.

[NickW + 2,714]

7 hours ago, El Gato said:

The earth has also changed it's "Tilt", with the northern hemisphere getting more light, and the Southern less. Anybody notice the the minimum daylight hours for the year were earlier than the winter solstice this year? And the longer daylight hours started earlier?

BTW the phenomenon of the earth tilt was verified by 7 different esquimaux tribes in Alaska and Canada.

Short term oscillations are insignificant

The main cycle that changes tilt  occurs over a 41000 year cycle. Changes within the scale of our lifetime are meaningless

 

[NickW + 2,714]

7 hours ago, El Gato said:

But Batteries also lose capacity, the colder they get, which is the reason you would seem to need them as a backup. Not suited for cold weather areas

Perhaps incorporate the batteries into buildings that are already heated or at least protected from weather extremes? 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

2 hours ago, NickW said:

If Biden is going to spend $2 trillion of your money fighting climate change one  good approach would be to address this issue whether it be by grants / interest free loans/  tax rebates etc. 

As well as environmental benefits there are also health, social and welfare benefits. I know these seem to be like 'evil socialism' on here. 

Also such a program, rather than enriching the Gates/ Musk / Bezos crowd puts a lot of work Joe Sixpack the builders way and stimulates manufacturing in the US's industrial belts. 

I appreciate the design of these houses is not helpful and there may even be questions about whether its worth renovating such an old building. 

You are talking about homes that are worth half a million dollars. The owners can afford to insulate them but the climate is very forgiving in most areas of California or elsewhere in the Southwest. Those with low incomes should get help though. 

Health is a much more complicated issue. I am retired and on medicare. I am also a veteran. When I enlisted I was promised free medical care after discharge. That was deleted back in the seventies I believe. I always thought that, or was led to  believe, that medicare was FREE. I now pay nearly $500 a month for my medical care! I pay a tremendous amount of tax when you add together income tax, sales tax, gasoline tax, energy taxes, property taxes, state income tax, license fees, etc. That does not include all the insurance coverages for my vehicles, my home, etc. Our medicare does not include dental, hearing, or vision. I went with my wife for her root canal yesterday. That is a two part surgery that will cost about $2,000 not including a replacement for the tooth. 

What little money we have left after taxes goes to keeping our vehicles healthy, helping our adult children and their children and lastly travel. I am taxed to help other peoples families also. I think that Nick, you have a lot of nerve to tell me that I should be happy to except more socialism on stupid green rush jobs when it will take decades to enact them properly and they will end up costing me more than using proven fossil fuels because many believe in man made global warming and want to get rich off the conversion. Tell it to the Chinese and Indians. That is the way to clean the air, water, and soil. Our problems are minor by comparison. 

Poor people in America receive care on a sliding scale based on income or from emergency rooms if needed. They cannot be turned away even if they are abusing the system or are illegal aliens. Many people take advantage of the system. My wife is a retired nurse practiitioner and I am a retired psychiatric RN. The best way to improve medical care is through educating people to take care of their bodies and eat properly. IMO everyone should be taugh medical care up to the nursing assistant level. It is needed for home health care for self,family, and friends. It can also lead to lucrative jobs in all branches of medical care. We always need more people in medical care jobs. 

Adding excess taxes to hard working Americans and retired people only makes the economy falter and fail. We would end up being poor like the rest of the world, but that is the acutal goal of our elites. They want to eliminate the middle class, they are doing a good job. 

[Sebastian Meana + 278]

3 hours ago, NickW said:

Im not but I will relay the explanation given to me by someone who until 5 years ago was managing a large part of a grid system comparable in size  to either California or Texas. More critically a system that actually works. He may have course have got it all wrong but then the UK hasn't had rolling power cuts since the early 70's (miners strike) 

This was the laymans explanation given to me.

• Due to a loss of supply / unexpected increase in demand the rotating mass of generating plant on the grid starts to slow .
• This is measured by a reduction in frequency from the normal 50 hertz in UK systems. I assume as you point out this is accompanied by a drop in voltage
• The generating mass attempt to recover this by speeding up (adjust the Governor &more fuel in) 
• However if the frequency continues to fall a trigger point occurs at about 49.7
• large interrruptible loads start to be disconnected from the grid for upto 30 minutes(large cold stores, large HVAC systems, water plants, some metal smelting operations). This is all automated and with contracted agreement by the affected parties. 
• Batteries are also playing an increasing role here in frequency drop / rise response

 

• If frequency continues to fall standing generators start to kick in (Usually stationary gen sets). Those are often at power stations and industrial sites. Mostly contracting in and all automated
• Contracted in short term operator reserve generators kick in. These are usually emergency generators set up on an automated response 
• Pumped Hydro (4GW in total)  kicks in within 2 minutes. Dinorwic goes from 0 to 1860MW in about 90 seconds
• There is about a GW of OCGT on standby which can fire up within a few minutes 
• There is about 2GW of Hydro of which there is normally some available capacity to utilise at short notice
• Beyond that its about getting partially loaded CCGT ramped up, bring cold plant into play and recover to 50 hz and shut down the fast response actions. 

The first 6 steps can occur within a few seconds. 

The next 5 within a couple of minutes.

My firm has 4 500KW gen sets as emergency generators at our data centre that are contracted in on this arrangement. We can also shut down the cooling for up to 30 minutes which takes 700KW of load off the grid. Its all contracted and automated to NG. 

 

Rolling System Frequency | BMRS (bmreports.com)

Reserve services | National Grid ESO

frequency doesn't fall, frequency is determined by the RPM of the alternators, what really falls when a power source goes down is amperage,

The grid in texas before wind power failed was likely already in trouble, running warm with undervoltages and overcurrent in order to try to satisfty demand for electricity, cut down wind power, and you lost 25% of that and the amps in the alternators go up, and some powerplant just shut down to not melt their windings insulation, (only a few hundreeds turbogenerators are made worldwide)

Which would only make it worse, the amperage across the other generators increases, they shut down so they don't melt, and it compounds itself and you end with a blackout at -30°C

A chain is a strong as it weakest link, and renewable energy is the weakest link

[NickW + 2,714]

1 minute ago, ronwagn said:

You are talking about homes that are worth half a million dollars. The owners can afford to insulate them but the climate is very forgiving in most areas of California or elsewhere in the Southwest. Those with low incomes should get help though. 

Health is a much more complicated issue. I am retired and on medicare. I am also a veteran. When I enlisted I was promised free medical care after discharge. That was deleted back in the seventies I believe. I always thought that, or was led to  believe, that medicare was FREE. I now pay nearly $500 a month for my medical care! I pay a tremendous amount of tax when you add together income tax, sales tax, gasoline tax, energy taxes, property taxes, state income tax, license fees, etc. That does not include all the insurance coverages for my vehicles, my home, etc. Our medicare does not include dental, hearing, or vision. I went with my wife for her root canal yesterday. That is a two part surgery that will cost about $2,000 not including a replacement for the tooth. 

What little money we have left after taxes goes to keeping our vehicles healthy, helping our adult children and their children and lastly travel. I am taxed to help other peoples families also. I think that Nick, you have a lot of nerve to tell me that I should be happy to except more socialism on stupid green rush jobs when it will take decades to enact them properly and they will end up costing me more than using proven fossil fuels because many believe in man made global warming and want to get rich off the conversion. Tell it to the Chinese and Indians. That is the way to clean the air, water, and soil. Our problems are minor by comparison. 

Poor people in America receive care on a sliding scale based on income or from emergency rooms if needed. They cannot be turned away even if they are abusing the system or are illegal aliens. Many people take advantage of the system. My wife is a retired nurse practiitioner and I am a retired psychiatric RN. The best way to improve medical care is through educating people to take care of their bodies and eat properly. IMO everyone should be taugh medical care up to the nursing assistant level. It is needed for home health care for self,family, and friends. It can also lead to lucrative jobs in all branches of medical care. We always need more people in medical care jobs. 

Adding excess taxes to hard working Americans and retired people only makes the economy falter and fail. We would end up being poor like the rest of the world, but that is the acutal goal of our elites. They want to eliminate the middle class, they are doing a good job. 

That was kind of what I was getting at - help for low income households in whatever format is most suitable. 

The health point is  if you live in a cold, damp house, or exposed to extreme heat then the health effects on the occupants are invariably negative. The health economics of preventing ill health is far more favourable than dealing with ill health at the hospital end. 

As for you comment about Socialism - I don't actually consider helping the poorest and most disadvantaged in society through some reasonable redistribution of wealth in the way suggested as socialist. Add a couple of % to Elons, Bills, Jeffs, Warrens  tax bill - in reality they wont miss it. 

 

[NickW + 2,714]

5 minutes ago, Sebastian Meana said:

frequency doesn't fall, frequency is determined by the RPM of the alternators, what really falls when a power source goes down is amperage,

The grid in texas before wind power failed was likely already in trouble, running warm with undervoltages and overcurrent in order to try to satisfty demand for electricity, cut down wind power, and you lost 25% of that and the amps in the alternators go up, and some powerplant just shut down to not melt their windings insulation, (only a few hundreeds turbogenerators are made worldwide)

Which would only make it worse, the amperage across the other generators increases, they shut down so they don't melt, and it compounds itself and you end with a blackout at -30°C

A chain is a strong as it weakest link, and renewable energy is the weakest link

Really....

Rolling System Frequency | BMRS (bmreports.com)

 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

2 minutes ago, NickW said:

That was kind of what I was getting at - help for low income households in whatever format is most suitable. 

The health point is  if you live in a cold, damp house, or exposed to extreme heat then the health effects on the occupants are invariably negative. The health economics of preventing ill health is far more favourable than dealing with ill health at the hospital end. 

As for you comment about Socialism - I don't actually consider helping the poorest and most disadvantaged in society through some reasonable redistribution of wealth in the way suggested as socialist. Add a couple of % to Elons, Bills, Jeffs, Warrens  tax bill - in reality they wont miss it. 

 

Nick, you are attempting to rob the tax base IMHO by forcing wind turbines on people who can barely pay their taxes already. You know very well that the super rich never get taxed in a way that hits them as hard as the middle class although they pay far more as a percentage of income than the poor. You also know that the poor often waste their money in frivolous and unhealthy ways. You should know that the middle class is being decimated by taxes of all kinds. Wake up and see the truth. The middle class is being destroyed by people who want to waste money. 

[NickW + 2,714]

9 minutes ago, Sebastian Meana said:

frequency doesn't fall, frequency is determined by the RPM of the alternators, what really falls when a power source goes down is amperage,

The grid in texas before wind power failed was likely already in trouble, running warm with undervoltages and overcurrent in order to try to satisfty demand for electricity, cut down wind power, and you lost 25% of that and the amps in the alternators go up, and some powerplant just shut down to not melt their windings insulation, (only a few hundreeds turbogenerators are made worldwide)

Which would only make it worse, the amperage across the other generators increases, they shut down so they don't melt, and it compounds itself and you end with a blackout at -30°C

A chain is a strong as it weakest link, and renewable energy is the weakest link

 

87% of the outage were accounted for by gas. coal, and nuclear shutdowns

I bet a proportion of the wind shut downs were actually because the grid had already failed and the turbines had to disconnect in what became a cascade event. 

[NickW + 2,714]

1 minute ago, ronwagn said:

Nick, you are attempting to rob the tax base IMHO by forcing wind turbines on people who can barely pay their taxes already. You know very well that the super rich never get taxed in a way that hits them as hard as the middle class although they pay far more as a percentage of income than the poor. You also know that the poor often waste their money in frivolous and unhealthy ways. You should know that the middle class is being decimated by taxes of all kinds. Wake up and see the truth. The middle class is being destroyed by people who want to waste money. 

 

The subject matter was about insulating poorly insulated housing in low income households so I don't know why you have introduced all that clutter?

 

RE tax - In a fair progressive tax system (which the US does not have)  income tax goes up at least in proportion to your income

Ex. 

Ron Earns $50K and pays $8K in taxes

Nick Earns $100K and pays $20K in taxes

Bob Earns $500K and pays $150K in taxes

Jeff earns $1 bn and pays $300m in taxes

The key to this firstly is to have a progressive tax rate system and secondly to remove all the tax dodges* that in particular the very rich use to get off paying tax and dumping all the burden on the middle classes. 

* Including BS 'charity' contributions. 

 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

We definitely have a progressive income tax system but have never dealt with all the tax dodges and how the super rich avoid paying taxes. Another issue is all the exorbitant millions paid to chief executives, other executives and how the businesses can pay millions of dollars in bonuses to executives while they actually go bankrupt! Then they leave cleanup costs from environmental damages like abandoned oil wells, wind turbines, buildings, etc. That is not counting the subsidies on green energy companies that have since gone bust. 

[turbguy + 1,540]

4 hours ago, NickW said:

See my detailed response to Ward a couple of posts back

Yes, more details, same result.  The US has a lot of interruptible customers as well, but I don't believe there is much automation on starting distributed generation. 

Pumped Hydro works well, as long as the units at that plant are available, and not already generating, or are not undergoing maintenance (typically scheduled outside of high demand periods).  And transmission congestion does not rear it's head.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

4 hours ago, NickW said:

Short term oscillations are insignificant

The main cycle that changes tilt  occurs over a 41000 year cycle. Changes within the scale of our lifetime are meaningless

 

Really, meaningless?

[ronwagn + 6,290]

4 hours ago, NickW said:

Perhaps incorporate the batteries into buildings that are already heated or at least protected from weather extremes? 

Or bury them underground where it is warmer? Insulate them? How does heat effect them, they can explode right?

[turbguy + 1,540]

42 minutes ago, Sebastian Meana said:

frequency doesn't fall, frequency is determined by the RPM of the alternators, what really falls when a power source goes down is amperage,
 

Oh, yes, system frequency does indeed decay.  And the RPM of synchronous machines falls right in step with it (that's WHY it decays).  Balancing load to generation can be a real trick.

And system frequency can also rise as well.

The "Grid" is really just one HUGE machine with lots of complexity.

[turbguy + 1,540]

11 hours ago, Sebastian Meana said:

Yes,a  very big, Triple-Reheat Advanced-Ultra-Super-Critical steam turbine with 1850MWe of output running at 100% all the time, with triple reheat, and steam at 760°C and 400 bar pressure  will reach 60% efficiency in a coal boiler, and 65% efficiency in a nuclear powerplant, but they only do that at a very certain and close power output and steam flow rate

 

760 degrees C?  Please show me the metallurgy that will support such steam conditions.  Anywhere. Really. IT DOES NOT EXIST (yet).   

[Sebastian Meana + 278]

57 minutes ago, NickW said:

 

87% of the outage were accounted for by gas. coal, and nuclear shutdowns

I bet a proportion of the wind shut downs were actually because the grid had already failed and the turbines had to disconnect in what became a cascade event. 

Yea yea yeah, sure, which was the first to fail which triggered a massive undersupply and low voltage with high amps?

Edited February 17, 2021 by Sebastian Meana

[turbguy + 1,540]

5 minutes ago, Sebastian Meana said:

Yea yea yeah, sure, which was the first to fail which triggered a massive undersupply and low current with high amps?

Low current/high amps?

[Sebastian Meana + 278]

11 minutes ago, turbguy said:

760 degrees C?  Please show me the metallurgy that will support such steam conditions.  Anywhere. Really. IT DOES NOT EXIST (yet).   

You are looking at heat treated and then cryogenically treated nickel based superlloys maybe some kinds of Stainless steel like the 709 steel which is barely 50% iron, at least for the reactor part.

https://www.powermag.com/evaluating-materials-technology-for-advanced-ultrasupercritical-coal-fired-plants/

[Sebastian Meana + 278]

1 minute ago, turbguy said:

Low current/high amps?

Hey, i miswritten that, english isn't my first language so... mistakes happen

[ronwagn + 6,290]

1 hour ago, NickW said:

That was kind of what I was getting at - help for low income households in whatever format is most suitable. 

The health point is  if you live in a cold, damp house, or exposed to extreme heat then the health effects on the occupants are invariably negative. The health economics of preventing ill health is far more favourable than dealing with ill health at the hospital end. 

As for you comment about Socialism - I don't actually consider helping the poorest and most disadvantaged in society through some reasonable redistribution of wealth in the way suggested as socialist. Add a couple of % to Elons, Bills, Jeffs, Warrens  tax bill - in reality they wont miss it. 

 

Nobody is starving in America that I know of. I contribute to food aid groups and help my own kids and grandkids. America has all sorts of food aid. We have plenty of redistribution of wealth and plenty of lazy no goodnicks sponging off the existing system. We also have people making more from welfare than those working for low wages. Full employment raises all ships and rewards those most deserving. We had that under Trump before COVID. Then we had shut downs of small businesses that will never come back thanks to all the do gooders forcing them to close!

[turbguy + 1,540]

7 minutes ago, Sebastian Meana said:

You are looking at heat treated and then cryogenically treated nickel based superlloys maybe some kinds of Stainless steel like the 709 steel which is barely 50% iron, at least for the reactor part.

https://www.powermag.com/evaluating-materials-technology-for-advanced-ultrasupercritical-coal-fired-plants/

I read the same articles.

Research, yes.  Practical, no. Nothing in service.  Not even close...

And no investor want's to be "first" to try it.

Edited February 17, 2021 by turbguy

[Sebastian Meana + 278]

6 minutes ago, turbguy said:

Research, yes.  Practical, no. Nothing in service.  Not even close...

And no investor want's to be "first" to try it.

Yeah that post was 10 years ago, development is going slowly, but is going, jumping from the current 670°C to 760°C is hard, but not impossible, China or india are the most likely to go with AUSC https://www.babcock.com/products/-/media/3d7d9be9f78e4b6189355a80b7ed499f.ashx

https://www.ge.com/power/steam/steam-power-plants/advanced-ultra-supercritical-usc-ausc

Even if they don't do it for coal they could do it the drax way, burning trees and thrash and claiming they are carbon neutral, part of the reason why those numbers are lower than 60% is cause net plant efficiency is after discounting feedwater pumps, condensate pump, deareator pump, condenser pumps, boiler blower, pulverizers, preheaters, boiler compressor, electric shovels, conveyor belts... 

[NickW + 2,714]

23 minutes ago, Sebastian Meana said:

Yea yea yeah, sure, which was the first to fail which triggered a massive undersupply and low voltage with high amps?

ERCOT were not relying on wind to provide significant energy during this period. They assumed nothing from solar. 

The biggest wind farm in Texas is about 750MW which is far smaller than many of the coal and gas plant plants and way smaller than the two nukes. 

If that wind farm went from 750MW to 0 in seconds then that was a trip caused by external forces as the frequency dropped too low and the farm disconnected. Thats not attributable to the farm - its simply the farm following what it should do due to external factors. 

If not its withdrawal from the grid would have been far more gradual as wind turbines slowed down and were taken out of service as it would have been with any other wind farm. 

This cause of this outage is plain for the blind to see - its down to lack of frost protection on generating plant most of which was fossil fuel or nuclear. 

 

 

 

[NickW + 2,714]

22 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

Nobody is starving in America that I know of. I contribute to food aid groups and help my own kids and grandkids. America has all sorts of food aid. We have plenty of redistribution of wealth and plenty of lazy no goodnicks sponging off the existing system. We also have people making more from welfare than those working for low wages. Full employment raises all ships and rewards those most deserving. We had that under Trump before COVID. Then we had shut downs of small businesses that will never come back thanks to all the do gooders forcing them to close!

No one is starving but I understand you have major issues with food deserts (absence of fresh foods)  in some big cities. 

My wife went on a business trip to Cincinati.. The hotel she was staying in basically only served food glazed in fat and sugar. 

She asked for soup or a salad - no mam we don't have anything like that on the menu.

So she tried to get something locally in the shops (some fruit etc) - nothing

Even in the shittiest parts of London you have convenience stores with a good range of fruit and veg 

[NickW + 2,714]

1 hour ago, ronwagn said:

Really, meaningless?

Unless you are Methusulah on steroids.