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Texas power prices briefly soar to $9,000/MWh as heat wave bakes state

Started by Unknown August 15, 2019
On Sat, 17 Aug 2019 23:37:52 -0700 (PDT), Rick C
<gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 5:20:31 PM UTC-4, Whoey Louie wrote:
>> Nuclear is competitive and viable, which is why plants continue to be built around the world. The US is unique, because we let radical obstructionists block it. The same obstructionists who say the world is being doomed by CO2. How hypocritical and stupid is that? > >Nuclear is only economically competitive with fossil fuels if you consider the cost of adding CO2 to the atmosphere and ignore the cost of turning fairly harmless uranium ores into hazardous, radioactive waste. > >Nuclear is not being built to a significant extent anywhere in the world other than possibly china.
Both two EPRs in China are now on-line. Two in Europe is expected to be on-line next year.
>Nuclear power plants are becoming prohibitively expensive everywhere. I believe I've already posted from facts on the issues the EU has had building two new reactors if the EPR design. Both are hugely over budget and absurdly behind schedule. Even as they approached a date for final testing and starting full scale operation the schedule continued to increase by doubling the remaining time every few months. It's like a backgammon game. > >Here in the US we had a reactor project go belly up taking down the Westinghouse nuclear company with it. What kind of technology takes out one of the longest lived companies promoting it because of the massive budget and schedule overruns that everyone has come to expect? > >Nuclear has simply become too expensive and uncertain to plan commercially. What company is going to commit construction of new facilities when starting with any reasonable schedule and budget they can expect it to be blown by factors of 2 to 4?
Things started to go bad after Tsernobyl, when a lot new reactor projects were canceled. After this many nuclear engineers and constructors have retired or moved to other businesses. Very few new young engineers were interested in the business. Also the licensing authorities were scaled down, only those remained that had to oversee old reactors. With the recent renewed interest in nuclear energy, the tradition of nuclear power plant building was lost and new generation had to be trained and mew design done. Also new licensing authorities become more security critical and started to demand huge byrocrasy. Especially a huge paper trail was required for everything, apparently thinking that the paper trail itself would enhance security. The problems of getting a project licensed and the NIMBY effect meant that new projects could be built on old sites, where the population supporting new projects and hence new work. All this problems with new reactors meant that the power output from a single unit had to made as large as possible, instead of making two medium size units. A single very big installation is more or less a prototype. A better approach would be building a series of small units and then duplicate the design. This would mean that he same red tape could be used for each identical unit (at least in the same country and licensing authority). Also with a series of smaller units, the first could be in production bringing revenue, while the next one(s) are still under construction. The only small unit construction actually built that I know about is the Admiral Lomonosov floating power plant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademik_Lomonosov with two KLT-40S nuclear icebreaker reactors. Unfortunately those reactors are a bit small (2x35 MWe), so it usable only for low load sites.
On Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 9:55:00 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
> On Sunday, August 18, 2019 at 7:20:31 AM UTC+10, Whoey Louie wrote: > > On Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 2:13:19 PM UTC-4, Rick C wrote: > > > On Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 1:49:45 PM UTC-4, Whoey Louie wrote: > > > > On Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 6:12:15 AM UTC-4, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote: > > > > > Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in > > > > > news:615c54d5-b70a-40a6-9150-faa0cb783de8@googlegroups.com: > > > > > > > > > > > The latest generation of solar cells seem to become cheap enough > > > > > > that some of the thermal solar systems have been ripped out and > > > > > > replaced with photovoltaic devices, but big insulated tanks of > > > > > > molten salt seem to be tolerably cheap energy storage systems. > > > > > > > > > > Yeah... I thought they should make tall water towers and pump, > > > > > slowly to fill them using tidal energy. The stored water has kinetic > > > > > energy but takes a along time to fill with free tidal energy. > > > > > Note I am not talking about using sea water in the tanks, merely sea > > > > > energy to run the pumps that slowly fill them. Not much juice, but > > > > > every penny helps. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Every penny doesn't help if the power it produces costs so much that it > > > > can't compete. What do you think all those tanks, pumps, and most of > > > > all the infrastructure to harness the tide energy would cost? > > > > > > You mean like nuclear? Yeah, I agree. We need to phase out the overly expensive technologies. > > > > Nuclear is competitive and viable, which is why plants continue to be built around the world. > > Where? Trader4 won't actually know.
Google broken down under? There are about 50 under construction around the world with another 50 in the planning stages.
> > > The US is unique, because we let radical obstructionists block it. > > The US has grown quite a few of them since Love Canal. The free market loves to exploit un-monitored externalities, but the nuclear industry grew up in a world where people had started paying attention to externalities, and imposed sensible regulations. > > > The same obstructionists who say the world is being doomed by CO2. How hypocritical and stupid is that? > > The fact that one technology - burning fossil carbon for fuel - has created a large scale problem that is getting steadily worse, is scarcely an argument for letting the nuclear industry cheap-skate it's way into different disaster.
BS. If CO2 is going to screw the world, is already creating weather calamities like the proponents claim, them we should be going all out on nuclear right now. Nuclear generates 20% of US power. Solar, after all the talk and two decades of doing, generates 1.6%. Those are the facts.
On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 11:52:05 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
> On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 9:56:53 AM UTC-4, Whoey Louie wrote: > > > > Wow, you mean free markets still work? And just about no utilities are > > buying "storage gear' stupid, for obvious reasons. > > There's the voice of ignorance and the voice of extreme ignorance. > > The majority of energy storage is pumped hydro. In the US alone there are 23 GW of capacity. A single 3 GW facility has an energy capacity of 30 GWh. > > Yeah, no one is buying "storage gear"...
Look at what I said in context. DL was proposing water storage in TANKS to store tidal energy. How many MW does the US generate using that? You making much money with all that Tesla spamming?
On Sunday, August 18, 2019 at 2:37:57 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
> On Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 5:20:31 PM UTC-4, Whoey Louie wrote: > > On Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 2:13:19 PM UTC-4, Rick C wrote: > > > On Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 1:49:45 PM UTC-4, Whoey Louie wrote: > > > > > > > > Every penny doesn't help if the power it produces costs so much that it > > > > can't compete. What do you think all those tanks, pumps, and most of > > > > all the infrastructure to harness the tide energy would cost? > > > > > > You mean like nuclear? Yeah, I agree. We need to phase out the overly expensive technologies. > > > > Nuclear is competitive and viable, which is why plants continue to be built around the world. The US is unique, because we let radical obstructionists block it. The same obstructionists who say the world is being doomed by CO2. How hypocritical and stupid is that? > > Nuclear is only economically competitive with fossil fuels if you consider the cost of adding CO2 to the atmosphere and ignore the cost of turning fairly harmless uranium ores into hazardous, radioactive waste.
The operators of the 50 nuclear plants under construction around the world apparently disagree.
> > Nuclear is not being built to a significant extent anywhere in the world other than possibly china.
That's a lie. Nuclear power plants are becoming prohibitively expensive everywhere. I believe I've already posted from facts on the issues the EU has had building two new reactors if the EPR design. Both are hugely over budget and absurdly behind schedule. Even as they approached a date for final testing and starting full scale operation the schedule continued to increase by doubling the remaining time every few months. It's like a backgammon game.
> > Here in the US we had a reactor project go belly up taking down the Westinghouse nuclear company with it. What kind of technology takes out one of the longest lived companies promoting it because of the massive budget and schedule overruns that everyone has come to expect?
> > Nuclear has simply become too expensive and uncertain to plan commercially. What company is going to commit construction of new facilities when starting with any reasonable schedule and budget they can expect it to be blown by factors of 2 to 4?
Ask the owners of the 50 under construction right now, with another 50 in the planning stages. And right now, even with the US sitting on our asses with nuclear for forty years, 20% of our power comes from nuclear. AFter two decades of talk, massive subsidies, and lots of actual deployment, how much US power comes from solar? A whopping 1.6%
> > Oh yeah, the utilities. They know they can always force their customers to pay for it no matter how expensive it gets,
About this, you're complaining? Without the govt forcing utilities to pay outrageous prices for solar, without the govt handing out taxpayer money in subsidies, there would be no solar and you think that's just wonderful.
Whoey Louie <trader4@optonline.net> wrote in
news:0447dd67-92ca-48be-ac42-75ed0ea9b54a@googlegroups.com: 

> On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 11:52:05 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote: >> On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 9:56:53 AM UTC-4, Whoey Louie >> wrote: >> > >> > Wow, you mean free markets still work? And just about no >> > utilities are buying "storage gear' stupid, for obvious >> > reasons. >> >> There's the voice of ignorance and the voice of extreme >> ignorance. >> >> The majority of energy storage is pumped hydro. In the US alone >> there are 23 GW of capacity. A single 3 GW facility has an >> energy capacity of 30 GWh. >> >> Yeah, no one is buying "storage gear"... > > Look at what I said in context. DL was proposing water storage in > TANKS to store tidal energy. How many MW does the US generate > using that?
Zero, you retarded dumbfuck. It is NEW technology, dipshit.
> You making much money with all that Tesla spamming?
And you are a goddamned social retard as well.
On Sunday, August 18, 2019 at 9:39:31 PM UTC+10, Whoey Louie wrote:
> On Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 9:55:00 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote: > > On Sunday, August 18, 2019 at 7:20:31 AM UTC+10, Whoey Louie wrote: > > > On Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 2:13:19 PM UTC-4, Rick C wrote: > > > > On Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 1:49:45 PM UTC-4, Whoey Louie wrote: > > > > > On Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 6:12:15 AM UTC-4, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote: > > > > > > Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in > > > > > > news:615c54d5-b70a-40a6-9150-faa0cb783de8@googlegroups.com: > > > > > > > > > > > > > The latest generation of solar cells seem to become cheap enough > > > > > > > that some of the thermal solar systems have been ripped out and > > > > > > > replaced with photovoltaic devices, but big insulated tanks of > > > > > > > molten salt seem to be tolerably cheap energy storage systems. > > > > > > > > > > > > Yeah... I thought they should make tall water towers and pump, > > > > > > slowly to fill them using tidal energy. The stored water has kinetic > > > > > > energy but takes a along time to fill with free tidal energy. > > > > > > Note I am not talking about using sea water in the tanks, merely sea > > > > > > energy to run the pumps that slowly fill them. Not much juice, but > > > > > > every penny helps. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Every penny doesn't help if the power it produces costs so much that it > > > > > can't compete. What do you think all those tanks, pumps, and most of > > > > > all the infrastructure to harness the tide energy would cost? > > > > > > > > You mean like nuclear? Yeah, I agree. We need to phase out the overly expensive technologies. > > > > > > Nuclear is competitive and viable, which is why plants continue to be built around the world. > > > > Where? Trader4 won't actually know. > > Google broken down under? There are about 50 under construction around > the world with another 50 in the planning stages.
So post the list. It will expose the fact that you can't actually use google, and draw absurd conclusions from stuff you don't actually understand.
> > > The US is unique, because we let radical obstructionists block it. > > > > The US has grown quite a few of them since Love Canal. The free market loves to exploit un-monitored externalities, but the nuclear industry grew up in a world where people had started paying attention to externalities, and imposed sensible regulations. > > > > > The same obstructionists who say the world is being doomed by CO2. How hypocritical and stupid is that? > > > > The fact that one technology - burning fossil carbon for fuel - has created a large scale problem that is getting steadily worse, is scarcely an argument for letting the nuclear industry cheap-skate it's way into different disaster. > > BS. If CO2 is going to screw the world, is already creating weather > calamities like the proponents claim, them we should be going all out > on nuclear right now.
Actually we should all be going all out on wind and solar cells - which is pretty much what is happening - because you can put up a wind farm or a solar farm a lot faster than you can put up a nuclear plant, and because there are whole lot of them working right now you can be pretty confident that all them will work. Twenty of France's fifty nuclear reactors aren't working at the moment because they were built with steel castings that didn't turn out to be up to the job.
> Nuclear generates 20% of US power. Solar, after > all the talk and two decades of doing, generates 1.6%. Those are the facts.
Actually, it is 19% and declining. Renewables - wind and solar - are 8% and rising rapidly. Solar cells halved in price a few years ago, and suddenly became a lot more economically attractive. If they push up from 1% to 10% of the world market, the price will almost certainly halve again, and make them even more economically attractive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States#/media/File:US_Electrical_Generation_1950-2016.png The fact that the Koch brothers, who bought the Republican Party when they funded the Tea Party movement, make most of their money out of the business of selling fossil carbon as fuel, does seem to discourage a sensible attitude to renewable energy sources in the current government (not that the current administration has sensible attitudes to anything except staying in power, and they miss the bit about persuading people that they ought to stay in power). -- Bill Sloman, Sydney
On Sunday, August 18, 2019 at 9:49:31 PM UTC+10, Whoey Louie wrote:
> On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 11:52:05 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote: > > On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 9:56:53 AM UTC-4, Whoey Louie wrote: > > > > > > Wow, you mean free markets still work? And just about no utilities are > > > buying "storage gear' stupid, for obvious reasons. > > > > There's the voice of ignorance and the voice of extreme ignorance. > > > > The majority of energy storage is pumped hydro. In the US alone there are 23 GW of capacity. A single 3 GW facility has an energy capacity of 30 GWh. > > > > Yeah, no one is buying "storage gear"... > > Look at what I said in context. DL was proposing water storage in TANKS > to store tidal energy. How many MW does the US generate using that?
That wasn't what I was talking about.
> You making much money with all that Tesla spamming?
Elon Musk saw chance to get some cheap publicity by bunging together a bunch of his car batteries. It worked, and seems to have earned a lot of money. There are better solutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery The largest installed and working example is about half the size of the Tesla battery in South Australia. A 200MW 800MW.hour example should have started working in China by now, which would have twice the power and store six times as much energy. https://www.tdworld.com/energy-storage/influence-storage Tesla is just one of the competitors - the fact that one their batteries are working in South Australia is obvious to people who live in Australia, so it does get more publicity than it might deserve. -- Bill Sloman, Sydney
On Sunday, August 18, 2019 at 10:01:15 PM UTC+10, Whoey Louie wrote:
> On Sunday, August 18, 2019 at 2:37:57 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote: > > On Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 5:20:31 PM UTC-4, Whoey Louie wrote: > > > On Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 2:13:19 PM UTC-4, Rick C wrote: > > > > On Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 1:49:45 PM UTC-4, Whoey Louie wrote: > > > > > > > > > > Every penny doesn't help if the power it produces costs so much that it > > > > > can't compete. What do you think all those tanks, pumps, and most of > > > > > all the infrastructure to harness the tide energy would cost? > > > > > > > > You mean like nuclear? Yeah, I agree. We need to phase out the overly expensive technologies. > > > > > > Nuclear is competitive and viable, which is why plants continue to be built around the world. The US is unique, because we let radical obstructionists block it. The same obstructionists who say the world is being doomed by CO2. How hypocritical and stupid is that? > > > > Nuclear is only economically competitive with fossil fuels if you consider the cost of adding CO2 to the atmosphere and ignore the cost of turning fairly harmless uranium ores into hazardous, radioactive waste. > > The operators of the 50 nuclear plants under construction around the world > apparently disagree.
It the plants are under construction, they don't have operators. There may be fifty projected nuclear plants around the world, but it's more likely that Trader4 has seen the same projected plant mentioned in fifty different contexts. He's not the most discriminating reader.
> > Nuclear is not being built to a significant extent anywhere in the world other than possibly china. > > That's a lie.
Trader4 thinks that each one of his delusions is an indisputable fact, so anybody who points out that he's got something wrong has to be lying. Krw makes the same mistake.
> Nuclear power plants are becoming prohibitively expensive everywhere. I believe I've already posted from facts on the issues the EU has had building two new reactors if the EPR design. Both are hugely over budget and absurdly behind schedule. Even as they approached a date for final testing and starting full scale operation the schedule continued to increase by doubling the remaining time every few months. It's like a backgammon game. > > > > Here in the US we had a reactor project go belly up taking down the Westinghouse nuclear company with it. What kind of technology takes out one of the longest lived companies promoting it because of the massive budget and schedule overruns that everyone has come to expect? > > > Nuclear has simply become too expensive and uncertain to plan commercially. What company is going to commit construction of new facilities when starting with any reasonable schedule and budget they can expect it to be blown by factors of 2 to 4? > > Ask the owners of the 50 under construction right now, with another 50 > in the planning stages.
Granting Trader4's intellectual competence, this is most likely fifty references to the same project, with fifty more referring to it's planning stage. He isn't going to post any links to these reactors under construction, because he thinks he can get away with making the bald assertion.
> And right now, even with the US sitting on our > asses with nuclear for forty years, 20% of our power comes from nuclear. > After two decades of talk, massive subsidies, and lots of actual deployment, > how much US power comes from solar? A whopping 1.6%
Actually, 19% of US electricity generation comes from nuclear plants and the proportion is dropping. Renewables - wind and solar are currently 8% and rising rapidly. China started manufacturing solar cells on ten times the previous scale a few years ago, which halved the unit price, making them economically competitive in lot of places. When they generate 10% of the world electricity, as opposed to current 1%, they will manufactured in even higher volume, most likely at half the current price.
> > Oh yeah, the utilities. They know they can always force their customers to pay for it no matter how expensive it gets, > > About this, you're complaining? Without the govt forcing utilities to
pay outrageous prices for solar, without the govt handing out taxpayer money in subsidies, there would be no solar and you think that's just wonderful. That stopped happening a few years ago when China upped the scale of manufacture and halved the unit price. The current Australian government wants to keep the miners (that paid for its election campaign) happy, but no amount of arm twisting will persuade the electricity generators to invest in anything but wind and solar. Coal-fired stations are getting shut down all over the place and nobody is building new ones. -- Bill Sloman, Sydney
On Sunday, August 18, 2019 at 9:26:23 AM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
 
> > Nuclear generates 20% of US power. Solar, after > > all the talk and two decades of doing, generates 1.6%. Those are the facts. > > Actually, it is 19% and declining.
19% vs what I said, 20%. What a nit to pick, stupid lib. It would be 40% if all the tree huggers got out of the way. That's why there are 50 nuclear plants under construction around the world, but only 2 here. BTW, have you figured out how to use Google yet?
> > Renewables - wind and solar - are 8% and rising rapidly. Solar cells halved in price a few years ago, and suddenly became a lot more economically attractive. > > If they push up from 1% to 10% of the world market, the price will almost certainly halve again, and make them even more economically attractive. > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States#/media/File:US_Electrical_Generation_1950-2016.png > > The fact that the Koch brothers, who bought the Republican Party when they funded the Tea Party movement,
Another lie and I don't see you bitching about George Soros or Tom Steyer using their money to "buy" the Democratic Party.
On Sunday, August 18, 2019 at 4:38:24 AM UTC-4, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Aug 2019 23:37:52 -0700 (PDT), Rick C > <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote: > > >On Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 5:20:31 PM UTC-4, Whoey Louie wrote: > > >> Nuclear is competitive and viable, which is why plants continue to be built around the world. The US is unique, because we let radical obstructionists block it. The same obstructionists who say the world is being doomed by CO2. How hypocritical and stupid is that? > > > >Nuclear is only economically competitive with fossil fuels if you consider the cost of adding CO2 to the atmosphere and ignore the cost of turning fairly harmless uranium ores into hazardous, radioactive waste. > > > >Nuclear is not being built to a significant extent anywhere in the world other than possibly china. > > Both two EPRs in China are now on-line. Two in Europe is expected to > be on-line next year.
Yes, you seem to be helping make my point. There are hundreds of nuclear power plants in the world. You are pointing out there are two new ones and will be two more.. we just don't know when. Clearly nuclear is not what anyone would call "competitive and viable". I guess it's like saying flip phones are "competitive and viable". Yeah, someone, somewhere still makes them, but they are few and far between.
> >Nuclear power plants are becoming prohibitively expensive everywhere. I believe I've already posted from facts on the issues the EU has had building two new reactors if the EPR design. Both are hugely over budget and absurdly behind schedule. Even as they approached a date for final testing and starting full scale operation the schedule continued to increase by doubling the remaining time every few months. It's like a backgammon game. > > > >Here in the US we had a reactor project go belly up taking down the Westinghouse nuclear company with it. What kind of technology takes out one of the longest lived companies promoting it because of the massive budget and schedule overruns that everyone has come to expect? > > > >Nuclear has simply become too expensive and uncertain to plan commercially. What company is going to commit construction of new facilities when starting with any reasonable schedule and budget they can expect it to be blown by factors of 2 to 4? > > Things started to go bad after Tsernobyl, when a lot new reactor > projects were canceled. After this many nuclear engineers and > constructors have retired or moved to other businesses. Very few new > young engineers were interested in the business. Also the licensing > authorities were scaled down, only those remained that had to oversee > old reactors.
Again, you seem to be helping prove my point.
> With the recent renewed interest in nuclear energy, the tradition of > nuclear power plant building was lost and new generation had to be > trained and mew design done. Also new licensing authorities become > more security critical and started to demand huge byrocrasy. > Especially a huge paper trail was required for everything, apparently > thinking that the paper trail itself would enhance security.
Still more support for my point even though it isn't really valid, rather a figment of your fertile imagination.
> The problems of getting a project licensed and the NIMBY effect meant > that new projects could be built on old sites, where the population > supporting new projects and hence new work. > > All this problems with new reactors meant that the power output from a > single unit had to made as large as possible, instead of making two > medium size units. A single very big installation is more or less a > prototype.
Still more support for my statement.
> A better approach would be building a series of small units and then > duplicate the design. This would mean that he same red tape could be > used for each identical unit (at least in the same country and > licensing authority). Also with a series of smaller units, the first > could be in production bringing revenue, while the next one(s) are > still under construction.
You talk like every rector is a total start from scratch regarding approvals. It's not. That is why very few are considering thorium molten salt reactors, they WOULD be a start from scratch and cost billions to get through the approval process.
> The only small unit construction actually built that I know about is > the Admiral Lomonosov floating power plant. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademik_Lomonosov > with two KLT-40S nuclear icebreaker reactors. Unfortunately those > reactors are a bit small (2x35 MWe), so it usable only for low load > sites.
Great idea, but it doesn't matter what you think. It matters what the builders of nuke plants think. Mostly they think it's too expensive and risky to get the plants built in a safe manner and are building other types of power plants. -- Rick C. --- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging --- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209