Comment by zelon88 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zelon88 | Hacker News Reader

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EDIT: I screwed this all up and it's wrong. I tried. I'm sorry. Leaving it up so someone else can give it a go. And there's already a bunch of comments.

Washington University uses about 376,394 kWh/year. [1] That's about 7,841.54 kWh/week. Washington pays about 13.1 cents per kWh for power [2]. Running on the electric grid alone this would cost $598.59 per week. This isn't what they pay though, because they offset much of this usage with renewable energy like solar panels.

That would take a 50kw generator to power. Assuming they don't power all systems during a blackout they could probably get away with a 25kw generator. For argument, let's assume a 50kw generator full load would probably use about 4.0 gallons of diesel fuel per hour. [3]

At $3.64/gallon for diesel [4], at 4.0gallons/day, for one week the university's fuel cost would be $2,446.08.

To recap, the university would spend $2,446.08 to generate electricity they could purchase for $598.59 from the electric company during a 7 day blackout at full capacity.

[1] https://www.electricchoice.com/blog/25-of-the-most-energy-ef...

[2] https://www.bls.gov/regions/mid-atlantic/news-release/averag...

[3] https://www.dieselserviceandsupply.com/Diesel_Fuel_Consumpti...

[4] https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/

How can a university draw only ~50kW? That’s not even one rack of computers. I think you missed a large factor somewhere.

UCB has a 26MW gas turbine.

That's one and a half industrial combi ovens (each takes 480V 3 phase 38kw power). Those numbers seem so low.

Cause op didn't read citation 1 where it says that the University saved that much power by switching to better light bulbs

Yeah, I'm sorry. I edited it with a disclaimer as soon as I realized.

You're welcome to continue retracing my steps to correct me though.

I was going to say something similar, maybe this is the core critical components that have to say running for life safety.

Otherwise I routinely see single racks pulling 15-25kWh albeit vastly overloaded. But that’s the norm now.

Yeah, from the link, the quoted number is actually the amount Wash U saved by changing light bulbs.

> the school has completely replaced their lights with more energy efficient, low wattage bulbs that save an average of 376,394 kW hours per year in energy

About UCB: “The cogeneration plant uses a natural gas-fired GE LM2500 turbine generator to produce 25 MW of electrical power and 4 MWth of steam.”

[2013] https://www.powerengineeringint.com/2013/10/14/university-of...

I think some of your citations are off.

The 376,394 kWh/year is the savings they got from going to low wattage bulbs.

"Throughout the rest of the campus, the school has completely replaced their lights with more energy efficient, low wattage bulbs that save an average of 376,394 kW hours per year in energy" [1]

And your prices are from the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria municipal area, not the St. Louis area in which Washington University St. Louis is located.

[1] https://www.electricchoice.com/blog/25-of-the-most-energy-ef... #7 on the list

[2] https://www.bls.gov/regions/mid-atlantic/news-release/averag...

As user jumpingmice pointed out the obvious error in your numbers, the figure you've cited from [1] as the yearly power used was the yearly power saved by adopting efficient light bulbs:

> Throughout the rest of the campus, the school has completely replaced their lights with more energy efficient, low wattage bulbs that save an average of 376,394 kW hours per year in energy. Their overall lighting plan has saved more than 20.6 million kilowatt hours in total.

GIGO

I think we got trolled :)

Nah, I was giving it an honest go. Just not diligent enough I guess.

Can't delete it now though!

Thank you for writing that out!

I’m guessing the problem is in the capital cost of having a generator system installed. Getting procurement, university real estate/capital projects, a general contractor, and any deans/admin involved to build the system.

I have just assumed that all science buildings had backup generators by default. Movies may have tricked me. I think all hospitals are required to though, which makes sense why the researcher moved his metabolic stuff to UCSF

Here in CA the price is about 0.29c kWh, so that’s $2,275. Pretty comparable to running a generator.

“0.29c kWh”

WHAT?

Here in France I pay 0.138c (€, thus 0.15c in $) for 100% renewable elec. That's like twice as much in CA... for what I guess is not environment-friendly by a long shot?

I'd really have thought with the USA fracking their soil like it's apocalypse tomorrow, and pulling out of any carbon commitment on top of that, at the very least it would yield considerable short-term domestic advantages, i.e. cheap elec. I'd have thought you guys paid like 5 or 10c kWh. Next thing you're gonna tell me you pay more than $1.2/L ($4.6/gal) of diesel fuel.

Actually just checked, diesel fuel is $3/gal, regular petrol slightly less in general (~$2.5) but more in CA.

Still baffled at the cost of electricity.

There are parts of the US where electricity is cheap, and a few parts of California where unleaded premium fuel is at or near $4.99 per gallon. The pricing doesn't make much sense to me.

CA requires a unique gasoline mix, I think that’s responsible for a lot of the price diff overall.

California has a different gasoline mix with the seasons for emissions reasons. And every time we switch between winter and summer mix, the few refineries here always seem to have mysterious maintenance emergencies. Not sure why they always need to shut down for a few days right then, but it sure makes for a supply crunch and a price bump.

> That's like twice as much in CA... for what I guess is not environment-friendly by a long shot?

You'd be wrong. CA has one of the cleanest energy mixes in the country, arguably among the cleanest in the world for it's size:

https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=CA#tabs-4

I'm so happy to learn that! I wish I could edit the parent post.

Way to go, CA. Really. I imagine it's not exactly easy given the 'context'.

Have a look at the data here: (click on the place you want to look at)

https://www.electricitymap.org/

What an awesome website. Thanks a lot

France has a massive amount of nuclear power with subsidized capital costs.

Surprinsingly enough, the French nuclear electricity costs about as much as hydrocarbons. It seems the "almost free electricity!" slogan of the 1960's was less than accurate in its predictions.

Lots of valid reasons though, I don't know that we've been particularly bad at this. Nuclear fission is just not the insanely cheap producer economic theory would suggest on paper, at least not in all configs/countries.

There would be no reason to charge the end customer less than the hydrocarbon electricity, as long as the demand is there.

It could be 0.05c/kWh less and still be an economic solution.

In New Zealand I pay ~29c US/kWh for 80% renewable generation during the day. 11pm-7am it runs about US10c/kWh. Handy for charging the car. I live ~500km from the main generation source as well, until a larger local geothermal plant comes online.

CA has much higher electricity rates than most other parts of the US. For example, in Texas electricity costs about $0.11/kWh; Washington it costs about $0.09/kWh; and the average in the US is ~$0.13/kWh.

Probably the disparity is in part because of how likely it is in CA for power lines to burn down entire towns, thanks to a dry climate with many large forests adapted for fires; CA is so naturally fire-prone that some native Californian tree species, like redwoods, require large forest fires as part of their reproductive cycle. So more line maintenance is required (although PG&E has probably not done enough...).

I see. Well, the national average seems more in line with what we'd infer from the macro.

Thanks for explaining!

Redwoods do not require forest fires for reproduction, and no native species require large forest fires.

There are plenty of native plants that need fire to reproduce, but they do better with smaller fires that produce heat to open seeds but don't damage topsoils.

The large fires we have now are the result of climate change, long-term fire suppression, and unsustainable forest management. It's not normal for California, even though there are fire-dependent habitats here.

"Require" was too strong a word for redwoods, but FYI they are helped by fire when reproducing and "often require" it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_sempervirens

I agree that CA is much more at risk of fire now than it naturally is, thanks to short-sighted human endeavor; I was only meaning to point out that it isn't correct to compare CA electrical rates to France as a measure of U.S. vs French rates, since CA's are so much higher than the U.S. average due to fire risk.

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