California Will Stop Using Coal as a Power Source Next Month (latimes.com) 132
An anonymous reader shared this excerpt from a Los Angeles Times newsletter:
One of the most consequential moments in California's drive to beat back climate change will take place next month. The state will stop receiving electricity from the Intermountain Power Plant in Central Utah, meaning our reliance on coal as a source of power will essentially be over...
[T]he U.S. got nearly half its electricity from coal-fired plants as recently as 2007. By 2023, that figure had dropped to just 16.2%. California drove an even more dramatic shift, getting just 2.2% of its electricity from coal in 2024 — nearly all of it from the Intermountain plant. Operators plan to cut off that final burst of ions next month.
"And with improved technology to store power, the change has been made without the power shortages that dogged the state up until 2020..."
[T]he U.S. got nearly half its electricity from coal-fired plants as recently as 2007. By 2023, that figure had dropped to just 16.2%. California drove an even more dramatic shift, getting just 2.2% of its electricity from coal in 2024 — nearly all of it from the Intermountain plant. Operators plan to cut off that final burst of ions next month.
"And with improved technology to store power, the change has been made without the power shortages that dogged the state up until 2020..."
"Burst of ions?" (Score:4, Informative)
No, it's the electrons that move in the metal wire of the power-distribution lines. And not very much: in AC distribution, they just wiggle back and forth a fraction of a millimeter.
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If we're going to play pedantic polly: The combustion of coal produces small amounts of plasma (which is ions). In a few coal power plants, plasma torches are used for ignition and control of the combustion.
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Fair point. However, it's the heat from the combustion that is used to create the electricity, by boiling water to turn a turbine with the resulting steam.
But please, keep looking for ions in the delivery chain. This is kinda fun.
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But please, keep looking for ions in the delivery chain. This is kinda fun.
Ions are central to delivering electricity. Most High Voltage lines are aluminum conductor steel-reinforced (ACSR) cables where the steel provides most of the strength and the aluminum is the conductor. The electricity flows by inducing the electrons to move back and forth creating valance shells with an electron missing that another electron wants to fill. Each time an electron leaves the valance shell of the aluminum atom, it becomes an aluminum ion. The aluminum ions don't move, but they are tangenti
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Actually... it's the outer layer of each of those strands that carries the current... so it'd be the outer-most layer's skin that carries... all the rest is just a capacitance sink... the "skin effect" (that's why a pair of solid-core wires for a speaker has more oomf than a pair of stranded wires)
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Note that "skin effect" only applies to AC current, DC tends to flow more evenly through the cross section of the conductor. Of course, there is also a thermal effect that will increase resistance towards the core of very large conductors leading to more flow on the outside than the inside, but it's not as pronounced. Just bringing it up because I have been dinged on not being specific enough about this difference before and also because there are actually HVDC lines going from the Intermountain Power Plant
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They said "Operators plan to cut off that final burst of ions next month" .. that could be the ions created in the coal combustion. Claims about ions in the delivery chain are something you hallucinated.
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When I think of burning coal, "burst of ions" is not the first thing that comes to mind. Especially when it's burned to create electricity with the heat (not ions) produced in the combustion.
IMHO the phrase was written by someone reporting poorly on a story about electricity generation, thinking that "ions" are conveying the energy.
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One of the casualties of the Internet has been newspaper science desks. In the post Sputnik era, major city newspapers built teams of reporters with science and technology backgrounds to cover breaking science stories. To make use of that manpower in between big stories, they'd do a weekly science supplement, which was one of my favorite parts to read. These bureaus even had people on staff who could cover breaking news in *mathematics*.
That's all gone now, and you can see the impact of that in the scie
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Ions originally referred to charged particles, either positive or negative. So, a positively charged particle (cation) would be one with m ore protons than electrons and a negatively charged particle (anion) would have less protons than electrons (we are sticking to regular matter, of course and ignoring antimatter, or anything else exotic). Of course, that simple definition would actually make an electron an anion, in the same way that a single, naked proton would be a cation. It is actually a simple defin
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My mom is dead and buried in the ground. So you must be the one doing the wiggling, amirite?
Please take a shower when you're done.
Hydrogen as fuel? but water considered dangerous?? (Score:3, Informative)
From the article: The Golden State is looking to newer, cleaner technologies, including hydrogen, which the new Utah plant will be able to create by splitting water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen atoms. The technology creates byproducts that concern some environmentalists.
Surely you're going to spend more money cracking water to get the hydrogen molecules than you'll get burning the hydrogen gas later. And what cthulhu-inspired process are they using that "environmentalists" are clutching their pearls about H2 and O2 gasses?
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Good points. I was wondering the same thing. Then again, I wasn't all that impressed with TFA's take on the science. (See my comment above about "Burst of ions.")
Electrolysis with renewable energy should have a very low environmental impact. There is the sunk cost from constructing the plant and the electrolysis equipment. If non-renewable energy sources are used, then the environmental cost goes up.
But I think the "environmentalists" mentioned in TFA might be concerned about other methods that do have an e
Re:Hydrogen as fuel? but water considered dangerou (Score:4, Informative)
That's easy, they're using methane-based steam reforming [wikipedia.org], which requires large amounts of heat (the reaction is endothermic) and produces huge amounts of both CO2 and CO
If they're only using air for the steam reformation supply: CH4 + H2O => CO + (3)H2 along with potentially CO + H2O => CO2 + H2 if they balance the feed rate perfectly.
If they're using pure Oxygen instead, they also get to add: CH4 + 0.5O2 => CO + (2)H2
This also requires the fuel source they're using be purified to remove sulphur and other contaminants which will interfere with the reaction, and need to be disposed of separately. And it's 50-75% efficient at converting at best.
Damnit, I used sub tags, but no, Slashdot says no....
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Solar power is free. Hydrogen makes for fairly decent storage once you solve the 'bleeds through most anything' part.
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Many 'hydrogen' plants use the Nitrogen in the air plus water to make Ammonia Plus Oxygen. Room temperature Ammonia contains more hydrogen per liter than liquid hydrogen - and you do not have to make it cold.
You then ship the Ammonia where you want it, and use other processes to get the Hydrogen back, which often releases carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide.
Basically, pure hydrogen is a very bad battery. Lots of people think a lithium ion is a better way to store electricity.
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The "bleeds through most anything" part for storage is easily solved.
Unfortunately the solution is anhydrous ammonia, which presents its own colossal safety risks.
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All those words to demonstrate you don’t understand basic concepts like marginal cost and the difference between capex and opex. You’re such a fucking buffoon.
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Agree.
I keep saying this every time someone starts bragging-up 'renewables', and it gets into a big thing about why solar/wind is so much better... I always slip in that in order to keep up with demand, we might as well clear-cut the forests (we don't need those boring trees... we need power for the datacenters) and just wallpaper the country with solar panels and wind turbines... oh, wait... doesn't big oil have a say in there someplace in the government that decides these things?
Re:Hydrogen as fuel? but water considered dangerou (Score:5, Informative)
Bullshit as usual from MacMann.
"The land use requirements for wind and solar power cannot be ignored"
It's about 10,000 square miles total needed to provide power for the entire USA. For reference, golf courses alone cover over 3,000 square miles. So it's negligible.
"it will be in the range of 10 watts per square meter. "
Out by at least an order of magnitude.
"If the goal is to see energy that is low cost, low in CO2 emissions, reliable, safe, and isn't taking land/water/whatever from crops and/or wildlife then we need nuclear fission as an energy source."
Fission costs more, is less safe, and produced more CO2. And as noted above, the land use is negligible.
"...island nations like Japan and UK can't rely on wind power to meet their energy needs. They will need nuclear fission..."
Except of course, the UK currently produces about 50% of its needs from solar and wind, with capcity available to more than quadruple that easily.
" I'm seeing announcements from leaders that recognize this."
Are these leaders in the room with you?
I'm seeing announcements from knowledgable people that you just make shit up all the fucking time. Take your nuclear shilling away with you.
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"it will be in the range of 10 watts per square meter. "
Out by at least an order of magnitude.
I argue with MacMann quite frequently about power stuff and renewables vs. nuclear. Here though, he's not far off. The actual output of solar power is going to be closer to 10 Watts per square meter than 100 Watts per square meter. Basically, you start off with an idealized 1000 Watts per square meter at peak, but, in many environments you get less than that, say maybe 800 Watts. With the efficiency of current solar panels that gets you around maybe 150 Watts per square meter. However, that's only for part
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There's one major problem with nuclear power plants. Half a solar plant or half a wind farm still produce half the energy of the full installation, while half a fission plant produces zero energy. To get a nuclear plant running takes time, and you need to spend money all the time it is being built. And while it is running. And when you have to dismantle it.
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The IPCC shows all forms of electricity produced from the sun as more expensive than nuclear fission,
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_FOD_Chapter06.pdf. LCOe Solar PV IPCC AR6, Table 6.8. LCOE. $/MWh (2019): Solar PV 41.7-111.6, Wind 28-64, Nuclear 89.3-91.9. LCOE (2030, projected): Solar PV, 38.6-100.8, Wind 21-41, Nuclear, 73.6-79.4. PV can apparently be cheaper than nuclear, overlap, or be a bit more expensive but it is not, as you assert, shown by IPCC to " all forms of electricity produced from the sun as more expensive than nuclear fission"
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Last time I checked 1000 >> 50.
You claimed 10. 10 is incorrect. That's why people pick you up on stuff: you post easily disprovable nonsense.
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You really could do with understanding what order of magnitude means.
I was using your definition.
No, you definitely weren't.
If that paper isn't relevant then can you show me what is relevant?
No, go and educate yourself. It might help you. It's not my job to educate those who seem incapable of keeping up with developments.
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Is that how you act in every debate you volunteered to engage in?
You are just very obtuse and frustrating and despite literally years of being given information on correct figures or how to find them, you refuse to do so. So I am just a bit frustrated.
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You are picking nits that don't change the result. Regardless of the power that can be extracted from sunlight is 5 watts or 50 watts per square meter that's still a lot of land use for energy compared to nuclear fission.
You were grumbling about cost, and now it's land use? Solar can be placed on domestic roofs, SMRs not so much.
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Put solar power on the roof [...], making it more expensive than nuclear fission.
Nope, still overlaps with fission.
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island nations like Japan and UK can't rely on wind power to meet their energy needs
I'll just leave this [globalwindatlas.info] here.
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I'm fine with onshore wind power for the most part as that doesn't consume land like solar power does but it is still limited in power per land area which means island nations like Japan and UK can't rely on wind power to meet their energy needs. They will need nuclear fission and I'm seeing announcements from leaders that recognize this.
1) You do know that offshore wind power exists right? 2) Japan's wind power generation as of 2023: 5.2GW. UK in 2023: 16GW onshore, 15 GW offshore. The UK in fact has the largest offshore capacity than any other country in Europe.
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Sure... who cares about marine life or coral or maybe the 'one' place that the blue-spotted red snapper lays its eggs... the reason Japan had to do the offshore wind is because there's so little land available... it's either big cities or Buddhist sanctuary land, or they can't run all the high-tech factories.
Same problem with the US building datacenters for the precious LLM-AI systems... so, you put the datacenter in LA, but you need 100 square miles for the solar farm... so you decide to put the solar in t
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Well, that land use part can be ignored... the big companies can just clear-cut the forests that we don't use and cement over that pesky grassland, they'll even buy your yard and pay you a dollar a day to have their solar panels in your yard! "Doesn't that sound like a great deal?" :-)
Did you mean fission or fusion? Fusion is a great plan, just needs some more refining of the process, but I can't see Big Oil cheering on something like that, and fission has the waste disposal and coolant water problems (I
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"How can I call coal power free? It's just sitting there waiting to be dug up an burned." Errrrmmmm....how about the environmental cost of increase global warming, acid rain lowering the ph of the sea (makes it difficult for corals and any kind of shell fish), mine tailings polluting lakes and streams, simple air pollution (particulate matter), mercury air pollution, health effects on humans for all the above. Need I go on, Einstein?
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Solar power is as free as much as coal power is free.
Not even close. You can leave a solar panel in the sun and get power. Just leaving a coal plant in the sun produces zero. You have to feed it coal. I know, it's hard to understand this stuff, but please try to keep up.
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That's a lot of word salad from someone who has never manufactured a solar panel or used one.
Sit down, son, a real semiconductor professional is speaking.
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How can I call coal power free? It's just sitting there waiting to be dug up an burned. How is solar power different from this? Sure, the sun shines down upon us with regularity but we'd still need to build the devices to collect the sunlight and turn it into useful energy. As those devices experience wear they need to be replaced now and then to keep the energy flowing. This costs money.
And I am not sure how you ignored all the requirements of one technology while listing the requirements of the other? Coal production requires machinery and labor for coal "to be dug up." Then there is transportation costs. Coal needs steam boilers at a minimum to produce power. All of these cost money and plants need maintenance. In fact the main reason why coal power plants has been closed in the US is they cost more to operate than other plants especially natural gas plants.
Solar power is not free. If solar power can be defined as "free" then so can most any other energy source we use.
Only if you are willing to ri
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Did I ignore that coal requires machines to produce energy?
You left out the fact coal needs machines to collect.
No. I'm pointing out that in every case we need to build machines to collect and convert energy that exists in our environment into something useful. It is because we need these machines that no energy is "free". Most of all we need energy to produce these machines, and that forms a basis for comparing the utility of different energy sources.
Terrible comparisons does not excuse your misstatements.
How do the different energy sources compare on the energy return on energy invested
You presented none of this. Your only statements were how bad solar was while not disclosing the coal was far worse.
Fossil fuels land around 30 on EROEI. Onshore wind, hydro, and nuclear fission do better. The other options most people would considerr do worse or aren't listed.
Pure EROI does not factors like pollution, supply chains, and practicality. Ignoring things seems to be your modus operandi.
Did I "rig the comparisons" on solar power?
Presenting the costs and requirements of one thing while ignoring the other option has higher requirements is rigging. Like I said you can say renting a house is c
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I also believed that the reader would understand that coal power needed machines to produce power in that the reader would not be a child and so would have had enough experience of the world around them to know that to get electricity from coal we'd need coal fired power plants. Must I spell out everything?
No the problem is your need to quibble basic facts. Collecting solar energy is indeed free. It costs money to acquire the technology to collect solar power, but so does every other form of energy. Trying to contest that argument with deceptive points does not win your case. It makes your arguments appear dishonest.
It takes an "interesting" interpretation of my statements to believe I'm claiming that we can get energy from coal without a power plant.
It is "interesting" that you chose to fight against a statement that is true by leaving out facts.
I didn't make any claim that coal was better, only that solar is like coal in that neither are free. Energy from the sun isn't free, in fact it costs more than energy from coal. That doesn't necessarily make coal better or worse than solar, only that if we are to define solar energy as "free" then that same definition applies to coal.
This is a classic strawman argument on your part. Collecting solar energy is free once the equipme
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It's for short term storage. Consider hydrogen as a big battery. Perfect for flattening out the ups and downs of solar and wind.
One of its risks is volatility. It can go bang really well when mismanaged.
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Storing power as hydrogen? Do you mean Nickel-Hydrogen batteries?
Or, do you mean hydrogen as a potential fuel?
That would only work if that big generator is kept spun up... might take a few minutes to get to 100% from a dead stop.
No single one renewable is going to be the Golden Ticket... not even just two... it'll take a multitude of them to keep the precious datacenter running so the AI-LLM can keep generating slop.
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Surely you're going to spend more money cracking water to get the hydrogen molecules than you'll get burning the hydrogen gas later.
I'm not aware of burning hydrogen producing money as opposed to energy.
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Surely you're going to spend more money cracking water to get the hydrogen molecules than you'll get burning the hydrogen gas later.
Most likely the process will use solar power for electrolysis of water into hydrogen gas. From the standpoint of timing, excess solar power would be used to create hydrogen gas which could be store and used at night or other times when solar cannot be used.
And what cthulhu-inspired process are they using that "environmentalists" are clutching their pearls about H2 and O2 gasses?
Environmentalists are rightfully concerned that the most common source of large scale hydrogen gas creation is processing natural gas, coal, and oil. Such processes release CO2 as the main byproducts.
Re: Hydrogen as fuel? but water considered dangero (Score:2)
Most likely the process will use solar power for electrolysis of water into hydrogen gas. From the standpoint of timing, excess solar power would be used to create hydrogen gas which could be store and used at night or other times when solar cannot be used.
I'm sorry, are you saying to deploy solar panels to power water/electrolysis to generate electricity from water so you can have electricity when the sun is down?
Why not simply store the excess solar energy?
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I'm sorry, are you saying to deploy solar panels to power water/electrolysis to generate electricity from water so you can have electricity when the sun is down?
I am saying using burning hydrogen is one method that can used when solar is not available.
Why not simply store the excess solar energy?
There are alternatives like battery banks, molten salt, compressed air. All of these will depend on what is available in the location. Using a closed loop hydrogen/water loop is a possbility.
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You are, assuming, there _is_ excess energy from solar (which only happens during the day)... and we have huge racks of batteries nearby to store the "excess" (instead of the LLM-AI datacenters gobbling it all up) (for use at night or when it's cloudy or the panels are covered with snow or dust, or some of them fail)... and hopefully nothing goes wrong in the battery facility (like when the battery room in The Abyss got a little wet and they all shorted and caused an explosion).
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You are, assuming, there _is_ excess energy from solar (which only happens during the day)... and we have huge racks of batteries nearby to store the "excess"
Using excess solar for electrolysis of water is one possibility of energy storage. While batteries are an option too, the disposal of battery technologies like lithium-ion, lead acid, and nickel-cadmium present their own problems. Sodium-ion seems to be a better possibility in the future as well but they have only recently been available..
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Yes, but... assume one square meter of solar panel cranks out 1kilowatt... the precious datacenter needs 10GW... we'd need at least 10 million panels... double that to charge the massive battery bank so it can run at night... where exactly do we put all this? My numbers could be wrong, and this is assuming a lot... if anyone has more solid numbers, please chime in.
But, we come back to the same issue... let's say we have 10 datacenters that need 10GW each... that'd be 100 million panels... we'll end up cove
But what about (Score:1)
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That is a separate part of the problem that also needs tackling, but electricity emissions are 8 to 10x larger than cement (inc concrete) manufacturing in California. The biggerr buckets are transportation, industrial non-electric, commercial and residential fuel, agricultural, recycling, and things like refrigerants. Of those, transportation, industrial non-electric and fuel are the most important to tackle, and a giant chunk of transportation and fuel can and is being addressed through electrification, wh
Concrete's ok - If you dont make more (Score:2)
It's the production of concrete that's "smelly" if Co2 had odour. Estimates concrete is 8% of C02 emissions vs 28% Energy, 29% transport, and blah blah is blah, if we chimps cared about consequences other than availability of bananas.
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So because no one has solved the concrete problem yet all reductions in emissions are pointless? What a special person you are.
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... all their climate destroying economic growth? Concrete dwarfs many other carbon contributors, and last time I went to California there was a f-ton of concrete. They even built roads out of the stuff. But pay no attention to that, look over here, we just stopped using coal!
[sarcasm]Yes because no other state or country uses concrete any more. Red states avoid concrete entirely as concrete is too "woke". Texas replaced concrete is their massive highway system with hopes and prayers. [/sarcasm]
In other news... (Score:2)
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Exactly! Just look at what China is doing with solar and wind. They will soon be energy independent.
Meanwhile Trump will have more coal than he knows what to do with while places like California (4th largest economy in the world) live on renewables.
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Europe has massively INCREASED dependence on Russian energy by phasing out local energy production
A decade ago wants it's insightful observation back. Europe has been pulling back from Russia as an energy supplier for years now.
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Most of these statements are at best half true. The issue is the poster uses "local" to mean country only while discussing all of Europe.
Europe has massively INCREASED dependence on Russian energy by phasing out local energy production
Europe has decreased dependence on Russian energy overall since Ukraine. While imports increased this year, Europe has reduced their dependence by 90%. This is simply not true.
Europe has massively INCREASED foreign industry dependence by phasing out local industry
The phrasing of this is somewhat true and somewhat false. Individually countries have phased out certain national initiatives. For example, Germany has closed their nuclear plants; however, German h
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1 - The drop in Russia fossil fuel dependence isn’t voluntary
In your earlier post, you said: "Europe has massively INCREASED dependence on Russian energy". Did you lie?
Germany’s zero fuel production is a misleading stat - there are very significant natural gas reserves in nearby European nations,
When I say Germany for example has zero oil and gas production I mean the country of Germany. Your claim that it is misleading because countries near Germany has production is basically another lie.
yet Germany chose to expand GAZPROM. One of their leaders - Schroder IIRC - even joined the company after stepping down.
Comrade, you just gave up the fact you are Russian. Nice try Putin.
It’s been calculated that Europe has sent at least as much money to Russia to purchase its oil and natural gas as Europe has spent on supporting Ukraine’s defense.
Citation needed, Comrade Putin.
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California electricity rates will increase from $.45/kWh to $.65/kWh.
Evidence?
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not evidence, just FUD
One way or another, cost of solar is only going down, and cost of coal is only going up. Even at those rates, it'll eventually reach and then cross parity.
I was told this was unpossible (Score:2)
Although I do fully expect some data centers to cause a headache due to extremely high power consumption. Any state receiving a new data centers should note that those are high draw facilities, and as a friend noted, have them pay a floating surcharge until the power utility is able to bring extra capacity online to keep
Re:I was told this was unpossible (Score:4, Insightful)
They said the state should be crashing out regularly due to renewables not working at night, in bad weather, or something.
I'm not sure anyone said converting from coal to natural gas was a problem. That part worked great and I'm perfectly happy with that. Switching to natural gas played a large part in getting off coal, mostly because it was a whole lot cheaper than coal. It would be cheaper yet if the state allowed fracking for natural gas here.
Converting to solar/wind and batteries is demonstrably feasible, the battery part of which does surprise me a little. It was predicted to be quite expensive, not impossible. Some quick searching says we pay about 66% more per kWh than the rest of the country. I don't know how much that is due to just everything being expensive here and how much due to different costs for solar, wind, and natural gas (which I realize are controversial and are rapidly changing).
The good news is California energy demand is highest on hot, summer days, which are hot because the sun is shining brightly. That's pretty close to an ideal case for solar plus a moderate amount of batteries (peak capacity and demand are only off by about 3-4 hours).
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But, that 10GW datacenter is running 24/7... what about then? Because we've gotta have our AI slop all the time.
And, when we run out of shale gas... go back to drilling for oil for NG and mining coal for NG, even though we don't use either oil or coal anymore.
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But, that 10GW datacenter is running 24/7... what about then? Because we've gotta have our AI slop all the time.
No doubt, AI is, and this caught me by surprise, is dramatically increasing the base load demand. Who saw that coming five years ago?
That said, a number of people, the abundance and/or free market crowd, have pointed out that just replacing existing electricity generation with green sources isn't nearly ambitious enough. What we want is to triple or quadruple the energy available to all humanity because having access to inexpensive, reliable, and plentiful energy seems to be a necessary precondition to mate
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So, if there's shale under your backyard, it's fine for them to set up shop and frack through your garden?
Something like 60 trillion cubic feet... of course, that's through fracking, which has it's own environmental issues.
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So, if there's shale under your backyard, it's fine for them to set up shop and frack through your garden?
It sure is. I honestly don't care if someone is fracking a mile or two beneath my garden. The US has been sorting out the laws regarding mineral rights for at least 150 years so maybe they would owe me something, maybe not. But in terms of safety or security, I have no issues at all.
That's a bit of a strawman though. Crowded as it can be, California still has vast sparsely populated areas. If you wanted to start fracking, the natural choice would be to start in areas with lots of shale and few people. I gua
Power Storage (Score:1)
Will California stop importing electricity? (Score:3)
When I used to live in Glendale, California, I noted from reports from the Glendale DWP that most of the power used by the city--and by the state--was imported from places like Utah. Power would be generated in Utah, then shipped by power transmission lines to Glendale.
Will California also stop importing electricity from coal-fired plants outside of the state? Or is this simply virtue signaling by the state as they continue to export their pollution?
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Did you bother to read even just the summary?
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So the answer to the above's question is still "no" then.
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Read TFA. Almost all of California's coal-sourced electricity comes from Intermountain. Shutting that down effectively eliminates the use of coal as a source of grid energy in California.
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When I used to live in Glendale, California, I noted from reports from the Glendale DWP that most of the power used by the city--and by the state--was imported from places like Utah. Power would be generated in Utah, then shipped by power transmission lines to Glendale.
I live in Utah... I wonder what effect this will have on my power prices.
In New England... (Score:3)
For the first time since the grid got started, New England's electricity is now coal-free. The sky has not fallen.
and replace it with....Natural Gas?? (Score:2)
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When you ask "leaked methane" are you referring to coal mine methane (CMM) [epa.gov], or to an escape from methane storage [wikipedia.org].
Explanation for... (Score:2)
meaning (Score:2)
...meaning calif electricity rates will be going up big time.
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Hell, I get a refund check from my municipal power company every year, right here in California. Do you?
I haven't seen a power loss unless it involved a vehicle smashing into something that affects power distribution. I've been here nearly 2 decades.
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The free turbocharging that you _only_ get after buying the $90k Tesla... so it ain't exactly free... and of course that power comes from someplace.
So... the "virtual power plant" (never heard of that one) sends you a check for $600, while you use the 12kW of roof solar and some amount of regular grid to keep the power walls charged... and that's probably most of that check.
Unless you have more solar output than you use at night, those power walls _have_ to siphon from the grid (unless you want to lose powe
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I think your numbers are at least ten years old. You've missed the prices, and the stories here on slashdot, have been dropping like a rock.
If I had the money - I'm on social security - I'd get rooftop solar... which would be about $20k.
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Unlike Texas which can't keep the power on when things get a bit chilly despite using natural gas and oil.
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and nukes, they also have those.
But they're all sensitive to extreme cold for different reasons. Not sure what oil's problem was (besides not having enough), but nuke plants need cooling water and have to shut down when their source freezes, and natural gas pipe lines actually have hydrates in them that makes the pipes ice up and clog in the cold.
I live in Iowa, and most (city) homes here use natural gas for winter heating. I've NEVER seen a gas line freeze around here, and it gets WAY colder here than in
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But they're all sensitive to extreme cold for different reasons. Not sure what oil's problem was (besides not having enough), but nuke plants need cooling water and have to shut down when their source freezes, and natural gas pipe lines actually have hydrates in them that makes the pipes ice up and clog in the cold.
The problem detailed in the aftermath report was that the power companies did not winterize operations despite a warning 10 years earlier that predicted a major snowstorm would cripple the network. In 2013, a major storm almost took down the Texas grid. Being deregulated, there was no state body that could force the companies to do so in the 10 years after the first warning.
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yep.
(experts predict it could happen, you should prepare)
"that'll NEVER happen!"
(happens)
well ok, NO ONE could have predicted that.
(experts say it will happen again, you REALLY need to prepare)
Oh that was just a fluke, It'll NEVER happen again.
(happens again)
WOW, that was incredibly unlucky! NO ONE could have predicted that would happen again!
Even an idiot that ignores warnings can learn from their mistakes. It takes a SPECIAL kind of idiot to keep ignoring the experts, and make the same mistake
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Hell, I get a refund check from my municipal power company every year, right here in California. Do you?
It does kind of matter that electricity is more expensive in California. If you spend less on electricity, you don't need a refund.
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Candles were traditionally made from animal fat.
Does that qualify them as renewable? (cue the vegans...)
Sorry, we don't have candles (Score:2)
Consuming this product can expose you to [name of one or more chemicals], which is known to the State of California to cause cancer.