Summary of Peter Kelly-Detwiler's The Energy Switch

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 In 2019, I visited the Brayton Point coal-fired power plant in Fall River, Massachusetts. The plant had generated 20 percent of Massachusetts’ electricity supply, supported hundreds of well-paying jobs, and provided $4 million in annual tax revenues to the town of Somerset.
#2 The collapse of the towers was extremely dramatic. It took only five seconds for both towers to collapse, and a huge dust plume blew across the bay.
#3 The death of Brayton Point coal power plant illustrates the changing nature of the energy industry. While gas plants are not carbon-free, they do help push coal plants out of the market.
#4 The biggest global challenge of our day is to slow down and limit the change in the climate so we can live within a habitable climate. As a significant contributor of carbon emissions, our energy systems will have to rapidly evolve to meet this challenge.

Sujets

• General
• Business
• Economics
• General officer

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 17 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822512856
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Peter Kelly-Detwiler's The Energy Switch
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9 Insights from Chapter 10 Insights from Chapter 11 Insights from Chapter 12 Insights from Chapter 13 Insights from Chapter 14 Insights from Chapter 15
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

In 2019, I visited the Brayton Point coal-fired power plant in Fall River, Massachusetts. The plant had generated 20 percent of Massachusetts’ electricity supply, supported hundreds of well-paying jobs, and provided $4 million in annual tax revenues to the town of Somerset.

#2

The collapse of the towers was extremely dramatic. It took only five seconds for both towers to collapse, and a huge dust plume blew across the bay.

#3

The death of Brayton Point coal power plant illustrates the changing nature of the energy industry. While gas plants are not carbon-free, they do help push coal plants out of the market.

#4

The biggest global challenge of our day is to slow down and limit the change in the climate so we can live within a habitable climate. As a significant contributor of carbon emissions, our energy systems will have to rapidly evolve to meet this challenge.

#5

I wanted to see if I could understand the breadth of this massive shift and tell its story. I wanted to know more about what was likely to occur, and see if I could understand the implications.

#6

It has already become clear that a transition to a cleaner energy future is inevitable. The issue is not whether this transition will take place, but how quickly society can prepare for it and minimize the amount of future economic loss and human suffering.

#7

Average citizens are becoming involved in the conversation about electricity, and they are beginning to evaluate other options. The way we produce and consume power will be cleaner, cheaper, and infinitely more complex in the decades to come.

#8

The energy industry is changing at a rapid pace, and it is both exhilarating and unsettling. While many countries have committed to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement, our political landscape is just beginning to recognize these trends.

#9

The climate change news is bleak. The planet is on fire, and there’s not much time left to cut emissions significantly enough to limit the temperature increase to 1. 5 degrees C and maintain a habitable planet.

#10

The electric power grid is the largest and most complex machine ever constructed by mankind. It is an effort to connect the dots and highlight the steps that are being taken by companies and customers that will forever change the face of the electric power grid.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

To understand how the electric grid is changing, it's important to understand what electricity is and how it's generated. At a very high level, the key concepts are: what electricity is and how it is generated.

#2

The methods used to convert the various starting forms of energy into electrical power boil down to a few approaches. Nuclear power, coal-fired or oil-fired generating plants boil water at high temperatures, resulting in the expansion of water molecules and creating steam. The resulting pressure is used to spin a rotor with blades.

#3

Energy is the amount of power over a given period of time. For example, a kilowatt generated or used over the period of one full hour is a kilowatt-hour. When discussing the power system, people often migrate to megawatts and megawatt-hours.

#4

There are several different resources that can be used to generate electricity, and each one is dependent on the availability of local fuel. The capacity factors of solar projects increase as the panels become more efficient year over year, but some panels convert sunlight into electricity at 18 percent while others can achieve efficiencies of better than 22 percent.

#5

There are certain locations in the country with better wind resources, and as technology improves, the average capacity factors of wind turbines are increasing.

#6

In competitive wholesale markets, which cover about half of the United States, power plants bid in at a price that will yield a profit. They must at least cover their operating costs, including fuel if they are not renewable resources.

#7

The final element to understand is that the renewable resources will always get dispatched first. Because they do not require fuel, their marginal costs are zero, which allows them to be sold at a lower price than other generating assets.

#8

Electricity is transmitted from power plants to users in two ways. It can move in a direct flow from point A to point B, known as direct current, or it can oscillate back and forth in waves, or cycles, as alternating current.

#9

Direct current, unlike alternating current, does not flow efficiently over long distances. Thus, the majority of transmission lines in North America are AC lines.

#10

Electricity is the only commodity that is both produced and consumed nearly instantaneously, and the demand for it is constantly changing at a local level. Because of this, it is critical that the entire grid is in balance.

#11

Transmission becomes increasingly important in grids that are striving to integrate a growing level of renewable resources. In grids that are not well interconnected with neighboring areas, there is only so much renewable energy that can be accommodated before prices go into negative territory, or renewables are curtailed, or both.

#12

The power grid is a system that transfers energy from generation to transmission to distribution to end users. However, energy is lost along the entire process, which means that most of our carbon emissions are a result of losses across the entire system.

#13

There are ways to address this challenge. The first is to decarbonize the grid by utilizing as many clean energy resources as possible for utility-scale generation. The second is to bring more generation (such as rooftop solar and on-site batteries for storing the power) to the local level, so that transmission and distribution losses don’t factor as heavily into the equation.

#14

There are two critical regulatory layers in the power grid: federal oversight and regional grid operators. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission oversees the bulk power grid and interstate commerce, and it defines wholesale market rules.

#15

At the state level, utility regulators oversee policy and set the rules for the local IOUs. Electric cooperatives are also common, and they are generally owned by their members.