When you are dealing with spinning things capable of driving a generator at hundreds of megawatts and you want to reverse them in a second and still remain intact then magic is what you would need:) Of course you don't need such a magic thing unless a cloud magically appears from New York to L.A. or a calm magically falls over a continent in an instant. You are going to great lengths here to oppose an alternative energy other than the one you like. It's fine being a fanboy, I've been a big fan of the nuclear waste disposal material synroc since the 1980s, what's not fine is stupid lies about what you see as the opposition.
Oh you were referring to the post way above - I'd say it got marked as such because of the way I called out your lie. It's more of a refutation of a troll comment that makes people uncomfortable than a troll itself IMHO. Some people see it as feeding the trolls but I see it as a warning that there is a fanboy who is prepared to lie becuase "the ends justify the means" on the loose.
Audience appears to disagree, judging by the moderation.
More than five hours later that comment above yours is untouched either way yet you wrote that, so the "audience", if there is any by this point, either does not care or does not disagree enough to bother using mod points. I really do not get the point of such an obvious and petty lie.
Do not not grasp the concept of very rapidly disconnecting a power source in the event of overload? Your comment about seems to imply that you don't think something so fundamental was thought of and designed for back in Edison's day.
Rolling blackouts forced by overload on portion of grid is a norm even in some Western countries.
Uncommon, and even then your transformers on fire thing is a bit of a joke.
You didn't even understand what I referred to when talking about what happens when you lose a power source and how that pushes your transit network out of phase with the rest of power generators.
I understand it's not a big deal, file it with your transformers on fire. Units drop off power networks on many occasions and there are simple procedures to deal with it instead of panic and doomsday scenarios.
You've been caught out with your bullshit above and shown to know so little about it that I can use examples that a high schooler can understand, yet it seems I just cannot dumb it down enough. This pretending to be dumb for the sake of attacking an alternative energy that you see as a challenge to your own favourite alternative energy is far beneath you.
It is a sometimes available source of energy which perturbs the balance of the grid over the time frame of seconds.
Oh yes, that thick cloud extending from Los Angeles to New York that we never saw coming. Distributed power sources increase grid stability instead of what you are suggesting.
Renewables would require near instant mode switching
You really are laying on the unrealistic assumptions today. First the wind stops blowing over entire continents and now pump storage needs magical powers before it's of any use at all.
In Germany it's being done to maintain stability of the grid, which is basing the grid's stability on faith, hope, and trust that those users will comply everytime it's needed.
Yet it's holding up better than both coasts of North America. Funny about that isn't it? Maybe you've been fed propaganda?
You are overstating implications and now attacking my qualifications because I don't subscribe to your doomsday scenario? Cute.
yet you appear to be utterly ignorant of the very basics of realities of electricity production and electric grids
However since I've had the boots on that ground and you have not then where is the misunderstanding likely to be? Give up on the petty bullying in the hope that I have low self esteem. I brought up that background simply to indicate that I can tell the difference between your silly nuclear fanboy propaganda and reality.
because you can't keep the AC frequency in proper phase
A lot of work has gone into making sure that such things do not have to bother you in your armchair and it works better with solar, wind, gas turbines and other peak power sources than without.
It is a sometimes available source of energy which perturbs the balance of the grid over the time frame of seconds.
Bell Labs came up with an answer to that in 1947. I really don't know where this "perturbs the balance of the grid" bullshit is coming from on a site that supposed to have a basis on something other than magical thinking.
Wind is generating at full available power all the time
While it is a wind power suppliers wet dream and some rent seekers are pushing for such a thing it is not reality. WTF did you get such bullshit from? It's a peak source, and wishful thinking is not going to make distributors treat it as anything else. Once again - that weather chart - you'll find those periods of zero wind generation do not match periods where there was magically a calm over an entire country but instead match when electricity consumption could be supplied entirely by base load. You cannot manage a large coal fired or other thermal unit for wildly variable load and the time taken to fire them up is hours or days - that's the reality, base load is run as base load.. You don't keep a lot of thermal power units running as spinning reserve either, they still need to consume fuel when operated that way. It appears that you have a major assumption here that is frankly utter bullshit. I'm not blaming you for it sticking, but who threw it in your direction?
Once again - peak load is a problem that is harder to solve than base load and money has to come from somewhere, thus proportional to GW/h may not give the best outcome. However some alternative energy subsidies such as the residential ones do have a bit of a "bread and circuses" scent to them. There is a return but the final outcome would probably be similar without throwing money in that direction.
I am going to point out the fact that actual cost is being lost in the discussion.
The subsidies are a carrot for the consumers to pay the high capital cost of photovolatiacs on their roofs instead of the state putting up capital to build new generators or providing a carrot to induce private enterprise to build new generators. Over the long term it looks like a waste of money, but it's a consequece of short term thinking and poorly managing state granted monopolies to private enterprise, where maximum profit comes from sitting on existing capacity and charging consumers more for it each quarter. We're really discussing the dirty end of economics which is about handing out something hard to distinguish from blatant bribes to drive outcomes. I don't like it either.
The thing about peak power sources is they are used when the demand is higher than the base load can provide. You don't use them all the time. Now do you understand how it is possible that you can get a zero in wind produced energy when the wind is blowing? It's not that there is no wind, it's that there is no need to bring the windmills online. So I'm not arguing against real numbers, I'm pointing out what they actually signify. Please consider that and look at the page again, perhaps mentally adding in the conventional chart to get a chart for total consumption. Take note that the axis on one chart is three times that of another. Do you see that now - it's just filling in the peaks.
I think in general people here are not grasping the concept that windmills are very small generating units that are brought online as required instead of connected 24/7/365 like large thermal generators.
It's been 10 years, I thought the S. Australia/Victoria power pool was going to grow.
That's assuming a expanding manufacturing economy instead of a quarry and service industries for the quarriers.
The northern N.S.W. thing was pure padding and didn't match their demand forecasts. It turns out that such a thing is supposed to be widespread but the example I gave has been through the court
In general, that is indeed correct, and how grid is generally balanced. But as with all engineering problems, devil is in the details. And details make his model utterly ridiculous and completely unfeasible. The problems here is DISTANCE and LOCALIZATION OF PRODUCTION.
So you are arguing against widely distributed small generators on that basis? They provide LOCALIZATION OF PRODUCTION by their very nature, so I suggest you be a bit more honest about your reason for objecting to them.
As nuclear is far more reliable
It's a base load solution with a large capacity and is very expensive to turn off and on for peaks where you need a bit more capacity. Anybody who raves on about "one true energy" whether it is solar, wind, nuclear or coal is either selling something or has been conned - the answer is a mix of energy sources. It's cheaper to fire up a gas turbine (or several) than an entire coal or nuclear base load unit if you don't need the full capacity of a base load unit. Although wind has a lot of drawbacks it has a niche. Although photovoltaics are very expensive they now also have a place and are making a positive impact.
And when the supply suddenly dies, it takes a while for automation to switch back.
True, it's not entirely simple, yet somehow Grandpa did the job with a telephone. It's gotten a lot easier since. Having a huge number widely distributed of DC power sources on people's roofs that can produce AC with whatever timing you want has made it easier again. With the huge number of mostly idle gas turbines all over the place it's almost trivial today, even more so if there's some hydro. I wish you wouldn't make up a pile of technobabble to try to pretend that up is down. Since you are pretending to be too dumb to understand a weather chart why do you have to gall to call for an overcomplicated model of a grid?
your grid in the North is already down and you have countless transformer fires if you tried to keep it up regardless.
With respect, take a look at a chart showing air pressure across your continent. Consider what it means in terms of wind, especially since windmills are spread out quite a bit now. The "wind is always blowing" thing is reality on the scale of a continental grid, even an electricity grid in Europe since there are such large interconnections between countries. If you look at a North American air pressure chart and the size of the US+Canada grid it's even more obvious. I've never had anything to do with windmills and don't even like them much but I'm sick of all the politically motivated bullshit attacking anything in power generation that is seen as remotely "green", and that's why I called the GP poster to task for his bullshit.
questioning the intelligence of anyone who dares to point out flaws
The situation here is a deliberate pretence of not being able to grasp what a child can work out watching a weather report on the TV. Sadly it is not a lack of intelligence I am accusing you of, but a pretended lack of intelligence as part of a deliberate attempt to mislead for political fanboy purposes. As a former electricity industry engineer I'm someone disgusted by people using such tactics to spread lies about a field I care about, especially repeating them after being shown they are lies.
Troll? So is your personal definition of a troll somebody who replies to inflammatory lies instead of the poster of them? How convenient.
Yes, but the peak determines network design and the capacity you plan for. Cutting that peak back does save money in a "fact based" way if you want to use such language.
Slashdot Mirror
When you are dealing with spinning things capable of driving a generator at hundreds of megawatts and you want to reverse them in a second and still remain intact then magic is what you would need :)
Of course you don't need such a magic thing unless a cloud magically appears from New York to L.A. or a calm magically falls over a continent in an instant. You are going to great lengths here to oppose an alternative energy other than the one you like. It's fine being a fanboy, I've been a big fan of the nuclear waste disposal material synroc since the 1980s, what's not fine is stupid lies about what you see as the opposition.
Oh you were referring to the post way above - I'd say it got marked as such because of the way I called out your lie. It's more of a refutation of a troll comment that makes people uncomfortable than a troll itself IMHO. Some people see it as feeding the trolls but I see it as a warning that there is a fanboy who is prepared to lie becuase "the ends justify the means" on the loose.
More than five hours later that comment above yours is untouched either way yet you wrote that, so the "audience", if there is any by this point, either does not care or does not disagree enough to bother using mod points. I really do not get the point of such an obvious and petty lie.
Do not not grasp the concept of very rapidly disconnecting a power source in the event of overload? Your comment about seems to imply that you don't think something so fundamental was thought of and designed for back in Edison's day.
Uncommon, and even then your transformers on fire thing is a bit of a joke.
I understand it's not a big deal, file it with your transformers on fire. Units drop off power networks on many occasions and there are simple procedures to deal with it instead of panic and doomsday scenarios.
You've been caught out with your bullshit above and shown to know so little about it that I can use examples that a high schooler can understand, yet it seems I just cannot dumb it down enough. This pretending to be dumb for the sake of attacking an alternative energy that you see as a challenge to your own favourite alternative energy is far beneath you.
Oh yes, that thick cloud extending from Los Angeles to New York that we never saw coming. Distributed power sources increase grid stability instead of what you are suggesting.
You really are laying on the unrealistic assumptions today. First the wind stops blowing over entire continents and now pump storage needs magical powers before it's of any use at all.
You did exactly that in a previous exchange :)
Yet it's holding up better than both coasts of North America. Funny about that isn't it? Maybe you've been fed propaganda?
However since I've had the boots on that ground and you have not then where is the misunderstanding likely to be? Give up on the petty bullying in the hope that I have low self esteem. I brought up that background simply to indicate that I can tell the difference between your silly nuclear fanboy propaganda and reality.
A lot of work has gone into making sure that such things do not have to bother you in your armchair and it works better with solar, wind, gas turbines and other peak power sources than without.
Bell Labs came up with an answer to that in 1947.
I really don't know where this "perturbs the balance of the grid" bullshit is coming from on a site that supposed to have a basis on something other than magical thinking.
While it is a wind power suppliers wet dream and some rent seekers are pushing for such a thing it is not reality. WTF did you get such bullshit from? It's a peak source, and wishful thinking is not going to make distributors treat it as anything else.
Once again - that weather chart - you'll find those periods of zero wind generation do not match periods where there was magically a calm over an entire country but instead match when electricity consumption could be supplied entirely by base load. You cannot manage a large coal fired or other thermal unit for wildly variable load and the time taken to fire them up is hours or days - that's the reality, base load is run as base load.. You don't keep a lot of thermal power units running as spinning reserve either, they still need to consume fuel when operated that way.
It appears that you have a major assumption here that is frankly utter bullshit. I'm not blaming you for it sticking, but who threw it in your direction?
However some alternative energy subsidies such as the residential ones do have a bit of a "bread and circuses" scent to them. There is a return but the final outcome would probably be similar without throwing money in that direction.
The subsidies are a carrot for the consumers to pay the high capital cost of photovolatiacs on their roofs instead of the state putting up capital to build new generators or providing a carrot to induce private enterprise to build new generators. Over the long term it looks like a waste of money, but it's a consequece of short term thinking and poorly managing state granted monopolies to private enterprise, where maximum profit comes from sitting on existing capacity and charging consumers more for it each quarter.
We're really discussing the dirty end of economics which is about handing out something hard to distinguish from blatant bribes to drive outcomes. I don't like it either.
True but the discussion appeared to be about total investment instead of proportional.
The thing about peak power sources is they are used when the demand is higher than the base load can provide. You don't use them all the time. Now do you understand how it is possible that you can get a zero in wind produced energy when the wind is blowing? It's not that there is no wind, it's that there is no need to bring the windmills online.
So I'm not arguing against real numbers, I'm pointing out what they actually signify.
Please consider that and look at the page again, perhaps mentally adding in the conventional chart to get a chart for total consumption. Take note that the axis on one chart is three times that of another. Do you see that now - it's just filling in the peaks.
I think in general people here are not grasping the concept that windmills are very small generating units that are brought online as required instead of connected 24/7/365 like large thermal generators.
That's assuming a expanding manufacturing economy instead of a quarry and service industries for the quarriers.
The northern N.S.W. thing was pure padding and didn't match their demand forecasts. It turns out that such a thing is supposed to be widespread but the example I gave has been through the court
Banks don't put up loans for nuclear plants. Guess where the interest free loans and insurance comes from. Solar and wind are peanuts in comparison.
It's hard to incrementally increase the diameter of a transmission line cable :)
Network design is ongoing.
So you are arguing against widely distributed small generators on that basis? They provide LOCALIZATION OF PRODUCTION by their very nature, so I suggest you be a bit more honest about your reason for objecting to them.
It's a base load solution with a large capacity and is very expensive to turn off and on for peaks where you need a bit more capacity. Anybody who raves on about "one true energy" whether it is solar, wind, nuclear or coal is either selling something or has been conned - the answer is a mix of energy sources. It's cheaper to fire up a gas turbine (or several) than an entire coal or nuclear base load unit if you don't need the full capacity of a base load unit. Although wind has a lot of drawbacks it has a niche. Although photovoltaics are very expensive they now also have a place and are making a positive impact.
True, it's not entirely simple, yet somehow Grandpa did the job with a telephone. It's gotten a lot easier since. Having a huge number widely distributed of DC power sources on people's roofs that can produce AC with whatever timing you want has made it easier again. With the huge number of mostly idle gas turbines all over the place it's almost trivial today, even more so if there's some hydro.
I wish you wouldn't make up a pile of technobabble to try to pretend that up is down. Since you are pretending to be too dumb to understand a weather chart why do you have to gall to call for an overcomplicated model of a grid?
What a silly fantasy. Stick to your day job.
With respect, take a look at a chart showing air pressure across your continent. Consider what it means in terms of wind, especially since windmills are spread out quite a bit now. The "wind is always blowing" thing is reality on the scale of a continental grid, even an electricity grid in Europe since there are such large interconnections between countries. If you look at a North American air pressure chart and the size of the US+Canada grid it's even more obvious.
I've never had anything to do with windmills and don't even like them much but I'm sick of all the politically motivated bullshit attacking anything in power generation that is seen as remotely "green", and that's why I called the GP poster to task for his bullshit.
The situation here is a deliberate pretence of not being able to grasp what a child can work out watching a weather report on the TV. Sadly it is not a lack of intelligence I am accusing you of, but a pretended lack of intelligence as part of a deliberate attempt to mislead for political fanboy purposes. As a former electricity industry engineer I'm someone disgusted by people using such tactics to spread lies about a field I care about, especially repeating them after being shown they are lies.
Troll? So is your personal definition of a troll somebody who replies to inflammatory lies instead of the poster of them? How convenient.
Examples are examples. Why are mine, tested by the courts, invalid, but your untested ones somehow are?
Equal? All those government loans for big nuke and thermal coal projects dwarf just about everything outside of defence.
Yes, but the peak determines network design and the capacity you plan for. Cutting that peak back does save money in a "fact based" way if you want to use such language.