Joseph Krist
Publisher
In Europe and Canada, the 11th of November is Remembrance Day. A poppy is a signal of remembrance and a symbol of the individual sacrifices made by those who fought for their countries. Recently, like so many other things, the poppy has been under attack as a symbol of the causes people fought for rather than that individual sacrifice. By remembering their service and their sacrifice, we recognize the tradition of freedom these men and women fought to preserve. They believed that their actions in the present would make a significant difference for the future, but it is up to us to ensure that their dream of peace is realized. On Remembrance Day, we acknowledge the courage and sacrifice of those who served their country and acknowledge our responsibility to work for the peace they fought hard to achieve.
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CLIMATE CHANGE AND DISPATCHABLE POWER
One of the issues that complicates efforts to plan for and deal with climate change is the status of gas-fired generation. Is it – as advocates might claim – that natural gas cannot be part of a clean energy transition plan – or is it a key component of system reliability and availability while the transition to fully green energy unfolds? Is natural gas a useful less polluting component of a carbon-free future or is both its production and combustion dangerous contributors to climate change?
Those issues have complicated recent decisions by public utilities to incorporate natural gas into their energy generation portfolios. The decision earlier this year by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to replace coal-fired generation with natural gas-fired turbines generated much disappointment among its customer base.
Now a significant joint action agency utility is embarking on its own energy transition journey. Platte River Power Authority is jointly owned by Fort Collins, Loveland, Longmont and Estes Park. It has been operating under a plan to reach its goal of being carbon-free by 2030. PRPA has claimed that it is 88% of the way there in terms of contracted generation assets. Late last week, PRPA approved its plan to cover the last 12%. It rests on three legs – batteries, virtual grids, and a new, $240 million aeroderivative gas turbine facility.
PRPA set a no-carbon goal in 2018. Today, carbon-free sources make up 33% of PRPA’s portfolio. In 2024, it’s expected to be 35.8%. Currently, coal supplies about 47% of PRPA’s energy portfolio. It maintains ownership in three coal-fired generation units which are scheduled to close between 2025 and 2029.
In this case, the plan is to replace some of the coal power with power generated through aeroderivative gas turbines. In the latest effort to convert aircraft turbine technology to use for electric generation, aeroderivative gas turbines are to be used. The technology has been used on existing aircraft gas turbine engines. They are lighter and smaller than industrial gas turbines. Aeroderivative gas turbines are utilized in electrical power generation due to their ability to be shut down and control load changes faster than industrial machines. The dispatchability of the power is what makes the technology attractive.
One way PRPA is going to achieve cutting carbon emissions is through the closure of its coal-fired Rawhide 1 unit in Larimer County by the end of 2029. It’s also part-owner of two coal units in Craig that will close in 2025 and 2028. PRPA also has five older gas turbines at the Rawhide Energy Station. They were purchased in the early 2000s and have an expected life through 2040.
It receives hydropower through contracts with the Loveland Area Project and Colorado River Storage Project, wind power purchase agreements through the Roundhouse Wind Energy Center and Medicine Bow Wind Project and solar power purchase agreements with Rawhide Flats and Rawhide Power solar projects.
NATIVE AMERICAN SPORTS GAMING
In 2021, the State of Florida entered into a compact with the Seminole Tribe of Florida which provided that anyone physically present in Florida could place mobile bets at its casinos so long as the computer servers handling the transactions were on tribal land. The Seminoles sought the arrangement in the wake of the US Supreme Court’s 2018 decision overturning federal restrictions on sports betting.
That decision led to Florida voters approving a referendum that said expansions of legal gambling would require a further referendum. It did provide an exception for “the conduct of casino gambling on tribal lands” when approved under a federal law. The Seminole Tribe then undertook sports gaming operations via mobile phone. Two private casino operators sued and a federal district court judge found in their favor. That decision was reviewed and overturned in the federal appeals court.
The plaintiffs made an emergency application to review their appeal which said the 2021 compact violated federal laws and the equal protection clause of the Constitution. They cited racial and ethnic issues in that application. The two sides are summed up nicely in two comments released as part of the case. Justice Kavanaugh noted that “To the extent that a separate Florida statute (as distinct from the compact) authorizes the Seminole Tribe — and only the Seminole Tribe — to conduct certain off-reservation gaming operations in Florida, the state law raises serious equal protection issues,” he wrote. “But the state law’s constitutionality is not squarely presented in this application.”
The federal government position was that “the compact in this case is an agreement between two sovereigns — the State of Florida and the Seminole Tribe — concerning the tribe’s own conduct of commercial gaming operations within the state. “That agreement between sovereigns does not implicate race-based equal protection concerns. A sovereign government has no race.” It may not matter in the end as the Florida Supreme Court has yet to rule.
As the federal government notes, “If the Florida Supreme Court concludes that the Florida Legislature’s authorization of the placement of wagers outside Indian lands is not permissible under the Florida Constitution, that would afford applicants the relief they seek. That pending case provides the appropriate forum to resolve applicants’ claims based on the meaning of state law.”
WIND
Orsted is a Danish company that is a leading offshore wind farm developer. This week, it said that it would write off as much as $5.6 billion as it gives up on plans to build two wind farms off the coast of New Jersey. The two projects, known as Ocean Wind 1 and 2, were destined to provide green energy to New Jersey.
In the United States early contracts lacked protection from inflation and developers incurred high costs because of delays in approvals during the Trump administration. This week BP said it would write down $540 million on three planned wind projects off New York, after the state authorities declined to renegotiate their terms.
New York State declined efforts to renegotiate existing offshore wind power contracts, but a subsequent auction awarded deals to supply power at significantly higher prices and with various provisions to protect the developers from inflation. While it’s clear that offshore wind will have a major part to play in the move to clean energy, it is also clear that wind will not be as cheap as it’s advocates hoped.
NOT WHERE YOU WANT TO BE
Earlier in October, the U.S. EPA released an annual survey which shows the level of green house gases in the atmosphere as well as identifying the largest sources of those emissions. The data represents emissions from 7,586 industrial facilities across nearly all sectors of the economy and represents about half of all U.S. emissions.
The power production sector has been right in the lead in terms of public pressure to turn from coal and oil to other fuel sources. Within the power and oil production sectors, the top ten list of leading emitters includes nine utilities and one refinery. Only one generation plant owned by municipal market issuers made the list.
The Laramie River Station has three coal-based units: Unit 1 began operating in 1980; Unit 2 began operating in 1981; Unit 3 began operating in 1982. Laramie River is unique because it delivers electricity to two separate electrical grids. Unit 1 is connected to the Eastern Interconnection, while Unit 2 and Unit 3 are connected to the Western Interconnection.
The electricity produced at Laramie River is delivered to Missouri Basin Power Project (MBPP) participants: Basin Electric, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, The Lincoln NE Electric System, and the Western Minnesota Municipal Power Agency/Missouri River Energy Services. These are the only municipal utility credits to find themselves in this dubious top ten.
TNC SETTLEMENT IN NEW YORK
Uber and Lyft have agreed to pay their New York drivers $328 million to settle a wage-theft complaint charging that the companies collected certain taxes and fees from drivers rather than passengers. The action was brought by the New York State Attorney General. Uber will pay $290 million and Lyft will provide $38 million into two funds that will pay out claims from roughly 100,000 current and former drivers in New York State who are eligible to file.
From 2014 to 2017, Uber was accused of deducting sales taxes and fees from drivers’ payments when they should have been paid by passengers. From 2015 to 2017, Lyft similarly deducted an 11.4 percent “administrative charge” from drivers’ payments in New York equal to the amount of sales tax and fees that should have been paid by riders, the attorney general’s office said. Uber and Lyft also failed to provide drivers with paid sick leave.
Drivers in New York State and New York City are classified as independent contractors. This agreement between the state and the ride-share companies did not make any changes in the drivers’ classification as workers under state. The settlement comes as the MTA moves forward in its quest to collect congestion fees. One of the issues under consideration is the level and frequency of charges for TNC vehicles and who actually pays them – driver or passenger.
CONGESTION LITIGATION
The mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., announced the second lawsuit from New Jersey lawsuit challenging congestion pricing as an environmental threat. The lawsuit is a potential class-action proceeding on behalf of residents who have asthma as plaintiffs. It asserts that congestion pricing would increase pollutants like nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide in Fort Lee.
The lawsuit is a reaction to complaints from the chair of the MTA that the existing lawsuit from the State of New Jersy threatened the ability of the MTA to finance its capital needs. The suit seeks a “full and proper environmental study” and a monitoring program for people with respiratory problems resulting from additional traffic. It references agreed to aid to sections of the Bronx expected to experience extra truck traffic to avoid the fees.
The Mayor is upfront about the ultimate goal of the suit. It is to stop the fees. No surprise there.
TRANSMISSION SPARK
The Transmission Facilitation Program is an initiative at the U.S. Department of Energy. The program is the administrative framework for a $2.5 billion revolving fund to help overcome the financial hurdles associated with building new, large-scale transmission lines, upgrading existing transmission lines, and connecting microgrids in Hawaii, Alaska, and U.S. territories.
Under the program, DOE is authorized to borrow up to $2.5 billion to purchase a percentage of the total proposed capacity of the eligible transmission line. By offering capacity contracts, DOE aims to increase the confidence of additional investors and encourage additional customers to purchase transmission line capacity. The goal is to reduce the overall risk for project developers.
DOE announced that it is entering into capacity contract negotiations with three interregional transmission line projects: the Cross-Tie 500kV Transmission Line a proposed 214-mile,1500 MW transmission line connecting existing transmission systems in Utah and Nevada to increase transmission capacity, improve grid reliability and resilience, relieve congestion on other key transmission lines; the Southline Transmission Project (Arizona, New Mexico) a proposed 175-mile, 748 MW transmission line from Hidalgo County, New Mexico to Pima County, Arizona.
The Twin States Clean Energy Link (New Hampshire, Vermont) a proposed 1,200 MW high-voltage direct current (HVDC) bidirectional line that will expand the capacity of the New England electric grid and improve its resiliency, reliability, and efficiency by providing access to clean firm energy supplies in Quebec, Canada. One aspect unique to this project is the bidirectional design of the line. That will also allow the New England grid to export power to Canada when New England is producing more energy than it needs to meet its own demand, which is expected to occur as the offshore wind industry in New England expands.
NATIVE AMERICAN WATER
Earlier this year we reported on a SCOTUS decision which did not affirm the rights of the Navajo Nation to require federal funding for infrastructure to support withdrawals of water from the Colorado River allocated to the tribe under treaty. While direct access to the Colorado remains out of reach, other programs are developing other sources of water for the Tribe and infrastructure to access it.
The Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project is designed to provide a long-term sustainable water supply to meet the future (40-year) population needs of approximately 250,000 people in these communities through the annual delivery of 37,764 acre-feet of water from the San Juan Basin. These areas currently rely on a rapidly depleting groundwater supply that is of poor quality and inadequate to meet the current and future demands of more than 43 Navajo chapters, the city of Gallup, and the Teepee Junction area of the Jicarilla Apache Nation.
Ground water levels for the city of Gallup have dropped approximately 200 feet over the past 10 years and over 40 percent of Navajo Nation households rely on hauling water to meet their daily needs. This week an appropriation under last year’s infrastructure legislation was announced to support the project. The project will receive $164 million this year from the Infrastructure Law and the Reclamation Water Settlements Fund. Another $2 million will be directed to Navajo-Gallup Water supply operations, maintenance and replacement efforts.
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