A good friend and loyal reader sent me a Utility Dive article with quite the headline: “Load growth, plant retirements could drive 100x increase in blackouts by 2030: DOE."
What’s done is done. I believe this opportunity will give America a new opportunity, an opportunity to use coal and natural gas to produce an abundance of our electricity. The opportunity is there to rebuild theses power plants to not only look ascetically pleasing but also a lot more energy efficient. The power plants of the past looked big and somewhat ugly. Looks were never in the design picture. These power plants were constructed to produce electricity and which they did, but only at efficiency ratings of 50%. They were good at what they were doing, but in reality only 50% good. Of all the natural gas and coal consumed, 50% of the energy produced went up those chimneys - wasted energy. It’s s the nature of the beast. Creating a energy efficient power plant was not in the books.
We now have an opportunity to change that. The new power plants can operate at well over 90% efficiency. The power plant as it is producing electricity will still be at approx. 55% efficiency, but the combusted exhaust will have a purpose. The recovered heat energy and the CO2 will be utilized in a new greenhouse for environmental control. The cooled exhaust , CO2 becomes a fertilizer for the food bearing plants. Even the recovered water in the exhaust is utilized as irrigation water. What plant will not flourish in ideal climate conditions?
Will the world ever have too much food being produced?
These greenhouse will also employ 100’s of people from the local community.
It’s a Win-Win situation. We need “the people” to stand together and voice this to the people at the DOE and EPA. We want our new power plants to be energy efficient ~ operating at over 100% efficiency.
The belief in the models bones down to do you believe the grid operators competency and understand their bias. We have more risk to assess with the grid operators skill that is not addressed in the capacity models. It’s nice that the feds did the study but it’s the cart before the horse. Until the grid operators and their operations are in order the models have little validity. All of the efforts to prop up wind, solar, and batteries are not well disguised, and this modeling should not be used to put these into the grid as they are relatively quick to build but still with the fatal flaw of intermittency.
And now the basic question - do you still believe the government?
What’s done is done. I believe this opportunity will give America a new opportunity, an opportunity to use coal and natural gas to produce an abundance of our electricity. The opportunity is there to rebuild theses power plants to not only look ascetically pleasing but also a lot more energy efficient. The power plants of the past looked big and somewhat ugly. Looks were never in the design picture. These power plants were constructed to produce electricity and which they did, but only at efficiency ratings of 50%. They were good at what they were doing, but in reality only 50% good. Of all the natural gas and coal consumed, 50% of the energy produced went up those chimneys - wasted energy. It’s s the nature of the beast. Creating a energy efficient power plant was not in the books.
We now have an opportunity to change that. The new power plants can operate at well over 90% efficiency. The power plant as it is producing electricity will still be at approx. 55% efficiency, but the combusted exhaust will have a purpose. The recovered heat energy and the CO2 will be utilized in a new greenhouse for environmental control. The cooled exhaust , CO2 becomes a fertilizer for the food bearing plants. Even the recovered water in the exhaust is utilized as irrigation water. What plant will not flourish in ideal climate conditions?
Will the world ever have too much food being produced?
These greenhouse will also employ 100’s of people from the local community.
It’s a Win-Win situation. We need “the people” to stand together and voice this to the people at the DOE and EPA. We want our new power plants to be energy efficient ~ operating at over 100% efficiency.
The belief in the models bones down to do you believe the grid operators competency and understand their bias. We have more risk to assess with the grid operators skill that is not addressed in the capacity models. It’s nice that the feds did the study but it’s the cart before the horse. Until the grid operators and their operations are in order the models have little validity. All of the efforts to prop up wind, solar, and batteries are not well disguised, and this modeling should not be used to put these into the grid as they are relatively quick to build but still with the fatal flaw of intermittency.
And now the basic question - do you still believe the government?
If it’s not dispatchable it’s not capacity.
EXACTLY!!!!