In mid-January 2024, Alberta's grid experienced record electricity demand as Artic air sent temperatures plunging. Meanwhile, wind and solar output all but disappeared.
I see solar and wind as good technologies to supplement existing ones, but I can't imagine solar and wind being the main grid energy provides. It's dangerous and stupid to aim for that.
I personally think for the power grid nuclear is the best ecologic and scalable option.
These kind of analyses of local electrical grids clearly show that both wind and solar are highly constrained by geography. Solar and wind make sense for a few unusual geographies, but not most of the world. Particularly not in Asia where the majority of humans live and energy needs are the greatest.
Thank you for this in depth look at the Alberta grid. I live in Alberta and there is a lot of criticism of our provincial government over the grid. Electricity in most provinces is a provincial government monopoly and prices are lower. But, these provinces have legacy hydroelectric power. Try to build a new hydroelectric dam. Our First Nations are sick and tired of having their land flooded out with minimal compensation. And, the population of Alberta keeps growing because we have a free enterprise spirit and an oil and gas industry that subsidizes the province. Overall it is a good place to live. We'll get some more gas fired power plants soon and the grid will be ok for awhile. The provincial government is trying to minimize the destabilizing effects of adding too many "renewables".
As an aside, I have an off grid cabin in British Columbia. I'm concerned about the new LiFeP batteries that are in a shed in the freezing cold. About -30C. I hope they survive. Anyone have any experience with this type of battery at these temperatures? I will find out soon enough if they survive this cold snap.
It is a crime what happened in Alberta. And the Keystone pipeline which would have exported badly needed heavy oil to US refineries. That's diesel and diesel is the life blood of the economy. The Crony Biden regime are traitors to America.
Nuclear was always the path forward for Alberta to clear the way for future Oil Sands development.
Bruce Power wanted to build 4.4 GW of domestic CANDU reactors near Peace River in 2007, instead of Alberta throwing $billions down the sewer on Chinese built nutty wind & solar scams. As soon as that project was announced these slimy, foreign funded ENGOs sprouted out of nowhere like "The Alliance for a Nuclear Free Alberta" which kiboshed the deal. The whole energy infrastructure in Alberta has been under supreme attack from foreign funded ENGOs, whom accept only one form of energy = nutty Wind & Solar scams. Anyone who supports wind & solar in Alberta is a toadie for the foreign agents of economic destruction for Alberta.
Fortunately, they are belatedly joining 3 other provinces in an SMR development program which would facilitate to using them for power and steam for Oil Sands extraction:
Strategic Plan for Deployment of SMRs Nuclear Power for Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick & Ontario, Small Modular Reactors. May 2022:
Fed up with those corrupt organizations destroying Alberta's economy, the Alberta Gov't funded Steve Allan to do the Nemeth Report, a public inquiry into anti-Alberta energy campaigns. Of course all the pseudo-environmentalists were screaming "CONSPIRACY THEORIES, CONSPIRACY THEORIES" at the top of their lungs. They sure didn't like anyone revealing the sources of their $billions in funding = foreign funded mostly.
Much warmer down here in the western addition (10F currently). We have been feeding the "Old Timer" fireplace insert with oak for the last 2 days. Looks like the cold front will move out of the area in a couple of days.
Thanks for the details on how the grid was keep up during the latest weather event up north. The "Survive, not operate" detail seems to be important........ I recall that engine block heaters came in handy when trying to operate trucks/cars in upstate Minnesota during winter.
Cudos to the old fart electrical grid engineers and managers that didn't cave with no backup plan to the Green Weenies. You saved hundreds or thousands of lives. Well done.
Great highlight of minimum allowable operating temperatures. This is a WIDELY overlooked fact by investors and project managers of plants who don’t consider how cold or warm a site may get. Warm weather can sometimes have a cost but cold weather always does (space heating and materials). If you aren’t running, your revenue that day is $0.
This situation is very reminiscent to Texas spat with polar vortex conditions few years back. And what made the situation worse? After investigation it was concluded that the state over relied on renewables-namely wind-destroy it's based load capacity-by non investment-forcing the Texas on more than few occasions to overwork it's based load natural gas plants compounded by the fact that a shortage of labor added to the issue-yes cold pipes freeze & you need labor to unthaw those pipes, who knew. This lack of insight cause direct deaths. It worked the same why when the heat wave hit wind was not there because of wind speeds-yet no deaths so climate hawks should keep that in mind.
The point is that electrical production cannot be meet with current renewables. It has to match demand and frequency-between 60 or 80 hz depending on country-and Albert is another example of why renewables are a waste of good carbon chasing bad production.
One or two reactors could have gone a very long way in avoiding the crisis in the past few days. But, better late than never.
If you decide to write a Substack, you’ve got lots to write on. And we’d subscribe. Thank you for sharing the links.
I see solar and wind as good technologies to supplement existing ones, but I can't imagine solar and wind being the main grid energy provides. It's dangerous and stupid to aim for that.
I personally think for the power grid nuclear is the best ecologic and scalable option.
Nice analysis.
These kind of analyses of local electrical grids clearly show that both wind and solar are highly constrained by geography. Solar and wind make sense for a few unusual geographies, but not most of the world. Particularly not in Asia where the majority of humans live and energy needs are the greatest.
Correction: Wind energy is proportional to the CUBE of wind speed, not the square of wind speed:
https://www.irena.org/Energy-Transition/Technology/Wind-energy
Thank you for this in depth look at the Alberta grid. I live in Alberta and there is a lot of criticism of our provincial government over the grid. Electricity in most provinces is a provincial government monopoly and prices are lower. But, these provinces have legacy hydroelectric power. Try to build a new hydroelectric dam. Our First Nations are sick and tired of having their land flooded out with minimal compensation. And, the population of Alberta keeps growing because we have a free enterprise spirit and an oil and gas industry that subsidizes the province. Overall it is a good place to live. We'll get some more gas fired power plants soon and the grid will be ok for awhile. The provincial government is trying to minimize the destabilizing effects of adding too many "renewables".
As an aside, I have an off grid cabin in British Columbia. I'm concerned about the new LiFeP batteries that are in a shed in the freezing cold. About -30C. I hope they survive. Anyone have any experience with this type of battery at these temperatures? I will find out soon enough if they survive this cold snap.
It is a crime what happened in Alberta. And the Keystone pipeline which would have exported badly needed heavy oil to US refineries. That's diesel and diesel is the life blood of the economy. The Crony Biden regime are traitors to America.
Nuclear was always the path forward for Alberta to clear the way for future Oil Sands development.
Bruce Power wanted to build 4.4 GW of domestic CANDU reactors near Peace River in 2007, instead of Alberta throwing $billions down the sewer on Chinese built nutty wind & solar scams. As soon as that project was announced these slimy, foreign funded ENGOs sprouted out of nowhere like "The Alliance for a Nuclear Free Alberta" which kiboshed the deal. The whole energy infrastructure in Alberta has been under supreme attack from foreign funded ENGOs, whom accept only one form of energy = nutty Wind & Solar scams. Anyone who supports wind & solar in Alberta is a toadie for the foreign agents of economic destruction for Alberta.
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/canada-nuclear-power.aspx
Fortunately, they are belatedly joining 3 other provinces in an SMR development program which would facilitate to using them for power and steam for Oil Sands extraction:
Strategic Plan for Deployment of SMRs Nuclear Power for Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick & Ontario, Small Modular Reactors. May 2022:
https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/de9ebaba-81a7-456e-81a2-2c57cb11412e/resource/62319fa5-aa5a-4329-b980-5c85a924c7c7/download/energy-interprovincial-strategic-plan-deployment-of-smrs-2022.pdf
Fed up with those corrupt organizations destroying Alberta's economy, the Alberta Gov't funded Steve Allan to do the Nemeth Report, a public inquiry into anti-Alberta energy campaigns. Of course all the pseudo-environmentalists were screaming "CONSPIRACY THEORIES, CONSPIRACY THEORIES" at the top of their lungs. They sure didn't like anyone revealing the sources of their $billions in funding = foreign funded mostly.
https://www.alberta.ca/public-inquiry-into-anti-alberta-energy-campaigns.aspx
https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/c9dc1da7-ba4a-4944-addd-758a5c5d3e87/resource/abac6864-af4a-462d-a25c-2903f04a0476/download/energy-public-inquiry-into-anti-alberta-energy-campaigns-key-findings.pdf
https://open.alberta.ca/publications/public-inquiry-into-anti-alberta-energy-campaigns-report
https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/3176fd2d-670b-4c4a-b8a7-07383ae43743/resource/a814cae3-8dd2-4c9c-baf1-cf9cd364d2cb/download/energy-report-public-inquiry-anti-alberta-energy-campaigns-2021.pdf
Much warmer down here in the western addition (10F currently). We have been feeding the "Old Timer" fireplace insert with oak for the last 2 days. Looks like the cold front will move out of the area in a couple of days.
Thanks for the details on how the grid was keep up during the latest weather event up north. The "Survive, not operate" detail seems to be important........ I recall that engine block heaters came in handy when trying to operate trucks/cars in upstate Minnesota during winter.
Cudos to the old fart electrical grid engineers and managers that didn't cave with no backup plan to the Green Weenies. You saved hundreds or thousands of lives. Well done.
From personal experience. When the sky is not most!y clear, your solar output plummets! Add cold onto that and you are screwed!
Great highlight of minimum allowable operating temperatures. This is a WIDELY overlooked fact by investors and project managers of plants who don’t consider how cold or warm a site may get. Warm weather can sometimes have a cost but cold weather always does (space heating and materials). If you aren’t running, your revenue that day is $0.
This situation is very reminiscent to Texas spat with polar vortex conditions few years back. And what made the situation worse? After investigation it was concluded that the state over relied on renewables-namely wind-destroy it's based load capacity-by non investment-forcing the Texas on more than few occasions to overwork it's based load natural gas plants compounded by the fact that a shortage of labor added to the issue-yes cold pipes freeze & you need labor to unthaw those pipes, who knew. This lack of insight cause direct deaths. It worked the same why when the heat wave hit wind was not there because of wind speeds-yet no deaths so climate hawks should keep that in mind.
The point is that electrical production cannot be meet with current renewables. It has to match demand and frequency-between 60 or 80 hz depending on country-and Albert is another example of why renewables are a waste of good carbon chasing bad production.