Oligarchy paying Perry/Repugs for "picking losers and losers" in the free, open, compe ive market
Rick Perry’s Energy Department plans to prop up coal plants with direct subsidies
In a blatant money-grab for the coal industry, Rick Perry’s Energy Department is pushing for direct subsidies to dirty, un-economical coal-fired power plants.
Perry calls it a matter of National Security. (what? what happened to BLM and immigrant scapegoats causing all white man's problems?)
Here’s the idea:
- Baseload power is the generation that happens day-in and day-out, regardless of swings in demand (which vary widely from daytime peaks to nightime lows)
- Baseload also tends to rely on nuclear plants (which can’t be started stopped very easily) and coal-fired plants (which can be switched on and off fairly quickly).
- As renewable energy prices come down, there’s an incentive to run solar (as long as the sun shines) and wind (as long as the wind blows). Conveniently, these also generate a lot more during the day, during peak demand.
- But but but… Coal! Nuclear! These sources tend to come from very expensive plants with huge sunk costs that are no longer cost-compe ive. But it’s good to have them around just in case we need them, like during a heatwave.
- So… subsidies!
- Perry has filed a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) under the Federal Power Act, directing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to “accurately price generation resources necessary to maintain reliability and resiliency” and provide for “recovery of costs of fuel-secure generation units frequently relied upon to make our grid reliable and resilient.”
UtilityDive describes how this would work:
Under the NOPR, generating units in wholesale power markets that have a 90-day fuel supply onsite would be eligible for “full recovery of costs.”
The plants must be able to provide ancillary and reliability services,
be compliant with environmental regulations, (
excluding air, land, water, pollution, coal ash, nuclear waste)
and not be subject to cost-of-service recovery by a state.
The rule requires power market operators to “establish just and reasonable rate tariffs for the recovery of costs and a fair rate of return.”
The NOPR does not mention specific generation technologies, but would give immediate assistance to coal, nuclear and hydroelectric generators, which all have multi-day fuel supplies onsite.
DOE draws on themes from the grid study to justify the rule, saying it is necessary to protect from “energy outages expected to result from the loss of this fuel-secure generation” and because of “recognition that organized markets do not pay generators for all the attributes they provide.”
All this comes out of the DOE’s grid study, which was supposed to prove that renewables made the grid more vulnerable,
but instead found they made the grid more stable.
It also came under fire for rewriting its conclusions to favor coal.
“Make no mistake, Perry is shamelessly trying to force electricity customers to pay billions of dollars to prop up old, dangerous, and uneconomic coal and nuclear plants… Perry is ignoring the fact that FERC is an independent agency tasked with listening to stakeholders to fix actual problems with the grid, not imaginary ones that only benefit a few uncompe ive industries – namely coal and nuclear.
“The Federal Power Act clearly states that FERC cannot favor one energy source over others in its rulemakings, and Perry’s ask – without evidence or common sense – seeks to prop up dangerous coal and nuclear plants that can no longer compete in the wholesale market. We are prepared to take to court any illegal rule that props up dirty fossil fuel plants or weakens clean energy’s market access.”
FERC’s independence is pretty much toast already.
The new Chairman is Neil Chatterjee, who before Trump appointed him to be the energy watchdog for the country
was the energy policy staffer for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. So… yeah, coal guy.
http://redgreenandblue.org/2017/09/2...ect-subsidies/
Remember it was the Repug FERC that screwed CA so badly back in 2001.
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Susan Rice 
