I'm at a combined cycle plant in Georgia right now commissioning replacement voltage regulators on 2 gas turbines and a steam turbine, total of maybe 500 MW. Within a rock's throw are 3 coal fired units that will be decommissioned in August. Southern Company has no replacement power for the. 2 of them are 1000 MW each and the third is cloase to that. Our federal government is very rapidly greening us into a critical situation in this country that there won't be and quick resolution for. Coal plants will be gone by the end of this decade and folks like the OP have nukes next on the list, which are also closing at a breakneck pace. Without government subsidies there might not be any wind mills in this country. The wind doesn't always blow.
The idiots making these decisions can't even do simple math. From the Wall Street Journal,
America’s Power Grid Is Increasingly Unreliable which is likely behind a pay wall.
Within the footprint of the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, or MISO, which oversees a large regional grid spanning from Louisiana to Manitoba, Canada, coal- and gas-fired power plants supplying
more than 13 gigawatts of power are expected to close by 2024 as a result of economic pressures, as well as efforts by some utilities to shift more quickly to renewables to address climate change.
Meanwhile, only 8 gigawatts of replacement supplies are under development in the area. Unless more is done to close the gap, MISO could see a capacity shortfall, NERC said. MISO said it is aware of this potential discrepancy but declined to comment on the reasons for it.
Curt Morgan, CEO of
Vistra Corp., which operates the nation’s largest fleet of competitive power plants selling wholesale electricity, said he is worried about
reliability risks in New York, New England and other markets as state and federal policy makers pursue ambitious goals to quickly phase out fossil fuel-fired power plants. His concern is that the plants will retire before replacements such as wind, solar and battery storage come online, he said, given the cost and challenge of quickly building enough batteries to have meaningful supply reserves.
Putin's War is in part caused by the EU addiction to Putin's gas supply after they shut down huge numbers of continuous power producing plants that used oil, coal and nukes. The energy crisis in Europe started when the wind did not blow and the power did not flow so the demand for natural gas increased as did the price and cost. Dozens of power companies went out of business in the UK because they could not pass the cost of production to their customers because of government regulation.
One of the big surprises to me was how natural gas is CRITICAL to UK food supply. First, and what I think most TBNers know, is that natural gas is used to product fertilizer. Price increases of natural gas cause price increases of fertilizer which in turn, cause price increases for food. What was the surprise is that in the UK, and I wonder if other European countries do the same, is that they use CO2 to kill livestock. Natural gas is used to create the CO2.
There are only two plants in the UK that produce CO2 and fertilizer. Both are completely dependent on natural gas. At on point, both companies shut down because they could not afford to pay for the natural gas. The UK Government had to subsidize these companies to keep them producing fertilizer and CO2. With no CO2, the slaughter houses would have closed. There would be no meat, which some will think is a good thing, which would cause huge food supply issues and economic depression as livestock producers had to slaughter animals they could not afford to feed and take huge financial losses. The lack of income would certainly cause mass unemployment as the livestock chain laid off people AND went bankrupt as they could not pay their bills. Think of the economic hit in the rural ares if livestock producers went bankrupt, lost their land and homes.
All because the Europeans have gone from a diversity of energy sources than can produce continuous power to a single source in natural gas. Even the countries that have natural gas production, are REDUCING this production. The idiocy is astounding. Group Think is alive and well.
In Ireland this has hit the fan in a different way. They have high energy costs due to the dependence on intermittent power sources backed up by natural gas. Ireland has a deep traditional and cultural use of peat to heat homes. The Green party was brought into a coalition and it's leader made the Environmental minister. He has stirred it up by stating that ALL peat and wood burning would be banned. He keeps saying that burning peat causes 1,300 death a year, according to
one study. This has caused quite a bit of push back and he is back peddling pretty fast on the issue. To ban commercial power production from peat is needed since destroying the bogs is not a good thing and a very limited energy resource but much of the peat is burned in rural areas where people cut and stack peat as did the people before them. It would be like saying you can't heat your home with wood from your own land or from a neighbors. Some/many people, have long standing "rights" to cut peat and the banning of it's use shows how out of touch the Minister, and I suspect many in the Green party, are with the rural communities. The British used the control of access to peat bogs to force Irish to enlist in the army to fight WWI. To say this was unpopular is an understatement. I doubt that history is forgotten in many areas were peat is used to stay warm but maybe not remembered by the city living Green party leadership.
Most of Irish power is generated via natural gas and Ireland has gas fields. However, one is closing down and the other running out of gas. The government has banned furhter development of offshore gas fields which is where the Irish gas fields are located. The same environment minister has said Ireland needs more gas fired power plants yet they are becoming completely dependent on gas supplies from the UK. If one understand the history of Ireland, the irony of this dependence is amazing. The same minister is against opening LPG terminals to have more options for gas supply, because some LPG is produced from fracking. Course, MOST LPG is not produced by fracking.
One has to wonder at the thought processes...
Later,
Dan
