6 ms·

>At some point, we are going to realize "green" non nuclear energy doesn't work. Not only this, but while making other aspects of life worse or more expensive,

>At some point, we are going to realize "green" non nuclear energy doesn't work. Not only this, but while making other aspects of life worse or more expensive, it will also make the environment worse. Anyone who feels 'middle class' in CA has enormous buying power for consumer goods, and an obvious one for this problem is a gas/propane generator. When the accepted wisdom is for all the California suburbanites to have generators as buffers against unreliable power grids, the environment loses.

edmcnulty101 4y ago
What a lesson in unintended consequences of overbearing policy.
- travisporter 4y ago
  Deregulation ~= tragedy of the commons
  - EricE 4y ago
    lol - overbearing policy restricts to the least common denominator with no opportunity for innovation. Solar and Wind have been the biggest suppressor for developing longer term base load. Why would anyone who is remotely sane take a risk to develop base load power when politicians shift priorities on whatever the flavor of the day is. This has been going on for decades which is why we are now where we are. Base load generation takes a significant commitment and requires long term planning, but current politics place a high penalty on anything requiring a long term commitment. Talk about a tragedy of commons :p
    - travisporter 4y ago
      That's a very fair point, and to be clear, nuclear/geothermal/hydro baseload should be our top priority. But I fear regulation of things like fly ash, co2 emissions will be considered overbearing and then what's stopping fossil fuels?
thepasswordis 4y ago
California made those small gas generators illegal.
- MerelyMortal 4y ago
  To only purchase within the state, or bring in generators purchased in another state, or to operate already-purchased generators?
  - nilespotter 4y ago
    Purchase within the state
- nilespotter 4y ago
  You have until 01/2024 to buy one
- hedora 4y ago
  They only banned ones that don't have NOx emissions controls and that are are easily replaced with portable batteries. Here is the text of the bill: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB1346 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... My reading suggests that this won't impact anything that you should consider plugging your house into. Instead, it's targeting stuff like this: https://www.harborfreight.com/generators-engines/generators/8750-watt-inverter-generator-with-co-secure-technology-57480.html https://www.harborfreight.com/generators-engines/generators/... However, that model is twice as expensive as the one harbor freight was selling before the bill passed. The old one wasn't an inverter, so the frequency / voltage would drift around when the load changed, and couldn't be used with computers (or modern appliances). It wouldn't surprise me if they slapped a catalytic converter on it while they were upgrading the electronics.
jabart 4y ago
Mid-west resident here. You think the power grid problems are only in California? Texas has their own. Mid-west can't handle some major wind or ice storms. One storm years ago I was without power for 7 days, some people in the rural area for up to a month. Solar would have been great since we didn't need a 8kw gasoline generator 24 hours a day for a 200-300w load.
- Spivak 4y ago
  > Mid-west can't handle some major wind or ice storms Been though those, I don't really think "storm knocks out power lines" is the kind of problem people are talking about when it comes to grid reliability though. No amount of coal is going to keep the line from getting cut.
  - epistasis 4y ago
    A largely renewables+storage grid will help these sorts of outages greatly, however. Most major grid outages can be traced back to things like squirrels bringing down transmission. Once we have a bunch of storage, and are used to doing grid ops on lots of intermittent generation sources, grid reliability will go up because a power line going down will have lots of potential mitigations that are not possible today.
- cavisne 4y ago
  There is a difference between a storm physically disrupting the grid in the mid west (breaking lines), and a predictable heatwave exceeding the capacity of the grid.
  - jabart 4y ago
    For reference, we were told to conserve power to prevent a possible blackout too. https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/dangerous-heat-causing-energy-concerns-for-midwest-blackout-climate-change-indiana/531-a9ed881e-561a-4023-ad9f-068dc6f9fb08 https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/dangerous-heat-causi... https://www.wdrb.com/news/a-southern-indiana-utility-warns-rolling-blackouts-possible-during-heat-wave-this-week/article_d0685dc2-ea5a-11ec-b136-bf494758e46c.html https://www.wdrb.com/news/a-southern-indiana-utility-warns-r...
travisporter 4y ago
More optimistically, they would buy solar+storage which would mitigate the problem
- EricE 4y ago
  You have cost effective storage? Why are you being stingy with it - share already!
  - dangrossman 4y ago
    Yes, the electric car in my driveway, and in millions of Californians' driveways. My car's battery is as big as 6 Tesla Powerwalls and can power a house for days.
    - kkfx 4y ago
      Really? So far I see no car's ready integrated with home p.v., some experiments do exists (Toyota) and some LIMITED commercial cars (Ford F150) offer something, but nothing is really ready. I have a self-made p.v. with storage, I dream to being able just to integrate car's inverter power demand with p.v. inverter available capacity: most cars do not even offer MQTT/ModBUS communications to slowly regulate power demands. Just to regulate my hot water heater (a modern Daikin heat-pump) depending on p.v. available energy I have to craft some absurd home-assistant automation because NO ONE at Daikin really know what does it means "a solar-ready heat-pump" and no one who produce p.v. inverters really think that perhaps it's a good idea offering a good API to regulate devices in the house for maximum self-consumption. Potentially we can improve self-consumption by more than 10% with just let's say +10USD per high-power device, no such thing exists on sale. The best you can get are "smart switches" who power-on or off devices with crappy automation and power routers with a smart meter if you have to limit injection to the grid. Potentially cars can be used coupled with a fixed p.v. system and a small storage (for when you are not at home, but still need power for fridge and co) with a canbus open and universal API. Potentially. I'm curious if even find ONE BEV on sale who do that just with an open API...
      - 4y ago
DoingIsLearning 4y ago
> When the accepted wisdom is for all the California suburbanites to have generators as buffers against unreliable power grids, the environment loses. I am not claiming you are wrong but this sounds like something I would expect to read as a scenario in an upper middle class southwest african nation. Not something in one of the world's largest economies.
- epistasis 4y ago
  This is not accepted wisdom, and I don't know anybody with a generator. Perhaps I am not "upper" enough, however.
  - DoingIsLearning 4y ago
    I think OP meant it as a hypothetical. As in, if blackouts become a recurring event then a lot of people will solve it by throwing money at the problem. The issue is that diesel generator emissions are extremely harmful for the environment.

edmcnulty101 4y ago

What a lesson in unintended consequences of overbearing policy.

travisporter 4y ago
Deregulation ~= tragedy of the commons
- EricE 4y ago
  lol - overbearing policy restricts to the least common denominator with no opportunity for innovation. Solar and Wind have been the biggest suppressor for developing longer term base load. Why would anyone who is remotely sane take a risk to develop base load power when politicians shift priorities on whatever the flavor of the day is. This has been going on for decades which is why we are now where we are. Base load generation takes a significant commitment and requires long term planning, but current politics place a high penalty on anything requiring a long term commitment. Talk about a tragedy of commons :p
  - travisporter 4y ago
    That's a very fair point, and to be clear, nuclear/geothermal/hydro baseload should be our top priority. But I fear regulation of things like fly ash, co2 emissions will be considered overbearing and then what's stopping fossil fuels?

thepasswordis 4y ago

California made those small gas generators illegal.

MerelyMortal 4y ago
To only purchase within the state, or bring in generators purchased in another state, or to operate already-purchased generators?
- nilespotter 4y ago
  Purchase within the state
nilespotter 4y ago
You have until 01/2024 to buy one
hedora 4y ago
They only banned ones that don't have NOx emissions controls and that are are easily replaced with portable batteries. Here is the text of the bill: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB1346 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... My reading suggests that this won't impact anything that you should consider plugging your house into. Instead, it's targeting stuff like this: https://www.harborfreight.com/generators-engines/generators/8750-watt-inverter-generator-with-co-secure-technology-57480.html https://www.harborfreight.com/generators-engines/generators/... However, that model is twice as expensive as the one harbor freight was selling before the bill passed. The old one wasn't an inverter, so the frequency / voltage would drift around when the load changed, and couldn't be used with computers (or modern appliances). It wouldn't surprise me if they slapped a catalytic converter on it while they were upgrading the electronics.

jabart 4y ago

Mid-west resident here. You think the power grid problems are only in California? Texas has their own. Mid-west can't handle some major wind or ice storms. One storm years ago I was without power for 7 days, some people in the rural area for up to a month. Solar would have been great since we didn't need a 8kw gasoline generator 24 hours a day for a 200-300w load.

Spivak 4y ago
> Mid-west can't handle some major wind or ice storms Been though those, I don't really think "storm knocks out power lines" is the kind of problem people are talking about when it comes to grid reliability though. No amount of coal is going to keep the line from getting cut.
- epistasis 4y ago
  A largely renewables+storage grid will help these sorts of outages greatly, however. Most major grid outages can be traced back to things like squirrels bringing down transmission. Once we have a bunch of storage, and are used to doing grid ops on lots of intermittent generation sources, grid reliability will go up because a power line going down will have lots of potential mitigations that are not possible today.
cavisne 4y ago
There is a difference between a storm physically disrupting the grid in the mid west (breaking lines), and a predictable heatwave exceeding the capacity of the grid.
- jabart 4y ago
  For reference, we were told to conserve power to prevent a possible blackout too. https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/dangerous-heat-causing-energy-concerns-for-midwest-blackout-climate-change-indiana/531-a9ed881e-561a-4023-ad9f-068dc6f9fb08 https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/dangerous-heat-causi... https://www.wdrb.com/news/a-southern-indiana-utility-warns-rolling-blackouts-possible-during-heat-wave-this-week/article_d0685dc2-ea5a-11ec-b136-bf494758e46c.html https://www.wdrb.com/news/a-southern-indiana-utility-warns-r...

travisporter 4y ago

More optimistically, they would buy solar+storage which would mitigate the problem

EricE 4y ago
You have cost effective storage? Why are you being stingy with it - share already!
- dangrossman 4y ago
  Yes, the electric car in my driveway, and in millions of Californians' driveways. My car's battery is as big as 6 Tesla Powerwalls and can power a house for days.
  - kkfx 4y ago
    Really? So far I see no car's ready integrated with home p.v., some experiments do exists (Toyota) and some LIMITED commercial cars (Ford F150) offer something, but nothing is really ready. I have a self-made p.v. with storage, I dream to being able just to integrate car's inverter power demand with p.v. inverter available capacity: most cars do not even offer MQTT/ModBUS communications to slowly regulate power demands. Just to regulate my hot water heater (a modern Daikin heat-pump) depending on p.v. available energy I have to craft some absurd home-assistant automation because NO ONE at Daikin really know what does it means "a solar-ready heat-pump" and no one who produce p.v. inverters really think that perhaps it's a good idea offering a good API to regulate devices in the house for maximum self-consumption. Potentially we can improve self-consumption by more than 10% with just let's say +10USD per high-power device, no such thing exists on sale. The best you can get are "smart switches" who power-on or off devices with crappy automation and power routers with a smart meter if you have to limit injection to the grid. Potentially cars can be used coupled with a fixed p.v. system and a small storage (for when you are not at home, but still need power for fridge and co) with a canbus open and universal API. Potentially. I'm curious if even find ONE BEV on sale who do that just with an open API...
    - 4y ago

DoingIsLearning 4y ago

> When the accepted wisdom is for all the California suburbanites to have generators as buffers against unreliable power grids, the environment loses. I am not claiming you are wrong but this sounds like something I would expect to read as a scenario in an upper middle class southwest african nation. Not something in one of the world's largest economies.

epistasis 4y ago
This is not accepted wisdom, and I don't know anybody with a generator. Perhaps I am not "upper" enough, however.
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  I think OP meant it as a hypothetical. As in, if blackouts become a recurring event then a lot of people will solve it by throwing money at the problem. The issue is that diesel generator emissions are extremely harmful for the environment.