Michael Bloomberg Backs Renewable Power In New Op-Ed

Michael Bloomberg is not any dope. He’s made some huge cash, been mayor of New York Metropolis, seen a factor or two in the midst of his life’s journey. Yesterday, the teletype machine at CleanTechnica world headquarters excessive within the Himalayas sprang into motion to tell us he had a brand new opinion piece popping out this morning that may make the case for extra renewable power and fewer electrical energy from thermal technology. Here’s a transient perception into what Michael Bloomberg has to say on that topic.

When freezing temperatures within the southeastern US led to blackouts over the vacations, some pointed their fingers at clear power. That line of assault — photo voltaic panels and wind generators are much less dependable in storms than coal and gasoline crops — has grow to be predictable. However it’s useless flawed, and it’s necessary to know why, to keep away from permitting a canard to gradual the push for cleaner air and bolder local weather motion.

The problem of electrical energy reliability is an important one and is rightly on the heart of power debates. Blackouts from storms can result in struggling and dying: In western New York final month, 9 residents died after energy failures minimize off warmth to their properties. Blackouts additionally end in steep financial losses. Avoiding them ought to be a high precedence.

The commonest explanation for blackouts — downed energy traces — can also be essentially the most seen. However there may be one supply of power that safeguards towards that hazard: rooftop photo voltaic. If a tree takes down wires, or the power grid fails for different causes, photo voltaic panels with batteries will help households and companies climate a blackout.

It’s true that on-site photo voltaic will not be sensible for each dwelling, but it surely’s viable in much more locations than generally imagined. And the principle purpose extra properties and companies don’t have their very own photo voltaic panels is political: States and localities have made it unnecessarily troublesome to acquire photo voltaic permits, and utilities have lobbied to dam Individuals from promoting their extra energy again onto the grid or pressure them into accepting costs far beneath what the utilities obtain for transmitting the identical items of energy.

Because of this, the general public is paying a steep value: in greater electrical payments, harmful blackouts, dangerous air pollution that kills hundreds of Individuals yearly, and adjustments to the local weather which might be making excessive climate — and the struggling that it brings — worse.

The second-largest explanation for electrical energy outages throughout excessive climate is manufacturing failure. And as soon as once more, renewable power has benefits over coal and gasoline in extreme climate.

Singing The Praises Of Renewable Power

Rooftop photo voltaic at IKEA retailer in Baltimore. Picture courtesy of DSD Renewables through CNN

Bloomberg’s message is one which we right here at CleanTechnica have been selling for years, but it surely requires a paradigm shift in how we take into consideration electrical energy. Ever because the daybreak of electrical energy — again when folks used to gentle their properties with gasoline lights and energy their factories with steam — the mannequin has been to construct a big thermal producing system someplace out within the boondocks the place few would see it, then ship all that pretty electrical energy alongside wires to the cities and cities the place it was wanted.

However renewables disrupt that hub and spoke mannequin. House house owners and small companies can harvest electrical energy from photo voltaic panels on the roof and retailer it on website in batteries. However as a result of utilities have a monopoly on producing electrical energy, it’s unlawful for one dwelling proprietor or enterprise to share that electrical energy with others. The monopoly concept made sense 100 years in the past. No person wished to see six units of poles and wires from six completely different electrical energy firms cluttering up the skyline. However what made sense then makes much less sense at present. Again then, there was no alternative for people to generate their very own electrical energy. As we speak there may be.

The Allowing Downside

Writing in Bloomberg Inexperienced this morning, Nathaniel Bullard extols the coverage initiatives contained within the Inflation Reduction Act, however then asks some pertinent questions.

“What if deploying every little thing the IRA guarantees isn’t doable by means of know-how, or cash, or willpower? What if, as an alternative, it comes up towards a massively distributed blocking mechanism — a collective incapacity to navigate new property by means of sclerotic planning and permission schedules?

“I hope this isn’t the trail. However whether it is, many carbon-cutting efforts will go unrealized as a result of we fairly actually couldn’t plan for them. It will be unlucky to pin basic local weather progress not on lack of know-how, or capital, or constructive curiosity, however somewhat on languor at greatest and opposition at worst.”

Bullard addresses one thing that Bloomberg glosses over. Connecting renewables from one a part of the nation to a different a part of the nation would require large investments in new transmission lines that are themselves the weak hyperlink in any power distribution system. Simply ask Puerto Rico what occurred when its transmission traces have been destroyed by a hurricane in 2019. Bullard suggests repurposing decommissioned thermal producing crops as renewable power hubs as a result of a) they’re often out of sight, b) they want website remediation anyway, and c) they have already got strong transmission hyperlinks to the grid.

Once we put our collective heads collectively right here at CleanTechnica (not a reasonably sight!), we expect Michael Bloomberg is true and Nathaniel Bullard is true, however in the perfect of all doable worlds, we want to see a surge in microgrids that make renewable power regionally and distribute it regionally. Positive there can be interconnections between all these microgrids, however they’d be used solely when completely obligatory.

That could be a complete disruption of the electrical energy technology and distribution mannequin however it’s bringing electrical energy to many components of Africa and bypassing the utility grid totally. Why couldn’t the remainder of the world do the identical?

Microgrid

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