Probably a lot of things people find shocking about Texas when compared to its reputation lol.
[1]: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/ge-announces-first-us-wind-...
Global Fiberglass Solutions Of West Texas https://goo.gl/maps/od4YB3MubUqT5B6a9
It’s a field about 600x600 feet. I wouldn’t call that “giant”, it’s about the size of a typical warehouse and certainly smaller than most landfills. And according to some brief searches on the internet, they are indeed being recycled.
1. https://www.wsj.com/articles/solar-power-booms-in-texas-1160...
2. https://um.dk/en/news/newsdisplaypage/?newsid=25147b44-3dce-...
Edit: Of course, it's 5x the wind power. For solar power in Texas and Denmark the difference is about 4x - 4,324.3 versus 1,079 MW [3, 4] so the point stands that Texas still has a way to go relative to the resources available to them.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_sunshine_dur...
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark#Climate
“Percentage of energy generated” is probably better, but per-capita is better than per-acre. Broadly speaking, people use power, not cornfields.
Why not set the baseline with Mercury? That's an entire planet with much more solar capacity than any measly desert!
Getting back into the real world (and the original point, although accidentally I think you've made my point that energy generated per-capita isn't relevant) and putting aside that there are actual thoughts to build a solar farm in the north Sahara [1]...
Texas has lots of surface area currently used by agriculture so while it's cute to suggest cornfields don't need electrical power there's a conversation about whether there's space which could productively generate power and send it over the grid which the rest of the state (and through HVDC interconnects, the rest of North America) is connected to?
1: https://theconversation.com/solar-panels-in-sahara-could-boo...
I think the main issue with renewables is not inherent unreliability but that grid operators do not understand the potential contingencies as well as with conventional generation sources.
SPP has put out some good analyzes of recent max generation events there involving large amounts of wind being unavailable in cold snaps. It turns out no one at SPP bothered to ask wind turbine owners what temperatures they were capable of operating in and some wind operators didn't buy the cold weather package for turbines despite installing them in the Midwest. So generation availability forecasting didn't take into account the real capabilities of generators - a clear failure in operational planning.
This is more of a regulatory issue than a technical one. The machines can operate at -40 C, but someone has to actually spec that functionality and ensure that the associated subcomponents (heaters etc) are properly maintained.
There is a new NERC reliability standard in the drafting stage for this.
I don't know what the re-use story is for foundation plus tower, but it seems to me a bad idea to start with the assumption of rusting out the foundations.
In general, wind turbine foundations are considered to have a fixed lifespan of 25-30 years. If re-powering occurs at end of life, it may be with a larger turbine that requires a new foundation anyway, so not much thought is given to foundation re-use.
It kinda feels like someone who could have gotten insurance but declined getting coverage until after learning they have cancer. That's certainly not the spirit of how insurance is supposed to work (spreading tail-end risk across a pool of people), and if everyone acted that way, it would be far from sustainable.
As a whole people are poor at assessing low probability risks. Low probability high cost risks pose a big threat. Letting people get spot pricing may help the market be more efficient, but considering many people would struggle to pay a $200 unexpected bill, it does feel odd to let everyone do spot pricing if they want. For many people, even having one bill that was double normal would financial headaches, much less 10x!
Giving consumers spot pricing feels like having everyday people selling naked call options. It may work fine for a really long time, but when the strategy blows up, it has unlimited liability potential.
Or put a tent up in the living room.
Does the the car that drives up your electricity usage that much?
What does a defrost system includes? My dad manages a place where defrost system on one of the devices broke. Technician replaced something and hence it was fixed. IIRC it was temperature sensor. All defrost system does is periodically warms up the outside grill basically. It used to get stuck at -15C or so.
So, a defrost system will include a temperature sensor, and a resistance heater, and often something to signal the inside unit to run the emergency/auxiliary heat until (unless) the outside unit can get up to a temperature where it will work.
Average US house uses ~1100-1200 kWh (I don't actually know this, based on googling, assuming most places in Texas are standalone houses) per month.
If prices are $3000-9000 per MW, then ~40 to 60 kWh/day (let's be generous, people are explicitly turning on heat for this extreme cold) for a week...
Even $2/kWh (which was exceeded days ago) would demolish peoples' budgets.
They can also be mounted indoors.
$0.098 per kW-h, with $15 a month connection fee.
Power is very very very cheap in Texas.
Ouch, yet wow.
REP's go bankrupt all the time, especially when the weather gets funny. As WallStreetsBets says, "Sir, this is a casino".
California's mix is 3% coal (2019 figures; in 2021 it is zero) and 34% natural gas, for comparison.
https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...
Your understanding sounds completely fictional to me. Where did you come to believe that the primary source of imported power is Utah coal?
>In 2019, California’s net electricity imports were the largest in the country at 70.8 million megawatthours (MWh), or 25% of the state’s total electricity supply ... California utilities partly own and import power from several power plants in Arizona and Utah.
Arizona is ~75% coal and natural gas [2] Utah is ~80% and natural gas [3]
Looking at your link [4], 70% of California imports are "non-renewable and unspecified" and 75% of "non-renewable and unspecified" comes from the southwest (e.g. Arizona and Utah)
I think this brings us to the same conclusion that the number 1 source for imported electricity is coal and natural gas in Arizona and Utah. You are saying that a worst case for CA power is being 3-10% coal. I am talking about the worst case for CA imported power (which happens to be up to 37% coal)
[1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46156#:~:tex....
[2] https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=AZ#tabs-4
[3] https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=UT#tabs-4
[4] https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...
I think the conclusion we came to is that the numbers you presented likely underestimate the fossil fuels, but there is still a big gap between Texas and California, and there is no material impact on the discussion. Thats OK.
I had an honest question about the data you presented, so I asked, and explained why I thought the data could be different.
You said my understanding was completely fictional, so I demonstrated that yes, in fact a significant portion of California imports come from fossil fuels.
Turns out that California's coal could be up to 3x the stated number, but is still less than Texas. My question is answered and hopefully we both understand the subject matter better now
https://www.epa.gov/greenpower/us-electricity-grid-markets has a picture of the various wholesale markets.
Until one very hot August, when the wholesale price hit $10/kWh in the afternoon. My power bill for one day was $130. I didn't even wait till the end of the month. I switched back to my old power company that afternoon. Thankfully they were able to switch me back the next morning.
We’re you able to set up anything interesting to take advantage of ebbs and flows in rates?
I'm on a fixed rate plan and my provider just offered me $150 to change, but I had to do it by tomorrow and the rates available now aren't close to what I'm currently at.
Wind turbines! :)
The Joke is all the Californians who immigrated brought the blackouts with them.