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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

#321

Post by ed25519FUUU »

addicted wrote: post #294
wahern wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

California has tons of solar. It has so much solar that it’s paying other people to take energy during the peak of the duck curve.

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

#322

Post by fulafel »

ineedasername wrote: post #317
fulafel wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2045? A 30 year transition plan (since '15) sounds like doing nothing and branding it.

Only if they aren't making progress towards the goals, but they do seem to be making progress.

The progress could be just from the world changing around them (cost competitive renewables). Doing something would mean putting some skin in the climate change fight.

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

#323

Post by ihattendorf »

jjav wrote: post #272
dragonwriter wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In California it’s about 30 to 40 cents kWh during normal times. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/ 16.89 ¢/kW in 2019. Where did you get 30-40 ¢/kW?

I don't know where that website is getting its info but it is way off from reality. The cheapest possible PG&E (Silicon Valley) rate is off-peak (after midnight) winter rate. Looking at my January bill here right in front of me, that rate is $0.16675 for transmission + $0.05525 for generation. So that's 22.2c/kWh. That's the cheapest it ever gets. The most expensive tier is peak (afternoon to midnight) in the summer,…

Well, PG&E isn't the only electricity provider in California. Doesn't mean the numbers are correct, but pointing out rates in Silicon Valley doesn't mean the numbers are wrong.

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

#324

Post by akamaka »

zbrozek wrote: post #254
akamaka wrote: post #203

There’s an elegant solution to all this: better energy efficiency for buildings. It’s funny seeing people in this thread jumping right past the root cause and suggesting elaborate solutions like nuclear power. And before you say it’s not feasible to upgrade hundreds of millions of buildings in the USA, you should be aware that upgrading homes to be more energy efficient actually pays for itself (albeit in the long ru…

Great! Now go tear down the entire housing stock so we can rebuild it better. Unfortunately, as a society we're already under-building, so we can't really afford to tear down what we've already got. In some places (like here in the Bay Area) it's ridiculously difficult and expensive to build anything, so much of the building stock is untouched since the 1950s and simply rots in place. We'd do well to be as good at ho…

Most existing buildings can be retrofitted:

https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/report/united-states-b...

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

#325

Post by zbrozek »

kumarvvr wrote: post #264
zbrozek wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But where are the billions suffering from nuclear power? As you point out, even with a generous accounting, Chernobyl was orders of magnitude less than that.

There are many myths about Nuclear power. 1. Chernobyl was an old, unsafe design, and the disaster was human error. There are better safer designs. 2. The true toll of Chernobyl is the hundreds of thousands of people killed due to pollution from coal plants (52000 per year in US alone). Lives that could be saved if countries had shifted to Nuclear more aggressively. I don't know why you think billions are suffering f…

> Betwwwn 250,000 accidental deaths and billions of suffering people, I choose the former.

Those were your words, so I'm asking you about the billions.

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

#326

Post by JohnTHaller »

nimos wrote: post #14
jedberg wrote: post #2

I need more context. Is that a lot? Is that low? Is it a big change from before? In what direction?

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.

NYC is 20c as well.

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

#327

Post by zbrozek »

akamaka wrote: post #324
zbrozek wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great! Now go tear down the entire housing stock so we can rebuild it better. Unfortunately, as a society we're already under-building, so we can't really afford to tear down what we've already got. In some places (like here in the Bay Area) it's ridiculously difficult and expensive to build anything, so much of the building stock is untouched since the 1950s and simply rots in place. We'd do well to be as good at ho…

Most existing buildings can be retrofitted: https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/report/united-states-b...

At eye-watering expense and with long lead times. Both of those are largely self-inflicted wounds. As with everything, if it were cheaper and faster to do, we'd probably be doing more of it.

We'd do well to shorten timelines and costs by removing permitting requirements for most types of work and loosening control over building. We also need to reduce costs of living so a broader occupational dynamic range of people can live in any area. That would expand the labor pool for doing work in urban areas.

I don't know anyone who has managed to accomplish nontrivial work on an existing home in Palo Alto in under two years and for less than half a million dollars. One friend has been trying to fix a leaky structure there for ~5 years.

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

#328

Post by zbrozek »

baybal2 wrote: post #258
zbrozek wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great! Now go tear down the entire housing stock so we can rebuild it better. Unfortunately, as a society we're already under-building, so we can't really afford to tear down what we've already got. In some places (like here in the Bay Area) it's ridiculously difficult and expensive to build anything, so much of the building stock is untouched since the 1950s and simply rots in place. We'd do well to be as good at ho…

> Great! Now go tear down the entire housing stock so we can rebuild it better. Unfortunately, as a society we're already under-building, so we can't really afford to tear down what we've already got. Well, why not? Japan effectively rebuilt its entire housing stock few times over since WW2, and so did Britain, Germany, and ex-Union countries. I believe USA has more money than the broke USSR did 20 year timelines is…

I think money is actually the problem. In a rich country everyone can afford to have opinions about other folks' business, and so we spend years approving projects that take months to complete. Japan has (as far as I can tell as a distant observer) much stronger property rights with regard to what you can build than most of America.

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

#329

Post by belorn »

hnick wrote: post #249
cbmuser wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see why we need this so called baseline. It is an outdated concept pushed by the nuclear industry. That’s a lie spread by the renewables lobby. Of course, there is always a certain level of electricity generation that is needed as most people like to use their fridges, AC and computers 24/7. And then you have things like traffic infrastructure, hospitals, gas stations which operate 24/7. I don’t know about…

> Of course, there is always a certain level of electricity generation that is needed as most people like to use their fridges, AC and computers 24/7. This is true but let me summarise my understanding which might be incorrect, and is based off this article and similar ones. I'd like to know where it's wrong? https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-10-12/renewable-ene... Basically, there is a minimum amount of power…

There is one additional factor which is used in practice. Fossil fueled plants like those operation on oil can get paid to operate in backup mode. I know plants here in Sweden does this, and I suspect it is either tax funded directly or by the grid connection cost that get added on top of the metered cost.

This way a traditional fossil fueled power station get paid to maintain capacity regardless of current demand, and the response time is kept low in case of changing weather.

From the perspective of the government, they are simply paying for a reliable power grid. From the perspective of renewable energy plants, they can sell energy at a lower price than fossil fueled power plants with smaller investment. From the perspective of the fossil fueled power plant they get paid twice, once for being backup and then any power they then happen to sell when the price goes up because of the weather. From the perspective of capacity, both renewable and fossil fueled power plants tries to have capacity close to 100% of demand and thus get invested and built accordingly.

From my own perspective I am not sure this is the cleanest, most stable or cheapest way to run a power grid.

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

#330

Post by nimos »

jjav wrote: post #267
nimos wrote: post #14

Earlier 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.

Much higher than that in higher cost states. My PG&E bill for last summer (summer pricing is higher) shows 62.4c per kWh afternoons & evening to midnight.

You would have to be on one of the EV/battery storage plans for prices that high - which have off peak prices of 15-17c.
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