Month: February 2023

It took only 38 years since it’s been approved in 1985, and got connected to the grid 8 years after originally planned at what, 250% cost overruns?

Unit 4 was supposed to be running in 2018. It’s 2023 and we’re talking about unit 3.

We’re supposed to be carbon neutral by 2050.

— Vidua (@GregVidua) February 3, 2023

Good. Some carbon free power at a time when Europe needs it.
Sobering that it took this long.

A little background:

World Nuclear News:

Construction of the first two 471 MWe VVER units at the four-unit Mochovce plant started in 1982. Work began on units 3 and 4 in 1986, but stalled in 1992. The first two reactors were completed and came into operation in 1998 and 1999, respectively, with a project to complete units 3 and 4 beginning ten years later. Unit 4’s schedule has been to follow about one or two years behind unit 3. Each of the units will be able to provide 13% of Slovakia’s electricity needs when operating at full capacity.

The final design includes many upgrades to safety and security, including increased aircraft impact protection and emergency management measures based on lessons from the Fukushima accident which were incorporated during the project. The Slovak Nuclear Regulatory Authority issued the final authorisation for commissioning of unit 3 of the Mochovce nuclear power plant in August. The service life of the new block is initially planned to be 60 years.

Perennial evergreen post for your Uncle Dittohead or Aunt Teabag.
First video above is from this year, includes summary of latest research on Jet Stream anomalies.
Video below was produced after I went to several meetings of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, in Scandinavia and Seattle, and interviewed a phalanx of the best arctic experts around.

Washington Post:

Parts of the Northeast woke up to the coldest morning in decades on Saturday, with temperatures 30 degrees or more below average and wind chills in the extremely dangerous category. Virtually the entirety of New England was included in wind chill warnings, while Mount Washington’s minus-109 degree wind chill set a record for the entire United States.

The National Weather Service office serving the Boston region described the cold as “a historic Arctic outbreak for the modern era,” and warned that “this is about as cold as it will ever get.”

In Boston, the morning low fell to minus-10 degrees at 5:15 a.m., the coldest reading observed in the city since Jan. 15, 1957, when Boston hit minus-12. The episode resembled the brutal Arctic blast on Valentine’s Day 2016, when Logan Airport dropped to minus-9 degrees.

Wind Chill that is.

Astonishing intensity of cold smashing through Canada and Northeast USA right now.

Mt. Washington in New Hampshire just recorded a windchill value of -109°F (-78°C), which sets the lowest windchill value ever observed in the USA (including Alaska). pic.twitter.com/EicPSYZ4AN

— Scott Duncan (@ScottDuncanWX) February 4, 2023

Should start at the right point, if not, good stuff starts at 5:32.
Liking that the Daily Show is doing try outs. Hope they take their time and open it up to to many voices.

The last mile is the toughest in delivering reliable electricity.
Texas is in the crosshairs of an increasing number of cold air outbreaks happening in late winter, and when generators stay online, the brittle transmission system is a point of failure.
A rebuilt grid and storage – on both sides of the meter should be priorities.

Pretty cold here in Michigan right now (beautiful, by the way), but nothing compared to what is moving into the Northeast.

Axios:

A potent cold snap descending on New England Friday morning that’s expected to last into early Sunday threatens to bring wind chills approaching record low levels.

Threat level: With wind chills forecast to reach -10°F in New York City, -33°F in Boston, and as low as -60°F in northern Maine on Saturday morning, the cold could be deadly for anyone caught outside for extended periods.

The big picture: The air mass across northern New England Friday night through the weekend will be the coldest in the Northern Hemisphere, with the possible exception of a portion of Siberia. 

• Wind chill warnings are in effect for parts of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.
• “The core of the cold will pass over the Northeast and more specifically, northern New England,” the National Weather Service stated in a forecast discussion. “Wind chills into the minus 50s for northern parts of this region could be the coldest felt in decades.” 

Zoom in: The NWS warns that in such cold conditions, frostbite can occur on exposed skin in 10 minutes or less. 

• Strong winds are accompanying the Arctic front, particularly in southern New England, where gusts up to 50 mph are anticipated into Friday afternoon and Friday night. At the same time, temperatures will be dropping all day, down into the single digits in Boston by evening, and below zero in northern New England.
• Any power outages could knock out heat during frigid conditions. According to the NWS forecast office in Boston, temperatures there are likely to be comparable to a cold snap in February of 2016, when the city hit -9°F. But areas to the north will be far colder. 
• In northern New England, winds may also howl out of the Northwest into Saturday, particularly in northern Maine.

Threat level: Boston Public Schools are closed Friday due to the cold, and authorities across New England are opening warming shelters for residents. The city has also declared a cold emergency. 

The cold outbreak comes courtesy of a lobe of the tropospheric polar vortex, which is distinct from the polar vortex that is present at higher altitudes in the stratosphere. 

• This region of extreme cold will rotate south from Hudson Bay, accompanied by a powerful cold front with snow squalls and strong winds beginning late Thursday night and Friday morning.

NBC 29 Charlottesville:

The mayor of Austin, Texas, responded to mounting criticism and apologized Friday for a lack of communication with residents as a winter storm coated the city in ice and cut power — and heat — to thousands of residents for days.

The weather finally started to moderate Friday and bring some relief to frustrated Texans, particularly in Austin, where at any given time 30% of customers in the city of nearly a million were without electricity since the storm hit early this week.

“The city let its citizens down. The situation is unacceptable to the community, and it’s unacceptable to me,” Mayor Kirk Watson, a Democrat, said at a news conference. “And I’m sorry.”

Continue reading “Polar Vortex Moves on to Northeast”

And by “near you”, I mean, just about anywhere, if you drill deep enough, you’ll find hot rocks.
Thanks to the oil and gas industry, we are damn good at drilling now, with a lot of shit-hot young engineers and entrepeneurial Oil/gas veterans looking for an offramp from a dead end industry.

American Prospect:

But geothermal might be about to smash conventional growth forecasts, with the backing of a powerful ally: the oil and gas industry.

Along with the fact that Exxon pioneered lithium-ion battery research in the 1970s, it is one of the sweeter ironies of the environmental movement that oil and gas companies prepared geothermal technology for economic viability at scale.

Over the course of the last decade’s shale boom, oil field drilling companies led a revolution in directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) techniques. They perfected long, spindly pipes and fine-tuned self-adjusting diamond-cutter drill bits.

Those technologies, which can endure high temperatures and shoot water through rock, have already solved engineering challenges for geothermal. Rather than relying on places where there is a naturally occurring confluence of water, heat, and porous rock, geothermal developers now have the ability to drill into solid rock, inject water at high pressure, and collect the heated water.

Geothermal isn’t just a freak offshoot of the fossil fuel industry, however. They could be ongoing allies. Oil and gas companies, from oil field services firms to investor-owned utilities, are considering the advantages of a geothermal boom. Utilities could potentially retool gas pipelinesas clean geothermal networks, and the oil field services industry could see reason to sell its proprietary technology to geothermal developers.

Dry oil fields could be repurposed as geothermal wells, and those oil fields, like many geothermal sites, are rich in prized minerals like lithium and manganese. That could help solve the up-front cost problem, as companies seeking those minerals will offer advance market guarantees.

Through know-how and existing technology transfer alone, shale-oil drilling technology could reduce geothermal costs by 20 to 43 percent, according to a new study published by the University of Texas at Austin. That study finds that current projections of geothermal growth, which linger in the single or low double digits, undershoot dramatically.

“Much like the rise of unconventionals in oil and gas, whose meteoric ascent largely took the world by surprise, geothermal is poised for similar, exponential growth, should technology development and transfer follow the footsteps of the shale boom,” the authors predict. Even at current prices, the study finds, geothermal is poised to grow substantially as a share of Texas’s energy mix.

Project Innerspace – University of Texas:

The increasing engagement of oil and gas entities in geothermal is both reflected in and explained by outcomes of the study. Authors report that oil and gas technology and knowledge transfer into geothermal is projected to deliver 20 to 43 percent in cost savings to geothermal, using existing technologies in use in the oil and gas industry today, and that nearly 70% of oil and gas entities engaged with the study reported that there are no geothermal related technical challenges thatthe oil and gas industry cannot solve.

Continue reading “Geothermal, Coming to Hot Rocks Near You, Sooner than You Think”

Bloomberg:

France’s nuclear power plants were generating at the highest level in nearly a year, providing temporary relief in Europe’s fight to save natural gas this winter. 

The nation had 45 reactors online on Friday, producing as much as 45,360 megawatts, according to grid operator RTE. That’s the highest since Feb. 11 last year, but about 12% lower than the average of the past five years. 

That surge in output is likely to be short-lived though as fresh maintenance this month is likely to curb generation to historically low levels for this time of year. How much of France’s nuclear fleet can return to service and stay in operation will be crucial for Europe’s energy security with flows of Russian gas now mostly halted. 

Eight reactors are due to be taken off the system for maintenance this month, grid operator RTE said last month. As temperatures dip and German wind power output is poised to plunge in the coming days, they will be sorely missed and likely drive increased use of coal and gas plants. 

Output from the fleet slumped to the lowest in more than three decades last year. As a result, carbon emissions in the European Union rose 3% last year according to Ember, despite a record-setting deployment of new solar capacity.

Improved French nuclear output, along with stronger hydropower and more renewables, could help Europe cut fossil fuel power by as much as 43% this year, compared with last year, according to BloombergNEF.

Needed: More transmission.

Reposting this, as someone asked about it recently.
I’m working on a powerful new project that really gives a deeper dive into the well organized template that fossil fuel operatives are using across the heartland to intimidate farmers, landowners, or anyone that believes in a clean energy future.

Stay tuned.

This video must have literally been uploading as I typed out this morning’s post on pseudo-scientist and imposter Jordan Peterson’s pathetic forays in to climate denial.

The video is first class debunking. I did basically the same thing some 10 years ago, but looks like the BBC or somebody had a copyright claim on that piece, so nice to see someone redoing it.