Posted on 01/24/2024 4:25:02 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
Climate change has led many states and countries to set targets for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from power systems. Oregon has set targets for all power sold to retail customers in the state to have GHG emissions cut by 80% by 2030, 90% by 2035, and 100% by 2040.
...Portland General Electric (PGE) generates, transmits, and distributes electricity to half of Oregon’s population, and 75% of its commercial and industrial activity, is working hard to achieve those objectives. As the first utility in the U.S. to sign The Climate Pledge, an initiative co-founded by Amazon and Global Optimism in 2019, which has since had 464 signatories join, committing to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.
Kristen Sheeran, senior director of sustainability, strategy, and resources planning at PGE, said the process is pretty straightforward in some ways. “In order to reduce carbon on our system, we have to back out fossil fuels that we currently rely on to generate power for our customers, and we have to replace that with non-emitting alternatives.”
Perhaps more difficult than decarbonizing the system, however, is doing so while also maintaining reliability, affordability, and an equitable system for all its customers. “It’s a very interesting point in time—an inflection point for the industry,” Sheeran said. “How do you balance affordability? How do you balance reliability with emissions reduction?” she asked.
(Excerpt) Read more at powermag.com ...
PGE closed its last Oregon-based coal-fired power plant in October 2020, 20 years ahead of schedule, as part of an agreement with stakeholders, customer groups, and regulators to significantly reduce air emissions from power production in Oregon. PGE still receives a small amount of coal-fired power from the Colstrip plant, which is located near Billings, Montana. The company has an ownership stake in the facility, but it plans to exit its ownership in Colstrip no later than 2029.The sheer folly of this is infuriating. There is NO NEED to "decarbonize." They chirpily say "we have to decarbonize without making power unaffordable and unreliable" but there are NO TECHNOLOGIES EXTANT that can do that. They 20 year prematurely shut down a perfectly good, reliable, clean, and low-cost coal plant with no replacement available. Finally, that paragraph immediately above drops the bombshell that PGE, a vertically integrated utility, can no longer produce the power it needs to sell. It has to "procure" from other sources and I expect many of those sources will be from outside Oregon.Up to this point in time, decarbonization has primarily been done with wind, solar, and batteries, and it’s not a new thing for PGE. The company’s first wind farm—the Biglow Canyon site—began operation in 2007. Meanwhile, in 2012, PGE opened the Camino del Sol Solar Station, an interstate highway solar project. Since then, the company has partnered with schools, government agencies, and corporations to grow solar energy throughout Oregon. In partnership with NextEra Energy Resources, it also opened North America’s first major renewable energy facility to combine wind, solar, and battery storage in one location—the Wheatridge Renewable Energy Facility in Morrow County. Today, PGE boasts having more than 1 GW of wind power capacity in service in the Northwest, and it aims to procure between 3.5 GW and 4.5 GW of new non-emitting resources and storage between now and 2030.
Lastly, Oregon is losing population. I'm seeing a strong correlation between states pursuing their Green Wet Dreams and population loss.
Oregon population decline is cause for concern, say economists
By Allison Frost, Oregon Public Broadcasting
Jan. 5, 2023
Why would population decline concern economists? They want to decarbonize...why not depopulationize? That's what the greeniacs really want.
Bkmk
Oh my, Oregon is losing population. Go figure, woke and morally better than anyone else, their leaders are well, just STUPID sheeple.
How cold does it get in Oregon?
Writing the book ‘How To Go Bankrupt In 6 Years’
Of course it is impossible to achieve this goal without rolling blackouts as a common occurrence.
40 years ago when coal was king, rolling blackouts were a rare occurrence anywhere in the US.
Now the threat of it is a yearly thing on the Left Coast.
Yep, it is one smug place. “We can ruin our power system and nobody will notice the skyrocketing prices and declining reliability as well as covering our beautiful landscape with ugly windmills and solar cells.”
Stupidity on parade.
The Oregon Public Radio article is typical leftist drivel. They pontificate about all the reasons that people are leaving Oregon and observe that the state’s birth rate is awful, but they refuse to even contemplate its their liberalism doing it.
“Perhaps more difficult than decarbonizing the system, however, is doing so while also maintaining reliability, affordability, and an equitable system for all its customers. “It’s a very interesting point in time—an inflection point for the industry,” Sheeran said. “How do you balance affordability? How do you balance reliability with emissions reduction?” she asked.”
These are VERY SCARY words coming from this babe. If any FReepers are left in Oregon, they had BETTER understand the meaning of “affordability” and “equitable”, as it means that they WILL NOT be paying the same price for electricity as their migrant neighbors, but likely several times more. Based on what I’m seeing in Europe, the ‘well off’ (meaning not eating mud for dinner) will be paying close to $1.00 per kWh when this babe completes her plan - so go look at one of your electric bill and apply $1.00/kWh and you’ll have a good idea as to what you’ll be paying in 5 to 10 years (at most).
The other option, of course, it to mostly get off the grid, which should keep your bill under about $200/month, as they will still wallop you with charges for being connected to the grid and even that sip of power you use will drive up your bill drastically.
“40 years ago when coal was king, rolling blackouts were a rare occurrence anywhere in the US.”
Yep. It wasn’t even something anybody would have even thought about. We were the USA! The power was always on. Nobody could beat us and we were on top of our game.
I entered the power business 50 years ago back in that can-do era. We were busy building new, massive power plants all over the country. Then we handed the country over to lunatics and they gradually, incrementally destroyed it. Reducing sulfur emissions - that was good. Reducing NOx emissions - that was good. Reducing particulate emissions - that was good. Better management of solid waste - that was good.
But the greeniacs are never, ever satisfied. They ratcheted down the emission levels for those primary pollutants to an unattainable target level. They wanted to add mercury. Then they discovered that carbon dioxide could be labeled a “pollutant” and the uneducated sheep would buy it! It was off to the races at that point.
It’s really hurt watching the industry commit suicide while the con artists, charlatans, scammers and mountebanks get rich.
Turn out the lights, the party’s over……
We need to shutter every public school system in America. Ban any current education union member from teaching. This is where this mass insanity starts.
People in Appalachia are screaming about rate hikes and AEP is shutting down coal plants. The people are contacting the government to stop rate hikes. The government is allowing rate hikes to pay for new power sources because the European Oligarchs are paying politicians to institute unreliable power to control the population in the name of “Global Warming”
That was my thought, too. Based on her vapid, really stupid quotes, she's a know-nothing airhead who doesn't know a kilowatt from a volt.
What you wrote about "equity" in the power industry is exactly right. That train has left the station in California and is chugging down the tracks...
Richer people pay more: California’s dramatic change to electricity billsThis is going to accelerate the self-segregation of Americans into warring states.California will soon become the first state to determine residents’ electricity fees based on their income as part of a new effort to spur households toward full electrification and bring down the state’s soaring electricity costs for low-income Californians.
Electricity bills are made up of fixed costs as well as fees that vary based on the amount of electricity residents use. Last year, the state passed a law giving the California public utilities commission a 1 July 2024 deadline to determine a fixed charge for household electric bills based on people’s income.
The new income-based electricity bills could hit residents’ mailboxes as soon as 2025. Based on proposals currently under consideration, residents who make more than $180,000 a year could pay about $500 more annually on their electricity bills, while Californians who make less than $28,000 annually could save up to $300 a year.
The law is part of the state’s answer of how to equitably transition away from carbon as an energy source.
You are right, but I’d go upstream from the public schools. All these horrendous ideas originate in far left universities and then get picked up in their “Education Departments / Teacher’s Colleges” where the teachers get indoctrinated. Then they get hired by schools to inculcate their communism to the kids.
Bill Ackman plans on changing that.
Extremely cold in the mountains. But they can chop up their forests when they want to get warm. In other words, turn Oregon into a dark desert.
“Based on proposals currently under consideration, residents who make more than $180,000 a year could pay about $500 more annually on their electricity bills, while Californians who make less than $28,000 annually could save up to $300 a year.”
Just the start. When they’re through, it will be closer to per week (per two weeks at most), rather than per year.
Portland is sooooo doomed in sooo many ways.
Standard reason...the left touched it, and the left will eff it.
“Just the start.”
Exactly. It is ALWAYS the “camel’s nose” approach with them. They used that same MO with the income tax and the social security tax.
Why wait? 2030? Cut all -— ALL — the carbon-based energy production and supply NOW. Show us how it’s done! Why wait? < s a r c >
Yes. They don’t have a solution for 2050. They don’t have a solution for 2040. Or 2030. So why not implement the “we don’ have a solution” solution today? There’s no need to wait.
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