As your local, electric distribution cooperative, government regulations don’t have much of a direct impact on our operation, especially where cost and reliability are concerned. For our power provider PowerSouth Energy Cooperative, however, government regulations have a significant influence on their costs and ability to reliably generate and transmit electricity.
At 56 years old, I do not consider myself to be old, but I’m also no spring chicken. I’ve been around a few years and have seen good and bad cycles.
In my lifetime, I know our country’s economy has been built with ample supplies of abundant, reliable, and affordable energy, especially electricity. That electricity has been generated using a mix of coal, nuclear, natural gas, hydroelectric dams — and more recently, wind and solar with a mixture of other sources.
During the past couple of years, we have seen more discussion in the news and other arenas about the reliability of electricity, especially the threats of rolling blackouts during extreme cold and hot conditions. Why is this?
Power providers across the country, PowerSouth included, have been closing their coal-fired power plants. This is because the plants were at or near the end of their useful lives and the costs and complexities of upgrading them to meet more stringent regulations restricting emissions were too great.
Power providers have been replacing them mostly with natural gas-fired generating facilities. A recent example of this is the Lowman Energy Center that I discussed in my manager report from the May issue of Alabama Living.
The reason providers have turned to natural gas as an energy source is that these types of plants are relatively inexpensive and fast to build, run very efficiently, and have abundant supplies of affordable natural gas. However, regulations governing their operation are ever-changing and threaten their continued affordability and reliability.
More providers would consider nuclear power as an energy source, but the costs and regulations for those facilities make them extremely difficult and expensive to build. In fact, much of the cost of a nuclear plant stems from trying to meet ever-changing environmental regulations. When Units 3 and 4 of the Vogtle Nuclear Plant came online last year and earlier this year, respectively, they were years past their deadlines and millions of dollars over budget.
Nuclear plants generate electricity without producing harmful emissions, especially greenhouse gases. They require no fossil fuels to operate, so the electricity they produce can be affordable as long as the cost to build them is not exorbitant.
We are not against a clean environment, nor are we against doing what we can to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We fully understand the importance of these issues.
We also understand that reliance on too many renewable sources of electric generation threatens the reliability and affordability of electricity. This is because current “green” technologies, such as solar panels and windmills, are intermittent and cannot supply enough capacity to power our nation’s economy.
Our energy future must be focused on an “all-in” approach. We must look at every source of generation possible, and choose those that make sense from the cost, reliability, safety, and environmental responsibility perspectives.
We must talk with our legislators to ensure they understand how important abundant, affordable, reliable electricity is to our economy. Even more than that, we must discuss the need for clear direction in our energy and environmental policies with these legislators. We need regulations that balance the science of what we need to accomplish with the realities of what we can accomplish given our current technologies and economic capabilities.
Clear policy direction would help ensure we limit wasteful projects that meet short-term goals and ignore the true, longer-term needs of our nation.
We hope and pray that this New Year brings you and your families blessings and our policymakers clarity.