21 ms·

Sure. How many natural gas plants do you reckon we will need? Following your idea, it seems like we will need to replace almost all existing base load with a s

Sure. How many natural gas plants do you reckon we will need? Following your idea, it seems like we will need to replace almost all existing base load with a stable options like nat gas. But then why bother investing in these unreliable “sustainable” sources at all? So we can collectively pat ourselves on the back while paying much more for electricity? At some point, perhaps we should start asking why we are replacing base load with intermittent sources when we have no good ways to store energy at scale.

credit_guy 4y ago
> How many natural gas plants do you reckon we will need? Many fewer than we already have. Not sure I understand your other questions. What unreliable "sustainable" sources? Why paying much more for electricity?
- bequanna 4y ago
  Wind and solar are quite unreliable. That's the dirty secret. Wind/Solar might be price competitive at some $/MWh but you need build MUCH more capacity to make up for how unreliable they are. Each utility needs to purchase generation capacity in advance and it has to be enough to cover estimated peak usage. This is a regulatory requirement. I find it interesting that if the utility chooses to reserve wind generation, they can only apply 7% of the nameplate capacity (!) According to that math, if we're going to replace current coal/nuke/nat gas base load with wind and expect some amount of reliability, we will need to build 14x as much capacity. That is just madness. Interestingly, regulated utilities actually LOVE this because they make money for their shareholders by having some capital expenditure base amount. The Public Utilities Commission then allows them to earn some return on that base. I believe the allowed return is usually something like 8-10%. The more they spend on capacity and the less reliable the source is, the more money they make. Pretty perverse incentives, but you're a luddite science denier if you at all question this scheme. SO, if you have to waaaaay over build capacity because your sources are unreliable, the utility has to invest more to build that out. Their return on investment in generation then comes from YOU via much higher rates.
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    > Wind and solar are quite unreliable. That's the dirty secret. It's not a secret, that's what most people say. But is it true? Take a look at the graphs in [1] with monthly electricity generation by source in the US. You will notice that renewable electricity generation is a bit jagged, but not a lot. The ratio between the highs and the lows may be 1.3, but it's certainly not 7 or 15 as you imply. The thing about 7% of the nameplace capacity counting towards peak availability is a red herring. Power companies can keep natural gas plants. Those are very cheap (about $1000/kw of nameplate capacity, on par with solar, but obviously without intermittency issues). They don't need to run them all the time, 5-10% of the time will be enough. Overbuilding renewables by a huge factor to supposedly be allowed to earn 8-10% is a nice conspiracy theory, but assumes they'll find people to sell to at a profit. When you generate many times what people consume, you'll eventually need to pay others to take the electricity from you (yes, negative prices are a thing in the power markets). [1] https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec7_4.pdf https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec7_4.pdf

credit_guy 4y ago

> How many natural gas plants do you reckon we will need? Many fewer than we already have. Not sure I understand your other questions. What unreliable "sustainable" sources? Why paying much more for electricity?

bequanna 4y ago
Wind and solar are quite unreliable. That's the dirty secret. Wind/Solar might be price competitive at some $/MWh but you need build MUCH more capacity to make up for how unreliable they are. Each utility needs to purchase generation capacity in advance and it has to be enough to cover estimated peak usage. This is a regulatory requirement. I find it interesting that if the utility chooses to reserve wind generation, they can only apply 7% of the nameplate capacity (!) According to that math, if we're going to replace current coal/nuke/nat gas base load with wind and expect some amount of reliability, we will need to build 14x as much capacity. That is just madness. Interestingly, regulated utilities actually LOVE this because they make money for their shareholders by having some capital expenditure base amount. The Public Utilities Commission then allows them to earn some return on that base. I believe the allowed return is usually something like 8-10%. The more they spend on capacity and the less reliable the source is, the more money they make. Pretty perverse incentives, but you're a luddite science denier if you at all question this scheme. SO, if you have to waaaaay over build capacity because your sources are unreliable, the utility has to invest more to build that out. Their return on investment in generation then comes from YOU via much higher rates.
- credit_guy 4y ago
  > Wind and solar are quite unreliable. That's the dirty secret. It's not a secret, that's what most people say. But is it true? Take a look at the graphs in [1] with monthly electricity generation by source in the US. You will notice that renewable electricity generation is a bit jagged, but not a lot. The ratio between the highs and the lows may be 1.3, but it's certainly not 7 or 15 as you imply. The thing about 7% of the nameplace capacity counting towards peak availability is a red herring. Power companies can keep natural gas plants. Those are very cheap (about $1000/kw of nameplate capacity, on par with solar, but obviously without intermittency issues). They don't need to run them all the time, 5-10% of the time will be enough. Overbuilding renewables by a huge factor to supposedly be allowed to earn 8-10% is a nice conspiracy theory, but assumes they'll find people to sell to at a profit. When you generate many times what people consume, you'll eventually need to pay others to take the electricity from you (yes, negative prices are a thing in the power markets). [1] https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec7_4.pdf https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec7_4.pdf