Sen. Joe Manchin is “intentionally sabotaging the president's agenda, what the American people want, what a majority of us in the Democratic caucus want,” Sen. Bernie Sanders tells @MarthaRaddatz.
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) July 17, 2022
"Nothing new about this." https://t.co/PCOX9tBRwR pic.twitter.com/kvuAscJ74B
Month: July 2022
Is This the Oldest Living Thing on Earth, and What Can it Teach Us?
Clean livin’, perhaps?
As Summer Peaks, Climate Heats, Texas Grid Strains
After several days when triple-digit temperatures tested the ability of the Texas electric grid to keep power flowing, another round of extreme heat threatens the state.
The manager of the state’s electric grid, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, known as ERCOT, said Friday that it expected to have enough power to meet weekend demand for the latest hot spell. Temperatures of 100 degrees are forecast every day for the next week in Dallas, Abilene and Lubbock, and in the upper 90s in many other areas.
Earlier in the week ERCOT, which manages the grid for 26 million customers, or 90 percent of the state, asked consumers to voluntarily reduce electricity use to avoid rolling blackouts, as demand at times nearly reached the system’s maximum production capacity.
Continue reading “As Summer Peaks, Climate Heats, Texas Grid Strains”As searing Texas heat drives power demand to record highs, the state’s grid operator is ordering plants to run at a historic pace, often forcing them to put off maintenance to keep cranking out electricity. That’s helped keep the lights on, for now, but the short-term focus is putting even more stress on a system that’s already stretched near the limit.
Twice in the past week, officials have called on Texans to limit electricity use during scorching afternoons as demand inched perilously close to overwhelming supply. Now, there are growing concerns over how long power plants can maintain the grueling pace as they run nonstop, according to Michele Richmond, executive director of Texas Competitive Power Advocates, a generator industry group.
“Things are going to break,” she said. “We have an aging fleet that’s being run harder than it’s ever been run.”
To meet the surge in power demand, Ercot, the grid operator, is leaning heavily on a mechanism called reliability unit commitments to ensure there’s enough supply. Plants are being regularly ordered to go into service, or remain in operation, and skip any scheduled maintenance. The measure also overrides shutdowns for economic factors or any other issues. And Ercot is using the rule more than ever before as the state battles bout after bout of extreme weather.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, as the operator is formally known, called for 2,890 hours of RUCs system-wide in the first half of this year. That’s more than triple the 801 hours in the first half of 2021, according to data from Ercot’s independent market monitor provided by Richmond. For all of 2020, there were 224 RUC hours.
The problem is that deferring repairs now will likely come back to haunt power-plant owners, Richmond said.
“If you put off preventative maintenance because it’s needed for reliability, it increases the chances you’ll need a more comprehensive outage” later on as plants start to malfunction, she said.
Germany Risks Cascading Failure as Russia, Climate Pressures Rise
Continue reading “Germany Risks Cascading Failure as Russia, Climate Pressures Rise”Germany should prepare for deeper cuts in Russian gas supplies because President Vladimir Putin is pursuing a conscious strategy of driving up prices to undermine European unity, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said.
“We aren’t dealing with erratic decisions but with economic warfare, completely rational and very clear,” Habeck, the deputy chancellor in Olaf Scholz’s government, said Saturday on a panel. “After a 60% reduction, the next one logically follows.”
German leaders are stepping up warnings of impending turmoil and natural-gas shortages in Europe’s biggest economy, which relies on Russia for about one-third of its energy. Putin has gradually reduced supplies after European countries imposed sanctions in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
German utilities are at risk of cascading failures that might require activating a legal clause that would allow them to pass on price increases outside of contract commitments, Habeck said.
Germany has refrained from activating the measure for now because it would lead to an “immediate price explosion” for consumers, he said at an event sponsored by the Die Zeit weekly. The government is working on an alternative, he said, without elaborating.
“If one company were to fail, or other companies were to fail, it’s like a domino effect that would very quickly lead into a deep recession,” he said.
European energy companies are facing a squeeze after Russia curbed flows on a key gas link earlier this month, forcing utilities to buy fuel on the spot market at elevated prices. High power prices are increasingly prompting German factories and businesses to curb demand and the government has activated the second stage of a three-stage gas emergency plan.
Heading Home Soon
Winding up field work in Greenland for the summer. I’m in Kangerlussuaq doing some laundry and repacking stuff, flight to Copenhagen tomorrow, have some rather startling footage to share when I have more time to look it over.
Exhausted. And now Manchin.
Back to work.
How Manchin’s Madness Affects Big Solar
Not so much it turns out, but things could have been so much better for the little guy, and for keeping inflation down.
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John Berger, Sunnova CEO, joins ‘Closing Bell’ to discuss how critical the federal spending bill is for Sunnova, why he believes the spending bill is actually disinflationary and more.
UK Declares National Heat Emergency
Continue reading “UK Declares National Heat Emergency”A national emergency has been declared after a red extreme heat warning was issued for the first time, as temperatures could hit 40C (104F).
The Met Office’s highest warning covers an area including London, Manchester and York on Monday and Tuesday.
It means there is a risk to life and daily routines will need to change.
Speed restrictions are likely on railway lines, some schools will close early and some hospital appointments will be cancelled.
On the roads, gritters are planning to spread sand to reduce melting, and the RAC has warned more drivers will need help as cars overheat.
On top of the Met Office warning, the UK Health Security Agency issued its highest level four heat alert to health and care bodies – warning illness and death could occur “among the fit and healthy”.
How Texas’ Shaky Grid Could Make Another “Black Swan” for Supply Chains
UPDATE:
So far this spring and summer, Solar and wind have been saving Texans from another dire grid scenario, but the summer is young.
- Failing US power grids could be the next vulnerability in the supply chain for oil, energy trader Brynne Kelly says.
- Most of western and central US is at high risk of electricity shortfalls or disruption this summer, research has found.
- Problems with power grids are a potential catalyst for chaos in energy markets that are underappreciated, Kelly says.
Electricity grid problems in the US are a potential “black swan” that could wreak havoc in energy markets, according to Cornerstone Futures research director Brynne Kelly.
Continue reading “How Texas’ Shaky Grid Could Make Another “Black Swan” for Supply Chains”In an analyst note, the energy trader argues that failing power grids and electricity shortages could be the next vulnerability in the supply chain for oil and its products, such as gasoline.
Those under-the-surface risks are being overlooked, and that makes them a possible “black swan” — an unpredicted event with a severe impact. While crude oil isn’t much used to generate electricity, power itself is needed to make oil, Kelly noted.
“Said another way, a failing power grid COULD BE the next oil chain supply problem,” she said.
“Problems with power grids across the US and other countries are a potential catalyst for chaos in energy markets that are underappreciated.”
The reliability of the US electricity grid is being taken for granted, Kelly said. But it’s under pressure as the industry goes through a mandated shift from fossil fuels to clean energy sources, and with the peak summer demand ahead.
She pointed to the impact of a rare 2021 winter storm in Uri, Texas, to show how disruption in electricity supply can spread to other sectors. Failures in the state’s ERCOT power grid proved catastrophic for operations there, as the domino effect hit energy producers, as transportation, water and telecoms.
Texas is one of the largest oil-producing states in the US, accounting for 42.7% of crude oil production, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
“A power grid failure on any scale larger than a local one like we saw in Texas, would be, and could be potentially catastrophic,” Kelly said.
Could Inflation End Lithium’s Reign?
I keep telling people, “don’t imagine that the batteries of 10 years from now will be the same as those of today.”
Can a graphene battery (above) take a 350 mile charge in 8 minutes? Lithium vulnerable to disruption.
Lithium, the highly reactive silver-white metal that is a crucial ingredient in batteries used in electric vehicles (EVs), is becoming much more expensive – and fast.
In April, as prices hit a record $78,000 a tonne, Tesla CEO Elon Musk floated the idea of the electric carmaker mining and refining the lightweight metal itself due to the “insane” increase in costs.
For governments ranging from China to the European Union that have pledged to phase out combustion engines in the near future, the soaring cost and growing scarcity of the metal raise questions about how they will meet their deadlines, many of which come due as soon as 2035.
With combustion engines accounting for one-quarter of carbon emissions, according to the United Nations, a delay in transitioning away from petrol and diesel cars would deal a serious blow to efforts to reduce carbon emissions and avert the worst effects of climate change.
“As Elon Musk has said, ‘lithium will be the limiting factor,’” Joe Lowry, an expert on the global lithium market and the founder of Global Lithium LLC, told Al Jazeera. “It is very simple math.”
Despite retreating from its April highs, the price of Lithium has jumped more than 600 percent since the start of the year, from about $10,000 per metric tonne in January to $62,000 in June, according to Benchmark Market Intelligence. Citigroup has predicted more “extreme” price hikes on the way.
The soaring prices have been driven by surging demand for light-duty EVs, sales of which doubled to 6.3 million units last year and are projected to hit 26.7 million units by 2030, according to Platts Analytics.
A growing appetite for lithium from manufacturers of energy storage and 5G devices, spacecraft, submarines, and safety and cooling equipment has further put the squeeze on supply. FastMarkets, a commodity price reporting agency, has projected that lithium supplies could altogether collapse relative to demand as soon as 2026.
After years of falling prices, EVs are becoming more expensive, reversing a trend that had the environmentally-friendly vehicles on track to soon be cost competitive against gasoline-powered cars.
Tesla has raised its prices by more than 20 percent since last year, putting its vehicles out of reach of millions of potential buyers.
More ideas below, at least for stationary storage.
Continue reading “Could Inflation End Lithium’s Reign?”Sand Battery is One Path for Long Term Storage
A company in Finland has created an an unusual storage solution for renewable energy: One that uses sand instead of lithium ion or other battery technologies. Polar Night Energy and Vatajankoski, an energy utility in Western Finland, have built a storage system that can store electricity as heat in the sand. While there are other organizations researching the use of sand for energy storage, including the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Finns say theirs is the first fully working commercial installation of a battery made from sand.
Similar to traditional storage systems for renewables, Polar’s technology stores energy from wind turbines and solar panels that isn’t used at once. To be precise, it stores energy as heat, which is then used for the district heating network that Vatajankoski services. Sand is inexpensive and is very effective at storing heat at about 500 to 600 degrees Celsius. Polar says its technology can keep sand “hotter than the stoves in typical saunas” for months until it’s time to use that heat during Finland’s long winters.
As the BBC explains, the resistive heating process used to warm the sand generates hot air circulated inside the structure. When it’s time to use the stored energy, the battery discharges that heated air to warm water in the district’s heating system, which is then pumped into homes, offices and even pools. At the moment, Polar’s sand battery only serves a single city, and it’s still unclear whether the technology can be scaled up. The BBC also says that its efficiency “falls dramatically” when it comes to returning electricity to the grid instead. It’s early days for the technology, though, and other companies and organizations might be able to find solutions for those issues.