The Weakness of the Wind Turbine Operability is Exposed. Stop The Transition to Renewables

Posted on November 4, 2024 | Leave a comment

Backgound

Many believe that Germany is the leading, major nation regarding transitioning energy sources from thermal and nuclear to renewable. Germany’s major renewables are wind turbines, solar cells, hydro and biomass.  The thermal resources are lignite, hard coal and natural gas.  At the beginning of 2023, nuclear energy was a sources but it was abandoned on15 April after generating 7TWhs .  The electricity demand for the year 2023, was 457 TWh.  In 2023 the wind turbines produced 140 TWh and Solar produced 60 TWh of that supply.    The remaining 247 TWh were produced by natural gas, coal, lignite, hydro, and biomass energy sources. The wind turbines rated capacity is 613TWh and solar rated capacity is 707 TWh.  That adds up to 1320TWh rated capacity versus demand of 457 TWh.     Why weren’t wind and solar producing all the electricity?  Together their rated capacity is 3-fold more than the demand. It is alleged that electricity from these renewable is dirt cheap, so, they should be making the electricity.   But that is not the case. The German wind turbines had a rated capacity of 60 GWs that should provide 525 TWh per year, yet they  only made 140 TWh.  That makes the capacity factor only  22.8%. The thermal fuel electricity production was greater than the wind turbine production , with lignite, hard coal and natural gas producing 176TWh opposite the 140TWh that the turbines produced. That level of thermal production capacity allowed  the weather dependence  of the non-dispatchable wind turbines.   

The Source

The data for this posting are mostly from  this excellent  German  document :  “Fraunhofer Public Net Electricity Generation 2023 in Germany: Renewables Cover the Majority of the Electricity Consumption for the First Time”      https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en.html

I chose the year 2023  because a full year’s data is tabulated

Can wind turbines supply a grid without out back up?

The question is could renewables without thermal sources make a reliable 24/7 grid?  Looking at it from that perspective of capacity factor of 22.8% , one answer to that question would be at least 4 times the current numbers of  wind turbines would be needed to meet the 457 TWh  with some extra to cover peak demands.   Yet using average year data may not tell the score.  Lets look at monthly performance. This is needed as weather has seasons.   Wind is the main propellant  for these turbines and it is changeable.

Deeper dive into the question.

In 2023 the record maximum output from these 60GW wind turbines was 53 GW  for a short time. Simply stated is that these beasts only respond to weather.  Wind speed can be so fast that the turbines must be shutdown to protect them from serious damage. The wind speed can also be slow, all the way to calm.  .  

Examining how German wind turbines function, gives us some insight why it is doubtful that renewables  alone could supply a gird without thermal sources backup.  The Germans collect the energy being produced by the turbines and all the other resources every 15 minutes. This data collection allows an excellent opportunity to examine how things are operating, far surpassing yearly averages. For instance, the wind turbine production is not running steady  at the capacity factor of 22.3%, as you would inherently know. But it allows us a deeper understanding of the make-up of the 22.3% capacity factor. The Germans employ both onshore and offshore wind turbines.  Combining the two for each month will provide a monthly capacity factor versus the 2023 demand.    

Using an average GWh     457TWh/12 months=38.1TWh per month.

MONTH         TURBINES PRODUCTION   CAPACITY FACTOR(versus demand)

                                     TWh                                                           %

Jan                            17,039                                                         44.6

Feb                           11,832                                                         31.0

Mar                           13,901                                                         36.5

Apr                            9,967                                                           26.2

May                          8,147                                                           21.4

Jun                            5,895                                                            15.5

Jul                              9,537                                                            25.0

Aug                           6,877                                                            18.0

Sep                           6,627                                                            17.4

Oct                            14,240                                                         37.4

Nov                           17,240                                                         45.2

Dec                          19,080                                                         50.1

In this we see that weather conditions are not always favorable for maximizing  production with wind turbines.   December suggests that increasing the number of turbines would only require a little more that 2 times plus a  little more for peak demands.   But going solo (nothing but wind turbines), June would require 7 times the number of wind turbines would be needed to meet average demand. If the wind turbines were the only source of electricity , June sets the target for the number of wind turbines required.   The summer month’s weather was not favorable to maximizing wind turbine electricity production

The turbines need to be able to match demand and that means June.

Taking an even deeper dive.

Looking deeper,   the data proves that wind turbines alone are not feasible. The data shows the turbines can fail to even produce 1GW at times.  Just a sample is tabled as follows:

Date             ONSHORE GW   OFF SHORE GW    TOTAL GW

04/05                       0.334                        0.021                        0.355

04/05                       0.727                        0.238                        0.955

05/28                       0.675                        0.119                        0.794  

06/05                       0.893                        0.001                        0.894

06/15                       0.765                        0.049                        0.814

06/17                       0.647                        0.079                        0.726

06/17                       0.947                        0.040                        0.987

06/18                       0.371                        0.150                        0.521

06/18                       0.216                        0.074                        0.290

06/25                       0.444                        0.173                        0.617

07/19                       0.664                        0.167                        0.831

09/02                       0.364                        0.199                        0.563

09/09                       0.469                        0.261                        0.730

09/10                       0.166                        0.010                        0.176

09/14                       0.469                        0.523                        0.992

09/27                       0.667                        0.205                        0.875

These  less than 1.GW  performances  have to be considered a “complete collapse of power”. 

Why does it have a “complete collapse?”

When the speed of the wind dies it can cause a very sharp loss of production of electricity .

Penn State description of wind speed vs power follows: (revised to shorten the narrative.)

The power in the wind is given by the following equation:

Power (W) = 1/2 x ρ x A x v3

Thus, the power available to a wind turbine is based on the density of the air (usually about 1.2 kg/m3), the swept area of the turbine blades (picture a big circle being made by the spinning blades), and the velocity of the wind. Of these, clearly, the most variable input is wind speed. However, wind speed is also the most impactful variable because it is cubed, whereas the other inputs are not.

The following are calculations for power available in the wind at  different velocities for a Northwind 100C turbine.  The calculations will show what happens when you double the wind speed. Take a moment to think about how much available power will increase if you double the velocity:

  • The standard(link is external) density of air is 1.225 kg/m3
  • The turbine has a 24 m diameter, which means the radius is 12 m. Thus, the swept area of the turbine is: (pi)r2 = 3.14159(122) = 452.4 m2
  • We’ll start with a 6 m/s wind.
  • The power in the wind at 6 m/s is: 1/2 x ρ x A x v3 = 0.5 x 1.225 kg/m3 x 452.4 m2 x (6 m/s)3 = 59,851 W = 59.85 kW
  • At 12 m/s: 1/2 x ρ x A x v3 = 0.5 x 1.225 kg/m3 x 452.4 m2 x (12 m/s)3 = 478,808 W = 478.8 kW (8 times as large)
  • Returning to 6m/s, the power generated falls to 59.85kW.   

Wind is always changing.  It’s irregularity is demonstrated in the German data.  Sometimes the change is large and the turbine production of electricity goes low.  The data shows that the thermal sources have to act to manage the output to the gird. Remember, thermal sources produced more electricity than the wind turbines in 2023.

German solar data

The solar capacity factor is 8.5%.  Solar should not be brought into a discussion about keeping a grid operating. The solar cells do not run at night.  So they can’t back up the wind turbines.  Maybe, there will be a miracle battery that could be charged by solar cells.   If a capable and affordable  battery is ever available it might be used as backup. Only then solar can be brought into the discussion

If the only statement  of operability of wind turbines is the annual data point, power factor, it can be  misleading.  Thanks to the German 15 minute data, the weakness of the wind turbine operability is exposed.

In my next blog, two cases of complete loss of power in 2024, one it Canada and one in Australia  due to weather conditions.    And it will review the high cost of renewable energy.  

cbdakota

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Posted in Alternative Energy, Electrical grid, Electricity, Renewable Energy, solar cells, Windpower

Data Centers and Artificial Intelligence-Stop Energy Transition Part 3

Posted on October 3, 2024 | Leave a comment

ENERGY

The United States of America is built on energy. Primarily produced by fossil fuels.  The transportation area, cars, trucks, airplane, ships, etc. are propelled by gasoline, jet fuel, diesel oil, bunker fuel, propane, etc., all fossil fuels.  Transportation is 90% reliant on fossil fuels. About 60% of the Electricity is produced by fossil fuels.  Quoting Denny Ervin:   “Economies and standards of living hinge on having an adequate, economic, and reliable energy source—attributes that are non-negotiable for an optimal energy infrastructure. Our current trajectory risks creating inadequate, unaffordable, and unreliable energy supplies, which would devastate the U.S. economy and standard of living”.

Mr. Ervin has hit the nail on the head

Electricity Generation

The US generated 4.18Trillion Kilowatt hours in 2023.  A trillion Kilowatt-hour are called Petawatt hour.  That means that it is 4.18 followed by 15 zeros.  Because billing is usually done in kilo watts hours-,  it would be 4.18 Tera kilowatt-hours or as it is expressed in the  graph, 4.18 trillion kilowatt hours.   These vast numbers are here to stay.    Primer: Kilo is a thousand; Mega is a million; Giga is a billion; Tera is trillion and Peta is a quadrillion.

The primary source was thermals (natural gas, coal  and petroleum) at 60%, Nuclear added 18.6 %.   The renewables came in at 21.4 %.   Within that renewables list is Wind and solar and they are the rising sources.  They came sourced at 14.1%   They are non-dispatchable, meaning that their generation is a  wild card function of the weather.

Artificial Intelligence Creates Demand For Electricity

Power generation in 2023 was slightly lower than the 2022 generation.  Why? Due to higher price of electricity and use of power saving devices like LED bulbs.  But the demand is forecasted to increase soon and require a lot of additional generating sources, and transmission lines to carry the increase.   This increase is attributed to data center growth.  There are an estimated 2700 data centers in the US.  Data centers are the backbone of the digital world.  They host the internet from not only the US but a big share of the World’s internet.  It is in data centers where the Clouds store data for businesses and websites are housed. A large new power demand is forecasted for the Artificial Intelligence (AI).   DataCenterDynamics says that data center power consumption in the US is set to reach 35GW by the end of the decade, almost double its 2022 level.

Goldman Sachs posted on 13 May 2024, “AI is showing ‘very positive’ signs of eventually boosting GDP and productivity”.   That feeling seems to be universal.  The posting says: “Some of the academic literature and economic studies that have looked at the increase in productivity that we’ve seen following AI adoption, in a few specific cases, supports our view that large productivity gains are possible. The average increase in productivity is about 25%. Case studies of companies that have adopted AI imply similarly large efficiency gains. And so, you know, there’s a lot of reasons to be optimistic. It will just take a little bit more time to see these productivity gains realized.”

That is an incredible gain.  The nation must do what it takes to accomplish that goal. 

Techopedia predicts that the US gain the most:

Techopedia offers why the US will dominate.

“The US leads the way, reflecting its size, private and public investment in research and development, and the talent nurtured by its higher education system”.

Techopedia offers why the US will dominate.

There are impediments to AI success.

The major impediment is the Energy Transition from thermal sources to renewable sources. 

There are 3 major actors in this transition.  First is the Administration putting up big subsidies to make solar cells and wind turbines installations to assure Crony Capitalist will make money.   Second is the EPA that writes regulations that force the demise of reliable thermal sources, particularly coal based.  And lastly are the States that write laws, that are ill thought-out, declarations of what sources are allowed, what percentage and the time line.  See here and here. This triple bogey is not escaping notice.  The grid operators have been telling everyone that their systems are headed for collapse.   FERC has been telling the same story.  But the Governmental bodies believe themselves to know more about the grids than the grid operators. The companies that are planning to spend vast sums of money to bring AI online seem to be aware of this huge pothole in the road to delivery.  They need electricity that is reliable, and they need it now.  That can only come from thermal sources. The WSJ front page on October 1, 2024 posted “AI fever abates in stocks’ latest quarter.” The stock market sees that AI is not unfolding as was forecast.  You can bet that China is going to provide the power to their AI plans.

The Daily Caller posts: “‘Inevitable And Foreseeable’: Grid Operators Beg Court To Nix EPA Rules To Save Electricity System From Collapse”:

“The Biden-Harris administration says that its stringent power plant rules won’t harm long-term power reliability, but four grid operators stated the exact opposite in a legal brief filed Friday.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its aggressive emissions rules for America’s power plants in April, saying at the time that the regulations would “improve public health without disrupting the delivery of reliable electricity.” However, four major regional grid operators argued the exact opposite in an amicus brief filed in support of red states’ legal challenge against the rule, stating explicitly that the rules will jeopardize Americans’ ability to reliably secure sufficient amounts of power if they are enforced as is”

Specifically, the EPA’s rules will mandate existing coal plants to harness 90% of their emissions by 2032 if they want to stay open past 2039, and they will also require new natural gas-fired plants to do the same in order to stay open past 2039, according to the agency. The EPA is essentially requiring power plants to meet those emissions cuts using carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology, which the four grid operators contend is too expensive and unproven to be mandated on such a tight timeline.”  

The EPA is setting up rules that require the operators to use unproven systems (CCS). Coal plants in operation now provide low cost energy. They provide dispatchable electricity.  They have a distinct advantage in that they usually have several months of coal stored at their site.  Gas units normally do not have a storage that could be used if there is an interruption in the supply line. Nuclear sourced electricity has many months, perhaps as long as a year on plant fuel

The Energy Bad Boys posted:” PJM, MISO, SPP, and ERCOT Join the Legal Fight Against EPA’s Carbon Rules”. 

“The four— PJM, the Midcontinent Independent Systems Operator (MISO), Southwest Power Pool (SPP), and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT)— stretch from New Jersey to parts of New Mexico and serve more than 156 million Americans in their respective service territories.

“The rules on carbon dioxide emissions are not the only regulations threatening the viability of the existing thermal fleet.  Under the Biden-Harris administration, the EPA has written or updated regulations like the Ozone Transport Rule, the Coal Combustion and Residual Rule, and the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, all of which are designed to place enough straws on the backs of reliable coal-fired power plants to compel their owners to shut them down”.

 

AI builders Must Have Reliable Energy Sources

Here are some appeals for reliability:

Larry Fink, Chairman and CEO of Black Rock Investment Management Corporation said no to renewables. Fink spoke at the World Economic Forman that AI will be big and profitable.  He wants the suppliers for his operations to use only dispatchable energy sources because they are reliable sources of power 24/7. 

Dominion CEO Robert Blue said: “We’re going to continue to be a big builder of renewables. We’re building a big offshore wind farm. We’re building a lot of solar. We’re adding a lot of storage. … But we also recognize that we’re going to need some more natural gas in order to keep the lights on.”  In addition to developing more natural gas plants to balance power grids from expansions of intermittent renewables, rising demands are also delaying some retirement of coal plants.

Dominion wants to build a 1,000-megawatt natural gas plant in Chesterfield County, where a coal plant closed last year, stating that the addition is critically important for reliability.  Significant costs for these increased power demands — including transmission infrastructures — will be passed on to household and business consumers.

“Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon, three of the largest AI data center users, have previously criticized a proposal by utility company Georgia Power to expand natural gas use at the expense of hurting their renewable energy programs. The problem is that those centers require huge amounts of reliable electricity to operate, and no nearly adequate hydrocarbon replacement exists. As former Microsoft vice president Brian Janous observes, whereas “No data center wants to be tied to the need for new fossil resources, that’s the problem… You can’t throw this much [data-center] capacity at the system and not have some degree of fossil resources to support it.”

Amazon states that their data centers are powered by renewable energy.  This seems improbable as the industry knows that renewable energy is not dispatchable. They are using a ploy that is provided to make companies feel good about themselves while using fossil fuels.  Its called RECs.  The RECs provide certified proof that you’re using renewable energy from the grid without installing solar panels or other renewable energy systems at your home or business

 Amazon invests in renewable energy projects that generate electricity, which is then fed into the grid. They then purchase or are allocated an equivalent amount of energy from the grid for their use. This is often done through renewable energy certificates (RECs), which represent proof that 1 megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity was generated from an eligible renewable energy resource.

Meanwhile, the Biden Administration, largely through the perversely titled “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA), is providing massive and unsustainable economic incentives to move the electric generation market towards virtually exclusive reliance upon renewable energies (wind and solar in particular) plus batteries.  However, such forms of electric energy pose inherent problems; especially to the ultra-high electric energy “purity” requirements of AI/data centers. Data centers and AI generally require nine-nines reliability and quality metrics such as voltage, frequency, harmonics, etc.

Summary

The US electricity generation is forecast to have a large new demand to power data centers.

Major grid operators are going to court to cancel EPA rules.  They said this must be done or their girds will collapse. 

Data center owners/operators recognize that their systems must have dispatchable,  reliable electricity.  Renewables are not dispatchable.

Next part will examine the non dispatchable  wind and solar .

cbdakota.

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Posted in Electrical grid, Electricity, Electricity from Coal, fossil fuels, Government Regulations, government subsidies, Grid, Nuclear Energy, Personal Automobiles, Renewable Energy, solar cells, Windpower

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The Science Is Settled Myth: Part 2 Stop Energy Transition

Posted on September 16, 2024 | Leave a comment

World Climate Declaration. 

Proving that there isn’t a 97% scientist’s consensus, there are One thousand nine hundred and forty-four scientists, engineers, Noble prize winners and other accredited people that have signed the WORLD CLIMATE DECLARTION and their statement is “There is no climate emergency”. You are not hearing much from these 1944 experts, and you can rightly blame that on the government that provides study money almost only to people who follow the narrative that there is a climate emergency.  And when someone publishes a paper saying that there is no climate emergency, they are ignored by the media who also follow the narrative that there is a climate emergency.

The Declaration scientists on this issue is: “OUR ADVICE TO THE WORLD LEADERS IS THAT SCIENCE SHOULD STRIVE FOR A SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE CLIMATE SYSTEM, WHILE POLITICS SHOULD FOCUS ON MINIMIZING POTENTIAL CLIMATE DAMAGE BY PRIORITIZING ADAPTATION STRATEGIES BASED ON PROVEN AND AFFORDABLE TECHNOLOGIES. The good news is that we have time to work this out. There is no evidence that we are in danger of a catastrophic event. Rational climate scientists do not see an apocalyptic ending for Earth, by CO2 emissions. 

Extreme Weather

The average citizen has heard that Green House Gases (GHG) are warming the globe.  They probably do not fully understand how GHGs are supposed to work.  But they have been convinced that Extreme Weather, as advertised by the alarmists and the media, is caused by GHGs.  Hurricanes, for one extreme weather, are believed to be increasing.   Is that true?  No, it isn’t true. Cyclones, called hurricanes and typhoons, happen all over the globe.  Typhoons are as strong as any hurricane.  As a personal experience, I got lucky to get a flight out of Tawain a day before a major typhoon that came ashore.

 The following chart is a measure of Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) hurricane and typhoon strength.

Figure: Last 50-years+ of Global and Northern Hemisphere Accumulated Cyclone Energy: 24 month running sums. Note that the year indicated represents the value of ACE through the previous 24-months for the Northern Hemisphere (bottom line/gray boxes) and the entire global (top line/blue boxes). The area in between represents the Southern Hemisphere total AC

.

Source Global Tropical Cyclone Activity
Dr. Ryan N. Maue

The high point of ACE occurred in the mid-nineties and has fallen off over the following years 30 years.  This refutes the concept that hurricanes and typhoon’s ACE is a function of rising global temperatures.

Alarmists and the Media

There is no emergency.    Yes, this contradicts what the media is saying, but polls show that almost nobody trusts them. The media takes the word of climate alarmists and then amplifies it. The media seems never to go back and reviews all the alarmists’ predictions that have largely failed. If they did, there is a chance that they might not file those stories. WUWT has a repository of the many predictions the alarmists have made and are shown to be wrong.  Several other looks at their bad predictions can be accessed by clicking here and here.   As people are made aware of these misses, they lose trust in the media.  So much for non-investigating reporters.  May they drive media’s believability lower.

Extreme Weather

So, what is the evidence?  Let’s start with extreme weather again.

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the UN’s scientific body studying the so called “manmade” climate change. While they do not study natural causes, some of their work is useful.   The alarmists make every weather story out to be evidence of impending doom, however, the IPCC says that they do not have any confidence that most of the weather events are caused by climate change.  Roger Pielke,jr posted “What the IPCC Actually Says About Extreme Weather”.  Pielke’s posting has a chart from the IPCC showing what they have confidence in is due to climate change and what they do not have confidence in.  I have picked several of the weather conditions that the IPCC does not have confidence are caused by climate change:

River Flood

Heavy Precipitation

Agriculture Ecology Drought

Severe Windstorms

Tropical Cyclones (aka Hurricanes and Typhoons)

Heavy Snowfall and Ice Storms

Relative Sea Level

Coastal Flooding

That surely takes away most of the media narrative about “severe weather” being caused by man-made climate change.


Evidence that Alarmists are not playing square with the public.

This is perhaps their biggest whopper.

Their long-range predictions are predicated on sharp increases in global temperatures.  Everything is melting, sea levels rising, massive loss of flora and fauna, great numbers of people having to migrate north, etc.  So where do these predictions of high temperatures come from.  Why, they come from a group of programed computers.

See the chart below:

The red line is the average global temperature forecast made by the group of programed computers.

 The squiggly lines are the individual computer output (They are shooting up and ramping down wildly. Hard to take seriously.) 

The green line is actual measured temperatures by satellites.  These satellite temperature measurements have been verified by weather ballons. 

Dr John Christy notes that the programed computer’s temperature trend is +0.50C per decade. That would mean that from 2019 to 2100 the temperature would rise about 4C.  

The satellite temperature trend is +0.15C from 2019 to 2100 about +1.2C.

Who do you want to believe—actual temperature measurements or a pack of programed computers?

The 1944 scientist, etc., weigh in on these computer made predictions:

“To believe the outcome of a climate model is to believe what the model makers have put in. This is precisely the problem of today’s climate discussion to which climate models are central. Climate science has degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound self-critical science. Should not we free ourselves from the naive belief in immature climate models”

CO2 Saturation Curve

Another reason to believe we have years of time before a transition is needed, if at all.

For those that believe atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is driving the global temperature up, you can be consoled that as more CO2 collects in the atmosphere it has a less warming effect. The chart below is somewhat dated but that doesn’t change the concept.  The current saturation of atmospheric CO2 is about 425 parts per million.

Natural Causes Creating temperature Rises

A remarkable paper has been published in The American Journal Of Economics and Sociology and the authors are Andy May and Marcel Crok. It is titled “Carbon Dioxide and Warming Climate are Not a Problem.  The paper covers a number of  issues  I liked the proof of natural cause using ocean cycles.   From that paper comes:

“Since general circulation climate models and the modern CO2 and greenhouse gas warming hypothesis were developed in the 1960s and 70s many natural climate oscillations have been discovered. These long-term climatic oscillations and the resulting “climate regime shifts” strongly suggest that natural forces, possibly driven by cyclic changes in the Sun, are causing some of the recent global warming observed since 1920, or even earlier. It is beyond the scope of this paper to detail all the natural ocean oscillations discovered and described in the past few decades, but one of the major, and most important, oscillations is the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), first named by Richard Kerr in 2000 but formally described by Stephen Gray and colleagues in 2004. The AMO has a very strong climatic signal and has been around since at least 1567AD, so it clearly does not have a human cause.

The authors start with a recognized temperature anomalies chart.  The presumed start of the fossil fuel use age was 1870. The baseline was set at about -0.4 above that temperature. The anomaly is “easy to see” changes in temperature.,. On your standard thermometer, change from 1901 measured temperature to the forecast 2101 temperature. The change would not be noticeable.

The anomaly:

The AMO, which is based on North Atlantic sea-surface temperatures is plotted below. 

A graph showing the number of amo detrended Description automatically generated

Figure 2. The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) plotted in its raw form (top) and as a detrended index (bottom plot). The HadCRUT4 global temperature average record has also been detrended and overlain, as a gray dashed line, on the detrended AMO. Data from NOAA

“There are several key features displayed in figure 2. First, we observe that the secular trend in the AMO of 0.3°C is about 30% of the warming observed globally in the 20th century. Next, we observe that the warming period from 1980 to 2005 coincides with an upturn in the AMO index. The AMO index has been traced to 1567AD, thus it is a natural oscillation. These observations cast some doubt on the AR6 claim that all 20th century warming is due to human influence and there is no net natural impact.  The second feature we will point out in figure 2 is that the full AMO climate cycle is 60-70 years, and it matches the estimated global temperature changes in the 20th century. To make this comparison easier, the HadCRUT4 record from figure 1 is also detrended and overlain as a gray dashed line in the lower plot of figure 2. What if the so-called human-caused warming from 1976 to the present day was boosted by a natural cycle? It would mean that the IPCC calculation of the impact of human greenhouse gases was too high, just as their calculation of tropical tropospheric warming is too high, something they admit in AR6.”

 The Carbon Cycle

I find that many do not know what the carbon cycle is and the place in the cycle that man made emissions are accounted. 

The Wikipedia Chart for the “carbon** cycle” shows “man made” and natural emissions.  In the center, in red, is the fossil fuel etc. man-made emissions, 9 gigatonne of carbon in the year.  The presummed “natural” emissions are illustrated by the white arrows pointing upward, and the total is 210 gigatonne of carbon in the year. The natural carbon in circulation is very much larger than the man-made carbon.  Then 210 gigatonnes  returns to the oceans and plants. However, not all the manmade carbon stays in the atmosphere it is estimated, some returns, 3 gigatonne, to feed new plants and some, 2 gigatonne going in to the oceans. Now the theorized trouble maker remaining in the atmosphere is 4 gigatonnes.  (** Converting the carbon to carbon dioxide is to multiply by 3.3.  The chart was made several years ago. The concept is still good.)

Some may not recognize how much 425 parts per million(ppm) are.  425ppm converted to percent, is 0.0425%. 

The Earth’s atmosphere is nominally—Nitrogen= 78 %, Oxygen =21%,  Argon=1%  and  CO2= 0.0425%.  Not much of that CO2, huh.

Summary

As every year  goes by the alarmists should realize the harm they are doing to science and their profession.  I think the media should recognize the low standing  they have but  perhaps they may be to juvinile to do that.  

The science is not settled.  Their many failed predictions have demonstrates that their “science” is not proven.  Their “science” is made of fear mongering.  Every weather event that they claim to be evidence is not supported by the IPCC and demonstrated data. Be it hurricanes or Arctic Sea ice.  The predicted  global temperatures produced by  a group of computers way over shoots the actual measured temperature.  And they refuse to make corrections..    The World Climate Declaration statement is on the mark. I repeat it:

“OUR ADVICE TO THE WORLD LEADERS IS THAT SCIENCE SHOULD STRIVE FOR A SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE CLIMATE SYSTEM, WHILE POLITICS SHOULD FOCUS ON MINIMIZING POTENTIAL CLIMATE DAMAGE BY PRIORITIZING ADAPTATION STRATEGIES BASED ON PROVEN AND AFFORDABLE TECHNOLOGIES.”

Part 3 will begin examination of electricity and wind and solar power generation.

cbdakota

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Posted in Climate Alarmism, Climate Models, CO2, End of the Earth, Hurricanes, IPCC, skeptic science knowledge

 WE MUST REVERSE ENERGY TRANSITION, NOT JUST STOP IT.

Posted on September 10, 2024 | Comments Off on  WE MUST REVERSE ENERGY TRANSITION, NOT JUST STOP IT.

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Posted in China, Climate Alarmism, CO2, Domestic Energy, Electrical grid, Electricity, Electricity from Coal, EPA, fossil fuels, Global Temperatures, Grid, IPCC, Renewable Energy, Renewable Fuel Standard, Storms/hurricanes

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Stop Energy Transitioning and Direct The Effort To Erase Enemy Attacks

Posted on May 27, 2024 | Leave a comment

 The Grids must be a functioning machines to support the lives, economy and freedom of the people of the United States.   The Grids distribute electrical energy to sub stations that lower the voltage for distribution to families, businesses, industry, hospitals, etc.  If the functionality of the grids, and substations is destroyed, the loss of electricity would make anything you can think of as bad, to be child’s play compared to loss of the Grid.  Our nation runs on electricity.  And if it is no longer available, food would run out in the stores because the trucking of food to the stores, would soon be impossible as gasoline and diesel fuel of run out.  You would lose the water supply to your home. The heating source would disappear. No jobs, no telephones and as soon as your batteries are discharged, no more functioning cell phones.                    

Practical Engineering described it thus:

“Electricity is not just a luxury. It is a necessity of modern life. Even ignoring our own direct use of it, almost everything we depend on in our daily lives, and indeed the orderly conduct of a civil society, is undergirded by a functioning electrical grid.

Energy Transition says:” After two weeks without power, civilization collapses.

If you have food, you may be visited by a lot of people.  Some may be determined to take all of your food.

  Off The Grid News reports:

“Direct terrorist attacks against the power grid.

It wouldn’t take anything as sophisticated as cyber-warfare or an EMP to take down the grid. In 2014, an attack was conducted on a power substation in San Jose, California. However, while the perpetrators were never caught, many think this was a practice run for a direct terrorist attack.

In fact, taking out as few as nine critical substations in the country could destroy the entire grid, according to a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) report. While the locations of those particular substations are a tightly held secret, our enemies certainly are trying to learn where they are.”

CNN reports that:

“China’s hackers are positioning on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and cause real-world harm to American citizens and communities, if or when China decides the time has come to strike,” Wray told the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

The Chinese hackers are working “to find and prepare to destroy or degrade the civilian critical infrastructure that keeps us safe and prosperous,” Wray said. “And let’s be clear: Cyber threats to our critical infrastructure represent real world threats to our physical safety.”

From CNN:
“Cyberattacks are hitting water and wastewater systems “throughout the United States” and state governments and water facilities must improve their defenses against the threat, the White House and Environmental Protection Agency warned US governors on Tuesday.”

“In November, hackers breached industrial equipment at multiple US water facilities to display an anti-Israel message on the equipment, according to US officials. The Biden administration blamed the Iranian government for the hacks.

Chinese state-backed hackers have also infiltrated US water facilities, according to US officials. It’s a hacking campaign that the Biden administration worries Beijing could use to disrupt critical infrastructure in the event of a conflict with the US. China denies the allegations.

So what do you think of this.   From Fox News:   “The FBI and Department of Defense have reportedly tracked more than 100 incidents of Chinese nationals posing as tourists to attempt to breach U.S. military bases and other federal sites. 

Those responsible, dubbed “gate crashers,” range from Chinese nationals detected crossing into a U.S. missile range in New Mexico, to scuba divers caught swimming in murky waters near a U.S. government rocket launch site in Florida, several U.S. officials recently told The Wall Street Journal. The growing trend represents a potential espionage threat, as authorities believe the Chinese government in some cases is compelling nationals into service in order to test out and report back about security practices at the installations.” 

It does not appear that any jailing or any outrage are coming from the current breaching.  If an American violated the military bases in China, Russia, North Korea, etc. my bet is that that person would be in jail and facing chargers of spying.  The US authorities are as lax as the judicial organizations in Los Angeles is for petty theft.

Perhaps there are many more cases of espionage that we do not know about.  Considering the influx of Chinese I suspect there are more.

New York Post tells us: “Chinese migration to the US continues at a record pace, with 30,000 arrested for illegally crossing the border nationwide since October.

That number surpasses the 24,000 Chinese migrants encountered during the whole of fiscal year 2023, according to Border Patrol data leaked to The Post.

There has been an explosion in immigration from China during the Biden administration.

In the whole of fiscal year 2021 — which runs from October 1 to September 30 — just 342 Chinese migrants were encountered at the border.”

It has been suggested that many Islamic soldier types have been moving into the US.  They may be at strength. 

May be the Second Amendments US militias will have to form up and defend us from the invaders.  The National Guard may need help.

It just doesn’t end with foot soldiers. 

Fox News reports:

“China reportedly secured a secret billion-dollar deal with Cuba to build a listening station targeting the U.S. on the island nation less than 100 miles off the American mainland. 

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that China and Cuba have reached a secret agreement for China to establish an electronic eavesdropping facility on the island, allowing Chinese intelligence services to “scoop up electronic communications throughout the southeastern U.S., where many military bases are located, and monitor U.S. ship traffic.” 

Your life and your families lives are hanging in the balance.   These people are our enemies.  The US Energy transition is a developing  train wreck.  

Stop energy transition and work on the real threats that are becoming so obvious.   Enemy armies and the hackers of our infrastructure.  Use the money that we are wasting for energy transitioning and redirect it into erasing the enemy’s attack on our nation.     

cbdakota

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Posted in Chinese aggression, Electrical grid, Electricity, Grid

Natural Causes For Weather Changes

Posted on May 24, 2024 | Leave a comment

I post “Essay # 1 – Solar & Planetary Tidal Pumping – The Real Cause for Changes in Weather (Original Issue Dec. 18, 2023, Revised May 23, 2024 – Richard Cronin)” because I believe he has made interesting concepts regarding natural forces and weather.

An invisible force permeates the Universe. You don’t even think about it. Gravity and the ever-changing distances between major celestial bodies and Earth, causing Tidal Pumping which drives tectonics, volcanism, and changes to weather and climate.

It is very well known that Jupiter’s massive gravity field heats the moons Io, Ganymede, and Europa to drive extensive volcanism as they proceed through their elliptical orbits. Io is the most volcanic celestial body in the solar system. In fact, per recent NASA observations, these moons pump one another. This phenomenon is called Tidal Pumping or Tidal Heating. The Earth is affected in just such a manner by all major celestial bodies from the Sun out to Jupiter (Kent & Olsen, 2018).

Observe the animation of our Solar System with the gravity fields of the Sun and major planets flinging the Earth around in a helical or corkscrewing action. Neither Newton, Kepler, nor Einstein had any awareness of this motion and how it imposes stresses on the Earth’s crust, opening up Earth’s tectonic plates to spill immeasurable seismic heat into the South Pacific. This is the source of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO).  See video, Key word search: Helical Solar System.

).  See video, Key word search: Helical Solar System.

Gravitational effects within the Solar System drive Tidal Pumping for the short term El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Orbiting the Milky Way and passing close to other massive stellar systems drives much greater Tidal Pumping effects and Ice Ages.

Completely unappreciated in the energy balance of the Earth and gravitational force are at least five (5) phenomena. Perhaps just as important is that these effects are not uniformly distributed. There are about 40 to 50 “hot spots” globally. Hawaii, Iceland, Samoa, Yellowstone, Campi Flegrei (Naples), the Gulf of Guinea off Africa, and the Gulf of Maine. Due to the El Niño initiated in 2023 the Gulf Stream and the Gulf of Maine were quite warm and had the adherents of Anthropogenic Climate Change alarmed. In past epochs the Gulf of Maine was quite volcanic, like Yellowstone. In fact, Hawaii and Iceland “co-pulsate”. (Mjelde, Faleide 2009)

The variances in gravitational forces from the Sun and even out to Jupiter exert Tidal Pumping forces on Earth’s crust, which is quite thin and fragile, thus spilling seismic heat into the South Pacific and drive the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Jupiter and Venus exaggerate the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit on a 405,000 year cycle (Kent, Olsen, et al 2018 Rutgers). Think of squeezing and re-squeezing a hard rubber ball and it heats up. This is what stirs seismic activity. The interior of the planet is not rigid and  unyielding. It is ductile and elastic with large reservoirs molten silicates and carbonates in the Upper Mantle as well as the molten Iron/Nickel Outer Core. The molten carbonates decompose by sulfur-based acids percolating up from the Lower Mantle. From penetrating radar observations it has been identified that lying 350 km below Yellowstone is a reservoir of molten carbonates measuring 25 km to 70 km thick and covers the area of Mexico. Researchers from the University of London estimate that if just 1 % of this reservoir were to decompose, it would be equivalent to burning 2.3 million barrels of oil.  The EPA now estimates that the Upper Mantle contains 100 trillion million metric tons of carbon in the Upper Mantle locked in carbonate minerals, which is decomposing under acidic attack. Moreover, it is now known that the core of the planet is not solid. It is the consistency of mushy butter, comprised of “superionic Iron” in constant motion. This is the real source of the Earth’s magnetic field (Butler & Tsuboi, 2021 / Sun & Kim, 2022 / He & Lin, 2023)

As the Solar System orbits the Milky Way, the Earth is flung about between the Sun and Jupiter the tail of a kite. The Earth is like a strip of cloth tied onto the tail. Tremendous stresses on Earth’s crust. Neither Newton, Kepler, nor Einstein were aware of this phenomenon.

The Sun’s gravity field pumps the Earth as we proceed through the Northern Hemisphere’s Winter Solstice (the Southern Hemisphere swings closest to the Sun) and, two weeks later, the Perihelion (the Earth’s closest approach to the Sun). These combined events rip and tear open the Trenches of the Ring of Fire to inject quantities immeasurable quantities of seismic heat into the waters of the South Pacific to drive the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The key stress points are the two terminal points of the Ring of Fire, the Tonga Trench. In addition to the Tonga Trench, the New Hebrides Trench and New Britain Trench drive the La Niña and the Peru/Chile trench drives the El Niño.


The line of latitude of the deepest point of the Tonga Trench, the Horizon Deep, lies at 23.3 degrees South latitude. The deepest point of the Peru/Chile Trench, the Richards Deep, lies at approx. 23.2 degrees South latitude. Earth’s current Obliquity, the angle of inclination is about 23.4 degrees. The Osbourne Trough associated with the Tonga Trench lies at 25.5 degrees South latitude This is nominally the line of maximum, maximum Tidal Pumping stresses across the South Pacific.

From 1989 to 2018, the pattern of Richter 5+ earthquakes has migrated from the New Hebrides Trench towards the Tonga Trench and from the Central American Trench towards the Peru-Chile Trench. (Chen & Tang, 2022).

Focus on Mid-Oceanic Ridge (MOR) systems is inappropriate. Seismic heat injection from plate fractures and hydrothermal vents along ridge systems or on the abyssal plain is readily diluted and the heat is dissipated. Arising from the trenches the column of warm waters remains relatively intact and is carried east to west as it approaches the surface. There is a subsurface plume effect. This is observed in the elevated sea surface temperatures, with the Torres Strait and Bismarck Sea show the greatest warming. See records of maximum sea surface temperatures in these regions, Sept. 2022.

As opposed to Mid-Oceanic Ridge systems, Trench systems cutting through continental shelves are particularly noteworthy. The continental shelves were the beaches formed during the Ice Ages. They are nearly a uniform 140 meters below current sea level, relatively shallow. The Peru-Chile Trench cuts through the continental shelf of South America at depth of 145 meters below current sea level.

The onset of the El Niño is signaled by a cold water upwelling along the coast of Peru and Chile. This is due the melting of methane clathrates beneath the ocean floor from the opening of the Peru/Chile Trench (J. Kamis – “Plate Climatology”). Frozen methane clathrates exist between 100 to 1000 meters below the ocean floor. This cold upwelling brings up deep water fish from the Humboldt Current. Due to the east-to-west plume effect, the surface waters of the central Pacific warm first, then spread eastward as the clathrate melting diminishes.

In 2021/2022, the Winter Solstice was DE. 21,2021. The Perihelion was Jan.4 2022.













On Jan. 15, 2022 the Tidal Pumping stresses which had accumulated over a rather lengthy La Niña ripped loose in the Tonga Trench in the southwest Pacific. The largest submarine volcano ever observed spewed an estimated 50 to 150 million tons of water vapor into the atmosphere. The Pacific continued to warm throughout 2022, aided by Jupiter’s closest approach to the Earth in 59 years which occurred on Sept. 26, 2022.  A giant hand turned up the steam vaporizer to the maximum setting so 2023 was deemed to be the “Hottest Year on Record”.

With the stresses relieved in the southwest Pacific, the Tidal Pumping stresses shifted to the Eastern Pacific, opening up the Peru/Chile Trench and other seismically active regions off South America to drive the 2023 El Niño. Typical of an El Niño there were no hurricane landfalls on the U.S. East Coast in 2023 tropical storms were steered out into the North Atlantic, although Tropical Storm Ophelia flooded New York City in Sept. 2023. That moisture still affects us as we proceeded into early 2024, with ample rain and mudslides in California, record snows at ski resorts around the world during the winter of 2023/2024and a cool rainy spring in Delaware.

It is bewildering how Svente Arrhenius (1896), Gilbert Plass (1956), and continuing through today’s pseudo-scientists have ignored or misunderstood water in their analyses, especially phase change and the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  Doesn’t anybody understand the cooling effects of the water cycle ? Arrhenius held the global absolute humidity at a fixed 10 grams per cubic meter. Plass entirely ignored the radiative effects Long Wave Infrared Radiation (LWIR) from cloud tops due to phase change. Condensation to rain and freezing to snow. The Earth’s surface temperature is controlled by low clouds (Kauppinen & Malmi, 2019). The Earth is the Water Planet. If you heat up on the planet’s surface, for whatever reason, you evaporate more water to provide more cooling via the water cycle. Such is the case of the 50 to 150 million tons of water vapor spewed out of the largest submarine volcano ever observed in the Tonga Trench on January 15, 2022. The steam reached the stratosphere. These waters continued to warm through 2022, aided by Jupiter’s closest approach to Earth in 59 years on Sept, 26, 2022  followed by precipitation and cooling in the winter of 2023/2024

An entirely separate discussion is necessary regarding the heat producing (exothermic) geochemical reactions inside the planet which are entirely ignored in the current heat balance of the Earth. Logically, Tidal Pumping should impart mixing for multiple exothermic geochemical reactions, such as decomposition of carbonates, serpenization to generate Hydrogen, plus Fischer-Tropsh and Sabatier reactions to generate hydrocarbons. There are really only two (2) “fossil fuels” – lignite coal produced from peat bogs and wetlands plus Kerogens produced by algae and phytoplankton wedged into shales. Indeed, the internal heat of the Earth resolves the Faint Young Sun Paradox, wherein photosynthetic life emerged approx. 3.5 billion years ago when the Earth should have been frozen solid, with no liquid water on the surface. At that time, the Sun was only 70 % of its current luminosity.


Further reading: “The Chthonian Planet – Why Life Exists on Earth (Human Activity in No Way Affects the Weather nor Climate – Issue Date March 17, 2023)”
Key word search: Chthonian Planet Cronin SSRN

Richard F. Cronin, BChE, MBA, P.E. (retired), 30 years E.I. DuPont de Nemours

cbdakota

 



 



 





 



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Posted in CO2, Earth Orbit, Solar and Planetary Tidal pumping, Tectonic activity, Uncategorized, volcanoes, Water vapor

The Grids Reliability Is Endangered By EPA “Climate Change” Regulations And State Ordinances.   

Posted on February 28, 2024 | 1 comment

There are a number of grids servicing the US. The  Pennsylvania, New Jersey Maryland grid (PJM) is well managed.  It is the largest grid in the US. It services 13 States and the District of Columbia.  It is the grid that provides my electricity and it has managed to avoid brownouts and blackouts.  The reason is that the ratio of fossil fuel (thermal) energy generation to wind and solar generation is 20 to 1.  If Nuclear is included the ratio is 26 to1. 

The chart shows the PJM Existing Installed Capacity.

The issue PJM is facing is how to make their way through the EPA and States forcing an energy transition. The following explains their fear of losing enough spare capacity to continue to make their Grid reliable:

“Maintaining an adequate level of generation resources, with the right operational and physical characteristics , is essential for PJM’s ability to serve electrical demand through the energy transition. Our research highlights four trends below that we believe, in combination, present increasing reliability risks during the transition, due to a potential timing mismatch between resource retirements, load growth and the pace of new generation entry under a possible “low new entry” scenario: · The growth rate of electricity demand is likely to continue to increase from electrification coupled with the proliferation of high-demand data centers in the region. · Thermal generators are retiring at a rapid pace due to government and private sector policies as well as economics. · Retirements are at risk of outpacing the construction of new resources, due to a combination of industry forces, including siting and supply chain, whose long-term impacts are not fully known. · PJM’s interconnection queue is composed primarily of intermittent and limited-duration resources. Given the operating characteristics of these resources, we need multiple megawatts of these resources to replace 1 MW of thermal generation.”  (My highlighting added).

According to PJM this is what it will look like if the State and Feds current plans are not adjusted.

Completely unworkable. Solar, the major electrical source, only available in the day. 

The “Storage” at 55,037 watts, is at present, nonexistent.  Even if it were charged by excess solar wattage, it, along with the other electrical generators, would not be enough to satisfy peak demands.      

PJM management wants everyone to note that the States, not PJM, have the responsibility to maintain resource adequacy on their electric systems.

The EPA has several regulations that will cause a loss of significant reliable capacity of coal based and Natural gas (Thermal Plants) plants. The following are from the PJM’s study:

EPA REGULATIONS

Effluent Limitation Guidelines: will force closing 3,400 MW thermal based capacity.

Coal Combusting Residuals: Will force closing 2,700 MW thermal-based capacity.

Good Neighbor Rule:   Will force closing 4,400 MW thermal-based capacity.

STATE ORDINACES

Forcing retirement of the following thermal based capacity.

Illinois:  5,800 MW thermal-based capacity.

New Jersey:  3,100 MW thermal-base capacity.

Virginia-North Carolina: 1,533 MW of thermal-based capacity.

Indiana: 1,318 MW of thermal-based capacity.

Maryland: 305 MW thermal-based capacity.

PJM has avoided system blackouts  because they maintain a 22% reserve but the 2030 projected reserve based upon their study will only be 3% . 

There two organizations that are commissioned to make the Grids reliable.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, is an independent agency that regulates the interstate transmission of electricity, natural gas, and oil. 

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) is a nonprofit corporation that ensures the reliability of the bulk power system in North America, including the continental United States and Canada.

FERC and NERC have launched a joint review of the performance of the bulk power system during recent winter storms that brought Arctic air across much of North America. The review will look at winter preparation activities and gather information to help guide future winter storm preparations and operations.  .The review will look at progress made since FERC and NERC completed joint inquiries into two recent winter storms, Uri in 2021 and Elliott in 2022.  The team plans to deliver the results of the review no later than June 2024.

FERC, in my readings, appears to know that renewables are not reliable.

It is obvious that the transition from thermal based electricity to renewable based electricity is not under control. The PJM grid may be the most reliable large grid in the nation. And if corrections are not made, it’s reserve will be only 3% in six years, and that will spell blackouts

cbdakota

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Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, Batteries, Coal, Electrical grid, Electricity from Coal, EPA, fossil fuels

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Reliable Electric Energy Is Being Threatened By EPA And The States.

Posted on February 26, 2024 | 1 comment

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Posted in Alternative Energy, Batteries, CAFE Standards, Climate Alarmism, CO2, Electric Vehicles, Electrical grid

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Hertz Dumping 20,000 EVs.

Posted on January 12, 2024 | Leave a comment

Hertz is dumping 20, 000 EVs because customers prefer gasoline powered cars and the cost of repairs is higher than gasoline autos (ICE).

They are going to buy ICE vehicles to replace them. 

A Bloomberg posting titled  “Hertz to Sell 20,000 EVs in Shift Back to Gas-Powered Cars” relates:

“The sales of 20,000 EVs began last month and will continue over the course of 2024, the rental giant said Thursday in a regulatory filing. Hertz will record a non-cash charge in its fourth-quarter results of about $245 million related to incremental net depreciation expense.

The dramatic about-face, after Hertz announced plans in 2021 to buy 100,000 Tesla Inc. vehicles, underscores the waning demand for all-electric cars in the US. EV sales growth slowed sharply over the course of 2023, rising just 1.3% in the final quarter as consumers were put off by high costs and interest rates.”

Just more evidence that the general population do not want the EV. 

cbdakota

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Posted in AGW, Electric Vehicles, US Auto Manufacturers

Will EV Insurance Go Up Because of Fires?—It’s the Battery Stupid, Part4

Posted on December 14, 2023 | Leave a comment

We are told that EVs do not experience as many fires as do Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) vehicles and that may be true.  But there is no question about EV fires being much more hazardous.  Besides being more hazardous, these fires can be unexpected. For example, EV battery fires in garages have occurred without the owner having any idea it was going to happen.

It is well known that EV batteries that have been exposed to salt water are very likely to ignite.  EVs involved in a collision are dangerous too if the battery housing is damaged.  

Salt water is conductive where common water is not.  The salt water can cause a short in a lithium-ion cell thus resulting in an electricity discharge that heats up the cell.  A thermal runaway reaction can then occur heating up other cells and cause them to burn.  It is possible for this to cause the entire set of batteries cells to begin their own thermal runaway reaction.  

CRS AUTOMOTIVE blog “HOW PRONE ARE ELECTRIC CARS TO CATCHING FIRE” adds this:

“How else is a lithium-ion battery fire different from a gasoline fire? The biggest difference is the time it takes to ignite. Gasoline fires start almost immediately when gasoline comes in contact with a spark or flame and spreads rapidly. Battery fires typically take some time to achieve the heat necessary to start the fire.

In some instances, that delay is very good news. It can let the occupants of a car involved in a crash get out of the vehicle before the fire starts. But it can pose its own problems. Sometimes a battery can be damaged, perhaps by the car running over some debris, and the driver might not be aware of the damage. And then a fire can start well after the initial incident. That could theoretically cause a fire after the car is parked in a garage. With an electric car fire, you need water. That might sound obvious, but in many cases, modern fire departments use foam or dry chemicals that are better than old-fashioned H20 at suppressing fires. While dry chemicals are great at putting down ordinary electrical fires, they may be ineffective with a fire stemming from a car’s Lithium-ion battery

Water is the best approach to a Lithium-ion fire. But that doesn’t mean you should imitate a sprinkler and attempt to dose the whole fire by moving back and forth. Rather, you want to keep a direct and focused stream on the battery until it relents – and you’d need anywhere between two to 30 tonnes (8000 gallons) of water to put out this kind of fire. Also, don’t touch the high voltage components or open up the battery. They’re the most likely part of the battery to absorb heat.”

Special training for firemen is required to deal with a potential electrical charge on the autos frame.

The visual evidence appears to show that an EV fire generally destroys the entire car. Some of the ICE fires do too, but destruction of the entire car is not a given.  Most of the ICE fires occur in older cars that have not had a good maintenance history.  If you had a 2015 Toyota engine fire and had to replace the entire motor, it would cost between $4,000 and $5,500. This includes the cost of parts and labor according to the CAR COSTING blog. Not cheap but certainly less than what a totaled EV would cost.

Some insurers in the UK have already begun to raise the rates of EVs.

cbdakota

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Posted in Batteries, US Auto Manufacturers

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