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

[rmgill]

My understanding is that Aluminum/steel wires are used for long distance for strength. Copper for shorter distance within once you step down to ~1000 volt and below with alumimum busways in some instances. 

[sunday]

2 hours ago, rmgill said:

My understanding is that Aluminum/steel wires are used for long distance for strength. Copper for shorter distance within once you step down to ~1000 volt and below with alumimum busways in some instances. 

That is correct. Around here aluminum/aluminium is also used for low voltage to residential users. Often the reduced cost of Al makes replacing Cu with larger cross-section Al cable a sensible option.

[Ivanhoe]

38 minutes ago, sunday said:

That is correct. Around here aluminum/aluminium is also used for low voltage to residential users. Often the reduced cost of Al makes replacing Cu with larger cross-section Al cable a sensible option.

My place in Virginia had aluminum from the pole to the meter. Apparently the norm.

 

[rmgill]

6 hours ago, sunday said:

That is correct. Around here aluminum/aluminium is also used for low voltage to residential users. Often the reduced cost of Al makes replacing Cu with larger cross-section Al cable a sensible option.

Up to the electrical service transformer it's going to be Aluminium-conductor steel-reinforced cable. Then when you get it in doors we tend not to see much Aluminum from what I've seen. All our 480 volt risers are copper inside the building. Copper bus bars in the switch gear. from the 480/277 panels to the 120/208 panels it's also copper. Same inside the conduit to the racks. 

US used to have Al conductors inside, but that's disliked as it heats up more and has poor bonding characteristics. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium-conductor_steel-reinforced_cable


 

Edited October 25, 2022 by rmgill

[sunday]

3 hours ago, rmgill said:

Up to the electrical service transformer it's going to be Aluminium-conductor steel-reinforced cable. Then when you get it in doors we tend not to see much Aluminum from what I've seen. All our 480 volt risers are copper inside the building. Copper bus bars in the switch gear. from the 480/277 panels to the 120/208 panels it's also copper. Same inside the conduit to the racks. 

US used to have Al conductors inside, but that's disliked as it heats up more and has poor bonding characteristics. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium-conductor_steel-reinforced_cable


 

Yes, here too copper is preferred for trunks and connections inside buildings.

Edited to add:

I've thinking about other aspects of the video, namely the amount of copper a wind turbine needs, and how inefficient it is to invest in intermittent energies that demand an excess of installed generation capacity, and thus an excess of scarce raw materials.

Those inefficiencies are made worse by the fact that, kVA by kVA, a wind turbine needs more copper than a conventional generator, be it were coal, gas or nuclear, as the larger a generator is, more high its rated voltage is, thus less current, and less copper.

Installed power is rated voltage multiplied by maximum current, so if voltage decreases then current has to be increased to reach the same power. More current means bigger conductor cross-sections, and thus more copper, is needed.

Rated voltage of a wind turbine generator is between 690 and 3,000V, while a large conventional generator could reach a rated voltage of 27kV, and they are rarely below 11kV. 

I have stood next to the 1,000MW generator of a nuclear power plant. Remarkably vibration free, and also remarkably small considering the power involved.

Edited October 25, 2022 by sunday

[BansheeOne]

And month-ahead gas futures for Germany drop to 100 €/GWh from a peak of nearly 340 in late August; spot market prices below 30 from 315, both compared to 70-80 pre-war. However, due to the long-term nature of consumer contracts, it will take some time for end users to feel the relief. In fact for some, prices may continue to climb before they drop again. The spot market in particular is also likely depressed from the unusually warm October weather; let's see how things develop when temperatures go down and demand goes up.

[rmgill]

Yes. Lower voltages for a given wattage means larger conductors. 

Having the ability to run the genset at X RPM all the time simplifies things greatly. 

[Strannik]

 

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul

2022 588,317 578,872 566,061 547,866 523,109 493,324 468,006 https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCSSTUS1&f=M

[urbanoid]

"People"  

[Strannik]

1 hour ago, urbanoid said:

"People"  

Arabs are polite

[lucklucky]

https://balkangreenenergynews.com/wind-farm-in-germany-is-being-dismantled-to-expand-coal-mine/

[urbanoid]

Only eight turbines, but still symbolic.

[Ssnake]

...and written off already, having been built in 2001...

[lucklucky]

Still having them replaced. like urbanoid says symbolic

[sunday]

Let's wait for the price of copper scrap to be high enough that operators of wind turbines begin to think about gaining some immediate liquidity...

[Ivanhoe]

15 minutes ago, sunday said:

Let's wait for the price of copper scrap to be high enough that operators of wind turbines begin to think about gaining some immediate liquidity...

In the US, sooner or later the methheads will figure out that wind turbines have a ton of copper coils in them, no on-site security, and ...

[sunday]

11 minutes ago, Ivanhoe said:

In the US, sooner or later the methheads will figure out that wind turbines have a ton of copper coils in them, no on-site security, and ...

There is the sad history of the electrification of some stretches of the Milwaukee Road network. After some years, the electrification system was disassembled and sold for scrap.

http://streamlinermemories.info/Milw/Milw73EndofEra.pdf

 

[rmgill]

30 minutes ago, sunday said:

There is the sad history of the electrification of some stretches of the Milwaukee Road network. After some years, the electrification system was disassembled and sold for scrap.

http://streamlinermemories.info/Milw/Milw73EndofEra.pdf

 

Encouraged by property tax structures too. The railroads are taxed on ALL that infrastructure. If its sitting fallow, they are paying for it. 

[sunday]

Tried to find something that elaborates on that property taxes, but my google fu is disappointingly weak in those matters.

I wonder if those taxes have anything to do with the shenanigans of the railway robber barons.

[rmgill]

1 hour ago, sunday said:

Tried to find something that elaborates on that property taxes, but my google fu is disappointingly weak in those matters.

I wonder if those taxes have anything to do with the shenanigans of the railway robber barons.

It was probably a factor. The larger issue was market capture. 

There's also the Interstate Commerce Commission. This put the federal government's fist on the scales to try to make things fair. Which was in fact what nearly drove many of the RR's out of business entirely and was why they completely dropped passenger service. 

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/freightwaves-classics-the-icc-and-the-railroads

Edited October 27, 2022 by rmgill

[Tim the Tank Nut]

so a fair amount of time has passed.  The ruptured pipeline isn't dumping enormous amounts of NG into the ocean.  Am I overlooking the detailed reports about what happened?

[Strannik]

 

 

[Strannik]

 

 

[Tim the Tank Nut]

is that an answer or just coincidental timing?

[seahawk]

On 10/19/2022 at 11:41 AM, BansheeOne said:

Which I think weird. Back when Germany started planning for some of its own while Russian gas was still flowing, critics pointed out that existing European LNG terminals already had vast unused capacities. I looked it up then and worked out that those capacities pretty much equaled the share of European gas imports from Russia, so you should just be able to substitute the former for the latter. But I guess not all at once.

If the MidCat pipeline would be finished... but the French are blocking this.