Category: Electric utilities

Adapting to Change – Never Easy

The attached article by Giles Parkinson (renew economy.com.au) about the energy debate in Australia is reposted here because it illustrates a universal issue – resistance to change. This is certainly a characteristic of the global energy sector as it transitions from dependence on fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) to increasing use of renewable energy in its various forms. There are many vested interests in the energy sector and each will attempt to maintain its current status, but the coming change is inexorable, and forward-looking energy companies will position themselves to take advantage of these changes. Others resistant to change will eventually become footnotes to history, as has happened to so many other commercial ventures that have been overtaken by new technologies and associated events. Australia, because of high energy prices and a resistant utility sector, is going through this change a bit earlier than others, but we will all get there.

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The great divide over Australia’s energy future
By Giles Parkinson on 22 May 2017

It was the head of the biggest electric network operator in the world, China State Grid, that summed up best the challenge of moving to a high renewable energy grid: It is not so much a technical problem, but a cultural one.

In other words, there are those who say it can be done, arguing that it offers a smart, cleaner and ultimately cheaper and more reliable alternative. And there are those who say it can’t be done, and are reluctant to adopt the new technologies and the new ways of managing a complex electricity grid.

In Australia in the past few weeks, we have been getting a clear signal as to which authorities fall into which camp, and the obstacles facing those who want to get on with the job and go with the technology, rather than fight it.

There is, inevitably, the politics, led by the federal Coalition, railing against the “reckless pursuit” of wind and solar and yet, at the same time, drumming up huge ideas for massive pumped hydro schemes, a sure sign that they see more wind and solar as inevitable.

And there is institutional resistance. The Australian Energy Market Commission, which sets market rules, last week released a document which painted a view of Australia’s energy market nearly as dystopian as Donald Trump’s inauguration speech, the one that prompted former president George W Bush to note at the time: “That was some weird shit.”

And so was the AEMC’s. Its full document is a thorough appraisal of the events of 2015/16, but the media release was another thing altogether: painting a dark picture of energy shortages, risky additions of wind and solar, lost inertia, reduced reliability and the threat of blackouts – comments that were readily picked up by the green-baiting Murdoch media.

Ivor Frischknecht, the CEO of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, has said on several occasions in the last few weeks that it is clear that the technologies exist for transition to a renewables-based electricity grid. It is only old rules and regulations that are getting in the way and preventing it from happening.

tesla_grid_battery

It’s a view that is now widely shared. The CSIRO and Energy Networks Australia, in their ground-breaking Network transformation roadmap, speak of the critical important for rules and regulations to catch up with technology, lest the changes and cost reductions in solar, storage, and software becomes so rapid that the industry is unable to catch up.

Their two-years of research found a zero emissions grid could be put in place, based largely around renewables and with a special focus on consumer-owned solar and storage, and save consumers more than a $100 billion by 2050.

That would be at least some recompense to those consumers, who are clearly the biggest losers from the creation of the National Electricity Market two decades ago, and its failure to check the spending of the networks or the pricing power of the gentailers.

The consumers are now paying ridiculous prices from electricity still mostly delivered by now mythical “cheap coal”, and are facing even more rises in coming months.

Yet, as Accenture points out in a separate report, these consumers now have the technologies to be masters of their energy destiny, driven by concerns about sustainability, energy independence and simple economics.

When the cost of solar and storage is likely to be half the cost of grid power, as some networks recognise it will be, the economic modelling behind this grid concoction has a major, major problem, one that rivals the disruption posed by the internet and digital technology.

And because this is a heavily regulated and essential service, the challenge is not just to the incumbents but the regulators and rule makers.

Accenture warns that unless the industry changes quickly, there will be hell to pay in their boardrooms, and consequences everywhere. To do that, they need the rules to be changed, and to be changed quickly.

The Grattan Institute added to those calls on Monday, saying that urgent market reforms and rule changes are needed to ensure reliability of supply. It is hard to find anyone in the industry who disagrees with this statement.

The irony is that it is the AEMC that is charged with making and adjusting these rules, which makes its position on the risks to energy security all the more galling for many, given it has done so little to make the grid fit for purpose, either rejecting new proposals, or kicking them endlessly down the road.

The Australian Energy Market Operator has grown so frustrated with the situation that in its submission to the Finkel Review it asked to be allowed to take responsibility of many of the rule changes itself, so it can rapidly adapt the markets to the changing technologies and dynamics.

This call is likely to be intensified under its new CEO, the reforming Audrey Zibelman, and it was notable that last week AEMO and ARENA teamed up to drive a pilot on the use of demand response, an obvious and relative cheap solution to dealing with peak demand, and a lot cheaper and cleaner than building new peaking generators.

Zibelman knows it will work, because she has seen it operating effectively in markets throughout the world, including the one in the US where she used to manage New York’s radical shift in energy policy.

“There is often skepticism about change,” she told RenewEconomy last week. “This (trial) is a good way to show this technology can work. And when we have done that we can get it into the market and modify the market rules. Technology is changing. We have to look at the market design, to ensure it attracting the right sort of investment.”

It just so happens that demand response has been one of many initiatives presented to the AEMC (way back in 2012) that were rejected or delayed, with the rule maker arguing that there was sufficient demand response in the system. Clearly not, given the enforced load shedding that occurred across the country last summer.

But demand response is just another example of the number of initiatives that the incumbent fossil fuel industry has managed to have killed or shrunk: think carbon pricing, high renewable energy targets, energy efficiency, emission limits and other mechanisms.

All could have made the market more efficient and delivered savings to consumers. The latest of these is the proposed shift to 5-minute settlements, a change widely acknowledged as crucial to level the playing field for battery storage, and remove the pricing power ruthlessly exploited by the coal and gas generators.

Like many of the other proposals, it will likely crimp the bottom line of the incumbents. So they are fighting it, keen to push the argument that any impact on their profit margins could have an impact on reliability and supply.

The equivocation over whether we have the tools to manage the energy transition appears to gripped the South Australian government too, whose state is surging past 50 per cent wind and solar and may find itself with two thirds of its demand coming from these two variable sources by the end of next year.

This is perhaps not surprising given the power interruptions of the last year, and the state election that looms next March. The bitter irony is that these events had sweet F.A. to do with the nature of renewables, but of the way the grid has been managed.

The major event cited in the AEMC report was a blackout in South Australia in November 2015, caused by a network fault during repairs to the interconnector to Victoria, and made significantly worse because of how a gas generator responded to frequency and voltage changes.

As the AEMC panel noted, the Torrens B gas generator was expected to reduce output to manage the frequency changes, but did the opposite.

The problem is being blamed on the governor response mechanisms for such plants, an issue raised by numerous analysts and which may be widespread across the country. It adds to concern about the reliability of gas and coal generators that are failing in the heat and at critical junctures in the market.

It might make you wonder why the AEMC and apparently the S.A. government is appearing to put all its eggs in the basket of gas generators, as it appears to have done by insisting only something called “real inertia”, delivered by large spinning turbines, should qualify for its proposed energy security target, at the expense of battery storage.

The draft proposal has stunned the industry. As a report from the CEC highlighted last week, the delivery of inertia can take multiple forms. Citing the same incident in South Australia in November, 2015, Tom Butler wrote:

“Those who advocate for the status quo because of the inertia provided by synchronous generators should be aware that these technologies are far from perfect.

“For example, they can become unstable at low power output. And there is simply no information available on how effectively these generators can respond to fast rates of change of frequency if they started operating before 2007.”

red flag twoIt reminds you of the transition from horse and cart to the automobile. For a while, all cars were required to have a human walk in front of them, waving a red flag, until someone woke up to the folly of the idea.

The hope is that the Finkel Review – due in just over two weeks – might convince more people that we can do without the waving of red flags. The change is upon us and it’s all OK. We just need our regulators and our politicians to catch up.

About to be Published: A Comprehensive Handbook on Solar Energy

‘Sun Towards High Noon: Solar Power Transforming Our Energy Future’ will be published in paperback by Pan Stanford Publishing on March 22nd. It will be listed at $34.95 but a 30% discount is available along with free shipping when ordered online at www.crcpress.com (Promo Code STA01). The latest volume in the Pan Stanford Series on Renewable Energy, it was edited by Dr. Peter F. Varadi, a solar energy pioneer and author of an earlier volume in the series ‘Sun Above the Horizon: Meteoric Rise of the Solar Industry’ (see below). Peter is also a contributing author in this new volume, along with Wolfgang Palz, Michael Eckhart, Paula Mints, Bill Rever, John Wolgromuth, Frank Wouters, and Allan Hoffman.

The broad scope and comprehensiveness of the book can be seen in its detailed Table of Contents reproduced below:

1. Meteoric Rise of PV Continues 1
1.1 Sun above the Horizon 2
1.2 Sun towards High Noon 6
2. New PV Markets Sustaining Mass Production 9
2.1 Utilization of the Terrestrial Solar Electricity 10
2.2 Solar Roofs for Residential Homes 13
2.3 Grids, Mini-Grids, and Community Solar 24
2.4 Commercial PV Systems 32
2.5 Utility-Scale Solar 43
2.5.1 Current Status 47
2.5.1.1 Concentrating solar power systems 47
2.5.1.2 Concentrating photovoltaic systems 50
2.5.1.3 Flat-plate photovoltaic systems:
fixed and tracking 51
2.5.2 Future Prospects 54
2.6 Important Large Market: Solar Energy and
Clean Water 56
2.6.1 Desalination and Disinfection: Introduction 56
2.6.2 Desalination 56
2.6.3 Disinfection 62
2.6.4 Conclusion 63
2.7 Quality and Reliability of PV Systems 64
2.7.1 Module Qualification Testing 65
2.7.2 Module Safety Certification 67
2.7.3 Module Warranties 68
2.7.4 Failure Rates in PV Systems 70
2.7.5 Module Durability Data 71
2.7.6 ISO 9000 72
2.7.7 IECQ and IECEE 72
2.7.8 To Further Improve Long-Term Performance 73
2.7.9 International PV Quality Assurance Task Force 75
2.8 Storage of Electrical Energy 83
2.8.1 Introduction 83
2.8.2 Why Is Electrical Energy Storage Important? 83
2.8.3 What Are the Various Forms of Electric Storage? 85
2.8.4 Applications of Energy Storage and Their Value 92
2.8.5 Capital Costs of Energy Storage 93
2.8.6 Concluding Remarks 94
2.9 Solar Energy and Jobs 95
2.9.1 Introduction 95
2.9.2 What Are the Facts? 95
2.9.3 Concluding Remarks 100
3. Financing 101
3.1 Financing of PV 102
3.2 Subsidies and Solar Energy 104
3.2.1 Introduction 104
3.2.2 What Forms Do Energy Subsidies Take? 104
3.2.3 What Is the History of US Energy Subsidies? 105
3.2.4 What Has All This Meant for Solar PV? 108
3.2.5 Concluding Remarks 110
3.3 Wall Street and Financing 111
3.3.1 Policy Drivers for Solar Energy Financing 111
3.3.1.1 The importance of policy to financing 113
3.3.2 Federal Policies 114
3.3.2.1 Federal RD&D 114
3.3.2.2 Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act 117
3.3.2.3 Investment tax credits 118
3.3.2.4 Commercialization and deployment 120
3.3.2.5 Government purchasing 122
3.3.3 State and Local Policies 123
3.3.3.1 Renewable Portfolio Standards and RECs 123
3.3.3.2 Solar Set-Asides and SRECS 123
3.3.3.3 Net energy metering 124
3.3.3.4 Leading state examples 124
3.3.4 International Policy for Solar Energy Financing125
3.3.4.1 Policies of individual governments 126
3.3.4.2 International agencies 129
3.3.4.3 Multi-lateral development banks 131
3.3.4.4 Impact of NGOs on government policy 132
3.4 Solar Market Segmentation and Financing Methods 136
3.4.1 Utility-Scale Solar Project Financing 136
3.4.2 Commercial & Institutional Rooftop Financing 136
3.4.3 Community Solar 137
3.4.4 Residential Rooftop Financing 137
3.4.4.1 PPA model 138
3.4.4.2 Inverted lease 138
3.4.4.3 Loan-to-ownership 139
3.5 Solar Project Financing 140
3.5.1 Traditional Power Generation Financing 140
3.5.2 PURPA and the Development of Non-Recourse
Financing 140
3.5.3 Conditions Required for Project Financing 142
3.5.4 Overall Capital Structure: Equity, Tax
Equity, and Debt 143
3.5.5 Tax Equity Using the Investment Tax Credit 144
3.5.6 Bank Loans 145
3.5.7 Institutional Capital 146
3.5.8 Project Bonds 147
3.6 Capital Market Investment in Solar Securities 148
3.6.1 Equity Market Investment in Solar Companies 148
3.6.2 Yieldcos and Other Portfolio Companies and
Funds 150
3.6.3 Green Bonds 153
3.6.4 Securitization 155
3.7 Summary 157
3.8 Glossary 158
4. Present and Future PV Markets 161
4.1 The Global View of PV 162
4.2 The Present and Future of Neglected PV Markets:
Africa and the Middle East 164
4.2.1 Introduction 164
4.2.2 Africa 166
4.2.3 Middle East and North Africa 183
4.3 The Present and Future Market in the Americas 192
4.3.1 The United States of America 194
4.3.2 Canada 204
4.3.3 Countries in Latin America 205
4.4 The Present and Future Market in Europe 208
4.5 The Present and Future Markets in Asia 220
4.6 The Present and Future Markets in Australia
and in Oceania 231
4.7 Global Community Unites to Advance Renewable
Energy: IRENA 236
4.7.1 Start of IRENA 238
4.7.2 Hermann Scheer
4.7.3 IRENA’s Roots and Early Days 241
4.7.4 Institutional Setup 246
4.7.5 Hub, Voice, Resource 247
4.7.6 IRENA’s work 248
4.7.7 The Way Forward 252
4.7.8 Glossary 254
5. The Impact of Solar Electricity 255
5.1 The Impact of Solar Electricity 256
5.2 In the Twilight of Big Oil, in Retrospect, PV Was
a Missed Boat 259
5.3 PV and the Brave New World of the Electric Utilities 267
6. Outlook to the Future 281
About the Contributors 291
Index 295

The value of this new book is captured in the two back cover comments:

“This comprehensive and timely book provides the reader with a very thorough technical, regulatory, and financial overview of the global solar (PV) industry. Featuring internationally eminent contributors from the who’s who of solar industry experts, this book offers insights, analysis, and background on all the key issues facing this rapidly growing industry. It will be an invaluable reference and resource for scholars, investors, and policymakers dealing with the emerging solar power phenomenon.” (Branko Terzic, Atlantic Council, Former Commissioner/U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission)

“The long-term welfare of people on our planet depends on an energy system heavily dependent on solar energy. This solar energy handbook presents a well-documented, comprehensive, and insightful view of solar energy’s past, present, and future. Its preeminent contributing authors include solar energy pioneers, visionaries, and practitioners who bring a wealth of experience and insights into solar energy markets, financing, policy, and technology.” (Karl R. Rabago, Executive Director/Pace Energy and Climate Center, Elisabeth Haub School of Law, Pace University)

Addressing the Coal Issue – Useful Thoughts

The article by Dr. Maria Zuber that is reproduced below, and appeared recently in the Washington Post, is a thoughtful, intelligent, and realistic approach to addressing coal issues in the United State. It recognizes the realities of our evolving energy system as renewable energy begins to displace energy from fossil fuels, but also recognizes that some people will be adversely impacted as this transition unfolds. As a compassionate nation we must take these impacts into account as we move forward to a clean energy future. Dr. Zuber’s careful thoughts on this issue are well worth reading.

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How to declare war on coal’s emissions without declaring war on coal communities

By Maria T. Zuber February 24, 2017
Maria T. Zuber is the vice president for research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Chair of the National Science Board.

I grew up in a place named for coal: Carbon County, Pa., where energy-rich anthracite coal was discovered in the late 1700s. By the early 1900s, eastern Pennsylvania employed more than 180,000 miners. By the 1970s — when I left Carbon County for college — just 2,000 of those jobs remained.

For decades, my family’s path traced the arc of the industry. Both my grandfathers mined anthracite. My father’s father died of black lung before I was born. My mother’s father lived long enough to get a pink slip, teach himself to repair TVs and radios and finally get a job on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. He often slept in a recliner because he couldn’t breathe in bed. He had black lung, too.

We faced economic challenges, but thanks to my father’s career as a state trooper, we had more security than most. Still, our neighbors’ struggles left a deep impression on me. When I hear coal-mining communities talk bitterly about a “war on coal,” I understand why they feel under attack. I know the deep anxiety born from years of watching their towns empty out and opportunity evaporate.

I was one of the people who left, in my case to pursue my passion for science. I was lucky: I became the first woman to head a science department at MIT, as well as the first woman to lead a NASA planetary mission.

As a daughter of coal country, I know the suffering of people whose fates are tied to the price of a ton of coal. But as a scientist, I know that we cannot repeal the laws of physics: When coal burns, it emits more carbon dioxide than any other fossil fuel. And if we keep emitting this gas into the atmosphere, Earth will continue to heat up, imposing devastating risks on current and future generations. There is no escaping these facts, just as there is no escaping gravity if you step off a ledge.

The move to clean energy is imperative. In the long run, that transition will create more jobs than it destroys. But that is no comfort to families whose livelihoods and communities have collapsed along with the demand for coal. We owe something to the people who do the kind of dangerous and difficult work my grandfathers did so that we can power our modern economy.

Fortunately, there are ways we can declare war on coal’s carbon emissions without declaring war on coal communities.

First, we should aggressively pursue carbon capture and storage technology, which catches carbon dioxide from coal power plants before it is released into the atmosphere and stores it underground. To be practical, advances in capture efficiency must be coupled with dramatic decreases in deployment costs and an understanding of the environmental impacts of storage. These are not intractable problems; scientific and technological innovations could change the game.

Next, we should look beyond combustion and steel production to find new ways to make coal useful. In 2015, 91 percent of coal use was for electrical power. But researchers are exploring whether coal can be used more widely as a material for the production of carbon fiber, batteries and electronics — indeed, even solar panels.

These avenues hold promise, but even if carbon capture becomes practicable and we expand other uses for coal, the industry will never come roaring back. Globally, coal’s market share is dropping, driven by a range of factors, including cheap natural gas and the rapidly declining costs of wind and solar energy.

That’s why we must also commit to helping the workers and communities that are hurt when coal mines and coal plants reduce their operations or shut down. Policymakers, researchers and advocates have proposed a range of solutions at the federal and state levels to promote economic development; help coal workers transition to jobs in other industries, including renewable energy; and maintain benefits for retired coal workers.

Helping coal country is an issue with bipartisan support. Still, to succeed, strategies such as these may require a champion who, like President Trump, has widespread support in coal country and can address skepticism from coal communities.

Eventually, the practice of burning coal and other fossil fuels for energy — especially without the use of carbon capture and storage technologies — will end. It has to. The question is whether we have the wisdom to end it in an orderly way that addresses the pain of coal communities — and quickly enough to prevent the worst impacts of climate change. Our choices will determine the future not just for coal country, but for all of us.

Cyber Security: Revisiting a Critical Issue

Three previous blog posts have mentioned or addressed in detail this critical issue which I believe represents a major vulnerability of U.S. electrical power and other industrial systems:
– ‘Grids, Smart Grids and More Grids: What’s Coming’,
July 7, 2014
– ‘The Vulnerability of Our Electric Utility System to
Cyber Attacks’, January 28, 2015
– ‘Returning to an Important Subject: The Vulnerability of
the U.S. Electrical Grid’, August 31, 2015

I mention this history because today (January 6, 2017) the Washington Post published the following article on the same subject, reporting on the results of the Quadrennial Energy Review just published by the U.S. Department of Energy. It focuses much needed attention on this growing vulnerability.

“New Obama report warns of changing ‘threat environment’ for the electricity grid
By Chris Mooney

At a time of heightened focus on U.S. cybersecurity risks, the Energy Department released a comprehensive report on the nation’s rapidly changing electrical grid Friday that calls for new action to protect against evolving threats.

The agency urged policymakers to grant regulators new emergency powers should threats become imminent, among other recommendations.

The document notes the sprawling scale of U.S. electric infrastructure: The nation has 7,700 power plants (ranging from coal-fired to nuclear) and 55,800 substations. Some 707,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines link the two, and then 6.5 million additional miles of local lines spread out from the substations.

Dramatic change is sweeping over the sector. For instance, so-called smart meters are being added to bring more online control to the electrical grid. And more and more households are adding solar systems to their rooftops, providing new connecting points. A “rapidly evolving system” is in major need of modernization and upgrades to keep pace, the report says.

“There’s the weak-link issue for the whole system,” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said in an interview to highlight the report. “The reality is, for a lot of rural, smaller utilities, it’s a very difficult job to have the kind of expertise that will be needed in terms of cyber, so we suggest for example, grant programs to help with training, to help with analytical capacity in these situations.”

“The economy would just take an enormous hit” from a successful grid attack, he said.

The document is the second installment of the Quadrennial Energy Review, a series of wide-ranging reports surveying the entire U.S. energy system that the department began after President Obama announced new climate change policies in 2013. The first installment dealt broadly with the entirety of the nation’s energy infrastructure, which goes far beyond electricity to encompass natural gas and oil pipelines, storage infrastructure, and other facets. This one zooms in on electricity.

It highlights not only cyberattacks on electric infrastructure in Ukraine in late December of 2015 — in which three Ukrainian utilities were hit by synchronized cyberattacks, leading to power losses for 225,000 customers — but also the Oct. 21, 2016, event that used in-home Internet-connected devices, collectively, to lead a large denial-of-service attack.

“We know that this is not just a theoretical concern,” Moniz said.

The report calls for utilities to take engage in “deliberate risk management activities” as the electric power sector becomes increasingly interconnected with global communications networks.

“The threat environment is also changing — decision makers must make the case for investments that mitigate catastrophic, high-impact, low-probability events,” the report notes.

Cyberthreats are not the only challenge facing the grid. The report warns that extreme weather events triggered by human-caused climate change also makes the system vulnerable.

On grid security, the report contains myriad recommendations, including amending the Federal Power Act to give the Energy Department the ability to issue a “grid-security emergency order,” and also giving the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission new powers to bolster reliability standards that affect electricity-sector operators “if it finds that expeditious action is needed to protect national security in the face of fast-developing new threats to the grid.”

In the interview, Moniz said he hoped that under the next administration, the Quadrennial Energy Review process would continue, noting that the last installment of the report has already triggered major action. Of its 63 recommendations, the DOE has found, 21 are already “fully or partially reflected in Federal law.”

“We think that the second volume hopefully is going to have the same kind of track record,” Moniz said. “That’s the basis upon which I certainly hope, and will certainly recommend, presumably to [Energy secretary nominee Rick Perry], that the new administration take ownership of this, and keep it going.”

The DOE press release announcing the report can be found at
https://energy/gov/articles/administration-releases-second-installment-quadrennial-energy-review and the full report with related analyses can be found at energy.gov/QER.

Living With A Trump Presidency – An Interview.

The article attached below was written by Roy Hales, editor of the e-journal ECOreport (www.theecoreport.com). It is based on a 30-minute telephone interview that Roy conducted with me on Tuesday, November 15, 2016, one week after the U.S. presidential election in which Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.. The audio recording of the interview, broadcast on Wednesday as a podcast, is embedded in the original article posted on The ECOreport web site. Photos in the original article are not reproduced here, but can be found in the original article as well.
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LIVING WITH A TRUMP PRESIDENCY
NOVEMBER 17, 2016
The ECOreport interviews Dr Allan Hoffman, a former senior analyst with the D.O.E., about living with a Trump Presidency

By Roy L Hales

The American people have spoken. Donald Trump is not Dr Allan Hoffman’s choice for President. While it is still possible that Trump will be more reasonable than his pre-election rhetoric suggests, this is unlikely. Hoffman described Trump as a demagogue who appears to be a climate denier, whose statements about energy were “uninformed, ignorant and terrible.” Never-the-less, he has been elected and, for the next four years, “the American public is going to have to live with that.” Hoffman spoke about the realities of living with a Trump presidency.

Living With A Trump Presidency
“If you go on the basis of what he said, it is going to be a very difficult period for those of us concerned about clean energy and (the) environment … (Trump) has made some statements that are terribly critical of solar energy and wind energy, but then there are contradictory statements that he makes at other times, if you look at his website … The bottom line is that it is really hard to know what he is going to do as President. An important clue is who he will put into the 4,000 positions he has control over in the new government,” said Hoffman.

“The next few years are going to be a real test of the American system of checks and balances. Democracies are always vulnerable to the rise of demagogues. … When demagogues arose in Europe in the 1930s, in the form of Mussolini and the form of Hitler, things got rapidly out of control as these people basically took over countries in a non-democratic way. The United States is now in the position where a demagogue has been elected President … but the U.S. President is not a dictator. He cannot just decide what happens in this country and if you go back to the record of other presidents, you see that many of them tried to do certain things but were unsuccessful.”

Ronald Reagan tried to get rid of the departments of energy and education – but failed. Unlike Trump, President Reagan faced a Democrat controlled congress. Trump will initially have the support of a republican controlled House and Sevnate, but it is by no means certain that he can count on them to attack the nation’s energy and environmental sectors.

“I have to believe that not all Republicans are going to back what he has said. A lot of them were very concerned by Trump’s statements during the campaign and there will be opposition to some of his extreme positions,” said Hoffman.

United States Energy System Is Highly Decentralized
Trump’s attempts to hinder renewable development will be hindered by the fact the nation’s energy system is highly decentralized. For example, the federal government does not make the decisions governing utility policies. Those are set by individual states.

“Wind and solar are now price competitive with fossil fuels and certainly competitive with nuclear, which tends to be quite expensive. Decisions are going to be made not just on an ideological basis, but on a pragmatic basis of how we can generate our energy in the most cost effective way and all of that will be in the context of trying to reduce carbon emissions and other emissions that impact our climate – and that includes CO2, that includes methane, natural gas, and that includes nitrogen oxide, which is a residue from agricultural activities,” said Hoffman.

He dismissed the arguments against global warming as simply “dead wrong.”

“The temperatures deep in the oceans are changing, they are going up. A lot of the heat that is being generated by global warming going into the ocean and we are measuring that. That is not a debatable point; that is a measurement.

“Global sea levels are rising. That’s measurable as well, it’s not debatable. When sea levels rise, coastal communities get flooded. Salt water infuses into fresh water supplies and contaminates them so you cannot drink the water without cleaning it up with desalinization.”

“Insects are moving from one location to another because of changing temperatures on land in a manner that is obviously faster than historical trends suggest. That’s all real, you cannot deny that stuff.”

“A lot of things that are going to come into play here. You can certainly not expect California and other states to change what they are doing now to reduce global warming and carbon emissions. You should certainly not expect other countries ou to change what they are doing.”

The Real Price For the United States
“There is a real price for the United States because the future energy system is going to be highly dependent on clean energy. The United States would like, and should be, a major player in the economy that supplies those technologies. Other countries have been moving ahead for years while the United States held back under previous presidents. That means economic growth, that means jobs, reduced environmental health, improved (public) health and so on. There are lots of reasons for moving forward … and if the United States decides to bail on this because of Trump and his administration, it will have an impact but not the horrific impact that some people have anticipated.”

“China is moving actively into the renewable field not for ideological reasons but because it is important for their country to reduce the pollution they get from fossil fuels, particularly coal. India is moving in the same direction ….” he said.

“The United States can impact the pace at which some things happen, but it is not going to stop other nations from moving forward.”

Forty Years Of U.S. Renewable Development
Few Americans possess Dr. Allan Hoffman’s insight into the development of the nation’s renewable sector. His dismissal of Trump’s allegation that climate change is a hoax, invented by the Chinese, as “untrue” arises from personal experience. In 1978, Hoffman presented President Jimmy Carter with the interdepartmental energy plan that would have launched the nation’s adoption of renewable energy decades ago.

Hoffman resigned late in the Carter Administration, out of frustration with insufficient budget support for renewables, but subsequently served under four other presidents. He watched in further frustration as succeeding administrations let the United States’ leadership in solar and wind energy development dissipate. Hoffman was 71-years-old by the time Barack Obama was elected in 2008 and a senior analyst in the Department of Energy. He finally retired in 2012.

“There are a lot of things that are happening now that are moving in the right direction and it’s not going to stop.”

He added that Trump can slow down America’s adoption of renewable energy, but he cannot stop it.

“When people start seeing all the jobs going to other countries, it is going to have an impact back here in the United States because there is a tremendous amount of manufacturing that is going to take place and the United States should be a center of that.”

Is There Still A Place For Fossil Fuels?

Dr. Hoffman argues that there is still a place for fossil fuels, and with proper regulation and enforcement it is possible to reduce fracking incidents to an acceptable level.

“If we don’t do that job well, then there is no benefit to natural gas over coal.”

Asked if adequate regulations are in force anywhere in the United States, he replied some claim they are. He mentioned Pennsylvania’s legislation adding, “We will have to see” if it works.

The fossil fuel sector will continue to expand because people want the energy (and money), but the eventual transition to a fossil free economy is inevitable.

“I am very concerned about the increase in (global) temperature because I think a lot of the impacts are going to be very adverse. For example, climate change will change precipitation patterns. We aren’t going to have the same water supply system that we’ve had for the last 200 years. It is a very uncertain future.”

What Can We Do?

“The first thing is to recognize that a President cannot do just anything that he wants. So, calm down a little bit. The initial reaction is that he is going to do this on day one of his administration. He can’t do that, he just can’t do that,” said Hoffman.

“The other thing is to be eternally vigilant. A long time ago somebody said the price of liberty is eternal vigilance – well that is absolutely true … We are going to have to watch this administration as carefully as we can.”

“We also have to recognize that a lot can be done on the state level. … If you cannot do it on the federal level because of Trump and his people, you can do it on the state level and that is (already) happening in lots of different ways.”

For example, the United States does not have any federal policy for net metering, so close to 40 states have adopted their own net metering laws.

“We should keep pushing on our state legislators and decision makers to promote the increasing use of clean energy.”

The business community needs to be part of this dialogue. One of the strongest arguments for the adoption of renewables is economic.

“A lot people in the private sector, who presumably have the ear of the Trump administration, will simply say it makes a lot of sense to go this way.”

Hoffman says that If it had the political will, and made appropriate investments, reports show that America could obtain 80% of its’ electrical energy from renewable sources by 2050.

(Listen to Dr. Hoffman describe these issues in more detail – as well as topics like the United States’ attitudes towards a woman President, the keystone XL pipeline, and oil by rail – in the podcast embedded in the original version of this article).