The U.S. is developing wave energy, and its success could help remote areas with no access to electricity

Waves could be a constant source of clean energy. (Photo by Todd Diemer, Unsplash)

In the simplest of terms, waves are energy moving through water. Given their existence as flowing energy, it's surprising that up until the past two decades, waves were untapped as a possible U.S. electricity source.

"At a moment when large offshore wind projects are encountering public resistance, a nascent ocean industry is showing promise: wave energy," reports Sarah Raza of The Washington Post. Off the coast of Newport, Oregon, "a $100 million effort with funding from the Energy Department aims to convert the power of waves into energy. . . . PacWave, a project of Oregon State University, represents a necessary step for commercializing wave energy."

Located about seven miles from shore, PacWave's site spans 2.65 square miles of ocean, where most testing is done underwater and unseen by Newport's residents. Raza explains, "Subsea connectors are waiting to be plugged in like extension cords to wave energy converters. . . . With deep-sea offshore testing, companies will see how much power these energy converters can produce, whether they can hold up in rough ocean conditions, what environmental impacts they might have and how the devices will interact with each other."

Once the technology undergoes more experimentation and decision-making by scientists, its potential success could be a "game-changer." Raza writes, "There’s enough energy in the waves off America’s coasts to power one-third of all the nation’s homes, said Matthew Grosso, the Energy Department’s director of the water power technologies office."

Wave energy could be particularly appealing for rural areas with high energy costs and little to no access to electricity. "In small, remote communities that depend on more expensive diesel fuel, wave power could ease energy woes," Raza reports. PacWave Director Dan Helli told Raza, "There are remote communities in Alaska where everyone is running on diesel generators, they’re not on the grid, they have no electrical system."

Money for clean-energy projects goes to former coal towns

Boston Metal will make clean-energy metals at the old Weirton
Steel location in W.Va. (Photo by Luke Sharrett, The New York Times)

From Weirton, West Virginia to Vernon, Texas, to Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, the Department of Energy is funding projects designed to help medium-sized manufacturers "bring clean-energy jobs to former coal communities," reports Hiroko Tabuchi of The New York Times. The infusion of cash is part of the Biden administration's effort to gain support for its climate agenda in regions that have long depended on the fossil fuel industry. The administration hopes that funding new jobs in energy can help coal workers and regional economies transition.

Hard work for decent pay and good benefits once defined U.S. coal mining jobs, but over the past decade, those jobs have disappeared. "These energy workers haven't been finding clean-energy jobs despite the rapid growth in industries like solar and wind," Tabuchi writes. "Coal workers, in particular, have struggled in the transition, a recent study found. "Less than a quarter of a percent of workers who left a fossil fuel job in West Virginia moved onto a job in renewable energy, said E. Mark Curtis, an economist at Wake Forest University who led the study. Education was another factor: Fossil fuel workers without a college degree were significantly less likely to find clean energy jobs."

Curtis told Tabuchi: "In places like Texas or in the middle of the country where there's a lot of solar and wind, fossil fuel communities are relatively well positioned to take advantage of renewables. Coal communities generally don't have that, especially when you think about Appalachia." Tabuchi reports, "He said it made sense for government funding to target former coal regions and to focus on manufacturing projects because data showed that former fossil fuel workers most frequently sought to switch to manufacturing jobs."

The DOE grant program aims to help the U.S. become more competitive in the clean-energy manufacturing sector while using the $275 million investment to revitalize former coal towns' economies. The companies building the new plants said "they are eager to tap local expertise," Tabuchi reports. Tadeu Carneiro, the chief executive of Boston Metal, told him: "The most valuable asset for the project is a legacy workforce that has played a significant role in the U.S. metals industry." Tabuchi adds, "Its new West Virginia plant expects to hire 200 to 250 people and will manufacture ultra pure chromium metal and high-temperature alloys that are critical materials needed for clean power, fuel cells, and steel. Currently, foreign manufacturers dominate those materials."

The Department of Energy is trying to find a way for farmers to raise fruits and vegetables below solar panels

 Solar installations are expanding across the U.S.
(Solar Energy Industries Association photo)

The U.S. needs massive amounts of land to meet its renewable energy goals, but some farmers oppose the encroachment of solar farms into land intended for growing food. The Department of Energy believes "solar could provide up to 40% of the country's electricity by the year 2035. However, it's estimated roughly 5.7 million acres of land will be needed," reports Clinton Griffiths of Farm Journal. Matt O'Neal, a professor at Iowa State University and the Wallace Chair for Sustainable Agriculture, told Griffiths: "Millions of acres may be needed for solar energy production going into the next 20 to 30 years and some of that land, not all of it, could be farmland. That worries some people, especially those farmers in the Midwest."

That's where the work of agrivoltaics comes into play. The discipline strives to show how farming and solar can co-exist. Stephanie Mercier, an agricultural policy consultant, told Griffiths, "Such research was launched in 1981 by two German scientists, Adolph Goetzberger and Armin Zastrow, who determined that constructing solar panels so they are elevated about 6' above the ground rather than being placed directly on the ground can allow for crops to be cultivated below the solar panel array."

Agrivoltaics is new to U.S. crop farmers, but the DOE is working to help them understand and deploy the practice by supporting research. Iowa State University received a $1.8 million DOE grant to test the "possibility of raising fruits and vegetables beneath those solar photovoltaic panels," Griffiths reports. O'Neal told him: "That shady environment might be conducive for some of those plants to survive, and maybe even thrive to the point where it becomes economically viable. We don’t know yet, and that’s the point of the experiment."

"Mercier has found that recent estimates indicate there are currently more than 340 agrivoltaics sites in the U.S., mainly pairing solar with pollinator habitats or small ruminant grazing, such as sheep, across more than 33,000 acres while producing a total of 4.8 gigawatts of solar energy," Griffiths reported. "Mercier adds according to a German research organization, Fraunhofer ISE, in 2022, early results from a project in the north African country of Algeria found that under an agrivoltaic installation there was an increase in yield of potatoes of roughly 16% versus the uncovered field."

Billions more for the power grid as the U.S. tries to get up to pace and scale for energy transition and climate change

Photo by Matthew Henry, Unsplash

How much money will it take to prepare the U.S. power grid for energy transition and climate change extremes? More -- billions more.

The Department of Energy "announced $3.5 billion in grants to expand capacity for wind and solar power, harden power lines against extreme weather, integrate batteries and electric vehicles, and build out microgrids that can keep the lights on during power outages," reports Jeff St. John of Canary Media. "The announcement named 58 projects across 44 states eligible to receive federal funding. When matched by funds from state and local governments and utility and industry partners, they will represent more than $8 billion in investment."

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a press briefing, "The $3.5 billion is the first major round of funding from the DOE's Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships Program, created by 2021's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which has $10.5 billion available to expand transmission lines, improve grid resiliency and deploy ​'smart-grid' technologies," St. John writes. "That total is far more than the last major federal investment in grid infrastructure, the $3.4 billion in stimulus grants issued by the Obama administration in 2009."

Enough funding is only one part of infrastructure-building -- project developers are "facing years-long backlogs to connect to transmission grids, which themselves aren’t expanding nearly fast enough to meet the increasing demand," St. John reports. "The selected projects also prioritize communities that are ​'ignored or overlooked for far too often, including rural, Native and low-income communities,' according to Mitch Landrieu, the Biden administration’s senior advisor and infrastructure coordinator. . . . The Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships funding is subject to the Biden administration’s Justice40 Initiative, which pledges to direct 40 percent of federal climate-related funds to historically disadvantaged communities."

Funded grid projects include electric cooperatives in Georgia, which will install "new transmission lines to serve a territory that covers three-quarters of the state’s land mass, as well as deploy battery systems and microgrids to bolster grid reliability," St. John adds. "And rural cooperatives will receive $99.7 million to deploy wildfire assessment and resiliency technology to a consortium of 39 co-ops scattered across the Western U.S."

"Several of these projects also include microgrids to enable communities to keep power up when the grid falters. Some are led by utilities that see a valuable role for microgrids in boosting reliability and integrating more clean energy, but others are led by state and community groups," St. John explains. "Other grants are focused on integrating distributed energy resources — rooftop solar panels, electric vehicles, microgrids and other technologies that utility customers are installing in ever-rising numbers."

Feds, faculty seek symbiotic 'Reese's Cup' mix of farms, solar; Pa. creates a solar guide for farming communities

A combine harvests soybeans under hanging solar panels on an agrivoltaic site in France. The federal government hopes to inspire similar projects in the United States. (Photo by Patrick Hertzog, Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)

"Your solar panel shaded my corn!" "Your corn shaded my solar panel." "Wait! This could be the beginning of an incredible relationship." So might go a 21st century version of the 50-year-old Reese's Cup myth of magical beginnings.

For clean energy, some "Reese" options are being considered, report Daniel Moore and Maeve Sheehey of Bloomberg Law: "Developers are often eyeing fields of wheat, corn, and hay; ranches roamed by cattle and sheep; and plots bursting with berries and lettuce. If built there, solar panels can level farms that feed the country. Yet federal energy officials and university researchers believe there’s no conflict. The Energy Department is scaling up the emerging field of 'agrivoltaics,' which seeks innovations in both solar technology and farming techniques that can produce clean energy and food at the same time, on the same plot of land."

The department, which has been researching the topic since 2015, "announced $8 million for another six research projects that plan to assess issues like soil health, grazing methods, and outreach to minority farmers," Bloomberg reports. "Farming can also help solar panels. Arid land around solar installations can be a problem, blowing dust and hurting farmers next door. Planting crops like broccoli keeps the back of panels cool while conserving water—a win-win for plants and solar productivity, and especially important in the drought-plagued West."

The story's candy angle came from Andrea Gerlak, director of the University of Arizona’s Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, who said, “It’s like a Reese’s peanut butter cup. You want to bring the chocolate and the peanut butter together." Michele Boyd, who leads DOE's agrivoltaics portfolio, told Bloomberg that the pairing "needs to work economically for the farmer, and it needs to work economically for the solar industry—that’s the sweet spot. Otherwise, why would they do it?”

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania, a state with little solar regulation, has released a community guide for solar projects, reports Philip Gruber of Lancaster Farming: "The document has no regulatory force, but it provides a set of principles designed to balance renewable energy, food production and environmental protection. . . . A key point is solar companies should do their best to ensure farming can continue within the solar array. This could involve elevating the panels or spacing them widely, using livestock to manage vegetation, and designing the project so that a farmer who rents the land can continue to do so."

Oil refiners try a new strategy to get around biofuel blending requirements: claiming hardship from pandemic

In the latest salvo of the oil-versus-ethanol battle, "Refiners are aiming to escape biofuel blending rules by winding back the clock, asking the EPA for economic hardship status dating back to 2013 that would free them from their obligations under the Renewable Fuel Standard," Ryan McCrimmon reports for Politico's Morning Agriculture.

In March, the Trump administration declined to appeal a court decision that limited refinery waivers, seeming to signal an end to large oil refiners' use of waivers to get around fuel blending requirements. The court decision specified that EPA could only grant waivers to small refiners that had been continuously exempt from the biofuel blending requirements since the program began in 2013, McCrimmon reports. So now, "Refiners are now petitioning the EPA for economic hardship status dating back to then, allowing them to meet the court’s standard going forward."

The move puts President Trump in an awkward position as he looks toward the November election. "The oil and agriculture industries are key pieces of Trump’s political base, and he’s long been caught in the middle of their fight over federal biofuel policy — especially the use of blending waivers, which ethanol producers claim are crushing their business," McCrimmon writes.

The EPA hasn't taken action on refiners' request for economic hardship status, Stephanie Kelly reports for Reuters. But the Department of Energy, which reviews waiver applications before making recommendations to the EPA, said last month that the department would review retroactive blending waivers.

Energy grid operator and quashed Energy Dept. report agree: Don't force grids to buy electricity from coal plants

The CEO of "the largest power market in America cautioned the Trump administration on Thursday not to use emergency power to keep coal and nuclear plants alive, urging the president to leave analysis and solutions to the experts," Josh Siegel reports for the Washington Examiner. Interference from the Trump administration would be "very inefficient" and "would be damaging to the markets and therefore costly to consumers,"said Andrew Ott of PJM Interconnection.

PJM Interconnection serves utilities in these geographic areas.

Ott spoke at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing in response to a question from Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. Ott referred to a study PJM is conducting, due Nov. 1, about the resilience of the power grid in the 13-state area it covers, which has 65 million people. The study shows that coal and nuclear closures scheduled for 2021 and 2022 can proceed without hurting the grid. 

"The Trump administration is considering requiring federally overseen grid operators such as PJM to buy electricity from select 'critical' coal and nuclear plants for two years, using emergency authority that is normally meant for exceptional crises such as natural disasters, war or a terrorist attack," Siegel reports.

A study commissioned by the Energy Department that doesn't support President Trump's plan is still being kept under wraps, six months after it was submitted, Ari Natter and Jennifer Dlouhy report for Bloomberg. The report's principal author, Michael Webber, tweeted on Friday that "the report hasn't seen the light of day."

The report, done by the University of Texas's Webber Energy Group, "debunks the administration's primary argument for taking extraordinary measures to keep coal plants operating," Natter and Dlouhy report. "Supporters argue that the unprecedented steps are needed to preserve the dependability of the power grid. They say gas-fired power plants rely on pipelines that are vulnerable to attack while coal and nuclear plants generally store fuel on site, making them more reliable."

The Webber analysis says on-site fuel is only one of at least a dozen factors to consider in judging power generators' resilience. The reliability of individual facilities is another. Every power type has pros and cons, the report found.

Though not all reports commissioned by the government are released to the public, the failure to release the Webber report is "eye-raising" because it contradicts the administration's pro-coal narrative, and because the administration released a report that supports its plan, Natter and Dlouhy report.

Regulators, experts, say Trump's coal bailout unnecessary

Federal regulators and cybersecurity experts say that allowing ailing coal and nuclear power plants to close won't pose a security risk for the United States. President Trump recently ordered Energy Secretary Rick Perry to halt the shutdowns of such plants because he said they were necessary to maintaining the nation's energy mix, grid resilience and national security.

 "Asked by Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing whether they believed the U.S. faced a national security emergency in wholesale power markets because of the closures, none of the five members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission answered in the affirmative," Miranda Green reports for The Hill. Four of the five members of FERC are Trump appointees.

FERC member Richard Glick told the panel he was "sympathetic to the plight of coal miners who have been disproportionately affected" by coal's long slide, but said it wasn't FERC's job to figure out how to help struggling communities, Green reports.

Some energy companies and grid operators have questioned President Trump's order, such as PJM Interconnection, the nation's largest power grid operator, who called the action "drastic" and warned it could hurt the markets and cost consumers more. Charlie Burd, executive director of the Independent Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia, agreed, saying in a TV interview that picking winners and losers "can be a very dangerous situation," Alex Thomas reports for W.V. Metro News.

Cybersecurity experts said the action is pointless because "hackers have a wide array of options for hitting electric infrastructure and nuclear facilities that are high-profile targets," Timothy Gardner reports for Reuters.

First story from ProPublica's Local Reporting Network says nuclear lab workers may have been exposed to toxin

Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the birthplace of the atomic bomb, may have exposed workers to harm after failing to keep track of a toxic metal used in nuclear weapons production. "The New Mexico lab’s failure to adequately track beryllium — small amounts of which can cause lung disease and cancer — violates federal regulations put in place to prevent worker overexposure, according to a report last week from the Department of Energy’s inspector general," Rebecca Moss reports for The Santa Fe New Mexican and ProPublica.

The story is the first from a year-long project, the Local Reporting Network, which ProPublica launched to support local and regional investigative reporting. Moss will be examining workplace safety issues at Los Alamos and other national laboratories that develop nuclear weapons for the DOE.

Los Alamos has had safety problems in the past. In October 2017, an independent federal safety board found that the lab's emergency preparedness plan was inadequate. Soon afterward the DOE investigated an incident in which a worker responded to an alarm by walking into an oxygen-deprived room, which could have killed the worker.

Los Alamos, which employs more than 11,000 workers, told the inspector general that the insufficient oversight is a result of staffing problems and the sheer number of the programs it oversees, but added that it is not aware of any workers having been exposed to beryllium. "Over the last decade, the inspector general has found issues with beryllium protections at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California," Moss reports.