*****5 STAR Article by Irina Slav - "The Ugly Truth About Renewable Power"

[ceo_energemsier + 1,818]

2 minutes ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

Yes i do understand, if one looks at those links it should be apparent Buffet is moving away from green energy, his personal portfolio is quite deep in old fossil fuels...Actually heavy investments are now going back to fossil fuel.

Japan and China both experienced horrible power outages during this past winter, even though they state their "clean energy goals" :

1) China is not slowing down on fossil fuels of any kind, building more new coal plants as well as oil fired plants, they are shutting down old inefficient ones to build new fossil fuel plants. They use it as a propaganda to the rest of the world, we are retiring coal and oil power plants (yet keep building new ones).

2) Japan is building more gas fired power plants and also building newer/replacing oil boilers for oil fired power plants and limiting their emissions for sulphur to 0.1%

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

21 hours ago, markslawson said:

Jay - I'm so glad to see that your balloon has not landed but, as I've said before, this forum is not the right place for this sort of uncritical repetition of the green line. You may kid your self that these batteries and additional supply contracts would have prevented the problems of last summer, but since then a lot more renewable capacity has been added in both California and the surrounding states (with much smaller grids) which are supposed to supply the shortfall. In any case, it seems that California has adopted a form of capacity market - a major additional expense for the supposedly cheap green power. Where will this expense end? 

Am I upsetting your safe space? Upsetting your fantasy world with reality? Is an echo chamber what you want?

Yes we have added a lot of renewables, and we plan on adding a lot more, but that in no way negates the fact that the shortage was less than the battery capacity we are adding.

Please explain how an electrical shortfall of  1GW/1.5GWh is not solved by batteries with 1.5GW/5.4GWh? That is how much battery power we are adding between last August's blackouts and this August. Do you think these batteries are fake? Perhaps they are bouncy houses?

In regard to other states with smaller grids and imports, so what? Renewables are being built all over the western US as there is a lot of open land with sun and wind. We plan on importing a lot more than we do now. We've built an entire market to facilitate it, see below. I don't understand why it is just fine to import all of our natural gas to make electricity here but importing electricity generated in other states is some kind of problem?

California does not have a capacity market. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/ferc-rejects-generator-proposal-for-caiso-capacity-market/542833/ The market functions we do have were put into place more than a decade or two ago. With the exception of the imbalance market that is 7 years old. I'm guessing this is the market you are referring to but it is not a capacity market. Each entity must demonstrate each hour that it has adequate flexible resources to meet its own balancing needs and it has been very successful!

Western Energy Imbalance Market benefits reach $1.28 billion Eleven participants share a record $101 million in first-quarter benefits: https://www.westerneim.com/Documents/Western-Energy-Imbalance-Market-Benefits-Reach-128-Billion.pdf

Most of the western grid has joined or is about to join next year:

Sorry Mark but it is a profit generator not an expense. It generates revenue and decreases operating costs by a far greater amount than the cost to operate the market. Renewables are cheaper with it than without it.

Edited May 2, 2021 by Jay McKinsey

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

2 hours ago, markslawson said:

Incidentally, I forgot to ask, how was the winter where you were? I understand it was arctic conditions in much of North America for a time.. and pretty bad in Europe for part of the time. It was a terrible summer in Australia, which didn't stop the Bureau of Meteorology declaring it the "fifth hottest".. anyway, I hope you weren't too cold.. 

Thanks for asking, It was a depressingly warm and dry winter here in California. Another drought year, ugh.

If it was a terrible summer in Australia why would it be odd that it might have been the fifth hottest?

But funny thing is I looked it up and the Bureau said:

Australia in summer 2020–21

In Brief

• The national mean temperature for summer was slightly above average
• The mean maximum temperature was below average for Australia as a whole
• The mean minimum temperature was above average for Australia as a whole

So I'm confused, you say it was a terrible summer yet the news and the government say otherwise. Glad you didn't have any firestorms! I hope CA can be so lucky this year. And now you are having floods? I hope you stay dry.

Edited May 2, 2021 by Jay McKinsey

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,555]

2 hours ago, ceo_energemsier said:

Japan and China both experienced horrible power outages during this past winter, even though they state their "clean energy goals" :

1) China is not slowing down on fossil fuels of any kind, building more new coal plants as well as oil fired plants, they are shutting down old inefficient ones to build new fossil fuel plants. They use it as a propaganda to the rest of the world, we are retiring coal and oil power plants (yet keep building new ones).

2) Japan is building more gas fired power plants and also building newer/replacing oil boilers for oil fired power plants and limiting their emissions for sulphur to 0.1%

What is going on is outrageous, someday this will be rectified. China is building green energy comodites to sold around the world, yet at the same time they are the worlds largest polluters and building new coal plants at a rate that out paces the entire world.

Then there is the Paris accords, just another joke, speaking of jokes has China ever funded the accords...lets Fact Check check this.

China, India, Russia and the U.S. were all donors in the latest funding cycle for the Global Environment Facility. Out of a total of $4.43 billion for the 2014 to 2018 cycle, U.S. funds made up 14.7 percent, or just over $651 million; China contributed 0.54 percent, or almost $24 million; Russia gave 0.4 percent, or $17.7 million; and India provided 0.32 percent, or just over $14 million. The U.S. contributed the second most overall, topped by Japan, which contributed 16.34 percent, or almost $724 million.

Now this is also in print...i am beginning to despise Fact Check..pure garbarge.

Each person living in the United States contributed 16.07 tons to the country’s total on average, while each person living in China and India contributed 7.73 and 1.87 tons on average, respectively. However, China still emits the most in total tons because its population is almost 1.4 billion people, while nearly 325 million live in the United States. Russia, on the other hand, emitted 12.27 tons per person on average in 2015, or the 5th most in total tons, after China, the U.S., the European Union and India.

https://www.factcheck.org/2017/05/trump-paris-agreement/

Edited May 2, 2021 by Eyes Wide Open

[turbguy + 1,544]

52 minutes ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

Now this is also in print...i am beginning to despise Fact Check..pure garbarge.

 

Each person living in the United States contributed 16.07 tons to the country’s total on average, while each person living in China and India contributed 7.73 and 1.87 tons on average, respectively. However, China still emits the most in total tons because its population is almost 1.4 billion people, while nearly 325 million live in the United States. Russia, on the other hand, emitted 12.27 tons per person on average in 2015, or the 5th most in total tons, after China, the U.S., the European Union and India.

https://www.factcheck.org/2017/05/trump-paris-agreement/

 

The more you use, the more you emit.

Guilty as charged.

Particularly in Wyoming.

It only makes sense that the country’s least populous state would have the highest per capita energy use.
Rate: 948 million BTU per person!

https://www.erc-co.org/10-states-use-energy-per-capita/

AND:  The highest per capita rate of gun ownership (by far).

AND:  The highest per capita ownership of diesel-fueled vehicles.

 

[Boat + 1,324]

Weather it’s the ducks hump in California or the huge air conditioning hump in Texas and throughout the US solar and batteries are no brainers. Wind where the wind blows, its the cheapest electricity going. 
The reliability of grid systems as renewable/battery percentages grow is hampered by lack of human intelligent preprtation for those 10 year type weather events as demonstrated in Texas. 
There is a point on every grid where a limiting factor drives costs of resilience beyond today’s prices. Here’s to hoping our intelligence dosent overrun that point. Nat gas still needs to be the majority fuel because of its flexibility. For now.

[notsonice + 1,255]

14 hours ago, markslawson said:

Jay - I'm so glad to see that your balloon has not landed but, as I've said before, this forum is not the right place for this sort of uncritical repetition of the green line. You may kid your self that these batteries and additional supply contracts would have prevented the problems of last summer, but since then a lot more renewable capacity has been added in both California and the surrounding states (with much smaller grids) which are supposed to supply the shortfall. In any case, it seems that California has adopted a form of capacity market - a major additional expense for the supposedly cheap green power. Where will this expense end? 

this forum is not the right place for this sort of uncritical repetition of the green line.????? are you a forum moderator? If you do not like what people are posting I suggest that this is not the right place for you.

[ceo_energemsier + 1,818]

14 hours ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

Yes i do understand, if one looks at those links it should be apparent Buffet is moving away from green energy, his personal portfolio is quite deep in old fossil fuels...Actually heavy investments are now going back to fossil fuel.

Berkshire shareholders reject climate change, diversity proposals that Buffett opposed

 

(Reuters) - Berkshire Hathaway Inc shareholders on Saturday easily rejected proposals requiring the company run since 1965 by Warren Buffett to disclose more about its efforts to address climate change and promote diversity and inclusion in its workforce.

The rejections were not a surprise, given that Buffett controls nearly one-third of Berkshire's voting power and opposed both proposals.

 

But the climate change proposal won support from just over 25% of votes cast and the diversity proposal from 24%, suggesting greater discontent than Berkshire shareholders historically demonstrate.

The votes came as a growing number of major investors, including BlackRock Inc and the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) pension plan, call for companies to promote adherence to good environmental, social and governance principles.

CalPERS, along with Federated Hermes and Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec, had proposed requiring Berkshire to publish annual reports about its climate change efforts.

The nonprofit shareholder advocate As You Sow separately proposed annual reports on diversity, saying companies such as Berkshire benefit from a diverse workforce.

Buffett doesn't dispute that both issues are important, but opposed the proposals because of Berkshire's decentralized model, where its dozens of businesses run largely without his interference so long as they perform and are managed well.

"We do some other asinine things because we're required to do it, so we'll do whatever's required," Buffett said. "But to have the people at Business Wire, Dairy Queen ... make some common report, ... we don't do that stuff at Berkshire."The company has also said it is seeing "great results" from many subsidiaries addressing climate change on their own.

Berkshire shareholders also re-elected all 14 directors, despite calls from Institutional Shareholder Services and Neuberger Berman to withhold votes from members of Berkshire's governance, compensation and nominating committee. The vote totals were not immediately disclosed.

[ceo_energemsier + 1,818]

Berkshire defends $8 billion Texas power proposal to combat blackouts

 

(Reuters) - Berkshire Hathaway Inc on Saturday defended its $8 billion proposal to build natural gas plants in Texas to help reduce the threat of devastating blackouts such as those in February.

"When you look at the power sector (in Texas), it fundamentally let the citizens down," Greg Abel, a Berkshire vice chairman and previously chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, said at the conglomerate's annual shareholder meeting.

 

 

We've gone to Texas with what we believe is a good solution," he added. "The health and welfare of Texas was at risk, and we needed to effectively have an insurance policy in place for them."

Berkshire in March proposed building 10 natural gas-powered plants that would supplement the capacity of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which provides electricity to most of the state, and provide backup power in emergencies.

But the proposal reportedly contemplates guaranteed payments to Berkshire, upsetting the deregulated pricing model for Texas' power market.

The Dallas Morning News said Berkshire is proposing a guaranteed 9.3% rate of return. Berkshire has declined to comment.

Starwood Energy Group, the investment firm, last month proposed its own competing $8 billion plan to build 11 natural gas pants in Texas.

Texas suffered widespread power outages in February because of a fierce winter storm and plunging temperatures.

Electricity prices soared, with some ordinary customers receiving exponentially larger monthly bills, and about 4.5 million Texans were left without power for several days.

Berkshire Chairman Warren Buffett added that Texas "is a terrific place to do business."

Abel downplayed a reported proposal by Elon Musk, who runs electric car maker Tesla Inc, to build a giant battery that could plug into Texas' power grid and power thousands of homes during hot summers.

He said Berkshire's plan could help stricken homes and businesses for several days, not merely hours like a battery.

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,555]

11 hours ago, turbguy said:

The more you use, the more you emit.

Guilty as charged.

Particularly in Wyoming.

It only makes sense that the country’s least populous state would have the highest per capita energy use.
Rate: 948 million BTU per person!

https://www.erc-co.org/10-states-use-energy-per-capita/

AND:  The highest per capita rate of gun ownership (by far).

AND:  The highest per capita ownership of diesel-fueled vehicles.

 

I assume your investment strategies are not self directed. 

You state guilty of what does come to mind. Now this should be quite interesting.

[turbguy + 1,544]

3 hours ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

I assume your investment strategies are not self directed. 

You state guilty of what does come to mind. Now this should be quite interesting.

Guilty as charged.

[markslawson + 1,058]

23 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Please explain how an electrical shortfall of  1GW/1.5GWh is not solved by batteries with 1.5GW/5.4GWh? That is how much battery power we are adding between last August's blackouts and this August.

Jay - its not my fantasies that are being disturbed but yours.. The estimates of power shortages you give, if they bare any relation to reality (which I doubt) are for the previous crisis, and California is continuing to build renewables. I would urge you to read the original post where I made this same point. The problem with batteries is that once they've gone flat that's it. There is no flexibility to deal with the even larger crisis around the corner, due to bad policies in building renewables. Yes California has no formal capacity markets but your comments implied that it has something equivalent "contracts in place". Again, that was the point I was making. Anyway, leave it with you. I wouldn't dream of getting in the way of your balloon.. 

[markslawson + 1,058]

23 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

So I'm confused, you say it was a terrible summer yet the news and the government say otherwise. Glad you didn't have any firestorms! I hope CA can be so lucky this year. And now you are having floods? I hope you stay dry.

You misunderstood my use of the word "terrible". I meant that it wasn't warm at all, or didn't seem to be. If you re-read what I said with that in mind your confusion should be resolved. the floods were mostly in Sydney and further North. I'm in Melbourne to the South, but thank you for asking. 

[markslawson + 1,058]

10 hours ago, notsonice said:

this forum is not the right place for this sort of uncritical repetition of the green line.????? are you a forum moderator? If you do not like what people are posting I suggest that this is not the right place for you.

I'm entitled to comment on the nature of the posts, without being a moderator. In fact, forum moderators can't really say that sort of thing. Posters can. Look at the other posts and you'll get the idea. Leave it with you. 

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

On 5/1/2021 at 5:00 PM, Jay McKinsey said:

He's been investing in old technology fossil fuels and loosing money.

Do you remember when he honestly claimed that wind farms don't make sense without the tax credits?

No, Warren is not losing money in fossil fuels. Berkshire is getting too big to return 25%, as it's been doing for years.

It's far easier to make 100% on $10,000 than it is to make %15 on $1 M. 

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

2 hours ago, markslawson said:

Jay - its not my fantasies that are being disturbed but yours.. The estimates of power shortages you give, if they bare any relation to reality (which I doubt) are for the previous crisis, and California is continuing to build renewables. I would urge you to read the original post where I made this same point. The problem with batteries is that once they've gone flat that's it. There is no flexibility to deal with the even larger crisis around the corner, due to bad policies in building renewables. Yes California has no formal capacity markets but your comments implied that it has something equivalent "contracts in place". Again, that was the point I was making. Anyway, leave it with you. I wouldn't dream of getting in the way of your balloon.. 

Dear dear Mark, it is fun to watch you run away. Let me refresh your memory, you said "You may kid your self that these batteries and additional supply contracts would have prevented the problems of last summer,"

After all this time and you doubt my data? How cute. The data for the power shortages is from the final report on the shortage:http://www.caiso.com/Documents/Final-Root-Cause-Analysis-Mid-August-2020-Extreme-Heat-Wave.pdf

Section 3.3.2 August 14

At 6:38 p.m....CAISO ordered two phases of controlled load shed of 500 MW each, based on a pro-rata share across the CAISO footprint for distribution utility companies. 1GW

By 7:40 p.m., the CAISO began restoring previously shed load as system conditions had improved so that resources were adequate to meet the CAISO load and contingency reserve obligations. 1GWh

I actually padded my MWh number by 50% because there were some issues with bringing things back up. .5GWh But this would never have been needed but for the shedding occurring.

That was the big shortage. The following day was 500MW for 20 minutes. You can find that in the report. 

Section 3.4  As noted earlier, CAISO called two successive 500 MW blocks of controlled load shed on August 14 for a total of one hour and one 500 MW block of controlled load shed on August 15 for 20 minutes.

As to the batteries we are building these two articles cover the bulk of them, there a few more smaller ones that round out the balance:

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/sce-contracts-for-770-mw-of-battery-storage-to-bolster-californias-transit/577335/

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

It is irrelevant that the batteries would have eventually gone flat, had they been online last August they would have had far more capacity than was required to avert this shortfall. 

Therefore your statement stands refuted.

 

As to your larger point, it is absolutely possible to have enough storage to avert larger crisis. It won't be lithium ion but some combination of hydrogen, compressed air, flow batteries, large geographic network, etc. Those technologies are still in development but we don't need them today. Natural gas is the backup for now, at least if anyone bothers to winterize the plants.  HaHa

Edited May 3, 2021 by Jay McKinsey

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

29 minutes ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

Do you remember when he honestly claimed that wind farms don't make sense without the tax credits?

No, Warren is not losing money in fossil fuels. Berkshire is getting too big to return 25%, as it's been doing for years.

It's far easier to make 100% on $10,000 than it is to make %15 on $1 M. 

He has said it many times.

Do you remember when he said Occidential oil was a big mistake? How many billions did he lose on that deal?

 

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

1 minute ago, Jay McKinsey said:

He has said it many times.

Do you remember when he said Occidential oil was a big mistake? How many billions did he lose on that deal?

 

Doesn't matter. He knows exactly what's he's getting per year for these wind farms, and those figures don't change over time. They decline as you approach the end of the project's utility. 

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

4 minutes ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

Doesn't matter. He knows exactly what's he's getting per year for these wind farms, and those figures don't change over time. They decline as you approach the end of the project's utility. 

Then he repowers them with bigger better turbines.

You say those figures don't change over time and then you say they decline?

Edited May 3, 2021 by Jay McKinsey

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

18 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Then he repowers them with bigger better turbines.

You say those figures don't change over time and then you say they decline?

Don't change as far as whether or not you make money. He won't be repowering for quite some time.

I've said many times before that we're jumping into these systems way too early. They're not good enough yet, but I believe they can be. 

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

@Jay McKinsey

Remember too that Buffet evaluates assets based on returns compared to the S&P index. To buy something yielding less than 8% (wind farms) doesn't make sense without special incentive, since the cash in question can be dumped into a safe index. 

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

14 minutes ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

Don't change as far as whether or not you make money. He won't be repowering for quite some time.

I've said many times before that we're jumping into these systems way too early. They're not good enough yet, but I believe they can be. 

Well you have to start at the beginning. How do they get better without building, testing, operating, improving? It is not at all feasible to properly understand and develop all of what is needed in a lab.

Edited May 3, 2021 by Jay McKinsey

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

1 hour ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Well you have to start at the beginning. How do they get better without building, testing, operating, improving? It is not at all feasible to properly understand and develop all of what is needed in a lab.

I completely agree. However, it seems to me that politicians are prepared to spend billions on large scale implementation. That doesn't sound like a test phase to me. That sounds like full blown portfolio allocation. 

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

10 minutes ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

I completely agree. However, it seems to me that politicians are prepared to spend billions on large scale implementation. That doesn't sound like a test phase to me. That sounds like full blown portfolio allocation. 

You are correct, It isn't a test phase, it is an operating phase. It isn't possible to learn everything you need to know just by testing either. Many of the problems are found and solved by the industrial ecosystem. Can't create that ecosystem without going into full production.

The problems incurred at scale can not easily be discovered through just a little testing.

Edited May 3, 2021 by Jay McKinsey

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

22 hours ago, markslawson said:

Jay - its not my fantasies that are being disturbed but yours.. The estimates of power shortages you give, if they bare any relation to reality (which I doubt) are for the previous crisis, and California is continuing to build renewables. I would urge you to read the original post where I made this same point. The problem with batteries is that once they've gone flat that's it. There is no flexibility to deal with the even larger crisis around the corner, due to bad policies in building renewables. Yes California has no formal capacity markets but your comments implied that it has something equivalent "contracts in place". Again, that was the point I was making. Anyway, leave it with you. I wouldn't dream of getting in the way of your balloon.. 

What is worse is said Batteries capacity should never be used over ~15%->30% of total.  SO, if you supposedly "have" 1GWh, in reality you only have 150MWh->300MWh and then throw in inverter inefficiencies and this drops it to ~130MWh-->~270MWh.