Wind Power costs at 2 cents per kilowatt hour

Technology advancements and cost reductions have driven wind power down to 2 cents per kwh. This is from the annual report released by the U.S. Department of Energy and prepared by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

Key findings from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind Technologies Market Report include:

Wind power capacity additions continued at a rapid pace in 2017. Nationwide, wind power capacity additions equaled 7,017 megawatts (MW) in 2017, with $11 billion invested in new plants. Wind power constituted 25 percent of all U.S. generation capacity additions in 2017. Wind energy contributed 6.3 percent of the nation’s electricity supply, more than 10 percent of total electricity generation in 14 states, and more than 30 percent in four of those states (Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota).

Low wind turbine pricing continues to push down installed project costs. Wind turbine equipment prices have fallen to $750-$950/kilowatt (kW), and these declines are pushing down project-level costs. The average installed cost of wind projects in 2017 was $1,610/kW, down $795/kW from the peak in 2009 and 2010.

Wind energy prices remain low. Lower installed project costs, along with improvements in capacity factors, are enabling aggressive wind power pricing. After topping out at 7 cents per kWh in 2009, the average levelized long-term price from wind power sales agreements has dropped to around 2 cents per kWh – though this nationwide average is dominated by projects that hail from the lowest-priced region, in the central United States. Recently signed wind energy contracts compare favorably to projections of the fuel costs of gas-fired generation. These low prices have spurred demand for wind energy from both traditional electric utilities and nonutility purchasers, such as corporations, universities, and municipalities.

592 thoughts on “Wind Power costs at 2 cents per kilowatt hour”

  1. This is where the utility scale battery systems shine. As demonstrated in Oz, they can respond in milliseconds to changes in frequency, helping to keep the grid stable and avoid brownouts. Even if substantial storage will take a while to become practical, grid stabilization is going to be taken over by batteries, further hurting standby gas power plant economics.

  2. This is exactly the point. Cost reductions in solar are even steeper but overall pricing is higher than wind. This is the reason why there is no need to re-introduce nuclear power of the current generation with potential radiation leaks and generation of nuclear material for nuclear weapons by the wrong bodies. We can wait with nuclear power until molten salt plants become commercial and accelerate the reduction of our greenhouse gases footprint now that renewable energy is becoming fully competitive with fossil fuels.

  3. Goat, it takes the computers a few seconds to adjust. The electrical distribution system itself stores energy in its wires, capacitors, reactors and transformers. When there is a lost in generation somewhere this excess energy can provide the missing potential until the computers and the humans can react. The computers will change the tap settings on the substation transformers. And turn up the burners on the boilers of generation stations that are generating below max. If the lost is bad enough, the computers will start up the gas turbines. Meanwhile phone calls are made to the Regional Power Authority and independent generators to buy power. The fact of life is that equipment fails and that thunderstorms happen. A lot of people don’t realized that under a severe thunderstorm watch a utility may have to shutdown transmission lines and go to in city generation.

  4. Don’t need storage until renewable reaches over 40% of generation. You can also overbuilt if prices are low enough. All utilities have banks of fast start gas turbines for emergency and heat waves. When the wind stops blowing they start the GTs up.

  5. The cost of one AP1000 is about $10 billion. Power demand is not fixed. We use more power during the day than at night so capacity is under 50% for most fossil fuel power plants. Also capacity factors have gone up for wind. Also when 1G comes online, 1G has to go offline. With renewable you can incremental add generation in much smaller units.

  6. Renewable can always undersell fossil fuel generation since their cost for generating the next MW is zero. The more renewable the more pressure they put on fossil fuel generation.

  7. Wow, 4 windy states where only 10M people live combined got 30% of total electrical generation from wind (sic). Kinda impossible when the capacity factor is less than 30%. $0.02/kWh divided by 17% availability is about $0.12/kWh. Seriously though, did we (USA) add 7GW of wind power last year or is that some kind of fib? If you again use 17% availability that 7GW of wind power is the output of one AP1000. The article does say $11B was spent on “new plants” implying wind, but I don’t know what a “wind plant” is… Regardless, $11B is approximately the FOAK per/each price of AP1000 down there at Vogtle (although not finished yet).

  8. Its called “top up generation”. What natural gas is excellent at. I find it kind of amusing that whenever capricious wind or diurnally challenged solar power are trotted out, that some comment or within the article, immediately is the “but it needs storage” issue lobbed over the bow. Newsbreak: MODEST amounts of capricious wind and diurnally challenged solar are QUITE compatible with the rest of most country’s or region’s power grids. Some states (in the US) have substantial hydroelectric generating facilities, which well before the first kilowatt of wind and solar was connected … back in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, hydro was the “backfill of choice” technology. Electrical grids are by their very nature, capricious animals. They blow breakers when something perhaps hundreds of miles away is hit by a lightning bolt, or a truck runs into a power pole in a part of the metropolis that is under high demand. Breakers blow, instantly loading the rest of the grid (or unloading it!); all the generating facilities in turn see rapid … second by second … changes in demand. This is as it is today, actually. Adding MODEST solar and wind just adds more somewhat predictable “noise” to the demand-producer equation matrix. In secret offices far, far from public scrutiny, scores of professionals, highly attuned to the idiosyncracies of their part of the grid, command the generating facilities to ramp up, or down, or level their operations. They respond in seconds to the sudden changes that broken breakers and downed poles incur. And with the advent of wind and solar, they have more to do. Without needing to store one single kilowatt hour. Just saying, GoatGuy

  9. This is exactly the point. Cost reductions in solar are even steeper but overall pricing is higher than wind. This is the reason why there is no need to re-introduce nuclear power of the current generation with potential radiation leaks and generation of nuclear material for nuclear weapons by the wrong bodies. We can wait with nuclear power until molten salt plants become commercial and accelerate the reduction of our greenhouse gases footprint now that renewable energy is becoming fully competitive with fossil fuels.

  10. Goat it takes the computers a few seconds to adjust. The electrical distribution system itself stores energy in its wires capacitors reactors and transformers. When there is a lost in generation somewhere this excess energy can provide the missing potential until the computers and the humans can react. The computers will change the tap settings on the substation transformers. And turn up the burners on the boilers of generation stations that are generating below max. If the lost is bad enough the computers will start up the gas turbines. Meanwhile phone calls are made to the Regional Power Authority and independent generators to buy power. The fact of life is that equipment fails and that thunderstorms happen. A lot of people don’t realized that under a severe thunderstorm watch a utility may have to shutdown transmission lines and go to in city generation.

  11. Don’t need storage until renewable reaches over 40{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of generation. You can also overbuilt if prices are low enough. All utilities have banks of fast start gas turbines for emergency and heat waves. When the wind stops blowing they start the GTs up.

  12. The cost of one AP1000 is about $10 billion. Power demand is not fixed. We use more power during the day than at night so capacity is under 50{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} for most fossil fuel power plants. Also capacity factors have gone up for wind. Also when 1G comes online 1G has to go offline. With renewable you can incremental add generation in much smaller units.

  13. Renewable can always undersell fossil fuel generation since their cost for generating the next MW is zero. The more renewable the more pressure they put on fossil fuel generation.

  14. Wow 4 windy states where only 10M people live combined got 30{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of total electrical generation from wind (sic). Kinda impossible when the capacity factor is less than 30{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12}.$0.02/kWh divided by 17{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} availability is about $0.12/kWh.Seriously though did we (USA) add 7GW of wind power last year or is that some kind of fib? If you again use 17{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} availability that 7GW of wind power is the output of one AP1000. The article does say $11B was spent on ew plants”” implying wind”””” but I don’t know what a “”””wind plant”””” is… Regardless”””” $11B is approximately the FOAK per/each price of AP1000 down there at Vogtle (although not finished yet).”””

  15. Its called top up generation””. What natural gas is excellent at.I find it kind of amusing that whenever capricious wind or diurnally challenged solar power are trotted out”” that some comment or within the article”” immediately is the “”””but it needs storage”””” issue lobbed over the bow. Newsbreak: MODEST amounts of capricious wind and diurnally challenged solar are QUITE compatible with the rest of most country’s or region’s power grids. Some states (in the US) have substantial hydroelectric generating facilities”” which well before the first kilowatt of wind and solar was connected … back in the 1960s 1970s 1980s”” hydro was the “”””backfill of choice”””” technology. Electrical grids are by their very nature”” capricious animals. They blow breakers when something perhaps hundreds of miles away is hit by a lightning bolt or a truck runs into a power pole in a part of the metropolis that is under high demand. Breakers blow instantly loading the rest of the grid (or unloading it!); all the generating facilities in turn see rapid … second by second … changes in demand. This is as it is today”” actually. Adding MODEST solar and wind just adds more somewhat predictable “”””noise”””” to the demand-producer equation matrix. In secret offices far”” far from public scrutiny scores of professionals highly attuned to the idiosyncracies of their part of the grid command the generating facilities to ramp up or down or level their operations. They respond in seconds to the sudden changes that broken breakers and downed poles incur. And with the advent of wind and solar they have more to do. Without needing to store one single kilowatt hour. Just saying””GoatGuy”””””””

  16. You seem unaware that even Hydro doesn’t like load balancing wind. Bonneville keeps 1 GW of gas plant on line to smooth out wind transitions without damaging its hydro turbines. It might be compatible but it triples the cost and has forced new efficient CCGT plant nearly off the grid replacing it with inefficient OCGT plant running on capacity payments and spewing out more GHG’s than if we had skipped the wind altogether.

  17. Yup instead we curtail wind/solar at full price or cutoff nukes in adjoining states when wind/solar starts a pumping and the load is lower at night or on weekends. At the same time we pay inefficient peaker GT’s to idle.

  18. Not very much nuclear left so it can run as baseload when the grid doesn’t get saturated with wind/solar dumps.

  19. Which wind and solar needs for backup. Fossil producers like to get paid so they’ve dreamed up capacity payments to get their cash.

  20. As I pointed out above when total system costs are included wind/solar is not even remotely competitive with international nuclear cost standards. With corrupt US politicians running the show though its hard to argue.

  21. As a well known Big Oil propaganda outlet LBNL is noted for disinformation. At $1.6B/GW wind comes to about $5B/GWa with typical US capacity factors. When comparing this cost and adding maintenance and average twenty year lives to the product and wind investor Warren Buffets 15% pa minimum ROR comes to 10 cents a kwh. Obviously LBNL is hiding some pretty significant subsidys that make 2 cent a kwh PPA’s possible – part of its job. Since nuclear and coal plants aren’t capable of backup wind solar requires gas peaker plants or Combined cycle units running on turbines, that get 85% of their cash from capacity payments – another massive wind/solar subsidy. Wind plant also gets pride of place on transmission grid forcing nuke plants off line. They get paid full price to curtail as well when wind maxes out under low load conditions. Finally they get free transmission with grids have to be 3 times sized to carry peak loads. The Ontario auditor general cost these subsidies at 35 cents a kwh. When comparing to nuclear we need to go apples to apples The last 7 Candu’s built came to about $2.5B/GW in 2018 cash, similar to current Chinese, Indian, and Korean builds. Gen IV nukes are forecasted at as little as half that with a quarter the operating cost smaller operating cost Google “costs-and-economics-of-terrestrial” Then we have to replace the wind installations every 20 years or so compared to the current 80 year like of nukes. With public power that doubles that $5B/GW for wind to $10B. A variable renewables only solution also requires long duration green energy storage. If you Google “getting-zero-pathways-zero-carbon-electricity-systems-jesse-jenkins” You’ll find a seasonal storage requirement for 16 weeks worth of US electricity consumption or 30% of renewable energy generation. At a minimum projected cost of $100 a kWh (think batteries) this is simply impossible at $5/kWh added to your power bill. 16/52 * 100 * .18 = $5.2/kwh at 15% or 16/52 * 100 * .09 = $

  22. RE: 2 cents / kWhr, From the Wind Technologies Market Report cited in the linked page: “the national average price of wind PPAs [power purchase agreements] has dropped to around 2¢/kWh” AND “These prices, which are possible in part due to federal tax support, compare favorably to the projected future fuel costs of gas-fired generation. ” So “2 cents” really isn’t the cost of wind power. Subsidies are currently about 2 cents per kWhr for new builds, and older builds may still be getting as much as 7 cents. Another figure of interest – new wind turbine builds get around 42% capacity factor – up from 25% back around 2000. Such new builds actually COST MORE per kW, but better capacity means they cost less per kWhr. Assume future wind systems are built with about half of generated wind electricity stored for later use, to mostly eliminate the impact of short term wind variability on the grid . Flow batteries may cost around $500/kWhr (of storage, installed), which would be about $50/year/kWhr, or about 1.5 – 2 cents per kWhr stored and released. Add that to a future cost of ~4 cents per kWhr (probably best case by 2030) for a price of 5.5 – 6 cents per kWhr without subsidies. Add in a fraction of the cost of maintaining fossil fuel generation plants to absorb remaining variation (e.g for long low-wind periods), and it’s probably around 6-7 cents per kWhr. Not as cheap as coal, but it may be viable?

  23. You seem unaware that even Hydro doesn’t like load balancing wind. Bonneville keeps 1 GW of gas plant on line to smooth out wind transitions without damaging its hydro turbines. It might be compatible but it triples the cost and has forced new efficient CCGT plant nearly off the grid replacing it with inefficient OCGT plant running on capacity payments and spewing out more GHG’s than if we had skipped the wind altogether.

  24. Yup instead we curtail wind/solar at full price or cutoff nukes in adjoining states when wind/solar starts a pumping and the load is lower at night or on weekends. At the same time we pay inefficient peaker GT’s to idle.

  25. Not very much nuclear left so it can run as baseload when the grid doesn’t get saturated with wind/solar dumps.

  26. Which wind and solar needs for backup. Fossil producers like to get paid so they’ve dreamed up capacity payments to get their cash.

  27. As I pointed out above when total system costs are included wind/solar is not even remotely competitive with international nuclear cost standards. With corrupt US politicians running the show though its hard to argue.

  28. As a well known Big Oil propaganda outlet LBNL is noted for disinformation.At $1.6B/GW wind comes to about $5B/GWa with typical US capacity factors. When comparing this cost and adding maintenance and average twenty year lives to the product and wind investor Warren Buffets 15{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} pa minimum ROR comes to 10 cents a kwh. Obviously LBNL is hiding some pretty significant subsidys that make 2 cent a kwh PPA’s possible – part of its job.Since nuclear and coal plants aren’t capable of backup wind solar requires gas peaker plants or Combined cycle units running on turbines that get 85{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of their cash from capacity payments – another massive wind/solar subsidy. Wind plant also gets pride of place on transmission grid forcing nuke plants off line. They get paid full price to curtail as well when wind maxes out under low load conditions. Finally they get free transmission with grids have to be 3 times sized to carry peak loads. The Ontario auditor general cost these subsidies at 35 cents a kwh.When comparing to nuclear we need to go apples to applesThe last 7 Candu’s built came to about $2.5B/GW in 2018 cash similar to current Chinese Indian and Korean builds. Gen IV nukes are forecasted at as little as half that with a quarter the operating cost smaller operating costGoogle costs-and-economics-of-terrestrial””Then we have to replace the wind installations every 20 years or so compared to the current 80 year like of nukes. With public power that doubles that $5B/GW for wind to $10B.A variable renewables only solution also requires long duration green energy storage.If you Google “”””getting-zero-pathways-zero-carbon-electricity-systems-jesse-jenkins”””” You’ll find a seasonal storage requirement for 16 weeks worth of USelectricity consumption or 30{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f311″

  29. RE: 2 cents / kWhr From the Wind Technologies Market Report cited in the linked page:the national average price of wind PPAs [power purchase agreements] has dropped to around 2¢/kWh””AND””””These prices”” which are possible in part due to federal tax support”” compare favorably to the projected future fuel costs of gas-fired generation. “””” So “”””2 cents”””” really isn’t the cost of wind power. Subsidies are currently about 2 cents per kWhr for new builds”” and older builds may still be getting as much as 7 cents. Another figure of interest – new wind turbine builds get around 42{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} capacity factor – up from 25{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} back around 2000. Such new builds actually COST MORE per kW but better capacity means they cost less per kWhr. Assume future wind systems are built with about half of generated wind electricity stored for later use to mostly eliminate the impact of short term wind variability on the grid . Flow batteries may cost around $500/kWhr (of storage installed) which would be about $50/year/kWhr or about 1.5 – 2 cents per kWhr stored and released. Add that to a future cost of ~4 cents per kWhr (probably best case by 2030) for a price of 5.5 – 6 cents per kWhr without subsidies. Add in a fraction of the cost of maintaining fossil fuel generation plants to absorb remaining variation (e.g for long low-wind periods) and it’s probably around 6-7 cents per kWhr. Not as cheap as coal”” but it may be viable?”””””””

  30. This is where the utility scale battery systems shine. As demonstrated in Oz they can respond in milliseconds to changes in frequency helping to keep the grid stable and avoid brownouts. Even if substantial storage will take a while to become practical grid stabilization is going to be taken over by batteries further hurting standby gas power plant economics.

  31. There have been numerous investigations into 80-year life extensions for GenII LWR, which were originally licensed for 40 years and “easily” extended to 60 for all plants that have asked. As long as the vessel isn’t brittle, everything else can be nursed along/replaced. Some even think you can in situ anneal the vessels, although that isn’t really practical. The fuel is “sourced” from the market – it is a commodity, as is enrichment, conversion, etc. Uranium being a finite resource hasn’t become a problem yet, just like we haven’t seen “peak oil”. Also, fuel economy of LWR could be doubled with a change in priorities, attitude, or scarcity. That cleanup at Fukushima is not done by volunteers; it probably pays way too well. Wouldn’t be a bad idea to go over there and collect a paycheck if you could convince them that your standing around and getting paid would be useful. Later Stegmann… Go plant a tree and hug it and burn your money.

  32. There have been numerous investigations into 80-year life extensions for GenII LWR which were originally licensed for 40 years and easily”” extended to 60 for all plants that have asked. As long as the vessel isn’t brittle”” everything else can be nursed along/replaced. Some even think you can in situ anneal the vessels”” although that isn’t really practical.The fuel is “”””sourced”””” from the market – it is a commodity”” as is enrichment conversion etc.Uranium being a finite resource hasn’t become a problem yet”” just like we haven’t seen “”””peak oil””””. Also”” fuel economy of LWR could be doubled with a change in priorities attitude”” or scarcity.That cleanup at Fukushima is not done by volunteers; it probably pays way too well. Wouldn’t be a bad idea to go over there and collect a paycheck if you could convince them that your standing around and getting paid would be useful.Later Stegmann… Go plant a tree and hug it and burn your money.”””

  33. Yes, the grid can absorb “modest” amounts of unreliable power, especially if it tends to show up during periods of peak load. And I’ll give solar that: It usually shows up when air conditioners are running. But “modest” isn’t that high a fraction. Solar is already reaching the point in some states where they have to throw away perfectly good baseload capacity because they’re mandated to buy the solar electricity even if they don’t need it. Remove the subsidies, and the mandate to buy it, so the utilities only have to buy it when it makes sense to, and at the real price, and I withdraw all objections. The market will solve it. Right now, the market isn’t being allowed to function.

  34. You can also overbuilt if prices are low enough. ” Twice as many windmills during a lull in the wind are twice as many windmills not generating power. Likewise for twice as many solar panels at night.

  35. I’ve actually seen screeds where the ‘renewable’ advocates brag about how renewables are going to make the grid uneconomic, and force everybody to use locally generated power.

  36. It’s important to remember than Uranium is a finite resource in the same sense that geothermal and solar are: Finite, but available in sufficient quantities until the Sun wanders off the main sequence and destroys the Earth. Extraction from seawater has already been demonstrated at a decent EROEI, and the sea won’t run out of Uranium until plate tectonics halt, and the last mountain is done eroding into the sea.

  37. experimenting with worn out nukes” – the experimenting was in the ’80s. Should we retire all the F-15s since they tool their first flight in 1972 and are similarly “dated”? Do you think today’s F-15 is the same plane that first flew in 1972? You don’t imagine that the nuke plants have been continuously updated at great cost? “Run off cost question” – is that you asking me why the new construction is so costly? If that is the question, the answer is because our country doesn’t build anything anymore and all the people that knew how to build things are retired… Costs an arm an a leg to build a bridge nowadays. Imagine design and manufacturing companies full of dead wood like yourself – that is today’s reality.

  38. Nice addition – could do without the Millennial college boy insults even though they are very, very sthoopid. One thing though…. “running, at power, a plant that is just in hot standby” Keeping the plant in hot in standby is not “running at power” – semantics.

  39. If the cost reductions are so great, WHY are the prices of electricity more than 20% higher than they were 10 years ago?

  40. Are we raising people that do not use their BRAINS? Do they teach people to use their brains in college anymore? Read the statement again “the average levelized long-term price from wind power sales agreements has dropped to around 2 cents per kWh ” Got that? Price from Long Term Wind Sales Contracts.” Do you know what that means. That Is like signing a contract for week old bread from the local bread distributor. I retired from the local electric utility.. I know what that contract is for. It provides the Wind Farm companies with a Guaranteed Market for a product that no local utility wants! The Electric utilities do not want that electricity because to use that electricity they have to be running a power plant in the standby mode to make up the loss of power when the wind stops blowing OR wind the wind blows to hard. YES when the wind blows to hard because then the Wind Turbine feathers the blades to prevent overstressing the components. and therefore no longer makes electricity. Thus. That electricity is like day old bread or outdated milk. NO ONE WANTS IT. That is why it sells for that low price. The Wind Farm builders know that and they don’t care as they still make a profit off of the SUBSIDIES that YOU pay in Federal, State and even Local taxes. Then YOU get to pay again because your electricity cost more because your local power company is running, at power, a power plant that is just in “Hot Standby” and not making any electricity, just wasting Fossil Fuel and Increasing CO2. PLEASE Use Your Brain. It amazes me that the Wind Turbine dope pushers keep bragging about this.

  41. You can also overbuilt if prices are low enough. “”Twice as many windmills during a lull in the wind are twice as many windmills not generating power. Likewise for twice as many solar panels at night.”””

  42. I’ve actually seen screeds where the ‘renewable’ advocates brag about how renewables are going to make the grid uneconomic and force everybody to use locally generated power.

  43. It’s important to remember than Uranium is a finite resource in the same sense that geothermal and solar are: Finite but available in sufficient quantities until the Sun wanders off the main sequence and destroys the Earth.Extraction from seawater has already been demonstrated at a decent EROEI and the sea won’t run out of Uranium until plate tectonics halt and the last mountain is done eroding into the sea.

  44. experimenting with worn out nukes”” – the experimenting was in the ’80s. Should we retire all the F-15s since they tool their first flight in 1972 and are similarly “”””dated””””? Do you think today’s F-15 is the same plane that first flew in 1972? You don’t imagine that the nuke plants have been continuously updated at great cost?””””Run off cost question”””” – is that you asking me why the new construction is so costly? If that is the question”””” the answer is because our country doesn’t build anything anymore and all the people that knew how to build things are retired… Costs an arm an a leg to build a bridge nowadays. Imagine design and manufacturing companies full of dead wood like yourself – that is today’s reality.”””

  45. Nice addition – could do without the Millennial college boy insults even though they are very very sthoopid.One thing though…. running” at power” a plant that is just in hot standby””Keeping the plant in hot in standby is not “”””running at power”””” – semantics.”””

  46. If the cost reductions are so great WHY are the prices of electricity more than 20{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} higher than they were 10 years ago?

  47. Are we raising people that do not use their BRAINS? Do they teach people to use their brains in college anymore? Read the statement again the average levelized long-term price from wind power sales agreements has dropped to around 2 cents per kWh “” Got that? Price from Long Term Wind Sales Contracts.”””” Do you know what that means. That Is like signing a contract for week old bread from the local bread distributor. I retired from the local electric utility.. I know what that contract is for. It provides the Wind Farm companies with a Guaranteed Market for a product that no local utility wants! The Electric utilities do not want that electricity because to use that electricity they have to be running a power plant in the standby mode to make up the loss of power when the wind stops blowing OR wind the wind blows to hard. YES when the wind blows to hard because then the Wind Turbine feathers the blades to prevent overstressing the components. and therefore no longer makes electricity. Thus. That electricity is like day old bread or outdated milk. NO ONE WANTS IT. That is why it sells for that low price. The Wind Farm builders know that and they don’t care as they still make a profit off of the SUBSIDIES that YOU pay in Federal”” State and even Local taxes. Then YOU get to pay again because your electricity cost more because your local power company is running at power”” a power plant that is just in “”””Hot Standby”””” and not making any electricity”””” just wasting Fossil Fuel and Increasing CO2.PLEASE Use Your Brain. It amazes me that the Wind Turbine dope pushers keep bragging about this.”””

  48. Airliners have more strict safety requirements,” If true, then why haven’t airliners added an excess flow check valve on each pump in the hydraulic system? The lack of which cause the draining of the hydraulic system and crash of the airliner on July 19, 1989, at Sioux City, Iowa. Simple $20K to $50K per plane change. Live near there, followed the Federal Register postings for rule changes till about 2014 and did not see any rule change requiring that. Many other life saving measures that could be taken. When I say safer I am counting numbers of people killed and potential of numbers for the future. NRC borders on a ZERO tolerance for accidents. FAA is much further away, IMHO.

  49. PJM grid authority capacity auctions are coming in at an impact of about 0.5 cents per kwh. A peaker gas plant that never runs costs 0.8 cents per kwh for capital costs if you pretended it ran as 90% capacity factor. So that’s close to the limit capacity prices will ever get. It doesn’t seem like a big deal at all. Even nuclear plants need backup in case their say 2.2GW trip off the grid.

  50. Airliners have more strict safety requirements, the things that allows them to continue on is: 1. They have been in continuous production since before WW2 2. They have been in continuous contact with their regulator since inception 3. They have maintained knowledge transfer through the generations because of points 1 and 2. There is a FAA sign-off on the simplest design change in aviation engines; I recall FAA review and signature for every design change. No reason to think the FAA is less of a bear than the NRC, just that nobody is going to give up flying whereas nobody cares where the electricity comes from – “my electricity comes from the socket.

  51. How is 4.2 cents per kwh (levelized cost of wind) not competitive with 13 cents per (Hinkley nuclear strike price)?!

  52. That .gov article link is incorrect. Levelized is not 2 cents because levelized by definition removes subsidies. The article writer made an error. Levelized is 4.2 cents.

  53. This article references a non-levelized cost calculation. If you back out the 2.2 cent per kilowatt-hour tax credit, it is 4.2 cents per kilowatt-hour. Wind is used as a “fuel replacement” for fossil fuels so the significance of it hitting this price is subsidized wind is now cheaper than the cheapest fossil fuel (natural gas) so continued demand will be very robust for new wind power in the USA.

  54. And I wear my sunglasses at night So I can so I can See the light that’s right before my eyes” Solar panels don’t work at night, but wearing sunglasses at night is cool.

  55. F-15s are an excellent example. Any Nuke also knows that if Airliners had the same safety requirements that Nuclear Power plants do we would be traveling by train. Which would also be uneconomical if RRs had the same level of safety requirements.

  56. Very few Utilities are investing in the scam. They are simply signing the contracts, thus giving the Wind Farm Cos the subsidies. Very few utilities are building storage facilities either. Cheapest storage method is Pumped Storage facility – A man made lake near a river with a high head for maximum efficiency. Like Bath County VA. It provides 3,000 Mw providing only 24,000 MWh over an 11 hour period. Covers 265 Acres . There are NONE in construction – in the USA and none planned. I seriously doubt that any could ever be built due to the environmental radicals. Any battery or other dream-like storage method would cost multiplies of a pumped storage system. Further, Why build a pumped storage system when a Hydro Dam costs the same?

  57. How is 4.2 cents per kwh (levelized cost of wind) not competitive with 13 cents per (Hinkley nuclear strike price)?!

  58. That .gov article link is incorrect. Levelized is not 2 cents because levelized by definition removes subsidies. The article writer made an error. Levelized is 4.2 cents.

  59. This article references a non-levelized cost calculation. If you back out the 2.2 cent per kilowatt-hour tax credit it is 4.2 cents per kilowatt-hour.Wind is used as a “fuel replacement” for fossil fuels so the significance of it hitting this price is subsidized wind is now cheaper than the cheapest fossil fuel (natural gas) so continued demand will be very robust for new wind power in the USA.”

  60. And I wear my sunglasses at nightSo I can so I canSee the light that’s right before my eyes””Solar panels don’t work at night”””” but wearing sunglasses at night is cool.”””

  61. F-15s are an excellent example. Any Nuke also knows that if Airliners had the same safety requirements that Nuclear Power plants do we would be traveling by train. Which would also be uneconomical if RRs had the same level of safety requirements.

  62. Very few Utilities are investing in the scam. They are simply signing the contracts thus giving the Wind Farm Cos the subsidies. Very few utilities are building storage facilities either. Cheapest storage method is Pumped Storage facility – A man made lake near a river with a high head for maximum efficiency. Like Bath County VA. It provides 3000 Mw providing only 24000 MWh over an 11 hour period. Covers 265 Acres . There are NONE in construction – in the USA and none planned. I seriously doubt that any could ever be built due to the environmental radicals. Any battery or other dream-like storage method would cost multiplies of a pumped storage system. Further Why build a pumped storage system when a Hydro Dam costs the same?

  63. Yes the grid can absorb modest”” amounts of unreliable power”””” especially if it tends to show up during periods of peak load. And I’ll give solar that: It usually shows up when air conditioners are running.But “”””modest”””” isn’t that high a fraction. Solar is already reaching the point in some states where they have to throw away perfectly good baseload capacity because they’re mandated to buy the solar electricity even if they don’t need it.Remove the subsidies”” and the mandate to buy it so the utilities only have to buy it when it makes sense to and at the real price and I withdraw all objections. The market will solve it.Right now”” the market isn’t being allowed to function.”””

  64. Storage included is for a few hours in current projects not the 16 weeks required to levelize over the year.

  65. You of course are unaware that Hinkley is being built by a corrupt UK fascist government at a lucrative 33% per annum finance fees thru Swiss banking cronies. The actual cost of wind over the 80 year life of Hinkley with replacement every 20 years, present worths to $10/GWa for wind and $2.5/GWa for China/Korean expertly build nukes, $4.5B for a Korean turnkey nuke at UAE, $8B/ GWa for Hinkley, and the same $10B/GWa for FOAK AP1000’s in the US. However with wind we’d have to add Green storage which at $100/kwh (the cheapest projected storage cost for the next half century) would add $270B to the cost of the 1 GWa wind alternative using the 16 weeks of storage needed to levelize wind over the year. Since we don’t have much pumped Hydro available in the UK that number would be at least 4 times as high with battery replacements every 10 years. This is the problem with Big Oil spokespeople given license to produce bullshit without editorial moderation. They always cover the storage issue by saying it will come someday making the utterly impossible seem doable fooling the masses and Big Oil’s pet politicians that all will be well as long as we just add more wind/solar with gas backup for now. Unfortunately, now is until civilization collapses in an AGW holocaust in a few decades while until then millions of folk die every year from fossil air pollution.

  66. And where do you find an area that you can get 12 – 24 hours of trains travelling down hill? Think that would greatly increase the cost. Would only work for short bursts of power.

  67. Also strange that the same relays, controllers, contactors, circuit breakers, resistors, capacitors, etc. etc. used on high speed locomotives for years with no failures are commercial grade, with not much more of a qualification than guarantee of non counterfeit which started about 20+ years ago. Have had equipment shipped by rail which required a three axis G-force recorder attached. G-levels exceeded design requirements of NPP accident specifications. If the shipment did, so did all of the components in the locomotive. Spend some time riding in a locomotive, you will think you are in a vibrating bed.

  68. Pumped storage is not the cheapest or most efficient The cheapest is gravity trains. You just move big blocks of concrete up a hill on rail, then have them generate power coming down. Search “ARES – Addressing Grid Scale Storage” at Vimeo.

  69. And forcing those state utilities to pay a premium for the limited availability of renewable power. In those states utilities pay more for the renewal power than in states that do not have REC’s.

  70. It’s the financial engineering and marketing information that make it almost impossible to determine true price. I am sure wind has a part in the future energy mix, as does solar. Unfortunately agreements based on complex revenue models, which include subsidies and protectionism, disguise the real cost impact to the consumer. Then again some customers select to pay more for “green” electrons, not understanding the system wide impact and associated fuel inefficiency.

  71. Sure, components have to be nuclear grade. So you think the jetliner is held to lesser standards? No. It is just possible to iterate on the jet, test it, fail a wing loading test and then reinforce the wing on the production model. Comparing nuts, bolts and rebar on a nuke plant to the $15M jet engine is kinda silly. You think GE is buying those compressor case bolts out of McMaster Carr China? Nope; they are sourcing them to their own specifications at no doubt great cost and you can imagine that they have a paper trail as well. Gosh peoople. I’m telling you that airplanes don’t crash because they are held to similar if not more stringent requirements than the tea kettles that make 20% of our electricity.

  72. Dead wrong. As I pointed out above at the cheapest cost of storage envisioned $100/kWh the cost to levelise a wind/solar/storage install to compared to a nuke would be $5 a kwh added to your bill.

  73. Early NPPs were built without a QA group mo. nitoring every action and task. Been there Done that. FAA allows Certified”” mechanics who attest to the proper performance of their task. Make a mistake – lose your certification. Nothing like that in the NRC rules. Doubles the cost of maintenance.”””

  74. Storage included is for a few hours in current projects not the 16 weeks required to levelize over the year.

  75. You of course are unaware that Hinkley is being built by a corrupt UK fascist government at a lucrative 33{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} per annum finance fees thru Swiss banking cronies.The actual cost of wind over the 80 year life of Hinkley with replacement every 20 years present worths to $10/GWa for wind and $2.5/GWa for China/Korean expertly build nukes $4.5B for a Korean turnkey nuke at UAE $8B/ GWa for Hinkley and the same $10B/GWa for FOAK AP1000’s in the US. However with wind we’d have to add Green storage which at $100/kwh (the cheapest projected storage cost for the next half century) would add $270B to the cost of the 1 GWa wind alternative using the 16 weeks of storage needed to levelize wind over the year. Since we don’t have much pumped Hydro available in the UK that number would be at least 4 times as high with battery replacements every 10 years.This is the problem with Big Oil spokespeople given license to produce bullshit without editorial moderation. They always cover the storage issue by saying it will come someday making the utterly impossible seem doable fooling the masses and Big Oil’s pet politicians that all will be well as long as we just add more wind/solar with gas backup for now. Unfortunately now is until civilization collapses in an AGW holocaust in a few decades while until then millions of folk die every year from fossil air pollution.

  76. And where do you find an area that you can get 12 – 24 hours of trains travelling down hill? Think that would greatly increase the cost. Would only work for short bursts of power.

  77. Also strange that the same relays controllers contactors circuit breakers resistors capacitors etc. etc. used on high speed locomotives for years with no failures are commercial grade with not much more of a qualification than guarantee of non counterfeit which started about 20+ years ago. Have had equipment shipped by rail which required a three axis G-force recorder attached. G-levels exceeded design requirements of NPP accident specifications. If the shipment did so did all of the components in the locomotive. Spend some time riding in a locomotive you will think you are in a vibrating bed.

  78. Pumped storage is not the cheapest or most efficient The cheapest is gravity trains. You just move big blocks of concrete up a hill on rail then have them generate power coming down. Search ARES – Addressing Grid Scale Storage”” at Vimeo.”””

  79. And forcing those state utilities to pay a premium for the limited availability of renewable power. In those states utilities pay more for the renewal power than in states that do not have REC’s.

  80. It’s the financial engineering and marketing information that make it almost impossible to determine true price. I am sure wind has a part in the future energy mix as does solar. Unfortunately agreements based on complex revenue models which include subsidies and protectionism disguise the real cost impact to the consumer. Then again some customers select to pay more for “green” electrons not understanding the system wide impact and associated fuel inefficiency.”

  81. Sure components have to be nuclear grade.So you think the jetliner is held to lesser standards? No. It is just possible to iterate on the jet test it fail a wing loading test and then reinforce the wing on the production model. Comparing nuts bolts and rebar on a nuke plant to the $15M jet engine is kinda silly. You think GE is buying those compressor case bolts out of McMaster Carr China? Nope; they are sourcing them to their own specifications at no doubt great cost and you can imagine that they have a paper trail as well.Gosh peoople. I’m telling you that airplanes don’t crash because they are held to similar if not more stringent requirements than the tea kettles that make 20{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of our electricity.

  82. Dead wrong. As I pointed out above at the cheapest cost of storage envisioned $100/kWh the cost to levelise a wind/solar/storage install to compared to a nuke would be $5 a kwh added to your bill.

  83. People think the aviation transportation industry is less regulated because it generally ‘works’. I argue that it is very highly regulated and since it is so essential to our modern way of life the industry works through it. Oh yeah and the cleanup for a jet crash involves a fire truck a meat wagon a backhoe and a dump truck and a landfill – cleanup isn’t as straightforward for nukes. Both the NRC and the FAA have zero tolerance for accidents yet they infrequently happen regardless of the government’s tolerance. You basically tried to compare the two most highly regulated industries on the planet; instead you should have compared the NRC to the SEC which is the captured regulator that allows Wall Street to defraud us all.

  84. NRC requires every nut bolt and piece of rebar be certified to nuke standards – FAA or ISO9000 is not acceptable even if it is the same nut bolt or piece of rebar. Probably doubles the cost for a FOAK.

  85. So far a few coal plants are in the 80 year range. A nuke plant is far simpler but built with far superior materials.

  86. You are forgetting a bunch or extremely lucrative state REC’s that can bring the subsidy close to 10 cents a kwh.

  87. They are quite expensive to run. They are basically a jet engine strapped to a generator. High maintenance and low efficiency. Because they are so expensive to run they are only used for high peak load like during a heat wave and emergencies. But their capital cost per MW is much lower than a fossil power plant. Building a base load power plant to only provide power once in a while is too expensive.

  88. This is true. The financial engineering and politics makes it exceedingly hard to follow and sort-out. That must be the point of it all – to baffle us with BS – to make it clear as mud so that the special interests can operate behind a fog.

  89. I actually used a higher cost ($500/kWhr). That is the installed cost per storage CAPACITY – not per unit of delivered energy. The same kWhr of storage gets used thousands of times over the lifetime of the storage. Some flow batteries have gotten 1000 cycles without significant degradation, so a life of 30 years doesn’t seem out of line. With a 5% interest rate (plus principle, on 100% borrowed to purchase/install, not including tax savings from depreciation and assuming only 1000 cycles per year) that comes in around 3 cents per delivered kWhr. If you want to use $100/kWhr, cut that to 0.6 cents.

  90. Now explain how that achieves 100% Renewable power in California by 2045? How many mountains will have RR tracks covering their face? Or are they going to do like the UK and burn wood pellets? Hopefully all of the coal plants aren’t torn down by then. At least that would eliminate the fireload under the forests. But will create more records of smog days. If wind was predictable they could sell it for the same price as NG.

  91. Yup but CCGT’s can’t back up wind when running efficiently and the fuel cost gets reimbursed by the taxpayer anyway. Why pay the high capital cost for CCGT

  92. Only about 2 hours of storage would be needed, to cover ramping up gas turbine power plants to cover periods of unpredicted wind failure – and on a large scale wind becomes fairly predictable, though still highly variable.

  93. Early NPPs were built without a QA group mo. nitoring every action and task. Been there Done that. FAA allows “Certified” mechanics who attest to the proper performance of their task. Make a mistake – lose your certification. Nothing like that in the NRC rules. Doubles the cost of maintenance.

  94. They are powered up however and spinning away when shadowing wind plant. The nuke plant gets to vent to steam. With so much wind on the grid its hard to to justify CCGT plant. Look at the chart I supplied for real numbers.

  95. I thing you need reference to cost your claim. Design lifespan is a canard, and any plant that ask seems to get an upgrade to 60 years.

  96. You need to learn to read. As a recent paper shows, the US would need 16 weeks or 20% capacity of storage cover to meet peak load, low generation events with 100% wind/solar. Lookup “getting-zero-pathways-zero-carbon-electricity-systems-jesse-jenkins” Now cost out 16 weeks of nationwide storage at $500 a kwh.

  97. That’s a bit of a non sequitur ” in my first comment [which I assume you did not read] – I addressed how large a Pumped Storage system was and why it was the lowest cost for ample storage. Short term load leveling is NOT going to make Wind/Solar provide 100% power. One or two Trains on a hill is NOT going to last all day. And if you use your Wind to pull it back up the hill you lower the efficiency/capacity factor of the Wind turbine. And as South Australia has shown when large quantities of Wind stop all at once you end up with a several day blackout. one or two trains ain’t going to help. Very few fossil generators, and some Wind turbines, will start from a no power condition – they depend on the grid having power to perform a startup.

  98. And why is it that the places with the highest usage of “cheap” renewable energy have the highest energy prices? (Germany, California, etc)

  99. GTs don’t idle. They start fast. And no one cuts off a nuclear power plant. You run it full bore until refueling. Then it is offline for months. Renewable mostly impact peaker fossil fuel power plants. A Peaker is usually an older power plants that is more inefficient but only run for part of the day. Because they are more expensive to run they are easily priced out of the market. One thing people don’t understand about power plant is that when a new power plant comes online a old power plant goes off line. It usually becomes a peaker or they month balled it.

  100. Nuclear is 20% and yes it runs as baseload. Most of the nuclear power plant are getting near their design lifespan and will need major refurbishment to get re-licensed. And right now that is a capital cost the generation companies are reluctant to swallow. It is an accounting thing. Which is cheaper the refurbishment or a new natural gas power plant.

  101. That’s a bit of a non sequitur – I addressed none of those issues, only your claim of needing 12 or 24 hours of trains to handle ramping up conventional power plant. You’re making the mistake of assuming someone who corrects you must be 100% opposed to your perspective. The CA attempt will likely be a bold, expensive failure despite their near ideal climate, that nonetheless yields some benefits for the rest of us in terms of new technologies, economies of scale, etc.

  102. They are not getting paid for nothing. Power plants systems must be inspected daily and maintained. And sometimes they have to bring the system on line generating power at the minimum so that they will be ready to go to full capacity when needed. Generation is a competitive market when it isn’t been gamed like what Enron was doing.

  103. As shown in OZ battery systems for grid stabilization is a good idea. But if a 600 MW generator trips the current battery systems are not big enough to deal with that for any length of time. You will still need GTs.

  104. They already exist for peak loads and emergencies. And it is rate payers who pay for them and gladly too. It is 102F and 95% humidity and your utility power just max out. There goes your central air. That is why they exist, not because of renewable.

  105. They are powered up however and spinning away when shadowing wind plant.The nuke plant gets to vent to steam. With so much wind on the grid its hard to to justify CCGT plant. Look at the chart I supplied for real numbers.

  106. I thing you need reference to cost your claim. Design lifespan is a canard and any plant that ask seems to get an upgrade to 60 years.

  107. You need to learn to read.As a recent paper shows the US would need 16 weeks or 20{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} capacity of storage cover to meet peak load low generation events with 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} wind/solar.Lookup getting-zero-pathways-zero-carbon-electricity-systems-jesse-jenkins””Now cost out 16 weeks of nationwide storage at $500 a kwh.”””

  108. That’s a bit of a non sequitur “” in my first comment [which I assume you did not read] – I addressed how large a Pumped Storage system was and why it was the lowest cost for ample storage. Short term load leveling is NOT going to make Wind/Solar provide 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} power. One or two Trains on a hill is NOT going to last all day. And if you use your Wind to pull it back up the hill you lower the efficiency/capacity factor of the Wind turbine. And as South Australia has shown when large quantities of Wind stop all at once you end up with a several day blackout. one or two trains ain’t going to help. Very few fossil generators”” and some Wind turbines”” will start from a no power condition – they depend on the grid having power to perform a startup.”””

  109. And why is it that the places with the highest usage of cheap”” renewable energy have the highest energy prices? (Germany”” California”” etc)”””

  110. GTs don’t idle. They start fast. And no one cuts off a nuclear power plant. You run it full bore until refueling. Then it is offline for months. Renewable mostly impact peaker fossil fuel power plants. A Peaker is usually an older power plants that is more inefficient but only run for part of the day. Because they are more expensive to run they are easily priced out of the market. One thing people don’t understand about power plant is that when a new power plant comes online a old power plant goes off line. It usually becomes a peaker or they month balled it.

  111. Nuclear is 20{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} and yes it runs as baseload. Most of the nuclear power plant are getting near their design lifespan and will need major refurbishment to get re-licensed. And right now that is a capital cost the generation companies are reluctant to swallow. It is an accounting thing. Which is cheaper the refurbishment or a new natural gas power plant.

  112. That’s a bit of a non sequitur – I addressed none of those issues only your claim of needing 12 or 24 hours of trains to handle ramping up conventional power plant. You’re making the mistake of assuming someone who corrects you must be 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} opposed to your perspective. The CA attempt will likely be a bold expensive failure despite their near ideal climate that nonetheless yields some benefits for the rest of us in terms of new technologies economies of scale etc.

  113. They are not getting paid for nothing. Power plants systems must be inspected daily and maintained. And sometimes they have to bring the system on line generating power at the minimum so that they will be ready to go to full capacity when needed. Generation is a competitive market when it isn’t been gamed like what Enron was doing.

  114. As shown in OZ battery systems for grid stabilization is a good idea. But if a 600 MW generator trips the current battery systems are not big enough to deal with that for any length of time. You will still need GTs.

  115. They already exist for peak loads and emergencies. And it is rate payers who pay for them and gladly too. It is 102F and 95{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} humidity and your utility power just max out. There goes your central air. That is why they exist not because of renewable.

  116. They are quite expensive to run. They are basically a jet engine strapped to a generator. High maintenance and low efficiency. Because they are so expensive to run they are only used for high peak load like during a heat wave and emergencies. But their capital cost per MW is much lower than a fossil power plant. Building a base load power plant to only provide power once in a while is too expensive.

  117. It it pointless to levelize over more than a weekend. You seem to be beating this 100% wind+solar dead horse. It isn’t going to happen. In a fully decarbonized electrical grid you’re going to have 60% wind+solar and the rest nuclear, retrofitted reversible hydro plants, and carbon capture Allam cycle gas plants.

  118. Those don’t exist? You seem somewhat confused on this issue. You seem to be talking about the ability of wind producers to create price distortions in spot markets by using their federal 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour production credit subsidy to continue to sell power into a grid where prices are negative or zero – which happens in the worst state (California) about 8% of the hours. However even wind doesn’t try to sell into say negative 8 cents per kilowatt-hour times. Also, this doesn’t lead to PPAs signed with negative costs per kilowatt-hour.

  119. Then shouldn’t you be able to point us to lots of wind power PPAs signed in 2017 at 12 cents per kwh? They’re not though – the linked article shows them being signed at 2 cents.

  120. Your source didn’t list any real-world capacity auction prices, but rather threw in a theoretical $3 per kW-month. Okay, lets do the math. 720 hours in a month, 90% capacity. That is 648 hours. 300 cents divided by 648 is….0.46 cents per kilowatt of nameplate capacity. So it fits almost *exactly* what I said? A wind project at 45% capacity if forced to 100% cover itself would cost an additional 0.46×2=0.92 cents per kilowatt-hour. Considering in PJM wind gets to bid for capacity markets (wind is statisically not all dead everywhere in a large grid) at 13%, you could reduce that by 0.92 cents by 13%. Whaddaya know, about 0.8 cents per kilowatt-hour – same price as buying your own open cycle gas turbine.

  121. The major difference is efficiency, so the difference is the fuel price. You can find fuel price by looking at “eia today in energy prices” and checking the spark spread. Subtract spark spread from the spot price of electricity. So about 2.1 cents per kilowatt-hour for a 48% efficient plant (also know as “heat rate”). Brand new open cycle turbines are around 42%, so add about 15%. 2.4 cents per kilowatt-hour for fuel. The high price is actually the capital cost. It would only be 0.8 cents per kilowatt-hour if it ran 90% of the time (also known as capacity factor), but cut that to say 30%, and you need to cover 2.4 cents per killowatt-hour (1/3 the time run, so 3x the cost). So about 4.8 cents per kilowatt-hour for an open cycle gas turbine running at 30% capacity factor. A brand new-ish closed cycle gas turbine at 90% capacity factor is about 1.6 cents per kilowatt-hour for capital cost (depending on size, but this would be for a 600MW+) and 1.9 cents for fuel. So 3.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. Highest heat rate available would be slightly cheaper on the fuel, but builders often target a lower efficiency as a trade-off for higher ramp speed.

  122. It it pointless to levelize over more than a weekend. You seem to be beating this 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} wind+solar dead horse. It isn’t going to happen. In a fully decarbonized electrical grid you’re going to have 60{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} wind+solar and the rest nuclear retrofitted reversible hydro plants and carbon capture Allam cycle gas plants.

  123. Those don’t exist? You seem somewhat confused on this issue.You seem to be talking about the ability of wind producers to create price distortions in spot markets by using their federal 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour production credit subsidy to continue to sell power into a grid where prices are negative or zero – which happens in the worst state (California) about 8{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of the hours. However even wind doesn’t try to sell into say negative 8 cents per kilowatt-hour times. Also this doesn’t lead to PPAs signed with negative costs per kilowatt-hour.

  124. Then shouldn’t you be able to point us to lots of wind power PPAs signed in 2017 at 12 cents per kwh? They’re not though – the linked article shows them being signed at 2 cents.

  125. Your source didn’t list any real-world capacity auction prices but rather threw in a theoretical $3 per kW-month.Okay lets do the math. 720 hours in a month 90{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} capacity. That is 648 hours. 300 cents divided by 648 is….0.46 cents per kilowatt of nameplate capacity.So it fits almost *exactly* what I said? A wind project at 45{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} capacity if forced to 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} cover itself would cost an additional 0.46×2=0.92 cents per kilowatt-hour. Considering in PJM wind gets to bid for capacity markets (wind is statisically not all dead everywhere in a large grid) at 13{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} you could reduce that by 0.92 cents by 13{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12}. Whaddaya know about 0.8 cents per kilowatt-hour – same price as buying your own open cycle gas turbine.

  126. The major difference is efficiency so the difference is the fuel price.You can find fuel price by looking at eia today in energy prices”” and checking the spark spread. Subtract spark spread from the spot price of electricity. So about 2.1 cents per kilowatt-hour for a 48{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} efficient plant (also know as “”””heat rate””””). Brand new open cycle turbines are around 42{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12}”” so add about 15{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12}. 2.4 cents per kilowatt-hour for fuel.The high price is actually the capital cost. It would only be 0.8 cents per kilowatt-hour if it ran 90{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of the time (also known as capacity factor) but cut that to say 30{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} and you need to cover 2.4 cents per killowatt-hour (1/3 the time run so 3x the cost).So about 4.8 cents per kilowatt-hour for an open cycle gas turbine running at 30{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} capacity factor.A brand new-ish closed cycle gas turbine at 90{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} capacity factor is about 1.6 cents per kilowatt-hour for capital cost (depending on size but this would be for a 600MW+) and 1.9 cents for fuel. So 3.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. Highest heat rate available would be slightly cheaper on the fuel”” but builders often target a lower efficiency as a trade-off for higher ramp speed.”””

  127. This is a straw man though. No large grid is going 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} solar and wind. 60{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} at most.

  128. They don’t get them just like that. They have to do major refurbishment and apply for an 20 year extension to their operating licenses. Eventually radiation damage to the reactor vessel will render that a mute point.

  129. Richard Lentz135 pointsR. Kimhi 15 hours ago If the cost reductions are so great, WHY are the prices of electricity more than 20% higher than they were 10 years ago?’ 1) Are you joking or are you not using your BRAIN? Why has the 10-year dollar tuition increases (in 2017 dollars) for your four-year institutions, has gone up 80%. 2) In Iowa where wind capacity went from 1273 to 7304 in the last ten years now generating 36% of all electricity electricity cost in Iowa is now number 12 out of 50 US states. Do you have an agenda of misinformation or you really cannot do the math?

  130. If you do not watch the video, you have no business continuing the conversation. The video did not have 2 trains and a half dozen blocks. I call straw man.

  131. There would be several parallel tracks, and each of the the trains can take several loads up the hill or down. Search for the video. Speed can be adjusted nearly instantly to smooth out the power. The point is for one of these to be connected to each PV farm or wind farm. It only has to keep its production level even not the whole grid. There are other power plants that could be warmed up and gotten running if for some bizarre reason the sun did not come out and the wind did not blow for days at a time over a large area. This just avoids having to have those plants at idle. That wastes a lot of energy. Really, if there was some massive reduction in wind and solar they would probably get some power from other States. And it is all a mater of scaling. There is no reason they could not have 24 hours of storage or 48 or whatever. It would be a lot of concrete, but it could be done with modifications. Their design makes it easy to save a lot using off the shelf components, but theoretically, the trains could be much larger and haul blocks that weigh as much as large ships if you really wanted to store a lot of energy.

  132. Richard Lentz135 points 15 hours ago Are we raising people that do not use their BRAINS? Do not accuse others when you do not use your BRAIN. Others do have brains and realize that nonone wants your beloved fossil fuels because they cause fetus retardation from mercury, childhood asthma from Ozone pollution, SO2 and NOx cause bronchitis and pneumonia, particulates cause heart disease, and organic volatile compounds cause cancer. People WITH brains that use them and who love their children, LOVE wind power. If you add medical costs for hospitals, doctors, pharmacies, lost work from air pollution caused illnesses, and lost wages from premature deaths, wind electricity is less than half with NO subsidies than dirty electricity, not just less expensive. ENOUGH SAID do the math and use your brain.

  133. You do know that while the wind might stop blowing in one location that it never stops blowing over a large region. And the regions picked have geological features like mountains and plateaus that causes the wind to blow all of the time. You can also build CSP plants that stores energy in molten salts which can provide power while the sun is down. The other thing is that solar panels provide power during the day when demand is higher so it is a good match. Renewable can provide about 50% of the power needed before we have to start worrying about storage.

  134. China hasn’t approved a new nuclear power plant since 2016 because wind and solar are profoundly less expensive in that country and getting cheaper. Further it demonstrates prices mentioned for Chinese nuclear power plants must have been aspirational/propaganda not actual. Zero export reactors being built by China except finishing off some very old unfinished ones in Pakistan. UAE reactors were 30 billion for four in 2011 dollars, so about 7.5 billion each. They’re delayed so will be over that budget.

  135. Markko Cald… a corrupt UK fascist government???Are you out of your mind? A government that cares about its citizens health is a good democratic government. Coal loving Trump’s government is a corrupt fashist government. Trump’s coal policy poisons fetus with mercury causing retardation destroys children’s lungs with Ozone pollution causing lifelong asthma. Trump is a liar and wants us to believe that vaccinations cause autism when in fact it is dirty air from power plants that causes autism. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1353829208000142I am asking you to reconsider what is a corrupt and fascist government.

  136. They don’t get them just like that. They have to do major refurbishment and apply for an 20 year extension to their operating licenses. Eventually radiation damage to the reactor vessel will render that a mute point.

  137. Richard Lentz135 pointsR. Kimhi15 hours agoIf the cost reductions are so great WHY are the prices of electricity more than 20{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} higher than they were 10 years ago?’1) Are you joking or are you not using your BRAIN? Why has the 10-year dollar tuition increases (in 2017 dollars) for your four-year institutions has gone up 80{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12}. 2) In Iowa where wind capacity went from 1273 to 7304 in the last ten years now generating 36{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of all electricity electricity cost in Iowa is now number 12 out of 50 US states. Do you have an agenda of misinformation or you really cannot do the math?

  138. If you do not watch the video you have no business continuing the conversation. The video did not have 2 trains and a half dozen blocks. I call straw man.

  139. There would be several parallel tracks and each of the the trains can take several loads up the hill or down. Search for the video. Speed can be adjusted nearly instantly to smooth out the power.The point is for one of these to be connected to each PV farm or wind farm. It only has to keep its production level even not the whole grid.There are other power plants that could be warmed up and gotten running if for some bizarre reason the sun did not come out and the wind did not blow for days at a time over a large area. This just avoids having to have those plants at idle. That wastes a lot of energy.Really if there was some massive reduction in wind and solar they would probably get some power from other States.And it is all a mater of scaling. There is no reason they could not have 24 hours of storage or 48 or whatever. It would be a lot of concrete but it could be done with modifications.Their design makes it easy to save a lot using off the shelf components but theoretically the trains could be much larger and haul blocks that weigh as much as large ships if you really wanted to store a lot of energy.

  140. Richard Lentz135 points15 hours agoAre we raising people that do not use their BRAINS?Do not accuse others when you do not use your BRAIN. Others do have brains and realize that nonone wants your beloved fossil fuels because they cause fetus retardation from mercury childhood asthma from Ozone pollution SO2 and NOx cause bronchitis and pneumonia particulates cause heart disease and organic volatile compounds cause cancer. People WITH brains that use them and who love their children LOVE wind power. If you add medical costs for hospitals doctors pharmacies lost work from air pollution caused illnesses and lost wages from premature deaths wind electricity is less than half with NO subsidies than dirty electricity not just less expensive. ENOUGH SAID do the math and use your brain.

  141. You do know that while the wind might stop blowing in one location that it never stops blowing over a large region. And the regions picked have geological features like mountains and plateaus that causes the wind to blow all of the time. You can also build CSP plants that stores energy in molten salts which can provide power while the sun is down.The other thing is that solar panels provide power during the day when demand is higher so it is a good match. Renewable can provide about 50{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of the power needed before we have to start worrying about storage.

  142. China hasn’t approved a new nuclear power plant since 2016 because wind and solar are profoundly less expensive in that country and getting cheaper. Further it demonstrates prices mentioned for Chinese nuclear power plants must have been aspirational/propaganda not actual.Zero export reactors being built by China except finishing off some very old unfinished ones in Pakistan.UAE reactors were 30 billion for four in 2011 dollars so about 7.5 billion each. They’re delayed so will be over that budget.”

  143. Are you illiterate? They just signed up for two more Russian units. Wind and solar are far more expensive and so unreliable they can’t get on the grid. They are exporting 3 Candu’s to Romania and Argentina. Actually the UAE reactors were $4.5B a GW final and were on time on budget.

  144. You sold you ass to Big Oil a while back so nothing left to laugh off. It’s unlikely but some new science on permafrost methane stores is indeed frightening. Why take the chance when insurance is so cheap.

  145. Britain’s Fascist government is a friend of Trump – think Maggie Thatcher. The UK’s medical program was developed under Labor.

  146. Iowa dumps its wind energy into Illinois when its blowing then buys back Illinois coal/nuclear when its not.

  147. California is planning 100% wind/solar with some sort of green storage possibly pumped hydro. No nukes or gas. So lotsa reasons to levelize over a year.

  148. Corrupt” the way you use the word means good. Good politician forced to make cars safer by installing seat belts. Tens of thousands of Americans are alive today because of good regulations by good politicians. International cars kill people because they are not well regulated. Do you want “competitive” unregulated nuclear plants. You saw what happened to the space shuttle when Reagan tried to deregulate safety because he wanted to “privatize” space. The Challenger O rings murdered the brave Americans https://www.space.com/31732-space-shuttle-challenger-disaster-explained-infographic.html

  149. Iowa has 36% wind electricity of or 6000% more wind power percentage wise than California. California produces a lot of wind power only because it is a very big state. Electricity cost in Iowa is 50% less than the cost in California. More wind power less expensive, NO fake trumpian numbers.

  150. CCGT is a Combined-Cycle Power Plant. The first part of the plant is a large gas turbine which feeds its exhaust gas into a boiler that generates steam to spin a turbine that spins another generator. This design is very efficient so it is used for natural gas base load power plants. What I was talking about is fast start gas turbines which are just jet engines connected to generators. You start them up and in a few minutes you are generating power. There is no need to have them on spin reserve. Nuclear power plants are usually run at full bore.

  151. Markko Cald… a corrupt UK fascist government??? Are you out of your mind? A government that cares about its citizens health, is a good democratic government. Coal loving Trump’s government is a corrupt fashist government. Trump’s coal policy poisons fetus with mercury causing retardation, destroys children’s lungs with Ozone pollution causing lifelong asthma. Trump is a liar and wants us to believe that vaccinations cause autism when in fact it is dirty air from power plants that causes autism. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1353829208000142 I am asking you to reconsider what is a corrupt and fascist government.

  152. Are you illiterate? They just signed up for two more Russian units. Wind and solar are far more expensive and so unreliable they can’t get on the grid. They are exporting 3 Candu’s to Romania and Argentina.Actually the UAE reactors were $4.5B a GW final and were on time on budget.

  153. You sold you ass to Big Oil a while back so nothing left to laugh off. It’s unlikely but some new science on permafrost methane stores is indeed frightening. Why take the chance when insurance is so cheap.

  154. Britain’s Fascist government is a friend of Trump – think Maggie Thatcher. The UK’s medical program was developed under Labor.

  155. Iowa dumps its wind energy into Illinois when its blowing then buys back Illinois coal/nuclear when its not.

  156. IAEA standards are as good or better than NRC. The NRC is 97{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} lawyers

  157. California is planning 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} wind/solar with some sort of green storage possibly pumped hydro. No nukes or gas. So lotsa reasons to levelize over a year.

  158. Corrupt”” the way you use the word means good. Good politician forced to make cars safer by installing seat belts. Tens of thousands of Americans are alive today because of good regulations by good politicians. International cars kill people because they are not well regulated. Do you want “”””competitive”””” unregulated nuclear plants. You saw what happened to the space shuttle when Reagan tried to deregulate safety because he wanted to “”””privatize”””” space. The Challenger O rings murdered the brave Americans https://www.space.com/31732-space-shuttle-challenger-disaster-explained-infographic.html“””

  159. Iowa has 36{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} wind electricity of or 6000{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} more wind power percentage wise than California. California produces a lot of wind power only because it is a very big state.Electricity cost in Iowa is 50{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} less than the cost in California. More wind power less expensive NO fake trumpian numbers.

  160. CCGT is a Combined-Cycle Power Plant. The first part of the plant is a large gas turbine which feeds its exhaust gas into a boiler that generates steam to spin a turbine that spins another generator. This design is very efficient so it is used for natural gas base load power plants. What I was talking about is fast start gas turbines which are just jet engines connected to generators. You start them up and in a few minutes you are generating power. There is no need to have them on spin reserve. Nuclear power plants are usually run at full bore.

  161. Where did is say “two trains AND a half dozen blocks”????? I am well aware of these trains. I have worked for a RR for 6 years and well aware of the problems with this dream. Also have 40 plus years working for an Electric Utility and am well aware of how power is generated. Further you should look at the minute to minute and hour to hour fluctuations of the output of a wind farm. Trains are NOT going to switch over fast enough often enough to supply a large wind farm with power unless you have a dozen or so, or LONG tracks. Then, if a wind farm goes off line – like the wind farm in South Australia, one train, two trains, a dozen trains are not going to give you time to switch over to a OTCG. It is lights out – BLACKOUT. And that is ignoring the startup time of the power out of the train generator. It is NOT instantaneous. A loss of power of one or two cycles will wipe out a Server Farm. That is why they have full size UPS’s. I designed and tested industrial sized UPS’s in one part of my career. The UPS I designed switched over in fractions of a cycle. With power outages lasting a few cycles, the result is that home electronics is ruined. The utility providing the power to my home now has about 20% wind power. Before that it was rare to have an outage, other than with a severe storm. Now, there are random, momentary, fluctuations on a monthly basis. Great for the $20 LED lamps I put in my house years ago. Two or three of these dimming event destroys them. Just last week four went out in my kitchen, all in a matter of an hour or so, on a clear day with no storms on the radar map. However, there were high winds, greater than 50mph. And Wind turbines SHUTDOWN with high winds. At least the 4th time I have replaced Leds since they added all of the Wind Power. Dimmable LED’s last longer if you have these conditions.

  162. I do not want Fossil fuels either! I want the one fuel that will save the globe from Global Warming. The fuel that has nearly the lowest of any fuel that can achieve a reduction in CO2 Emissions – Nuclear Power. Which has “Cradle to grave” CO2 emissions at about the same level as Solar – AND does NOT need Fossil fuel e.g. NG backup.

  163. Where did is say two trains AND a half dozen blocks””????? I am well aware of these trains. I have worked for a RR for 6 years and well aware of the problems with this dream. Also have 40 plus years working for an Electric Utility and am well aware of how power is generated. Further you should look at the minute to minute and hour to hour fluctuations of the output of a wind farm. Trains are NOT going to switch over fast enough often enough to supply a large wind farm with power unless you have a dozen or so”” or LONG tracks. Then if a wind farm goes off line – like the wind farm in South Australia one train two trains a dozen trains are not going to give you time to switch over to a OTCG. It is lights out – BLACKOUT. And that is ignoring the startup time of the power out of the train generator. It is NOT instantaneous. A loss of power of one or two cycles will wipe out a Server Farm. That is why they have full size UPS’s. I designed and tested industrial sized UPS’s in one part of my career. The UPS I designed switched over in fractions of a cycle. With power outages lasting a few cycles the result is that home electronics is ruined. The utility providing the power to my home now has about 20{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} wind power. Before that it was rare to have an outage other than with a severe storm. Now there are random momentary fluctuations on a monthly basis. Great for the $20 LED lamps I put in my house years ago. Two or three of these dimming event destroys them. Just last week four went out in my kitchen all in a matter of an hour or so on a clear day with no storms on the radar map. However there were high winds”” greater than 50mph. And Wind turbines SHUTDOWN with high winds. At least the 4th time I have replaced Leds since they added all of the Wind Power. Dimmable LED’s last longer if you have these conditions.”””

  164. I do not want Fossil fuels either! I want the one fuel that will save the globe from Global Warming. The fuel that has nearly the lowest of any fuel that can achieve a reduction in CO2 Emissions – Nuclear Power. Which has Cradle to grave”” CO2 emissions at about the same level as Solar – AND does NOT need Fossil fuel e.g. NG backup.”””

  165. You just demonstrated yourself a perfect example of not using your brain(logic), Eps. You are using your emotions and claiming you are using logic, instead.

  166. Do they teach people to use their brains in college anymore?” Given all the Libtards colleges produce, the answer to that is a resounding ‘no’.

  167. That’s like saying, “California produced 3 million extra votes for Hillary! She should be president!” 3 million WASTED votes, since they were not needed by Hillary to win California and can’t be applied in other states where she needed the extra votes. This is the same problem with renewables. When they produce, they produce an overabundance of juice which they can not economically use later when they aren’t producing (dark/no wind).

  168. You just demonstrated yourself a perfect example of not using your brain(logic) Eps. You are using your emotions and claiming you are using logic instead.

  169. Do they teach people to use their brains in college anymore?””Given all the Libtards colleges produce”””” the answer to that is a resounding ‘no’.”””

  170. That’s like saying California produced 3 million extra votes for Hillary! She should be president!””3 million WASTED votes”” since they were not needed by Hillary to win California and can’t be applied in other states where she needed the extra votes.This is the same problem with renewables. When they produce”” they produce an overabundance of juice which they can not economically use later when they aren’t producing (dark/no wind).”””

  171. Thanks. Check Out my calculation on the idea they are pushing for Millions of tons of concrete on a rail car on a hill instead of Pumped Storage? further down this blog. [I know PS will never be expanded, as A. it is cheap, B, the Environmental Radicals will never allow another dam. C. Why PS when it requires more than a simple Hydro dam. D. The water storage area is useless as a recreational area or even an area for aquatic life.

  172. Their design makes it easy to save a lot using off the shelf components, but theoretically, the trains could be much larger and haul blocks that weigh as much as large ships if you really wanted to store a lot of energy.” That is the problem. Bath County VA. PS provides 3,000 Mw providing only 24,000 MWh over an 11 hour period. Covers 265 Acres hold 4,000,000 cubic yards of water. Assuming only half of that is discharged for the needed power, that means 2,000,000 cubic yards of water A cubic yard of water weighs 1685.55494 pounds. Equals 3,370,000,000 pounds of concrete. Could be about 10% less due to increased efficiency, however the angle of the drop means even more. Been 50 years since I did my “Statics & Dynamics” course in engineering, but my gut says that a large portion of that weight is WASTED. The majority of the dynamic force of the weight is straight down. With a 12 degree slope you lose about 80 percent of the dynamic force of the weight. Basic Trig and the advantage of an inclined plane for work, but here it works against you. Makes it easy to pull the weight up the hill. Then, to get maximum energy, you should use a direct drop into a hole in the ground. Like I said Use Your Brain. The idea is almost equivalent to putting people to work by having them dig a hole and then fill it up again.

  173. Thanks. Check Out my calculation on the idea they are pushing for Millions of tons of concrete on a rail car on a hill instead of Pumped Storage? further down this blog. [I know PS will never be expanded as A. it is cheap B the Environmental Radicals will never allow another dam. C. Why PS when it requires more than a simple Hydro dam. D. The water storage area is useless as a recreational area or even an area for aquatic life.

  174. Their design makes it easy to save a lot using off the shelf components but theoretically” the trains could be much larger and haul blocks that weigh as much as large ships if you really wanted to store a lot of energy.”” That is the problem. Bath County VA. PS provides 3″”000 Mw providing only 24000 MWh over an 11 hour period. Covers 265 Acres hold 40000 cubic yards of water. Assuming only half of that is discharged for the needed power that means 20000 cubic yards of water A cubic yard of water weighs 1685.55494 pounds. Equals 33700000 pounds of concrete. Could be about 10{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} less due to increased efficiency”” however the angle of the drop means even more. Been 50 years since I did my “”””Statics & Dynamics”””” course in engineering”” but my gut says that a large portion of that weight is WASTED. The majority of the dynamic force of the weight is straight down. With a 12 degree slope you lose about 80 percent of the dynamic force of the weight. Basic Trig and the advantage of an inclined plane for work but here it works against you. Makes it easy to pull the weight up the hill. Then to get maximum energy”” you should use a direct drop into a hole in the ground. Like I said Use Your Brain. The idea is almost equivalent to putting people to work by having them dig a hole and then fill it up again.”””

  175. Yeah, I wuz gonna say…. that was a ‘tarded female comment from Eps, but you used your words better and set her straight.

  176. Now explain how that achieves 100% Renewable power in California by 2045?” This non-sequitur raised a position never under examination at any prior point in the conversation – neither CA’s renewable goals, nor a general discussion of getting to 100% renewables. In fact, I explicitly refered to ramping up a fossil fueled system as backing generation – hardly a 100% renewable power solution. And now you bring in a pair of new non-sequiturs – “in my first comment [which I assume you did not read] – I addressed how large a Pumped Storage system was and why it was the lowest cost for ample storage”. – “Short term load leveling is NOT going to make Wind/Solar provide 100% power” At no point did I address the issue of what storage system is best – only how much storage would be needed to ramp up conventional generation when wind fails. You appear to be skimming for things you can shout down, rather than reading for comprehension. Take your time, read carefully, consider what was written, and compose a rational, on-topic response.

  177. Yeah I wuz gonna say…. that was a ‘tarded female comment from Eps but you used your words better and set her straight.

  178. Now explain how that achieves 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} Renewable power in California by 2045?””This non-sequitur raised a position never under examination at any prior point in the conversation – neither CA’s renewable goals”” nor a general discussion of getting to 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} renewables. In fact”” I explicitly refered to ramping up a fossil fueled system as backing generation – hardly a 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} renewable power solution.And now you bring in a pair of new non-sequiturs – “”””in my first comment [which I assume you did not read] – I addressed how large a Pumped Storage system was and why it was the lowest cost for ample storage””””. – “”””Short term load leveling is NOT going to make Wind/Solar provide 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} power””””At no point did I address the issue of what storage system is best – only how much storage would be needed to ramp up conventional generation when wind fails. You appear to be skimming for things you can shout down”” rather than reading for comprehension. Take your time read carefully consider what was written and compose a rational”” on-topic response.”””

  179. There was nothing about 16 weeks storage or 100% renewables in the post to which I responded – hard to read what you didn’t write. Do you assume I am responding to your entire oeuvre of posts? My post specifically referenced using fossil fuel backing generation (i.e. specifically NOT aimed at 100% renewables). And the storage costs I estimated were for smoothing out short term variations, NOT for handling long term variability. This sort of support is going to be critical if wind is made a larger fraction of total generation, and that seems to be the direction society is taking – like it or not. The right thing would be to require the wind power companies to meet a reasonable quality spec for their power, which in turn would mean that they must add whatever storage hardware is needed to meet that spec.

  180. The work to put the car up the hill is the same as the work it can do rolling down the hill minus friction. It’s not a great idea – it’s kinda ridiculous to imagine a hillside with 100 tracks, but you’re not losing “dynamic force of the weight” or any other such construct of your mind. Do you propose hanging 21 cars over a cliff instead of pushing 100 up a hill? It’s six of one and half a dozen of another. There is no wasted effort.

  181. There was nothing about 16 weeks storage or 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} renewables in the post to which I responded – hard to read what you didn’t write. Do you assume I am responding to your entire oeuvre of posts?My post specifically referenced using fossil fuel backing generation (i.e. specifically NOT aimed at 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} renewables). And the storage costs I estimated were for smoothing out short term variations NOT for handling long term variability. This sort of support is going to be critical if wind is made a larger fraction of total generation and that seems to be the direction society is taking – like it or not. The right thing would be to require the wind power companies to meet a reasonable quality spec for their power which in turn would mean that they must add whatever storage hardware is needed to meet that spec.

  182. The work to put the car up the hill is the same as the work it can do rolling down the hill minus friction. It’s not a great idea – it’s kinda ridiculous to imagine a hillside with 100 tracks but you’re not losing dynamic force of the weight”” or any other such construct of your mind. Do you propose hanging 21 cars over a cliff instead of pushing 100 up a hill? It’s six of one and half a dozen of another. There is no wasted effort.”””

  183. Like you I do not think Grid scale storage with trains is feasible. I was using “efficiency” in the terms of the mass of concrete needed in the cars. The point I was trying to make is that several multiplies of the mass of water stored in the Pumped Storage reservoir will be needed. That is Millions of tons of concrete. Since a cubic yard of concrete weighs about twice as much as a cubic yard of water that means that you will need to have about the same storage area in cubic yards of concrete as in the typical Pumped Storage reservoir. That is multiple hundreds of acres. Probably two to three times the surface area. And all of that assumes that you get the same work. Since you appear to have taken S&D, you are well aware that on a 12 degree incline the tension on the rope pulling the frictionless sled up the hill is about 1/5 or 20 percent of the weight of the sled. Am I mistaken in assuming that that is the only source of transfer of force into the generator/motor? I not then why am I told that the force needed to push the sled up the hill is 1/5 of the weight? If correct that tells me that you now need five times as much concrete to get the same work across the same distance. My RR experience tells me that typical RR engines start slipping above 10 degrees and cogs/chain drive is needed above 30 degrees. Think SF Trolley. I have read the ARES – Addressing Grid Scale Storage document and there are issues with it. Today they are adding/building 3+ MW Wind turbines. That tells me that you need 3+ MW of INSTANTLY available storage for those Wind Turbines. A Train on a hill is NOT going to generate electricity instantly. Even the Emergency Diesel Generators start generating electricity the moment the Air Start solenoid is open and it takes seconds before it is sufficient to be above 90% voltage/power. That is not going to cut it. That is why the FERC requires electric utilities to have 10% of the Peak Load demand for that utility in a state of what is called “Spinni

  184. Been 50 years since I did my “Statics & Dynamics” course in engineering,” Not to be snarky, but it does show. Given reasonably low friction, (And rail is good at that.) you can ignore the horizontal component of the travel, only the vertical matters. Until you get to slopes so shallow that even a tiny bit of friction dominates, anyway. Not saying it’s a really practical scheme, but the fact that the rails don’t go straight up and down isn’t the problem. If you really wanted hydropower out west, I’m sure you could close in a couple of mountain valleys in the Rockies, and pump water back and forth between them. (With ping pong balls on top to suppress evaporation, of course.) Water is always going to be cheaper than concrete, as concrete is made with water…

  185. California is planning on importing massive quantities of power produced under more sensible rules, would be a better way to put it.

  186. Like you I do not think Grid scale storage with trains is feasible. I was using efficiency”” in the terms of the mass of concrete needed in the cars. The point I was trying to make is that several multiplies of the mass of water stored in the Pumped Storage reservoir will be needed. That is Millions of tons of concrete. Since a cubic yard of concrete weighs about twice as much as a cubic yard of water that means that you will need to have about the same storage area in cubic yards of concrete as in the typical Pumped Storage reservoir. That is multiple hundreds of acres. Probably two to three times the surface area. And all of that assumes that you get the same work. Since you appear to have taken S&D”””” you are well aware that on a 12 degree incline the tension on the rope pulling the frictionless sled up the hill is about 1/5 or 20 percent of the weight of the sled. Am I mistaken in assuming that that is the only source of transfer of force into the generator/motor? I not then why am I told that the force needed to push the sled up the hill is 1/5 of the weight? If correct that tells me that you now need five times as much concrete to get the same work across the same distance. My RR experience tells me that typical RR engines start slipping above 10 degrees and cogs/chain drive is needed above 30 degrees. Think SF Trolley. I have read the ARES – Addressing Grid Scale Storage document and there are issues with it. Today they are adding/building 3+ MW Wind turbines. That tells me that you need 3+ MW of INSTANTLY available storage for those Wind Turbines. A Train on a hill is NOT going to generate electricity instantly. Even the Emergency Diesel Generators start generating electricity the moment the Air Start solenoid is open and it takes seconds before it is sufficient to be above 90{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} voltage/power. That is not going to cut it. That is why the FERC requires electric utilities to have 10{22800fc5″

  187. Been 50 years since I did my “”Statics & Dynamics”””” course in engineering””””””””Not to be snarky”” but it does show. Given reasonably low friction (And rail is good at that.) you can ignore the horizontal component of the travel only the vertical matters. Until you get to slopes so shallow that even a tiny bit of friction dominates anyway.Not saying it’s a really practical scheme but the fact that the rails don’t go straight up and down isn’t the problem.If you really wanted hydropower out west I’m sure you could close in a couple of mountain valleys in the Rockies and pump water back and forth between them. (With ping pong balls on top to suppress evaporation of course.) Water is always going to be cheaper than concrete”” as concrete is made with water…”””

  188. California is planning on importing massive quantities of power produced under more sensible rules would be a better way to put it.

  189. Dude, you apply sin(incline)*m*g to push it up the hill. For a 12-degree slope you apply sin(12deg)*m*g that 21% force over a longer distance pushing it up the hill; the potential energy is m*g*h where ‘h’ is the change in elevation. The potential energy is the same as if you lifted the train ‘h’, but you used a simple machine with mechanical advantage – the inclined plane. Less force. More distance. Same work. Incline plane. It is nice to have an old railroad/aviation/nuke guy around; but you may be the first to drop the such insults on your first day. People on this comment board are quite smart. Usually I only insult them when I am wrong and bitter.

  190. Dude you apply sin(incline)*m*g to push it up the hill. For a 12-degree slope you apply sin(12deg)*m*g that 21{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} force over a longer distance pushing it up the hill; the potential energy is m*g*h where ‘h’ is the change in elevation. The potential energy is the same as if you lifted the train ‘h’ but you used a simple machine with mechanical advantage – the inclined plane. Less force. More distance. Same work. Incline plane.It is nice to have an old railroad/aviation/nuke guy around; but you may be the first to drop the such insults on your first day. People on this comment board are quite smart. Usually I only insult them when I am wrong and bitter.

  191. The college boy insults were probably a result of the fact I was unaware this site just deleted links – the blank lines. The “at power” is from my years at plants that had turbine driven main feedwater pumps, and that meant they had to be operating to deliver electrical power which was also providing electrical power for the auxiliaries, even though not delivering power and the operators used that term. Probably a local idiom from the career operators. Sorry if either offended you.

  192. The college boy insults were probably a result of the fact I was unaware this site just deleted links – the blank lines. The at power”” is from my years at plants that had turbine driven main feedwater pumps”” and that meant they had to be operating to deliver electrical power which was also providing electrical power for the auxiliaries”” even though not delivering power and the operators used that term. Probably a local idiom from the career operators. Sorry if either offended you.”””

  193. Nonsense. The wind does not instantly stop. And the rate at which the trains move is electronically controlled from the control room. And if a wind farm goes offline…well obviously there would be a problem…same with any other power plant that went “offline. And you still haven’t bothered to watch the video or you would have seen how many trains they intend to use. I think they can do the math.

  194. 10 or twenty an’t going to help either, My experience tells me you need about one for each WT at the farm

  195. Trains do NOT start moving Instantly from a stopped condition. Just like your car takes time to get up to speed so do trains need time to start producing electricity. Only if they are moving are they producing electricity. That’s the reason that FERC requires utilities to have spinning reserves. And I have read several READ several ARES storage system documents totaling over about a hundred pages.

  196. When the wind speed reaches a limit set by the WT manufacture, the WT goes off line Instantly. PERIOD. If all wind turbines in the wind farm are by the same manufactures and same model, then the majority of them will go off at the same time as they all have the same setting.

  197. 10 or twenty an’t going to help either My experience tells me you need about one for each WT at the farm

  198. Trains do NOT start moving Instantly from a stopped condition. Just like your car takes time to get up to speed so do trains need time to start producing electricity. Only if they are moving are they producing electricity. That’s the reason that FERC requires utilities to have spinning reserves. And I have read several READ several ARES storage system documents totaling over about a hundred pages.

  199. When the wind speed reaches a limit set by the WT manufacture the WT goes off line Instantly. PERIOD. If all wind turbines in the wind farm are by the same manufactures and same model then the majority of them will go off at the same time as they all have the same setting.

  200. Trains do NOT start moving Instantly from a stopped condition. Just like your car takes time to get up to speed so do trains need time to start producing electricity. Only if they are moving are they producing electricity. That’s the reason that FERC requires utilities to have spinning reserves. And I have read several READ several ARES storage system documents totaling over about a hundred pages.

  201. Trains do NOT start moving Instantly from a stopped condition. Just like your car takes time to get up to speed so do trains need time to start producing electricity. Only if they are moving are they producing electricity. That’s the reason that FERC requires utilities to have spinning reserves. And I have read several READ several ARES storage system documents totaling over about a hundred pages.

  202. When the wind speed reaches a limit set by the WT manufacture, the WT goes off line Instantly. PERIOD. If all wind turbines in the wind farm are by the same manufactures and same model, then the majority of them will go off at the same time as they all have the same setting.

  203. When the wind speed reaches a limit set by the WT manufacture the WT goes off line Instantly. PERIOD. If all wind turbines in the wind farm are by the same manufactures and same model then the majority of them will go off at the same time as they all have the same setting.

  204. Trains do NOT start moving Instantly from a stopped condition. Just like your car takes time to get up to speed so do trains need time to start producing electricity. Only if they are moving are they producing electricity. That’s the reason that FERC requires utilities to have spinning reserves.
    And I have read several READ several ARES storage system documents totaling over about a hundred pages.

  205. When the wind speed reaches a limit set by the WT manufacture, the WT goes off line Instantly. PERIOD. If all wind turbines in the wind farm are by the same manufactures and same model, then the majority of them will go off at the same time as they all have the same setting.

  206. Nonsense. The wind does not instantly stop. And the rate at which the trains move is electronically controlled from the control room. And if a wind farm goes offline…well obviously there would be a problem…same with any other power plant that went “offline. And you still haven’t bothered to watch the video or you would have seen how many trains they intend to use. I think they can do the math.

  207. Nonsense. The wind does not instantly stop. And the rate at which the trains move is electronically controlled from the control room.

    And if a wind farm goes offline…well obviously there would be a problem…same with any other power plant that went “offline.

    And you still haven’t bothered to watch the video or you would have seen how many trains they intend to use. I think they can do the math.

  208. The college boy insults were probably a result of the fact I was unaware this site just deleted links – the blank lines. The “at power” is from my years at plants that had turbine driven main feedwater pumps, and that meant they had to be operating to deliver electrical power which was also providing electrical power for the auxiliaries, even though not delivering power and the operators used that term. Probably a local idiom from the career operators. Sorry if either offended you.

  209. The college boy insults were probably a result of the fact I was unaware this site just deleted links – the blank lines. The at power”” is from my years at plants that had turbine driven main feedwater pumps”” and that meant they had to be operating to deliver electrical power which was also providing electrical power for the auxiliaries”” even though not delivering power and the operators used that term. Probably a local idiom from the career operators. Sorry if either offended you.”””

  210. Dude, you apply sin(incline)*m*g to push it up the hill. For a 12-degree slope you apply sin(12deg)*m*g that 21% force over a longer distance pushing it up the hill; the potential energy is m*g*h where ‘h’ is the change in elevation. The potential energy is the same as if you lifted the train ‘h’, but you used a simple machine with mechanical advantage – the inclined plane. Less force. More distance. Same work. Incline plane. It is nice to have an old railroad/aviation/nuke guy around; but you may be the first to drop the such insults on your first day. People on this comment board are quite smart. Usually I only insult them when I am wrong and bitter.

  211. Dude you apply sin(incline)*m*g to push it up the hill. For a 12-degree slope you apply sin(12deg)*m*g that 21{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} force over a longer distance pushing it up the hill; the potential energy is m*g*h where ‘h’ is the change in elevation. The potential energy is the same as if you lifted the train ‘h’ but you used a simple machine with mechanical advantage – the inclined plane. Less force. More distance. Same work. Incline plane.It is nice to have an old railroad/aviation/nuke guy around; but you may be the first to drop the such insults on your first day. People on this comment board are quite smart. Usually I only insult them when I am wrong and bitter.

  212. Like you I do not think Grid scale storage with trains is feasible. I was using “efficiency” in the terms of the mass of concrete needed in the cars. The point I was trying to make is that several multiplies of the mass of water stored in the Pumped Storage reservoir will be needed. That is Millions of tons of concrete. Since a cubic yard of concrete weighs about twice as much as a cubic yard of water that means that you will need to have about the same storage area in cubic yards of concrete as in the typical Pumped Storage reservoir. That is multiple hundreds of acres. Probably two to three times the surface area. And all of that assumes that you get the same work. Since you appear to have taken S&D, you are well aware that on a 12 degree incline the tension on the rope pulling the frictionless sled up the hill is about 1/5 or 20 percent of the weight of the sled. Am I mistaken in assuming that that is the only source of transfer of force into the generator/motor? I not then why am I told that the force needed to push the sled up the hill is 1/5 of the weight? If correct that tells me that you now need five times as much concrete to get the same work across the same distance. My RR experience tells me that typical RR engines start slipping above 10 degrees and cogs/chain drive is needed above 30 degrees. Think SF Trolley. I have read the ARES – Addressing Grid Scale Storage document and there are issues with it. Today they are adding/building 3+ MW Wind turbines. That tells me that you need 3+ MW of INSTANTLY available storage for those Wind Turbines. A Train on a hill is NOT going to generate electricity instantly. Even the Emergency Diesel Generators start generating electricity the moment the Air Start solenoid is open and it takes seconds before it is sufficient to be above 90% voltage/power. That is not going to cut it. That is why the FERC requires electric utilities to have 10% of the Peak Load demand for that utility in a state of what is called “Spinni

  213. Like you I do not think Grid scale storage with trains is feasible. I was using efficiency”” in the terms of the mass of concrete needed in the cars. The point I was trying to make is that several multiplies of the mass of water stored in the Pumped Storage reservoir will be needed. That is Millions of tons of concrete. Since a cubic yard of concrete weighs about twice as much as a cubic yard of water that means that you will need to have about the same storage area in cubic yards of concrete as in the typical Pumped Storage reservoir. That is multiple hundreds of acres. Probably two to three times the surface area. And all of that assumes that you get the same work. Since you appear to have taken S&D”””” you are well aware that on a 12 degree incline the tension on the rope pulling the frictionless sled up the hill is about 1/5 or 20 percent of the weight of the sled. Am I mistaken in assuming that that is the only source of transfer of force into the generator/motor? I not then why am I told that the force needed to push the sled up the hill is 1/5 of the weight? If correct that tells me that you now need five times as much concrete to get the same work across the same distance. My RR experience tells me that typical RR engines start slipping above 10 degrees and cogs/chain drive is needed above 30 degrees. Think SF Trolley. I have read the ARES – Addressing Grid Scale Storage document and there are issues with it. Today they are adding/building 3+ MW Wind turbines. That tells me that you need 3+ MW of INSTANTLY available storage for those Wind Turbines. A Train on a hill is NOT going to generate electricity instantly. Even the Emergency Diesel Generators start generating electricity the moment the Air Start solenoid is open and it takes seconds before it is sufficient to be above 90{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} voltage/power. That is not going to cut it. That is why the FERC requires electric utilities to have 10{22800fc5″

  214. The college boy insults were probably a result of the fact I was unaware this site just deleted links – the blank lines.
    The “at power” is from my years at plants that had turbine driven main feedwater pumps, and that meant they had to be operating to deliver electrical power which was also providing electrical power for the auxiliaries, even though not delivering power and the operators used that term. Probably a local idiom from the career operators. Sorry if either offended you.

  215. Been 50 years since I did my “Statics & Dynamics” course in engineering,” Not to be snarky, but it does show. Given reasonably low friction, (And rail is good at that.) you can ignore the horizontal component of the travel, only the vertical matters. Until you get to slopes so shallow that even a tiny bit of friction dominates, anyway. Not saying it’s a really practical scheme, but the fact that the rails don’t go straight up and down isn’t the problem. If you really wanted hydropower out west, I’m sure you could close in a couple of mountain valleys in the Rockies, and pump water back and forth between them. (With ping pong balls on top to suppress evaporation, of course.) Water is always going to be cheaper than concrete, as concrete is made with water…

  216. Been 50 years since I did my “”Statics & Dynamics”””” course in engineering””””””””Not to be snarky”” but it does show. Given reasonably low friction (And rail is good at that.) you can ignore the horizontal component of the travel only the vertical matters. Until you get to slopes so shallow that even a tiny bit of friction dominates anyway.Not saying it’s a really practical scheme but the fact that the rails don’t go straight up and down isn’t the problem.If you really wanted hydropower out west I’m sure you could close in a couple of mountain valleys in the Rockies and pump water back and forth between them. (With ping pong balls on top to suppress evaporation of course.) Water is always going to be cheaper than concrete”” as concrete is made with water…”””

  217. California is planning on importing massive quantities of power produced under more sensible rules, would be a better way to put it.

  218. California is planning on importing massive quantities of power produced under more sensible rules would be a better way to put it.

  219. Dude, you apply sin(incline)*m*g to push it up the hill. For a 12-degree slope you apply sin(12deg)*m*g that 21% force over a longer distance pushing it up the hill; the potential energy is m*g*h where ‘h’ is the change in elevation. The potential energy is the same as if you lifted the train ‘h’, but you used a simple machine with mechanical advantage – the inclined plane. Less force. More distance. Same work. Incline plane.

    It is nice to have an old railroad/aviation/nuke guy around; but you may be the first to drop the such insults on your first day. People on this comment board are quite smart. Usually I only insult them when I am wrong and bitter.

  220. There was nothing about 16 weeks storage or 100% renewables in the post to which I responded – hard to read what you didn’t write. Do you assume I am responding to your entire oeuvre of posts? My post specifically referenced using fossil fuel backing generation (i.e. specifically NOT aimed at 100% renewables). And the storage costs I estimated were for smoothing out short term variations, NOT for handling long term variability. This sort of support is going to be critical if wind is made a larger fraction of total generation, and that seems to be the direction society is taking – like it or not. The right thing would be to require the wind power companies to meet a reasonable quality spec for their power, which in turn would mean that they must add whatever storage hardware is needed to meet that spec.

  221. There was nothing about 16 weeks storage or 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} renewables in the post to which I responded – hard to read what you didn’t write. Do you assume I am responding to your entire oeuvre of posts?My post specifically referenced using fossil fuel backing generation (i.e. specifically NOT aimed at 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} renewables). And the storage costs I estimated were for smoothing out short term variations NOT for handling long term variability. This sort of support is going to be critical if wind is made a larger fraction of total generation and that seems to be the direction society is taking – like it or not. The right thing would be to require the wind power companies to meet a reasonable quality spec for their power which in turn would mean that they must add whatever storage hardware is needed to meet that spec.

  222. The work to put the car up the hill is the same as the work it can do rolling down the hill minus friction. It’s not a great idea – it’s kinda ridiculous to imagine a hillside with 100 tracks, but you’re not losing “dynamic force of the weight” or any other such construct of your mind. Do you propose hanging 21 cars over a cliff instead of pushing 100 up a hill? It’s six of one and half a dozen of another. There is no wasted effort.

  223. The work to put the car up the hill is the same as the work it can do rolling down the hill minus friction. It’s not a great idea – it’s kinda ridiculous to imagine a hillside with 100 tracks but you’re not losing dynamic force of the weight”” or any other such construct of your mind. Do you propose hanging 21 cars over a cliff instead of pushing 100 up a hill? It’s six of one and half a dozen of another. There is no wasted effort.”””

  224. Like you I do not think Grid scale storage with trains is feasible. I was using “efficiency” in the terms of the mass of concrete needed in the cars. The point I was trying to make is that several multiplies of the mass of water stored in the Pumped Storage reservoir will be needed. That is Millions of tons of concrete. Since a cubic yard of concrete weighs about twice as much as a cubic yard of water that means that you will need to have about the same storage area in cubic yards of concrete as in the typical Pumped Storage reservoir. That is multiple hundreds of acres. Probably two to three times the surface area. And all of that assumes that you get the same work. Since you appear to have taken S&D, you are well aware that on a 12 degree incline the tension on the rope pulling the frictionless sled up the hill is about 1/5 or 20 percent of the weight of the sled. Am I mistaken in assuming that that is the only source of transfer of force into the generator/motor? I not then why am I told that the force needed to push the sled up the hill is 1/5 of the weight? If correct that tells me that you now need five times as much concrete to get the same work across the same distance. My RR experience tells me that typical RR engines start slipping above 10 degrees and cogs/chain drive is needed above 30 degrees. Think SF Trolley. I have read the ARES – Addressing Grid Scale Storage document and there are issues with it.
    Today they are adding/building 3+ MW Wind turbines. That tells me that you need 3+ MW of INSTANTLY available storage for those Wind Turbines. A Train on a hill is NOT going to generate electricity instantly. Even the Emergency Diesel Generators start generating electricity the moment the Air Start solenoid is open and it takes seconds before it is sufficient to be above 90% voltage/power. That is not going to cut it. That is why the FERC requires electric utilities to have 10% of the Peak Load demand for that utility in a state of what is called “Spinning Reserve. ” that means that the load is picked up instantly, seamlesly. Faster than the transfer of power on the typical home PC UPS. That is the problem I have with these crazy ideas. At least with pumped storage you could have one of the generators generating electricity and pumps running to make up for the low level loss. How do you do that with a 3 MW train? Hav on train constantly going down the hill? (LOL)

  225. Yeah, I wuz gonna say…. that was a ‘tarded female comment from Eps, but you used your words better and set her straight.

  226. Yeah I wuz gonna say…. that was a ‘tarded female comment from Eps but you used your words better and set her straight.

  227. “Been 50 years since I did my “Statics & Dynamics” course in engineering,”

    Not to be snarky, but it does show. Given reasonably low friction, (And rail is good at that.) you can ignore the horizontal component of the travel, only the vertical matters. Until you get to slopes so shallow that even a tiny bit of friction dominates, anyway.

    Not saying it’s a really practical scheme, but the fact that the rails don’t go straight up and down isn’t the problem.

    If you really wanted hydropower out west, I’m sure you could close in a couple of mountain valleys in the Rockies, and pump water back and forth between them. (With ping pong balls on top to suppress evaporation, of course.) Water is always going to be cheaper than concrete, as concrete is made with water…

  228. Now explain how that achieves 100% Renewable power in California by 2045?” This non-sequitur raised a position never under examination at any prior point in the conversation – neither CA’s renewable goals, nor a general discussion of getting to 100% renewables. In fact, I explicitly refered to ramping up a fossil fueled system as backing generation – hardly a 100% renewable power solution. And now you bring in a pair of new non-sequiturs – “in my first comment [which I assume you did not read] – I addressed how large a Pumped Storage system was and why it was the lowest cost for ample storage”. – “Short term load leveling is NOT going to make Wind/Solar provide 100% power” At no point did I address the issue of what storage system is best – only how much storage would be needed to ramp up conventional generation when wind fails. You appear to be skimming for things you can shout down, rather than reading for comprehension. Take your time, read carefully, consider what was written, and compose a rational, on-topic response.

  229. Now explain how that achieves 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} Renewable power in California by 2045?””This non-sequitur raised a position never under examination at any prior point in the conversation – neither CA’s renewable goals”” nor a general discussion of getting to 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} renewables. In fact”” I explicitly refered to ramping up a fossil fueled system as backing generation – hardly a 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} renewable power solution.And now you bring in a pair of new non-sequiturs – “”””in my first comment [which I assume you did not read] – I addressed how large a Pumped Storage system was and why it was the lowest cost for ample storage””””. – “”””Short term load leveling is NOT going to make Wind/Solar provide 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} power””””At no point did I address the issue of what storage system is best – only how much storage would be needed to ramp up conventional generation when wind fails. You appear to be skimming for things you can shout down”” rather than reading for comprehension. Take your time read carefully consider what was written and compose a rational”” on-topic response.”””

  230. Thanks. Check Out my calculation on the idea they are pushing for Millions of tons of concrete on a rail car on a hill instead of Pumped Storage? further down this blog. [I know PS will never be expanded, as A. it is cheap, B, the Environmental Radicals will never allow another dam. C. Why PS when it requires more than a simple Hydro dam. D. The water storage area is useless as a recreational area or even an area for aquatic life.

  231. Thanks. Check Out my calculation on the idea they are pushing for Millions of tons of concrete on a rail car on a hill instead of Pumped Storage? further down this blog. [I know PS will never be expanded as A. it is cheap B the Environmental Radicals will never allow another dam. C. Why PS when it requires more than a simple Hydro dam. D. The water storage area is useless as a recreational area or even an area for aquatic life.

  232. Their design makes it easy to save a lot using off the shelf components, but theoretically, the trains could be much larger and haul blocks that weigh as much as large ships if you really wanted to store a lot of energy.” That is the problem. Bath County VA. PS provides 3,000 Mw providing only 24,000 MWh over an 11 hour period. Covers 265 Acres hold 4,000,000 cubic yards of water. Assuming only half of that is discharged for the needed power, that means 2,000,000 cubic yards of water A cubic yard of water weighs 1685.55494 pounds. Equals 3,370,000,000 pounds of concrete. Could be about 10% less due to increased efficiency, however the angle of the drop means even more. Been 50 years since I did my “Statics & Dynamics” course in engineering, but my gut says that a large portion of that weight is WASTED. The majority of the dynamic force of the weight is straight down. With a 12 degree slope you lose about 80 percent of the dynamic force of the weight. Basic Trig and the advantage of an inclined plane for work, but here it works against you. Makes it easy to pull the weight up the hill. Then, to get maximum energy, you should use a direct drop into a hole in the ground. Like I said Use Your Brain. The idea is almost equivalent to putting people to work by having them dig a hole and then fill it up again.

  233. Their design makes it easy to save a lot using off the shelf components but theoretically” the trains could be much larger and haul blocks that weigh as much as large ships if you really wanted to store a lot of energy.”” That is the problem. Bath County VA. PS provides 3″”000 Mw providing only 24000 MWh over an 11 hour period. Covers 265 Acres hold 40000 cubic yards of water. Assuming only half of that is discharged for the needed power that means 20000 cubic yards of water A cubic yard of water weighs 1685.55494 pounds. Equals 33700000 pounds of concrete. Could be about 10{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} less due to increased efficiency”” however the angle of the drop means even more. Been 50 years since I did my “”””Statics & Dynamics”””” course in engineering”” but my gut says that a large portion of that weight is WASTED. The majority of the dynamic force of the weight is straight down. With a 12 degree slope you lose about 80 percent of the dynamic force of the weight. Basic Trig and the advantage of an inclined plane for work but here it works against you. Makes it easy to pull the weight up the hill. Then to get maximum energy”” you should use a direct drop into a hole in the ground. Like I said Use Your Brain. The idea is almost equivalent to putting people to work by having them dig a hole and then fill it up again.”””

  234. You just demonstrated yourself a perfect example of not using your brain(logic), Eps. You are using your emotions and claiming you are using logic, instead.

  235. You just demonstrated yourself a perfect example of not using your brain(logic) Eps. You are using your emotions and claiming you are using logic instead.

  236. Do they teach people to use their brains in college anymore?” Given all the Libtards colleges produce, the answer to that is a resounding ‘no’.

  237. Do they teach people to use their brains in college anymore?””Given all the Libtards colleges produce”””” the answer to that is a resounding ‘no’.”””

  238. That’s like saying, “California produced 3 million extra votes for Hillary! She should be president!” 3 million WASTED votes, since they were not needed by Hillary to win California and can’t be applied in other states where she needed the extra votes. This is the same problem with renewables. When they produce, they produce an overabundance of juice which they can not economically use later when they aren’t producing (dark/no wind).

  239. That’s like saying California produced 3 million extra votes for Hillary! She should be president!””3 million WASTED votes”” since they were not needed by Hillary to win California and can’t be applied in other states where she needed the extra votes.This is the same problem with renewables. When they produce”” they produce an overabundance of juice which they can not economically use later when they aren’t producing (dark/no wind).”””

  240. There was nothing about 16 weeks storage or 100% renewables in the post to which I responded – hard to read what you didn’t write. Do you assume I am responding to your entire oeuvre of posts?

    My post specifically referenced using fossil fuel backing generation (i.e. specifically NOT aimed at 100% renewables).
    And the storage costs I estimated were for smoothing out short term variations, NOT for handling long term variability. This sort of support is going to be critical if wind is made a larger fraction of total generation, and that seems to be the direction society is taking – like it or not.

    The right thing would be to require the wind power companies to meet a reasonable quality spec for their power, which in turn would mean that they must add whatever storage hardware is needed to meet that spec.

  241. The work to put the car up the hill is the same as the work it can do rolling down the hill minus friction. It’s not a great idea – it’s kinda ridiculous to imagine a hillside with 100 tracks, but you’re not losing “dynamic force of the weight” or any other such construct of your mind. Do you propose hanging 21 cars over a cliff instead of pushing 100 up a hill? It’s six of one and half a dozen of another. There is no wasted effort.

  242. Where did is say “two trains AND a half dozen blocks”????? I am well aware of these trains. I have worked for a RR for 6 years and well aware of the problems with this dream. Also have 40 plus years working for an Electric Utility and am well aware of how power is generated. Further you should look at the minute to minute and hour to hour fluctuations of the output of a wind farm. Trains are NOT going to switch over fast enough often enough to supply a large wind farm with power unless you have a dozen or so, or LONG tracks. Then, if a wind farm goes off line – like the wind farm in South Australia, one train, two trains, a dozen trains are not going to give you time to switch over to a OTCG. It is lights out – BLACKOUT. And that is ignoring the startup time of the power out of the train generator. It is NOT instantaneous. A loss of power of one or two cycles will wipe out a Server Farm. That is why they have full size UPS’s. I designed and tested industrial sized UPS’s in one part of my career. The UPS I designed switched over in fractions of a cycle. With power outages lasting a few cycles, the result is that home electronics is ruined. The utility providing the power to my home now has about 20% wind power. Before that it was rare to have an outage, other than with a severe storm. Now, there are random, momentary, fluctuations on a monthly basis. Great for the $20 LED lamps I put in my house years ago. Two or three of these dimming event destroys them. Just last week four went out in my kitchen, all in a matter of an hour or so, on a clear day with no storms on the radar map. However, there were high winds, greater than 50mph. And Wind turbines SHUTDOWN with high winds. At least the 4th time I have replaced Leds since they added all of the Wind Power. Dimmable LED’s last longer if you have these conditions.

  243. Where did is say two trains AND a half dozen blocks””????? I am well aware of these trains. I have worked for a RR for 6 years and well aware of the problems with this dream. Also have 40 plus years working for an Electric Utility and am well aware of how power is generated. Further you should look at the minute to minute and hour to hour fluctuations of the output of a wind farm. Trains are NOT going to switch over fast enough often enough to supply a large wind farm with power unless you have a dozen or so”” or LONG tracks. Then if a wind farm goes off line – like the wind farm in South Australia one train two trains a dozen trains are not going to give you time to switch over to a OTCG. It is lights out – BLACKOUT. And that is ignoring the startup time of the power out of the train generator. It is NOT instantaneous. A loss of power of one or two cycles will wipe out a Server Farm. That is why they have full size UPS’s. I designed and tested industrial sized UPS’s in one part of my career. The UPS I designed switched over in fractions of a cycle. With power outages lasting a few cycles the result is that home electronics is ruined. The utility providing the power to my home now has about 20{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} wind power. Before that it was rare to have an outage other than with a severe storm. Now there are random momentary fluctuations on a monthly basis. Great for the $20 LED lamps I put in my house years ago. Two or three of these dimming event destroys them. Just last week four went out in my kitchen all in a matter of an hour or so on a clear day with no storms on the radar map. However there were high winds”” greater than 50mph. And Wind turbines SHUTDOWN with high winds. At least the 4th time I have replaced Leds since they added all of the Wind Power. Dimmable LED’s last longer if you have these conditions.”””

  244. I do not want Fossil fuels either! I want the one fuel that will save the globe from Global Warming. The fuel that has nearly the lowest of any fuel that can achieve a reduction in CO2 Emissions – Nuclear Power. Which has “Cradle to grave” CO2 emissions at about the same level as Solar – AND does NOT need Fossil fuel e.g. NG backup.

  245. I do not want Fossil fuels either! I want the one fuel that will save the globe from Global Warming. The fuel that has nearly the lowest of any fuel that can achieve a reduction in CO2 Emissions – Nuclear Power. Which has Cradle to grave”” CO2 emissions at about the same level as Solar – AND does NOT need Fossil fuel e.g. NG backup.”””

  246. “Now explain how that achieves 100% Renewable power in California by 2045?”

    This non-sequitur raised a position never under examination at any prior point in the conversation – neither CA’s renewable goals, nor a general discussion of getting to 100% renewables. In fact, I explicitly refered to ramping up a fossil fueled system as backing generation – hardly a 100% renewable power solution.

    And now you bring in a pair of new non-sequiturs
    – “in my first comment [which I assume you did not read] – I addressed how large a Pumped Storage system was and why it was the lowest cost for ample storage”.
    – “Short term load leveling is NOT going to make Wind/Solar provide 100% power”

    At no point did I address the issue of what storage system is best – only how much storage would be needed to ramp up conventional generation when wind fails.

    You appear to be skimming for things you can shout down, rather than reading for comprehension. Take your time, read carefully, consider what was written, and compose a rational, on-topic response.

  247. Are you illiterate? They just signed up for two more Russian units. Wind and solar are far more expensive and so unreliable they can’t get on the grid. They are exporting 3 Candu’s to Romania and Argentina. Actually the UAE reactors were $4.5B a GW final and were on time on budget.

  248. Are you illiterate? They just signed up for two more Russian units. Wind and solar are far more expensive and so unreliable they can’t get on the grid. They are exporting 3 Candu’s to Romania and Argentina.Actually the UAE reactors were $4.5B a GW final and were on time on budget.

  249. You sold you ass to Big Oil a while back so nothing left to laugh off. It’s unlikely but some new science on permafrost methane stores is indeed frightening. Why take the chance when insurance is so cheap.

  250. You sold you ass to Big Oil a while back so nothing left to laugh off. It’s unlikely but some new science on permafrost methane stores is indeed frightening. Why take the chance when insurance is so cheap.

  251. Britain’s Fascist government is a friend of Trump – think Maggie Thatcher. The UK’s medical program was developed under Labor.

  252. Britain’s Fascist government is a friend of Trump – think Maggie Thatcher. The UK’s medical program was developed under Labor.

  253. IAEA standards are as good or better than NRC. The NRC is 97{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} lawyers

  254. California is planning 100% wind/solar with some sort of green storage possibly pumped hydro. No nukes or gas. So lotsa reasons to levelize over a year.

  255. California is planning 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} wind/solar with some sort of green storage possibly pumped hydro. No nukes or gas. So lotsa reasons to levelize over a year.

  256. Thanks.
    Check Out my calculation on the idea they are pushing for Millions of tons of concrete on a rail car on a hill instead of Pumped Storage? further down this blog. [I know PS will never be expanded, as A. it is cheap, B, the Environmental Radicals will never allow another dam. C. Why PS when it requires more than a simple Hydro dam. D. The water storage area is useless as a recreational area or even an area for aquatic life.

  257. “Their design makes it easy to save a lot using off the shelf components, but theoretically, the trains could be much larger and haul blocks that weigh as much as large ships if you really wanted to store a lot of energy.”
    That is the problem. Bath County VA. PS provides 3,000 Mw providing only 24,000 MWh over an 11 hour period. Covers 265 Acres hold 4,000,000 cubic yards of water. Assuming only half of that is discharged for the needed power, that means 2,000,000 cubic yards of water
    A cubic yard of water weighs 1685.55494 pounds. Equals 3,370,000,000 pounds of concrete. Could be about 10% less due to increased efficiency, however the angle of the drop means even more. Been 50 years since I did my “Statics & Dynamics” course in engineering, but my gut says that a large portion of that weight is WASTED. The majority of the dynamic force of the weight is straight down. With a 12 degree slope you lose about 80 percent of the dynamic force of the weight. Basic Trig and the advantage of an inclined plane for work, but here it works against you. Makes it easy to pull the weight up the hill. Then, to get maximum energy, you should use a direct drop into a hole in the ground.
    Like I said Use Your Brain. The idea is almost equivalent to putting people to work by having them dig a hole and then fill it up again.

  258. Corrupt” the way you use the word means good. Good politician forced to make cars safer by installing seat belts. Tens of thousands of Americans are alive today because of good regulations by good politicians. International cars kill people because they are not well regulated. Do you want “competitive” unregulated nuclear plants. You saw what happened to the space shuttle when Reagan tried to deregulate safety because he wanted to “privatize” space. The Challenger O rings murdered the brave Americans https://www.space.com/31732-space-shuttle-challenger-disaster-explained-infographic.html

  259. Corrupt”” the way you use the word means good. Good politician forced to make cars safer by installing seat belts. Tens of thousands of Americans are alive today because of good regulations by good politicians. International cars kill people because they are not well regulated. Do you want “”””competitive”””” unregulated nuclear plants. You saw what happened to the space shuttle when Reagan tried to deregulate safety because he wanted to “”””privatize”””” space. The Challenger O rings murdered the brave Americans https://www.space.com/31732-space-shuttle-challenger-disaster-explained-infographic.html“””

  260. Iowa has 36% wind electricity of or 6000% more wind power percentage wise than California. California produces a lot of wind power only because it is a very big state. Electricity cost in Iowa is 50% less than the cost in California. More wind power less expensive, NO fake trumpian numbers.

  261. Iowa has 36{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} wind electricity of or 6000{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} more wind power percentage wise than California. California produces a lot of wind power only because it is a very big state.Electricity cost in Iowa is 50{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} less than the cost in California. More wind power less expensive NO fake trumpian numbers.

  262. CCGT is a Combined-Cycle Power Plant. The first part of the plant is a large gas turbine which feeds its exhaust gas into a boiler that generates steam to spin a turbine that spins another generator. This design is very efficient so it is used for natural gas base load power plants. What I was talking about is fast start gas turbines which are just jet engines connected to generators. You start them up and in a few minutes you are generating power. There is no need to have them on spin reserve. Nuclear power plants are usually run at full bore.

  263. CCGT is a Combined-Cycle Power Plant. The first part of the plant is a large gas turbine which feeds its exhaust gas into a boiler that generates steam to spin a turbine that spins another generator. This design is very efficient so it is used for natural gas base load power plants. What I was talking about is fast start gas turbines which are just jet engines connected to generators. You start them up and in a few minutes you are generating power. There is no need to have them on spin reserve. Nuclear power plants are usually run at full bore.

  264. Markko Cald… a corrupt UK fascist government??? Are you out of your mind? A government that cares about its citizens health, is a good democratic government. Coal loving Trump’s government is a corrupt fashist government. Trump’s coal policy poisons fetus with mercury causing retardation, destroys children’s lungs with Ozone pollution causing lifelong asthma. Trump is a liar and wants us to believe that vaccinations cause autism when in fact it is dirty air from power plants that causes autism. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1353829208000142 I am asking you to reconsider what is a corrupt and fascist government.

  265. Markko Cald… a corrupt UK fascist government???Are you out of your mind? A government that cares about its citizens health is a good democratic government. Coal loving Trump’s government is a corrupt fashist government. Trump’s coal policy poisons fetus with mercury causing retardation destroys children’s lungs with Ozone pollution causing lifelong asthma. Trump is a liar and wants us to believe that vaccinations cause autism when in fact it is dirty air from power plants that causes autism. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1353829208000142I am asking you to reconsider what is a corrupt and fascist government.

  266. They don’t get them just like that. They have to do major refurbishment and apply for an 20 year extension to their operating licenses. Eventually radiation damage to the reactor vessel will render that a mute point.

  267. They don’t get them just like that. They have to do major refurbishment and apply for an 20 year extension to their operating licenses. Eventually radiation damage to the reactor vessel will render that a mute point.

  268. Richard Lentz135 pointsR. Kimhi 15 hours ago If the cost reductions are so great, WHY are the prices of electricity more than 20% higher than they were 10 years ago?’ 1) Are you joking or are you not using your BRAIN? Why has the 10-year dollar tuition increases (in 2017 dollars) for your four-year institutions, has gone up 80%. 2) In Iowa where wind capacity went from 1273 to 7304 in the last ten years now generating 36% of all electricity electricity cost in Iowa is now number 12 out of 50 US states. Do you have an agenda of misinformation or you really cannot do the math?

  269. Richard Lentz135 pointsR. Kimhi15 hours agoIf the cost reductions are so great WHY are the prices of electricity more than 20{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} higher than they were 10 years ago?’1) Are you joking or are you not using your BRAIN? Why has the 10-year dollar tuition increases (in 2017 dollars) for your four-year institutions has gone up 80{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12}. 2) In Iowa where wind capacity went from 1273 to 7304 in the last ten years now generating 36{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of all electricity electricity cost in Iowa is now number 12 out of 50 US states. Do you have an agenda of misinformation or you really cannot do the math?

  270. That’s like saying, “California produced 3 million extra votes for Hillary! She should be president!”

    3 million WASTED votes, since they were not needed by Hillary to win California and can’t be applied in other states where she needed the extra votes.

    This is the same problem with renewables. When they produce, they produce an overabundance of juice which they can not economically use later when they aren’t producing (dark/no wind).

  271. If you do not watch the video, you have no business continuing the conversation. The video did not have 2 trains and a half dozen blocks. I call straw man.

  272. If you do not watch the video you have no business continuing the conversation. The video did not have 2 trains and a half dozen blocks. I call straw man.

  273. There would be several parallel tracks, and each of the the trains can take several loads up the hill or down. Search for the video. Speed can be adjusted nearly instantly to smooth out the power. The point is for one of these to be connected to each PV farm or wind farm. It only has to keep its production level even not the whole grid. There are other power plants that could be warmed up and gotten running if for some bizarre reason the sun did not come out and the wind did not blow for days at a time over a large area. This just avoids having to have those plants at idle. That wastes a lot of energy. Really, if there was some massive reduction in wind and solar they would probably get some power from other States. And it is all a mater of scaling. There is no reason they could not have 24 hours of storage or 48 or whatever. It would be a lot of concrete, but it could be done with modifications. Their design makes it easy to save a lot using off the shelf components, but theoretically, the trains could be much larger and haul blocks that weigh as much as large ships if you really wanted to store a lot of energy.

  274. There would be several parallel tracks and each of the the trains can take several loads up the hill or down. Search for the video. Speed can be adjusted nearly instantly to smooth out the power.The point is for one of these to be connected to each PV farm or wind farm. It only has to keep its production level even not the whole grid.There are other power plants that could be warmed up and gotten running if for some bizarre reason the sun did not come out and the wind did not blow for days at a time over a large area. This just avoids having to have those plants at idle. That wastes a lot of energy.Really if there was some massive reduction in wind and solar they would probably get some power from other States.And it is all a mater of scaling. There is no reason they could not have 24 hours of storage or 48 or whatever. It would be a lot of concrete but it could be done with modifications.Their design makes it easy to save a lot using off the shelf components but theoretically the trains could be much larger and haul blocks that weigh as much as large ships if you really wanted to store a lot of energy.

  275. Richard Lentz135 points 15 hours ago Are we raising people that do not use their BRAINS? Do not accuse others when you do not use your BRAIN. Others do have brains and realize that nonone wants your beloved fossil fuels because they cause fetus retardation from mercury, childhood asthma from Ozone pollution, SO2 and NOx cause bronchitis and pneumonia, particulates cause heart disease, and organic volatile compounds cause cancer. People WITH brains that use them and who love their children, LOVE wind power. If you add medical costs for hospitals, doctors, pharmacies, lost work from air pollution caused illnesses, and lost wages from premature deaths, wind electricity is less than half with NO subsidies than dirty electricity, not just less expensive. ENOUGH SAID do the math and use your brain.

  276. Richard Lentz135 points15 hours agoAre we raising people that do not use their BRAINS?Do not accuse others when you do not use your BRAIN. Others do have brains and realize that nonone wants your beloved fossil fuels because they cause fetus retardation from mercury childhood asthma from Ozone pollution SO2 and NOx cause bronchitis and pneumonia particulates cause heart disease and organic volatile compounds cause cancer. People WITH brains that use them and who love their children LOVE wind power. If you add medical costs for hospitals doctors pharmacies lost work from air pollution caused illnesses and lost wages from premature deaths wind electricity is less than half with NO subsidies than dirty electricity not just less expensive. ENOUGH SAID do the math and use your brain.

  277. You do know that while the wind might stop blowing in one location that it never stops blowing over a large region. And the regions picked have geological features like mountains and plateaus that causes the wind to blow all of the time. You can also build CSP plants that stores energy in molten salts which can provide power while the sun is down. The other thing is that solar panels provide power during the day when demand is higher so it is a good match. Renewable can provide about 50% of the power needed before we have to start worrying about storage.

  278. You do know that while the wind might stop blowing in one location that it never stops blowing over a large region. And the regions picked have geological features like mountains and plateaus that causes the wind to blow all of the time. You can also build CSP plants that stores energy in molten salts which can provide power while the sun is down.The other thing is that solar panels provide power during the day when demand is higher so it is a good match. Renewable can provide about 50{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of the power needed before we have to start worrying about storage.

  279. China hasn’t approved a new nuclear power plant since 2016 because wind and solar are profoundly less expensive in that country and getting cheaper. Further it demonstrates prices mentioned for Chinese nuclear power plants must have been aspirational/propaganda not actual. Zero export reactors being built by China except finishing off some very old unfinished ones in Pakistan. UAE reactors were 30 billion for four in 2011 dollars, so about 7.5 billion each. They’re delayed so will be over that budget.

  280. China hasn’t approved a new nuclear power plant since 2016 because wind and solar are profoundly less expensive in that country and getting cheaper. Further it demonstrates prices mentioned for Chinese nuclear power plants must have been aspirational/propaganda not actual.Zero export reactors being built by China except finishing off some very old unfinished ones in Pakistan.UAE reactors were 30 billion for four in 2011 dollars so about 7.5 billion each. They’re delayed so will be over that budget.”

  281. It it pointless to levelize over more than a weekend. You seem to be beating this 100% wind+solar dead horse. It isn’t going to happen. In a fully decarbonized electrical grid you’re going to have 60% wind+solar and the rest nuclear, retrofitted reversible hydro plants, and carbon capture Allam cycle gas plants.

  282. It it pointless to levelize over more than a weekend. You seem to be beating this 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} wind+solar dead horse. It isn’t going to happen. In a fully decarbonized electrical grid you’re going to have 60{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} wind+solar and the rest nuclear retrofitted reversible hydro plants and carbon capture Allam cycle gas plants.

  283. Those don’t exist? You seem somewhat confused on this issue. You seem to be talking about the ability of wind producers to create price distortions in spot markets by using their federal 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour production credit subsidy to continue to sell power into a grid where prices are negative or zero – which happens in the worst state (California) about 8% of the hours. However even wind doesn’t try to sell into say negative 8 cents per kilowatt-hour times. Also, this doesn’t lead to PPAs signed with negative costs per kilowatt-hour.

  284. Those don’t exist? You seem somewhat confused on this issue.You seem to be talking about the ability of wind producers to create price distortions in spot markets by using their federal 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour production credit subsidy to continue to sell power into a grid where prices are negative or zero – which happens in the worst state (California) about 8{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of the hours. However even wind doesn’t try to sell into say negative 8 cents per kilowatt-hour times. Also this doesn’t lead to PPAs signed with negative costs per kilowatt-hour.

  285. Then shouldn’t you be able to point us to lots of wind power PPAs signed in 2017 at 12 cents per kwh? They’re not though – the linked article shows them being signed at 2 cents.

  286. Then shouldn’t you be able to point us to lots of wind power PPAs signed in 2017 at 12 cents per kwh? They’re not though – the linked article shows them being signed at 2 cents.

  287. Your source didn’t list any real-world capacity auction prices, but rather threw in a theoretical $3 per kW-month. Okay, lets do the math. 720 hours in a month, 90% capacity. That is 648 hours. 300 cents divided by 648 is….0.46 cents per kilowatt of nameplate capacity. So it fits almost *exactly* what I said? A wind project at 45% capacity if forced to 100% cover itself would cost an additional 0.46×2=0.92 cents per kilowatt-hour. Considering in PJM wind gets to bid for capacity markets (wind is statisically not all dead everywhere in a large grid) at 13%, you could reduce that by 0.92 cents by 13%. Whaddaya know, about 0.8 cents per kilowatt-hour – same price as buying your own open cycle gas turbine.

  288. Your source didn’t list any real-world capacity auction prices but rather threw in a theoretical $3 per kW-month.Okay lets do the math. 720 hours in a month 90{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} capacity. That is 648 hours. 300 cents divided by 648 is….0.46 cents per kilowatt of nameplate capacity.So it fits almost *exactly* what I said? A wind project at 45{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} capacity if forced to 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} cover itself would cost an additional 0.46×2=0.92 cents per kilowatt-hour. Considering in PJM wind gets to bid for capacity markets (wind is statisically not all dead everywhere in a large grid) at 13{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} you could reduce that by 0.92 cents by 13{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12}. Whaddaya know about 0.8 cents per kilowatt-hour – same price as buying your own open cycle gas turbine.

  289. The major difference is efficiency, so the difference is the fuel price. You can find fuel price by looking at “eia today in energy prices” and checking the spark spread. Subtract spark spread from the spot price of electricity. So about 2.1 cents per kilowatt-hour for a 48% efficient plant (also know as “heat rate”). Brand new open cycle turbines are around 42%, so add about 15%. 2.4 cents per kilowatt-hour for fuel. The high price is actually the capital cost. It would only be 0.8 cents per kilowatt-hour if it ran 90% of the time (also known as capacity factor), but cut that to say 30%, and you need to cover 2.4 cents per killowatt-hour (1/3 the time run, so 3x the cost). So about 4.8 cents per kilowatt-hour for an open cycle gas turbine running at 30% capacity factor. A brand new-ish closed cycle gas turbine at 90% capacity factor is about 1.6 cents per kilowatt-hour for capital cost (depending on size, but this would be for a 600MW+) and 1.9 cents for fuel. So 3.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. Highest heat rate available would be slightly cheaper on the fuel, but builders often target a lower efficiency as a trade-off for higher ramp speed.

  290. The major difference is efficiency so the difference is the fuel price.You can find fuel price by looking at eia today in energy prices”” and checking the spark spread. Subtract spark spread from the spot price of electricity. So about 2.1 cents per kilowatt-hour for a 48{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} efficient plant (also know as “”””heat rate””””). Brand new open cycle turbines are around 42{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12}”” so add about 15{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12}. 2.4 cents per kilowatt-hour for fuel.The high price is actually the capital cost. It would only be 0.8 cents per kilowatt-hour if it ran 90{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of the time (also known as capacity factor) but cut that to say 30{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} and you need to cover 2.4 cents per killowatt-hour (1/3 the time run so 3x the cost).So about 4.8 cents per kilowatt-hour for an open cycle gas turbine running at 30{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} capacity factor.A brand new-ish closed cycle gas turbine at 90{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} capacity factor is about 1.6 cents per kilowatt-hour for capital cost (depending on size but this would be for a 600MW+) and 1.9 cents for fuel. So 3.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. Highest heat rate available would be slightly cheaper on the fuel”” but builders often target a lower efficiency as a trade-off for higher ramp speed.”””

  291. Where did is say “two trains AND a half dozen blocks”????? I am well aware of these trains. I have worked for a RR for 6 years and well aware of the problems with this dream. Also have 40 plus years working for an Electric Utility and am well aware of how power is generated.
    Further you should look at the minute to minute and hour to hour fluctuations of the output of a wind farm. Trains are NOT going to switch over fast enough often enough to supply a large wind farm with power unless you have a dozen or so, or LONG tracks.
    Then, if a wind farm goes off line – like the wind farm in South Australia, one train, two trains, a dozen trains are not going to give you time to switch over to a OTCG. It is lights out – BLACKOUT. And that is ignoring the startup time of the power out of the train generator. It is NOT instantaneous. A loss of power of one or two cycles will wipe out a Server Farm. That is why they have full size UPS’s. I designed and tested industrial sized UPS’s in one part of my career. The UPS I designed switched over in fractions of a cycle. With power outages lasting a few cycles, the result is that home electronics is ruined.
    The utility providing the power to my home now has about 20% wind power. Before that it was rare to have an outage, other than with a severe storm. Now, there are random, momentary, fluctuations on a monthly basis. Great for the $20 LED lamps I put in my house years ago. Two or three of these dimming event destroys them. Just last week four went out in my kitchen, all in a matter of an hour or so, on a clear day with no storms on the radar map. However, there were high winds, greater than 50mph. And Wind turbines SHUTDOWN with high winds. At least the 4th time I have replaced Leds since they added all of the Wind Power. Dimmable LED’s last longer if you have these conditions.

  292. This is a straw man though. No large grid is going 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} solar and wind. 60{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} at most.

  293. I do not want Fossil fuels either! I want the one fuel that will save the globe from Global Warming. The fuel that has nearly the lowest of any fuel that can achieve a reduction in CO2 Emissions – Nuclear Power. Which has “Cradle to grave” CO2 emissions at about the same level as Solar – AND does NOT need Fossil fuel e.g. NG backup.

  294. They are powered up however and spinning away when shadowing wind plant. The nuke plant gets to vent to steam. With so much wind on the grid its hard to to justify CCGT plant. Look at the chart I supplied for real numbers.

  295. They are powered up however and spinning away when shadowing wind plant.The nuke plant gets to vent to steam. With so much wind on the grid its hard to to justify CCGT plant. Look at the chart I supplied for real numbers.

  296. I thing you need reference to cost your claim. Design lifespan is a canard, and any plant that ask seems to get an upgrade to 60 years.

  297. I thing you need reference to cost your claim. Design lifespan is a canard and any plant that ask seems to get an upgrade to 60 years.

  298. You need to learn to read. As a recent paper shows, the US would need 16 weeks or 20% capacity of storage cover to meet peak load, low generation events with 100% wind/solar. Lookup “getting-zero-pathways-zero-carbon-electricity-systems-jesse-jenkins” Now cost out 16 weeks of nationwide storage at $500 a kwh.

  299. You need to learn to read.As a recent paper shows the US would need 16 weeks or 20{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} capacity of storage cover to meet peak load low generation events with 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} wind/solar.Lookup getting-zero-pathways-zero-carbon-electricity-systems-jesse-jenkins””Now cost out 16 weeks of nationwide storage at $500 a kwh.”””

  300. That’s a bit of a non sequitur ” in my first comment [which I assume you did not read] – I addressed how large a Pumped Storage system was and why it was the lowest cost for ample storage. Short term load leveling is NOT going to make Wind/Solar provide 100% power. One or two Trains on a hill is NOT going to last all day. And if you use your Wind to pull it back up the hill you lower the efficiency/capacity factor of the Wind turbine. And as South Australia has shown when large quantities of Wind stop all at once you end up with a several day blackout. one or two trains ain’t going to help. Very few fossil generators, and some Wind turbines, will start from a no power condition – they depend on the grid having power to perform a startup.

  301. That’s a bit of a non sequitur “” in my first comment [which I assume you did not read] – I addressed how large a Pumped Storage system was and why it was the lowest cost for ample storage. Short term load leveling is NOT going to make Wind/Solar provide 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} power. One or two Trains on a hill is NOT going to last all day. And if you use your Wind to pull it back up the hill you lower the efficiency/capacity factor of the Wind turbine. And as South Australia has shown when large quantities of Wind stop all at once you end up with a several day blackout. one or two trains ain’t going to help. Very few fossil generators”” and some Wind turbines”” will start from a no power condition – they depend on the grid having power to perform a startup.”””

  302. And why is it that the places with the highest usage of “cheap” renewable energy have the highest energy prices? (Germany, California, etc)

  303. And why is it that the places with the highest usage of cheap”” renewable energy have the highest energy prices? (Germany”” California”” etc)”””

  304. GTs don’t idle. They start fast. And no one cuts off a nuclear power plant. You run it full bore until refueling. Then it is offline for months. Renewable mostly impact peaker fossil fuel power plants. A Peaker is usually an older power plants that is more inefficient but only run for part of the day. Because they are more expensive to run they are easily priced out of the market. One thing people don’t understand about power plant is that when a new power plant comes online a old power plant goes off line. It usually becomes a peaker or they month balled it.

  305. GTs don’t idle. They start fast. And no one cuts off a nuclear power plant. You run it full bore until refueling. Then it is offline for months. Renewable mostly impact peaker fossil fuel power plants. A Peaker is usually an older power plants that is more inefficient but only run for part of the day. Because they are more expensive to run they are easily priced out of the market. One thing people don’t understand about power plant is that when a new power plant comes online a old power plant goes off line. It usually becomes a peaker or they month balled it.

  306. Nuclear is 20% and yes it runs as baseload. Most of the nuclear power plant are getting near their design lifespan and will need major refurbishment to get re-licensed. And right now that is a capital cost the generation companies are reluctant to swallow. It is an accounting thing. Which is cheaper the refurbishment or a new natural gas power plant.

  307. Nuclear is 20{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} and yes it runs as baseload. Most of the nuclear power plant are getting near their design lifespan and will need major refurbishment to get re-licensed. And right now that is a capital cost the generation companies are reluctant to swallow. It is an accounting thing. Which is cheaper the refurbishment or a new natural gas power plant.

  308. That’s a bit of a non sequitur – I addressed none of those issues, only your claim of needing 12 or 24 hours of trains to handle ramping up conventional power plant. You’re making the mistake of assuming someone who corrects you must be 100% opposed to your perspective. The CA attempt will likely be a bold, expensive failure despite their near ideal climate, that nonetheless yields some benefits for the rest of us in terms of new technologies, economies of scale, etc.

  309. That’s a bit of a non sequitur – I addressed none of those issues only your claim of needing 12 or 24 hours of trains to handle ramping up conventional power plant. You’re making the mistake of assuming someone who corrects you must be 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} opposed to your perspective. The CA attempt will likely be a bold expensive failure despite their near ideal climate that nonetheless yields some benefits for the rest of us in terms of new technologies economies of scale etc.

  310. They are not getting paid for nothing. Power plants systems must be inspected daily and maintained. And sometimes they have to bring the system on line generating power at the minimum so that they will be ready to go to full capacity when needed. Generation is a competitive market when it isn’t been gamed like what Enron was doing.

  311. They are not getting paid for nothing. Power plants systems must be inspected daily and maintained. And sometimes they have to bring the system on line generating power at the minimum so that they will be ready to go to full capacity when needed. Generation is a competitive market when it isn’t been gamed like what Enron was doing.

  312. As shown in OZ battery systems for grid stabilization is a good idea. But if a 600 MW generator trips the current battery systems are not big enough to deal with that for any length of time. You will still need GTs.

  313. As shown in OZ battery systems for grid stabilization is a good idea. But if a 600 MW generator trips the current battery systems are not big enough to deal with that for any length of time. You will still need GTs.

  314. They already exist for peak loads and emergencies. And it is rate payers who pay for them and gladly too. It is 102F and 95% humidity and your utility power just max out. There goes your central air. That is why they exist, not because of renewable.

  315. They already exist for peak loads and emergencies. And it is rate payers who pay for them and gladly too. It is 102F and 95{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} humidity and your utility power just max out. There goes your central air. That is why they exist not because of renewable.

  316. They are quite expensive to run. They are basically a jet engine strapped to a generator. High maintenance and low efficiency. Because they are so expensive to run they are only used for high peak load like during a heat wave and emergencies. But their capital cost per MW is much lower than a fossil power plant. Building a base load power plant to only provide power once in a while is too expensive.

  317. They are quite expensive to run. They are basically a jet engine strapped to a generator. High maintenance and low efficiency. Because they are so expensive to run they are only used for high peak load like during a heat wave and emergencies. But their capital cost per MW is much lower than a fossil power plant. Building a base load power plant to only provide power once in a while is too expensive.

  318. This is true. The financial engineering and politics makes it exceedingly hard to follow and sort-out. That must be the point of it all – to baffle us with BS – to make it clear as mud so that the special interests can operate behind a fog.

  319. This is true. The financial engineering and politics makes it exceedingly hard to follow and sort-out. That must be the point of it all – to baffle us with BS – to make it clear as mud so that the special interests can operate behind a fog.

  320. I actually used a higher cost ($500/kWhr). That is the installed cost per storage CAPACITY – not per unit of delivered energy. The same kWhr of storage gets used thousands of times over the lifetime of the storage. Some flow batteries have gotten 1000 cycles without significant degradation, so a life of 30 years doesn’t seem out of line. With a 5% interest rate (plus principle, on 100% borrowed to purchase/install, not including tax savings from depreciation and assuming only 1000 cycles per year) that comes in around 3 cents per delivered kWhr. If you want to use $100/kWhr, cut that to 0.6 cents.

  321. I actually used a higher cost ($500/kWhr). That is the installed cost per storage CAPACITY – not per unit of delivered energy. The same kWhr of storage gets used thousands of times over the lifetime of the storage. Some flow batteries have gotten 1000 cycles without significant degradation so a life of 30 years doesn’t seem out of line. With a 5{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} interest rate (plus principle on 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} borrowed to purchase/install not including tax savings from depreciation and assuming only 1000 cycles per year) that comes in around 3 cents per delivered kWhr. If you want to use $100/kWhr cut that to 0.6 cents.

  322. Now explain how that achieves 100% Renewable power in California by 2045? How many mountains will have RR tracks covering their face? Or are they going to do like the UK and burn wood pellets? Hopefully all of the coal plants aren’t torn down by then. At least that would eliminate the fireload under the forests. But will create more records of smog days. If wind was predictable they could sell it for the same price as NG.

  323. Now explain how that achieves 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} Renewable power in California by 2045? How many mountains will have RR tracks covering their face?Or are they going to do like the UK and burn wood pellets? Hopefully all of the coal plants aren’t torn down by then. At least that would eliminate the fireload under the forests. But will create more records of smog days. If wind was predictable they could sell it for the same price as NG.

  324. Are you illiterate? They just signed up for two more Russian units. Wind and solar are far more expensive and so unreliable they can’t get on the grid.

    They are exporting 3 Candu’s to Romania and Argentina.

    Actually the UAE reactors were $4.5B a GW final and were on time on budget.

  325. You sold you ass to Big Oil a while back so nothing left to laugh off. It’s unlikely but some new science on permafrost methane stores is indeed frightening. Why take the chance when insurance is so cheap.

  326. Yup but CCGT’s can’t back up wind when running efficiently and the fuel cost gets reimbursed by the taxpayer anyway. Why pay the high capital cost for CCGT

  327. Yup but CCGT’s can’t back up wind when running efficiently and the fuel cost gets reimbursed by the taxpayer anyway. Why pay the high capital cost for CCGT

  328. Only about 2 hours of storage would be needed, to cover ramping up gas turbine power plants to cover periods of unpredicted wind failure – and on a large scale wind becomes fairly predictable, though still highly variable.

  329. Only about 2 hours of storage would be needed to cover ramping up gas turbine power plants to cover periods of unpredicted wind failure – and on a large scale wind becomes fairly predictable though still highly variable.

  330. Early NPPs were built without a QA group mo. nitoring every action and task. Been there Done that. FAA allows “Certified” mechanics who attest to the proper performance of their task. Make a mistake – lose your certification. Nothing like that in the NRC rules. Doubles the cost of maintenance.

  331. Early NPPs were built without a QA group mo. nitoring every action and task. Been there Done that. FAA allows Certified”” mechanics who attest to the proper performance of their task. Make a mistake – lose your certification. Nothing like that in the NRC rules. Doubles the cost of maintenance.”””

  332. “Corrupt” the way you use the word means good. Good politician forced to make cars safer by installing seat belts. Tens of thousands of Americans are alive today because of good regulations by good politicians. International cars kill people because they are not well regulated. Do you want “competitive” unregulated nuclear plants. You saw what happened to the space shuttle when Reagan tried to deregulate safety because he wanted to “privatize” space. The Challenger O rings murdered the brave Americans https://www.space.com/31732-space-shuttle-challenger-disaster-explained-infographic.html

  333. You of course are unaware that Hinkley is being built by a corrupt UK fascist government at a lucrative 33% per annum finance fees thru Swiss banking cronies. The actual cost of wind over the 80 year life of Hinkley with replacement every 20 years, present worths to $10/GWa for wind and $2.5/GWa for China/Korean expertly build nukes, $4.5B for a Korean turnkey nuke at UAE, $8B/ GWa for Hinkley, and the same $10B/GWa for FOAK AP1000’s in the US. However with wind we’d have to add Green storage which at $100/kwh (the cheapest projected storage cost for the next half century) would add $270B to the cost of the 1 GWa wind alternative using the 16 weeks of storage needed to levelize wind over the year. Since we don’t have much pumped Hydro available in the UK that number would be at least 4 times as high with battery replacements every 10 years. This is the problem with Big Oil spokespeople given license to produce bullshit without editorial moderation. They always cover the storage issue by saying it will come someday making the utterly impossible seem doable fooling the masses and Big Oil’s pet politicians that all will be well as long as we just add more wind/solar with gas backup for now. Unfortunately, now is until civilization collapses in an AGW holocaust in a few decades while until then millions of folk die every year from fossil air pollution.

  334. You of course are unaware that Hinkley is being built by a corrupt UK fascist government at a lucrative 33{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} per annum finance fees thru Swiss banking cronies.The actual cost of wind over the 80 year life of Hinkley with replacement every 20 years present worths to $10/GWa for wind and $2.5/GWa for China/Korean expertly build nukes $4.5B for a Korean turnkey nuke at UAE $8B/ GWa for Hinkley and the same $10B/GWa for FOAK AP1000’s in the US. However with wind we’d have to add Green storage which at $100/kwh (the cheapest projected storage cost for the next half century) would add $270B to the cost of the 1 GWa wind alternative using the 16 weeks of storage needed to levelize wind over the year. Since we don’t have much pumped Hydro available in the UK that number would be at least 4 times as high with battery replacements every 10 years.This is the problem with Big Oil spokespeople given license to produce bullshit without editorial moderation. They always cover the storage issue by saying it will come someday making the utterly impossible seem doable fooling the masses and Big Oil’s pet politicians that all will be well as long as we just add more wind/solar with gas backup for now. Unfortunately now is until civilization collapses in an AGW holocaust in a few decades while until then millions of folk die every year from fossil air pollution.

  335. Iowa has 36% wind electricity of or 6000% more wind power percentage wise than California. California produces a lot of wind power only because it is a very big state.

    Electricity cost in Iowa is 50% less than the cost in California. More wind power less expensive, NO fake trumpian numbers.

  336. And where do you find an area that you can get 12 – 24 hours of trains travelling down hill? Think that would greatly increase the cost. Would only work for short bursts of power.

  337. And where do you find an area that you can get 12 – 24 hours of trains travelling down hill? Think that would greatly increase the cost. Would only work for short bursts of power.

  338. Also strange that the same relays, controllers, contactors, circuit breakers, resistors, capacitors, etc. etc. used on high speed locomotives for years with no failures are commercial grade, with not much more of a qualification than guarantee of non counterfeit which started about 20+ years ago. Have had equipment shipped by rail which required a three axis G-force recorder attached. G-levels exceeded design requirements of NPP accident specifications. If the shipment did, so did all of the components in the locomotive. Spend some time riding in a locomotive, you will think you are in a vibrating bed.

  339. Also strange that the same relays controllers contactors circuit breakers resistors capacitors etc. etc. used on high speed locomotives for years with no failures are commercial grade with not much more of a qualification than guarantee of non counterfeit which started about 20+ years ago. Have had equipment shipped by rail which required a three axis G-force recorder attached. G-levels exceeded design requirements of NPP accident specifications. If the shipment did so did all of the components in the locomotive. Spend some time riding in a locomotive you will think you are in a vibrating bed.

  340. CCGT is a Combined-Cycle Power Plant. The first part of the plant is a large gas turbine which feeds its exhaust gas into a boiler that generates steam to spin a turbine that spins another generator. This design is very efficient so it is used for natural gas base load power plants. What I was talking about is fast start gas turbines which are just jet engines connected to generators. You start them up and in a few minutes you are generating power. There is no need to have them on spin reserve.

    Nuclear power plants are usually run at full bore.

  341. Markko Cald… a corrupt UK fascist government???
    Are you out of your mind? A government that cares about its citizens health, is a good democratic government.

    Coal loving Trump’s government is a corrupt fashist government.

    Trump’s coal policy poisons fetus with mercury causing retardation, destroys children’s lungs with Ozone pollution causing lifelong asthma. Trump is a liar and wants us to believe that vaccinations cause autism when in fact it is dirty air from power plants that causes autism. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1353829208000142

    I am asking you to reconsider what is a corrupt and fascist government.

  342. Pumped storage is not the cheapest or most efficient The cheapest is gravity trains. You just move big blocks of concrete up a hill on rail, then have them generate power coming down. Search “ARES – Addressing Grid Scale Storage” at Vimeo.

  343. Pumped storage is not the cheapest or most efficient The cheapest is gravity trains. You just move big blocks of concrete up a hill on rail then have them generate power coming down. Search ARES – Addressing Grid Scale Storage”” at Vimeo.”””

  344. They don’t get them just like that. They have to do major refurbishment and apply for an 20 year extension to their operating licenses. Eventually radiation damage to the reactor vessel will render that a mute point.

  345. And forcing those state utilities to pay a premium for the limited availability of renewable power. In those states utilities pay more for the renewal power than in states that do not have REC’s.

  346. And forcing those state utilities to pay a premium for the limited availability of renewable power. In those states utilities pay more for the renewal power than in states that do not have REC’s.

  347. It’s the financial engineering and marketing information that make it almost impossible to determine true price. I am sure wind has a part in the future energy mix, as does solar. Unfortunately agreements based on complex revenue models, which include subsidies and protectionism, disguise the real cost impact to the consumer. Then again some customers select to pay more for “green” electrons, not understanding the system wide impact and associated fuel inefficiency.

  348. It’s the financial engineering and marketing information that make it almost impossible to determine true price. I am sure wind has a part in the future energy mix as does solar. Unfortunately agreements based on complex revenue models which include subsidies and protectionism disguise the real cost impact to the consumer. Then again some customers select to pay more for “green” electrons not understanding the system wide impact and associated fuel inefficiency.”

  349. Richard Lentz135 pointsR. Kimhi
    15 hours ago
    If the cost reductions are so great, WHY are the prices of electricity more than 20% higher than they were 10 years ago?’
    1) Are you joking or are you not using your BRAIN? Why has the 10-year dollar tuition increases (in 2017 dollars) for your four-year institutions, has gone up 80%.
    2) In Iowa where wind capacity went from 1273 to 7304 in the last ten years now generating 36% of all electricity electricity cost in Iowa is now number 12 out of 50 US states.
    Do you have an agenda of misinformation or you really cannot do the math?

  350. Sure, components have to be nuclear grade. So you think the jetliner is held to lesser standards? No. It is just possible to iterate on the jet, test it, fail a wing loading test and then reinforce the wing on the production model. Comparing nuts, bolts and rebar on a nuke plant to the $15M jet engine is kinda silly. You think GE is buying those compressor case bolts out of McMaster Carr China? Nope; they are sourcing them to their own specifications at no doubt great cost and you can imagine that they have a paper trail as well. Gosh peoople. I’m telling you that airplanes don’t crash because they are held to similar if not more stringent requirements than the tea kettles that make 20% of our electricity.

  351. Sure components have to be nuclear grade.So you think the jetliner is held to lesser standards? No. It is just possible to iterate on the jet test it fail a wing loading test and then reinforce the wing on the production model. Comparing nuts bolts and rebar on a nuke plant to the $15M jet engine is kinda silly. You think GE is buying those compressor case bolts out of McMaster Carr China? Nope; they are sourcing them to their own specifications at no doubt great cost and you can imagine that they have a paper trail as well.Gosh peoople. I’m telling you that airplanes don’t crash because they are held to similar if not more stringent requirements than the tea kettles that make 20{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of our electricity.

  352. There would be several parallel tracks, and each of the the trains can take several loads up the hill or down. Search for the video. Speed can be adjusted nearly instantly to smooth out the power.

    The point is for one of these to be connected to each PV farm or wind farm. It only has to keep its production level even not the whole grid.

    There are other power plants that could be warmed up and gotten running if for some bizarre reason the sun did not come out and the wind did not blow for days at a time over a large area. This just avoids having to have those plants at idle. That wastes a lot of energy.

    Really, if there was some massive reduction in wind and solar they would probably get some power from other States.

    And it is all a mater of scaling. There is no reason they could not have 24 hours of storage or 48 or whatever. It would be a lot of concrete, but it could be done with modifications.

    Their design makes it easy to save a lot using off the shelf components, but theoretically, the trains could be much larger and haul blocks that weigh as much as large ships if you really wanted to store a lot of energy.

  353. Dead wrong. As I pointed out above at the cheapest cost of storage envisioned $100/kWh the cost to levelise a wind/solar/storage install to compared to a nuke would be $5 a kwh added to your bill.

  354. Dead wrong. As I pointed out above at the cheapest cost of storage envisioned $100/kWh the cost to levelise a wind/solar/storage install to compared to a nuke would be $5 a kwh added to your bill.

  355. People think the aviation transportation industry is less regulated because it generally ‘works’. I argue that it is very highly regulated, and since it is so essential to our modern way of life, the industry works through it. Oh yeah, and the cleanup for a jet crash involves a fire truck, a meat wagon, a backhoe and a dump truck and a landfill – cleanup isn’t as straightforward for nukes. Both the NRC and the FAA have zero tolerance for accidents, yet they infrequently happen regardless of the government’s tolerance. You basically tried to compare the two most highly regulated industries on the planet; instead you should have compared the NRC to the SEC, which is the captured regulator that allows Wall Street to defraud us all.

  356. People think the aviation transportation industry is less regulated because it generally ‘works’. I argue that it is very highly regulated and since it is so essential to our modern way of life the industry works through it. Oh yeah and the cleanup for a jet crash involves a fire truck a meat wagon a backhoe and a dump truck and a landfill – cleanup isn’t as straightforward for nukes. Both the NRC and the FAA have zero tolerance for accidents yet they infrequently happen regardless of the government’s tolerance. You basically tried to compare the two most highly regulated industries on the planet; instead you should have compared the NRC to the SEC which is the captured regulator that allows Wall Street to defraud us all.

  357. NRC requires every nut bolt and piece of rebar be certified to nuke standards – FAA or ISO9000 is not acceptable even if it is the same nut bolt or piece of rebar. Probably doubles the cost for a FOAK.

  358. NRC requires every nut bolt and piece of rebar be certified to nuke standards – FAA or ISO9000 is not acceptable even if it is the same nut bolt or piece of rebar. Probably doubles the cost for a FOAK.

  359. So far a few coal plants are in the 80 year range. A nuke plant is far simpler but built with far superior materials.

  360. So far a few coal plants are in the 80 year range. A nuke plant is far simpler but built with far superior materials.

  361. Richard Lentz135 points
    15 hours ago
    Are we raising people that do not use their BRAINS?
    Do not accuse others when you do not use your BRAIN. Others do have brains and realize that nonone wants your beloved fossil fuels because they cause fetus retardation from mercury, childhood asthma from Ozone pollution, SO2 and NOx cause bronchitis and pneumonia, particulates cause heart disease, and organic volatile compounds cause cancer.

    People WITH brains that use them and who love their children, LOVE wind power. If you add medical costs for hospitals, doctors, pharmacies, lost work from air pollution caused illnesses, and lost wages from premature deaths, wind electricity is less than half with NO subsidies than dirty electricity, not just less expensive. ENOUGH SAID do the math and use your brain.

  362. You are forgetting a bunch or extremely lucrative state REC’s that can bring the subsidy close to 10 cents a kwh.

  363. You are forgetting a bunch or extremely lucrative state REC’s that can bring the subsidy close to 10 cents a kwh.

  364. You do know that while the wind might stop blowing in one location that it never stops blowing over a large region. And the regions picked have geological features like mountains and plateaus that causes the wind to blow all of the time.

    You can also build CSP plants that stores energy in molten salts which can provide power while the sun is down.

    The other thing is that solar panels provide power during the day when demand is higher so it is a good match.

    Renewable can provide about 50% of the power needed before we have to start worrying about storage.

  365. Airliners have more strict safety requirements,” If true, then why haven’t airliners added an excess flow check valve on each pump in the hydraulic system? The lack of which cause the draining of the hydraulic system and crash of the airliner on July 19, 1989, at Sioux City, Iowa. Simple $20K to $50K per plane change. Live near there, followed the Federal Register postings for rule changes till about 2014 and did not see any rule change requiring that. Many other life saving measures that could be taken. When I say safer I am counting numbers of people killed and potential of numbers for the future. NRC borders on a ZERO tolerance for accidents. FAA is much further away, IMHO.

  366. Airliners have more strict safety requirements””” If true”” then why haven’t airliners added an excess flow check valve on each pump in the hydraulic system? The lack of which cause the draining of the hydraulic system and crash of the airliner on July 191989 at Sioux City Iowa. Simple $20K to $50K per plane change. Live near there followed the Federal Register postings for rule changes till about 2014 and did not see any rule change requiring that. Many other life saving measures that could be taken. When I say safer I am counting numbers of people killed and potential of numbers for the future. NRC borders on a ZERO tolerance for accidents. FAA is much further away”” IMHO.”””

  367. PJM grid authority capacity auctions are coming in at an impact of about 0.5 cents per kwh. A peaker gas plant that never runs costs 0.8 cents per kwh for capital costs if you pretended it ran as 90% capacity factor. So that’s close to the limit capacity prices will ever get. It doesn’t seem like a big deal at all. Even nuclear plants need backup in case their say 2.2GW trip off the grid.

  368. PJM grid authority capacity auctions are coming in at an impact of about 0.5 cents per kwh.A peaker gas plant that never runs costs 0.8 cents per kwh for capital costs if you pretended it ran as 90{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} capacity factor. So that’s close to the limit capacity prices will ever get.It doesn’t seem like a big deal at all. Even nuclear plants need backup in case their say 2.2GW trip off the grid.

  369. How is 4.2 cents per kwh (levelized cost of wind) not competitive with 13 cents per (Hinkley nuclear strike price)?!

  370. How is 4.2 cents per kwh (levelized cost of wind) not competitive with 13 cents per (Hinkley nuclear strike price)?!

  371. That .gov article link is incorrect. Levelized is not 2 cents because levelized by definition removes subsidies. The article writer made an error. Levelized is 4.2 cents.

  372. That .gov article link is incorrect. Levelized is not 2 cents because levelized by definition removes subsidies. The article writer made an error. Levelized is 4.2 cents.

  373. This article references a non-levelized cost calculation. If you back out the 2.2 cent per kilowatt-hour tax credit, it is 4.2 cents per kilowatt-hour. Wind is used as a “fuel replacement” for fossil fuels so the significance of it hitting this price is subsidized wind is now cheaper than the cheapest fossil fuel (natural gas) so continued demand will be very robust for new wind power in the USA.

  374. This article references a non-levelized cost calculation. If you back out the 2.2 cent per kilowatt-hour tax credit it is 4.2 cents per kilowatt-hour.Wind is used as a “fuel replacement” for fossil fuels so the significance of it hitting this price is subsidized wind is now cheaper than the cheapest fossil fuel (natural gas) so continued demand will be very robust for new wind power in the USA.”

  375. And I wear my sunglasses at night So I can so I can See the light that’s right before my eyes” Solar panels don’t work at night, but wearing sunglasses at night is cool.

  376. And I wear my sunglasses at nightSo I can so I canSee the light that’s right before my eyes””Solar panels don’t work at night”””” but wearing sunglasses at night is cool.”””

  377. F-15s are an excellent example. Any Nuke also knows that if Airliners had the same safety requirements that Nuclear Power plants do we would be traveling by train. Which would also be uneconomical if RRs had the same level of safety requirements.

  378. F-15s are an excellent example. Any Nuke also knows that if Airliners had the same safety requirements that Nuclear Power plants do we would be traveling by train. Which would also be uneconomical if RRs had the same level of safety requirements.

  379. Very few Utilities are investing in the scam. They are simply signing the contracts, thus giving the Wind Farm Cos the subsidies. Very few utilities are building storage facilities either. Cheapest storage method is Pumped Storage facility – A man made lake near a river with a high head for maximum efficiency. Like Bath County VA. It provides 3,000 Mw providing only 24,000 MWh over an 11 hour period. Covers 265 Acres . There are NONE in construction – in the USA and none planned. I seriously doubt that any could ever be built due to the environmental radicals. Any battery or other dream-like storage method would cost multiplies of a pumped storage system. Further, Why build a pumped storage system when a Hydro Dam costs the same?

  380. Very few Utilities are investing in the scam. They are simply signing the contracts thus giving the Wind Farm Cos the subsidies. Very few utilities are building storage facilities either. Cheapest storage method is Pumped Storage facility – A man made lake near a river with a high head for maximum efficiency. Like Bath County VA. It provides 3000 Mw providing only 24000 MWh over an 11 hour period. Covers 265 Acres . There are NONE in construction – in the USA and none planned. I seriously doubt that any could ever be built due to the environmental radicals. Any battery or other dream-like storage method would cost multiplies of a pumped storage system. Further Why build a pumped storage system when a Hydro Dam costs the same?

  381. China hasn’t approved a new nuclear power plant since 2016 because wind and solar are profoundly less expensive in that country and getting cheaper. Further it demonstrates prices mentioned for Chinese nuclear power plants must have been aspirational/propaganda not actual.

    Zero export reactors being built by China except finishing off some very old unfinished ones in Pakistan.

    UAE reactors were 30 billion for four in 2011 dollars, so about 7.5 billion each. They’re delayed so will be over that budget.

  382. Yes, the grid can absorb “modest” amounts of unreliable power, especially if it tends to show up during periods of peak load. And I’ll give solar that: It usually shows up when air conditioners are running. But “modest” isn’t that high a fraction. Solar is already reaching the point in some states where they have to throw away perfectly good baseload capacity because they’re mandated to buy the solar electricity even if they don’t need it. Remove the subsidies, and the mandate to buy it, so the utilities only have to buy it when it makes sense to, and at the real price, and I withdraw all objections. The market will solve it. Right now, the market isn’t being allowed to function.

  383. Yes the grid can absorb modest”” amounts of unreliable power”””” especially if it tends to show up during periods of peak load. And I’ll give solar that: It usually shows up when air conditioners are running.But “”””modest”””” isn’t that high a fraction. Solar is already reaching the point in some states where they have to throw away perfectly good baseload capacity because they’re mandated to buy the solar electricity even if they don’t need it.Remove the subsidies”” and the mandate to buy it so the utilities only have to buy it when it makes sense to and at the real price and I withdraw all objections. The market will solve it.Right now”” the market isn’t being allowed to function.”””

  384. You can also overbuilt if prices are low enough. ” Twice as many windmills during a lull in the wind are twice as many windmills not generating power. Likewise for twice as many solar panels at night.

  385. You can also overbuilt if prices are low enough. “”Twice as many windmills during a lull in the wind are twice as many windmills not generating power. Likewise for twice as many solar panels at night.”””

  386. I’ve actually seen screeds where the ‘renewable’ advocates brag about how renewables are going to make the grid uneconomic, and force everybody to use locally generated power.

  387. I’ve actually seen screeds where the ‘renewable’ advocates brag about how renewables are going to make the grid uneconomic and force everybody to use locally generated power.

  388. It’s important to remember than Uranium is a finite resource in the same sense that geothermal and solar are: Finite, but available in sufficient quantities until the Sun wanders off the main sequence and destroys the Earth. Extraction from seawater has already been demonstrated at a decent EROEI, and the sea won’t run out of Uranium until plate tectonics halt, and the last mountain is done eroding into the sea.

  389. It’s important to remember than Uranium is a finite resource in the same sense that geothermal and solar are: Finite but available in sufficient quantities until the Sun wanders off the main sequence and destroys the Earth.Extraction from seawater has already been demonstrated at a decent EROEI and the sea won’t run out of Uranium until plate tectonics halt and the last mountain is done eroding into the sea.

  390. It it pointless to levelize over more than a weekend. You seem to be beating this 100% wind+solar dead horse. It isn’t going to happen. In a fully decarbonized electrical grid you’re going to have 60% wind+solar and the rest nuclear, retrofitted reversible hydro plants, and carbon capture Allam cycle gas plants.

  391. Those don’t exist? You seem somewhat confused on this issue.

    You seem to be talking about the ability of wind producers to create price distortions in spot markets by using their federal 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour production credit subsidy to continue to sell power into a grid where prices are negative or zero – which happens in the worst state (California) about 8% of the hours. However even wind doesn’t try to sell into say negative 8 cents per kilowatt-hour times. Also, this doesn’t lead to PPAs signed with negative costs per kilowatt-hour.

  392. experimenting with worn out nukes” – the experimenting was in the ’80s. Should we retire all the F-15s since they tool their first flight in 1972 and are similarly “dated”? Do you think today’s F-15 is the same plane that first flew in 1972? You don’t imagine that the nuke plants have been continuously updated at great cost? “Run off cost question” – is that you asking me why the new construction is so costly? If that is the question, the answer is because our country doesn’t build anything anymore and all the people that knew how to build things are retired… Costs an arm an a leg to build a bridge nowadays. Imagine design and manufacturing companies full of dead wood like yourself – that is today’s reality.

  393. experimenting with worn out nukes”” – the experimenting was in the ’80s. Should we retire all the F-15s since they tool their first flight in 1972 and are similarly “”””dated””””? Do you think today’s F-15 is the same plane that first flew in 1972? You don’t imagine that the nuke plants have been continuously updated at great cost?””””Run off cost question”””” – is that you asking me why the new construction is so costly? If that is the question”””” the answer is because our country doesn’t build anything anymore and all the people that knew how to build things are retired… Costs an arm an a leg to build a bridge nowadays. Imagine design and manufacturing companies full of dead wood like yourself – that is today’s reality.”””

  394. Nice addition – could do without the Millennial college boy insults even though they are very, very sthoopid. One thing though…. “running, at power, a plant that is just in hot standby” Keeping the plant in hot in standby is not “running at power” – semantics.

  395. Nice addition – could do without the Millennial college boy insults even though they are very very sthoopid.One thing though…. running” at power” a plant that is just in hot standby””Keeping the plant in hot in standby is not “”””running at power”””” – semantics.”””

  396. Then shouldn’t you be able to point us to lots of wind power PPAs signed in 2017 at 12 cents per kwh? They’re not though – the linked article shows them being signed at 2 cents.

  397. Your source didn’t list any real-world capacity auction prices, but rather threw in a theoretical $3 per kW-month.

    Okay, lets do the math. 720 hours in a month, 90% capacity. That is 648 hours. 300 cents divided by 648 is….0.46 cents per kilowatt of nameplate capacity.

    So it fits almost *exactly* what I said? A wind project at 45% capacity if forced to 100% cover itself would cost an additional 0.46×2=0.92 cents per kilowatt-hour. Considering in PJM wind gets to bid for capacity markets (wind is statisically not all dead everywhere in a large grid) at 13%, you could reduce that by 0.92 cents by 13%. Whaddaya know, about 0.8 cents per kilowatt-hour – same price as buying your own open cycle gas turbine.

  398. The major difference is efficiency, so the difference is the fuel price.

    You can find fuel price by looking at “eia today in energy prices” and checking the spark spread. Subtract spark spread from the spot price of electricity. So about 2.1 cents per kilowatt-hour for a 48% efficient plant (also know as “heat rate”). Brand new open cycle turbines are around 42%, so add about 15%. 2.4 cents per kilowatt-hour for fuel.

    The high price is actually the capital cost. It would only be 0.8 cents per kilowatt-hour if it ran 90% of the time (also known as capacity factor), but cut that to say 30%, and you need to cover 2.4 cents per killowatt-hour (1/3 the time run, so 3x the cost).

    So about 4.8 cents per kilowatt-hour for an open cycle gas turbine running at 30% capacity factor.

    A brand new-ish closed cycle gas turbine at 90% capacity factor is about 1.6 cents per kilowatt-hour for capital cost (depending on size, but this would be for a 600MW+) and 1.9 cents for fuel. So 3.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. Highest heat rate available would be slightly cheaper on the fuel, but builders often target a lower efficiency as a trade-off for higher ramp speed.

  399. If the cost reductions are so great, WHY are the prices of electricity more than 20% higher than they were 10 years ago?

  400. If the cost reductions are so great WHY are the prices of electricity more than 20{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} higher than they were 10 years ago?

  401. Are we raising people that do not use their BRAINS? Do they teach people to use their brains in college anymore? Read the statement again “the average levelized long-term price from wind power sales agreements has dropped to around 2 cents per kWh ” Got that? Price from Long Term Wind Sales Contracts.” Do you know what that means. That Is like signing a contract for week old bread from the local bread distributor. I retired from the local electric utility.. I know what that contract is for. It provides the Wind Farm companies with a Guaranteed Market for a product that no local utility wants! The Electric utilities do not want that electricity because to use that electricity they have to be running a power plant in the standby mode to make up the loss of power when the wind stops blowing OR wind the wind blows to hard. YES when the wind blows to hard because then the Wind Turbine feathers the blades to prevent overstressing the components. and therefore no longer makes electricity. Thus. That electricity is like day old bread or outdated milk. NO ONE WANTS IT. That is why it sells for that low price. The Wind Farm builders know that and they don’t care as they still make a profit off of the SUBSIDIES that YOU pay in Federal, State and even Local taxes. Then YOU get to pay again because your electricity cost more because your local power company is running, at power, a power plant that is just in “Hot Standby” and not making any electricity, just wasting Fossil Fuel and Increasing CO2. PLEASE Use Your Brain. It amazes me that the Wind Turbine dope pushers keep bragging about this.

  402. Are we raising people that do not use their BRAINS? Do they teach people to use their brains in college anymore? Read the statement again the average levelized long-term price from wind power sales agreements has dropped to around 2 cents per kWh “” Got that? Price from Long Term Wind Sales Contracts.”””” Do you know what that means. That Is like signing a contract for week old bread from the local bread distributor. I retired from the local electric utility.. I know what that contract is for. It provides the Wind Farm companies with a Guaranteed Market for a product that no local utility wants! The Electric utilities do not want that electricity because to use that electricity they have to be running a power plant in the standby mode to make up the loss of power when the wind stops blowing OR wind the wind blows to hard. YES when the wind blows to hard because then the Wind Turbine feathers the blades to prevent overstressing the components. and therefore no longer makes electricity. Thus. That electricity is like day old bread or outdated milk. NO ONE WANTS IT. That is why it sells for that low price. The Wind Farm builders know that and they don’t care as they still make a profit off of the SUBSIDIES that YOU pay in Federal”” State and even Local taxes. Then YOU get to pay again because your electricity cost more because your local power company is running at power”” a power plant that is just in “”””Hot Standby”””” and not making any electricity”””” just wasting Fossil Fuel and Increasing CO2.PLEASE Use Your Brain. It amazes me that the Wind Turbine dope pushers keep bragging about this.”””

  403. There have been numerous investigations into 80-year life extensions for GenII LWR, which were originally licensed for 40 years and “easily” extended to 60 for all plants that have asked. As long as the vessel isn’t brittle, everything else can be nursed along/replaced. Some even think you can in situ anneal the vessels, although that isn’t really practical. The fuel is “sourced” from the market – it is a commodity, as is enrichment, conversion, etc. Uranium being a finite resource hasn’t become a problem yet, just like we haven’t seen “peak oil”. Also, fuel economy of LWR could be doubled with a change in priorities, attitude, or scarcity. That cleanup at Fukushima is not done by volunteers; it probably pays way too well. Wouldn’t be a bad idea to go over there and collect a paycheck if you could convince them that your standing around and getting paid would be useful. Later Stegmann… Go plant a tree and hug it and burn your money.

  404. There have been numerous investigations into 80-year life extensions for GenII LWR which were originally licensed for 40 years and easily”” extended to 60 for all plants that have asked. As long as the vessel isn’t brittle”” everything else can be nursed along/replaced. Some even think you can in situ anneal the vessels”” although that isn’t really practical.The fuel is “”””sourced”””” from the market – it is a commodity”” as is enrichment conversion etc.Uranium being a finite resource hasn’t become a problem yet”” just like we haven’t seen “”””peak oil””””. Also”” fuel economy of LWR could be doubled with a change in priorities attitude”” or scarcity.That cleanup at Fukushima is not done by volunteers; it probably pays way too well. Wouldn’t be a bad idea to go over there and collect a paycheck if you could convince them that your standing around and getting paid would be useful.Later Stegmann… Go plant a tree and hug it and burn your money.”””

  405. They are powered up however and spinning away when shadowing wind plant.

    The nuke plant gets to vent to steam.

    With so much wind on the grid its hard to to justify CCGT plant. Look at the chart I supplied for real numbers.

  406. You need to learn to read.

    As a recent paper shows, the US would need 16 weeks or 20% capacity of storage cover to meet peak load, low generation events with 100% wind/solar.

    Lookup “getting-zero-pathways-zero-carbon-electricity-systems-jesse-jenkins”

    Now cost out 16 weeks of nationwide storage at $500 a kwh.

  407. “That’s a bit of a non sequitur ” in my first comment [which I assume you did not read] – I addressed how large a Pumped Storage system was and why it was the lowest cost for ample storage.
    Short term load leveling is NOT going to make Wind/Solar provide 100% power. One or two Trains on a hill is NOT going to last all day. And if you use your Wind to pull it back up the hill you lower the efficiency/capacity factor of the Wind turbine.
    And as South Australia has shown when large quantities of Wind stop all at once you end up with a several day blackout. one or two trains ain’t going to help. Very few fossil generators, and some Wind turbines, will start from a no power condition – they depend on the grid having power to perform a startup.

  408. GTs don’t idle. They start fast. And no one cuts off a nuclear power plant. You run it full bore until refueling. Then it is offline for months. Renewable mostly impact peaker fossil fuel power plants. A Peaker is usually an older power plants that is more inefficient but only run for part of the day. Because they are more expensive to run they are easily priced out of the market.

    One thing people don’t understand about power plant is that when a new power plant comes online a old power plant goes off line. It usually becomes a peaker or they month balled it.

  409. Nuclear is 20% and yes it runs as baseload. Most of the nuclear power plant are getting near their design lifespan and will need major refurbishment to get re-licensed. And right now that is a capital cost the generation companies are reluctant to swallow. It is an accounting thing. Which is cheaper the refurbishment or a new natural gas power plant.

  410. That’s a bit of a non sequitur – I addressed none of those issues, only your claim of needing 12 or 24 hours of trains to handle ramping up conventional power plant.
    You’re making the mistake of assuming someone who corrects you must be 100% opposed to your perspective.
    The CA attempt will likely be a bold, expensive failure despite their near ideal climate, that nonetheless yields some benefits for the rest of us in terms of new technologies, economies of scale, etc.

  411. They are not getting paid for nothing. Power plants systems must be inspected daily and maintained. And sometimes they have to bring the system on line generating power at the minimum so that they will be ready to go to full capacity when needed. Generation is a competitive market when it isn’t been gamed like what Enron was doing.

  412. As shown in OZ battery systems for grid stabilization is a good idea. But if a 600 MW generator trips the current battery systems are not big enough to deal with that for any length of time. You will still need GTs.

  413. They already exist for peak loads and emergencies. And it is rate payers who pay for them and gladly too. It is 102F and 95% humidity and your utility power just max out. There goes your central air. That is why they exist, not because of renewable.

  414. They are quite expensive to run. They are basically a jet engine strapped to a generator. High maintenance and low efficiency. Because they are so expensive to run they are only used for high peak load like during a heat wave and emergencies. But their capital cost per MW is much lower than a fossil power plant. Building a base load power plant to only provide power once in a while is too expensive.

  415. This is true. The financial engineering and politics makes it exceedingly hard to follow and sort-out. That must be the point of it all – to baffle us with BS – to make it clear as mud so that the special interests can operate behind a fog.

  416. I actually used a higher cost ($500/kWhr). That is the installed cost per storage CAPACITY – not per unit of delivered energy. The same kWhr of storage gets used thousands of times over the lifetime of the storage.
    Some flow batteries have gotten 1000 cycles without significant degradation, so a life of 30 years doesn’t seem out of line. With a 5% interest rate (plus principle, on 100% borrowed to purchase/install, not including tax savings from depreciation and assuming only 1000 cycles per year) that comes in around 3 cents per delivered kWhr. If you want to use $100/kWhr, cut that to 0.6 cents.

  417. Now explain how that achieves 100% Renewable power in California by 2045?
    How many mountains will have RR tracks covering their face?
    Or are they going to do like the UK and burn wood pellets? Hopefully all of the coal plants aren’t torn down by then. At least that would eliminate the fireload under the forests. But will create more records of smog days.
    If wind was predictable they could sell it for the same price as NG.

  418. Only about 2 hours of storage would be needed, to cover ramping up gas turbine power plants to cover periods of unpredicted wind failure – and on a large scale wind becomes fairly predictable, though still highly variable.

  419. Early NPPs were built without a QA group mo. nitoring every action and task. Been there Done that. FAA allows “Certified” mechanics who attest to the proper performance of their task. Make a mistake – lose your certification. Nothing like that in the NRC rules. Doubles the cost of maintenance.

  420. You of course are unaware that Hinkley is being built by a corrupt UK fascist government at a lucrative 33% per annum finance fees thru Swiss banking cronies.

    The actual cost of wind over the 80 year life of Hinkley with replacement every 20 years, present worths to $10/GWa for wind and $2.5/GWa for China/Korean expertly build nukes, $4.5B for a Korean turnkey nuke at UAE, $8B/ GWa for Hinkley, and the same $10B/GWa for FOAK AP1000’s in the US. However with wind we’d have to add Green storage which at $100/kwh (the cheapest projected storage cost for the next half century) would add $270B to the cost of the 1 GWa wind alternative using the 16 weeks of storage needed to levelize wind over the year. Since we don’t have much pumped Hydro available in the UK that number would be at least 4 times as high with battery replacements every 10 years.

    This is the problem with Big Oil spokespeople given license to produce bullshit without editorial moderation. They always cover the storage issue by saying it will come someday making the utterly impossible seem doable fooling the masses and Big Oil’s pet politicians that all will be well as long as we just add more wind/solar with gas backup for now. Unfortunately, now is until civilization collapses in an AGW holocaust in a few decades while until then millions of folk die every year from fossil air pollution.

  421. And where do you find an area that you can get 12 – 24 hours of trains travelling down hill? Think that would greatly increase the cost. Would only work for short bursts of power.

  422. You seem unaware that even Hydro doesn’t like load balancing wind. Bonneville keeps 1 GW of gas plant on line to smooth out wind transitions without damaging its hydro turbines. It might be compatible but it triples the cost and has forced new efficient CCGT plant nearly off the grid replacing it with inefficient OCGT plant running on capacity payments and spewing out more GHG’s than if we had skipped the wind altogether.

  423. You seem unaware that even Hydro doesn’t like load balancing wind. Bonneville keeps 1 GW of gas plant on line to smooth out wind transitions without damaging its hydro turbines. It might be compatible but it triples the cost and has forced new efficient CCGT plant nearly off the grid replacing it with inefficient OCGT plant running on capacity payments and spewing out more GHG’s than if we had skipped the wind altogether.

  424. Also strange that the same relays, controllers, contactors, circuit breakers, resistors, capacitors, etc. etc. used on high speed locomotives for years with no failures are commercial grade, with not much more of a qualification than guarantee of non counterfeit which started about 20+ years ago. Have had equipment shipped by rail which required a three axis G-force recorder attached. G-levels exceeded design requirements of NPP accident specifications. If the shipment did, so did all of the components in the locomotive. Spend some time riding in a locomotive, you will think you are in a vibrating bed.

  425. Yup instead we curtail wind/solar at full price or cutoff nukes in adjoining states when wind/solar starts a pumping and the load is lower at night or on weekends. At the same time we pay inefficient peaker GT’s to idle.

  426. Yup instead we curtail wind/solar at full price or cutoff nukes in adjoining states when wind/solar starts a pumping and the load is lower at night or on weekends. At the same time we pay inefficient peaker GT’s to idle.

  427. Not very much nuclear left so it can run as baseload when the grid doesn’t get saturated with wind/solar dumps.

  428. Not very much nuclear left so it can run as baseload when the grid doesn’t get saturated with wind/solar dumps.

  429. Pumped storage is not the cheapest or most efficient The cheapest is gravity trains. You just move big blocks of concrete up a hill on rail, then have them generate power coming down. Search “ARES – Addressing Grid Scale Storage” at Vimeo.

  430. Which wind and solar needs for backup. Fossil producers like to get paid so they’ve dreamed up capacity payments to get their cash.

  431. Which wind and solar needs for backup. Fossil producers like to get paid so they’ve dreamed up capacity payments to get their cash.

  432. As I pointed out above when total system costs are included wind/solar is not even remotely competitive with international nuclear cost standards. With corrupt US politicians running the show though its hard to argue.

  433. As I pointed out above when total system costs are included wind/solar is not even remotely competitive with international nuclear cost standards. With corrupt US politicians running the show though its hard to argue.

  434. And forcing those state utilities to pay a premium for the limited availability of renewable power. In those states utilities pay more for the renewal power than in states that do not have REC’s.

  435. It’s the financial engineering and marketing information that make it almost impossible to determine true price. I am sure wind has a part in the future energy mix, as does solar. Unfortunately agreements based on complex revenue models, which include subsidies and protectionism, disguise the real cost impact to the consumer. Then again some customers select to pay more for “green” electrons, not understanding the system wide impact and associated fuel inefficiency.

  436. As a well known Big Oil propaganda outlet LBNL is noted for disinformation. At $1.6B/GW wind comes to about $5B/GWa with typical US capacity factors. When comparing this cost and adding maintenance and average twenty year lives to the product and wind investor Warren Buffets 15% pa minimum ROR comes to 10 cents a kwh. Obviously LBNL is hiding some pretty significant subsidys that make 2 cent a kwh PPA’s possible – part of its job. Since nuclear and coal plants aren’t capable of backup wind solar requires gas peaker plants or Combined cycle units running on turbines, that get 85% of their cash from capacity payments – another massive wind/solar subsidy. Wind plant also gets pride of place on transmission grid forcing nuke plants off line. They get paid full price to curtail as well when wind maxes out under low load conditions. Finally they get free transmission with grids have to be 3 times sized to carry peak loads. The Ontario auditor general cost these subsidies at 35 cents a kwh. When comparing to nuclear we need to go apples to apples The last 7 Candu’s built came to about $2.5B/GW in 2018 cash, similar to current Chinese, Indian, and Korean builds. Gen IV nukes are forecasted at as little as half that with a quarter the operating cost smaller operating cost Google “costs-and-economics-of-terrestrial” Then we have to replace the wind installations every 20 years or so compared to the current 80 year like of nukes. With public power that doubles that $5B/GW for wind to $10B. A variable renewables only solution also requires long duration green energy storage. If you Google “getting-zero-pathways-zero-carbon-electricity-systems-jesse-jenkins” You’ll find a seasonal storage requirement for 16 weeks worth of US electricity consumption or 30% of renewable energy generation. At a minimum projected cost of $100 a kWh (think batteries) this is simply impossible at $5/kWh added to your power bill. 16/52 * 100 * .18 = $5.2/kwh at 15% or 16/52 * 100 * .09 = $

  437. As a well known Big Oil propaganda outlet LBNL is noted for disinformation.At $1.6B/GW wind comes to about $5B/GWa with typical US capacity factors. When comparing this cost and adding maintenance and average twenty year lives to the product and wind investor Warren Buffets 15{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} pa minimum ROR comes to 10 cents a kwh. Obviously LBNL is hiding some pretty significant subsidys that make 2 cent a kwh PPA’s possible – part of its job.Since nuclear and coal plants aren’t capable of backup wind solar requires gas peaker plants or Combined cycle units running on turbines that get 85{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of their cash from capacity payments – another massive wind/solar subsidy. Wind plant also gets pride of place on transmission grid forcing nuke plants off line. They get paid full price to curtail as well when wind maxes out under low load conditions. Finally they get free transmission with grids have to be 3 times sized to carry peak loads. The Ontario auditor general cost these subsidies at 35 cents a kwh.When comparing to nuclear we need to go apples to applesThe last 7 Candu’s built came to about $2.5B/GW in 2018 cash similar to current Chinese Indian and Korean builds. Gen IV nukes are forecasted at as little as half that with a quarter the operating cost smaller operating costGoogle costs-and-economics-of-terrestrial””Then we have to replace the wind installations every 20 years or so compared to the current 80 year like of nukes. With public power that doubles that $5B/GW for wind to $10B.A variable renewables only solution also requires long duration green energy storage.If you Google “”””getting-zero-pathways-zero-carbon-electricity-systems-jesse-jenkins”””” You’ll find a seasonal storage requirement for 16 weeks worth of USelectricity consumption or 30{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f311″

  438. RE: 2 cents / kWhr, From the Wind Technologies Market Report cited in the linked page: “the national average price of wind PPAs [power purchase agreements] has dropped to around 2¢/kWh” AND “These prices, which are possible in part due to federal tax support, compare favorably to the projected future fuel costs of gas-fired generation. ” So “2 cents” really isn’t the cost of wind power. Subsidies are currently about 2 cents per kWhr for new builds, and older builds may still be getting as much as 7 cents. Another figure of interest – new wind turbine builds get around 42% capacity factor – up from 25% back around 2000. Such new builds actually COST MORE per kW, but better capacity means they cost less per kWhr. Assume future wind systems are built with about half of generated wind electricity stored for later use, to mostly eliminate the impact of short term wind variability on the grid . Flow batteries may cost around $500/kWhr (of storage, installed), which would be about $50/year/kWhr, or about 1.5 – 2 cents per kWhr stored and released. Add that to a future cost of ~4 cents per kWhr (probably best case by 2030) for a price of 5.5 – 6 cents per kWhr without subsidies. Add in a fraction of the cost of maintaining fossil fuel generation plants to absorb remaining variation (e.g for long low-wind periods), and it’s probably around 6-7 cents per kWhr. Not as cheap as coal, but it may be viable?

  439. RE: 2 cents / kWhr From the Wind Technologies Market Report cited in the linked page:the national average price of wind PPAs [power purchase agreements] has dropped to around 2¢/kWh””AND””””These prices”” which are possible in part due to federal tax support”” compare favorably to the projected future fuel costs of gas-fired generation. “””” So “”””2 cents”””” really isn’t the cost of wind power. Subsidies are currently about 2 cents per kWhr for new builds”” and older builds may still be getting as much as 7 cents. Another figure of interest – new wind turbine builds get around 42{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} capacity factor – up from 25{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} back around 2000. Such new builds actually COST MORE per kW but better capacity means they cost less per kWhr. Assume future wind systems are built with about half of generated wind electricity stored for later use to mostly eliminate the impact of short term wind variability on the grid . Flow batteries may cost around $500/kWhr (of storage installed) which would be about $50/year/kWhr or about 1.5 – 2 cents per kWhr stored and released. Add that to a future cost of ~4 cents per kWhr (probably best case by 2030) for a price of 5.5 – 6 cents per kWhr without subsidies. Add in a fraction of the cost of maintaining fossil fuel generation plants to absorb remaining variation (e.g for long low-wind periods) and it’s probably around 6-7 cents per kWhr. Not as cheap as coal”” but it may be viable?”””””””

  440. Sure, components have to be nuclear grade.

    So you think the jetliner is held to lesser standards? No. It is just possible to iterate on the jet, test it, fail a wing loading test and then reinforce the wing on the production model.

    Comparing nuts, bolts and rebar on a nuke plant to the $15M jet engine is kinda silly. You think GE is buying those compressor case bolts out of McMaster Carr China? Nope; they are sourcing them to their own specifications at no doubt great cost and you can imagine that they have a paper trail as well.

    Gosh peoople. I’m telling you that airplanes don’t crash because they are held to similar if not more stringent requirements than the tea kettles that make 20% of our electricity.

  441. Dead wrong.

    As I pointed out above at the cheapest cost of storage envisioned $100/kWh the cost to levelise a wind/solar/storage install to compared to a nuke would be $5 a kwh added to your bill.

  442. This is where the utility scale battery systems shine. As demonstrated in Oz, they can respond in milliseconds to changes in frequency, helping to keep the grid stable and avoid brownouts. Even if substantial storage will take a while to become practical, grid stabilization is going to be taken over by batteries, further hurting standby gas power plant economics.

  443. This is where the utility scale battery systems shine. As demonstrated in Oz they can respond in milliseconds to changes in frequency helping to keep the grid stable and avoid brownouts. Even if substantial storage will take a while to become practical grid stabilization is going to be taken over by batteries further hurting standby gas power plant economics.

  444. People think the aviation transportation industry is less regulated because it generally ‘works’. I argue that it is very highly regulated, and since it is so essential to our modern way of life, the industry works through it. Oh yeah, and the cleanup for a jet crash involves a fire truck, a meat wagon, a backhoe and a dump truck and a landfill – cleanup isn’t as straightforward for nukes. Both the NRC and the FAA have zero tolerance for accidents, yet they infrequently happen regardless of the government’s tolerance. You basically tried to compare the two most highly regulated industries on the planet; instead you should have compared the NRC to the SEC, which is the captured regulator that allows Wall Street to defraud us all.

  445. NRC requires every nut bolt and piece of rebar be certified to nuke standards – FAA or ISO9000 is not acceptable even if it is the same nut bolt or piece of rebar. Probably doubles the cost for a FOAK.

  446. “Airliners have more strict safety requirements,” If true, then why haven’t airliners added an excess flow check valve on each pump in the hydraulic system? The lack of which cause the draining of the hydraulic system and crash of the airliner on July 19, 1989, at Sioux City, Iowa. Simple $20K to $50K per plane change. Live near there, followed the Federal Register postings for rule changes till about 2014 and did not see any rule change requiring that. Many other life saving measures that could be taken. When I say safer I am counting numbers of people killed and potential of numbers for the future. NRC borders on a ZERO tolerance for accidents. FAA is much further away, IMHO.

  447. PJM grid authority capacity auctions are coming in at an impact of about 0.5 cents per kwh.

    A peaker gas plant that never runs costs 0.8 cents per kwh for capital costs if you pretended it ran as 90% capacity factor. So that’s close to the limit capacity prices will ever get.

    It doesn’t seem like a big deal at all. Even nuclear plants need backup in case their say 2.2GW trip off the grid.

  448. Airliners have more strict safety requirements, the things that allows them to continue on is:

    1. They have been in continuous production since before WW2
    2. They have been in continuous contact with their regulator since inception
    3. They have maintained knowledge transfer through the generations because of points 1 and 2.

    There is a FAA sign-off on the simplest design change in aviation engines; I recall FAA review and signature for every design change.

    No reason to think the FAA is less of a bear than the NRC, just that nobody is going to give up flying whereas nobody cares where the electricity comes from – “my electricity comes from the socket.”

  449. This article references a non-levelized cost calculation. If you back out the 2.2 cent per kilowatt-hour tax credit, it is 4.2 cents per kilowatt-hour.

    Wind is used as a “fuel replacement” for fossil fuels so the significance of it hitting this price is subsidized wind is now cheaper than the cheapest fossil fuel (natural gas) so continued demand will be very robust for new wind power in the USA.

  450. “And I wear my sunglasses at night
    So I can so I can
    See the light that’s right before my eyes”

    Solar panels don’t work at night, but wearing sunglasses at night is cool.

  451. F-15s are an excellent example. Any Nuke also knows that if Airliners had the same safety requirements that Nuclear Power plants do we would be traveling by train. Which would also be uneconomical if RRs had the same level of safety requirements.

  452. Very few Utilities are investing in the scam. They are simply signing the contracts, thus giving the Wind Farm Cos the subsidies. Very few utilities are building storage facilities either. Cheapest storage method is Pumped Storage facility – A man made lake near a river with a high head for maximum efficiency. Like Bath County VA. It provides 3,000 Mw providing only 24,000 MWh over an 11 hour period. Covers 265 Acres . There are NONE in construction – in the USA and none planned. I seriously doubt that any could ever be built due to the environmental radicals. Any battery or other dream-like storage method would cost multiplies of a pumped storage system. Further, Why build a pumped storage system when a Hydro Dam costs the same?

  453. Yes, the grid can absorb “modest” amounts of unreliable power, especially if it tends to show up during periods of peak load. And I’ll give solar that: It usually shows up when air conditioners are running.

    But “modest” isn’t that high a fraction. Solar is already reaching the point in some states where they have to throw away perfectly good baseload capacity because they’re mandated to buy the solar electricity even if they don’t need it.

    Remove the subsidies, and the mandate to buy it, so the utilities only have to buy it when it makes sense to, and at the real price, and I withdraw all objections. The market will solve it.

    Right now, the market isn’t being allowed to function.

  454. ” You can also overbuilt if prices are low enough. ”

    Twice as many windmills during a lull in the wind are twice as many windmills not generating power. Likewise for twice as many solar panels at night.

  455. I’ve actually seen screeds where the ‘renewable’ advocates brag about how renewables are going to make the grid uneconomic, and force everybody to use locally generated power.

  456. It’s important to remember than Uranium is a finite resource in the same sense that geothermal and solar are: Finite, but available in sufficient quantities until the Sun wanders off the main sequence and destroys the Earth.

    Extraction from seawater has already been demonstrated at a decent EROEI, and the sea won’t run out of Uranium until plate tectonics halt, and the last mountain is done eroding into the sea.

  457. This is exactly the point. Cost reductions in solar are even steeper but overall pricing is higher than wind. This is the reason why there is no need to re-introduce nuclear power of the current generation with potential radiation leaks and generation of nuclear material for nuclear weapons by the wrong bodies. We can wait with nuclear power until molten salt plants become commercial and accelerate the reduction of our greenhouse gases footprint now that renewable energy is becoming fully competitive with fossil fuels.

  458. This is exactly the point. Cost reductions in solar are even steeper but overall pricing is higher than wind. This is the reason why there is no need to re-introduce nuclear power of the current generation with potential radiation leaks and generation of nuclear material for nuclear weapons by the wrong bodies. We can wait with nuclear power until molten salt plants become commercial and accelerate the reduction of our greenhouse gases footprint now that renewable energy is becoming fully competitive with fossil fuels.

  459. “experimenting with worn out nukes” – the experimenting was in the ’80s. Should we retire all the F-15s since they tool their first flight in 1972 and are similarly “dated”? Do you think today’s F-15 is the same plane that first flew in 1972? You don’t imagine that the nuke plants have been continuously updated at great cost?

    “Run off cost question” – is that you asking me why the new construction is so costly? If that is the question, the answer is because our country doesn’t build anything anymore and all the people that knew how to build things are retired… Costs an arm an a leg to build a bridge nowadays. Imagine design and manufacturing companies full of dead wood like yourself – that is today’s reality.

  460. Nice addition – could do without the Millennial college boy insults even though they are very, very sthoopid.

    One thing though…. “running, at power, a plant that is just in hot standby”

    Keeping the plant in hot in standby is not “running at power” – semantics.

  461. Goat, it takes the computers a few seconds to adjust. The electrical distribution system itself stores energy in its wires, capacitors, reactors and transformers. When there is a lost in generation somewhere this excess energy can provide the missing potential until the computers and the humans can react. The computers will change the tap settings on the substation transformers. And turn up the burners on the boilers of generation stations that are generating below max. If the lost is bad enough, the computers will start up the gas turbines. Meanwhile phone calls are made to the Regional Power Authority and independent generators to buy power. The fact of life is that equipment fails and that thunderstorms happen. A lot of people don’t realized that under a severe thunderstorm watch a utility may have to shutdown transmission lines and go to in city generation.

  462. Goat it takes the computers a few seconds to adjust. The electrical distribution system itself stores energy in its wires capacitors reactors and transformers. When there is a lost in generation somewhere this excess energy can provide the missing potential until the computers and the humans can react. The computers will change the tap settings on the substation transformers. And turn up the burners on the boilers of generation stations that are generating below max. If the lost is bad enough the computers will start up the gas turbines. Meanwhile phone calls are made to the Regional Power Authority and independent generators to buy power. The fact of life is that equipment fails and that thunderstorms happen. A lot of people don’t realized that under a severe thunderstorm watch a utility may have to shutdown transmission lines and go to in city generation.

  463. Don’t need storage until renewable reaches over 40% of generation. You can also overbuilt if prices are low enough. All utilities have banks of fast start gas turbines for emergency and heat waves. When the wind stops blowing they start the GTs up.

  464. Don’t need storage until renewable reaches over 40{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of generation. You can also overbuilt if prices are low enough. All utilities have banks of fast start gas turbines for emergency and heat waves. When the wind stops blowing they start the GTs up.

  465. The cost of one AP1000 is about $10 billion. Power demand is not fixed. We use more power during the day than at night so capacity is under 50% for most fossil fuel power plants. Also capacity factors have gone up for wind. Also when 1G comes online, 1G has to go offline. With renewable you can incremental add generation in much smaller units.

  466. The cost of one AP1000 is about $10 billion. Power demand is not fixed. We use more power during the day than at night so capacity is under 50{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} for most fossil fuel power plants. Also capacity factors have gone up for wind. Also when 1G comes online 1G has to go offline. With renewable you can incremental add generation in much smaller units.

  467. Renewable can always undersell fossil fuel generation since their cost for generating the next MW is zero. The more renewable the more pressure they put on fossil fuel generation.

  468. Renewable can always undersell fossil fuel generation since their cost for generating the next MW is zero. The more renewable the more pressure they put on fossil fuel generation.

  469. Are we raising people that do not use their BRAINS? Do they teach people to use their brains in college anymore? Read the statement again “the average levelized long-term price from wind power sales agreements has dropped to around 2 cents per kWh ” Got that? Price from Long Term Wind Sales Contracts.” Do you know what that means. That Is like signing a contract for week old bread from the local bread distributor. I retired from the local electric utility.. I know what that contract is for. It provides the Wind Farm companies with a Guaranteed Market for a product that no local utility wants! The Electric utilities do not want that electricity because to use that electricity they have to be running a power plant in the standby mode to make up the loss of power when the wind stops blowing OR wind the wind blows to hard. YES when the wind blows to hard because then the Wind Turbine feathers the blades to prevent overstressing the components. and therefore no longer makes electricity. Thus. That electricity is like day old bread or outdated milk. NO ONE WANTS IT. That is why it sells for that low price. The Wind Farm builders know that and they don’t care as they still make a profit off of the SUBSIDIES that YOU pay in Federal, State and even Local taxes. Then YOU get to pay again because your electricity cost more because your local power company is running, at power, a power plant that is just in “Hot Standby” and not making any electricity, just wasting Fossil Fuel and Increasing CO2.
    PLEASE Use Your Brain. It amazes me that the Wind Turbine dope pushers keep bragging about this.

  470. Wow, 4 windy states where only 10M people live combined got 30% of total electrical generation from wind (sic). Kinda impossible when the capacity factor is less than 30%. $0.02/kWh divided by 17% availability is about $0.12/kWh. Seriously though, did we (USA) add 7GW of wind power last year or is that some kind of fib? If you again use 17% availability that 7GW of wind power is the output of one AP1000. The article does say $11B was spent on “new plants” implying wind, but I don’t know what a “wind plant” is… Regardless, $11B is approximately the FOAK per/each price of AP1000 down there at Vogtle (although not finished yet).

  471. Wow 4 windy states where only 10M people live combined got 30{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of total electrical generation from wind (sic). Kinda impossible when the capacity factor is less than 30{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12}.$0.02/kWh divided by 17{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} availability is about $0.12/kWh.Seriously though did we (USA) add 7GW of wind power last year or is that some kind of fib? If you again use 17{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} availability that 7GW of wind power is the output of one AP1000. The article does say $11B was spent on ew plants”” implying wind”””” but I don’t know what a “”””wind plant”””” is… Regardless”””” $11B is approximately the FOAK per/each price of AP1000 down there at Vogtle (although not finished yet).”””

  472. Its called “top up generation”. What natural gas is excellent at. I find it kind of amusing that whenever capricious wind or diurnally challenged solar power are trotted out, that some comment or within the article, immediately is the “but it needs storage” issue lobbed over the bow. Newsbreak: MODEST amounts of capricious wind and diurnally challenged solar are QUITE compatible with the rest of most country’s or region’s power grids. Some states (in the US) have substantial hydroelectric generating facilities, which well before the first kilowatt of wind and solar was connected … back in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, hydro was the “backfill of choice” technology. Electrical grids are by their very nature, capricious animals. They blow breakers when something perhaps hundreds of miles away is hit by a lightning bolt, or a truck runs into a power pole in a part of the metropolis that is under high demand. Breakers blow, instantly loading the rest of the grid (or unloading it!); all the generating facilities in turn see rapid … second by second … changes in demand. This is as it is today, actually. Adding MODEST solar and wind just adds more somewhat predictable “noise” to the demand-producer equation matrix. In secret offices far, far from public scrutiny, scores of professionals, highly attuned to the idiosyncracies of their part of the grid, command the generating facilities to ramp up, or down, or level their operations. They respond in seconds to the sudden changes that broken breakers and downed poles incur. And with the advent of wind and solar, they have more to do. Without needing to store one single kilowatt hour. Just saying, GoatGuy

  473. Its called top up generation””. What natural gas is excellent at.I find it kind of amusing that whenever capricious wind or diurnally challenged solar power are trotted out”” that some comment or within the article”” immediately is the “”””but it needs storage”””” issue lobbed over the bow. Newsbreak: MODEST amounts of capricious wind and diurnally challenged solar are QUITE compatible with the rest of most country’s or region’s power grids. Some states (in the US) have substantial hydroelectric generating facilities”” which well before the first kilowatt of wind and solar was connected … back in the 1960s 1970s 1980s”” hydro was the “”””backfill of choice”””” technology. Electrical grids are by their very nature”” capricious animals. They blow breakers when something perhaps hundreds of miles away is hit by a lightning bolt or a truck runs into a power pole in a part of the metropolis that is under high demand. Breakers blow instantly loading the rest of the grid (or unloading it!); all the generating facilities in turn see rapid … second by second … changes in demand. This is as it is today”” actually. Adding MODEST solar and wind just adds more somewhat predictable “”””noise”””” to the demand-producer equation matrix. In secret offices far”” far from public scrutiny scores of professionals highly attuned to the idiosyncracies of their part of the grid command the generating facilities to ramp up or down or level their operations. They respond in seconds to the sudden changes that broken breakers and downed poles incur. And with the advent of wind and solar they have more to do. Without needing to store one single kilowatt hour. Just saying””GoatGuy”””””””

  474. There have been numerous investigations into 80-year life extensions for GenII LWR, which were originally licensed for 40 years and “easily” extended to 60 for all plants that have asked. As long as the vessel isn’t brittle, everything else can be nursed along/replaced. Some even think you can in situ anneal the vessels, although that isn’t really practical.

    The fuel is “sourced” from the market – it is a commodity, as is enrichment, conversion, etc.

    Uranium being a finite resource hasn’t become a problem yet, just like we haven’t seen “peak oil”. Also, fuel economy of LWR could be doubled with a change in priorities, attitude, or scarcity.

    That cleanup at Fukushima is not done by volunteers; it probably pays way too well. Wouldn’t be a bad idea to go over there and collect a paycheck if you could convince them that your standing around and getting paid would be useful.

    Later Stegmann… Go plant a tree and hug it and burn your money.

  475. You seem unaware that even Hydro doesn’t like load balancing wind. Bonneville keeps 1 GW of gas plant on line to smooth out wind transitions without damaging its hydro turbines.

    It might be compatible but it triples the cost and has forced new efficient CCGT plant nearly off the grid replacing it with inefficient OCGT plant running on capacity payments and spewing out more GHG’s than if we had skipped the wind altogether.

  476. Yup instead we curtail wind/solar at full price or cutoff nukes in adjoining states when wind/solar starts a pumping and the load is lower at night or on weekends. At the same time we pay inefficient peaker GT’s to idle.

  477. As I pointed out above when total system costs are included wind/solar is not even remotely competitive with international nuclear cost standards. With corrupt US politicians running the show though its hard to argue.

  478. As a well known Big Oil propaganda outlet LBNL is noted for disinformation.

    At $1.6B/GW wind comes to about $5B/GWa with typical US capacity factors. When comparing this cost and adding maintenance and average twenty year lives to the product and wind investor Warren Buffets 15% pa minimum ROR comes to 10 cents a kwh. Obviously LBNL is hiding some pretty significant subsidys that make 2 cent a kwh PPA’s possible – part of its job.

    Since nuclear and coal plants aren’t capable of backup wind solar requires gas peaker plants or Combined cycle units running on turbines, that get 85% of their cash from capacity payments – another massive wind/solar subsidy. Wind plant also gets pride of place on transmission grid forcing nuke plants off line. They get paid full price to curtail as well when wind maxes out under low load conditions. Finally they get free transmission with grids have to be 3 times sized to carry peak loads. The Ontario auditor general cost these subsidies at 35 cents a kwh.

    When comparing to nuclear we need to go apples to apples

    The last 7 Candu’s built came to about $2.5B/GW in 2018 cash, similar to current Chinese, Indian, and Korean builds. Gen IV nukes are forecasted at as little as half that with a quarter the operating cost smaller operating cost

    Google “costs-and-economics-of-terrestrial”

    Then we have to replace the wind installations every 20 years or so compared to the current 80 year like of nukes. With public power that doubles that $5B/GW for wind to $10B.

    A variable renewables only solution also requires long duration green energy storage.

    If you Google “getting-zero-pathways-zero-carbon-electricity-systems-jesse-jenkins”

    You’ll find a seasonal storage requirement for 16 weeks worth of US
    electricity consumption or 30% of renewable energy generation. At a minimum projected cost of $100 a kWh (think batteries) this is simply impossible at $5/kWh added to your power bill.

    16/52 * 100 * .18 = $5.2/kwh at 15% or 16/52 * 100 * .09 = $5.2/kwh

    So many folks have joined Big Oil’s team of useful idiots rapidly driving us towards a civilization ending AGW precipice all the while condoning the murder of millions of folks every year from air pollution all based on propaganda from US government Big Oil outlets like the EIA, NREL, and LLNL, pushed in purchased media and by corrupt politicians.

  479. RE: 2 cents / kWhr, From the Wind Technologies Market Report cited in the linked page:

    “the national average price of wind PPAs [power purchase agreements] has dropped to around 2¢/kWh”

    AND

    “These prices, which are possible in part due to federal tax support, compare favorably to the projected future fuel costs of gas-fired generation. ”

    So “2 cents” really isn’t the cost of wind power. Subsidies are currently about 2 cents per kWhr for new builds, and older builds may still be getting as much as 7 cents.

    Another figure of interest – new wind turbine builds get around 42% capacity factor – up from 25% back around 2000. Such new builds actually COST MORE per kW, but better capacity means they cost less per kWhr.

    Assume future wind systems are built with about half of generated wind electricity stored for later use, to mostly eliminate the impact of short term wind variability on the grid . Flow batteries may cost around $500/kWhr (of storage, installed), which would be about $50/year/kWhr, or about 1.5 – 2 cents per kWhr stored and released. Add that to a future cost of ~4 cents per kWhr (probably best case by 2030) for a price of 5.5 – 6 cents per kWhr without subsidies. Add in a fraction of the cost of maintaining fossil fuel generation plants to absorb remaining variation (e.g for long low-wind periods), and it’s probably around 6-7 cents per kWhr. Not as cheap as coal, but it may be viable?

  480. This is where the utility scale battery systems shine. As demonstrated in Oz, they can respond in milliseconds to changes in frequency, helping to keep the grid stable and avoid brownouts. Even if substantial storage will take a while to become practical, grid stabilization is going to be taken over by batteries, further hurting standby gas power plant economics.

  481. This is exactly the point. Cost reductions in solar are even steeper but overall pricing is higher than wind. This is the reason why there is no need to re-introduce nuclear power of the current generation with potential radiation leaks and generation of nuclear material for nuclear weapons by the wrong bodies. We can wait with nuclear power until molten salt plants become commercial and accelerate the reduction of our greenhouse gases footprint now that renewable energy is becoming fully competitive with fossil fuels.

  482. Goat, it takes the computers a few seconds to adjust. The electrical distribution system itself stores energy in its wires, capacitors, reactors and transformers. When there is a lost in generation somewhere this excess energy can provide the missing potential until the computers and the humans can react. The computers will change the tap settings on the substation transformers. And turn up the burners on the boilers of generation stations that are generating below max. If the lost is bad enough, the computers will start up the gas turbines. Meanwhile phone calls are made to the Regional Power Authority and independent generators to buy power.

    The fact of life is that equipment fails and that thunderstorms happen. A lot of people don’t realized that under a severe thunderstorm watch a utility may have to shutdown transmission lines and go to in city generation.

  483. Don’t need storage until renewable reaches over 40% of generation. You can also overbuilt if prices are low enough. All utilities have banks of fast start gas turbines for emergency and heat waves. When the wind stops blowing they start the GTs up.

  484. The cost of one AP1000 is about $10 billion. Power demand is not fixed. We use more power during the day than at night so capacity is under 50% for most fossil fuel power plants. Also capacity factors have gone up for wind. Also when 1G comes online, 1G has to go offline. With renewable you can incremental add generation in much smaller units.

  485. Renewable can always undersell fossil fuel generation since their cost for generating the next MW is zero. The more renewable the more pressure they put on fossil fuel generation.

  486. Wow, 4 windy states where only 10M people live combined got 30% of total electrical generation from wind (sic). Kinda impossible when the capacity factor is less than 30%.

    $0.02/kWh divided by 17% availability is about $0.12/kWh.

    Seriously though, did we (USA) add 7GW of wind power last year or is that some kind of fib? If you again use 17% availability that 7GW of wind power is the output of one AP1000. The article does say $11B was spent on “new plants” implying wind, but I don’t know what a “wind plant” is… Regardless, $11B is approximately the FOAK per/each price of AP1000 down there at Vogtle (although not finished yet).

  487. Its called “top up generation”. What natural gas is excellent at.

    I find it kind of amusing that whenever capricious wind or diurnally challenged solar power are trotted out, that some comment or within the article, immediately is the “but it needs storage” issue lobbed over the bow.

    Newsbreak: MODEST amounts of capricious wind and diurnally challenged solar are QUITE compatible with the rest of most country’s or region’s power grids. Some states (in the US) have substantial hydroelectric generating facilities, which well before the first kilowatt of wind and solar was connected … back in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, hydro was the “backfill of choice” technology.

    Electrical grids are by their very nature, capricious animals. They blow breakers when something perhaps hundreds of miles away is hit by a lightning bolt, or a truck runs into a power pole in a part of the metropolis that is under high demand. Breakers blow, instantly loading the rest of the grid (or unloading it!); all the generating facilities in turn see rapid … second by second … changes in demand.

    This is as it is today, actually. Adding MODEST solar and wind just adds more somewhat predictable “noise” to the demand-producer equation matrix. In secret offices far, far from public scrutiny, scores of professionals, highly attuned to the idiosyncracies of their part of the grid, command the generating facilities to ramp up, or down, or level their operations. They respond in seconds to the sudden changes that broken breakers and downed poles incur.

    And with the advent of wind and solar, they have more to do.
    Without needing to store one single kilowatt hour.

    Just saying,
    GoatGuy

Comments are closed.