N. Carolina doesn't pick electric mix to lower carbon levels

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By GARY D. ROBERTSON today

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina utility regulators told Duke Energy Corp. on Friday to carry out a series of activities to generate electricity that they say will help ensure greenhouse gas reductions set in a new state law are met.

But the Utilities Commission’s order involving solar, wind, nuclear and other sources for electricity doesn’t endorse any particular mix of energy sources to meet the mandates currently required for 2030. The order does tell Duke Energy’s subsidiaries in North Carolina to optimally retire its remaining coal-fired plants by 2035, in keeping with a previous announcement by the company.

The bipartisan 2021 state law said the panel needed by Saturday to approve a plan for the state’s electric public utilities — essentially Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress — to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 70% by 2030 as compared to 2005 levels. Net-zero emissions by 2050 also are ultimately necessary, according to the law.

Duke Energy, the state’s dominant electric provider, had offered last spring four different portfolio options, three of which actually delayed meeting the 70% reduction until 2032 or 2034. The law provides for wiggle room on the deadline.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/business-charlotte-law-enforcement-north-carolina-climate-and-environment-fc4f75e26984fc4829136c0c7fef5cbc

[dweller]

1. That's what

Rolling blackouts are for … 🤔



✌🏻

[Karma13612]

15. Speaking of rolling blackouts

We are without power tonight in Emerald Isle NC with no reason given. Went off around 8:20 pm with first restore estimate of 10:20pm

We blew past that and now will spend NY Eve in the dark. Restoration goal of 2:00 AM.


🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

Again, not sure what is wrong and I don’t think it’s a planned blackout. Ah well, it only involves about 10% of the service area so they aren’t really sweating it.

[oldsoftie]

2. If the main focus isn't nuclear, its worthless.

Sorry to burst the bubble.

[Evolve Dammit]

3. There are so many other options that don't create toxic waste for which there is no safe disposal.

[OneCrazyDiamond]

5. Exactly.

We use flex alerts in California to drive demand down when the grid gets strained in the summer peak. No new nukes needed.

[oldsoftie]

6. Those options create their OWN problems & wont add up to NEARLY what's needed.

Solar & wind create their OWN toxic waste & also make us more reliant on foreign countries for the supplies to MAKE them. Windmill blades aren't recycled. Solar panels are a pain to recycle. Battery components are mostly foreign sourced and mined in not-so-eco-friendly manners. China is in control of most large scale sources in other countries. We're already FAR too reliant on them as it is. This nonsense just makes it WORSE.
10 yrs ago everyone pointed at Germany as the leader in showing off renewables for their grid. Look how thats worked out. Not too well. Looking BACK to nuclear again. The war has exposed the folly of getting ahead of current capabilities. And too many people here are hell bent on going down the same rabbit hole. electric cars as well. The BEST option for vehicles is hybrid; not total electric.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

7. Renewables has worked out badly for Germany??

[oldsoftie]

11. Yes. They became more dependent on Russia because of it.

They spent over 150 BILION on renewables and their wind power generation ended up DROPPING by 1/4 last year. And they've now got some of the highest energy prices in Europe. They're having to back up their power generation with Russian COAL.
Putin funded an effort to stop fracking in Europe to make them more dependent on HIM. And its worked. Hillary Clinton warned them not to do it and she was ignored.
Now Germany is backtracking on their earlier decision to shut down all their nuclear plants ( a stupid decision to begin with).
Making ourselves more dependent on scarce minerals that are increasingly controlled by CHINA is a stupid stupid mistake. Nobody even considers what a "total electric" US auto market would really mean. There are already lines in LA at charging stations & electric is still a small % of cars out there.

Nuclear is the only realistic way to make any REAL progress towards lowering emissions without purring ourselves at the mercy of countries that are our enemies.

We should certainly keep working on new technologies for power generation. But we're not where we need to be to go all in on risking our economic security to other countries.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

17. The transition will be bumpy, it's a complete disruption of 150 years of energy...in time a

combination of all energy sources, a balance will exist, nuclear included…until then the bumpy road is a necessary journey.

Talk to me again in 10 years, we can go for a drive in my new electric auto!

[oldsoftie]

19. We certainly need better battery technology by then; cold weather comes every year

This just happened over the holiday & its not unusual. https://www.businessinsider.com/rented-tesla-stopped-six-times-one-day-charge-hertz-2023-01.

A brother and sister had to stop 6 times in 1 day to charge their rented Tesla in cold weather because the battery drained so quickly.
And they paid every stop.

I'd buy a hybrid, but until I see things a LOT better I'll never buy a total electric. Probably wont anyway because I wont pay what auto makers are charging even NOW for a REGULAR engine.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

21. Personally live in frigid weather clime...many teslas...not reported problems with cold weather.

Suppose there is a bad battery like a bad Apple in a bunch of millions?

Did he have the cold weather package?

https://www.findmyelectric.com/blog/tesla-features-explained-subzero-weather-package/

[oldsoftie]

26. According to that article, the rental company had many calls; all about teslas.

Maybe a Tesla problem? Dont know if they rented OTHER kinds of EVs
Even further into it, these electric pickup trucks. If you tow ANYTHING your range drops to basically useless for a trip.
As time goes by, we'll see just what the real costs of going down this road will be. I'll meet you here & we'll find out

[NickB79]

27. Seeing as they're reactivating coal plants to get through winter?

And are only getting by thanks to massive liquified natural gas imports?

Yeah, it's not so great.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

29. Geo-political events have tad impact on the planning, right? Bad timing to smear German transition.

[Miguelito Loveless]

13. Old info

Windmill blades are being made to be recycled, solar cell production is getting cleaner, stationary batteries for power storage can be made with readily abundant lithium and iron, instead of nickel and cobalt. The tech exists today and it is improving rapidly as demand increases.

Hybrids still burn gasoline and pollute the air.

I favor building nukes, but their cost and time scales are way off.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

22. The battery technology is advancing leaps and bounds...imagine mega storage batteries in the

near future able to run a vehicle a thousand miles, power a home for weeks…recharging by solar and wind etc…it’s happening as we type! It’s called the future and it’s inevitable…ask the auto makers pouring billions into ads for future eager consumers of electric vehicles not yet mass produced.

The charging network will catch up, there’s money in them plugs!

[Miguelito Loveless]

12. Even if they started building a plant today

It will take 10-20years to build and cost tens of billions to build, plus cost overruns. Solar/wind/battery can been online faster and way cheaper.

[oldsoftie]

14. It doesnt HAVE to take that long. Our system makes it take that long

Japan takes 4 yrs. South Korea not much more than that. Solar & wind can never supply what the US uses.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

23. Our system has rigorous regulatory and environmental controls on nuclear, it's a good thing.

[oldsoftie]

25. Yes, its good. But its not new. It shouldn't take YEARS to follow the known rules.

I doubt South Korea or Japan has lax regulations.
But its not just nukes; look how long it takes to build a damn bridge? yet when there's an accident all of a sudden its built in 1/10th the time

[littlemissmartypants]

4. They need to pick something because we're going to run out of trees to burn.

It still makes me physically ill when I think about the moment I found out that pine wood chips are the primary source of fuel for generating electricity in North Carolina.

I have seen it with my own eyes. Duke and its "energy solutions" suck on many levels from any angle.

❤️

[progree]

8. Which reminds me of this story about wood chips

various excerpts--

Renewable Fuel Giant May Be Misleading Public About Its Eco-Credentials, Gizmodo, 12/28/22

Trees, however, are a key carbon sink; destroying forests to burn energy could actually do more harm than good since trees take years to regrow back to their full carbon-sequestering potential. It can take more than 90 years, some analyses have shown, to pay back the “carbon debt” incurred by chopping down trees for fuel—time we simply don’t have.

Accordingly, pellet producers like Enviva claim that they use scrap wood from other production processes that would prevent wide-scale deforestation and keep the process efficient.

The anonymous whistleblower, who reached out to Catanoso while still working at Enviva at the beginning of this year, called the company’s claims about using primarily waste material for pellets “a joke.”

“We use 100% whole trees in our pellets,” the whistleblower, who resigned from his position as a senior department head of two pellet plants in the spring, told Mongabay. “We hardly use any waste. Pellet density is critical. You get that from whole trees, not junk.”

Biomass energy has exploded in popularity in recent years, driven primarily by wood-burning plants in the EU that use pellets produced in the U.S. Southeast, which claim to produce renewable energy.

Even if producers made pellets out of the material they claim to be utilizing, biomass energy still has real problems. Shipping wood chips overseas creates huge amounts of emissions, creating a hefty carbon price that power plants don’t account for. And wood pellet factories in the Southeast have also been criticized for locating their plants in Black and brown communities and creating more pollution there.

MORE: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/renewable-fuel-giant-may-be-misleading-public-about-its-eco-credentials/ar-AA15KtdU?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=9616287badfd482e946f6d8fafa83969

[littlemissmartypants]

9. Thanks for sharing this, progree. Many are in the dark when it comes to this grim reality.

Watching the forests around me disappear is sickening. ❤️

[Kaleva]

18. Woodland is increasing where I live

As the forests reclaim former farmland.

[Red Mountain]

10. It's not

Natural gas and nuclear are.

https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=NC#tabs-4


North Carolina exports most of the wood pellets it produces. Europe imports them to burn as a 'clean' energy source.

There are lots of questions about how 'clean and green' it really is and how beneficial it is to the localities the plants and logging are impacting.

Like most things in eastern NC that are taken to the extreme (hogs and poultry, for instance) there are a lot of negative impacts and the financial benefits are going to the big companies, mostly.

[littlemissmartypants]

16. It's not what?

[Alexander Of Assyria]

24. Some parts of eastern EU still very poor, burning coal at home for hest and cooking...now wood pellets

taking their place? Read long ago tickling my memory.

[Kaleva]

20. NC emites about 150 million tons s year. A mature tree captures about 50 lbs a year

https://treeplantation.com/tree-carbon-calculator.html

[OldBaldy1701E]

28. Bah, they are just stalling

Until they can get a complete rethug supermajority so that they can make sure they can get away with the levels of pollution they already create as well as loosening the restrictions so that they can pollute more. Wreck, rinse, repeat.