the duchy of hetkettle trophish

a pleasant start to a series on community choice aggregation.

By tying in a CCA with a municipality’s bond-raising capacity, San Francisco is taking advantage of the best of two worlds: the market and the government. On the one hand, the government can aggregate the buying power of thousands or millions of residences to achieve public goals; on the other hand, ESPs [electricity service providers] compete for the best plan, the ESP can buy whatever renewable energy sources (including conservation) make the most sense, and residents can use another source (the utility) if they want.

I see four public goals that can be met with a bond-supported CCA:

• Transforming the source of electricity to renewables, thereby reducing carbon emissions;
• increasing the economic independence and power of the community, by disconnecting from far-flung fossil fuel sources and utilities;
• increasing the resiliency of the community’s electrical supply by providing electricity from the buildings themselves and the local community; and
• eventually bringing the cost of supplying energy down, thus increasing standards of living.

pool your money for efficiency! pool your money for capacity! pool your money for resiliency!

Where can I get more information on CCA?

Local Power: Extensive CCA news and information from Local Power, an Oakland-based advocacy group.

Kings River Conservation District: This website for a resource management agency in the Kings River/Fresno area contains background information, a timeline, FAQs, and case studies of other regions benefiting from CCA.

Cape Light Compact: Massachusetts aggregator that oversees a collective of 21 cities participating in a Community Choice Aggregation program. Contains studies, FAQs, and other information on CCA in Massachusetts.

Local Agency Formation Commission: This page from the official San Francisco city government website contains links to news and studies on CCA in San Francisco.

Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council: The organization overseeing 112 Ohio communities Ohio participating in CCA. The website is slightly out of date, but contains studies, news, and other information on CCA in Ohio.…

Local Government Commission: What is Community Choice Aggregation? The Local Government Commission is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization providing assistance to community leaders seeking to create health, sustainable communities. Contains basic information about CCA.

Sierra Club SF Bay Energy Committee: San Francisco chapter of Sierra Club. Site contains FAQ and news about CCA.

and “that” rhymes with “tea” and hat stands fort rebel! ah damn. i forgot… wait, the movie’s starting.

ps. it seems some links didn’t. well, they do now.

a monster.

last year, i offered people poems, but i can’t write poems on demand. here i tried having a guestbook, did it wrong. had some kind of “about” page, never liked it.

but i do like finding answers.

more reading today. one, on climate progress, about senator mckillyou’s all-nukes energy plan; i assembled some wind industry rudiments for comments.

i don’t see people say this very often but when you’re talking about the wind’s cost-per-kWh, you have to be careful how you look at germany and denmark, because of how they financed their wind capacity — they encouraged people to build their own micropower cooperatives in order to grow the industry.

f’r'example denmark has about 5,500 turbines amounting to ~3,200MW installed capacity. if you take out the 203 turbines of ~400MW total in the offshore farms, you get 5,300 turbines averaging 0.5MW — a far cry from joe’s (and lester brown’s) call for >1.5MW turbines — and a much higher average cost. but for the co-ops the money works out.

re: grid friendly, based on these from stanford, a north american wind speed map with colors adjusted to highlight good 80m-hub wind farm sites.

i urge you to draw your own conclusion.

ps. showing someone else the good news, i was asked, “the atlantic coast? what about hurricanes?” the danish super-helpful windpower.org site where i got their offshore farm pictures said,

Wind turbine manufacturers have to certify that their turbines are built, so that they can withstand extreme winds which occur, say, during 10 minutes once every 50 years.

To limit the influence of the extreme winds turbine manufacturers therefore generally prefer to build turbines with a few, long, narrow blades.

and also

Wind turbines are designed to produce electrical energy as cheaply as possible. Wind turbines are therefore generally designed so that they yield maximum output at wind speeds around 15 metres per second. (30 knots or 33 mph). Its does not pay to design turbines that maximise their output at stronger winds, because such strong winds are rare.

In case of stronger winds it is necessary to waste part of the excess energy of the wind in order to avoid damaging the wind turbine. All wind turbines are therefore designed with some sort of power control. There are two different ways of doing this safely on modern wind turbines.

for smaller turbines that are designed to catch lower speed wind, it looks like people recommend getting one that tilts up into position so you can take it right back down in case of extreme weather. for the rough north sea, other turbines are apparently being tested to fall over like weebles.

MIT geniuses however are thinking maybe go a little bigger and deeper. the blades would be fine and it’d just surf the storm bulge.

6 may. i’ve braved the wilds of the danish spreadsheets and found what i wanted: a count and description of installed turbines.

maybe i’m reading it wrong but i think this says the 2–2.5MW turbines, providing 25% of generated electricity, are 173% as productive as the rest. probably mostly because of siting.

and i noticed, in passing, several anti-wind articles — by pro-nuke libertarians, because, you know, nuclear power is completely unsupported by government — that talked about turbines that are too short. 10m instead of 80m? you make me laugh, ha ha ha, ha. really got to watch people.

that the governments are so larded with fossil fuel special interests that they will allow us to destroy the planet that we leave for our children and grandchildren? Sure — just as there was a chance that the United States and the Soviet Union could have blown each other off the face of the planet with nuclear weapons — but it is much more likely that we will come to our senses soon, as the scientific story and empirical evidence overwhelm the deceit of short-term special interests.