Thread: Grid can go 75% renewable

Originally Posted by Tombie

Popular and right aren’t necessarily aligned.
Having seen how environmental emissions are calculated I have little faith in the numbers we see.

And I’m yet to be fully convinced that the lithium and graphite extraction processes aren’t just the next problem to deal with in a few decades.

Historically:
Horseless carriage - a good thing and now quite popular
Steam trains (Coal fired) - a good thing and very popular
Jets - a good thing and popular
Hydrogen Zeppelins- were a good thing and popular
Cocaine medicine - very popular
Cocaine soft drink - very popular

Human race - just keeps on jumping from one bandwagon to the next.

The fact is, we are on the cusp of another huge leap for mankind, it's happening now. We have to get the best minds involved with this, to ensure it's good, and right.

Wind surpassed coal as the primary power generation source last year for the Southwest Power Pool (SPP), an independent grid operator that provides electricity for a vast territory stretching from the Texas Panhandle to the Canadian border.
An analysis by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) found the growth has been driven by the near tripling of wind resources over a five-year period and improved wind turbine designs.
There are several reasons why this isn’t surprising. Wind should continue to be the No. 1 fuel source in future years.

Wind tops coal as number one generation source on major US grid | RenewEconomy

Won’t all the wind turbines bring the earths rotation to a halt???

Originally Posted by Homestar

Won’t all the wind turbines bring the earths rotation to a halt???

no, they are aligned to spin the other way, so the earth rotates faster, hence why the days feel shorter.

And there I was thinking they’d just installed fans to keep us cooler.

I thought they installed them to keep us poorer.

Originally Posted by Tombie

Popular and right aren’t necessarily aligned.
Having seen how environmental emissions are calculated I have little faith in the numbers we see.

And I’m yet to be fully convinced that the lithium and graphite extraction processes aren’t just the next problem to deal with in a few decades.

Historically:
Horseless carriage - a good thing and now quite popular
Steam trains (Coal fired) - a good thing and very popular
Jets - a good thing and popular
Hydrogen Zeppelins- were a good thing and popular
Cocaine medicine - very popular
Cocaine soft drink - very popular



Human race - just keeps on jumping from one bandwagon to the next.

Fully agree we flip flop and also toss grenades at things we do not like The Texas freeze is horrible for them. People dying from it so not meaning to be offensive or light fires on the topic.

Gas and oil freeze/reduction there is impacting Mexico and others US states as well ''Texas’ Gas-Export Clampdown Shocks Market"

D.O.E. in the US just put a USD$20million grant to study Nuclear/Hydrogen production. Using spare off peak Nuclear capacity or cheap wind/solar/hydro is really a no brainer I feel. While battery storage is fine and getting all the publicity. The Biggest battery is a few minutes worth and as Texas is proving a few minutes is not enough there or anywhere.

Have a great day all

The principal reasons for the power collapse in Texas is a combination of factors. Dependence on renewables is not one of them, despite what Governor Greg Abbott says. Renewables only represent a small fraction of the output lost (a couple of GW out of a demand of up to 75GW.

Major factors:-

1. Texas grid is not connected to the two main North American Grids. This is partly for historical reasons - with few large cities close to borders there was no reason to interconnect (several cities close to the border are not on the Texas grid, but connected to adjoining states and hence to the main grids). But it has also been pursued simply because Texas did not want Federal controls that could apply to interstate commerce.

2. It does not normally get this cold for this long in Texas, and the power stations are not designed for this sort of weather - they are designed for hot weather. 25% of nuclear power and about 10% of thermal power shut down because of cold effects including ice choked water inputs and control systems failing or going into limp mode because of the cold. And about the same proportion of wind turbines were shut down because of icing - no deicing "because it is not normally needed", but these only represent a tiny fraction of generating capacity lost.

3. Peak demand is in summer, so maintenance is in winter - a number of power stations were shut down and could not be easily restarted. Demand, if they could have met it, would have set a new record.

4. A shortage of natural gas - production seems to have dropped by about 50%. In part this was due to record demand, but also because some production facilities failed due to the cold (most gas comes from the ground with a bit of water mixed with it. This is separated at or close to the wellhead so that it does not potentially form methane hydrates that can block the pipes, but in this weather it seems some of the pipes became blocked before the separator. This gas shortage was exacerbated when some generators shut down as the spot price for gas went up by as much as 10,000%.

5. Most Texans have no concept of energy conservation - for example, for the first two days of the energy crisis, all the unoccupied buildings in downtown Houston were fully lit. It is not clear whether the owners eventually got the message or the power companies just cut power to them after that.

6. Total lack of leadership for the state - the most prominent senator was filmed heading for Cancun with his family, and the Governor had nothing to offer. As early as Sunday the demand was expected to go to close to 75GW, but generating capacity was only expected to be about 55GW - and that was before plants started to shut down because of the cold. But it seems that nobody outside the power industry paid any attention.

I have been following this in detail because I have a brother living in Houston (he is sort of OK - power is back on, they are still alive, but water pressure is very low and there is a boil water directive, but unlike a lot, they have no burst pipes. They are short of food, and so are the supermarkets, but have enough to not starve. Roads are not yet safe due to ice.)

Originally Posted by JDNSW

The principal reasons for the power collapse in Texas is a combination of factors. Dependence on renewables is not one of them, despite what Governor Greg Abbott says. Renewables only represent a small fraction of the output lost (a couple of GW out of a demand of up to 75GW.

Major factors:-

1. Texas grid is not connected to the two main North American Grids. This is partly for historical reasons - with few large cities close to borders there was no reason to interconnect (several cities close to the border are not on the Texas grid, but connected to adjoining states and hence to the main grids). But it has also been pursued simply because Texas did not want Federal controls that could apply to interstate commerce.

2. It does not normally get this cold for this long in Texas, and the power stations are not designed for this sort of weather - they are designed for hot weather. 25% of nuclear power and about 10% of thermal power shut down because of cold effects including ice choked water inputs and control systems failing or going into limp mode because of the cold. And about the same proportion of wind turbines were shut down because of icing - no deicing "because it is not normally needed", but these only represent a tiny fraction of generating capacity lost.

3. Peak demand is in summer, so maintenance is in winter - a number of power stations were shut down and could not be easily restarted. Demand, if they could have met it, would have set a new record.

4. A shortage of natural gas - production seems to have dropped by about 50%. In part this was due to record demand, but also because some production facilities failed due to the cold (most gas comes from the ground with a bit of water mixed with it. This is separated at or close to the wellhead so that it does not potentially form methane hydrates that can block the pipes, but in this weather it seems some of the pipes became blocked before the separator. This gas shortage was exacerbated when some generators shut down as the spot price for gas went up by as much as 10,000%.

5. Most Texans have no concept of energy conservation - for example, for the first two days of the energy crisis, all the unoccupied buildings in downtown Houston were fully lit. It is not clear whether the owners eventually got the message or the power companies just cut power to them after that.

6. Total lack of leadership for the state - the most prominent senator was filmed heading for Cancun with his family, and the Governor had nothing to offer. As early as Sunday the demand was expected to go to close to 75GW, but generating capacity was only expected to be about 55GW - and that was before plants started to shut down because of the cold. But it seems that nobody outside the power industry paid any attention.

I have been following this in detail because I have a brother living in Houston (he is sort of OK - power is back on, they are still alive, but water pressure is very low and there is a boil water directive, but unlike a lot, they have no burst pipes. They are short of food, and so are the supermarkets, but have enough to not starve. Roads are not yet safe due to ice.)

Renewablw energy misinformers are on the rise, especially now google and Sky have joined up. Another furphy was that Germany had no renewable energy because of winter.

"Despite a fact check warning on the post added by Facebook, it has been shared more than 8,000 times. As you can tell by now, it’s absolute garbage. Wind and solar have been producing power as expected in German winter, with solar lower than summer (turns out it’s darker in winter), and wind varying between peaks and troughs of output as it has done every winter prior. Nothing is “broken”, there aren’t 30,000 idle turbines, and of course fossil fuels are still present in Germany’s energy system.
Data provided by Ember Climate show Germany’s hourly generation up to the end of January, and it’s clear that there were no stretches of “idle turbines” or offline solar – generation was above zero for every day, for both technologies. Wind power contributed between 5% and 55%, across January."


Google's Sky News Australia team-up will make it a climate misinformation powerhouse | RenewEconomy