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Author Topic: Rolling Blackouts in the South  (Read 1392 times)

KF5LJW

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Re: Rolling Blackouts in the South
« Reply #15 on: February 16, 2021, 02:44:39 PM »

I think we would have been much father down the independent home road by now, had we had listened to Edison instead of Westinghouse.

You are kidding right? Neither had it right, Tesla had it right with AC. Edison has his DC system. It was made for one purpose, to sell Edison DC light-bulb. NYC was on Edison's DC system up until 2007 when it was shut down and replaced with AC.

Bipolar high voltage DC is great for transmission from point A to point B,  and combining windmill output power, but for distribution, DC does not work. To difficult and expensive to regulate prone to interruptions from active equipment.
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NA4IT

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Re: Rolling Blackouts in the South
« Reply #16 on: February 16, 2021, 02:53:22 PM »

The idea of having a solar system with batteries just to power the main refrigerator come to mind.
We have blackouts during the heat waves so its easy to spoil food.
I'd be a hero in the house if I could make a system big enough,

You might want to think solar again...

"Germany turns back to coal and natural gas as millions of its solar panels are blanketed in snow and ice."

https://worldnewsera.com/news/startups/germanys-green-energy-failure-germany-turns-back-to-coal-and-natural-gas-as-millions-of-its-solar-panels-are-blanketed-in-snow-and-ice-tech-news-startup/
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AA4PB

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Re: Rolling Blackouts in the South
« Reply #17 on: February 16, 2021, 03:00:07 PM »

I saw a similar comment online regarding the situation in Germany.  Apparently the leader for green energy in Europe currently has most of their solar panel covered with snow and there's no wind.

Put the wind generators in front of the podiums and they would have all the wind they need.

They wouldn't need any heat either because it would all be hot air  ;D
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Bob  AA4PB
Garrisonville, VA

KC6RWI

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Re: Rolling Blackouts in the South
« Reply #18 on: February 16, 2021, 04:07:56 PM »

Lets take those 2 ideas, solar and dc current, and make a really big battery probably the size of one of the great lakes that can power the country.
No inverter loss.
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N8AUC

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Re: Rolling Blackouts in the South
« Reply #19 on: February 16, 2021, 06:38:01 PM »

It also points to the challenges ahead for those that think we should all go to electric cars overnight...

- Glenn W9IQ

Actually, Glen, I kind of think electric cars are a good idea for several reasons.
The biggest one to me is that they have fewer moving parts, which should make them more reliable.
They also produce instant torque when you hit the accelerator, which takes some getting used to for
people used to how a gas powered car behaves. People (with fatter wallets than mine) who own an
electric car like the Tesla, tell me the feeling you get from that instant torque is exhilarating. But I've
never driven one, much less rode in one, so that info is second hand at best.

But they also have downsides like:
1) Lack of places to recharge the batteries away from home. This will probably improve over time, but
    we sure aren't there yet. I don't expect to see widespread, voluntary adoption until it's as easy to
    charge an electric vehicle away from home as it is to fuel a gas powered car.
2) Range reduced in the winter because battery capacity drops as the temperature does.

A parallel hybrid, like the Toyota Prius is a decent compromise due to the reduced fuel consumption.

But I think a better solution, for now, would be the series hybrid. Which is what the original design
for the Chevy Volt was supposed to be. In a series hybrid, you have a small gas engine that runs at a
fixed speed, optimized for minimal fuel consumption, whose only job is to drive an electric generator
that produces power for the all-electric drive train. Problem is, GM abandoned the original series
hybrid concept for the Volt, because supposedly they couldn't get all the bugs out of the software in
a timely enough fashion. When they actually built and sold the Volt, it ended up being a parallel
hybrid like the Prius.

Maybe someday, electric cars will be a viable product. But that day certainly isn't today.

73 de N8AUC
Eric
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WA8NVW

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Re: Rolling Blackouts in the South
« Reply #20 on: February 16, 2021, 09:08:23 PM »

Well, Eric, series-hybrid is exactly the method used in the diesel-electric locomotives that propel rail rolling stock all across this continent. Those GE locomotives are slightly bigger than a Prius, though.
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K6BRN

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Re: Rolling Blackouts in the South
« Reply #21 on: February 16, 2021, 10:51:02 PM »

The news is reporting:

The Southwest Power Pool has ordered member electric utilities in 14 states to start controlled rolling cutoffs of electric service because the demand for power in the region, driven upward by the bitter cold, is overwhelming the available generation, hampered by the storm.

This is a good reminder for all of us to have our emergency communications power sources ready for operation. We are already experiencing cell tower problems in the area, presumably due to cell tower generators failing to start or terrestrial microwave links hampered by the weather.

It also points to the challenges ahead for those that think we should all go to electric cars overnight...

- Glenn W9IQ

Yes.  There has been great pressure to shut down nuclear, natural gas, coal and oil fired generators and phase in "clean, renewable" wind and solar power.  Much of this has been done without regard to preserving system reserve capacity and redundancy.  Adding to the problem, companies running deregulated energy grids have taken advantage of this to reduce generating capacity and hence costs to a minimum, mothballing fossil fuel plants in CA, TX and many other states and releasing the majority of the operating crews.  Plant restart from cold standby can easily take a week.  As an environmental political football, this sounds great - less pollution - renewable - YAY!.  As practical reality, it's a disaster waiting to happen.  Especially when wind and solar are periodic power sources with relatively low reliability and when weather patterns are changing.

In the meantime, both CA and TX has been encouraging a move to electrical heat pumps, from natural gas, propane and oil heating, for the past decade.  CA has actually banned new natural gas hookups in some cities (insane).  Heat pumps put a heavy burden on the electrical grid that increases astronomically when the ourdoor temperature falls below their "balance point" and reserve electrical resistance heaters kick in to supplement their heat output.

Texas just found out what those strategies lead too, especially with an obviously changing climate - its NOT always warmer - and REALLY HOT is just as bad.  CA is probably next (AGAIN - from the Enron debacle to the very close call and rolling blackouts during last summer's heat wave), but has a more benign environment with respect to COLD.  The Northeast is still hanging on to their nuclear plants - for a reason.  They understand what being without heat and power really means.

So imagine what happens when all gas appliances are gone - and then furnaces, clothes dryers, stoves, water heaters and ... CARS ... load this already stretched to the limit and not terribly reliable electrical grid.  For a while, states that have capacity issues will be able to buy electricity from states that have a surplus for 10x the going rate.  But there is just not a lot of surplus.  And then the system collapses.  As it did a few years ago in CA and as it is happening today in TX.  People die when this happens.

Time to get qualified engineers and infrastructure planners back into the game and do some rational, long-term, REAL planning and investment. AND regulate electrical reliability and capacity.  This is a critical resouce whose integrity can NEVER be left to the whims of short-term profit (only) oriented businesses or political/social special interests that take absolutely no responsibility for their poorly planned schemes.  In short, if we are going to evolve our energy economy, we need to think it through, not "spray and pray".

CT found out the hard way they had to do this a few years ago after outages across the state left many, many customers without service for more than a week during the late fall/ early winter due to lack of line maintenence - a simple windstorm took down most of the state electrical grid.  Then it happened again the next year.  After that, legistation and mandatory fines were levied for preventable outages and reliability has improved a great deal.

Deterioration of our national electrical grid is one reason why I have backup generators at all of my QTHs (and have to USE them at least a few times a year) as well as a modest solar backup capacity for the amateur stations, a few lights and charging purposes.

Brian - K6BRN
« Last Edit: February 16, 2021, 11:12:19 PM by K6BRN »
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SOFAR

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Re: Rolling Blackouts in the South
« Reply #22 on: February 16, 2021, 10:52:43 PM »

Maybe someday, electric cars will be a viable product. But that day certainly isn't today.

73 de N8AUC
Eric

Its been over a century.
In 1897 NYC had a fleet of electric taxis.
"In 1891, in Des Moines, IA, William Morrison built the first electric car with any success in the United States. In 1889, Thomas Edison built an electric vehicle using nickel-alkaline batteries. "

"In 1899, the first hybrid car running on gasoline and electricity was invented by Porsche."
http://www.automostory.com/first-electric-car.htm#:~:text=The%20first%20electric%20car%20was%20a%20crude%20beast.,also%20credited%20with%20building%20the%20first%20electric%20car
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K6BRN

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Re: Rolling Blackouts in the South
« Reply #23 on: February 16, 2021, 11:07:40 PM »

Individually, electric cars are practical today, though not has convienient as gas or diesel powered ones.  Elon Musk made that point very well with Tesla.  Nice cars.  But not inexpensive.  So - practical for SOME people.

The problem is how to charge them.  Replacing chemical fuels with power from the electrical grid or even wind/solar will require radical investments in grid and home solar/energy storage systems.  In particular, electical energy generation and distribution is not particularly efficient, more than offsetting the claimed efficiency of current electric cars.  In reality, these "electric" cars are mostly buring natural gas at a distant power plant, that then sends the electrical power to the car.  and there are major losses at every step of the process - generation, distribution, battery charging.

Our electrical grid is NOT designed to handle that load today - it was mostly designed in the 1950's and 1960's with a specific use mindset that we're outgrowing.  It COULD be upgraded, if every home had solar panels and storage batteries to supplement the grid.  And if grid capacity were upgraded and Arizona and Nevada paved over with solar cells and massive Li-Ion storage plants to make electrical losses in charging electric car batteries a non-issue.  But that takes time.  And LOTS of investment.  And lots of environmental impact.  (Oooops!  There goes the "Law of Unintended Consequences" again!)

- RANT COMPLETE - NOW MOTHBALLING RANT GENERATION SYSTEM TO SAVE ENERGY -

Brian - K6BRN
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K6BRN

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Re: Rolling Blackouts in the South
« Reply #24 on: February 17, 2021, 12:05:48 AM »

I think we would have been much father down the independent home road by now, had we had listened to Edison instead of Westinghouse.

You are kidding right? Neither had it right, Tesla had it right with AC. Edison has his DC system. It was made for one purpose, to sell Edison DC light-bulb. NYC was on Edison's DC system up until 2007 when it was shut down and replaced with AC.

Bipolar high voltage DC is great for transmission from point A to point B,  and combining windmill output power, but for distribution, DC does not work. To difficult and expensive to regulate prone to interruptions from active equipment.

Gentlemen:

The Tesla Polyphase AC System was the right system at the right time for the state of technology when it came out in 1871, and easily up to the end of the 20th century.  It was and remains brilliant.  When he worked for Edison, Tesla tried to convince him to consider the approach, but Edison was already too invested in his DC distribution infrastructure to back out and he refused.  So Tesla left Edison's workshops, patented the Polyphase System himself and went to work for George Westinghouse, who licensed Tesla's patents at a rate that could have made Tesla very wealthy.  Could have.

Edison's incandescent light bulb designs did not care whether it ran off of AC or DC.

Tesla's AC Polyphase System reduced power transmission losses by many orders of magnitude by boosting transmission line voltages tremendously, reducing resistive losses by reducing current.  Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, it was possible to send electical power hundreds and then thousands of miles, with good regulation, rather than just a few city blocks, as with DC.  Transmission line voltages were then stepped down for home use by means of simple, reliable iron and wire transformers - well understood and easy to produce in those days.  There was no practical way to do the same thing with DC - no solid state inverters/voltage converters.  Motor/generators were required - motors with BRUSHES that wore down quickly.

Not only did Tesla invent the polyphase AC electical distribution system, but as a capstone invented the brushless induction motor - only ONE moving part.  Remarkably simple in execution and brilliantly elegant in concept.  It was NOT an obvious concept.

Then Tesla literally gave away his patents to George Westinghouse during his "current wars" with Edison, to make sure the world would benefit from his truely incredible inventions.  Because Edison's attacks on Westinhouse were driving him to the brink of insolvency.  Releasing the patent rights and lucrative royalties to Westinhouse changed the financial balance in Westinghouse's favor.  After many legal battles, Edison jumped on the AC bandwagon, too.  He HAD to, in order to grow the electrical grid in a practical way where everybody could afford to use it.  More customers, more profit.  His backers knew that.

Tesla lived out his later life as a poor man, oddly enough living well at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City, supported by J.P. Morgan, who hoped for a new "miracle" Tesla invention - like Broadcast Power.  Look up "Long Island Broadcast Power Station" for some interesting reading.

Today we have a mix of both AC and DC long distance transmission lines - because we have the means to efficiently convert DC and AC voltages up and down in voltage and to different frequencies using better technologies.  Still, AC remains strong in long distance distribution.  And DC lines require periodic cleaning - a very dangerous job - due to the dust and debris they accumulate due to their fixed and very high electrical charge.

Edison was a man who achieved genius through trial and error and by renting the minds of other extremely capable people in his Menlo Park invention factory.  Much of what he "invented" he never understood very well.  Edison contributed the vision of what COULD be and sold it well, yielding the financial means to realize success, and that, by itself, was brilliant.  He used people, defamed them, schemed constantly and bragged about cheating (even at telegraph/morse code testing).  A true business tycoon of the day.

Tesla WAS genius, pure and simple.  And like many extreme examples of this type of talent, his primary contributions came early in his life and were never surpassed by his later efforts.  Making a concept viable - putting it into practice - is what he lived for.  And he was a pretty strange and complex man.

George Westinghouse, whom Tesla allied himself with after leaving Edison, was also a brilliant man, inventor and humanitarian.  Westinghouse built his company on his own invention of "fail safe" air brakes for trains, whose previous feeble mechanical brakes were responsible for many, many fatal crashes.  He saw a need and figured out a way to fill it that changed railroading forever.  As with Tesla, we still use his designs today.  And when hard economic times hit, George Westinghouse found a way to preserve the jobs of many of his employees, even if he had to reduce pay or working hours for a time, when most firms were simply letting their workers go without regard for their families.  Another remarkable man.  Not perfect, but very, very admirable.

Nothing shabby about the Tesla Polyphase System, even today.

Brian - K6BRN
« Last Edit: February 17, 2021, 12:07:50 AM by K6BRN »
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WO7R

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Re: Rolling Blackouts in the South
« Reply #25 on: February 17, 2021, 12:17:09 AM »

Quote
Lack of places to recharge the batteries away from home. This will probably improve over time, but
    we sure aren't there yet. I don't expect to see widespread, voluntary adoption until it's as easy to
    charge an electric vehicle away from home as it is to fuel a gas powered car.

Maybe.  But these cars have low cost of ownership.  Low enough that one might be able to afford to rent an ICE car for vacations in the meantime.  And, I fly to a lot of my vacation spots anyway, so in a lot of respects, I only/mostly have to consider local driving.  I'm not alone.

My daughter has an electric car and it works just fine for her.

I am seriously considering an all electric for my next car.  When they get to 300 miles of range, that will cover me for my routine and not so routine driving around the Phoenix Metro (including the fact that I live about 20 miles south of the Metro, proper).  So, I can charge it at home like 99 per cent of the time.  And there are just enough charging places around the Metro area, even in 2021, to manage the rest.

My daughter is getting by with only about 175 miles of range.  I don't think I can quite manage that, but I am pretty sure I can manage 300 and the electric cars are all starting to get that kind of range now.

The power distribution problem is a real thing, but the cost of providing a charger is way, way less than a gas station for any given business that wants to do it as a side business.

Why do I know that?  Because I added the necessary service to my house.  You just basically have to have room for about 60 amps at 200 volts.  The wiring for that is not cheap, but it is doable unless you have to upgrade your service (which I did not).

Now, if you want to do this on a business scale, you'd have to add some sort of kiosk infrastructure to that.  That probably costs more than the wiring cost.  But these days, that sort of thing is cheap and incremental.

I expect that a lot of businesses (restaurants, particularly) will discover, as the car volumes kick up, that having one or two of these chargers in their parking lots is anywhere from a draw to an actual charge-for-it moneymaker.

A restaurant may find it makes sense to have their customers charge up and come in and eat.

This is the kind of problem that just plain gets solved.  I don't think we need any sort of national plan for it.  The costs, on a business-by-business basis are incremental and it's just a question as to when/whether they see an advantage for it.

Now it's down to the problem of having enough electricity in the grid, but that problem will exist in any event and really represents an opportunity, not a problem on the whole.  You don't think the electric utilities wouldn't love a crack at displacing gasoline?

We didn't get our automobile system overnight and we won't get electric cars overnight either.  But, I think it is possible we are reaching a tipping point.

There's a lot of things that seem impossible until the solid business case arrives.  When (I believe not "if") electric cars reach that threshold, the issues we're discussing will transform to business opportunities and get solved over time.

If people decide they want electric cars, they will get them just like we got gasoline cars.  That wasn't overnight either but just about nobody (except the ridiculous "get a horse" crowd) thought it wouldn't happen.

« Last Edit: February 17, 2021, 12:21:20 AM by WO7R »
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SOFAR

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Re: Rolling Blackouts in the South
« Reply #26 on: February 17, 2021, 04:08:38 AM »

NYC was on Edison's DC system up until 2007 when it was shut down and replaced with AC.

What a false, and misleading statement.

There was no 'DC system'. Phase out of DC began in 1928. AC was being converted to DC for the few buildings that still needed it to run elevators etc.

AC is still converted to DC to run the subway cars.
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NQ3M

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Re: Rolling Blackouts in the South
« Reply #27 on: February 17, 2021, 04:55:30 AM »

The Edison/Westinghouse comment I made was to reference where we would be in todays home power storage & usage. I submit had we went that route most all homes in todays world would be stand alone not grid tied. However that would require home owners to be something most are never going to be, as it's much easier to throw money at something then lay blame when some service or product does not perform perfect 100% of the time.

EPG usage conversations never seem to be a topic many what to hear or partake of. Easier to throw money & walk on I guess. Energy audits are not hot topics with most, until you can prove a slight change will save your company Millions of dollars each year after the change is made.  Or when buying XXX unit may cost 4 million more up front, but the fuel saving alone(heat rate) will save you 2.75 million a year during it's 25 year life cycle alone.

Short term logic, coupled with how much a month, is so prevalent in the consuming energy world it's almost a mental disorder.

Had we expended as much time an money on energy usage and storage all these years where would we be now? 

If I remember correctly long ago we found out Crystal sets would operated w/o a meter attached? However there's no money to be made there, so change the narrative. 

No I am not a tree hugger. However I would like to leave this earth knowing man has his thinking cap on and is not wasting reserves do to being lazy. Or just happy to throw money at something to kick the can farther down the road. Or to just get that project off his desk.

Kenneth

PS
IIRC it takes more energy to build, locate & hook up a large wind machine, than the same machine will produce in it's life cycle. Lot's of money to be made there so hide that truth.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2021, 04:59:44 AM by NQ3M »
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K6BRN

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Re: Rolling Blackouts in the South
« Reply #28 on: February 17, 2021, 08:44:32 AM »

Kenneth:

"Had we expended as much time an money on energy usage and storage all these years where would we be now? "

Energy storage has always been a key problem, with previous solutions being pumped water storage at the top of mountains feeding reversable pump/generators, as with the Northfield, Massachusetts facility, and more recently (failed) wet-cell battery storage substations in use by a few states to smooth over lumpy energy demands, and even molten salt or sodium solar energy storage at solar/thermal plants in California.

It hasn't been until recently that battery technology has evolved to the point that large battery storage facilities are becoming somewhat technically feasible, due to both energy density and cell life.  But financially, these facilities are still way too expensive - much more technology evolution is needed before we get there in a practical way.

Brian - K6BRN
« Last Edit: February 17, 2021, 08:49:47 AM by K6BRN »
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KF5LJW

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Re: Rolling Blackouts in the South
« Reply #29 on: February 17, 2021, 09:14:38 AM »

Batteries are a loosing game. Not only will triple your kwh cost with constant replacement cycles, the big issue is a negative EROI meaning you will never get more energy out of a battery, than it took to make the battery in the first place. Battery system are fifty dirty with a larger CO2 footprint. Something the Green Mafia does not want anyone to know.

Hydro is tapped out in the USA, there is no more land for water storage. I take that back, California would make a good lake bed or NOLA. All energy storage systems are fairly inefficient but some like batteries are really nasty stuff. Guess who has most of the Lithium mines in the world? Our enemy China and Russia has the biggest deposits.

The answer is nuclear energy. Clean with more than 1,000,000 years of proven cheap supply right under your feet. Problem is the Green Mafia is in control of your lives, and you do not even know it. They have most people brainwashed. The brainwashing started when you were young and in school and continues to this day.

Today energy is the source of al evil and wrong doing. Ask Joe.
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