From the Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York
In the last couple of years environmental advocates have vilified peaking power plants in their endless quest for zero risk to Environmental Justice (EJ) communities. There is no benign way to generate and distribute electricity so every option has drawbacks. I do not believe that the advocates understand that replacing a fossil-fired peaking power plant with their preference for “clean” energy and battery energy storage has risks that are potentially worse.
Everyone wants to do right by the environment to the extent that they can afford to and not be unduly burdened by the effects of environmental policies. This requires a pragmatic approach. The purpose of this blog is to describe the environmental tradeoffs associated with energy production and use in New York. I am motivated to write this article because I have been intimately involved with New York’s peaking power plants for a couple of decades. I believe the State’s policy appeasement of the environmental advocacy organizations is ill-founded and dangerous. The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.
Peaking Power Plants
Peaking power plants are used to balance generation and load. I recently described a paper that explains that electric load varies substantially: “Variations in demand profiles and the existence of demand peaks are caused by variation in weather, end-use technology stock, and, ultimately, consumer preferences and behavior”. Developing an electric system that reliably provides power for these demand peaks has always been part of the planning process for electric power systems. While on the face of it, for example as described in Wikipedia, the use of peaking power plants seems to be simple the reality is much different.
In 2020 the PEAK Coalition released a report entitled: “Dirty Energy, Big Money” that vilified peaking power plants in New York City. The PEAK coalition’s goal is to “come together to end the long-standing pollution burden from power plants on the city’s most climate-vulnerable people”. They claim their efforts are the first comprehensive effort in the US to reduce the negative and racially disproportionate health impacts of a city’s peaker plants by replacing them with renewable energy and storage solutions.
At the time I evaluated the technical analysis for the PEAK Coalition report by Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers (PSE) for Healthy Energy. I described my evaluation in three detailed technical posts. The first post provided information on the primary air quality problem associated with these facilities, the organizations behind the report, the State’s response to date, the underlying issue of environmental justice and addressed the motivation for the analysis. The second post addressed the rationale and feasibility of the Coalition’s proposed plan relative to environmental effects, affordability, and reliability. Finally, I discussed the Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers (PSE) for Healthy Energy report Opportunities for Replacing Peaker Plants with Energy Storage in New York State that provided technical information used by the PEAK Coalition. Because those were technically oriented and long, I also prepared a simpler summary post that addressed all my concerns.
I concluded that the claims that peaking power plants are dangers to neighboring environmental justice communities are based on emotion. In the evaluation I did of the PSE analysis and the PEAK Coalition report, I found that the alleged impacts of the existing peaking power plants over-estimates impact on local communities relative to other sources. The primary air quality health impacts claimed are associated with ozone and inhalable particulates that are secondary pollutants. While some inhalable particulates are emitted directly, most of the particulates and all of the ozone form after they are emitted and transported away from the disadvantaged communities peaking power plant closure is supposed to protect.
In my previous work I discussed feasibility challenges associated with the solar plus energy storage “solution” advocated by PSE and the PEAK Coalition. I believe that it will markedly increase costs significantly and it may not even work because solar and energy storage is not a proven technology on the scale necessary to provide New York City’s peaking power requirements. Until such time that the state’s organizations responsible for reliability confirm that those technologies are adequate it simply is not safe to rely on them. This post is going to address another pragmatic tradeoff – the relative potential environmental and health impacts of the so-called “zero-emissions” solar plus energy storage alternative.
New York Peaking Power Plant Environmental Policy
In order to address the peak load power requirements, New York utilities have relied on two types of generating resources: purpose-built units and existing but aging and inefficient units. The primary peaking power plant issue is in New York City where generating units are necessarily close to residential neighborhoods. Around 1970 Consolidated Edison of New York installed about 100 simple cycle combustion turbines to provide peaking power and also maintain reliability in specific regions of New York City and Long Island – known as load pockets. Load pockets represent transmission-constrained geographic areas where energy needs in that area can only be served by local generators, due to the inability to import energy over the transmission system during certain high-demand conditions. These units were cheap but not particularly efficient or clean. After de-regulation they were sold to several generating companies who considered replacement with efficient modern and clean units but despite the fact that permits to build replacements were approved no one ever built one. I believe this occurred because the developers did not think that they could recover the costs of building the replacements. I think that reflects the difficulty financing a facility that only operates infrequently.
However, the continued operation of the purpose built inefficient and dirty peaking turbines is coming to an end due to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) “Peaker Rule”. The rule sets new limits on nitrogen oxides emissions from simple-cycle combustion turbines in a phased implementation from 2023 to 2025 that effectively forces them to install controls or be retired. Importantly, the rule included an electric system reliability subpart that ensured that the units would not retire until replacement power was available as determined by the “New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), the local transmission/distribution owner, or the New York State Public Service Commission”. This rule sets a good precedent for how electric generating units should be retired due to environmental policy.
The other source of peaking generation is older units that are no longer efficient enough to compete for normal operations. New York State has quite a few large steam boilers that were designed to burn residual oil. Over time the cost differential between oil and gas has shifted such that residual oil is rarely a cost-effective fuel to burn. Consequently, those steam boilers run very little and survive primarily to provide peaking power support. In addition, New York City has specific reliability requirements for in-city generation that mean that despite their low operating times those large steam boilers are paid for their ability to provide that service. The reliability requirements also mean that any replacement options for these facilities also have to be located in New York City.
At this time DEC is proposing guidance changes to the permitting process that will address the eventual retirement of these units to meet Climate Act mandates. It is worrisome that the lessons learned from the successful Peaker Rule don’t appear to be incorporated. Moreover, DEC is modifying its regulations for public participation in the Uniform Procedures Act apparently to appease the environmental advocates. I am convinced that the common theme in any public comments will be shut down the boilers and replace them with clean energy and battery energy storage without acknowledging the issues described in the next section.
Advocacy Replacement Proposal Issues
The crux of the problem is that environmental advocacy organizations and the PSE Opportunities for Replacing Peaker Plants with Energy Storage in New York State propose similar solutions for the purpose built turbines as the steam boilers. In 2019 the Department of Public Service released a report that studied the potential replacement of peaking units with energy storage that was adopted as proof that energy storage technology could be used for all the peaking power plants even though that report was concerned primarily with the peaking turbines. The PSE report did not differentiate between small peaking turbines and much larger steam boilers. In addition to the local air quality impact concerns, the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act includes a mandate to make the electric grid zero-emissions by 2040. As a result, environmental advocacy groups are lobbying hard to shut down any remaining units, including the steam boilers, that operate infrequently enough to be classified as peaking units. Their plan is to phase out fossil fuel peaker power plants and replace them with clean renewables and battery energy storage system (BESS) technologies.
I believe PSE has misled the advocacy groups that their control alternative is a viable option for large boilers. There are two problems with large boiler replacement. The first is the size of the boilers. The following table lists the remaining New York City steam electric boiler units. They are all old and some run under 5% of the time. Next year the majority of the operating (Title V) permits for the boilers will expire. In New York City, the smallest boiler is 146 MW, there is a total of 2,095 MW of boilers that operated less than 5% of the time in 2021 a total of 3,555 MW of boilers whose operating permits expire next year, and total of 3,887 MW of steam boiler capacity in New York City. The cost of replacing that amount of capability will be very high at a time of increasing energy costs.
New York City Steam-Electric Boilers
The second boiler replacement problem is the space necessary for a battery array that can provide the energy equivalent to any of the electric-steam boilers still operating in New York City. I was unable to find spatial requirements on the web so I base my estimates on the Elkhorn Battery facility at Moss Landing in California. Elkhorn Battery consists of a total of 256 Tesla Megapacks, the total energy capacity is 730 MWh, and power output is up to 182.5 MW, As shown in the following view there are 132 cubical structures that apparently hold two Megapacks each. I estimate that one third (in the 4 by 11 configuration) of the Megapacks are rated at 60.8 MW and produce 243 MWh cover an area of 240 by 280 feet which works out to around 1.5 acres.
Google Maps view of the Elkhorn Battery array at Moss Landing, California
Using that estimate of spatial requirements I estimated the New York City acreage necessary to replace steam electric boilers with the clean energy and battery storage option. Replacing the smallest boiler would require 3.6 acres. Replacing the 2,095 MW of boilers that operated less than 5% of the time in 2021 would require 52 acres. Replacing the total of 3,555 MW of boilers whose operating permits expire next year would require 88 acres. Finally, replacing all the steam boiler capacity in New York City would require 95.9 acres. Space in New York City is at a premium so the area needed may not be available.
One other point is that these spatial estimates are based on power (MW) capabilities. At this time battery energy storage systems only provide energy for four hours. Because peak load requirements can be greater than four hours and these steam boilers can run throughout a load peak, the number of batteries necessary to provide that energy is significantly greater than shown here. I believe that when the full energy requirements necessary to replace the steam boilers is calculated it will be determined that there is insufficient room available in New York City to provide equivalent capabilities.
Energy Storage System Environmental Risks
In addition to logistical implementation issues, there are environmental tradeoffs and safety risks. The Tesla Megapack lithium-ion batteries are similar to the ones in electric vehicles. Michael Mills explains that there is no such thing as a “zero-emissions” vehicle. He points out that you don’t eliminate emissions you export them. This also applies to BESS components but I am not going to discuss this hypocrisy anymore in this post.
Instead, I am going to focus on the potential risks of BESS thermal runaway fires and explosions. Paul Christensen, Professor of Pure and Applied Electrochemistry at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom gave a presentation at PV magazine’s Insight Australia event in 2021 that describes the risks. He is one of the world’s leading experts on battery fires and safety and said global uptake of lithium-ion battery technology has “outstripped” our knowledge of the risks. I recommend the entire presentation as a good overview of this issue.
His primary concern about battery fires is described in the presentation. Once a battery is abused the chemistry can become unstable. If it does that generates gases and heat, the heat creates more gases and the potential exists for a thermal runaway reaction. The following slide illustrates the relationship.
Christensen explains that:
In thermal runaway and prior to ignition, lithium- ion batteries produce a white vapour which consists of: hydrogen (ca. 30-50%), carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride, hydrogen cyanide, small droplets of the organic solvents, ethane, methane and other hydrocarbons, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, i.e. a vapour cloud.
He explains that thermal runaway runaways should be prevented by safety systems, but he points out that fires and explosions are still occurring on land, sea, and in the air. His presentation included the following slide that lists Lithium Ion Battery Energy Storage System (LiBESS) events. The acronym VCE stands for vapor cloud explosion on the list. Also note that since the presentation, the Moss Landing facility had another fire incident on September 20, 2022 that shut down traffic and resulted in a shelter in place advisory.
Christensen explained that the Korean government is leading the world in LiBESS developments and the presentation included a description of a translation of the official South Korean government report on LiBESS fires:
It is likely that these safety flaws are not unique to battery systems and BESS made in Korea. It is more likely that the large amount of BESS installed in Korea has made the flaws evident earlier. These flaws are also likely to exist in BESS and battery systems that were not made by Korean manufacturers.
BESS safety can only be fully assessed on the system level. A safe battery cell is the foundation for a safe BESS, but not a guarantee. The historical strong focus on cell safety only has led to avoidable slips in the technical risk management of BESS projects as a whole. Therefore, the safety assessment of the BESS should cover all hazards, not just the electrochemical related hazards.
The LG Chem report on SK incidents blames:
- Inadequate design of the electrical protection system
- Inadequate control of the operating environment within system enclosures
- Careless installation practices that degraded system integrity
- Inadequate ESS system control and protection
Failures could only be reproduced with multiple stresses, e.g.: High humidity + Common Mode Voltage (CMV) aka Common Mode Noise.
Christensen describes the characteristics of the thermal runaway plume and then he shows frightening examples of tests of vapor cloud fires and explosions. The intensity of the fires and the toxic gases mean that fire fighters cannot put the fires out safely. They just have to let them burn themselves out and hope that the fires don’t destroy anything other than the batteries and their enclosures.
Discussion
The peaking power plant issue is a poster child example of the dangers of environmental advocacy organizations misplaced focus on one issue. Disparaging ugly peaking power plants in neighborhoods makes for a great sound bite rallying call to stir up action. However, the argument that those facilities are the root cause of significant health issues rings hollow because the primary air quality effects are from secondary pollutants that form after the emitted pollution has been transported away from the neighborhood. Moreover, my bet if an air quality monitoring attribution analysis was done in the so-called “asthma alley” that advocates mention in their press releases, is that fossil-fired power plants would not be the dominant component.
Nonetheless, the Hochul Administration is pushing for closure of power plants in New York City. According to the LS Power website:
On October 17, 2019, the PSC granted a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) for LS Power’s proposed 316-megawatt battery energy storage project at the Ravenswood Generating Station in Long Island City. Additionally, the Ravenswood storage project was accepted in the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) 2019 interconnection facility study process, and is therefore well positioned to be able to meet a 2022 in-service requirement.
A trade press article about the Ravenswood renewable redevelopment plans states:
Energy asset developer Rise Light & Power will redevelop its 2,480MW Ravenswood Generating Station – New York City’s biggest power plant – as a new renewable energy hub including on-site energy storage.
The 27-acre site in Queens will be turned into a hub integrating various clean energy sources, although the press release is not clear on when the fossil fuel units will be retired nor exactly what renewable capacity will be built on-site.
It does make clear that large-scale battery energy storage will be deployed directly on the facility site, which currently powers 20% of New York City’s needs.
The redevelopment will repurpose existing infrastructure to connect thousands of megawatts of offshore wind and onshore wind, solar, and other clean energy resources from Upstate New York to the City’s grid, a press release said. Ravenswood’s river water intake system will also be repurposed to provide zero-emission thermal energy to nearby communities.
LS Power is proposing a 316 MW BESS on a 27-acre site in New York City. According to my estimates that requires 7.8 acres for equivalent battery energy storage. I could not find any details of the proposed plan but they necessarily must pack the batteries closer together than the battery array at the Elkhorn Battery in Moss Landing, CA. Given that facility has had two fires since it began operating a little over a year ago and the Christensen presentation shows how dangerous those fires can be, my impression that is not such a good idea. Dr. Christensen’s remark that he is “astounded and appalled that if there is no appreciation of the safety issues involved” certainly should prompt an extensive safety review before this facility is permitted and constructed.
Conclusion
I conclude that until you have a viable alternative, and I submit that the renewable energy battery storage option is not viable, then it is premature to shut down the existing fossil fired peaking generation in New York City and the state. Not only will the closures have minimal effect on health impacts but closure could affect reliability. Given the impacts of New York City blackouts I don’t believe any threats to current reliability standards should be accepted.
Furthermore, the proposed alternative of renewable energy and energy storage systems has to overcome space constraint issues and is not proven technology. When a leading expert on batteries says “Everybody has to be educated how to use these batteries safely”, I think the best course of action is to follow his advice. It is not appropriate to make the residents of the disadvantage communities near a BESS become unwilling lab rats to test whether a technology that can generate toxic gases, fires, and explosions is appropriate in an urban setting.
Another unrecognized constraint by the environmental advocacy organizations is the financing model for a necessary resource that only operates a few times a year. Purpose-built peaking generation resources to this point have relied on the cheapest resource available such as simple-cycle combustion turbines. While an argument may be made that some renewable generation resources are competitive with simple cycle turbines the requirement in New York City is for a dedicated resource capable of providing peaking power on demand. That means that the renewable resources, the transmission to get that power to New York City, and the BESS to provide that power have to be dedicated to this requirement. I believe those costs will be several multiples greater than any fossil-fired alternative so financing and operation costs will be a problem.
Of course, the environmental advocate argument is that it is necessary to address climate change. Paraphrasing Tom Shepstone, my ultimate concern is “It is profound climate misinformation to suppose global warming is such a threat that any action, no matter how risky, is somehow preferable to a fossil fuel alternative without those risks”.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Unicorns on treadmills are about as practical.
Why anyone would want to replace reliable peaking power with unreliable Peking Power is beyond me.
Of course, a non-insignificant portion of energy will need to be diverted to charge these huge batteries during off peak hours and others, all the up to peak hours. More renewables, at more expense and less reliability?
More renewables, at more expense and less reliability! not ?
Energy circle-jerk!
More like energy Daisy Chain
And the land grab for solar and wind here in CNY is already happening, sadly. Very good writeup here sir.
What is putting that “not?” at the end supposed to mean, in plain English?
It’s old fashioned satire
There is no question that renewables will add expense and risk reliability, period. sarcasm intended
A shortened version of…
I should say NOT.
Or
Guess Again
Or
NOT HAPPENING
Peakers are almost irrelevant from a GHG perspective. 5% capacity factor means they run during less than 438 of the 8760 hours per year.
Criteria emissions that cause asthma and similar can be controlled with emissions controls and equipment upgrades. As the author points out, other sources are likely bigger problems – diesel buses and trucks, industrial plants.
At that capacity factor…
For the sake of argument let’s grant the objections to local peakers. The reality for life in a city is that the amount of emissions emitted by a 5% capacity peaker is lower than what you are exposed to via brake dust and tire wear. When you account for the fact that peakers are run when people are inside, those emissions are also likely lower than harmful exposure to mold spores and dust. The entire concept of going after peakers is…
I don’t know, I just don’t get it. Even if you grant everything they say it still doesn’t make sense. To what? Maybe prevent 1-2 cases of asthma? People are going to die of exposure during a black out. I suspect in the grand scheme of things the health effects of closing peakers is going to be far worse than any imagined benefits.
It’s not about the number of cases. If only one child is saved…
It’s about using the image of harming children to achieve their emotional goals of green energy. At this point it is a sacred quest and no amount of data or rational discussion will change their mind. The only solution is to make them go away as a political force.
It’s not about saving anyone. It’s not about health or any other nenefit.
It’s about shoving their mid-numbingly stupid agenda down everyone’s throat.
Amazon Ireland has opted for diesel.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/24/aws_irish_datace
Sorry, I get a ‘404’ on that link.
Auto
https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/24/aws_irish_datacenter_diesel/
… seems fine.
Auto
Question: are peakers “generating” only 438 of those 8760 hours, yet idling the rest? It makes a difference in emissions and cost of fuel, maintenance, etc. if they are always running but not generating 95% of the time.
No, they’re off. That’s why they use the simple-cycle gas turbines as they can start up from cold very quickly.
Exactly. Splitting hairs ad infinitum.
It is difficult to overcome emotion with science.
So, when the Lithium and Cobalt etc run out, what then? Rubber bands?
(Rees-Mogg has gone)
Rees-Mogg was going to go under Sunak; there are some unfortunate comments between them that prevent a working relationship. Expect more of the same throughout the cabinet by the knife-hungry PM – he has scores to settle.
Bugger, It was inevitable. (The Moggster) far too intelligent and clear thinking for the new puppet government…
,
Rubber bands? You must be crazy. We need the obvious solution: Hamsters!
Just think about it, you can take a crate of hamsters and attach generators to their hamster wheels. Then when power is needed you have the hamsters run on the wheels and generate all the electricity we need. It would be even better if we paired them with wind and solar. So you train them so that when it’s dark and not windy they automatically hop on their wheels.
Problem solved!
Do you think I could get a grant for this?
But, now they are going after our pets. Dogs, cats, etc. Therefore can’t have hamsrers either.
All hamsters will be free range natural organic. We will allow them to frolic as they wish. They will be allowed to power the generators as they have desire to.
What do you think… Grant ready? I bet DOE would fund a few million into that.
If you allow them to frolic as they wish, you will have a never ending supply of hamsters. All you have to do is feed them.
Of course, the “feed” will, once again, be sourced from using…fossil fuels. D’oh!
No not hamsters, RATS. Since after all, when all the bird Cuisinarts they want to build have killed off enough apex predators that we are overrun with rodents, they’ll be in plentiful supply.
Of course, they blame the burgeoning rodent populations on ‘climate change’ too…
sadly, yes!
Worse, Shapps has replaced him. Alter ego: Michael Green. He seems to have thought it was his job whilst transport minister to impede traffic with smart motorways, Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, ULEZ charges, ICE bans, EV subsidies, etc.
He will be Mr. Business Eradication and Industrial Suppression as BEIS minister.
That Elkhorn battery storage facility catches fire so often they should install smokestacks.
Along with the appropriate emissions control equipment.
Wow, what a great article! Loved it.
I do think there are a couple areas where storage does make sense, specifically thermal storage (ice) in hot climates. In these areas you already install a compressor for thermal operations (air conditioning) so the only additional infrastructure cost is the cold storage (ice box). In commercial environments it makes a lot of sense to pre-chill ice boxes at night when the temperature (and cost of electricity) is lower and then use that during the peak hours. I honestly don’t understand why this doesn’t have broader uptake. The payback period is probably 5-10 years.
Thermal heat storage has some usefulness too (i.e. hot water tanks) although in cooler climates (North America only) it is still cheaper to heat via direct combustion (natural gas) than electricity -> heat pump.
I personally don’t understand why the peaker problem is even a problem. These systems are absolutely crucial, run at very low capacity factors (meaning few emissions) and could be converted to run on “zero emission” fuels if needed. The combustion turbines could be converted to run on hydrogen, and the steam boilers could run on bio-fuels (i.e. wood, ethanol, bio-diesel). Not that I think those are a good idea, but cutting out local peakers in NYC seems like a whole lot of risk for very little reward.
No we should scrap all the zero emission crap and just burn fossil fuels as efficiently as possible to continue increase the CO2 level thereby greening the planet.
You are talking about New York. Your solution (while agreeable to me) is not politically palatable in that jurisdiction. If the options are yours or swapping out peakers with MegaPacks the adopted solution will be MegaPacks. Then people die. I’m all for a 5% CF boiler running on ethanol or wood chips because that will save lives (even though the emissions are worse than for a peaker).
Again, I agree with you. However, we are limited to reality, and the reality is the politicians in charge of the NYC grid will never ever ever adopt your (very rational) solution.
Sadly true.😞
If it made as much sense as you postulate, then business owners (who according to leftists, would sacrifice their grannies in order to make/save a buck) would be doing it already.
Agree. They are commercially available and have been installed in some locations, but they aren’t nearly as widely used as I would expect. I guess it is a combination of a few different things
1) Many commercial locations have fixed (or nearly fixed) rates and so don’t benefit from time shifting demand
2) The capital requirements (either footprint or cost) are higher than I would guess
3) Incentives distort the market so that if a storage solution is viable the push is towards batteries rather than storage
4) The technology isn’t shiny so the adoption may be happening at a reasonable pace (i.e. when replacing a blown compressor the storage is added) but not publicized. Somewhat like high efficiency (condensing) hot-water heaters
Hydrogen IS NOT A FUEL OR AN ENERGY “SOURCE.”
Unless you’re The Sun. Please stop playing their stupid game.
Wot? No Chewbacca?
No, chewing bacca is looked down on nowadays.
They can locate at least some of the batteries at Ravenswood on barges, similar to the oil barges moored at the plant shore on the East River. So when one catches fire, they can just dump it over the side and put a new one in its place. Simple!
Someone might object to the potential negative impact on water quality. However, having just spent a weekend in filthy New York City–Brooklyn, to be exact–I would say that the water quality in the East River has to be pretty bad already.
As a retired engineer, I am constantly frustrated by the ArtStudent™ mind, that tells me ‘You can’t know it wont work unless you try it, and anyway lots of people think it will, so who are you to disagree?’
At this level of thick, I am not sure there is any response possible.
Joseph Tainter may have the right of it. We have built a society too technologically advanced for more than half the population to understand even the basics of how it works, and they all have a vote.
It will therefore collapse back to a state that more than half of those who survive, do understand.
I have memories of driving through the Yucatan wondering ‘what happened to the Mayas who built Chichen Itza?’, looking out of the window at a grass roofed hut with some corn and vegetables growing in a scratched out bit of jungle and some chickens, and mama and a couple of kids doing whatever and thinking ‘that’s what happened to the Maya’…
I agree with that analysis. When society was simpler technologically there weren’t many political issues that the average college-educated person could understand. We crossed that threshold long ago for both sides of the equation: the issues are technologically more complex and a college education isn’t what it used to be.
It’s funny that we’ve reached the point where we could implement with modern technology a true democracy and get rid of representatives. But we’ve also degraded the demos are incapable of voting intelligently on most of the issues. I fully believe in the principles of all humans being equal under the law, but that doesn’t have to equate to all humans creating those laws. Qualifications for voting maybe the solution but they’re a sticky wicket to create.
weren’t many issues that the average college-educated person couldn’t understand
to many people use technology with out understanding how it works.
Salute!
Great points, Leo. Super.
Looking back at civilizations, only a few had lottsa folks that understood the technology for building the pyramids or ships or canals or…. But most could dig and fill and plow and hammer and saw and measure, but they COULDN’T vote!!!!!!
So the problem facing democracies is how to handle the ignorant masses… the folks that have innate skills and abilities, but do not realize where the electricity comes from when they plug in their Leaf or Tesla. The vast majority of the citizens have skills that others do not have or do not care to exploit. The democracies do not assign jobs and education, rather, allow the citizens to pursue their dreams.
Good thread for philosophy discourse, huh?
Gums sends…
It sounds like the WEF superstars may have a solution, of sorts.
Get rid of deplorables;
Keep helots and concubines;
The Elite will run the show.
Trouble is, I suspect most of the elite would struggle to put a plug on a lead.
Let alone understand – never mind meet – the needs of a global economy that supports their global lifestyle.
Then they find they’re “looking out of the window at a grass roofed hut with some corn and vegetables growing in a scratched out bit of jungle and some chickens, and mama and a couple of kids doing whatever ” – as Leo, above, neatly puts it.
Auto
Far better battery and/or SCMES tech is needed. Giant scale lithium battery facilities have big investment, safety, environmental risks. The world has been waiting for the truly Next Gen Battery/ESS since the first OPEC crisis of 1974-1991. Without it, multi-scale & multi-energy (Fossil Fuel, nuke, renewables) input remains untenable, (tax rebates, tax-incentives politically dry up, generated electricity is wasted, grid becomes tenuous and unreliable etc.).
No matter how you slice and dices, we are stuck with renewables that don’t really help us and fossil fuel driven grids. We are stuck with a very expensive grid/utility system that is ancient and decrepit. The hundreds of thousands of miles of grid lines are way overdue for replacement and the ticket to get it done is around 1 trillion bucks
Obviously, nuke power is great if wars, earthquakes, Madman espionage, floods, tsunamis, asteroid impacts never happen. Furthermore, nuke power cannot be scalable without the burdensome over head of security. It is solely a grid power option.
Yet Grid efficiency has improved (17%-33%since 1990) with several innovations. With the massive Shale gas reserves that much of the US population is still unaware of, can now drive Combined Cycle Power Plants that improve efficiency by 50% by burning natural gas through giant turbines, (think NG powered jet engines) that act as a burner to make steam to then drive a steam turbine. This combined power paradigm is scalable from massive infrastructure plants to truck pulled units. The issue with smaller portable units is electrical storage and distribution except when used as back up.
Unfortunately, The American Mind has been significantly weakened in the past 15 years with the dependency on smartphones, social media. Americans consume hours of propaganda (in part paid for by foreign intelligence services, big global energy etc) and lies in the media of every type… every day… from all directions. I think this has made it impossible for Americans to think clearly about issues like electrical energy production and distribution. This leads to political solutions to engineering problems, which waste resources and deepens the financial burden on the average American. And in the end, there is no paradigmatic change in our gird power system and America grows weaker.
The off-grid paradigm exits, has been commercialized and is available for anyone rich enough to purchase it. Tesla has home lithium battery systems that work. In PA, there is enough space on my roof to generate all my electrical needs (including EV if I owned one) with a Tesla battery system. I could also install a Capstone micro-turbine to heat my home and water while generating electricity by spinning a generator with the electricity going to the Tesla lithium battery system to be distributed on demand. I could be off grid generating all my own energy needs for about $225,000-$300,000. The Tesla Batteries would be good for 10 years.
Case in point, the off-grid paradigm of the future is here but it’s too expensive. $10,000 per household to rebuild the grid and natural gas is far cheaper.
The corporation who is first to commercialize a fully unitized off-grid solution for multi-input electrical generation, storage, and distribution for the average home for less than $35,000 grand will be the next Apple/Microsoft/Google x5. The entire world needs this solution. The entire world needs cheap energy to advance personal independence by taking the power out of the hands of a centralized few. In 1985, people spent $5,000 for an Apple Macintosh PC, (basically a toy), that is $13,000 in 2022 dollars! 13 grand for a toy! How much more would people spend for energy cheap energy and personal independence.
The problem Jeff is we don’t need to do any of that ridiculously expensive crap. Upgrading the grid and continuing to burn fossil fuel is all we need to do. Doing so will green the planet. Compared with the cost of converting the country to almost useless EV’s a trillion for an upgrade of the national grid is dirt cheap. When someone thinks of something better it will be adopted without the government having anything to do with it.
Agreed all we are going to continue to do is rebuild the grid and burn fossil fuel because that is the only thing that makes sense….agreed. Renewables with out cheap high quality safe energy storage is a waste of money…EV’s for the same reason. Personally I am not for any Government intervention… the market place is where is should happen. What I want is cheap energy…cheaper than 1955 and I want it off grid. My hope is energy/electrical tech will make it happen in my life time. The Radical environmentalist do not want a off grid cheap energy revolution to happen because it means local people flourish and the population grows. There is big investment in energy/E tech…. so it’s coming.
The problems with nuclear that you fear, either never existed, or were solved decades ago and would have been implemented if people’s irrational fear of nuclear hadn’t prevented it.
Really…. the war in Ukraine didn’t happen with the risk to the Nuke plants? The Japanese EQ 8 didn’t happen, Chernobyl didn’t happen, Concerns about Terrorist’s leverage a nuke plan isn’t real? Asteroid impacts don’t happen?. Major war means hitting the nuke plants. Tsunami’s don’t flood Nuke plants? If i can’t have it in my house to generate off grid electricity, I don’t want it.
I bought one of the first of those toy Macs in 1984 that you disparage. It wasn’t a toy. It was the most powerful computer at the time. It could do things easily that my friends, with their rudimentary intel computers, couldn’t do.
Sure, by today’s standard it was a toy. But not at the time.
Indeed, WYSWYG was for the first time reality…
Some people of the engineering department could calculate and visualize (and print) a neural network and other sophisticated calculations that were about impossible to do on an Intel PC.
Even Microsoft started with Excel on the Mac (to get a market), while PC users still were glued to Lotus 1-2-3 with their awful column “numbering” (AA, AB, AC,…).
I think the Apple Lisa was more powerful, but was also so big and so expensive that it was impractical. I know it didn’t sell well at all.
The point was comparison of prices not to disparage that toy. When we needed energy solutions that would restore America to cheap energy we got a toy. The toy has become a giant distraction to what America really needs. The toy means most of us waste hours a day doing make work data entry and entertaining ourselves. My profession never required a PC but now that I am forced to use one, I have to work 50 hours a week because everyone wants data they don’t know what to do with or understand. I see no quality of life improvements for the average America since 1970 because of the Toy. What I see is a growing issue of dependency, obesity, diabetes and mental illness. But blogging is fun but a waste of time.
Great article and summary, and it applies equally well or even more so over here in Europe. Re lithium, I recently raised a health and safety issue with the powers that be in our company because they have decided to locate the EV recharging points directly adjacent to our emergency generator… Given the nature of our business, the results could be catastrophic if things went wrong, but what do I know. It’s not as if it ever gets warm in an underground car park.
Here in our retirement village in Auckland, the company’s management decided on a policy of “no charging of EVs in underground car parks”. So maybe there is some point in what normally seems to be excessive concern about Health & Safety. The thought of all of those elderly residents living in apartment directly above an underground car park was a concern, but now I feel vindicated. I live in a villa remote from that UGCP!
At one point there was supposed to be a project to provide at least 80 spaces with charging in the underground car park at the House of Commons. I know they had difficulty with organising the additional power supply, so it may not have gone ahead. However, as a replacement for the efforts of Guy Fawkes …
At first, I was thinking that in order to save space, you could stack the battery units and make them into a cube.
Then I remembered that the reason each unit was spaced that far apart is so that if one caught fire, the fire wouldn’t spread to the next unit.
If you started stacking, then any fire would easily spread up the stack, plus the lack of airflow to the inner units would allow the heat to concentrate and the fire would more easily spread to nearby units.
With the current design, a fire in one unit is unlikely to spread.
With a cube design, a fire in one unit, is likely to result in the loss of the entire cube.
The Tesla stack system is out there but it’s very expensive, lasts only 10 years and as you have noted is a fire hazard. The point is that the off grid paradigm exists, capstone micro turbines burning fossil fuel driving generators, Solar panels, TEGS and the Tesla stack batteries. The paradigm exists because people want it and the very rich are paying for it. The comparison of the 5 grand 1984 mac to the current off grid paradigm is an example by comparison. Lets do distinction without separation….. both and. The paradigm is good but not viable due to the lack of tech advancement, like the IBM PC was not viable without a ergonomic operating system that anyone could figure out. What we need is the MAC battery and in-home off grid system that provides cheap energy… .that is it. I might even buy a 300 dollar lap top when I retire and my work PC goes away. LOL I have never purchased a PC or a cell or smart phone. I read books instead and spend a lot of time hanging out face to face with people in long term conversations. I write letters. I operate as if it is 1970 because I can.
Hydrogen fluoride? Yikes, extremely nasty stuff. Where is the fluorine in the Li-ion chemistry?
Good question. Sulfur hexafluoride is used as an insulating gas in electrical switchgear, but is it also used in the batteries themselves? A quick search did not find an answer yet.
Found an answer.
https://www.power-and-beyond.com/recycling-of-fluorine-for-lithium-ion-batteries-a-956192/#:~:text=Fluorine%20in%20small%20quantities%20is,and%20enables%20high%20cell%20voltages.
“Fluorine in small quantities is included in all lithium-ion batteries. The electrolyte liquid of such a battery contains hexafluorophosphate anions PF6- a fluorine compound that ensures the long-term stability of the battery and enables high cell voltages.”
Yikes.
No kidding.
I had a detatched retina when I was in France during Covid Lockdown. The repair was done using a gas bubble of C3F8 Octafluoropropane, sulfurhexafluoride (SF6) is also used for this purpose. C3F8 is also used in semiconductor manufacture and is a potent greenhouse gas. SF6 is used in electric power systems for voltage electrical insulation, current interruption, and arc quenching in the transmission and distribution of electricity. It is the most potent greenhouse gas known to man.
I researched what had been used after the operation, the global warming issue didn’t worry me as much as the 7 weeks it took for the bubble to eventually disappear.
.
Glad your surgery was successful.
‘…specific regions of New York City and Long Island – known as load pockets.’
A most informative article. I hope Roger Calazza will continue to keep us informed as to how well the Krell (aka NYC / NYS progressives) are getting on with their goal to eliminate fossil fuels from their lives. I suspect, barring some infinitesimal chance of a break-through in battery storage technology, that the eventual answer to their prayers will be a significant reduction in the population of the aforementioned load pockets.
And, How long were the outages in NYC a few years back? More than 4 hours.
charts do show one thing.
in 1950s and 1960s we built power plants that worked.
Counterpoint:
New England blackout of 1965
New York blackout of 1971
Another New York blackout in 1977
Grids have issues. Always have. In 1998 there was a major ice storm that resulted in power losses for 3.5 million people (mainly in Quebec). There was also an ice storm in Texas in 2021 that resulted in power losses for 0.4 million people. There is no magic solution that will eliminate power loss.
Power stations are not grids. Grids do need to be robust to losing links due to weather events. The real stretch for grids has come from incorporating more renewables generation, usually distant from centres of demand, plus long distance interties for backup. Much more vulnerable than when most generation was fairly local to demand.
US grids averaged 99.9% or better reliability until recently.
I am in favor of building large dense battery farms in New York City.
I look forward to the inevitable result and perhaps some education for bureaucrats and other liberals.
Calazza is a very good author but I didn’t find what I was looking for.
Perhaps missed because of not such great vision? I was looking for a cost estimate for batteries needed to replace one peaker plant. I was looking for dollar signs, and didn’t notice any. If NY state can’t afford the batteries, all other issues become moot points. Does anyone have a battery cost estimate or a range of estimates for the whole state, or at least for one peaker plant?
In round numbers, call it 4GW with 4 hour duration for 16GWh of batteries at say $500/kWh on an installed basis, or $4bn every 10 years because of the need for replacement. At 5% utilisation the batteries are supplying for 438 hours a year, times 4GW is 1,752 GWh supplied per year at a cost of purchasing at least 5/4ths as much power for charging because of round trip losses, plus maintenance, property taxes etc., financing cost, and amortisation of $228/MWh supplied.
To be fair I would expect the batteries might be able to earn additional income from providing assorted ancillary services (responding to frequency fluctuations, being on standby to help handle a grid trip, etc.) at times when they are not required to provide a steady output to top up supply. That is after all how most grid batteries earn their keep including Musk’s Big South Australian. However, if they are required to provide peaker supply they cannot simultaneously provide ancillary services, so in fact you would need yet more batteries to do that, at least when they are all being called on.
In re Li-Ion and fires. A newer chemistry is available, lithium iron phosphate that substantially reduces fire risk. It also has significantly better cycle lifetime. The down side in a car application is that it is a lot heavier, but that doesn’t matter for a static installation. Other that this nit to pick, the rest is spot on.
No Name:
FYI In Christensen’s video presentation (~1:21 during the Q&A) he stated that
LiFePO4 batteries were NOT safer regarding fire risks.
https://youtu.be/A9B5M8qHQQ0
So 3,887 mw capacity for 4 hours is over 15,000 mwh. The Hiroshima bomb was 16,666 mwh (so 4 hours is almost equivalent). I get the toxic cloud, but if the storage facility failed, where would the a-bomb’s worth of energy go? Got to go somewhere! Just say “not in my back yard”.
It dissipates, but over hours (or days) instead of milliseconds.
Nice report as always Roger. I think it is sinful that these mongrels preaching about the evils of fossil fuels and that only wind and solar can save us are allowed to continue to use fossil fuel or nuclear energy when their savior fails. At the least those pushing this new religion should be forced to pay three times the rate for dispatchable energy when their savior lets them down, as it always will.
If you’re going to use batteries for a stationary application, I suggest Nickel Iron. They are far from perfect but they have over a 30 year life span, recycling isn’t a problem, don’t use exotic material and fire isn’t likely. The down side is they are much larger, require the regular addition of water, can develop a memory, should have special service about once every 10 years and may not be as efficient at storing power.
The chemistry has fallen out of favor because for many applications lead acid is considered better and for high density, you can’t beat lithium. However if it is a stationary long term application, it might be time to reconsider the approach.
In regulated power markets, ‘asset churn’ is one means for a utility to improve its bottom line by shutting down legacy generating capacity and replacing it with wind and solar. Here is an article which illustrates how private utilities are promoting the renewables for meeting New York City’s power needs. From the Queens gazette:
Rise Light & Power Plans Innovative Clean Energy Solution
“Rise Light & Power, owner-operator of the city’s largest power generator, Ravenswood Generating Station, announced its proposed Catskills Renewable Program – an innovative new clean energy solution to deliver homegrown renewable energy from upstate to the city.”
At last the penny begins to drop with the unreliables electricity grid fantasy-
“We need everything, everywhere, all at once:” Industry calls for energy storage scheme | RenewEconomy
with high power prices already forecast to rise by another 50%-
Energy prices Australia: Cost of living blow as power prices tipped to rise by 50 per cent | 7NEWS
and we haven’t paid for the ‘everything everywhere all at once’ storage yet. Bad luck struggletown as you’re the eggs that have to break to make the nice weather omelette.