California Ran On Nearly 100% Clean Energy This Month (bloombergquint.com) 202
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: California, which aims to have a carbon-free power grid within 25 years, got a short glimpse of that possibility earlier this month. The state's main grid ran on more than 97% renewable energy at 3:39 p.m. on Sunday April 3, breaking a previous record of 96.4% that was set just a week earlier, the California Independent System Operator said Thursday in a statement. While these all-time highs are for a brief time, they solidly demonstrate the advances being made to reliably achieve California's clean energy goals," said California ISO CEO Elliot Mainzer said in the statement.
Power production from the sun and wind typically peak in the spring, due to mild temperatures and the angle of the sun allowing for an extended period of strong solar production, the grid operator said. While hitting the new renewable record is remarkable, the state has found itself scrambling for power supplies during the past two summers as it has added more intermittent sources and retired natural-gas plants for environmental reasons. California has set a target to have a zero-carbon power system by 2045.
Power production from the sun and wind typically peak in the spring, due to mild temperatures and the angle of the sun allowing for an extended period of strong solar production, the grid operator said. While hitting the new renewable record is remarkable, the state has found itself scrambling for power supplies during the past two summers as it has added more intermittent sources and retired natural-gas plants for environmental reasons. California has set a target to have a zero-carbon power system by 2045.
No hate (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:No hate (Score:5, Insightful)
No, no...lets not do that...let's only focus on a brief moment under ideal conditions, on a mild temperature, particularly sunny and windy day.
Re:No hate (Score:5, Informative)
The state's main grid ran on more than 97% renewable energy at 3:39 p.m. on Sunday April 3
Specifically, it was from 15:39:21 on 3 April 2022 to 15:39:27 on 3 April 2022. They must have forgotten to mention that in the press release.
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whats the month useage???
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I don't actually know how long it was, my post was snark about the fact that they conveniently omitted to mention any duration. The mod should be "Touche" or "Funny", not "Informative".
It was modded that way because a denier had mod points.
What we have here is the moving goalpost game.
Every achievement requires the deniers to move the goalpost. Cali is a big state, and it must have taken a hella lot of preparation to achieve that feat. It was a publicity stunt, but also an example of how far we've come. Already here in PA, we have that 24/7 wind power along the Allegheny front, and we're starting to use solar installations to inject and extend power past substations.
The next deca
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Perhaps you should read the headline again, considering it specifically mentioned a duration. The error is in your assertion that they were only talking about the 97+% figure.
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https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]
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What a completely pointless achievement - it was a fluke, nothing more - every time you celebrate one of these freake occasions you diminish the achievement when something meaningful happens.
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It's not an "achievement", it is an observation.
"...every time you celebrate one of these freake occasions you diminish the achievement when something meaningful happens."
Nice straw man.
Re: No hate (Score:2)
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If only they could harness the energy of moving goalposts.
Ten years ago even this level of penetration was inconceivable. Now that it's looking very plausible that we can achieve 100% renewable power overall, there's all new excuses why this somehow isn't significant or still isn't possible or whatever.
Stories like this are getting more frequent. It's gonna happen, deal with it.
=Smidge=
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It's completely unpredictable - I'd love to see utilities commit to such a goal on any random day/time, picked in advance.
We can't make this happen, we just notice it after the fact.
Re: No hate (Score:2)
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If only they could harness the energy of moving goalposts.
Now that's funny!
Ten years ago even this level of penetration was inconceivable. Now that it's looking very plausible that we can achieve 100% renewable power overall,
We definitely can. We now have the general setups that can be turned into baseload, and the next step is the storage of power for times that the sources aren't as available. This isn't that difficult, we just need to make some decisions on the energy storage mode. We have experience with hydraulic storage. Some like the concrete block tower
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Specifically, it was from 15:39:21 on 3 April 2022 to 15:39:27 on 3 April 2022. They must have forgotten to mention that in the press release.
What are you talking about? I know it's a slashdot tradition not to read the thing you're commenting on, but you could at least skim it? The press release said IN ITS SECOND PARAGRAPH "The peak, which occurred briefly at 3:39 p.m, ..." That's unambiguous that it was a brief peak. It's right there at the top of the press release. The press release was clear, correct, truthful, and not at all misleading.
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And my hummer got 49 mpg at 3:14 PM yesterday, I was coasting downhill at the time and took my foot off the gas,but still, 49 mpg - maybe I'll get written up on slashdot?,
Re:No hate (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only is it doable, it is inevitable. Why? Not climate change. Not government mandates. No. It is inevitable because of economics. Solar panels and battery packs will only get cheaper and cheaper as our ability to produce and install them increases. Their operating costs are very, very insignificant compared to almost all other forms of energy. It is just financially smart to do so. This, in comparison to the costs of fossil fuels like oil and natural gas increasing... will drive our wallets to invest wisely in our energy supply. Solar panels last decades. Even in bad weather, their production is still greater than 50%. Even at higher latitudes, its just a matter of pitching them to be perpendicular with the sun, for them to run well (they even work slightly better, because of the cooler climate and temperatures effect on productivity).
It is all just a matter of time.
Re:No hate (Score:5, Informative)
There is a way to power the entire country using only solar.
If we spend enough, anything is possible. But it makes far more sense to diversify.
Overcast days are often windy, so wind turbines can carry you through inclement weather much more cost-effectively than batteries. Also, the wind blows at night.
If MSRs, SMRs, or fusion eventually fulfill their potential, they can provide baseload.
Bio-gas and hydroelectric can be used as peakers.
Trying for 100% solar makes no sense.
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Wind is running into diminishing returns cost wise
Wind is half the price of solar.
I have no idea what you mean by "diminishing returns". Are you claiming turbines become more expensive as you install more? Because that is nonsense.
Re: No hate (Score:2)
The dominant way to drive down cost for wind has been scale of production and parks and sheer size. The former can't drive margins much further and the latter is running into physical limits.
The fundamental limits of PV are nowhere near in sight. Get rid of glass, get rid of metal frames, make the semiconductor thinner, make the panel voltages much higher.
This doesn't really apply to residential solar of course, don't want 10kv on your roof for instance, only open field utility scale installs. The market fo
Re: No hate (Score:2)
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It would take 13 years to build the solar panels for that, assuming USA would get every solar in the world for the next 13 years. So obviously you would first need to build new solar panel factories and once solar panels are build, those factories will become mostly useless. Matters of scale have scaling problems also.
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Hardly useless.
Overproduction of energy is basically impossible - we'll just find new things to do with it. Whether that's desalination, electric smelting, or drug-money-sudokus there'll be someone willing to spend that energy if it's cheap enough.
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It would take 13 years to build the solar panels for that, assuming USA would get every solar in the world for the next 13 years. So obviously you would first need to build new solar panel factories and once solar panels are build, those factories will become mostly useless. Matters of scale have scaling problems also.
Some people look at opportunities as problems.
Re: No hate (Score:2)
Heating is a fuck huge load, a polar vortex in a zero emission scenario will require a whole lot of batteries and a whole lot of desert or agricultural land filled with PV.
Ignoring the storage for a moment, either the greens or anyone who can ill afford high food prices will have to eat shit. Better the greens and fill the desert if the PV road is taken rather than nuclear.
Re: No hate (Score:2)
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How do you manage to post with your head stuck in the sand?
What didn't you understand?
The part about low demand, due to low HVAC requirements on a mild temperature day?
The part about chance alignment of wind and sunny skies, allowing a transient peak of production FOR LESS THAN A MINUTE?
The part where it was less than 100%, so there was no surplus to store for the times when wind and solar is useless?
The part where headlines get carefully crafted for reaction (clicks, advertising), while obscuring the mundane reality?
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Re: No hate (Score:5, Insightful)
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a number of cities around the world have been able to do it
Really?
Can you name a few cities that are 100% solar and wind powered?
Re: No hate (Score:2)
Re: No hate (Score:4, Insightful)
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Well, the numbers are all public and no, Germany does not depend on surrounding companies more often than not.
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Germany runs 3 nuclear plants today, right now, as you read this.
https://www.reuters.com/world/... [reuters.com]
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Is this the same Germany that has a lot of nukes and relies on them for electricity?
https://www.reuters.com/world/... [reuters.com]
Germany currently has 3 nuclear power plants online right now, and with enough Russian natural gas they will shut them down, except...
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the thousand or so square miles it would take to put them up
A thousand square miles is a square 32 miles wide.
It is 2% of the area of the Mojave Desert.
Re: No hate (Score:2, Informative)
Or you know... They could just put solar panels on top of houses... No land needed there! Even in expensive little old new Zealand, I could still afford to kit out my house with more wattage than I need..
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Only if technology stays at the current level.
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"I’d say..."
There's the problem right there. You think anyone is interested in what you'd say.
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Watch fossil fuels get more and more expensive as renewables get cheaper and cheaper. Watch the raw dependence on fossil fuels drop enough to actually make those oil companies think about how they will continue operating.
Please explain how this works, when wind and solar are made with near 100% fossil energy, typically in China?
China is putting in renewables too. At times China has been known to be putting in more solar than everyone else combined. They put in a record amount of PV production last year, and expect to put in more this year. That's specifically how that works.
If you really believe that renewable energy is cheaper, then with this new-found abundance of cheap renewable energy, you should move mining and manufacture back to CA, so that they will become cheaper yet, and you can close the lifecycle and prove that renewables truly are sustainable!
This might actually happen. Not back to CA, which doesn't need the industry so much, but back to the USA. They still make panels in Canada after all.
Maybe you can expand the carbon credit fraud with new materials and manufacturing credits
Carbon trading is indeed bullshit, except that incentivizes someone to engage in good behavior, and that drives
Re: No hate (Score:2)
Re: No hate (Score:3)
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I read it. I didn't find the solution in there anywhere.
Save gas - fart in a bottle (Score:3)
Stupidly misleading headline (Score:2, Informative)
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If we can do 1 minute, we can do 10, if we can do 10, we can do 100.
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If we can do 1 minute, we can do 10, if we can do 10, we can do 100.
Right up until nightfall or the wind dies off,
It's a terrible thing - we need our brightest minds to get onto some way of storing energy - it's pretty amazing that no one has ever even thought of energy storage before.
Re: Thoughtless (Score:2)
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Real headline- CA ran on renewables for one minute.
Your correction is too sparse and confusing. Do you mean the one minute this month was actually during last month? Or was the minute this month during next month?
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It's also inaccurate. It ran on 97% renewables for one minute.
Re:Stupidly misleading headline (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine if you shitheads had been present during the Wright brothers first flight that lasted for 12 seconds.
The point is this has never happened before and the length will only increase.
Re:Stupidly misleading headline (Score:4, Informative)
The Wright brothers didn't say, "Plane flew for a month", which is what the headline is trying to imply.
If climate headlines were honest, people wouldn't worry that they were being misled.
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The Wright brothers didn't say, "Plane flew for a month", which is what the headline is trying to imply.
If climate headlines were honest, people wouldn't worry that they were being misled.
That is exactly what we get when people get 100 percent of their news from headlines, then try to claim the headline is made up by what - fanbois?
If the busy smart folks were to even take the time to read the first sentence:
"California, which aims to have a carbon-free power grid within 25 years, got a short glimpse of that possibility earlier this month."
What kind of intelligent life, reads a headline, dissects it with an eye towards invalidating it, and has to read further to see that while fact
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I don't know what's wrong with you. Just admit that the headline is misleading.
Re: Stupidly misleading headline (Score:2)
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You mean like the graph you linked to on a blog?
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Imagine if you shitheads had been present during the Wright brothers first flight that lasted for 12 seconds.
The point is this has never happened before and the length will only increase.
Exactly - We went from 12 seconds to what we have now in the course of a human llfetime.
Also - they had a hella nice hill to go down to achieve the necessary speed. If our deniers were alive back then, they'd say it wasn't really heavier than air flight because of the assist from the hill, and that short flight time meant nothing.
What happened to Slashdot? There've always been curmudgeons, but we now have a lot of people now who are one conspiracy away from flat earthers. Anti science, and stuck in s
The numbers don't add up, and the press release... (Score:5, Informative)
is cleverly, and intentionally, misleading.
The quoted Bloomberg story is just a lazy journalist regurgitation of this PR piece [caiso.com] released by Cal ISO (the entity that manages the CA grid). Note that the release says "97.6 percent of electricity on the grid came from clean, renewable energy" [I added the highlighting] and further down says "The grid also set a historical solar peak of 13,628 megawatts (MW) just after noon on April 8, and an all-time wind peak of 6,265 MW just before 3 p.m. on March 4." - note the two numbers, which are, admittedly, all-time peak highs.
Now consider:
The very same Cal ISO, today, on this page [caiso.com] said that today's peak demand was 25,460 MW. If you go to that page, it will vary day-by-day (so don't illustrate your own stupidity by calling me a liar if you look at it on any other day) and today's peak is not likely what it was on April 3 (the day they made their claim) but today in CA was a rather typical spring day (not warm enough to justify air conditioning in most homes) yet the "all time peak high" green output was nowhere near enough to be 97+ percent of demand and CERTAINLY would not be a reasonable percentage of peak summer demand - but it will generate headlines designed to fool the ignorant masses into thinking we're nearly ready to go all-solar-and-wind in CA. It's VERY deceptive.
Oh, and additionally, CA misleads everybody on this all the time with another trick: CA buys a bunch of its "green" energy from neighboring states, who then make-up the difference on their own grids with non-green energy. It's a bit of a shell game, like so-called "carbon offsets" and those good-ole Vatican vended "indulgences" of years gone by...
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Re: The numbers don't add up, and the press releas (Score:5, Informative)
From the subtitle of the press release: "giving a glimpse of zero-carbon future". From the 2nd paragraph of the press release: "The peak, which occurred briefly at 3:39 p.m."
Honestly, I don't know where you get your interpretation from. This it says is a GLIMPSE of a future. Clearly not even hinting that we're nearly at the future. That's not what "glimpse" means.
I think the PR was very clear and truthful about what it said and what it implied.
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Thanks for doing the homework.
California should ban air conditioning to save the planet. Nobody in California had it 150 years ago so it's obviously a luxury.
FTFY: ...for *one minute*, under ideal conditions (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like saying there was one minute last month where only 3% of comments on /. were trolls, and using the headline "Slashdot Almost 100% Troll-Free Last Month".
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It's notable because were are still being told that if a grid ever goes above X% renewable energy it will immediately collapse, fall over and catch fire.
People assured us that due to clouds casting moving shadows on solar, and gusts of wind suddenly ramping and dropping wind power, any grid with too much variable renewable energy would be inherently unstable. One moment you would be experiencing brown out, the next all your electrical items would explode as the voltage surged.
This proves that the grid can i
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If we keep adding renewables without doing grid upgrades we will run into grid problems. We're simply not there yet. Our power distribution infrastructure has been sadly neglected, especially in key states like California and Texas. Both suffer specifically from varying degrees of deregulation, and there appears to be zero political will to fix the problem. Texas we all are familiar with since their blackouts in the cold. California though is another matter. Our public utilities commission actually exists,
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It actually happened and was fine. While I'm sure it could be optimised, no calamity occurred.
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Read before replying
Re: FTFY: ...for *one minute*, under ideal conditi (Score:2)
Re: FTFY: ...for *one minute*, under ideal conditi (Score:2)
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are you bent on proving that is also not true?
Actually, it's not like saying that at all.
Scotland (Score:2)
Batteries (Score:2)
For that we need batteries. We already have some of the most expensive power in the nation and the cost is going up. As we start to do the hard part (add storage) we are going to be paying through the teeth for electricity.
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The sun sets in the west, where the demand is.
With that said, wind blows all night. And it blows fairly continuously offshore. And if we put in the HVDC infrastructure to move power laterally across the nation in greater amounts, we can pipe in wind power from wherever the wind is blowing. In this country, it's always blowing somewhere.
But what if I hate my neighbours?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Somewhat misleading figure (Score:2)
lies (Score:2)
They did not run 100% clean energy this month.
Some carefully prepared report says so. There's a big difference. But keep on patting yourself on the back though, gotta have a way to pretend you're better than others.
California has reliable baseload clean energy... (Score:2)
It's the hydro and nuclear that they get from Arizona.
Drought and Solar Power Output (Score:2)
A well-picked cherry (Score:2)
so cheap (Score:2)
If renewables in Calif are so cheap and great, how come my electric bill is through the roof?
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Coal is also free if you dig it out of the ground yourself.
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What about all the impact of all its gases in the atmosphere, and treatment for asthma, emphysema, and lung cancer? Are those free?
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Yes, they are also free - fighting them, unfortunately, is not.
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Yes, for the emitter, that's how we got where we are now. And that's why we need carbon taxes, and other pollution taxes. And the taxes have to be not only enough to serve as deterrents, and make it more profitable to emit less, but also have to be spent on cleaning up messes and also further reduction schemes. GLWT, I know.
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Sunlight causes melanoma.
It does so whether you extract energy from it with solar panels on the side or not. Coal only causes trouble when you actively pull usable energy out of it.
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Coal is also free if you dig it out of the ground yourself.
And nuc power is really cheap if you don't shield the reactors, and remove all safety regulations.
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That's every state. Why do you think the gas companies pound us in the ass so hard? The fuel prices here are about twice as much higher than other states as our additional fuel taxes, even though we have our own refineries. We are getting reamed, and deliberately.
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Also the Free battery's that can store enough to last through the night's.
AC was noting that the energy source - solar - is not costing anything. Why not use it?
It's not like your preferred energy sources are free.
I understand your anger - it must get exhausting moving those goalposts.
Re: the sun (Score:2)
Stop being a twit (Score:3)
How are either of these renewable?
Because capturing the energy doesn't use up a finite, non renewing resource. The sun keeps topping up the resource, renewing it. Extracting energy on earth doesn't use up the sun. This is the definition of renewable energy, like it or not.
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When you have to invoke a time scale which is longer than all of the existence of the planet so far to support your argument, your argument is fucking stupid.
Your argument is fucking stupid.
Keep making it, because it makes people think that you are a dumbfuck, and by extension, the other people on your side of the argument as well. Nobody who can listen to that shit with a straight face is anything but.
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a time scale which is longer than all of the existence of the planet
No need to do that. All coal and oil is simply sunlight that was captured and stored in much less than time scale of the existence of the planet. :-/
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While that's true, I'm not sure what relevance it has to the "someday the sun will go out" argument. Earth is not going to have more naturally occurring fossil fuels, unless things get so violently bad here that all of the lignin-consuming fungus dies off.
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No one except you thinks "renewable" means the sun is being renewed. But feel free to keep being contrarian for it's own sake. One of these days someone might mistake contrarianism for intelligence.