The Zero Emissions Grid Demonstration Project Follies

I claim credit for being the first person to demand a demonstration project to show how a zero emissions electrical grid is supposed to work, before trying to build such a thing for our entire population of three hundred million as involuntary guinea pigs.

How could it be that lots of others haven’t been demanding this for years? It’s like everyone has lost their minds. Before climate hysteria set in, the idea of attempting an engineering project as enormous as a zero emissions electrical grid for the United States, or even for one state, without first having a functioning demonstration project, would have been completely unthinkable. But under the powerful sway of the fear of climate armageddon, the need for a demonstration project to prove feasibility never seems to occur to anybody. And thus trillions of dollars are getting spent — wasted — on facilities that anyone with a brain can easily see will never come close to providing a zero emissions grid — although building these facilities will greatly drive up the cost of electricity to consumers.

Let me then welcome an important new voice to the still tiny chorus of those demanding a demonstration project. The new voice is Congresswoman Harriet Hageman of Wyoming. (Ms. Hageman is the woman who took out the former Wyoming Congresswoman, Liz Cheney, in a primary in 2022.). Here is a picture of Ms. Hageman from her website:

Ms. Hageman went public with her demand at a town hall held this past Tuesday, August 6, in Jackson, Wyoming. She proposed that the ultra-liberal town of Boulder, Colorado, step up as the potential guinea pig. Wyoming-based news source WyoFile had the story on August 7, with the headline “Hageman proposes a Boulder, Colorado, fossil-fuel-free experiment.” Excerpt:

[Hageman] proposed a pilot project that would strip Boulder, Colorado, a progressive enclave, of its fossil fuel infrastructure — all to be replaced with windmills and solar panels on the city’s open space. “The pilot project is, you take out all their gas stations,” she said to a crowd of about 70 people in the Teton County Library. “We take away all their internal combustion engines — cars. We take away all of their highways and streets, because that’s all oil-and-gas-produced.” . . . “They’ve been a no-growth city for decades,” Hageman said, “so they have a lot of open space around them. We fill out open space with windmills and solar panels, and we’ll see if we can actually run a city of 100,000 people [with] no fossil fuels whatsoever.”

According to WyoFile, Hageman’s remarks drew a response of “applause and laughter” from the supportive crowd in Jackson. However, the WyoFile reporter took the proposal to a City Councilman in Boulder named Mark Wallach, and asked for comment. Wallach was not amused. Here is Wallach’s reaction:

“One of the things that makes people so leery of politics and politicians is when people make ridiculous suggestions like that,” [Wallach] said in a telephone interview with WyoFile. “Nobody on the Boulder Council suggested we can do without all the fossil fuels at this point,” he said. “We make efforts to do better — to recognize that climate change is real and we do things we can do to combat it.”

Well, Mark, what am I missing? If the good people of Boulder are demanding that the whole country be force-marched to a zero emissions future, why shouldn’t they be willing to step up themselves and show that the goal is feasible to achieve? A simple zero-emissions-grid demonstration project is all that it will take.

And, if I might make a suggestion to Ms. Hageman, there is no need to be punitive about this. The claim of the green energy advocates is that electricity from wind and sun are cheaper than electricity from hydrocarbon fuels, and that electric cars and electric heat will be cheaper and better than the cars and heat we have now. So there is no need to forcibly take away the cars and the gas stations. Just have them build the magical zero-emissions grid and, if they can do it, they will have plenty of electricity to power everything, and the gas-powered cars and gas stations will rapidly fade away.

The problem is that it is not going to be possible to build a zero-emissions grid. However, the people of Boulder clearly think that it is going to be possible, and I am perfectly willing to be proved wrong.

But my confidence that I am right only increases with time. The closest thing that the world has to an attempted demonstration project of a zero emissions grid continues to fail spectacularly. That would be the Gorona del Viento project on El Hierro Island in Spain’s Canary Islands.

I have written about the El Hierro project many times, and will not go into the full background here. Suffice it to say that El Hierro was absolutely intended to be a demonstration of a zero emissions grid. A facility of five large wind turbines and a massive pumped-storage hydro backup facility (Gorona del Viento) was built and opened in 2014. The website of Gorona del Viento continues to proclaim on its opening page: “An island 100% renewable energy.” Hah!

It’s an island of about 10,000 people. Average electricity demand is 4-5 MW, and peak demand is about 7.5 MW. Roger Andrews did an independent analysis of the project for the Energy Matters website back in 2017. They built wind turbines with nameplate capacity of 11.5 MW on a mountainside in the trade-winds zone — about the most favorable wind conditions in the world. The hydro storage facility has a capacity of some 270 MWh, which is about 54 - 68 hours of average usage. (By contrast, New York governor Kathy Hochul has a big storage initiative to spend about $10 billion to build one hour of storage.). Doesn’t it sound like El Hierro has what they need to make this work?

Here are the latest statistics from Gorona del Viento, for the full year 2023. The percent of electricity for the island supplied by the wind/storage system for the full year was 35%. The other 65% came from the backup diesel generator. The best month for the wind/storage system was July, when it supplied 62% of the island’s electricity. But then there was October, when it only supplied 10%.

How could they be failing so completely with so much excess generation capacity and a huge storage facility that no one in the world can duplicate? You’ll have to ask them. I’m just reporting the statistics they put out themselves.

This is the best that anyone in the world can do, at least so far. Boulder: it’s up to you to show how this can be done!

The French pretty much are commies and yet they built out 56 reactors at 18 power stations. Texas has two nukes with two reactors each they are making 6% of the grid right now. Those plants were designed to hold four reactors each. So we should put 2+2 on the existing sites.

Then we should ask the Canadians to come to the Texas Coast halfway between Corpus and Houston. Then have the Koreans send teams of builders to work with the Canadians. The Koreans have built out CANDU 900 for $2800 kw capex in under 60 months. Have them little guys build us a Bruce Power sized complex with 12 CANDU 900s that’s 10.8 gigawatts of 24/7 clean cheap power. CANDU reactors put 1.8 cent per kwh to the plant gate all day everyday for 80 years. Added bonus is being on the coast is use the waste heat from the turbines to run a rapid spray desal plant of epic size. RSD plants only need 50-60C water to run with a 30C ocean as the heat sink. That’s why the location halfway between Corpus and Houston you send fresh water to Houston,Corpus and inland to San Antonio then Austin it’s only 450 feet up hill to Austin or S.A. And under 200 miles as the crow flys. 10gw electric is 30,000mw thermal reject heat the amount of water that evaps is staggering. Texas could cut it’s natgas use for power by 1/3 and forever solve it’s freshwater issues with that one plant alone.

A plant that sized would cost 30.2 billion of the Koreans built it. Over 80 years that’s 31 million per month capex. A plant that sized makes 5.1 million per day in power sales selling at 2 cents per kWh half the current wholesale rate or 10.2 million per day at the current wholesale rate. Three days per month would cover the capex four if you finance it via the state at 5% bond rate. Of course O&M and fuel need to be added in. For a CANDU fuel is 3 tenths of a cent per kWh. O&M varies but is in the 1 cent range. The CANDU reactor is the cheapest O&M and fuel cost in the industry no one beats them and they cannot melt down with a giant water tank around the core that already is at the lowest level in the structure it can not leak away it pools in the same location. Passive boiling and condensation on the containment dome puts the water back to the sink without operator action. That’s assuming the triple back up other cooling systems failed beforehand. The only reason the USA uses PWR reactors is the enrichment plants were subsidized by us payers for the dod nuclear weapons program that’s it. Heavy water reactors are superior in every way to a PWR.

One of my homes comes close to what you ask right now. It has 15,000 watts on the house, 12000 more on the steel building garage/workshop. Two power banks of 30kw each second life LIon cells from the same group who I collaborated with for the panels. I routinely export more power per month than either of the structures use. August is one of my best export months and I keep my bedroom at 67F all day and 65 at night. It has a Mitsubishi split unit in it. The dual zone for the rest of the large home is 72/70 up down. AC is by far the largest power user but those are heat pumps so electric winter heat. We have natgas on site and propane from before they brought the gas grid to our exurban area. I have never had to use the resistance heat function even during mega freeze the Mitsubishi split unit works down to 5F in heat pump mode all be it with a COP near one. The grid was down so only the Mitsubishi was running to save power I didn’t own the power banks yet. The grid down was the reason those got added. Still don’t own them they are on lease for testing I’m also in the power industry so have a full LLC + TIN and access to wholesale. The banks are from a local solar company a former petroleum geologist coworker owns and runs. We have been torture testing them with daily cycles of 60% DOD way more than what normal over night off grid use would do to them. The whole point is push them to failure. Like Elon we test to fail and know the limits of the tech. They live in a separate cooled enclosure behind the steel building so they couldn’t burn anything down if they go up which we expect them to do so at some point. Should be spectacular when 60kwh worth of cells light off. So far they are happy as clams these cells came from two different EVs and are second life cells.

I lease a Tesla model 3 love that car it’s got FSD and 450hp of GTFO. My S60 is collecting dust in the steel building next to it. Even for road trips the FSD is just too addicting to give up. I’d rather stop once every three hours for 15 and not have to touch the steering wheel or pedals vs having to actually drive hands and feet on for five hours in the Volvo. The Volvo runs out of fuel in five hours seat time.

So my setup is really close to what you ask. The model 3 only ever sees grid power when on road trips, my home exports net energy every month including January the lowest energy use month but also the lowest sun month. I have three heat pumps and induction cooking inside the NOX of gas stoves messes with my asthma. Natgas is only outside kitchen 6 burner commercial grade dual oven, plus my dome pizza oven and tandoori oven both of those proudly made by my hands and sand plus fire bricks. Was it cheap no but having the ability to go off grid is priceless to a prepper like me. Panels were got wholesale at 15 cents per watt bulk on a pallet they are Taiwan based not chicom. Inverters were 18 cents per watt. Install I hired my own subcontractors for $15 per person per hour plus $20 for the foreman took them under a day to mount all the panels and run the wires to the box. My cousin is an electrician he did the inverter to breaker tie in to keep it legal. The power banks would be the most expensive part those are 50 cents a kwh or 30 grand capex for two banks at the rate of decline I am guessing they have 5 year left in them. But they are being used in a way few would ever use them. Off grid people have different use patterns vs grid tied. Hardly anyone is going to 60% DOD their banks every day that’s 36kwh over night when the sun’s down most homes use 30kwh or less all day. They are coming up on three years old so 8 year life span. At 60% daily DOD and 8 years till replacement that works out to 28 cents per kWh over an 8 year lifespan. That’s about average for off grid living costs. So for upper middle class it is not only possible but affordable today to go fully off grid.

I’m grid tied so I sell power at peak times and buy power in the middle of the night when wholesale wind power can be negative or close to zero. Oncor gets there distribution per kwh charge both ways the recipient pays but it’s always paid for every electron moved over their wires. This is why netmetering in Texas is never free Oncor takes a cut both ways. If you have a TIN you can sell to ERCOT not net meter but you still have to pay Oncor for transport well you don’t the entity buying the power does. With the flip of a switch I go off grid and could careless if ERCOT is messing up the grid which they are big time. Solar at the home level reduces or eliminates power use right when it’s the most stress on the grid. August in the afternoon with bright sun 100F and everyone’s AC maxed out. My home would be drawing 80 amps right now with AC loads. Instead I’m exporting 33 amps to the grid from my panels. That is why on-site solar makes so much sense in sunny Texas. I’m benefiting the grid right now not stressing it with high AC use demand. The power packs are full @80%SOC of sunshine already at the expected peak price point at 2000 tonight I’ll dump 50 amps an hour from them till they hit 20% SOC for their daily power dump cycle. Not everything is bad when it comes to renewable energy there is a use case for it.especially for those who can afford it. I’ll never have a power outage again and my Tesla is saving me $3600 per year in petrol costs. It already cheaper per month than the Volvo in payments. I’ll return it before it’s warranty runs out so it’s battery life is moot. I subcontract the car out to a neighbor kid who uber’s it a few days a week my cut of that covers the lease payments so really it’s a free car for me since it charges off my panels. I only pay the marginal cost of not selling that power to the grid.

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