Windmills & more

Temporary Break.

2012-11-20T16:59:00.002-05:00

This past weekend, I was elected Chair of the Ottawa County Democratic Party. I had been Vice Chair for the prior two years, and had been able to keep up with the commitment to both blogging and political activism. Entering the next phase, probably means that one of these two will most likely have to give. So for the time being, this will be the last post here. You're welcome to follow me personally on twitter at @DougZylstra for local issues and at @OttawaDems for state and national issues.

Thank you.

Doug

Bill Huizenga criticizes Susan Rice over, what exactly?

2012-11-20T08:52:00.002-05:00

Bill Huizenga, along with 96 other House Republicans, wrote the following letter to the White House:

97 GOP members wrote a letter to Obama on Monday announcing their opposition to Rice’s potential appointment to State.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/84072.html#ixzz2ClfqPcpM

“Though Ambassador Rice has been our Representative to the U.N., we believe her misleading statements over the days and weeks following the attack on our embassy in Libya that led to the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans caused irreparable damage to her credibility both at home and around the world,” the letter reads, latter adding: “Ambassador Rice is widely viewed as having either willfully or incompetently misled the American public in the Benghazi affair.”

The uncourageous language of "widely viewed as having" aside, it was the CIA itself which wrote the talking points for Ambassador Rice, but more importantly, there is no evidence that the points themselves were incorrect.

I am unclear on why exactly Bill is weighing in on this, since the House has no power to confirm or not Secretary of State nominees, but if the Representative wishes his Senate Republican colleagues to filibuster her nomination, they will definitely have to have something much stronger than this, which at is it's core, is simply disgraceful politics on Bill's part.

- Doug Zylstra

Comparing the different sized plants.

2012-11-19T13:05:00.000-05:00

In a previous post, I had written that "It's kind of hard to compare (the two different plants) directly, because there wasn't a full analysis done" of the two plants side by side. Apparently, there is one, and Ms. Haworth referenced that, but that comparison has not been made public." I was mistaken. There was a Key Drivers report on page 437 of last Monday's Board Packet. It is also referenced above.

- Doug Zylstra

BPW Board rationale for approval.

2012-11-19T10:51:00.000-05:00

At the most recent Holland BPW board meeting, Board member Diane Haworth summarized (at mark 2H:05M) her rationale for voting for the staff's recommended plan for building the larger 114 MW natural gas plant as opposed to a smaller 78 MW* plant. Three statements that she made were especially of interest:

1.) "Ten years ago, we would have made a decision to go with coal."

This is kind of perplexing, based upon how you read this. If the interpretation is that, 'coal was never really an option for us, since over ten years ago', well, that's simply wrong. The original air permit for the CFB/ Coal plant was submitted in early 2010. It was rejected by the DEQ over the summer of that year. The city and BPW spent a lot of time and resources to get that ruling reversed, which it was, in early 2011. The reality is, until the HDR study came out in early August 2012, the default thinking at BPW was almost universally in favor of building a new coal plant. It wasn't until the HDR study came out, showing that natural gas was a markedly better than coal, that coal was dropped, very quickly and fairly quietly.

However, if the interpretation is, 'ten years, if we had the HDR study in hand, we still would have gone with coal', well, that just seems odd, given that, as stated above, the CFB/Coal option lagged far behind every natural gas option, in every statistical category, sometimes far in excess. So, my interpretation is the former, and this talk about how the board is making a visionary choice doesn't hold much water.

2. "We do have peaker plants, as Monica pointed out, but they're not efficient"..

Monica Hallacy, of Holland beyond Coal, did do a nice summary of the existing assets that the BPW owns, and one of the things she pointed out is 'the case of the 48th St substation where we have currently have 107MW of capacity right where we need it, but it's apparently unusable, with units being built in 1992 and 2000.'

So what Ms. Haworth is saying, 'that yes, we have peakers, but they're inefficient', is exactly the point that Monica was making, ie. that we can build a lot now, but those assets can quickly become outdated, as the 48th st. peakers indeed have.

3. "if, in the future, we find renewables that make sense, then we can shut one of the units off'

The possibility that we may be able and indeed might be forced to 'shut one of the units off' if future technology offers cheaper options is one of the main arguments in favor of not building such a large plant to begin with. The plant is scheduled to last at least 50-60 years. I find it fairly inconceivable that over that time frame there won't be additional breakthroughs in new energy generation, both renewable and non, that would mean that continued operation of all available capacity at a larger plant could possibly take place during that time frame.

Now, some of these points may be more important than others, but I think that once you start to analyze Board's rationale for approval of staff recommendations, I find them lacking a certain internal coherence. You can't say you're in favor a flexible future, when the generation asset's capacity won't be fully utilized internally until 2029. You can't say you're in favor of renewables, when the fact of adding renewables in a any serious way causes you to shut down half of your existing capacity. There is more to the argument in favor, of course, but those two fundamental dichotomies still haven't been effectively answered.

- Doug Zylstra

* Note that in a prior post, I had written that "It's kind of hard to compare them directly, because there wasn't a full analysis done" of the two plants side by side. Apparently, there is one, and Ms. Haworth referenced that, but that comparison has not been made public.

Update - A Key Drivers report, comparing various aspects of the two plants is on page 437 of last Monday's Board Packet. It can also be found at the following post.

A question with unclear answers.

2012-11-18T17:49:00.000-05:00

The above is the question regarding the anti-discrimination ordinance from the Holland City resident survey that will be done by the Frost Research Center at Hope College in the next few months. A lot of the questions seem pretty straightforward and helpful, but on what has probably been the most contentious issue, and the issue that it would be most helpful to have good citizen input on, the possible answers to the question asked are not very likely to produce a clear answer. The reality is, this should just be a yes or no question; there is no reason to include answer number 2, as it only clouds the results; which considering it, is indeed probably the intended purpose.

- Doug Zylstra

John Truscott on why Republicans lost.

2012-11-14T12:07:00.001-05:00

John Truscott, of Truscott Rossman public relations and media relations director under former Republican Governor John Engler, gave a talk yesterday at a Michigan West Coast Chamber of Commerce breakfast about the 2012 elections and what he thinks it means for Republicans going forward. His comments regarding the Presidential election were interesting, if not fairly conveniently mistaken.

First, he talked about the Republican Primary and how it was too long, featured too many debates, and basically made Romney spend more money than he would have liked.

Now, maybe twenty debates (or however many there were) were a bit much, but it's undeniable that without the debates, it's fairly likely that Governor Romney would have had a much harder time fending off Rick Perry, who did not do well in the debates, a format where Romney did do well and was able to press an advantage. Also, it's likewise undeniable that Romney's best moment in the general election came as a result of his Denver debate, something that he was well prepared for as a result of a lot of debating experience. President Obama's lack of debating prior showed and Governor Romney's twenty debates helped.

Second, the idea that the long primary season sapped Romney cash-wise and made him vulnerable to being painted, especially in the swing-state of Ohio, as a wealthy business corporate raider (he wasn't?) also seems mistaken. One, having to get out of a primary when you're opponent doesn't simply means he's the unchallenged incumbent, one of the major advantages of being an incumbent. And two, it was never true that Ohio was 'virtually impossible' for Romney to win, as Truscott says. A lot of the campaign polling favored the President, but in the end, it was a very close win, and Governor Romney could easily have won that state. The problem was not Ohio, it was the other ten swing states that Obama also won. Ohio drew a lot of attention, but at 332 electoral votes, the President could have lost Ohio's 18 electoral votes and still safely won re-election.

Second, he mentioned Obama's ground game advantage as one of the main reasons why he won.

Now, there was a lot of reporting on how well-organized Obama for America was, and yes, it was probably more effective than Governor Romney's efforts, but the reality is that, as I understand it, the Republican National Committee (RNC) ran the nationwide efforts, and could have been investing their resources there since 2008, which they apparently chose not to do. ORCA, the Romney-specific GOTV system, was apparently a mess, but by the time election day came, it was too late anyway. The President had built up enough of a lead in enough swing states that, even if ORCA had worked perfectly, it would have made zero difference in the overall electoral college win. Maybe the Governor would have won Florida, which was very close, but there was no other state close enough that a more effective day-of-GOTV effort would have really made a difference.

Third, he mentioned Hurricane Sandy, as the third reason why Romney lost.

I hesitate to even try to respond here, because it's such a patent example of excuse-making, but nevertheless, it's probably important to point out why Sandy did not throw the election to Obama.

Hurricane Sandy made landfall on October 29. In the NY Times' Five-Thirty Eight model, the President was already a 3-1 favorite to win as of that date, rebounding from a low reached on October 14, when he was only given a bit better than 60% chance of winning. Now, by election day, the President was given 10-1 odds to win by the same model, but that was simply the result of the a continual momentum build that he had started on since the middle of the month, after the poor debate performance on October 3rd.

In the end, I'm not sure why Mr. Truscott would try to come with so many excuses for why Romney lost. The final margin of victory, in both the popular vote and the electoral college,was ample enough that simply saying, 'Romney lost because the majority of voters in this cycle preferred the other guy and his policies more' seems the truer and definitely less convoluted response.

So what happens to JDY?

2012-11-12T09:35:00.001-05:00

At tonight's BPW Board meeting, staff will make the final recommendation for baseload energy generation, which will be for the 114 MW Combined Cycle gas turbine, to be built on a location elsewhere than the current JDY location. Because both the Community Energy Plan (CEP) and the HDR study had stipulated that coal would no longer be employed after 2016, I had thought that that meant the current JDY facilities would be slowly dismantled and that space freed up. But Monica Hallacy, of Holland Beyond Coal, pointed out the third part of the recommendation, especially the highlighted last sentence, which basically says, no, the JDY facility will be continued to be used as a peaking facility using JDY's limited natural gas capacity.

That means that, if the recommendation is accepted, and council agrees to it, there will be a whole lot of capacity still remaining in the system. Of the capacity shown in the original Black and Veatch study

almost all of it will remain. JDY will lose 56 MW of Coal capacity, but, according to Monica, retain 33.5 MW through the peaking units there. When you begin to add back the new 114 MW plant that staff is proposing to be built, and the new contracts for 30 MW of wind power, you begin to amass a lot of overall capacity in the system.

Now, a lot of this older capacity is not financially feasible, that is, it doesn't make sense to actually fire up the peakers at 6th St and 48th St., and likely neither those that remain at JDY, but that goes to a central argument, ie, that building a big plant meant to provide capacity for the next 25 years that could easily be outdated technology when we already have a lot of existing capacity that it outdated and not useful, represents a big risk, and as Monica says, 'could be a bigger mistake than the coal plant they wanted so badly only a year ago'.

- Doug Zylstra

The BPW's final recommendation on Baseload Power

2012-11-09T22:06:00.001-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, the BPW held their p21 capstone event, and the final recommendation was for the 2x1 LM6000 Natural Gas plant with 114 MW capacity.

First, some specifics.

The contrast was seemingly against the 2x1 LM 2500 Natural Gas plant with 78 MW capacity. The above slide points out why the BPW believes the larger plant is better than the small plant. It's kind of hard to compare them directly, because there wasn't a full analysis done of the either plant, like what was done with the Garforth plan and the different assets that plan looked at. Nevertheless, there are some things that can be said about the BPW's rationale here.

1.) Economies of scale - The BPW estimate that the 114 MW plant would cost $182M, and the smaller plant cost $147M. At a rough estimate, the larger plant would cost $1.59M per MW constructed, and the smaller plant $1.88M per MW. That would seem to validate the economy of scale argument. However, Peter Garforth, in his community energy plan, referenced a 70MW CCGT plant that could be built for $105M, which would be $1.5M per MW constructed, cheaper on a per MW basis than the 114 MW capacity plant. So, absent a clarification of build costs, I'm not sure that there are verifiable economies of scale with the larger plant.

2. ) Collaboration - There's been a lot of talk of selling electricity to the grid or to surrounding municipalities, but as far as the collaboration angle, it doesn't seem all that shored up. The idea that 'it's a chicken and egg' scenario, wherein surrounding areas won't commit until it's actually in the process of being built seems a bit unformed, entailing a lot more risk than necessary.

(There was also mention made of this being a low-interest rate period, and that in five years, if we went with a smaller plant now and we needed to build again then, interests rates may not be as favorable. But this is supposition. It could easily be true. But it could be that rates stay the same or get cheaper.)

But second, in the end, I realize that this is what the BPW and Council will choose. And a lot of the rationale may be backed up by solid data (hard to know as we haven't really seen any), but the last year has just seen a P21 process that's been long on Public Relations and statements of supposed fact, and very short on real numbers to back up these statements, coupled with a real reluctance to furnish them when asked. I can't really imagine it makes much difference at this point to write the above, and try to understand why it's the best decision or what the best decision may be. Let's just hope that it is.

- Doug Zylstra

Note - Just to point out that, even among those that were there, there wasn't overwhelming support for the recommendation, as can be seen in the below slide:

Only 27% of the RAP Panelists said they strongly agree with the recommendation, while 28% disagree or even strongly disagree with the recommendation.

"No line short enough, no venue big enough"

2012-11-08T18:43:00.003-05:00

The above was the coda to a short twitter discussion I had with 3rd Ward Councilman Brian Burch regarding Tuesday's long lines for voting, especially for the polling location at Moran Park, which was the only polling location for the 3rd Ward. It was located in a small basement room at the bottom of some double staircases, and had waits up to an hour to vote.

Now, I understand some of his points, that it's about finding a willing partner who will agree to host the polling station, but the cavalier tone of most of the discussion seemed to indicate that finding a venue big enough that would help out reducing lines and making voting not an altogether infuriating experience was not at the top of his priority list when City Council deliberated the new polling places.

- Doug Zylstra

Note - I realize a fifty minute wait to vote is obviously not unheard of, and nearby Grand Rapids had worse, but one, Holland is a relatively small town, and two, simply saying that things are not as bad here as in Grand Rapids doesn't seem like a winning argument.

Is it a small thing to preserve what we have?

2012-11-07T19:36:00.000-05:00

In an otherwise very cogent interview with WHTC, Hope Professor David Dryden accuses President Obama of having run 'an incredibly small and substance-less campaign". Frankly, I'm not sure which campaign he was watching this last two years.

Throughout the campaign, we were reminded by virtually everyone on the right, that this was 'the most important election of our lifetime' and that the supposed 'fate of the American way of life' depended on the issues involved. And that's because President Obama made very specific commitments about what he would and wouldn't do in his second term. He campaigned explicitly on employing the expiration of the Bush tax cuts as a way to make sure wealthier Americans paid a little more so middle class Americans would be spared an imbalanced tax package that Governor Romney had been proposing and to help guarantee their forward economic security. He defended his administration’s interventions to bring the economy back from the brink — and especially his rescue of the auto companies. He spoke repeatedly against turning Medicare into a voucher program and sending Medicaid to the states, which would eviscerate its ability to help tend to the health needs of the poor and elderly alike. And finally, and most importantly, he consistently maintained his commitment to implementation of access to universal health care, his signature legislative accomplishment.

Governor Romney campaigned on a platform of repealing (and not replacing) Obamacare, the greatest expansion of the safety net in 50 years; readjusting the social contract at the core of Medicare, one of the great progressive reforms of the 20th century; rolling back government’s role in engineering economic growth and protecting people from the excesses of the private market; and dramatically reducing the amount the rich contribute towards the upkeep of government, on the theory that so doing will lead to explosive growth and broadly shared prosperity.

The voters who reelected the president knew what they were voting for. They also knew pretty clearly what they were voting against. And it was not a small thing.

- Doug Zylstra

The Chronicle endorses Bill Huizenga's vague future proposals.

2012-11-05T19:41:00.001-05:00

From the Chronicle Ed Board endorsement:

Huizenga's goals for a second term are focused on making sure government serves the residents of the 2nd Congressional District. He said half of his staff is working in Michigan helping constituents, something he plans to continue. Huizenga is focused on fixing the economy and is willing to take on the difficult companion issues of how to preserve the social safety net of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. His fiscal pragmatism finds him favoring changes to preserve Social Security that are outside Republican Party rhetoric. He believes everything needs to be looked at including retirement age, income limits and eligibility. He wants to create short-term, medium-term and long-term proposals.

The Editorial Board believes Huizenga has the tools needed to be a successful congressman representing the issues of the 2nd Congressional District. He has experience, he has contacts, he has a working knowledge of the political system and has studied it in college and throughout his career.

I'm really not sure why the Ed Board decided to endorse here. They didn't make one mention of his past votes, and framed their endorsement in only the vaguest terms, as if he hadn't already been our congressman for two of the most contentious terms the House of Representatives has had in recent memory. And the part about 'He has experience, he has contacts, he has a working knowledge of the political system and has studied it in college and throughout his career.' sounds like the resume of someone just coming out of college, not a long-term legislator and political operator.

- Doug Zylstra

The Airport Authority goes up for a vote again.

2012-10-10T16:59:00.001-04:00

Holland Assistant City Manager Greg Robinson and Zeeland City Manager Tim Klunder were on the Juke Van Oss Show a few days ago, talking about the upcoming .1 millage renewal for the West Michigan Airport Authority, set for the November ballot. It was pretty straightforward, but it did get me thinking how odd it is that an essentially private airport is being supported, in large measure, by public millage funding.

One of the main problems currently facing the airport is that operating expenses for the airport, budgeted at $321 thousand for FY 2013, exceed, by nearly 25%, the $257 thousand that the airport generates in revenues from operations. Some of that is due to some pretty high expenses related to promoting the current millage, but much of it seems to be that many expenses, like additional payroll or airport mowing, for example, are either unnecessary or simply just too high.

The second problem is that a lot of the capital improvements don't seem all that necessary either, like the planned terminal, the Geurink improvement, the south hangar toilet and complete repave, or the viewing area. Many of them may be nice additions for the corporate users, but they don't seem in way necessary for normal functions of a local airport.

The millage is used to support, together with further State and Federal funding, both of these things, the operational deficit and the extensive list of capital projects. If the millage were not to pass, operational expenses, like the $50 thousand for Communications and PR budget, would have to be trimmed and some of the more ambitious improvements as well. But frankly, there's no solid reason to think these are needed or are at all such worthy things that Park, Zeeland and Holland residents need to be paying for them.

All of this is not to say that the airport doesn't serve an important function for a lot of local corporate and small business customers, and that, in turn, doesn't help out the Holland area in the long run. It does, on both counts. But to say that the airport is a community asset like the Aquatic Center or the MAX, and deserving of public subsidy, is to ignore what really is a public good and what is a virtually private one.

- Doug Zylstra

Proposal 3 and the supposed 'skyrocket' in rates.

2012-10-04T13:04:00.000-04:00

Mlive -

Holland Mayor Kurt Dykstra, in a recent Interview with WHTC, said that, regarding Prop 3, "to reach a number like that, our electricity rates would, frankly, skyrocket. Because again, you have to build these redundant systems. If you need 50 megawatts of new generation, you’re going to have to build many multiples of 50 megawatts so that at some point in that whole scheme there are 50 megawatts of windmills turning."

There are three points I want to make here.

One, is that when we talk about the cost of renewables vs. conventional fossil fuel sources, in the vast majority, we're unfortunately comparing apples to oranges. This is evident in the following line from the PSC study paid for by CARE, the main anti-prop 3 opposition group:

The cost of renewable energy generation at today's prices in Michigan is considerably higher than the cost of utilities' (albeit older) generation plants.

It's hard to imagine a word, especially in a parenthetical aside, carry as much of a load as 'albeit' here. If we're comparing newly built, current cost facilities with facilities built with cost structures of say, the 1960's, and that are fully depreciated by now, there is no question that renewables are going to come out on the wrong end of the stick there. However, when we start to look at the cost of new investments in renewables vs the cost of new investments in conventional fossil fuel facilities, renewables do a whole lot better. The Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) came out with a report this past February which found that wind power and electricity from other renewables are close to one-third cheaper than electricity from a new coal-fired plant, with renewables costing an average of $91/MWh, much lower than the $133/MWh for a new coal plant.

The Michigan Environmental Council took this a step further and ran the numbers specifically on the 25x25 initiative and found that the impact on short-term electric rates would be minimal:

“25% by 2025: The Impact on Utility Rates of the Michigan Clean Renewable Electric Energy Standard” concludes that the renewable energy ballot plan – Proposal 3 in the November election – would cost an average of 50 cents per month for residential ratepayers between 2015 and 2025. The additional cost of 0.5% (one-half of one percent), would not come close to reaching Proposal 3’s cost cap provision, which limits cost increases related to Proposal 3 to one percent.

Two, long term rates are projected to start coming down because of lower to non-existent -in the case of wind - fuel costs. Contracts for wind energy and some other renewable resources can guarantee costs at least 20 years into the future. These long-term guarantees provide greater stability and predictability to electricity rates, making the 25% RES a buffer against volatile fuel markets. In contrast, the cost of coal-fired power (Michigan’s predominant power source) is increasing rapidly.

Three, the 1% rate cap, which limits rate increases to no less than a percent per year, is not even forecasted to come into play, as seen in the above graph from the MEC study. If it is needed, the cap will help protect consumers at the same time as offer flexibility to electricity providers through waiver extensions.

There is a lot of good evidence showing that Proposal 3 would help diversify the state’s energy portfolio while stabilizing electricity rates and reducing the risk of price spikes for electricity customers, at the same time providing significant economic development and a measure of energy independence for Michigan. There is scant evidence shown thus far to say that it would, as the Mayor states, cause rates to 'skyrocket'.

- Doug Zylstra

Related Posts -

Prop 3 and 'Special interest activity'
Why Prop 3 is necessary

Proposal 3 and 'Special interest activity'.

2012-10-03T09:46:00.000-04:00

Mlive -

Holland Mayor Kurt Dykstra, in a recent Interview with WHTC, said that, regarding Prop 3 not only will it cause utility rates to "skyrocket" if voters in November approve Proposal 3, but pushing a constitutional amendment requiring that Michigan's electric utilities by 2025 get at least 25 percent of their energy from renewable sources is just plain dirty politics.

"It’s a very bad idea, especially to enshrine it in the constitution," Dykstra said in response to a caller's comment on WHTC. "It is special interest activity at its worst. It’s not to say we don’t look at renewables, but you cannot simply artificially say it ought to be this number. To reach a number like that, our electricity rates would, frankly, skyrocket. You have to build these redundant systems. If you need 50 megawatts of new generation, you’re going to have to build many multiples of 50 megawatts so that at some point in that whole scheme there are 50 megawatts of windmills turning."

I find the whole point about 'special interest activity at its worst' frankly perplexing. Below are the major committees funding the Pro side of Prop 3:

The top donor committee, Michigan Energy Michigan jobs, is composed of the following:

The only committee actively opposing is

which is composed of the following:

What you have is environmental groups, composed of citizen and business interests, using a legitimate political process to urge Michigan to use more renewable energy sources in generating electricity on one side, and existing utilities who would understandably like to continue to benefit from the investments they've made in fossil-fuel generation sources, on the other. To say that one side advocating for its interest is 'special interest activity at its worst' with the clear implication being that the other side's doing the same is fine and decent seems an odd argument, especially for a lawyer, to be making.

Update - Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Constitution (CPMC) is taking a similiar tack on this, warning in their most recent radio ad “Tell the out-of-state special interests to keep their millions in their pocket and keep their hands off our constitution.” I find this richly ironic, as CPMC was formed by the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, one of the most powerful special interest lobbying groups in Lansing and which itself has played the out-of-state game, spending over 5 million dollars bankrolling the the Republican Governor's Association's effort to get Republican governors elected in a number of states across the country.

- Doug Zylstra

Why Prop 3 is necessary.

2012-09-28T13:56:00.001-04:00

Eric Baerren, on the Detroit News Editorial against Prop 3:

There is plenty of room in Michigan's future for both natural gas and alternative energy. The idea that you have to pick one or the other is stupid. Then again, like I said, you have to keep in mind that for years and years the News has been thumbing its nose at alternative energy as something for dumb hippies. Coal is where it's at, right up to the time to when it's not where it's at. By the way, they note that we're closing in on 10 percent. That tells us that it wasn't ever set high enough. We could address that by getting more aggressive. The state Legislature has responded, however, with energy all directed in repealing it outright.

I had a good twitter discussion on this yesterday with Mayor Dykstra, after he flagged a video of Governor Snyder in which the Governor came out generally in support of PA 295 but against Prop 3, on the grounds that it would, in his thinking, put too much of a burden on ratepayers and businesses, and besides, doing something like this in the State Constitution is not the right place.

Like Eric (and the Mayor), I agree that putting renewable standards into the constitution is clunky and not the preferable way to go. However, as Eric also points out, the current state legislature has deviated from Governor Snyder's tacit agreement with the overall goals of PA 295 and has instead focused its attention solely on repeal. Bob Genetski, for example, has decided to get on this particular bandwagen by co-sponsoring HB 5447, a bill to repeal the sections of PA 295 that contain the '10% by 2015' renewable energy standard.

To make the renewable standard work, there needs to be investment in renewable sources. To make investments attractive, there needs to be at least the certainty that the standards will continue to exist. I'm pretty sure Rep. Genetski is fully aware of this. That's why making sure we have a firm target going forward is worth the difficulties involved in having this in the State Constitution.

- Doug Zylstra

Goldilocks, or a natural gas plant that fits, but probably won't be chosen.

2012-09-28T08:28:00.000-04:00

At Monday's p21 Question and Answer session, General Manager Dave Koster showed the above slide and stated how, if you look at each of the various scenarios that HDR put together, Scenario G produces electricity at the lowest levelized cost. Scaling issues with the graph aside (Scenario G is made to look nearly half as expensive as Scenario A when it in reality it's only 5% less expensive) this is undoubtedly true, as least as far as this study goes. But what it doesn't show, and I had actually submitted a question on this that never got read, is how the different generation options themselves stack up.

Scenario G is obviously one single option, the 2x1 LM6000 with 114 MW capacity. However, Scenario A is composed of two different options, the 2x1 LM 2500 with 78 MW capacity, and the LM2500 CHP with 30.5 MW capacity. The two separate components of Scenario A were never accorded a levelized cost of their own, just their grouped cost.

Does that matter? Would that matter? Hard to say. Without knowing what the individual costs are, it's hard to know for sure if a smaller option like the 2x1 LM2500, with a smaller footprint and a smaller price tag, might be able to produce electricity at or near the cost of the larger LM6000.

Now, the Community Energy Plan did look at a smaller Combined Cycle plan of 70MW as well as a CHP of 30 MW and fortunately did break out the production costs for each of these:

While the Garforth/CEP study doesn't give us the same Levelized cost estimate, it does give us a projection of cost over time. The approximate median cost of the 70 MW CCGT is $78.5 MWh, and that of the CHP is $95.15 WWh. I think those are pretty instructive numbers. What they say is that it's quite possible that a smaller Combined Cycle turbine could be quite competitive (the 114 MW LM2000 levelized cost is approximate $82.5 MWh vs an approximate median cost for the 70 MW CCGT of $78.5) and also, that regardless of how the exact math works, it's fairly safe to say that the CHP option is the more expensive part of the HDR Scenario A (perhaps over 20% more expensive) And also, that absent the CHP addition, Scenario A would have just the 2x1 LM2500 and could easily be able to produce energy at a similar average price as Scenario G with significantly less capital costs. (The HDR study put the price tag of a 78 MW Combined cycle option at $147 Million. However, the Garforth/CEP put the price tag of a 70 MW Combined Cycle at only $105 Million.)

All of this to say the following: There are three natural gas options on the table. One is the 30 MW CHP, which if instituted alone, would probably not be enough capacity for Holland, seeing that the JDY units scheduled to go offline in 2016 total 57 MW. The LM6000 of Scenario G doubles the capacity that is being lost, at 114 MW, and the forecasts for energy usage are pretty clear that that much capacity is not going be needed for a long time. The third option, the 2x1 LM2500 that's a part of Scenario A at 79 MW has enough capacity to fully replace JDY and and still has a fair bit of extra capacity for the future. The levelized cost, while not apparent from the HDR study because it didn't show it, is close, or even less than the LM6000 option and the capital cost, depending on estimates, is a good $40 million less than the LM6000. I have no idea what the final choice will be, but the fact that the BPW structured its Scenarios in a very specific way makes me think they have a very specific goal in mind, and it's one that pushes away from a more moderate option to the extreme one.

- Doug Zylstra

"Serious doubts that a generator that size is necessary"

2012-09-26T11:34:00.000-04:00

Sentinel's Sunday Op-ed:

A recent consultant’s report gave its highest rating for “sustainable return on investment” to a 114 megawatt natural gas generating plant, but we have serious doubts that a generator that size is necessary. As the decision-making process accelerates, we believe the burden of proof lies with supporters of a 114 MW plant to demonstrate that an expansion of such magnitude is positive and necessary for Holland.

At Monday's P21 Question & Answer session the BPW attempted to do just that, and they brought along a couple of slides:

There are two main criticisms that the BPW is trying to address here, one the question of whether Scenario G would provide more generation than the Holland area needs, and two, if it's true that we need that much capacity, is it wise to have all the new capacity come from one source.

Concern about Scenario G overbuild

In one sense, the BPW's argument that it not only needs to replace the capacity from retiring the JDY facility but add significantly to it is not new. Even before the retirement of units 4 and 5 were planned, the original Black and Veatch study done in early 2010 predicated that whatever is built, would not only cover what was being lost, but would add between 40 and 70 MW of capacity:

There are three points here.

One is that the Black and Veatch study, which also informs the HDR study, is already a bit out of date. The B&V study forecast that 2012 electricity demands would be 1,106,087 MwH. 2011's metered electricity sales was 980K MWH. and through the first eleven months of FY 2012, electricity saw an increase of approximate growth of 2.7% growth, which would be an approximate 1,006K MWH. All in all then, electricity sales are running about 10% less than where the BPW forecasted they would be as recently as March 2010. Carried out into the future, this would indicate less capacity, even perhaps substantially less, than the BPW's projections at that time.

Two, the world of cheaper natural gas which gives Scenario G its appeal also makes the 48th Street Generation Station, whuch consists of three natural gas fired simple cycle combustion turbines, more appealing as a baseload resource instead of simply summertime peaking. More importantly, and BPW's heavy reliance on grid power for some pretty impressive profits this last six months shows it, is how the the new environment allows purchasing off the grid to become a much more feasible option for baseload capacity instead of merely accessing it for summertime peaking or fill-in-the-gaps purchases.

Three, and finally, in the first graph, Scenario G is compared to a scenario A and B which have a smaller combined cycle generator of 78 MW and a CHP of 30 MW. The graph basically says "Hey, G is not so big because compared to two other scenarios that have capacity of 108 MW, it looks ok". That's a simple bit of tautology and doesn't address the question of whether the BPW needs an addition in capacity upwards of 100 MW to begin with. Any of those Scenarios produce capacity that exceeds needs through roughly 2030, and, as shown above, it's far from clear whether those needs projections are even remotely on target.

Concern about amount of Natural Gas

The fact that there doesn't appear to be a convincing argument for 100 MW plus of new capacity to begin with makes having 100 MW plus from a single source even less convincing. Removing current JDY capacity from consideration, the BPW has a summertime net capacity from its own sources of 212 MW. Of that, 147 MW is from natural gas. Even if the BPW could show that it needs new capacity (net of retirements) of 50-some MW, adding it through Scenario G would mean that total capacity derived from Natural Gas would be 261 MW, 80% of the total capacity of 326 MW. That seems unquestionably high and, despite some cool-looking slides, the BPW has done nothing to show why it's not.

Why it's important to build slow.

2012-09-21T12:18:00.000-04:00

One comment that keeps coming up in relation to the proposed 114 MW power plant is that, 'Hey, this is a big investment. Can't we think about scaling it down a bit. We don't know the future and things change. Why expose ourselves to such a high level of financial risk if we don't have to." The BPW's response has been 'Unfortunately, nobody can plan for a community’s long-term future if action is paralyzed by concerns of what might happen'. But going through a few older posts from 2010, I came up with a very good example of why it's important to be a little bit cautious, especially when it comes to spending upwards of $160 Million dollars:

State Reps. Bob Genetski and Joseph Haveman collectively lament the Department of Natural Resourses and Environment's decison to refuse to allow for an expansion of a coal plant in Holland:

August 20, 2010 - With so many Michigan families out of work, I cannot begin to express my disappointment that the Governor would oppose a plan that would allow for more jobs in our state," asked Genetski, R-Saugatuck. "This is yet another example of the governor's failed economic and energy policies that are putting our state at a disadvantage and our families out of work."

"A short-term strategy to meeting our energy needs is unacceptable," said Haveman, R-Holland. "With new developments and job opportunities coming our way, energy expansion is a necessity, and I urge the governor to reconsider her decision to put thousands of jobs on the line in our community."
The DNR&E refused BPW's Air Quality Permit request for installing a new 78-megawatt boiler and associated equipment at the coal-fired DeYoung Power Plant in large part based on a July Michigan Public Service Commission report that stated that the Holland BPW had failed to adequately demonstrate the need for the plant.

Now, the BPW's previous idea to build a 78 MW CFB was tested by HDR this past summer and it tested very poorly and the BPW dropped the idea immediately. Had there not been opposition to the project, and had Representatives Haveman and Genetski had their way, Holland would have been saddled with a $350 Million plant that was obviously not the right choice for Holland.

Differing options on P21?

2012-09-20T16:17:00.002-04:00

Midwest Energy News:

Holland, like many other small and mid-size cities, generates its own electricity through a municipal utility. And like many municipal utilities in the state and region, Holland’s operates an aging coal-fired power plant that will need to be replaced soon. As a result, this western Michigan city has been debating how to supply its residents with electricity for the next four decades.

If they follow a 40-year community energy plan developed with public participation in 2011, the city will invest in energy efficiency and a diversified mix of renewables and natural gas. Or they could set that plan aside and follow an engineering firm’s recommendation to build a large natural gas plant. Critics say the latter option neglects efficiency, overestimates demand, and puts the city’s financial well-being at risk.

At the kickoff event this past Monday, Peter Garforth tried to address this by simply saying that the two plans “are totally supportive of each other”. And that's true, to some extent, but not entirely, as the below tables show:

Scenario B - Garforth

Scenario G - HDR

Scenario B recommends a 70 MW CCGT to replace the JDY facility, and then recommends a 30 MW CHP to beef up capacity for the industrial park. Scenario G simply opts for a 114 MW plant all at once with the 2x1 LM6000 CC option. So there's an excess difference in natural gas sourced generation of only 14 MW from HDR G to Garforth B. Garforth recommends additional generation in the form of wind, biogas and solar, to the extent that, by 2016, Garforth B, if carried out as planned, would actually show more capacity than HDR G.

Now, part of the problem is that in some sense, the Garforth study is out of date, or at least wasn't able to take into consideration the overall decline in growth in industrial sales over the last year. Overall, Industrial sales, in part due to the slack pace of Battery Plant sales, were behind budget by nearly 10%. Making up that gap going forward will be hard and would effectively mean that a lot of demand forecasts will have to be reworked, to the extent that both Scenario G HDR and Scenario B Garforth both may easily represent too much generation in too soon of a timeframe.

- Doug Zylstra

The Sentinel interview and the P21 process.

2012-09-17T11:02:00.000-04:00

Yesterday's Sentinel's interview with HBPW Business Services Director Dan Nally was a really thorough piece, and I think it ended up laying out the question regarding the planned expansion of James de Young fairly well. The BPW's argument for the larger 114 MW plant is simply the fact that the HDR study indicates that the larger facility produces more baseload energy more cheaply over the next 25 years than any of the other proposed scenarios. The idea of producing such a large amount of energy, up to 25% more than needed, is not a real concern. The fact that a lot of would come from one source is, but not enough to consider any other options for the current expansion. Renewables would be okay, but the fact is that with the one new plant, Holland's energy needs would be basically set. Efficiency is a nice idea, but similarly, with so much energy coming from the proposed plant, it's not that important.

That at least is how I read the interview. There are caveats to the information presented in the interview; the price of natural gas may be further outside of the forecast than the the study guesses, the electricity demand for the city and the surrounding region may be lower than what the study says, both of which would mean an additional level of risk for the 114 MW plant that is glossed over in the interview, but overall, it's hard to deny that a bigger power plant will generate more electricity at a lower average cost than a series of smaller ones, or that natural gas is currently a cheaper source of electricity than a renewable one like solar.

So it seems we're basically back to where we were a year ago when the P21 process began, with the tension between the Scenario B of the Garforth plan at odds with the then-favored option of the 78 MW Solid Fuel/Coal plant expansion. The only new wrinkle is the possibility of the 25 x 25 measure passing this November, which, combined with the greater size of the new preferred option, would mean that the BPW would be forced to add an additional 116 MW of energy from renewable sources, at a time when they will already be generating an excess of energy over projected needs.

I'm not quite sure how it will be resolved. I think it's important to have a diversified portfolio of generation options, even if they don't all generate at the same cost. The 114 MW plant will not really allow that. I think it's important to be good stewards of the world we live in and invest in conservation and efficiency measures that bring down energy usage, and those things are discouraged by having a fairly large excess of power. Lastly, and most importantly, I think it's important that public entities constrain themselves and focus on serving their public well without trying to overbuild or compensate for lack of general fund monies with supposed money making projects that might fix that.

- Doug Zylstra

Decisions already made on Electricity Generation?

2012-09-14T19:27:00.001-04:00

Mlive:

Holland residents interested in being part of task forces associated with developing the city’s community energy strategy can get involved during a kickoff meeting on Monday.
However, environmental advocate are questioning why the future electric generation task force, considered a critical element for the community to discuss, won’t be organized at that meeting.

However, opponents to a consultant's recommendation that the utility replace several aging coal-fired units at its James DeYoung power plant with a new 114-megawatt natural gas-fired unit say the public is being shut out of the most important aspect of the energy plan. “Since they are not being allowed to join the electric generation task force, they are being left out of one of the most important parts of the decision making,” said Monica Hallacy, a Sierra Club volunteer and Holland resident. “As the city moves forward, implementing a long-term 40-year energy plan, it’s critical that the public, including Holland residents and clean energy advocates, are involved in all aspects of the implementation.”

- Doug Zylstra

Amendment to license Small Recyclers withdrawn

2012-09-14T17:29:00.000-04:00

Good news regarding the proposed amendment to license small recyclers:

Questions arose and staff has been unable to develop appropriate language that narrows the applicability of the this requirement to define those "problem" haulers nor to carve out an appropriately narrow definition of recyclable material that would be covered under this language.

Staff is therefore respectfully withdrawing this request for amending this ordinance.

Forcing small service providers to all get licensed simply becasue there are a few problem situations seems to be a lot of overkill, unless of course the idea is to reduce the overall number and type of recyclers, which I don't think should be the purview of City Hall.

Planning involves flexibility

2012-09-14T12:03:00.000-04:00

The BPW's P21 site has a series of responses to some of the questions that came out of the Public Comments sessions. some of them seem straightforward, and others simply a matter of opinion, but Q&A 4 seems fairly concerning:

Q4. What if something better comes along after we invest all this money in this?
A. Unfortunately, nobody can plan for a community’s long-term future if action is paralyzed by concerns of what might happen. The base load options under consideration by Holland BPW today are all based on the best forecasts available and would all provide the clean, reliable, affordable power our community needs to prosper and grow.

One of the comments that kept coming up last week was that of keeping whatever natural gas plant that might be built to a small, manageable size that would allow for flexibility in the future. The whole idea of planning for the long-term future is precisely to have flexibility. The BPW's seeming attitude of 'Whatever, can't know the future anyway, let's just build the biggest thing we can' seems to belie its stated intentions of allowing space for expansion into renewables and efficiency as well as putting itself at greater financial risk than need be.

Important point to note as well, is that there is no rush to build. The same dynamics of cheap natural gas that make the financial prospects of a natural gas plant good are the same that make continued short -to - medium purchases of the grid, which is composed of a lot of production from natural gas sources.

- Doug Zylstra

Pete Hoekstra on Egypt.

2012-09-13T06:57:00.001-04:00

Holland resident and US Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra is not known for his subtlety of thought nor his temperance of character, and his response to the events two days ago in Egypt is probably what you might expect. Getting basic facts wrong: check. Developing an inordinate level of false outrage about that falsity: check. And doing so at a moment when American lives were at risk and the reality of their safety or danger was unknown: also check.

Yesterday, in Fruitport, Pete decided to double down and termed the actions of US personnel on the front lines in a dangerous moment to be, quote "pathetic". This is also not surprising. Pete doesn't like to back down from his sillier moments. He thought the 'China Ad' was a great thing for a good long while. He thinks his shtick of calling his opponent the 'Worst Senator' is brilliant, and the ad that involves a family sitting around a table arguing over all the supposed reasons why she deserves this title is likewise genius. Neither are. They're just weird and unhealthy, product of the same mind that would ask US Embassy staff, in the middle of a very tense and dangerous situation, to defend the rather unhinged actions of a rather unhinged American citizen, something that would strike most Americans as a bit ludicrous and counter to responsible use of what it means to enjoy freedom of speech.

- Doug Zylstra

Knocking your critics isn't always the best strategy.

2012-09-12T11:29:00.001-04:00

The rule of three:

"There’s a misperception that it’s all or nothing,” Mayor Kurt Dykstra said Wednesday at the Holland City Council meeting.
..

Holland BPW Board President Hemingway was concerned about speakers' lack of understanding the depth and complexity of the study..
..

During public comments, it became apparent to BPW officials that many people did not understand the complexity of the study.

When you see something said once, it could just be a casual observation. But when you see the same criticism three times over, ie, that people who are not in favor of the 114MW Natural gas expansion are not understanding the issue, then you have to believe that this is part of an overall strategy. It's a strategy that seems both wrong-footed, as well as incorrect, as almost to a person, those who spoke out against the larger expansion at the Double Tree Public Comment Session (here and here) did so with intelligence and a fairly deep understanding of the information that's been presented over the last few years.

- Doug Zylstra

Update - The BPW will be hosting a Questions & Answers Session about the P21 decision-making process. The meeting will take place at the DoubleTree Hotel in Holland on Monday, September 24. Time is tentatively set from 5:00pm-7:00pm. Questions will be pre-screened in writing beforehand.