Comments for Climate Etc.

Rud -- I agree with everything you said, but is Davis Swan's use of the phrase preference for renewables appropriate? Isn't this preference just an economic dispatch working from lowest to higher operating cost, irrespective of the type of generation?

1063GtCO2 = 137ppm (assuming 7.75GtCO2 / ppm)

So the airborne fraction is 53%

Whoa. Can they turn their nuclear power back on? That would solve a lot of the problems this post points out.

I actually don’t know the mechanisms used in every jurisdiction. In Alberta all wind production is accepted into the grid but must take the “market” price which can be very close to zero. In most of the U.S. wind will win the merit order because wind producers can and do bid at low or even negative prices because of the PTC. In Denmark and Germany wind is not normally curtailed which tells me it has first call on the grid – could be just economic but I think there is more to it than that. You should check out Paul-Frederik’s blog and reach out to him if you are interested in details regarding Europe. http://www.pfbach.dk/

Davis, thanks but unless you can refer to something specific I will conclude that the only preference is for the lowest cost economic dispatch on a grid.

aplanningengineer, is it too soon to ask you for a status report regarding any impacts SB 350 and Governor Brown’s executive order concerning climate change may have had so far on how California is going about doing its power reliability planning activities?

I am particularly interested in what changes the California ISO is making to its organizational structure, to its own internal project priorities, and to its policies and procedures now that it is chartered to promote the adoption of renewable energy resources throughout the western United States.

Rud:

New CCGT flexes very nicely between 40% load at 58% thermal efficiency to 100%load at 61% efficiency. That flexibility much reduces the need for spinning reserves and gas peakers.

Thanks for that info.

Maunder solar minimum and the Little Ice Age (reborn after getting slayed by prolific Dr. Mann). Is there a relationship between a number of sunspots and the solar energy output?

There is a relationship between the more snowfall in all the warm periods and the cold periods that always follow.

Germany is too green for that. My German friend sent me a very angry email when I dared to dispute Catastrophic “facts”. I can’t imagine German public voting to restart the nukes; tsunami danger. I remember vividly that California voters demanded a cheap car insurance, but somehow it has never happened.

Stephen Segrest:

If a utility is required to achieve a certain percentage of renewable supply would you consider that to be something other than economic dispatch working?

O du mein Energiewende,
w/out King Coal you’re in a bind,
mein friend.

I can’t speak for all of the UK but here in the west the power generator has placed a moratorium of three years or so on accepting new power from renewables onto the system because they can’t cope with their special requirements

http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Grid-power-renewable-schemes/story-26265486-detail/story.html

Tonyb

@1:09 Michael Shermer and Lisa Randall discus AGW. @1:12 Shermer falsely blurts out that Germany gets over half its energy from renewables. Randall soberly points out that they are using more coal:

Davis Swan, electricity in the US is generated by burning mainly coal and natural gas. We are not running out of either any time soon (hundreds of years) and they are both relatively cheap. Germany may be a different story. You would think that a country with a physicist as head of state would be able to make more intelligent decisions than they have made so far.

I’m all for R&D to come up with cost effective energy alternatives for numerous reasons, but neither CO2 reduction nor running out of hydrocarbons (except oil which is not used to generate electricity in the US) are on my list.

It’s comforting to know there may be a flip flop wearing German in a pink robe somewhere in Germany, warming his feet by a gas fireplace, contemplating a photocopy of this blog on some cold winter night, by the light of a 14-watt compact fluorescent bulb powered by a ~square meter of solar panel and associated storage and inverter devices.

Beta Blocker,

We can ask Gov. Jerry “moonbeam” Brown when he gets back from Paris. I wonder who is paying for the trip.

More knee-jerk fantasy.

Do you really think you can flood a canyon in the Sierra Nevada anymore? Planning for Helms began in 1970 and construction began in 1977. In 30 days it will be 2016.

Note to mein Geschäftsführer: an atom of uranium-235 has 50 million times more energy than is obtained by burning up an atom of carbon.

Alberto,

Looks as though the Warmists have rediscovered Nature! I wonder if they’ll claim it as their intellectual property?

Who know what else they may find, if they look around?

Cheers.

Opluso -- I know of no economic dispatch operations (either with utility or ISO) that requires a certain percentage of electricity on the grid to be from Renewables. An Economic Dispatch stacks from lowest cost to highest cost.

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