Texas power issues. Wind farms getting iced up (Part II)... 38

[Fischstabchen]

Dik,

How I described it is how it is described by insurance policies and flood maps and such in the U.S.

What evidence do you have because I find nothing aside from experts saying they don't really know.

 

[dik]

Just from information I have in statistics... given an event, they can be ranked in levels of intensity (or whatever) and as the event becomes more 'extreme' it will occur less likely... a 100 year event is of an intensity that it will likely occur within a 100 year time period... a 1000 year time event (seismic or whatever) can be expected to occur within 1000 years. It does't mean that you can't have two 100 year events within a much shorter duration.

Also from the net..."A 100-year event (or 100-year return period event) is an event that occurs (or is exceeded) on average once in every one hundred years (such as a storm, flood or rainfall event)"

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[dik]

Climate change has been politicised... just like the Coronavirus... because it diminishes the consequences of it... the American death tole is in excess of half a million and growing... masks and isolation help, these are real facts and not political spin. By saying it's political spin, if gives the impression it is something of lesser importance.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

I still remember all the fuss about 50/100 year waves. The invention of doppler radar satellites and nonlinear wave theory show they are daily events its just bad luck if your near one when it happens.

 

[Fischstabchen]

Dik,

No. It is not the same as the corona virus because there is very strong science beyond everything related to the virus. There is no strong evidence saying that there will be more hurricanes or cold snaps in warm regions. The climate is changing and there appears to be in part due to human factors but there are no strong evidences or models as the consequences of that. All I see is doom saying and total shutdowns on any discussions to resolve climate change that don't involve a immediate complete overhaul of energy global energy production, which is unlikely to happen or happen at a rate climate environmentalist would like due to politics and not every country has the means. The eruption of Pinatubo in 1991 had a very clear impact on global temperatures due to the particulates reaching the stratosphere. It would be in our capabilities to disperse something like chalk into the stratosphere to cool down the planet but any idea like this gets shouted down because it doesn't push the agenda and global warming is not an immediate crisis. I don't think anyone has even shown with any strong evidence that even if all green measures are taken, that the earth will start cooling down. Climate change environmentalist do themselves as much of a disservice as climate deniers by making overreaching claims and asserting control of the narrative.

 

[dik]

@Fischstabchen: When an ostrich puts his head in the sand... you know what part is exposed. I'm not going to debate climate change... ignoring it is like grouping without wearing masks...

I remember a Far Side cartoon (I think) about the Lion approaching the Ostrich saying the he could still see the bird and that wasn't sand, but was his litter box...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[TugboatEng]

If climate change were truly existential the solution would be a shutdown and not a reconstruction. The green movement is a farce on its face. That is all. Obviously we need to evolve as as technology changes but green is wrong.

 

[cranky108]

A farce it maybe, but nothing changes the fact that a market signal like that is used in the electric industry is ineffective at reducing demand.
How would you know if your electric prices changed?
Unlike gas, there is no price posted, and unless you had a smart heater that refused to turn on if the price was too high, what good would it be for you to know the price?

The electric is not a free market. It is very much a regulated market, with some free market ideas on how people can take advantage.

This should all be laid at the feet of government.

 

[Fischstabchen]

Dik,

You are creating strawman arguments instead of having a actual discussion. The science on COVID-19 is pretty sound. What we don't know is what the longterm consequences are of having had the virus. In comparison, climate change science is rather wishy washy. People make unfounded claims all the time and it is to the point that it is identity politic. Someone can't question the conclusions AND be an environmentalist. It appears that people have affected the climate but no one really has sound answers on questions like below:

1. If you have to go back to 1750-1800 to see flat atmospheric CO2 concentrations, is it even reasonable to expect that the people can reduce their emissions to the point that CO2 concentrations start to drop?

2. What would CO2 emissions need to be for the sequestration of carbon to exceed emissions?

3. How much of an immediate crisis is it that global temperatures are rising and what makes it a crisis?

4. Is it even feasible to get every country on board on a zero carbon agenda?

5. If it is a crisis, how come alternative methods on how to cool the planet are not seriously being looked into? Bill Gates is basically self funding a Harvard pilot study. Why does he even have to do that himself?

6. What is to be done with the current global fleet of power generation? Is the expectation to shutdown every facility prematurely and build wind, solar, and battery farms in its place? If so, who pays for this?

7. Will climate change increase, decrease, or not change the frequency of weather events like hurricanes? If so, what proof is there and why?

 

[1503-44]

Fisch,

Even then, the data is so sparse that I don't think anyone can draw hard conclusions about it being more or less.

There are hundreds of years of data that are always getting better in quality as new events recorded every day are verifying or revising previous ideas and updating newer ones, so actually yes you can draw conclusions. Specific conclusions about design conditions for offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico were drawn after analysis of data from Hurricane Katrina and other storms during 2004-2008 hurricane seasons for wind, current and wave heights. In 2009 design conditions for offshore platforms were revised. Wind speeds, current velocities and wave heights all increased. Prior to the analysis of the 2004-2008 storms, the 100 yr design wave height was 72ft. That was increased to 91ft, a 25% increase.

https://jptspe.org/remediating-platforms-raising-topsides

Rogue waves are the result of near-random additive and destructive combinations of long waves arriving at a single point from what can be many different locations in the entire ocean in question. I say near-random, because they have been found to be more prevalent in certain regions where there are unusual wind and current interactions, such as off the coast of Good Hope, South Africa. The appearance of long waves and their amplitudes have no known direct association to waves generated by any specific hurricane or other known phenomena, as it is thought they are an additive and focused combination of waves generated by what may be many unidentifiable events occurring at widely diverse sources.

Otherwise, it hardly makes sense to hit the accelarator when the RR crossing lights are flashing.
It was just a inconvenient coincidence that last year was the world's hottest summers in a string of records of hottest and this winter might be one of the coldest on record.

 

[Fischstabchen]

1503-44,

I am not a person who doesn't think it is better to reduce CO2 emissions but what are the consequences. You want to call this a cold winter but it has been mild even up in minnesota. You can't justify retiring a entire global fleets of generation without a layout of what the differences in consequences will be between a fast or slow transition or even if it is possible to reduce global warming/CO2 concentrations. In a world with infinite wealth and resources, everyone would just transition immediately and be done with it but we don't live in that world.

 

[1503-44]

Hummm. Its not a record heat wave in 21 places so that doesn't make it a cold winter, no?
I think I finally understand the logic behind the climate change deniers reasoning. Write everything with multiple double negatives and it works. But I still have one question. Why did all that snow fall so far south and "Minnesota was mild"? Did Minnesota change climates with Texas?
Oh wait. Isn't THAT a perfect example of climate CHANGE? Now I'm confused again. It was so perfect.

Let's not go farther into the weeds. I gave you an example of design conditions changing, but you ignored that. It changed because the Gulf climate has changed. It wasn't done to prove or disprove a theory, but to conform to changes apparent in the latest data observations.

I'm not retiring anything. Most of that old stuff is ready for the bin anyway and can disappear by attrition. A couple of TX coal feeders are scheduled to be deactivated within a few years and the nukes don't have much more shelf life in them either. Just clean up the smoke stacks, capture the CO2 and we can use that to inject it into New Mexico's oil wells and squeeze some more out to keep the cars going until we retire those too.

 

[Fischstabchen]

I am not a denier but you are confusing changes with negative consequences. Negative consequences has to be what motivating reason for prematurely retiring 90+% of the world's generation. I don't see anyone showing what the consequences would be if the transition was slower. I haven't even seen a good plan as to how to operate a grid with it being 100% green. Just because the summers and winters are a few degrees warmer doesn't create a justification in of itself.

 

[1503-44]

Retirement of most of coal, oil and nukes is actually being caused by age and cheap natural gas fuel and renewable energy production that is producing electricity cheaper than coal and nuclear plants as we speak and nearly as cheap as gas turbines themselves, and in fact cheaper than gas turbines in a lot of places. Its 99% economics of having no more fuel costs of any kind. Wind and sun are free... well so far. Of course coal, nukes and eventually natgas will all be gone. They can't compete any longer with the zero fuel cost machines.

Even the oil field treating plants and gas pipelines are changing to solar and wind powered compressor stations. They're sitting right on top of all the fuel they could need. Some of the gas pipelines have a billion cubic feet of the stuff running past their noses every day. All they have to do is put a tap on the line, burn it at the compressors and bill the client as "lost and unaccounted for gas" while transporting his gas along the pipeline. Nope, solar is cheaper than burning that gas.

 

[Fischstabchen]

1503-44,

Then you are for an economic transition that will span out over the next 50 years. This is different than the transition in Europe. If you go by EIA's estimate, solar will only rich parity with natural gas generation in 2045 and that is ignoring the need for base loading generation. The transition will be very gradual. I don't know why you are calling me a denier and such when I am a proponent for an economically driven transition and often what is being proposed is drastic and ignores all the economics.

 

[electricpete]

I didn't follow the nuanced back and forth positions, but I liked the Internet Explorer graphic as an illustration of correlation vs causation.

I just wanted to post something vaguely related to the TX power market.

Tesla Is Plugging a Secret Mega-Battery Into the Texas Grid
... in Angleton TX, ten miles from my home.

I'm sure they're starting small but I think that will tend to help smooth out the daily mismatches between supply/demand that tend to drive daily price cycles.
I'm not sure whether that favors wind/solar or baseload units. My first thought is that it would tend to help both.
I know one of the complaints we hear as a baseload unit is we have to keep generating even when we are losing money when the price turns negative in the wee hours of the morning.


=====================================
(2B)+(2B)' ?

 

[1503-44]

It seems the EIA is still using old natural gas prices and not deducting state and local sales taxes. Took me awhile to figure that out. When oil starts to get scarce again, it won't take till 2045. Solar rooftop systems in TX last month were certainly shouting from the rooftops that the EIA got that prediction totally backasswards. Natgas doesn't flow for 1 day and bang! If the oil price goes up, natgas, palm and olive oil all tend to rise somewhat. I think EIA did not consider fuel costs rising, working only with their usual assumptions about mechanical fabrication costs of renewables decreasing slowly and inversely as that tech gets more widespread and competition builds. All those coal and nuk plants were offline because their running costs are higher than natgas units, never mind solar and wind. Nobody has wanted to buy Austin's 16% share of the South TX Nuke since they offered it for sale in 2006. Huge dual fired gen plant in Boston that hasn't run for like 5yrs and the owners want Bostonians to keep paying them for "its standby value". I dont think those are isolated incidents. San Francisco is trying to install huge batteries and shut down gas burners. Its clean .. and cheap now. Tesla I'm told doesn't make their money on their cars. I think its their battery tech thats valuable. Nobody else making just cars has a PE of 1000 earnings. Yeah, electricpete's got it right there. I didnt see that. I'll click now.

Why are you telling me that 21 cities with record lows is normal and snowing in in TX while its mild in MN apparently is totally normal? Can you blame me for thinking that you don't believe? But sorry for my confusion.

Used to fish the canals behind Sargent Beach. Pulled in a 6ft aligator gar at 4am one moonless morning. Just barely some light from the Dow plant tank farm. Didn't know what it was until I got it right up under me and I turned on the lantern. Man! Nose to nose with all those ragged teeth scared the hell out of me! Almost fell in with him. Had to rope him to the pickup to lift him out of the canal.

 

[FacEngrPE]

Mr 1503-44 I take a different view of your Gulf Coast oil platform design case criteria increase. It could be that Hurricane Katrina events are rare and simply had not been observed so that they could be entered into the criteria.

An example from the east coast is

During a hurricane in 1749, the Chesapeake Bay rose 15 feet (4.6 m) above normal,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willoughby_Spit.

That is too small a sample, and the event data too incomplete, to guess what sort of return frequency a storm that strong has.

I do like your comparison at the bottom of the post. It is an absolute fact that correlation does not by itself prove causation.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Although one could argue that as the use of Internet Explorer dropped, the outrage directed toward it dropped as the user population dwindled, which resulted in less people going into a psychotic rage, which then led to the lowered homicide rates ;-)

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[Fischstabchen]

Electricpete,

Batteries I don't believe gotten cheap enough to be used for arbitrage. I talked with someone ,who used to work for Enchanted Rock in financing back in 2019 here in Houston, as to what kind of power swings do you need to be able to use batteries for arbitrage and he said about $100 per MHW. Swings like that happen but not with strong regularity. The real use I have seen in Texas for batteries has been in turning units into blackstart units and for mitigating a transmission contingency without building a transmission line.