Trying to legislate technology

Over on Climate Progress there is a note on the 100th coal-fired power station to be cancelled or postponed in recent months. This one is in Utah, and was cancelled as a result of the decision of the City of Los Angeles to be “coal free” by 2020. The Intermountain Power Agency was going to build a third power station, some 900-megawatts, to meet LA’s growing needs, but this is not to be.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced last week that the city -- which purchases about 45 percent of the IPA's power -- wants to end its use of coal-fired power by 2020. Villaraigosa said that the city will replace its coal-fired electricity with energy from renewable sources, natural gas, nuclear and hydroelectric power.

It will certainly be interesting to watch how this plays out, given that the best wind sites in the state appear to be already in use, and that there has been a slowdown in growth of new farms, to the point that Iowa has now passed California by. Certainly Baja California is getting into the act, with the promise of having 75% of the power needed for public lighting to come from a wind farm by 2011. But there is a considerable difference between the 10-megawatts of that plant, and the 900-megawatts just foregone. Solar continues to be very much more expensive, nuclear is unlikely to be available within the time frame anticipated, and there has been some debate about dismantling dams that provide some of the hydroelectric power. So it will fall on the back of natural gas to make up the shortfall, or so it would appear.

This would seem to give additional impetus to the prospects for the Ruby pipeline.

As proposed, the Project is expected to include approximately 675 miles of 42-inch natural gas transmission pipeline, beginning at the Opal Hub in Wyoming and terminating at interconnects near Malin, Oregon. Contracts for the pipe have been signed and pipeline construction companies have been selected. The Project will have an initial design capacity of up to 1.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) and will traverse portions of four states: Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and Oregon. Four compressor stations are proposed for the project: one near the Opal Hub in southwestern Wyoming; one south of Curlew Junction, Utah; one at the mid-point of the project, north of Elko, Nevada; and one in northwestern Nevada.

The connection of a pipeline from the currently underpriced supplies in Colorado and Utah into the Western market through the connection in Oregon and into the Northwestern gas pipeline will likely reduce the costs of gas in the West, while giving Colorado and Utah markets for their gas, at the time that they are potentially losing the Eastern market that was targeted with the Rockies Express. That pipeline has now reached Ohio and was placed to meet the need for cheaper gas in the North East. (among other things by replacing Canadian gas, which is also now going to lose the market in California). This market is now threatened by the potential of gas supplied from the Marcellus shale.

The role that hydrofracing plays in all this provides an interesting sub-text. As I have recently noted, there is a move by two Coloradan Congressmen and one from New York to tighten the regulation of hydrofracing. However
industry officials claim state regulation of the practice is more than adequate and that the chemicals used in fracking need to be kept secret for competitive purposes.

They also argue that in 60 years of fracking there has never been a case directly linking it to the contamination of drinking water wells because so many precautions are taken.

Interestingly Colorado has recently passed tougher legislation governing drilling in the state, which includes the need to list the components of the fracing fluid, legislation which is said to have increased costs in the state, and reduced the level of drilling (albeit the price of gas might just also have some effect on this).

The desire by the Colorado Congressfolk to make the rest of the nation work to the same rules as their gas industry (which incidentally does not have that much of the gas shale which requires hydrofracing to be economic) has yet to be decided in the national Congress, but should the legislation pass then the costs to the California consumer may be significant.

Unfortunately, at the time that they discover that the costs of switching to the more environmentally friendly power generation system is costing them significant dollars (at a time when California is broke) it may be too late to reverse the decision, in the way that Durango recently did and move back to coal, since the coal plants will not, it would appear, now be there.

Whether, with the increasingly levels of demand for natural gas to replace planned coal-fired plants, the natural gas will be there to meet that increased demand is a tale for another day.

(NOTE: When I originally wrote this piece it had a different end section, the original end section, and the reason for the change are discussed in the section below. My apologies for the error in including that material, and my thanks to Gail for catching the error and drawing my attention to it).


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When I first wrote this piece, the end segment read as follows:
The role that hydrofracing plays in all this provides an interesting sub-text. As I have recently noted, there is a move by two Coloradan Congressmen and one from New York to tighten the regulation of hydrofracing. The fight is now, apparently getting a little rougher. (H/t Prof Goose) A research professor at Colorado School of Mines has run into some unpleasant reactions.

Thyne said he was threatened with termination as a research associate professor at Mines, a position he still holds through the end of the summer, because of pressure put on the state school by powerful players in the oil and gas industry who were upset with his position that federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing may ultimately be necessary if oil companies don’t find other solutions.

In fact he has moved on to another university (Wyoming) but has been working on a site where there is a possible problem.

Thyne contends there needs to be much more rigorous study of fracking to determine the extent to which it can contaminate groundwater supplies. Industry money currently being poured into the aggressive and highly defensive campaign to defeat DeGette’s legislation would be better spent building a credible scientific case for why the exemption was necessary in the first place, he adds.

Industry officials claim state regulation of the practice is more than adequate and that the chemicals used in fracking need to be kept secret for competitive purposes. They also argue that in 60 years of fracking there has never been a case directly linking it to the contamination of drinking water wells because so many precautions are taken.

But Thyne is currently being employed as an independent consultant by Garfield County to study a case near Silt in which a property owner claims fracking contributed to an ongoing gas seep in Divide Creek.

Interestingly Colorado has recently passed tougher legislation governing drilling in the state, which includes the need to list the components of the fracing fluid, legislation which is said to have increased costs in the state, and reduced the level of drilling (albeit the price of gas might just also have some effect on this).

As for the CSM prof, given that the story has popped out only after he had found a position to move on to, I tend to be a bit cynical about the weight of the pressure that might have been applied to him. Having been peripherally involved in a case of our own where a faculty member’s untimely remarks about a company to the press probably cost our University at least one and likely several large contracts, as well as ruining relations between us for several years. It happens. There were several rude exchanges, so I gather, but it all blew over. As this likely would have.

But given the desire by the Colorado Congressfolk to make the rest of the nation work to the same rules as their gas industry (which incidentally does not have that much of the gas shale which requires hydrofracing to be economic) I am not sure that the overall discussion will have as simple an outcome.

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The reference to Dr. Thyne is innaccurate. It turns out, as Gail discovered and called to my attention that CSM had commented on the situation, with the following statement:

“I want you to know that no one in the Mines administration recalls having anything but cordial conversations with Dr. Thyne this spring. When Dr. Thyne was quoted during that time by the media, the school received inquiries about Dr. Thyne’s association with Mines.

“As a result, Mines officials phoned and e-mailed Dr. Thyne to inform him of the inquiries, and also to remind him of the university policy that people must be clear in public communications that the opinions they express are personal and do not represent institution positions — one way or another — on issues being discussed.

“Also, as a matter of clarification, Dr. Thyne left employment at Mines in August 2006 due to employment at the University of Wyoming. He has remained in a very limited role on a non-paid basis (in an advisory capacity with graduate students) since then, and that contract ends at the end of August 2009.”

Given the dates at which Dr Thyne changed employment, it appears, therefore that there is significantly less to the story than I had described. My thanks again to Gail for catching this, and my apologies that I did not.