wyrick’s Recent Comments

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  Very interesting comments so far. My take: Baseload power plants provide reliability, but more importantly they provide reliability at a relatively cheap price per MWh by having high utilization factors. Sure we can utilize a large enough basket of renewable energy to supply more of the so called baseload demand, but at what cost? I see two general scenarios to accomplish this: 1) Utilize smart grid and demand management technology unproven at such a large scale to better match demand to supply. During the transition and most likely afterward, we will have to accept brownouts in less than critical applications, such as our homes. The inevitable increase in energy costs with less reliability will be a hard pill to swallow. 2) Utilize the current strategy of peaker generation (gas, cogen, batteries, etc) to cover the variability in generation and demand. Now lets use some numbers above and perform a thought experiment here: -Assume a utility is mostly transmission isolated and has a peak demand of 1000MW. Also assume they have a basket of renewables with a capacity of 1000MW (on the best of days the utility is 100% renewable, YAY). -As stated above for wind, this basket of renewables is large enough that 333MW is nearly always available for use around the clock even on the worst of days. In order to maintain the reliability we are use to, we have to cover the difference on the worst of days. That is 667MW of dispatchable generating capacity. The maximum utilization of the entire portfolio would be 60%; not the best of investments in my opinion. The added environmental and economic costs of the excess capacity needed to maintain reliability would be relatively enormous. Additionally, the MWh cost from the dispatchable generation could be orders of magnitude more expensive as they are for current peaking plants. Imagine waking up tomorrow to find out that your electricity will cost 50 times what you expect.On Do we need nuclear and coal plants for baseload power? posted 1 week, 4 days ago 144 Responses

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  The quoted cost of $24 billion is not the best estimate given that the author uses $8 per 1,000 cubic feet. The state of the economy and significant increases natural gas finds have kept future delivery prices at the $5-$6 range (in the US at least - see http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/ngw/ngupdate.asp). Even $15-$18 billion is no small number. Regardless, it is a wasted resource that is damaging our environment. The natural gas system in the US leaked about 400 Billion cubic feet in 2008 down almost 20% from 2000. My understanding is that most of the leakage happens at the distribution system (ie your local utility). Here in Chicago, we have nearly 2,000 miles of aged leaking gas mains; some as old as the 1850's. Fortunately for the utility, the amount of leaked gas is estimated and accounted for based on gas brought into the system and amount passing through meters. Unfortunately for everyone else, this cost is recouped in the rate base and is not seen as lost revenue. The Illinois Commerce Commission has thus far been unwilling to provide rate relief to accelerate the retirement of the aging infrastructure beyond the current plan of ~50 miles per year.On Methane leakage runs up a $50 billion bill posted 3 weeks, 5 days ago 6 Responses

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  The key word here is "busbar" meaning that it ignores transmission, distribution, and in the case of wind intermittent mitigation technologies. With transmission costs in the $1-$4 million/mile there is significant hurdles to deployment of these mega turbines at remote sites. In Texas wind power is ~10% of generating capacity and ~5% of total power generation. On a couple of occasions over the past couple years there have been rolling brownouts that affected mainly industrial customers. As RPS require even more renewables, more problems will arise that will cost money to deal with.On SolarCity makes electric cars an even smarter investment posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago 19 Responses

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  In my previous post I should have made couple of points: -I take issue with the author's use of EV's as justification (economic or otherwise) for an expensive purchase that is just as much a feather in the hat as an environmentally minded action . -Widespread use of EV's is one the best options we have today address energy used in transportation. Unfortunately, it doesn't do much regarding the other ~70% of the energy consumed in the country.On SolarCity makes electric cars an even smarter investment posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago 19 Responses

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  While I support these efforts and believe they have their place, the article as written is misleading at best. Besides being the domain of the very wealthy, the economics hear gloss over some important basics: capital. Ignoring that, sure it cost pennies to run the car and only comparing those pennies to a gallon of gasoline looks great. The problem is that it required a huge upfront capital commitment. Think of cost premium, finance charges, resource consumption involved in making this happen. Now nearly double that number because of the large subsidies that are underwriting the project. We can't keep running the money presses to make it happen. There are many, many far more cost effective and environmentally sound actions that we can take today, with existing technology that does more to address climate change: Efficiency, combined heat and power, mass transit, did I mention efficiency? $20k extra to remove the tailpipe impact of one car seems like a horrible deal to me.On SolarCity makes electric cars an even smarter investment posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago 19 Responses