“…many staff people at DPS, DEC, and NYISO who know this is going to end badly.”
Guest essay by John Droz Jr.
Here is a fascinating and revealing news article behind a paywall that I’m alerting you to. It is about just a few of the complications that will result from New York State’s (NYS) Clean Energy Standard (CES).
It discusses the NYISO (New York State Independent System Operator) 2018 Power Trends Report which (paraphrasing Winston Churchill):
…defends itself against the risk of being read by its very length and obfuscating technical jargon.
Note that the article observations are coming from a top NYISO person. In other words, this is someone on the electrical energy front lines who is struggling to deal with political energy policies — which (in NY) are divorced from science or economics and are completely oblivious of the technical consequences.
Seeing these unusually frank insider observations should be an eye-opener.
As an overview, there are several startling acknowledgments, essentially saying:
- Wind energy is an unrelentingly unpredictable and uncontrollable energy source,
- Increasing wind energy on the grid is causing serious reliability issues,
- Wind energy has very little Capacity Value, and that has not been adequately addressed,
- Due to the inherent nature of wind energy it must be permanently paired with gas,
- Adding more wind energy to the grid will require substantially more gas to be added to the grid,
- The costs to deal with wind energy on the grid are rapidly increasing,
- None of the costs incurred by wind energy are directly attributed to wind energy,
- There are similarly major issues with solar, also not quite as severe,
- None of the politicians or NGOs promoting wind or solar are acknowledging any of these issues,
- “Stakeholders” are currently discussing a carbon tax, to make this situation even worse.
What else do you need to know to confirm that we are headed for a catastrophe? Well, there’s more…
Note that there is a very strong parallel here with the US mortgage meltdown of several years ago — which led to a world-wide major economic downturn. After the fact, when insiders were interviewed about what happened, they acknowledged that everyone-in-the-know knew that the lending, etc. policies put in place (by lobbyists) were guaranteed to fail.
Unless major changes are made quickly, several years from now there will be experts commenting on how the US energy grid failure (which will lead to a collapse of our economy, and our national security, and our society), was entirely predictable based on the self-serving unscientific energy policies put in place by lobbyists.
If you think this is an exaggeration, simply shut off the electricity in a major city, and see quickly it is before chaos and lawlessness ensues.
Now do the same for an entire region. Etc.
Once you’ve grasped the magnitude of that, you’ll understand why the Russians have put so much effort into promoting US energy policies that are completely nonsensical — to anyone but them. (See Subverting US Energy Policies for more details.)
The ONLY solution is to change our energy policies to be Science-based — starting with dumping the absurd “All of the Above” slogan, and replacing it with “All of the Sensible” as a national energy mantra.
The good news here is that this calamity is 100% preventable….
See this insightful article on the exact same subject.
After reading the Politico piece yesterday, an NYS utility expert shared with me several observations, including the following:
“A close colleague of mine worked at NYSERDA and is familiar with NYS agencies. We both acknowledge that there are many staff people at DPS, DEC, and NYISO who know this is going to end badly.
However, the micro-management of the agencies and the overt pressure on the NYISO to not be independent of the Administration, is keeping dissent under wraps. The only people that the NY political administration listens to, are those that say what they want to hear.
“Reading the Politico article and the platitudes about incentivizing rapid response resources makes me want to either laugh or cry. Just as there was not enough private interest in offshore wind, NYPA had to step in; I guarantee that no private developer will want to develop a new gas turbine plant. There is no business case for such a development in NYS. The problem is that the only way this issue will be recognized as important is when it gets to a crisis at best, and at worst after some blackouts occur.”
When the collapse does occur it will be blamed on two things, capitalism and capitalists. The shells of the utilities will be nationalized and “energy” will be rationed, or more accurately, apportioned. Mostly to party members in good standing.
Which is exactly what happened when the Aussie grid crashed, several times, when the demand exceeded what wind could supply. Leftists went on the offensive blaming everything but their own policies.
Under fault conditions wind turbines cause the collapse. It is not because WT do not produce enough electricity. Wind turbines (asynchronous) produce no useable 50/60Hz electricity. Wind turbines are a scam/rort and only produce dangerous and useless harmonics.
BrianJ, Wind turbines are little different from hydro-electric generators. One uses wind to turn them, and the other uses water. Wind turbines may be more intermittent, but why would the electricity produced be any different?
The electricity from wind turbines is not simply intermittent, but it is highly variable. It is the high variability which is of more concern. that is why solar, is not quite as bad as wind. One knows in advance that solar produces no electricity at night and only small amounts in the winter months due to the shorter length of day, the angle of the sun, and the general cloudiness of high latitudes such that some of the intermittent characteristics of solar can be planned for. unfortunately, that is not the case with wind.
Louis, Wind turbines are very different from hydro-electric generators. Wind fields vary in both average velocity and gustiness. Stabilizing this power to grid compatibility is a major issue. Hydro-electric generators are operated at constant flow against a fixed head of water and thus inherently more stable.
All spinning generators produce voltages (and frequencies) in proportion to the rate at which they are spinning. The spin rate, and thus the output, of hydroelectric generators can be controlled by regulating the water volume flowing through them. This is quite simple, really. But the wind can’t be controlled or regulated in any practical way, so the output from wind turbines is quite variable. This is an issue because the grid needs a constant AC voltage and frequency to work. The variable output from wind turbines can be converted into a constant voltage and frequency, but this extra step introduces cost and complexity to those systems.
Most important: wind generators have asynchronous generators, and so no rotational inertia unlike almost all other power sources. This makes the grid highly vulnerable to any disturbance since there is less time to take corrective action. This was what actually brought the South Australian grid down.
Wind generators can have synchronous generators (it is mandatory in Texas), but it costs, and so the wind lobby is against it.
@richard – Yes, and guess where the genius responsible for New York’s FUBAR, Audrey Zibelman, ended up? As head of Australia’s peak national electricity body, AMEO. The irony is so enormous, you can see if from space.
Political Energy (PE)
Global Warming has clearly reduced the net wind in NY state and its surrounds. CO2 emissions must be reduced or there will be no reliable political electrical energy (PEE). This can only be done by ceasing ALL other forms of unacceptable political electrical energy (uPEE), eg coal, nuclear, hydro and methane.
Allowing uPEE will reduce CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere in NY State. If NY State can convince Donald Trump that uPEE will make the United States Great Again, we can expect the benefits of a uPEE policy to make the US seem nice to everyone who needs to PEE but cannot convince their electorates that PEEing is good for energy prices and reliability. Stormy Summers has agreed to continue PEEing on Trump until he agrees to uPEE via a UN mandate (UNuPEE).
The State of NY and California have agreed that only Russian hookers can PEE on Trump and are pursuing a policy of support for Summer’s PEEing as long as it is on Trump, not them, despite previous stormy relationships with summers.
Whoo-pee!
Wait, they told us it was rain!
To PEE or not to PEE … that is the question
Trump has tweeted that he supports uPEE, not PEE or UNuPEE and Associated Press’s story about him being covered in stormy PEE was fake news. Major Clifford of the FSB tweeted that Vladimir expected that the PEEing on Trump would continue as long as payment continued from the Clinton Foundation. “No US dollars, no PEE”.
Trump’s lawyer stated that Trump had already paid Major Clifford for no PEE. Clifford responded that this was clearly not an option while he supported uPEE. Russian Hookers want PEE, not uPEE. Bob Mueller has responded with a Grand Jury to prosecute uPEE.
James Comey has now published a book about FBI PEE. “The FBI cannot allow uPEE as it would make the FBI’s PEE less powerful if just anyone could uPEE. Our close working arrangement with Major Clifford has allowed us to understand the difference between PEE, uPEE and UNuPEE.” Michael Flynn has tweeted that he was covered in PEE and had to sell his house and agree to PEE if he expected his son not to be covered in PEE.
Bob:
“To PEE or not to PEE … that is the question”
No, that is the answer.
Q. What is the square root of 4p^2?
A. 2p or -2p
Geoff. You just don’t understand. Wind turbines do not produce any useable (50/60Hz) electricity. They are asynchronous and only produce useless harmonics. They are a massive scam/rort. The warmist alarmists have been totally taken in, duped big time.
New York can mandate that big diesel motors be attached to the giant windmills, via a drive belt, to make the blades go around to generate electricity for the grid…for times when the wind is too weak to do the job.
That’s awful! Diesel is dirty, pollutes the air and only enriches the Oil Barons.
Let’s fuel those engines with a pure, 100% natural, green product: whale oil!
That is what many solar farms did in Spain.
The feed in tariffs were so generous that many coupled up diesel generators, but the game was given away when it was discovered that the solar farms were producing energy 24/7. Someone in government saw the light, and queried how these solar farms were able to deliver electricity even at night. They discovered that diesel generators had been hooked up to supply energy direct to the grid.
A somewhat similar sc@m happened in Ireland with biomass/wood pellets. People were being paid in subsidies twice as much as it cost to purchase the biomass. Farmers bought huge quantities of biomass and burnt these 24/7 heating empty barns and raking in millions in subsidies.
The sc@m was so serious that it brought down the Government. This is what happens when Governments game say the market. See:
http://dailycaller.com/2017/01/17/green-energy-scandal-brings-down-entire-government/
richard verney said:
“That is what many solar farms did in Spain.
The feed in tariffs were so generous that many coupled up diesel generators, but the game was given away when it was discovered that the solar farms were producing energy 24/7.”
Say it enough times and it might become true! Have you looked into that claim at all?
“Let’s fuel those engines with a pure, 100% natural, green product: whale oil!”
You may jest, but as is often the case, jokes are not far from the truth. The various environmental NGOs have allowed this and related scams to replace their original campaign objectives. Among which was saving whales.
“Have you looked into that claim at all?”
http://www.elmundo.es/mundodinero/2010/04/12/economia/1271063308.html
I agree entirely, except it must be considered that the outcome is probably the desired one by the leftist remains of the previous government.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/milton_friedman_387252
Here in Ontario, Canada, we had a government overrule the engineers and move a gas-fired plant to win a few seats in an election. A totally 100% political move against a true engineering consensus of where the plants should (and could) go.
I said then that it would be great if we could just roll the ensuing brown-outs through those very same political ridings.
In this case, too bad we can’t have a two grids: a reliable one based on nukes, gas and clean(er) coal for us, and “renewables” for the hippies who would have to live with electricity a few hours a day (like in Venezuela).
This Liberal government in Ontario has also ignored the Power Workers Union of Canada. Here is a statement from its website:
“Billions of dollars have been spent on intermittent wind and solar and for backup natural gas generation. These new sources of supply are heavily subsidized by ratepayers and are significant contributors to Ontario’s rising electricity prices.
Unspecified costs for smart grid/emerging technologies and transmission/distribution infrastructure necessary for integrating and managing variable electricity production and changing consumer demand will drive the price /kWh up even further.
By 2030, ratepayers and/or taxpayers will be paying for the decommissioning and waste management costs for some of this wind and solar generation.
Building more wind and solar generation will increase GHG emissions. These intermittent sources require backup more than 70% of the time, a role played by carbon emitting natural gas generation.
No more wind and solar generation should be built. Any future investments should be based on affordability, solid cost benefit analyses and realistic targets.”
The sooner the better. Really.
No.
Good policy involves avoiding the disasters and explaining how you’ve helped.
Bad policy is to let others make the disasters and then say “Ooh, that was a whoopsie”.
We need to act.
They will not learn until they feel the pain.
DC metroplex is next on the list. I/we have been conducting preparedness and mitigation planning for years. Nobody will make the tough decisions and they close their power plants.
Issue is the poster is somewhat correct: “Never let a good crisis go to waste” I guarantee the dims would thoroughly enjoy a rolling brownout
Like my Dad use to say, ……. “If you don’t listen, you will have to feel”.
The enviro zealots will never learn, even from disaster, even if it hits them hard. They always say, “We didn’t have the right people implementing our policies”, or “A vast right wing conspiracy wreaked our policies.”
No to your No. The end is inevitable – those pushing FOR it continue to gain ground, while those of us who see the end continue to fight a losing battle. I agree, let it come sooner, so we can deal with the outcome while there are still some of us who have the understanding necessary to do so.
“If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.” – Thomas Paine
Guess what else collapsed tonight in New York – Schneidermann!!!!
I have an awful feeling that catastrophe has to strike before these green lunatics begin to see sense.
The problem here is that even when catastrophe strikes, the green lunatics are unlikely to see sense, because they are fanatics, and rational thought doesnt enter into it.
As long as there is even one portion of the economy that is not under their complete control, they don’t have to take responsibility. They will just shift the blame. Again.
There will always be some portion of the economy not under the thumb of Big Brother, even if only an illegal black market providing goods and services the regulated economy can’t. So Big Brother will always have an unregulated market to scapegoat.
What they will do is double down on it. Look at Venezuela. The next step is to burn the heretics. After they’ve confessed of course.
There is a saying in the life safety field, “Codes and Standards are written in blood”.
Is it true that there are over 500 groups in the state of New York in opposition to industrial scale wind turbines?
Oh, honey – even that won’t do it. The green loonies will ALWAYS blame something/somebody else.
Second that !
Nice that deep blue New York state is volunteering to be another renewables crash test dummy like South Australia. We are going to run short of popcorn.
Just build Thorium power plants and this all goes away.
I would like to see a banner: Thorium, energy made from a Viking god, only it’s true and it will never die!
Richard, you are making the capital mistake of thinking that you can deal rationally with pro-renewables activists. They are a clan of ‘true believers’ driven by a religious zeal for their (Marxist) agenda. They cannot negotiate or afford to recognise that what they propose won’t work (just like communism). They will keep pushing their agenda in every way until they get what they want, or die of exhaustion. There is no middle ground. We can only fight against their subsidies, and expose their lies and dis-information. Any other useful suggestions will be gratefully received…
Boy
You are absolutely correct that there will never be a possibility to persuade the fanatical true believers of the errors of their ways.
The more effective, pragmatic approach is to target the much larger swath of the population who do not know a petajoule from peaker, an ROW from an EUR.
Regular folks, with their lives to lead, bills to pay, and personal dramas all their own.
THEY are the ones who – in their overwhelming cumulative size – will be the final arbiters of how this all plays out.
The sheer inadequacy, the wrong headedness of this renewable fiasco is unfolding for all the world to see, but – as someone above has said, and I can attest to the accuracy – the environment types simply obfuscate and deflect blame to all but their own idiocies.
Continued education on our part coupled with vigorous engagement will set the stage for the sharp pushback (already started) when the lights dim, the pipes freeze, the monthly bills skyrocket, and the Sleeping Giant stirs.
When the wind don’t blow and the sun don’t glow, the architects of the folly will be revealed and saner paths will be followed.
JoeB – May 7, 2018 at 5:44 pm
Pretty much …… TRUE, TRUE, TRUE, …… simply because “approval of their leaders and like-minded peers” is FAR, FAR, FAR more important to each and every one of them than anything you could possibly think of to tell them.
JoeB – May 7, 2018 at 5:44 pm
Pretty much …… FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, …… simply because that “larger swath of the regular folk population” you speak of has more important things to do, …. like working hard to maintain and/or improve their own life style instead of worrying about what the “looney left” is doing.
“DUH”, ….. the regular folk population is not going to “rally together” to defeat the science insanity of the proponents of “green energy” and “anti-capitalism”…….. any more than ….. the regular folk population is going to “rally together” to defeat the political insanity, dishonesty and wickedness of elected/appointed/hired public employees.
One’s vested interest usually takes priority over “right or wrong”, ……. “honesty or dishonesty”.
To “STOP” a delusional group of greenies, a riot, a lynching or a rebellion, ….. one has to “STOP” the leader(s), …. the instigator(s) ….. or the organizer(s).
One has to “cut off” the head of the snake to kill it.
Samuel, not quite. While it’s true the masses aren’t quick to rouse (they have other things to worry about), rouse they do on occasion. Trump was never ever going to be president, yet those masses you dismiss helped get him to the white house.
When the power goes out, the masses will be the ones to feel the effects. They will rise up (because no power means they can’t deal with the other things they’d normally be dealing with). The only question is who will feel their wrath. The greenies will be shoveling the brown stuff at them to shift the blame, we best be prepared to counter it, preferably starting well in advance of the energy crisis so we can say “told you so” when the time comes.
John Endicott, you are correct of course, as far as “the masses rousing up.
But my comments pertained to leaders or instigators being responsible for said rousing up of the masses ………. whereas the rousing up of Trump voters was pretty much a spontaneous action by said masses without the aid or need of any leaders or instigators.
When Trump announced his candidacy he actually “awakened a sleeping giant” that had been waiting for decades to rise up and cast their votes.
Now that’s funny, I don’t care who you are.
What is a “Thorium power plant?” And what is supposed to be good about it?
– A simple concept. One was built in the U.S. during Oak Ridge’s heyday (the MSRE); they ran it a couple years to get their study data out of it, then turned it off. India and China are said to be looking real hard at them…
Here’s how they work. You set-up a power reactor, fuelled by U-235; the molten salt reactor works very well here because the thorium is in solution in the salt and circulates through the hot zone. Thorium (Th-232) is quite plentiful, and all of it is useable, unlike the ~1% of Uranium that’s fissile (the U-235) – (Niels Bohr figured this out; only transuranics with odd-numbered isotopes are fissible by slow neutrons).
So you chuck-in yer million bucks’ worth of U-235 and light it off. The Thorium in solution will not ever fission – instead, it absorbs a neutron and morphs-into Protactinium; after ~ a month, most of that has morphed-into U-233, which is as fissile as U-235. The Protactinium has to be separated-out of the reaction on a periodic basis, but that’s easily doable chemically, and once it morphs into Uranium you can chuck it right back into the reactor and it becomes the next U-fuel to feed the cycle. So you never run-out of “uranium”, as you’re making more out of Thorium as you go; and yeah the Uranium is radioactive, but we were going to put it back in the reactor anyways.
Didn’t get past the Oak Ridge myth, Knott. It never happened.
Not a myth Gamecock, it happened. follow the reference links at Wikipedia to learn more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment
Good grief! IT CONTAINED NO THORIUM.
Your right gamecock that the Oak Ridge test reactor didn’t include the thorium breeding jacket, as it was a test bed for the more experimental molten salt program. But the U233 that was burned in it came from Thorium bread in other reactors, as that part of the experiment wasn’t new.
So all the components of a ‘Thorium Molten Salt Reactor’ are tested and work, they just haven’t all been put together into a single unit.
Not yey, any way. It’s only a matter of time.
“It’s only a matter of time.”
Yeah. Nearly 60 years now. But any day . . . .
Governor Cuomo seems to be in a contest with Gov Brown to be the first to crash his state’s electric grid.
Tom: s/’s electric grid//
Ok .. maybe that is a bit to techie for this audience. I was suggesting removing “‘s electric grid” from the above. I think that is a kore accurate statement.
I agree with your joke. However, I had still had to read it twice to get it.
I believe using the “strike-through” is the proper art form to utilize in this situation.
Thorium = radiation = evil. No way they’ll let them be built
Philip,
Had to read your comment several times, then Pillage Idiot’s a couple more, but I finally got it, too. Though agree with you comment, it was too techie for me (not that I mind, that’s how we learn stuff), and I agree with PI. Strke-through would have been much easier to get the point across.
Explanation for those interested: if you are old enough to have worked on UNIX systems with dumb terminals, you would have undoubtedly have used “ed” the line oriented text editor where you worked on one line at a time.
One of the most common commands is the substitute command, to replace one bit of text (usually a typo) with another.
The syntax is
s (for substitute) ///
So
s/foo//
Says substitute the first occurrence of “foo” with nothing.
Maybe it all makes sense now?
Also works in vi.
FYI – Texas is the only state with its electric grid ERCOT. All the other states share various regional grids.
So California and NY will crash the grids in several other states.
Funny, Joe, but one of the “prepper”/ post-apocalyptic novel series is about Texas and its independence from the national grid.
Many windfarms out there once west and northwest of the DFW area. I am sure that they help conserve coal and gas on hot, windy days.
Gums sends…
Gums – There are a lot of windmills 120-150 miles nw of dfw. Rather stupid. Two thing for the greens pushing windpower is A) the greens in the Dallas dont see how unsightly windmills are and B) being that far out, a big chunk of the electricity is lose in transmission.
Mandated solar panels in California:
https://www.ocregister.com/2018/05/04/california-to-become-first-u-s-state-mandating-solar-on-new-homes/.
“……The California Energy Commission is scheduled to vote Wednesday, May 9, on new energy standards mandating most new homes have solar panels starting in 2020….”.
And then they turn around and can only shrug their shoulders over why the state has a serious shortage of affordable housing.
New England’s ISO may actually be leading the pack.
The announcement by Exelon the other day that they may not enter the 2022 Forward Capacity Auction with their massive 2,000+ Mw Mystic power plant complex (all 4 units), must have sent shock waves throughout that region’s power cognesciti.
Following in the footsteps of the owners of the huge Millstone nuclear plants, Exelon wants a better arrangement, aka more moola to provide the juice. Presently they are fueled with imported LNG from Everett … expensive.
Exciting times all around.
When the grid does collapse, instead of blaming renewable energy, they will declare that this is proof that capitalism can’t run an electric grid and the only solution is even more government control of everything.
It’s been a long time since I’ve looked at the national grid. If I recall, regions can isolate themselves from the national grid if other areas have problems. If so, those if us in the South and fly-over states will be loudly proclaiming, “We have capitalism running our electric grid, and we are doing just fine. What we don’t have is governmental interference like that by the State of New York.”
A lot of people may be slow on the uptake, but they aren’t stupid. They’ll want to know why capitalism is only failing them.
But will CNN et. al report that the electric grid is working elsewhere? Or will they blame management for “favoring” the regions that work, dumping instability on the democrat sewers with 3rd world electric grids?
Ummm…. if there’s no power, there is no CNN to report on whose fault it was. This will allow people with cars to spread the news by talking to others – or by barricading their state borders. Phones are likely to be pretty useless as well. The US may in places overnight become a medieval country again except the indian peoples knew how to catch their own food. The inner city greens have no idea and will wait patiently (?? ) at their local latte shop for the gummint to bring them their food. May almost be worth starving out a few million of them. Pity about the collateral damage to ordinary folks just trying to get on with their lives.
What you get ….. when you don’t get …….. 24 hours of electric power
Ah yes, the good old, reliable “The Russians influenced US energy policy” shtick. I should have guessed it would be them pushing Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, and of course, they are behind every greenie in the country, not George Soros, et al. I should have guessed!
That the Russians have been funding various “environmental” groups has been well known for a long time.
MarkW….I’ve heard that line before; easy to say; harder to blatantly accept.
I want to see some proof before I swallow the ‘Russians did it’.
It is very possible since it would be a grand payback for the eastern European countries joining NATO and Regime Changes sponsored by the U.S.
Russians have been funding the American left for a very, very long time. Unfortunately Bush didn’t have the balls to collect all the KGB files from the collapsing Soviet Union and try all their agents in the West, or we wouldn’t be in this mess today.
The KGB files also included old memos outlining an effort by Ted Kennedy to enlist the help of the USSR to defeat Reagan. Ted surpassed anything that Trump has ever been accused of, just as his brother John was a greater lethario than Trump.
Let me see if I have this right. Russian interference with American energy policy is just pay back for Eastern European countries fighting for their freedom from the Soviet Union?
Regardless, the files of the KGB showed that the Soviets were old hands at funding disruptive groups in the US.
The same people now run Russia.
And of course when this does happen the illegally armed thugs will have a field day with the helpless, unarmed population.
Or protect their families from roaming hoards from cities.
Power density and intermittency are two unsolvable problems of the renewables. Energy storage would solve the intermittency problem.
You might be amazed to see how many people think Elon Musk has already solved the energy storage bit.
Not! The poor fools.
===============
Storage of wind power is the foolish, and dangerous, route to take. You cant power society with wind, how do you suppose they can power society AND power the storage system? Why do all that, which is a huge net energy loss, when Thorium reactors will solve all this providing true power on demand.
Simple, Richard.
Somewhere in there is the word “nuclear” or “radioacvtive”.
Gums sends…
RW, atomkraft, ja bitte.
Solves intermittency and power density in one swell foop.
========
“Somewhere in there is the word “nuclear” or “radioacvtive”.”
Before you make such proclamations you really should look up how Thorium rectors work. They are completely safe. They dont produce the radioactive waste that fission reactors do. They can actually consume fission waste.
“Solves intermittency and power density in one swell foop.”
No it does not. For example. Wind spikes up for a short period, still not enough to power society. So that would have to be diverted to power up storage, but the return on that is less than what is put into it. So if you get 48 hours of wind, it will power less than half that back from storage, and when the wind doesnt blow for days, the storage would have long been run down, and you’re out of power again. The only way to buffer enough storage is to have several times as much wind as can power society. That will escalate costs so high you will destroy the economy. Thorium ractors make all of that obsolete. No need for storage, no costs of storage.
Richard, I think Gums was pointing out why the green lobby will fight against it tooth and nail. If the words nuclear or radioactive are associated with something they will go ballistic.
With natural gas, coal, and oil, we have adequate supplies of cheap, safe (but boring) energy to last for many centuries. It doesn’t require any new infrastructure or government subsidies. It has been proven technology for electric power generation and transportation for well over a century. Since CO2 is not actually causing any significant problems, why invest in thorium reactors before we need them? Five or six centuries down the road, the thorium will still be there waiting for our great great great great great great grandchildren. If at that point, thorium reactors represent the cheapest, safest method of generating electricity, then they should go for it. And then if they ever run out of thorium, they could switch to bird and bat choppers.
Maybe I’m wrong and thorium reactors would be cheaper to build and operate than natural gas or coal-fired generators? If so, then by all means let’s build them as we need new capacity.
Nice, RW, you taught me sumpin there.
===========================
“Energy storage would solve the intermittency problem.”
No! No! No! It might defer the onset, but it can’t stop it. And it would require massively more generation capacity to fill the storage.
The folk who think that “wind is the way forward” should be made to use only wind produced electricity for a year. Within a few days they will understand the problem.
They should also be forced to live close to an industrial scale wind turbine or perhaps surrounded by them as is the case in rural Ontario neighbourhoods.
If wind was half as great as we’re constantly told, iCrap would be shipped here from Asia in sail boats, and we would see sail cars on the highway.
Even the Obama DOE recognized that commercial solar energy generators should only be located in desert areas. Solar is , for what it’s worth (not much) a lot more reliable than wind. I remember years ago reading the platitudes of a renewable enery advocate who claimed that all you have to do is to generate power in the day using solar and then at night using wind. Why on Earth he thought nightly wind was reliable, who knows?
Perhaps it was a gut feeling?
While it is easy to attribute policies that put the entire Northeastern power grid at grave risk to profound stupidity on the part of Cuomo, the correct explanation probably lies elsewhere.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/nyregion/percoco-corruption-bribery-trial-cuomo-guilty.html
My expertise is in energy, and I have an excellent predictive track record. The greens, however, have been WRONG about every major prediction they have made on global warming, green energy, etc., etc.
In science, the ability to correctly predict is perhaps the only objective measure of one’s competence – and the greens have NEGATIVE CREDIBILITY based on their terrible predictive track record.
____________________________________
TOLD YOU SO, 16 YEARS AGO:
We confidently wrote in 2002:
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – THE WASTEFUL, INEFFICIENT ENERGY SOLUTIONS PROPOSED BY KYOTO ADVOCATES SIMPLY CANNOT REPLACE FOSSIL FUELS.”
Source:
DEBATE ON THE KYOTO ACCORD
PEGG, reprinted in edited form at their request by several other professional journals, THE GLOBE AND MAIL and LA PRESSE in translation, by Baliunas, Patterson and MacRae.
http://www.apega.ca/members/publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
Would that be ALL!!! science or just the good-old-boy CONSENSUS RGHE science.
WE & FE????
K-T and assorted clone diagrams of atmospheric power flux balances include a GHG up/down/”back” LWIR energy loop of about 330 W/m^2 which violates three basic laws of thermodynamics: 1) energy created out of thin air, 2) energy moving (i.e. heat) from cold to hot without added work, and 3) 100% efficiency, zero loss, perpetual looping.
One possible defense of this GHG loop is that USCRN and SURFRAD data actually measure and thereby prove the existence of this up/down/”back” LWIR energy loop. Although in many instances the net 333 W/m^2 of up/down/”back” LWIR power flux loop exceeds by over twice the downwelling solar power flux, a rather obvious violation of conservation of energy.
And just why is that?
Per Apogee SI-100 series radiometer Owner’s Manual page 15. “Although the ε (emissivity) of a fully closed plant canopy can be 0.98-0.99, the lower ε of soils and other surfaces can result in substantial errors if ε effects are not accounted for.”
Emissivity, ε, is the ratio of the actual radiation from a surface and the maximum S-B BB radiation at the surface’s temperature. Consider an example from the K-T diagram: 63 W/m^2 / 396 W/m^2 = 0.16 = ε. In fact, 63 W/m^2 & 289 K & 0.16 together fit just fine in a GB version of the S-B equation.
What no longer fits is the 330 W/m^2 GHG loop which vanishes back into the mathematical thin air from whence it came.
“Their staff is too long. They are digging in the wrong place.”
“There is no spoon.”
And
The up/down/”back” GHG radiation of RGHE theory simply:
Does
Not
Exist.
Which also explains why the scientific justification of RGHE is so contentious.
http://www.writerbeat.com/articles/21036-S-B-amp-GHG-amp-LWIR-amp-RGHE-amp-CAGW
The entire New England area is put at risk by Governor “Coma” Not only by weakening the regional grid, but by blocking gas pipeline projects to the Northeast. This behavior will continue until consequence knocks on the door…
Ok, using the logic of the CAGW crowd: I propose to build a large, airtight dome. I will evacuate all the air from it and fill it with 100% C02. Then I will place a thermal electric generator next to it, burying the connections to ‘hot side’ electronics under the edge of the dome, exposing them once inside the dome. The ‘cool’ side will simply be outside the dome. Obviously, the temperature differential will always be enormous; rain or shine, day or night, sun or shade. Nothing matters except the amount of CO2 inside is far greater than outside the dome.
Cheap energy.
Where can I get a $500 million start-up grant?
It will be close to impossible to effectively blame Capitalism for under mining and ruining a successful energy delivery system that’s been in place over a century. Not that they won’t try, but people aren’t that gullible. Scientists will be sacrificed first. Politicians second if they ever get that far.
“people aren’t that gullible”
They voted Moonbeam back into office.
Don’t worry John! The IEA, no less, has decided to tackle this problem head on with two trusty weapons:
1) Semantics
2) Euphemisms
https://twitter.com/amyaharder/status/993541354256035840?s=21
Looking at New York, you’d think the grid had already collapsed.
That’s not a given. In the 1977 blackout, there was indeed widespread looting in NYC. In the 2003 blackout, there was not. link
I think germany will close als Nuclaer Power S. in 2-3years.
Some years ago they must gear into the power management only a few times,now its some THOUSAND times!
While I will be sorry for the people effected,we actually require such a catastrophic failure.
When the state grid cascades into darkness and proves very difficult to restart, the fellow travellers might gain a clue.
A prolonged miserable period of time without electricity, just might penetrate the fog of virtue signalling that surrounds the political control of power generation.
This will be a fascinating case study of government interference driving the cost of an essential good/service sky high,as they destroy the reliability of the system..All in the name of ensuring the “consumer” is being protected.
John
Sadly, that’s the case with the entire CAGW scam. We sceptics must wish for the planet to cool before the idiotic left greens are proven wrong. Unfortunately, it’s what the planet doesn’t need.
No surprise to me, the radical greens I have dealt with believe the USA, and to a lesser extent the West in general, is THE problem in the world and the sooner we are brought to our knees the better. I would note, lobbyists often write draft legislation, they push hard for certain laws and policies, but it is still up to our elected officials to pass the final bill. Policies, generally formalizes as “administrative rules,” are all done by hard core technocrats. Our elected officials have too often passed the ball to the technocrats, e.g., that is what the Affordable Care Act did. The technocrats have statutes and rules they are suppose to follow drafting new rules including public workshops and hearings. They hate going through the process and almost always the notes, comments and testimony from such rule making goes into “file cabinet” and never influences the final rule.
Lobbyists are a reaction, not a cause. When government stops meddling in energy production, the lobbyists will disappear.
Here in South Australia, count me a skeptic the Russians are coming for New Yorkers or even Californians with our own home grown Marxists everywhere. Sadly it’s an ADHD generation that has no background in history and the slaughter of millions or STEM and the rational scientific method. Just click on the likes and dislikes and whatever takes their fancy for 10 seconds and the Gummint will take care of everything like mum and dad do at home while they’re out clubbing or planning the next OS trip. That’s the way the world works.
They’re right you know. At the first sign it looks like the touch screen generation are about to have their screens go blank, the usual suspects and global moral vanity signallers will run around like headless chooks organising a heap of diesel generators and a unicorn Tesla big battery to keep them all happy and the mums and dads will simply shrug their shoulders in despair and pay for it all or put some more on credit with China.
The only saving grace is the real Marxist appreciation society in China amassing all that surplus value, are Hell bent on repatriating it all back again so they and their kids can get the Hell out of a real Marxist s#*thole as quickly as possible, before the locals wake up what’s going on and want their pound of flesh. If any really dumb Marxists like Kim Jong Un and Co think they’re gunna upset the applecart with any of that they’ll get told to pull their head in quick smart and get with the program-
https://judysp.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/walmart-container-ship/
Observa
My belief is that it’ll be the ADHD generation that’ll be our salvation, eventually. There will be a huge backlash to all this as they grow into adulthood and discover they have been misled and lied to for generations.
They will, of course, blame it on their stupid parents, and with few exceptions (die hard sceptics) they will be absolutely right.
“The ONLY solution is to change our energy policies to be Science-based”
When I see Science capitalized in the middle of a sentence I recognize that you don’t mean “science” in the sense of measurable quantities and repeatable procedures, but something more like a religion.
I wonder if the New York State Comptroller has the authority to investigate that? In Canada there are federal and provincial auditors general who do bring the public’s attention to that kind of thing. It’s like exposing sloppy accounting, or outright fraud, is their greatest joy and the only thing that gives their lives real meaning. The tool that they wield is called value for money accounting.
A major grid failure in New York would result in many deaths. Increased (and actively encouraged) dependence on electrically powered vehicles for logistics will magnify the inability to deliver food, and other essentials, to urban areas. One Second After, by William Forstchen tells the tale, if you want to read about it.
Sorta off topic, Eric Schneiderman, New York’s attorney general (who is suing EXXON for allegedly knowing about climate change), has been accused of beating four different women.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/four-women-accuse-new-yorks-attorney-general-of-physical-abuse
That there is some class A, wacko conspiracy thinking loony toon, ALARMISM
“What else do you need to know to confirm that we are headed for a catastrophe? Well, there’s more…
Note that there is a very strong parallel here with the US mortgage meltdown of several years ago — which led to a world-wide major economic downturn. After the fact, when insiders were interviewed about what happened, they acknowledged that everyone-in-the-know knew that the lending, etc. policies put in place (by lobbyists) were guaranteed to fail.
Unless major changes are made quickly, several years from now there will be experts commenting on how the US energy grid failure (which will lead to a collapse of our economy, and our national security, and our society), was entirely predictable based on the self-serving unscientific energy policies put in place by lobbyists.
If you think this is an exaggeration, simply shut off the electricity in a major city, and see quickly it is before chaos and lawlessness ensues.
Now do the same for an entire region. Etc.
Once you’ve grasped the magnitude of that, you’ll understand why the Russians have put so much effort into promoting US energy policies that are completely nonsensical — to anyone but them. (See Subverting US Energy Policies for more details.)”
And its a russian plot to Boot!
Did anyone else notice that nowhere in this long rant, is there an actual argument or real world data.
Mosh, don’t you know everything is a Russian plot these days.
That aside, do you have any comment of substance to make about the article in question? thought not.
This is how wind power is working out in Victoria, Australia, Today.
Sorry, here is the image
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Why is there no link to the Politico piece?
OT:
In other news N.Y. Attorney General Schneiderman resigns.
Yes!! A Leftist catastrophe of power in NY is unfolding today.
NY Attorney General Scheiderman quoted. “In the privacy of intimate relationships, I have engaged in role-playing and other consensual sexual activity. I have not assaulted anyone. I have never engaged in nonconsensual sex, which is a line I would not cross.”
So wonderful how the Left eats it own.
7 May: PowerLineBlog: John Hinderaker: It Couldn’t Happen to a Nicer Guy [with comment by Paul]
As Attorney General of the State of New York, Eric Schneiderman has posed as a liberal crusader. Among many other things, he has accused Exxon Mobil of committing securities fraud in connection with “climate change,” filed a civil suit accusing Trump University of fraud, and initiated more than 50 lawsuits seeking to block Trump administration environmental regulations.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/05/it-couldnt-happen-to-a-nicer-guy.php
The collapse of the energy system will be even more dramatic is it also precipitates a concurrent collapse of the water supply. A major city without water cannot survive 48 hours – maybe less. Think Hong Kong World War II.
I have not read the article but I did read somewhere recently that generating plants that use coal and nuclear are being asset sweated with no re-investment which means in the future they won’t be available also when and how electricity is consumed is changing and how it is billed is changing. The question arises do the people who regulate electricity generation know what they are doing? The regulators do seem to be aware of the issues but are not necessarily prepared to act for fear of upsetting the political consensus driven by the Green blob. It looks like we must encounter a crisis before the Green blob can be over ruled and when it does come it will take years to work through.
Oh I miss Griff so much;)
Timo V
When I asked where he was these days someone suggested he was gradually defecting to our dark side so is resisting any further temptation. Mind you, we still have Ivanksman with all the ultra reliable, scientifically sound, Guardian articles on his blog.
From the PDF: “communist opponents: Russia”
Lets just hope John’s understanding of energy policies is not 20 years behind reality.
There are no communists left in Russia. Fascinating.
Those ten startling acknowledgments should be sent to all energy ministers in all governments that mandate renewable energy targets. But the greenblob bureaucrats will ensure that the ministers remain ignorant of the scientific/engineering facts.
In October 2001 there was a great article in Scientific American (I know, I know) about the potential for disaster if a hurricane were to hit New Orleans. They nailed it. Illinois pension assets are 38% of their liabilities. Blame this kind of stuff on the baby boomers. Most educated generation. Most irresponsible generation. Full disclosure: I was born in 1953.
The good news is that the previous Chair of the NYPSC, Audrey Zibelman, is now the Chief Executive Officer of AEMO, Australia’s energy market operator. The Australian electricity grid is rapidly becoming third world thanks to the run-whenever-you-like generators destroying base load and based load generators with the consequence that high cost gas fuel is gradually displacing low cost coal fuel.
AEMO have forecast that the grid minimum demand in South Australia will be ZERO at times by 2024. Most of Australia is blessed with good sunlight and, if you force the price of grid power up enough, there is a point where making your own becomes economic. South Australia has already achieved that. The grid price is now so high that the Tesla/Samsung big battery could not be paid for from electricity sales but was funded by more State debt.
Zibelman will have left quite a trail by the time she has finished
Should the worst happen with a NY blackout causing widespread mayhem and countless deaths I can see a Neurenberg-style trial happening with some green bullies sent to the gallows.
If anyone needs Elon Musk’s phone number I have it.
He saved South Australia this Summer just gone with that fantastic Battery – or did he??
I think I sniffed some Diesel fumes at some stages.
Can’t wait for the truth to come out!!!!
It will be wrapped up in so much BS and spin, it wont be recognisable. If unpleasant it will be ignored.
I do not know the penetration of smart electrical meters in the US but in the UK we had one million installed last year alone.
As electricity users can choose a provider that ‘promises’ to supply only green energy, what could be done, to increase the virtue of these ‘green’ electrical users is to, via their ‘smart’ meter, shut down their supply once the supply of green energy is used up for that hour. At night they would only have wind energy to use, once that allocation has been sold to some users, the remainder are cut off till the sun comes up. After all, they did choose their supplier…..
It may educate them a little?
‘when insiders were interviewed about what happened,
they acknowledged that everyone-in-the-know knew that
the lending, etc. policies put in place (by lobbyists)
were guaranteed to fail.’
‘was entirely predictable based on the self-serving
unscientific energy policies put in place by lobbyists.’
What is this lobbyist schtick? GOVERNMENT did these
things.
Lobbyists are a reaction to excess government power.
They are not a cause. Get government to stop meddling
in energy production, and the lobbyists will disappear.
An excellent power system reliability report by the National Energy Technology Laboratory describes the grid performance under stress:
From December 27, 2017, to January 8, 2018, a cold weather event—known as the “Bomb Cyclone” (hereinafter “BC”)—stressed the reliability of the affected areas, particularly the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast. During this event, the Department of Energy asked NETL to assist in monitoring events in a five-ISO area. Periods of high electricity demand, for example January 4-6, accounted for three of the top ten winter demand days in PJM Interconnection’s (PJM) history. Coal and nuclear generation, traditionally considered baseloadb, produced nearly three-fifths of the output at peak across the 5-independent system operator (ISO) footprint over the 12-day period starting December 28, 2017 (Exhibit 1-1). Prices and natural gas-fired generation output remained relatively flat in Midcontinent ISO (MISO) and Southwest Power Pool (SPP) due to plentiful gas supply, but in eastern PJM, ISO New England (ISO-NE), and New York ISO (NYISO), gas and electric transmission were severely constrained, leading to all-time high gas prices in New York and elevated natural gas and electricity prices across each region.
Some points from the study:
– Wind dropped from 6% to 3 % during the bomb cyclone
– Natural gas prices on the spot market went up by as much as 700%
– New England utilities were forced to use millions of barrels of imported oil since there weren’t any pipelines to carry natural gas from Pennsylvania and West Virginia
– Many of the caseload plants (coal and nuclear) are scheduled to be decommissioned in the near future.
A grid failure of major proportions is brewing.
From the article “. . . The ONLY solution is to change our energy policies to be Science-based . . . ” No No No there is no science involved its engineering so lets correct the statement to “. . . The ONLY solution is to change our energy policies to be sound-engineering-based . . . “.
It is very galling to constantly see the MSM/progressives conflate science and engineering, where it is just plain engineering.
Just because NYISO is incompetent that doesn’t mean wind cannot be integrated into a system well. Case in point (once again) ERCOT which has dramatically more wind than NY, does not have the ability to import hydro from Canada to balance it, has abundant natural gas resources (just like NY), has recently spent massively on infrastructure (just like NY), and has low electricity prices (unlike NY).
Fine. Wind is crap and cannot provide sufficient power to ever make a difference in a grid. Go ahead then and shut down 18% of last year’s generation for ERCOT.
A couple of observations from someone that has been in the industry his whole career. The use of gas to supplement the wind is limited. Gas is not the only fuel available, but it is currently the good guy fuel. The infrastructure to transfer massive amounts of natural gas to remote locations is lacking and therefore gas will eventually become more scarce. Since coal and nuclear plants are being shut down daily that source of power is being reduced.
You cannot store natural gas at each power plant. It is on demand fuel you use it as it is delivered.. If there is an extremely cold winter in New England and the demand for gas for home heating increases dramatically the natural gas going to power plants will be decreased and that power source will be limited. Next power source after you have gotten rid of the evil fossil fuel burning power plants, your gas powered generator.
In this scenario the price of natural gas will spike and the people seeing their higher power and heating bills will complain and rebel. The government officials will move in and demand price controls of natural gas.
How much will they demand in reparations from the Federal budget? They certainly did a coordinated pulic relations con job with “Superstorm Sandy” so they know how to tap marketing skills. It helped to have open checkbook Obama in office for that episode.
A Carbon Tax is their singular political goal regardless of intrinsic need. It drives them every day in all statements and affiliations. It should be obvious by now.
ConEdison put out an RFP in December for technologies to reduce demand or provide ‘renewable’ natural gas, due to the lack of gas pipeline capacity. ConEdison will finish its review of the proposals by the end of May. I am fairly certain that harvesting sewage treatment plant digester gas is one of the options that was presented to Con Edison.
Link to the ConEdison RFP (pdf file):
https://www.coned.com/-/media/files/coned/documents/business-partners/business-opportunities/non-pipes/non-pipeline-solutions-rfp.pdf
Does that mean NY will stop exporting its garbage and sewage? promise?
NYC plans to have ‘zero landfill’ by 2030. The details if the plan is pure enviro-fantasy.
“several years from now there will be experts commenting on how the US energy grid failure (which will lead to a collapse of our economy, and our national security, and our society), was entirely predictable based on the self-serving unscientific energy policies put in place by lobbyists.”
Too optimistic. Look at Venezuela — they never admit any mistakes, they just find a politically convenient scapegoat. They’ll double down on carbon taxes and lawsuits against energy producers.
Last one out, please turn off the lights.
Will there be any lights left to turn off?
Someone needs to tell Moody’s that they are wearing blinders on the issue of cost shifting and deferred grid impact.
https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-municipals-windfarms/wind-farms-boost-tax-base-for-local-us-governments-moodys-idUSL1N1SE0WH
It continues to amaze that no one in this country has seemed to learn anything at all from the German wind and solar energy program — which has been labeled a DISASTER in their newspapers due to its grid unreliability and very high cost electricity.
I have found it nearly impossible to explain it to people. Their minds slam shut. The belief is “green power” is based on a fanatical religious belief instead of on logic.
Griff informed us that it doesn’t matter how much German electricity costs, since the German people have learned not to use much of it. (Actually, they don’t use much because they can’t afford it, but this is all about putting the best marketing forward.)
Maybe it’s time to order that whole-house generator and extra LP tank.
Many people already have them.
I recall a report a couple years ago that only 17 substations needed to fail to take out the entire national grid.
What would be the impact nationally, or even just to the East coast, of a statewide grid failure in New York?
If the safeguards and/or contingencies don’t operate properly, it could cascade to a much larger area, as it has several times in the past.
New York should reap what it sows……
Now how the hell are the New Yorkers going to plug in all those electric cars for recharging?
Just thinking (or perhaps not), how much energy actually gets from the solar/wind devices to the storage batteries then out to the homes and into the car batteries?
A week ago in Holland there was a serious power outage looming:
This was on teletext:
http://3by4.nl/green.jpg
Short translation:
“Tennet (national electricity provider) today bought hundreds of extra megawatts abroad as a huge shortage of electricity was looming, because of peak electricity use, gray weather, and hardly any wind – so no green energy.
09:00 an emergency call went out (…) at 11:30 the emergency reserves w
sorry text translation incomplete, it should read:
Short translation:
“Tennet (national electricity provider) today bought hundreds of extra megawatts abroad as a huge shortage of electricity was looming, because of peak electricity use, gray weather, and hardly any wind – so no green energy.
09:00 an emergency call went out (…) at 11:30 the emergency reserves were depleted, so a lot of extra electricity had to be bought abroad. This succeeded around 15:30.”
This is the path South Australia had already taken resulting in very high power cost and unreliabalitye. The true lesson is not that this will increase costs and reliability for NY but that the advocates wont learn and keep doubling down and weak government go along with it.. South Australia moved to 50% renewables and had serious blackouts so for $100mill they build a battery bank that holds power for only about 10 minutes. Businesses have moved away because of the high costs. The federal governments response is to expand the rot to the rest of eastern Australia and close more coal plants.
No one in government is willing to say the emperor has no clothes no matter how expensive or unreliable it becomes. NY will be the same.
#ExxonKnew
Oh wait, maybe this isn’t the right place to say that…;)
/sarc
See? There ARE man-made disasters out there.