6 ms·

Gas-based electrical generation is what are failing right now! They are failing left and right! If 100% was gas there would be more problems, not less. Wind an

by rtpg 6y ago

Gas-based electrical generation is what are failing right now! They are failing left and right! If 100% was gas there would be more problems, not less. Wind and Solar is pulling above planned generation right now. If you believe your logic, time to go all-in on wind + solar.

acidburnNSA 6y ago
Wind and solar are above planned generation right now, which was 0. In ERCOT wind has been making less than 6 GW out of 33 GW installed for over 7 days straight [1]. Natural gas is pulling almost all the weight right now, as you can see. So no, not time to go all in on wind + solar. [1] https://i.imgur.com/EEbf5lM.png https://i.imgur.com/EEbf5lM.png (screenshot from EIA, original data here: https://www.eia.gov/beta/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electric_overview/balancing_authority/ERCO https://www.eia.gov/beta/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/e...) Your first statement is partially true. The ERCOT "planners" expected their gas capacity to basically always be there, and the fact that 30 GW of thermal capacity is offline for various weather-related reasons is the primary reason the power is out. But the remaining gas is pulling almost all the weight keeping people alive so we shouldn't neglect that.
- mrDmrTmrJ 6y ago
  You're correct that, "30 GW of thermal capacity is offline for various weather-related reasons is the primary reason the power is out." I think wind can play a huge role in fixing this. Check out: https://www.windy.com/?37.539,-94.134,4 https://www.windy.com/?37.539,-94.134,4 And you've got plenty of massive offshore wind resources on both sides of the continent that are blowing right now (Feb 17th 7:49pm PDT) if we had installed capacity. We need to keep our nuclear fleet (20% of electrical generation) and invest in a TON of transmission. If we had this electrical grid, we'd be doing far better: https://twitter.com/Sammy_Roth/status/1356442256866037766 https://twitter.com/Sammy_Roth/status/1356442256866037766
  - lsllc 6y ago
    Transmission lines aren't so easy, for example the Northern Pass project to bring power from Quebec Hydro into New England failed due to local opposition: https://www.vnews.com/northern-pass-eversource-hydroquebec-27298583 https://www.vnews.com/northern-pass-eversource-hydroquebec-2... I do like the idea (from the linked tweet) of underground transmission lines (underground alongside railroads is probably mitigates the NIMBY objections): https://www.volts.wtf/p/transmission-fortnight-burying-power https://www.volts.wtf/p/transmission-fortnight-burying-power
  - acidburnNSA 6y ago
    Ask anyone who has planned and installed a long-haul transmission line in the past 40 years and they'll tell you that that's gonna be extremely hard. It's simple technically, as is building a lot of a standardized nuclear plant, but it's not easy and will be hit by massive amounts of NIMBY.
    - mrDmrTmrJ 6y ago
      Yes, the regulatory and NIMBY challenges are extreme. Best way to do it is to go: 1. All underground transmission. 2. Expand the natural gas pipeline permitting process (which is controlled at the Federal level and already overrides state's jurisdiction) to include underground electrical transmission.
- rtpg 6y ago
  Isn't gas also at like 50% production as well? It's also heavily knocked out? Like it's pulling a lot of weight because it's 80% of the capacity if nothing's going wrong! If it was 100% then maybe 40 GW of thermal capacity would _also_ be offline. ERCOT assumed 0% from Wind. Instead we're getting 25% They assumed 100% from gas. Instead we're getting 50% (or 70% or whatever). You look at that and tell me gas is what's performing well here, and the segment that should be expanded. (EDIT: Sorry, I think your original thing was "all in nuclear." I think I read nuclear was also having some issues but it's at least not the "more gas is the solution for a situation where gas is failing" narrative) I get that wind + solar can't cover everything, but right now what we're seeing is massive failures from gas. In a universe where we had more wind + solar, there could likely be more energy going around right now.
  - cbmuser 6y ago
    South Texas Project 1 was already fixed and should be back online: > https://twitter.com/Beazy_Rampezy/status/1362043827800977414 https://twitter.com/Beazy_Rampezy/status/1362043827800977414
  - vancan1ty 6y ago
    It is simple to see what energy source is pulling above its weight and what energy source is pulling below its weight. Go to here: https://www.eia.gov/beta/electricity/gridmonitor/expanded-view/electric_overview/balancing_authority/ERCO/GenerationByEnergySource-14/edit https://www.eia.gov/beta/electricity/gridmonitor/expanded-vi... , select "daily" view and put in 60 days to get a more representative sample. on 12/19/2020 -- looks to be a fairly typical Texas winter day natural gas production was 331660 megawatthours wind was 191415 megawatthours for a ratio of 1.73 gas/wind this appears to be fairly typical numbers on a daily basis over the winter -- actually on a number of days wind surpasses gas on 2/16/2021 natural gas 692091 wind 90087 for a ratio of 7.68 gas/wind natural gas 2/16 vs natural gas 12/19 is ratio 2.09 wind 2/16 vs wind 12/19 is ratio 0.47 so as expected during an inclement weather event natural gas ramped up and wind ramped down. natural gas just didn't ramp up enough to pick up all the slack from increased demand and ramped down renewables. "I get that wind + solar can't cover everything, but right now what we're seeing is massive failures from gas. In a universe where we had more wind + solar, there could likely be more energy going around right now." -- Wind is failing much worse than gas from an objective power generation standpoint. All wind has going for it is the tyranny of low expectations.
- cbmuser 6y ago
  And nuclear is providing 100% of its installed capacity after South Texas Project 1 was offline for some hours.
lsllc 6y ago
Take the North East of the US, there's not enough solar year round, nor is it generally windy enough of the time to generate power for a densely populated region & power hungry growing region. So my logic is go Nuclear, like France. Keep the natural gas for heating (since it's relatively efficient and cleaner than other fossil fuels). Supplement with solar/wind where & when available.
- jasonjayr 6y ago
  https://www.iso-ne.com/isoexpress/web/charts https://www.iso-ne.com/isoexpress/web/charts North East US is running about 28% nuclear at the time I viewed the fuel mix chart.
cbmuser 6y ago
Wind and solar heavily depend on the weather. They cannot therefore produce any sufficient amounts of electricity during a blizzard. And the blame doesn’t lie on natural gas but on the idea of shutting down baseload-capable sources like nuclear in favor of renewables.
- jussij 6y ago
  Except it was natural gas generators that caused the system to fail: As Princeton engineering professor Jesse Jenkins points out, the real primary culprit was the mass failure of nuclear, coal, and natural gas (or "thermal") power plants. At the peak of the blackout something like 27,000 megawatts of thermal capacity were offline — or nearly 40 percent of Texas's entire thermal capacity. https://theweek.com/articles/967062/what-texas-blackout-reveals-about-americas-climate-vulnerability https://theweek.com/articles/967062/what-texas-blackout-reve...
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  And the blame doesn’t lie on natural gas but on the idea of shutting down baseload-capable sources like nuclear in favor of renewables. What nuclear has been shut down in Texas?

by rtpg 6y ago

acidburnNSA 6y ago

Wind and solar are above planned generation right now, which was 0. In ERCOT wind has been making less than 6 GW out of 33 GW installed for over 7 days straight [1]. Natural gas is pulling almost all the weight right now, as you can see. So no, not time to go all in on wind + solar. [1] https://i.imgur.com/EEbf5lM.png https://i.imgur.com/EEbf5lM.png (screenshot from EIA, original data here: https://www.eia.gov/beta/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electric_overview/balancing_authority/ERCO https://www.eia.gov/beta/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/e...) Your first statement is partially true. The ERCOT "planners" expected their gas capacity to basically always be there, and the fact that 30 GW of thermal capacity is offline for various weather-related reasons is the primary reason the power is out. But the remaining gas is pulling almost all the weight keeping people alive so we shouldn't neglect that.

mrDmrTmrJ 6y ago
You're correct that, "30 GW of thermal capacity is offline for various weather-related reasons is the primary reason the power is out." I think wind can play a huge role in fixing this. Check out: https://www.windy.com/?37.539,-94.134,4 https://www.windy.com/?37.539,-94.134,4 And you've got plenty of massive offshore wind resources on both sides of the continent that are blowing right now (Feb 17th 7:49pm PDT) if we had installed capacity. We need to keep our nuclear fleet (20% of electrical generation) and invest in a TON of transmission. If we had this electrical grid, we'd be doing far better: https://twitter.com/Sammy_Roth/status/1356442256866037766 https://twitter.com/Sammy_Roth/status/1356442256866037766
- lsllc 6y ago
  Transmission lines aren't so easy, for example the Northern Pass project to bring power from Quebec Hydro into New England failed due to local opposition: https://www.vnews.com/northern-pass-eversource-hydroquebec-27298583 https://www.vnews.com/northern-pass-eversource-hydroquebec-2... I do like the idea (from the linked tweet) of underground transmission lines (underground alongside railroads is probably mitigates the NIMBY objections): https://www.volts.wtf/p/transmission-fortnight-burying-power https://www.volts.wtf/p/transmission-fortnight-burying-power
- acidburnNSA 6y ago
  Ask anyone who has planned and installed a long-haul transmission line in the past 40 years and they'll tell you that that's gonna be extremely hard. It's simple technically, as is building a lot of a standardized nuclear plant, but it's not easy and will be hit by massive amounts of NIMBY.
  - mrDmrTmrJ 6y ago
    Yes, the regulatory and NIMBY challenges are extreme. Best way to do it is to go: 1. All underground transmission. 2. Expand the natural gas pipeline permitting process (which is controlled at the Federal level and already overrides state's jurisdiction) to include underground electrical transmission.
rtpg 6y ago
Isn't gas also at like 50% production as well? It's also heavily knocked out? Like it's pulling a lot of weight because it's 80% of the capacity if nothing's going wrong! If it was 100% then maybe 40 GW of thermal capacity would _also_ be offline. ERCOT assumed 0% from Wind. Instead we're getting 25% They assumed 100% from gas. Instead we're getting 50% (or 70% or whatever). You look at that and tell me gas is what's performing well here, and the segment that should be expanded. (EDIT: Sorry, I think your original thing was "all in nuclear." I think I read nuclear was also having some issues but it's at least not the "more gas is the solution for a situation where gas is failing" narrative) I get that wind + solar can't cover everything, but right now what we're seeing is massive failures from gas. In a universe where we had more wind + solar, there could likely be more energy going around right now.
- cbmuser 6y ago
  South Texas Project 1 was already fixed and should be back online: > https://twitter.com/Beazy_Rampezy/status/1362043827800977414 https://twitter.com/Beazy_Rampezy/status/1362043827800977414
- vancan1ty 6y ago
  It is simple to see what energy source is pulling above its weight and what energy source is pulling below its weight. Go to here: https://www.eia.gov/beta/electricity/gridmonitor/expanded-view/electric_overview/balancing_authority/ERCO/GenerationByEnergySource-14/edit https://www.eia.gov/beta/electricity/gridmonitor/expanded-vi... , select "daily" view and put in 60 days to get a more representative sample. on 12/19/2020 -- looks to be a fairly typical Texas winter day natural gas production was 331660 megawatthours wind was 191415 megawatthours for a ratio of 1.73 gas/wind this appears to be fairly typical numbers on a daily basis over the winter -- actually on a number of days wind surpasses gas on 2/16/2021 natural gas 692091 wind 90087 for a ratio of 7.68 gas/wind natural gas 2/16 vs natural gas 12/19 is ratio 2.09 wind 2/16 vs wind 12/19 is ratio 0.47 so as expected during an inclement weather event natural gas ramped up and wind ramped down. natural gas just didn't ramp up enough to pick up all the slack from increased demand and ramped down renewables. "I get that wind + solar can't cover everything, but right now what we're seeing is massive failures from gas. In a universe where we had more wind + solar, there could likely be more energy going around right now." -- Wind is failing much worse than gas from an objective power generation standpoint. All wind has going for it is the tyranny of low expectations.
cbmuser 6y ago
And nuclear is providing 100% of its installed capacity after South Texas Project 1 was offline for some hours.

lsllc 6y ago

Take the North East of the US, there's not enough solar year round, nor is it generally windy enough of the time to generate power for a densely populated region & power hungry growing region. So my logic is go Nuclear, like France. Keep the natural gas for heating (since it's relatively efficient and cleaner than other fossil fuels). Supplement with solar/wind where & when available.

jasonjayr 6y ago
https://www.iso-ne.com/isoexpress/web/charts https://www.iso-ne.com/isoexpress/web/charts North East US is running about 28% nuclear at the time I viewed the fuel mix chart.

cbmuser 6y ago

Wind and solar heavily depend on the weather. They cannot therefore produce any sufficient amounts of electricity during a blizzard. And the blame doesn’t lie on natural gas but on the idea of shutting down baseload-capable sources like nuclear in favor of renewables.

jussij 6y ago
Except it was natural gas generators that caused the system to fail: As Princeton engineering professor Jesse Jenkins points out, the real primary culprit was the mass failure of nuclear, coal, and natural gas (or "thermal") power plants. At the peak of the blackout something like 27,000 megawatts of thermal capacity were offline — or nearly 40 percent of Texas's entire thermal capacity. https://theweek.com/articles/967062/what-texas-blackout-reveals-about-americas-climate-vulnerability https://theweek.com/articles/967062/what-texas-blackout-reve...
tonyedgecombe 6y ago
And the blame doesn’t lie on natural gas but on the idea of shutting down baseload-capable sources like nuclear in favor of renewables. What nuclear has been shut down in Texas?