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Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

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Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#181

Post by worlddeployer »

cat199 wrote: post #173
worlddeployer wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> never documented as far as I know It happened in Brenham, Texas, in the 90s. http://www.theeagle.com/blogs/fajitas_for_one/salt-dome-expl...

That was a salt dome holding area, and not a tanker, to be fair.. but yes, it exploded. People in houston (~45m-1h drive away) felt the rumble and thought it was an earthquake..

From your original post:

> Vapor cloud detonation has never been considered particularly likely, and never documented as far as I know

This is an example of a vapor cloud detonation. I'm just pointing out that it's happened, so I'm not sure why you're saying it's never been documented. Unless you just meant in the context of a tanker, but that's not how you phrased it.

As it happened, I lived in the area at the time (about 40 miles away on the back side of Cypress, Texas). I didn't think so much about it being an earthquake, but instead thought a large airplane had crashed nearby. I ran out into the street expecting to see fire and explosions and whatnot within a block or few of my house ... only for there to be _nothing._

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#182

Post by Animats »

saryant wrote: post #3
toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

It appears we're at the inflection point where even natural gas (in addition to coal) is getting pushed out of the generation mix. Good! About time. This may require paying natural gas generators for their ability to quickly throttle to back renewables, but only as a temporary measure until utility scale batteries fall in cost.

Natural gas energy can be transported much more easily than solar or wind. As more export capacity comes online in the US I would expect natural gas projects in the US to continue apace even if domestic consumption stays flat or declines.

A LNG terminal is going up in Brownsville, TX, closer to SpaceX's launch site than one might like.

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#183

Post by cakedoggie »

davidf18 wrote: post #10

I wonder what the economics would be without the federal tax incentives for wind and solar. Does anyone know? EDIT: Someone above provided a link that provides the figure I was looking for: "Between 2010 and 2016, subsidies for solar were between 10¢ and 88¢ per kWh and subsidies for wind were between 1.3¢ and 5.7¢ per kWh. Subsidies for coal, natural gas and nuclear are all between 0.05¢ and 0.2¢ per kWh over all ye…

And I am way more concerned about the economics of all that pollution, and how that seems to be ignored by so many people.

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#184

Post by msisk6 »

crdoconnor wrote: post #106
sremani wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bottleneck is the grid. The Grid has to match the production and demand, and at times that is why CA gives away electricity to AZ and pay for AZ for consuming its electricity. In turn, AZ turns off some of its production. A tanker with LNG is much more flexible and denser form of energy than photons to electrons.. Once electrons out they need to be consumed asap!

>The bottleneck is the grid. The Grid has to match the production and demand, and at times that is why CA gives away electricity to AZ and pay for AZ for consuming its electricity. In turn, AZ turns off some of its production. Europe is handling it well: http://www.powermag.com/europe-rebuilds-grid-to-accommodate-... America will probably lag significantly in this regard because too much of the grid is owned by compa…

>..too much of the grid is owned by companies that also > own coal/natural gas, etc.

Not everywhere. In Texas companies that do transmission are forbidden to own generation and vice versa.

Which causes problems for grid battery storage. Is it generation or transmission?

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#185

Post by petre »

ndonnellan wrote: post #139
PeterisP wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Natural gas energy can be transported much more easily than solar or wind." makes me think - is it really cheaper to build and maintain a natural gas pipeline than a large high-voltage line capable of transmitting as much power?

One of the holy grails of solar is syngas: using solar thermal power to convert CO2/water to a mix of hydrogen and methane. If you can do it efficiently enough, the gas is the energy storage and you can either pipe it or use it to fuel a NG turbine/combined-cycle plant which will be more thermodynamically efficient than a simpler solar->steam cycle plant. The reason it's a holy grail is because there are some major m…

Syngas can be easily converted to DME (dimethyl ether), which is a cleaner diesel replacement. It's stored just like LNG, in pressurized containers at 0.5 MPa - typical roadbike tyre pressure.

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#186

Post by semi-extrinsic »

mtdewcmu wrote: post #176
adrianmonk wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They put a telegraph cable under the ocean in 1858. With all the technology (including materials) we have today, I bet it's very feasible from a technological point of view. An economic point of view is a different question, though.

It's interesting to speculate on how it could be done. Maybe it could be soft, like a fire hose, and kept open by internal pressure. That way it could be unfurled from a ship. Rigid pipe seems pretty difficult.

Rigid steel pipe is the only feasible way, I believe. Current longest subsea pipeline (Nord Stream) is 760 miles.

Here's how it's done (it's pretty darned fascinating):

https://youtu.be/EyrdjqEiTZc

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#187

Post by petre »

Retric wrote: post #171
slang800 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the undersea distance is not actually that far relative to other undersea projects. Undersea HVDC lines are nothing like the undersea fiber optic cables. The problem isn't whether or not we can create a cable like that, it's the transmission losses that long-distance power lines have. Even for HVDC you're dealing with ~3.5% loss per 1000km. Shipping electrons over the oceans is only going to be a "question of displ…

It's 51 miles from US to Russia. On both sides there are people who use power. Now if 100,000 houses in Russia get power from the US and zero changes Russia could then supply ~100,000 houses with power outside of Russia. Now sure, you need the right substation setup to get this to work out, but a modern grid can quickly route power in response to both changing demand and internment supply. US already sends and receiv…

Those areas in Russia/US are sparsely populated and I suspect demand is not that high to justify an undersea cable. Plus there are geopolitical issues like accusing Russia of US election interference and then expecting to sell electricity to the Russians.

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#188

Post by alex8022 »

london888 wrote: post #108
olegkikin wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Europe is trying to reduce its dependence on the russian natural gas, so they are building LNG terminals all over. LNG tankers are freaking scary though, they are like mini-nukes, approaching 1 megaton equivalent.

UK Readers may find this page interesting giving info on our energy sources. I didn't realise we use less energy now than we did in 1998. http://visual.ons.gov.uk/uk-energy-how-much-what-type-and-wh...

Another interesting site shows current uk grid demand and generation from different types of power: http://gridwatch.co.uk

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#189

Post by puranjay »

ams6110 wrote: post #141
davidf18 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the link. Still, incandescents consume a lot of power, and LEDs little.

It's too bad that the light "quality" from incandescent bulbs is vastly better than either LED or CFL.

Used to think the same. Got good quality LED lights with "warm yellow" color (same as an incandescent bulb). Even at 5W, they are far superior to a 60W regular bulb.

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#190

Post by tajen »

olegkikin wrote: post #96
_delirium wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas is easy to transport, but only really by pipeline. LNG is a lot more expensive and capital-intensive. And there is only one place with rising demand where it's easy to transport U.S. natural gas: Mexico. Pipeline gas exports to Mexico did nearly triple between 2011 and 2016 [1]. Exports to Canada over the same period fell, however. Anywhere besides Canada and Mexico requires liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals,…

Also Europe is trying to reduce its dependence on the russian natural gas, so they are building LNG terminals all over. LNG tankers are freaking scary though, they are like mini-nukes, approaching 1 megaton equivalent.

> 1 megaton equivalent

For those interested, Hiroshima was ~20Kt. Modern nuclear bombs are ~20Mt, with the biggest at 100Mt.

I'm more worried about the glasshouse effect of so much LNG.

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