.

[Richard D + 86]

15 hours ago, NickW said:

You clearly rate the validity of the author.

The final paragraph states:

The reduction of a terrestrial temperature during the next 30 years can have important implications for different parts of the planet on growing vegetation, agriculture, food supplies, and heating needs in both Northern and Southern hemispheres. This global cooling during the upcoming grand solar minimum 1 (2020–2053) can offset for three decades any signs of global warming and would require inter-government efforts to tackle problems with heat and food supplies for the whole population of the Earth.

So the author also accept AGW theory as a dynamic in global temperature. 

You cant have it both ways on here picking out bits of reports that suit your agenda but ignoring the others. 

Is it possible to predict sunspot activity over the next 30 years? Do any models for sunspot activity explain the Maunder minimum of the 17th century?

[Richard D + 86]

11 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

Someone was making fun of Governor Perry here. I'm going to assume they were ignorant of the following (dated) facts: 

 

'Enough to power six million homes'. This bit of fraudulent marketing is also used in UK. They should be required to add 'when the wind happens to be blowing and the wind generators are not frozen up'.

[NickW + 2,714]

8 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

http://www.ercot.com/news/releases/show/225696

I am denied access to that. Are they keeping it local? 

[NickW + 2,714]

2 hours ago, Richard D said:

Is it possible to predict sunspot activity over the next 30 years? Do any models for sunspot activity explain the Maunder minimum of the 17th century?

They started measuring sunspot cycles in the 1700's. We are now on the 25th cycle. They run in 11 year cycles. 

Superimposed over that maybe some sort of cycle where the peaks in the cycle decline over a much longer period. This is what is thought to have been the cause of the Maunder minimum. The Little ice wasn't just due a drop in sunspots. The Author of the Editorial Ecocharger keeps posting believes a similar event is due to the recession of sun spot peaks in each 11 year cycle. 

During the 'Little Ice Age' there were  extensive periods of Volcanic activity compared to today which would have also lowered global temperatures (Vol in Peru 1600 etc) and are thought to be the main driver of cooler temperatures with the Maunder Minium being a contributory factor.

Little Ice Age volcanism - Wikipedia

Edited February 19, 2021 by NickW

[Rob Plant + 2,616]

On 2/17/2021 at 4:09 AM, ronwagn said:

I love the idea of using geothermal. I knew a guy who had it installed for his new home, just using the heat down maybe 15 feet or so (just a guess). Yellowstone and many other spots have hot water springs. It seems like it is more expensive than one would suspect. How about using water or other safe but denser liquid to pump through old oil wells. How warm is the earth in the depths of abandoned oil wells? Just use tubing through the foundation of homes or in radiators for heat. 

@Ron Wagner Are ground source heat pumps used widely in the US to heat homes? You don't have to dig very deep to heat your house using heat exchangers.

This seems to me like a good solution for some in the US. The initial costs are quite high but in many countries there are sizeable subsidies/grants for these, it's green energy so there's bound to be a subsidy or grant somewhere!

I know in Scandinavia many houses use these to heat their homes already.

https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/advice/ground-source-heat-pumps/

[NickW + 2,714]

9 hours ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

TRUTH!

One more time, just for the hell of it. 

According to the EIA statistics, wind power in all of Texas plunged 93% between 12 a.m. on Feb 8 and Feb. 16, while coal increased 47% and gas 450%. 

Wind turbines failed almost 100%. 

Most of these articles that have been cited on these pages are total junk. Unreliable. Badly researched. Skewed. 

Big surprise, eh?

Only a complete window licking spaz would build that 30 GW of wind capacity (and solar)  into a baseload availability assumption. Mankind has known wind and solar are intermittent for several thousand years. 

The role of the Transmission operator is to build a picture of estimated peak demand (in this case winter peak demand) 

The next stage is to build a picture of on demand production availability to meet that peak which comes from

• Nuclear
• Coal
• Gas
• Oil
• Hydro
• Pump Storage
• Biomass
• Geothermal
• Interstate & transnational - Interconnectors

If you have a wide spread of wind farms and are highly confident you might assume 5% of your wind capacity will always be available. In the case of Texas thats about 1.5GW? 

The total production capacity of this should meet the estimated peak demand plus a reserve margin to deal with the unexpected .Dan said ERCOT only operate with an 8% reserve whereas other US operations typically work around 15%

What I understand is Texas was hot with a demand peak of about 74GW with at best 60GW of generating capacity available. 

Whether under any circumstances it could have meet that is doubtful. Moving forward it needs to look at ways of shaving peak demand. Increasing generating reserve to at least 15%. Also look at hooking up emergency gensets before the cascade to prevent it happening (Large hospitals, factories etc) . No doubt Elon will be along with some great battery offers. 

 

[Richard D + 86]

13 minutes ago, NickW said:

They started measuring sunspot cycles in the 1700's. We are now on the 25th cycle. They run in 11 year cycles. 

Superimposed over that maybe some sort of cycle where the peaks in the cycle decline over a much longer period. This is what is thought to have been the effect of the Maunder minimum. The Little ice wasn't just due a drop in sunspots. The Author of the Editorial Ecocharger keeps posting believes a similar event is due to the recession of sun spot peaks in each 11 year cycle. 

During the 'Little Ice Age' there were  extensive periods of Volcanic activity compared to today which would have also lowered global temperatures (Vol in Peru 1600 etc) and are thought to be the main driver of cooler temperatures with the Maunder Minium being a contributory factor.

Little Ice Age volcanism - Wikipedia

You seem to have confused the words 'cause' and 'effect'. I suggest that 'maybe some sort of cycle' does not justify spending trillions of dollars on hare-brained Green projects. At least this latest debacle leaves egg on the face of politicians,here and now. They were smirking and counting on their stupidity not being noted until they were retired or dead.

[NickW + 2,714]

Just now, Richard D said:

You seem to have confused the words 'cause' and 'effect'. I suggest that 'maybe some sort of cycle' does not justify spending trillions of dollars on hare-brained Green projects. At least this latest debacle leaves egg on the face of politicians,here and now. They were smirking and counting on their stupidity not being noted until they were retired or dead.

????????? You seem somewhat confused. 

The climate record of that period is fairly well known and the causes attributed to Volcanism and sunspot activity. 

Now if Ecocharger is right and we are heading into another mini ice age then the policy direction taken RE +AGW is also helpful

• Making our homes and businesses more energy efficient
• Finding and utilising new sources of energy
• Encouraging Vegetarian orientated diets
• Soil conservation
• Etc

[NickW + 2,714]

19 minutes ago, Rob Plant said:

@Ron Wagner Are ground source heat pumps used widely in the US to heat homes? You don't have to dig very deep to heat your house using heat exchangers.

This seems to me like a good solution for some in the US. The initial costs are quite high but in many countries there are sizeable subsidies/grants for these, it's green energy so there's bound to be a subsidy or grant somewhere!

I know in Scandinavia many houses use these to heat their homes already.

https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/advice/ground-source-heat-pumps/

They are probably cost effective if off the gas grid. If you have gas available then a HP is probably a more expensive option. However if you live in a part of the US where you need Air con then it maybe more cost effective to invest in a reverse cycle system and utilise the air con for heating in winter. 

[NickW + 2,714]

2 hours ago, Richard D said:

'Enough to power six million homes'. This bit of fraudulent marketing is also used in UK. They should be required to add 'when the wind happens to be blowing and the wind generators are not frozen up'.

You need to get out of this one turbine model on / off  mindset. The UK and the whole of Europe is highly interconnected. 

For February Europes electricity needs from wind have been between 10 and 20% and have not dropped below 10%. This is just for metered output. It will actually be a bit higher because these figures don't include smaller wind farms / indivdual turbines. 

Daily Wind Power Numbers Archive | WindEurope

Real time electricity flows and sources are detailed well on this map.

electricityMap | Live CO₂ emissions of electricity consumption

Basically the countries with large Hydro resources (Norway, Sweden, Spain, France, Italy, Austria , Switzerland) act as Europes battery supported by more flexible CCGT plant. For example on windy days Norway generally imports and on calmer days it exports. 

[NickW + 2,714]

12 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

Flunked maths? 

Take 17,000/43.000 and tell me what you get. It's somewhat pointless to talk about things that are not relevant. Don't confuse "capacity" with "production"

This seems to place the blame on:

Failing to winterize one of the Nukes 

Gas wellheads freezing up reducing supply to CCGT plant. 

Texas Failed To Winterize Nuclear Plant Leading To Reactor Shut Down | ZeroHedge

[Richard D + 86]

8 minutes ago, NickW said:

You need to get out of this one turbine model on / off  mindset. The UK and the whole of Europe is highly interconnected. 

For February Europes electricity needs from wind have been between 10 and 20% and have not dropped below 10%. This is just for metered output. It will actually be a bit higher because these figures don't include smaller wind farms / indivdual turbines. 

Daily Wind Power Numbers Archive | WindEurope

Real time electricity flows and sources are detailed well on this map.

electricityMap | Live CO₂ emissions of electricity consumption

Basically the countries with large Hydro resources (Norway, Sweden, Spain, France, Italy, Austria , Switzerland) act as Europes battery supported by more flexible CCGT plant. For example on windy days Norway generally imports and on calmer days it exports. 

To clarify;you mean that Norway imports power when it is windy in Denmark and Germany. Agreed that Switzerland hydro acts as a battery for Germany. Looking at history again;in 1540 there was almost no rain in Switzerland and the south of what is now Germany. Water became more expensive than wine. Colder weather would,presumably,mean that more water was tied up in glaciers.

By the way,Gas T,urbine Combined Cycle is GTCC. The ones in service were not designed for on/off operation. There must be an efficiency penalty,using them thus. I have seen clouds of brown oxides of nitrogen produced when one started up. Low pollution comes from steady operation. Siemens is designing GTCC for flexible operation.

None of which is relevant to my point about fraudulent promotion of wind turbine projects.

[Rob Plant + 2,616]

1 hour ago, Richard D said:

By the way,Gas T,urbine Combined Cycle is GTCC

In Nick's defence I have never seen it referenced as you have put it, it is always CCGT over here, but that may be a US difference to EU perhaps???

Combined Cycle Gas Turbines

 

Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGT)are a form of highly efficient energy generation technology that combines a gas-fired turbine with a steam turbine.

[NickW + 2,714]

1 hour ago, Richard D said:

To clarify;you mean that Norway imports power when it is windy in Denmark and Germany. Agreed that Switzerland hydro acts as a battery for Germany. Looking at history again;in 1540 there was almost no rain in Switzerland and the south of what is now Germany. Water became more expensive than wine. Colder weather would,presumably,mean that more water was tied up in glaciers.

By the way,Gas T,urbine Combined Cycle is GTCC. The ones in service were not designed for on/off operation. There must be an efficiency penalty,using them thus. I have seen clouds of brown oxides of nitrogen produced when one started up. Low pollution comes from steady operation. Siemens is designing GTCC for flexible operation.

None of which is relevant to my point about fraudulent promotion of wind turbine projects.

Well Europe is a significant importer of energy. 

It can either be increasingly reliant on imports or  utilise its renewables to reduce that import dependence.

I'm an eco-pragmatist and I accept Europe isn't in a position to go 100% renewable but they can play a big part in energy supply and security

As regards the UK it does need to get a move on and build some more nuclear baseload. Ideally the RR SMR not some shoddy pile of Chinese Shyte. 

[NickW + 2,714]

2 minutes ago, Rob Plant said:

In Nick's defence I have never seen it referenced as you have put it, it is always CCGT over here, but that may be a US difference to EU perhaps???

Combined Cycle Gas Turbines

 

Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGT)are a form of highly efficient energy generation technology that combines a gas-fired turbine with a steam turbine.

Thanks for the response to Richards acronym semantics🙂

[NickW + 2,714]

1 hour ago, Richard D said:

To clarify;you mean that Norway imports power when it is windy in Denmark and Germany. Agreed that Switzerland hydro acts as a battery for Germany. Looking at history again;in 1540 there was almost no rain in Switzerland and the south of what is now Germany. Water became more expensive than wine. Colder weather would,presumably,mean that more water was tied up in glaciers.

By the way,Gas T,urbine Combined Cycle is GTCC. The ones in service were not designed for on/off operation. There must be an efficiency penalty,using them thus. I have seen clouds of brown oxides of nitrogen produced when one started up. Low pollution comes from steady operation. Siemens is designing GTCC for flexible operation.

None of which is relevant to my point about fraudulent promotion of wind turbine projects.

As I type:

Norway and Sweden are currently producing 30GW of Hydro (Swedens Hydro output ranges from 12GW in the day and 7 GW at night) 

Portugal, Spain and France 19GW

Italy, Switzerland and Austria 8 GW

Romania, Turkey, Serbia, Bosnia 17GW

No figures for Switzerland but it will be 

Plus smaller quantities from other countries and the above doesn't include pump storage. 

 

I bet the risk of a drought affecting all regions is somewhat less than the risk of disruptions to LNG supply 

 

electricityMap | Live CO₂ emissions of electricity consumption

Edited February 19, 2021 by NickW

[Rob Plant + 2,616]

3 minutes ago, NickW said:

Thanks for the response to Richards acronym semantics🙂

Haha no worries

I also agree that we need more nukes and the RR SMR's are certainly an interesting development

https://www.rolls-royce.com/products-and-services/nuclear/small-modular-reactors.aspx

[NickW + 2,714]

1 hour ago, Rob Plant said:

Haha no worries

I also agree that we need more nukes and the RR SMR's are certainly an interesting development

https://www.rolls-royce.com/products-and-services/nuclear/small-modular-reactors.aspx

Well if we are going to pump money into something it might as well be this. Invigorate British engineering and get some UK based manufacturing going. An SMR concept could work well for countries like Australia where their grids are too small to absorb large lumpy >1GW reactors. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

5 hours ago, NickW said:

I am denied access to that. Are they keeping it local? 

Quote

February 17, 2021

Grid operator continues to restore power

 

Electric companies continue to bring generation back online

AUSTIN, TX, Feb. 17, 2021 – The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) continues to make progress on restoring power to the electric system.

"We are working around the clock to restore power to Texans," said ERCOT President and CEO Bill Magness. "We made progress today, but it will not be good enough until every person has their power back."

Since this morning, ERCOT has been able to restore approximately 8,000 MW, which is about 1.6 million households. This afternoon, there was sufficient generation available to begin restoring 1,000 MW every hour.

"We’re at a point in the restoration where we’re going to keep energizing circuits as fast as we safely can until we run out of available generation," said ERCOT Senior Director of System Operations Dan Woodfin. "We hope to make significant progress overnight."

It is possible that by morning, as load increases, local utilities may be able to go back to rotating outages versus keeping power off for extended periods of time.

As of 6 p.m., approximately 43,000 MW of generation has been forced off the system during this extreme winter weather event. Of that, 26,500 MW is thermal and nearly 17,000 MW is wind and solar.

I haven't tested it, but I've heard that they'll reject you if you use an annonymizer VPN. They might "assume" that's what you're doing if you have a Euro address. In that case you could use the kind of VPN that let's you pick an address. 

Note the salient point was what I quoted, "generation" not "capacity". 

Bottom line, @Gerry Maddoux is right. Texas, due to its unique characteristics (and title as the biggest consumer of electricity in the entire US) coupled with generous grants and credits for wind power, plus incredibly cheap land and wide open windy spaces, created the "Perfect Storm" for overbuilt wind power. Fact is that Texas is the very poster child for wind in the entire US and this event is embarrassing as hell to all the environmental greens who keep saying, "move everything to renewables". Texas moved 40% and it killed them. Furthermore, this idea that if "the grid was interconnected" is poppycock. Those other states are having trouble with their costumers and their cold weather means their demand is spiking also. Which means they don't have spare gigawatts to ship to Texas. There are tie ins and HVDC lines, designed for Texas to export nice green electricity. Easy to run them the other way, but those guys at the Southern Company don't have the juice to send back. 

Bottom line, this event amply demonstrated what over reliance on renewables will do to you. It's a cautionary tale, but the journalists are spinning and spinning to pretend it isn't. 

Edited February 19, 2021 by Ward Smith
Fixed weird spacing in quote

[NickW + 2,714]

13 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

I haven't tested it, but I've heard that they'll reject you if you use an annonymizer VPN. They might "assume" that's what you're doing if you have a Euro address. In that case you could use the kind of VPN that let's you pick an address. 

Note the salient point was what I quoted, "generation" not "capacity". 

Bottom line, @Gerry Maddoux is right. Texas, due to its unique characteristics (and title as the biggest consumer of electricity in the entire US) coupled with generous grants and credits for wind power, plus incredibly cheap land and wide open windy spaces, created the "Perfect Storm" for overbuilt wind power. Fact is that Texas is the very poster child for wind in the entire US and this event is embarrassing as hell to all the environmental greens who keep saying, "move everything to renewables". Texas moved 40% and it killed them. Furthermore, this idea that if "the grid was interconnected" is poppycock. Those other states are having trouble with their costumers and their cold weather means their demand is spiking also. Which means they don't have spare gigawatts to ship to Texas. There are tie ins and HVDC lines, designed for Texas to export nice green electricity. Easy to run them the other way, but those guys at the Southern Company don't have the juice to send back. 

Bottom line, this event amply demonstrated what over reliance on renewables will do to you. It's a cautionary tale, but the journalists are spinning and spinning to pretend it isn't. 

I don't know how to put it more simply. 

System operators do not assume solar and wind as forming any baseload or peaking plant to meet peak demand. 

If they did they shouldn't be allowed near a 3.2V battery torch. 

17 GW was not taken off suddenly because they never accounted for having it available in the first place. There forecast was for 6GW. 

What wind has done in Texas is freed up some gas which is then available to export as LNG to help address the USA's gigantic balance of trade deficit. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

2 minutes ago, NickW said:

I don't know how to put it more simply. 

System operators do not assume solar and wind as forming any baseload or peaking plant to meet peak demand. 

If they did they shouldn't be allowed near a 3.2V battery torch. 

17 GW was not taken off suddenly because they never accounted for having it available in the first place. There forecast was for 6GW. 

What wind has done in Texas is freed up some gas which is then available to export as LNG to help address the USA's gigantic balance of trade deficit. 

You're talking in circles and avoiding the problem. If it weren't for the cold and if it weren't for the downed plants, Texas wouldn't be in this crisis and demand would equal supply. However, as a green enthusiast you need to acknowledge that it is ridiculous to say that for every GW of wind installed you need another GW of "real" generation "just in case".

Texas bought into the green dream and it has turned into a nightmare

[notsonice + 1,069]

Texas is a nightmare today because they never plan for the once in every 10 year cold snap. Does anyone have central heat in Texas? and use gas for a heat source? God knows they flare enough gas off to heat the whole state. It looks like everything is built with baseboard electric heat. $20 Billion dollar insurance loss will now have everyone in Texas paying for the build on the cheap Texas model. The next couple of days and you will see the water pipes unfreeze and the losses zoom even higher.

Edited February 20, 2021 by notsonice

[NickW + 2,714]

11 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

You're talking in circles and avoiding the problem. If it weren't for the cold and if it weren't for the downed plants, Texas wouldn't be in this crisis and demand would equal supply. However, as a green enthusiast you need to acknowledge that it is ridiculous to say that for every GW of wind installed you need another GW of "real" generation "just in case".

Texas bought into the green dream and it has turned into a nightmare

The investment in wind freed up gas to export. 

The nightmare comes from not managing the network properly and will happen again and again if people keep chasing red herring conspiracies. 

Perhaps consider.....

1. Build up a decent operating reserve comparable with other US states which I understand is 15%

2. Require CCGT to be dual fuel. Most CCGT plant in Europe hold 1-2 days fuel distillate as a back up

3. Set up contracts with organisations (hospitals, large factories etc ) with emergency gen sets to fire up on call from the transmission operator. My firm has 2MW of Gen sets at its data centre that do this. 

4. Enhance load shedding arrangements to manage unexpected peaks

5. Do something about end use efficiency which shaves off peak demand (as the 'Evil' sierra club were recommending in 2018😉)

6. Ask Uncle Elon to build a big battery

7. Spend some money on frost protection

 

[Ecocharger + 1,375]

On 2/19/2021 at 6:38 AM, NickW said:

They started measuring sunspot cycles in the 1700's. We are now on the 25th cycle. They run in 11 year cycles. 

Superimposed over that maybe some sort of cycle where the peaks in the cycle decline over a much longer period. This is what is thought to have been the cause of the Maunder minimum. The Little ice wasn't just due a drop in sunspots. The Author of the Editorial Ecocharger keeps posting believes a similar event is due to the recession of sun spot peaks in each 11 year cycle. 

During the 'Little Ice Age' there were  extensive periods of Volcanic activity compared to today which would have also lowered global temperatures (Vol in Peru 1600 etc) and are thought to be the main driver of cooler temperatures with the Maunder Minium being a contributory factor.

Little Ice Age volcanism - Wikipedia

No, the model developed by this team of scientists gives a 94% explanatory basis for earth temperature changes, which is well above any other explanatory model. Here is the direct link to the multi-national team paper from 2019, which correctly predicted the onset of a cooling phase in 2020. The global warming models failed completely to predict this cooling onset.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31235834/

 

Edited February 22, 2021 by Ecocharger

[surrept33 + 609]

On 2/17/2021 at 9:19 PM, ronwagn said:

I have watched the last 20 years and will maybe be around in twenty years from now. There is a possibility of increased speed of rise but nothing that mankind can't deal with by moving from certain areas. It would actually be a lot cheaper than trying to control the weather. I am not against renewables but insist that they not cost too much, are not subsidized, and are not built so fast that natural gas is not utilized as a comparison. I am a strong proponent of natural gas for vehicles and electrical generation. Those who want electric vehicles should be too.

Please note that all the well connected wealthy people buy up coastal properties. Barack Obama, Al Gore, Trump, etc. etc. I was glad to hear that Florida hurricane and flood insurance is skyrocketing in price. Otherwise inland folks end up paying part of their bill. 

Maybe more states should think about adopting California's coastal policies so that the public have access to coastal areas (keep in mind that humans have largely always lived near coasts and rivers before the rise in exergy brought about by switching from burning biomass to coal):

https://scc.ca.gov/

It's more or less what T.R's policies were: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt