kurtster wrote:
 
Can't speak for westslope but I'd say tampons.

But taxing products to cover costs incurred by others isn't punative

 westslope wrote: 
Is there anything you will not tax or not want taxed ? 

A serious question as you seem to want to tax behaviour for punitive reasons.

NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:

This discussion wound up in this thread because it's fashionable to blame the Texas grid's collapse on capitalism (because everything is capitalism's fault, and if you can mumble the magical incantation "deregulation" you get bonus anti-capitalism points) so why not?

The grid's purpose is to distribute power from where it's made to where it's needed. Renewables—at least distributed renewables—aren't a particular problem for grid stability precisely because they're distributed. Grid stability breaks down when big changes happen all of a sudden, like a critical line or a point source going down. When a small draw turns into a small supply that's still a small change, even if it happens quickly.

To harden a grid against disruption you need sources you can ramp up and down quickly, but you need distributed sources. That way you can lose large parts of the grid but keep it online.

 rhahl wrote:
 
Good piece.  To nuance,  aggregate demand for electricity is price inelastic.   Consumers still respond to price incentives.

In fact, regulators should really add excise taxes to electricity because not all the social and environmental costs are covered by market-determined prices.  

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:
 

James is the son of John Kenneth Galbraith.   

I met senior Galbraith once when I was a graduate student/peace and disarmament researcher and active in the movement.

 rhahl wrote: 
  didn't know he was still alive. 

The problem is that electricity demand is inelastic: it doesn’t respond much to price, but it does respond to weather. In times of extreme heat or cold, demand becomes even more inelastic. And, unlike in an ordinary market, supply must equal demand every minute of every day. If it doesn’t, the entire system can fail...

...The new system did work most of the time. Prices rose and fell. Customers who didn’t sign long-term contracts faced some risk. One provider, called Griddy, had a special model: for a $9.99 monthly membership fee, you could get your power at the wholesale price. Most of the time, that was cheap.

But people don’t need electricity “most of the time”; they need it all the time. And, at least by 2011, when Texas experienced a short, severe freeze, the state’s leaders knew that the system was radically unstable in extreme weather. The system’s architects knew it as well, whatever they say now.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Not quite sure why this topic has ended up in this thread but isn't the critical technical issue with renewables keeping grid stability? Remote, independent generation is all well and good but if you want an interregional grid to function, you need a stable source of power to cover your base load with enough resources available to come quickly online to handle peaks (at least as I understand it - total non-techie here). 
Just one more reason as I see it to invest in 4-gen nuclear.
My wife is in the German Green party, so we are at loggerheads on this, but even in her party they are worried about grid stability now that renewables account for so much of the nation's generating capacity and both coal and nuclear are getting phased out.

Red_Dragon wrote:

Utilities are poorly equipped to do this, and there are numerous more-agile (and more innovative) players taking on this role. If your expertise is connecting power suppliers to users stick to that. There is nothing inherently wrong with that as a practice or a business model.

After all, a grid is  nothing but a way for those with surplus power to share it with those without enough. The fact (and it is a fact) that maintaining that grid takes labor, materials, land, and energy means it has to be paid for. It's worth having and it's worth paying for.

If you don't want to share power with your neighbors then reconcile yourself to occasionally shivvering in the dark or having your generation system sit there idle when your battery is charged but the sun is shining.

 islander wrote: 
yes solar capture/storage has come a long and it is getting better

it's also good at rural/isolated and ancillary applications (cost and speed)

key major infrastructure needs reliability and density

small modular reactors should be the base/core energy supply

smart nuclear is safe and extremely green too

i see space for both in the solution

re-centering edit: we need capital and markets to help with innovation and production

 Red_Dragon wrote:
 

This is the right way. We do marine stuff now, but are branching out into off-grid. We are looking at grid tie, but regulation in the US is really difficult and is structured to make it hard for small guys and always favors the big providers - I bet you know a thing or two about this.  Our neighbors to the south are generally much better (probably partly because their grids are pretty spotty to begin with).  I'm pitching several small installs of self generation systems (solar w/ battery storage). Basically size the units for close to peak load. Then you can store surplus most of the day, you can use your own solar power to crank the AC in the afternoon for free, and then use the excess at night. If you run low or don't produce enough to cover peak, you can use the grid power everything.  Most places down south(of the boarder) will let you return excess to the grid as well. You spin the meter backwards and get a credit, they don't have to have as much supply when your neighbor kicks on the coffee pot in the morning. It's a win/win.   

We are a Victron dealer now, and they have some really cool stuff. They do end to end systems (at least in places where they can import solar panels), and have a really nice ability to build from 2KW up to 60KW three phase, self consumption, grid tie, all kinds of options for putting it together.  And then you can go online and monitor it from wherever you are:  https://vrm.victronenergy.com/...

kurtster,

Cheap energy is a delusion.  

Instead of paying now, you pay with greater macroeconomic instability, poor health outcomes and dead Americans.  ~70 dead Texans and still rising. 

Given all the American citizens that have built homes in flood plains and exposed coastal littoral zones, do you support climate change denial kurtster?   Of course you do.  It might be an effective tool for population control kurtster, so I can see some of the advantages to climate change denial.

 Red_Dragon wrote:
 
Bill Gates is on it.  First he has to get everyone vaccinated so he can track us...

</sarcasm...about the vaccines, not his new reactors>

 islander wrote:

 miamizsun wrote:
 

Smaller, standardized reactors are a better solution for now. But storage technologies have come a LONG way in a very short timeframe. Many are to the point now where they are a competitive solution - especially for smaller loads and remote locations.  Depending on your peak loading (especially if peak is mostly for AC during the hot/sunny day), up to about ~50KW it really makes more sense to do a PV installation with some flavor of battery or other energy storage. 

 rhahl wrote:

 westslope wrote:

 kurtster wrote:

energy density matters too

that and freed markets

some of the poorest parts of the world are also the sunniest 

solar is a natural fit for some of that, but we will need storage and eventually something more reliable

new designs of small modular reactors should fill that bill

especially if people are concerned about CO2

 westslope wrote: 
I absolutely disagree. 

Cheap energy lifts all boats. 

Benefits the poorest the most. 

Facilitates stability and a higher standard of living. 

Facilitates domestic manufacturing which keeps money within the country and provides jobs as well.

Tesla was all about free electricity.  Almost a Zero Point solution relatively speaking. 

Bet you have a problem with him for that.

NoEndslefttoSplit  (sp?) makes many excellent points.

What are just some of the wonderful features of the Nordic social democracies?    Secure economic property rights for one.  A willingness to use price mechanisms to solve market failures as liberal economists would see them.

It really bugs the shit out of me how many North American, well, mostly American political leaders will design incentive structures that are oblivious to how the burden of risk is shared and distributed.  They also seem oblivious to the notion that systems can be designed to provide incentives to conserve without invoking/imposing massive windfall gains or losses.  

The USA really should put this national cheap energy entitlement obsession behind it.  For the benefit of all Americans.