Electricity Price Increases

[Jstpssng]

View attachment 4006579
Mercedes flowers in bloom

For some reason this picture and the ongoing discussion has me envisioning Pappy Boyington going out to get each of these started.

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

I'm skeptical that wind turbines have diesel motors. My understanding is that they will self start with wind in the 10 mph range. They may require a small electric input to adjust blade pitch or orientation with the wind, but that is usually supplied by the grid. A farm may have a diesel generator to provide minimal power for black start, but a diesel to start blade rotation seems to be a terrible concept.

Working on wind turbine projects, I have never seen a "starter motor" for rotation to begin.
The amount of electricity used from the grid to feather blades or rotate the nacelle at the top of the tower is a fractional percentage off what they produce.
And the reason for the use of grid power is for safety of the turbine installation and reducing maintenance cost.

 

[California]

Working on wind turbine projects, I have never seen a "starter motor" for rotation to begin.
The amount of electricity used from the grid to feather blades or rotate the nacelle at the top of the tower is a fractional percentage off what they produce.

Hey no fair bringing real experience to a conversation!

 

[rontaki]

For some reason this picture and the ongoing discussion has me envisioning Pappy Boyington going out to get each of these started.

Reaching his arm out of the cockpit and giving the blades a good spin as he passes by!

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Yes, I agree, but not for lack of trying.

As @kenmbz pointed out, it isn't as easy in California or the West generally to do it, distance being one item, dispersed populations another, and let's not forget earthquake faults that complicate routes and engineering.

Also, not to overlook the obvious, but acquiring property for transit routes is expensive, as in very expensive.

There is some, small, progress being made with more high density housing adjacent to public transit, something that should have been done decades ago, but good old NIMBY intervened.

Having lived for a while in a dense city with excellent public transit, I'd love it. By excellent, I mean that the subway schedule had the arrival times down to every one minute and two seconds. It completely changed my mental map, as I knew that I could always get a train or a bus within a minute or two, but to be cost effective, that requires high population density, something not common in the US.

FWIW: I have never seen an even a backup generator on wind farms, much less each windmill. Every wind alternator/generator that I have seen is self exciting. It is kind of a basic "cold start/bootstrap" requirement. That there might be wind generators that might need deicing, possibly, but I'd have to bet on that being a more common offshore item, though, I haven't seen photos of that either.

All the best,

Peter

I became a fan of rail travel in Europe, but rail on the West Coast sucks. First, there are all those mountains in the way. To get to California, the rail line goes from Eugene over the Cascades to Klamath Falls, then down the Klamath River to get back close to sea level. Amtrak does not own the rails, so the only time available is overnight. I only got to see the scenery once, when a freight train derailed and held us up until daytime. They have completely abandoned the line that used to go over the Siskiyou Mountains. There is no passenger rail service in Southern Oregon at all. They condemned the whole rolling stock that used to go from Eugene to Vancouver, BC, and shut passenger service down for a month. They said it was corrosion, probably the sanitary holding tanks were leaking. Finding a working toilet could be a hike from car to car. I haven't been on the replacement rolling stock yet. At least the line north runs during the day. None of the lines are straight enough to accommodate high speed rail. There is even a 15 mph S-curve south of Seattle.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

But but the government said electricity will become cheaper....
View attachment 3999229

In the early days of nuclear, they were talking about electricity that was too cheap to meter.

 

[Rockbadchild]

In the early days of nuclear, they were talking about electricity that was too cheap to meter.

That be nice... I wrote that because of the EV argument treads over the years and apparently according to the research of some individual the electricity is supposed to get cheaper (I don't doubt they actually found that information) as the years comes despite a aging infrastructure, growth in population and increase in demand. So because of that I don't believe it one bit, electricity will become more expensive it simply has too and they will tax the fossil fuel to keep electricity cheaper then fuel to sell their EV mandate.

 

[KennyG]

In the early days of nuclear, they were talking about electricity that was too cheap to meter.

The only person who said this was Lewis Strauss, head of the Atomic Energy Commission, who wasn't an engineer. His analogy was to water which he said was too cheap to meter. I'm not sure where that came from since I've always had a water meter.

 

[Jstpssng]

That be nice... I wrote that because of the EV argument treads over the years and apparently according to the research of some individual the electricity is supposed to get cheaper (I don't doubt they actually found that information) as the years comes despite a aging infrastructure, growth in population and increase in demand. So because of that I don't believe it one bit, electricity will become more expensive it simply has too and they will tax the fossil fuel to keep electricity cheaper then fuel to sell their EV mandate.

I have always wondered if anybody has estimated future use vs planned generation and transmission needs based on the new vision.

 

[Rockbadchild]

I have always wondered if anybody has estimated future use vs planned generation and transmission needs based on the new vision.

I have seen people talking about it but not policy making people, simply critical thinkers and they all say it's impossible unless there's a massive overhaul in electricity infrastructure both in delivery capacity and production which sound like a colosale task.