February 19, 2024
Ontario Energy Board Distribution System Regulations#
The OEB has announced that it is moving ahead on its distribution regulations for the province. This announcement comes after most of the decisions on the roll-out were already decided and a minimum consultation with private EV charging interests and a couple major energy distributors occurred. The only folks organized enough to put forward submissions to these changes were:
- Building Owners and Managers Association
- Environmental Defence
- Electricity Distributors Association
- Global Automakers of Canada
- Hydro One Networks Inc.
- Kingston Hydro Corporation
- Tesla Motors Canada
- Toronto Hydro-Electric System Limited
The OEB is calling it "Distributed Energy Resources", but it really just means the transition to using electricity as a transportation fuel (supplied by businesses) and distributed generation (read: firm-based solar and wind).
This is extremely important work and it is necessary for the OEB to get a decent response from the public and knowledgeable parties to off-set the general call of privatization of generation and market-determined investment. Unfortunately, that is not happening as the process is geared to market demand instead of planning.
While there is no question regulation needs to continue to evolve in this space, it seems to be evolving only after decisions of private investors of EV infrastructure providers have decided to move forward. These changes are mostly to streamline the application process of businesses (including local distribution companies) of installing corporate charging stations. The goal is for the OEB to be able to recommend to generators and transmission companies how they should invest in infrastructure to provide these "users" (ie, re-sellers of electricity) with energy.
It is backwards and I think is going to leave gaps in the regulatory system, but also major gaps in the roll-out of charging infrastructure.
Data, climate, and Energy#
New technology and context always impacts how geopolitical conflict is carried out. Right now the technology is around data and how that data is process about climate change.
Espionage is the word used by the USA and their FBI, but the main concern of the state is that capital is being targeted by criminal groups with some ties to state actors. It used to be that Russian-linked cyber criminal groups were blamed for every incursion in to the USA network. Now, it is a focus on China, where the anti-China sentiment is growing. While Russia continues to be a geopolitical threat, China is now seen by most in the USA state as the main economic threat to Western hegemony and capitalism.
It is a common sentiment across the USA political spectrum as Biden's Dems and Trump continue to go on and on about China.
To this ens, the FBI has been convening meeting of academics, industry, and politicians to convince them that data security is of paramount importance in protecting the USA's economic interests from China.
The current target of Chinese state aligned cyber criminal (hacking) groups are fossil fuel and USA-based energy companies. The goal of many of these actors is access, but in the meantime they are releasing data related to their impact on climate change and operations.
It may seem a little odd that the West is concerned with this given the supposed advanced technology the USA and its allies have. However, the implementation across the economy of new technology is haphazard and unregulated, making it an easy target for those looking to cause mischief. Energy and large transport companies are uniquely positioned here as near-essential pieces of infrastructure as they are notoriously slow at implementing new technology. Why implement new technology when you make so much profit sticking straws in the ground and selling what comes out?
However, if you are a criminal with some tenuous connection to a state on the opposite "side" of the geopolitical game, they make an interesting target. USA infrastructure is key to the economic activity of the USA. If you can shut any of that down, it would make for some powerful leverage in times of conflict.
Additionally, the USA does not like to have its companies embarrassed by information leaking about how hypocritical the USA is when it comes to dealing with global problems. Such as its policies having little to no effect on mitigating climate change. The West is increasing leaning on lecturing the rest of the world on emissions while doing little beyond expensive narrative setting around its own energy industry.
These two issues make energy infrastructure, which includes data, a target for malicious actors. And, with the rise in "AI" being used to automate as much as possible as fast as possible and without regulation, it makes an a relatively easy target.
The response should be clear. It should not be so much about convincing people that it is a problem, it should be about taking a holistic view of data, public access, and oversight. Our companies hide data, hide major deficiencies in our infrastructure, and spin false narratives about what they are doing to avoid regulation.
The answer is to both secure that data and make it less of a target by building public disclosure into the system. This would build trust in those regulatory systems, increase capacity to identify bad actors, and (actually) regulate properly.
Getting back to a regime of state oversight is the first step to developing a plan for real energy transition, safe and secure infrastructure, and building endemic capacity for production if we are really concerned with foreign actors affecting our infrastructure.
Methane sensing#
Another strange example of extraneous interests driving regulation in the USA are private USA actors. The upcoming launch of the $88M Environmental Defence Fund (USA) MethaneSAT satellite to detect methane leaks. The project is funded by (Amazon's) Bezos's Earth fund, data analysis done by Google, and launched into space by Musk's SpaceX.
The satellite has sent states around the world rushing to announce a slew of methane leak-related regulations. The reality is that the satellite data is going to expose something we should all know: the gas industry has been pretending it is a clean alternative to other fossil fuels while conveniently ignoring the broad impact of methane being released into the atmosphere.
A strange mix of funding source, I know. Why do we continue to leave these spaces open to these private actors clearly do not have our collective interests at heart?
Nuclear fuel#
The big push on for building more nuclear energy generating capacity hit a major snag with the invasion of Ukraine. Russia's state nuclear energy company makes most of the highly enriched Uranium needed to run new generations of nuclear power plant. Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) need a steady supply of highly enriched Uranium and so do many new European designs.
The USA has not yet put forward sanctions on the Russian nuclear company for fear it will drive Uranium prices too high. Well, we are there with the price increase and it has reached levels that that the USA and UK can now start ramping-up commercially viable production.
Canada is a major producer of Yellow Cake used for Uranium fuel, but does not have any processes that produce highly enriched Uranium.
Hydrogen#
Get ready for mined Hydrogen. Yes, oil and gas companies are now looking to get hydrogen by tapping underground reserves.
Reasons why this is likely a bad idea:
- Mining hydrogen will release massive amounts of hydrogen.
- Hydrogen is a greenhouse gas when released unburned in high volumes.
- While the technology is there and hydrogen sounds similar to fossil fuels, but with less climate impact, the reality is that it is extremely hard to manage and use.
- Hydrogen can be mined effectively in some places, but it does not exist where current deposits of oil and gas are. And, the best place to use that mined Hydrogen is the exact place it is being mined because of the above issues.
- Hydrogen mining will not be part of green just transition, again because it is not found where we currently have work in the fossil fuel industry.
Money will be spent trying to find yet another replacement for fossil fuels instead of putting money into the transition.
All this does not necessarily make it a bad thing for countries with these resources to develop. But, it does make me question why we would build a massive global infrastructure to try to deal with this fuel.