I'm reading a friend's enlightening book about how power system economics raises environmental...

[NNadir]

Last edited Sun Jan 9, 2022, 04:01 PM - Edit history (1)

...impact of power generation, reduces reliability, and raises consumer prices, all while placing the future at risk.

In it she discusses RTO's, "Regional Transmission Organizations" which operate largely in secrecy to build a set of arcane rules that basically benefit dangerous natural gas plants, plants which produce extreme risk to reliability.

The author of the book, Meredith Angwin is someone I consider a friend, although I have not met her, but have communicated with her on line and by private email over the last few years.

It's this book: Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid

When I finish it I will write to Meredith to tell her that she is an excellent writer, particularly as she is a technical person - it is not easy for technical people to write on a level that nontechnical people can understand - and that her short, clear chapters are all enlightening as to a very complex and arcane system.

Here on the left, we all want to say that the tragedy last winter in Texas is all somehow Greg Abbott's fault, and inasmuch as he is a champion of deregulation this is partially true, but the reality is that issues in reliability are deeper and largely structural. To depend on dangerous natural gas, with the solar and wind lipstick on the pig, is a dangerous course, since reliable electricity is critical to our health and well being.

She basically uses the Northeast United States as an example - she lives in Vermont - and describes a network of closed organizations that do not allow public review of their decisions. In the Northeast there is an organization called NEPOOL where the stakeholders include everyone involved in making money on electricity excluding consumers, but adding an anti-environmental organization (for some reason), the so called "Union of Concerned 'Scientists'" which I personally regard as an anti-environmental ignorance factory. (The chief asshole at the "Union of Concerned 'Scientists'", Edwin Lyman, is famous for explicitly not noticing that in his long and toxic life, that hundreds of millions of people have died from air pollution in the past 40 years while he prattles on about "what if" scenarios for nuclear fuel releases, which, for those that have occurred, have not delivered on his frequent representations of massive death tolls. The guy has a Ph.D. and seems to have never learned that experiment overrules theory.)

My favorite quote thus far in the whole book thus far, in Chapter 14 called trenchantly "Selling KWH Is A Losing Game" is this one:

In the long run, RTO markets punish reliable plants and support unreliable plants.

I was previously aware, from reading the writings of Charles Forsberg at MIT, about how unreliable plants negatively impact economics of reliable plants, but Meredith brings it all back to brass tacks and day to day implications. Forsberg's writings have convinced me that nuclear plants should produce electricity as a side product, as I recently mentioned in another thread.

The "deregulation" of the power industry has been a disaster for everyone and the worst is yet to come.

[captain queeg]

1. Things are certainly changing and not necessarily for the best.

I don’t know if RTOs are still a thing but there are various organizations that perform the functions of those. Just like so much else the profiteers convinced them government that private enterprise would be more efficient and economical. At any rate, it’s all about short term profit, and I don’t think electric utilities should be run that way. A lot of what got America to be the global powerhouse it is came from huge investments in infrastructure. Driving around yesterday a having my bones rattled going thru pot holes I reflected on how badly we need a major infrastructure rehab. But the Rs are so short sighted. They are happy to let the country crumble. They’ll take all the money they can grab then just move away go a gated enclave patrolled by private police.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. What's the main product? Steam heat for cities?

Forsberg's writings have convinced me that nuclear plants should produce electricity as a side product, as I recently mentioned in another thread.

[NNadir]

3. Hydrogen and carbon oxides, aka "syn gas," as well as...

...certain metals, clean water, and carbides.

This is only a partial list. A heat network should be flexible, but still minimize the use of batch processing.

[hunter]

4. This is an excellent book...

... and a harsh criticism of the techno-bros fantasy that renewable energy and "free markets" (which are not actually free or transparent) will magically displace fossil fuels.

It's my personal opinion that this ideology will prolong our dependence on fossil fuels, especially natural gas, and further harm lower income consumers.

Aggressive renewable energy schemes in places like California, Germany, and Denmark have failed.

The natural gas fueled power system in Texas has already suffered one deadly and economically catastrophic failure. The only thing propping up anti-nuclear Europe this harsh winter was coal power plants, the very same power plants that hybrid natural gas / renewable energy systems were supposed to displace.