Sitting here from texas with no power. I'm cold. I hope my fish don't die. Not looking forward to my gas bill.
Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now
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Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now
#112I need more context. Is that a lot? Is that low? Is it a big change from before? In what direction?
This is a very high price. A peak price of over $100 used to be considered high. But peak power prices in CA have been going up, specially in Southern California. In this case the reason is high natural gas prices due to the cold weather and production freezing -- gas is the marginal fuel and tends to set power prices in CA. Anyhow. CA should have been OK, since it has a lot of storage. Unfortunately, regulation has prevented the utilization of a major storage field in Southern California. So gas prices went up, to well over $100/MMbtu (they are usually under $5). In Nor Cal, where storage is allowed to operate, gas prices remained under $10. But the power market is pretty much a single market in CA and So Cal dictated the prices. (I used to be a trader in the market).
Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now
#113I'm a big fan of renewables, solar/wind/hydro. But we still need that baseline generating capacity for these dark icy winter days. It's clear now that coal/oil isn't it (pollution) and we should reserve natural gas supply for home heating (because it's efficient and "relatively" clean) and spot-demand generators. So that leaves Nuclear. But we just need to get it right this time -- i.e. don't build them near earthqua…
Gas-based electrical generation is what are failing right now! They are failing left and right! If 100% was gas there would be more problems, not less. Wind and Solar is pulling above planned generation right now. If you believe your logic, time to go all-in on wind + solar.
Take the North East of the US, there's not enough solar year round, nor is it generally windy enough of the time to generate power for a densely populated region & power hungry growing region.
So my logic is go Nuclear, like France. Keep the natural gas for heating (since it's relatively efficient and cleaner than other fossil fuels). Supplement with solar/wind where & when available.
Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nuclear plants are the worst possible way to reduce energy costs. They are also incredibly massive single points of failure, so they tend to reduce reliability compared to more distributed smaller generation units. Germany, for example, has seen reliability increase massively as they shift towards more distributed renewables, even though it's not a super high penetration level. As we shift to more renewables and star…
Nuclear is a much more modern, cost effective, and scalable tech today than it was in the 70's as well. France has one of the highest levels of nuclear utilization, and one of the lowest energy costs in europe
The costs are all hidden. Removal and dismantling of nuclear waste and the decommissioning power plants is ridiculously expensive in places like the UK. When you factor that in also, nuclear ain't so cheap at all. Those costs only rise also.
Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now
#115The state that brought us Enron now getting Enron'd itself. Turnabout is fair play! Sucks for the regular folk, though...
Well, when you play these games with energy prices it is just a matter of time... and with the "new normal" in weather changes, it seems that it won't be the last time either.
And Republicans down there seem to be pushing for even more!!
Rick Perry just said this in response to the White House pushing infrastructure spending after this disaster: “Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business”
But it was alright when Trump wanted to launch 'infrastructure week'?
And it's totally ok to send in FEMA and a lot of other government assistance?!?!
BTW tangent why hasn't FEMA sent in the ships that can provide power? I think the nuclear ones can and maybe even the Comfort but i'm not sure on that specifically
Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
900/Mwh is 90c per kwh. Normal wholesale is about 5-7c. Retail national average is about 14. Higher cost states are around 20c with Hawaii near 30c.
> 900/Mwh is 90c per kwh, national average is about 14. Higher cost states are around 20c with Hawaii near 30c. And IIRC, electricity in Hawaii is so expensive because they generate most of it with diesel.
When I lived in Hawaii in the Obama I years, there was a noticeable consumer solar boom. From what I’ve read, they are meeting their renewable goals so far. There were a few windmills coming along, I think. Another big source of power is trash incineration, which is of course located near the people with bad social capital and terribly polluting, but developers wanted to move in that direction so there was talk about cleaning it up. Not sure anything ever happened though.
Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gas-based electrical generation is what are failing right now! They are failing left and right! If 100% was gas there would be more problems, not less. Wind and Solar is pulling above planned generation right now. If you believe your logic, time to go all-in on wind + solar.
Wind and solar are above planned generation right now, which was 0. In ERCOT wind has been making less than 6 GW out of 33 GW installed for over 7 days straight [1]. Natural gas is pulling almost all the weight right now, as you can see. So no, not time to go all in on wind + solar. [1] https://i.imgur.com/EEbf5lM.png (screenshot from EIA, original data here: https://www.eia.gov/beta/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard…
Isn't gas also at like 50% production as well? It's also heavily knocked out?
Like it's pulling a lot of weight because it's 80% of the capacity if nothing's going wrong! If it was 100% then maybe 40 GW of thermal capacity would _also_ be offline.
ERCOT assumed 0% from Wind. Instead we're getting 25% They assumed 100% from gas. Instead we're getting 50% (or 70% or whatever). You look at that and tell me gas is what's performing well here, and the segment that should be expanded. (EDIT: Sorry, I think your original thing was "all in nuclear." I think I read nuclear was also having some issues but it's at least not the "more gas is the solution for a situation where gas is failing" narrative)
I get that wind + solar can't cover everything, but right now what we're seeing is massive failures from gas. In a universe where we had more wind + solar, there could likely be more energy going around right now.
Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now
#118I'm a big fan of renewables, solar/wind/hydro. But we still need that baseline generating capacity for these dark icy winter days. It's clear now that coal/oil isn't it (pollution) and we should reserve natural gas supply for home heating (because it's efficient and "relatively" clean) and spot-demand generators. So that leaves Nuclear. But we just need to get it right this time -- i.e. don't build them near earthqua…
Renewables are very reliable if you winter-proof them, the same as other sources.
The problem at the moment is that none of the sources for Texas was prepared for a cold winter, renewable or otherwise.
Quebec is 99% renewable[0] (95% hydro, 4% wind) and runs through the coldest of winter just fine!
> With over 40 853 MW of installed capacity, hydroelectric stations generate about 95% of Quebec’s electricity.
> Wind is the 2nd largest source of electricity generation in Quebec. In 2018, wind capacity reached 4 096 MW and accounted for 4% of the province’s generating capacity
[0] https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/pr...
Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now
#119We should be busily building nuclear plants. This isn't going to get better otherwise.
I'm all for more nuclear, but FYI, nuclear plants were affected like everything else in Texas this week: https://atomicinsights.com/south-texas-project-unit-1-trippe...
Ideally new ones would be designed better to avoid this possibility, but new nuclear plants take a minimum of 5 years if you're really sprinting. It's probably the most difficult, expensive, and time-consuming option compared to weather-hardening existing power plants and building new wind, solar, and storage.
Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now
#120Sitting here from texas with no power. I'm cold. I hope my fish don't die. Not looking forward to my gas bill.
At least gas is pretty cheap.
I hope your fish make it.
And now you know the value of camping gear :)