I read the article and it's definitely interesting and makes sense to me that widening out power generation to across the country in a super grid could be more helpful. My own view is that we also need more distributed power generation from multiple sources. The flip side of a vast interconnected grid is that when there is a failure of transmission, such as lines coming down during storms, earthquakes, floods or other disasters, is if you're not generating power near you you aren't going to get power. To address that and also redundancy in the system I think the future should be with a lot of local and small scale neighborhood power generation that supplements large scale power generation. This is where I think things like Tesla Roof could be very helpful. I've been reading some stuff too about incorporating wind power generation into high rise buildings. While this still has a way to go it does show that we can generate energy from many sources. https://www.bbc.com/news/av/business-25573767
I see the supergrid as more of a vast distributed network that many sources of energy can plug in, including localize generators. In some places (with net metering rule), homeowner can “sell” their solar energy by “sending” their excess power back onto the local grid (you are not exactly getting paid for it but get a credit which you can apply later when sun isn’t shinning). That at scale, where energy is not wasted and is used where is needed is not only more efficient but more resilient.
Im not sure if there is an advantage to having one massive N. American super grid. Quebec and Texas grid should be integrated into the Eastern US grid. Renewables have been a struggle for the industry and batteries are a viable solution if the costs and functionality are economical. Im just not sure if batteries are economical at the generator side. To me, it seems more efficient to put batteries at the premise and make them part of building codes on new builds. The premise can scale to their needs. Instead of rating power consumption during peak/off peak, the batteries can charge at optimal times determined by generators, including those who are reselling private power. On private power generation, the operator (residences) often resells back to their power company as credits. In the best case scenario, they are reselling power back at wholesale costs, not retail, so it is not very profitable. Its more economical to store that power at the premise. Renewables have plenty of issues that the industry is trying to work around. Currently constant stable power is imperative. A drop in wind power for a couple minutes or a big cloud passing over a massive solar farm for a few minutes causes significant disruption in power generation. Hydro is not very efficient at ramping up and down nor is nuclear. Coal is very efficient at ramping up and down on demand. I wouldn't be surprised to see tax credits or electric companies offering cheaper energy prices to those who have batteries on the premise.
What Texas Republicans will hear: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/po...tm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=twitter.com On Feb. 20, InfoWars, a conspiracy website run by Alex Jones, published an article with the headline: "Joe Biden’s Dept. of Energy Blocked Texas from Increasing Power Ahead of Killer Storm." That’s wrong — the Energy Department did the opposite. On the same day that ERCOT asked the government to allow power plants to exceed federal emissions caps, the Energy Department granted the request. The emergency order helped Texas increase its power production during what became a devastating winter storm.
I've been seeing that one float across social media the past few days. I read the document and can confirm that it does grant Texas Power plants permission to exceed environmental caps in order to produce as much power is needed to avoid an emergency. I was a little confused, however, about the part where is says the price for the power should be no less than $1,500MWH. Does this mean that the energy companies were required to charge that much to the consumer? I'm seriously just not sure I understand this part. Can anyone explain this portion? Here is the link to the order itself. https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/f...202(c) Emergency Order - ERCOT 02.14.2021.pdf
The damage is already done though. This and the Windmill's talking point was so heavily trafficked on Facebook afterwards even by people I don't consider hardcore Trumpers, that it'll be impossible to convince many people otherwise. The power that Facebook has is so influential it really cannot be overstated how much of a problem it is. It's far worse than FoxNews at this point.
Their FAQ doesn't mention how they spent an addition $2.2 billion for gas supplies during the event -- that is over $1,000 per customer for that one week. They don't mention that they will recover every single penny of that $2.2 billion plus interest from those customers by orders of the utility commissions of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. While the utility pretends to be protecting their customers, they'll get a rider on the utility bills to pass the entire cost to customers. It will be spread out over time so customers don't feel it so bad. But over the next 5-10 years, those customers will pay an extra 2 years' worth of gas service for that one week. And that's not just One Gas. CenterPoint hasn't said a number yet, but it will be similar. Same deal with Atmos Energy in North Texas, Austin Energy, CPS Energy in San Antonio, Entergy -- every regulated commodity (power and gas) supplier in the midcontinent.
This idea that if Texas was just part of the Eastern Grid everything would be okay is just such a gross oversimplification. There is an RTO called MISO that covers the Northern Plains states down to Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi. They moved some energy from north MISO to south MISO, and from north MISO to the Southwestern Power Pool (the states just west of them), but physical transmission constraints prevented them shipping enough. The Eastern Grid is not just a big swimming pool of electricity; there are still real physical challenges to shipping power over long distances. After you decide to interconnect, then you have to spend billions and many years building the infrastructure to do it. No, that price floor is for the wholesale price. Consumers (aside from Griddy customers) are protected from the wholesale market. The Texas market is designed to spike wholesale prices in times of scarcity to make sure every available power plant will dispatch. So, they're saying essentially that you can ignore environmental constraints only for as long as there is a generation scarcity condition and when you have enough generation that the price falls to something semi-normal, the environmental restrictions kick in again.
Yes, but honestly I've seen a lot more misinformation from liberals on this one than I have from conservatives. Everyone seems to have taken this crisis as an opportunity to dust off whatever political resentment they have.
Being part of the Eastern Grid would reduce the chances of catastrophic failure and it forces federal regulations. Obviously energy is cheaper the closer to the source, which is why Washington state has the cheapest energy, with Gran Coulee Dam having the cheapest rates in the country due to the massive abundance of energy in the region. Hydroelectric generation runs something like at 1/3 capacity due to the lack of supply. BC exports a crapload of energy to the west coast. Electric companies would assume to run rolling blackouts before importing energy 2000 miles away. Its not so much about solving hindsight problems as much as it is supporting everyone when problems arise. With the continued growth in Texas, it could start facing the same energy problems California faces.
Again it all comes down to infrastructure. Most people don't believe that TX could suddenly connected to one of the national grids but I think it should be obvious that a go it alone strategy isn't good. One of the minimal moves from this should be building new transmission and other infrastructure to integrate TX into a national grid.
Considering parts of Texas is already split up. County by county could slowly be migrated over. But Im convinced this is less about logistics and more about investments, control and profits.
Harris County is apparently going to conduct a study to explore connecting to the national grid. I can't wait to see the findings.
If only the Jewish space lasers could be used for good, you could probably just use those to power Houston.
Point it at the gulf, create steam to power turbines. Boom. Problem solved. And it would be kosher energy.
I just watched these LIZARDS of power company executives explain how they are built to handle Hurricanes not cold....and I was like...What a bunch of BULLSHIT - power goes out all the damned time in both. They are built to profit period.....they put PROFITS over PEOPLE and stability. **** em - put some regulations on their ass.....PEOPLE FIRST ! DD
