Science & Technology News

[Ded reckoner]

Storage costs for Texas winters

An article provides tabulation of the power generated by source (natural gas, wind, solar, coal, nuclear) on 15Feb21 when Texas had to resort to blackouts due to an extraordinarily cold winter day. The table references power generation by the same sources one year earlier on 15Feb20, which was considered a typical winter day. One takeaway was natural gas generation jumped 91% for that date year-over-year, coal increased 54% to cover demand, while wind fell off the cliff to -72%. Storage has been proposed to mitigate the intermittency of the unreliables (i.e. solar and wind). Presumably, storage capacity would have to cover increased natural gas production (361,578MWh), decreased wind output (190,629), and increased coal generation (71,778), totaling 623,985MWh. Another article estimates system storage costs are $380 per kWh. For one full day of storage capability, the storage cost would be $237B.

There are advocates for replacing fossil fuel generators with wind and solar. Texas prefers wind farms because East Texas has a lot of wind a lot of the time. If all the natural gas and coal generation were replaced with wind capacity but wind performed as dismally as it did, the storage that would be needed would jump higher. Without the natural gas contribution, storage would be needed for 648,232MWh. For coal, the storage need increases to 167,449MWh. The total that would have to be covered with greater reliance on solar and wind would require storage for 1,006,310MWh. This makes the one day storage cost $382B.

These costs are for one day of storage. Of course, by the second day, storage would be depleted and people would be cold. One source has indicated 23 people died in the recent Texas cold, so this subject is deadly serious.

Today, advocates for unreliables don’t like to discuss subsidies (which have been estimated to be as much as 75% of the actual costs) or costs to alleviate intermittency (i.e. either backup fast response fossil fuel generators, or storage, or both). Without that consideration, data are available for generation costs for different sources. Without subsidies but accounting for backup generation and/or storage costs, the actual costs for unreliables would be much higher.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Ded reckoner

An article provides tabulation of the power generated by source (natural gas, wind, solar, coal, nuclear) on 15Feb21 when Texas had to resort to blackouts due to an extraordinarily cold winter day.

That is an opinion piece, not an "article". Texas had a power crisis this year because the type of energy market they've chosen to build does not prioritize or favour building-in resilience in the face of extremes. So when they needed resilience, they didn't have it. You can't blame wind or solar generation when the gas and coal plants started failing due to the cold.

Another problem - lack of sufficient connections to neighbouring power grids which prevented them from importing enough electricity to replace down generators.

The fossil-fuel people are the most squeamish about discussing subsidies

[GordMay]

Another opinion piece, and the IEA Report, they are both discussing:


“Solar is now ‘cheapest electricity in history’, confirms IEA”
“That is according to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2020. The 464-page outlook, published today October 13, 2020, by the IEA, also outlines the “extraordinarily turbulent” impact of coronavirus and the “highly uncertain” future of global energy use over the next two decades...”
More ➥ https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-is...y-confirms-iea

“World Energy Model : 2020” ~ International Energy Agency [IEA]
➥ https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-model

[ahun]

Finnish is a European language, the country being in Europe. What you meant is, it belongs not to the Latin or Slavic language family where most European languages do, but the Finno-Ugorian language family together with the Estonian and Hungarian and a few other languages.

[NPCampbell]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

That is an opinion piece, not an "article". Texas had a power crisis this year because the type of energy market they've chosen to build does not prioritize or favour building-in resilience in the face of extremes. So when they needed resilience, they didn't have it. You can't blame wind or solar generation when the gas and coal plants started failing due to the cold.

Resilience had nothing to do with the Texas power outages.

When you purposely initiate rolling blackouts and your gas production facilities and compressor stations are driven by electricity ... then you are going to interrupt the flow of gas to your power plants. That's just poor planning and design.

Wind energy is efficient and moderately cheap. We should absolutely use it in favor of fossil fuel when we can. However, you can't rely on it when you start approaching peak demand because ... it is variable. Therefore, you need non-variable, conventional power sources to meet 100% of peak demand. So even if all the wind generators froze, it shouldn't have affected the grid because you should have non-variable sources to provide 100% of your power needs. However, this isn't the case. In the past decade, Texas has lost 10's of MW of conventional power in favor of variable power sources. Not good planning.

Also, the "electric only" model Texas uses incentivizes power companies to restrict power during scarcity pricing situations. Texas needs to implement a more "capacity" based model so that penalties for failure to provide capacity are greater than the rewards that scarcity pricing provides. Did I mention bad planning and design?

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Another problem - lack of sufficient connections to neighbouring power grids which prevented them from importing enough electricity to replace down generators.

This isn't poor planning. It is done purposely to avoid the heavy hand of the FERC.

[Midnight Son]

You wont like this, but it is what it is.

NPCampbell, as you sew, so shall you reap.
They approached their grid like all freshly minted corporate vice-presidents. Make a flash, take my cash, and run.
As a public utility, you end up with these results.
I can't put, what I really feel, down here, or I would be barred forever.
I feel so so sorry for the people of Texas, that have to put up with the mismanagement. They need proper utility managers, with no political interference. When this happened, my brother in law, said that the windmills in Southern Manitoba, just to the East of his place, where still turning, at -30°C, a lot colder than Texas.

[NPCampbell]

Originally Posted by Midnight Son

You wont like this, but it is what it is.

NPCampbell, as you sew, so shall you reap.
They approached their grid like all freshly minted corporate vice-presidents. Make a flash, take my cash, and run.
As a public utility, you end up with these results.
I can't put, what I really feel, down here, or I would be barred forever.
I feel so so sorry for the people of Texas, that have to put up with the mismanagement. They need proper utility managers, with no political interference. When this happened, my brother in law, said that the windmills in Southern Manitoba, just to the East of his place, where still turning, at -30°C, a lot colder than Texas.

As I mentioned, the status of the windmills was immaterial. Only an idiot would pay to winterize 11,000 windmills so they could operate an extra 3 days out of every 10 years.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by NPCampbell

Resilience had nothing to do with the Texas power outages.
...
Also, the "electric only" model Texas uses incentivizes power companies to restrict power during scarcity pricing situations. Texas needs to implement a more "capacity" based model so that penalties for failure to provide capacity are greater than the rewards that scarcity pricing provides. Did I mention bad planning and design?

Well, that last bit is pretty much in agreement with what I said (...market failure), and kind of contradicts your point about resilience.. the bad planning and design from that choice of market led to not having enough resilience (aka dependable capacity) in the face of an extreme event. Which was a cold snap this time, could be a hurricane next time, etc...

This isn't poor planning. It is done purposely to avoid the heavy hand of the FERC.

Wow, they sure showed them, then.

(isn't that called cutting off one's nose to spite one's face?)

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Midnight Son

You wont like this, but it is what it is.

NPCampbell, as you sew, so shall you reap.
They approached their grid like all freshly minted corporate vice-presidents. Make a flash, take my cash, and run.
As a public utility, you end up with these results.
I can't put, what I really feel, down here, or I would be barred forever.
I feel so so sorry for the people of Texas, that have to put up with the mismanagement. They need proper utility managers, with no political interference. When this happened, my brother in law, said that the windmills in Southern Manitoba, just to the East of his place, where still turning, at -30°C, a lot colder than Texas.

Power was lost due to demand and the epa not authorizing emergency emissions limits lifted . And yes they requested it Ina ccordance with the laws . Bidens epa said no you can't so they couldn't bring additional gas plants online to cover the shortage .

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Power was lost due to demand and the epa not authorizing emergency emissions limits lifted . And yes they requested it Ina ccordance with the laws . Bidens epa said no you can't so they couldn't bring additional gas plants online to cover the shortage .

Pure bullshti!


According to U.S. Energy department documents, ERCOT’s request to operate at maximum levels [it would violate air pollution limits], was granted [by Biden's DOE].
In a Feb. 14 letter, ERCOT says that electricity producers were close to violating their limits for pollution emissions and wastewater releases for Feb. 14-19. [1]
In an order [Order No. 202-21-1], that Energy Department Secretary David Huizenga signed just before 8 p.m. on Feb. 14, the Energy Department gave ERCOT permission to exceed the pollution limits for the requested period. [2]

[1] Request ➥ https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/fi...02.14.2021.pdf

[2] DOE* Approval ➥ https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/fi...02.14.2021.pdf


* DOE, Not EPA.

[GordMay]

Ant-i-social distancing: Ants know isolation prevents the spread of infection.
Ants do it, so do vampire bats. We're not the only ones who 'socially distance' when sick.

“Infectious diseases and social distancing in nature” ~ by Sebastian Stockmaier et al
➥ https://science.sciencemag.org/conte.../6533/eabc8881

“Social network plasticity decreases disease transmission in a eusocial insect”
~ by Nathalie Stroeymeyt et al
➥ https://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6417/941

“Sickness effects on social interactions depend on the type of behaviour and relationship”
~ by Sebastian Stockmaier et al
➥ https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wi...365-2656.13193

[GordMay]

Elon Musk’s Tesla building giant battery to plug into Texas grid
Elon Musk is getting into the Texas power market, with previously unrevealed construction, of a gigantic battery, connected to an ailing electric grid, that nearly collapsed last month.
A Tesla subsidiary registered as Gambit Energy Storage LLC is quietly building a more than 100 megawatt energy storage project in Angleton, Texas, a town roughly 40 miles south of Houston.
A battery that size could power about 20,000 homes on a hot summer day.
Much more ➥ https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/20...into-texas-gri

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by ahun

Finnish is a European language, the country being in Europe. What you meant is, it belongs not to the Latin or Slavic language family where most European languages do, but the Finno-Ugorian language family together with the Estonian and Hungarian and a few other languages.

I mean it's not an Indo-European language, so it is unrelated (other than loan words) to any other European languages except for Estonian, Sami and (distantly) Hungarian. The Indo-European languages all have significant similarities in structure and vocabulary. Russian and Classical Latin, for example, although in different branches of Indo-European, are strikingly similar, if you've studied Latin (as I did) you will be way ahead of the game learning Russian (as I was).

Finnish is as far away from all that as Chinese or Turkish, with absolutely nothing recognizable except a few loan words from Swedish and German. It's a very cool language, actually.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Adelie

. . . If the editor Goldberg tried to help justify the Iraq war that sounds rather right wing. Including that doesn't help your case.. .

??? The Iraq War was NOT a right-wing project. Biden and Hillary Clinton were enthusiasitcally in favor of it (and other wars). The principled right, and especially libertarian right, and the far right, were always hand-in-hand with the far left in opposing the Iraq War. Typical far-right view from the time: https://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Pa...ar_+_Peace.htm

"In the summer of 2002, I launched American Conservative, a magazine dedicated to opposing an invasion of Iraq, for which the war drums were, by then, already loudly beating. In the first column for our biweekly, I raised a question about our coming invasion: 'What comes after all the celebratory gunfire when wicked Saddam is dead?'" -- Patrick Buchanan

Fateful words.

You will misunderstand a lot of things if you try to fit them into a simplistic one-dimensional left-right framework. You can't understand our egregious mistakes in the Middle East, nor can you understand Nordic societies, with this framework, which simply doesn't apply.

[Mike OReilly]

News story: Cleaner air during pandemic lockdowns shows what's possible, say researchers

Research paper: Rigorous quantification of statistical significance of the COVID-19 lockdown effect on air quality: The case from ground-based measurements in Ontario, Canada

Key finding:

We find statistically significant and temporary drops in NO2 and CO in April-December 2020, with pollutant levels 20% lower than in the previous three years.

Covid-19 has killed around 2.64 million people worldwide, but studies indicate that air pollution leads to approximately 8.7 million premature deaths each year. Given the above findings, and assuming it's replicated around the world, there should be significant fewer premature deaths due to air pollution.

I wonder what the net impact will be.