Kalifornistan, CO2, clueless politicians, climate hustle

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

10 minutes ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

California is home to  39 million inhabitants. That's about 12% of the US population. The state generates more than 20% of the US GDP. Do you seriously wish for the state to burn down. I live here, and so do my children and grandchildren. Please assure me that you do not really want the state to be burned down.  Wherever you live, I wish you the best.

They are not handling losing well.

 

[NickW + 2,714]

6 hours ago, ronwagn said:

I have never heard of one large outage related to natural gas in California or elsewhere. I live near a large pumping station and pipeline in central Illinois. 

You completely miss the point. Most outages are caused irrespective of fuel source. 

[Robert Ziegler + 121]

On 9/24/2020 at 12:00 AM, Dan Warnick said:

Newsom's aunt was married to Ron Pelosi, the brother-in-law of Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi.

all ya need to know.

[Richard D + 86]

Seems to me that is the problem. My favourite US comedy film is 'It's a Mad,Mad,Mad,World.' Wonderful vision of spaciousness and optimism. The 1960 film was made when there were less than half the present number of people in California. When I visited the state,many years later,I was not impressed. I was shown the famous Chinese Theatre and was astounded that there was a doss-house hotel nearly opposite. Movement of people into forested areas should have been given more thought. In rainy England,we have fire-breaks and watchtowers in plantations of trees.

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

3 hours ago, NickW said:

You completely miss the point. Most outages are caused irrespective of fuel source. 

Hmmm, so it always seems it's because of something burning?

California should make sure the land it is responsible to manage for fire prevention are taken care of.

The Federal Government should do the same.  If they don't and fires start on Federal land and spread outside of their controlled areas (actual fire or damage to State infrastructure), then California should sue for damages.

If what the majority of the Right believes is true, that the swamp is full of Lefties, then lawsuits against the Department of Land Management(?) should be well received and dealt with positively.  Congress is responsible for budgets and in essence the purse strings of the Federal Government (Trump cannot block, he can only bloviate and delay at times).

This should not be made political, by either Party (Yeah, I know, good luck with that  ) because it is in the interests of a large portion of both the citizens and land of the U.S..

[Wombat + 1,028]

7 hours ago, ronwagn said:

I think eventually is a long time and natural gas will fall in price for Asia. Europe has plenty of sources. Italy is a leader in natural gas vehicles. There are finds in many areas of the world. Most hydrogen is presently made from natural gas. 

Natural gas price in Asia is at rock bottom at the moment (Europe too), due to covid, massive increase in supply last year, and warm winter in US, Europe, and NE Asia. Should recover somewhat in a cpl months time, but I agree there have been many finds around the world. The problem is that none of us can make a profit out of the stuff right now, and I not so sure we ever will. I wish I could be as confident as you that demand will grow rapidly enough to soak up the excess supply, but I starting to lose faith in the industry. Even China has just announced that they will be carbon neutral by 2060 so you would think that would boost LNG sales in order to backup extra renewables but my instinct tells me otherwise. I have just started a new thread on the oil demand/supply debate so would appreciate a first comment if u could?

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

1 hour ago, Wombat said:

Natural gas price in Asia is at rock bottom at the moment (Europe too), due to covid, massive increase in supply last year, and warm winter in US, Europe, and NE Asia. Should recover somewhat in a cpl months time, but I agree there have been many finds around the world. The problem is that none of us can make a profit out of the stuff right now, and I not so sure we ever will. I wish I could be as confident as you that demand will grow rapidly enough to soak up the excess supply, but I starting to lose faith in the industry. Even China has just announced that they will be carbon neutral by 2060 so you would think that would boost LNG sales in order to backup extra renewables but my instinct tells me otherwise. I have just started a new thread on the oil demand/supply debate so would appreciate a first comment if u could?

Wombat, I agree with you on the Natural Gas prices.   Wombat said:  The problem is that none of us can make a profit out of the stuff right now, and I not so sure we ever will.

Is this your new THREAD?  -

I have been following Natural Gas prices here...

 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

On 9/26/2020 at 11:21 PM, ronwagn said:

and never had a blackout. I had one for a few days in a small rural town during an ice storm in my present state of Illinois. Here we have occasional momentary outages and maybe one a year lasting for about an hour or two. We have a lot of storms and downed trees. 

I invite you to try New England.  We routinely get storms here that knock out say 700,000 customers for seven to ten days. 

The prediction is that, in the next Category 5 hurricane to clobber New England, some 75% of the tree cover in the storm path will topple. I chatted with a State FEMA manager in Connecticut on this and asked him just how much, in volume, that rubble would be.  He estimated 2,000,000 semi-trailer dump loads.  And how many of those special extended dump trailers are actually in the State?  Less than 50.  OK, so what happens to all those fallen trees?  Answer:  they will be left in place, to rot. 

And, of course, the entire electric grid, down to the last wire, will be scrapped.  How long do you think it will take to completely rebuild an entire State's grid?  From scratch?  And where will the manpower come from to do that, assuming you have the materials?  Does anybody understand the magnitude of the problem?

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

25 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

I invite you to try New England.  We routinely get storms here that knock out say 700,000 customers for seven to ten days. 

The prediction is that, in the next Category 5 hurricane to clobber New England, some 75% of the tree cover in the storm path will topple. I chatted with a State FEMA manager in Connecticut on this and asked him just how much, in volume, that rubble would be.  He estimated 2,000,000 semi-trailer dump loads.  And how many of those special extended dump trailers are actually in the State?  Less than 50.  OK, so what happens to all those fallen trees?  Answer:  they will be left in place, to rot. 

And, of course, the entire electric grid, down to the last wire, will be scrapped.  How long do you think it will take to completely rebuild an entire State's grid?  From scratch?  And where will the manpower come from to do that, assuming you have the materials?  Does anybody understand the magnitude of the problem?

How often do category 5 hurricanes make it all the way to New England? I remember Sandy, but IIRC it was a 2 and maybe a 1 after landfall? I can't even imagine if Sandy had been a 5.

[Wombat + 1,028]

3 hours ago, Tom Nolan said:

Wombat, I agree with you on the Natural Gas prices.   Wombat said:  The problem is that none of us can make a profit out of the stuff right now, and I not so sure we ever will.

Is this your new THREAD?  -

I have been following Natural Gas prices here...

 

Yeah, that was my thread. Thanks for link to the one on NG, will check it out.

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

1 hour ago, Ward Smith said:

How often do category 5 hurricanes make it all the way to New England? I remember Sandy, but IIRC it was a 2 and maybe a 1 after landfall? I can't even imagine if Sandy had been a 5.

That's the point. It is not cost-effective to engineer the grid (or anything else) to be undamaged in a once-per-century event. That includes Cat 5 hurricanes, Derechos hitting the DC area,  and record-setting 120 degree heat in Southern California. What you can do is re-evaluate the probabilities of these events if they are becoming more likely, and make sensible, cost-effective engineering changes to lessen the damage and speed up the recovery.

[NickW + 2,714]

5 hours ago, Dan Warnick said:

Hmmm, so it always seems it's because of something burning?

California should make sure the land it is responsible to manage for fire prevention are taken care of.

The Federal Government should do the same.  If they don't and fires start on Federal land and spread outside of their controlled areas (actual fire or damage to State infrastructure), then California should sue for damages.

If what the majority of the Right believes is true, that the swamp is full of Lefties, then lawsuits against the Department of Land Management(?) should be well received and dealt with positively.  Congress is responsible for budgets and in essence the purse strings of the Federal Government (Trump cannot block, he can only bloviate and delay at times).

This should not be made political, by either Party (Yeah, I know, good luck with that  ) because it is in the interests of a large portion of both the citizens and land of the U.S..

I meant to say the cause is almost invariably transmission issues or the station tripping (a particular problem with nukes). 

Objectors to controlled burns, which are needed desperately in these areas to reduce fuel load have the same effect ultimately whether the source of power is solar, wind or gas. 

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

4 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

I invite you to try New England.  We routinely get storms here that knock out say 700,000 customers for seven to ten days. 

The prediction is that, in the next Category 5 hurricane to clobber New England, some 75% of the tree cover in the storm path will topple. I chatted with a State FEMA manager in Connecticut on this and asked him just how much, in volume, that rubble would be.  He estimated 2,000,000 semi-trailer dump loads.  And how many of those special extended dump trailers are actually in the State?  Less than 50.  OK, so what happens to all those fallen trees?  Answer:  they will be left in place, to rot. 

And, of course, the entire electric grid, down to the last wire, will be scrapped.  How long do you think it will take to completely rebuild an entire State's grid?  From scratch?  And where will the manpower come from to do that, assuming you have the materials?  Does anybody understand the magnitude of the problem?

Outages are not blackouts, as has already been pointed out.

Bringing up distribution problems as a counter argument for production issues is a logical fallacy and you know it - you can do better.

 

P.S. New England is also not part of California.

Edited September 28, 2020 by Enthalpic

[ronwagn + 6,290]

4 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

I invite you to try New England.  We routinely get storms here that knock out say 700,000 customers for seven to ten days. 

The prediction is that, in the next Category 5 hurricane to clobber New England, some 75% of the tree cover in the storm path will topple. I chatted with a State FEMA manager in Connecticut on this and asked him just how much, in volume, that rubble would be.  He estimated 2,000,000 semi-trailer dump loads.  And how many of those special extended dump trailers are actually in the State?  Less than 50.  OK, so what happens to all those fallen trees?  Answer:  they will be left in place, to rot. 

And, of course, the entire electric grid, down to the last wire, will be scrapped.  How long do you think it will take to completely rebuild an entire State's grid?  From scratch?  And where will the manpower come from to do that, assuming you have the materials?  Does anybody understand the magnitude of the problem?

I actually moved closer to Decatur after the the ice storm we had. I figured I saved $500 per month in commuting and other expenses. Changed my drive by 25 minutes each way. We saved a lot in gasoline, wear and tear, natural gas and electricity moving from a large two story home to a small new home with great insulation. The old home had no wall insulation. Natural gas was expensive back then. I actually had a corn stove. Now they add on more shipping expenses to pad their profits though. 

My first favorite energy was cellulose back when W.Bush favored cellulosic ethanol. I favored burning all the scrub brush that is a nuisance around the country. That includes lots of trees that are crowding out good lumber trees. I still can't understand why we are not doing that with the  best of technology, especially out West where it is a fire hazard. People like a parklike forest as they have in Germany where forestry was invented. They do not like to have to struggle through thickets. 

I am wondering what the cost of burying lines is like versus liabilities for power lines, tree trimming, repairing lines replacing poles etc. Maybe someone here knows. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

11 hours ago, NickW said:

You completely miss the point. Most outages are caused irrespective of fuel source. 

I said LARGE outages. They are caused by limited power supply during heat waves. Small outages are caused by tree falls, squirrels etc. I am sure that most outages are small. I am speaking from my experience. I have never lived in hurricane country so that world be Large but not due to ineptness. I guess underground lines would be a bad idea in wet country. 

Edited September 28, 2020 by ronwagn

[ronwagn + 6,290]

14 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

I've got a Tri fuel standby generator. It's rated at 12kw with gasoline, 10kw with propane and 8.8kw using natural gas. Natural gas runs fine, is very clean but doesn't have the oomph that gasoline or diesel have. Tri fuel is good because in an extended disaster, you don't know which fuel will be available. Plumbed natural gas is great, but the pumps that pressurise the system might not themselves have standby backup as our local hospital found out after an ice storm saw people without power for up to three weeks. If my system was quad fuel, the diesel would be good for at least 15kw, probably 18. Diesel is just that power dense. Long chain molecules

We had backup generators at the hospital I worked at. I think it was natural gas because we had a large vertical tank.

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

18 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

We had backup generators at the hospital I worked at. I think it was natural gas because we had a large vertical tank.

If you saw any tank, it was likely diesel. Natural gas is simply plumbed into the gas line, one inch diameter or thereabouts. 

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

30 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

We had backup generators at the hospital I worked at. I think it was natural gas because we had a large vertical tank.

Could a large number of things. 

The facility areas of hospitals have many gasses and tanks.  You need cryogenics for MRI machines and of course a lot of oxygen.

Edited September 28, 2020 by Enthalpic

[ronwagn + 6,290]

6 minutes ago, Enthalpic said:

Could a large number of things. 

The industrial areas of hospitals have many gasses and tanks.  You need cryogenics for MRI machines and of course a lot of oxygen.

Correct. While I have you online, how great a threat is the benzene in diesel and in copiers etc.? I had a daughter die of a the worst form of leukemia. She did a lot of copying work. I understand benzene is involved in copiers. Do you have any knowledge of that?

I found this. https://www.who.int/ipcs/features/benzene.pdf

I think that she had acute myeloid leukemia. It has been twenty years. We are still watching over her daughter. 

Edited September 28, 2020 by ronwagn
addition

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

24 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

Correct. While I have you online, how great a threat is the benzene in diesel and in copiers etc.? I had a daughter die of a the worst form of leukemia. She did a lot of copying work. I understand benzene is involved in copiers. Do you have any knowledge of that?

Benzene is a terrible carcinogen - it is associated with all petrochemical operations but it's relatively high boiling point makes it much easier to remove from light fractions than heavier ones like diesel.  Gasoline (and blends) can be up to a full 1% benzene.  Natural gas ready for use would be well less than 0.03%

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/SOR-97-493/page-1.html

BTEX analysis was one of the more common tests we we did at the lab.

 

Benzene in the past was used a lot in manufacturing, it has been replaced as much as possible with the much less toxic toluene or xylenes whenever possible. Essentially all electronic equipment off-gasses volatile organic compounds (VOCs), it's part of the "new car smell" or stink of new electronics.  Printers and copiers are worse than other electronic because they get hot.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32405897/

"It has been observed from the results that the emissions of VOCs, benzene, and toluene increase from 0.09 to 1.13 PPM, 0.17 to 1.87 PPM and 30 to 235 PPM, respectively, as the operating duration, temperature (35-40 °C) and rate of printing/photocopying increase (120-200/h), and it is because printer/photocopy machine uses heat and pressure to fix an image on the paper surface which subsequently result in higher emission. "

 

Edited September 28, 2020 by Enthalpic

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

 

Lot of carcinogenic crap in diesel exhaust.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9988090/

NIST CRM

https://www-s.nist.gov/srmors/certificates/1650B.pdf

 

Edited September 28, 2020 by Enthalpic

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

38 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

 I had a daughter die of the worst form of leukemia.

My condolences.  What type exactly?

Edited September 28, 2020 by Enthalpic

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

1 hour ago, ronwagn said:

I said LARGE outages. They are caused by limited power supply during heat waves. Small outages are caused by tree falls, squirrels etc. I am sure that most outages are small. I am speaking from my experience. I have never lived in hurricane country so that world be Large but not due to ineptness. I guess underground lines would be a bad idea in wet country. 

NO. In california, we have had two kinds of LARGE deliberate blackouts during the last three years: of these a total of two were  "rolling blackouts" caused by heat-related demand spikes exceeding available supply. All of the others (more than 20) "PSPS" (Public Safety Power Shutoffs). A PSPS is NOT caused by limited supply. We had plenty of supply. The power company deliberately cut the power to minimize the risk of a downed power line causing a fire.

https://www.pge.com/en_US/safety/emergency-preparedness/natural-disaster/wildfires/public-safety-power-shutoff-faq.page

Of course, like all power grids, as also have local outages caused by equipment failure, squirrels, traffic accidents taking out a pole, etc. We also have unplanned large outages caused by floods and earthquakes.

(Side note: underground is done in wet country all the time and for all voltages. Including HV to the substations. You can see this in many locations in the South Carolina Low Country.)

[ronwagn + 6,290]

1 hour ago, Enthalpic said:

My condolences.  What type exactly?

Acute lymphocytic. 

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

1 hour ago, ronwagn said:

Acute lymphocytic. 

Certainly an association with benzene exposure.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27686768/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25867262/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20584305/

Regards