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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

#291

Post by leoedin »

jjav wrote: post #275
abandonliberty wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to see us start building energy efficient homes. A bit more up front investment would give huge returns.

A problem is that conserving doesn't in the end produce any cost savings, which is a perverse disincentive to conserve. Water during the CA droughts a few years ago is a perfect example. Water agencies asked people to conserve water. So people did. A lot. Water agencies promptly freaked out because their revenue decreased. Of course it did, people were conserving water. So they increased the base rates (the amount th…

If they increase the unit cost rather than the base rate, then there's still an incentive to conserve. It just means that the people who didn't conserve water initially are now paying more. To get back to the same price they need to conserve water.

That's exactly the behaviour we (society) want - overall, water is conserved.

Increasing the base rate (making water a fixed cost regardless of usage) has the opposite effect. That was clearly a mistake on the part of the water company.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#292

Post by addicted »

reducesuffering wrote: post #238
sremani wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas banned out of state sale of NG, that will have consequence but not sure that is the reason.

For such a historically red state, that doesn't appear very laissez-faire.

Red states in the US don’t follow laissez-Faire economics. They follow race to the bottom and beggar thy neighbor economics.

Essentially, they are willing to burn all sorts of rules and regulations in order to beat a neighboring state to attract businesses and individuals. They then make up for this loss by drawing federal dollars that are usually paid for by people and companies in those same states they drew people and businesses away from.

But they are absolutely willing to regulate where it helps them individually even if it is against purported principles.

And then, of course, there’s the annual hypocrisy where red state senators will decry any funding towards blue states (for example, emergency funding to California for fire disasters) but jump right into demanding as much money as they can get when there are disasters in their states.

Texas’s energy supply bounties hides this there but it’s evident all over the remaining red states.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#293

Post by harg »

pstrateman wrote: post #134
AntonyGarand wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

>Quebec is 99% renewable[0] (95% hydro, 4% wind) and runs through the coldest of winter just fine! Comparing hydro to wind and solar is unreasonable. Hydro is a battery, wind and solar are not.

I think you’re confusing hydro with pumped storage.

Hydro is easily comparable with wind/solar assuming the scheme has a steady inflow (river, rain, snow etc)

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#294

Post by addicted »

wahern wrote: post #132
Lammy wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn't have to be this way :( https://www.energy-net.org/01NUKE/CALIF.HTM "Northern California is the home of the first successful opposition to the promotion and development of commercial nuclear reactors in the U.S. In the 1950's northern and central California's privately owned utility company, PG&E, was planning to be one of the giants in the new field of nuclear energy."

Nevada or even Mexico could play regulatory arbitrage, build nuclear plants in their jurisdictions, and export the electricity to California. I suppose Mexico might be cheaper as Nevada lacks water, particularly in remote regions where there'd be the least local resistance. Baja California has the Pacific and the Gulf of California; Sonora has the Gulf of California. California's unique history of opposition to nucle…

Nuclear is more expensive than wind or solar with way higher upfront investment and way higher lead time to start generating money. And in the US, thanks to NIMBY politics, there’s no solution for long term waste disposal either.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#295

Post by imtringued »

PostThisTooFast wrote: post #37

We should be busily building nuclear plants. This isn't going to get better otherwise.

If you implement district heating it could work, mostly because renewables don't produce waste heat. However, I'm skeptical on how much nuclear is really needed. Probably only 20% at most.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#296

Post by imtringued »

cbmuser wrote: post #221
epistasis wrote: post #86

Earlier 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…

> 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. That’s a blatant lie. According to the Bundesnetzagentur which is the local regulator for the electricity grid, the number of times where they have to intervene on the electricity grid to stabilize it has dramatically increased due to the higher share…

Did you consider the future impact of CO2 pricing in Germany?

Coal plants will shut down very soon and that will "surprisingly" make Germany look much better.

After all, the strategy that is currently being pursued is very erratic. The emission reductions are not going to follow a smooth curve like the CO2 emissions in 2020 showed. It's very difficult to make sense of what is going to happen. An us vs them comparison might not show the whole picture.

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g...

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#297

Post by archi42 »

dmurray wrote: post #285
apexalpha wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratz, you just invented the possibly least energy efficient way to construct interconnected grids. But in all seriousness, this is why the entire world interconnects their grids as much as possible: arbitraging energy needs (/ cost).

It's much more energy-efficient than building pylons and distribution lines, if you only need it once in a lifetime to deal with a hundred-year weather event, and outside that you have a use for the Powerwalls and the truck. It's not implausible something like this could be economically worthwhile, though as sokoloff points out it's not close to being there at current prices. Trucks full of portable generators and di…

"if you only need it once in a lifetime to deal with a hundred-year weather event" - I have two problems with that: 1. IIUC global warming means events like this become more likely. So for our parent generations this might be a once a lifetime event, but for us and future generations that thinking could be dangerously wrong. 2. You're seeming to assume the only reason for an interconnected grid might be cold weather (at least that's what you're implying). I believe additional resilience and a more open market are also benefits.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#298

Post by jjav »

pmiller2 wrote: post #286
jjav wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A problem is that conserving doesn't in the end produce any cost savings, which is a perverse disincentive to conserve. Water during the CA droughts a few years ago is a perfect example. Water agencies asked people to conserve water. So people did. A lot. Water agencies promptly freaked out because their revenue decreased. Of course it did, people were conserving water. So they increased the base rates (the amount th…

How about helping to ensure there's a planet worth living on in 20-50 years? Must it always come down to whatever costs the least money now?

Sure, that's a good goal. I spent a lot of effort, time and money to optimize and reduce water consumption as much as possible. Low-flow everything, upgraded appliances, redid the yard and all sprinkler plumbing, all for the idea of conserving water.

It is quite a gut punch to then have the water bill increase more than 100% because the water agency is solely focused on how much profit they are making, instead of caring about conservation.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#299

Post by jjav »

leoedin wrote: post #291
jjav wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A problem is that conserving doesn't in the end produce any cost savings, which is a perverse disincentive to conserve. Water during the CA droughts a few years ago is a perfect example. Water agencies asked people to conserve water. So people did. A lot. Water agencies promptly freaked out because their revenue decreased. Of course it did, people were conserving water. So they increased the base rates (the amount th…

If they increase the unit cost rather than the base rate, then there's still an incentive to conserve. It just means that the people who didn't conserve water initially are now paying more. To get back to the same price they need to conserve water. That's exactly the behaviour we (society) want - overall, water is conserved. Increasing the base rate (making water a fixed cost regardless of usage) has the opposite eff…

Exactly! I wish they'd set the base rate to like $1 (just to cover sending the bill) and substantially increase per-gallon cost.

That would incentivize conservation. Unfortunately the water agency only cares about the profit they make and could not care less about conservation.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#300

Post by akvadrako »

cbmuser wrote: post #197
jorblumesea wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also fair to note that fossil fuel plants also froze and were unable to operate. It's not even a renewable or not question. It's just whether your grid has been properly hardened against the elements.

Nuclear works under nearly all environmental conditions. Heck, we have nuclear powered energy sources in space. Russia built a floating nuclear power plant in the remote city of Pevek in the polar circle where hardly any wind turbine or solar panel will be able to generate sufficient amounts of electricity.

I didn't check but I did read somewhere that one nuclear plant also shutdown in texas because a sensor froze.

The issue isn't about the type of fuel, it's planning for cold weather events.

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