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Texas Grid is on the Edge Again!

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WelshBloke said:
I'm with you on that! I love the look of wind turbines against a blue sky. Reminds me of sea birds for some reason.
Plus, yeah, it's that or a power station!
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It's weird how a lot of people in farm country (not the land owners taking lease payments tho) hate solar and wind farms because it ruins their "natural" setting.

Like industrial scale agriculture is the "natural state" of that land lol.
 
K1052 said:
It's weird how a lot of people in farm country (not the land owners taking lease payments tho) hate solar and wind farms because it ruins their "natural" setting.

Like industrial scale agriculture is the "natural state" of that land lol.
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Farmers here love it! It's pretty much free money for them.
It's ideal if you raise livestock because you can still use the land for that while the energy companies pay you as well. Even with crops you can use wind turbines (solar is a bit more tricky).
 
brycejones said:
Maybe someday they'll see the light.
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But then the grid will fail and that light will go out.

In related news, just last week my city (a suburb of Dallas) had a public meeting to discuss the installation of a neighborhood level battery system to help with demand balancing. The people that attended the meeting were overwhelmingly against it. Most people cited some battery fire in California as proof that batteries are too dangerous to have around people. NIMBY seemed to rule the day, with most asking why we needed to have the batteries near our homes, why not put them out in the desert where they can't harm anyone. I tried to stand up and explain that we need the electricity here, not out in a desert, and that the batteries need to be local if they are going to help us during a blackout (which was one of the cities arguments for them since our recent blackout came from large transmission lines going down), but I was literally shouted down.
 
WelshBloke said:
Farmers here love it! It's pretty much free money for them.
It's ideal if you raise livestock because you can still use the land for that while the energy companies pay you as well. Even with crops you can use wind turbines (solar is a bit more tricky).
Click to expand...

Yea it's the people who move to the country but don't actually own working land that get pissed. I've had to hear about how solar farms are ruining the majesty of west Texas so it's not like the area even has to look reasonably good in the first place for there to be complaining. Ranchers are not stupid however when they see people whipping out checkbooks.
 
K1052 said:
Yea it's the people who move to the country but don't actually own working land that get pissed. I've had to hear about how solar farms are ruining the majesty of west Texas so it's not like the area even has to look reasonably good in the first place for there to be complaining. Ranchers are not stupid however when they see people whipping out checkbooks.
Click to expand...
Personally I think that if you vote against every type of power generation in your area you should have to pay a substantial tariff. Power needs to be generated somewhere and it needs to be generated some how. Don't want a wind turbine or solar farm near you then have a hulking great power plant, see how that impacts your view!
 
SMOGZINN said:
But then the grid will fail and that light will go out.

In related news, just last week my city (a suburb of Dallas) had a public meeting to discuss the installation of a neighborhood level battery system to help with demand balancing. The people that attended the meeting were overwhelmingly against it. Most people cited some battery fire in California as proof that batteries are too dangerous to have around people. NIMBY seemed to rule the day, with most asking why we needed to have the batteries near our homes, why not put them out in the desert where they can't harm anyone. I tried to stand up and explain that we need the electricity here, not out in a desert, and that the batteries need to be local if they are going to help us during a blackout (which was one of the cities arguments for them since our recent blackout came from large transmission lines going down), but I was literally shouted down.
Click to expand...
My medium term strategy is solar tied to home storage and shifting to evs that support v2l to provide additional storage capacity. It's almost all above ground lines to my house which means outages can last up to a week or more.
 
SMOGZINN said:
But then the grid will fail and that light will go out.

In related news, just last week my city (a suburb of Dallas) had a public meeting to discuss the installation of a neighborhood level battery system to help with demand balancing. The people that attended the meeting were overwhelmingly against it. Most people cited some battery fire in California as proof that batteries are too dangerous to have around people. NIMBY seemed to rule the day, with most asking why we needed to have the batteries near our homes, why not put them out in the desert where they can't harm anyone. I tried to stand up and explain that we need the electricity here, not out in a desert, and that the batteries need to be local if they are going to help us during a blackout (which was one of the cities arguments for them since our recent blackout came from large transmission lines going down), but I was literally shouted down.
Click to expand...

I had nearly the same experience online in my local city when SDGE talked about building a battery facility nearby. All the NIMBY's came out of the woodwork. I asked them if they would be first to volunteer to shed their load during a power emergency and that got them really upset.

https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/l...dido/509-4d914f55-547f-45c2-bb2f-985176b4ead1

I have taken the view of screw big energy and utility companies. I installed 20kw of ground mount solar panels and 70 kwh of battery storage at my new house. I know not everyone is able to do this but I am going to do what is best to protect my family against rising energy prices. I am in the process of electrifying as much as possible my vehicles, house appliances, heating/cooling etc. While I cannot make my own propane or gasoline I can make electricity and store it in my batteries.
 
Brovane said:
I have taken the view of screw big energy and utility companies. I installed 20kw of ground mount solar panels and 70 kwh of battery storage at my new house. I know not everyone is able to do this but I am going to do what is best to protect my family against rising energy prices. I am in the process of electrifying as much as possible my vehicles, house appliances, heating/cooling etc. While I cannot make my own propane or gasoline I can make electricity and store it in my batteries.
Click to expand...

SDG&E can radicalize literally anybody lol.
 
K1052 said:
SDG&E can radicalize literally anybody lol.
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I was getting $1k electrical bills before I installed solar. SDGE makes the ROI very easy despite my system costing $110k. My goal is to self consume as much power as I can and pull as little power as possible from the grid. Most days I try to run all night on my batteries and reduce my grid consumption to zero. Sometimes the sun doesn't cooperate.
 
I sometimes wonder if Abbot and his cabal are actually just trying to get people to leave before a bunch die. The exodus should be starting soon.
 
WelshBloke said:
This was a related and interesting article I was reading earlier.

www.theguardian.com

‘It’s unbearable’: in ever-hotter US cities, air conditioning is no longer enough

Record-breaking temperatures in the last few years shatter the myth that air conditioning alone will keep people safe
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

My brain just can't process wanting to live somewhere where it's too hot when you go indoors!
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My ACs really struggle when it goes above 103F = 39.4C, at least given the standard August daytime humidity where dew point is about 62F = 16.7C. Even worse when we have hot June days around 101F with dewpoints say 75F to 78F.
 
K1052 said:
Yea it's the people who move to the country but don't actually own working land that get pissed. I've had to hear about how solar farms are ruining the majesty of west Texas so it's not like the area even has to look reasonably good in the first place for there to be complaining. Ranchers are not stupid however when they see people whipping out checkbooks.
Click to expand...
ROFL majesty of West Texas. About as scenic as the majesty of Third Ward back when I lived there (in southside of Houston).
 
As an aside to those of you who like me live in oven swamps--clean out those drain lines. I let it slip and it was a problem, finally got the stuff out with a wet/dry.

In the current humidity, the water doesn't really drip out of those lines, it comes out in a stream.

Politics aside, I've had enough of the temps here. I mean, I complain every year but my window of not complaining seems to be shrinking. Windows get to be open maybe 2-3 months a year, my heat might come on maybe 10 times in the whole year. I just visited Raleigh NC (which looks way nicer than Orlando) and people there were complaining about the heat, it was welcoming after FL.
 
hal2kilo said:
Just put an efficient 2 way turbine in the base, and go. I saw this basic design many years ago and have wondered why no one has pursue it. All of the weight will be in the base. Chimneys work for a reason.
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Haven't studied this much, but on the surface it seems to combine most of the worst aspects of both solar and wind - requires large dedicated land usage while only working during the day like solar, simultaneously combined with expensive and maintenance intensive large rotating equipment like wind turbines. In most areas, I'd guess choosing the better of solar or wind would be cheaper and at least as efficient.

Also, at least in the U.S., only a very select set of specified technologies have been eligible for renewable energy tax credits ~ and I'd bet this isn't one of them.
 
Dave_5k said:
Haven't studied this much, but on the surface it seems to combine most of the worst aspects of both solar and wind - requires large dedicated land usage while only working during the day like solar, simultaneously combined with expensive and maintenance intensive large rotating equipment like wind turbines. In most areas, I'd guess choosing the better of solar or wind would be cheaper and at least as efficient.

Also, at least in the U.S., only a very select set of specified technologies have been eligible for renewable energy tax credits ~ and I'd bet this isn't one of them.
Click to expand...

Solar seems one of the better forms of energy generation. The major negatives seem to be no power generation at night, and the large land requirements, and the cost of the solar panels themselves.

The day/night issue is what it is, unfortunately.

We're getting better at recycling used solar panels, and I think that will improve as time goes by.

As far as the land usage goes, done smartly, it's not as large of an impact as it seems at first glance. Large swaths of urban parking lots can have solar installed, as can pretty much any home or business building.

Farms are a prime candidate for solar panels. Some food plants are shade loving, and having spaced out solar panels that provide some shade during the day can allow them to grow, and decrease water usage. This is already being done.
 
hal2kilo said:
No matter what, it seems we will never have enough power to run all of the AI. The is not going to end well for the planet if this can't be done with non-carbon/non nuclear power. Am I missing something. Is this really a must do thing?

www.salon.com

Power-hungry AI boom making power grids dirtier, less reliable

Energy-intense data centers are opening en masse. Our power grid isn't equipped to deal with a surge of their scale
www.salon.com www.salon.com
Click to expand...
clearly the problem is EVs.
 
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