http://beyondzeroemissions.org/media/radio/coal-plants-closing-people-own-their-own-power-feed-tariffs-more-091005

Coal plants closing, people own their own power, feed-in tariffs & more!Posted on 05 Oct 2009
in Behaviour change Beyond zero emissions radio Natural Gas Peak Oil Wind energy

Paul Gipe, author of 'Wind Energy Basics' tells how Canadian province, Ontario plans to close all its coal power plants by 2014, how people in Vermont wanting to own their own energy sources pushed politicians into instituting feed-in tarriffs, and much more. And a warning for Australians: Beware FITINOS - Feed-in Tarriffs in Name Only!

Paul Gipe podcast

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Transcript
Scott Bilby: This morning on Beyond Zero we're speaking with Paul Gipe. He's the author of Wind Energy Basics, a book that debunks fads and fallacies and calls for a renewable energy policy in North America. Last week we spoke to Heinz Dahl, a wind energy specialist from the World Wind Energy Agency, and so again today we're talking more wind power. So, good morning Paul. Thank you for joining us today in the studio.

Paul Gipe: Yes, good to talk to you Scott. Glad to be on the program.

Scott: And we're very glad you're here. Now, we'd like to, I guess we should get started talking about your book Wind Energy Basics...and actually, you know what I'd like to say Paul? I'd like to ask you how you got involved in renewable energy first, how you got started down this road?

Paul: I was an environmental activist and I was trying to improve the way we Americans regulate the strip mining of coal. Thirty years ago we just used to dig a big hole in the ground and leave it and walk away and I didn't think that was a good idea, and a lot of other Americans didn't think it was a good idea either. So, I was part of a campaign to regulate the strip mining of coal in the United States, and in testifying before a congressional committee or a state assembly, an old politician looked at me and said that, 'Son, that solar energy stuff you talk about just doesn't exist', and of course he was right and I decided to put my career where my mouth was and I'm a typical male, I get bored easily and I like windmills because they go around and they keep me interested.

Scott: [Laughs] And your new book Wind Energy Basics. Can you tell us, because is this the second version of Wind Energy Basics?

Paul: Yes. Yes it is. That book originally came out about ten years ago, but basically it's a new book. It's the nature of the publishing industry, they call it the second edition because we sold a lot of the first one, but it's basically a new book. And in this book I really make an attempt to debunk a lot of the fads and fallacies that are sweeping primarily the Anglophone world, the English-speaking world, Britain, Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, for like rooftop mounted wind turbines. A lot of hustlers and charlatans have invaded the industry. Typically you can measure the amount of hustlers and charlatans by the price of oil. If the price of oil goes up, we get all the nutcases coming to wind energy because everybody thinks they can invent a windmill.

But I wanted to beyond a typical 'how you use wind energy in your backyard' book and also talk about the policy that we need and the scale of renewable energy that we need in the United States and Canada, and as my specialty's wind energy, so I focus on wind energy. And also, I take a look at another way of developing wind energy. It's kind of foreign, kind of unknown to us in the English-speaking world. Very common in Germany and of course in Denmark where the people own the renewable resource. They own the solar panels, they own the wind turbines. They're theirs and they make the money. And I think it's a great idea and I think we should be doing more of that.

Scott: Yeah, that's interesting. And we have, like Australia's wind capacity (ie: current installed wind capacity) is not very good, but we do have a few small community wind farms that we're trying to get off the ground here. So, we have a fledgling community wind program industry and hopefully we'll get some good news on some of those wind power plants that are coming to fruition soon.

Now, okay, so your book Wind Energy Basics talks about, from the small scale stuff of installing wind power yourself, and also of the bigger questions. Now, for example, you talk about the charlatans in the industry. Now I guess that's par for the course, that's going to happen, but can we talk about more of the positive aspects of the industry and some of the good things that the US has done recently in the area of wind power.

Paul: Well, actually I'd really like to talk more about what Canada has done and is about to do. Ontario, a province of Canada, this month probably will announce a ground breaking, I mean this is probably the most significant renewable energy policy in North America certainly in at least two decades, I would go so far as to say in three decades, since the 1978 National Energy Act of the United States, far reaching policy that will not only enable the development of wind energy, but rooftop solar energy, community wind, community solar, because it provides a system of feed-in tariffs that allows us to build these projects, put rooftop solar on and to make a profit, but not only that. What Ontario is proposing to do is to change the way they think about electric utility systems instead of what we have typically here in the US, and I'm sure it's the same there in Australia, where renewable energy is looked at kind of like an add-on.

Well, you have your coal-fired power plants over here, you have your nuclear power plants over there and then we kinda shoe horn in, we kinda push in renewables in various places. And what Ontario is proposing to do is to turn all of that on its head and say we plan to close our coal-fired power plants, and I note you're program's about climate change, they plan to close all their coal-fired power plants, over 20% of their electricity, by 2014 and they made a press release just last week, announcing they'd moved up the closure of two units by two years. And that's a major accomplishment anyway. So, they're planning to close their coal plants. What they're proposing to do is saying, 'We want to bring on as much renewable energy as we can. We will design and redesign our electricity system to take that and if we have to turn off some of our reactors to do that, well so be it.'

Scott: And for the audience I'll say that Canada's total electricity generation is approximately double that of Australia, or almost double that, I think.

Well that's fascinating. Because in Canada, I guess they've had good start because they've got so much hydro power, haven't they?

Paul: Well, that's correct. And of course Canada is like Australia, you have your states and your electricity policy is administered by your state, and the same is true in Canada. Each province has its own jurisdiction for regulating electricity. And in the past they've had provincial monopolies that controlled the generation of electricity, and mostly from hydro. Ontario Hydro and Hydro Quebec for example, Manitoba Hydro, and that's the beauty, the beauty of trying to do this in a place like Quebec or Ontario is that they have so much hydro capacity already. It's a perfect match for renewable energy.

In fact, years ago, maybe 10 years ago, I wrote that New Zealand could become the first nation to be in the modern era, 100% renewable energy, because it had so much hydro already, so much renewable energy potential in wind and geothermal, but New Zealand has kind of lost that opportunity and I think Ontario is going after that and if Canada wants to do it, Canada as a nation could do that.

Scott: Well it's great news for Canada, and I can see it all seems to fit perfectly. How they could go to, you know, largely zero emissions electricity generation in quite a short period of time.

Now, but there must be some good news in the US too. They installed 25,000 megawatts of wind capacity last year alone. [Correction: 8,358MW was installed in the U.S. in 2008. 25,000MW is the total US capacity.] And so that must be good news at least.

Paul: Well yes, all renewable's good renewables...

Scott: [Laughs]

Paul: ...but it's not enough. Actually it's a limited amount. Yes, it's the largest amount that was installed in any country worldwide last year. But remember, China installed 5000 megawatts and they may top the United States this year because in China they don't use tax subsidies like we use here. They use a different program and many of our companies are not making money these days. They're trying to stay out of bankruptcy. And our system is all based on tax subsidies, and if you don't pay taxes, you don't get subsidies.

So, the amount that was installed last year is probably going to be cut in half or more this year. So yes, I like to say it was a great success - proud to be a part of the wind energy industry here in the United States - but it's nowhere near enough.

Scott: Okay. Yeah, I didn't realize that we were looking for an actual fall in installed capacity in the United States in this following year. So, that's a bit of a shame.

So you say that, and I'll quote you, 'North Americans are dabbling around the edges of renewable energy policy'. I guess that sounds to me like the United States is probably dropping the ball there more than Canada is at the moment.

Paul: Well, the problem is for you sitting in Australia if you look at Canada, Canada is dropping the ball too, Canada as a nation. But the province of Ontario is independent of the nation of Canada, and they are moving ahead.

And the same will be true in the United States. Yes, there is a lot of talk from the Obama administration and I know the whole world is hopeful for the Obama administration to do what hasn't been done for the last 20 or 30 years, but really the action for climate change begins at the local level, and in our case, at the state level here in the United States.

And we see a lot of promise. We're very encouraged, we in the movement for feed-in tariffs in the United States, are very encouraged by what we see. Tiny little Vermont, maybe people in Australia don't even know where Vermont is, way up in the northeast of the United States, almost to Canada. In fact, Vermont, the green mountain, is named after a Quebecker expression, and that Vermont passed a law, most people don't know about this, passed the law for feed-in tariffs. It's one of the most progressive renewable energy policies in the United States.

Now, it's true, it's limited. There's only 500,000 people in the entire state of Vermont. But it's done something that the mighty California hasn't done. So, rather than people looking to California for leadership on renewable energy policy, I'd look to Vermont and Ontario.

Scott: And so, what it is it about Vermont and Ontario? And by the way, Vermont, it so obviously means 'green mountain', it had never occurred to me before. But anyway, Vermont and Ontario, is it just a top down approach or is it as you say like more a local sort of influence that's actually starting to help push these policies?

Paul: No. It's exactly the opposite of top down. This is bottom up. This is the people saying to their legislators - you know how politicians, politicians like to lead when they get in front of the crowd pushing them. And that's exactly what's happened in Vermont and in Ontario. There was a citizens' movement. There wasn't a campaign. It didn't happen overnight. Ontario took five years and then Vermont has taken several years. But the people have said, 'Look, it's fine if Electricite De France or, pick an Australian electric utility, Pacific Power or something like that, to build a wind farm, that's fine, we need all that, but we want to own renewable energy. We want to develop our own renewable resource. You the state of Vermont or you the province of Ontario, you're not doing it fast enough. Give us a chance to develop our own renewable energy resources and let us see what we can do.' And in the case of Vermont, they convinced politicians and it was passed. The Governor threatened to veto it because he didn't like it. But it's so popular he decides to let it become law. And so there it is. That's where it stands.

And we now have proposals for systems of feed-in tariffs like they're going to have in Ontario, that they have in Germany, France, Spain, Greece, every place that's actually developing renewable energy, we have proposals in almost a dozen different legislatures here in the United States. We hope to have another state soon, but it is politics and you can never tell what's going to happen.

Scott: [Laughs] Now, we're speaking to Paul Gipe. He's a respected opinion leader and author of several books, including the book we're speaking about today, Wind Energy Basics. And you can find out more about that at wind-works.org.

Now Paul, in Australia we've had politicians who, because Australian politicians are very good at, actually even to this day, denying climate change. It's quite strange. In one breath they'll say it's not happening and the next they're agreeing that it is happening and we need to move to 'clean coal' as soon as possible. But even some of these politicians have recently been talking about baseload solar, and that's come from local, kind of, politicking, and, you know, haranguing from local groups. So, it's actually made it onto the mainstream. People have actually have a concept of baseload solar, if they don't know what it is.

Anyway, I'm waffling a little bit. So, it's great to see the local element there.

Now we obviously too, we've also got to stop importing, both Australia and the United States and many countries, importing so much oil. And not just because it's costing us a lot of money but it's such a precious resource. It's just ridiculous to be wasting them on people using them in cars stuck in peak hour traffic. And it's also, you know, silly that we're wasting a precious resource such as gas. Can you talk a little bit more about how we need to save that resource and how wind can help to fill the bridge there?

Paul: Well yes. In my book Wind Energy Basics , in the last chapter - obviously you read it because you're setting me up here – I talk about the scale of wind energy development, because I know the numbers from wind. I don't expect wind to do all of this. I mean, we're going to be doing solar, we're going to be concentrating solar, and geothermal, yes so we're going to use all these resources because we have to.

But if I just look at wind. How much wind energy would be necessary in the United States and Canada first to offload all our fossil fuel fire generation. That's 75 per cent of electricity produced in Canada and the United the States is produced from fossil fuels. So, how many windmills would that take? Well, it would take lots.

And then I'd say, well we're in this crisis, not only a crisis of climate change, we're in a crisis of liquid fuels and also natural gas in North America and we need to address the liquid fuel crisis, because we use that for transportation, and we need to convert our transportation sector to electricity.

And so let's take passenger vehicles. First I take passenger vehicles because that's where we can make a difference. Obviously we should electrify the railroads, but that's another question. We take a look at how many wind turbines in addition would we need to completely electrify personal transportation, passenger vehicle transportation. And then that comes up with this is how many windmills we need. And then I look and say well, Al Gore has said we should be 100 per cent clean energy – he doesn't define clean too much – but 100 per cent clean energy within 10 years. And I ask the question, 'Can we do it in 10 years? Is Al Gore crazy?' And I conclude that, well, Al Gore's not right. You can't do it in 10 years. We can do it in twelve. We can certainly do it in less than 20. So Al Gore's not crazy, just a little optimistic. And so I'd be considered optimistic as well, but we can do that.

And of course Australia's very vulnerable because as a recent colony and you have a recent development just like the United States, you bought into the car culture and you're just as vulnerable as the United States to any major supply disruption, whether it's through war in the Middle East or through depleting of the natural resources that we have which now most serious authorities expect is going to occur if it hasn't begun already.

Scott: And I'll say for people here in Victoria, the state of Victoria, that, yeah, when you're driving your cars, that's pretty much the primary reason we're importing oil into this state. So, you know, try and get on the bus or the train or the tram because it really does make a big difference. You're undermining your own country by driving around in peak hour traffic. And – sorry, that's a little bit of a rant on my behalf there.

Paul: Well, that's OK Scott. Let me just go on Scott to say that's important also. I mean, I don't believe Australia has any more troops in Iraq. But you know there are countries, here in North America, who have a lot of troops in the Middle East. And most of us of course realise that the reason we have troops there. So, sacrificing not only our material wealth, but also our human resource in feudal wars to protect petroleum supply. It makes the bargain with the Devil even a higher price to pay.

Scott: Yes. It's a whole foreign policy thing based on greed and war, I guess, and spheres of influence, and I think the next show might even be talking about that sort of stuff.

Now, I'd also like to talk, Paul about how wind can be complemented by other renewable energies. So, in other words, as far as firming power for wind is concerned, which for the audience, I'll say is kind of like having other renewable energy sources provide power when there is a lull in the wind, for example. As far as those other renewable energy options are concerned, solar thermal storage is the perfect marriage with wind power where conditions are suited, such as the southwest of the U.S. and all across Australia pretty much, and biomass plants and hydro power with pumped storage can and will complement wind in places like Canada and large parts of the U.S. too.

Now, are you aware of companies like Solar Reserve in the US and Torresol Energy in Spain, who actually already have these molten salt solar thermal plants up and running?

Paul: No, because I don't follow future technology. My work is work is with what's here now today, and the future technologies will not exist unless we use what we have today...

Scott: ...Oh, they are here today.

Paul: ...by creating a market, yep, by creating market for storage technologies, storage technologies will come to market. And so we only, and in fact the whole concept of why we need storage with renewables is a future question. It's not a question for today, it's a question for the future. It could be 5, 10, 15, 20 years.

I can't say specifically for Australia because I'm not familiar with your market, but certainly here in the United States where we're a huge country, 300 million people. We consume, we consume – I don't know – four thousand terrawatt hours per year. I mean, four billion kilowatt hours per year. I mean, this country is a huge consumer of electricity. So, storage is, well it's really not something we want to worry about right now.

But let me go on and add that you mentioned pump storage for hydro. I should point out that regular hydro works great with renewables too. It doesn't have to be pump storage. Because the beauty of existing hydro is it's got a dam there and it already has storage. So, you don't necessarily have to pump the water uphill. You don't lose the energy in the process. You just let the water build up behind a dam and for much of the United States, we already have that kind of capacity here.

I don't know about Australia, because I know it's an arid environment, you may not have as much hydro capacity as we have, but I know they've got a lot in Tasmania. And did you ever get that cross straits cable put in?

Scott: We do have the Basslink cable, but its capacity is limited, so we don't get much hydroelectricity being sent, exported from Tasmania up to the mainland. We were talking to Heinz Dahl last week and he's saying that we basically need a second Basslink cable put in.

Paul: OK. But see there's a technological and a political solution right there, quote, at your doorstep. I mean, I know you can't see Tasmania from Melbourne but you know it is just across the strait there.

Scott: [Laughs]. Now, and I'll just say for the audience, in the US their annual electricity generation is something like 15 or 16 times that of Australia, and Australia has pretty high consumption.

But anyway, so I'd also like to ask you Mark about, well we spoke to Heinz Dahl also who is the director of commercial operations and marketing for the World Wind Energy Association, and I was asking him just how far can we go with grid penetration with wind power, and he gave an answer with a global reference of maybe 15 or 20 per cent if I recall. What sort of total grid penetration do you think – I'm not sure if you're aware of this – but how much wind can we get onto the North American market?

Paul: Is this for Paul?

Scott: This is for Paul, yes.

Paul: Yes. OK sorry. Yes. Well, I think Heinz has been far, far too conservative. I'd say 50 per cent is what I use now. I used to use the 15 to 20 per cent figure that Heinz was referring to, but after I was on a PhD review committee of a young academic who'd looked into this for the central part of the United States, and he said, 'Yeah you could go to 50 per cent', that was his doctoral thesis, with some modifications for the system of course, certainly the power system managers have to be retrained, but that's all possible. That's why we train engineers to do this kind of stuff.

And that they would install, instead of a lot of pumped storage for these new technologies, simple single cycle gas fired power plants that are cheap to build, very inefficient, but you only run them a few hours a year so it doesn't matter. And with his study, he figured in the Midwest of the United States you could to 50 per cent. So, that's for wind. Now of course then you're going to add in solar, you're going to add in geothermal, if it's in an area that has geothermal, biomass and other technologies. I think we can go higher than 50 per cent, with renewables, certainly.

And another thing to keep in mind is, and I know this is true for Australia, that here in North America we are energy wastrels, electricity wastrels, in comparison to everybody else in the world. And it's not because it's cold or it's not because it's hot, it's just because we waste electricity. We just don't appreciate it. It's been too cheap for too long and we squander electricity. So, we can do a lot in North America today with the technology we have. Cutting our electricity consumption to 50 per cent, certainly we can do that. And I think with wind energy alone we can go to 50 per cent of our supply. And then because, I don't know as well, the other renewables you know, we have to bring them on as well.

Scott: And just, we've run out of time unfortunately Paul, but can I get you just to finish off by, if you have any little bit of advice or, you know, a finishing statement you'd like to make to people of Australia, or what is relevant in North America that is really kind of a salient point?

Paul: Yes. I think Australians really have to protect themselves against being misled by poorly informed politicians or by misguided public servants who propose what we call 'FITINOs', 'feed-in tariff in name only', and that's what you have currently in Australia, and that's why you're not making much progress with solar PV (photovoltaics) and community wind, is because the kind of feed-in tariffs you have there just don't work, we know they don't work, they've never worked any place else, and why you'd even talk about them in Australia is unfathomable to me.

So, I would recommend that you in Australia, I know Senator Milne has proposed a serious proposal for feed-in tariffs, real feed-in tariffs that really work like they do in Germany, France and Greece, and we hope Ontario. Real feed-in tariffs that will pay you real money to put out a solar panel on your rooftop and join your neighbours and build a wind farm, either in your community or just outside your community, so that all of us can join a renewable energy revolution and profit by it.

Scott: Well, thank you very much Paul, and we have run out of time but we very much like hearing about the advice you have for us and the considerable knowledge you have on wind energy. Especially, I like the 'FITINO', 'feed-in tariff in name only' - so we'll certainly make that a part of our agenda to make it, you know, known to the public there.

Thank you very much for joining us, and I'm glad you were able to join us on the Thursday afternoon over there in California.

Paul: Well, thanks very much Scott. Best of luck to all of you there in Australia.

Scott: OK. Thank you very much. Now just quickly Paul, before you go can we find out about how to buy Wind Energy Basics the book at your website wind-works.org?

Paul: That's correct, and if you just type it into any search engine it'll take you to it.

Scott: OK. Thank you very much. Now, we were just speaking to Paul Gipe, respected opinion leader and author of several books including Wind Energy Basics.

If you want to know more about Beyond Zero, go to beyondzeroemissions.org. Goodbye.

Transcript by Jenny Gibson

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Paul Gipe Podcast