Big batteries are needed to back up wind and solar

A recent physics paper has looked at the problems caused when erratic wind and solar power is fed into a grid.  A stable supply can still be given to the consumer when such inputs are slight but, when they become a significant part of the system, brownouts and blackouts may result.  To prevent that, feeding the power through big batteries (accumulators) would be the best option.  The undoubtedly large costs of doing so are not mentioned.  Abstract and a few excerpts below

Impact of Low Rotational Inertia on Power System Stability and Operation

Andreas Ulbig et al.

Abstract

Large-scale deployment of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) has led to significant generation shares of variable RES in power systems worldwide. RES units, notably inverter-connected wind turbines and photovoltaics (PV) that as such do not provide rotational inertia, are effectively displacing conventional generators and their rotating machinery. The traditional assumption that grid inertia is sufficiently high with only small variations over time is thus not valid for power systems with high RES shares. This has implications for frequency dynamics and power system stability and operation. Frequency dynamics are faster in power systems with low rotational inertia, making frequency control and power system operation more challenging. This paper investigates the impact of low rotational inertia on power system stability and operation, contributes new analysis insights and offers mitigation options for low inertia impacts.

As can also be seen in this simulation example (shown in green), one powerful mitigation option for low inertia levels and faster frequency dynamics is the deployment of a faster primary control scheme, e.g. fully activated within 5 s after a fault. Notably Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) are well-suited for providing a fast power response

CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK

The presented analyses show that high shares of inverter-connected power generation can have a significant impact on power system stability and power system operation. The new contributions of this paper are:

Rotational Inertia becomes heterogeneous. Instead of a global inertia constant H there are different Hi for the individual areas i as a function of how much converter-connected units versus conventional units are online in the different areas.

Rotational inertia constants become time-variant (Hi(t)). This is due to the variability of the power dispatch. Frequency dynamics become thus differently fast in the individual grid areas.

Grid frequency instability phenomena are amplified. Reduced rotational inertia leads to faster frequency dynamics and in turn causes larger frequency deviations and transient power exchanges over tie-lines in the event of a power fault. This may cause false errors and unexpected tripping of the tie-lines in question by automatic protection devices, in turn further aggravating an already critical situation.

Faster primary control emulates a time-variant damping effect (k(t)). This is critical for power system stability immediately after a fault event. Please note that the analysis results presented here have been obtained by using idealized primary and secondary frequency control loop dynamics. This is only a first step. Further analysis will, however, have to take into account more detailed, i.e. more realistic, frequency response characteristics of various unit types (i.e. including additional time-delays, inverse response behavior, etcetera).

Mitigation options for low rotational inertia and faster frequency dynamics are faster primary frequency control and the provision of synthetic rotational inertia, also known as inertia mimicking, provided either by wind&PV generation units and/or storage units; confer also to. BESS units are, due to their very fast response behavior, especially well-suited for providing either fast frequency (and voltage) control reserves or synthetic rotational inertia for power system operation.

SOURCE  





Another Warmist who is big on righteousness and very low on facts and information

The "expert" is basically just a silly old lady.  Is that the best the Greenies can do?  Apparently



Interviewed on the Catholic network, EWTN, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) climate expert Carol Andress is asked about the 18 year ‘pause in global warming’ by host Raymond Arroyo.  Some excerpts:

Arroyo: ‘Carol, some groups say the 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that they failed to recognize this pause in global warming. Is that an issue? Do they have a point? There’s been this sort of 18 year pause where, you don’t, it’s not warming up?’

Andress: ‘I can’t speak to that, I, the, yeh, uhh…’

Arroyo: ‘You can’t speak to that?’

Andress: ‘I can’t speak to that particular IPCC, uh…’

Arroyo: ‘Anomaly?’

Andress: ‘…Anomaly. Uh, the, I mean the fact is, you know, eh, the, uh, this is pretty basic physics, uh, what were talking about in terms of the gasses, uh, and the effect that they have on trapping heat, uh, the, eh, uh, it’s, an we, you know, the fact is, it’s common sense that if we’re going to be throwing at, be, if we’re going to be burning, eh, and putting unlimited pollution into the air, that eventually it’s going to have an impact.’ ....

Morano: I can speak to that. And there has been, according to the satellite data, 18 years 5 months currently with no global warming. If you look back at the ensemble of climate models  out of 117 — 114 models over predicted warming — predicted warming that did not occur. So the models have been failing.

Morano: In terms of the simple settled physics. we have had ice ages with CO2 five times higher than today. The geologic history of the earth contradicts these claims. Major UN scientists have not turned against the organization. Dr. Richard Tol, a lead UN author did a study and found the alleged 97% ‘consensus’ was pulled out of thin air.

Andress: Look, scientists are more certain about the human contribution to climate change than they are that smoking causes cancer. Now, are there still people who will maintain that smoking does not cause cancer? Sure, you can find those skeptics, they exist....

Morano: It’s offensive for her to mention tobacco. CO2 is a gas of life. It is not a pollutant under any definition of pollution. Let’s get that straight. And the United Nations and the IPCC scientists promoting this are handpicked by governments and the head of the UN climate panel had said they are at the back and call of governments.

And what do those governments want? They have an agenda. They openly say they want to redistribute wealth by climate policy. So they are using the science as a partisan political campaign effort for centralized government planning through the United Nations. It’s a self enrichment tool, self-interest tool and a way they can be in charge of the developing world’s development.

SOURCE  





Big Brother Barges Into the Bathroom

When it comes to intrusive government, California is plunging to new depths, as Daniel Weintraub notes in the Sacramento Bee. “For Californians who fear big government, this might sound like the ultimate nightmare: An unelected board and its vast scientific bureaucracy is going to force us to pay more to wipe our butts.”

The “unelected board” is the California Air Resources Board (CARB) armed with the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which as Weintraub charitably puts it, “put a price on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions” to encourage industry and consumers “to use products that can be made with less harm to the environment.” Headed by unelected regulatory zealot Mary Nichols, CARB deploys onerous regulations that drive up the price of gasoline, a burden on the working poor and middle class. More recently, as Weintraub explains, “has studied the numbers on toilet paper’s contribution to climate change” and decided that the plant of Kimberly-Clark creates the fewest greenhouse gasses. Proctor & Gamble, the only other company that makes toilet paper in California, claimed that its product was better, so CARB attempted to recalculate its benchmark for “water absorbency.” But Kimberly-Clark cried foul and is trying to overturn the ruling.

Weintraub laments that simpler approaches such as a carbon tax or permit sale were not politically feasible. “So this is where we are today, with state officials sticking their noses in our bathrooms, studying the relative fluff and absorbency of toilet paper and assessing the damage each kind of tissue does to the environment.” This axis of bad legislation, unelected bureaucrats, and regulatory zealotry, as Weintraub says, will force us to pay more to wipe our butts.

SOURCE  





Kerry Tells China: ‘Because of Climate Change in U.S. We Are Ending Any Funding’ of ‘Coal-Fired Power’

 At a joint press conference in Beijing yesterday with People’s Republic of China Foreign Minister Wang Yi, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the Obama administration intends to cooperate closely with the PRC leading into a U.N. climate conference in Paris in December and that the U.S. is “ending any funding” of coal-fired power projects.

President Barack Obama's fiscal 2016 budget proposal calls for increasing taxes on the coal industry by $4.252 billion from 2016-2025 while providing "refundable" tax credits to "renewable" energy projects such as solar and wind power facilities.

“There are three key meetings that we are all working on together to prepare for in order to build success,” said Kerry. “One is the Security and Economic Dialogue that will take place in June in Washington. Two is the summit between President Xi and President Obama to take place in September. And three is the global meeting that we are working on together regarding climate change in Paris in December.”

“The United States and China are also cooperating more closely than ever to address climate change, one of the greatest threats facing our planet today,” said Kerry. “Last fall, our respective presidents came together to announce our countries’ greenhouse gas commitments, the reductions, and we continue to call on other nations around the world to set their own ambitious targets. And we agreed this morning that as we get closer to the UN Climate Conference in Paris later this year, the United States and China, the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters, will elevate our cooperation and coordination so that we can reach the kind of global agreement that we will need to ultimately address this threat.”

“Because of climate change in the United States, we are ending any funding – public money – that funds coal-fired power projects because of their impact on the climate,” said Kerry. “And we encourage China and other countries to do the same.”

“We need to continue to strengthen our communication and coordination on climate change to jointly ensure the success of the upcoming climate conference in Paris later this year,” said the U.S. secretary of state. “Meanwhile, we need to also work together to advance our bilateral practical cooperation on climate change.”

The administration has announced number of initiatives in the past year to discourage the use of coal and the generation of electricity with coal.

Last June, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was mandating that nationwide by 2030 carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants must be cut by 30 percent from 2005 levels.

In February, as reported by The Hill, the Obama administration announced that it was stopping a federally funded project called FutureGen 2.0 that was aimed at building a coal-fired power plant in Illinois that would capture its own carbon emissions and store them underground.

President Obama’s fiscal 2016 budget proposal calls for a $295 million tax increase on the coal industry next year, and $4.252 billion in higher taxes over the next ten years.

In a document published in February by the Treasury Department--"General Explanations of the Administration's Fiscal Year 2016 Revenue Proposals"--the administration argued that it is making these tax changes in pursuit of a “neutral” free market system.

“The president agreed at the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh to phase out subsidies for fossil fuels. The oil, gas, and coal tax preferences the administration proposes to repeal distort markets by encouraging more investment in the fossil fuel sector than would occur under a neutral system,” said the summary.

However, the same document says the administration favors “refundable” tax “credits” for “renewable” electricity sources in order to change the energy market in a way the government deems desirable. A “refundable” tax credit allows the government to make a payment to a company that did not pay any taxes that year.

“Production of renewable electricity and investment in property qualifying for the investment tax credit for energy property furthers the administration’s policy of supporting a clean energy economy, reducing our reliance on oil, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” says the summary. “The extension of incentives for production and investment contributes to the continued success of that policy. In addition, many renewable developers have insufficient income tax liability to claim the renewable electricity production tax credits and must enter into joint ventures or other financing transactions with other firms to take advantage of them. Making the production tax credit refundable would reduce transaction costs, thereby increasing the incentives for firms to produce clean renewable energy. Extending this policy permanently will provide certainty for business planning.”

A table at the end of the the Treasury's explanation of the administration's "revenue proposals" estimates the amount of tax “revenue” the administration hopes to raise by changing the taxes that apply to the coal industry. The table says that by repealing the “expensing of exploration and development costs,” the “percentage depletion for hard mineral fossil fuels,” “capital gains treatment for royalties,” and the “domestic manufacturing deduction for the production of coal and other hard mineral fossil fuels,” the Treasury would bring in $4.252 billion in revenue.

SOURCE  




Obama has learnt nothing

At a press conference at Camp David on Thursday evening, after meeting with representatives from Arab countries in the Persian Gulf, President Barack Obama said that the world needs to transition off of fossil fuels in order to stop climate change and that he is working toward this end.

“But keep in mind that my approach when it comes to fracking, drilling, U.S. energy production of oil or natural gas has remained consistent throughout:  I believe that we are going to have to transition off of fossil fuels as a planet in order to prevent climate change,” said Obama. “I am working internationally to reduce our carbon emissions and to replace over time fossil fuels with clean energies.

“Obviously, we start at home with all the work that we’ve done to, for example, double the use of clean energy,” said the president. “But I think that it is important also to recognize that that is going to be a transition process. In the meantime, we are going to continue to be using fossil fuels. And when it can be done safely and appropriately, U.S. production of oil and natural gas is important."

SOURCE  




Australia:  Some more Green/Left dishonesty

The screed below by diehard socialist Marg Gleeson (her pic below) is the sort that amuses me.  It displays the crookedness and addled thinking of the Left very well.  Just a few points:



She heads her article with the picture of  a mirror-driven solar furnace.  And what she says about it is true enough.  It's what she omits that is the killer.  The biggest such plant is the Ivanpah setup in California.  It fries birds at a great rate and is so inefficient and unprofitable that it asked last year for half a billion dollars grant from the Federal government in order to keep going. THAT is what Marg thinks is great!  More on Ivanpah here

And she says without embarrassment that "existing emissions have raised the global average surface temperature by less than 1°C." Such a rise is supposed to be bad?  I would have thought that it was trivial.  Her trick is that she does not say it took over a century to generate the rise concerned.  And there is no proof that the rise had anything to do with CO2.

Then she goes on to a bare-faced lie:  "This has already caused significant impacts: increases in frequency and intensity of weather events, such as fires, droughts, cyclones and floods."  Except that it hasn't.  If anything, extreme weather events have become LESS frequent in recent years.  No Category 3-5 hurricane has struck the United States for a record nine years, for instance.  She completely ignores all the statistics on that.  See here

Speaking of mines, she says: "This has brought much wealth to the Australian ruling class".  No mention that the biggest single destination for the money earned by the mines is the pockets of the workers who built and run the mines concerned. See here. Are they ruling class?  As a socialist, shouldn't she be celebrating the high pay earned by the mine-workers?

I could go on and fisk much more of this lying little article but, after looking at only the first four paragraphs, I think it is clear that there is nothing in it that anyone concerned with the facts should take notice of.  So I reproduce below only those paragraphs. The rest of the article can be accessed at the link for anyone who is curious but the quality does not improve in the rest of the article.  The old baggage is just another Leftist crook. She is good at regurgitating Green/Left boilerplate, nothing more.  Note that I give references for everything I say.  She gives none. I wonder why?


Government of dinosaurs will give Australia a 'fossilised economy'


The technology exists for Australia to immediately transition from fossil fuels to 100% renewable energy, such as solar thermal

Following a recent meeting of federal and state ministers with the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figures, the federal government announced that it will publish by mid-year the emissions target it will take to the Paris Climate Summit in November.

However, even if all the world's governments agree to limit future emissions to what would cause the global average surface temperature to rise by no more than 2°C from before industrialisation, it will not be enough to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Already existing emissions have raised the global average surface temperature by less than 1°C. This has already caused significant impacts: increases in frequency and intensity of weather events, such as fires, droughts, cyclones and floods. A safe level is to limit emissions to zero.

The Australian economy is heavily dependent on resource exports, including fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas. This has brought much wealth to the Australian ruling class and created a political culture where governments are beholden to the mineral and energy sectors.

SOURCE

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