billeisele

The start of a lifelong journey, 1977.

Yep, jumped the gun without all the facts, not good. Had to look up that word figuring you weren't referring to a small wing. Read one article thinking it was correct and repeated the info. Good ole reliable news media. Sure am glad that no one else does that. Maybe waiting for the FBI to finish their investigation and having comprehensive facts would have been good for Nancy. Regardless, you are correct. Please note my post this morning that is more comprehensive. The frozen spinners are part of the problem (lack of generation) but not the root cause of the problem. Regardless of the cause it's a mess and a black eye for the industry. It's an interesting issue and will raise questions about how much money should be spent and how many levels of protection are needed. Will probably see a surge in generator sales. You can be sure the ERCOT folks and the other grid operators are concerned about the fall out. It often means more federal oversight from acronym agencies. In SC after each ice event or hurricane, which both are fairly rare, people buy tons of generators and stock pile other stuff. A year later one can buy a used generator at a great price. And then it happens again. This event will be spun all kinds of ways.

Plenty of "single point of failure" items have been discovered. Apparently they either: 1) didn't think about these, 2) did and determined that the risk was too small to worry about, or 3) something got wet and cold that wasn't supposed too. A safety device that froze and tripped a nuke plant. Good news is that safety systems work. NG pipelines that aren't designed for cold weather. Definitely a cost issue. Wind turbines that don't have gear box, motor and blade heaters. No clue about cost but nothing in the wind business is cheap except the fuel. Coal plants with frozen coal. That's a known issue. Plants are either built for cold or they are not. It's a cost issue. Once the coal freezes on the belt or in the hopper the only option is thawing. The running plant is the heat source. Once it stops many things start to cool off, oil get sludgy, other pipes freeze, anything with internal moisture is a problem, it's a long list. You'll find all the problems when you try to light off and put heat in the place. When the sun shines and warms stuff up things will slowly get back to normal. Putting heat in pipes, blades and generators takes time, and recovering the grid is a methodical process.. All this is solvable if one throws enough money at it but folks like low power rates. I'm sure we'll see a "commission" to investigate, cost estimates in the "billions and rates will rise xx%", and all the typical talking heads stuff. In the end not much if anything will be done. Next time it happens, "we should have learned our lessons from the blizzard of 2021." No easy answers.

What is the technology and the cost? Texas - their own control area and frozen spinners, oops. Some mistakes are just not acceptable. It will be interesting to see what the residents have to say after the state thaws out.

lol - the first sentence is BS, some call it reality, but regardless We're not seeing any movement towards these ultra expensive residential options. Is this happening in CA? The good ole duck curve has been around for years. It's actually become more complicated with solar. We're seeing rapid generation swings with moving cloud cover. The HVAC loads don't shift nearly as fast, if at all. Fairly simple - cloud comes over a solar farm, output drops to less then 20%, conventional generation is ramped up to serve load, cloud cover moves on, solar output rises, and generation is decreased to match load. All day, every day. The work load is up and equipment is exercised much more often. This issue is not much of a problem with residential solar because we don't have much and it's not as dense, as in your area, so a few large clouds don't cause much of a problem. An overcast day is equally not a problem because the solar isn't ramping up and down, it's just down. HVAC loads are down some but we have high humidity so the HVAC still runs just not quite as much. Solar owners sure like the grid on those days, you know, the one they don't pay for when they are using solar. That is our biggest problem but it's just a regulatory one, not a technical one. Luckily there is a lot of movement to fix that by eliminating the cost subsidy. It would seem that an easy (to understand) first step would be water heating. Solar thermal works. But we rarely see that. Electric water heaters and HVAC are the two largest residential contributors toward the peak. The summation of lighting, refrigeration and cooking add some but not as much as either of the other two. When utilities do load studies it's amazing how much specific data is collected with sophisticated metering installed on hundreds of residences. The biggest peaks we see are mornings like today. After a holiday weekend, and 4 consecutive days of cold wet weather, the mid tier manufacturing companies that run one or two shifts 5 days a weeks, and the retail operations are starting back up this morning. Everything is cold and the heaters are on full blast. Luckily we have a good supply of NG and plenty of users so that does a sizeable part of the work. But still, these are the ultra peaks and they are short duration. This is where the interconnected grid comes into play. Neighboring utilities help balance the load. Oddly/sadly enough, to our north where distribution lines are down from ice, the residential and small commercial load is non-existent, but the transmission system is working so we can buy generation fairly cheap. Solar is worthless until the sun gets up higher, a few hours from now, basically after the conventional systems have done the heavy lifting. There is a lot of thought that solving the grid problem requires remaking the grid. Not in our lifetime nationally and huge money. Point source generation and smaller regional grids make sense if they can get the generation to an economical level. Small modular reactors are a potential option. If the Navy can do it why can't the commercial world do it. The big advantages a military ship or submarine has is an unlimited cooling source, cheap labor and no P&L statement. If the cooling issue can be solved the rest is a social problem. One day Cow Power (Vermont) is good and the next day it's not. Incentives are provided one day and then penalties on methane are suggested. Is recycling a cow through the human gut a parallel to a dead tree off gassing it's carbon? We should have a study on this. And on we go. Technology, innovation, funding, environmental policies, and politics are all in the mix. What fun.

This is always a fun topic. The real answer is, "it depends." It depends on a whole list of factors. The article is predicated on Scientists say solar panels lower peak demand on stressed traditional grids and have reduced the amount of infrastructure dollars that energy utilities must invest. I doubt the writers of the article cared to examine anything that didn't fit their study. Maybe because it's much more complicated than the factors they examined. Or maybe it would have had so many "what ifs" it would have had little value and definitely not printed in a Renewables journal. The "stressed grid" premise exists in some areas, but not many, and probably makes sense in those areas. Some of those areas also have rolling blackouts as a normal grid management technique. In my area there would be a lynching if that was suggested. I've discussed this topic at length with utility colleagues across the country and there are definitely regional differences. I can't speak definitely for any area other than the SE. In the SE the grid is not stressed, at least not today or for the foreseeable future. Electricity cost +/- 12 cents / kWh. In CA, MA, VT, RI and other areas with large amounts of renewables the cost is +/- 18 - 20 cents. Not saying that renewables cause all of that but it's a primary factor. In the SE the 12 cents cost is the all-in cost. If that is broken into 2 components we find that electricity production is in the 2.5 - 3 cents range and all other costs, the delivery system, delivery system maintenance, profit, etc., are 9 cents. From that one can infer that net metering should pay 3 cents because that is the cost that the utility avoids by not having to generate the power provided from renewables. The delivery system costs are not reduced and neither are just about any other costs. Yet the solar lobbyists have been successful in defining net metering as the full retail rate of 12 cents. That means that the solar owners on the system are being subsidized by all others. Solar owners are a small fraction of the total system load. Some argue that that is not true. Yet every customer has some type of "Distributed Energy Charge" as a line item on their monthly bill. It's been raining and cloudy for about a week and another 5 days is forecast. The solar output is ZERO. The solar owners are using the same amount of power and using the grid to have it delivered. It seems to make sense that they should pay for the use of the grid that they rely on. When the sun is shining and they use the grid less, it's still there and the costs don't diminish. At least that's one perspective. What that means is that the utility still must have sufficient generation and a delivery system to meet the peak load. The size and costs of the system are not reduced yet revenue is reduced. Well, temporarily, until there is a rate hearing and rates are increased to provide sufficient revenue to support the system. Therein is the problem. Costs are shifted to non-renewable owners and the renewable owners still have the benefits. That can be addressed with rates and it's done in some areas. Rates can be designed to equitably spread costs. One way is time of use rates, another is a separate rate for those that have renewables. A typical method is to have a $20 - $40 base fee for the grid connection, and a lower costs for energy. The base fee covers the infrastructure. The lower electricity fee is then the "net metering" value. Renewable folks don't like this because it "shines a light" on the true costs. The base cost is a huge ongoing discussion. A few studies have quantified it in the $22 - $28 range. This discussion is instantly complicated due to the claims that renewables "help" the grid. I've not seen any comprehensive studies that show it occurs or the value of it. Under the current net metering program renewable owners do not pay for the grid, in most cases, except when they buy power. I said "in most cases" because the regulated utilities own most of the grid and use that method. There are some system owners that use another method. Amen, I'm on one of those. They use time of use rates for all residential consumers. They charge approximately $30 a month for the grid connection (metering, reading, billing, etc) , 5.15 cents for electricity, and $12 / kW for demand during the 3 on-peak hours each day. Using this method no one is subsidized or is subsidizing a solar owner, It encourages load shifting, using an electric dryer during off-peak is smart. Interestingly, there is very little solar installed in the areas with these type rates. The traditional billing method charges 12 cents regardless of when the electricity is used. That creates a situation where the solar owner is subsidized by all other customers and the solar owner is not paying their "fair share" of the grid costs. Plenty of debate on that topic. I've looked at numerous solar proposals and it's rare to find one that is economical. The solar sellers have plenty of inaccurate info in their proposals, some is just outright lies. People are free to make whatever decision they want. Just wish the info was accurate so they could make an intelligent decision. Kallend is correct - Solar thermal, primarily water heating, is a good idea. It just takes space. Unless plumbers and roofers are educated it isn't done. BIGUN is correct - the VA has a system wide goal to install solar, that doesn't make it a smart idea. My VA did some and the economics were negative. There would never be a payback! They did it anyway because they got brownie points for doing it and a big award. The one plus is that it does provide some shaded parking. The cost to build the elevated structures to install the panels exceeded the cost of the panels and the operating system. A "real" business would have never done that but since the VA doesn't have a P&L statement and they spend your money...... Wendy's comment about house values is the opposite here. Folks that financed the panels are having huge problems. They sell the house but still have the payments!, unless they can get the new owner to accept the solar contract. Buyers are reading the contract and wondering, "who would ever agree to this mess." Those that have panels and now need a new roof are being quoted significant costs to have the panels removed and reinstalled. Some roofers refuse to do it or will not warranty the roof. In about 7 years when the inverters fail folks are finding that the cost to have them replaced is about 50% of the cost of the whole system. And there are plenty of other issues. What a mess. And let's not ignore the tax subsidies, grants, and other types of favorable financial treatment that renewables or conventional generation receive. It just makes it more complicated. Billvon will quickly and accurately point out that conventional generation and fuel sources have huge subsidies. I'd luv to see some PhD candidate unravel the tangled mess and provide an unbiased report. I'm not saying that solar or renewables are bad. They definitely work in some situations. In some or all of CA that has grid issues and economic forces, it makes sense. I'm saying it's complicated and the study doesn't address many of the issues.

Joe - Agree with most of this except the tax thing. He said he would release them when the audit was over and apparently it's ongoing but regardless. All I'm saying is the President is the the President regardless. Folks want to parse and subdivide the issue based an criteria that makes sense to them to do what they want. You use the term "good and decent person." There is enough info out there to tell me that Biden is not a good and decent person. Harris is just as bad. She attended her lovers 60th birthday party and made it plain to everyone there that she was with him. That was done with his wife present. Crazy. We can just disagree on this one. As to the Senate trail. From my perspective the whole thing is a sham. There is procedure and it was not followed in the House. Nancy was so blood thirsty she shoved it through with no hearing of the evidence, no witnesses no nothing. It should have never left the House. That does not mean he is not guilty. All I'm saying is the politicians can't stand on some principals and ignore the others. All this political drama does nothing to resolve issues. Remember that Biden was about unity. When does that start?

Uhhh ... disagree. If one wants to complain about someone using JB or something other than President Biden then if they didn't use President Trump they have zero credibility on the topic. And if they go further to say, "get used to it" and they didn't get used to President Trump then they absolutely have no credibility on the topic. Well, unless they are willing to accept the label "hypocrite." I always disliked, and publicly stated that fact, Trumps use of name calling. I really don't care if someone used Trump or Biden but it is irritating when they use knock-offs of those names to be negative. We would be better off focusing on improving the country rather than using school yard names and arguing about their use. It's not hard to be respectful even if one disagrees.

Interesting comments on rising fuel prices. Here in SC it's up approximately 50 cents in the last month. That hurts those least capable of adapting, the lower income folks. They already struggle to make ends meet. Not good. Saw a video this morning of a woman with a son with diabetes. He needs 1 box of insulin a month. Most folks need 2 boxes a month. It had been costing $60 and in February it rose to $370 with a manufacturer coupon, $500+ without the coupon. That's not good. Doing a fact check on her statement that, "Biden did it", found that is not exactly correct. He did freeze Trumps EO 13937 on Access to Affordable Life-Saving Medications that was signed in July 2020 and supposed to go into effect January 22, 2021. It was delayed to March 22. The EO was to, "improve access to affordable insulin and injectable epinephrine for low-income individuals due to lack of insurance or high cost sharing requirements." It appears that when Pres Biden froze it the manufactures took that as a sign and raised the price. Biden can still "unfreeze" it and let it go into effect. And about calling him JB or anything other than President Biden - Did you use the respectful terminology with President Trump?

Lucky man. It's amazing for sure. If folks knew how the grid was managed they would wonder why it ever works. One of the new challenges is chasing load when the grid has large amounts of connected solar. It's surprising how quickly the solar output drops or rises when a cloud comes or goes. A couple of the larger MW(s) solar systems are a real challenge to follow.

Good morning Jerry. FERC, NERC and all the other acronym agencies decided they knew more about transmission system design than the utilities after the great North American blackout of 2003. The fundamental problem originated from the acronym agencies at an earlier date when they decided that deregulation was a good idea. When that happened the primary goal shifted from reliability to profit. The new goal, at least for some utilities, was a lower mix of reliability with higher profit. It was a complicated event but the basic explanation is: One utility did less tree trimming (saving money), the load on the line increased, as it heated up it sagged, there was a short circuit fault when the line got near a tree, and the circuit breaker tripped open, as designed. The loads automatically shifted to other circuits and one after another they overloaded, breakers tripped and the event cascaded across the NE. The adjacent utility "control areas" should have stopped it (like an advancing wildfire with fire breaks) but for whatever reason they didn't. Until it got to the SERC area where it was stopped. The Southeastern Reliability Council, VA CAR group, watched the cascading blackout creep across the US like a rapidly moving fire. They opened the tie breakers between themselves and the approaching fire. That's what stopped it. Good ole human intervention. Yep, some southern hillbilly redneck control room supervisor probably spilled their coffee and dropped a beef jerky snack when they instructed the control room operators to "Open the Tie Breakers." With a few clicks on a mouse it was done. A minute later they were the guy or girl that saved the day. If you haven't been in a utility control room you are missing out on seeing some incredible technology. One result of that mess was the acronym agencies now require more stringent vegetation maintenance. Any tree that hits a transmission line is investigated and reported to the feds even if no problems occur. If the tree is outside the federally prescribed corridor no problem. If it is inside, even by a foot, the corridor there are massive million dollar fines. Utilities went out and further widened the right of ways and removed any questionable trees. That shifted the priority back to reliability by threatening profits. And of course all those costs, except fines, are paid by the customers. There are actually plenty of double circuited transmission corridors but there are also circuits in other corridors that feed the same transmission substations. A loss of one corridor won't crash the system, at least that is true in SC. Interestingly, there are high pressure natural gas transmission pipes in the same corridor with electric transmission lines. You want to see something scary, watch a high pressure NG line that has been damaged ignite. It's the biggest, loudest, hottest thing I've ever seen. Luckily those lines are monitored and there are control valves that are electronically operated to isolate the leak. It still takes a while for the pressure and volume to burn off. Again, a very simplistic explanation.

I was talking about this one. Dominion Energy and Duke Energy cancel the Atlantic Coast Pipeline | Duke Energy | News Center (duke-energy.com)

One reason for not running adjacent to existing pipelines is to decrease the chance of loss of delivery from both pipelines if there was some type of catastrophic incident - terrorism, earthquake, explosion, plane crash, etc. I'm much more familiar with the planning and design of electrical transmission lines and that is a major design consideration. A major headache when citing infrastructure is access to land. Few folks are happy regardless of the route. Special interest groups will use any tactic they can to stop the construction. Just look at the Dominion natural gas pipeline that was being built in WV, VA, NC and the upper part of SC. The latest and last roadblock was because of the "sensitive nature of the flora" and crossing the Appalachian trail. It's a normal practice to obtain permits then acquire land and work on other tasks. Construction is usually started before all the tasks are completed. The goal was to bring natural gas to eastern NC and upper SC, and eventually to the coast. A few billion had been spent and the project was terminated due to "legal uncertainty." They spent tons of money on ongoing litigation with the solar and wind advocates. So yes, all kinds of folks are impacted when infrastructure comes rolling along. No good solution when roads and other stuff is needed. I don't know if native American land was more or less impacted by this one as compared to non-Native land. Routing of these big projects is not easy.

I'm laughing but not really. Kids are a challenge but can bring a lifetime of happiness, at least mine do. Similar to a well-managed pipeline. A truck hauling Christmas joy isn't much of a concern if one ignores the noise, fuel and exhaust emissions. A truck hauling oil is another matter. Pipes that are no longer needed or are obsolete are filled, often with sand, and abandoned in place. That's been determined to be the most environmentally effective and accepted method. All I'm saying is if oil is used a pipeline is the best transportation method. It seems that the Keystone decision was more political than practical, and that's not good.

Bullseye. I'd rather watch two bad teams in a close game than a blow out with a good team.

Good morning, been gone a few days. Please see my reply to Joe. I'm interested in your thoughts on Keystone. Thanks.

Been gone a few days. Wondering about Keystone. Why do folks think it was/is a bad idea? Pipelines are safer, less environmentally disruptive, more efficient and less expensive than any other form of liquid transport. The permitting and regs they have to follow are significant. Yes they have spills but they are easily managed vs. a truck that spills less but has more spills, they are less well managed and the exhaust, tires, fuel, etc. that are a constant pollutant. Thanks.

And therein lies the conflict. Others see what you see and think the same thing as you just from the opposite side. I'm finding that there is a large amount of agreement on many topics with just a few polar opposite views. Just wondering, if we could throw out the extremes on both ends how many folks cluster towards the center?

Some call it damage control. Others call it destroying progress. It's difficult to see how stopping Keystone is good. Isn't everyone influenced by peers, education, experience and information?

Wouldn't it be better to have a hearing of the actual facts before guilt or innocence is determined? Don't know if this article is from a reputable source but have read elsewhere that the FBI evidence is showing that the facts are much different than what was reported by the media. Growing evidence Capitol assault was planned weakens incitement case against Trump, experts say | Just The News

In October while campaigning Joe said that Exec Orders were a sign of dictatorship. In his first three days he has signed 19. The prior four Presidents Trump, Obama, Bush and Clinton signed 1, 5, 0 and 1, respectively. Interesting. My opinion, no doubt many are good but there are some bad ones. Good or bad is not the point. The integrity of what one says is the issue.

In theory that is true. Was thinking more about the particulate emissions from the fireplace. Throughout environmental law there are these disparities. One can throw away florescent tubes at home but not at work because there they are classified as hazardous waste. Same with paint, aerosol cans and many other common household items. One can operate a car, fireplace and burn debris all creating particulate emissions but industry must filter, scrub and do all other kinds of things to manage emissions. I get it. A homeowner is a minor problem whereas a factory is a single, potentially, big problem. But in the end it all matters. It would be interesting to quantify the total emissions from a group of vehicles that emit the same volume as a modern coal fired power plant to see how they compare.

Wouldn't it be interesting to quantify the third world country kids lives lost and the environmental damage done mining the materials for batteries, managing the batteries and ultimately the disassembly/ disposal/reuse of them. Also wonder what percentage of these batteries are recharged from coal fired power plants. There is no free lunch. And about that CO2 thing. Wonder how many cold country folks are working from home and not driving their autos to work. I'm sure that the decrease in tail pipe emissions is much much less than the emissions from their fireplaces as they sit at home and burn all that wood.

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. Good points. Use reduction is a good goal. The EPA energy efficiency efforts with appliances, the HVAC efficiency mandates and goals, the auto mpg (CAFE) standards, and other efforts have been fairly successful. And more is needed. Seems that the freeways in LA are part of the storage system for cars, doubt there is enough parking for all of them. Specifically about the CAFE standards - requirements like that fuel innovation and some of that innovation is not good. Two examples: 1) the Ford Explorer prior to about 2014 was available in a V-8. It was a very popular vehicle. To help meet the CAFE standard they took it off the heavy truck frame and put it on a lighter car frame, and dropped the V-8 option. That made it lighter and more fuel efficient. What problem was created? If one occasionally needed the towing capacity of the heavier Explorer and the V-8 power it was a great vehicle. Now those folks have to buy a larger SUV or a full size pickup truck for that towing capability. Those options are far less fuel efficient than the old V-8 Explorer. Today there or no mid-size SUVs with the towing capacity of the old Explorers, so anyone needing that has moved up to more polluting vehicles. 2) To further increase mileage they have added an auto start/stop engine shut off to some vehicles. When stopped for a few seconds the engine shuts off. Reports are that it saves 3-5 or even 8% in fuel. Time will tell how much maintenance cost is added for starters, electronics, water pumps and over heated turbo systems. No telling if the pollution saved by start/stop exceeds pollution created by making replacement parts. I don't think that the development of alternative energy sources is directly connected other than economics. There always has been research going on at government facilities and private "think tanks" but the days of the old Westinghouse and Bell labs are gone. Oil and natural gas are inexpensive and abundant. Seems that every time they "calculate" how many years are left the number rises. As the cost of conventional fuels rises the economics of alternative systems improves. I struggle to believe that the electric car is a less polluting option vs. a properly operating gas vehicle. The life-cycle world of batteries is quite polluting. It's enlightening, for some, to know that the majority of electric vehicles are recharged at night by electricity from coal fired power plants. That's when plants are operating at lower power outputs and less efficient. In CA electricity is approximately 21 cents, in SC it's 11 cents. In states with aggressive renewable energy programs like Vermont, Mass, Rhode Island and New Hampshire the electric costs are 20-22 cents. The national average is 11 cents. Not sure it's a great idea to drive up utility costs with technology mandates that aren't economical. Then there is CA that is it's own self-created mess. Some will say that the long term cost of less polluting energy sources is far less than the cost of "climate change" related issues. And that may be true. What I'm saying is it's not as simply as some would want us to believe.

Critics corner post. Short sighted since pipelines are the safest, most environmentally friendly and economical method to transport these type materials. The standards and safety practices pipeline owners are required to follow are tremendous. Yes there are accidental discharges. Regardless of that it's still the least damaging method as compared to trucking and rail. It's doubtful that the Keystone folks will go away quietly, the lawsuits will most likely be substantial.. The US has approximately 200,000 miles of transmission pipe for oil, natural gas and gasoline transportation. If one includes the smaller distribution systems the number rises to over 2.5 million miles. It's amazingly efficient and safe.