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When Energy Efficiency Rules Hurt the Public and the Environment

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Over the last several years, an extreme and ideologically-driven environmental agenda has hijacked our national energy policy.

Whether its goal is to keep fossil fuels in the ground or to electrify America based on a naïve belief that all electricity will be renewable within 30 years, or some combination, this bias is what we now have come to expect from the Department of Energy and its Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy program.

The example I know well is its effort to increase the minimum energy efficiency for natural gas furnaces. The Department of Energy has ignored due process and subverted sound science to satisfy an ideological result that is not justified by the facts.

The American Public Gas Association was compelled by the Department of Energy’s bias to fund research to demonstrate the incredibly negative impact the proposed natural gas furnace regulation would have on American homeowners.

Approximately 56 million homes across the country are heated with natural gas furnaces because of their energy efficiency and cost benefits. As proposed, the department’s rule would incentivize homeowners to switch to less efficient home heating options, such as electric resistance, which would more than double their home heating cost and yield greater carbon dioxide emissions.

The American Public Gas Association’s technical analysis exposed even greater flaws within the Department of Energy’s rulemaking process and the economic model it depends upon to justify the purported benefits of new regulation.

Procedurally, the association has been forced to take the Department of Energy to court and file multiple complaints with its inspector general because of the arrogance of its bureaucrats.

When the department attempted to set a new efficiency standard via a direct final rule in 2011, it clearly failed to touch all the bases and make appropriate findings of consumer impacts. So the American Public Gas Association appealed and the rule was withdrawn three years later.

We believe the Department of Justice urged the Department of Energy to withdraw the rule because government attorneys did not want this particular matter to be the case of first impression on the final rule process when the government so clearly failed to address public comments opposing the rule.

In 2014, the Department of Energy published a proposed furnace rule (supplemented this year) that went far beyond the initial proposal. During these proceedings, the department twice issued extensions of deadlines after the deadline had passed.

In both cases, the American Public Gas Association had filed timely comments supported by extensive technical analysis in opposition to the rule when major proponents of the rule were yet to file. The association has filed a formal complaint with the Department of Energy’s inspector general and requested an investigation of this perversion of fair play.

On the substance, the American Public Gas Association’s work with the Gas Technology Institute has revealed how the Department of Energy and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab have used nonpublic data, flawed consumer economic modeling, and unfounded economic justifications.

Over the years, its life cycle cost analysis has become absurdly complex and thus ripe for manipulation. We have seen the use of unjustifiable assumptions to obtain particular results to hide the true consumer costs of the proposed regulation.

Most importantly, the Department of Energy is ignoring the fact that natural gas is the most energy efficient and environmentally sound manner for the vast majority of Americans to heat their homes.

Technological advances are making natural gas residential furnaces more efficient, and the public is snapping them up when they save money. This is proof that the market is working.

Higher Efficiency Condensing Furnace Trends

Between 2006 and 2011, high efficiency condensing furnaces saw a slight artificial bump in sales due to government tax credits. But even with those tax credits, the market trends were not altered much. The use of such furnaces has been steadily rising since 1980, and it continues to rise after the artificial bump.

The upshot is clear. Consumers who benefit from a more expensive technology will purchase that technology—and in this case, it is a higher efficiency condensing natural gas furnace. People should drive markets, not the federal government.

The American Public Gas Association has been one of the leading opponents of the Department of Energy’s proposed furnace rule. This group represents municipally- and community-owned natural gas systems across the country.

These systems are owned and accountable to the citizens within their communities. Who is better equipped to make decisions that impact the lives of Americans, unelected Washington bureaucrats or the homeowners themselves?

The Department of Energy admitted its current proposal would negatively impact 20 percent of American homes. In addition, the overwhelming majority of people who would be hurt are low-income families.

Set aside the fact that the department freely acknowledges and accepts that its proposal would harm 1 in 5 families—its open willingness to do so is incredibly disturbing.

The American Public Gas Association is not opposed to energy efficiency. However, the Department of Energy’s proposed furnace rule will ultimately undermine efficiency goals while significantly increasing costs for American consumers. (For more from the author of “When Energy Efficiency Rules Hurt the Public and the Environment” please click HERE)

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U.S. Taps New Energy Sources, And Potential Geopolitical Clout

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Photo Credit: David McNew / Getty Images

Photo Credit: David McNew / Getty Images

The recent oil and natural gas boom in the U.S. is paying major dividends for Washington’s geopolitical clout. Thanks to hydraulic fracturing, the U.S. is awash in domestic energy, which is having a ripple effect globally.

If you want to gauge one effect of this newfound energy wealth, you don’t have to look any further than the current crisis between Russia and Ukraine, says Michael Levi, a senior fellow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations.

He says the U.S. would be reacting very differently to what’s happening now if it was still a big natural gas importer. There’s concern Moscow could cut natural gas supplies to the Ukraine, which, in turn, would disrupt the flow to much of Europe.

Even five years ago, Levi says, Washington would have been alarmed that European nations could turn to U.S. suppliers, driving up the cost.

“We would be asking ourselves with every policy option we face: Will this disrupt markets and come back to hurt the U.S. economy? We’re not asking ourselves that question, because we’re not dependent on imports,” he says. “That’s a surprise — and a good one.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Avista Corp. to Acquire Alaska Energy and Resources Company

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Photo Credit: Arthur ChapmanAvista Corp (NYSE: AVA) today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Alaska Energy and Resources Company (AERC), a privately-held company based in Juneau, Alaska. When the transaction is complete, AERC will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Avista Corp.

The purchase price at closing will be $170 million, less the assumption of debt and other customary closing adjustments. The transaction will be funded through the issuance of Avista common stock to the shareholders of AERC. The transaction is expected to close by July 1, 2014, following the receipt of necessary regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of other closing conditions. We expect that the addition of AERC to Avista Corp. will be slightly negative to earnings in 2014, and that it will contribute positively to earnings in 2015.

The primary subsidiary of AERC is Alaska Electric Light and Power Company (AEL&P), the oldest regulated electric utility in Alaska. In 2012, AEL&P had annual revenues of $42 million and a total rate base of $111 million. AEL&P, with 60 fulltime employees, serves approximately 15,900 customers in the city and borough of Juneau. The utility has a firm retail peak load of approximately 80 Megawatts (MW) and serves nearly 100 percent of its load with 102.7 MW of renewable hydroelectric generation capacity. The utility has 93.9 MW of diesel generating capacity to provide back-up service to all firm customers when necessary.

In addition to the regulated utility, AERC owns the AJT Mining subsidiary, which is an inactive mining company holding certain mining properties.

“AEL&P’s 120-year culture of service and community partnership is a great long-term fit with Avista Corp. We have found the company to have similar cultural values and focus on providing safe, reliable service to its customers that Avista has held dear for nearly 125 years. We look forward to working with AEL&P’S highly skilled and dedicated management and employees, and to being part of the Juneau community,” said Avista Corp. Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Scott Morris. “This agreement reflects Avista’s strategy to expand and diversify energy assets and deliver long-term value to the customers, communities and investors we serve.”

Read more from this story HERE.

The EPA as Energy Master

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Photo Credit: National Review

Photo Credit: National Review

The imperial EPA has once again raised its scepter, this time proposing the first hard caps on carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. The proposed coal rule merits a deeper assessment than it has yet received. The impacts of this and other EPA rules targeting coal go far beyond the coal industry. The EPA is undermining the very foundations of economic productivity.

The EPA’s first group of greenhouse-gas rules, which were hastily promulgated in 2010, require only a relatively light increase in the burden placed on power plants for the purpose of increasing energy efficiency, for now. By contrast, the coal rules proposed on September 20 — called New Source Performance Standards — are the EPA’s first direct regulation of carbon dioxide (CO2). The rule’s numerical limits for emissions of CO2 from any new coal-fired power plants are commercially unachievable and lay the groundwork for the final blow to coal: the future demand for an impossible reduction of CO2 from existing power plants. In essence, the EPA is proposing the de facto elimination of the coal-fired plants that have provided 40 percent of America’s electricity over the last twelve months.

The EPA’s standards for coal plants are unachievable because use of the much-ballyhooed technology called carbon capture and storage (CCS) is infeasible on a large scale. The EPA’s own studies agree that CCS is not commercially viable. But never mind, says the EPA, CCS has been adequately demonstrated.

No one in the business of generating electricity believes CCS is anywhere near commercially demonstrated — no one, that is, who hasn’t just received a federal loan guarantee of half a billion dollars. Several heavily subsidized small pilot projects already have failed miserably, and the remaining projects, supported by more of those millions in loan guarantees and grants, are incomplete without evidence of viability. When a carbon-control technology must utilize 50 percent of the electricity generated by the plant, the enterprise simply is not viable.

Read more from this story HERE.

Continued Support for Keystone XL Pipeline

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Most Americans (65%) continue to favor building the Keystone XL pipeline, perhaps the most politically contentious energy issue in Barack Obama’s second term. Yet when it comes to another issue making headlines – a proposal to tighten greenhouse gas emissions from power plants – the public favors stricter limits, by exactly the same margin as the Keystone pipeline (65% to 30%).

Opinions on these two hotly debated issues underscore the complexity of public attitudes on U.S. energy policy. Support for increasing energy production from some traditional sources remains strong: 58% favor increased offshore oil and gas drilling in U.S. waters.

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Yet over the past year, opposition to the drilling process known as fracking has increased, as has opposition to nuclear power. Just 38% favor promoting the increased use of nuclear power while 58% are opposed, the highest level of opposition since the question was first asked in 2005.

The national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted Sept. 4-8 among 1,506 adults, finds that, as with other energy-related issues, there is a sharp partisan divide on the Keystone pipeline. But while an overwhelming majority of Republicans (82%) favor construction of the pipeline, so too do 64% of independents and about half of Democrats (51%).

President Obama’s decision about whether to go ahead with the pipeline is expected in the next few months. Environmental groups staunchly oppose the project, while GOP lawmakers are stepping up pressure on Obama to approve it.

Read more from this story HERE.

Oil Shipments by Rail, Truck, and Barge Up Substantially

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Most oil and petroleum products are moved to refineries and consuming areas by pipeline, which is both the safest and most economical means of transporting them. However, due to a shortage of pipeline capacity, more and more oil and petroleum products are being moved by rail, truck, and barge. Those shipments almost doubled in 2012, and they are continuing to increase to move crude oil from the shale formations in North Dakota and Texas, and oil sands in Canada to U.S. refineries. Between 2011 and 2012, oil delivered to refineries by trucks increased 38 percent, crude moved on barges increased 53 percent and rail deliveries quadrupled. Because the nation’s pipeline infrastructure has not kept pace with growing domestic oil production, the market has had to rely increasingly on alternative transportation options.

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etween 2005 and 2010, 96 percent of crude oil was transported by pipeline and tanker ships to refineries. Inland refineries are generally reached by pipeline since pipeline transport has relatively low costs and high capacity. For imports and offshore production, tanker ships have been the primary form of transportation for crude oil. But in 2011, these two transportation forms began to decline in market share, representing 93 percent of the market in 2012.[ia]

Between 2000 and 2010, truck and rail shipments have averaged just 1 percent of total shipments to refineries because they are less cost-effective options for moving crude. But, beginning in 2011, truck and rail volumes increased, and represented 3 percent of refinery shipments in 2012. Domestic barge shipments also increased, accounting for nearly 3 percent as well.

Because of the lengthy regulatory review process for expanding existing pipelines or building new pipelines, the transportation of crude oil and petroleum products has moved to rail and truck, which provide more flexibility because they can use existing infrastructure. Unless more pipeline capacity is built to deal with the increased domestic crude production, it is likely that these transportation modes will expand.

Read more from this story HERE.

When Energy Dreams Fall Short

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

If the energy visions of past years had come true, throngs of Americans would be using switchgrass to fuel their cars and running their homes on electricity from nuclear fusion or carbon-capturing coal plants.

But reality has worked out differently.

Many of the nation’s most ambitious energy projects have fallen far short of their lofty goals, either because they were unrealistically optimistic, took too long develop or were abandoned as markets shifted. EPA offered a reminder of that reality this month, when it made sharp cuts in its production estimates for an advanced biofuel called cellulosic ethanol.

Some experts caution that struggling technologies can still strike gold, making it hard to judge when it’s too soon to stop investing in them.

“When do you know when to cut your losses?” asked Margot Anderson, executive director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s energy project. “When is a flop a flop?”

Read more from this story HERE.

Coal is No Longer our Parents Energy…it is 21st Century Power

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Photo Credit: Irish Central The backbone of our modern civilization is based on relatively cheap and abundant energy. Coal has been the inexpensive and reliable engine of our economy for generations and up until the 70’s, billowing smokestacks were the sign of economic prosperity for the United States and other developed countries.

But we learned that cheap energy from burning coal and other fossil fuels came with a price tag to our environment and the dirty skies over our cities, proved to be hazardous to our health. The very fuel that powered our modern society was poisoning our environment.

In response, governments and the energy industry set about to enact new standards for energy production. Soon the air in big cities started to clear up and you could even swim again in rivers that were once deemed too polluted to set foot in.

Smokestacks that once billowed thick black smoke, become steam stacks. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that air quality in major American cities is better now than at any time in the last two decades.

Human ingenuity is amazing and when pushed, great advances can be achieved. Coal which has been the poster child of demonization by environmentalists on the left has made tremendous advances in clean burning technology. After 40 years of advances, clean coal power is on the cusp of making new strides in providing the planet with relatively clean and massive amounts of energy.

See: Fueling the Future with 21st Century Coal by Gregory H. Boyce

Now is not the time to demonize coal but to nurture and support the new coal technology that can help power humanity out of poverty throughout the world.

Energy is looked upon as a human right; studies show that each tenfold increase in electricity is linked to a 10-year increase in life. The United Nations linked life expectancy, educational attainment, and income with per capita energy use….So why deny the rest of the world the same life expectancy the US and other developed nations enjoy?

The developing world wants to step into the modernity of the 21st century too; they want lights, refrigeration, air conditioning television and modern medicine as well. …..Clean coal power can be their answer.

Coal power lead the greatest mass migration from human poverty into prosperity as China became a manufacturing behemoth. China is building more ultra modern supercritical and ultra-supercritical coal plants than any other nation in the world. China has also said they will decommission their older power plants and adapt modern emissions control to the existing fleet of coal power plants.

Instead of punishing their main source of cheap reliable energy, China is embracing coal to adapt and modernize….to make it a 21st century fuel that will bring clean economic prosperity to their 1.3 billion people.

Next-generation clean coal plants are capable of producing energy at near-zero emissions. With new technology at work to help coal become even cleaner and more efficient…..

Unless “renewable” forms of energy such as wind and solar, achieve significant breakthroughs in technology, they will never be able to compete with clean coal power on a level playing field.

Already countries such as Spain and Germany, which heavily invested in renewables, have started to have second thoughts as the bills come due for years of subsidizing these forms of energy. Germany’s finance minister even declared solar was the path to bankruptcy. See story. Spain under a new government is backing out of commitments it made to renewables and is actually going to make them pay taxes. See story.

From the excellent piece “The Fundamental Limitations of Renewable Energy” posted in the Energy Collective: “It appears unlikely that we will see a large scale market driven displacement of fossil fuels by renewable energy in the first half of this century.”

Coal is no longer our parents energy…it is 21st century power.

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

Can You Have Economic Prosperity and a Presidential “War” on Carbon Energy?

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Photo Credit: Irish CentralI have been writing on the need for America to take advantage of the vast energy resources it has below the surface in order to become completely energy independent. Not only will this make our economy leap forward, it will vastly improve our national security by not having us dependent on foreign sources.

I invited Dick Storm to give us his perspective from an energy producers standpoint on the state of America’s quest to become energy independent. Web: Citizens for Common Sense Policies.

Dick is an expert in power generation. He started out as a results engineer with Babcock and Wilcox (USA). Over the next 30 years, he held several positions in the energy industry including Senior Service Engineer with Riley Stoker Corp., Principal Engineer-start-up and testing at Carolina Power and Light, and department head of Technical Services at Flame Refractories, Inc.,

In 1992 Dick founded Storm Technologies, Inc., a well established company of Engineers and Combustion Specialists that has worked around the world:

Beneath the average American Citizen’s radar are the ever increasing regulations that cause irreparable harm. For those of us productively employed in the energy industries, we know first-hand how President Obama and the Senate Democrats through federal agencies and their regulations, cripple America’s productive capacity.

According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute the total costs for Americans to comply with federal regulations reached $1.806 trillion in 2012. For the first time, this amounts to more than half of total federal spending. It is more than the GDPs of Canada or Mexico.

Then there are the obvious assaults on our domestic energy supply such as the Keystone Pipeline, the ban on offshore oil production, the sealing off of federal lands for energy production and the “War on Coal.”

Since President Obama has been in office, over 100 coal plants planned to power America in 2008, have been canceled or delayed. These would have provided millions of jobs, not only in the construction of them but in the support and manufacturing sectors as well

In a classic example of how he ignores economic realities, President Obama during his recent trip to Africa, lectured Africans to not make our mistakes in using carbon based fuels. Even though America has done pretty well using carbon based fuels, being the most advanced society in the world.

Today traditional Fossil fuels plus nuclear provide over 90% of America’s total energy. A clear example of Obama’s fecklessness on energy is to stand in front of a group and discuss the benefits of “Green Energy” when America and his administration depend so much on traditional fossil fuels.

The job killing poisons that are harming American public health are not the exhaust gases of power plants; it is the regulations that are spewing from Washington. One of the greatest threats to the American lifestyle that we all came to enjoy is the Obama Administration and their “War on Carbon.”

Our challenge is to educate the general public, to make them aware of how Obama, aided and abetted by the Democrat’s in the Senate and Environmental Extremists, are weakening America.

Much of this will not be understood until it is too late. Once manufacturing capability and infrastructure is killed, it is very difficult to rebuild.

One energy equipment manufacturing example is the American Nuclear Industry. Once thriving and employing hundreds of thousands of highly skilled factory workers, engineers, technicians and administrative people. Now the nuclear industry in America is a bare skeleton of what it once was.

The great Westinghouse Nuclear division was sold off years ago to Toshiba. Now, if a new nuclear power plant is built, most of the components will be “Globally Sourced”. That is code for, “Not Made in America.”

Take mining say for rare earth materials or copper, such as the Alaskan Pebble Mine. Yes, the EPA is against these too. Did you ever hear of the UN Agenda 21? Well if weakening America and spreading your wealth to the rest of the world is the goal of Agenda 21, which just may be at the heart of the Obama agenda. It certainly is not the best interests for America.

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

Darrell Issa Reveals Yet Another Potential Obama Administration Scandal: That’s ‘Against the Law’

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Photo Credit: The BlazeU.S. Department of Energy (DOE) officials ordered subordinates not to talk to congressional investigators about their investigation into illicit hiring practices and related whistleblower retaliation allegations, according to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Darell Issa (R-Calif.).

Issa, in a letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, revealed that the deputy secretary of energy issued a gag order following the release of a highly critical inspector general report last week.

The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), a division of the DOE, allegedly violated DOE hiring guidelines in a manner than disadvantaged military veterans, according to the scathing IG report.

The BPA employees who cooperated with the IG’s investigation were fired, suspended or disciplined in other ways, the report found.

Further, Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman “verbally instructed Elliot Mainzer, the individual [Poneman] chose to serve as acting administrator of BPA, that no BPA employees were to talk with anyone regarding these allegations, including congressional investigators,” Issa wrote in a July 17 letter.

Read more from this story HERE.