Essay by Eric Worrall
“… In Texas, a study with EMPACT Engineering found that 94.5% of the region’s power lines could safely hold double the existing capacity. …”
Barriers and solutions to Australia’s climate crisis
During the global COP28 conference, discussions led by Australia’s Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen once again centered on the need for greater urgency in delivering planned energy generation to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to reach 2030 and 2050 clean energy targets.
JANUARY 8, 2024 JACK CURTIS
…
We need to dismantle the barriers preventing the realisation of 2030 and 2050 targets, with quick action required to resolve Australia’s climate crisis.
…
The capabilities of the existing grid are one major avenue yet to be fully leveraged, presenting enormous potential for the accelerated connection of renewable energy by removing our single point of reliance on delayed transmission projects.
Advanced new technologies such as digital modelling and AI are uncovering significant latent capacity within the power lines we already have.
…
Digital line rating work has already surfaced significant potential capacity increases with Essential Energy, which operates one of the largest networks in Australia. In Texas, a study with EMPACT Engineering found that 94.5% of the region’s power lines could safely hold double the existing capacity.
…
Read more: https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2024/01/08/barriers-and-solutions-to-australias-climate-crisis/
Yep, running remote rural power lines red hot because the AI says the engineering ratings are too conservative, and green energy providers can’t afford to upgrade grid capacity. What could possibly go wrong?
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What could possibly go wrong?
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The mindset of the people running EMPACT Engineering is probably similar to that of the people who decided that the door plugs on Boing 737s was a good idea.
A321 has door plugs on some versions too. Their automated flight controls which cant be over ridden – except when you think it doesnt- has killed more people that Boeings door plugs
Door plugs are being installed on the cheap. All of these potential openings in a pressurized aircraft cabin need to be conical inward, so that cabin pressure holds them in place. Cutting corners costs lives.
The door should swing inwards and then seat as you suggest.
At present, it can act as a pressure relief valve, if not properly installed AT ALL TIMES, i.e., it is not fail-safe.
Another reason, I have not flown in 7 years
Regarding the study of the grid.
That study should be tossed, not worth the paper it is printed on.
When you have high annual percent W/S systems on the grid, as does Texas, the W/S output varies all over the place, sometimes little output (requiring supplements), sometimes a lot of output (requiring curtailments), depending on the weather.
The grid lines have to be able to handle all these loads, as well as the loads for peak demands during hot weather and cold weather, in addition to outages, per FERC standards
They are probably just changing the engineering design safety factor from 3 to 1.5. I wonder if these geniuses have accounted for potential arcing line-to-line or line to pylon. I doubt they could increase the current, so they’d have to double the voltage. Seems like a really scary idea.
Wait until the authors find out that a guy who’s been designing generators since 1950 can just say “no”,and since redundant personnel are not allowed by the corporation, his “no” will stand,
If the impedance of the load drops, you don’t need to increase voltage in order to increase current.
Gee, a little fresh air at 18,000 ft, in winter.
Why is all the fuss.
Wilbur Wright had no blow out door on his plane!.
The very notion of “plane was [not] on autopilot” is word salad on Airbus.
It’s something I don’t want to hear.
I hear it all the time!
Boing
The sound of panels popping off
Ok that did make me laugh.
Me too, lol.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
First chuckle of my day (-:
It seems the mantra is “progress” at any cost, consequences be damned, and the follow-on of bias in testing exists so as to obscure negative impacts. It seems as though there is a lessening in the value of the individual and the individual’s life.
Yes, we are being boinged to the max. The 737 is just another example of “safe and effective” in the progressive era.
I always laugh at the fact that nearly every example of the use of the word ‘progressive’ – especially in politics but also increasingly elsewhere – is as a euphemism for ‘nonsensical’.
In the U.S. I have looked at the “progressive” movement as progressing away from the Constitution.
Seems to be working so far. We’re less safe, less secure in our information, poorer, and less free.
Progressing towards a mirage of Nirvana that is in reality a Hell-hole.
SpaceX Starship and now the Peregrine lunar lander . . . “progressive” steps to do what was done over 50 years ago.
“Faster, better, cheaper” . . . you are free to pick a combination any two.
70 years after nuclear ended WW2 most countries haven’t joined the club. Amazing to consider it.
Only if they are installed to open in, not out.
Uh um the “Door” plugs aren’t doors, so they aren’t installed to open in or out. So far I haven’t figured out why some planes have an exit there and others have the exit plugged?????
By the way, Do you remember the April 1988 Boing 737 that lost an upper section of the fuselage and landed safely in Hawaii?
Aloha Airlines Flight 243 Wikipedia
When configured with the maximum number of seats, the 737 needs two extra doors in order to evacuate all of the passengers in under the FAA set time. When not flying with that passenger configuration, it does not need the doors, so they aren’t installed. Door plugs are installed instead.
Doors are heavy, expensive and require a lot of maintenance.
Probably just another ‘Ford Pinto’ moment where the cost accountants overrode the engineers.
There was never anything wrong with the Ford Pinto, just a couple of greedy lawyers and gullible juries. Have you ever seen photos of the car crash that started that circus? It was at a standstill, and was hit by a car going something like 50 mph. The car was about half the length that it was leaving factory.
Of course the gas tank burst, what was left of it was pushed all the way to the front seats.
Mark, the way I remember it the Ford engineers wanted to install something like a $3.50 part to protect the gas tank from rear end collisions. The bean counters rejected it because from their calculations the part, when installed on every Pinto, would cost much more than their calculated losses from any related law suits. It was around that time, when both the Pinto and Vega were being designed, that bean counters had replaced engineers in top management positions of both Ford and Chevrolet. And, if I remember correctly they, the bean counters, were later replaced by lawyers after both companies had settled most/all the law suits from owners of both types of vehicles.
I don’t care what it is, everything can be made a little safer. And when that’s done, there’s always something else that can be done to make it a little safer.
Where does it stop?
In the case of that accident, $100,000 dollars wouldn’t have been enough to save those girls lives. That car was demolished, it was almost unrecognizable as a car after the collision. A measly $3.50 addition would have made no difference.
As I said earlier, what was left of the gas tank had been pushed from beneath the trunk, to beneath the front seats.
Yes Mark, your right about the rear end collision that killed the three girls and caused the initial ruckus. However, as usual there is another side to the story. Check out the third paragraph in the article, ‘Did Pintos really explode in the 1970s?’, at https://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-driving-safety/auto-safety-testing/did-pintos-really-explode-in-the-1970s.htm.
That article provides more in depth information and places most of the blamed on Ford’s CEO at that time. Quoting from the article: “Henry Ford II, who headed up the Ford Motor Company in that era, fought hard against safety regulation, both out of his resentment of the government and his company’s bottom line.”
Like I said, there is an infinite number of small improvements that can be made to anything. Apply all of them, and nobody would be able to afford anything. A line has to be drawn somewhere on every product. Why do you believe that your opinion of where that line should be drawn is superior to those whose money and reputations are on the line?
When packed to its maximum capacity, the 737 would require two extra doors in order to evacuate all the passengers in a timely fashion in an emergency. It makes sense to install door plugs instead of actual doors, when the doors aren’t needed. The 737 isn’t the only type of airplane to do this.
Good information, MarkW. Thanks for clarifying the situation.
It isn’t EMPACT Engineering that is in the wrong, but either PV Magazine, their reporter Jack Curtis, or the Aussie Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen. Which ever of those cited the alleged EMPACT Engineering study (which I have been able to locate, anywhere) out of context in support of the Australian Essential Energy grid operator.
You could blame any of those others, but not Empact for this one. As far as I can tell the quote from PV is either a complete fabrication or a deliberate misdirection.
Essential Energy has been attempting to use whatever they are calling AI to model better use of their grid, but they’ve no hope of doubling their throughput without major changes AND disabling safety mechanisms.
It isn’t the door plugs that are the problem, its the springs that can lift them open if they’re not correctly bolted in. As I stated before elsewhere “you’d think after trying to use a spring to actuate the door latches on the DC-10 that aircraft engineers would know to avoid springs…”
The door lifted off its latches, fell out and was squirted off the plane to the side. Imagine if a disengaging lift lever had been used to actuate both the lift and some latches! Like a goddamned door!
Where do you get the idea that the part that fell off was in any way shape or form, a door.
It wasn’t. It was a panel that was bolted in place. It was never, ever, designed to open.
The engineers had added an opening in the hull, into which a door COULD be placed. In this particular plane, they didn’t need all the doors, so instead of a door, they installed a plug. A piece of metal was bolted over the hole, to seal it.
Entirely too much information about aircraft when the subject is transmission lines. Ok I get this just happened but lets switch to power transmission.
I see several concerns. As power transmission and distribution lines run hotter they sag. Has the clearance been evaluated? Hotter lines have less strength thus wind may be a concern. It also changes the resonant frequency which might lead to “galloping conductors”.
Then consider the losses from I squared R and as the temperature goes up the resistance increases=more losses to heat. Now consider conductor terminations. A mechanical termination may be fine at one current flow but not at a higher one.
Maybe this is true but the devil is in the details and every mile has many details. Finally I recall efforts to create warm superconductors. Now we’re giving that up and purposely trying to increase resistive losses. Yikes!
That is the whole point of safety factors. Safety doesn’t just mean physical peril of humans but also operation within the limits of where failure is likely. Think about putting an ice auto in first gear and running flat out for a 200 mi round trip on an interstate every day till it fails.
I’ll bet the “model” had no limits on mean time between failure reduction for all the components running at max ratings.
Let me guess, Jack Curtis has an embedded interest in more PV.
Don’t know about Jack Curtis…I don’t know Jack.
But I hear Dan Curtis is interested as a plot for his new TV cereal…”Dark Ashes”
If the so-called Greens had their way Dark Ashes is all that would be left to eat for our breakfast cereal.
And yet it might be more healthy.
Personally, I would rather keep the ashes out of my morning cereal, regardless of what color the ashes are.
Replacing existing power plants with PV, won’t require an upgrade to the grid.
It’s the demand to replace all appliances with electric ones and to support charging EVs at home, that requires the upgrade.
Climate Change ™ is the gift that keeps giving. They will not be overloading the lines because when the lines sag in hot weather and short out it will be due to climate change.
Many places have peak demand driven by cooling requirements when the weather is warm. So peak loads often occur in high temperature; perfect coincidence for line sag to cause outages.
I guess all the solar panels and wind turbines will eventually fix the weather so line sag will be an historic problem.
More than 10 year ago I was in Denver reviewing grant applications for the DOE. One of the team leads was the head of research at DOE. One morning he was quite excited about a phone call he just received. He turned to me and said in a hushed voice they had calculated that the existing grid, as it was at the time, could support 80% of all the loads and distribution necessary to make the entire US grid solar powered.
Ok…that’s one opinion. The only thing missing was enough PV generation capacity and storage to power the nation.
Call me when that Great Day comes. In the meantime I will sit on my gas well and oil the donkey pump on the back 40.
In CA, as long as we don’t plug in electric vehicles during warm weather, near peak, we have fewer rolling brown outs.
And fewer rolling EVs
It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood
A beautiful day for a neighbor
Would you be mine
Could you be mine
Good morning boys and girls
King Friday, did you know…
Those brilliant people in Washington want to double the electricity that runs through our power lines without spending money to upgrade the lines?
To day we have a New Phrase
Can you say “Paradise Camp Fire”?
Ulities don’t comply with NEC for grid capacity. I have seen their transformers run redhot, and their response is “so what?”
A 2 to 1 safety factor is the standard for commercial applications. 4 to 1 for marine applications and 8 to 1 for aircraft applications.
Meaning powerlines and cars are designed to take 2x maximum in emergencies and the wings on your jet liner are designed to take 8x maximum before they fall off.
However, only a fool uses the safety factor to carry normal expected loads because it means there is no longer a safety factor.
Many city utilities are running hot because they haven’t upgraded their infrastructure. To save money they tap into existing bldg utility vaults, stressing the overall grid. Again, they don’t follow NEC criteria for cable capacity.
I think you are totally off track on your aircraft factors of safety.
I recall sitting in an engineering risk conference which one lecture was given by an aeronautical engineer and he asked the rest of us engineers (civil – if there is such a thing -, mining, electrical etc) what factors of safety were used in our fields.
We gave typical figures we used before he asked us what we thought the factors of safety were for commercial aircraft, warning the three aeronautical engineers in the group to not say anything.
3, 2 or 5 were some of our guesses before he got one of his compatriots to tell us. 1.4 to 1.5 was the factor of safety used due to the huge amount of testing of components to failure, and the fact that at the FOS we suggested the planes would carry hardly any passengers.
In the civil world, the factor of safety, (some say factor of ignorance), is actually quite small.
In the world of ultimate stress it is usual for the failure point of the material to be derated downward and the load applied to be multiplied upward. And of course, the load(with multiplier), must never exceed the capacity, (derated).
For well known materials, like structural steel, the derating is 10%, for lesser controlled materials, eg a concrete placed by man, the derating factor is 20%. Timber can be a lot higher if only visually graded, etc, etc.
Loads are equally scored upward depending on the potential to be wrong. A dead load is rarely wrong, ie the weight of a steel beam is well known, so you only apply an extra 20% to that, but a live load, (like a floor loading from a crowd), has an extra 50% applied because we all know that crowds sometimes pack in denser than the designer thought they would.
So for a steel beam, the factor of safety, (for want of the correct term), is often in the range of 1.3/0.9, or about 1.44,(a 44% safety factor).
Not at all true.
First off, factors of safety are most commonly referenced to the underlying material’s yield strength, not its ultimate strength. However, for ductile materials (e.g. most metals), it is often required that the factor of safety be checked against both yield and ultimate strengths.
(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_of_safety )
Second,
“Appropriate design factors are based on several considerations, such as the accuracy of predictions on the imposed loads, strength, wear estimates, and the environmental effects to which the product will be exposed in service; the consequences of engineering failure; and the cost of over-engineering the component to achieve that factor of safety. For example, components whose failure could result in substantial financial loss, serious injury, or death may use a safety factor of four or higher (often ten). Non-critical components generally might have a design factor of two. Risk analysis, failure mode and effects analysis, and other tools are commonly used. Design factors for specific applications are often mandated by law, policy, or industry standards.
“Buildings commonly use a factor of safety of 2.0 for each structural member. The value for buildings is relatively low because the loads are well understood and most structures are redundant. Pressure vessels use 3.5 to 4.0, automobiles use 3.0, and aircraft and spacecraft use 1.2 to 4.0 depending on the application and materials.”
(same wiki reference as above; my bold emphasis added)
Ah, yes, Factor of Safety…!!! I had a registered engineer (also the professor of our class, so he had at least a Doctorate of Engineering degree) tell us with a straight face that in designing off-shore oil platforms he uses F.O.S. of 0.7-0.8. Think about it though, the “ultimate” load for an offshore platform is during a Cat V hurricane, and how often do those happen? If a hurricane IS coming, the rig is evacuated, so no loss of life. And the life of an offshore platform is only 10-15 years, tops, while the load capacity of steels charts are often predicated around a 40-year, 50-year, or even 100-year life (I’m not a structural engineer, someone else look it up, and if I’m wrong don’t tell me, I’m not going to design any structures). His final word on it was, “…hope they complete drilling and/or pumping (whatever the use of the rig) before the next Cat V hurricane comes by.” We asked what happens if they don’t, he said, “Argue it out in court.” But I don’t even know why it needs to go to court, the engineer will ask the Client to agree to a F.O.S. (which is often based entirely on how much the Client wants to pay for the rig) before he ever starts the first calculation. He gave them the design they were willing to pay for, no loss of life, what’s the problem?
Thankfully you have wikipedia, the rest of us use real world.
Ummmm . . . can you cite any reference for that assertion?
Any reference at all???
BTW, as you proceed in using “the real world”, you appear quite ignorant that Wikipedia articles often provide extensive footnoting of references for assertions in their articles . . . in the case of the Wikipedia article on factor-of-safety (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_of_safety ), there are fifteen (15) separate sources cited
. . . not that that fact would mean anything to you.
Dean, agree with you “totally off track”.
Our Sr Design Engineering prof, spent many a summers working with Boeing.
In class he asked us to compare safety factors for a jet airliner versus a car jack.
Car jacks, SF in the range of 7 to 8. Jets as you said 1.5.
Why, because the loads for the jets was always known, including people, baggage and fuel.
Also the flight loadings had specific parameters, operated by trained personnel.
Car jacks had to contend with unknown loads, angles of loading and idiots crawling under the raised car.
The safety factor for aircraft is 1.5. This safety factor is tested to destruction. A structural aircraft is set up in a test rig, instrumented all over with strain gages. The load on the wing is gradually increased until the 1.5 safety factor is reached. Heaven help the project if the wind cracks before reaching 1.5. That happened on the Navy’s E-6 rewing project. Massive redesign, then new test setup and test. Years delay in the flight test program.
The flight envelope has maximum load factor restrictions to make sure the wing remains in the linear load range. Typical load factors are 2-g (cruise) and 2.5-g (landing/takeoff). Normal fight will actually be limited to 1.15-g (30-deg bank), so as not to upset the passengers.
In all engineering, there is a tradeoff between the limiting factors. In a commercial aircraft, the stronger the structure, the heavier the craft and therefore the less revenue-paying cargo (whether people and luggage or actually cargo) the aircraft can carry. That “factor of safety” (more like protecting the owner, manufacturer, and designer(s) from lawsuits; i.e. CYA) on all commercial aircraft will get trimmed as far as possible, until there is a fatality with its subsequent lawsuits, and then that F.O.S. will jump back up for awhile, to be again gradually trimmed back as time goes on, until the next fatality, and on and on. See how this works?
Your g-factors are not related to your quote of safety factor. How close does a 2-g load approach the safety factor you quote?
In essence what g-load causes an approach to the safe load factor?
“We need to dismantle the barriers preventing the realisation of 2030 and 2050 targets, with quick action required to resolve Australia’s climate crisis” (Jack Curtis).
What on Earth is this man thinking besides the asinine notion that Australia has a “climate crisis” — Jack the climate is a global phenomenon.
Covering every available surface on the continent of Australia with PV panels would make his industry members very wealthy while bankrupting the country, as well as assisting the coal-fuelled Chinese economy no small way but would have zero effect on the climate one way or another.
Didn’t you hear, the state of Road Island, with 0.1% of global CO2 emissions, couldn’t wait on contentious Congress to line up their ducks so they decide to save the world on their own. If Road Island can do it, why not Australia?
Apologetic nitpick: It is Rhode Island, (once “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations”) originally named for an island that is only a small part of the mostly Connecticut marshland that makes up almost all of the tiny state.
1) I believe it still is …and Providence Plantations in state documents and letterhead. 2) I believe the “Road Island” was a deliberate belittlement of said Great State of…
As you say, it stll uses Roger William’s full royal landgrant name (substituting State for Colony) in historical documents, but the state voted down the long version in the 60s or 70s. And you’re probably right on the well-deserved pun intended as a snarky comment on the current state of the State.
Sad, for a once semi-piratical, outlaw and libertarian haven.
“climate crisis” is now commonly used by politicos at every level. My county authority passed a motion a year or so ago declaring that we are experiencing a thing. If only they’d concentrate on things that mattered, like fixing potholes.
I love it! Exchange between alarmist municipality person and an ordinary taxpayer:
MP: Climate change causes potholes.
OT: Then we need to fix the potholes.
MP: That’s just a bandaid on the problem.
OT: Yes. And? Different from all the mandates you’ve been forcing us to obey?
“We need to dismantle the barriers preventing the realisation of 2030 and 2050 targets, with quick action required to resolve Australia’s climate crisis” (Jack Curtis)”
You may remove barriers but you won’t solve Australia’s “climate crisis” by doing so. There is no climate crisis, in Astralia or anywhere else. Your efforts will be in vain.
An electrical grid doesn’t “hold” anything, it is for energy distribution, and not a storage device. An overload condition in a component, “double capacity,” should be designed in for robustness when a failure occurs in another generation or transmission component, and should cause in-built protection to open a cirsuit until the condition is corrected.
The “barriers’ to be “dismantled” are safety devices.
Applying a Texas Engineering study to Australian grid components is irrelevant, and EMPACT engineering would likely lose their license to operate if they were to approve such an application of their work. I should think that their lwwyers would be in touch. Has anyone asked the company for comment?
Not if it’s a study in the little region of Texas in rural Queensland, Australia 🙂
You are dead on, dk. For reliability, utilities have models of their transmission systems and run a program on them continuously that assumes each component drops out and checks the result to the function of the entire system. If it actually happens, then the “overdesign” of the rest of the components handles the resulting power flows. If you are running over maximum design all the time, then if one component fails, you risk bringing down a section, or worse the entire system. These people have no idea of what they are suggesting.
That’s standard practice for systems designed to handle SPF (i.e. Single Point of Failure).
Agreed, I think. That overcapacity isn’t an available resource — it is there for failover or robustness: the ability for the system to continue to function at some level when there is a catastrophic failure in a subsystem or component. The same Aussie grid system is complaining about brownouts due to frequency matching and transformer issues — all failure modes generated (pun) by compensating for irregular wind and solar.
But this is wehre the lie at least doubles down — THERE IS NO RELIABLE generating capacity to “fill” that imaginary capacity. The entire claim rests on multiplying inadequate wind and solar being the answer to a non-problem.
If Australia wants reliable energy then they’ll need to reopen the coal mines and frack for natural gas. Maybe look look around for more Uranium and Thorium, too.
In reality, the “existing load” on any electrical system is always a small fraction of the design ultimate capacity. That ultimate rated capacity is to common out the other side of an all-hell-breaks-loose event with everything mostly intact. Facility operators and managers are dancing on their desks trying to make 13 phone calls at once if the load on a system begins to approach that “rated capacity”.
“…common…” should be “…come…”
And they last half as long.
Even if the claim were true it would not solve the big problem of so much wind and solar projects where there is no grid.
. . . and building lines to many widely dispersed sites is costly and inefficient.
Early wind and solar facilities have been located close to existing transmission lines.
Not to mention the increased losses.
Good point. That is what came to my mind too. Let’s heat up the atmosphere to tackle global warming!
There is no ‘globull warming’, there is now only ‘climate change’.
Since it’s Chris Bowen talking about Australia and “Essential Energy, which operates one of the largest networks in Australia”, would it be reasonable to assume that by “Texas”, he is talking about the tiny rural region on the NSW/Queensland border centred on the Qld town of Texas with its population of around 800 people – and not the US State 🙂
Green movement is full of amateur grid planners. We have a couple here, most notably our own Nick Stokes (well qualfiied in math but an amateur in grid planning) who feels fully qualified to assert absurdly low estimates of required storage requirements for a Net Zero grid along with other absurdities about the relative costs of wind and solar and conventional generation.
Key sections of the political classes in the English speaking countries fall into this category. You can see it in the pronouncements of the UK Climate Change Committee, and the generally accepted but absurd idea that Britain can move generation to wind and solar while doubling or tripling demand by moving everyone to heat pumps and EVs.
This is the essence of the UK Net Zero plans. Only have to be stated to be seen to be absurd.
You can also see it in the Green mania of focusing on power generation and quietly ignoring the other two thirds of emissions sources. And on the idea that insignificant amounts of CO2 reduction done at great cost can be justified simply by invoking climate, regardless of the quantitative effects or lack of them of the policies on global emissions. Local authorities across the UK are talking about implementing Net Zero themselves, and faster even than the national targets, ‘because climate’. That’s yet another example.
The thing all the amateur grid planners have in common is that none them work in an electricity supplier, none of them have any accountability if their back of envelope schemes are implemented by politicians and the grids fall over.
A similar mindset is present in lots of areas of public life in the English speaking countries now. For instance according to the Telegraph (and the writer named the London hospitals involved): “NHS patients are being asked to choose from 159 religions, 12 genders and 10 sexual preferences before they attend hospital appointments.” Do you suppose this was backed by an assessment by any biologists?
We saw something similar in the demand to make math education mandatory till age 18. Not, you notice, to make it mandatory to cover some math topics and applications.
Then there was the proposal to teach something called ‘coding’ in schools. No qualified teachers of course to teach programming, no assessment of whether its even possible to teach all children to do it, no assessment of whether systems administration might be what they really need. And of course all advocated by liberal arts grads who have never written so much as a two line shell script in their lives. Probably never even seen such a thing. Probably don’t even know that they exist!
Its the cult of the arrogant amateur.
“none of them have any accountability”
You nailed the BIG problem with government today let alone those like John Kerry.
+100
Tim, the climate activists would argue — and in some instances actually do argue — that imposing accountability is a barrier to making progress in solving the alleged climate crisis.
And how much formal training in power engineering does Nick Stokes have?
Think I know the answer already.
“move generation to wind and solar”
In the UK in 2009 we had 87.3GW of generating capacity which produced 376.8 TWh of electricity. Moving to wind and solar of around 37.6% of generating capacity by 2020 we had just under 101GW of generating capacity which produced 312.3 TWh of electricity.
An increase of 13.6 GW (15..6%) of generating capacity resulted in 64.5 TWh (17%) less electricity.
But,hey, the wind is always blowing somewhere and sunshine is free!
A very nice succinct way of making the point. The UK political class is really driving the country off a cliff with Net Zero energy policies. And none of them seem to be able to think consequentially for a couple of steps to see why its none of it properly thought through, its a bodge of inconsistent and incomplete measure, and it has no chance of working.
Its not so much whether they believe there is a climate emergency. Its that whether there is or not, this is not going to work.
The UK political class is
reallyintentionally driving the country off a cliff with Net Zero energy policies. Same here in the U.S. It’s just politicians and the ‘Elite’ trying to gain ‘at-a-boys at the WEF.But in the end, it’s all irrelevant anyway, if the wacky schemes get implemented and the system falls over, that’s a feature not a bug because the true intent all along was never about climate, it was about control, and controlling how much power each subject (any country that falls for this nonsense will have to subjugate all the citizens to even begin to achieve compliance) may use at any given moment AND in their lifetime. And they’re coming dangerously close to achieving this control.
Yep, All based on AI and simulations in Australia
https://www.prosus.com/news-insights/portfolio-updates/2023/neara-announcement
Sydney, September 27, 2023 – Neara, the first infrastructure modelling platform that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to create 3D, network-wide models for engineering-grade simulations and analytics, today announced a $10M capital raise extension and a novel case study to double existing line capacity for renewable energy.
…
The company completed a proprietary line rating case study with EMPACT Engineering in a fast-growing Central Texas region. Their platform discovered that 94.5% of the lines could safely run at double the current capacity — enabling the integration of significantly more clean energy using existing infrastructure. This precise modelling is more accurate and cost-effective for discovering latent power than other legacy line-rating techniques. Similarly, in New South Wales, Australia, Neara partnered with Essential Energy to double their network availability through software analytics, increasing the potential for renewable asset connectivity.
It’s rank insanity..
Why: Because while they strip away the ‘spare capacity’ and ‘redundancy’ from the existing system (in the relentless quest for ‘efficiency’).
The waste is going off the scale, even before windmills never last more than a ⅓rd the life of a CCGT plant or ¼ the life of a nuclear.
While here in the UK, huge big 300 and 400Watt solar panels (haha “fresh from the farm”) are being peddled on eBay at 10 years (and less) old because their reduced output after just that time means they make the farm unviable
How is it possible that so many supposedly intelligent and educated people can think like that, so badly ‘Lose The Plot’ and be so childish, naive and gullible?
just what went wrong here…..
…while new solar farms here in the UK are being cracked up to have 40 year life expectancies.
While actual evidence of existing farms shows they are down to 50% after 10 years and thus, like the windmills at 15 years old, become so much scrap metal, plastic and glass
Most UK solar farms are patently devices to turn pristine farmland into ‘brownfield sites‘ and thus into new housing estates, villages and towns.
You can tell from their ground-plans and how they are divided into chunks, strategically placed around ‘Areas of Beauty‘ or ‘Natural Interest‘ (and main roads/motorways) – oddly enough places involving lots of trees and water = The Very Things that actually control climate.
UK solar farms are = The new ‘garden cities’
The cheating, lying and general scumbaggery are also ‘Off The Scale’
If they are, Peta, the wrong criteria have been used to site them. The places that are best for catching the sun aren’t necessarily the best locations for people to live, when you take into account such things as communications, power/water supply, drainage etc.
Why should we take that into account? The planning authorities never do.
Most housing developments in the last 20 years are so poorly sited, they make the old flood-plain developments look positively enlightened. They have requirements for separate waste and storm water drainage across the entire site, but then it’s just dumped into a single sewer at the edge because there’s been no provision to take both away separately. Road connections are nearly always inadequate.
And they’re still build on flood plains.
The desperation of the Climate Alarmist driven wind turbine industry simply does not know how to behave. Power lines are engineered the way they are for safety and reliability reasons. The idea that at the stroke of a pen the power rating/energy carrying capacity can be almost doubled tells us how desperate the stalling Green energy industry now is.
When you think they have plumbed the very depths of conniving skulduggery comes this story from the Daily Telegraph today. Inducements being used to get farmers more, erm…..willing, to allow bird chopping devices on their land. This is worth a read.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/08/farmer-claims-he-was-offered-cash-and-trip-to-lap-dance-clu/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-onward-journey
Reminds me of governments that take the shoulders on highways and turn them into travel lanes. A cheap way to increase capacity til someone has a breakdown and there in no way to go to get out of the travel lanes causing severe backups and deadly accidents.
At least your roads have shoulders to start with. Here in West Virginia few State roads even have shoulders. Of course that turns the ditch side of most of the road culverts into VW Beetle traps :<)
Presumably they’ve taken into account fast charging of BEVs as well?
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
My car has a claimed top speed of 140 mph. I could drive it that fast but … it would shorten the life of the drivetrain, use more fuel and be dangerous to all the other cars on the highway as well as any people, cows, buildings and trees within shouting distance of the highway.
I don’t doubt that hardware now delivering electric power to our homes, stores, workplaces and hospitals could “safely” be reconfigured as claimed but margins for error and safety would be reduced.
Don’t ask me why I have a car that can go that fast. I blame my Y chromosome.
My Maserati does 185/ I lost my license and now I don’t drive.
Life’s been good to me so far.
Right you are, Joe W.
I suspect most of these pseudo-engineers don’t have the slightest experience in running something like a complicated network like the grid with thousands of single point failure devices.
Safety factors aren’t just used to derate the carrying factor of the wires. There are thousands of splices made throughout the grid. Those high voltage wires you see are not continuous 100 mile long wires. There are splices throughout with overlaps that distribute the current over a sufficient distance such that the splice does not heat up and fail. More of those splices than you can count exist from the generating plant to your home or business.
Has anyone ever tuned their AM radio in the car and listened to the noise from power lines as you drive? You can run a stretch with little noise and then come upon one where the noise would prevent you from listening to an AM station. Those are splices and/or insulator wraps that are on the way to causing an outage. What do you think doubling the current through those wires will do.
Lastly, unless you totally rebuild the grid, you are stuck with the voltage on each segment. The only way to double the power carried on those wires, splices, and transformers, etc. is to double the current. What happens when you do that? More I^2R losses, i.e., heating. I’ll guarantee the model used didn’t take this or the single point failure increase into account!
The model did as it was told.
This study is stupid because it isn’t the lines that can hold more, that gate the throughput. It is the lines that cannot.
You can have 99% of the grid with excess capacity but a system which cannot handle higher power transmission because of the 1% that does not.
Curtailment in Texas is actually about 1/3 due to congestion – i.e. too much power to go through specific sections of the grid. Furthermore I would bet money that the “excess capacity” lines are pretty much all the retail ones – i.e. from substations to houses and so forth. At the inter- and intra- state level, there are all sorts of sections in Texas which do not have sufficient capacity even for present electricity usage levels.
This is yet another example of morons opining on areas which they have spent zero effort studying.
We need to get to the bottom of this shocking plundering of power consumers. Just who has been getting the kickbacks from Big Wire to double the volume required? This is bigger than Enron.
Making an assertion does not make it fact. This is a common fallacy, especially among the liberally inclined.
“Advanced new technologies such as digital modelling and AI… “
This is demented nonsense. Have either of these things the ability to change the electrical capacitance of aluminum? The assorted grid failures of the last number of years in jurisdictions dominated by RE generation demonstrates that more RE increases the strain on electrical grids. This sort of claim is at least some evidence that the net zero promoters are getting frantic that their delusions will not and cannot be achieved.