.

[surrept33 + 609]

1 hour ago, Dan Warnick said:

I guess nobody else watched the documentary "Seaspiracy", then.  It is worth your time, and would give loads to this discussion.  Hint: it gives many of the ulterior reasons for greenies and NGOs, etc. going after their stated goals, while ignoring the obvious to a degree that is unforgivable.  Truly unforgivable.

I thought it was great. But, haven't a lot of people advocated for less animal (or seafood) eating, or at least more sustainable processes? That (to me at least) is the main point of movements like a circular economy. It forces you to continuously evaluate the effect of who you do business with (in either a consumer to business or business to business role). These days, food security is far different from than it used to be. A large majority of Americans were once farmers (for example), but thanks to the fruits of evolving mechanization (but we can debate how efficiently to power it to reduce other side effects, no?), 1-3% of Americans (with seasonal help) can supply enough calories, and we can export a lot of calories. I worked/lived in Africa (and other places in the 3rd world) for about 5 years, and except for politically unstable countries or regions with violence (this is why I think violence or economic nationalism is rarely ever the answer), food security is no longer a problem. The Ethiopian famine of the 1980s, for example, wouldn't have happened today, though as usual, there is always moral dillemas: https://addisfortune.news/famine-terrible-hole-in-countrys-conscience/

re: microplastics, I think it's good to read a variety of informed opinions, for example by scientists who review the world wide amount of scientific literature: https://www.sapea.info/topics/microplastics/

 

Edited March 28, 2021 by surrept33

[Old-Ruffneck + 1,245]

10 minutes ago, surrept33 said:

https://www.sapea.info/topics/microplastics/

This is the verdict of SAPEA's Evidence Review Report on micro- and nanoplastic pollution, published in January 2019. The report is written by a group of world-leading experts nominated by academies across Europe, and informs Scientific Opinion 6 from the European Commission's Group of Chief Scientific Advisors.

See the words Scientific Opinion there? You want less macro and micro plastics in the world you need to start buy back program and toss it in with the coal fired plants and the scrubbers will remove the harmful soot and make electricity. 

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

43 minutes ago, Old-Ruffneck said:

This is the verdict of SAPEA's Evidence Review Report on micro- and nanoplastic pollution, published in January 2019. The report is written by a group of world-leading experts nominated by academies across Europe, and informs Scientific Opinion 6 from the European Commission's Group of Chief Scientific Advisors.

See the words Scientific Opinion there? You want less macro and micro plastics in the world you need to start buy back program and toss it in with the coal fired plants and the scrubbers will remove the harmful soot and make electricity. 

If the global consensus (right or wrong) is that carbon must be captured and stored to offset fossil carbon extracted in oil, coal, and NG, then you should cram that plastic back into the ground after you buy it back instead of burning it. That would be cheaper and much more reliable than trying to sequester CO2.

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

Actual on-topic important development: Buffet wants to save the day.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03/25/warren-buffett-texas-power-plants/

I think this post got lost in the flame war. Please comment.

On 3/27/2021 at 10:26 AM, Dan Clemmensen said:

OK, Warren Buffet has put a stake in the ground for a capacity-based solution to Texas' blackouts. He will build reliable peakers, each with its own 7-day supply of locally-stored NG, If he gets a long-term guaranteed monthly payment, paid for as a fixed surcharge on electricity ratepayers:

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03/25/warren-buffett-texas-power-plants/

I feel that is is not the best technical solution at the system level, and the current electricity providers agree: the say they can guarantee the same reliability at a lower price if someone (ERCOT, ratepayers, or anyone) will just pay them for it. In my opinion, Buffet's offer has two main advantages: It is a much simpler deal, ans it is very easy to understand: you pay Buffet, and he provides reliability. I hope this offer will focus the legislature and the regulators and cut through the usual crazy byzantine Texas politics to immediately pick a viable solution, probably based on paying a fixed price for reliable reserve capacity.

 

[turbguy + 1,543]

10 minutes ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

Actual on-topic important development: Buffet wants to save the day.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03/25/warren-buffett-texas-power-plants/

I think this post got lost in the flame war. Please comment.

 

7 day supply locally stored?  Is that practical?  Can those in the industry comment?  

That's a lot of nat gas, and a lot of up-front investment in stored fuel.  I guess you could "buy-low" during certain periods. Or store distillate...

Edited March 28, 2021 by turbguy

[Refman + 207]

So how much NG would you need to store onsite to supply a 1GW NG generator for 7 days? Maybe Turb can answer?

Edited March 28, 2021 by Refman

[Ecocharger + 1,473]

3 hours ago, surrept33 said:

Certain families of aromatic hydrocarbons (among many other families of compounds) are very well studied:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycyclic_aromatic_hydrocarbon#Human_health

"Clean burning" processes, for example, the substitution of certain types of biomass, coal or oil with natural gas result in a lot less PAH. There are of course many ways to reduce the detrimental effects. 

Compared to Europe, we have a lot less regulations with other (most likely cancer or other side effect causing) organic chemicals, except for the economic heft (and Clean Air Act provisions) of some states like California. 

Sometimes the science runs ahead of politics because of the distortion caused by the effect of special interest groups on public policy. 

The list of potential or possible or conceivable cancer risks would fill several volumes of telephone books. Wake me up when they show that low level fumes of any type will cause cancer. So far, nothing.

BUT, here is a risk to our economy, oil refineries shut down due to the Texas fiasco, huge problems in oil-derived products.

When crunch time comes, we need oil.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Global-Petroplastic-Markets-Set-To-Explode-This-Year.html

Edited March 28, 2021 by Ecocharger

[Ecocharger + 1,473]

On 3/23/2021 at 3:03 PM, Ecocharger said:

Here is a California (YES! California!) research team and some further evidence of climate change related to solar variables. This is the new frontier for climate change research.

Published in November 2020, recent material indeed.

https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/8/11/130/htm

Consistent with the work of the Russian scientist cited earlier, this study anticipates an imminent cooling phase, which will settle the argument conclusively against the Anthropogenic hypothesis of global warming, and in favor of natural climate cycles related to solar variables.

Time to call off the panic attack, buy some good mittens and ear-muffs, and break out those new model SUV's with thick rubber tires (over 60% carbon sourced).

Just noticed the publication history of this ground-shaking research which demythologizes conventional climate change science and will soon potentially overturn anthropogenic climate change.

Fascinating. Submitted July 27, 2020---Revised for two months---Resubmitted September 25---Accepted September 25---Published November 10, 2020. 

The necessary delays from submission to publication apparently prevented this ground-breaking, earth-shattering study from entering into public debate preceding the November 3, 2020 election. I recall that Trump made some unidentified reference to this research, but without specifics. I guess it arrived on the scene just a little too late to enter the debates. Unfortunate.

Edited March 28, 2021 by Ecocharger

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

2 hours ago, Refman said:

So how much NG would you need to store onsite to supply a 1GW NG generator for 7 days? Maybe Turb can answer?

0.13 kWh/cf.   This is net after accounting for generator inefficiency, but I think it is a national average which includes CCGT, so Buffet's peakers will not get this high. Counterbalancing this, we do not know if the contract would be for 100% utilization during the entire 7 days.

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=667&t=8

7 days*24 hours*1GW= 168GWh

168 GWh/.13 kWh= 1292.3 million cf = about 1.3 Bcf.

At 5 atm (about 70 PSI) this would occupy about 250 million cf, which is a cube 630 foot cube.

CNG is stored at 3600 PSI, or about 255 atm, so 1.3 Bcf is about 5 million cu. ft. of CNG: 500x100x100 feet. I have no idea if CNG is feasible.

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

5 hours ago, turbguy said:

7 day supply locally stored?  Is that practical?  Can those in the industry comment?  

That's a lot of nat gas, and a lot of up-front investment in stored fuel.  I guess you could "buy-low" during certain periods. Or store distillate...

From my previous calculations (see above), storage is on the order of 1.3 Bcf. Ships called CNG carriers appear to be in this order of magnitude. The CNG is stored at 3600 PSI in lots and lots of 6" diameter pipes. I would GUESS that these same pipes could be placed in a ship-sized building.  For this application (rarely-used emergency reserve) efficiency is not interesting: you are already being paid for doing nothing for 99.9% of the time. However, "uncompressors" use turbo-expanders to generate some electricity at the destination terminl for ships, and I suppose you could add a turbo-expander to generate electricity to cold-start the peaker.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNG_carrier

 

[turbguy + 1,543]

2 hours ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

From my previous calculations (see above), storage is on the order of 1.3 Bcf. Ships called CNG carriers appear to be in this order of magnitude. The CNG is stored at 3600 PSI in lots and lots of 6" diameter pipes. I would GUESS that these same pipes could be placed in a ship-sized building.  For this application (rarely-used emergency reserve) efficiency is not interesting: you are already being paid for doing nothing for 99.9% of the time. However, "uncompressors" use turbo-expanders to generate some electricity at the destination terminl for ships, and I suppose you could add a turbo-expander to generate electricity to cold-start the peaker.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNG_carrier

 

Let's see.  Back of envelope...

1 KWH = 3412.142 BTU's

10 GWH = 34,121,420,000 BTU's

at 1015 BTU's per cf (stp), that's 33,617,160 cf.  (at 100% conversion efficiency, 50% is more practical).

x 24 hrs x 7 days = 5,647,682,880 cf

Twice that for conversion loss = 11,295,365,760, or about 11 Bcf.

That's a lotta gas!

...or is my envelope wrong?

BTW, you just expand the gas itself to start the peaker.  You just need to remember to have enough resultant pressure on hand to shove it into the GT (compressor discharge pressures are about 200 psi +/-)

 

 

Edited March 29, 2021 by turbguy

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

10 minutes ago, turbguy said:

Let's see.  Back of envelope...

1 KWH = 3412.142 BTU's

10 GWH = 34,121,420,000 BTU's

at 1015 BTU's per cf (stp), that's 33,617,160 cf.  (at 100% conversion efficiency, 50% is more practical).

x 24 hrs x 7 days = 5,647,682,880 cf

Twice that for conversion loss = 11,295,365,760, or about 11 Bcf.

That's a lotta gas!

...or is my envelope wrong?

BTW, you just expand the gas itself to start the peaker.  You just need to remember to have enough resultant pressure on hand to shove it into the GT (compressor discharge pressures are about 200 psi +/-)

 

 

Your envelope matches mine: on the back of an envelope, 1.1 is the same as 1.3 😀. You were computing for all 10 of the 1 GW generators, which will be on 10 different sites scattered around the state. I was computing for only one of them.  I got 1.3 Bcf per site, which is higher than yours because I started from the EIA's pre-computed national average observed kWh/cf number.  So the storage at each site is about the same as the storage in three smallish CNG carriers.

Since these machines are idle 99.9% of the time, if a less efficient generator is cheaper, then it will be used, and you need even more storage.

[turbguy + 1,543]

16 minutes ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

Your envelope matches mine: on the back of an envelope, 1.1 is the same as 1.3 😀. You were computing for all 10 of the 1 GW generators, which will be on 10 different sites scattered around the state. I was computing for only one of them.  I got 1.3 Bcf per site, which is higher than yours because I started from the EIA's pre-computed national average observed kWh/cf number.  So the storage at each site is about the same as the storage in three smallish CNG carriers.

Since these machines are idle 99.9% of the time, if a less efficient generator is cheaper, then it will be used, and you need even more storage.

Gotcha!  Thanx!

Who pays the carrying costs of the unused inventory of equipment and fuel storage?

Distillate fuel would take up less space and complication.

Edited March 29, 2021 by turbguy

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

4 minutes ago, turbguy said:

Gotcha!  Thanx!

Who pays the carrying costs of the unused inventory of equipment and fuel storage?

Distillate fuel would take up less space and complication.

Buffet's proposal is calls for a fixed monthly fee paid by all ratepayers that returns a specified percentage on his initial investment. From a top-level accounting perspective there is no difference between the capital cost of the generator and the cost of initially filling the storage. Please note that I have no information that is not in the original newspaper article that I linked, which does not go into details.

 

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

24 minutes ago, turbguy said:

Gotcha!  Thanx!

Who pays the carrying costs of the unused inventory of equipment and fuel storage?

Distillate fuel would take up less space and complication.

OK, we need ten sites at 1.3 Bcf each. A cf is about 1000 BTU, and gas costs $2.50/million BTU = $2.50/ kcf = $2.5 million/Bcf, so each site has an initial inventory cost of $3.25 million. But I don't think they will need to pay Henry Hub prices. This $3.5 million is a small percentage of the total capital cost, which is more than $800 million per site. I suspect the storage system is more expensive than the stored NG. Remember: these system will probably never run for a total of 7 days (168 hours) during their entire lifetimes and will probably never run 24 hours continuously.

As I said originally, I doubt that this is the best technical solution for reliable power in Texas. I see it as a a stake in the ground: a challenge to the Texas power providers to propose a better solution. This solution has the overwhelming advantage of simplicity: specified price, specified performance, specified payment method, specified implementation timeline. Unless an alternative can be nailed down with all four of these attributes, Texas will remain vulnerable until the politicians and regulators can get their act together.

[turbguy + 1,543]

More action from Texas legislators.

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/texas-senate-electricity-power-16063998.php

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

3 hours ago, turbguy said:

More action from Texas legislators.

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/texas-senate-electricity-power-16063998.php

Oh, how quickly legislators abandon their fine principles. They are trying to mandate reliability instead of creating a market pay to for it. This is why Buffet's proposal is superior. If the legislature would simply tell ERCOT to add a fixed monthly surcharge to each ratepayer's bill, it would create a reliability pool. Anyone willing to commit to providing reliable power could then bid for a part of that pool. The most easily winterizable assets would bid less per GWh. Hard-to-winterize assets would not bid at all if new assets like Buffet's are cheaper.

[turbguy + 1,543]

11 hours ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

Oh, how quickly legislators abandon their fine principles. They are trying to mandate reliability instead of creating a market pay to for it. This is why Buffet's proposal is superior. If the legislature would simply tell ERCOT to add a fixed monthly surcharge to each ratepayer's bill, it would create a reliability pool. Anyone willing to commit to providing reliable power could then bid for a part of that pool. The most easily winterizable assets would bid less per GWh. Hard-to-winterize assets would not bid at all if new assets like Buffet's are cheaper.

Politics, the art of both the possible, and the impossible...

They don't even know what the root causes are yet (if they do, they are keeping tight-lipped).

Edited March 31, 2021 by turbguy

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

Back to the topic at hand. Practical Engineering review of Texas power outage. Should be helpful to some

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

On 3/28/2021 at 9:49 PM, Dan Clemmensen said:

Buffet's proposal is calls for a fixed monthly fee paid by all ratepayers that returns a specified percentage on his initial investment. From a top-level accounting perspective there is no difference between the capital cost of the generator and the cost of initially filling the storage. Please note that I have no information that is not in the original newspaper article that I linked, which does not go into details.

 

Given that Buffet is Demanding a 9.5% ROI, this deal is crap on its face. Right now investors are plowing $100's of billions into investment vehicles that only return 1% or even less. Buffet demands zero risk and a reward 10 times higher than others with capital are able to get. He's out for himself, and his shareholders. BTW I am a shareholder but I still thinks he's a crook. I inherited the shares. 

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

3 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

Given that Buffet is Demanding a 9.5% ROI, this deal is crap on its face. Right now investors are plowing $100's of billions into investment vehicles that only return 1% or even less. Buffet demands zero risk and a reward 10 times higher than others with capital are able to get. He's out for himself, and his shareholders. BTW I am a shareholder but I still thinks he's a crook. I inherited the shares. 

I more or less agree with you. Texas needs to quickly come up with a way to ensure reliable electricity. Buffet's proposal (if structured correctly) is one way, but as you say, and I as I have said repeatedly in  my posts on this subject,  it's almost certainly not the most cost-effective way. I don't think the legislature's approach of requiring generators to be reliable without specifying how to pay for it is the most cost-effective way either.

[turbguy + 1,543]

1 hour ago, Ward Smith said:

Back to the topic at hand. Practical Engineering review of Texas power outage. Should be helpful to some

Not a bad summary.  Root causes still to be determined, but reasonably accurate.

He might have wanted to include the fact that about 60% of Texans heat with electricity, frequently central AC/heat pumps. Central AC/Heat pumps don't heat well in those cold conditions, and fall back to electrical resistance heaters (or less frequently, nat gas furnaces). That drives up electric demand considerably, exacerbating the crisis.

Edited April 1, 2021 by turbguy

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

10 hours ago, turbguy said:

Not a bad summary.  Root causes still to be determined, but reasonably accurate.

He might have wanted to include the fact that about 60% of Texans heat with electricity, frequently central AC/heat pumps. Central AC/Heat pumps don't heat well in those cold conditions, and fall back to electrical resistance heaters (or less frequently, nat gas furnaces). That drives up electric demand considerably, exacerbating the crisis.

I'm subscribed to his channel, this "journalism" stuff is new to him but he is an engineer, therefore he's thorough. I suspect he didn't mention the heat pumps because he's unsure of their exact number. Let's face it, most so called heat pumps are glorified air conditioners. 

[turbguy + 1,543]

44 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

I'm subscribed to his channel, this "journalism" stuff is new to him but he is an engineer, therefore he's thorough. I suspect he didn't mention the heat pumps because he's unsure of their exact number. Let's face it, most so called heat pumps are glorified air conditioners. 

Yes, those central AC/Heat Pump systems don't do well once outside temps drop below 40 degrees F or so. Recent specially designed units do perform better, but still, heat output is limited and of lower temperature than a combustion system, so they operate longer and longer in cold weather to make up for home heat loss.

And when they enter a "defrost cycle", be prepared for a volcanic eruption from the outdoor unit (which just wastes power)

Edited April 1, 2021 by turbguy

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

7 hours ago, turbguy said:

Yes, those central AC/Heat Pump systems don't do well once outside temps drop below 40 degrees F or so. Recent specially designed units do perform better, but still, heat output is limited and of lower temperature than a combustion system, so they operate longer and longer in cold weather to make up for home heat loss.

And when they enter a "defrost cycle", be prepared for a volcanic eruption from the outdoor unit (which just wastes power)

I was quite surprised to discover that heat pumps have improved quite a bit over the last decade, to the point where the crossover efficiency temperature (versus resistance heat) is down below zero degrees Fahrenheit now. But this means that in addition to knowing how many heat pumps Texas has, you also need to know their age distribution. Of course, when a heat pump is "proper;y sized" for a house, it's just big enough to keep the house comfortable on a typical very cold day. It will need to kick in the auxiliary resistance heaters at a temperature higher than the crossover because the house is just too damn cold during an extreme event.