Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

NY energy grid: Real-time dashboard

nyiso.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 125 posts

Re: NY energy grid: Real-time dashboard

#21

Post by ceejayoz »

johnnyb9 wrote: post #16
thaway2839 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will you be factoring in the cost of an accident (you can adjust the rarity of the accident to get your expected value) destroying the entire economic engine of the state? A lot of nuclear closures make no sense. Germany's indiscriminate shutting down of all the nuclear power plants in the country without waiting for renewable alternatives to be online was a bad idea. However, specific shutdowns do make sense. A nucl…

Sure, like Fukushima, which is rare, and had a single death?

The economic damages of a 30km exclusion zone that close to NYC might be significant, even without deaths.

Re: NY energy grid: Real-time dashboard

#22

Post by woodruffw »

Spooky23 wrote: post #12
woodruffw wrote: post #4

Tangentially related: New York is home to NYPA[1], the largest public power utility/authority in the United States. NYPA is entirely owned by the public, produces some of the cheapest (and greenest) power in the country, and is funded in perpetuity by bonds instead of taxes. Edit: This bond announcement[2] document claims that NYPA provides over 25% of NY's electricity and owns over 30% of the physical delivery infra…

I grew up near this NYPA facility, which is a really interesting energy storage idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blenheim%E2%80%93Gilboa_Hydroe... Basically, they built a reservoir on top of a mountain, and pump water up there during off peak times. When NYC hits peak demand, they let the water flow down. Essentially a giant water battery!

Pumped storage is an incredible technology. I’m glad that chemical battery technology is advancing, but I would love to see more construction of this sort!

Re: NY energy grid: Real-time dashboard

#23

Post by Wowfunhappy »

reincarnate0x14 wrote: post #19
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #18

Why is power produced by wood (which I assume means burning wood) listed alongside solar in "other renewables"? I guess technically trees are renewable? I assume burning them releases CO2 though...

Biosphere carbon is carbon neutral. If you grow a tree, pulp the tree, and burn the tree, the amount of overall carbon available has not changed as the process of growing new trees will reuse the same carbon. Ignoring external energy costs, obvs. It's a little weird to think about but those wood burning plants are mostly taking the production waste of lumber processing and using it for fuel, similar to wood pellet gr…

Huh! I guess it depends on whether those trees will actually end up being repopulated. I'm still not sure I'd put it in the same class as solar energy for that reason (not arguing against it as a power source), although perhaps solar generates so little the distinction is meaningless?

Re: NY energy grid: Real-time dashboard

#24

Post by klenwell »

Spooky23 wrote: post #12
woodruffw wrote: post #4

Tangentially related: New York is home to NYPA[1], the largest public power utility/authority in the United States. NYPA is entirely owned by the public, produces some of the cheapest (and greenest) power in the country, and is funded in perpetuity by bonds instead of taxes. Edit: This bond announcement[2] document claims that NYPA provides over 25% of NY's electricity and owns over 30% of the physical delivery infra…

I grew up near this NYPA facility, which is a really interesting energy storage idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blenheim%E2%80%93Gilboa_Hydroe... Basically, they built a reservoir on top of a mountain, and pump water up there during off peak times. When NYC hits peak demand, they let the water flow down. Essentially a giant water battery!

I found myself talking randomly to an Enron engineer years ago right around the time they were imploding. He described working on a similar project. Pump the water up in the dead of night. Let it flow down the next day.

Then, well, certain facts came to light and the project got halted. At the time we were talking, he was reporting to an empty office to search for a new job.

Re: NY energy grid: Real-time dashboard

#25

Post by toomuchtodo »

finiteseries wrote: post #11
7thaccount wrote: post #6

Just an FYI, All RTO/ISOs in the US have a variety of dashboards to describe realtime and historical information, as do the Canadian entities. So you can see the same thing for CAISO, ERCOT, SPP, MISO, PJM, ISO-NE...etc on their websites.

There is a very nice volunteer made one for ERCOT that popped up during the freeze last year, on datadog no less. https://p.datadoghq.com/sb/5c2fc00be-393be929c9c55c3b80b557d...

Much nicer than ERCOT's imho.

Re: NY energy grid: Real-time dashboard

#26

Post by boringg »

Spooky23 wrote: post #12
woodruffw wrote: post #4

Tangentially related: New York is home to NYPA[1], the largest public power utility/authority in the United States. NYPA is entirely owned by the public, produces some of the cheapest (and greenest) power in the country, and is funded in perpetuity by bonds instead of taxes. Edit: This bond announcement[2] document claims that NYPA provides over 25% of NY's electricity and owns over 30% of the physical delivery infra…

I grew up near this NYPA facility, which is a really interesting energy storage idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blenheim%E2%80%93Gilboa_Hydroe... Basically, they built a reservoir on top of a mountain, and pump water up there during off peak times. When NYC hits peak demand, they let the water flow down. Essentially a giant water battery!

Pumped storage - always interesting highly doubt it will be realized in any real meaningful way (might be some interesting one off projectS). We've stopped building dams and its too difficult to site close to markets.

Re: NY energy grid: Real-time dashboard

#27

Post by reincarnate0x14 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #23
reincarnate0x14 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biosphere carbon is carbon neutral. If you grow a tree, pulp the tree, and burn the tree, the amount of overall carbon available has not changed as the process of growing new trees will reuse the same carbon. Ignoring external energy costs, obvs. It's a little weird to think about but those wood burning plants are mostly taking the production waste of lumber processing and using it for fuel, similar to wood pellet gr…

Huh! I guess it depends on whether those trees will actually end up being repopulated. I'm still not sure I'd put it in the same class as solar energy for that reason (not arguing against it as a power source), although perhaps solar generates so little the distinction is meaningless?

Solar and wind and hydro and nuclear aren't carbon neutral though, they're zero carbon (again excluding external costs of production, etc). With carbon-neutral the amount of biosphere C stays constant, with carbon zero is may potentially go back down as natural or artificial carbon capture processes happen.

It's not a distinction that is made in public discourse commonly but matters if, for example, it's powering a carbon capture system or producing methane from atmospheric gasses. Doing that via a carbon-neutral system would be a net negative energy relatively to carbon usage case, whereas using a nuclear reactor or solar plant to do it when it's overproducing relative to immediate grid load would work out.

Re: NY energy grid: Real-time dashboard

#28

Post by missedthecue »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #18

Why is power produced by wood (which I assume means burning wood) listed alongside solar in "other renewables"? I guess technically trees are renewable? I assume burning them releases CO2 though...

Renewable doesn't mean Co2-less, even though most renewable energy methods do not emit Co2.

Burning farmed wood is carbon negative, if you attach a carbon scrubber to the flue of the power-plant.

Post reply on HN