Here is an interesting wat to visualize how well Wind and Solar can cover for each other. This is often pointed to as a reason they can be for almost all base supply. Data is For Ontario, and plots the daily average CF of each against each other across 2 years. 🔌💡

The outright threats coming from a broad swath of prominent US politicians over forest fire smoke are the most blunt evidence of how the US is not going back to what it was post Trump. This is *not* temporary, the character of the country has changed, and not for the better!

Proportional Representation: I have my misgivings about further centralization of power in the leadership, loss of local representation, and tendency towards extreemism. I think I found a version I can get behind!

In the wake of this energy crisis, everyone 'energy secuity' minded should add a sliding imports tarriff from any energy outside the 'reliable' supply zone. Something like ($100-purchase price)*25% for oil. This would push towards more resiliant energy supply chains. 🔌💡

What if the US decides to stop the war, but the remnants of the IRGC just *don't*? If they keep taking potshots at ships and infrastructure, what then? If there was ever a war where Pottery Barn rules apply...

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux@bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 5mo ago

These guys basically now have to fix the Strait of Hormuz or they might as well toss in the towel and rebrand as the Whig Party. And no one has the foggiest f***ing clue how to fix the Strait of Hormuz.

Retail rate structure has become a big topic. Let's logic this out. The old system depends mostly on fueled resources, where the fuel cost is the majority of the cost. Between marginal pricing and inframarginal rents, the fixed costs of the facilities were paid for. 🔌💡

Let's talk about peak heating. During winter storm Fern, Enbridge (the gas utility) has stated peak gas delivery was 90GWt. We had ~8GW of gas power (say ~15GWt consumption), and there is ~15GW of non-weather responsive gas demand, leaving ~60GWt peak weather responsive demand. 🔌💡

I have been banging on this, especially in the context of the risks with a high capacity, low utlization natural gas supply system.

Josh Lappen@jlappen1.bsky.social · 6mo ago

New from @gruberte.bsky.social and I in @science.org: The energy transition is at risk, and energy models are missing the threat. Fossil energy networks from oil to coal to gas have minimum viable scales of operation, and those thresholds are closer than we think: www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.... 💡🔌

And of course wind drops off right as we get to the coldest weather of the system... It had been having a great week prior to that but anouther example with very low capacity value in ELCC defining conditions. 🔌💡

Found in my files from March, 2016. I think it holds up quite well...

Do one doubts that you can make a firm dominant grid work. They have enough hydro and biomass capacity to cover their firm demand, but not enough water to cover their annual GWh. This is a great use of VRE as a resevoir extender, but doesn't scale / extend unless you have the hydro resource. 🔌💡

Justin@ediparolev.bsky.social · 7mo ago

“Uruguay did what most nations still call impossible: it built a power grid that runs almost entirely on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. The physicist who led that transformation says the same playbook could work anywhere—if governments have the courage to change the rules.”

Some thoughs on Yesterday. -The US was arguably hegemonic but not imperial previously. It is now imperial. (In attitude at least). -There is a major mismatch between the MAGA project aims and US corporate interests. Expect corporate independence to be challenged to ensure they follow along.

And this is a big chunk of why I'm not enthused about the 'default plan' of a natural gas firm system, with solar and wind 'fuel saving' as much as they economically can...

Kevin J. Kircher@kevinjkircher.com · last yr.

It's true that lowering capacity factors for fossil gas generators helps, but I think even most energy wonks don't appreciate how much methane is emitted from the supply chain that feeds those generators. It's enormous and the leaks are about the same whether the plant runs 80% or 20% of the time.

With this, we should have a lifetime capitol gains exemption. That is X$ of capitol gains you can exempt from income tax. This exemption replaces tax-free saving accounts, primary residence capitol gains exemptions, and inheritance tax exemptions. The remaining amount grows with inflation.

Jesse@ember42.bsky.social · last yr.

Heterodox opinion: There should be no corporate income tax.

Heterodox opinion: There should be no corporate income tax.

Peak heating solved! xkcd.com/3099/

Neighbor-Source Heat Pump

xkcd.com

Pick at least one of: -Mass scale H2 from intermittently available energy used for power (TW and 10's+TWh) -Mass scale CCS AND DAC (GT/y+ scale for each) -Mass scale nuclear (TWs) Or -Shallow Decarbonization (~10GT/y). More likley pick 1 as a major and anouther as a partial.

A few comments on the @mark-carney.bsky.social platform released today. You can find it here: liberal.ca/cstrong/. I provided some 'sounding board' advice here and there to those working on the platform. As always: I disclose, but you can decide what weight to put on that. Thread below...

Canada Strong | Liberal Party of Canada

Download our plan

liberal.ca

Canada here. We want Hegseth right where he is.

And interesting part is that the Canadian Government is providing a backstop for utilities to expand orders and guarantee the future demand for the factory, so it's been expanded there, where without that, a US factory remains closed. Wish they had the lead time diff for each country though...

Akshat Rathi@akshatrathi.bsky.social · last yr.

For the past few months, I’ve been working on a story that was set to reveal this week one of the biggest bottlenecks to our clean, electrified future. Then on Thursday night, it blew up. Not my story, but the very thing—transformers—I was reporting on. Gift link: www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

Elbows up, Canada.

🚨TARIFFS🚨 Here's a story that tells you lots about the reality of tariffs: both for those paying them & those hoping to benefit from them. A story of ships, storms, bad luck and bad policy. It begins a week and a bit ago, with a man frantically refreshing his web browser...

Here is a really interesting thread on 'practical drift', 'normalization of deviance' and 'slack'. Slack (and 'harvesting slack') is a very important consideration I think is under appreciated broadly including in our energy systems #energysky

Patricia Aas 🐢🏳️‍🌈@patigallardo.bsky.social · last yr.

I have a whole theory on the inertia of organizations and how it can both save the org, but also mislead leadership into thinking <whatever> is working. And short story is that things can be incredibly resilient if they are heathy, and shockingly brittle if they are not. 🧵

This sort of top-down analysis is incredibly naive and demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how auto OEM businesses work. They are all heavily dependent on profits in North America, and North American auto supply chains are all dependent on the flow of components across to/from CA/MX.

Gonna be a whole lot of people reading up on incoterms tonight, and reading through their contracts to see which ones they used...

Should we be setting a climate action level target like we set a NATO defense spending target? Say a target of 2% of GDP. As a security issue the same as the defense spending target? #energysky

Not done with this one.

I like the concept (in hydrogenous neighborhoods anyway - not sure if it would be as effective in all residential). A few questions though -What is the overall cost per unit served? Sure if can be financed via the utility but still an important consideration.

David Roberts@volts.wtf · 2y ago

Today on Volts: thermal energy networks are the new hotness! Replacing fossil gas pipes & furnaces with water pipes & heat pumps was a niche idea not long ago. Now the first pilot is completed & dozens more are on the way. This is how natgas companies can survive: become thermal energy companies.

I have been playing around with an interesting concept here - the tradeoff curves of capacity vs storage. First for a completely clean + storage system. This is what we need for Ontario for a no FF system with current demand profile, assuming starting from scratch for clarity. 🔌💡