Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Here in the United California Socialist Republic, we have an insane bunch of laws about electricity. Number one among them is a “Renewables Mandate” that requires the local utility, Pacific Gas and Electric (PGE) to purchase a huge amount of expensive, unreliable solar, wind, and other renewable energy. So of course, our electricity price increases have far outstripped those of our more sane neighboring states.
(As a side note, under California law large hydroelectric dams are NOT counted as “renewable” under the Mandate … why not? Because if they counted hydro we’d already have met the Mandate … but I digress …)
And what to we get for this investment in expensive generation schemes?
Unreliable energy. Yesterday at about 6:30 PM, they shut off the power to our entire neighborhood for three hours. Of course the public claim was that the hot weather just made it so the poor system couldn’t keep up, darn it, so we’re sorry but rolling blackouts are the new normal starting now … just kidding, they started before the announcement.
I assure you I was as surprised as our neighbors … started my little 2KVA Honda generator, strung out the extension cords, and got back to my life. Although I must confess, I did say some bad words, and I fear that I stated both clearly and loudly that the people in charge of this goatrope could go engage in anatomically improbable sexual congress with themselves and the horse they rode in on …
But this morning, I had a more sober thought, one I should have had the night before, one you might have already had, which was …
… if this pinche rolling blackout is because of the heat, why didn’t it start until after six PM, well past the heat of the day?
My next thought was, “It’s those cabrones with their abysmal renewable energy.” So I set out to see if it’s true.
In California, all of this is handled by something called “CAISO”, the California Independent Systems Operator. Here’s their graph of yesterday’s renewables generation, from the CAISO site:
Figure 1. Total generation by each type of renewables in California, August 14, 2020.
As you can see, the total of geothermal, biomass, biogas, small hydro, and wind is sweet Fanny Adams … and now, notice when the solar started to run out in the evening. Just about the time that our power went out.
But as we know, correlation is not causation. So here’s the other relevant CAISO chart, showing the net demand with and without renewables …
Figure 2. Net demand for electricity in California, split out by the type of generation of the electricity
Gotta laugh about the fine print where they brag about how they “maintain reliability while maximizing clean energy sources” …
Anyhow, there you have it. Here’s the bottom line.
If you add ten gigawatts of solar energy to your grid as shown in Figure 2 above, you perforce, must, need to, have to, add ten gigawatts of conventional fossil energy to cover times like yesterday when renewables simply don’t cut it …
And it is the ignoring of that fact above all that allows people to claim that renewables are ready for the market. They are absolutely not ready without huge ongoing subsidies and full fossil backup, and in the end, they are simply not up to the job.
ALL of this is the total and complete fault of the Democrats who have run this state since forever … too bad. When I was a kid it was a great place to live.
VOTE! The only solution to this nonsense is to throw them out on their ear. It’s not going to fix itself. Here’s today’s story.
Hot again today … not looking forward to the evening …
w.
PS—Again I ask, when you comment please quote the exact words you are discussing. This avoids all kinds of misunderstandings.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Viva Calizuela!
True, Jorge. You know how people say “Don’t do as we say, do as we do”?
For California, you don’t want to do either one. Big mistake. Do NOT be like us.
w.
voting does not work. here in Australia we have a similar system of renewable energy requirements for power companies (they are forced to buy LGC or large scale generation ceritificates which are blocks of renewable energy) and our price has been artificially high because of it, though you wouldnt know it by the news media who constantly plug the “our prices will reduce because of renewables”. lies.
anyhow, we voted out every politician that mentioned a carbon tax, we voted in anyone that opposed such a thing, yet here we are, in the background this all chugs along and the average voters are none the wiser. none of our leaders have the balls to tell people the truth because of once again the news media.. they rule this country.
“we voted out every politician that mentioned a carbon tax”
IIRC, Malcolm Turnbull didn’t get voted out – he got rolled by his party.
(And should have happened much, much earlier)
the choice was gone by the time turnbull come in. even abbott agreed to the paris con trying to suck up to the media, but where did that get him? he thought it would be bad for his image following the so called minority, which are not the minority by a long shot. this is the way the media control things.. make themselves seem to be the majority, when in fact their views are more often than not just based on leftist claptrap, most likes, most views etc.
You need a Trump. My guess is that, when the people get sufficiently fed up, you’ll get one.
In Canada, the Conservatives let down the west. The result was the Reform Party. It ended up subsuming the old Progressive Conservative party.
When the party elites think they run the show, the people often find a way to show them they’re wrong.
And now the Conservative party is turning itself into the same old Progressive Conservative party reborn.
Trump is far from being a conservative. He is, however, very practical.
Screenshotted your comment to send to lefty relatives who know nothing of this and genuinely think RE is cheaper than fossil fuels. Applies to U.K./Europe too.
Willis, you live in the USA. You could go live in any state. Why do you put up with it? The oldest truest statements are if “elections made any difference they would be banned”, and “vote with your feet.”
Wilis,
You are living in a paradise on earth .
Come over to Germany where the police work for the politicians and the time date is pre 1939 the world’s most expensive energy
Yeah. I remember a couple years ago your nuke energy being shut down. I wonder how much of the overpricing comes from that nuke shutdown.
Light a candle Eschenbach and enjoy the natural light.
Go for a three hour ride in your air conditioned car.
You have it too good — renewable energy requires some suffering.
Don’t you care about our planet and the children?
Well I do and I will never complain about blackouts in California.
Of course I live in Michigan.
I’m surprised your state did not blame Trump or COVID.
The real cause is the well known fact that living in California causes the IQ to drop one point per year.
So write lots of good articles while you can
Eschenbach … or get out of there.
I fear you are correct…I’ve lived in California for so long, I’ve gone from smarter than the average bear to a complete loon. Will the effects reverse if I leave the state?
Bill O.
My family grew up in NY and all moved to CA except me, moving to Michigan.
Most of them eventually moved out of California but the effects of living there seem to be permanent.
I used to visit CA often in the 1990s until the street beggars in Sausalito made that town unfriendly. It must be much worse now along with San Francisco. I wouldn’t go there today if you gave me a free airline ticket.
“VOTE! The only solution to this nonsense is to throw them out on their ear. It’s not going to fix itself. Here’s today’s story.”
Love your work Willis, but this line drove me over the edge to seek refuge in H L Menken quotes:
” The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.”
” Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”
” Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people.”
” People do not expect to find chastity in a whorehouse. Why, then, do they expect to find honesty and humanity in government, a congeries of institutions whose modus operandi consists of lying, cheating, stealing, and if need be, murdering those who resist?”
” The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
” Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”
H. L. Mencken
Stay safe. No Fear.
Possible typo: “throw them out on their ear.” Shouldn’t that be “asses”, plural?
My day is made whenever I see invocation of the incomparable Mencken.
Willis, I’m doing my best to work up a lather over your situation, but I keep getting mesmerized by visions of “anatomically improbable sexual congress with themselves and the horse they rode in on …”
Your advice to NOT be like Kali is well taken. Would that all your fellow residents would follow it.
Dan Hawkins August 16, 2020 at 10:49 am
Glad you enjoyed that particular bit of wordsmithery. I spent some time hammering it into its final shape, so it’s always wonderful when someone notices.
Regards,
w.
And it’s always noticed, sir. Keep hammering.
CAISO has been complaining for years about the “duck neck” curve, but never in clear enough language for the elected politicians to get the message that this cannot be made to work.
Quelle surprise! In 2002 Dr Sallie Baliunas, Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian, Dr Tim Patterson, Paleoclimatologist, Carleton U and Allan MacRae TOLD YOU SO 18 YEARS AGO:
friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
1. “Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
See Michael Shellenberger’s 2020 confession “On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare”. quillette.com/2020/06/30/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/
2. “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.”
See Michael Moore’s 2020 film “Planet of the Humans”. youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE
The green objective is to destroy prosperity and move the USA into a planned economy – with a few rich at the top looking down on the many poor peasants. That model now describes most of the countries in the world. Europe and Canada are far down that “road to Venezuela”, and the USA will follow if Biden and the Demo-Marxists are elected.
Sadly yes, it was never about the environment, but rather about a method to bring about world socialist/communist utopia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-cdE729ONc
“THIS is how world elites plan to force National Socialism on PRIVATE BUSINESSES”
Beck may be regarded poorly by some, but his track record of predictions based on his digging is impressive – he predicted most of what is going on right now, a decade ago….
Ironically, the powers that want to bring about this nightmare model it after Brave New World, seeing that cautionary tale as a blueprint, not a warning!
Excellent video by Glenn Beck – everyone should watch it.
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogaug20/collapse-unavoidable8-20.html
It may be too late. They may have already run out of “Other Peoples Money”.
Socialists believe that enlightened bureaucrats, who could not run a lemonade stand, can micro-manage the world’s economy. Restarting the economy after the pandemic is not going to be easy.
What makes you think they have any desire to re-start the economy?
Blackout Length Matters….
“But this morning” . . .
Don’t leave us hanging now, be like Paul. What’s the rest of the story?
The oddly named “net demand” graph is interesting. It validates a remark I made on the other thread about cloud being a problem. The real problem is thermal inertia. Land and buildings store heat, so the need for A/C does not go down as soon as the sun does.
The best that solar does is reduces the amount of reliable energy consumed, but you still need the generation capacity.
Greg,
It’s indeed an interesting graph, i think the problem is a bit more subtle though. To me it demonstrates that if your ramp-up speed is less then the ‘fall-off’ speed (how fast the solar generation reduces) you will have blackouts no matter how much generating capacity you have on standby. Averages and endpoints won’t help with this.
I wonder how many peaker plants are needed to catch these daily swings?
Oh and btw, if the law states that you are required to have sufficient ‘reserve’ available cutting off peoples power does not remedy that as the demand is still there, someone should sue over this.
All the best,
Willem
http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx
You can look here. BTW, this data is accurate. It does not get Karled.
The I in CAISO is “Independent”. Since they use this data to settle contracts they would be sued if it was false. They would also get sanctioned by FERC.
I thought it was the People’s Republic of California, PRCa.
More like the Banana Republic of California and why I consider myself a California climate policy refugee where I pay less per KWH than the PGE green surcharge, less than half the cost per therm for natural gas
and more than $1 per gallon less for gasoline. No state income tax here either and the best parts of California are just minutes away.
DPRK: Democratic People’s Republic of Kalifornia.
So we californicators can have renewable energy (as a pearl of great price) at unreliable times make some contribution to meeting electrical demand as an additional source to reliable standard fossil fueled and hydroelectric generation. What could be a problem in that plan?
What could be a problem in that plan?
Economy? Expensive energy replacing cheap one?
Yes…
And ask the bigger questions. Do the green schemes reduce CO2 emissions? They just move the emissions around.
The money wasted on the green schemes is not a joke. Big increase in electrical prices.
What real, tangible benefits are there from installing the green stuff?
Planet of the Humans
https://www.bitchute.com/video/KQnVEMOOYuJd/
The green schemes’ care bear fake analysis, does not include the energy cost and CO2 cost for the new power lines, substations, power conversion stations, pipelines, and out of state power plants that feed the mess.
Nor do they include the loss of energy to ship gas and transmit electric power, thousands of miles (around 35% of the energy supplied for both long distant natural gas pipelines and long distance electrical power systems with system to system connections/multiple power conversions).
The green schemes do not work if all costs, all energy losts, and so are taking into account. Fake engineering calculations is pathetic.
Obviously to anyone, the green schemes have absolutely failed.
The green schemes are damaging the environment…. and the green schemes cannot fix or change, climate change.
If we were concerned about the environment we would installed combined cycle natural gas plants and liquid fuel nuclear reactors. Lowest possible CO2 emissions, if that made a difference which it does not.
CAGW is a fake problem with a fake solution, that is impossibly expensive.
So you would think when a country is fighting for its existence, we could make the CAGW problem go away.
Sorry dude, but you have no vote in the CSSR. Your vote was diluted many times over with 3rd world immigrants 30 years ago. And with that, you’ve been gerrymandered to a one party system. So vote, don’t vote. It makes no difference.
Mark,
Do only white votes count? Or only the votes of people born in the USA. Legal Immigrants are citizens and are as entitled to vote as anyone not matter what country they came from originally.
Not really, a legal immigrant must first become a citizen.
The CaliRedUniParty is fond of vote harvesting these days, they made it legal to keep Das Machina running.
Izaak you need to do the work. Black people are citizens too. Shame on you.
No, legal immigrants are not citizens.
Izaak, you didn’t understand what Mark said.
The troll immediately jumps to the conclusion that the original poster is a racist. How socialist of you.
Hi Mark,
Find a non-racist interpretation of “diluted many times over by 3rd world immigrants”?
Only racist here is you Izaak.
You see racism anywhere you choose to, because it is part of being a leftist/socialist.
It is of course R A C I S T ! ! !
to say that people should not be allowed to violate our immigration laws.
Every future Democrat voter must be welcomed and provided with free healthcare. Give them a drivers license and admonish them that wink wink nudge nudge, even though they could use it to vote, that would be a technical ahem violation.
You’re a real piece of work Izaak, bless your little heart.
As always, the socialist is not only a racist, he assumes everyone else is as well.
Rich, the sad thing is that Izaak not only can’t see his own racism, but like most other socialists, assumes that he is pure as the driven snow.
Izzak, you seem to believe that only non-whites can create a third-world country. Not only is your comment a display of ignorance, but the most racist comment I have ever seen on this site.
In reply to:
Izaak Walton’s
“Do ….. votes count?” Great question. Will voting save our country? Save our country from what?
Translation: Do elections matter? Democracy 101.
What happens when a party fails/rots/socializes/anti-American/too many special interest groups/stuff that absolute does not work like defund the police and fight over statues/green scams, in the democratic system?
Isaac,
You have so many great questions. You are the first Left wing thinker.
What does it ‘mean’ when a party (in the US there are two ‘parties’) pushes a candidate who is a walking sad example of dementia?
Biden has had two strokes, the last this year on camera and his word choice or lack of conceptual understanding that is evident in his word choice..
… is unequivocal evidence that Biden would fail a simple cognitive test. Which explains why Biden refuses to take a cognitive test.
In the old Soviet Union, when there were too many fractions and no strong candidate,….
… the fractions who pulled the strings, would pick a brain dead stand-up man, to head up the Soviet Union. Someone with failing health….
Biden brags he is too politically savvy to take a cognitive test.
https://news.yahoo.com/biden-asks-reporter-hes-junkie-155458897.html
When asked for a response to Donald Trump, who has bragged about passing a cognitive test and made Mr Biden’s mental state an issue for voters, the former vice president dismissed the question as trying to provoke a reaction.
“No, I haven’t taken a test. Why the hell would I take a test?” Come on, man. That’s like saying you, before you got on this program, you take a test where you’re taking cocaine or not. What do you think? Huh? Are you a junkie?,” Mr Biden said.
When asked for a response to Donald Trump, who has bragged about passing a cognitive test and made Mr Biden’s mental state an issue for voters, the former vice president dismissed the question as trying to provoke a reaction.
“Well, if he can’t figure out the difference between an elephant and a lion, I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. Did you watch that — look, come on, man,” he said, in reference to Mr Trump’s cognitive test discussed during an interview with Fox News.
“I know you’re trying to goad me, but I mean . . . I’m so forward-looking to have an opportunity to sit with the President or stand with the President and the debates.”
Any politician who robs Peter to pay three Pauls can rely on the support of the Pauls.
Do yourself a favor & vote with your feet Willis. Walk away from that NUTHOUSE. A lot of sane places still left here in the States.
And you don’t even have to go that far. I relocated to Nevada and couldn’t be happier about it.
Yes, but I wonder how long Nevada will last before it gets Californicated. It’s already happened to Colorado, parts of Texas and Idaho, etc. I never could understand why the Californians, when they migrate, soon turn their destination into what they left.
Many people from a failed area do the same thing. They simply refuse to believe that the failures stem from their culture and beliefs, not the land they are fleeing.
Some here do complain about the loony left Californians invading, including me. None the less, I see more signs and bumper stickers supporting Trump then Biden and best of all, the roads aren’t clogged by virtue signalers in their Prius plastered with Biden bumper stickers and Hellary stickers they never removed from 2016.
We do have a Democratic Governor and 2 Democratic Senators and they all need to go, especially the governor who had the unmitigated gall to override the judgment of physicians and patients by issuing a policy that hydrochloroquine couldn’t be prescribed for China virus patients.
I can only hope that when people move out of the Progressive Socialist bubble, they will start to realize that the hardships imposed on them by California’s Socialist leadership are completely unnecessary and counterproductive, the most obvious of which are excessively high energy costs and an exorbitant state tax.
Love to but not possible for a host of reasons …
w.
Taxes and costs are no high that no one can save enough money to be able to afford to move.
Even Elon Musk, who never met a government subsidy he did not like, has had enough of California and is building Tesla’s new plant in Texas.
Power outages are the least of California’s problems. State and Local government can only function with the economy running at full capacity (and growing). Many businesses, restaurants in particlar can not function running at 50% or even 75% capacity. Tax revenue is going to stay down.
I was reading an article yesterday about a large number of wealthy people who have become fed up with the drop in the quality of life they have experienced over the last few decades. They no longer feel safe, and are leaving.
…so they will move to a Republican state… and vote democrat. Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Those proclaiming themselves as liberals don’t know the meaning of the word based on their promotion of policies that are as anti-liberty as possible. Liberalism isn’t the disease. The oxymoron called Progressive Socialism is what infected the Democratic party and was passed on to many of its voters whose logical defenses were deceived into believing that Progressive Socialism is a Liberal ideology.
The media is largely responsible for poisoning minds with the Marxist fantasy of Progressive Socialism. Much of its recent success has been the benefit of their relentless campaign of prejudicial hate against Trump for no other reason than because he’s not a Democrat.
As you noted, every gigawatt of intermittent power needs a gigawatt of conventional back-up, so then the value of that intermittent power is at most the avoided cost of fuel for the back-up system.
Not true, hence the blackouts.
It’s a pity this does not affect only those who wish to use (or not use in this case) renewable power.
(Written from renewable-plagued South Australia)
Yes, intermittent power does need back-up. It doesn’t always get it; hence the blackouts.
Paul Johnson
August 15, 2020 at 9:03 pm
Let me share a thought here, Paul.
As it seems the main problem is the lack of main base load of energy consumption not secured in Cal.
In technicality of solar power in the grid,
it does not make any diference.
It still consist as the Cal grid not being able to support the peek hour demand,
simply as it has no secured energy from the production, for peek hour.
It is a peek hour problem, regardless of solar.
Less energy and higher cost energy from importing.
Can’t have enough energy imported from other States, or the interstate connection.
The solar, wind and small hydro simply have created the situation of very high energy cost leading to very bad management of energy security for the Red Rep. of Cal.
That is what happens in the case of centralized dictation over economy, trade and energy.
How much this silly expensive duds produce or not at any given time is completely irrelevant to the grid, as such as simply parasitic at any point in time.
In case of solar more so during the day light peek.
Either the solar there, or not, it does not much matter.
What matters is that when the peek hour comes, no enough energy there.
If Cal can not afford to supply at the peek demand, either because it is very costly,
or because there is not even enough from the import at that, to support the Cal demand,
then a controlled black out will happen, and issued accordingly,
usually some thing that is every day normal in third world countries.
Lack of proper energy security means very high and ever increasing energy cost,
very high risk for grid management, in technical, financial and economical terms.
If you can’t afford it, for whatever reason, you make cuts here and there,
or else others will cut it for you from the main “source”.
California literally seems not able or capable to pay the full electricity bill.
Very very poor… and sad.
cheers
There’s not much avoided fuel cost. The back-up system has to be kept on hot stand-by so that it can kick in when needed.
“There’s not much avoided fuel cost. The back-up system has to be kept on hot stand-by so that it can kick in when needed.”
But, if a big battery can cut in and when needed for 15 minutes or so, wouldn’t the back-up system be able to get going from a cold start? Thereby saving fuel costs.
Why have three systems when one could cover all eventualities?
Because that way crony capitalists can suck down lots of taxpayer- and ratepayer-funded subsidies. Then in turn the cronies kick back some of the money that they legally stole from us back to the scumbag politicians who keep the scam in place. The scumbag politicians at the same time buy as many non-productive voters as they can to ensure that the productive citizens remain enslaved to their system.
Having just one reliable system would not provide any of those vital benefits.
Indeed Ben but even better word your comment “Why have three systems when one which actually works could cover all eventualities?
I am still amazed that these loony solar and wind systems get installed with subsidies by the economically illiterate of the left and that the fools don’t seem to understand the results of their actions when the blackouts hit.
DING DING DING!! We have a winner.
No need to waste resources on stupendously useless and unsustainable “renewables” and “batteries” when fossil fuels and nuclear can do the job better by themselves.
stewartpid, I think you underestimate them. Many of then do understand the results of their actions and just don’t care. They’re not doing it for the good of the people or the good of the planet, they’re doing it for the good of themselves. They’re in it for the money/power pure and simple.
It takes hours to start from a cold start.
Regardless, enough batteries to power the region for 15 minutes would cost even more than the wind mills and solar panels.
And when would you charge the batteries? I could never figure that one out.
Timo, with unreliables, just as there are times when they don’t produce enough power there are also times when they actually produce too much power (IE more than is needed). Those times would be when the hypothetical batteries could be charged. Not that it matters, as MarkW points out you’d need a lot more than 15 minutes of power, and the cost of the batteries to power the region just for 15 minutes would be prohibitively expensive, let alone for the actually amount of time that would be needed.
Apples and Oranges, but yes it’s all fruit: backup power is a lot more expensive than standard baseload power. Baseload is designed to be on all the time, so it’s designed to be efficient and cheap like a modern clean coal plant or the natural gas plants with the extra stages to get more energy out of every m3 than ever before – but they take forever to warm up and get up to speed. Backup and peaking plants are smaller and have less ‘thermal inertia’, so to speak, they are designed to produce power right away, and it ends up being much more expensive and wasteful, turning on and off according to how the winds blow.
Would probably be cheaper to build proper baseload power plants for all the power requirements, and just run the renewable energy through a big resistor. People would have reliable electricity and the political whores could subsidize their donors, without the expense and stress of dealing with blackouts.
PCman999-
Your comment “just run the renewable energy through a big resistor.” is a brilliant idea! Use the heat from the resistors to preheat the water going into the boiler of the coal or NG power plant. This method has been used in boilers since, like, forever. The devise used is called an “economizer.” An economizer uses the waste heat in the boiler exhaust stack to preheat the feed water going into the boiler.
So don’t put the electricity generated from solar or wind into the grid, Use it to provide heat to a boiler economizer. The variation in output from wind or solar is then directly made up for by changes in the amount of fuel to the boiler.
In actuality of course the wind and solar would be feed into the grid, and the economizer powered from the grid. Yes, lots of transmission losses. But still lots cheaper than trying to store the electricity in a battery.
” Yesterday at about 6:30 PM, they shut off the power to our entire neighborhood for three hours.”
A news item dated August 14 from KRON TV (San Francisco) declared that “The power will be turned off in rotating blocks until about 11 p.m. Power could be out for about one hour for each block.”
Is this two-hour time difference CAISO’s misinformation, or KRON’s?
That’s a big difference. A one-hour blackout just stops almost all productive work for an hour. That’s bad enough. But three hours starts to threaten the food in your refrigerator and freezer.
If you anticipate more blackouts, it can help to:
1. Set the freezer temperature to its coldest temperature. (Sure, that’ll use slightly more electricity, but it’s probably a lot cheaper than having to discard your food.)
2. Maximize the thermal mass in your refrigerator and freezer. Jugs of water and freezer gel packs both work for that.
Air space warms quickly, solids and liquids warm much more slowly, so keep your refrigerator and freezer full of something, even if it is just jugs of water.
In the freezer, gel packs are probably slightly better than water jugs, not because they absorb more heat (they don’t), but because they’re formulated with lower freezing/melting points, so, if you freeze them solid, as they warm their latent heat absorption will occur below 0°C, which helps to keep things in the freezer from melting.
3. Keep enough essentials (beverages, snacks, medications) outside of the refrigerator so that you won’t need to open it during the power outage. Then, when the power is out, make sure that you do NOT open it. (You could stick a yardstick through the refrigerator door handles, to remind yourself to not open it.)
Re freezers: we keep freezers at -20C. The reason is that we could do enzyme chemistry on tissues kept below -20 literally for years without loss of activity. To keep food preserved, you need to keep enzymes inactivated – that is what produces loss of quality. You also have to ensure that anything with fat in it is protected with enough plastic that it cannot oxidize, and anything with water in it from drying.
A decent modern freezer should not drop more than 1 degree an hour, so 3 hours is not great, but not a disaster. If your freezer warms faster than that, get a new one.
Since the information is provided by some autonomous organization it begs the question where, how do the include or account for the large amount of home owned solar panels and include it into this data? Or do they just ignore it and rely on their load? Does CA require home owned panels to transmit usage data ot the power providers? From what I have read I recall that there is at least 25,000 mw or 25 GW. That is twenty nuclear power plants. I recall that when I lived in Sacramento, that when the sun dropped below the mountains, it was like someone had shut off the lights. Losing 25 GW in a short period of time is a Large number of fossil plants to get up and running in less than a half hour. These would need to be started up and ready to take load rather quickly and DAILY. That is very wasteful of the fossil fuel and greatly increases maintenance on the plant. Heat up and cool downs cause work hardening of steam systems, and early failure, Very similar to bending a paper-clip back and forth. And thousands of miles of transmission lines for “renewable” power for renewable power sake is another disaster waiting to happen, just like “Camp Fire.” There will be another and another.
I’m guessing that if it shows up at all, it would probably show up as reduced demand.
I had the same question as you guys. It’s not clear to me that they can measure solar generated power “beyond the meter”. Do they estimate it? Ignore it?
Ed Bo – here in Oz the energy management organisation (AEMO) displays similar stats, and as they do not/cannot get data on domestic solar generation, they calculate it as the difference between network total supply (other than household PV) and total demand. You could do the same.
“Since the information is provided by some autonomous organization it begs the question”
The way you’re using it, should be “raises the question”. Begging the question is something else.
I’ve given up on “begs the question”.
The new meaning seems more useful than the original, to be fair.
“Decimate” is another that I’ve let go.
But I’ll never compromise on “Should of done”!
And “zoology”, should be pronounced “zoe – ology”, not “Zoo – ology” (It’s the ology of zo”)
I’ll get my coat! 🙂
It’s only something else in formal usage. Language changes (I know, that’s a concept you have a hard time grasping), and the formal use of the phrase has long since gone out of fashion and the way he used it is much more common. Grammer Nazi him all you want, that won’t change the way the phase is used in modern times.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Thank you, Mr. Eschenbach.
Although it will be ignored, I have asked NPR to correct their report on this incident and amend it to mention the fact that the California ISO specifically attributed the shortage of electricity to the inability of the state’s solar electricity generators to produce power due to clouds and darkness.
As incredible as it may sound, NPR somehow failed to mention that inconvenient fact in it report (oops, I meant propaganda piece) on the rolling blackouts.
From the Associated Press report (oops, I meant propaganda piece) which tries very hard to imply that the rolling blackouts are the result of (you guessed it) “climate change.”
“…A power outage caused a pump to fail at a wastewater treatment plant in Oakland, resulting in a sewer backup and the release of some 50,000 gallons of raw sewage into a waterway, the East Bay Municipal Utility District said.
The district said the outage began around 5 p.m. Friday, more than an hour before the rolling outages occurred, and sewage began to spill early Saturday. The agency said the sudden outage affected its ability to connect to backup power at the plant and during that time, workers were dealing with flooding while trying to restore power…”
“A power outage caused a pump to fail” – the pump ‘stopped’ due to lack of power, it did not fail.
How does an outage of primary power stop the connection of backup power as a mains outage is what backup power is there for?
It would be poor engineering if backup power relies on mains power to enable the change-over.
Keep in mind that current household roof solar installations are not independent from the grid. They are synchronized to the grid and will shut down if the grid power is down. That is simply because they are not capable of or designed to maintain voltage and frequency on an isolated grid segment. They also do not supply power to the house when the local grid is down.
I thought with grid-linked solar panels the system shuts down to prevent the back-flow of current into the grid so as to protect utility workers. To have solar power independent of the grid you need to be ‘off the grid’ and back-up batteries. Whole different kind of set up.
Wamba,
Yes that is true of course but that is a common sense safety issue. Providing backup power to an isolated distribution grid segment from home solar systems is not practical so no effort has been made to design that capability in those system. As you say, it is a whole different kind of setup.
If the backup unit is a diesel generator, there are probably regulations limiting when it can be started.
If it had not been started for a while, chances are that it would not start easily.
Oakland should check out those natural gas powered electricity generating things that automatically kick on when the grid stops sending reliable energy to them. /s/
Seriously, a well known manufacturer sells units in 70kW and 100kW flavors. One of those should do the trick.
A local company here in the UK suffered a power outage a few years ago on a Saturday so all their computer systems crashed.
Easy answer, start up the backup generator.
Their only problem was that no-one could remember how to start up the backup generator.
From then on the backup generator was started up once a month and run for an hour.
The director responsible for ensuring a reliable supply was sacked.
Is Oakland one of those cities that aren’t allowing new natural gas connections?
The CAISO site wouldn’t load – perhaps the power is out?
That would be a CAIS O bad planning.
It’s a cheesy site
I may have to block you after that one, sir.
🙂
Is this a new problem? CAISO Fresco???
The most galling impact of unreliable power generation systems is that they are just absolutely, definitely, 100% UNNECESSARY.
What happened to the backup power coming from surrounding states? Just curious.
I expect that the surrounding supplier states didn’t have any power to spare, as their own citizens had turned down the thermostat on their air conditioners during this regional dangerous heat wave.
Jim just before the black out hit my area I checked the pricing page at CASIO it said this-
08/14/2020
Hour: 18-19
Day ahead market below 15 minute market was at 1000,
WISE2_7_B1
TYPE: GEN
REGION: ISO
Locational Marginal Price (LMP)$878.76
PRICE BREAKDOWN
Congestion:
−$61.49
Energy:
$934.92
Losses:
We lost power for 3 hours during the rolling black out. We ran our generator for two of the hours. We are use to having unreliable power in the foothills. We went through 4 PSPS’s last fall. The generator got a good work out last year.
Are those prices $ per MWh wholesale? I.e., a price of “$880” is 88¢/kWh?
Whew! Here in NC, retail is about 11¢/kWh, so I imagine wholesale averages about half that.
Will be worse after COVID as business returns to normal.
Is Santa Barbara included in the rotating power cuts?
Asking for a new resident of the area…
🙂 VG.
Contestant 1: “Alex, I’ll take “Things Obama might have said” for $800.”
Alex: “NewSpeak to how renewable power affected California’s electric grid reliability.”
Contestant: “What is: “If you like your power black outs you can keep your power black outs.””
Alex: “correct response. Go again.”
Contestant 1: “Alex, I’ll take “Things Obama might have said” for $1,000.”
Alex: “Renewable electricity mandates resulted in this to Californian’s electric bills.”
Contest 1: “What is, “Under my plan electricity bills will necessarily skyrocket.”
Alex: “correct response. Go again.”
Apparently the People like getting lied to and paying more for it.
Keep voting “D” America. Keep voting “D” for more of this insanity.
Hey, are you even allowed to call it “black out” any more? ! 😉
I believe “Power outage of color” is the preferred phrase these days. 😉
Also remember the restrictions California utilities have with respect to moving power from one area to another. There have been no major transmission projects in some time (NIMBY moved to BANANA – Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Nor Anytime), in spite of increasing demand. Existing transmission systems, when operating at peak loads during summer have drooping wires due to resistance heating from the high loads, and can start fires, since right of ways are not allowed to be cleared of vegetation. The utilities are sued by aggressive lawyers, and can go bankrupt. Then utilities keep loads on lines below what used to be transmitted, adding restraints to the systems.
California’s gas fleet peaked in 2013 with just over 47,000 MW of gas capacity, but California has shed roughly 5,000 MW of gas capacity since then. Not to .mention a large nuke and the scheduled Diablo nuke decommissioning. Ain’t seen nothing yet.
Isn’t one of the troubles with California that they have allowed no new gas lines, or fraccing, so when the gas turbines run up, they are all sucking on the same small pipework system?
Hopefully they will locate the homes of all the government folks in Sacramento and rotate the blackouts for them to enjoy.
Probably more effective if they pick on Hollywood.
Nice write up. Most places demand is down due to COVID restrictions. Do you think the problem would be worse with typical conditions?
Willis:
Nice post about the reality of unreliable energy sources.
Another example from the EIA.org database from [IIRC] ~ Feb 2019 a cold snap in Minnesota where is was -15 degrees for days, and wind & solar electrical output was near zero for days.
The only thing that saves your powers-that-be is the delightful California climate which will
return in a few weeks so as to not make this energy cock-up quite so obvious. It was 110 today here in AZ.
btw What do you do to keep the Honda’s carb from getting gummed up from the
storage of gasoline?
You pay $4 to $5 per gallon for no-alchohol gas and it can be difficult to find. Agricultural areas may have some no-alcohol gas pumps.
Check with the local experimental small plane or flying club. They will have no ethanol gas sources. You can’t fly with ethanol gas.
Here in WI the EAA got it passed somehow that non-ethanol gas is readily available at any station.
https://calpilots.org/faa-warns-stc-holders-about-ethanol-in-auto-fuel/
There are fuel stabilizers for sale on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=gasoline+extendewr&i=automotive&ref=nb_SHE:_noss
In one of his YouTube videos, auto-repair expert Scotty Kilmer said that gasoline goes bad when it oxidizes. Therefore he recommended completely filling gas tanks to exclude oxygen.
I have a ridiculous amount of small engines.. Snowmobiles, boats, lawn mowers, tractors, weedeaters, snowblowers, chainsaws, generators, ATV, on and on. I also worked as a small engine mechanic for many years working my way through tech school and college. I have cleaned thousands of small engine carbs with rotten gas.
I have tried every major brand of gas stabilizer, with the most famous of them ending up the most disastrous. Right now my best formula is non-ethanol premium from a busy top tier station (Kwik-Trip or Shell are my preference). I add a product called Startron and I over treat a bit. So it has worked very well for me.
https://www.amazon.com/Star-Tron-Enzyme-Fuel-Treatment/dp/B001VMNHX8
Shucks, now I’m wondering if my cuz near Woodside has a genset available. He didn’t last time I visited, and it’s too forested (lovely redwoods!) for house-top solar or wind to work. There is “Windy Hill” though, only a few Km away…
eia.gov
There is a simple solution to the rolling blackouts, in a smart grid each consumer can be turned on or off remotely, register all those who vote Democrat or greens or in Australia Labor, greens and when electricity demand exceeds supply turn off those people. These are the people who voted for all this so called renewable energy, they should be the ones to suffer the consequences of their stupidity, the rest of us can get on with our lives.
At one time I heard of plan for government to remotely control your thermostat, so you would have no control of it in times near peak demand.
Ah yes, the “Smart Grid” – the newest way for the Eco-Nazis to control EVERYTHING.