In this week’s Energy Rant, we’re spicing things up with a recording – rather than a blog post – of some hot topics in the energy industry. Tune in to listen to an off-the-cuff recording spurred by the tragedy in Texas. Be prepared to dive into critical conversations that we need to have to avoid these disasters – or worse – in the future.
The Rant Goes Vlogging: Critical Conversations
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Energy Rant
Resonating Fugitive Radical Renegades and GHGs
Think you're a climate change genius? Strap in and prepare for whiplash. To close out last week's post, I referenced a Forbes article, Green Hydrogen's Hype Hits Some Very Expensive Hurdles, which seeded the roots for this week's Energy Rant. It referenced a Cornell University paper claiming carbon capture from the manufacture of blue hydrogen "is energy intensive and leads to even more climate pollution than if CO2 just wafted into the air." Whoa, ho, Nellie! Does carbon capture result in more emissions and energy consumption than free release of combustion products? The latter isn't surprising, but more emissions are a headliner. I…
Jeff IhnenMay 6, 2024
Theory #2 For Batteries Increasing Emissions
As a glutton for punishment (I look forward to getting past sciatica so I can run marathons again), I tasked myself with getting to the technical bottom of this article from Utility Dive: Energy storage for grid reliability can increase carbon emissions: University of Michigan study. The article doesn't get into the details, so I dived into the source document sponsored by the University of Michigan – a brutal read – like the last miles of a marathon, maybe Heartbreak Hill or Central Park. I spare readers the pain so they can follow along from their La-Z-Boys. I know enough about wholesale electricity markets to use terminology and…
Jeff IhnenApril 29, 2024
Solar Wars
A year ago, I introduced the mantle curve to illustrate California's overgeneration of solar power and the resulting need for curtailment. In 2022, California's scoping study set a target for an additional 60 gigawatts (GW) or 60,000 megawatts (MW) of solar generation to be deployed by 2030. Below are the forecast curves from last year's post in May. The system was penetrating the overgeneration region, but the net load was above zero MW. Similar forecast loads from last week are provided below. We see the net load digs below zero MW, into the mantle. Granted, the first chart represents a week in May last year, while the second represents…
Jeff IhnenApril 23, 2024