Its cool to see all the investor owned utilities. I never knew there was so much overlap. I pretty much just assumed that the entire state uses one system. I wonder how difficult it would be to start an energy company of that caliber, and what the profits look like.
People are getting restless about planning permission for power lines to bring electricity from WV to Ashburn to power the endlessly growing datacentres.
Datacenter capacity is at 3 GW power consumption, but planning permission has been given for multiples of this capacity without a thought as to what it means for the electricity infrastructure.
Projections are that this will grow to 48 GW.
You can be sure that wind and solar aren't going to power datacenters 24 / 7, and nobody will be happy when their internet streaming stops when the sun goes down.
One view is that the Virginia Clean Energy Act means Virginia can't build fossil fueled power stations, so it is importing gas fired electricity from WV and PA.
What does 48 GW of carbon free electricity look like?
Lake Anna has two nuclear reactors producing 1.9 GW, with plans to add a 1.5GW Boiling Water Reactor to take it to 3.4 GW. Lake Anna covers 20 Sq miles to provide cooling for these reactors.
So 48 GW of carbon free electricity would be 14 expanded Lake Anna's, 42 nuclear reactors and 280 square miles of reservoirs for cooling.
I wonder when Dominion will publish their plans to build 40+ nuclear reactors in NoVa as an alternative to power lines. If 3 GW of High Voltage power is a problem, what does 48 GW look like?
The crazy thing is that this is all being dealt with through local planning committees.
I like your use of Meredith's definition of the grid. It sets the grid apart from what it delivers. Too often, the debates today center on the supply side as if changing that will "clean" the grid. Those discussions may hinge on grains of truth, but they stumble over one huge flaw -- they trivialize the grid. You even mention it specifically with reference to the vagueness of the reported 47,300 gigawatt-miles requirement.
Seen from the supply side, a giant solar generation plant covering many square miles in a desert may appear equivalent to a single reactor in a nuclear power plant, but among its many shortfalls, that bright shiny new solar farm needs bright shiny new grid infrastructure to carry power where it is needed. The cost of doing that never appears in the "cost of solar" ledger. That externalized cost is not trivial. There is an environmental cost to adding more transmission through wild land. Then, a bit off topic, are the costs of compensating for the intermittency of solar power (a huge cost of redundant natural gas fired plants) the relatively short life of PV panels, the cost of end of life recycling (this will be a problem of scale).,
In short, you do a great job of shining a light on a national blind spot. We don't appreciate just how big this grid is and we trivialize extending it or replacing it with a "smart" grid. In the abstract, this is a problem of scale. Public appreciation and comprehension fails at the edge of the familiar objects near at hand.
As in most things in life, "central planning" has the advantage of being a worse solution than all others, which means politicians favor it.
More, distributed power generation is the solution. The only technologies out there which show any possibility of becoming cheaper than fossil fuels while also allowing for the complete retirement of fossil fuels are nuclear and closed loop geothermal (Eavor dotcom the current leader). Neither has achieved price parity yet; closed loop geothermal shows more potential in that regard.
One of the reasons "it works" is because no central planner designed it. It developed organically to deliver power, and nothing else. No ideological agenda was served. I will choose Adam Smith over John Kerry every time.
The green nonsense is just a vehicle to try and take it over, subvert it.
Similar to here in canada the federal government has created a housing crisis without out of control immigration and inflation, and now they are trying to take over zoning from municipalities because they supposedly aren’t doing enough to solve the crisis.
One other consideration is how to shield the grid (if at all possible) from a Carrington level event? It's a question of when, not if. Is anyone in leadership discussing this?
You make it sound so perfectly clear Robert. I (for one) can't fathom why this isn't common knowledge amongst our Energy Literati who would instead cut the United States "off at the knees" by mandating 'renewables' as the major source of electrical energy for our future?
"Perhaps the most amazing part of the U.S. electric grid is that somehow — despite its massive size, competing policies, and myriad of different owners — it all works."
Could it be that it shortly will begin to fail to work? As in Texas in 2021, is the rest of the country going to feel the effects of 'renewable unreliability' soon enough to make a difference with the current thinking in DC without wholesale deaths of thousands because coal and natural gas generating plants have been taken off-line?
Thank you for this information. There will soon be other sources of electricity generation available to the world. A move to de-centralize the sources will be possible. Massive grids stretching for many miles will be slowly obsolete. Wind and solar is not the solution. The future is bright and very close.
Good piece, Robert. I would quibble with including CCAs in the owned and manage slide. They own nothing, they manage nothing, they contribute nothing,they are profit taking free riders. But at 1%, I suppose it isn’t really worth a quibble.
Its cool to see all the investor owned utilities. I never knew there was so much overlap. I pretty much just assumed that the entire state uses one system. I wonder how difficult it would be to start an energy company of that caliber, and what the profits look like.
https://www.loudounnow.com/news/concern-grows-over-data-centers-power-lines-in-loudoun/article_29255f7a-ba1e-11ee-b337-0b0f125b94a9.html#tncms-source=login
North Virginia is facing an interesting dilemma.
People are getting restless about planning permission for power lines to bring electricity from WV to Ashburn to power the endlessly growing datacentres.
Datacenter capacity is at 3 GW power consumption, but planning permission has been given for multiples of this capacity without a thought as to what it means for the electricity infrastructure.
Projections are that this will grow to 48 GW.
You can be sure that wind and solar aren't going to power datacenters 24 / 7, and nobody will be happy when their internet streaming stops when the sun goes down.
One view is that the Virginia Clean Energy Act means Virginia can't build fossil fueled power stations, so it is importing gas fired electricity from WV and PA.
What does 48 GW of carbon free electricity look like?
Lake Anna has two nuclear reactors producing 1.9 GW, with plans to add a 1.5GW Boiling Water Reactor to take it to 3.4 GW. Lake Anna covers 20 Sq miles to provide cooling for these reactors.
So 48 GW of carbon free electricity would be 14 expanded Lake Anna's, 42 nuclear reactors and 280 square miles of reservoirs for cooling.
I wonder when Dominion will publish their plans to build 40+ nuclear reactors in NoVa as an alternative to power lines. If 3 GW of High Voltage power is a problem, what does 48 GW look like?
The crazy thing is that this is all being dealt with through local planning committees.
I like your use of Meredith's definition of the grid. It sets the grid apart from what it delivers. Too often, the debates today center on the supply side as if changing that will "clean" the grid. Those discussions may hinge on grains of truth, but they stumble over one huge flaw -- they trivialize the grid. You even mention it specifically with reference to the vagueness of the reported 47,300 gigawatt-miles requirement.
Seen from the supply side, a giant solar generation plant covering many square miles in a desert may appear equivalent to a single reactor in a nuclear power plant, but among its many shortfalls, that bright shiny new solar farm needs bright shiny new grid infrastructure to carry power where it is needed. The cost of doing that never appears in the "cost of solar" ledger. That externalized cost is not trivial. There is an environmental cost to adding more transmission through wild land. Then, a bit off topic, are the costs of compensating for the intermittency of solar power (a huge cost of redundant natural gas fired plants) the relatively short life of PV panels, the cost of end of life recycling (this will be a problem of scale).,
In short, you do a great job of shining a light on a national blind spot. We don't appreciate just how big this grid is and we trivialize extending it or replacing it with a "smart" grid. In the abstract, this is a problem of scale. Public appreciation and comprehension fails at the edge of the familiar objects near at hand.
There’s not only bullying, counties cities and states plus the wind/solar companies along with them are so secretive.
Before you know it they are building and then everyone wonders what the hell happened!
As in most things in life, "central planning" has the advantage of being a worse solution than all others, which means politicians favor it.
More, distributed power generation is the solution. The only technologies out there which show any possibility of becoming cheaper than fossil fuels while also allowing for the complete retirement of fossil fuels are nuclear and closed loop geothermal (Eavor dotcom the current leader). Neither has achieved price parity yet; closed loop geothermal shows more potential in that regard.
These figures certainly would turn a few heads of the RE advocates....if they bothered to read it.
Interesting. What book talks about how the grid was designed and built?
One of the reasons "it works" is because no central planner designed it. It developed organically to deliver power, and nothing else. No ideological agenda was served. I will choose Adam Smith over John Kerry every time.
Thanks a lot for your hard work.
The green nonsense is just a vehicle to try and take it over, subvert it.
Similar to here in canada the federal government has created a housing crisis without out of control immigration and inflation, and now they are trying to take over zoning from municipalities because they supposedly aren’t doing enough to solve the crisis.
One other consideration is how to shield the grid (if at all possible) from a Carrington level event? It's a question of when, not if. Is anyone in leadership discussing this?
Great charts and very effective presentation of them.
Complexity and Convenience go hand in hand.
Convenience is the modern replacement for sloth.
After several generations benefiting from convenience we have a population who take it for-granted.
What happens next will be interesting.
Sloth is one of the 7 deadly sins ;-)
You make it sound so perfectly clear Robert. I (for one) can't fathom why this isn't common knowledge amongst our Energy Literati who would instead cut the United States "off at the knees" by mandating 'renewables' as the major source of electrical energy for our future?
"Perhaps the most amazing part of the U.S. electric grid is that somehow — despite its massive size, competing policies, and myriad of different owners — it all works."
Could it be that it shortly will begin to fail to work? As in Texas in 2021, is the rest of the country going to feel the effects of 'renewable unreliability' soon enough to make a difference with the current thinking in DC without wholesale deaths of thousands because coal and natural gas generating plants have been taken off-line?
Thank you for this information. There will soon be other sources of electricity generation available to the world. A move to de-centralize the sources will be possible. Massive grids stretching for many miles will be slowly obsolete. Wind and solar is not the solution. The future is bright and very close.
Good piece, Robert. I would quibble with including CCAs in the owned and manage slide. They own nothing, they manage nothing, they contribute nothing,they are profit taking free riders. But at 1%, I suppose it isn’t really worth a quibble.