Energy
Trump Has A Plan To Fix The Electricity Grid — Increase Supply
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Bonner Cohen
Trump vowed in a second term to issue a “national emergency declaration to achieve a massive increase in domestic energy supply.”
Citing the need for more electricity to continue growing the artificial intelligence (AI) sector and keep the U.S. tech industry ahead of China, former President Donald Trump on Sept. 5 vowed in a second term to issue a “national emergency declaration to achieve a massive increase in domestic energy supply.”
But standing in the way of ramped up domestic energy production is a federal permitting process notorious for its foot-dragging. Some in Congress acknowledge the problem, but their latest effort to rectify the situation risks being overtaken by surging energy demand and troubling geopolitical realities.
Hoping to unravel the reams of red tape that have tied up transportation, energy, and mining projects for years, and in some cases killed them altogether, Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Sen. John Barasso (R-Wyo.) want their colleagues to approve their “Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024.” Centralizing decision-making on power transmission nationwide is the centerpiece of their legislation. Accordingly, it would bolster the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) authority to approve interstate transmission lines and require interregional transmission planning.
In a bid to satisfy as many conflicting interests as possible, the bill establishes deadlines for filing lawsuits over energy and mining projects, and sets requirements for onshore and offshore oil, gas, coal and renewable energy leasing and permitting. It also includes provisions on hard-rock mining and sets a 90-day deadline for the secretary of Energy to grant or deny liquified natural gas (LNG) export applications, according to a summary of the legislation.
The bill is generally supported by such groups as the American Clean Power Association, the Solar Energy Industries Association, the American Council on Renewable Energy, Advanced Energy United, and Americans for a Clean Energy Grid, UtilityDive reported.
Many of the wind, solar and transmission-line projects favored by these groups have encountered the same permitting and litigation delays that have bedeviled fossil-fuel producers. On the other hand, the Sierra Club opposes the measure, finding it insufficiently hostile to fossil fuels and saying it “would open up federal lands and waters to more leasing and drilling and unnecessarily rush reviews of natural gas export projects…”
Aside from all the problems inherent in vesting so much authority in one federal bureaucracy, FERC, to handle the nation’s power transmission challenges, such conventional approaches are no match for the transformative developments already roiling America’s electricity supply. While politicians, along with some less-than-savvy investors, have been content to pour wads of public and private cash into the green energy transition, artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly upending the world elites thought they knew.
Energy-hungry data centers — there are currently over 2,700 in the United States with hundreds more planned — need electricity 24/7/365 if they are to meet the extraordinary demands of AI. The amount of electricity AI-driven data centers require cannot be produced by intermittent solar and wind power transmitted hundreds if not thousands of miles from the sunny Southwest or the gusty plains of the Upper Midwest. Big Tech’s demands on an already shaky grid far outstrip anything politically fashionable solar panels and wind turbines can ever deliver. To their chagrin, the Big Four data center developers — Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft and Beta — now find themselves increasingly dependent on the very fossil fuels and — where available — nuclear power they have been so quick to dismiss over the years.
But given the choice of meeting their lofty Net-Zero carbon emissions goals or cashing in on AI’s financial promise, Big Tech will choose the second option. And the stakes go well beyond the companies’ respective bottom lines. Data centers are essential to AI, and AI is essential to national security. If the U.S. is not the global leader in AI, China (along with its junior partner, Russia) will be.
“AI can be the foundation of a new industrial base it would be wise for our country to embrace,” Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, recently wrote in the Washington Post.
Ceding the United States’ current lead in AI to China would be a blow from which America’s industrial base, and thus its military preparedness, would be hard pressed to recover. Data centers, powered by a steady flow of reliable energy, are now key assets in the perilous world of 21st century geopolitics.
As neighbors in the communities in which they are located, data centers are a mixed blessing. They generate enormous revenues to local governments but can be seen by nearby residents as disruptive to their community. The non-descript but noisy buildings comprising data centers house thousands of computer servers processing the data that make the internet, cloud computing and AI possible. They not only require gobs of power but also plenty of water used to lower temperatures.
Together with government-driven efforts to put more EVs on the road, data centers further complicate the challenges facing the already stressed electric grid. These developments are beyond the reach of the horse-trading that goes into Capitol Hill legislation. What is clear, however, is that the vaunted green-energy transformation will never be equal to the task before us.
Bonner Russell Cohen, Ph. D., is a senior policy analyst with the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).
From the Fraser Institute
In case you haven’t heard, the Trudeau government has proposed a new set of “Clean Electricity Regulations” (CERs) to purportedly reduce the use of fossil fuels in generating electricity. Basically, the CERs would establish new standards for the generation of electricity, limiting the amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted in the process, and would apply to any unit that uses fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, oil) to generate electricity.
The CERs would hit hardest provinces that rely on fossil fuels to generate electricity: Alberta (89 per cent fossil fuels), Saskatchewan (81 per cent), Nova Scotia (76 per cent) and New Brunswick (30 per cent). Not so much Ontario (7 per cent) and Quebec (1 per cent), which are blessed with vast hydro potential.
In theory, the government has been in “consultation” with electricity producers and the provinces that will be most impacted by the CERs, although some doubt the government’s sincerity.
For example, according to Francis Bradley, CEO of Electricity Canada, which advocates for electricity companies, there is “insufficient time to analyze and provide feedback that could meaningfully impact the regulatory design” adding that the “engagement process has failed to achieve its purpose.” And consequently, the current design of the CERS may impose “significant impairments to the reliability of the electricity system and severe affordability impacts in many parts of the country.”
This was not the first time folks observed a lack of meaningful consultation over the CERs. Earlier this year, Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz told CBC that an update to the CERs made “no meaningful corrections to the most destructive piece of Canadian electricity regulation in decades” and that CERs “would jeopardize reliability and affordability of power in the province.”
Simply put, with CERs the Trudeau government is gambling with high stakes—namely, the ability of Canadians to access reliable affordable electricity. Previous efforts at decarbonizing electrical systems in Ontario and around the world suggest that such efforts are relatively slow to develop, are expensive, and are often accompanied by periods of electrical system destabilization.
In Ontario, for example, while the provincial government removed coal-generation from its electricity generation from 2010 to 2016, Ontario’s residential electricity costs increased by 71 per cent, far outpacing the 34 per cent average growth in electricity prices across Canada at the time. In 2016, Toronto residents paid $60 more per month than the average Canadian for electricity. And between 2010 and 2016, large industrial users in Toronto and Ottawa experienced cost spikes of 53 per cent and 46 per cent, respectively, while the average increase in electric costs for the rest of Canada was only 14 per cent. Not encouraging stats, if you live in province targeted by CERs.
Reportedly, the Trudeau government plans to release a final version of the new CERs rules by the end of this year. Clearly, in light of the government’s failure to meaningfully consult with the electrical-generation sector and the provinces, the CERs should be put on hold to allow for longer and more sincere efforts to consult before these regulations go into effect and become too entrenched for reform by a future government.
Otherwise, Canadians may pay a steep price for Trudeau’s gamble.
Author:
Haulage bridge at Cando Rail & Terminals’ Sturgeon Terminal in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland, near Edmonton. Photo courtesy Cando Rail & Terminals
From the Canadian Energy Centre
By Will Gibson
Cando Rail & Terminals to invest $200 million to support Dow’s Path2Zero petrochemical complex
A major rail hub in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland will double in size to support a new carbon-neutral plastic production facility, turning the terminal into the largest of its kind in the country.
Cando Rail & Terminals will invest $200 million at its Sturgeon Terminal after securing Dow Chemical as an anchor tenant for its expanded terminal, which will support the planned $8.9 billion Path2Zero petrochemical complex being built in the region northeast of Edmonton.
“Half of the terminal expansion will be dedicated to the Dow project and handle the products produced at the Path2Zero complex,” says Steve Bromley, Cando’s chief commercial officer.
Steve Bromley, chief commercial officer with Cando Rail & Terminals.
By incorporating carbon capture and storage, the complex, which began construction this spring, is expected to be the world’s first to produce polyethylene with net zero scope 1 and 2 emissions.
The widely used plastic’s journey to global markets will begin by rail.
“Dow stores their polyethylene in covered railcars while waiting to sell it,” Bromley says.
“When buyers purchase it, we will build unit trains and those cars will go to the Port of Prince Rupert and eventually be shipped to their customers in Asia.”
A “unit train” is a single train where all the cars carry the same commodity to the same destination.
The expanded Cando terminal will have the capacity to prepare 12,000-foot unit trains – or trains that are more than three-and-a-half kilometers long.
Construction will start on the expansion in 2025 at a 320-acre site west of Cando’s existing terminal, which 20 industrial customers use to stage and store railcars as well as assemble unit trains.
Bromley, a former CP Rail executive who joined Cando in 2013, says the other half of the terminal’s capacity not used by the Dow facility will be sold to other major projects in the region.
The announcement is the latest in a series of investments for Cando to grow its operations in Alberta that will see the company spend more than $500 million by 2027.
The company, which is majority owned by the Alberta Investment Management Corporation previously spent $100 million to acquire a 1,700-railcar facility in Lethbridge along with $150 million to build its existing Sturgeon terminal.
Cando Rail’s existing Sturgeon Terminal near Edmonton, Alberta. Photo courtesy Cando Rail & Terminals
“Alberta is important to us – we have 300 active employees in this province and handle 900,000 railcars annually here,” Bromley says.
“But we are looking for opportunities across North America, both in Canada and the United States as well.”
Cando released the news of the Sturgeon Terminal expansion at the Alberta Industrial Heartland Association’s annual conference on Sept. 19.
“This is an investment in critical infrastructure that underpins additional growth in the region,” says Mark Plamondon, the association’s executive director.
The announcement came as the association marked its 25th anniversary at the event, which Plamondon saw as fitting.
“Dow’s Path2Zero came to the region because of the competitive advantages gained by clustering heavy industry. Competitive advantages are built from infrastructure that’s already here, such as the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line, which transports and stores carbon dioxide for industry,” he says.
“Having that level of integration can turn inputs into one operation into outputs for another. Competitive advantages for one become advantages for others. Cando’s investment will attract others just as Dow’s Path2Zero was a pull for additional investment.”
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