OT: 'Photon Farming' in California

[Rick C]

On Sunday, August 4, 2019 at 1:25:09 PM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 04/08/19 17:02, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, August 4, 2019 at 10:41:37 AM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 04/08/19 15:01, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, August 4, 2019 at 5:12:51 AM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 04/08/19 09:35, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:
On Sun, 4 Aug 2019 08:06:08 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

The thing being discussed is using the peak solar generation. All
of it doesn't need to power every car. The idea is to take the peak
load to use for something that can be scheduled to suit the supply.

We don't have sun, we have wind. But that is non-existent for days at a
time when a blocking high pressure is over the UK.

Rule of thumb from measurements of the entire UK wind output. X% of the
time the wind output is less than X% of peak output.

Hence for 3 days a year we expect ~1% of the peak output.

Unless you are a renewable purist, why not run some NG fired gas turbines
on those days that the wind production is low.

I am very much a pragmatist in these respects. I don't care how we get our
energy, provided the arithmetic (technical, financial, AGW) adds up.

The renewable zealots /really/ don't like considering that if you install X
GW of wind power, then you can retire 0 GW of conventional plant. The
renewable zealots also absolutely refuse to discuss whether the cost of
such "idle" conventional plant should be added to the cost of the wind
plant.

The idle plants don't cost extra if they aren't used all the time. If you
want preventing carbon pollution to be free, then keep moving, let someone
else up front. Given enough time renewables will be the lowest cost
solution, even with the backup generation. For fossil fuel plants the
capital cost doesn't dominate, it's fuel costs. Remove the fuel costs and
the remaining capacity isn't so expensive.

Again, you are unwittingly myopic - and inaccurate.

Note the key phrase "not economic", and please explain this
news from last week....

The German utility giant RWE will close its last UK coal plant
after the coming winter, leaving only four remaining coal plants
powering British homes.

RWE will close the Aberthaw B power station in south Wales at
the end of March 2020 after half a century generating electricity
from coal.

“The reasons given for the closure are economic – the plant has
rarely run over the last few months,” said Kelvin Mawer, a
regional officer at Unite. “However, the decision to close has
come a lot earlier than expected.”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/01/german-utilities-firm-rwe-to-close-its-last-uk-coal-plant-in-2020

I'm not going to try to connect things that aren't connected.

Yes, we've noted that you don't like to connect inconvenient truths.

You didn't say anything that could be considered a "truth". That's often what you do. You say things and think you have stated something significant while you didn't say much at all. Just like Trump.

That's deceitful and objectionable.


For long time fuel storage a liquid fuel would be better, but also these
have issues with long time (month, years) storage. For biodiesel, there
can be issues with bacteria and algae growth, clogging fuel filters..

We don't have enough gas storage in the UK - the market sees no need for
it. Yes, that's a "Ford Pinto" attitude, and demonstrates that "the market"
needs to be controlled. But that's a heresy.

Yup, the UK is stuffed. Better get used to it.

Agreed, the UK energy industry is screwed up beyond belief.

Political/economic ideology is the core reason.

Ok, sorry about that. You can always move.

Where to?

Soon Europe won't be possible, I haven't got enough cash to buy
my way into Australia, and I don't fancy Costa Rica.

Yeah, I guess everyone but the US is doomed. Bye.

--

Rick C.

-+-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Sunday, August 4, 2019 at 1:19:28 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

On Sun, 4 Aug 2019 15:41:33 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 04/08/19 15:01, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, August 4, 2019 at 5:12:51 AM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 04/08/19 09:35, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:
On Sun, 4 Aug 2019 08:06:08 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

The thing being discussed is using the peak solar generation. All
of it doesn't need to power every car. The idea is to take the peak
load to use for something that can be scheduled to suit the supply..

We don't have sun, we have wind. But that is non-existent for days at a
time when a blocking high pressure is over the UK.

Rule of thumb from measurements of the entire UK wind output. X% of the
time the wind output is less than X% of peak output.

Hence for 3 days a year we expect ~1% of the peak output.

Unless you are a renewable purist, why not run some NG fired gas turbines
on those days that the wind production is low.

I am very much a pragmatist in these respects. I don't care how we get our
energy, provided the arithmetic (technical, financial, AGW) adds up.

The renewable zealots /really/ don't like considering that if you install X
GW of wind power, then you can retire 0 GW of conventional plant. The
renewable zealots also absolutely refuse to discuss whether the cost of
such "idle" conventional plant should be added to the cost of the wind
plant.

The idle plants don't cost extra if they aren't used all the time. If you
want preventing carbon pollution to be free, then keep moving, let someone
else up front. Given enough time renewables will be the lowest cost
solution, even with the backup generation. For fossil fuel plants the
capital cost doesn't dominate, it's fuel costs. Remove the fuel costs and
the remaining capacity isn't so expensive.

Again, you are unwittingly myopic - and inaccurate.

Note the key phrase "not economic", and please explain this
news from last week....

The German utility giant RWE will close its last UK coal plant
after the coming winter, leaving only four remaining coal plants
powering British homes.

RWE will close the Aberthaw B power station in south Wales at
the end of March 2020 after half a century generating electricity
from coal.

“The reasons given for the closure are economic – the plant has
rarely run over the last few months,” said Kelvin Mawer, a
regional officer at Unite. “However, the decision to close has
come a lot earlier than expected.”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/01/german-utilities-firm-rwe-to-close-its-last-uk-coal-plant-in-2020


That's deceitful and objectionable.


For long time fuel storage a liquid fuel would be better, but also these
have issues with long time (month, years) storage. For biodiesel, there
can be issues with bacteria and algae growth, clogging fuel filters.

We don't have enough gas storage in the UK - the market sees no need for
it. Yes, that's a "Ford Pinto" attitude, and demonstrates that "the market"
needs to be controlled. But that's a heresy.

Yup, the UK is stuffed. Better get used to it.

Agreed, the UK energy industry is screwed up beyond belief.

Political/economic ideology is the core reason.

Coal power is dying a natural death in the US, because fracked NG is
so cheap, and as a side benefit clean.

More garbage talk. NG may emit less carbon than coal, but it is far from "clean". It's like pissing in your well instead of dropping turds.

We can ship our unused coal to China and Japan. Gotta compete with
Australia.

China is committed to reducing coal as a part of their energy supply. They aren't going to buy more US coal after Trump is done with the tariff war.

x--

Rick C.

--++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 04/08/19 17:01, Rick C wrote:

On Sunday, August 4, 2019 at 10:36:40 AM UTC-4, Cursitor Doom wrote:
On Sun, 04 Aug 2019 06:56:38 -0700, Rick C wrote:

You can't. So the UK is stuffed when it comes to EVs.

Why are you and Sloman constantly bashing the UK? Some online equivalent
of penis envy?

I'm not bashing the UK.

Don't expect comprehension skills from CD.

> I'm acknowledging Tom Gardner's claim that solar and wind power aren't practical in the UK.

Where have I said that? Wind is very practical, but has
significant limitations that rabid greens don't like to
acknowledge.

 

[Rick C]

On Sunday, August 4, 2019 at 1:12:09 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

On Sun, 4 Aug 2019 11:16:24 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 8/3/19 12:44 PM, Rick C wrote:
On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 12:41:00 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sat, 3 Aug 2019 17:15:00 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 03/08/19 16:44, John Larkin wrote:
On Sat, 3 Aug 2019 14:40:47 -0000 (UTC), Cursitor Doom
curd@notformail.com> wrote:

Worth a try!

https://tinyurl.com/y67eltrh

What will we do with gigawatts of power that peaks mid-day, only on
good days?

If you have hills and water, push the water uphill.

Well, we do have some hills sixty miles away from the central valley.
I doubt that mass energy storage is economical; certainly batteries
aren't.

Solar makes little sense; natural gas fracking is in financial trouble
in the US because it has been so successful that there's a glut of
cheap gas. If we have to build NG plants to power us up when the sun
don't shine, may as well run them 24/7.

Except the cost of solar is currently competitive and still dropping. Why pay more for energy from a harmful source? Do you just like to toss money out the window?


That's what car radiators are for, to efficiently turn your gas money
into heat to eject into space

Cars are to get me, optionally with other people and stuff, from place
to place efficiently and with minimum hassle. They do that very well.
They are not a problem that needs to be solved.

If people enjoy charging for hours and planning routes to accomodate
range limits and charging station locations, and shutting off heat and
a/c and lights as part of their game, and driving cramped, ugly cars,
and counting every penney they presumably save, let them have their
silly fun.

If the want to Save The Earth, they should forego heat and a/c and
vacations on airplanes. Stay home in the dark and sweat.

Like so many other things, John likes to make up a fantasy about electric cars. I especially like his criticism of EVs being cramped and ugly while my EV is the roomiest car I've ever had including trucks. It holds six people and still has a large trunk space. I can easily carry skis or kayak paddles. Love it.

--

Rick C.

--+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 04/08/19 18:15, John Larkin wrote:

On Sun, 4 Aug 2019 10:12:45 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 04/08/19 09:35, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:
On Sun, 4 Aug 2019 08:06:08 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

The thing being discussed is using the peak solar generation. All
of it doesn't need to power every car. The idea is to take the peak load to
use for something that can be scheduled to suit the supply.

We don't have sun, we have wind. But that is non-existent
for days at a time when a blocking high pressure is over
the UK.

Rule of thumb from measurements of the entire UK wind
output. X% of the time the wind output is less than X%
of peak output.

Hence for 3 days a year we expect ~1% of the peak output.

Unless you are a renewable purist, why not run some NG fired gas
turbines on those days that the wind production is low.

I am very much a pragmatist in these respects. I don't
care how we get our energy, provided the arithmetic
(technical, financial, AGW) adds up.

The renewable zealots /really/ don't like considering that
if you install X GW of wind power, then you can retire 0 GW
of conventional plant.

That's not the case of we seriously revise our economies and
lifestyles, which is the actual bottom-line goal.

Indeed, but that's a "crossing the chasm" problem.

"If you want to go /there/, I wouldn't start from /here/".

 

[Jeroen Belleman]

On 2019-08-04 02:03, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 04/08/19 00:24, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:
On Sat, 3 Aug 2019 11:32:27 -0700 (PDT), Rick C
gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 1:30:37 PM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:
On 03/08/2019 17:42, amdx wrote:
On 8/3/2019 10:44 AM, John Larkin wrote:
On Sat, 3 Aug 2019 14:40:47 -0000 (UTC), Cursitor Doom
curd@notformail.com> wrote:

Worth a try!

https://tinyurl.com/y67eltrh

What will we do with gigawatts of power that peaks mid-day, only on
good days?

Pump water!

Doesn't it also coincide with peak aircon loading in the USA?

Pumped storage is very effective for storing a chunk of energy if you
have a pair of suitable lakes at very different heights and the
water to
go in them. The latter possibly being in short supply in California.

Summer peak usage is late afternoon when people are returning home as
well as retail and businesses are still open... same as UK and most
places. I posted links to curves showing this a while back.

Solar peaks literally at midday.

What is this "sun" of which you speak?


Then charge EVs during midday.

Of course this require charging infrastructure in places were cars are
parked during midday, such as on company parking lots. This is not
hard to organize.

Yes, it is...

As usual, you are basing your statements on what is
familiar to you. And it just ain't as easy as you think.

The city where I live deliberately restricts the number of
car parking spaces at work to *much* less than the number of
employees, so as to encourage use of public transport. I
believe other cities have similar policies.

I often think that city authorities *like* to create traffic jams.
I'm convinced that the amount of traffic in city centres could
be halved by removing all the intentional obstacles and providing
sufficient parking space.

Jeroen Belleman

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sunday, August 4, 2019 at 7:19:02 PM UTC+10, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:

On Sun, 4 Aug 2019 01:52:21 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sunday, August 4, 2019 at 6:35:08 PM UTC+10, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
On Sun, 4 Aug 2019 08:06:08 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

The thing being discussed is using the peak solar generation. All
of it doesn't need to power every car. The idea is to take the peak load to
use for something that can be scheduled to suit the supply.

We don't have sun, we have wind. But that is non-existent
for days at a time when a blocking high pressure is over
the UK.

Rule of thumb from measurements of the entire UK wind
output. X% of the time the wind output is less than X%
of peak output.

Hence for 3 days a year we expect ~1% of the peak output.

Unless you are a renewable purist, why not run some NG fired gas
turbines on those days that the wind production is low.

For long time fuel storage a liquid fuel would be better, but also
these have issues with long time (month, years) storage. For
biodiesel, there can be issues with bacteria and algae growth,
clogging fuel filters.

The hydrogen economy freaks want you to use liquid hydrogen, which doesn't have that kind of problem.

How much cooling power is required to keep the hydrogen in liquid
form, especially if the extra boost by hydrogen is needed once a week
or once a month, when wind production is very small ?

The hydrogen freaks in Australia are planning to ship tanker-loads of it to Japan and South Korea.

The back-up liquid hydogen would just be part of the supply chain.

The cooling power required to keep the hydrogen liquid depends on the size of the tank being insulated, and the amount you spend on the insulation.

The bigger the tank, the smaller the surface area per unit volume.

Oil tanker type ships takinga couple of weeks to get to Japan and Korea are clearly feasible. They'd have on-board Stirling enegine refrigerators to keep the hydrogen liquid.

Land-based holding tanks could be even bigger. I wouldn't want one in my backyard - an earth-quake that ruptured the tank could create the mother of all fuel-air bombs - but Australia has a lot of remarkably geologically stable outback.

Some of the Australian hydrogen freaks want to ship the hydrgoen around as liquid ammonia, which would also work, and requires rather less refrigeration.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

On Sun, 4 Aug 2019 18:14:11 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sunday, August 4, 2019 at 7:19:02 PM UTC+10, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
On Sun, 4 Aug 2019 01:52:21 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sunday, August 4, 2019 at 6:35:08 PM UTC+10, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
On Sun, 4 Aug 2019 08:06:08 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

The thing being discussed is using the peak solar generation. All
of it doesn't need to power every car. The idea is to take the peak load to
use for something that can be scheduled to suit the supply.

We don't have sun, we have wind. But that is non-existent
for days at a time when a blocking high pressure is over
the UK.

Rule of thumb from measurements of the entire UK wind
output. X% of the time the wind output is less than X%
of peak output.

Hence for 3 days a year we expect ~1% of the peak output.

Unless you are a renewable purist, why not run some NG fired gas
turbines on those days that the wind production is low.

For long time fuel storage a liquid fuel would be better, but also
these have issues with long time (month, years) storage. For
biodiesel, there can be issues with bacteria and algae growth,
clogging fuel filters.

The hydrogen economy freaks want you to use liquid hydrogen, which doesn't have that kind of problem.

How much cooling power is required to keep the hydrogen in liquid
form, especially if the extra boost by hydrogen is needed once a week
or once a month, when wind production is very small ?

The hydrogen freaks in Australia are planning to ship tanker-loads of it to Japan and South Korea.

So they have gotten the idea from LNG tankers. The problem is that
liquid methane requires -161 C, while hydrogen -253 C.

An other snag is that the hydrogen density is low even as liquified,
just look at the space shuttle external tank in which the most part is
taken by liquid hydrogen.

How much energy is required for compression and liquefaction ?

The back-up liquid hydogen would just be part of the supply chain.

The cooling power required to keep the hydrogen liquid depends on the size of the tank being insulated, and the amount you spend on the insulation.

The bigger the tank, the smaller the surface area per unit volume.

Oil tanker type ships takinga couple of weeks to get to Japan and Korea are clearly feasible. They'd have on-board Stirling enegine refrigerators to keep the hydrogen liquid.

Land-based holding tanks could be even bigger. I wouldn't want one in my backyard - an earth-quake that ruptured the tank could create the mother of all fuel-air bombs - but Australia has a lot of remarkably geologically stable outback.

Some of the Australian hydrogen freaks want to ship the hydrgoen around as liquid ammonia, which would also work, and requires rather less refrigeration.

Excuse my ignorance, but where do these freaks get that hydrogen ?

- Do you really have wells in Australia with free nitrogen ?
- Are they going to split some organic matter (such as NG) into coal
and hydrogen ?
- Are they going to use electrolysis ? How do they generate the
required electricity ?
- Are they using some new 4G very high temperature nuclear reactor to
directly split water into oxygen and hydrogen ? As far as I understand
such very high temperatures nuclear reactor only exists on paper.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Monday, August 5, 2019 at 3:25:48 PM UTC+10, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:

On Sun, 4 Aug 2019 18:14:11 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sunday, August 4, 2019 at 7:19:02 PM UTC+10, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
On Sun, 4 Aug 2019 01:52:21 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sunday, August 4, 2019 at 6:35:08 PM UTC+10, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
On Sun, 4 Aug 2019 08:06:08 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

The thing being discussed is using the peak solar generation. All
of it doesn't need to power every car. The idea is to take the peak load to
use for something that can be scheduled to suit the supply.

We don't have sun, we have wind. But that is non-existent
for days at a time when a blocking high pressure is over
the UK.

Rule of thumb from measurements of the entire UK wind
output. X% of the time the wind output is less than X%
of peak output.

Hence for 3 days a year we expect ~1% of the peak output.

Unless you are a renewable purist, why not run some NG fired gas
turbines on those days that the wind production is low.

For long time fuel storage a liquid fuel would be better, but also
these have issues with long time (month, years) storage. For
biodiesel, there can be issues with bacteria and algae growth,
clogging fuel filters.

The hydrogen economy freaks want you to use liquid hydrogen, which doesn't have that kind of problem.

How much cooling power is required to keep the hydrogen in liquid
form, especially if the extra boost by hydrogen is needed once a week
or once a month, when wind production is very small ?

The hydrogen freaks in Australia are planning to ship tanker-loads of it to Japan and South Korea.

So they have gotten the idea from LNG tankers. The problem is that
liquid methane requires -161 C, while hydrogen -253 C.

Everybody knows that.

An other snag is that the hydrogen density is low even as liquified,
just look at the space shuttle external tank in which the most part is
taken by liquid hydrogen.

George Monbiot talked about that when speculating about renewable air travel back in "Heat" published about 2006.

It doesn't seem to be worrying the hydrogen freaks.

How much energy is required for compression and liquefaction ?


The back-up liquid hydogen would just be part of the supply chain.

The cooling power required to keep the hydrogen liquid depends on the size of the tank being insulated, and the amount you spend on the insulation.

The bigger the tank, the smaller the surface area per unit volume.

Oil tanker type ships takinga couple of weeks to get to Japan and Korea are clearly feasible. They'd have on-board Stirling enegine refrigerators to keep the hydrogen liquid.

Land-based holding tanks could be even bigger. I wouldn't want one in my backyard - an earth-quake that ruptured the tank could create the mother of all fuel-air bombs - but Australia has a lot of remarkably geologically stable outback.

Some of the Australian hydrogen freaks want to ship the hydrgoen around as liquid ammonia, which would also work, and requires rather less refrigeration.

Excuse my ignorance, but where do these freaks get that hydrogen?

Loads of solar farms spread around Australia - electrolysis needs water so the target sites are clsoe to the coast ...

> - Do you really have wells in Australia with free nitrogen?

The atmosphere is about 70% nitrogen.

- Are they going to split some organic matter (such as NG) into coal
and hydrogen?

That's what we do at the moment. It isn't sustainable.

> - Are they going to use electrolysis?

That the long term plan.

> How do they generate the required electricity?

Solar cells.

- Are they using some new 4G very high temperature nuclear reactor to
directly split water into oxygen and hydrogen?

No. Or if they are they aren't admitting it. It sounds like a daft idea.

> As far as I understand such very high temperatures nuclear reactor only exists on paper.

Not even on any paper I'v seen.

They'd need some remarkably refractory construction material.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Monday, August 5, 2019 at 3:57:58 PM UTC+10, whit3rd wrote:

On Sunday, August 4, 2019 at 10:25:48 PM UTC-7, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
On Sun, 4 Aug 2019 18:14:11 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman

The hydrogen freaks in Australia are planning to ship tanker-loads of it to Japan and South Korea.

So they have gotten the idea from LNG tankers. The problem is that
liquid methane requires -161 C, while hydrogen -253 C.

So, it cryopumps more effectively in vacuum spaces, leading to a cleaner vacuum and better insulation. It doesn't need to be that cold if pressurized and not nearly that cold if intercalated, (solidified) instead of liquid.

Intercalation offers circa 150 kg/m^3, liquid only 70 kg/m^3

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369702103009222

so, for portable tanks, you do NOT want liquid.

Unless you want to fill or empty them tolerably quickly.

Carbon nanotubes and the like aren't going to be cheap either.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Jasen Betts]

On 2019-08-04, Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

On 2019-08-04 02:03, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 04/08/19 00:24, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:
On Sat, 3 Aug 2019 11:32:27 -0700 (PDT), Rick C
gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 1:30:37 PM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:
On 03/08/2019 17:42, amdx wrote:
On 8/3/2019 10:44 AM, John Larkin wrote:
On Sat, 3 Aug 2019 14:40:47 -0000 (UTC), Cursitor Doom
curd@notformail.com> wrote:

Worth a try!

https://tinyurl.com/y67eltrh

What will we do with gigawatts of power that peaks mid-day, only on
good days?

Pump water!

Doesn't it also coincide with peak aircon loading in the USA?

Pumped storage is very effective for storing a chunk of energy if you
have a pair of suitable lakes at very different heights and the
water to
go in them. The latter possibly being in short supply in California.

Summer peak usage is late afternoon when people are returning home as
well as retail and businesses are still open... same as UK and most
places. I posted links to curves showing this a while back.

Solar peaks literally at midday.

What is this "sun" of which you speak?


Then charge EVs during midday.

Of course this require charging infrastructure in places were cars are
parked during midday, such as on company parking lots. This is not
hard to organize.

Yes, it is...

As usual, you are basing your statements on what is
familiar to you. And it just ain't as easy as you think.

The city where I live deliberately restricts the number of
car parking spaces at work to *much* less than the number of
employees, so as to encourage use of public transport. I
believe other cities have similar policies.

I often think that city authorities *like* to create traffic jams.
I'm convinced that the amount of traffic in city centres could
be halved by removing all the intentional obstacles and providing
sufficient parking space.

I've seen it happen, knock down half the buildings and the traffic
drops dramatically. This is not necessarily desirable.

--
When I tried casting out nines I made a hash of it.

 

[Rick C]

On Friday, August 9, 2019 at 7:31:32 AM UTC-4, Jasen Betts wrote:

On 2019-08-04, Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

I often think that city authorities *like* to create traffic jams.
I'm convinced that the amount of traffic in city centres could
be halved by removing all the intentional obstacles and providing
sufficient parking space.

I've seen it happen, knock down half the buildings and the traffic
drops dramatically. This is not necessarily desirable.

I don't know about the city governments, but I recall years ago a relatively new mall had become very popular and as the county population grew the parking lot became so crowed it was limiting sales. I thought this would be a big problem for the mall, but then I realized it was the opposite. They really didn't care about the convenience to the shoppers. The fact was the mall was working at full capacity and the businesses all loved it!

After another 15 years they upgraded the road and the mall improved ingress/egress.

--

Rick C.

-+-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 04/08/19 15:41, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 04/08/19 15:01, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, August 4, 2019 at 5:12:51 AM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 04/08/19 09:35, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:
On Sun, 4 Aug 2019 08:06:08 +0100, Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk
wrote:

The thing being discussed is using the peak solar generation.  All
of it doesn't need to power every car.  The idea is to take the peak
load to use for something that can be scheduled to suit the supply.

We don't have sun, we have wind. But that is non-existent for days at a
time when a blocking high pressure is over the UK.

Rule of thumb from measurements of the entire UK wind output. X% of the
time the wind output is less than X% of peak output.

Hence for 3 days a year we expect ~1% of the peak output.

Unless you are a renewable purist, why not run some NG fired gas turbines
on those days that the wind production is low.

I am very much a pragmatist in these respects. I don't care how we get our
energy, provided the arithmetic (technical, financial, AGW) adds up.

The renewable zealots /really/ don't like considering that if you install X
GW of wind power, then you can retire 0 GW of conventional plant. The
renewable zealots also absolutely refuse to discuss whether the cost of
such "idle" conventional plant should be added to the cost of the wind
plant.

The idle plants don't cost extra if they aren't used all the time.  If you
want preventing carbon pollution to be free, then keep moving, let someone
else up front.  Given enough time renewables will be the lowest cost
solution, even with the backup generation.  For fossil fuel plants the
capital cost doesn't dominate, it's fuel costs.  Remove the fuel costs and
the remaining capacity isn't so expensive.

Again, you are unwittingly myopic - and inaccurate.

Note the key phrase "not economic", and please explain this
news from last week....

 The German utility giant RWE will close its last UK coal plant
 after the coming winter, leaving only four remaining coal plants
 powering British homes.

 RWE will close the Aberthaw B power station in south Wales at
 the end of March 2020 after half a century generating electricity
 from coal.

 “The reasons given for the closure are economic – the plant has
 rarely run over the last few months,” said Kelvin Mawer, a
 regional officer at Unite. “However, the decision to close has
 come a lot earlier than expected.”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/01/german-utilities-firm-rwe-to-close-its-last-uk-coal-plant-in-2020



That's deceitful and objectionable.


For long time fuel storage a liquid fuel would be better, but also these
have issues with long time (month, years) storage. For biodiesel, there
can be issues with bacteria and algae growth, clogging fuel filters.

We don't have enough gas storage in the UK - the market sees no need for
it. Yes, that's a "Ford Pinto" attitude, and demonstrates that "the market"
needs to be controlled. But that's a heresy.

Yup, the UK is stuffed.  Better get used to it.

Agreed, the UK energy industry is screwed up beyond belief.

Political/economic ideology is the core reason.

And it happened - a concrete demonstration of how perilously
close to the limit the UK power system is.

I hope this will finally get through to Rick C that EV
infrastructure isn't as simple as it is in his neighbourhood.
But I doubt it

Yesterday *large*[1] parts of the UK had power cut because two
plants went offline within two minutes - one gas plant, one
wind plant. Yup, wind power does suddenly stop.

[1] There blackouts across the Midlands, the South East,
South West, North West and north east of England, and
Wales.

All you have to do is look at the compass points to realise
how widespread that was.

 

[Martin Brown]

On 10/08/2019 08:05, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 04/08/19 15:41, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 04/08/19 15:01, Rick C wrote:
[snip]

Yup, the UK is stuffed.  Better get used to it.

Agreed, the UK energy industry is screwed up beyond belief.

Political/economic ideology is the core reason.

And it happened - a concrete demonstration of how perilously
close to the limit the UK power system is.

And in mid summer when you might expect things to be safe.

I hope this will finally get through to Rick C that EV
infrastructure isn't as simple as it is in his neighbourhood.
But I doubt it

Yesterday *large*[1] parts of the UK had power cut because two
plants went offline within two minutes - one gas plant, one
wind plant. Yup, wind power does suddenly stop.

[1] There blackouts across the Midlands, the South East,
South West, North West and north east of England, and
Wales.

It seems likely that the initial problem which was the first gas turbine
generator dropping out wasn't dealt with in the two minutes before a
second independent failure of a wind turbine farm. The two being offline
together then took the mains frequency sufficiently far out of bounds
that some inverters stopped as well. Cascade failure followed.

Dinorwig can start in under 20s so someone wasn't paying attention...

The thing that they have failed to model adequately for grid management
is that conventional turbine generators have huge synchronised spinning
rotors that offer considerable inertia to changes in grid frequency.

By comparison semiconductor inverters seem to offer almost none and give
up completely if they find df/ft too large or f outside accepted bounds.
I don't see why this needs to be the case provided that the devices are
protected from overload - a couple of percent frequency variation
shouldn't take a decent power transformer into saturation.

It was astonishing how widespread the UK power cuts were for a fault
that was concentrated in the SE near Cambridgeshire - they lost
Newcastle Airport nearly 300 miles away as a direct result.

NHS hospitals that beancounters had put on the load shedding cheapest
tariff found themselves without any power at all - and the odd one
discovered their emergency backup generators didn't work either.

Lucky it happened at 5pm when most scheduled operations were over.

There appeared to be parts of the London underground that lacked
emergency lighting too (or if they had it then it failed too work).

It was also rather discouraging how few of the major systems recovered
gracefully from a sudden loss of power when power *was* restored after
about an hour. The trains are still a complete mess today.

All you have to do is look at the compass points to realise
how widespread that was.

That wide geographic spread is a bit weird - the protection system is
supposed to limit the contagion and shed the right sorts of load first
and nearby. We were not cut off but others in major cities were.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49302996

Offgen is looking into it. Don't hold your breath...

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Martin Brown]

On 10/08/2019 16:03, Tom Gardner wrote:

Another aspect is becoming apparent. The homes affected appear
to be in a fractal patchwork, rather than across a whole area.

For example, I didn't notice anything, but 4 and 10 miles away:
"the company’s website shows 194 homes in Keynsham and 25 in
Nailsea are still [yesterday] without electricity."

Why so few homes, and there not elsewhere?

There was independent damage to some local infrastructure by lightning
strikes in addition to the main event. A village not far from me took a
direct hit last night. We just got a to see a spectacular noisy display.

I think they got most of the load shedding stuff back on within a couple
of hours. Most times they get us back on within half a day unless there
is major damage affecting larger towns and cities in which case we wait.

Most of us have other ways of heating and lighting our homes since the
usual mode of failure is severe winter storm tree breaks the line.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[piglet]

On 10/08/2019 16:03, Tom Gardner wrote:

Another aspect is becoming apparent. The homes affected appear
to be in a fractal patchwork, rather than across a whole area.

For example, I didn't notice anything, but 4 and 10 miles away:
"the company’s website shows 194 homes in Keynsham and 25 in
Nailsea are still [yesterday] without electricity."

Why so few homes, and there not elsewhere?

Perhaps different switch centers have differing under-frequency-lockout
sensitivity and responsiveness delay?

If so that may not be quite so stupid, although I can't see why the
cutout had to be set so close to the regulatory limit, most loads would
still be perfectly content at 47Hz for instance.

piglet

 

[Rick C]

On Saturday, August 10, 2019 at 11:03:30 AM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 10/08/19 15:52, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 10/08/19 13:52, Martin Brown wrote:
On 10/08/2019 08:05, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 04/08/19 15:41, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 04/08/19 15:01, Rick C wrote:
[snip]

Yup, the UK is stuffed.  Better get used to it.

Agreed, the UK energy industry is screwed up beyond belief.

Political/economic ideology is the core reason.

And it happened - a concrete demonstration of how perilously
close to the limit the UK power system is.

And in mid summer when you might expect things to be safe.

I hope this will finally get through to Rick C that EV
infrastructure isn't as simple as it is in his neighbourhood.
But I doubt it

Yesterday *large*[1] parts of the UK had power cut because two
plants went offline within two minutes - one gas plant, one
wind plant. Yup, wind power does suddenly stop.

[1] There blackouts across the Midlands, the South East,
South West, North West and north east of England, and
Wales.

It seems likely that the initial problem which was the first gas turbine
generator dropping out wasn't dealt with in the two minutes before a second
independent failure of a wind turbine farm. The two being offline together
then took the mains frequency sufficiently far out of bounds that some
inverters stopped as well. Cascade failure followed.

So it seems. Gridwatch shows down to 49Hz when the limit
is 49.5Hz.

I look forward to seeing more in the trade press,
e.g. the IET and comp.risks


Dinorwig can start in under 20s so someone wasn't paying attention...

Maybe it was otherwise occupied?

waves arms
Maybe the velocity of the cascade was both too fast for humans,
and too slow for the automated system on the other side of the
country to kick in.
/waves arms


The thing that they have failed to model adequately for grid management is
that conventional turbine generators have huge synchronised spinning rotors
that offer considerable inertia to changes in grid frequency.

I pretty sure they know that and have modelled it It may well
be that load shedding occurs to prevent excessive stress being
put on the remaining rotors.


By comparison semiconductor inverters seem to offer almost none and give up
completely if they find df/ft too large or f outside accepted bounds. I don't
see why this needs to be the case provided that the devices are protected from
overload - a couple of percent frequency variation shouldn't take a decent
power transformer into saturation.

It was astonishing how widespread the UK power cuts were for a fault that was
concentrated in the SE near Cambridgeshire - they lost Newcastle Airport
nearly 300 miles away as a direct result.

Yes indeed.

I think it has got some politicians attention. Whether they will
continue to think about it is questionable, especially in the
face of the disaster of their own making.


NHS hospitals that beancounters had put on the load shedding cheapest tariff
found themselves without any power at all - and the odd one discovered their
emergency backup generators didn't work either.

Classic.


Lucky it happened at 5pm when most scheduled operations were over.

A few months ago my daughter was waiting in the anteroom all day
and night, and the operation finally happened at 7:30pm.


There appeared to be parts of the London underground that lacked emergency
lighting too (or if they had it then it failed too work).

It was also rather discouraging how few of the major systems recovered
gracefully from a sudden loss of power when power *was* restored after about
an hour. The trains are still a complete mess today.

That's unsurprising. You can't have a train from X; you have
to have a train to X followed by a train from X


All you have to do is look at the compass points to realise
how widespread that was.

That wide geographic spread is a bit weird - the protection system is supposed
to limit the contagion and shed the right sorts of load first and nearby. We
were not cut off but others in major cities were.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49302996

Offgen is looking into it. Don't hold your breath...

Yes, curious minds do want to know.

Another aspect is becoming apparent. The homes affected appear
to be in a fractal patchwork, rather than across a whole area.

For example, I didn't notice anything, but 4 and 10 miles away:
"the company’s website shows 194 homes in Keynsham and 25 in
Nailsea are still [yesterday] without electricity."

Why so few homes, and there not elsewhere?

Can't say about the UK, but in the US areas are often provided with power from more than one source by redundant paths. If one fails, they draw more power from another. At times this can result in an overload of any single circuit. Not surprising failures were sporadic. When you stress a system to it's max you find weak spots first, where ever they are.

--

Rick C.

+--- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+--- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Saturday, August 10, 2019 at 8:52:10 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:

It was also rather discouraging how few of the major systems recovered
gracefully from a sudden loss of power when power *was* restored after
about an hour. The trains are still a complete mess today.

Keep in mind that trains, like airlines, depend on the trains being where they need to be in order to maintain the schedule. If weather grounds a portion of the country, planes can't get where they need to be in order to continue the schedule without disruption and the entire country can be affected. When I say "country" I am thinking of the US. If you are in the UK please substitute "EU".

I'm sure a similar problem happens with trains. The move a lot slower and travel one dimensionally, so it can be hard to get things straightened out.

--

Rick C.

-+++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Saturday, August 10, 2019 at 3:05:45 AM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:

Yesterday *large*[1] parts of the UK had power cut because two
plants went offline within two minutes - one gas plant, one
wind plant. Yup, wind power does suddenly stop.

Yup, wind power stops suddenly, but not because the wind stopped blowing.

"Energy watchdog Ofgem has demanded an urgent report from National Grid into how the failure happened as parts of the UK were battered by strong winds and heavy rain."

“The first generator to disconnect was a gas fired plant at Little Barford at 16:58. Two minutes later Hornsea Offshore wind farm seems to have disconnected."

No one said the wind stopped blowing. lol

--

Rick C.

-++- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-++- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 10/08/19 15:52, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 10/08/19 13:52, Martin Brown wrote:
On 10/08/2019 08:05, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 04/08/19 15:41, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 04/08/19 15:01, Rick C wrote:
[snip]

Yup, the UK is stuffed.  Better get used to it.

Agreed, the UK energy industry is screwed up beyond belief.

Political/economic ideology is the core reason.

And it happened - a concrete demonstration of how perilously
close to the limit the UK power system is.

And in mid summer when you might expect things to be safe.

I hope this will finally get through to Rick C that EV
infrastructure isn't as simple as it is in his neighbourhood.
But I doubt it

Yesterday *large*[1] parts of the UK had power cut because two
plants went offline within two minutes - one gas plant, one
wind plant. Yup, wind power does suddenly stop.

[1] There blackouts across the Midlands, the South East,
South West, North West and north east of England, and
Wales.

It seems likely that the initial problem which was the first gas turbine
generator dropping out wasn't dealt with in the two minutes before a second
independent failure of a wind turbine farm. The two being offline together
then took the mains frequency sufficiently far out of bounds that some
inverters stopped as well. Cascade failure followed.

So it seems. Gridwatch shows down to 49Hz when the limit
is 49.5Hz.

I look forward to seeing more in the trade press,
e.g. the IET and comp.risks


Dinorwig can start in under 20s so someone wasn't paying attention...

Maybe it was otherwise occupied?

waves arms
Maybe the velocity of the cascade was both too fast for humans,
and too slow for the automated system on the other side of the
country to kick in.
/waves arms


The thing that they have failed to model adequately for grid management is
that conventional turbine generators have huge synchronised spinning rotors
that offer considerable inertia to changes in grid frequency.

I pretty sure they know that and have modelled it It may well
be that load shedding occurs to prevent excessive stress being
put on the remaining rotors.


By comparison semiconductor inverters seem to offer almost none and give up
completely if they find df/ft too large or f outside accepted bounds. I don't
see why this needs to be the case provided that the devices are protected from
overload - a couple of percent frequency variation shouldn't take a decent
power transformer into saturation.

It was astonishing how widespread the UK power cuts were for a fault that was
concentrated in the SE near Cambridgeshire - they lost Newcastle Airport
nearly 300 miles away as a direct result.

Yes indeed.

I think it has got some politicians attention. Whether they will
continue to think about it is questionable, especially in the
face of the disaster of their own making.


NHS hospitals that beancounters had put on the load shedding cheapest tariff
found themselves without any power at all - and the odd one discovered their
emergency backup generators didn't work either.

Classic.


Lucky it happened at 5pm when most scheduled operations were over.

A few months ago my daughter was waiting in the anteroom all day
and night, and the operation finally happened at 7:30pm.


There appeared to be parts of the London underground that lacked emergency
lighting too (or if they had it then it failed too work).

It was also rather discouraging how few of the major systems recovered
gracefully from a sudden loss of power when power *was* restored after about
an hour. The trains are still a complete mess today.

That's unsurprising. You can't have a train from X; you have
to have a train to X followed by a train from X


All you have to do is look at the compass points to realise
how widespread that was.

That wide geographic spread is a bit weird - the protection system is supposed
to limit the contagion and shed the right sorts of load first and nearby. We
were not cut off but others in major cities were.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49302996

Offgen is looking into it. Don't hold your breath...

Yes, curious minds do want to know.

Another aspect is becoming apparent. The homes affected appear
to be in a fractal patchwork, rather than across a whole area.

For example, I didn't notice anything, but 4 and 10 miles away:
"the company’s website shows 194 homes in Keynsham and 25 in
Nailsea are still [yesterday] without electricity."

Why so few homes, and there not elsewhere?