US Could Lower Carbon Emissions 78% With New National Transmission Network (smithsonianmag.com) 346
mdsolar writes with this story from Smithsonian magazine about how building a national transmission network could lead to a gigantic reduction in carbon emissions. From the story: "The United States could lower carbon emissions from electricity generation by as much as 78 percent without having to develop any new technologies or use costly batteries, a new study suggests. There's a catch, though. The country would have to build a new national transmission network so that states could share energy. 'Our idea was if we had a national 'interstate highway for electrons' we could move the power around as it was needed, and we could put the wind and solar plants in the very best places,' says study co-author Alexander MacDonald, who recently retired as director of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado."
Keep dreaming. (Score:4, Insightful)
'Our idea was if we had a national 'interstate highway for electrons' ...
We can barely get Congress to fund maintaining our interstate highway for cars and trucks.
Re: Keep dreaming. (Score:4, Funny)
Just tell them it's like an electric bridge to nowhere and they will fund it. They don't need to know how it works.
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'Our idea was if we had a national 'interstate highway for electrons' ...
We can barely get Congress to fund maintaining our interstate highway for cars and trucks.
Or trains. (Forgot about them.)
Re:Keep dreaming. (Score:4, Insightful)
Or trains. (Forgot about them.)
Trains lose money, so they require a lot of government subsidies. This grid will (supposedly) save money, so it should require no subsidies. There is no reason for the government to "fund" it. If private investors are not willing to pay for it, then that is a sure sign that it is not going to generate an acceptable ROI, and shouldn't be built.
Re:Keep dreaming. (Score:4, Insightful)
Somebody has to do the expected to do poorly, return on investment-wise public works, 'cause we just need roads, bridges, and stuff.
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It's all about infrastructure. It makes commerce for everyone possible. Even libertarians love infrastructure.
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we need some government programs to take care of those entrenched in society's last mile.
This is NOT a "last mile" issue. Long haul inter-state HVDC interconnects are the opposite of "last mile". These lines should pay for themselves by moving energy from where it is cheap and plentiful, to where it is expensive and scarce. But if no private investor can be convinced that this scheme will work, then it is silly to spend tax dollars on a boondoggle just because it is "infrastructure".
Btw, I don't understand why you think that the "last mile" should be subsidized. If you live in a rural area,
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My lifestyle is not at issue, but if it were, I'd hope my "betters" were kind and giving.
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Trains lose money? Are you crazy? They move an incredible amount of freight for a fraction of what it costs to haul by truck. Some railroads like Union Pacific are wildly profitable. The trains that lose money are passenger trains. Amtrak is famous for losing money.
This from Forbes....
In 2014, Union Pacific logged $5.18 billion in net profits on sales of $24 billion, for a return-on-revenues ratio of 21.6%.
I wish I could lose that kind of money!
local passenger rail loses money as setting fairs (Score:2)
local passenger rail loses money as setting fairs at an level needed to be in the black will make people not use it.
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But local passenger rail is a benefit to everyone as it helps take cars off the road. As such it is a good target for government subsidy. It helps unclog traffic and reduce pollution. I remember taking the train in Germany many times when I was stationed there. Convenient, fast and on time it made getting around in an area where traffic and parking were hell much nicer.
Re:Keep dreaming. (Score:5, Insightful)
"If private investors are not willing to pay for it, then that is a sure sign that it is not going to generate an acceptable ROI, and shouldn't be built."
Two ideas on why an investment wouldn't be done despite being beneficial for the involved parties:
1) Local optimum
2) Tragedy of the commons
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The United States:
the only country in the world where people believe that that nation wide important infrastructure is best run by private entities for an ROI.
Market failure is a thing (Score:2)
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If private investors are not willing to pay for it, then that is a sure sign that it is not going to generate an acceptable ROI, and shouldn't be built.
Companies exist for the next quarterly statement. Governments exist (or should exist) for their people, and it's precisely by investing in things with no immediate monetary payoff (infrastructure, scientific research, education, military, law enforcement, conservation, etc.) that they improve society as a whole.
Note that the primary motivation behind this proposal is lowering carbon emissions and fostering renewables. If you arrest climate change, that's a massive benefit to future generations, but it wo
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Or trains. (Forgot about them.)
Trains lose money, so they require a lot of government subsidies. This grid will (supposedly) save money, so it should require no subsidies. There is no reason for the government to "fund" it. If private investors are not willing to pay for it, then that is a sure sign that it is not going to generate an acceptable ROI, and shouldn't be built.
Just because something is not profitable does not mean it shouldn't be built. Trains are one you've already mentioned, roads another, schools, etc.
The existing grid is failing so why not replace it with something more efficient?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
http://www.scientificamerican.... [scientificamerican.com]
U.S. could lower carbon emissions 100% (Score:5, Insightful)
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nuff said (Score:3)
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Or move to Flint Michigan, since you seem to be of the opinion that man made environmental disasters are no big deal.
Or shorten your life span by setting up shop in Beijing.
Otherwise STFU. You incorrectly assume that there i
Re:U.S. could lower carbon emissions 100% (Score:4)
A man-made natural disaster is something like the BP oil spill in the gulf.
Fukushima was a straight up natural disaster. They could have done more to prevent the tsunami damaging the plant due to cut corners but in the end it was still the tsunami's fault. Nearly 16,000 people died from the tsunami. I seriously doubt the Fukushima leak will kill that many (though it will likely kill some.)
And Flint isn't a man-made natural disaster either as it's not even a natural disaster. Nature is probably just fine in Flint (unless leaking pipes have significantly contaminated the ground water.)
Flint's pipe system has old lead pipes and they pumped acidic water through it without properly treating it. That's it.
The river they were getting water from isn't the best but it doesn't, afaik, have lead in it. If they could magically replace all of their lead pipes then there wouldn't even be a problem.
I live ~20 miles downwind from a nuclear power plant and I have no issue with that. I'd definitely rather live 1 mile from a nuclear power plant than live 1 mile from a coal plant.
And I'd definitely rather live near a power plant than not have power.
You're right, everything has risk, but history seems to say that nuclear power isn't actually that risky as long as you do it right. I'm not sure I'd put all of our eggs into the nuclear basket but I do think that coal and gas power need to go.
Not without storage (Score:2)
Re:Not without storage (Score:5, Informative)
Nukes don't vary output well. Thus storage is needed in a nukes only system.
This is a common misconception based on old nuclear designs that were designed specifically to be base-load-only. Fukushima was one. Nuclear power is extremely flexible and has minimal constraints due to technological reasons. France is 75% nuclear and has load-following generation III reactors capable of daily load cycling of 50%-100% capacity at a ramp rate of 3-5%/minute.
The new AP-1000 is a gen III+ reactor rated to change from 30%-100% at a response time similar to coal or gas turbines. There are many other different and smaller reactor designs that could easily be used to supplement the large reactors, as a complete power solution.
There are many valid arguments against nuclear, but this isn't one of the stronger ones.
Re:Not without storage (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not without storage (Score:4, Insightful)
The load following of french plants is actually not as easy as you make it look. It is an complex orchestrated plan which plant is regulated down over night and followed by which next.
The point is not ordinary load following, the problem is a plant is regulated down, it either hast to be regulated up pretty soon again, less the something like 20 mins, or you can not power it up again for the next aprox. 6h as to many neutron capturing decay products (mainly Boron) are accumulating.
So your reaction times only work if a plant is constantly changing load up and down. And compared to an modern coal plant: that is incredible slow.
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The costs of Nukes is largely influenced by litigation and regulation which results in construction cost increases due to delay. Unless you think a 20 year delay in your construction schedule is a zero cost situation.
Not to mention Lawyers that can suck a Sperm Whale dry.
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Transmission line for wind power (Score:3)
My income comes in great part from the oil and gas industry, but I'm all for energy alternatives and their development.
Folks just have to recognize, with little interest in nuclear development, that the comfortable grid is still generationally dependent upon the fossil fuels for stability. I will support the betterment of alternatives, but they can't carry us just yet.
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Power-to-gas can do it without fossil fuels and without unreliable fantasy mega-grids. Some demo projects are already done in Germany.
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Oxyhydrogen manufacture [wikipedia.org] might be a contributor, but either the storage batteries get Moore's Law better or the harvesting technology get's GMO-better. Something... until those eventualities or nuclear is finally deemed acceptable, the carbon-based fuels will reign as reliable as Hoover Dam.
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
JFC, there's an entire segment of the tech industry that doesn't seem to live in the real world.
Having more things hooked up together doesn't make things more reliable, it makes them more vulnerable to both common mode failures and cascading system collapses.
5 years ago the entire county of San Diego was knocked off-line [wikipedia.org] for the better part of a day because a power worker in Arizona flipped the wrong switch. The entire NE US was out a decade ago [wikipedia.org] because of a single software bug, and I seem to recall another recent blackout caused by squirrels.
The fragility of our nation's power grid and the lack of cross-connects are two separate issues, but there's NO WAY that the second should even be remotely considered until the inter-reliability of the systems that ARE connected is fixed. And then maybe about 10 years after someone claims it's fixed we *perhaps* consider taking the next step.
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If BSG has taught us one thing about networking stuff thogether...
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It doesn't help that California imports a third of its electricity from out of state. That is a prescription for instability, as are a number of other California energy policies, like price controls and punitive retail electricity pricing schemes. The state's electricity problems are largely self inflicted.
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Computers try to balance that out regional load but so many issues can result in brown outs.
Military bases, teaching hospitals and other protected zones will be fine.
Re "someone claims it's fixed we *perhaps* consider taking the next step."
The inner city areas and lack of digital food payments
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The mail carriers go to everyone's house, they are not there to spy on just you.
No secret messages are coming through your TV set.
I think you get my drift.
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You haven't met my pervy mailman.
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Which is why the internet is always experiencing catastrophic system-wide shutdowns.
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The article is so poorly written that my guess is that it is the product of a couple of possibly competent guys talking to a "professional communicator" who understood about 17% of what he or she was told. That seems to happen a lot with press releases and science articles.
Let's not let the fact that the article is a disaster and the estimated emissions saving claims seem preposterous obscure the fact that upgrading the US-Canadian power grids may well be a really good idea. Even if it costs an impressive
NO! (Score:2, Insightful)
Be on guard... (Score:2)
...you know, They might just be upmodding you in hopes that you'll grow complacent.
I don't suppose you're posting from a rural area [wikipedia.org], by any chance?
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No one gives a shit about the 10th. The supremes completely ignore it like it's not even there. The 4th isn't far behind.
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Wouldn't dream of it.
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New national transmission network (Score:2)
What's wrong with the old ones [wikipedia.org]?
People who make these "Wow! Wouldn't it be neat if we ...." statements with no idea how the existing systems already work make me think they are trying to sell bridges to suckers.
So where to start. (Score:2)
Such projects need to start someplace.
So by golly get started.
Any large producer or distribution company should see this %% of
improvement as a way to increase market and sidestep a lot of carbon
regulation. North-South routes seem to be a good place to start.
Any simulation can be constrained to a data subset and
optimizations rerun. Compare the results and overlay to
see which paths are shared solutions.
Any 5% solution that is part of a net +75% solution would
be a place to start.
For what it is worth this
Passed up leds at thrift store (Score:2)
Nature review of study (Score:2)
...and... (Score:2)
...it'll cost nothing to build, nothing to maintain, there'll be no loss along the way, nothing will go wrong, and it'll last forever.
I think somewhere along the way, someone forgot that storing fuel is more efficient, not less. That's why every living plant and animal does it.
...yet... (Score:2)
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Load monitoring and control to be required (Score:2)
Every user connected to such a 'smart grid' will have a second-generation 'smart meter installed'. This would continuously monitor your power use and be able to, under control of the grid, turn your major appliances on and off according to the fluctuating generating capacity coming into the grid from windfields and solar farms. You might have to run your A/C longer in the mornings, when it's windy in Texas, and have it turn itself off when the sun has set in Arizona. That is what putting renewables on the g
We need a new transmission network (Score:2)
And we need to actually build all those wind and solar plants. And we need the feeders from the wind and solar plants to the new transmission grid. And we need to ignore the fact that the US isn't the British Empire and the sun does in fact set on the entire country. But hey, if we solved all those problems, we could reduce carbon emissions a lot.
Re:Mdsolar strikes again with unrealistic FUD (Score:5, Funny)
Construction equipment doesn't run on lithium batteries.
My cordless drill does - checkmate. :-)
Re: Mdsolar strikes again with unrealistic FUD (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no reason that construction equipment couldn't be electric powered, the world's largest self moving coal shovel is electric because no engine could directly power it and once you get to a certain size it makes no sense to generate onboard.
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And requires a feed directly off the grid.
Ain't no windmill going to power that.
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And requires a feed directly off the grid.
Ain't no windmill going to power that.
The "Grid" could easily be powered by wind+solar+nuclear. Coal plants aren't even being built anymore in the US.
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Bagger 288 energy draw: 16.56MW
Vestas V164 power output: 8MW
So a windmill wouldn't power that, but three would.
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This almost reads as though it's claiming that we have over 78% energy loss from transmission. But on second glance it seems to be saying that solar and wind power has already been developed and could benefit from an upgraded grid.
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It's not even saying that. An improved grid would permit the construction of new solar/wind sources at sites that are currently not cost-effective due to their distance from the point of consumption. The 78% number comes from the replacement of carbon-emitting sources with these to-be-constructed solar/wind sources - they still have to be built, in massive quantities, to achieve that 78% reduction.
Re:Mdsolar strikes again with unrealistic FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
The very fact that you use phrases like "alternative" and "traditional" to describe energy sources destroys any credibility your argument may have had. Energy sources are a matter of engineering - tradition has no place in the discussion except as something to avoid like the plague. Engineering is an excercise in progress - literally the thing that "tradition" exists to impede.
Re:Mdsolar strikes again with unrealistic FUD (Score:5, Informative)
If you are rebuilding the transmission network then you can place new lines where they will be best suited for new technologies such as solar, wind, and geothermal. The current grid is built to get electricity from the places that are good for the existing technologies to be located. Mostly these are where large amounts of water are located. Either for hydroelectric dams or for cooling (required for both nuclear and coal fired plants).
However reducing carbon emissions (not energy loss) can also be brought about by removing the zones that exist in the US electric grid to make it easier to sell electricity from one area to another. I believe that Texas has an isolated electrical grid. If a new transmission network was created then when Texas had excess electricity from wind turbines (which have already been installed) then it could easily sell it to another state which could prevent them from burning fossil fuels to meet their needs. The Pacific Northwest has abundant hydroelectric power which could be sold to a greater number of states which would offset using fossil fuels.
Also because Canada is connected into the network we would have more opportunities to sell power. Quebec sells a lot of electricity generated at their dams and Ontario has times when their nuclear plants are producing more than the province requires. BC is also a big hydroelectric producer and could sell into the US. Currently they are limited in the number of states that they can sell because of how the transmission network in the US works.
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Texas is not isolated. The Texas Interconnection [wikipedia.org] is tied to the Eastern Interconnection with two DC ties, and has a DC tie and a VFT to non-NERC systems in Mexico.
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I knew that there was another province in Central Canada but couldn't remember which one it was.
Personally I think we would be better off building our own transmission grid across Canada so that the provinces can sell electricity to one another. Ontario could save a lot of money by not building new nuclear plants (or wind or solar) if they built a few transmission lines to Quebec and bought power from them. The latest numbers were something like $26B for the bids when they recently wanted to build a coupl
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Among many ignored assumptions, did this post take into account the carbon emissions of building such a grid?
The point relies on a concept called "investment"
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Well, seems only fair, considering the world bank has estimated the true total subsidies that fossil fuels receive globally at around 5 trillion dollars a year. That's well over 10% of the entire world's GDP spent on fossil subsidies.
I think the other energy companies can get rather a *lot* more before they get anywhere close to parity. Of course, unless there *is* parity, the market cannot possibly be said to be "free". Since this is decidedly not the case - the real way to look at it is how impressive it
Re:Mdsolar strikes again with unrealistic FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
It's interesting in that this is a grid-based solution that helps *all* forms of electrical power, but plays into renewables' weaknesses especially well by amortizing the variability.
Less to mdsolar's liking, it also plays into centralized power production, by letting a single centralized power production facility exist in an area of relatively low demand and export the excess more efficiently -- one of the strengths of renewables is that it scales down well enough that you can get away with local production more often, whereas other sources and especially nuclear is not great at scaling down but is exceptioanlly good at scaling up.
But very much to mdsolar's liking, this means the interests of traditional production and renewables are actually aligned on the subject. Both sides of the coin benefit in different ways from improved transmission efficiencies.
Nuclear doesn't scale (Score:2)
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Nuclear scales down extremely well on the technical side. RTG's can easily put out as much power as household solar and do hot water/general heat as well.
The issue like always is with proliferations as nobody wants their redneck cousin fixing it.
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Easy. You invest one million trillion dollars in facilities ad their operation for producing Pu238 in large enough quantities, then everyone can have a relatively safe RTG at home.
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We do not recycle fuel rods as our current reactors are setup to make pu for weapons, the recycling would extract that pu (it would still need refinement but it's the base for fission weapons). Thus the government does not allow the reprocessing unless it needs pu. This is a problem of using 40+ year old designs that were meant to make weapons as a byproduct. We have working reactors in other countries that are happy to use our spent fuel rods as fuel, hell there are reactors that can use weapons grade
Re:Mdsolar strikes again with unrealistic FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuclear scales fine. Conventional LWRs however are a different story; they worked fine in a submarine, but it was foolish to scale them so large. The inventors of the technology (Alvin Weinberg and Eugene Wigner) argued against it, and proposed the molten salt reactor as a safer alternative for civilian nuclear power. Unfortunately, politics won over safety, and the rest is history. Decay heat removal in an LWR is extremely difficult at a large scale, and accidents have and can still happen. (However, it is important to note that all accidents combined to date have resulted in very little loss of human life or damage to the environment; certainly far less than the alternatives, solar and wind included.)
Molten salt reactors however, can be scaled up and down, and even load follow. They can be placed near the load using existing transmission infrastructure, and do not require an enormously expensive nation-wide renewable-friendly grid to be constructed. Ironically, small regional grids with reactors already provide a distributed and reliable energy system that the proposed super-grid of renewables is fundamentally incapable of.
MSRs would be sized for flexibility and series manufacturing. (typically < 250MWe) They can be sited virtually anywhere, allowing rapid replacement of existing fossil plants with no other change in transmission infrastructure. In addition to producing safe power, they also solve the "waste" problem, and minimize mining and other environmental impacts.
Re:Mdsolar strikes again with unrealistic FUD (Score:4, Funny)
And MSR's finally also provide everyone with a pony.
We've all heard this before. 60 years ago people said the exact same thing about LWRs and PWRs. Frankly, the nuclear industry has promised the moon so many times before, and failed us so many times on an organisational level, that they have not a lot of credibility left.
Re:Mdsolar strikes again with unrealistic FUD (Score:4, Interesting)
Molten Salt did ultimately find a place though - just not in nuclear, the best tech we have for large scale centralized solar is molten-salt towers.
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Construction equipment doesn't run on lithium batteries
... yet.
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Sure, there's an initial cost, amortized over the life of the grid+maintenance. Set this against the energy savings the more efficient grid gives us. Eventually, it's a net win, assuming the claim is accurate.
That said, 78% seems crazy high. Maybe 15-20%.
Feel the fear (Score:2)
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expensive green = brown
It just shifts the pollution somewhere else down the line.
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Re:Mdsolar strikes again with unrealistic FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
O come on! That's done today and would be no different in principle. Besides did you actually read the study & ask the authors on the model they used such that you know they didn't include 'cost of right of way'?
Geez, mdsolar IS an ass but just because he submits something doesn't mean its not an interesting read.
Seriously, the article simply basis the model on the use of HVDC widely...googling the use of HVDC you find out that in fact it is being built out so as its built out it will produce other benefits, some accrue to traditional generation and centralized production models & some may make Wind & Solar economically viable.
Look, I'm a huge proponent of the use of nuclear, I figure the 'greenies' got us in to any current mess with global warming due to their combative position over the last 30 years having stunted its growth...that doesn't mean I'm automatically biased AGAINST Wind & Solar...on their face their not entirely stupid ways of generating energy & when they get reasonably cost effective & useful we should use them more.
Re:Mdsolar strikes again with unrealistic FUD (Score:4, Insightful)
Interconnected grids led to blackouts over huge parts of the US in the past and presumably leaves that possibility open in the future.
I think making one huge US grid is just asking for a huge failure at some point.
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"Interconnected grids led to blackouts over huge parts of the US in the past and presumably leaves that possibility open in the future."
Are you sure it was interconnected grid and not executives' greed?
Europe has an interconnected grid and doesn't show those huge blackouts. How can it be?
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In 2003 [wikipedia.org] and 1965 [history.com]
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"In 2003 and 1965"
I'm not saying that there were not blackouts, but what their root cause was. I.e.: the 2003 report states that FirstEnergy "failed to assess and understand the inadequacies of FE's system, particularly with respect to voltage instability and the vulnerability of the Cleveland-Akron area, and FE did not operate its system with appropriate voltage criteria [...] did not recognize or understand the deteriorating condition of its system. [...] failed to manage adequately tree growth in its tr
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and it was all because of greedy fat cats.
Sure.
What, are you a former East German?
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I'm not saying that there were not blackouts
Actually, yes you did say that. You said it so directly that you could not have meant anything else.
Now you are not just wrong, but a fucking liar too.
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The problem with arguing 'the market will sort it out' is that it doesn't allow for things like this.
If you are installing a HVDC element into the network, you will never size it to be significantly larger than now required.
Advanced planning to provide for future needs in some manner is pretty much required, or what happens is what's lead to the increasing issues with the grid - smart people reducing the margins to bare bone.
So, where building 3* the capacity for 1.3* the price may be possible initially, th
Pacific Intertie is 45 years old (Score:2)
Re: Mdsolar strikes again with unrealistic FUD (Score:4, Informative)
Wrong on all counts.
CA gets only 3% of electricity from coal. (Down 50% in past 10 years)
Solar and wind have increased 300% in past ten years.
Re: Mdsolar strikes again with unrealistic FUD (Score:5, Informative)
6.4% coal [ca.gov] as of 2014.
5.5% large hydro.
8.5% Nuclear
44.5% Natural Gas
20.1% Renewables(Wind, geothermal, Solar, Biomass, small hydro).
15% unspecified.
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Ah, but you were told to blame their lack of new power plant construction, not noticing the orders coming from Houston to shut down perfectly operational power plants.
It is true though. You can't manipulate supply of electricity like Enron did, if there was a lot of excess generation capacity. But because California was massively importing power at the time, it was a simple matter to arrange outages during peak times so as to rake in the high spot prices that were so profitable.
About the worse you can say about California is the shutdown of San Onofre, but that wasn't state mandated, so much as the result of poor maintenance and operations, you can hardly blame the regulators for taking a leery eye to the situation there.
Not at all. The worst you can accurately say about California is that they've had profound short sighted and stupid energy policy for decades.
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There is a national grid, or rather two of them, east side and west side. The split is roughly from Montana down to Texas. It's been like that for decades. Are they talking about upgrading it or what exactly do they mean? Power is sold back and forth all over the east and all over the west.
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There is a national grid, or rather two of them, east side and west side. The split is roughly from Montana down to Texas. It's been like that for decades. Are they talking about upgrading it or what exactly do they mean? Power is sold back and forth all over the east and all over the west.
There are 3 continental grids: East, West and Texas [popularmechanics.com].
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You are of course correct about Texas; I didn't include it because it isn't a national grid, unless you consider Texas a country (as some, I'm sure, still do).
Texas disconnected from the main grids long ago in an attempt to avoid Federal regulation.
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A couple of nits:
Hydro-Quebec has HVDC feeds from its hydro dams near James Bay in Northern Quebec to Montreal and Northern New England. Has had for a long time. They work fine.
IIRC The US has roughly 20GW of pumped storage generation although I'm not sure that all of it is actually in use. Niagara-Mohawk operates two pumped storage facilities used to buffer off-peak power from the generators at Niagara Falls -- one at Lewiston near the falls and one at Gilboa-Blenheim SW of Albany. They also work fine
Re:Power line losses? (Score:4, Informative)
You missed the point. The idea is to move electricity that has been generated with 0 carbon emission, wind and solar, to places where it is needed. Even if 25% of the electricity is wasted in transmission there would be no increase in carbon emissions.
The second point is that they propose HVDC lines would would lose much less electricity.
One of the problems with the "solution" is that HVDC does not step up/down voltage or convert into AC efficiently. Another is the cost of building an HVDC grid and grafting it into the existing AC grid. It will not be cheap.