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.
Since mid-December of 2023, I’ve been downloading the BPA’s visual graphic PNG files for the BPA’s area of load balancing authority, doing so every afternoon. It’s the same graphic included by Cliff Mass above in today’s WUWT article.
I’ve taken time this afternoon to consolidate the PNG format files for these BPA graphs into a pair of more readable graphical illustrations which cover the period of 12/16/2023 through 12/31/2023, and the period of 01/01/2024 through Noon 01/16/2024, respectively.
The BPA’s area of load balancing authority includes approximately 12,000 Mw nameplate of hydropower; 2,800 Mw nameplate of wind & solar (mostly wind); 1,100 Mw of nuclear (the Columbia Generating Station); and roughly 1,100 Mw of fossil/biomass — for a total of approximately 17,000 Mw nameplate generation capacity.
Fossil/biomass includes the Gray’s Harbor gas-fired power plant of roughly 600 Mw namplate capacity, plus a number of smaller biomass co-generation plants which produce another 500 Mw, more or less. .
In the two graphs shown above, total generation exceeds total load because electricity is being exported to other areas outside of the BPA’s load balancing authority.
The four Snake River dams now targeted for removal supply roughly 3,000 Mw of the BPA’s 12,000 Mw total hydropower nameplate capacity. It is strongly rumored that the Biden Administration is working closely behind the scenes with the Army Corps of Engineers, the BPA, Governor Jay Inslee, and with Senator Patty Murray to draw down the pools behind the four lower Snake River dams, thus eliminating the services these dams provide for power generation, for crop irrigation, and for barge navigation.
This is all being done out of sight and with no public involvement.
In addition, the Biden Administration’s Net Zero objectives combined with Washington State’s own decarbonization programs will eventually force the closure of the Gray’s Harbor facility.
And so if the Biden Administration and Washington State’s politicians have their way, a total of roughly 3,600 Mw of power generation capacity will have been eliminated from the Northwest’s power grid by the year 2035, possibly earlier.
To my personal knowledge, the agencies responsible for power planning in the US Northwest have taken no account whatsoever of the forthcoming loss of this 3,600 Mw of power generation capacity. In other words, the RE Kool Aid band plays on, completely oblivious to the looming energy shortfalls which await us.
I’d give you twenty up-votes if I could BB. Elected boards and regulatory agencies are now captive to this climate change agenda, cult, rent-seeking opportunity, or whatever one wishes to call it. Instead of doing their job they’ve become convinced they can also control the weather — heck can’t even control the CO2 knob let alone the weather — and thus conclude that is part of their job, too.
Deflecting institutions from their core competence. The first step in failure.
Kevin, I’ve consolidated the two PNG files above into a single graphic for the period of 16 December 2023 through 16 January 2024. It is designed to fit on a single Powerpoint presentation page. I think you will find it very useful for the talk you are giving on Thursday.
Thanks, Sir!
Utilities may above to cope with demand for natural gas by storing some.
There’s a ‘peak shaving’ facility in the lower mainland of BC. I don’t know how much capacity it has, but if it could even out some of the demand night vs day it should help.
shaving emissions at LNG peak shaving facilities (ioconsulting.com) covers facilities that store gas in LNG form. There may be simpler systems.
They do have rocks in their head.
In the simplest sense, wind is a result of the movement of the sun. Both daily and seasonally.
Winter and summer are the calmest months because the sun is relatively stable in its orbit.
Spring and fall are the windiest because the sun is moving rapidly from one hemisphere to the other.
The notion that heat or cold causes wind is wrong. It is a temperature difference that causes wind, which is why summer and winter calms are common.
OK ferd, I think you got this a little wrong:
“Winter and summer are the calmest months because the sun is relatively stable in its orbit.”
Now, unlike the Church in the distant past, I think we can all agree that the Earth orbits the Sun.
NOW, if you want to go to Beyond Landscheidt and look at the actual causes of the variation in solar activity, the effects of the gravitational pull of the gas giants on the Sun, that would be a different matter.
https://landscheidt.info/
While it may seem infinite, the amount of rain and snow, along with the available hydro sites, are all finite. The population pressure in the PMW, along with the tax and investment base are quickly running out of economic hydro sites. No matter how much money you throw at the problem, if it costs more to build a dam or a windmill than it produces in power, the ratepayers are headed for bankruptcy.
BC hydro made tons of money selling power to California to balance their renewables. Until the bill got so big California decided not to pay.
Now Alberta is talking SMRs: Capital Power and OPG to assess use of small modular nuclear reactors in Alberta – Victoria Times Colonist.
(Ontario is nuclear power and nuclear research territory, plans to build some SMRs at the Darlington nuclear power site.)
The US military plans to build a small reactor generator in central Alaska. A group of tribes in Alaska eagerly await completion, hoping to use that technology and design in their region.
There are many remote areas that could use a viable alternative to diesel generators, question is how many residents are in a region, apparently quite a few in that region of AK.
Many notions, money and time needed.
(The article claims increasing amount of solar and wind generation in AB, some of it is windy (not just the Capitol city :-o).
I’ll probe the publication to explain how NMRs are ‘load following’, traditional nuclear power plants are not quick to ramp output up or down, some modified to be not as slow but still..
The US nuke subs and aircraft carriers have plants that can vary output over a wide range and quickly. The new Ford class carriers will not need to be refueled for at least 25 years.
Of course they use, as should ALL nuclear electricity generating plants, highly enriched fuel.
IMHO.
So civilian plants would not need to be refueled for many years, and the storage of spent fuel would not take up as much space. Of course using highly enriched fuel would lead to the reprocessing of spent fuel and MUCH LESS waste.
BUT for large (and small) reactors, steady state will always be the best.
A post on Paul Homewood’s site (Not A Lot Of People Know That) linked to this article which claims that wind generation was shut down by the cold:
https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2024/01/14/most-of-albertas-wind-fleet-shut-down-by-cold-thursday-night/
If they could have only scaled up to .98 Terawatt Hours like the #8 economy in the world does when the wind dies.
Natural Gas saves the day again.
Real-time Operating Grid – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
Not mentioned in the article is that in Alberta, record cold brought the turbines below their minimum operating temperature (-30 C) and they had to be disconnected and placed in in stationary mode (and electrically heated while waiting).
Thus, it made no difference last Thursday and Saturday nights what the wind speed was. It was too cold to work. It is true that the speed dropped as well, so if we anticipate that a low temperature turbine will be forthcoming, it doesn’t solve the basic lack of wind energy available.
And it goes without saying that the energy required to build and maintain one of these machines is only slightly less than all the power they will ever generate. No one is manufacturing these things in Alberta. If they were, and the grid was wind powered, almost all the electricity generated would be funneled to factories manufacturing the replacement unit. It is a snake gobbling up its own tail with nothing left for actually powering the province.
A strong increase in the SOI could mean the end of El Niño.