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US Could Lower Carbon Emissions 78% With New National Transmission Network (smithsonianmag.com)
mdsolar writes with this story from Smithsonian magazine about how building a national transmission network could lead to a gigantic reduction in carbon emissions. From the story: "The United States could lower carbon emissions from electricity generation by as much as 78 percent without having to develop any new technologies or use costly batteries, a new study suggests. There's a catch, though. The country would have to build a new national transmission network so that states could share energy. 'Our idea was if we had a national 'interstate highway for electrons' we could move the power around as it was needed, and we could put the wind and solar plants in the very best places,' says study co-author Alexander MacDonald, who recently retired as director of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado."
Among many ignored assumptions, did this post take into account the carbon emissions of building such a grid?
Construction equipment doesn't run on lithium batteries.
'Our idea was if we had a national 'interstate highway for electrons' ...
We can barely get Congress to fund maintaining our interstate highway for cars and trucks.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
With new nuclear power generating plants.
Why not bury a plasma conduit cooled by liquid hydrogen? It could be the long haul main and it would have the nice side effect of providing hydrogen for fuel cells.
Not my idea.. .I saw this someplace years ago.
My income comes in great part from the oil and gas industry, but I'm all for energy alternatives and their development.
Folks just have to recognize, with little interest in nuclear development, that the comfortable grid is still generationally dependent upon the fossil fuels for stability. I will support the betterment of alternatives, but they can't carry us just yet.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
JFC, there's an entire segment of the tech industry that doesn't seem to live in the real world.
Having more things hooked up together doesn't make things more reliable, it makes them more vulnerable to both common mode failures and cascading system collapses.
5 years ago the entire county of San Diego was knocked off-line for the better part of a day because a power worker in Arizona flipped the wrong switch. The entire NE US was out a decade ago because of a single software bug, and I seem to recall another recent blackout caused by squirrels.
The fragility of our nation's power grid and the lack of cross-connects are two separate issues, but there's NO WAY that the second should even be remotely considered until the inter-reliability of the systems that ARE connected is fixed. And then maybe about 10 years after someone claims it's fixed we *perhaps* consider taking the next step.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Set your wayback machine to 1938.
This small step would be nice though.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The shitty quality of the articles lately... or the fact that the editors miss to link to it.
Once there is a government run "national" grid, then those states that, according to the government, waste, use too much, do not do what the government says in reducing this or that, will be CUT OFF, or cut down on the amount of electricity they use. Every time the FEDERAL government gets its hands on something, they can DICTATE how it is used, consumed or anything else. The 10th amendment is about powers not constitutionally granted the federal government, be left to the states. Do not DOUBT me on this!
There's a difference in thinking when you look up "national grid" on Wikipdedia.org:
USA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Share?
Um, no. You inefficient non-investing non-renewable states can freeze in the dark.
Stop being corporate welfare queens and do like the growing US states which invest 10-50 percent of all new energy in alternative energies like solar and wind.
Babies.
Ain't no free ride for you Red sponges.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Harumph. Interstate indeed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HVDC_projects#North_America
I thought there was one from Niagara Falls to TX, but I don't see it... I found a proposal to use Niagara as a pumped storage facility (the best large energy storage system we have), but no current links.
So, exactly what cables are needed to be added?
What's wrong with the old ones?
People who make these "Wow! Wouldn't it be neat if we ...." statements with no idea how the existing systems already work make me think they are trying to sell bridges to suckers.
Have gnu, will travel.
Such projects need to start someplace.
So by golly get started.
Any large producer or distribution company should see this %% of
improvement as a way to increase market and sidestep a lot of carbon
regulation. North-South routes seem to be a good place to start.
Any simulation can be constrained to a data subset and
optimizations rerun. Compare the results and overlay to
see which paths are shared solutions.
Any 5% solution that is part of a net +75% solution would
be a place to start.
For what it is worth this has been presented as an improvement
about once every 3 or 7 years as the presidential/ congressional
elections come due.
I want to dismiss this as foo but there are real gains to make
by improving distribution including the last mile.
Me I am installing LED lamps one or two at a time as needed.
They are getting better and less expensive...
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Does anybody know how much it would cost to build this grid?
This describes some ot the cost savings: https://t.co/SXD9LGuIWF
...it'll cost nothing to build, nothing to maintain, there'll be no loss along the way, nothing will go wrong, and it'll last forever.
I think somewhere along the way, someone forgot that storing fuel is more efficient, not less. That's why every living plant and animal does it.
http://science.slashdot.org/co...
...you know, They might just be upmodding you in hopes that you'll grow complacent.
I don't suppose you're posting from a rural area, by any chance?
Those cfls last so long it will be a while before changing many more.
There's the Pacific Intertie.
Nukes don't vary output well. Thus storage is needed in a nukes only system. The point here is that transmission substitutes for batteries for renewables. It does not for nukes. Since nukes are inherently much more expensive and batteries add to the expense, this is about the worse possible choice.
local passenger rail loses money as setting fairs at an level needed to be in the black will make people not use it.
Glad you are cowering in a corner. Transmission has a low carbon cost.
You are right that nuclear does not do small well. Naval reactors do well but need dangerously enriched fuel for civilian use. Small is extra expensive for nuclear. But nuclear does not do large very well either. The cooling requirements become too great. Nuclear it thermally inefficient because the fuel needs to be protected from itself. So a gigawatt is about as big as it gets.
You know what else loses money? Shale oil fracking. It's why so many facilities are closing.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Every user connected to such a 'smart grid' will have a second-generation 'smart meter installed'. This would continuously monitor your power use and be able to, under control of the grid, turn your major appliances on and off according to the fluctuating generating capacity coming into the grid from windfields and solar farms. You might have to run your A/C longer in the mornings, when it's windy in Texas, and have it turn itself off when the sun has set in Arizona. That is what putting renewables on the grid will mean to us all.
First-generation smart meters, which only monitor the changing loads and don't have the control function, are already being installed in my state. Despite the association with renewables, the hippie mom lobby has come out against them on grounds they "emit radiation." By this they mean that each smart meter transmits its daily load readings using the cellular data system. It's the same as having someone standing at the outside corner of your garage, making a phone call several times a day.
Good luck getting these braindeadniks to approve having Smart Grid turn their appliances on and off at its discretion.
And we need to actually build all those wind and solar plants. And we need the feeders from the wind and solar plants to the new transmission grid. And we need to ignore the fact that the US isn't the British Empire and the sun does in fact set on the entire country. But hey, if we solved all those problems, we could reduce carbon emissions a lot.
But local passenger rail is a benefit to everyone as it helps take cars off the road. As such it is a good target for government subsidy. It helps unclog traffic and reduce pollution. I remember taking the train in Germany many times when I was stationed there. Convenient, fast and on time it made getting around in an area where traffic and parking were hell much nicer.
"Alexander MacDonald, who recently retired as director of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado."
Another attempting to run and hide, before the sniper team bullets hit their targets.
Ha ha
[Splatter}
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
There are things that are net wins for society that can't be built effectively by the private sector on a user-pays basis. Roads and sewers are classic examples. National power grids are probably another.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
In 2009 when they had total super-majority control of the federal government Harry Reid (Democrat Senate leader), Nancy Pelosi (Democrat House speaker), and Barack Obama (Democrat President) rammed-through their nearly one-trillion dollar stimulus bill (the actual numbers vary depending on how you compute but even at a minimum it was over .8T). Much of the justification was that it would create lots of jobs by rebuilding bridges and by modernizing the electrical grid. In fact people seem to be forgetting just how much hype there was about the new "smart grid".
In reality, they did exactly what was predicted: a bunch of the money was shunted to businesses aligned with Democrats or owned by Democrat fund raisers and a lot of the rest went to local governments to keep unionized government workers (who are as vital an element of the Democrat political machine as "pro-lifers" are to the GOP) from being laid off. Very little national infrastructure was actually built/repaired and certainly nothing seems to have come of the "smart grid"
Any new push to take out the national credit card and nail another few trillions in debt (the principle PLUS interest, which politicians never want people to think about) onto our kids' backs will likely go down the same rabbit hole. The Obama-Reid-Pelosi trifecta was probably the pinnacle of liberal government control (you cannot physically get ANY more power) and THEY did not do the "smart grid" even with the biggest level of borrowing in US history and the tolerance of a public that had been told this was the "Hope & Change" that would save them from an economic disaster. People on the left who imagine a bright liberal future where these sorts of fantasies work out need to consider that no future president is likely to have a similar opportunity to borrow-and-spend in the near future - the Obama years have doubled the national debt to such a level that the CBO no longer sees a way to keep the government running past about the year 2030..... and ANY rise in interest rates will create a nightmare-inducing rise in the portion of the national debt that goes just to pay interest.
Think!
Are you willing to give up 25% of the electricity generated to power line losses as you shuttle electrons across your imagined 'interstate highway foe electrons'?
That lost energy has to first be generated, and when generated, increases greenhouse gasses by, obviously, about 25%.
Ken
I'm not certain that's a fair comparison, seeing as how OPEC started a price war with the shale oil fracking companies (http://ecowatch.com/2015/09/15/fracking-boom-bust-opec/).
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
The CONUS-wide high voltage grid proposal could be a thinly veiled assault on self-individual mobility, that is private automobiles and individual rights. Massive electrification inevitably results in the proliferation of railway electric traction, which lowers the cost of running trains over 70% compared to coal/steam and up to 40% compared to diesel. This will spark further railway construction activity and not just for freight, but also passengers.
When the USA has its equivalent of a nationwide TGV/shinkansen network, many libertarians fear the feds will have enough propaganda ammunition to demand that populace give up car ownership and rely on public transport. Soon after, according to tea-partisans, armed guarded trains will starts to haul large masses of people to extermination camps "endlosung" style.
I can't honestly say they are silly or paranoid. Did you know modern railway AC~ electrification was invented in the little central european country of Hungary (mostly owing to the 1898-1931 work of an engineer named Kalman Kando)? Not too suprisingly, by 1944 Hungary became the most diligent vassal of the teutonic Third Reich when it came to deporting over a million of jewry and gipsy to Birkenau and Mauthausen, in long trains of barbed wire sealed cattle waggons...
From 'Climatedot'. Every. Single. Day.
What's wrong with 'carbon emissions'? Nothing. You're just meant to PRESUME that there is something wrong with them, because 'they' are trying to reduce them.
www.wattsupwiththat.com
www.climatedepot.com
There is no such thing as 'catastrophic man-made global warming', which is why they renamed it 'climate change', which means nothing of the sort.
> 'Our idea was if we had a national 'interstate highway for electrons' we could move the power around as it was needed, and we could put the wind and solar plants in the very best places,'
You don't have that? In 2016? WTF?
This is a great project to be done... in the Fifties. :-/
I do not think it means what you think it means.
Fear: Oh no! You may be able to not produce so much CO2 and NOT HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR LIFESTYLE!!! BE AFRAID!!!!
Uncertainty: You will reduce it by 78%. BE CONFUSED AT THE UNCERTAINTY!!!!
Doubt: You won't have to change your power generation! Recoil at the DOUBT ABOUT YOUR FUTURE!!!!!
Look, just beause hippie beatnic environmentalists are all for renewable power doesn't mean you have to hate solar power as much as you hate those damn hippies.
But you're a 'merkin, so you cannot accept that anyone in a group you identify with your hatred can ever have an idea that you like, because that would mean you'd have to consider their claims individually, rather than just go "hippie talk == bullshit wrong crazy talk" which puts much less strain on that brain you hate using.
What's the difference between a "price war" and "competition"? Are you suggesting companies shouldn't be allowed to set prices for their products as they see fit?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Fares. A level.
Literacy. It's everybody's friend....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
No way, that's communism!
TFA has at least 2 things wrong. 1) There is always wind or sun somewhere. Scotland and Europe tried this. There are hurricanes and there are huge calms that come across large swaths of the globe. Not often, but often enough that you cannot close the existing power plants. 2) use DC High Voltage lines. If they were better, Edison would have won the war. Tesla won because AC is better for long distance transmission.
The country has a pretty good grid already. Perhaps some legislation to make interstate power sales easier would help. Personally, I would rather see:
1) Windmills on top of skyscrapers inside the cities they are powering. Less transmission lines. 2) Small Nuclear power plants in many small towns across the country. Thorium plants using modern designs, without the need for more transmission lines and no need for evacuation plans for the region. Much of the cost of a nuclear power plant is based on HUGE plants with legislation by Nervous Nelly luddites who want them stopped.
This is what I have been saying for years. Although I have usually stipulated they should be using superconducting highways; I see that's not necessary to get the ball rolling on a national infrastructure. I think it should be a government run operation with subcontractors building it out. It should be government run because I feel it's a matter of national security. Should a natural disaster strike the government should have a locked in system for rerouting massive amounts of power around damaged areas. But one of the problems with the current grid is that when power is generated from renewable resources it's in areas away from where the majority of the consumers are.
Christ, "setting fairs"? "At an level"? Go back to grade school.
There is a new HVDC breaker that avoids that issue. http://news.nationalgeographic...
In answer to your question: I'm not suggesting that at all. Returning to your original comment, I'm still not understanding what connection you're trying to make between shale oil fracking and passenger rail, unless you're simply trying to point out that any venture can lose money.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
Isn't there some kind of total power loss that increases monotonically with distance traveled. Isn't there some kind of practical maximum distance?
Second reply to your comment because I'm apparently a moron today. Re-reading the last three posts, my OPEC comment was irrelevant to what I should have asked to begin with. Please elaborate on the connection between shale oil fracking and local passenger rail, aside from them both being (currently) unprofitable ventures. I can't understand what point you were trying to make.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
In the medium to long term, price wars can be good for the dominant firms in the industry. Typically, the smaller, more marginal, firms cannot compete and must close. The remaining firms absorb the market share of those that have closed.
Price wars, if they go on long enough, can lead to or reinforce oligopolies. Larger firms can sometimes afford to lose money for a while to drive out competition, which is arguably what OPEC is doing to fracking.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Oddly as far as security is concerned we need numerous, isolated, power grids. With a nationwide grid, an attack at one point could wipe out the power supply for the entire nation. Yet we can also exterminate ourselves by allowing pollution. There is no easy answer.
Have you looked at the national debt? Have you looked at the state of social services in the US? Have you seen our crumbling infrastructure? How in the hell can we justify retrofitting our electric grid like that? Why don't we just start generating electricity without carbon emissions by using modern nuclear power? Today. Let me guess, gotta "save the planet;" let's stifle that debate point with a little Armageddon.
This is why some folks think "climate change" isn't real. Because there's no reality in the discussion of policy solutions, only a long series of variations on a machine gun volley to the foot, to loosen a noose of our own making.
This just seems myopic to me. This would just prolong carbon emissions, which just add up. We need to get off of carbon emitting technologies, not make them transmit more efficiently. That should be the priority, if only because we're going to run out of fossils.
Sounds like a "free market" to me.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This article is all wrong on what we already know about electricity.
The reason why we use A/C, because you CAN transfer it farther than D/C.
Doesn't anyone remember the Tesla and Edison war between A/C and D/C?
Seriously, there is NO WAY that this would cut 78% of our CO2. However it makes good sense from not only economics, but also for the ability to provide emergency power.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
When your pricing is threatening to destabilize the global economy, I think it's turned into a price war.
No, that sounds like an *unregulated* market, which isn't quite the same as a free market, although sadly a lot of people - including those who are ostensibly pro-free market - conflate the two.
In any case, I'm not arguing that monopolies or oligopolies are good - in most cases, they aren't.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/better-power-lines-would-help-us-supercharge-renewable-energy-study-suggests
Tres Amigas SuperStation
It would be a cool, large-scale application of superconductivity, but they're having some difficulties. Root for them if you like.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Spent nuclear fuel is not a proliferation risk because a power plant makes the wrong isotopes of plutonium for bombs. To make a bomb, you need pure plutonium239 [Pu239]. Isotopes: One chemical element can come in several isotopes. The element [atomic] number describes the number of protons in the nucleus. Different isotopes of an element have different numbers of neutrons. You are made of atoms. Every atom has a nucleus. Each nucleus contains the number of protons required for that element plus some number of neutrons. The number of neutrons for one element varies. For example, oxygen has 8 protons and either 8 or 9 or 10 neutrons. We say that 8O16, 8O17 and 8O18 are 3 different isotopes of oxygen. You breathe all 3 isotopes of oxygen. Some isotopes of some elements are radioactive, while other isotopes of the same elements are stable. You inevitably eat both radioactive and stable isotopes of the elements that you must eat to live. To make Pu239, you have to shut down the reactor and do a fuel cycle after one month or less of operation. Since removing and replacing fuel takes a month, a short-cycled reactor operates half the time. A power plant that has a one month on, one month off fuel cycle would stick out a lot more than the proverbial sore thumb. A reactor used to make electricity runs for 18 months to 2 years between refuelings. In that time, Pu239 absorbs extra neutrons, becoming Pu240, Pu241, Pu242, 95americium243, 96curium247, 97berkelium247, 98californium251, 99einsteinium25, 100fermium257 and so on. The higher [more protons] elements are made by beta decays, where a neutron becomes a proton, an electron and a neutrino. 7% Pu240 is enough to spoil a bomb and you get a lot more than 7% Pu240 from a reactor that has been running for 18 months. Separating Pu239 from those higher actinides is a technology that has not been developed. Nobody would try to do that separation because the easy way to make Pu239 is with a short cycle reactor. Governments that have plutonium bombs, have government owned government operated [GOGO] reactors that do nothing but make Pu239.
That plan uses natural gas to make up for the intermittent nature of wind and solar. You get 99% reduction in CO2 by going 100% nuclear. Nuclear power is the only way to stop making CO2 that actually works. To stop Global Warming, we must replace all large fossil fueled power plants with nuclear. Renewable Energy mandates cause more CO2 to be produced, not less, and renewable energy doubles or quadruples your electric bill. The reasons are as follows: Since solar “works” 15% of the time and wind “works” 20% of the time, we need either energy storage technology we don’t have or ambient temperature superconductors and we don’t have them either. Wind and solar are so intermittent that electric companies are forced to build new generator capacity that can load-follow very fast, and that means natural gas fired gas turbines. The gas turbines have to be kept spinning at full speed all the time to ramp up quickly enough. The result is that wind and solar not only double your electric bill, wind and solar also cause MORE CO2 to be produced. We do not have battery or energy storage technology that could smooth out wind and solar at a price that would be possible to do. The energy storage would "cost" in the neighborhood of a QUADRILLION dollars for the US. That is an imaginary price because we could not get the materials to do it if we had that much money. The only real way to reduce CO2 production from electricity generation is to replace all fossil fueled power plants with the newest available generation of nuclear. Nuclear can load-follow fast enough as long as wind and solar power are not connected to the grid. Generation 4 nuclear can ramp fast enough to make up for the intermittency of wind and solar, but there is no reason to waste time and money on wind and solar.
Proliferation as in you dont want your redneck cousin with any non trivial amount of PU, a decent quantity of Americium etc etc.
No sir I dont like it.
Normally I am all about increasing efficiency to eliminate waste, but wouldn't tying together into a national grid open us up to a cascading failure like what happens in 1965?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_1965
In the aftermath of this completely preventable human error, a lot of smart people got together to institute several new industry standards as well as electronic and mechanical failsafe countermeasures. Modern energy production seems to rely fairly heavily on "controllable" energy generation that can be reduced or increased as necessary. Solar and wind, for example fluctuate on a daily or even hourly basis depending on weather. What controls could be put in place to "level out" the grid? Nuclear? Hydro? Continued reliance on fossil fuels?
With this energy sharing plan, how would we deal with generation slump? If we were to experience a sudden voltage drop from the supply stations causing a spike in the amperage draw and tripping safety breakers to protect the transmission lines, could we see a cascading failure nationwide?
For example, if we are using computers to regulate service nationwide, could a computer based strike against the 'national power regulating software' against a fairly small percentage of key power generating facilities of the U.S. plunge the grid in a cascading blackout?
If we assume the electrical load is going to be spread across the nation, it stands to reason that if a section goes dark, the rest of the facilities will have to adapt quickly and ramp up generation or risk damaging their own infrastructure, causing them to shut down as well to prevent that damage... Right?
**Please excuse poor formatting, I'm on mobile**
The US cannot even effectively build and use rail for both long and short distance. That would not only save tons of energy, it would also increase productivity. It would also not be that difficult to do as we once used to have a very dense and well connected rail network of which many lines were converted into bike trails and rarely overbuilt because the long and narrow stretches of land are not suitable for much. Instead, mind boggling amounts are wasted on an unsustainable Interstate system that would require even more funding to overcome the problems of crumbling infrastructure. In any case, string the power lines along the Interstate highways as much as possible. Those stretches are already damaged by sealed surfaces and pollution of various kinds.
So, does this mean businesses located in the country, or does it mean the country's government, or some awful hybrid, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? (And we know how that turned out.)
If electricity production and distribution were not a centrally-planned operation (http:duckduckgo.com/q=gosplan), there would be incentives for electric power companies to create such transmission facilities, or for entrepreneurs to create them.
Instead, we have state regulators controlling prices and approving investment decisions, with the intent of requiring them to be profitable but not too profitable.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.