Energy Matters, the energy news you need to know - published without fear nor favor

American Energy Society

Energy Matters, Series 6, Issue 4

Series 6, Issue 4

The week of February 18, 2020

An official e-publication of:

Sound-bite summaries of the energy news you need to know.

Thank you for your premium membership.

Fossil Fuels

- Oil . Is OPEC+ regaining control of oil markets from US shale producers?

Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates have reduced production.
Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s biggest member, has cut more than twice the amount pledged under last year’s deal.

However, the performance of other nations has been less remarkable:

Iraq has cut 60,000 barrels a day, but it needs to slash a further 180,000 barrels to meet its target.
Nigeria has trimmed 30,000 barrels but that's still higher than its baseline target.
Russia has offered a number of excuses why it can’t implement its cuts..

- Natural Gas: " Fuel switching ." The most common form of fuel switching for electricity-generation: natural gas and oil (13% of the total US electricity generating capacity can fuel-switch between natural gas and oil). Most common in 10 states, it is the highest by far in Florida (28% of total electricity can fuel-switch between NG and oil.)

- Coal . The least competitive and most inefficient coal-fired power plants were the first to close; going forward, there will be fewer coal-plant closures because those that remain are financially and productively strong.

- Carbon Capture : The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is offering grants that will allow farmers and ranchers in certain states to access EQIP funding to support the integration of soil-carbon best-practices into their operations. AES Members have access to the USDA announcement (as a PDF).

Low-Carbon Energy

- Spotlight : Renewable Energy and SF₆ .

SF₆, a man-made, colorless, odorless gas, is the strongest greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. On a per molecule basis, SF₆ is approximately 23,500 times more effective at trapping heat than CO₂ and lasts in the atmosphere about 1,300 years.
Renewable energy sources require more switchgear (which uses SF₆) in the electricity grid than fossil fuels because it takes more solar panels and wind turbines to produce the same electrical output as a single coal power station. So, as renewable power generation grows, emissions of SF₆ grow too.
However, the global concentration of atmospheric CO₂ is about 410 parts per million, whereas the concentration of SF₆ is only about 10 parts per trillion. In other words, there is 41 million times more CO₂ in the atmosphere than SF₆.
Visit the AES newsfeed for more on SF₆.

- Spotlight : Solar .

The US has 22,500 MW of total solar capacity, or about 0.07 kW per capita.
The variation across states is large – from almost 0.50 kW per capita in Hawaii to less than 0.01 kW throughout most of the Southeast.
Visit the AES website for a list of the top-10 states per capita solar capacity.

- Spotlight : Nuclear power .

By far the largest nuclear electricity producers are: the US (808,028 GWh of electricity) and France (395,908 GWh).
There is about 250,000 tons of highly radioactive waste stored around the world.
For a list of the 19 countries that store nuclear waste, visit the AES website .

- Spotlight : Solar + Storage . Utilities are planning to accelerate implementation of solar + storage. Insert : Solar + Storage, a comparison of existing and planned capacity ( Note : not all planned projects will be developed).

Policy

- Beltway Buzz: The President's trade deal with China will be difficult to fulfill. According to Phase 1 of the deal, China will purchase an additional $52.4 billion in LNG, crude oil, and refined products over the next two years . To do that, China will have to import:

An additional 1 million of barrels of oil per day
An additional 500,000 barrels of refined products per day
100 tankers full of LNG

The US does NOT have existing infrastructure to support these totals. In terms of trade negotiations, the deal establishes a "binding constraint."

- Beltway Buzz II: The President has submitted his budget to Congress. Remember, almost all Presidential budgets, both Republican and Democrat, arrive in Congress DOA. However, there are two important items related to energy:

The President's proposal asks for $1 trillion for infrastructure over 10 years.
Since this is an election year and Nevada is still in play, the President did NOT include a proposal to fund the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

Note: AAAS, a partner organization of AES, offers an assessment of the proposed budget.

- Four states (Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, and New York) have sued the EPA for failure to uphold “ Good Neighbor ” provisions that curb cross-state ozone pollution from 20 "upwind" states (all 20 source-states are between Texas and New York).

- Though most Congressional bills never become law, the Democrats have authored five energy-related bills that highlight, among other issues: storage, cleantech, geothermal, and grid modernization. Republicans have countered with a bill that highlights three topics: carbon sequestration, clean energy and conservation, the centerpiece " Trillion Trees " would create a National Reforestation Task Force to promote wood growth in domestic forests.

- Featured story: The GHG Protocol Corporate Standard divides GHG emissions into three ‘scopes ', of which Scope 3 emissions are most significant:

Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions from owned or controlled sources.
Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy.
Scope 3 emissions are all indirect emissions, including both upstream and downstream emissions.

- Related, the 4 oil companies most aggressively cutting Scope 3 emissions:

Equinor (Norway)
Repsol (Spain)
BP (England)
Eni (Italy)

Climate and Sustainability

- BP's Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010 may have been 30% larger than previously estimated. AES Members have access to the peer-reviewed research .

- Recommended resource : the BCSE/BNEF " 2020 Sustainable Energy In America " report offers evidence of declining emissions. Highlights : Total US greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) have fallen 4.1% over the past decade and are about 12% below 2005 levels. Meanwhile, energy productivity has increased 17.6% since 2009 and 3.3% in 2019. ( Note : to see the report will require sharing name and email address.)

- The number of Earths that would be needed if the world's population lived like the following countries ( for the full list, visit the AES website ):

The US (5.0)
Australia (4.1)
Russia (3.2)
Germany (3.0)
Switzerland (2.8)

- Bumblebee populations are declining around the world (eg. 46% in North America, 17% in Europe, since 1901). The biggest declines were in areas marked by pesticide use, habitat loss, and where temperatures spiked well beyond the historical range.

- Temperatures in Antarctica reached 64.9 F, which is 1.4 degrees hotter than the region's hottest recorded temperature.

- Temperature records set in 2019 (insert, in red ):

- Question: What US metropolitan areas had the most consecutive days of elevated air pollution in 2019 (PM 2.5)?

Answer: Riverside-San Bernadino-Ontario, California (227 consecutive days)

Note : About 108 million people in America live in areas with "little to no risk" of air pollution (or about 1/3rd of the total population). Visit the AES website for the top-10 list of US cities with 100+ days of consecutive air pollution, and access to the pollution report.

Research and Markets

- Featured story : The Mystery Gasoline Surcharge (MGS) is the premium of California gas prices above the rest of the US, after accounting for higher taxes, environmental fees, and a cleaner gas formulation. Those cost factors currently justify a $0.72 differential between California and the average in the other states. Now the differential is $1.18. (Note: prior to 2015, there was no Mystery Gasoline Surcharge.)

- Senegal’s utility, Senelec , is seeking training about national load flow, dynamic modeling, power system analyses, and simulations. Training must be in French.

- Try to assess the strength of the electric vehicle market. On the one hand...

"EV sales didn't budge much. That's troubling." - LA Times
"Electric car sales hit the brakes." - WSJ

On the other hand ...

"Electric cars outsold manual transmissions for the first time in 2019." - Autoblog

- "Big oil" stocks have lagged the rest of the market for the past year:

- After 15 years of carbon pricing in 40 countries and 20 state/local governments, market research reveals that nearly all carbon prices currently in place are too low to drive decarbonization .

Electricity, Power and Efficiency

- World power rankings , by first-place:

Primary energy production: China (110 quadrillion Btu)
Low-carbon energy production: US (20 quadrillion Btu)
Natural gas production: US (28 quadrillion Btu)
Petroleum production: Saudi Arabia (25 quadrillion Btu)
Coal production: China (79 quadrillion Btu)

- Hydropower, solar energy, and wind power provide about 15% of all US electricity in the US. However, other renewable energy sources generate about 73 billion kWh of electricity (enough energy to power about 6.5 million US homes):

Biomass (58 billion kWh, or 1.6% of total electricity)
Geothermal (16 billion kWh, or 0.4% of the total)
Hydrogen fuel cells
Other water-source, which include tidal and wave.

- Fossil fuels provided 62% of Japan’s electricity production before the Fukashima disaster, and now about 80%.

- Cybersecurity spotlight: Established under President Obama and continued by President Trump, the Department of Homeland Security designates 16 infrastructure sectors as critical to defend against cyberattack. Three "most significant" infrastructure: energy, nuclear and transportation. AES provides Premium Members with access to the Presidential Policy Directive 21 .

Take advantage of Mnemonic Cybersecurity Podcasts .

Don't miss CyberCon 2020 , March 30 - April 1, in Anaheim, California.

Features

Quotes - When government works together...

“The fact that a West Virginia Republican and an Oregon Democrat have teamed up reflects a potentially significant shift here in Washington.”

- The NRDC, on a number of bipartisan climate bills submitted in Congress.

"This is a victory for anyone who cares about the rule of law and clean air."

- California Governor Gavin Newsom on the Justice Department ending an antitrust investigation into whether Ford, Volkswagen, Honda and BMW illegally coordinated when they agreed to follow California's stringent vehicle fuel-economy targets.

News from the Society

- Top-3 Internship opportunities:

The American Energy Society is seeking 10 interns ... and we offer honorariums! Contact us if you are interested.
Breakthrough Energy Ventures will be hiring 2 interns for Summer 2020 in Boston, an Investment Team Intern, and a Climate Impact Analysis Intern.

- Member notice: Get ready - AES launches new everything April 1.

In case you missed it (from Energy Matters , Series 6, Issue 3 ):

- Featured story , natural gas, the tip of the spear. Using unconventional drilling methods, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) found crude oil and natural gas in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, China. The now spudded well, 8,882 meters deep, is producing about 1,050 barrels of oil/day and about 50,000 cubic meters of natural gas/day. For comparison, drilling in the Bakken in North Dakota can reach about 27,000 feet deep (and two-miles lateral) and produce about 1 million bpd and 1.94 billion cf/d of natural gas.

- Energy Today - It's Elemental!