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Re:Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world's hyper-pol... by toomuchtodo on Monday July 26, 2021 @10:24AM (#27959719)
Prairie State Energy Station [1] in Southern Illinois is one of these plants. Roughly 200 municipalities bought into it ~10-12 years ago with the promise of locking in cheap electricity for decades. Now, those who own shares of it (both municipalities and electric co ops [2]) are kicking and screaming that they're entitled to continue to operate the plant because it would raise electrical rates for their citizens to retire it early.

"Illinois lawmakers are still debating a statewide energy proposal that would shutter the state’s coal-fired power plants by 2035. A local utility cooperative is asking its members to lobby lawmakers to keep it open.

Illinois Electric Cooperative has issued letters to their members asking to keep the plants open because they say it will cost utility rate payers more money and provide an unreliable electric grid of power.

IEC’s general manager Randy Long says it will also saddle the state with significant outstanding debt: “We believe it is probably going to reduce grid reliability and it’s going to cause good energy jobs to leave the State of Illinois along with the tax base to neighboring states and it’s going to increase our [utility] rates also. In 2035, the Prairie State plant will still have about $188 million worth of debt, and that is still going to have to be paid off. We’ll no longer be getting energy from that plant either, so we’ll have to replace that energy from another source. We are just very concerned about that – the increased costs to our members and also the reliability on the grid, which is really in the forefront after the blackouts we have just heard about in Texas and California recently.”"

(my note: it has been proven that the blackouts in California and Texas were not caused by renewables, but by grid mismanagement; solar and wind backed by storage is also cheaper than coal, so this is clearly not about cost but maintaining the status quo)

"PSEC started delivering electricity in 2012 at prices well above market rates. Some of its investors resell the energy at a loss, some raise consumer rates, and two backed out of the project. PSEC's original $2 billion estimated cost attracted municipal electric utilities to invest and to sign 28 year contracts. However, as of early 2010 the estimated cost had increased to $4.4 billion, requiring investors to borrow more money and raising the projected cost of electricity to undesirable levels. Peabody in response capped construction costs at "approximately $4 billion" excluding some costs such as coal development and transmission lines. In January 2013, with many municipalities adversely impacted by the high prices, the SEC subpoenaed information from Peabody. In a bid to exit its share of the Prairie State project, the City of Hermann, MO filed a lawsuit in March, 2015 against the Missouri Joint Municipal Electric Utility Commission and the Missouri Public Energy Pool, claiming that its share of $1.5 billion in debt issued to support Prairie State imposed an unconstitutionally high level of debt on the city.

Peabody divested its 5.06% stake in the project in 2016, accepting $57 million for its original investment of nearly $250 million. The buyer was Wabash Valley Power Association, a Midwest cooperative."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prairie_State_Energy_Campus

[2] https://wlds.com/rural-electric-coops-face-uncertainty-with-...

Re:Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world's hyper-pol... by ec109685 on Monday July 26, 2021 @10:43AM (#27959990)
This is where the federal government should step in and provide subsidies to help close this plant. Even though Illinois chose poorly, bygones should be bygones and the global impact too great to let a small set of individuals make this decision.
Re:Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world's hyper-pol... by toomuchtodo on Monday July 26, 2021 @10:47AM (#27960046)
The market has a financial tool for this, called "Solar for coal" swaps, where the existing debt is refinanced into new debt (at competitive financing rates) issued for building utility scale solar generators. Agree that the US gov or the central bank should step in otherwise to subsidize the closure of these plants. It's going to happen one way or another.
Re:Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world's hyper-pol... by hedora on Monday July 26, 2021 @11:52AM (#27960971)
Not needed. This is what bankruptcy is for. Just don’t pay back the debt.

If it’s held by investors, well, all investments can go down in value. If it’s held by companies that build carbon emitting plants, even better.

Re:Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world's hyper-pol... by toomuchtodo on Monday July 26, 2021 @12:02PM (#27961102)
Municipalities and non profit co ops will not voluntarily pursue bankruptcy to re-negotiate or default on these debts (which will also impact their credit rating in the debt market for future issuances). They'll have to be forced into it if outside support isn't provided.
Re:Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world's hyper-pol... by JPKab on Monday July 26, 2021 @10:43AM (#27959981)
Unfortunately, American politicians that claim to care about CO2 are tremendously hypocritical the minute prices come into play. They are happy to do things like halt the construction of pipelines or put a halt on new oil/gas leases on Federal land (it's just hurting a few thousand blue-collar workers, after all) while simultaneously lobbying OPEC to increase production to keep oil prices lower. (This is exactly what has happened with the Biden administration.). Even better has been the approval of the new German/Russian gas pipeline months after halting a massive pipeline in the USA. (Yes, I understand that the US pipeline was going to transmit very high carbon tar sands oil vs. the natural gas transported on the Russian pipeline)

Carbon emitted in another country isn't any better than carbon emitted in your own country, but the religious-like attitude taken by certain politicians and climate activists ignores this. They seem to believe the supposed moral superiority of pushing carbon intensive activities outside of a nation's borders is worth something.

Re:Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world's hyper-pol... by Robotbeat on Monday July 26, 2021 @11:18AM (#27960473)
There's something to what you said, but I also don't think a totally nihilistic perspective is justified. No Administration is going to be perfect WRT climate change, and there are real political constraints on oil prices in the near term.

What we need is to make electric vehicles (including PHEVs) like 80-100% of our vehicle mix, not ~1% for current cars on the road or 2-4% of new vehicles. Then oil prices wouldn't matter so much politically (it'll still affect industry, but that's much less impactful politically compared to motor gasoline prices).

As far as Germany approving a pipeline with Russia, well... I agree it's pretty dumb. Germany needs to just end their coal entirely, which in the very near term means more gas, but they should also try to reverse the closure of nuclear power plants.

Re:Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world's hyper-pol... by hedora on Monday July 26, 2021 @11:57AM (#27961029)
> No Administration is going to be perfect WRT climate change

The problem is that we need them to be, or we’re all going to die (of fire, pollution, flooding, food shortages, etc.)

To see what I mean, try to buy a 6” diameter PVC sewer pipe. A large percentage of global PVC is still offline due to the Texas freeze last winter. This is causing road work and repairs to ground to a halt.

At the current rate of industrial collapse, how long until water treatment and other life-critical industries go offline?

Re:Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world's hyper-pol... by JPKab on Monday July 26, 2021 @01:37PM (#27962412)
I own a Tesla, so I'm into electric cars and doing what's necessary to minimize vehicular carbon emissions. That being said, oil is a globally fungible commodity, and the less we use here in industrialized countries, the cheaper it gets for use in developing nations. Historically, developing nations have always chosen to maximize energy consumption by using the cheapest sources available. How is this going to be mitigated? I'm not aware of any discussions on this topic, but hope they exist.
Re:Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world's hyper-pol... by Robotbeat on Monday July 26, 2021 @04:51PM (#27965295)
The US is actually a net exporter of oil (and oil products), gas, and coal. So if we eliminated current consumption and production in the US, it would actually increase prices slightly overseas.

But to really answer your question:

1) We invest in tech and scale up to make renewable energy cheaper than fossil fuel. Other countries will benefit from our scale and tech improvements, reducing the relative competitiveness of fossil fuels.

2) ban production and exports of fossil fuels. Instead, actually export clean energy in the form of ammonia/nitrate fertilizer (from green hydrogen), liquid hydrogen, perhaps synthesized LNG, synth fuels, clean electricity.

3) border adjustments and a CO2-based import tarrif.

4) cultural imperialism making clean energy good (fast electric cars are an excellent example) and fossil fuels unpalatable.

5) International agreements and treaties.

6) tied to that, maybe targeted aid contingent on climate action.

Re:Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world's hyper-pol... by selectodude on Monday July 26, 2021 @04:32PM (#27965064)
The amount of "cheap" oil has fallen dramatically. Only a handful of sources can drill for less than $20/bbl and make a profit.