What a tragedy that the gas Luddites are able to muster regulatory support. Every year electrification is delayed, is a nail in the earth’s coffin. Thanks for the interesting post.
This is conflating different issues: Grid reliability, electrical generation expansion, and the mix of different types of electrical generation.
I agree with most of what Robert writes. But the 'chicken little' screeching about not being able to expand electrical generation capacity quickly or ensure grid reliability is disproved by Robert's home state of Texas.
Texas has grown it’s electrical grid by 40% over the past 18 years to accommodate the millions of people moving here from ‘blue’ states. In the past 5 years alone, Texas installed capacity to the power grid has increased 24%.
Texas did it with natural gas, wind, and solar. Coal is phasing out. Implying or outright asserting we can’t grow the grid quickly enough is not supported by the facts. (yes, we did experience the ‘snowpocolypse’ in February of 2021 (Winter Storm Uri), but that was a crisis of lack of winterizing the grid, not lack of generating capacity. Texas has made great progress in hardening the grid.)
How the Texas power grid is changing, according to 6 charts (houstonchronicle.com)
Electrical generation, grid reliability, and electrical generation mix (natural gas, coal, nuclear, solar, wind, hydroelectric, biomass, etc) are matters of political will, not matters of science.
Texas has succeeded by adding massive amounts of natural gas AND wind power to its grid over the past 2 decades, all while shutting down many coal-fired plants. And my cost per kWh in Fort Worth is just 9¢/kWh vs. 32¢/kWh in California. Right now, a new residential contract for 2 years of fixed rate electicity is $11¢/kWh in Texas: https://powertochoose.org
With the growth of huge battery packs (ie Tesla Megapacks) for storing wind and solar energy, the grid can easily grow using natural gas, wind, and solar as baseloads. We've just now reached the start of massive battery production for storing wind and solar. Five years from now, no one will be talking about 'unreliable' wind and solar.
Nuclear as a baseload is great, but until the regulatory dogs are called off, and until a standardized, mass-produced fission unit is agreed upon, nuclear is not feasible.
Growing generation capacity with wind, solar, and natural gas has been Texas' recipe. Texas will continue to grow capacity and grid reliability with that same mix. Don't let the fear mongers on the left or right fool you.
Spent a month in Arizona chilling, relaxing, getting some sun and warmth for my old bones and getting away from -30 weather. My home base after landing in Phoenix was Ehrenberg which is a short 10 minutes drive from the California state border via Hwy 10 the main arterial highway between Phoenix and California. My friend and I stayed close to Ehrenberg except for a one trip to: Yuma to check out Alcodones, Palm Desert to go to the Apple Store for phone repairs, Parker to hit Walmart & have drinks at the Desert Bar and lastly Oatman to experience the old Mining/Cowboy town and it’s famous Burrows and bed races.
Wait, it's coming....
I was amazed, mesmerized and then baffled by the amount of Semi-truck traffic I witnessed between Ehrenberg and the cities we travelled to the month of January 2024. On one of the last trips into Quartzite, I decided that besides having already videoed the semi traffic a few times during other trips, I would actually ‘count’ Semi’s. The thought didn’t come to me until we were well on our way, but I did count 218 by the turn off to Ehrenberg, which is a total distance of 12 miles if you count the entire trip.
However, I started counting well into our drive and counted 218 semi’s in say 10 miles! If they were to be all electric and all stop as some point to ‘plug in’ how would this work on the electrical grid. Keep in mind the traffic is going in both directions, I counted traffic coming towards us not both ways.)
The truck stops and rest stops have room for 50 trucks.....
Is this not crazy scary? Over 400 semi’s going both ways in a 10 mile stretch. It was also after 6 pm late afternoon and already dark.
So if there are 200 semi’s for every 10 miles of Hwy between Pheonix and California, and they all become ELECTRIC, where is the power coming from.
It is 150 miles from Pheonix and California. 150 /10 = 15 blocks of 10m miles; X 200 semis, 3000 trucks travelling one way between Phoenix and California; at that 10 mile time period!!. How would all 6000 trucks (moving both ways) all plug in to the electrical system each night or when required. This is one stretch of Hwy between two States.
I am not sure how one would do the math for every major highway artery between cities in the US to calculate the truck numbers and I won’t even attempt to suggest it could be done. But, or so it would seem impossible to calculate the power the required through out the US to compensate for the electrification of semi truck travel.
I conclude it is mathematically impossible. It’s all lies and rubbish. It is just not going to happen, Not in my life time.
Time for the two biggest ‘movers of goods’, Walmart and Amazon to speak the truth !!
PS: It pretty warm in Arizona…try moving goods via electric semi-truck in cold weather states during winter ?
The recent cold snap here in western canada shows how useless the renewables are, at night and below -30c no solar and no wind, the virtue propellers are turned off to prevent catastrophic failure.
Now that the climate/insane have tied themselves down claiming that co2 emissions also cause breakouts of polar air, an idiotic thought, we now know these will become more common where there are zero renewables available for a long period
"If climate change means we are facing more extreme weather of all types, the last thing we should do is make our grid more dependent on the weather."
This is the best sentence I have ever read on the lunacy of the netzero movement. You have destroyed their argument in one sentence. If only they were smart enough to realize it. But facts & common sense aren't part of their narrative, so let the circular firing squads continue to operate. FANTASTIC post! 🤘😎🤘
Obviously the grid needs to be upgraded also. Thus blog post and the generally admiring comments seem to ignore the climate crisis. If we don’t wean ourselves off of gas for heating buildings, along with other steps (greening the grid, electrifying transportation, etc) what would be your plan for mitigating the climate crisis?
How anyone that is cooking professionally can sit idly by in these circumstances is distressing. The sheer inefficiency of carrying "heat" over electrical wires is retarded. And then to assert that these appliances are a better alternative, which they are already claiming, is just another Rocky Mountain High fabrication. Pissing on the sunk costs of having the most reliable gas distribution system on the planet is on a par with Germany proudly destroying its nuclear fleet. How these people feel empowered to ruin the well being of their neighbors is jaw dropping. And, of course, just to make it all more laughable, electricity in California depends massively on natural gas. (47%) Luckily we've driven out all of our in-state production of hydrocarbons and nearly eliminated our safest form of energy, better known as nuclear, so we can all sleep much better knowing we are fighting the "good for nothing" fight. Our kids already feel like we've "destroyed" their world by being selfish, wait till they figure out we actually destroyed their world by being foolish.
Our current (pun intended!) electric grid is just one EMP away from a National Disaster. Look around where you live! Those transmission substations behind the chain-link fences take years to build once the designs are finalized. You don't just go buy those transformers at a hardware store.
ONE EMP will take out several of those in a given radius, depending on the nature of the device targeting a given location. It'll take months, maybe years to rebuild what was destroyed in a moment.
Putting our entire economic well-being in one "basket" of energy supply is suicidal. Heck even now when it gets cold the current grid is stressed just short of failure. It was years ago when a single squirrel put the lights out over the entire northeast for several hours. Can't charge your EV 'cause the power's been disrupted? Tough luck!
The ‘electrify everything’ dark money people want to destroy America. They are all smart enough to know what that will do to our grid. They also know wind and solar are unreliable. Question is. Why are they doing this?
god forbid we actually INVEST in a clean power infrastructure. Ooooh electrification dark money? Can you spell projection propaganda and hypocrisy? Only the fossil fuel stakeholders are pure as the driven snow, pristine in their concern for the well-being of the masses? Don’t be stupid.
Y'all parrot O&G propaganda without thinking, lol
Modern appliances burning NG at point of use lose about 15% of the energy up the flue.
Converting NG to electricity loses about 20% up the stack and 50% out the cooling tower - 70% wasted before it even leaves the plant site.
Really^4 dumb!!
Does anyone remember when the government was supposed to serve the people, rather than manage us? Thank heavens we still have the courts.
What a tragedy that the gas Luddites are able to muster regulatory support. Every year electrification is delayed, is a nail in the earth’s coffin. Thanks for the interesting post.
This is conflating different issues: Grid reliability, electrical generation expansion, and the mix of different types of electrical generation.
I agree with most of what Robert writes. But the 'chicken little' screeching about not being able to expand electrical generation capacity quickly or ensure grid reliability is disproved by Robert's home state of Texas.
Texas has grown it’s electrical grid by 40% over the past 18 years to accommodate the millions of people moving here from ‘blue’ states. In the past 5 years alone, Texas installed capacity to the power grid has increased 24%.
Texas did it with natural gas, wind, and solar. Coal is phasing out. Implying or outright asserting we can’t grow the grid quickly enough is not supported by the facts. (yes, we did experience the ‘snowpocolypse’ in February of 2021 (Winter Storm Uri), but that was a crisis of lack of winterizing the grid, not lack of generating capacity. Texas has made great progress in hardening the grid.)
How the Texas power grid is changing, according to 6 charts (houstonchronicle.com)
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/power-grid-change-charts-18561690.php
Electrical generation, grid reliability, and electrical generation mix (natural gas, coal, nuclear, solar, wind, hydroelectric, biomass, etc) are matters of political will, not matters of science.
Texas has succeeded by adding massive amounts of natural gas AND wind power to its grid over the past 2 decades, all while shutting down many coal-fired plants. And my cost per kWh in Fort Worth is just 9¢/kWh vs. 32¢/kWh in California. Right now, a new residential contract for 2 years of fixed rate electicity is $11¢/kWh in Texas: https://powertochoose.org
With the growth of huge battery packs (ie Tesla Megapacks) for storing wind and solar energy, the grid can easily grow using natural gas, wind, and solar as baseloads. We've just now reached the start of massive battery production for storing wind and solar. Five years from now, no one will be talking about 'unreliable' wind and solar.
Nuclear as a baseload is great, but until the regulatory dogs are called off, and until a standardized, mass-produced fission unit is agreed upon, nuclear is not feasible.
Growing generation capacity with wind, solar, and natural gas has been Texas' recipe. Texas will continue to grow capacity and grid reliability with that same mix. Don't let the fear mongers on the left or right fool you.
Spent a month in Arizona chilling, relaxing, getting some sun and warmth for my old bones and getting away from -30 weather. My home base after landing in Phoenix was Ehrenberg which is a short 10 minutes drive from the California state border via Hwy 10 the main arterial highway between Phoenix and California. My friend and I stayed close to Ehrenberg except for a one trip to: Yuma to check out Alcodones, Palm Desert to go to the Apple Store for phone repairs, Parker to hit Walmart & have drinks at the Desert Bar and lastly Oatman to experience the old Mining/Cowboy town and it’s famous Burrows and bed races.
Wait, it's coming....
I was amazed, mesmerized and then baffled by the amount of Semi-truck traffic I witnessed between Ehrenberg and the cities we travelled to the month of January 2024. On one of the last trips into Quartzite, I decided that besides having already videoed the semi traffic a few times during other trips, I would actually ‘count’ Semi’s. The thought didn’t come to me until we were well on our way, but I did count 218 by the turn off to Ehrenberg, which is a total distance of 12 miles if you count the entire trip.
However, I started counting well into our drive and counted 218 semi’s in say 10 miles! If they were to be all electric and all stop as some point to ‘plug in’ how would this work on the electrical grid. Keep in mind the traffic is going in both directions, I counted traffic coming towards us not both ways.)
The truck stops and rest stops have room for 50 trucks.....
Is this not crazy scary? Over 400 semi’s going both ways in a 10 mile stretch. It was also after 6 pm late afternoon and already dark.
So if there are 200 semi’s for every 10 miles of Hwy between Pheonix and California, and they all become ELECTRIC, where is the power coming from.
It is 150 miles from Pheonix and California. 150 /10 = 15 blocks of 10m miles; X 200 semis, 3000 trucks travelling one way between Phoenix and California; at that 10 mile time period!!. How would all 6000 trucks (moving both ways) all plug in to the electrical system each night or when required. This is one stretch of Hwy between two States.
I am not sure how one would do the math for every major highway artery between cities in the US to calculate the truck numbers and I won’t even attempt to suggest it could be done. But, or so it would seem impossible to calculate the power the required through out the US to compensate for the electrification of semi truck travel.
I conclude it is mathematically impossible. It’s all lies and rubbish. It is just not going to happen, Not in my life time.
Time for the two biggest ‘movers of goods’, Walmart and Amazon to speak the truth !!
PS: It pretty warm in Arizona…try moving goods via electric semi-truck in cold weather states during winter ?
The recent cold snap here in western canada shows how useless the renewables are, at night and below -30c no solar and no wind, the virtue propellers are turned off to prevent catastrophic failure.
Now that the climate/insane have tied themselves down claiming that co2 emissions also cause breakouts of polar air, an idiotic thought, we now know these will become more common where there are zero renewables available for a long period
The forces pushing a "green energy transition" are distracting us from what we really need, which is an energy *reduction* transition.
"If climate change means we are facing more extreme weather of all types, the last thing we should do is make our grid more dependent on the weather."
This is the best sentence I have ever read on the lunacy of the netzero movement. You have destroyed their argument in one sentence. If only they were smart enough to realize it. But facts & common sense aren't part of their narrative, so let the circular firing squads continue to operate. FANTASTIC post! 🤘😎🤘
Big decision by the 9th circuit. I’m surprised I’ve seen zilch about this in traditional media… but should I be?!
Obviously the grid needs to be upgraded also. Thus blog post and the generally admiring comments seem to ignore the climate crisis. If we don’t wean ourselves off of gas for heating buildings, along with other steps (greening the grid, electrifying transportation, etc) what would be your plan for mitigating the climate crisis?
Meantime, in the auto market, the company that was branded a laggard by the EV lobby now emerges as the clear consumer choice: https://www.wsj.com/business/earnings/toyota-motor-reports-rise-in-quarterly-net-profit-as-sales-grew-5324042e
How anyone that is cooking professionally can sit idly by in these circumstances is distressing. The sheer inefficiency of carrying "heat" over electrical wires is retarded. And then to assert that these appliances are a better alternative, which they are already claiming, is just another Rocky Mountain High fabrication. Pissing on the sunk costs of having the most reliable gas distribution system on the planet is on a par with Germany proudly destroying its nuclear fleet. How these people feel empowered to ruin the well being of their neighbors is jaw dropping. And, of course, just to make it all more laughable, electricity in California depends massively on natural gas. (47%) Luckily we've driven out all of our in-state production of hydrocarbons and nearly eliminated our safest form of energy, better known as nuclear, so we can all sleep much better knowing we are fighting the "good for nothing" fight. Our kids already feel like we've "destroyed" their world by being selfish, wait till they figure out we actually destroyed their world by being foolish.
Our current (pun intended!) electric grid is just one EMP away from a National Disaster. Look around where you live! Those transmission substations behind the chain-link fences take years to build once the designs are finalized. You don't just go buy those transformers at a hardware store.
ONE EMP will take out several of those in a given radius, depending on the nature of the device targeting a given location. It'll take months, maybe years to rebuild what was destroyed in a moment.
Putting our entire economic well-being in one "basket" of energy supply is suicidal. Heck even now when it gets cold the current grid is stressed just short of failure. It was years ago when a single squirrel put the lights out over the entire northeast for several hours. Can't charge your EV 'cause the power's been disrupted? Tough luck!
The ‘electrify everything’ dark money people want to destroy America. They are all smart enough to know what that will do to our grid. They also know wind and solar are unreliable. Question is. Why are they doing this?
god forbid we actually INVEST in a clean power infrastructure. Ooooh electrification dark money? Can you spell projection propaganda and hypocrisy? Only the fossil fuel stakeholders are pure as the driven snow, pristine in their concern for the well-being of the masses? Don’t be stupid.