Green Energy, and the German Grid, from: Kiev Is Burning

[rmgill]

Stop thinking logically....

 

[sunday]

12 hours ago, Colin said:

I was wondering how safe those grids will be when you have all those homes feeding into the grid and then an emergency happens and there is no way to ensure everyone is taken offline so the crews can re-string the lines? Also heard that in a YT video that one area has so many people feeding into the grip, that the utilities banned further inputs as the voltage of the grid became to high and also reduced the money they pay for the power provided.

Those are very valid concerns, yes, and manifest some drawbacks of the much touted "distributed generation + smart networks" thing.

[Ivanhoe]

On 8/10/2022 at 7:57 AM, sunday said:

The article does mention the interconnections among the US islands, but it also mentions that their transport capacity is not very large.

Doesn't matter enormously. As seen during the Icepocalypse of Feb 2021, when the SHTF you can't rely on your neighbors to have surplus power to sell. And with the half-regulated, contractual nature of electrical power generation and distribution, prior sales obligations get first shot.

Our grid was designed for a national population of about 270M. We are now at 330+. And the EPA and DOE ensure that supply will never meet demand, which is why we must buy power from Canada and Mexico.

[sunday]

Well, if there are not spare transport capacity available, then there is no point on buying neighbors' surplus either.

However, I feel inadequate to elaborate more about the US power grids. I know they are really huge, and have some peculiarities, but there are more aspects to consider, such as system dispatching policies, location of peak power stations, etc.

It is not like the European power grid, a big, happy, more or less homogeneous network.

[rmgill]

If we have a Carrington event we are royally fucked. 

[Harold Jones]

We're good

Quote

A study published in 2019 found the chance of a Carrington-like event occurring before 2029 is less than 1.9 percent. “A Carrington Event is one of those kinds of things that you kind of want to have happen,” Halford says, “because we think we can weather it.”

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/are-we-ready-for-the-next-big-solar-storm

[lucklucky]

Famous last words?

[Ssnake]

Yeah, I don't really like people throwing down the gauntlet at the universe's feet.

[rmgill]

4 hours ago, Harold Jones said:

We're good

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/are-we-ready-for-the-next-big-solar-storm

An Almost dies the fire type event with a 2% chance per year is rather substantial a threat.

[DB]

On 8/11/2022 at 7:51 PM, Colin said:

I was wondering how safe those grids will be when you have all those homes feeding into the grid and then an emergency happens and there is no way to ensure everyone is taken offline so the crews can re-string the lines? Also heard that in a YT video that one area has so many people feeding into the grip, that the utilities banned further inputs as the voltage of the grid became to high and also reduced the money they pay for the power provided.

 

All true, but longer term the utilities are going to have to design infrastructure to support distributed power.

As for feed-in issues, current systems use an interlock tied to the presence of grid power and are disconnected when it fails. If there is sufficient local generation to support an accidental island as a stable supply, they'll have to figure out some other mechanism. Maybe interlocks controlled via smart meters?

[Ssnake]

7 hours ago, rmgill said:

An Almost dies the fire type event with a 2% chance per year is rather substantial a threat.

Except, it's a cumulative 1.9% chance for a full decade. Not quite as bad, although I'm wondering how this guy got to his calculation result when the only recorded and somewhat quantifiable sample of a really bad solar flare event dates back to the mid 1800s. If really large coronal mass ejections happened more often during the middle ages, would we even know about it? There'd had to be some observers of aurorae south of the tropic of cancer leaving written testimony to allow us to even know that such events happened.

So, for all I know, we have space weather recordings for the last 20...40 years plus a single black swan event dating back 160 years. Depending on what type of random distribution you pick as a model you'd get vastly different results, and it's really hard - if not mathematically impossible - to pick the right distribution from such a thin sample base.

[BansheeOne]

Quote

Nuclear Power? Yes Please!

Germany Sees Tidal Shift in Sentiment Toward Atomic Energy

According to a new survey from DER SPIEGEL, three quarters of all Germans want to continue the operations of Germany's remaining nuclear power plants, throwing into question the country's much-touted plan to phase out nuclear energy. Is the country about to make a U-turn on the issue?

By Melanie Amann, Vicky Isabelle Bargel, Marco Evers, Tobias Großekemper, Hubert Gude, Kevin Hagen, Johanna Jürgens, Christine Keck, Philipp Kollenbroich, Cordula Meyer, Guido Mingels, Benedikt Müller-Arnold, Ralf Neukirch, Jonas Schaible, Ansgar Siemens, Christian Teevs, Severin Weiland und Steffen Winter

12.08.2022, 16.03 Uhr

Winter is coming and Klaus Zilian is worried. He lives with his wife and two children in Neustadt, in the northwestern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, in the single-family home the couple bought 14 years ago – 160 square meters (1,500 square feet), seven rooms and insulating plaster the color of champagne. The electricity comes from the municipal utility company, the house is heated with gas and the Baltic Sea is only a five-minute walk away. It's typical middle-class prosperity.

The family will be able to handle the fact that the energy prices are going up due to the Russian reduction of the flows of natural gas into Germany, Zilian says. But what if the house suddenly gets cold because there's just not enough gas? "I can already see us cuddling under blankets," says Zilian, who heads a financial consultancy.

He has backed away from a formerly held conviction. "I was always in favor of the plan to phase out nuclear power," the 54-year-old says of Germany's plan to take all of its atomic energy plants offline by the end of this year. He says the situation changed because of the crisis with Russia. He says he supports keeping nuclear power plants online to prevent having to use natural gas to generate electricity. "We should use the existing nuclear power plants for as long as the crisis lasts," he says.

It's a typical scene from a country that is afraid, even amid the summer heat, of the coming winter and the threat of gas shortages. It's a country eyeing its nuclear power plants, the few that are still operating and those that were just recently switched off, from a new perspective: Couldn't they help now, amid the potentially imminent   emergency? In any case, many people no longer seem to see the cooling towers and their clouds of steam as a symbol of evil, but rather one of hope.

A poll commissioned by DER SPIEGEL has revealed some rather shocking numbers. According to the survey carried out by the online polling firm Civey, only 22 percent of those surveyed are in favor of shutting down the three nuclear plants that are still in operation in Germany – Isar 2, Neckarwestheim 2 and Emsland – as planned at the end of the year.

Forty-One Percent Want To Build New Plants

Seventy-eight percent of those surveyed are in favor of continuing to operate the plants until the summer of 2023, a variant that is being discussed in the political sphere as a "stretch operation" – in other words, continuing to keep them online for a few months, but without the acquisition of new fuel rods. Even among Green Party supporters, a narrow majority favors this approach.

Is this the crisis talking? Is it a pragmatic view centered on the idea that it's just a few months and they won't change anything about the planned phaseout of nuclear power? Probably not. The answers suggest that the attitude of Germans toward nuclear power has changed significantly. Sixty-seven percent are in favor of continuing to operate the nuclear plants for the next five years, with only 27 percent opposed to it. The only group without a clear majority in favor of running the plants for the next five years are the supporters of the Green Party. Backers of the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU), as well as those supporting the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) are over 80 percent in favor of having the nuclear plants running for that long.

On the question of whether Germany should build new nuclear power plants because of the energy crisis, 41 percent of respondents answered "yes," meaning they favor an approach that isn't even up for debate in Germany.

The results are astounding all around, especially compared with past surveys. Thirty-three years ago, a polling institute asked a similar question on behalf of DER SPIEGEL. At the time, only a miniscule 3 percent of respondents thought Germany should build new plants.

[...]

However, some people believe nuclear power is both ecologically and morally sound – Ulrike von Waitz, for example. The 53-year-old's thinking on the issue began shifting a few years ago, after she witnessed a tree lose its leaves. The entrepreneur lives with her family in Kahl am Main, a village in Bavaria. In 2018, the hottest year since the beginning of weather records in Germany, Waitz saw trees losing their foliage in the middle of the summer drought. "That's the first time I saw that the climate catastrophe is a real threat," she says.

Von Waitz, a long-time member of the CSU, describes herself as a doer: optimistic, socially engaged, open to technology. When she sees a grievance or an injustice, she acts. She campaigned on behalf of Human Rights Watch, and she and her husband recently set up a shelter for 20 Ukrainian children.

When von Waitz noticed the signs of climate change in her environment, she became a pro-nuclear activist. She had done a lot of reading and was convinced by the arguments of those who say that nuclear power can protect the climate. "Nuclear energy, for all its danger, is a technology we need," she says on the phone.

She then joined a group called Mothers for Nuclear. Von Waitz has five children, and together with seven other women, all concerned about their children's future, she organizes pro-nuclear demonstrations. Not many people come, but they feel like they've got some momentum. And that they're doing the right thing. The mothers want to draw attention to how much CO2 they believe the technology could save.

[...]

When Florian Ruckeisen drives to Grevenbroich from the south, he can see the steam billowing from the cooling towers of the Neurath lignite-fired power plant. If he is coming from the west, he drives past the open pit mine in Garzweiler. Grevenbroich, his home in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, used to proudly call itself the "city of energy." Ruckeisen basically lives in the middle of Germany's fossil fuel landscape. But, he says, "we have to exit coal-fired power generation as quickly as possible."

Ruckeisen is an engineer who sees himself as being on the political left and who is worried about climate change. At age 41, he is neither a member of the anti-nuclear 1968 generation nor of the young generation of climate activists. He was five years old at the time of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Today, he could be seen as a representative of the large, open-minded middle group that was "somehow against" nuclear energy for a long time, but without any strong passion or idea of why they adopted that position, and which is now easily changing its mind.

The engineer says that his opinion is based on a general mood in the country. When former Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to phase out nuclear power in 2011, he thought it was a good decision. Then, three years ago, Ruckeisen started looking into the pros and cons of nuclear energy. "I wanted arguments for my position against it," he says, "but the more I looked into it, the fewer concerns I had."

[...]

How do the old enemies of nuclear power and the associated waste see their fellow Germans' new fondness for nuclear power? Do they no longer understand the world? Do they even exist at all anymore?

Absolutely. Take Marika Hahlbohm, 78, from Lemgow in the northwestern German state of Lower Saxony, for example, who lives in a house with three generations of opponents of nuclear power. The Hahlbohm family has 500 chickens, two goats and two dachshunds. This week, their potato and grain fields need to be harvested.

Their farm is located in the Wendland region, near the former border with East Germany, which has been the focus of the anti-nuclear movement for decades. The reason is Gorleben, a salt dome that was intended as a repository for nuclear waste, and where 113 containers are currently stored. The protests against the Castor transports have left their mark on the family.

"We've been to Gorleben, Hannover and Berlin with our tractor," says Marika Hahlbohm, "the children had to come along, of course." Hahlbohm says she experienced her first protests over 40 years ago. Her son-in-law Jörg Buttnop has been taking part since the 1980s. "They beat me up and put me in jail," he says.

The grandmother says, "I'm absolutely against questioning the phaseout." Her daughter Marlitt and granddaughter Carlotta see it the same way. On the other hand, she says, she can understand "that people in the city are afraid they will have to freeze in the winter." The family has wood gasification heating and a solar panel on the roof.

Then a discussion unfolds around the multigenerational family table that may be symptomatic of a country in a time of shifting worldviews. "I'm not so sure about that," says the son-in-law, who is well informed. "If the fuel rods of the Isar 2 power plant in Bavaria can actually produce electricity at full load for another 150 days, then we should consider whether that makes sense." He says he could imagine letting the reactors continue running another year or two. "You're not serious!" says his wife, Marlitt. "Yes, I am. I'm even asking myself if that for which we fought for the last 30 years was all correct."

Then the second granddaughter, Linda, 34, joins in and pleads for the continued operation of the power plants, but only for a limited period. "And after that come another two years, and then it will continue like that forever," counters the grandmother, bitterly.

[...]

In the small town of Ahaus in North Rhine-Westphalia, near the Dutch border, 71-year-old Felix Ruwe is sitting in his backyard. Ruwe is a pensioner and deputy chairman of the No Nuclear Waste in Ahaus citizens' initiative, which was founded 45 years ago and reached its heyday around 1998 and 2005, when the Castor transports with spent fuel rods arrived in Ahaus.

Ruwe has a degree in electrical engineering and talks like someone who does, with mention of ball fuel elements, moderator rods and the differences between MTR2 and MTR3 castors. He knows what is stored in Ahaus (enriched uranium), the number of castor containers there (329) and how long the interim storage facility's license will last (until 2036). Resistance against nuclear waste, which can pose a burden to future generations for thousands of years, is his life's work.

When asked who is still involved in the citizens' initiative these days, Ruwe says, "We have to admit that we're all old farts now." He says there's no young new blood coming to continue the fight. "The resistance," says his wife, Christel, "will die with us."

https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-sees-tidal-shift-in-sentiment-toward-atomic-energy-a-05f47c3c-d20e-44dc-bd6d-1e1dbfb7f0cd

[rmgill]

2 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Except, it's a cumulative 1.9% chance for a full decade. Not quite as bad, although I'm wondering how this guy got to his calculation result when the only recorded and somewhat quantifiable sample of a really bad solar flare event dates back to the mid 1800s. If really large coronal mass ejections happened more often during the middle ages, would we even know about it? There'd had to be some observers of aurorae south of the tropic of cancer leaving written testimony to allow us to even know that such events happened.

It's probably calculated based on the distribution of CME's over unit time and their pattern of ejection directions. They have to eject from a specific Lat/Long of the sun's surface, near the plane of the ecliptic and facing us and those are the ones we have to worry about. The time of flight is part of this, it's basically a ballistic calculation straight "up" from the sun to us. 

Of for solar activity, we can extrapolate that from sun spot observations which the Chinese Imperial court rather well documented for centuries.There are other proxies. (cosmogenic radionuclides such as 14C and 10Be).
https://earth-planets-space.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40623-015-0250-y

 

In this study, we used the Chapter of Astronomy (Tiānwénzhì) in Sòngshǐ, mainly because it includes one of the richest sets of astronomical information among the chronicles of the Chinese dynasties. All the capitals in the Sòng era, where the observations were made, were located at latitudes between 30 and 35 N. This period (CE 960–1279) overlaps with the CE 993–994 event as well as the so-called Medieval Warm Period (MWP: 10 CE–14 CE).

Among historical records worldwide, Chinese chronicles are remarkable for their feasibility as scientific data. Keimatsu (1976) emphasizes the predominance of Chinese astronomical records because trained experts on astronomical observation made continuous observations at specified locations and took dated records of astronomical phenomena, often with detailed notes such as motions, shapes, and colors.

Thus, records in the Chinese official chronicles are regarded to be more objective than many other historical documents (Keimatsu 1976), but we should keep in mind that Chinese astronomical observations were also made for the purpose of “fortunetelling” for policy makers. For example,

1. (a)

   On–March CE 1204 at night, red clouds (chìyún) appeared within white vapors, crossing the sky from the east to the west. After that, conflagrations occupied the country for eight days. Thus, astrologers regarded this as a symbol of fire. (Sòngshǐ, Five Elements II b, p. 1413)

The reason for their consistent observations is based on Chinese culture and the politics of dynasties. Astronomical phenomena were traditionally thought to be signs from the heavens to the emperors reflecting their politics (i.e., stated at Sòngshǐ, Astronomical I, p. 949, translated text available in Appendix 1).

In order to deliver those heavenly messages to emperors, especially those of the Sòng dynasty, two observatories were constructed both in the imperial palace and near the capital city, Kāifēng, until the Jìngkāng Incident in CE 1126 (original text available in Appendices 2, 3, and 4, Yabuuchi 1967). Owing to their political importance, astronomical observations were made even during wars.

There is anecdotal evidence indicating the degree of sophistication and consistency of the astronomical observations in China during this period. During the invasion of the Sòngdynasty by the Jīn from the north, the Jīn captured Kāifēng in CE 1126. They broke all the observational instruments except for the spherical astrolabes, which were brought to Bĕijīngand adjusted by 4° in order to point to Polaris, as the instruments were moved from Kāifēng(35 N) to Bĕijīng (39 N) (the original text is available in Appendices 5 and 6).

After the fall of Kāifēng, the Sòng dynasty escaped southward via Shāngqiū (1128), Yángzhōu(CE 1128), and finally to Línān, the modern Hángzhōu (CE 1129–1279) (Mote 1999). It was in CE 1143 that the Sòng dynasty began reconstructing astrolabes. However, even during the period between CE 1126 and 1143 (without the use of astrolabes), we find records of both auroras and sunspots. This suggests that the Sòng dynasty continued observation even in such a chaotic time and without specially designed instruments (original text available in Appendix 6). Of course, we still have to note that frequency and accuracy of these observations must have been influenced by the political climate and other unknown factors.

 

Edited August 13, 2022 by rmgill

[lucklucky]

 

 

[lucklucky]

 

[JWB]

Upcoming investigation: How an airborne blade exposed broader problems at PGE’s flagship wind farm.

In the early hours of Feb. 1, one of the spinning blades on a turbine at Portland General Electric’s Biglow Canyon wind farm in Sherman County launched into the night.

The 135-foot piece of fiberglass, wood and metal weighs more than seven tons.

It flew the full length of a football field.

https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2022/08/upcoming-investigation-how-an-airborne-blade-exposed-broader-problems-at-pges-flagship-wind-farm.html?fbclid=IwAR2I9ZeqXonEdD0YHoxGlHP-aYAPRoIDuy4fP4azkD6Fcpnbd7IiK6H2r3g

[BansheeOne]

Quote

Germany says full delay to nuclear phaseout is unlikely

20h ago

Germany is unlikely to extend the life of its three remaining nuclear power stations due to the energy crisis, said Economy Minister Robert Habeck. However, he added, one power station in Bavaria may stay open if needed.

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said Sunday that allowing the country's three last nuclear power stations to remain operational would be of little help in solving the country's energy crisis.

Speaking during a discussion with citizens at the government's open-door day in Berlin, Habeck said extending the lifespan of the plants — which are due to close at the end of the year — would only save about 2% of gas use.

It is the "wrong decision given how little we would save," Habeck, who is also Vice Chancellor, added.

One nuclear plant could stay open

However, the minister said he was open to extending the lifespan of one nuclear plant in Bavaria, subject to the results of a stress test of the country's power system.

The results of the test, to calculate how the country will cope if Russia cuts off natural gas supplies this winter, are due out in a few weeks.

Bavaria is a major manufacturing hub that depends on gas-fired power plants and has few coal-fired plants and low wind power production.

[...]

No need to panic over winter gas supplies

Habeck also told the public not to panic about the prospect of a gas shortage during the colder months, noting if households and industry cut their usage by 15-20% "then we have a really good chance of getting through the winter." 

Even if Russia were to cut supplies entirely, there would be no situation where zero gas would reach Germany, the minister said,

Norway and the Netherlands are providing additional gas supplies and new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals should be operational at the turn of the year.

Over the longer term, Habeck said Germany must expand its investment in renewable energies and phase out fossil fuels, which he said were the cause of many political conflicts and abuse of power.

[...]

https://m.dw.com/en/germany-says-full-delay-to-nuclear-phaseout-is-unlikely/a-62880769

[Harold Jones]

I wonder what cutting usage 15% looks like in real terms.  Also is that from currently projected usage, which would probably already factor some cutbacks in, or from historic usage?  

[DB]

I wonder why they're still saying "if" Russia cuts off gas supplies? Russia will surely play with taps to cause maximum disruption, whether there is a long term in supply or not.

They waggle the taps the way Best Korea performs missile tests.

[Harold Jones]

Yeah, unpredictable cutoffs/slow downs would be way more disruptive than a hard stop I think.

[Ssnake]

Not sure if true. That's why you have gas reserve caverns, and they are well-filled already. Of course, spotty gas flow adds more uncertainty short term, but at the same time I think reinforces the message that there's no going back to the bad old times of full dependency, which is the plan since March already.

[BansheeOne]

Gas saving vs. previous years has already been reported as 14-15 percent this year so far, but that's with an exceptionally hot summer (thank you, climate change!). So currently it all goes towards filling the caverns, which is why the 75 percent mark was reached two weeks ahead of the plan. If the 95 percent target is reached by 1 November, it will supposedly last for two-and-a-half months normal winter use even with Russian deliveries cut completely. Whether that can be reached is under some doubt, though 90 percent is considered realistic. But of course two-and-a-half months is still a little short, so the real test will be saving during the heating period.

[BansheeOne]

Well the Ministry of Economy is busy pushing good news hoping to drive gas prices down after they rose again following Russia's announcement to close down Nord Stream 1 completely for a couple days of "maintenance". With just 9.5 percent of August use coming from Russia - due to cuts at the source, not sanctions - storage is up to 82 percent capacity, the 85 percent target for October thus likely to be reached a month early. With low consumption this summer, Russian reduction has been compensated by increased deliveries from Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium.

From autumn, additional imports are expected from France, which is current importing electricity from German gas plants due to lack of domestic nuclear power because several of its reactors have gone off the grid over drought-induced low cooling water levels. German plants running specifically for French consumption have been a major factor in high electricity prices. Between the flow expected to reverse after the summer heat and two national floating LNG terminals going online around year's end, it's hoped that markets will relax.

Minister Robert Habeck urgently needs some positive development since he's under fire from both the opposition and within the government coalition over his plans to pass on the cost of an estimated 34 bn Euro for saving gas corporations in economic trouble to consumers. That would amount to an extra 2.4 cent per kWh from October, on top of the 34 cent gas prices have already jumped to after the latest Russian announcement - compared to around seven last year. The Conservatives want to cancel the plan through a Bundestag vote, though they haven't really said what should be done instead.

[lucklucky]

The Democracy attacks against Freedom continue.

[Ssnake]

More specifically, what's that "banning of advertisement for fossile fuels" about (WTF, is that a thing in France?), and if real, what you you mean with your comment?