[dohboi]

Largest City In Vermont Now Gets All Its Power From Wind, Water And Biomass

(Who says I only post doom and gloom?! )

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/0 ... ble-power/

The 42,000 people living in Burlington, Vermont can now feel confident that when they turn on their TVs or power up their computers they are using renewable energy. With the purchase of the 7.4 megawatt Winooski One hydroelectric project earlier this month, the Burlington Electric Department now owns or contracts renewable sources — including wind, hydro, and biomass — equivalent to the city’s needs...

Vermont has a statewide goal of getting 90 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2050, including electricity, heating, and transportation.

I think I may have to move to VT! Watch out, vtsnowedin; the hippy hordes are coming at ya!

[Graeme]

D, Had a little chuckle at your first comment! Nice to see that you're thinking about renewables.

[vtsnowedin]

D, Had a little chuckle at your first comment! Nice to see that you're thinking about renewables.

Too late on avoiding the Hippies. They came in in 1968 and have had a majority in the Burlington area ever sense. They solidly hold the legislature and of course their fearless leader is Berny Sanders our Socialist Senator.
BED is crowing about going all renewable but My co op WEC beat them to it by a couple of years. We are only a quarter the size of BED and get the largest share of our power by burning the methane coming out of the states largest land fill. Both get power from Hydro Quebec, NY Niagara falls and the Connecticut river hydro.

[KaiserJeep]

When somebody builds a city with renewable energy sources, from materials mined and manufactured from renewable sources, using machines and tools made entirely from renewable materials using renewable energy, and everything is transported to the site with renewable energy, I'll be impressed.

Because all of the materials, buildings, machines, and tools we use today are embodied fossil fuel energy. Which is why Vermont's announcement is so misleading. As an intermediate step it is not even impressive, because renewables cost more than fossil fuel energy by a considerable margin. Which means that actually the Burlington city government extorted more taxes than were required to do the job from it's citizens to accomplish a meaningless goal, thus proving conclusively they were incompetents.

The politicians in Burlington deserve nothing less than impeachment and should be tried in court to see if their incompetence rose to the level of criminal mismanagement of public funds.

Take away message: stay out of Vermont, the place is a zoo.

[dohboi]

I like the zoo! How 'bout you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xKLBne1CoI

[KaiserJeep]

Telling the plain truth is not mean spirited. The concept of embodied energy is not trivial and not unimportant. Unless we all understand how high the hill is that we have to climb, we will never reach the top.

Seriously, everybody here at PO.com is equipped to understand how foolish the government of Burlington is, and how meaningless was their goal. The biggest problem is that now they will sit back and feel smug, because they have achieved their goal, and there is nothing left to do. In fact, there are almost endless numbers of huge and complex tasks remaining to build a society free from fossil fuels, with a technology that still advances, and a society that still innovates.

I guess my biggest problem with what Burlington has done is that they have consumed more resources than were required to get the job done, and misled their citizens with false hopes. We should not waste energy, or materials, or human effort on meaningless goals, when there are so very many meaningful things that need doing.

pstarr, if you really feel that people like to pay taxes, I invite you to form a government paid for entirely with voluntary contributions. What I think happens, is that involuntary taxation always increases, until good men and true are forced to take up arms and declare independence.

[vtsnowedin]

When somebody builds a city with renewable energy sources, from materials mined and manufactured from renewable sources, using machines and tools made entirely from renewable materials using renewable energy, and everything is transported to the site with renewable energy, I'll be impressed.

Rome ,London , Paris and Burlington before 1850 come first to mind!

Because all of the materials, buildings, machines, and tools we use today are embodied fossil fuel energy. Which is why Vermont's announcement is so misleading. As an intermediate step it is not even impressive, because renewables cost more than fossil fuel energy by a considerable margin. Which means that actually the Burlington city government extorted more taxes than were required to do the job from it's citizens to accomplish a meaningless goal, thus proving conclusively they were incompetents.

The politicians in Burlington deserve nothing less than impeachment and should be tried in court to see if their incompetence rose to the level of criminal mismanagement of public funds.

Take away message: stay out of Vermont, the place is a zoo.

The largest share of Burlingtons power is purchased from Hydo -Quebec and NY Pasny power (Niagara falls). It is very price competitive. The only high cost power they buy is wind which everybody is having shoved down their throats.
But hey feel free to stay away. It's crowded enough here already for what is in the future.

[KaiserJeep]

-snip-
Rome ,London , Paris and Burlington before 1850 come first to mind!

-snip-
The largest share of Burlingtons power is purchased from Hydo -Quebec and NY Pasny power (Niagara falls). It is very price competitive. The only high cost power they buy is wind which everybody is having shoved down their throats.
But hey feel free to stay away. It's crowded enough here already for what is in the future.

Don't be foolish, steel tools were invented in the Middle Ages, not the 19th century. Before 1850 there were steel tools, coal mining, steel smelting, and even steam engines. In fact, electric automobiles were invented in the 1820's - although those were powered with chemical wet cells, and the idea was not practical until the rechargeable battery in 1859.

As for older cities like Rome and London, they were pestholes and promoted endless epidemics until medicine and sanitation came about. If you have ever smelled any of the cities with open sanitary sewers, you would not regard them with favor - the most memorable thing about Ancient Rome or London was the smell, and cities were always built on rivers so the open sewers had a place to dump human waste. Even in America until the 19th Century. Basicly the impact of unplanned cities was the Dark Ages.

The Industrial revolution began in the 1600's with water and wind powered wooden looms to make cloth. The displeased weaver's guild members put their wooden shoes (sabots) into such looms, thus arose the term "sabotage".

[Simon_R]

KJ

It seems you are making assumptions as to the motivation for going renewable, I am not saying I know the communes motivation.
Maybe they are simply intent on cutting emissions ?

the Dark ages were brought about by the collapse of the roman empire, nothing else, and here in france we opened our first universities within 100 years of the collapse ... so not a long lived thing really

whilst cities were indeed smelly they did not need to be, the romans had sewerage systems.

Steel was indeed may by using coal, but iron could be made by using 'white coal' ... essentially pre-dried oak, our ancestors were a pretty ingenious lot

[KaiserJeep]

Interesting historical facts, but off point.

I say again Burlington's leadership set a meaningless goal and spent money unwisely to achieve that goal. Their energy supplies are not 100% renewables because of all the embodied fossil energy in the infrastructure that collects and delivers such energy. They deliberately chose a higher priced form of energy to consume, which was not a wise financial choice. Then they misled people into thinking that something meaningful had come about. Only fools would agree.

[Herr Meier]

I say again Burlington's leadership set a meaningless goal and spent money unwisely to achieve that goal. would agree.

No they did not. The Winooski dam sits right next to Burlington, pretty much walking distance in town. It's shameful that it was not used to it's potential since much longer.
Every effort to utilize local resources and localization in general is welcome, even if the cost are a bit higher. Gives a sense of pride, community, achievement. And being less dependent on sources 100s of miles away is good on all accounts.

[ROCKMAN]

Kudos to the utility folks for getting more affordable power to their customers. But a little reality check for those who might not have read the entire story.

“We’re now in a position where we’re supplying Burlington residents with sources that are renewable”. No…they aren’t “supplying” the energy…they are buying it from other folks who produce the energy. From what I can find the folks in Burlington haven’t invested $1 into building out renewables.

And as the piece makes clear 1/3 of the renewable energy comes from burning hydrocarbons: "The McNeil power station is a biomass facility that primarily uses wood chips from logging residue leftover from the harvesting of wood for other products.” Not exactly fighting GW. Better for the environment if they turned those chips into mulch.

“Burlington’s achievement shows that they’re able to make this transition cost-effectively and “in a way that makes Vermonters really positioned well for the future.” Again, the folks in Burlington haven’t done anything to build the transition; others have made that investment. Burlington is just benefiting from those efforts.

And if the renewables don’t provide enough energy at time the utility still has contracts to buy electricity from fossil fuel burners. IOW those contracts provide an incentive for those GHG makers to maintain BAU. The utility acknowledges that "when renewable sources aren’t readily available…they will purchase traditional fossil fuel-generated electricity.”

And then there’s the question: was the hydro power originally being sold to other folks but Burlington has now out bid them? If so do those folks now have to get their energy from fossil fuel burners? The Winooski hydro was built 22 years ago and has been supplying 100% of its output to folks in VT since then. No addition capacity has been added to supply Burlington. The electricity from this source was taken from other consumers. Likewise Hydro-Québec has been supplying 100% of its output to consumers for more than half a century. No new projects were created to supply Burlington. The electricity from this source was taken from other consumers in the system.

No addition renewable power was created by the good folks of Burlington. They just got a good deal by usurping electricity from other customers. Again kudos for the utility outbidding other consumers and taking their renewable energy away from them. I’m sure it wasn’t personal…just good business. LOL.

[KaiserJeep]

To the heart of the matter again, Rock. Better than I could have expressed it.

The maple syrup news is a bummer, I love the stuff, although I get my personal supplies from New Hampshire.

[dohboi]

True, pstarr. But I do see (and expect to see more) a growing tension between those who want to use such material for building tilth versus those who want it to produce electricity/energy.

Every situation is different, but in general I would be on the side of increasing tilth.

[vtsnowedin]

Gotta disagree there Rock. Forest biomass is truly carbon neutral. In the short term a hole left by a (selective) tree cut in the forest will fill in with branches and new trees rather quickly, replacing the surface area available for photosynthetic CO2 absorption. Even a clear cut returns to full photosynthesis rather quickly. 10-20 years.

Regarding electrical Quebec hydropower demand. Perhaps VT. purchases excess?

Quebec hydro has been exporting power to the US for decades. Major DC lines cross Vermont and New Hampshire to ship power to the Boston market. Vt has always bought a good share of the base load from them. Back during the energy crisis they locked into a fixed price only to have market prices fall. Some small co ops went bankrupt on that one. It is again the best deal in town and with the passing of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant now the biggest supplier to the state.
BED owns a half interest in the McNeil power station that burns wood chips as it's primary fuel, about 30 cords worth per hour. it can and does burn natural gas if and when needed.
So BED has been using renewables and making real investments in them right along. Buying the dam on the edge of town just let them say they had got to 100 percent. That's a big deal to the idealistic nerds running Burlington.
What maple syrup news? I missed it.

[vtsnowedin]

This is really pretty small potatoes. The real story in Vermont today is that they banned brownies from school bake sales. Some elected officials may well lose their jobs over that one.

[PeterEV]

The big picture is that the cost of fossil fuel extraction is going up faster than wages in general and you have to start some place. It's not like we all wait for renewables to show up at WalMart and then switch over. Its a process. There will be early adapters and those who say "NO!! but hell NO!!!".

I've watched the EV situation go from lead acid conversions with realistic ranges of 20 to 30 miles ranges to Teslas with 250+ mile ranges and one hour recharging times. The original hand built cost of a Tesla (tZero) pack was $155K back in the mid 90's to where Tesla several years ago was offering this pack to Th!nk of Norway for their production cost of $25K. With Tesla's Gigawatt battery factory, the relative cost of a pack should be decreasing to where Tesla wants to offer a 200 mile EV for $35K in 2017. Will he succeed? Don't know, someone likely will because that's the apparent direction the automotive industry is headed in. I also read PR releases saying researcher have put 3 times as much energy density into Lithium Ion batteries in their labs. That would translate to a Tesla Model S range of 795 miles instead of its current 265 mile range. There are lies, damn lies, and battery statistics.

I can see where the Rockman has done his homework. Smoke and mirror reliance on hydro instead of reinsulating homes, adding PV, etc. The later takes real Dollars and pays off slowly if tax incentives are assumed to be paid off by the tax payer who installed the renewables.

I ran a computer simulation for a solar thermally equipped house in Portland, Maine that was built with "low energy" in mind. The simulation was just for solar thermal input only. The simulation said solar supplied 95% of the house's heating (not solar hot water) needs with December and January's solar fraction being 90.9 and 83.1%, respectively. In other words, it would need a fossil fueled heater for those two months but not a very big one.

I think we are on a fossil fueled "Titanic" of sorts. We each need to prepare a renewable based lifeboat. We will do it in our own way and in our own time. KJ maybe one of the last to just ship but in the end his Kaiser Jeep may become an all electric conversion. Question KJ: Would you jump ship with a Jeep range of 795 miles where refueling was the equivalent of $1/gallon and the money you save by not having to do oil changes would be the cost of a new pack? I think that is where we are headed.

Just some thoughts.

Peter

[KaiserJeep]

Peter, although off topic in this thread, I would jump on an affordable EV with a decent range. But I also need (soon will need, hopefully) mowing, snow plowing, and misc. garden tasks performed by an electric version of a 4WD Polaris quad or maybe even a lawn tractor. I don't see anybody working on those.

I love my Jeeps, but they are thirsty vehicles. I need to sell the '67 Kaiser Commando but I have so many man hours in the restoration that it's hard. Driving around in a modified Wrangler with big tires doesn't make a lot of sense either, but I have actually driven less than 500 miles this year, and just filled it up for the 3rd time.

I don't NEED but I would really LIKE to see an EV that could traverse the Rubicon trail. But the people who really use 4WD vehicles on extreme terrain are probably going to be the last market segment addressed by EVs.