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November 15, 2024

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Nonprofits Urge TVA to Reconsider Gas-fired Options

A coalition of clean energy organizations, conservation nonprofits and social justice groups last week called on the Tennessee Valley Authority to reconsider its plan to replace its largest coal plant with a new gas-fired facility.

The Clean Up TVA Coalition, which includes the Sierra Club, NAACP Memphis Branch, Appalachian Voices, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and the Center for Biological Diversity, said TVA should rethink a proposed 1,450-MW natural gas expansion at its Cumberland Fossil Plant, given the fuel’s volatile pricing.  

The group said TVA’s continuing investment in gas-fired generation “runs contrary to the Biden Administration’s clean energy mandate, climate science and the agency’s own stated commitment to improve Valley residents’ quality of life through job creation, reduced emissions and lower energy prices.”

The federal agency has drafted an environmental impact statement (EIS) on its plans to retire Cumberland’s two 1,235-MW units and replace them with the large gas plant and associated 32-mile gas pipeline. TVA is also considering adding either smaller gas-fired plants at its Johnsonville and Gleason generating plant sites or 1,700 MW of solar generation paired with battery storage, though it has said those options aren’t as appealing.

TVA said its financial and system analyses “indicate a [combined-cycle] gas plant is the best overall solution to provide low-cost, reliable and cleaner energy to the TVA power system.” The agency said a gas plant at the Cumberland site will allow it to retire the two coal units quicker and could provide the foundation to “reliably integrate 10 GW of solar onto the system by 2035.”

Responding to the draft EIS, Clean Up TVA asked the agency to conduct an “honest assessment” of cleaner energy alternatives to its current generation plans. It requested TVA explore other generation options and expedite the retirement of the two Cumberland coal units by 2030.

The group also said the federal utility has not presented a “clear trajectory for how it intends to achieve” 10 GW of future solar and a quicker winddown of coal operations at Cumberland. TVA does not plan to complete the units’ retirement until 2033, according to the EIS.

Clean Up TVA pointed out that the natural gas market is volatile and climbing prices are forcing other electricity providers to raise rates. The Sierra Club said its research shows that with 4 GW, TVA has the second-highest proposed gas buildout of all major utilities in the country by 2030.

“Despite this reality, TVA is choosing to make huge new, long-term investments in an uncertain gas market — the opposite of its claimed goal of working to keep energy costs low for customers,” the coalition wrote.

“TVA is being horrifically irresponsible” said Sudeep Ghantasala with the Nashville chapter of the climate action group Sunrise Movement. “The permitting process for the gas pipeline started months ago. TVA claims this was to speed up the process should they pick the gas CC plant. Why haven’t they started the same process for the solar alternative, and better yet, looked at distributed solar, energy efficiency and demand response which could come on board sooner and even reduce demand for large-scale projects? Climate change is threatening so many lives and TVA needs to act.”

TVA Public Relations Specialist Scott Brooks said “no decisions have been made at this point” regarding the options laid out in EIS. TVA did not address how it might factor rising natural gas prices into its plans.

“We appreciate all of the comments received during the public comment period and will consider them as part of our final EIS document,” Brooks said in an emailed statement to RTO Insider.

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NextEra Energy Plans ‘Real Zero’ Carbon Emissions by 2045

Eschewing the “net zero” carbon targets of the industry, Florida-based NextEra Energy (NYSE:NEE) said Tuesday it plans to achieve “real” zero carbon emissions no later than 2045, without purchasing offsetting emissions credits or using carbon-capture technology.

The company’s plan would rely on developing massive amounts of solar and battery storage while converting its gas-fired power plants to burn a high percentage of hydrogen. The company believes that would allow it to achieve carbon reductions to “Real Zero,” a copyrighted term, “at zero incremental cost to customers.”

“Our Real Zero goal to eliminate carbon emissions from our operations is a real goal that would make a significant difference for our customers,” CEO John Ketchum said in a statement. “We are building on our decades of innovation and investments in low-cost renewable energy to decarbonize our company while keeping bills affordable for our customers. Attaining Real Zero will be one of those achievements that provides lasting value to our customers and the communities where we do business.

“We’ve been working on this for a long time and will take our extensive experience, industry-leading development platform and scale to help accelerate the decarbonization of the U.S. economy,” Ketchum said.

Along the way, the company plans to reduce its emissions compared to its 2005 levels by 70% by 2025; 82% by 2030; 87% by 2035; and 94% by 2040.

“We’ve worked hard in developing Real Zero to ensure we have a credible technical pathway to achieve our goals and well defined milestones every five years so we and all stakeholders can track our progress,” Ketchum said. “We’re part of an industry that is well positioned to make the most progress in the elimination of carbon emissions, and Real Zero is NextEra Energy’s goal to set a new standard for all power generators.”

The company believes the goals will help it decarbonize the rest of the U.S. power sector, leading to the decarbonization of the U.S. economy “by working to become the preferred partner for customers” working toward decarbonization.

A significant portion of the plan will occur at subsidiary Florida Power and Light, the largest utility in the U.S., serving 12 million customers.

Under the plan, FPL would increase its current solar capacity from 4,000 MW to 90,000 MW and expand its existing battery storage by 100 times to 50,000 MW.

FPL would also continue to run its 3,500 MW of nuclear capacity and convert 16,000 MW of existing gas generation to burn hydrogen, an accomplishment that will require technological changes as well as changes in environmental regulations.

Hydrogen burns hotter than gas, but its energy density per cubic foot is less. Environmentalists are already arguing that burning more hydrogen could increase NOx emissions, and that hydrogen leaks would contribute to climate change.

FPL is also planning to substitute conventional natural gas with renewable natural gas, produced by anaerobic digesters and pulled from landfills.

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DOE Wants Gas Furnaces to be More Efficient

The U.S. Department of Energy proposed new rules Monday requiring manufacturers of home gas furnaces to make their products far more efficient than many furnaces sold today by raising the minimum efficiency standard from the current 80% to 95% by 2029.

“These efficiency measures not only reduce carbon and methane emissions, but also provide huge material benefits to American households in the form of cleaner air, modernized technology, and cheaper energy,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement.

The new proposal would phase out less efficient non-condensing gas furnaces, a popular choice with consumers because they cost hundreds of dollars less to purchase but use more gas over time. Condensing gas furnaces, which use secondary heat exchangers to capture excess heat from exhaust gases, are more expensive but can achieve the 95% efficiency standard.

Canada has required condensing gas furnaces in homes for more than a decade, DOE said in a news release.

Environmental groups applauded DOE’s proposal.

“We’re long overdue to update outdated furnace technology,” Joe Vukovich, energy efficiency advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement Monday. “This is the first meaningful update to furnace efficiency since 1987 when furnaces were first added to the efficiency standards program.”

In 2007, DOE raised the energy efficiency standard for gas furnaces from 78% to 80% in a relatively minor concession to those pushing for more efficient furnaces. The Trump administration had blocked efficiency upgrades at the behest of natural gas producers.

In a statement Monday, the American Gas Association said the new rules would place an “undue burden” on utility customers.

“Many older homes, especially in low-income neighborhoods, cannot accommodate the expensive venting requirements for a condensing furnace,” the trade group said in a statement.

“It is not as simple as replacing the natural gas furnaces on the market today with natural gas furnaces that are 95% efficient,” CEO Karen Harbert said. “They are not the same piece of equipment, and we have explained this to the Department of Energy many times.”

The Appliance Standards Awareness Project, a Boston-based advocacy organization, contended that households with non-condensing gas furnaces spend an average $700 annually on heating bills; switching to a more efficient furnace would reduce bills by about $100 per heating season, ASAP said.

DOE estimated that the new rules “would save consumers $1.9 billion annually and, over 30 years, reduce carbon emissions by 373 million metric tons and methane emissions by 5.1 million tons — the equivalent of what 61 million homes emit each year.”

Gas furnaces currently account for about 15% of residential energy use in the U.S. and 40% of home heating. Without new standards, 41% of furnaces would achieve 95% efficiency by 2029 while 40% would remain at 80% efficiency — roughly the same as today, DOE said in its proposed rulemaking.

The plan is the latest in the Biden administration’s efforts to take 100 energy-efficiency actions this year to save the average family $100 a year, DOE said.

Last week, the administration invoked the Defense Production Act to increase domestic manufacture of electric heat pumps, which advocates hope will replace gas furnaces.

In February, the California Energy Commission set a goal of installing 6 million heat pumps by 2030. (See California Sets 6 Million Heat Pump Goal.)

DOE estimated in a 2016 report that removing non-condensing gas furnaces from the market would encourage nearly 12% of households to opt for a heat pump instead of a condensing furnace.

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New Global Hybrid CO2 Offset Product to Include Carbon Capture Credits

Environmental risk management firm Net Zero Markets will launch a new carbon credit product Friday designed to demystify the voluntary carbon market (VCM) and foster carbon capture.

The firm’s Global Emission Reduction (GER) contract will be available first on Nodal Exchange in the U.S. and AirCarbon Exchange in Singapore, with availability to follow “soon” on the European Energy Exchange, CEO and founder Louis Redshaw said Tuesday.

“Getting the VCM onto an exchange has been a massive challenge,” Redshaw said. “The GER is the future of commoditized VCMs.”

GERs “repackage” the way the VCM uses existing carbon credits and adds carbon-capture credits to the package to present them together under one standard, transparent price, Redshaw said during a webinar introducing the product.

In Redshaw’s view, the VCM “doesn’t work” because it has “too many moving parts,” with different standards, jurisdictions, project types and eras for credits (a.k.a., credit vintages). The moving parts create different carbon credit prices that end up stifling the market by creating confusion.

“Even those that spend a lot of time on the VCM can’t say with confidence where the price is or what the price should be,” he said. That price opacity, he added, can lead to profiteering and criminal activity.

“All of these problems, as you’d expect, lead to low levels of investment in carbon-reducing projects, and everything combined creates distrust,” he said.

The new GER hybrid carbon offset product will include preset percentages of credits from renewables and energy-efficiency projects; forestry, agriculture and land-use projects; high socially beneficial projects; and carbon-capture projects.

From the onset, removal credits from carbon capture will account for 1% of the GER price, with the remaining three avoidance credit categories each accounting for about one-third of the price.

“We look at retirement data for the previous year, and we determine how the market has been using voluntary carbon credits,” Redshaw said. “We will then apportion the different buckets according to how they’re actually being used.”

Over time, the carbon capture credits will take up an increasing portion of the GER, reaching 100% by 2050.

“There is no reliable market for removals, but in 2050, everything needs to be a removal,” Redshaw said. “If we don’t start facilitating a market and finance going into carbon capture today, there’s almost no chance that the capacity will exist to get us anywhere near the emissions-reduction goals that we have in 2050.”

By creating a standardized product that is based on existing carbon credits, Net Zero Markets hopes to grow a stable VCM.

“We have primarily designed this contract for corporate offsetters that really don’t want the headache of having to understand the market before they can transact in it,” Redshaw said. “They just need to be confident that what they’re buying is pretty much the same as what everyone else is buying.”

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NE States, ISO-NE Start to Wrestle with Next Steps on Pathways

With the high-profile Pathways Study complete, New England’s states and grid operator are starting to wrestle with the political, logistical and practical realities of implementing any of the regional policy options for decarbonization analyzed in the paper.

At the New England Electricity Restructuring Roundtable last week, ISO-NE CEO Gordon van Welie and top Connecticut energy official Katie Dykes lobbed ideas back and forth, but they made clear that solutions are still far away.

“The Pathways analysis has given the states a lot to dialogue about,” Dykes said during a panel moderated by energy consultant Jonathan Raab “We’re reserving judgment about the preferred way forward and that continues to be where the states are.”

But she said she remains interested in a hybrid approach, combining net carbon pricing with a Forward Clean Energy Market (FCEM), a solution that the states have been asking ISO-NE to study.

“I think the hybrid has that Goldilocks appeal to it,” Dykes said, because the study found that it could achieve states’ decarbonization goals at a lower cost to ratepayers than other solutions.

But van Welie, whose organization could be tasked with designing a potential FCEM, offered warnings about the viability of the hybrid proposal.

“The hybrid is complex both from a market design and implementation point of view, but it’s also the most complex from a governance point of view,” he said. The states could likely remain in control of the carbon pricing portion, but the FCEM is “more problematic” from the RTO’s perspective, he said.

“We have serious concerns about whether you would want to tee up a hybrid package to the FERC. The FCEM and hybrid are by definition discriminatory,” he said. “It would make it very hard for FERC to approve that, and you would invite lots of litigation [in] Washington, D.C.”

Carbon pricing has its own political complications that state leaders have expressed wariness about. (See State Regulators Weigh in on New England Pathways Study.)

“It’s impossible to have the conversation around the insights of an economic analysis without putting it into a context of what’s politically feasible,” Dykes cautioned.

Analysis to Action

Now that the study is complete, the broader question for stakeholders is whether the region’s leaders can put together the coordination and political will required to make a decision and start implementing it.

“I think where we are today is not thinking about what more analysis we can do. The challenge for us today is how do we take the next step,” said Pete Fuller, an energy consultant who works with NRG Energy. The company has suggested a hybrid approach because it sees that proposal as a potentially better route to consensus, and it’s “time to really get moving,” he said.

“It’s not necessarily useful to be doctrinaire or dogmatic about the economic principles. The goal really is about what’s practically workable in a political context,” he said.

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PJM Responds to Market Monitor Recommendations

PJM last week issued its response to the Independent Market Monitor’s latest recommendations, noting that many of the issues are in the scope of current stakeholder discussions.

The Monitor issued 20 new recommendations in its 2021 State of the Market (SOM) report in March: seven concerning the energy market; eight concerning the capacity market; two on demand response; and one each on environmental regulations, ancillary services and financial transmission rights. (See PJM Monitor: Prices, Coal Power Bounced Back in 2021.)

Energy Market Recommendations

PJM said that two of the energy market recommendations — regarding the capping of the system marginal price in real-time security constrained economic dispatch, and implementing an extended downward sloping operating reserve demand curve (ORDC) — were “superseded” by a December 2021 FERC order on voluntary remand from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. (See FERC Reverses Itself on PJM Reserve Market Changes.)

The RTO said it responded to the order with a proposal to retain the existing reserve market and energy market price capping framework “largely consistent” with the SOM recommendation. But it said it has no plans to implement downward sloping demand curves for operating reserves because the commission rejected it.

PJM said it addressed another Monitor recommendation — requiring generators that violate their approved turn-down ratio to demonstrate that their actions are based on an actual physical constraint — in its response to a June 2021 FERC order to show cause. The commission ruled that PJM’s tariff appeared to allow market sellers to circumvent being subject to parameter-limited offers. (See FERC Issues Show-cause Order on PJM Parameter-limited Offers.)

The RTO responded to FERC by instituting an interim rule restricting the use of real-time values to actual physical limitations that occurred during the real-time market. “PJM believes these interim limitations sufficiently address concerns that market sellers could submit real-time values to inappropriately limit their flexibility, since economic reasons for adjusting parameter limits are no longer acceptable reasons to override unit-specific parameters,” PJM said.

However, the RTO disagreed with the Monitor’s proposal to require that capacity resources be required to use flexible parameters in all energy offers at all times to mitigate market power.

“PJM disagrees that capacity resources have broad ‘obligations to be flexible’ under the current capacity market construct,” the RTO said, adding that “flexibility is not an explicit requirement for the qualification for capacity resources [and] is largely not accounted for in the accreditation of capacity resources.”

It also rejected the IMM’s call for adjusting ORDCs during spin events to reduce the reserve requirement for synchronized and primary reserves by the amount of reserves deployed.

“PJM views this recommendation to be inconsistent with the NERC standard that obligates PJM to procure contingency reserves and also with PJM’s policy for maintaining adequate reserves,” it said. “PJM’s current policy regarding reserves is intended to restore reserves as quickly as possible following their deployment. The purpose of this is to make sure that the PJM system can respond to successive contingencies should they occur.”

Capacity Market Recommendations

PJM said the Resource Adequacy Senior Task Force, which began work in December, is discussing a range of potential rule changes that could address several of the Monitor’s capacity market proposals.

Among them:

  • that the value of capacity transfer rights be defined by the total megawatts cleared in the capacity market, the internal megawatts cleared and the imported megawatts cleared, and not redefined later prior to the delivery year;
  • that the market clearing results be used in settlements rather than the reallocation process currently used, or that the process of modifying the obligations to pay for capacity be reviewed;
  • that PJM improve the clarity and transparency of its capacity emergency transfer limit (CETL) calculations and that the CETL for capacity imports be based on the ability to import capacity only where PJM capacity exists and where that capacity has a must-offer requirement;
  • using the lower of the cost- or price-based energy market offer to determine energy costs in the calculation of the historical net revenues;
  • that any combined seasonal resources be required to be in the same locational deliverability area to ensure the energy and capacity markets remain synchronized and reliability metrics correctly calculated.

Some other recommendations are under discussion in other venues, PJM said.

The Monitor’s call to bar storage and other intermittent resources from offering capacity megawatts based on energy delivery that exceeds their capacity interconnection rights (CIRs) is among the issues being discussed at the Planning Committee’s special sessions on CIRs for effective load-carrying capability resources, PJM said.

The IMM’s call for PJM to re-evaluate the shape of the variable resource requirement curve will be considered as part of the Market Implementation Committee’s current Quadrennial Review, the RTO said.

Demand Response, FTRs

PJM rejected the Monitor’s proposal that electric distribution companies (EDCs) not be allowed to participate in markets as distributed energy resource aggregators in addition to their EDC role.

“This recommendation is inconsistent with FERC Order No. 2222, in which the commission affirmed that ‘market participation agreements for distributed energy resource aggregators should not preclude distribution utilities, cooperatives or municipalities from aggregating distributed energy resources on their systems,” PJM said. “Accordingly, PJM’s DER Aggregator Participation Model, proposed as a component of PJM’s Order 2222 compliance filing, does not prohibit a distribution utility from forming its own DER aggregation resources. This is consistent with current practice today, where certain distribution utilities participate in the PJM demand response program with their own load reduction resources.”

The RTO acknowledged, however, that the DER Aggregator Participation Model, which will “require a greater level of distribution utility coordination to ensure safety and reliability … sets up a scenario in which a distribution utility — the entity responsible for physically operating its distribution facilities and overriding PJM dispatch of other DER aggregators — may also be competing against other DER aggregators connected to those same distribution facilities.”

“PJM acknowledges concerns regarding this potential conflict of interest and anticipates continued dialogue with states and stakeholders on how state and local law may address this issue,” it said.

The RTO’s report renewed its disagreement with the Monitor over the proper confidence interval when calculating initial margin requirements for FTR market participants.

Although the Monitor recommended the use of a 99% confidence interval, PJM proposed 97%, which was rejected by FERC as unsupported by the record. (See Stakeholders Encourage PJM to Defend FTR Filing.)

The RTO maintains that the 97% option is “the most cost beneficial proposal” and that the increased collateral costs at 99% is greater than the benefit in reduced defaults.

“Based on this and other additional analysis, PJM believes it can supplement the December [Federal Power Act Section] 205 filing with additional evidence to support use of the 97% confidence interval to address most of FERC’s concerns,” it said.

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Status of Corporate Net-zero Pledges is ‘Bleak,’ Researcher Says

A new Net Zero Tracker report shows that net-zero pledges among the Forbes Global 2000 has increased 15% since last spring, but the overall picture for corporate pledges is “quite bleak,” Takeshi Kuramochi, a senior climate policy researcher at NewClimate Institute, said Monday.

The companies are concentrated in high-income countries in Europe, North America and East Asia, and the “robustness” of their targets “remains low overall,” Kuramochi said at a press conference in Bonn, Germany, for the release of Net Zero Stocktake 2022.

An assessment of the corporate pledges found that only 35% adhere to the basic pledge criteria set by the U.N.’s Race to Zero initiative. The criteria include specifying a target, taking immediate action, and publishing a plan and progress reports.

In addition, 60% of the pledges do not cover companies’ value chains, while 40% will rely on offsets to achieve the targets.

The findings are “somewhat worrying,” Kuramochi said.

Net Zero Tracker’s report is the first global stock-take released by the team behind the platform since completing a baseline quantitative analysis in March 2021. The platform, which launched in 2019, is a partnership of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), NewClimate Institute, Data-Driven EnviroLab and the research initiative Oxford Net Zero at Oxford University.

The tracker is more than a database of net-zero pledges, according to Richard Black, senior associate at ECIU.

Coverage of Greenhouse Gases (Net Zero Stocktake 2022) Content.jpgCoverage of greenhouse gases by net zero targets across 128 countries, 235 cities and 115 states and regions worldwide as of June 1, 2022, tracked in terms of GHGs and population covered. | Net Zero Stocktake 2022

“The days when [the pledge] was the most important metric are long gone; it’s about the integrity of those targets,” he said during the press conference.

To understand the global status of pledges, the database follows 4,000 entities, including all countries; states and regions in the 25 biggest emitting countries; cities with populations over 500,000; and companies on the Forbes 2000. Most of the entities in the database, however, do not have net-zero targets.

For those that do, the research team tracks what entities say publicly about the targets from sources such as speeches, laws, policy documents and sustainability reports.

“We don’t translate this information into temperature projections … or assess compatibility with a 1.5 Celsius global directory,” Black said.

To date, the team has identified 1,180 net-zero targets by countries, subnational regions, cities and companies, up from 769 identified for the baseline report last year.

Kuramochi attributed the increase to new pledges made in the leadup to the U.N.’s 26th Climate Change Conference of the Parties in Glasgow and enhanced data collection methodologies.

Subnationals

The report found that the number of large cities with net-zero targets doubled from 115 in the baseline report to 235, and state and province targets increased from 73 to 115.

While the increase is “encouraging,” the research team wants to see more information available about how those governments will achieve their targets, said Angel Hsu, principal investigator at EnviroLab and an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

“One of the indicators that we look at is whether or not the subnational governments have set an interim target — a midpoint target in route to a longer-term net-zero target — that indicates that they’re thinking about short-term to midterm action and that lends credibility to their implementation plans,” Hsu said.

Of the targets tracked in the database, 40% of cities and 27% of regions do not include interim targets, and about half of the cities and regions have published net-zero plans.

“We also observe a divide in net-zero target setting between Global North and Global South subnational governments,” Hsu said. “The majority of the targets that we were able to record are coming from high-income countries, more than 80% for regions and more than 60% for cities.”

Net-zero Outlook

With the growth of pledges across all segments in the database, the researchers see voluntary pledges changing the regulatory landscape in major economies.

That trend is playing out in several ways, according to Thomas Hale, associate professor of global public policy at the University of Oxford Blavatnik School of Government.

Many voluntary initiatives and pledges, such as the Race to Zero campaign or the Asset Owners Alliance, are working with government leaders to set targets, which Hale said creates the necessary “scrutiny” to ensure governments deliver on climate promises.

High-level climate champions, such as the U.N., are working to set standards and best practices to ensure that there is integrity in the pledges entities make. For example, Hale said that the U.N. secretary-general’s expert group on net-zero commitments will publish a report before the next Conference of the Parties in Egypt in November to “call out the bad, highlighting the good.”

In addition, international standard-setting organizations are working to define net-zero, Hale said. Their efforts will “create mainstream, widely adopted rules for global economic engagement.”

All the momentum around voluntary pledges will build pressure for regulatory changes, where net-zero becomes a baseline for economies, according to Hale. Regulatory progress for net zero is likely to mirror the growth of regulations for how companies disclose climate-related risks, which are in place in the U.K., pending in the EU and Japan, and proposed in the U.S. and China.

“By increasing the quantity, but also critically the quality, of net-zero targets, we’re paving the way for a real realignment of the economy around the goals of the Paris Agreement,” Hale said. The report, he said, “gives us some indicators of who is leading that race and who needs to catch up.”

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Washington Hires Epidemiologist to Study Climate Health Impacts

Washington’s first full-time climate change epidemiologist will go on duty starting July 1.

That epidemiologist will work for the Washington Tracking Network, a state health department program that aims to make public health data more accessible to the public, agencies and governments.

Rad Cunningham, senior epidemiologist and manager of the Climate and Health program under the Washington Department of Health, declined to name the new full-time climate change epidemiologist, saying she has not agreed to have her name released until July 1. Actually, Washington is hiring 1.25 full-time equivalent climate change epidemiologists. A quarter-time staffer will begin work for the tracking network on June 16.

The tracking network examines climate change data with an eye to predicting future health effects caused by global warming. The state program would provide this information to city and county governments and health departments as they prepare for the future. The two new epidemiologists are expected to analyze about 20 to 30 years of data and have a good grasp of what to tell various governments and agencies in about two years. Several states have this type of post, although it is not common, Cunningham said.

Washington’s leaders have blamed global warming for increased wildfires, problems with the state’s shellfish industry, a lack of water for farming and numerous health problems and other troubles.

Cunningham noted that an abnormally high heat wave last year was linked to the deaths of 157 Washington residents.

The state Health Department examines the climate change impacts to health with respect to air quality and wildfires, drinking water, extreme heat, pollen, agriculture and ocean acidification.

Global warming is linked to rising acidity levels in Washington’s warming sea waters, causing tiny oyster shells in Washington’s Dabob and Willipa bays to crumble faster than they can grow back. The problem has cut sharply into the state’s oyster harvests, which is a $270 million/year industry.

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ERCOT Sets New Record for Peak Demand

Sweltering heat — even by Texas standards — led to ERCOT finally setting a new all-time peak demand mark Sunday after several close calls last week.

Demand reached 74.9 GW at 5:10 p.m. CT, breaking the previous record of 74.8 GW set in August 2019. The record could be short-lived, as ERCOT was projecting demand to peak at 76.8 GW on Monday, threatening staff’s peak demand forecast of 77.3 GW for the summer.

That the record came on a weekend, when offices are empty, and during June is an indication of how unusually hot the weather has been in Texas. The state’s major cities have set daily records for high temperatures since Friday as an oppressive weather pattern settled over the south central U.S. The National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning for North Texas on Sunday in anticipation of temperatures above 105 degrees Fahrenheit and heat indexes above 110.

Houston Heat Index (Daniel Cohan via Twitter) Content.jpgThe heat index in Houston reached 120 degrees at one point Sunday. | Daniel Cohan via Twitter

The heat index was as high as 120 F on Sunday afternoon in Houston, where city officials activated the city’s emergency heat plan and opened cooling centers late last week. Austin also declared a heat emergency and opened cooling centers, where 100-degree temperatures are expected through next week.

“Welcome to the final days of spring in Austin,” tweeted University of Texas energy professor Michael Webber, sharing an image of triple-digit Austin-area temperatures (save for a 99-degree forecast for Wednesday).

Suddenly, ERCOT’s “extreme” maximum demand of 81.6 GW this summer doesn’t seem so improbable.

ERCOT has yet to issue a formal conservation alert. The grid operator still had nearly 5 GW in operator reserves during Sunday’s peak demand. Thermal outages were up slightly to 6.4 GW on Sunday, according to Stoic Energy President Doug Lewin.

The Texas grid was operating during the weekend under its third operating condition notice (OCN) since April. The OCN, intended to alert market participants of a possible need for more resources, was to expire Monday.

ERCOT officials have said they expect “sufficient generation to meet forecasted demand.” Indeed, the grid held up, despite scattered distribution outages in North Texas, lending a measure of comfort to Texans down on ERCOT since the disastrous February 2021 winter storm.

“Making it through this early heat wave should give some confidence in ERCOT for the rest of the summer,” said Joshua Daniels, an energy researcher at UT. “The bleeding has stopped; it’s time for rehab.”

ERCOT again set records for June when demand averaged 73.9 GW and 74.4 GW during afternoon intervals on Friday and Saturday, respectively. Demand exceeded 70 GW at 12:45 p.m. Monday.

ERCOT has benefited from wind and solar energy, though both at times have been curtailed by transmission congestion. The renewable resources were supplying about 28 GW of energy Sunday afternoon, some 3 GW below staff’s forecast. The cheap energy helped keep prices under $100/MWh Sunday, with the exception of the Houston load center.

According to a demand and energy report posted last week, wind (32.4%) and solar (6.2%) accounted for 38.6% of ERCOT’s fuel mix in May. Gas resources provided 32.1% and coal 13.3% of the energy mix.

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Plans Advance for $2B Oregon Renewable Diesel Plant

The developer of a renewable diesel fuel plant in Oregon is tackling its final two bureaucratic hurdles before beginning construction on the $2 billion facility.

If no hiccups occur, NEXT Renewable Fuels of Portland predicts a best-case scenario of opening a plant capable of producing 50,000 barrels of renewable diesel daily by 2025 at the earliest. The site is at the Port Westward Industrial Park in Clatskanie, which is about 60 miles downstream of Portland on the Columbia River.

NEXT is awaiting approval of an air quality permit from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and completion of a federal environmental review.

The project is supposed to produce around 2.1 million gallons of renewable diesel a day from various types of greases, plus cooking and fish processing oils imported from around the world. There is a distinction between “renewable diesel” and “biodiesel” in that renewable diesel fuel does not need modifications in the engines that it serves, NEXT spokesperson Michael Hinrichs told NetZero Insider.

Production of 50,000 barrels of day could provide the diesel needs for all of Oregon, he said.

The Clatskanie project is one of several renewable fuel proposals in the works for the West Coast. Hinrichs said there is a market for several renewable fuel suppliers in California, Oregon and Washington. “The demand is high enough on the West Coast that it can handle a number of these facilities,” he said.

This demand comes from a major push among the coastal states to replace petroleum-based diesel for trucks, ships and heavy equipment with renewable fuels that produce fewer carbon emissions.

Port Westward in Clatskanie was selected because it has a deepwater port to handle ships containing the raw materials, plus rail lines and truck routes linking it to the rest of the West Coast. “It’s an ideal location to build. … We kind of blend in with this industrial area,” Hinrichs said.

NEXT hopes to have its permitting completed in 2023 and expects to take two years to build the massive complex filled with storages tanks and processing equipment.  The company has an agreement with local unions to use union labor in both construction and operation of the plant. It expects to hire about 3,500 people for construction and to have a permanent staff of about 240.

The company has a contract with BP North America plus some other sources — who have not yet agreed to be publicly identified — to provide raw material for the plant. NEXT is in contact with several fuel companies as potential customers.