Nuclear and Renewables

I've mentioned my interest in a residential microreactor for our farm in this series. Now we're talking ... several kilowatts you say...

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Ethanol and Carbon Sequestration

I found an article some months back on 'farming carbon". With the push in the midwest for an ethanol carbon pipeline (Im opposed, but probably for differnt reasons than most), I thought I would write my current thoughts on the subject. I've long opposed the use of eminent domain to build it. I also think the curent incentives offered to farmers to adopt practices to store more carbon in the soil are too low. The ethanol pipeline group reinforced that belief in winning an incentive of $85 dollars a ton for carbon sequested by the pipeline. When I checked a few months ago, some companies were offering carbon payments to farmers in the $15 dollar a ton range. Side note - A farmer friend who has been a no till farmer for more than 10 years applied and was rejected because the company only wanted "new" no till farmers.

Quick takeaways - Farms in South dakote are already storing some carbon , with much better potential. Instead of incentivising a pipeline , why not pay farmers directly to store carbon instead of a pipeline that tramples on private property rights. Would direct payments to farmers also in turn qualify ethanol as a low carbon fuel? I bet a researcher might prove I'm correct, but funding opportunities probably lie with the carbon pipeline or the companies offering to pay farmers currently.

I recommend the article, but here's some closing thoughts. Why didn't incentives for wind farm development (wind production tax credit) reward farmers to develop wind themselves to offset carbon , instead of large absentee corporations years ago ? Looks pretty similar to the carbon pipeline issue, but for the environmental groups laughably opposing the pipeline while cheering on corporate wind development. Also note the bipartisan pipeline efforts by the republicans such as the brandstands and tom vilsack's son. Farm groups have endorsed the pipeline as well instead of representing their farmers here. Why is that? I should tell the story about one major farm groups postion on Iowa wind development one day...

This photo is remind you to check out my featured post on wind farm property taxes ... I think you can guess I'm a huge proponent of farmers owning renewable energy tech instead of the largely corporate ownership in place now. I also detest calculating carbon offsets instead of just improving the environment and improving farm life... Sometimes though, someone does a much mich better job of putting my thoughts into words though, so please check this out.

Nuclear and Renewables

Another con with wind. Looks like not much has changed. tldr version ... Blades piling up because tax incentives caused wind developers to dispose of baldes prematurely. If you do check my past posts on this,This also probably resulted in a property improvement without an increase in property tax valuations. And tax incentives to replace blades were passed without consideration that little to no blade recycling options were available...just the landfill option. Plus there's the pesky wealth extraction that I noted in the previous post :). New article on wind turbine blade disposal that I found.

I wrote about this issue several years ago... here ...and here

Photo above explanation is in the featured post.

Nuclear and Renewables

So, to continue my thoughts on Nuclear and Renewables, pros and cons, I don't have an organized plan. Having done a few posts on nuclear, I want to switch to wind energy, and start with some cons. To date, most wind energy development in Iowa has been done by large absentee owned corporations. Most of the net profits leave the rural areas, leaving only property tax revenue, and annual lease payments to land owners. Many of those land owners are also absentee. Development has been done mainly at the industrial scale. Industrial is a word frequently used to criticize farming in Iowa by folks with connections to the environmental community, though most of these same folks remain silent or even actively promote industrial wind here in Iowa.

thoughts about Eminent domain - I'm always against private companies having eminent domain capability. I mention it here, because I think a lot of the environmental groups fighting the proposed ethanol - carbon pipline (eminent domain use) development proposed here, would quickly contradict themselves if, say, a private comapny wanted to use eminent domain to site a transmission line to expand industrial scale wind energy in the state. Note - I'll be posting about ethanol and carbon sequestration in the future.

So, having touched on the money flow out of the rural areas with wind, Let's talk more about if the revenue that stays (property taxes) is properly assessed. I've compiled a long list of instances in my featured post that causes me to think it may not be (midamerican or any other developer mentioned there is welcome to discuss this with me, and I'll happily correct - update the post if I've made an error).

The other local revenue that can stay local is annual lease payments for siting wind turbines on farm land. However 53% of Iowa land is not owned by the people that farm it , so it's safe to say all that annual lease income is certainly not retained locally as well. The other issue with annual lease payments, is that I'm guessing leases signed a decade ago (or more) have not kept up with inflation. Area farm news broadcaster Duane Murley, was interviewing an Iowa farm land auctioneer ( can't recall who) a few months ago. The auctioneer mentioned annual leases for wind turbines are as high as $20,000 per year, with one haveing an escalator that would eventually increase the annual wind lease payment to $36,000 per year. Check with Duane if you want more details. I'm guessing a lot of wind lease receipients might be disappointed with the income they are receiving for older wind leases in Iowa. Here I should mention that I hope that farmers receiving annual payments for carbon sequestration haven't entered into long term leases for for those programs (post on that topic coming as well).

edit - so the format won't let me keep this from displaying as a long run on sentence , so I'm adding some images to break it up a bit. The explanation for the pictures is in the featured post.

Nuclear and Renewables

I've promised to discuss claims made about wind , solar, battery storage,etc, but I thought that I'd do another on Nuclear before moving on. I'm not an expert on this tech at all, but I'm definetely wanting to learn more when companies are promoting decentralized uses for it. I recently (today) saw new info on micro reactors. I checked the company website and here is some of that info.

It's not new tech, They are using a design tested by the guv many years ago. I don't know why it wasn't adopted. Maybe it wasn't cost effective back then. Maybe the guv is slow walking things so the many companies benefitting from the current business as usual model are not affected (probably not). :)

About the size of a ski lodge, with production rated at 15 megawatts. This is the smallest micro reactor that I've seen (I'm guessing they can be made a lot smaller). As a farmer, I would love a smaller scale one of these... In this case , an oil company is in talks to use these in remote locations.

Tracy is a good one to follow for info on the energy business. So who knows, maybe we'll see break throughs yet on this tech (even if 60 years late ) :). Sometimes the people who say things can't be done, get passed by people doing it.

Last of all, (and maybe most important) it appears this design can use used reactor fuel, and it doesn't produce high grade fuel that can be used for other things. I would think that might greatly simplify the regulatory process, but it still looks like several years before we'll know anything definite. Isn't 60 years enough? :)

edit- I should mention that I wrote an opinion piece years ago when the fukashima disaster happened in Japan (it probably can still be found online). It was pro distributed generation and not friendly to nuclear. If this micro scale nuclear design will really shut down safely in emegency situations,and can be done in a cost efective manner, I may need to update some past opinions. edit 2 - I didn't realize that Oklo was backed by Sam Altman, so it seems that Oklo is probably more interested in data center sized reactors than than the micro size than I'm interested in ... wanted to mention that.

Nuclear and Renewables

Is the Gov getting interested in microreators (I've had my terminology wrong calling them small modular) I hope so. Maybe the farm will be nuclear powered yet... :). See my previous posts on this subject. I was only being semi serious with these posts, but open minded.

Grid Security ? How Are We Doing?

Back in 2016, I posted this take on the condition of our electrical grid security. Not really my strong area of expertise, but I thought I'd take a stab at it. So several years later, how are we doing? Well....

This article that I found online seems to show little progress,a new threat was identified with the remote control of substations by countries who may not like us, though I think I noted risks involved in having our substations manufactured in other countries. So the problem was identified, executive order given to address the issue, then recinded by the current administration.

Also little progress on protection from solar storms, emp s, and low tech threats, though a surisingly "affordable" idea was mentioned for solar storm protection. Yet, no action...

So who are the groups oppsing progress here, Companies who profit from business as usual? maybe environmental groups who recieve funding from those companies ? Think tanks (who are funders?) ? I'll leave it to readers to draw your own conclusions, But I'd advise people to make plans to their homes and businesses to be able to generate their own electricity for extended periods. Yet another reason why I remain a fan of distributed electrical generation. Also please check my featured post on property tax shennanigans . The following photo is explained there.

Nuclear and Renewables

Nuclear proponents have been really touting that tech online lately. It would be nice to be able to stop events like this from happening.If a distributed - farm scale powerplant ever became available, it would be nice if it wouldn't turn the farm into a superfund site. :)

Nuclear and Renewables

My last post was a serious one,although the sarcasm was pretty heavy. I really don't expect the regulatory environment to allow distributed scale nuclear installations anytime soon. However, I'm guessing it wouldn't be impossible to scale down compments to distributed scale.Here's an example, though the scale is still quite large that touts its ability to supply electricity, district heating, desalination , etc. Kind of sounds like my swimming pool idea in the previous post. Here's another example - 1 megwatt At any rate, I feel that most of the new energy tech breakthroughs these days favor distributed applications. I'll be including some examples in upcoming posts. I've also promised to offer some critiques on other energy tech besides nuclear. They are upcoming as well, although you could start with my featured post, listing some amazing inconsistencies with MidAmerican energys reporting of wind property taxes. As I have mentioned before, Mid American,county officials, state regulators, etc are welcome to comment on that information and I'll include their comments here. In short, if anyone sees problems with my calulations or wants to assist in getting to the bottom of this issue. Please submit some info. In the meantime, the explanation for this photo is in my featured post as well.

I haven't sent this property tax information to the state ombusman office... and Iowa has a new elected attorney general. Maybe it's time to ask reach out there again. Thanks for stopping by.

Nuclear and Renewables

Yeah, nuclear is not really my expertise, but I thought that I might comment on all the online " debate" over whether the grid should be powered by nuclear, wind solar battery, fossil generation, or grid demand managaement,and what mix of these. Proponents of these positions are usually inflexible, and I frequently get the feeling that they omit facts in order try and make their case. I have questions... so let's start with Nuclear. One of the issues that I've heard with nuclear is that it is unable to ramp output up and down fast enough to respond to wind and solar variablity. That job ususally is done by natural gas generation. Not much info to be found on this subject, but I did find this post on thirdway.org saying no problem ! I found another one from Germany that wasn't so sure.

Next question What happens when things go wrong? As covered by this post on Twitter.

And what about those small nuclear reactors that I keep hearing about? proponents claim saftey issues and ramping issues can be addressed by these, But how small can they be ? Can i install one at the farm and and get electricity, and maybe free heat for the house and a pool? Just spit balling here. Could I sell any excess power to the grid for a fair price? If a sfety issue rose, it seems like it would be easier to remove a tiny reactor than a utility scale one. I'm well documented on my support of and belief in distributed energy. So here I'll mention Mr. Shellenburger, whose hard core endorsement of nuclear only seems to advocate for centralized nuclear generation. Really now, how small can these things be made? And it would be interesting if he would address my security concerns with an overcentralized grid (apologies if he has done that). And in the link above he also is dissappointed on dependence on imported energy. I truley don't understand stopping natural gas production in Europe either, until other options are ready.but as for german reluctance on using nuclear,I remember reading that Germany recieved some fallout from the chernobyldisater years ago. Hmmm, can't find it currently . Sorry about the snarky ness, but maybe these questions should be answered. Oh and I'll probably be devoting some time asking some questions to proponents of the demand management, wind - solar , Fossil folks as well. I know that not many people seem to read blogs anymore, So I'm probably at the "tldr" length so I'll call it a day. If you have any comments or useful info on my questions above I'll probably include them if you aren't bugging me about investment schemes...

Monopoly Utilities And Solar In Iowa

I wrote this post about MidAmericans effort to monopolize solar during last years state legislative session. Please check the other post. I mentioned that the surcharges the utility wanted to impose   were unfair to customers with solar, as customer owned solar provides a net benefit to the grid. I included information available online from the state municipal utility association that agreed with my position. Here's some more information from my REC newsletter that also supports my position.

 

 A distribution coop in northern Iowa mentions they buy wholesale electricity at 7 cents per KWH, and their solar array also offsets peak electric demand of 5 cents per KWH. That gets pretty close to most Iowa utilities retail rates. The information I posted previously was more detailed about the costs that utilities were avoiding, including calculating avoided peak demand from 2 to 3 PM at a much higher rate. The RECs generation arm may be able spread peak costs over their service territory, but I'm speculating . I still believe MidAmerican was full of it last year, and these utilities own information seems to back me up. Ample evidence that customer owned solar is offsetting peak demand liability for the utility. Yet, utilities in Iowa still assess demand charges to their customers who have solar 

So a group including solar trades associations, certain environmental groups, livestock groups, and probably some others have been negotiating with MidAmerican about this legislation, which stalled last year when a number of house Republicans wouldn't support the bill as written. The Iowa environmental council announced that a "deal" had been reach in their latest newsletter.

      Not much for details, but it looks to be solar only. Why are they excluding wind, anaerobic digesters,etc? It also looks like future customer owned solar will be treated differently than current ones. Current net metering Iowa law only applies to rate regulated utilities, so probably half of Iowa doesn't have net metering now. The agreement also states an intent to move to value of solar tariff.
I've been a proponent of fair electric pricing for non utility owned generation, but not a tariff just for one technology (solar). I see a lot of wind turbines installed by livestock barns and I'll bet many of them are not able to use net metering. Heck, what if a group of farmers want to build a wind project in the megawatt range?
Doesn't look like a good "deal" to me.

The legislature seems to have the ability to require all Iowa utilities to offer net metering.  A good friend wrote this work. He can contact me if he wants credit.

   
 With these legal precedents (I'm not aware that purpa has been gutted) Senator Joe Bolkcom drafted a bill to require net metering statewide. It was one of Gov. Chet Culver's campaign goals. Democrats couldn't get the bill out of a subcommittee, despite controlling house , senate, and governors office.
See why I occasionally question if MidAmerican has too much influence at the statehouse?
Here's the work sheet for the solar bill. Net metering in Iowa (for those who have it) has been increased to 1 megawatt, but you get the picture.

    

      

Opponents to the MidAmerican bill last year also took to using new messaging , saying MidAmerican shouldn't be allowed to monopolize the solar industry. There was no outcry when legislation was passed years ago that allowed MidAmerican to monopolize wind in Iowa, and I would imagine some of these same groups supported that legislation. By the way legislators, It's not too late to pass legislation for distributed wind not owned by utilities. 

  

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I served with Laura on the IEC board of directors. I resigned several years ago. Laura has a different take on the "deal"   

So , I can't get excited about this "deal" 

Cons-only written for one technology, and only one kind of distributed generation - behind the meter installations . What else was agreed to that the kids and grandkids above might not like?

Pros- not much, Iowa fell short when they passed net metering in the 80s. The "deal" falls short again. After the court cases mentioned above were reached, it seems that we could get better distributed generation laws in Iowa. 

This doesn't look like it makes any significant progress for distributed generation not owned by utilities.

I'll be keeping an eye on this.    

  

Iowa Utilities Board Opens Docket On Wind Turbine Blade Disposal

The IUB has opened a docket on "disposal of wind facilities", as noted in the email I received today.

 I'm guessing this has to do with the MEC wind turbine repower and resulting blade disposal issues .
My previous posts on this subject can be found here. The link in the email was functioning earlier, but when I returned tonight to read it, it's gone and no mention of the docket number shows on the IUB search engine.

 

I guess I'll have to try and find the previous board order on the MEC repower also. I'd be surprised  if this issue hadn't been thoroughly investigated by the board in the repower docket, or other previous wind dockets for that matter. Maybe the board feels that previous testimony by the utility wasn't accurate in light of the blades getting land filled, but we won't know the reason for the docket until the board order is accessible and the docket proceeds.

The des moines  register covered wind turbine blade disposal back in November. I believe the article quoted a MEC employee stating what amounted  the industry had hoped that recycling options would be available when needed So I'm wondering what the utility told the IUB in the repower docket.
I'd encourage readers to check out dm reg article. The Iowa Environmental Council, who supported the wind repower, is also quoted in the dm reg article. The disposal of the decommissioned wind components was surely discussed in detail. If not, why not, Did the board and interested parties do their jobs and research this?  Please check the link above to my previous posts for more information on this topic.

While the register covered the blade disposal issues, it makes no mention if they contacted the IUB for information on what the repower docket specified on parts recycling. It also mentions that the repower was done at no cost to the rate payer, though federal tax credits were used, so the tax payer is paying for the repower. Also, since the counties that are home to the wind facilities have been denied additional property tax income from improvements resulting from the repower so far, the counties loss seems to be MEC's and the rate payers gain.

The DM reg also made no mention of the numerous MEC property tax irregularities I've found (also lost revenue to the counties?). I contacted Donnell Eller, the writer of the blade disposal article above, about the property tax issues I've found back in 2017, She never replied, but since I posted about MEC land filling their wind turbine blades in May of 2019, I guess I'm now wondering if the register found the blade story on my blog and didn't give me credit :) .

 She definitely received the email.

The dm reg is welcome to contact me . I'd gladly assist them in a more thorough covering of these issues.  There's a whole lot more to the MEC wind story than what's appeared in the print and tv media.
As this  IUB docket proceeds, I'll throw in my 2 cents as I did in my previous posts. Don't let the utilities land fill 10 year wind turbine blades when they told the IUB that the blades would last 30 or more years. Maybe recycling solutions would be avail in that 30 year time. And... solutions to this issue are clearly needed. I'll also again mention that Warren Buffets utility (and Alliant) can afford to properly dispose of their wind turbine blades. Since they have essentially achieved a monopoly on wind generation in Iowa, they should figure out a solution to blade disposal. It seems that Buffet's utility could also afford to accurately pay the taxes, Not sure that is happening with all the irregularities I have found.

UPDATE -The IUB link is back up this morning. Yes, it's the blade disposal issue that caused the IUB to start this proceeding. Really? This wasn't sorted out before the utilities were given the go ahead to repower? The enviro groups that endorsed the repower didn't research this? Here's the order.

  

More to come, including updates about MECs effort to kill net metering in Iowa last year, and a more complete list of the public officials that have been contacted about the MEC wind property tax irregularities that I've found.

  

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MidAmerican Wind Repower

Above picture taken at the MidAmerican Pomeroy project.


So, how is MidAmerican disposing of the blades from their wind repower?  At their project near me, Contractors told myself and several local residents, they were to be land filled in southern Iowa some where. If true, that raises a lot of additional questions. Previous posts about the wind repower here noted the utility submitted filings at the state utilities board that properly maintained wind turbines have a life span of 25 years or more. Yet, since the repower was approved, many of the replaced blades will be retired a decade or more early because of the utilities desire to take advantage of federal tax credits.

My previous posts on this subject noted the lack of discovery available to local governments on taxable property added with the repower and rate increases for consumers. Now there is a disappointing equipment disposal on a touted green energy project?

I'll probably do some additional digging here. Did MEC tell the state utilities board that the blades would be disposed of this way? Did the environmental groups that supported this repower know the blades would be land filled? Did these environmental groups negotiate for options besides disposal?
Did they ask? Did entities purchasing green credits from MEC know of the blade disposal method ?

So, the issue about what to do with retired wind turbine blades is admittedly a difficult one, as this article notes. However, a good place to start would seem to be not retiring turbine blades early just to qualify for a tax credit.

 

Of course, comment is welcome from MEC to clarify if the blades are really being disposed of in this manner.   As MEC also promised to contact me about the property tax issues I've wrote about here, (they haven't yet) I may be waiting a while .

UPDATED

I noticed this issue getting discussion on agtwitter.
So, yeah , it's twitter , be prepared for lots of politics and opinions (and anger)  on renewables , but I thought these comments were relevant to my post on this. 

 

 

So, I should check out nearby Fort Dodge for the salvage yard.

Since they felt obliged to put up a sign, these blades are evidently causing lots of discussion.

Yet this trucker comment on this thread notes his fellow trucker friend is hauling Iowa blades to a Nebraska land fill. This matches what contractors have told numerous residents near MidAmerican's Pomeroy project.

So, when things like this happen (repower decision driven by tax policy?) It's another reason why we need a local owned renewable policy , instead of one controlled by monopoly utilities. Of course, if MEC would simply go on record about how they're disposing these blades, it would solve a lot of the speculation here. I haven't seen MEC do that yet, so if anyone has seen otherwise, please send it my way.


Here's my periodic reminder that I'm a big renewable energy lover. It's just time we move beyond the current renewable policy into a more distributed, locally owned policy. 

In the meantime, IMO, Warren Buffet's utility company should be able to afford to properly dispose of their wind turbine blades, and accurately pay their taxes.  As usual, MEC is welcome to provide more information,  about the blade disposal, and the wind tax issues I've wrote about.

   

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