Roger Caiazza
As a retired electric utility meteorologist, I have been following issues associated with wind and solar resource availability for many years. My thinking has evolved to the point where I now believe that in a rational world it would be recognized that any electric grid relying on wind and solar is doomed to failure. This post explains why.
Background
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) recently convened a webinar for the Cold Weather Preparedness Small Group Advisory Sessions (SGAS) to “provide an educational opportunity for registered entities to meet with NERC and Regional Entity representatives to discuss the cold weather preparedness Standards and possible compliance approaches in an open and non-audit environment.” The impetus for this initiative was the February 2021 Texas event described in the following slide. The regulatory fallout for this event is not finished but the need to discuss how best to address these events is so acute that SGAS was established in “an open and non-audit environment”.
Source: May 6, 2024 NERC Cold Weather Preparedness Small Group Advisory Session
The takeaway point is that there are already electric grid resource adequacy issues in the existing system during extreme weather events. I am most concerned about the future grid that relies on weather impacted resources. Even though Texas has substantial wind and solar resources their presence did not contribute meaningfully to this Texas blackout. Instead, it was the failure of many components of the traditional generating and transmission systems to be sufficiently hardened to extreme cold. In the future the weather dependent grid will cause similar problems more frequently and, as I will show, may not be able to prevent a catastrophic blackout.
My primary concern is the feasibility for the New York Climate Act implementation plan. or more appropriately the lack of a proper feasibility analysis, that addresses the worst-case wind and solar energy resource drought. In September 2021, I described the reliability challenges for the Climate Act described by the organizations responsible for electric system reliability. All the credible analyses done for future grid reliability point out the expected worst-case scenario – When New York electrifies heating and transportation the peak load will be in the winter when temperatures are coldest. The Integration Analysis identified a multi-day period winter wind lull. The New York Independent System Operator has done similar analyses and showed that winter wind lulls that coincide with low solar availability and high loads will be the ultimate problem. The New York Department of Public Service also has identified the Renewable Energy Gap as a major issue. In my opinion, however, no analysis done to date has identified the worst-case scenario because they have all used relatively short periods of historical data.
All credible renewable resource projection analyses use historical meteorological data, projections of future load during those periods, and estimates of electric resource availability based on assumed deployment of wind, solar, energy storage, and other technologies needed to supply the expected load. Hourly profiles of weather variables produced via the weather forecast modeling techniques are used to develop hourly demand forecasts and energy output profiles for wind and solar resources for the periods being studied. The credible analyses only differ in their assumptions for the characteristics of the buildouts and the sophistication of potential availability based on climatological and geographical constraints. Once the analysis is complete the resulting data can be used to identify the worst case.
The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) is working with its consultant DNV to develop New York onshore wind, offshore wind, and solar resource availability. Their analysis uses a 23-year historical meteorological database for the New York State renewable resource areas. Similar analyses are underway in other regional transmission operator regions. It has also been recognized that larger areas need to be treated similarly. The Electric Power Research Institute has a Low-Carbon Resources Initiative that has been looking at the North American continent. Researchers outside of the industry have also done analyses of wind and solar power droughts using the ERA5 reanalysis data from 1950 to the present. The reanalysis data analysis uses current weather forecast models and historical observations to provide hourly meteorological fields. These data can be further refined to finer scales to project the wind and solar resource availability.
Results
All these analyses find there are periods of low renewable resource availability. For example, the New York State Reliability Council Extreme Weather Working Group (EWWG) analyzed the high resolution NY offshore wind data provided by NYISO and its consultant DNV for offshore wind resources. The summary of the report stated:
The magnitude, duration, and widespread geographic impacts identified by this preliminary analysis are quite significant and will be compounded by load growth from electrification. This highlights the importance of reliability considerations associated with offshore wind and wind lulls be accounted for in upcoming reliability assessments, retirement studies, and system adequacy reviews to ensure sufficiency of system design to handle the large offshore wind volume expected to become operational in the next five to ten years.
The NYISO/DNV analysis used a 21-year database. In a similar type of analysis, the Independent System Operator of New England (ISO-NE) Operational Impact of Extreme Weather Events, the ERA5 data were used to prepare a database covering 1950 to 2021. The analysis evaluated 1, 5, and 21-day extreme cold and hot events.
One of the important results presented in the ISO-NE analysis was a table of projected system risk for weather events over the 72-year data record. In the analysis, system risk was defined as the aggregated unavailable supply plus the exceptional demand during the 21-day event. Note that the analysis considered sliding windows for the 21-day events by shifting the 21-day window every seven days. The unsurprising point I want to highlight is that the system risk increases as the lookback period increases. If the resource adequacy planning for New England only looked at the last ten years, then the system risk would be 8,714 MW, but over the whole period the worst system risk was 9,160 and that represents an resource increase of 5.1%.
Source: ISO-NE Operational Impact of Extreme Weather Events, available here
Note that there was an EWWG analysis of Historical Weather and Climate Extremes for New York performed by Judith Curry and myself that identified the January 1961 event as the probable worst-case scenario. We found that there was a 15-day period from January 20 until February 3, 1961 that will likely turn out to be the worst-case cold wave. This was a period when high-pressure systems dominated the weather in the Northeast and those conditions mean light wind speeds.
Discussion
I do not think we can ever have an electric grid that will provide reliable power when it is needed the most. Today electric system resource adequacy planners don’t have to worry that many generating resources might not be available at the same time. In a future electric grid that relies on wind and solar the fact that those resources correlate in time and space is what I think is the insurmountable planning problem. All solar goes away at night and wind lulls affect entire regional transmission organization (RTO) areas at the same time. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that the wind lull will cover multiple RTO areas at the same time the highest load is expected.
The reason we can never trust a wind, solar, and energy storage grid is because if we depend on energy-limited resources that are a function of the weather, then a system designed to meet the worst-case is likely impractical. Consider the ISO-NE events where it was found that the most recent 10-year planning lookback period would plan for a system risk of 8,714 MW. However, if the planning horizon covered the period back to 1961, the worst-case to 1950, an additional 446 MW would be required to meet the system risk. I cannot imagine a business case for the deployment of energy storage or the magical dispatchable emissions free resource that will only be needed once in 63 years. For one thing, the life expectancy of these technologies is much less than 63 years. Even over a shorter horizon such as the last ten years, how will a required facility be able to stay solvent when it runs so rarely without subsidies and very high payments when they do run.
As I described in an earlier article, the New York Department of Public Service (DPS) Proceeding 15-E-0302 technical conference Zero Emissions by 2040 highlighted concerns about this Gap resource gap and how it could be addressed. Besides the fact that the preferred candidate technologies have not been commercially proven, they all will be extraordinarily expensive. I believe that makes worst-case solutions impractical.
On the other hand, the alternative to ignore the worst case is unacceptable. In the net-zero fantasy world that is supposed to rely on wind and solar when heating and transportation is supposed to be electrified the need for reliable electricity is magnified. If we don’t provide resources for the observed worst case, when those conditions inevitably reoccur then there will be a blackout when electricity is needed the most to keep people from freezing to death in the dark because they are unable to flee.
The tradeoff between practicality and necessity is not going to be resolved by the resource adequacy planning groups doing the analyses described. I don’t think organizations like the New York State Reliability Council or NERC will make the decisions either. This is something that will have to be decided by politicians at the highest levels. Hopefully the problem will be considered in an open and transparent manner, but political lobbying pressures will be immense because the viability of the politically correct current plan to depend on wind and solar in New York and elsewhere is threatened.
Conclusion
I have long argued that New York should perform a feasibility study to determine if the net-zero outline to comply with the Climate Act in the Scoping Plan could possibly work. Francis Menton has convinced me that it would be better to do a demonstration project in some smaller jurisdiction to prove that it can work. The described tradeoff between the practicality of deploying resources for the observed worst-case resource deficit and the necessity to do so to prevent a catastrophic blackout should be a key consideration in either workability evaluation.
In my opinion any electric system that depends on wind and solar is impractical. Obviously, if the goal is a zero-emissions electric system then nuclear must be the cornerstone. If affordability is a concern, then the pragmatic acceptance of a large reduction in emissions rather than a zero target would allow the use of some natural gas as proposed by Russell Schussler and myself last year. Given the entrenched crony capitalists and special interests supporting wind and solar any shift in direction, even if necessary to protect health and safety, will be a tremendous lift.
Roger Caiazza blogs on New York energy and environmental issues at Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York. This represents his opinion and not the opinion of any of his previous employers or any other company with which he has been associated.
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Quote “Even though Texas has substantial wind and solar resources their presence did not contribute meaningfully to this Texas blackout.”
In what world did that happen then, certainly not in the real world, I suggest that you look at the electricity generation charts for the preceding days before the failure and during the failure.
See analysis here
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2021/02/22/wind-power-did-cause-the-texas-blackouts/
and here
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2021/02/24/texas-blackouts-critical-new-data-revealed/
The largest single problem with wind is malinvestment. Any funds going to building wind turbines is not going to building dispatchable power sources.
My understanding is that so much of the other stuff froze that was the primary cause. The point that the state invested huge resources that did absolutely nothing to help when needed the most is unquestionable. When we depend on wind and solar resources and have eliminated everything else as part of the net-zero fantasy, then blackout impacts will be greater and will occur more often.
I recall that the heating of “something” on gas lines had been converted to electric heaters from prior gas heaters. The E-heaters were thought to be more environmentally friendly. When the power went out, the heaters quit, and stuff froze.
I’m sorry I can’t be more informative. I was distracted by personal matters and did not bookmark things I was reading.
Well, what used to be gas-powered compressors (reciprocating CH4 fueled engines driving CH4 compressors for CH4 line charging) were replaced by – electric motors – which in turn were and may have been cut off during rolling blackouts and/or power lines lost to ice.
Obama’s work. Un-winterized fracked nat-gas wells also a major contributing factor . My sister and her man huddled in a cold dark home for a week. Texas changed some laws after this incredible fiasco
That was the pipeline pumps. Like any pipeline, gas loses pressure as it travels and needs to be pumped. These pumps used to be powered by natural gas (sensibly enough). The EPA thought these gas powered pumps were too polluting and mandated electric ones in urban areas. When the power to the pumps went out, some natural gas driven powerplants lost their gas pressure and had to shut down, thus making a bad situation worse.
I think that happened under Obama’s EPA.
I might be wrong, but I seem to recall something about the electricity supplied had to come from “renewable sources”?
Natural gas can freeze at the wellhead due to water contamination. But after refining and placement in a pipeline, no temperature on this planet will freeze the gas.
It takes temperatures below -297 degrees Fahrenheit to freeze natural gas — temperatures more likely found in outer space than on Earth.
re: “The point that the state invested”
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WHAT “state investment”? Please point to these actors and name names.
“the state invested” surely refers to the power companies in the state of Texas, not the Texas state government. But it is surely also government folly that enabled this mess.
I’m pretty sure if you look at the numbers you will see that wind and solar contributed far below their average output and natural gas contributed twice it’s average output over the course of the few days. Traditional components had issues but wind and solar were pitiful.
You identified the secondary cause. Wind and solar are weather dependent, that is the primary cause.
Renewables should properly be called unreliables. Building a grid around unreliable primary sources is plain foolishness, no engineering is required to diagnose.
Yes but after the wind died resulting in both automated shutdowns to avoid equipment damage and loss of fuel supplies when electric compressors (required instead of more commonly used gas compressors on the Texas gas pipelines feeding supply to plants near cities), ALL because of wind face-planting in the wake of the winter storm.
Thermal plants in operation generate plenty of their own heat, so absent the shutdowns the plants would probably have kept running.
Essentially the failure of wind en masses was the domino that almost took the entire Texas grid down.
That’s not to suggest things shouldn’t be “hardened” against the cold, but that’s tough to do when all the money is being squandered on worse-than-useless wind and solar.
The 2011 and 2021 blackouts in Texas had the same cause: Insufficient just in time natural gas production on extremely cold days.
The 2011 blackout was with few windmills and the 2021 blackout was with lots of windmills. That count doesn’t matter much if there is little or no wind.
The 2011 blackout report recommended weatherization of the Texas natural gas production infrastructure. That would have been a large expense for a rare very cold weather event, so it did not happen. An alternative would be on site gas storage at gas power plants
In stead ERCOT subsidized windmill building
And switched from gas powered natural gas pipeline compressors to electricity powered compressors on natural gas pipelines. ERCOT claims that made the 2021 problem 20% worse. They had no way to exclude some gas pipeline compressors from the rolling electricity blackouts.
The 2021 backout would have happened if the pipeline compressors were still gas powered (as they were in the 2011 blackout) and if the windmills all had blade heaters (that option could have doubled the wind power output, which still would have been very low).
We need nuclear as the base load and natural gas for peak demand times.
Why not coal? It’s cheaper to construct and run.
While coal can be burned fairly cleanly, what about mining?
They seem to be happy to do TONS (no pun intended) of mining to build worse-than-useless wind and solar (which unlike coal CANNOT provide 24/7 baseload), so they shouldn’t mind coal mining, which at least provides the baseload.
Just guessing but I think most is now underground- not open pit.
Coal is certainly a viable alternative for sites that already use it. However, coal requires constant deliveries of the coal via trains, and fuel storage piles at the utility location.
Nuclear fuel has a much higher power density, and doesn’t require large areas of land, making it better for new installations and industrial heat applications. New SMR designs can be delivered to a use site on trucks and hauled away to the originating factory for refurbishment/refueling.
I think coal should be part of the future energy grid. It is pretty resilient because it can be stored on site compared to natural gas that relies on pipeline constant deliveries. Environmentally you can get low emissions for everything except CO2.
Agrred, especially given the US is the “Saudi Arabia of coal.”
The “War on coal” is an assault on intelligent energy policy.
The Failure Zeitgeist…. If we look at climate science – all that modelling etc – it’s clear; failure, nay, repeated consistent failure, garners rewards.
2021: “This year’s Nobel prize in physics has been split between Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi. While Parisi is a theoretical physicist, the other two are climate modellers whose work laid the foundations of our understanding of how carbon dioxide would shape the climate.”
https://theconversation.com/nobel-prize-why-climate-modellers-deserved-the-physics-award-theyve-been-proved-right-again-and-again-169300
So when I read: “…in a rational world it would be recognized that any electric grid relying on wind and solar is doomed to failure.” It came as no surprise. In fact I would go as far as to wager that the people responsible will get a suitable uplift for their efforts. The rewards of failure; boot them upstairs.
I’m sure there are many in the power generation industry who are keeping their heads down and keeping schtum. To err is human… to forgive, divine. Did he but know it, Tony Blair came up with the modern universal (UK) get outs:
I did it in good faith
I did it because I believed it was the right thing to do.
It was an error of judgement
I cannot apologise
etc
Cynical, moi?
Wind and solar failed but aren’t at fault? Huh?
More accurately, solar and wind didn’t work and other components failed. But since is it the backup systems’ fault when the primary fails? Isn’t it foolish to be so reliant on unreliable sources in the first place?
It worked perfectly until it didn’t
All 30% of the time. Probably an exaggeration since west Texas is pretty windy, but still…
re: “Wind and solar failed but aren’t at fault? Huh?”
.
Um, its in “the Rule Book”.
“ Obviously, if the goal is a zero-emissions electric system then nuclear must be the cornerstone.”
Obviously? If wind/solar are to be the bulk of supply, nuclear generators cannot be used as ‘cornerstone’ – backup for intermittency because by nature and design they run continuously not on and off when the wind blows or the Sun shines.
Experience in Germany has indicated using nuclear that way can result in buckled fuel rods.
In any case, siting, planning, construction, commissioning of a nuclear fleet to provide supply perhaps with some gas in the mix, will take too long to meet the dates set for ‘Net Zero’.
If the manufactured crisis goes away, the whole problem is solved by building coal and gas, but also because the increased supply and grid infrastructure for an all electric power source will not be needed.
Treat the disease, not the symptoms.
More nuclear power should be used in the future regardless of the climate crisis hoax.
I should have included a statement to the effect that no resource that cannot provide energy for at least 48 (72?) hours should be permitted and built until a demonstraton project proves that I am wrong and the green energy idealists promoting wind and solar are correct. If we go all in for nuclear then we do not need any wind or solar with all their unacknowledged and unintended problems.
As to the schedule New York greenhouse gas emissions are less than one half of one percent of global emissions. Global GHG emissions have been increased by more than one half of one percent per year. That may not mean that the state should not do something but why the hell we should be going down this path on an arbitrary and almost certainly impossible schedule burns my butt.
Roger, have you read the Royal Society storage report? It is coming to similar conclusions having looked at UK weather going back 37 years. Same phenomenon, wind collapses for days on end, and also there are very calm seasons. Same reason, blocking highs.
https://royalsociety.org/news-resources/projects/low-carbon-energy-programme/large-scale-electricity-storage/
They estimate a need of 100 TWh storage for the UK system with a peak demand of about 45GW. Cannot be done.
This is a problem everywhere. But you may get your small scale trial with the next UK government. Four weeks from now we will see a new Labour administration seriously attempting the impossible, heading to net zero in power generation by 2030.
Blackouts.
Thank you. I will check it out
I think you’re reading that backwards.
Nuclear is not suitable for ramping up and down to meet peak demand. Nuclear, not wind/solar, should be the bulk of supply.
Base load nuclear electric power plants are not currently designed to provide rapid transients as you note. However it is a matter of their design. Their hundreds of nuclear powered warships all of which can vary their power output nearly as fast as the throttle man can spin the throttle.
They are probably lower power and provide somewhat more expensive electricity.
French nuclear plants are being used as variable power sources (load following).
But the time to change output isnot one minute or five minutes
Nuclear power plants in France and Germany operate in load-following mode, thus participating in the primary and secondary frequency control of the grid, and some units follow a variable load pro- gramme with one or two large power changes per day
Canadian CANDU nuclear reactors are set up to load-follow by using secondary steam-bypass, keeping the (thermal) reactor core at full output and ready to support full electrical output again at a moment’s notice.
Most of the modern light water nuclear reactors are capable (by design) to operate in a load following mode, i.e. to change their power level once or twice per day in the range of 100% to 50% (or even lower) of the rated power, with a ramp rate of up to 5% (or even more) of rated power per minute.
The power output of a BWR can either be controlled by means of the control rods below 60% of the NPP’s design load or by means of change of coolant water flow rate (change of power input of the recirculation pumps) in a range of 60 to 100% load.
If the reactor was operated within the last 24 hours then it can be restarted in less than 2 hours. It takes less than 1 second to shut down the reactor and another hour to perform the normal shutdown valving and checks.
Didn’t know that. Interesting!
Assuming a grid that actually works will be demanded, wind and solar will NEVER get anyone to Nut Zero. Deadlines be damned.
The mad rush to develop E-Fuels will further degrade the grid with demands that are staggering for such little return in useable fuel resources. E-Fuels which require some source of CO2 either from industrial sources or Direct Air Capture (DAC) and massive amounts of 100% reliable power inputs will only give a EROI (Energy Returned on energy Invested) of 30%. The only good thing about E-Fuels is that the end product is a useful commodity that is easily stored and transported to end users. The bad thing is that the EcoNuts want to destroy the ICE that uses these easily stored and transported energy sources.
What a mess people make of a working energy supply network when they try to implement systems that they totally don’t understand and are proven to not work as desired.
As they grasp for non-solutions to imaginary problems.
Solutions that don’t work, for problems that don’t exist.
My thinking has evolved to the point where I now believe that in a rational world it would be recognized that any electric grid relying on wind and solar is doomed to failure.
There’s no doubt about it whatsoever as what these idiots are trying to disprove is a fundamental axiom of engineering- namely you can’t build a reliable system from unreliable componentry.
On top of that they want to electrify and batterify transport with the very competing lithium battery resources and fickle energy to boot. Never interrupt the stupidity of watermelons encircling themselves in a self-destructive pincer movement.
Now there might be some light relief with the bursting of their EV bubble-
Ford hybrids are outperforming petrol cars in one key area (msn.com)
“We’re going to have to talk to all the regulators, because they really bet on pure EVs..”
Oh they bet big alright Jim but now you have to go and tell them how it’s gunna be unless they want plant closures and handing all those union jobs to China. LOL.
When the inevitable blackouts occur they will be the result of “Extreme weather caused by human induced climate change” and simply further grist to the authoritarian mill. It’s a major part of the attraction of unreliables.
I was a H.S. Senior in 1961 – western Pennsylvania.
January 1961 nor’easter – Wikipedia
This report says something similar happened in 1958; that one I don’t remember.
The house was heated with gas, from local sources I suppose. We never had issues with electricity or heating. (prior to 1950 we heated with coal, also a local resource).
Thanks for that link. That storm ushured in the cold snap described in the article that I think will be the worst case.
This website describes the snow in New York City
Jan. 19-20, 1961 – This became known as the Kennedy Inaugural Snowstorm because it occurred the night before JFK was sworn in as president. Snow began late in the afternoon on the 19th and continued until late in the morning the next day. Temperatures fell from low 20s to mid-teens and winds gusted between 25 and 35 mph. Because of the very cold temperatures, 0.50″ of liquid precipitation produced 9.9″ of snow (nearly 14 inches piled up in Newark). The storm ushered in an Arctic high pressure system that would stay locked in place over the Northeast for more than two weeks, resulting in an unprecedented 16 days in a row in which the temperature never rose higher than 29° at Central Park.
As a result most of the rooftop solar in New York City that lies flat would have be covered when a similar weather pattern occurs. Given that the temperature stayed below freezing that means no solar power during the cold snap unless they get cleared off. Clearing that much snow off a fragile surface raises a whole other set of issues.
Roger, thanks for your relentless exposing of this grid trainwreck. Goodbye, Duck Curve; Hello Canyon Curve.
https://rclutz.com/2024/05/18/simple-truth-vs-cheap-green-energy-lie/
Batteries are coming
https://reneweconomy.com.au/battery-storage-is-dramatically-reshaping-the-california-grid-and-finally-moving-it-away-from-gas/
Not in sufficient capacity. There simply are not enough of the minerals and metals required to build sufficient capacity on the entire planet, to achieve Net Zero.
Plus we’d be bankrupt by the time we but enough. The first time.
And they don’t last very long…
Here’s the challenge faced by the impossible renewables dream:
So you get one of those common spells of calm weather for a week or so –
no wind to turn the windmills = no power generation.
Plus, cloudy days diminish solar generation, on top of their doing nothing for half of every day when the sun sets.
During this weather spell, you used your batteries early on to keep the grid delivering for – oh, let’s say 4 hours (to be generous).
What charges your batteries back up again – hamster wheels?
Let’s face it matey – you’re fkd.
And solar panels degrade over time. They produce less electricity for the same amount of sunshine as they age.
Wind turbines and batteries also degrade over time.
You have no idea of the scale of batteries needed for a wind/solar energy system.
Try this: https://www.therightinsight.org/All-Electric-Storage
That’s certainly in the right ballpark, and when the author is talking about quadrillions of dollars, it should be obvious to all that storage on that scale is not even remotely realistic.
A very informative analysis.
However, as so many analyses on this subject are pointing out, those pesky NUMBERS just won’t stay invisible, spoiling the “belief” that renewables can meet a modern community’s power needs.
From the paper, this is the cost of providing < 4 hours battery power to a grid –
Restricting the Megapack to a maximum 80% charge would reduce its storage capacity to approximately 15.7 MWH. Under these conditions, satisfying the storage requirements of the all-electric everything grid would require approximately 270 million Megapacks at an approximate installed cost of $2.2 quadrillion.
The Royal Society estimates the UK needs 100 TWh of storage. Do you think this can be supplied by batteries? If so at what cost?
Roughly $300/KWh, multiplied by 10^9, and then another 100 times on top, about $30 trillion or so, or a little over 1/3 of the entire global GDP.
Not that battery manufacturing even exists on that scale.
No, they are not. This is another myth perpetrated by and upon the willfully ignorant.
You are clueless about the number of batteries needed. You have no idea of the raw materials needed. You are completely fooling yourself about the fossil fuels needed to mine the raw materials, refine the raw materials, build the batteries, transport the batteries and install them.
On normal days, a very expensive amount of battery storage might be able to even out the discrepancy between generation and demand but there is a huge fissure between a “normal day” and the kind of problem being discussed here.
Exactly!
Government mandates forcing the unwilling to convert from power that works, to power that never will. Even if it was possible to build enough batteries.
Thanks Ron. I appreciate your work in our quest.
Ed, here are the specfics for California comparing battery electricity supply to electrical demand. Short answer, they are crowing about buiding battery capacity up to 10,000 MW when the peak hour demand exceeds 50,000 MW. And that’s without increasing EVs charging 10 times more than now.
https://rclutz.com/2024/06/04/stress-testing-californias-grid-batteries/
And let’s not forget the appetite for electricity that AI data centers require.
and all battery electric heavy trucking
Roger,
In one sense, you are comparing the number of deaths likely from power failures in an adverse weather event with deaths likely from an ambient temperature warming. The remedy of building more, reliable power supplies is easier and less costly than building more intermittent generation. There is large advantage for the former plan, the latter being justified by its supporters with help from a dollop of questioned ideology.
Roger, there are some who still argue for more intermittents after they have seen the adverse numbers. What do they say is wrong with your analysis? Do they not understand it? Do they believe it has errors, if so do they discuss them? Or are they doing the trendy but dangerous cancel culture move of simply refusing to see or discuss? What is fundamentally wrong with these people who are seemingly willing to condemn innocent people to an early death? Is not there law against doing that?
Geoff S
They are refusing to see or discuss. For example, the Soping Plan which was New York’s strategy to meet the Climate Act targets requested comments. The state never responded to any of the technical comments. Worse despite the problems that were pointed out they are using it as is 18 months after it was released. Guys like Francis Menton and myself have no forum to raise the issues.
Thanks, Roger. Sorry I cannot offer a tactic to counter the quiets. I’ve been a victim also, know how it feels. All I could do was to keep on working at it to clarify the main aspects and confirm their importance. Geoff S
1989, 2011 and 2021 ALL share something in common – a cold blast seen in Texas that impacted electric (and nat gas) production.
Of those three years, I rate 2021 the colder of the three based on plants, bushes, lost (froze and never recovered) in the front yard.
2011 was the least harsh of the three, and here in Texas nat gas supplies were impacted then (low pressures were seen at the retail level in neighborhoods affecting gas furnaces.)
Even if the goal is to reduce the [dangerous] CO2 the cost would be measured in human life.
When the weather cycles into cooling the new goal will be to handle the cooling.
Strangely there is a solution no matter whether the world gets warmer or cooler or stays the same – many small nuclear plants. See nuclear submarines for a size and safety that works in the real world.
That seems like such an obvious solution. I do not understand why it is not being pursued.
Ideology rules their every
thoughtemotion.Powering a “city size” aircraft carrier with a couple of on-board nuclear reactors is a far step from powering New Your City with (20, 30, more?) such reactors
What would a storm like this, https://www.weather.gov/media/arx/nov111940/Dutter_1940_ArmisticeDayStorm.pdf, do to wind mills and solar panels if happened today?
That’s the other thing these idiots don’t get. Currently in “bad weather” you lose transmission and distribution lines and maybe some local transformers. With wind and solar, you lose the electric generation equipment too.
Lots of it. All at once. How long will the blackouts last then?!
..and you lose you storage also with thermal runaway battery fires. Generation and storage could possibly all be wiped out in particular areas instantly.
You and Francis are doing heroic work. It will eventually become widely known as an ‘I told you so but you didn’t listen’ after the inevitable grid train wreck. Glad I am in south Florida and not NY or NYC.
“in a rational world it would be recognised that any electric grid relying on wind and solar is doomed to failure”
In the UK the Royal Society Report ‘Large -scale electricity storage policy briefing’ modelled solar and wind generation using 37 years of weather data and found
“variations in wind supply on a multi decadal timescale, as well as sporadic periods of days and weeks of very low generation potential.For this reason, some tens of TWhs of very long duration storage will be needed. For comparison the TWhs needed are 1000 times more than is currently provided by pumped hydro, and far more than could be provided cost effectively by batteries”
A little while after the report was published the RS realised they had under stated the amount of storage that would be required because they had used the UK’s electricity use in 2018 and repeated this 32 times (to 2050) without allowing for all the extra electricity required by electrifying every thing.
Yes. MyUserName and others need to perform the basic exercise of comparing what the RS says is necessary for the UK with what is currently being installed in California. Cannot be done with batteries, and cannot be done with the 900 hydrogen filled caverns the RS proposes, either.
https://thundersaidenergy.com/downloads/green-hydrogen-energy-the-economics/
The cost of filling those 900 caverns would be mind boggling: https://thundersaidenergy.com/downloads/green-hydrogen-energy-the-economics/
And it will probably leak out before it ever gets used anyway.
What a farce.
“Today electric system resource adequacy planners don’t have to worry that many generating resources might not be available at the same time.” Why not? Isn’t that their job?
Because they are using systems which are most unlikely to go offline together. Whereas, his point is, wind and solar are almost guaranteed to go offline together. All you need is an evening in winter and a calm.
Or calm following a snowfall, all day.
After decades of experience the resource adequacy planners are comfortable that a reserve margin of traditional generating sources about 20% greater than the predicted peak load is enough to meet a one event in ten year relability standard. In other words the odds that more than 20% of the total independent generating sources will fail at the same time is very low.
Everthing changes when most of the generating resources are correlated with each other. At this point the responsible parties are pretending they can figure out a reliability metric that will offer the same levels of safety. I disagree. When the understanding that resources that may never be used during their expected lifetimes are necessary for the inevitable worst case I think that means the wind and solar dream is over.
I think it means that the peons will suffer so that the AI facilities can have the power they need. AI is very likely to be very useful for government in its yearning to fully control the peons.
My understanding of the Texas situation is a bit different than yours and is based on two independent issues. First, under the Obama administration, gas pipeline compressors were switched from self powered (using some of the gas to power the compressors) to electric powered using the grid. Second, during the low temperature Feb 2021 incident, ERCOT in executing blackouts as needed to limit draw on the system, cut power to some of the pipeline compressors not knowing which circuits powered them. When the compressors shut down the gas supply to several gas-powered generator plants failed and the plants shut down. These sequential shutdowns can be seen clearly on the power supply traces recorded during the incident. There were also some freezing problems with some gas plants and one nuclear plant that took these plants down and added to the lack of electricity. To say that wind power was not responsible for the problem is misleading. There was little or no wind at the time of the low temperature, typical for such a weather event, and therefor wind generators produced very little power – the basic problem with wind systems in the first place.
I think we are talking past each other. In my opinion the first issues you decribed were the primary cause of the problem. The second issue that the wind failed to provide any meaningful support was a secondary cause. The moral is when wind provides most of the power it will not provide any meaningful support no matter how much you build when it is needed most. The basic problem and fatal flaw of wind system dependency.
I disagree – they were depending on wind for about 1/3 of their generation. When that fell on its face, it set the dominos in motion.
I can’t imagine they wouldn’t know what circuits had the compressors on them, but it is possible.
My most recent exchange with ERCOT (a Mr. Fohn) was that it did not know which NG fired generators had been cut off by the mandatory rolling blackouts.
Wind was producing more than 25% of demand for the same period during the previous three years. It went to close to zero, sometimes zero, during the freeze. That was not expected or provided for.
The author states, “In my opinion any electric system that depends on wind and solar is impractical. Obviously, if the goal is a zero-emissions electric system then nuclear must be the cornerstone. If affordability is a concern, then the pragmatic acceptance of a large reduction in emissions rather than a zero target would allow the use of some natural gas as proposed by Russell Schussler and myself last year.”
There isn’t a person qualified to do electrical planning availability who doesn’t know that. But they pretend otherwise because that’s what the people paying for the planning want to hear. All that is required to get away from this wind and solar nonsense is honesty.
I agree. Two problems: as you noted the people paying the qualified planners do not want the honest answer. The second problem is that there are a lot of unqualified folks saying that this is not an issue. The more people who say this cannot work and the more often we say it the better the chance that the truth will come out.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it”, Upton Sinclair
I don’t know much about things in the UK but my understanding of what I read some years back is that the organization that was responsible for planning and managing the grid ever since there was a UK grid pointed out that there was no way to make the proposed “transition ” work. That organization was shortly dissolved by the politicians and another composed of political appointee rather than engineers and power supply specialists was put in its place. That’s the was honesty works.
They don’t want a reliable system. They want the proles to be miserable. Their goal is to impoverish, humiliate and demoralize those miserable curs. Teach them the lash. Make them kowtow to their betters.
Many a true word in a cartoon.
https://telegraph.newsprints.co.uk/18704049-matt-cartoon-swicth-energy-co-i-m-thinking-of-boiling-the-kettle-what-s-your-best-price/
Very nice Roger. I admire your fortitude dealing with these CAGW cultists. It is encouraging that they are at last admitting that the plan has issues and in my opinion is totally unworkable. The only reasonable answer is to void the New York Climate Act. It was created in an atmosphere of ignorance and fear by individuals who had no idea what they were proposing. It is a bad bad deal. No issue is more important than affordable, reliable energy on demand. That is where every discussion should start from here on out.
There are some studies on the frequency of
Wind droughts
Solar droughts and
Compound energy droughts
4 hours of battery backup is far from enough
“Energy Droughts” in Wind and Solar Can Last Nearly a Week, Research Shows | News Release | PNNL
Time to fill up Central Park with “clean and green” energy. It’s 843 acres. How much Earth saving green energy can be installed there? A few dozen big wind turbines and a few hundred acres of solar panels? Sure, it’s a nice park, but yuh gotta help save the planet! I’m sure the people living in NYC won’t mind, to save the planet! Oh, and also a really big battery system to store all that fabulous green energy.
The elephant in the room is that wind, solar, their required transmission build out, and their necessary backup consume more energy, and result in more CO2 emissions than if they were never constructed in the first place. Why are we doing this, again?