Why batteries are like Bacon – they make everything better.
TLDR – Transmission network from Scottish wind farms are not adequate to transmit all of the produced power.
Building more transmission lines is expensive and presents more difficulties.
Solution: Batteries to soak up power at times of lower demand, and release it when demand rises.
Falling price of batteries represents a phase change for modern grid architecture.
Energy Secretary and shameless grifter Chris Wright is left sputtering by a single simple question – paraphrasing:
You have mandated an aging coal plant in my district to stay open, which will cost ratepayers 100 million in repairs just to keep it operating.
Explain.
Hilarity ensues.
A renewed federal order is keeping two aging Indiana coal plants running months after their planned retirement — and utilities say the price tag is quickly climbing into the hundreds of millions.
At a Tuesday hearing before the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, NIPSCO President and Chief Operating Officer Vince Parisi said the mandate will require significant new spending to keep the aging coal units running, including major capital investments on top of day-to-day operating expenses.
“We’ll have fixed and variable operating costs… as well as any kind of capital investment,” Parisi said. “I think we’ve estimated it could be in excess of $100 million just in the investments in the units, and then operating costs on top of that.”
Above: One small dam has already failed in Northern Michigan, several larger more dangerous dams are in critical risk.
Video Description:
“A small private dam in Alcona County failed as heavy rain and snowmelt continue pushing rivers and impoundments beyond capacity in northern Michigan. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) said it was notified Monday night, April 13 that Bucks Pond Dam near Barton City failed. Luke Trumble, chief of EGLE’s Dam Safety Unit, said the dam is a low-hazard, privately-owned homeowners association dam with limited downstream risk.”
Michigan today continues to be in the grip of an extremely unusual weather pattern that has the entire state under a Flood Watch. Heavy rains and storms are staying in the forecast as floodwaters already have swamped areas across Northern Michigan.
The dangerously rising waters have prompted evacuations in some residential areas, triggered the failure of small dams, and has state and local officials closely monitoring larger dams near populated areas as high water threatens to overtop them and flood areas downstream. A handful of communities are on alert with evacuation plans in place.
Concerns have mounted for dams across Michigan as melting snow and rain stress their infrastructure, including in Bellaire where residents and businesses on the Intermediate River downstream of the Bellaire Dam were preparing to evacuate Wednesday.
The water level at the Cheboygan Lock and Dam was 6.72 inches below the top as of noon Wednesday, a drop of 0.12 inches from 9 a.m.
Northwest Michigan officials have declared a local state of emergency as they work to stabilize Benzie County’s Homestead Dam.
The Homestead Dam, a Michigan Department of Natural Resources-owned dam on the Betsie River, is at risk for overflowing as severe thunderstorms and snowmelt raise water levels, according to the Benzie County Office of Emergency Management and National Weather Service forecasts.
The Cheboygan County Sheriff’s Office is strongly urging residents of the Black Lake area to begin preparing for a potential rise in water levels.
Residents should secure any valuables, outdoor items or debris that could be damaged or carried away by water.
Continue reading “Michigan, Wisconsin in Flooding Crisis”You say War is Good for Nothin’?
This war is great for all the swell people and cool kids.
All you wimps and Nervous Nellies STFU and back to work.
The world’s top 100 oil and gas companies banked more than $30m every hour in unearned profit in the first month of the US-Israeli war in Iran, according to exclusive analysis for the Guardian. Saudi Aramco, Gazprom and ExxonMobil are among the biggest beneficiaries of the bonanza, meaning key opponents of climate action continue to prosper.
The conflict pushed the price of oil to an average of $100 (£74) a barrel in March, leading to estimated windfall war profits for the month of $23bn for the companies. Oil and gas supplies will take months to return to pre-war levels and the companies will make $234bn by the end of the year if the oil price continues to average $100. The analysis uses data from leading intelligence provider Rystad Energy, analysed by Global Witness.
Continue reading “Polluters are War’s Big Winners”
Well, hit my head and call me shorty.
This seems like Good news.
Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air:
Global power generation from fossil fuels fell in the first month since the start of the Hormuz closure, with the fall in gas-fired generation offset by large increases in solar and wind power, rather than coal.
The power generation dataset prepared for this analysis covers countries that disclose near-real-time data. The dataset covers 87% of global coal power generation and over 60% of gas-fired power generation.
Total power generation from fossil fuels in countries with near-real-time data fell 1% year-on-year, with coal-fired generation flat and gas-fired generation falling 4%. The dataset covers the world’s largest power markets: China, the U.S., the EU, and India, among others.
Seaborne coal transport volumes fell 3%, to the lowest levels since 2021. The data contradicts widespread expectations that coal power generation would rise in response to the crisis.
“It is about survival. It is about national security….now they don’t have to use the argument about climate change anymore. They’ll use the argument about national security argument…these changes are going to be permanent, and they will be extremely powerful.”
The industry must have added some supplemental funding for Bjorn Lomborg, the cynical soft-denial specialist from Denmark. He’s accelerated his output of fudged and distorted talking points, focusing on disinformation about clean energy.
The above graph purports to show some kind of suspiciously abrupt and steep change in “voltage exceedances” on European grids, which he ties to solar energy deployment. Which would beg the question, ‘Did Europe suddenly deploy several thousand percent more solar fields in a 6 month time span?”
Fortunately, fact based watch dogs are following.
I can’t believe this is coming up again. This trend is famously a reporting artefact, and not the result of higher solar penetration.
The big spike in 2024 comes from a monitoring system change for over-voltage in NORDIC regions, not a sudden spike across Europe from solar.
Side note: if you ever see a graph with a spike like this that looks like it can’t possibly be true, it likely isn’t!
Continue reading “Deniers Panicking ahead of Clean Energy Tidal Wave”As the graph below shows, around 2028, the projected demand outstrips the available generation – in large part due to Trump administration blocks on new renewable generation.
But additionally, there is a lot of low hanging fruit available in optimizing the grid that we have.
That’s what Jigar Shah and his guest are discussing above. Grid optimization using VPP, Virtual Power Plants, but also reconductoring of existing lines to increase capacity, Dynamic Line Rating, which uses sensors and AI to maximize the usage of every power line (not every line is carrying its full capacity all the time) – and demand response.
Jigar Shah and Arnab Pal in Utility Dive:
Across the country, a particular brand of conventional wisdom has set in: The only way to power the AI boom is a massive buildout of gas — both on the grid and “behind the meter” at data center campuses. The assumption is that anything else will be too slow, too risky or too complicated.
But “gas first” is simply a reflex, and it comes with two problems that are colliding with politics. First, it’s expensive. New generation and the upgrades to support it cost real money, and the utility model often pushes those costs onto ratepayers. Second, it’s slow, particularly where the grid is constrained. In many regions, equipment timelines are now measured in years rather than months.
If states respond with peak-driven planning — building the grid to serve the hottest hour of the year plus a reserve margin — customers will pay for infrastructure that sits underutilized most of the time. In our analysis, the grid is only 50% used throughout the year. There’s a better way: Build smarter before you build bigger.
Continue reading “Business as Usual Will Not Solve AI Energy Woes”Energy analyst interviewed by Bloomberg news affirms what we know – Solar is the cheapest form of energy generation.
He points out that solar is intermittent, so has different characteristics than other generation. (all generators are intermittent, for different reasons and with a different frequency)
Below, graph compares California grid from 2022, top, to current, 2026.
The green line shows renewable generation, with the big solar bump during the day. In 2022, the purple wavy line, batteries, is not doing a whole lot – but much has changed.
This year, a new build of batteries is soaking up that solar during the day, and doling it out at night, especially during the peaky parts of the evening – but take a look, it’s providing energy all night long.
States like California and Texas with significant battery buildout are seeing a phase change in how the grids work.
