It’s been sunshine and lollipops around Southern California because we have been blessed with ample sunshine and variable winds. It’s a pleasant break from the atmospheric rivers dropping so much rain and snow that California officially ended it decades-long drought. The U.S. Drought Monitor — the authoritative federal indicator — showed 0% of California in drought or even abnormally dry as of this month. This is the first time in about 25 years that has happened. Let’s toast with a cup of water. What a difference in the CAISO a heavy rain can make. The figure below compares the renewables output for two days: January 1 when it was pouring across the state, and last Tuesday. The max solar output was higher by about 8,000 MW between the two days, respectively. Lest you think part of the difference was due to renewables curtailments, you’d be wrong. On New Year’s Day the total curtailments were only 5% of that on January 13th. Also, the volume of energy that was charged into storage was 57% lower on the first than on the thirteenth. That’s a wrap.
How about those NFL wildcard games last weekend?
Being the tightwad that I am, I refuse to pay for online streaming access. The big players and profit-minded media outlets have closed all the loopholes that heretofore allowed me to watch for free. Nope. We cut the cable years ago and didn’t notice any difference in NFL game-watching until this year. So, instead, I watch the 20-minute game recaps on YouTube, or in the case of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Eagles I listened on Sirius XM radio. I’m regressing technologically.
Are Biofuels More Than Tax Credits? It’s not often that I write about the biofuel sector, mainly because it is such a small part of the country’s energy supply. However, it has its followers and leaders that are making a go at renewable energy from waste feedstocks that yield methane and hydrocarbon liquids. With that in mind, I read a Jefferies Equity Research analysis of a recent virtual conference with an impressive array of industry experts on biofuels and their respective outlooks for the sector in terms of markets and regulatory challenges.
First, I had to learn the nomenclature of the different biofuel types and related acronyms. For reference:
Yes, the renewable fuels market is ringed with compliance standards that change often and are regularly contested in federal courts. However, we must press on. What did the Jefferies team learn from all these experts? The RNG sector is shifting from rapid build-out to operational optimization and regulatory compliance, as most viable projects are already built or planned. One industry consultant reported that the project backlog has significantly declined from hundreds of proposals for landfill, dairy, and wastewater facilities to about ten percent of that.