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The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

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Re: The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

#31

Post by jplr8922 »

Note : I am an ex quantitative and algorithmic power trader in the NYISO market

I totally agree with the analysis and conclusion of this article. The power grid is is a complex legal, economic and engineering system where our usual political narratives cannot produce a valid analogy for our common understanding. Right now, most green power sources (except non run-of-the-mill hydro) have non-controlable and hardly predictable outputs. Wind is much harder to forecast than temperature, and not every market are equiped to deal with the new variability. This create price distortions and other unintended consequences. Pushing against nuclear when there are still coal power plants running is nonsense, and in my opinion proves that twitter beats sound policy in terms of political priorities.

What I do not like in this article is the tendency to regroup all fuels type together and call them 'dirty'. Coal, natural gas and gasoline are not equals, and play different roles in electricity production...

Re: The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

#32

Post by ashtonkem »

dragontamer wrote: post #29
zdragnar wrote: post #3

I appreciate the analysis, though I am not sure that any of the results should surprise anyone. - NY is moving away from nuclear (counted under "clean") - none of the "clean" sources can easily scale on demand. Sun, wind, hydro and nuclear have either fixed or random output - all peaker plants and less-desirable and so less-fully-maximized sources fall under the dirty category. Sun not providing enough juice? Ramp up…

> - none of the "clean" sources can easily scale on demand. Sun, wind, hydro and nuclear have either fixed or random output Hydro scales on demand actually, somewhat slowly, but it does. Pumped Hydro in fact turns hydro power into a battery for perfect response vs demand. Nuclear can scale in theory: but its too expensive to scale down. The fuel is _basically_ free, so there's no point ramping nuclear power plants do…

I think it's somewhat useful to actually list numbers in these discussions. Hydro is great, but it tends to produce quite a bit less power than most people imagine. A lot less once you consider the relative size of not just the dam, but the reservoir behind it as well[0].

The biggest Hydro plant in the US is the Grand Coulee dam in Washington, with a nameplate capacity of 6,809MW. This is pretty impressive, but it's a heck of a lot more than most hydro plants could ever hope to produce. Only one other dam beats out 3,000MW, barely, and most are in the ~2,500 MW range. Overall America has 79GW[1] worth of hydro power capacity.

Now ~2,500MW per dam is a lot, but it's actually kind of low compared to nuclear power. America's newest operating power plant, Watts Bar, has a nameplate capacity of 2332MW, which would put it at number 6 in the hydro plants list. And Watts Bar is fairly small compared to most other nuclear power stations around, since it only has two reactors. 6-7GW nuclear power plants are far from unheard of[2], and most of the older French reactors hang out in the 3GW range.

In places where hydro fits the geography, it's a great choice. Not without its tradeoffs, but miles better than coal or natural gas. But overall nuclear is still going to beat the pants out of it for versatility, and total generation capacity.

0 - To be fair, this can be a benefit in cases where you need to both generate electricity and store water for later use.

1 - Peak production. Yearly energy measured will be higher, roughly 270TWh, because there are a lot of hours in the year. Still a heck of a lot less than the ~800TWh of nuclear power we were making per year last year.

2 - Japan, China, and South Korea run a total of 5 nuclear plants with >6GW capacity. Japan and South Korea each have a plant with >7GW capacity. South Korea, Ukraine, China, and France run a combined seven reactors with a capacity between 5 and 6GW. The French reactors are interesting because they're all pretty old, from the 1980s, and were built and commissioned on a tight schedule, with an average construction time of 7 years.

Re: The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

#33

Post by _-david-_ »

pydry wrote: post #16
99_00 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>carbon emitted per kWh generated Is it? If an energy source requires natural gas or coal to deal with peaks of increasingly hot days, this doesn't tell the whole story. If we increase solar or wind to be a primary source, then we need to take into account the carbon cost of storage. Since this doesn't exist, it is an unknown. Finally, the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. Carbon emitted per…

>we need to take into account the carbon cost of storage. Since this doesn't exist, it is an unknown. NY appears to have plenty of hydro from that graph. It's not all that hard to close the sluice gates and open them later. Grid scale batteries are also cost competitive (as of the last 12 months or so), though they wouldn't be as cheap as hydro for dispatchable energy.

Hydro has issues with reliability as well. You could have a long drought.

Re: The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

#34

Post by _-david-_ »

sleepysysadmin wrote: post #8
99_00 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>carbon emitted per kWh generated Is it? If an energy source requires natural gas or coal to deal with peaks of increasingly hot days, this doesn't tell the whole story. If we increase solar or wind to be a primary source, then we need to take into account the carbon cost of storage. Since this doesn't exist, it is an unknown. Finally, the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. Carbon emitted per…

We will eventually get to a state where solar and wind is all we have/need. The requirement will be gridscale energy storage that contains enough storage for days of operation.

Is "days" actually enough? What happens if there is a drought, clouds and no wind for more than "days"?

Re: The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

#35

Post by ashtonkem »

throwaway946513 wrote: post #21
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they moving away from nuclear? They have a 100% carbon free target, which doesn't exclude nuclear and they intend to introduce a carbon price, which lets nuclear fight on an even ground with other carbon reduction moves. I guess it just didn't make sense financially?

My knowledge with people in a midwestern 'urban' city tells me it's the NIMBYs who want the trend away from nuclear.

Surprisingly, a decent chunk of America's nuclear reactors are in the midwest. Illinois and Pennsylvania are by and away the largest producers of nuclear energy in the US, with 11 and 9 reactors respectively.

Re: The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

#36

Post by selectodude »

ashtonkem wrote: post #35
throwaway946513 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My knowledge with people in a midwestern 'urban' city tells me it's the NIMBYs who want the trend away from nuclear.

Surprisingly, a decent chunk of America's nuclear reactors are in the midwest. Illinois and Pennsylvania are by and away the largest producers of nuclear energy in the US, with 11 and 9 reactors respectively.

Nuclear power was invented in Illinois. They got the jump on it and it’s paid dividends for 60 years now.

Re: The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

#37

Post by q1w2 »

cbhl wrote: post #10
99_00 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a battery technology on the market that can be used at scale or do we need to wait for this to be invented?

I believe "pumped water" is the currently available battery technology that has the capacities required, but I'm under the impression that it can't scale further (new dams / loss of green space)

Any form of storage will have poor efficiency compared to primary production, particularly pumped water. We're talking about under 50% efficiency.

Moreover, you need an absolute MASSIVE amount of storage to make intermittent sources like solar and wind equivalent to baseload power.

In winter months, solar in New York will produce less than 5% what the same facility will produce in the summer. Shorter days, lower sun, snow, leaves, clouds... all contribute to this.

One cloudy winter and the entire state would be without power - for weeks. It would be catastrophic.

The size of the water reservoir needed to replace plants like Indian Point plant don't exist on the East coast. You would need to flood absolutely massive areas of land.

Nuclear isn't an option. It's a necessity.

Re: The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

#38

Post by tristor »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #20
zdragnar wrote: post #3

I appreciate the analysis, though I am not sure that any of the results should surprise anyone. - NY is moving away from nuclear (counted under "clean") - none of the "clean" sources can easily scale on demand. Sun, wind, hydro and nuclear have either fixed or random output - all peaker plants and less-desirable and so less-fully-maximized sources fall under the dirty category. Sun not providing enough juice? Ramp up…

Why are they moving away from nuclear? They have a 100% carbon free target, which doesn't exclude nuclear and they intend to introduce a carbon price, which lets nuclear fight on an even ground with other carbon reduction moves. I guess it just didn't make sense financially?

> Why are they moving away from nuclear?

Because in the US, Twitter determines policy priorities, not science or reason.

Re: The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

#39

Post by pjlegato »

ashtonkem wrote: post #35
throwaway946513 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My knowledge with people in a midwestern 'urban' city tells me it's the NIMBYs who want the trend away from nuclear.

Surprisingly, a decent chunk of America's nuclear reactors are in the midwest. Illinois and Pennsylvania are by and away the largest producers of nuclear energy in the US, with 11 and 9 reactors respectively.

Pennsylvania is not in the Midwest. According to most regionalization schemes, it's in either the Northeast or the Mid-Atlantic region.

e.g.: https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/maps/reference/us...

Re: The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

#40

Post by ashtonkem »

pjlegato wrote: post #39
ashtonkem wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprisingly, a decent chunk of America's nuclear reactors are in the midwest. Illinois and Pennsylvania are by and away the largest producers of nuclear energy in the US, with 11 and 9 reactors respectively.

Pennsylvania is not in the Midwest. According to most regionalization schemes, it's in either the Northeast or the Mid-Atlantic region. e.g.: https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/maps/reference/us...

Being from Southern Ohio, I've always considered Pennsylvania to be Midwest. Maybe it's because the cultural difference between Eastern Ohio and Pennsylvania is much less marked than the difference between Southern Ohio and Kentucky.
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