A reminder as we come up on Earth Day:
Climate scientist Michael E Mann & historian Timothy D Snyder define doomerism:
Doomerism is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.
It is how authoritarians win. Let’s try to fight the doom.
I’m going to start this post out with a caveat, while I’ve been a long time proponent of examining the United States electric grid and revamping it – everything about electricity traveling over long distances is way above my limited technical knowledge.
I have pulled together some experts I trust and am sharing their opinions on what needs to happen to the grid in order for alternative energy sources to be viable, and to meet the 2030 and 2050 climate goals.
From Dave Roberts’ Volts Podcast:
Getting More Out of Current Transmission Infrastructer
One of the primary threats to the clean energy buildout spurred by the Inflation Reduction Act is a lack of transmission. Models show that hitting our Paris climate targets would involve building two to three times our current transmission capacity, yet new lines are desperately slow to come online. Meanwhile, existing lines are congested and hundreds of gigawatts of new clean energy sits waiting in interconnection queues.
Wouldn’t it be cool if there were some relatively cheap and speedy ways to get more capacity out of the transmission infrastructure we’ve already built? To ease some of that congestion and get more clean energy online while we wait for new lines to be completed?
As it happens, there are. They are called grid-enhancing technologies, or GETs, and they can improve the performance of existing transmission lines by as much as 40 percent. Full transcript here
Another from David (he has several you can search for more on his website):
Upgrading Current Powerlines
Utilities are not under constant pressure to improve their products, and consequently, power lines haven’t improved much over the years. The standard design used in the industry dates back to the early 1900s. The more “modern” design dates back to the 1970s.
Now, at long last, some companies are popping up with new power lines that can transmit more power, and leak less of it, than traditional lines. Simply replacing old lines (or “conductors”) with the latest technology — or “reconductoring” — could, according to some recent studies, double the capacity of the existing grid, or more. But that would involve persuading utilities to actually deploy the latest tech, which is no mean feat. Full transcript here
This is a good video primer of what the challenges are and how they are achievable:
This is a good listen, but it also feels like a infomercial for 3M, so keep that in mind: Optimizing the Grid
And one of my favorite vloggers:
I’m keen on smaller, micro-grids myself. AND we need to create more public utilities and break up the monopolies. We had a concrete example of how bad monopolies are right here in Colorado. We had a wind event a few weeks ago that rivaled what caused the devastating Marshall fire. So what did XCEL do, now that they are facing lawsuits for leaving damaged lines up and running? They shut down power to tens of thousands of customers, including essential services at retirement and assisted living facilities. By many reports, this was a last resort sort of move and they skipped a lot of intermediary steps to avoid it.
Meanwhile, the communities that had locally owned or co-op utilities (I’m lucky enough to live in one of those towns) had limited loss of electricity, in my case, power was up in an hour, and no widespread precautionary shutdowns. Also, no small matter as we continue to electrify everything, public utility rates are much lower than that of XCEL. Right now an average of seven cents to fifteen cents for each.
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A few additional items, especially with Earth Day, I wanted to continue with the next two Carbon Cowboy videos.
May 14, 2020 CORNWALLDairy farmer Ben Mead, and beef producer Martin Howard are renegades in southwest England – figuring out ways to graze their cattle using nature as the starting point – eschewing chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides while giving their animals, and their land, the best chance of health and regeneration. There is no soil run-off from their farms while their neighbors’ soils cause the port of Plymouth to be dredged on an annual basis. Filmed in Devon and Cornwall, UK
May 14, 2020 CORONA26,263 views • May 14, 2020 • CORONAAt the Ranney Ranch in arid Corona, New Mexico, Adaptive Multi-Paddock (AMP) grazing is restoring soils and benefiting the environment while producing healthy food for consumers – and they changed to AMP grazing during a 15-year drought – this was unheard of. Ranch manager Melvin Johnson was extremely resistant to trying this new method of grazing, having been a conventional rancher all his life. Filmed in Corona, New Mexico
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And an addendum to the EV and Battery post, I meant to include this primer on battery fires and completely whiffed it. So here it is now:
Dec 10, 2022A sober look at the problem reveals less of one than hysterical headlines suggest, and some technological answers that make EVs and other vehicles far safer than gas-powered ones.
And finally, a reminder that all the climate posts can be found here: Positive Climate News
Despair only limits future action – Simon Clark
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Hit the comments, especially if you have any other technical information on upgrading or creating viable grid options (please include links so we have the facts and not just speculation). Any solid information on using EVs to enhance the grid is welcome! Share any positive climate news, any Earth Day events or subjects you’d like me tackle. I’ll check back for links.
I know grid talk isn’t all the exciting, next post I promise we’ll look at cute little beavers and other rewilding efforts and why they are good for carbon sequestration.
This is a doom and gloom free thread
TaMara
I’m off to walk the dogs and then do some gardening now that the snow is gone and the temps are warming up.
Chris T.
Note that statistically (as of the last statistics I read anyway), gasoline cars are 66 times more likely to catch fire than EVs. Whenever there’s a report of a car fire on the freeway, I like to say “ah, must be one of those dangerous gasoline-powered cars that caught fire again”. It startles people and gets them thinking (well, ok, it gets maybe 10% of them thinking).
TaMara
@Chris T.: You’re my people. 😘
thruppence
Another major issue is security. We know there are bad actors, foreign and domestic, finding ways to target important infrastructure. Will we be ready? Probably not.
nickdag
@TaMara: Don’t know if it was you who got me onto him, but David Roberts is great! I really love his posts & podcasts.
Just outside Boulder, I was one of those hit with a 46-hour power outage — that was precautionary. Ughhh, it was such a mess.
I’m envious of Longmont’s utility management. I also think Longmont has municipal fiber internet. Way to go!
Quadrillipede
This might be a good place to pop this:
Starfish
@nickdag: Just inside Boulder, we experienced a 27 hour power outage. It was very neighborhood-by-neighborhood oriented.
A lot of people did not get the phone calls from the electric company because the notices go to the bill payer so all the people living in apartment complexes didn’t get any warning because all the billing goes through the complex.
There was a local person in an electric wheelchair who could not get up and was stuck in her chair for like 18 hours.
trollhattan
Was plowing though technical details of some German EVs and they seem to silo off a portion of the battery pack, e.g., limiting total charge to 85% of capacity and supplying cooling for the pack, too.
These are things that Tesla, for example, do not do as far as I can tell and I expect will extend the battery’s lifespan and provide an extra level of safety.
IIUC you can’t extinguish an Li-ion battery once it’s en fuego.
Your CAISO springtime Sunday electricity supply report: Demand 19 GW, renewables 18GW/86%, natural gas 1.2GW/6%, nuclear 1.1GW/6%.
That’s how it’s done.
OTOH Texas. Demand 38GW, Solar 12 GW/0%, wind 8.5 GW/21%, natural gas 13GW/31%, coal 3.8GW 9%, nuclear 3.8GW 9%.
Maybe somebody could airdrop a couple billion LED bulbs for them? Why is their consumption 2X California?
trollhattan
@thruppence: We had somebody cut fiber optic service to the airport last week, shutting the joint down. Lines were cut outside airport property, implying an informed and targeted vandalism. No ransom note or manifesto. Disgruntled employee, or door #2?
There are limitless ways to monkey wrench out public works and anticipating them all seems absurd at best.
Kayla Rudbek
I would like a standard size and configuration for electric car batteries and electric bike batteries so that they can just be swapped in and out. Advantage would be that you won’t have to wait for the battery to charge, just swap it out and go. And then you could take the e-bike onto an airplane. Right now it’s like dealing with light bulbs before standard socket sizing was invented.
citizen dave
I work on the ground in this industry, on the regulation side. IMHO there is a huge GroupThink about building vastly more transmission (at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars nationwide) to move the intermittent renewables around. I’m not on board because I think–very positively–that storage technologies are going to save the day, and the future will be about time-shifting production and usage as much as anything else. Because solar and wind production is nearly free–we just need to economically capture it. But, if you follow this thinking to the end, electricity and electric utilities look more like water utility systems with large storage units, and so I wonder if eventually the interconnected grid will be obsolete, or just a resilience thing.
A current mania is AI and data centers, who want to startup yesterday, and who use tremendous amounts of power–power we have to an extent but not much excess, so a LOT of new resources have to be built. I think they will develop ways to be much more power-efficient.
I’m also very bullish on fusion.
Starfish
@Kayla Rudbek: There is a company in Taiwan making battery swapping stations for scooters and e-motorcycles.
trollhattan
@citizen dave:
CAISO sometime in the last year began reporting hybrids and batteries trends, which I take to mean there is enough on-site storage to be past the experimental stage. No idea how much may be in production and planned but to your point, it’s crucial for smoothing out renewables generation peaks and valleys. Pumped storage already exists in California; IDK if there’s unexploited capacity there, although adding it to Lake Mead gets discussed from time to time.
wjca
There’s a certain temptation to find a way to charge them for the marginal (e.g. construction and infrastructure) cost of all that additional power. If they don’t like it, put up their own solar panels and storage.
counterfactual
@trollhattan: Actually, Tesla does limit normal charging. That’s why there’s an over-the-air update they can give to people leaving hurricane zones for some extra range.
Trivia Man
We installed 8 solar panels last year, enough to get us nearly 0 net import. Our record day this week, we made 27kwh.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I have an HVAC electrification question if anyone on here knows much about that stuff. I have a boiler and cast iron radiators for heat that were installed when the house was built. The previous owner had two high velocity (Spacepak) air conditioning systems put in – one that does the main living space of the house (main ground floor level and a master bedroom suite in the finished attic space) and a separate one for the basement (which has an unfinished utility space that’s about half the basement and a finished space). We’ve never really used the AC in the basement as it’s a basement and hence stays reasonably cool without AC.
The upstairs main level system has some issues – a coolant leak and a capacitor that’s going. So I’m looking into replacing that, and thought maybe I could get a heat pump that would do both heating and cooling, and ditch the boiler. My big concerns are the quality of heat I’ll get from the high velocity system (the radiant heat is really nice) and what the efficiency is going to be relative to heating with gas. My AC system when on runs pretty much nonstop until the early morning hours. Like, the compressor turns on and off periodically but the air handler is pushing air out the ducts nonstop. I’ve been told by a couple of contractors that have looked at the system that it’s a little undersized for the house, so that may be part of the issue. Also, finished attic spaces get really hot in the summer so are hard to cool. I plan to have an insulation company come in and improve the situation (I have a quote for that but he recommended waiting until after I decide what to do with HVAC as if they need to do any work on the ducts that would be better done before they work on improving the insulation and air sealing).
So basically in the summer when we run the AC the air is blowing constantly and it’s pretty audible as a ever present whoosh. It doesn’t bother us much as we run it as little as possible so it’s only on much in July and August, but if we decided to heat and cool with it, unless those systems have gotten quieter, that may be an issue. Also, the air comes out at a pretty high velocity. The companies that make these systems say that makes them more comfortable and efficient because the air mixes better and that eliminates hot and cold spots and draft but…I have my doubts about that. Anyone know if that is true or just marketing? So I just wonder how these high velocity systems are for winter comfort when they’re in heating mode. If anyone can speak to that it might help me make a decision.
Also how efficient would such a system be? I can comfortably afford my current utility bills and would be OK breaking even there but don’t want to see my total cost to heat and cool go up. Also wonder about the longevity of such systems – boilers last a long time – mine was installed in 1999 and probably could run for another 20-30 years if maintained regularly. Not sure how long the heat pump system would last.
I’ve brought in one HVAC contractor to give me a quote. To do both the upstairs and basement it’s $18k for AC only or $21K for a heat pump that would both heat and cool. If I just went AC for the upstairs it would reduce the cost substantially but then I’m still on the gas grid for heating. To switch heating off fossil fuels I’d need to do both the basement and the upstairs because the boiler doesn’t have zone heating so I’d have to heat the whole house with the boiler to heat the basement as the upstairs radiators would be getting hot too, at which point I’m not doing the environment any good but spending a bunch of extra money. Anyway if anyone has any experience with high velocity systems for heating let me know your thoughts. It would potentially be a way to get off the gas grid but comfort is also somewhat important as is total efficiency/cost.
Gretchen
@trollhattan: Could you supply the source of this info? My Texas brother is always posting about how stupid electric vehicles are, and how they’ll never work. Meanwhile, they seem to be doing nothing about fixing their grid, just taking it for granted that their power will go out whenever it gets too hot or cold.
nickdag
@Starfish: I didn’t know there was someone else from Boulder on this site! (I rarely get into the comments…)
That story about the wheelchair-bound person is horrific. What a nightmare.
ColoradoGuy
Don’t know anything about high velocity, but we’ve had HVAC systems with a variable-speed fan for the air handler (the section of ducting with the A/C heat exchanger in it).
Variable-speed fans are very nice, giving commercial-quality climate control. The fan runs all the time, but slowly and silently, and ramps up smoothly when heat or cool is demanded. Much much quieter than single-speed fans. The potential downside is the fan is powered by an inverter, which is a potential point of failure.
Much of the noise of HVAC is caused by sharp bends in the air flow, which is down to the design of the ducting. The smoother the bend, and the larger the radius, the less noise.
Kayla Rudbek
@Starfish: maybe that was the video that Mr. Rudbek was watching? It’s good to know that at least some people are sensible.
Hoodie
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: If you live in a climate with really low humidity in the winter, forced air heat can really dry things out, possibly exacerbating respiratory problems. You can add a humidifier, but that’s another component and can be so-so in terms of effectiveness. I’ve found radiant heat to be much better in that respect.
trollhattan
@Gretchen:
Happy to!
CAISO https://www.caiso.com/todaysoutlook/pages/supply.html
Represents about 80% of California. Created in response to the ENRON fiasco.
ERCOT https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards
Represents about 90% of Texas which, as we learned a few winters back, can’t rely on those gaudy capacity numbers when push comes to shove and can’t import from adjacent states. Because Texas.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Hoodie: I’m in the DC area. Relatively humid climate that doesn’t get super cold in the winter very often but the summers are hot but humid, not dry. If these high velocity systems are too esoteric for anyone to have had experience with them, does anyone know of an unbiased resource/information source where I could get some answers?
Starfish
@nickdag: It’s nice of you to join us in the comments!
Some people in my local book club, who read more NextDoor than I do, mentioned that to me.
cmorenc
@citizen dave:
Re: fusion energy prospects: which end of the bull are you optimistic about ? :=)
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
Another possibility for heating is if heat pumps have advanced to the point where they can heat water up to 180 degrees or so and I could run the radiators on a heat pump rather than a boiler. But from what I understand they’re not there yet and may never be.
trollhattan
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Partial response, because we don’t have boiler or radiators.
Our gas/electric heat/AC forced-air system was on its last legs. Replacing like-for-like would have been circa $18k and heat pump $21k. We went for the heat pump, the pain of which was partly reduced by rebates.
Vast improvement in comfort and livability. Have been tracking it against a few years of gas and electricity bills and 1.3 years in the gas bill has plunged while the electricity bill has been somewhat higher in winter, lower the rest of the year. So much quieter, both heat and cooling modes. Fully programmable thermostat although with a nearly impenetrable Japanese UI.
Very weird walking past the outside unit to be blasted by cold air on a cold morning. Brrr. I should park a keg next to it, or something.
We still have a second gas heater, two gas water heaters and a gas range, so dispensing of PG&E will not happen, but big fan of the newest heat pump technology. We also have a heat pump clothes dryer, which sounds goofy but it’s the best.
emjayay
@trollhattan: Texans stocked up on incandescents so as to not have to buy those Obama CFL bulbs. They won’t run out of them for years.
trollhattan
@emjayay: I’m rating this “sadly, true.”
Guessing they also leave the windows open while blasting the AC.
Trivia Man
@Kayla Rudbek: warehouse forklifts do this so the machine is always in use
Hoodie
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: I thought that one of the main advantages of high-velocity systems is that they use smaller ducts and thus can be good for retrofitting older homes (or other structures) that don’t have room for bigger ducts. Personally, I’ve never been a huge fan of heat pumps, particularly in colder climates (DC might be marginal). Damn things seemed to run incessantly and you never felt warm. However, it’s been a while since I’ve had one and I understand they’re supposed to be a lot better now.
Chris T.
@trollhattan:
It’s difficult, to the point that it’s more practical to let itself burn out. There are several interlocking issues here. Solid state Li-ion batteries may solve the problem. New charging technologies may reduce the problem to near-irrelevance, although physical damage (eg as a result of driving into a load of rebar that fell off a truck) could still be an issue.
Of course when big loads of iron and steel come crashing into the front of your car it doesn’t really matter what kind of propulsion it uses: you have other worries at that point!
wjca
It’s a low effort way to own the libs. Amirite?
emjayay
@Kayla Rudbek: Electric car batteries are fit around the structure and available spaces of the car (and vice versa). Cars have to be both aerodynamic and fit a number of humans (who are not conveniently packaged and cannot be put in a space efficient bin) and their stuff inside. Some kind of switchable battery pack would be far less space efficient. There are also cooling lines integrated into the battery packs. So not so simple to make them able to be easily switched out.
Another Scott
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: I’m not an expert, but I think “high velocity” systems use smaller ducts (easier to install in old places). But that means to get the same number of air changes per cubic foot per hour, the velocity in the duct has to be higher. Thus, the name, and the noise.
I’m in a 1963 suburban NoVA home with conventional ducts. We replaced our gas furnace and AC with a condensing gas furnace (variable speed blower) and heat pump (variable speed compressor) a few years ago. My J is very sensitive to noise and the furnace is right under our bedroom while the heat pump is right outside the bedroom wall. We run the gas furnace at night when it’s cold to reduce the noise. But most of the time we use the heat pump if we need it.
In your case, are “mini-splits” an option? I looked into them briefly when we were deciding. We couldn’t justify the extra expense, but the higher efficiency and ability to add heating and cooling to only those rooms that need it might be just what you need?
Extra insulation could help a lot, if you don’t also need new windows. Windows can make a big difference in room comfort. Maybe a “home energy audit” (or whatever) by an insulation contractor can get you some numbers?
HTH a little. Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
The CO PUC is a) gutless, and b) feckless. It’s why Xcel can do what it do…one of the biggest things is keep residential solar installs (in terms of capacity) to a bare minimum. It’s hysterical that the city of Denver is trying to mandate Electricity Uber Alles and ignores everything Xcel does to limit capacity it can’t charge for and which might bring more people onboard to what is a very poorly thought out and planned mandate…which is typical of Denver.
I will say this, wind events as described above don’t have the impact here in the city core, thus, we’ve never lost power whereas back in Misery, the evil utility monopoly there (we were not covered by the rural electric coop unfortunately) made Xcel look like knights in shining armor when it came to quality of service.
emjayay
@Hoodie: Actually forced air or hot water radiators or electric baseboard units (or whatever) make zero difference in drying out anything. It’s all heating air, and relative humidity is temperature dependent. If you heat up air from 50F to 75F it is then able to hold much more water vapor so the relative humidity will go way down no matter how the air is heated.
NeenerNeener
I’m doing my part. I had solar panels installed on my new house in Virginia this week.
emjayay
@Another Scott: Good points. Mount Vernon for example has a high velocity cooling/heating system put in decades ago. The air outlets are just small circular openings. I thought historic houses were the main use for such systems.
I don’t know who does it, but I’ve seen energy audits that use an infrared camera that shows where the building is transmitting heat to the outdoors in cold weather. Even the best windows conduct a lot of heat in both directions. I guess heavy drapes or insulated shades are about all you can do other than bricking them all up.
ColoradoGuy
What gives me a little pause about getting solar panels on our house is the impact of hailstorms on the roof and the solar panel replacement costs. Colorado is one of the worst areas in the world for hailstorm damage. We’re on our third roof since we moved here in 2005.
The roof replacement cost was covered by USAA minus a 5% deductible. OK, out several thousand dollars. but that’s Colorado. But … neighbors that had solar panels paid about double, because the solar panels had to be demounted, the damaged roof removed, the new roof put on, and the panels re-installed. Big job. The solar panels actually came through pretty well, but represented obsolete tech.
You might think why replace the roof if the panels protect it (which they do) but the panels do not cover the entire roof, and the last hailstorm (about a year ago) caused very severe damage in our area. Cars parked outside looked like golf balls, little dents everywhere, with smashed windshields.
trollhattan
@ColoradoGuy: Any possibilities for terrestrial mount instead?
We don’t have any ourselves, but some lots have enough sun exposure to make it an option. We may have floods and earthquakes but golfball hail is not on the menu.
Hoodie
@emjayay: That’s not entirely true. Forced air systems tend to cause air to be sucked in from the outside and thus can lower relative humidity by drawing in cooler, lower moisture content air from outside, which displaces more humid air inside that picks up moisture from things like showers and cooking. They also mostly just heat the air, so to get an equivalent comfort level, you tend to have to heat the air more than you would with a radiant system. This is particularly true for something like radiant floor heating, which also takes advantage of thermal mass and allows you to heat the air less to feel the same comfort level.
Stuart Frasier
@emjayay: NIO has battery swap stations in China and some European countries. It kind of makes sense for urban drivers without access to home charging, though it does lock you into one form-factor. Potentially you could use a smaller, lighter battery for daily use and get a higher-capacity one for long trips. I’m not convinced it’s a good idea on balance, but it is being tried. Maybe it would be better to build in the smaller battery and have a bay to accept “range extender” batteries. Particularly if it could be an industry standard.
Stuart Frasier
@ColoradoGuy: My roof is not ideally situated for mounting panels, so I’m looking into building a solar pergola in the backyard. It would create covered outdoor living area and allow the panels to be nearly ideally oriented to the sun. It also means I wouldn’t have to remove the panels when I replace the roof (which will need to happen at some point). Using frameless bifacial solar panels allows a bit of light through and they also look really cool.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Hoodie: Yes this is an older home that was ductless because it had radiant heat and when it was built in 1943 nobody had AC. That’s why the previous owner went high velocity for the AC.
@trollhattan: I had a heat pump water heater put in this past year. Also great. My gas one was in it’s 16th year so it was time to replace it. Replaced my very old gas range with an induction cooktop one a few years back. The boiler and clothes dryer (would go heat pump for that too) are the last two things tying me to the grid.
Fair Economist
@trollhattan: Note that the CAISO numbers effectively count batteries and exports as part of demand. As I write this, Batteries are consuming 3.8 MW and 3.5 is going to exports. So actual demand is actually about 10 MW.
I don’t know exactly why it’s so low, but two things that matter are the massive support CA gave to rooftop solar until very recently, and high efficiency standards for appliances here. Many households, including mine, produce power to the grid during the day.
And, to be fair, TX has a rougher climate.
Kayla Rudbek
@Stuart Frasier: that sounds like a good idea to adapt to putting over a deck. I’m in a row townhouse with an HOA and I haven’t seen anyone else putting solar panels on the roof yet. My deck is on the east side of the house so that might be the optimal location anyway…
wjca
Batteries used in IC cars are standard across every make and model. So there’s no reason we won’t see that for EV batteries.
But probably not until battery technology comes out of its current flurry of technological change. Until then, it won’t be clear which is actually the best one to standardize on.
Sure Lurkalot
We put panels on the house last year but late in the calendar so that there wasn’t much banking or savings with the short days and winter.
The 30% tax credit on this year’s income tax return was helpful in mitigating the outlay. It probably won’t fully repay the investment in my lifetime (Xcel customer here) which shouldn’t be the only metric to consider anyway. Everyone jump in the pool and do what you can.
trollhattan
@Stuart Frasier:
When Tesla still had just the Model S, they had a battery swap facility off Interstate 5 in California, that robotically removed and replaced the entire battery, and you went on your way.
No idea what became of that, sounds pretty complicated but also a neat demo project.
Could foresee a carmaker coalition agreeing on a core standard battery–one that could be multiplied on larger/longer range models, installed by its lonesome on a compact. I think my Dewalt powertool battery can be shared by other brands, it can be doubled up on some high-power tools. Same with my Greenworks garden tools.
Like a standard filling nozzle and filler tube, and the accelerator pedal on the right, brake on the left. some EV standardization would be welcome. But we’re in an era of innovation and emerging regulations, guessing the dust isn’t settling soon.
trollhattan
@Sure Lurkalot: With tiered rates, panels sited to maximize afternoon output seem attractive for cost:benefit. IDK how it pencils out lacking a bid, meanwhile PV panel prices keep dropping.
Geminid
From Maritime Executive, March 10 2024:
Subfarm sounds like a good outfit; they use a proprietary system to raise healthy salmon at depths of 60 feet or deeper. I gotta wonder about that “Blue Maritime Cluster” though.
Maritme Executive is similar to Oil Price in that it is an established news site, focusing on an established industry, that reports on clean energy as well. There are articles on subjects like legal aspects of the Dali/Key Bridge collision, and the Port of Houston’s record container volume, and also articles like “Japan Plans Next Generation of Container Ships for Zero Emissons and Efficiency.”
Martin
So, one day last week California’s largest energy source in the evening was batteries.
This is really important, because CAs solar push was starting to work too well. For increasing periods of the year, and for increasing periods of the day, California produces more electricity than it can use. Last year that was 4TWh – almost enough to power Vermont. The problem this creates is that during these periods the wholesale cost of electricity goes to $0, which both makes is harder for existing solar construction to pay off their investment but serves as a disincentive to build more. It also effectively reduces the total efficiency of the renewable grid because during those periods all of the surplus power effectively doesn’t exist – grid operators need to run it to ground.
What we need to do is to (ideally) shift existing demand into those times when we are overproducing, and that’s what the grid battery storage does. The state energy policy two years ago shifted their priority away from just adding solar to focus more on battery and other sources to try and balance that problem out. Seems like it’s working.
And most of California’s progress has actually come from conservation, not shifting production. If CA had stayed on their original trajectory of per capita energy use tracking with the national average and built out renewables exactly as we did, the renewable fraction of our energy production would be around 1/3 of what it is now.
CA didn’t build out a massive renewable grid – we just avoided having to build out so much generation to begin with. In CA, energy companies can get profits more easily by getting their customers to use less power than they can by selling more power, so they push against appliance makers to be more efficient (energy star is a CA invention), they send us free LEDs, they use their economies of scale and their analysts to help consumers use less power, because that’s how they make more money. Conservation is hands down the best way to help address climate change. And that can be better insulation as noted above. It can also be using the timer on your dishwasher to run when your utility produces renewable power. It can be looking at the heater on the pool that you rarely use and questioning if you really even need a pool any longer. We’re better at habits and culture than we are at examining what best for the community or even ourselves sometimes, and you have to really work at that part.
Everyone can do something. Find the thing you can do.
SW
“Transmission lines haven’t improved much over the years”
Really! You said that with a straight face? They haven’t just not been improved. They are degrading. They have become unreliable and a source of wildfires in a time when extreme weather events are becoming much more common. They should be burying the bulk of them in residential areas. But as you point out the utilities are owned primarily by venture capitalists who are determined to optimize rate extraction and minimize investment.
Dan B
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: We installed ductless heat pumps fourteen years ago, along with air sealing and insulation. We’re in Seattle so similar winters to DC. The heat pumps also lower humidity. We find the heat and the cooling to be excellent. We have a gas fireplace we never use. And we’ve used the AC far more than expected since Seattle has had 20 or .ore days over 90° the past three summers. Our system was $3,000 for our little 1,500 square house.
Martin
It wasn’t a demo project. Not really. The state’s energy credit program, where it handed out credits that could be sold to other businesses had discounted the Model S credits because the program gave more credits for fast charging and measuring how Model S drivers actually charged their cars, not many did fast charging (the program was designed to incentivize construction of more fast chargers). This resulted in a significant subsidy drop for Tesla. But there was a carve-out for cars that could swap batteries that preserved the credits for demonstration programs. So Musk demonstrated it for the Model S, got the credits for the fleet, but had no intention of ever implementing the program. He was just exploiting a loophole in the CA program at a time when Tesla needed cash.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Dan B: Hmmm. I asked about mini splits and the guy that was doing the estimate said it’s cheaper to start with the system that’s already in place if possible. But my house is only a little bigger than yours at 1,700 square feet. I’m not entirely sure that includes the finished attic space and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t include the basement. But on a price per square feet basis it sure seems like mini splits would be cheaper than what this contractor quoted if you only paid $3,000 to heat and cool 1,500 square feet. Even at triple the size it’d be 9 grand vs 21.
Kayla Rudbek
@trollhattan: dropping enough that people are using them as fencing https://www.ft.com/content/2ea6bf6d-04e9-453b-a35f-cd6431cfc7bf?fbclid=IwAR1vWMVsiC56XJ5SnWkUyCJNlsSmN9VEiEQ9XOR5qyWd6cgmc6tG1l5deD0_aem_AUvrszpY6mjW1lByymrLoqbESJ8o5xoyUaRi4sc3FEqP90kTA8ZoJ6aZE-uCjBLDFYVDjXvGsZSJ8pOq9yJdSOxx
Dan B
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: We had forced air. It was cheaply built and left the bathrooms chilly. The main “duct” was just the gap between the floor joists. There was a hot spot in the hallway where the previous owners big dogs laid. The oak floor was dark brown there.
We only got one mini split on each floor. It would have been better to get two downstairs. Upstairs is fairly open so it works great
I don’t know why your contractor told you that sticking with a noisy system would be best.
Martin
@SW: Something worth noting at least in CA in regards to the fire risk from transmission lines. It’s been the law in CA for the last half century that all new transmission lines needed to be constructed underground. This order includes funding mechanisms and some carve-outs.
So at least for the last half century, we’ve been doing that. It’s also worth noting that the majority of Californias growth has been into these areas. The majority of California’s wealth, is also in these areas. My entire city only has a single set of legacy high power transmission lines that cut through the city, that predate city incorporation – everything is buried – power, phone, cable – everything. Efforts continue to bury legacy utilities in residential areas – at a cost of $1M-$2M per mile. It is a substantial tax burden on the older, less wealthy parts of the state since it’s paid for through your utility.
There are a few challenges with the larger effort of burying the bigger, high voltage lines.
Now, all of these things can be true at the same time that it’s true that PG&E is a criminal enterprise that should not be allowed to exist. If Democrats weren’t such pussies, they would have taken over PG&E in exchange for their bankruptcy and turned it into a public utility. And it can also be true that none of CAs utilities worked particularly hard to solve this problem in the best of situations. But now that there’s some serious effort being put toward it, those problems above are starting to become more apparent.
I 100% expect that if Trump wins, there will be zero ability to make progress on these efforts on federal land and that whatever money has been appropriated to help these projects along will be frozen or redirected. Trump is a vindictive motherfucker and going to fill his administration with equally vindictive motherfuckers. Just like the border crisis is a crisis Trump wants, California burning will be a political winner for him. That will be an applause line for him.
Another Scott
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: Prices changed a lot as a result of the pandemic, supply chains, etc. You can’t just scale Dan B’s results, I don’t think.
But mini-spits are the kings of efficiency, so you have to consider that as well.
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
Climate related, ICYMI… DW.com:
This is on top of recent historic rains in the UAE.
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
@Another Scott: Yeah, the misunderstanding about ‘global warming’ is believing that it means it’ll be a bit warmer rather than ‘you built entirely the wrong infrastructure, your house and economy are about to be destroyed’
SW
@Martin: CA is way ahead of CO where I live.
Martin
@SW: Might want to push on your state reps to see if they have a similar law to CAs regarding having to underground new infrastructure. Both states are staring down having the insurance market decide which parts of the state are habitable or not. Having the state have a stronger role in that decision should be appealing to them.
Peke Daddy
Peke Daddy
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: Perhaps combining a solar water heater to do the heavy lifting for the heat pump, along with a super insulated storage tank. This is touted as world’s most efficient.
https://www.ovum.at/en/produkte/luft-die-koenigsklasse
Ruckus
@Kayla Rudbek:
EV batteries would likely be too large a package for most to do that themselves. A system of recycling stations could and that’s been discussed in the industry. Bike batteries might really make sense.
Around where I live we have electric buses with overhead inductive charging, they just park the bus under the charger and it goes to work. Now there has to be a big enough battery or downtime between route starting to charge.
wjca
There’s an organization already in place for this sort of thing: the Society of Automotive Engineers. (That’s where all those SAE standards, for everything from nuts and bolts to things like power (gas) pedal on the right, come from.) Time for SAE to ramp up and establish some more standards.
SeattleDem
@trollhattan: in effect, they do. Insulation is a rare commodity
@wjca: According to a Dallas news.com article, half of all homes in Texas have no or very little insulation, so they just crank up the AC. Less good when the power goes out due to the cold.
wjca
@SeattleDem:
It rather boggles my mind that anyone would build a house without insulation in Texas. Maybe in the middle of the last century. But in the last half century? Amazing.
Like many stereotypes, some of those about Texas appear to have some basis in reality.