Electricity is a universal protocol - you can generate it with multiple different energy sources, ranging from gas to nuclear. I think this change future-proofs constructions, and makes our infrastructure less fragile.
Depending on two different grid's is better whether the second one is gas or your own electricity generation
Plus, I'm paying over $0.50/kWh when I hit Tier 3, which I hit after 2 charges of my EV. Everything is untenable. There is no strategy at all. It's just a mess of ideology and dogma but no science or logic, it's infuriating!
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...
California has had a grand total of four nuclear power plant, three are decommissioned, the fourth has is scheduled to have its two reactors be decommissioned in 2029 and 2030.
The “on hold” description for the 5-year extension (the schedule used to be 2024/2025) is inaccurate: it was contingent on replacements being identified and operational, those have been identified but were delayed by factors including a temporary tariff on relevant components, but are expected to be operational well before the 2029 date.
We could nationalize those assholes today.
Just like with Texas and wind turbines that lacked basic winterization, implementation details matter.
"Power equipment in Texas was not winterized, leaving it vulnerable to extended periods of cold weather.[44][45] Natural gas power generating facilities had equipment freeze up and faced shortages of fuel. Texas Governor Greg Abbott and some other politicians initially said renewable energy sources were the cause for the power outages, citing frozen wind turbines as an example of their unreliability.[46] Viral images of a helicopter de-icing a wind turbine said to be in Texas were actually taken in 2015 in Sweden.[47] However, wind energy accounts for only 23% of Texas power output;[47] moreover, equipment for other energy sources such as natural gas power generating facilities either freezing up or having mechanical failures were also responsible.[46] "
Texas also screwed up with their turbines
That one huge fire a few years ago was caused when a thick piece of iron WORE THROUGH from 100 years of wear and tear.
But the laws have specific exceptions for oil and gas pipelines (one permit and the land owners have to dealwithit), for new electric lines everyone who can even theoretically see them can (and will) complain.
Regarding power generation, gas is cheap and plentiful and gas power plants are much easier to build than nuclear. Nuclear takes years to get regulatory approval. Anyway, no one’s building nuclear. Germany closed down their last three nuclear plants, for some reason, and California would love to close their last nuclear plant but simply can’t.
It also has the added bonus that gas infrastructure can realistically be retooled for green hydrogen, and related products.
[0] https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-gas-in-todays-energy...
Additionally to these environmental problems, it's one of most expensive infrastructure-wise and suffers from its storage problems, the list of potential providers is also an issue in Europe as seen during the Ukraine war (and it's not like Qatar, Algeria or Azerbaijan are better than Russia)
This ain't about investments for the long term, it's about having a transition fuel into fully renewable, and that is needed for any realistic approach to the problem.
As the fossil fuel reliance doesn't only extend to the energy sector, but also manufacturing industries, where hydrocarbons, as a resource, are responsible for pretty much everything that defines modern life. [0]
> Additionally to these environmental problems, it's one of most expensive infrastructure-wise
The infrastructure is expensive, but it's also the only existing energy infrastructure which can realistically be retooled for renewable replacement through green hydrogen.
Now you can point out how hydrogen has also expensive infrastructure and even worse storage problems, which is true. But as of right now, green hydrogen is the only plausible way to wean ourselves off our fossil fuel dependence as a manufacturing resource [1].
It's a dimension to this way too few people have on their radar, as most of the public debate is solely centered on electricity generation from fossil fuels, when that's actually the easiest problem to fix with renewables.
But the dependencies on fossil fuels as manufacturing resource, fixing those is a much bigger and involved task than making electricity grids green and renewable.
[0] https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/11/f68/Products...
[1] https://www.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/zv/de/ueber-fraunhofer...
Gas cannot be considered for a transition because of it's very high emissions, diplomatic issues and high infrastructure costs. It's a very polluting tech which should stay back in the 20th century along petrol. The stability problems of renewables must be solved first to be adopted, in a better way, burning fossil fuels when they do not work ain't one.
> Now you can point out how hydrogen has also expensive infrastructure and even worse storage problems, which is true. But as of right now, green hydrogen is the only plausible way to wean ourselves off our fossil fuel dependence as a manufacturing resource [1].
The whole cycle has disastrous efficiency with 70% loss, as it is now, hydrogen storage isn't that useful until we invent some better tech. There's some use for it of course but that's not a large scale solution by any means.
Once we said that, how you judge this very high losses depends of your personal opinion.
> This becomes much more obvious once you realize that you need energy storage for electrification to work, but this part is conveniently left out of the calculation.
Unless some better hydrogen tech is invented, that won't be useful towards this goal.
Energy storage will require hydrogen energy storage. This is the fundamental problem of direct electrification strategies. They will need vast amounts of energy storage that cannot be solved except using hydrogen.
The electric stuff works if you provide electricity to it. That doesn't have to be grid elecetricity
I can generate electricity at home with off the shelf parts. I can also store respectable amounts of it with stuff I can buy off the shelf.
Electricity generation can also be distributed easily, you can have multiple small power plants around the grid.
Gas needs to be centrally pumped out of the ground, processed, pressurised and fed into pipes. There is no practical way for a normal home to make enough of it at home.
I can also purchase a propane heater from Home Depot or Lowes which can run off the same gas tanks for less than $200USD.
The propane heater from Home Depot either has the same problem or it uses electricity for the air induction system.
If your goal is to be prepared, a generator and a heat pump will last longer, it will be cheaper for you and society in the long run, it will have more utility, and we have far more gasoline stockpiled and ready for emergencies than we have natural gas.
Gas spoils & does not store for very long. Diesel & propane are both better at storage.
You can even run generators off propane, though at less power than gas. There's even dual fuel (Gas & Propane) generators you can purchase for < $300 USD. It won't power your house, but it will at least be something which can charge batteries & run small appliances. They are loud though. If you own a house, getting a proper generator is the better choice. If you need something off grid or in an apartment (running on the balcony for ventilation), a single smaller generator or 2 in parallel will work. Smaller generators also save on fuel.
At the end of the day, multiple fuel sources will probably work. Wood/coal/propane/kerosene for heat, solar/diesel/propane/gas for electricity, etc. Most grid down scenarios last less than a few days.
Being able to boil water is important as well. There are often boil alerts when there are brown outs.
But duh, I am realizing that shorting the contact won’t do anything so you’re right.
But I have a small solar generator and could probably make it work from that, because it requires very little electricity, as opposed to say, a heat pump.
I.need to replace my 50 year old furnace, modern ones don't work that way because it isn't compatible with high efficiency.
If you can cook and keep warm on both gas and electricity, then an outage of one or the other is much less of an issue.
Energy technology is so weirdly unevenly distributed. This debate could have taken place in 1940 - with the exact same arguments.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hNV6C7u9ipE&pp=ygUTQmVuIGZhbGs...
That sounds pretty fragile to me.