World’s ‘solar and wind capital’ freezing due to snow ‘blanketing millions’ of solar panels

Cool.

But there is no evidence their reporting is inaccurate. If the reporting can’t be shown to be in error, is it propaganda, or just what they claim—investigative journalism?

 

Trumpers, rednecks, reactionaries, fascists (we have some of those, too) get more "likes."

 

I embrace some socialist ideas so no, it doesn't bother me ...

sounds about right ...

yup ... hipster degrees where you might get a job teaching ... not too many other realistic careers in this bunch ... I blame the parents and to some degree, the primary teachers ...

you don't find many Asians with these degrees ... they are not into the whole "starving artist" ambitions ...

my wife and I forgave our youngest for pursuing his mass media/communications degree because he showed even in high school that he could make a buck doing what he loved ... at 32, he is making a nice living in the media/entertainment business and is engaged to a rich girl just starting her law career ...

my oldest son is the chief physician of a home health care and hospice group ... he's not getting private practice rich but does very well ...

my daughter has an MBA and is a financial strategist for a major medical insurance company ... this is the one that somewhat bothers me ... "they" are getting rich at the expense of Joe Stroke and Mary Arthritis but hey, that's capitalism right? ...

 

They're wrong about hydroelectric power generation at Site C, they're wrong about power generation, and they don't have economic and political solutions to keep society from coming unglued as living standards are squeezed when we take action to save the climate.

 

This post, above, should be nominated as the dumbest post of the week. Anyone can get hundreds of likes a day just by writing things like "Trump was the best President the US has had in the last 30 years" or "Trump was the worst President the US has had in the last 30 years".

 

I second that nomination.

 

~ With all this " GlobalRoasting " - as 97% of scientists agree - we may freeze to death before we get smart and figure out how stupid we are ! ! `

https://www.usnews.com/news/us/arti...eratures-power-outages-lead-to-water-problems

 

~ Maybe you should try it yourself .. ?

 

Again, no. You may have local issues, but being part of a larger power grid will allow for greater energy sharing.

In the case of the rolling blackouts that occurred for a day or so, Arkansas had the same issues as Louisiana and even Mexico. The supply issues in Texas caused a local shortage of NG. While the Texas power grid is mostly isolated, the natural gas supplies are largely interconnected. Since some suppliers provide to Texas and neighboring states, and Texas was paying a fortune for NG, most of the suppliers redirected everything to Texas and power plants running on NG had to shut down regionally, including in Louisiana and Arkansas.

Now clearly our natural gas infrastructure needs to be looked at nationwide. Unlike coal or nuclear, you generally don't store fuel at the plant, so natural gas is more "on demand". Therefore if supply is interrupted, those power plants shut down pretty quickly.

 

Primary teachers? Why them? Why not high school teachers?

Correct. My daughter is a vice president of a major Canadian bank and her husband is doing startups. They make buckets of money.

We're going to have serious political unrest if we don't fix this...

 

But you have no evidence. It’s just your word against theirs?

 

Yeah, too much mindless partisanship. Talk trash for likes. Egads.

 

Of course, there's plenty of evidence. For example, they claim BC doesn't need the power generated by Site C.

Not true.

https://www.bchydro.com/content/dam/BCHydro/customer-portal/documents/corporate/regulatory-planning-documents/integrated-resource-plans/current-plan/2011-electric-load-forecast-report.pdf

 

by primary, I mean the public ed system from K-12 ...

 

That was mentioned in the article as well.

 

K-12. Overall, I think they deserve a fair amount of blame.

I taught computer skills to high school students and adults, how to start a business, accounting, economics--among other subjects. The system isn't teaching students who would have difficulty completing professional programs at a university level how make a living.

 

The truth is out there.......

 

They need more hydro to sell at high cost while buying cheaper brown power to power BC. Sure. If you are making money doing a thing, it’s even more profitable to expand the operation.

 

~ Not sure if you have the facts. Most are confused about nuclear waste. However the dramatic exaggeration is typical.

• The U.S. generates about 2,000 metric tons of used fuel each year

▶This number may sound like a lot, but it’s actually quite small. In fact, the U.S. has produced roughly 83,000 metrics tons of used fuel since the 1950s — and all of it could fit on a single football field at a depth of less than 10 yards.
Used nuclear fuel can be recycled to make new fuel and byproducts.

https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel

 

It doesn't have to be either Investigative journalism or propaganda. Most reporting is sensationalist, it has to be to keep readers.

I ask at first posting of this, what happened to all that hydro electric water they were storing while buying in brown energy. The article didn't say.

 

That’s true. This outfit doesn’t sell advertising and is a non-profit so that kind of lessons bias from a profit motive perspective but shifts it to an ideological basis. For sake of discussion, which do you think is the worst or most dangerous bias motive?

Hard to say. Nobody seems to have any information beyond what’s in the article and frankly I haven’t looked that hard.

 

So my extrapolation is that this in a non story, for as I said at the time, they must be doing something with the stored water.
Either
They are letting it go without the using the turbines, highly unlikely.
Or they are keeping it back as reserve.
Most likely they keep it back for when prices go up so they have a back up of cheap electricity.
Either which way is ends up being used and does no environmental damage.
Non story

 

They're selling baseload hydro power to this country and that allows us to use more renewables. You'd criticize them for developing hydro power that cuts greenhouse gases?

 

Then back your claims up...

 

We are all wrong and we are all right!

Facts as far as I can tell:
1) BC is depending on fossil fuel (natural gas) for electricity in part. About 5% of their generation at normal temperatures. At normal temperatures natural gas supplies 30% of BC’s energy (not electricity, total energy). When it’s cold that percentage rises (total energy use) to 50%. I can’t find numbers on electrical generation from natural gas when it’s cold, but since gas generation is their fallback it’s probably going to increase 20% as well to 15% of totals supply.
2) In October of 2018 the major natural gas line in BC exploded, causing an increased demand for electricity, but removing the option of increased backup natural gas generation to fill in the gaps. Inflows to dams for hydro were already low from lack of precipitation and cold weather.
3) BC commenced to buy power from outside sources, including brown power at well under the cost of their normal production. They kept rates to customers flat, so did profit considerably.
4) BC has played the import/export for profit game for years. Most of the trade has been with the Pacific North West who’s average share of electrical generation from fossil fuels over the period has been a little over 20% (but is falling)

In conclusion:

So, the Narwhal piece is accurate in what it does report, but it omits the information on why so much brown power was imported in 2018-19.

It is not true that BC doesn’t rely on fossil fuels for electricity when it’s cold (it relies on them some even when temps are normal).

BC has suffered like Texas did by relying on natural gas backups that are also vulnerable to disruptions. BC was able to purchase power to service it’s customers while apparently TX could not (I don’t know who’s fault that is or care for this discussion).

Sources:

https://talkingenergy.ca/topic/facts-about-where-bcs-energy-comes

https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-a...em-maximize-gains-from-electricity-trade.html

https://www.powermag.com/power-supplies-in-pacific-northwest-tighten-as-deep-freeze-grips-region/

When we’ve discussed hydro before I’ve been clear I love it. It’s one of my favorites. I’m just amused by the games played with hydro power. I’ll share a story from the US involving me personally when I get a chance today.