The Energy Thread

[Katy Lied]

PGE declaring bankruptcy in light of the determination that the recent CA fires were due to faulty infrastructure and PGE power lines sparking fires. Ironically, during earlier ages when the spectre of nuclear accidents raised its head, the government passed a law protecting utilities from damages in excess of $2 billion due to nuclear failure. At the time, no one ever thought that a regular ol' fire could cause equivalent damage.

[Uncle Ted]

Energy Department says US is now world’s top oil producer

The United States is pumping record amounts of oil, vaulting over Russia to become the world’s biggest producer of crude.


The Energy Information Administration said Thursday that the U.S. produced more than 11.3 million barrels a day in August, a 4 percent increase over the old record set in July.


Russia’s energy ministry estimates that country pumped 11.2 million barrels a day in August. OPEC reports Saudi Arabia pumped 10.4 million barrels a day.


It’s the first time since 1973 that the U.S. leads the world in oil production.
[...]

https://www.apnews.com/e0b44d8dade84303bac92e0b49a7dbb3

LOL @ Russia and Saudi Arabia!

[falafel]

With the US on the verge of energy independence, how will our foreign policy change? I'm hoping we can extract ourselves from the Middle East soon.

Nah, just means we can melt the sands if we want.

[Bo Diddley]

With the US on the verge of energy independence, how will our foreign policy change? I'm hoping we can extract ourselves from the Middle East soon.

[Uncle Ted]

EPA finally admits ethanol mandate is causing environmental damage

The federal requirement to blend ethanol into gasoline on the theory that it will reduce the hypothetical global warming that hasn’t appeared yet has been a joke from the start. By adding a huge amount of demand for corn, it did push up prices for that commodity, and made vast swaths of the rural Midwest prosperous, though it has injured poor Mexicans and others who depend on corn for a substantial portion of their nutrition and driven up the rice of feed used for animals, raising meat prices.


The net energy balance of ethanol production – subtracting the amount of energy necessary to grow he corn, transport it to refineries, and then transport the ethanol to gasoline producers has been controversial. But owing to improvements in cultivation techniques (which have caused increased agricultural runoff – see below), the US Department of Agriculture estimated in 2015 that the balance is positive:

Ethanol made the transition from an energy sink, to a moderate net energy gain in the 1990s, and to a substantial net energy gain by 2008.

Unlike oil, which is produced in large amounts at the wellhead, corn production is widely dispersed, so pipelines can't be used to transport it. Corn is trucked to the ethanol refinery, and then the ethanol is normally shipped in tank cars to oil refineries, where it is blended into gasoline. All of this transportation uses energy and imposes a cost from accidents, including derailments. Pipelines are more efficient and safer.
[...]
Alas, the mandate is so popular with corn farmers in Iowa, home of the first round of presidential nominations, that President Trump (and other politicians) that they not only maintain the mandate, President Trump just last week “told an audience in Iowa that he was "very close" to having EPA issue a waiver to the Clean Air Act to allow year-round sale of E-15.”


The madness continues.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/08/epa_finally_admits_ethanol_mandate_is_causing_environmental_damage.html

[Moliere]

http://www.kitv.com/story/38665685/t...oil-powerhouse

:rockon2:"We're #3!"

[Uncle Ted]

Texas to pass Iraq and Iran as world's No. 3 oil powerhouse

Don't mess with Texas. It's a global oil superpower.

The shale oil boom has brought a gold rush mentality to the Lone Star State, which is home to not one but two massive oilfields.

Plunging drilling costs have sparked an explosion of production out of the Permian Basin of West Texas. In fact, Texas is pumping so much oil that it will surpass OPEC members Iran and Iraq next year, HSBC predicted in a recent report.

If it were a country, Texas would be the world's No. 3 oil producer, behind only Russia and Saudi Arabia, the investment bank said.
[...]

http://www.kitv.com/story/38665685/texas-to-pass-iraq-and-iran-as-worlds-no-3-oil-powerhouse

:rockon2:"We're #3!"

[BigPiney]

We have a swamp cooler at my house. Because usually we have single digit humidity, or at least it seems. So it works well and the cost is not bad at all to run.

This past week we have had thunderstorms every day, humidity and 100 degree temps. Pretty sure this is what hell, or the South, feels like. It was terrible. Made me wish I had air conditioning, even though I am sure my wife wouldn't let me run it due to the cost.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I love my 6.5 cents per kWh here in Utah, which is about half of what California paid in 2011. But our infrastructure is aging and when we have to build more, our energy costs will double.

Hawaii is seeking to have 100% of its energy come from renewable resources by 2040.

ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Hawaii currently pays 33 cents per kWh.

ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha


When my brother visits my sister living in Hawaii, he insists on blasting the AC day and night because he finds it too hot and humid there. My sister always gets a bill for $450 for the extra AC when he leaves. She says she should just pay for him to stay at Aulani because it would be cheaper.

Extra A/C in Hawaii? Really? Always seemed like pretty much the perfect temp to me.

[Katy Lied]

I love my 6.5 cents per kWh here in Utah, which is about half of what California paid in 2011. But our infrastructure is aging and when we have to build more, our energy costs will double.

Hawaii is seeking to have 100% of its energy come from renewable resources by 2040.

ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Hawaii currently pays 33 cents per kWh.

ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha


When my brother visits my sister living in Hawaii, he insists on blasting the AC day and night because he finds it too hot and humid there. My sister always gets a bill for $450 for the extra AC when he leaves. She says she should just pay for him to stay at Aulani because it would be cheaper.

[Moliere]

Embedded Tweet

[Pelado]

My guess (and it’s just a guess) is the inflated price is the result of the lack of predictability ofwind and solar generation on a day to day basis. In order to meet demand, the utility commissions have to scramble to find power last minute and they pay a premium for it.

I attended a meeting on renewables a while ago and they said the unpredictability of wind and solar definitely adds cost and instability to the grid.

Seems obvious that the price of electricity increases because the market share of solar/wind increases. Just because the price of those renewables have individually decreased doesn’t mean they are cheaper than coal or gas. When you use more of a more expensive form of energy, prices will likely go up unless the drop in cost of solar/wind offsets the increase in market share.

Solar/wind isn’t cheap. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen the data (I worked for the local utility years ago so I used to have it on a monthly basis) but coal/gas at that time was like 4 times cheaper per Mwh.

This also makes sense. I wonder, though, if the costs of maintaining the turbines and solar panels would still be pricier than other energy methods, or if it's just the initial capital outlay of renewables that is considerably more expensive than more traditional energy sources.

Another potential issue affecting the costs of energy in areas where they are highly focused on renewables - how much of the energy in those places has been coming from natural gas? If not very much, then that could help to explain why their costs are higher relative to the national average. Haven't natural gas prices come down significantly as a result of the additional supply brought about by the new fracking (or however that's spelled) techniques?

[Walter Sobchak]

My guess (and it’s just a guess) is the inflated price is the result of the lack of predictability ofwind and solar generation on a day to day basis. In order to meet demand, the utility commissions have to scramble to find power last minute and they pay a premium for it.

yep.

The main reason appears to have been predicted by a young German economist in 2013.

In a paper for Energy Policy, Leon Hirth estimated that the economic value of wind and solar would decline significantly as they become a larger part of electricity supply.

The reason? Their fundamentally unreliable nature. Both solar and wind produce too much energy when societies don’t need it, and not enough when they do.

Solar and wind thus require that natural gas plants, hydro-electric dams, batteries or some other form of reliable power be ready at a moment’s notice to start churning out electricity when the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining.

And unreliability requires solar- and/or wind-heavy places like Germany, California and Denmark to pay neighboring nations or states to take their solar and wind energy when they are producing too much of it.

Hirth predicted that the economic value of wind on the European grid would decline 40 percent once it becomes 30 percent of electricity while the value of solar would drop by 50 percent when it got to just 15 percent.

[Moliere]

The Energy Thread

Seems obvious that the price of electricity increases because the market share of solar/wind increases. Just because the price of those renewables have individually decreased doesn’t mean they are cheaper than coal or gas. When you use more of a more expensive form of energy, prices will likely go up unless the drop in cost of solar/wind offsets the increase in market share.

Solar/wind isn’t cheap. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen the data (I worked for the local utility years ago so I used to have it on a monthly basis) but coal/gas at that time was like 4 times cheaper per Mwh.

[Green Monstah]

My guess (and it’s just a guess) is the inflated price is the result of the lack of predictability ofwind and solar generation on a day to day basis. In order to meet demand, the utility commissions have to scramble to find power last minute and they pay a premium for it.