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Good morning and happy Friday,
The economic cost of Hurricane Beryl’s rampage across Texas last week could hit $6.3 billion in insured losses, as ongoing outages prompted Governor Greg Abbot to reprimand the local utility and issue a deadline for
repairs – although crews have been menaced and threatened in many Houston neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, the RNC wrapped up last night, having kicked off on Monday with the announcement that J.D. Vance is Donald Trump’s running mate. The Ohio senator has been critical of renewables and climate change and called ESG investing a “massive racket.” A strong supporter of oil and gas interests and hydraulic fracturing, in 2022 he was among the top 20 recipients of campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry.
Unsurprisingly, CleanTechnica’s US Election 2024: Electrical Generation Decarbonization Report Card gives the Biden-Harris ticket a much higher grade than the Trump-Vance ticket.
Read on for more.
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Power Punch
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has never been one for nuance, and his campaign messaging on energy exemplifies his overall approach. He’s seeking to convince voters that Democrats are to blame for high electricity prices and are therefore hurting families as well as the economy as a whole. Let’s unpack his power punchlines:
Electricity prices have risen 20% since 2020, particularly in a few critical swing states. Blaming President Biden’s climate policies is a standard Republican talking point, but a recent report makes the case that clean energy isn’t driving power price spikes – on the contrary, climate change itself is a leading driver of rising prices.
And although Mr. Trump claims President Biden is responsible for the continued shutdown of coal-fired power plants, “many utility decisions to pull the plug on coal plants were made during Trump’s presidency.” Nevertheless, many coal producers are still rallying around Trump, despite the fact that his “pledges to revive the coal
sector fell woefully short.”
- The IRA represents a “historic investment in clean energy” and stands to deliver “$38 billion in savings” on electricity bills for people across the country, including $9 billion in rebates – but the funds have been slow to flow.
⚡️ The Takeaway
Will it stick? Observers are “skeptical” that this particular line of attack will have much influence on voters. For one thing, “electricity prices... are typically buried in dense utility bills or automatically paid by consumers.” For another, while consumers are annoyed about inflation, “the only things they remember are [the price of] eggs and gasoline,” and fortunately prices at the pump aren’t a front-burner issue in this election. If Trump wins in November, his energy cabinet will have a big impact on future policies, but so far the Republican platform is heavy on energy, silent on climate.
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It’s Complicated
Maine has set ambitious goals for offshore wind procurement, and constructing a purpose-built port will be key in facilitating this – but a proposed site has “sparked a uniquely nuanced local debate” that’s “less polarized and more personal” than disagreements over clean energy permitting in other parts of the country. Here’s what’s happening down by the seashore:
About two-thirds of Sears Island’s 940 acres is under permanent conservation; the proposed port location would occupy about 100 acres. The primary alternative location considered, Mack Point, is an oil and logistics terminal on the mainland, but using it would involve “significant dredging and increased cost to taxpayers.”
For many, the proposed port represents “a terrible dilemma” that “challenges residents’ values around climate change, conservation and economic factors.” Some see it as sacrificing something that’s “irreplaceable;” others are persuaded by Bill McKibben’s argument that “solving climate change will require a new ‘yes in my backyard’ mindset.”
Importantly, there are no plans to site wind turbines on Sears Island itself: “Workers at the proposed port would help build and assemble towers and blades in pieces, towing them far out to sea for final assembly.”
⚡️ The Takeaway
“Skills that pay the bills.” Feelings about the proposal are mixed. Some residents worry it might affect the behavior of the migratory birds that visit the island, although global warming is a much greater threat to both birds and the state’s lobster fishing industry. Meanwhile, the Maine AFL-CIO and tradespeople are anxious to secure the thousands of jobs with “family-sustaining wages and benefits” the port and a growing offshore wind industry could bring.
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Size Matters
The saying “everything’s bigger in Texas” may have to cede ground to “everything’s bigger in China” after a couple of recent developments in the Middle Kingdom.
The first involves a massive two-headed wind turbine on floating offshore platform. Debuted by Minyang Smart Energy , the OceanX twin-rotor floating wind turbine platform “features two turbines on a V-shaped platform with a total capacity of 16.6 GW.”
OceanX is the world’s first offshore wind platform capable of hosting two turbine rotors. Designed for deep water applications, it can produce 54 million kWh of electricity annually.
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Meanwhile, some 2,700 km to the north, XCMG Crane unveiled a massive new crawler crane specifically designed for constructing offshore wind turbines.
The 4,000 tonne XGC88000 successfully lifted an 18-MW offshore wind turbine weighing close to 800 tonnes and featuring a hub center height of 145 meters and a blade tip height of nearly 270 meters.
The milestone “sets global records for both the diameter and the power per unit of the turbine, signaling its readiness for commercial deployment.” Both of these stories are definitely “big news”
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