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Thread: OT: Politics

  1. #1511
    Quote Originally Posted by Unfated33 View Post
    Tesla could very well transition into a charging station company, as their stations seem to work better than any of their competitors so far. That may be what it turns out they are actually good at.

    Doc, I work in energy storage systems. Tesla is one of our direct competitors on the energy side of their business - we see them as very cheap in the door and then very flaky/expensive to maintain. Many of our mutual customers have stopped buying from Tesla.

    Gordon, right now Tesla is selling around 20k to 30k cars a month. You can track their sales by the link I provided at the top of page 151 (if this comment rolls over to page 152). They are making and selling roughly the same amount of cars to clear out their Model 3 backlog, so I would use the same number for how many they can make. It's still a fraction of a Toyota or a GM. But all that said, they are going to sell more model 3's this year than Toyota has sold Prius Primes or Chevrolet has sold Bolts and Volts over the past 2-3 years combined. They haven't been toppled quite yet.
    Very cool man. Yeah I'm not sold on Tesla's storage systems. Do you do residential or grid-scale storage?

  2. #1512
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    That, however, would suggest both the Feds and CA share the blame for poor forest management, if that is the issue. That's a bit outside the scope of my knowledge to say the least.
    I would agree to that. I linked to a part that included Clinton era regulation for items like Spotted Owl Habitat that added to the complication.

    Also regarding, Congress setting the forest management policies, Congress delegated authority to the executive branch to manage the forests and gave it wide discretion on how to do so. So this would be something the Trump admin could take on immediately in coordination with CA to solve the issues.
    As I conceded above - the president has some power in that manner. But like I asked Gordon - is that something we want him to do?

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    that literally exactly how it works.
    How it CAN work. To a point.... as you said

    (within the law as interpreted by the courts).
    But that isn't my question, I already conceded that. I asked is that how YOU want it to work?

    How do you want it to work Gordon? The State and Feds working together, though that has resulted in this flaw, or the president telling the state to go eff off and do it his way whenever the guy has a whim? To micro manage every little part of this? That has been your consistent commentary. Trump can fix it!

    Wow. Might be more MAGA than I am.
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    it is since josh's argument is that the sun is driving climate change.

    if the sun has not changed output in 50 years, the sun isn't driving climate change.

    and the suns output hasn't changed. we know this, because we measure it. in fact, there is a case that to be made that the suns output has slightly decreased over this time period. its pretty marginal, so im fine saying the suns output has been flat.

    its quite clear that the sun isn't driving climate change. the earth changing is the reason. and the thing changing on the earth is its ability to re-radiate heat into space. and the reason for that is mid 1840's chemistry .... and increase in carbon gasses in the atmosphere causing it to absorb more long wave radiation.
    These is some much to deconstruct there, and I would love to. In fact, I just erased a large portion of just that. In the next 10 years we will see if the sun does change it's output lower, and if that affects climate. One of us buys the other a beer.

    Mind you 1840's chemistry talked about carbonic acids in the air. You should read the document. Both translations (unless you know German.) Then realize that skeptics don't say CO2 doesn't cause warming. That is basically a lie. They say it doesn't cause the catastrophic warming that the models say for exactly the reason Ryan said.
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    That's not really fair - it's impossible to mechanistically account for the historical record of warming through TSI. The IPCC and Santer specifically have dedicated a lot of time to bracketing the TSI forcing to <0.2C within reason.

    Gordon's just needling you anyway by putting "TSI" in every post. The Santer paper you like says at least that the models are well tuned for the physics they incorporate (which includes TSI) based on historical backtesting, but need some additional external negative forcings to explain the underwarming trend (compared to model) of the last few years. If there's a real stabilizing mechanism that would be great, but if it's random and we haven't seen the "true warming in the pipeline" then the next 5-10 years will be rough.

    So there's certainly a degree of wait and see (obvious statement is obvious) but I don't think TSI is the right tree to bark up.
    It is not impossible - it is something we will figure out, I just don't feel confident we have that figured out now.

    I agree there is a good bit of Wait and See. Which is what the IPCC said in 1990. And were going to say in 1995. They figured we wouldn't be able to see if there was an effect for 20 or 30 years. But in 1995 Santer himself said "yes, I can prove it!" and changed the direction of the IPCC. They go hand in hand. There is one person who through a huge effort changed the IPCC's "Lets do more research" to "Be can see the result now" it is Santer.

    If you were more familiar with Santer's work in the past you would realize a good chunk of that paper is based on him covering his ass, and countering the same thing he said in 1995 was the footprint we are supposed to see. Using the Hess method is how they set it up, the <0.2C is designed around that. He can claim it fits all he wants, but most reviews of his papers shows he holds items like Solar Output low and then adjusts items like aerosols, dust and water vapor to achieve a historical fit. The models, like you have acknowledged in the past, have shown far more warming than reality. They still are flawed, and they still are based on his original premises. He just reduced water vapor and changed other methods. I am repeating things from some of my first posts here. And that paper is small compared to the hundreds of papers every year that show a connection between TSI and temperature.

    On that note, here is an interesting bit from a Solar Physicist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NI1bQe8I4A

    Professor Valentina Zharkova gave a presentation of her Climate and the Solar Magnetic Field hypothesis at the Global Warming Policy Foundation in October, 2018.

    Principal component analysis (PCA) of the solar background magnetic field observed from the Earth, revealed four pairs of dynamo waves, the pair with the highest eigen values are called principal components (PCs).

    PCs are shown to be produced by magnetic dipoles in inner and outer layers of the Sun, while the second pair of waves is assumed produced by quadruple magnetic sources and so on. The PC waves produced by a magnetic dipole and their summary curve were described analytically and shown to be closely related to the average sunspot number index used for description of solar activity. Based on this correlation, the summary curve was used for the prediction of long-term solar activity on a millennial timescale. This prediction revealed the presence of a grand cycle of 350-400 years, with a remarkable resemblance to the sunspot and terrestrial activity features reported in the past millennia: Maunder (grand) Minimum (1645-1715), Wolf (grand) minimum (1200), Oort (grand) minimum (1010-1050), Homer (grand) minimum (800-900 BC); the medieval (900-1200) warm period, Roman (400-10BC) and other warm periods.

    This approach also predicts the modern grand minimum upcoming in 2020-2055. By utilising the two principal components of solar magnetic field oscillations and their summary curve, we extrapolate the solar activity backwards one hundred millennia and derive weaker oscillations with a period of 2000-2100years (a super-grand cycle) reflecting variations of magnetic field magnitude. The last super-grand minimum occurred during Maunder Minimum with magnetic field growing for 500 years (until ~2150) and decreasing for another 500 years. The most likely nature of this interaction will be discussed and used to explain long-term variations of solar magnetic field and irradiance observed from the Earth.
    Lee Wheelbarger sums it up: even if the IPCC?s worst case scenarios are seen, that?s only a 1.5 watts per square meter increase. Zharkova?s analysis shows a 8 watts per square meter decrease in TSI to the planet.
    Now, one doctor or physicist or paper doesn't make or break a reality. I might be wrong. She might be wrong. I hope I am wrong. I hope we do not return to the cooling we had in the 1850s and the 1660s.
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  3. #1513
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    My question is what will the increase electric cars do to the transmission grid and electricity costs. Investment in the grid has already been massive in the last 10-15 years. Given that electrical rates are cost-based, more investment is just going to further increase the costs. It won't be the energy inputs that are expensive, it'll be the transportation of that electricity.
    It hasn't been that massive - there has been a lot of upgrading though, due to older equipment. Our grid is rather....fragile and old. Interestingly, Texas has a unique pay structure for power, and you pay about $.05 to transport your electricity to you, and $.07-8 for the power itself.

    If most recharging is at home, very little infrastructure upheaval.
    I just accidentally page hopped and erased a reply to this. Tesla is a 26kwh/100 mile car, adding about 8.6kwh to a 29kwh per house average. or 25-30% to grid, and supporting structures. That would require an upgrade to most local neighborhood systems on up. And a significant increase in

    Well, you see grids are starting to put more storage online in regions near population clusters. This helps lower the need for transmission costs because you have a cheap massive generator that is cyclic (Solar) that typically outproduces what is needed during the period where it can be collected. It also helps avoid time of use penalties on the main generation by using up storage to shift and diminish peak electrical demand. There are some other advantages to do with government required reserves and frequency balancing, but what the population sees and gets the most use out of is the demand reductions and local availability.
    I finished a project for Raccoon Mt. Pumped storage, and they said they had to keep the plant running because it was the most profitable portion TVA has. Out of all of TVA.

    Current project I am on (600mw total draw when finished) was built right next to a powerplant and switch-yard partially to reduce those fees.

    I don't know the answer to this, but I'm curious to know whether the current distribution system could handle such an increase if everyone on the street decides to charge the car at night.
    Charging at night is both the cheapest, and best time to do it because the main baseline power is not being used. Highest usage time is 6pm, so to power with solar you would need batteries - and large scale storage, even pumped storage, is expensive. A battery-battery is very cost prohibitive. That plus solar doesn't add up well for powering vehicles, you would almost do better to run gas. (not quite, but closeish, depending on the cost per gallon.) For the power grid a switch to Molten Salt Reactors would reduce the cost for baseline adjustable power, would not require a battery, and cost per kwh is cheaper than anything put coal. That means 3-8 times cheaper than Solar/Battery combos, plus they can go anywhere. Also carbon neutral for those here worried about that.

    workable range EVs from other companies are just coming up to market right now. they have the range, they are actually available for there advertised price, and they will start to kill model 3 sales.

    the model 3 i think was a poor choice for tesla to do. if they are to survive making cars, its going to need to be on high margin cars, with unique features. not in trying to get in a price battle with a mainstream car company.
    I agree with this, with some caveats.

    They currently sell more Model S than BMW sells 7 series, or Audi, or any real high end car. They also have the highest profit ratio per vehicle.

    Same with the Model 3. The profit ratio is over 30%. The real difference that GM doesn't have is people buying their vehicle direct from the manufacturer. This allows Tesla some room the other established companies just don't have. And they have simplified a lot, built a larger factory to keep prices really low on what they do need, and doing it themselves instead of farming it, which results in further profiting.

    With the full report done, Munro & Associates says Tesla is earning more than 30 percent profit on each Model 3 sold. That*s considered a very high profit margin for a conventional gasoline-powered car, but no one else is anywhere close with electric vehicles. And yes, you have to cut some corners with the fit and finish to get there. Still, Munro says his opinion of the Tesla Model 3 has changed. The impressive systems integration makes this a sustainable vehicle for Tesla.

    This analysis is based on the upgraded Model 3 with the long-range battery and enhanced autopilot, which costs around $55,000. Munro is hesitant to speak to the profitability of the $35,000 base model, but it should have most of the same efficient electronics. It might not be 30 percent profit, but Tesla is probably still making plenty on each unit.

    Even the little things like electrochromic rearview mirrors are a marvel of cost-efficiency. Munro & Associates estimates Tesla pays $29.50 for each mirror, whereas the BMW i3 is $93 and the Chevy Bolt is $165.
    Side note - I work large plant electrical/control, including some power plants and grid work. I also just turned down a job offer to help design the electrical systems in Gigafactory 1 and future Gigafactories. That was a hard one to turn down, but it was interesting talking to them about their plans. I think they have the ability to turn quickly in the market in a way most companies will not be able to after talking to them. Wish I could say more.
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  4. #1514
    Quote Originally Posted by pbjosh View Post
    It hasn't been that massive - there has been a lot of upgrading though, due to older equipment. Our grid is rather....fragile and old. Interestingly, Texas has a unique pay structure for power, and you pay about $.05 to transport your electricity to you, and $.07-8 for the power itself.
    IDK, the investments have been pretty substantial and transmission rate base as a proportion of consumer bills has increased a fair amount. Both sides can fairly argue whether or not all those investments have been necessary, but it's been pretty substantial over the past 20 years.

    Sidenote: I find Texas fascinating given that its excluded from Federal jurisdiction. Did some work for a city in Texas a few years ago to make sure they avoided Federal jurisdiction when interconnecting to another utility. Was a pretty interesting assignment.

  5. #1515
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    IDK, the investments have been pretty substantial and transmission rate base as a proportion of consumer bills has increased a fair amount. Both sides can fairly argue whether or not all those investments have been necessary, but it's been pretty substantial over the past 20 years.
    I was looking up spending, and found this:

    "Between 2008 and 2012, major outages caused by weather increased to 70 to 130 outages per year. Weather used to account for about 17% to 21% of all root causes. Now, in the last five years, it*s accounting for 68% to 73% of all major outages."

    This is a growing problem that is costing the US a great deal of money * at least $150bn a year according to the DOE * and will also require eye-watering sums to address, with a 2011 technical report by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) pegging the cost to move the US to a smarter national grid with better protection against blackout events at somewhere between $338bn and $476bn.
    The US Government, acknowledging the scale of the problem and the massive upside potential of working to solve it, has begun to invest in large-scale grid modernisation schemes.

    President Barack Obama*s 2009 post-crash stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, prompted more than $4.5bn in DOE investments for grid modernisation, including $3.3bn for smart grid technology and $685m in regional smart grid and energy storage demonstration projects.
    The latest government investment in grid modernisation was announced by Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz in January 2016 as he toured the facilities of Florida-based utility Florida Power & Light, which has invested more than $2bn over the last decade to strengthen the local grid*s defences.

    The measures taken by the company provide a good indication of some of the work involved in typical grid hardening efforts. It inspected 1.2 million utility poles, cleared vegetation from 120,000 miles worth of power lines, and has developed an interconnected communication system between its remote equipment and its recently remodelled system control centre, allowing for much faster reaction times during emergencies.

    "FPL really is on the cutting edge of addressing a grid for the 21st century and particularly in the area of resilience," Moniz said. "It*s really what we need."

    At the end of the tour, Moniz announced $220m in new funding over the next three years for the DOE*s Grid Modernization Multi-Year Program Plan (MYPP), a scheme laying out the government*s R&D-focussed plans to develop and demonstrate new technologies in support of the wider grid modernisation endeavour.
    https://www.power-technology.com/fea...ntury-4866973/

    They are spending a good chunk of money, but they are starting from behind with a system that needs some work as is, even as late as a decade ago?

    That being said, our firm's power transmission division is normally 9-12 months out for work right now, and we are EOC for 7 out of 10 of the largest power companies. We are really busy right now, and growing.

    Anybody here need work?
    Josh Coray
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  6. #1516
    System definitely needed work a decade ago. No arguing that. I'm not so sure the continued build out is rate payer money well spent. Between 2013 and 2016 alone, utilities spent $161.8 billion on T&D infrastructure alone (https://www.tdworld.com/overhead-tra...-2013-and-2016). Yet if you look at measures such as congestion costs and identified transmission constraints in the Independent System Operator markets, they have been decreasing. ISO-NE practically doesn't have congestion costs yet transmission infrastructure continues to be built. To me that's a sign that utilities are gold-plating assets in response to lucrative Federal rate policy.

  7. #1517
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    Good link! First paragraph:

    The growth in overall spending on new T&D infrastructure, and operation and maintenance is being driven by several factors including: the replacement of aging infrastructure, new transmission enabling growth in renewable energy, and technology upgrades for the distribution grid.
    That pretty much what I have seen here.

    Now, with the renewable energy we had work building fast-up gas turbine plants that could supply supplemental power, so you basically build the solar or wind warm connections, and a matching gas plant. That is double the hookup per GWH.

    A lot of the work here is upgrades on some brutally old components and controls. And like I linked to, upgrading to smarter grid systems from worn out systems. We just did some bid work for some NY power and the range of what needed to be checked up on and controlled was quite a range. Some of it was 50 years old. A lot was for upgrades to items like advanced diagnostic systems that would help with downtime management - fixing a problem in a turbine before an unscheduled shutdown - upgrades to Dam Systems has been a good chunk of work for our SI guys this last couple years as they do updates.

    From our end they seem to see the benefit in better forecasting and more management. Spendy up front, but long term savings. But that is just what see on our end.
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  8. #1518
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    The Wall Street Journal is reporting that China and the US are exploring a trade deal in which Washington would hold off on further tariffs through the spring in exchange for new talks looking at big changes in Chinese economic policy, said officials from the USA and China.

    It is possible this could be announced shortly after President Trump and President Xi meet on Saturday at the end of the G20 Summit.
    Huh.
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  9. #1519
    Quote Originally Posted by pbjosh View Post
    Huh.
    If he gets it done and its a good deal, credit where credit is due. I still think a more effective to box China in by making them economically uncompetitive to other markets, but we shall see what happens

  10. #1520
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    Josh, if we are ever in the same place where I can tell you a face-to-face story about my interactions with Gigafactory 1, I'll buy you a beer and tell you about how your choice to turn down there probably saved you a lot of money and heartache. Before they were my competitor in my current job, they were my customer in my previous role. Not a story I'd put in writing.

    From my experience, what we see in gold plating is a continued push from investment bankers to have power generation assets last 30+ years. Which is partly what makes battery storage so unbelievably expensive - you're fully replacing the batteries multiple times over the life of the asset. Even (especially) with Lithium Ion batteries, but also with the various vanadium or zinc or other chemical reaction flow batteries. Some say capacitors are going to be the solution, but everything we've worked with is high power but very VERY low energy density. Solar plus natural gas during low solar production seems to be the more common solution in place right now. Solar plus battery or hydro seems to be the next most common after that - especially in places where natural gas can't be used, like parts of California. All of my window into the issue is on the generation side - I have to admit that I very rarely get involved on the transmission side.

    Doc, I'm like 80% utility and 19.99% commercial - my few residential projects have involved wealthy IPP executives wanting the commercial systems in their homes... or horse farms.

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