the comment about small modular reactors and totally agree. Our 1000 MW nuclear plant in this area is on a run of over 400 days breaker to breaker online between overhauls. Cannot get any more reliable than that.
The saddest part. The power most likely will go out of state.
Well, if this wind/solar/battery power boondoggle does end sending the energy out of state, at least it will give someone else a healthy dose of erratically intermittent grid degrading electrical energy to deal with. Unfortunately it leaves us with a pervasive grotesque environmental eyesore.