<div dir="ltr"><div><div>Keith,<br><br></div>Where do your numbers on conversion of kwH to $ come from? Do you have them from any other companies?<br><br></div>--David<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">
On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 3:25 PM, Keith Lofstrom <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:keithl@kl-ic.com" target="_blank">keithl@kl-ic.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="im">On Tue, Jul 16, 2013 at 07:40:04AM -0700, Charles Radley wrote:<br>
> BPA argued that this was unreasonable, however, in 2011 the FERC ruled<br>
> against BPA and forced them to buy all the wind power even when there<br>
> was not enough demand for it. BPA wanted the right to turn off the<br>
> wind turbines, but FERC ruled that BPA does not have the right to do that.<br>
<br>
</div>Bitcoin smacks of busywork to me, but the idea of turning excess<br>
energy into more valuable outputs is a great idea. Google turns<br>
a kilowatt hour of $0.05 wholesale electricity into $20 of bottom<br>
line results. Shipping raw industrial inputs is silly when you can<br>
convert them into high value products with low shipping expense.<br>
Even undeveloped countries ship sugar, not sugar cane.<br>
<br>
The usual problem with conversion of erratic sources is the capital<br>
cost of the conversion tools. Most rapidly-depreciating high tech<br>
stuff does not want to be idle 90% of the time. Water pumps are<br>
examples of low tech stuff with long lifetimes that can stand to<br>
be idle. But most places where water needs pumping are a long<br>
way away, at the end of expensive power lines. We can only pump<br>
so much water until we run out of useful places to store it. The<br>
problem with hydro in most places is that it is remote, or small,<br>
or destructive of habitat, and usually all three.<br>
<br>
Regards wind energy, we have lots of power engineers here in the<br>
Pacific Northwet and I sometimes attend their meetings. We also<br>
have a lot of innumerate greenoids who can't tell a watt from a<br>
joule. The interactions are "interesting".<br>
<br>
Here is a plot I made of 2012's 5 minute averages of regional<br>
power demand horizontally, available wind power vertically:<br>
<a href="http://keithl.com/wind2a.png" target="_blank">http://keithl.com/wind2a.png</a><br>
<br>
A perfect power source would be a diagonal line that matches<br>
instantaneous production to instantaneous demand. Honest<br>
accounting would measure power sources by their 80% reliable<br>
availability, which for wind power is less than 2% of the<br>
nameplate rating. If your car or house or computer was<br>
randomly unusable more than 20% of the time, you would scrap<br>
them.<br>
<br>
Windfarms in the Northwest are touted as if they produce 4.7GW<br>
all the time. The maximum they ever produced was 4.37GW for<br>
one five minute period in 2012, with an average of 2.18 GW<br>
and a mode (50% availability) of less than 0.74 GW. The<br>
availability is fractal, not even as good as random.<br>
<br>
Electricity is valuable to customers because the power is<br>
reliable, standardized, meterable, and adjustable to varying<br>
demand. An energy source's value diminishes as it loses those<br>
qualities.<br>
<br>
At the other end of the energy usability scale is one 3600 MT<br>
nuclear explosion per year. That produces 4.2 trillion<br>
kilowatt hours per year of energy, about the same as annual<br>
US electric generation, but in a lethally inconvenient form.<br>
<br>
At some point, a technology crosses over from "useful power"<br>
to "extreme nuisance", and without good rapid-response high<br>
capacity power storage ( <a href="http://launchloop.com/PowerLoop" target="_blank">http://launchloop.com/PowerLoop</a> ) we<br>
gotta just grin and adapt to the bad decisions made by others.<br>
As suboptimal as the results are, they would be far worse if<br>
the decision-makers were also in charge of cleaning up the<br>
messes they make.<br>
<br>
This email is too long already. In the next email I will<br>
discuss what this means for Server Sky, and a presentation I<br>
will make in two weeks that is difficult to design because<br>
of these problems.<br>
<div class="im HOEnZb"><br>
Keith<br>
<br>
--<br>
Keith Lofstrom <a href="mailto:keithl@keithl.com">keithl@keithl.com</a> Voice <a href="tel:%28503%29-520-1993" value="+15035201993">(503)-520-1993</a><br>
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