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The economy is slowly transitioning now into a green economy where energy produced by wind/solar will be plentiful and cheap, cheaper than oil or gas. Here in California 63% of electrical power comes from non-fossil fuel sources now, and that percentage is increasing.
Not with a smart grid that redistributes power where needed, coupled with storage. Cheap long-term storage will happen; there's far too much brainpower and venture capital being poured into it for it not to happen. Once cheap storage happens, oil and gas will be a dead man walking, except for secondary use cases.
1) I would be very pleased if inexpensive renewables were established.
2) As you note, they're not here yet but that hasn't stopped California from proceeding anyway, physics be danged.
As a result, CA has very expensive rates as well as outage issues and I don't think your numbers reflect the fact that they import about 30% of their energy from out of state.
I like the gist of what they are doing but the pace and potential to really screw up and set things back for other initiatives around the country is not inconsequential and I worry that they're putting politics in front of science at times as evidenced by "oh we'll figure out the storage thing eventually"...not exactly something you would want to hear from say an engineer.
P.S. They could have really eased through the transition from fossil fuels if they hadn't demonized nuclear but oh well, they've brain-washed an entire generation on that topic and here we are today with a CO2 problem.
I thought the peak oil theory was already debunked due to the wide spread use of fracking?
Yeah, the classic flaw in these doom "projections" is to assume no technological, production or other gains.
Basically it's like driving down the road and seeing a cow standing in the road a mile ahead and your passenger starts saying how you're going to hit the cow for sure....it's unavoidable assuming you don't stop, turn or the cow doesn't move.
The "population bomb" for example made predictions of global population collapse but did not account for expanded or more efficient agriculture. My father grew up on a farm and he has seen crop yields double to triple in lifetime per acre.
1) I would be very pleased if inexpensive renewables were established.
2) As you note, they're not here yet but that hasn't stopped California from proceeding anyway, physics be danged.
As a result, CA has very expensive rates as well as outage issues and I don't think your numbers reflect the fact that they import about 30% of their energy from out of state.
The "big 3" utilities in California don't have high rates due to renewables IMHO. My rates with a Calif municipal utility are 10 cents off-peak and 14 cents peak, and the percentage of renewables is roughly the same as the big 3. The large utilities have high rates due to mismanagement, bureaucracy, and liability issues, again IMHO.
The 63% non-fossil number includes the out-of-state imports, and there's nothing wrong with it. Oregon and Washington produce a surplus of large hydropower so it only makes sense for us to import some.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mathguy
I like the gist of what they are doing but the pace and potential to really screw up and set things back for other initiatives around the country is not inconsequential and I worry that they're putting politics in front of science at times as evidenced by "oh we'll figure out the storage thing eventually"...not exactly something you would want to hear from say an engineer.
I haven't seen any evidence of a power reliability problem, except for one rolling blackout in August due to a fluke event (it was 110 F and cloudy, which is rare, causing solar to underperform). Even then more than 90% of customers did not have their power shut off. Other than that, there hasn't been blackouts due to a shortage of electricity since 2000 when Enron screwed us over.
I don't agree that politics is ahead of the engineering. The targets are all made in full consultation with the utilities, the grid operator and commercial generators. It's aggressive but doable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mathguy
P.S. They could have really eased through the transition from fossil fuels if they hadn't demonized nuclear but oh well, they've brain-washed an entire generation on that topic and here we are today with a CO2 problem.
There's been a quiet and subtle shift in the Democratic platform that leaves the door open to nukes. I do think small modern nukes have promise, especially in cold cloudy areas like the Northeast. Even if nukes were politically acceptable the hurdle is cost, currently at least double that of renewables. But if climate change becomes severe enough and there's momentum to curtail CO2 at any cost, that could provide the impetus to build more nukes.
"Peak oil" will come on the demand side, not the supply side. Anyone who is in college today for a petroleum career might want to rethink their plans. Sure, the transformation will take quite a while, but at this point it seems inevitable to me. Progress on EVs would need to hit a brick wall for this to not happen.
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