The Biden Energy Plan Is Like California’s—But Worse

Former Vice President and Democratic Party presidential nominee Joe Biden is setting aside $2 trillion for his “clean energy” plan that would replace fossil fuels on the electrical grid by 2035—10 years earlier than California’s state goal. California currently requires 60 percent of its generation to come from renewable energy by 2030 and 100 percent to come from zero-carbon sources by 2045. These non-carbon sources will likely be wind, solar, geothermal, and hydropower because California is shuttering its last nuclear plant in the next few years and new nuclear power cannot compete economically with these other non-carbon sources. California’s reliance on renewable energy resulted in rolling blackouts last month when a heatwave hit and it could not import reliable energy from neighboring states, which the state normally does when its own energy cannot keep the lights on. California’s wildfires resulted in 30 percent less power from its solar units, which also lose power toward sunset—the same time homeowners turn on their appliances.

Mr. Biden, if elected, will force the rest of the country toward a similar plight with his “clean energy standard,” which requires 100 percent electricity to be generated from non-carbon sources by 2035— ten years earlier than California’s mandate. Whether it is even feasible to achieve on a national scale is doubtful, but it will undoubtedly be expensive to electricity consumers and to taxpayers.

Biden’s Plan Has Farther to Go than California’s Plan and Ten Fewer Years to Get There

California generates 42 percent of its power from hydrocarbon sources (natural gas) while the U.S. as a whole generates 63 percent of its electricity from hydrocarbons (coal, natural gas, oil, and other gases). While Biden’s plan does include existing nuclear power, which supplies 20 percent of U.S. generation today, these plants may not all survive premature retirement. Renewable energy is heavily subsidized through state mandates and federal subsidies that makes it hard for other forms of energy to compete with solar and wind units even when their capital costs are fully paid off.

The cost of transforming the U.S. electrical system by replacing perfectly good coal and natural gas plants with non-carbon dioxide emitting generating resources—most likely wind and solar power—and obtaining the necessary grid upgrades and the back-up battery power needed when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining will be an immense and expensive task in just 14 years, if it can be done at all.

California with 30 percent of its utility-scale electricity generated by non-hydroelectric renewable energy had the seventh-highest residential electricity price in the nation in 2019. California’s residential electricity price at 19.22 cents per kilowatt-hour was almost 50 percent higher than the average residential electricity price in the nation (13.04 cents per kilowatt-hour). The United States currently gets just 10.6 percent of its electricity from non-hydroelectric renewable energy despite 28 years of massive tax subsidies at the state and federal levels, coupled with state mandates that force utilities to use increasing amounts of wind and solar. And, many U.S. states do not have good resource potential for generating electricity from wind or solar. Minnesota, for example, received just 5.6 percent of the rated capacity of its solar panels in December 2018.  If required to supply all of its electricity in a similar month, consumers would have to pay almost 18 times more to get 100-percent solar power.

Further, nobody is taking into account the massive costs associated with the disposal of retiring wind and solar units, which are expected to occur after 20 to 25 years of operation, because these units do not operate for the 50 to 60 years that coal, natural gas, and nuclear plants can generate power. Solar panels create 300 times more toxic waste per unit of energy than do nuclear power plants. And, researchers estimate the United States will have over 720,000 tons of wind turbine blade material to dispose of over the next 20 years—a figure that doesn’t include newer, taller higher-capacity turbines.

While coal, nuclear, and petrochemical companies must come up with detailed, costly plans for dealing with disposal, mining restoration and other results of their operations, solar and wind companies have received massive subsidies and absolutely no disposal standards or requirements. Government grants do not require that solar companies set aside money to dispose of, store or recycle wastes generated during manufacturing or after solar farms have ceased operation. Solar and wind customers are currently not charged for waste cleanup, disposal, or reuse and recycling, which distort the costs of solar and wind power along with the state mandates and federal subsidies they receive. Disposal costs will have to be paid, and ultimately consumers will bear the cost, increasing the cost of electricity even more.

Research has found that large-scale solar power plants raise local temperatures, creating a solar heat island effect. Temperatures around one solar power plant were 5.4o-7.2 °F warmer than nearby wildlands. One can just imagine such manmade warming effects across the millions of acres needed to meet Biden’s “clean energy standard,” which he promises to implement 10 years earlier than even California’s current plans.

Conclusion

California can serve as an example of what is to come from the Biden energy plan, which is even worse and more costly than California’s plan. Biden must remove more hydrocarbons from the U.S. generating sector in just 14 years than California needs to do in 24 years. California is facing black-outs and reduced generation from its solar plants as heat waves and wildfires hit the state. Californians pay more for electricity than most Americans and they will continue to pay more as the state continues to move toward more renewable energy.

This is the future Americans have to look forward to if Joe Biden’s vision becomes the law of the land.  Californians’ energy price increases will seem small compared to what Americans can expect from Biden’s plans that must be implemented in 14 short years.  Most Americans want affordable electricity when they need it, for their homes and businesses and for hospitals and schools and everything in modern life. California’s unreliable and costly electrical system is what Joe Biden is promising to implement nationwide, but on a larger and faster scale.

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3 Digital PR Tenets for Excellent Outreach

Posted by amandamilligan

Content creation and promotion is our bread and butter at Fractl, but most of the questions we get are tied to the promotions side of the process.

People ask us: How are you able to secure media coverage on sites like CNBC, USA Today, and more?

It’s not easy, I’ll tell you that. It takes a lot of time and resources, and over the years we’ve established a set of tenets that guide our digital PR process.

I hope sharing them with you will help you refine your own strategy.

1. Research and relevancy are non-negotiable

When we surveyed 500 writers in 2019, we asked them about their biggest pitching pet peeves.

PR pros and journalists have a mutually beneficial relationship. We provide them a source for their posts, and they share what we produce widely with their audience.

Why is it important to avoid peeving off journalists?

The thing is, journalists receive dozens of pitch emails a day.

That’s why it’s so imperative that you craft the best possible email to them every time. You're competing with tons of other content providers for the same spot on their editorial calendar.

As it turns out, they’re most annoyed when pitches aren’t relevant to them.

While this is great insight into how to surpass many of the other pitches that land in these writers’ inboxes, it’s still tough to know how to tangibly put this into action.

Based on our experience, here are our tips for making sure your pitches are relevant to the person you’re pitching:

• What is the person’s beat? It’s often more specific than it may seem. For example, instead of digital marketing, they might only write about social media. Or instead of general health, they may write about health but only in conjunction with psychology. Make sure you’ve studied exactly what they cover so you’re not pitching something useless to them.
• Do they ever cover external studies or the type of content you’re pitching? If they stick to opinion or investigative journalism, whatever you’re sending them might not be up their alley.
• Can their website or platform support your content type? Not every site can embed interactives or videos. Or maybe the publisher is just sick of posting a certain content type like infographics. See what’s been published in the past and if your content fits in with what they’re regularly writing about.

While you’re doing this research, it doesn’t hurt to see how often that particular writer publishes. If it’s once a day, you have a much higher chance of getting coverage than if they’re a contributing writer who only writes for that publication once a month.

2. Personalization matters

People appreciate being seen, and recognizing that you’ve done your homework to make sure they’re actually a good fit to write about your content (as discussed in the previous section).

Adding a touch of personalization can go a long way in making it very clear you’re taking the pitch seriously, and also that you’re just two people having a conversation. (Wouldn’t you rather reply to someone you get a good first impression from?)

In a recent study, we sent 100 pitch emails, half with personalizations and half without them, asking for quotes to include in an article. We found that personalized emails received a higher rate of positive-sentiment responses.

Replies to personalized emails were 83.3% positive compared to replies to non-personalized emails, which were 60% positive.

We had a feeling this was the case because we get responses like this one from writers at Bustle and HubSpot, respectively:

“I have to commend you for great PR tactics here. I open so few of these, much less respond, so mentioning my cat AND sending a pic of yours AND including info that’s relevant to my beat gives you an A++. “

“Thanks for reaching out and showing OutKast some love. This is actually the only time I've ever responded to a pitch email.”

The media relations specialists knew that the former writer loved cats and the latter writer loved Outkast because they followed them on Twitter.

If you have a list of target publications or writers you’d like to reach out to, make sure you’re:

• Following them on social channels to start building connections and getting a sense of who they are as people
• Keeping tabs on their recent writings, not only for research purposes but to see if anything personally resonates with you that you can remark on

There’s no need to dig up stuff they’ve posted in the past — that’s when things start to get weird. Do your due diligence, but don’t make it an investigative mission. Remember: The goal here is to simply connect with another human being, and to show them you put in the work to pitch something they’d actually appreciate.

3. Emails should be short and straightforward

Some PR specialists worry that personalizing will make their emails too long and detract from their succinctness.

But personalization only needs to be a sentence or two, so it doesn’t put a huge dent in your overall word count, which, according to that same survey of publishers, should be about 100-300 words.

After leading with a personalized intro, it’s important to get right to the meat of what you’re pitching and why.

Make sure to include:

• A link to the full content project (don’t ask if they want to see it — just provide everything they need)
• Why you think the project is a good fit for their readers
• Bullet points explaining the key relevant takeaways that would appeal to their audience

Take the guesswork out of it. A writer should already be intrigued by the time they click to read your full project, which ideally will sell them on including your information in their stories.

Conclusion

Perhaps the most important point of all doesn’t even relate to the pitching itself but to what you’re pitching. The truth is, no amount of excellent pitching can salvage a subpar piece of content. It’s why we don’t often offer our digital PR expertise as its own standalone service, unless we’re confident the content being provided to us is up to par.

You need high-quality content, well targeted outreach, concisely crafted emails, and a personalized approach, but with this winning combination, you can be earning top media coverage and backlinks for your brand.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

Plugged In Podcast #61: Tom Tanton on the Cost of Total Electrification

Tom Tanton, Director of Science and Technology Assessment for The Energy & Environment Legal Institute, joins the show to discuss his recent report which analyzes the costs associated with total electrification of the economy.

Links:

• Read the full report, Cost of Electrification

• Highlights of the report from E&E Legal Foundation

• More about California’s electrification efforts

• Listen to Tom’s last appearance on the Plugged In Podcast

• More from The Energy & Environment Legal Institute

• Follow Tom on Twitter

 

Institute for Energy Research · #61: Tom Tanton on the cost of total electrification (10-5-20)

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What Would a Biden Presidency Mean for Energy in the Asia-Pacific Region?

Polling suggests Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden will oust Donald Trump from the White House in November’s election, throwing America’s energy superpower status into flux. When Trump entered office in 2017, America’s energy production renaissance was well underway, but it was only in the ensuing 36 months that U.S. energy exports—of oil, coal, and especially natural gas—became prominent in global markets. During Trump’s presidency, the U.S. has emerged as a global force in energy production and exports.

In 2016, during Barack Obama’s final year in office, companies in the U.S. produced 32.6 trillion cubic feet in gross natural gas withdrawals. In 2019, U.S. producers tallied 40.7 trillion cubic feet—a 25 percent increase. This growth and the opening of new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities resulted in a doubling of total U.S. natural gas exports, from 2.33 trillion cubic feet in 2016 to 4.66 trillion cubic feet in 2019—1.82 trillion of which was LNG. This development put meaningful downward pressure on global LNG prices.

The two largest beneficiaries of the United States’ newfound natural gas export prowess are Korea and Japan, who in 2019 imported 266 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 201 billion cubic feet of natural gas respectively. The U.S. is also a net coal exporter. In 2019, India and Japan imported more American coal than any other countries, at 12.83 million short tons and 10.99 million short tons respectively. Korea was the fifth largest importer at 7.36 million short tons. Japan, Korea, and India are also the three largest importers of U.S. crude oil outside of North America, each importing over 170 million barrels in 2019.

A potential change of presidential administration prompts the question: What would a Biden victory mean for the energy-importing countries of the Asia-Pacific region?

Biden’s Energy Platform

The Biden campaign has attempted to walk a rhetorical tightrope on energy policy. Biden has placated his party’s environmentalist wing with a multi-trillion-dollar plan to steer America’s economy toward wind and solar energy. But Biden’s path to the White House requires garnering the support of Midwestern states that were once America’s industrial wellspring, have tended to vote for Democrats, and yet opted for Trump in 2016. Unsurprisingly, his energy declarations have been less than clear.

Biden has variously espoused an outright fracking ban, a ban on “new” fracking, and a ban on fracking on federal lands. Fracking produces well over half of both U.S. oil and U.S. gas production. Consistently he has ruled out new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters, which together account for nearly a quarter of U.S. oil and gas production.

The team Biden has assembled includes staunch opponents of U.S. energy production. His running mate, Kamala Harris, would ban fracking outright. A co-chair of Biden’s climate task force, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is the driver of the so-called Green New Deal, which would force the country off of fossil fuels. Given that Biden is widely understood as a bridge candidate, the coterie with which he surrounds himself is a key indicator.

Presidential Authority

Regardless of what a President Biden might favor, the U.S. governance system puts a damper on the ambitions of any president. Some Democratic Party priorities, such as a national renewable electricity mandate, are outside the scope of presidential authority. There are avenues, however, in which the president can make an impact, such as energy infrastructure permitting and regulatory policy.

On infrastructure—think pipeline and export facilities—Biden’s climate plan states, “every federal infrastructure investment should reduce climate pollution” and requires “any federal permitting decision to consider the effects of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.” Something a Biden administration would enact quickly is a resuscitation of the Obama-era social cost of carbon figure (or one more stringent) to quantify costs and benefits in its infrastructure approval process.

Trump, meanwhile, has taken a light-touch approach and has aimed to expedite permitting. And just this year his administration approved an LNG export facility in Alaska—the first on the U.S. Pacific coast. An example of a regulatory change over which the president has ultimate authority is the recent Trump revision to methane rules minimizing wellhead reporting requirements.

A President Biden would have ample opportunity to obstruct coal exports, as coal is susceptible to the foibles of the U.S. National Ambient Air Quality Standards both at the site of extraction and at the point of export. Additionally, Biden would also aim to reduce coal leasing on federal land, especially in the western state of Wyoming, which produces 40 percent of U.S. coal.

An area over which the president has wide authority is foreign policy—and a wildcard in this discussion is how Joe Biden might alter U.S. relations with Iran. If Biden were to weaken sanctions on Iran, Asia-Pacific might find itself with a more favorable oil import situation.

Implications

Biden regulatory reversals and infrastructure slowdowns would lead to increased costs for natural gas production in the U.S. On the margin, this would mean less favorable conditions for Asia-Pacific gas importers. But key LNG export facilities that are now up and running will continue to compress and ship gas. Given its abundant shale reservoirs and the infrastructure already in place, the U.S. will continue to be the global leader in natural gas production and the commodity will continue to flow to across the ocean—regardless of new Biden policies. Coal exports may, however, prove more vulnerable, leaving India and Japan in search of new suppliers. On the whole, a Biden administration would be hostile to U.S. energy exports whether coal, oil, or natural gas and its efforts to limit or disrupt these exports would make the U.S. a less stable source for meeting Asia-Pacific energy needs.

The post What Would a Biden Presidency Mean for Energy in the Asia-Pacific Region? appeared first on IER.

Joe Biden Can’t Decide If He Supports the Green New Deal

Biden waffled in the first presidential debate of the general election season on whether his climate plan was the “Green New Deal” or the “Biden plan” despite his campaign website saying, “Biden believes the Green New Deal is a crucial framework for meeting the climate challenges we face.” Democratic nominee Biden said, “The Green New Deal is not my plan.” But a moment later, he said: “The Green New Deal will pay for itself as we move forward. You’re not going to build plants that in fact are great polluting plants.” After the debate, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey said, “The liberal left is with Joe Biden, and we will pass a Green New Deal.” Markey made that claim despite Moderator Chris Wallace asking Biden, “You support the Green New Deal?” and Biden replying “No, I don’t support the Green New Deal.”

Mr. Biden is setting aside $2 trillion for his climate plan, which is supposed to replace fossil fuels on the electrical grid by 2035—10 years earlier than California’s state goal— and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. During the debate, Biden vowed to rejoin the Paris climate accord and to pressure Brazil to stop land clearing in the Amazon. President Trump then told the viewers that the estimated cost of the Green New Deal was more like $100 trillion.

Transforming the U.S. Energy Sector

The cost of transforming the U.S. electrical system, which currently gets 62 percent of its power from coal and natural gas plants that are in perfectly good operating condition and replacing them with non-carbon emitting generating resources—most likely wind and solar power—and obtaining the necessary grid upgrades and the back-up battery power needed when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining would be an immense and expensive task in just 14 years. Add to that the further transition to carbon neutrality that Biden’s platform expects to achieve by 2050, which means transforming the entire transportation and industrial sectors in the United States to non-carbon fuels, and one can easily see how the costs add up. The United States currently gets 80 percent of its energy from fossil fuels that are abundant and affordable and American-made. Last year, the United States produced more energy than it consumed for the first time in over 60 years. Transforming the transportation sector that includes 280 million light duty vehicles and gets over 90 percent of its energy from petroleum products to non-carbon and adding all the infrastructure needed would be a phenomenal undertaking that must occur in 30 years, according to the Biden plan.

In fact, a new study found that 90 percent of America’s light-duty cars will need to be electric by 2050 if the transportation sector is to stay in line with climate mitigation targets set out in the Paris agreement. That might mean requiring all of the nation’s new car sales to be electric as early as 2035, the target recently established for California by Governor Gavin Newsom. The study estimated that if California’s target is adopted nationally, and current trends in car use and ownership continue, 350 million electric vehicles would be on America’s roads in 2050, using up the equivalent of 41 percent of the nation’s total power demand in 2018, which would create problems for the nation’s electrical grid. To change those numbers, more Americans would need to use public transportation, which they have shied away from recently due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden on the Cost of Renewable Energy

At the debate, Biden said,

“…, during our administration in the recovery act, I was in charge able to bring down the cost of renewable energy to cheaper than are as cheap as coal and gas and oil.”

Much of the reason that solar and wind energy costs have declined is due to federal subsidies that were put into place way before Biden was Vice President and due to the technology’s forced construction because of individual state mandates for their generation, called renewable portfolio standards. The wind Production Tax Credit was created by the Energy Policy Act of 1992 and provides operators with a tax credit per kilowatt-hour of renewable electricity generation for the first 10 years the facility is in operation. The U.S. Treasury estimates that the existing form of the Production Tax Credit will cost taxpayers $40.12 billion from 2018 to 2027, making it the most expensive energy subsidy under current tax law.

The Investment Tax Credit for solar was set at a permanent 10 percent rate in 1992. In 2005, the Energy Policy Act raised its value to a temporary 30 percent rate, which is being phased out, returning the credit to 10 percent in 2022, unless Congress extends it again. This means taxpayers paid 30 percent of the cost of solar energy installations for many years.

State mandates forced utilities to build wind and solar plants. Between 2009 and 2019, the share of wind and solar power in the U.S. generation system increased from 2 percent to 9 percent, but average residential electricity prices increased by 13 percent. During this period, demand for electricity was fairly flat so little new capacity needed to be built. Instead, the state mandates and federal subsidies gave wind and solar preferential treatment forcing coal, natural gas and nuclear plants to prematurely retire.

The purpose of the lucrative tax subsidies for wind and solar energy by federal and state governments is ostensibly to establish these industries and lower their costs, making them competitive with other existing technologies. But, there is a fundamental flaw in the logic in that wind and solar energy are intermittent technologies, generating power only when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining. As a result, backup power is needed to supply electricity at the touch of a light switch, 24 hours a day and seven days a week. That backup power can take on different forms such as natural gas plants, hydroelectric dams, batteries, or some other form of standby power. But these backup costs are not attached to the cost of wind or solar power that most organizations report or that Joe Biden referenced, nor are they attributed to the wind or solar producer. They are paid for by taxpayers and energy consumers, typically without public disclosure of the costs.

The Institute for Energy Research did a study that calculated the cost of back-up power and recalculated the levelized costs of wind and solar incorporating the extra cost. Including the cost of the back-up power, a new wind plant or a new solar plant would be almost twice as expensive on the electric system as a new natural gas combined cycle plant.

Biden on Green Jobs

At the debate, Biden said:

“There’s so many things that we can do now to create thousands and thousands of jobs. We can get to net zero, in terms of energy production, by 2035. Not only not costing people jobs, creating jobs, creating millions of good-paying jobs. Not 15 bucks an hour, but prevailing wage, by having a new infrastructure that in fact, is green. And the first thing I will do, I will rejoin the Paris Accord.” 

In reality, Biden’s proposed transition from oil and gas to renewable energy would result in lower pay for blue-collar workers and possibly lower benefits as well. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for 2019, the median annual pay for petroleum engineers was $137,210—three times that for solar panel installers ($44,890) and 2.6 times higher than the average salary for a wind turbine technician ($52,910). Even petroleum pump system operators and refinery operators ($72,570) made more than solar and wind technicians by 40 to 60 percent.

Further, workers who have completed an apprentice program or otherwise dedicated years of their lives in a profession do not want to see their skill sets devalued or be thrown into junior positions in a new occupation. Laid-off workers will not be able to immediately find a new job at the same wage, but will likely spend a significant amount of time searching for work, and will most likely need to accept a lower wage in the new job market that may also mean relocation and the expenses that relocation entails.

According to Biden’s campaign website, he promises union jobs, but the renewable energy sector largely lacks union representation. According to a January 2017 report by the U.S. Department of Energy, only 3.4 percent of solar photovoltaic workers were unionized and only 4 percent of workers in wind power generation were unionized, compared to a national workplace average of 11 percent.

Conclusion

Biden’s plan calls for spending $2 trillion over four years to eliminate carbon emissions from the power sector by 2035 through a set of mandates and to be carbon neutral by 2050, something which would entail much greater costs. Biden promises to transition to cleaner energy creating an economic boon and good jobs by making sure the environment is clean. But those good jobs are actually lower-paying, the cost of the transition is more than allocated by Biden’s $2 trillion that comes from taxpayers and the result will increase energy prices for Americans, limit their choices for transportation and the type of vehicle they can purchase and increase the likelihood that Americans have unreliable energy as California provides an example during its recent heat wave.

The post Joe Biden Can’t Decide If He Supports the Green New Deal appeared first on IER.

Overcoming Blockers: How to Build Your Red Tape Toolkit — Best of Whiteboard Friday

Posted by HeatherPhysioc

Have you ever made SEO recommendations that just don't go anywhere? Maybe you run into a lack of budget, or you can't get buy-in from your boss or colleagues. Maybe your work just keeps getting de-prioritized in favor of other initiatives. Whatever the case, it's important to set yourself up for success when it comes to the tangled web of red tape that's part and parcel of most organizations.

In this helpful — and still relevant — Whiteboard Friday episode from autumn 2018, MozCon speaker Heather Physioc shares her tried-and-true methods for building yourself a toolkit that'll help you tear through roadblocks to get your work implemented.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

What up, Moz fans? This is Heather Physioc. I'm the Director of the Discoverability Group at VML, headquartered in Kansas City. So today we're going to talk about how to build your red tape toolkit to overcome obstacles to getting your search work implemented. So do you ever feel like your recommendations are overlooked, ignored, forgotten, deprioritized, or otherwise just not getting implemented?

Common roadblocks to implementing SEO recommendations

If so, you're not alone. So I asked 140-plus of our industry colleagues the blockers that they run into and how they overcome them.

• Low knowledge. So if you're anything like every other SEO ever, you might be running into low knowledge and understanding of search, either on the client side or within your own agency.
• Low buy-in. You may be running into low buy-in. People don't care about SEO as much as you do.
• Poor prioritization. So other things frequently come to the top of the list while SEO keeps falling further behind.
• High bureaucracy. So a lot of red tape or slow approvals or no advocacy within the organization.
• Not enough budget. A lot of times it's not enough budget, not enough resources to get the work done.
• Unclear and overcomplicated process. So people don't know where they fit or even how to get started implementing your SEO work.
• Bottlenecks. And finally bottlenecks where you're just hitting blockers at every step along the way.

So if you're in-house, you probably said that not enough budget and resources was your biggest problem. But on the agency side or individual practitioners, they said low understanding or knowledge of search on the client side was their biggest blocker.

So a lot of the time when we run into these blockers and it seems like nothing is getting done, we start to play the blame game. We start to complain that it's the client who hung up the project or if the client had only listened or it's something wrong with the client's business.

Build out your red tape toolkit

But I don't buy it. So we're going to not do that. We're going to build out our red tape toolkit. So here are some of the suggestions that came out of that survey.

1. Assess client maturity

First is to assess your client's maturity. This could include their knowledge and capabilities for doing SEO, but also their organizational search program, the people, process, ability to plan, knowledge, capacity.

These are the problems that tend to stand in the way of getting our best work done. So I'm not going to go in-depth here because we've actually put out a full-length article on the Moz blog and another Whiteboard Friday. So if you need to pause, watch that and come back, no problem.

2. Speak your client's language

So the next thing to put in your toolkit is to speak your client's language. I think a lot of times we're guilty of talking to fellow SEOs instead of the CMOs and CEOs who buy into our work. So unless your client is a super technical mind or they have a strong search background, it's in our best interests to lift up and stay at 30,000 feet. Let's talk about things that they care about, and I promise you that is not canonicalization or SSL encryption and HTTPS.

They're thinking about ROI and their customers and operational costs. Let's translate and speak their language. Now this could also mean using analogies that they can relate to or visual examples and data visualizations that tell the story of search better than words ever could. Help them understand. Meet them in the middle.

3. Seek greater perspective

Now let's seek greater perspective. So what this means is SEO does not or should not operate in a silo. We're one small piece of your client's much larger marketing mix. They have to think about the big picture. A lot of times our clients aren't just dedicated to SEO. They're not even dedicated to just digital sometimes. A lot of times they have to think about how all the pieces fit together. So we need to have the humility to understand where search fits into that and ladder our SEO goals up to the brand goals, campaign goals, business and revenue goals. We also need to understand that every SEO project we recommend comes with a time and a cost associated with it.

Everything we recommend to a CMO is an opportunity cost as well for something else that they could be working on. So we need to show them where search fits into that and how to make those hard choices. Sometimes SEO doesn't need to be the leader. Sometimes we're the follower, and that's okay.

4. Get buy-in

The next tool in your toolkit is to get buy-in. So there are two kinds of buy-in you can get.

Horizontal buy-in

One is horizontal buy-in. So a lot of times search is dependent on other disciplines to get our work implemented. We need copywriters. We need developers. So the number-one complaint SEOs have is not being brought in early. That's the same complaint all your teammates on development and copywriting and everywhere else have.

Respect the expertise and the value that they bring to this project and bring them to the table early. Let them weigh in on how this project can get done. Build mockups together. Put together a plan together. Estimate the level of effort together.

Vertical buy-in

Which leads us to vertical buy-in. Vertical is up and down. When you do this horizontal buy-in first, you're able to go to the client with a much smarter, better vetted recommendation. So a lot of times your day-to-day client isn't the final decision maker. They have to sell this opportunity internally. So give them the tools and the voice that they need to do that by the really strong recommendation you put together with your peers and make it easy for them to take it up to their boss and their CMO and their CEO. Then you really increase the likelihood that you're going to get that work done.

5. Build a bulletproof plan

Next, build a bulletproof plan.

Case studies

So the number-one recommendation that came out of this survey was case studies. Case studies are great. They talk about the challenge that you tried to overcome, the solution, how you actually tackled it, and the results you got out of that.

Clients love case studies. They show that you have the chops to do the work. They better explain the outcomes and the benefits of doing this kind of work, and you took the risk on that kind of project with someone else's money first. So that's going to reduce the perceived risk in the client's mind and increase the likelihood that they're going to do the work.

Make your plan simple and clear, with timelines

Another thing that helps here is building a really simple, clear plan so it's stupid-easy for everybody who needs to be a part of it to know where they fit in and what they're responsible for. So do the due diligence to put together a step-by-step plan and assign ownership to each step and put timelines to it so they know what pace they should be following.

Forecast ROI

Finally, forecast ROI. This is not optional. So a lot of times I think SEOs are hesitant to forecast the potential outcomes or ROI of a project because of the sheer volume of unknowns.

We live in a world of theory, and it's very hard to commit to something that we can't be certain about. But we have to give the client some sense of return. We have to know why we are recommending this project over others. There's a wealth of resources out there to do that for even heavily caveated and conservative estimate, including case studies that others have published online.

Show the cost of inaction

Now sometimes forecasting the opportunity of ROI isn't enough to light a fire for clients. Sometimes we need to show them the cost of inaction. I find that with clients the risk is not so much that they're going to make the wrong move. It's that they'll make no move at all. So a lot of times we will visualize what that might look like. So we'll show them this is the kind of growth we think that you can get if you invest and you follow this plan we put together.

Here's what it will look like if you invest just a little to monitor and maintain, but you're not aggressively investing in search. Oh, and here, dropping down and to the right, is what happens when you don't invest at all. You stagnate and you get surpassed by your competitors. That can be really helpful for clients to contrast those different levels of investment and convince them to do the work that you're recommending.

6. Use headlines & soundbites

Next use headlines, taglines, and sound bites. What we recommend is really complicated to some clients. So let's help translate that into simple, usable language that's memorable so they can go repeat those lines to their colleagues and their bosses and get that work sold internally. We also need to help them prioritize.

So if you're anything like me, you love it when the list of SEO action items is about a mile long. But when we dump that in their laps, it's too much. They get overwhelmed and bombarded, and they tune out. So instead, you are the expert consultant. Use what you know about search and know about your client to help them prioritize the single most important thing that they should be focusing on.

7. Patience, persistence, and parallel paths

Last in your toolkit, patience, persistence, and parallel paths. So getting this work done is a combination of communication, follow-up, patience, and persistence. While you've got your client working on this one big thing that you recommended, you can be building parallel paths, things that have fewer obstacles that you can own and run with.

They may not be as high impact as the one big thing, but you can start to get small wins that get your client excited and build momentum for more of the big stuff. But the number one thing out of all of the responses in the survey that our colleagues recommended to you is to stay strong. Have empathy and understanding for the hard decisions that your client has to make. But come with a strong, confident point of view on where to go next.

All right, gang, these are a lot of great tips to start your red tape toolkit and overcome obstacles to get your best search work done. Try these out. Let us know what you think. If you have other great ideas on how you overcome obstacles to get your best work done with clients, let us know down in the comments. Thank you so much for watching, and we'll see you next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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NRC Rule Making Creates Big Changes for Emergency Planning

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) concluded a comment period last Friday on Emergency Preparedness for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), and Other New Technologies (ONTs). This rule, if enacted, would create an alternative emergency preparedness (EP) framework for SMRs and ONTs, a major departure from current NRC EP regulation which was written for large light water reactors (LWRs) and research and test reactors (RTRs). Previously NRC only granted individual waiver exemptions to some facilities with unique situations who requested them under some circumstances, a process which was slow and difficult both for the agency and for the licensee.

The current set of EP regulations were written mainly for large LWRs—along with RTRs—which average about one gigawatt of output each in the U.S. Additionally, 32 U.S. nuclear power plants have two reactors, and three of them have three. This means that their EP plans account for thousands of megawatts of generation. Many of the new reactor designs currently being developed, or that are already in the NRC approval process have a small fraction of their output. This, in addition to a variety of design features that can be found among proposed SMR and ONT designs means that these technologies require a new approach.

With many new technologies making their way through the development pipeline, NRC determined that it was time to revisit the decades old EP rules and create a new framework that emergent technologies could utilize. If enacted, this rule would allow SMRs and ONTs to replace the 10 mile plume exposure pathway (PEP), and 50 mile ingestion exposure pathway (IEP) with a “performance-based, technology-inclusive, risk-informed, and consequence oriented approach” which would allow facilities that pose less dosage risk to the public in the unlikely event of an accident to have smaller PEP and IEP emergency planning zones (EPZs)  commensurate to the risk that they pose.

According to the text of the proposed rule:

“The NRC’s objective for this rulemaking is to create alternative EP requirements that would:

1) continue to provide reasonable assurance that adequate protective measures can and will be implemented by an SMR or ONT licensee;

2) promote regulatory stability, predictability, and clarity;

3) reduce requests for exemptions from EP requirements;

4) recognize advances in design and technology advancements embedded in design features;

5) credit safety enhancements in evolutionary and passive systems; and

6) credit smaller sized reactors’ and non-LWRs’ potential benefits associated with postulated accidents, including slower transient response times, and relatively small and slow release of fission products.”

The rule has Department of Energy (DOE) support. In her public comment to the NRC on the proposed rule, Dr. Rita Baranwal, Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy at DOE said that the proposed rule, “is a critical step in determining the appropriate Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) size for SMRs using a risk-informed methodology as it will properly credit the advanced safety and performance characteristics of these new advanced reactor designs.”

The “advanced safety and performance characteristics” that she refers to make many SMRs and new technologies much different from the larger LWRs that currently make up the U.S. nuclear retinue. One of these is passive safety. Many new designs are passively safe, meaning that in the unlikely event of a reactor meltdown, the reactor is able to cool itself without operator intervention, increasing its safety.

Dr. Baranwal’s comment went on to say that, “The proposed rule allows determination of a plume exposure pathway (PEP) EPZ size that is commensurate with the potential radiological risk for a specific facility and the Department agrees that a risk-informed EPZ sizing approach, as applied to SMR designs and other new technologies, accurately reflects the technological advances in reactor design, gained nuclear industry experiences, and regulatory guidance updates while ensuring that there is no undue risk to public health and safety.”

Although the rule has DOE support, it also has its detractors. These include Dr. Ed Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a mainstay of opposition to nuclear projects, who argued that, “[t]he evidence demonstrates the 10-mile EPZ for existing reactors is not adequate and it certainly doesn’t support reducing the zone.”

NRC Commissioner Jeff Baran was the only vote against the rule. In his comment on the vote he said that, “These new designs could potentially be safer than current large light-water-reactor designs. But that does not eliminate the need for EPZs and dedicated offsite emergency planning to provide defense-in-depth in case something goes wrong.” The rest of Baran’s comment against the rule focuses on the importance of coordination with FEMA and of maintaining extensive EPZs.

The proposed rule was published on May 12th, and its comment period which was supposed to end on July 27th was extended by the NRC following requests, and concluded on September 25th. Now that the commission has received comments, it will respond to them and provide an analysis, after which point the rule with whatever modifications arise from comments will be finalized.

The post NRC Rule Making Creates Big Changes for Emergency Planning appeared first on IER.