Air Quality Control Council's expensive new ruling to eliminate gas-powered equipment (and your chance to talk back). And, finally, including the cost of renewable's intermittency in their cost.
The AQCC’s rushed process to clamp down on gas-powered building equipment.
Take a look at the quote I attached in the screenshot, in particular, take a look at the part I underlined.
Our state, from legislators down to regulators, is pushing hard on climate change. And they seemingly are not open to a more considered approach, one that would respect both a need to address climate change AND a need to live in the here and now.
The op ed below updates something I'd posted about before: the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission is not going to proceed at their previous breakneck pace, but they are still moving quite quickly to clamp down on buildings with costly new regulations regarding the buildings' infrastructure. That is, they've added one more meeting to give people a chance to talk.
One more meeting. One more whole meeting to let people discuss the gigantic economic burden they propose to put on everyone.
I echo and strongly agree with the contentions made by the apartment associations in the quote above. I would go further, too, and say that their words could just as well describe the last 4 or so years for environmental policy in the entire state.
As an appointed board, it's hard to do as much to hold them as accountable as it would be if they were elected, but that doesn't mean you can't speak up. Remember my post earlier about the nuns who bought stock so they could confront corporations they disagree with?
This is an example of something where you could give a (civil) piece of your mind to the bureaucrats that propose to make your life more difficult.
They will have a meeting in August and I encourage you to join me in signing up to give comment during that meeting. The August session is not up yet, but I linked to the AQCC's webpage below the op ed. Bookmark it and check back late July.
https://denvergazette.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-costly-colorado-energy-regs-loom-anew/article_89f4cebd-b2d1-52f4-a8ec-6166ffcf2b0a.html
https://cdphe.colorado.gov/aqcc
Related:
A good deal of my own thoughts on climate change are informed by the idea that the current climate predictions blow the problem completely out of proportion in both scale and timing.
The post below delves into that in more detail. Whatever your thoughts on climate change, do your due diligence and read widely. And, in particular, you cannot get enough counterpoint to the relentless drumbeat narrative from our mainstream media.
An estimate of the cost of renewables, but this time taking their intermittency into account.
In the first story, I seconded a pretty bold claim by the apartment associations pushing against new rules regarding equipment and air quality standards for buildings in Colorado.
Go back and read if you'd like, but I can paraphrase it this way: the state is not considering the economic impact of this rule both in terms of its costs and also in terms of its purported benefits.
I can't speak for the apartment associations, but I can speak for myself and I'd like to give you an example of why I feel comfortable making a claim like this.
Let me walk you through the screenshot I attached from the newly-released report linked below.
Let's talk some prerequisite material first. The Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) is a way to do an apples to apples comparison of different forms of energy generation such as wind, coal, etc. Things can get pretty sophisticated, but the best way to think of how you arrive at the number is to take and add up all the costs involved in building and running some particular way of generating electricity and then divide that cost by the total energy output over the lifetime of that source.
So, let's skip lots of detail and keep our numbers friendly. Say that it took $100 to build a gas turbine generating station. It takes $5 a year to run it and the lifetime of the plant is 20 years. The total cost of the plant is then 100 + 5x20 = $200.
If the plant makes 400 megawatt Hours of energy in that 20 years, the LCOE of the plant is 200/400 = 50 cents per megawatt hour.
Prior to now renewables have had much lower LCOE's than fossil fuels or nuclear generation because of both government subsidies and the fact that they don't pay for fuel to operate.
Renewables don't generate electricity in the same way that baseline generation from fossil fuels or nuclear do. They only make power when the sun shines or the wind blows.
for the first time ever the Lazard group (who does reports on LCOE's) has included an estimate of the cost for renewables based on the the necessity for storage (or, equivalently, an estimate that takes into account the capacity factor, an estimate of how often the renewable will be generating).
That's what you see in the screenshot. Let me help you navigate what you're looking at.
First off the various boxes at the bottom (MISO, CAISO, etc.) just represent various groups that the estimate was prepared for. For example, CAISO is the estimate for California's electrical grid.
Within each operator, you have estimates for different types of renewables (wind, solar, and solar + battery storage). For each type of renewable you have two different estimates, one figured with a government subsidy and one without.
So, look at the part boxed in red. This is the estimate for CA's electric grid and gives an LCOE for solar energy generation plus storage.
The dark blue box ($67) is the LCOE for solar + storage without an accounting of the fact that solar makes no energy when the sun don't shine.
The light blue ($47) is the LCOE for solar + storage for without an accounting for the lack of solar with no sun BUT with the government subsidies figured in.
The tan values above each ($117 and $97 respectively) show the LCOE when you account for the fact that without sun we get no solar.
Laslty, the blue horizontal line represents the lowest LCOE for generating electricity using natural gas (and not the more advanced two stage turbines).
What's the point?
The base for natural gas generation is about $115 and for solar, factoring out the government subsidy and taking into account the fact that solar doesn't work without the sun shining, is almost the same at $117.
In other words renewables are competitively priced with fossil fuels apples to apples.
They are NOT as Polis and others in this state repeatedly claim, cheaper.
That's what I mean when I second what the apartment people are claiming. That's what I mean when I say that the politicians running this state are not being straight with you about the true costs of renewables.
They're not more expensive, but I'll be damned if they're cheaper! At least not by these latest numbers.
https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/2023-levelized-cost-of-energyplus/?ref=ctvc.co
Related:
Want another example of underestimating the impact of climate policy? Check the below.
https://denvergazette.com/news/business/costs-of-wind-and-solar-power-lines-underestimated/article_8c3bfc62-0e26-11ee-87df-77ad386f4a1d.html