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Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

nytimes.com

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Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#121

Post by guyzero »

thehappypm wrote: post #81
lisper wrote: post #47

Every year you hear about horrible heat waves and fires in California but I'm here to tell you from my first-hand experience that This Time It's Different. I've lived on the SF peninsula for 10 years. We bought a brand new spec house. It was built without air conditioning. The developer said we wouldn't need it. We installed it anyway because we came from LA and a house in California without A/C did not fit into our…

It's always odd to hear people complain about California weather.

No one in California is prepared for anything remotely close to actual weather, with the exception of people who live in the mountains. Thus any deviation from the extremely limited norm seems shocking.

That said, I grew up in southern ontario where discussing the weather is pretty much a widespread hobby, so it's actually kind of nice to have weather to discuss.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#122

Post by shortandsweet »

nimbius wrote: post #3

as someone who apprenticed as a lineman briefly, this isnt at all unexpected. Just because you have generating capacity, does not always mean you have capacity in the duty cycle for your transmission infrastructure. Many substations are older, and were never designed to handle high duty and load during climate-change driven weather events. These substations suffer from underreporting as they often dont have remote mo…

I'm curious about how you became an apprentice then decided it wasn't for you? These are not easy to get into I've heard. What made you consider it and what made you leave?

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#123

Post by khuey »

jeffbee wrote: post #119

Would love to know what changes day-to-day. According to CAISO dashboard, they are currently delivering 45 GW, while yesterday they were shedding load before they hit 44 GW. So, what aspect of supply changed? We're importing the same amount but we're getting 5 GW more natural gas supply than yesterday. Are there ... are there nat. gas plants that only operate on weekdays?

The issue is time of day. Everything is fine while the sun is still up. Once the sun starts setting and the ~10GW of solar power California has goes away things get challenging.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#124

Post by davisr »

paloaltokid wrote: post #71
meroes wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a technician for xfinity in the bay area and NIMBYism a huge part too I would say. Huge portions of Mill Valley especially on and around Mt Tam had such bad poles and vegetation. Only the last 3 fire years did anything. But literally nothing gets approved besides exact replacement. Nothing gets put underground, or rerouted because (as I understand it) mostly NIMBY groups. And I believe ATT ultimately owns most o…

Oh god...Marin NIMBYism is really crazy when it comes to that stuff. And there's a lot of conspiracy theory / 5G type stuff that goes on as well. Strange to think that many of the folks who live there are in charge of a lot of the companies on HN (or are senior execs there).

Well, they're not entirely wrong about the 5G. I understand many in this forum won't agree with me. From https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/we-have-no...

  > We Have No Reason to Believe 5G Is Safe

  > The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified RFR as "possibly carcinogenic to humans" in 2011. Last year, a $30 million study conducted by the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) found “clear evidence” that two years of exposure to cell phone RFR increased cancer in male rats and damaged DNA in rats and mice of both sexes. The Ramazzini Institute in Italy replicated the key finding of the NTP using a different carrier frequency and much weaker exposure to cell phone radiation over the life of the rats.

  > Since 5G is a new technology, there is no research on health effects, so we are “flying blind” to quote a U.S. senator. However, we have considerable evidence about the harmful effects of 2G and 3G. Little is known the effects of exposure to 4G, a 10-year-old technology, because governments have been remiss in funding this research. Meanwhile, we are seeing increases in certain types of head and neck tumors in tumor registries, which may be at least partially attributable to the proliferation of cell phone radiation. These increases are consistent with results from case-control studies of tumor risk in heavy cell phone users.
About the author:

  > Joel M. Moskowitz, PhD, is director of the Center for Family and Community Health in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been translating and disseminating the research on wireless radiation health effects since 2009 after he and his colleagues published a review paper that found long-term cell phone users were at greater risk of brain tumors. His Electromagnetic Radiation Safety website has had more than two million page views since 2013. He is an unpaid advisor to the International EMF Scientist Appeal and Physicians for Safe Technology.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#125

Post by dgfitz »

lisper wrote: post #103
qes wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the first time in ten years Had your coolant pressure checked lately? Heat exchanger fins clean, clear, and straight?

I haven't actually had it checked but I'm pretty sure that the A/C is working just fine. While it is running it produces plenty of cold air. And although it is almost ten years old, it hasn't seen a lot of use during that time. Until now, that is.

If your unit is too big it actually makes things worse, because it cycles on and off a lot more which in turn means it pulls less humidity out of the air. I think the rule is you want one ton per 600sq ft that you’re cooling, give or take.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#126

Post by jeffbee »

khuey wrote: post #123
jeffbee wrote: post #119

Would love to know what changes day-to-day. According to CAISO dashboard, they are currently delivering 45 GW, while yesterday they were shedding load before they hit 44 GW. So, what aspect of supply changed? We're importing the same amount but we're getting 5 GW more natural gas supply than yesterday. Are there ... are there nat. gas plants that only operate on weekdays?

The issue is time of day. Everything is fine while the sun is still up. Once the sun starts setting and the ~10GW of solar power California has goes away things get challenging.

Yes but the sun is up right now and they are already shedding loads (the dashboard is bouncing off a ceiling of 45 GW).

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#127

Post by khuey »

jjoonathan wrote: post #95
newguy1234 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They retired base load power (nuclear) and didn't replace it with other power sources that can provide base load. Instead everyone pushed for renewable only and opposed the natural gas power stations. Build 5,000 MW of natural gas peakers and this problem immediately goes away.

So California has one-upped Germany: instead of replacing nuclear with coal, they're replacing nuclear with rolling blackouts. Ugh. And to think, if we just hadn't stopped building nuclear, we would already be rid of CO2-intensive electricity. Instead, we've barely begun, and we've only begin through duck-curve denial. Facepalm.

California never had much nuclear to begin with. Only 2GW of capacity has been decommissioned so far this millennium.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#128

Post by dekhn »

davisr wrote: post #124
paloaltokid wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh god...Marin NIMBYism is really crazy when it comes to that stuff. And there's a lot of conspiracy theory / 5G type stuff that goes on as well. Strange to think that many of the folks who live there are in charge of a lot of the companies on HN (or are senior execs there).

Well, they're not entirely wrong about the 5G. I understand many in this forum won't agree with me. From https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/we-have-no... > We Have No Reason to Believe 5G Is Safe > The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified RFR as "possibly carcinogenic to humans" in 2011. Last year, a $30 million study conducted by the U.S. National T…

Anything that cites the Ramazzini studies is suspect. They repeatedly make major methodological errors and nobody replicates their results.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#129

Post by saltcured »

lisper wrote: post #47

Every year you hear about horrible heat waves and fires in California but I'm here to tell you from my first-hand experience that This Time It's Different. I've lived on the SF peninsula for 10 years. We bought a brand new spec house. It was built without air conditioning. The developer said we wouldn't need it. We installed it anyway because we came from LA and a house in California without A/C did not fit into our…

I am now in my mid-late 40s and I grew up in the East Bay, in the foothills of Mt. Diablo. We relocated to my childhood home, where my parents had remained until recently. As a 1970s tract home, it still lacks air-conditioning and has relatively poor thermal efficiency, just as it did back then. This past week, we have tried to manage the house thermals as best as we can, venting at night and closing it up through the heat of the day. It has been tough with the humid and warm nights and consecutive hot days.

The temperature profile reminds me more of times in the tropics, though it is still comparatively dry here. We've managed roughly a 10F delta between the indoors and outdoors through the peak afternoon hours. The past few days when it got to 105-107 locally, it was around 95F indoors when the temperatures equalized and it was beneficial to open windows again in the evening. This morning, it only cooled to about 82F inside and has climbed back to 90F in 6 hours.

When I lived far away, I liked to reflect on the dark blue sky and desert-like temperature swings we sometimes had out here, with 100F+ days and nights below 60F. But, I cannot say that we never had hot weeks nor summer thunderstorms. I remember those too, along with other somewhat rare events like hard frosts, accumulating hail, or the occasional dusting of snow on local ridges and peaks.

So, with a longer view, I don't think this single event can be called a clear sign of climate change. Someone with a lot more statistical skills than me would need to model the frequency of events and trends and uncertainties...

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#130

Post by khuey »

jeffbee wrote: post #126
khuey wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is time of day. Everything is fine while the sun is still up. Once the sun starts setting and the ~10GW of solar power California has goes away things get challenging.

Yes but the sun is up right now and they are already shedding loads (the dashboard is bouncing off a ceiling of 45 GW).

That is likely natural fluctuations in demand. The grid operator has not announced any load shedding (they have not even announced any imminent need to shed load) and there's still another 5GW of available capacity according to the dashboard.
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