Activists are from Venus, Engineers are from Mars, Part One

Some of you might remember the 1992 book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by American author and relationship counselor John Gray. If not here is a brief Wikipedia summary, “Gray wrote the book after he had earned degrees in meditation and taken a correspondence course in psychology. The book states that most common relationship problems between men and women are a result of fundamental psychological differences between the sexes, which the author exemplifies by means of its eponymous metaphor: that men and women are from distinct planets—men from Mars and women from Venus—and that each sex is acclimated to its own planet's society and customs, but not to those of the other. One example is men's complaint that if they offer solutions to problems that women bring up in conversation, the women are not necessarily interested in solving those problems, but mainly want to talk about them. The book asserts each sex can be understood in terms of distinct ways they respond to stress and stressful situations. The book has sold more than 15 million copies and, according to a CNN report, it was the "highest ranked work of non-fiction" of the 1990s, spending 121 weeks on the bestseller list.

Lately I have been wondering if this metaphor also applies to environmental activists and engineers working in the energy industry. I have to admit that I am not usually in the habit of watching TEDx talks on YouTube by environmental activists. But my participation in the SPE Gaia Measure What Matters study group has encouraged me to try and take a look at the Energy Transition issue from other perspectives. I stumbled onto this talk by Michael Shellenberger and was really surprised by his message.

There are books by “question the climate science” authors like Steven Koonin (Unsettled), and fossil fuel defenders like Alex Epstein (The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels) but Mr. Shellenberger looks at alternative energy from a very different lens (“Why renewables can’t save the planet”) with tons of environmental street credibility. These gentlemen have taken a lot of heat from climate scientists and environmental activists, but with my Martian engineering brain they make some sense to me. “Questioning the science is how you do science” if there is an objective, open forum to discuss the issues. I guess you are never too old to learn something new. I wish my brain was bigger, I get headaches thinking about all this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-yALPEpV4w

Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine Hero of the Environment and President of Environmental Progress, a research and policy organization. A lifelong environmentalist, Michael changed his mind about nuclear energy and is advocating against the premature closure of nuclear reactors. But even this message is not well received in many activist circles. ?

And then there is the economic debate: in his latest "My Take," "Varney & Co." host Stuart Varney warns of “skyrocketing electric bills as the Biden team seeks to please the climate crowd's green energy demands. I've been hearing from my relatives in Britain. They're not happy. Their electricity bills have doubled in the last two months. They are paying the price for the U.K.'s ultra-green policies. Britain is very green. It prides itself of being in the vanguard of the climate fight. Now they've got to pay for it. Same here.?Your electric bill is going up, a lot. It varies from state to state, but in New England, New York and California, you're looking at a nasty spike. We are paying the price for the climate crowd's green dreams and now there is recent alarms from electricity suppliers from California to Texas about the potential of “brown outs” this summer as electricity demand exceeds supply. Repeated citizen demands for climate legislation, divestment plans for universities, the fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty, even the IPCC’s own findings — all founder against the bulwark of entrenched economic interests. “Kayaktivism” and other more benign forms of protest make for good television footage, but result in no real change.”

I don’t want to cherry pick my arguments in this article but even in my backyard (Colorado Springs Gazette March 28, 2022) Xcel (the largest utility in the state) wants to close the $1B Comanche power station Unit 3 near Pueblo. The Colorado Public Utilities Commission tabled a request by Xcel Energy to shorten the operating life of the Comanche power station’s Unit 3 near Pueblo, the last of three generating units built at an estimated costs of $1.3 billion and shut it down by 2034. The current Xcel 2021 Electrical Resource Plan agreed to shut down the Comanche 3 unit by 2040 to meet Xcel’s clean energy target of an 87% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030.

State energy regulators are considering the proposal to shut the plant down decades earlier then its useful life at a time of soaring energy bills primarily driven by wild fluctuations in natural gas prices, record-setting inflation and global uncertainty following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Comanche 3 generating unit went into service in 2010 after five years of construction. At the time the first new coal-fired electric generating station built in Colorado in nearly 30 years, it was projected to be operating until 2070. The design included advanced emissions controls that reduced sulfur dioxide by 65% and nitrogen oxide by 30% while doubling overall generating capacity. The advanced system also uses about half the amount of water normally required. The Comanche Station units 1 and 2 were commissioned in 1973 and 1975 and are scheduled to shut down in 2022 and 2025 after some 55 years of operations.

As part of its 2021 case, Xcel asked for permission to keep track of and defer the costs it faces for “preparing and litigating this proceeding” so that it can ask the commission for permission to charge ratepayers “in a future rate proceeding,” rather than absorbing those costs. Xcel also asked the commission to “recognize the financial implications of adding stand-alone battery storage resources and accordingly authorize future rate base inclusion of capital leases as necessary to effectuate the acquisition of certain stand-alone battery resources.”

In addition, it asked the commission to authorize “a certain ratemaking treatment” to pay to investigate “the feasibility of certain long lead-time generation resources to achieve carbon reductions beyond 2030 and for associated costs.” It appears that Xcel wants Colorado ratepayers to pay for the company to look at other resources, such as small modular nuclear reactors, something the Colorado Energy Office shows little interest in. Xcel is vying to operate a small modular nuclear reactor station being planned by a consortium of Utah communities to be built in Idaho.

The primary motivator for this 2021 rate case and coal plant closures is Governor Jared Polis’ determination to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and sweeping new laws enacted in 2021 by state lawmakers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions statewide. Supporters of the move away from fossil fuels have argued that, while painful, the transition would result in cleaner forms of energy that would help slow or stop climate change and wean the US from foreign-based energy sources. Critics, however, say the transition to alternate forms of energy is a costly and unnecessary experiment, with some Coloradans bearing the brunt more so than others.”

This Energy Transition is not off to a good start after COP26 in Glasgow. There is going to be a pretty significant cost to deal with and some real base load problems at least at the beginning. Getting the balance right will be difficult and the politics can get ugly. The activists say we are not moving fast enough and the engineers are trying to figure out how to keep the lights on.?