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Americans Slow Walk EV Buys

Biden is betting big on electric vehicles, but what do American think about them?

A recent survey shows that cost and availability of charging stations are the biggest barriers to EV adoption in the US, with more than 8 in 10 people citing cost as a reason not to buy an EV.

Many cited saving money on gas as the main enticement for EVs, not the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax breaks. The tax subsidies haven’t done as much as the administration might have hoped. The survey intimates that only 2 in 10 Americans are “very likely” to buy an EV as their next car. Predictably, the number is even lower with Republicans.

“The findings come as Washington doubles down on its EV push. The Environmental Protection Agency is set to announce tough new vehicle emissions standards as soon as this week that it hopes will turbocharge the shift away from combustion engines,” reports the Financial Times. “But if the Biden administration really wants half of all new car sales to be electric by the time the decade is out, it still needs to be cheaper to go green.”

Change Comes to the Colorado River

The Department of the Interior has just unveiled its initial proposal to mend the drought problem facing the Colorado River.

The plans aim to save hydropower production on the river, which serves seven states and around 40 million people, by lifting water levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

“Drought conditions in the Colorado River Basin have been two decades in the making. To meet this moment, we must continue to work together, through a commitment to protecting the river, leading with science and a shared understanding that unprecedented conditions require new solutions,” Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton said.

One plan would force California to forfeit a significant portion of its flows, while another would concentrate the pain of cuts on Arizona and Nevada. The plans mean to cut use of the river by a maximum of 2.083 million acre-feet by 2026.

“While the Interior Department did not say which alternative it preferred, Beaudreau acknowledged that “nobody’s advocating” for the path that strictly follows water rights seniority and would cut off major cities such as Phoenix and Los Angeles from big portions of their water supply,” reports the Washington Post.

One of the major drags on the Colorado River is alfalfa, which is grown in several of the seven states that draw from the river’s supply. Growing alfalfa is water intensive. Much of the crop grown in these states is exported to Asia and to Saudi Arabia, where it feeds their dairy cows.

The DOI’s plans are under review for 45 days.

PJM Capacity Complaints

PJM has been dinging generators for their failures during Winter Storm Elliott, triggering a backlash of complaints to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Several generator companies allege that PJM has violated its governing documents with its response to Elliott.

“Several independent power producers within the ComEd zone filed a joint complaint arguing that conditions in the region throughout most of the performance assessment interval (PAI) during the storm, also known as Winter Storm Elliott, did not warrant emergency conditions and that the penalties faced by generators there should be eliminated,” reports RTO Insider.

They argue that if had PJM not exported so much power to the Tennessee Valley Authority, no emergency conditions would have existed. The 6000 MW of power PJM sent over to TVA violated its own rules and bears the brunt of the responsibility for the outages—not any specific generator failure.

Several companies representing 27,500 MW of generation have argued that PJM should be responsible for figuring out which power sources would not have been used if they had restricted electricity exports. Then PJM should exempt those sources from any penalties that might come from not using them during the storm. Like ComEd, the coalition believes PJMs exports need to be factored into penalty allocation.

“To be clear, complainants do not object to PJM providing assistance to neighboring regions when that assistance is needed and when PJM has available resources to assist (as PJM apparently did during Winter Storm Elliott),” the companies said. “Rather, complainants object to PJM declaring emergency operations and imposing penalties on PJM resources to support other systems.”

SunEnergy filed its own complaint. The solar developer wanted to know why its solar project, which fails nightly, should be penalized for failing to provide needed capacity during the storm. “What if no matter how much capital is spent to improve the performance of a resource, there is no way for such resource to perform during certain times of the day because of the inherent nature of the resource?” SunEnergy asked.

SunEnergy’s questions provokes another one: why are intermittent and non-dispatchable generators allowed to bid into capacity markets, which are needed to provide reliability?

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Conversation Starters

1. A recycling facility in Indiana went up in smoke. “Residents within a half-mile radius of a plastics recycling plant in Richmond, Ind., were ordered to evacuate after the fire broke out around 2 p.m. on Tuesday on the 14-acre property, Matthew Cain, director of the Wayne County Emergency Management Agency, said on Wednesday. Local schools were also closed and shelters were being set up,” reports the New York Times. “Officials believe the fire started on Tuesday afternoon after a semitrailer caught on fire on the property. It was not clear what caused the trailer to catch on fire. As of Wednesday, about 13.5 acres of the property had burned, Mr. Cain added. Fire officials did not think foul play was involved. Depending on the direction of the wind and where it carried the toxic fumes, the areas under evacuation orders could change, officials said.”

2. California’s grid operator wants more transmission. “California's grid operator released its latest transmission plan with an estimated investment of $9.2 billion, including 46 projects that would mostly be built in-state,” reports California Energy Markets. “The California Independent System Operator's 2022-2023 plan is based on projections that the state will need 40 GW of new generation resources over the next decade. When transportation and building electrification are included in planning assumptions, up to 70 GW could be needed.”

3. Hungary is in hot water with the US. “A day after the Hungarian foreign minister visited Moscow to talk about energy supplies with Gazprom, sources have told Reuters that Washington is preparing to make a move against certain Hungarian individuals for sanctions-busting,” reports Oilprice.com. “Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto met with Russian deputy PM Alexander Novak on Tuesday to discuss additional natural gas supplies for 2023, Reuters reported. Agreements signed between the two parties on Tuesday pledge consistent supply of Russian oil and gas to Hungary, in addition to an amended deal for the financing of the expansion project for the country’s Paks nuclear power plant, according to BNE Intelligence.”

Crom’s Blessing