New Jersey Approves Highest per Capita Solar Commitment

[jpak]

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story;jsessionid=4B72DD5C59E0CC47FE77DB457EDBFE98?id=44648

if this link doesn't work, use this one and scroll down to "Recent Top Stories"....

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/home

Trenton, New Jersey New Jersey, which could boast the best solar energy rebates in the nation, now also offers one of the best statewide renewable energy mandates -- including the highest per capita solar energy requirement. The move is expected to usher in new wind power, biomass and ocean energy projects.

"Strengthening the RPS will ensure the continued transformation of New Jersey's energy market."-- Jeanne M. Fox, New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, President

Last week, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) voted to approve new regulations that expand the State's Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) by extending the existing goals out to 2020 and vastly increasing the required amount of renewable energy and solar energy.

Under the newly adopted regulations, 20 percent of New Jersey's electricity must come from renewable sources by 2020. The new regulations also include a 2-percent solar set-aside, which is forecast to require approximately 1500 MW, the nation's largest solar commitment relative to population and electricity consumption. The new goal will continue to spur market development and is considered the largest solar goal in the country on a per capita basis (exceeded only by California, which is four times the size of New Jersey in population and electricity consumption).

<more>

[phantom power]

1. Why does NJ have such aggressive renewable programs?

If you asked me to guess a state with the most agressive renewable subsidies, etc, NJ would never have come to mind. There must be some particular political dynamic going on here.

[kestrel91316]

2. Yeah, there is. It's called a "social conscience". Novel concept, eh?

[phantom power]

3. So, people in NJ are more enlightened? Is it the water?

[kestrel91316]

4. Judging from this they sure as hell appear to be.

[phantom power]

5. Yes, but the gist of my original question was... why?

These things don't happen in a vacuum. Is it their legislators? Is it the grass-roots? Is it that NJ has a history of environmental activism that I never learned about? Is it that they are afraid to lose their nick name "garden state?"

[kestrel91316]

6. Maybe the RW is losing power and can't hold back the tidal wave anymore??

[jpak]

7. There's probably more truth to that than you think

:)

Blue and Purple States are leading the way with Renewable Portfolio Standards. More than 20 states so far have enacted these programs. They aren't waiting around for the Bush administration or the GOP Congress to "do something" about renewable energy.

http://www.eere.energy.gov/states/maps/renewable_portfolio_states.cfm#map

The NY Times also had an interesting graphic last week on the politics of gas prices....states where the Chimp did best in the last election had the highest per capita gasoline consumption whereas states where Kerry did the best had the lowest per capita gasoline consumption (~40% lower than the reddest states).

and - in an article published the previous week, the NYT reported that all but one of the proposed new nuclear plants subsidized by the Bush/GOP Energy Bill were located in red states south the Mason Dixon (the exception was a proposed plant in Illinois).

So, yes, there is a political and cultural divide in this country regarding energy issues....

[phantom power]

8. I wonder if that's another manifestation of the urban/rural divide.

One of the best graphics I saw from the 2004 elections was that the real divide between red/blue isn't by state, it's by rural versus urban areas. If you separate by rural/urban, there is very little "purple."

Urban residents use less gas per capita. They use more public transportation, and drive shorter distances than rural residents.

[dcfirefighter]

13. I'm a huge fan of urbanization

but real urbanization, not 'suburbanization'.

I'm of the opinion that if we left rural areas unpaved, unsewered, and unelectrified, we'd see an end to sprawl.

[phantom power]

14. My magic 8-ball agrees...

very few people would live where there are no roads, plumbing or electricity :-)

[NNadir]

9. The real reason is the same reason these things happen anywhere.

A politician can always get a bye for promising stuff that will

1) Cost nothing.

2) Sound good.

3) Do little.

4) Give rich donors a tax break.

5) Make promises about and requirements for people to follow decades off, people who will not vote for you and will not even remember who you were if you're a legislator. (Yes all politicians like to "sock it to" our kids.)

I live in New Jersey, and have done so for more than a decade. It's not like this is a solar energy heaven. Two years ago there were zero solar homes in my town - which is by the way, a wealthy town. Now there are three such houses, all owned by people who are well off.

I'm sure there are a few somewhere, but I have never seen a windmill in this state.

Note that New Jersey requires the state to produce 2% of its energy by "solar" means by 2020.

I can imagine that a proposal to build windmills off our coast (which by the way I would actively support) will probably go the way of Cape Wind.

http://www.eere.energy.gov/news/news_detail.cfm/news_id=9922

Much of the "renewable" requirement for the other 20% will probably be that old New Jersey standby trash burning which is classified, for some reason, as a renewable resource by the Department of Energy.

In any case, producing 20% of New Jersey's energy by renewable means - marketing scams aside - means that 80% of the energy will come by other means. What are those other means?

We are very fortunate in New Jersey to have 4 operating nuclear power plants, Salem units 1 and 2, Oyster Creek, and Hope Creek. In 2005 these plants produced 0.11 exajoules of energy, more than the entire solar energy output of the United States as a whole, including California.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_generation/usreact05.xls

These plants produced 48% of our electricity in 2004 and 53% in 2003. If we were able to actually produce 20% of our electricity from renewable means (and no one would object to renewable energy actually doing - for once - what its advocates promise) that would leave 30% of our energy as coming from fossil fuels. This is unacceptable - given the tragedy of fossil fuels - a tragedy the magnitude of which is only now just being understood fully.

It is only acceptable to plan for the elimination as quickly as possible, of fossil fuels. This is why New Jersey must plan on building several more nuclear stations, joining the international rush to expand this capacity.

The renewable industry - even if it does as promised - cannot even begin to grasp a problem of this magnitude.

As it stands now 4% of New Jersey's electrical energy was demonstrated by "other" means. The amount of renewable energy produced in New Jersey in January 2005 (all of it by independent producers by the way - none by utilities) was 0.00038 exajoules, which if you time weight to give an annual amount (based on January), is 0.004 exajoules or 0.1% of what we produced by nuclear means.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epmxlfile1_14_a.xls#_ftnref4

Again, this includes our garbage incinerators. Probably the case is not much different than it was in 2002, if one speaks of relative proportions of "renewable" energy.

In 2002 our "renewable" portfolio was as follows: We produced 1,326,617 thousand kilowatt-hours (0.048 exajoules) of "renewable" energy in that year. Of this 1,314,587 thousand kilowatt-hours was landfill gas and municipal trash burning. This means that 99.0% of the renewable energy in the state of New Jersey in that year was from garbage.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/trends.pdf

(The data is in table 15.)

Only a portion of our garbage is truly "renewable," in the sense that it is derived from non-fossil fuel sources. Much of it is plastic, largely derived from the unacceptable fossil fuels, petroleum and natural gas.

[jpak]

10. Yes - every homeowner in NJ that currently heats with NG should

sign up for NJ's Green Electricity program, switch to electric heat and save the collapsing atmosphere.

But my guess is they won't...

[NNadir]

11. Electric heaters are becoming increasingly popular here.

We bought quite a few electrical space heating units units this winter, and did quite well with them.

I recall that when I discussed this, someone offered some drivel about how New Jersey's electrical lines would collapse, but it didn't happen.

We also burned a fair amount of wood in our home - a dirty option - but not as bad as natural gas, but we reasoned that the downed trees were going to rot in any case, releasing their carbon dioxide, so we accepted the added risk.

I agree that New Jerseyans should use electricity to heat our homes. We have some of the cleanest electricity in the United States, since roughly 50% of our power is nuclear. One nice thing about electrical space heaters is that they are essentially zone heating devices. You only need heat the room you are in. In New Jersey, you are also using for 50% of your energy a fuel that does not contribute to global climate change when you heat with electricity.

[jpak]

12. With Green Electricity - you would be 100% low-CO2

why bother with environmentally destructive 50% nuclear / 50% fossil electricity????

The emergency is now.....

[NNadir]

15. What Green electricity?

The kind that no one can afford? You mean the rich toys for rich boys? You mean banks of lead batteries?

There is only one kind of "green electricity" available on an exajoule scale: Nuclear electricity.

The emergency is now. We need to build more nuclear stations PDQ.

[jpak]

16. New Jersey has a Clean Power Choice Program

that allows consumers to purchase electricity from renewable low-carbon emission sources...(e.g., 50% low impact hydro, 50% wind)...

It costs ~ $7-20 a month more than atmosphere collapsing 50% fossil/50% nuclear juice.

http://www.njcleanpower.com/

http://www.njcleanenergy.com/html/5library/pr_cleanpower.html

http://www.eere.energy.gov/state_energy_program/news_detail.cfm/news_id=9920

http://www.greenmountain.com/nj/

http://www.environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?ContentID=770

http://www.green-e.org/media_ed/12newjersey.html

It's the clean energy choice of those who REALLY want to combat global warming....

[NNadir]

17. You are confusing marketing with power production.

New Jersey does NOT have renewable capacity and this is a program that is not buying power but funding the grand renewable fantasy.

The CleanPower Choice Program from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities' Office of Clean Energy is a statewide program that allows you to support the development of clean, renewable sources of energy. By choosing CleanPower, you're choosing to support the generation of renewable energy sources that diversify our energy supply and help create a healthier environment. Solar power. Wind power. Low-impact or small hydro power. Landfill gas power. Clean power, that's good for New Jersey and will always be there for us.

Bold face mine.

As part of the fraud they include the words "solar" "wind" and put the big word "land fill gas" last and don't tell you that garbage incinerators help them make their goal.

It will do nothing immediately. There are no huge wind facilities in New Jersey. Personally I would be willing to see them built, but there is NO plans to build any such plants on a tenth of an exajoule scale.

More than likely this is another Green Mountain Energy scam, like that of Sam Wyly, the fellow who in 2000 spent 2.5 million dollars of Green Mountain Energy money promoting what a wonderful environmentalist Texas Governor George W. Bush was.

As ususal, you are confusing a promise with reality. New Jersey as a state is broke. If we want clean safe energy hear we should stop confusing fantasy with reality and approve two or three more nuclear plants. That we can afford. In this way we can more or less eliminate New Jersey's contribution to global warming from electrical generation, much as the State of Vermont has done.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/states/statesvt.html

I have fleshed out in clear numbers what the "renewable" portion of energy in New Jersey is, in Post# 9. I have shown from the figures that what is renewable in New Jersey is not very much solar energy at all: As is always the case, "solar" gets the biggest shouting attached to it at the same time that it produces the most trivial amount of energy and burning garbage actually produces the most renewable energy. In fact burning garbage is 99% of the "renewable" portion here.

I don't want more garbage incinerators in New Jersey. I want clean and safe energy. I want nuclear energy.

Sorry bub, but I'm not giving 7 to 20 bucks a month to your church. I don't do religions.

[jpak]

18. I'm not confusing anything

When you sign up for NJ's Clean Power Choice, you buy from electricity produced from green certified production facilities in the mid-Atlantic region.

Garbage incinerators are not certified for this program.

Electricity brokers buy electricity from certified generators and sell it to CPC consumers - all perfectly transparent business transactions.

Those that REALLY want to do something about global warming will participate in this program - those that want to wait around for new nuclear power plants to come on line in NJ will be waiting for a long long time...

[NNadir]

19. Maybe you can show us where this capacity exists?

Or does energy consist wholly of words?

Or is this another one of those schemes in which 5 people sign up - generate 8000 website posts and all sorts of photographs, and gets represented as a "solution?"

Would it be like the time someone on this website linked an admiring diatribe about the Norwegian Island of Utsira - showing that "an industrial" wind based hydrogen facility was being built, a system that, when you looked into it, actually provided for 10 homes on wind based hydrogen (at a cost of 40 million Norwegian Kroner?

New Jersey, according to the census bureau, has 3,372,000 households. Is it the contention of the renewable crowd that if all of them signed up, they would be able to meet the demand without burning garbage?

I really don't believe any thing you "certify."

A project that is overwhelmed by 5 people isn't worth shit. In 2004, the United States as a whole produced 1.29 exajoules of renewable energy, of which 0.97 exajoules was hydroelectric power.

Read it and weep: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/table11.html

So, we see, that all other "renewables" combined, including burning garbage, produced 0.32 exajoules. Deducting the garbage burning requires that we remove another 0.07 exajoules from this figure, leaving 0.25 exajoules of renewable energy, biomass, wind, geothermal, solar only, for entire United States.

In January of this year, New Jersey produced 5,048 thousand megawatt-hours of electricity, which annualizes out to 0.21 exajoules of busbar electricity.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table1_6_a.html

Thus the entire renewable production of the United States, the remainder being dominated by wood and wood products, is therefore just barely capable of providing the power of New Jersey. And now you want to sell everyone in New Jersey, and get them to pay for this.

The entire renewable game right now is mostly fraudulent salesmenship. The energy ain't there. Of course there are lots of salesmen who try to sell what isn't there. They're called scammers.

[jpak]

20. You can contact the NJ Board of Public Utilities and ask them yourself

[e-mail]

or Connectiv Energy

[phone]

or Green Mountain Energy

http://www.greenmountain.com/contact/index.jsp#NJ

I am sure they will be glad to hear from you.

The NJBPU certifies Green Power Choice generators - I do not.

http://www.eere.energy.gov/greenpower/buying/buying_power.shtml?state=NJ&print

Furthermore, since October 2005, more than 3000 customers have signed up for NJ-CPC...

http://www.electricenergyonline.com/IndustryNews.asp?m=1&id=49049

That's a little more than "5 people isn't worth shit".

:)

Also, you are misrepresenting a previous post of mine.

Norsk Hydro has been using hydro-power to produce industrial quantities of hydrogen from electrolysis since 1928 - the Utsira project went on-lne in 2004.

Apples and oranges

[NNadir]

21. Thanks for the link to Sam Wyly's Green Mountain Company.

Since Sam Wyly is the guy who spent 2.5 million bucks running the ads about what a great Environmentalist George W. Bush is, http://www.boycottgreenmountain.com/, I think I understand where exactly the fraud originates from. Green Mountain has been running fraudulent political campaigns and fraudulent marketing campaigns for quite some time.

Now, I hear alot about "BushCo" on this site in the form of a "guilt by association" argument, but Sam Wyly is one of the beasts who helped create George W. Bush, and I agree (emphatically) with the Green Mountain Boycott. I will not, however, reverse my support for new wind facilities, including new ones that may be built here in New Jersey (I hope they are) because the "renewable" company here happens to be certified BushCo.

Instead of calling the NJ Public Utilities office, maybe I should call the consumer fraud division.

Again, the numbers are not there, and I'm not funding the Bush campaign or your religion.

I have already shown in my previous post that the entire United States does not produce enough renewable energy to power New Jersey, and I have already said I don't fall for scams.

The Utsira project was represented - in a little sleight of hand - as a project showing that wind powered hydrogen is industrially available as stored energy. It is not. The 40 million (roughly $5M US) NOK Utsira/hydrogen project is a pilot serving 10 homes.

In theory, hydrogen can be produced by electrolysis where electricity is very cheap, such as in places where there is hydro power. In fact though there are zero places on earth where wind based hydrogen has industrial importance.

[jpak]

22. Then buy your Green Power from Connectiv Energy

problem solved...

:)

BTW, the claim that "the "renewable" company here happens to be certified BushCo." is false.

[NNadir]

23. Sorry, bub, I don't do bait-and-switch. I'm not a dumb Repuke.

The power in New Jersey has clear sources, which I have detailed in a post that apparently is beyond your background to understand.

I am happy to some extent because my power here is cleaner than most: 50% roughly is nuclear.

I would rather buy power in a place like Vermont, where between 70-80% of the power is nuclear, but I'll take what I can get.

But I'm not buying into any frauds today.

Any "renewable" scheme in New Jersey is by definition "bait and switch" since the energy in the power lines is derived by the laws of physics and not by marketing scams. No wonder that Green Mountain promoted George W. Bush as President. They brought "bait and switch" to a new level.

Personally I would be thrilled if New Jersey's power were produced by the cleanest possible means. But it's not. Indeed I have been very vocal about supporting the cleanest means known, which is nuclear and wind power. We're only 50% nuclear, 4% garbage burning and less than 1% wind, solar, geothermal, and wood burning. Although wind power of course, is a tiny fraction of the available energy in the United States, it definitely has potential to displace some natural gas. However it seems the wind industry is being stopped in a lot of places by NIMBY. I will fight any such NIMBY anti-wind attitudes here to the best of my ability, but I'm not optimistic.

I tell many people here about my support for nuclear energy, and more and more and more, I get positive replies. Most people understand reality - and some fall prey to cheap marketing and wishful thinking. Indeed locals write pro-nuclear letters to the editor here once in a while. I used to be the only one doing that.

[jpak]

25. Beyond my background to understand???

Don't think so.

By rejecting NJ's Clean Power Program, 32% of your electricity will be generated from natural gas, 14% generated from coal and 1% from oil (~47% from fossil fuels).

I will repeat this again...

If you purchased NJCPC electricity, 100% of your electricity would be generated from low-carbon renewable sources.

Some people, however, will choose coal, oil and natural gas - and global warming - over wind, small hydro, landfill methane, PV and biomass.

Here's some more NJCPC options - none generated from coal....

http://www.sterlingplanet.com/buyNJ.php

(33% new wind, 33% small hydro, 34% new biomass)

http://www.newwindenergy.com/buywind/home/new_jersey/step2_new_jersey.html

(50% wind, 1% solar, 49% small hydro)

Jersey-Atlantic Wind LLC

http://www.njwind.com/product.html

(100% New Jersey wind)

[NNadir]

26. Um, are we talking about the electron sorters again?

Is this like the Danish customs agents who sort out the Swedish and German nuclear electrons and only buy hydroelectric electrons from Norway?.

I can tell you that my opinion of your background is firmed by this bit of credulous thinking.

Take your three card monty game and try to sell it to someone from the backwoods, bub. I was born in New York, and I know a "bait and switch" game when I see it.

These guys are "selling" power at nearly a 100% surcharge, and they don't have the capacity to deliver to more than a tiny fraction of New Jersey's customers.

From your New Jersey "Wind" link:

The wind farm will supply around 20 million kilowatt hours total of emissionfree electricity to the wastewater plant and to the regional power grid. Upon completion, the wind farm will produce enough emissionfree
electricity to power over 2,500 homes each year, the carbon dioxide emissionoffset
equivalent of planting almost 1.5 million trees, or not driving over 19 million miles.

Maybe you think there are only 2,500 homes in New Jersey, and that all of them turn their lights out when the wind isn't blowing in Atlantic City?

Sign up now! The first 2,500 buyers get...?!?

The next 2,000,000 buyers get scammed.

It's a scam, pure and simple.

I live in New Jersey. I love this state. But let's be frank, New Jersey is the most corrupt state in the Union, which is why people are buying into the Wyly scam here. It's like those emails you get from the former Defense Minister of Nigeria who holds $55 million in diamonds, or the deal where if you send $500,000 to this "illegal alien" who can't cash his lottery ticket, he'll send you a ticket worth $89 million.

[Dead_Parrot]

24. As a sideline...

How the hell do power co.s get away with charging extra for wind? Over it's lifetime, a $500,000 turbine will generate over $2 million worth of electricity - or an average of ~11% pa return on investment, excluding maintenance.

Hydro's not quite as good, but with a long lifetime you're still a winner.

I wish someone would pay me extra to make a guaranteed 11% pa. Am I missing something obvious here?