Bullshit, Flat Bullshit. I can ask you two things right now for you to answer: Have you ever met or watched a weather report/meteorologist that got it right 75% of the time? No. If you have you are the only one. Secondly, Just because you have a battery, if its the wrong size its useless. Riddle that one out. Two Parts Sun does not equal 25 parts demand. Not ever.
Thank you again EBBs. Your posts have a habit of bringing to mind the tongue-in-cheek comment of a younger and much brainier engineering colleague of years ago, referring to the difference between measured results and simulation: "Reality's got it wrong again".
Using wind and solar to reduce CO2 emissions is going to end badly – high energy bills, deindustrialization, limitations on lifestyle, and huge habitat destruction. However, just opposing wind and solar isn’t going to stop them from being built. Like it or not, the public supports the idea of climate mitigation.
What will work is to push for a better alternative. Nuclear power will do all the things wind and solar can’t do. Once nuclear power is properly explained, the public will get behind it. The states that lead the way will enjoy the economic benefits of data centers and other industry built in their state. Plus, higher paying blue collar jobs which our country desperately needs. Nuclear power can be as cheap as our policy makes will allow it to be.
I am optimistic that you are right - "Once nuclear power is properly explained, the public will get behind it." There is already some bipartisan support for nuclear, because it is the best answer to both our reliable energy needs and the desire for a clean source.
It’s interesting to see public support for nuclear change over time in countries that shut down their nuclear plants and tried to replace them with wind and solar. 71% of Germany now supports nuclear power. The German attitude shifted when they experienced the results of attempting to power a great country on intermittent energy. We need get behind nuclear sooner so that we have don’t have to fail first like Germany has.
Yeah it's almost like people have to learn the hard way for themselves and not learn from the experience of others. I'm thinking of Australia in particular but there are many other places that remain caught up in the wind and solar fixation.
public opposition is not the most important obstacle to the adoption of nuclear power - cost is. The Vogtle 3 &4 cost overruns were massive. What we need is a new reactor design that is smaller, modular, cheaper and inherently safer. While there are a number of such designs under development, none will be available before the 2030.
Funny the tiny little country of UAE, barely industrialized, starting from scratch, could build 5.6GWe of the latest GenIII Korean APR-1400s, just finished, in 12yrs for US$24B. Likely to last for 80-100yrs. That's inexpensive power, especially if it is financed the same way we buy bombs to kill children and fight regime change wars we ALWAYS lose. Ultra-low interest, even <1%, and never repay the principal.
In the good old USA, under the auspices of the NRC (Nuclear Rejection Commission), led by their Dr. of Divinity, took 11yrs for 2.4GWe at a cost of $34B. Something wrong somewhere, how about finding the offending parties, and line them up, one after the other, YOU'RE FIRED!!!
Those plants were built by a South Korean firm that has in-depth experience building AP-1000 plants using cheap foreign labor. In contrast, the Votgle reactors were built by a team that had not built a nuclear plant in more than two decades and were using expensive US labor.
But you are correct; we could learn a lot from the Koreans.
That's what I said, the US invented Nuclear power, still operates the largest fleet of NPPs on Earth. And they can't duplicate what the UAE/Kepco managed? And their labor isn't cheap, that's nonsense.
And the Russians do just as good as the Koreans with their VVER-1100's. We buy fuel from the Russians, why not buy their reactors? Even the Canadians do much better with their CANDUs. And the Indians manage $1900/kw with their PHWR-700s. And the Chinese with their CAP1000s moving to CAP1400s.
Excuses, excuses. Sounds like the USSS talking about the Trump Assassination attempt. Usually means nefarious motives.
Korean labor is cheaper than the unionized US construction industries charge. And much of the labor employed in low tech work, such as earth moving, is done by local labor, often imported from India and other developing countries. The UAE is a rich country that imports cheap labor to do most of its domestic tasks.
I agree completely that cost is the ultimate issue, but we have a chicken and egg problem. To get the cost down we have to start building reactors. The reasons Vogtle was so expensive include:
1) Construction started before the design was completed. This caused the modular design to backfire. Mistakes were made that rippled through the whole supply chain causing many delays.
2) We lacked a trained work force for building nuclear plants.
3) We are no longer as productive as we used to be at building large construction projects.
4) Regulations need to be adjusted.
These will mostly fix themselves if we start building on a regular basis. Consider that Vogtle 4 was 30% cheaper than 3. I think the AP1000 is a great design for the long run once supply chains are running smoothly. I like its simplicity, reduced material content, and modularity. It’s too soon to judge. Small reactors are great, but there is no proof they will be cheaper (NuScale)– we need both large and small.
Public support is an important factor in getting started. Consider that the unsubsidized LCOE of offshore wind is more expensive than Vogtle 3 and 4, even before adding in the cost of storage. The policy makers are willing to spend a fortune on intermittent offshore wind, but not less on dispatchable nuclear. Clearly, we have a failure to communicate.
Yes, cost is a problem. Hopefully a new administration will reign in many of the restrictive regulations and permitting obstacles. Actually, the cost of nuclear isn't so bad when you look at the long lifetime for amortization and the comparatively lower maintenance and operating costs. I've heard the Westinghouse AP1000 is a good one; perhaps with more volume and a stable, trained workforce, it will be a pretty good solution. On the Vogtle project, a lot of the cost was caused by delays due to constant design revisions. Delays are very expensive if you figure interest on multibillion dollar financing.
I agree. However, the problem with the AP 1000 is that its sheer size and cost makes it a big financial risk for most utilities or generation developers to undertake. Small modular reactors limit that risk.
Well, the SMRs are expensive, too - so I think it's better to bite the bullet and commit to a real, time-tested and proven full size nuclear plant that doesn't cost that much more - assuming some of the hurdles I mentioned earlier can be overcome.
I agree. But how do we get someone to build them? the only option I see is for the US government to assume much of the financial risk, perhaps by guaranteeing the developer a minimum rate of return regardless of the outcome. But that raises issues re the incentive to be cost-efficient in construction.
It shouldn't be a big financial risk. That's just an excuse. It is done elsewhere, it can be done, make it happen. If someone in the NRC complains, you fire that person.
Financial risk is always present when one invests in a project whose cost and performance is subject to uncertainty. A country's government, or even al large, well funded private company, can undertake that risk - and will if the expected rate of return is high enough. Today there are not many electric utilities that have those kind of financial resources Southern Company is one of them. But it faces a massive write-off from the Vogtle cost overrun. Furthermore, if Vogtle had been built on time and at its original projected cost, Southern would only be allowed to earn a regulated rate of return that falls woefully short of the risk premium it deserved for undertaking Vogtle 3 & 4. The game is asymmetric.
As for firing someone at NRC (like who? the Commissioners?) that's not how regulatory agencies function.
And who is going to do that explaining? The NY Times? MSNBC? Hollywood? Dream on.
What’s going to happen is that we are going to keep going down this road until large numbers of people start freezing in the dark. Then Viva La Revolution!
People are not going to put up with freezing to death in large numbers. I just hope we have a democracy left when it’s all over.
With the new thorium and molten salt reactor in China, a “safe” nuclear plant -not that you can be any safer than we are now… but that’s beside the point- I believe that public opinion will hopefully shift in favour of nuclear again
Logic and reason is impossible is usa when the Anti-Nuclear NGO Industry has a $$2.3 BILLION / year budget to BRAINWASH! Kamala Harris WILL BE 2025 PRES. with $ 5.5 BILLION in FREE Fake News Promotion. usa =DOOMED!
I love the title question. perfectly encapsulates the situation and, of course, they will not be able to answer it, leaving advocates looking even more clueless
First, well done and I love this, however here is where this particular article hits a brick wall. We have to convince the general public of this, 37% of which believes that hamburger is MADE at the grocery store, Electricity is magic, and Kamala Harris is going to save the world. In summation, we need to reset our education system right damn now.
Solar, via the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), is running rampant in Ohio. Data centers are popping up every time I turn around. A representative of the Ohio Public Utilities Commission referencing a Google D.C. near a proposed solar project stated, "Google will need that power." I guess the data center will only run 4-8 hour/day on a good day and probably not at all during the winter when we get a whopping 9 hours and 30 minutes of DAYLIGHT, usually with heavy cloud cover.
I really love that quote: "Reality's got it wrong again!" Thanks, Ian.
Google won't rely on solar power directly. They will keep up appearances by buying 'carbon credits' from solar installations, but they will get their 24/7/365 power from fossil fuels or nuclear. The largest data center in the US, FB in Prineville Oregon, has over 100 backup diesel generators sitting on 10,000 gallon tanks of diesel. They are ready for grid outages, and buy carbon credits to meet Oregon's emission regulations.
Wind droughts are an existential threat to our prosperity and all the comforts of modern life which depend on a continuous supply of affordable electricity.
The first time I said that western civilization might be destroyed by wind droughts I was joking. However more grids in the western world are approaching the tipping point where conventional power has been displaced by the unreliables until there is not enough to keep things going on windless nights. So it is not a joke any more.
That piece tells the story of the discovery and calls for investigations into the silence of the official meteorologists and the lack of due diligence on the wind supply by the early windpower planners and policy wonks.
Everyone needs to know the ABC of intermittent electricity providers, it is not complicated and it can be demonstrated by incontrovertible information from official sources.
The flight from coal and gas has gone as far as it can go due to the break in wind and solar input on nights with little or no wind. It’s as simple as ABC.
A. Input to the grid must continuously match the demand.
B. The continuity of RE is broken on nights with little or no wind.
C. There is no feasible or affordable large-scale storage to bridge the gaps.
So the transition to wind and solar power can’t proceed with current storage technology.
There pumped hydro backup for wind & solar isn't working out so well. Snowy Hydro 2.0 continues to throw good money after bad, Malcom Roberts, elected Queensland Senator under Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party:
The original cost of $2 billion is now out to $5.9 billion and likely to go over $10 billion. In addition, the transmission lines to bring the power into the grid will gouge out national parks and farmland, and cost another $10 billion. And their main boring machine has been bogged for more than a year.
Sure, every power source can benefit from time shifting that power. But thermal generators don't need nearly the sheer amounts as that required by solar and even more by wind generation. In particular, time shifting power to mitigate seasonal variations in generation/demand is an onerous challenge for low CF generators.
Great article! But You Just Don't Get it. So Close, yet so Far!
Reliably Unreliable. YES! But CAISO and other ISO's including Texas create BIG INCENTIVES for the people that solve unreliability with dispatchable power. At some moments the price of energy gets 1000x higher! Remember ENRON? Crashing the grid inconveniences users, and creates windfall profits (no pun intended) for the Gas guys.
Follow the Money please!
This isn't about well intentioned people trying and failing to deliver reliable power. It's the Enron alumni running the same scam but bigger.
Look at the fluctuations in the real time energy market.
The money comes from the chaos.
Just like Wall Street, promoting fake news to move stocks up and down randomly so the computers profit off oscillating human enthusiasm/panic.
The gas guys can sell less gas and earn more money for it, filling in the gaps in Wind and Solar vs Load.
Gas guys love renewables because they cement demand for gas and make it much more lucrative.
I fear the popular response to increased widespread / rolling blackouts as renewable uptake / electrification continue will be totally manipulated and conditioned by mainstream and social media, as we speed into the future. Meaning, people will accept their lot as colder, hotter and hungrier as the pot boils—blame corporate greed or the lack of “investment” in renewables, mixed with subtle hints that they are somehow guilty due to their “inequitable first-world “privileges” etc. Not enough will recognize they have the power within themselves to vote for change and have that work its way down to the administrative bowels of federal and state governments.
Oh yes, everyone totally does! We should burn all the coal for that, if that is what it would take. Meantime I am taking a step that I can afford to take in dealing with the morons who run my state and RTO.
I wish you lads could see the insanity of the nuclear vs renewable 'debate' going on right now in Australia... Total clownworld with 3-eyed fish and Simpsons memes being promoted by the government in power (who oppose nuclear energy but are buying nuclear submarines).
That's why I always retell the story of German former Chancellor (President) Gerhard Schröder celebrating his Birthday at Putin's Palace and being showered with gifts of Gazprom and Nordstream, and Nordstream II stock and board seats. As he helps shut down German energy independence via Nuclear, and instead rely on Domestic Russian nuclear power, which allows most of Russia's gas to be sent to Germany.
Another excellent analysis! Wind droughts are seen all over the world and can last several days. Wind and solar power are fed into the ERCOT grid on a 100% "as-available" basis due to the day-ahead, energy-only pricing policy. This means that when wind is strong, typically during spring, gas and other power sources must cut back to balance the grid, and there are unabsorbed fixed costs that are shouldered by all grid customers.
This article is simplistic and misleading in its treatment of wind and solar capacity values.
When an ISO assigns a capacity value to wind (or solar) of X percent of installed capacity, that doesn’t mean the resource is expected to deliver that amount of capacity WITH CERTAINTY. It means that the likelihood of the system having insufficient capacity to meet the demand is the same as if an equal amount of firm, reliable capacity were substituted for the renewable resource’s capacity value. In most power systems that likelihood (referred ti as the Loss of Load Probability, or LOLP) is one event in ten years.
Now there is a valid argument against using this LOLP criterion, primarily that it doesn’t capture the economic loss associated with the outage. For example, it values a 5-minute outage the same as the 4-day outages that occurred in Texas during Storm Uri. Obviously that’s ridiculous.
Also, as the penetration of intermittent renewables increases the methodology used to evaluate power system reliability will need to change. LOLP is hopelessly inadequate. The expected value of unserved energy is more relevant but even this falls short because it assumes that the value of unserved load remains constant regardless of the length of the outage. Studies that estimate the value of lost load (VOLL) have generally assumed outages ranging one to eight hours - not four days.
Regarding the role of wind resources during Storm Uri, The ERCOT engineers did not expect the wind turbines to deliver any significant amount of of energy because of the freezing temperatures. Thus your referring to their performing below their assigned, warm weather capacity value is bogus.
ERCOT was not relying on the wind turbines because it had more than enough thermal generation to easily meet the forecasted extreme cold weather peak demand . The reason it could not was a combination of some generators freezing up because they were not winterized, one nuclear reactor tripping off because a sensor line froze up, and the lack of natural gas to fuel about half the unavailable gas-fired generators because of frozen gas wellheads. The Storm Uri blackout was caused by a multitude of failures in both the electric power and natural gas sectors totally independent of how the wind turbines performed.
Lastly, the overwhelming value of renewable resources is not the capacity value it provides to the grid, but rather the amount of fossil fuel generation it displaces.
Your points are certainly valid, but I do have a few questions/comments. The first is an investment in wind and solar certainly has an opportunity cost. For the same money, we could build a significant amount of more predictable capacity. Robert Bryce talks to that in this Substack article. Why spend a bunch of money on plants that you don’t expect to be available when you need them most?
The second point is partly a question. Forced outages at Nuclear plants should be independent from one another. The fact that plant A is offline, does not mean that plant B is offline. Multiple natural gas plants could be connected to the same gas source so an outage at the common gas source could take out more than one plant. Wind and solar farm outages, at least during big events, seem to be highly correlated. Take a look at this picture of the cloud cover during winter storm URI:
When people are modeling wind and solar for outages, are they taking into about the fact that at least some times outages for wind and solar take out a large number of farms at the same time?
My third difference with wind and solar is something Meredith Angwin (Shorting the Grid) talks about and that is wind and solar (and many gas plants) do not have any fuel on-site. Nuclear and coal can and do. It seems to me that the value of on-site fuel, is something that is not captured in a simple value of lost load kind of calculation.
You need to take Robert Bryce with a grain of salt. He is not an electric power expert and he ignores the value od eliminating GHG and other emissions
The primary role of renewables is not to provide capacity but rather to displace fossil fuel generation. My intuition tells me that the ISOs are giving renewables too much capacity value.
No, it's not. Their article is treating capacity value and power system reliability in a deterministic manner. Power system reliability is a probabilistic concept.
One way to value the on-site power is the purchase contracts for data centers and industrial facilities always include reliability. "Six Nines Power" where outages are one in a million, is much more valuable than "Five nines power" etc. That puts a price on reliability.
And it's worse. Industry doesn't build factories where power is unreliable.
Where can I buy a solar panel made mostly with solar electons? If solar is the cheapest, they all would be. If none are... why not? (I"m anticipating China is adding enough solar they may soon actually be producing solar-made solar panels.)
The other reason solar / Wind seem the cheapest, in a market, is because they aren't very valuable. If you could do more with the energy the price would be higher!
There is no proof that there is much value to reducing fossil fuel usage let alone an overwhelming value. Moreover, even if there was value to such, that value would be rendered nil by the non-western world's growing dependence on fossil fuels.
I'm against death. One out of six dead people were killed by air pollution FROM Fossil fuel burning. Mostly diesel and coal. (Latest Harvard study.)
Thats enough of a reason for me to convert coal plants to run on Dry SMR nuclear heat sources. And gas of course is safer for humans and animals.
The worst nuclear accident in history, Chernobyl, could have been worse. If it had been a coal plant it would have killed at least 5 times as many people thru air pollution -- on purpose operating nominally -- as it did by accident as a nuclear "catastrophe".
There's an irrational bias.
People don't mind folks trying to murder them, as long as it isn't personal. If coal is killing you, and your family, and everybody else, then that seems fair!
I remember being in operations when the first mandate came down from on high about green energy content. We purchased a 30 year firm capacity slice of Bighorn I in the Columbia River gorge. The operating company changed hands a half dozen times and finally landed with Iberdrola. That firm contract was a thorn in the operating companies side, they had to go buy energy to cover their sale when the wind turbines under performed. It was a painful contract to manage because the source tags changed continuously The whole thing was just expensive.
If it’s not dispatchable it’s not capacity.
Hard agree
That's wrong. One has to view the contribution of any generation resource from a probability perspective.
What’s the proper accreditation for an intermittent resource when they could easily be producing zero when you need the power most?
Bullshit, Flat Bullshit. I can ask you two things right now for you to answer: Have you ever met or watched a weather report/meteorologist that got it right 75% of the time? No. If you have you are the only one. Secondly, Just because you have a battery, if its the wrong size its useless. Riddle that one out. Two Parts Sun does not equal 25 parts demand. Not ever.
Thank you again EBBs. Your posts have a habit of bringing to mind the tongue-in-cheek comment of a younger and much brainier engineering colleague of years ago, referring to the difference between measured results and simulation: "Reality's got it wrong again".
Using wind and solar to reduce CO2 emissions is going to end badly – high energy bills, deindustrialization, limitations on lifestyle, and huge habitat destruction. However, just opposing wind and solar isn’t going to stop them from being built. Like it or not, the public supports the idea of climate mitigation.
What will work is to push for a better alternative. Nuclear power will do all the things wind and solar can’t do. Once nuclear power is properly explained, the public will get behind it. The states that lead the way will enjoy the economic benefits of data centers and other industry built in their state. Plus, higher paying blue collar jobs which our country desperately needs. Nuclear power can be as cheap as our policy makes will allow it to be.
https://schlanj.substack.com/p/a-more-realistic-view-of-the-cost
I am optimistic that you are right - "Once nuclear power is properly explained, the public will get behind it." There is already some bipartisan support for nuclear, because it is the best answer to both our reliable energy needs and the desire for a clean source.
It’s interesting to see public support for nuclear change over time in countries that shut down their nuclear plants and tried to replace them with wind and solar. 71% of Germany now supports nuclear power. The German attitude shifted when they experienced the results of attempting to power a great country on intermittent energy. We need get behind nuclear sooner so that we have don’t have to fail first like Germany has.
That's a huge shift in sentiment in Germany.
Yeah it's almost like people have to learn the hard way for themselves and not learn from the experience of others. I'm thinking of Australia in particular but there are many other places that remain caught up in the wind and solar fixation.
public opposition is not the most important obstacle to the adoption of nuclear power - cost is. The Vogtle 3 &4 cost overruns were massive. What we need is a new reactor design that is smaller, modular, cheaper and inherently safer. While there are a number of such designs under development, none will be available before the 2030.
Funny the tiny little country of UAE, barely industrialized, starting from scratch, could build 5.6GWe of the latest GenIII Korean APR-1400s, just finished, in 12yrs for US$24B. Likely to last for 80-100yrs. That's inexpensive power, especially if it is financed the same way we buy bombs to kill children and fight regime change wars we ALWAYS lose. Ultra-low interest, even <1%, and never repay the principal.
In the good old USA, under the auspices of the NRC (Nuclear Rejection Commission), led by their Dr. of Divinity, took 11yrs for 2.4GWe at a cost of $34B. Something wrong somewhere, how about finding the offending parties, and line them up, one after the other, YOU'RE FIRED!!!
The US is not the UAE.
Those plants were built by a South Korean firm that has in-depth experience building AP-1000 plants using cheap foreign labor. In contrast, the Votgle reactors were built by a team that had not built a nuclear plant in more than two decades and were using expensive US labor.
But you are correct; we could learn a lot from the Koreans.
That's what I said, the US invented Nuclear power, still operates the largest fleet of NPPs on Earth. And they can't duplicate what the UAE/Kepco managed? And their labor isn't cheap, that's nonsense.
And the Russians do just as good as the Koreans with their VVER-1100's. We buy fuel from the Russians, why not buy their reactors? Even the Canadians do much better with their CANDUs. And the Indians manage $1900/kw with their PHWR-700s. And the Chinese with their CAP1000s moving to CAP1400s.
Excuses, excuses. Sounds like the USSS talking about the Trump Assassination attempt. Usually means nefarious motives.
Korean labor is cheaper than the unionized US construction industries charge. And much of the labor employed in low tech work, such as earth moving, is done by local labor, often imported from India and other developing countries. The UAE is a rich country that imports cheap labor to do most of its domestic tasks.
I agree completely that cost is the ultimate issue, but we have a chicken and egg problem. To get the cost down we have to start building reactors. The reasons Vogtle was so expensive include:
1) Construction started before the design was completed. This caused the modular design to backfire. Mistakes were made that rippled through the whole supply chain causing many delays.
2) We lacked a trained work force for building nuclear plants.
3) We are no longer as productive as we used to be at building large construction projects.
4) Regulations need to be adjusted.
These will mostly fix themselves if we start building on a regular basis. Consider that Vogtle 4 was 30% cheaper than 3. I think the AP1000 is a great design for the long run once supply chains are running smoothly. I like its simplicity, reduced material content, and modularity. It’s too soon to judge. Small reactors are great, but there is no proof they will be cheaper (NuScale)– we need both large and small.
Public support is an important factor in getting started. Consider that the unsubsidized LCOE of offshore wind is more expensive than Vogtle 3 and 4, even before adding in the cost of storage. The policy makers are willing to spend a fortune on intermittent offshore wind, but not less on dispatchable nuclear. Clearly, we have a failure to communicate.
Yes, cost is a problem. Hopefully a new administration will reign in many of the restrictive regulations and permitting obstacles. Actually, the cost of nuclear isn't so bad when you look at the long lifetime for amortization and the comparatively lower maintenance and operating costs. I've heard the Westinghouse AP1000 is a good one; perhaps with more volume and a stable, trained workforce, it will be a pretty good solution. On the Vogtle project, a lot of the cost was caused by delays due to constant design revisions. Delays are very expensive if you figure interest on multibillion dollar financing.
I agree. However, the problem with the AP 1000 is that its sheer size and cost makes it a big financial risk for most utilities or generation developers to undertake. Small modular reactors limit that risk.
Well, the SMRs are expensive, too - so I think it's better to bite the bullet and commit to a real, time-tested and proven full size nuclear plant that doesn't cost that much more - assuming some of the hurdles I mentioned earlier can be overcome.
I agree. But how do we get someone to build them? the only option I see is for the US government to assume much of the financial risk, perhaps by guaranteeing the developer a minimum rate of return regardless of the outcome. But that raises issues re the incentive to be cost-efficient in construction.
It shouldn't be a big financial risk. That's just an excuse. It is done elsewhere, it can be done, make it happen. If someone in the NRC complains, you fire that person.
Your solutions are not realistic.
Financial risk is always present when one invests in a project whose cost and performance is subject to uncertainty. A country's government, or even al large, well funded private company, can undertake that risk - and will if the expected rate of return is high enough. Today there are not many electric utilities that have those kind of financial resources Southern Company is one of them. But it faces a massive write-off from the Vogtle cost overrun. Furthermore, if Vogtle had been built on time and at its original projected cost, Southern would only be allowed to earn a regulated rate of return that falls woefully short of the risk premium it deserved for undertaking Vogtle 3 & 4. The game is asymmetric.
As for firing someone at NRC (like who? the Commissioners?) that's not how regulatory agencies function.
“Once nuclear power is properly explained”
And who is going to do that explaining? The NY Times? MSNBC? Hollywood? Dream on.
What’s going to happen is that we are going to keep going down this road until large numbers of people start freezing in the dark. Then Viva La Revolution!
People are not going to put up with freezing to death in large numbers. I just hope we have a democracy left when it’s all over.
With the new thorium and molten salt reactor in China, a “safe” nuclear plant -not that you can be any safer than we are now… but that’s beside the point- I believe that public opinion will hopefully shift in favour of nuclear again
Logic and reason is impossible is usa when the Anti-Nuclear NGO Industry has a $$2.3 BILLION / year budget to BRAINWASH! Kamala Harris WILL BE 2025 PRES. with $ 5.5 BILLION in FREE Fake News Promotion. usa =DOOMED!
I love the title question. perfectly encapsulates the situation and, of course, they will not be able to answer it, leaving advocates looking even more clueless
First, well done and I love this, however here is where this particular article hits a brick wall. We have to convince the general public of this, 37% of which believes that hamburger is MADE at the grocery store, Electricity is magic, and Kamala Harris is going to save the world. In summation, we need to reset our education system right damn now.
You'll probably enjoy this if you haven't already seen it
https://chrisbond.substack.com/p/south-australia-reality
(he also did a similar thing about Western Aus as well)
Oh and I just posted a substack of my own about visiting a wind farm in Japan
https://open.substack.com/pub/ombreolivier/p/wind-power-up-close?r=7yrqz&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Solar, via the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), is running rampant in Ohio. Data centers are popping up every time I turn around. A representative of the Ohio Public Utilities Commission referencing a Google D.C. near a proposed solar project stated, "Google will need that power." I guess the data center will only run 4-8 hour/day on a good day and probably not at all during the winter when we get a whopping 9 hours and 30 minutes of DAYLIGHT, usually with heavy cloud cover.
I really love that quote: "Reality's got it wrong again!" Thanks, Ian.
Google won't rely on solar power directly. They will keep up appearances by buying 'carbon credits' from solar installations, but they will get their 24/7/365 power from fossil fuels or nuclear. The largest data center in the US, FB in Prineville Oregon, has over 100 backup diesel generators sitting on 10,000 gallon tanks of diesel. They are ready for grid outages, and buy carbon credits to meet Oregon's emission regulations.
Wind droughts are an existential threat to our prosperity and all the comforts of modern life which depend on a continuous supply of affordable electricity.
The first time I said that western civilization might be destroyed by wind droughts I was joking. However more grids in the western world are approaching the tipping point where conventional power has been displaced by the unreliables until there is not enough to keep things going on windless nights. So it is not a joke any more.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/04/the-endless-wind-drought-crippling-renewables/
Serious wind droughts were clearly documented in Australia over a decade ago but nobody in a position of influence took any notice.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2024/06/things-that-go-slump-in-the-night/
That piece tells the story of the discovery and calls for investigations into the silence of the official meteorologists and the lack of due diligence on the wind supply by the early windpower planners and policy wonks.
Everyone needs to know the ABC of intermittent electricity providers, it is not complicated and it can be demonstrated by incontrovertible information from official sources.
The flight from coal and gas has gone as far as it can go due to the break in wind and solar input on nights with little or no wind. It’s as simple as ABC.
A. Input to the grid must continuously match the demand.
B. The continuity of RE is broken on nights with little or no wind.
C. There is no feasible or affordable large-scale storage to bridge the gaps.
So the transition to wind and solar power can’t proceed with current storage technology.
https://newcatallaxy.blog/2023/07/11/approaching-the-tipping-point/
Every source of energy requires Storage as well as the Backup mentioned in Bad Boys article.
What’s the status of the huge Battery provided by Elon Musk for South Australia (?) ?
Ditto for the Vanadium Redox Battery in Tasmania?
There pumped hydro backup for wind & solar isn't working out so well. Snowy Hydro 2.0 continues to throw good money after bad, Malcom Roberts, elected Queensland Senator under Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5Ct55PpyhA
The original cost of $2 billion is now out to $5.9 billion and likely to go over $10 billion. In addition, the transmission lines to bring the power into the grid will gouge out national parks and farmland, and cost another $10 billion. And their main boring machine has been bogged for more than a year.
https://www.youtube.com/@MalcolmRobertsOneNation/search?query=snowy
New transmission can both ignite wildfires and be shut down due to wildfires. Not sure who pays for new transmission and maintenance in Australia.
It seems that we don't have feasible or affordable grid-scale storage. I dont know of any major pumped hydro scheme that runs on wind and solar alone.
The Musk battery in the very small state of South Australia would keep the lights on for 10-15 minutes
https://www.flickerpower.com/index.php/search/categories/renewables/21-12-the-capacity-of-big-batteries.
Sure, every power source can benefit from time shifting that power. But thermal generators don't need nearly the sheer amounts as that required by solar and even more by wind generation. In particular, time shifting power to mitigate seasonal variations in generation/demand is an onerous challenge for low CF generators.
The Tasmanian battery has just got a grant to do research on new battery technologies.
Great article! But You Just Don't Get it. So Close, yet so Far!
Reliably Unreliable. YES! But CAISO and other ISO's including Texas create BIG INCENTIVES for the people that solve unreliability with dispatchable power. At some moments the price of energy gets 1000x higher! Remember ENRON? Crashing the grid inconveniences users, and creates windfall profits (no pun intended) for the Gas guys.
Follow the Money please!
This isn't about well intentioned people trying and failing to deliver reliable power. It's the Enron alumni running the same scam but bigger.
Look at the fluctuations in the real time energy market.
The money comes from the chaos.
Just like Wall Street, promoting fake news to move stocks up and down randomly so the computers profit off oscillating human enthusiasm/panic.
The gas guys can sell less gas and earn more money for it, filling in the gaps in Wind and Solar vs Load.
Gas guys love renewables because they cement demand for gas and make it much more lucrative.
I fear the popular response to increased widespread / rolling blackouts as renewable uptake / electrification continue will be totally manipulated and conditioned by mainstream and social media, as we speed into the future. Meaning, people will accept their lot as colder, hotter and hungrier as the pot boils—blame corporate greed or the lack of “investment” in renewables, mixed with subtle hints that they are somehow guilty due to their “inequitable first-world “privileges” etc. Not enough will recognize they have the power within themselves to vote for change and have that work its way down to the administrative bowels of federal and state governments.
Or these "privileged people" could just invest in Generac backup generators.
Actually, that's already happening, further increasing the inequity in today's society.
Yup. I am installing a propane tank as the backup to the nat gas line into my generator soon
Many people cannot afford backup generators. Don't they also deserve to receive reliable electric service?
Oh yes, everyone totally does! We should burn all the coal for that, if that is what it would take. Meantime I am taking a step that I can afford to take in dealing with the morons who run my state and RTO.
Burn coal? So you are a climate change denier? Do you also think that Trump was elected president in 2020?
Coal is an awesome resource for cost and reliability. Let’s not partake in name calling here or assuming bad things about other peoples characters.
I know he was elected, if you don't know that, than you don't know much.
Sir, that is quite enough. Thank you.
I wish you lads could see the insanity of the nuclear vs renewable 'debate' going on right now in Australia... Total clownworld with 3-eyed fish and Simpsons memes being promoted by the government in power (who oppose nuclear energy but are buying nuclear submarines).
That's why I always retell the story of German former Chancellor (President) Gerhard Schröder celebrating his Birthday at Putin's Palace and being showered with gifts of Gazprom and Nordstream, and Nordstream II stock and board seats. As he helps shut down German energy independence via Nuclear, and instead rely on Domestic Russian nuclear power, which allows most of Russia's gas to be sent to Germany.
It's the corruption, stupid!
You have to be a sociopath to be a politician 😔
Another excellent analysis! Wind droughts are seen all over the world and can last several days. Wind and solar power are fed into the ERCOT grid on a 100% "as-available" basis due to the day-ahead, energy-only pricing policy. This means that when wind is strong, typically during spring, gas and other power sources must cut back to balance the grid, and there are unabsorbed fixed costs that are shouldered by all grid customers.
This article is simplistic and misleading in its treatment of wind and solar capacity values.
When an ISO assigns a capacity value to wind (or solar) of X percent of installed capacity, that doesn’t mean the resource is expected to deliver that amount of capacity WITH CERTAINTY. It means that the likelihood of the system having insufficient capacity to meet the demand is the same as if an equal amount of firm, reliable capacity were substituted for the renewable resource’s capacity value. In most power systems that likelihood (referred ti as the Loss of Load Probability, or LOLP) is one event in ten years.
Now there is a valid argument against using this LOLP criterion, primarily that it doesn’t capture the economic loss associated with the outage. For example, it values a 5-minute outage the same as the 4-day outages that occurred in Texas during Storm Uri. Obviously that’s ridiculous.
Also, as the penetration of intermittent renewables increases the methodology used to evaluate power system reliability will need to change. LOLP is hopelessly inadequate. The expected value of unserved energy is more relevant but even this falls short because it assumes that the value of unserved load remains constant regardless of the length of the outage. Studies that estimate the value of lost load (VOLL) have generally assumed outages ranging one to eight hours - not four days.
Regarding the role of wind resources during Storm Uri, The ERCOT engineers did not expect the wind turbines to deliver any significant amount of of energy because of the freezing temperatures. Thus your referring to their performing below their assigned, warm weather capacity value is bogus.
ERCOT was not relying on the wind turbines because it had more than enough thermal generation to easily meet the forecasted extreme cold weather peak demand . The reason it could not was a combination of some generators freezing up because they were not winterized, one nuclear reactor tripping off because a sensor line froze up, and the lack of natural gas to fuel about half the unavailable gas-fired generators because of frozen gas wellheads. The Storm Uri blackout was caused by a multitude of failures in both the electric power and natural gas sectors totally independent of how the wind turbines performed.
Lastly, the overwhelming value of renewable resources is not the capacity value it provides to the grid, but rather the amount of fossil fuel generation it displaces.
Your points are certainly valid, but I do have a few questions/comments. The first is an investment in wind and solar certainly has an opportunity cost. For the same money, we could build a significant amount of more predictable capacity. Robert Bryce talks to that in this Substack article. Why spend a bunch of money on plants that you don’t expect to be available when you need them most?
Build it in the wind won’t come - Robert Bryce
https://open.substack.com/pub/robertbryce/p/build-it-and-the-wind-wont-come?r=kv14k&utm_medium=ios
The second point is partly a question. Forced outages at Nuclear plants should be independent from one another. The fact that plant A is offline, does not mean that plant B is offline. Multiple natural gas plants could be connected to the same gas source so an outage at the common gas source could take out more than one plant. Wind and solar farm outages, at least during big events, seem to be highly correlated. Take a look at this picture of the cloud cover during winter storm URI:
https://abc7ny.com/snow-totals-in-us-texas-weather-cover-map/10350890/
When people are modeling wind and solar for outages, are they taking into about the fact that at least some times outages for wind and solar take out a large number of farms at the same time?
My third difference with wind and solar is something Meredith Angwin (Shorting the Grid) talks about and that is wind and solar (and many gas plants) do not have any fuel on-site. Nuclear and coal can and do. It seems to me that the value of on-site fuel, is something that is not captured in a simple value of lost load kind of calculation.
You need to take Robert Bryce with a grain of salt. He is not an electric power expert and he ignores the value od eliminating GHG and other emissions
The primary role of renewables is not to provide capacity but rather to displace fossil fuel generation. My intuition tells me that the ISOs are giving renewables too much capacity value.
Isn't that exactly what Isaac and Mitch are saying?
No, it's not. Their article is treating capacity value and power system reliability in a deterministic manner. Power system reliability is a probabilistic concept.
Yes, certainly when it's reliably unreliable.
One way to value the on-site power is the purchase contracts for data centers and industrial facilities always include reliability. "Six Nines Power" where outages are one in a million, is much more valuable than "Five nines power" etc. That puts a price on reliability.
And it's worse. Industry doesn't build factories where power is unreliable.
Where can I buy a solar panel made mostly with solar electons? If solar is the cheapest, they all would be. If none are... why not? (I"m anticipating China is adding enough solar they may soon actually be producing solar-made solar panels.)
The other reason solar / Wind seem the cheapest, in a market, is because they aren't very valuable. If you could do more with the energy the price would be higher!
There is no proof that there is much value to reducing fossil fuel usage let alone an overwhelming value. Moreover, even if there was value to such, that value would be rendered nil by the non-western world's growing dependence on fossil fuels.
I'm against death. One out of six dead people were killed by air pollution FROM Fossil fuel burning. Mostly diesel and coal. (Latest Harvard study.)
Thats enough of a reason for me to convert coal plants to run on Dry SMR nuclear heat sources. And gas of course is safer for humans and animals.
The worst nuclear accident in history, Chernobyl, could have been worse. If it had been a coal plant it would have killed at least 5 times as many people thru air pollution -- on purpose operating nominally -- as it did by accident as a nuclear "catastrophe".
There's an irrational bias.
People don't mind folks trying to murder them, as long as it isn't personal. If coal is killing you, and your family, and everybody else, then that seems fair!
I remember being in operations when the first mandate came down from on high about green energy content. We purchased a 30 year firm capacity slice of Bighorn I in the Columbia River gorge. The operating company changed hands a half dozen times and finally landed with Iberdrola. That firm contract was a thorn in the operating companies side, they had to go buy energy to cover their sale when the wind turbines under performed. It was a painful contract to manage because the source tags changed continuously The whole thing was just expensive.
Wind is very reliable - it does exactly what you would expect which is the usual definition of reliability
We have different definitions of reliability my friend. My definition is something does what I want it to do when I want it done.
When assessing production line efficiency, breakdowns would be unreliability, not stoppages as there were no raw materials
Is a gas power station unreliable if there is no gas?
Just think about it logically
The gas power station not having gas would almost certainly stem from a mechanical breakdown.
Most likely, but not one at the power station. The power station would be totally reliable whilst not working
JJ == joke joke