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> you’re just assuming it is true I'm not assuming it. I'm referring to the very real, major blackouts that have occurred in the US over the past couple of yea

> you’re just assuming it is true I'm not assuming it. I'm referring to the very real, major blackouts that have occurred in the US over the past couple of years. These events have plenty of reliable sources that tell exactly what happened. In the Texas blackouts, the problems were coal and gas plants going offline due to the cold that they weren't winterized against. It had nothing to do with Wind or Solar failing unexpectedly, despite the governor's claims early in the blackouts. In the recent rolling blackouts in the Southeast, TVA and Duke Energy reported that the cause was their coal and gas plants freezing up. Nothing to do with renewables again. I cannot recall any major blackouts caused by the fossil fuel plants operating normally while renewables failed to produce on schedule. I would love to see some examples, if they exist. The Cleantechnica article that I linked to earlier (which you surely didn't read) also provided quotes on this exact topic, and that analysis agrees with my own, FWIW. I could dig into the specifics of these events and provide more sources, but you don't seem likely to care.

jcampbell1 4y ago
I agree with most of what you say, but renewables can’t be counted on, so they can never be blamed. This is tautologically true and yet a meaningless point. If a hospital loses power to lifesaving equipment, 100% of the time it is due to a failure of backup generators.
- coder543 4y ago
  > I agree with most of what you say, but renewables can’t be counted on, so they can never be blamed. Renewables are fairly predictable, so they can be counted on. The production is variable, but not unreliable or unpredictable. It's an important distinction, and it gives more time for the grid to coordinate with Demand Response (or peaker plants) to match load and production. Obviously the weather models involved are still improving, but for solar especially, it's easy to predict when the sun will go down. Cloud coverage and wind forecasting are active areas of development to make things easier and more predictable for everyone.
  - loeg 4y ago
    > Renewables are fairly predictable, so they can be counted on. The production is variable, but not unreliable or unpredictable. It's an important distinction, and it gives more time for the grid to coordinate with Demand Response (or peaker plants) to match load and production. Was Germany's months-long period of low wind in 2022 predictable in this sense? Was Germany supposed to stop using electricity for months as Demand Reduction? I buy that you can maybe store enough power for overnight demand if solar generates enough during the day (at some potentially large cost), but wind can just stop blowing for weeks. Storage cannot solve that without outrageous cost, or blackouts.
    - coder543 4y ago
      I can't find any actual accounts of the wind stopping entirely for "weeks" in Germany. It is a theoretical possibility. Periods of "low wind" are fully expected in summer, since there is usually more wind power generated in winter, although I'm not sure when you're referring to specifically. Similarly, solar produces more power in summer and less in winter. Critically, we have the ability to transmit power over distance. That's the whole point of having a grid, instead of just having each person operating off-grid and only having access to the resources that are within arm's reach of their house. Individual solar panels may be under a cloud or individual wind turbines may experience no wind, but it is tremendously less likely for entire regions to experience this for an extended period of time. The US has encountered several winter storms that brought a number of our fossil fuel plants to a halt for days at a time, causing blackouts. That's not theoretical.
      - loeg 4y ago
        These are what I'm remembering re: Germany and reduced wind. This was during winter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28521533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28521533 https://public.substack.com/p/german-emissions-from-electricity-674 https://public.substack.com/p/german-emissions-from-electric... We do have transmission, but it is lossy and expensive, and the places it is cheaper to transmit from are geographically adjacent and are going to have similar solar and wind conditions. If you're talking about Texas' gas plants, yeah, that was not good. But gas plants are an essential part of preventing blackouts in a wind/solar grid, so I'm not sure this is a point in wind/solar's favor.
doctor_eval 4y ago
Perhaps unintentionally, you changed your argument from “fossil fuels are responsible for blackouts” to “ I cannot recall any major blackouts caused by the fossil fuel plants operating normally while renewables failed to produce on schedule”. These are different arguments. I am very much on team renewable, but the only reason those fossil fuel plants are needed in the first place is because of the very nature of renewables. So it’s disingenuous to say that fossil fuels are responsible for blackouts when it’s the dispatchability of renewables that required fossil fuel burning in the first place. I don’t think the GP meant anything other than this.
- coder543 4y ago
  > So it’s disingenuous to say that fossil fuels are responsible for blackouts when it’s the dispatchability of renewables that required fossil fuel burning in the first place. No... as I recall, in the Texas blackouts, the renewables actually generated more power than originally forecasted. If the natural gas and coal plants go offline completely, that has nothing to do with the dispatchability of renewables. The fossil fuel plants would be part of the grid regardless, because it takes decades for those plants to reach the end of their lifecycle and be decommissioned. The grid relies on every type of power doing what it says it will do. It is possible to predict when solar and wind will deliver power, and how much they will deliver. The stability of the grid relies on that. The fossil fuel plants were the ones that had problems. If they had produced power as they normally do, there would have been no blackout. > These are different arguments. Do you still think I changed my argument? I'm fairly sure I didn't, but I can see how you reached that conclusion without the clarifications above.
  - doctor_eval 4y ago
    You may not have intended to change your argument, but I think you were assuming evancox100 was arguing against renewables where I thought they were just making a point about your language. I can’t speak for them or you, but I think their comment was fair in the absence of the clarity you’ve now provided.
  - jcampbell1 4y ago

jcampbell1 4y ago

I agree with most of what you say, but renewables can’t be counted on, so they can never be blamed. This is tautologically true and yet a meaningless point. If a hospital loses power to lifesaving equipment, 100% of the time it is due to a failure of backup generators.

coder543 4y ago
> I agree with most of what you say, but renewables can’t be counted on, so they can never be blamed. Renewables are fairly predictable, so they can be counted on. The production is variable, but not unreliable or unpredictable. It's an important distinction, and it gives more time for the grid to coordinate with Demand Response (or peaker plants) to match load and production. Obviously the weather models involved are still improving, but for solar especially, it's easy to predict when the sun will go down. Cloud coverage and wind forecasting are active areas of development to make things easier and more predictable for everyone.
- loeg 4y ago
  > Renewables are fairly predictable, so they can be counted on. The production is variable, but not unreliable or unpredictable. It's an important distinction, and it gives more time for the grid to coordinate with Demand Response (or peaker plants) to match load and production. Was Germany's months-long period of low wind in 2022 predictable in this sense? Was Germany supposed to stop using electricity for months as Demand Reduction? I buy that you can maybe store enough power for overnight demand if solar generates enough during the day (at some potentially large cost), but wind can just stop blowing for weeks. Storage cannot solve that without outrageous cost, or blackouts.
  - coder543 4y ago
    I can't find any actual accounts of the wind stopping entirely for "weeks" in Germany. It is a theoretical possibility. Periods of "low wind" are fully expected in summer, since there is usually more wind power generated in winter, although I'm not sure when you're referring to specifically. Similarly, solar produces more power in summer and less in winter. Critically, we have the ability to transmit power over distance. That's the whole point of having a grid, instead of just having each person operating off-grid and only having access to the resources that are within arm's reach of their house. Individual solar panels may be under a cloud or individual wind turbines may experience no wind, but it is tremendously less likely for entire regions to experience this for an extended period of time. The US has encountered several winter storms that brought a number of our fossil fuel plants to a halt for days at a time, causing blackouts. That's not theoretical.
    - loeg 4y ago
      These are what I'm remembering re: Germany and reduced wind. This was during winter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28521533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28521533 https://public.substack.com/p/german-emissions-from-electricity-674 https://public.substack.com/p/german-emissions-from-electric... We do have transmission, but it is lossy and expensive, and the places it is cheaper to transmit from are geographically adjacent and are going to have similar solar and wind conditions. If you're talking about Texas' gas plants, yeah, that was not good. But gas plants are an essential part of preventing blackouts in a wind/solar grid, so I'm not sure this is a point in wind/solar's favor.

doctor_eval 4y ago

Perhaps unintentionally, you changed your argument from “fossil fuels are responsible for blackouts” to “ I cannot recall any major blackouts caused by the fossil fuel plants operating normally while renewables failed to produce on schedule”. These are different arguments. I am very much on team renewable, but the only reason those fossil fuel plants are needed in the first place is because of the very nature of renewables. So it’s disingenuous to say that fossil fuels are responsible for blackouts when it’s the dispatchability of renewables that required fossil fuel burning in the first place. I don’t think the GP meant anything other than this.

coder543 4y ago
> So it’s disingenuous to say that fossil fuels are responsible for blackouts when it’s the dispatchability of renewables that required fossil fuel burning in the first place. No... as I recall, in the Texas blackouts, the renewables actually generated more power than originally forecasted. If the natural gas and coal plants go offline completely, that has nothing to do with the dispatchability of renewables. The fossil fuel plants would be part of the grid regardless, because it takes decades for those plants to reach the end of their lifecycle and be decommissioned. The grid relies on every type of power doing what it says it will do. It is possible to predict when solar and wind will deliver power, and how much they will deliver. The stability of the grid relies on that. The fossil fuel plants were the ones that had problems. If they had produced power as they normally do, there would have been no blackout. > These are different arguments. Do you still think I changed my argument? I'm fairly sure I didn't, but I can see how you reached that conclusion without the clarifications above.
- doctor_eval 4y ago
  You may not have intended to change your argument, but I think you were assuming evancox100 was arguing against renewables where I thought they were just making a point about your language. I can’t speak for them or you, but I think their comment was fair in the absence of the clarity you’ve now provided.
- jcampbell1 4y ago