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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

#331

Post by [deleted] »

dragonwriter wrote: post #308
almost_usual wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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). As someone who lives in Marin I’m not sure where you got this idea. Most people who live in Marin have been there for 20-30+ years and are retired. They probably paid less than 300k for their home.

> Most people who live in Marin have been there for 20-30+ years and are retired. 64.1% of those in the county 16 or older are in the labor force. Most people living in Marin County are not retired. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/marincountycali...

[deleted]

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#332

Post by rbanffy »

httpsterio wrote: post #314
jychang wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally every other country in the world has a fully public education that does just fine. I think the only well known non-US private school system (off the top of my head) are UK commonwealth secondary boarding schools, and those schools are more well known for their abuse than their academic strength. Pretty much any other country (for example, France, Japan, China, etc) are generally built on a system of publicl…

Finland as well, we don't basically have private or boarding schools at all.

A good indicator whether public schools are good enough is this - the moment private schools can't compete, then public schools are good enough.

Private for-profit schools can use their money to get political influence and reduce public school funding in order to further its economic advantage.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#333

Post by [deleted] »

dragonwriter wrote: post #308
almost_usual wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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). As someone who lives in Marin I’m not sure where you got this idea. Most people who live in Marin have been there for 20-30+ years and are retired. They probably paid less than 300k for their home.

> Most people who live in Marin have been there for 20-30+ years and are retired. 64.1% of those in the county 16 or older are in the labor force. Most people living in Marin County are not retired. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/marincountycali...

[deleted]

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#334

Post by Natsu »

blaser-waffle wrote: post #324
dragonwriter wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people who live in Marin have been there for 20-30+ years and are retired. 64.1% of those in the county 16 or older are in the labor force. Most people living in Marin County are not retired. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/marincountycali...

Most of the homeowners are probably retired and bought it for Which is related, but not totally, to who lives there.

The funny thing about this whole story is that this whole story has a much simpler explanation that doesn't involve any conspiracies at all:

"We told the California Public Utilities Commission of a 4,700-MW need through 2022 and that gap started in 2020. Despite all that, only 3,300 MW was authorized for procurement and none starting until 2021," Berberich said during a special telephone conference the Cal-ISO Board of Governors held Aug. 17, following a weekend during which the grid operator twice conducted rotating blackouts because of high demand and tightening reserves.

https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-ne...

It's weird that none of the 'experts' in the news could figure this out and we've gone to blaming random homeowners, electric lines, 5G and everything else in this story without this information even coming up.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#335

Post by bgorman »

jychang wrote: post #304
bgorman wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enough is being invested, it is just being spent extremely poorly. No country gets less per dollar on education than the US. A good start would be supporting school choice so the public school's monopoly and cost structure can be challenged.

Literally every other country in the world has a fully public education that does just fine. I think the only well known non-US private school system (off the top of my head) are UK commonwealth secondary boarding schools, and those schools are more well known for their abuse than their academic strength. Pretty much any other country (for example, France, Japan, China, etc) are generally built on a system of publicl…

All the countries you listed spend way less per student than the US.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#336

Post by dane-pgp »

eggy wrote: post #325
dane-pgp wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you picked up the meme of "the US is a republic not a democracy" but you might want to read up about the reaction against it: https://mises.org/wire/stop-saying-were-republic-not-democra... https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-11/is-u-s... https://thebaffler.com/latest/were-a-republic-not-a-democrac...

I picked up the "meme" long before the word "meme" entered the vernacular in the sense that I think you are using it. I had the good fortune of attending a Jesuit HS in NYC when grammar was prescriptive rather than descriptive, you took two years of Latin, and studied world religions, and the preciseness of language mattered. Mr. Caruso, my sophomore year History teacher, asked the first day back to school, "Is the U…

Thank you for that context, even if it mostly relates to your personal experience and back story. I agree that we should be careful how we use words, but I don't think you can easily argue that "democracy" has become meaningless out of context, while also imposing your own idiosyncratic context to claim that the US isn't a democracy.

As to your question, I would say that the U.S. constitution defines (indeed, guarantees) the country as having "a republican form of government" (at the state level, but this is maintained at the federal level), and that the processes and principles that it puts in place, such as representative elections, qualify that system as democratic.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#337

Post by rossdavidh »

mdorazio wrote: post #237
rossdavidh wrote: post #234

So, not saying this is the main driver here, but just wondering: with a lot of people working from home, rather than an office building, it becomes relevant which is more efficient to cool. I have to think that it is more efficient to cool a single, larger building than many smaller ones? Again, not saying it's the primary reason, just mentioning that it could be a contributing factor.

That's a good point, and it's probably worth digging into. It's actually going to depend on a few factors, though. Off the top of my head: are office buildings running HVAC systems at significantly higher temps than they would otherwise have been? How many people working from home actually have A/C? How much more efficient are large A/C systems in comparison to home units? I have a feeling that offices that are "empt…

I think also that, although the lighting may often be on in empty offices, the computers (and body heat) are lower, or missing entirely, so the offices aren't having to work very hard. However, all that load has shifted back to WFH, not gone away, so now the same amount of heat is being handled by less efficient A/Cs, in smaller buildings.

All speculative, though, and probably not the main driver, I admit.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#338

Post by rconti »

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #260
rconti wrote: post #251

Mr Powers is pushing an interesting conspiracy theory in this article, which I haven't seen discussed yet. I haven't seen anyone else backing it up in other sources, but of course it's still early in the reporting on this issue. >In particular, California ISO said two natural gas power plants shut down on Friday and, on Saturday, a wind farm and another gas plant stopped producing power. The state is currently review…

To be fair, we've seen a conspiracy of deliberately pulling perfectly working power plants off the grid in the past, so it's not outside the realm of possibility. In the 2000s, Enron did it to financially manipulate the energy market, and it was directly responsible for California's last crisis [0]. It's probably where the idea of such a conspiracy is coming from. > These blackouts occurred as a result of a poorly de…

Yeah, I was trying to use "conspiracy theory" in the most neutral way possible. It's an interesting theory, I'd like to see more reporting on it.

He's certainly outspoken and active, which doesn't make him wrong by any stretch; in fact, it probably means he's one of the most informed on these matters (which of course doesn't mean unbiased).

Thanks for the links!

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#339

Post by rconti »

icedistilled wrote: post #282
rconti wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone without A/C, switching to TOU saved quite a bit of money (relatively speaking; my bills were not very large to begin with).

Interesting. I also don't have AC nor do I ever exceed tier 1 pricing. I thought time of use would be much more beneficial for someone who gets into tier 2 pricing if they can shift their use away from peak hours, making all their power at the cheapest rate. Right now my tier 1 cost is $0.21/kwh, the TOU plans are $0.25/kwh off peak, $0.5/kwh peak, but there is a $0.08/kwh credit for within tier 1 usage. Mathed out i…

ouch!

And, of course, even if TOU was cheaper when I switched, that doesn't mean it doesn't become unfavorable next time rates change.

We're grandfathered into a plan that gives us peak hours of 1-7pm where the new plans are 4-9pm peak. This works great for us with solar, because we make huge generation credits in that 1-4pm range when nobody's home to use power. (or, nobody WAS home before COVID). And we start our evening energy usage after 7pm as we return home from work + outdoor 'after work' activities. The 9pm end for peak hours would definitely hurt us.

OTOH, we have an EV now, so even charging off-peak at, say, 18c is relatively expensive vs the really cheap EV plans that give you good overnight rates. We've got an 11.5kW charger so I'd really love a stupid-cheap rate between, say, 2-4am. But if we switch to an EV plan, the costs go up the rest of the day.

Another perverse thing I've found; your net metering credits under NEM2.0 are on a per-month basis. This is AWESOME in the summer when we generate solar credit at more than 2x the 'value' as we burn them charging the car at off-peak.. but in the winter, when we don't generate much, we get into tier 2 pretty damn quickly.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#340

Post by bassman9000 »

glogla wrote: post #315
bassman9000 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which nuclear doesn't solve Please expand. How does France handle peaks, having almost 3/4 of their electricity coming from nuclear?

According to [1] they also have 24 GW installed capacity of hydro and 12 GW of gas so my guess would be that? [1]: https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/FR

That doesn't explain what the OP said. How does the 1/4 non-nuclear solve it, and the 3/4 nuclear not?
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