A close look at the Polis Electrification Plan: electrify everything and empty your wallet (oh and likely the potential for blackouts). And, because it's Friday the 13th, something scary.
Ah the Polis Plan to electrify everything ... and empty your wallet.
This post will be about how the Polis Plan to electrify and renewable-ify Colorado will leave us with a shortage of power and a need to do lots of construction.
In the post after this one, we'll tease out how this will have the (completely predictable) consequence of making life more expensive here in Colorado.
The Independence Institute worked with energy researchers at the Center of the American Experiment (see the first link below for their "About Us" page) to produce a 3 part series about the costs our state and people will incur as a result of our state's policy regarding electrification and decarbonization..
I have posted about parts 1 and 2 in the past and wanted to cover part 3 in some detail because it covers EV's and goes back over the previous two parts (which dealt with switching to solely renewable generation and home electrification).
Part 3 of the report is linked below.
Like all studies, it is an estimate, and I urge you to start first by looking at the limitations of the study. That begins on page 4 and goes to page 5. Forced to summarize what I see there, here is what I would tell you.
I think the conclusions reached here are IN GENERAL sound, but I wouldn't take the particular numbers as God's honest truth. That is, if the study claims we'll be short on electrical power, I agree. When they claim we'll be short by 24,000 MW as opposed to, say 22,000 or 27,000, I don't think that the 24 is reliable.
The reason I say this is that based on what I read in the study limitations. There are a lot of assumptions there that work in different directions (over and under estimates). To see what I mean in detail look at screenshot 1. This gives me some confidence--think about how it would be different if they included everything that added costs while ignoring every added savings--but it is a reminder that a whole lot of things can change and a whole lot of things were not included.
With that proviso, let's look at the results of the modeling. I'm not going to go into detail on every single thing here, rather, I will abstract some of the more top-line points made and show you those. If you want every detail, I urge you to read through the report.
What I said above pretty neatly sums up the conclusions. A switch to electric everything will result in either severe shortages of electric power or a huge effort to beef up our electric grid (while STILL facing the prospect of brown and blackouts due to demand exceeding supply).
When the study authors reference the "Polis Plan", what they are referencing is (here quoting form page 6 of the report):
"This analysis examines the cost, electricity infrastructure needs, and reliability implications of complying with the Polis Plan analyzed in part one of this series alongside the residential heating electrification modeled in part two, with the added task of converting all of Colorado’s light-duty vehicles to EVs by 2050 per the Polis administration’s goal."
In other words, the discussion of overall demands and costs in this report refer to electrifying everything and powering our grid solely with renewables. Keep in mind that this is what the Polis administration is selling to people. If I were a betting man, I would be betting that this will not become our reality.
Like many goals and promises set and made by politicians this plan won't be met, but Polis will be long gone from office by that point and will have already made the political capital from it. Whether this becomes our reality or not, however, it is still worth looking at the consequences of this goal because we'll certainly be paying toward it and will be forced to live with the consequences of a headlong push in this direction.
Let's dig in.
Take a look at screenshot 2 attached. This gives a sense of where we are now and what we'd need to do in order to make up for retiring fossil fuel electrical generation (replacing with renewables).
I highlighted what I mean in blue. In order to meet the goals of the Polis plan, everything in the upper pie chart that is circled in blue needs to be replaced since it will go away. That leaves the hole, also circled in blue in the bottom bar graph. In order to replace this generation and meet the demands of electrifying this state, we'll need all the new renewable sources which I boxed in black. This is a GIANT increase (note the sliver in blue vs. the box in black on the lower graph).
Screenshot 3 shows essentially the same thing, though this is a time series. The black and grey bars that go below zero show how we'll be retiring fossil fuel generation over time and the upper (reds, yellows) show how we'll have to add renewables over time as we electrify per the Polis plan. Note that after about 2040, the bars level off where we'll mostly be done transitioning and just fixing/replacing existing renewable stock.
In words the picture painted is just as startling. Quoting from p 9:
"We project that by 2040, wind, solar, and battery capacity would need to increase by259,966 MW. This would represent a roughly fourteenfold increase in the size of the state’s current electric grid in terms of generation capacity over the next couple of decades."
Fourteen fold increase made my eyes pop out, cartoon-style, from my face.
Will it be fourteen fold? Again, I question this number. I don't think adoption of electrical everything will happen as quickly and easily as the Polis Plan has it.
Knowing, however that monopoly utilities like Xcel make profit (one of their only profit centers) on capital construction, I have no doubt they will be busily building out renewable capacity and the infrastructure to carry it.
Who do you suppose will get to fund that whether you have electric-everything or no?
Exactly.
In the post immediately after this one, we'll consider those added costs.
https://www.americanexperiment.org/about/
https://i2i.org/wp-content/uploads/IP-4-2023.pdf
In the post just prior to this one, I abstracted the Independence Institute's report on the Polis Plan. Specifically, I covered how our current grid will be inadequate to the task, how much more we'll need to build, and how at times even that will be inadequate.
Go back and read if that is of interest.
In this section, I want to abstract the report's conclusions regarding what this will cost. The short answer is likely a lot.
A whole lot.
Of your money.
I re-linked to the report below for convenience, and, before we start, I urge you to read the post immediately prior to this one: there are some important caveats and things to be aware re. the validity of this modeling.
Let's talk money.
I think one of the most reliable contentions (and neatest summaries) made by the report authors is quoted below from p 13:
"Regardless of the method chosen, completely overhauling the way Colorado generateselectricity, produces home heating, and powers its vehicles while building out therequisite generation to support such a move will be costly."
Too right. To see what would be driving the costs of the Polis Plan, take a look at screenshot 1. Again, as I mentioned in the previous post, I am not sure how reliable the numbers are, but pay attention here to the drivers themselves and their (likely reliable) relative magnitudes to each other).
By far and away, the biggest cost drivers in an all electric scenario are what we'll pay to build out the capacity for renewables and infrastructure and what we'll pay in profits which go to Xcel and its shareholders (among others). Second highest will be the maintenance and replacement of all the new generation.
So, money from your pocket and into Xcel's.
Screenshot 2 gives you a look at the relative increase in what the Polis Plan would cost compared to what we have now (as well as something I've not really delved into here and that is the report author's proposed alternative, a scenario with baseline from nuclear--worth looking into the report's details on this if you're curious).
To help you understand what you're looking at, each bar graph gives what is known as the "levelized cost of energy", essentially a way of apples-to-apples comparison between energy sources that accounts for things like the fact that in order for renewables to replace baseline current generation we'll not only have to pay for wind turbines but batteries too. I circled the current energy mix in red and the authors put a dotted black box around the Polis Plan costs.
Quite a difference in height (thus an increase in cost) no?
Lastly, let's talk about what this means for your wallet. Take a look at screenshot 3.
As with the other screenshots, I don't think the numbers themselves are too reliable, but I think the trendlines and relative distances are. To wit, consider the trendline I outline in red.
This is what utility bills will likely do under the Polis Plan. Not much comment here, the steep tilt up speaks for itself.
Yes indeedy, what we have here is a roadmap laid out by Polis and his merry band of Progressives to electrify everything and empty your wallet.
https://i2i.org/wp-content/uploads/IP-4-2023.pdf
One more quick bonus post before the usual week-ending post.
What will we get for the hassle and the extra money we'll deal with and pay under the Polis plan (see the two posts previous to this one for context if needed)?
An all-too-likely chance that our state's electrical grid will not be able to keep up with demand, leaving us with having to curtail demand, purchase power from outside sources, or have blackouts.
You see, even with storage to make up for the natural variability of wind and solar, extended periods of no wind and cloudy days (golly, does that ever happen in Colorado?) could leave us with no generation and dead batteries.
The study authors considered weather like we had in February of 2021 and found that prolonged weather like we had then would leave us with a shortfall of power (see screenshot 1 and look for the bit the authors highlighted in red, that's where demand exceeds capacity).
So, you have the hassle. You pay more. And you run the increased risk of unreliable power.
Thanks Gov Polis for putting us on this path.
https://i2i.org/wp-content/uploads/IP-4-2023.pdf
Special for Friday the 13th: a machine that scares the hell out of me too!
It's that time in the week again. Last one on a Friday so prepare for something for fun and not related to politics.
This will, again, also be the last one til Sunday. Stepping away from the computer tomorrow.
The video linked below is one of a series that this guy does, usually cracking wise about tools or "life hack" type videos.
This one popped up recently and gave me a laugh. Yeah, I've not seen a machine like the one in this video before either (I think it's some kind of old school motorized plane?), but it scares the hell out of me too.
Maybe if you wrapped my entire body in two layers of Kevlar you could get me to use it, but that's about the only way.
That thing looks like it would deli slice your hand in to stackable slices faster than you'd be aware it had happened.
I hope you got a chuckle out of the video (and maybe a touch of skin crawling too). Have a good Friday and back at it Sunday!