Oh, this is precious. In Madison, Wisconsin, demonstrators gathered outside the Public Service Commission to protest against a requested rate structure change by the local utility company, Madison Gas and Electric (MG&E). During the protest, they decried the use of “dirty coal” and called for more renewable energy. To make their point, they had a blow-up coal power plant that was running on a fan powered by wind and solar charged batteries. Before the protest was over, however, the batteries died and their solar panel could not produce enough energy to keep the power plant standing upright.
h/t to Paul Westhaver
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Not to mention, at all, the synthetic materials making up the flaccid coal plant. It sure as shinola was not made of burlap.
Let’s add any plastics in their batteries and solar cell setup as well to the cognitive disconnect.
You mean the solar viagra failed
If it lasts for more than 4 hours….
Mike Bromley, I think it would be feasible to make a coal plant mock up with biodegradable materials. First we would cut down some trees, trim them to make the proper shapes. We could build a charcoal oven fueled with tree branches, and use the charcoal to make the fake coal plant look suitably dark and sooty. This would be considered a renewable fake coal plant because at the same time we would plant replacement trees. The replacement trees pull the CO2 generated when we make the charcoal and run the chainsaws with gasoline.
Oh the irony. How appropriate.
And a salutary lesson for all that would have us swap to renewables. Says it all really.
Using a futbol (soccer/football in Latin countries) analogy, this is a classic “auto-gol” (when a team scores on itself). Love it.
LOL! They see and experience the problem first hand, but they still can’t quite grasp it!
Stupid is as stupid does.
It won’t be so funny when it’s the Eastern US power grid that collapses when (demand > supply) due to the loss of coal-generated baseload capacity.
The Prog pols will be scrambling for cover WHEN that happens.
I disagree, they will blame it on evil fossil fuel companies and their greed… and claim that if Republicans/skeptics had not been blocking the Progressives from erecting more windmills and solar panels like they have been calling for… these power shortages would not have happened.
The Warmists will likely continue with their denial and say such things but the majority of sway voter types will know who to blame.
Yes, one of the myriad Koch brothers no doubt sabotaged the heroic renewable energy, blew back the wind and pushed in a curtain of clouds, the way evil denialists do.
How are the conservatives keeping them from putting up more renewable power sources? I would suggest that the conservatives are simply saying “pay for it yourself without subsidies! Go for it!”
Likely they will attempt to blame the “evil fossil fuel companies”, in which case I say it is high time to be forceful in reply. Simply state we did not have problems before they decided to “fix” things. The old adage is, “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.” However they insisted on fixing what wasn’t broken, and in the process they broke it
If the power goes off in the midst of an arctic blast this winter, as I expect it will, lay the blame at the feet of the EPA. Under no conditions allow the blame to be shifted to the power companies. Over and over point out that things worked well, before the EPA demanded change.
If you sit back and allow others to control the dialog, you have no one but yourself to blame, if blame is dished out where credit is due, and those who deserve blame receive credit. .
This is why any REAL source of “alternative energy” simply has to pull itself up by its own bootstraps. It cannot be energy subsidized by any other real energy source,
Any candidate, that cannot develop itself without subsidy, is likely to be an energy consuming thing, rather than energy producing thing. Now energy availability losing schemes, (lossy processes) are ok, if we use them to convert primary energy, into other more convenient types. Like coal to electricity for example. But primary energy has to be self sustaining.
And yes; for the pedants, we mean “producing” in the sense of making available for doing work; and not conjuring up from nothing. That first law of thermodynamics thing.
And we know that is possible, with some processes, because that’s what makes the world go round now, and we got here from harvesting figs, up a fig tree.
@george E Smith I’m more pedantic about your atrocious use of commas. This truly is the mark of the end of civilization.
Well Jeff Alberts, I’ll put commas wherever I darn well please. I will plead guilty to having typo’d and put a comma where a full stop was called for. I put that down to the fact that my right eye can no longer resolve detail any smaller than a semi-truck.
I follow the teaching of Dr. Richard Lederer; the foremost authority on the English language.
His rule for commas is very simple. Put a comma anywhere you would pause to take a breath in reading your text. (no matter what the academic grammarians say is “proper”.)
The purpose of language is communication; not adherence to pedantic grammar rules.
The flexibility of English is the reason for its world wide universality as the language of communication. And no I am not saying more people speak English than other languages. But International airline flight crews, do not converse with control towers in Mandarin or Cantonese; they communicate in English, and they pause wherever it is convenient to put a comma.
And I would highlight tinkling and twittering and texting, if I was looking for the demise of civilization.
But I’ll watch your posting with a pedantic eye from now on, just to make sure you do it properly.
Wish that were true. When we start experiencing brown outs due to this policy, it will simply be because they TOLD us so, and we didn’t build ENOUGH solar/wind.
One thing we know by now, they’re never wrong. Evah.
Brown-outs cannot be allowed by the grid operator. Any dip in voltage below operating limits drives higher current draws, and overheating of lines and equipment. That must be prevented to prevent equipment damage that could take weeks to repair at hundred of millions of dollars in real damage to the grid infrastructure. So brown-outs will quickly lead to regional blackouts as the grid operators shed load to keep the overall system stable and voltages in safe ranges. Then a series of rolling black-outs will commence across sub-regions with the grid as non-linear instabilities happen faster than new sources can be brought on-line.
Rolling black-outs will not occur simply because wind and solar inflows stop. It will happen because the system is operating on a ragged edge with limited base load due to removal of big coal-fired plants. It will then take only an unscheduled shutdown of a big generator followed by a outlier event, i.e. a hot or cold period to trigger rolling the black-outs.
It would have been equally as funny to show the huge footprint of solar cells that would have been required to keep the balloon inflated. There was no way that this stunt could have been a winner.
But doesn’t this idiot realize that the power rating on a solar cell isn’t necessarily the power that you’ll get at any given time? The probably would have needed 10 or more of these things to keep the balloon inflated.
It’s a 130 watt solar cell vs a 1500 watt fan… The math was never going to work once the batteries were depleted.
You fail at ecomath.
Yeah wobble, the sheer stupidity of this group is really quite evident. So people should listen to a group that can’t figure out how to power a simple fan? LOL! That’s a good one!
Madison…Wisconsin’s answer to Boulder, Colorado. In Madison they only protest the local utility. In Boulder they are purchasing the local utility so they can go all “green”. You must read about it to believe it.
rocdoctom – “In Boulder they are purchasing the local utility so they can go all ‘green’.”
I’m living it. I’m trying to figure out how to make it through extended power outages in the near future with a grid run by a local, government-run, muni power company with unionized service men/women who were hired for their green credentials (i.e. they’ve never worked for Excel Energy, and thus have no experience restoring power outages due to hundreds of snow-covered limbs taking down lines in the middle of a nighttime Rocky Mountain blizzard). Oh, but I’ve been promised that my rates won’t go up because it’ll be like a non-profit (not kidding). What’s being touted as a plan for a green future has eco-math fail written all over it. People with brains (48%) lost to the eco-loons (52%) and I’m actually surprised it was that close given the Boulder citizenry.
What are the guesses as to percentage increase of my power per kW-hr? I’m thinking 100-150% range within the first year after Excel walks away.
What are the guesses as to what’s going to power the grid during those winter blizzards when demand is high, they can’t spin the windmills ’cause the wind speed is too high and the sun isn’t shining on snow covered solar panels? I’m guessing that after the first extended outage and the pitchforks come out, it’ll be coal.
My options:
1. gas-powered generator with a 50 gallon drum of gasoline in my garage
2. homemade solar cells (so I don’t have to take subsidies from my neighbors), w/ installed batteries
3. install my own mini nuclear power plant (I am an engineer but this might be a stretch)
4. Assume I’m wrong; the green muni power company will work perfectly as advertised
5. move to a new town
People’s Republic of Boulder = 60 sq mi surrounded by reality
Bruce
Option 1, especially if you have a natural gas line running to your home and can use a natural gas powered generator. If you don’t have such a line, you’ll have to use a regular gasoline-powered generator, which sucks because you’ll need to tank of gasoline, but it should be cheaper than your other choices.
No, that’s not an eco-math fail, it’s clearly in eco-math distinction territory. It is a math fail, though.
Bruce, get a propane powered standby generator wired in permanently to the house with an autoswitchover. It will start up after a couple of seconds when the power goes below a set value, and close down when the grid power is back up. Gas powered generators can be cranky propane is better and you can bury the tank out of sight so not borrowers can access it.
Isn’t Boulder sustained by the tourist economy? What happens when power-dependent businesses can’t operate? I can just see the spin on that — “Do something for the environment AND your health! Hike back up the ski trail for your next run. Chair lifts are for Koch-funded climate change deniers!”.
Yep, those green jobs will just come rolling in so fast you can’t count them all.
Wait until you hear the squeals when the ski lifts stop operating.
Another hint: if you’re the only one on your block with the foresight to own a generator, don’t leave all your lights on and have a very, very effective muffler so the sound of the engine isn’t too obvious. Why give the pitchfork bearers another target?
This year (May) we had a shiny new high efficiency furnace installed for a mere $11k. Well, it’s been on A/C duty mostly, but today I had a chance to hear the new ground-level exhaust (apparently we don’t use chimneys any more). The thing sounds like someone opened the valve on a Scuba tank. Not cool, and definitely will end up with a slushy warm spot once we’re into real winter. What are these people thinking?
Wow Boulder Skeptic, the citizenry there is setting a new bar for “stupid is as stupid does”! Good luck to you.
This is exactly what happened on a national scale in Germany. Now many factories have their own on-site generators. Their costs are higher, the grid is less reliable, and it emits more CO2 than if they had left everything alone.
My advice, get a natural gas powered generator as others have recommended.
Bruce,
I’ve got one word for you: Venezuela
That’s one flaccid bouncy-castle.
Obviously, they didn’t get a large enough tax-funded subsidy.
Subsidy is the Viagra of dunderheaded science
Luckily in the US, Viagra is covered if you are a rapist in jail and for the citizenry at large through Obamacare medical coverage (it’s free, really, … no really, free, no one has to pay)
Bruce
I have noticed that the misanthropes work really, really hard to get higher energy prices, but when they actually succeed at getting higher energy prices and the resulting loss of jobs and production, they disavow any responsibility at all.
“Take care of me …
Take care of me …”
Stripped of all the fluff is what the protestors chant, as they march in search of a caring master.
We ought to take them at their word. Let them be children, carefree, safe, and kept away from anything dangerous, like a voting booth.
An erection dysfunction?…
Maybe they thought the ‘V’ in PV stood for Viagra – or the PV was fakin’ it.
The only thing that could have been better was for a big wind to blow it into a wind turbine.
Ah, Mad-town is at it again. There is just no cure for stupid. But don’t worry, they didn’t notice the hypocrisy at all!
I’m sure they all voted for Obama, after all he’s the leader of the “party of science.” (James Carville’s own words) …
Seems like there was plenty of hot air there. They should have put it to use.
Coming from Madison one wonders if this had more than a little to do with the University of Wisconsin at Madison. In any case I’d like to propose that all our Universities (including the University of Pennsylvania- Michael Mann) operate completely off grid and utilizing solely wind and solar power generation.
Candlelight.
Hot dorm and classrooms.
Cold dorm and classrooms.
Raw food.
Cold water showers.
And…
Warm beer.
Mann is at Penn State (Big 10), not University of Pennsylvania (Ivy League).
He should be at State Penn.
The solar panels probably failed because of all the clouds the coal plant was putting out.
Was the rate structure change to pay for the renewable energy costs?
And solar panel owners never have batteries (too expensive – they dump their unwanted excess power onto the grid, unannounced and unrequested and by getting back equivalent amount of power when they demand it from the grid, they are forcing the grid’s users to pay retail for their junk power. And are also lowering the capacity of the reliable power plants, causing their costs-per-kilowatthour to go up, paid for by grid customers). Sometimes grids require wind turbines to maintain enough battery capacity
to keep power output after wind dies for enough time to allow the grid to spin up backup generators.
Renewable energy simply cannot meet the requirements of the power grid. It should be banned from entering the grid, forcing solar panel owners to either dump their excess power or buy batteries. What happens when politicians are moved to action – they make stupid decisions about things they know nothing about.
“What happens when politicians are moved to action – they make stupid decisions about things they know nothing about.”
The problem with this is that they DO seek the advice of “experts” who are not experts in what they are seeking advice about as much as they are experts at exploiting ignorance. We have far to many “experts” in this world that have such a narrow area of expertise that they have learned that “speaking firmly and sounding like you know what you are saying” will get you compensation every time.
Forcing utilities to essentially buy power from homeowners at retail prices is one of the sneakiest cross-subsidization schemes ever devised. The utility company is required to buy the power for the same price that it sells it for. So there is no price differential for the utility company on that power. The price differential is where the utility company gets the money to pay overhead, to maintain and improve the grid, and to provide a return for investors. Since it gets ZERO price differential on power bought from homeowners, it has to get a higher price differential on other power to make up for that. This raises retail prices for everyone, but of course the homeowners selling the power get a benefit that more than compensates for the higher retail prices — they get to run their system without buying batteries. Other consumers get no benefit from the deal — they just get to pay the higher prices to provide the benefit for the “free-riders”.
Dan Gardner’s book, “Futurebabble” is a good read on this. Summarised, it has bee demonstrated (initially by Phillip Tetlock), that almost all experts are almost always wrong when they make predictions.
The old rule of thumb was to be an “expert” you had to be 150 miles from home. It look like that still applies.
No engineers.
For the sake of my engineering alma mater UW-Madison, I sincerely hope not!
Too funny! Even funnier is tht MG&E converted its old coal-fired units in Madison to run on natural gas. D’oh!
http://www.mge.com/environment/stewardship/reducing-emissions.htm
Chris,
The previous Gov. Doyle (D) administration rolled over like a 2 dollar trick when pressured by the Sierra Club and ‘community activists’ and dictated conversion of 2 Dane County coal fired power plants to ‘biomass boilers’.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Charter_Street_Heating_Plant
http://tinyurl.com/q5w8ezj
When the political tides reversed in Wisconsin, one of the 1st thing Governor Walker (R) did was to halt the conversion to ‘biomass’ before any more taxpayer dollars could be wasted on that economic stupidity. The least expensive solution at that point was conversion to natural gas.
Friday funny #2 – Gore’s strategist named Ebola czar!
17 Oct: WaPo: Obama taps Ron Klain as Ebola czar
President Obama has asked Ron Klain, who served as chief of staff to both Vice President Biden and former vice president Al Gore, as his Ebola response coordinator, according to a White House official…
Klain is not known for his health-care expertise, though he would get briefings on those policies in his capacity as a campaign strategist for Gore and the Democrats’ 2004 presidential candidate, John F. Kerry…
Klain navigated the legal and political worlds with ease, Jennings added. “He wasn’t just an analyst. He was a strategist.”
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Edward R. Royce (R-Calif.) questioned Klain’s lack of medical credentials, saying in a statement: “Given the mounting failings in the Obama administration’s response to the Ebola outbreak, it is right that the President has sought to task a single individual to coordinate its response. But I have to ask why the President didn’t pick an individual with a noteworthy infectious disease or public health background?”…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/10/17/obama-taps-ron-klain-as-ebola-czar/
Obama sent troops to Africa to combat Ebola. Let’s hope this guy knows what a mini-gun really is.
(But continuing in this vein could easily derail the thread.)
Off topic once again. Thank you so much.
Well Ron Klain was not even competent to control the mouthings of Joe Biden, who has turned the office of VPOTUS into a town square stock for the launching of overripe tomatoes.
They need a subsidy to stay inflated.
😎