When comparing operating costs between EVs and conventional internal combustion engine cars, one must consider the price of electricity and how demand for power for EVs and PHEVs will affect it.  At the most fundamental level, EVs will increase the total demand for power. While researchers have noted that “[o]ne result could be an upward pressure on wholesale electricity prices,” they have also concluded that “the average cost of power declines because all of the power is produced and consumed off-peak and contributes no additional fixed cost.”  We set to examine this issue.

Two important features of the power sector are that (1) electricity demand varies throughout the day (and year), and (2) power currently cannot be stored cost-effectively.  The result is that many generators operate at a relatively low capacity factor, meaning that a substantial proportion of the electricity generating plants sit idle for a considerable portion of their useful lives.  Stated differently, except at periods of the highest peak demand – the middle of an afternoon on a hot summer day – there is excess generating capacity.  Economics usually determines which plants run most of the time (those with lower variable costs) and which ones are only used to satisfy peak demand (those with high variable costs).

Wholesale prices in electricity markets are usually set by the costs of the marginal plant (i.e., the last plant that is dispatched to satisfy demand at any given hour of the day).  Since peaking plants – those dispatched to cover demand at peak periods – tend to have higher variable costs, power prices are higher during those periods, as shown in the figure below.  Furthermore, besides covering the variable costs, power prices need to allow these plants to recover their fixed costs. The less they run, the higher the peak prices have to be to allow for fixed-cost recovery.

Source: PJM and EIA

The deployment of EVs will certainly increase electricity demand.  However, to understand the effect on wholesale power prices, it is essential to know when in the day that additional demand will occur: peak or off-peak periods. If it happens during peak periods, then the cost of generating this power will be more expensive than the average cost of generating power because plants used on peak days tend to have the highest operating costs.  Moreover, were large numbers of vehicles routinely charged at peak hours it is possible that additional generation capacity might be required to maintain reliable operation of the grid.

However, as long as consumers can be motivated to charge during off-peak hours – which seems quite likely given that cars will typically be parked for an extended period at home overnight – there should be ample generating capacity and less of an effect on prices. (Time-of-day pricing could also influence these decisions). Last week we wrote on how some utilities have started to offer special rates aiming to induce off-peak charging.  In short, if all goes as planned, the impact on wholesale prices will depend on “whether the average variable costs associated with the additional generated [electricity] are greater than or less than the reduction in average fixed cost achieved by spreading fixed costs over more kWh.”

Average variable costs of power generated from each different fuel would generally be higher as a greater quantity of that fuel (i.e., gas or coal) is burned to generate additional electricity. Furthermore, as a general matter, the total operating costs of peaking plants should be higher than the operating costs of baseload ones, meaning that average variable costs of power generated by any particular fuel would tend to rise as more power is generated using that fuel.

Average fixed costs expected to be lower a generating plant operate at higher load factors because fixed costs can be recovered over an expanded output, thus requiring a smaller price-cost margin on every kWh sold.

How does this play out? Well, it depends on two key factors: (1) the relative weight of fixed versus variable costs for a given electricity market/utility; and (2) the amount of idle capacity during off-peak periods. With large scale EV deployment and assuming off-peak charging, wholesale power prices should generally tend to decline as more power is generated at otherwise idle plants with low variable costs, allowing their fixed costs to be spread over more units of output.   Conversely, wholesale power prices will likely increase where variable costs dominate, which would occur when charging takes place at peak and there is relatively little spare off-peak capacity.

What can we conclude? As oftentimes in economics: it depends. Though we expect most charging to take place during off peak hours, resulting overall in average power prices that are lower than they otherwise would be, wholesale prices could in theory go either way depending on which effect dominates: decreasing fixed costs or increasing variable ones. However, there is support for our expectation: researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory found that, under a range of scenarios, average wholesale prices do fall with increased penetration of EVs.

California pioneered in these measures, with San Diego Gas & Electric already offering several rates based on when in the day people charge their cars, with the lowest rates being the ones overnight. Also, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (San Francisco) put forth the Experimental Time-of-Use Low Emission Vehicle rate, a special discounted rate for their EV customers.  

These initiatives have continued to expand elsewhere in the country, with Detroit Edison Company’s (DE) new experimental rate for residential customers as the latest one. This electric utility, which serves most of Southeast Michigan, has an important role in the deployment of EVs, as they have been working closely with General Motors on the development of the Chevy Volt.  The rate — the first of its type in the state — was approved last Tuesday by the Michigan Public Service Commission, and will be available beginning August 11th.

“The program … will help DE evaluate the effect of EVs on its electric system, offers off-peak rates that customers can use to charge vehicles, and offers the infrastructure required to charge these vehicles”, said Edward Falletich, DE’s pricing manager.

DE’s plan will benefit 2,500 residential customers who will have their vehicle’s electricity usage tracked and will be able to choose from two possible rates: A $40 flat monthly fee – initially limited to 250 customers – or a lower rate for charging the vehicle during off-peak hours – hours other than between 9 a.m. and 11 p.m, Monday through Friday.  DE will also offer a $2,500 incentive for a separate meter (which tracks vehicle charging) and a high-voltage charger, thus diminishing part of the customers’ burden when purchasing an EV. 

Not only does this plan offers DE the possibility of learning about EV drivers’ charging habits, as well as the demands EVs will place on the grid, but it is also expected to help in inducing consumers  to charge their plug-in cars overnight. “When you take into account how the electricity grid is underutilized at night, there is very large capacity for charging at night,” said Marcus Alexander, manager of vehicle systems analysis for the Electric Power Research Institute.

Source: Idaho National Laboratory. Department of Energy, Vehicle Technologies Program.

As shown in the figure above, depending on car mileage and electricity price assumptions, EVs function at lower costs per mile than conventional gasoline-powered vehicles.  Plans like those mentioned above, aimed at promoting off-peak charging, offer numerous advantages including: additional energy cost savings to PHEV/EV owners, testing and data collection of the charging process to support more widespread roll-outs, maximize the life of their car’s batteries (research indicates that charging your battery near to the time you will use it significantly extends the life and health of the battery), and encouraging more efficient use of power plant capacity (which eliminates the need to add additional capacity to our system and might also reduce the average cost of electricity for all customers).

Who should we believe? – Your back of the envelope calculations. There are different ways of calculating the emissions attributable to plug-in EVs and conventional cars. Below, we provide one such way, based on the data used by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in its May 2010 final rule on light-duty emissions standards and CAFE standards, which applies to the period 2012-2016.

Using this approach, we compare a 2010 new midsize conventional ICE gasoline car against a similarly sized plug-in EV (N.B., not hybrid). The calculations for estimating the total emissions, both upstream (i.e., associated with electricity generation or oil production, refining and transporting) and tailpipe (zero for electric cars) are provided below, based on data from the EPA and Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The parameters necessary to perform this calculation for a conventional ICE gasoline vehicle are: (1) fuel efficiency in miles per gallon, (2) CO2 emitted when producing and transporting  one gallon of gasoline, and (3) CO2 emitted when combusting one gallon of gasoline . By multiplying (1)*(2) and (1)*(3), and adding them up, we find that total CO2 emissions from this type of vehicles are estimated at 352 grams of CO2 per mile, as shown below.

Calculating the emissions associated with a plug-in EV is equivalent to calculating the CO2 emissions from generating the electricity needed to power the car, as these cars have zero tailpipe emissions. A proper calculation of the upstream emissions induced by plug-in EV would require us to know the charging profile of the vehicle fleet (i.e., the proportion of plug-in EVs that are re-charged at every hour of the day), as the CO2 emitted per kWh produced is not the same at peak than at off-peak times.

Nevertheless, absent a more detailed estimation, a back of the envelope calculation is still possible by using the average CO2 emissions from power generation for a given year (1). In addition, as with conventional ICE cars, we need the consumption efficiency of plug-in EVs in Watt hours (Wh) per mile, which needs to be reduced to account for the efficiency losses in the transmission of electricity through the grid and in charging the batteries. Once this is done, we obtain the adjusted consumption efficiency (2). By multiplying (1)*(2), we find that total CO2 emissions from this type of vehicles are estimated at 176 grams of CO2 per mile, as shown below.

Bottom line: while it is true that upstream emissions are higher for plug-in EVs, a simple calculation reveals that total CO2 emissions from a midsize plug-in EV are likely to be about half of those from a conventional ICE gasoline vehicle. As power generation becomes less carbon intensive, the environmental balance will tilt even more in favour of plug-in EVs.

Under the headline, “EPA Rejects Texas’ ‘Flexible Permits’ For Refineries, Coal Plants,” Jonathan Rickman describes how the US EPA recently “quashed” a decades-old  flexible permit program.  The program was designed to bring old coal plants and refineries into compliance with requirements of the federal Clean Air Act, by allowing them to aggregate emissions from multiple units under a single cap and then control the entire cap.

EPA Region 6 disapproved the program, which was first proposed under the Clinton Administration, because it would allow “companies to avoid certain federal clean air requirements by lumping emissions from multiple units under a single ‘cap’ rather than setting specific emission limits for individual pollution sources at their plants.”

Well, yes, that is the trade-off:  cap emissions from a collection of units and then reduce them through the most economically efficient measures available.  The goal:   to hold down electricity costs and ensure reliability.  This was the type of “reform” that then-Administrator Carol Browner pioneered at EPA in the 1990s, through programs like “Project XL” that allowed companies to propose innovative ways of reducing pollution that differed from the rigid command-and-control options available to them under existing regulations.

As Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) Chairman Bryan Shaw lamented, EPA’s rejection of the program — which has resulted in a 22% decline in the states ozone levels in the last decade –  “Texas air quality ‘could actually suffer’ as a result of EPA’s final decision.”

“The flexible permitting program has contributed to improved air quality in Texas, and if the state is prevented from using the program, air quality could actually suffer,” reports Energy Daily, quoting Chairman Shaw.

Rejecting an economically-efficient, tailored regulatory approach that reduced ozone levels.  Maybe EPA needs to be reminded of the old saying:   “Don’t mess with Texas!”

As we think about the importance of facilitating the deployment of GEVs in the United States, it is worth appreciating that the Chinese are moving ahead.  Yesterday, we met with a senior official in the Ministry of Science and Technology who stated the government’s goal of getting 5 million EVs and 10 million HEVs on the road.   The initial push is in the public transit space, with bus companies placing orders to HEV and EV busses on a regular basis as Chinese cities work to facilitate deployment of GEVs in their own communities.  For cities, it is a way to support their local vehicle manufacturers and try to position them as leaders in the manufacture of new energy vehicles in the future.  But they are not only thinking about electric busses.  They are making important strides in the deployment of light-duty EVs al well. 

Sam Ori, Director of Policy at the Electrification Coalition, driving Beijing Electric Vehicle Company’s EV-60 in Beijing on Tuesday morning.

At Beijing Electric Vehicle Company (BEVC), we had an opportunity to drive their new EV.  The car, which was built by BEVC from the ground up, based on a Saab model, drove well, though it could use a little torque control at low speeds.  The leather seat equipped vehicle was equipped with navigation, Bluetooth and most of the amenities we would expect in a car destined for the American market.  BEVC expects to be selling 150,000 EVs PHEVs by 2015, and they are one of several companies in this space. 

Even having been here for just a short time, it seems that our frequent refrain regarding international competitiveness rings true.  We have long said that China is moving ahead in the field and seems determined to demonstrate global leadership.  That has been confirmed time and time again in our meetings.  Today, for instance, an official at Beijing Electric Vehicle Company told us that China is pursuing EVs to enhance China’s energy security and to reach a position of global leadership in the automotive industry.  He noted that China was far behind in the development and production of internal combustion engines, but that they were not so far behind on EVs.   Therefore, it made sense for them to focus on the technology of the future (in the same way some developing countries are skipping over the deployment of landline telephones and going straight to cell phone networks.

The confidence and can-do attitude that we have seen exemplified here in China was reflected in a sign we saw along the road on the way to the BEVC offices:

As Congress considers what steps it wants to take to facilitate the deployment of GEVs in the United States, I can only think of Lee Iacocca’s old admonition that it is time to “lead, follow or get out of the way.”  Let’s hope that Congress leads.

While the WaPo and WSJ ran good pieces about the release of the AEIC’s recommendations, let’s go with the strong coverage by John Broder in today’s NYT.  Under the headline, “A Call to Triple U.S. Spending on Energy Research,” Broder lays out the substantive and political aspects of the recommendations quite well.

“The United States is badly lagging in basic research on new forms of energy, deepening the nation’s dependence on dirty fuels and crippling its international competitiveness, a diverse group of business executives warn in a study to be released Thursday. 

“The group, which includes Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft; Jeffrey R. Immelt, chief executive of General Electric; and John Doerr, a top venture capitalist, urges the government to more than triple spending on energy research and development, to $16 billion a year. And it recommends creation of a national energy board to guide investment decisions toward radical advances in energy technology.”  Other executives in the AEIC are ”Norman R. Augustine, the former chairman of Lockheed Martin; Ursula M. Burns, chief executive of Xerox; Charles O. Holliday, former chief executive of DuPont; and Theodore M. Solso, chairman of Cummins.”

The Energy Strategy Board is the first of five recommendations made by the AEIC.  They also support DOE Secretary Chu’s energy innovation hubs and the Advanced Research Program Agency – Energy, or ARPA-E authorized by the America COMPETES Act in 2005 — but note that both of those institutions are woefully underfunded.  Innovation centers — consortia of universities, labs and private sector partners geared to tackle key issues in applied research — are currently funded at only $25 million.  Five or ten-fold increases would be appropriate, in AEIC’s view.  And ARPA-E, which received $700 million over the last two years for cutting edge, high risk, high reward research, was able to fund only 37 of the 37,000 projects seeking funds.  AEIC believes that entity should be getting at least $1 billion per year.  The group also recommends a new institution, the National Energy Challenge Program (NECP), that would report to the Energy Strategy Board and would run private-public partnerships to deploy commercial-scale, first-of-a-kind clean energy systems.  The AEIC urges devoting $20 billion over ten years as the federal investment in the NECP — an amount that would be matched by private sector partners on a per project basis.

Back to Broder:

“Mr. Gates said in an interview that drastic changes were needed in the way the United States produced and consumed energy to assure its security and to begin to address climate change. He endorsed the administration’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, but said that was not possible with today’s technology or politics.

“Among all the swirl of different ideas of how to raise the money and how to regulate carbon,” he said, “there is no way either in this country or internationally you’re going to come close to meeting an 80 percent reduction unless you have an immense breakthrough.”

“He said that the only way to find such disruptive new technology was to pour large sums of money at the problem, with the clear understanding that any number of ventures would fail before the eureka moment arrived.

“Mr. Gates and his fellow executives are stepping forward at what may prove a pivotal moment in American energy policy. Oil continues to spew from a crippled well in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration is pushing for a new approach to energy and climate policy and the Senate is about to embark on a debate on a set of conflicting proposals that pit not only Republicans against Democrats but different regions of the country against each other.

There is no assurance that this latest effort will produce new ideas or bear fruit.”

That’s true, but it’s equally true that Gates and his colleagues do command attention and respect.  Both before and after the roll-out, the executives met with key congressional leaders and President Obama to explain their vision.

A powerful argument is the relative paucity of energy R&D compared to other investments:

“The group notes that the federal government spends less than $5 billion a year on energy research and development, not counting one-time stimulus projects. About $30 billion is spent annually on health research and more than $80 billion on military R.& D. They advocate a jump in spending on basic energy research because the private sector cannot provide that level of capital for unproven technologies, but do not say where the new money can be found.”

“When our company shifted our attention to clean energy, we found the innovation cupboard was close to bare,” said John Doerr, of the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. “My partners and I found the best fuel cells, the best energy storage and the best wind technology were all born outside of the United States.”

Mr. Gates said the group had not yet identified any potential breakthrough technologies, but was looking at advances in known energy sources — nuclear power, solar and wind — as well as in technology to store electricity and capture carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel plants.”

On a day when Senate Majority Leader Reid was soliciting energy policy ideas from his committee chairs, the AEIC provides a ready-made energy innovation title for immediate consideration.  Let’s hope the aura of innovation extends to the legislative process as well.

The piece leads with this teasing first sentence:  “Limited numbers of battery-powered cars are expected to hit American roads over the next 12 months, but a test of one electric vehicle is raising questions about how far drivers will be able to go before needing a recharge.” It goes on to describe how a test case group of folks leasing 300 electric BMW Mini Cooper compacts ”have been getting about 100 miles” per charge — “about a third fewer than BMW had expected.”

Why did BMW expect something more like 150 miles per charge?  Well, once again, reliance on EPA’s driving test, which doesn’t ”reflect real-world conditions” has set unrealistic expectations about performance, just as it has for years about fuel economy in conventional vehicles.  In this case,  as the WSJ points out, “the actual range will vary depending on how people drive and other factors, such as the weather. Heavy use of the car’s heater or air conditioner will also reduce the range.”  In fact, as the WSJ points out, the “EPA hasn’t signed off on using the test for electric vehicles and is working on a new methodology for them.”

But what makes this piece troubling is that for most commuter consumers, a 100 mile range is perfectly acceptable.  The average commuter travels less than 40 miles.  In fact, according to the US DOT’s research arm, two-thirds of American commuters travel around 30 miles a day (http://www.bts.gov/publications/omnistats/volume_03_issue_04/html/entire.html)

So, an electric vehicle that gets more than triple the average consumer’s needs — but somewhat less than EPA’s unreliable and essentially inapplicable test — raises “questions”?  Not for people who really understand the issues.

In an interesting coincidence – and hopefully one that will spur action on this side of the Pacific –China today announced a substantially increased subsidy program for electric vehicles and their infrastructure.

As Amy Davidson explained in a Huffington Post op-ed, both the House and Senate bills propose innovative strategies to overcome the barriers facing large-scale deployment of electric vehicles. They help make charging infrastructure more financially viable and require that utilities prepare to support that infrastructure. Most importantly, however, the legislation would focus resources on 5 to 10 “deployment communities” around the country, where concentrations of electric vehicles would establish economies of scale and prove that the technology not only works, but is desirable, for the average American. As in the highly successful Race to the Top competition for education funding, areas would compete with comprehensive plans that indicate wide stakeholder participation (including utilities, local officials, and car dealerships) for deploying electric vehicles. The goal would be to get 700,000 vehicles on the road in those regions within the next six years.

Davidson writes: “The community-based approach addresses this problem by providing incentives for all the key components of an electric vehicle ecosystem at the same time, in a single geographic region. And it is the recommended approach of businesses throughout the electric vehicle supply chain, including leadership organizations like the Electrification Coalition.”

The bills and the Electrification Coalition are also discussed by David Roberts in Grist. In industry news, they are described in Automotive Digest and by Susan Kraemer on CleanTechnica.

Davidson also points out that these challenges mean that the transition to electric vehicles cannot happen on its own. “In countries like China, Denmark and Japan, where the transformation is already underway, the government has made electrification a national priority.”

Today Reuters reported that China is launching a pilot program for electric vehicles in 5 cities. Residents of Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Hefei, and Changchun will receive rebates of 60,000 Yuan ($8,800) if they buy purely electric vehicles and 50,000 Yuan ($7,320) in subsidies if they buy plug-in hybrid cars. The government will also pay for electric charging infrastructure, and has mandated that the state electric utilities and state grid companies ready themselves for electric vehicle charging and build the recharging stations. The 5 city program is part of a larger program to establish 13 centrally subsidized electric vehicle pilot programs.

Pollution and climate change concerns only partially motivate these policies. China and its many electric vehicle and electric bicycle companies intend to make the Middle Kingdom the global leader in the manufacture and export of electric vehicles.

Former battery maker BYD, buoyed by Warren Buffet’s investment, sold around 450,000 vehicles last year and in March 2010 brought the plug-in hybrid F3DM to its dealerships. BYD has big plans to start exporting to the United States, and has even established a U.S. headquarters in Los Angeles. Its all-electric vehicle, the lithium-ion powered e6, was launched in March, though it has thus far only sold the electric vehicles to taxi operators.  SAIC, Geely and Chery, three of China’s largest automakers, also intend to commercially market electric vehicles before the end of 2010.

Yet like the United States, China faces substantial, if somewhat different, challenges to electrification. China’s original 13-city plan would have deployed 60,000 alternative-fueled vehicles by 2012. In a country where 37,383 new vehicles hit the road every day, however, even the goal seems to fall flat. Indeed, some argue that China’s EV program isn’t moving as fast as might have been hoped.

Without substantial government incentives, EVs are simply still too expensive for the Chinese market. BusinessWeek interviewed 51 year old Huang Jihai, who decided to buy a conventional vehicle instead of an EV for his daughter, saying that “Some of the hybrids and electric cars look pretty cool, but they are too expensive…I’d rather spend less money on a reliable gasoline car.” The difference between the two vehicles he was considering – one of which could be plugged in – was US$2,500.

Sounding uncannily like those in Washington pushing for government  support of clean tech , Yang Jian, the editor of Automotive News China, wrote in a December 2009 editorial that “Unless the government adds detailed action plans and centralized direction to its plan, China may well squander the vast opportunity electric vehicles are now offering.”

Well, Beijing is answering.

Today, as we confront the ugly reality of oil dependence, there is a window to push forward policies that will enhance our energy security without impacting our mobility. Ideally, we should partner with China, taking advantage of our comparative advantages in manufacturing, technology, and market readiness.  President Obama made a worthy start to this endeavor last November when he met with President Hu Jintao and announced, among other measures, the U.S.-China Electric Vehicle Initiative.

However, action needs to be more aggressively matched to words. Joint pilot programs, cross-border manufacturing incentives and a healthy competitive spirit can work to overcome the obstacles to electrification that exist in both China and the United States.

Erica Gies, writing in the New York Times, explained this week that solar developers in California have begun finding that water availability is a significant constraint.  Ms. Gies notes that droughts have caused temporary nuclear power plant closures in Australia, France, Germany, Romania and Spain in the past decade.  She also references the interesting technological changes in water use by thermoelectric power plants.  First, came the ‘once-through’ system, which was cheap and efficient.  Today, ‘wet cooling,’ which uses the cooling effect of evaporation, is also widely used.  This process uses about 3 percent of the water that a ‘once-through’ system does, but loses 90 percent of it to vapor.  It is however, more expensive.  A newer, even more expensive and less efficient process, ‘dry cooling’ uses fans to push waste heat into the atmosphere instead of into water.

In the case of California, discouraging the use of freshwater for cooling affects the development of new power generation.  Ms. Gies interviews Terry O’Brien, Deputy Director for Power Plant Licensing at the California Energy Commission.  He notes that they have “three applications in-house for a solar-trough technology from Solar Millennium, and they made the decision to go to dry cooling before they filed.”

Going forward, and from a national perspective, this is a critical issue.  How are we going to address it?  We can start by investing in research, gathering better data, promoting less water-intensive electricity generating methods, and continuing the development of important processes like ‘dry cooling,’ explained above, that can be implemented sector wide (my list is definitely non-exhaustive).  We also need to bring energy and water policymaking together.  Some progress is being made in this area (e.g. H.R. 3598: Energy and Water Resources Integration Act, which passed the House in December 2009 and was referred to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources), but more is certainly needed.

As Eilperin notes, the approval “could pave the way for significant offshore wind development elsewhere in the nation.”  Wind energy is a source whose fuel is essentially free — as free as the wind blows, as it were.  Capital and maintenance costs do of course exist — and as Homer and the rest of the Simpsons learned on Sunday night, it only produces electricity when the wind is blowing.

Integration with the grid is therefore an important next step in fulfilling the promise of wind, but the promise is big.  The previous Administration found that wind had the potential to deliver 20% of the nation’s electricity (roughly today’s contribution from nuclear) by 2030, assuming that transmission and other barriers were overcome.  Read that report here:  http://www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/pdfs/41869.pdf

Eilperin reports that in ”approving the Cape Wind project, a group of 130 modern windmills in Nantucket Sound that would start generating electricity by the end of 2012, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he would “strike the right balance” between energy development and protecting the area. Some opponents of the project said it would endanger the habitat for seabirds; others decried the visual impact of the turbines, as close as five miles from shore.”

Well, as we have been harshly reminded in the last few weeks, we have no impact-free energy sources.  Many don’t have sympathy for East Coast rich people seeking to keep their ocean views pristine while Appalachian miners lose their lives.  As Eilperin quotes the president of Cape Wind, Jim Gordon:

“Every energy project has some impact. This was never about a choice between Cape Wind or nothing.”

Of course, some rabid enviromentalists do think nothing is an option.  They believe that we can conserve our way to the future — or maybe we should just go without a little energy once in a while.  My advice to them:  move to Venezuela and see what that’s like.  As the WaPo also reports today, even though Hugo Chávez “still hails what he calls his “21st-century socialism” as the answer to the American-style capitalism he calls an abject failure” and even though oil prices have been averaging record levels, Venezuela can’t keep its lights on. 

“Every day for the past three months, government-programmed blackouts have meant the lights flicker and go dark in a city that once bustled with commerce.”  Bet they wouldn’t be too worried about the “visual impact” of wind turbines five miles away!

Let’s end on a positive note, though, and remember that yesterday’s action by the Obama Administration, assuming it holds up in court, now opens the door to “at least 11 other U.S. offshore wind projects in development, off Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas.”  How to keep the lights on here with minimal impacts on humans?  To quote a little hipper songster, at least part of “the answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.”