While working through a historic budget reserve and several significant structural issues, Gov. Tim Walz and legislative leaders have indicated that adopting a standard for a 100% carbon-free electricity market will be at the top of the list of 2023 priorities.
Over the last 15 years, utilities and developers have invested significantly into renewable resources like wind and solar, which as resulted in Minnesota having one of the most diverse energy mixes in the Midwest. In fact, nearly 30% of electricity generated in Minnesota is from renewable sources.
This legislation, as designed in previous sessions, would recognize only wind, solar, and battery storage as acceptable forms of carbon-free energy. Both wind and solar are weather-dependent resources that require significant baseload power to ensure resiliency on the grid – meaning having power available 24/7/365.
The Coalition for a Secure Energy Future believes a 100% carbon-free future is achievable if policymakers look beyond wind and solar to other zero-carbon resources. For instance, large hydro and nuclear should be included in legislation as carbon-free energy. The other technology that should be included is carbon capture sequestration, or CCS.
CCS is a proven technology that removes carbon dioxide from emissions generated by fossil fuel resources like natural gas and coal. In fact, a power plant in North Dakota has been capturing and storing carbon dioxide for nearly 30 years. Furthermore, there are a half dozen local projects currently in different phases of engineering and development to deploy in Minnesota.
[image_caption]Luke Hellier[/image_caption]President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) recognized the potential for CCS to contribute to a carbon-free future. The IRA included numerous provisions and incentives for power producers to adapt existing power generation to include carbon capture. The Minnesota-based Great Plains Institute and the Carbon Capture Coalition were instrumental in working with policymakers to craft legislation that would create market-driven incentives that will work.
The Governor and legislature should think outside the box to include these other technologies to ensure long term that Minnesota has affordable and reliable energy to position our region to be globally competitive.
Luke Hellier of Lakeville, Minnesota, is executive director of the Coalition for a Secure Energy Future, a nonprofit working to ensure affordable, reliable energy for Minnesotans.
Take a minute and check our Mr Heiler’s “nonprofit’s website”
He forgot to include all the wonders of burning more coal as described in his website and left out of his paid opinion piece. By paid I mean he got paid to write it.
And where does this money come from?
Lignite Energy Council
“The primary objective of the Lignite Energy Council is to maintain a viable lignite coal industry and enhance development of the region’s lignite coal resources for use in generating electricity, synthetic natural gas and valuable byproducts.”
https://lignite.com/
So, if you can burn coal, and capture then store the CO2 what is the issue?
For one, it would probably be cheaper to burn natural gas and store the CO2 from that. Coal is already expensive compared to natural gas, wind and solar. Add CO2 capture costs and it’s not economically feasible.
If solar, wind, hydro and batteries can fulfill our energy needs, what’s the issue?
I guess some details in both our arguments remain…
They can’t totally fulfill energy needs. The grid still needs to be base loaded with something else. The grid has to be totally balanced with supply/demand at all times. Nuclear is the most obvious long term solution, but Minnesota foolishly has banned new nuclear reactors, regardless of what next generation technology is used.
And which other states do you see that have new nuclear plants up and running?
I agree with next gen nuclear.
I have no idea why MInnPost publishes what amount to industry PR press releases. Is it that it generates site activity? In search of “balance” in the opinion section?
Well, it’s not like they even have to buy ink by the barrel.
I have no problem with the principle of publishing this, I would just hope that MINNPOST would encourage / require the authors of pieces like this to defend their ideas by engaging with the commentariat.
Offer two choices:
1. Pay the going ad rate and identify it as such
2. Defend the piece right here
Actually the plant in North Dakota that has been capturing CO2 is a coal gasification facility, not a power plant. But I agree, CCS should be on the table. It is technically feasible. I doubt the environmental movement will want any part of it though.
Have those who want “clean coal” considered the coal ash dumps on the shores of rivers around the world laced with concentrations of mercury lead and other poisonous by-products of coal combustion?
We should not forget either that disposal of fracking fluids caused earthquakes that surely tells us pumping things into the ground doesn’t ‘disappear’ them.
Pumped hydro and batteries pair pretty nicely, at least theoretically, to smooth and stabilize the grid supply from wind and solar when it can’t deliver. Storage in Australia was so successful it was lucrative to charge batteries when generation was high, then discharge into the grid when peak rates would otherwise come into effect.
Yeah, if one has no care for healthy river habitat and is OK with causing the extinction of hundreds of species dependent upon it. Perhaps you’re unaware that there is movement to rip out as many of the very dams you seek to build, as possible, for that very reason.
I too will support dam removals.
Pumped hydro isn’t hydro per se. It is raising waters level when there is cheap power to do so and then running it back down through generators when power is needed.
Not impeding flows– an actual “pumped hydro” battery.
(Your passionate put-down was misplaced on me Matt. Hold your friendly fire.)
Here’s what I’m talking about:
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-spot-530-000-potential-pumped-hydro-sites-to-meet-all-our-renewable-energy-needs
Wasn’t meant as a put down, but I’m curious how one “raises the water level” without a dam to control it.
No offense.
I hope you read up on the concept. This is it.
It was discussed a few years back by pumping from the Mississippi at Lake Pepin to holding ponds on top of the MN side bluff: fill up the ponds with day light solar, generate hydro on the night time drain down.
Interesting. Seems like a long term perhaps capital intensive project with drawbacks.
The majority of US scientists work in for-profit companies, that is, they are industry scientists. This includes half of all PhDs, the elite of the scientific community. All of these scientists had received the same education and training that those scientists who work in academia or for government or other non-profit entities.
Many people think that academic research is better than industry research. This is not true. They do different types of research. Most academic scientists do basic research, while most industry scientists do applied research. One way of looking at this is that academic scientists study what might work in the real world and industry scientists determine what will work in the real world.
If an industry scientist’s research doesn’t produce a good product they likely will be demoted or even fired. If an academic scientist’s research doesn’t work the way they had planned, i.e., their hypothesis has been disproved, they can publish a negative result in a scientific journal and apply to the government for another research grant.
The unfortunate reality today, is that most politicians and government agencies are receiving scientific advice from academic scientists and are missing what may be the best advice from scientists who may know more about an important science-based problem than the academics. How many industry scientists are on the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?
The bottom line here is that we should be thankful that we are getting practical information from a member of the largest group of scientists – those who work in industry.
Thank you, Luke.
Many of your points are very true.
Implying that Luke Helier is a scientist sharing relevant fact is a blatant falsehood.
He is a public affairs consultant / lobbyist and only a scientist if you choose to call folks with a Political Science degree “scientists”.
Science implies intellectual rigor and a search for truth. And practitioners can be found in both academia and industry.
Spin doctors like Helier are the EXACT opposite.
One of the reasons I support MinnPost is because they manage blog response very well, and back and forth discussions like this, without being unreasonable or result in personal attacks, are needed.
Yes, as you say “science…(is)…a search for the truth. And practitioners can be found in both academia and industry” but for the Scientific Method to work all the practitioners must be heard (or actually read, as in published, so their results can be analyzed by other scientists in the field and repeated to determine if they are indeed “true”). A number of things have happened to prevent the broader scientific community from being heard. I first heard of advocacy science in graduate school and thought it was to advocate for science broadly, but, no, it was to advocate for a specific thing, like butterflies or polar bears, or for an area, like “the environment”. Thus, we have environmental advocacy research. Then, editors at some of the top scientific journals decided, in order to reduce bias, that industry scientist were a priori biased, reducing the likelihood that they would publish industry scientist research, but failed to look for bias by authors from academia or non-profit entities. Additionally, the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM), decided that industry scientists would not be allowed on their panels that reviewed scientifically important issues. Thus, what became the top science stories in the public media became what was published in the top journals or in reports from NASEM – all from a narrow minority of the broader scientific community. To see the results of this read the 29 Jan 2015 Pew Research Center Report ‘Public and Scientists’ Views on Science and Society’. It is freely available on their website.
If, as I do, you get regular communications from your college alma mater, they probably describe all the neat, cutting edge research that is being done by their scientists. These communications are probably not written by a scientist, but probably by someone like Luke, who puts the pro-college spin on them, emphasizing how important and significant they are. But at least Luke doesn’t have a big “DONATE” button at the bottom of his article.
In my late 20s I found academia great cover for “respectable employment activity”.
Not a lot of money, but grad school provided a warm place to hang out in the Winter and the “I’m working on a Phd” generally earned respect.
And while I never made it to the finish line, I taught enough classes, attended enough faculty meetings and befriended enough professors to appreciate the nature of the job. They take this “pursuit of truth” stuff pretty seriously. It is the profession’s point of pride: your research takes you to where it takes you, not necessarily where you planned or wanted to go. But, uncovering new knowledge was the objective.
I did not make it to the Phd finish line because my work led to a job offer in industry. They were and are much less inclined to tolerate dedicating time and resources to pursuing knowledge for the sake of knowledge. An objective was stated and the work directed to achieve it.
All adding up to supporting Matt’s comment and an understanding why a divide between academics and industry researchers exists.
And I would rather see the “Donate Here” button than pre paid dark money with often murky objectives. If big solar offered Luke a 50% raise to extoll the virtues of solar and the evils of fossil fuels I’m betting he would take it and do a fine job.
Bill, this is BS!
The “Gold Standard ” in science is publication in “peer reviewed ” Journals. Any “scientist ” can summit research to peer reviewed journals for publication. If it meets the criteria for legitimate research by adding to the body of human knowledge it will be published.
If an industry scientist’s research doesn’t produce a good product they likely will be demoted or even fired.
Gee, can’t see how that might be a conflict of interest, could you? I remember when I was young, fresh out of school I had applied to an “environmental assessment” outfit. Their posting detailed how they were in the business of “environmental protection” and ensuring that new construction complied with EPA guidelines and such. Interview was going well until I asked how many projects they had stopped or altered to “protect the environment”. “Well that’s not really what we do here, we’re more about navigating the law to ensure development can proceed smoothly”, was the reply. I thanked them for their time, and walked out. Research is about studying a problem to find the answer, no matter what it may be, the “applied research” you cite, is about doing whatever it takes to make the information fit the predetermined answer that will be the outcome, no matter the facts of the matter. One is science, one is business.
“The bottom line here is that we should be thankful that we are getting practical information from a member of the largest group of scientists – those who work in industry.”
You mean like the scientists who worked for the tobacco industry? Yeah, I’m sure their input was valuable when government started working on dealing with the effects of tobacco on the population’s health, eh?
This Scientific American article reveals that many of the same scientists and publicists who worked with the tobacco industry were recruited to work with the petroleum industries to downplay the effects of their products on the general public’s health and the environment.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tobacco-and-oil-industries-used-same-researchers-to-sway-public1/
Why not drill deeper and convert the coal plants to geothermal?
A great documentary on the ecological impact of dams was made thanks to the Patagonia foundation. It’s available on youtube
DamNation The Problem with Hydropower
Pumped Hydro is however not Hydro.
NOT dams.
Hydro is water, so pumped hydro is pumped water. Moving water from a high elevation to a low elevation in times of power need, and moving water from a low elevation to a high elevation in times of power surplus. It can be done on a large scale. Problem is that every time you do nothing is 100% efficient. So you lose power every time you transfer it up or down.
I would guess you would be lucky to get 50% of the power back that you put into the system in the first place. Then you have evaporation losses to make up and also the freezing issue in the North Country.
[The link above]
“Huge Global Study Just Smashed One of The Last Major Arguments Against Renewables”
[excerpt]
“…No cooling water is required as it is in fossil fuel systems, which means the electricity demands of the plant itself are reduced, and of course there are no greenhouse gas emissions. Impact on the environment is kept down to a minimum because it doesn’t involve any natural river systems.
The scientists say sites like the ones they’ve identified can operate at maximum power for between 5 and 25 hours. There’s another benefit to this type of hydroelectric power system as well: it can start up quickly.
“Pumped-hydro energy storage can go from zero to full power extremely quickly – it takes only a few minutes,” says one of the team, Andrew Blakers from ANU.
“Pumped hydro accounts for 97 percent of energy storage worldwide, has a typical lifetime of 50 years and is the lowest cost large-scale energy-storage technology available.”
The team’s earlier work on the Australian sites was published in the journal Applied Energy.”
Please read the linked piece on pumped hydro. Please.
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-spot-530-000-potential-pumped-hydro-sites-to-meet-all-our-renewable-energy-needs
I think pumped hydro is great. But the capx is huge, the permitting time is extreme. Power companies have been looking at feasibility of these sites for 50 years. Very few have been built. It is all because of economics. I looked at a site next to the Missouri River in South Dakota. It never penciled out, compared to other power sources. Scientists don’t look at the whole picture. Sure it is feasible. But…………….
The graphics indicate Minnesota and the upper midwest doesn’t have suitable locations, but as the sites are found, acquired and funded, the world-wide capacity (like the headline says)shows “Smashes One of The Last Major Arguments Against Renewables”. Energy batteries without combustion.
Massive backup to wind and solar is the path to a carbon-free energy economy. We have proof of concept.
The scientific paper from the Australian sites work published in Applied Energy
is here: https://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/
There is nothing magical here. It is a motor/generator attached to a water wheel along with water storage pools at different elevation. If it was so perfect and economical we would have done it 50 years ago. You need 1500′ of elevation change to make this work. No place in the Midwest has this. Works great in the mountains out west, but the same places are very dry and you still have to makeup water for evaporation losses. I am sure somebody has already crunched the numbers on all the potential sites, there are reasons why things are/or aren’t getting built. This isn’t a new idea, nor a new technology.
They are doing something similar to this in Europe with kinetic towers.