Notes from the Republican Study Committee of Colorado
Hearing on the "No Energy Economy"
Speakers:
James Taylor, Senior Fellow at the Heartland Institute
He has a bachelor's in Environmental Science from an "Ivy League College" (which one he did not say.) In contrast, the speaker in the same slot at the PUC hearing was Dr Susan Solomon, who shared a recent Nobel Peace Prize for her work leading the IPCC report on climate change. He put considerable emphasis on where temperatures have been, but not on where they are going, and what are the drivers of temperatures. His idea of state of the art prediction of is to look at a graph, and do a linear projection from it.
His emphasis was on declining atmospheric humidity as a cooling agent, which he says accounts for less historical warming than the computer models used by the IPCC. If I were to grant all his assertions, that declining humidity has helped prevent recent global warming, what evidence do we have that his trend will continue?
What was quite scary, was how seriously the legislators were taking his testimony, and they were in fact leading him on. People believe what they want to believe.
Stan Lewandowski, IREA
Used cost comparisons which ignored fuel costs. Also ignored the potential of demand response and smart grid technologies to better fit demand to available power, and of energy efficiency programs to reduce overall demand.
He did agree with me about one thing, that "Clean Coal" is a political term, it does not currently exist, and won't be available for 20-30 years.
He likes to blame the recent rate rises IREA has had on the recent push towards renewables, but then he also laments that he's had to raise rate because of reliance on natural gas fired power which he buys from Xcel. However, he also says that most of the gas Xcel put in was installed because it was the low cost resource at the time. This is precisely the same argument he currently uses to advocate for more cola plants today.
How much Hydro is available in Colorado? Capacity of Glen Canyon has been reduced 400 MW because of water regulation.
Each $1/ton Carbon permit would be a 1% increase in rates for IREA.
John Harpole, Mercator Energy
Politics and Perspectives on Natural Gas From Russia to the Roan Plateau
Demand for natural gas is projected to double by 2050. Most natural gas controlled by people who don't like us.
US has about 9.8 years of reserves at current production rates... but shale plays are increasing reserves rapidly.
Nasdaq: LNG - Cheniere Energy (owns most natural gas terminals.)
Expect natural gas prices to decline in the near future? I wouldn't be surprised.
"We can drill our way through this."
"Only solution to back up wind is single-cycle combustion turbine." Ignores the following things: not all backup needs to be CT... only enough to meet quit demands... as you ramp up your combined cycle turbines, up can shut your CTs back down for future use. Also ignores demand response and CSP storage.
He argues that natural gas produces will leave if tax benefits are repealed... but the reserves we have here won't leave. If we need them, they can be profitably produced while still sending much needed income to the state Treasury.
12.5% load profile for wind (percent that is blowing at peak.)
Peg Rector - "Environmentally Conscious Consumers for Oil Shale"
Advocates production of Oil Shale as a domestic fuel source. As an advocate, she prefaced her remarks (which focused on the potential size of the resource.) Actually spoke a lot of sense in terms of the problems facing us (especially in contrast to most of the other speakers.) Her proposed focus on Oil Shale shows her lack of understanding of the science behind this particular "solution," but unlike the other speakers, she at least understands the size and magnitude of the energy problem (if not the climate problem.)
What's amazing to me (although I am sure it shouldn't be) is that these representatives are shocked at the costs of solar and wind, but are very open to proposing subsidies for oil shale... even though oil shale development is farther out in the future.
Mitch Mandich - Range Fuels
Can produce cellulosic ethanol from a variety of feedstocks: woodchips, MSW, switchgrass, miscanthus, olive pits, coal. Focussing on woodchips from Georgia and Colorado. Biomass to Syngas to mixed alcohols. Believe that full scale plant in Georgia will be the first commercial cellulosic plant (this is generally expected to be true.) Claims his process uses 2 gal of H2O per gallon of ethanol (vs. about 3 gal for gas or corn ethanol.) Talked about low environmental footprint, being net self-sustaining, and potentially being net electricity self sustaining by using a syngas turbine to provide electricity (this would of course reduce the ethanol output from the same feedstock, because the syngas can not be used to make ethanol if it's being used to make electricity.
100 MGPy plant will require 1 M tons of biomass per year. 1 ton = 100 gallons.
Tom Peterson, P.E., Executive Director of Colorado Asphalt Pavement Association
Challenges of the asphalt industry. 10 m tons of hot mix asphalt produced in CO each year. Hot mix industry is a customer of the refining industry. The residual from refining is bitumen... residuals of refining. About 3% of crude is asphalt. Heavy crude produces more bitumen, but asphalt supply has been reduced by addition of coking, since more of the bitumen becomes gas. There is also a polymer shortage (in the short term) for additive which increases life of asphalt.
I found the trade-off between refineries producing fuel oil or asphalt. Put another way, building less roads would increase supply of fuel oil for heating. At the moment, at least in Colorado this is not practical (and few Colorado homes are heated with fuel oil) because we are already behind in road maintenance for existing roads.
Low Sulfur mandates have reduced bitumen/asphalt supply.
Considers environmental fines and penalties excessive. Wants cost caps on any environmental regulation. Feels that there is a correlation between more roads and standard of living.
In my analysis, the peaking of oil supply will lead to a faster decline in the supply of asphalt. If oil supply has peaked, asphalt supply will decline faster than gasoline supply, as a large amount of the waste is converted by more expensive processes into fuel will lead to lower asphalt availability.
George Glasier, Energy Fuels Resources
Uranium producer.
US- world's largest consumer of Uranium. 439 Nuclear plants. US currently produces only 4.5 million lbs/yr, we're dependant on foreign sources for 90% of our supply. Due to supply-demand balance, we need more uranium mining, so Colorado mining is coming back.
Cost effectiveness of U vs others
Gas 90% fuel cost
Coal 60% fuel cost
Nuclear 10% fuel cost.
Hydro 0% fuel cost (and I'd add Solar, wind, and geothermal to this.)
Bob Ferguson, Science and Public Policy Institute.
Another climate denier... since he was the last speaker before lunch, I decided to pass on his presentation titled "the Negligible Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Colorado."
Howard Hayden, author of "A Primer on CO2 and Climate"
Basically threw up strawmen which he then debunked. I got tired of writing after a while.
Fallacies about Energy
Conservation Fallacies
Wind
Scott Moore - Anadarko Energy Services - VP of gas marketing.
My computer ran out of battery at this point, so I switched to paper notes.