3 ms·

This whole article seems light on nuance. The plant in question is a peaker plant. The entire point is to run it as little as practical. It's not being built

by amluto 2y ago

This whole article seems light on nuance. The plant in question is a peaker plant. The entire point is to run it as little as practical. It's not being built to satisfy base load or to produce enormous amounts of total energy -- it's being build to supply capacity to the grid. Unlike solar or wind or even a battery system of any reasonable size, it can be run when needed and turned off when needed. It's entirely reasonable to build a sustainable grid based on lots of renewables and gas-fired peaker plants to keep everything working reliably under adverse conditions. So surely the article should talk about the economics (to the grid operator and to the rate-payers) and how it, or a plant like it, affects the average emissions per unit energy supplied by the grid. The next someone gets excited about installing a shiny new heat pump in a place that can get very cold (which includes parts of Arizona!), remember that its coefficient of performance can get quite low on a cold winter night, that it's really nice to keep one's house warm, that the sun won't be shining when this happens, and that the worst-case grid capacity has to come from somewhere. And, as some Texans can remind you, it really sucks when that energy fails to show up when needed. (Not to mention that parts of Arizona get very very hot and surprisingly humid, too, and the capaity needed for cooling and dehumidification on the worst days also has to come from somewhere.) To be clear, I'm entirely in favor of calmly and carefully phasing out residential natural gas, but doing so is not at all a free lunch. In places where gas infrastructure already exists, and to the extent that leaks can be controlled adequately, an efficient, low-emission natural gas boiler/furnace is a very nice way to produce efficient heat in very cold weather, and it is just as efficient in very cold weather as it is in more mild weather. Unlike, say, a heat pump. Far too many people who want to phase natural gas out quickly don't consider the tradeoffs.

no_wizard 2y ago
Edit: I got load following and peaker plants mixed up. Nuclear Powered Load Following Plants[0] are a thing, but strictly speaking, peaker plants are not. This is my error. Edit 2: There are some interesting developments with Gen 4 reactors[1] and hydrogen production, which could theoretically mean during non peak load you could store energy in the form of hydrogen to be burned later, which may make gas fired peaker plants green, but its entirely theoretical right now [0]: https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12/technical_and_economic_aspects_of_load_following_with_nuclear_power_plants.pdf https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12... [1]: https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-nuclear-power-plants-gearing-clean-hydrogen-production https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-nuclear-power-plants-ge...
- natnat 2y ago
  Nuclear is really terrible at peak loads; it's a very reliable base load. It's basically impossible to quickly increase or decrease the output of a nuclear plant.
  - no_wizard 2y ago
    I had to refresh my memory, I was thinking of load following plants, not peaker plants. Thats my bad.
mistrial9 2y ago
> very cold it does take some special point of view to assert that! > lacks nuance yes true, but the topic is valid and widely applicable. The journalist did a bad job of an engineering problem, but maybe an OK job of casting light on this subject. > as some Texans can remind you, it really sucks when that energy fails to show up when needed. it is hard to express the irony of the free state of Texas, their impact on economy and their impact on global climate catastrophe, in a few short words. Way to go to paint it in the most myopic terms. Of course you are also right because every life is a personal life, too. > Far too many people who want to phase natural gas out quickly don't consider the tradeoffs this is a political situation and a political moment. All things considered, globally, yes it is time for a political change.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
bbarn 2y ago
I work in this industry, and you have it right. Peaker plants are still valuable and serve a different need than solar. We might one day get to a point where batteries are the better option, but for now it's still just not economically sound. This about it ruining their view and lowering market value of what should be the last house they live in. On a side note - I am very excited about the cost lowering for whole house battery systems. In places like Arizona, and California where I live, we get enough sun that 2 of those can almost ensure the ability to not even need the grid for most people that have space to install the panels.
devbent 2y ago
> The next someone gets excited about installing a shiny new heat pump in a place that can get very cold (which includes parts of Arizona!), remember that its coefficient of performance can get quite low on a cold winter night, Ground loop heat pumps are efficient in nearly any climate short of perma-frost. They do cost a lot and I imagine they aren't exactly cost efficient in Arizona, but the technology means heat pumps are viable even in places where the temperature drops below 0 degrees fahrenheit. The other solution is good insulation so the house doesn't need a ton of heating at night.
- Log_out_ 2y ago
  A horizontal self drilling loop would be worth millions as a cheap technology.
nielsbot 2y ago
> Unlike solar or wind or even a battery system of any reasonable size, it can be run when needed and turned off when needed Wind is available at night. Solar + battery is available whenever. Battery storage can replace gas peaker plants > keep everything working reliably under adverse conditions What adverse conditions are you imagining? > So surely the article should talk about the economics (to the grid operator and to the rate-payers) Are renewables + storage not cheaper than gas plants? > shiny new heat pump in a place that can get very cold https://www.wired.com/story/myth-heat-pumps-cold-weather-freezing-subzero/ https://www.wired.com/story/myth-heat-pumps-cold-weather-fre...
- amluto 2y ago
  >> shiny new heat pump in a place that can get very cold > https://www.wired.com/story/https://www.wired.com/story/myth-heat-pumps-cold-weather-freezing-subzero/ https://www.wired.com/story/https://www.wired.com/story/myth... Which doesn't invalidate the point. If the desired indoor-outdoor temperature difference doubles (say 68F indoors, 30F outdoors changes to 68F indoors, -8F outdoors), then a gas furnace uses gas at about twice the rate (as the heat loss in a house is roughly proportional to temperature difference). And natural gas is easy to store. But a heat pump needs twice the output and its COP drops, so maybe you need 3-4x as much electric power, and electric power is not easy to store. But you can still store gas, and you can connect a peaker plant to the grid, and it all works out, and you might not even need to run that peaker plant very much.
  - nielsbot 2y ago
    What’s so important about ease of storage? You worried the solar + battery grid will suddenly fail? You know what else connects to the grid? Renewables and storage. Confused by your reply.
    - amluto 2y ago
      The grid needs several nines of reliability even on that cold night, and more nines are needed in places where extreme cold weather happens and people use electric heat. To achieve any reliability at all, there needs to be enough capacity for these extreme temperature events. With heat pumps, on a cold night, 3-4x normal usage from all the heat pumps is possible, even likely. Maybe worse in places that get really cold and push the limits of the heat pumps (where COP can get quite close to 1). So the grid needs overprovisioned capacity. One could hook up a lot of renewables, a lot of storage and a lot of inverter capacity to that storage, which is expensive. But this is expensive: batteries are approaching reasonable prices if the get used heavily, but there aren’t extra-cheap batteries for systems that only get used on rare occasions. But there are extra cheap power plants that make economic sense even if rarely used: these are peaker plants. Yes, it would be nice to have a non-emitting peaker plant, and someone will surely figure this out eventually. But it wouldn’t be shocking if the eventual solution is an ordinary methane-fired plant (or maybe methanol?) where the fuel is synthetic. After all, even with renewable sources, if you actually want to store a whole lot of energy, chemical storage is pretty effective.

by amluto 2y ago

no_wizard 2y ago

Edit: I got load following and peaker plants mixed up. Nuclear Powered Load Following Plants[0] are a thing, but strictly speaking, peaker plants are not. This is my error. Edit 2: There are some interesting developments with Gen 4 reactors[1] and hydrogen production, which could theoretically mean during non peak load you could store energy in the form of hydrogen to be burned later, which may make gas fired peaker plants green, but its entirely theoretical right now [0]: https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12/technical_and_economic_aspects_of_load_following_with_nuclear_power_plants.pdf https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12... [1]: https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-nuclear-power-plants-gearing-clean-hydrogen-production https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-nuclear-power-plants-ge...

natnat 2y ago
Nuclear is really terrible at peak loads; it's a very reliable base load. It's basically impossible to quickly increase or decrease the output of a nuclear plant.
- no_wizard 2y ago
  I had to refresh my memory, I was thinking of load following plants, not peaker plants. Thats my bad.

mistrial9 2y ago

> very cold it does take some special point of view to assert that! > lacks nuance yes true, but the topic is valid and widely applicable. The journalist did a bad job of an engineering problem, but maybe an OK job of casting light on this subject. > as some Texans can remind you, it really sucks when that energy fails to show up when needed. it is hard to express the irony of the free state of Texas, their impact on economy and their impact on global climate catastrophe, in a few short words. Way to go to paint it in the most myopic terms. Of course you are also right because every life is a personal life, too. > Far too many people who want to phase natural gas out quickly don't consider the tradeoffs this is a political situation and a political moment. All things considered, globally, yes it is time for a political change.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

bbarn 2y ago

I work in this industry, and you have it right. Peaker plants are still valuable and serve a different need than solar. We might one day get to a point where batteries are the better option, but for now it's still just not economically sound. This about it ruining their view and lowering market value of what should be the last house they live in. On a side note - I am very excited about the cost lowering for whole house battery systems. In places like Arizona, and California where I live, we get enough sun that 2 of those can almost ensure the ability to not even need the grid for most people that have space to install the panels.

devbent 2y ago

> The next someone gets excited about installing a shiny new heat pump in a place that can get very cold (which includes parts of Arizona!), remember that its coefficient of performance can get quite low on a cold winter night, Ground loop heat pumps are efficient in nearly any climate short of perma-frost. They do cost a lot and I imagine they aren't exactly cost efficient in Arizona, but the technology means heat pumps are viable even in places where the temperature drops below 0 degrees fahrenheit. The other solution is good insulation so the house doesn't need a ton of heating at night.

Log_out_ 2y ago
A horizontal self drilling loop would be worth millions as a cheap technology.

nielsbot 2y ago

> Unlike solar or wind or even a battery system of any reasonable size, it can be run when needed and turned off when needed Wind is available at night. Solar + battery is available whenever. Battery storage can replace gas peaker plants > keep everything working reliably under adverse conditions What adverse conditions are you imagining? > So surely the article should talk about the economics (to the grid operator and to the rate-payers) Are renewables + storage not cheaper than gas plants? > shiny new heat pump in a place that can get very cold https://www.wired.com/story/myth-heat-pumps-cold-weather-freezing-subzero/ https://www.wired.com/story/myth-heat-pumps-cold-weather-fre...

amluto 2y ago
>> shiny new heat pump in a place that can get very cold > https://www.wired.com/story/https://www.wired.com/story/myth-heat-pumps-cold-weather-freezing-subzero/ https://www.wired.com/story/https://www.wired.com/story/myth... Which doesn't invalidate the point. If the desired indoor-outdoor temperature difference doubles (say 68F indoors, 30F outdoors changes to 68F indoors, -8F outdoors), then a gas furnace uses gas at about twice the rate (as the heat loss in a house is roughly proportional to temperature difference). And natural gas is easy to store. But a heat pump needs twice the output and its COP drops, so maybe you need 3-4x as much electric power, and electric power is not easy to store. But you can still store gas, and you can connect a peaker plant to the grid, and it all works out, and you might not even need to run that peaker plant very much.
- nielsbot 2y ago
  What’s so important about ease of storage? You worried the solar + battery grid will suddenly fail? You know what else connects to the grid? Renewables and storage. Confused by your reply.
  - amluto 2y ago
    The grid needs several nines of reliability even on that cold night, and more nines are needed in places where extreme cold weather happens and people use electric heat. To achieve any reliability at all, there needs to be enough capacity for these extreme temperature events. With heat pumps, on a cold night, 3-4x normal usage from all the heat pumps is possible, even likely. Maybe worse in places that get really cold and push the limits of the heat pumps (where COP can get quite close to 1). So the grid needs overprovisioned capacity. One could hook up a lot of renewables, a lot of storage and a lot of inverter capacity to that storage, which is expensive. But this is expensive: batteries are approaching reasonable prices if the get used heavily, but there aren’t extra-cheap batteries for systems that only get used on rare occasions. But there are extra cheap power plants that make economic sense even if rarely used: these are peaker plants. Yes, it would be nice to have a non-emitting peaker plant, and someone will surely figure this out eventually. But it wouldn’t be shocking if the eventual solution is an ordinary methane-fired plant (or maybe methanol?) where the fuel is synthetic. After all, even with renewable sources, if you actually want to store a whole lot of energy, chemical storage is pretty effective.