Friday March 31, 2023
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Meeting Both In-Person and by Zoom
Dampeer Room, Second Floor of Kelvin Smith Library*
Case Western Reserve University
Dear Colleagues:
The Biden administration and Congressional Democrats have made slowing global warming by reducing carbon emissions a major policy priority. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Act which passed last year includes $370 billion in subsidies (a mix of tax credits, direct spending, and support for loans) “to boost green industries and cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.” Much of this effort will focus on transforming energy supply, shifting as much as 80% of the country’s supply away from fossil fuels by the end of the decade. By some accounts, as the Washington Post reported in December, close to the necessary capacity to generate clean energy and store it has been proposed already – including “solar farms peppering the landscape from California to New York; off shore wind turbines standing high above the waves off the coast of New Jersey; [and] nuclear power plants emitting steam in rural areas.” If all could get built, that could be a very good thing.
Except: “They just can’t get connected to the grid.” Or, as the New York Times reported in February, “The U.S. Has Billions for Wind and Solar Projects. Good Luck Plugging Them In.”
The Post compares the grid to a highway system, only with electrons instead of cars. Huge, high-voltage transmission lines carry electrons long distances across the country, much like interstate highways. The electrons then branch off from the interstate onto smaller expressways, local arteries and roads to individual homes and businesses. “When an energy developer wants to build a new plant, they have to submit an application to see how adding that facility will affect the grid,” sort of like adding new interchanges to the interstate highway system. In the grid case perhaps more than highways, new development could overload the lanes, and creates costs. So regional authorities may ask energy developers to pay for connection, and they insist that new additions be approved.
This system then can freeze up in many ways. First, the underlying grid system – the interstate transmission lines – simply may not have enough capacity. Second, there can be lots of objection to building new lines – particularly if the new windmills or solar farms, for example, are meant to serve people far away rather than meet local needs. This is a bigger problem for renewables than for traditional fossil fuel energy generation because the latter power plants tend to be built in more industrial sites anyway. Third, the permitting process itself includes environmental safeguards and public participation rules, among others, that require time to meet. Moreover, the processes are simply overwhelmed by the volume of applications. And then in many cases the potential energy providers decide the cost of connection makes the whole project uneconomical.
So how bad is the problem and what can be done? How much is a federalism problem – the fragmented authority between states and the federal government? Does Europe manage these challenges better? How does the grid connection problem interact with the general issue of how to manage a system with lots of intermittent (e.g. dependent on wind and sunshine) sources? Are there implications for how utilities interface with their customers?
Join us as Professor Loparo applies his decades of work about large-scale energy system generation, transmission and distribution to discuss this challenge. We don’t need yet another reason to believe that response to global warming won’t work well enough. But we do need to understand the obstacles and possible solutions.
In-Person and Virtual Attendance
In order to make it easy for people to protect themselves and still participate, the meetings can be attended on Zoom. Participants can register for each meeting in the same way they did for the past two years. The link is posted below.
The discussion begins at 12:30 p.m., but the room should be open no later than Noon. We try to have beverages and refreshments set up soon after that. Participants should be able to sign on to Zoom also by Noon. But please remember not much will be happening online until the talk begins at 12:30 pm. Please also be prepared to show identification when entering Kelvin Smith Library.
Zoom participants should speak up when asked for questions or comments, or submit thoughts through Zoom’s chat function. Please keep yourself muted until you are choosing to speak.
Each week we will send out this newsletter with information about the topic. It will also include a link to register (for free) for the discussion. When you register, you will automatically receive from the Zoom system the link to join the meeting. If you do not get the newsletter, you should also be able to get the information each Monday by checking http://fridaylunch.case.edu Then if you choose you can use the contact form on that website to request the registration link.
This week’s Zoom link for registration is:
https://cwru.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEqdO6prz8jHN3B1l4IO_dj5Dxvt_foodPT
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Please also e-mail padg@case.edu if you have questions about arrangements or any suggestions. Or call at 216 368-2426 and we’ll try to get back to you. We are very pleased to be partnering this semester with the Siegal Lifelong Learning Program to share information about the discussions.
Best wishes for safety and security for you and yours,
Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies
About Our Guest
Kenneth A. Loparo is the Arthur L. Parker Endowed Professor Emeritus and Professor Emeritus, Department of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering, Case School of Engineering. Professor Loparo received numerous awards including the Sigma Xi Research Award for contributions to stochastic control, the John S. Diekoff Award for Distinguished Graduate Teaching, the Tau Beta Pi Outstanding Engineering and Science Professor Award, the Undergraduate Teaching Excellence Award, the Carl F. Wittke Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching and the Srinivasa P. Gutti Memorial Engineering Teaching Award. He served as the president of the Case Alumni Association from 2009-2011.
Loparo’s research interests include stability and control of nonlinear and stochastic systems with applications to large-scale electricity systems including generation and transmission and distribution; nonlinear filtering with applications to monitoring, fault detection, diagnosis, prognosis and reconfigurable control; information theory aspects of stochastic and quantized systems with applications to adaptive and dual control and the design of distributed autonomous control systems; the development of advanced signal processing and data analytics for monitoring and tracking of physiological behavior in health and disease.
* Kelvin Smith Library requires all entrants to show identification when entering the building, unless they have a university i.d. that they can magnetically scan. We are sorry if that seems like a hassle, but it has been Library policy for a while in response to security concerns. Please do not complain to the library staff at the entrance, who are just doing their jobs.
Schedule of Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:
April 7: Banks in Trouble: Why? And How Big is the Problem? With Mark Sniderman, Ph.D., Executive in Residence, Weatherhead School of Management.
April 14: Russia, Ukraine, and the War. With Stephen Crowley, Ph.D., Professor of Politics, Oberlin College.
April 21: After Dobbs: So Far. With Jessie Hill, J.D., Judge Ben C. Green Professor of Law.
April 28: China. With Paul E. Schroeder Ph.D., longtime Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science. |
