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Eastern Kentucky housing builder looks to the sun for relief from crushing power bills

Liam Niemeyer — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 09:50:01 +0000

Lois Thompson says her new house's porch is "out of this world." She moved into the "net zero" home in late August. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer).

WHITESBURG — In her old house — built more than 100 years ago by a coal company — Lois Thompson says she couldn’t afford to run the heat pump on her fixed income.?

When winter cold seeped through the walls, Thompson, 76, sectioned off a room by hanging up her son’s $10 childhood quilt; she would sit by a propane heater until the heat drove her into the cold kitchen.

“They’ll freeze you to death in the winter,” she said of her house and others like it that were built to be heated by a coal stove. “For the people like me that don’t have the money, you’re living in a drafty house. … You can’t insulate it. You don’t have the money for that.”

The propane heater, the house and the cold are now memories.?

Thanks to a local housing nonprofit, Thompson moved into a new house in August on the site where her old home, damaged by flooding in 2022, had stood. Also gone are her fears of high electricity bills. She paid just $21.61 in October, slightly above the minimum charge for utility customers in her community.

Lois Thompson saved money in the winter by heating only one room with a propane heater because she could not afford to run her electric heat pump. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

“It still don’t seem real, and I’m living in it,” she said. “I say, ‘Lord, I thank you.’ That’s all I can do.”?

The reason behind her rock-bottom power bill: a years-long effort by Whitesburg-based HOMES Inc. to build “net zero” homes. That is, houses with zero monthly electrical costs because of their energy-efficient construction and rooftop solar panels that generate power.?

For years, the? nonprofit — its full name is Housing Oriented Ministries Established for Service Inc. — had been grappling with the challenge of responding to some of Kentucky’s highest electricity costs in a region where incomes are low.

The devastating floods that overwhelmed Eastern Kentucky in 2022 wiped out thousands of homes and also brought new resources for housing, allowing HOMES Inc. to look toward the power of the sun. The nonprofit has built five “net zero” homes including Thompson’s and is now working on a new housing development for flood survivors that will have eight “net zero” homes.

In a region built on coal, the pressure of soaring utility bills and the need for housing are driving a new vision of what the energy future could be.

“In our climate today, everything gets political. This doesn’t have to be about left or right. This doesn’t have to be about coal or solar. It can be about common sense, too,” said Seth Long, the executive director of HOMES Inc. “As coal built this country with energy in the past, we need to pivot. And I think solar can play a part in that pivoting to something else.”?

Solar skeptic to solar advocate

Long wasn’t always a believer. He recognized that solar panels on rooftops saved electricity but didn’t think they made sense economically without subsidies because of their upfront costs.

The numbers on a spreadsheet presented by Josh Bills, an energy specialist from the economic development organization Mountain Association, convinced him otherwise. HOMES Inc. could install rooftop solar on its office in Whitesburg and be financially ahead, even if it borrowed the entire cost of the solar system. The price of rooftop solar panels has halved over the past decade.

Thompson Branch housing development is under construction in Letcher County. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer).

Long had been looking for a way from under his nonprofit’s high electricity bills. Despite adding energy efficiency measures to the office such as air sealing and? efficient light bulbs, the bills from Kentucky Power were still too high — up to $1,600 a month, something that wasn’t sustainable.?

“The spreadsheet said that that would work, and I kept doubting and kept wondering.”? Long finally said, “Why don’t we borrow $70,000 and put the system on and see if this will work?”

So, they borrowed the money and installed the solar system. It’s paid off every month since, performing better than the projections.?

“We came out ahead financially, way ahead. Some of our electric bills since then have been as low as $53 a month,” Long said. “It was eye opening to me.”

Long’s horizons of what’s possible began to expand. He added solar to his maple syrup farm to save money there. He knew small businesses in Eastern Kentucky also struggled with older, energy inefficient buildings and high electricity bills, and most of the funding opportunities, such as the Rural Energy for America Program, were aimed at commercial spaces.

Fewer resources were available for working solar onto affordable housing. As tragic and terrible as the 2022 floods were, he said, there are now “resources and support in ways that we haven’t seen” for that sort of work.?

HOMES Inc. plans to have all eight “net zero” homes at the Thompson Branch development finished by spring of 2025. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer).

Ratepayers in the 20 Eastern Kentucky counties served by investor-owned Kentucky Power have struggled for years with high electricity costs. The utility’s residential customers paid the highest average monthly bill in the state at $187.56 according to a 2023 state report, and that was before a controversial 5% rate increase was approved last year.?

Power bills can soar above that average during the winter. Kentucky Power data show its? poorest Kentucky ratepayers have the highest bills. That’s in part, Kentucky Power executives say, because of high electric heating costs during the winter. Poor insulation and energy inefficient electric heating cause bills to reach north of $400 a month when it’s cold.?

Thompson said she sees Facebook posts during the winter by people “just about in tears” because “the electric bills are so high,” forcing them to decide whether to buy food or pay Kentucky Power.?

That’s where the potential of “net zero” homes comes in.

“A lot of people in our area are living in houses that were designed for coal heat, and, you know, not so much heat pumps. But everybody switched from coal to electric heat, and it’s just — it’s so expensive for them,” Long said. “The flood has given us opportunities to tear down older homes and replace them with new energy efficient homes and even ‘net zero’ houses.”?

HOMES Inc. has? built five “net zero” homes so far, constructing an energy-efficient “envelope” around the structure and then letting? the power of rooftop solar take the home all the way to “net zero.”?

One of five “net zero” homes featuring rooftop solar panels that HOMES Inc. has already built. The solar systems are designed to provide enough electricity to get a home to “net zero.” (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

Their efforts have been recognized by a national nonprofit that scores energy efficiency. The HERS index compares a home’s energy efficiency to a home built by average standards, which would score 100 on the index. A home with a HERS score of 70, for example, would be 30% more energy efficient than the average home. A score of 50 would be 50% more energy efficient.?

Long said Lois Thompson’s “net zero” home scored a negative 17 on the index, meaning it generates more electricity than it uses. And the nonprofit doesn’t plan to stop there.

A new future out of the floodplain

Up a gravel road on a hill just outside of Whitesburg, hopes for the future and current frustrations meet.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency had originally planned to put small cottages there in? a development known as Thompson Branch. When those plans didn’t work out, state officials asked HOMES Inc. for its ideas. The answer as seen on a cool afternoon earlier this month: eight soon-to-be “net zero” homes.

Over the rumble of a truck dumping cement for a new sidewalk, Joe Oliver, an assistant construction manager, explained how they’ve made it work: using smaller, affordable solar systems, only what’s needed to get to a “net zero” rating; building and designing homes ready for rooftop solar; and having an in-house solar installer to reduce costs. An average solar system runs the nonprofit around $15,000.

“The more that we can make things affordable, I think the better off everyone is everywhere,” Oliver said. “If you could generate enough money, say, to pay for the [solar] system, why wouldn’t you?”

Joe Oliver and Bobby “Fuzz” Johnson hope their work on “net zero” homes can help save Kentuckians money on utility bills in the long run. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

Their in-house solar installer, Clayton “Fuzz” Johnson, a bearded 29-year-old, went to school to become a master electrician and learn how to install solar panels. Johnson said electricians are few and far between in Eastern Kentucky, let alone those who know how to install solar.

Johnson says solar is becoming more appealing in light of the rising costs Eastern Kentuckians are facing for groceries, taxes and electricity.?

With the decline of coal mining and other heavy industry and the coinciding loss of population in Kentucky Power’s territory, more and more of the burden of paying for electricity has fallen on fewer and fewer people, leaving Johnson, Oliver and others voicing frustration with the situation.?

““They’re going to get their return on investment,” Johnson said of Kentucky Power.

The electrical wires that go to various parts of the soon-to-be “net zero” home. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

Johnson believes that with people already leaving instead of rebuilding after the floods, high power bills will only increase the outmigration.

Johnson, standing inside the frame of a “net zero” home, wondered if batteries could be hooked up to store electricity from solar from the rooftop panels. HOMES Inc. has yet to try adding home battery systems with the rooftop solar because the nonprofit considers the added cost to still be too much. The cost of batteries has plummeted in recent years due to a boost in electric vehicle production.??

Some renewable energy advocates envision a virtual power plant; excess power from solar panels on homes and businesses and from electric vehicles would be pulled onto the grid to power communities as an alternative to centralized power plants.

The need and potential for home energy efficiency upgrades in the region are immense, according to HOMES Inc. and other nonprofits.

Long and others, including the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, are pushing Kentucky Power to do more than it’s? currently proposing to support energy efficiency, noting the challenges of upgrading mobile homes and older homes that disproportionately make up the region’s housing stock. The utility should support energy efficiency programs for new home construction as well, the nonprofits have proposed.?

Also, the utility “has a clear duty to its customers to help them limit their energy usage,” Long has written, “not only for cost savings at the household level but also in order to reduce the overall energy production needs of the region.”

Kentucky Power has argued the costs of what they’re proposing would be too high.

Johnson wants to show what’s possible with the “net zero” homes and that people don’t have to spend most of their paycheck on electricity. Letcher County is still a coal community, he said, and his father works at a coal mine, but high utility bills are melting skepticism toward solar.?

“Everybody is on the same team just trying to get lower utility costs. Like, whatever it takes. We’re all in it together,” Johnson said. “Coal has its purpose, and so does solar. But I think it’s just to a point of trying to live and be sustainable.”?

This story was updated to note Thompson’s home was damaged by flooding in 2022.

A substation for electric utility Kentucky Power in Letcher County. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer).

‘Defining moment’: East Kentucky Power expanding solar with up to $1.4 billion from feds

Liam Niemeyer — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 18:17:38 +0000

East Kentucky Power Cooperative, which distributes electricity to 16 cooperatives, plans to add solar installations generating 757 megawatts of power and expand transmission infrastructure. (Getty Images)

FRANKFORT — A federal investment of up to $1.4 billion to expand renewable energy will help transform how a Kentucky utility serves future generations, its CEO said Monday.?

Officials from East Kentucky Power Cooperative (EKPC) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture joined Gov. Andy Beshear at the state Capitol Monday morning to tout funding that will build solar installations producing 757 megawatts of electricity and improve transmission infrastructure.

East Kentucky Power Cooperative CEO and President Tony Campbell touts a large federal investment to add solar power to the utility’s electricity generation portfolio. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

EKPC President and CEO Tony Campbell said the funding, which could consist of grants or subsidized loans, was a “defining moment” for the nonprofit utility that generates electricity for 16 power distribution cooperatives across the state. The USDA announced the funding last month.

“We will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and operate with less carbon intensity, while maintaining reliability service and competitive rates,” Campbell said. “East Kentucky Power Cooperative is doing our part to help address global greenhouse gas emissions and slow the impact of climate change. We are boldly planning for Kentucky’s energy future.”

The funding comes from the Empowering Rural America program (New ERA), monies made available through the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act opposed by all of the Republicans in Kentucky’s congressional delegation.

Administrator of the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service Andy Burke also said EKPC will receive additional funding in the form of tax credits on top of the $1.4 billion from the New ERA program.?

The USDA received 157 proposals for clean energy projects, and so far the federal department has awarded funding for nearly two dozen of those proposals including to EKPC.?

Beshear called the announcement one of the biggest investments in the state’s electric infrastructure since the New Deal, saying the funding would help with economic development for companies that want renewable energy.?

“Just about every company asks what energy portfolio we can bring to them. It’s either commitments to sustainability they’ve made,or they’ve been demanded by their downstream customers,” Beshear said. “The answer has always been, ‘We’ll get there, and we’re working on it.’ We’ve got a very big answer today with about $1.4 billion.”

Campbell told reporters EKPC intends to build solar installations itself instead of purchasing solar power from private solar developers, known as power purchase agreements. He said the solar installations have to be “on the ground” by Sept. 30, 2031 to comply with a federal deadline.

Roughly 40 transmission projects are also being planned, he said, for “both reliability and to allow more renewables to flow” to homes and businesses. Earlier this year, EKPC proposed to build two solar installations in Fayette and Marion counties generating a combined 136 megawatts of electricity.

Like other electric utilities in Kentucky, EKPC generates the majority of its power from burning coal, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses contributing to climate change among electricity sources. Environmental advocates have previously lauded New ERA funding but argue more needs to be done to move utilities from fossil fuels to clean energy sources.?

EKPC is supporting a lawsuit to federal regulations that would require utilities to curb nearly all greenhouse gas emissions by 2032 from new natural gas-fired power plants and existing coal-fired power plants. Campbell said the New ERA funding would help the utility “go down the path to start decarbonizing our generation portfolio” while not harming the reliability of the power supply.?

The leader of the United Nations last year called for developed nations to have carbon-free electricity generation by 2035 and a phase out of coal-fired power by 2030 in order to avoid the worst harms from climate change. A United Nations report last week found the world was on track for catastrophic warming by the end of the century because of the unabated burning of fossil fuels.?

When asked about the call for action from the United Nations’ leader, Campbell said renewable energy paired with battery storage systems hadn’t “evolved enough” to “totally run the country on that.”?

“We have to have reliable power plus decarbonize,” Campbell said.

Other utilities across the country are investing significantly in solar installations and battery storage systems, and the International Energy Agency considers solar and wind power to be the cheapest form of electricity in most of the world.?

Burke, the USDA official, said the decreasing cost of renewables and battery storage systems is “going to build that clean energy future we need.”?

“But we need to do it in a reliable way that makes sense to the person who still has to pay that utility bill at the end of every month,” Burke said.

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Less power from coal, more from natural gas in Kentucky’s future, says state’s largest utility

Liam Niemeyer — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 09:50:48 +0000

E.W. Brown solar array at Kentucky Utilities Mercer County plant. (Photo courtesy of LG&E/KU)

Power-intensive data centers will drive growth in electricity demand in the near future, says the utility serving the most Kentuckians. It plans to meet that demand by continuing to replace coal-fired power with natural gas while potentially adding up to 1,000 megawatts of solar power by 2035.

Investor-owned Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU) outlined those steps and others in an integrated resource plan filed Oct. 18 before the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC), the state’s utility regulator. Kentucky utilities are required every three years to file plans for how they will meet demand at the “lowest possible cost,” although they are not bound to follow them.

The new plan anticipates adding no new coal-fired generation while building as many as four new natural gas-fired plants plus battery storage systems for solar energy — in addition to a natural gas plant already slated for construction.?

‘Panicked rush to gas’ could hike energy costs, report warns regulators

The PSC will consider the new plan as environmentalists in Kentucky push for a faster pivot to renewables and amid urgent calls from climate scientists to halt the burning of fossil fuels to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change.?

There’s also uncertainty over whether new Biden administration regulations that seek to curb nearly all heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions from power plants will withstand court challenges from utilities, coal advocates and Republican attorneys general including Kentucky’s Russell Coleman.?

Data center growth reflects nationwide boom

The utility’s plan says Kentucky is “well-positioned” to participate in the nationwide boom in data centers thanks to a lower risk of severe weather, available telecommunications infrastructure and water to cool equipment, as well as “favorable tax incentives.”?

Data centers are essentially computer hubs that power the internet, ranging from storing data on the “cloud” to processing credit card transactions and the surge of artificial intelligence services. They need a tremendous amount of electricity, sometimes on par with what an entire coal-fired power plant produces. The Lantern previously reported the parent company of LG&E and KU was in talks with data centers interested in locating to Kentucky, and Kentucky lawmakers passed tax breaks this year to incentivize data centers to locate in Jefferson County.?

Driving surge in demand for power, data centers eye Kentucky

“The Companies’ Economic Development team is working with a growing number of data center projects that vary in stages of development, but which mostly have very large power requirements,” the utility states in its planning documents.?

The utility currently needs about? 30,000 megawatts of electricity a year. Models forecast that could increase by 30% to 60% by the early 2030s.?

Data centers could increase the utility’s load by 1,050-1,750 megawatts, according to the utility’s modeling. For reference, its forecast peak load in the summer of 2024 was 6,115 megawatts.?

Seeking more natural gas and no new coal?

Burning coal generated 68% of Kentucky’s electricity in 2023, down from more than 90% a decade earlier, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Only two other states, West Virginia and Wyoming, were as reliant as Kentucky on coal for power generation, making Kentucky an outlier in a nation that has generally transitioned to lower-cost natural gas and renewable energy.?

LG&E and KU coal-fired power plants make up over 60% of the utility’s capacity during the summer. The utility anticipates moving away from coal-fired power in favor of new natural gas-fired combined cycle plants.?

Depending on future demand, the utility foresees building two or three new natural gas-fired combined cycle plants to be paired with several utility-scale battery storage systems between 2028 to 2035. The natural gas plants would generate about 1,935 megawatts of summertime load — energy needed to meet demand at a given time — by the early 2030s. ?That includes power from another natural gas-fired combined cycle plant the utility already is slated to construct by 2027 after receiving permission from the PSC.?

That new natural gas-fired plant was opposed last year by environmentalists as a costly investment that would lock in ratepayers to decades of fossil fuel instead of pivoting to renewables that don’t create greenhouse gas emissions. Similar opposition has met other utilities’ plans to build natural gas-fired plants including the Tennessee Valley Authority.

LG&E and KU’s coal-fired Mill Creek Generating Station in Louisville in September 2024. One of its four units is scheduled to be retired by the end of the year, resulting in an expected small savings for consumers. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

The Kentucky utility’s plans for investing in natural gas-fired plants conflict with a call last year by the leader of the United Nations for carbon-free electricity generation in developed nations by 2035 and a phase out of coal-fired power by 2030 in order to prevent the worst harms from climate change. The call was based on research from climate scientists including U.S. institutions such as NASA. LG&E and KU has previously pointed to goals set by its parent company to have net-zero emissions by 2050.?

Burning natural gas, which consists primarily of the potent greenhouse gas methane, for electricity is considered to release less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere compared to the burning of coal, but environmental advocates have raised concerns that methane leaks during production and transportation of natural gas are wiping out progress made by the United States on curbing greenhouse gas emissions by phasing out coal-fired power.?

LG&E and KU already has approval to retire one of four coal-fired units at its Mill Creek Generating Station in Jefferson County by the end of this year and another coal-fired unit at Mill Creek in 2027. The utility estimates that retiring the first Mill Creek unit will shave some pennies from ratepayers’ bills starting in March.

LG&E and KU projections call for retiring the other two units at Mill Creek and a single remaining coal-fired unit at E.W. Brown Generating Station in 2035.?

Utilities that opposed Kentucky’s new energy planning commission are now part of it

That would leave Ghent and Trimble County generating stations as its only operating coal-fired plants by 2035. According to the utility, both of those plants would need upgrades to meet existing or anticipated federal regulations on ozone-producing nitrogen oxide emissions and water pollution. LG&E and KU stated it isn’t considering building any new coal-fired power plants because of “the high cost and environmental risk.”

More solar expected, but not until 2028

LG&E and KU’s plans also include more investments in utility-scale solar, potentially adding 500-1,000 megawatts, though the soonest it expects it could add more solar is 2028. The utility is currently planning to build two 120-megawatt solar installations in Mercer and Marion counties; it already has a solar installation in Mercer County at its E.W. Brown Generating Station.

The utility said its agreements to purchase solar power from private companies don’t appear to be moving forward due to issues with getting solar connected to the power grid and cost increases, though adding hundreds of megawatts of new battery storage “could help pave the way for additional new renewable resources in the future.”?

Other utilities across the country are investing heavily in solar installations and battery storage systems, with the Energy Information Administration estimating 58% of all power-generating capacity planned to be installed in 2024 to be solar power. The International Energy Agency considers solar and wind power to be the cheapest form of electricity in most markets in the world.?

Solar power is considered “intermittent,” meaning it produces electricity only during a portion of the day — such as when the sun is shining. But renewable energy advocates have touted battery storage systems paired with solar installations as a way to make the renewable power “dispatchable” and available around the clock.? Solar installations can charge batteries during the day to be used at night.

But LG&E and KU argued that pairing solar with battery systems would be a costly replacement for a“dispatchable” around-the-clock energy source such as coal-fired power. Thousands of megawatts of solar and battery storage would be needed to replace Mill Creek’s 391 megawatts of coal-fired power, the utility’s analysis said.

Advocates and the former PSC chair have expressed concern utilities aren’t able to be held accountable to follow the plans they outline. The last time LG&E and KU presented an integrated resource plan to the PSC, it was chastised by the regulator for not presenting plans that were “actionable” for the future.

LG&E and KU in its latest IRP filing writes the documents are a “snapshot of an ongoing resource planning process” that is “constantly evolving.””

Skepticism about carbon capture, future of greenhouse gas regulations

Looming over LG&E and KU and other coal-reliant utilities are new regulations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that require coal-fired power plants and new natural gas-fired power plants to curb 90% of their carbon dioxide emissions by 2032 if utilities plan to operate them past 2039.?

Challengers are arguing in court that the technology proposed to comply with the regulation isn’t yet commercially viable at a utility scale. Carbon capture and sequestration is a controversial technology that tries to capture carbon dioxide emissions from power plants to prevent release into the atmosphere. LG&E and KU is planning to install and test a carbon capture system on an existing natural gas-fired plant.?

LG&E and KU in its planning documents wrote that implementing carbon dioxide transport and storage “is not achievable” in the timeline set by the EPA. The utility also wrote that converting coal-fired power plants into burning natural gas is also “questionable” because of the time it would take to establish gas pipelines. Retiring coal-fired power plants by 2032 is an option for compliance, LG&E and KU stated, but “retirements require reliable replacement capacity.”?

“Replacing generation at the scale necessary for compliance is not reasonable” under the EPA’s timeline for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the utility wrote.

LG&E and KU’s integrated resource plan will likely come under scrutiny from a range of stakeholders during PSC review — the attorney general, renewable energy advocates, advocates for industrial and residential ratepayers and local governments in the utility’s territory covering Lexington, Louisville and parts of Eastern and Western Kentucky.

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Energy and climate: Where do Harris and Trump stand?

Jacob Fischler — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 09:40:39 +0000

Rivian Electric Delivery Vehicles (EDV) are seen connected to electric chargers during a launch event between Amazon and Rivian at an Amazon facility on July 21, 2022 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Mustafa Hussain/Getty Images)

This is one in a series of States Newsroom reports on the major policy issues in the presidential race.

Highlighted in Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign as one of the major crises facing the country, climate change has received much less attention in the 2024 race for the presidency.

The candidates, Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, share the twin goals of lowering energy costs and increasing U.S. jobs in the sector, but diverge widely in their plans to get there.

On the campaign trail, each has spent relatively little time detailing their own plans, instead criticizing the other as extreme.

Harris favors an expansion of renewable energy, which supplies power without the carbon emissions that are the primary driver of climate change.

She has touted her tie-breaking vote in the U.S. Senate to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, the broad domestic policy law Democrats pushed through along party lines that includes hundreds of millions in clean-energy tax credits.

Trump supports fossil fuel production, blaming policies to support renewable energy for rising energy prices. He has called for removing prohibitions on new oil and gas exploration to increase the supply of cheap fuel and reduce costs.

Promise: Promote fossil fuels

Both candidates promise to lower the cost of energy.

For Trump, that has involved hammering the Biden-Harris administration for encouraging renewable energy production.

Inflation was caused by “stupid spending for the Green New Deal, which was a green new scam, it turned out,” Trump said at a Sept. 26 press conference. “Do you notice that they never mention anything about environment anymore? What happened to the environment?”

The former president said at a Sept. 25 campaign stop he would “cut your energy (costs) in half,” by reducing regulations and cutting taxes.

He has not produced a detailed plan to achieve that goal.

Implicit in Trump’s argument is that the Biden administration’s focus on renewable energy has hampered oil and gas production, limiting supply and driving up prices.

But Harris has presented her support for renewable energy modes as part of a broader portfolio that includes fossil fuels.

Harris has highlighted the Inflation Reduction Act opened up new leases for oil and gas production while providing incentives for wind and solar power.

“I am proud that as vice president over the last four years, we have invested a trillion dollars in a clean energy economy while we have also increased domestic gas production to historic levels,” she said at a Sept. 10 ABC News debate with Trump.

A report this month from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed that U.S. fossil fuel production reached an all-time high in 2023.

Promise: Promote renewables

Harris has also pointed to provisions of the IRA that provide consumers with tax benefits for green technology, such as home heat pumps, as a way to bring down costs.

“Thanks to tax credits on home energy technologies in the Inflation Reduction Act, more than 3.4 million American families saved $8.4 billion in 2023,” her campaign’s 82-page economic plan reads.

Trump also says he supports some climate-conscious technology, including megadonor Elon Musk’s Tesla brand of electric vehicles, but that Democrats have overinvested in non-fossil fuels.

He has called elements of the Inflation Reduction Act “giveaways,” and has singled out spending on electric vehicle charging infrastructure as wasteful.

Promise: Restore jobs

Biden has long talked about a transition away from fossil fuels as a benefit to U.S. workers, positioning them on the cutting edge of a growing industry.

Harris has similarly framed the issue in economic terms, saying the Inflation Reduction Act and other climate policies have created jobs.

“We have created over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs while I have been vice president,” she said at the Sept. 10 debate. “We have invested in clean energy to the point that we are opening up factories around the world.”

At a campaign stop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this month, Harris said Trump’s focus on fossil fuels would hamper job growth, saying he would “send thousands of good-paying clean energy jobs overseas.”

Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, have said Democrats’ focus on renewable energy sources has limited existing energy jobs.

“We’ve got great energy workers in Ohio and all across our country,” Vance said at an August campaign stop in his home state. “They want to earn a reasonable wage and they want to power the American economy. Why don’t we have a president that lets them do exactly that?

“Unleash American energy,” he said. “Drill, baby, drill and let’s turn the page on this craziness.”

Promise: Repeal Democrats’ climate law

Trump has had harsh words for Democrats’ climate law, blaming its spending for rising inflation.

“To further defeat inflation, my plan will terminate the Green New Deal, which I call the Green New Scam. Greatest scam in history, probably,” he told the Economic Club of New York in a Sept. 5 speech.

He said as president he would redirect any unspent funds in the law.

Trump has sought to distance himself from the policy blueprint Project 2025, written by the Heritage Institute.

But there is some overlap between what the conservative think tank has laid out and what Trump said he plans to do in a second term in the White House.

Project 2025 calls for repealing the Inflation Reduction Act, describing it as a subsidy to special interests.

Harris often mentions her tie-breaking vote for the law and has described her plans as president to expand on the law’s objectives.

Harris’ policy plan said she “proudly cast” the tie-breaking vote for the climate bill and that, as president, she would “continue to invest in a thriving clean energy economy.”

She added she would seek to improve that spending by cutting regulations “so that clean energy projects are completed quickly and efficiently in a manner that protects our environment and public health.”

Beshear warns of flash flooding, wind gusts risk as remnants of Hurricane Helene batter Kentucky

Liam Niemeyer — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 15:40:36 +0000

Helene is expected to stall out over Kentucky this weekend as a post-tropical depression.?(NOAA satellite image)

Gov. Andy Beshear warned Kentuckians to avoid traveling on roads Friday and to be ready for a risk of flooding and power outages as remnants of Hurricane Helene impact Kentucky.?

Beshear said in a Friday morning briefing that state employees were being sent home early to get ahead of expected peak wind gusts from the storm’s remnants expected to be 40- 60 miles per hour throughout much of Central and Eastern Kentucky, according to the National Weather Service.?

Gov. Andy Beshear warned of potential flooding and power outages from the remnants of hurricane Helene impacting Kentucky. (Screenshot/YouTube)

The governor said such wind gusts, expected to pick up in most of the state starting around noon Eastern Time, could make driving in higher profile vehicles including tractor trailers more hazardous, especially on roads that run north to south.?

“If you’re out in the middle of this, we need your 100% attention while you’re driving for your safety and for the safety of those around you,” Beshear said. “Certainly a chance for some minor flooding, a chance that we lose power, a chance that we have trees fall over roadways and create treacherous conditions.”?

He said the number of Kentuckians without power is expected to fluctuate throughout the day. Tens of thousands of people mostly in Eastern Kentucky are without power as of Friday morning, according to a website that tracks and compiles power outage numbers from utilities.

Most of Kentucky is also under a flood watch and has a slight risk for excessive rainfall leading to flash flooding. The National Weather Service in Jackson, Kentucky is warning that because soil is already saturated from previous rainfall, the incoming rain could runoff quickly.?

The National Hurricane Center’s latest report states Tropical Storm Helene is currently located over western North Carolina as of Friday morning and is expected to stall out over Kentucky this weekend as a post-tropical depression.?

“This is the remnants of a hurricane that’s hitting us, and I believe that we all ought to be humble enough to know that this forecast can change and that we may need to get additional information out there as it goes,” Beshear said.?

Planned battery recycling plant in Western Kentucky receives $125 million federal boost

Liam Niemeyer — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 20:42:50 +0000

Gov. Andy Beshear, center, speaks to Ascend Elements CEO Michael O’Kronley after a ground-breaking ceremony at Commerce Park II in Hopkinsville in October 2022. (Hoptown Chronicle photo by Jennifer P. Brown)

The company behind a planned battery recycling plant in Western Kentucky is receiving another $125 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as a part of a broader federal effort to boost battery production and recycling for electric vehicles (EVs) and the electric grid.?

Massachusetts-based Ascend Elements is receiving the federal award for a new battery recycling process at planned facilities in Hopkinsville in partnership with the Mexican company Orbia.?The companies plan to extract graphite from the recycled batteries, have it further processed and enhanced at a separate Louisiana facility owned by Orbia and then sell the new battery-grade graphite. The DOE is describing the effort as a “first-of-its-kind recycled graphite production” process.

White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi in a statement Friday about the funding — which awarded more than $3 billion to 25 battery-related projects across the country — said the funding is “helping support the technologies that we need in the market today, the components that we will need in the near future, and the innovative technologies we need to advance our vision for a circular domestic battery supply chain that positions the United States to continue leading the global effort on clean energy.”???

This latest funding for graphite recycling in Hopkinsville follows earlier large federal investments in other Ascend Elements manufacturing plants in the Western Kentucky city. Ascend Elements in partnership with South Korea-based SK ecoplant announced last year?a planned $65 million lithium-ion battery recycling plant, which would shred and recycle. 24,000 metric tons of EV batteries annually. Ascend Elements had previously stated the construction of that plant should be completed by January 2025.?

The Hoptown Chronicle has previously reported the recycled batteries will help supply another planned Ascend Elements plant, dubbed Apex 1, creating cathode active materials that constitute battery cells. The DOE has invested more than $480 million into the Apex 1 projects.?

Correction: This story previously misstated the $125 million in federal funding was for a planned battery recycling plant sponsored by SK ecoplant and Ascend Elements. The funding is instead for a new, separate effort in Hopkinsville to recycle graphite from batteries sponsored by Orbia and Ascend Elements.

Growth in clean energy jobs spurred by incentives congressional GOP opposes, says advocacy group

Liam Niemeyer — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 09:40:50 +0000

Growth in clean vehicle jobs made up approximately 45% of Kentucky’s overall clean energy job growth of 2,389 jobs added last year, the report says.?(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Kentucky for the second straight year had the nation’s second fastest growth in clean energy jobs, though the state still lags in the actual number of such jobs, according to an annual report that focuses on economic development and energy.

The report from E2, which describes itself as a nonpartisan business group that advocates “for smart policies that are good for the economy and good for the environment,” found Kentucky’s 6.5% increase in clean energy jobs tied with Texas and was behind only Alabama. Nationwide clean energy employment grew 4.5% and added nearly 150,000 jobs, with the South outpacing the rest of the country.

The group’s definition of clean energy employment is broad, including jobs created through renewable energy industries, modernizing the electric grid and improving home and business energy efficiency. The definition of clean energy jobs also includes jobs generated through clean vehicles, ranging from hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, hybrid plug-in vehicles to fully electric vehicles (EVs). Growth in clean vehicle jobs made up approximately 45% of Kentucky’s overall clean energy job growth of 2,389 jobs added last year.?

Despite the growth in clean energy jobs, Kentucky had significantly fewer of them overall at the beginning of this year than all of its neighbors except West Virginia. The per capita rate of clean energy jobs is also lower in Kentucky than surrounding states except West Virginia.?

Kentucky: 39,639 clean energy jobs and 19.8 clean jobs per capita.
Illinois: 129,282 clean energy jobs and 21.4 clean energy jobs per capita.
Indiana: 90,155 clean energy jobs and 28.3 clean energy jobs per capita.
Ohio: 119,575 clean energy jobs and 21.7 clean energy jobs per capita.
Missouri: 58,836 clean energy jobs and 20.2 clean energy jobs per capita.
Tennessee: 86,656 clean energy jobs and 26.4 clean energy jobs per capita.
Virginia: 99,774 clean energy jobs and 24.4 clean energy jobs per capita.
West Virginia: 10,394 clean energy jobs and 15 clean energy jobs per capita.

The report found that 1 in 16 new jobs nationwide, or 6.4%, were in clean energy. In Kentucky, 6.7% of new jobs were in clean energy.?Nearly half of the country’s approximately 3.4 million clean energy jobs came from construction, according to the E2 report.

Mike Proctor, the publicity chair for the EV advocacy group Evolve KY, pointed to EV manufacturing announcements in Kentucky — such as the massive BlueOval SK EV battery factories under construction in Glendale and a potential EV-focused plant in Shelby County. Gov. Andy Beshear has said the Ford project requires almost 2,600 construction workers. Proctor said the large projects will also have an economic multiplier effect, creating jobs in other industries beyond the plants, from companies that support the EV supply chain to restaurants that feed the workers.

“Every one of those things are going to have, you know, a support structure to provide parts and what not. I’m sure a number of those vendors will be Kentucky based as well,” Proctor said. “Even a hot dog stand outside the Glendale plant, I’m sure they’re doing a bang-up business for lunch.”?

Most of Kentucky’s clean energy jobs come from work in vehicles and energy efficiency, including efficient HVAC systems,? lighting and appliances.

E2, which has been tracking clean energy jobs since 2015, also ranked Kentucky as the second fastest growing state for clean energy employment in its 2023 report.?

E2 Executive Director Bob Keefe in a statement credited Congress’? passage of the “game-changing” Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and its clean energy incentives for an increase last year of almost 150,000 clean energy jobs nationwide — up 4.5% from the year before.

“But we’re just getting started,” Keefe said in his statement. “The biggest threats to this unprecedented progress are misguided efforts to repeal or rollback parts of the IRA, despite the law’s clear benefits both to American workers and the communities where they live.”

No Republican on Capitol Hill voted for the passage of the IRA in 2022, decrying the hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for electric vehicles and renewable energy as something that could drive up prices and warp markets. Republicans may soon decide whether to repeal some parts of the law. E2 in a separate report published in August found nearly 60% of announced clean vehicle and clean energy projects since the passage of the IRA have been in Republican-represented congressional districts, representing 85% of total investment tracked by the group.?

Andy McDonald, a Frankfort-based clean energy advocate and energy policy analyst, told the Lantern that at least two renewable energy projects in Franklin County can be attributed to incentives provided through the IRA: The county extension office added solar panels and a battery system.? Frankfort’s municipal utility is considering expanding its community solar installation.?

“The municipal utility provides electricity to local people, and so reducing their cost of electricity with clean energy should produce less pressure on rates for all of their customers,” McDonald said.

Beshear names former Democratic state lawmaker to board regulating utilities in Kentucky

Liam Niemeyer — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 20:06:48 +0000

The Kentucky Public Service Commission regulates the rates and services of more than 1,100 utilities, ranging from large investor-owned electric providers like Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities to small water districts that provide drinking water to rural communities.?(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

A former elected official from Eastern Kentucky who was part of Democratic leadership in the Kentucky House has been appointed to a powerful board regulating Kentucky utilities.??

John Will Stacy

Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear named John Will Stacy of West Liberty, a state representative from 1993 to 2015, to the three-member Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC).

Stacy was House majority whip serving alongside then-House Speaker Greg Stumbo and then-House Majority Leader Rocky Adkins, who is now a senior advisor to Beshear.

?A spokesperson for Beshear’s office did not immediately respond to questions about why Stacy was appointed and what experience he has in utility regulation.

Stacy replaces Kent Chandler, the former chair and leader of the commission. Chandler resigned from his post in June to the dismay of some consumer advocates and told the Lantern he had no indication or confidence he would have been reappointed by Beshear. Beshear earlier this year made PSC commissioner Angie Hatton, another former Democratic state representative from Eastern Kentucky, the new chair of the commission.?

Stacy served on the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee, shaping state budgets during his time as a lawmaker. He supported the construction of a prospective natural gas pipeline that had some landowners worried over the potential use of eminent domain. After deciding not to seek reelection in 2014, Stacy worked as an economic development director at Morehead State University and also served as Morgan County judge executive from 2019 to 2023. He earned an undergraduate degree from Morehead and a law degree from Northern Kentucky University.

The PSC regulates the rates and services of more than 1,100 utilities, ranging from large investor-owned electric providers like Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities to small water districts that provide drinking water to rural communities.?

The quasi-judicial state agency hears requests from utilities to retire or build new facilities, including solar installations that want to establish in Kentucky. The agency also fields complaints from Kentuckians about service and rates. The commission will have to work with a new board created by the legislature to slow the retirement of fossil fuel-fired power plants in the state.?

Stacy will require confirmation by the GOP-dominated Kentucky Senate during next year’s legislative session to remain in his position, something that hasn’t been a guarantee. Amy Cubbage, an attorney who formerly served as Beshear’s general counsel among other roles in his administration, wasn’t confirmed by the Senate to the PSC in 2022.

East Kentucky Power Co-op selected for federal funding to build or buy renewable energy

Liam Niemeyer — Thu, 05 Sep 2024 22:37:37 +0000

A Kentucky electric utility serving more than 570,000 homes, farms and businesses across 89 counties is getting a federal funding boost to invest in renewable energy.?

East Kentucky Power Cooperative (EKPC), based in Winchester, is one of 16 rural electric utilities across the country selected to receive a portion of $7.3 billion through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Empowering Rural America program (New ERA), made possible through the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.?

EKPC spokesperson Nick Comer in a statement said the nonprofit utility is finalizing a funding agreement with the USDA. Neither USDA or EKPC said how much financing the utility is in line to receive. Comer said most of the energy projects in the agreement will require approval by the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC), the state’s utility regulator.

“Federal New ERA funding will provide a major boost for EKPC to add renewable resources and reduce carbon dioxide emissions while keeping costs competitive for rural Kentucky residents,” Comer said.?

President Joe Biden announced the funding during a visit to Wisconsin Thursday with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

The program specifically targets rural member-owned electric cooperatives, and EKPC provides electricity to 16 electric cooperatives in the state. A USDA press release states EKPC will use the funding, the amount yet to be finalized, to “construct or procure” 757 megawatts of renewable electricity along with improving “the regional transmission grid to support renewable projects and increase energy efficiency.”?

The USDA release states the investment will reduce pollution, including carbon dioxide emissions, by 2.3 million tons every year, equating to the pollution from 554,000 gasoline-powered cars annually.

EKPC proposed earlier this year to build two solar installations in Fayette and Marion counties generating a combined 136 megawatts of electricity, and it’s not immediately clear if New ERA program funding would be used for the installations. New ERA program applicants can seek grants, loans or a combination of the two with the award not to exceed $970 million for each applicant.?

According to documents filed in April with the PSC, the two solar installations are set to be funded by both private and public bonds. Tom Stachnik, EKPC vice president of finance, in written testimony said the utility at that time was applying for New ERA program funding that “could result in additional favorable financing options.”?

While EKPC has taken advantage of funding that federal officials say will result in a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change, the utility is also supporting a legal challenge to federal regulations that seek to curb nearly all greenhouse gas emissions by 2032 from existing coal-fired power plants and new natural gas-fired power plants. The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is among a number of plaintiffs including Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman that are challenging the regulations.?

According to the utility’s annual report in 2023, EKPC sourced 59% of its electricity from burning coal. Coal is considered to be the worst emitter of greenhouse gasses compared to other electricity sources.

Appalachian Voices, an advocacy group pushing for clean energy and environmental protection across Appalachia, lauded the investments made through the New ERA program. But a representative of the group argued more needs to be done to move rural electric cooperatives away from fossil fuels.?

“Rural electric cooperatives still rely heavily on inefficient, expensive fossil fuels that create pollution and harmful waste,” said Bri Knisley, director of public power campaigns at Appalachian Voices. “Even with this enormous investment, rural electric cooperatives still have tens of billions of dollars in need to help retire fossil fuel-based facilities and replace them with clean, sustainable energy.”

Utilities that opposed Kentucky’s new energy planning commission are now part of it

Liam Niemeyer — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 09:50:02 +0000

Gov. Andy Beshear has filled two seats on a new energy planning commission with utility executives who, like Beshear, opposed the commission’s creation.

Kentucky lawmakers earlier this year created the Energy Planning and Inventory Commission (EPIC) to slow the retirement of power plants fueled by coal and natural gas.

Investor-owned utilities and environmentalists opposed the legislation which Beshear vetoed, calling it unconstitutional for “numerous reasons.” The new law also was opposed by the United Way of Kentucky, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and chambers of commerce around the state. The Republican-controlled legislature easily overrode Beshear’s veto.?

Brian Weisker

Among Beshear’s first eight appointees to the 18-member board are Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities CEO and President John Crockett and Duke Energy senior vice president Brian Weisker. The law requires that one of the governor’s appointees represent?a Kentucky investor-owned utility.

Weisker in a statement to the Lantern said he agreed to serve despite opposing Senate Bill 349 which created EPIC because it’s “vital that Duke Energy continues to have a voice in securing Kentucky’s energy future.”?

John R. Crockett III

In March, Crockett told state lawmakers EPIC would be an “inherently political body” and that he feared it would be “just another layer of bureaucracy.” Crockett also has pushed back against Senate President Robert Stivers’ assertion that the state is “facing an electric reliability crisis.” LG&E and KU spokesperson Liz Pratt said Crockett agreed to serve on EPIC to “allow us to be part of the evaluation process and help responsibly shape the future of energy” while providing insights to “the long-term energy solutions proposed for the communities we serve and for Kentucky.”?

“As regulated utilities, we must make decisions in the best interests of all of our customers and continue providing safe, reliable and affordable energy,” Pratt said.?

Beshear also appointed Jeffrey Brock, an executive for Kentucky’s largest coal producer Alliance Resource Partners. Alliance’s CEO is Joe Craft, a prominent donor in Republican politics along with his wife and former candidate for Kentucky governor Kelly Craft. Brock serves on the Kentucky Coal Association’s board of directors.?

Beshear’s Aug. 19 EPIC appointments

John Crockett, CEO and president of LG&E and KU
Brian Weisker, Duke Energy senior vice president who leads the utility’s natural gas business.
Ashli Watts, CEO and president of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce?
Kevin Nolan, CEO and president of Louisville-based GE Appliances
Caryl Pfieffer, former LG&E and KU director of corporate fuels and by-products who retired from the utility in January 2022.
Jeffrey Brock, vice president of business development at Alliance Coal LLC, a subsidiary of Alliance Resource Partners, according to a LinkedIn social media profile.?
Mark Gooch, an executive with Community Trust Bank.
Eston Glover, the former president and CEO of Pennyrile Rural Electric Cooperative and chair of the Pennyrile Regional Energy Agency??

Under the new law, most of EPIC’s decision-making power will be vested in a five-person executive committee. Beshear appointed Eston Glover to represent utilities on the executive committee. Glover is the former president and CEO of Pennyrile Rural Electric Cooperative and chair of the Pennyrile Regional Energy Agency that’s trying to build a natural gas pipeline in Western Kentucky.?

Glover told the Lantern he had received a call asking about his interest in serving on EPIC but hadn’t spoken with the governor personally. He said he wanted to learn more about EPIC and its duties before commenting. “I’m interested in energy. I’m interested in making our community better and our region better and this state better,” Glover said.?

Rodney Andrews (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

The new law puts the director of the University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research, Rodney Andrews, on the executive committee. Andrews testified before lawmakers last week he is doing the “very early” work of understanding EPIC’s scope. Andrews would serve as EPIC’s executive director unless the executive committee chooses someone else.?

Beshear still has to appoint a third executive committee member who has experience serving as a CEO or board member “of a company engaged in the production of coal.” The full board will choose the final two members of the executive committee.?

The new law set a July 1 deadline for Beshear to appoint EPIC members. He still has multiple appointments to make from nominations by industry groups such as the Kentucky Oil and Gas Association, Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives and Kentucky Industrial Utility Customers. The law reserves one seat for an appointee representing residential electricity consumers.

The law also requires EPIC to submit a study of the state’s electricity supply and the impact of federal policies on it by Dec. 1.?

Another of Beshear’s appointees, Mark Gooch, an executive of Community Trust Bank, has connections to One East Kentucky, an economic development nonprofit that opposed EPIC’s creation.??

Colby Kirk, CEO and president of One East Kentucky, told the Lantern that Gooch served on One East Kentucky’s board until 2023 and was board chair when Kirk was hired. Kirk emphasized Gooch wasn’t involved with the decision to oppose SB 349 this year. Gooch didn’t return emails or a message at his office requesting an interview.

Kirk said One East Kentucky’s decision to oppose the creation of EPIC was spurred by their local investor-owned utility Kentucky Power. Kentucky Power’s COO and president Cynthia Wiseman serves as the current board chair of One East Kentucky, and Community Trust Bank has membership on the board.?

“I felt that it’s just another, I would think, unnecessary barrier or layer of red tape,” Kirk said of EPIC. “We already have a Public Service Commission, and we already have an Office of Energy Policy. You know, what’s the real function of this?”

YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.

$500M from EPA will help nonprofit lenders power energy transition in rural Appalachia

Katie Myers — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 09:40:38 +0000

(Getty Images)

Entrepreneurs in Appalachia have ideas for renewable energy projects, but finding funding in rural and low-income areas can be challenging. A new initiative, the Green Bank for Rural America, could help channel funds to small, rural, nonprofit lenders to support projects like community solar arrays, apprenticeships in renewable energy fields and electrified public transit, just to name a few.

The green banking movement began as a way to finance small green energy projects. Banks loan money to businesses all the time, but loan processes can be difficult for business owners in low-income or rural communities. Community development financial institutions, or CDFIs, play a crucial role in supporting projects that otherwise might not get financed.

“CDFIs kind of serve as the on ramp for communities and banks on the highway,” Donna Gambrell, president of Appalachian Community Capital (ACC), said. The firm works to leverage resources toward low-income Appalachian communities through CDFIs. These small, community-based lenders are often better positioned to help businesses and people in under-invested areas.

New federal funding will help ACC provide more assistance to their small lender network. The steering committee for the Green Bank includes multiple CDFIs from across the Appalachian Region, including CommunityWorks Carolina, Grow America, Coalfield Development, Inc. and others.

The Environmental Protection Agency awarded ACC $500 million in seed funding to start a Green Bank for Rural America. The bank will prioritize the Appalachian region’s 582 counties, while also serving other communities across rural America, particularly low-income communities, communities of color, and communities in transition from fossil fuels. Gambrell said the bank will leverage private capital to create thousands of jobs in renewable energy.?

“We wanted to make sure that these were high impact projects, green projects, renewable energy projects that were in low wealth rural communities,” Gambrell said. “The projects themselves would help create jobs that stay in hard hit communities.”

The funds are part of the EPA’S $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which was created explicitly to support nonprofit lenders with a history of deep community relationships and investment in local projects. They are also intended to leverage further private investment, which ACC predicts could amount to $1.6 billion for the Appalachian region in total.?

The Green Bank is intended to raise the capacity for community lenders and allow for increased investment in all phases of energy transition and climate resilience, including workforce training, renewable energy storage, electric transit, home energy efficiency and disaster relief.

Robin Gabbard (Mountain Association)

The money will support work that’s been going on in communities for a long time, Robin Gabbard, the president of Eastern Kentucky’s CDFI, the Mountain Association, said.??

In Eastern Kentucky, the Mountain Association supports rural community centers, groceries, small businesses, charities and homeowners by financing solar panels and energy retrofits that have saved them thousands.?

Gwen Christon runs an IGA grocery store in Isom, a town in Eastern Kentucky that already struggles with exorbitantly high power bills and a lack of grocery options. Climate change is worsening both problems. When her store was devastated by a flood, Christon had to start over, turning her town into a food desert as she searched for ways to reopen, Gabbard said. The Mountain Association helped Christon get funds for improved coolers, heating and air.?

“They’re reaping the benefits of reduced energy costs, so that they can reinvest back into their businesses and continue to grow their workforce, provide lower cost groceries,” Gabbard said.

Western North Carolina is served by five members of Appalachian Community Capital: Carolina Small Business Fund, Carolina Community Impact, Mountain BizWorks, Institute Capital and Piedmont Business Capital.The institutions are preparing to be ready to go when the new funding becomes available in 2025.

This story is republished from Blue Ridge Public Radio and is made possible ?through a partnership between BPR and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.

Nuclear industry eyes Kentucky but don’t expect nuclear power plants anytime soon

Liam Niemeyer — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 21:15:10 +0000

Rodney Andrews (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

FRANKFORT — The director of an energy research center at the University of Kentucky told state lawmakers Friday it’s not likely a nuclear power plant will be built in Kentucky over the next 10 years, though some nuclear energy companies are interested in moving to the state.?

A new state law passed by the GOP-dominated legislature this year will make Rodney Andrews, the director of the University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research, the chair of a new research authority aiming to research and promote nuclear energy. The authority, administratively attached to the research center, is required by state law to present a study on workforce and education needs for nuclear energy by December, along with presenting another study by the end of 2025 determining the best locations for nuclear facilities.?

Andrews updated the Interim Natural Resources and Energy Committee on efforts to form the nuclear energy research authority along with another new commission established by lawmakers that creates new barriers to retiring a a fossil fuel-fired power plant. Both the nuclear authority and the power plant retirement review commission are administratively housed at the University of Kentucky’s research center.??

Andrews told lawmakers the state would be “extremely lucky” to see nuclear power within its borders in the next ten years, citing long permitting delays to build new nuclear power plants. Newer nuclear technology such as smaller, modular nuclear power plants have people “very excited,” he said, but no such modular reactors have been built yet.?

He said while the nuclear energy research authority isn’t fully operational yet, conversations have already started with a company that’s interested in locating a “nuclear facility” in Paducah.

“We’re also working with several companies that have expressed a strong interest in exploring bringing nuclear power to the state,” Andrews said. “There’s a great deal of interest among the utilities, but there is also significant interest from some of our largest power consumers.”?

WKMS, the public radio station in Murray, reported earlier this year a land deal was struck in McCracken County for a company seeking to use lasers to recycle depleted uranium stores, including uranium “tails” at the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in West Kentucky. Andrews declined to offer more details to the Lantern about the company interested in moving to Paducah.?

Kentucky has never had a nuclear power plant. But the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in West Kentucky produced enriched uranium for the country’s nuclear weapons program and later for commercial nuclear power plants. Maxey Flats in northeastern Kentucky served as a disposal site for low-level radioactive waste during the 20th century. Both installations contaminated surrounding soil and water and required extensive remediation.

Nuclear reactors don’t produce direct greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. But energy analysts are divided on whether nuclear energy can be developed quickly enough to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Appointment delays for board creating fossil fuel retirement barriers

Andrews also updated lawmakers on efforts to form the Energy Inventory and Planning Commission, or EPIC, a new agency that utilities would have to come to first when requesting to retire a fossil fuel-fired power plant in the state, such as plants using coal or natural gas.?

Utilities and environmentalists decried the bill establishing EPIC, saying it would result in ratepayers bearing the costs of keeping aging, uneconomical coal-fired power plants on the grid when lower-cost alternatives are available. Critics also said the board’s statutory makeup had pro-industry and pro-fossil fuel biases with little representation for the interests of ratepayers. Proponents of the bill, including Senate President Robert Stivers, argued EPIC was needed to make sure the state’s energy capacity was secure in the face of rising energy demands.?

Andrews, as director of the University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research, would be a part of a five-member executive committee for EPIC alongside members representing utilities and the coal industry. Utilities would have to approach this committee and have a request to retire a fossil fuel-fired power plant analyzed before requesting the retirement before the Kentucky Public Service Commission, the state’s utility regulator that has traditionally analyzed and approved or denied power plant retirements.?

Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear — who echoed the concerns of utilities in vetoing the bill and calling it unconstitutional — is over a month overdue in making appointments to EPIC. The? statutory deadline was July 1.

Sen. Robby Mills. (Photo by LRC Public Information)

Sen. Robby Mills, R-Henderson, asked Andrews if the appointments to EPIC were forthcoming or if he was aware of anything that was “holding up” Beshear’s? appointments. Andrews replied the governor’s office had “gotten recommendations” and that the appointments would happen “very quickly.”?

Crystal Staley, a spokesperson for the governor’s office, in a statement to the Lantern in early July said the office was “working on a process that is legal under the Kentucky Constitution” to make the appointments, and that letters seeking nominations had been sent.?

Andrews, speaking with the Lantern after his presentation to lawmakers, said the research center can provide expertise to make sure the “work product is as technically sound as possible” for both the nuclear research authority and the fossil fuel retirement review commission.?

He told lawmakers he was in the “very early” work of building the scope of how EPIC would operate, which includes considering the state’s future power needs, including possibly? trying to attract large energy consumers such as data centers.

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Some of the poorest Kentuckians pay the highest power bills because their houses leak energy

Liam Niemeyer — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 09:50:53 +0000

“The cheapest kilowatt hour is the one you don't have to produce in the first place,” said Byron Gary, a Kentucky Resources Council attorney. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Investor-owned Kentucky Power faced strong criticism last year when it asked to increase its electricity rates in response to “historic” economic decline among the 20 Eastern Kentucky counties it serves.?

The Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) ultimately slashed the proposed rate hike by over two-thirds, approving a 5.66% increase in residential bills. But as part of that decision, Kentucky Power agreed to collaborate with a coalition of consumer and renewable energy advocacy groups on ways to help ratepayers reduce their electricity bills by making their homes more energy efficient.

Kentucky Power ratepayers already paid the state’s highest average residential electricity bill at $187 a month before last year’s rate increase, and the area the utility serves includes some of the poorest communities in the state and the entire country.?

Advocates and the utility met over recent months, but the coalition of groups is disappointed in what Kentucky Power has proposed and plans to urge the PSC to push the utility to be more ambitious with its energy efficiency offerings. These groups say energy efficiency programs could offer home upgrades that households could repay through monthly utility bills while they save electricity and money.?

Byron Gary, a Kentucky Resources Council attorney representing the groups, said much more could be done “to cut down on the suffering of folks in Eastern Kentucky as well as the continued reliance on fossil fuels.”?

He said the groups hope robust energy efficiency offerings could also reduce the utility’s power demand and, the groups hope, dissuade the utility from building a new natural gas-fired power plant that ratepayers would bear the costs of.?

“The cheapest kilowatt hour is the one you don’t have to produce in the first place,” Gary said.?

Kentucky Power spokesperson Sarah Nusbaum in a statement said the utility is surprised and disappointed by the criticism “especially from groups we would have expected to support energy efficiency programs.” Nusbaum said the utility’s goal is to gauge interest from ratepayers in the new program offerings that could then lead to those programs being ramped up and expanded.

The ratepayers who pay the highest bills

Kent Chandler

During a hearing over Kentucky Power’s rate case last year, then-PSC Chairman Kent Chandler honed in on data provided by the utility that showed Kentucky Power’s poorest ratepayers had, on average, the highest electricity usage compared to the utility’s average residential customer. That high usage leads to high bills.

“Those customers that are likely least able to afford their bill, relative to the average residential customer, have the highest bill, is that right?” Chandler asked Kentucky Power President Cynthia Wiseman during the hearing.?

“I would presume that’s true,” Wiseman replied.?

Bills are significantly higher for those whose incomes are low enough to qualify for federal assistance through the Low Income Home Energy Program (LIHEAP), a federally funded program that helps low-income people afford utility bills.

The average monthly electricity consumption for all Kentucky residential ratepayers in 2022 was 1,094 kilowatt-hours, according to the Energy Information Administration. But the data presented by Chandler showed electricity consumption for Kentucky Power ratepayers was higher than that average — significantly higher for those receiving LIHEAP assistance.?

During the winter months when electricity consumption peaks for Kentucky Power, the Eastern Kentucky utility’s ratepayers who take part in LIHEAP on average use more than 2,500 kilowatt-hours per month. Multiply that consumption by Kentucky Power’s average residential rate? — approximately 16 cents per kilowatt in 2022, among the highest in the state? — and you get monthly electricity costs north of $400. During some months the past three winters, roughly 20% of Kentucky Power ratepayers who take part in LIHEAP have used more than 4,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity, according to Kentucky Power data provided to the PSC. Wiseman during a November 2023 PSC hearing mentioned some ratepayers’ monthly electricity usage has gone as high as 6,000 kilowatt-hours.?

A major reason cited by Kentucky Power leadership for such high electricity consumption: Many homes need better insulation and better, more efficient heating sources.?

Disagreement after a collaboration

That’s where energy efficiency programs and “weatherizing” a home can play a role in reducing electricity usage and electricity bills. Chris Woolery, a residential energy coordinator for the nonprofit Mountain Association supporting economic development in Eastern Kentucky, said that kind of work can include better insulation, air sealing a home and installing energy-efficient heat pumps to warm a household.?

Many Kentuckians, Woolery said, have types of resistance heat such as electric furnaces and baseboard heaters, or they use space heaters.?

“That is some of the most expensive and inefficient heat that you can buy,” Woolery said, saying switching people to use heat pumps is key. “When a utility can invest in getting people off of resistance heat, they can often save so much money in peak demand, generation or power purchase costs that it offsets the investment.”

A focus on improving Kentucky Power’s energy efficiency programs is something that state government officials, nonprofit housing builders, consumer advocacy and renewable energy groups and Kentucky Power all collaborated on in a series of stakeholder meetings.?

The meetings were characterized as “mutually beneficial” by Barry Nolen, a customer and distribution services manager with Kentucky Power, in testimony filed before the PSC.?

Kentucky Power is proposing to add additional funding for an existing program that helps ratepayers get energy efficiency upgrades through home air sealing, new insulation, new doors, new windows and new lighting. The federal Weatherization Assistance Program is what facilitates those upgrades, but oftentimes homeowners who need that help are deferred or denied it because of damage or structural issues to a home.?

If there’s a roof leak, for example, newly installed insulation could be destroyed by water damage. That’s where the federal Weatherization Readiness Fund comes in to support ratepayers making home repairs necessary before making energy efficiency improvements. Kentucky Power is also offering additional funding for a federal fund, up to $1,000 for 60 homes over three years.

Andy McDonald

But advocates that collaborated with Kentucky Power say while the new investments are appreciated, they still don't meet the scale of the need among Kentucky Power’s ratepayers.?

“It must be in the thousands, if not the tens of thousands of homes that need improvements in Kentucky Power’s territory,” said Andy McDonald, vice-chair of the solar energy advocacy group Kentucky Solar Energy Society. “We appreciate that Kentucky Power is aware of this issue and concerned about it” but that the program “is not in proportion to the need.”

The groups also see potential for going further with new programs the utility could offer. The groups point to a type of program called Inclusive Utility Investment (IUI) where individual households could receive energy efficiency upgrades to their home in exchange for a charge on their bill, potentially saving money on their bill while the utility still recoups their investment. They also point to the potential of replicating a program offering home battery storage systems.

McDonald shared with the Lantern a consultant report from the Vermont-based consulting firm Energy Futures Group that showed the amount of investment in energy efficiency programs Kentucky Power would be proposing is much lower than what other utilities offer and lower than what Kentucky Power itself has invested in the past. The PSC in 2018 scrapped almost all of Kentucky Power’s energy efficiency programs stating the “high levels of spending” on the programs couldn’t be justified.??

Nusbaum, the Kentucky Power spokesperson, said in her statement the utility was focused on programs that were “proven and cost-effective to customers” and that the utility didn’t believe an IUI program “would provide benefits that would outweigh the cost to our customers.”?

Nusbaum also said they determined the amount of funding for the Weatherization Readiness Fund through consultation with community action agencies in the state that administer such help, an investment level the utility believes is “impactful for customers” while also being mindful of what ratepayers will have to pay on their bills to implement such programs.?

“We worked hard to develop this proposal to help our customers,” Nusbaum said. “Some of the good work we felt was accomplished to make this happen, we did with some of the groups criticizing the current proposal. It’s disappointing to hear negative feedback and opposition from these stakeholders, especially since this opposition can delay or even prevent the important [demand side management] benefits these programs will provide for our most vulnerable customers.”

Worries over fossil fuels

Kentucky Power's gas-fired Big Sandy power plant in Lawrence County. (Creative Commons photo)

These disagreements over energy efficiency come as Kentucky Power is seeking more power generation, some of it potentially through additional fossil fuels. The prospect concerns advocacy groups that the cost of building, for example, a new natural gas-fired power plant would fall on ratepayers.?

“We're really excited that they're starting new programs, but we're just disappointed that the scale is not enough to affect that [natural gas] peaker plant that's proposed,” Woolery said. “Every one of those investments is so meaningful to the families that received them, but in the grand scheme it’s going to take a whole lot more to offset the need, right?”

Kentucky Power currently only has one natural gas-fired power plant and it’s unclear if the utility will have access to electricity generation from a West Virginia coal-fired power plant beyond 2028. Kentucky Power is a subsidiary of American Electric Power based Columbus, Ohio.

As of now, that leaves the utility having to purchase the rest of its power from the regional electricity grid operator PJM, which can expose the utility to potentially paying higher power prices compared to producing it on its own. The PSC scolded Kentucky Power last year for having insufficient in-house power generation available during a December 2022 winter storm, forcing the utility to pay exorbitantly high electricity prices from PJM as much of the South and Midwest faced a power demand crunch.

Kentucky Power leadership in an energy planning document filed to the PSC last year wrote its “preferred plan” for the future was to add to its energy portfolio a 480-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant along with 700 megawatts of new wind power, 800 megawatts of new solar power and 50 megawatts of electricity battery storage. The utility also put out requests to purchase up to 1,800 megawatts of fossil fuel-fired and renewable energy last year.?

Nusbaum, the utility spokesperson, in her statement said while energy efficiency programs are an important part of addressing future energy needs, it can not “alone cannot fully address all of them.”?

Woolery framed the energy efficiency programs as a choice Kentucky Power has to make: invest in a “really risky path” of adding a natural gas-fired power plant amid uncertainty over how greenhouse gas emissions will be regulated, or invest in a “virtual power plant.” He said that means investing in energy efficiency in homes, rooftop solar, household battery storage that can reduce the future energy demand — and the potential for a new natural gas fuel-fired power plant — the utility is considering.

“It just seems like the smart play, the play that's going to make more jobs, going to save more money, going to create less risk and uncertainty is to invest in ourselves, to invest in our communities,” Woolery said.

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Kentucky urged to curb air pollution that makes Mammoth Cave one of the haziest national parks

Liam Niemeyer — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:50:18 +0000

Canoeing the Green River is one of Mammoth Cave National Park's many above ground attractions. (National Park Service)

Mammoth Cave National Park is famous for what’s below the ground, featuring the world’s longest explored cave system with hundreds of miles of passages and a unique ecosystem of fish, insects, worms and crustaceans. But it’s what’s happening in the air above the cave system that has Kentucky environmentalists concerned.?

Mammoth Cave is one of the country’s haziest national parks, says a national group dedicated to conserving the parks. Environmental groups say a Kentucky plan being drafted for controlling the air pollution that causes haze falls short — criticisms state officials largely refute.

Milkweed is one of the ozone sensitive species found at Mammoth Cave National Park. (National Park Service)

Haze is tiny, airborne particulate matter that can obscure outdoor visibility. It can be created from natural sources such as wildfires but largely comes from man-made sources, such as emissions from motor vehicles and power plants. This pollution can impact people’s health by aggravating asthma, reducing lung function and leading to heart problems. It can also negatively impact wildlife.

“We’re seeing more of these haze pollutants depositing into the soil and the water and impacting wildlife, because they eat a lot of things that are in the soil and in the water,” said Natalie Levine, the senior manager for clean air and climate programs at the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), the group that analyzed haze pollution in national parks.?

According to the NPCA, the large majority of that haze drifting into national parks is man-made. And at Mammoth Cave, more than 70% of pollution contributing to haze is coming from electricity generation — specifically coal-fired power plants.?

Smokestack emissions from coal-fired power plants contain toxic gasses sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, which can react with water and other atmospheric gasses to become acid rain that acidifies water and soil and harms the wildlife that rely on them. Excess nitrogen and sulfur from these gasses can be deposited into the soil and water through acid rain or by settling onto surfaces through the air, potentially killing and inhibiting the growth of trees and other plants.?

Hikers on the Bluffs Trail at Mammoth Cave National Park. The air pollution that causes haze can harm human health, aggravating asthma, reducing lung function and leading to heart problems. (National Park Service)

“We are concerned about our national parks. We’re concerned about their biodiversity. We’re concerned about hazy skies and giving people the best outdoor experience possible. But we’re really talking about the health of the communities as well,” said Julia Finch, the director of the Sierra Club’s Kentucky chapter.

A spokesperson for Kentucky’s environmental protection cabinet, however, says its efforts to reduce haze “are significantly reducing emissions”? and that air quality around the national park is better than national standards.?

John Mura, a spokesperson for the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet that houses the Division for Air Quality, in a statement said the state is committed to working with federal agencies “and other interested parties to ensure the cleanest air quality possible for our citizens by understanding and addressing the emission sources that are contributing to visibility issues at Mammoth Cave National Park.”?

Slow improvements in haze

Haze protections for national parks date back to the establishment of the Clean Air Act in the 1960s and the additions and amendments added to it over the decades,?

In 1999, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), empowered through the Clean Air Act, issued new regulations requiring states to develop regional plans to reduce haze in national parks and control the pollution sources contributing to it. Such regional plans, for example, could require coal-fired power plants to install smokestack scrubbers or controls to filter out sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide emissions. The long-term goal of the plans is to return national parks to their original natural visibility by 2064.?

An entrance to Mammoth Cave National Park (National Park Service)

But there have been a number of delays in getting states to submit these plans, Kentucky included. The EPA required the first version of these plans to be submitted by the end of 2007; Kentucky did, but 37 states did not. Progress reports on how states are meeting goals set in their haze plans are due every five years, and new versions of the regional haze plans are due every 10 years.?

The EPA set another deadline for states to submit their second version of regional haze plans in July 2021, a deadline that Kentucky and 14 other states did not meet. Kentucky is now trying to submit a new draft haze plan for the EPA to consider by a new deadline of Sept. 29 under the potential threat the EPA could step in and create its own haze plan for Kentucky.?

State officials say Kentucky’s first regional plan has decreased the state’s sulfur dioxide emissions by 310,047 tons since 2008, and that air quality at the park is better than national standards.?

Data from the National Park Service (NPS) does show visibility and the impacts of acid rain and ozone at the park have improved in a little over a decade since the state’s first haze plan was submitted, though acid rain and ozone are still impacting wildlife and human health.?

Median visibility at the park only reached a “fair” classification as of 2021 after having “poor” visibility since 2009, according to NPS data. The amount of sulfur and nitrogen deposited into the park’s soil and water every year through acid rain and the air has decreased, though sulfur levels have decreased much more significantly than nitrogen levels.?

The levels of ozone, a reactive gas largely created from emissions from power plants and cars that can harm human health, have also decreased since 2009. Ozone impacts to vegetation in the park are rated at a “good” level but remain as only “fair” for human health, according to the NPS.?

Environmentalists say more should be done

Even with that progress, environmental groups including the Kentucky Chapter of the Sierra Club and the Kentucky Resources Council, say the updated haze plan Kentucky is considering doesn’t do nearly enough to reduce air pollution impacting the park through haze and acid rain.??

These environmental groups say only two coal-fired power plants — the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Shawnee Fossil Plant in McCracken County and the Big Rivers Electric Corporation’s D.B. Wilson Generating Station — were analyzed by the state as potential sources of haze pollution in the draft plan when over a dozen more pollution sources including other power plants and industry are also contributing to the haze.?

Among the two power plants analyzed, these groups say, the state decided to not require any additional emissions controls to reduce nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide emissions from the plants. The groups say state officials also only accounted for controlling sulfur dioxide emissions and not nitrogen dioxide emissions, which also can create haze.?

“In the excluded list were five coal plants and nine other industrial facilities, including those with aluminum and metal smelter operations, oil and gas operations, and lime and cement operations,” said Audrey Ernstberger, a lobbyist with the Kentucky Resources Council at a public hearing on the draft haze plan last month.

TVA’s Shawnee Fossil Plant is located about 10 miles northwest of Paducah at the confluence of the Ohio and Cumberland rivers. (TVA)

Ernstberger said the result, according to KRC’s analysis, is that more than 82,000 tons of haze pollution will still be released under the draft plan.?

In Kentucky’s draft plan, state officials write that because the electric utility Big Rivers Electric Corp. had installed a device in November 2022 to control sulfur dioxide at its Wilson coal-fired power plant, a deeper analysis into potential emissions controls wasn’t needed.?

Officials also write that the emission levels of nitrogen dioxide coming from the Wilson and Shawnee plants didn’t exceed “screening thresholds” in the state’s modeling, so officials “did not perform any reasonable progress analyses” for nitrogen dioxide emissions.?

For the Shawnee Fossil Plant, Mura said the state worked with the Tennessee Valley Authority to modify its state air permit to limit sulfur dioxide from the plant to 8,208 tons per year starting in 2028. State officials chose that limit following a deeper “four-factor” analysis conducted into potential emission controls for the coal-fired plant.?

When asked by the Lantern why the state chose only the Wilson and Shawnee plants to analyze for haze pollution, Mura said the state used modeling to determine the plants were “significantly impacting Mammoth Cave National Park and that limiting SO2 emissions at these facilities would have the greatest impact in improving visibility in the region.”?

If Kentucky meets the September deadline for submitting a haze plan, the EPA could approve the plan as is, ask the state to make revisions or step in and make its own plan. A federal judge last month signed a consent decree directing the EPA to speed up action on haze plans submitted by 32 other states.?

Hilary Lambert, a former Lexington resident who led a New York-based water protection nonprofit, said at the July public hearing she owns a cabin in Green County less than 50 miles east of Mammoth Cave National Park. She echoed what she wrote in a Louisville Courier-Journal column saying the state needs to do more to curb pollution and ensure compliance with state and federal regulations.?

“It's the state's own, the commonwealth's only big national park, and it's a jewel for people to visit,” Lambert said at the hearing. “Please get up to date and bring a number of businesses into compliance with the law to clean up the air for everybody.”

Mammoth Cave National Park is more than its famous cave system. (National Park Service)

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Tennessee Valley Authority faces a push to get greener and more transparent?

Robert Zullo — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 09:40:45 +0000

Nanette Mahler, left, and Tracy O’Neill, walk along Macon Wall Road in Cheatham County, Tennessee, near the site of a proposed Tennessee Valley Authority gas power plant project. Local backlash against the proposal comes as the federal utility faces bipartisan legislation in Congress seeking to boost transparency in its planning process and scrutiny of TVA’s anemic renewable power growth compared to other utilities. (By Robert Zullo/ States Newsroom)

ASHLAND CITY, Tenn. — When he heard about the sale, Kerry McCarver was perplexed.

In 2020, the mayor of rural Cheatham County discovered that the Tennessee Valley Authority bought about 280 acres of rolling farmland “in the middle of nowhere” in his county, which lies just west of Nashville and is home to about 42,000 people.

He asked another county official who formerly worked for the TVA, the nation’s largest public power company, to find out what it planned to do with the land.

The answer they got was “future use,” and they speculated a solar farm might be in the works.

“It’s kind of the last we thought about it,” McCarver said during an interview in his office in May. “Then a year ago last summer, TVA called here needing a place to have a public meeting.”

The authority was now proposing a 900-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant, battery storage, pipelines and other associated infrastructure for the site, which came as a shock to McCarver and many other locals who felt it was wholly inappropriate for the area.

“I called the county attorney and said ‘What’s our options?” McCarver said. The answer he got: “It’s TVA. You don’t have any options.”

Opposition to the Cheatham County project dominated a public “listening session” of the TVA’s Board of Directors in May, when TVA officials told States Newsroom that the proposed plant is in the early stages of development and just one potential option to meet growing power demand in the region and replace retiring coal power.

“We understand that some members of the Cheatham County community do not view this location as appropriate for a new generating site, and we respect that viewpoint,” TVA spokesman Scott Fiedler said in late June. “No decisions have been made.”

However, the backlash comes as the federal utility faces bipartisan legislation in Congress seeking to boost transparency in its planning process as well as its management and salary structure. TVA has also been in the crosshairs of green groups over its planned gas power buildout, which is among the largest proposed in the nation, and anemic renewable power growth compared to other utilities.

“Back when it was created in the 1930s, TVA was on the cutting edge of transforming a region of the country and investing in a lot of infrastructure to create that transformation,” said Amanda Garcia, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center who has worked on TVA issues for a decade.? “We‘re just not seeing that happen now.”

‘Clearly a laggard’?

Created by Congress in 1933 during the Great Depression, the TVA today provides wholesale electricity to 153 local power companies serving 10 million people in Tennessee and parts of six neighboring states.

The authority is replacing major coal-fired units at its Kingston (site of a massive coal ash spill in 2008) and Cumberland plants with gas generation and is planning to retire all of its coal power fleet by 2035. It has set a goal of 10 gigawatts of solar power by 2035 and boasts that 55% of its electric generation is carbon free, most of it hydroelectric and nuclear power. And TVA President and CEO Jeff Lyash says a little less than half of the 10 gigawatts of solar it wants to put in by 2035 is already “in operation or in development and construction.”

For comparison, though, utility giant Duke Energy had more than 10 gigawatts of solar installed across its 16-state footprint as of 2022. Environmental and clean power groups say TVA, a federal nonprofit power company, could be doing much more to advance a transition to cheaper, cleaner power.

“They, unlike many utilities, have the ability to do big things and do big things faster,” said Daniel Tait,? executive director of Energy Alabama, a clean energy advocacy organization, and a research and communications manager for the Energy and Policy Institute, a utility watchdog group.

Tait and others say TVA’s leadership has been historically dismissive of the role renewable power can play on the grid.

“TVA is clearly a laggard when it comes to renewable energy,” said Stephen Smith, executive director of the nonprofit Southern Alliance for Clean Energy who has served on TVA advisory panels in the past. “Florida Power & Light has deployed more solar in a quarter than TVA has in their whole history.” Smith, who joked that he’s been “beating his head against the gates of TVA since 1993, said the authority was created to “lead on big national issues” but isn’t living up to its legacy.

“They’re not demonstrating leadership on renewables, they’re not demonstrating leadership on energy efficiency. They’re not demonstrating leadership on (battery) storage,” he said, partly the result of what he called an “institutional bias” against renewable power.

TVA officials reject that notion, with a spokesman telling States Newsroom that TVA is a “clean energy leader.”

However, Lyash acknowledged at the May board meeting that supply chain challenges brought on by the pandemic, inflation, difficulty securing land for solar and the TVA’s own interconnection delays (it also runs the electric grid in its service area) have created snags.

“We’re not satisfied. We’re? going to revise our processes,” Lyash said. “We’re taking a hard look at how we can accelerate the deployment of clean energy assets. It will be a focus of ours in the coming year.”

In an interview, Lyash said the TVA is pursuing new initiatives to advance solar development,? like its pilot Project Phoenix, which would put solar panels on closed coal ash sites.

“If this is successful, and it looks like it will be, this will be replicated across our whole system,” Lyash said.

An ‘incredibly weak board’

Still, TVA, which now has a board largely appointed by President Joe Biden, remains out of step with the president’s own aggressive power sector decarbonization goals, green groups note. (The Sierra Club gave the TVA an “F” last year on its latest ranking of how well utilities are living up to their own decarbonization goals and transitioning to cleaner power).

“There’s a lot of room for the Biden administration to deepen their relationships with TVA,” said Garcia, the SELC attorney. “If the largest federal utility isn’t even coming close to that, then how can we have hope that we’re going to achieve that target to decarbonize the grid?”

The White House did not respond to an inquiry on TVA’s gas buildout or additional appointments to the board (two members appointed by former President Donald Trump saw their terms expire earlier this year.) Another Biden nomination for the TVA board has been before a U.S. Senate committee since January. TVA’s nine-member board is supposed to be its chief regulator, since TVA does not answer to state utility commissions in its territory. But, critics note, the board is part time, lacks its own staff and usually defers to the TVA executive leadership on big decisions like power plant construction.

Smith called it an “incredibly weak board led by an executive staff that’s accountable to no one,” adding that reformers have pushed for the TVA board to attend meetings of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and hire their own staff.

“I don’t know how a part-time board with no staff? and no technical capabilities can review something like an integrated resource plan effectively,” said Dave Rogers, deputy director of the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign.

The TVA’s long legacy in the South?

In the U.S. electric utility landscape, there’s really nothing like the Tennessee Valley Authority Created by an act of Congress in 1933 as the nation was mired in the Great Depression, the authority was tasked with, among other jobs, taming flooding and improving navigation along the Tennessee River, reforesting lands, erosion control for farmers, malaria prevention and electric power production, initially through a network of dams and hydroelectric plants.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt (The White House)

“This in a true sense is a return to the spirit and vision of the pioneer,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in a message to Congress asking for legislation to create the TVA. The authority looms large in the lore of the region as a result of the surge in economic development and living standards it unleashed in what had been one of the most impoverished parts of the country. Average yearly income in the Tennessee Valley was about $168 in 1933, half the national average at the time.

“The most dramatic change in Valley life came from the electricity generated by TVA dams,” the National Archives notes. “Electric lights and modern appliances made life easier and farms more productive. Electricity also drew industries to the region, providing desperately needed jobs.” During a tour of the area after the TVA’s creation, the journalist Lorena Hickok wrote in a field report to the Roosevelt administration that “a promised land, bathed in golden sunlight, is rising out of the gray shadows of want and squalor and wretchedness down here in the Tennessee Valley these days.”

Indeed, not too many electric utilities get a shout out in smash country songs.The Bob McDill-penned “Song of the South,” which became a hit for the band Alabama in 1989, also speaks to TVA’s legacy: “Cotton was short and the weeds were tall, but Mr. Roosevelt gonna save us all. … Papa got a job with the TVA. We bought a washing machine and then a Chevrolet.”

There was a darker side to all that progress, however. Thousands of people across the region were displaced and in some cases entire towns were flooded, creating a number of what the Tennessee State Museum calls “underwater ghost towns.”

Today, the authority has about 10,000 employees, a budget of more than $12 billion, 29 hydroelectric plants, four large coal plants, three nuclear power plants and 17 natural gas plants, among other assets, and has one of the largest transmission systems in North America — 16,400 miles of lines covering 80,000 square miles.. It still plays a major role in economic development, but also has suffered some very public black eyes over the years, including a devastating coal ash spill in 2008 and subsequent litigation alleging the workers who cleaned it up, many of whom have since fallen ill and died, were not adequately protected. The TVA was also forced to implement its first-ever rolling blackouts in 2022 during Winter Storm Elliott as fossil fuel plants tripped off line. Since then the TVA has spent more than $123 million on winterization upgrades at the plants and made it through its highest ever peak demand during a cold snap last winter without any blackouts. – Robert Zullo

‘More transparent’?

A big part of the problem for TVA’s would-be reformers is the so-called integrated resource planning (IRP) process. Though the process varies by state and regulatory regime, many utilities across the country file IRPs with state regulators that lay out forecasts for electric demand and outline how they intend to meet their obligations to customers, including what generation and transmission projects they are likely to build under different scenarios. The process provides an opportunity for ratepayer advocates, environmental groups and large industrial customers, among other intervenors, to challenge utility assumptions about demand growth and the best and cheapest way to provide electric service.

TVA does compile an IRP, and it handpicks a working group of outsiders (who are asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, participants say) to advise on the plan. The last one was published in 2019. The current process has been paused in part because of new power plant carbon rules by the Environmental Protection Agency.

But bipartisan legislation introduced in Congress earlier this year by Tennessee Reps. Steve Cohen, a Memphis Democrat, and Tim Burchett, a Republican from the Knoxville area, is intended to pry open the TVA planning process. The bill would create an Office of Public Participation to “facilitate a process for meaningful and open public engagement … including opportunities for intervention, discovery, filed comments and an evidentiary hearing,” among other duties, a news release says. The bill would also direct TVA to include standard information about long-term sales and peak demand forecast, a summary of transmission investments, scenarios that “fairly evaluate demand-side and supply side technologies,” disclosure of modeling assumptions and analyses of fuel costs and environmental regulations, among other requirements.

Crucially it would also require the TVA board to “issue a decision approving, denying or modifying the plan, like every other utility regulator.”

Burchett and Cohen also introduced legislation that has passed the House and is currently in the Senate that would reinstate the TVA’s annual reporting requirement to Congress on executive and top manager compensation. In May, the TVA board voted separately to restructure its executive pay practices, cutting incentive-based compensation and changing the severance plan. (Lyash earned $10.5 million in 2023, making him the highest paid federal employee.)

“We’re trying to get them more and more transparent and give them some solid guidelines,” Burchett said in an interview. “If we say we’re going to let them do it, it’s not going to happen.”

Burchett, who added that TVA had become “too big and arrogant for their own good,”? said he and Cohen have been friends since their days in the Tennessee legislature.

“We might not agree on a lot of policy things,”? he said. “But public input and transparency are a couple of things we really agree on.”

Multiple attempts to reach Cohen for an interview were unsuccessful.

At the May meeting several board members acknowledged the need to improve transparency, including in publicizing lists of large capital projects approved during the budget process, and speeding up clean power projects.

“I also know that we need to go further, faster on our renewable energy goals,” Board Member Beth Geer said. Joe Ritch, the chair, said the board will “continue to review our governance processes and make changes and updates as appropriate.”

‘Everybody wins’

And while representatives of many of TVA’s local power companies showed up at the May listening session to voice support for the authority’s power plant buildout, others have some frustrations with the authority.

Most notably, Memphis Light, Gas and Water in 2022 refused to ink a new long-term contract with TVA, opting for a five-year rolling deal. It had been exploring leaving the authority as local groups pushed for cheaper and cleaner power. (Memphis LG&W turned down an interview request to discuss the contract situation.) Fiedler, the TVA spokesman, said 147 of the authority’s 153 local power companies have signed the long-term contracts.

The Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of several environmental groups, sued over the contracts, arguing the “never-ending” deals would “forever deprive distributors and ratepayers the opportunity to renegotiate with TVA to obtain cheaper, cleaner electricity.”

A judge dismissed the suit last year, finding the groups lacked legal standing. The contracts allow local power companies to build local generation resources like solar to meet up to 5% of their average electric needs but some argue TVA should be allowing more..

“It should be 10%,” said Gil Hough, executive director of TenneSEIA, a state affiliate of the national Solar Energy Industries Association. (Nashville Electric Service’s CEO said the cap should be 15%). Hough said local power companies can often get projects done faster than the TVA and the new generation, especially solar and battery storage, helps mitigate TVA’s concerns about growing electric demand.

Hough cited a partnership between Huntsville Utilities and Toyota in Alabama that will build a 30-megawatt solar system to power about 70% of a local Toyota engine plant as a prime example. The Huntsville Business Journal reported that it was the first time the local utility, taking advantage of the new 5% local generation flexibility option, would be buying power from “someone besides TVA.”

“Everybody wins,” Hough said. “Regular ratepayers win. Economic development. TVA doesn’t have to add more generation. Solar developers win.”

‘You feel helpless’

Both Tracy O’Neill and Nanette Mahler describe themselves as Nashville “refugees” who were seeking peace and quiet when they moved out to Cheatham County. Now, though, growing power demand in Middle Tennessee is a big part of TVA’s rationale for the gas plant, pipelines and transmission infrastructure proposed for Cheatham.

“They’re taking from us to give to other people,” Mahler said.

The neighbors aren’t aligned politically (Mahler is a conservative and O’Neill a liberal environmentalist) but they’ve bonded over their mutual dread of the proposed power plant. Both live close to the site and gave a reporter a tour of the area, a collection of old farmsteads and sparsely situated single family homes along narrow country roads.

“Who would have ever thought they’d come out here and do this?” Mahler said.

They’re both members of Presvere Cheatham County, a local group formed to oppose the project and the massive disruption they fear construction and operation of the plant will bring: heavy truck traffic, pollution, noise and light and wear and tear on flood-prone local roads, among other impacts.

Despite TVA’s assertions that the project is in the early stages and alternatives are being considered, Mahler said TVA’s contractors are telling locals it’s a “done deal.”

Both fault TVA for what they say was limited outreach to neighbors.

“It feels like they have been intentionally secretive,” O’Neill said. “It’s just heartbreaking to think that all of this will be destroyed.”

That feeling of powerlessness extends to McCarver, their mayor, who said the county welcomes industrial development, but only where it makes sense.

“They don’t have a snowball’s chance to get rezoned for something like that in that area,” he said. “They just come in as the thousand pound gorilla having their way without having to ask anybody or tell anybody or even work with those neighbors or that community out there.”

State and federal elected officials haven’t been much help, he added. And offers by the county to purchase the land from TVA have been fruitless. The only thing that might derail the project, McCarver added, is some adverse finding during the environmental review that will come if the plant moves forward. TVA’s been under fire for ignoring the Environmental Protection Agency’s critiques of its plans to replace coal-fired units at its Kingston plant with gas generation. The EPA said in a review of the draft environmental impact statement for the plant that TVA fell short in a number of ways, including not evaluating enough alternatives, lapses in cost calculations and other deficiencies. The agency asked TVA to prepare a supplemental analysis, which TVA didn’t perform.

“We appreciate the input from EPA as a cooperating agency in the EIS process, which was completed with the release of the record of decision,” Fiedler, the TVA spokesman said.

For McCarver, the past year of dealing with TVA’s proposed gas plant in Cheatham has been “a horrible experience” that’s made him painfully aware of the authority’s unique powers as a federal entity.

“I’ve always dealt politically with ‘not in my backyard.’ This is not a ‘not in my backyard’ situation,” the mayor said “Their area will never be the same. … You feel helpless.”

Congress needs to rein in the TVA, and forcing it to follow local zoning would be a good start, McCarver said.

“They put up a good front. They do a good tap dance. But at the end of the day, the feeling is … they’re going to do what they want to and how they want to do it and when they want to do it, and hopefully you won’t be in their way,” he said. “Nobody should be that powerful. Why is TVA that powerful?”

Kentucky lawmakers hear climate-science skepticism from attorney general’s office

Liam Niemeyer — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 01:35:22 +0000

Sights like this barge loaded with coal on the Ohio Rive near Cairo, Illinois, would become more rare under a Biden administration rule that seeks to curb heat-trapping emissions by drastically reducing the burning of coal and gas to produce electricity. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

FRANKFORT — A litigator for the Kentucky attorney general disputed the role of carbon dioxide emissions in warming the world’s climate, despite near-total agreement among scientists that the clear gas is a major contributor to warming.

Speaking Thursday to state lawmakers, Vic Maddox, counsel on special litigation for Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman, cited the work of two physicists — William Happer and Richard Lindzen — who insist there is no climate emergency and have long disputed or questioned the scientific consensus on climate change. Maddox pointed to two recent publications — an eight-page article from June, published in an open-access archive maintained by Cornell University, and a two-page document from July.

Vic Maddox, counsel to Attorney General Russell Coleman for special litigation, speaking before a legislative committee Thursday. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

According to Maddox, Happer and Lindzen contend that carbon dioxide has become a “weak greenhouse gas” because of the “saturation effect,” and that the more carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere the “less of a warming effect it has.”

Maddox was among several witnesses appearing before the legislature’s Interim Joint Natural Resources and Energy Committee which was discussing the implications of new federal rules requiring coal-fired power plants and new natural gas-fired power plants to capture 90% of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions by 2032 if the plants intend to run beyond 2039.?

As of earlier this year, Kentucky generated more than 70% of its electricity from burning coal according to federal data, an outlier in the country as utilities have transitioned to cheaper alternatives such as natural gas or renewables. Coal is considered to be the “dirtiest” fossil fuel in terms of carbon dioxide emissions from burning it for electricity.

Coleman, along with other Republican state attorneys general and investor-owned utilities in Kentucky, is challenging the rule which he calls a “radical green agenda that would only leave Kentucky in the dark.”

Maddox, in explaining the AG’s legal efforts to block the Biden administration rule, said the EPA should consider the physicists’ conclusions about the role of carbon dioxide emissions.

“We think the EPA should consider it, and we think that as these cases go forward, there may be an opportunity to present this sort of material to the court for consideration,” Maddox said. “The question here is …is carbon dioxide really an important greenhouse gas at this point? Is it causing the problem that the EPA wants to solve, and will its elimination or reduction actually result in the result that it seeks?”?

Scientists have come to a near universal consensus that the Earth’s climate is getting warmer mostly because of human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels that releases carbon dioxide emissions, those being a primary driver of global warming. Scientists have also refuted the theory, which dates back more than a century, that the atmosphere will warm at a much slower rate because it is already “saturated” with carbon dioxide.?

A climate scientist from the University of Washington, who reviewed the eight-page June document from Happer and Lindzen that Maddox cited, criticized the methodology of the document and the small number and quality of references in that document. He also said the document, which he characterized as “shoddy work,” wasn’t a peer-reviewed publication nor had it appeared in a scientific journal.

“The Cornell archive simply provides people with a place to self-publish, rather similar to some websites,” said Thomas Ackerman, a professor emeritus of atmospheric sciences. “There is a grain of truth to the absorption saturation argument, but the application here is wrong. It would take a lot of radiative transfer physics to explain that in detail, but, if that argument were true, a lot of us scientists would have figured that out a long time ago.”

“If this were a meaningful paper, it would be peer-reviewed and published,” Ackerman said.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body at the United Nations of the world’s leading climate scientists, in its latest synthesis report found greenhouse gas emissions including carbon dioxide have “unequivocally” caused global warming with impacts to ecosystems on land and water, increases in extreme heat events and sea level rises likely attributed to climate change.?

When asked by the Lantern about Happer’s and Lindzen’s skepticism about climate change, Maddox didn’t directly address the question and claimed that models predicting climate change by the IPCC were inaccurate and “so inadequate that they can’t predict what has already happened.”?

Maddox referenced a book from Steven Koonin, another physicist who worked in the U.S. Department of Energy under President Barack Obama, in his criticisms of the IPCC. That book has been criticized as misleading, using strawman arguments to attack climate science or falsely asserting that climate science isn’t settled.

Rep. Jim Gooch Jr., R-Providence, asks a question about legal challenges to the federal rule on fossil fuel power plants in Kentucky during the July Interim Joint Committee on Natural Resources and Energy. (LRC Public Information)

In a 2021 article in National Review, the physicists Lindzen and Happer criticized the Biden?administration for signing onto the Paris climate accord and “joining in the crusade against a supposed ‘climate emergency.’ We use the word ‘crusade’ advisedly, since the frenzy over climate resembles the medieval crusades against foreign infidels and home-grown heretics. There is even a children’s climate crusade.”

The two physicists in that article insisted there is no climate emergency: “Nor will there be one. None of the lurid predictions — dangerously accelerating sea-level rise, increasingly extreme weather, more deadly forest fires, unprecedented warming, etc. — are any more accurate than the fire-and-brimstone sermons used to stoke fanaticism in medieval crusaders.”

Last year was the warmest since global records began in 1850 at 1.18 degrees Celsius (2.12 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 20th-century average of 13.9 degrees Celsius? (57.0 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The global annual temperature increased at an average rate of 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.11 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade since 1850 and more than three times that rate since 1982, NOAA reports.

Rep. Jim Gooch, R-Providence, a co-chair of the interim committee who has previously denied the science of climate change, asked in response to Maddox’s presentation if government leaders were willing to subject citizens to electricity rate increases “because of the so-called existential threat of climate change.”?

“The leaders in this country are really trying to force us to fuel switch, which would decrease the amount of coal,” Gooch said, mentioning that coal-fired power plants were being built abroad while the United States government is “rejecting” them. “It’s a real problem.”?

This story was updated with comments from a University of Washington climate scientist.

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Driving surge in demand for power, data centers eye Kentucky

Liam Niemeyer — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 09:50:13 +0000

An Amazon Web Services data center under construction in Stone Ridge, Virginia, on March 27, 2024. Amazon plans to spend almost $150 billion in the coming 15 years on data centers, giving the cloud-computing giant the capacity to handle an expected explosion in demand for artificial intelligence applications and other digital services. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

LOUISVILLE — The boom in artificial intelligence is fueling a proliferation of new data centers? — the computer clusters that power the internet — in “places that maybe we hadn’t thought of before,” an industry spokesman told utility regulators gathered in Louisville last month.

Kentucky could be one of those places in the not-so-distant future.

The state’s largest utility and the legislature have taken steps to attract the investments — potentially billions of dollars — that come when companies such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon develop data centers. The data center boom is also fueling surging demand for power at a time when climate change has upped the pressure to reduce heat-trapping emissions from burning fossil fuels.

In an earnings call in May, the CEO of the parent company of Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities said it is “actively working with several large data centers” in Kentucky. PPL Corp. CEO Vince Sorgi said the prospective centers would each need 300 megawatts to 500 megawatts of electricity.

For comparison, one prospective data center could consume the entire power generation of one of LG&E and KU’s coal-fired units. E.W. Brown Generating Station, the utility’s coal-fired power plant in Mercer County, has a net power capacity of 457 megawatts.?

Kentucky lawmakers are among those who see economic potential in these large-scale computer hubs. The GOP-dominated state legislature earlier this year sweetened the enticements for data centers to locate specifically in Jefferson County through House Bill 8, a broad tax policy law passed over the veto of Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.?

HB 8 gives sales tax breaks on data center equipment if a data center owner or operator makes a capital investment of at least $450 million or a “project organizer” invests at least $150 million. Those tax breaks would need approval from the state’s incentives board, the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority.

Rep. Jason Petrie, chairman of the Kentucky House budget committee. (LRC Public Information)

The Kentucky Lantern requested an interview with Rep. Jason Petrie, R-Elkton, the chair of the Kentucky House Appropriations and Revenue Committee and the leading sponsor of HB 8. In response, Petrie in a statement said the incentives in HB 8 were “consistent with our ongoing efforts to make sure Kentucky remains competitive as we continue to explore potential economic investments.”

WDRB reported in April that Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said he was excited about a “transformative” economic development project involving a data center that could locate in the southwestern part of the city but declined to discuss additional details about the project.

?The prospect of attracting data centers to Kentucky, however, also raises concerns among advocates for the environment who follow utility policy: Would Kentucky consumers be forced to shoulder the financial burden of building new transmission lines and power plants to supply data centers with power? Does the state have enough clean energy to attract data center companies that want access to it?

Randy Strobo, a Louisville attorney focusing on environmental issues and litigation, said state and federal governments ultimately have the responsibility to analyze how new data centers would impact Kentucky’s regional electric grid and local communities “from all different perspectives.”?

“There’s going to be other impacts other than just energy,” Strobo said, mentioning how some data centers use large amounts of water to cool computers. “They really need to weigh all the different costs and benefits and try to balance it out in a way that helps more people than hurts them.’

What are data centers — and what can they bring?

In addition to the highly publicized boom in AI services, other factors are also driving the surge in new computer hubs, including the demand for “cloud” storage space and computation power along with a slew of data-driven enterprises across the globe.?

Josh Levi, the industry spokesperson and president of the Data Center Coalition who addressed the Louisville conference, put growing data usage in simpler terms: Sending emails. Using search engines. Streaming video. Credit card transactions. Sending high-definition medical records to help make diagnoses in health care.

Speaking at a conference of state utility regulators in Louisville in June were, from left, Kevin Hughes, vice president of public affairs for STACK Infrastructure; Josh Levi, president of the Data Center Coalition, and Pamela Quinlan, a principal at GQ New Energy Strategies. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

“We’re doing it in more places: our home, our office, our home office, the plane, the train. We’re doing it all hours in a day,” Levi told the Louisville audience. “It seems like we’re fairly ubiquitous in our command to generate data, and our companies are very much responding to that.”?

The payoff, at least in terms of capital investment and potential tax revenue, can be significant for communities and states that have the power, internet connection and workforce.?

Communities in Northern Virginia — a nucleus of data center development? — could reap tens of millions of dollars from local taxes on the operations. Critics, however, say that Virginia’s state tax breaks for data centers generally cancel out any new revenue brought in by local governments.?

States outside the data center hubs of Virginia and Atlanta have already benefited from the boom. In Mississippi, Amazon is spending about $10 billion to build two data center campuses. In Southern Indiana across the Ohio River from Louisville, Facebook’s parent company Meta is investing $800 million in a data center.?

Levi in a statement to the Lantern also asserted data centers have a job multiplier effect beyond their direct employment, pointing to a Data Center Coalition-commissioned report by consulting group PricewaterhouseCoopers that found that nationally each data center job supports six jobs elsewhere in the broader economy.?

“By prioritizing investments in local communities, data centers also boost supply chain and service ecosystems, creating jobs for thousands of construction professionals during the building phase and providing quality, high-wage jobs for ongoing operations,” Levi said in his statement. “Further, every data center comes with years of reliable support for local economies by promoting job creation at restaurants, hotels, rental car agencies, fiber and HVAC installers, steel fabricators, and many other businesses.”

What do data centers need — and at what cost?

Levi said data center developers are looking for fiber internet connections, a workforce to build and run the centers and places less at risk for natural disasters.

They also need power, and lots of it.

According to a January 2024 report from consulting firm McKinsey and Co., electricity demand by data centers in the United States is expected to go from 17 gigawatts in 2022 to 35 gigawatts in 2030. For comparison, Kentucky’s net summer capacity — the maximum amount of electricity produced in the state during peak summer electricity demand — in 2022 was 17.6 gigawatts, according to federal data.

Would ratepayers get handed the bill for expanding electricity generation and transmission to accommodate energy-hungry data centers? (Getty Images)

“Reliable power is incredibly important to the data center industry,” Levi said at the conference. “This is an industry who is relied upon to provide non-stop access to the data.”?

But in weighing potential investments and jobs, some environmental advocates in Kentucky worry about who would pay for new transmission lines and power plants if they’re needed to run data centers.?

“As these new data centers are coming online, how are we going to pay for them?” said Strobo, the environmental attorney. He questions whether states should offer “huge incentives” to data centers given the possibility that the costs to accommodate them could fall on electricity ratepayers.?

Two utilities, including American Electric Power, the parent company of Kentucky Power, are protesting before a federal regulator an agreement between Amazon and an independent power producer to use electricity from a Pennsylvania nuclear plant because of concerns that up to $140 million in electricity transmission costs for the agreement could be shifted onto ratepayers. Talen Energy, the independent power producer, is pushing back against AEP’s protest.

Some environmental advocates also worry about heat-trapping carbon emissions connected to new data centers, particularly that demand from new data centers could be keeping older coal-fired power plants online when they could be retired. In Georgia, the state’s largest utility is building new natural gas-fired or oil-fired generators along with some solar battery facilities in part to meet the future power demands of data centers.

Levi told the Lantern that access to clean energy is a consideration for where data centers locate. For example, Amazon is helping pay a local utility in Mississippi to build solar farms to pair with its new data center campuses but will also power the data centers with a new natural gas-fired turbine.?

Lane Boldman

Kentucky currently has very little in the way of renewable energy, notwithstanding hydroelectric power, with about 70% of electricity generated in the state coming from burning coal, the “dirtiest” fossil fuel in terms of heat-trapping carbon emissions, as of February 2024 according to federal data.?

Lane Boldman, the executive director for the environmental advocacy group Kentucky Conservation Committee, says Kentucky must build more renewable energy to compete for new industries, including data centers and an aluminum smelter, which prioritize climate-friendly technology.?

“We just haven’t taken the time to build out the power. But we have the potential to build up the power. We certainly have the right mix of ingredients to do that. I mean, that’s just simply a political problem to work through,” Boldman said.?

The unique circumstances of data centers

John Bevington, senior director of business and development at LG&E and KU, says manufacturing companies looking to locate in Kentucky usually ask about the availability of land and nearby railroads or highways.?

Not so with data centers.?

“They’re so energy intensive, they tend to start asking questions of utilities first,” Bevington told the Lantern. “They really need proximity to power lines and power lines that have capacity.”?

It’s unclear at this point whether LG&E and KU would seek to build more power generation, fossil fuel-fired or renewables, to meet the demands of prospective data centers coming into the state.?

Chris Whelan, a spokesperson for LG&E and KU, told the Lantern that the potential power demands of data centers will be analyzed in the utility’s future energy planning documents to be filed later this year with the Kentucky Public Service Commission, the state’s utility regulator.?

Bevington with LG&E and KU said the higher energy demands of prospective data centers coincide with the overall higher energy demands of new economic development projects in Kentucky, including battery plants being built by Ford. For the time being, Bevington said, the number of existing data centers in LG&E and KU’s territory is “pretty minimal.”

Strobo, the environmental lawyer, says tech companies like Google appear to be a safer economic development bet than cryptocurrency mining operations that are similarly energy-intensive. The PSC last year in multiple? cases denied or approved electricity cost discounts sought by utilities to serve Bitcoin mining operations across Kentucky.

“It seems like Google and Microsoft and all of them are being intentional about trying to do it in a way that tries to minimize impacts, although, of course, there’s still going to be some pretty major ones from all of it,” Strobo said. “We all know they’re coming. Everybody wants them to come for the most part.”

Bloomberg News recently reported the parent company of Google, which has seen its heat-trapping carbon emissions rise due to its investment in AI, is no longer claiming its operations are carbon neutral, and the company plans to be carbon neutral by 2030. Google also recently announced an investment into solar power in Taiwan among other renewable energy endeavors.

While data centers may not create a large number of jobs, Bevington of LG&E and KU said, the tax revenue brought in could be a boost to communities.?

“Whether that’s a data center or a new automotive supplier or an electric vehicle battery manufacturer or a new bourbon distillery, I think we really tend to look at all of it as, ‘What can we do to enable growth in our communities?’” Bevington said. “We sort of look at data centers as, you know, another very competitive project.”?

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Consumer advocates mourn departure of Kentucky’s top utility regulator

Liam Niemeyer — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 23:39:13 +0000

Kent Chandler, the former chair of the Kentucky Public Service Commission, speaking before lawmakers in June. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

The chair of Kentucky’s utility regulator is leaving the post after almost three years to the disappointment of some consumer advocates.?

Kentucky Public Service Commission Chair Kent Chandler’s term on the three-person commission expired on June 30. Crystal Staley, a spokesperson for Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, said Chandler had resigned and that the governor appreciated Chandler’s service. She said his replacement would be appointed soon.?

Chandler in a statement to the Lantern said he had no indication or confidence he would be reappointed to another four-year term, based on a lack of communication from the Beshear administration regarding his reappointment.?

“I decided it was best for me and my family to walk away at the end of my term,” Chandler said, noting he appreciated serving the commission in a number of roles including leading it the last three years.?

Attorneys who represent ratepayers — both households and manufacturers — praised Chandler’s leadership and expertise as chair.

“I’ve been practicing at the Kentucky commission for 38 years. Kent Chandler is by far the hardest working and smartest commissioner that has been on the bench in my memory,” said Michael Kurtz, general counsel for Kentucky Industrial Utility Customers, a coalition of manufacturers.

Long-time environmental advocate Tom FitzGerald called Chandler’s departure a “significant loss” for the state, particularly for residential and small business ratepayers. FitzGerald, the former executive director of the nonprofit legal firm Kentucky Resources Council, in an email said while some utility representatives might have issues with a particular PSC decision, nobody “can credibly state that he was not among the most diligent, thoughtful, involved, and fair commissioners that we have had at the PSC.”?

“I am very disappointed that Gov. Beshear failed to reappoint chair Chandler,” FitzGerald said. “Those of us who represent ratepayers with low- and fixed-incomes who are among the most vulnerable to high utility costs, are especially appreciative of his service and the sacrifice of his family in allowing him to put in long hours at short pay in service to the ratepayers of the Commonwealth.”

FitzGerald said Chandler’s departure comes at a time of unprecedented change in how electricity is generated and used, ranging from the “integration of renewables and storage to the grid” to the “retirement of uneconomic coal-fired units.” He said while he believed the two remaining commissioners at the regulator are “able and thoughtful people,” neither have the “breadth of experience” that Chandler has.?

PSC faces increasing demands

The Kentucky Public Service Commissioner (PSC) regulates the rates and services of more than 1,100 utilities, ranging from massive investor-owned electricity providers such as Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities to small water districts that provide drinking water to rural communities. The regulator also fields complaints from Kentuckians about service and rates and hears requests from utilities to retire or build new power generation.

The PSC is facing increasing demands to vet a surge of renewable energy developers seeking to build solar installations, navigate new laws passed by the GOP-dominated legislature placing barriers on retiring fossil fuel-fired power plants, and oversee water utilities grappling with aging and dilapidated pipes, water tanks and treatment plants.?

In his statement to the Lantern, Chandler said: “Most people don’t know what the public service commission is, and maybe they shouldn’t have to know. The irony is that if a PSC is well-resourced and doing a good job at regulating rates and service, over time their work should be seamless and unnoticeable, and the efforts should result in affordable and consistent utility service by those they regulate. Of course, it’s not obvious year to year the impact the PSC has on the public, so taking the PSC’s efforts for granted can lead to a lack of resources made available to the agency.”?

Chandler said he had the “utmost confidence” the remaining commissioners and the regulator’s “incredible staff” would continue the PSC’s mission “without missing a beat.”?

Chandler last year called for more funding for the commission, saying “something has to change” because the regulator was dealing with an increasing number of cases, with expanding complexity, coinciding with having fewer and less experienced staff than in the past.?

The GOP-dominated legislature in the two-year state budget enacted this year did increase funding for the regulator by a little over a million dollars from fiscal year 2023-2024 to fiscal year 2024-2025 for a total yearly budget of nearly $18 million.?

But the legislature also put new burdens on the regulator in the form of mandated eight-month deadlines the commission has to issue decisions by in certain types of cases, including the building of new power plants. Those deadlines were passed as a part of Senate Bill 349. Beshear in an April letter to the legislature said the regulator would take on a little over $1 million in unfunded costs because of SB 349, among other passed laws that the governor said would have funding omissions.?

Under Chandler’s leadership, the commission had strongly scrutinized future power generation plans utilities are required to create and present, had opened investigations into electricity cost discounts given by utilities to cryptocurrency mining operations, honed in on power outages and costs faced by utilities during Winter Storm Elliott in December 2022 and slashed a much-criticized rate hike sought by utility Kentucky Power.?

Chandler had previously served as an attorney in the Attorney General’s Office of Rate Intervention when Beshear was attorney general. Before his appointment, Chandler served as an advisor to the commission on federal wholesale gas and electricity markets and also served as the commission’s executive director. He was appointed as a commissioner and designated as the commission’s vice chair in July 2020 and was designated as chair of the commission in August 2021.?

Whoever the Democratic governor does appoint to the commission would have to be confirmed by the GOP-dominated Kentucky Senate, which isn’t a guarantee. Amy Cubbage, an attorney who formerly served as Beshear’s general counsel among other roles in his administration, wasn’t confirmed by the Senate to the commission in 2022.

The Kentucky Public Service Commission, from left, Angie C. Hatton, former chairman Kent Chandler and Mary Pat Regan. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

Federal regulators approve controversial Louisiana gas terminal project

Robert Zullo — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 20:15:51 +0000

This map from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission shows planned locations for CP2, a a giant liquefied natural gas export terminal on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and an associated pipeline. FERC issued crucial approvals for the projects Thursday. (Photo courtesy of FERC)

A massive and contentious liquefied natural gas export project in coastal Louisiana and an associated pipeline got a key approval from federal regulators Thursday.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued an order granting permission for Venture Global to build and operate the CP2 terminal in Cameron Parish along the Gulf Coast and construct and operate the CP Express Pipeline connecting the terminal to the gas pipeline network in east Texas and southwest Louisiana. Earthjustice, an environmental law group, said the terminal would “export more liquefied methane gas than any U.S. terminal ever approved.”

Commissioner Allison Clements, who was taking part in her last meeting on the commission after she opted not to seek another term, was the lone dissent. Clements has consistently urged the commission to more fully vet greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas projects.

“The commission has not adequately addressed the project’s environmental and socioeconomic impacts, including adverse impacts on environmental justice communities,” Clements said.

“These projects will have enormous emissions of greenhouse gasses equivalent to putting more than 1.8 million new gas fueled cars on the road each year. The order does not meaningfully assess those emissions.”

The project will still need an air permit from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality and other permits, and it cannot begin exporting gas to countries lacking free-trade agreements (which constitute about 90% of the global liquified natural gas market) without authorization from the U.S. Department of Energy, the Sierra Club noted.

President Joe Biden’s administration implemented a pause on LNG export approvals in January in order to allow the DOE to update its authorization analyses.

“Today, we have an evolving understanding of the market need for LNG, the long-term supply of LNG, and the perilous impacts of methane on our planet,” the White House said at the time. “We also must adequately guard against risks to the health of our communities, especially frontline communities in the United States who disproportionately shoulder the burden of pollution from new export facilities.”

In April, 25 Republican governors called on the administration to end the freeze.

“It creates instability and threatens future energy security throughout the world at a time when our allies need us the most. It sends a message that the U.S. is not a reliable energy partner,” they said in a statement released by the Republican Governors Association.

In a statement reported by an industry publication, Venture Global’s CEO applauded “the commission and FERC staff for their independent and thorough review and approval of CP2 LNG.”

Friends of the Earth, an environmental group, called the CP2 terminal a “carbon bomb” and the Sierra Club said CP2 is a “disastrous project that puts polluters over people.”

The terminal is planned next to the existing Venture Global Calcasieu Pass LNG facility that has already racked up air pollution violations and about two miles from the proposed Commonwealth LNG facility. The Sierra Club noted that the area “has more low-income residents than 88% of the country.”

In a news conference after the FERC meeting, Chairman Willie Phillips, who voted to approve the project, said he’s made environmental justice, which aims to protect low income and minority communities from polluting infrastructure projects, a priority.

“I believe we have a duty to those communities. We also have a duty to abide by the law,” Phillips said, adding that FERC’s evaluation of environmental impact goes “above and beyond” what’s required by the National Environmental Policy Act. The order, he said, has “over 130 conditions regarding public safety, engineering and environmental impacts.”

The Sierra Club said that while FERC has acknowledged the need to do more to protect overburdened communities from environmental injustices, “it will take more than lip service, and this approval is a clear step in the wrong direction.”

Sun, water, federal dollars power new energy projects in Kentucky

Liam Niemeyer — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 23:22:23 +0000

Valves on a Kentucky River hydroelectric plant await the installation of turbines. (Photo courtesy of Jonathan Moore)

Jonathan Moore sees potential for reliable, durable electric power in Kentucky’s hundreds of miles of waterways, more navigable water than many states can boast.

The Kentucky River is a prime example, says Moore, a partner in the company Appalachian Hydro Associates. Taking advantage of a system of locks and dams dating back to the 19th century, his company has partnered with Berea College in recent years to build two hydroelectric plants at locks?on the Kentucky River. One plant has been online since 2021, and Moore said the second plant should be fully constructed by the end of the year.?

These hydro plants produce only a small amount of electricity, a few megawatts at most, while other renewable energy sources such as utility-scale solar can generate hundreds of megawatts of power. But Moore said the small number “belies the fact that it’s going to generate that power all the time for 100 years or more — basically forever.”?

“Appalachia in general has a good deal of potential,” Moore said. “It’s low-hanging fruit in the renewable energy spectrum for power that can be produced when the wind doesn’t blow in, the sun doesn’t shine.”?

Federal funding, announced Wednesday, will help construct a third hydroelectric plant along the river, another partnership with Berea College.

An open mind to what's coming is going to be very beneficial in the long run.

– Justin Obenchain, 37, Hancock County farmer

U.S. Department of Agriculture officials announced more than $375 million in partially forgivable loans and grants across the country through two U.S. Department of Agriculture programs — the funding made possible through the Inflation Reduction Act — to help fund numerous energy projects, including installing rooftop solar panels on farms and heat pumps at small businesses.?

In Kentucky, the USDA is providing about $16.6 million in partially forgivable loans for the latest hydropower plant. Moore said the federal support will help build the plant much more quickly. Power from the third plant, like the others, will be sold at a discount to the utility East Kentucky Power Cooperative to generate revenue for Berea College. Moore said a total of six plants are planned along the river, which he believes can add up to a significant amount of electricity.?

“I’m glad that water’s going to turn a turbine and get some people power,” he said.?

New rooftop solar panels on Justin Obenchain’s farm in Hancock County are expected to lower the cost of powering freezers where he stores his sweet corn crop before its sold to schools and other local buyers. (Courtesy Justin Obenchain)

Another grant provided through the USDA is helping a Hancock County farmer try out solar power on his farm for the first time. Justin Obenchain, 37, grows about 20 acres of sweet corn and uses energy-intensive freezers year-round to keep the corn fresh for sale to local schools and elsewhere.?

He learned about the grant program through a local agriculture extension agent and saw solar as a way to curb some of the cost of powering the freezers.

“I thought it would be something that would fit us pretty well,” Obenchain said. “An open mind to what’s coming is going to be very beneficial in the long run.”?

He received a $40,000 grant through the USDA’s Rural Energy for America Program, or REAP, which covered about half the cost of the rooftop solar installations now located on his farm. He expects the about 90 solar panels to be turned on sometime in July, he said, potentially an opportunity to show his neighbors how solar power works for him.?

“??I think everything deserves a look. And some farms it may fit, some it may not,” Obenchain said. “But I think for ours, it’ll be a good fit.”

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Industry, clean power groups breathe a sigh of relief as Senate approves energy regulators?

Robert Zullo — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 15:40:39 +0000

High voltage power lines run along the electrical power grid on May 16, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Florida. The U.S. Senate approved three of President Joe Biden’s nominees to serve on the nation’s top energy regulatory panel this week. Industry, renewable power and environmental groups cheered the vote on the new members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Three nominees by President Joe Biden to serve on the nation’s top energy regulatory panel, which had risked losing a quorum, were approved this week by the U.S. Senate.

The vote to approve the new members — two Democrats and a Republican — for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was cheered by industry, renewable power and environmental groups alike, who said a full a complement of commissioners is essential to the body meeting the challenges posed by an aging electric grid, a fast-shifting generation mix and debates over natural gas infrastructure, among other pressing energy issues.

“We are pleased to see FERC will be restored to a full roster, which will help provide regulatory certainty and the attention needed on key questions impacting our nation’s energy systems,” said Todd Snitchler, president and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association, or EPSA, which represents companies that own power plants in competitive electricity markets.

“Having a full complement of five commissioners will allow FERC to keep advancing the vital work needed to deliver reliable, affordable and clean power to everyone around the country,” said Ted Kelly, director of clean energy at the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund.

FERC, which regulates interstate transmission and wholesale sales of electricity, as well as interstate transmission of natural gas and oil, among other responsibilities, “rarely shows up on people’s radar screens,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “But its mission is essential. Every time you turn on the light or touch the thermostat or see new power lines go up, the rules, regulations (and) policies of FERC are at work.”

Leaving the seats vacants, Schumer said, “could create serious backlog and delay, potentially slowing down new projects that power people’s homes and cites.”

The new commissioners are: David Rosner, a Democrat and FERC energy industry analyst; West Virginia Solicitor General Lindsay See, a Republican who led the state’s successful legal fight against the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon rules; and Judy Chang, a Democrat, energy economist and the former undersecretary of energy and climate solutions for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She is also an adjunct lecturer and senior fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School.

They join Chairman Willie Phillps, a Democrat, and Commissioner Mark Christie, a Republican. Commissioner Allison Clements, a Democrat, announced earlier this year she would not seek a second term. By law, FERC has five members, with no more than three from the same political party. They are appointed by the president with the “advice and consent of the Senate” and serve five-year staggered terms.

Though the commission will maintain a 3-2 Democratic majority, at least one environmental group has been critical of Rosner’s selection.

Friends of the Earth called Rosner’s fossil fuel ties “disqualifying” and blasted his work with the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, headed by the powerful and pro-coal Sen. Joe Manchin, of West Virginia who in May switched his registration from Democrat to independent. Manchin recommended Rosner, who was also previously a senior policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Energy and an associate director at the Bipartisan Policy Center’s energy project, for the commission seat last year, Politico’s E&E News reported. The Koch Industries-linked American Energy Alliance has also criticized Chang’s past opposition to new natural gas pipelines. But for the Senate, at least, the relatively smooth confirmation process appeared to show that having a full complement of commissioners was preferable to picking fights over individual nominees.

“We all know that having a fully staffed FERC is going to make a lot of difference in what we do in this country,” Manchin told his colleagues Tuesday, adding that each of the nominees had cleared his committee with “extremely strong” bipartisan support.

“Each of the nominees demonstrated deep experience on energy and legal matters, a commitment to follow the law and work within the authorities Congress has provided to FERC? and a recognition that all of our nations’ sources play an important role providing affordable, reliable energy to families and businesses across our country.”

Sen. John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming and the ranking member on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, noted that FERC went for seven months without a quorum during the Obama administration, putting many projects “that help keep the lights on, help heat our homes and aid our allies abroad” on hold.

“While I may not agree with each of the nominees on all the items all the time, all of them are well qualified,” he said.

21 states join Biden administration in bid to modernize nation’s aging grid

Robert Zullo — Wed, 29 May 2024 20:35:35 +0000

An aerial view shows high voltage power lines on May 16, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Florida. Twenty-one states are joining a push by President Joe Biden’s administration to modernize the nation’s aging electric grid, which is under pressure from growing demand, a changing mix of power generation and severe weather. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Twenty-one states, including Kentucky, are joining a push by the Biden administration to modernize America’s aging electric grid, which is under pressure from growing demand, a changing power generation mix that includes lots of wind and solar and severe weather.

The administration, which has set a goal of a carbon-free power sector by 2035, announced Tuesday that the states had joined what it called the “Federal-State Modern Grid Deployment Initiative,” which is intended to “help drive grid adaptation quickly and cost-effectively to meet the challenges and opportunities that the power sector faces.”

In exchange for federal technical and financial assistance opportunities, participating states will “prioritize efforts that support the adoption of modern grid solutions to expand grid capacity and build modern grid capabilities on both new and existing transmission and distribution lines.”

That means in part focusing on ways to get more out of existing transmission lines, since building new ones can take a decade or more in some cases.

“There are technologies we can use to optimize the current infrastructure we have,” said Verna Mandez, director of transmission at Advanced Energy United, a clean energy trade group.

Those include reconductoring existing lines to handle more juice as well as so-called grid-enhancing technologies, a suite of tools that include sensors, power-flow controls, software and hardware that can better deliver real-time weather data, among other technologies.

In many cases, those technologies have been adopted in other countries but uptake has lagged here, in part because utilities aren’t incentivized to adopt them and generally don’t face consequences as a result of grid congestion, which costs electric customers billions of dollars each year.

“Most transmission providers get more money when they build transmission projects,” Mandez said.

The White House said in a news release that adopting newer technologies “means that renewables and other clean sources of power can be integrated sooner and more cost-effectively than waiting for new transmission construction, which will address load growth challenges more rapidly, create good-paying jobs and lower Americans’ utility bills.”

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has also in several orders prodded utilities and grid operators to consider more use of grid-enhancing technologies.

And some states are taking action on their own. Virginia, which did not join the initiative announced Tuesday, passed legislation signed by GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin that requires utilities to consider grid-enhancing technologies in their planning. Last year, Montana passed legislation aimed at increasing use of advanced reconductoring. Minnesota’s legislature also voted this month to add grid-enhancing technologies to the state’s transmission planning process and require some utilities to evaluate the tools for highly congested lines.

‘More tools than ever’

To get a more reliable and cleaner electric grid, as well as accommodate electric demand that’s growing for the first time in more than a decade,? the U.S. needs lots of new transmission capacity, experts agree.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Energy found that almost all regions of the country would benefit from more transmission lines and a National Renewable Energy Laboratory study estimated that getting to 100% carbon-free electricity by 2035 could require anywhere from 1,400 to 10,100 miles of new high capacity transmission lines per year starting in 2026.

That’s why the Biden administration has been pushing hard to remove roadblocks to new transmission lines, which can take a decade or more to develop in some cases, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission published a landmark new rule on regional transmission planning and cost allocation. Last month the administration also announced a public-private partnership to upgrade 100,000 miles of transmission lines over the next five years and the Department of Energy has identified 10 potential “national interest” electric transmission corridors, a designation that would help expedite the projects and give developers access to federal financing.

“The power sector, which is responsible for a quarter of annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, now has more tools than ever – including unprecedented financial support, efficient permitting, and long-term regulatory certainty – to reduce pollution and upgrade the grid to support more factories, electric vehicles and other growing sources of electricity demand,” the White House said.

The states joining the effort are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai‘i, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin.

New solar will help keep power on during scorching summer, report says

Robert Zullo — Tue, 28 May 2024 09:30:14 +0000

A solar and battery storage development operated by Entergy in Searcy, Arkansas. Solar power growth is expected to help some parts of the country meet electric demand this summer. (Robert Zullo/ States Newsroom)

With some parts of the country already facing heat waves, the organization in charge of setting reliability standards for the American electric grid is warning that a scorching summer could lead to a shortage of power generation in some regions.

The warning comes as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says there’s a 99% chance that 2024 will rank among the five warmest years on record and 55% chance it will be the hottest on record.

Overall, though, the analysis by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation painted a rosier picture than last year’s report, in part because of a surge in solar power development.

The nation has enough energy supply to handle normal peak demand, called “load” in the electric industry, largely because of 25 gigawatts of new solar power capacity — at full capacity that’s the rough equivalent maximum output of 25 large fossil or nuclear power plants. (The number of homes that can be powered from one gigawatt of solar can vary widely across the country). But the new panels have helped move some areas from what NERC calls “elevated risk” of power shortfalls in last year’s analysis? to “normal risk” this year.

“Resource additions are providing needed capacity to keep up with rising peak demand in most areas,” Mark Olson, the organization’s manager of reliability assessments, told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week. New power transfer agreements, growth in demand response programs, which incentivize customers to reduce power usage during times of grid stress, and delayed power plant retirements “are also contributing to an overall improved resource outlook for the upcoming summer,” NERC says.

A solar surge

A separate FERC staff presentation said solar will make up 10% of overall national electric generation capacity by the end of this summer, with natural gas providing 42%, coal providing 14% and wind power at 13%.

Solar power is growing fast across the country, with the U.S. hitting five million total solar installations (most of them residential), per the Solar Energy Industries Association. Reaching that milestone took 50 years, but the industry group projects that hitting 10 million solar installations will only take six years. Solar power for the first time accounted for more than half of new electric generation capacity added in 2023, the group noted.

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The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects “a record addition” of new utility-scale solar power this year, with about 36.4 gigawatts projected to be installed. More than half of that new capacity is planned for Texas, California and Florida.

The Gemini facility scheduled to begin operation this year near Las Vegas, with a planned solar capacity of nearly 700 megawatts and battery storage capacity of up to 380 megawatts, is expected to become the nation’s largest solar project.

Battery storage is also growing rapidly, with more than 14 gigawatts expected to be added this year, according to the EIA. Batteries complement solar generation well, since solar’s peak production doesn’t generally line up with peak demand on the grid, which happens later in the day. Batteries allow excess solar power to be banked for when it’s needed.

But a changing power mix also comes with new challenges and risks, NERC warned.

In his presentation to FERC, Olson said that while the overall summer electric reliability outlook has improved, some regions are seeing what he described as growing risks during extreme weather.

“Shortages could occur when demand is high and solar, wind or hydro output are low,” he said.

Those regions include parts of the Midwest and South in the grid area managed by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, New England, Texas, much of the Southwest and California. Grid operators, though, are becoming increasingly adept at planning and running electric grids with large amounts of intermittent resources.

“It’s refreshing to finally get the recognition that renewables can help with reliability,” said Simon Mahan, executive director of the Southern Renewable Energy Association.

Shifting seasons and climate change

While most of the country has historically been “summer-peaking,” meaning regions hit their highest demand for electricity during the summer months, some areas are increasingly seeing demand spike in winter, a trend that is expected to continue as result of heating electrification, other decarbonization policies and more extreme, protracted cold weather events. Indeed, the majority of recent electric grid failures have been during severe winter weather, such as Winter Storm Elliott in 2022, which caused blackouts in several southern states and Uri in 2021, which caused a catastrophic collapse of the Texas electric grid that caused an estimated 246 deaths.

But summer heat still poses risks, NERC says, contributing to both high demand and power plant outages, such as at natural gas power plants.

“Last summer brought record temperatures, extended heat waves and wildfires to large parts of North America,” the organization said. And though energy emergency alerts were few and no electricity supply interruptions happened as a result of insufficient power resources, grid operators “faced significant challenges and drew upon procedures and protocols to obtain all available resources, manage system demand and ensure that energy is delivered over the transmission network to meet the system demand.” Utilities and state and local officials in many areas also “used mechanisms and public appeals to lower customer demand during periods of strained supplies,” NERC added.

Christy Walsh, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Sustainable FERC Project, said the reliability reports show how climate change is central to the pressures facing the electric grid.

“And it needs to be at the center of our solutions too,” she said in a statement to States Newsroom. “Earlier and more intense hurricanes brought on by increasing sea temperatures are a new and noteworthy concern, and this underscores the need for more large-scale transmission and connections between regions. Most of the new additions were wind, solar and storage, and last summer especially we saw just how crucial these resources can be during extreme heat events. We need to make sure we have a grid that can withstand the weather and move resources around during times of stress.”

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Bernheim Forest appeals to Kentucky Supreme Court to stop pipeline in conservation easement

Liam Niemeyer — Mon, 20 May 2024 23:15:41 +0000

Bernheim Forest encompasses 16,000 acres in Jefferson and Bullitt counties. (Bernheim Forest)

The Bernheim Forest and Arboretum is asking Kentucky’s highest court to take up a legal battle over condemnation of some of its land to build a gas pipeline.

In April, the Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed a ruling last year from the Bullitt Circuit Court that said Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU) can exercise eminent domain to acquire land that is protected by conservation easements to build a natural gas pipeline.

Now, an attorney working on behalf of the research forest in a Monday filing is asking the Kentucky Supreme Court to reverse the appeals court decision. It’s the latest development in a years-long legal battle over LG&E and KU’s push to build a gas pipeline through a 494-acre wildlife corridor originally put into conservation through state-purchased easements that restrict development and require the property to be used as habitat for wildlife.

Environmental advocates have argued the ecological impacts haven’t been considered in developing the pipeline, while LG&E and KU representatives have argued the pipeline is needed for natural gas reliability. Louisville Public Media previously reported internal documents from the utility showed the gas pipeline would primarily benefit the Jim Beam distillery, though the chief operating officer for the utility has denied that.

In the Monday filing, an attorney for Bernheim Forest argued one of the reasons justices should take up the case is that the appeals court interpretation of the law could “extinguish” the existence of state-owned conservation easements. The Kentucky Land Heritage Conservation Fund, a state board that invests funding across Kentucky toward preserving land, originally helped purchase the property for the wildlife corridor.

Randal Strobo wrote in his filing that eminent domain use was limited to privately-owned lands and that publicly-owned conservation easements can’t “simply disappear when a party wishes to condemn the encumbered property without violating several constitutional limits on legislative acts.”

Only a small minority of requests made to the state Supreme Court to take up a case, known as a motion for discretionary review, are granted by justices.

In the April appeals court ruling, Judge Christopher McNeil wrote that some of the arguments made by research forest attorneys were previously rejected by the appeals court in a different case brought forward by the Kentucky Heritage Land Conservation Fund. McNeil wrote LG&E and KU can seize the land because Kentucky law doesn’t prevent land protected by conservation easements from being taken through eminent domain.

An LG&E and KU spokesperson in a statement last week said the utility was pleased with the appeals court decision that reinforces the utility’s plans “to enhance reliable natural gas service for customers and support continued growth and economic development within the region.”

A statement from Bernheim Forest in April said the nonprofit’s leaders were “obviously disappointed” with the appeals court decision. The more than 16,000-acre privately-owned research forest founded in the 20th century features an arboretum, educational programs and more than 40 miles of hiking trails.

Power plant debate helps push lobby spending to new high for Kentucky legislature

Tom Loftus — Mon, 20 May 2024 19:10:20 +0000

About 900 companies, trade associations and other groups registered to lobby during the 2024 session of the Kentucky legislature held at the Capitol in Frankfort. Their combined spending was roughly $1 million higher than the previous record set the year before. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Arden Barnes)

FRANKFORT — Legislation affecting power plant retirements helped drive spending to lobby the Kentucky legislature to a new high of $12.4 million during the 2024 session.

A bill that created new hurdles for utilities that want to retire power plants fired by fossil fuels spurred investor-owned utilities and power cooperatives to spend much more than usual in trying to influence state legislators.

The Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives ranked third in lobbying spending during the session at $129,400, and LG&E and KU Energy came in fourth at $123,400, according to Kentucky Lantern’s review of reports filed with the Legislative Ethics Commission covering the period of Jan. 1 through April 30.

Kentucky Senate advances bill creating new hurdles for utilities to retire power plants

Duke Energy came in eighth place at $100,600 while East Kentucky Power Cooperative ranked 11th at $85,000.

About 900 companies, trade associations and other groups registered to lobby during the 2024 session, ethics commission records show. And the combined spending of those groups was roughly $1 million higher than the previous record spent lobbying during the 2023 session.

The top spender of all in this year’s session was the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, which lobbies scores of bills affecting business each year and is always at or near the top in lobbying spending. For the 2024 session it reported spending $201,300. Among its top priorities this year were budget bills designed to keep the legislature on track to continue lowering the state income tax.

Greater Louisville Inc., the chamber of of commerce for the state’s largest metropolitan area, is also a top lobby spender every year and in the 2024 session if ranked seventh at $104,900.

But the distinctive characteristic of the list of top lobbying groups for this year’s session is that utilities spent more.

The main reason for that was Senate Bill 349 that created a new commission — with significant fossil fuel industry representation — to review a utility’s plan to retire a power plant fired by fossil fuels before that plan could be presented to the state’s official utility regulator, the Kentucky Public Service Commission.

The investor-owned utilities opposed the bill. The member-owned cooperatives supported it.

SB 349 passed both chambers and was later vetoed by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear who said it was the wrong approach to helping assure a reliable supply of electricity to Kentucky homes and businesses. But Republican supermajorities in the House and Senate easily overrode Beshear’s veto.

Frankfort commission voices support for city utility as state senator pushes to sell its telecom

Another big spender in this year’s session was newcomer Frankfort Plant Board, which ranked 12th in lobby spending at $81,000 — all spent to successfully defeat legislation unveiled last December by Sen. Gex Williams, R-Verona, that in its original form would have forced the board to sell its telecommunications services to a private company.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky was the second highest spender on the list. It reported spending $150,700 through the first four months of the year. Its priorities included opposition to House Bill 5, the Safer Kentucky Act, which will increase criminal penalties and create new crimes including street camping. The ACLU also opposed? bills banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs in public schools and universities.

Pharmaceutical Care Management Assn., of Washington, reported spending $102,700 with most of that spent on advertising in opposition to legislation that tightened regulations on pharmacy benefit managers.

What to know about the certificate of need debate in Kentucky

Others in the top 10 in lobby spending this year were:

Kentucky League of Cities, which reported spending $109,100.
Kentucky Hospital Assn., $105,500, whose lobbying efforts included successfully opposing legislation that would have loosened certificate of need requirements on health care providers.
Altria Client Services, the parent company of Philip Morris USA, $99,920, which lobbied for new restrictions on vape retailers enacted by the legislature and signed by Beshear.

Here is a list of the companies, associations and other groups that reported spending the most on lobbying expenses during the first four months of 2024, according to updated data posted Monday on the ethics commission website.

Nearly 90 percent of the total spending was on compensation for lobbyists, according to the ethics commission website.

Following the list of top lobby spenders is a list of individual lobbyists who received the most in lobbying fees. The ethics commission website shows that there are slightly more than 700 registered lobbyists. Each of those on the list below is a contract lobbyist who represents numerous clients. The list shows the total number of clients represented by the lobbyist and three of the lobbyists’ larger clients.

Groups that spent the most lobbying

Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, Frankfort, business ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?$201,292

ACLU of Kentucky, Louisville, non-profit ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $150,726

Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives, Louisville, utility ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $129,416

LG&E and KU Energy, Louisville, utility ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $123,427

Kentucky League of Cities, Lexington, city governments ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?$109,113

Kentucky Hospital Assn., Louisville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $105,490

Greater Louisville Inc., Louisville, business ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?$104,900

Pharmaceutical Care Management Assn., Washington, pharmacy issues ? $102,693

Duke Energy, Cincinnati, utility ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $100,577

Altria (Philip Morris USA), Richmond, VA , tobacco? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?$99,920

East Kentucky Power Cooperative, Winchester, utility ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $85,634

Frankfort Plant Board, Frankfort, utility ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?$81,032

Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, London, non-profit ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $79,318

Elevance Health (Anthem), Louisville, insurance ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?$78,946

Kentucky Retail Federation, Frankfort, retail stores ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $77,900

Kentucky Justice Assn., Frankfort, justice issues ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $67,141

Kentucky Education Assn., Frankfort, teachers? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?$65,181

Kentucky Primary Care Assn., Frankfort, health care ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?$64,138

Americans for Prosperity, Louisville, conservative advocacy group ? ? ? ? ? $62,788

Kentucky Medical Assn., Louisville, doctors ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?$62,439

?Top paid lobbyists

Patrick Jennings, ?$366,209, representing?72 clients including Kentucky Hospital Assn., AT&T, American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers.

Bob Babbage, $333,500, 48 clients including MCGlobal Holdings, Underdog Fantasy, ROBLOX.

Stephen Huffman, $323,700, 25 clients including Keeneland, Revolutionary Racing, Red Mile.

John McCarthy, $281,454,?108 clients including Churchill Downs, Altria, Netsmart

Ronald Pryor, $242,795, 11 clients including HCA Healthcare, Kentucky Hospital Assn., LifePoint Health.

Sean Cutter, $238,805, 60 clients including Google, Kinder Morgan Energy, RAI Services.

James M. Higdon, $223,494,?60 clients including Unite US, Centigix, YDK! Action.

Kelley Abell, $223,069, 26 clients including Brightspring Health, Dish Network, Ky. Assn. of Adult Day Centers.

Jason Bentley, $218,311, 55 clients including Kinder Morgan Energy, RAI Services, Ky Distillers Assn.

Katherine Hall, $218,064, 70 clients including Ky. Assn. of Health Care Facilities, Necco, Satoshi Action Fund.

Chris Nolan, $214,699, 58 clients including Good Rx, Humana, Ascend Elements.

Jason Underwood, $206,200, 8 clients including Enervenue, United Healthcare, Airbnb.

Laura Owens, $183,250, 34 clients including Archer Gaming, Baptist Health, Cooper Surgical.

Amy Wickliffe,?$176,512, 94 clients including Churchill Downs, Al J. Schneider Co., Kentucky American Water.

Mike Biagi, $166,236, 19 clients including Kentucky Downs, Appalachian Regional Health, Ky. Credit Union League.

Trey Grayson, $160,150, 28 clients including Secure Elections Project, Academic Partnerships LLC, Kentucky Competes.

Dustin Miller, $151,587, 26 clients including Elevance Health, Ky. Consumer Finance Assn., Altria.

John Cooper, $144,514, 22 clients including Ky. Bankers Assn., Ky. Medical Assn., Toyota.

Timothy Corrigan, $141,336, 23 clients including Dow Chemical, Continental Refining, Outfront Media.

Rebecca Hartsough, $136,800, 41 clients including Grant Ready Ky., Novo Nordisk, SidePrize LLC.

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Biden administration proposes ending future federal coal leasing in Powder River Basin

Blair Miller — Fri, 17 May 2024 16:24:26 +0000

Some of the coal mined in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming comes from surface mines like this one. (Photo courtesy of Wyoming BLM via Flickr | CC-BY-SA 2.0)

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management on Thursday released plans to end future leasing of its managed coal resources in the Powder River Basin in eastern Montana and northeastern Wyoming in a move that has angered Montana’s Republican political leaders but is being cheered by environmental groups who fought for changes to leasing plans over the past decade.

The BLM issued final supplemental environmental impact statements and amendments to its land use plans for the Miles City Field Office in Montana and the Buffalo Field Office in Wyoming, both of which recommend an end to future federal coal leasing in the regions despite the bureau considering alternatives that would allow for some future leasing.

The official plans will be published in the Federal Register on Friday, which opens up a 30-day window for people to file protests. After the window closes and the protests are resolved by the director of the BLM, which does not have a specific timeframe but in recent years has taken about nine months, the final Record of Decision and Resource Management Plan will be published and take effect.

People who wish to file protests over the plan can find out more information on how to do so on the BLM’s website.

The decisions by the BLM are key because the Powder River Basin in the two states accounts for 85% of federal coal production and about 40% of U.S. annual coal production, but the bureau says coal production in the Miles City Field Office region has declined over the past decade as more utilities move toward other energy sources for power.

The environmental groups that pushed for the end to new coal leasing called the decision a “sea change” in federal efforts to move toward cleaner energy sources.

“This decision opens new doors to a future where our public lands are not sacrificed for fossil fuel profits and, instead, can prove a bulwark of ecological and community resilience in the face of global warming,” Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, the executive director of the Western Environmental Law Center, said in a statement.

The plan for Montana would close about 1.2 million acres to new coal leasing but would allow current coal production at the Spring Creek Mine, owned by the Navajo Transitional Energy Company, to continue through 2035. It would allow production at the Rosebud Mine, owned by Westmoreland, through 2060 under their current leases, the BLM said in the notice in the Federal Register. The Absaloka Mine lost its final customer in April, the Billings Gazette reported.

Existing mines in Wyoming would be able to produce coal until 2041. The current period for the new plans runs through 2038.

The new environmental impact statement and land use plan amendments come eight years after the Western Organization of Resource Councils first challenged the 2015 Record of Decision for future leasing operations, alleging it violated the National Environmental Policy Act. In 2018, a judge found the BLM had violated NEPA, which led to another coal screening for the plans and a new NEPA analysis released in 2019 under the Trump administration.

But the Miles City plan was challenged again by the same group in 2020. In August 2022, a U.S. District Court of Montana judge also found the BLM had violated NEPA by failing to address public health and environmental effects from the mining. He ordered another new coal screening and NEPA analysis that this time considered no-leasing and limited-leasing alternatives as well as impacts to public health from burning fossil fuels in the area.

Trains loaded with Powder River Basin coal, pictured in 2006, at Union Pacific’s Bailey railyard in North Platte, Nebraska. (Dustin Bleizeffer | WyoFile)

“Coal has powered our nation for many decades, but technology, economics and markets are changing radically,” Western Organization of Resource Councils Board Chair Paula Antoine said Thursday in response to the decisions. “BLM’s announcement recognizes that coal’s era is ending, and it’s time to focus on supporting our communities through the transition away from coal, investing in workers, and moving to heal our lands, water and climate as we enter a bright clean energy future.”

The BLM said in its announcement that the Spring Creek and Rosebud mines produced a combined 18.5 million short tons (37 million pounds) of coal in 2022, which was down from 28 million short tons (56 million pounds) in 2007, “as older coal-fired electric power plants have closed and generation has shifted to natural gas and renewable energy sources.”

“Both U.S. total coal production and Powder River Basin coal production peaked in 2008 and have since declined steeply, according to the Energy Information Administration,” BLM spokesperson Mark Jacobsen said in the bureau’s announcement.

Montana Republicans unhappy with another Biden energy move; Tester reviewing

Montana’s Republican governor and three GOP members of the state’s federal delegation, who have for years been saying the Biden administration’s efforts to move the U.S toward more renewable and clean energy and away from using fossil fuels for power, sent out a joint news release decrying the BLM’s decision and blaming the “far left” for the proposed plans.

Gov. Greg Gianforte in August wrote to BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning that accepting few or no future leases would harm the state’s coal trust, Colstrip and the economy.

The group of Republicans expressed similar sentiments recently regarding the EPA’s singling-out the coal-fired plants at Colstrip with new emissions standards and believe that efforts to move away from coal and oil and gas to power the state will hurt the state’s power grid and cost workers jobs.

“Every action taken by the Biden administration is driving up the cost of affordable energy and threatening the reliability of our electrical grid. Affordable power generated by coal keeps the lights on in Montana and fuels manufacturing across the country and world,” Gianforte said in a statement. “Today’s announcement is nothing more than a gift to China and our adversaries and a slap in the face to hardworking Montanans.”

U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale, who represents eastern Montana, blamed the decision on appeasing “climate extremists” and said the plans would jeopardize Montanans’ way of life.

“BLM either does not understand or does not care that their unreliable green new deal energy sources are not feasible in places like Montana and pose real threats to our economy and national security,” Rosendale said.

A spokesperson for Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, said Tester was reviewing the proposal and calling on Montanans to submit comments during the 30-day protest window.

“Senator Tester will always stand up to President Biden’s energy policies when they don’t make sense for Montana,” spokesperson Eli Cousin said in a statement.

The new proposal comes on the heels of the BLM publishing a final rule that will allow two new types of leases on federal public lands: restoration and mitigation leases, which put those uses on the same footing as extraction. The rules have already been criticized by the same group of Montana Republican leaders who say the changes will also harm Montana’s energy industry.

The different alternatives BLM considered

But the parameters of the court-ordered review meant that three out of four of the proposed alternatives the BLM considered for the Miles City Field Office would have closed off significant acreage to new leasing.

The first alternative was to take no action and keep the 2019 plans in place, which would have made 1.2 million acres available for possible leasing.

But the three other options applied screens, multiple-use considerations, and climate change scenarios that greatly reduced the available acreage. Alternative B would have left about 69,000 acres available for possible leasing, while Alternative C would have made about 810 acres available.

A truck carrying a load of Powder River Basin coal (Photo by Dustin Bleizeffer of WyoFile).

But the alternative the BLM decided to pick makes no coal available for leasing. The Miles City planning area encompasses 2.7 million acres of BLM land and 11.7 million acres of federal coal mineral estate over 17 counties in eastern Montana.

The environmental impact analysis says the alternative the BLM chose would mean no new impacts to air quality caused by new or pending coal leases. The report forecasts Spring Creek and Rosebud would continue to support about 620 jobs through 2035 resulting in nearly $50 million in average annual income.

Utilizing Alternative D would also mean the Spring Creek Mine would run out of coal reserves about 53 years earlier than under Alternatives A and B, which would eventually lead to a loss of economic revenue and programs funded by federal coal production, the report says.

But Montana environmental groups that have fought for the changes say the new plans are a step forward in moving away from coal and cutting down on pollution.

Mark Fix, a Miles City rancher who is a member of the Northern Plains Resource Council, said the new plans reflect reality in 2024.

“Coal companies in this region already have decades of coal locked up in leasing, and it’s hard to imagine they’ll find buyers that far into the future given the competition from more affordable energy sources,” Fix said. “This plan protects taxpayers from wasting publicly owned resources on lowball leases to subsidize an industry in decline. It’s time we take a clear-eyed look at the future and start investing in a transition away from coal.”

The story is republished from the Daily Montanan, a sister publication of the Kentucky Lantern and part of the nonprofit States Newsroom network.

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New federal rule will overhaul transmission planning as electric grid strains

Robert Zullo — Tue, 14 May 2024 19:56:53 +0000

Electric power lines are seen attached to transmission towers on Sept. 28, 2023, in the Everglades, Florida. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Monday issued a long-awaited overhaul of how regional electric transmission lines are planned and paid for. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

A divided Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Monday issued a long-awaited overhaul of how regional electric transmission lines are planned and paid for, a move cheered by clean power groups but blasted by a conservative commissioner who said it was driven by “special interests” and exceeds the commission’s authority.

The commission’s final rule on transmission planning and cost allocation, intended to prod utilities and grid operators across the country into more forward-looking, comprehensive and cost-effective planning of large electric transmission lines and better account for the broad benefits those wires provide, was nearly three years in the making. It passed on a 2-1 vote, with the commission’s two Democratic appointees voting yes and the lone Republican opposed.

FERC Chairman Willie Phillips said an aging grid, increasing severe weather, demand growth from new manufacturing, data centers and increasing electrification as well as a changing generation mix all threaten reliability at a time when construction of the high voltage transmission lines that help get power to where it’s needed has slumped to a record low.

“This rule cannot come fast enough. There is an urgent need to act to ensure the reliability and the affordability of our grid,” Phillips said. “We simply will not be able to address these converging challenges and continue to supply the reliable, abundant and affordable power the American people depend on without taking a clear-eyed, long term, forward-looking approach to transmission planning.”

But Commissioner Mark Christie, a conservative former Virginia utility commissioner, vehemently dissented to the rule, calling it “a pretext to enact a sweeping policy agenda that Congress never passed” and one that will “facilitate a massive transfer of wealth from consumers to for-profit special interests.”

Christie has long opposed transmission cost allocation schemes that he claimed would force customers in some states to pay for the pro-renewable policies of their neighbors. “I was perfectly prepared to vote for this final rule if it were a bipartisan compromise, if it preserved the state role that everyone sitting up here voted for two years ago,” he said.

The genie and the bottle

The sprawling rule requires transmission operators to conduct transmission planning at least every five years, looking out along a 20-year horizon using “best available data to develop well-informed projections” of needs, according to a staff presentation. To identify those transmission needs, providers need to consider state laws and regulations, utility planning documents, fuel cost trends, power plant retirements, requests from developers looking to connect to the grid as well as “policy goals and corporate commitments.” They also must consider “grid-enhancing technologies,” a suite of potentially cost-saving tools common in other countries that have been slow to take root in the U.S., despite years of prodding from advocates, as well as identifying opportunities to upgrade existing lines, called “right-sizing.”

Transmission providers, including utilities and the organizations that manage the grid in much of the country, are also required to use a list of seven economic and reliability benefits as they evaluate and select long-term regional transmission projects as well as establish an evaluation process with transparent selection criteria that are not “unduly discriminatory or preferential, aim to ensure that more efficient or cost-effective long-term regional transmission facilities are selected and seek to maximize benefits accounting for costs over time without over-building transmission facilities.”

Christie criticized those “mandated inputs” and said states have no ability to consent to those criteria.

A major big problem FERC is trying to fix is that even as construction of large transmission projects has nearly ground to a halt, utilities in many parts of the countries are on a building spree of smaller — potentially duplicative and inefficient — projects that are easier to get approved and paid for, increasing customer bills.

“The absence of this type of regional transmission planning is resulting in piecemeal transmission expansion that addresses relatively near-term transmission needs,” the staff presentation reads. “The status quo approach results in transmission providers investing in relatively inefficient or less cost-effective transmission infrastructure, with the costs ultimately recovered through commission-jurisdictional rates. This dynamic results in, among other things, transmission customers paying more than is necessary or appropriate to meet their transmission needs, and customers missing out on benefits that outweigh their costs, which results in less efficient or cost-effective transmission investments.”

“Not everything is about politics. It is not the commission’s job to try and force the genie that is the energy transition back in the bottle. It is our legal responsibility to protect consumers in light of whatever is going on in the world around us.”

– Allison Clements, Democratic member Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

For example, proponents of the new rule point to hundreds of millions of dollars in transmission costs that will result from the closure of a Maryland power plant in the region overseen by PJM Interconnection, the nation’s largest grid operator, as an example of poor planning.

“It is hard to imagine the region could not have found a more cost-effective solution had it begun planning for that retirement along with other anticipated shifts further ahead of time,” said Democratic Commissioner Allison Clements, who took Christie to task over his dissent. She said he was pushing the commission to take a “fraught voyage” to decide which public policies are appropriate for creating transmission demands.

“All transmission needs are inherently influenced by state policies of all stripes,” she said. “The truth is that enormous sums of money are going to be spent on transmission investment regardless of whether or not it’s done within the framework of this new rule.”

She argued that the new rule will protect customers from the pricey, fits-and-starts transmission buildout happening in much of the nation now.

“Not everything is about politics,” she said. “It is not the commission’s job to try and force the genie that is the energy transition back in the bottle. It is our legal responsibility to protect consumers in light of whatever is going on in the world around us.”

Neil Chatterjee, a Republican former FERC chairman, posted on X that he would have voted for the rule if he was still on the commission.

“Today’s @ferc rule was voted out 2-1 but that does NOT mean it’s a partisan rule making,” he wrote. “Had I authored this rule as chair would it have looked exactly like this? Of course not. But it would have been in the range. Regulatory rule making is hard.”

‘Benefit of having a big grid’?

Competitive transmission providers and clean energy groups were celebrating Monday. Organizations ranging from the American Council on Renewable Energy and the National Audubon Society to the Conservative Energy Network and Americans for a Clean Energy Grid issued statements applauding the order.

Some renewable power organizations had privately wondered whether a drive for a unanimous vote might produce a more watered-down rule to get Christie onboard. That might have left states with big renewable power goals paying for all the transmission costs necessary to accommodate them, as New Jersey is doing for its planned offshore wind buildout, even though that power generation could mean cheaper, cleaner electricity for its neighbors, also, along with other benefits.

The U.S. Department of Energy has found a “pressing need” for new transmission infrastructure across the country to alleviate congestion and improve reliability. Grid congestion costs electric customers billions of dollars a year, according to some reports. And because of the more diffuse nature of renewable power, getting it from where it’s produced to where it’s needed, as in the vast amount of wind power in the Great Plains, can require large, multi-state transmission lines.

“Families and businesses are paying the price for utilities’ and grid operators’ failure to address our critical electricity infrastructure needs,” said Heather O’Neill, president and CEO at national clean power business association Advanced Energy United. “Building more multi-state transmission lines unclogs the traffic jams on America’s electricity superhighways and unlocks our ability to keep up with our growing energy needs.”

Justin Vickers, a senior attorney for the Sierra Club, said the rule appears to be firmly within FERC’s jurisdiction, despite Christie’s concerns to the contrary.

“I think the commission is on very strong footing here,” he said. “This is a way of maximizing the benefits of living in a big country. We can send power around the country. It increases reliability and it lowers price. That’s the benefit of having a big grid. .. Let’s take advantage of it.”

The Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities, said it was “disappointed” that FERC declined to include a “right of first refusal” policy for some transmission projects, which would have given their members first crack at some of the lines. The organization also said the rule lacked “regional flexibilities for evaluating project benefits.”

“A one-size-fits-all approach does not work, as different regions have different needs and different states have different policies,” said Phil Moeller, an executive vice president at the institute.

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Kentucky’s Coleman joins other GOP attorneys general in challenging Biden power plant rules

Liam Niemeyer — Fri, 10 May 2024 19:47:30 +0000

Power plants that burn fossil fuels would have to significantly curb heat-trapping carbon emissions under new EPA rules being challenged in federal court by Kentucky's Russell Coleman and other Republican attorneys general. (Getty Images)

Kentucky’s chief law enforcement officer has joined Republican attorneys general from 24 other states in challenging new federal rules aimed at curbing water pollution and nearly all greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal-fired power plants and newly constructed gas-fired power plants.

Russell Coleman

A news release from Kentucky Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman on Thursday said the Environmental Protection Agency’s “package of job-killing energy regulations … would drive up prices on Kentucky families.”?

“We’re fighting this radical green agenda that would only leave Kentucky in the dark,” Coleman said in a? statement.

The challenge filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. says the attorneys general will “show that the final rule exceeds the agency’s statutory authority and otherwise is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and not in accordance with law.”?

The state legislature last month appropriated?$3 million to Coleman to boost his efforts litigating federal environmental regulations.

The new EPA rules target the management of older toxic coal ash landfills and ponds created from burning coal for electricity, air pollution from mercury and other toxic metals from burning coal, wastewater pollution from coal-fired power plants and greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants.?

Specifically, one of the new regulations will require coal-fired power plants to “control” 90% of carbon emissions by 2032 if the plants are intended to run beyond 2039. If implemented, the rule would mean a sea change in how Kentucky generates its electricity. As of 2021, Kentucky was one of just four states that generated more than 70% of its electricity from burning coal, according to the Energy Information Administration.?

Michael Regan

Environmental groups have hailed the EPA rules as a long-awaited move to cut down on air and water pollution, particularly from coal-fired power plants. EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the rules were fulfilling the Biden administration’s vision “to tackle climate change and to protect all communities from pollution in our air, water, and in our neighborhoods.”

The International Energy Agency has previously found that burning coal for electricity across the globe has been the single largest source of global temperature increase.?

Some utilities and lobbying organizations for the coal industry have pushed back on the rules, arguing they rely on unproven technologies to capture carbon emissions and could strain electricity reliability at a time when nationwide energy demand is surging.?

Anthony Campbell, the president and CEO of the nonprofit utility East Kentucky Power Cooperative, in a statement said the EPA’s attempt to “force wide adoption” of carbon capture technology will “be disastrous for America’s electric grid.”?

East Kentucky Power Cooperative, which generates electricity for 16 electric cooperatives in Central and East Kentucky, supported a bill passed into law by state legislators earlier this year that created new barriers for utilities to retire fossil fuel-fired power plants.?

Supporters of that legislation, Senate Bill 349, had argued it was needed to ensure the reliability of Kentucky’s electricity, a notion refuted by the leader of Kentucky’s largest utility Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities. Investor-owned utilities including LG&E and KU had joined environmental groups in opposing SB 349, arguing it could burden ratepayers with the costs of keeping aging, uneconomical coal-fired power plants online.?

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In some parts of the U.S., the grid of the future might be closer than you think

Robert Zullo — Thu, 09 May 2024 09:50:27 +0000

Southwest Power Pool runs a portion of the American electric grid that runs from the Canadian border to Texas and includes all or part of 17 central and western states. The organization has successfully integrated thousands of megawatts of variable wind power into its system. (Courtesy of Southwest Power Pool)

A little more than two years ago, a clean energy record was broken. For the first time, a regional transmission organization met more than 90% of its electric demand, called load, with renewable power.

But if you don’t follow the electric industry closely, you might be surprised where it happened.

On March 29, 2022, Southwest Power Pool, based in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the grid operator for a red-state heavy portion of the central U.S., hit a renewable penetration level of 90.2%, almost all of it from wind power.

Southwest Power Pool’s footprint runs from the Canadian border to Texas and all or parts of 17 central and western states. (Southwest Power Pool)

“In a decade’s time, our region has gone from thinking of 25% renewable-penetration levels as nearly unreachable to a point where we regularly exceed 75% without reliability concerns,” said Bruce Rew, SPP’s vice president of operations, in a news release.

Growing electric demand, major coal plant closures and more wind and solar power have been seen by some policymakers, regulators and clean power critics as harbingers of a coming electric reliability crisis.

During a campaign event last year in Iowa – which got more than 64% of its electricity from wind turbines in 2022 – former President Donald Trump criticized intermittent power and mused about a couple unable to watch TV because the wind wasn’t blowing. The Project 2025 plan organized by the conservative Heritage Foundation for a future GOP administration said? President Joe Biden’s carbon reduction targets, as well as corporate and state clean power goals, “have thrust the United States into a new energy crisis,” including a less reliable grid.

However, in parts of the country that are home to tens of millions of people, grid operators every day are finding that a cleaner electric grid isn’t necessarily a less reliable one, though it does come with new problems to solve.

“The future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed,” said Ric O’Connell, executive director of GridLab, a nonprofit that provides technical assistance to renewable power advocates and regulators on electric grid issues.

‘Some kind of magic amount’

Nationwide, wind and solar accounted for a little more than 14% of utility-scale electric generation in 2023, according to the federal Energy Information Administration. But in Texas, California and the states that make up SPP, among other areas, the amount of renewable power on the grid at any given time is often much larger.

California has seen wind, solar and hydropower production exceeding 100% of demand in some cases for hours at a time in the area managed by the California Independent System Operator.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which runs most of the Texas electric grid, has also been setting new renewable penetration records.? At 2:13 p.m. on March 29, nearly 76% of the generation on the system was renewable, mostly wind and solar.

‘I think it’s really important to recognize that we get to these points in time on the grid that we get to these extremely high levels of renewables and the lights are not going out,” said Elise Caplan, vice president of regulatory affairs at the American Council on Renewable Energy, a nonprofit representing renewable developers, investors, manufacturers, utilities, corporate power buyers and other firms.

However, it’s important to note that those records being set are snapshots at certain times. As some experts have pointed out, traditional power plants still need to run even when renewables are surging to balance that variability. And, of course, the wind isn’t always blowing and the sun isn’t always shining. For perspective:? Averaged out over the year, wind was about 37% of the Southwest Power Pool’s generation mix in 2023, with natural gas and coal power plants accounting for about 54% and hydropower and nuclear making up the rest.

But the numbers do show that grid operators are successfully integrating renewable power at thresholds that were thought unworkable not so long ago.

Michael Milligan, an independent power consultant who spent more than two decades focusing on wind and solar integration at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, where he was the lab’s principal researcher before retiring, said utility engineers in years past routinely assumed there were limits on how much intermittent power the grid could handle, usually a “single digit percent.”

“There was kind of a sense that once we get beyond some kind of magic amount it’s going to get too difficult,” he said. “Actual experience is really valuable.”

Fifteen years ago, “nobody thought we’d have the amount of penetration we have today,” said Howard Gugel, vice president of regulatory oversight for the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which develops and enforces standards for the power system. But the growth in wind, solar and batteries – also known as inverter-based resources because they convert electricity from direct current to alternating current to send the power onto the grid – has posed new reliability concerns.

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Inverter-based resources lack the heavy rotating generators at traditional power plants, which are generally synchronized to the grid frequency of 60 Hz, said Greg Brinkman, an engineer in the grid operations planning group at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The natural inertia those synchronous generators provide can help them through grid disturbances without incident, whereas inverter-based resources need software and programming to do so.

Gugel said NERC has reviewed several incidents in which grid “perturbations” caused several inverter-based plants, generally solar, to trip off at the same time. “That began to give us some concerns,” he said.

Last year, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission directed NERC to come up with reliability standards for inverter-based resources, which the organization is currently developing.

“We have a lot of clean energy and renewable energy resources that are being connected to the grid and this new rule is a great step to address what we see as reliability concerns regarding this transition,” FERC Chairman Willie Phillips said in October. “When appropriately programmed, IBRs can provide operational flexibility and the ability of IBRs to perform with precision, speed and control could mitigate disturbances on the bulk power system.”

Transmission as ‘a great enabler’

Southwest Power Pool coordination center. (Courtesy of Southwest Power Pool)

Rew, the senior vice president at Southwest Power Pool, which has members in 14 states and about 18 million people living in its footprint, said in an interview that production tax credits helped incentivize a surge of wind power development, which also pushed technological advances that increased the operating capabilities of the turbines, including increased “cut-out” speeds, the wind speed at which the turbine needs to shut down to avoid damage.

A major regional transmission planning and expansion process the organization embarked on in the late 2000s helped knit together what had been a collection of systems individually built for numerous individual utilities and positioned the organization to accommodate large amounts of wind generation.

“These regional projects really opened up transmission constraints and allowed us to operate as a single unit a lot better.That provided us the opportunity to really dispatch throughout the system and allowed us to get additional renewables transferring all around the system,” Rew said.

It was a forward-looking approach that is still paying dividends, he added.

“I think in a lot of ways we were visionary in recognizing what transmission could do as a great enabler,” Rew said. “It enables us not only to have greater reliability because we don’t have the transmission constraints and limitations that we did before but also greater economics and just? greater use of all the generation in the footprint.”

Of course, having large amounts of variable power also comes with challenges. SPP has about 33,000 megawatts of “nameplate” wind capacity, meaning the maximum amount those turbines can generate at optimal conditions. Even though Rew said the SPP region has some of the best wind resources in the world, it runs below that maximum output as a result of outages, differing wind speeds and other factors. That means wind and weather forecasting becomes even more critical to managing the grid. A drop in wind speeds, or an icing event, can mean losing thousands of megawatts of generation quickly. That’s a problem because supply and demand on electric grids need to be balanced in real time to avoid issues that can lead to blackouts or other calamities.

“We’re able to look out 10 days and project what the wind’s going to be, project what the load is going to be and be able to prepare our system to be able to operate with those changes,” Rew said. “There’s a lot that goes into making it successful every day.”

SPP’s electric markets also play a crucial role, since traditional power plants like gas and coal need incentives to be available when needed even though they might be running less often or at reduced output.

“That’s what we’re looking at for our market in terms of how we price the services that are necessary to maintain a reliable system and making sure that, one, we have market products that reflect what we’re using for grid operations,” Rew said. “And, two, that we have a pricing mechanism that appropriately compensates them for those services.”

The grid of the future

For the parts of the country that are lagging in renewable power, adding transmission is seen by clean energy advocates as a major piece of the puzzle.

“There is no perfect resource,” said Caplan, the vice president of regulatory affairs at the American Council on Renewable Energy. The most recent high-profile power grid crises were the result of fossil fuel power plants, mostly gas powered, failing to perform in cold weather, either because of inadequate weatherization or fuel shortages. Wind and solar are weather dependent, but the increasing surge in battery power helps smooth out those variances, storing juice when it’s needed. And transmission lines can create a grid bigger than the weather.

“We recognize that those resources are not always available but through this growth of storage and especially through the growth of transmission you can access renewables across a broader geographic area,” Caplan said.

That’s why a lot of eyes will be on a long-awaited rule from FERC expected to come next week that is intended to address thorny debates over regional transmission planning and how costs for new lines are allocated. Rew, the SPP executive, noted that with SPP’s high quality wind resources, developers outside the footprint might have to build twice as many turbines to get the same power output. Does it make sense to do that to meet, for example, a state renewable energy goal? Or is it better to build where the wind is stronger and use long transmission lines to get the power to where it’s needed?

“It doesn’t make sense for our ratepayers to pay for that in SPP, to export wind out for somebody else to get the benefit,” he said “So how do we do that from a national perspective?”

Groups like ACORE want a national planning rule that recognizes that? “an expansion of the nation’s grid is necessary to reliably and affordably accommodate new generation and improve reliability in the face of increasing severe weather events and wildfires.” They want broader accounting of the full benefits of transmission, “a mechanism to determine a cost allocation method when the states are unable to agree”? and other pro-renewable provisions. However, conservatives, including FERC Commissioner Mark Christie, a former Virginia utility regulator, have chafed at what they characterize as an attempt to force others to pay for the policy decisions of states that are pushing renewable power.

“It would be grossly unfair for FERC to force consumers in other states to pay for projects implementing the policies of politicians they never got the chance to vote for, when their own states’ policy-makers have not agreed to pay for those projects,” Christie wrote in response to a letter from four New York congressmen. “Such an imposition is contrary to American principles of democracy, a core principle of which is that the people have the right to elect the policy-makers who impose costs on them, so the people can hold them accountable.”

Southwest Power Pool corporate office in Little Rock, Arkansas. (Courtesy of Southwest Power Pool)

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Avalanche of aid could help Kentuckians reinvent mountain economy

Al Cross — Thu, 02 May 2024 09:40:45 +0000

Downtown Hazard sits on the North Fork of the Kentucky River. The Perry County seat redoubled its efforts to fix up Main Street when prospective non-coal employers came to town and saw there were no good gathering places for them to take employees or have business meetings. (Photo by Austin Anthony)

CORBIN — Eastern Kentucky is about to get an avalanche of federal and state money to help it transition from its largely disappeared coal economy, but some of its towns are already lifting themselves up and setting examples for the region.

That was the upshot of the 36th annual East Kentucky Leadership Conference in Corbin, where Main Street is pretty much full again and New Orleans-style balconies show that young professionals are migrating there.

“A lot of younger people have wanted to move closer to downtown,” Corbin City Commissioner Allison Moore said during one panel discussion.

Conference attendees also heard about the revitalized downtowns in Hazard and Pineville, and about the hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants for which governments and nonprofits are already applying.

“There are now more resources than we have seen in our entire careers,” said Peter Hille, chairman of the East Kentucky Leadership Foundation and president of the Mountain Association, a nonprofit community-development lending institution based in Berea. He’s been doing community-development work in the region for more than 30 years.

In addition to federal money, state government now has a program to help provide matching funds that local governments often need to get grants, noted Casey Ellis of the Kentucky Council of Area Development Districts. Originally targeted to coal counties, its outlay of $1.5 million helped generate $12.8 million in grants last year, Ellis said.

After the conference, held April 25 and 26, Hille gave some examples of the funding opportunities for governments, nonprofits and others:

U.S. Energy Department funds to reduce energy consumption and bring renewable energy to census tracts where coal mines have closed since 1999, as well as adjacent tracts.
New programs through the Appalachian Regional Commission, most recently one for multi-state collaborative projects funded by the bipartisan infrastructure bill of 2021.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s rural energy program, which covers half of the installed cost for efficiency and renewable energy for rural businesses.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s? Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, to bring solar energy to homes of low-income people, and money to build the capacity and workforce needed to install the equipment.
Several other agencies have money for workforce development and infrastructure, including broadband.

Hille also talked about the federal money at the conference’s closing lunch, but also pointed out the efforts by local leaders, often helped with government grants but mainly spurred by local initiative.

“We’ve been seeing our communities come back to life,” he said, “because they are recreating themselves as places where people can live and choose to live.”

That’s essential as communities look for employers to replace coal jobs, said Bailey Richards, downtown coordinator for the City of Hazard. She said the Perry County seat redoubled its efforts to fix up Main Street when prospective non-coal employers came to town and saw there were no good gathering places for them to take employees or have business meetings.

“We realized you have to build a community,” Richards said in one panel discussion. In the last five years, downtown redevelopment has brought 70 new businesses, 62 of which are still open, accounting for more than 250 jobs. Richards noted proudly that Hazard’s population rose 18 percent from 2010 to 2020, while Pikeville, which has the region’s best-known revitalized downtown, grew 12 percent.

In the Bell County seat of Pineville, Mayor Scott Madon looked out the window of his second-floor insurance office a few years ago and saw a public square with 20 percent of its buildings occupied. Now it’s 100 percent full, after a redevelopment plan that will hit its second big phase this summer, Madon said during a panel discussion.

One key was a five-year moratorium on property-tax assessment increases, which required the cooperation of the county government. Madon said the first property to emerge from the moratorium will pay $10,000 in property taxes this year, after generating only $400 a year before it was redeveloped. To help businesses succeed, Southeast Community College helps them work up business plans, and checks with them each quarter to see how they’re doing.

Hille said successes like Pineville’s and Corbin’s usually have “spark plugs” like Andy Salmons, who is both Corbin’s Main street manager and owner of a former drug store converted into a local-food restaurant and bar with apartments above. He did that 12 years ago, when half of downtown buildings were empty.

Skeptics, and there were many, “said nobody’s going to come to a farm-to-table, craft-beer bar in Corbin,” Salmons said. He ran out of money just before it was time to open, and people who wanted to see him succeed rounded up the last thing he needed for the Wrigley Taproom and Eatery: chairs.?

More openings followed, the town went fully “wet,” not just for restaurants, and other towns noticed and followed suit. “Corbin was a game changer in this region,” said Jacob Roan, the city’s parks director.

Some relief coming for housing shortage

Much of the conference focused on the region’s chronic housing shortage, which has been worsened by floods, inflation and high interest rates, which have also raised rents and home prices. But wait. “Help is on the way,” said Pam Johnson of Fahe, formerly the Federation of Appalachian Housing Enterprises.

Using flood-relief money and other funds, and donated land, the state has started seven housing developments in the counties hit hardest by the 2022 flooding. It recently started taking applications for $298 million in federal disaster-recovery money intended for housing and infrastructure to support it.

The application deadline is June 1, said Matt Stephens, general counsel of the state Department for Local Government. The five counties hurt most by the floods – Breathitt, Letcher, Knott, Perry and Pike – will get 80% of the money. The other 20% is allocated to 15 other counties flooded in 2022.

“We’re looking at a summer and fall of housing starts that we have not seen,” Johnson said. “That’s going to give a boost to the communities.”

Eastern Kentucky has a housing shortage partly because it has shortages of three things related to housing: developable land, infrastructure and contractor, said Wendy Smith, a deputy executive director of Kentucky Housing Corp., a state agency.

Smith said rents have climbed so much that landlords who once took federal Section 8 housing vouchers no longer do so, to avoid inspections required by the program, and more than half the people who got vouchers from KHC turn them back in because they can’t find housing in the 210 days the voucher can be used.

She said there is little new “middle housing” such as duplexes and triplexes, on which developers make less money. And while there is money for apartment buildings and rent subsidies, many people in Eastern Kentucky don’t like apartment living.

“It’s because we’re connected to the land,” Corbin Mayor Suzie Rasmus said, unlike “the rest of the nation, that is so transitory.”

This story is the first in the latest series of stories about Appalachian Kentucky from the Institute for Rural Journalism, based at the University of Kentucky. If you have story ideas, contact Director Emeritus Al Cross at [email protected] or Jenni Glendenning, the institute’s David Hawpe Fellow in Appalachian Reporting, at [email protected].?

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Kentucky AG gets funding to fight Biden administration on climate, air and water pollution rules

Liam Niemeyer — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 09:15:06 +0000

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman (Kentucky Lantern photo by Mathew Mueller)

When Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman told state lawmakers in January about the budget needs of his office, Rep. Patrick Flannery, R-Olive Hill, asked if he needed more resources to address a “regulatory avalanche” regarding a “green agenda” coming from the federal government.?

Coleman, a Republican, said his office would welcome them, saying there was a “shotgun of regulation targeting the coal industry, targeting coal-fired power plants” in the near term.?

The two men were referring to regulations either finalized or in the process of being finalized by the Biden administration, many of them issued by the Environmental Protection Agency. Broadly, these regulations seek to curb heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change, along with cutting related air and water pollution and are aimed at fossil fuel-fired power plants and the transportation industry.?

“We’re going to be pushing back and fighting the EPA particularly in a way that is unprecedented,” Coleman said then, adding that he had the benefit of following former Attorney General Daniel Cameron who had built “a team to push back” and work with other attorneys general.?

Coleman has done just that through federal courts, leading and joining lawsuits with other Republican state attorneys general suing to block federal rules over a litany of issues, including methane emissions at oil and gas wells, deadly soot pollution from power plants and industry and attacking the EPA for pursuing environmental justice using civil rights laws, a petition calling it a form of “racial engineering.” Coleman recently trumpeted a federal judge ruling in favor of a legal challenge he led against a rule requiring state transportation officials to set goals for reducing heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions from vehicle tailpipes and other sources.?

The GOP-dominated legislature decided earlier this month in the final hours of this year’s legislative session that Coleman needed more financial support. Taking a bill originally about regional drivers licensing offices, Republicans added last-minute language giving $3 million to Coleman’s office from the state’s Budget Reserve Trust Fund or “rainy day” fund to create an “electric reliability defense program.”?

That bill became law after Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear line-item vetoed some last-minute appropriations added into that legislation, Senate Bill 91, but left the funding for the $3 million. A Beshear spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to an email asking if he supported the funding.

Coleman told the Lantern the extra $3 million will be used to pay attorneys and find experts. He said the regulations will both impact prices and undermine electricity reliability for Kentuckians at a time when energy demand is rapidly increasing.?

Senate President Robert Stivers told reporters during the legislative session the idea behind the allocation was to have the attorney general litigate “overreaching regs” by the EPA and other agencies. He referenced the “Good Neighbor Plan,” Obama-era regulations strengthened under the Biden administration limiting downwind air pollution that creates smog.

Those regulations aren’t in effect in Kentucky and 11 other states after court orders suspending the rules amid legal challenges. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about the regulations earlier this year.?

A new legal battle between Republican attorneys general and the EPA could emerge soon as the agency last week finalized a suite of new rules that, among other aspects, targets carbon dioxide emissions at coal-fired power plants and new gas-fired power plants. Existing coal-fired power plants and new gas-fired power plants would have to “control” 90% of their carbon emissions by 2032 if power producers plan to operate the plants past 2039.?

Globally, burning coal for electricity plays an outsized role in warming the climate, according to the International Energy Agency. The intergovernmental, autonomous research organization found that burning coal across the world was the single largest source of global temperature increase. Kentucky is also among the minority of states still largely reliant on coal; a 2022 report from the Energy Information Administration, a federal agency collecting and analyzing energy-related data, found that Kentucky was one of four states in 2021 that generated more than 70% of its electricity from burning coal.?

Rules designed to protect public health

But for the leader of one Kentucky-based environmental legal group, the funding spent by the legislature to boost Coleman’s efforts is “a waste of taxpayer dollars that can be put to much better use.”?

Ashley Wilmes, the executive director for the Kentucky Resources Council, said it was “particularly unfortunate” that Coleman, who’s charged with representing ratepayers’ interests, is obstructing “an inevitable transition to a clean energy future, to a decarbonized energy future.”?

“It’s just disconcerting to see these attacks on EPA rules that are designed to protect public health and the environment at a time when we really need to be focusing instead on reducing carbon emissions that cause climate change and reducing air pollution emissions from a public health perspective,” Wilmes said.

Generally, utilities across the country are already transitioning on their own away from coal-fired power because of lower-cost options such as gas-fired power plants and renewable energy. Utilities, including those in Kentucky, are raising strong concerns about the feasibility of the EPA’s new carbon emissions rules for power plants, particularly its reliance on carbon capture technologies that are still being tested at utility scale.?

Wilmes said there is even more uncertainty being created for Kentucky utilities seeking a transition away from coal with the passage of laws by the Kentucky legislature that create additional barriers to retiring fossil fuel-fired power plants.?

A Stivers-backed bill this year creating a new review board to analyze fossil-fuel power plant retirement decisions became law after the legislature overrode a Beshear veto. Critics, ranging from investor-owned utilities to environmental groups, decried Senate Bill 349 as burdening ratepayers with the costs of keeping aging, uneconomical coal-fired power plants on the power grid.?

Stivers, along with lobbying interests for the coal industry, argued SB 349 was needed to ensure the reliability of the state’s electricity supply. Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities President John Crockett, who was among utility representatives who testified against SB 349, had previously rebuffed assertions from Stivers that the state is facing an energy reliability crisis.?

Coleman responds to criticism

Coleman, like Stivers, argues that the EPA is going beyond the authority it has been given by Congress and that the legislative funding allows him to enforce the law.

“These folks who take another view, with all due respect, they need to go to Congress, they need to go to the people’s representatives and change the law. If their view should carry the day, they need to constitutionally go to Congress and change the law,” Coleman said.?

When asked what he personally thought of the issue of climate change — given the Biden administration cites it as a driving reason for pursuing these regulations — Coleman, without mentioning climate change, said “we have a duty to be good stewards of our land and our water.”?

When asked about calls from the leader of the United Nations urging rich countries such as the United States to end the use of coal for electricity by 2030 and have carbon-free electricity by 2035, Coleman said there was a “disconnect” with countries like the United States being asked to “severely restrict its use of carbon fuels” while China is “building coal fired power plants at an unprecedented pace.”?

One 2023 report found that China is building six times more coal-fired power plants than other countries, with the report’s authors saying the push for new coal being driven by the need for electricity created by a drought and a historic heat wave in 2022 that increased the demand for air conditioning. Scientists say that the heat wave’s likelihood was increased by climate change.?

The International Energy Agency in 2022 affirmed again that no new “unabated” coal-fired power plants can be built if the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius below pre-industrial temperature levels is to be met.

Wilmes said she believed the EPA with its new power plant regulations wrote “very defendable rules” but that “you just never know” what will ultimately happen given future litigation.?

“We knew we were going to see challenges to these rules,” she said.?

While Republican West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has already said he’ll challenge the power plant rules, Coleman told the Lantern to “stay tuned” and that any challenge to federal rules wouldn’t be done alone.

“It is always a couple of dozen, the heft of a couple of dozen states pushing back on what we’re seeing coming out of the Biden administration,” Coleman said. “I deeply respect clean water, and clean air. This is a policy disagreement.”

New federal rules aim to clean up toxic coal ash, including nearly a dozen sites in Kentucky

Liam Niemeyer — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 09:40:35 +0000

The EPA first created rules regulating coal ash impoundments in 2015 after a dike collapsed flooding embankments and the Emory River near Harriman, Tennessee. Coal ash slurry was contained in a pond, above. (Greenpeace photo)

Kentucky is one of a minority of states that produces most of its electricity by burning coal. A byproduct of that legacy today: creating millions of tons of what’s known as coal ash, a waste from burning coal containing a slew of toxic metals that’s often stored by utilities and power producers in impoundment ponds and landfills.

Without proper protections or cleanup at these coal ash sites, the ash can be blown into the air or seep into nearby groundwater. Coal ash impoundments failing have led to environmental disaster, such as when more than 1 billion gallons of coal ash slurry poured into the Emory River near Kingston, Tennessee, in 2008. More than 50 workers who cleaned up the aftermath died and more than 150 are sick after not having proper protection.?

Such problems led the Environmental Protection Agency to issue rules in 2015 requiring the pits where the coal ash is stored to be lined and have dust controls and for the groundwater near operating coal-fired power plants to be monitored.

On Thursday, the EPA expanded those regulations to cover coal ash landfills and impoundments at retired or inactive coal-fired power plants as well, something environmental groups such as Earthjustice have called for. The agency is also seeking to regulate sites where coal ash has been disposed of outside of a regulated impoundment or landfill. The new coal ash rules are part of a number of other finalized rules that aim to dramatically curb greenhouse gas emissions and water pollution from coal-fired and gas-fired power plants.?

The EPA states 194 “legacy” impoundments at 85 facilities across the country will be subject to the expanded coal ash rule, with 11 such sites in Kentucky at former coal-fired power plants including the Kenneth C. Coleman Generating Station, the William C. Dale Power Station, the Green River Generating Station, the Tyrone Generating Station and the Pineville Generating Station.?

The federal agency notes some coal ash ponds at these former coal-fired power plants in Kentucky are closing or have closed under oversight from state officials, while the closure status is unclear for other sites. The EPA cites data from Earthjustice in its count of inactive coal ash sites that will now be regulated under the expanded rules. Earthjustice previously tallied the number of unregulated coal ash sites in Kentucky at 25.

Abell Russ, a senior attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project, told reporters earlier this week groundwater contamination from unlined, unregulated “coal ash dumps” can often go unaddressed because the sites are classified as an inactive or “legacy” coal ash site by the EPA, even when situated next to coal ash sites that are regulated.?

“They’re not doing anything about it because they say it’s all coming from the older, larger ash pond that closed a long time ago, and so there’s no cleanup happening there,” Russ said. “This is a huge loophole.”?

Russ said the EPA expanding regulations to coal ash ponds at retired or former coal-fired power plants will require utilities to monitor and improve groundwater at these sites, though enforcement capacity remains a concern.?

Tom FitzGerald, a former long-time lobbyist for the environmental legal group Kentucky Resources Council, submitted a public comment about the rule urging the EPA to approve the expanded coal ash regulations, saying the exact number of unregulated, inactive coal ash sites was unknown because utilities aren’t required to report the total number of sites.?

“These dumps are almost certainly contaminating water and threatening health and the environment; however, monitoring data are not currently available for most unregulated sites,” Fitzgerald wrote. “It is appropriate and necessary that these legacy facilities be addressed and that they be required to be fully characterized and properly closed.”?

Kentucky utilities in previous public comments on the coal ash rule have criticized the expanded coal ash regulations as unnecessary, expensive to ratepayers and disruptive to remediation already conducted at some sites under the oversight of state officials.?

Clay Larkin, a lawyer for the Utility Information Exchange of Kentucky representing all of Kentucky’s major utilities, in a July 2023 public comment wrote that many of the “legacy” coal ash sites that would be newly regulated are “heavily revegetated” and would require “significant environmental impacts” to remove the coal ash.?

“State-led closure efforts at many of these sites have accomplished careful management of existing risks and, in some cases, complete elimination of risk,” Larkin wrote. “In reaching specific closure decisions, states have balanced the concerns of, and impacts on, local and regional populations while limiting or eliminating environmental impacts to areas where site conditions are already well understood because of years of study and evaluation.”?

In its final rule, the EPA explained that it could not exempt inactive coal ash sites that state officials have deemed as “closed” because of evidence that past state-approved closures were “significantly less protective” in preventing groundwater contamination.?

New?EPA rules will force fossil fuel power plants to cut pollution

Robert Zullo — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 09:30:00 +0000

AES Indiana’s Petersburg Generating Station in Petersburg, Indiana, has been burning coal since the 1960s but will shutter all of its coal-firing units over the next few years. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday released a sweeping set of rules aimed at cutting air, water and land pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants. (Robert Zullo/States Newsroom)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday released a sweeping set of rules aimed at cutting air, water and land pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants.

Environmental and clean energy groups celebrated the announcement as long overdue, particularly for coal-burning power plants, which have saddled hundreds of communities across the country with dirty air and hundreds of millions of tons of toxic coal ash waste. The ash has leached a host of toxins — including arsenic, mercury, lead, cadmium, radium and other pollutants — into ground and surface water.

“Today is the culmination of years of advocacy for common-sense safeguards that will have a direct impact on communities long forced to suffer in the shadow of the dirtiest power plants in the country,” said Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club, one of the nation’s oldest and largest environmental organizations. “It is also a major step forward in our movement’s fight to decarbonize the electric sector and help avoid the worst impacts of climate change.”

But some electric industry and pro-coal organizations blasted the rules as a threat to jobs and electric reliability at a time when power demands are surging. They also criticized the rule’s reliance on largely unproven carbon capture technologies.

America’s Power, a trade organization for the nation’s fleet of about 400 coal power plants across 42 states, called the number of new rules “unprecedented,” singling out the new emissions standards that will force existing coal plants to cut their carbon emissions by 90% by the 2032 if they intend to keep running past 2039.? Michelle Bloodworth, the group’s president and CEO, called the rule “an extreme and unlawful overreach that endangers America’s supply of dependable and affordable electricity.”

‘This forces that’

Many experts expect the regulations to be litigated, particularly the carbon rule, since the last time the EPA tried to restrict carbon emissions from power plants, a group of states led by West Virginia mounted a successful legal challenge that went to the U.S. Supreme Court.

But Julie McNamara, deputy policy director with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the agency took great pains to conform the rule to the legal constraints outlined by the court.

“This rule is specifically responsive to that Supreme Court decision,” she said. “Which doesn’t mean that it won’t go to the courts but this is so carefully hewn to that decision that it should be robust.”

The four rules EPA released Thursday mainly target coal-fired power plants.

“By developing these standards in a clear, transparent, inclusive manner, EPA is cutting pollution while ensuring that power companies can make smart investments and continue to deliver reliable electricity for all Americans,” EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said.

In some ways, they attach a framework to a sea change in electric generation that is already well under way, McNamara said.

Coal accounted for just 16% of U.S. electric generation in 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In 1990, by comparison, it comprised more than 54% of power generation. However, some states are more reliant on coal power than others.

In 2021, the most coal-dependent states were West Virginia, Missouri, Wyoming and Kentucky, per a 2022 report by? the EIA.

“This rulemaking adds structure to that transition,” McNamara said. “For those who have chosen not to assess the future use of their coal plants, this forces that.”

Heather O’Neill, president and CEO of the clean energy trade group Advanced Energy United, said the new regulations are a chance for utilities to embrace cheaper, cleaner and more reliable options for the electric grid.

“Instead of looking to build new gas plants or prolong the life of old coal plants, utilities should be taking advantage of the cheaper, cleaner, and more trusty tools in the toolbox,” she said.

The carbon rule

In 2009, the EPA concluded that greenhouse gas emissions “endanger our nation’s public health and welfare,” the agency wrote, adding that since that time, “the evidence of the harms posed by GHG emissions has only grown and Americans experience the destructive and worsening effects of climate change every day.”

The new carbon emissions regulation will apply to existing coal plants and new natural gas plants. Coal plants that plan to operate beyond 2039 will have to capture 90% of their carbon emissions by 2032. New gas plants are split into three categories based on their capacity factor, a measure of how much electricity is generated over a period of time relative to the maximum amount it could have produced. The plants that run the most (more than 40% capacity factor) will have to capture 90% of their carbon emissions by 2032. Existing gas plants will be regulated under a forthcoming rule that “more comprehensively addresses GHG emissions from this portion of the fleet,” the agency said.

Michelle Solomon, a senior policy analyst for Energy Innovation, an energy and climate policy think tank, predicts that most coal plants will close rather than install the costly technology to capture carbon emissions.

“Climate goals aside, the public health impacts of the rules in securing the retirement of coal fired power plants is so important,” she said. Coal power in the U.S. has been increasingly pressured by cheaper gas and renewable generation and mounting environmental restrictions, but some grid operators have still been caught flat-footed by the pace of coal plant closures.

“I think the role of this rule, to provide that certainty about where we’re going, is so crucial to get the entities that have control over the rate of the transition to start to take action here,” she said. But the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s CEO, Jim Matheson, called the rules “unlawful, unrealistic and unachievable” noting that it relies on technology “that is not ready for prime time.”

And Todd Snitchler, president and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association, a trade group for competitive power suppliers, called the rule “a painful example of aspirational policy outpacing physical and operational realities” because of its reliance on unproven carbon capture and hydrogen blending technologies to cut emissions.

A beefed up Mercury and Air Toxic Standards rule

The EPA called the revision to the Mercury and Air Toxic Standards “the most significant update since MATS was first issued in February 2012.” It predicted the rule would cut emissions of mercury and other air pollutants like nickel, arsenic, lead, soot, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and others. It cuts the mercury limit by 70% for power plants fired by lignite coal, which is the lowest grade of coal and one of the dirtiest to burn for power generation.

For all coal plants, the emissions limit for toxic metals is reduced by 67%. The EPA says the rule will result in major cuts in releases of mercury and other hazardous metals, fine particulate matter, nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide.? The agency projects “$300 million in health benefits,” including reducing risks of heart attacks, cancer and developmental delays in children and $130 million in climate benefits.

Stronger wastewater discharge limits for power plants

Coal fired power plants use huge volumes of water, and when the wastewater is returned to lakes, rivers and streams it can be laden with mercury, arsenic and other metals as well as bromide, chloride and other pollution and contaminate drinking water and harm aquatic life.

The new rule is projected to cut about 670 million pounds of pollutants discharged in wastewater from coal plants per year. Plants that will cease coal combustion over the next decade can abide by less stringent rules.

“Power plants for far too long have been able to get away with treating our waterways like an open sewer,” said Thomas Cmar, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organization, during a briefing on the new rules earlier this week.

Closing a coal ash loophole?

Coal ash, what’s left after coal has been burned for power generation, is one the nation’s largest waste streams. The 2015 EPA Coal Combustion Residuals rule were the first federal regulations for coal ash. But that rule left about half of the ash sitting at power plant sites and other locations — much of it in unlined disposal pits — unregulated because it did not apply to so-called “legacy impoundments” that were not being used to accept new ash.

“We’re going to see a long-awaited crackdown on coal ash pollution from America’s coal plants, and it’ll be a huge win for America’s health and water resources,” said Lisa Evans, a senior attorney with Earthjustice. “They are all likely leaking toxic chemicals like arsenic into groundwater and most contain levels of radioactivity that can be dangerous to human health.”

Groundwater monitoring data shows that the vast majority of ash ponds at coal plants are contaminating groundwater, said Abel Russ, a senior attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project. But under the old rule, Russ said, facilities could dodge cleanup requirements by blaming contamination on older ash dumps not covered by the regulation.

“This is a huge loophole,” Russ said. “You can’t restore groundwater quality if you’re only addressing half of the coal ash sources on site.”

However, several attorneys on the Earthjustice briefing said the new rules, which will require monitoring at clean up and hundreds of more ash sites, will only be as good as the enforcement.

“It’s meaningful only if these utilities obey the law. Unfortunately to date, many of them have not,” said Frank Holleman, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.

Kentucky to receive $62 million to expand solar energy access to low-income households

Liam Niemeyer — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 22:49:27 +0000

The EPA says Kentucky will use the $62 million to “expand access to low-income solar through financial assistance models and workforce development programming.” (Getty Images)

The Environmental Protection Agency is awarding a more than $62 million grant to Kentucky’s state government to help expand residential solar energy to low-income households, one of dozens of awards given across the country as a part of a federal grant competition.?

The “Solar for All” competition, funded through the Inflation Reduction Act, is allocating $7 billion through 60 grants to state governments, tribes and nonprofits that an EPA release estimates will be able “to deliver residential solar projects to over 900,000 households nationwide.”

Kentucky could win ‘massive’ solar investment in federal competition. Here’s what’s possible.

According to the EPA, the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet will use its $62,450,000 award to “expand access to low-income solar through financial assistance models and workforce development programming.”

The Kentucky Lantern previously reported the state’s application for the competition, which originally asked for $100 million, proposed to add residential solar and electricity storage systems to hundreds of “disaster recovery” homes across the state, increase access to community solar projects for low-income Kentuckians and create community college scholarships to build a workforce to deploy residential solar installations.?

An Energy and Environment Cabinet spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the award announcement.

Steve Ricketts, the board chair for the advocacy group Kentucky Solar Energy Society, told the Lantern that utility-scale solar installations are increasingly setting up shop in Kentucky and there’s growing interest from some cities in promoting solar energy.?

But low-income Kentuckians have been less able to access solar, he said, which he hopes this grant funding can help solve.

“Until we get clean energy that includes everybody, and nobody’s left behind, we’re not doing a good job,” Ricketts said. “This is the piece of the puzzle we desperately needed.”?

Ricketts said he hoped state officials would collaborate with “an extremely willing and motivated grassroots community who want them to succeed” with rolling out the grant funding.

Another “Solar for All” application, submitted as a collaboration between Louisville and some Eastern Kentucky counties, did not receive a grant. Louisville and Eastern Kentucky counties proposed to use $150 million to create a forgivable loan program for low-income households to add residential solar, create community centers powered by solar energy for use during natural disasters and also build the solar installation deployment workforce.?

Sumedha Rao, the executive director of Louisville Metro Government’s Office of Sustainability, said her office still plans to utilize newly-made connections with leaders in Eastern Kentucky counties to go after future funding opportunities for solar energy.

“There was a lot of good ideas, good reasons to collaborate and strengths that both regions brought together that just makes sense,” Rao said. “So, I’m really grateful to have built those connections.”

Rao said she’s eager to partner with the state government and “help them deploy the funds equitably across the state through all of our communities.”

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‘Panicked rush to gas’ could hike energy costs, report warns regulators

Robert Zullo — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 09:40:47 +0000

A natural gas plant in Florida. Utilities, particularly in the South, are pushing to add new natural gas plants. (Getty Images)

The nation’s largest public power company, the Tennessee Valley Authority, which serves 10 million people in Tennessee and parts of six neighboring states, has put forward plans for eight new natural gas plants since 2020.

In South Carolina, Dominion Energy and Santee Cooper are pushing the state legislature to pave the way for a 2,000-megawatt natural gas power plant. Farther north, Dominion also plans new gas generation in Virginia. In its most recent plan filed with state regulators, Georgia Power is looking to add new gas turbines. Likewise, Duke Energy in North Carolina is proposing new gas plants and delaying coal power retirements.

The companies point to spiking electric demand, driven by data centers, new manufacturing facilities, increasing transportation electrification and other sources.

Georgia Power’s CEO said new businesses are creating a thirst for new power at “both a record scale and velocity.” Duke and TVA both cited “tremendous” economic and population growth in their service areas.

But a new report by an energy and climate policy think tank warns that some utilities, particularly in the South, are making a “panicked rush to gas” and calls on state officials to explore cheaper options and carefully vet plans that could saddle electric customers with billions in costs.

”What we really want is for policymakers to ask good questions,” said Eric Gimon, a senior fellow at Energy Innovation, and one of the authors of the brief for utility regulators, in an interview with States Newsroom.

‘Less risky alternatives’

After about 15 years of stagnation, U.S. electric demand is growing. A December report by an electric sector consulting firm noted that the utilities and regional transmission organizations that run the North American electric grid had almost doubled growth projections. At the same time, transmission line construction has nearly ground to a halt and there’s limited ability to move power between regions as the generation mix increasingly shifts to renewables and batteries in many parts of the country.

That’s been coupled with a growing dependence on natural gas power plants, which have taken the role coal used to play in the nation’s power mix but which have also failed in large numbers during recent severe weather.

Gimon said gas plants are often treated as a magic bullet solution to resource adequacy — an electric industry term for having enough power to meet peak demand. If the vision of the utilities pushing for lots of new gas power comes to pass, one of two things will happen, Gimon contends.

“Either they don’t get used very much,” he said, and thus become a stranded asset customers are stuck paying for anyway. “Or they get used a lot and they’re busting through their climate goals and EPA regulations.”

In a recent post , two Natural Resources Defense Council staffers warned that the huge planned Southeastern gas buildout will jeopardize emission reduction targets and hike electric costs, “leaving customers on the hook for potentially expensive, dirty and ultimately stranded assets that may or may not be usable for their typical, carbon-intensive lifespans.”

Gimon and one of his co-authors, Mike O’Boyle, Energy Innovation’s senior director for electricity, also pointed out that gas plants can’t always be counted on when they’re needed most. In the region run by PJM, the nation’s largest grid operator, gas plants accounted for 70% of the power plant outages it suffered during Winter Storm Elliott in December 2022.

“We’re not talking about a capacity resource that is dependable for 100% of its nameplate capacity during a winter peak either,” O’Boyle said. “I think regulators’ jobs are to help ensure that utility investments are prudent and part of that means have they considered more affordable alternatives and less risky alternatives.”

Sarah Durdaller, a spokesperson for the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities like Dominion Energy, Southern Company and Duke Energy, said its member companies “are committed to delivering reliable, affordable and resilient clean energy to their customers.”

Durdaller said carbon emissions from the power sector are at their lowest point in almost 50 years, despite electricity generation doubling in that time frame. Natural gas power, she said, “is an essential partner for deploying renewables and maintaining grid reliability.”

As far as the thousands of megawatts of gas plants companies are proposing, she said that utility plans “always evolve as new technologies emerge, as costs decline, as demand forecasts change and as new policies are fully implemented.”

‘Better solutions’

One aspect for policymakers to consider is the reliability of the demand projections themselves.

“Utilities consistently over forecast,” said Gudrun Thompson, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, which has been tracking southeastern utilities’ gas plant proposals. “I would not be surprised if that is happening now.”

Transparency is also a concern, she added, noting that a single data center project could be in negotiations with multiple utilities and get counted by all of them in their load projections.

In 2007, the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicted 1.5% annual growth in electric demand, which would have been a 21% increase over 15 years. It never materialized, mostly because of energy efficiency programs, federal and local building codes and appliance standards and voluntary industry efforts, the Energy Innovation report says.

“Efficiency was a primary cause of flat demand after 2008 and could be a major factor in mitigating the pressure that new demand growth puts on the electrical grid,” the report notes.

Coming electric load increases aren’t illusory but the report’s authors argue that “better near-term and long-term solutions exist and should be deployed first.”

For example, Gimon said, battery storage is growing by leaps and bounds in Texas and California, and it’s already playing a growing role in helping to meet peak demand. However, in their planning some Southeastern utilities are treating battery storage “like it’s some new technology from Mars,” Gimon said.

The Energy Innovation report’s other recommendations include:

Taking advantage of existing locations with power infrastructure onsite to build renewable power and battery storage, skipping the long wait times to connect to the grid plaguing many new power projects across the country. The Rocky Mountain Institute, a green energy nonprofit, calls it “clean repowering” and says there’s 250 gigawatts (the rough equivalent of 250 large power plants) of new renewable potential at former fossil sites scattered across the country that could be harnessed to create billions in savings and cleaner power generation.
Look to meet large customer demands with onsite power, such as solar panels, and take better advantage of demand response programs, which enroll large customers who voluntarily agree to reduce power consumption in exchange for savings. Many of those customers include large corporations that have their own carbon reduction targets. Shaving that large customer demand could avoid some or all new peak gas capacity, the report says. “The utilities’ responses to load growth are coming into conflict with the explicit goals of their own customers who are driving that load growth,” O’Boyle said.
Improve how the existing electric system is used by implementing grid-enhancing technologies like dynamic line ratings, power flow controllers and other systems. They’re common in other countries but have been slow to take root in many parts of the U.S. where utilities make the most money by building the most expensive solution they can get approved, not necessarily the one that’s most cost-effective for customers. “The fact is any data center is hooking into a system,” Gimon said. “That system is remarkably underutilized.”
Improve regional connections, particularly in the Southeast, which is fast becoming one of the few remaining parts of the country without any real regional wholesale electric market. In 2022, Southeastern utilities created the Southeast Energy Exchange Market, but it’s been criticized as a market in name only, since the volume of actual trades has failed to amount to much. “Research from Energy Innovation and Vibrant Clean Energy found that sharing capacity between non-RTO states in the Southeast would yield more than $10 billion in cost savings annually, revealing a region replete with spare capacity if utilities can figure out how to share it,” the report says.

It will fall to state utility regulators and policymakers to gauge how desperately their residents actually need all the new gas power being proposed and whether there are cheaper ways to meet climbing demand.

Adding more rooftop solar, energy efficiency programs and residential batteries, known as distributed resources, which can be aggregated into what’s known as a virtual power plant, might mean lower electric sales, the report noted.

“In some states, the electric utility is also the gas utility and can benefit from rate-basing new gas infrastructure. These circumstances create incentives that can skew utility decisions toward well-worn solutions like gas plants and typically disincentivize regional coordination,” the report says. “Ultimately, policymakers need to demand more from their utilities and be skeptical of the ‘usual suspect’ solutions.”

Thompson, the SELC attorney, called the amount of new gas southern utilities are proposing “staggering.” The organization estimates that if all the new gas plants proposed get built, it will eclipse the amount of coal generation southern utilities plan to retire over the next 15 years by roughly 8 gigawatts. Regulators, she said, need to “look very hard at the load growth projections and take a hard look at choices that the utilities are making,” including pending EPA carbon regulations that could require expensive carbon capture technology or co-firing with hydrogen and whether the plants will require new pipeline infrastructure. “If all of these plants get approved and built we’re just not going to achieve the carbon reductions that we need to be on a path to averting the worst effects of climate change.”

Government transparency decisions await Kentucky lawmakers when they reconvene Friday

McKenna Horsley — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 18:38:14 +0000

The Kentucky Senate, Feb. 27, 2024. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Arden Barnes)

FRANKFORT — A bill that open government advocates warn would introduce loopholes into Kentucky’s open records law could make its way to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s desk when lawmakers return to Frankfort later this week.?

The final two days of the 60-day regular session — Friday and Monday — are set aside to consider gubernatorial vetoes of bills that both chambers have passed. The Republican supermajority can easily reach the simple majority of votes needed to override ?vetoes.

Legislation that has yet to make it through both chambers also could come up in the final two days, including a bill to end the certificate of need requirement for freestanding birth centers and a maternal health bill that ran aground in the Senate after a late amendment was added in committee.

The Senate is expected to consider confirming Robbie Fletcher as the state education commissioner, along with appointments to other positions. Thanks to a law enacted last year, it will be the first time the education commissioner has required Senate confirmation.

Any bill that lawmakers pass would be subject to a successful veto by Beshear because the legislature would have no chance to override it.

‘Bad actors’

Beshear has voiced support for the controversial changes to the open records law proposed in House Bill 509. During his weekly news conference last week he said he needs to see the bill’s final form before deciding what action to take on the bill. “We’ll review it when it gets to me.”

Republican Senate President Robert Stivers, left, and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear speak ahead of ceremony swearing in constitutional officers, Jan. 2, 2024. (Kentucky Lantern photo by McKenna Horsley)

The House passed the bill, but the Senate did not give it a floor vote ahead of the veto period. The Senate could give final passage to the bill when both chambers reconvene Friday and Monday.

HB 509 would require state and local government agencies to provide email accounts to public officials on which to conduct official business. However, the bill doesn’t address what happens to public records created on private devices.?

Beshear told reporters he thinks the bill would be more effective than current law in deterring officials from conducting public business on their personal devices or email accounts. He traced the controversy to the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources (KDFWR), which has waged a so far unsuccessful court fight to block release of commissioners’ text messages. The challenge is now before the state Supreme Court.

“Fish and Wildlife hadn’t issued state email addresses to their commissioners and they insisted on texting each other on their own devices,” Beshear said. “That’s wrong. So, right now, what the law says is if you do that, that is an open record. But all we can do in terms of enforcement is ask that person ‘would you please look through your phone and take snapshots of anything that we’re asking for and send them to us now?’ Do you think a bad actor who’s trying to get around the open records request is going to do that and send them to you?”

HB 509 would destroy Kentucky’s long tradition of openness. And Beshear knows it.

Beshear said HB 509’s mandate that official business be conducted on government email accounts could aid transparency by making government agencies responsible for the records. “What it does is take whether you get a record away from a potential bad actor and put it with the agency that can secure those records.”

Agencies could discipline employees who violate HB 509’s mandates — by using a personal cell phone or email account for official communications, for example — but it’s unclear if and how those records could be publicly disclosed. The bill includes no penalties for violations by elected officials. The bill also does not require agencies to search for public records on personal devices.?

When asked if he thought Beshear would veto the bill, Republican Senate President Robert Stivers told reporters as the veto period began: “You’d have to ask the governor on that. I do not know. I don’t know what he would do.”?

The open records challenge against the KDFWR was spurred by a former member of the KDFWR’s governing board requesting text messages among Fish and Wildlife officials and lawmakers. The governor and Republican legislature have also clashed over the Kentucky Senate not confirming gubernatorial appointments to the KDFWR’s governing board. Five appointments are? awaiting confirmation this session.?

The Kentucky House of Representatives in session, Feb. 27, 2024. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Arden Barnes)

Here’s a look at where some other high-profile legislation stands:?

Momnibus?

After picking up some controversial baggage in the last leg of the legislative session, the maternal health bill called “Momnibus” failed to get final passage.?

The bill would incentivize Kentuckians to get prenatal care by adding pregnancy to the list of qualifying life events for health insurance coverage, among other things. It had bipartisan support.

But a late amendment borrowed language from a bill filed by an anti-abortion lawmaker that requires hospitals and midwives to refer patients who have nonviable pregnancies or whose fetuses have been diagnosed with fatal conditions to perinatal palliative care services. Abortion rights advocates say the requirement could become coercive.

The bill awaits Senate passage and Beshear’s action.?

Meanwhile, Democrats in the Senate have filed amendments

Democrats in the Senate have filed amendments to loosen the state’s near-total ban on abortion by adding exceptions for rape, incest and lethal fetal anomalies ?and changing the word “baby” to “fetus.”?

It could still pass in the final two days but would have to be a version that meets Beshear’s approval because lawmakers would be unable to override a veto.??

Freestanding birth centers?

A bill to remove the certificate of need requirement for freestanding birth centers that meet a set of criteria was approved by the House. It has had two readings in the Senate but still needs to pass a Senate committee.?

A Senate Resolution to reestablish a task force to study certificate of need in Kentucky has also not passed.?

Crime bill awaits action by Beshear

A sweeping crime bill backed by Jefferson County House Republicans has been awaiting action by the governor for about a week. House Bill 5 has been hotly debated, with House Democrats futilely arguing on the last day before the veto period against the measure.??

The bill includes new or increased criminal penalties, bans street camping and imposes a three strikes rule on violent offenders. It requires prisoners convicted of violent offenses to serve 85% of their sentences instead of the current 20% before becoming eligible for parole, and classifies more crimes as violent.

HB 5 has gained opposition from across the political spectrum, as both progressive and conservative groups have argued that a more in-depth fiscal analysis is needed before implementing the legislation. However, the Kentucky Fraternal Order of Police and some families of deceased crime victims have expressed support for the bill.?

Beshear told reporters Thursday that he was still reviewing the bill and was supportive of parts of it but concerned about other sections. He added that he supported the carjacking provision but had reservations about provisions that could criminalize homelessness by creating the crime of illegal street camping.?

People bow their heads in prayer after a mass shooting in Louisville a year ago. The community vigil was held on the Muhammad Ali Center plaza, April 12, 2023. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Abbey Cutrer)

He said a part of the bill that would “allow for the destruction of a weapon used in a murder” is close to him a year after the Old National Bank shooting in Louisville. The bill would allow someone to purchase such a weapon at auction and ask Kentucky State Police to destroy it. The funds are used for local government and law enforcement grants.?

Local officials highlighted the issue of the auctions after the shooting last year. One of the victims, Tommy Elliot, was a close friend of Beshear’s.?

“Thankfully, the ATF seized that weapon, and it was destroyed,” Beshear said of the weapon used in the bank shooting. “Otherwise, I was going to have to watch a weapon that murdered my friend be auctioned to the highest bidder.”?

Beshear also added that he wished legislation like this would be broken up into separate bills. He can only issue line-item vetoes on budget bills.?

Changes to horse racing and gambling oversight

Beshear can also take action on another bill that was passed by the General Assembly just before the veto period began that would dissolve the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and Department of Charitable Gaming.?

Senate Bill 299 would form a new government corporation to oversee the duties of the commission and department. Both of those are currently under the Public Protection Cabinet. The House and Senate have both given approval on the measure.

Senate Republican Floor Leader Damon Thayer unveiled changes to gambling governance during a March 26 committee meeting. House Speaker David Osborne sat beside him. Charitable-gaming interests seemed to be caught flat-footed, writes Al Cross, which horse-racing interests never seem to be. (LRC Public Information)

The bill has been backed by the legislature’s Republican leadership. In a joint meeting of the Senate and House economic development committees, Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer and House Speaker David Osborne presented the bill.?

Beshear told reporters that it does not impact gubernatorial appointment powers but would create an independent corporation that could “take regulatory action and punish different groups,” such as trainers. That raises a question about the constitutionality of the bill, he said, as an executive branch officer will not be over the corporation.

“So, how are you independent but have full regulatory and enforcement authority? I think that’s the thing to work through there,” Beshear said. “We’ve never seen it before. We don’t know of another group that acts that way, so a little complex legally.”?

New hurdles for fossil fuel-fired power plant retirements

Beshear has yet to act on Senate Bill 349, a Senate president-backed bill that would add new bureaucratic hurdles to slow the retirement of fossil fuel-fired power plants. Before utilities could retire a fossil fuel-fired plant, they would have to notify a newly created board, whose membership would be dominated by fossil fuel industries.

Investor-owned utilities and environmental advocacy groups have decried the bill, saying it could keep aging, uneconomical coal-fired power plants on the grid and burden ratepayers with the costs of their maintenance. Advocates for the bill, including coal industry interests, have argued SB 349 is needed to ensure the reliability of the state’s energy grid, an assertion rebuffed by the leader of Kentucky’s largest utility.

Beshear last month criticized the bill, saying it was going to “take authority” from the state’s utility regulator, the Kentucky Public Service Commission, which makes decisions on power plant retirement requests. He said he’s been in the “same place” as some of the people who have pushed for SB 349, but that the proposed board is “not the way” to address the issue.

Limiting power of Louisville’s air pollution regulator

Rep. Jared Bauman, R-Louisville. (LRC Public Information)

Beshear on Monday vetoed House Bill 136, sponsored by Rep. Jared Bauman, R-Louisville. The bill would prevent the Louisville Air Pollution Control District from issuing fines against industries that self-disclose violations of federal pollution regulations. Critics, including the environmental law group Kentucky Resources Council, say it could give industry in Jefferson County a “free pass” from penalties when a self-disclosure of a violation happens by ending the air pollution regulator’s ability to issue penalties in such cases.

Bauman and other Republicans have argued HB 136 is needed to align air pollution regulations in Jefferson County with the rest of the state. Most Democrats have opposed the bill, worried the bill could create less accountability over air pollution in Jefferson County.?

Criminalizing documentation of meatpacking plants, ag operations without consent?

Senate Bill 16, sponsored by Sen. John Schickel, R-Union and backed by Tyson Foods and Kentucky’s poultry industry, would criminalize using recording equipment or drones at concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and commercial food processing and manufacturing plants without the permission of the operation’s owner or manager. It would also criminalize distributing the footage.

Group alleges ‘hidden-camera’ video reveals ‘cruelty’ in chicken production in Kentucky?

Critics, including animal welfare groups, have said the bill is a so-called “ag gag” bill meant to hide from the public and prevent whistleblowers from exposing the conduct and practices of large-scale, corporate agricultural operations. An animal protection advocacy group released a video from a “hidden-camera” investigation of alleged “cruelty” within Kentucky poultry production, an investigation the group argues would be criminalized under SB 16.?

Schickel and other SB 16 supporters have said the bill is needed to prevent harassment of employees and agricultural operations that provide jobs to Kentucky communities. The bill passed through the legislature largely on party lines.?

Bills that are in the legislative graveyard or near

Anti-DEI bills: Republican efforts to limit or end diversity, equity and inclusion programs in public universities and colleges died when the Senate declined to consider changes made in its bill by the House. Any effort to revive anti-DEI legislation would almost certain be vetoed by Beshear.

Drag bill: After several edits to soften the legislation, a bill to place restrictions on adult-oriented businesses with “sexually explicit” performances sputtered on the House side despite passing a committee.??

Vaccine bill: A bill to bar employers and educational institutions from requiring the COVID-19 vaccination for treatment, employment or school, passed in the Senate but failed to advance on the House side.?

Though it could still pass in the final days of the session, Beshear, an outspoken supporter of the vaccines, would likely veto it.?

Abortion bills: None of the bills seeking to loosen Kentucky’s near-total abortion ban were assigned committees, making them effectively dead on arrival.?Those include:?

A Republican bill to add rape and incest exceptions and clarify doctors can treat ectopic pregnancies?
A Democratic bill to add rape and incest exceptions.?
A Democratic bill to roll back all abortion restrictions.?

Loosening state child labor law: A bill that would allow some teenagers to work longer and later hours, voted down and then revived by a Senate committee, still needs final passage through the Senate to get to Beshear’s desk.?

Lawmakers wouldn’t have the chance to override a veto of House Bill 255 from Beshear, who in past comments panned the legislation saying child labor protections are there “for a reason.”?

Education and Labor Cabinet officials have said HB 255 also deletes language in state law that mirrors federal prohibitions on employing 14- and 15-year olds in hazardous occupations, such as jobs involving railroad cars and conveyors, loading and unloading goods from motor vehicles and requiring the use of ladders. State labor officials said they wouldn’t be able to enforce those hazardous occupation standards even if still federally prohibited.?

Bill sponsor Rep. Phillip Pratt, R-Georgetown, who owns a lawn and landscaping company, said his legislation would help minors “gain valuable experience in the workplace.”

Weakening a mine safety protection: House Bill 85, sponsored by Rep. Bill Wesley, R-Ravenna, would weaken a key workplace protection for coal miners, according to a long-time coal miner safety advocate. Wesley has argued HB 85 is needed to help smaller coal mines continue operating.?The bill would need approval from the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee and three required readings before being sent to the governor, who could veto it without the legislature overriding it.?

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Beshear issues some vetoes, signs dozens of bills

Liam Niemeyer — Fri, 05 Apr 2024 00:35:10 +0000

Gov. Andy Beshear addressed lawmakers on Jan. 3, 2024. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Arden Barnes)

FRANKFORT — Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has vetoed bills creating a nuclear energy authority and outlawing “discriminatory treatment” of filling stations.

He also vetoed a measure similar to one the state Supreme Court overturned last year but that Republicans say is different enough to withstand judicial scrutiny. It allows a change of judicial venue for constitutional challenges and lawsuits against the state.

State lawmakers will reconvene for two days — April 12 and 15 — when the GOP supermajorities are expected to easily override the Democratic governor’s vetoes.? A veto override needs only a majority of each chamber’s approval.?

The governor has signed into law more than 50 bills and resolutions as of Thursday, according to records received by Secretary of State Michael Adams.?

During a Thursday news conference, Beshear highlighted his vetoes, including? Senate Bill 198, sponsored by Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, creating a new research authority to develop nuclear energy in Kentucky.?

Beshear said he has no problem with developing nuclear energy but that the board for the newly established authority “isn’t appointed or really overseen by myself or any other constitutional officer.” Beshear said the authority needs more oversight in order to be constituted as an executive branch agency.

“This is not any opposition to nuclear energy or a development authority, but a development authority has to be created legally, and if it’s going to be an executive branch agency, it can’t be made up of directly selected private sector individuals through legislation,” Beshear said.?

Carroll in a statement said he was disappointed by the veto and that “political considerations often overshadow” efforts to help Kentuckians. Carroll argued that having board members represent “diverse entities” would minimize political influence on the authority’s decisions.?

This veto only delays Kentucky’s progress in exploring nuclear energy opportunities, a path many other states are pursuing,” Carroll said in his statement, urging his fellow lawmakers to override the veto. “It does not encroach on the governor’s executive powers.”

Beshear signed related legislation, Senate Joint Resolution 140, also sponsored by Carroll, which directs the state utility regulator, the Kentucky Public Service Commission, to begin preparations for siting future nuclear power plants. Beshear said he was concerned the legislature didn’t provide specific funding to the PSC to do the new work.

Beshear vetoed House Bill 581, sponsored by Rep. Ken Upchurch, R-Monticello, requiring local governments to allow retail filling stations in any land-use zone where electric vehicle charging stations are allowed. Upchurch has argued that he wants to create an “equal playing field” for electric vehicle charging stations and gas stations, while opponents have warned the bill could exclude small charging stations at public buildings, YMCAs and small shops where chargers are a draw for customers.?

In his veto message, Beshear said the bill “imposes big state government control over local governments’ planning decisions” that? “should be left to the local officials elected to make them.”

Beshear also vetoed House Bill 804, sponsored by Rep. Patrick Flannery, R-Olive Hill, which would allow a participant in a lawsuit challenging a state regulation or state law to have cases moved from the court in which a case was filed to an adjacent judicial circuit.

The governor panned the bill as another attempt by the legislature to “violate the separation of powers,” saying the state judicial branch has exclusive authority to determine the proper courtroom or venue for lawsuits.?

“What it attempts to do is take the decision of venue entirely out of the judicial branch and give it to any one of the litigating parties that can just simply ask for a change of venue without any process or evaluation,” Beshear said.?

The Kentucky Supreme Court last year struck down a similar law that had allowed lawsuit participants challenging a state law or regulation — including the attorney general intervening in the lawsuit — to request a change of venue and allow the case to be moved to a new court chosen at random by the Supreme Court clerk.?

The Kentucky Supreme Court in its ruling stated the law violated the separation of powers between state government branches.?

Flannery in legislative committee hearings said HB 804 was “much different” than last year’s law, saying he thought it would comply with the Supreme Court decision.

Rep. Lindsey Burke, D-Lexington in a legislative committee hearing asked Flannery if the law was an “unreasonable restriction” on the power of Franklin Circuit Court judges to hear challenges to state laws and regulations. Flannery said in response that such challenges can be brought in any circuit court across the state.?

House Majority Whip Jason Nemes, R-Louisville, said other circuit court judges he knew in the area, not just those in Franklin County, could handle cases involving constitutional challenges.?

“You can be against this for some reasons — that’s fine,” Nemes said. “But you cannot say that the circuit judges in areas contiguous to Franklin County aren’t up to snuff.”?

The circuit court in Franklin County has traditionally heard legal challenges to state laws and regulations because it’s the seat of state government and most state agencies. In particular, Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd has been a target of GOP criticism for court decisions.

$1.3 billion investment to turn Eastern Kentucky coal mine into hydropower ‘battery’

Liam Niemeyer — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 23:17:45 +0000

A graphic of the proposed Bell County storage facility. (Gov. Andy Beshear/Youtube)

FRANKFORT — An Eastern Kentucky coal mining site set to become a giant hydropower battery is getting a significant boost from the federal government.?

Florida-based Rye Development is in line for an $81 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for its Lewis Ridge Pumped Storage Project.?

The funding is provided through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.?

A release from the company says it’s one of the first hydropower pumped storage facilities built in more than 30 years and the first ever built on former coal mine land.?

The utility-scale battery would be able to provide up to eight hours of on-demand, consistent power.

“We’re moving on.” — Sen. Johnnie Turner, R-Harlan

Hydropower pumped storage facilities work by having two water reservoirs at different elevations. Water is released when demand for electricity is high; it flows downhill through a turbine to generate power. The water is pumped back uphill when demand for power is low.

At a Thursday news conference with Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and legislative leaders, Rye Development chief executive officer Paul Jacob said the Bell County project was unlike any “that’s been built around the world.”?

“This is a mountain that has on it five different coal seams and countless mines,” Jacob said. “We’re building on the top of that mountain basically a 60-acre pool. That itself is an engineering challenge. But the federal grant that we’ve received is going to help de-risk that and help us accelerate the project.”?

Rye Development plans to invest $1.3 billion in the 287-megawatt project, estimated to create about 1,500 construction jobs, 30 “operation” jobs and generate enough energy to power almost 67,000 homes, according to a press release from Beshear’s office. Jacob said the project could take seven to 10 years to construct, with the project’s longevity lasting up to a century.

Sen. Johnnie Turner, R-Harlan, welcomed the grant announcement Thursday in Frankfort. (LRC Public Information)

Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, called the project regionally “transformational,” saying it would have a huge impact on a region that was previously a “rich energy production area.”?

“This is a perfect example: how when people come together in a region, the impact that you can have, no longer just a county, a city — but six, eight, 10, 12 counties. And I have to say this: maybe even a little bit into Tennessee,” Stivers said.?

Beshear hailed the project, saying state officials believed the project was the “largest investment ever in Eastern Kentucky.”?

“We have a lot of sites like this that could be a part of a clean energy future on top of an abandoned coal mine,” Beshear said.?

There are dozens of utility-scale hydropower pumped storage facilities across the country, according to the Center for Land Use Interpretation. Rye Development also has such storage facilities in the Pacific Northwest.?

Sen. Johnnie Turner, R-Harlan, who represents Bell County, said the “mountains was coal first” and ?“hydro first now.”?

“We’re moving on,” Turner said.?

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As legislature heads into home stretch, here’s some of what remains to be done

McKenna Horsley — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 09:50:28 +0000

FRANKFORT — With eight days left in this session and a slew of decisions pending, the Kentucky House and Senate reconvene Thursday afternoon after a three-day break.

High on lawmakers’ to-do list will be finalizing the next two-year state budget.

Rep. Jason Petrie (LRC Public Information)

The Senate also must consider changes to the tax code approved with little public notice by the House last week after Rep. Jason Petrie, chairman of the House budget committee, converted House Bill 8, an 11-page “shell bill,” into 124 pages of wide-ranging provisions affecting state revenue.

One of the provisions would pave the way for income tax cuts in future sessions by changing the 2022 law that created a process for determining when the state can afford additional reductions. Republicans lowered the rate in 2022 and 2023 in hopes of eventually eliminating the state income tax.

The 2022 law prevented another cut this year because one of its two fiscal metrics was not satisfied. Petrie’s tweaks would make it easier to trigger consideration of reductions in the income tax rate by the legislature in the future.

League of Women Voters asks that public have 24 hours to review budget

Study: Kentuckians increasingly excluded from lawmaking process by fast-track maneuvers

Leaders from both chambers met in a budget conference committee earlier this week to begin hashing out differences in the two spending plans.

Among other sticking points, negotiators must agree on the level of state support to help Kentucky’s beleaguered child care providers survive the end of federal pandemic aid. The Senate also has proposed spending more of the state’s record surplus on projects than has the House.

On Wednesday, the League of Women Voters of Kentucky called on the legislature to “ensure the public has at least 24 hours to review” the negotiated budget bills before the House and Senate vote on them. The League last year released a study showing the ?General Assembly in the 21st century has increasingly fast-tracked bills, using maneuvers that shut out citizens from participating in the process.

Lawmakers also must decide which constitutional amendments to put to voters in November. Four amendments are allowed on the ballot every two years. Two amendments already have been approved by both chambers: One would allow the General Assembly to fund nonpublic schools with public dollars. The other would preempt those who aren’t U.S. citizens from voting in Kentucky elections.?

Still up in the air is a Senate bill that would tie Kentucky to coal-generated power over the objections of environmentalists and the state’s investor-owned utilities. It’s awaiting action in the House.

A House bill that critics say would put a gaping loophole in the state’s open records law is awaiting action in the Senate.

Both chambers have voted to limit diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at Kentucky’s public universities and colleges. The House version went further than what was passed by the Senate, which now must consider the House overhaul of its bill.

Plus, for the first time, under a law enacted last year, the Senate must confirm an education commissioner, which it is expected to do before the session ends. The state Board of Education began contract negotiations with its choice for the post on Monday without saying which of three finalists it is.

What’s moving, what’s not

So far, both the House and Senate have approved a sweeping crime bill that will mean much longer sentences before Kentuckians convicted of violent crimes can be considered for parole, as well as create new crimes including “unlawful camping” which critics say will criminalize homelessness.

Proposals that have yet to make it out of the starting gate include adding exceptions in cases of rape and incest to Kentucky’s abortion ban, establishing protections for in vitro fertilization, making substantial changes in certificate of need laws and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s requests for an 11% raise for public school employees and funding universal pre-kindergarten.?

Beshear has vetoed one bill that preempted local governments from outlawing housing discrimination based on a renter’s source of income. The Republican-controlled legislature quickly overrode Beshear’s veto.??

Here is a rundown of where some bills stand as the session nears an end:

Child care?

Children eat lunch together on Nov. 28, 2023, at the iKids Childhood Enrichment Center in Benton. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Abbey Cutrer)

Lawmakers in the House and Senate have filed bills aimed at addressing Kentucky’s child care crisis.?

The largest of those proposals, Sen. Danny Carroll’s Horizons Act, has passed a Senate committee but has not yet been considered on the floor.?

Another bill, which originated in the House and encourages local governments to examine available zoning for child care centers, is much closer to getting through the legislative process. House Bill 561 has passed the House and a Senate Committee, and can proceed to the Senate floor.?

The House and Senate are in talks over a compromise budget, so the final investment into child care is not clear.?

Abortion?

Democrat and Republican bills seeking to reform Kentucky’s strict abortion bans — including adding exceptions for rape and incest — have failed to advance.?

Senate Bill 99, filed by Democrat Sen. David Yates to add rape and incest exceptions to the ban, hasn’t received a committee assignment. Likewise, Democrat Rep. Lindsey Burke’s House Bill 428 to restore abortion access did not get a committee assignment.?

On the Republican side, Rep. Ken Fleming filed House Bill 711 to both add rape and incest exceptions as well as clarify that physicians could treat ectopic pregnancies, incomplete miscarriages and lethal fetal anomalies. His bill has not received a committee assignment.?

IVF?

Two Democrats and a Republican filed bills seeking to protect access to in vitro fertilization following an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos are children.?

Those bills have stayed stagnant, though. Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong’s Senate Bill 301 was sent to the Judiciary Committee on February 29, but has not received a hearing. Sen. Whitney Westerfield’s Senate Bill 373 was sent to the Health Services Committee on March 1 but has not moved further. Louisville Democrat Rep. Daniel Grossberg’s House Bill 757 has not been assigned to a committee.?

Certificate of Need?

As of March 12, none of the bills seeking to reform Kentucky’s certificate of need laws (CON) have received a floor vote.?

In the House, these bills have not moved:?

HB202 – Stuck in Committee on Committees since Jan. 9.?
HB203 – Stuck in Committee on Committees since Jan. 9.?
HB204 – Was sent to Health Services, where it failed to pass on March 21.?
HB199 passed a committee, and is awaiting floor vote while the sponsor works with the Kentucky Hospital Association to address its concerns.?

In the Senate, these bills have not moved:?

SB137 was sent to Health Services but has been stagnant since Jan. 29.?
SB305 was sent to Health Services and has been stagnant since Feb. 29.?
SB103 was sent to Health Services but has been stagnant since Jan. 12.??

A resolution seeking to reestablish the Certificate of Need Taskforce, which in 2023 studied the issue but concluded that it needed to study it further, was filed on Jan. 4. It was immediately sent to Health Services, where it has stayed since.

Education

Senate bills that would create partisan elections for the Kentucky Board of Education and change how teacher sick pay is calculated are awaiting actin in the House. (Getty Images)

Many education bills are awaiting action in the legislature.

In the Senate, these bills have not had committee hearings:?

SB 205, a bill that would give Kentucky public school teachers up to 20 days of maternity leave.?

In the House, these bills have not had committee hearings:?

SB 1, which sets up an endowed fund for collaborative research between public universities?
SB 2, a continuation of a 2019 school safety act that aims to provide more access to mental health resources while also allowing schools to hire “guardians” to fill vacant school resource officer positions, has not received a committee hearing
SB 8, which would create partisan elections for the Kentucky Board of Education
SB 4, which changes how teachers would be paid for sick days upon retirement.?

Government

Lawmakers have proposed several changes to state and local government processes. A House bill filed after U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell announced his plans to step down from the role passed out of the Senate State and Local Government Committee Wednesday. The legislation, HB 622, would allow winners of special elections to fill U.S. Senate vacancies to fill unexpired terms.?

That same committee also forwarded HB 513, a bill that gives the General Assembly oversight over permanent displays in the Capitol Rotunda, including statues.?

In the House, these bills have not had a committee hearing:?

SB 10, which would propose a constitutional amendment to move Kentucky’s statewide elections to coincide with presidential elections.
SB 80, which would remove university-issued ID cards as a primary form of voter identification.?
SB 126, which proposes a constitutional amendment to limit governors’ pardon and sentence commutation powers around elections
HB 4, another constitutional amendment that would allow the General Assembly the power to call itself into a special session?

In the Senate, these bills have not had a committee hearing so far:?

HB 509, a bill that advocates warn could add loopholes to state open records laws, has not had a committee hearing
HB 626, which would make interrupting legislative proceedings a crime.?

Energy, environment

Coal is loaded in Harlan County. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Having already been passed by the Senate and under consideration in the House, SB 349, backed by Senate President Robert Stivers, would create new barriers to utilities retiring fossil fuel-fired power plants, something environmentalists and utilities alike say could burden ratepayers with the cost of keeping open aging, uneconomical coal-fired power plants. Stivers, R-Manchester, and bill sponsor Sen. Robby Mills, R-Henderson, have argued the bill is needed to protect the reliability of the electricity supply, an assertion rebuffed by utilities.?

Another coal-related bill, under consideration in the Senate after having passed the House, would weaken a key workplace protection for miners, according to a coal mining safety advocate. HB 85 needs a favorable vote from the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee and by the full Senate before reaching Beshear’s desk to be signed or vetoed. Sponsor Rep. Bill Wesley, R-Ravenna, has argued the legislation is needed to help smaller mines operate consistently.?

In the House, these bills or resolutions need a committee hearing or a vote by the full House:?

HJR 121, which would declare Kentucky “a sanctuary state from the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s overreaching regulatory actions on fossil fuel-fired power plants,” still needs a committee hearing.
HB 141, which would allow water utilities to opt out of a long-standing mandate of drinking water fluoridation, hasn’t had a full vote by the House.?
SB 16, characterized by critics as “ag-gag” legislation that would criminalize the operation of a drone with recording equipment over meatpacking plants without the consent of the plant’s owner, needs a full vote by the House.?
SB 198, which would create a new research authority dedicated to advancing nuclear energy in Kentucky, still needs a vote by the full House.?
SB 215, which would prohibit any Kentucky agency from enforcing or adopting emissions standards “that are identical to the standards established by the State of California pursuant to the Clean Air Act,” still needs a vote by the full House.?
SJR 149, which would direct the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet to “provide guidance and consultation on best management practices” with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly known as PFAS or “forever chemicals,” for “entities that discharge directly or indirectly into Kentucky’s waterways,” still needs a vote by the full House.?

In the Senate, these bills or resolutions need a committee hearing or a vote by the full Senate:

HB 136, which would curb the power of Louisville’s air pollution regulatory agency to issue fines, could be voted on by the full Senate this week and sent to the governor’s desk.?
HB 583, which would require more local governments to receive a notification of “environmental emergencies” in their jurisdiction, hasn’t been assigned to a Senate committee.
HB 40, which would create a new board focused on the certification of water and wastewater system operators, needs a vote by a Senate committee.?
HB 563, which would create a new funding source for economically challenged water districts, needs a vote by a Senate committee.?

A number of bills filed by Republicans and Democrats alike regarding energy and environmental policy haven’t seen any movement.?

HB 180, a bill with bipartisan sponsorship that would create limitations on when utilities could disconnect customers, hasn’t been assigned to a committee.?

HB 398, a bill with bipartisan sponsorship that would exempt small electric vehicle chargers from an existing tax on chargers, hasn’t had a committee hearing.?

HB 445, a Republican-backed bill that would create additional barriers before the state’s utility regulator could retire a fossil fuel-fired power plant, hasn’t been assigned to a committee.?

Economy and Labor

Having been revived by a Senate committee after previously stalling, a bill that would loosen state child labor laws by allowing teenagers to work longer and later hours, HB 255, still needs a vote by the full Senate. The bill sponsor, Rep. Phillip Pratt, R-Georgetown, has argued it will give minors the opportunity to work more, while critics have lambasted the bill as opening the door for more teenagers to be exploited by employers.?

Diaper tax?

Senate Bill 97, which was filed by Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, D-Louisville, would exempt diapers from the sales tax. The bill has bipartisan support, including from Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown.?

It was sent to Appropriations and Revenue on Jan. 10, where it has stayed. It could still be included in the revenue bill, which Chambers Armstrong is hoping for.?

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New scorecard rates nation’s grid managers on connecting renewables

Robert Zullo — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 09:40:01 +0000

Electric transmission lines near Clark, South Dakota. A trade group representing clean energy businesses is grading how well seven regional transmission organizations are doing at getting new projects approved to connect to their grids. (Robert Zullo/States Newsroom)

Across the country, electric demand is growing and could explode if green goals like electrifying home heating, industry and transportation come to fruition. At the same time, many states, utilities and businesses have pledged to decarbonize, helping push older coal and gas power plants that have struggled to stay economically competitive into retirement.

Yet in the queues run by the organizations that manage the electric grid in much of the nation, more than two million megawatts of potential new power sources, chiefly solar, wind and batteries, are languishing awaiting interconnection studies.

That dynamic prompted Advanced Energy United, a trade group representing clean energy businesses, to publish a first-of-its-kind scorecard grading how well the seven regional transmission organizations, which coordinate the flow of electricity for roughly two thirds of American electric customers, are doing at getting new projects approved to connect to their grids.

elec-ovr-rto-map

The short answer? Not so great. But some regions have been better than others, according to Caitlin Marquis, managing director at AEU. Both the Electric Reliability Council of Texas and the California Independent System Operator, organizations that manage the grid in most of their respective states, got Bs. The other five organizations got grades of C-? or lower.

“Grid managers have moved too slowly to adapt to changing market conditions, allowing the process of connecting new electricity to the transmission grid to become dysfunctional,” she said in a statement. “Without urgent improvement, the U.S. grid may struggle to keep up with growing energy demands, threatening our ability to keep the lights on and reach our climate goals.”

Grid operators push back on ratings

In many regions, interconnection – the usually multi-year process to connect new power generators to the transmission system, including studies of any upgrades needed to ensure reliability – has been a well-known problem for years.

Last summer, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued new rules intended to help clear the backlogs. And indeed, some grid operators questioned the point of the scorecard, which uses data that in some cases is several years old. They said the problems have long been acknowledged and that they’ve been working to overhaul their interconnection processes.

“The report is an assessment of conditions and practices that no longer exist,” said Jeff Shields, a spokesperson for PJM, the nation’s largest grid operator with a service area that includes 65 million people. “PJM and its stakeholders acknowledged those issues over three years ago and reformed our interconnection process.” PJM got a D- on the scorecard.

Mary Cate Colapietro, a spokesperson for ISO New England, which got a D+ from AEU, also questioned the merits of the exercise.

“It is not clear what the value of such a report is given that ISO New England and other regional system operators are in the process of developing significant changes to the interconnection process,” she said.

Both PJM and MISO, the grid operator for a large swathe of the central U.S., pointed out in their responses that thousands of megawatts’ worth of new energy projects have made it through their queues but haven’t been built because of financing, siting and supply chain problems.

“This is the challenge we need to confront as an industry rather than looking back on problems that have been largely addressed,” Shields said.

Brandon Morris, a MISO spokesperson, said more than 50 GW of new generation facilities have? been approved by MISO, “but many are not going into service on schedule due to supply chain issues and permitting delays that are beyond MISO’s control.”

Nonetheless, AEU says the report is an important baseline that will help gauge how well the grid operators implement the fixes federal regulators have mandated.

“This report reflects the challenges that project developers and engineers are dealing with not just a few years ago, but right now,” Marquis told States Newsroom. “While reforms are being planned, and in some cases implemented, they don’t address all the concerns outlined in the report, and they aren’t yet fully in effect. One thing the report demonstrates is that even when procedures work on paper, they don’t always work so well in practice.”

Rob Gramlich, an electric grid expert and president of Grid Strategies, a consulting firm that helped prepare the scorecard, pointed out that the 12 interviews conducted with generation developers and engineering firms are all people who are going through the interconnection process now. The grades were determined by considering six factors, two of which were customer perspectives on timeline and costs. The others are speed and certainty, number of interconnection agreements signed, average costs and cost certainty.

“We would expect all of them to improve somewhat if we did it in a year or two,” Gramlich said. “We were just looking at a snapshot today.”

MISO

The Midcontinent Independent System Operator manages a portion of the North American electric grid stretching from Manitoba, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico. In that territory are all or parts of 15 states and 45 million people.

MISO’s interconnection study process is “unreliable and slow,” the report says.

“MISO’s timeliness challenges have become particularly evident recently, as queue sizes have increased,” the scorecard says. “ While MISO used to share details with interconnection customers on the reasons for delays, over the past two years these updates have become less dependable.”

Brandon Morris, a spokesperson for MISO, said the organization’s approach to bringing new power resources into the system “continues to be one of the most efficient in the electric industry” and that its process was highlighted by FERC as a “positive example” for other organizations.

“We have implemented reforms over the past few years to ensure our interconnection process is not an impediment to having the necessary generator resources available when needed,” Morris said.

However, developers working with MISO aren’t so sure things will get much better, the scorecard says.

“Although MISO’s recent study enhancements to limit system impact study duration are intended to reduce queue processing to 373 days, interconnection customers still anticipate that most projects will take three or more years to complete, especially in MISO-West,” according to the report.

PJM

The nation’s largest grid operator, PJM’s service area includes 65 million people in all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia. It has long been the poster-child for interconnection queue reform, according to critics, and it got the worst grade from AEU, a D-.

“The most frustrated interconnection customers note that PJM’s interconnection study process for new projects has come to a full stop, with the hope that projects from 2019 may complete the process six years later in 2025,” the report says. “One interconnection customer has ceased developing projects in PJM, and other interconnection customers are uncertain whether their projects are getting studied or not.”

It added that some customers report that the organization has “no regard for reasonableness and decorum when it comes to communicating deadlines.”

Shields, the PJM spokesperson, said the grid operator implemented new rules last year that are speeding up processing, specifically moving from a first-come, first-served process to a “first-ready, first-served” approach. By mid-2025, PJM expects to process about 72,000 MW in projects and 230,000 MW over the next three years, Shields said. Nearly all of those are? renewable or storage.

“That is real progress,” he said. “PJM realizes that further reforms will likely be needed to meet the needs of the energy transition, and we will consider additional potential interconnection policy reforms with PJM members.”

Kentucky Senate advances bill creating new hurdles for utilities to retire power plants

Liam Niemeyer — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 01:06:18 +0000

Would ratepayers get handed the bill for expanding electricity generation and transmission to accommodate energy-hungry data centers? (Getty Images)

Republicans in the GOP-dominated Kentucky Senate advanced a bill Tuesday largely on a party line vote to create new hurdles before utilities can retire fossil fuel-fired power plants in the state, touting the legislation as a way to keep the state’s electricity supply reliable and available.?

Senate Bill 349, backed by Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, and primarily sponsored by Sen. Robby Mills, R-Henderson, would create a new review commission that utilities would have to provide notice to before filing requests to the state’s utility regulator to retire a fossil fuel-fired power plant.?

Sen. Robby Mills. (Photo by LRC Public Information)

“Senate Bill 349 simply requires due diligence and a thorough review to ensure existing capacity is not retired too quickly and that any new or replacement generation is ready to meet Kentucky’s energy needs,” Mills said on the Senate floor.?

Investor-owned utilities, such as Duke Energy and Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU) and environmental groups have previously decried the bill as creating unnecessary bureaucracy to impede retirement requests and keep aging, uneconomical coal-fired power plants on the grid. Ratepayers, critics warn, could be burdened with the costs of unnecessarily extending the life of coal-fired power plants. Critics have also honed in on what they see is the problematic makeup of the commission, which would include industry representatives from a number of energy sources but favor the? fossil fuels —? coal and natural gas.?

Lane Boldman, the executive director of the environmental advocacy group Kentucky Conservation Committee, said she doesn’t understand the need to create an “additional layer” of regulation when the Public Service Commission could have its resources boosted to handle broader responsibilities.?

“It just doesn’t make sense to hang on to infrastructure that’s even near its lifecycle,” Boldman said. “I know there were comments made that these plants aren’t done yet, but they’re clearly past their prime.”

SB 349 passed the Kentucky Senate on a party line vote of 28-9, with a handful of Republicans from Northern Kentucky and the Louisville area joining nearly all Democrats in voting against the bill. The bill heads to the House for its consideration.?

This proposed 18-member commission, dubbed the Energy Planning and Inventory Commission (EPIC) under SB 349, would be charged with creating a report for each retirement request analyzing the impacts of and alternatives to the request, including how it would impact electricity supply and whether the retirement would create a “loss of revenue” for local and state government.?

Utilities wouldn’t be allowed to file retirement requests with the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC), the state utility regulator that approves or denies such requests, without having the EPIC report on file.?

Mills said he made changes to SB 349, added through a floor amendment, after listening to feedback from utilities. The amendment would shorten the timeframe in which EPIC could operate ahead of a retirement request made to the PSC. Utilities would have to give notice to EPIC of a retirement request 180 days before filing a request to the PSC, instead of 365 days in the original bill.?

Senate Democrats who criticized the bill echoed the concerns of utilities and environmental groups.

Sen. Karen Berg, D-Louisville said the proposed commission would limit the state’s future energy choices. “My constituents want clean energy, clean air and clean water,” Berg said. “If we don’t begin to deliver that to our children, then we’re gonna leave them in a world that is not safe to live in.”?

Sen. David Yates, D-Louisville, said the Senate should be “open and honest” that the added bureaucracy of the commission would contribute to future rate increases for Kentuckians.?

Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, a co-sponsor of the bill, reiterated his support by saying there needed to be an “honest conversation” about the upcoming “reliability crisis” the state faces.?

“We do not need to remove any generation. In fact, we need to increase generation,” Stivers said, referencing the amount of power supply created in Kentucky.?

LG&E and KU President John Crockett, who was among utility representatives who testified against SB 349, has previously rebuffed assertions from Stivers that the state is facing an energy reliability crisis.?

SB 349 does have the backing of the coal interests. Dependable Power First Kentucky is a lobbying group affiliated with America’s Power, a national organization advocating “on behalf of the U.S. coal fleet and its supply chain.”?

In a statement last week when SB 349 passed out of a Senate committee, Dependable Power Kentucky commended the bill sponsors for “taking much needed steps to help ensure a reliable supply of electricity for the citizens of Kentucky.”

Kentucky Senate’s pro-coal bill would burden ratepayers, make energy transition more chaotic

Tom FitzGerald — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 09:40:37 +0000

“The cheapest kilowatt hour is the one you don't have to produce in the first place,” said Byron Gary, a Kentucky Resources Council attorney. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

For many years, Kentucky’s three-person, non-partisan Public Service Commission (PSC) has presided over Kentucky’s investor-owned and co-operative electric utilities.

It has been guided by two principles — that utilities should meet the energy needs of residential, commercial, industrial and institutional customers using the reasonable least-cost alternative. And that those utilities, for the privilege of having a geographic monopoly over providing that service, should deliver adequate, safe and reliable energy to customers.

These principles have worked, for the most part, delivering electricity at rates that are among the nation’s lowest and which, even considering extraordinary weather events like Winter Storm Elliott, are highly reliable in delivering electricity to customers. The outages from that storm event were a function of problems with delivery and operation at fossil-fueled power plants, and not renewable energy.

In recent years, a number of market and other forces have led those utilities to diversify their portfolio of generating units, as natural gas and renewable energy costs have trended lower while the costs of coal-fired electricity have increased due to pollution controls, production and transportation costs, and maintenance costs for an aging fleet of coal-fired plants.

The result is that, based on the least-cost principles that once favored coal, other fuels are displacing coal as the fuel of choice for new electricity generation. And the PSC is managing that transition, requiring that a high standard of reliability be maintained, and that the least expensive and most reasonable portfolio of strategies be used on both sides of the meter to best meet customers’ needs going forward.

Clinging to coal: Kentucky utilities could have more hurdles to clear before retiring power plants

It is understandable that coal interests would want to maintain their market share, and that their supporters might want to change the rules to extend the life of uneconomic power plants while creating roadblocks to diversifying the mix of sources of electricity that utilities own or contract with to meet Kentucky consumer needs.

But changing the rules, as Senate Bill 349 proposes, will not stop the transition that is occurring in how and where electricity is generated, transmitted and used.? It will only make the transition more chaotic, more inefficient and more costly to Kentucky’s ratepayers. And in so doing, it will further burden Kentuckians, many of whom already struggle to meet utility costs and to address other essential needs for food, clothing and shelter.

Kentucky’s utilities interact with the Public Service Commission, and the public, in three major ways. They have to plan for the projected needs of their customers and how they will meet them, including the combination of new generation, energy efficiency and energy demand management that produces the highest value, lowest cost to customers. They need to ask permission before they build any new generation and show that it is the most reasonable approach, including the type of fuel to be used (coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, wind, solar or a combination). And they need to seek approval for the rates they propose to charge for the electricity, showing those rates to be fair, just and reasonable.

That has been our energy utility policy for many years — meeting Kentuckians’ electricity needs at the lowest reasonable cost while providing highly reliable energy at rates deemed fair, just, and reasonable.

To assure that the Public Service Commission can continue to do its critical work as gatekeeper and regulator of these monopoly utilities it needs four things — four things that SB 349 fails to support or provide but could provide if amended.

First, the PSC needs a staff adequate in number and sufficient in salary to address the many complex cases that come before it, from electric, gas, water and wastewater utilities to wholesale solar plants to cell towers. Right now it lacks sufficient staff and must in some cases rely on advice from outside consultants.??

Senate Bill 349 would make using consultants more difficult by subjecting them to cross-examination as if they were witnesses. PSC decisions are based only on evidence in the record, and the consultants do not provide evidence but only assist agency staff in analyzing the incredibly complex evidence produced by utilities. If lawmakers don’t want the commission to use consultants, they should fund it to hire technical staff to address increasingly complex issues. It is doing far more with less than it had years ago and loses dedicated staff to the regulated community due to inadequate pay and heavy workload.

The second thing the commission needs is adequate time to hear and decide cases. Many utility cases involve numerous parties, from businesses to industries to government intervenors and those representing persons with low-income and environmental concerns. To assure that utility requests for new construction or higher rates are thoroughly vetted, months of discovery and analysis of testimony are needed. Yet SB 349 would impose an unworkable and unwise six-month deadline on commission action, resulting in more hasty or less positive outcomes. One or two outlying cases do not justify imposition of unworkable deadlines, and those provisions should be removed from the bill.

Third, the commission needs to be able to analyze utility plans and proposals for delivering highest value, most reliable and lowest cost power without the rules being gamed in order to favor or pick winners and losers. Yet SB 349 as written would skew the planning and replacement process against expanding use of renewable sources and towards keeping older, higher-cost, fossil-fueled power plants.?

The PSC would be hamstrung in its gatekeeper function by having to allow uneconomic fossil-fueled electric generation units to continue for longer periods rather than be retired, and by not being able to approve renewable energy to replace retired coal units even if shown to be as reliable, as dispatchable and lower cost to the public in both pollution and utility rates than the older units being replaced. The General Assembly is right in wanting to assure highly reliable utility service but should not attempt to dictate the mix of resources or to skew the resource planning process.??

Fourth, the new energy policy commission created by the bill would not produce what is needed to guide Kentucky’s energy policy. The new commission proposed by the bill, stacked with representatives of special interests, would not produce the objective, high quality studies and analyses needed to help guide regulatory and utility decisions into the future.?

Rather than interjecting an industry-heavy commission into specific Public Service Commission cases, where its involvement would add little value and raise due process concerns, SB 349 could charge and empower the Center for Applied Energy Research at the University of Kentucky and the Conn Center at the University of Louisville, in conjunction with related academic resources from other state universities, in a new Energy Policy Institute. The legislature could create an advisory panel to guide it, made up of the interests identified in SB 349 and representatives of environmental interests and of residential, commercial and other ratepayers. The institute could generate high quality energy policy research to help guide Kentucky’s path forward, considering many of the issues identified in SB 349 that are not within the PSC’s role and other matters directly affecting ratepayers, such as pollution, climate change and affordability for low- and fixed-income Kentuckians.

SB 349 as written is not what Kentucky’s ratepayers need. But with modifications, it could fund and allow the Public Service Commission to continue to do its critically important job of requiring utilities to produce the most reliable, safest, and most reasonable, lowest cost electricity without undue preference for any fuel or fuels. It could harness the brainpower and expertise of our centers for applied and renewable energy, to assure maintenance of our energy competitiveness and to make and keep energy affordable, reliable and sustainable for Kentucky’s ratepayers.

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Clinging to coal: Kentucky utilities could have more hurdles to clear before retiring power plants

Liam Niemeyer — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 13:02:08 +0000

Coal was loaded in Cumberland in Harlan County in 2019. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

FRANKFORT — A bill backed by the Republican Kentucky Senate president would create new hurdles for utilities to retire fossil fuel-fired power plants, building on last year’s law that made it harder for utilities to move away from coal and natural gas.

Senate Bill 349, primarily sponsored by Sen. Robby Mills, R-Henderson, was approved Wednesday by the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee. It would create an entirely new 18-person commission, separate from the state’s existing utility regulator, charged with examining and making recommendations on requests from utilities to retire fossil fuel-fired power plants. The new commission, which would be attached to the University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research, would also study energy issues including “the adequacy of the Commonwealth’s energy supply.”

Robby Mills (Photo by LRC Public Information)

In a Lantern interview, Mills characterized the bill as “continued progress” to ensure “due diligence” so that “we’re not losing capacity too soon.”

“I think this is going further to look at options for sustaining power plants that are here if that’s a possibility, or which direction we should move our state in” with energy, Mills said.?

Investor-owned utilities, environmental advocacy groups and the president of a libertarian think tank all spoke against the bill before the Senate committee on Wednesday. They cited numerous reasons including that it could harm ratepayers by keeping aging coal-fired power plants on the grid when lower-cost alternatives exist, such as natural gas and renewable energy. Utilities and environmental groups also strongly opposed a bill last year that made it harder to retire fossil fuel-fired power plants.?

The chairman of the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC), the state’s utility regulator, and the secretary of the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet also expressed concerns in a letter to the committee, including that the bill would burden the PSC with extra work without providing extra funding.?

Amy Spiller, the president of Duke Energy’s utility operations in Kentucky and Ohio, told lawmakers the bill would “create needless review by a new governmental authority comprised of many members having pre-existing biases.”?

“We know the critical role that access to reliable, affordable power plays in Kentucky’s future, but the issues impacting the provision of safe, reliable, resilient electric service in the commonwealth are complex,” Spiller said. “One cannot responsibly evaluate the issues by narrowly concentrating on one input, one fuel source to the exclusion of all other inputs.”?

The bill makes a series of declarations about the need for adequate, reliable energy from all sources, the need to keep fossil fuel-fired power plants from “premature” retirement” and that there is an “electric generation resource crisis” in Kentucky — an assertion that the president of Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU) has said is “simply incorrect.”?

“We cannot simply suggest that an aging and antiquated unit must be kept online to solve all of the future growth needs in the commonwealth,” Spiller said to the committee.?

Criticisms levied against ‘EPIC’

Under SB 349, utilities would have to give notice of a request to retire a fossil fuel-fired power plant to the new commission, dubbed the Energy Planning and Inventory Commission (EPIC) at least 365 days before officially filing the retirement request before the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC), the state’s utility regulator which has the power to grant or deny such requests.

EPIC would also be required to hold a public hearing in the county where the requested power plant is located, something the PSC has normally done in the past after a utility files a retirement request.?

While EPIC would have 18 total members, a five-member executive committee would be charged with creating a report examining a fossil fuel-fired retirement request, including if alternatives exist for the retirement, whether the retirement would create a “loss of revenue” for local and state government and how it would impact electricity supply.?

A utility’s application for a retirement request wouldn’t be considered complete before the PSC unless it includes the EPIC report, under SB 349, and the PSC isn’t allowed to make a decision on a retirement request without considering the EPIC report. The executive committee of EPIC would also be allowed to intervene in any PSC case.

Critics of SB 349 also took issue with the proposed membership of EPIC. LG&E and KU president John Crockett said membership? representing various fuel sources would make it an “inherently political body” weighing heavily toward utilities and industry with? little representation for ratepayers.?

The 18-person membership of EPIC would include representation for utilities, nuclear energy, the Chamber of Commerce and one member each representing residential customers and the renewable energy industry. But its membership would also have a significant presence from the fossil fuel industry, including members each for coal miners, coal transporters, natural gas transporters, oil and gas producers, and fossil fuel sellers.

Audrey Ernstberger, a lobbyist for the legal environmental group Kentucky Resources Council, said EPIC would be staffed with members “that have a financial interest in advocating against the retirement of fossil fuel plants.”?

Ernstberger also said the bill could violate the due process rights of parties intervening before the PSC by having the PSC consider a report from an entity, in this case EPIC, not subject to cross examination or discovery during the case.

EPIC “does not consider other important issues such as public health, climate change impacts and environmental justice,” Ernstberger said before the committee. “We fear the bill would game the regulatory process against renewable energy.”?

Renewable energy sources such as solar or wind energy are traditionally known to be “intermittent,” or only able to provide energy during some portions of the day, such as when the sun is shining. But renewable energy advocates have argued that renewables paired with utility-scale batteries will be? “dispatchable,” or able to be called up on demand.

Instead, SB 349 defines renewables paired with batteries as “intermittent,” along with including geothermal energy and biomass energy as intermittent.?

Rebecca Goodman (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

In a joint letter sent to the committee, PSC Chairman Kent Chandler and Energy and Environment Cabinet Secretary Rebecca Goodman took issue with the definition of “intermittent” in the bill, saying it’s “not the case” that certain energy sources can’t provide “consistent and dispatchable power.”?

Goodman and Chandler also wrote that some of the bill is redundant, considering that utilities already report data on future energy demands and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation already performs reliability assessments of the grid, something that’s available already to the state government.?

Kent Chandler

Their letter also expressed concerns about a provision in the bill that sets a six-month deadline for the PSC to issue decisions in cases about power plant retirements and rate adjustments to reflect the cost of fuel.?

“The commission does not currently have sufficient staff to meet those deadlines and will require additional employees to do so,” the letter read.?

Chandler had previously testified before lawmakers that the PSC was facing more complex cases and more cases in general with fewer staff than in the past.?

Stivers, other Republicans defend need for ‘EPIC’

Republican lawmakers including Stivers, Mills and the Sen. Brandon Smith, R-Hazard, the chair of the Senate committee, defended the legislation, asserting that rising energy costs were attributed to burdensome federal environmental regulations on utilities.?

“This is not a coal-focused issue. The reality is we know there are potential alternative fuels out there,” Stivers said, mentioning that utilities have called for creating an energy-focused working group instead. “This is a valid, good-faith attempt to have an energy discussion, and you can see the impacts of it and the need for it soon.”?

Robert Stivers (LRC Public Information)

Stivers also siad EPIC would consider “whether you believe in it or not — decarbonization or global warming.”?

Burning coal is the single largest source of global temperature increase due to emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions, according to the International Energy Agency. Last year, the secretary-general of the United Nations, citing research from climate scientists around the world including from NASA, called on rich countries like the United States to end use of coal by 2030 and have carbon-free electricity generation by 2035, which means no new natural gas plants either, to prevent the worst effects of increasing climate change.

Generally, coal has also been outcompeted on the cost of electricity compared to energy generated through natural gas and renewables. A study last year from the think tank Energy Innovation and Policy found that 99% of existing coal-fired power plants in the country are more expensive to operate compared to adding new renewable energy.?

Mills told the Lantern decarbonization is expected to be talked about under the proposed EPIC but that it wouldn’t be a main driver of the commission’s research.?

“It’s not one of the main things that we’re legislating for them to decide whether, you know, decarbonization is good or bad or whether global warming is a big issue or not,” Mills said. “I don’t think that’s a priority for the [EPIC] commission right now. I don’t want it to be.”?

Asked about critics’ arguments that SB 349 would keep aging, uneconomical coal-fired power plants on the grid, Mills said he would be fine with retiring such plants as long as he can show the public that an “independent voice” through EPIC confirms that.?

“This is a little bit of a government bureaucracy, a layer of government bureaucracy, but I think we’re in such dire shape in energy, as far as reliability and the future of energy, that we’ve got to prove to our constituents that everything’s being done that needs to be done,” Mills said.?

Crockett, the LG&E and KU president, last year rebuffed assertions that Kentucky is in an energy reliability crisis, saying rolling blackouts during Winter Storm Elliott in Dec. 2022 were an unprecedented event, not a regular occurrence. The utility cited a loss of pressure in a natural gas pipeline as reasoning for the rolling blackouts then, though testimony before the PSC also showed some coal-fired power had failed during the winter storm, too.?

Asked about the PSC’s concerns about handling the demands of cases under a six-month deadline, Mills said more funding for the PSC is being discussed to help the regulatory agency meet tighter deadlines for cases.?

Stivers in the committee hearing said SB 349 is just a draft, and Mills told the Lantern, in light of concerns that EPIC’s membership favors fossil fuels, that he’s allowing utilities to “make a list” of who should be a part of EPIC.

“I just think that it’s important for us to look back on the things that historically that Kentucky has done well, and those folks should have representation,” Mills said. “So, that’s coal and natural gas.”

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Lawmakers across the U.S. seek to curb utility spending on politics, ads and more extras

Robert Zullo — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 10:45:13 +0000

A coalition of climate justice groups organized a rally Feb. 26 outside the Washington, D.C., hotel where the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners was holding its winter policy meeting. The speakers, including? Christine Pendzich, center, of Montgomery County, Md., took aim in part at energy company and utility sponsorship of the event. (Robert Zullo/States Newsroom)

After a string of scandals and amid rising bills, lawmakers in statehouses across the country have been pushing legislation to curb utilities spending ratepayer money on lobbying, expert testimony in rate cases, goodwill advertising, charitable giving, trade association membership and other costs.

At least a dozen states have considered bills to limit how gas, water and electric utilities can spend customers’ money, according to a tracker maintained by the Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog group funded by environmental and climate-focused foundations that concentrates on utilities and fossil fuel interests.

Another, Louisiana, has opened a proceeding at its public service commission to investigate use of ratepayer cash on trade association dues, “activities meant to influence the outcome of any local, state, or federal legislation,” advertising expenses and other costs.

Michigan joined the party last week with the introduction of legislation to ban utility political spending. In states like Illinois, the push has been joined by groups like the AARP and the Citizens Utility Board, a state watchdog group, which said the legislation would “stop electric, gas and water utilities from charging us for a long list of expenses they rack up trying to raise our rates and further increase their political power.”

Three states? — Maine, Colorado and Connecticut — have already signed similar bills into law. The legislation comes as natural gas bills have fallen but average residential electric prices in the U.S. climbed from 13.66 cents per kilowatt hour in 2021 to 15.93 cents per kilowatt hour in 2023, per the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That would mean a monthly bill going from $136.60 in 2021 to $159.30 in 2023 for a house that uses 1,000 kilowatt hours per month.

“It absolutely is a growing trend,” said Matt Kasper, the Energy and Policy Institute’s deputy director. “There’s a lot of eyes on the industry, how it’s operating.”

The institute published a report last year that scrutinized how electric and gas utilities use ratepayer money to “fund political machines that push legislation, curry favor with regulators and alter the outcomes of elections, sometimes even breaking laws in the process.”

Some of the lowlights include:

A massive bribery scandal in Ohio involving FirstEnergy, a utility holding company that? paid nearly $61 million in bribes to the Ohio house speaker’s political organization in exchange for a nuclear plant bailout worth $1 billion to the company. A U.S. attorney called it “one of the largest public corruption conspiracies in Ohio history.”
In Illinois, the state’s largest electric utility, Commonwealth Edison, or ComEd, showered the state House speaker’s allies with jobs, contracts and payments to grease the wheels for the company’s legislation. Three ex-lobbyists and a former CEO of the company were convicted by a federal jury last year for their roles in the scheme. The speaker’s trial is scheduled for later this year.
Florida Power & Light, one of the largest utilities in the nation, is facing calls for a federal investigation over accusations of using political consultants to back “ghost candidates” in legislative races to draw votes away from candidates it opposed. It also took over a news website as “part of an elaborate, off-the-books political strategy to advocate for rate hikes, agitate for legislative favors, slam political opponents and eliminate anything? … (that) might undermine its near monopoly on selling power in the Sunshine State,” the Miami Herald reported. That’s not to mention accusations of hiring private investigators to follow a newspaper columnist who was critical of the company.

Other examples of questionable spending abound. In 2018, South Carolina lawmakers were flooded with bogus emails encouraging them to support Virginia utility giant Dominion Energy’s takeover of SCANA Corp., a company struggling under the weight of a failed nuclear project. Dominion denied having anything to do with the fake emails, which were sent by the Consumer Energy Alliance, a group that was then supported by Dominion. (The company is no longer listed as a CEA member).

Consumer Energy Alliance was also involved in a 2016 campaign to support a natural gas pipeline running through Ohio that involved sending 347 letters to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission using the names of locals — more than a dozen of whom signed affidavits denying they signed the letters —? including “an Ohio man who has been dead since 1998,” The Plain Dealer reported.

In Louisiana, Entergy was fined $5 million by the New Orleans City Council after actors hired by a public relations firm working for the utility showed up at public hearings to support a proposed power plant.

Arizona Public Service, which has 1.4 million electric customers in the state, spent $10 million in 2014 that was funneled to dark money groups to help elect its preferred members of the State Corporation Commission, which regulates utilities. That spending wasn’t revealed until 2019, when the company complied with a subpoena to release documents.

“Utilities are often using their ratepayer-funded political machines to slow the nation’s urgently-needed transition away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy,” the Energy & Policy Institute wrote. “Working hand-in-hand with their trade associations, the Edison Electric Institute and American Gas Association, utilities continue to fight tooth-and-nail against policies that enable the adoption of essential technologies like rooftop solar power, energy efficiency and building electrification.”

‘The appetite is there’

However, bills to curb utility influence spending can face an uphill fight, demonstrating the stronghold that the companies can have on state governments.

In Virginia, for example, another round of legislative attempts to prevent candidates from accepting donations from public service companies like Dominion Energy, the state’s largest electric utility and long the biggest corporate donor in Virginia politics, died in House and Senate committees. Both houses are controlled by Democrats.

“Time will tell what will happen,” Del. Josh Cole, a Democrat who was carrying the House version of the legislation,told the Virginia Mercury.? “The appetite is definitely there for it.”

A separate proceeding at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has been looking into the “rate recovery, reporting and accounting treatment of industry association dues and certain civic, political and related expenses.”

The Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned electric utilities and is one of the trade groups affected by some of the state-level legislation, said electric customers benefit when its member companies “have a seat at the table,” adding that they are among the most regulated businesses in the nation.

“We engage on their behalf through lobbying, advocacy and regulatory proceedings as part of our work to ensure that electricity customers have the affordable, reliable and resilient clean energy they want and need. Engaging in discussions with policymakers and regulators is essential to achieving these outcomes,” EEI spokeswoman Sarah Durdaller said in a statement. “We bring unique expertise and insights on how policy proposals will affect business operations, the cost for capital, and, ultimately, our customers. … There are strict laws in place already to ensure that lobbying activities are always funded by shareholders not customers.”

The American Gas Association, which represents natural gas utilities, did not respond to a request for comment.

On Monday, across the street from the Washington, D.C., hotel where the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners was holding its winter policy meeting, a group of climate justice organizations held a rally to call attention to energy company influence, taking aim at corporate sponsorship of the event and a lack of progress on renewable power.

“When we see events like this where utility execs fund gatherings and hobnob with regulators …? we need to speak out,” said Sukrit Mishra, D.C. program director at Solar United Neighbors, a nonprofit that helps communities form solar co-ops. He voiced support for state legislative efforts as well as federal legislation introduced by U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, a Florida Democrat, to prevent utility companies from using ratepayer dollars to fund political activities.

“The public is ready to hold utilities accountable. We need regulators to do the same.”

Bill promoting nuclear energy in Kentucky advanced by Senate committee

Liam Niemeyer — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 23:12:18 +0000

Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, called on the Kentucky legislature to put more funding into improving treatment and conditions for Kentucky kids being held in detention. (LRC photo)

FRANKFORT — The University of Kentucky would be home to a new authority to develop nuclear energy’s potential in the state, including identifying sites for nuclear reactors and other facilities, under a bill approved Wednesday by the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee.?

Senate Bill 198, sponsored by Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, a long-time advocate for nuclear energy, would advance recommendations made in a report by a working group commissioned last year by the legislature.?

The report found there were “no insurmountable barriers” to developing nuclear energy in Kentucky. Among its recommendations: create a non-regulatory authority to educate the public on nuclear energy while aiding the state in its development.

SB 198 creates that authority — which would be required to contract a site suitability study to find the best locations for nuclear facilities — to be housed in the University of Kentucky’s Center for Applied Energy Research.?

“In the distant future, and maybe not so distant future, we’re seeing coal production decrease,” Carroll said to the committee. “We’re going to have to start looking for other sources of base load energy to power this country. And I’m convinced without doubt that nuclear is the answer to the problems that we’re going to be facing in the future.”?

Carroll said his promotion of nuclear energy is not an “indictment” of any other energy source including coal and that he favors an “all of the above approach” to supplying electricity to the grid. Kentucky is among a minority of states that generates most of its electricity from burning coal, which in recent years has been outcompeted by lower-cost natural gas and renewables as a power generation source.?

Kentucky has never had any nuclear power plants, though the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in West Kentucky produced enriched uranium for the country’s nuclear weapons program and later for commercial nuclear power plants. An Eastern Kentucky site at Maxey Flats served as a place to dispose of low-level radioactive waste during the 20th century. Both installations contaminated surrounding soil and water and required extensive remediation.

The committee also passed a joint resolution, sponsored by Carroll, to direct the state’s utility regulator to make preparations for siting nuclear facilities.

“I think the time has come for it,” said Sen. Brandon Smith, R-Hazard, the chair of the committee. “That’s what our job is here to the citizens of the commonwealth is to get them affordable, reliable power.”?

Unlike coal plants, nuclear reactors don’t produce direct greenhouse gas emissions. Nuclear is not an intermittent power source, like solar which, without utility-scale batteries, reliably produces power only at some times of the day. But?energy analysts remain divided on whether nuclear energy can be developed at scale quickly enough to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in time to curb the worst impacts of climate change.?

SB 198 also creates criteria for Kentucky communities to be designated as a “nuclear-ready community.”?

Carroll said the McCracken County Fiscal Court had recently taken the first step by declaring itself nuclear-ready.

“This will allow communities that are interested in not just reactors, but nuclear energy projects, and this could be manufacturing, it could be software development,” to show their interest, Carroll said.?

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U.S. House passes bill to reverse Biden pause of some liquified natural gas exports

Jacob Fischler — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 15:01:25 +0000

Nine Democrats voted with every Republican in favor of legislation that would remove the federal requirement that the Department of Energy considers an LNG export permit in the public interest before allowing a project to move forward. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

The U.S. House voted Thursday to approve a bill that would preempt the Biden administration’s move last month to pause new approvals for some liquified natural gas exports.

Nine Democrats voted with every Republican in favor of the bill, which the chamber approved 224-200. The bill would remove the federal requirement that the Department of Energy considers an LNG export permit in the public interest before allowing a project to move forward.

Democrats voting for the bill were Yadira Caraveo of Colorado, Jim Costa of California, Henry Cuellar, Vicente Gonzalez and Marc Veasey of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Rick Larsen and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Mary Peltola of Alaska.

The bill does not appear likely to win the 60 votes needed to advance in the Senate, even if some Democrats would support it.

The bill, sponsored by Texas Republican August Pfluger, targets a recent endeavor by President Joe Biden’s administration to pause new Energy Department permits for LNG exports to non-free-trade-agreement countries. The pause has no specified end date and would be in place while the department reviews its criteria for its public-interest evaluations.

Like many of Biden’s energy policies, the move drew the ire of Republicans and some energy-state Democrats who said it would reduce domestic natural gas production.

European market

Advocates for the measure say LNG releases fewer climate-changing emissions than coal and other fossil fuels, and U.S. production and exportation of the fuel closes more of the European market to Russian-sourced LNG.

“President Biden has issued executive orders and given direction to the federal agencies across the government to shut down American energy production, even at the expense of jobs, economic development, national security and the climate,” South Carolina Republican Jeff Duncan said Thursday.

Releasing more American supply would hamper Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to raise money for that country’s invasion of Ukraine, Duncan said. Russia is a large exporter of natural gas.

“Putin and his energy oligarchs are exporting to Europe 40% more than they did before the war in Ukraine,” Duncan said. “That’s 40% more money flowing right into the pocket of Vladimir Putin to fund his war with Ukraine. I would rather that money flow into the pockets of American energy producers and tax bases and communities all around this country.”

Duncan, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy, Climate and the Grid, and other Republicans said Thursday the pause was an election-year ploy to gain favor with environmental groups and was not a well-informed policy goal.

The bill would reverse the pause by revoking the Energy Department’s authority to review export applications.

Instead, approvals for new exports would be overseen only by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Under the bill, FERC would be required to deem all LNG exports in the public interest.

Bill would gut key protection, Dems say

Democrats lined up on the floor Thursday to oppose the bill, which they said would remove a critical environmental guardrail.

“Ensuring that LNG exports are in America’s best interest is something we should all want,” Energy and Commerce ranking Democrat Frank Pallone of New Jersey said. “Instead, we’re here considering a bill that does the opposite.”

The bill “goes so much further” than simply reversing the administration’s pause by requiring that FERC find any proposed LNG export in the public interest, the subcommittee’s ranking Democrat, Colorado’s Diana DeGette, said.

“It says all LNG exports must be in the public interest,” DeGette said. “And it prohibits the Department of Energy from finding otherwise.”

If increased exports lead to higher rates for U.S. consumers or “exorbitant” release of pollution, the department would be powerless to stop expansion, she said.

The pause does not impact current LNG exports, which are ample, DeGette added. The U.S. is the world’s leading producer of LNG. Exports have tripled since 2019.

The Biden administration opposes the bill, the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a Tuesday statement.

The bill would undermine the administration’s ability to ensure exports are aligned with economic, energy security, geopolitical and environmental goals, the statement said.

“The Administration believes that the critical protections current law provides, which this legislation would repeal, should be retained to protect residential and industrial consumers and national and domestic energy security,” the statement said.

Manchin blasts White House for siding with climate activists in natural gas pause

Jacob Fischler — Thu, 08 Feb 2024 23:13:26 +0000

Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., chairs a Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee hearing on the Biden administration’s pause for some new liquified natural gas exports Feb. 8, 2024. (Screenshot from committee stream.)

Members of the U.S. Senate Energy Committee on Thursday questioned the Biden administration’s recent move to pause approvals of some liquified natural gas exports, saying the move appeared to be taken for political purposes.

Committee Chair Joe Manchin III, a moderate Democrat from West Virginia, urged President Joe Biden to back out of the Department of Energy’s announcement last month that it would not consider new applications to export liquified natural gas, or LNG, to non-free-trade countries as it conducts a review of the energy source’s impacts.

Manchin and some Republicans on the panel warned Thursday that the move would aid Russia in its war against Ukraine and called it an election-year ploy to appease climate activists.

They noted the move didn’t go through a vigorous review process and that messaging about the pause from the White House has been focused on climate impacts.

“I strongly urge that this pause should be reversed immediately,” Manchin said. “Facts must come before action, not the other way around. Unfortunately, it seems the White House has already sided with climate activists to block any more LNG exports.”

Administration defends pause

Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk told the Senate panel that U.S. LNG capacity has tripled since the last comprehensive analysis of the issue in 2018 and is expected to double again by the end of the decade. Projects that already have department approval will not be affected, he said.

The department has a legal responsibility to consider the public interest, Turk said, adding that analysis of price and climate impacts needed to be updated after such rapid expansion.

“There is no doubt that this dramatically increasing amount of LNG export creates, and will continue to create, large numbers of jobs,” he said. “But our public-interest determinations also need to analyze price impacts to all U.S. consumers and all U.S. manufacturers and industry.”

Greater exports of natural gas can create higher prices domestically, he said.

An updated environmental analysis will need to focus on methane leakage, which is a major contributor to climate change, Turk added. The U.S. also needs to understand how greater use of LNG would affect climate in the long-term.

While its proponents say natural gas is a less carbon-intensive energy source than coal and other fossil fuels, Turk said projections still indicate global LNG demand must fall by 75% by 2050 to meet climate goals.

Political questions

Republicans on the panel, including former Chair Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined Manchin in accusing Biden of using the pause to curry favor with environmental groups.

“You have to acknowledge that there’s a fair amount of skepticism and cynicism about this and the politics of the timing with a president who is trying to get well with the environmental community,” Murkowski said. “It doesn’t make sense from an economic perspective, from a trade perspective.”

Ranking Republican John Barrasso of Wyoming called the move “cowardly.”

Biden “defies logic to kiss up to the radical climate extremists,” he said.

Manchin tangles with King

Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats, defended the pause in an exchange with Manchin.

Manchin, who is considering a third-party bid for president, said it was reasonable to update the process for approving LNG exports. But the administration’s pause was sudden and appeared political, he said.

“There are sensible reasons to update market assessments that the DOE uses when reviewing export applications to ensure the trajectory that we’re on won’t risk harming American families and businesses,” Manchin said. “But these types of decisions should be firmly based on facts, not politics.”

The administration did not consult Congress or undertake a full rulemaking before the pause was put in place, he said.

“If we’re talking about considering a pause, this is a great, great panel for that,” he said “You have an executive order doing a pause. That’s the difference I have with (the administration). They put the cart before the horse. You really leapt before you looked.”

King responded that the pause was only temporary and would allow the department to gather information to make an informed final policy decision.

“I think it’s just the opposite, Mr. Chairman,” King said. “They’re doing their job. Their job is to see that these projects are in the public interest. There’s no way to do that without the data.”

Manchin answered that the administration should have continued its operations as normal during a reassessment.

“You can’t do the pause first, though,” Manchin said.

“Why not?” King asked. “Continue approving projects when you find out five years from now it was a disaster? I don’t think that’s a very good policy.”

Turn to Russia

Critics of the pause said it would cede market share to Russian natural gas, which that country relies on to fund its war with Ukraine.

Manchin said the pause was “ill-advised” because it sent the message to allies and partners that the U.S. is “not in the market” for LNG exports.

“I don’t want to scare the bejesus out of our friends,” he said.

That view was validated by James Watson, the secretary general of European trade group Eurogas, who was a witness at Thursday’s hearing.

“By not being able perhaps to honor the commitments that have been made in the United States towards its allies, you are going to indeed force us to continue to do business with Russia,” Watson said.

Thursday’s hearing was the second on the subject on Capitol Hill this week, indicating the dismay among opponents of the pause.

A U.S. House Energy and Commerce subcommittee divided along party lines in their assessments of the pause during a Tuesday hearing.

Biden’s natural gas export pause fought over by U.S. House panel

Jacob Fischler — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 23:35:33 +0000

Residences stand in front of a Venture Global LNG storage tank in Cameron, Louisiana. (Getty Images)

Members of a U.S. House panel on climate and energy issues split along party lines Tuesday about the Biden administration’s recent move to pause new approvals of liquified natural gas exports.

Republicans called a hearing to challenge the Energy Department’s announcement last month that it would indefinitely bar new LNG permits to non-free-trade partners as it studies the impacts, including on climate change, of LNG use.

Republicans on the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy, Climate and Grid Security blasted the move Tuesday, saying it undercut the economic and environmental benefits of natural gas and hurt the United States on the world stage.

Democrats countered that it was an appropriate time to review an industry that has tripled its export capacity in five years.

‘A handout to adversaries’

As global demand for LNG grows, the move from President Joe Biden’s administration would slow U.S. exports and allow the market to be filled with energy products from hostile nations like Russia and Iran, subcommittee Chair Jeff Duncan, a South Carolina Republican, said.

“The Biden administration’s energy policy has been a handout to our adversaries,” he said.

Full Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Washington Republican, said the industry employed hundreds of thousands and was responsible for billions of dollars in economic activity.

“President Biden’s LNG export ban will end these benefits for local economies, kill American jobs and increase energy prices,” she said.

Toby Z. Rice, the president and CEO of natural gas producer EQT Corp., told the panel he viewed the move as a ban, not a short-term pause. The policy would slow the industry, he said.

“I think this is a signal that will chill investments,” he said.

Eric Cormier, a senior vice president at the business coalition Southwest Louisiana Chamber Economic Development Alliance, said a slowdown in the industry would harm other businesses, especially in the leading region for LNG exports.

“When the administration announced its decision, my cell phone rang quite a bit,” he said. “Small business owners were panicking.”

Cormier said his group “adamantly disagrees” with the pause.

LNG advocates also say the product is cleaner than coal and other fossil fuels it can replace.

And U.S. natural gas is 40% cleaner than what Russia produces, Rodgers said.

Time to ‘take a hard look’

Democrats argued it was prudent to study the climate impacts of LNG and described the pause as a relatively modest step that would provide a better analysis of the tradeoffs of natural gas production.

The Energy Department’s analysis for LNG authorizations was last updated in 2018, when the U.S. industry exported one-third of natural gas it has capacity for today, subcommittee ranking Democrat Diana DeGette of Colorado said.

The pause does not affect projects already constructed or projects that have gained Energy Department approval. It wouldn’t change a projection that LNG production would again double in the next 10 years, DeGette said.

“The fact that our nation’s production has ramped up so quickly must be considered, especially since the U.S. currently has enough approved capacity to fulfill the world’s energy needs in the short and medium terms,” she said. “Continuously increasing LNG exports without updating guidelines to account for new information is a fundamentally unserious proposal.”

The pause would allow the department to gain a wider view of all the potential benefits and drawbacks of new proposals and better assess what projects “are actually in the public interest,” DeGette said.

“Looking out to the future, as the estimates are that the exports could double, it is an appropriate time for the administration to take a hard look on what the impacts are going to be,” Florida Democrat Kathy Castor said.

Gillian Giannetti, a senior attorney with the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, called the pause “a moderate but important” step. She said it was consistent with the requirement in federal law that new natural gas export approvals are only permitted if they are found to be in the public interest.

Russia debate

Duncan and Rodgers said the pause would help Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country is a leading producer of natural gas.

If the U.S. share of global supply declines, Russian natural gas could fill the gap, they said.

Even if Russia’s market share doesn’t grow, the global price impact of reduced U.S. supply could make Russian exports more valuable, allowing Putin to pump more money into a war effort against Ukraine, Kentucky Republican Brett Guthrie said.

Brigham McCown, the director of the Initiative on American Security at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank, agreed with that premise.

“The world is going to get its LNG from somewhere,” McCown said. “And if not from us, it’s going to be from other, less stable, less reliable partners like Russia.”

But Democrats questioned Republicans’ commitment to taking Ukraine’s side in its war with Russia.

Most of the Republicans on the panel opposed a Ukraine aid package when it came up for a vote, the full committee ranking Democrat, Frank Pallone of New Jersey, said.

DeGette noted Republicans were set to vote Tuesday afternoon on an aid package that did not include funding for Ukraine.

Energy state Democrats more skeptical

While leading Energy and Commerce Democrats praised the pause Tuesday, it has not won universal acclaim from all members of the party.

Pennsylvania’s U.S. Sens. Bob Casey and John Fetterman, both Democrats, declared in a statement last week that Pennsylvania was “an energy state” and said they were concerned about the effects of the pause.

“While the immediate impacts on Pennsylvania remain to be seen, we have concerns about the long-term impacts that this pause will have on the thousands of jobs in Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry,” they said. “If this decision puts Pennsylvania energy jobs at risk, we will push the Biden Administration to reverse this decision.”

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III, a longtime supporter of fossil fuels who is reportedly considering a third-party presidential campaign on a centrist platform, strongly criticized the measure and scheduled a hearing later this week to examine the issue.

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Toyota boosts investment in Georgetown EV plant to $1.3 billion

Liam Niemeyer — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 23:10:56 +0000

The Kentucky House is trying to limit electric vehicle purchases by state government agencies in favor of vehicles with internal combustion engines. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Toyota announced an additional expansion to its manufacturing plant in Georgetown, bringing planned new investment in the Kentucky facility to $1.3 billion, as the Japanese automaker steps up production of electric SUVs for U.S. customers.

The automaker announced last year it was putting $591 million into the Scott County plant’s conversion and retaining 9,000 employees at the facility, which has manufactured millions of cars since 1988.?

A Toyota press release on Tuesday said the increased investment will add another “battery pack assembly line” to the facility with batteries being supplied from a Toyota plant in North Carolina.?

Toyota Kentucky President Kerry Creech in a statement said the increased investment “reflects our commitment to vehicle electrification.”?

“Generations of our team members helped prepare for this opportunity, and we will continue leading the charge into the future by remaining true to who we are as a company and putting our people first for generations to come,” Creech said.?

In a statement, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said he was “grateful” Toyota was continuing to invest in the state.?

In 2021, Ford announced it was investing $5.8 billion to build electric car battery manufacturing plants in Hardin County, though one of the plants’ construction has been delayed due to lower than expected demand for EVs.?

Clean power advocates eye grid operator’s planning reforms warily

Robert Zullo — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 10:40:45 +0000

(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

PJM, the nation’s biggest grid operator, is changing how it plans transmission upgrades needed to ensure reliable service for the 65 million people who live in its footprint.

Where PJM operates

PJM coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity in all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia

The effort comes after plenty of criticism of how the regional transmission organization, responsible for coordinating the flow of electricity in all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia, has traditionally conducted planning. Clean energy advocates and some state regulators are pushing for a more holistic, forward-looking approach that evaluates options besides traditional transmission lines and better incorporates the policy goals of PJM states, particularly those, like Illinois, Delaware, Maryland, Michigan, Virginia and New Jersey, that have set aggressive decarbonization targets.

Anjali Patel, a consultant for Americans for a Clean Energy Grid, a nonprofit advocacy group, said past transmission planning has put economic needs, reliability needs and state interests in “separate buckets” and has been relatively short-sighted, even though transmission investments can last 40 or 50 years.

“We need more proactive planning,” she said. “PJM is one of the main places that needs to occur.”

And yet some see backsliding in the process to develop the new framework could imperil states’ goals and waste crucial time.

“It started off going pretty well,” said Tom Rutigliano, a senior advocate for climate and energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council who focuses on PJM. “The fossil fuel states complained. … PJM agreed to plan for a fictional future to appease the fossil fuel states.”

The changes, however, haven’t been finalized, and could be affected by a pending Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rule on transmission planning and cost allocation, said Jeff Shields, a PJM spokesman.

Why planning matters

In a November letter, the Organization of PJM States, a group of utility regulators from PJM’s territory, wrote that it was concerned about “our region’s reactive stance” amid a major shift in the electric power industry, with infrastructure aging, older fossil fuel plants retiring and power demand climbing.

“Within the PJM footprint, rapid changes in both load forecasts and available supply are creating pronounced grid reliability issues that challenge PJM’s existing planning tools,” the group said. In response, PJM said it “agrees that processes that may have served us well in the past need to continue to evolve to meet current and future needs of the grid.”

We have some states in PJM that are really progressive clean energy states and we have states that are really closely aligned with fossil interests. When you get into cost allocation it’s really hard for those states to agree.

– Jon Gordon, policy director, Advanced Energy United

How regional transmission organizations like PJM manage power plant retirements, solve the electric capacity problems they create and plan for the future during a time of unprecedented change for the U.S. electric grid can get thorny quickly. But those decisions make a difference on customers’ electric bills and can affect what generation sources come online in replacement, among other impacts.

For a test case on how things can go awry — from the perspective of PJM’s critics, at least — look to Maryland.

The state’s Office of People’s Counsel and the Public Service Commission took PJM to task in complaints to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission over a suite of urgent transmission projects that PJM approved to fix anticipated electric reliability problems caused by a retiring coal plant about nine miles southeast of Baltimore. In the complaints, which FERC rejected, they argued PJM shouldn’t have been caught flat footed by the plant’s retirement, which they said will saddle Maryland electric ratepayers with about? $786 million in new transmission costs in addition to a pricey “must run” agreement that will keep the Brandon Shores plant burning coal until the projects are complete in about four years.

“PJM’s response to the recently announced retirement of Brandon Shores … illustrates the risks of failing to proactively plan for the retirement of large coal generators,” the Sierra Club’s Maryland Chapter wrote to PJM’s CEO in November.

The Maryland Public Service Commission said that by focusing on a transmission solution, PJM’s process “precludes consideration of viable alternatives, with the prospect of exposing Maryland ratepayers using the transmission facilities to unreasonable costs.” The commission noted that Maryland law requires installing 3,000 megawatts of energy storage, “more than double the Brandon Shores facility’s total capacity.” That storage power, it said, could “possibly negate the need for the PJM-approved transmission upgrade.”

PJM rejected those arguments.

“Protesters suggest that PJM should have acted outside of its clearly defined planning authority and processes; predicted that the Brandon Shores coal-fired units were retiring when specifically told otherwise; and relied on resources and technologies that do not solve the engineering problem,” the organization responded in a filing with FERC. “There is no existing technology that can cure the reliability problems that Brandon Shores will create when it deactivates other than transmission.”

FERC Commissioner Allison Clements, though concurring with the commission’s order approving PJM’s transmission plan, noted that the objections “paint a troubling picture with regard to PJM’s grid planning.”

She questioned whether PJM could have “carried out planning activities sooner and in doing so identified potential solutions that more expeditiously address the reliability need, cost less, or that deliver greater value to customers.”

‘Really hard for those states to agree’

What some advocates want is a process that allows PJM to work with states and utilities to come up with solutions that better incorporate state policy goals as well as consider lower cost options.

“PJM can’t take an integrated look at how to replace a retiring plant,” Rutigliano said. “Their plan is very rigid, very reactive and doesn’t allow anyone to come forward with better options.”

Rutigliano and others argue PJM doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel, pointing at its RTO neighbor to the west, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, which “has been doing long term planning since at least 2011, and has developed a robust planning process that supports utility and state future resource plans while ensuring that consumers benefit from low cost power and high levels of reliability,” NRDC said.

“We hoped it would be something like MISO is doing,” said Jon Gordon, policy director at Advanced Energy United, a trade group for clean energy businesses. “There was a great model out there right next door.”

A crucial difference between MISO and PJM, however, is that PJM does not have the authority to develop or impose cost allocation schemes since who pays for what can be the biggest sticking point in transmission planning and construction.

Gordon, Rutigliano and others are also wary of PJM’s currently proposed tiered approach, which proposes to weigh three different scenarios for transmission planning. The “base” scenario is focused on reliability and only state public policy goals that deal with forcing power plants into retirement are taken into account, such as Illinois’ Climate and Equitable Jobs Act.

The “medium” and “high” scenarios factor in policies that promote new renewable power. Those scenarios “allow states to voluntarily sponsor additional transmission needs and solutions” through what’s called the “state agreement approach,” in which a given state’s electric ratepayers foot the bill for transmission upgrades needed to accommodate new renewable power sources, as New Jersey did with PJM to meet its offshore wind goals.

In a presentation in November, PJM staff said the organization had fielded concerns “on whether it is appropriate to model, plan and cost allocate all public policy requirements as reliability projects.” Some states have balked at paying for transmission upgrades needed to accommodate fossil plant retirements or renewable energy growth in others.

The majority of PJM states, for example, agree that the costs of one state’s public policies shouldn’t be paid by electric customers in other states, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners wrote in comments filed with FERC.

“PJM is challenged in that the states that make up PJM have very different policy goals,” Gordon said. “In MISO states agreed on cost allocation policies that made the MISO process work better. … We have some states in PJM that are really progressive clean energy states and we have states that are really closely aligned with fossil interests. When you get into cost allocation it’s really hard for those states to agree.”

‘Cautiously optimistic’?

However, experts like Rutigliano fear that siloing off state policy goals could lead to duplicative building of transmission infrastructure, since PJM would only be looking at the loss of fossil fuel plants and failing to seriously consider the renewable power that would replace them.

“That’s one of our big worries,” he said. “They’ll build new transmission to make up for the void rather than acknowledging or building the transmission for the clean replacements. ..? The cost allocation for clean energy projects shouldn’t be punitive.” It also forces one state’s electric ratepayers to cover costs for transmission that can have benefits beyond its borders.

Patel, the Americans for a Clean Energy Grid consultant, also said state policies need to be better incorporated into PJM planning.

“They’re policies of the utilities operating in PJM, they’re the policies of the businesses operating in PJM,” she said. “These interests cut across partisan lines and cut across our economy.”

However, she’s more sanguine on the progress PJM is making.

“We’re cautiously optimistic this can move us in the right direction,” she said.

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Utilities plan onsite gas storage to improve reliability; critics warn of costs, safety concerns

Robert Zullo — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 10:40:39 +0000

Wanting more reliable access to backup fuel, utilities in the U.S. are planning to add liquified natural gas storage tanks at their existing plants. Such storage is already being done in the UK and Germany. Here are storage tanks at the Dragon Liquefied Natural Gas plant in Wales. (Photo by Polly Thomas/Getty Images)

As the U.S. electric power system has become more reliant on natural gas plants, it’s also become more vulnerable to gas system failures.

During Winter Storm Elliott in 2022, about 18% of the anticipated power supply in the portion of the grid that serves the entire eastern half of the United States, called the Eastern Interconnection, was offline. Of the power plants that failed to perform, 47% were natural-gas fired, according to a joint inquiry by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation.

Natural gas fuel problems accounted for 20% of all generation outages, the report noted.

However, in an era when building new gas pipelines, along with other infrastructure, has proven increasingly fraught, some utilities see a solution to gas shortages: adding liquified natural gas storage onsite.

Virginia utility giant Dominion Energy is proposing to add liquefied natural gas storage to serve two large power plants it operates near Emporia in southern Virginia. And in South Dakota, Otter Tail Power Company is planning to add gas storage at its Astoria combustion turbine plant in Deuel County. A spokesman for Duke Energy, a large North Carolina-based utility company which was forced to cut power to customers during Elliott last year, said it is “exploring all on-site storage options, including LNG and other alternative fuel storage technologies for future use.” A 2021 study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that storing gas onsite could also yield benefits for electric customers in New England, where gas supply is tight.

Some pro-renewable energy analysts, though, are wary about the costs and impacts of adding new gas infrastructure at a time when cutting emissions to mitigate climate change is becoming ever more pressing. There are also safety and environmental concerns.?

?‘Ensuring access to fuel’?

Having backup fuel on site is common at many natural gas power plants, though the go-to option is typically a distillate fuel oil (like diesel), said Michael Caravaggio, director of research and development at the Electric Power Research Institute, an independent nonprofit research organization. The main advantage is ease of storage and management over a long period of time, whereas liquefied natural gas needs to be kept at extremely low temperatures, (about -260 degrees Fahrenheit). That means that adding LNG storage involves either liquefying pipeline gas onsite or transporting LNG in for storage in specialized tanks.

“That’s a lot of infrastructure for backup fuel,” Caravaggio said. “The vast majority of the U.S. would likely pencil out with diesel and distillate oil as the onsite backup and that’s what we see currently.”

But Bill Swanson, manager of supply operations and planning for Otter Tail Power Company, which has about 133,000 customers in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, said adding LNG at the company’s 245-megawatt Astoria plant made the most economic sense. Winter Storm Uri in 2021, which sent gas production plummeting, and Elliott last year prompted the company to pursue LNG backup fuel.

“During Winter Storm Elliott we had a situation where we couldn’t get gas out of the pipeline,” he said.

The company explored fuel oil but found it would require modifications to the gas turbine. Burning the oil, he added, also reduces the output of the plant more than 10% and increases emissions.

“On an evaluated cost basis, LNG was lower cost,” Swanson said, though when asked he said the total cost of the gas storage project is not public. If Otter Tail had to liquefy the gas onsite instead of trucking it in from a nearby facility, “economics might flow back to fuel oil,” he added.

Jeremy Slayton, a spokesman for Richmond-headquartered Dominion Energy, said Elliott, Uri, and the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack in 2021 all underscored the need for backup fuel.

The company is proposing to add a 25 million gallon LNG storage facility that will enable its two large combined cycle plants at Brunswick and Greensville to run at full bore for up to four days each. Those plants alone generate enough electricity to power 700,000 of its 2.6 million Virginia customers’ homes.

A cost estimate for the project was not available, Slayton said.

“We are in the process of finalizing the project design, specifications and cost estimates,” he said.

Whether other electric ratepayers elsewhere across the country will be asked to pick up the tab for natural gas storage is unclear. Scott Fiedler, a spokesman for the Tennessee Valley Authority, which is the largest public power company in the U.S. and operates 17 natural gas power plant sites across its footprint, is not considering adding onsite liquefied natural gas storage at current or future plants. Fiedler cited cost, supply chain issues, regulatory and permitting challenges and safety as considerations.

Since 2011, LNG plant operators have reported 39 incidents to the U.S. Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, an agency spokesperson told States Newsroom. Eight of those “indicate the released commodity ignited,” the spokesperson said. A 2022 fire and explosion at the Freeport LNG import and export facility on Quintana Island, Texas, was attributed to testing and operating procedure failures, human error and fatigue, Reuters reported. In North Carolina, where Dominion is building another large LNG storage facility designed to serve gas customers, the facility is expected to emit 65,579 tons of greenhouse gasses a year, among other pollutants. Similar storage projects intended to serve gas customers have been built or are being developed in New Mexico and Wisconsin.

Sarah Durdaller, a spokeswoman for the Edison Electric Institute, a trade group for investor-owned utilities, said the organization does not track individual projects but added that gas storage is valuable.

“Natural gas is a partner to reliability and clean energy. It’s helping accelerate the clean energy transition by allowing our member companies to integrate more renewables into the energy grid while ensuring resilience and reliability,” she said. “Storage, both onsite at power plants and regional hubs, along with other redundancies ensure natural gas is available when customers and the energy grid need it most.”

Todd Snitchler, president and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association, which represents competitive power producers, said their membership is “constantly evaluating the options available to ensure reliable operation of their assets, including ensuring access to fuel.”

‘Not the answer’?

Yet, at a time when urgent action is needed to mitigate the effects of climate change, investing more money in natural gas infrastructure doesn’t make sense, said Mark Specht and Paul Arbaje, energy analysts at the Union of Concerned Scientists who authored a report released Jan. 9 on the failures of gas power plants during five severe winter storms over the past 13 years.

“More gas infrastructure is not the answer. Utilities should be instead focused on diversifying and reducing their reliance on gas,” Arbaje said in an interview with States Newsroom, noting that the U.S. Energy Information Administration is predicting that battery storage installations will nearly double in 2024.

Specht noted that about 70% of gas plant failures in the storms they studied were caused by freezing equipment and other problems unrelated to fuel availability.

“That picture would not change if you have onsite gas storage,” he said. “One of the conclusions from our report is they really should have someone regulating the reliability of the gas system. That might be a more sensible solution.”

‘Excessive and disturbing’: Regulator slashes Kentucky Power proposed rate hike by two-thirds

Liam Niemeyer — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 01:56:34 +0000

Kentucky Power's gas-fired Big Sandy power plant in Lawrence County. (Creative Commons photo)

Kentucky’s utility regulator has allowed Kentucky Power to raise its electricity rates, but by much less than what the utility had originally asked for.?

The Kentucky Public Service Commission in a Friday afternoon order allowed Kentucky Power, which serves about 163,000 customers in 20 Eastern Kentucky counties, to increase monthly bills? for the average residential customer by about 5.66%, or the equivalent of a monthly utility bill increasing by $8.32.?

This is less than one-third of the rate increase that Kentucky Power first requested last year, which would have amounted to an 18.3% rate increase in monthly bills costs for the average residential customer. One state report last year found the investor-owned utility’s residential customers already pay the highest average monthly bill in the state at $187.56.

The utility in November proposed a settlement agreement with other parties in the case, agreeing to lower its rate increase for its average residential customer so that monthly bills would only increase byto 10.7%.?

The commission in its order decided to reduce the rate increase even further in part because of public comments the regulator received, which showed the impact of the full, original rate increase on residential customers was “excessive and disturbing.”?

Kentucky Power lowers proposed rate hike after pushback. Some ratepayers say it’s still too much.

“The number of comments the Commission received and the turnout at the public meetings was significant. In fact, two counties passed resolutions decrying a Kentucky Power rate increase,” the order stated. “Other public comments were all of a similar nature, that a typical residential customer of Kentucky Power cannot afford another rate increase.”?

A spokesperson for Kentucky Power did not immediately return requests for comment.?

Bren Martin, a Greenup County-based member of the progressive grassroots organization Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, previously gave public comments last year on the rate increase.?

Martin in an email said she was “very pleased” with the regulator’s decision but that she was still concerned Kentucky Power attempted a substantial rate increase in “high poverty areas.” Kentucky Power serves some of the most economically-challenged counties in the state or nation.

In a separate order earlier this year, the commission allowed Kentucky Power to securitize $470 million of costs associated with rate hike. Securitization, which was legalized for utilities to use through legislation passed with bipartisan support last year, allows utilities to bundle costs into a bond to sell, which can potentially mean lower costs to ratepayers by spreading costs over a longer timeframe. That’s compared to traditionally recouping such costs through electricity rate increases.

According to a press release from the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet, securitization will save Kentucky Power customers $74.4 million over 20 years, compared to utilities recovering the costs through rate increases.

Congressional office agrees to investigate ‘zombie’ coal mines in Kentucky

James Bruggers, Inside Climate News — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 19:30:33 +0000

According to a new report from Appalachian Citizens' Law Center, this “zombie” mine in Pike County, Kentucky has not produced coal since 2019. (Photo by Erin Savage/Appalachian Voices)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — With a federal investigation into technically active but non-producing “zombie” mines set to begin in March, a citizens law group in Kentucky has found production idled at nearly 40% of all active coal strip mines in the state, with some not mined in more than a decade.

In all, these “functionally abandoned” mines — 48 of 126 active mines — scar 19 square miles of the state, and leave behind a combined 15 miles of dangerous, blasted-away mountainside cliffs, called “highwalls.”

Strip mines are supposed to be reclaimed shortly after blasting and digging for coal, and leaving them alone poses risks to the public and the environment. Environmental advocates have for several years been attempting to quantify a problem that they say has worsened as the coal economy has crashed.

At the same time, coal companies in bankruptcy have stopped paying into industry funded programs meant to assure mines are stabilized and cleaned up so the coal industry does not leave behind polluted streams or dangerous highwalls on landscapes that were once forested and hosted critical headwaters.

In October, eight Democratic lawmakers, including one from Kentucky and two from Pennsylvania, called for a federal investigation into the full extent of environmental damage of the functionally abandoned “zombie mines,” which can leak toxic waste and send boulders into homes.

“Some coal companies are idling mines and stalling reclamation to cut costs,” the lawmakers wrote to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. “Because mine operators typically rely on coal revenue to fund reclamation, the longer a mine remains idle, the greater the risk that the operator may not have sufficient funds to pay for reclamation.”

On Thursday, a spokesman for the GAO, which conducts non-partisan investigations for Congress, said the agency has agreed to conduct the study, which will start in March.

“We worked with lawmakers to advocate for the GAO report,” and are pleased that it has been approved, said Rebecca Shelton, director of policy for the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, a nonprofit based in Whitesburg, Kentucky, which is in part of the state’s mountainous Eastern Kentucky coalfield.

These mines are a serious threat, “but the challenge is understanding how big of a problem is” across multiple states, she said.

The lawmakers — Reps. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.), Don Beyer (D-Va.), Morgan McGarvey (D-Ky.), Jared Huffman(D-Ca.), Katie Porter (D-Ca.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) — asked GAO to quantify the number, location and size of coal mines that have neither produced coal nor made reclamation progress, and their bonding status, as well as whether federal regulations may need to be updated.

Strip mining for coal in Central Appalachia is an environmentally violent process typically involving the clearcutting of forests and then the blasting of the tops or sides of mountains to get at buried coal. Waste rock can be shoved into headwater streams.

Reclamation can consist of backfilling and grading a mined area, eliminating unstable highwalls and mine waste, planting grass or trees, and managing and treating contaminated water that runs off the site. The federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 generally requires that mined land be returned to its approximate original contour.

The law also requires coal mining companies to secure bonds to cover the costs of reclamation should the companies go bankrupt.

The new report found that 27 of Kentucky’s functionally abandoned mines have not produced coal for over five years, and several have not produced coal for more than a decade. Nearly half of the zombie mines in Kentucky were located in one eastern Kentucky jurisdiction — Pike County, which borders Virginia and West Virginia.

The report concedes that some of the mines could have had some reclamation work done, but they could not detect much of a change in state records that track disturbed land.

In 2022, Inside Climate News found that as the coal industry collapsed, coal mining companies had racked up a rising number of violations at surface mines, and state regulators were failing to bring a record number of them into compliance, according to internal documents made public under the state’s open records law. One state official at the time described the situation as “completely out of control” in an email.

The new report recommended Kentucky regulators redetermine the required bond amounts for all functionally abandoned mines and make sure those revised bonds are sufficient to cover reclamation activities.

John Mura, spokesman for the Kentucky Environment and Energy Cabinet, which regulates mining and reclamation in the state, said he could not comment on the report Thursday. “We just received the report (and) we’re reviewing it.”

Shelton said answers are needed now.

“When coal companies stop producing from mines, they are legally required to clean up their mess,” she said. “These findings show they are delaying reclamation, maintaining mines in active status even though the likelihood that these mines will produce coal again appears very slim.”

She said that “it is essential that Kentucky’s regulators stringently enforce the law to ensure that coal companies maintain their responsibility for clean-up costs and communities don’t have to shoulder the burden of degrading mines in their backyards that companies leave behind.”

Hydrogen tax rules draw fire from industry

Robert Zullo — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 10:00:34 +0000

A green-tech hydrogen production plant in Wesseling, Germany. Hydrogen at the plant is manufactured by electrolysis, which uses electricity to produce hydrogen from water. The U.S. Department of the Treasury has proposed rules to ensure that hydrogen electrolyzers in this country don’t siphon clean electricity from the grid that must be replaced by ramping up coal and gas power plants. (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

How to comment on proposed regulations

The public hearing on the proposed regulations is scheduled for March 25, 2024, at 10 a.m. (ET). Requests to speak and outlines of topics to be discussed at the public hearing must be received by March 4. If no outlines are received by March 4, 2024, the public hearing will be canceled.

Written or electronic comments may be filed online or mailed to CC:PA:LPD:PR (REG–117631–23), Room 5203, Internal Revenue Service, P.O. Box 7604, Ben Franklin Station, Washington, DC 20044.

Comments must be received by Feb. 26, 2024.

The October announcement that the U.S. Department of Energy had selected seven regional hub projects for billions in federal money to spur the production of clean hydrogen was met with considerable fanfare from the fledgling industry, seen as crucial to helping decarbonize the American economy.

But when the Biden administration’s Treasury Department released proposed regulations last month for how a key hydrogen production tax credit will be implemented, the reception from some corners of the industry was a lot less warm.

Frank Wolak, president of the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association trade group, said the regulations would place “unnecessary burdens on the still nascent clean hydrogen industry,” adding that they fly in face of Congress’ intent in the Inflation Reduction Act, the landmark 2022 climate law.

“Congress intended the tax credit to spur domestic clean hydrogen production and allow the United States to maintain an international competitive advantage, not to be an inadvertent backdoor to regulate use of the electric utility grid,” Wolak said, adding that the regulations “will unnecessarily hold back our domestic industry, driving investment, manufacturing and technology leadership overseas.”

The Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned electric utilities, also criticized the rules, saying they don’t “offer sufficient flexibility to allow the scale up that will be necessary to support a U.S. hydrogen economy.”

Some Democratic senators have also pushed for looser regulations, including Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman and Bob Casey. “For an administration that wants to reduce emissions and fight climate change, it makes no sense to kneecap the hydrogen market before it can even begin,” U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, said in a statement.

Environmental groups, other lawmakers and the administration, however, say the restrictions are necessary to ensure hydrogen subsidized by the credits doesn’t actually increase greenhouse gas emissions.

“I’m grateful to see the Biden administration listening to experts to ensure that hydrogen production is adding new clean energy to the grid, protecting consumers and the environment, and expanding clean-energy jobs,” said Pennsylvania State Rep. Danielle Friel Otten, a Democrat and a member of the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators.

What the credit does

The hydrogen production tax credit ranges from 60 cents per kilogram of hydrogen produced to $3 per kilogram, depending on the lifecycle emissions from the facility. Those emissions are determined using a federal model called GREET (Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions and Energy Use in Transportation) and the credit is available for 10 years for projects that begin construction before 2033. The credit starts on the date a hydrogen production facility goes into service, meaning some facilities will be eligible for the credit into the 2040s, the Treasury Department says. That’s a lot of potential money at stake.

“It’s very lucrative,” said Julie McNamara, deputy policy director with the Climate and Energy Program at the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists. “Because there’s so much money on the line, this tax credit will shape the hydrogen that ends up getting produced.”

For proponents, clean hydrogen has applications in hard-to-decarbonize industrial sectors like steel, cement, long haul transportation and potential natural gas blending in power production. But most hydrogen right now is produced using a process called steam-methane reforming that also releases carbon emissions and other air pollutants.

To qualify as “clean” for the tax credit, facilities using natural gas to produce hydrogen must capture and store most of the carbon produced. However, most of the wrangling and lobbying has been over what proponents call the “three pillars approach” that the Treasury Department included in the draft rule and would affect hydrogen manufactured by electrolysis, which uses electricity to produce hydrogen from water.

The provisions — called additionality (or incrementality), time-matching and deliverability — are intended to ensure that new hydrogen electrolyzers don’t create more greenhouse gas emissions by siphoning clean electricity from the grid that must be replaced by ramping up coal and gas power plants.

“It’s clean at the point of production,” McNamara said. “But it’s extremely energy intensive. … It takes a lot of electricity to produce that hydrogen.”

So the proposed tax rules say electrolyzers connected to the grid that are seeking the clean hydrogen production credit must use “energy attribute certificates” to demonstrate their purchase of new clean power, either from a new power facility or from added capacity at an existing plant, provided they are built within 36 months of the electrolyzer coming online. Electric power that is currently being curtailed, meaning it’s available but not being used by the grid because of transmission constraints or other reasons, can also count, McNamara said.

The time-matching provision is intended to ensure the use of electricity by the electrolyzer matches when the power it claims to be using is produced. Until 2028, electrolyzers will only have to match those figures annually. But after that, they’ll have to perform hourly matching to qualify for the credit.

McNamara cited the example of Florida, which has abundant solar resources. But an electrolyzer running at night clearly wouldn’t be using solar power.

“If you look on an annual basis, there could be a mismatch,” she said.

The “deliverability” rules require the power a hydrogen facility claims to be using to be in the same grid region as the electrolyzer.

“Without each of these three requirements, there is a strong likelihood that hydrogen production would result in increased grid emissions and would exceed the maximum emissions intensity permitted to qualify for the credit,” the White House said in a statement.

‘Not a free buffet’

The rules, which are out for public comment now, do leave some questions open, McNamara said, including a push by the nuclear power industry to have all nuclear power, not just curtailed electricity, count for clean tax credit purposes. Since nuclear plants produce about 20% of U.S. electricity, that could mean more coal and gas plant electricity needed to backfill the power diverted to hydrogen, she said.

“This is an industry play for profit,” she said.

Three of the hubs that got initial funding approval from the Department of Energy plan to use nuclear energy, including the Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen (MachH2) hub.

“Today’s award is proof positive that DOE and the administration want existing nuclear energy to play a vital role in jumpstarting domestic hydrogen production and we look forward to final Treasury Department guidance,” said Joe Dominguez, president and CEO of Constellation Energy, in October. Constellation plans to build a hydrogen facility at its LaSalle County Nuclear Generating Station in Illinois as part of the Midwest hub. There are also questions around plant retirements and relicensing, and how biomethane (for example gas produced from landfills, sewage treatment plants and manure lagoons) should be valued, among other facets of the rule.

“This is not a free buffet for public funds,” McNamara said. “It’s an intended tax credit to build out the industry we need for the future.”

Attempts to reach representatives of the Pacific Northwest, Heartland, Gulf Coast, Mid-Atlantic and Appalachian hubs for comment were unsuccessful.

Jeff Phillips, a spokesman for the Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen, which includes Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, said the hub’s leadership and sponsors “are actively reviewing” the Treasury tax guidance.

“We will provide further updates as we are able to,” he said.

Kentucky’s largest utility testing wind’s energy potential with state’s first utility-scale turbine

Liam Niemeyer — Wed, 03 Jan 2024 16:55:09 +0000

LG&E and KU's research wind turbine rises to 165 feet. (Photo courtesy of LG&E and KU)

Kentucky’s largest utility has built what it says is the state’s first utility-scale wind turbine in an effort to test the potential of wind energy.?

The wind turbine, which Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU) constructed at the end of last year with its parent company PPL Corporation, stands at 165 feet on the site of the utility’s E.W. Brown Generating Station in Mercer County. The site is also home to a coal-fired power plant unit, a 10 megawatt solar installation, several gas-fired turbines and a hydroelectric plant.

LG&E and KU spokesperson Daniel Lowry in an interview said while Kentucky doesn’t have strong wind resources compared to other states farther west, the utility wanted to gather data on how well a wind turbine could actually perform in Kentucky.

“That data will help us determine the potential for the wind to contribute to renewable energy production here in Kentucky,” Lowry said. “We’re excited about it.”?

He said the utility plans to have the wind turbine fully operational in March with testing of the turbine currently underway. The turbine is expected to produce 193 megawatt-hours of power over one year, he said, the equivalent of powering an average of 16 homes over a year. Running at full capacity with the strongest winds, the turbine could power up to 90 homes.?

The Mercer County site isn’t the windiest part of Kentucky, he said, but the “wind is pretty good” at the site compared to elsewhere in the state. The strongest wind speeds in the state generally can be found in Western Kentucky. In Henderson County last year, a Nebraska-based renewable energy company obtained permits to place weather towers in the county to gauge the potential of wind turbines.?

The LG&E and KU wind turbine is relatively small compared to the average height of wind turbines being built elsewhere in the country, about 322 feet as of 2022. Generally, wind turbines have increased in height to capture stronger winds higher above the ground to generate more energy. Wind farms in states farther west can include hundreds of wind turbines creating enough energy to power hundreds of thousands of homes.?

Lowry said the single turbine is being paired with the existing solar installation as a part of the utility’s “renewable integration” research, with the idea of pairing the strengths of solar energy and wind energy to provide consistent power generation. Solar energy generates the most energy during the day and over the summer, while wind energy tends to generate more power at night and during the winter.

“You have this really nice relationship for renewable energy when you have both wind and solar generation, and that’s what we’re trying to do,” Lowry said.?

The concept of pairing solar and wind energy has been pursued in other states by renewable energy companies at much larger scales. While Kentucky has a growing solar energy market, the state still largely relies on burning fossil fuels to generate its electricity. The state ranked last in the country for solar and wind power generation last year, according to federal data.?

Lowry said the wind turbine is one of numerous research projects being conducted by the utility and its parent company including the study of utility-scale electric battery storage, a project that state utility regulators approved last year.

LG&E and KU’s wind turbine stands near solar panels that have the ability to track the sun across the sky. (Photo courtesy of LG&E and KU)

US approves a non-water-cooled nuclear reactor

Robert Zullo — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 21:23:47 +0000

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved for construction a non-water-cooled nuclear reactor in Oak Ridge.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a construction permit for a new nuclear test reactor to be built in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Kairos Power, the California company developing the Hermes demonstration reactor, says it’s the first non-water-cooled reactor to be approved for construction in the U.S. in over 50 years.

Construction of the 35-megawatt thermal reactor, which uses molten salt to cool the reactor core, at the Heritage Center Industrial Park is expected to begin next year. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Tennessee Valley Authority, are “collaborators” on the project, which has been paid for “nearly exclusively” through private investment, the company says, though the project has also been selected for $303 million in Department of Energy funding.

“With the Hermes construction permit now approved, Kairos Power is demonstrating our leadership in developing advanced nuclear reactors and we have made a big step forward on our path to deploying clean, safe, reliable, and affordable energy in East Tennessee and beyond,” said Mike Laufer, Kairos Power co-founder and CEO, in a statement.

A separate application to the NRC for an operating license will have to be approved before Kairos Power can operate the demonstration reactor, the NRC said.

Across the country, private developers, policymakers and utilities are exploring options for advanced reactors and small modular reactors to maintain reliability in a decarbonizing grid, power hydrogen production, replace jobs and tax revenue in struggling towns where coal power plants are closing and bring zero-emissions electricity to remote areas of the globe.

But new nuclear power has been infamously expensive and difficult to build in the United States over the past several decades, and one of the more celebrated advanced reactor projects, NuScale’s Carbon Free Power Project, was recently canceled as costs climbed and subscribers pulled out.

Kentucky Power lowers proposed rate hike after pushback. Some ratepayers say it’s still too much.

Liam Niemeyer — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 21:50:00 +0000

Bren Martin of Greenup County said she is glad Kentucky Power is offering some concessions but that she hopes the Public Service Commission realizes “many families can not endure any increase.”?Martin spoke against the rate increase at a public meeting hosted by the PSC in Boyd County on Nov. 8, 2023. (Screenshot)

Letcher County Judge-Executive Terry Adams walked up to a microphone inside a hearing room in Frankfort Tuesday morning, one of numerous people who had given public comments over the past few weeks to the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC).?

Terry Adams (Kentucky County Judge/Executive Association)

The utility regulator over the upcoming days will be questioning Kentucky Power executives and other witnesses about the electric utility’s proposed rate increase. Kentucky Power serves about 163,000 people in 20 Eastern Kentucky counties and has said it needs to raise electricity rates to deal with “historic” economic decline and the loss of major industrial customers in the region.?

Kentucky Power initially asked for a rate increase that would have meant an 18% increase in monthly utility bills for its average residential customer. The investor-owned utility’s residential customers already pay the highest average monthly bill in the state at $187.56 according to a state report published this summer.?

The utility last week reached a settlement with an industry group, a coalition of environmental and public interest groups and other stakeholders to lessen the proposed rate increase to 10.7%, along with making other commitments including expanding its residential energy assistance program. The Kentucky attorney general did not sign onto the settlement but also didn’t oppose it, according to written testimony filed by Kentucky Power. A spokesperson for the Kentucky attorney general in an email said their office “did not endorse the rate increase.”?

Yet Adams, the judge-executive, and other local elected officials and residents who came to the PSC’s public meetings throughout Eastern Kentucky, still strongly oppose the rate increase as a financial burden on communities already facing economic struggles and recovering from a “terrible flood situation.”?

“We’re truly suffering in Eastern Kentucky, and I know there’s a profit margin that has to be made by a company,” Adams said. “But to put that on the backs of people that already can’t pay their bills is not acceptable.”?

The PSC would have to approve the tentative settlement agreement, which some of Kentucky Power’s ratepayers say doesn’t do enough to mitigate the financial burden many in Eastern Kentucky face.?

Kentucky Power’s ‘dire financial circumstances’

In Kentucky Power’s settlement proposal, the utility is not only asking for less money from ratepayers than it originally had sought but also is planning to defer more of the existing fees on utility bills — such as a rider to cover retirement costs of former coal-fired power at its Big Sandy Power Plant —? until those costs can be “securitized.”?

Securitization allows utilities to bundle costs into a bond to sell, which can potentially mean lower costs to ratepayers by spreading costs over a longer timeframe. That’s compared to traditionally recouping such costs through electricity rate increases.

Kentucky Power’s gas-fired Big Sandy power plant in Lawrence County. (Creative Commons photo)

Kentucky Power’s latest rate increase proposal would bring in $74,666,028, a decrease of about $19,269,699 from the original $93,935,727 that the utility was seeking.?

“The Company is well aware that its customers face many of the same financial challenges it faces,” said Kentucky Power Vice President Brian West in written testimony before the commission. “The provisions of the Settlement Agreement balance addressing the Company’s need to address its dire financial circumstances with its desire to minimize the impacts of rate increases on its customers.”?

Along with the decline of coal mining in Eastern Kentucky, the utility has cited the loss of residential and industrial customers, such as AK Steel and Our Lady of Bellefonte hospital in Ashland. The shuttering of those large employers has fueled further job losses leading to more ratepayers leaving its service area. Between 2008 and 2022, according to the utility’s application, Kentucky Power’s customer count fell by 11,482.

The company was authorized by the PSC to bring in a “return on equity” (ROE) — basically, the rate of profit — of 9.3% over a 12-month period ending in March 2023. The utility’s actual ROE amounted to 2.9%, significantly less money from its declining ratepayer base than it is authorized to collect.

Julie Sloat, the CEO of Ohio-based American Electric Power which owns subsidiary Kentucky Power, on a May call with investors said Kentucky Power’s ROE of 2.9% didn’t “reflect a financially healthy utility” and that the issue needed to be “resolved in the consideration of the interest of all stakeholders.”?

Josh Bills

The Mountain Association, a Berea-based economic development nonprofit, was one of the parties that agreed to the rate increase settlement. Josh Bills, a commercial energy specialist with the group, said Kentucky Power is in a “really, really challenging” situation in that many electricity meters have gone “dark.” Residential customers are struggling to pay electricity bills, he said, while also not having the resources to improve energy efficiency of their homes to potentially lower bills.?

“I don’t know if there’s a utility that, you know, comes close to the situation that they’re in, in terms of how expensive it is to their customers and yet how challenged their customers are to keep up,” Bills said. “It’s the most expensive to the population that can least afford it.”?

Kentucky Power serves some of the most economically-challenged counties in the state or nation. Eleven of the utility’s 20 counties in Eastern Kentucky had the 11 highest county-wide unemployment rates in the state as of earlier this year.?

Proposed settlement creates commitments for energy efficiency, assistance programs

Bills and another stakeholder involved with the proposed settlement say commitments that Kentucky Power has made in writing could lead to enhanced efforts to help its customers deal with the burden of utility bills.?

In the proposed settlement, Kentucky Power has agreed to:?

Update its demand-side and energy efficiency programs, improve education and communication programs and consider distributed energy resources.
Expand its residential energy assistance program, which currently helps 2,700 people per year, to aid an estimated 5,700 people a year.?
Dedicate 21% of future energy efficiency programs to low-income ratepayers.?
Extend the time period for due bills from 15 days to 21 days.?
Create an “optional seasonal tariff” to help ratepayers who have high energy usage.

Andy McDonald

Andy McDonald, vice-chair of the solar energy advocacy group Kentucky Solar Energy Society that was also a party to the settlement, said improving access to energy efficiency programs is key because housing stock in Eastern Kentucky is oftentimes energy inefficient, leading to higher energy usage and higher utility bills.?

He said older homes and mobile homes in Kentucky Power’s service area need weatherization work, such as installing insulation, to use less energy. The hope is that the agreement will help ratepayers now and in the future by increasing the energy efficiency of their homes and their access to home-based energy generation such as rooftop solar, he said.

“We want them to really invest in efficiency so that they don’t need to build a new power plant and then have to put that cost on customers,” McDonald said.?

Kentucky Power is currently seeking to purchase at least 875 megawatts of power generation potentially made up of “thermal” power sources, meaning coal or natural gas, and renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power. The PSC earlier this year threatened to fine Kentucky Power for not having enough power supply ahead of a winter storm in 2022.?

Lessened rate increase still not enough for some ratepayers

Adams, the Letcher County judge-executive, along with other Kentucky Power customers who gave public comments to the commission specifically pointed to the harm a rate increase could have on those with fixed incomes.?

Bren Martin, a member of the nonprofit, progressive grassroots organization Kentuckians for the Commonwealth who lives in Greenup County, gave testimony to the commission earlier this month at the Boyd County courthouse. She said “lives at risk were real” with this rate increase. Kentuckians for the Commonwealth is one of the parties to the proposed settlement.?

Martin in an email said while she was glad Kentucky Power was offering some concessions, she hoped the PSC would realize “many families can not endure any increase.”?

“They should not have to grovel for survival, especially people who have worked hard but might be riddled with mountains of medical expenses, high rent and more,” Martin said in her email.?

Ronda Hansen, 70, says higher power bills could force her to curb spending on medicine. She worries about “the person who has less income than I do.”

For at least one ratepayer living on a fixed income, any rate increase is too much. Ronda Hansen, 70, lives with her husband near Ashland. Health problems including diabetes and heart issues have kept her from working, and her husband retired from years of being a postal worker, she told the Kentucky Lantern in a phone interview.?

She said their combined income is too high to qualify for programs geared to low-income households. But she still has expenses to manage, ranging from her utility bill for her older home to keeping up maintenance on her 2007 Chrysler Caravan. She worries dealing with another rate increase could mean choosing to curb her budget for medicine, which she says averages $150 a month.?

She realizes that her older home isn’t energy efficient, but she worries who will pay for upgrades to improve that.?

“Have they really thought about the person who has less income than I do, much less than I do?” Hansen said. “I feel like they almost don’t give a rip about the common person.”?

This story was updated to clarify the Kentucky attorney general did not sign onto Kentucky Power’s proposed settlement agreement.?

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New life for old coal: Minelands and power plants are hot renewable development spots

Robert Zullo — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 10:30:04 +0000

AES Indiana’s Petersburg Generating Station in Petersburg, Ind., has been burning coal since the 1960s but will shutter all of its coal firing units over the next few years. The plant is converting some generating units to natural gas and will also host an 800 megawatt-hour battery storage system expected to come online late next year. (Robert Zullo/States Newsroom)

PETERSBURG, Ind. — AES Indiana’s Petersburg Generating Station, which towers over the White River here in southwest Indiana, has been burning coal to generate electricity since the late 1960s.

That era, though, will come to an end soon. Two of the power plant’s four coal-burning units have already retired and the last is planning to shut down in 2025.

“AES Indiana will be the first utility out of coal in the state,” said Kelly Young, a spokeswoman for the company, which has more than half a million customers in the Indianapolis area.

Power generation, however, will continue. Two of those coal units will be switched out to cleaner burning natural gas, and the company is also building an 800 megawatt-hour battery storage array at the Petersburg plant to take advantage of the existing grid connections and meet its electric capacity obligations, banking power when prices and power demand is low and discharging when demand climbs and the regional grid operator, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) needs the juice for the electric grid.

“The batteries are basically a time machine,” said Aaron Cooper, the company’s chief commercial officer for U.S. utilities. Cooper said the company opted for batteries after an exhaustive review of its obligations to its customers and the larger grid, (especially under MISO’s new winter rules that require more reserve margins) while also taking into account the costs and specifications of available generation technologies and new favorable tax rules for renewables as part of its long range planning process.

AES’ project isn’t alone. Those same factors, along with the increasing resistance to new greenfield wind, solar and storage development, as well as massive backlogs in the queues to connect new power projects to the grid, mean former mine lands and the plants that burned the coal they produced are increasingly attractive spots for new renewable development.

Conversion of old coal plant sites to new storage and renewable projects is happening in New Jersey, Nevada, Louisiana and elsewhere across the country.

“Reuse of these interconnections is critical to driving down the cost of replacement generation,” said Justin Tomljanovic, a vice president of corporate development at Xcel Energy, which has 3.1 million electric customers in eight states and is building two battery arrays near retiring coal plants in Becker, Minnesota, and Pueblo, Colorado.

“We’re thinking about this at every single place where we’re retiring a coal plant. … It is a company strategy that we think enables us to hit our carbon goals and our states’ carbon goals cost effectively.”

Once and future ‘energy communities’

States can play a major role in speeding these transitions, said Harry Godfrey, a managing director at Advanced Energy United, a trade association representing wind, solar, energy efficiency, battery storage and other businesses. On the one hand, renewable energy and decarbonization mandates are helping spur the transition to cleaner electricity. Twenty three states have 100% clean energy goals. Other policies, such as “securitization” legislation, can blunt the costs to consumers of retiring coal plants before the end of their useful lives. “They’re finding interesting financing options to manage those stranded costs,” Godfrey said.

Illinois has a grant program specifically designed to incentivize retiring or shuttered coal plants to install energy storage.

Also, tax credits in the landmark Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest piece of climate legislation in U.S. history, include a bonus 10% credit for “energy communities,” defined as brownfield sites, areas with large historic levels of employment or tax revenue derived from coal, oil, gas extraction or communities where a coal power station closed after 2009 or a coal mine closed after 1999, among other criteria.

“The Inflation Reduction Act is designed not just to lower energy costs and combat climate change, but to promote broad-based economic opportunity and create jobs in communities that have been at the forefront of energy production, especially coal communities,” said Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo in a statement in June. “Treasury is focused on ensuring all Americans benefit from the growth of the clean energy economy, particularly those who live in communities that have depended on the energy sector for jobs.”

(The Department of Energy keeps a map of eligible energy communities here.)

States that want to help speed the transition from old fossil fuel sites to new renewable energy facilities and take advantage of the jobs and tax revenue they can bring need to get on the ball, Godfrey said.

That means inventorying and packaging sites in a similar fashion as states do to lure developers for other big economic development projects like trying to attract a factory or distribution center, he said.

“The IRA is intentionally designed to promote these conversions,” he said. “The state’s role in economic development is really pivotal.”

Mine lands and brownfields

Danny Van Clief, CEO of Sun Tribe Development, part of Sun Tribe Solar, a Charlottesville, Virginia, company that’s one of the largest clean energy companies in the mid-Atlantic, said it’s become increasingly difficult to get large solar farms approved. “Some of that resistance is rational and some of that resistance is somewhat irrational. We’re actually battling organized resistance to the deployment of renewables,” he said.

That opposition, Van Clief said, “causes us to be incredibly thoughtful about where we site potential projects.” Former mine lands and other “previously disturbed areas” tend to be less controversial sites and inject investment into communities that mined the coal that powered the United States for most of its industrialized history but have fallen on hard times since.

An 800 megawatt solar installation is planned for the reclaimed Starfire mine site in Knott County. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

Sun Tribe, along with another solar developer, Washington, D.C.-based Sol Systems, is working with The Nature Conservancy to build solar projects on former coal mine lands in Southwest Virginia, Eastern Tennessee and Eastern Kentucky, that fall within its Cumberland Forest Project, one of the group’s largest conservation efforts at 253,000 acres.

In Virginia, the state Energy Department, formerly the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy, helped The Nature Conservancy identify non-forested former mine lands near existing utility lines and other infrastructure, which were then whittled down to avoid areas with important wildlife, habitat or other considerations that made them unsuitable for solar development.

The Nature Conservancy, which holds conservation easements on about 3.1 million acres in 49 states and is one of the largest landowners in the nation, is looking to take that approach across the country. Nels Johnson, senior adviser for renewable energy at the conservancy’s Climate Mitigation Program, said some of the land the organization controls doesn’t have “direct conservation value.” They may be buffer areas, or part of a larger property that was purchased for conservation or agricultural leases next to a natural area, and may be suitable for renewable development.

A forthcoming report, Mining the Sun, will lay out a case for “strategically siting new energy infrastructure on degraded lands like mining sites, landfills and brownfields” in order to help meet the ambitious decarbonization goals of states, corporations, utilities and the federal government. The organization also has a hand in the development of the Bright Night Starfire Renewable Energy Center, an 800-megawatt solar project that is billed as the largest renewable power project in Kentucky and one of the largest in the nation to be built on former minelands.

“That uncertainty that minelands and brownfields introduce compared to greenfields is one of the challenges we’re trying to address,” Johnson said.

In the case of the Cumberland Forest project, the conservancy and the Virginia Department of Energy helped assure Sun Tribe that it wasn’t “onboarding additional liability” as a result of building on the former minelands, said Betsy Arlen, the company’s vice president of real estate.

Building solar on former mineland is picking up steam across the country, from West Virginia and Vermont to Ohio and Nevada. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says there may be as much as 43 million acres of brownfields suitable for renewable power development.

States can inventory the minelands in their state (and in some cases under their control) then analyze where nearby electric infrastructure is in order to gauge the possibilities for renewable power, Johnson said. Then they could explore whether redevelopment authorities could help turn brownfields into power projects by creating streamlined permitting processes and other incentives.

Meeting decarbonization targets will require a buildout of electric infrastructure on the scale of the U.S. highway system, Johnson said, and it makes sense to find the least controversial sites for development.

“There’s definitely a need for us to think more clearly about how do communities that host these projects receive benefits,” Johnson said. “Every community in the country is going to see clean energy projects over the next several decades.”

Kentucky could win ‘massive’ solar investment in federal competition. Here’s what’s possible.

Liam Niemeyer — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 10:50:52 +0000

(Getty Images)

An unlikely collaboration between a Kentucky coalfield county and Kentucky’s largest city began when a former high school English teacher, Megan Downey, walked into the Lawrence County courthouse in Louisa in August.??

Inspired by a personal desire to find ways to tackle the impacts of climate change, Downey had launched a nonprofit called The Solar Collaborative last year in Virginia dedicated to helping Appalachian communities transition to renewable energy.?

She had been pitching an idea to local governments across Eastern Kentucky: Seek some of the billions in federal funding up for grabs in the Solar for All competition. Through the competition, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to invest $7 billion through 60 grants to states, local governments, nonprofits and tribal governments to “increase access to affordable, resilient, and clean solar energy for millions of low-income households.” The money comes from the Inflation Reduction Act’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.?

Vince Doty

When Downey talked with Deputy Judge-Executive Vince Doty about the opportunity, he agreed “within minutes” to sign up.

“He’s the biggest advocate, I think, in the whole region for this type of project,” Downey said. “A lot of low-income communities don’t have access to that economic savings that’s associated with solar, and so it’s just one more way in which a wealth gap is continuing to increase.”

Doty brought other Eastern Kentucky counties on board for an application to the competition; judge-executives in Lawrence, Johnson, Martin, Floyd, Pike, Boyd, Greenup counties all wrote letters of support. After learning they had both submitted letters of intent to apply for the federal funding, the mountain counties teamed up with Louisville’s government to submit a unified application that could provide affordable access to solar energy for thousands of low-income homes in Kentucky from its largest cities to its rural Appalachian counties.?

It’s one of two competing applications from Kentucky. The other was submitted by the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet; solar advocates say it could be a significant boost? for the use of residential solar across the state.?

Advocates argue more distributed solar, for example via solar panels on rooftops, could mean utility bill savings for Kentuckians and a curbing of greenhouse gas emissions connected to Kentucky’s fossil fuel-reliant electricity grid.?

For Doty, seeking funding for solar was foremost about easing the financial burden of his constituents in a region that faces continued economic challenges from the decline of the coal industry. Lawrence County is one of 20 Eastern Kentucky counties served by electric utility Kentucky Power, which has the highest monthly residential utility bills in Kentucky, according to a state analysis.?

(Getty Images)

Types of solar power

Distributed solar: When electricity from solar power is generated from the point of use, such as through rooftop solar panels on homes, rather than centralized power sources such as power plants.
Utility-scale solar: When electricity from solar power is generated through large solar installations, often more than 10 megawatts in generation capacity, serving the electricity needs of a utility or a private company.?
Community solar: A solar project, often a utility-scale installation, where people can own or subscribe to have a piece of the energy generation created by a solar installation. People who buy into a community solar project often receive an electricity bill credit from the power generated by their share of the solar installation.?

“We always try to put our citizens first,” Doty said. “If there’s a chance that we can save somebody $300 a month off their electric bill, that’s worth trying for.”?

Solar low-income households, ‘resilience hubs’ and job training

Both the Louisville-Eastern Kentucky and state government proposals are wide in scope, highlighting specific ideas for how to use tens of millions of dollars in federal funding. Both applications could mean integrating solar energy into thousands of homes, whether through direct ownership of rooftop solar installations or better access to existing or planned community solar projects.?

The Louisville-Eastern Kentucky application is asking for $150 million to be spent over five years, proposing:

A zero to low-cost forgivable loan program geared toward having low-income households own small solar installations or receive energy efficiency upgrades. For example, homeowners applying to the loan program who are below 80% of the area median income could have an entire loan forgiven for a six-kilowatt solar installation; half of the loan could be forgiven for property owners renting to Kentuckians below 80% of the area median income.?
Turn community centers in areas prone to natural disasters into “resilience hubs” equipped with solar power and electric battery storage for times of power outages.?
Build a workforce to deploy residential solar by creating training programs, building on already existing programs in Kentucky’s community and technical college system.?

Downey said Doty had advocated in a number of meetings as the Louisville-Eastern Kentucky application was being developed that it was a “non-negotiable” that Kentuckians should own the solar installations themselves?

The application anticipates, if awarded funding, at least a 20% energy bill reduction for approximately 7,300 households in Kentucky taking part in the proposal. Households that ultimately receive a six-kilowatt solar installation for free could see energy bill reductions up to 50%, according to the application.?

“If you put solar on your home, you immediately have benefits economically from the savings that you garner. It also increases the value of your home,” Downey said. “So this has the potential for a really significant impact if you look at it over 25 years as far as wealth generation goes.”?

The Louisville-Eastern Kentucky application estimates the results of the funding would add another approximate 44 megawatts of distributed solar power onto Kentucky’s grid. That would increase distributed solar in the state by about 70%, with 63.5 megawatts of distributed solar already in Kentucky.?

The application also estimates about 1,300 “green jobs” will be created through the proposed solar investment. Steve Ricketts, the board chair of the advocacy group Kentucky Solar Energy Society, said while construction work associated with larger, utility-scale solar projects is temporary, ending once the project is completed, those workers also can work on installing solar in their own communities.?

“They can be working on homes in their own town, they can be working on businesses and around town. So the two are incredibly complementary, and, frankly, have to go together to make it all work,” Ricketts said.?

Sumedha Rao, the executive director of Louisville Metro Government’s Office of Sustainability, said the estimates of solar power added, households helped and renewable energy jobs created through the funding proposal are somewhat conservative and that the impact of the grant could be even more.?

Given that Kentucky has historically relied on fossil fuels, she said, a transition to renewables can be a “scary proposition” for some Kentuckians. But she believes the Solar for All grant competition has a lot of upside with helping the state transition economically.?

?“We really feel like this is something that can have a massive impact for years to come,” Rao said.

State seeks funding for solar installations for rebuilt homes, ‘solarize’ campaigns and community solar

The Solar for All application submitted by state officials leads with its own idea of how residential solar can be deployed across the state, particularly in areas hit by devastating floods and tornadoes in recent years.?

Requesting $100 million from the Solar for All competition, one of the state’s proposals is to put residential solar and an electricity battery storage system on 850 “disaster recovery” homes that could result in 70% utility bill savings for each home — or up to $1,000 in annual bill savings per home — over the course of 20 years.?

For Kenya Stump, the executive director of the state’s Office of Energy Policy, eliminating most of the energy bills is just one way to help people recovering from natural disasters who may have lost every material thing they own.?

“If they can live in a home from here on out that is more resilient, that also has the burden of that kind of cost is no longer there — shouldn’t we kind of strive for that?” Stump said.?

The application also proposes to help increase solar access for low-income Kentuckians, support housing nonprofits in creating energy-efficient housing, develop residential solar in cities and boost the state’s solar deployment workforce in several ways:?Create subsidies and carve-outs to help Kentuckians participating in the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, take part in existing and planned “community solar” projects to cut residential utility bills by about 20%.
Add solar power and electricity battery storage onto about 1,500 homes that already have energy efficiency upgrades, such as households that have participated in Weatherization Assistance Program.?
Develop “Solarize” campaigns to promote residential solar in Kentucky cities including Paducah, Owensboro, Henderson, Bowling Green, Lexington and Ashland.?
Create 1,500 “work-ready” scholarships and provide funding to community and technical colleges funding to create solar deployment training programs.?

Stump said in many instances low-income Kentuckians live in homes that are old and energy inefficient, leading to higher energy usage and subsequently higher utility bills. She said by enrolling LIHEAP recipients in community solar programs — such as ones offered by East Kentucky Power Cooperative and Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU) — they can get a direct credit on their bill and get more value from the utilized renewable energy.

“The energy regardless of the source will just still leak out” of poorly insulated, inefficient homes, Stump said. “We also hope that this will incentivize the growth of more municipal and utility community solar offerings that would be eligible to have LIHEAP carve-outs as well.”?

Some stakeholders involved in the Louisville-Eastern Kentucky application, while supportive of community solar projects in general, were skeptical of using Solar for All funds on such projects out of concerns that some community solar models, specifically LG&E and KU’s “Solar Share” program, subsidize an asset of an investor-owned utility with taxpayer funds.?

Stump said while stakeholders may wish some existing community solar projects were designed differently, it’s what is currently offered by Kentucky utilities and “can provide some benefit” to low-income Kentuckians that haven’t been able to take advantage.?

“I have to say that I think both grants are very strong and deserving, and so we just have to wait and see what the federal government decides.”

– Lane Boldman, Kentucky Conservation Coalition

The two Kentucky applications submitted to Solar for All do align on ways to boost the workforce needed to install residential solar on homes, though Stump added that developing a renewable energy workforce needs to be paced with the deployment of solar.?

“That’s our greatest challenge is to make sure we get the timing right so that it aligns with the deployment of projects. We don’t want to give someone hope, and then there not be any work,” Stump said.?

For Stump, the Solar for All competition is just one federal program and incentive among many that will ultimately “shift and transform our energy landscape.”?

No guarantee both applications will be awarded

Lane Boldman

Lane Boldman, the executive director of the environmental advocacy group Kentucky Conservation Coalition, believes both applications are “really solid” but points out the federal government is only giving out 60 grants. Competition for the grants is stiff: More than 30 states have submitted notices that they’re applying along with a number of local governments and nonprofits across the country.?

Lawrence County and Louisville decided to collaborate, in part, to increase the chances that their Solar for All application would get awarded. The stakeholders with Lawrence County and Louisville also tried unsuccessfully to unify their application with the state’s proposal.?

Boldman said a big question became if a single grant application could ask for enough funding to cover all of the “great ideas” being proposed for the competition.?

“The decision really was that it was better to keep them as two separate applications,” Boldman said. “I have to say that I think both grants are very strong and deserving, and so we just have to wait and see what the federal government decides.”?

Correction: Kentucky Power serves 20 Eastern Kentucky counties in its service territory, not 16 counties.?

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Reliability v. sustainability: Inside the debate over the EPA’s proposed carbon rules

Robert Zullo — Mon, 20 Nov 2023 10:40:37 +0000

A coal-fired power plant in Romeoville, Illinois, as a polar vortex increased demand from power systems across the Midwest, Feb, 1, 2019. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Electric reliability has been a hot topic lately — from congressional hearings to regulatory agencies and at the regional transmission organizations that run the electric grid in much of the country.

The American electric grid is undergoing a major change, prodded by state and federal decarbonization policies, market forces pushing cheaper and cleaner forms of electricity and aging power infrastructure.

That’s run up against electric transmission constraints, big delays in getting new wires built and massive backlogs in getting new, mostly renewable projects connected to the grid. Grid operators, in particular, are worried about the pace of the change, arguing fossil plant retirements are accelerating too quickly to ensure there are enough new resources to replace them.

Into that tumult the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency earlier this year dropped a proposal to again attempt to regulate carbon from power plants, which are responsible for about a quarter of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Since they were rolled out in May, the proposed rules have been a lightning rod for congressional Republicans and drawn fire from competitive electric generators as well as concern from federal and state energy regulators and grid operators that the regulations go too far, too fast.

But the EPA and clean energy proponents say the time frames are workable and crucial to cutting carbon emissions while allowing time for compliance and the flexibility needed to keep the lights on during the transition.

What is the EPA proposing??

EPA’s draft rule creates different emissions targets for gas and coal plants depending on their planned retirement date and capacity factors, a measure of how much power a plant produces over time relative to how much it could have produced at full operation.

“We have committed ourselves to designing and implementing regulations to serve the public’s dual needs of healthful air quality and reliable and affordable electricity,” said Joseph Goffman, a principal deputy administrator at EPA, at a Nov. 9 FERC technical conference on electric reliability. “These emissions are helping fuel an escalating climate crisis that is already having devastating impacts on Americans across the country.”

The general approach, according to Carrie Jenks, executive director of Harvard Law School’s environmental and energy law program, is to require coal and gas units that don’t plan to retire in the near term and are operating at higher capacity factors to undertake more rigorous carbon reductions.

“If you’re operating a lot, and a lot throughout the year and really frequently, then you have to do more to reduce your emissions from those plants. But if you’re operating either as a peaker or intermediate, meaning not all the time, then there’s different options that are available for those plants,” Jenks said at a media briefing organized by Energy Innovation, a non-partisan energy and climate policy think tank.

For example, for a coal plant that intends to operate beyond 2040, EPA is proposing that the facility will need to capture 90% of its carbon emissions by 2030.

For a plant that will retire by 2040, its emissions rate is based on co-firing with natural gas at a rate of 40%. A coal unit that plans to retire by 2035 could agree to operate at 20% capacity and not be bound by any new carbon restrictions, Jenks said. If it’s retiring before 2032, it can operate as is.

“2030 is really the decision point for units for how they plan to operate going forward,” Jenks said, noting the exact thresholds and parameters could change in response to comments EPA receives. There are similar requirements for gas plants (though they differ slightly for new and existing plants) to either blend with hydrogen to reduce emissions or capture emissions depending on whether they are baseload (above 50% capacity factor) or so-called “peaker plants,” which fire on during periods of high demand.

However, EPA’s reliance on carbon capture and storage as well as hydrogen blending have drawn lots of criticism, mainly because both sets of technologies are relatively in their infancy and have yet to be deployed at any kind of scale.

Anthony Campbell, president and CEO at East Kentucky Power Cooperative, speaking on behalf of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, said EPA’s rule “is unlawful and unworkable” at the FERC technical conference. Campbell said that under the proposed rule, plans are due to EPA by 2026, making it impossible for plant operators to make compliance decisions given the uncertainty surrounding carbon capture and hydrogen production.

“They will be forced into either retirement of essential, dispatchable coal units or curtailment of those units to capacity factors below 20% by 2032 and complete retirement by 2035,” Campbell said. “The disorderly retirement and elimination of baseload generation will leave the electricity grid with a significant deficit of dispatchable generation that cannot be replaced by intermittent resources, especially during a time of economic growth.”

‘The arithmetic doesn’t work’

Electric reliability debates can get complex. But FERC Commissioner Mark Christie, a former Virginia utility regulator, said at the Nov. 9 technical conference on reliability that the fundamental problem facing the U.S. electric grid is as simple as two lines on a chart. One is the demand for power.

“That line’s going up,” Christie said. “It may go up astronomically if ‘electrify everything’ takes place — you electrify the transportation sector, you electrify the home heating sector.”

The other line is supply of power.

“And that line ain’t going up, or it’s certainly not going up nearly as rapidly,” he said. “The arithmetic doesn’t work. And that’s the fundamental issue.”

According to the Clean Energy States Alliance, a coalition of state energy agencies, 23 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, have 100% clean energy goals. Along with federal policy like the landmark Inflation Reduction Act, and market conditions, utilities, many of which have their own decarbonization goals, are being prodded into retiring older coal and gas plants.

(At a FERC meeting Thursday, Christie warned that two of the nation’s largest regional transmission operators, MISO and PJM, are “basically hemorrhaging dispatchable resources.”)

Jim Robb, president and CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation — which, for the first time, has started listing “energy policy” as a reliability risk — told the commissioners at the reliability conference that the expansion of so-called inverter-based resources like wind, solar and batteries introduce new variability into grid management, especially as they become bigger parts of the power mix.

“This is a country that hasn’t proven its ability to develop infrastructure to support that,” Robb said. “We’re going to need to figure out how to get transmission built, we’re going to have to figure out how to speed the development of new resources onto the grid and importantly we need to figure out how to retain the stuff that we have to meet any of these policy objectives.”

Goffman, the EPA official, said the agency is committed to continuing engagement with regulators and grid operators “over the coming weeks and months so that we can ensure we arrive at a final rule for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that is effective, workable, and fully compatible with maintaining reliable and affordable electricity.”

‘The grid can absolutely be reliable’?

Ric O’Connell, executive director of GridLab, which he called a public interest organization that provides technical expertise on the electric grid to policy makers, told the FERC conference that the EPA rules and ensuring reliability are compatible.

“The grid can absolutely be reliable under the proposed EPA rules but we’ll need to plan and take action,” he said, adding that the rules codify “what’s already happening due to economic and policy forces.” He noted that 2 terawatts (2 million megawatts) of power resources, mostly wind, solar and battery resources, are stuck in interconnection queues across the country.

In a media briefing hosted by Energy Innovation, O’Connell said there’s “an enormous wealth of academic and industry literature” that shows the path to cutting carbon from the power sector drastically over the next decade.

“We do that through a very simple playbook. It’s deploy wind, solar and batteries over the next decade,” he said. Couple that with keeping carbon-free sources like hydropower and nuclear plants online and use existing gas fleets at low levels to provide the crucial balancing services large amounts of renewables will require, O’Connell added.

He noted that the United Kingdom has gone from 71% coal power in 1990 to less than 1% this year and that California and New England’s electric grids are already largely coal free. Even Texas, he noted, “is well on its way to looking like this as well.” He noted that MISO’s projections envision a similar grid, with natural gas plants running at very low capacity factors by 2040.

“Can we run our grid without coal? The simple answer is yes,” he said.

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Kentucky’s largest utility will retire some coal-fired power, boost renewable energy

Liam Niemeyer — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 23:41:28 +0000

E.W. Brown solar array at Kentucky Utilities Mercer County plant. (Photo courtesy of LG&E/KU)

Kentucky’s utility regulator has given a green light to plans by the state’s largest utility to retire some of its coal-fired generation, build? a natural gas-fired plant in Jefferson County and add renewable energy to its power generation portfolio.?

Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU) had asked the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) at the beginning of the year for permission to retire some of its coal-fired power plant units. The utility argued? the aging units would be uneconomical to maintain alongside the costs of installing technology to meet proposed federal emissions regulations.?

To replace the power capacity from the proposed coal-fired power retirements, LG&E and KU was also seeking approval to invest billions of dollars in building two natural-gas fired power plants, while also coupling those plants with a newly built solar installation in Mercer County and entering into agreements to purchase solar power from other installations.?

In its 186-page Monday order, LG&E and KU ultimately received only some of what it wanted.?

The PSC allowed for two coal-fired power generation units at the utility’s Mill Creek Generating Station in Jefferson County to be retired but denied retirement requests for two other coal-fired units at other power plants.?

The commission stated in its order that because LG&E and KU could delay upgrades to meet future environmental regulations at some coal-fired units slated for retirement — specifically units at its E.W. Brown Generating Station in Mercer County and its Ghent Generating Station Carroll County — it was unnecessary to build one of the utility’s two? proposed new natural gas plants as a replacement for those retirements.?

The PSC subsequently denied proposed retirements of coal-fired units at the E.W. Brown and Ghent plants and denied permission to build one of two proposed natural gas plants, which would have been in Mercer County.?

LG&E and KU president John Crockett in a statement said the utility was “pleased” that the commission approved many parts of their proposed energy generation and energy efficiency plans. But he said he was concerned that the “deferral” of building one of two proposed natural gas plants could increase costs to customers.?

LG&E and KU plans to build the natural gas-fired plant that the PSC did approve, which has an approximate capacity of 640 megawatts, at its Mill Creek Generating Station in Jefferson County.?

“We put forth the least-cost plan to continue serving our customers in a safe and reliable manner,” Crockett said in his statement.?

The PSC also approved LG&E and KU’s request to build a 120-megawatt solar installation in Mercer County and enter into agreements to purchase power from other solar installations in excess of 600 megawatts.?

Andy McDonald, vice-chair of the solar energy advocacy group Kentucky Solar Energy Society, said the addition of solar into LG&E and KU’s portfolio represents “a very significant investment” into renewable energy but doesn’t preclude the need for more future renewable energy investments. LG&E and KU will still get the large majority of its power generation from burning fossil fuels even with the addition of the new renewable energy.?

McDonald pointed to a part of the PSC’s order that approved one of LG&E and KU’s smaller requests for a battery storage facility, something that renewable energy advocates say can be paired with solar installations to provide an around-the-clock, readily available power source.?

“I think the order reflects a recognition that the power supply mix is changing significantly,” McDonald said. “I think the order indicated an openness to those possibilities, but that doesn’t determine that any of that will happen.”?

McDonald also said he was disappointed the PSC approved one of two proposed natural gas plants, didn’t approve all coal-fired unit retirement requests and didn’t “embrace” renewable energy advocates’ calls for more investment into distributed energy resources, such as putting solar panels on rooftops of homes and businesses.?

The Kentucky Solar Energy Society was among several groups representing a range of interests — including Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and the Louisville-based Metropolitan Housing Coalition — that intervened in the PSC case. These groups argued against the construction of natural gas plants and advocated for an even greater expansion of renewable energy, citing the need for utilities like LG&E and KU to rapidly cut down on greenhouse gas emissions created by burning fossil fuels that contribute to climate change.?

Republican Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, also the Republican candidate for governor, slammed the PSC’s decision to allow some retirements of coal-fired units as “half measures” that “don’t cut it” for Kentuckians impacted by coal-fired power unit closures.?

“The fight to protect Kentucky coal continues. To those who have been victimized by the anti-coal agenda, I am more determined than ever to fight for you,” Cameron said.?

Cameron, along with the Kentucky Coal Association, opposed the coal-fired unit retirements proposed by LG&E and KU saying such closures would weaken Kentucky’s energy-cost competitiveness with other states. Generally, throughout the United States natural gas and renewable energy in recent years has outcompeted coal on cost-effectiveness as an energy source.?

Crockett, the LG&E and KU president, in a Lexington Herald-Leader column last week, pushed back on Republican-led arguments against retirement of coal-fired power plants saying “some of our oldest coal plants need to be retired.”

How to weigh in on Kentucky Power’s proposed 18% rate increase

Liam Niemeyer — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 10:40:59 +0000

Kentucky Power's gas-fired Big Sandy power plant in Lawrence County. (Creative Commons photo)

The Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) is hosting multiple public meetings the next few weeks to receive input on electric utility Kentucky Power’s request to raise utility bills for the utility’s average residential customer by about 18%.?

Kentucky Power, an investor-owned utility serving about 163,000 customers in 20 Eastern Kentucky counties, already has the highest average monthly utility bills in the state at $187.56 according to a state report published this summer.?

But Kentucky Power president and chief operating officer Cynthia Wiseman in written testimony says the utility needs higher? rates to deal with “historic” economic decline and the loss of major electricity customers in its service area. Between 2008 and 2022, according to the utility’s application, Kentucky Power’s customer count fell by 11,482.?

?In the utility’s application to raise rates she said the closure of large utility customers, such as AK Steel and Our Lady of Bellefonte in Ashland, created job losses that may have led to more customers leaving its service area.?

“These declines unfortunately follow a now long-term trend in the area and include a dramatic loss of coal mining jobs that began in the early 2000s,” Wiseman said in her written testimony. “These significant declines result in equally significant lost revenues for the Company. It is critical to Kentucky Power’s financial integrity to act now to address those changes.”

The utility also serves some of the most economically-challenged counties in Kentucky; 11 of the utility’s 20 counties in Eastern Kentucky had the highest unemployment rates in the state as of earlier this year.?

What is Kentucky Power proposing exactly??

According to the utility’s application, its request to raise rates would bring in an estimated $93.9 million more each year, representing a 13.54% increase in revenue for the utility.?

Wiseman said in the utility’s application that it recognizes the “circumstances” its customers face and plans to offset or reduce the financial burden of the rate increase in a few ways.?

Using a new state law passed this year, Kentucky Power is requesting the PSC to allow it to “securitize” about $446.7 million of various costs, including storm damage costs and its decommissioning rider. In general terms, securitization allows utilities to bundle costs into a bond to sell, which can potentially mean lower costs to ratepayers by spreading costs over a longer timeframe. That’s compared to traditionally recouping such costs through electricity rate increases.

Kentucky Power wants to stop asking customers to pay a decommissioning rider — added onto utility bills to cover costs linked to the closure of its coal-firedBig Sandy Generation Station — along with another rider added to bills to cover previous costs at a coal-fired power plant in Indiana. The suspension of the two riders would last until the utility can “securitize” those costs.?
The utility wants to reduce the amount of storm damage costs recouped by customers, not including costs the utility sustained during a February 2021 ice storm and floods during the summer of 2022.?
Kentucky Power also is asking the PSC for a lower “return on equity,” or the rate of profits the utility is allowed to make, than it is “warranted” to ask for it as another way to limit its proposed rate increase.

Among other requests not specifically related to the rate increase, Kentucky Power is asking the PSC to create a new rider on utility bills called the “Distribution Reliability Rider” that would give the utility extra funds to deal with common causes of power outages, specifically equipment failures and trees not in the utility’s right of way.

The utility also wants to build a minimum capacity 10 megawatt solar installation described as a “solar garden.” The? power from the project would in part provide a “yearly bill credit” every January to about 11,500 of its customers taking part in federal energy assistance programs.?

How to make a comment

The PSC is holding four meetings to receive commentary from the public on Kentucky Power’s rate increase proposal. Those meeting locations and times are:

Wednesday, Nov. 8, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Boyd County Courthouse, 2800 Louisa Road, Catlettsburg.
Thursday, Nov. 9, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Perry County Courthouse, 481 Main Street, Hazard.
Thursday, Nov. 16, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Public Service Commission. 211 Sower Boulevard, Frankfort. This meeting includes a virtual option; directions to participate will be on the PSC’s website before the meeting.?
Monday, Nov. 20, from 5? p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Pike County Courthouse, 146 Main Street, Pikeville.

According to a release, the PSC plans to hold a public hearing on Kentucky Power’s proposal on Tuesday, Nov. 28, at 9 a.m. at its headquarters in Frankfort, where time will be available before the hearing for more public comments. The hearing will be livestreamed on the PSC’s YouTube channel.?

Kentuckians can submit a comment on the proposal at any time through the PSC’s website, emailed to [email protected] or mailed to P.O. Box 615, Frankfort, KY, 40602-0615. All comments about the proposal should include the commenter’s name, address and the case number: 2023-00159.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect Kentucky Power is asking for a higher overall “return on equity” rate than it currently has.?

Two words rarely heard on Kentucky’s campaign trail: Climate change

Liam Niemeyer — Sat, 04 Nov 2023 16:00:17 +0000

A statue of an underground miner honoring the region's coal mining history stands in the center of Providence in Webster County. The former Dotiki coal miner who served as a model for the statue, Bobby Shoulders, died in October. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

PROVIDENCE — Walking through a bathhouse at what until a few years ago was Webster County’s last operating coal mine is not just a moment for Tony Felker to revisit memories. It is also a window into a way of life that he recognizes is disappearing.

Felker is quick to rattle through the nearly four decades of knowledge gained working in coal mines, most of that time as an underground mechanic for Webster County’s Dotiki mine. He walks past a counter where he would pick up a “cap light” before going underground. Markings on the lobby floor are from benches where he sat before work that have been removed.??

Tony Felker, an underground mechanic at the the Dotiki mine before retiring, stands by the mine’s idled coal preparation plant. Felker is a member of the Webster County Fiscal Court. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

“Well, you get out here and you get dressed, and you see everybody —” he said, his voice trailing off as he looked around the bathhouse. “They’ve changed all of this around.”?

The Dotiki mine, operated by Alliance Resource Partners, produced about 2.5 million tons of coal in a year and employed roughly 200 people as recently as five years ago. But on a recent October afternoon, all was quiet, except for a few workers welding equipment to be sent elsewhere. Next to the showers was a large electric-powered “roof-bolter,” also used elsewhere in the company, to train miners.

ARP shuttered the Dotiki mine in 2019 because of “weak market conditions” to focus on its “lower-cost” mining operations elsewhere.?

Coal in Kentucky

(Getty Images)

Production (tons)

1990 – 179,373,269?

2022 – 28,334,145

Down 84%

Employment

1990 – 30,498

2023 – 4,978

Down 83%

Source: Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet

Around the time Felker started working at the Dotiki mine in the early 1990s, Webster County employed more than 1,100 workers in coal mining; now there are no more coal miners left in the county, according to state data.?

The disappearance of coal mining in Webster County has been? repeated across Kentucky as the cost of electricity generated through natural gas and renewable energy has generally outcompeted coal-fired power in the United States in recent years. It doesn’t matter whether the president was Donald Trump or Joe Biden, Democrat or Republican. Felker, who retired from the Dotiki mine in 2014, has seen coal decline through multiple administrations.?

“We were promised by a president that coal would be back,” Felker said. “It hasn’t. It’s losing ground in Kentucky. In other places, too.”?

But while Felker, an elected county magistrate and Democrat, understands coal is in decline, he doesn’t want to lose the coal mining that remains in the state.?

Kentuckians’ desire to keep the coal industry afloat is also reflected in this year’s campaigns for governor, even as environmentalists point to deadly disasters driven by climate change in Kentucky in recent years.

Burning coal is the single largest source of global temperature increase due to emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is causing increased flooding, droughts and a loss of biodiversity across the world.

Environmental advocates say climate change has not spared Kentucky, pointing to the Western Kentucky tornado outbreak in 2021 and devastating floods in Eastern Kentucky in 2022 as examples of increasing extreme weather events driven by climate change.?

A conveyor line would bring coal from underground at the former Dotiki mine. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer).

But on the campaign trail, climate change is rarely mentioned, if at all, by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and Republican challenger Attorney General Daniel Cameron.

Environmental advocates see that omission as not only a political calculation for pro-coal votes in a contentious election but also as a missed opportunity to start a conversation on the realities of climate change in a state that still gets more than two-thirds of its electricity by burning coal.

Cameron and Beshear say they’re advocates for a diverse energy mix including fossil fuels, something that Felker also supports. Felker welcomes new solar installations providing up to 400 megawatts of power capacity that are setting up in his county, part of a rapidly changing energy market in Kentucky.?

Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU) is proposing before the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC)? to retire some of its coal-fired power in favor of natural gas and some solar. Across the country, utilities are moving away from coal for economic and climate reasons. Felker was one of several local elected officials from Western Kentucky’s coalfield who urged the PSC to reject LG&E and KU’s plan.?

Felker questions the science behind climate change, but says he can’t say it’s untrue because it’s not his area of expertise. Regardless of who wins on Nov. 7, he doesn’t think a governor will be able to stop the decline of coal mining.

“Being in politics, you can’t make a whole lot of promises,” Felker said. “All you’re going to do is tell people what they want to hear.”?

A changing climate — and energy market?

On the other end of the state, ?standing at a podium overlooking reclaimed strip mine land along the Perry-Knott county line in Eastern Kentucky, state Energy and Environment Secretary Rebecca Goodman quoted from a study co-authored by a University of Kentucky professor in 1990.?

“Those concerned with the future of Appalachia are coming to realize that coal will not drive the economy of the region much beyond the year 2010,” Goodman said. “They also are starting to accept that if the emphasis is to shift away from coal, something will have to be developed to replace its economic impact.”?

An 800 megawatt solar installation is planned for the reclaimed Starfire mine site. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

The new development Goodman and other state officials were celebrating in July was a planned $1 billion investment by Florida-based solar energy developer BrightNight to build a sprawling solar installation, with a capacity of 800 megawatts on reclaimed mine land.?

Kentucky recently ranked last of all states in wind and solar energy generation. But the massive solar investment in Eastern Kentucky serves as just one example of the surge of solar developers moving into the state to establish utility-scale solar installations and sell the power to utilities and companies seeking emissions-free energy sources.?

The Kentucky Public Service Commission’s Siting Board, which is in charge of approving new power generation facilities, has seen dozens of requests in the past three years to build new solar farms, compared to past years when the PSC saw no requests to build any new power plants, solar or otherwise. The Tennessee Valley Authority, which provides electricity to parts of Western Kentucky, is planning on retiring its coal-fired power plant fleet by 2035 in favor of primarily natural gas power and some solar power.

Adam Edelen (Edelen Renewables photo)

Adam Edelen, a Democrat and former Kentucky auditor of public accounts, is? a renewable energy developer and? played a consulting role in making the BrightNight project happen. He also spearheaded the construction of a solar installation in Martin County, which had a jobs fair last month where former coal miners came interested in the hundreds of construction jobs.?

For Edelen, the private sector has moved on to renewable energy regardless of what happens in state government. He said the devastating natural disasters in recent years only highlight the increasing impacts of climate change on the state.?

“When I see politicians saying that climate change is a hoax, that the green energy revolution isn’t coming — the fact is both are already here,” Edelen said. “There is no debate. There is no argument. This is settled. And we are either going to adopt the opportunities of the green energy economy, or you get run over by it. That really is the policy decision.”?

Citing research from climate scientists around the world including from NASA, the secretary-general of the United Nations has called on rich countries like the U.S. to end use of coal by 2030 and have carbon-free electricity generation by 2035, which means no new natural gas plants either, to prevent the worst effects of increasing climate change. A new study has found the world will likely break the internationally agreed upon threshold for global warming by early 2029 if the current rate of fossil fuel use is sustained.?

Yet climate change, in large part, has gone unmentioned by the candidates for governor this year.?

What the candidates say — and don’t say

Cameron shakes hands with running mate Robby Mills during the Graves County Republican Party Breakfast on Saturday, Aug. 5, 2023. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Austin Anthony)

In an August speech to executives and employees of local electricity distribution cooperatives gathered in Louisville, Cameron framed energy questions as part of the “culture wars” debate.

“Let me be clear. Radical climate activism is an assault on more than just our businesses and our energy bills. It happens to be a fundamental threat to our way of life,” Cameron said. “Even if they close every coal plant, put every miner out of work, ban every combustion engine — that’s not their goal. They will not stop. They’ll keep inserting radical gender ideologies into our kids’ classrooms. They’ll keep trying to let boys play girls’ sports.”?

But when asked twice by the Lantern after the speech if he believed in the science behind climate change, Cameron didn’t directly answer and instead pointed to the fact that China emits more greenhouse gasses annually than the United States. Because of the United States’ earlier industrialization, the U.S. has contributed more emissions overall since the 1800s.?

“I?? think that we have a responsibility here in Kentucky and across our country to make sure that we have an across the board energy strategy,” Cameron said. “I’m not going to sacrifice coal and natural gas at the altar of the Democratic Party, or Joe Biden or Andy Beshear.”?

Gov. Andy Beshear speaks to the media on July 31 in Whitesburg after deadly flooding spread over much of the region. (Photo by Michael Swensen/Getty Images)

On the other hand, Beshear has acknowledged the existence of climate change — though infrequently — during his campaign and his time in office. He specifically mentioned the issue during an April press conference announcing federal funding to rebuild housing after the 2021 tornado outbreak in Western Kentucky.?

“I believe in climate change. It’s out there, and it’s real. And what it means is that we need to be better prepared in multiple different areas of our lives in ways that we didn’t have to before,” Beshear said at that time.?

He also touts his endorsements in the coal industry including by the United Mine Workers of America, even though Kentucky’s last unionized coal mine closed in 2015.

For Chasity Chappell, an EMS worker who survived the EF-4 tornado that came through her home of Dawson Springs in Dec. 2021, the reasoning behind both of the candidates’ support for coal is simple.?

“They need the votes,” said Chappell, who supports retaining coal-fired power and Beshear in his reelection because of his handling of natural disasters including tornadoes.?

In this aerial view of Dawson Springs on Dec. 13, 2021, homes are heavily damaged from a tornado three days prior. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Chappell believes it’s possible climate change played a role in the devastating tornado that came through her small Hopkins County community in the Western Kentucky coalfield, but she isn’t convinced that greenhouse gas emissions are entirely causing it. “You can’t control where a tornado is going to go,” Chappell said. “You can’t control what Mother Nature is going to do.”?

Edelen, the former statewide Democratic official and renewable energy developer, applauds how Beshear has handled the “climate emergencies” that have impacted the state in recent years. But he considers Beshear’s decision to largely not mention climate change during his first term in office as missing “a historic opportunity to begin the conversation about climate change.”?

“We’re going to see more flooding, we’re going to see rougher weather, we’re going to be dealing with the impacts of a changing climate. And to not ready the public, to not ready our communities, I think, is something that could be judged harshly by history,” Edelen said.?

Tom Morris, the political committee chair of the environmental advocacy group Sierra Club’s Kentucky Chapter, said he was “mystified” when the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet earlier this year didn’t apply for federal funds to create a plan to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.?

Such funds would have opened up potentially billions of dollars worth of funding to combat climate change, which coal-reliant states such as Wyoming and West Virginia are taking advantage of. Beshear at the time said such planning was better left to Kentucky’s largest cities.

Morris speculates that Beshear understands the issue of climate change but that either Beshear or his advisors believe the issue to be too “politically risky” to bring up. The environmental advocacy group decided to oppose Cameron’s candidacy instead of endorsing Beshear.?

“I just feel like that you don’t always get the candidates you want,” Morris said.?

Whitney Westerfield (LRC Public Information photo)

State Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Fruit Hill, supports Cameron and believes he and his running mate state Sen. Robby Mills will do the best job of looking out for coalfield communities. Mills, R-Henderson, was the primary sponsor of legislation passed this year that makes it harder for utilities to retire fossil-fuel fired power plants.

“I feel confident that if other market forces at the national or international level forced our hand that I think Robby would best look out for the interests of coal communities to make sure they were impacted adversely as little as possible,” Westerfield said.?

The Biden administration is moving forward with proposed regulations seeking to combat greenhouse gas emissions, including a proposed rule from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that would require fossil-fuel fired power plants to capture or cut nearly all carbon dioxide emissions by 2028 or be forced to retire.?

When asked about calls from the United Nations to rapidly cut greenhouse gas emissions, Westerfield said “Kentucky needs to look out for Kentucky first.”?

“I’m not paying attention to what the United Nations has said we ought to do environmentally. I’m just thinking about my own goals. I think it would be nice if one day, maybe in my lifetime, hopefully in my children’s lifetime — we can be energy independent, and we can exist on renewable energy, from whatever source,” he said.

“You can’t just turn the ship around on a dime,” Westerfield said, speaking to his concern about a transitioning energy economy. “How do you get from here to there without just flipping the switch? How do the people who are mining coal today — how can we guarantee that they’re going to have an opportunity for a job tomorrow?”

Not living in the past?

Constant on the mind of Felker, the Webster County magistrate and former coal miner, is how to help his community make it to a future beyond reliance on coal.?

A close-up of the coal miner statue that overlooks the center of Providence. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer).

Sitting in his living room in Providence next to a picture of his two grandchildren, he picks up an issue of the Sebree Banner and points out an article: Webster County had received about $326,000 in federal funding for workforce training.?

Felker is more than willing to go after the massive federal funding now available to help coalfield communities make an economic transition. The money comes through bills pushed by the Biden administration, such as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which is providing the money for the local workforce training.

“If we don’t get it, somebody else is,” he said. “We don’t always want to have our hand out. We want to be able to fund ourselves a lot, and I agree with that philosophy. But there’s sometimes where we’re going to have to.”?

Felker welcomes solar power into his county but worries the job creation from it will be just a temporary boost during construction. Renewable energy advocates, including Edelen, acknowledge the long-term job creation of renewable energy won’t completely replace the jobs created by coal in the 20th century, though they argue it can play a role in diversifying the state’s future economy.?

With the loss of coal production in Webster County, Felker and other officials had to make adjustments to pay for government services formerly funded by coal severance taxes from the state. He also welcomed efforts to reuse old coal mining assets, turning another former Dotiki mine bathhouse into a training center for various trades.?

He gets up from his recliner to find the brass replica of a safety lamp that his coal company gave him when he retired. Back in the day when coal miners went underground, they would pack a safety lamp as a way to measure oxygen levels. When the flame light went out, that meant the oxygen levels were low and a miner had to get to safety.?

But he doesn’t tinker much with the replica, representing decades of work in coal mines, since he retired.

“It’s not something you pick up and pedal with it everyday. One reason: you don’t need to live in the past. You need to go for the future, and who knows what the future is?” Felker said. “I may not find that out in my lifetime, but I know what I did. And I know what’s working right now. And that’s all I got to go on.”?

Doors lead out to where coal miners would go underground at the Dotiki mine. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer).

Energy tech testbed to develop projects on 65K acres in Virginia’s Wise County

Sarah Vogelsong — Thu, 02 Nov 2023 12:08:36 +0000

Wise County, Virginia. (Sarah Vogelsong/Virginia Mercury)

A public-private initiative that aims to test out emerging energy technologies on Southwest Virginia lands formerly mined for coal has signed an agreement to develop its projects on 65,000 acres primarily located in Wise County that are owned by a major natural gas and pipeline company.

The deal, announced by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office Wednesday, will give the Energy DELTA Lab access to a large tract of formerly mined lands owned by Texas-based company Energy Transfer and managed by its subsidiary, Penn Virginia Operating Company.

Short for Discovery, Education, Learning & Technology Accelerator, the DELTA Lab has for several years been a priority for regional and state leaders eager to both keep a flourishing energy industry in Virginia’s coalfields and diversify an economy that for decades was dependent on coal.

Crafted as a partnership between regional business development group InvestSWVA, the Virginia Department of Energy, the Southwest Virginia Energy Research and Development Authority and energy and utility companies, the DELTA Lab proposes to use the abundant lands and existing infrastructure of Southwest Virginia as test sites for new wind, solar, nuclear, battery and pumped storage, hydrogen and other emerging energy technologies.

The Youngkin administration said Wednesday that “more than a dozen projects” under consideration by the initiative represent over $8.25 billion in potential private investment, 1,650 new “high-paying” jobs and nearly a gigawatt of new power generation.

“Repurposing former mined lands in Southwest Virginia for development will allow us to create sites where energy demand and generation can co-locate, leading to more opportunities to grow Virginia’s economy,” said Virginia Secretary of Commerce and Trade Caren Merrick in a statement.

Wise County Administrator Mike Hatfield said in the same release that because large portions of Wise have been difficult to develop, “given limited access due to private and federal ownership,” the new agreement “will create game changing opportunities that simply did not exist before.”

Energy Transfer, which owns both the surface and mineral rights of the land that will be used by DELTA Lab, manages roughly 675,000 acres of land in West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Virginia through Penn Virginia Operating Co.

Tarah Kesterson, a spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Energy, said there is only one coal mining permit associated with the 65,000 acres, for A&G Coal Corporation’s Meg-Lynn Mill Branch Mine. That operation is no longer actively mining, and the department is waiting for the bond to be released following cleanup, she said.

This story is republished from the Virginia Mercury, a sister publication to the Kentucky Lantern and part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

‘Stackable’ tax credits for smaller renewable energy projects could benefit Eastern Kentucky

Liam Niemeyer — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 09:45:56 +0000

A new federal tax credit program to help nonprofits and local governments afford to build small-scale renewable energy projects could benefit communities in Eastern Kentucky and Appalachia in particular, according to an advocate familiar with the program.?

Applications for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Low-Income Communities Bonus Credit Program opened earlier this month. The program provides local governments and nonprofits with a tax credit of at least 10% to 20% of a renewable energy project’s cost, including solar installations, up to five megawatts.??

Renewable energy projects sited through the program in low-income communities get an initial 10% tax credit from the program, with swaths of Appalachia and Eastern Kentucky qualifying for that extra 10%.

Quenton King, a federal liaison for the environmental advocacy nonprofit Appalachian Voices, said the initial amount of the tax credit may not be a lot. But the tax credit can also be stacked like a “layered cake” with other available federal tax credits, some particularly geared for Appalachian communities including Eastern Kentucky.

For example, he said, the Investment Tax Credit can add another potential 30% credit for a renewable energy project. The Energy Community Tax Credit Bonus — targeted to communities that have a legacy of a fossil fuel-driven economy such as coal mining — can add another 10% tax credit. The Production Tax Credit, for projects that use domestic materials, can add yet another 10% tax credit.?

“Much of Appalachia is an energy community,” King said. “So all said, this could cover between 60-and-70%, which makes it much more attractive for nonprofits and for renewable energy developers who want to put these in places.”?

King said the result of these stackable tax credits could mean lower electricity bills through renewable energy projects for governments, churches and low-income residential building owners. He also said the installation of solar projects through the tax credit programs could drive economic growth through renewable energy.?

“Churches aren’t bringing in money — generally a lot of money. So this could help a congregation electrify, reduce their costs, and also be sort of an educational tool,” King said.?

Applications submitted for the Low-Income Communities Bonus Credit Program through November 18 will be treated the same as other submitted applications, according to federal guidance.?

King said financial and technical guidance in helping site renewable energy projects through the tax credit programs is also available through the Appalachian Solar Finance Fund, which is fiscally sponsored by Appalachian Voices.

Federal funding is helping set up electric vehicle chargers across Kentucky

Liam Niemeyer — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 21:26:59 +0000

Growth in clean vehicle jobs made up approximately 45% of Kentucky’s overall clean energy job growth of 2,389 jobs added last year, the report says.?(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

More electric vehicle (EV) chargers are being planned along major transportation corridors in Kentucky with the help of federal grant funding.?

A release from Gov. Andy Beshear’s Office Monday states eight more EV chargers are being built near cities across the state from Calvert City to London through funding from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program.?

Through the program so far, according to the release, 24 EV chargers are to be built by seven developers and with $15.4 million in grant funding.?

Thirty-seven EV chargers in total are eventually planned to be constructed through NEVI along interstates and parkways in the state, with each charger being placed no more than 50 miles from one another. The chargers are required to be operated by the manufacturers — which include Oklahoma-based Francis Energy and BP Pulse based in the United Kingdom — for at least five years after construction.

Mike Proctor, the publicity chair for the EV advocacy group Evolve KY, told the Lantern that chargers along highways are a key part of? building EV infrastructure but need to be coupled with “destination” chargers, which he describes as chargers available at places people make stops at such as a library.?

“We just want to see that we’re working on both solutions simultaneously and not have the destination chargers be, you know, kind of ‘second fiddle’ and be delayed while they’re focusing on the infrastructure for the highways,” Proctor said.?

According to the state’s electric vehicle infrastructure plan developed as a part of NEVI, the state plans to focus on building out EV chargers along interstates and parkways and focus more on constructing chargers in communities beginning in fiscal year 2025.

Lawmakers want answers on damage and costs linked to idled ‘zombie’ coal mines

James Bruggers, Inside Climate News — Fri, 20 Oct 2023 14:35:51 +0000

A surface mine in Floyd County operated by a bankrupt company is shown here in 2021 unreclaimed. Kentucky state officials said reclamation efforts have since begun. (Photo by James Bruggers)

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Lawmakers, including Kentucky’s lone Democrat in Congress, are asking for a federal investigation into the full extent of environmental damage caused by what are known as “zombie” surface mines, which may technically still be considered active for coal extraction but have been idled for months or years and can leak toxic waste.?

For environmental and public safety reasons, coal mining companies are supposed to stabilize and repair damaged land surfaces as they mine and not wait until all their digging or blasting is done.?

But as the economy around coal mining has crashed over the last decade, giving way to wind, solar and natural gas, mining companies have gone through bankruptcies, and environmental advocates have noticed delays in the kind of reclamation that federal law requires.

Identical requests for an investigation — one from seven members of the House of Representatives and the other from Sen. John Fetterman, (D-Pa.) — were sent to the General Accountability Office on Thursday. The GAO is an ndependent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress.

The House letter was signed by Reps. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.);? Don Beyer (D-Va.);? Morgan McGarvey (D-Ky.); Jared Huffman(D-Ca.); Katie Porter (D-Ca.); Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.),? the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee.

Both requests cited a potential risk to taxpayers.

“Some coal companies are idling mines and stalling reclamation to cut costs,” the lawmakers wrote to the GAO. “Because mine operators typically rely on coal revenue to fund reclamation, the longer a mine remains idle, the greater the risk that the operator may not have sufficient funds to pay for reclamation.?

“Further, there have been at least 68 coal company bankruptcies since 2012, which draws attention to whether financial assurances obtained by the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement and state agencies will be adequate to reclaim the land should the operators fail to do so. As a result, taxpayers may ultimately get stuck paying the bill.”

The GAO uses a standard process for deciding whether to launch an investigation, said Jessica Baxter, senior public affairs specialist with the agency. Among the factors are subject matter, workload, costs and benefits, according to the protocols.

The Democrats’ requests cover mining activities in the modern era, which began in 1977, when Congress passed the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. It established federal regulations for surface mining, required mine reclamation and set forth bonding requirements to make sure reclamation occurs if companies go bankrupt.

The 1977 law also established the Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Program and fund to address environmental damage from mines abandoned before 1977. The fund got a boost from Congress and President Biden in 2021 with the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure? Act, which allocated $11.3 billion over 15 years for abandoned surface or underground mine cleanups.

But the zombie mines are not covered by the Abandoned Mine Land Fund.

The nonprofit group Appalachian Voices researched those mines and published a report in 2021 that focused on a seven-state Appalachian region: Alabama, Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The group identified some 633,000 acres in those states that need some degree of reclamation, with West Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania needing the most.?

Appalachian Voices estimated that the total cost of outstanding reclamation for all seven states at the time was $7.5 to $9.8 billion dollars, and that required bonding programs were likely to be woefully inadequate to meet those financial needs. The group found only $3.8 billion in bonding money was available in those states.

As mining companies have gone bankrupt in the past, bankruptcy courts often found other companies to take over mines. But that’s getting harder to do, as the demand for coal for generating electricity has waned, raising the risks to taxpayers, environmental advocates said.

“Companies shouldn’t be able to shirk their responsibility to remediate with impunity,” Fetterman said. “With this information from GAO, we would be able to have an educated conversation about ways to improve the mine reclamation process to hold the coal industry accountable and keep our promise to our communities.”

Cartwright, who represents the coal mining region around Scranton, Pennsylvania, said that “these shuttered mines are liabilities that pollute our lands and our water and hold back economic growth. This investigation is the first step in turning mine blight into economic growth for coal-impacted communities.”

State agencies have also struggled to keep pace with the changing coal economy.

Inside Climate News reported last year, based on an analysis of public records dating to 2013, found that in Kentucky, financially struggling mining companies also were racking up a rising number of violations at surface mines, and that state regulators had failed to bring a record number of them into compliance.

In 2021, Inside Climate News reported that bankrupted coal mines left unreclaimed were among the potential long-term impacts of coal mining on the environment, with public concerns ranging from water pollution to falling rock.

“I think there is a problem with stalled reclamation, and underfunded mines and I feel pretty confident in that assessment,” said Erin Savage, author of the Appalachian Voices report, “Repairing the Damage: The costs of delaying reclamation at modern-era mines.”

?“But there are state agencies and others who disagree with me and say everything is fine. We think there needs to be a neutral party that can confirm or deny the stand of reclamation and bonding issues,” Savage

The findings could lead Congress or the Department of the Interior to take steps to make sure unreclaimed mines get reclaimed, she said.

The lawmakers have asked GAO to quantify the number, location and size of coal mines that have neither produced coal or made reclamation progress, and whether bonding or other financial assurances are adequate to address the problem.

They have also asked the GAO to assess whether federal regulations are effective at making sure idle mines get reclaimed in a timely manner.

They said they need the GAO’s help because coal mining regulations and oversight are spread across multiple state and federal agencies.

“Given this dispersion of responsibility and variation in record keeping, it is difficult to obtain a complete and accurate picture of the state of the coal mining industry as a whole,” they wrote.

“People living near mine sites have dealt with landslides, toxic water and harmful water runoff issues,” said Rebecca Shelton, director of policy for the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center. “Citizen-led groups have been scrambling to research the scope of this crisis for years, but we need the resources of the federal government to investigate so that we understand the full extent of the problem and can craft the best solutions.”

‘So many ways hydrogen can go wrong’: Hub announcements viewed with caution

Robert Zullo — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 09:50:23 +0000

A hydrogen hub is a a cluster of assets that produce and process hydrogen fuel as an alternative to fossil fuels. (Screenshot from Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy)

The Friday announcement that seven projects had been selected to receive $7 billion in seed money to kickstart the production of clean hydrogen across the country was billed by President Joe Biden’s administration as a major step toward slashing carbon emissions, creating thousands of domestic jobs and positioning the U.S. as a clean energy leader.

“I’m here to announce one of the largest advanced manufacturing investments in the history of this nation,” Biden said during an appearance in Philadelphia.”Seven billion dollars in federal investments that’s going to attract $40 billion in private investments in clean hydrogen.”

However, there’s also criticism over a lack of transparency by the Department of Energy around the application and selection process and those who are dubious about the ways some of the newly minted “hydrogen hubs” intend to produce the gas, which the administration called “crucial to achieving President Biden’s goal of American industry powered by American clean energy.”

Hydrogen, which releases no carbon emissions when burned, is seen broadly as a key part of cutting emissions from hard-to-decarbonize sectors of the economy, such as steelmaking and cement manufacturing, aviation, shipping and other areas. There’s more controversy around uses like blending it with natural gas to burn in power plants or for heating. How climate-friendly hydrogen is depends on how it’s produced. Currently most hydrogen in the U.S. is produced using natural gas, so-called “gray” hydrogen. “Green” hydrogen is produced by an electrolysis process with clean energy. “Blue” hydrogen is fossil-fuel derived but coupled with carbon capture, in which CO2 is filtered out of emissions and stored.

Four of the projects (the Appalachian, Gulf Coast, Heartland and Midwest hydrogen hubs) that the DOE announced as winners will use fossil fuels to produce hydrogen. (In the bipartisan infrastructure law, Congress required that at least one hub “demonstrate the production of clean hydrogen from fossil fuels.”)

“There are so many ways hydrogen can go wrong. … We’re really concerned with the number of projects that rely in part or in whole on fossil fuel-based hydrogen production,” said Julie McNamara, a deputy policy director at Union of Concerned Scientists’ climate and energy program. “For hydrogen to be a clean energy solution, it has to be cleanly produced and it has to be strategically used.”

In some scenarios, environmental groups worry the hydrogen could actually increase U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

A report last month by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, an Ohio nonprofit, found that the U.S. government “significantly understates the likely impact of producing hydrogen from fossil fuels on global warming.” The assumption that 1% of the methane being used to produce hydrogen will be emitted into the atmosphere is “far less than recent peer-reviewed scientific analyses have found and that has been identified by airplane and satellite emission surveys,” the report says. It also notes that using fossil fuels to make hydrogen cleanly depends on the “overly optimistic and unproven assumption that hydrogen production projects will be able to capture almost all of the carbon dioxide they create.”

In short, said David Schlissel, one of the report’s authors, blue hydrogen is not a great idea when you consider emissions from the entire process, from producing natural gas to shipping and storing the hydrogen and the unknowns of trying to use carbon capture and storage at scale.

“We fear, and it’s based on our analysis, that the money the government is going to spend on blue hydrogen production is going to result in the continued emission of greenhouse gases for decades,” he said. “We worry about the waste of money. But we really worry about the waste of time and giving fossil fuel companies the opportunity to build infrastructure that depends on their continued operation. That’s the real concern, to keep the world addicted to fossil fuels.”

That’s the concern with all of this hydrogen hype.”

Schlissel and other critics also questioned the lack of details released by the Department of Energy about the projects, noting that much of the application materials have been treated as trade secrets by the states and the DOE. It’s unclear how the DOE scored the projects for funding, he added.

“How much hydrogen is going to be produced? What are going to be the CO2 emissions? How much CO2 is going to be captured? Then, where is it going to be used?” he said. “DOE and the applicants have taken the position that everything is confidential.”

The department’s press office did not respond Friday to a list of questions, including one about how projects were evaluated.

“We would encourage the DOE to be as transparent as they possibly can, especially for the communities where they’ll be proposed,” said Patrick Drupp, director of climate policy for the Sierra Club, one of the nation’s largest environmental groups.

‘This is not trivial’

Perhaps even more important than the hub applications that were selected, Drupp and McNamara say, are the debates ongoing at the Internal Revenue Service around the final rules for the hydrogen tax production credit created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

“While these hubs are large and there is a significant amount of money on the table, the hydrogen production tax credit could potentially dwarf that amount of money,” McNamara said. “That makes it all the more critical that how the administration determines what is truly clean energy is rigorously done.”

The final shape of those rules, which are linked to the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions of the hydrogen source, could be the difference between a boon and a boondoggle on the scale of the biofuels industry, a pair of climate economists wrote in a recent Washington Post op-ed.

“Using fossil-generated electricity or siphoning off renewables subsequently back-filled by fossil power to operate electrolyzers — which would occur under loose guidance — generates at least twice the carbon emissions that status-quo gas-derived hydrogen emits,” a coalition of environmental groups, developers and other organizations wrote to the Treasury Department in February. “Weak guidance could therefore force Treasury to spend more than $100 billion dollars in subsidies for hydrogen projects that result in increased net emissions, in direct conflict with statutory requirements and tarnishing the reputation of the nascent ‘clean’ hydrogen industry.”

Groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Rocky Mountain Institute say the final rules should incorporate a “three pillars” approach. The first is “additionality,” meaning a new hydrogen electrolyzer that is connected to the electric grid is responsible for ensuring the added electric demand they are creating is being met by new low-carbon generation. The second is “time-matching,” requiring electrolyzers’ electric consumption to match its hydrogen production. The third pillar, deliverability, would require hydrogen producers to get clean electricity from within their region.

McNamara said the guidance is expected to be finished by the end of the year.

“This is not trivial,” she said. “Hydrogen can be a valuable tool for the clear energy transition but it is not a given … and getting it wrong comes with enormous consequences for climate and public health.”

Wolfe judge-exec says noise barrier planned for suspected crypto ‘mine’

Liam Niemeyer — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 09:50:48 +0000

Artemis Power Tech's facility sits among the Wolfe County woods, power lines connecting it to the nearby substation. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

Wolfe County Judge-Executive Raymond Banks says a Houston company running a new data center — suspected to be a cryptocurrency mining facility — in his Eastern Kentucky county plans to erect a barrier to dampen its constant noise which has drawn complaints from neighbors for weeks.

But Banks says he opposes calls for the county government to enact a noise ordinance because he says that could hamper economic development.

“I’m not going to stop our whole county because of one noise complaint. I’m not going to do it,” Banks said. “Anytime you get into that noise ordinance — same as zoning — you get into chaos. It gets everything out of control.”?

Houston, Texas-based Artemis Power Tech began operating the? facility in August next to an electrical substation near the Wolfe-Lee county line, creating a high-pitched, persistent whirring. Residents near the facility have been aggravated by the unabated din in recent weeks and worry about the noise’s impacts on wildlife in particular.??

In an interview Wednesday morning, Banks, Wolfe County’s top elected official, said an Artemis Power Tech representative had told him a noise barrier would be put in place. He said he wasn’t sure what kind of noise barrier the company had in mind.

“They’re going to fix it. It’s just going to take some time,” Banks said. “I’m working as hard as I can on it.”?

Brenda Campbell has lived at her Wolfe County home since 1980, back when she says her community was much more quiet. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

Brenda Campbell, who lives next to the facility and has been seeking action from the county government, told the Lantern that a noise ordinance would have been a better solution. But she’s hopeful the barrier Artemis Power Tech says it is installing will minimize the noise.

“This is not perfect. But if it will curb the noise, then I’m all for trying it. I hope that they’re honorable and will do what they say,” Campbell said. “I’m uncertain about it because I don’t know how much noise it will stop.”

Banks said Wolfe County struggles with poverty and needs to capitalize on any economic development it can get, mentioning an influx of cabins into the county in recent years to accommodate tourism. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 29% of Wolfe County’s approximately 6,400 residents are in poverty, nearly double the state average.

The Red River originates in Wolfe County. Part of the county is in the Daniel Boone National Forest’s Red River Gorge Geological Area, which attracts climbers from all over the world and is a favorite destination of hikers and campers from a multi-state area. The data center is about six miles from Natural Bridge State Resort Park.

“We don’t have nothing here, and the only way we’re going to get anything is let these people come in here,” Banks said.?

Creation Falls is a popular destination for tourists in Wolfe County. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Jamie Lucke)

Artemis Power Tech doesn’t say explicitly what it’s using its data center for in Wolfe County, but previous reporting by the Lantern suggests the facility is a cryptocurrency mining facility. The chief operating officer and co-founder of Artemis Power Tech did not respond to requests for an interview about the proposed noise barrier.?

Cryptocurrency mining facilities typically use immense amounts of power to run numerous computers; the fans cooling the machines create significant noise. In the case of the popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin, those machines solve complex mathematical problems to provide security for online transactions of Bitcoin. As a reward for solving those problems, the cryptocurrency mining facility is rewarded with Bitcoin itself. Each Bitcoin is valued at more than $25,000 as of early October.?

Generally, these operations aren’t major job creators. Some cryptocurrency mining advocates argue the revenue created from electricity sales to power the facilities could delay future utility bill hikes, though environmental groups warn that such facilities can instead be detrimental to consumers by raising utility rates.?

Lane Boldman

The leader of a statewide environmental conservation nonprofit recently visited the data center site in Wolfe County. Lane Boldman, executive director of the Kentucky Conservation Committee, said she understood the desire for economic development but that impacts of such development to a community should also be weighed.

“People go to these areas for peace and quiet,” Boldman said. “You want to encourage people to come out and enjoy the region but not doing it in a way that’s disruptive 24-7. And that’s the difference with the crypto mining operation is it’s disruptive 24-7.”?

Boldman said it was unfortunate Wolfe County’s judge-executive wasn’t open to considering a noise ordinance, saying it’s possible to tailor such an ordinance to have “quiet hours” during certain times. In Arkansas, some local governments have passed noise ordinances directed at cryptocurrency mining facilities, but a new state law that went into effect in August now prohibits local governments from passing such noise regulations.?

“There’s certainly a lot of new businesses in that region that are more geared toward the outdoor recreation economy that can have certain noise issues that are more temporary,” Boldman said. “There has to be some consideration of noise that is so disruptive, it makes it impossible for people to have a living in the region.”?

An ATV park is located near the data center, but neighbors say its noise is seasonal and sporadic.

Campbell, the neighbor who has lobbied for a local noise ordinance, said she tried to talk to Banks about how an ordinance could address facilities or events that operate nonstop, such as the Artemis Power Tech data center, while excluding businesses or events that create temporary noise.?

She said looking beyond her own situation, the enormous power consumption of cryptocurrency mining operations and the perceived lack of regulation on such facilities in Kentucky trouble her. But she’s unsure of what action can be done among local governments to address noise from operations similar to the Artemis Power Tech.?

She also doesn’t understand why Wolfe County leadership is “afraid” of implementing zoning regulations, which the county currently doesn’t have, especially with the growth of outdoor recreation in the area. Under a zoning process, a hypothetical cryptocurrency mining facility, she said, would have had to approach county officials before establishing itself.?

At a Wolfe County Fiscal Court meeting on Tuesday, she said she told Banks and her county magistrates she wasn’t going to drop the noise issue until it’s resolved.?

“I think they’re trying to appease an old woman that aggravates them,” she said.?

A scene along the Wolfe-Lee county line in Eastern Kentucky near the Artemis Power Tech facility. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

Lack of oversight on transmission spending leads to higher electric bills, consumer advocate says

Robert Zullo — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 09:50:17 +0000

Electric utilities spend billions of dollars across the country on smaller lines and replacement lines that fall below the requirement for state or federal review and then pass those charges on to customers. (Photo by Robert Zullo/States Newsroom)

Electric customers have fallen into a “regulatory gap” that’s allowed billions of dollars of transmission construction to happen without oversight of need, prudence or cost effectiveness, according to a complaint filed with federal regulators by the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel.

And though the complaint to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was made on behalf of Ohio ratepayers, the same concern exists across much of the nation, so much so that the commission itself has weighed whether more monitoring of transmission spending is necessary.

FERC has broad authority over electric transmission, but utilities are taking advantage of what critics call an inadequate regulatory regime and spending billions of dollars across the country on smaller lines, replacements for old wires or new projects that fall below the threshold for federal or state review as to whether they’re actually needed or make financial sense.

“Pretty much in every state there’s going to be some subset of transmission that’s not going to be subject to some regulatory scrutiny,” said Nick Guidi, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center who focuses on transmission planning and other electric grid issues.

Often what utilities make on those projects are set through FERC “formula rates,” which, instead of relying on a contested rate case to establish the utility’s cost of service for transmission, allows the companies to file information with FERC in various categories — including rate of return, operations and maintenance, depreciation, taxes and other factors — that is used to calculate what they’re able to charge customers.

“Formula rates are a vehicle for avoiding burdens of proof and limiting protests. The commission’s default presumption that all transmission expenditures are prudent allows utility costs to flow through to consumers’ bills without scrutiny,” wrote Ari Peskoe, director of Harvard University’s Electricity Law Initiative, in comments filed with FERC last year. The rules, Peskoe said in an interview, “push utilities to invest locally because that’s where you can get the easy money.”

Andrew French, a member of the Kansas Corporation Commission, said last year that transmission costs on an average Kansas electric customer’s bill had gone from $4 a month about a decade ago to $20 in 2022, a situation that “screams out for more oversight.” In North Carolina, a state regulator told FERC officials last year, state regulatory review is only triggered for lines 161 kilovolts or larger, which leads to lots of construction of smaller lines that his office doesn’t find out about until “it shows up in rates.”

At 16.42 cents per kilowatt hour, Ohio ranked 18th in the nation (highest to lowest) for residential retail electric prices as of June 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That was up from 9.76 cents per kilowatt hour in 2021, when the state ranked 32nd. Transmission and distribution costs are only a portion of that, but they have led to “significant increases” in customers’ bills, the consumers’ counsel said in its complaint, filed Sept. 28. However, a spokesman for the office said it does not have “comprehensive data on how the transmission and distribution charges (as a percentage of total electric rates) on individual customer bills have increased over time.”

The consumers’ advocate complaint says that more than 85% of utilities’ proposed new transmission spending was for “supplemental projects,” meaning local projects that are not subject to need, prudence or cost effectiveness review by the state’s Public Utilities’ Commission, its Power Siting Board, or PJM, which is the regional grid operator for Ohio.

“Instead, these PJM governing documents assume that state regulatory authorities will adequately protect consumers regarding the need, prudence and cost of supplemental projects,” the complaint says. “That assumption is misplaced.”

The Ohio Power Siting Board is responsible for overseeing environmental effects, reviewing potential alternative locations and the need for some electric facilities, but that authority is limited to transmission facilities rated at 100 kilovolts and above and it does not review any projects for cost effectiveness, the consumers’ counsel says. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio “likewise has declined to review the need, prudence and cost-effectiveness of these planned local transmission facilities in Ohio, despite OCC requesting it to do so,” the complaint notes.

Tammy Ridout, a spokesperson for American Electric Power, one of the utility companies named in the filing, said the company is reviewing the complaint. AEP Ohio has more than 1.5 million customers in the state.

“We’re committed to transparent transmission planning as we work to provide reliable, affordable service to customers,” Ridout said. She added that PJM’s existing process for planning so-called supplemental projects “is one of the most robust and transparent processes in the nation” and a similar framework is being proposed for other regions by FERC in a new rule the agency is working on dealing with transmission planning and cost allocation.

In a news release last year, AEP said it plans to spend $26 billion between 2023 and 2027 on transmission and distribution operations “to continue building a modern, efficient, reliable and resilient energy grid.”

Ferreting out ‘gold-plating’

Jeff Shields, a PJM spokesman, said FERC “has made it clear that certain asset management activities, such as end-of-life decisions that do not expand the transmission system, are specific to the individual transmission owners.” For those supplemental projects, he said the organization has “successfully worked with stakeholders to enhance the transparency of planning” and incorporated them into PJM’s bigger regional planning efforts.

The Consumers’ Counsel wants FERC to put in a “backstop” to protect Ohio electric customers by changing the rules (called a “tariff”) that govern PJM.

“By this mechanism, FERC would review the need, prudence and cost-effectiveness of local transmission projects in Ohio,” the complaint says. “Any utility gold-plating … should be ferreted out by regulators.”

The Edison Electric Institute, an association for investor-owned utilities, projected that its members would spend about $87.8 billion on transmission and distribution this year. Given that, and how much work is needed to upgrade an aging grid to bolster reliability and accommodate the transition to more renewable power, it’s crucial to make sure ratepayers aren’t being subjected to “gold-plating,” meaning overspending on capital projects to boost profit margins, Guidi said.

“It makes rates go up but it also makes utilities a lot of money. It’s important that it’s carefully policed,” Guidi said. “Otherwise utilities are going to make a lot of money at the expense of ratepayers without a lot of appreciable gain.”

The Ohio Consumers’ Counsel also encouraged FERC to appoint an independent transmission monitor to review “planning, need, prudence and cost-effectiveness of local transmission projects for consumers in Ohio.” Independent monitoring has been part of discussions between FERC commissioners and state regulators, many of whom say they often lack the expertise and authority to vet utilities’ local transmission spending.

The Ohio agency also wants FERC to bar Ohio utilities from using formula rates for transmission, preferring that Ohio transmission utilities get prior FERC approval “for all local transmission projects at or exceeding a set cost threshold.”

“FERC needs to step in now and halt the harm to Ohio consumers,” the complaint says.

What the commission might do is unclear.

The commissioners could dismiss the complaint by finding that the consumers’ counsel hasn’t made the case that the rates resulting from the lack of transmission oversight are unjust and unreasonable, said Guidi, the SELC attorney. Or it could “kick the can down the road,” he said, and examine the issue as part of a bigger proceeding

The agency is grappling with several transmission issues, including its draft rule on transmission planning and cost allocation. On Oct. 4, more than 230 state legislators from 43 states sent a letter to FERC asking the commission to finalize and strengthen that rule.

The Ohio complaint, Peskoe said, is more evidence of a broken system for transmission development oversight.

“FERC already has reams of evidence that its rules fail to protect consumers and incentivize utilities to rebuild last century’s transmission network,” he said. “FERC is, first and foremost, a utility regulator that is supposed to prevent monopolists from abusing their local market power.”

In a rural Kentucky community, the roar of a suspected crypto ‘mine’ never ends

Liam Niemeyer — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 09:50:35 +0000

Artemis Power Tech's facility sits among the Wolfe County woods, power lines connecting it to the nearby substation. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

WOLFE COUNTY — She couldn’t see it through the trees on a recent late September morning, but she’s felt its presence for weeks on end.?

Up the hill across from her home along the Wolfe-Lee county line, 76-year-old Brenda Campbell can hear through the leaves a constant, high-pitched whirring that rivals the cicada screeches in the Eastern Kentucky woods.?

The noise, while not ear-piercingly loud at about 50 to 60 decibels, has been an aggravating, unabated problem for her and her neighbors who have generally enjoyed a quieter life in their rural community. Several of those neighbors are her family who have lived for generations in the area, less than a six mile drive from Natural Bridge State Resort Park.

“It’s all night long. It’s all day,” Campbell said, speaking with some of her family members and neighbors gathered on her driveway. “It has to be like brainwashing, you know, because it’s consistent. There’s no variation.”?

Standing from left to right: Corey Mattingly, Brenda Campbell’s grandson; Brenda Campbell; Jerry Oliver; Myra Oliver, Campbell’s cousin; Terry Booth. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

In August, a Houston, Texas-based company Artemis Power Tech started operating a “data center” next to an electrical substation run by East Kentucky Power Cooperative, the utility serving Wolfe County and much of Eastern Kentucky.

In a shallow valley next to the substation, the data center looks like an active construction site with metal containers believed to be filled with high-powered computers — the whirring noise coming from fans working to keep the computers from overheating — sitting on a gravel bed.?

While there’s uncertainty about what these computers are doing, Campbell and her family members suspect it’s a cryptocurrency mining operation, which typically uses immense amounts of electricity to run high-powered computers.?

Computers involved with cryptocurrency mining solve complicated mathematical equations that help secure online transactions of the cryptocurrencies through a digital ledger called the “blockchain.” In the case of the popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin, mining companies are rewarded for solving the equations with Bitcoin itself; each Bitcoin is valued at more than $27,000 as of early October.?

The money that’s made at the site has meant only metallic, unnatural noise in Campbell’s natural environment. The loud noise from a nearby ATV park is a headache for Campbell and her neighbors during the warmer months, but usually quiets down in the winter. ?Campbell worries the sound of this new operation will never pause, only worsening when the trees lose their leaves.

Corey Mattingly, the grandson of Brenda Campbell, standing across the street from his apartment where the noise from Artemis Power Tech’s facility comes through the trees. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

Her grandson, Corey Mattingly, who lives across the street from her, has had to turn on a fan at night because the sound penetrates the walls of his apartment. Her daughter, Shannon Foster, has had trouble finding local owls since the operation fired up, and Campbell worries how the bird population has been affected. Embedded “in your brain after a while” is how one of Campbell’s neighbors, Terry Booth, described the noise.?

Campbell in recent weeks has lobbied her local county judge-executive and magistrates to pass a noise ordinance specifically geared toward addressing sound from cryptocurrency mining operations. Rural communities in other states have complained about noise from cryptocurrency mining operations, but it’s new in Wolfe County.?

As more of these operations pop up across Kentucky, some think cryptocurrency mining will bring economic development to communities that need it. Campbell is doing what she can to try to bring some of the quiet back to her home.

“It’s like we’ve been taken advantage of,” Campbell said. “Nobody really cared what we thought. It didn’t matter that our property value might be lessened because of the noise. That was not important.”?

How a Houston company’s data center arrived in Wolfe County

Not only are Brenda Campbell and her neighbors exasperated by the noise, they also feel blindsided by what little notice they received that the facility was coming into their community.?

Wolfe County, like many rural counties in Kentucky, has no zoning laws to control where new businesses and industries may locate. It took only six months for the machines to come to her part of Wolfe County.

Hay Crypto Mining, a company out of Ashland, sold the land to Artemis Power Tech in February for $325,000, according to a deed from the Wolfe County clerk’s office. Campbell recalls electrical lines being installed at the site in March. A large truck brought in containers of computers in August, according to Campbell and her family, and a power surge rippled along their street when the operation first fired up later that month.

Campbell can see the substation powering Artemis Power Tech’s facility from her home, with electrical wires crossing by her property. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

Artemis Power Tech doesn’t explicitly say what it’s using the Wolfe County data center for, though a recent job listing for the company does provide hints.

On an online forum post translated to English from Chinese through Google Translate, a job listing dated Sept. 19 describes Artemis Power Tech as “a leading blockchain technology company focusing on the mining farm construction industry” that’s seeking “mine operations engineers” for job sites in Oklahoma and Kentucky. On Artemis Power Tech’s website, the company showcases data centers in Oklahoma and the site in Wolfe County.?

The job posting goes on to say specific job duties for the engineers include “maintaining and managing mining equipment” and “monitoring power supply and power consumption” at the sites.?

The CEO and co-founder of Artemis Power Tech did not respond to requests for an interview about the noise complaints and why the company decided to set up an operation in Wolfe County.?

The Wolfe County data center does use the enormous amounts of power typical of cryptocurrency mining operations. A power supply contract between East Kentucky Power Cooperative and Artemis Power Tech shows the utility supplying the data center with 10 megawatts of power. The company has the ability to increase that amount to 13 megawatts of power, equivalent to powering more than 5,000 homes over the course of a year.?

John May is the manager of administrative services for the region’s electric distribution cooperative, Licking Valley RECC, which gets its power from East Kentucky Power Cooperative. May said the power demand of the new facility is unprecedented for the area; it uses vastly more electricity than? its next largest consumer: a prison. May said Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex in Morgan County only uses about one megawatt of electricity.?

Artemis Power Tech paid East Kentucky Power Cooperative more than $200,000 to upgrade the electrical substation to meet the power demands of the operation. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

“We’re a very small rural co-op. We don’t really have any large industry,” May said. “I don’t know the specifics about what they’re mining. I just know it’s a mining facility. I don’t see what their servers are doing.”

May said he does empathize with Campbell and her family about the noise, but that Licking Valley RECC is required by Kentucky law to provide electricity to businesses on demand. He said the cooperative tried to work with Artemis Power Tech to limit the trees cut down at the site to buffer the noise.?

He said while such cryptocurrency mining facilities don’t provide much in the way of jobs, the revenue from the operation could delay future rate increases by utility East Kentucky Power Cooperative.?

“There’s plenty of businesses out there that make noise as well. So, it’s unfortunate, you know, for the people that live next to it, whatever it may be,” May said.?

May’s argument about cryptocurrency mining’s impact on utility rates echoes other arguments made by cryptocurrency advocates who see the industry as an economic development boost, an industry that Kentucky lawmakers have also tried to embrace.?

Economic development, but at what cost?

A number of cryptocurrency mining facilities have flocked to Kentucky in recent years driven by the need for available power — and importantly cheap power — to fuel their computers. Besides the cost of machines, the cost of electricity is generally the biggest expense for such companies.?

The GOP-controlled Kentucky legislature and Kentucky’s Democratic governor have also sweetened the incentives for such companies to come to the state in the form of tax breaks. Some cryptocurrency mining companies have also received discounts on electricity costs from utilities including East Kentucky Power Cooperative in return for the perceived investment brought into communities.?

Brenda Campbell’s home sits down the hill from Artemis Power Tech’s new operation in Wolfe County. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

Yet environmental conservation and renewable energy advocacy groups have raised concerns about the use of these electricity discounts and whether they should be saved for businesses that create more jobs; cryptocurrency mining facilities often create only a few. Some of these electricity discounts have come under scrutiny by Kentucky’s utility regulator.?

Groups in Kentucky, such as the Kentucky Resources Council and Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, also have concerns about the growing and significant greenhouse gas emissions associated with the cryptocurrency mining industry, particularly in Kentucky where the electricity grid still heavily relies on coal-fired power.?

Monica Sturgill, a manager with the Ashland company Hay Crypto Mining that sold the Wolfe County land to Artemis Power Tech, recognizes that cryptocurrency mining operations don’t bring on a lot of new employees to a region.?

She said the land sale was part of her company’s strategy to site cryptocurrency mining facilities next to substations in Eastern Kentucky that could handle the power load. Working as a consultant to locate crypto mining companies in the region, first off, would make money for her own company but also help East Kentucky Power Coopeartive’s ratepayers, reiterating May’s arguments about the facility’s benefits.?

Environmental advocacy groups have argued cryptocurrency miners can instead harm utility consumers by pushing up rates. Researchers from the University of Chicago and the University of California, Berkley found that large power demands by cryptocurrency miners increased the cost of electricity for some communities in New York.

Sturgill said she was “shocked” to hear about the noise complaints in Wolfe County and that she had also dealt with noise complaints with another cryptocurrency mining operation she worked to locate in Elliott County.?

“I wouldn’t say it’s quiet. It’s not quiet. You’re not going to not hear anything, right? But it is a different sound than what you’re used to,” Sturgill said, mentioning she would probably be annoyed by the sound if she was in the situation of nearby neighbors. “It would be different and it would be probably frustrating, but I wouldn’t say it’s like a nuisance.”?

As for the possibility of a noise ordinance by the county government, she suggested such a move could make a cryptocurrency mining operation leave a community altogether if it’s not able to operate in the way it prefers.?

“Everybody screams they want economic development, right? Everybody screams, ‘Our county has nothing, and we need something,’” Sturgill said. “When something is done properly and done correctly and done well, no matter what, there’s always somebody that’s upset with you.”

A push to curb the noise

Brenda Campbell has lived at her Wolfe County home since 1980, back when she says her community was much more quiet. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

Back in Wolfe County, Campbell has heard the arguments about economic development in favor of the facility, including from a member of the Licking Valley RECC board whom she knows.?

Speaking about the state laws that have benefited cryptocurrency mining in recent years, she understands that the intent of such laws was to spur economic growth.?

“But I don’t think that they took into consideration the impact that one of those facilities would have on the community,” Campbell said.?

Campbell and her neighbors see few people working at the Artemis Power Tech site, primarily a security guard who watches the facility. In late September, a Ford sedan was parked at the entrance of the operation where metal parts, wooden pallets and other construction equipment lay strewn on the ground.

Campbell said she’s also angry at her utility for its role in bringing the facility to Wolfe County, particularly with how Artemis Power Tech is paying East Kentucky Power Cooperative $235,000 to upgrade the substation to meet the operation’s power demands.?

May, the Licking Valley RECC manager, said Artemis Power Tech’s payment is solely going toward upgrading the substation. A spokesperson for East Kentucky Power Cooperative in a statement said the utility generally creates a “special contract” with cryptocurrency mining operations because of their large power usage to make sure costs from the facility aren’t borne by other ratepayers.?

Regardless of any perceived economic benefit, Campbell is continuing to push her county judge-executive and county magistrates to pass a noise ordinance that would keep the sound levels created by the Artemis Power Tech facility under a certain limit.?

Billy Banks, the Wolfe County magistrate who represents Campbell’s part of the county, told the Lantern the county probably needs to pass a noise ordinance “sometime down the road.” He mentioned that Wolfe County Judge-Executive Raymond Banks, who Campbell has spoken with, had been at the site a few times and “didn’t see no problem with it.”

“I know Brenda personally. They’re good people, and I don’t want them to go through that,” magistrate Billy Banks said.?

Raymond Banks, the judge-executive, has not responded to several calls and emails requesting an interview about the possibility of a noise ordinance.?

Mandy DeRoche, a deputy managing attorney at the nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice, has followed similar noise complaints about other cryptocurrency mining operations in rural communities. The effort to get a noise ordinance in Wolfe County, she said, is no different.

“Noise is a hyper-locally regulated thing, right? That’s why a lot of places, especially in rural communities, don’t have zoning. They’re usually quiet,” DeRoche said. “A lot of our partners around the country have had to fight for protection to minimize the nuisance or eliminate the nuisance to the extent that they can.”?

DeRoche said in states such as Arkansas and Montana, state legislatures have passed laws limiting local governments’ ability to pass noise ordinances directed by cryptocurrency mining facilities.?

“It takes the right away from local communities to protect themselves from that noise,” DeRoche said.?

Campbell has also reached out for help to state Sen. Brandon Smith, R-Hazard, who represents Wolfe County and is a strong advocate for cryptocurrency mining, but hasn’t heard back from him. A spokesperson for Smith said the senator, who’s the CEO and President of a Letcher County-based Bitcoin mining company, wasn’t immediately available for an interview and that the senator wanted to learn more about the situation in Wolfe County.?

For her part, Campbell plans to continue to advocate for a noise ordinance not only for herself but for her extended family: her daughter and grandson who live across the street, the cousins who live down the road, the family that will inherit the home she lives in now.?

“I’m 76. I’m not going to be around forever. So, a child that might inherit it, they’re going to have to, you know — they may want or not want to live here, so that’s something they would have to contend with,” she said.?

“They’re not going to run me off,” she said.

An Eastern Kentucky road that heads to Artemis Power Tech’s new facility in Wolfe County. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

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Pike County crypto mining operation approved for electricity discounts with conditions

Liam Niemeyer — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 11:36:51 +0000

Cyber Innovations Group has plans for a second crypto currency mining operation in Pike County. (Getty Images)

Kentucky’s utility regulator approved last week more than $2.5 million in electricity discounts over several years from utility Kentucky Power to a cryptocurrency mining operation in Pike County.?

As? part of its approval, the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) is requiring Kentucky Power follow several conditions to make sure the costs of the discounts given to Cyber Innovations Group don’t harm Kentucky Power’s ratepayers, who? already pay the highest average monthly bills in the state.?

According to a filing by Kentucky Power, Cyber Innovations Group has stated that in exchange for the discounts it would invest about $3.5 million in its facility and that it already has another separate cryptocurrency mining facility operating in the county. The company had already hired 10 employees and planned to hire three more for its second Pike County facility.?

The PSC in its order stated Kentucky Power, which serves about 163,000 customers in 20 counties in Eastern Kentucky, didn’t dispute that it lacks the necessary in-house power generation to supply Cyber Innovations Group’s seven-megawatt power demand for its second facility. The utility, a subsidiary of American Electric Power, exited a contract in December to buy electricity from a coal-fired power plant in southern Indiana and has faced an in-house power shortfall since.?

The utility has said it would purchase available electricity from the multi-state grid operator PJM Interconnection to meet the Pike County cryptocurrency mining operation’s power demands, something Kentucky Power argued recently in another case involving a much larger cryptocurrency mining operation in which the PSC denied electricity cost discounts.

The commission in its order stated that because Kentucky Power had insufficient power supply, Cyber Innovations Group would have to cover Kentucky Power’s costs of buying power from PJM Interconnection by reducing the discounts the Cyber Innovations Group received on a “dollar-to-dollar basis.” The PSC is also requiring Kentucky Power in future rate cases to demonstrate through a cost analysis that the discounts aren’t burdening ratepayers.?

Cryptocurrency mining typically uses enormous amounts of electricity to run high-powered computers. Those machines solve complex equations that secure virtual transactions of the currencies. In the case of the popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin, mining companies are rewarded for solving the equations with Bitcoin itself. Each Bitcoin is valued at around $25,000 as of mid-September.?

A Kentucky Power spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the order.

Both Attorney General Daniel Cameron and a coalition of renewable energy, environmental conservation and legal groups opposed the discounts in part because of Kentucky Power’s lacking in-house power generation. A spokesperson for Cameron’s office did not respond to a request for comment.?

Thom Cmar, an attorney with the environmental law firm Earthjustice representing the coalition of groups, in a statement said the commission’s “safeguards” will reduce the risk to ratepayers but that the discounts should have been altogether denied.

“We are grateful the Kentucky Public Service Commission is trying to protect Kentucky Power customers. I doubt you will find any family in Kentucky who would volunteer to see their electricity rates go up so that a crypto mining company can pay less,” Cmar said. “We hope the Commission will keep a close eye on this crypto mining facility and others in Kentucky.”

The groups also question whether the millions of dollars of electricity cost discounts should go to cryptocurrency mining operations like Cyber Innovations Group that produce relatively few jobs, similar concerns the groups have had in other PSC cases that investigated the reasonableness of economic development incentives given to cryptocurrency mining operations.?

Coal-fired power failures during winter storm come to light months later

Liam Niemeyer — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 09:50:06 +0000

About 35,000 customers experienced rolling blackouts last Dec. 23 when LG&E and KU had to reduce supply to avert wider power outages. (Photo by iStock/Getty Images Plus)

Last December a mass of arctic air, later unofficially named Winter Storm Elliott, swept through Kentucky plunging temperatures to as low as eight degrees below zero. The frigid weather led to a power supply crunch across the Southeast as households and businesses tried to stay warm.?

Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities, the state’s largest utility with more than a million customers, had to implement rolling blackouts for more than 35,000 customers for the first time in its leadership’s recent memory to meet the unprecedented demand for power.

Less than six weeks later, speaking to Kentucky lawmakers, the utility’s chief operating officer blamed a frozen natural gas pipeline for the rolling blackouts.?

What he did not mention was that coal-fired power also had failed — enough so that if the utility’s coal-fired generation had been operating at capacity the rolling blackouts would have been averted. That became clear during a recent Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) hearing on LG&E and KU’s plans for the future.?

During the multi-day hearing last month, the utility’s chief operating officer Lonnie Bellar for the first time in a public setting detailed how several LG&E and KU coal-fired units couldn’t perform at full capacity or were taken offline because of the extreme temperatures or separate mechanical issues.

In February, lawmakers in part cited Bellar’s testimony about the frozen gas pipeline and rolling blackouts as evidence of coal’s superior reliability as a power source. The Republican-controlled General Assembly soon after passed a law, Senate Bill 4, to make it harder for utilities to retire fossil fuel-fired power generation, including from coal. The law created a series of prerequisites before the Kentucky Public Service Commission could allow utilities to retire fossil fuel-fired power generation.

Jim Gooch. (LRC photo)

Rep. Jim Gooch, the staunchly pro-coal chairman of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee, said this week he isn’t sure why Bellar in February told the committee nothing about the failure of coal-fired generation during the winter storm. Gooch, R-Providence, said knowing of the omission does not change his belief that the rolling blackouts were caused by the “rush” to close coal-fired power plants.?

“That’s why we’ve passed Senate Bill 4,” Gooch said in an interview with the Lantern. “That’s why (LG&E and KU is) having to go before the PSC now to say that, you know, if they do close these plants, that it will not affect reliability and affordability.”

LG&E and KU also could have averted the rolling blackouts if it had been able to buy power from nearby utilities and electric grid managers, which were also feeling a power crunch during the winter storm. The utility’s hydropower had outages from the weather, too, though the facilities provide only a small amount of power.

Challenging reliability rhetoric

During the PSC hearing, Kate Huddleston, an attorney for the Sierra Club, asked about the coal-fired failures. The utility’s managers, including Bellar, characterized them as expected and acceptable outages.?

But some renewable energy advocates and energy analysts say normalizing the coal-fired power failures during the winter storm ignores the reliability problems fossil fuel plants can have during extreme weather, weaknesses that challenge rhetoric by Republicans that coal-fired power is the most reliable source of energy.?

Cassie Chambers Armstrong (LRC photo)

Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, D-Louisville, a member of the Kentucky Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee, wasn’t ?part of the legislature during the February hearing; she replaced Democratic Congressman Morgan McGarvey in March.?

She and almost all Democrats in the GOP-controlled legislature opposed SB 4 when it passed. She said the law took away flexibility to create a more diversified energy grid, including the addition of renewables. Kentucky has the lowest percentage of electricity generated by wind and solar energy in the country.?

She said Kentuckians have the right to understand “exactly what happened that led to utility shutdowns.”??

“We know that in other places, failures of coal-fired power plants were part of the problem that led to these blackouts. We deserve to know in Kentucky if that was part of it as well,” Chambers Armstrong said.

What happened last winter when fossil fuels failed

When LG&E and KU issued rolling blackouts on Dec. 23, 2022, it was in an effort to “offload” or reduce power consumption to match its limited electricity supply to prevent even wider, longer blackouts.?

An internal LG&E and KU report filed with the PSC details that the rolling blackouts offloaded at most 317 megawatts of electricity from 5:58 p.m. EST to 10:11 p.m. EST on Dec. 23.

A utility spokesperson maintains the “major driver” of the rolling blackouts was the “unexpected loss” of its natural gas plants at the Cane Run Generating Station (Cane Run) and the Trimble County Generating Station (Trimble County) — caused by a loss of pressure from the Texas Gas Transmission pipeline supplying those plants.?

“This was the first ever load shed event for our company and customers in our more than 100 years in operation,” said LG&E and KU spokesperson Chris Whelan in a statement.?

That loss of gas pressure began, according to the utility’s internal report, a little after 11 a.m. EST on Dec. 23, and it started to impact its gas plants in the early afternoon.?

179 megawatts of power was lost when a gas generating unit went offline at Trimble County.
The rest of the operating gas turbines at Trimble County collectively lost 439 megawatts of power generation due to the low gas pressure.
A gas generating unit at Cane Run also lost 253 megawatts of power due to low gas pressure.

In total, the lost power due to failing gas plants totaled 871 megawatts, more than double the 317 megawatts of power the utility had offloaded during the rolling blackouts.?

“We were trying to manage that minimum pressure and not lose the generation that we did have, at the same time getting as many megawatts out of our machines as we possibly could,” Bellar said during PSC testimony on Aug. 22.?

But had the utility avoided some of the problems it faced with its coal-fired power plants during Winter Storm Elliott, it also could have avoided rolling blackouts. Those issues included:

Trimble County Unit 1 was the utility’s most active power generation unit in 2022 operating the equivalent of nearly 10 months out of the year. But the unit’s 370 megawatts of coal-fired power was taken offline the afternoon of Dec. 22 because of a failure of a gearbox that the utility said was unrelated to the weather.?
Trimble County Unit 2, also coal-fired, lost 269 megawatts of power generation for more than six hours into the evening of Dec. 23 due to a “frozen” transmitter that tripped a coal mill at the unit.?
A coal-fired unit at the utility’s Mill Creek Generating Station lost 121 megawatts of power generation for almost three hours the afternoon of Dec. 23 due to frozen components in the unit’s coal delivery system.
The utility lost 62 megawatts of power capacity from its sole coal-fired power generation unit at its E.W. Brown Generating Station due to problems with “combustion process instrumentation” the utility believes wasn’t weather-related

In total, more than 800 megawatts of LG&E and KU’s coal-fired power generation was offline at some point, due to mechanical issues or weather issues, during the time when it was implementing rolling blackouts — more than double the 317 megawatts the utility offloaded during the storm.?

Bellar in Aug. 22 PSC testimony disputed the assertion that LG&E and KU couldn’t count on its coal-fired power during Winter Storm Elliott, saying he wouldn’t “point the finger solely” at coal-fired power as the cause of the rolling blackouts.?

“No asset is perfectly available all the time,” Bellar said.?

In separate testimony on Aug. 23, LG&E and KU’s Director of Energy Planning, Analysis and Forecasting Stuart Wilson called the coal issues not an “exceedingly poor performance.”

LG&E and KU’s hydropower dams also had trouble; the Ohio Falls Generating Station was taken out of commission for much of Dec. 23 due to “inclement weather issues.” Because of the high demand across the region, other sources of power weren’t available to buy from the Tennessee Valley Authority or PJM Interconnection.

While the utility has taken several steps to address issues with pressure to its natural gas plants, Wilson said he wasn’t aware of any steps the utility had taken to address problems with its coal-fired power.?

E.W. Brown solar array at KU’s Mercer County plant. (Photo courtesy of LG&E/KU)

The energy debate, consequences before the PSC

LG&E and KU was far from the only utility that experienced problems with coal-fired power during Winter Storm Elliott.?

A March 2023 report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), a research group that supports the transition to renewable energy, found that more than 100,000 megawatts of fossil fuel-fired power generation failed to start or was forced offline for utilities and grid managers across the Eastern U.S., including the Tennessee Valley Authority, PJM Interconnection and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.?

Renewable energy, on the other hand, generally met or exceeded power generation expectations during the storm.?

The TVA, which provides electricity to Western Kentucky, also had to implement rolling blackouts in part due to a few of its coal-fired and natural gas generators n failing in the extreme cold. Its solar energy facilities, which only make up 3% of the TVA’s generation, did perform consistently during the storm.?

MISO, a nearby regional grid operator to LG&E and KU, also had a significant amount of wind power available during the storm that helped supply electricity to Kentucky utilities.??

Dennis Wamsted, an energy analyst with IEEFA who authored the report on fossil fuel outages, said regardless of how utilities frame the issue, not having power generation when it’s “desperately needed” is a problem.?

“The argument from utilities and folks in the gas and coal sector — that somehow gas and coal are reliable, dispatchable resources,” he said. “You can only make that argument if your plant is actually reliable and dispatchable when it’s needed. And so if you weren’t able to dispatch your coal plant on the coldest day of the year, you cannot claim that you are a dispatchable resource.”

The details surrounding LG&E and KU’s power generation challenges during Winter Storm Elliott come as the utility is trying to retire some of its coal-fired generation units and largely replace them with natural gas plants. The utility is citing future emissions regulations and aging units that utility leaders say make it uneconomical to run three of its coal units, reflecting a trend of utilities across the country retiring coal power in light of cheaper alternatives such as natural gas and renewables.?

But with the implementation of SB 4, LG&E and KU now needs the explicit approval of the PSC before it can retire some of its coal power. Investor-owned utilities, including LG&E and KU, strongly opposed the legislation stating that it would force them to keep running uneconomical coal plants past their reasonable lifespans and burden consumers with maintenance costs. The utility states its proposal meets the requirements of the new law.?

A coalition of Kentucky-based renewable energy and environmental conservation groups, including the Kentucky Solar Energy Society and the Mountain Association, are intervening in the PSC case pushing LG&E and KU to invest more in renewable energy instead of building natural gas plants and adopt more robust energy-savings programs for ratepayers.?

Thom Cmar, an attorney with the environmental legal group Earthjustice representing the groups, said LG&E and KU “normalizing” the failures of fossil fuel-fired power generation ignores the possibilities for renewable energy and creates a “false choice” between natural gas and coal.?

He argues solar installations paired with utility-scale batteries, for example, can dispatch energy when needed and create a more reliable energy system.?

“A big part of the problem is if you’re only relying on one big fossil fuel plant or a small number of big fossil fuel plants to get your electricity, then you’re uniquely at risk for when one of those plants fails. And we know that they do fail,” Cmar said.?

Renewable energy experts say that solar and wind power can be just as reliable as fossil fuels with the need for continued investments in battery storage to capture energy from renewables.

Climate concerns

Another large concern for the coalition of groups is the heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change created from new natural gas plants, compared to emissions-free renewables. The leader of the United Nations, citing research from climate experts, is calling on rich countries including the United States to end all use of coal and natural gas for electricity generation by 2035 to limit the impacts of climate change.?

The utility has stated retiring its power generation in favor of an all-renewable supply would cost about $2 billion more. Its proposed natural gas plants, the utility stated, would produce 65% less carbon dioxide emissions compared to the coal-fired power slated for retirement.?

While natural gas produces about half the carbon dioxide when burned compared to coal, climate scientists worry the increasing adoption and emissions of the fuel could guarantee worsening climate change impacts in the future. Producing natural gas also emits methane, a greenhouse gas significantly more potent at warming the atmosphere in the short-term than carbon dioxide.

Along with its coal retirements and natural gas plants, LG&E and KU is proposing to build two solar installations, buy even more solar power through purchase agreements and build a small battery storage facility. Coal and natural gas would still be the utility’s main sources of power generation under the proposal.?

Whelan, the utility spokesperson, didn’t directly answer when asked why Bellar did not mention the utility’s problems with coal-fired power before lawmakers in February.?

The internal utility report which detailed the coal-fired power problems, Whelan said, wasn’t provided directly to the legislature but has been available publicly as an online filing on the PSC’s website. The link to the report is one of hundreds of links to filings made by the utility and other stakeholders in the PSC case.?

Whelan said power generation is designed to withstand extreme conditions like “bitterly cold temperatures,” but such conditions do create challenges.?

“We strive for 100% reliability but rely on our portfolio of generating assets rather than any one unit,” Whelan said.?

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Biden administration cancels last leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Yereth Rosen — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 14:58:22 +0000

Research biologists working on June 26, 2018, pause among the wetlands of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain, with the Brooks Range in the background. The Department of the Interior on Wednesday officially canceled the last seven oil and gas leases in the narrow coastal plain wedged between the mountains and the ocean. (Photo by Lisa Hupp/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

The Biden administration on Wednesday announced it is canceling the last remaining oil and gas leases in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Those seven leases, all held by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority and sold in a controversial auction held in the last days of former President Donald Trump’s administration, have been in limbo ever since President Joe Biden was sworn into office.

On his first day, Biden issued an order requiring a hold on Arctic refuge development to allow for further scrutiny of the lease sale and its environmental impacts. On June 1, Deb Haaland, secretary of the Department of the Interior, put the leases into suspended status. Interior soon after launched a formal supplemental environmental impact statement, a thorough review of the lease sale. The sale was held as a requirement of the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act.

Last month, a federal judge upheld the administration’s actions on the refuge leases, rejecting arguments from AIDEA, that it should be allowed to proceed with exploration.

Haaland, in an online news conference, said the lease cancellation protects the refuge’s coastal plain.

“With today’s action, no one will have rights to drill for oil in one of the most sensitive landscapes on earth,” she said.

However, the administration will abide by the provisions of the 2017 tax bill that require a second Arctic refuge lease sale by the end of 2024, according to an administration official.

Interior on Wednesday also announced a proposal for enhanced protections in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, the 23 million-acre land unit on the western part of the North Slope.

Haaland said the new protections are proposed to respond to accelerated climate change in the Arctic and to protect resources important to Indigenous people.

“Climate change is the crisis of our lifetime, and we cannot ignore the disproportionate impact being felt in the Arctic. We must do everything within our control to meet the highest standards of care to protect this fragile ecosystem,” she said.

Caribou herd forage in 2019 on vegetation at the ledge of a hill adjacent to the Hulahula River in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Photo by Alexis Bonogofsky/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

President Biden, in a statement issued by the White House, characterized the actions as necessary to protect the many “breathtaking natural wonders and culturally significant areas” in Alaska that should be protected from climate change.

“Canceling all remaining oil and gas leases issued under the previous administration in the Arctic Refuge and protecting more than 13 million acres in the Western Arctic will help preserve our Arctic lands and wildlife, while honoring the culture, history, and enduring wisdom of Alaska Natives who have lived on these lands since time immemorial,” Biden said in the statement.

The president said his climate and conservation agenda is the most ambitious in U.S. history.

“But there is more to do, and my administration will continue to take bold action to meet the urgency of the climate crisis and to protect our lands and waters for generations to come,” he said in the statement.

Proposed rules seek to enhance protections in 2013 activity plan

The proposed new rules for the National Petroleum Reserve would strengthen protections for the five “special areas” designated in a former President Barack Obama’s administration plan, known as an Integrated Activity Plan, made final in 2013. That plan, which put about half of the reserve off-limits to oil development, remains in effect, despite a Trump administration attempt to replace it with one that would have opened almost all of the reserve to drilling.

The new protections include a provision for automatic reviews every five years that may consider whether to expand the existing special areas or add new areas. The new protections also include more rules limiting surface impacts of oil development where it is allowed to occur, along with provisions for expanding Tribal participation through co-stewardship arrangements.

Caribou herd forage in 2019 on vegetation at the ledge of a hill adjacent to the Hulahula River in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Photo by Alexis Bonogofsky/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

The proposed rules, which are subject to a public comment period, do not affect any existing leases within the reserve, a senior Interior official said in a background briefing.

Within the National Petroleum Reserve, there are fields already producing oil or in development stages. The biggest is ConocoPhillips’ Willow field, which was approved in March by the Biden administration and which would produce about 600 million barrels of oil. Peak production if Willow is developed is expected to reach up to 180,000 barrels a day. The Biden administration approval has been challenged in court.

Lands on the western side of the North Slope, within the National Petroleum Reserve and on state territory adjacent to it, have drawn keen industry interest in recent years. ConocoPhillips’ plans for development of Willow and Santos’ plans to develop the large Pikka field on state land just outside of the reserve stem from exploration programs launched by federal leasing that started in 1999 under the administration of former President Bill Clinton. The area is underlain by the Nanushuk and Torok formations, oil-containing rock layers that were previously considered too difficult to develop but which now is being developed through advanced drilling technology.

In contrast, the Arctic Refuge has drawn almost no interest from oil companies. AIDEA was the dominant bidder in the 2021 lease sale. Two other bidders each secured a single lease but relinquished them shortly after. Major banks have refused to finance Arctic refuge development, and major insurance companies have refused to write policies for it.

The Biden administration announcement drew swift reactions from groups on both sides of the development debate.

Opponents of Arctic refuge development celebrated it.

“It is nearly impossible to overstate the importance of today’s announcements for Arctic conservation,” Jamie Williams, president of The Wilderness Society, said in a statement.

He called the 2017 tax bill “an underhanded ploy that opened one of the last great wild landscapes in America to destructive development” and produced “a failed lease” that was rushed and careless.

“But today – with positive announcements on both the Arctic Refuge and the Western Arctic – the Biden administration took huge steps to protect vast, beautiful landscapes for future generations. . .Our climate is a bit safer and there is renewed hope for permanently protecting one of the last great wild landscapes in America,” Williams said.

However, one group, the Center for Biological Diversity, said the NPR-A action amounts to “half-measures” because about half of the reserve remains open for development.

“Keeping options open for any new oil and gas drilling could lock us into more fossil fuel emissions for decades to come, and we can’t afford that. We have to end all oil drilling in the Arctic if we want to preserve the region and the polar bears, ringed seals and other wildlife already struggling to survive there,” Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.

An exploration site at ConocoPhillips’ Willow prospect is seen from the air in the 2019 winter season. Willow is located in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. (Photo by Judy Patrick/provided by ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc.)

Alaska officials plan legal challenges

On the pro-drilling side, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy promised a lawsuit over the administration’s action.

“The leases AIDEA hold in ANWR were legally issued in a sale mandated by Congress. It’s clear that President Biden needs a refresher on the Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine. Federal agencies don’t get to rewrite laws, and that is exactly what the Department of the Interior is trying to do here,” Dunleavy said in a statement. “We will fight for Alaska’s right to develop its own resources and will be turning to the courts to correct the Biden Administration’s wrong.”

AIDEA also vowed a legal response, calling the administration’s action unlawful.

“This latest action by the Department of the Interior shows arbitrary disregard for Federal law, based on campaign trail rhetoric. Campaign promises are not enough to justify this agency action. Under the law, Interior must present real facts and reasons that support this reversal in position,” an authority statement said.

“Interior’s action leaves AIDEA one choice, we have to go to court to protect our rights in the ANWR leases. This time, we will ask the court to allow us to conduct discovery that could include taking the deposition of Biden’s messenger, Secretary Haaland and possibly other administration officials involved so the real motives are made public,” the statement said.

Despite federal policies and U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason’s ruling last month, AIDEA has been proceeding with plans to develop the leases and with spending to carry out those plans.

The authority in 2020 budgeted $20 million toward ANWR oil development, including the initial acquisition of leases. Of that, according to AIDEA board meeting documents, spending in 2023 was expected to total more than $6.3 million. That sum includes nearly $3.7 million in annual payments for the seven leases – although the Bureau of Land Management offered in July of 2022 to refund the annual payments — $1.5 million for predevelopment work intended to lead to a seismic survey of the coastal plain and over $1.1 million for legal and administrative services.

Seismic surveys, as used by the oil and gas industry, precede drilling. The surveys employ sound waves to penetrate the ground and gather information about geology so that companies can better identify spots within the rock formations where oil and gas might be located.

AIDEA last month published a formal request seeking companies to conduct work to prepare for a seismic survey in the refuge’s coastal plain.

Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alaska Beacon maintains editorial independence. Contact editor-in-chief Andrew Kitchenman at [email protected].

Kentucky regulator denies electricity discounts for crypto mining proposal

Liam Niemeyer — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 17:44:12 +0000

Cyber Innovations Group has plans for a second crypto currency mining operation in Pike County. (Getty Images)

Kentucky’s utility regulator has denied millions of dollars in electricity discounts offered by utility Kentucky Power to support a massive cryptocurrency mining operation in Eastern Kentucky.?

The Kentucky Public Service Commission in a Monday order stated Chinese-owned Ebon International, the proposed Lawrence County cryptocurrency-mining facility, would “unquestionably” create jobs along with tax revenue for local and state governments: Kentucky Power stated the company planned to invest more than $250 million in the facility and create more than 100 local jobs. The facility would be located at the site of Kentucky Power’s Big Sandy natural gas plant, which was converted from burning coal in 2015.?

But the potential risks to ratepayers, particularly in light of Kentucky Power’s lack of in-house power generation, outweighed the economic benefits, the PSC concluded.?

According to the order, Kentucky Power, a subsidiary of American Electric Power, lacks enough power plants or agreements to purchase power to meet its ratepayers’ power supply needs starting in 2026. The utility said it planned to buy extra power from the multi-state grid operator PJM Interconnection to serve Ebon International — which would use 250 megawatts at full capacity and would be the largest cryptocurrency mining operation in the state — and other customers.

But the commission said the costs of buying power elsewhere, or the costs of building in-house power plants to meet Ebon International’s needs, come at a risk to Kentucky Power’s more than 150,000 customers in Eastern Kentucky.

“Kentucky Power’s lack of capacity that can produce energy creates the risk that energy prices rise in the footprint, and as a net purchaser of energy, the power bills of all customers will go up,” the order stated.?

Cryptocurrency mining typically uses massive amounts of electricity to run high-powered computers. Those machines solve complicated equations that help secure online transactions of the currencies. In the case of the popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin, mining companies are rewarded for solving the equations with Bitcoin itself. Each Bitcoin is valued at more than $25,000 as of late August.?

The commission last year launched three separate investigations into the “reasonableness” of electricity discounts offered by Kentucky utilities to cryptocurrency mining companies, largely citing concerns raised by environmental and renewable energy groups including the Kentucky Resources Council and the Mountain Association.?

Byron Gary, the program attorney for Kentucky Resources Council, in a statement said the groups were “grateful” the commission was taking a closer look at subsidies given to “wasteful facilities.”?

“We hope the Commission will continue to place consideration on the impacts of its decisions on the average ratepayers already struggling with high electric utility bills,” Gary said.?

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron and the industry group Kentucky Industrial Utility Customers had also asked for an investigation into the discounts given specifically to Ebon International. Cameron and KIUC had opposed the discounts, in part, because of the concerns that Kentucky Power had underestimated the costs of transmitting electricity for the project.?

The commission earlier this month approved electricity discounts given by Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities to a Bitcoin mining operation run by Kentucky’s largest coal mining company Alliance Resource Partners in Union County. The regulator is still considering whether to approve such discounts from Kentucky Power for a third cryptocurrency mining company Cyber Innovation Group in Pike County, which the coalition of environmental groups is also opposing.?

Kentucky Power spokesperson Sarah Nusbaum in a statement said the company is still reviewing the commission’s order denying the discounts and that the utility has “sufficient” power supply to meet its ratepayers’ needs, including using the PJM energy market as “backup power.”?

In an Aug. 8 filing before the PSC, Kentucky Power stated Ebon International would not locate in Kentucky without the electricity discounts.?

“We have other locations under development in the US and it would simply not be prudent for us to spend our capital in a situation with higher costs of power,” said Jason Wang, Ebon’s managing director in a March 2023 letter. “The cost of electric power is the single most important cost beyond the capital cost of equipment to build a data center.”?

Nusbaum said the utility would continue to “work diligently in this area” because of the need for economic development in Eastern Kentucky.

Federal, state regulators prod utilities to consider technology for grid upgrade

Robert Zullo — Mon, 28 Aug 2023 09:40:28 +0000

A PPL Electric Utilities employee installs a dynamic line rating sensor onto a transmission line in Pennsylvania from a helicopter. The sensors allow utilities to take into account wind speed, cloud cover and other conditions to determine if a line has more capacity.? (Courtesy of PPL Electric Utilities)

Of the many challenges confronting the nation’s aging, straining electric grid, the need for a lot of new transmission capacity is among the most pressing, experts and policymakers say.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Energy said the nation will need thousands of miles of new lines to better link regions to handle extreme weather, reduce costs and connect new renewable energy projects.

But building a new interregional transmission line can take a decade or more — chiefly because of siting and permitting delays, local resistance, planning problems, cost allocation and other obstacles.?

And while Congress has taken some steps on permitting reform (in this summer’s debt limit deal), there’s a suite of technologies that proponents and some state and federal regulators agree could get more out of the existing transmission system right now and potentially reduce the need for new wires.

They’re called “grid-enhancing technologies,” or GETs in industry shorthand, and in many cases they’ve been embraced elsewhere but have been slower to take root in the United States.

“If we don’t squeeze every drop out of the existing system it’s going to be a tough sell as we consider the costs involved in transmission expansion,” said Dan Scripps, chair of Michigan’s utility commission, at a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission task force meeting last month. “And I believe that grid-enhancing technologies can help us do that to maximize the value from the infrastructure that we have today. “

What are GETs?

Grid-enhancing technologies include a variety of tools to maximize the ability of the grid to handle the flow of electricity. They include sensors, power-flow devices, software and hardware that can better deliver real-time weather data and other technologies like topology optimization, which can identify the best grid configurations and route power flow around bottlenecks. Think of the electric grid as a road system and grid-enhancing technologies as traffic control devices and variable speed limits that can help alleviate congestion, a Department of Energy paper says.

And congestion on the nation’s electric grid is a real problem. Defined broadly, congestion in electric terms means any time physical constraints on the power system prevent the cheapest power from flowing to customers, which, naturally, raises costs.

“For example, the flow of power may be restricted by the maximum thermal limit of a transformer or power line conductor,” the Department of Energy says. “Therefore, operators are forced to reroute power through less optimal paths and rely on more expensive power generation, like conventional fossil fuels, while curtailing renewable wind or solar to safely meet the demand of their customers.”

A report released in July by Grid Strategies, a consulting firm that works to integrate renewable power into the electric grid, found that congestion costs (after doubling between 2020 and 2021) rose to $12.1 billion in 2022, an increase of 56% from 2021, in regions of the country controlled by six large regional transmission organizations. By extrapolating that increase to the rest of the U.S., the firm estimated that the total cost to electric customers of congestion in 2022 was nearly $21 billion.

“The best way to reduce transmission congestion is to increase transmission capacity. However, very little of transmission spending is on new large-scale, high-voltage transmission lines,” Grid Strategies wrote. “In addition, few U.S. utilities have adopted dynamic line ratings, advanced power flow control or topology optimization (together known as Grid Enhancing Technologies or GETs) to make more efficient use of existing grid infrastructure.”

Why adoption of GETs has lagged

There was broad consensus at the seventh meeting last month of FERC’s Joint Federal-State Task Force on Electric Transmission that GETs could yield big cost and reliability benefits for grid operators and electric customers.

“Perhaps the most compelling case to me for these technologies is that right now they can reduce grid congestion allowing our markets to consistently access lower cost power and to respond to real time reliability issues. And that’s particularly important when we’re dealing with extreme weather events,” said Andrew French, a member of the Kansas Corporation Commission who serves on the task force.

So why aren’t these types of technologies more prevalent in the United States?

The biggest reason, grid experts say, is how utilities earn money for grid upgrades and how their performance is measured.

“Utilities are not necessarily directly economically impacted by the inefficient use of transmission infrastructure,” said Darcie Houck, a California utilities commissioner who also serves on the task force, adding that often utilities pass on congestion costs to power generators and customers. “Utilities are financially motivated to build more capital-intensive transmission projects to grow their rate base which they earn a return on. … GETs may defer or negate the need for such capital projects thereby reducing utility revenues.”

Part of the reluctance also stems from a need for grid operators to “validate the technologies on their own system because there are not references publicly available on performance, integration, and deployment,” the Idaho National Laboratory wrote in a report last year.

Also creating hesitance is a lack of industry standards and specifications for some of the technologies, as well as potential security concerns, said Andrew Phillips, vice president of transmission and distribution at the Electric Power Research Institute, during the FERC task force meeting.

“When a new technology comes to market, we need a spec to buy to. We need to be confident it’s going to last 30 or 40 years. And that’s a really important thing and often a barrier,” Phillips said, adding that EPRI, a research and development nonprofit, has developed testing for some technologies like advanced conductors and is working on standards for others.

“We need an industry accepted way of evaluating these technologies, incorporating them into our plans and then exercising those plans.”

Yet, despite the past resistance, some see attitudes among utilities changing.

“Ratepayers aren’t going to pay for twice as much grid as we have today so they have to look at other solutions,” said Julia Selker, chief operating officer at Grid Strategies as well as the executive director of the WATT Coalition, which is pushing for broader adoption of GETs. “I see a mindset shift.”

A push from FERC and the states

FERC has taken recent steps to get more out of the existing transmission system and push for consideration of new technologies.

In 2021, FERC issued a final rule requiring transmission providers to use “ambient-adjusted ratings” for transmission lines that take into account actual air temperature and other weather conditions, instead of limiting a line’s capacity based on conservative, worst-case assumptions.

The order also opened the door for transmission owners to explore “dynamic line ratings,” a more real-time rating that can account for other factors that might increase line capacity, like wind speed, cloud cover and other conditions.

This summer,? PPL Electric, which has about 1.4 million customers in eastern and central Pennsylvania, won an industry award for being the first American electric company to install and integrate a dynamic line rating system within its transmission management and market operations. The technology will save its customers’ an estimated $23 million per year in congestion costs, the company says. A 2021 report commissioned by the WATT Coalition contends that deploying GETs nationwide would save more $5 billion a year in energy costs, against an upfront investment of $2.7 billion in the first year.

In July, as part of its effort to help clear backlogs of new power projects seeking to connect to the grid, FERC also required transmission providers to consider grid-enhancing technologies in their interconnection studies. And another proposed rule could also require their consideration in transmission planning.

“GETs belong in long-term planning,” Selker said. “If you’re not considering GETs than you’re not making the most efficient decisions for customers.”

But there’s been some reluctance among FERC commissioners to mandate any specific technology.

“We need to really listen to the engineers on this,” Commissioner Mark Christie, a former Virginia utility regulator, said. “There’s tremendous benefit if you get it right. There’s not benefit if you don’t.”

In a concurrence filed on the new interconnection rule, Christie acknowledged the vested interest of transmission owners in building “costly new transmission assets” instead of potentially less expensive technologies that could get more out of existing lines. But he also said there was “plenty of rent seeking” as well by companies who sell grid-enhancing technologies and the organizations they fund who stand to profit from any regulation mandating their use.

“Striking the appropriate balance – one that is in the public interest – is a challenge,” Christie said.

But there’s also a role for states. Selker said utility regulators in several states, including Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina, have asked their companies to report on their pursuit of federal funding for grid upgrades. There’s about $14 billion in federal funding available to states, tribes and utilities over the next several years for grid-enhancing technologies and other upgrades.

Caitlin Marquis, a managing director at Advanced Energy United, a trade group for clean energy companies, called the FERC requirement that GETs be considered in interconnection a small first step.

“There is a requirement to evaluate these technologies, there is a reporting requirement, but there is a lot left to transmission providers’ discretion. … It’s to be seen whether it results in increased use of GETs,” she said. “GETs is definitely an area where there is state interest and states could definitely be playing a bigger role in ensuring they get considered.”

Several state regulators on the FERC task force took a similar view.

“We need to squeeze every bit of value out of our existing system for the benefit of our ratepayers,” said Kimberly Duffley, a North Carolina utilities commissioner. “One thing state commissions can do is evaluate their existing rules to ensure they’re creating conditions for GETs to be considered where appropriate.”

Marissa Gillett, chair of the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, said it’s up to state and federal regulators to develop shared savings and other programs to push utilities to consider “non-wires” grid solutions, combining “a healthy disincentive with potential incentives.”

“Our ratepayers need us as regulators, whether state or federal level, to define the rules of the road and to insist on a fuller accounting of how an incumbent [utility] lands on a capital intensive solution,” she said. “I do think we need to go beyond the simple instructions that GETs should be considered.“

She noted that utility decisions on what to build aren’t made just on engineering merits in a vacuum.

“We should all trust but verify but also encourage and enforce if necessary,” she said.

Organizers out to help shape power generation in Kentucky for decades

Liam Niemeyer — Mon, 21 Aug 2023 22:25:55 +0000

Chase Smith (foreground) and Quincy Robinson canvass in a West Louisville neighborhood for Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

How to watch or attend the hearing

The formal hearing for LG&E and KU’s proposal starts at 9 a.m. EST on Tuesday and is expected to continue over several days.?

The hearing will be livestreamed on the commission’s YouTube page.

Those ?interested in attending the multi-day hearing in person can do so at the commission’s headquarters at 211 Sower Blvd, Frankfort, KY 40601.

On a recent August weekend, canvassers walked along a neighborhood street in West Louisville, cars and semi-trucks roaring down the nearby interstate just a few hundred feet away.

Chase Smith with the progressive grassroots organization Kentuckians for the Commonwealth knocked on each door, asking people if they “have a couple of seconds to talk about LG&E.”?

Smith, 25, is referring to Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU), Kentucky’s largest utility that provides heating and electricity to millions of Kentuckians in dozens of counties, from Ballard to Harlan counties, including Jefferson County and Louisville.?

Smith wanted to talk to them about the billions of dollars of investments that LG&E and KU is proposing before the state’s utility regulator, but he heard much more straightforward concerns from residents: higher utility bills, extended power outages after storms.?

Smith said utility bills are often the “most noticeable, tangible thing” that people can connect with. That helps lead to the larger discussion about the energy transition that LG&E and KU is taking part in and its ramifications.?

Canvassers for Kentuckians for the Commonwealth gather on a street corner after knocking on doors. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

“After they acknowledge the bill, getting them to acknowledge, like, the power plants and that goes to pollution — I feel like they kind of go hand and hand,” Smith said.?

Smith and other canvassers with the progressive advocacy organization have tried over the past several weeks to get the word out about public meetings and a hearing before the Kentucky Public Service Commission. They say the deliberations could lock LG&E and KU ratepayers into decades of dependence on natural gas plants when the utility should invest in emissions-free renewable energy.

A canvasser left a flyer about the LG&E and KU power plant proposal on a door in West Louisville. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

Their group is one of several, including pro-coal lobbyists, who have organized ahead of what could be “the most consequential and complicated” case in recent history before the state’s utility regulator. The formal hearing in that case starts on Tuesday at the Kentucky Public Service Commission, which regulates utility rates and utilities’ ability to construct new power plants across the state.?

As electric utilities across the country are making significant moves away from coal-fired power plants to renewable energy and natural gas, LG&E and KU has proposed transitioning away from some of its own coal-fired power and largely replacing it with two natural gas plants and some solar power.?

But whether or not to close some of the utility’s coal-fired power — and whether there should be more investments in renewable energy like solar instead of natural gas — is what environmentalists and the pro-coal advocates are strongly lobbying before the PSC, both through legal filings before the regulator and in public engagement on social media and in the streets.?

A coalition of environmental and renewable energy groups, including Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, and a lobbying group for the coal industry, the Kentucky Coal Association, have been pushing for Kentuckians to attend several public meetings the commission has held across the state the past few weeks.

“ARE YOU TIRED OF SKY-HIGH ELECTRIC BILLS AND WORRYING ABOUT WHETHER THE ELECTRIC GRID WILL HOLD UP DURING THE NEXT COLD SNAP OR HOT SPELL?” the coal association said in a social media post in late July, urging readers to let the commission know about “THE FAILED PROMISES OF THE BIG GREEN MONEY MACHINE!”

The executive director of the Kentucky Coal Association did not respond to a request for an interview about their advocacy ahead of the Tuesday commission hearing.?

Smith and others canvassing that day with Kentuckians for the Commonwealth see the building of proposed natural gas plants as costly investments that still will emit tons of heat-trapping greenhouse gasses that contribute to human-driven climate change.

The debate comes at a time when the leader of the United Nations, citing research from climate experts, is calling for rich countries to end all use of fossil fuels including natural gas and coal for power generation by 2035 to limit the increasing impacts of climate change.?

The Biden administration is also proposing federal regulations that would require utilities that run coal-fired or natural gas plants to capture all carbon dioxide emissions from those plants by 2038 or retire them.

?“Whatever plans that Kentucky has towards sustainability goals will not be met if we install these new gas plants,” said Madison Johnson, one of the canvassers. “The timelines just don’t add up.”

A statutory roadblock to what LG&E and KU wants

There are several aspects to what LG&E and KU is proposing before the Kentucky Public Service Commission, and it extends well beyond natural plants and retiring coal-fire power.?

E.W. Brown solar array in Mercer County. (Photo courtesy of LG&E/KU)

One of the two proposed natural gas plants would be built at the sites of existing coal-fired power plants in Jefferson County and Mercer County, the total costs for the two plants set at more than $1.3 billion. Each plant would generate 621 megawatts (MW) of power supply.?

At the same time, the utility is eyeing shutting down three of its coal-fired units for economical reasons: the increasing costs of maintaining one of the coal-fired power plant units and the costs of installing technology on two units to meet proposed federal emission regulations.?

The retirements would still leave most of LG&E and KU’s coal-fired power on the grid without retirement dates. LG&E and KU also want to build a solar installation in Mercer County, buy another solar installation being built by the Florida-based solar developer BrightNight and build an electricity battery storage facility in Mercer County. The utility would also enter into multiple agreements to purchase power from solar installations.?

In a statement at the time of filing its application before the commission last year, utility president John Crockett said many of the utility’s coal-fired power plant units were “reaching the end of their economic life” and “no longer cost-effective.”?

“The least-cost solution to reliably and affordably meet our customers’ energy demands now, and into the future, is to further diversify our generation fleet and offer our customers more programs to help them save energy and money,” Crockett said in his December 2022 statement.?

The utility said in August that retiring its power generation in favor of an all-renewable supply would cost about $2 billion more, and that the natural gas plants would produce 65% less carbon dioxide emissions compared to the coal-fired power slated for retirement.?

Climate scientists view natural gas as a cleaner energy source compared to coal, producing about half the carbon dioxide when burned. But they also worry the increasing adoption and emissions of the fuel could lock in worsening effects of climate change in the future. The production of natural gas produces methane, a greenhouse gas much more potent at warming the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, although it dissipates faster.

Sen. Robby Mills talks to Auditor Mike Harmon during the Graves County Republican Party Breakfast on Saturday, Aug. 5, 2023. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Austin Anthony)

But a wrinkle in the utility’s plans came about in this year’s legislative session when the GOP-dominated Kentucky General Assembly passed Senate Bill 4, which creates a series of prerequisites related to electricity reliability that the state’s utility regulator has to check off before approving a utility’s request to retire fossil fuel-fired power generation.?

The law, primarily sponsored by Sen. Robby Mills, R-Henderson, the running mate of Republican candidate for governor Daniel Cameron, was driven foremost by concerns from lawmakers about the reliability of electricity with the retiring of coal-fired power plants across the country.?

Officials with PJM Interconnection, one of the country’s largest regional grid operators that serves part of Eastern Kentucky, have expressed concerns before lawmakers that an increasing demand for power coupled with retiring coal and natural gas plants could create a power supply crunch in the next decade.

Studies from experts in renewable energy have shown that renewable energy such as wind and solar can be just as reliable as fossil fuels due to technological advances. That’s even with those energy sources being “intermittent” or producing energy for only a part of the day, such as when the sun is shining.?

In filing its application in this case, LG&E and KU is testing the parameters of SB 4 — something that the utility strongly opposed when it was legislation — before the commission in arguing that replacing some of its coal-fired power largely with natural gas plants won’t hurt electricity reliability.?

Kentuckians voice comments and concerns ahead of hearing

Ahead of the Tuesday hearing, public commentary has poured in from ratepayers and interested parties across the state, both in written comments and at in-person meetings that the commission held in Harlan County, Hopkins County, Louisville and Lexington.?

Comments came from local and state elected officials such as judge-executives, several lawmakers, including Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers, and Kentuckians from communities small and large.?

Jeff Doss of Harlan wrote that he was against the retirement of the coal-fired power units because coal is a “proven cost-effective way to provide power” in the state. Joe Winkler of Daviess County wrote that he opposed building the natural gas plants in part because of worries that the plants could become “stranded assets.”

At the public meeting in Louisville, dozens of Kentuckians asked the commission to consider impacts on climate change that building new natural gas plants could create.?

“We should have pivoted years ago to clean energy sources that are already deemed as reliable as fossil fuels,” said Deborah Potts, a Louisville resident at the meeting. “That’s without considering the ravaging costs climate change is having on our state, as evidenced by violent storms and flooding.”

At the public meeting in Western Kentucky, several spoke in favor of coal-fired power, including Union County Judge-Executive Adam O’Nan. Union County has been the largest coal-producing county in the state as overall coal production has declined in recent years.?

“I believe we should utilize all sources of energy and continue research into improvements that will enhance our lives. But let’s not forget the best energy source is always the reliable energy source,” O’Nan said.?

Power lines connecting to a nearby LG&E and KU substation are seen over a West Louisville home. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

Incentives for Bitcoin mining operation run by Kentucky’s largest coal producer gets regulator’s OK

Liam Niemeyer — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 09:00:38 +0000

Mining cryptocurrency requires immense amounts of electricity to power high-capacity computers that perform complicated mathematical calculations, securing online transactions of virtual currencies such as Bitcoin. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Kentucky’s utility regulator has approved more than $4 million in electricity cost discounts over several years for a Bitcoin mining operation being run by Kentucky’s largest coal producer.

The Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) in its Monday order said the economic development incentives offered by Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU) to Bitiki-KY, a Bitcoin mining subsidiary of coal company Alliance Resource Partners, would be unlikely to harm LG&E and KU’s ratepayers, and the costs of the discounts would likely be covered.

The commission opened a case last year investigating the reasonableness of the electricity discounts, known as an economic development rider, given to Bitiki-KY and two other cryptocurrency mining operations after environmental and renewable advocacy organizations raised concerns about the incentives.

The groups — including Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Kentucky Solar Energy Society and the Kentucky Resources Council — questioned whether the jobs created by cryptocurrency mining were worth the discounts and whether the discounts should be saved for other industries that employ more Kentuckians.

Alliance promised to create five jobs and invest $25 million as part of the agreement for the discounts. During a commission hearing, one LG&E and KU employee said the utility didn’t have a way to ensure employees aren’t being double-counted from another part of Alliance’s business.

Alliance is operating high-powered computers on top of a former coal mine in Union County, not far from the sprawling coal company’s largest underground mine that produced more than 10 million tons of coal in 2022. Alliance’s CEO is Joseph Craft III, whose wife Kelly Craft lost an expensive race to become the Republican nominee for governor earlier this year.

The environmental and renewable energy groups argued before the commission that LG&E and KU had not provided evidence of job creation by Alliance through its Bitcoin mining operation, nor had LG&E and KU offered evidence Alliance would have relocated its operation without the discounts.

In its Monday order, the commission said LG&E and KU is not required under existing state regulations “to demonstrate minimum levels of investment or job creation” as a part of the economic development incentives.

“Bitiki has asserted that it plans to make $25 million in capital investments and its project will create five jobs,” the commission order stated. “The Commission has no reason to doubt the veracity of Bitiki’s assertions.”

LG&E and KU spokesperson Natasha Collins said the utility was “pleased” with the commission’s decision to approve the discounts and that it determines whether to offer economic development incentives based on, in part, if a company also receives incentives from state government. Bitiki-KY in March 2022 received $250,000 in tax benefits from the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority.

“This helps ensure that our EDR candidates have bona fide economic development projects in the view of the Commonwealth. We rely on that vetting process as well as the plausible representations of prospective EDR customers with regard to potential job creation,” Collins said.

Alliance did not respond to a request for comment on the order.

Thom Cmar, a senior attorney for Earthjustice representing the environmental and renewable energy groups in the PSC case, said the groups were “disappointed” in the commission’s decision to approve the discounts. He also said the regulator’s order didn’t address the fact that Alliance was operating its Bitcoin mining operation with the electricity discounts suspended during the commission’s investigation.

“If the company in particular is already operating without those discounts, there really ought to be compelling evidence in the record as to why they need them,” Cmar said. “Kentucky Utilities did not attempt to provide that type of evidence, and the commission made a judgment that it wasn’t necessary to dig into that issue.”

An LG&E and KU employee said in past commission testimony that the Bitcoin mining operation’s electricity usage hinged on receiving the discounts: Alliance would likely not increase its power usage at its Bitcoin mining site from 10 megawatts to 13 megawatts without the discounts.

Cmar said he hopes the commission in separate investigations it is conducting will deny economic development incentives given by utility Kentucky Power to two other cryptocurrency mining operations. One of those operations would likely be the state’s largest cryptocurrency mining facility and have the capacity to use up to 250 megawatts of electricity.

“We just think it’s important that the commission give all of these contracts close scrutiny and make sure that these economic development discounts are being used for actual meaningful economic development, and [we] don’t believe that the cryptocurrency facilities for which they’ve been proposed are providing that,” Cmar said.

Need help paying for AC? Here’s how to apply for aid.

Liam Niemeyer — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 09:00:20 +0000

Funds are available to help Kentuckians pay rising electric bills. (Getty Images)

Community action agencies across Kentucky are now accepting applications to help residents pay their electric bills.

The summer subsidies are available through?the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and Low-Income Home Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP).

LIHEAP can provide a household with a one-time payment between $50 and $250, depending on income and household type, to help with electric bills. LIHWAP can likewise provide a one-time payment between $50 and $150 to help with water or wastewater bills.

To qualify, a person’s income must be below 150% of the federal poverty line, which is $45,000 for a household of four. LIHEAP also offers emergency assistance for those facing utility disconnections, along with funding to help make low-income homes more energy-efficient.

“Any household that has a verified expense and meets the income limits, it’s a credit or a payment on their monthly bill,” said Todd Trapp, Director for the Kentucky Division of Family Support at a legislative committee hearing in July.

Some agencies also provide air conditioners if a household has an individual whose medical condition could lead to worsening health without cooling.

LIHEAP and LIHWAP are both entirely federally funded, and enrollment is open for the program until Sept. 22 or until funds run out.

Find county offices for local community action agencies across the state here.

Federal regulators approve new rules to ease power connection backlogs?

Robert Zullo — Fri, 28 Jul 2023 22:57:41 +0000

The Blue Creek wind farm in Ohio consists of 152 wind turbines with a total capacity of 304 megawatts. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has finalized new rules that are expected to help ease the backlog of new wind, solar and battery storage projects awaiting regulatory approval. (Robert Zullo/ States Newsroom)

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday finalized long-awaited new rules intended to reform how power generation projects get connected to the electric grid, seen as a major step in smoothing the path for thousands of mostly renewable power projects currently waiting to plug in.

“This rule will ensure that our country’s vast generation resources are able to interconnect to the transmission system in a reliable, efficient, transparent and timely manner,” FERC Chairman Willie Phillips said, adding that there are 2,000 gigawatts of power projects stuck in interconnection queues across the nation. “We have as much generation waiting to be connected to the grid as double the amount of generation currently on the grid.”

Those projects, mostly wind, solar and battery storage plants, have been stuck in massive backlogs while grid managers conduct interconnection studies needed to gauge how bringing them online would affect the broader system and determine whether any upgrades are needed.

“We have wait times of over five years. The average project needed today won’t even begin construction until 2028,” Phillips said.

Existing processes were set up at a time when there were relatively few new power plants (generally gas fired) coming online and there was plenty of excess transmission line capacity, said Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School. Now, the vast majority of the projects in the queue are renewables that are generally more numerous and diffuse and smaller in output. And there are many areas where transmission is constrained.

The resulting delays are imperiling states’ renewable power goals, causing projects to wither on the vine as developers confront rising costs and supply chain problems and depriving local economies of jobs, not to mention the carbon-free electricity they promise to deliver, critics contend.

FERC’s new rule requires transmission providers to use “cluster” studies that allow for studying numerous proposed projects at once rather than individually in a “first-come, first-served” fashion. A cluster approach that is redone each year also is better able to adapt when interconnection customers who are higher up in the queue drop out, reducing the need for “cascading restudies,” FERC staff said. At the same time, the rule requires increased financial commitments for interconnection customers to enter and remain in the queue, meet more stringent site control requirements and imposes penalties on customers who withdraw from the queue.

“These reforms will discourage speculative, commercially non-viable interconnection requests and allow transmission providers to focus on processing interconnection requests that have a greater chance of reaching commercial operation,” FERC staff wrote.

For transmission providers, which can be big, regional entities called regional transmission organizations or independent system operators, or individual utilities depending on the part of the country, there are also firm study deadlines and penalties if they are not met, and uniform modeling standards.

And, among other components, another major piece pushes more adoption of technological advances into the interconnection process, such as allowing more than one generation facility to co-locate on a shared site behind an single interconnection point and share an interconnection request. There’s also a requirement that transmission providers model battery storage resources in the way they are actually used rather than unlikely worst-case scenarios and require evaluation of a suite of options called “grid-enhancing technologies” that can save money and time.

“It’s fair,” said Commissioner Allison Clements. “The final rule requires everyone to do their part to address the cause of interconnection backlogs.”

Reforms a start, but problems will remain

Though renewable energy industry representatives and clean power proponents called the reforms a good start, they say the rule, first proposed last summer, will leave many problems the energy transition has presented for grid managers and regulators unresolved.

“The bigger picture issues of why we don’t have enough transmission in this country are not going to be solved through this rule,” Peskoe said.

John Moore, director of the Sustainable FERC Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the rule “will raise the floor on action, but the ceiling will depend on grid operators taking leadership and increasing the capability and capacity of the grid. The devil will be in the details.”

The seven wholesale electricity markets in the United States. (Source: U.S. GAO/FERC

Roughly two-thirds of American electric customers live in an area where electric flow is managed by a regional transmission organization (RTO) or an independent system operator (ISO), who also run power markets. In the rest of the country, the grid is run by utilities that are typically vertically integrated (meaning they’re responsible for generating, transmitting and distributing electricity to their customers) who do their own transmission planning. The new rule will apply to both types of regimes, which will have to submit filings to FERC explaining how they’ll comply, Peskoe said. Several RTOs have already been implementing their own queue reform, however.

“We need to fashion this in a way that moves the ball but doesn’t get in the way of what they’re already doing,” Commissioner Mark Christie said.

The Midcontinent Independent System Operator, or MISO, which coordinates electric flow for a region of the central U.S. and Gulf Coast that includes all or part of 15 states, proposed a series of reforms that includes increased interconnection payments and penalties for withdrawal.

“Changes are needed to better manage the number of speculative requests in future queue cycles, which will reduce processing time and ensure more certain and timely study results,” a MISO spokesman said.

PJM, the largest U.S. regional transmission organization, also began a transition to a new interconnection process this month.

Faster approvals could bring jobs

In a report released last month that looked just at PJM, the American Council on Renewable Energy, a nonprofit working to accelerate the transition to renewable energy, found that if PJM was approving projects at the same pace as it did from 2011 to 2016, the 34 gigawatts of renewable power in its queue would be operating within the next four years. That would mean thousands of jobs and about $33 billion in investment for the PJM region, which includes 65 million people in all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia. Virginia, Illinois, Ohio and Indiana were the biggest potential beneficiaries.

In interviews, several grid experts said fixing transmission planning and making upgrades is equally, if not more, important than interconnection reforms for getting large amounts of new resources connected to the grid quickly.

“If a transmission provider says ‘Congratulations, you’ve got your agreement, this is going to take six plus years before you can interconnect,’ that’s going to be fatal to a lot of projects,” said Jason Burwen, vice president of policy and strategy at GridStor, an Oregon company that has 2 gigawatts of battery storage projects under development.

Peskoe noted that much of the nation’s transmission planning is being driven by individual projects’ interconnection process, which he called a “piecemeal, inefficient way to go about building an interstate transmission system.”

Several other experts compared it to building a highway system one lane at a time.

FERC is working on another proposed rule on regional transmission planning and cost allocation that it will finalize “in the months ahead,” Phillips said.

“Together, this interconnection queue reform, with long term and regional planning — we will have the greatest transmission reforms in a generation to come out of FERC,” he added. “This is a good day.”

Kentucky’s largest utility wants to invest billions in new power plants. Here’s how to weigh in.

Liam Niemeyer — Thu, 27 Jul 2023 09:00:39 +0000

E.W. Brown solar array at Kentucky Utilities Mercer County plant. (Photo courtesy of LG&E/KU)

When Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU) filed an application in December to make significant changes to how it generates its electricity, the utility acknowledged the “unprecedented change” taking place with how the United States makes its power.?

“Although there is room for disagreement concerning the precise timing and mechanisms by which it will come about, there is no reasonable doubt that the future of electric supply, at least in the United States, will be lower carbon,” LG&E and KU’s application stated.?

According to the utility’s application, aging coal-fired power plants that had served Kentucky for generations had “limited remaining economic life.” Coupled with existing and future regulations on coal-fired power plants, that likely means all coal-fired power is on its way to being closed down with only a “remote” chance of new coal-fired power plants being constructed.

Those are the main reasons the utility is trying to retire three of its coal-fired power generation units — Mill Creek Unit 2 in Jefferson County, Ghent Unit 2 in Carroll County and the E.W. Brown Unit 3 in Mercer County — by 2028 in a case before the state’s utility regulator, the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC).?

The utility plans to replace the lost power generation from those plants with more than $2 billion in investments in new plants. It plans to build two natural gas plants at existing facilities for a combined cost of more than $1.3 billion and? two solar installations at the combined cost of more than $460 million. It also plans to build a battery electricity storage facility at the cost of about $270 million.?

What’s at stake

The utility would still get most of its power generation from its other coal-fired generation units even with the retirements and additions, according to an analysis by Louisville Public Media, with new and existing natural gas plants providing the second most amount of electricity. Renewables would provide a small percentage of electricity.

That proposed energy mix is a sticking point for renewable energy and environmental groups intervening in the PSC case who want to see LG&E and KU invest more heavily in renewables and turn away from proposed natural gas plants that, while generally emitting less heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions than burning coal could increase emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane.?

The chief of the United Nations, referencing a report from leading climate scientists, warned earlier this year that richer countries like the United States need to cease all use of coal for power generation by 2030 and have carbon-free electricity generation by 2035 — meaning no new natural gas plants — to prevent the worst impacts of climate change.?

LG&E and KU’s case is also testing a new state law passed earlier this year by the GOP-dominated legislature that creates a series of prerequisites the PSC would have to check off before it could approve the retirement of fossil fuel-fired power generation, including from coal.

The PSC’s chairman last month called the LG&E and KU case “the most consequential and complicated case” he can find in the past three to four decades.?

How to make a public comment

The PSC is seeking feedback from the utility’s ratepayers and the public in the form of several in-person public meetings across the state and a virtual meeting. The dates and locations of those meetings are:

Monday, July 31 at 5:30 p.m. EST at Frederick Douglass High School, 2000 Winchester Road, Lexington.
Thursday, Aug. 3 at 5:30 p.m. EST at the Harlan County Judge Executive’s Office, 210 E. Central Street, #111, Harlan.
Monday, Aug. 14 at 4:30 p.m. CST at the Hopkins County Government Center, 56 N. Main St., Madisonville.
Wednesday, Aug. 16 at 5:30 p.m. EST at the Louisville Free Public Library’s Main Branch in Community Room 202, 301 York St., Louisville.

The virtual meeting will be held Tuesday, Aug. 15, with directions on how to access the meeting available on the commission’s website. These meetings will be ahead of a formal hearing for the case on Aug. 22.

Written comments in the case can be submitted at any time through an online portal, emailed to [email protected], or mailed to P.O. Box 615, Frankfort, KY 40602-0615. According to a release, all comments should include the commenter’s name, address and the case number: 2022-00402.?

$1 billion solar project planned on former Starfire coal mine in Eastern Kentucky

Liam Niemeyer — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 21:57:30 +0000

An 800 megawatt solar installation is planned for the reclaimed Starfire mine site in Knott County. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

KNOTT COUNTY — It was a little over five years ago when Philip Marsh looked over the thousands of acres of reclaimed strip mine land he owned near the Knott County line and wouldn’t have a clue what would come of it.

The Eastern Kentucky mountaintops that Marsh owned, now pastures after decades of coal mining, used to be the Starfire mine that employed nearly 300 people and took out of the mountains more than 3 million tons of coal a year at its peak, according to Marsh.

“They’ve been mining coal up here since the late ‘60s, early ‘70s. So it’s hard to find somebody that doesn’t know about Starfire in Knott, Perry and Breathitt counties,” he said.

Marsh, who used to work for the coal company that owned the Starfire mine, and his business partner built a small lodge and campground for guided elk hunts across the land. But another opportunity came along in 2020 that kindled an idea to help return the land to its energy-producing roots.

Kentucky officials and the Florida-based solar developer BrightNight unveiled that opportunity Tuesday as the company announced plans to invest about $1 billion to build a sprawling solar installation generating up to 800 megawatts (MW) – the electricity equivalent of powering more than 500,000 homes. It would be the largest solar installation planned in the state so far in terms of energy generation.

A crowd, including state and local officials and Nature Conservancy CEO Jennifer Morris, gathered for BrightNight’s announcement. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

For Marsh, the massive project could benefit Kentuckians from nearby coalfield communities with tax revenue and jobs.

“It’s a good repurposing of this ground,” Marsh said. “What will hopefully, ultimately happen here — it’s the best that could happen to these three counties.”

BrightNight CEO Martin Hermann told the crowd gathered at the former Starfire mine that the finished multi-phase project would generate about $400 million in tax revenue to local and state governments over the course of the solar project’s 40-year lifespan. The goal is to finish construction on the leased land by 2030, he said.

BrightNight also has other solar installations in development in West Kentucky, specifically McCracken and Ballard counties, along with other locations across the country. The company is also developing a 120 MW project in Washington and Marion counties to sell to Kentucky’s largest utility.

Electric SUV manufacturer Rivian plans to buy 100 MW of energy from the project as renewable energy credits that can offset the carbon emissions of its drivers. The conservation organization The Nature Conservancy plans to buy 2.5 MW for renewable energy credits to offset the carbon emissions of their offices.

Nature Conservancy CEO Jennifer Morris said the region “has been a powerhouse” of energy production, referencing its coal mining present and past. Using reclaimed mine land for solar projects, she said, can save more productive land for other purposes.

“This is the future: continuing that large tradition, that long tradition of energy production, but doing it in a way that can be more sustainable, both for our country, our world and certainly for the nature in this incredible place,” Morris said.

The plans are in place. What now?

It could be at least a couple of years before solar panels begin to enter the ground at the former Starfire mine, in part due to bureaucratic hurdles that planned solar installations across the country are facing.

Solar companies wanting to connect to a regional electric grid have to apply to do so through what’s known as an “interconnection queue.” The electric grid operator has to then study the costs it takes to connect such projects to the grid.

Getting permission from regional grid operators can take years, which adds to the cost of solar projects.

Starfire Haul Road, which served a surface mine that once produced 3 million tons of coal a year, lies near where Knott, Perry and Breathitt counties meet. (Kentucky Lantern photo)

Hermann, the Brightnight CEO, said the company has done its own study of what transmission costs will be for their Eastern Kentucky project while it waits on feedback from the regional grid operator. The company submitted a request for the first phase of the project in 2021 with the hope to hear back on that request by 2025.

“There is just no other way than to wait until you get the study results,” Hermann said. “There has just been a glut of interconnection requests hitting the power grid.”

BrightNight would also have to get permission from the Kentucky Public Service Commission, the state’s utility regulator, to build the project by applying for a construction certificate through the Electric Generation and Transmission Siting Board.

Once construction starts, Hermann said each phase of the four-phase project is expected to take up to two years to build, creating between 20 to 50 jobs during construction of each phase.

He said an estimated 20 permanent jobs will be created to maintain the project site, which he described as “unfortunately” low compared to the number of temporary construction jobs for the site.

Adam Edelen, a former Kentucky auditor and Democratic candidate for governor, whose renewable energy company helped shepherd forward the BrightNight project, said solar installations ultimately can’t replace all the lost coal mining jobs but will be important to the economy.

“It’s about diversifying the economy and providing a solution suite of opportunities for the folks who, you know, live, love, work and worship here,” Edelen said. “With a recognition that renewable energy is going to be the preferred power source of the 21st century economy, creating those opportunities here is important to magnetizing opportunity for our people.”

Edelen recently touted a deal for car manufacturer Toyota to purchase power from another planned solar installation on a former coal mine site in Martin County to offset emissions.

Several of the speakers at the BrightNight announcement mentioned the upcoming anniversary of deadly, catastrophic floods that hit Eastern Kentucky communities near the planned solar project.

Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet Secretary Rebecca Goodman said BrightNight has had “very productive discussions” with the cabinet about how the solar developer could help with the affordability and resiliency of planned cottages at a “higher ground” community under development to replace housing lost to the flood.

“There’s no doubt that the weather events [affecting] Kentucky are still continuing,” Goodman said, referencing a recent record rainfall that caused major flooding in West Kentucky. “I think we’ve seen a pattern that continues to go, and we need to do everything we can to mitigate the effects of these disasters.”

Rocky Adkins, senior advisor to Gov. Andy Beshear, addressed the gathering. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

Winter is coming and the U.S. grid remains vulnerable to power plant failures

Robert Zullo — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 09:40:34 +0000

Several fossil fuel plants went offline during recent winter storms either because their equipment froze or because they couldn’t get fuel, leading to blackouts in some regions. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

From winter storms to sweltering summer heat, there’s a consensus among experts that increasing extreme weather, a shifting electric generation mix, delays in getting new power generation projects connected and the difficulties in getting new transmission lines and other infrastructure built all pose an increasing risk to the grid.

At U.S. Senate committee hearings as well as Federal Energy Regulatory Commission meetings, there have been plentiful warnings over the past few months about a coming reliability crisis.

“Implement these recommendations now. Right now. We know, to borrow a phrase, winter is coming. Let’s get ready. Let’s stop this. We can do this.”

– Willie Phillips, chairman, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Much of the debate has centered on what U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican, characterized at a hearing last month as “reckless policies” aimed at limiting pollution from existing power plants, retiring older fossil fuel generation facilities and speeding the transition to cleaner sources of energy to mitigate the consequences of climate change.

But there’s been less sound and fury about one of the biggest factors in recent severe weather blackouts, like those across parts of the South during Winter Storm Elliott, when large numbers of fossil fuel plants, particularly those fired by natural gas, tripped offline because of freezing equipment, inability to secure fuel and other failures.

“The overwhelming threat to reliability right now is fossil plants failing to perform in the winter,” said Tom Rutigliano, a senior advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Sustainable FERC program.

And though FERC approved new power plant winterization standards in February, one? commissioner flatly said they don’t go far enough and pointed out that they don’t become enforceable until 2027.

Winter might seem far off right now with much of the country in the grips of a punishing heat wave, but as it approaches, the grid is still very much vulnerable to severe storms like Elliott and Winter Storm Uri, which caused a catastrophic collapse of the Texas electric grid in 2021 that killed an estimated 246 people.

“Nothing really has fundamentally changed since last winter,” said Michael Goggin, vice president of Grid Strategies, a consulting firm focused on clean energy integration. “It’s just a question of do we get lucky and avoid another cold snap.”

‘Implement these recommendations now’?

During Elliott, which brought rapidly plummeting temperatures to many parts of the country over the Christmas weekend, rolling blackouts were instituted by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which provides electricity for 153 local power companies serving 10 million people in Tennessee and parts of six surrounding states, Duke Energy in the Carolinas and several utilities in Kentucky, cutting power to hundreds of thousands of customers.

PJM, the nation’s biggest regional transmission organization, coordinating electric flow for 65 million people in parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia, urged its customers to cut usage and avoided blackouts despite losing about 47,000 megawatts of capacity.

TVA said 38 of its 232 generating units were “negatively impacted, mostly due to instrumentation that froze,” during the storm, taking thousands of megawatts of power offline as demand surged to historic levels.

In Duke Energy’s territory in the Carolinas, the company lost about 1,300 megawatts of power output mostly from coal and gas (though no plants failed entirely) due to instrumentation issues from the cold and power imports from out of state that failed to materialize, a company spokesman said. Duke’s problems threatened the broader reliability of the broader electric grid that serves more than half the country, called the Eastern Interconnection.

“Natural gas has failed at a very disproportionately high rate.”

– Tom Rutigliano, a senior advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Sustainable FERC program

In PJM, gas power plants accounted for 70% of the outages. “Most outages were caused by equipment failure likely resulting from the extreme cold, though broader issues of gas availability also contributed to the outages,” PJM staff wrote in a report released July 17.

”There has been a lot of talk that we must preserve the current resource mix, which in PJM is made predominantly of natural gas, coal and nuclear resources,” said Greg Poulous, executive director the Consumer Advocates for PJM States, at a FERC forum on PJM’s capacity market last month. “However I have yet to hear someone say that having 20% of coal resources and 23% of natural gas resources fail to perform during Winter Storm Elliott is acceptable. That seems to be lost in all of this.”

In a separate proceeding on an inquiry into what went wrong during Elliott, FERC Chairman Willie Phillips noted that extreme weather has become more commonplace.

“This is the fifth winter storm event that we’ve had in the past 11 years,” Phillips said. “So what seems to have been a once-in-a-generation event is now every other year.”

Per a presentation by FERC staff, more than 70,000 megawatts of power generation went offline across the country during the storm, and for strikingly similar reasons as in winter storms in 2011, 2014, 2018 and 2021.

“We’re finding that unplanned generating unit outages continue to be the primary challenge that are seen in all of these events,” said Heather Polzin, who works in FERC’s Office of Enforcement.

Both FERC and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which is charged by federal law with setting and enforcing reliability standards for the North American power system, have repeatedly urged power generators to make the upgrades necessary to improve performance during severe weather.

“Implement these recommendations now,” Phililps said. “Right now. We know, to borrow a phrase, winter is coming. Let’s get ready. Let’s stop this. We can do this.”

But there’s been some resistance, particularly from independent power producers who sell their electricity on the open market.

The Electric Power Supply Association, a trade group for competitive power generators, filed a request for a rehearing on the new winterization standards FERC approved, arguing that the standards lacked a cost-recovery mechanism and that their members could be put at a competitive disadvantage. Vertically integrated utilities, which are generally responsible for generating, transmitting and distributing electricity in a given territory, can simply pass the costs of winterization upgrades onto their ratepayers, the association said.

“Competitive generation owners lack similar opportunities,” EPSA argued, noting that some power plants will also be exempted from the new rules (for technical, commercial or operational reasons). “The Feb. 16 order not only neglected to give this issue special attention, it gave this issue no attention at all.”

FERC denied the request for another hearing.

“To the extent competitive generators believe that their existing rates do not offer an opportunity to recover the costs … they may make appropriate filings,” the commission wrote.

A ‘tricky’ fix

So if a major cause of blackouts in severe weather is power plant failures, why can’t federal regulators simply force them to quickly make the upgrades necessary to improve cold weather performance?

It’s not that simple, said Jim Robb, NERC’s president and CEO of NERC.

“In all of our standards that we’ve passed, particularly if they require a change in operating practices or capital investment, you have to give the sector some time to respond to that, so there’s a delay from when you pass the standard to when it’s enforceable,” Robb said in an interview with States Newsroom. “In between there, we jump up and down and try to promote early action as quickly as we can.”

The other quandary for regulators, at a time when there’s widespread concern about the pace of power plant retirements, is getting better performance from those units without prompting them to shut down.

“We don’t want to cause an event that would prematurely retire any generation. … All the stuff that’s kind of the backbone of the electric grid are all under pressure economically and because of other regulatory actions. Our goal isn’t to compound that,” Robb said.

He added that winterizing plants in the South can be particularly challenging, since they must be able to operate in extreme heat as well as cold.

“At the same time we want to be clear that these plants need to be able to perform under the kind of conditions that we’ve seen five times over the last 11 years, three times over the last five and each of the last two winters,” he said. “That’s becoming the norm and that’s got to become much more the planning case for the grid.”

Kentucky Power’s gas-fired Big Sandy power plant in Lawrence County. State regulators have raised the possibility of fining the utility, a subsidiary of American Electric Power, related to its attempt to recoup from ratepayers the cost of emergency power purchased during Elliott, contending that it should have done better planning .(Creative Commons photo)

He noted that FERC is directing his organization to take another look at exceptions related to technical feasibility in the new rules that would allow power plants to avoid making the upgrades. When they do come into effect, though, Robb said NERC believes the new standards will prevent the types of power plant failures seen during Uri and Elliott.

“It’s a tricky problem to work through but that’s what FERC came back and said we want tighter language around that,” Robb said. “I don’t disagree with them at all.”

The future of gas?

Though the U.S. is currently seen as being in the midst of a big single electric transition (from fossil fuels to renewables) it’s actually at the tail end of an earlier one (from coal to gas) that hasn’t been fully reckoned with from a reliability perspective, according to some grid experts, like Rutigliano of the NRDC.

Natural gas has become a crucial part of the electric generation mix. Coal fell from 52% of U.S. power generation in 1990 to 18% in 2022 as gas climbed from 12% to 40% over that time. That’s made the electric grid that much more vulnerable to outages from gas plants, which depend on deliveries from gas pipelines and don’t typically have fuel on site like coal or nuclear power plants.

“Natural gas has failed at a very disproportionately high rate,” Rutigliano said.

Although during severe weather many gas power plants failed because of freezing equipment, others were unable to run because they weren’t able to get fuel.

“Where we haven’t seen much progress is making sure the fuel supply is firmed up,” said Devin Hartman, director of energy and environmental policy at the R Street Institute, a Washington think tank focused on policy solutions. “We really have to talk about gas industry reforms as well. There’s only so much juice we can squeeze out of this lemon on just the electric side.”

But with gas projected by some to be part of the U.S. electric generation mix for the foreseeable future, it’s crucial to make sure it can perform when called upon. Like it or not, that means more investment in gas infrastructure, Robb said, even as technologies like battery storage come into more widespread use.

“We have like five gigawatts of batteries in California right now, which is spectacular,” said Robb. “That is a ton of batteries. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to what you would ultimately need to not have natural gas on the system. … The batteries we have are doing a lot of really great things, they’re just not everything we need them to do and nor are they likely capable of doing that.”

Hartman said it’s time to have a “conversation about prudent investment in the gas industry” so it can perform when needed, such as during severe weather.

“Natural gas, to be totally frank, is going to play a very major role in the electric fuel mix for at least a couple of decades,” he said.

A 2019 paper prepared for the American Petroleum Council noted that although natural gas power plants had become the largest users of the interstate pipeline system, “power plants, particularly those in the regional competitive wholesale electricity markets that cover most of the country, are reluctant to contract for firm transportation.” Firm contracts are those that cannot be interrupted except “under unforeseeable circumstances,” per the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The gas industry is designed, operated and incentivized primarily to serve what Robb called its “core customers,” local gas distribution companies, not power plants.

“The gas-electric coordination issues are really very, very significant and also very challenging to resolve. Otherwise they’d be solved,” Robb said. “So we’ve got to figure out how to make that interface work in a way that it’s not right now because the failure of natural gas generation has been the common theme throughout each of the five major winter events that we’ve studied.”

However, the North American Energy Standards Board has worked for about a year and a half on a list of recommendations to improve coordination between the gas and electric power industry, he said. They would not be binding though.

Local and regional fixes

While the new power plant standards approved by federal regulators won’t become enforceable until 2027, that doesn’t mean states and the regional entities that coordinate electric flow in much of the country are toothless.

PJM is proposing changes to its capacity market, which was created to ensure power generators provide enough electric generating capacity to meet demand when the grid is under stress, such as during severe summer heat or frigid winter weather. But there’s widespread concern that the system of incentives and penalties to get generators to show up when they’re needed isn’t working.

In North Carolina, regulators at the Utilities Commission are reviewing Duke Energy’s failures during Elliott. “We always work to improve from every incident and have been applying lessons learned from that event to improve the operations of our plants during extreme conditions,” Duke spokesman Jeff Brooks said.??

TVA said it has made more than 250 equipment upgrades to guard against a repeat failure. Kentucky regulators have raised the possibility of fining one utility related to its attempt to recoup from ratepayers the cost of emergency power purchased during Elliott, contending that it should have done better planning.

“Our standards and our mission and our charter is to avoid large scale cascading outages,” Robb, the NERC CEO, said, adding that states could and should check into utility fuel contracts, substation security and whether they have enough power generation on hand, among other issues. “States have the responsibility to ensure that their customers have power when they need it. … States are always able to go beyond what we prescribe.“

For some, there’s also a broad need to promote more “demand response,” the ability to cut electric demand for some nonessential customers during severe weather. Hartman, from the R Street Institute, said that in Austin during the deadly Winter Storm Uri, “we were keeping downtown vacant office buildings lit up while people in other parts of the city were without electricity.”

There are calls as well for better planning and “accreditation” of the different strengths and weaknesses of generating plants, so grid operators aren’t caught as much by surprise.

“If PJM is counting on gas plants to be available on short notice — their vaunted flexibility — then they should be. And they should be paying what they need to to be available if they’ve taken on the capacity commitment,” said Casey Roberts, an attorney with the Sierra Club, at a FERC meeting on PJM’s capacity market last month. Power generators, in turn, say they need more money from power markets like PJM to ensure they can get gas and be ready when needed.

For some electric grid observers, there’s still a lot the federal government can do. For instance, FERC has been considering whether it should impose an interregional transfer requirement — a certain amount of electricity that can move between regional systems — to improve electric reliability. Proponents describe it as creating a grid bigger than the weather.

“It’s an insurance policy against all these events, being able to bring power from another region,” Goggin said.

EPA proposal could bring more scrutiny to toxic coal ash ponds, landfills in Kentucky

Liam Niemeyer — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 18:57:01 +0000

More ponds, landfills and impoundments in Kentucky containing the toxic byproducts of burning coal for electricity could come under federal oversight for water monitoring and cleanup under a proposal by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.?

The EPA is seeking comment on the proposal from stakeholders and the public in an online hearing Wednesday and is accepting public comments through Monday, July 17.?

Federal officials say the proposal, first announced in May, could hold accountable power producers that have older or “legacy” coal ash impoundments near power plants to ensure monitoring and cleanup of those sites.?

An industry group representing power producers opposes the proposal, saying it’s part of an “onslaught” of new regulations, while Kentucky’s largest utility has panned it as “unnecessary and costly.”?

Coal ash is created by burning coal and contains a slew of contaminants such as arsenic, cadmium and mercury that can potentially pollute groundwater, drinking water and the air if not properly managed. These coal ash landfills and ponds are often located near power plants where the coal was burned.

The EPA first created rules in 2015 regulating coal ash impoundments following an environmental disaster in Kingston, Tennessee, when a dike for a coal ash pond collapsed, flooding embankments and eventually a nearby river. Workers who cleaned up the coal ash without protection fell sick, with more than 50 dying.?

The new federal proposal would incorporate “legacy” coal ash sites not covered by the 2015 rule that are more likely to be unmonitored and “unlined,” meaning there’s no protective layer to prevent the leakage of coal ash into groundwater.?

Lane Boldman, the executive director for the environmental advocacy group Kentucky Conservation Committee, said water often gets mixed into coal ash ponds, allowing toxins to? more easily seep into the ground if the ponds are unlined.?

“The longer that we’ve accumulated coal ash, the more the hazards have become more apparent,” Boldman said. “These structures that were put in place to contain the waste just weren’t sufficient.”?

An analysis of federal documents and data by the environmental legal group Earthjustice shows Kentucky has more than two dozen federally unregulated coal ash landfills and ponds throughout the state.?

While the proposal would begin federal regulation of hundreds more coal ash sites, an Earthjustice spokesperson said some sites would still be exempt, including “inactive” coal ash ponds at former coal-fired power plants.

Various “probable” owners of the sites, according to Earthjustice, are major utilities, including Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities, East Kentucky Power Cooperative and the Tennessee Valley Authority.?

A spokesperson for LG&E and KU, the state’s largest utility, disputed the number of federally unregulated coal ash sites that Earthjustice asserts it owns.?

The utility spokesperson also said the EPA proposal would “undercut cooperation between states and the federal government” and that it already works with state environmental protection officials to ensure drinking water is protected.?

“The rule would place EPA in the position of second-guessing past decisions by the states on remedial action necessary to protect public health and the environment at these sites,” said Daniel Lowry, an LG&E and KU spokesperson. “There is no evidence to suggest that past regulatory determinations by the states have been inadequate or that these sites pose a significant risk that warrants imposition of the federal regulatory program.”?

The spokesperson said the utility was already in the process of closing its coal ash landfills and ponds according to state regulations, and the new EPA proposal would require “unnecessary and costly” reopening, excavating and “additional construction practices” at the sites.?

Those interested in attending Wednesday’s online hearing on the rule can register through an online portal. Those interested in submitting a comment on the proposal can do so through a separate online portal and clicking the blue “comment” tab.?

Microvast confirms it won’t develop battery technology plant in Hopkinsville

Jennifer P. Brown, Hoptown Chronicle — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 18:04:29 +0000

MIcrovast would have been adjacent to Ascend Elements, which is currently under construction in Commerce Park in Hopkinsville. (Hoptown Chronicle photo by Jennifer P. Brown)

Microvast Holdings Inc.?has announced it won’t proceed with plans for a battery technology plant in Hopkinsville — a project that would have brought a $504 million investment and more than 500 jobs to Commerce Park II.

A press release issued Friday from the Texas-based company says the project is off “at least for now.”

The announcement follows reports in early June that put the project in doubt after the U.S. Department of Energy halted a $200 million grant to Microvast and Kentucky economic development officials paused $21 million in state incentives.

The federal package unraveled when Republican lawmakers criticized Microvast and its CEO,?Yang Wu, for alleged ties to China.?Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm’s office confirmed negotiations with Microvast were canceled, according to an Associated Press?report.

The company’s press release did not address the concerns federal officials raised about Wu’s tie to China. Previously, Wu, said he is a U.S. citizen and denied charges of improper connections with China.

Microvast is continuing construction of a plant in Clarksville, Tennessee.

“Microvast is finding significant demand for its lithium-ion battery solutions,” Wu said in the release. “We are concentrating on our core business efforts, including completing our first large-scale battery cell, module, and pack production plant in Clarksville, Tennessee. This project will ensure that our products are manufactured in America.”

The announcement confirms what was already largely understood about the Hopkinsville project. Carter Hendricks, executive director of the South West Kentucky Economic Development Council, previously told Hoptown Chronicle that local officials were still open to working with Microvast but said the EDC was again marketing the 100-acre site that Microvast had planned to develop in Commerce Park II.

Gov. Andy Beshear’s office announced in late March that Microvast had chosen Hopkinsville for construction of a 350,000-square-foot facility and would employ 562 workers.?The governor’s office typically does not follow up to announce when large economic development projects fall through. However, in this case a spokesman for the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development did confirm the state would not pay out incentives until the company addressed why the Department of Energy halted the federal grant.

This article is republished from the Hoptown Chronicle.

Methane from underground coal mines upends rural West Virginians’ lives, livelihoods

James Bruggers, Inside Climate News — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 09:50:19 +0000

The Nestor farm in Taylor County, where methane from a coal mine below is being vented in a tall white pipe next to the back porch. Mining dried up the farm's water well, which the Nestors used to water their cattle, a lawsuit claims. (Photo by ames Bruggers)

THORNTON, WEST VIRGINIA.—Month-old kittens scamper around, tumbling into one another on the grass. A black-and-white border collie, Maggie, nestles against the side of a farmhouse and nurses a puppy. Beef cattle graze on the hillside behind the house, which has been vacant since last summer — when, without warning, the water well went dry.

At the time, Jim and Melissa Nestor were raising three boys on their farm in a lush green valley three miles south of Thornton, a town along U.S. Highway 50 with a church, a towing service, a post office and no stoplight.

When the Nestors disconnected the well’s pump to see if that was the problem, they heard a loud sound: “Woooshhhh,” Melissa Nestor recalled, blowing air out of puckered lips.

“It was like, whoa,’’ Nestor said. “Gas was coming up out of the well. It’s a wonder we didn’t have a major catastrophe right there, like an explosion caused by a spark from a power tool.”?

Jim and Melissa Nestor at their farm in Taylor County, West Virginia. (Photo by James Bruggers)

From a coal mine about 350 feet below, methane had forced its way up through bedrock fissures and into the shaft of the well.?

At that moment last August, the Nestors’ lives — which revolved around caring for their livestock and pets and supporting their three sons’ activities in baseball, wrestling, football and 4-H — were changed forever.?

Now the Nestors are living in temporary quarters a mile away while their future hangs in the balance, depending on the outcome of a lawsuit the couple has filed in Taylor County Circuit Court against Arch Resources of St. Louis, the nation’s second largest coal mine operator.

The Nestors’ case is one of at least eight still pending that contend that Arch’s Leer Mine in Taylor County has damaged homes and property as a result of mining practices that can cause land to sink, alter ground and surface waters and, in the Nestors’ case, release dangerous methane.?

The lawsuits argue, among other allegations, that Arch’s mining activities violated state law that directs mining companies to “protect off-site areas from damage,” “eliminate fire hazards” and “minimize the disturbance of the prevailing hydrologic balance at the mine site and in associated off-site areas,” both during and after mining operations.

Those lawsuits follow more than two dozen others filed in Taylor County in recent years in which legal settlements were reached, according to Hunter Mullens, the attorney in Philippi, West Virginia, who is handling all of the cases for plaintiffs suing Arch.?

Mullens said he anticipated more lawsuits as mining continues to affect many of the several hundred people who live above the Leer Mine and as Arch expands operations in Leer South, a coal mine based in neighboring Barbour County that began operations in 2021.

For families that live on top of coal mines, the potential for methane, a colorless, odorless, flammable and explosive gas, to work its way to the surface is an ever-present fear. Known as an explosive threat to miners deep underground, methane vapors have also caused fires or blasts in or near homes when it has leaked to the surface.

Pleas last summer from the Nestors to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement to hold Arch responsible were rebuffed. Both agencies said that testing on a single day last September inside their home detected no methane, and as a result, they declared that there was no “imminent” threat.

A bulldozer operator moves coal at a train loading facility for the Arch Resources Lear South mine in Barbour County, West Virginia. (Photo by James Bruggers)

Methane is also a potent factor in climate change, around 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide at warming the planet over a 20-year period.?

While the U.S. coal mining industry has been on the decline for years as electric utilities embrace cheaper natural gas and cleaner energy sources, the type of coal mined by Arch at its Leer mines in West Virginia remains a prized commodity. It is of such a quality that it is used for making steel and is sold at a premium price.?

Economists see a continued market for this coal, called metallurgical or met coal, for decades to come — raising the possibility of ever greater methane emissions.

“One comes away with a clear sense that everything we know about how harmful our dependence on coal is, to our climate and our health, is made more so by this recognition that there are also methane emissions associated with it,” said Rachel Cleetus, the policy director for the Union of Concerned Scientists’ climate and energy program. “At the same time, we are not holding accountable the companies that have caused this pollution.”

Arch declined to comment on the lawsuits and the methane emissions. But in its most recent annual report, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company touted its commitment to safety and local communities.

“We believe that our long-term success depends upon achieving excellence in mine safety and environmental stewardship; conducting business in a most ethical and transparent manner; investing in our people and the communities in which we operate; and demonstrating strong corporate governance,” Arch wrote.

The Nestors left their home after they were warned to get out by Jack Spadaro, a former top federal mine safety engineer who works as a consultant for coalfield residents, workers and their lawyers.

The water well sits nine feet from the back of their house. After the couple reported their experience, Arch installed a pipe in the well that extends 20 feet into the air in an attempt to help the methane escape at a level high enough off the ground that it would pose less of a threat. But the pipe, which continues to release methane, is too close for comfort for the Nestors, who worry about its proximity to their back porch and their kitchen and bedroom windows.

Contrasting methane readings

The state DEP inspected the site on Sept. 9, and its report mentioned methane concentrations as high as 89 percent in the vent. Testing on Aug. 19, 2022, inside the home by Moody and Associates, a Pennsylvania-based consulting firm hired by Arch attorneys, had also detected methane, but at far lower levels, 120 parts per million, or less than 1 percent, according to the consultants. That’s “well short of the 5,000 ppm concentration that would prompt an evacuation of the residence,” Moody concluded.

Citing that report, Arch’s attorneys stated in response to the Nestors’ lawsuit that while methane had been detected inside the house, the levels were not high enough to require any “immediate” action. “Defendants deny that their mining operations have damaged or contaminated [the Nestors’] property,” the company said.

Spadaro counters that Moody’s conclusion “is not an accurate statement.” In mines, he said, concentrations above 1 percent signal a potentially dangerous condition, and a level of 2 percent requires mines to be shut down until adequate ventilation can be restored.?

He cited a technical guide issued by the federal Department of the Interior’s Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation. It identifies methane levels in homes above mines that exceed 1 percent as a concentration that may “necessitate remedial actions due to potential accumulation of explosive levels of methane.”

Jack Spadero, a former top federal mine safety engineer, works as a consultant for coalfield residents, workers and their lawyers. (Photo by James Bruggers)

For now, the Nestors are relying on advice from Spadaro, who has been investigating mine disasters for more than 50 years, and Mullens, whose small-town legal practice has embraced the goal of holding coal mining companies accountable for the full range of impacts to people who live above mines.

Melissa Nestor, who works as a school bus driver, said the family moved out because “I was scared to death for my kids, and for us.’’

“There’s methane coming in somewhere,” she said. “When can you sleep in a house not knowing when a bigger burst of methane is going to come into that location? I just can’t sleep knowing that anytime it could bring up enough? to blow us up, or bring up enough to take the oxygen out of the air and we just never wake up.”

Memories of past methane disasters

Spadaro says that the Nestors have reason to be concerned. “Some of the worst disasters that have killed hundreds of miners were explosions that were initiated by methane,” he said.?

The safety consultant was referring to the 2006 disaster at the Sago Mine, around 60 miles south of Thornton, in which 13 miners were trapped for nearly two days after an explosion and cave-in. Only one survived. “That was an example of a methane explosion in an abandoned part of a mine, where there was a methane cloud,” Spadaro said.

He also cited a 2017 federal court settlement between a West Virginia couple and Pinnacle Coal after an explosion in a house in Wyoming County that the plaintiffs attributed to methane from an underground mine. When an occupant started up a washing machine, “methane gas exploded, causing “serious damages to the interior and exterior of the home,” according to court records.

At its Leer mines, Arch uses a controversial mechanized technique, longwall mining, designed to maximize the amount of coal it can extract. Rather than harvest “rooms” of coal, leaving “pillars” of coal behind as support, longwall mining involves using a large bladed machine to shear off a slice of coal as wide as 1,200 to 1,500 feet that extends up to a mile in length, allowing the rock ceiling or “overburden” to collapse behind it.

Spadaro said that methane can coalesce in those mined areas of collapsed rock and waste rock and move unpredictably until it finds a way to escape, a situation that he suspects occurred in the Leer mine. That would put the Nestor family in a precarious position, he said.

“If you had a house and you had children in it, and you were nine feet from a pipe that was venting methane at what could be explosive levels, I don’t think anybody would want to live near that,” Spadaro said.

Mullens, the attorney for the Nestors, said? the case comes down to a question of risk and responsibility. “Does the coal company take the risk, as they’re making money off mining this coal?” he asked. “Or do people like the Nestors, who have three children and are trying to raise a family, take the risk? Well, right now, they’re taking the risk.”?

And Arch, he maintains, bears the responsibility.

Jack Spadero, a former top federal mine safety engineer, works as a consultant for coalfield residents, workers and their lawyers. (Photo by James Bruggers)

‘Met coal,’ a bright spot for a fading industry

As coal production in the United States dropped by almost 50 percent over the last decade, with utilities switching to natural gas and to renewable energy alternatives like wind and solar energy, met coal has been a bright spot for mining. With its value to the global steel industry, it can sell for double or triple the price of the coal used by power plants.

At many steel mills, especially those overseas, met coal is converted into coke, a high-carbon ingredient, in a 1,000-degree-plus manufacturing process. The coke is mixed with iron ore and limestone to make molten iron, which is then further treated to make steel.?

A train in Barbour County, West Virginia, carrying newly loaded up coal from Arch Resources Lear South mine. (Photo by James Bruggers)

West Virginia is among the major producers of met coal in the United States, supplying 63 percent of what is distributed to the nation’s coke plants, according to a recent report from West Virginia University’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research.?

Met coal mining generated $4.2 billion in revenue for mining companies operating in West Virginia and nearly $10 billion in total economic activity in the United States in 2019, the most recent year for which numbers are available. Such operations employed around 6,900 West Virginia miners.

Most of the coal gets exported to major steelmaking countries like China, India or Brazil.

Together, the Leer Mine and the Leer South Mine “anchor” Arch’s metallurgical business, according to the company’s annual report, and produced about 6 million tons of coal last year. That amounted to around 78 percent of the company’s met coal output and 8 percent of its total coal production in 2022.

Together, the two mines have 109 million tons of reserves in a coal seam that underlies at least 143 square miles of northern West Virginia.

While a boon to the state’s economy, longwall mining for met coal wreaks dramatic changes on the surface. The ground sinks. Local hydrology can forever change, altering the flow and availability of groundwater or surface waters. Methane can accumulate.

“When they mine the coal, the land drops three to four feet,” said Dennis Fisher, an engineer with experience in oil, gas and coal-mine permitting who is helping Mullens with the Nestors’ and other lawsuits. “It’s hard to believe, but that’s what happens. Houses, trees, roads, ponds: Everything subsides from where it was before.’’

Fisher has been investigating reports of methane emissions from coal mines in the region and has found the impacts and the resulting concerns to be clustered in certain areas. In Taylor County, “three or four years ago, people started having a lot of issues with subsidence damage to their homes,” he said. “And then after that, there has been a methane issue, where methane has been venting from these old water wells.”

‘Dodged a lot of scrutiny’

Methane builds up in coal seams as organic matter turns into coal, a process that can take millions of years. While it became a threat to the Nestors, it is also part of a global climate crisis.?

Globally, coal mining emits 52.3 million metric tons of methane per year, exceeding emissions from the oil (39 million metric tons) and gas (45 million metric tons) sectors, according to a 2022 report by Global Energy Monitor, a California-based nonprofit that tracks the energy industry.?

The estimated global emissions of methane from coal is roughly equivalent to the climate impact of the carbon dioxide emissions of all coal plants in China, the group said. Yet methane emissions from coal mines have “dodged a lot of scrutiny,” said the report’s author, Ryan Driskell Tate.?

Cleetus, the climate and energy specialist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, maintains that methane emissions from all sources are generally underreported, including those from coal mines.?

Federal and state rules limit methane concentrations inside mines to protect miners, but there are no government regulations limiting the amount of methane that gets blown out of coal mines into the atmosphere to protect miners, or what leaks into the air on its own.?

A spokeswoman for the federal EPA said she was unaware of any effort by the agency to move toward adopting limits on methane emissions from coal mines.

Cleetus said the federal government has instead focused on reducing the methane coming from abandoned coal mines. President Joe Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 provides around $11 billion in spending over 15 years to address a range of problems caused by abandoned coal mines, including leaking methane.

But that won’t be nearly enough, said Cleetus, who argues that the federal government needs to do more. “This is an important moment for the EPA to think how to track methane and hold these companies responsible,” she said. “The climate is suffering, as are local communities.”

State regulators dispute damage claims

The problems in Taylor County can be traced back decades, to when coal companies bought mineral rights from under landowners, often for not much money. Generations later, today’s landowners are stuck with the consequences.?

Conflicts between mining companies and landowners were more intense before Congress amended the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act in 1992 to offer some protections, such as requiring coal companies to repair damage to homes or certain other structures or to compensate the homeowners, said Joe Pizarchik, a Pennsylvania attorney who ran OSMRE, the federal Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation, from 2009 through 2017, during the Obama administration. Yet the battles persist.

If a property owner’s water supply has been affected, the law requires coal companies to provide a replacement source. Companies are also supposed to let owners know they are going to mine underneath their property and conduct pre- and post-mining surveys to document any damage.

The Nestors’ lawsuit and others say that Arch has not lived up to the requirements of the law. Some homeowners claim, for example, that the company failed to conduct the surveys for subsidence damage.

Melissa and Jim Nestor at their farm in Taylor County, West Virginia. The tall white pole vents methane from a coal mine below. The Nestors have sued Arch Resources claiming property damage and unsafe conditions inside and near their home due to leaking methane. They have not lived in their home since last summer. (Photo by James Bruggers)

Officials at OSMRE, which also oversees impacts from surface or strip mining, declined to answer questions about how it regulates the impact of underground mining on anyone who lives above it, including the West Virginia litigants, referring questions to the state DEP. A spokesman for the DEP said he would not comment because of the litigation, even though the state is not a defendant in the eight active lawsuits filed by Mullens.

Public records show that the DEP took no enforcement action against Arch after its inspections of the Nestors’ property last year. State officials stated that no longwall mining had taken place directly under the home.?

After its Sept. 14 test on the family’s home found no methane, OSMRE ruled out a problem, writing that “no imminent harm conditions exist for methane at this time,” according to an Oct. 12 letter from the federal agency to Jim Nestor.

But Spadaro said that methane testing on a single day is meaningless and that Arch’s mining activity was close enough to presume that it caused the damage, with the home situated within 30 degrees of the edge of the mined area underground.

“They have willfully failed to protect the public,” he said.

The local lawyer, a Gulf War veteran

The law office that Mullens shares with his wife, Kate Mullens, in Philippi occupies a former appliance store on Main Street, in a downtown where history stands out. A distinctive covered bridge spans the Tygart Valley River, a successor to the one built there in 1852. Every year, the city holds a re-enactment of the first Civil War land battle in West Virginia, won by Union troops.

A map of U.S. railroads in the Civil War era stands in a large frame on the floor in the law office’s lobby, and a photograph of Abraham Lincoln hangs in the conference room.

Mullens served in U.S. Army combat operations during the Persian Gulf War, which drove Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1990 and 1991.

He is not the typical lawyer to take on the coal industry in a part of a coal state where the industry sees its future. Coal mining runs in his family; his father, Paul Mullens, worked as a dozer operator and later as a superintendent of a surface mine. And Hunter Mullens is president of the business-friendly Barbour County Chamber of Commerce.

Hunter Mullens, a lawyer in Philippi, West Virginia, talks about property damage he believes was caused by underground coal mining at the home of one of his clients in Taylor County. (Photo by James Bruggers)

Still, some of the pain he has experienced in his lifetime might be attributed to the coal industry. He said his father died at 55 of complications from lung and breathing issues, with coal dust and black lung disease suspected as a factor.

Arch has accepted its obligations to Taylor County landowners in the past and needs to do so again, Mullens said. In February, the company posted a record net income of $1.3 billion for 2022.

“We are not opposed to coal mining, but the people should be treated fairly,” Mullens said. “And they should be safe.”

‘We thought someone shot the window’

For visitors rumbling along the back roads of Taylor County, the telltale signs of subsidence and leaky methane are newly constructed homes with white methane vent pipes in the front, side or back yards. Mullens points to road cracks and slumps in the pavement resulting from mining operations that were later repaired.

In one lawsuit, his clients Tim and Vanessa Carr are pressing Arch to pay for damages to their two-story farmhouse, which was built by Tim’s great-grandfather in the early 1900s. They moved out after plaster fell from the ceiling of their daughter’s bedroom three years ago, frightening her. The home’s foundation and walls also cracked, the couple stated in their lawsuit.

Tim Carr, a Taylor County, West Virginia resident, has with his wife, Vanessa, sued Arch Resources over claims of damage to a home that has been in his family for generations. (Photo by James Bruggers)

“We woke up one morning and we heard a pop, and we thought somebody shot the window,” Tim Carr said in an interview. “The window exploded. Later in the day, another window exploded.”

Tammy and Chuck Foley, also clients of Mullens, raise cattle on a hillside farm that has been in Tammy’s family for decades. They contend that coal mining underneath their property cracked buildings, dried up springs and water wells and released methane gas.

At least for now, Arch is paying for public water to keep the livestock alive. But Chuck Foley, a former Barbour County administrator, is uncertain how long that arrangement will last and is looking for a settlement that accounts for damage to his house and several other buildings on the property.

The Foleys say that one of the first clues that they had a problem was when water shot 10 feet out of a well near one of three homes on their property. The coal company installed a methane vent.

Chuck Foley of Taylor County, West Virginia, and his wife, Tammy, sued Arch Resources over claims of property damage, loss of well waters and leaking methane, after coal mining occurred under their farm. (Photo by James Bruggers)

Tammy Foley’s parents were living in that house at the time, and she recalls her mother telling her what it was like for them when the house was “creaking, and cracking and heaving” in 2020, just before she died.

“They were both 70 or 80 years old, sitting there with this house fallen down,” she said. “Then her doors wouldn’t open to the basement, and we noticed the front steps were all cockeyed.”

Her father is now living in a nursing home. Chuck Foley said it saddened him to recall what his wife’s parents had to confront “right at the end of life.’’

“We just want to get it settled and move on with our lives,” he said of the the lawsuit against Arch.

In court papers, Arch has denied liability for the damages the Carrs and Foleys described.

Selling off cattle to make ends meet

Jim Nestor has lived on his farm since 1991. It covers about 67 acres that he inherited from his previous wife, who died of cancer in 2005.

After moving out last summer, Jim and Melissa Nestor found a temporary place to live that was 21 miles away. For months, they made the 42-mile round trip twice a day to feed their animals, a costly and time-consuming trek along winding country roads.

Jim Nestor at his cattle farm in Taylor County, West Virginia. He and his family have not been able to live on their farm since last summer due to methane leaking into their home. (Photo by James Bruggers)

Now renting a house about a mile away, they have found that the extra expenses continue to mount even if they are closer to their animals. They’ve had to sell a quarter of their herd, which formerly numbered around 40 cattle, to make ends meet.?

Even though they currently have access to public water, that’s an unaffordable long-term solution for animals that each drink 30 gallons per day, the Nestors said.

“I don’t want to be rich or anything,” Jim Nestor said. “I just want my house and my farm. I don’t think that’s too much.”

State regulator threatens Kentucky Power with fines for 2022 winter storm performance

Liam Niemeyer — Mon, 03 Jul 2023 09:50:59 +0000

Kentucky Power's gas-fired Big Sandy power plant in Lawrence County. (Creative Commons photo)

Kentucky’s utility regulator is asking Kentucky Power why it shouldn’t face fines for failing to prepare for a power supply shortfall ahead of the December 2022 winter storm.

The Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) in a June 23 order alleged Kentucky Power had violated a state law that requires utilities to “furnish adequate, efficient and reasonable service” and could face fines “up to $2,500 per occurrence per party.”?

The PSC’s order threatening fines stems from Kentucky Power’s request to recoup from customers about $11.5 million in power costs related to the storm.?

A blast of arctic air caused temperatures to plummet, creating record-breaking demand for power; some Kentucky utilities such as the Tennessee Valley Authority had to implement rolling blackouts to ensure the stability of the electric grid.?

Kentucky Power, which serves about 163,000 customers in 20 counties in Eastern Kentucky, did not have to implement rolling blackouts. The utility says it did have to purchase power from PJM Interconnection, the regional grid operator, that was more expensive than what it could generate on its own.

PJM had activated “high-cost generators” to meet the extraordinary demand, spiking the cost of energy during the storm. According to Kentucky Power testimony, the wholesale electricity price from PJM to Kentucky Power was around $3,500 per megawatt-hour; as of late June, the wholesale price hovered around $35 per megawatt-hour.?

Regulator blames poor planning by utility

In May, Kentucky Power asked to have $11 million in power costs deferred and eventually recouped through ratepayers. But the PSC denied that request in an order on June 23, saying the utility could have avoided the higher wholesale costs through better planning.

(Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

“Kentucky Power does not have sufficient capacity available to serve customers’ energy needs, has been aware of that shortcoming for a significant amount of time, understands the detriment that insufficiency can cause customers, has described the speed and ease by which it could fix that shortcoming, and yet has chosen not to address its inadequacy of service,” the PSC said.?

In an emailed statement, Kentucky Power spokesperson Sarah Nusbaum said the utility “respectfully” disagrees with the commission’s findings and that buying power from the PJM grid “ensures that Kentucky Power has the electricity needed to meet customer demand during times of extremely high usage.”

Nusbaum said if the commission had approved its request to recoup $11 million in costs from the storm, it would have pursued securitization of the costs. Securitization would have meant the storm costs would be bundled into a bond to sell with potentially lower costs to ratepayers, compared to normally recouping the storm costs through electricity rate increases.

“Kentucky Power’s proposal was designed to lessen the bill impacts for customers by spreading out these purchased power costs over a longer period of time,” Nusbaum said. “Kentucky Power did what was necessary to keep customers’ power on during this severe holiday weather event.”

Kentucky Power also is seeking a rate increase. Kentucky Power filed an application Thursday that it says would increase the average residential customer’s bill by 18.3%, effective the start of next year. The utility states it would securitize the rate increase and suspend other costs on customers’ bills.

According to a state energy report, Kentucky Power customers pay the most for electricity in Kentucky with a monthly average residential bill of $187.56.

Forced to buy expensive power

The Kentucky PSC in its orders cited several planning failures related to the winter storm:??

Kentucky Power knew it had a power supply shortfall after exiting a contract on Dec. 8 that allowed it to buy power from the Rockport Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant in southern Indiana. Kentucky Power testimony showed it could have made up for that shortfall by entering into a power purchase agreement with another generator, but didn’t do so by the time of the storm, forcing the utility to pay the higher prices to make up for the shortfall.
The utility’s own electricity generators, which could have provided lower-cost electricity, were not operating at full capacity or at all during the storm, according to the utility’s testimony and filings.?

Kentucky Power Vice President of Regulatory and Finance Brian West previously told the PSC that generators were offline for maintenance in November 2022 so that they would be in “good working order” in January and February when expected electricity price spikes due to demand would normally occur.

Power output at the utility’s two coal-fired units at its Mitchell plant in West Virginia had been reduced due to “operational issues” that were “largely unrelated to the extreme weather conditions.” The utility’s Big Sandy natural gas plant was also offline during the storm because of repairs that were unexpectedly extended, the PSC said.

As of June 23 when the PSC issued its orders, the utility had not provided sufficient explanations for why its generators were not operating at capacity or evidence of efforts to “ameliorate the issues,” the PSC said.

“Kentucky Power’s failure to plan for such an event, given its current capacity and energy position, does not make these expenses extraordinary. They could have, and should have, been planned for,” a PSC order stated.?

In her statement, Nusbaum said the PJM energy purchases were “appropriate” and “less expensive” than what costs would have been through a power purchase agreement.?

Kentucky Power asserts outage unavoidable, defends power purchases

In its Thursday filing to increase electricity rates, Kentucky Power asserted that its Mitchell plant had performed well during the December 2022 winter storm and that having its Big Sandy natural gas plant offline was unavoidable.?

Kentucky Power Vice President of Generating Assets Timothy Kerns in written testimony said both of Mitchell’s coal-fired power generation units had a power output of more than 75% during the December 2022 winter storm. Only small factors decreased its power output including existing federal and state regulations and frozen coal and slurry feed tanks.?

Kerns said the utility’s Big Sandy natural gas plant was offline during the storm because of a crack found in a “generator rotor collection end retaining ring” along with other needed repairs, and the gas plant would have had an increased risk of a “catastrophic failure” if it was put into action during the storm.

An analyst with Kentucky Power’s parent company, American Electric Power, said the utility would have had to purchase power from PJM during the storm even if Kentucky Power’s generation plants were operating at 100% output.?

Alex Vaughan also said the December 2022 winter storm was an anomaly with no other power sources available.?

“It was a PJM system emergency; if excess power was available in the market, then scarcity pricing and emergency conditions would not have occurred,” Vaughan said.?

West, one of Kentucky Power’s vice presidents, said while the utility didn’t plan to recover the more than $11 million in storm-related costs in its current rate case filed Thursday, it would ask the PSC for the ability to recover any “prudently incurred” expenses from the storm in a future rate case.

The Kentucky Public Service Commission, from left, Angie C. Hatton, chairman Kent Chandler and Mary Pat Regan.

Drought hits the Midwest, threatening crops and the world’s food supply

McKenna Horsley — Fri, 23 Jun 2023 19:44:39 +0000

Corn grows at a farm in Belvidere, Ill. Many farmers throughout the Midwest are dealing with the fallout of a drought that has harmed corn and soybean growth. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

City leaders in Storm Lake, a rural community of 11,000 in Northwest Iowa, are asking residents not to wash their cars or water their yards and gardens during the hottest part of the day. The city also has cut back on watering public recreational spaces, such as ballfields and golf courses.

These are highly unusual steps in a state that is normally flush with water and even prone to flooding. But the rain in Iowa, along with the rest of the Corn Belt states of the Midwest, has been mysteriously absent this spring, plunging the region into drought.

“It’s something new that residents have never had to really deal with before,” said Keri Navratil, the city manager of Storm Lake.

As California and much of the Western United States ease out of drought conditions after a spectacularly wet winter, the Midwest has fallen victim to a dry, hot spell that could have devastating consequences for the world’s food supply.

“America’s Breadbasket” — the vast corn, soy and wheat fields that extend from the Great Plains to Ohio — hasn’t had enough rain to sustain crop growth, which fuels a major part of the region’s economy, including food, animal feed and ethanol production. The region last suffered a substantial drought in 2012, and before that in 1988.

Though experts have not tied this event to climate change directly, scientists have warned that climate change will lead to more summer droughts for the Midwest in the years to come.

An unusually dry spring and summerlike heat have stunted crops, forced water conservation measures and lowered levels in major waterways, which could prevent barges from transporting goods downstream.

Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Parson has declared a drought alert to assist counties hurt by these dry conditions. City leaders in Oak Forest, Illinois; Wentzville, Missouri; and Lincoln, Nebraska, have called on residents to limit their water usage.

The region’s drought conditions are both unusual and concerning, said Dennis Todey, the director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Midwest Climate Hub, which provides scientific analysis to the region’s agricultural and natural resource managers. This is the fourth year in a row of significant drought for much of the Midwest and Great Plains, he said.

“We’re reaching a point where we absolutely need to start getting rainfall over the main core of the Midwest,” he said. “We’re reaching a very concerning time here.”

This dry spell should not be happening, he added, especially with the return of El Ni?o, a cyclical weather event in which surface water temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean rise, causing wetter and warmer global weather. The Midwest is not getting that moisture.

Instead, a high-pressure system — which usually means sunny, calm weather — has parked itself above the region, preventing the precipitation needed for healthy crops and fully flowing waterways such as the Mississippi River. The frequent storms that are typical during the spring, fueled by moisture in the Gulf of Mexico, did not happen.

The majority of Iowa corn and soybean production is all rain-fed, and right now we just don’t have any.

– Mark Licht, Iowa State University associate professor and cropping systems specialist

Though “weird,” this weather pattern is not yet being connected to climate change, said Trent Ford, the Illinois state climatologist, who collects and analyzes the state’s climate data.

“It’s just extremely dry,” he said. “That’s why I said it’s weird. It is sort of this random weather pattern that’s established and has just really either persisted or I suppose evolved in a way to keep this part of the country very, very dry.”

Parts of Illinois have received only around 5% of normal rainfall this month, he added. Several places in the state should have 10 more inches of precipitation than they’ve gotten since April. Cities in the Chicago area are having their driest periods since 1936. Major rivers in the state, such as the Illinois and Kankakee, are at record lows for this time of year.

Nearly 60% of the Midwest, which includes Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin, is under moderate drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, which is run jointly by the federal government and the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Nearly 93% of the region is abnormally dry, with around 16% of it suffering severe drought.

In the Great Plains states of Kansas and Nebraska, the situation is far worse. A quarter of Nebraska and 38% of Kansas are under extreme drought. More than a tenth of Nebraska and 8% of Kansas are in exceptional drought — the monitor’s most severe stage. The Great Plains has had drought conditions for more than a year, though it has received some rain in recent weeks.

The region’s drought couldn’t come at a worse time from an agricultural point of view, said Brad Rippey, a U.S. Department of Agriculture meteorologist and author of the U.S. Drought Monitor report. While?the arid conditions are?concerning, he said, there’s still time for the region to rebound.

“It’s still very young in the year, and if you look at drought intensity it’s not high yet,” he said. “Obviously, if it doesn’t rain over the next few weeks, that’s going to change. We’re really watching how this develops.”

These dry conditions have led to topsoil and subsoil moisture depletion, meaning less water in the ground to support planting and growing crops. Additionally, drier conditions have meant a vast browning of grasses and pasture lands, forcing farmers to buy more feed, instead of relying on grazing.

This is a critical time for farmers, as they approach the reproductive stage of crop development, when corn starts to silk and soybeans begin to blossom.

Mark Licht, an associate professor and cropping systems specialist at Iowa State University, recently walked the fields of a farm in Northeast Iowa that planted its soybeans after the early spring rains. Those soybeans didn’t have the moisture to germinate and emerge, he said, which has become a common problem throughout the state.

The state hasn’t had good rain since early May. What rain the state has gotten has been “spotty and patchy,” not providing enough precipitation to sustain the crops, he said. Soybean and corn plants are shorter than expected, with not enough canopy growth to protect the soil from weeds and sustained sunlight, which are harmful to crop development.

There is still some time for crops to rebound if the rain comes back. But if it doesn’t rain by the time the Iowa corn crop starts pollinating in a few weeks, its corn will have fewer kernels, which will raise prices for cattle owners who might have to look for alternative feed sources.

“We’re in a situation where we essentially need very timely rains to be able to get this crop through,” Licht said. “The majority of Iowa corn and soybean production is all rain-fed, and right now we just don’t have any.”

Recent rains in Kansas and Nebraska have helped the wheat crop in those states, said Justin Gilpin, CEO of Kansas Wheat, a wheat-grower advocacy group. But for other parts of the wheat-growing Great Plains states, it wasn’t enough.

“For a big portion of Kansas,” he added in an email to Stateline, “the drought improvement and rains are a little too late to have helped the wheat crop.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott Greenberger for questions: [email protected]. Follow Stateline on Facebook and Twitter.

Statehouses debate who should build EV charging networks

Robert Zullo — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 09:50:30 +0000

Growth in clean vehicle jobs made up approximately 45% of Kentucky’s overall clean energy job growth of 2,389 jobs added last year, the report says.?(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Though they only make up a fraction of cars and trucks on the road now, many projections — from Wall Street firms, trade groups and automakers themselves — predict an imminent surge in electric vehicles over the next decade.

S&P Global estimates that the nearly 2 million electric vehicles on U.S. roads today will grow to more than 28 million by 2030, when they’ll comprise 40% of all new cars and trucks sold.

The Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned electric utilities, arrived at a similar forecast last year, even before the passage of the federal Inflation Reduction Act, which contained big incentives to spur electric vehicle adoption.

That means tens of thousands of additional public charging stations will be needed to be built across the country.

But there’s a big debate taking place at state capitols across the country about who should take the lead role in building them — electric utilities or private businesses?

‘That’s what retailers are there for’

The Charge Ahead Partnership, composed of big fuel retailers, grocery chains, convenience stores, gas stations and other businesses exploring installing vehicle chargers, argues that private businesses, particularly those that have been selling fuel to motorists for years and are already located in optimal spots to serve drivers, are best suited to making the switch to electric chargers. And they say they’ll have a tough time competing with monopoly electric utilities who can build charging infrastructure on the back of their ratepayers.

“The utilities are actively laying the groundwork to extend their monopoly into this new business field,” said Ryan McKinnon, a spokesman for the partnership. “If you’re going to be driving an EV you’re going to want a reliable network of charging stations. … You really want entities to provide this that are good at selling things to people. That’s what retailers are there for.”

McKinnon pointed to recent legislation in Oklahoma, Georgia and Texas that imposes limits on utilities using ratepayer money for charging networks. In Georgia, for example, legislation passed this year restricts utility ownership of charging stations to a single program that allows the dominant electric utility in the state, Georgia Power, to provide chargers in remote and rural areas, with private retailers offered a right of first refusal.

“This will ensure ratepayer funds only subsidize EV charging operations in areas where private industry cannot operate,” the Charge Ahead Partnership said in a news release last month.

But other states, like Minnesota and Colorado, have taken or are considering steps in the other direction. Proposed budget language that would allow utilities to bill ratepayers for electric vehicle charging infrastructure has also come under fire in Ohio.

And in Florida, the nation’s largest utility, Florida Power & Light, is building hundreds of chargers over the objection of critics like former Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton, president of GATE Petroleum, which owns gas stations and convenience stores in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. Peyton argued in a Florida Times-Union column that “no private business would sink $100,000 or more to install EV chargers with the knowledge that some of the state’s most powerful monopolies can undercut them, using your ratepayer funds.”

An ‘all-of-the-above approach’?

Some proponents argue, however, that there could be a place for utility-owned charging, since electric vehicles have long posed a chicken-and-egg problem. Mass adoption isn’t likely until drivers are comfortable they can always find a charger. And companies aren’t likely to build chargers until there’s a critical mass of electric vehicles to help them recoup their investment plus a profit.

Katherine Stainken, vice president of policy at the Electrification Coalition, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization pushing for the widespread adoption of electric vehicles, said there’s too much variation across states and markets to foreclose options like utility ownership. She characterized the debate over who should own charging networks as the “growing pains” of a nascent industry.

“We support kind of an all-of-the-above approach,” she said. “There’s a lot of different factors here.”

Stainken added that for-profit companies might not be able to meet the needs of, for example, low-income apartment complexes, or instances in which no host comes forward to site a charging station through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, which is making billions of federal dollars available to states to boost charging infrastructure.

“If there are some areas where there is no site host coming forward, and the utility is the only one … I don’t think we would want to say ‘Forget it,’” she said.

The Edison Electric Institute likewise said the coming surge in electric vehicles requires an “all-hands-on-deck approach.”

“No one is preventing private-sector stakeholders from investing in EV charging today, and the idea that some stakeholders are trying to prevent electric companies from building EV charging infrastructure is senseless,” said Kellen Schefter, the institute’s senior director of electric transportation. “Electric companies are well-positioned to make targeted and strategic investments in EV charging infrastructure that will benefit the broader community and accelerate EV adoption. America’s electric companies have proven expertise and decades of experience in deploying and maintaining electric infrastructure that is safe, affordable and reliable.”

Charging on demand?

Beyond who builds and owns the chargers, however, there are other thorny issues to untangle.

One of the most pressing, according to Angela Holland, president of the Georgia Association of Convenience Stores, which supported the new Georgia law limiting utility ownership of chargers, is how much private businesses who install chargers pay for electricity.

“One of the other things we’ve asked is for our utility friends to come up with an EV charging rate,” Holland said. “You can’t go to market with a product and not know whether or not you’re going to make money on it.”

In neighboring Alabama, Alabama Power, which, like Georgia Power, is part of Southern Company, offers a special rate for commercial and industrial customers for public electric vehicle charging stations. Electric usage for charging is metered separately from other uses at the location.

That’s crucial because in many utility billing frameworks, commercial and industrial customers often pay a demand charge based on the maximum amount of electricity they use at one time, usually measured as an interval of 15 or 30 minutes. The charge is meant to compensate an electric company for maintaining the generation and transmission capacity to meet that peak demand, even though it won’t be used all the time.

“Demand charges are intended to help (electric service providers) keep power systems appropriately sized, efficient and more affordable for all consumers,” says a 2021 report spearheaded by the National Association of State Energy Officials that looked at demand charges and electric vehicle charging in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

Electric vehicle charging infrastructure, though, “has relatively unique power demands, with high power capacity required for fast charging, but relatively small amounts of energy consumed per charge,” the report said, noting that demand charges “are one element that may prevent (direct current fast-charging) station hosts from earning a profit from EV charging services.”

The town of Derry, New Hampshire, pulled the plug on its four free municipal parking lot electric charging stations in 2021 after its utility instituted demand charges and caused the price to spike, officials wrote to the state utilities commission.

McKinnon, the Charge Ahead Partnership spokesman, gave the example of a business that installs a 150 kilowatt charger with four ports, the minimum standard for the federal government’s NEVI program.

“You’re not going to have a ton of usage immediately. But as soon as one person uses it they are probably going to set the new peak usage for the month,” he said. “We’re not advocating for any specific rate. … We’re just saying let’s pick a fair rate.” Low usage and big demand charges, he added, “kills the financial incentive” for businesses to install chargers.

How Kentucky generates electricity — and emits tons of greenhouse gasses

Liam Niemeyer — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 09:00:31 +0000

E.W. Brown solar array at Kentucky Utilities Mercer County plant. (Photo courtesy of LG&E/KU)

A recent state analysis found that, unlike a number of states that have pivoted to other fuel sources, Kentucky utilities still burn coal to generate the large majority of electricity in the state.

The latest Kentucky Energy Profile report published this week by the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet provides a snapshot of how major utilities in the state such as Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities, East Kentucky Power Cooperative and Big Rivers Electric Corporation generate their electricity.?

The report, compiling publicly available state and federal data, also highlights the amount of electricity and heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions each individual power plant created in 2020.?

The main takeaways from the report:?

69% of Kentucky’s electricity was generated from coal in 2020; natural gas generated 23%, hydropower generated 8% and biomass, solar and wind facilities combined generated less than 1%
Kentucky power plants emitted 53,725,429 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 2020, equivalent to the annual emissions of more than 11.6 million average cars on the road. Kentucky had about 4.5 million registered motor vehicles in 2020.?
The majority of carbon emissions from electricity generation came from power plants fully or partially owned by LG&E and KU, the state’s largest utility in terms of customers
The average monthly residential electricity bill for Kentuckians was above $100 for nearly all utilities in the state; Kentucky Power in Eastern Kentucky had the highest average at $187.56

While burning coal — the leading global source of electricity generation and carbon dioxide emissions — generated the most electricity in the state in 2020, one advocate for solar energy says the decreasing cost of utility-scale solar installations will mean an influx of such projects in the near future.

“The utility sector is in its gestation period, and I think within a year or two is going to serve significant growth,” said Steve Ricketts, chair of the Kentucky Solar Energy Society. “A lot of people I would suspect in the utility world who’ve been kind of keeping their powder dry, they are now seeing the economics that kind of turned the light green again.”?

The state Energy Profile report lists only eight existing solar projects in Kentucky as of 2020.?

But a rush of solar developers have come before the state utility regulator in recent years, almost 40 construction requests since the beginning of 2020, asking to build large installations throughout the state. Developers of a planned 200-megawatt solar installation in Martin County recently announced car manufacturer Toyota plans to buy power from the site.?

Utilities including LG&E and KU and the Tennessee Valley Authority, which services parts of Western Kentucky, have plans and proposals to retire some or all of its coal-fired power generation to replace with burning natural gas and some solar capacity.?

In a statement about the state energy report, Kentucky Coal Association President Tucker Davis claimed shifting away from coal-fired electricity was causing higher electricity prices and would lead to “the destruction of our state’s economy,” echoing past rhetoric from the industry group.

The Energy Profile report states in part that in Kentucky, it was the “rising price of steam coal used by electric utilities” that caused electricity prices to increase from the start of the 21st century through 2015. Electricity prices have since declined but remain, on average, about 9.9% higher than in 2010.

A report earlier this year from the nonpartisan research group Energy Innovation Policy and Technology LLC found that 99% of all coal-fired power plants across the country, including all operating plants in Kentucky, were more expensive to operate than the levelized cost of new solar or wind installations.?

Ricketts, the solar advocate, said Kentucky utilities play a vital role in reducing the state’s carbon dioxide emissions, particularly in light of the role those emissions have in worsening the effects of climate change.

Leading climate experts working with the United Nations said earlier this year the world would need to slash carbon dioxide emissions two-thirds by 2035 to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. That would mean rich countries stopping the use of coal for electricity by 2030 and having a carbon-free electricity grid, including no new natural gas plants, by 2040.?

“We’re on a ticking clock without a lot of time left on that clock,” Ricketts said. “We’ve got to go for existing proven technologies, which can be deployed in very large amounts right away, and by the way, are already the least cost.”?

As Kentucky’s largest coal producer mines Bitcoin, its power discounts draw scrutiny

Liam Niemeyer — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 09:15:39 +0000

A 'Buy Bitcoin Here' sign is posted at a convenience store in Los Angeles, on Nov. 10, 2021, when the price of the cryptocurrency hit a new record high of $69,000. It was valued at around $25,000 earlier this month. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Union County in Western Kentucky has been the state’s top coal-producer for years, mining more than 10 million tons in 2022.

Something else is being mined in Union County: Bitcoin.

In both cases, the mining is done by Alliance Resource Partners (ARP) headed by Joseph Craft III, whose wife Kelly Craft, just lost an expensive race to become the Republican nominee for governor.

Kelly and Joe Craft at a reception in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 26, 2017 after she became U.S. ambassador to Canada. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Kelly Craft)

Mining cryptocurrency requires enormous amounts of electricity to power high-capacity computers that perform complicated mathematical calculations, securing online transactions of virtual currencies such as Bitcoin. These mining operations are rewarded for solving the calculations with Bitcoin itself, valued at more than $25,000 a coin as of early June.?

A dispute before the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC), the state’s utility regulator, will determine whether electrical utilities should have given Alliance and two Bitcoin miners in Eastern Kentucky hefty price discounts on the electricity powering their computers.?

Utilities give the discounts, known as economic development riders, as incentives to businesses to locate in their service territories.

A group of environmental and renewable energy advocacy organizations asked the PSC last year to investigate the discounts.

They cite multiple reasons for closer scrutiny, including the strain these operations and their huge demand for power places on the grid, in exchange for relatively few jobs.

The cryptocurrency industry is expanding as climate experts call for the world’s power generation to rapidly decarbonize amid climate change’s increasing impacts. Utilities in Kentucky are trying to transition to lower-carbon-emission energy sources such as natural gas and renewables.

Another concern: The industry’s volatility, as already evidenced in Kentucky. Core Scientific, which has had a crypto mining operation in West Kentucky since 2019, declared bankruptcy in December. Another mining operation that set up shop in downtown Paducah moved out abruptly due to “a business decision dealing with the energy market.”?

The groups asking for more scrutiny — including Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Kentucky Solar Energy Society and the Kentucky Resources Council — question whether the jobs created by crypto mining justify the discounts and whether the discounts shouldn’t be saved for industries that would employ more Kentuckians.?

Alliance was promised more than $4 million in discounts while promising to create five jobs, although the utility doesn’t have a process in place to make sure those employees weren’t being double-counted from another part of Alliance’s business, according to one utility employee.

“This idea of utilities providing a discount to what, by appearances, looks to be a real possibility of boom, bust — or potentially bust, and then no further boom — is very concerning,” said Josh Bills, a commercial energy specialist with the Mountain Association, a Berea-based economic development nonprofit and one of the interveners in the PSC case.

As he helps small businesses become more energy efficient and incorporate renewable energy, Bills also sees them struggle to pay electricity bils, so it troubles him when a “boom, bust” industry receives significant electricity discounts.?

He said the cases before the PSC, including Alliance’s Bitcoin mine, will set precedents and that it’s important to get concerns about subsidies for crypto on the record.

On the other hand, an advocate for the cryptocurrency mining industry says such companies are being unfairly singled out for taking advantage of economic development incentives for which they qualify, while the utility that offered discounts to the Union County mine asserts it wasn’t in error for doing so.?

Tom Mapes, the director of energy policy for the cryptocurrency mining lobbying group Digital Chamber of Commerce, said if a cryptocurrency mining company and a utility are operating within the parameters of the laws set out for the economic development incentives, they should be able to utilize those incentives. “If we’re working within the parameters of what is written out within state law or national law, why would we be judged differently?” he said.?

Mining Bitcoin on a coal mine

Photos of the Bitcoin mine from a filing with the Public Service Commission.

Because cryptocurrency mines use a lot of power, the operators are looking for the cheapest rates possible.

“Obviously, they’re going to go to where the most bang for your buck you can get in these regions, you know, the best purchasing power you have for energy or land,” Mapes said. “We’re running computers pretty much.”

Coal mining also uses a lot of electricity, and Alliance’s site in Union County had some ready-made advantages, including electricity infrastructure and meters on the former coal mine site that the company planned to transfer over to use for the Bitcoin mining operation, according to emails and reports provided by Kentucky’s largest utility, LG&E and KU, to the state utility regulator.?

An LG&E/KU representative who visited the Bitcoin mining site in October 2022 said the initial understanding was that Alliance would put its high-powered computers in “underground mine space” but that it was “too damp and didn’t have enough ventilation.”?

Kentucky Utilities, a subsidiary of LG&E and KU, offered more than $4 million in discounts over several years to Alliance’s Bitcoin mining operation, a subsidiary called Bitiki-KY. Alliance promised to create five jobs and invest $25 million into the company.?

Whether Alliance needed an incentive to locate at the Union County site it already owned became a central topic at a Public Service Commission hearing on May 31, above. (Liam Niemeyer)

Bitiki-KY has been running high-powered machines on a former coal mine site near Waverly in Union County since last year to mine the cryptocurrency using a constant stream of 10 megawatts of electricity, enough to power thousands of homes over the course of a year.?

Whether Alliance actually needed those electricity discounts as an incentive to locate at the Union County site it already owned became a central topic at a PSC hearing on May 31. Alliance did not respond to an interview request for comment about its Bitcoin mining subsidiary Bitiki-KY, which changed its legal name from Bitiki Blockchain last year.?

Thom Cmar, a senior attorney for Earthjustice representing the environmental and renewable energy groups in the PSC case, said there normally is evidence that without such incentives, a company proposing a new facility will move elsewhere.

“There’s no evidence here that they even looked anywhere outside of Kentucky Utilities territory,” Cmar said in an interview with the Lantern. “They were taking an existing site that they already owned, or that an affiliated company already owned, and just transferring it over.”?

In that late May hearing, Cmar asked John Bevington, director of business and economic development for LG&E and KU: Was there specific evidence that the electricity discounts were necessary to make sure Bitiki-KY didn’t locate elsewhere?

Bevington said that he wasn’t aware of evidence the coal company considered potential sites outside KU’s territory and that the need to offer the discounts came over time as the utility talked with Alliance.

“Our goal is to try to get customers to grow and locate here without providing any incentive. But you know, occasionally it becomes a competitive environment, and the cost considerations are necessary as they were in this case,” Bevington said.

Thom Cmar

He told Cmar that Alliance’s previous history with the site and the existing infrastructure “was definitely attractive” to the coal company.?

Also during that hearing, Cmar honed in on the jobs Alliance said it would create, asking: Did the utility have evidence those five jobs were actually created??

Bevington, who previously worked in the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development, responded Bitiki-KY had “committed” to creating five jobs in its application for the incentives, but the utility didn’t have a process in place to make sure those employees weren’t being double-counted from another part of Alliance’s business.?

In written testimony, Bevington added that it’s “impossible” for the utility to know exactly how many jobs a company would create through electricity discounts. He said the utility also relies on cues from state officials, such as if a company receives state tax breaks, on whether to give discounts. Bitiki-KY in March 2022 received from the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority (KEDFA) $250,000 in tax benefits through the Kentucky Enterprise Initiative Act.?

Instead of jobs being at play with these electricity discounts, Bevington said, the Bitcoin mine’s electricity usage hinges on the incentives; Bitiki-KY would likely not increase its power usage from 10 MW to 13 MW without the discounts.?

“[I]t is both facially plausible and consistent with my experience in economic development that an entity proposing to deploy $25 million of capital and create 13 MW of load might also create five jobs,” Bevington said in written testimony.?

An LG&E and KU spokesperson declined to answer detailed questions emailed by the Lantern about how and whether the utility verifies economic development created from electricity discounts.?

Does crypto benefit the community?

For Cmar, the Earthjustice attorney, Alliance’s Bitcoin mining site is a microcosm of what cryptocurrency mining companies are bringing to Kentucky.

“There’s a real concern when the company comes in and says things like, ‘Well, we’re going to be creating five jobs.’ But there’s no evidence that has been presented that any significant amount of jobs have been created,” Cmar told the Lantern.. “Why should a company like this get a discount? Shouldn’t the economic development discounts be saved for other types of industries that are bringing real meaningful economic development to the area?”

Alliance’s Bitcoin mining operation isn’t the only operation moving into Kentucky and receiving electricity discounts. Two of the other PSC investigations into cryptocurrency mining involve discounts provided by Kentucky Power to operations in Pike County and Lawrence County, the latter of which would build what would likely be the state’s largest such facility and have the capacity to use up to 250 megawatts of electricity. The PSC will hold hearings regarding both of those operations in July.?

Cmar said those operations cumulatively are soaking up “all this extra electricity.”?

“At a time when we are working to try to transition our electric sector to cleaner forms of energy and address the imperative need to try to avoid the worst impacts of climate change by reducing emissions wherever possible, having these energy intensive — energy wasteful, really — operations coming in … has put an incredible strain on the grid.”?

Mapes, the cryptocurrency mining lobbyist, said crypto mining operations such as in Union County still provide much needed jobs to rural communities. He also said crypto mining’s need for power will spur development of solar and wind generation to meet the demand.

Paul Monsour, treasurer of the Union County Chamber of Commerce and a city council member in Morganfield, the county seat,? recognizes that the five jobs created by Alliance will have a small impact compared to the company’s coal mining in the county.

?“It’s five more jobs than we had,” Monsour said. “But I would think the county would support mostly everything Alliance would want.”?

More than 100 ‘orphan’ wells in Daniel Boone National Forest to be plugged, remediated with federal money

Liam Niemeyer — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 21:38:47 +0000

Abandoned wells in Webster County, one leaking, photographed last year. (Photo Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet)

A new influx of federal money is planned to plug and remediate more than 100 abandoned oil and gas well sites in the Daniel Boone National Forest, a part of a broader effort to address so-called “orphan” wells on federal lands and waters across the country.?

A release Thursday from the U.S. Department of the Interior stated $63.8 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law would go toward plugging abandoned oil and gas wells that often leak methane, a potent heat-trapping greenhouse gas, on federal land including national wildlife refuges, national forests and national recreation areas.?

Department Secretary Deb Haaland in a statement said past decades of drilling had “left behind thousands of non-producing wells that now threaten the health and wellbeing of our communities, our lands, and our waters.”?

“This funding will put Americans to work in good-paying jobs, while also fueling collaboration across a broad coalition of stakeholders and engaging communities to work toward sustainable stewardship of the nation’s treasured lands and waters,” Haaland said.?

The release stated the well-plugging projects in the Daniel Boone National Forest would include “post-plugging activities” such as “reclamation, remediation, equipment removal, inventory.”?

A spokesperson for Daniel Boone National Forest did not immediately respond to a request from the Lantern asking for more detail about the projects.??

Kentucky has been using a $25 million federal grant received last year to hire contractors to plug more than 1,000 such “orphan” wells throughout the state. Some of the wells plugged by that effort have helped open to the public over 500 acres of a wildlife management area in Pulaski County that had previously been off limits due to safety concerns created by the wells.?

State and federal efforts to plug wells are only scratching the surface of the problem, according to a report by the Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit advocacy and research group, that found Kentucky had more than 14,000 documented abandoned oil and gas wells across the state.?

‘Something has to change’: Kentucky’s utility regulator faces more work with fewer staff

Liam Niemeyer — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 09:30:09 +0000

FRANKFORT — Kentucky’s utility regulator is responsible for managing a larger, more complex caseload despite having a diminished and less experienced staff than in the past, its chairman told lawmakers Wednesday.?

Kent Chandler

The Kentucky Public Service Commission regulates the rates and services of more than 1,100 utilities, ranging from massive investor-owned electric providers like Kentucky Power to small water districts that provide drinking water to rural communities.?

The quasi-judicial state agency, headed by three commissioners appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate, also hears requests from utilities to retire or build new facilities, such as natural gas plants, and fields complaints from Kentuckians about service and rates.?

But in an interim legislative committee hearing, Commission Chairman Kent Chandler said the commission is completing its duties with fewer skilled employees, particularly attorneys and accountants. The agency is often seeing those skilled workers leave for significantly higher-paying jobs elsewhere, sometimes for double the pay working at a utility.?

“Something has to change because we’re getting, if not more cases, certainly more complex cases,” Chandler said. “We need to reduce the turnover of the people that we have because by the time they figure out what’s going on, they get really good at their job — they can go make money, some better money or have an easier job somewhere else.”

Chandler said the commission had 96 employees as of 2011; those employees had 12,000 cumulative months of PSC service. The PSC is now down to 72 employees, and they have less experience; their cumulative length of PSC service is 8,500 months.

Turnover rate for employees at the commission ranges annually from 20%? to 35%, with the turnover rate nearing 40% in 2022. The commission has had to keep more attorneys on staff to compensate for the expectation that new attorneys will leave after a little more than a year.

The entirety of management for the commission’s Division of Financial Analysis — whose staff accountants and economists examine a utility’s finances and assets — had recently also turned over. Finding replacements is difficult, he said, because the skill sets needed are often only found at other state utility regulators or utilities.?

“Those are the three or four people that know the absolute most about what we do about the financing, the economics, the accounting of utilities,” Chandler said. “It is just such a unique skill set and unique experience.”?

Chandler said the commission has contended with its hiring headwinds as it’s doing more work.?

On an annual basis, he said, the commission the past two years has issued about 1,700 orders. Before the two previous years, the most orders the commission had entered in a year in the past 15-year period was 1,500 orders.?

The commission is also dealing with what Chandler calls “the most consequential and complicated case” that he can find in the commission’s previous three to four decades: Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities is seeking approval to retire some of its coal-fired power generation and replace it primarily with natural gas plants, along with proposing two solar installations and a utility-scale battery storage facility.?

“There really are long-term detrimental effects to the economy of the Commonwealth and to our individual consumers for an under-resourced Public Service Commission, a Public Service Commission who doesn’t either have the opportunity to do its job well or frankly doesn’t do its job well,” Chandler said.?

Chandler said the commission has tried to reach out to business schools at universities in the state to advertise its job openings. He said recent increases in the amount of state funding the commission receives has allowed it to fill eight new positions.

“Hopefully we find a couple of solutions in there,” Chandler said. “But I just can’t give you a single silver bullet issue as to the reason why we’re having turnover that we can necessarily fix.”

Decarbonization ambitions ignite debate over mining, permitting

Robert Zullo — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:50:15 +0000

Two loons swim with their chick on Clear Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in an area rich with copper and cobalt deposits. (Photo by Max Nesterak/Minnesota Reformer)

The decarbonized, electrified future envisioned by the Biden administration, state governments, automakers, utility companies and corporate sustainability goals depends to a huge degree on minerals and metals.

Lots more lithium will be needed for car and truck batteries, as well as the big banks of batteries that are increasingly popping onto the electric grid to balance the intermittency of wind and solar power. Those batteries, as well as wind turbines and solar panels, also need copper, cobalt,, nickel, zinc and “rare earth” elements used in electric car motors and other clean technologies, among other materials.

The problem is that not enough of those materials are mined in the United States or other friendly countries to meet the projected demands of a decarbonizing nation. At present, China dominates the market for most battery raw materials, for example, which “presents geopolitical and environmental risks,” per a presentation on May 10 by S&P Global on challenges facing the global battery sector.

”This is part of what the legislative environment is gearing up to help us counter,” said Graham Evans, an S&P Global research director focused on auto supply chain and technology. “We don’t want to be too heavily reliant on any one country.”

But even as new federal legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law created big incentives for renewable power, electric vehicles and production tax credits for critical minerals, mining operations under development in Nevada, North Carolina, Minnesota and Arizona, among other locations, haven’t exactly been met with open arms.

And mining organizations and renewable trade groups say the long permitting timelines and litigation delays for mining projects are incompatible with the urgent demand for materials needed to decarbonize the economy.

‘You need the natural resources’?

That dynamic has in part led to some clean energy groups joining with traditional industry, fossil fuel interests and their allies in Congress in a push for permitting reform. In the wake of a controversial federal court decision involving an Arizona copper mine project, there’s also separate bipartisan legislation in the Senate to clarify rules around where mining-support activities like waste or processing can take place on federal land.

“You need the supply chains, you need the natural resources. … We don’t do that unless we do more domestic production,” said Harrison Godfrey, managing director at Advanced Energy United, a clean energy trade group.

“We need permitting reform if we’re going to undertake this mining. We think you can maintain reasonable environmental regulations and move forward around this. … Our permitting regime has been misused to try and stop anything and everything really in excess of what’s reasonable to protect the environment and communities.”

Numerous environmental groups, though, have blasted the debt ceiling deal, which includes provisions intended to get the contentious Mountain Valley Pipeline — a natural gas project through West Virginia and Virginia that has been plagued by environmental violations and seen numerous critical permits tossed out by federal courts — over the finish line.

They also assailed attempts to streamline the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in order to speed projects up.

‘Benign neglect’?

Mark Compton, executive director the American Exploration and Mining Association, a trade group, said there’s been a long history of “benign neglect” of the American mining industry that has resulted in a dependence on foreign sources, a problem that’s been underscored by the fallout from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the global pandemic.

“To decarbonize our economy is causing a demand increase in minerals that really is staggering,” he said. “The supply chain issues have really come to the forefront.”

Compton said new American mining projects average seven to 10 years to make it through the permitting stages, compared to two to three years in Canada and Australia, which have comparable environmental protections.

“We’re not talking about needing to lower environmental standards,” he said. “The environmental standards, the regulations that are in place, that’s not the problem. It’s really an inefficient and often duplicative permitting process through NEPA that simply takes longer than it has to.”

The permitting process is only part of the picture, he added. Most hard-rock mining, Compton said, happens on federal lands in the western U.S. About half of it is currently off limits to mining.

“Minerals are located where they are and we can’t move them,” he said, noting that economically viable pockets are rare. “We have to have access to federal lands to be able to develop and explore for minerals.”

Allowing mining on public lands, however, can be extremely fraught, as in the case of the long-contested Twin Metals project in the Superior National Forest in Minnesota. “Copper for wind power and broadband networks. Nickel for electric cars and medical devices,” the company website says. “Cobalt for smart phones and batteries. The world demands more and more metals every day. The minerals we have in Minnesota can help supply this demand.”

But environmental groups have warned the deposits lie too close for comfort to the Boundary Waters area, which the state tourism office calls “one of America’s most beautiful and remote places.” The Sierra Club says on its website that “there is currently no sulfide mine in existence that is not polluting the groundwater.” And in January, the Biden administration imposed a 20-year mining ban on 225,000 acres of federal land near the wilderness area.

Twin Metals said it was “stunned.”

“This region sits on top of one of the world’s largest deposits of critical minerals that are vital in meeting our nation’s goals to transition to a clean energy future, to create American jobs, to strengthen our national security and to bolster domestic supply chains,” the company said in a statement.

There are also major concerns over irreversible impacts to Native American sites, as in the case of the Lithium Americas project in Thacker Pass, Nevada, where the project has divided tribal communities and sparked protests and litigation, and the Resolution copper mine project in Arizona. According to Morgan Stanley Capital International, 97% of nickel, 89% of copper, 79% of lithium and 68% of cobalt reserves and resources in the U.S. are located within 35 miles of Native American reservations.

Compton acknowledged that past practices have created a reputation problem for the mining industry.

“It is true that mining projects meet a lot of resistance. I think that stems from a long history of mining in this country before we as a nation even thought about environmental laws or regulations,” he said, though he added that today’s industry is highly regulated and the most “environmentally responsible in the world.”

How much to mine??

However, even modern mining, of course, is inherently destructive. Open pit mining opens vast holes in the ground, creates huge quantities of waste rock that must be managed and potential water contamination problems from processing, seepage from tailings, which consist of the rock, chemicals and other waste products remaining after extraction, and acid rock drainage. There is also loss of wildlife habitat. Although there are efforts to produce, for example, lithium in new and more sustainable ways, the race for crucial minerals and metals has prompted some to question the eagerness for more extraction.

“Large-scale mining entails social and environmental harm, in many cases irreversibly damaging landscapes without the consent of affected communities,” says a January report from the University of California-Davis’ Climate and Community Project, which recommends achieving zero emissions and minimizing new mining by reducing car dependence, shrinking battery sizes and maximizing recycling.

“As societies undertake the urgent and transformative task of building new, zero-emissions energy systems, some level of mining is necessary,” the report says. “But the volume of extraction is not a given. Neither is where mining takes place, who bears the social and environmental burdens, or how mining is governed.”

Others see ensuring that a robust recycling and reuse chain comes with the new clean energy economy as key to reducing the impact of mining minerals. CNBC reported last month that a growing number of start up businesses are getting to work on solar, wind and battery recycling operations. (Read about University of Kentucky student Lucas Bertucci who has researched recycling batteries, solar panels and other electronic waste at the Center for Applied Energy Research.)

“Over the medium-to-long-term, the development of domestic recycling and reuse sectors will not only help to mitigate the need for new critical mineral production but will also help reduce our reliance on geostrategic competitors for these resources and technologies,” Advanced Energy Economy says in a policy paper.

Max Wilbert, an environmental activist who had helped organize a protest camp at the Thacker Pass site in Nevada, favors what many consider a radical “degrowth” solution to climate change, pollution and ecological collapse rather than trying to maintain current lifestyles with new sources of power that come with their own environmental problems.

“Some people might say that’s a dream,” he said. “I think the real dream is trying to maintain the status quo with a new energy source.”?

Mountain Valley Pipeline approvals OKed as part of debt ceiling deal

Charlie Paullin — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 20:47:29 +0000

Attendees at a rally in Richmond Thursday against including completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline in a federal debt deal. (Charlie Paullin/Virginia Mercury)

The controversial 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline, which would carry natural gas from shale fields in West Virginia to southern Virginia, received federal support for completion Thursday after the U.S. Senate approved a debt ceiling deal that includes a provision requiring fast-tracked approvals for the project, despite opposition from some members of Virginia’s congressional delegation.

Both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate sent the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which prevents the country from defaulting on its debt, to Democratic President Joe Biden with a measure attached to it that creates a 21-day deadline for the government to approve permits for the project.

The provision also states that “no court shall have jurisdiction to review any action” taken by various federal actors to provide approvals for the pipeline and mandates that any challenges to the legislation be heard in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which is generally seen as more favorable to the project than the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, where most legal challenges have been heard.

The move was hotly opposed by Virginia’s Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who this week sought an amendment to the bill to strip out the pipeline provision. Democratic Sen. Mark Warner also opposed inclusion of the provision. The amendment failed Thursday.

“My Virginians just want to be sure that if this pipeline is built, it has met the requisite standards of review agencies, both state and federal, and it has withstood any court challenges,” said Kaine in a floor speech Thursday. “Most people would be embarrassed to ask for that. ‘I lost, I’m unhappy, why don’t I get Congress to rewrite the rules of federal jurisdiction and take this case away from the court that’s maybe unhappy and put it in another court.’”

What’s in the bill

SEC. 324.?EXPEDITING COMPLETION OF THE MOUNTAIN VALLEY PIPELINE.

(a)?Definition Of Mountain Valley Pipeline.—In this section, the term “Mountain Valley Pipeline” means the Mountain Valley Pipeline project, as generally described and approved in Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Docket Nos. CP16–10, CP19–477, and CP21–57.

(b)?Congressional Findings And Declaration.—The Congress hereby finds and declares that the timely completion of construction and operation of the Mountain Valley Pipeline is required in the national interest. The Mountain Valley Pipeline will serve demonstrated natural gas demand in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Southeast regions, will increase the reliability of natural gas supplies and the availability of natural gas at reasonable prices, will allow natural gas producers to access additional markets for their product, and will reduce carbon emissions and facilitate the energy transition.

(c)?Approval And Ratification And Maintenance Of Existing Authorizations.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law—

(1) Congress hereby ratifies and approves all authorizations, permits, verifications, extensions, biological opinions, incidental take statements, and any other approvals or orders issued pursuant to Federal law necessary for the construction and initial operation at full capacity of the Mountain Valley Pipeline; and

(2) Congress hereby directs the Secretary of the Army, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Secretary of the Interior, and other agencies as applicable, as the case may be, to continue to maintain such authorizations, permits, verifications, extensions, biological opinions, incidental take statements, and any other approvals or orders issued pursuant to Federal law necessary for the construction and initial operation at full capacity of the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

(d)?Expedited Approval.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, not later than 21 days after the date of enactment of this Act and for the purpose of facilitating the completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, the Secretary of the Army shall issue all permits or verifications necessary—

(1) to complete the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline across the waters of the United States; and

(2) to allow for the operation and maintenance of the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

(e)?Judicial Review.—

(1) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no court shall have jurisdiction to review any action taken by the Secretary of the Army, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of the Interior, or a State administrative agency acting pursuant to Federal law that grants an authorization, permit, verification, biological opinion, incidental take statement, or any other approval necessary for the construction and initial operation at full capacity of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, including the issuance of any authorization, permit, extension, verification, biological opinion, incidental take statement, or other approval described in subsection (c) or (d) of this section for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, whether issued prior to, on, or subsequent to the date of enactment of this section, and including any lawsuit pending in a court as of the date of enactment of this section.

(2) The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit shall have original and exclusive jurisdiction over any claim alleging the invalidity of this section or that an action is beyond the scope of authority conferred by this section.

(f)?Effect.—This section supersedes any other provision of law (including any other section of this Act or other statute, any regulation, any judicial decision, or any agency guidance) that is inconsistent with the issuance of any authorization, permit, verification, biological opinion, incidental take statement, or other approval for the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Source: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/3746/text#toc-H985D8C024409446986065BD496DEA7E0

The natural gas pipeline received its initial approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in 2017 to supply gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale fields to southern Virginia.

Initially expected to be finished in 2018, completion of the project has been delayed due to numerous legal challenges over environmental impacts, including sediment and erosion issues. In 2019, the pipeline agreed to pay Virginia $2.15 million to resolve litigation over what former Attorney General Mark Herring had claimed were some 300 environmental violations in the commonwealth.

Most recently, the pipeline sought and received a four-year extension of its approval from FERC to continue construction.

An earlier attempt to force completion of Mountain Valley through a deal between the White House, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, related to the Inflation Reduction Act failed this fall. In a sharply critical floor speech in September, Kaine said the proposal would set “a very, very dangerous precedent.”

Environmental groups in Virginia took to the streets in Richmond, Roanoke, Norfolk and Vienna on Thursday to rally in opposition to the bill. Virginia Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, participated in the Roanoke gathering. Chesapeake Climate Action Network and Appalachian Voices rallied in Richmond outside of Warner’s office.

“We do not want this project built, and we will not stop until that project is stopped,” said Jessica Sims, a field coordinator with Appalachian Voices.

The project is estimated to be 94% complete, according to the company, although environmental groups dispute the calculation.

“We look forward to completing this important infrastructure project by the end of 2023 and flowing domestic natural gas for the benefits of reliability and affordability in the form of lower natural gas prices for consumers,” wrote Mountain Valley Pipeline spokesperson Natalie Cox in an email. “To date, Mountain Valley has successfully acquired 100 percent of right-of-way in West Virginia and more than 99 percent of right-of-way in Virginia, providing landowners with more than $125 million in compensation across the 303-mile route.”

In October, the company withdrew its legal challenges seeking eminent domain for an extension project into North Carolina.

This story is republished from the?Virginia Mercury, ?part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sarah Vogelsong for questions: [email protected]. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and Twitter.

Toyota’s first electric vehicle factory in the US will be in Kentucky at its Georgetown plant

Liam Niemeyer — Wed, 31 May 2023 19:34:23 +0000

Susan Elkington president, TMMK, Tuesday Feb. 4, 2020 in Georgetown. (Photo by Mark Mahan)

In what Gov. Andy Beshear called an “enormous” economic development announcement for Kentucky, Toyota plans to establish its first electric car manufacturing facility in the United States at its plant in Scott County.?

The Georgetown factory, which has manufactured millions of cars since 1988, plans to retain nearly 9,000 employees to manufacture electric SUVs as a part of $591 million in investments at the facility.

“We know that that plant will be part of our automotive landscape here in Kentucky and the United States, in the world for decades to come,” Beshear said during a Wednesday press conference. “We love every jobs announcement, but one that we know secures a plant this size for the decades to come is a truly exciting one.”?

The Georgetown plant is the Japanese automaker’s largest production facility in the world. The plant will source car batteries from another Toyota plant in North Carolina.

In a statement, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky President Susan Elkington said the company is “leading the charge” with electric vehicles.

“Our incredible team of Kentuckians is excited to take on this new challenge while delivering the same great quality and reliability that our customers expect,” Elkington said.?

Ted Ogawa, president and chief executive officer of Toyota Motor North America, said: “We are committed to reducing carbon emissions as much as possible and as soon as possible.?To achieve this goal, customers must have access to a portfolio of options that meet their needs now and in the future. It is exciting to see our largest U.S. plant, Toyota Kentucky, and our newest plant, Toyota North Carolina, drive us into the future together with BEV and battery production for our expanding electrified lineup.”

In 2021, Ford announced it was investing $5.8 billion to build an electric car battery manufacturing plant in Hardin County, and other companies plan to build factories in Western Kentucky that manufacture key parts for electric vehicles.

Toyota to buy power from planned Martin County solar installation on former surface coal mine

Liam Niemeyer — Wed, 24 May 2023 17:53:25 +0000

Solar cell panels in a photovoltaic power plant. (Photo provided by Toyota)

Japanese car manufacturer Toyota says it plans to purchase 100 megawatts of power from a 200-megawatt solar installation in Martin County being built on a former surface coal mine and brownfield site.??

Toyota in a Wednesday news release stated the multi-billion-dollar company would use the solar power to offset some of its carbon emissions. Toyota plans to make all its operations in North America carbon neutral by 2035. Toyota’s Georgetown operation is the company’s largest vehicle manufacturing plant in the world.?

The solar installation is being constructed by Savion, a subsidiary of the oil and gas company Shell, with the support of a Kentucky-based renewable energy company founded by former Democratic State Auditor Adam Edelen.?

“A blockbuster announcement literally years in the making,” Edelen said on Twitter. “The promise of renewable energy is coming to Appalachian coal country.”

The 2,541-acre solar installation will be constructed on the former Martiki Coal Mine site near the border of West Virginia and Kentucky. Toyota expects the installation to be operational in 2024.?

The solar development has been in the works for years with developers previously stating the project could bring hundreds of temporary jobs to the county and state during construction and a few dozen long-term jobs. In a 2021 filing before the state’s utility regulator, the developers also said the project could raise approximately $9 million in local taxes over the lifetime of the solar installation.?

David Absher, senior manager of environmental sustainability at Toyota Motor North America, in a statement said power purchase agreements such as the one in Martin County can help bring “new opportunities to former coal and energy communities.”?

?“It is important that renewable power is more available to large-scale U.S. energy buyers, and converting brownfields like this offers a path forward for former energy communities to take advantage of the infrastructure they already have with transmission lines while providing clean energy to the grid,” Absher said.?

EPA narrows loophole by expanding regulation of coal ash dumped at power plants

James Bruggers, Inside Climate News — Wed, 24 May 2023 09:50:56 +0000

The Biden administration is taking steps to address a regulatory loophole that public interest groups said allowed at least a half-billion tons of toxic coal ash to go unregulated.

The Environmental Protection Agency published a new draft rule last week that the groups said would extend federal oversight to much of the coal ash disposed at both operating and retired power plants.?

The proposed rule would extend federal monitoring, closure and cleanup requirements to hundreds of previously excluded older landfills, legacy ponds and fill sites. Coal ash is the waste that remains after coal is burned for electricity, and is among the most costly of the long-term legacies from more than a century of burning coal.?

The action comes as part of a settlement between the federal agency and public interest groups, including the Sierra Club. The groups said the proposed rule would force owners to address problems at facilities like the Bull Run Fossil Plant near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Four Corners Power Plant near Fruitland, New Mexico, and Stanton Energy Center in Orlando, Florida. Many of the sites are in low-income communities and communities of color. The action also comes after Inside Climate News, WMFE in Orlando and NPR brought national attention to the federal loophole in late 2021 and early 2022.

“This is a really big deal,” said Lisa Evans, senior counsel at Earthjustice, a nonprofit organization litigating environmental issues, which represented the public interest groups. “For far too long a large portion of toxic coal ash around the U.S. was left leaching into drinking water supplies without any requirement it be cleaned up. The EPA is taking significant steps to address a massive loophole that let many coal plant owners off the hook.”

Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and Pennsylvania rank as the states with the most power plants with at least one regulated or unregulated coal ash dump, with 24, 23, 23 and 21 dumps each, followed by Kentucky, with 20, according to Earthjustice mapping.

The Obama administration’s EPA in 2015 adopted the first national regulations on coal ash. The regulations applied to existing and new sites but exempted coal ash at power plants that had already stopped generating electricity and landfills that had already closed. Those rules required monitoring and cleanup, but only at dump sites that were covered by the new regulations. Earthjustice has since identified 566 landfills and ponds at 242 coal plants in 40 states that were excluded from the regulations, based on an analysis of industry data provided to the EPA.

For instance, at the Stanton Energy Center in Orlando, dumping at a 90-acre coal ash landfill stopped just 52 days before the regulations took effect. The maneuver exempted the landfill from the new requirements for environmental monitoring and, if contamination were found, a requirement to take corrective actions. Those standards only applied to new dumping areas next to the closed landfill at Stanton, which is operated by the Orlando Utilities Commission

“OUC has always managed coal ash responsibly and transparently, in accordance with regulations set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Coal Combustion Residuals Rule and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Power Plant Siting Act,” said Michelle Lynch, a spokeswoman. “OUC is and will remain committed to our environmental responsibility by working to meet or exceed all local, state and federal regulatory requirements now and in the future. We have always made it a point to do the right thing — and we will continue to do so for our community and environment.”?

Under the new draft rule, the EPA would compel owners, with some exceptions, to monitor and clean up all coal ash at their facilities, rather than trying to regulate each dump individually. The proposed site-wide approach would lead to more effective safeguards, Earthjustice said.

“It’s a step forward, for sure. It’s a more holistic approach to regulate coal ash, and it does close a very important loophole,” said Abel Russ, senior attorney at the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit advocating for more enforcement of environmental laws, and a plaintiff in the lawsuit that prompted the new EPA action on coal ash. “There are ways we still think it could be stronger. But in particular, I really appreciate that the EPA is going to be requiring the owners and operators to provide information about their sites in a way that the public will be able to access.”??

Russ said the proposed rule would continue to be self-implementing and would be difficult to enforce. The public interest groups also said the draft rule fails to extend regulations to all coal ash dump sites at former plants. For instance, ponds that did not have water in them in 2015 or later would be excluded, and landfills at former plants that do not have a legacy pond also would be excluded. Earthjustice said up to 58 landfills could be excluded under this exemption. The proposed rule also does not address coal ash that was used as construction fill at playgrounds, schools and throughout neighborhoods, Earthjustice said.

“As the EPA works to finalize these reforms by next year there are a few things they need to do,” said Evans of Earthjustice, which sued the EPA in 2022. Among other plaintiffs were the Indiana? branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Hoosier Environmental Council.

Workers forced to clean up TVA coal ash spill without personal protection settle with company

Jamie Satterfield — Tue, 23 May 2023 22:44:19 +0000

After 10 years of litigation, workers who were forced to work without personal protection to clean up the Tennessee Valley Authority’s massive coal ash spill at its Kingston Fossil Plant in 2008 have reached a settlement in the case.

TVA’s disaster clean-up contractor Jacobs Engineering posted a one-line notice Monday on its website affirming that the global corporation has reached a monetary settlement with the more than 200 workers who filed suit over their treatment.

No notice of settlement has yet been filed in U.S. District Court, so the details of the deal remain unclear. Workers have rejected at least three prior settlement offers including an offer in late 2021 by Jacobs of $35 million.

What’s also unclear is whether Jacobs will follow through with a 2015 demand that TVA cover its legal bills and settlement costs. Jacobs and TVA brokered a deal just months after the Dec. 22, 2008, spill, in which TVA agreed to indemnify the contractor in any claims of poisoning by coal ash.

Jacobs invoked that indemnity agreement after Kingston disaster workers began filing lawsuits alleging they had been sickened by the radioactive waste after being forced to work in it without respiratory or skin protection.

More than 50 of those workers have died since the coal ash cleanup operation and more than 150 are sick. A federal jury in 2018 sided with the workers, ruling that Jacobs breached its contract with TVA and its duty to protect those workers. Jacobs has filed numerous appeals since then but lost each one.

Only one appeal remained — a question of law posed to the Tennessee Supreme Court last year. That question had not yet been answered when, earlier this year, Gov. Bill Lee appointed Dwight Tarwater, Jacobs’ chief counsel in the Kingston case, to the state Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice Sharon Lee. Soon after Lee tapped Tarwater for the post, attorneys on both sides of the Kingston case filed a stay with the state Supreme Court — the first clue a settlement might be in the works.

The death toll among Kingston disaster workers continues to rise. Last week, Kingston disaster worker Tommy Johnson died. He had collapsed three weeks earlier after attending a memorial service for his fellow deceased colleagues. His funeral is set for Friday.

Testimony in the 2018 federal trial revealed that managers with both Jacobs and TVA repeatedly told workers coal ash was safe enough to eat and refused to provide them protective gear, including masks. When workers began pressing for respiratory protection, Jacobs’ safety manager Tom Bock ordered masks stored at the disaster site destroyed to prevent workers from wearing them, testimony showed.

Coal ash contains 26 cancer-causing toxins, heavy metals and radioactive material, including radium, lithium, selenium, molybdenum, arsenic, lead, cobalt and uranium. Initial testing in January 2009 by an independent firm showed the Kingston coal ash was six to eight times more radioactive than surrounding soil.

But training materials provided by both TVA and Jacobs to Kingston disaster workers never mentioned the radiological threat coal ash posed or provided a full list of dangerous ingredients in the waste. Instead, the training materials stated the only ingredients of concern in the ash were arsenic and silica.

Just two months after the spill, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration received a complaint that the Kingston workers were being exposed to radiation via coal ash without proper protective gear. But OSHA did not investigate the complaint.

Instead, OSHA alerted TVA to the complaint and allowed the utility to investigate itself. TVA, in turn, submitted a report to OSHA, falsely claiming workers had been provided protective gear in the first few months of the spill. OSHA took no further action. After workers filed suit, OSHA destroyed the file on the complaint — without explanation and outside its normal records retention policy.

Independent testing conducted in 2020 by Duke University of the Kingston coal ash — the byproduct of burning coal to produce electricity — showed the waste contained radioactive material at levels three to five times higher than reported by TVA to the public, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Tennessee Department of Health.

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: [email protected]. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and Twitter.

With summer coming fast, regulator issues electric reliability warning

Robert Zullo — Thu, 18 May 2023 17:09:31 +0000

During extreme heat, stay out of the sun and in air conditioning when possible.?(Photo by Tim Boyle/Getty Images)

This story was updated with comments from MISO and SPP on May 19.

As much as two thirds of North America could face shortages of electricity this summer in the event of severe and protracted heat, according to the regulator in charge of setting and enforcing standards for the electric grid.?

“Increased, rapid deployment of wind, solar and batteries have made a positive impact,” said Mark Olson, manager of reliability assessments for the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), in a news release. “However, generator retirements continue to increase the risks associated with extreme summer temperatures, which factors into potential supply shortages in the western two-thirds of North America if summer temperatures spike.”?

NERC’s 2023 Summer Reliability Assessment says the amount of electric generation capacity across the country is adequate for normal summer weather, though spiking temperatures, coupled with potential high outage rates from fossil plants and low output from renewables, could force emergency actions like interrupting power service. NERC says the areas that face elevated risk are the U.S. West, the Midwestern states that are part of SPP and MISO — a pair of regional transmission organizations that each coordinate the flow of electricity for a huge swathe of the central U.S. — Texas, New England and parts of the upper South.?

A report released Wednesday by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation warned of reliability risks in some regions in the case of severe summer heat. (NERC)

“Weather officials are expecting above normal temperatures for much of the United States,” the report says. “In addition, drought conditions continue across much of the western half of North America, resulting in unique challenges to area electricity supplies and potential impacts on demand. … Above average seasonal temperatures can contribute to high peak demand as well as an increase in forced outages for generation and some (bulk power system) equipment.”

Derek Wingfield, a spokesman for SPP, which coordinates electric flow for customers in 14 states, said the regional organization “anticipates that we’ll have enough generating capacity to serve load across our region through the summer.” Even if electric demand exceeds historical averages by as much as 5%, there’s still a high probability there will be enough power supply, Wingfield said.

“We hope people across our region will rest easy knowing that the summer season looks generally favorable in terms of electric reliability, but we encourage them to prepare for the unexpected and ensure they can receive notices from their local utilities in case of the threat of outages,” he added.

In a news release on May 17, Clair Moeller, MISO’s president and chief operating officer, said managing the system, which covers all or part of 15 states over an area that runs from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico, is getting tougher because of changes to the power generation fleet.

“Actions taken by market participants this year, such as delaying resource retirements and making additional, existing capacity available via imports may not be repeatable in the future, and this year we are still susceptible to supply shortages in extreme situations,” Moeller said.

The NERC reportsays wind output in MISO and SPP will be a “key factor” in whether there will be enough electricity to maintain reliability. NERC also cites natural gas and coal supply risks and the EPA’s new “Good Neighbor Plan” rule, which is intended to cut smog-forming pollution from power plants and other industrial facilities in 23 states but will likely limit hours of operation for coal plants.?

The report says state regulators, grid operators and power plants will have to be “vigilant for emissions rule constraints that affect generator dispatchability and the potential need for emission allowance trades or waivers to meet high demand or low resource conditions.”

Michael Goggin, a vice president at Grid Strategies, a consulting firm, said wind and solar have historically performed well during peak electric demand periods and generally meet or exceed the output grid operators expect them to deliver.

“The primary cause of reliability risks during both hot and cold extreme weather has been the underperformance of fossil, and particularly gas, generators,” Goggin said, citing gas plants that failed to perform during heat waves in 2020 and 2022 in California and other parts of the west.?

Advanced Energy United, a trade group representing renewable energy businesses, said the report underscored the need to update the electric grid and increase the ability to move electricity around the country by building more transmission lines.

“With no end in sight to grueling summer heat waves induced by climate change, states that do nothing to shore up the energy grid will continue to risk blackouts and skyrocketing electricity costs,” said Leah Rubin Shen, AEU’s managing director. “Modernizing our 100-year-old electric grid with new transmission lines and new grid-improving technology will make it easier for all kinds of clean energy, like large-scale projects as well as household and neighborhood resources, to connect to the grid and make it more reliable and affordable.”

The group also called for a full-fledged regional transmission organization for the West, which currently has a power trading mechanism called the Energy Imbalance Market but has seen some states exploring efforts to better connect the region. Both Colorado and Nevada, for example, have passed legislation requiring their states to join regional transmission organizations and California is exploring further regionalization.?

“Right now, there are 38 entities managing 38 separate energy territories in the West,” said Mona Tierney-Lloyd, Head of State Public Policy for Enel North America, an energy service company and renewable power developer. “Coordinating across all of them can be very challenging when supplies are tight and demand is soaring — and that’s what contributes to power outages. A regional transmission organization would make it much easier to coordinate and keep the lights on everywhere in the West. It is a much more efficient and reliable way of sharing scarce resources.”

‘I hope we get through the summer’

At the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission meeting Thursday, commissioners got a presentation from their own staff as well as NERC on the reliability outlook for summer.

Two commissioners, Chairman Willie Phillips and Commissioner Allison Clements, saw positive trends compared to last year, including easing drought conditions that should improve hydropower in the West. Clements noted that the California Independent System Operator, which runs the electric grid for most of California, released its own outlook for summer that showed improvement in availability of electric generation and an additional 4,000 megawatts of storage capacity coming online. California’s grid was pushed to the brink by a late summer heat wave last year, but the addition of battery storage, regional cooperation, efforts to cut demand and direct appeals to consumers, among other measures, staved off disaster.?

“We have the tools in the toolbox to get at these problems,” Clements said, citing improving the interconnection process for new generation resources, transmission planning upgrades, grid technologies and programs to reduce electric demand.

However, Commissioner Mark Christie wasn’t as sanguine.?

“We’re losing dispatchable generation at a pace that’s unsustainable. And it’s going to have negative consequences in the future,” Christie said.??

“The long term trends are still threatening. That’s what I took from the NERC report. …? I hope it is good news, I hope we get through the summer. But I think in the long term we’ve got some major, major threats facing reliability of the grid.”