The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In
10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of
leaky roofs.
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
On 6/8/2025 4:15 PM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
It's amazing that we've never had such widespread outages BEFORE renewables >came along!
Oh... wait. No.
Wanna wager as to the author's opinions on gun rights, transgender issues, >religion, etc? Glad to know it was an "opinion" piece and one not based
in fact...
On 6/9/25 01:15, Joe Gwinn wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
That doesn't tell us anything new, and it does so poorly, too.
Clearly written by someone with no technical background.
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street >>Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to >>persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In
10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of
leaky roofs.
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In
10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of
leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 10:49:13 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 6/9/25 01:15, Joe Gwinn wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
That doesn't tell us anything new, and it does so poorly, too.
Clearly written by someone with no technical background.
Lomborg is not an engineer, and we are not his target audience.
His approach is to simply accept that CO2 in the atmosphere is an
existential threat,
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 10:49:13 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 6/9/25 01:15, Joe Gwinn wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
That doesn't tell us anything new, and it does so poorly, too.
Clearly written by someone with no technical background.
Lomborg is not an engineer, and we are not his target audience.
His approach is to simply accept that CO2 in the atmosphere is an
existential threat, and proceed directly to what it would take to even
move the needle. He takes no position concerning climate change.
His arguments boil down to physical and economic practicality.
As I've said in prior postings, bring a big calculator.
On 6/8/2025 4:15 PM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
It's amazing that we've never had such widespread outages BEFORE renewables came along!
Oh... wait. No.
Wanna wager as to the author's opinions on gun rights, transgender issues, religion, etc? Glad to know it was an "opinion" piece and one not based
in fact...
On Mon, 09 Jun 2025 10:07:19 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>It's not toxic (except in very high concentrations), and it's not a
wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 10:49:13 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 6/9/25 01:15, Joe Gwinn wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
That doesn't tell us anything new, and it does so poorly, too.
Clearly written by someone with no technical background.
Lomborg is not an engineer, and we are not his target audience.
His approach is to simply accept that CO2 in the atmosphere is an
existential threat,
We'd all be better off without that toxic pollutant.
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 03:11:53 -0700, Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>
wrote:
On 6/8/2025 4:15 PM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
It's amazing that we've never had such widespread outages BEFORE renewables >> came along!
Oh... wait. No.
Wanna wager as to the author's opinions on gun rights, transgender issues, >> religion, etc? Glad to know it was an "opinion" piece and one not based
in fact...
That's a pretty big jump. I don't recall seeing any such thing, but
feel free to do some googling.
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In
10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of
leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Joe
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In
10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of
leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Joe
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were
claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's
energy profile but I guess when they find out Spain was running 73% one >afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up trying
to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been nothing but
broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already.
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 03:11:53 -0700, Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>
wrote:
On 6/8/2025 4:15 PM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
It's amazing that we've never had such widespread outages BEFORE renewables >> came along!
Oh... wait. No.
Wanna wager as to the author's opinions on gun rights, transgender issues, >> religion, etc? Glad to know it was an "opinion" piece and one not based
in fact...
That's a pretty big jump. I don't recall seeing any such thing, but
feel free to do some googling.
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In
10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of
leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Joe
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were
claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's
energy profile but I guess when they find out Spain was running 73% one afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up trying
to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been nothing but
broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already.
Why were the hydro and nuclear plants IN THE AFFECTED SPANISH REGION so
poor at providing that "inertia" (even if only to allow THAT part of the country to safely "island"?) Why were they among the last sources to come back online?
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's energy profile but
I guess when they find out Spain was running 73% one afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up trying to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been nothing but broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already.
On 2025-06-09 21:14, Don Y wrote:
Why were the hydro and nuclear plants IN THE AFFECTED SPANISH REGION so
poor at providing that "inertia" (even if only to allow THAT part of the
country to safely "island"?) Why were they among the last sources to come >> back online?
Hydro was the first to come back online.
Islanding can happen if there is generation of the needed size in the region, of the same power as the power usage. And that did not happen, specially with solar/wind. Nor with nuclear.
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 11:34:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In >>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of >>>> leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Joe
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were
claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's
energy profile but I guess when they find out Spain was running 73% one >>afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up trying
to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been nothing but >>broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already.
France will happily sell power to Germany and Spain for maybe 50 cents
per KWH, or whatever that is in euros.
On 6/9/2025 12:29 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:14, Don Y wrote:
Why were the hydro and nuclear plants IN THE AFFECTED SPANISH REGION so
poor at providing that "inertia" (even if only to allow THAT part of the >>> country to safely "island"?) Why were they among the last sources to
come
back online?
Hydro was the first to come back online.
When did fossil fuel and nukes come back into the mix?
Islanding can happen if there is generation of the needed size in the
region, of the same power as the power usage. And that did not happen,
specially with solar/wind. Nor with nuclear.
The coverage seems to suggest the region had an out-sized supply
relative to
it's demands. I.e., if not for the influence of the rest of the grid, it likely could have come back as an "independent operation".
From:
<https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-we-do-and-do-not-know-about-the- blackout-in-spain-and-portugal/>
“The world didn’t walk away from fossil-fuel and nuclear power
stations because New York suffered a massive blackout in 1977. And it shouldn’t walk away from solar and wind because Spain and Portugal lost power for a few hours.
[Note that there were also blackouts in 1965 and 2003 -- I don't know about other parts of the country as I wasn't living in those places]
“But we should learn that grid design, policy and risk mapping aren’t yet up to the task of handling too much power from renewable sources.”
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels -- coal -- and nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a considerably more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or
the consequences of burning carbon.
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels -- coal -- and
nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their
technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a considerably >> more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or
the consequences of burning carbon.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with appropriate electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no matter what.
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:
On 6/9/2025 12:29 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:14, Don Y wrote:
Why were the hydro and nuclear plants IN THE AFFECTED SPANISH REGION so >> >>> poor at providing that "inertia" (even if only to allow THAT part of the >> >>> country to safely "island"?) Why were they among the last sources to >> >>> come
back online?
Hydro was the first to come back online.
When did fossil fuel and nukes come back into the mix?
fossil somewhere in the middle, nucs last of all. Gas turbines I think
entered second.
Islanding can happen if there is generation of the needed size in the
region, of the same power as the power usage. And that did not happen,
specially with solar/wind. Nor with nuclear.
The coverage seems to suggest the region had an out-sized supply
relative to
it's demands. I.e., if not for the influence of the rest of the grid, it >> > likely could have come back as an "independent operation".
From:
<https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-we-do-and-do-not-know-about-the-
blackout-in-spain-and-portugal/>
“The world didn’t walk away from fossil-fuel and
nuclear power stations because New York suffered a massive blackout in
1977. And it shouldn’t walk away from solar and wind because Spain and >> > Portugal lost power for a few hours.
[Note that there were also blackouts in 1965 and 2003 -- I don't know
about other parts of the country as I wasn't living in those places]
“But we should learn that grid design, policy and risk mapping >> > aren’t yet up to the task of handling too much power from renewable
sources.?
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels -- coal -- and >> > nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their
technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or
the consequences of burning carbon.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with appropriate
electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no matter what.
Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary current.
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:
On 6/9/2025 12:29 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:14, Don Y wrote:
Why were the hydro and nuclear plants IN THE AFFECTED SPANISH REGION so >>> poor at providing that "inertia" (even if only to allow THAT part of the >>> country to safely "island"?) Why were they among the last sources to >>> come
back online?
Hydro was the first to come back online.
When did fossil fuel and nukes come back into the mix?
fossil somewhere in the middle, nucs last of all. Gas turbines I think entered second.
Islanding can happen if there is generation of the needed size in the
region, of the same power as the power usage. And that did not happen,
specially with solar/wind. Nor with nuclear.
The coverage seems to suggest the region had an out-sized supply
relative to
it's demands. I.e., if not for the influence of the rest of the grid, it likely could have come back as an "independent operation".
From:
<https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-we-do-and-do-not-know-about-the- blackout-in-spain-and-portugal/>
“The world didn’t walk away from fossil-fuel and
nuclear power stations because New York suffered a massive blackout in 1977. And it shouldn’t walk away from solar and wind because Spain and Portugal lost power for a few hours.
[Note that there were also blackouts in 1965 and 2003 -- I don't know
about other parts of the country as I wasn't living in those places]
“But we should learn that grid design, policy and risk mapping aren’t yet up to the task of handling too much power from renewable sources.”
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels -- coal -- and nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a considerably more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or
the consequences of burning carbon.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with appropriate electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no matter what.
On 10/06/2025 12:14 am, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-
blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?
st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In
10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of
leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Twaddle. Solar panels and wind turbines are the cheapest sources of electricity available - certainly for Australia and Spain.
On 6/9/25 17:34, bitrex wrote:
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to >>>>> persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-
blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?
st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In >>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of >>>> leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Joe
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were
claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's
energy profile but I guess when they find out Spain was running 73%
one afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up
trying to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been
nothing but broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already.
Fission works fine, although admittedly it's getting bogged down by regulations and its reputation has suffered from some extensively
publicized accidents. Nuclear hasn't caused even close to as many
fatalities as has coal. France runs on nuclear power and it's doing
fine.
It's fusion that has failed to live up to its promises.
Renewables can be made to work, but need to learn to play well in
the existing infrastructure and need some kind of backup which
makes it more expensive.
Jeroen Belleman
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
"Fission works fine, although admittedly it's getting bogged down by regulations and its reputation has suffered from some extensively
publicized accidents."
Dear Jeroen Belleman:
Accidents happen!
On 6/9/2025 2:37 PM, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
On 6/9/25 17:34, bitrex wrote:
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>> wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street >>>>>> Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to >>>>>> persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-
blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?
st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In >>>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of >>>>> leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Joe
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were
claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's
energy profile but I guess when they find out Spain was running 73%
one afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up
trying to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been
nothing but broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already.
Fission works fine, although admittedly it's getting bogged down by
regulations and its reputation has suffered from some extensively
publicized accidents. Nuclear hasn't caused even close to as many
fatalities as has coal. France runs on nuclear power and it's doing
fine.
It's fusion that has failed to live up to its promises.
Renewables can be made to work, but need to learn to play well in
the existing infrastructure and need some kind of backup which
makes it more expensive.
Jeroen Belleman
<https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2023/03/26/how-much-water-do-french-nuclear-plants-use_6020697_114.html>
Some global-warming denialists seem to have come around to the idea of
"Well it's happening, but it doesn't matter" but how fresh water
resources will go _up_ with less and less snowfall and less and less
snowpack every year is anyone's guess.
It works "fine" if one buys the BS that other than the lil waste problem
it's earth-friendly low-impact technology. It isn't it's hugely
water-hungry, and uranium mining only gets dirtier the more of it you >extract.
On 2025-06-09 01:15, Joe Gwinn wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Politically biased opinion.
Blaming anything for the blackout is
reckless, when done before the detailed analysis is completed.
On 6/9/2025 1:44 PM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels -- coal -- and >>>> nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their >>>> technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or >>>> the consequences of burning carbon.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with appropriate >>> electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no matter what.
Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary current.
But that assumes the old usage model where the utility was the "tail" wagged >by the consumer "dog".
Going forward, expect to see a closer integration of load and supply >management. It's just silly to over-provision just to accommodate
any *possible* demand when technology exists to predict and manage
that demand.
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels -- coal -- and >>> nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their
technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or
the consequences of burning carbon.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with appropriate
electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no matter what.
Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary current.
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:
On 6/9/2025 12:29 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:14, Don Y wrote:
Why were the hydro and nuclear plants IN THE AFFECTED SPANISH REGION so >>>>> poor at providing that "inertia" (even if only to allow THAT part of the >>>>> country to safely "island"?)Â Why were they among the last sources to >>>>> come
back online?
Hydro was the first to come back online.
When did fossil fuel and nukes come back into the mix?
fossil somewhere in the middle, nucs last of all. Gas turbines I think
entered second.
Islanding can happen if there is generation of the needed size in the
region, of the same power as the power usage. And that did not happen, >>>> specially with solar/wind. Nor with nuclear.
The coverage seems to suggest the region had an out-sized supply
relative to
it's demands. I.e., if not for the influence of the rest of the grid, it
likely could have come back as an "independent operation".
From:
<https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-we-do-and-do-not-know-about-the-
blackout-in-spain-and-portugal/>
   “​​The world didn’t walk away from fossil-fuel and
nuclear power stations because New York suffered a massive blackout in
1977. And it shouldn’t walk away from solar and wind because Spain and
Portugal lost power for a few hours.
[Note that there were also blackouts in 1965 and 2003 -- I don't know
about other parts of the country as I wasn't living in those places]
   “But we should learn that grid design, policy and risk mapping
aren’t yet up to the task of handling too much power from renewable >>> sources.â€
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels -- coal -- and >>> nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their
technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or
the consequences of burning carbon.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with appropriate
electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no matter what.
Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary current.
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 22:14:54 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
<robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 01:15, Joe Gwinn wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Politically biased opinion.
Maybe, maybe not, but no matter - inertia and conservation of energy
are not. And the finance world doesn't want to bet on the wrong
horse.
It's true that there are many possible technical remedies, but none of
them are in place. If they were, we would not be having this
discussion.
It will be many years and billions for anything of the kind to be
implemented at sufficient scale, and to mature enough to depend on.
Blaming anything for the blackout is
reckless, when done before the detailed analysis is completed.
I quite agree, but holding off for a year or two is a form of
unilateral political disarmament. Politicians are rarely saints.
Neither are news reporters.
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 18:09:19 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
On 6/9/2025 2:37 PM, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
On 6/9/25 17:34, bitrex wrote:
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>> wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>>> wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street >>>>>>> Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to >>>>>>> persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-
blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?
st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In >>>>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of >>>>>> leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Joe
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were
claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's
energy profile but I guess when they find out Spain was running 73%
one afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up
trying to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been
nothing but broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already.
Fission works fine, although admittedly it's getting bogged down by
regulations and its reputation has suffered from some extensively
publicized accidents. Nuclear hasn't caused even close to as many
fatalities as has coal. France runs on nuclear power and it's doing
fine.
It's fusion that has failed to live up to its promises.
Renewables can be made to work, but need to learn to play well in
the existing infrastructure and need some kind of backup which
makes it more expensive.
Jeroen Belleman
<https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2023/03/26/how-much-water-do-french-nuclear-plants-use_6020697_114.html>
Some global-warming denialists seem to have come around to the idea of
"Well it's happening, but it doesn't matter" but how fresh water
resources will go _up_ with less and less snowfall and less and less
snowpack every year is anyone's guess.
It works "fine" if one buys the BS that other than the lil waste problem
it's earth-friendly low-impact technology. It isn't it's hugely
water-hungry, and uranium mining only gets dirtier the more of it you
extract.
The best power source by far is natural gas. It's cheap and clean and
easy to transport and store, and works reliably all day every day. And
we keep finding more.
The CO2 is a benefit too. It's greening the Earth.
On 2025-06-10 00:41, john larkin wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 18:09:19 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
On 6/9/2025 2:37 PM, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
On 6/9/25 17:34, bitrex wrote:
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:Fission works fine, although admittedly it's getting bogged down by
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>>> wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>>>> wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street >>>>>>>> Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to >>>>>>>> persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-
blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?
st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning >>>>>>> mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and >>>>>>> batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In >>>>>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of >>>>>>> leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Joe
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were
claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's >>>>> energy profile but I guess when they find out Spain was running 73%
one afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up
trying to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been
nothing but broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already. >>>>
regulations and its reputation has suffered from some extensively
publicized accidents. Nuclear hasn't caused even close to as many
fatalities as has coal. France runs on nuclear power and it's doing
fine.
It's fusion that has failed to live up to its promises.
Renewables can be made to work, but need to learn to play well in
the existing infrastructure and need some kind of backup which
makes it more expensive.
Jeroen Belleman
<https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2023/03/26/how-much-water-do-french-nuclear-plants-use_6020697_114.html>
Some global-warming denialists seem to have come around to the idea of
"Well it's happening, but it doesn't matter" but how fresh water
resources will go _up_ with less and less snowfall and less and less
snowpack every year is anyone's guess.
It works "fine" if one buys the BS that other than the lil waste problem >>> it's earth-friendly low-impact technology. It isn't it's hugely
water-hungry, and uranium mining only gets dirtier the more of it you
extract.
The best power source by far is natural gas. It's cheap and clean and
easy to transport and store, and works reliably all day every day. And
we keep finding more.
The CO2 is a benefit too. It's greening the Earth.
Not over here, it isn't.
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 11:34:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In >>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of >>>> leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Joe
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were
claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's
energy profile but I guess when they find out Spain was running 73% one
afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up trying
to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been nothing but
broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already.
France will happily sell power to Germany and Spain for maybe 50 cents
per KWH, or whatever that is in euros.
On 6/9/25 15:25, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 10/06/2025 12:14 am, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to >>>>> persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-
blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?
st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In >>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of >>>> leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Twaddle. Solar panels and wind turbines are the cheapest sources of
electricity available - certainly for Australia and Spain.
You really need to ease up on the Koolaid, tastes nice, but short
term benefit.
Just how long do you think the battery farms will last under constant
charge / discharge cycling, and how much will it cost to replace them ? Complete fools errand, but i''m sure the salesman must have been quite persuasive :-).
On 6/9/2025 8:34 AM, bitrex wrote:
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were
claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's
energy profile but I guess when they find out Spain was running 73%
one afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up
trying to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been
nothing but broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already.
Amusing how long we're sticking with a technology that still has
"significant
problems" (waste management) -- yet eager to throw another NEW technology under the bus in a heartbeat.
Obviously, no one wants the greenies (who secretly hold controlling
interests in all bicycle manufacturing facilities) to displace
the "oilers"...
You (bitrex) are in New England, right? Do they STILL deploy oil fired heat? And rely on small "independent operators" to ferry the fuel to
your home in the rain and snow? '78 anyone?
We had a natural gas outage, here (unusually cold spell with very high demand). Gas was available -- but not at sufficient pressure to bring appliances up to their normal operating temperatures (of course, the
safeties in those appliances couldn't differentiate between lack of
ignition and lack of sufficient supply). So, despite having the
"fuel" piped TO each customer, it was effectively not available.
"Damn unreliable fossil fuels!" <rolls eyes>
On Mon, 09 Jun 2025 09:49:24 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 11:34:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>> wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street >>>>>> Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to >>>>>> persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In >>>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of >>>>> leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Joe
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were
claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's
energy profile but I guess when they find out Spain was running 73% one
afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up trying >>> to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been nothing but
broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already.
France will happily sell power to Germany and Spain for maybe 50 cents
per KWH, or whatever that is in euros.
Heh.
I should add that the WSJ is focused on purely financial issues,
specifically where to invest, covering both equities (which stocks to
buy, which to sell) and municipal bonds (loans made to governments to purchase such thing as bridges, roads, and power plants or
facilities).
The Financial world does not care about technical details per se, they
care that the loans will be repaid.
Muni Bond Analysts consider the
engineering as a way to assess the likely scale and practicality.
Whereupon they encounter the big calculator issue - is the entity
large enough to be plausible to accomplish what they claim?
I learned about the financial world by marrying into it - my wife was
a Muni bond portfolio manager. I read some of her tutoials, and was > stunned to learn that while the stock market got all the news media
attention, the Muni market was in fact ten times larger.
On 6/9/25 17:34, bitrex wrote:
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to >>>>> persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In >>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of >>>> leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Joe
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were
claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's
energy profile but I guess when they find out Spain was running 73%
one afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up
trying to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been
nothing but broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already.
Fission works fine, although admittedly it's getting bogged down by regulations and its reputation has suffered from some extensively
publicized accidents. Nuclear hasn't caused even close to as many
fatalities as has coal. France runs on nuclear power and it's doing
fine.
It's fusion that has failed to live up to its promises.
Renewables can be made to work, but need to learn to play well in
the existing infrastructure and need some kind of backup which
makes it more expensive.
Jeroen Belleman
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:
On 6/9/2025 12:29 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:14, Don Y wrote:
Why were the hydro and nuclear plants IN THE AFFECTED SPANISH REGION so >>>>> poor at providing that "inertia" (even if only to allow THAT part of the >>>>> country to safely "island"?)Â Why were they among the last sources to >>>>> come
back online?
Hydro was the first to come back online.
When did fossil fuel and nukes come back into the mix?
fossil somewhere in the middle, nucs last of all. Gas turbines I think
entered second.
Islanding can happen if there is generation of the needed size in the
region, of the same power as the power usage. And that did not happen, >>>> specially with solar/wind. Nor with nuclear.
The coverage seems to suggest the region had an out-sized supply
relative to
it's demands. I.e., if not for the influence of the rest of the grid, it
likely could have come back as an "independent operation".
From:
<https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-we-do-and-do-not-know-about-the-
blackout-in-spain-and-portugal/>
   “​​The world didn’t walk away from fossil-fuel and
nuclear power stations because New York suffered a massive blackout in
1977. And it shouldn’t walk away from solar and wind because Spain and
Portugal lost power for a few hours.
[Note that there were also blackouts in 1965 and 2003 -- I don't know
about other parts of the country as I wasn't living in those places]
   “But we should learn that grid design, policy and risk mapping
aren’t yet up to the task of handling too much power from renewable >>> sources.â€
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels -- coal -- and >>> nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their
technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or
the consequences of burning carbon.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with appropriate
electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no matter what.
Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary current.
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 16:37:28 -0700, Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>
wrote:
On 6/9/2025 1:44 PM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels -- coal -- and >>>>> nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their >>>>> technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or >>>>> the consequences of burning carbon.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with appropriate >>>> electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no matter what.
Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary current.
But that assumes the old usage model where the utility was the "tail" wagged >> by the consumer "dog".
Going forward, expect to see a closer integration of load and supply
management. It's just silly to over-provision just to accommodate
any *possible* demand when technology exists to predict and manage
that demand.
Right. People shouldn't just be allowed to cook or do their laundry or
heat their houses whenever they feel like.
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 22:14:54 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
<robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 01:15, Joe Gwinn wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Politically biased opinion.
Maybe, maybe not, but no matter - inertia and conservation of energy
are not. And the finance world doesn't want to bet on the wrong
horse.
It's true that there are many possible technical remedies, but none of
them are in place. If they were, we would not be having this
discussion.
It will be many years and billions for anything of the kind to be
implemented at sufficient scale, and to mature enough to depend on.
Blaming anything for the blackout is
reckless, when done before the detailed analysis is completed.
I quite agree, but holding off for a year or two is a form of
unilateral political disarmament. Politicians are rarely saints.
Neither are news reporters.
On 10/06/2025 6:44 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels -- coal
-- and
nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their >>>> technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a
considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or >>>> the consequences of burning carbon.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with appropriate >>> electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no matter what.
Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary current.
That's why you need pumped hydro storage and grid scale batteries.
That's exactly why South Australia installed the first ever grid scale battery in November 2017, and half of it's capacity was immediately
devoted to short term (within cycle) frequency control. They had a lot
of solar cell generation, and their quick-start gas-turbine unit had
failed to start when it was needed, so they went shopping for a better solution. Search for the Hornsdale Power Reserve.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve
On 6/9/2025 2:37 PM, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
On 6/9/25 17:34, bitrex wrote:
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>> wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street >>>>>> Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to >>>>>> persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-
blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?
st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In >>>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of >>>>> leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Joe
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were
claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's
energy profile but I guess when they find out Spain was running 73%
one afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up
trying to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been
nothing but broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already.
Fission works fine, although admittedly it's getting bogged down by
regulations and its reputation has suffered from some extensively
publicized accidents. Nuclear hasn't caused even close to as many
fatalities as has coal. France runs on nuclear power and it's doing
fine.
It's fusion that has failed to live up to its promises.
Renewables can be made to work, but need to learn to play well in
the existing infrastructure and need some kind of backup which
makes it more expensive.
Jeroen Belleman
<https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2023/03/26/how-much-water-do-french-nuclear-plants-use_6020697_114.html>
Some global-warming denialists seem to have come around to the idea of
"Well it's happening, but it doesn't matter" but how fresh water
resources will go _up_ with less and less snowfall and less and less
snowpack every year is anyone's guess.
It works "fine" if one buys the BS that other than the lil waste problem
it's earth-friendly low-impact technology. It isn't it's hugely
water-hungry, and uranium mining only gets dirtier the more of it you extract.
On 6/9/2025 7:11 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 03:11:53 -0700, Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>
wrote:
On 6/8/2025 4:15 PM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
It's amazing that we've never had such widespread outages BEFORE
renewables
came along!
Oh... wait. No.
Wanna wager as to the author's opinions on gun rights, transgender
issues,
religion, etc? Glad to know it was an "opinion" piece and one not based >>> in fact...
That's a pretty big jump. I don't recall seeing any such thing, but
feel free to do some googling.
I saw HIS "jump" as even bigger! Why have we had SO MANY similarly sized events in the past -- before ANY renewables were deployed?
"Damn nukes and coal burners!"
Why were the hydro and nuclear plants IN THE AFFECTED SPANISH REGION so
poor at providing that "inertia" (even if only to allow THAT part of the country to safely "island"?) Why were they among the last sources to come back online?
The failure in the deployment of renewables is the ASSUMPTION that they
can just "bolt onto" a stable grid. Even as their incorporation into
that grid alters its complexion.
One can argue that spinning masses have to be protected (which is why they disconnect) whereas a grid sourced completely by renewables (and BESS)
can adapt to whatever the instantaneous characteristics of the network
happen to be.
What's magical about 48Hz? Why not 47? 53? Again, LARGE mechanical loads
will be the ones to suffer most but what portion of the system *load* is thusly vulnerable?
On 2025-06-09 22:44, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:
On 6/9/2025 12:29 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:14, Don Y wrote:
Why were the hydro and nuclear plants IN THE AFFECTED SPANISH
REGION so
poor at providing that "inertia" (even if only to allow THAT part
of the
country to safely "island"?)Â Why were they among the last
sources to
come
back online?
Hydro was the first to come back online.
When did fossil fuel and nukes come back into the mix?
fossil somewhere in the middle, nucs last of all. Gas turbines I think
entered second.
Islanding can happen if there is generation of the needed size in the >>>>> region, of the same power as the power usage. And that did not happen, >>>>> specially with solar/wind. Nor with nuclear.
The coverage seems to suggest the region had an out-sized supply
relative to
it's demands. I.e., if not for the influence of the rest of the
grid, it
likely could have come back as an "independent operation".
From:
<https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-we-do-and-do-not-know-about-the-
blackout-in-spain-and-portugal/>
   “​​The world didn’t walk away from fossil-fuel and
nuclear power stations because New York suffered a massive blackout in >>>> 1977. And it shouldn’t walk away from solar and wind because Spain >>>> and
Portugal lost power for a few hours.
[Note that there were also blackouts in 1965 and 2003 -- I don't know
about other parts of the country as I wasn't living in those places]
   “But we should learn that grid design, policy and risk
mapping
aren’t yet up to the task of handling too much power from renewable >>>> sources.â€
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels -- coal
-- and
nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their >>>> technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a
considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or >>>> the consequences of burning carbon.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with appropriate >>> electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no matter what.
Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary current.
Not needed.
On 10/06/2025 2:49 am, john larkin wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 11:34:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>> wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street >>>>>> Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to >>>>>> persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-
blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?
st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In >>>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of >>>>> leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Joe
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were
claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's
energy profile but I guess when they find out Spain was running 73% one
afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up trying >>> to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been nothing but
broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already.
France will happily sell power to Germany and Spain for maybe 50 cents
per KWH, or whatever that is in euros.
0.44 euro per kW.h. France does generate a lot of it's power with
nuclear reactors, when they work. That wasn't driven by economics, but
by Charles de Gaulle's ambition to have a nuclear armed force de frappe.
They aren't all that flexible as a generating service, so France mostly
sell power to its neighbours when it's consumers are using less and the neighbouring consumers are using more.
On 6/10/25 02:11, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-06-09 22:44, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:
On 6/9/2025 12:29 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:14, Don Y wrote:
Why were the hydro and nuclear plants IN THE AFFECTED SPANISH
REGION so
poor at providing that "inertia" (even if only to allow THAT part >>>>>>> of the
country to safely "island"?)Â Why were they among the last
sources to
come
back online?
Hydro was the first to come back online.
When did fossil fuel and nukes come back into the mix?
fossil somewhere in the middle, nucs last of all. Gas turbines I think >>>> entered second.
Islanding can happen if there is generation of the needed size in the >>>>>> region, of the same power as the power usage. And that did not
happen,
specially with solar/wind. Nor with nuclear.
The coverage seems to suggest the region had an out-sized supply
relative to
it's demands. I.e., if not for the influence of the rest of the
grid, it
likely could have come back as an "independent operation".
From:
<https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-we-do-and-do-not-know-about-the- >>>>> blackout-in-spain-and-portugal/>
   “​​The world didn’t walk away from fossil-fuel and
nuclear power stations because New York suffered a massive blackout in >>>>> 1977. And it shouldn’t walk away from solar and wind because
Spain and
Portugal lost power for a few hours.
[Note that there were also blackouts in 1965 and 2003 -- I don't know >>>>> about other parts of the country as I wasn't living in those places] >>>>>
   “But we should learn that grid design, policy and risk
mapping
aren’t yet up to the task of handling too much power from renewable
sources.â€
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels -- coal
-- and
nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their >>>>> technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a
considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or >>>>> the consequences of burning carbon.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with
appropriate
electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no matter what.
Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary current.
Not needed.
Why not?
Not needed.Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary current. >>
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with
appropriate
electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no matter what. >>>
Why not?
Think about it. Inverters can be locked in frequency to any timing
source.
On 10/06/2025 10:04 am, john larkin wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 16:37:28 -0700, Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
On 6/9/2025 1:44 PM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote: > OTOH, we're sticking with other >>>>technologies (fossil fuels -- coal -- and > nukes) despite obvious and >>>>yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their > technology. Adding >>>>"inertia" synthetically to a network is a considerably > more >>>>realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or > >>>>the consequences of burning carbon.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with
appropriate electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no >>>> matter what.
Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary >>>current.
But that assumes the old usage model where the utility was the "tail"
wagged by the consumer "dog".
Going forward, expect to see a closer integration of load and supply
management. It's just silly to over-provision just to accommodate any
*possible* demand when technology exists to predict and manage that
demand.
Right. People shouldn't just be allowed to cook or do their laundry or
heat their houses whenever they feel like.
But they can be offered cheaper rates to do it when the grid is less
heavily loaded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot,_Flat,_and_Crowded
spelled it all out back in 2008. Back then Thomas Friedman laid a lot of emphasis on electric cars which are parked 95% of the time and
potentially available as a gigantic grid storage battery.
On 6/9/2025 3:29 PM, Don Y wrote:
"Damn unreliable fossil fuels!" <rolls eyes>
Yes we've experienced a "propane outage" on at least one occasion as there had
been interpersonal communications issues as to what "running low" meant precisely, and then the scheduled delivery was delayed for a couple days, no explanation why.
Probably just got backed up near the holidays with employees taking off early.
The propane delivery companies always charge for an emergency delivery and reprime, even if they were delayed. You're free to complain by finding another
company (who does the same thing.)
On 10/06/2025 7:30 am, chrisq wrote:
On 6/9/25 15:25, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 10/06/2025 12:14 am, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>> wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street >>>>> Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to >>>>> persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-
blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?
st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In >>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of >>>> leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Twaddle. Solar panels and wind turbines are the cheapest sources of
electricity available - certainly for Australia and Spain.
You really need to ease up on the Koolaid, tastes nice, but short
term benefit.
In the same way that burning lots of fossil carbon is a short term
solution to the problem of supplying electric power
Just how long do you think the battery farms will last under constant charge / discharge cycling, and how much will it cost to replace them ? Complete fools errand, but i''m sure the salesman must have been quite persuasive :-).
Like everything else. batteries wear out under constant use, just like
the coal-fired generators that used to power our grid.
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
[...]
Not needed.Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary current. >>>>
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with
appropriate
electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no matter what. >>>>>
Why not?
Think about it. Inverters can be locked in frequency to any timing
source.
If the source (grid) starts to fall in frequency the inverter will
either have to keep in step with it or supply massive currents as the
phase difference between the inverter and the grid begins to increase.
If the inverter tries to stay on-frequency, the time will come when they
are 180-degrees out of step, then things will get far too exciting.
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 10/06/2025 10:04 am, john larkin wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 16:37:28 -0700, Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>
wrote:
On 6/9/2025 1:44 PM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote: > OTOH, we're sticking with other >>>>>> technologies (fossil fuels -- coal -- and > nukes) despite obvious and >>>>>> yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their > technology. Adding
"inertia" synthetically to a network is a considerably > more
realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or > >>>>>> the consequences of burning carbon.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with
appropriate electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no >>>>>> matter what.
Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary
current.
But that assumes the old usage model where the utility was the "tail"
wagged by the consumer "dog".
Going forward, expect to see a closer integration of load and supply
management. It's just silly to over-provision just to accommodate any >>>> *possible* demand when technology exists to predict and manage that
demand.
Right. People shouldn't just be allowed to cook or do their laundry or
heat their houses whenever they feel like.
But they can be offered cheaper rates to do it when the grid is less
heavily loaded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot,_Flat,_and_Crowded
spelled it all out back in 2008. Back then Thomas Friedman laid a lot of
emphasis on electric cars which are parked 95% of the time and
potentially available as a gigantic grid storage battery.
Are the batteries in those cars designed to only accommodate the 5%
normal usage? How would they cope with the constant charging and
discharging needed to stabilise the grid?
On 10/06/2025 07:01, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 10/06/2025 6:44 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels -- coal
-- and
nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their >>>>> technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a
considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or >>>>> the consequences of burning carbon.
Technically and economically, dealing with nuclear waste is many orders
of magnitude easier than dealing with the consequences of burning
carbon.
Politically, ignoring or denying the consequences of burning
carbon is many orders of magnitude easier than doing anything at all.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with
appropriate
electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no matter what.
Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary current.
That's why you need pumped hydro storage and grid scale batteries.
It's the same as pretty much any other problem with hardware - add some
big capacitors, and it will all be much more stable.
That's exactly why South Australia installed the first ever grid scale
battery in November 2017, and half of it's capacity was immediately
devoted to short term (within cycle) frequency control. They had a lot
of solar cell generation, and their quick-start gas-turbine unit had
failed to start when it was needed, so they went shopping for a better
solution. Search for the Hornsdale Power Reserve.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve
Grid storage is a major part of the way forward in electricity
distribution (the other component is high voltage DC lines). But
lithium batteries like that one are no more than a stop-gap. Lithium is expensive, dangerous, a limited resource, and mining it is an
environmental disaster (albeit much more localised than the disaster of burning carbon). The main battery type for grid storage should be
sodium ion batteries.
On Mon, 09 Jun 2025 09:49:24 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 11:34:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>> wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street >>>>>> Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to >>>>>> persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In >>>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of >>>>> leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Joe
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were
claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's >>>energy profile but I guess when they find out Spain was running 73% one >>>afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up trying >>>to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been nothing but >>>broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already.
France will happily sell power to Germany and Spain for maybe 50 cents
per KWH, or whatever that is in euros.
Heh.
I should add that the WSJ is focused on purely financial issues,
specifically where to invest, covering both equities (which stocks to
buy, which to sell) and municipal bonds (loans made to governments to >purchase such thing as bridges, roads, and power plants or
facilities).
The Financial world does not care about technical details per se, they
care that the loans will be repaid. Muni Bond Analysts consider the >engineering as a way to assess the likely scale and practicality.
Whereupon they encounter the big calculator issue - is the entity
large enough to be plausible to accomplish what they claim?
I learned about the financial world by marrying into it - my wife was
a Muni bond portfolio manager. I read some of her tutorials, and was
stunned to learn that while the stock market got all the news media >attention, the Muni market was in fact ten times larger.
Joe
On 6/9/2025 2:37 PM, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
On 6/9/25 17:34, bitrex wrote:
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>> wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street >>>>>> Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to >>>>>> persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-
blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?
st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In >>>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of >>>>> leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Joe
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were
claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's
energy profile but I guess when they find out Spain was running 73%
one afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up
trying to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been
nothing but broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already.
Fission works fine, although admittedly it's getting bogged down by
regulations and its reputation has suffered from some extensively
publicized accidents. Nuclear hasn't caused even close to as many
fatalities as has coal. France runs on nuclear power and it's doing
fine.
It's fusion that has failed to live up to its promises.
Renewables can be made to work, but need to learn to play well in
the existing infrastructure and need some kind of backup which
makes it more expensive.
Jeroen Belleman
<https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2023/03/26/how-much-water-do-french-nuclear-plants-use_6020697_114.html>
Some global-warming denialists seem to have come around to the idea of
"Well it's happening, but it doesn't matter" but how fresh water
resources will go _up_ with less and less snowfall and less and less
snowpack every year is anyone's guess.
It works "fine" if one buys the BS that other than the lil waste problem
it's earth-friendly low-impact technology. It isn't it's hugely
water-hungry, and uranium mining only gets dirtier the more of it you >extract.
On 10/06/2025 8:08 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:[...]
Are the batteries in those cars designed to only accommodate the 5%
normal usage? How would they cope with the constant charging and discharging needed to stabilise the grid?
I don't know what the batteries in those car are designed to
accommodate, and clearly neither do you. It's going to be a lot more
than 5% of the capacity.
On 10/06/2025 8:08 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 10/06/2025 10:04 am, john larkin wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 16:37:28 -0700, Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> >>>> wrote:
On 6/9/2025 1:44 PM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote: > OTOH, we're sticking with other >>>>>>> technologies (fossil fuels -- coal -- and > nukes) despite
obvious and
yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their > technology. Adding
"inertia" synthetically to a network is a considerably > more
realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or > >>>>>>> the consequences of burning carbon.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with
appropriate electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz,
locked no
matter what.
Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary
current.
But that assumes the old usage model where the utility was the "tail" >>>>> wagged by the consumer "dog".
Going forward, expect to see a closer integration of load and supply >>>>> management. It's just silly to over-provision just to accommodate any >>>>> *possible* demand when technology exists to predict and manage that
demand.
Right. People shouldn't just be allowed to cook or do their laundry or >>>> heat their houses whenever they feel like.
But they can be offered cheaper rates to do it when the grid is less
heavily loaded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot,_Flat,_and_Crowded
spelled it all out back in 2008. Back then Thomas Friedman laid a lot of >>> emphasis on electric cars which are parked 95% of the time and
potentially available as a gigantic grid storage battery.
Are the batteries in those cars designed to only accommodate the 5%
normal usage? How would they cope with the constant charging and
discharging needed to stabilise the grid?
I don't know what the batteries in those car are designed to
accommodate, and clearly neither do you. It's going to be a lot more
than 5% of the capacity.
I don't think that they would be used for the short term charging and discharging involved in providing short term frequency control for the
grid - the ambition seems to be have them there to provide emergency
back-up when there's a substantial disruption.
If we all went over to electric cars the grid would have to provide
about 30% more electric power than it does now. Granting that cars spend
95% of their, time parked, the parked cars could offer about 5 times as
much power as the grid for a couple of hours.
On 2025-06-10 10:53, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
On 6/10/25 02:11, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-06-09 22:44, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:
On 6/9/2025 12:29 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:14, Don Y wrote:
Why were the hydro and nuclear plants IN THE AFFECTED SPANISH
REGION so
poor at providing that "inertia" (even if only to allow THAT
part of the
country to safely "island"?)Â Why were they among the last
sources to
come
back online?
Hydro was the first to come back online.
When did fossil fuel and nukes come back into the mix?
fossil somewhere in the middle, nucs last of all. Gas turbines I think >>>>> entered second.
Islanding can happen if there is generation of the needed size in >>>>>>> the
region, of the same power as the power usage. And that did not
happen,
specially with solar/wind. Nor with nuclear.
The coverage seems to suggest the region had an out-sized supply
relative to
it's demands. I.e., if not for the influence of the rest of the >>>>>> grid, it
likely could have come back as an "independent operation".
From:
<https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-we-do-and-do-not-know-about-the- >>>>>> blackout-in-spain-and-portugal/>
   “​​The world didn’t walk away from fossil-fuel and
nuclear power stations because New York suffered a massive
blackout in
1977. And it shouldn’t walk away from solar and wind because >>>>>> Spain and
Portugal lost power for a few hours.
[Note that there were also blackouts in 1965 and 2003 -- I don't know >>>>>> about other parts of the country as I wasn't living in those places] >>>>>>
   “But we should learn that grid design, policy and risk
mapping
aren’t yet up to the task of handling too much power from renewable
sources.â€
Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels -- coal >>>>>> -- and
nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT in
their
technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a
considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear
waste or
the consequences of burning carbon.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with
appropriate
electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no matter what. >>>>
current.
Not needed.
Why not?
Think about it. Inverters can be locked in frequency to any timing
source. No matter what's the tendency of the network, the inverters,
which are millions, can keep the frequency they supply at, undisturbed. Locked in frequency and phase to a given time source. Infinite inertia.
With whatever power they have at the moment, which in Spain was 70% of
the total when the blackout happened.
Rotating masses can be pushed to change frequency by the load. Inverters can't, if so programmed.
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 10/06/2025 10:04 am, john larkin wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 16:37:28 -0700, Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>
wrote:
On 6/9/2025 1:44 PM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote: > OTOH, we're sticking with other
technologies (fossil fuels -- coal -- and > nukes) despite obvious and >> >>>>yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their > technology. Adding
"inertia" synthetically to a network is a considerably > more
realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or >
the consequences of burning carbon.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with
appropriate electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no >> >>>> matter what.
Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary
current.
But that assumes the old usage model where the utility was the "tail"
wagged by the consumer "dog".
Going forward, expect to see a closer integration of load and supply
management. It's just silly to over-provision just to accommodate any
*possible* demand when technology exists to predict and manage that
demand.
Right. People shouldn't just be allowed to cook or do their laundry or
heat their houses whenever they feel like.
But they can be offered cheaper rates to do it when the grid is less
heavily loaded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot,_Flat,_and_Crowded
spelled it all out back in 2008. Back then Thomas Friedman laid a lot of
emphasis on electric cars which are parked 95% of the time and
potentially available as a gigantic grid storage battery.
Are the batteries in those cars designed to only accommodate the 5%
normal usage? How would they cope with the constant charging and
discharging needed to stabilise the grid?
On Mon, 09 Jun 2025 16:02:19 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:
On Mon, 09 Jun 2025 09:49:24 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 11:34:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>> wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>>> wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street >>>>>>> Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to >>>>>>> persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In >>>>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of >>>>>> leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Joe
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were
claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's
energy profile but I guess when they find out Spain was running 73% one >>>> afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up trying >>>> to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been nothing but
broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already.
France will happily sell power to Germany and Spain for maybe 50 cents
per KWH, or whatever that is in euros.
Heh.
I should add that the WSJ is focused on purely financial issues,
specifically where to invest, covering both equities (which stocks to
buy, which to sell) and municipal bonds (loans made to governments to
purchase such thing as bridges, roads, and power plants or
facilities).
The Financial world does not care about technical details per se, they
care that the loans will be repaid. Muni Bond Analysts consider the
engineering as a way to assess the likely scale and practicality.
Whereupon they encounter the big calculator issue - is the entity
large enough to be plausible to accomplish what they claim?
I learned about the financial world by marrying into it - my wife was
a Muni bond portfolio manager. I read some of her tutorials, and was
stunned to learn that while the stock market got all the news media
attention, the Muni market was in fact ten times larger.
Joe
Some people enjoy working with money. There are even people who like
being accountants. Electronics is much more fun to me.
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 10/06/2025 7:30 am, chrisq wrote:
On 6/9/25 15:25, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 10/06/2025 12:14 am, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>> wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>>> wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street >>>>>>> Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to >>>>>>> persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-
blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?
st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In >>>>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of >>>>>> leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Twaddle. Solar panels and wind turbines are the cheapest sources of
electricity available - certainly for Australia and Spain.
You really need to ease up on the Koolaid, tastes nice, but short
term benefit.
In the same way that burning lots of fossil carbon is a short term
solution to the problem of supplying electric power
Just how long do you think the battery farms will last under constant
charge / discharge cycling, and how much will it cost to replace them ?
Complete fools errand, but i''m sure the salesman must have been quite
persuasive :-).
Like everything else. batteries wear out under constant use, just like
the coal-fired generators that used to power our grid.
It's a lot easier to replace the bearings in a generator than to replace lithium batteries at that scale.
On 10/06/2025 5:21 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 07:01, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 10/06/2025 6:44 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels -- coal >>>>>> -- and
nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT in
their
technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a
considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear
waste or
the consequences of burning carbon.
Technically and economically, dealing with nuclear waste is many
orders of magnitude easier than dealing with the consequences of
burning carbon.
Nuclear fission waste is mixture of isotopes. Some of them are very radioactive and decay fast, and keeping them safe until they've mostly decayed is technically demanding. The less radioactive isotopes are
easier to handle, but some of them stay dangerously radioactive for
upwards of 100,000 years, and keeping them safely isolated for that
length of time is an as yet unsolved problem
Politically, ignoring or denying the consequences of burning carbon is
many orders of magnitude easier than doing anything at all.
Until the climate gets warmer, sea levels rise, and tropical cyclones
get more energetic. People are getting spooked by the changes they've
seen over the last thirty years, and politicians are finding them harder
to ignore.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia withOnly if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary
appropriate
electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no matter what. >>>>
current.
That's why you need pumped hydro storage and grid scale batteries.
It's the same as pretty much any other problem with hardware - add
some big capacitors, and it will all be much more stable.
Only if you do it right.
That's exactly why South Australia installed the first ever grid
scale battery in November 2017, and half of it's capacity was
immediately devoted to short term (within cycle) frequency control.
They had a lot of solar cell generation, and their quick-start
gas-turbine unit had failed to start when it was needed, so they went
shopping for a better solution. Search for the Hornsdale Power Reserve.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve
Grid storage is a major part of the way forward in electricity
distribution (the other component is high voltage DC lines). But
lithium batteries like that one are no more than a stop-gap. Lithium
is expensive, dangerous, a limited resource, and mining it is an
environmental disaster (albeit much more localised than the disaster
of burning carbon). The main battery type for grid storage should be
sodium ion batteries.
Lithium isn't particularly rare. Stars have been making it for the past
13 billion years. You don't have to wait for a supernova. We haven't
put as much effort into finding lithium rich ores as we have put into
finding copper, gold and silver, which are all heavier than iron.
Mining is always an environmental disaster if you don't keep a sharp eye
on the miners.
There are a variety of of opinions about what battery type would be best
for grid storage. Vanadium flow batteries have their fans.
In so far as
lithium is dangerous, sodium is even more dangerous (and potassium is
even worse). Cheapskates who cut corners can extract a disaster from the
most innocuous materials.
Most of the "lithium is dangerous" propaganda comes from the fossil
carbon extraction industry, who wants to keep on selling gasoline to be
burnt in internal combustion engines.
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 18:10:14 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
On 6/9/2025 2:37 PM, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
On 6/9/25 17:34, bitrex wrote:
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>> wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>>> wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street >>>>>>> Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to >>>>>>> persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-
blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?
st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In >>>>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of >>>>>> leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Joe
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were
claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's
energy profile but I guess when they find out Spain was running 73%
one afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up
trying to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been
nothing but broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already.
Fission works fine, although admittedly it's getting bogged down by
regulations and its reputation has suffered from some extensively
publicized accidents. Nuclear hasn't caused even close to as many
fatalities as has coal. France runs on nuclear power and it's doing
fine.
It's fusion that has failed to live up to its promises.
Renewables can be made to work, but need to learn to play well in
the existing infrastructure and need some kind of backup which
makes it more expensive.
Jeroen Belleman
<https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2023/03/26/how-much-water-do-french-nuclear-plants-use_6020697_114.html>
Some global-warming denialists seem to have come around to the idea of
"Well it's happening, but it doesn't matter" but how fresh water
resources will go _up_ with less and less snowfall and less and less
snowpack every year is anyone's guess.
It works "fine" if one buys the BS that other than the lil waste problem
it's earth-friendly low-impact technology. It isn't it's hugely
water-hungry, and uranium mining only gets dirtier the more of it you
extract.
The real tragedy (for some people) is that things keep getting better.
Sorry.
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 10/06/2025 8:08 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:[...]
Are the batteries in those cars designed to only accommodate the 5%
normal usage? How would they cope with the constant charging and
discharging needed to stabilise the grid?
I don't know what the batteries in those car are designed to
accommodate, and clearly neither do you. It's going to be a lot more
than 5% of the capacity.
How did you twist my question into that?
On 10/06/2025 15:49, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 10/06/2025 8:08 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 10/06/2025 10:04 am, john larkin wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 16:37:28 -0700, Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> >>>>> wrote:
On 6/9/2025 1:44 PM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote: > OTOH, we're sticking with other >>>>>>>> technologies (fossil fuels -- coal -- and > nukes) despite
obvious and
yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their > technology. >>>>>>>> Adding
"inertia" synthetically to a network is a considerably > more
realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or > >>>>>>>> the consequences of burning carbon.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with
appropriate electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz,
locked no
matter what.
Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary
current.
But that assumes the old usage model where the utility was the "tail" >>>>>> wagged by the consumer "dog".
Going forward, expect to see a closer integration of load and supply >>>>>> management. It's just silly to over-provision just to accommodate >>>>>> any
*possible* demand when technology exists to predict and manage that >>>>>> demand.
Right. People shouldn't just be allowed to cook or do their laundry or >>>>> heat their houses whenever they feel like.
But they can be offered cheaper rates to do it when the grid is less
heavily loaded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot,_Flat,_and_Crowded
spelled it all out back in 2008. Back then Thomas Friedman laid a
lot of
emphasis on electric cars which are parked 95% of the time and
potentially available as a gigantic grid storage battery.
Are the batteries in those cars designed to only accommodate the 5%
normal usage? How would they cope with the constant charging and
discharging needed to stabilise the grid?
I don't know what the batteries in those car are designed to
accommodate, and clearly neither do you. It's going to be a lot more
than 5% of the capacity.
Usage and capacity are not the same things. It seems reasonable to
expect that most of the time, car batteries will be between 20% and 80%
of their capacity, though they will get closer to 100% for people who
charge overnight at home. But 5% "normal usage" means a typical car is
used no more than 5% of the time - a bit over an hour a day. That also seems reasonable to me, and it is the figure NXP use when estimating lifetimes of automotive qualified parts. (I.e., they give a lifetime of
10 years on the expectation that no more than 5% of that is at 125°C temperatures.)
Not only do neither you nor I know how well car batteries, and the
charging and discharging power circuitry around it, would work for grid storage, but I suspect the car manufacturers do not know either. The use-cases are very different.
Using electric cars as grid storage is just silly, in all kinds of ways.
The trade-offs for things like power and energy densities and cost are completely different, the charge/discharge usage is totally different.
And cars are frequently not plugged in at the right place when you want
to charge or discharge the grid storage.
I don't think that they would be used for the short term charging and
discharging involved in providing short term frequency control for the
grid - the ambition seems to be have them there to provide emergency
back-up when there's a substantial disruption.
That would be less silly, but still silly.
If we all went over to electric cars the grid would have to provide
about 30% more electric power than it does now. Granting that cars
spend 95% of their, time parked, the parked cars could offer about 5
times as much power as the grid for a couple of hours.
It would be hugely more helpful to have distributed cheap battery
storage in fixed installations (in homes, at grid transformer and distribution points, and most importantly, at electric car charger stations). All it will take is mass production of more appropriate batteries (such as the sodium ion batteries that China is pushing hard).
The potential benefits of electric car batteries as "emergency grid storage" would then be negligible.
On 11/06/2025 12:55 am, john larkin wrote:
On Mon, 09 Jun 2025 16:02:19 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:
On Mon, 09 Jun 2025 09:49:24 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 11:34:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>>> wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>>>> wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street >>>>>>>> Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to >>>>>>>> persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning >>>>>>> mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and >>>>>>> batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In >>>>>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of >>>>>>> leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Joe
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were
claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's >>>>> energy profile but I guess when they find out Spain was running 73% one >>>>> afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up trying >>>>> to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been nothing but >>>>> broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already.
France will happily sell power to Germany and Spain for maybe 50 cents >>>> per KWH, or whatever that is in euros.
Heh.
I should add that the WSJ is focused on purely financial issues,
specifically where to invest, covering both equities (which stocks to
buy, which to sell) and municipal bonds (loans made to governments to
purchase such thing as bridges, roads, and power plants or
facilities).
The Financial world does not care about technical details per se, they
care that the loans will be repaid. Muni Bond Analysts consider the
engineering as a way to assess the likely scale and practicality.
Whereupon they encounter the big calculator issue - is the entity
large enough to be plausible to accomplish what they claim?
I learned about the financial world by marrying into it - my wife was
a Muni bond portfolio manager. I read some of her tutorials, and was
stunned to learn that while the stock market got all the news media
attention, the Muni market was in fact ten times larger.
Joe
Some people enjoy working with money. There are even people who like
being accountants. Electronics is much more fun to me.
Think how much more fun you could have if you actually understood what
you were doing.
On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 11:08:20 +0100, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
(Liz Tuddenham) wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 10/06/2025 10:04 am, john larkin wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 16:37:28 -0700, Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> >>>> wrote:
On 6/9/2025 1:44 PM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote: > OTOH, we're sticking with other >>>>>>> technologies (fossil fuels -- coal -- and > nukes) despite obvious and >>>>>>> yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their > technology. Adding
"inertia" synthetically to a network is a considerably > more
realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or > >>>>>>> the consequences of burning carbon.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with
appropriate electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no >>>>>>> matter what.
Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary
current.
But that assumes the old usage model where the utility was the "tail" >>>>> wagged by the consumer "dog".
Going forward, expect to see a closer integration of load and supply >>>>> management. It's just silly to over-provision just to accommodate any >>>>> *possible* demand when technology exists to predict and manage that
demand.
Right. People shouldn't just be allowed to cook or do their laundry or >>>> heat their houses whenever they feel like.
But they can be offered cheaper rates to do it when the grid is less
heavily loaded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot,_Flat,_and_Crowded
spelled it all out back in 2008. Back then Thomas Friedman laid a lot of >>> emphasis on electric cars which are parked 95% of the time and
potentially available as a gigantic grid storage battery.
Are the batteries in those cars designed to only accommodate the 5%
normal usage? How would they cope with the constant charging and
discharging needed to stabilise the grid?
If I had an electric car, I sure wouldn't want it to be used "to
stabilise the grid" and be left without transport when the lights are
off.
google lithium battery fire australia
The AI thing says
Lithium-ion battery fires are a growing concern in Australia, with authorities reporting a surge in incidents and increased risks. More
than 1,000 fires were caused by lithium-ion batteries across Australia
in the past year. Fire and Rescue NSW has referred to lithium-ion
batteries as the "fastest-growing fire risk" in the state, responding
to 272 battery-related fires in 2023
On 10/06/2025 16:16, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 10/06/2025 5:21 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 07:01, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 10/06/2025 6:44 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels --
coal -- and
nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT in >>>>>>> their
technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a >>>>>>> considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear
waste or
the consequences of burning carbon.
Technically and economically, dealing with nuclear waste is many
orders of magnitude easier than dealing with the consequences of
burning carbon.
Nuclear fission waste is mixture of isotopes. Some of them are very
radioactive and decay fast, and keeping them safe until they've mostly
decayed is technically demanding. The less radioactive isotopes are
easier to handle, but some of them stay dangerously radioactive for
upwards of 100,000 years, and keeping them safely isolated for that
length of time is an as yet unsolved problem
We all know that, I believe. There are two ways to handle the waste -
bury it deep enough, or use reprocessing/recycling to reduce the worst
of the waste. (Of course a better idea is to use more advanced nuclear reactors that produce more electricity for less waste.)
On 6/10/2025 6:55 AM, Don Y wrote:
On 6/9/2025 9:43 PM, bitrex wrote:
On 6/9/2025 3:29 PM, Don Y wrote:
"Damn unreliable fossil fuels!" <rolls eyes>
Yes we've experienced a "propane outage" on at least one occasion as
there had been interpersonal communications issues as to what
"running low" meant precisely, and then the scheduled delivery was
delayed for a couple days, no explanation why.
Ah, propane instead of heating oil (not anywhere near as messy). Yes,
managing your own delivery schedule (or, relying on the vendor-du-jour
to deliver when the time is right -- and not just when he wants to
make a sale at the current spot price) is a PITA.
Probably just got backed up near the holidays with employees taking
off early.
The propane delivery companies always charge for an emergency
delivery and reprime, even if they were delayed. You're free to
complain by finding another company (who does the same thing.)
The phrase "by the balls" comes to mind.
We used to have oil heat when I was a kid, Dad would put a few gallons
of diesel in the tank once in a while if they accidentally ran low, this
was back when diesel was like $1 a gallon or whatever.
But nobody who owns a detached home and can afford the switch to
something else wants to have oil heat anymore here, and at the very
least if they can't switch fuels entirely they're sun setting their forced-air HVAC in favor of a mini-split setup.
On 6/9/2025 9:43 PM, bitrex wrote:
On 6/9/2025 3:29 PM, Don Y wrote:
"Damn unreliable fossil fuels!" <rolls eyes>
Yes we've experienced a "propane outage" on at least one occasion as
there had been interpersonal communications issues as to what "running
low" meant precisely, and then the scheduled delivery was delayed for
a couple days, no explanation why.
Ah, propane instead of heating oil (not anywhere near as messy). Yes, managing your own delivery schedule (or, relying on the vendor-du-jour
to deliver when the time is right -- and not just when he wants to
make a sale at the current spot price) is a PITA.
Probably just got backed up near the holidays with employees taking
off early.
The propane delivery companies always charge for an emergency delivery
and reprime, even if they were delayed. You're free to complain by
finding another company (who does the same thing.)
The phrase "by the balls" comes to mind.
On 2025-06-10 01:03, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 22:14:54 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
<robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 01:15, Joe Gwinn wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Politically biased opinion.
Maybe, maybe not, but no matter - inertia and conservation of energy
are not. And the finance world doesn't want to bet on the wrong
horse.
It's true that there are many possible technical remedies, but none of
them are in place. If they were, we would not be having this
discussion.
Remedies, for what exactly? We still do not know what was the problem.
And will not know for several months.
It will be many years and billions for anything of the kind to be
implemented at sufficient scale, and to mature enough to depend on.
Blaming anything for the blackout is
reckless, when done before the detailed analysis is completed.
I quite agree, but holding off for a year or two is a form of
unilateral political disarmament. Politicians are rarely saints.
Neither are news reporters.
You can not put a solution to a problem that nobody knows what it is.
What are you going to do? You do something so that the public is happy,
and when a year passes, we find out that the problem is totally
different, and the effort and money was wasted on a useless mistaken >solution!
We all know that, I believe. There are two ways to handle the waste -bury it deep enough, or use reprocessing/recycling to reduce the worst
of the waste. (Of course a better idea is to use more advanced nuclear reactors that produce more electricity for less waste.)
We used to have oil heat when I was a kid, Dad would put a few gallons of diesel in the tank once in a while if they accidentally ran low, this was back
when diesel was like $1 a gallon or whatever.
But nobody who owns a detached home and can afford the switch to something else
wants to have oil heat anymore here, and at the very least if they can't switch
fuels entirely they're sun setting their forced-air HVAC in favor of a mini-split setup.
People with gas are installing mini-splits also though I think the overall cost/benefit is less clear there, depends more on how many hot days you have that require active cooling I think...mini-splits seem very effective at spot cooling.
Our condo has a propane-fueled combi boiler with baseboard hot water, no central AC just use window units in the office and bedroom when needed, we're
still relatively young enough and New England isn't yet sweltering enough that
we feel central cooling is a sine qua non (particularly in a ground floor unit) :)
Maybe someday when we're closer to retirement but we're regularly not even home
during the heat of the day in summer, anyway.
Incidentally I forgot to mention it goes without saying lots of homeowners have
solar PV arrays, PV & minisplit/hybrid setups seem pretty popular
On 6/10/2025 6:55 AM, Don Y wrote:
On 6/9/2025 9:43 PM, bitrex wrote:
Probably just got backed up near the holidays with employees taking
off early.
The propane delivery companies always charge for an emergency
delivery and reprime, even if they were delayed. You're free to
complain by finding another company (who does the same thing.)
The phrase "by the balls" comes to mind.
We used to have oil heat when I was a kid, Dad would put a few gallons
of diesel in the tank once in a while if they accidentally ran low, this
was back when diesel was like $1 a gallon or whatever.
But nobody who owns a detached home and can afford the switch to
something else wants to have oil heat anymore here, and at the very
least if they can't switch fuels entirely they're sun setting their forced-air HVAC in favor of a mini-split setup.
Mini-splits are really only used in commercial spaces or garages. Most homes have very "open" floorplans (less compartmentalized space and considerably larger continuous spaces) and were built with central HVAC.
The ductless minisplits are regarded as eyesores in living spaces ("Do I
want to live in a hotel room?").
But nobody who owns a detached home and can afford the switch to something >> else wants to have oil heat anymore here, and at the very least if they can't
switch fuels entirely they're sun setting their forced-air HVAC in favor of a
mini-split setup.
Somebody told me years ago that the advantage of oil heating is that there are
many suppliers. You are not tied to one.
On 2025-06-10 22:13, Don Y wrote:
Mini-splits are really only used in commercial spaces or garages. Most
homes have very "open" floorplans (less compartmentalized space and
considerably larger continuous spaces) and were built with central HVAC.
The ductless minisplits are regarded as eyesores in living spaces ("Do I
want to live in a hotel room?").
I don't know what qualifies as mini-split, but over here, splits are very common. I have one running just now in this computer room. The cool air actually flows to the entire top floor of this house (I keep the door to downstairs closed), of course warmer with the distance from the split (I have a
portable fan pushing the air to my bedroom). Still, it allows me to pass the summer in some confort for a limited cost.
I could have a better system by having a multiple-split system. One outside unit connected to two or three units inside.
They are simple to install in existing houses that have no ducting, and maybe,
no winter heating either.
If I had an electric car, I sure wouldn't want it to be used "to
stabilise the grid" and be left without transport when the lights are
off.
<...>
On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 02:17:45 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
<robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-10 01:03, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 22:14:54 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
<robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 01:15, Joe Gwinn wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Politically biased opinion.
Maybe, maybe not, but no matter - inertia and conservation of energy
are not. And the finance world doesn't want to bet on the wrong
horse.
It's true that there are many possible technical remedies, but none of
them are in place. If they were, we would not be having this
discussion.
Remedies, for what exactly? We still do not know what was the problem.
And will not know for several months.
Weeks? Unlikely in the extreme. Whatever the pending report says, it
will get the full wire-brush scrub by everybody, a process that will
yield many causalities. So we also need time for the political
funerals.
Also see below.
It will be many years and billions for anything of the kind to be
implemented at sufficient scale, and to mature enough to depend on.
Blaming anything for the blackout is
reckless, when done before the detailed analysis is completed.
I quite agree, but holding off for a year or two is a form of
unilateral political disarmament. Politicians are rarely saints.
Neither are news reporters.
You can not put a solution to a problem that nobody knows what it is.
What are you going to do? You do something so that the public is happy,
and when a year passes, we find out that the problem is totally
different, and the effort and money was wasted on a useless mistaken
solution!
Yes, all true, but the politicians and news reporters don't care in
the slightest.
The only solution is to create better politicians and news reporters?
It is often proposed, by those same politicians and reporters.
Sometimes replacement does happen. And nothing changes. Hmm.
On 11/06/2025 1:32 am, David Brown wrote:...
On 10/06/2025 15:49, Bill Sloman wrote:
Using electric cars as grid storage is just silly, in all kinds of
ways. The trade-offs for things like power and energy densities and
cost are completely different, the charge/discharge usage is totally
different. And cars are frequently not plugged in at the right place
when you want to charge or discharge the grid storage.
I don't think that they would be used for the short term charging and
discharging involved in providing short term frequency control for
the grid - the ambition seems to be have them there to provide
emergency back-up when there's a substantial disruption.
That would be less silly, but still silly.
If we all went over to electric cars the grid would have to provide
about 30% more electric power than it does now. Granting that cars
spend 95% of their, time parked, the parked cars could offer about 5
times as much power as the grid for a couple of hours.
It would be hugely more helpful to have distributed cheap battery
storage in fixed installations (in homes, at grid transformer and
distribution points, and most importantly, at electric car charger
stations). All it will take is mass production of more appropriate
batteries (such as the sodium ion batteries that China is pushing
hard). The potential benefits of electric car batteries as
"emergency grid storage" would then be negligible.
You can neglect them if you want to, but it's still a huge chunk of
stored power, and some ingenious engineer will probably work how to use
for some job that none of us has thought of yet.
The "Tesla power walls" are essentially the same batteries, and electric
car owning households are tending to have both.
On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 18:32:16 +0200, David Brown wrote:
We all know that, I believe. There are two ways to handle the waste -bury it deep enough, or use reprocessing/recycling to reduce the worst
of the waste. (Of course a better idea is to use more advanced nuclear
reactors that produce more electricity for less waste.)
The best possible use for the spent fuel from our first generation thermal neutron reactors is to use it as fuel for "advanced" fast nuclear
reactors.
https://gain.inl.gov/resources/nuclear-technologies/fast-reactors/
While thermal neutron reactors can only extract about 2% of the available energy in the fuel, fast reactors can extract approx 80% and once started require no fuel enrichment (can be fueled entirely with U238 and/or
thorium) and are compatible with fuel reprocessing which removes lower
atomic weight neutron absorbing reactor poisons only, returning everything else as usable fuel (method is incapable of producing weapon grade
material).
We let this technology languish for 50 years, but China and India have
taken up where we left off, and they have the industrial manufacturing
base and government support needed to pull it off.
On 11/06/2025 2:32 am, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 16:16, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 10/06/2025 5:21 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 07:01, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 10/06/2025 6:44 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels --
coal -- and
nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT in >>>>>>>> their
technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a >>>>>>>> considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear
waste or
the consequences of burning carbon.
Technically and economically, dealing with nuclear waste is many
orders of magnitude easier than dealing with the consequences of
burning carbon.
Nuclear fission waste is mixture of isotopes. Some of them are very
radioactive and decay fast, and keeping them safe until they've
mostly decayed is technically demanding. The less radioactive
isotopes are easier to handle, but some of them stay dangerously
radioactive for upwards of 100,000 years, and keeping them safely
isolated for that length of time is an as yet unsolved problem
We all know that, I believe. There are two ways to handle the waste -
bury it deep enough, or use reprocessing/recycling to reduce the worst
of the waste. (Of course a better idea is to use more advanced
nuclear reactors that produce more electricity for less waste.)
There aren't any. If you fission U-233 (which is what thorium reactors
do) you get slightly different proportions of exactly the same isotopes
as you get from U-235 which pose essentially the same problems.
You don't get any Pu-239 from neutron capture in U-238, but that's a
feature rather than a bug.
Nuclear fusion is more promising and hydrogen-boron fusion doesn't
produce any neutrons at all - or wouldn't if anybody could get it to work.
On 6/10/2025 1:40 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-06-10 22:13, Don Y wrote:
Mini-splits are really only used in commercial spaces or garages. Most >>> homes have very "open" floorplans (less compartmentalized space and
considerably larger continuous spaces) and were built with central HVAC. >>> The ductless minisplits are regarded as eyesores in living spaces ("Do I >>> want to live in a hotel room?").
I don't know what qualifies as mini-split, but over here, splits are
very common. I have one running just now in this computer room. The
cool air actually flows to the entire top floor of this house (I keep
the door to downstairs closed), of course warmer with the distance
from the split (I have a portable fan pushing the air to my bedroom).
Still, it allows me to pass the summer in some confort for a limited
cost.
We use about 4T of refrigeration in a typical house, here. About
3 of that is for a single continuous space (family room, kitchen, dining, living room, halls, etc. The balance feeds the bedrooms.
[Many larger homes will have TWO complete HVAC systems]
Even the tiniest of mini-splits would be overkill for the smaller bedrooms. And, the largest would need "assist" to ensure the conditioned air would be well distributed across that ~1500 sq ft "single space"
I could have a better system by having a multiple-split system. One
outside unit connected to two or three units inside.
They are simple to install in existing houses that have no ducting,
and maybe, no winter heating either.
Yes, but they are visible. Homes here were designed with HVAC "out of sight, out of mind". It would be a cultural adjustment to tolerate what
is effectively a "radiator" (unradiator?) in several places throughout
the home.
I've tried imagining how I could "hide" them in walls, soffits, etc.
but the house just wasn't built with that sort of use in mind.
On 10/06/2025 19:01, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 1:32 am, David Brown wrote:...
On 10/06/2025 15:49, Bill Sloman wrote:
Using electric cars as grid storage is just silly, in all kinds of
ways. The trade-offs for things like power and energy densities and
cost are completely different, the charge/discharge usage is totally
different. And cars are frequently not plugged in at the right place
when you want to charge or discharge the grid storage.
I don't think that they would be used for the short term charging
and discharging involved in providing short term frequency control
for the grid - the ambition seems to be have them there to provide
emergency back-up when there's a substantial disruption.
That would be less silly, but still silly.
If we all went over to electric cars the grid would have to provide
about 30% more electric power than it does now. Granting that cars
spend 95% of their, time parked, the parked cars could offer about 5
times as much power as the grid for a couple of hours.
It would be hugely more helpful to have distributed cheap battery
storage in fixed installations (in homes, at grid transformer and
distribution points, and most importantly, at electric car charger
stations). All it will take is mass production of more appropriate
batteries (such as the sodium ion batteries that China is pushing
hard). The potential benefits of electric car batteries as
"emergency grid storage" would then be negligible.
You can neglect them if you want to, but it's still a huge chunk of
stored power, and some ingenious engineer will probably work how to
use for some job that none of us has thought of yet.
Some ingenious engineer could design a generator and mechanics to attach
to petrol or diesel cars and use that for electricity supply - as an emergency backup for the grid, it would be a huge improvement over using electric car batteries as it is much more scalable. Apart from a few jerry-rigged setups in places far from reliable electric grids, it is
never done. So what makes you think using car batteries, in cars, is a realistic idea?
It would make the cars more expensive, make their
charge state unpredictable (and no one would accept that), fail to
provide reliability for the grid as cars are often not connected, and
wear out the absurdly expensive car batteries sooner. It is a silly idea.
The "Tesla power walls" are essentially the same batteries, and
electric car owning households are tending to have both.
No, they are a /totally/ different concept. And no, electric car
households very rarely have both - most electric cars are not Tesla, and
only a tiny proportion of Tesla owners have "power walls".
However, the "power walls" is basically the concept I am suggesting -
except they should not be using lithium batteries. They should be using sodium ion batteries - taking perhaps 20-30% more space and weight,
which does not matter nearly as much for a fixed storage box rather than
a car. The price for the batteries would be around a quarter and the environmental cost of their production would be perhaps 5% - and that's taking into account the lower lifetime cycle count of current sodium ion batteries compared to lithium.
It should not be so difficult for you to understand that the
requirements for a battery in a car, and the desired usage of a car
driver, are massively different from the requirements and usage for
small local grid storage.
On 11/06/2025 4:21 am, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 02:17:45 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
<robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-10 01:03, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 22:14:54 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
<robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
It will be many years and billions for anything of the kind to be
implemented at sufficient scale, and to mature enough to depend on.
Blaming anything for the blackout is
reckless, when done before the detailed analysis is completed.
I quite agree, but holding off for a year or two is a form of
unilateral political disarmament. Politicians are rarely saints.
Neither are news reporters.
You can not put a solution to a problem that nobody knows what it is.
What are you going to do? You do something so that the public is happy,
and when a year passes, we find out that the problem is totally
different, and the effort and money was wasted on a useless mistaken
solution!
Yes, all true, but the politicians and news reporters don't care in
the slightest.
The only solution is to create better politicians and news reporters?
It is often proposed, by those same politicians and reporters.
Sometimes replacement does happen. And nothing changes. Hmm.
Reporters and politicians frequently don't know enough. English language "science" reporters - at least for the main-stream press - never seem to
have studied any kind of science. This wasn't true in the Netherlands
and the mainstream press science reporting there was a whole lot more reliable than it had been in England and is now in Australia.
The Spanish problem is probably the same one that the world's first grid scale battery solved back in 2017.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve
People have posted stuff here claiming that if couldn't possibly work,
but it is still working fine and has been copied in other Australian
states and even in California (where the completed installation works
fine, though a bit of it went up in flames during installation).
On Wed, 11 Jun 2025 02:29:47 +1000, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
On 11/06/2025 12:55 am, john larkin wrote:
On Mon, 09 Jun 2025 16:02:19 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:
On Mon, 09 Jun 2025 09:49:24 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 11:34:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>>>> wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>>>>> wrote:
Some people enjoy working with money. There are even people who like
being accountants. Electronics is much more fun to me.
Think how much more fun you could have if you actually understood what
you were doing.
Quite the opposite. Fully understanding blinds one to possibilities.
I was just a few minutes ago discussing that with a couple of my guys.
We don't have to understand it, we just have to make it work.
Ultimately, nobody understands how the universe works. So inventions
lurk.
And being unsure, staying confused, is the way to invent things.
Rigid theorists, equation slingers, often get locked inside their
restrictive world, which explains why so many important things are
discovered by amateurs.
I'm about to Spice a neat circuit that we don't fully understand.
On 10/06/2025 19:01, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 1:32 am, David Brown wrote:...
On 10/06/2025 15:49, Bill Sloman wrote:
Using electric cars as grid storage is just silly, in all kinds of
ways. The trade-offs for things like power and energy densities and
cost are completely different, the charge/discharge usage is totally
different. And cars are frequently not plugged in at the right place
when you want to charge or discharge the grid storage.
I don't think that they would be used for the short term charging
and discharging involved in providing short term frequency control
for the grid - the ambition seems to be have them there to provide
emergency back-up when there's a substantial disruption.
That would be less silly, but still silly.
If we all went over to electric cars the grid would have to provide
about 30% more electric power than it does now. Granting that cars
spend 95% of their, time parked, the parked cars could offer about 5
times as much power as the grid for a couple of hours.
It would be hugely more helpful to have distributed cheap battery
storage in fixed installations (in homes, at grid transformer and
distribution points, and most importantly, at electric car charger
stations). All it will take is mass production of more appropriate
batteries (such as the sodium ion batteries that China is pushing
hard). The potential benefits of electric car batteries as
"emergency grid storage" would then be negligible.
You can neglect them if you want to, but it's still a huge chunk of
stored power, and some ingenious engineer will probably work how to
use for some job that none of us has thought of yet.
Some ingenious engineer could design a generator and mechanics to attach
to petrol or diesel cars and use that for electricity supply - as an emergency backup for the grid, it would be a huge improvement over using electric car batteries as it is much more scalable. Apart from a few jerry-rigged setups in places far from reliable electric grids, it is
never done. So what makes you think using car batteries, in cars, is a realistic idea?
It would make the cars more expensive,
It would make their charge state unpredictable
fail to provide reliability for the grid as cars are often not connected,
and wear out the absurdly expensive car batteries sooner. It is a silly idea.
The "Tesla power walls" are essentially the same batteries, and
electric car owning households are tending to have both.
No, they are a /totally/ different concept.
And no, electric car households very rarely have both - most electric
cars are not Tesla, and only a tiny proportion of Tesla owners have
"power walls".
However, the "power walls" is basically the concept I am suggesting -
except they should not be using lithium batteries. They should be using sodium ion batteries - taking perhaps 20-30% more space and weight,
which does not matter nearly as much for a fixed storage box rather than
a car. The price for the batteries would be around a quarter and the environmental cost of their production would be perhaps 5% - and that's taking into account the lower lifetime cycle count of current sodium ion batteries compared to lithium.
It should not be so difficult for you to understand that the
requirements for a battery in a car, and the desired usage of a car
driver, are massively different from the requirements and usage for
small local grid storage.
On 2025-06-11 09:05, David Brown wrote:
Some ingenious engineer could design a generator and mechanics to
attach to petrol or diesel cars and use that for electricity supply -
as an emergency backup for the grid, it would be a huge improvement
over using electric car batteries as it is much more scalable. Apart
from a few jerry-rigged setups in places far from reliable electric
grids, it is never done. So what makes you think using car batteries,
in cars, is a realistic idea?
That engineers thought of the idea as viable? :-)
It would make the cars more expensive, make their charge state
unpredictable (and no one would accept that), fail to provide
reliability for the grid as cars are often not connected, and wear out
the absurdly expensive car batteries sooner. It is a silly idea.
I don't like the idea, if it involves my car. I wouldn't mind other
people doing it :-D
I assume that it would come with a rebate from the electricity companies.
On 10/06/2025 20:27, Glen Walpert wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 18:32:16 +0200, David Brown wrote:
We all know that, I believe. There are two ways to handle the waste - >>> bury it deep enough, or use reprocessing/recycling to reduce the worstof the waste. (Of course a better idea is to use more advanced nuclear >>> reactors that produce more electricity for less waste.)
The best possible use for the spent fuel from our first generation
thermal
neutron reactors is to use it as fuel for "advanced" fast nuclear
reactors.
https://gain.inl.gov/resources/nuclear-technologies/fast-reactors/
Yes, that's the reprocessing/recycling I mentioned.
While thermal neutron reactors can only extract about 2% of the available
energy in the fuel, fast reactors can extract approx 80% and once started
require no fuel enrichment (can be fueled entirely with U238 and/or
thorium) and are compatible with fuel reprocessing which removes lower
atomic weight neutron absorbing reactor poisons only, returning
everything
else as usable fuel (method is incapable of producing weapon grade
material).
We let this technology languish for 50 years, but China and India have
taken up where we left off, and they have the industrial manufacturing
base and government support needed to pull it off.
Indeed.
We (the western world in particular, but the whole world in general)
have prioritised making bomb-grade isotopes and cheap nuclear reactors
over making them efficient, low-waste or as safe as they should be.
(Though even with the accidents that have occurred, current nuclear
reactors are very safe compared to coal power.)
It's nice to see that some countries are trying to take a responsibility
for the future.
On 10/06/2025 19:23, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 2:32 am, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 16:16, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 10/06/2025 5:21 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 07:01, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 10/06/2025 6:44 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels -- >>>>>>>>> coal -- and
nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT >>>>>>>>> in their
technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a >>>>>>>>> considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear >>>>>>>>> waste or
the consequences of burning carbon.
Technically and economically, dealing with nuclear waste is many
orders of magnitude easier than dealing with the consequences of
burning carbon.
Nuclear fission waste is mixture of isotopes. Some of them are very
radioactive and decay fast, and keeping them safe until they've
mostly decayed is technically demanding. The less radioactive
isotopes are easier to handle, but some of them stay dangerously
radioactive for upwards of 100,000 years, and keeping them safely
isolated for that length of time is an as yet unsolved problem
We all know that, I believe. There are two ways to handle the waste
- bury it deep enough, or use reprocessing/recycling to reduce the
worst of the waste. (Of course a better idea is to use more advanced
nuclear reactors that produce more electricity for less waste.)
There aren't any. If you fission U-233 (which is what thorium reactors
do) you get slightly different proportions of exactly the same
isotopes as you get from U-235 which pose essentially the same problems.
Estimates by proponents of molten salt thorium reactors are between a hundredth and a thousandth of the levels of the more problematic waste materials for the same generated electricity.
No doubt they are overly
optimistic, but they are still massively more efficient.
For the long-lived transuranic radioactive isotopes,
the thorium cycle in a molten salt reactor gives about 5% of the quantities you get from
standard light-water uranium reactors, and the waste is in a form that
is easier to separate and recycle.
Conventional uranium reactors use
less than 1% of the uranium for useful energy production - the rest is wasted. With molten salt thorium reactors, close to 100% of the thorium
is used.
Even with uranium fuel rather than thorium, breeder reactors and higher temperature molten salt reactors can greatly reduce the worst parts of
the waste while generating power.
You don't get any Pu-239 from neutron capture in U-238, but that's a
feature rather than a bug.
The problem with the nuclear industry is that it was viewed as a bug,
not a feature.
That is why thorium reactors where pretty much abandoned
in the race to build bigger bombs.
Priorities have changed since then,
and lots of countries are working on thorium and molten salt breeder reactors.
Nuclear fusion is more promising and hydrogen-boron fusion doesn't
produce any neutrons at all - or wouldn't if anybody could get it to
work.
Nuclear fusion has /always/ been promising. I am sure it will be
achieved eventually, but if we wait for it to be a commercially
realistic source of a substantial proportion of the world's energy production, we will already have lost the ice on Antarctica, flooding
the homes of about a quarter of the world's population, and raised the temperature of the homes of another quarter to uninhabitable levels.
On 11/06/2025 3:07 am, john larkin wrote:
On Wed, 11 Jun 2025 02:29:47 +1000, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
On 11/06/2025 12:55 am, john larkin wrote:
On Mon, 09 Jun 2025 16:02:19 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:
On Mon, 09 Jun 2025 09:49:24 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>> wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 11:34:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote: >>>>>>
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>>>>> wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>>>>>> wrote:
<snip>
Some people enjoy working with money. There are even people who like
being accountants. Electronics is much more fun to me.
Think how much more fun you could have if you actually understood what
you were doing.
Quite the opposite. Fully understanding blinds one to possibilities.
Possibilities you don't appreciate because you don't understand what's
goig on?
I was just a few minutes ago discussing that with a couple of my guys.
We don't have to understand it, we just have to make it work.
That does involve understanding why it is isn't working, and changing it
so that it can.
Ultimately, nobody understands how the universe works. So inventions
lurk.
We aren't talking about the whole universe, but rather the bit we need
to manipulate.
And being unsure, staying confused, is the way to invent things.
Not in my experience, or the experience of those of my acquaintances
with a couple of dozen patents to their names.
On 11/06/2025 5:05 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 19:01, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 1:32 am, David Brown wrote:...
On 10/06/2025 15:49, Bill Sloman wrote:
Using electric cars as grid storage is just silly, in all kinds of
ways. The trade-offs for things like power and energy densities
and cost are completely different, the charge/discharge usage is
totally different. And cars are frequently not plugged in at the
right place when you want to charge or discharge the grid storage.
I don't think that they would be used for the short term charging
and discharging involved in providing short term frequency control
for the grid - the ambition seems to be have them there to provide
emergency back-up when there's a substantial disruption.
That would be less silly, but still silly.
If we all went over to electric cars the grid would have to provide
about 30% more electric power than it does now. Granting that cars
spend 95% of their, time parked, the parked cars could offer about
5 times as much power as the grid for a couple of hours.
It would be hugely more helpful to have distributed cheap battery
storage in fixed installations (in homes, at grid transformer and
distribution points, and most importantly, at electric car charger
stations). All it will take is mass production of more appropriate
batteries (such as the sodium ion batteries that China is pushing
hard). The potential benefits of electric car batteries as
"emergency grid storage" would then be negligible.
You can neglect them if you want to, but it's still a huge chunk of
stored power, and some ingenious engineer will probably work how to
use for some job that none of us has thought of yet.
Some ingenious engineer could design a generator and mechanics to
attach to petrol or diesel cars and use that for electricity supply -
as an emergency backup for the grid, it would be a huge improvement
over using electric car batteries as it is much more scalable. Apart
from a few jerry-rigged setups in places far from reliable electric
grids, it is never done. So what makes you think using car batteries,
in cars, is a realistic idea?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot,_Flat,_and_Crowded
the book has been around since 2008, and fossil carbon extraction
industry didn't take exception to it at the time.
It would make the cars more expensive,
Probably not. The charger would have to be bidirectional, but that
wouldn't make it significantly more expensive
It would make their charge state unpredictable
Within negotiable limits.
(and no one would accept that)
Unless paid for it.
fail to provide reliability for the grid as cars are often not connected,
They got to be connected to be recharged, and the obvious place to do
that is in the home garage or the work parking lot.
and wear out the absurdly expensive car batteries sooner. It is a
silly idea.
The amount of wear is negotiable, and it would be paid for. Expecting
people to agree to do it for nothing would be a silly idea, but that's
your silly idea.
The "Tesla power walls" are essentially the same batteries, and
electric car owning households are tending to have both.
No, they are a /totally/ different concept.
Converting low voltage DC from solar cells into mains voltage AC to
power your house is much the same idea as converting main voltage AC to direct current to charge your car battery, and the car converts that DC
into variable voltage DC to drive motors that move your car.
The intentions may be different, but the hardware is pretty much identical
And no, electric car households very rarely have both - most electric
cars are not Tesla, and only a tiny proportion of Tesla owners have
"power walls".
So what.
However, the "power walls" is basically the concept I am suggesting -
except they should not be using lithium batteries. They should be
using sodium ion batteries - taking perhaps 20-30% more space and
weight, which does not matter nearly as much for a fixed storage box
rather than a car. The price for the batteries would be around a
quarter and the environmental cost of their production would be
perhaps 5% - and that's taking into account the lower lifetime cycle
count of current sodium ion batteries compared to lithium.
It should not be so difficult for you to understand that the
requirements for a battery in a car, and the desired usage of a car
driver, are massively different from the requirements and usage for
small local grid storage.
I can understand why you may have difficultly getting your head around
the concept - you do seem to be dim and ill-informed as well as simply
wrong.
On 11/06/2025 5:38 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 19:23, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 2:32 am, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 16:16, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 10/06/2025 5:21 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 07:01, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 10/06/2025 6:44 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels -- >>>>>>>>>> coal -- and
nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT >>>>>>>>>> in their
technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a >>>>>>>>>> considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear >>>>>>>>>> waste or
the consequences of burning carbon.
Technically and economically, dealing with nuclear waste is many
orders of magnitude easier than dealing with the consequences of
burning carbon.
Nuclear fission waste is mixture of isotopes. Some of them are very
radioactive and decay fast, and keeping them safe until they've
mostly decayed is technically demanding. The less radioactive
isotopes are easier to handle, but some of them stay dangerously
radioactive for upwards of 100,000 years, and keeping them safely
isolated for that length of time is an as yet unsolved problem
We all know that, I believe. There are two ways to handle the waste
- bury it deep enough, or use reprocessing/recycling to reduce the
worst of the waste. (Of course a better idea is to use more
advanced nuclear reactors that produce more electricity for less
waste.)
There aren't any. If you fission U-233 (which is what thorium
reactors do) you get slightly different proportions of exactly the
same isotopes as you get from U-235 which pose essentially the same
problems.
Estimates by proponents of molten salt thorium reactors are between a
hundredth and a thousandth of the levels of the more problematic waste
materials for the same generated electricity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fission_product
No doubt they are overly optimistic, but they are still massively
more efficient.
The claim appears to be total nonsense.
For the long-lived transuranic radioactive isotopes,
Nuclear fission doesn't produce any long-lived transuranic radioactive isotopes.
The neutron flux in a nuclear reactor can be captured and
promote some of the uranium and plutonium around into even heavier
isotopes, but it is very minor component in nuclear waste.
the thorium cycle in a molten salt reactor gives about 5% of the
quantities you get from standard light-water uranium reactors, and the
waste is in a form that is easier to separate and recycle.
Since the transuranic radioactive isotopes are a very minor problem
anyway, who cares?
Conventional uranium reactors use less than 1% of the uranium for
useful energy production - the rest is wasted. With molten salt
thorium reactors, close to 100% of the thorium is used.
Eventually. You have to take the spent fuel out of the reactor, take out
the fission product and the U-233 that has been generated by neutron
capture, and put the purigied residue back into the reactor
Even with uranium fuel rather than thorium, breeder reactors and
higher temperature molten salt reactors can greatly reduce the worst
parts of the waste while generating power.
Twaddle.
You don't get any Pu-239 from neutron capture in U-238, but that's a
feature rather than a bug.
The problem with the nuclear industry is that it was viewed as a bug,
not a feature.
Nobody liked admitting that U-235/U238 nuclear reactor were plutonium breeders, and that processing spent fuel involved recovering the Pu-239
that had been bred, but there's no way they can avoid breeding plutonium
That is why thorium reactors where pretty much abandoned in the race
to build bigger bombs.
U-233 makes perfectly satisfactory bombs. Bigger bombs were actually
hydrogen bombs, and the even bigger bombs that followed them used an
outer layer of U-238 to capture lots of the neutron produced by hydrogen fusion, turning it into Pu-239 which fissioned immediately.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon
Priorities have changed since then, and lots of countries are working
on thorium and molten salt breeder reactors.
Nuclear fusion is more promising and hydrogen-boron fusion doesn't
produce any neutrons at all - or wouldn't if anybody could get it to
work.
Nuclear fusion has /always/ been promising. I am sure it will be
achieved eventually, but if we wait for it to be a commercially
realistic source of a substantial proportion of the world's energy
production, we will already have lost the ice on Antarctica, flooding
the homes of about a quarter of the world's population, and raised the
temperature of the homes of another quarter to uninhabitable levels.
The guys at HB11 would beg to differ.
They are currently financed by
venture capitalist - which implies a 5% chance that their approach can
be made to work, though I suspect that the odds are rather worse because
the pay-off would be remarkably generous. You snipped the link without marking the snip.
Asserting that some technology will take a long time to mature is a
standard conservative tactic, but it is pure guess work.
We use about 4T of refrigeration in a typical house, here. About
3 of that is for a single continuous space (family room, kitchen, dining,
living room, halls, etc. The balance feeds the bedrooms.
[Many larger homes will have TWO complete HVAC systems]
Even the tiniest of mini-splits would be overkill for the smaller bedrooms. >> And, the largest would need "assist" to ensure the conditioned air would be >> well distributed across that ~1500 sq ft "single space"
I think mine is a nominal 1Kw, maybe 1.2, maybe 800 (I don't remember, fine print on the split impossible to read, too far). It is inverter type, so most of the time it is doing 300W.
And yes, sure, I use a fan by the door to direct cool air at my bedroom across
the aisle. I should place another split in the bedroom, but I intend to move to
another house. And the external wall is a pain to drill.
I could have a better system by having a multiple-split system. One outside >>> unit connected to two or three units inside.
They are simple to install in existing houses that have no ducting, and
maybe, no winter heating either.
Yes, but they are visible. Homes here were designed with HVAC "out of
sight, out of mind". It would be a cultural adjustment to tolerate what
is effectively a "radiator" (unradiator?) in several places throughout
the home.
I've tried imagining how I could "hide" them in walls, soffits, etc.
but the house just wasn't built with that sort of use in mind.
Well, most houses in Spain predate that design. AC is a new fashion, and winter
heating is done typically distributing hot water over room radiators, or electric radiators, or even gas stoves. There are no air ducts, that's a retrofit except on new houses.
So a split placed near the ceiling is not a major eyesore. The external unit hanging on the outside of the building, on buildings 15 floors tall, each flat
doing it differently, that's is an eyesore, but the owner doesn't see it :-p
On 11/06/2025 12:16, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-06-11 09:05, David Brown wrote:
Some ingenious engineer could design a generator and mechanics to
attach to petrol or diesel cars and use that for electricity supply -
as an emergency backup for the grid, it would be a huge improvement
over using electric car batteries as it is much more scalable. Apart
from a few jerry-rigged setups in places far from reliable electric
grids, it is never done. So what makes you think using car
batteries, in cars, is a realistic idea?
That engineers thought of the idea as viable? :-)
It seems Bill read it in a book somewhere.
And even if an engineer
thinks it is viable - even if there are companies making money from
selling the idea - that does not mean it is a /good/ idea. But it might explain why Bill thought it was a good idea.
It would make the cars more expensive, make their charge state
unpredictable (and no one would accept that), fail to provide
reliability for the grid as cars are often not connected, and wear
out the absurdly expensive car batteries sooner. It is a silly idea.
I don't like the idea, if it involves my car. I wouldn't mind other
people doing it :-D
And that is a big part of the point. The world is not going to be saved
by ideas that don't appeal to a wide audience. And earning a few
dollars from letting your car run out of battery before you need it is
not going to persuade many people.
I assume that it would come with a rebate from the electricity companies.
On 11/06/2025 13:03, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 5:05 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 19:01, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 1:32 am, David Brown wrote:...
On 10/06/2025 15:49, Bill Sloman wrote:
Using electric cars as grid storage is just silly, in all kinds of
ways. The trade-offs for things like power and energy densities
and cost are completely different, the charge/discharge usage is
totally different. And cars are frequently not plugged in at the
right place when you want to charge or discharge the grid storage.
I don't think that they would be used for the short term charging
and discharging involved in providing short term frequency control >>>>>> for the grid - the ambition seems to be have them there to provide >>>>>> emergency back-up when there's a substantial disruption.
That would be less silly, but still silly.
If we all went over to electric cars the grid would have toIt would be hugely more helpful to have distributed cheap battery
provide about 30% more electric power than it does now. Granting
that cars spend 95% of their, time parked, the parked cars could
offer about 5 times as much power as the grid for a couple of hours. >>>>>
storage in fixed installations (in homes, at grid transformer and
distribution points, and most importantly, at electric car charger
stations). All it will take is mass production of more appropriate >>>>> batteries (such as the sodium ion batteries that China is pushing
hard). The potential benefits of electric car batteries as
"emergency grid storage" would then be negligible.
You can neglect them if you want to, but it's still a huge chunk of
stored power, and some ingenious engineer will probably work how to
use for some job that none of us has thought of yet.
Some ingenious engineer could design a generator and mechanics to
attach to petrol or diesel cars and use that for electricity supply -
as an emergency backup for the grid, it would be a huge improvement
over using electric car batteries as it is much more scalable. Apart
from a few jerry-rigged setups in places far from reliable electric
grids, it is never done. So what makes you think using car
batteries, in cars, is a realistic idea?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot,_Flat,_and_Crowded
the book has been around since 2008, and fossil carbon extraction
industry didn't take exception to it at the time.
Why would the "fossil carbon extraction industry" even care about this book? You seem to be imagining some shadowing conspiracy group that is directing a war on electricity and the earth's climate. That's nonsense
- there's just a bunch of companies trying to make a profit from their businesses and investments, and down-playing the risks in order to make
a short-term profit.
It's just normal capitalism, and like any other
branch of industry, it is a problem when they are too powerful. But it doesn't help to be paranoid and imagine a conspiracy that does not exist.
Companies that make their living from fossil fuels do not care about
some little book written by a journalist. Why should they?
The people who read a book like that have no influence of significance. The people
that invest in their companies, or buy their products, wouldn't bother
with such a book.
It would make the cars more expensive,
Probably not. The charger would have to be bidirectional, but that
wouldn't make it significantly more expensive
You underestimate it.
It would make their charge state unpredictable
Within negotiable limits.
Sure - but it would still be unpredictable. One of the big hurdles for electric cars is fear of running out of juice, because it can be
difficult to find working chargers in many places, it can take a long
and somewhat unpredictable time to charge (especially if you need to
wait in a queue), because the car's estimates of remaining charge can be
so inaccurate, and because sometimes you unexpectedly need to drive more
than usual. A lot of electric car drivers start worrying at 50% charge
- they will not be happy about starting the day lower than that.
(and no one would accept that)
Unless paid for it.
Sure, paying for it helps. But rather than buying a car with a huge
battery and renting out half of the capacity, it makes a lot more
economic sense to buy a smaller and cheaper car.
fail to provide reliability for the grid as cars are often not
connected,
They got to be connected to be recharged, and the obvious place to do
that is in the home garage or the work parking lot.
Lots of people don't have a home garage and a big enough power
connection. And those that do, will want to use it for charging - not discharging.
and wear out the absurdly expensive car batteries sooner. It is a
silly idea.
The amount of wear is negotiable, and it would be paid for. Expecting
people to agree to do it for nothing would be a silly idea, but that's
your silly idea.
I never suggested anyone would do this for free.
It is a silly idea, no matter who is paying for it. It is a silly idea
for electricity companies to pay for the expense of lithium batteries compared to cheaper battery types, for the extra expense for the
packaging that is needed for car batteries but not for fixed
installations, for the much higher costs associated with replacing worn batteries, and paying the car owner enough to compensate for their not insignificant inconvenience in the whole thing.
It makes much more economic sense to use fixed installations with
cheaper batteries.
Who pays for the capital costs, and the running of
the system will depend on who benefits most - the owner has on-hand bulk energy for charging their car faster without high peak current costs,
and the electricity company has lower costs by better balancing of
overall production and local distribution. It means the money is being
paid for something /useful/ - rather than for compensation for an artificially created problem.
The "Tesla power walls" are essentially the same batteries, and
electric car owning households are tending to have both.
No, they are a /totally/ different concept.
Converting low voltage DC from solar cells into mains voltage AC to
power your house is much the same idea as converting main voltage AC
to direct current to charge your car battery, and the car converts
that DC into variable voltage DC to drive motors that move your car.
The intentions may be different, but the hardware is pretty much
identical
There is an overlap, but many, many differences - in the electronics,
the control, the batteries, the housing, the connections, the
regulations, the economics.
And no, electric car households very rarely have both - most
electric cars are not Tesla, and only a tiny proportion of Tesla
owners have "power walls".
So what.
So saying "electric car owning households are tending to have both" is nonsense.
However, the "power walls" is basically the concept I am suggesting -
except they should not be using lithium batteries. They should be
using sodium ion batteries - taking perhaps 20-30% more space and
weight, which does not matter nearly as much for a fixed storage box
rather than a car. The price for the batteries would be around a
quarter and the environmental cost of their production would be
perhaps 5% - and that's taking into account the lower lifetime cycle
count of current sodium ion batteries compared to lithium.
It should not be so difficult for you to understand that the
requirements for a battery in a car, and the desired usage of a car
driver, are massively different from the requirements and usage for
small local grid storage.
I can understand why you may have difficultly getting your head around
the concept - you do seem to be dim and ill-informed as well as simply
wrong.
Why would anyone recommend an expensive, inconvenient and
environmentally damaging technology over a cheaper, easier and cleaner alternative? Your arguments make no sense, unless you own Tesla stock.
On Wed, 11 Jun 2025 20:40:28 +1000, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
On 11/06/2025 3:07 am, john larkin wrote:
On Wed, 11 Jun 2025 02:29:47 +1000, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
On 11/06/2025 12:55 am, john larkin wrote:
On Mon, 09 Jun 2025 16:02:19 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>> wrote:
On Mon, 09 Jun 2025 09:49:24 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>>> wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 11:34:08 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote: >>>>>>>
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>>>>>> wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>>>>>>> wrote:
<snip>
Some people enjoy working with money. There are even people who like >>>>> being accountants. Electronics is much more fun to me.
Think how much more fun you could have if you actually understood what >>>> you were doing.
Quite the opposite. Fully understanding blinds one to possibilities.
Possibilities you don't appreciate because you don't understand what's
goig on?
I was just a few minutes ago discussing that with a couple of my guys.
We don't have to understand it, we just have to make it work.
That does involve understanding why it is isn't working, and changing it
so that it can.
Ultimately, nobody understands how the universe works. So inventions
lurk.
We aren't talking about the whole universe, but rather the bit we need
to manipulate.
And being unsure, staying confused, is the way to invent things.
Not in my experience, or the experience of those of my acquaintances
with a couple of dozen patents to their names.
How wonderful. They must be fabulously wealthy.
On 11/06/2025 13:41, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 5:38 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 19:23, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 2:32 am, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 16:16, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 10/06/2025 5:21 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 07:01, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 10/06/2025 6:44 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels -- >>>>>>>>>>> coal -- and
nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT >>>>>>>>>>> in their
technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is >>>>>>>>>>> a considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear >>>>>>>>>>> waste or
the consequences of burning carbon.
Technically and economically, dealing with nuclear waste is many >>>>>>> orders of magnitude easier than dealing with the consequences of >>>>>>> burning carbon.
Nuclear fission waste is mixture of isotopes. Some of them are
very radioactive and decay fast, and keeping them safe until
they've mostly decayed is technically demanding. The less
radioactive isotopes are easier to handle, but some of them stay
dangerously radioactive for upwards of 100,000 years, and keeping
them safely isolated for that length of time is an as yet unsolved >>>>>> problem
We all know that, I believe. There are two ways to handle the
waste - bury it deep enough, or use reprocessing/recycling to
reduce the worst of the waste. (Of course a better idea is to use
more advanced nuclear reactors that produce more electricity for
less waste.)
There aren't any. If you fission U-233 (which is what thorium
reactors do) you get slightly different proportions of exactly the
same isotopes as you get from U-235 which pose essentially the same
problems.
Estimates by proponents of molten salt thorium reactors are between a
hundredth and a thousandth of the levels of the more problematic
waste materials for the same generated electricity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fission_product
Oh, thanks for that! I'd never heard of Wikipedia before. I have also heard rumours that there is a newfangled way to search for information - "goggle", or something like that. Perhaps you could explain that to us
too?
No doubt they are overly optimistic, but they are still massively
more efficient.
The claim appears to be total nonsense.
Ah, well, if you say so it must be true. You can no doubt refer to some comic book as a reference.
For the long-lived transuranic radioactive isotopes,
Nuclear fission doesn't produce any long-lived transuranic radioactive
isotopes.
Try reading the Wikipedia article you linked - perhaps also the page <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-lived_fission_product>.
The neutron flux in a nuclear reactor can be captured and promote some
of the uranium and plutonium around into even heavier isotopes, but it
is very minor component in nuclear waste.
the thorium cycle in a molten salt reactor gives about 5% of the
quantities you get from standard light-water uranium reactors, and
the waste is in a form that is easier to separate and recycle.
Since the transuranic radioactive isotopes are a very minor problem
anyway, who cares?
It is the long-lived ones that are the problem. Short-lived isotopes
are only an issue if you let them escape before they have decayed.
Conventional uranium reactors use less than 1% of the uranium for
useful energy production - the rest is wasted. With molten salt
thorium reactors, close to 100% of the thorium is used.
Eventually. You have to take the spent fuel out of the reactor, take
out the fission product and the U-233 that has been generated by
neutron capture, and put the purified residue back into the reactor
If only there were a way to do that...
Even with uranium fuel rather than thorium, breeder reactors and
higher temperature molten salt reactors can greatly reduce the worst
parts of the waste while generating power.
Twaddle.
You don't get any Pu-239 from neutron capture in U-238, but that's a
feature rather than a bug.
The problem with the nuclear industry is that it was viewed as a bug,
not a feature.
Nobody liked admitting that U-235/U238 nuclear reactor were plutonium
breeders, and that processing spent fuel involved recovering the
Pu-239 that had been bred, but there's no way they can avoid breeding
plutonium
If it was a secret, it was a badly kept secret.
That is why thorium reactors where pretty much abandoned in the race
to build bigger bombs.
U-233 makes perfectly satisfactory bombs. Bigger bombs were actually
hydrogen bombs, and the even bigger bombs that followed them used an
outer layer of U-238 to capture lots of the neutron produced by
hydrogen fusion, turning it into Pu-239 which fissioned immediately.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon
I know the basics of nuclear weapons, and I know how to read Wikipedia.
To the bomb makers, there is no such thing as a "satisfactory" bomb -
they always want bigger.
Priorities have changed since then, and lots of countries are working
on thorium and molten salt breeder reactors.
Nuclear fusion is more promising and hydrogen-boron fusion doesn't
produce any neutrons at all - or wouldn't if anybody could get it to
work.
Don't believe the hype. Wait another 50 years until it is working.
Nuclear fusion has /always/ been promising. I am sure it will be
achieved eventually, but if we wait for it to be a commercially
realistic source of a substantial proportion of the world's energy
production, we will already have lost the ice on Antarctica, flooding
the homes of about a quarter of the world's population, and raised
the temperature of the homes of another quarter to uninhabitable levels.
The guys at HB11 would beg to differ.
Of course they would. After all, they are financed by venture
capitalists - begging is the name of the game. They will keep releasing news about things /almost/ working in order to keep the cash flowing in.
/Eventually/ they might get it working - or someone else will - but it will be decades longer than any media release suggests. The same goes
for the dozen other private fusion research companies around the world.
They are currently financed by venture capitalist - which implies a 5%
chance that their approach can be made to work, though I suspect that
the odds are rather worse because the pay-off would be remarkably
generous. You snipped the link without marking the snip.
I snipped the link because I don't post links to random sites.
Asserting that some technology will take a long time to mature is a
standard conservative tactic, but it is pure guess work.
Fusion energy has been 50 years in the future for the last 80 years. I
have not seen anything to suggest that has changed much - and I make a
point of keeping up with scientific and technical news.
I believe that eventually, we will have workable fusion power (though it
will probably be deuterium / tritium fusion first), and that will be a
big step up from fission nuclear power. For the next 50 years at least, however, thorium fission is the way to go for bulk power production,
with solar and other renewables helping out as it takes a long time to
get nuclear plants up and running.
But you have done something unique here - I can't remember anyone else
being so confused as to suggest that I am a conservative!
On 6/10/25 8:56 AM, john larkin wrote:
<...>
If I had an electric car, I sure wouldn't want it to be used "to
stabilise the grid" and be left without transport when the lights are
off.
For systems that can feed back to the grid there are usually settings
that determine how much of the battery storage can be sent to the grid
so there shouldn't be an issue with running down the battery even if the >energy is coming from an EV.
My solar PV system has battery storage and I subscribe to Tesla's
Virtual Power Plant. When the grid is under stress I allow up to 50% of
the storage to be used by the grid for which I get paid $2 per kWh.
I usually get a few hours notice through the App on my phone and I can >opt-out for any event. This is in California although Tesla operates
similar programs throughout the country.
Tesla vehicles do not (yet) support Vehicle to Grid (V2G) operation
although the extra hardware required is minimal as the conversion from
AC to DC in the car is already pretty much bidirectional to achieve >high-efficiency. (Just using Diodes is too inefficient)
<...>
On 6/11/2025 3:12 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I think mine is a nominal 1Kw, maybe 1.2, maybe 800 (I don't remember,
fine print on the split impossible to read, too far). It is inverter
type, so most of the time it is doing 300W.
4T is ~14KW. Not counting the power used by the blower (which is probably the better part of a KW).
On 6/11/25 7:31 AM, Don Y wrote:
<...>
On 6/11/2025 3:12 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I think mine is a nominal 1Kw, maybe 1.2, maybe 800 (I don't
remember, fine print on the split impossible to read, too far). It is
inverter type, so most of the time it is doing 300W.
4T is ~14KW. Not counting the power used by the blower (which is
probably
the better part of a KW).
Are we talking thermal or electrical power?
I think Carlos was referring to the electrical power input.
4T is 48,000 BTU/Hr. This is equivalent to 14kW thermal
(3412BTU = 3412W).
With a COP of 3 this would require about 4.6kW electrical input
<...>
On 6/11/25 7:31 AM, Don Y wrote:
<...>
On 6/11/2025 3:12 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I think mine is a nominal 1Kw, maybe 1.2, maybe 800 (I don't remember, fine >>> print on the split impossible to read, too far). It is inverter type, so >>> most of the time it is doing 300W.
4T is ~14KW. Not counting the power used by the blower (which is probably >> the better part of a KW).
Are we talking thermal or electrical power?
I think Carlos was referring to the electrical power input.
4T is 48,000 BTU/Hr. This is equivalent to 14kW thermal
(3412BTU = 3412W).
With a COP of 3 this would require about 4.6kW electrical input
On 2025-06-10 12:08, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
[...]
Not needed.Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary current. >>>>>
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with
appropriate
electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no matter what. >>>>>>
Why not?
Think about it. Inverters can be locked in frequency to any timing
source.
If the source (grid) starts to fall in frequency the inverter will
either have to keep in step with it or supply massive currents as the
phase difference between the inverter and the grid begins to increase.
If the inverter tries to stay on-frequency, the time will come when they
are 180-degrees out of step, then things will get far too exciting.
Sure, same as any rotating mass that tries to oppose the drift. The
thing is, inverters have more "inertia" than rotating masses with a
turbine of the same power, if so configured or programmed to do.
Aggregating all of them, that's a huge inertia, way larger than rotating masses.
Say, program to oppose 1% the drift. Whatever. There are engineers that
can study and decide what to do.
I can only say, if the cause of the Gran Apagón is found eventually to
be the lack of inertia in wind and solar generators, it is just a matter
of reprogramming the inverters or replacing them. An engineering and economics problem, not a political one.
On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 18:46:57 -0700, KevinJ93 <kevin_es@whitedigs.com>
wrote:
On 6/10/25 8:56 AM, john larkin wrote:
<...>
If I had an electric car, I sure wouldn't want it to be used "to
stabilise the grid" and be left without transport when the lights are
off.
For systems that can feed back to the grid there are usually settings
that determine how much of the battery storage can be sent to the grid
so there shouldn't be an issue with running down the battery even if the
energy is coming from an EV.
My solar PV system has battery storage and I subscribe to Tesla's
Virtual Power Plant. When the grid is under stress I allow up to 50% of
the storage to be used by the grid for which I get paid $2 per kWh.
I usually get a few hours notice through the App on my phone and I can
opt-out for any event. This is in California although Tesla operates
similar programs throughout the country.
Tesla vehicles do not (yet) support Vehicle to Grid (V2G) operation
although the extra hardware required is minimal as the conversion from
AC to DC in the car is already pretty much bidirectional to achieve
high-efficiency. (Just using Diodes is too inefficient)
<...>
You can have range anxiety without even leaving home.
On 2025-06-11 21:54, KevinJ93 wrote:
On 6/11/25 7:31 AM, Don Y wrote:
<...>
;On 6/11/2025 3:12 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I think mine is a nominal 1Kw, maybe 1.2, maybe 800 (I don't
remember, fine print on the split impossible to read, too far). It
is inverter type, so most of the time it is doing 300W.
4T is ~14KW. Not counting the power used by the blower (which is
probably
the better part of a KW).
Are we talking thermal or electrical power?
I think Carlos was referring to the electrical power input.
Yes. As measured with a little cheap device, now defunct, that does take
into account the power factor, something I would found amazing when I
studied electronics on another decade.
I make do with lowering the temp inside to maybe 2 degrees less than the uncooled house, so the power needed is small and relatively cheap.
4T is 48,000 BTU/Hr. This is equivalent to 14kW thermal
(3412BTU = 3412W).
With a COP of 3 this would require about 4.6kW electrical input
<...>
My solar PV system has battery storage and I subscribe to Tesla's Virtual Power
Plant. When the grid is under stress I allow up to 50% of the storage to be used by the grid for which I get paid $2 per kWh.
I usually get a few hours notice through the App on my phone and I can opt-out
for any event. This is in California although Tesla operates similar programs throughout the country.
Tesla vehicles do not (yet) support Vehicle to Grid (V2G) operation although the extra hardware required is minimal as the conversion from AC to DC in the car is already pretty much bidirectional to achieve high-efficiency. (Just using Diodes is too inefficient)
<...>
Instantly dropping loads may be possible, but if it is the
only short term balancing mechanizm, then effect on loads may
be nasty.
Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:
[...]
Instantly dropping loads may be possible, but if it is the
only short term balancing mechanizm, then effect on loads may
be nasty.
That option will become less effective as a greater proportion of the
supply is generated by renewables. Dropping the load may also drop a significant proportion of the supply from local solar and wind sources.
Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:
[...]
Instantly dropping loads may be possible, but if it is the
only short term balancing mechanizm, then effect on loads may
be nasty.
That option will become less effective as a greater proportion of the
supply is generated by renewables. Dropping the load may also drop a significant proportion of the supply from local solar and wind sources.
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-10 12:08, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
[...]
Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary current.
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with
appropriate
electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no matter what. >>>>>>>
Not needed.
Why not?
Think about it. Inverters can be locked in frequency to any timing
source.
If the source (grid) starts to fall in frequency the inverter will
either have to keep in step with it or supply massive currents as the
phase difference between the inverter and the grid begins to increase.
If the inverter tries to stay on-frequency, the time will come when they >>> are 180-degrees out of step, then things will get far too exciting.
Sure, same as any rotating mass that tries to oppose the drift. The
thing is, inverters have more "inertia" than rotating masses with a
turbine of the same power, if so configured or programmed to do.
Aggregating all of them, that's a huge inertia, way larger than rotating
masses.
Say, program to oppose 1% the drift. Whatever. There are engineers that
can study and decide what to do.
I think that you ignore main aspect of inertia. You have a power
deficit and you need to adjust grid to compensate for lack of
power. Inertia means stored energy which can be deliverd at
cost of lowering frequency. IIUC in grid with rotating generators
and with similar deficit like in Spain it is supposed to give you
grace period of about minute or maybe 2 minutes. In this time
control may try to activate new sources or start controlled
dropping of loads. Current reporting indicate that inertia
in Spain was enough for 20 seconds and that was too little for
orderly reaction.
Sure, inverters can try to keep fixed frequency, but then
instead of too low frequency problem you get too low voltage
problem. IIUC low voltage could lead to shutdown of the grid
in a fraction of second.
I can only say, if the cause of the Gran Apagón is found eventually to
be the lack of inertia in wind and solar generators, it is just a matter
of reprogramming the inverters or replacing them. An engineering and
economics problem, not a political one.
You can try to improve control algorithms so that they cope
better with short term power deficit. Given scale of deficit
and observed result there may be space for improvement there.
But logically, you need some fast reaction energy storage.
Or some instantly swichable generating capacity. But running
PV sources (or other) at say 80% of their true power (so that
you can instantly increase their output) looks rather unattractive
compared to energy storage. You can use rotating masses,
for example run traditinal generator powering it from the grid to
keep it moving (so it does not need a turbine) or grid scale
battery. Fast reaction energy store give you time to
activate slower sources like hydro or fast start gas powered
generators. Or to drop loads in controlled way.
The point is that if you have power deficit, then grid can not
work well. And without energy storage you may lack time to
switch on extra generating power (assuming that it is available).
Instantly dropping loads may be possible, but if it is the
only short term balancing mechanizm, then effect on loads may
be nasty.
On 12/06/2025 6:08 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:
[...]
Instantly dropping loads may be possible, but if it is the
only short term balancing mechanizm, then effect on loads may
be nasty.
That option will become less effective as a greater proportion of the supply is generated by renewables. Dropping the load may also drop a significant proportion of the supply from local solar and wind sources.
How? Solar and wind sources are free-standing generators. They don't
need any power input from the grid. They do need timing information - to
set the phase of the AC current that they feed into the grid, but they
can get that from radio transmissions, and - less directly - from GPS signals.
On 6/12/2025 1:08 AM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:
[...]
Instantly dropping loads may be possible, but if it is the
only short term balancing mechanizm, then effect on loads may
be nasty.
That option will become less effective as a greater proportion of the supply is generated by renewables. Dropping the load may also drop a significant proportion of the supply from local solar and wind sources.
That's specious reasoning.
I can contract with the utility to allow some of my BIG loads to be
dropped (on THEIR command) without disconnecting me (and my cogeneration capabilities) from the network.
On 11/06/2025 10:58 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 11/06/2025 13:03, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 5:05 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 19:01, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 1:32 am, David Brown wrote:...
On 10/06/2025 15:49, Bill Sloman wrote:
Why would the "fossil carbon extraction industry" even care about this
book? You seem to be imagining some shadowing conspiracy group that
is directing a war on electricity and the earth's climate. That's
nonsense - there's just a bunch of companies trying to make a profit
from their businesses and investments, and down-playing the risks in
order to make a short-term profit.
It is not nonsense. It has been going on for some twenty years now.
George Monbiot in his 2006 book "Heat" devoted a chapter to it.
https://www.monbiot.com/books/heat/
In 2010 it was worth writing a whole book about it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt
It did point out that the same people who were lying about climate
change had originally started their businesses to lie about the health
risks of smoking tobacco, which made the story even better.
People who want to keep on selling gasoline to car drivers don't want
their customers to switch to electric cars, and they spread lying
propaganda to discourage them.
It's just normal capitalism, and like any other branch of industry, it
is a problem when they are too powerful. But it doesn't help to be
paranoid and imagine a conspiracy that does not exist.
The "conspiracy" really does exist, and it is well documented. There's nothing paranoid about being realistic about the way consumers are misinformed. Ignoring the manipulation saves you from having to think
about it, but that's a false economy.
Companies that make their living from fossil fuels do not care about
some little book written by a journalist. Why should they?
Because well-informed customers do read that kind of book, and make
choices that cost the fossil fuel companies sales,
The people who read a book like that have no influence of
significance. The people that invest in their companies, or buy their
products, wouldn't bother with such a book.
The do get bothered when the sales volumes start to shrink. Oil
companies used to advertise their products to get the sales volumes up. That's what you do when you care about what your customers think.
So saying "electric car owning households are tending to have both" is
nonsense.
Electric cars are becoming more popular and about 40% of new roof-top
solar installation in Australia include a roughly car-sized battery.
It's not nonsense.
The "environmentally damaging" line seems to come from the usual
propaganda sources. Nobody seems to be much fussed about Australia's
lithium mines, which is odd because our greenies get excited about most mining operations. Australia has quite a lot of lithium mines with many hard-rock, pegmatite-hosted lithium resources, largely in Western
Australia.
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 12/06/2025 6:08 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:
[...]
Instantly dropping loads may be possible, but if it is the
only short term balancing mechanizm, then effect on loads may
be nasty.
That option will become less effective as a greater proportion of the
supply is generated by renewables. Dropping the load may also drop a
significant proportion of the supply from local solar and wind sources.
How? Solar and wind sources are free-standing generators. They don't
need any power input from the grid. They do need timing information - to
set the phase of the AC current that they feed into the grid, but they
can get that from radio transmissions, and - less directly - from GPS
signals.
All of that is vulnerable to interruption (by Sod's Law, just when it is needed), Compared with just switching off a big load centre by pulling
out a lump of metal, it is a complicated and fussy way to handle an
emergency that needs an instant response.
On 2025-06-12 00:07, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-10 12:08, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
[...]
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with >>>>>>>>> appropriate
electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no
matter what.
Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary >>>>>>>> current.
Not needed.
Why not?
Think about it. Inverters can be locked in frequency to any timing
source.
If the source (grid) starts to fall in frequency the inverter will
either have to keep in step with it or supply massive currents as the
phase difference between the inverter and the grid begins to increase. >>>> If the inverter tries to stay on-frequency, the time will come when
they
are 180-degrees out of step, then things will get far too exciting.
Sure, same as any rotating mass that tries to oppose the drift. The
thing is, inverters have more "inertia" than rotating masses with a
turbine of the same power, if so configured or programmed to do.
Aggregating all of them, that's a huge inertia, way larger than rotating >>> masses.
Say, program to oppose 1% the drift. Whatever. There are engineers that
can study and decide what to do.
I think that you ignore main aspect of inertia. You have a power
deficit and you need to adjust grid to compensate for lack of
power. Inertia means stored energy which can be deliverd at
cost of lowering frequency. IIUC in grid with rotating generators
and with similar deficit like in Spain it is supposed to give you
grace period of about minute or maybe 2 minutes. In this time
control may try to activate new sources or start controlled
dropping of loads. Current reporting indicate that inertia
in Spain was enough for 20 seconds and that was too little for
orderly reaction.
Sure, inverters can try to keep fixed frequency, but then
instead of too low frequency problem you get too low voltage
problem. IIUC low voltage could lead to shutdown of the grid
in a fraction of second.
I can only say, if the cause of the Gran Apagón is found eventually to
be the lack of inertia in wind and solar generators, it is just a matter >>> of reprogramming the inverters or replacing them. An engineering and
economics problem, not a political one.
You can try to improve control algorithms so that they cope
better with short term power deficit. Given scale of deficit
and observed result there may be space for improvement there.
But logically, you need some fast reaction energy storage.
Or some instantly swichable generating capacity. But running
PV sources (or other) at say 80% of their true power (so that
you can instantly increase their output) looks rather unattractive
compared to energy storage. You can use rotating masses,
for example run traditinal generator powering it from the grid to
keep it moving (so it does not need a turbine) or grid scale
battery. Fast reaction energy store give you time to
activate slower sources like hydro or fast start gas powered
generators. Or to drop loads in controlled way.
The point is that if you have power deficit, then grid can not
work well. And without energy storage you may lack time to
switch on extra generating power (assuming that it is available).
Instantly dropping loads may be possible, but if it is the
only short term balancing mechanizm, then effect on loads may
be nasty.
Ok, so authorities will have to push to build energy storage fast.
On 11/06/2025 17:19, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 10:58 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 11/06/2025 13:03, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 5:05 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 19:01, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 1:32 am, David Brown wrote:...
On 10/06/2025 15:49, Bill Sloman wrote:
Why would the "fossil carbon extraction industry" even care about
this book? You seem to be imagining some shadowing conspiracy group
that is directing a war on electricity and the earth's climate.
That's nonsense - there's just a bunch of companies trying to make a
profit from their businesses and investments, and down-playing the
risks in order to make a short-term profit.
It is not nonsense. It has been going on for some twenty years now.
George Monbiot in his 2006 book "Heat" devoted a chapter to it.
https://www.monbiot.com/books/heat/
In 2010 it was worth writing a whole book about it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt
It did point out that the same people who were lying about climate
change had originally started their businesses to lie about the health
risks of smoking tobacco, which made the story even better.
People who want to keep on selling gasoline to car drivers don't want
their customers to switch to electric cars, and they spread lying
propaganda to discourage them.
It's just normal capitalism, and like any other branch of industry,
it is a problem when they are too powerful. But it doesn't help to
be paranoid and imagine a conspiracy that does not exist.
The "conspiracy" really does exist, and it is well documented. There's
nothing paranoid about being realistic about the way consumers are
misinformed. Ignoring the manipulation saves you from having to think
about it, but that's a false economy.
Companies that make their living from fossil fuels do not care about
some little book written by a journalist. Why should they?
Because well-informed customers do read that kind of book, and make
choices that cost the fossil fuel companies sales,
You are /completely/ disconnected from reality.
How many potential car customers read books like that? 0.01% ? Maybe 0.001% ? Of those, how many people choose to buy an electric car rather than a fossil fuel car because they have read such a book? In total,
you could count the cases on the fingers of one hand.
People's thoughts on what is "right" - morally, environmentally,
politically, religiously, etc., - are based on what they hear from
friends, what they see on TV, Youtube, Tiktok, and the like. Books are
a tiny, tiny proportion of the influence - or rather, an influence on a
tiny, tiny proportion of people.
And all these sources of influence can
be highly biased, present a distorted view, or be completely wrong.
Books are not immune to that, though they are usually be more factually reliable than Tiktok.
Once a potential customer has decided on their idealistic stance - they
want to "go green", or they think climate change is all a conspiracy
theory from the Chinese - they look at the practicalities and the economics. And those override the idealism nine times out of ten -
idealism typically only matters in the event of a tie.
Those small proportions do add up, gradually. If one in ten buyers
chooses the environmentally better option, then that will lead to
greater availability, better infrastructure, lower prices, and more investment and development in the field - making it a more practical
choice for others.
None of this is, however, affected by books by journalists "revealing"
the "truth" about some industry.
Very occasionally, some politician
might have read the book and ask challenging questions in parliament, or
the author will appear on a panel show or debate show and raise
awareness. But that's rare. Virtually all such books generate a few inches of newspaper column (for those that still read newspapers), then migrate to airport bookshops. Most copies that are bought are unread -
and for most that are read, the reader will think "that's interesting
and thought-provoking" - then forget about them. Again, the tiny levels
of influence do add up, slowly, and it is a good thing that these kinds
of books are written and published. But to imagine that they directly affect companies' bottom lines through "informed customers" is ludicrous.
I say all this as a person who reads such books (though not those
particular ones you happen to have read) - and who tries learn from many sources.
The people who read a book like that have no influence of
significance. The people that invest in their companies, or buy their
products, wouldn't bother with such a book.
The do get bothered when the sales volumes start to shrink. Oil
companies used to advertise their products to get the sales volumes up.
That's what you do when you care about what your customers think.
Of course companies care what their customers think, and what influences them! That is why they advertise. But they do not care what books they read, because the influence is totally and completely negligible.
So saying "electric car owning households are tending to have both"
is nonsense.
Electric cars are becoming more popular and about 40% of new roof-top
solar installation in Australia include a roughly car-sized battery.
It's not nonsense.
Yes, it is nonsense.
The reality is that in sunny places, people can get cheap (in amortized
costs over time) electricity by putting solar panels on their roofs and
such installations might include a battery so that the solar-generated
energy is available through the night. Other installations don't have a battery - they simply sell the solar power back on the grid, for use in industry and other customers during the sunlight hours.
People choose to have solar panels based on the cost - comparing the
cost of installing them to the amount of electricity they will generate
and the cost (or sale price) of that electricity. And of course that requires that you own a house and live in a sunny place.
People choose to have a house battery based on the capital cost, the differences between electricity prices during the day and night, their electricity needs, and the reliability and stability of their
grid-supplied power.
People choose to have electric cars because of costs (including tax
breaks, subsidies, etc.), where they can use them (such as in
low-emission zones in cities, collective traffic lanes, etc.), and
personal preference.
Of course there will be a correlation between these three things. In particular, if you have solar panels then it is quite likely that you
will also have a house battery.
But the suggestion that "electric car owning households tend to have
house batteries" is nonsense. It is probably fair to say that there is
a substantial correlation in Australia, at the moment - but as a general statement, it is flat-out wrong.
Australia is a rich country with a high proportion of home owners and a
high proportion of stand-alone homes (rather than flats). It is a very sunny country, and has high and volatile electricity prices. So amongst
the richer segment of the population, you will get a lot of solar
panels, and a fair proportion of these will have batteries. It is also amongst those richer people that you will see electric car ownership, probably in addition to fossil fuel cars. Thus you see a correlation.
If and when electric car ownership spreads significantly in Australia,
that correlation will disappear as people living in flats, apartments, smaller houses, etc., get electric cars - they will not have solar
panels, or house batteries.
When you look at most other countries, the correlation was never there
in the first place. (The exception might be the USA, where electric car ownership is mostly in California which has similarities with
Australia.)
Norway is the country with far and away the highest
per-capita electric car ownership - perhaps 50 times that of Australia (though Australia's rate is increasing faster). Solar power, and house batteries, are very rare here - it is not the sunniest country on earth.
The "environmentally damaging" line seems to come from the usual
propaganda sources. Nobody seems to be much fussed about Australia's
lithium mines, which is odd because our greenies get excited about
most mining operations. Australia has quite a lot of lithium mines
with many hard-rock, pegmatite-hosted lithium resources, largely in
Western Australia.
Australia's lithium mining is a noticeably less environmentally damaging source than many other sources of lithium throughout the world.
On 11/06/2025 11:21 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 11/06/2025 13:41, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 5:38 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 19:23, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 2:32 am, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 16:16, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 10/06/2025 5:21 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 07:01, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 10/06/2025 6:44 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels >>>>>>>>>>>> -- coal -- and
nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems
INHERENT in their
technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is >>>>>>>>>>>> a considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with
nuclear waste or
the consequences of burning carbon.
Technically and economically, dealing with nuclear waste is many >>>>>>>> orders of magnitude easier than dealing with the consequences of >>>>>>>> burning carbon.
Nuclear fission waste is mixture of isotopes. Some of them are
very radioactive and decay fast, and keeping them safe until
they've mostly decayed is technically demanding. The less
radioactive isotopes are easier to handle, but some of them stay >>>>>>> dangerously radioactive for upwards of 100,000 years, and keeping >>>>>>> them safely isolated for that length of time is an as yet
unsolved problem
We all know that, I believe. There are two ways to handle the
waste - bury it deep enough, or use reprocessing/recycling to
reduce the worst of the waste. (Of course a better idea is to use >>>>>> more advanced nuclear reactors that produce more electricity for
less waste.)
There aren't any. If you fission U-233 (which is what thorium
reactors do) you get slightly different proportions of exactly the
same isotopes as you get from U-235 which pose essentially the same
problems.
Estimates by proponents of molten salt thorium reactors are between
a hundredth and a thousandth of the levels of the more problematic
waste materials for the same generated electricity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fission_product
Oh, thanks for that! I'd never heard of Wikipedia before. I have
also heard rumours that there is a newfangled way to search for
information - "goggle", or something like that. Perhaps you could
explain that to us too?
No doubt they are overly optimistic, but they are still massively
more efficient.
The claim appears to be total nonsense.
Ah, well, if you say so it must be true. You can no doubt refer to
some comic book as a reference.
For the long-lived transuranic radioactive isotopes,
Nuclear fission doesn't produce any long-lived transuranic
radioactive isotopes.
Try reading the Wikipedia article you linked - perhaps also the page
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-lived_fission_product>.
Nuclear reactors do produce them, but not by nuclear fission as I
explained in the section below, which you clearly hadn't read when you produced your response.
The neutron flux in a nuclear reactor can be captured and promote
some of the uranium and plutonium around into even heavier isotopes,
but it is very minor component in nuclear waste.
the thorium cycle in a molten salt reactor gives about 5% of the
quantities you get from standard light-water uranium reactors, and
the waste is in a form that is easier to separate and recycle.
Since the transuranic radioactive isotopes are a very minor problem
anyway, who cares?
It is the long-lived ones that are the problem. Short-lived isotopes
are only an issue if you let them escape before they have decayed.
What makes you think that transuranic radioactive isotopes are
particularly long-lived? Heavier nuclei do tend to be less stable - technicium is the lightest element that doesn't have a stable isotope.
Conventional uranium reactors use less than 1% of the uranium for
useful energy production - the rest is wasted. With molten salt
thorium reactors, close to 100% of the thorium is used.
Eventually. You have to take the spent fuel out of the reactor, take
out the fission product and the U-233 that has been generated by
neutron capture, and put the purified residue back into the reactor
If only there were a way to do that...
There is. It involves doing chemistry on very nasty radioactive spent
fuel rods so it's difficult and expensive, but perfectly practicable, if mostly economicaly impractical
Fusion energy has been 50 years in the future for the last 80 years.
I have not seen anything to suggest that has changed much - and I make
a point of keeping up with scientific and technical news.
But you haven't heard of hydrogen-boron fusion?
And you haven't noticed
that the current generation of hydrogen fusion machines have got pretty
close to the Lawson criterion
(and I did work with John D. Lawson's
youngest son, who wasn't remotely in the same league).
I believe that eventually, we will have workable fusion power (though
it will probably be deuterium / tritium fusion first), and that will
be a big step up from fission nuclear power. For the next 50 years at
least, however, thorium fission is the way to go for bulk power
production, with solar and other renewables helping out as it takes a
long time to get nuclear plants up and running.
But you have done something unique here - I can't remember anyone else
being so confused as to suggest that I am a conservative!
You've copied a conservative tactic. That doesn't make you a
conservative, but it does suggest that you don't think too hard about
what you post.
Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
On 6/12/2025 1:08 AM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:
[...]
Instantly dropping loads may be possible, but if it is the
only short term balancing mechanizm, then effect on loads may
be nasty.
That option will become less effective as a greater proportion of the
supply is generated by renewables. Dropping the load may also drop a
significant proportion of the supply from local solar and wind sources.
That's specious reasoning.
I can contract with the utility to allow some of my BIG loads to be
dropped (on THEIR command) without disconnecting me (and my cogeneration
capabilities) from the network.
The key word here is "instantly". To instantly drop thousands of
individual loads whilst maintaining their co-sited generation capacity,
in a completely reliable way, may be possible, but we are nowhere near
that at present. Emergency load-shedding consists of switching of big
chunks of consumers but that is increasingly liable to switch off
generating capacity in an unpredictable way.
Around here it is well known that the battery is a profitable option, if
you have the capital to pay for it.
Electricity is cheaper than petrol. Fuel cost isn't a big part of the
expense of owning a car - depreciation is main expense.
On 12/06/2025 7:32 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 11/06/2025 17:19, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 10:58 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 11/06/2025 13:03, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 5:05 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 19:01, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 1:32 am, David Brown wrote:...
On 10/06/2025 15:49, Bill Sloman wrote:
Why would the "fossil carbon extraction industry" even care about
this book? You seem to be imagining some shadowing conspiracy group
that is directing a war on electricity and the earth's climate.
That's nonsense - there's just a bunch of companies trying to make a
profit from their businesses and investments, and down-playing the
risks in order to make a short-term profit.
It is not nonsense. It has been going on for some twenty years now.
George Monbiot in his 2006 book "Heat" devoted a chapter to it.
https://www.monbiot.com/books/heat/
In 2010 it was worth writing a whole book about it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt
It did point out that the same people who were lying about climate
change had originally started their businesses to lie about the
health risks of smoking tobacco, which made the story even better.
People who want to keep on selling gasoline to car drivers don't want
their customers to switch to electric cars, and they spread lying
propaganda to discourage them.
It's just normal capitalism, and like any other branch of industry,
it is a problem when they are too powerful. But it doesn't help to
be paranoid and imagine a conspiracy that does not exist.
The "conspiracy" really does exist, and it is well documented.
There's nothing paranoid about being realistic about the way
consumers are misinformed. Ignoring the manipulation saves you from
having to think about it, but that's a false economy.
Companies that make their living from fossil fuels do not care about
some little book written by a journalist. Why should they?
Because well-informed customers do read that kind of book, and make
choices that cost the fossil fuel companies sales,
You are /completely/ disconnected from reality.
I'm sure you like to think that.
How many potential car customers read books like that? 0.01% ? Maybe
0.001% ? Of those, how many people choose to buy an electric car
rather than a fossil fuel car because they have read such a book? In
total, you could count the cases on the fingers of one hand.
Individual car customers may not read that kind of book, but they read newspapers and get exposed to the prevailing climate of opinion.
Tesla's
car sales around the world have dropped dramatically in the past six
months, apparently because of his US- government activities.
People's thoughts on what is "right" - morally, environmentally,
politically, religiously, etc., - are based on what they hear from
friends, what they see on TV, Youtube, Tiktok, and the like. Books
are a tiny, tiny proportion of the influence - or rather, an influence
on a tiny, tiny proportion of people.
Says somebody who doesn't seem to read enough of them, and is now making excuses for it.
And all these sources of influence can be highly biased, present a
distorted view, or be completely wrong. Books are not immune to that,
though they are usually be more factually reliable than Tiktok.
It's easier to sue somebody who has published a malicious lie in a book.
Once a potential customer has decided on their idealistic stance -
they want to "go green", or they think climate change is all a
conspiracy theory from the Chinese - they look at the practicalities
and the economics. And those override the idealism nine times out of
ten - idealism typically only matters in the event of a tie.
I don't think that many people adopt any kind of idealistic stance, but
they do worry if the people from whom they buy their consumer durables
look to be unlikely to stay in business much longer.
Those small proportions do add up, gradually. If one in ten buyers
chooses the environmentally better option, then that will lead to
greater availability, better infrastructure, lower prices, and more
investment and development in the field - making it a more practical
choice for others.
None of this is, however, affected by books by journalists "revealing"
the "truth" about some industry.
It depends on the nature of "the truth" revealed. Ralph Nader had quite
a lot of influence.
Very occasionally, some politician might have read the book and ask
challenging questions in parliament, or the author will appear on a
panel show or debate show and raise awareness. But that's rare.
Virtually all such books generate a few inches of newspaper column
(for those that still read newspapers), then migrate to airport
bookshops. Most copies that are bought are unread - and for most that
are read, the reader will think "that's interesting and
thought-provoking" - then forget about them. Again, the tiny levels
of influence do add up, slowly, and it is a good thing that these
kinds of books are written and published. But to imagine that they
directly affect companies' bottom lines through "informed customers"
is ludicrous.
The fossil carbon extraction industry is spending quite a lot money on
lying propaganda designed to limit the influence of some of those books.
It would be ludicrous if it didn't work.
I say all this as a person who reads such books (though not those
particular ones you happen to have read) - and who tries learn from
many sources.
Without much evidence of success.
The people who read a book like that have no influence of
significance. The people that invest in their companies, or buy
their products, wouldn't bother with such a book.
The do get bothered when the sales volumes start to shrink. Oil
companies used to advertise their products to get the sales volumes up.
That's what you do when you care about what your customers think.
Of course companies care what their customers think, and what
influences them! That is why they advertise. But they do not care
what books they read, because the influence is totally and completely
negligible.
You may want to neglect it. The money spent on lying counter-propaganda suggests that companies involved don't share that view.
Norway is the country with far and away the highest per-capita
electric car ownership - perhaps 50 times that of Australia (though
Australia's rate is increasing faster). Solar power, and house
batteries, are very rare here - it is not the sunniest country on earth.
It's not so much lack of sun as being close to the Arctic circle. The
sun doesn't far above the horizon in winter, and doesn't stay above it
for all that long.
The "environmentally damaging" line seems to come from the usual
propaganda sources. Nobody seems to be much fussed about Australia's
lithium mines, which is odd because our greenies get excited about
most mining operations. Australia has quite a lot of lithium mines
with many hard-rock, pegmatite-hosted lithium resources, largely in
Western Australia.
Australia's lithium mining is a noticeably less environmentally
damaging source than many other sources of lithium throughout the world.
Which has more to do with our greenies being a noisy bunch, by
international standards, than anything fundamental.
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
[...].
Around here it is well known that the battery is a profitable option, if
you have the capital to pay for it.
[...]
Electricity is cheaper than petrol. Fuel cost isn't a big part of the
expense of owning a car - depreciation is main expense.
How does the depreciation of an electric car compare with (e.g.) a
diesel one? What is the battery life and does it have 'negative value'
when it comes to disposal?
On 12/06/2025 7:32 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 11/06/2025 17:19, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 10:58 pm, David Brown wrote:
Australia is a rich country with a high proportion of home owners and
a high proportion of stand-alone homes (rather than flats). It is a
very sunny country, and has high and volatile electricity prices. So
amongst the richer segment of the population, you will get a lot of
solar panels, and a fair proportion of these will have batteries. It
is also amongst those richer people that you will see electric car
ownership, probably in addition to fossil fuel cars. Thus you see a
correlation. If and when electric car ownership spreads significantly
in Australia, that correlation will disappear as people living in
flats, apartments, smaller houses, etc., get electric cars - they will
not have solar panels, or house batteries.
Flats and apartments don't have solar panels or batteries at the moment. There a certain amount of agitation to work out ways of making this
possible. The building committee that control my apartment block isn't
all that interested at the moment - they are still working out how to
provide charging points for electric cars parked in our basement
parking, but it's going to happen eventually.
On 12/06/2025 6:31 pm, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-06-12 00:07, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
Ok, so authorities will have to push to build energy storage fast.
You don't build it. You buy it, off the shelf.
Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:
[...]
Instantly dropping loads may be possible, but if it is the
only short term balancing mechanizm, then effect on loads may
be nasty.
That option will become less effective as a greater proportion of the
supply is generated by renewables. Dropping the load may also drop a significant proportion of the supply from local solar and wind sources.
Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
On 6/12/2025 1:08 AM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:
[...]
Instantly dropping loads may be possible, but if it is the
only short term balancing mechanizm, then effect on loads may
be nasty.
That option will become less effective as a greater proportion of the
supply is generated by renewables. Dropping the load may also drop a
significant proportion of the supply from local solar and wind sources.
That's specious reasoning.
I can contract with the utility to allow some of my BIG loads to be
dropped (on THEIR command) without disconnecting me (and my cogeneration
capabilities) from the network.
The key word here is "instantly". To instantly drop thousands of
individual loads whilst maintaining their co-sited generation capacity,
in a completely reliable way, may be possible, but we are nowhere near
that at present. Emergency load-shedding consists of switching of big
chunks of consumers but that is increasingly liable to switch off
generating capacity in an unpredictable way.
My solar PV system has battery storage and I subscribe to Tesla's
Virtual Power Plant. When the grid is under stress I allow up to 50%
of the storage to be used by the grid for which I get paid $2 per kWh.
Not bad when you consider they charge $0.15/KWHr to sell that electricity
to you in the first place! You're just letting someone take your car (house)
for a drive -- without any mechanical wear-and-tear on a vehicle, any
risk of an "accident", theft, etc. -- and are being reimbursed for that "generosity". Much more generous than many "friends" would be in reimbursing you for their convenience!
What sort of capacity do you have and how easily do you "top it off"
purely from solar?
I usually get a few hours notice through the App on my phone and I can
opt-out for any event. This is in California although Tesla operates
similar programs throughout the country.
So, they have good enough models to *predict* when there will be a need?
Or, is there *always* a need and they just "spread the wealth"?
Tesla vehicles do not (yet) support Vehicle to Grid (V2G) operation
although the extra hardware required is minimal as the conversion from
AC to DC in the car is already pretty much bidirectional to achieve
high-efficiency. (Just using Diodes is too inefficient)
<...>
On 6/12/2025 2:48 AM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
On 6/12/2025 1:08 AM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:That's specious reasoning.
[...]
Instantly dropping loads may be possible, but if it is the
only short term balancing mechanizm, then effect on loads may
be nasty.
That option will become less effective as a greater proportion of the
supply is generated by renewables. Dropping the load may also drop a >>>> significant proportion of the supply from local solar and wind sources. >>>
I can contract with the utility to allow some of my BIG loads to be
dropped (on THEIR command) without disconnecting me (and my cogeneration >>> capabilities) from the network.
The key word here is "instantly". To instantly drop thousands of
individual loads whilst maintaining their co-sited generation capacity,
in a completely reliable way, may be possible, but we are nowhere near
But that is likely because the folks who developed "residential solar"
likely assumed the grid would be the "800 pound gorilla" that would
provide stability. That may have been a valid assumption when solar was relatively "rare" but is an increasingly unfortunate assumption.
that at present. Emergency load-shedding consists of switching of big
chunks of consumers but that is increasingly liable to switch off
generating capacity in an unpredictable way.
Using current/legacy technology. But, there is no reason to force a
new technology to adopt old strategies and mechanisms.
We didn't assume BEVs would have to be charged using a standard 15A
branch circuit -- maybe 20A available in an outdoor location (garage).
This was deemed inappropriate for all but special use cases and
ALTERNATIVE charging systems were created -- at a significant cost in infrastructure.
Ditto rail lines when the iron horse became viable. Paved roadways
for horseless carriages. etc.
Someone "got cheap" with solar and decided it didn't need any special SYSTEMIC investment beyond the individual cogenerators.
On 6/11/25 6:06 PM, Don Y wrote:
My solar PV system has battery storage and I subscribe to Tesla's
Virtual Power Plant. When the grid is under stress I allow up to 50%
of the storage to be used by the grid for which I get paid $2 per kWh.
Not bad when you consider they charge $0.15/KWHr to sell that electricity to you in the first place! You're just letting someone take your car (house)
My batteries only get charged from solar (My account with PG&E does not permit
charging from the grid as that as that would allow arbitrage).
for a drive -- without any mechanical wear-and-tear on a vehicle, any
risk of an "accident", theft, etc. -- and are being reimbursed for that "generosity". Much more generous than many "friends" would be in reimbursing you for their convenience!
I calculated the cost of the wear and tear on the battery is (very) approximately $0.25/kWh.
What sort of capacity do you have and how easily do you "top it off" purely from solar?
I only have 27kWh of storage (2 Tesla Powerwall units). In the summer I average
20-35kWh per day of surplus generated by solar. So if the battery has discharged to 25% (own use plus any exported) in the evening it can be fully recharged the next day.
I usually get a few hours notice through the App on my phone and I can
opt-out for any event. This is in California although Tesla operates
similar programs throughout the country.
So, they have good enough models to *predict* when there will be a need? Or, is there *always* a need and they just "spread the wealth"?
The models are usually pretty accurate (https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/).
Among other things the next day's predicted consumption is based on historical
data and weather predictions (air conditioner use is a large component of the power demand).
A couple of times there have been emergencies where there has only been minutes
of warning.
Tesla vehicles do not (yet) support Vehicle to Grid (V2G) operation
although the extra hardware required is minimal as the conversion from
AC to DC in the car is already pretty much bidirectional to achieve
high-efficiency. (Just using Diodes is too inefficient)
<...>
On 6/12/25 5:04 AM, Don Y wrote:
On 6/12/2025 2:48 AM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
On 6/12/2025 1:08 AM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:That's specious reasoning.
[...]
Instantly dropping loads may be possible, but if it is the
only short term balancing mechanizm, then effect on loads may
be nasty.
That option will become less effective as a greater proportion of the >>>>> supply is generated by renewables. Dropping the load may also drop a >>>>> significant proportion of the supply from local solar and wind sources. >>>>
I can contract with the utility to allow some of my BIG loads to be
dropped (on THEIR command) without disconnecting me (and my cogeneration >>>> capabilities) from the network.
The key word here is "instantly". To instantly drop thousands of
individual loads whilst maintaining their co-sited generation capacity,
in a completely reliable way, may be possible, but we are nowhere near
But that is likely because the folks who developed "residential solar"
likely assumed the grid would be the "800 pound gorilla" that would
provide stability. That may have been a valid assumption when solar was
relatively "rare" but is an increasingly unfortunate assumption.
California residential solar requires that the inverters adhere to what's referred to as "California Rule 21". The inverters change their output as the frequency or voltage rises. This is to promote grid stability. So it is not quite as you say.
that at present. Emergency load-shedding consists of switching of big
chunks of consumers but that is increasingly liable to switch off
generating capacity in an unpredictable way.
Using current/legacy technology. But, there is no reason to force a
new technology to adopt old strategies and mechanisms.
We didn't assume BEVs would have to be charged using a standard 15A
branch circuit -- maybe 20A available in an outdoor location (garage).
This was deemed inappropriate for all but special use cases and
ALTERNATIVE charging systems were created -- at a significant cost in
infrastructure.
There are financial incentives to shift demand for EV charging to times of low
grid utilization. (eg 12AM to 6AM). The grid is mainly limited by peak use, not
overall consumption.
Ditto rail lines when the iron horse became viable. Paved roadways
for horseless carriages. etc.
Someone "got cheap" with solar and decided it didn't need any special
SYSTEMIC investment beyond the individual cogenerators.
On 6/12/25 2:48 AM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
On 6/12/2025 1:08 AM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:That's specious reasoning.
[...]
Instantly dropping loads may be possible, but if it is the
only short term balancing mechanizm, then effect on loads may
be nasty.
That option will become less effective as a greater proportion of the
supply is generated by renewables. Dropping the load may also drop a >>>> significant proportion of the supply from local solar and wind sources. >>>
I can contract with the utility to allow some of my BIG loads to be
dropped (on THEIR command) without disconnecting me (and my cogeneration >>> capabilities) from the network.
The key word here is "instantly". To instantly drop thousands of
individual loads whilst maintaining their co-sited generation capacity,
in a completely reliable way, may be possible, but we are nowhere near
that at present. Emergency load-shedding consists of switching of big
chunks of consumers but that is increasingly liable to switch off
generating capacity in an unpredictable way.
There are various programs being tried here where get lower residential rates by allowing them to turn off your air-conditioning remotely. There are limits for how long and how much etc.
On 6/12/2025 5:10 PM, KevinJ93 wrote:
On 6/12/25 5:04 AM, Don Y wrote:
On 6/12/2025 2:48 AM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
On 6/12/2025 1:08 AM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:
[...]
Instantly dropping loads may be possible, but if it is the
only short term balancing mechanizm, then effect on loads may
be nasty.
That option will become less effective as a greater proportion of the >>>>>> supply is generated by renewables. Dropping the load may also drop a >>>>>> significant proportion of the supply from local solar and wind
sources.
That's specious reasoning.
I can contract with the utility to allow some of my BIG loads to be
dropped (on THEIR command) without disconnecting me (and my
cogeneration
capabilities) from the network.
The key word here is "instantly". To instantly drop thousands of
individual loads whilst maintaining their co-sited generation capacity, >>>> in a completely reliable way, may be possible, but we are nowhere near
But that is likely because the folks who developed "residential solar"
likely assumed the grid would be the "800 pound gorilla" that would
provide stability. That may have been a valid assumption when solar was >>> relatively "rare" but is an increasingly unfortunate assumption.
California residential solar requires that the inverters adhere to
what's referred to as "California Rule 21". The inverters change their
output as the frequency or voltage rises. This is to promote grid
stability. So it is not quite as you say.
But, is that the case everywhere and for every (legacy) installation?
that at present. Emergency load-shedding consists of switching of big >>>> chunks of consumers but that is increasingly liable to switch off
generating capacity in an unpredictable way.
Using current/legacy technology. But, there is no reason to force a
new technology to adopt old strategies and mechanisms.
We didn't assume BEVs would have to be charged using a standard 15A
branch circuit -- maybe 20A available in an outdoor location (garage).
This was deemed inappropriate for all but special use cases and
ALTERNATIVE charging systems were created -- at a significant cost in
infrastructure.
There are financial incentives to shift demand for EV charging to
times of low grid utilization. (eg 12AM to 6AM). The grid is mainly
limited by peak use, not overall consumption.
Connecting a PV array to the grid automatically changes the client to a
ToU tariff. So, if your array can't meet all of your needs (at the granularity
of the measuring system), you pay a BIG premium for the power you need to import (even if you've exported enough to cover those needs as you are reimbursed at a lower rate)
And, if your array is out of service (e.g., having repairs done or roof maintenance), then any savings the array might have realized quickly evaporate.
We looked at the ToU tariff thinking we could easily shift our consumption
to leverage any rate reductions. But, most of the cooling load (which
is most
of the load!) happens during on-peak hours (3P-7P); and the rate is ~50% higher
per KWHr during those times. Hard to imagine the cost in comfort to appreciate
any real savings!
Ditto rail lines when the iron horse became viable. Paved roadways
for horseless carriages. etc.
Someone "got cheap" with solar and decided it didn't need any special
SYSTEMIC investment beyond the individual cogenerators.
On 6/12/2025 4:55 PM, KevinJ93 wrote:than
On 6/11/25 6:06 PM, Don Y wrote:
kWh.My solar PV system has battery storage and I subscribe to Tesla's
Virtual Power Plant. When the grid is under stress I allow up to 50%
of the storage to be used by the grid for which I get paid $2 per
electricity
Not bad when you consider they charge $0.15/KWHr to sell that
to you in the first place! You're just letting someone take your car
(house)
My batteries only get charged from solar (My account with PG&E does
not permit charging from the grid as that as that would allow
arbitrage).
Yes, my point was that they charge you much less for energy delivered
they are willing to pay for energy stored. (of course, you had tomake the
investment in much the same way THEY had to invest in the distribution network).though
for a drive -- without any mechanical wear-and-tear on a vehicle, anythat
risk of an "accident", theft, etc. -- and are being reimbursed for
"generosity". Much more generous than many "friends" would be in
reimbursing you for their convenience!
I calculated the cost of the wear and tear on the battery is (very)
approximately $0.25/kWh.
So, if you have a surplus, it makes sense to make it available (even
whether or not you have a buyer may be uncertain on any given day)hours
What sort of capacity do you have and how easily do you "top it off"
purely from solar?
I only have 27kWh of storage (2 Tesla Powerwall units). In the summer
I average 20-35kWh per day of surplus generated by solar. So if the
battery has discharged to 25% (own use plus any exported) in the
evening it can be fully recharged the next day.
We use about 25KWHr/day (it's not "hot" yet). So, would need to generate about 50KWHr daily to meet that sort of storage ability. Without
resorting to
a tracking collector, I think we're limited to about 6.5 usable solar
daily. So, would need ~8KW from an array to "bank" that much.
generation?can
need?opt-out for any event. This is in California although Tesla operates
similar programs throughout the country.
So, they have good enough models to *predict* when there will be a
Or, is there *always* a need and they just "spread the wealth"?
The models are usually pretty accurate (https://www.caiso.com/todays-
outlook/). Among other things the next day's predicted consumption is
based on historical data and weather predictions (air conditioner use
is a large component of the power demand).
But, presumably, they have *generation* capability to meet those needs?
Are they relying on your storage IN LIEU OF more expensive peak
themselves of?A couple of times there have been emergencies where there has only
been minutes of warning.
So, you could have a "standing offer" that they could avail
The rate of compensation doesn't vary with the severity of their *need*?
fromTesla vehicles do not (yet) support Vehicle to Grid (V2G) operation
although the extra hardware required is minimal as the conversion
AC to DC in the car is already pretty much bidirectional to achieve
high-efficiency. (Just using Diodes is too inefficient)
<...>
On 12/06/2025 13:29, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 12/06/2025 7:32 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 11/06/2025 17:19, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 10:58 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 11/06/2025 13:03, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 5:05 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 19:01, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 1:32 am, David Brown wrote:...
On 10/06/2025 15:49, Bill Sloman wrote:
Why would the "fossil carbon extraction industry" even care about
this book? You seem to be imagining some shadowing conspiracy
group that is directing a war on electricity and the earth's
climate. That's nonsense - there's just a bunch of companies trying
to make a profit from their businesses and investments, and
down-playing the risks in order to make a short-term profit.
It is not nonsense. It has been going on for some twenty years now.
George Monbiot in his 2006 book "Heat" devoted a chapter to it.
https://www.monbiot.com/books/heat/
In 2010 it was worth writing a whole book about it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt
It did point out that the same people who were lying about climate
change had originally started their businesses to lie about the
health risks of smoking tobacco, which made the story even better.
People who want to keep on selling gasoline to car drivers don't
want their customers to switch to electric cars, and they spread
lying propaganda to discourage them.
It's just normal capitalism, and like any other branch of industry,
it is a problem when they are too powerful. But it doesn't help to >>>>> be paranoid and imagine a conspiracy that does not exist.
The "conspiracy" really does exist, and it is well documented.
There's nothing paranoid about being realistic about the way
consumers are misinformed. Ignoring the manipulation saves you from
having to think about it, but that's a false economy.
Companies that make their living from fossil fuels do not care
about some little book written by a journalist. Why should they?
Because well-informed customers do read that kind of book, and make
choices that cost the fossil fuel companies sales,
You are /completely/ disconnected from reality.
I'm sure you like to think that.
No, I'd prefer it if you were more realistic.
How many potential car customers read books like that? 0.01% ?
Maybe 0.001% ? Of those, how many people choose to buy an electric
car rather than a fossil fuel car because they have read such a
book? In total, you could count the cases on the fingers of one hand.
Individual car customers may not read that kind of book, but they read
newspapers and get exposed to the prevailing climate of opinion.
I believe I explained all that.
Tesla's car sales around the world have dropped dramatically in the
past six months, apparently because of his US- government activities.
The drop in Tesla sales are partly due to Musk and his drug-fueled
rampage, partly due to Tesla been left behind by other EV companies in
terms of price, reliability and features, and partly due to a general
dislike of the company and its policies (such as being aggressively anti-union, and having a tendency to sue their own customers).
I do not believe that Tesla sales are down because of some book.
People's thoughts on what is "right" - morally, environmentally,
politically, religiously, etc., - are based on what they hear from
friends, what they see on TV, Youtube, Tiktok, and the like. Books
are a tiny, tiny proportion of the influence - or rather, an
influence on a tiny, tiny proportion of people.
Says somebody who doesn't seem to read enough of them, and is now
making excuses for it.
These discussions would be a lot nicer if you stopped making up random
shit.
And all these sources of influence can be highly biased, present a
distorted view, or be completely wrong. Books are not immune to that,
though they are usually be more factually reliable than Tiktok.
It's easier to sue somebody who has published a malicious lie in a book.
Are you giving that as a reason why books are usually more factually
accurate than random videos online? If so, then I guess I can agree
with you, though I don't think it is the most important reason.
Once a potential customer has decided on their idealistic stance -
they want to "go green", or they think climate change is all a
conspiracy theory from the Chinese - they look at the practicalities
and the economics. And those override the idealism nine times out of
ten - idealism typically only matters in the event of a tie.
I don't think that many people adopt any kind of idealistic stance,
but they do worry if the people from whom they buy their consumer
durables look to be unlikely to stay in business much longer.
That is a practical reason, and like other practical reasons is usually
more important than idealistic reasons.
Those small proportions do add up, gradually. If one in ten buyers
chooses the environmentally better option, then that will lead to
greater availability, better infrastructure, lower prices, and more
investment and development in the field - making it a more practical
choice for others.
None of this is, however, affected by books by journalists
"revealing" the "truth" about some industry.
It depends on the nature of "the truth" revealed. Ralph Nader had
quite a lot of influence.
As I said, very occasionally books have an effect. Ironically, if your imaginary evil industrial masterminds have any sense, they will learn
from Nader that the best way to deal with "revealing the hidden truth"
books is to ignore them.
Very occasionally, some politician might have read the book and ask
challenging questions in parliament, or the author will appear on a
panel show or debate show and raise awareness. But that's rare.
Virtually all such books generate a few inches of newspaper column
(for those that still read newspapers), then migrate to airport
bookshops. Most copies that are bought are unread - and for most
that are read, the reader will think "that's interesting and
thought-provoking" - then forget about them. Again, the tiny levels
of influence do add up, slowly, and it is a good thing that these
kinds of books are written and published. But to imagine that they
directly affect companies' bottom lines through "informed customers"
is ludicrous.
The fossil carbon extraction industry is spending quite a lot money on
lying propaganda designed to limit the influence of some of those books.
It would be ludicrous if it didn't work.
I say all this as a person who reads such books (though not those
particular ones you happen to have read) - and who tries learn from
many sources.
Without much evidence of success.
The people who read a book like that have no influence of
significance. The people that invest in their companies, or buy
their products, wouldn't bother with such a book.
The do get bothered when the sales volumes start to shrink. Oil
companies used to advertise their products to get the sales volumes up. >>>> That's what you do when you care about what your customers think.
Of course companies care what their customers think, and what
influences them! That is why they advertise. But they do not care
what books they read, because the influence is totally and completely
negligible.
You may want to neglect it. The money spent on lying
counter-propaganda suggests that companies involved don't share that
view.
*They do not care about the books*.
Sure, they lie and produce counter-propaganda. But they are not
targeting books or book-readers, because those are a /tiny/ proportion
of relevant people (customers, politicians, regulators, etc.). Customers don't read books or newspapers - they watch influencers on social
media. Politicians don't even read the bills they sign into law, much
less boring books that attack the industries that sponsor their
political campaigns.
Even if some oil company released a counter-statement condemning one of
your favourite books as incorrect, pretty much no one would notice
because no one reads about that kind of thing.
Norway is the country with far and away the highest per-capita
electric car ownership - perhaps 50 times that of Australia (though
Australia's rate is increasing faster). Solar power, and house
batteries, are very rare here - it is not the sunniest country on earth.
It's not so much lack of sun as being close to the Arctic circle. The
sun doesn't far above the horizon in winter, and doesn't stay above it
for all that long.
Consider "Norway is not as sunny as Australia" as dumbing it down for
you while giving the relevant information, rather than an astronomically
and climatically correct detailed description of why solar panels are
more useful in Australia than Norway.
The "environmentally damaging" line seems to come from the usual
propaganda sources. Nobody seems to be much fussed about Australia's
lithium mines, which is odd because our greenies get excited about
most mining operations. Australia has quite a lot of lithium mines
with many hard-rock, pegmatite-hosted lithium resources, largely in
Western Australia.
Australia's lithium mining is a noticeably less environmentally
damaging source than many other sources of lithium throughout the world.
Which has more to do with our greenies being a noisy bunch, by
international standards, than anything fundamental.
It has more to do with where the lithium is found, in what form, and
what is needed to extract the lithium. But you are probably right that environmental activists have more influence on reducing the damage in Australia than in many other parts of the world.
On 11/06/2025 18:20, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 11:21 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 11/06/2025 13:41, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 5:38 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 19:23, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 11/06/2025 2:32 am, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 16:16, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 10/06/2025 5:21 pm, David Brown wrote:
On 10/06/2025 07:01, Bill Sloman wrote:
On 10/06/2025 6:44 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels >>>>>>>>>>>>> -- coal -- and
nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems >>>>>>>>>>>>> INHERENT in their
technology. Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network >>>>>>>>>>>>> is a considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with >>>>>>>>>>>>> nuclear waste or
the consequences of burning carbon.
Technically and economically, dealing with nuclear waste is
many orders of magnitude easier than dealing with the
consequences of burning carbon.
Nuclear fission waste is mixture of isotopes. Some of them are >>>>>>>> very radioactive and decay fast, and keeping them safe until
they've mostly decayed is technically demanding. The less
radioactive isotopes are easier to handle, but some of them stay >>>>>>>> dangerously radioactive for upwards of 100,000 years, and
keeping them safely isolated for that length of time is an as
yet unsolved problem
We all know that, I believe. There are two ways to handle the
waste - bury it deep enough, or use reprocessing/recycling to
reduce the worst of the waste. (Of course a better idea is to
use more advanced nuclear reactors that produce more electricity >>>>>>> for less waste.)
There aren't any. If you fission U-233 (which is what thorium
reactors do) you get slightly different proportions of exactly the >>>>>> same isotopes as you get from U-235 which pose essentially the
same problems.
Estimates by proponents of molten salt thorium reactors are between
a hundredth and a thousandth of the levels of the more problematic
waste materials for the same generated electricity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fission_product
Oh, thanks for that! I'd never heard of Wikipedia before. I have
also heard rumours that there is a newfangled way to search for
information - "goggle", or something like that. Perhaps you could
explain that to us too?
No doubt they are overly optimistic, but they are still massively >>>>> more efficient.
The claim appears to be total nonsense.
Ah, well, if you say so it must be true. You can no doubt refer to
some comic book as a reference.
For the long-lived transuranic radioactive isotopes,
Nuclear fission doesn't produce any long-lived transuranic
radioactive isotopes.
Try reading the Wikipedia article you linked - perhaps also the page
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-lived_fission_product>.
Nuclear reactors do produce them, but not by nuclear fission as I
explained in the section below, which you clearly hadn't read when you
produced your response.
Nuclear fission produces long-lived transuranic radioactive isotopes.
It is quite obvious that when a big nucleus breaks into pieces, the
pieces will be smaller than the original nucleus - the fission of a
uranium nucleus does not create a transuranic isotope directly. But sometimes one of these little pieces flies off and sticks to another big nucleus, and that can then give you an even bigger nucleus. Those big nuclei are sometimes long-lived transuranic radioactive isotopes. They
come about as a result of the nuclear fission in the nuclear reactor.
Do you /really/ think the technical distinction you are making is
remotely relevant to anything?
The neutron flux in a nuclear reactor can be captured and promote
some of the uranium and plutonium around into even heavier isotopes,
but it is very minor component in nuclear waste.
the thorium cycle in a molten salt reactor gives about 5% of the
quantities you get from standard light-water uranium reactors, and
the waste is in a form that is easier to separate and recycle.
Since the transuranic radioactive isotopes are a very minor problem
anyway, who cares?
It is the long-lived ones that are the problem. Short-lived isotopes
are only an issue if you let them escape before they have decayed.
What makes you think that transuranic radioactive isotopes are
particularly long-lived? Heavier nuclei do tend to be less stable -
technicium is the lightest element that doesn't have a stable isotope.
Here's an idea for you - instead of guessing randomly, try looking it
up. Such information is easily available. Yes, many very heavy
isotopes are unstable and short-lived. Others are long-lived.
Conventional uranium reactors use less than 1% of the uranium for
useful energy production - the rest is wasted. With molten salt
thorium reactors, close to 100% of the thorium is used.
Eventually. You have to take the spent fuel out of the reactor, take
out the fission product and the U-233 that has been generated by
neutron capture, and put the purified residue back into the reactor
If only there were a way to do that...
There is. It involves doing chemistry on very nasty radioactive spent
fuel rods so it's difficult and expensive, but perfectly practicable,
if mostly economicaly impractical
It is entirely possible, and entirely practical - that is how molten
salt reactors work. Of course they don't get everything out, they don't recycle everything, and there are technical and economic limitations.
But the fundamentals were figured out in the 1960's, and recent
developments have improved on that.
Fusion energy has been 50 years in the future for the last 80 years.
I have not seen anything to suggest that has changed much - and I
make a point of keeping up with scientific and technical news.
But you haven't heard of hydrogen-boron fusion?
Yes, I have heard about it. The idea is nice, but the temperature
needed to make it work is an order of magnitude higher than for D-T
fusion, and no one can make that temperature stably or reliably.
It is,
I think, something that might come in the future - /after/ commercial
D-T fusion. Perhaps there will be breakthroughs in containment that
will make these high temperatures practical, in which case the H-B
fusion's advantages would come into play. So I think it is good that research is being done in the field, but I am not holding my breath
waiting for it to appear.
And you haven't noticed that the current generation of hydrogen fusion
machines have got pretty close to the Lawson criterion
And on what basis do you claim to know what I have or have not noticed?
Or are you really so naïve as to think momentarily generating more
energy than you lose means that practical commercial fusion reactors are
just round the corner?
(and I did work with John D. Lawson's youngest son, who wasn't
remotely in the same league).
Name-dropping makes you look pathetic. "I know nothing myself, but I
did meet a relative of someone who did". It's like Trump claiming to be
a scientific genius because he had an uncle who was a professor.
I believe that eventually, we will have workable fusion power (though
it will probably be deuterium / tritium fusion first), and that will
be a big step up from fission nuclear power. For the next 50 years
at least, however, thorium fission is the way to go for bulk power
production, with solar and other renewables helping out as it takes a
long time to get nuclear plants up and running.
But you have done something unique here - I can't remember anyone
else being so confused as to suggest that I am a conservative!
You've copied a conservative tactic. That doesn't make you a
conservative, but it does suggest that you don't think too hard about
what you post.
No, I haven't copied any "conservative tactic". Saying that fusion technology will take a long time to mature is not some kind of thin-air assertion, or "tactic" - it is demonstrable fact. Our best shot at real fusion power is ITER - which is a 10 years into a 20 year project to
learn about fusion and get the basics working. Expect another 10 years
of updates and improvements to get a solid understanding of making it economically viable and understanding the consequences and handling of
waste material. Then it will be possible to start making the first experimental reactors that will actually generate power for the grid,
taking perhaps 15 years to design and build, after at least 5 to 10
years of political arguing about safety and budgets. At the most optimistic, that's maybe 40 years before fusion is actually producing
useful electricity, and perhaps 70 years before it is significant in the world's energy production.
There is always the outside chance that one of the many alternative
fusion ideas will actually work in practice and give breakthroughs significantly earlier (say, the 20-30 year timeframe). It's a small
chance, however. If you have the spare cash, then it's fine to bet some money on them - but not the future of the world.
I /have/ thought about it. I haven't naïvely swallowed the hype from
some little startup with a cool idea. Nor do I accept some fossil fuel supporters claims that there is no alternative and that new technology
will never happen.
So I fully support research into fusion - including the serious stuff
like ITER and NIF, and commercial attempts like HB11 and Helion Energy.
I am in favour of their work /now/, precisely because it will take
decades for the technology to mature.
I am in favour of thorium molten
salt reactors, because that will be workable in a much shorter
time-frame (10 - 15 years).
I am in favour of solar and wind, because
they are available now.
Imagining that someone will solve the world's energy needs in the next
few years with fusion shows no more understanding or thought than
imagining we should keep burning fossil fuels because fusion will never
work, fission is unsafe, and the sound of windmills causes cancer.
Connecting a PV array to the grid automatically changes the client to a
ToU tariff. So, if your array can't meet all of your needs (at the granularity
of the measuring system), you pay a BIG premium for the power you need to
import (even if you've exported enough to cover those needs as you are
reimbursed at a lower rate)
The local utility is forcing all consumers onto a ToU tariff, regardless of whether they have solar.
And, if your array is out of service (e.g., having repairs done or roof
maintenance), then any savings the array might have realized quickly evaporate.
Yes, definitely possible - that would possibly cost $5,000 or equivalent to one
year's consumption without solar.
We looked at the ToU tariff thinking we could easily shift our consumption >> to leverage any rate reductions. But, most of the cooling load (which is most
of the load!) happens during on-peak hours (3P-7P); and the rate is ~50% higher
per KWHr during those times. Hard to imagine the cost in comfort to appreciate
any real savings!
I run off batteries/solar during the peak time in summer.
I calculated the cost of the wear and tear on the battery is (very)
approximately $0.25/kWh.
So, if you have a surplus, it makes sense to make it available (even though
whether or not you have a buyer may be uncertain on any given day)
> What sort of capacity do you have and how easily do you "top it off"
> purely from solar?
I only have 27kWh of storage (2 Tesla Powerwall units). In the summer
I average 20-35kWh per day of surplus generated by solar. So if the
battery has discharged to 25% (own use plus any exported) in the
evening it can be fully recharged the next day.
We use about 25KWHr/day (it's not "hot" yet). So, would need to generate about 50KWHr daily to meet that sort of storage ability. Without resorting to
a tracking collector, I think we're limited to about 6.5 usable solar hours
daily. So, would need ~8KW from an array to "bank" that much.
Our usage is very similar (somewhat higher in peak summer - last July 4th we consumed ~70kWH).
The peak AC output of my solar array is 8.1kW - you made a very good estimate.
A couple of times there have been emergencies where there has only
been minutes of warning.
So, you could have a "standing offer" that they could avail themselves of? The rate of compensation doesn't vary with the severity of their *need*?
Currently the pricing is static for these residential energy storage systems but commercial ones do use dynamic pricing.
On 6/12/2025 6:28 PM, KevinJ93 wrote:<...>
And, if your array is out of service (e.g., having repairs done or roof
maintenance), then any savings the array might have realized quickly
evaporate.
Yes, definitely possible - that would possibly cost $5,000 or
equivalent to one year's consumption without solar.
Neighbor just had her roof replaced. Remove the panels. Replace the roof. Reinstall panels. Wait for inspection before going back online.
I've not asked her what the change in electric costs were (she is "lucky"
in that she could leave the house unoccupied during the day and just
hope it doesn't get TOO hot inside for the ACbrrrr to bring it back
to a livable temperature LONG AFTER she had returned home from work.)
We looked at the ToU tariff thinking we could easily shift our
consumption
to leverage any rate reductions. But, most of the cooling load
(which is most
of the load!) happens during on-peak hours (3P-7P); and the rate is
~50% higher
per KWHr during those times. Hard to imagine the cost in comfort to
appreciate
any real savings!
I run off batteries/solar during the peak time in summer.
It would be hard for us to do that for all of the time that
refrigeration is needed. E.g., it is now almost 1AM and it is
still 85F outside. It was 95 at 10PM. And 98 at 7PM.
110 this weekend.
Yes, definitely possible - that would possibly cost $5,000 or equivalent to >>> one year's consumption without solar.
Neighbor just had her roof replaced. Remove the panels. Replace the roof.
Reinstall panels. Wait for inspection before going back online.
I've not asked her what the change in electric costs were (she is "lucky"
in that she could leave the house unoccupied during the day and just
hope it doesn't get TOO hot inside for the ACbrrrr to bring it back
to a livable temperature LONG AFTER she had returned home from work.)
I don't see why the power to the house would be affected. The Solar array can be completely isolated from power. In fact around here it is required that there be a well-marked accessible isolating switch on the exterior of the building accessible to emergency personnel. There is also a separate isolating
switch for the battery system.
We looked at the ToU tariff thinking we could easily shift our consumption >>>> to leverage any rate reductions. But, most of the cooling load (which is most
of the load!) happens during on-peak hours (3P-7P); and the rate is ~50% >>>> higher
per KWHr during those times. Hard to imagine the cost in comfort to
appreciate
any real savings!
I run off batteries/solar during the peak time in summer.
It would be hard for us to do that for all of the time that
refrigeration is needed. E.g., it is now almost 1AM and it is
still 85F outside. It was 95 at 10PM. And 98 at 7PM.
110 this weekend.
When I say "peak time" I mean the peak tariff time which you said is 3pm to 7pm
- just four hours, during which there is probably a fair amount of solar as well so not completely off battery.
We have 6.5 useful solar hours. Likely something like 10-4. Peak usage
(for the utility) extends to 7P. I.e., refrigeration is in high demand
for the entire "peak rate period" (my numbers trying to demonstrate that
7PM isn't anywhere near the point where you could consider NOT using refrigeration -- so 3-7 most definitely would also have a heavy cooling demand)
On 6/10/25 00:09, bitrex wrote:
On 6/9/2025 2:37 PM, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
On 6/9/25 17:34, bitrex wrote:
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>> wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>>> wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street >>>>>>> Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to >>>>>>> persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-
blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?
st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In >>>>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of >>>>>> leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Joe
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were
claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's
energy profile but I guess when they find out Spain was running 73%
one afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up
trying to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been
nothing but broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already.
Fission works fine, although admittedly it's getting bogged down by
regulations and its reputation has suffered from some extensively
publicized accidents. Nuclear hasn't caused even close to as many
fatalities as has coal. France runs on nuclear power and it's doing
fine.
It's fusion that has failed to live up to its promises.
Renewables can be made to work, but need to learn to play well in
the existing infrastructure and need some kind of backup which
makes it more expensive.
Jeroen Belleman
<https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2023/03/26/how-much-water-do-french-nuclear-plants-use_6020697_114.html>
Some global-warming denialists seem to have come around to the idea of
"Well it's happening, but it doesn't matter" but how fresh water
resources will go _up_ with less and less snowfall and less and less
snowpack every year is anyone's guess.
It works "fine" if one buys the BS that other than the lil waste problem
it's earth-friendly low-impact technology. It isn't it's hugely
water-hungry, and uranium mining only gets dirtier the more of it you
extract.
The water consumption isn't particular to nuclear power. Whatever
the source of the heat that runs the turbines, you'll need to cool
the condensers at the other end.
The nuclear waste problem is a political problem, not a technical
one.
Any large scale power technology is going to have problems. Those
can be minimized, but it will always be a trade-off between cost
and nuisance.
Jeroen Belleman
On 6/12/2025 6:36 PM, KevinJ93 wrote:
I calculated the cost of the wear and tear on the battery is (very)
approximately $0.25/kWh.
So, if you have a surplus, it makes sense to make it available (even though
whether or not you have a buyer may be uncertain on any given day)
What sort of capacity do you have and how easily do you "top it off" >> >> > purely from solar?
I only have 27kWh of storage (2 Tesla Powerwall units). In the summer
I average 20-35kWh per day of surplus generated by solar. So if the
battery has discharged to 25% (own use plus any exported) in the
evening it can be fully recharged the next day.
We use about 25KWHr/day (it's not "hot" yet). So, would need to generate >> > about 50KWHr daily to meet that sort of storage ability. Without
resorting to
a tracking collector, I think we're limited to about 6.5 usable solar hours
daily. So, would need ~8KW from an array to "bank" that much.
Our usage is very similar (somewhat higher in peak summer - last July 4th we >> consumed ~70kWH).
Our daily *average* will approach that (about 65KWHr) once it gets hot.
Or humid. (Or both). So, 50KWHr won't even meet our daily needs
(assuming we could bank it without having to take a loss using
the grid as that bank)
In article <1028rh1$14rjn$2@dont-email.me>,
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 6/10/25 00:09, bitrex wrote:
On 6/9/2025 2:37 PM, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
On 6/9/25 17:34, bitrex wrote:
On 6/9/2025 10:14 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:Fission works fine, although admittedly it's getting bogged down by
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> >>>>>> wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> >>>>>>> wrote:
The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street >>>>>>>> Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
Here is a gift link. No paywall, but they will insist on trying to >>>>>>>> persuade you to subscribe.
.<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-
blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?
st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
Joe
What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning >>>>>>> mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
afternoons.
Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and >>>>>>> batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In >>>>>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of >>>>>>> leaky roofs.
Yep. And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
attractive.
Joe
I remember not too long ago when the climate-change deniers were
claiming renewables could never be a significant part of a country's >>>>> energy profile but I guess when they find out Spain was running 73%
one afternoon they have to change their argument, lol.
Just goalpost-shifting forever.
Better question is will the fission nuclear industry ever give up
trying to push their obsolete pointless technology that has been
nothing but broken promises for 75 years. It's over give up, already. >>>>
regulations and its reputation has suffered from some extensively
publicized accidents. Nuclear hasn't caused even close to as many
fatalities as has coal. France runs on nuclear power and it's doing
fine.
It's fusion that has failed to live up to its promises.
Renewables can be made to work, but need to learn to play well in
the existing infrastructure and need some kind of backup which
makes it more expensive.
Jeroen Belleman
<https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2023/03/26/how-much-water-do-french-nuclear-plants-use_6020697_114.html>
Some global-warming denialists seem to have come around to the idea of
"Well it's happening, but it doesn't matter" but how fresh water
resources will go _up_ with less and less snowfall and less and less
snowpack every year is anyone's guess.
It works "fine" if one buys the BS that other than the lil waste problem >>> it's earth-friendly low-impact technology. It isn't it's hugely
water-hungry, and uranium mining only gets dirtier the more of it you
extract.
The water consumption isn't particular to nuclear power. Whatever
the source of the heat that runs the turbines, you'll need to cool
the condensers at the other end.
The Chinese have invested in thorium power plants. They are more
expensive, but they extract energy at a much higher temperature.
There are technical difficulties but they have overcome them
relatively fast.
There is one in the Gobi desert, and it is practical without
requiring too much water.
Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
We have 6.5 useful solar hours. Likely something like 10-4. Peak usage
(for the utility) extends to 7P. I.e., refrigeration is in high demand
for the entire "peak rate period" (my numbers trying to demonstrate that
7PM isn't anywhere near the point where you could consider NOT using
refrigeration -- so 3-7 most definitely would also have a heavy cooling
demand)
Is there any way you could 'store cold' rather than electricity? Use a solar-powered heat pump during the hours of sunshine to cool a large
tank of water, then reverse the the pump , which could be powered by a relatively small battery and inverter, to run water-cooled air
conditioning during darkness. (A DC powered electric motor on the heat
pump might be even more efficient - just remember to replace the brushes regularly.)
That way you could take your biggest load off-grid entirely.
On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 01:03:01 -0700, Don Y
<blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
On 6/12/2025 6:36 PM, KevinJ93 wrote:
>> I calculated the cost of the wear and tear on the battery is (very) >>> >> approximately $0.25/kWh.
>
> So, if you have a surplus, it makes sense to make it available (even though
> whether or not you have a buyer may be uncertain on any given day)
>
>> > What sort of capacity do you have and how easily do you "top it off"
>> > purely from solar?
>>
>> I only have 27kWh of storage (2 Tesla Powerwall units). In the summer >>> >> I average 20-35kWh per day of surplus generated by solar. So if the >>> >> battery has discharged to 25% (own use plus any exported) in the
>> evening it can be fully recharged the next day.
>
> We use about 25KWHr/day (it's not "hot" yet). So, would need to generate
> about 50KWHr daily to meet that sort of storage ability. Without
> resorting to
> a tracking collector, I think we're limited to about 6.5 usable solar hours
> daily. So, would need ~8KW from an array to "bank" that much.
Our usage is very similar (somewhat higher in peak summer - last July 4th we
consumed ~70kWH).
Our daily *average* will approach that (about 65KWHr) once it gets hot.
Or humid. (Or both). So, 50KWHr won't even meet our daily needs
(assuming we could bank it without having to take a loss using
the grid as that bank)
We leave the gas heat on all year... never touch the thermostat.
Most all the world wants a/c, and wants to keep the windows closed and
the mosquitoes out. Air conditioning 9 billion people is going to take
a lot of power.
On 13/06/2025 11:02 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
We have 6.5 useful solar hours. Likely something like 10-4. Peak usage >> (for the utility) extends to 7P. I.e., refrigeration is in high demand
for the entire "peak rate period" (my numbers trying to demonstrate that >> 7PM isn't anywhere near the point where you could consider NOT using
refrigeration -- so 3-7 most definitely would also have a heavy cooling
demand)
Is there any way you could 'store cold' rather than electricity? Use a solar-powered heat pump during the hours of sunshine to cool a large
tank of water, then reverse the the pump , which could be powered by a relatively small battery and inverter, to run water-cooled air
conditioning during darkness. (A DC powered electric motor on the heat pump might be even more efficient - just remember to replace the brushes regularly.)
That way you could take your biggest load off-grid entirely.
Why bother? Storing the power in a "power wall" style battery does
exactly the same job, with fewer intermediate stages to waste power
along the way.
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 13/06/2025 11:02 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
We have 6.5 useful solar hours. Likely something like 10-4. Peak usage >>>> (for the utility) extends to 7P. I.e., refrigeration is in high demand >>>> for the entire "peak rate period" (my numbers trying to demonstrate that >>>> 7PM isn't anywhere near the point where you could consider NOT using
refrigeration -- so 3-7 most definitely would also have a heavy cooling >>>> demand)
Is there any way you could 'store cold' rather than electricity? Use a
solar-powered heat pump during the hours of sunshine to cool a large
tank of water, then reverse the the pump , which could be powered by a
relatively small battery and inverter, to run water-cooled air
conditioning during darkness. (A DC powered electric motor on the heat
pump might be even more efficient - just remember to replace the brushes >>> regularly.)
That way you could take your biggest load off-grid entirely.
Why bother? Storing the power in a "power wall" style battery does
exactly the same job, with fewer intermediate stages to waste power
along the way.
The storage of energy (in this case below ambient) in a tank of water is
a lot less environmentally damaging than batteries of any kind and water-cooled air conditioning is more efficient than air-cooled.
On 6/13/2025 2:18 AM, KevinJ93 wrote:
Yes, definitely possible - that would possibly cost $5,000 or
equivalent to one year's consumption without solar.
Neighbor just had her roof replaced. Remove the panels. Replace the
roof.
Reinstall panels. Wait for inspection before going back online.
I've not asked her what the change in electric costs were (she is
"lucky"
in that she could leave the house unoccupied during the day and just
hope it doesn't get TOO hot inside for the ACbrrrr to bring it back
to a livable temperature LONG AFTER she had returned home from work.)
I don't see why the power to the house would be affected. The Solar
array can be completely isolated from power. In fact around here it is
required that there be a well-marked accessible isolating switch on
the exterior of the building accessible to emergency personnel. There
is also a separate isolating switch for the battery system.
The panels had to be removed from the roof (typically, the only place where installation is supported) in order for the roof to be replaced (re- shingled).
From that moment -- until the inspector re-approved the reconnection of
the panels -- she was operating entirely on utility provided power (because her panels were in storage!) ... yet still on the ToU tariff. I.e., the entire reinstallation of the panels had to be re-approved before being allowed
back into service whereby she could begin generating some of her own power.
We looked at the ToU tariff thinking we could easily shift our
consumption
to leverage any rate reductions. But, most of the cooling load
(which is most
of the load!) happens during on-peak hours (3P-7P); and the rate is
~50% higher
per KWHr during those times. Hard to imagine the cost in comfort
to appreciate
any real savings!
I run off batteries/solar during the peak time in summer.
It would be hard for us to do that for all of the time that
refrigeration is needed. E.g., it is now almost 1AM and it is
still 85F outside. It was 95 at 10PM. And 98 at 7PM.
110 this weekend.
When I say "peak time" I mean the peak tariff time which you said is
3pm to 7pm - just four hours, during which there is probably a fair
amount of solar as well so not completely off battery.
We have 6.5 useful solar hours. Likely something like 10-4. Peak usage (for the utility) extends to 7P. I.e., refrigeration is in high demand
for the entire "peak rate period" (my numbers trying to demonstrate that
7PM isn't anywhere near the point where you could consider NOT using refrigeration -- so 3-7 most definitely would also have a heavy cooling demand)
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 13/06/2025 11:02 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
We have 6.5 useful solar hours. Likely something like 10-4. Peak usage >> >> (for the utility) extends to 7P. I.e., refrigeration is in high demand >> >> for the entire "peak rate period" (my numbers trying to demonstrate that >> >> 7PM isn't anywhere near the point where you could consider NOT using
refrigeration -- so 3-7 most definitely would also have a heavy cooling >> >> demand)
Is there any way you could 'store cold' rather than electricity? Use a
solar-powered heat pump during the hours of sunshine to cool a large
tank of water, then reverse the the pump , which could be powered by a
relatively small battery and inverter, to run water-cooled air
conditioning during darkness. (A DC powered electric motor on the heat
pump might be even more efficient - just remember to replace the brushes >> > regularly.)
That way you could take your biggest load off-grid entirely.
Why bother? Storing the power in a "power wall" style battery does
exactly the same job, with fewer intermediate stages to waste power
along the way.
The storage of energy (in this case below ambient) in a tank of water is
a lot less environmentally damaging than batteries of any kind and >water-cooled air conditioning is more efficient than air-cooled.
The water consumption isn't particular to nuclear power. Whatever the
source of the heat that runs the turbines, you'll need to cool the
condensers at the other end.
The Chinese have invested in thorium power plants. They are more
expensive, but they extract energy at a much higher temperature.
There are technical difficulties but they have overcome them relatively
fast.
There is one in the Gobi desert, and it is practical without requiring
too much water.
Yes, thorium proponents keep saying that. The fact is that if you cool
the condensers less, you'll get less electricity out.
It will be the economics of the process that will decide how much
effort to put into that. Current PWRs divert a sizable river's worth of water. I expect thorium reactors to end up doing the same.
Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
We have 6.5 useful solar hours. Likely something like 10-4. Peak usage
(for the utility) extends to 7P. I.e., refrigeration is in high demand
for the entire "peak rate period" (my numbers trying to demonstrate that
7PM isn't anywhere near the point where you could consider NOT using
refrigeration -- so 3-7 most definitely would also have a heavy cooling
demand)
Is there any way you could 'store cold' rather than electricity? Use a solar-powered heat pump during the hours of sunshine to cool a large
tank of water, then reverse the the pump , which could be powered by a relatively small battery and inverter, to run water-cooled air
conditioning during darkness. (A DC powered electric motor on the heat
pump might be even more efficient - just remember to replace the brushes regularly.)
That way you could take your biggest load off-grid entirely.
I don't see why the power to the house would be affected. The Solar array >>> can be completely isolated from power. In fact around here it is required >>> that there be a well-marked accessible isolating switch on the exterior of >>> the building accessible to emergency personnel. There is also a separate >>> isolating switch for the battery system.
The panels had to be removed from the roof (typically, the only place where >> installation is supported) in order for the roof to be replaced (re- shingled).
From that moment -- until the inspector re-approved the reconnection of
the panels -- she was operating entirely on utility provided power (because >> her panels were in storage!) ... yet still on the ToU tariff. I.e., the
entire reinstallation of the panels had to be re-approved before being allowed
back into service whereby she could begin generating some of her own power.
Aah, I read your previous statement as the power to the whole house was turned
off, rather than just disabling solar.
Regarding the re-approval required, the US is renown for excessive red-tape in
permitting. It seems to be that the US costs about twice as much as any other western country to install solar just because of the bureaucracy involved. The
re-approval requirements will vary depending on your locality.
I have never done it here in California but I had heard some cities are a lot worse than others. They also add installation requirements locally that go beyond the statewide rules. I had to add a fire detector over the batteries that was tied into the house alarm system.
On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 16:46:19 +0100, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
The storage of energy (in this case below ambient) in a tank of water is
a lot less environmentally damaging than batteries of any kind and
water-cooled air conditioning is more efficient than air-cooled.
Water is great stuff. It's cheap and has a huge specific heat.
I'm planning on adding ~3KW of "off grid" solar and will be curious to
see how much resistance I meet!
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 13/06/2025 11:02 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
Is there any way you could 'store cold' rather than electricity? Use a
solar-powered heat pump during the hours of sunshine to cool a large
tank of water, then reverse the the pump , which could be powered by a
relatively small battery and inverter, to run water-cooled air
conditioning during darkness. (A DC powered electric motor on the heat
pump might be even more efficient - just remember to replace the brushes >>> regularly.)
That way you could take your biggest load off-grid entirely.
Why bother? Storing the power in a "power wall" style battery does
exactly the same job, with fewer intermediate stages to waste power
along the way.
The storage of energy (in this case below ambient) in a tank of water is
a lot less environmentally damaging than batteries of any kind and water-cooled air conditioning is more efficient than air-cooled.
On 2025-06-13 19:27, john larkin wrote:
On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 16:46:19 +0100, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
...
The storage of energy (in this case below ambient) in a tank of water is >>> a lot less environmentally damaging than batteries of any kind and
water-cooled air conditioning is more efficient than air-cooled.
Water is great stuff. It's cheap and has a huge specific heat.
Huh. It is not cheap everywhere. It is scarce, thus expensive, precisely
in hot places.
On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 21:20:30 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
<robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-06-13 19:27, john larkin wrote:
On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 16:46:19 +0100, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
...
The storage of energy (in this case below ambient) in a tank of water is >>>> a lot less environmentally damaging than batteries of any kind and
water-cooled air conditioning is more efficient than air-cooled.
Water is great stuff. It's cheap and has a huge specific heat.
Huh. It is not cheap everywhere. It is scarce, thus expensive, precisely
in hot places.
You only have to fill a heat dump tank once and there's no evaportion.
A fraction of what a swimming pool or a lawn needs.
Some people use thousands of gallons per day on their lawns, and then
have to cut and poison and fertilize them. I hate lawns.
On 6/13/2025 10:07 AM, KevinJ93 wrote:
I don't see why the power to the house would be affected. The Solar
array can be completely isolated from power. In fact around here it
is required that there be a well-marked accessible isolating switch
on the exterior of the building accessible to emergency personnel.
There is also a separate isolating switch for the battery system.
The panels had to be removed from the roof (typically, the only place
where
installation is supported) in order for the roof to be replaced (re-
shingled).
From that moment -- until the inspector re-approved the reconnection of >>> the panels -- she was operating entirely on utility provided power
(because
her panels were in storage!) ... yet still on the ToU tariff. I.e., the >>> entire reinstallation of the panels had to be re-approved before
being allowed
back into service whereby she could begin generating some of her own
power.
Aah, I read your previous statement as the power to the whole house
was turned off, rather than just disabling solar.
I think they can just pull the meter to disconnect the array. But,
if you need to replace the roof material, you also have to remove the
panels (likely not something that they will let a DIYer do?) and,
later, reinstall them.
Amusingly, the roof is supposed to be inspected prior to installing
the array. The array was installed 12 months ago (maybe 14?). So,
the roof magically degraded in that short time? (more likely,
they blessed it as being "OK" to allow the solar *SALE* to be made!)
Regarding the re-approval required, the US is renown for excessive
red-tape in permitting. It seems to be that the US costs about twice
as much as any other western country to install solar just because of
the bureaucracy involved. The re-approval requirements will vary
depending on your locality.
Yes. They have tried to streamline this, here. E.g., permits for
roof mounted solar are only $25 (I think). OTOH, installing on
any other structure requires architectural drawings, electrical
approvals, etc.
In most areas, The Inspector is God. And, can't be held accountable
for anything (short of negligence resulting in loss). So, get a guy
who's wife slept on her stomach the night before and you're screwed...
And, the public utility wants a say (allegedly to ensure there isn't too
much solar in an area).
I'm planning on adding ~3KW of "off grid" solar and will be curious to
see how much resistance I meet!
I have never done it here in California but I had heard some cities
are a lot worse than others. They also add installation requirements
locally that go beyond the statewide rules. I had to add a fire
detector over the batteries that was tied into the house alarm system.
I recall trying to get guidance for smoke and CO detector installation.
I.e., areas to AVOID, where prohibited, where required, etc. Not even
the local fire department could provide answers!
I think they can just pull the meter to disconnect the array. But,
if you need to replace the roof material, you also have to remove the
panels (likely not something that they will let a DIYer do?) and,
later, reinstall them.
There will always be a separate circuit breaker in the electrical panel for the
solar. If there isn't a solar isolator as I'm required to do here then just flip the circuit breaker.
As far as I know removing the panels can be done by anybody here - reinstalling
may require an electrician or other certified person (they have 2 or 3 grades here that are approved).
On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 16:46:19 +0100, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
(Liz Tuddenham) wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
On 13/06/2025 11:02 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
Is there any way you could 'store cold' rather than electricity? Use a >>>> solar-powered heat pump during the hours of sunshine to cool a large
tank of water, then reverse the the pump , which could be powered by a >>>> relatively small battery and inverter, to run water-cooled air
conditioning during darkness. (A DC powered electric motor on the heat >>>> pump might be even more efficient - just remember to replace the brushes >>>> regularly.)
That way you could take your biggest load off-grid entirely.
Why bother? Storing the power in a "power wall" style battery does
exactly the same job, with fewer intermediate stages to waste power
along the way.
The storage of energy (in this case below ambient) in a tank of water is
a lot less environmentally damaging than batteries of any kind and
water-cooled air conditioning is more efficient than air-cooled.
Water is great stuff. It's cheap and has a huge specific heat.
Imagine two tanks and a heat pump between. Heat one tank and cool the
other.
Electricity will need to get more expensive to make things like that practical, but it will.
Probably the best long-term residential investment now is insulation
and white roofs.
Maybe Sloman can describe his solar panels and batteries and his
electric car with grid storage.
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