What used to be yes_VY is now
@MeredithAngwin
. I don’t tweet about Vermont Yankee much nowadays. Mostly, I tweet about other energy issues and about the grid. I realized it was time for a change.
Re-opening Three Mile Island Unit 1 is a very good idea. Although Unit 2 melted in 1979 with no casualties, Unit 1 continued to supply reliable power until 2019. Most people don't know this. TMI 1 was closed for financial reasons, not safety.
Grids used to be designed so that no power plant was more than 10% of peak load. If one plant went off-line suddenly, the grid was still strong, since it had a reserve margin (extra plants available) of 20%.
Solar acts like a megaplant that all goes offline at the same time.
An update this morning on the Northeastern grid. Wind has died down, still cold here (minus 7 where I live) sunny. Lots of oil on the grid (25%), but renewables down to 8%, mostly due to lack of wind.
Germany sells low (extra electricity from wind when there's a glut) and buys high (from the neighbors when the wind is not available). Not a recommended strategy for prosperity. 😉
13/ In her excellent book “Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid,”
@MeredithAngwin
describes how a combination of bad policy, complicated governance, and dense bureaucracy has made the electric grid of New England incredibly vulnerable to collapse.
@kirstygogan
Clearly, climate change is not an “existential threat.” It’s better than using nuclear energy, right?
Since climate change is not a big threat, we should stop holding expensive international meetings about it.
/sarcasm
Is the anti-nuclear debate actually about nuclear, or about energy, or something else? Emmet Penney found this gem from the old days.
(Spoiler. The debate is really about Malthus.)
US solar farms are aging. Is it time to begin repowering?
Inverters are failing more quickly than expected. Many inverter manufacturers went out of business. Therefore, getting an inverter that fits may also be challenging.
via
@UtilityDive
The decision to close Indian Point nuclear plant was a travesty. At the time,
@pwrhungry
wrote some great posts about the importance of Indian Point for grid reliability.
@GridBrief
Now, NYC is seeing the consequences of this choice.
Yes, it is a big question. Where's our example for 100% renewables? (Iceland? We aren't all located at the mid-Atlantic ridge.)
@kevindkillough
Despite Trillion Dollar Spending For 100% Renewable Energy, It’s Yet To Be Proven On Citywide Scale
New power plants have to pay for grid system upgrades that they need. A wind farm objected. FERC just ruled for the grid operator SPP. The wind farm must pay.
DC Circuit Finds for SPP in Wind Farm Dispute //www.rtoinsider.com/83686-dc-appeals-court-ruling-spp-wind-tenaska/
Somehow, it doesn't surprise me that Greenpeace is sexist nowadays. They are anti-human and prejudiced against women and poor people.
It saddens me, though. I remember giving money to Greenpeace. A long time ago....
Paul Dorfman continues his sexism. Grace Stanke is a nuclear engineer, the fact she is also Miss America doesn't deminish her expertise.
Why do
@Greenpeace
feel it's acceptable to continue funding such terrible behaviour?
Experts say 50 million miles of new power lines needed for green energy, and that may be impossible. Building all those power lines is certainly impossible in the time frame in which they are supposed to be built!
via
@JustTheNews
I write about energy, but I obsess about Ukraine!
I don’t have any special expertise, so I have been shy to write.
That said: if Germany hadn’t decided to close its nuclear plants and depend on Russian gas, the situation might have been different.
Maybe not. But maybe yes.
A fine
@DoombergT
article quoted me about the New England grid. The article was picked up by Zero Hedge! and it is getting great readership on Zero Hedge. Very happy!!
Mostly correct, but solar and wind can survive negative grid prices because they receive tax credits and sell pieces of paper called RECs. They are rewarded for their virtue.
Virtue is rewarded by $. Virtue is not merely its own reward.
Why batteries can't fix the issues with renewable energy explained simply 🪫💔
For solar farms to make money they need electricity to have value during the day. But as solar production increases, prices fall and can even go negative.
For batteries to make money from arbitrage
Okay. Right now the northeast grid has more oil than nuclear. What happens in cold weather? Some kind of time machine to the 60s?
It is minus three out, and the temperature is dropping, so less gas is available. (I know it’s not a time machine.)
Excellent article by
@nukebarbarian
on the reasons Germany is shutting its nukes. “The green movement is more interested in reducing energy consumption than in reducing emissions.”
There's a lot that's misleading and flat-out wrong from leftist Joshua Frank about nuclear power and us pronuclear socialists, but wanted to highlight this aggressively moronic statement from him, equating us to the capitalist class:
Climate activists describe thermal plant performance in Texas as a miserable"Heads I win,Tails you lose" story.
Thank you to
@GridBrief
for this well researched guest post by
@Nuclearjunkie
. How the Texas grid actually runs.
#nuclear
power is the low-carbon firm power that is reliable, dispatchable, and seriously solid during a weather crisis. Nuclear is actually available right now.
Do not accept “firm power” substitutes from academic papers. They don't deliver energy.
#NuclearEnergy
California promised to close its last nuclear plant. Now Newsom is reconsidering. Part of his consideration is the possibility of getting federal money....but I will take any reconsideration, for any cause, as a victory!
I try to be upbeat or at least neutral. But the grid looks like a slow-motion train wreck.
I hope not. I live here. I am as subject to the grid as anyone!😟
A PJM coal plant has a Reliability Must Run contract. Sierra Club says: use batteries instead! PJM explains that batteries won't supply reliability.
Replacing a Talen Energy coal-fired power plant with battery storage is infeasible: PJM via
@UtilityDive
We’re falling backward in New England, and we’ve squandered half a decade.
It’s time to stop talking the happy talk about efforts to reduce the carbon emissions associated with the bulk power system, and time to begin producing material reductions.
New York is heading for disaster. Next winter, if not this one. Also, please notice the jump in natural gas usage after the Indian Point units closed.
Some power markets are scarier than others via
@nukebarbarian
Our grids are becoming expensive and fragile. In this podcast,
@pwrhungry
and I describe how these changes are affecting grids from Texas to Maine. Natural gas comes under special scrutiny. A preliminary to Bryce’s grid docuseries, which will be released tomorrow on YouTube!
Blackouts Loom in California as Electricity Prices Are ‘Absolutely Exploding’
Inland areas, heavily Latino, will be hit worst by induced energy poverty.
@pwrhungry
California is asking the federal government to declare an “electric reliability emergency” so the state can burn more fossil fuels to avoid blackouts via
@business
California PUC proposes adding 11.5 GW of new resources to avoid black outs. Are you surprised that this includes fossil? Are you surprised that they don’t suggest keeping Diablo Canyon(2.3 GW)? Are you surprised at the mealy-mouth “zero-emitting” statements?
#Nuclear
Why grid experts don't speak up about reliability problems. Basically, the buck doesn't stop with them anymore.
Quote: Utilities are no longer responsible for ensuring reliability. They are responsible for compliance with reliability standards. That was a profound... change.
New blog post from
@rpschussler
describes the factors tended to eliminate grid experts from playing any role in the development of policies impacting the grid.
People don't think of solar as a "megaplant" because it is all over the place: my rooftop, your rooftop, a solar farm near the Interstate. But it acts like a megaplant because it is subject to common mode failure at sunset. All the solar, pretty much at once.
California to seek firm commitments for electricity this summer to avoid rolling blackouts. The electricity will be generated by mostly-fossil.
Sometimes I think that intermittents are just a way to use fossil without admitting you needed fossil in the first place.
As we head into warmer weather, I am reminded of last summer when LA was cooled by coal.
Remember: unreliable wind and solar often deliver the least when power is needed the most.
That's why to avoid blackouts CA is reserving extra fossil fuel power this year from other states.
@RichardMeyerDC
Yeah pick the US region with probably to lowest renewable penetration level and then look at the winter. Nice.
Try ERCOT or CAISO in Spring if you're really interested...
"Shorting the Grid" was recommended on the Ezra Klein show yesterday! Klein interviewed Robinson Meyer, who founded HeatMap News to cover climate change. (The description of "Shorting" is near the end of this transcription.)
Back when I was in geothermal, the Los Alamos Hot Dry Rock project looked very promising. It was the equivalent of "deep geothermal." Interactions of the pumped water with the hot downhole minerals made it impractical. I do not think those problems will be solved very soon.
Myth: Geothermal energy can soon replace a significant % of fossil fuel use.
Truth: Geothermal can’t replace a significant % of fossil fuel use because it requires the rare geology of places like Iceland. “Deep geothermal” has promise, but is decades away from scalability.
🧵👇
I like the summary sentences here.
"Unreliable renewables were only part of the problem. But they are none of the solution.”
My “fatal trifecta for a grid” includes depending on too many 1) renewables
2) just-in-time gas
3) electricity imports.
@AdamBlazowski
@energybants
An important aspect of the lesson, to be sure.
The assumption of “someone will always have some to share” when it comes to large regional grids is asking for going without.
@ShellenbergerMD
@grantadever
As a chemist, I generally doubted that plastics can be recycled, unless there's a big bunch of a single kind of plastic. Which does not happen in home recycling.
I have been throwing them in the garbage, not wanting to waste water on cleaning them for ?Recycle?
Biden’s Wind Power Push Will Threaten An Endangered Whale Species, Gov’t Scientist Says
I was quoted here. I try to defend the natural world from the forces that scorn nature, and are only concerned with carbon dioxide. via
@dailycaller
Banning gas-fired home generators is cruelty. The grid is becoming more fragile, and preventing people from protecting themselves is cruelty.
@TrueNorthMikeB
Paying wind farms to not-produce power (paying for curtailment) apparently leads to some exaggerations about what they WOULD have produced.
Almost unbelievable. /sarcasm
#WindEnergyGrifters
The paper states: “The overall wind generation forecast when constraints are imposed is around twice what it is when they are not. However, the total FPN declared by Scottish wind farms is 2.50 times as much in constrained periods, in other words exacerbating
I started in RE, and in my book I end with saying that my perfect grid would be nuclear for baseload and a mixture of things (including RE) for load following. But with everyone claiming fancy new scenarios for 100% RE, I needed to say that RE alone can’t give us reliability!
@FoxGGreen
@MeredithAngwin
3/3 Nuclear will have very tough time winning hearts and minds if it poses itself as the enemy of RE. Promote nuclear as a friend of RE if you want to succeed. Like the gas industry, the message should be that "nuclear is essential for RE to succeed."
My blog post on Memorial Day. Honoring those who served. Honoring the future of our country by not becoming energy-dependent on those who do not wish us well.
@pwrhungry
@DoombergT
@Atomicrod
My twitter stream has filled with people debating the virtues of nuclear versus RE and especially debating messaging. One reason that I wrote “Shorting the Grid” is to help people to think about grid reliability, rather than "nuclear yes, nuclear no, solar yes solar no." 1
Thank you again to reviewers of Shorting the Grid! I never thought I would see the book having more sales than a Michael Lewis book, in the Energy Policy area of Amazon! Thank you!
Since a Euro is about $1.05 currently, this is about 6 cents per kWh wholesale price for electricity supplied by new nuclear plants. Pretty darn good, IMHO.
Developer of Estonia's nuclear power plant inks early consumer contracts. 55€/MWhr, up to four 300MW SMRs. 17 preliminary contracts had already been inked.
cc:
@MeredithAngwin
@pwrhungry
I found this UtilityDive article about the changing dynamics of big tech and renewable energy to be interesting, and I'll freely admit, a bit infuriating. Everything they're complaining about here was completely predictable. 1/n
If Germany had NOT shut any reactors after 2011, how would the
#Energiewende
have fared, and how clean would their grid be today? Would they have managed to, in 2022, generate a single hour of electricity cleaner than France's? Let's dive into some data.🧵
FERC commissioner Christie on how grids, especially in RTO areas, are heading to catastrophe. Renewables backed up by gas, plus retirement of generators that have fuel on site.
Gosh, who coulda predicted this?😉
TY to
@HARRYREADMEFile
@MeredithAngwin
Meredith, you may find this clip noteworthy as well...
'Catastrophic situation': FERC Commissioner Christie warns America's pow... via
@YouTube
Oil on the grids this morning. Typical winter weather, 26% oil in New England, 34% dual fuel (oil and gas, at plants that can burn both) in New York. At this time, it’s 25 degrees here. It was colder earlier when I took these screens. But not unprecedented etc.
It's been hot today, almost 90. (Texans, don't laugh at us, please!) Demand is high on the grid. New England is importing from everywhere (Canada, NY) and also burning some oil.
Experience POWER keynote speaker
@timechols
writes about the importance of the Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion—not just for Georgia energy customers, but also for the entire U.S.
#nuclear
power industry.
In my opinion, climate-change is being used as a scare story, instead of being analyzed as a problem. I like this short video, just because it is moderate.
IMO, the rhetoric on both sides of the issue is over-the-top.
Yes. I expect lots of angry replies here...
Can you care about the climate without panicking about the climate? The evidence suggests there are actually reasons for optimism.
Technological innovation means that many of our biggest fears about climate change may not play out the way we think. Our new video explains...
This is the third anniversary of the release of “Shorting the Grid.”
It has been read and quoted more widely than I could have hoped for. Thank you all!
(And it makes a great holiday present, too.)
“Shorting the Grid” was released approximately a year ago: October 13, 2020. It was top seller in the Natural Gas category at Amazon today (again!)
So grateful.
On this day in 1970, Point Beach Nuclear Plant Unit 1 went into commercial operation, just about 49 months from groundbreaking (Nov 28, 1966). Here's a rather lengthy thread about the place that was my home away from home for>2 decades.
Blackouts Are Expected This Summer Due to Biden’s Green Energy Transition
This extensively quotes the NERC report. More retirements, less reliable replacements.
via
@IERenergy
The intellectual dishonesty on display with regards to the tight ERCOT conditions is absolutely astounding. I'm seeing multiple energy "experts" highlighting thermal generation outages while completely ignoring the renewable no-shows. Thread:
Blaming Russia is easy, and somewhat warranted. But blaming the overbuild of renewables is also warranted...but forbidden. In other words, Europe doesn't want to look at is own actions.
Big Bad "Energy Producers"
*Metal decarbonization* is essential for deep decarbonization. Electrolysis is an elegant solution and is now being pursued for decarbonizing ironmaking and other industrial processes. However, aluminum is already electrolytic and is still stubbornly CO2 intense. Why? 🧵(1/19)
This is true, but I think they are mixing the treated water with seawater before discharge, and drinking seawater is not recommended. If you can grab some of the tritiated water before seawater mixing, though, it would be safe to drink.
Imagine camping at the
#Fukushima
plant and sucking the scary water straight out of the discharge pipe.
You could chug a liter per day for 15 days straight before you hit the radiation dose that you get from a banana smoothie.
It's not 'treated water'. It's clean water.
AEP, Exelon challenge PJM interconnection pact for Amazon data center at Talen nuclear plant
If you build a data center near a nuclear plant (co-located) or you build a nuclear plant near a data center, do you have to pay for the rest of the grid? via
We need incentives for reliability. Not for “flexibility.”
Translation of “flexibility” is “redundant fast response gas plants with just-in-time gas delivery.”
The modernizing power mkts next step is unknown, but could be action to increase incentives for/compensation of flexibility, which Chair Glick hinted recently might be coming.
Two MASSIVE issues for the future of clean energy w/ concurrent comment periods. RIP to my sleep. 2/2
@UDepravity
@Atomicrod
Inexpensive batteries could mean that “baseload” nuclear plants could do it all, without being load-followers themselves. We only hear of batteries as filling-in for renewables, but there is another paradigm for their use.