Many WUWT might think that renewable energy just can’t cut it, and when it comes to certain demand situations that may be a very valid issue. However, there has been quite a surge in installed renewables for daytime generation in California over the last 6 years, and the numbers from CAISO do tell a story that is surprisingly positive. Engineer and attorney Roger Sowell explains more about this month in this guest post. -Anthony
Guest essay by Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/
From CAISO, record-setting renewable production
A lot of good is being done by renewable energy power plants in California, especially with the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility at very limited capacity due to an earlier leak. Renewable power plants are preventing the grid from experiencing blackouts.
The graphic above, from California Independent System Operator, CAISO, shows renewable power production for what appears to be the record-setting date thus far, June 14, 2016. Total renewable energy was 211,546 MWh. Yesterday, June 22 was not far behind with 208,949 MWh.
Today, June 23’s results are shown below, not quite a record but still a bit more than 200,000 MWh from renewables. see link to CAISO archives on renewable output.
Renewables on June 14 provided an average of 33 percent of the 24-hour total system demand. On an hourly basis, renewables provided 46 percent of the load at 3 p.m. that day. The load on the grid peaked at approximately 39,500 MW just before 6 p.m. Solar production peaked at approximately 7,400 MW.
These results are higher than the peak production in 2015, which was 189,000 MWh in a 24 hour period. As could be expected, peak production occurs when solar power is at or near the Summer Solstice, June 20th typically, but also when wind production is greatest. Wind production was at a maximum thus far at 92,000 to 93,000 MWh in the first half of 2016. On June 14th wind provided 92,250 MWh. Typically in California, wind production peaks in June or July then decreases for the remaining months (source, EIA).
Renewables for June 23, 2016
showing Solar PV exceeds 7,000 MW
and total Renewables exceeds 200,000 MWh
The renewable energy produced saves the state from burning natural gas in the gas-fired power plants, which is a very good thing as this summer’s loads must be met without the full production of stored gas from Aliso Canyon. How much gas is not burned is somewhat difficult to estimate because one must know which gas-fired power plants are not being run and their respective heat rates. Also, as some gas-fired plants are no doubt operated at a slightly reduced rate, one must know the heat rate for each power plant at the reduced output. Reduced output from selected plants is advisable to allow rapid power increase to compensate for variations in the renewable production due to clouds, and changes in wind speed.
However, an estimate of the natural gas not burned can be made by taking the total renewable output from wind and solar, 167,950 MWh on June 14 (per the table at the top of the article), and using an average of 45 percent thermal efficiency for the power plants not being run. On that basis, approximately 1.3 billion cubic feet of natural gas was not burned on that day. Per California Energy Commission documents, that is nearly the same gas withdrawal rate at Aliso Canyon when it is at full operation (1.9 billion cubic feet maximum withdrawal). See Table 1 in “Aliso Canyon Action Plan to Preserve Gas and Electric Reliability for the Los Angeles Basin,” see link
The state’s ability to produce renewable power has changed dramatically since the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) was taken off-line suddenly in 2012 as shown in the graph below:
As shown in the figure and California Energy Commission’s page (see link), solar PV capacity grew from 214 MW at the end of 2011 to 5,498 MW at the end of 2015. More capacity has been added so that, as above, solar PV now can produce approximately 7,000 MW. Solar thermal recently has exceeded 700 MW peak.
It is especially ironic that renewables, once derided as destabilizing a grid, are now riding to the rescue and helping to prevent blackouts on the California electric grid during summer heat waves. One can only imagine the rolling blackouts and uproar with Aliso Canyon gas storage effectively out of commission, SONGS nuclear generating shut down, and if no renewable power plants had been installed over the past 5 years.
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“TimTheToolMan
June 25, 2016 at 12:16 am
One could say the same about the tank of petrol in your garage.”
Only if you evaporate all the petrol into the air in the garage first. You always do this, right?
Roger Sowell is about as unbiased and makes as much sense as the whackos pushing ch****ails.
Such a powerful argument. I’m at a loss for words.
It’s actually true. For gasoline to be explosive, it needs to have a certain gas/air ratio. There’s even several Mythbusters episodes showing how hard it is to get gas to explode without that right fuel to air ratio off-the-cuff. It can catch on fire if it leaks, but it would need an ignition source.
On the other hand, battery explosions are kinda pie in the sky as well, even though they have more of the proper ingredients for a successful explosion. Because they are explosive as they sit plus have the ignition source built into that same explosive, all they need is a circuitry or manufacturing defect of any kind to become ticking bombs. You have seen this in the past with certain batteries being prone to catching fire and/or exploding after a relatively short life. If there is a widespread adoption of the power wall, having that amount of concentrated reactive energy will inevitably lead to instances of people accidentally damaging the unit and not fixing it (because $$ or because they don’t own it). It’s unlikely, but more likely than a gasoline explosion – as attested by the random smatterings of D cell batteries causing injuries.
Both sides of this, though, reminds me of the “investigative journalism” from the evening news I saw in Southern California in the early or mid 90s: They skated a Barbie doll that threw sparks through a pool of gasoline and pushed for a recall of the doll because it “was dangerous.” But the danger was in ridiculously obtuse circumstances: How many times did you let your Barbie-doll playing daughter get a can of gas to play with, also?
In all three cases – Barbie, Gas, and Battery – not being an idiot will almost completely assuage the risk.
Edison built the first electricity generation plant in the US using coal as a fuel at 255-257 Pearl Street Manhattan.
It’s amazing that he didn’t first think of building one using 170,000 focused mirrors taking up 4000 acres out in the desert somewhere.
“Many WUWT might think that renewable energy just can’t cut it, and when it comes to certain demand situations that may be a very valid issue. ”
[[It’s very valid issue- but for *all* “demand situations”]]
“However, there has been quite a surge in installed renewables for daytime generation in California over the last 6 years, and the numbers from CAISO do tell a story that is surprisingly positive. ”
Story is a keyword here.
As in propaganda.
The government screws up in causing large methane leaks due to it’s general corruption and incompetence in dealing accident and we suppose to believe Californians were rescued by more corruption and incompetence of renewable energy programs.
As for numbers from
http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/electric_generation_capacity.html
First graph shows decline or at best flat trend of state electrical production in state
since 2001 to present, yet state population is growing at about 300K per year.
If have growing population and not increasing state power generation- one asking for blackouts.
Also first chart shows recent significant drop in nuclear power generation and mostly made up
by increased natural gas energy production. Other drop in nuclear electrical energy the graph shows
the drop of hydro power due to drought and governmental mismanagement of water supply but since graph ends in 2015, it does reflect the increase supply of water from recent rainfall from the El Nino causing increase in seasonal rainfall- or most dams in California are now full, allowing more electrical power generation.
The second graph show capacity- which shows little increase in capacity in CA in recent year other than in silly wind mills and solar panels. So show the loss of nuclear capacity and a recent loss of gas generation capacity [graph ends in 2015, so, nothing to do with Aliso Canyon] which show how incompetent California government is.
That we saved by wind mills and solar panels is not true- we endangered by them, but at moment we can get hydroelectric power and other factor is exporting electrical out of state which varies but about 1/3rd the total electrical power needs of California.
Due to El Nino which effect more than California in terms of adding water supply for hydro power from regions we importing from- this would a much larger source of electrical power.
So in June we have largest supply electrical energy due to the filled dams and the little bit of power from
renewable solar and wind are reducing amount we might draw from dams and be importing, but it’s not rescuing us from black outs, rather the governmental policies of not increasing nuclear and natural gas
capacity, will ensure in the future we import more electrical power and face the potential of future black outs because the lack of a dependable source of electrical generation.
I guess the pattern is every time we get near mid summer when the sun is highest in the sky and therefore get most amount of sunlight per day, one put out the story about record electrical power from solar. About the same talking about how warm it is [in summer].
b b but aren’t leeches just the thing to cure anemia?
moar leeches!
I have a friend who rented his house out to a “displaced” family from Porter Ranch (Aliso Canyon) at the rate of $10K a month (more than five times the mortgage).
I’m not surprised Reg Nelson as So Cal Gas was being billed for that. I do have trouble sympathizing with the Gas co. as the field was depleted oil wells with a good capstone that was filled with NG. When a safety valve failed on a well they removed it instead of replacing it to save costs as the regulations at that time did not require them to have it in place.
The cost savings from the past pales in comparison to the costs they are bearing now as a result of it’s removal. The safety valve was located at the capstone and if in place would have only allowed a small amount of NG to leak. With the pressure now released from the casing they could easily capped the well.
“How much gas is not burned is somewhat difficult to estimate because one must know which gas-fired power plants are not being run and their respective heat rates.”
Rubbish! it will be obvious which plant isn`t running because its output will be zero.
Secondly, why is a known such as heat rate suddenly an unknown. Any plant worth its salt will regularly carry out a heat rate and trend the data.
The two unknowns you have listed are 100% known. Sorry, but I don`t think you know what you are talking about on this subject.
No, the heat rate problem is hard, as throttled back stations under dispatch will not achieve normal efficiency, and what is more important is plant behaviour during start up and when used as spinning reserve.
Actual tests done in Ireland on the Eirgrid fleet of combine cycle gas turbines revealed that half of the assumed energy gained by adding renewables (wind) was lost due to reduced efficiency in the gas fleet operating under high slew and dispatch rates.
http://euanmearns.com/commercial-measures-to-reduce-the-cost-of-wind-integration-in-the-island-of-ireland/
“No, the heat rate problem is hard, as throttled back stations under dispatch will not achieve normal efficiency,”
Any plant worth its salt will regularly carry out a heat rate at various loads and trend the data. There, I have expanded the sentence a little, for you. It`s not rocket science, especially if I was responsible for trending and reporting the data. Sorry, but I question yours and the author`s knowledge.
Lovely black solar panels are great for helping the UHI most beloved of the serial liars.
However, I installed a solar hot water heating system here in Northern Blighty. It set me back £550 in 2007 and almost of paid for itself in 18 months. Nobody is giving me a penny for my free hot water.
In the US and Australia there are plenty of homies who are not grid tied and live quite well. My electric car set me back a tiny bit more than a diesel. The last run was 235 miles and consumed 44KWH of energy. Thats 172mpge (UK@ur momisugly 38.5KWH/gallon). Subtract 10% for the US. The UK’s “renewables” show quite high unless its calm. Little Sunlight goes to the grid because its more worth it for the owners to burn it all for themselves..
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
People have their reasons for whooharring in here but reality stinks for them.
I hadn’t noticed you also posted the gridwatch link before I added my comment… as I say there you can see a few GW of solar each mid day are on the grid and reducing demand…
… and making the resulting electricity much more expensive.
No one knows how much solar is going to the GB grid, because embedded generation looks like reduced demand to the grid.
However as you can see from my site (gridwatch) there is a perceptible couple of GW midday dip in the demand graph on sunny days.
Whether this results in any reduction in fossil fuel burn is almost impossible to say.
Looking at the carbon intensity of the German grid which is overloaded with renewables of the intermittent kind, the best guess is ‘none whatsoever’
“No one knows how much solar is going to the GB grid, because embedded generation looks like reduced demand to the grid.” Oh come on! Are you telling me it is not metered?
Residential PV installations are not effectively metered. There is no way for the power company to know if the residence produced power or lowered its usage. The homeowner gets a monthly bill for electricity used from the grid. And that’s another subsidy – grid and distribution infrastructure is supported by the ratepayers. If you make power equal to your usage, you pay nothing for grid maintenance.
The solar water heaters work very well. We have one for our pool and my neighbor has one for his water heater.
These 2 links may be of interest.. first shows actual/planned power production in Germany/Austria
https://www.eex-transparency.com/homepage/power/germany-austria
shows how much solar contributes even in Germany at this time of year…
This is UK demand/supply…
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
notice mid day dip in demand from solar… also see yearly supply chart and how little coal has been used since March compared to last year.
The world is full of data as to how much renewable energy contributes. What is completely absent is any properly worked calculations as to what it costs, in a real world grid calculated holistically, or any real world data as to how much carbon emissions its saves.
Germany with massive renewable penetration emits more CO2 than the UK does with far less. The chief difference being that the UK uses gas and nuclear, and Germany uses coal.
The renewable energy appears to be almost completely pointless and very expensive
There are plenty of proper calculations on costs. You just choose to not believe/read them 😉
“There are plenty of proper calculations on costs”
where?
Roger Sowell, eschew ad-hockery and learn Max Ent from E. T. Jaynes’ Probability Theory: The Logic of Science
So the State of California has crippled the dependable power industry, but by means of massive subsidies and environmental damage has propped up the undependable wind and solar industries. Celebration!
Force out conventional sources of electricity, and bring in renewables. When renewables save you from brownouts, claim renewables are great! because they saved you from brownouts.
Clever.
ATheoK: Supposedly only sites providing 1MW and more are included, but the California sourcing tables include sites producing above 0.1MW.
So none of the residential rooftop installations are included? Judging from the amount of TV advertising for residential solar we’re seeing, this would seem to be a sizable and growing industry. They certainly reduce demand on the grid, but I don’t know how that could be measured, since a sizeable amount of their output is consumed on site, without ever entering the grid. I get taxed on power borrowed from the grid, even when I promptly give it back the next day. This creates a somewhat perverse incentive to do my heavy electrical loads at mid-day when my panels directly power my washer, dryer, etc. So I ignore utility requests to do the heavy lifting at night. My generation reduces average demand on the utility, but may not reduce it during the peak demand hours.
“So none of the residential rooftop installations are included?”
I would say none of residential rooftop installations which tax payer [via government] are
not paying for, are included. But since vast majority are paid for, then they would have easy
access to the records of these payments- and any drooling bureaucrat aided with computer
can total it.
” I get taxed on power borrowed from the grid, even when I promptly give it back the next day. This creates a somewhat perverse incentive to do my heavy electrical loads at mid-day when my panels directly power my washer, dryer, etc. So I ignore utility requests to do the heavy lifting at night. My generation reduces average demand on the utility, but may not reduce it during the peak demand hours.”
Well, utility company is giving you this information because they are not allowing that you generate solar energy. If you have solar panels, it’s not perverse to use most electrical power when the sun is shining.
But while on topic, imagine if have solar panels and electric car. If recharging car then one should do it
at same time as you do “heavy electrical loads “. but probably want to charge car after returning from work, which tend to towards the evening.
So perhaps one should restrict yourself to which entertainment toy you get, solar panels or electric cars, so that you can delusionally imagine that you saving the world.
Solar PV and thermal are generating about 10 MWh per MW per day on peak output days.
10 ÷ 24 = 0.42
A 42% capacity factor would almost work, if that was the annual average. However, the annual average in the sunniest part of the State is more like 25-35% for PV and 10-20% for thermal.
In Texas, wind works very well because of the physical geography of places like the Llano Estacado. Texas wind farms routinely hit 40-50% capacity factors and occasionally peak at about 90% for brief periods of time, which are often unpredictable and creates grid havoc…
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601221/texas-and-california-have-too-much-renewable-energy/
Then there’s the “duck problem.” Solar PV production peaks before demand peaks and actually drops off as peak demand builds.
http://www.energyvanguard.com/blog-building-science-hers-bpi/electricity-demand-and-the-duck-curve
All this talk about record breaking added capacity is funny. You have to add 3-4 MW of solar or wind to match the output of 1 MW of coal, gas or nuclear.
California better fix it’s gas storage facility.
Bingo! Name Plated Rated is like 20% if you are lucky in NC for solar. So you have to build out 5MW to replace a conventional fuel plant. Then, you have to build a gas plant along side it anyhow. If you go batteries forget about it. Costs go to the moon to deliver a kilowatt reliably. Just look at some nuclear blogs about our excess capacity on the Eastern Disconnect. The 25% excess generation capacity will fall to 15% on the Eastern or Midwest disconnects in the next 6 years, if, we don’t turn this around and build conventional capacity. Can you say summer brownouts!
A question for those who constantly complain that California imports electricity. Why the complaining? Is there a requirement I don’t know about that requires each state to be entirely self-sufficient? The rest of the US would be in pretty bad shape if that were the case.
California exports a lot of food, grown in the good climate here. Should every state be required to stop importing food?
Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma combine to produce and refine much of the country’s oil, producing gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel fuel. Should every state be banned from importing those fuels? There would be an awful lot of people walking if that were the case.
Grasping at straws again, Roger?
Roger, I lived through the “Enron” brownouts and blackouts. When the greens block construction of power plants, thay take no reposibility for the consequences. After all, think of all those people in India and Africa who never have power, as stop complaing about intermittent power/sarc.
Probably for the same reason that you equate replacing cheaper nuclear with more expensive “renewables” all because of your irrational fears. Not to mention the fact that the amount of important electricity still swamps the amount generated locally by greed energy, so why are you crowing about prevented counterfactual blackouts when the reality is that CA could have simply imported even more energy?
It’s not so much a complaint as it is a frame of reference.
When California claims to have generated 33% of its electricity from solar and wind on the sunniest days of summer, omitting the fact that they had to import 25% of their consumption is essentially a lie of omission.
33% * 75% = 25%
Strawmen arguments? Really? You must be a helluva lawyer.
Now do the same analysis in Cali for the Winter Solstice.
That past 2 winters my wife and I vacationed in Palm Springs California. We rented a house and toured many others with a realtor . I noticed something that I found quite amazing. The hot water heater was located in the garage! In the case of our rental a distance of approx. 50′. I timed it and I had to run the shower for over 2 minutes to get hot water. Assuming 1 shower per day for 4 occupants and a water flow rate of 2 gallons per minute that’s 16 gallons of hot water down the drain. Factoring in the waste at the kitchen sink it’s not hard to imagine a loss of 20 gallons per day! This in California where water and green power are huge concerns!!! How many homes are constructed this way? How utterly stupid!
” Factoring in the waste at the kitchen sink it’s not hard to imagine a loss of 20 gallons per day! This in California where water and green power are huge concerns!!! How many homes are constructed this way? How utterly stupid!”
Well could solve problem with very good insulation of the hot water pipes- and making pipe have larger diameter would make easier to retain heat of water in the pipes. Though if hot water is not used in days
it’s unlikely to hold the heat that long.
So it seems as a governmental solution, government should pay more to subsidize solar water heating than Solar PV, and to get subsidy, one should required to have hot water pipes to be properly insulated to retain the heat in the pipe for more than 1 day.
That way, you save water and subsidize something that actually makes economic sense.
Or, you could take the facts into account and choose for yourself. If it weren’t for the partnership of government and external special interests, they would be generating electricity as cheaply as possible to make as much as possible available. That is not what is happening and that is the primary fact.
The claim in the OP seems to be nonsense. If they had put all the money into building gas fired power stations and all required storage etc, then the problem he claims was solved by windmills would not have occurred in the first place.
If you think about it, the real cause of the problem was that billions of dollars were squandered on wind farms that don’t work most of the time. It diverted the money from power stations that *do* work.
.
Meanwhile, it’s June 25th. In 19 of the 25 days of June the total UK windmill output fell at some stage to less than 1 GW, and on one day was – drum roll please – 71 MW.
What complete and utter nonsense.
Chris
California already has a surplus of gas-fired power stations, as I recall, approximately 45,000 MW installed. It would be rather pointless to build even more at this time, or to have done in the years past. There is also more than adequate gas storage under normal conditions. The difficulty with the Aliso Canyon storage facility was of course unplanned. There are also other, smaller gas storage facilities available but they are not nearly as large as is Aliso Canyon facility.
The trade-off is investing to avert perceived risks. Of course, California could have invested billions into redundant gas storage facilities, and that may in fact be the outcome in future years. Perhaps natural gas is not as reliable as sober people thought, and the system needs a much larger cushion of stored supplies. It is no doubt an argument the pro-nuclear group will seize upon. “Nuclear plants do not need to store up fuel for future use, like natural gas plants do.”
The wind power installations in California work just as expected, just as designed. So do the solar power plants. The power flows when the wind blows. And for solar, the generation is fine when the sun shines.
The power flows when the wind blows. And for solar, the generation is fine when the sun shines.
That’s the problem exactly. Roger, why do you think sail boats are no longer used commercially?
“It would be rather pointless to build even more at this time, or to have done in the years past.”
But building pointless Wind and Solar farms is somehow okay or better.
For an analysis of baseload solar system requirements see our detailed article “An examination of the economics and practicality of grid scale solar power.” Key concepts follow:
• By 2060 88% of current on-line utility scale generation capacity will be retired due to plant age and life cycle considerations.
• Solar Photovoltaics require 3 to 4 years of their energy output to fabricate, including the frames and associated electronics systems.
• 29.3 billion 1 square meter solar panels are required for 100% solar power in the U.S. based on current demand 24 hours a day, 365 days per year.
• 29.3 billion 1square meter panels would cover 29,333 km2 which equals 7.2 million acres, or almost all of Maryland and Delaware.
• If 1 square meter PV panels were manufactured, installed, and connected at the rate of 1 per second, it would take 929 years to manufacture and deploy 29.3 billion panels.
• The cost of a solar only approach exceeds $15.27 trillion.
• To meet all energy demands for transportation, industrial, and commercial-agriculture would require 176 billion solar panels and 5,574 years to produce.
• Solar photovoltaic cells and panels have a life time of 30 years; 50 years would be extraordinary; thus every square meter of PV surface area would have to be replaced in less than 50 years.
Article at: http://fusion4freedom.us/going-solar/
We have lost the concept of lowering our operating costs…
….to compete with “developing” countries
globalization
Coal, an exemption from an air pollution legislation is not a subsidy.
It is a restriction on using a natural fuel.
Coal is not subsidised.
Anyone who legislated to block the use of coal or petrol on terms of air pollution would soon find out the sad effects of being an idiot.
Failure to ensure adequate amounts of gas storage is a government problem, not a problem of power generation.
Failure to supply enough power to people to live will also result in sad effects, basically a new government.
When renewable energy reaches your goal there would be no need to import energy, would there?
Enough renewables and you could sell it to the other states.
Thanks for the article and thanks Anthony for putting it up.
Great to see different viewpoints and renewables getting their place in the sun.
Hopefully they can be well integrated in the future.
The wind does not always blow everywhere. The sun does not always shine everywhere. Rainfall and snowfall are not constant everywhere.
Add to those truisms two more. Nuclear energy production does not involve fossil fuel use. Nuclear fuel reserves are far more abundant than fossil fuel reserves given current consumption.
Now let us add one more truism that is rarely mentioned in the discussions of the relative costs of renewable energy production. One can engineer a renewable energy production system that does not use either fossil fuel or nuclear fuel as a backup energy source.
If the output of your renewable energy production system is electricity, then it is possible to design a water cracking, hydrogen/oxygen combustion backup loop for the times when the wind does not blow, the sun does not shine, and the rains falter.
The purpose of this observation is not to advocate for such a system, but rather to create a level field for comparing nuclear electricity production to renewable electricity production. The irreducible fact for nuclear energy production is that it does not use fossil fuel. An apple to apples comparison should compare the cost of a terawatt electricity grid powered by 100% non-fossil fuel nuclear energy plants to one powered by 100% non-fossil fuel renewable energy plants. Roll in all the costs, but compare on a level field.
Let’s add one last truism. Fossil fuel reserves will be exhausted. No matter how much we improve extraction techniques, we are consuming fossil fuels faster than they are being created.
So would it not be nice to know that in a future in which fossil fuels must be man-made, and not extracted and refined, what is the real cost of electricity made without fossil fuel or nuclear fuel as backup energy sources?
“Now let us add one more truism that is rarely mentioned in the discussions of the relative costs of renewable energy production. One can engineer a renewable energy production system that does not use either fossil fuel or nuclear fuel as a backup energy source.
If the output of your renewable energy production system is electricity, then it is possible to design a water cracking, hydrogen/oxygen combustion backup loop for the times when the wind does not blow, the sun does not shine, and the rains falter.
The purpose of this observation is not to advocate for such a system, but rather to create a level field for comparing nuclear electricity production to renewable electricity production.”
Also not advocating it as government program, but could think of this as back up emergency system
market, that a government could assist. And so if grid goes down, one can switch to a different grid.
And not only does it have power, it also has water. So this like premium service for things like earthquakes- and so as part of it, it has to designed to withstand a variety of disasters.
But also same system can used routinely instead of the normal grid. So this system could include better drinking water, and “better” power because it’s “alternative” energy. So one could pay more for tap water, but have better tap water [so it’s like bottled water]. So people with this service would have higher chance of having power and water in disaster but generally use regular water and power networks, or people could always use this system or use it more than only in a disaster.
From Sowell:
More government statistics on bird mortalities, by cause and per 10,000 deaths.
Buildings and windows ………5800
High Tension Lines…………….1400
Cats…………………………………..1100
Vehicles……………………………. 850
Pesticides………………………… 700
Communication Towers…….. 148
Wind Turbines……………………….2
As Mark Twain said there are 3 kinds of lie – lies, damn lies and statistics. Where’s the statistics of eagles killed by wind turbines in California? Big birds killed per turbine vs. per building, per meter of high tension line, per vehicle, per tower? The fact that there are more buildings, tension lines, vehicles and towers than wind turbines shows that it’s not an apple-to-apple comparison. Also type of birds killed is important. Domestic cats don’t hunt eagles. And can we stop building buildings, tension lines, vehicles and communication towers? But wind turbine is not the only game in town.
If renewables are cheaper than competition, we don’t need propaganda from vested interest person or groups. The coal guys, nuclear guys, oil guys and gas guys will all be scrambling to build wind farms and solar farms without any subsidy.
Two times Zero is still Zero…..
And at what cost to the consumer….
Roger Sowell June 25, 2016 at 5:42 am
Roger, if you can’t see the political BS inherent in any statement that say “millions of fish, larvae, eggs, seals, sealions, turtles and other creatures are killed each year” then you are not paying attention. There aren’t millions, or even thousands, or even hundreds of sea lions or seals killed each year by pass-through cooling of power plants.
That is a LIE, Roger, a lie which you are now promoting.
It’s like saying “billions of mosquitoes and humans die every week”. They are mixing apples and oranges in order to LIE about the dangers.
w.
PS—Rather than being worse for the environment as their BS statement claims, removing species at the bottom of the food chain is far preferable to removing species from the top of the food chain … but obviously, neither the authors of that BS nor Roger Sowell know anything about the ocean.
PS—a couple more points about this foolish greenie hysteria about ocean-side pass-through power planks killing plankton.
A power plant kills on the order of 2-4 tonnes of plankton per day. A blue whale eats about 4 tonnes of krill per day, and these krill in turn eat on the order of 40 tonnes of plankton per day.
So … should we outlaw and destroy all blue whales for being such prodigious plankton killers, indirectly consuming 40 tonnes of plankton per day? I mean, each whale is as destructive to plankton as ten power plants, and power plants don’t reproduce themselves, this is a crisis!
Or should we look at it another way? I used to commercial fish for anchovies next to a big power plant with pass-through cooling. Presumably it killed about 2-4 tonnes of plankton per day. We used to catch on average 15-20 tonnes of anchovies per day. Those anchovies in turn were eating 150-200 tonnes of plankton per day.
So by killing the 15-20 tonnes of anchovies per day, we were freeing 150-200 tonnes of plankton per day from death. These plankton would not be eaten by those anchovies and would therefore be free to commit planktonic suicide by power plant.
So … should I be given an ecological award for freeing those 200 tonnes of plankton per day from the cruel jaws of the anchovies?
Finally, consider the fate of the plankton which does go through the power plant and is killed … it is RETURNED TO THE OCEAN AS COOKED DINNER FOR A HOST OF CREATURES, and the great cycle of life goes on.
This whole focus on tragic plankton death is hogwash. The plankton numbers are trivially small, eclipsed by a single whale or a single fishing boat, and the ocean is huge.
w.
For Willis Eschenbach, June 25, 2016 at 9:40 am.
The once-through cooling issue, and cooling water intake system (CWIS) requirements is a huge topic that I cannot begin to address on this forum. However, a brief overview is that the US Clean Water Act required the EPA to regulate not only power plants but also industrial plants. The EPA tried and was sued in court. The US Supreme Court handed down its ruling in 2009. EPA issued final regulations in 2014, via the Federal Register.
However, you have questions on how much ocean fauna is impacted. There are some good documents on this, and a link below. Here is a quote from a summary of the California impacts: including Chinook salmon, and fish that inhabit kelp forests.
“Once-through cooling has a devastating impact on the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary where all of the
imperiled salmon species that migrate through the Sacramento and San Joaquin River watersheds
must pass the intakes for two aging power plants. Records for both of these plants show that they have
killed threatened and endangered species, including the Delta smelt and the Chinook salmon, which are
currently the subject of significant water distribution discussions in the state. The impacts on the Bay-Delta
are so significant that a group of water districts filed a Notice of Intent to Sue against the plants for violating
the Endangered Species Act by illegally killing fish and causing detrimental impacts on fish populations.
According to the Department of Fish and Game, the San Onofre nuclear plant destroyed well over two
hundred acres of kelp forest. This, in turn, caused the displacement or death of thousands of individuals from
numerous other species. In total, the kelp fish population in the area has declined by 80%, all due to that
single plant.
In bays such as Santa Monica, Monterey, and San Diego, and estuaries such as Elkhorn Slough, the impacts
from once-through cooling can be more pronounced due to the high biological productivity of these areas and
the concentration of the power plants’ impacts in light of the area affected. The Moss Landing Plant alone
cycles 1.224 billion gallons per day at maximum permitted capacity. This represents over a quarter of
Elkhorn Slough and Moss Landing Harbor, cycled through the plant each and every day.” — source: http://cacoastkeeper.org/document/press-release-on-riverkeeper-decision.pdf
For those who want to wade through approximately 300 pages of biological information, here is a link
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-05/documents/cooling-water_phase-4_benefits_2014.pdf
The methodologies are laid out in that document.
If one wanted to impact the government policies on once-through cooling systems, it may yet be possible to bring a legal challenge.
Thanks for the reply and the links to the documents, Roger. I suspect we agree more than disagree on this one. Let me try to clarify my position. In short, can once-through cooling affect inland waterways? Sure, depending on the size of the river and the size of the plant it can make a difference.
Does it do much to the ocean? Generally, not a lot regarding plankton death. However, the ecology immediately around the outfall will assuredly be altered … but remember, altered just means different types of creatures live there, it doesn’t mean a dead zone. In Florida there’s an endangered crocodile that only lives in the warmed outflow area of a power plant’s cooling system. Go figure.
Should cooling water be regulated? Absolutely … but only where it is actually causing significant damage. But ten or twenty sea lion deaths per year out of a population of 200,000? Not impressed.
Generally, the effects can be mitigated at some cost, through screening and entry/escape structures, so as always it comes down to cost/benefit. And increasingly, new plants are not using once-through cooling.
Sadly, like all grasping, over-regulating, ever-increasing bureaucracies, the EPA point of view wants to rave about millions of sea lion deaths and keep us from killing a even small amount of plankton …
My best to you,
w.
Roger, your first link is a press release, without any supporting facts. The second link is to a 334-page document; you may have waded through it, if so, please point to a particular section. You may have noticed that, according to Section 11.6, “survey data is grounded in a random utility model”, and, further, “utility is the sum of systematic [or observed] and random [or unobserved] components”. What does your engineering soul feel when reading that text?
For Curious George, engineering says we must pass X amount of water through some device in Y amount of time, and not bring the prohibited small critters along with the water. The old solution was to enlarge the pipe intake diameter so that flowing velocity was very low and swimming critters could easily swim away. Smaller critters, such as larvae, fish eggs and such, were prevented entry by the use of screens. There is a cost component to achieve the desired results. With unlimited money, one could safely remove all of the marine life. We don’t have unlimited money, so we build a structure with the available funds to meet the EPA requirements. In many cases, that means using a cooling tower and not once-through cooling. In others, such as along the California coast, the Rankine-cycle steam plants are replaced with 1-1 CCGT or in some cases 2-1 CCGT, and with air cooling instead of water. The 1-1 CCGT air-cooled plant in El Segundo, California is an example. Zero cooling water is used even though it is literally right on the beach at the Pacific Ocean. The penalty is more natural gas burned for a given power output.
“The penalty is more natural gas burned for a given power output.”
OK, does that sound “right” to you? Or to enviros?
Wasn’t efficiency THE primary goal according to the enviro movement, before “renewables”?
And, aren’t we about to reach peak something?
I am shocked.
Lipstick on a pit
Eugene WR Gallun
GD — that’s PIG
Eugene WR Gallun
Or perhaps it’s lipstick on a pit bull, a most interesting metaphor … yes, I think I’ll use that one.
w.
“Nuclear essentially began as a gov’t monopoly called the Manhattan project, for good reason: gov’t needs to maintain almost total control over civil and military uses”
By nuclear, you mean fission, right?
Many university have fission reactors.
Are you afraid of PWR, VVER, GE BWR?
Fermi’s fission reactor was under the stands in the University of Chicago athletic area.
@mods
June 25, 2016 at 12:56 pm: Sorry, I intended this one as a child of “June 25, 2016 at 8:16 am”
Simple: That was me. Yes, Universities do research, and Corporations operate nuke (unless there’s a fusion plant somewhere, yeah fission) plants, with juuuuuust a bit of gov’t regulation and oversight, right? My point to Mr. Sowell was, anyone who says “only one tiny subsidy” of solar & wind; who is willing to call grandfathering of coal plants a “subsidy”; and who wants us to believe nuke is lathered up with subsidies cannot be trusted, he may consider gov’t oversight of nuclear a “subsidy” if he wants. Yet all varieties of gov’t payments in support of wind & solar are, evidently, not subsidies? As I said, he compares apples and oranges, and is not persuading anyone, just fooling himself.
Bottomless pit?
That is a nice sales pitch for renewables. Missing is any mention of costs involved. These include capital costs, under-written by public loan guarantees. The fact is that renewable electricity costs more to produce than electricity from gas or coal fired plants.
To make this palatable to the public the renewables require government subsides to be competitive. Without such subsidies they simply would not exist. But all these extras are ignored in this article which makes it nothing more than another propaganda vehicle of the global warming movement. And speaking of global warming, said to be caused by the greenhouse effect, Hansen knew that there was no scientific proof of it. and attempted to prove it himself. He noted that global warming in 1980 was more than 0.4 degrees centigrade (his terminology).
The chance of this happening by chance was less than one percent, he said, and this allowed him to claim that “…global warming has reached a level such that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and the observed warming.” It seems, however, that it was just a chance happening in 1988 because the twenty-first century hiatus proves that there is no such thing as a greenhouse effect. During a hiatus carbon dioxide increases but temperature does not.
This, however, is impossible according to the Arrhenius greenhouse theory used by the IPCC. Yet it does happen. Obviously. their theory has made a wrong prediction. And a scientific theory that makes a wrong prediction belongs in the waste basket of history . The only greenhouse theory that can correctly handle the hiatus is MGT, the Miskolczi greenhouse theory, which I have discussed before and which should be used in place of the Arrhenius theory that fails to describe the real world.
[PARAGRAPH BREAKS ADDED FOR READABILITY mod]
Roger, I still don’t understand the why.
By that I mean, why replace a 24/7 inexpensive tested reliable power source with a 4/7 expensive untested unreliable power source?
Where’s the benefit? Why on earth would we want to do that? It won’t make a measurable difference to the climate, so WHY?
Meanwhile, your proposals are shafting the poor. Energy cost increases hit the poor the hardest, you’re screwing them to the floor, and meanwhile you act like you have the moral high ground … sorry, Roger, but your proposals impoverish the poor and make their lives harder and shorter. You don’t get kudos for that.
You get curses from those whose lives you are damaging with your mad rush to shift to highly subsidized renewables.
w.
OK, Willis, I will try to give an answer to your questions. This is based on the facts as I know them to be, and a bit of analysis. Others may arrive at a different conclusion.
” I still don’t understand the why.
By that I mean, why replace a 24/7 inexpensive tested reliable power source with a 4/7 expensive untested unreliable power source?
Where’s the benefit? Why on earth would we want to do that? It won’t make a measurable difference to the climate, so WHY?”
The “24/7 inexpensive tested reliable power source” is unclear, perhaps you refer to coal, natural gas plants, or nuclear plants. The State of California has made decisions (that I do not agree with for the most part) to reduce CO2 emissions state-wide to a very low level. One manifestation of that policy is to have 50 percent of all electricity sold in the state be provided by renewable energy sources by the year 2030. There are interim targets on that goal, such as 33 percent by 2020.
So, even if I wanted to, I could not change that. AB 32 started this mess, and the recent SB 350 made the 50 percent by 2030 the law. An excerpt from the SB 350 bill, now a law, states:
“Existing law establishes the California Renewables Portfolio Standards (RPS) Program, which is codified in the Public Utilities Act, with the target to increase the amount of electricity generated per year from eligible renewable energy resources to an amount that equals at least 33% of the total electricity sold to retail customers per year by December 31, 2020. Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act is a crime.
This bill (SB 350) … requires that the amount of electricity generated and sold to retail customers per year from eligible renewable energy resources be increased to 50% by December 31, 2030, as provided.”
The State of California is a firm believer in the greenhouse gas warming idea and all the IPCC warnings of impending doom if such GHGs are not reduced. I am on record several times as stating that GHG warming is false-alarmism. I both write on this and make public speeches on this. Believe me, I do all that I can in my limited time and abilities to show that GHG warming is false-alarmism.
But, California does not listen to me. Instead, the state has a ban on coal-fired power that will be phased in over the next about 8 years, to help achieve the GHG goals. The state also has, dating back many years, a ban on new nuclear power plants. That one I agree with entirely due to the very high cost of nuclear power and the inherent safety risks. Rates of cancer among those who live near nuclear plants cannot be dismissed as “would have happened anyway.”
Now, with SB 350 in place, the State has few choices. No coal, no nuclear, so what is left? Natural gas, hydroelectric, and renewables are about the only choices for grid-scale power.
So, that is the official answer to the Why. The state of California bought the story from IPCC that GHGs are overheating the planet. I have sat in state agency meetings and listened to speakers say that California is the leader and will demonstrate to the world how keeping the economy healthy and cutting GHGs can be done. California officials, and appointed bureaucrats have some idea that what starts in California gets spread to the entire world. I have serious doubts, myself.
“Meanwhile, your proposals are shafting the poor. Energy cost increases hit the poor the hardest, you’re screwing them to the floor, and meanwhile you act like you have the moral high ground … sorry, Roger, but your proposals impoverish the poor and make their lives harder and shorter. You don’t get kudos for that.
You get curses from those whose lives you are damaging with your mad rush to shift to highly subsidized renewables.”
There is another, not-yet-official aspect that needs to be widely debated. That is that within the US and within the next 20 years, the US power grid will undergo the most important transformation in its entire history. The problem is caused by a looming lack of low-cost coal, and the huge fraction of all US power generation from coal burning. Few people know that the economically produceable coal reserves are so short, but official USGS reports show this is true. Yes, there is about 100 years or more of total coal in the US, but it cannot be mined and sold without losing money. Britain has the same issue, and is importing coal while it operates its few low-cost mines that remain open.
The big issue, then, is what to do in the short time available, 20 years, to provide for future growth in electricity use and replace the coal-fired plants that are being retired. Even if one wanted to use nuclear power (but not in California due to the law), it is impossible to build 350 nuclear power plants in 20 years. One must replace the 99 remaining, aging plants, plus install 250 more to replace the coal-based power. That means starting up almost 18 plants per year. Clearly that is not going to happen.
Instead, gas-fired CCGT power plants will be installed in great numbers, along with larger and more efficient wind-power projects across the great heartland of America where the wind is strong and free, from north Texas to the Canadian border. California will continue to add solar plants, almost all of which will be PV due to much lower cost.
Offshore wind power projects will also increase, as the Block Island project offshore Rhode Island is but the first of many. The success of the ARES gravity rail storage system in Nevada will open that technology to every place that has a suitable slope.
Now regarding the high prices, I agree with you that higher prices hurt the poor the most. I would expand that to include those on fixed incomes, and those just getting by paycheck to paycheck. It is a very bad thing to have to choose between paying for food, or paying for electricity. Been there, done that for too many years. California, though, has different views on this, officially. Their view is to increase electricity prices as more kWh are used, as a way to discourage the excess users. There are also financial hardship plans to keep the monthly cost low for those least able to pay. It’s the middle class that gets hurt.
“along with larger and more efficient wind-power projects across the great heartland of America where the wind is strong and free, from north Texas to the Canadian border.”
What a horrible thing to contemplate!
I suggest that replacing the California Governor, most of the legislature, and the entire PUC would be a better strategy than building more renewables. Appeasing insanity does not, in my experience, promote reasonableness.
In effect endorsing the notion that electrical power is a net public nuisance, like smoking. Think about that for a moment. It’s from the same mindset as the Greenpeace initiative to ban chlorine. Increasing the cost of things is one activity government is very good at, but I’m unaware of an historical case where increasing the cost of something advanced civilization or made life better for people in general.
We need to start by accepting that electricity is not just a net public good, but a public necessity for maintaining industrial civilization. From that acceptance it follows that the public policy goals should be to increase the availability, reliability and affordability of electrical power. At that point it is appropriate and productive to argue the respective merits of competing technologies.
If you let the Luddites frame the discussion, your choices will be limited to dumb and dumber.
Roger Sowell June 25, 2016 at 11:13 am
So the reason that you have done a puff piece on the claimed “success” of the California plan in which you osculate the fundament of renewables is … because it’s the California plan?
And the reason that you have lied by omission about the costs of this “success” is … because it’s the California plan?
Dear heavens, that is all the more reason to OPPOSE the plan. It is not a reason to cravenly ignore the glaring flaws in the California plan as you have done. It is not a reason to write a hagiography of the California plan as you have done. It is a reason to point out the obscene cost of the plan, not pretend it doesn’t exist as you have done. You have made yourself into a part of the problem, not of the solution.
Finally, you say:
You’re not getting it. Financial hardship plans can only reach a small part of the populace, and in inadequate amounts. You see, the theory itself is screwed up. You’re supporting raising energy prices until it hurts, and then giving some small part of the money back to some few the people who are hurt … if you think this assuages the pain, perhaps you’re not broke enough to follow the story. And if you are able to succeed, and to assuage all of the pain … then what’s the point?
Since I’m one of the consumers getting screwed by the electricity prices, and I’m not getting a damn dime out of the deal, let me assure you that it’s not working for me … and I’m not someone who is living with six other relatives in a two bedroom flat. How do you plan to get the rebate money to them?
But more to the point, HOW ABOUT NOT TAKING THE MONEY IN THE FIRST PLACE! You keep coming up with these whiz-bang justifications for you sticking your damn grabby fingers into my wallet and taking out my hard-earned money to finance your guilt-drenched green fantasies.
I would say to you how I really feel about this act of yours, Roger, but it’s a family blog … so instead, let me repeat what I said above. The poor of the world curse you and your ivory tower ideas and your blind intellectual arrogance, because your plans are already causing them pain, suffering, impoverishment, and death.
w.
Pretty strong words, Willis. Let me point out, again, that it is not my plan. This is California’s plan, based on their stated belief in IPCC climate science. Anyone who reads my writings or has heard me make speeches know quite well that the IPCC conclusions about greenhouse gases and climate are not my views.
So, if you believe so strongly that California’s plan is bad, very bad for the poor, then I suggest you do something about it. You could go make impassioned speeches before various state agencies, or to elected officials, or file a lawsuit to overturn any of the various laws, if you can find a valid reason for filing the lawsuit.
What needs to happen, and quickly, though, is what I wrote above about the US running out of coal and needing a replacement for that coal-based electricity. I would love to read your expert opinion on what each state should do to provide reliable, safe, and inexpensive electricity. Please be sure that whatever you devise and recommend does not raise electricity prices, as you point out, that certainly hurts the poor and they will “curse you and your ivory tower ideas.” Your plan must of course not cause the poor any “pain, suffering, impoverishment, and death.”
I’ll check back periodically for your expert plan. But, I won’t be holding my breath.
Roger Sowell June 25, 2016 at 6:14 pm
Roger, since you are lauding this plan, and proclaiming it as a success, and studiously ignoring the problems with the plan, yes it is indeed your plan. Anyone not familiar with the truth who reads your hagiography of renewables in California without one word about the cost would come away thinking it is a whiz-bang wonderful plan …
And that’s on you, Roger. You are SELLING the California plan, using all the normal salesman’s tricks—emphasizing the postive, ignoring the negative, failing to reply to valid objections, the usual. And if it’s not your plan … then why are you working so hard to sell it?
w.
@ur momisugly Roger Sowell June 25, 2016 at 6:14 pm
“Pretty strong words, Willis. Let me point out, again, that it is not my plan. This is California’s plan, based on their stated belief in IPCC climate science. Anyone who reads my writings or has heard me make speeches know quite well that the IPCC conclusions about greenhouse gases and climate are not my views.”
Yet you have no qualms about cashing your paycheck for spouting this nonsense, despite the fact that it harms those less fortunate than you.
Willis, you are truly a piece of work. You say, “then why are you working so hard to sell it?” That is absolutely false. As examples of my efforts to stop the GHG reduction schemes in California, I point to the AB 32 bill, which I wrote about and on which I delivered several public speeches. When AB 32 came up on the ballot as an initiative, I worked hard to defeat the initiative. WUWT ran a few articles on the same, with my name. Perhaps that is not much, and perhaps that is not enough. It is my record and I stand on it.
Now to the greater issue, the subject of my post above and your unrelenting opposition to renewable energy. The fact is that Southern California is facing an imminent crisis – but perhaps you don’t care because it does not affect you as you live in Northern California. Our natural gas supply that normally sees us through heat waves is simply not available this year. It is simple to figure out that anything that can be done to reduce natural gas use, should be done. Or, perhaps you just write lofty-sounding ideals about helping the poor, but you would rather shut down the wind and solar power generation systems that are already in place, already proven to work, and are providing a substantial part of electrical demand. Shutting those systems down because you don’t like the way they were built, or where they were built, or how they were financed, would mean the poor people that you claim to represent must suffer the heat without benefit of electricity. Or, based on previous experience in electrical shortages in Southern California, the power companies could increase electricity bills by great amounts – again hurting the poor that you claim to have so much concern for.
So, Willis, which is it? Which of us has the welfare of the poor in Southern California in mind? You, who would shut down the renewable energy plants and cause immense suffering this summer?
My post merely points out that the renewable power sector is reducing the amount of natural gas that must be burned in the gas-fired power plants during a period of crisis shortage of natural gas. The state agencies have assessed the situation and written several reports on the gravity of the crisis. You can choose to ignore them, or dispute them, or deride them as you choose.
So, what is it then, Willis? Where is your plan to bring cheap, reliable, safe electricity to California over the next several months, and years beyond? Will you start with shutting down the renewable power plants that you so despise?
Please, give us all your answer.
Willis, just for the record, I receive essentially zero compensation for any of my efforts on climate change. I once was paid a small fee, under $200 for one speech to an industry group, and received the cost of a modest hotel room for one night for another speech. That totals about $350 (much less after taxes) for more than ten years of campaigning against the IPCC consensus. So, you can now stop repeating that bit about me cashing my paycheck.
Willis, apologies where an apology is due. That last bit just above on cashing my paycheck is properly delivered to one “Reg Nelson” of June 25, 2016 at 7:40 pm.
Willis writes
We could discuss the subsidies around oil and gas vs subsidies for renewable energy and you might make the point that there should be no subsidy for renewables at all – and therefore that much more money available for something to improve life for those less well off.
The amount of money subsidizing renewable energy pales in comparison to the amount of money spent on war in the middle east. Also, some of the poorest people with the fewest options are sent to fight and die in those wars.
Perhaps you would argue that the war in the middle east has nothing to do with oil?
By going down the PV Solar route, ultimately every country can achieve energy independence. What value would you place on that? How do you think poor countries with few energy resources will fair in the future if the future continues to be fossil fuel focused purely reliant on market forces for change?