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OT: Alternative Energy

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It takes 240 windmills to equal the power output of just one typical power plant (when the wind is blowing). Now, just try and imagine how much steel that would take. The problem is that people never think of how steel is made. Before you make up your mind about windmills, please, please, please watch the following video:



Now try and calculate how much energy and coal is used to melt iron and steel (it has to be 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit) over and over again not to mention the energy it takes to haul all that taconite. The production of steel already accounts for 8% of all carbon emissions. now try and imagine what that will increase to when we try and power the earth with windmills.

You may say there's a cleaner way to make steel, but right now there isn't. Please watch this video that explains why it's not likely to happen.



Before you make up your mind about windmills, please watch both videos from beginning to end. Then take into account how much damage is going to happen to the ocean floor. It will take a hole 100 feet in diameter for each windmill. That amount of digging will wipe out tremendous amounts of sources of food for marine life. Once they start digging, it will be the end of fishing in this state.

Is there a clean alternative? Yes, nuclear.
What you're looking for are cradle to gate LCAs. They're unfortunately dense in material ... As they should be, since you can't just pick a sentence out of the study and represent the entire study with that sentence ... But they're fascinating to see where in the lifecycle the estimatsd emissions are

You can try do a back of the envelope calculation using eGRID values and per kWh emissions for combined cycle gas plants vs wind / solar ... But that still requires some basic emissions assessment.

Also need to keep in mind that wind/solar are unfortunately pricing themselves out because they are so much cheaper than any other power source ... And yet there's a ton of investment happening in the space ... With a power purchase agreement signed, these wind / solar farms end up being great investments for entities looking for low risk, meh returns (balance portfolio type of returns)

Electricity markers are super fascinating ... In California, aside from base load power, there's been hours out of the day that solar/wind are providing 100% of the remaining load ... And recently there's been so much surplus that storage is able to make premium while charging and discharging!

EDIT: Forgot to add that often a lot of wind and solar energy is curtailed / wasted because of our aging transmission lines ... The lines often physically can't handle the movement of that energy and so solar/wind farms basically waste whatever isn't accepted by the grid ... Thankfully short and medium term storage is becoming so cheap that we're installing large capacity onto the grid ... Future looks bright for solar/wind and we always need non-intermittent resources like natural gas & nuclear, etc
 
The land of Oil & Gas is now dependent on renewables and here come the batteries!

There's so many Wind Turbines and Solar in Texas that the republicans in Texas are looking to curtail further deployments because they get so much tax revenue from oil & gas.

Record amounts of energy in Texas is now from renewables:
 
Slay News? BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.
Was the information incorrect?
That's a lot of HA HA HA's. I think like that when somebody quotes MSNBC, but I dont make fun. It's not nice to those dozens of people who watch.

For the record, I have no idea what Slay news is. Nor do I care. Just puzzled by the extreme reaction. Is it like the papers back in the day with crazy stories about aliens? Wait... That's the NY Times now 😂😂😂
I'll check out Slay to see the humor.
 
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The land of Oil & Gas is now dependent on renewables and here come the batteries!

There's so many Wind Turbines and Solar in Texas that the republicans in Texas are looking to curtail further deployments because they get so much tax revenue from oil & gas.

Record amounts of energy in Texas is now from renewables:
While their politicians are fighting the usual battle to keep the past alive their businesspeople have built a ton of windmills. Maybe they should take their own advice and follow the lead of business instead of politicians.
 
No different than Ny Slimes
You HATE the NYT and call it fake news. So if it's no different, why would you post a link to it?

C'mon now, my sides have barely stopped aching from laughing at that website. You need to let me recover before posting another side-splitter, please. 🙂
 
Was the information incorrect?
That's a lot of HA HA HA's. I think like that when somebody quotes MSNBC, but I dont make fun. It's not nice to those dozens of people who watch.

For the record, I have no idea what Slay news is. Nor do I care. Just puzzled by the extreme reaction. Is it like the papers back in the day with crazy stories about aliens? Wait... That's the NY Times now 😂😂😂
I'll check out Slay to see the humor.
You're gonna crack me up again. Here, maybe this will help:

NY Times, Fox News, Reuters, Slaynews.

 
Was the information incorrect?
That's a lot of HA HA HA's. I think like that when somebody quotes MSNBC, but I dont make fun. It's not nice to those dozens of people who watch.

For the record, I have no idea what Slay news is. Nor do I care. Just puzzled by the extreme reaction. Is it like the papers back in the day with crazy stories about aliens? Wait... That's the NY Times now 😂😂😂
I'll check out Slay to see the humor.
It was misleading, like most of these weird sites are. Sweden is simply including nuclear into their future energy plan. Fossil fuels are still excluded and the majority of their energy will continue to come from renewables.
 
they can now make wood stronger, lighter, and less energy intensive than steel. Some really remarkable stuff coming soon. Then there is aluminum oxynitride or something like that

new tech can alleviate some of the steel issues

Aluminum has the same problems as steel. Instead of taconite, they use bauxite. Plus, they use electrolysis which uses up a tremendous amount of electricity, the very type of energy we're trying to produce. Wood used to be used for windmills, but can it be used for these windmills out in the ocean? Even the strongest windmills made of steel fall apart at very high winds. How much wood be needed? We'll wipe out our forests, what's left of them.



Nuclear is the only way.
 
Aluminum has the same problems as steel. Instead of taconite, they use bauxite. Plus, they use electrolysis which uses up a tremendous amount of electricity, the very type of energy we're trying to produce. Wood used to be used for windmills, but can it be used for these windmills out in the ocean? Even the strongest windmills made of steel fall apart at very high winds. How much wood be needed? We'll wipe out our forests, what's left of them.



Nuclear is the only way.
reading is fundamental
 
You HATE the NYT and call it fake news. So if it's no different, why would you post a link to it?

C'mon now, my sides have barely stopped aching from laughing at that website. You need to let me recover before posting another side-splitter, please. 🙂

You sound like a moron
 
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they can now make wood stronger, lighter, and less energy intensive than steel. Some really remarkable stuff coming soon. Then there is aluminum oxynitride or something like that

new tech can alleviate some of the steel issues
You're not wrong as it is pretty cool what they can do.

The problem for me is steel sags before it goes, gives me and my men some time.

The wood, not so much.

And this is coming from a guy who has an engineered beam in my own house.😉
 
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Interesting news on two fronts today about Alternative Energy. Keep it technical folks.


Pumped storage Article this one looks very promising as its a storage solution for wind and solar

fyi - any scouts may recall NJ has a pump hydro reservoir at Yards Creek hat is filled during off peak hours and drained when needed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yards_Creek_Generating_Station
 
You're not wrong as it is pretty cool what they can do.

The problem for me is steel sags before it goes, gives me and my men some time.

The wood, not so much.

And this is coming from a guy who has an engineered beam in my own house.😉
no you're right as each has it's own properties with varying stresses and variables.

fascinating what's coming down the pipe
 
You may be right - even likely correct. However, there aren't any SMRs under construction in the USA and from what I've seen the enduring problem of cost nuclear power overruns is still a huge problem.

The Natrium power plant in Wyoming sounds promising too. They just need to get the low-grade fuel supply figured out.
 
ERCOT broke a demand record with plenty on reserves ... Kept wholesale prices way below the limit they had implemented after the 2021 Texas Freeze. Today may break the demand record again ... And should be a good example of how renewables & natural gas work together (& others such as coal but I think we can all agree that coal just doesn't make sense economically anymore after shale rush & cheap renewables)

Y'all should bookmark gridstatus.io ... Awesome visualizations!
 
Gotta love those IRA tax credits.
This is what, I think, a lot of people miss. It is that whether or not the projects are smart doesn't matter as much to the politicians and who controls, doles out, and benefits from the dollars spent. And for businesses and their executives.. executives get behind a project.. government subsidies pour in.. they get their stock options and bonuses and they don't really care if it works in the long run either.. they get theirs and kick the can down the road. And if they get some social justice profile points as well.. that's a bonus. Squeeze the juice and leave the mess for others to deal with. One can argue all business is like that... but so is government.
 
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This is what, I think, a lot of people miss. It is that whether or not the projects are smart doesn't matter as much to the politicians and who controls, doles out, and benefits from the dollars spent. And for businesses and their executives.. executives get behind a project.. government subsidies pour in.. they get their stock options and bonuses and they don't really care if it works in the long run either.. they get theirs and kick the can down the road. Squeeze the juice and leave the mess for others to deal with. One can argue all business is like that... but so is government.
Curious ... What do you mean by whether or not a project is smart? Do you mean financially?

PTC or IRA tax credits, I believe and could be wrong, lead to a tax equity situation and that is likely needed to have attractive IRRs. The issue at hand is that the PPAs these developers sign are just so cheap ... Makes the cash flows even more stringent ... But as a consumer don't we want cheap energy? I said this previously but in California, back in May, there were days that the grid was flooded with so much solar energy that the wholesale market price for electricity was negative ... So actually paying "people" to store that excess energy ... Why would we not want a world where that is the case?
 
Curious ... What do you mean by whether or not a project is smart? Do you mean financially?

PTC or IRA tax credits, I believe and could be wrong, lead to a tax equity situation and that is likely needed to have attractive IRRs. The issue at hand is that the PPAs these developers sign are just so cheap ... Makes the cash flows even more stringent ... But as a consumer don't we want cheap energy? I said this previously but in California, back in May, there were days that the grid was flooded with so much solar energy that the wholesale market price for electricity was negative ... So actually paying "people" to store that excess energy ... Why would we not want a world where that is the case?
Financially.. for the taxpayer? I mean "smart" overall... best available option given all the known facts. Financially,, I am saying that takes precedence for all the real decision-makers.. personal financial interests. Of course, some of that might be "in kind" type political support so they can stay in office or gain an office and work the system from the inside as they all do. But in the end it all boils down to personal gain these days. Get mine.... public servants indeed.
 
This is what, I think, a lot of people miss. It is that whether or not the projects are smart doesn't matter as much to the politicians and who controls, doles out, and benefits from the dollars spent. And for businesses and their executives.. executives get behind a project.. government subsidies pour in.. they get their stock options and bonuses and they don't really care if it works in the long run either.. they get theirs and kick the can down the road. And if they get some social justice profile points as well.. that's a bonus. Squeeze the juice and leave the mess for others to deal with. One can argue all business is like that... but so is government.

They care if it works, as the credits change the cost-benefit but not the need for profit, which is still there. No profits no appreciation of restricted stock.
 
They care if it works, as the credits change the cost-benefit but not the need for profit, which is still there. No profits no appreciation of restricted stock.
But that doesn't mean a stock won't rise because of these deals and subsidies and then if the project fails, the execs (and politicians using insider knowledge) would have cashed a good chunk by then. C'mon, there have been too many failures in the public/private sector to think otherwise. (BTW- I put science in quotes because some is science as science would define it and other things called science.. are not)

Anyway, all I am saying is that the greater discussion of the "science" behind alternative energy doesn't take into account a huge influence on how these decisions are made.
 
But that doesn't mean a stock won't rise because of these deals and subsidies and then if the project fails, the execs (and politicians using insider knowledge) would have cashed a good chunk by then. C'mon, there have been too many failures in the public/private sector to think otherwise. (BTW- I put science in quotes because some is science as science would define it and other things called science.. are not)

Anyway, all I am saying is that the greater discussion of the "science" behind alternative energy doesn't take into account a huge influence on how these decisions are made.

Most restricted stock vests over a period of years, so it's not quite the hit and run you portray. But like any system, it can be abused and/or subject to bad bets by the ignorant.
 
and in NJ 6 Flags was allowed after a long fight to cut down a forest to put in a solar farm.
So I was correct…

Probably not as big as this one but pretty sure Great Adventure here did the same a few years ago?
My older boy had an internship there a few summers ago in operations management and I remember seeing what I thought were the solar cell parking things but wasn’t 100% sure.
 
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