By David Wojick
Westerners are independent people. This independence is even reflected in the West’s electric power grid. There are two major American grids, called respectively the Eastern and Western Interconnections. The north-south dividing line is roughly just east of Colorado. Texas, which never got over being a separate country for nine years, has its own grid.
The Eastern Interconnection is divided up among, and run by, a group of central planning agencies. Some are called Regional Transmission Operators (RTOs), while others are Independent System Operators (ISOs), but it is all the same thing. The Western Interconnection has no such controllers except California, a world unto itself, has an ISO.
But there is a movement afoot to create an RTO to run the Western Interconnection. The reason is a well known fantasy: namely wanting to run the grid on wind and solar. That we all freeze on windless winter nights is irrelevant to these folks.
There are a number of players in the game, but the most visible is the Western States Transmission Initiative (WSTI). Last year, WSTI issued a report saying the West needs a whopping 15,600 miles of new high voltage transmission lines at an estimated cost of about $75 billion. They also say a regional, that is central, planning approach is the only way to get it.
You might ask why we need all this stuff, given that everybody already has all the electricity they need? These folks say it is the wrong kind of electricity. They want to pave the prairies with solar panels, line the ridges with wind towers, then ship the juice to the far away cities. This will take a lot of new Western transmission lines.
This wind and solar fantasy is not new, and it had been making steady progress until recently when it was blindsided by an opposite fantasy called artificial intelligence or AI. This fantasy says that AI is going to run our lives and it will take an enormous amount of electricity to do that. The code phrase is “data centers,” but they should be called AI processing centers. It is not the data that uses all that electricity; it is the monster computers running the AI systems.
Moreover, this new river of electricity has to be reliably available around the clock, which rules out wind and solar. Individual people who worry about keeping the lights on are easily ignored. But when it is Amazon, Microsoft, and Google worried about keeping their billion-dollar data centers running, they get heard.
The data center people have no use for intermittent wind and solar. They are talking gas, small nuclear, even coal, since the President is all for it. They are especially not interested in wind and solar from hundreds of miles away. In fact, they are talking about co-locating data centers with power plants, backed up by the grid, since no power plant runs all the time.
Suddenly, the electric power planning world is a scene of chaos and confusion. The wind and solar folks are acting like this data center push is just a speed bump, but it is a head-on collision. Serious proposals to build reliable generation are springing up everywhere.
It looks like the West may yet be saved from wind and solar inundation and thousands of miles of massive power lines. Of course, this collision is nationwide, but it stands out in the West because there is a lot more sun and wind than people.
But the AI craze is also an overblown bubble that may burst. In the meantime, let’s resurrect reliability in America. Build dispatchable generation where it is needed, not in some distant desert.
Note: an earlier version of this article appeared in Range Magazine which celebrates the cowboy spirit in all of us.
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They also say a regional, that is central, planning approach is the only way to get it.
There, writ large, is their actual goal. Central planning, central control. By them. Solar and Wind are but a means to an end. If they don’t work, you will be declared an enemy of the state for complaining, you ungrateful for what we are doing for you peasant.
You left out a well funded central planning committee which they are on.
And activist NGOs on the government dole.
As David W states –
“But there is a movement afoot to create an RTO to run the Western Interconnection. The reason is a well known fantasy: namely wanting to run the grid on wind and solar. That we all freeze on windless winter nights is irrelevant to these folks.”
As Skeptical science and renewable advocates note – ” the wind is always blowing somewhere”
As real time data shows – during the Feb 2021 freeze – the wind had a 10 day drop ranging from 10% to 30% of normal. See the EIA.gov link below: Personally, I am going to belief the grid monitor – which agrees with David’s comment
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electric_overview/US48/US48
While it is true that the wind is always blowing somewhere, there are two huge problems with it.
1) That somewhere is usually a long, long way away. Which means billions have to be spent on long distance transmission lines, plus non-trivial losses in this power during transmission.
2) The people who happen to live in that far off “somewhere else”, also need electricity and as a result, there isn’t any available to send your way, anyway.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council headquartered in Portland, Oregon, does power planning for the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.
The NWPCC in turn reports to the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) headquarted in California. The WECC reports to FERC and oversees planning for the Western Interconnect.
In one of my comments made four years ago to the NWPCC’s draft 2021 five-year power plan, I said that the grand vision for a wind and solar energy future cannot happen unless:
(1) All planning efforts for the Western Interconnect are centralized in one organization;
(2) That one centralized organization takes direct control of the project work needed to achieve a Net Zero power grid;
(3) The price of electricity must double or even triple if the project work needed to fulfill the grand Net Zero vision is to be properly funded; and
(4) A doubling or tripling of the price of electricity is necessary to promote the extensive energy conservation measures needed to reach the WECC’s and the NWPCC’s ambitious decarbonization goals.
As one might expect, the final 2021 NWPCC five-year power plan published in 2022 contained zero acknowledgement of these power planning realities.
“co-locating data centers with power plants, backed up by the grid, since no power plant runs all the time.”
These power plants should have a solid capacity margin above what is required for the data centres…
…so they can feed into the grid most of the time, or as needed..
Seems that it is true that power plants are on schedule taken off line for maintenance.
Seems that most power generation facilities are not one horse towns.
Seems the quote has a major fallacy built in.
Totally agree. The data center power plants should have excess margin to cover all known and suspected contingencies.
W&S don’t replace conventional sources they are duplicitous. Solar isn’t available 75+% of the time and wind isn’t available 60+% of the time, battery storage for the full output of a solar or wind array for more than 4 hours is forever, yes, forever too expensive. It’s not a matter of battery technology, it’s the limits of chemistry, physics and thermodynamics
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RE (Ruinous Energy) wind and solar at five (5) percent grid penetration is harmless, 10% nuisance, 15% expensive waste, 20% grid destabilizing and economically destructive, 25% insane. (California, Germany and the UK are just over 25% wind and solar and their electricity prices reflect it).
Anyone paying attention knows that intermittent, unreliable, too much when you don’t need, too little when you do electrical power that cannot exist without government mandates, curtailment payments, tax credits and other subsidies can only make electricity more expensive and less reliable. It’s not complicated. But it is a little confusing to hear climate alarmist wind and solar aficionados insist that wind and solar have been the cheapest electrical power sources for eight years. Truly an “interesting belief.”
Wind and solar have indeed been the cheapest electrical power sources for eight years – that is, the cheapest point in time in each of the eight years was powered by wind and/or solar. Another interesting thing is that at the most expensive point in time in each of the eight years there was no wind or solar electricity. I still get these facts pumped at me to “prove” that wind and solar cut the electricity price, by people who say it is irrelevant that total cost increases as wind and solar generation increases.
Yes. Levelized Cost of Energy misrepresents the true cost of wind and solar, but it is an effective marketing tool for renewables. The LCOE math is deceptively simple. The math that takes into account the cost of intermittency is a little more complex, and harder to convey. That makes it easier for the mainstream media and warmists to use LCOE to mislead.
LCOE applies when comparing generation of the same type.
Coal, natgas, oil, nuclear, all of which are steam turbine generators can be compared that way. One might find is sufficiently accurate to include hydro-electric, except the build out for more hydro is constrained by geography.
WTG and SV likewise can be compared to each other with LCOE, but NOT to anything that turns a generator.
How do you know that no battery can be used to stabilize grid? I have my own house running 3 years on off grid solar system backed up with grid. It is enough to have around of 1/10th of daily energy usage in battery capacity. For example if my daily usage is 10kWh, it is enough to have 1kWh battery for stabilization. This will give you around 2.4 hour average reaction time. It is plenty time to start some backup.
With on grid solar, all ups and downs of solar panel production are reflected into grid, what is of course harming grid stability.
But with solar connection using battery, even small capacity it can actually stabilize grid.
For example in Spain during last Blackout where solar overloaded grid and caused mass disconnection of on grid solar, if they would have 1/10th of production in batteries for this solar it wouldn’t happen.
I searched that reaction time of nuclear power plant to adjust power is several minutes. So if you have 1-2 hours backup in batteries, you have no problems to adjust with nuclear plant.
Daily production and usage of my country is around 83GWh, so you need like 8GWh of batteries to stabilize grid assuming it is running 100% on instable source.
I have at home 15kWh LifePO4 battery, which costs me 1300E with all taxes and tariffs.
So you need 553,000 of such batteries to back up whole country. for 1-2h. Price of those batteries would be 719 million Euros.
Current price of nuclear plant is somewhere around 15.000 million Euros. So comparing to power plants batteries are cheap.
In small it is working on my house, there is no physical limit it shouldn’t work on 1.000.000 times bigger scale.
I’m attaching graph of electricity consumption of my household for around 7 years, last 3 years with solar, each column is one month, on the right is July 2025 with 0kWh consumption.
Currently my rooftop solar is saving me around 70% of electricity. First year of solar was with 2.5kWh battery, second year with 5kWh and third with 20kWh. As you can see it is not reflecting much on savings. My daily consumption is around 12kWh and it would work with 1.2kWh battery.
Your own post gives the lie to your claim.
Even you don’t have battery back up, you just have batteries to enable you to transition to something else.
You are describing a perfectly valid niche application.
Unfortunately, it does not scale.
It is also a personal choice made by you based on your specific economics and needs.
It was not mandated by an impersonal government bureaucracy.
You do not seem to comprehend what it takes to achieve grid stability. Voltage, frequency, current, and phase. DC does not have frequency and phase. Those are created with electronics.
1,2, or even 4 hours of battery back up puts everyone depending on it at serious risk.
The battery backup can only support short intermittencies.
Once the battery is depleted, you will not be able to do anything, not call an ambulance or EMS or firefighters or police or even you friends/family. People will be stuck in elevators with no light, no environmental control, not food or water, no bathroom facilities.
Batteries age and loss capacity over time. Battery capacity varies widely with temperature.
Then there is the age old phenomenon of voltage turn-on delay. Batteries do not provide instantaneous on demand current and have voltage fluctuations when the load is stepped.
Again, bravo for your personal success, but that success does not translate to grid scale implementation.
He grifted and grafted his way to the vault and wants everyone to know how smart things have turned out for him.
None of this would even happen without subsidies
Iberia Blackout this summer disproves his premise that batteries •stabilize the grid•, as those grid scale batteries had no ability to re-energize the grid when it went totally dark because there was no spinning flywheel to restart energy flow, until they borrowed some from France to get it all running again.
He admits a direct connection to municipal grid which probably provides him a lot more power than he thinks, and keeps his batteries topped off. How many days would his batteries last if there was a municipal grid outage due to disaster…
Do you do this at night ??
Peter K: Hobby systems are great if there is no grid connection, or if the hobbyist is paying a FMV access fee or premium prices when connected. Yes, 4 hour of battery storage as a replacement for gas peak provided power works great if it’s sunny everyday, if it’s cloudy two days in a row the cost doubles, if it’s ever cloudy for four days in a row you’re screwed. Details available on request..
Enjoy the grifting and grafting subsidies and keep dreaming in lalaland lane
Even at 5%m W&S are not harmless, as they drive up the cost for all other producers, which causes substantial cost increases to consumers.
I agree that W&S are not fit for purpose. But low information, STEM challenged voters are insisting their elected officials “do something” to save them from chocking to death, melting, or drowning from FF CO2. Five percent fills that “need”. Maybe I’m wrong, I hate that crap.
Australia’s National Electricity Market was born in the early 1990s. It prospered through removal of state monopolies over power supply within their borders. There were some constraint of trade across the borders that were costly for large consumers with interconnections in both states. Electricity prices dropped through the 1990s. There was a company with the acronym NEMMCO established to manage the new market.
In 2000 the Renewable Energy Target was introduced and intermittent generators were given permission to connect and generate under highly favourable terms. NEMMCO became AEMO in 2009 to manage the growing complexity..
Just a decade ago, AEMOs budget hit AUD144M for 2016. The budget for 2026 is AUD755M. This gives a rough measure of managing the crapashhot that the NEM has become. Bidding and scheduling is run every 5 minutes for about 10 market categories that include energy and a whole heap of grid stabilising costs.
Electricity grids have historically expanded over time but the NEM wholesale market peaked back in 2008. Since then the wholesale market has been in decline so the AEMO costs and all the other costs are being recovered from smaller volume.
Another problem is that the peak demand has increased because all the solar panels are dead at night; wind can be dead at any time and batteries are flat when needed most. Hence there has been ZERO reduction in the requirement for dispatchable generation despite the reduction in wholesale volume.
The fastest growing generating sector in Australia is rooftops. These now serve 13% of the average demand but not much at peak times. The buildout of household batteries at 1000 per day will eventually spread the duck curve a little.
There are two aluminium smelters that have zero book value that will eliminate another 2GW of demand when they shiut down in the near future.
Australia’s NEM went from a robust essential service in the 1990s to a a modern day crapshoot where the guy with the fastest computer and best demand prediction makes the biggest profit.
There is a very simple fix. Return to daily bidding at available capacity and any generator failing to meet their bid capacity upon dispatch does not get paid for that day.
This disastrous situation stems from the UNIPCC promising a return to the perfect weather of 1850 by not burning fossil fuels and Australia’s government funded research arm and media getting invested in the climate hoax.
Harold The Organic Chemist Says:
ATTN: RickWill
RE: CO2 Does Not Cause Warming Air!
Shown (See below) in the chart is plot of the average annual temperature at Adelaide from 1857 to 1999. In 1857 the concentration of CO2 was 280 ppmv (0.55 g CO2/cu. m. air), and by 1999, it had increased to ca. 370 ppmv (0.73 g CO2/cu. m. air), but there was no corresponding increase in surface air temperature. Instead, there was a cooling. This empirical data falsifies the claim by the IPCC that the increasing concentration of CO2 in air causes an increase in surface air temperature. The reason there was no increase in surface air temperature is because there is too little CO2 in the air to heat up the air which has a mass of 1.20 kg at 20 deg C. Any warming at Adelaide after 1999 is due to other causes such as reduced cloud cover.
The claims by the IPCC that CO2 in air causes global warming and is the control knob of climate change are fabrications and lies. The purpose these lies is to provide the UN the justification to distribute donor funds from the rich countries to the poor countries to help them cope with the effects of global warming and climate change. There is too little CO2 in the air to effect weather and to effect climate, 71% of which are oceans.
The chart was obtained from the late John Daly’s website:
“Still Waiting For Greenhouse” available at: http://www.john-daly.com.
From the home page, page down to the end and click on:
“Station Temperature Data”. On the “World Map” click on region or country (e.g., Oz or NZ) to access temperature data from the weather stations located around the world. John Daly found over 200 weather stations which showed no warming up to 2002. If you click on Oz, there is displayed a list of 21 weather stations. Click on weather station and there is displayed the temperature chart. Click on the back arrow to return the list of stations. If you click on the back arrow, the World Map will be displayed.
PS: If you click on the chart, it will expand and become clear. Click on the “X” in the circle to return to comment text.
PS: You should consider sending this comment to your friends and any politicians to inform them of the great global warming and climate change fraud.
U.S energy and climate has been under a siege of tyranny since the 2008 presidential election. Facts about energy and climate were suppressed and manipulated by the agencies. That situation changed January 20, 2025.
In the meantime W&S and their climate alarmist organizations, their sympathetic political party and that party appointed judges have together with the voters employed by and feeding off the subsidies developed into a powerful political constituency. We’re probably permanently screwed; definitely if Trump losses the House and/or Senate during the upcoming midterms. I hope Australia can survive the W&S plague.
If you make a bid and are unable to provide the power, then you should be fined. Heavily.
Agree, that’s all it would take to end new W&S construction. It would destroy the business model. Good riddance.
I’d been thinking Australia cannot screw up their electrical delivery system as bad as Germany and California have. You have me reconsidering my position.
Comparing apples to oranges is trivial compared to this…
More of apples to aardvarks.
Lots of open spaces to build on. Some states are over 50% federal land.
Data centers are interesting in that their product is digital data,which transfers very well over the internet. So, it is viable to put a data center where power is reliable and relatively low cost, even if it is very far away from the consumers of the data.
A nuclear power plant can be located where there would be very minimal impact in the event of a nuclear accident. Even the reliable forms of “green” energy, such as geothermal could be used, It wouldn’t matter if the geothermal source were remote. The only type of lines that need to be run, are extra data lines, rather than power lines.
Radio/micro-wave transmission is also a possibility, if the ground is too rugged, or perhaps underwater.
Microwave transmission will augment raptor casualties.
But at least the birds will be cooked and therefore could augment local soup kitchens.
Thank you for outlying that important point.
The Wind and Solar Emperor has been found to be wanting in the apparel department.
I’d back AI companies against governments to build a grid that works anyway day.
Add utilities to the list of corrupted institutions shifting goals and priorities at your expense.
The IEA expect data centres in the US to account for almost 50% of electricity demand growth by 2030.
They will then be consuming more electricity than that used for the production of aluminium, steel, cement, chemicals and all other energy intensive industries combined.
IEA ‘Energy and AI’ (April 2025)
They also said US shale oil production would be in decline about now.
Most of our energy intensive industries are now in China consuming coal.
Note that data center demand growth cannot exceed reliable supply growth which EIA may have forgotten. Got a link to their report?
Where is Edward Abbey and Heyduke when we need them?
Just a quick aside here …..My abode is in the Middle of Nowhere in eastern Washington state. I stopped in town early this morning on my way to work to fill up my car at my usual gas station.
The station has recently replaced its gas pumps with ones which have a screen and a speaker and which harangue you with advertisements while you are filling up your car.
This morning’s advertising message came from the State of Washington. It told me that I should be driving at 65 mph on the highway rather than 70 mph in order to be safer and to save gasoline.
Gas prices in Washington state have risen several times now as a direct consequence of new ‘fees’ which are, for all practical purposes, a carbon tax. Washington also has a decarbonization law on the books which will eventually make the sale of fossil generated electricity illegal in the state.
Anyway, my verbal response to the State of Washington while I was standing in front of the gas pump was ‘Stuff it!’ But, judging by the complete lack of response from the pump, I don’t think I was heard.
You got off light this time. The controllers of the screen might have more to preach about in the next stages of control.
I live east of the Cascades in WA State and those gas pumps with screens are common. I’ve never watched one but they become background noise while cleaning the windshield or sending a text. I think they are a dumb idea, only exceeded in their dumbness by the politicians running the State.
As for driving 65 mph, when on I-90 I usually go 68 to 70. Almost everyone passes me, some quite rapidly. Rather than the auto/off/start thing, I’d rather have a sensor that reported the speed of passing vehicles.
“I Can’t Drive 55” is song from Sammy Hagar, a reference to the since-repealed National Maximum Speed Law that set speed limits at 55 miles per hour. (1974 to 1987; then 65 mph until 1995) Those born after 1980 might recall this or think it is ancient history.
I remember reading about someone years ago, who was against nuclear because they believed that the electricity coming out of the sockets would be radioactive. I wonder how many people believe wind and solar electricity better, safer, healthier than coal fired electricity.
A great many people are taught this fiction. Plus now gas fired power has a hefty claimed death toll. NYC campaigns against peakers are full of these bogus death claims.
A couple of random obervations and opinions ….
(1) The AI data centers are signing power purchase agreements which take their electricity from the power grid, as opposed to using direct feeds from the generating plants. Advocates of new-technology computer architectures claim they can reduce the power consumption of these AI data centers ten to one-hundred times. These two observations lead me to the conclusion that those corporations now planning on building more AI data centers are locking up access rights to power generation capacity, access rights which will later be resold at a substantial profit if the AI boom crashes. Or if selling power access rights is more profitable than running an AI data center.
(2) Next Energy, headquarted in Washington DC, has been offering European customers a 20 MW small modular reactor for behind-the-meter power supply. The company has plans to build a series of 20 MW SMR’s in Wales, UK, for this purpose. Up until this year, Next Energy had no plans for serving the US market because it wanted to avoid the NRC’s arduous regulatory process, a process which would burden their simple SMR design with extensive design modifications of a kind which would add nothing of value to their SMR’s basic nuclear safety features. Next Energy now plans to serve the US market for AI data centers and therefore must engage with the NRC in a way it hasn’t done before. This indicates to me that Next Energy’s management expects to see the NRC’s regulatory processes simplified and reduced under the Trump administration’s new guidance for government nuclear oversight.
One can hope, but unless there is some written reg. passed by CONgress, it will be another ‘Exec Order’ that will provide no long-term basis for investing large sums.
Need lots of cheap reliable power? Then build power plants in the Powder River Basin right next to 80 foot thick seams of coal. See? Problem solved easily.
Oh, I see. Don’t want to live in Gillette, Newcastle, Douglas, eh?
EUROPE ATTEMPTS TO WEAKEN THE US WITH EXPENSIVE OFFSHORE WINDMILLS THAT PRODUCE EXPENSIVE, LOW-QUALITY ELECTRICITY
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/europe-attempts-to-entangle-us-with-expensive-offshore-windmills
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Net zero by 2050 Euro elites tried to weaken the US, with help of the unpatriotic, leftist Biden clique, into going down the black hole of 30,000 MW by 2030 of expensive, highly-subsidized, weather-dependent, grid-disturbing offshore windmill systems, which would need expensive, highly subsidized, short-lived, battery systems for grid support.
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The windmills would have produced electricity at about 15 c/kWh, about 2.5 times greater than from US-fueled gas, coal, nuclear, reservoir hydro plants. Such expensive W/S electricity would have made the US even less competitive in world markets.
Any US tariffs on the European supply of wind systems would greatly increase their turnkey capital costs/MW and their electricity costs/ kWh.
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Almost the entire supply of the wind projects would be:
1) designed and made in Europe,
2) then transported across the Atlantic Ocean by European specialized ships,
3) then unloaded at new, taxpayer-financed, $500-million storage/pre-assembly/staging/barge-loading areas,
4) then barged to European specialized erection ships for erection of the windmill systems.
5) The financing would be mostly by European pension funds, that pay benefits to European retirees.
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Hundreds of people in each seashore state would have jobs during the erection phase
The other erection jobs would be by specialized European people, mostly on cranes and ships
Hundreds of people in each seashore state would have long-term O&M jobs, using mostly European spare parts, during the 20-y electricity production phase.
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Conglomerates owned by Euro elites would finance, build, erect, own and operate almost all of the 30,000 MW of offshore windmills, providing work for many thousands of European workers for decades, and multi-$billion profits each year.
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That Euro offshore wind ruse did not work out, because Trump was elected.
Trump-hating, Euro elites are furious. Projects are being cancelled. The European windmill industry is in shambles, with multi-$billion annual losses, lay-offs and tens of $billions of stranded costs.
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Trump spared the US from the W/S evils inflicted by the leftist, woke Democrat cabal, that used an autopen for Biden signatures, and bypassed on-the-beach/in-the-basement Biden, an increasingly dysfunctional Marionette.
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Trump declared a National Energy Emergency, and put W/S/B systems at the bottom of the list, and suspended their licenses to put their rushed, glossy environmental impact statements, EIS, under proper scrutiny.
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Euro elites used the IPCC-invented, “CO2-is-evil” hoax, based on its own “science”.
These elites used:
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1) the foghorn of government-subsidized Corporate Media to propagate scare-mongering slogans and brainwash the people,
2) censorship to suppress free thinking on town hall forums,
3) election interference, as in Moldova and Georgia,
4) ostracizing /marginalizing major political parties to produce desired outcomes, as in Germany.
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Wall Street elites saw an opportunity for tax shelters for its elite clients.
Woke politicians/bureaucrats were “cut-in” on $juicy deals to pass subsidies, favorable rules and regulations, and impose government mandates.
Euro elites wanted the US to deliver electricity to users at very high c/kWh, to preserve Europe’s extremely advantageous trade balance with the US.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/international-trade-is-a-dog-eat-dog-business
COAL ELECTRICITY LESS COSTLY, AVAILABLE NOW, NOT PIE IN THE SKY, LIKE EXPENSIVE FUSION AND SMALL MODULAR NUCLEAR
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/coal-electricity-less-costly-available-now-not-pie-in-the-sky
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Coal gets very little direct subsidies in the US.
Here is an example of the lifetime cost of a coal plant.
The key is running steadily at 90% output for 50 years, on average
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Assume mine-mouth coal plant in Wyoming; 1800 MW (three x 600 MW); turnkey-cost $10 b; life 50 y; CF 0.9; no direct subsidies.
Payments to bank, $5 b at 6% for 50 y; $316 million/y x 50 = $15.8 b
Payments to Owner, $5 b at 10% for 50 y; $504 million/y x 50 = $21.2 b
Lifetime production, base-loaded, 1800 x 8766 x 0.9 x 50 = 710,046,000 MWh
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Wyoming coal, at mine-mouth $15/US ton, 8600 Btu/lb, plant efficiency 40%, Btu/ton = 2000 x 8600 = 17.2 million
Lifetime coal use = 710,046,000,000 kWh/y x (3412 Btu/kWh/0.4)/17,200,000 Btu/US ton = 353 million US ton
Lifetime coal cost = $5.3 billion
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The Owner can deduct interest on borrowed money, and can depreciate the entire plant over 50 y, or less, which helps him achieve his 10% return on investment.
Those are general government subsidies, indirectly charged to taxpayers and/or added to government debt.
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Other costs:
Fixed O&M (labor, maintenance, insurance, taxes, land lease)
Variable O&M (water, chemicals, lubricants, waste disposal)
Fixed + Variable, newer plants 2 c/kWh, older plants up to 4 c/kWh
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Year 1 O&M cost = $0.02/kWh x 710,046,000 MWh/50 y x 1000 kWh/MWh = $0.284 b
Year I Coal cost = $15/US ton x 353 million US ton/50 y = 0.106 b
Year 1 Bank/Owner cost = (15.8, Bank + 21.2, Owner)/50 y= 0.740 b
Year 1 Total cost = 1.130 b
Year 1 Revenue = $0.08/kWh x 710,046,000 MWh/50 x 1000 kWh/MWh = $1.136 b
For on-land wind and solar to cost 8 cents/kWh, about 50% of federal and state tax credits are needed.
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For lower electricity cost/kWh, borrow more money, say 70%
Traditional Nuclear has similar economics; life 60 to 80 y; CF 0.9 in the US.
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For perspective, China used 2204.62/2000 x 4300 = 4740 million US ton in 2024.
China and Germany have multiple ultra-super-critical, USC, coal plants with efficiencies of 45% (LHV), 42% (HHV)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/ultrasupercritical-plant
Being on our own grid makes difficult for the feds to regulate it under the Commerce Clause.
Very nice. Wind and solar can not sustain the grid. Wind and solar can not sustain a modern society. Remove all wind and solar from the grid. Fire up all fossil fuel and nuclear generators. Build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators. We need to rethink sharing our resources with places like California, if they won’t take advantage of their own resources they damn sure shouldn’t have access to other people’s resources.
The US overall grid is composed of 6 subgrids. To call the 3 Eastern ones plus main Texas (Texas is part of 2 different ones) “interconnected” is more than a little bit of a stretch.
The “Western” and “Eastern” regions are misleading since they include Canada…