interesting (& maybe not too political?)

ratio

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/ferc-grid-reliability-senate-energy-hearing/649523/

Hot_water_fan

A bit surprising, at least to me, is how inadequate the natural gas winter capacity and reliability has been across the nation.

Jamie Hall

That's not politics, it's reality. The two aren't the same at all.

Mad Dog_2

The Truth always comes out.  These technologies are amazing for what they can do, but they are not ready for prime time. Cautious baby steps are the way we should proceed, not running the high hurdles just yet....Mad Dog

Hot_water_fan

It sounds like natural gas shouldn’t be relied upon too heavily - if it fails in Texas, it'll have issues in colder climates. The industry needs to mature some. 

Steamhead

The Texas situation wasn't about available supply- it was because critical equipment wasn't prepared for such cold weather.

EdTheHeaterMan

Should I sell my Tesla Stock now?

Mad Dog_2

Buy Intel!!!  Mad Dog 🐕 

mattmia2

renewable resources aren't intermittent on average. there is always enough wind or sun somewhere if you plan your generating and transmission capacity for it. the article is cherry picked to distort the facts to say that more fossil fuels are the only way to get enough generating capacity and to ignore that almost every major failure has been the results of local utilities to maintain their equipment.

when my power was out for 4 day it wasn't a lack of available power, it was the primary wires that travel from the substation to my neighborhood were damaged in several locations and this repeated all over the region. The primary wires are full of trees and broken hardware. If they had been maintained to be clear of trees and in good repair there would have been a small number of hard to predict failures from ice then snow taking down trees which the available crews could have handled. Over the long term maintenance can't possibly cost more than paying crews to work putting out fires nonstop for 2 weeks.

Hot_water_fan

The Texas situation wasn't about available supply- it was because critical equipment wasn't prepared for such cold weather.

Agreed! But not just generation equipment, gas supply equipment also failed.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/15/texas-power-grid-winter-storm-2021/

Will gas providers ensure production can withstand cold weather? 

mattmia2

Hot_water_fan said:

The Texas situation wasn't about available supply- it was because critical equipment wasn't prepared for such cold weather.

Agreed! But not just generation equipment, gas supply equipment also failed.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/15/texas-power-grid-winter-storm-2021/

Will gas providers ensure production can withstand cold weather? 

wait, so the gas distribution equipment doesn't have gas powered backup generators? that sounds like negligence.

STEVEusaPA

There's an opportunity, but it will never happen, for modern, small, much safer nuclear power.

Mad Dog_2

Long Island spent oodles of $$ building Shoreham..ten years work I believe..All up in smoke...never opened..Mad Dog 🐕 

Sal Santamaura

Sounds like an excellent argument for less reliance on the grid and more on local (rooftop) solar. Parallel increases of electricity-powered space/water heating and cooking appliances with on-site, although grid-tied, generation seems to be the most prudent way forward.

The Steam Whisperer

Hot_water_fan said:

The Texas situation wasn't about available supply- it was because critical equipment wasn't prepared for such cold weather.

Agreed! But not just generation equipment, gas supply equipment also failed.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/15/texas-power-grid-winter-storm-2021/

Will gas providers ensure production can withstand cold weather? 

I've lived in Northern Illinois all my life ( 57 years), both in Chicago and rural areas, with periods of 5 days or more with temperatures running -20F and wind chills of -60F and never once did we have a failure of the gas grid. Electrical, yes, but not natural gas.
I suspect Texas simply did not build their grid properly to withstand low temperatures ( IIRC the reporting on Texas a year of so ago directly stated that) and then there has been huge population growth ( which there are signs that may be coming to an end) that has probably completely overwhelmed their grid. I also understand they refused to be connected to the national electrical grid, so they lost a lot of back up power that way.

pecmsg

Mad Dog_2 said:

Long Island spent oodles of $$ building Shoreham..ten years work I believe..All up in smoke...never opened..Mad Dog 🐕 

For whatever reason they DID run it at 5% power. Now it’s an operating plant and is treated as such. 

Politicians 

Mad Dog_2

It ran on 5% Nuclear power?  Mad Dog 🐕 

Jamie Hall

Sal Santamaura said:

Sounds like an excellent argument for less reliance on the grid and more on local (rooftop) solar. Parallel increases of electricity-powered space/water heating and cooking appliances with on-site, although grid-tied, generation seems to be the most prudent way forward.

To the extent that local -- on-site -- generation is feasible, it can be somewhat helpful overall. However, it needs to be remembered that there are several problems with it, in addition to some rather interesting technical difficulties once it reaches a certain scale (interesting is an engineer's way of saying this looks like a lifetime job...). One is, of course, that many types of residential development simply cannot gnerate enough power (never mind store it) on-site for the density of housing. This is a problem which is given little space in most of the enthusiasm for on-site, probably because most of the people who are advocating for on-site do not live in that type of housing. Second, many industrial uses of electricity have the same problem: there is no way they can generate and store enough electricity from solar sources on-site. In both of these cases, the nature of the physics is a hard barrier and no amount of wishful thinking will make it go away. Third, a major use of energy is in transportation. While it is certainly theoretically possible to make all ground transportation electric, it is not possible for hose electric prime movers to gain enough power from the sun, and store it, in a self-contained way. The same hard barriers are there -- to an even greater extent (there is also an economic problem involved -- as California is discovering to its shock and horror).

For all these reasons, and more, I would venture that a majority of power use will remain, of necessity, grid tied and reliant on some form of very stiff (from the electrical point of view) power sources for stability. What those stiff sources will be remains to be seen -- in principle, a very high capacity battery powered system can do the job, and some progress is being made on the necessary very high capacity (we're taking gigawatts here) ulltra-stable inverters. Whether the reliability of such sources will approach that of "conventianl" spinning reserve is very questionable.

It's an interesting field. Unfortunately, public policy has managed to get way ahead of technical reality, which makes it much more interesting that it needs to be.

Sal Santamaura

Jamie Hall said:

Sal Santamaura said:

Sounds like an excellent argument for less reliance on the grid and more on local (rooftop) solar. Parallel increases of electricity-powered space/water heating and cooking appliances with on-site, although grid-tied, generation seems to be the most prudent way forward.

To the extent that local -- on-site -- generation is feasible, it can be somewhat helpful overall. However, it needs to be remembered that there are several problems with it...

Tim, I didn't write that local PV would be able to completely replace grid sources. Note that I did write rooftop PV should be grid-tied. Also, this is not, and will not be, a step function. That's why my comment stated there should be parallel increases in electrical appliances and rooftop solar. Regulatory mandates take that into account, since they require an end to new natural gas services, not tearing out existing ones. Likewise, the prohibition on sale of non-electrically-powered vehicles applies to newly manufactured ones; it does not require scrapping existing internal combustion types.

Here in California there's no shock or horror about the transition. Realities I just described make clear that public policy is not ahead of technical reality. The policies/regulations are designed to permit ample time for technology deployment. In actual fact, opposition to decarbonization is what's far behind the technical reality that anthropogenic global warming exists, has severe negative consequences and presents an intense requirement to be slowed enough so human coping actions can be implemented in time.

Jamie Hall

I think the railroads and heavy trucking folks might disagree on the relative pace and cost of available technology and political mandates.., @Sal Santamaura Fortunately, there are other paths which freight can take which bypass California completely.

Sal Santamaura

Jamie Hall said:

I think the railroads and heavy trucking folks might disagree on the relative pace and cost of available technology and political mandates.., @Sal Santamaura Fortunately, there are other paths which freight can take which bypass California completely.

I'm sure asthmatic folks 65 miles or so north of me living near the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles would be fine with freight taking other paths. Of course, those in Arizona paying more for their imported Asian products (what isn't from there these days?) that will now have to be delivered by railroad and heavy truck carrying them on much longer routes from Gulf and East Coast ports will be less thrilled.

JakeCK

Sal Santamaura said:

I think the railroads and heavy trucking folks might disagree on the relative pace and cost of available technology and political mandates.., @Sal Santamaura Fortunately, there are other paths which freight can take which bypass California completely.

I'm sure asthmatic folks 65 miles or so north of me living near the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles would be fine with freight taking other paths. Of course, those in Arizona paying more for their imported Asian products (what isn't from there these days?) that will now have to be delivered by railroad and heavy truck carrying them on much longer routes from Gulf and East Coast ports will be less thrilled.

Sounds like an opportunity to bring home domestic production of goods instead of shipping everything on very dirty ships across the Pacific, and then trucking it or sending it by rail across the continent. 

Can you imagine the emission reduction in just getting the massive freighters off the ocean? Last I heard it was something like 3% of total global CO2 emissions. 

CLamb

JakeCK said:

Sounds like an opportunity to bring home domestic production of goods instead of shipping everything on very dirty ships across the Pacific, and then trucking it or sending it by rail across the continent.

More likely it will lead to ships going into ports in Canada, Washington, Oregon, or Mexico--whichever is cheaper.

Sal Santamaura

CLamb said:

JakeCK said:

Sounds like an opportunity to bring home domestic production of goods instead of shipping everything on very dirty ships across the Pacific, and then trucking it or sending it by rail across the continent.

More likely it will lead to ships going into ports in Canada, Washington, Oregon, or Mexico--whichever is cheaper.

Except for Mexico, those places are likely to follow California's decarbonization lead. Certainly before the rest of the world stops supporting ocean transport of most "stuff."

SlamDunk

FWIW, I am limited by my employer's social media policy, my company just built the first pharma warehouse (@50000sq ft, three floors high) with a drive in cold storage room (5c) about 15 k sqft, two stories tall.

It is on it's own microgrid ( solar roof panels , and two Tesla Megapaks) and it does sell electricity back to the utility company . It's designed to be a "net" zero building meaning, yes, it is tied to the grid but it doesnt use fossil fuel. I suspect that on the shortest days of the year, it will be on utility for part of the day and make up for it on longer days but if a hurricane blows thru and we lose power completely, the warehouse will run. Solar by day, Mega packs at night.

It has the scale @Jamie Hall mentioned, which makes this possible. This is the first of its kind in this state, maybe the country. If my employer makes this public knowledge, I would be happy to share a link. It is pretty cool technology and engineering and it is neat to learn this cutting edge stuff near the end of my career. The ribbon cutting is mid June.