The smokestack at the #4 unit of the Boswell Energy Center near Grand Rapids, Minnesota is seen in this December 2006 photo. (Photo by Than Tibbetts via Creative Commons)

In January, northern Minnesota electric utility Minnesota Power announced a new direction forward for its generation portfolio.

The company’s “Energy Forward” plan calls for adding wind and hydropower, retiring one coal-burning unit, and converting two others to natural gas. Along with continued conservation efforts, the investments are projected to lower the utility’s carbon emissions 30 percent by 2015 compared to 2005 levels.

It’s the years beyond that, however, that worry climate activists.

That’s because Minnesota Power has also proposed investing more than $350 million on an air-quality project at the utility’s largest generator, a 585-megawatt coal-fired unit near Grand Rapids, Minnesota, known as Boswell 4.

The project, which has the support of the Minnesota Department of Commerce, would bring dramatic reductions in particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and mercury emissions, which would mean less haze over the region’s scenic lakes and forests and a lower risk to residents for respiratory and neurological health problems.

But it could also financially commit the company to burning coal for another two decades, during which the unit could spew more than 6 million tons of greenhouse gases at a time when scientists warn major reductions are needed to avert the most catastrophic effects of climate change.

‘We need much bolder action’

A coalition that includes Fresh Energy, the Sierra Club, the Izaak Walton League, and the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy is asking the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to require an in-depth study of carbon and other environmental impacts. A public comment period is open until Monday, May 20.

All four groups are members of RE-AMP, which also publishes Midwest Energy News (which is based at Fresh Energy).

If Boswell 4 were to continue to operate past 2030, it’s less likely Minnesota Power will be able to continue the pace of the carbon reductions it’s achieving through 2015.

In that context, the Minnesota case provides an example of a much larger concern — not just in the Midwest, but also globally.

“We need much bolder action,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, a Washington, D.C., advocacy group that is not directly involved in the Boswell 4 case. “Incremental steps like those proposed by Minnesota Power are probably not enough to avoid catastrophic climate change.”

Minnesota Power is on track to exceed the state of Minnesota’s goal of a 15 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2015. Once it finishes implementing its plan, its generation mix will consist of one-third renewables, one-third natural gas and one-third coal — down from about 60 percent coal today.

“We think we’re certainly hitting on all cylinders,” said Al Rudeck, Minnesota Power’s vice president for strategy and planning.

Rudeck said the utility has a successful conservation program that routinely meets the state’s 2 percent annual requirement. And it continues to add renewables, including 400 megawatts of wind power from the Bison Wind Energy Center in North Dakota and a 250-megawatt purchase agreement from Manitoba Hydro.

The company is retiring a 75-megawatt coal unit at its Taconite Harbor facility and converting two 55-megawatt coal units at its Laskin Energy Center to a natural gas peaking plant.

Even if the company can continue to find more opportunities such as these to keep pace with Minnesota’s voluntary state goal of 80 percent carbon reductions by 2050, will that be enough to avoid extreme climate change?

While it is difficult to project the exact impact of rising carbon emissions, recent research suggests targets like Minnesota’s may be too hopeful.

In February, the journal Energy Policy published a paper by Netherlands researcher Michel den Elzen that concludes developed nations need to cut carbon emissions in half by 2020 to have a “medium chance” of preventing climate change’s worst impacts.

And in November, PricewaterhouseCoopers projected that in order to avoid jumping over the guardrail from uncomfortable to dangerous climate change, the global economy needs to cut its carbon intensity 5.1 percent every year from now until 2050. The average annual rate since 2000 has been 0.8 percent.

The United States has pledged to reduce carbon emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. As of 2011, the country had achieved a 7 percent reduction (though that progress was aided by the recession). One way for the U.S. to meet its 2020 goal, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers: replace all coal-fired generation with natural gas, which emits significantly less carbon dioxide per unit of energy produced.

Continuing to burn coal may not make these targets impossible, but it certainly makes them more difficult to hit.

“We are very concerned with what we call life-extension projects at coal plants,” said Beth Goodpaster, an attorney for the environmental groups intervening in the Boswell 4 case. “When you’re putting over $350 million into a coal-fired power plant, you are making it ever so much harder to … phase it out.”

‘We think that we have a better plan’

Goodpaster said they don’t believe Minnesota Power has fully evaluated all of the possible alternatives, such as replacing the unit with a mix of energy conservation, renewables, natural gas, and grid power purchases. Those it did consider were evaluated too narrowly, without considering health and environmental costs, she said.

Jessica Tritsch, an organizer for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, said Minnesota Power needs to study a broader range of alternatives that include things such as energy conservation, wind and solar power. “We’re not convinced Minnesota Power has fully studied those options.”

Minnesota Power spokeswoman Amy Rutledge quickly dismissed the environmental groups’ allegations.

“It’s clear that their agenda is really to shut down every baseload power plant in the state,” Rutledge said. “We think that we have a better plan.”

Minnesota Power’s plan is the result of a process that, as required by regulators, seeks out the lowest-cost, reliable generation mix that meets environmental regulations. Rudeck said an all-conservation option isn’t a suitable replacement for the Boswell 4 unit.

“If that was the best option for customers, the resource [planning model] would pick it,” Rudeck said. “Clearly it doesn’t.”

The Minnesota Department of Commerce agrees. In comments filed Tuesday, the department’s Division of Energy Resources said the emissions-reduction project at Boswell 4 is “reasonable” for meeting state and federal mercury rules, and that it believes the project is in the public interest.

The utility’s Boswell 4 evaluation compares the emissions-reduction project with two natural gas alternatives, which it concludes would be more costly to customers.

Until Congress or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency decide to regulate carbon emissions from existing coal-burning power plants, the company isn’t under any legal obligation to consider climate impacts. Minnesota recently postponed a rule to require carbon accounting in utility planning.

The environmental groups say that conservation and renewables can win in an economic comparison with fossil fuels. They want state regulators to deny the Boswell 4 upgrades, let it retire in 2016 when new federal mercury rules take effect, and replace it with wind, solar, efficiency, gas and grid power purchases.

“You could have showed us why those other options are impossible,” Goodpaster said.

Minnesota Power studied retirement options for its coal-fired power plants last year, however, and state officials say that study, and the Commerce Department’s own calculations, show that replacing Boswell 4 isn’t possible without increasing costs, even under “extreme assumptions” about carbon and fuel prices.

“[I]nitial Department analysis determined that, at the expected level of environmental compliance costs, retiring Boswell 4 is not a cost-effective option,” the state’s Division of Energy Resources said in its coal-diversification study comments.

It’s the environmental costs that concern the petitioners:

“The decision to retrofit [Boswell 4] rather than retire it or replace it with a natural gas plant would, over time, result in the emission of an enormous amount of additional air pollutants, especially greenhouse gases,” the environmental groups say in their filing. “Continued emissions of GHG are contributing to the environmental and public health problems caused by climate change which are numerous, severe, and irreversible.”

Originally published May 17, 2013 at 06:00AM at Midwest Energy News http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/05/17/are-utilities-moving-quickly-enough-to-cut-carbon-emissions/

An infrared scanner used in home energy audits. (Photo by Green Energy Futures via Creative Commons)

A new report suggests that Wisconsin’s energy efficiency incentives are back on track following an administrative shake-up two years ago that brought major changes to the program.

An independent evaluation released last week says Focus on Energy achieved greater electricity savings and a higher participation rate in 2012 than any other year in the program’s history.

Wisconsin utility customers last year conserved about 650 million kWh of electricity — enough to power about 92,000 homes — through Focus on Energy’s appliance recycling, lighting discounts, energy audits and other programs.

And more than a million residential and business customers received direct incentives for energy efficiency or renewable energy projects, a nine-fold increase from the previous year.

“It’s clear that the program is back on track and seeing the kind of great results it always has,” said Keith Reopelle, senior policy director for Clean Wisconsin, a Madison environmental group. (Clean Wisconsin issued a press release here.)

The report covers the first full year since the Wisconsin Public Service Commission hired Louisiana firm CB&I, formerly the Shaw Group, to administer Focus on Energy, which had previously been run by a Madison nonprofit.

The transition was bumpy at times. The new administrator riled renewable energy installers, for example, by suspending wind and solar rebates for 10 months while it evaluated their cost effectiveness.

Focus on Energy’s programs created $2.89 in benefits for every $1 spent on incentives and administration in 2012, according to the analysis, conducted by the Camus Group. Comparisons to past years are difficult to make because a different formula was used.

By any measure, it’s clear the program is delivering value to the state’s utility customers, said Charlie Higley, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin

“This program is saving money for customers. That’s why the Citizens Utility Board likes it so much,” Higley said. “The more we spend on energy efficiency, the more we save, and there are very few programs of any kind that do that.”

Higley added that even those who don’t directly participate in the incentive programs benefit because they help reduce overall utility costs.

Focus on Energy program director Bill Haas said he’s personally most excited about the increase in customer participation seen over the last year.

“Part of the restructuring of Focus on Energy was really geared towards providing more opportunities for Wisconsin utility ratepayers to participate in the program at home and at work,” Haas said.

One example is changes made to its residential lighting and appliance program, which works directly with retailers to offer markdowns or coupons for light bulbs, low-flow shower heads and other energy-saving products.

Reopelle said the achievements in part reflect a shift in emphasis by the Public Service Commission, which made a decision to prioritize immediate energy savings over longer-term marketing and educational programs.

A staff person for the PSC said all three commissioners were unavailable or declined to comment Tuesday afternoon.

Don Wichert, interim executive director of RENEW Wisconsin, a renewable energy advocacy group that’s criticized Focus on Energy changes in the past, said the jury remains out on whether the program’s renewable energy incentives are effective. Many of the program’s renewable rebates were on hold until mid-2012 or later and only a small amount of money was distributed.

Nevertheless, he said the evaluation shows the efficiency programs are working.

“It shows that Focus [on Energy] can be an effective program,” Wichert said. “The state legislature should look at this and consider kicking up the funding.”

Clean Wisconsin, the Citizens Utility Board, and RENEW Wisconsin are members of RE-AMP, which also publishes Midwest Energy News.

Originally published May 15, 2013 at 06:00AM at Midwest Energy News http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/05/15/evaluation-gives-high-marks-to-wisconsin-efficiency-program/

A biomass power plant in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. (Photo by PSNH via Creative Commons)

After reporting last week on a Midwest biomass group’s proposal to boost wood-fueled heating in the region, reader John Gunn tweeted to tell us “forest biomass GHG emissions are much more complicated than your article indicates.”

He’s right, so we thought we’d take a closer look at the topic of biomass and carbon emissions.

Gunn is a Minnesota native who now heads a Massachusetts nonprofit research lab, Natural Assets Laboratory, that studies forest carbon issues.

“Based on what we’ve found, it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution in terms of emissions,” says Gunn.

Carbon per kilowatt

It’s a misconception that wood fuels are carbon neutral, minus the energy spent to harvest, process, and transport them, he says. When we burn wood, we’re releasing carbon into the atmosphere that might have otherwise been stored in that form for years, decades or centuries.

Gunn co-authored a 2010 study that concluded the amount of carbon released per unit of energy is actually greater for forest biomass than it is for fossil fuels. That’s because wood isn’t a very energy-dense material, which means you have to burn a lot more tons of it to match the energy output of gas or coal.

It’s a controversial claim, one that’s been disputed by wood-fuel advocates. This alleged “carbon debt” can range anywhere from 2 percent to 66 percent, depending on the type of material burned, what it’s displacing, and whether it’s used to generate heat or electricity, Gunn’s paper asserts.

In the short term, burning wood for energy results in a net increase in carbon emissions, he says. Sustainable forestry practices can help well-designed biomass systems repay that carbon debt and then some, but the carbon benefits typically accrue years or decades into the future, he says.

With atmospheric carbon pushing 400 parts per million, policymakers need to be aware of the short-term costs of burning biomass, says Gunn. As a result of the 2010 study, Massachusetts amended its renewable portfolio standard to exclude biomass projects with long carbon payback periods.

Carbon footprint factors

Gunn is co-author of a more recent paper that identified four factors that were most important in calculating the “debt-then-dividend” curve for a region or biomass facility.

Feedstock: What are you burning, and what would have happened to it otherwise? “You need to look at what was the fate of that material,” says Gunn.

Increased demand for wood fuels might motivate a logging company to harvest a few more trees than it would have otherwise. Under business-as-usual those trees would have continued to store carbon in the forest, but instead the carbon would be released into the atmosphere.

Whole trees produce a greater carbon debt than only using the tops and limbs of trees harvested for other purposes, but even those forest leftovers affect the carbon equation. Left on the forest floor, those branches might decay over several years, releasing some carbon into the air and depositing some carbon back into the soil.

On the other hand, intercepting scrap wood that was bound for a landfill can contribute to a quick carbon benefit, but Gunn said that also depends on a lot of factors.

Heat vs. electricity: The life-cycle carbon emissions from generating electricity at a utility-scale biomass facility are about three times greater per MWh than emissions from a similar-sized natural gas electric power plant and 50 percent greater than a coal-fired electricity plant, according to Gunn’s research.

On a carbon basis, wood pellets compete with coal and natural gas much better in thermal or combined-heat-and-power facilities. A biomass cogeneration plant would emit just slightly more carbon than a coal cogeneration plant, with the difference being less than 3 percent.

What it’s displacing: Biomass has a hard time competing with natural gas financially, and the same is true for carbon emissions.

“[W]here biomass replaces a relatively GHG efficient fossil fuel like natural gas, the time needed to pay back carbon debts and realize the benefits of biomass can increase substantially,” the paper says.

Forest management: The key to paying off biomass’ short-term carbon debt is having sustainable forestry practices in place that ensure that more carbon is being “re-sequestered” in forests than is being removed for fuel. And those practices need to be in place for the long haul, Gunn stressed.

For example, if private land that is sustainably harvested for biomass today were to be sold in the future to a company that didn’t follow the same practices, it could erase the carbon gains. “If that doesn’t hold, then the whole benefit doesn’t hold,” says Gunn.

Forest owners’ decisions about the intensity and frequency of harvests can either slow or accelerate forest growth, therefore affecting the rate that carbon is recaptured by the forest.

Complex equation

Others have looked at similar variables and reached different conclusions about biomass’ carbon profile.

Dovetail Partners, a nonprofit research group based in Minneapolis, for example, concluded in a 2012 study that biomass harvesting gives landowners an incentive to maintain forests rather than converting them to agriculture.

Heating the Midwest, in its report calling for a 10 percent thermal biomass goal by 2025, promoted wood fuels’ potential to reduce global warming, but also acknowledged the complexity.

“The degree to which biomass energy system can reduce carbon emissions compared to fossil fuels is directly related to establishment and management of harvesting regimes, forest types, fuel transport, and efficiency,” the biomass group’s paper says.

It may be on the right track by focusing on sustainably harvested wood for thermal energy in areas not currently served by natural gas, but even so, Gunn says it’s not a given that its vision would be beneficial or even benign in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

Gunn says he’s not out to attack biomass — he uses wood fuel to heat his own home — but he thinks its also hazardous for policymakers to assume that biomass is inherently carbon neutral.

“A lot of the studies are finding that there is often a benefit to the atmosphere,” says Gunn, “but it often takes a while to get there.”

Originally published May 10, 2013 at 06:00AM at Midwest Energy News http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/05/10/does-burning-wood-instead-of-fossil-fuels-increase-ghg-emissions/

(Photo via USDA)

Wood fuel represents just a sliver of the Midwest’s heating market. By BTUs, solid biomass supplied 3 percent of the region’s heat in 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The rest came primarily from non-renewable, fossil fuels — mostly natural gas.

A biomass advocacy group called Heating the Midwest thinks the region could and should significantly boost the share of heat it gets from wood-burning stoves and boilers, and it unveiled a vision at its annual conference in Minnesota last week for how to get to a 10 percent thermal biomass goal by 2025.

“If the Midwestern region is serious about achieving a cleaner, more sustainable energy future, it must focus new and significant attention on thermal energy,” the group said in its report, which claims there would be environmental and economic benefits from transitioning to use of more renewable biomass for heating.

The group’s vision also calls for generating 5 percent of heating energy from solar thermal and geothermal, bringing renewables’ share to 15 percent.

Thermal energy accounts for about 38 percent of all energy consumed in the Midwest. Yet most energy policy efforts in the region have focused on electricity and transportation. Nationally, thermal energy gets even less attention because it has little impact on warm-weather states.

The Northeast as an example

Heating the Midwest is looking to the Northeast as a successful example of where regional coordination and investment is helping to grow a wood-fuel industry. Its vision document was prepared by a Maine biomass research and consulting group, FutureMetrics, that did a similar roadmap for the Northeast in 2010.

Wood fuel provides about 4 percent of heating energy in the Northeast (six New England states and New York), where biomass supporters have announced a goal of providing 18 percent of thermal power by 2025.

In the Northeast, however, biomass has much less competition from natural gas. Only about 57 percent of homes and businesses there are heated by natural gas, compared to 72 percent in the Midwest. Low natural gas prices have hurt the financial case for biomass projects in much of the region.

Still, about 15 percent of Midwest homes and businesses use electric heat and another 11 percent use fuel oil or LPG (liquefied petroleum gases). In total, more than 12.6 million customers in the region are not connected to natural gas pipelines, including more than half of customers in North and South Dakota.

The Midwest biomass group sees potential to grab market share by converting these off-pipeline customers to wood pellet or chip fuels, which are less expensive than heating oil, propane and electric heat. (Two northern Minnesota towns, for example, are studying biomass options as an alternative to trucking in fossil fuels.)

‘It’s still a jump for some people’

When biomass is sustainably harvested, it can have significant environmental benefits. Modern biomass burners emit fewer particulates than those built decades ago, and they emit less sulfur dioxide and mercury than fossil fuels, the report says.

Also, the combustion of biomass doesn’t add any new carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — it only re-releases the carbon previously absorbed by the plants that serve as the fuel source. The overall climate impact of burning biomass is largely determined by the amount of energy that goes into harvesting, processing and shipping it.

The region has enough farms and forests to sustainably harvest enough biomass to heat 1,161,000 average-sized homes, according to the report. Ramping up the biomass industry to meet that demand would create hundreds of new logging, chipping and trucking jobs, it says.

Customers would save money on heating fuel costs, and the savings would likely grow as fossil fuel prices climb. But there would be upfront costs for converting or replacing existing equipment, and that’s one of the big barriers.

“It’s very hard to get people to invest in systems that are currently working,” said T.J. Morice, vice-chair of Heating the Midwest’s steering committee and also a vice president at a Wausau, Wisconsin, wood products company. “As good as it looks on paper, it’s still a jump for some people.”

Policy support

Another issue is fuel supply. While the Midwest has plenty of biomass, someone still has to harvest, process and deliver it. Bulk distribution of wood chips and pellets is still in its infancy and will require “broad market adoption” to attract the necessary capital investment in storage and transportation equipment, the report says.

In the Northeast, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire have already bridged that gap, with more than a dozen modern pellet delivery trucks operating there.

Progress in those states has been driven in part by supportive policy. New Hampshire supports thermal renewables with revenue from its renewable electricity standard and greenhouse gas initiatives. Northeast states also used federal stimulus dollars to fund several biomass projects, including 23 pellet and wood chip heating plants in Maine and 125 pellet boiler systems in New Hampshire.

“They’ve been able to make a little more progress from the policy standpoint,” Morice said. “They’ve made some bigger strides, and that’s what we aspire to do here with this effort.”

The Heating the Midwest 2025 vision lists several “critical public policy elements” that are needed to achieve the target. They include:

• Supporting research on the region’s biomass supply, along with sustainable forest management, biomass harvesting and procurement guidelines.
• Developing a Renewable Thermal Standard, similar to existing Renewable Fuels Standard or state renewable electricity standards.
• Create federal and state incentives, grants and loans to encourage installations of high-efficiency biomass thermal systems.

Morice said part of the problem is that wood-fuel systems don’t have “policy parity” with other technologies. In Wisconsin, he said, customers can get rebates to replace an old petroleum burner with a newer, more efficient petroleum burner, but they can’t get assistance with installing a pellet unit.

Heating the Midwest held its second annual conference last week in Carlton, Minnesota, about 20 miles south of Duluth. The volunteer group came together a few years ago to promote thermal biomass heating in the region. Its steering committee includes industry, government, nonprofit and academic representatives.

Steering committee chair Brian Brashaw, a program director at the University of Minnesota-Duluth’s Natural Resources Research Institute, said he’s “bullish” on biomass and pointed to notable biomass installations such as District Energy in St. Paul and another at Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center in Ely, Minnesota.

“We have success stories,” Brashaw said. “We just don’t have enough of them.”

Originally published May 01, 2013 at 06:00AM at Midwest Energy News http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/05/01/midwest-looks-to-new-england-for-biomass-roadmap/

Fog enshrouds the Oak Creek Power Plant in Wisconsin in this 2010 photo. (Photo by jonnyfixedgear via Creative Commons)

A new report warns that Wisconsin’s economic competitiveness could be at risk if the state doesn’t diversify its electricity sources.

The Badger State is already burdened by the second highest electricity prices in the Midwest, with only Michigan customers paying more on average.

Those rates are likely to climb faster than inflation and prices in surrounding states in the next decade due to Wisconsin’s dependance on coal-burning power plants, according to Gary Radloff, director of Midwest policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wisconsin Energy Institute.

His recent paper, “How to Keep Wisconsin and the U.S. Competitive in a Changing Energy World,” says better planning and more investment are needed to shield the state’s economy from fossil fuels’ risk and volatility.

“Wisconsin will fall behind in global and domestic economic competitiveness unless it moves towards a balanced energy portfolio with less reliance on high-cost coal and more reliance on clean energy technology solutions,” Radloff writes. “That is not the case today in Wisconsin, and in fact, there are troubling signs Wisconsin has slipped behind other states in the path to long-term energy innovation and economic success.”

‘Misguided planning’

Wisconsin may be locked into higher energy prices because of “misguided energy planning in the past” that made long-term commitments to coal plants that are increasingly expensive to operate, Radloff writes.

The report says concerns about electricity supply and reliability in the 1990s and early 2000s led to over-building of coal plants in the state, and customers will be stuck paying for them for the next 20 to 30 years.

They include the We Energies Oak Creek Power Plant, the largest construction project in state history. The $2.2 billion project came in 8 percent over budget. Wisconsin regulators last year approved a rate increase passing most of that overrun on to customers.

Radloff cites a Sierra Club forecast that coal prices will increase about 6 percent per year or 2 percent above inflation over the next decade because of growing transportation, operational, and regulatory expenses.

A need to diversify

The share of Wisconsin’s electricity generated from coal declined to 63 percent in 2010 from 71 percent in 2000. Natural gas increased from 3.8 percent to 8.5 percent during that period, and renewables grew from 1.9 percent to 3.8 percent.

While more coal plants are being converted to natural gas, Radloff cautions that the “silver bullet solution may not be natural gas, despite Wisconsin utilities betting heavily on it.”

Current gas prices are low in part due to over-production, he writes, with drilling companies losing money and likely to retreat if prices don’t go up. And the history of commodity pricing suggests they will at some point.

Meanwhile, policy uncertainty is slowing investment, job creation and innovation in clean energy, the report says.

Most Wisconsin utilities have already fulfilled their benchmarks for the state’s renewable electricity mandate, meaning their “desire to acquire more renewable generation will be minimal to none.”

Potential to lead

“The good news is that Wisconsin still probably can right the ship and move in the direction of technology innovation to position itself for economic growth,” Radloff writes.

The report catalogs dozens of policies that appear to have been successful in other states and countries, from research incentives to grid interconnection rules.

“We’re kind of calling this our cookbook. It’s a set of recipes for advancing clean energy technology,” Radloff said in an interview with Midwest Energy News.

The state already has many of the ingredients to become a leader in biogas, microgrids, energy storage and combined heat and power, Radloff said. What’s missing is a comprehensive state energy policy.

“We need to set some energy goals. We just don’t have a strategic energy policy or plan, and we need one. If you don’t set some goals, you don’t get anywhere,” Radloff said.

A wake up call

The report is one of a number of “wake-up calls that Wisconsin is headed in the wrong direction” on energy issues, said Keith Reopelle, senior policy director for Clean Wisconsin.

Clean Wisconsin has been among the groups lobbying to restore an integrated resource planning process that was phased out more than a decade ago as the state prepared to deregulate its utilities, which never happened.

The Wisconsin Public Service Commission collects utility data for biennial Strategic Energy Assessments, but the documents are mostly a snapshot of current trends, not a chance for long-term planning, Reopelle said.

Without a greater policy focus on expanding clean energy in the state, Wisconsin is in danger of missing out on opportunities in one of the few commercial sectors that continues to grow, Reopelle said.

“It’s not just about growing our clean energy industries,” he said. “It’s also about growing our agricultural industry, our food processing industry,” and other existing industries that could benefit from renewable energy production.

A better approach?

Satya Rhodes-Conway, a senior associate at the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, a nonprofit think tank at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, agrees that Wisconsin lacks a “big picture strategy” on energy.

“It’s both the policy but also the uncertainty about the policy that’s really harming our ability to diversity our energy market,” Rhodes-Conway said.

Solar development has been sidelined by shifting rebate programs and wind development has been stalled by disputes over siting rules, for example.

She said she would emphasize energy efficiency first, because it reduces the amount of generation you need to build, but after that diversification should be a bigger priority than it is today.

“You don’t want to rely only on digesters for your electricity, obviously. Nor do you want to rely only on wind turbines, but nor do you want to rely only on coal-fired power plants,” Rhodes-Conway said. “I do think a broader approach, an approach that has more resiliency and redundancy in it is probably a better one.”

The Center on Wisconsin Strategy and Clean Wisconsin are members of RE-AMP, which also publishes Midwest Energy News.

Cleantech competition

While Radloff’s focus was Wisconsin, the same critique could apply to many other states, and the country as a whole.

Pew Environment’s recent Innovate, Manufacture, Compete report described how policy uncertainty is hurting the U.S. clean energy sector. Last week, it reported that China continued to outpace the United States in cleantech investments.

“The center of gravity in the clean energy world has shifted from the United States and Europe to China,” Pew Environment said in its latest “Who’s Winning the Clean Energy Race?” report.

In 2012, China attracted $65.1 billion in clean tech investment, 20 percent more than in 2011. The United States was second best with $35.6 billion invested — a 37 percent drop from 2011.

“While overall progress has been made in the United States over the last decade in substituting renewable energy for legacy high-carbon energy sources, success will not continue without a favorable policy environment,” Radloff writes in his report.

“Wisconsin, like many states, has taken a cautious approach to renewable energy policy and therefore remains a high-carbon coal and petroleum state… If Wisconsin wants to be a winner in the bioeconomy, then creating policy certainty for renewable energy is required.”

Originally published April 25, 2013 at 06:00AM at Midwest Energy News http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/04/25/report-wisconsin-needs-an-energy-plan-to-stay-competitive/

(Photo by archerwl via Creative Commons)

After 18 months of courtship and competition, Iowa officials announced Tuesday that Facebook has selected a Des Moines suburb as the site for its next data center.

The social media giant plans to break ground this summer in Altoona, Iowa, on a $300 million data center that could be the first of three facilities there.

Much of the news coverage has focused on the $18 million in tax credits awarded by the state, but Facebook had another reason to “like” Iowa: wind power.

Committed to green power

Technology companies that operate large data centers have been under increasing pressure in recent years to reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprints.

As part of a December 2011 truce with Greenpeace, Facebook adopted a policy that gives preference to building data center in places with access to clean and renewable energy.

A company spokesperson confirmed in an email to Midwest Energy News that access to wind power was a factor in its decision to locate in Iowa.

“We are committed to powering more of our operations with renewables — we’ve set a goal of reaching 25% renewables in our mix by 2015 — and are exploring opportunities in all of the regions we operate data centers,” Alex Hollander wrote.

The availability of wind power is one of the reasons Iowa is now neck-and-neck with the state of Washington as a destination for large data centers, said John Boyd Jr., a New Jersey consultant who helps companies site data centers.

“Our clients are coveting green power,” Boyd said, and the demand is being driven by marketing. “There’s public relations value above and beyond the economic value of wind energy.”

Still, he doesn’t think it’s a leading criteria for siting decisions, he said. More important factors include tax incentives, real estate costs, and electricity prices.

Nebraska, a state with much less wind generation but also low electricity rates, was considered Iowa’s chief competitor for the site.

‘Unfriending’ coal

Facebook began feeling public relations pressure from Greenpeace in 2010, when the environmental group launched its Unfriend Coal campaign, urging Facebook to power its data centers with renewable energy.

The campaign culminated with the December 2011 announcement that the two organizations would be working together to improve energy efficiency and research clean energy solutions for future data centers.

“Given the rate of growth we’re seeing [in data center electricity use], it’s very important to make sure that renewable energy is a component of their growth plan,” said Gary Cook, a senior policy analyst for Greenpeace.

Facebook’s decision to build in Iowa is a sign that their agreement is working, Cook said. It will be the company’s fourth owned-and-operated data center, and second since the Greenpeace campaign. The last one was built in Sweden, also a clean energy hub.

In Facebook’s announcement, it said the Iowa data center “will be among the most advanced and energy efficient facilities of its kind.” It also notes Iowa’s “abundance of wind-generated power.”

Greenpeace in its statement Tuesday praised the site’s potential but said the company needs to work with the local utility, MidAmerican Energy, to increase its renewable energy mix.

“In Iowa, Facebook has chosen a location where it has great potential to power its newest data center with the wind energy that is booming there, but to do so it must show a willingness to work with Iowa’s major utility, MidAmerican Energy, to provide more clean energy to the grid,” it said.

Hydro to wind power

The Pacific Northwest has long been a destination for data centers because of generous tax incentives and cheap hydroelectric power. In Iowa, incentives and low electricity prices are also drivers.

Iowa’s average electricity rate is about 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour below the national average, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

How much credit wind energy deserves for keeping prices down is tough to pinpoint, said David Osterberg, executive director of the Iowa Policy Project, a nonprofit research organization that’s studied the rate impact of wind power.

“All you can say unequivocally is nearly a quarter of all the kilowatt hours produced here are from wind, and we still have rates more than 2 cents a kilowatt hour below the national average. I can’t say that one caused the other, but our wind sure didn’t hurt,” he said.

Harold Prior, executive director of the Iowa Wind Energy Association, said data centers’ interest in clean energy could further boost the state’s wind industry as they work to green their impacts.

“I don’t think there’s any question that there will be a number of wind farm developers that are going to be extremely interested in working with these data centers.”

The Iowa Policy Project is a member of RE-AMP, which also publishes Midwest Energy News.

Originally published April 24, 2013 at 06:00AM at Midwest Energy News http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/04/24/how-wind-energy-helped-iowa-attract-facebooks-new-data-center/

(Photo by Vicki Watkins via Creative Commons)

At precisely 6 a.m. each morning, Mike Langmo’s turkeys experience a perfect sunrise, regardless of the season or weather.

The Central Minnesota turkey farmer installed dimmable, programmable LED lamps last year in one of his two finishing barns, allowing him to simulate natural light patterns indoors.

There’s some evidence that dimming schedules like these can help better regulate the birds’ circadian rhythms, possibly resulting in healthier, more productive flocks.

While “the jury is still out” on some of those claims, says Langmo, he’s already convinced of another benefit of LED lights: cost savings.

“Energy is an out-of-pocket expense for me,” says Langmo, of Lakewood Turkey Farm in Eden Valley, Minnesota.

The LED lamps are 87 percent more efficient than the 100-watt incandescents that used to line the barn’s ceiling. Even after increasing the number of lights, the barn is still using less electricity.

Studying performance

Langmo learned about the technology a few years ago after meeting an LED lighting vendor at a trade show. Today, he’s part of a state-funded study that’s trying to document the performance of LED lighting in poultry barns.

The Minnesota Project, a St. Paul non-profit that works on rural economic issues, received a grant from the Minnesota Department of Commerce in 2011 to evaluate the products’ potential to be included in utility conservation programs.

“Any way that we can help farmers reduce their production costs is beneficial to farmers individually and rural economies in general,” says Fritz Ebinger, The Minnesota Project’s clean energy manager.

The project partnered with Once Innovations, a Twin Cities company that manufactures LED lights for poultry and livestock barns, and recruited a dozen farmers to test out the lights in their barns.

The Minnesota Project released a mid-point report in November that shows the bulbs, so far, are holding up under the hot and dusty conditions inside a typical turkey barn.

Adoption quickening

LED bulbs contrast with the orange glow from older lights at Lakewood Turkey Farm in Eden Valley, Minnesota. (Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Project)

Once Innovations introduced its AgriShift Poultry Light in January 2010, but initially the lamps were too expensive — $64 per bulb — for most farmers to seriously consider.

Since then, the price has come down considerably, to about $35 per bulb. After utility rebates and other discounts, customers often pay less than $10, according to Brian Babb, head of new business development at Once Innovations.

Sales have also been slowed by the drought and relatively high feed and fuel prices in recent years, which have squeezed farmers’ margins and left them with less cash for investing in lighting or equipment upgrades, says Babb.

“Now that they’re starting to get a little bit of wiggle room, we’re seeing the adoption is starting to quicken,” says Babb.

One factor is federal lighting standards, which are phasing out inefficient incandescent bulbs, but a bigger reason is that more rural utilities are offering rebates for lighting retrofits, he says.

Intense interest

“It’s definitely a hot topic,” says Jake Selseth, an account executive for Great River Energy, which administers conservation programs for 28 rural electric cooperatives in Minnesota.

While there seems to be a lot of interest in LED lighting, Selseth says, most of the applications Great River Energy gets for lighting rebates involve converting to some type of fluorescent bulb.

Neither the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association nor the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association were aware of statistics for agricultural LED use, but Ebinger says the numbers are still small.

Farmers are primarily interested in LEDs because of the energy savings, but some also dislike compact fluorescents and have concerns about mercury contamination if CFLs break inside barns.

LED lamps also give farmers more control over color and brightness, allowing them to schedule dimming programs like the one used in Langmo’s barn.

Healthier birds?

Under the right lighting conditions, “the birds get back into that natural rhythm,” which can lead to less fighting and more efficient weight gain, says Babb.

The Minnesota Project study, however, is looking only at energy savings, performance and durability of the lighting. Other possible benefits to the birds is beyond its scope.

Measuring those other benefits is complicated because of the number of variables involved. Turkey’s temperament naturally varies, and disease and other factors can easily affect the outcomes.

For what it’s worth, Langmo says the turkeys in the LED barn seem to be converting food to weight a little more efficiently than those in another barn with high-pressure sodium lights.

Mohamed El Halawani, an animal science professor at the University of Minnesota, says scientists are just beginning to understand how lighting affects turkeys. His research has shown that a specific wavelength of red light improves reproduction in turkeys.

In general, though, farmers should be skeptical and ask questions about lighting claims and the research that supports them, he says.

Outlook improving

The biggest barrier for LED lighting in poultry barns is cost. Langmo estimated that his lights would pay for themselves in about a year and a half, but they were heavily subsidized by the study and the manufacturer.

Questions also need to be resolved about the quality of light and the amount of bulbs needed. Langmo, for example, doubled the amount of lights after workers complained about being unable to see well enough in the barn.

One goal of the Minnesota Project study is to give rural utilities information so that they can design more successful rebate programs around LED lighting on farms, says Ebinger.

Babb is hopeful this might be the year ag-barn LEDs move beyond the early-adopter phase.

“Once you hit that tipping point of acceptance, it’s going to happen really quick,” says Babb. “We expect to see something in the neighborhood of 50 percent penetration in less than five years.”

Originally published April 17, 2013 at 06:00AM at Midwest Energy News http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/04/17/do-led-bulbs-make-turkeys-happy-minnesota-farmer-smiling-either-way/

Lighter power lines would require fewer transmission towers, which can make up half the cost of a new line. (Photo by Michael Kappel via Creative Commons)

Alan Russell calls today’s transmission lines — clusters of steel wires surrounded by strands of aluminum — “a bundle of compromises.”

The steel is heavy and doesn’t conduct electricity well, but it’s needed to support the aluminum, which would otherwise sag too much under the weight of its load.

It’s bulky and unwieldy, but utilities have used the combination since the 1960s, building strong, tightly spaced towers to hold it up off the ground.

Russell, a materials scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory in Iowa, is part of a team that’s working on a next generation power cable — one that’s lighter, stronger, and more conductive.

The lab is about to begin several months of testing to confirm the strength of their new material, a metal composite made from aluminum and calcium. If they can prove the material has the properties they think it does, the discovery could lead to lower costs for transmission projects.

A ‘eureka’ moment at breakfast

The potential breakthrough came out of two decades of basic research on metals composites — combinations of two or more metals that have unique characteristics.

“We have seen amazingly high strengths from these, and yet they still conduct electricity well,” says Russell. “That’s an odd and rare combination. Usually in metals, the stronger you make it, the worse the conduction of electricity becomes.”

In 2008, Russell and his colleague Iver Anderson began experimenting with a material made of aluminum infused with tiny specks of iron to improve its strength. It showed some promise, but after two years of trial and error they were still unable to form it into wires.

A few years ago, a new idea came to Russell after pouring milk on his cereal one morning: What if they used calcium instead of iron? Calcium is abundant, inexpensive, lightweight, and among the best conductors there is. (Only gold, silver, copper and aluminum are more conductive.)

The researchers combined aluminum with small calcium granules and successfully formed the new material into wires without it cracking or breaking. The wires were highly conductive and relatively strong, but they were limited by the size of calcium particles.

The smaller the particles, the stronger the composite material. The smallest commercially available calcium granules are fairly coarse, about 1.5 millimeters wide. Ideally, Russell and Anderson wanted a calcium metal powder with particles no more than 0.1 millimeter wide.

At that size, though, calcium metal powder becomes hazardous to manufacture. Calcium is reactive with water, and a fine powder can react with humidity in the air, creating the possibility of explosions similar to what can happen in a grain elevator.

The lab has designed a machine for safely creating calcium powder, using a method called centrifugal atomization, which they think could be scaled up to meet demand from power line manufacturers if their aluminum-calcium cables prove to be superior.

Advantages

The Ames lab power lines conduct AC power as well as the steel-aluminum status quo, but they appear to be at least 10 percent more efficient than existing lines at conducting DC power, according to Russell.

The cables are likely to cost about twice as much as steel and aluminum lines, but Russell thinks power companies will be able to more than make up that premium through lower tower costs. The aluminum-calcium lines weight less, so they’ll require fewer and smaller towers to support them.

“I can make my towers more widely spaced and have fewer towers per mile, which is a massive cost savings,” says Russell. “Half the the cost of the whole line is those towers.”

The material’s strength could make the lines more resilient in extreme weather, too.

Now that they have a supply of calcium powder, the Ames Lab will spend the next several months testing the strength of its aluminum-calcium cables. After that will come a battery of other tests to determine about 20 other properties.

Russell says he was one the phone last week with someone from a major cable manufacturer that’s interested in their work and interesting in helping to fund it. If everything goes well, the cables could be on the market as soon as 2018.

Originally published April 10, 2013 at 06:00AM at Midwest Energy News http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/04/10/in-iowa-researchers-seeking-a-stronger-lighter-power-line/

(Photo by Kevin Baird via Creative Commons)

When a business or homeowner lowers their electricity bill by installing solar panels or wind turbines, do they drive up other customers’ utility bills?

That’s the perennial claim made by utilities that oppose policies that would require them to compensate customers for electricity they generate.

Most recently in Iowa, utilities argue that feed-in tariff and net-metering rules benefit a small group of customers at the expense of everyone else.

“The concept of subsidizing somebody’s electricity at the expense of others is one our boards around the state have not been able to get behind,” Tim Coonan, a lobbyist for the Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives, said last month after a feed-in tariff bill for small wind cleared an Iowa Senate committee.

Also last month, a spokesperson for Pacific Gas & Electric told Midwest Energy News that under California’s policies, poor households “subsidize the more affluent community” of homeowners who can afford to install solar panels.

The subsidy argument, however, is one that is overused and understudied, according to distributed power advocates.

“It’s a claim that needs a lot more investigation before it is reasonable to take it at face value,” says John Farrell, a senior researcher with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and a leading expert on customer- and community-owned clean energy.

In California, ‘it’s actually the opposite’

A recent cost-benefit analysis of California’s net-metering policy found some customers paying slightly more as a result of others’ solar panels, but on average the state’s electricity customers were benefiting from the customer installations more than the systems’ owners.

In other words, California customers who have used solar panels to lower their electric bills are the ones subsidizing everybody else.

“They found despite utilities’ claims … about customers not paying their fair share of the fixed costs, it’s actually the opposite,” Farrell said.

The January 2013 report, prepared by consulting firm Crossborder Energy for the Vote Solar Initiative, looked at a broader range of benefits than most utilities acknowledge. For example, customer-owned solar panels can lower transmission costs and postpone local equipment upgrades.

California’s net-metering policy requires utility meters to run forward and backward for customers that generate their own power. The state’s major utilities claimed the rule would push billions of dollars of additional costs onto ratepayers who don’t participate in the program.

“We conclude that the utilities’ concerns with the impacts of [net-metering] on nonparticipating ratepayers are unfounded,” the Crossborder Energy report says.

The analysis studied the impact on residential and commercial customers of Pacific Gas & Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric, and Southern California Edison. When fully implemented, the average PG&E residential customers would likely pay a few cents more per month because of the policy.

All other customers, including PG&E’s commercial customers, would likely see benefits. Averaged across all three utilities, it creates a “small net benefit” for residential customers, and clear cost savings for commercial, industrial and institutional customers.

‘It’s really complicated’

So does that mean Iowa utilities are wrong to say that paying for customers’ wind power will push costs onto other customers? Not necessarily.

“In the end, it’s really complicated. You can’t take that study from California and generalize it for any utility,” Farrell said.

The variables range from grid congestion to rate structures. Without a specific cost-benefit analysis, you can’t just assume customer-owned generation adds costs, he said.

Paul Gipe, a California solar analyst who tracks feed-in tariff policies, says they’re simply a way to pay for new generation.

“This is exactly the same as when a private company, an electric utility, for example, is approved by its regulator to build a conventional power plant ‘in the public interest’,” says Gipe. The costs and benefits are studied, and if regulators think the plant is in the public’s interest, they will approve it even if it results in new costs for customers.

In a way, feed-in tariffs offer ratepayers more predictability and protection than conventional power plants, which usually come with a guaranteed profit margin for utilities, says Gipe. Feed-in tariffs require utilities to pay a certain rate for a set amount of time, but it isn’t adjusted upward if generation costs turn out to be higher than expected.

Buying solar power from utility customers is no more a subsidy for renewables than paying to build a gas or coal plant is a subsidy for fossil fuels, Gipe says. A subsidy is research dollars and tax credits for nuclear and fracking technology — not paying a fair price for generation, he says, and the distinction matters.

“The word ‘subsidy’ has a negative political connotation,” says Gipe. “Because of that, the word subsidy should be used correctly.”

Originally published April 05, 2013 at 06:00AM at Midwest Energy News http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/04/05/are-feed-in-tariffs-a-subsidy-for-a-small-group-of-utility-customers/

A miniature streetcar at the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center. (Photo by Aapo Haapanen via Creative Commons)

In Shanghai, Peggy Liu’s family has largely adapted to China’s chronic air and water pollution — even accepted it as part of the price to pay for living in one of the world’s most vibrant, compact and convenient cities.

But it’s going to take more than water filters and pollution masks to survive China’s next looming environmental disaster.

It’s going to take a dream.

China’s middle class is projected to grow from 474 million today to 800 million by 2025, and Liu is among many sustainability experts concerned about the unprecedented strain that growth will put on the planet’s resources.

Liu, co-founder of the Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy (JUCCCE), spoke at an Ensia Live event Wednesday at the University of Minnesota about her solution: the new “China Dream” (Midwest Energy News is a media sponsor for the Ensia Live series).

At its core, it’s about giving China’s growing middle class a new, greener path to aspire towards — one that doesn’t emulate the “American Dream” of ever-growing consumerism.

Peggy Liu

“What we need to do is decouple the rise of living standards with the traditional rise in energy use and consumption,” Liu said.

Up to now, most of China’s pollution has been driven by the West’s desire to consume, Liu said. “This isn’t just China polluting for polluting’s sake.”

But China is quickly shifting from “made in China” to “consumed in China.” It’s the fastest growing market for everything from SUVs to soft drinks, and its per-capita carbon footprint is expected to catch up to the United States’ by 2017.

“We cannot continue to blindly follow the American lifestyle. This is simply unsustainable for China and the world,” said a Chinese housing and development vice minister, Qiu Baoxing, at a recent JUCCCE training event for mayors.

Since 2007, JUCCCE has organized community discussions about what a sustainable Chinese Dream should look like. It’s also promoting its own vision, translated as the “Harmonious Happy” dream.

Harmonious Happy celebrates “living more, not just having more.” Generally, it values experiences over things, along with urban living, shared public spaces, and safe food, air and water.

JUCCCE is working with bloggers and journalists, marketers and ad agencies, and others to promote the Harmonious Happy values everywhere from social media to soap opera scripts.

A key to the concept is portraying sustainable lifestyles as something to aspire to, something that signals that you’ve arrived, rather than something done out of fear or shame.

That’s meant dumping the stuffy, guilt-ridden language of environmentalists in favor of a new, more aspirational language. Liu wrote for Ensia earlier this month:

In the China Dream vision of a better quality of life, each focus area is phrased as an aspiration but drives sustainable behavior. “Transit-oriented design” becomes “convenient, metro-centered living.” “Trigenerational developments” becomes “vibrant living.” “Pollution reduction” becomes “safe food and water.” Sterile academic wording is replaced with personal benefits. In fact, the word “sustainability” is entirely replaced with the phrase “和悦 [harmonious happy].

The clock is ticking, though. JUCCCE believes it has just a few years for the China Dream meme to catch on or else they will lose momentum.

Liu is optimistic. When it comes to policies, China has the resources and the willingness to “throw spaghetti at the wall” and see what sticks. Its centralized leadership structure allows change to happen very quickly.

When she looks out the window of her high-rise apartment in Shanghai, the dust and disruption outside is easier to bear knowing that part of the construction is for a major subway expansion, which will improve sustainability.

“We know that good change, that progress is coming,” Lui said.

Originally published March 29, 2013 at 06:00AM at Midwest Energy News http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/03/29/a-china-dream-more-efficient-than-the-american-one/