Capacity Factor of Wind Energy Facilities in California 12/23/2020

[NNadir]

According to the California Wind Energy Association "Fast Facts," California has a minimum of 5,535 MW of installed wind capacity.

At the CAISO "supply" page, which reports on the power output of all power sources in the state, if one scrolls down to the graphic for so called "renewables" one can see a drop down data button, which records the power output of all forms of so called "renewable energy" in the state, measured in increments of five minutes.

As of 20:55 PST, 12/23/20 (8:55 PM), the average power for all of California's wind turbines was 2003 MW. This suggests a capacity utilization of 36.2%.

The highest power output was observed at 2541 MW observed this morning (PST) at 10:20 PST (10:20 AM). The lowest output was at 20:35 PST (20 minutes before downloading of the file.) The standard deviation for the 5 minute segments is 363 MW

As I noted a few days ago on the solstice, the single operating nuclear reactor at Diablo Canyon - one unit is shut currently, probably for refueling - has continuously been producing between 1141 and 1144 MW. It is producing the same power today as it was 4 days ago, continuously, with a trivial fluctuation, reliably and predictably. The highest output today was 1145 MW; the lowest 11.41. The standard deviation is 0.9

This means that were both Diablo Canyon units operating, these two reactors could have easily provided all the energy provided by wind power today, with the added bonus of being predictable and reliable, in two small buildings, using only two turbines, and largely without the vast array of wires that crisscross California and need to be shut when the wind is blowing too strongly on dry days, lest they cause another of the huge fires we've seen in the last few years in that State.

As of 21:30 PST, California generating facilities were dumping 9,846 tons per hour of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide directly into the atmosphere. At that time, California was generating 12,858 MW of power using dangerous natural gas. The website emissions page includes the emissions associated with imported electricity.

The average power output of all solar facilities in California, Arnie Schwarzenegger's "million solar roofs" included, was 2,483 MW, the high being 8,222 MW at 13:20 PST (1:20 pm PST) and the lowest being a negative number to account for losses to the connecting lines was -45 MW 17:20 PST (5:20 PM PST). This minimum was observed a 36 minutes before the peak demand for electricity in California, which was observed at 17:56 was 29,089 MW. At 5:30, when the solar connection lines were sucking 45 MW of power out of the grid, demand was 28,612 MW. The standard deviation for solar power output over the period reflecting the time I downloaded the spreadsheet was 3,321 MW.

All of the wind and solar capacity in California will need, more or less, to be replaced by 2040, since the average lifetime for these so called "renewable energy" devices is roughly 20 years.

The Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors came on line in early 1985 (Unit One) and 1986 (Unit 2), 35 years ago. They are being shut, in 2024 and 2025, prematurely and not because they couldn't operate longer thus saving lives, but because of appeals to public ignorance.

In 35 years of nuclear operations, the number of people killed by storage of the boogey used nuclear fuel at Diablo Canyon has been zero. The number of people who have died from air pollution in California is not zero.

The closure of the Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors represents a crime against humanity, inasmuch as it will increase air pollution and worsen climate change. California's power plants dumped over 51,049,896 tons of carbon dioxide into the planetary atmosphere in 2019, and that was a "good year."

The vast world wide "investment" in so called "renewable energy" - this on a trillion dollar scale - has done absolutely nothing to address climate change. In fact, since these investments began scaling to billion dollars a year scale, beginning in the early 21st century, the rate of increases measured at the Mauna Loa CO2 Observatory have accelerated.

Reference for the "investment" scale for so called "renewable energy:" UNEP/Bloomberg Global Investment in Renewable Energy, 2019

These are facts. Facts matter.

I trust that those who are celebrating the Christmas holidays will enjoy a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

[VMA131Marine]

1. New nuclear power plants cost between $5 million and $8 million per MW

And that’s if you could actually build one.

Wind generation is $1.3 million per MW and large scale solar generating capacity is $1 million per MW. Even adding battery storage to account for fluctuations in output wind and solar are going to be a lot cheaper than new nuclear capacity.

[NNadir]

2. New nuclear plants are gifts from one generation to future generations.

Last edited Thu Dec 24, 2020, 09:09 AM - Edit history (2)

Current designs are built to last for 80 years. Nuclear plants do not require redundant gas plants to back them up, the mining of billions of tons of metals and the destruction of vast wilderness spaces served by diesel trucks, vast networks of copper wires, toxic batteries.

Nuclear plants do not need to be replaced every twenty years. Because nuclear plants do not need to be replaced for generations, and so called "renewable junk" becomes landfill every 20 years, it is obvious the degree with which the advocates of either form of energy care about humanity's future.

Redundancy is not only environmentally destructive; it is expensive, wasteful and viciously selfish.

The United States, historically, built more than 100 nuclear reactors in less than 20 years while providing the lowest priced electricity in the world. One of the dumber things that anti-nukes say, is that nuclear energy is "too expensive" and so called "renewable energy is cheap" this while not bothering to compare electricity prices in France with those in Germany and Denmark.

Nuclear plants saved millions of lives that otherwise would have been lost to air pollution, and has prevented the accumulation of well over 35 billion tons of carbon dioxide, a year's worth, this during a time while people who want to say that what has already happened is impossible that reliable nuclear plants could not be built cheaply. This rhetoric, supports actions involved with a philosophy that we should leave nothing to the future and consume everything ourselves before we run out of time to leave behind the maximal damage, while mumbling nonsense that could come out of an Ayn Rand fiction fantasy novel.

These cheap long lasting nuclear plants were mostly built using technology developed in the 1950's and 1960's and construction methods from the 1970s.

We hit 417.43 ppm of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere in 2020, all the time spewing ill considered rote chants about nuclear energy, none of which stand up to scrutiny.

The planet is dying. The coasts of two continents burned up in 2020. People literally died in the streets in heat waves, the oceans are dying.

This might be a time to consider waking up and growing up.

[VMA131Marine]

3. The economics of nuclear don't work

End of story!

Plus, the cost I quoted doesn’t include decommissioning or the long term storage of spent fuel for which there is no permanent solution. Do you know how many billions we sink into cleaning up Hanford each year, with no end in site?

[NNadir]

4. Give me a break.

Again, over 100 nuclear plants operated historically in this country while producing the cheapest electricity in the world.

And here, again, we have someone claiming that what has been observed is impossible.

One of the things about anti-nukes is that they make blanket statements with no support, usually out of profound ignorance,.

I note also, that you are spectacularly unconcerned with the long term storage of carbon dioxide, and the other fossil fuel pollutants that are responsible for killing about six to seven million people per year.

Here is the most recent full report from the Global Burden of Disease Report, a survey of all causes of death and disability from environmental and lifestyle risks: Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015 (Lancet 2016; 388: 1659–724) One can easily locate in this open sourced document compiled by an international consortium of medical and scientific professionals how many people die from causes related to air pollution, particulates, ozone, etc.

Um, are there any accounts in this paper, published in one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, talking about a death toll from the storage of used nuclear fuels that compares to the number of people who died today because we don't use nuclear energy?

Between 18,000 and 19,000 people die each day from air pollution each day, while intellectually lazy types pick lint out of their navels, without, I might add, ever opening a scientific paper or book on the chemistry of nuclear fuels, claiming, out of sheer ignorance, that there is no "solution" to so called "nuclear waste."

By contrast, I have been studying nuclear fuels for more than 30 years in the primary scientific literature, and I know perfectly well what to do with used nuclear fuels, and, in fact, because I'm not a fool picking lint out my navel, I understand them as a critical resource.


It's called "education."

I recommend it highly.

Nuclear energy saves lives: Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)

It follows immediately that opposition to nuclear power kills people indiscriminately and without end and thus represents the reification of immorality. And let's be clear, killing people through ignorance is not much better than killing people with malice.

Merry Christmas.

[VMA131Marine]

5. I'm not going to give you a break..

You can build several times more renewable generating capacity with storage than nuclear for the same money. That’s an irrefutable fact. Plus, current generation solar panels are not seeing nearly the degradation expected; they are likely to last 30-40 years before needing to be replaced and, even then could be repurposed to other applications with de-rated output.

[NNadir]

6. I couldn't care less.

I'm an old man, who has been studying energy and the environment on a serious level, not an air head level, for decades.

It matters to me that people exist in dire poverty, and it also matters to me that the world is not sustainable, that poverty will get worse, not better.

I've been hearing this horseshit about the economics of so called "renewable energy" my whole adult life. On a planet, where two billion people lack access to clean water, we spent trillions of dollars on solar and wind energy for no result. As I've noted in plenty of posts here, since we embarked on this idiot quest, the average annual rate of increase of carbon dioxide has risen from 1.6 ppm/year in 2000, to 2.4 ppm in 2020.

These figures are here:

The amount of money "invested" in so called "renewable energy" in the period between 2004 and 2018 is over 3.036 trillion dollars; dominated by solar and wind which soaked up 2.774 trillion dollars.
Source: UNEP/Bloomberg Global Investment in Renewable Energy, 2019

I don't make shit up or repeat crap I heard on the idiot websites about wind turbines, electric cars, solar cells or other bourgeois fantasies. I provide references. My journal on this site is filled with references, thousands upon thousands of them.

In 50 years of idiot cheering, combined, the solar and wind industry have never, not in any year with tidal and geothermal thrown in, produced even half of the energy that nuclear energy produces, consistently about 28 EJ year. Were it not for anti-nuke fear and ignorance, we might be producing 3 or 4 times that amount.

I hear all the time from people who have nothing intelligent to say to me represent that they think I need or value their approval.

I don't.

However, in general, these people are useless, faith based, and are repeating the same tired dogmatic mantras about so called "renewable energy," over and over, year after year, decade after decade, while the planet's death throes are accelerating. They are not environmentalists, nor are they scientists, or even economists. To my mind, they're rather Trumpian in the level of delusion they routinely express in contravention of the facts. The fact is that climate change is accelerating, and the half a century of "renewable energy" hype and horseshit has done nothing to address it.

Facts matter.

I have no use for such people. I consider them fairly toxic, and the worst of them on this website get added to my ignore list.

Have a nice life.

[VMA131Marine]

7. Evidently you have not read my technical papers on energy policy.