Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa

[Peter McLennan]

If people don't want to understand my posts, no one is going to stop them.

I’d surmise that that sentence is the reason this topic has ground to a halt. 
There’s simply no possible response.

[LesPalenik]

I’d surmise that that sentence is the reason this topic has ground to a halt. 
There’s simply no possible response.

I think most people here understood Alan's repeated posts about money printing and inevitable inflation.
Now, with the car rental and lumber prices tripled and lithium and ammo prices doubled, it is obvious that those posts should have been sent to the White House rather than to LuLa.

[digitaldog]

I’d surmise that that sentence is the reason this topic has ground to a halt. 

If (big if) we are lucky.
Fingers crossed. 

[TechTalk]

I’d surmise that that sentence is the reason this topic has ground to a halt. 
There’s simply no possible response.

There's also the possibility it's sheer boredom. Responding to the same repetitive talking points or false assertions gets to be a drag.

Exhaustion has to be considered as well. One ridiculously false sentence like — "Wind and solar production dropped by about 98% during the cold snap." — usually requires several sentences of reply, often accompanied with links to reliable sources of data, when exposing the absurdity of the claim.

For me it's both of the above mixed with some lingering disgust. I'd prefer not to give any attention or acknowledgement to the poster that made shameful false racist claims about jeremyrh. That same poster who recently said — "The truth is consistent." — has time and again shown that its opposite is persistent.

[Robert Roaldi]

An article that may be of interest, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/george-packer-four-americas/619012/. It's long and difficult to summarize. The author paints a picture of divisions in American social and political thought, pointing out incompatibilities. It's not light reading and not particularly optimistic. As I read it, a thought was uppermost in my mind, how the silos in social media aid and abet divisions just to make a buck. I hope we can dig out of this muck.

[JoeKitchen]

There's also the possibility it's sheer boredom. Responding to the same repetitive talking points or false assertions gets to be a drag.

Exhaustion has to be considered as well. One ridiculously false sentence like — "Wind and solar production dropped by about 98% during the cold snap." — usually requires several sentences of reply, often accompanied with links to reliable sources of data, when exposing the absurdity of the claim.

Although I can not find the actually amount of production in KWHs (of GWHs/MWHs) of wind and solar during the cold storm anymore, below are two graphs from the Dallas Fed.  The first show actual production drop during the storm.  In it, you can see that production of wind power during the storm compared to where it was at some days before (which was already much lower then production capacity due to the time of the year) dropped fairly significantly.  Solar production was pretty much non-existent.  So, taking into account the total production capacity, which is not reflected on this graph due to the time of year, and comparing it to the production at the time of the storm, it is not hard to see that wind/solar was operating at less than 10% it capacity, or a 90+% loss. 

Furthermore, this is known and has been for a while, which we can see if we look at the second graph. 

The second graph is an hypothetical on how the power companies would plan on supplementing power during a storm such as this based upon sector, which you can see plans on heavily utilizing natural gas.  Of course, in reality the well pumps froze, which no one foresaw, causing the main issues, which is also reflected in graph one. 

But the fact remains, the plan for a storm like this was to completely forego production from wind/solar, due to natural forces beyond control, and rely on baseline power, which had it issues albeit issues that can be solved.  I just think it would be wise to solve the issues that we can solve, and ignore the ones we can not and move on. 

[digitaldog]

Saving democracy? This looks worthwhile:
https://apps.bostonglobe.com/opinion/graphics/2021/06/future-proofing-the-presidency/

[TechTalk]

Electricity grid operators, such as the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates the Texas Interconnection grid, use a mix of generation sources, sometimes referred to as a generation, dispatch, or supply "stack", to balance generation supply to load demand. The generation stack used on a grid varies from moment to moment based on the demand load, available generation resources, and generation supply cost.

The generation stack can be represented and charted in different ways. It can be charted by the type of energy source, for example: nuclear; coal; gas; wind; hydro; and solar. A generation stack might also be charted by the differing types of power generation used at any given moment, for instance: the continuous base load generation used to meet daily minimum demand; the intermediate load following generation used to supply additional power demands above the minimum requirement during a day; and peaking generation (peakers) which only generate power during peak demand periods. The combination of oil, gas, and coal (nuclear may also be included) generation is sometimes referred to as a "thermal stack" as they convert fuel into heat which is then converted into mechanical energy for generating electricity.

Within the daily generation supply stack are intermittent renewable resources of power generation. Due to their intermittent output, clean renewable solar and wind generation primarily serve to reduce the use of polluting nonrenewable fossil fuels. When wind speed is high or solar output strong, wind and solar can dramatically reduce the use of other energy sources. When wind or solar is low, grid operators need to have sufficient conventional generation or grid energy storage available to meet demand reliably under those conditions. No source of power generation can be online generating power all of the time. None produce their maximum rated capacity continuously each having a capacity factor. This is why grid operators need to have sufficiently reliable reserve capacity to avoid blackouts. Texas has allowed reserve capacity to decline over a number of years.

Widespread outages, due to the winter storm in Texas, began at 1:25 a.m. on February 15, 2021 and gradually improved as temperatures started to rise on February 18th. The fact that wind and solar electricity generation is intermittent and varies from season to season, month to month, day to day, and throughout the day is well known and for obvious reasons. Other sources of electricity generation can be intermittent as well due to fuel supply shortages, equipment failures, and routine maintenance taking generation offline. All of the above happened in Texas and a good deal more.

Now, some wild claims have been made regarding renewable energy performance during the Texas winter storm. "Wind and solar production dropped by about 98% during the cold snap", later revised to "90+%". "Solar production was pretty much non-existent."

Let's see what happened from Sunday February 14th, the day before the massive rolling power outages, when ERCOT was generating enough power to hold the grid together; then on Monday Feb. 15th when rolling outages began; thru February 18th of that week. **

Daily Power Generation by Source in Megawatt-hours (MWh)
      Sunday, Feb. 14th - Natural Gas = 899,328 / Coal = 262,149 / Nuclear = 123,347 / Wind (174,601) + Solar (6,333) = 180,934
      Monday, Feb. 15th - Natural Gas = 759,708 / Coal = 204,655 / Nuclear =  98,394 / Wind   (73,395) + Solar (20,134) =  93,529
     Tuesday, Feb. 16th - Natural Gas = 692,091 / Coal = 175,435 / Nuclear =  90,819 / Wind   (90,087) + Solar (13,403) = 103,490
Wednesday, Feb. 17th - Natural Gas = 719,414 / Coal = 176,003 / Nuclear =  91,184 / Wind    (61,184) + Solar (23,100) =  84,284
   Thursday, Feb. 18th - Natural Gas = 757,320 / Coal = 196,583 / Nuclear = 110,991 / Wind (141,446) + Solar (17,831) = 159,277
* To get the hourly average MWh to compare with ERCOT's Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy winter planning forecasts (linked in a post below), just divide any numbers above by 24.

** Revised on June 12th. Some data was very slightly off due to neglecting to select correct time zone (CST vs EST). Now corrected.

The attached graphs contain ERCOT data supplied by ERCOT or the U.S. Energy Information Administration

[TechTalk]

Here is an hour by hour chart of Total Power Generation compared to Natural Gas, Wind, and Solar Power Generation. It begins on Sunday, the day before the rolling power outages began on Monday Feb. 15th, and continues thru February 18th.

You can decide where the major problem lies.

[TechTalk]

What sometimes happens, when you read things that people post online, is that you get erroneous assumptions stated as facts.

"But the fact remains, the plan for a storm like this was to completely forego production from wind/solar, due to natural forces beyond control," — No, that wasn't "the plan" nor is it a "fact". The actual plan is available from the Texas grid operator ERCOT and that's an actual fact. The Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy for the ERCOT Region (SARA) Winter 2020/2021 has a range of wind and solar generation forecasts factored into a variety of weather scenario assessments as you can see here. ERCOT pretty much got everything wrong in their planning and assessments. The assessment for "Low Wind" generation was underestimated with "hourly wind capacity factors" forecast at 1,791 MW; the actual lowest hourly average from wind generation was 2,549 MWh on Feb. 17th and was higher on every other day of the month.

"and rely on baseline power," — The electric power industry doesn't use the term "baseline power" for any kind of electricity generation. It's a mystery term. "Baseline power", as used by the poster, seems to mean what is normally referred to as conventional; or nonrenewable; or "thermal" power generation. Base load is the minimum power requirement during the day. There are generating stations referred to as base load plants, typically nuclear and coal, that are scheduled by the grid operator to produce a near constant rate of power generation for some portion of the minimum load demand (the base load) forecast for that day. The load above minimum relies on a mix of other various dispatched and intermittent stacked power resources.

"which had it [its] issues" — I'll say! Natural Gas electric generation alone fell from 43,967 MWh (10:00 p.m. on the 14th) to 27,542 MWh (4:00 p.m. on the 15th). That's a 16,425 MWh drop in just Natural Gas electric generation in a period of 18-hours, as power outages rapidly spread across Texas. For the same time period, Wind + Solar fell from 7,642MWh (10:00 p.m. on the 14th) down to low point of 4,300 MWh (8:00 a.m. on the 15th) and rose back to 5,109 MWh (4:00 p.m. on the 15th). Nuclear and coal were not exempt as they lost generation capacity as well. ERCOT's plan overestimated their operating and reserve capacities and underestimated potential generation outages under their extreme conditions scenarios and the result was evident.

* From Sunday, 2/14 (the day before rolling blackouts - Peak power production) and Tuesday, 2/16 (the lowest day of power production), Daily electricity generation fell by 404,557 MWh. Of that reduction, 326,479 MWh resulted from loss of Natural Gas, Coal, and Nuclear generation—81% of lost generating capacity.

"albeit issues that can be solved." — Sure. There are solutions for loss of generation capacity, due to lack of winterization of generators and pipelines; and for intermittent solar and wind generation; and for inadequate reserve capacity. Mandate winterizing of generators and pipelines for weather extremes; provision adequate thermal reserve (natural gas, coal, or nuclear) generating capacity and/or grid storage capacity for intermittent solar and wind; and invest in operating reserve capacity. But, Texas legislators didn't solve the problem after winter storms caused rolling blackouts across more than 75% of the state in February 2011 due to the lack of generator and pipeline winterization. It's been left to the electric generation operators to decide whether to invest in winterization, as well as other measures to prevent their generators from going offline. It's a topic worthy of more discussion at a later date.

[digitaldog]

Oh, you know who (who has be thankfully so quite lately) will be pissed at this:

Biden administration proposes offshore wind energy sale near NY, NJ
https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/biden-administration-proposes-offshore-wind-energy-sale-near-ny-nj-2021-06-11/

The Biden administration on Friday said it was seeking buyers for offshore wind energy leases in the shallow waters between Long Island and New Jersey as part of its effort to ramp up the share of offshore wind generation over the next decade.

In a statement, the U.S. Department of the Interior said the proposed sale for offshore wind development on the Outer Continental shelf in the New York Bight has "the potential to unlock over 7 gigawatts of offshore wind energy, powering more than 2.6 million homes and supporting thousands of new jobs."

[TechTalk]

Quotation for today —

“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance—it is the illusion of knowledge.”

― Daniel J. Boorstin, 12th Librarian of Congress

[Robert Roaldi]

Crashing cars into protesters seems to be happening a lot, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/08/vehicle-ramming-attacks-66-us-since-may-27/5397700002/. Hard to know how they acquire those stats and what kinds of incidents were included.

If they had been self-driving cars, the AI might have prevented the crashes. OTOH, hackers might be able to program self-driving cars to wreak all kinds of havoc and there would be no driver to arrest.

[PeterAit]

And here we go again with the money-grubbing right-wing assholes in ERCOT (Texas) screwing up the power grid and the people suffering.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/unplanned-outages-hit-texas-power-plants-amid-soaring-temperatures-n1270827

[Robert Roaldi]

And here we go again with the money-grubbing right-wing assholes in ERCOT (Texas) screwing up the power grid and the people suffering.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/unplanned-outages-hit-texas-power-plants-amid-soaring-temperatures-n1270827

The spirit of Enron lives on!

I wonder how one could find out which neighbourhoods are hit with outages and whether any of the executives of the various "energy suppliers" had to light up candles. Am I too cynical? Be worth a reporter's time to at least check it out, see if there is anything there.

So let me get this straight. When they get unexpected cold temperatures, they're hit with outages. When it's too hot, they're hit with outages. Given the poor service, can electricity buyers refuse to pay or switch to "competitors" to buy their power. Like, you know, in a free market.

I've been asking for 20-30 years, what was wrong with public utilities? I have yet to hear a believable answer.

[Peter McLennan]

Quotation for today —

“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance—it is the illusion of knowledge.”

― Daniel J. Boorstin, 12th Librarian of Congress

Excellent.  His book “The Discoverers” is one of my all-time favourites.

[TechTalk]

So let me get this straight. When they get unexpected cold temperatures, they're hit with outages. When it's too hot, they're hit with outages. Given the poor service, can electricity buyers refuse to pay or switch to "competitors" to buy their power. Like, you know, in a free market.

I've been asking for 20-30 years, what was wrong with public utilities? I have yet to hear a believable answer.

Here is comedian and writer Blaire Erskine as the "ERCOT spokesperson on the situation in Texas" describing the current "hot tight little grid" and asking the question most pertinent to a majority of Texas state legislators—who are the primary source of Texas electricity reliability problems... "Would you rather have AC or would you rather have AOC?"

https://www.youtube.com/ERCOT spokesperson on the situation in Texas

* Just a minute long video that pretty well sums it up.

[TechTalk]

Texas grid operator urges electricity conservation as many power generators are unexpectedly offline and temperatures rise

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/14/texas-power-grid-conserve-ercot

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas said in a statement Monday that a significant number of unexpected power plant outages, combined with expected record use of electricity due to hot weather, has resulted in tight grid conditions. Approximately 12,000 megawatts of generation were offline Monday, or enough to power 2.4 million homes on a hot summer day.

ERCOT officials said the power plant outages were unexpected — and could not provide details as to what could be causing them.

“I don’t have any potential reasons [for the plant outages] that I can share at this time,” said Warren Lasher, ERCOT senior director of systems planning, during a Monday call with media. “It is not consistent with fleet performance that we have seen over the last few summers.”

The number of plants that were forced offline today is “very concerning” Lasher said.

“We operate the grid with the resources that we have available,” he said. “It’s the responsibility of the generators to make sure their plants are available when demand is high.”

[TechTalk]

Texas electricity generation is largely the Wild West with generators having little to no oversight or regulation in meeting demand. They can generally do what they want to do, whenever they want to do it. Texas relies solely on consumer demand to attract enough electricity supply from generators. Texas is what the industry calls an energy only market because there are no financial incentives offered to electricity producers to have reserve capacity.

The rosy scenario forecasts from the grid operator said "ERCOT anticipates there will be 86,862 MW of resource capacity available during summer peak demand hours". But, when electricity producers take an "unexpected" 11,000 MWh or 12,000 MWh of capacity offline for maintenance whenever they choose, it looks less rosy.

This chart from ERCOT shows how close to the edge they were today...

[Peter McLennan]

So effective!  Such great service!  And inexpensive, too.
Must be one of Alan's "free markets" at work.