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The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

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Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#141

Post by ryanwaggoner »

vericiab wrote: post #124
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Lots of states have cheaper rates than that: https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/ And none of them are anywhere near 40-80c, so maybe that commenter is in another country.

Although your bill might only show one bundled price depending on who supplies and delivers your electricity, the cost of electricity in the US usually includes both a "supply" or "generation" charge and a "delivery" charge. Based on what I'm seeing on that page I think it's almost certainly only showing the electric supply rates, not the combined total of supply + delivery. I don't live in California so the nuances…

Fair point, but SD in particular also has some of the highest electricity costs in the US. This BLS data seems to be the actual cost to consumers, and the average is $0.17: https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/data/averageenergyprices...

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#142

Post by maxerickson »

XorNot wrote: post #129
maxerickson wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pumped storage can absorb power faster than any built battery array. It can't switch between storing and providing as quickly.

Pumped hydro can store more energy then any battery array. You can size a battery, or pumped hydro, to any power level you like, but batteries by their nature scale differently: the faceplate capacity of a battery multiplied by 4 is also pretty much the energy storage. Whereas pumped hydro can store far more energy (limited by upper reservoir size) then any battery array, but you pay for it in the fact that if you ha…

You said "Pumped hydro can't charge as fast as batteries".

This simply isn't true, there are dozens of pumped storage plants that can store energy faster than any grid battery that has been constructed to date. If you meant that the typical battery reaches capacity faster, that's not really a feature, it's a limitation.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#143

Post by smeej »

bsder wrote: post #101
smeej wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the topic is anathema on HN, but a personal friend of mine was working with people in New Hampshire to help make the nuclear power plant a better solution for the regional power needs by equipping it with bitcoin miners that can be turned on and off algorithmically to deal with the fluctuations in demand. I know next to nothing about nuclear energy (or most other kinds of energy), but what I understand from wh…

> equipping it with bitcoin miners that can be turned on and off algorithmically to deal with the fluctuations in demand. Turning excess energy straight into heat is NOT doing something useful. Install a boatload more storage. Set up desalinization plants. Get manufacturing to move to 3rd shift. Anything other than Shitcoin.

I think you, like almost all the other commenters, are missing the point.

Of course investing in better long-term solutions would lead to better long-term solutions. But it would require more investment. You'd have to get so damn many people on board, especially in state government, to authorize projects like that, never mind all the bidding and constructing and cost overruns and what have you.

If you want to set up a Bitcoin mining facility to burn off excess energy, you need a well-ventilated room and a bunch of hardware. You don't even need the best of the best hardware, because the main purpose is burning off the energy, and the money earned from it is ancillary, so maybe saving money on the hardware cost and making less money than you could but more money than you're making now is worth the tradeoff.

This doesn't require government and voters to get involved. The utility company execs can make that decision, and then either keep the profits or reduce the local energy costs.

If the problem is extra energy, producing something people will pay you for with your extra energy is a viable solution, even if you think the people are stupid for wanting to buy that thing from you. And if you don't want to have to wait for the political process or deal with trying to build things by committee, bitcoin mining is one way to burn a lot of energy generating something people will pay you for, in a way you can turn on and off programmatically so you're only burning energy when you have extra energy you need to get rid of.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#144

Post by pyrale »

algo_trader wrote: post #138
pyrale wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HVDC is needed when you build between two non-synchronous areas like France and UK. Also if you don't have the option to build pylons and need to go underground/underseas, AC lines will suffer from capacitive load. the longer the line gets, the more capacitive load will be present, and so you can't build very long underground/underseas AC lines. Since HVDC has significant fixed costs, it's not relevant for shorter li…

Are DC costs more manageable at medium voltages? If i really wanted 11kV MVDC is this a feasible spec for an industrial site?

Honestly I don't have that much knowledge in industrial sites, but from what I understand, many industries are interested in directly getting triphased because that's what turning machines need in the end.

I guess if you need 11KV DC for your industrial site, you're likely going to need a transformer anyway, because nobody transports at such a low voltage.

As for medium voltage in general, U=RI. The reason TSOs try to push voltage as high as possible is because that reduces costly power losses, as well as cable temperature, which means you can transit more power without endangering the line and people around.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#145

Post by smeej »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #91
tedivm wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just isn't true. The burden on nuclear is the extremely long construction time and massive cost overruns.

Right, seems kind of silly to me as a utility guy. We have this nuclear plant that we don't want to use as baseload for some reason even though operating it is way cheaper than every other plant we have. Rather dump the electricity into mining bitcoin and expose the utility to those financial risks.

As far as I know, they do use it for baseload, but there's a very big difference between baseload and peak. In the summer in New Hampshire, for example, it's very common for people to run their air conditioners for a few hours during the hottest part of the day, but turn them off the rest of the time because it's not miserable. If you're fluctuating between peak and no heating/cooling need over the course of every 24 hours, that peak demand is a real problem, and demands a lot from the other energy plants.

If you could ramp the baseline production up a little bit and meet more of the peak demand from nuclear, it'd be cleaner than relying on the other plants, but you end up with too much energy produced, especially at night when it's cooler. Conveniently, cool temps are a benefit to bitcoin mining rigs, so it works out to spin up some ASICs overnight and make some money from the excess energy.

Nobody's suggesting the utility hold the bitcoin. The expectation would be that it would be sold whenever it's generated, so there isn't really any financial risk. But even if there weren't money to be made from it, having something that can easily be ramped up or down to compensate for energy demand is still useful.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#146

Post by smeej »

worik wrote: post #98
tedivm wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just isn't true. The burden on nuclear is the extremely long construction time and massive cost overruns.

> The burden on nuclear is the extremely long construction time and massive cost overruns. Yes, and: * Risk of catastrophic failure * Long term waste which there is no technology capable of handling * Decommissioning

Aren't all these things moot in a situation where the consideration is how much energy to produce from a plant that has already been built and is already operating?

New Hampshire's utility isn't considering whether to use bitcoin miners or whether to decommission the whole plant and stop using any nuclear energy. They're considering whether they can increase production to cover a higher amount than baseload by making sure they can burn off extra energy easily when demand drops.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#147

Post by smeej »

adrianN wrote: post #107
bsder wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> equipping it with bitcoin miners that can be turned on and off algorithmically to deal with the fluctuations in demand. Turning excess energy straight into heat is NOT doing something useful. Install a boatload more storage. Set up desalinization plants. Get manufacturing to move to 3rd shift. Anything other than Shitcoin.

If you had enough storage you could just build more renewables and produce the power at lower cost.

> you could just build more renewables

I think your "just" is carrying a lot of weight here. Building more renewables requires buy-in from a LOT more people, like state and local government officials, never mind the actual construction of them, with all its cost overruns and boondoggling. It takes a long time.

Setting up a bitcoin mining facility is comparatively a lot easier, especially when your goal isn't "mine the highest value at the lowest cost" (which would require the latest and greatest hardware, etc.), but rather "burn off this extra energy and make a non-zero amount of money off of it in the process."

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#148

Post by HankB99 »

claytongulick wrote: post #55

I hope we're hardening it too in prep for another Carrington event.

Modern electrical generation, transmission and distribution systems are protected by "relays" that open breakers to prevent damage. I did a quick search on "Carrington event protective relaying" and found https://www.pes-psrc.org/kb/report/115.pdf. It seems that what is needed is to properly configure the protective relaying for the possibility of a geomagnetic storm and to make sure that all relaying is operational and modern enough to do so. Anything new or upgraded should meet these criteria. Older stuff probably needs to be reviewed.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#149

Post by samatman »

esalman wrote: post #74
smeej wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the topic is anathema on HN, but a personal friend of mine was working with people in New Hampshire to help make the nuclear power plant a better solution for the regional power needs by equipping it with bitcoin miners that can be turned on and off algorithmically to deal with the fluctuations in demand. I know next to nothing about nuclear energy (or most other kinds of energy), but what I understand from wh…

Surely there are more useful avenues for harnessing excess energy than mining Bitcoins?

This kind of question can only be definitively answered through market discovery.

If you can come up with an economically productive use of intermittent excess electric power, which beats Bitcoin in profitability, you can make a truly enormous amount of money selling whatever value you're generating to the people who want it.

Because it's a safe bet that excess intermittent electricity is going to be a growing resource over time.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#150

Post by selectodude »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #111
selectodude wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chicago has some of the cheapest electricity in the world. Thanks comed for building all the nukes.

What? Lots of states have cheaper rates than that: https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/ And none of them are anywhere near 40-80c, so maybe that commenter is in another country.

I’m speaking about ComEd in Chicagoland specifically.

I’m currently paying 1.1 cent per kWh.

https://hourlypricing.comed.com/live-prices/five-minute-pric...

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