In this installment of what I want to see in a Colorado candidate, we’ll deal with energy production, creating “potential”, and charting paths for transition.
In Colorado we have over 300 days of continuous sunshine per year. We also have a fair amount of wind. As a result, NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratories) is located in several facilities on the west side of Denver. Many of us have a first reaction of “Great! Let’s put up panels and windmills and we’ll be all set!” Unfortunately, this remains a very short-sighted and uninformed point of view. Here’s the rub: The sun isn’t always shining (yes, we too in Colorado have this thing called “night”). And the wind doesn’t always blow – or blow fast enough to generate the necessary power. These two challenges lead to our term of the day: Potential. For people my age, you feel like you’re in an episode of Schoolhouse Rock yet?
But what is Potential? Potential is the ability to generate power without having done so … yet. In a hydroelectric plant, it’s the stored water that hasn’t been sent through turbines yet. In the sky it’s the sun that’s on its way in the morning or the wind that is coming with the next passing cold front. We need potential, because our “Storage” capacity, well, is virtually zero. And no – a Tesla Powerwall is very limited on what it can store.
One more item to cover, so we all are clear on what I am looking for in a candidate’s energy policy: Hydroelectric. I love hydro. I do. But there are 2 reasons it has a dead-end in Colorado: 1. You can’t build so much as a beaver dam in Colorado without flooding an endangered ant hill or chipmunk burrow and then being tied up in court for decades by environmentalists until it’s not financially feasible to finish that dam. Despite the fact that both of those sets of inhabitants will, you know, move to higher ground and do just fine. 2. We don’t have enough water in this state any longer to even fill up existing storage (thank you, excessive growth factor and persistent drought).
The policy I am looking for a candidate to most closely match is as follows:
- Phase out coal-fired plants. This does not mean “shut them down tomorrow”. This is stupid, much like the current president’s take on this. We build no more of them, and maintain those in service until relaced, and convert some to cleaner burning technologies until that time which they are retired.
- We continue to support and expand solar and wind development and deployment.
- We build net-new natural gas-fired plants. We convert coal plants to natural gas when and if reasonable. Natural gas burns almost 8x cleaner, and is a reasonable transition path to guarantee base load, which we need where potential (there’s that word again) isn’t available.
- We build out hydro capabilities if possible. I’ve already explained why this may be impossible.
- Finally, and most importantly, we push hard to build out nuclear power generation. This generates totally clean power, and – AND – unlike in decades past – with continuous improvements in breeder reactor technology, not only can we extract over 100x more power from the fission process and materials, we can also cut waste and waste half-life to a fraction of what it is today. With current uranium and salt water uranium extraction potential, we have enough supply for almost 5 billion years of power needs.
We do need to transition away from fossil-based energy production, I agree. But we also need base load support that wind and solar are completely incapable of providing. Do not be fooled into thinking otherwise. And even if they could support that through improved storage capacity, the battery technology at scale needed would be devasting in terms of mining to the environment. Nuclear wins on all fronts.
Food for thought. Preferably cooked food … but only if you have power.
