Clean Energy Economics

It is the Economic underlying fact that we already have all the money needed for a fully equitable transition to Clean Energy — we just have to stop giving that $$ away to the fossil industry every month and instead invest it in the transition!

The Professional Engineering Barrier to #RealClimateAction

Net Zero Foundation won “Judges’ Choice” for our Major Proposal at MIT for 100% elimination of GHG from their campus, showing how any campus or cluster of buildings can be converted off of fossil fuels Rapidly and so Economically it would be “Effectively Free”.  This basic Clean Energy Economics is slowly being understood by more and more, with even the DOE now providing good information on converting to Net Zero Energy and Zser Carbon Buildings. 

However, even smart organizations like MIT are yet to understand that this is true.  They and people everywhere are trusting old school engineers who simply don’t “believe” what they don’t know and are not willing to learn.  This is one of the BIG problems as we go forward — that the existing engineers and decision makers don’t understand even the basics about energy, economics, and how to intelligently transition off fossil.  We lay out a couple of the issues here.  We also run a continuing Twitter Feed under @NetZeroFound that you can trust to include key climate, tech, economic, and policy information on the now underway Energy Revolution to Clean Energy.

Understanding Grid Decarbonization – Thermal Energy Storage

This 6-panel graphic shows how Lowest-Cost Grid Decarbonization will likely include low temp Thermal Energy Storage together with PV and Batteries. Graph 1 shows an example Winter Peak Generation load by Duke Energy in Asheville NC. The data has been re-stacked to show the highly weather/outdoor temperature related Residential HVAC load — the single largest challenge for full Grid Decarbonization.

Graph 2 shows, specifically for Asheville, the expected growth of the winter grid peak assuming HVAC electrification with moderate efficiency Heat Pumps. Graphs 3-4 show the general affect of Solar PV’s “Duck Curve” effect on the load. Graph 5 shows the effect of integrating low grade “thermal batteries” with the residential heat pumps — for example a common cistern water tank buried in the front yard. Note how even with a projected over 50% growth of the residential HVAC grid load, applying some simple thermal storage could contain the winter peak load to that already experienced today! Graph 6 shows how the optimal residential HVAC, Geothermal Heat Pumps (GHP), can bring a fundamental advancement for Grid Decarbonization if we simply understand the benefits and line up the financing to ensure such upgrades are a ‘profit from day one’. This last panel is exactly what all new school and government builds are implementing — GHP which inherently includes Thermal Storage in the ground.