From the Cliff Mass Weather Blog
Over the weekend I received several messages from Puget Sound Energy to reduce my energy use, both gas and electric, with the implicit threats of potential blackouts (see below).
Avista Energy (eastern Washington/Idaho) and other utilities made similar requests from their customers.
The key reasons for the worries?
The cold weather caused a large increase in energy demand and radically reduced the output of renewables (mainly wind in our region). For a few hours, there was also a problem with PSE’s gas storage facility south of Olympia.
This blog will describe the situation and why renewable energy tends to plummet just when energy demand is highest. It is also a warning that politicians and energy activists need to consider.
Let us begin by looking at electricity demand and supplies over the Pacific Northwest for the past week provided by the Bonneville Energy Administration (see below). The total demand (red line) increased rapidly between January 11 and January 14 (Saturday) as frigid Arctic air moved into the region and remained quite high on Sunday. Huge demands to keep our homes and buildings warm.
Most of this energy demand was met by hydrogeneration (blue line). Nuclear energy provided a steady energy source but at a lower level (purple).
But now look at renewables (the green line). This is nearly entirely winds since solar is extremely low over the Northwest during mid-winter.
Wind produced about a third of what hydro did before the cold air moved in, increased slightly at gusty northerly winds brought in the cold but collapsed to near zero once the cold air was in place.
To repeat, once cold air moves into the region and demand is at a maximum, winds calm out and renewables are no longer a significant source of energy in the Pacific Northwest. During summer heatwaves something similar happens: wind energy collapses during the warmest days.
So you understand this wind collapse issue better, let me show you a series of surface wind maps for the region (actually some highly accurate short-term forecasts of near-surface winds). When you look at these maps, consider that most of the wind turbines are in eastern WA/Oregon.
At 10 PM last Tuesday, there were some decent winds east of the Cascades (orange, yellow, and red colors).
10 PM Tuesday
Winds and thus wind energy held up on Thursday as strong northerly winds brought in the cold air.
10 PM Thursday
But by 10 PM Saturday, the winds had collapsed over most of the inland regions.
10 PM SaturdayAnd plummeted even further by 10 PM Sunday.
The winds at Ellensburg, well placed within wind turbine country, tell the story as well. Plenty of wind when the cold air started to move in but collapsed during the past few days.
This case is not unique. The same thing happens in virtually every cold wave.
So when we need the energy the most–to keep warm– renewable energy will virtually always fail in winter.
And the name thing happens on a national scale…and is happening as I write this. Below are the national statistics for the past week.
Wind energy (green line) dropped greatly as the cold air settled in over much of the U.S.. The only thing that kept the lights on was the increased use of natural gas (dark yellow line) and coal (red line).
The message of this information is clear. Renewables such as wind energy are generally not reliable sources of energy in our region during cold wave situations when demand is highest.
Hydrogeneration is extraordinarily valuable and flexible and any suggestions to reduce hydrogenation resources (such as removing the Snake River dams) is highly irresponsible.
Natural gas, a very clean source of heat, is still acutely needed and attempts to reduce supply or to prevent gas heating in buildings are highly irresponsible as well.
And keep in mind that the energy problem will only get worse as the regional population grows and more folks buy electrically powered vehicles.
Considering the acute deficiencies of renewables in our region (other than hydro) during cold and warm periods, we must take a more serious look at expanding nuclear power. We can also work on the energy efficiency of our buildings, demand scheduling (such as controllable driers/washers/home thermostats), and better energy storage (although there are no magic bullets on that).
But reality is reality and climate/energy advocates need to understand the underlying problems and refrain from unrealistic demands.
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“The message of this information is clear. Renewables such as wind energy are generally not reliable sources of energy in our region during cold wave situations when demand is highest.
Hydrogeneration is extraordinarily valuable and flexible and any suggestions to reduce hydrogenation resources (such as removing the Snake River dams) is highly irresponsible.”
Hydrogeneration is renewable. And it is indeed a very valuable backup, as here. If you save the water for times when wind is low, it is even more valuable.
Here is a thought experiment. Take half of the fully dispatchable hydro-generation currently produced by the US Norhtwest’s dams and replace it with fully dispatachable wind and solar backed by batteries. What is the cost in time, money, human, and material resources needed to accomplish that objective?
Why would you do that? Hydro and wind complement each other very well. Use wind when it is blowing, saving water for when it isn’t.
Only where hydro is possible. Still weather dependent.
Saving water …?
For what?
I doubt they can save water often- it’s a wet climate- most of the time, water must go over the dams.
Much hydro in the Pacific Northwest is at run-of-the-river dams and powerhouses. One cannot just “save” the water for when the wind is not blowing without flooding huge areas. Yes, powerhouses can be bypassed and then water diverted through turbines as needed, but it is not like there is a lot of extra water to hold back and then release as if it were a reservoir.
The reservoirs behind the dams vary in level depending on season and weather.
(Technically, ‘run-of-the-river’ does not use much of a dam, whereas on the Peace River and the Columbia there are big dams, such as the Grand Coulee in eastern WA.)
IGrand Coulee dam, which I visited last fall, is a tall dam, but its PRIMARY purpose is for IRRIGATION.
ALL the dams on the lower Columbia river are NOT tall dams.
Drive down I 84 that follows the river. The water, at places, is not 10 feet below the roadway. They cannot just HOLD the water when the wind is blowing perfectly for high electricity production.
GOOGLE lower Columbia dams and look at the pictures.
Those dams serve a purpose that MUST NOT be bastardized by kowtowing to the needs of unreliable generation. They are rightly needed for providing variable output over the 24 hour day to provide PEAKING power, NOT variable output over whatever time frame the wind blows, or does not blow.
Most hydro dams operate by either passing through the turbine or the outlet works, either spill way or outlet conduit. There is no saving water in a hydro facility.
They aren’t saving the water it flows right through the dams 24/7 when there is excess, they open up the outflow gates when it is at the low time of the year they close everything but the fish ladders and maybe shut down a Turbine if there is the rare unusually low water flow which happened in 1976, but this is the Columbia River that has so much watershed to draw to allow the coordination of the dam system working together keep up the water levels high rather easily.
Renewable energy advocates consistently fail to estimate the energy storage requirement that must be fulfilled by their preferred wind and solar back-up.
The energy storage requirement for the US NW likely exceeds 10TWh.
How much storage is available in existing hydro power systems for the purpose you desire without compromising their other purposes?
.And while winter demand gets the headlines because of the combination of low wind, cloud and low temperatures, leading to short periods of very high demand, the real crisis is in summer, May to September, when the weather is nice, mild, not windy and air conditioning often required.
During summer, wind capacity factors are very low, there would be a constant drain on the energy storage system, shorter periods of higher winds would be insufficient to top up the energy storage system.
Objection, your Honor. Until some not-yet-existing batteries are available at a less than extortionate prices, wind and solar can NOT be sufficiently backed up by batteries. Hence the ‘fully dispatchable’ idea is just a dream.
It is not realistic to propose battery backup for wind or solar. Affordable batteries can’t scale up to grid scale. Batteries that could scale up sufficiently don’t yet exist in the real world.
Plus, the solar and wind power needed to recharge such a system would not be available for other uses, thereby dramatically reducing its value (if any existed).
” Renewables such as wind energy are generally not reliable sources of energy in our region during cold wave situations when demand is highest.” (Bold is mine.)
Reading Is Fundamental. The author added the explicit caveat of which type of renewable is not reliable.
No one said or implied that hydrogeneration is not renewable.
The topic of the article is that wind energy is unreliable during entrenched intrusions of cold air. Yet you are the first posted comment with a ridiculous non-sequitur.
Cui bono?
Hydro is still WEATHER dependent.
Also only appropriate where you have the terrain and rainfall to make it possible.
So in many places in the world, hydro will remain basically useless.
One of the practical uses of statistics is the calculation of how big a reservoir should be in order to give a certain quantity of water at a given flow rate over a given period with a given % reliability. Examples are a water supply to a town with a 98% guarantee over an 80 year period, given everything that impacts the answer which is in cubic metres or acre-feet.
Yes, hydro is ultimately weather dependent, but it would be more accurate to say it is climate dependent because the timelines considered are long and weather variability is subsumed into the larger picture. This sort of calculation is routinely done for municipal water supplies.
Interestingly, wind and solar PV are not like this. They are weather dependent day after day. There is no conceivable storage system that can store electricity for 30 years, smoothing weather into climate.
Hydro is renewable.
Water that passed through doesn’t come back 😀
It is renewed via stream flow.
Sure, but hasn’t the PNW had some very “unusual” dry periods in the past several years? I presume hydro power was not productive during those periods.
Depends on if you consider winters with plentiful snowfall but little rain to be “dry” or not. During summer and fall months, the melting of snowpacks in mountain areas of the PNW contributes greatly to water volume flows in rivers.
Power production was just fine since the Turbines in the bigger dams on the Columbia are well below standard water levels thus continues to produce electricity even in low water years.
The Grand Coulee allows water to flow right over the top of the dam when there is excess water but in the late Summer there is no water going over the top but remains plenty high for power generation.
However, much of it is not reliable under certain conditions. Just like wind is unreliable under certain conditions.
Stream flow where small dams are used to gather water are very dependent upon constant water flow. Drought conditions can result in a diminished flow.
Large reservoirs are also dependent on river flow, but most are also used as water sources for humans. Again, drought conditions can result in a conundrum of saving water for human use or letting it go for electricity.
You sound very much like a bureaucrat where there is ONE SOLUTION for all situations and it is also the BEST solution. Grow up!
“It is renewed via stream flow.”
Not if you have a drought.
Why are you trying so hard to prove you are an idiot, Nick !!
Research “hydrologic cycle on Earth” (https://www.noaa.gov/jetstream/atmosphere/hydro )
I turn 70 this year. Growing up in northern Ontario I remember a lot of COLD winters, but energy was never rationed.
Energy advisories are a recent and growing phenomenon: a feature, not a bug of Net Zero.
The amount of water on earth is fixed, just as oil is. So it is not renewable. In fact, the total amount of energy in the universe is not renewable, unless you have another big bang. Enough with talking about renewable energy, its all a myth.
Oil is consumed and turned to CO2. The water just circulates. I believe rain in Seattle is not a finite resource.
“I believe rain in Seattle is not a finite resource.
No idiot… it is not an infinite resource.
It is a weather dependent resource.
So when will it stop?
You ignore that water is used for many purposes, not just for hydrogeneration. It is a finite source. You should know that since you love averages.
Water must be allocated to a multitude of uses. Drinking water for humans and animals, irrigation water, hydrogeneration, evaporation. I seriously doubt you have ever grew up being dependent on water for farm ponds, irrigation, wells for human use, and yes, for dry land crops. It is not an endless source!
What an ignorant question
It will stop when there is no rain for a while, idiot !!
CO2 is taken up by plants which convert Carbon to Carbohydrates and release the oxygen to repeat the cycle
But carbohydrates ain’t oil.
Again.. what sort of idiotic comment is that.!!
Totally meaningless
Wrong Wrong Wrong!!!
oil = hydrocarbon
carbohydrates = hydrocarbon
THUS using Nick Stokes and Climate Science Logic,
oil = carbohydrates
Although we here know there are processes required to make that happen. This I am not worried about the supposed end of oil. Mankind will always be able to produce whatever hydrocarbon nature can produce. It will just cost a little more effort to produce it.
But its still a CO2 cycle
Water is also formed in combustion of hydrocarbons.
You breathing turns into CO2. So stop breathing if you want to keep making such spurious arguments.
And your explanation for the origin and properties of dark energy is . . .?
Dark matter and dark energy may not exist. The postulated expansion of the universe may be an illusion, caused by change in the mass of particles over time. This would explain why the observed value of the cosmological constant is 120 orders of magnitude different then the predicted value.
Cosmology In Minkowski Space; Lombriser; Classical And Quantum Gravity; Volume 40, Number 15 (2023)
“may not” . . . “may be” . . . “predicted value” . . .
Got it. Now where do we go . . . after admitting things may or may not exist.
LOL!
That is why China had already met its renewable target. Of course, now they are still adding new coal fired power stations on an almost weekly basis.
Adn NO , Hydro only works while there is sufficient water in the dams or river.
They are weather dependant, just like wind and solar.
Ummmm . . . what about underground aquifers that naturally feed into dam reservoirs and rivers? Just curious as to how weather affects them?
Underground aquifers are mostly just a longer-term part of the water cycle.
Look up the Ogallala Aquifer in the midwest of the USA. It is not a renewable resource in terms of annual or even decadal time. It is fast disappearing and there are doubts that it can ever be totally recharged as soil compaction occurs when the water is removed.
The issue was not whether or not aquifers were renewable . . . it was whether or not they were “weather dependent, just like wind and solar”.
Then why do so many enviros want to tear down the dams? Oh, sure, the love “the wilderness”.
“If you save the water for times when wind is low, it is even more valuable.”
Really? how does one go about saving the water? Do the consumers keep a few buckets of spare water in the garage and then rush to the Snake river and toss it in when needed?
A TWh generated by wind is a TWh that you didn’t need to take water from the dams to dgenerate.
The water still flows….
to the extent you choose. That is what a dam is for. Water flows in and out. The outflow is used to generate electricity. You don’t have to let it out for that when the wind is blowing.
“You don’t have to let it out for that when the wind is blowing.”
YES, YOU DO.
There are in stream rights, and other downstream demands.
And, you don’t turn the valve and shut off the generator penstock when the wind starts blowing … don’t be silly.
“You don’t have to let it out FOR THAT when the wind is blowing.”
So, you are saying we have to use a precious resource to back up the parasitic variability of wind.
Don’t you realise how stupid that is !!
Maybe you are finally showing some understanding.. even if by accident.
Check the variation in the Bonneville upstream ‘pool’ over the last 20 years. Then come back and tell me about storing extra water for hard times.
Here in the PNW, wind and hydro power peak in the same season, which is spring. This creates a situation in which wind energy is preferentially pad for at high rates and hydro power is devalued. To offset this, BPA sells the “excess” power at a discount. California is currently the largest customer. Also, the lower Snake dams also function as locks and allow barges to ship substantial amounts of cargo as far inland as the port of Lewiston. Without this, all those materials would have to go by truck and rail.
River run dams trap and store zero water. Their reservoir is the running river which runs whether or not the dam is generating
And you never heard about flood regulation in case of a lot of rain ?
You, Nick, if you really are Nick, are showing just how ignorant your are of the multiple uses for dams.
There were already ENOUGH uses for the water flowing through the dams of the US west before you @ssh@t idiots started pushing unreliable generation methods.
SO Nick, I have asked you this before but you have never answered.
Why do you hate poor people so much Nick? Since 100% of the REQUIRED electrical output of a grid system MUST be provided for by reliable generation capacity, and all unreliable capacity is just an unnecessary expense that takes labor, resources, etc. away from the greater good of mankind which, of course always hurt the poor the most, you MUST HATE poor people.
A TWh generated by GAS or COAL is a TWh that you didn’t need to take water from the dams to generate.
You can use that water for crops, city supply etc etc.
AND to provide variable output for peak loads. Way easier to open of close a valve that fire up or cool down a heat source. And for river run dams you just divert the water from flow thru to the penstock and back.
You cannot “save” the water for times when wind and solar are unable to do their job simply because those dams serve many purposes. What’s more, your environmentalist pals want to tear out dams on the Snake/Clearwater/Columbia system to help the fish.
Time scale. The dams are designed to hold water for many months of drought. They can easily smooth out fluctuations in wind.
You pay zero attention. On the Snake/Clearwater/Columbia system the dams purpose is among other things, navigation. You can’t save water nilly-willy for the sake of wind.
Again, time scale. The top plot shows that early in the week, hydro was generating 4-6 GW, draining water to do that. Wind was generating about 2 GW. Later in the week, wind dropped, and hydro generated about 8 MW. The wind will pick up again. None of this interferes with the dam’s other uses.
Contrary to what Cliff says, the PNW is very suited to make use of wind. Yes, it may reduce when demand is greatest, but hydro is there to cover, as it always has, and isn’t going to go away. The dams can replenish from stream flow when the wind is blowing. These are minor fluctuations in dam storage.
The same amount of water moved through the dams … when wind farms are ‘producing’ & selling power, the other facilities (hydro) sell less power because of politics … they don’t and can’t save it up for later.
You mean WASTING stored water to cater for the vagaries of parasitic wind.
Ok , why not just say that.
What if you don’t get the expected streamflow ??
Wouldn’t it be far better just to use a stable reliable and dispatchable source in the first place.
You are confused bnice200. Dams on the lower Columbia river DO NOT STORE WATER to any extent like the Hoover or Grand Coulee do.
Please don’t give Nick cover.
You have no idea what the PNW is like, I live in the real PNW, British Columbia, Vancouver Island. BC gets 82% of its electricity from hydro most of the remainder comes from hydrocarbons, There are a few isolated wind farms, one on the tip of Vancouver Island, but they supply less than 1% of the electricity, There is no wind today here and there was none yesterday. I would have to cut down a lot of trees to get a useful solar farm and since we’re at Lat.49.5 there isn’t a lot of solar. Cliff is right on the money.
Spot on! Well said.
Imagine building those dams and then turning them off and on due to the vagaries of the wind. And for no purpose other than to pretend medieval technology “works” in a modern society. Expensive, wasteful of resources and plain stupid!
No, it is because they are forced by law to allow for Wind and Solar power production when it is available which is why they reduce Hydro power generation when needed to keep the flow stable in the power lines which has a finite capacity while they continue to let water flow through the dams at a similar rate to maintain flow integrity of the entire Columbia and Snake River system.
I live in Eastern Washington have visited The Grand Coulee, McNary Dam, which is just 35 miles south of my house, Ice Harbor Dam I see every year for picnics and swim which is only 30 miles from my house, Wanapum and Preist Rapids dams just 50-70 miles from my house have seen them many times over the years in my drive to Ellensburg.
You show a lot of ignorance on how they control the water year-round and they do it together.
Your ignorance is really coming out today, Nickie-boy.
If you release water for hydro purposes, it is not there for drought relief.
Why waste water smoothing the erratic fluctuation of a parasitic load on the supply system…..
That is just utter stupidity when you have the RELIABILITY of COAL and GAS available..
“If you release water for hydro purposes, it is not there for drought relief.”
They have ben releasing water for power generation since forever. Nothing new there.
But if wind power displaces hydro, you have more water for drought relief. Or for when wind is low.
Use Coal and gas you can keep all the water for drought relief.
You don’t need to use it because wind FAILS. !!
Nick,
when are in a friends car, do you get out and push after you come to a stop … to get the car up to 3 mph before you jump back in? You know, in order to save fuel for later.
Think of the fuel savings if everyone did this.
(did you have one of those bikes hooked up to your reading light? I bet this is one that you actually might say yes to; further question … do you still use it?)
LOL, really you have no idea what goes on in the State of Washington where most of the big dames are located as it has a large watershed to draw from.
They draw the rivers down hard in March into May to account for the snow melt and Springs rains in the mountains because the Columbia River at its peak discharge rate in June is the highest in the world yes exceeds the Nile and the Amazon at their peak levels.
Sometimes it gets so high the Richland city parks and some business that are along the Columbia and Yakima rivers get flooded due to wet winters and springs because they have to dumb all that water through the dams at a high rate.
It is practically impossible to have water shortage in the Columbia River system with those massive reservoirs which is why they scrapped the Central Washington Reservoir plan way back in the 1960’s which was the last main reservoir to build because they realized they have enough water already with a extra to spare they work hard to discharge to prevent dams from overflowing.
Dams smooth the flow, but are not a source of water. Long term hydro production is still potentially limited by average catchment flow. Average wind generation is additional to that. The big dams allow hydro to vary to meet wind fluctuations, while still giving average hydro generation determined by average catchment flow.
The source of the water is rain.
It is intermittent and irregular..
Once it is stored in a dam, it is FAR BETTER used for crops, domestic supply etc.
WASTING WATER to cater for the erratic and parasitic inconsistencies of wind is utterly stupid, just the sort of thing you would support.
Using COAL and/or GAS is a much more sensible way of producing electricity
Why are you so, so interested in WASTING PRECIOUS RESOURCES, just so you can implement a parasitic, erratic and environmentally destructive subsidy driven farce like wind?
Have you got a turbine in your back yard et.
or are you just being a low-life hypocrite !.
No, they manage the water flow changes INDEPENDENTLY of wind power changes because that is how they control the flow 24/7.
You are one confused fella.
Not the bigger ones they are designed for POWER production have you seen how big the reservoir is behind the Grand Coulee Dam it is massive!
Lake Roosevelt
LINK
Here you can use the excellent database set up to see how the lake levels changed over the decades, I looked at the time frame since 1960 never got low enough to prevent power production at all.
LINK
The problem is when trying to expand renewables to replace fossil generation there is not a lot more hydro that can be added. The alternative resources are wind and solar. The problem described here is universal. I believe that for any “zero-emissions” electric grid that does not rely on nuclear, that this problem is a fatal flaw.
“The problem described here is universal.”
What is described here is a very low emission system almost completely based on renewables. And it works well. Nuclear and FF make a small contribution. It was mostly hydro; wind when available displaces hydro, with less overall demand on the annual streamflow. Or they use the full flow by installing more generating machinery to produce power for export.
I can’t see what Cliff’s beef is here. Wind went down for a while, so they upped the hydro. That just brings them for a little while to the situation if there had been no wind farms. But the wind will come back.
“That just brings them for a little while to the situation if there had been no wind farms.”
SO you finally understand.
The wind and solar were never needed and were just installed to make rich people richer through crony capitalism, and make poor people poorer due to the waste of manpower and resources to build the useless wind and solar systems.
A single Thorium Power plant can cover all those low mass intermitted ruinables.
There is an unfinished plant at Hanford that is about 81% completed……….mas been in mothball for many years now.
A couple of things. One is that the PNW is an outlier in the US, the bottom chart shows that for the US as a whole, most of the adjustment for the variations in wind and solar are taken up by natural gas and coal, with hydro being a distant third. The other is that, as many have pointed out to you, hydro is subject to being curtailed by drought. Discharge during drought conditions will likely be limited to preserve storage for other uses, and compounded with lower water levels (less pressure), this will further reduce the power available.
Cliff is pretty much spot on with his concerns about too much reliance on wind and solar even for the US PNW.
One beef I have with wind power advocates is that generating 1 MWhr of electricity from win needs about 10 times the materials such as steel and concrete than a nuclear plant.
But a nuclear plant is reliable continuous output and the 1 MWhr of wind comes when it wants to, not always when needed, so, as per the Brandon administration placing a ridiculously high “social” cost on “carbon” “pollution” to skew the value of different power generation sources, wind power output should be reduced by a factor taking its unreliability into account, say 90% only since from what I have seen here that is about where wind gets when conditions are “unfavorable”.
So the 1 MW hr is actually 0.1. Essentially worthless.
I’m going to give Nick partial credit. Hydro is mostly renewable and some dams/lakes are primarily for power generation (see Lake of the Ozarks).
But renewables simply aren’t reliable and are unsuitable as primary power sources. By what logic does it make sense to use a primary power source that requires 100% backup? Renewables are expensive and having to build backup systems doubles the cost. Only a few fossil fuel sources can be rapidly spun-up on demand.
Here is a definition of Renewable Energy from the State of Washington, you will note that hydro has limited restricted eligibility (whatever that means).
WA state is very woke and broke.
Renewable Energy
The EIA establishes a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) with renewable energy targets as a percentage of customer load. The targets increase over time, from 3 percent in 2012, to 9% in 2016, to 15 percent in 2020. Eligible resources include water, wind, solar energy, geothermal energy, landfill gas, wave, ocean or tidal power, gas for sewage treatment plants and biodiesel fuel and biomass energy.
Many of the renewable resources have restricted eligibility. For example, hydro eligibility is limited to incremental generation due to efficiency improvements made after 1999, and the hydro project must be either owned by one of the 18 EIA-qualifying utilities or marketed by the Bonneville Power Administration. Hydro projects in pipes and canals do not have restricted ownership, but they must be located in Washington.
Other renewable resources must be located in the Pacific Northwest or delivered to Washington on a real-time basis. The Bonneville Power Administration service area map is helpful in understanding the geographic boundaries (unselect all layers except BPA Service Area).
A utility is not required to meet a renewable energy target if it spends at least 4% of its retail revenue requirement on the incremental cost of renewable energy and renewable energy credits. The cost cap for a utility that has no load growth is 1%.
If only things could be that simple, Nick. Rivers are where they are and what they are for reasons. A certain amount must flow in them regardless of whether we generate electrical power from it or not. The fact is we do hold back much of the rain we get in the wetter parts of the year (up to the capacity of our reservoirs) to let go in the less wet times. This keeps the flow much more constant than it would be without the dams, which is not an unmixed blessing: Sure we get a lot of just about the cheapest power in the country and the rivers are much more navigable to ships and barges but the large charges of silt and sand flushing out at peak flow build up the beaches near each river’s mouth. With our power dams, that is much reduced and we get places like “Washaway Beach” as a result. The more constant flow is also not good for salmon which like the low flow in late summer to get up stream to spawn and the higher flow in the spring to boost the young ones back out into the ocean. Also the fish ladders meant to let the salmon swim around the dams did not work as well as hoped. We are learning to make them better but they’re still less effective than we would like. Us natives do tend to obsess about our salmon and the support many of us give to taking out the dams is based on the hope (not bad as forlorn hopes go) that getting rid of the dams will return things to the way they were in the tales our elders pass down to us of the way things were before the palefaces conquered us.
You will, if you study the graphs Dr. Mass included a bit, and pay attention to what he wrote, notice that we do use the wind and solar that is available to us, but when it goes to near zero, we have little choice but to send more water through the turbines and we have a limited number of turbines. I have a modest 6.4 kw rated solar array on my own roof and I can testify from my own experience over the last couple of years that while it produces about what I can consume during the daylight hours on most nice summer days (though never yet more than about half of it’s rated capacity) production falls from 30 kwh or so a day to about half a dozen even on good winter days, with particularly dim and stormy ones less than one kilowatthour. Record low is 0.273 kwh, a little over 2 cents worth. Over the time I’ve had it working, the production tracking app claims my grid dependence is 85%, nothing to brag about.
I am, as I have occasionally found it appropriate to mention, native Alaskan by ancestry though I live on the soggy corner of the lower forty eight. Though I was not born, nor have I ever lived “on the rez,” some of my daughters have married into nearby tribes and given me grand children so I have strong attachments here and as much motivation as anyone to keep the trees and fish going on forever. My quarrel with the green slimers and climate clowns is not so much with the ostensible objective, but the seemingly endless production of cures worse than the disease (if there even is a disease) and the strident demands that each and every one of them no mater how asinine or lacking in wisdom must be implemented immediately.
Great comments, Ill Tempered Klavier.
I totally endorse this observation of yours –
None of the green “cures” has ever been properly, rationally thought through, let alone prototyped or tested in all expected real-world conditions.
“but when it goes to near zero, we have little choice but to send more water through the turbines and we have a limited number of turbines”
Yes, But without wind, you would have been sending that water through all the time; there is very little FF generation capacity. And that is how it was. Wind and solar reduce the flow through the turbines.
Not if you have COAL and GAS.. Then you can keep that valuable water for other purposes.
Leftists love WASTING resources.
On the lower Columbia, the water is just diverted to NOT flow through the turbines, but still flows through the dam, you moron. It is not STORED, for any length of tome, the dams are not high enough.
Again you miss the main point: Water we got this being two season country (the wet season and the wetter season). We just don’t have all the generating capacity to meet maximum demand. Wind and solar go AWOL when we could actually use them.
My stepson and granddaughter are native Citizen Potawatomie. I have had the pleasure of making many acquaintances of tribal members and tutor several in school. Environmentalists seldom have the appreciation for the land that native people do. They think going back to nature is changing things to what they once were. Seldom do they know the stories and the animal spirits that are the fundamental beliefs that underlay nature. I have invited several environmentalists to parties where pigs and chickens are slaughtered and cooked. Look out for the projectile vomiting and fainting, lol.
What bugs me most is the one size fits all attitude of typical bureaucrats and environmentalists. As Mr. says, we have gotten where we are by adapting. Somehow that has been forgotten and the new paradigm is let’s control nature since we now know so much. We will rue what is coming.
Plussed, just for your screen name alone.
Why, when Nick says something sensible for once, does everyone vote him down? Knee-jerk reaction because it’s Nick?
Except he didn’t. !
For my part, I often find Nick’s comments frustrating, because he is Nick with a brain bigger than Texas, but base-level, everyday rationality seems to escape him.
For example, even giving a moment’s consideration to proposals to “fight” or “stop” climates from changing, let alone sink $ trillions into lame-brained “action plans” (net zero, etc) is abject irrationality by any measure.
Sure, keep studying all the physics and dynamics related to how coupled, non-linear chaotic climate systems might work, but adapting to gradual environmental changes is how our species has developed to where it is now – i.e. capable of engineering mitigation measures to keep us in satisfactory states of livability.
Academics should stay in their hypothetical lanes, and leave the practical work of adaptation measures to engineers who think things through, develop, build, test, install, operate and maintain the stuff that keeps us all alive.
He doesn’t have a clue about how water is controlled in the dam system.
No idea. Ask again when and if he ever says anything sensible. It sure wasn’t today.
Except EVERYWHERE where energy is needed on demand, Hydro can’t necessarily be placed as back-up.
Hydro makes an excellent source of primary on demand energy much like Nuclear and Gas and Coal
All dispatchable all reliable and all capable of supplying energy when needed for a modern society.
Wind and solar can only produce energy, weather permitting and thereby are unreliable for primary on demand energy sources
My nephew lives in Oslo. Once the undersea link to the UK was completed, the price of electricity, now augmented by UK wind, doubled…
Hydro is worth three times the price in the UK, and the fact that Norway gets surplus wind power at virtually zero cost does not compensate.
I really don’t know why you bother Nick. Do you work for Renewable UK? Or are you just a useful idiot?
“Once the undersea link to the UK was completed, the price of electricity, now augmented by UK wind, doubled”
Yes. That happens with any commodity when the possibility of export arises. The commodity becomes more valuable, and locals have to pay more to bid for their share. But the country is richer. It happened to us in Oz with gas and LNG export. Who benefits from the new wealth is another matter.
Your natural gas price increases are due to your termination of the use of coal as a major source of electricity, and then using natural gas to generate the lost output of the coal plants.
You KNOW that!
This argument by you shows just how dishonest you are being here, mostly to yourself.
It isn’t a backup power generating source it is running 24/7because the rivers are flowing through the turbines all the time.
They don’t save the water since they regulate the flow of the rivers through all the dams on certain main rivers all year long to keep a stable water level.
There is an unfinished nuclear plant at Hanford Washington which they could complete for Thorium power production then there having just that single addition would make a lot of difference for the peak demands times but that requires politicians to be rational.
Yes, but will relying on hydro or nuclear energy won’t collapse capitalism.
The picture is perfect; talk about ‘picture perfect’. I’d like to know where it is from, and where the heat came from to melt the snow that froze into the icicles. Could it be from the part of the day when the solar panels saw some sun?
Photo appears generated, not a real scene.
The article is exactly correct, wind output becomes less and less, as the temperature decreases, which has been known for decades
That was proven true in Germany, the UK, New England, where ever there are wind turbines.
In Texas, the fools who run the electric grid, did not require wind turbines be winterized, and require pipelines of power plants to be insulated.
Now, every time there is a cold spell, the turbines freeze up, and the pipelines freeze up. Those Texas fools have screwed the great Texan people.
There will be hell to pay in hades; double keel haul the bastards, back and forth, until they are limp.
I recall ads for the “Pickens Plan,” which advocated turning the US into “the Saudi Arabia of Wind,” if my memory serves correctly. How much influence do you reckon that had on Texas’ foolish embrace of wind turbines as a primary power source?
A lot. T. Boone Pickens, oil man, was the primary architect of the wind power plan, backed up by instant-on natural gas turbines, powered by his natural gas. Too bad he didn’t live long enough to see how will the whole system is working. I should add that what has actually happened may not be exactly what he planned or how he would have implemented it. There were plenty of other fools involved as well.
T Boone was pissed, the Texas government did not build, and pay for, power lines to connect his un-winterized wind turbines in the Panhandle in Western Texas to load centers in Eastern Texas, more than 1000 miles.
That cost would have altered the economics of his wind projects to negative.
Texas has been cold for the last few days. I haven’t heard of any power outages.
I’ll post it here again as it’s more actual:
Tomorrow we will get “green weather” in Germany:
Southern and central Germany will have nice weather tomorrow, frozen grounds, first snow, up to 25cm and later, with coming warm air from south west rain, freezing on ground, frozen rain.
Traffic will be amazing, cracking trees, overhead lines, icy streets and railways….
with automatically translated subs
Not much to expect from windmills and solarpanels 😀
Video will get an update in later time, will poste it when it’s available.
Update
Where I live – at the frontline:
Tomorrow intense snowfall on the line of convergence of air masses from the south and north from northern France, through Germany to Poland.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2024/01/17/2100Z/wind/surface/level/overlay=total_cloud_water/orthographic=-345.54,51.59,1522
The last video, the above mentioned update showed that I just live where the line of convergence is forecasted. We will have the full program 😀
I’m just curious what icy rain after snow will produce on windmills and solar panels. 😀
I remember the quantity of ice I found only on the door of my car, about 1cm at the vertical, all horizontal area had about 5cm of ice. That happend end 1970ies. Was a lot of work and time to take the ice off.
That big front from the south that was supposed to bring warming to Poland has clearly broken over Austria and has little chance of reaching Poland.
The all-powerful EU unelected bureaucrats will ban cold fronts during winter and hot fronts during summer, from entering the EU.
There, that will teach them
China is struggling, but it’s GDP grew 5.4% in 2023, while EU GDP grew zero percent
Russia GDP grew 2.5% in 2023, despite sanctions, and while decoupling from EU markets
Snowfall is extending into northern Germany and the Czech Republic.
Was the cracked up “Cold Weather” really so awful as to crash the grid…
From a station just south of Seattle = January temps for the last 3 years plus what has happened so far this month.
What does anyone reckon, is a drop from +5°C last Thursday to -5°C now, really all that bad?
Great thing is that the wind picked up when the temps dropped.
Did they throttle the turbines because the blades would break in the stronger wind & colder weather – those things (and people) are beyond pathetic
It does not take deep outbreaks of arctic air to demonstrate that renewables, without ruinously expensive storage, cannot possibly power the northwest region. Period. The wind lulls during the summer will drain batteries slowly but inexorably to zero.
During our excursion to -30F over the past couple of days, there was no wind at all over a huge region. Coincidentally I am putting finishing touches on a talk I’ll give at a local collge next Thursday and I hope the attendees recall the cold this week to help punctuate my message.
“Coincidentally I am putting finishing touches on a talk”
Please, Kevin, post your speech (slides and notes, if there are any) here,
with some kind of “copyleft” for us to reuse it.
Thanks in advance, Lorenz
Let me get through this “shake-down” cruise, and make adjustments that become apparent in the first presentation, and then perhaps we can do something about making it more widely available. I had thought about making it a Youtube.
It is enough to simply point out the inevitability that, in extreme cold, wind and solar will frequently run and hide while the demands for electricity will rise sharply. This makes clear the idiocy of the current push for so called renewable energy (anything but renewable when one examines the resources required for deployment) to replace conventional, reliable generation.
Possibly, because this observation alone is sufficient to convince any sentient person that we need a different policy, it is often left off the page to mention that, as policy-makers are pushing to make electricity all wind and solar generated, they are also driving a massive demand in electricity by eradicating heating, transportation, and industrial processes run on fossil fuels, with the assumption those energy demands will all be added to the electricity demands which can’t be met even now when the weather turns foul.
Cliff has made an excellent case here. It is approximately the same presentation, even a couple of the same graphics, I made to the PSC here last January when they were considering a certificate of necessity and convenience for a wind plant. I’m pretty sure the presentation had little effect because so many of our regulatory institutions and elected officials and even the utilities themselves have been captured in some way or another.
The near universal thinking at this moment is that all the world’s resources need to be marshalled to help wind and solar do their job — wind and solar, the two most entitled valley girls since “Clueless”.
Cliff,
Your comment on controlling our homes is repugnant. You give anyone that much power and our civilization is an ice-cube. (Toast was not appropriate…🙃)
More proof the green mob have no idea what is coming for them…
https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/chicago-area-tesla-charging-stations-lined-with-dead-cars-in-freezing-cold-a-bunch-of-dead-robots-out-here
Multiply the total number of battery cars by 10 and plot a projection…
Grid scale storage is not just super expensive, it’s not yet possible. There has never been a grid scale storage facility built, and tested, in the real world.
Not on the many TWh scale needed to backup no wind/scant solar scenarios, possibly lasting weeks if not months.
Grid-scale storage exists in Norway and Quebec, each get at least 90% of their electricity from reservoir hydro.
Battery systems would not work in cold weather, as proven by EVs in Chicago
Very nice.
“… regional utilities are experiencing higher energy use than forecasted, and we need to reduce strain on the grid.”
Oh, blame on the weather instead of your irresponsible planning and lack of preparation.
They must have a pretty good idea what the peak demand is likely to be in these extreme cases.
It should be mandated that they have reliable dispatchable supplies available to meet that demand + some extra.
Look at the circulation in the lower stratosphere and stay warm in the northwest US.
From the above article:
“The cold weather caused a large increase in energy demand and radically reduced the output of renewables (mainly wind in our region).”
(my bold emphasis added)
Excuse me, but that statement, and the above article overall, is confusing: isn’t hydroelectric power generation (aka “hydropower” or “hydrogeneration”) considered to be a renewable power source, and isn’t its output reliability pretty much unaffected by cold weather???
The first graph in the article seems to say so (hydropower is the blue curve with its diurnal variations) . . . but then the article seems waffle on whether or not hydropower is considered as a renewable energy source on par with wind. Huh?
“Hydropower is the foundation of the Pacific Northwest’s power system, providing about 50 percent of the region’s annual energy generation (the amount of electricity produced over a year) and 54 percent of its flexible capacity (the maximum rate of generation; important in meeting periods of peak loads).”
source: https://www.nwcouncil.org/energy/energy-topics/hydropower/
(again, my bold emphasis added)
Your question is valid, however, whether to consider hydropower as “renewable” for the purposes of meeting renewable portfolio standards is a matter that each jurisdiction decides differently. I don’t know how Washington classifies large scale hydro. In Kansas, large scale hydro is not renewable, but small scale is. Go figure.
FWIW, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) clearly states that hydropower is a renewable energy source, regardless of its scale.
—Ref: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
“But reality is reality and climate/energy advocates need to understand the underlying problems and refrain from unrealistic demands.”
But they won’t. Too much money fleecing the taxpayers.
“Reality is reality”. Yes. You can ignore reality—but not the consequences of ignoring reality.
There is no green solution for renewable intermittency. Period.
Story tip – EV cars dead in Chicago – Chicago becomes a ‘graveyard’ littered with corpses of ‘dead robots’ – American Thinker
I never thought I’d find myself saying this but, when I click on the + symbol below a Nick Stokes comment, why doesn’t the minus number get closer to zero? Is the voting fixed?
This is not a frivolous comment. I tried to do this on a number of his comments and the negative number never changed. I’d hate to think that WUWT is using dirty tricks like the warmistas. What’s wrong with the website?
Did you ever think that the negative vote queue could be extremely large and very active?
Just askin…
When it comes to downvotes, I take consolation from Dean Swift. While my sins may be scarlet, my posts are read.
So you admit you like making a total fool of yourself.
That is really sad !!
Oh, come on, Brice! That was quite a good pun on Nick’s part…
It’s actually Hilaire Belloc (not Swift, as I mis-remembered).
No, I have upvoted him on different occasions and seen it get closer to 0.
It is part of a theme set up and Plug in but there is no control for them in the admin board which I should know since I run a WordPress blog as Administrator and a moderator at another wordpress based blog.
WUWT isn’t cheating Nick at all even when I was a moderator here never saw anything to show it was targeting Nick.
Nick is self-targetting….
… making a target of himself with ridiculously naive and puerile comments.
You are being infected with leftist paranoia !!
Get a grip !
24 hours later, seems to be working OK again…
The numbers don’t update when you’re reading, but it updates when you click +/-
If the number didn’t change, that means that during the time between loading the page and you clicking +/-, somebody else clicked the opposite.
Speaking of cold, a story tip.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/chicago-area-tesla-charging-stations-lined-with-dead-cars-in-freezing-cold-a-bunch-of-dead-robots-out-here
If they’re not the answer in the relatively mild Pacific Northwest, how would anyone believe they’d be an exception in the North Central states or Prairie provinces where the cold is more intense and more prolonged. In other words, maybe they might work to some degree in milder climates, but even there they’d still require fossil fuel back ups.
Cliff lists “demand scheduling (such as controllable driers/washers/home thermostats) “ so casually. We energy customers pay for 100% reliable energy and as much as needed whenever we need it. We EXPECT that. Before installing even 1 MW of wind or solar, there must be enough conventional reserves to cover when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.
That means having sufficient capacity and reserves to handle any weather event.
“Demand scheduling” (so-called) is really rationing, a slippery slope. First industry is enticed (bribed) to accept less, then private customers are threatened, “smart-metered” and punished with variable rates by utilities operating on razor thin margins of capacity over demand.
Ruinables are a mass delusion!
WHOOPS?
Should have finished the nuclear power plant at Satsop west of Olympia.
The cooling tower for one reactor is probably still there, people use it for drying long objects.
WPPSS was a grand scheme to build several nuclear power generating plants, because forecast demand would far exceed available power from other sources.
It was a fiasco.
A lesson in estimating by extrapolation in ignorance of people’s tendency to conserve when cost of energy is high.
And in complicated financing including bonds that the federal government changed income tax rules on.
And recently public opposition resulted in cancellation of a plan to add another NG-fueled plant at Sumas WA.
Big concern was a very small increase in air pollution in the Fraser Valley of B.C.
(The big NG pipes from NE BC have a spur crossing the border at Sumas, supplying NG to people in WA and somewhat south.)
I worked with a gut who worked on one of those plants.
We were electricians. He told me the “inspectors” were so insane that they required the scaffolding to be perfectly vertical and horizontal before allowing workers to work. I wonder how it got too expensive?
But don’t forget the people (politicians) who started the nukes were the same people who built the Kingdome that was demolished with 15 years of bond payments still due, paid off by the county. Yep, Seattle has only gotten better since then, LOL.
Some places, they just get things done. Bamboo scaffolding. I love the fall protection added about every 50 feet.
“Energy advocates need to understand the underlying problems and refrain from unrealistic demands.”
That’s certainly one of the funniest lines ever seen here. There may be some hope, though, now that John Kerry is petering out.