Biden, Electrical Transformers, Climate Change, Demand, And Supplies Make For Complicated Mess

The Biden administration proposed
new rules to improve efficiency
of electrical transformers. Aim
was to help combat climate change.
Like most things, though, it got
complicated.

The Biden administration wanted new rules raising the energy efficiency standards for electric transformers. 

You know, those are the hoodickeys attached to a lot of power poles until they blow up in a dramatic flash during a storm or lightning strike, and shutting down the power to our homes

Problem was, in a small piece of a multi-pronged effort to combat climate change, the new transformer rules might have unintentionally done the opposite.  This is a relatively small episode, but in the grand scheme of things, it shows how efforts to confront climate change end up being a lot more complicated than you'd think.  

 Here's the set-up, as HuffPost describes it: 

Transformers are basically the connective tissue of power systems. 

Demand for electrical transformers is high. More development and sprawl is driving part of the demand. Climate change is also driving the market for these devices. People use more electricity on hot or smoky days to run air conditions and air purifiers. 

Climate change is also creating more frequent and intense  storms that make transformers go kablooey when strong winds rip at them or make trees and debris fall on them. Wildfires can also take out a bunch of transformers all at once. 

A third way climate change is creating booming demand for transformers is we're being encouraged to go electric to combat climate change. You need a bigger electrical grid, including plenty of transformers, along with the power lines and generation to feed all those EV plug ins. 

The problem, or potential problem, was that factories would need to use a different kind of steel and buy new equipment for the new rules set to take effect in 2027.  That risked creating a shortage of transformers when demand for them was already sky high. 

So the Biden people backed down. Sure, the rules would have helped an eensy, teensy bit in improving energy efficiency, which is definitely a goal if we want to reduce fossil fuel emissions. 

But a shortage of transformers might have stunted our transition away from fossil fuels toward clean energy.  You need transformers to ferry generated electricity from all those wind whirligigs and solar power stations out there to the outlet you plug your EV into. Or whatever.  

The rules have been dialed back after pressure from a wide variety of stakeholders, not the least of it were transformer manufacturers. 

A requirement for a special form of steel that would have been required in new transformers has been scrapped. That "special steel" would have forced transformer manufacturers to spend millions on new equipment that might end up becoming obsolete a few to several years later. 

Still some new energy efficiency regulations involving transformers are still scheduled to go into effect in five years.

HuffPost again:

"....the new standards still ratchet up efficiency of new transformers by enough to shave what the Energy Department estimated would be $14 billion off utility bills over the next 30 years, slashing nearly 85 million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution - equal to the annual emissions of 11 million American homes - during the same period. 

The agency estimated the original proposal would have avoided 340 million metric tons of carbon pollution."

Regulators and presidential administrations seem to be constantly threading the needle between what environmentalists want and what industry wants. 

Environmentalists aren't happy with the transformer energy efficiency rules being watered down some. 

There's obviously a sense of urgency when it comes to combating climate change. It's also easy to get in the weeds when you do try to do something. 

This transformer kerfuffle is just one small example among many. 

 .

 

Biden's Climate Plan Steers The U.S. Onto A New Course

President Joe Biden has sweeping plans to tackle 
climate change. The proof will be in the pudding. Let's
see, and hope, that most of his policy
package goes forward.

Well, he's taking a stab at it.   

President Joe Biden held "climate day" Wednesday in which he unveiled plans to sharply redirect how this nation manages its energy resources in the age of climate change. 

As Biden has been doing since he took office a week ago, he took a number of executive orders to mostly undo the executive actions of his predecessor, Donald Trump.

In doing so, though, Biden is seeking to seriously change how energy is created and used across the broad economy. The plan has a major jobs component, and also includes dealing with the link between climate and social justice. 

Fossil fuels are taking a clear hit, while renewables win big with Biden's plans.  As the Associated Press reports, the president, for starters, is pausing oil and gas leasing on federal land, and targeting subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. 

Under his plan, Biden would double the nation's offshore wind energy, and the federal vehicle fleet would be all-electric.  

Overall, Biden's goal is to eliminate pollution from fossil fuel from power plants by 2035 and from the entire U.S. economy by 2050.

In that regard, the wind is at Biden's back, so to speak.  For fans of the free market, the economy is headed in that direction anyway, driven by changing buying patterns in industry and among consumers. 

The solar and wind energy industry has mostly been booming, oil and gas have been "meh" at best. (Oil and gas business is expected to rebound after Covid and its attendant recession fade, but this industry is not expected to grow above pre-Covid levels.

And coal is basically fading away. 

Pretty much everybody assumes Biden is about to be hit with political blowback, as his plans don't exactly help the oil, gas and coal industry. 

However, the risks from climate change on the whole is bigger than fossil fuel companies, and Biden insists his climate-friendly moves are a job maker, not a job killer.

"When I think of climate change and the answers to it, I think of jobs.....We're going to put people to work. We're not going to lose jobs. These aren't pie-in-thy-sky dreams. These are concrete actionable solutions. And we know how to do this," Biden said. 

I can see how that might come true. The fact of the matter, though, is some people in the fossil fuel industry will need to find other lines of work.  That might not be too difficult, especially if we enter into a "Roaring 20s" economy once the pandemic finally fades. 

Still, Republicans will try to make hay out of the likely job losses in fossil fuel industry. They will probably say that Biden is killing "real American jobs" and only suggesting the clean energy jobs are lame. Appealing to their base, maybe they'll hint these new jobs are not "manly" perhaps. 

A more real problem is that regions that have a lot of fossil fuel employment might not recover easily as the industry fades, but then other parts of the United States will do better. 

Generally speaking, most of the fossil fuel industry jobs are in "red" states, so this could further exacerbate our terrible political divide.

When I say that, I'm not minimizing the climate risk at all. Biden does need to combat climate change shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the world. 

After all, the costs are too high. Even if you want to think America First, we already are first, at least in 2020, for weather disasters, most of which were made worse by climate change.

The world suffered 50 weather related disasters each costing $1 billion in 2020, according to Aon an insurer broker. Of those, at least 22 of them were in the United States - 27 if you go by Aon's count. 

These are the highest numbers for billion dollar disasters on record. And yes, all the figures are adjusted for inflation. 

There has been and always will be huge weather disasters, with or without climate change. But the trend is clearly going up, and that's partly due to climate change. 

Biden's bet is the cost of investing in climate change mitigation is worth the investment to prevent some future deaths and destruction. Climate change is sort of Biden's Covid fight, writ large. 

For more details on the Biden Administration's climate plan, click here.