Thoughts on mega wind and solar projects

[Hay Dude]

Same as ROW through private property.

Some get free right of way maintenance

 

[gsganzer]

I would be interested in learning what the status is. I know that in my state near Carlsbad they have a federal nuclear waste depository in an old salt mine that is supposed to hold waste for millennia. But there have been numerous problems with leaking containers and contamination.

I worked on a project years ago where they did nuclear waste vitrification. The waste is turned into glass blocks, so no leaking or leakage can occur. Vitrification

 

[ponytug]

I might be wrong, but I think that only pertains to the waste from the 1st generation/conventional nukes. I think the new plants use a different version of fuel that can be reprocessed and the waste from those plants' decays in 150 years, not millenia.

The fuel may decay in a shorter time period, but the non-fuel reactor components will still get radioactive and will need long term storage as the radiation alters the mechanical properties end the service life.

All the best, Peter

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I worked on a project years ago where they did nuclear waste vitrification. The waste is turned into glass blocks, so no leaking or leakage can occur. Vitrification

The French have been doing that for decades. They vitrify their waste and dump it in the Marianas Trench, or at least they did 50 years ago.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

So the power co has a free ROW and the land owner should pay for damage? If you want me to trim trees for the ROW I should be paid. Will the government owned land with trees have to pay? Most of the power ROW goes through federal and state land around here.
If am responsible for damage I would not willingly provide a ROW through my woodland. I have granted a few ROW to power lines in my time, only one that was for my benefit. The rest were for new houses beyond my places.
I try to stay ahead but should I drop that dead tree leaning toward the power line to avoid being charged? Right now I make a call and the CoOp will come to schedule tree removal ASAP to avoid a problem. I get clean up the mess but that is not a problem for me.
Now if you are going to charge me for damage anyway, I'll gladly drop the tree and worst case I get a light show when it hits...

I should add the much of the power lines here to NOT follow the roads but go direct to where they were needed in the 50s and newer branches come off to feed newer houses.

Why should I pay for your tree wrecking the power lines?

 

[Phil Timmons]

You want/need a base line, constant supply, atleast meeting your night time demand, in spring/fall. You have summer demand, which is going to be day time, week day, peak, and its going to be high every day, but kinda a standard peak.

Winter time nights and mornings; those are less predictable, and generally lower demand, can spike to well above summer.

Solar production should deal with summer demand well, as more sun=higher demand. The winter peaks, thats harder, and thats where traditional can come in.

Hydro, it depends... some can run near peak 24/7/365; but not all. Some are much lower for large parts of time, and to some degree act as batteries; storing potential energy in the lake, to convert to kinetic when you open additonal turbines.

I dont know the numbers; but is the constant, low, seasonal demand only 10% of the peaks? That may be true, but would suprise me.

Sorry on the slow. I had lost this.

We are dealing with a couple sets of numbers with this. First part is the Peak. In all sections of the US, and across all seasons -- the Peak Demand is in the Summer, late afternoon and into evening -- about 40 or so days - Late to Mid July into Early August for about 5 hours a day. So 40 days x 5 hours is about 200 hours. If compared to the 8760 hours in a year -- that is about 2% of the time.

The amount of the Peak is about 750E9 Watt-hours per hour (the hours cancel out), so that is 750E9 Watts. Everyone's expectation is that US should be able to hit and cover the Peak, with a little spare as reserve, and generally US does this fine. The Peak is driven by the Heat of the Sun -- for Air Conditioning -- with both some seasonal lag (otherwise the First Day of Summer would be Peak), and some daily lag (otherwise solar Noon would be the daily Peak).

Hitting the Peak is the Big Trick of the year for the US Grid overall. Generally US turns on ALL the Nukes, ALL the Coal, and the available Gas, Big Wind, Hydro -- and now for the last few years all the quickly climbing Solar PV. Solar PV has now reached about 250E9 Watts, so if well aligned -- Solar PV alone can now carry about 1/3 of the Peak. Solar PV has been adding around 50E9 Watts per year, so at that rate, Solar PV could be carrying most of the entire Peak (another 500E9 Watts) within 10 years.

In prior Decades, US has built surplus (most of the time) Coal and Nukes to try to hit that Peak -- so they are still surplus most of the time, and Gas "Peakers" have been built to come on and specifically target the Peak(s). Below is an attached graph of the US Peak.

Let me know you made it this far, and we can do the other end of things -- Spring, Fall, and Deep Night Surplus.