Rare truth escaping from Polis' mouth (heat pumps aren't our saviors?). Then let's pick apart the CEO's report to the Public Utilities Commission. Hint, you'll be paying more for energy!
Some rare truth sneaking out of our governor's mouth.
If you're worried, don't be. The Sun's Michael Booth made sure to hide it in his article (linked below).
Governor Polis recently doled out some of your money to fund geothermal efforts around the state. The money will mostly go to exploratory projects (meaning it will be spent to see if ground source heat pumps and geothermal energy is possible, not to install much) around the state with a few scattered things actually getting built here and there.
In in the article (see the attached screenshot for how far you have to go to find it--sorry for the awkward image, I literally could not zoom out enough to actually fit the article in one screen to show you how far down this quote is), Polis spits out something that skeptical Coloradans likely already suspect.
Quoting:
"Colorado cannot supply a major portion of its energy needs through geothermal in the way countries like New Zealand or Iceland have, Polis said. But a few percentage points of geothermal contribution are important in helping to lower emissions in some corners of the economy that are hard to decarbonize, and can provide support for the electric grid at moments when solar and wind are not generating."
And, you'll get to fund these few percentage points by having less money to spend on your own family and your own family's energy needs. With prices rising and expected to continue to rise, this will be even less pleasant.
One last thing to leave you with. Below the quote above, you'll read the following (again quoting):
"Waiting for the free market to develop geothermal on its own is not fast enough for Colorado’s needs, Polis said. Energy is heavily regulated, while developing long-term alternative sources takes technological and investment risk, he said. 'When they’re not as likely to engage in endeavors that are future oriented, then we might need to prove them out. So we’re going to prove them out,' Polis said."
Why are private companies not likely to engage in such endeavors? I.e. why wouldn't a company invest in a ground source heat pump? Why would an oil company not invest in exploring whether an abandoned oil well could be used as a source or heat and/or energy? Why isn't anyone drilling and then fracking** for deep geothermal energy?
Stubborness? Blindness? Not being (in an Obama-worthy phrase) "future oriented" enough?
Perhaps, but if you asked me to bet, the reason why is more likely related to how cost effective these things are and/or how speculative it is that investing millions now would give a good return. Companies aren't dumb and our world isn't the way it is because people don't have Polis' vision.
It is the way it is because thoughtful change, change that isn't rash (and thus expensive) is a process, a gradual change. Trying to speed that up will be both expensive and fraught with blind alleys and problems.
All I have to do is listen carefully for the "wonder" manifold heat pump in my building to know that. At it's time it was a wonder technology. We can transfer heat from one room to another?
What it has been in reality is a hugely-expensive piece of equipment that is as likely to break as to work. It was hugely costly to buy and install. It may be saving money on the heating/cooling bill, but that's mainly because it works about every other day in the winter.
Geothermal may one day be useful and a viable way to meet some energy needs. We ain't there yet.
**Yes, deep thermal energy harvesting requires fracking and increases the chances of creating man-made seismic events--think Rocky Flats trying to pump its waste into the earth and making Denver have earthquakes.
https://coloradosun.com/2024/05/24/colorado-geothermal-renewable-energy-grants/
Related:
Maybe it's just because journalists have memories like goldfish, maybe it's that they think you do, I'm not sure why, but I'll be damned if I'm not starting to see some reality creep into news about heat pumps.
Check out the quote in the screenshot (which comes from the article I reference in the main body of the post right above this).
I'll be dipped. I'm old enough to remember when "reporters" like Booth and our Governor were touting heat pumps as white-robed saviors, standing on a hill in a beam of sunlight here to save us and our climate.
Now we learn those things got feet of clay. Signs and wonders people. Signs and wonders.
Back in April the Colorado Energy Office (CEO) gave a presentation to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) about the governor's Greenhouse Gas Roadmap, a presentation called clean by 2040.
In this post and the one that follows I want to accomplish a couple of things.
I want to first give you some toplines from what caught my eye in the spreadsheets.
Then, for those interested, I want to give you a sense of how to navigate the COPIOUS amount of data in the actual report/spreadsheets.
Let's talk toplines here in this first bit. Linked below you'll find two things. The first is the presentation that the CEO gave to the PUC. The second is a spreadsheet that goes into numerical detail that the presentation glosses over (or presents as graphs).
The CEO (as is common in this game) modeled a few different scenarios for Colorado's energy future. The differing scenarios represent a different possible future. Those possible future's are shown in screenshot 1 which comes from p 10 in the presentation.
E.g. the Economic Deployment "Business As Usual" (labeled BAU-Eco later) scenario is the possible future where we continue on the path we have already begun. Contrast that with, say, the Demand Side Focus (DSF) scenario where we assume the state goes big on both distributed generation (rooftop solar panels for example) and lots of "demand response" where the utility greatly controls how much you use.
**Quick Note: business as usual doesn't mean we would necessarily keep coal and/or natural gas. It means we stay on the path Polis and the Democrats have already put us on.
Screenshot 2 shows a quick overview of the costs for all the scenarios. What you are looking at is net present value (NPV) in billions of dollars for the scenarios from screenshot 1. Net present value here so that you can see what these will all cost us in today's dollars.
Note that at the bottom there was a typo. The total cost should be a percent difference to the BAU scenario not to the Optimized 100% Clean (OT100) scenario. I highlighted this in blue.
See a pattern there? I do, several of them.
--No matter what we do, we'll be paying. A lot. Changing nothing from what we're doing right now. $43.1 billion by the time we get to 2040. That's $566 per year for every single Coloradan. You had that hanging around in your couch cushions for everyone in your family right? For every single year?
--That "a lot" from above? That's the low figure! Other scenarios just go up from there, by up to 30% or $735 per person per year.
--No matter the scenario, our state will have to import energy. That is, we will have to buy energy from another state no matter what we do. This means two things: cost and greenhouse gases. That's right. If we import from other states, states which don't have our rabid commitment to greenhouse gas reductions, we'll just be putting the greenhouse gases out in those states while they burn coal and sell power to us.
--In some scenarios, we import less power from outside the state, but we'll make up for that by paying more to build and maintain/operate more generation capacity here in Colorado. No free lunch folks.
--As measured by the nebulously--defined metric "Social Cost of Carbon", something you could consider a proxy for how much carbon we will be emitting under the various scenarios, we won't be reducing our carbon footprint that much. For example, compare the BAU to WSB scenarios. That has the biggest carbon reduction (about 14%) compared to baseline, but will cost us 29% more.
So, we'll pay. We'll pay more no matter what we choose since we're locked onto our current track (one way or another). We will pay other states to give us power while they emit carbon. We will pay higher prices to incrementally (and to a greatly smaller extent) reduce our carbon footprint.
Lest you missed it, let me just be clear. This is not Cory Gaines talking. These are not my numbers. I didn't massage anything here. I am just giving you an explanation of the STATE'S own numbers.
In the following part, I want to delve deeper into the attached spreadsheet of power data so you can get a sense of how to read and understand some of the data that informs the summary.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ad7pjVpdk0bTmIqB49S9uCS3e-7ViCmY/view?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BzHjNuv7sN3L4jVP9aMwVOoijroIz8Tk/edit#gid=1747960884
Related:
If you're more a video person than a text one, I recommend the two episodes of the Independence Institute Show "Power Gab".
Both deal with substantively the same issues you'll see in the report above: reliability and price.
Get ready. This post will be a challenge if you're not a numbers person.
That's okay though, because if you can come through it, on the other side you'll find that you can better join the conversation and understand what politicians and media are telling you (and what they're not).
Go slow, read, let it marinate, and then come back for another round.
The resources I put in this post are the same as before. They're linked at bottom again for convenience's sake: the presentation and spreadsheet of modeling scenarios from when the Colorado Energy Office (CEO) presented to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC).
I brought screenshot 1 back too so it would be easier to look back and see what the different scenario titles are (e.g. the BAU is the Business As Usual scenario--how our future would look if we stay on the current path Governor Polis and the Democrats put us on).
What I want to accomplish in this post is to dig deeper into the data that the CEO presented to the PUC. With reams of numbers it's not really feasible to go through everything, so I will try to teach you how to fish so you can find things for yourself. If what you are interested in are top lines, go to the post prior to this one.
If you open the spreadsheet linked second below, you'll see what I have in screenshot 2. This is the same summary page I reference in the previous post. At the bottom, however, you'll see something NOT in that post. I highlighted the tabs that let you toggle around to see the various modeling scenarios.
From here forward, I'll focus on the first one, the "Business As Usual" (BAU-Eco) scenario. The various columns will be the same for all scenarios.
The first, and perhaps most important, group of data that you'll see when you go into a modeling scenario is what you see in screenshot 3. This gives the predicted amounts of energy by type and year (year runs across the top and type runs vertically down).
For example, if you follow the red arrow, you'll see that in 2023 we had 15 TWh (tera-watt-hours a unit of energy) of wind capacity in Colorado. This is predicted to stay level until 2025 when they predict we'll produce 15 TWh and then it goes up from there.
You can scan across by energy method to see the predicted amounts over time and year. If you use the tabs at bottom, you can see what different scenarios (possible futures) would look like.
Stay with me on screenshot 3. Look at the bit in blue. That is the predicted amounts of energy storage we'll have by type. If we are to get to using renewables, we'll need this.
Look now at the bit in green. These are things that YOU will have to contribute either by having Xcel monitor/control your energy use and/or by having to pay for energy efficiency upgrades.
Lastly, and really important, take a look at the bit in yellow. That last row? It's how much energy our state will have to import from elsewhere. We will have shortages, we will have to import.
Screenshot 4 (and note that you'll need to scroll a ways to see this it starts about row 256) shows something called the Effective Load-Carrying Capacity (ELCC) as a percent.
ELCC is a number that shows you how much of a given capacity you can depend on. For example, right now (2023), for every 100 MW capability of wind turbine we install, we can depend on getting 14.8 MW. For every 100 MW of natural gas generation we install, we can depend on 95W.
As I have written, wind and solar are not very energy dense and that shows up here. And if you read across the rows (as I hint at by highlighting), this will not change. Their low density is not a matter of perfecting. To get big enough USEABLE quantities of power, we'll need lots of wind and solar.
Interestingly, the short term 4 hour batteries to store up the electrical energy and release it in bursts as needed (see further down the rows) are also pretty low density.
Lastly, take a look at screenshot 5. You'll again have to scroll to get there (row 425), but we finally arrive at the money. There are more cost breakdowns above this, but this is the total. How much to run and buy this stuff.
Numbers are there, pretty self-explanatory, so not much to run through (save for the eye-popping amounts).
I hope this quick rundown gives you a good start on reading the numbers so you can join the conversation and get down to firm ground instead of just depending on what the news and politicians say.
If you found an interesting pattern, or something you think is worth sharing, please add to comments and/or point it out to me.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ad7pjVpdk0bTmIqB49S9uCS3e-7ViCmY/view?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BzHjNuv7sN3L4jVP9aMwVOoijroIz8Tk/edit#gid=1747960884