Grid scale projects in California and net grid demand

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
abasile said:
What bothers me is that this demonstrates the ease with which FUD or "alternative facts" can be spread, quite often unintentionally. Clearly, I'm not immune. I will have to say that I've read more than a few articles in purportedly credible publications, such as IEEE Spectrum, that have seemed pretty dubious when addressing areas that I know relatively well, such as electric vehicles.
None of us are immune, and if I was a bit hard on you, it is only because I know you to be a thoughtful person through your years of internet posts. As for Wierman, I presume this is a simple case of misunderstanding. It did take a vast leap of uncritical reading to take it at face value but I'm done beating that bush.

It is my habit (and tendency anyway) to apply sanity/reality checks to whatever I read. Besides the exercise in arithmetic, it helps me spot inadvertent errors, unlikely conclusions, and well disguised propaganda. It is true and sad that the large majority of Americans lack the High School competency needed to do the same, so they are extremely vulnerable to trumpism. This discussion between us was a good example: I wonder how many readers will realize that this was never about Google's CO2 emissions (which are net zero, but that is never clarified in the Prof Wierman related information) ?
 
Sounds like one thing we could all do to reduce carbon emissions is to take that extra second to actually enter proper domain names in the browser address field instead of carelessly typing a word in the search box (assuming DNS is more efficient than a search)
 
LTLFTcomposite said:
Sounds like one thing we could all do to reduce carbon emissions is to take that extra second to actually enter proper domain names in the browser address field instead of carelessly typing a word in the search box (assuming DNS is more efficient than a search)
See Abasile. Along comes proof (my bold) of my earlier statement.
 
SageBrush said:
LTLFTcomposite said:
Sounds like one thing we could all do to reduce carbon emissions is to take that extra second to actually enter proper domain names in the browser address field instead of carelessly typing a word in the search box (assuming DNS is more efficient than a search)
See Abasile. Along comes proof (my bold) of my earlier statement.
Huh? Sorry too many indirect references
 
To get a rough estimate of the amount of energy needed for a flight from LAX-LAS, I used the round numbers from Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air's calc of the rough energy cost per pax of a fully-loaded 747 on a round-trip intercontinental (8,800 mile) flight, 12,000 kWh x (235 miles one-way LAX-LAS / 8,800 miles) = 320.5 kWh: https://www.withouthotair.com/c5/page_35.shtml. Please feel free to check my math. As the flight profile, a/c type etc. all differ, this is nothing more than a very rough ballpark estimate.
 
GRA said:
To get a rough estimate of the amount of energy needed for a flight from LAX-LAS, I used the round numbers from Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air's calc of the rough energy cost per pax of a fully-loaded 747 on a round-trip intercontinental (8,800 mile) flight, 12,000 kWh x (235 miles one-way LAX-LAS / 8,800 miles) = 320.5 kWh: https://www.withouthotair.com/c5/page_35.shtml. Please feel free to check my math. As the flight profile, a/c type etc. all differ, this is nothing more than a very rough ballpark estimate.
The value of 12,000 kWh per passenger is per r/t.

You want 6000 kWh * 235/8,800 = 160 kWh for the LAX to LAS flight. I've read in multiple places that a fully loaded modern aircraft works out to ~ 43 mpg per passenger. The flight path is 234 miles, so 234/43 = 5.44 gallons per passenger. At 33.7 kWh per gallon (aircraft fuel is a little different and more like diesel but I'm being lazy and using EPA auto fuel), that works out to 183 kWh per passenger for the trip. I'll guess though that the short haul aircraft are less efficient so I'll stick with 200 kWh per trip.

Now, let's say that you have taken advantage of the very low cost (energy wise) Google service to learn efficient gambling and you are ready to take on Vegas. Environmentally aware as you are, is it best to fly or take the EV ? Presume for the EV 3.6 miles per kWh and grid electricity from fossil fuels burned at power plants with 33% efficiency. Ignore CO2 intensity for now, I'm only asking about source energy consumption.
 
SageBrush said:
Now, let's say that you have taken advantage of the very low cost (energy wise) Google service to learn efficient gambling and you are ready to take on Vegas. Environmentally aware as you are, is it best to fly or take the EV ? Presume for the EV 3.6 miles per kWh and grid electricity from fossil fuels burned at power plants with 33% efficiency. Ignore CO2 intensity for now, I'm only asking about source energy consumption.
200 or 300 kWh to fly from LAX to LAS probably isn't horribly off; of course, there are many variables! The true figure may be on the upper end of that range, given that take-offs are very energy intensive and this is a short flight.

We've driven through Vegas in our Model S 85, so I'm somewhat acquainted with this. Better not, why not try EVTripPlanner.com? Their estimates have proven to be reasonably good. According to that site, our Model S would consume 101.5 kWh, so a stop at the Barstow Supercharger would be needed. Even if one were to assume 130 kWh, to account for driving above the posted speed limit, some unhelpful desert winds, use of climate control and battery cooling, and charging inefficiencies, that's still significantly below the energy usage for a single airline passenger. Take a family of four off the plane and put them in a Model S, and the energy savings are huge, 130 kWh for the Model S versus on the order of 800+ kWh for the plane.

That said, you seem to be calling for some especially dirty (perhaps coal-derived?) grid electricity rather than, say, charging the car using on-site solar power. If you triple the energy usage of the Model S to account for power plants burning fuel at only 33% efficiency, that's roughly 390 kWh worth of source fuel, which is very likely above the plane's fuel usage. Not great, unless at least two people are riding in the Model S. Of course, we know that California's grid is better than that.

Back to the topic of this thread, such comparisons do underscore the need for more low-carbon power on the grid. Residential solar is great, but it's not enough. As the grid gets cleaner, we as a society will, in order to continue reducing emissions, need to transition more and more of our energy usage to electricity. This will include heating, hot water, cooking, and industrial uses.

Energy storage is going to be key in enabling all of this. Pertaining to California (specifically SDG&E), here's an article that I noticed yesterday: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/sdge-contracts-for-5-energy-storage-projects-totaling-835-mw/440904/
 
abasile said:
SageBrush said:
Now, let's say that you have taken advantage of the very low cost (energy wise) Google service to learn efficient gambling and you are ready to take on Vegas. Environmentally aware as you are, is it best to fly or take the EV ? Presume for the EV 3.6 miles per kWh and grid electricity from fossil fuels burned at power plants with 33% efficiency. Ignore CO2 intensity for now, I'm only asking about source energy consumption.
200 or 300 kWh to fly from LAX to LAS probably isn't horribly off; of course, there are many variables! The true figure may be on the upper end of that range, given that take-offs are very energy intensive and this is a short flight.

We've driven through Vegas in our Model S 85, so I'm somewhat acquainted with this. Better not, why not try EVTripPlanner.com? Their estimates have proven to be reasonably good. According to that site, our Model S would consume 101.5 kWh, so a stop at the Barstow Supercharger would be needed. Even if one were to assume 130 kWh, to account for driving above the posted speed limit, some unhelpful desert winds, use of climate control and battery cooling, and charging inefficiencies, that's still significantly below the energy usage for a single airline passenger. Take a family of four off the plane and put them in a Model S, and the energy savings are huge, 130 kWh for the Model S versus on the order of 800+ kWh for the plane.

That said, you seem to be calling for some especially dirty (perhaps coal-derived?) grid electricity rather than, say, charging the car using on-site solar power. If you triple the energy usage of the Model S to account for power plants burning fuel at only 33% efficiency, that's roughly 390 kWh worth of source fuel, which is very likely above the plane's fuel usage. Not great, unless at least two people are riding in the Model S. Of course, we know that California's grid is better than that.

Back to the topic of this thread, such comparisons do underscore the need for more low-carbon power on the grid. Residential solar is great, but it's not enough. As the grid gets cleaner, we as a society will, in order to continue reducing emissions, need to transition more and more of our energy usage to electricity. This will include heating, hot water, cooking, and industrial uses.

Energy storage is going to be key in enabling all of this. Pertaining to California (specifically SDG&E), here's an article that I noticed yesterday: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/sdge-contracts-for-5-energy-storage-projects-totaling-835-mw/440904/

You are quite right in the arithmetic, and right again in my underlying message: EVs are only as clean as the source electricity. I am a huge fan of residential PV for a host of reasons but a clean grid would work too ;-)

Cheers!
 
SageBrush said:
GRA said:
To get a rough estimate of the amount of energy needed for a flight from LAX-LAS, I used the round numbers from Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air's calc of the rough energy cost per pax of a fully-loaded 747 on a round-trip intercontinental (8,800 mile) flight, 12,000 kWh x (235 miles one-way LAX-LAS / 8,800 miles) = 320.5 kWh: https://www.withouthotair.com/c5/page_35.shtml. Please feel free to check my math. As the flight profile, a/c type etc. all differ, this is nothing more than a very rough ballpark estimate.
The value of 12,000 kWh per passenger is per r/t.
Yes, you're right. I knew the 12,000 kWh was the round trip total, but I was using the 8,800 miles as the total distance, not one-way as it should have been (or else using 6,000 kWh for half of it).

SageBrush said:
You want 6000 kWh * 235/8,800 = 160 kWh for the LAX to LAS flight. I've read in multiple places that a fully loaded modern aircraft works out to ~ 43 mpg per passenger. The flight path is 234 miles, so 234/43 = 5.44 gallons per passenger. At 33.7 kWh per gallon (aircraft fuel is a little different and more like diesel but I'm being lazy and using EPA auto fuel), that works out to 183 kWh per passenger for the trip. I'll guess though that the short haul aircraft are less efficient so I'll stick with 200 kWh per trip.
In real life, while the flight profile is less efficient, the smaller a/c will use a lot less fuel on the ground, maneuvering etc., and is also more efficient fuelwise, but that's far more detailed than this back-of-the-envelope estimate justifies. FWIW, down the page Mackay does the same calc for the Bombardier Q400 (formerly the de Havilland Canada Dash 8), which is a modern twin-turboprop.

SageBrush said:
Now, let's say that you have taken advantage of the very low cost (energy wise) Google service to learn efficient gambling and you are ready to take on Vegas. Environmentally aware as you are, is it best to fly or take the EV ? Presume for the EV 3.6 miles per kWh and grid electricity from fossil fuels burned at power plants with 33% efficiency. Ignore CO2 intensity for now, I'm only asking about source energy consumption.
As I don't gamble, it's a moot point!
 
Wow I had no idea my post on pg 3 of this thread regarding "How Green is the Cloud" would generate so much argument.

I am grateful that Abasile looked up Adam Wierman's credentials.
The Watson Lecture Series of which this talk is a part has been the main public outreach lecture series for Caltech for many decades. He was introduced by the Division Chair. Wierman gave every indication that he has been working for some time to improve the efficiency of the Cloud, with direct access to many of the major players, and has visited their data centers.

I am absolutely sure that I have quoted him accurately regarding the carbon footprint from one person on a flight from LAX to Las Vegas vs 1000 characters in Google search. I recall him saying that each character you type into Google triggers a new response. I know it sounds hard to believe but that is what I heard. I have no basis for questioning the calculations submitted in above posts.

Does the other claim in my post, that "The data centers in total generate more emissions than the entire Airline Industry" seem more credible? I heard the 2% number electricity number many years ago, so 7% now seems very reasonable. 7% of the electric consumption vs the airline industry also seems reasonable to me. Of course the Cloud does many more things than Google Search.
 
tbleakne said:
I am absolutely sure that I have quoted him accurately regarding the carbon footprint from one person on a flight from LAX to Las Vegas vs 1000 characters in Google search. I recall him saying that each character you type into Google triggers a new response. I know it sounds hard to believe but that is what I heard. I have no basis for questioning the calculations submitted in above posts.
Thank you for the follow up. I trust that you quoted Prof. Wierman accurately. I'm guessing that he hasn't made this claim in peer reviewed papers; otherwise, I'd expect it to have been debunked.

tbleakne said:
Does the other claim in my post, that "The data centers in total generate more emissions than the entire Airline Industry" seem more credible? I heard the 2% number electricity number many years ago, so 7% now seems very reasonable. 7% of the electric consumption vs the airline industry also seems reasonable to me. Of course the Cloud does many more things than Google Search.
This seems quite plausible to me.
 
abasile said:
tbleakne said:
I am absolutely sure that I have quoted him accurately regarding the carbon footprint from one person on a flight from LAX to Las Vegas vs 1000 characters in Google search. I recall him saying that each character you type into Google triggers a new response. I know it sounds hard to believe but that is what I heard. I have no basis for questioning the calculations submitted in above posts.
Thank you for the follow up. I trust that you quoted Prof. Wierman accurately. I'm guessing that he hasn't made this claim in peer reviewed papers; otherwise, I'd expect it to have been debunked.
This question is getting old, and and some point we need to move on, but he was very serious that his work in this area was his academic focus. I agree that this claim would have to be backed up better than what I have recollected. We all know that academics do their best to avoid embarrassing errors.

Two thoughts:

1. A 1000 character Google search is very long, much longer than normal, and if in the worse case, each additional character triggered a new response, the total load on the search server farm would grow exponentially. So perhaps a 1000 character search could, in principle, cost many orders of magnitude more that the average search.

2. Prof Wierman's credibility in my view was raised by him reporting in the talk that, in addition to his academic work, he was actively consulting with the actual server farm companies to help them implement his ideas for energy savings. He described how this work gave him access to actual server data.
 
This Sunday, and several days earlier, the LA Times ran a story on the front page that is sure to give encouragement to the nay-sayers of Green Energy.

"Energy goes to waste as state power glut grows" was the Sunday title.


http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-solar/

They make the point that the amount of power wasted over a year is still small, only a percent or two, but it is growing.

KQED , San Francisco PBS, posted a similar story:

https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/04/04/what-will-california-do-with-too-much-solar/

The KQED story had this graph from CAISO fro Mar 27, 2017:

ExcessCASolarMar2017-XL.jpg


My question is this:

Every clear morning we have the well-known "Duck Curve" where there is a big drop in Net Demand between 7am and 10am as the solar production rises faster that the load. On most days this surge is accommodated by throttling back natural gas production. So why does the graph not show hardly any significant cut back in natural gas production or other generation on this day?

The graph shows that wind declined in mid-day, largely compensating for the mid-day rise in solar.

Nuclear production has be to be steady on a time scale of days because short term cut-backs lead to buildup of intermediate radio-nuclides that poison the reaction. Hydro electric can adjust on time scales of an hour or less, but often the downstream flow has to be maintained. Geothermal is a steady source that is wasted if it is cut back.

My understanding is that natural gas can be adjusted fast, on the order of 15 min. On this date the total maximum production level of 24 GW was about half the normal peak summer load. Perhaps only natural gas plants vary in their adjustability, and all the easily adjusted ones were already off-line.

Perhaps the new battery banks that have been installed to back up the natural gas "peaker" plants so they don't have to run in idle until needed will reduce the minimum natural gas generation.

If anyone has informed answers, please post.
 
tbleakne said:
..So why does the graph not show hardly any significant cut back in natural gas production or other generation on this day?...
That graph shows demand on March 27.

It is not very relevant to much higher Summer PEAK demand, often requiring more than twice the MW, after a much steeper daily increase and much higher solar production, resulting in the much more pronounced duck curve, as shown the graph of recent net demand at:

http://www.caiso.com/outlook/SystemStatus.html

It is true that, in a panicked response to the largely fake energy crises created by Enron and other corporations, California has over-built generating capacity.

And yet, there has been virtually no coordinated effort to offer variable BEV charging rates to utilize this excess capacity, and to tune daily and seasonal demand curves to match available generation.

BEV driver to State of CA:

I OWN BATTERIES.

Just tell me when you want me to charge, with discounts on my home power bills, AND my public charge fees...
 
Back
Top