Category Archives: Electrical grid

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

Posted on February 26, 2024 | 1 comment

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Its The EV Battery, Stupid!

Posted on November 30, 2023 | Leave a comment

The title is paraphrasing the Ragin Cajun, political adviser to the Clintons, James Carville. Carville said when asked about the biggest issue in an upcoming election, “it’s the economy, stupid” I contend that the biggest issue for the electric vehicle (EV) is the battery.

The battery represents the proposed transition from gasoline and diesel fuel to electricity.  The transition will not be easy, if at all.  Usually, major transitions have occurred because some new thing is better than the existing thing.  That is not happening here.  The EV is more costly, is less flexible, not as capable and is planned to be charged from an electrical grid that is sourced from wind turbines and solar cells.  The latter, the so-called renewable energy, has not demonstrated that it is capable of keeping the grids supplying a reliable supply of electricity 24/7. Nowhere. Nada. see here But politicians keep throwing money at these schemes.  You must wonder why they would do that.  Well maybe not.

The EV sales are not displacing gasoline and diesel vehicles because they are better.  No.  It is replacing those fuel driven vehicles by Government fiat.  Governments are giving EVs huge subsidies, and enacting regulatory systems making gasoline and diesel vehicles attain goals that are not reachable nor necessary.  Six states have legislated that no gasoline or diesel-powered vehicle can be manufactured or sold after 2030 to 2035. And the Feds are considering that too.

The WSJ blog posted Car Dealers to Biden: EV’s Are Not Selling reporting that 3900 US car dealerships wrote a letter to President Biden saying his EV sales mandate is not working. They told him that:

“Dealers have a 103-day supply of EVs compared to 56 days for all cars. It takes them on average 65 days to sell an EV, about twice as long as for gas-powered cars. EV sales are slowing though manufacturers have slashed prices and increased discounts.

But most consumers aren’t “ready to make the change,” in part because EVs are still too expensive. Many apartment renters also don’t have garages for home charging, and public charging networks are spotty with one in four not functional, according to one study.

“Customers are also concerned about the loss of driving range in cold or hot weather,” the auto dealers say. “Some have long daily commutes and don’t have the extra time to charge the battery.

The dealers want the Administration to “tap the brakes” on its proposed tailpipe emissions rules that would effectively mandate that EVs comprise two-thirds of car sales by 2032

The dealers’ letter is an important political signal that progressive climate coercion isn’t as popular as Democrats think. Americans don’t like to be told what to do or what they must buy. As the dealers put it, “many people just want to make their own choice about what vehicle is right for them.” Imagine that.



The liabilities that are built in the EV battery are, to name a few:

  • The Range—how many miles can a charged battery propel a vehicle?
  • How long does it take to charge the battery?
  • What is the life of the battery?
  • How much is the cost of a replacement battery?
  • How safe are these batteries?
  • Will insurance rates be hiked up?
  • If most the materials needed to make a battery are suppled from
    China, is that worrisome?
  • Battery recycling?
  • Major electrical  revisions to supply @ home charging?
  • New fees replacing gasoline tax such as miles driven tax or a tax for charger use.
  • Government overreach?

The future postings will address these liabilities.

cbdakota

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Posted in AGW, Batteries, Electric Vehicles, Electrical grid, Government Regulations, government subsidies, Personal Automobiles, President Biden, Uncategorized, US Auto Manufacturers

Most of future Electrical Productiion will not be from Wind and Solar, So EVs will be powered by fossil fuels

Posted on September 15, 2023 | Leave a comment

 Economically developed Nations around the world are pushing the idea that the global temperature is rising unabated to a point where it will become an existential threat to mankind. The problem, they say, is carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the use of fossil fuels.  They think that CO2 emissions created by the use of gasoline, and diesel, along with natural gas and coal must be discontinued.  I think that these Nations are planning to subjugate you under the guise of saying they are just following “science”.

A part of their plan is to accomplish this by using electricity produced from renewable energy sources—Wind Turbines and Solar Cells— and make people buy electric vehicles (EV). This plan will not work.  But it will spend trillions of dollars before it is revealed as a failure.  Their plan will not be accomplished because wind and solar are not dispatchable.  Meaning, the Electric grids must provide, unfailingly, power 24/7.  This is accomplished by the use of fossil fuel power that can be ramped up and down to meet requirements. The renewables are not dispatchable because grid operators cannot ramp them up and down.  No wind, no sun, no renewable power. As they are today, EVs will continue to run on electricity made mostly by the combustion of fossil fuels.

Nevertheless, the government will try to force you into buying an electric vehicle (EV).

The EPA announced the new standards require a 49 mpg fleetwide average by 2026, a 33% increase over model year 2021 standards. The EPA said that these tough new tailpipe emission standards are designed to effectively force the auto industry to phase out the sale of gas-powered cars

The target cars are those powered by Internal Combustion Engines—  aka ICE.

And then they are enacting laws that no gasoline or diesel car can be manufactured and sold after some certain date.

California, always the leader in penalizing the people living in that state, has a  new law that it will be illegal to sell  new gasoline-powered cars after 2035.  Nothing from the Biden Administration yet but they are playing with a date to match California.

 Washington Free Beacon carries this story:

“All CARS ARE BAD” Pete Buttigieg’s Equity Advisers Want You To Stop Driiving

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is appointing a group of “leading experts” to advise him on “transportation equity,” including several who argue that cars cause climate change and promote racism and therefore should be phased out. 

And wouldn’t you know it, they make this issue, “racism”

So the Government is going to phase out all ICEs.   Let’s see how that will work.

Hedges and Company say” Need to know how many cars there are on Earth in 2023? Here is how many cars there are in the world, including trucks, broken down by world region?

1). Asia: 543 million vehicles on the road
2). Europe: 413 million vehicles (288 million in EU plus 125 million in non-EU countries)1
3). North America: 358 million vehicles
4). South America: 84 million vehicles
5). Middle East: 50 million vehicles
6). Africa: 26 million vehicles
7). Antarctica: about 50 vehicles

That totals up to about 1.5Billion.

Basically only the North American and EU are making rules to get rid of gasoline and diesel vehicles. North American and EU vehicles are less than half of the world’s vehicles.

My guess is that the developing nations will not ban ICE vehicles as they will not have much available electricity to power EVs.

How effective will that be?

What does the vehicle situation in the US look like? 

Statistica says:  In the first quarter of 2023, there were around 286 million vehicles operating on roads throughout the United States. 

From a Heartland posting we learn the following:

Historically, internal combustion engine (ICE) car sales in America are upwards of 55 million annually with about 15 million or 27 percent being new and 40 million or 73 percent being used car sales.

With a total of 50 to 55 million ICE vehicles being sold annually for new and used, it’s obvious that the auto industry and the economy has been benefiting and prospering in the used ICE car market.

The average life of an American vehicle is 13 years. For example, the California rule that no new ICE vehicle can be sold after 2035, would be mostly ineffective in that for years there will be grandfathered ICE vehicles on the road. Of course, California  might get really draconian and try to make ICEs illegal own and drive.

The next blog will examine the new and used EV market.

cbdakota

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Posted in Alternative Energy, CAFE Standards, Electric Vehicles, Electrical grid, Electricity from Coal, EPA, fossil fuels, Personal Automobiles, President Biden, Renewable Energy

Skeptics Need a Platform to Spread Their Science

Posted on February 17, 2023 | 1 comment

Open Letter to Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy

Your leadership regarding Climate Change is very important.  Your members must weigh in on the nearly a half of trillion dollars of subsidies for the so-called renewable energy projects and directing legislation to stop the urge of the Democrats to rush headlong into unproven schemes to replace fossil fuels.

It looks like you are off to a good start.  Headline on blogs such as this “GOP-Led House Panels Shift Gears, Goes Full Throttle For Domestic Energy Production.”    

Your Email for contributions has a list of your objectives beyond just energy that are things I hope you can obtain though it will be uphill with the Senate and Executive in the hands of the Democrats.  I hope you can find ways to block the Biden Administration’s plans.

This letter is to focus on just one part of the House’s objectives and that is to counter the disinformation that the global warming alarmists have been spewing.  The way things work now are—-Media support the alarmist’s “experts” and they know that there will be no significant effort by skeptics to counter the alarmists. 

Now that you can control the Committee’s agenda, your members should standup to the global warming alarmists.  This will take some courage on everyone’s part because some members are afraid of the media.   Fox’s post titled “Politico Urges readers don’t believe the polls showing sinking levels of trust of media” One of Politico staff protested the results of the Gallup poll.  But the poll says: 

“The recent polling showed only 16% of Americans said they have a “great deal or quite a lot” of confidence in newspapers with only 11% of Americans having confidence in television. It represented a 5% decrease since 2021 and was also the lowest rating given towards newspapers since Gallup’s original poll back in 1973.

And there is no need not be afraid of the title “skeptic”.  Almost without exception skeptics believe that the globe is warming. 

The skeptics need a microphone that is so big it can work around the media. I think the House of Representatives can do this.

The House could have regular sessions of skeptical testimony. The House should rely on the skeptical experts, of which there are many, to counteract the alarmists. Don’t be afraid to allow the alarmists “experts” to testify, too.  The alarmists usually get beaten in debates with the skeptics. In fact they have a reluctance to debate.  Try getting Al Gore to debate any skeptical expert. No way, he always backs out. You will be doing this to help educate all of the Members of the House of Representatives.   Record all the sessions and publish them on YouTube.

Who are these skeptic experts? You can find them on The Clintel website that has posted “There is No Climate Emergency.”   

The site names 1010 experts listed by country. (The site needs to update the list as it has now grown to 1499 experts.)    

The Skeptical Daily post a summary regarding the skeptics on the lists and some notable quotes. They call the list of the skeptic experts a Declaration.

“The scale of the opposition to modern day ‘settled’ climate science is remarkable, given how difficult it is in academia to raise grants for any climate research that departs from the political orthodoxy.  A lead author of the declaration, Professor Richard Lindzen, has called the current climate narrative “absurd”, but acknowledged that trillions of dollars and the relentless propaganda from grant-dependent academics and agenda-driven journalists currently says it is not absurd.

The Declaration is an event of enormous importance, although it will be ignored by the mainstream media. But it is not the first time distinguished scientists have petitioned for more realism in climate science. In Italy, the discoverer of nuclear anti-matter Emeritus Professor Antonino Zichichi recently led 48 local science professors in stating that human responsibility for climate change is “unjustifiably exaggerated and catastrophic predictions are not realistic”. In their scientific view, “natural variation explains a substantial part of global warming observed since 1850”. Professor Zichichi has signed the WCD.

The Declaration notes that the Earth’s climate has varied for as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm periods. “It is no surprise that we are experiencing a period of warming,” it continues. Climate models have many shortcomings, it says, “and are not remotely plausible as global policy tools”. They blow up the effect of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, but ignore any beneficial effects. “CO2 is not a pollutant,” it says. “It is essential to all life on Earth. Photosynthesis is a blessing. More CO2 is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth; additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also good for agriculture, increasing the yield of crops worldwide.”

Last year, Steven Koonin, an Under-Secretary of Science in the Obama Administration, published a book titled Unsettled in which he noted that, “The science is insufficient to make useful projections about how the climate will change over the coming decades, much less what our actions will be.” He also noted that rigidly promulgating the idea that climate change is settled demeans and chills the scientific enterprise, “retarding its progress in these important matters”. In 2020, the long-time green activist Michael Shellenberger wrote a book called Apocalypse Never in which he said he believed the conversation about climate change and the environment had in the last few years “spiraled out of control”. Much of what people are told about the environment, including the climate, is wrong, he wrote.

These experts get printed in skeptic websites, but we need to widen the audience.

First and foremost the media, the alarmists and some educators have convinced the young that they may die soon.  This poisoning of our childrens minds must be stopped.

From a November 27, 2022 posting by EuroNews.Green “More than two thirds of children between the ages of seven and twelve are worried about climate change, a new survey reveals.

“The climate crisis can be overwhelming. (Click on that climate link.  See what the kids are being taught.)

Statistics often paint a dire picture of the earth’s trajectory. The UN has warned that existing climate pledges provide ‘no credible pathway’ to preventing temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Deadly floods and fires are on the rise, while global wildlife populations have shrunk 70 per cent since 1970.

Presented with these facts, it’s easy to sink into eco-anxiety. Previous studies have proven that this distress is heightened in children and the new survey confirms this.”

Secondly, the public should know that the basis of the catastrophic climate change is the computer forecasted global temperatures. It goes, things get very hot, glaciers melt, sea level rises, cities are deluged with sea water, crops cannot survive, creatures cannot adapt to temperatures and huge extinctions occur, etc.

The following chart shows that the forecast temperatures by the alarmist are higher than the actual temperature readings and that the forecast temperatures become more ridiculous as time goes by.  These temperatures are the ones They use to forecast catastrophe.

All the squiggly lines are individual computer forecasts. The Red line is the average global warming temperatures predicted by the computers.  The lower Green straight line is the mean of the actual measured temperature for this same period.  Note that as the years go by, the computer forecast gets further away from the actual measured temperature. The actual temperatures noted in the chart are based upon weather balloons and satellite measurements.  The actual temperatures are rising but not at the rate that will cause a catastrophic outcome.  The computer produced temperature forecasts are used to brain wash our children.

Thirdly, faulty pillars of despair that climate change alarmist preach are debunked in the WattsUpWithThat January 19, 2023 posting titled A Critical Examination of the Six Pillars of Climate Change Despair:  From this posting:

“In 2023 it’s hard to avoid seeing images and headlines like these. The result for many is a deep seated fear[5], anxiety[6] [7], and pessimism[8] [9] about the future. The topic of Climate Change (CC) has seeped into nearly every facet of our lives, and never in a positive way. It’s always present as a dark cloud hanging over society; a source of guilt for those who indulge in some of life’s most basic pleasures, the basis of moralistic judgments by those who like to signal their concern, and the cause of nihilism[10] [11] and hopelessness[12] felt by many in the youngest generations.

    Why does CC have such deeply negative connotations and harmful effects on people’s mental well being? Because we are constantly reminded of the six dark and destructive consequences of CC:

      1) heat will cause millions to die or live in misery

      2) tens of millions (some say billions) will be forced to migrate

      3) a million or more species will become extinct in just a few decades

      4) sea level rise will have disastrous world-wide consequences

      5) agricultural production will be devastated, causing widespread famine

      6) humanity will suffer floods, droughts, and other terrible natural disasters

    These are the six pillars of climate change despair that activists and the media obsess over. The activists do it because they think they are saving the planet; the media do it because bad news gets more clicks than good news. Plus, they both do it to appear virtuous. They both keep ramping up the rhetoric so that with each passing year the predictions about each of these consequences become even more frightening and apocalyptic. There are some lesser concerns (eg. Arctic and glacier melting), but these six are the catastrophic ones.

    No wonder so many people are depressed and pessimistic about the future. It shouldn’t be surprising there’s an epidemic of “climate change anxiety”.

    But is it in any way justified?  What is the truth (if any) behind these catastrophic predictions? That’s what I want to examine here. The fact is, every one of these pillars is made of sand, and crumbles apart when subjected to the slightest critical scrutiny.

The author, Doug R Rogers, puts together a comprehensive essay.  Please read it to it end by clicking here.

The Fourth issue is the headlong race to decarbonize the world.  Renewables (mostly wind and solar) are believed to be the future energy sources, leaving fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) to be only available chemical feed stocks, for example. Combined with electric vehicles (EV) the globe will be free of carbon dioxide gas vented into the atmosphere they say.

The benefits accrued by fossil fuels are discounted in this rush to decarbonization. The benefits from vented CO2 are enormous.  The greening of the globe has been the result of the vented CO2.  Crops, such as wheat, oats, rice, potatoes, cane, etc. have skyrocketed in quantity feeding billions of new people. 


Renewables are not reliable.  What we know is that wind and solar are dependent on the weather.  No wind, no sun, no renewable produced electrical energy.  No where has a major grid sourced by solely wind and solar been demonstrated.  No plans have been made to prove a grid can actually run solely on wind and solar.  Grids have to be supplied  24/7 with NO interruptions. Yet we find that the politicians, urged on by the media, are willing to build more wind and solar capacity and prematurely shut down fossil fuels before they can prove that renewables can provide 24/7 with no interruptions.

The enormous upset that has occurred in western Europe would not have been so serious if renewable could have done the job.  For example, Germany has renewables with name plate capacity greater than the nation’s electrical needs.  But at times in September ‘22 the wind did not blow, and the sun shined only intermittently.  So no matter what their nameplate capacity was, wind and solar were producing little to no electricity. That happened and they stumbled through, saved by natural gas and coal based production of electricity.  

Obviously, there are many more issues than the several I have mentioned.  I picked them because the first one, traumatizing our children has to be stopped NOW.  The other three go right to the heart of the problem. The experts could line up excellent debates or testimonies at House Committee requests.

Expert testimony by skeptics has been ignored by the media.  So how can we get around that? 

Freelancers Wanted: Help Knock Out the Mainstream Propaganda Machine   authored by Matt Taibbi is a plan to create a team to produce a document that knocks out the mainstream Propaganda machine.   Perhaps supporters that could fund similar skeptical teams.  There must be NGOs that are skeptical in their view.  Find them, give them help with finance, programs and topics

Another interesting team is the Center of the American Experiment. The Center of the American Experiment is a Minnesota-based think tank that advocates for conservative and free-market principles.[5] One of their tasks has been to target the objectional courses that public schools in Minnesota are putting into their schooling.  The Center of the American Experiment has people and programs to show what is going on and how to change it. The group will speak to PTAs school boards or other interested groups. This group has been successfully getting schools to drop radical racial material.  This could be a model for another skeptical group to copy.

.   

Work with the local TV stations.  They are often in need of topics to produce for their locality.  Hire people that know how to do communications.  Make sure that Federal Departments that award research money gives skeptics fair treatment. If they don’t, you can have your way with their funding.

I hope that some of the ideas are useful to you.

Good luck

cbdakota  

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Posted in Al Gore, Climate Alarmism, Climate Models, CO2, Electric Vehicles, Electrical grid, Global Temperatures, Renewable Energy

Renewable Project Rejections by Local Communities are on the Rise

Posted on January 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

RealClear Energy posted an entry by Robert Bryce titled “Solar Energy Rejections in 2022 that refutes mainstream media’s assertion that the rejections are due to energy companies “misinformation. The following comes from Bryce’s entry:

“You won’t read about this in The New York Times or The New Yorker, but 2022 was a record year for the number of solar energy projects that were rejected by rural communities in the United States. 

As I show in the Renewable Rejection Database, nearly 80 rural governments either banned or restricted solar energy projects last year

In all, more than 40 Ohio townships adopted measures last year that prohibit the construction of large solar or wind projects, or both. Across the U.S., about 106 communities have rejected or restricted solar projects since 2017. The number of wind rejections also jumped last year, with 55 communities enacting ordinances or other measures that prohibit the installation of large wind facilities. Since 2015, about 360 communities across the U.S. have rejected or restricted wind projects. (Note that last year, I published numbers that were slightly higher than that. In my continuing updates to the database, I found some entries that were duplicates and deleted them.) 

To be sure, these facts, and these numbers, don’t fit with the narrative being peddled by legacy media outlets. Last year, National Public Radio ran an article claiming that rural Americans were peddling “misinformation” in their efforts to prevent wind and solar projects from being built in their neighborhoods. Last month, an article published in The New York Times claimed that opposition to wind projects in Michigan included “anti-wind activists with ties to groups backed by Koch Industries.” But the reporter who wrote the article, David Gelles, didn’t provide any proof of any Koch connections. (Gelles did not reply to two emails asking him for substantiation of his claim.) Last month in The New Yorker, climate activist Bill McKibben claimed that “front groups sponsored by the fossil-fuel industry have begun sponsoring efforts to spread misinformation about wind and solar energy.” But like Gelles, McKibben didn’t provide any proof for his claim.

In all of the years I’ve been reporting on these issues, I have seen no evidence of Koch funding or “front groups” sponsored by the hydrocarbon sector. What I have seen is an increasing effort by the wind and solar lobbies and their claqueurs to discredit people who stand in the way of these projects. Perhaps that’s not surprising. Tens of billions of dollars in federal tax credits are at stake. Companies like Apex Clean Energy can’t feed at the federal trough if they don’t build projects.

Land-use conflicts are the binding constraint on the growth of renewables. The fundamental limitation isn’t money, it’s physics. Wind and solar energy have low power density. That means that attempting to use them to displace large quantities of hydrocarbons will require staggering amounts of land. For instance, last year, Jesse Jenkins and several of his colleagues at Princeton University produced a model to predict how much new wind and solar capacity could be built due to the supertanker of cash that Congress earmarked for renewables in the Inflation Reduction Act. In a Q&A published in these pages last year, Jenkins told me that the land required to accommodate the hundreds of megawatts of new wind and solar under the IRA would require a land area about the size of Tennessee. Here’s a newsflash: we don’t have any spare Tennessees lying around. 

Rural Americans are fighting back against wind and solar projects because they want to retain the character of their townships, ranches, farms, and villages. And no amount of spin from The New York Times will change that fact.” 

To read the entire posting click here.

cbdakota

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Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, Electrical grid, Renewable Energy