The energy transition we need, and what’s standing in the way
What’s it going to take to get Wisconsin to 100% clean energy? If you listen to the state’s biggest power companies, it’s more methane gas. Wisconsin is on the verge of an expensive gas construction boom if utilities like We Energies and Alliant Energy have their way. But what about wind and solar? Is it possible for Wisconsin to finally trade in fossil fuels for clean energy right now? Amy talks with energy expert Dr. Ciaran Gallagher.
Host:
Amy Barrilleaux
Guest:
Ciaran Gallagher, PhD, Clean Wisconsin
Background Reading:
Under the Lens, the Truth About Natural Gas
Stopping Gas Expansion in Wisconsn
Power Wisconsin Forward: An affordable, reliable, fossil-free future
Where to Listen:
Transcript:
Amy What’s it going to take to get Wisconsin to 100% clean energy? Well, if you listen to our biggest power companies, more methane gas. Wisconsin is on the verge of an expensive gas construction boom, if utilities like We Energies and Alliant Energy have their way. But what about wind and solar? Is it possible for Wisconsin to finally trade in fossil fuels for clean energy right now? I’ll talk with energy expert Dr. Ciaran Gallagher. I’m Amy Barrilleaux and this is State of Change from Clean Wisconsin. You may have heard, Wisconsin’s biggest power company, We Energies, is finally ready to get rid of its coal plants and spend billions of dollars building gas plants to replace them. The energy giant isn’t alone. It’s a trend happening all across the country. Joining me is Clean Wisconsin energy expert Dr. Ciaran Gallagher. We Energies and Alliant Energy, which is also making plans to replace coal with gas, is saying we can’t just go from coal to wind and solar. We need to burn gas right now. But you visited a site in Minnesota where a power company is taking a very different approach. Where did you go and what did you see?
Ciaran I went to the new Sherco Solar and Battery Facility. It is owned by Xcel, which is a utility based in southern Minnesota that serves southern Minnesota and parts of northwestern Wisconsin. And they just closed down one 700 megawatt coal power plant unit that had been running and polluting for nearly 50 years. And they’re replacing that unit with just solar and long duration batteries. So the solar facility is going to come online in two parts. It’ll be about 710MW. And then the battery installation is innovative and groundbreaking, although somewhat small demonstration project. And they’re going to use 100-hour iron air batteries. Basically, they’ll be charging and discharging the electricity by rusting iron and then reversing the process. So it’s only ten megawatt batteries, but they’ll be able to dispatch 2000 megawatt hours of electricity in one go. So this battery storage solution is much longer than the four hour batteries that are commercially available and we’re seeing deployed across the state and the country and will better serve some of those periods where we need some longer storage capabilities. Sometimes when the wind doesn’t blow as strong as it usually does for a couple of days in a row, or it’s just extra rainy and cold and we haven’t been able to to charge up the four-hour batteries as we would have liked to with solar. So this project shows that there is more complexity in this new clean energy future. But with creativity and innovation, there is an option beyond the fossil fuel fired fuel, just turn on the power plant and dispatch it when when people need electricity. It’s more complicated, but it’s needed for our health and our climate and is is possible.
Amy So these are sound like really innovative batteries that’s at the new Sherco Solar Center. So you have a utility in Xcel that is saying, okay, we want to see we want to try this. What does it take for a utility to go from we’re just going to burn some gas out here, some methane, to we want to try this innovative iron, I guess, rusting battery technology. Is that too much to ask of most utilities?
Ciaran I don’t think it’s too much to ask. Utilities have a natural monopoly. You can only get your electricity from from one provider in this state depending on on where you live. And there is a monopoly and they’re regulated and they have an obligation to serve. And there is a trust in that relationship that that we believe goes beyond just providing electricity and making sure that your lights can turn on, but also takes into account the cost of your electricity, the affordability of it, as well as the other societal damages and harms that they are causing. There has to be a balance. That’s what the Public Service Commission also tries to balance in their decisions when they are regulating the utility. But I think it’s something that all utilities need to really, really think about and compare. And these types of innovative projects are a way to show that they’re taking seriously that commitment to reliable, clean and affordable electricity.
Amy So over here in Wisconsin, we have our state’s largest, most profitable utility looking at investing billions of dollars in new projects that would essentially burn methane gas for energy. And they’re saying, well, you know, we have to do this to meet demand. What is your response to that?
Ciaran My response is this is a knee jerk reaction that is built on decades of avoiding good policies that would reduce the amount of electricity generation we would need to build. They lobby against expanding energy efficiency by increasing the state’s energy efficiency program’s budget called Focus on Energy. It is one of the most one of the programs that has the highest benefit cost ratio in the country. Every dollar we put into that program in energy efficiency results in almost $4 of economic benefit in the state. And they don’t want to increase their budget or add any more efficiency in their programs. They are the utility that has deployed the least amount of renewable energy resources, wind and solar and batteries, and have advocated against policies that would better enable customers to install their own rooftop solar or subscribe to community solar projects. So they’re there pushing back against this clean energy transition in many ways. And then as soon as they see new new load coming on with these new data centers, they see an opportunity to profit if they build large power plants. Their profit is a rate of return on what they build. Fuel costs get passed on through the customers, so they don’t really care about that. It’s mostly how can we maximize the build out? That’s why they don’t want to invest in energy efficiency and load management and flexibility programs. So they’re not taking seriously that covenant with Wisconsin residents. There is high energy burden in their territory and they see short term profit opportunities with this data center.
Amy And so the utility we’re talking about, We Energies, which is a subsidiary of WEC Energy Group, an enormous company, large profits for its shareholders already. As someone who advocates for clean energy every day. How do you push back against one of the most powerful utilities in the country, certainly the most powerful power company in Wisconsin?
Ciaran We try to make sure that our voice is heard in the cases that the Public Service Commission does have the opportunity to exert some control and decision over the utility, they do have to approve the building of a power plant. We are actively engaged in that case and are working on putting an alternative view in front of the commission and pointing out some of the flaws in WEC’s–We Energies’–thinking and proposal. So that’s one way to advocate. And another way is to tell people what’s happening, share awareness, talk about the daily impacts that this is going to have on Wisconsin pocketbooks and health and eventually climate impacts, and try to get folks to to talk about that impact to their local reporters and neighborhood associations and even eventually writing comments or speaking up at the commission meetings. This is something that a small environmental nonprofit can’t go alone, we’ll definitely be outspent in testimony and resources, we don’t have as large of a team as as they do. But we do have people power on our side.
Amy Now, I know you. You’re not like a pie in the sky kind of just make stuff up person. You’re very data driven, fact based kind of person when you make decisions. And you work on energy transition every day. How do we get Wisconsin from where we are now, which is fossil fuels powering everything, to a clean energy future? And for a lot of people who don’t work it in every day, it feels very, yeah, that’s never going to happen. How can that happen in your mind, though? It’s very achievable. What needs to happen for Wisconsin to go from let’s build another gas power plant to let’s use wind and solar and cool iron batteries to power everything we do?
Ciaran I’m encouraged by the people working on solutions, innovative, creative solutions. There’s a lot of people working on this energy transition in the Midwest that are much smarter than me, and I love getting to learn from them. I think one of the takeaways from thinking about this energy transition is how we generate and serve electricity is going to be more complicated. We’re going to need better models to forecast what is the weather going to be, because that’s not only going to impact how much do we expect people to turn on their ACs or their heaters, but also how much sun or wind is available to meet that electricity demand? It’s going to take a lot more sophisticated data and research and tools. And there’s people working at private companies, national labs that are advocating in these spaces, that are trying to think about how to solve those complex issues. But there are solutions. And it is more, it’s harder. But I have faith that we can work on it together and work to resolve. The long duration batteries I just mentioned. Those were pie in the sky some years ago but have been acknowledged that is something that we really need. And folks went out to figure out how do we do that? And they turned away from the typical lithium ion batteries that have a limited chemistry. And they thought, why don’t we rust some iron? Let’s see. Let’s see what that what that does. So sometimes it’s simple solutions to do tricky problems. And I’m really excited to see how that demonstration project in Minnesota demonstrates its worth and and the benefits it can can serve for the electricity grid.
Amy I mean, it does feel like we are in this time of change. You know, every time you turn around, there is sort of like a new solar project or wind being talked about. When you talk about innovation happening. I mean, you work on a lot of things. You work on the grid, transmission, you know, all kinds of things in the energy space. How much thinking and doing and solving is happening right now?
Ciaran I think there’s a lot that is happening on the ground that that we’re learning about, but there’s also a lot that we’re building on already. Lessons learned. Solar panels have been around for decades at this point, and they’ve recently gotten affordable that they’re able to be deployed in a widespread way that wasn’t feasible maybe even ten years ago. This energy transition is coming quicker than than some folks expected because of the rapid increase in knowledge and technology for the solar and wind and batteries. And at the same time, we’re also seeing climate change and its impacts are rapidly increasing. So we’re having to learn on the ground fast. And at the same time it’s still sometimes too slow to meet the the pressing challenge that that is climate change.
Amy When we talk about how complicated and sometimes daunting building a clean energy future can be, I think we don’t always see the complexities of our current dirty energy present. We have this massive infrastructure. Pipelines that cross the country, including Wisconsin, to bring us fracked gas and oil, barges up and down the Mississippi, tanker trucks, what have become known as bomb trains carrying hazardous chemicals and fuels. So there’s this sort of, I think, pretty dangerous world all around us that we don’t always acknowledge or even realize it’s there. And Wisconsin spends $14 billion a year just to get it all here, all the gas, methane and coal from the places where it’s all extracted. Do you think we’ve kind of become blind to all that work and all that cost of fossil fuels here in Wisconsin and elsewhere?
Ciaran Yeah, I do think that when there’s infrastructure that’s been around for decades, it starts to be part of the background. You don’t really notice it. But if something is new or coming to your community, you can’t imagine what that’s going to look like. And you have a reaction to it. But after a few years, it can also go into the background. We have massive power plants across the state. I was driving up north for a cabin weekend a few weeks ago, and on the road there is just this massive power plant that we passed and I think many drivers going by probably would barely notice it. But when we’re siting new wind turbines potentially, or solar plants in this state, it’s something new and different. And we’re seeing a bit of a reaction to that. On the the transportation of of dirty fossil fuels. Wisconsin will still need to import energy, but instead of importing solid or liquid fuel that is combustible and harmful if it is spilled, there’s a pipeline spill or a truck turns over or there’s a railroad crash that can cause this massive damages to communities and our landscapes, we can import electricity in a cleaner way through transmission lines. The sun rises earlier in Michigan and sets later in Minnesota, and having access to electricity that’s generated in those states will help balance out some of the predictable solar fluctuations and transmission lines may not be the the prettiest thing on the horizon, but it’s much cleaner than a pipeline going across your farm. And there is much less danger of contamination. And hopefully in a few years, once again it’ll become part of the background. It’ll just kind of blend into the infrastructure that has been built up to serve our daily lives, like criss crossing telephone wires and distribution lines that get electricity to your house and county roads. They’re all needed for our daily lives.
Amy So let’s get back to We Energies and its plan to build these gas plants. So, you know, part of the plan is to replace what is a pretty new big coal plant or a couple of coal plants with natural gas. And the line is, well, isn’t this so much better than coal? When you hear that, okay, we’re going to replace coal plants with natural gas and then you you should be happy folks, because it’s so much cleaner. What’s your reaction to that?
Ciaran My reaction is we Energies wants to convert their coal power plants to gas and build more gas. So it’s kind of a a double whammy. I also don’t think it–I think that’s a false choice for Wisconsin residents. Natural gas, when burned at a power plant, does emit fewer greenhouse gas emissions and harmful air pollutants. That is true, but it still does burn and emit harmful air pollutants and greenhouse gases. Natural gas, when burned especially, can emit NOx or nitrogen oxides. It can react in the atmosphere to form both fine particulate matter, which can be embedded deep into our lungs and cause respiratory and cardiovascular issues. But NOx is also one of the the primary pollutants that forms ozone, which is a problem that we have had in the eastern part of the state, especially along the Lake Michigan shoreline. We have counties there that are not in attainment of the federal standards and are likely to be to remain in non-attainment for for years to come. And that matters because it affects our health. Ozone also is causes respiratory issues, coughing, asthma exacerbations. So we need to be clear that if we’re either converting coal to gas or building new gas, there is still going to be harmful impacts on the communities it is built in and the communities around it.
Amy So we shouldn’t be celebrating. I mean, I think, yes, we want the coal to to go away, but to say, hey, this solves a problem that coal created is is not true.
Ciaran Yes.
Amy I think part of the reason why talking to you is so fun is because you have a really optimistic outlook on the future, on on making it to clean energy quickly. What keeps you, I guess, optimistic when you look at what’s going on in the landscape in Wisconsin and across the Midwest in terms of getting to clean energy?
Ciaran I think part of that optimism might be a necessity to do this job. I need to have some optimism that a better future is possible. And and that’s what I believe. I also think it’s a component of timing. I started working for Clean Wisconsin after the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law, and that has just jumpstarted the clean energy transition in a way that I think folks were even underestimating when when that bill was was first signed. The acceleration of the clean energy transition has caused some additional challenges for us to work through. One being supply chain issues. So many people want to deploy clean energy that there’s just not enough production of those parts that that that they need. In the Midwest, developers really want to build solar, wind and batteries, so much so that there’s this massive line of of developers wanting to apply to the the grid operator that is in charge of the Midwest, MISO. MISO has to make sure that if a solar plant or wind plant is added to the grid, that the grid isn’t going to have any issues. So they have to study it, which can can take some time. And there’s so many developers so excited to build solar and wind and batteries because it is so affordable now. And they see the writing on the wall that that people are clamoring for, for clean energy, that there’s now a massive line. And this those studies are taking longer. So it’s a product of the amount of energy, energy and excitement around this clean energy transition. And it’s something that we have to work through.
Amy But you’re still excited and optimistic every day.
Ciaran Most days. Yes, I am. I. One of the things I love about this field is there’s always something new happening. There’s always something. Something to learn, something innovative. And I love learning from from my colleagues and peers and researchers. And I think where we are at in another five months or another five years, I, I can’t wait to see.
Amy Dr. Ciaran Gallagher Clean. Wisconsin, thank you so much for the discussion. I really appreciate it.
Ciaran Thank you for having me.
