Cracking the Code: Find the right shape

(Cracking the Code with Greg Kozera - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)
While on vacation in Florida, our grandson and his family spent a day with us. Our 9-month old great-grandson, Cooper is fun to watch. He crawls, stands with support and climbs. They brought some of his toys. The toys, are designed for his age and teach shapes, like squares, circles, triangles and stars. He will soon be able to put each shape in its proper hole.
As adults, we play the same game in business and athletics, trying to find the right person for each spot on our team. Some people just don’t fit in certain spots. Being able to put people in the spot where they can best help the team is an important leadership skill.
On our first night back home, the temperature was -5 degrees. That’s cold. We were swimming outside the day before. Our house was toasty warm. Lynnda doesn’t like cold. My neighbor kept an eye on things while we were gone. He said we had only one brief power outage.
THANK YOU, American Electric Power, American natural gas industry, West Virginia coal industry, power line workers and others responsible for helping to keep our lights and heat on. The Texas power outage of 2021 killed 246 people when over 4.5 million people lost power for days. I have friends in Texas who had no backup source of energy for heating. Their water pipes in the ceiling froze and burst, bringing down the ceiling drywall, destroying their carpets and creating a mess.
Extreme cold and heat is when baseload electricity is needed most. After dark at -5 degrees, solar is worthless. Cold weather reduces battery output. When Lynnda and I lived in Michigan, on cold nights we brought our car batteries into the house so we could start our cars in the morning. Iceland has plentiful electricity from geothermal power. We didn’t see any EVs. Cold greatly reduces the ability of batteries to hold a charge. Without electricity from coal and natural gas, our pipes would have burst. We have a wood-burning fireplace as a backup. It keeps a couple of rooms warm if we don’t run out of firewood.
If the anti-fossil fuel crowd and previous administration in Washington had their way, Americans could have frozen in the dark. Many baseload coal and some nuclear power plants were shut down and “replaced” with intermittent wind and solar power that doesn’t work at night and when the wind doesn’t blow. More shutdowns were planned. I don’t believe in betting my family’s lives on the weather.
We aren’t out of the woods yet. At the West Virginia Governor’s Energy Conference in October, there was a panel discussion by representatives of PJM (our power grid), First Energy and Dominion. One chart showed 95% of queued power additions to the PJM grid are intermittent renewables with only 5% baseload natural gas.
The panelists expressed concern for the lack of dependable baseload power. I’ve seen the same chart at industry conferences and internally at Shale Crescent USA. This was first time I’ve seen it presented where the general public could see it.
The panelists were asked, “Based on what you presented, if something doesn’t change quickly, can we expect brownouts and blackouts?” I didn’t expect them to give a straight answer. I was wrong. They responded immediately, “YES, YES, YES.”
The public isn’t as stupid as some people think. They understand energy prices impact their wallets in all parts of the economy. The public is beginning to understand the importance of pipelines and baseload power and were glad to hear “Drill, Baby, Drill.”
As a professional engineer, I can’t remain silent when I see energy policy that puts the health and welfare of the public at risk. Energy isn’t that different than my great-grandson’s toys. Each energy source has advantages and disadvantages and fits somewhere in the energy mix. Cooper can’t get a star to fit in a square hole. It doesn’t work. Solar by itself won’t be baseload (24/7/365) power. It is useful on sunny days, allowing a fuel like natural gas to be held in reserve for night or cloudy day power. We know a farmer in Maryland who is completely off the grid. He has solar panels on all of his buildings and a natural gas generator that turns on as soon as solar panels quit producing power.
Coal, nuclear, oil (diesel), natural gas, hydro and geothermal are baseload (24/7/365) fuels. Wind and solar are intermittent fuels and require backup. Cost, emissions, land required, construction time and manpower requirements vary by fuel type.
With Cooper’s toy, each shape has a place. Each fuel has a place. Iceland has access to geothermal and they use it for power generation. They have long, dark winters making solar impractical. Coal and natural gas need to be imported. The potential for earthquakes makes nuclear impractical.
The Great Plains of the U.S. have consistent wind, and they are using it. Other places have streams or dams that produce hydropower. Places like Arizona have abundant sunshine. Texas, Oklahoma, the Dakotas and Shale Crescent region have abundant natural gas and oil. Natural gas is economical and abundant. Natural gas power plants can be constructed in months, not years. With increasing power demand from data centers, AI and increased U.S. manufacturing, natural gas will most likely be the fuel to meet our power needs until other sources become available.
One of the best ways to reduce emissions is to increase efficiency – like manufacturing in the U.S. where end users, energy and feed stock are all located together, reducing transportation and cost. Government mandates tend to be inefficient, like keeping natural gas and coal in the ground and using intermittent power risking blackouts and costing consumers more for everything.
Our great-grandson is learning a square piece won’t fit in a round hole. Many adults don’t understand the analogy. As a country, hopefully we are entering a period of common sense and putting people’s lives and well being above politics.
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Greg Kozera, gkozera@shalecrescentusa.com, is the director of marketing for Shale Crescent USA. He is a professional engineer with a master’s in environmental engineering and over 40 years experience in the energy industry. Greg is a leadership expert, high school soccer coach, professional speaker and author of four books and many published articles.