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I work as a quant for a power company. I have very much looked at what the prices are doing and the answer is "making my employer filthy rich and making the gr
by konjin 6y ago
I work as a quant for a power company.
I have very much looked at what the prices are doing and the answer is "making my employer filthy rich and making the grid unsustainable over the next decade".
Solar and batteries are eating the profit from base load and peak generators. Yet are unable to provide the sustained power requirements to keep the grid going on a day that gets over 35C.
If you like having power in hospitals at all hours you can't let solar and battery storage invade the grid without regulating it such that the grid survives.
Nationalization of the grid assets and a massive nuclear building spree is the only solution if we want children to grow up in a world where brownouts are the exception.
- socialdemocrat 6y agoSeems like an American problem. You got more renewable usage in Europe and more stable grids than the US. Problem is more likely due to poor management and low investment and maintenance of grids in the US. When I travel around the US I notice infrastructure in general is in very poor condition . While people drive big cars and live in McMansions. Public poverty and private opulence.
- Gibbon1 6y agoYeah he tells you the answer why it's an American problem in the first sentence.
- ZeroGravitas 6y agoAnd bizarrely tells you what the non-American answer is in the second last paragraph (sensible regulation of the grid), and then dismisses this out of hand and supports a weird socialist planned-economy solution that only seems popular with American libertarians.
- konjin 6y agoRegulation on electricity works no where. Germany being the best "European" example of how a government has managed to destroy a market to the point that the only reason Germany has power for half the year because France is next door.
- ben_w 6y agoIsn’t French electricity dominated by Electricité de France, which is 85% state-owned?
- konjin 6y agoYes, and look, France has the only working energy market in Europe. Turns out telling businesses what they can and can't do just means they hire smarter people to do what they want in more convoluted ways.
- ben_w 6y agoYou aren’t giving me (software nerd, not quant) enough to latch onto to either agree, to disagree, or even to learn something new. If you have time, I’d suggest reading the following, and — if you feel like it — rephrasing your argument: https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Inferential_distance https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Inferential_distance
- konjin 6y agoQuite frankly teaching the average person about how the grid works is as hard as teaching the average astrologer about astronomy and even less worth while. The number of times I've been downvoted to invisibility and flagged makes it completely not worth my time unless I'm talking to someone interesting who has an idea already. Unfortunately you tick neither box. If you're interested my hourly rate for this type of work is $300, you're welcome to commission a report on the country of your choice.
- ben_w 6y ago
- gridlockd 6y ago> You got more renewable usage in Europe and more stable grids than the US. Usage and production are two different things. You can produce more energy than you need and have a stable grid by just throwing money at the problem. In 2016, you had EEX spot prices around 2-3 ct/kWh, below the production cost of any technology. This signals waste and it's also a major reason why renewables rollouts stalled in Europe.