cwal37

This is more people just casually conflating two separate terms: geothermal and ground-source. Pretty frustrating since it is right there in the name of each, ground-source heat pumps are near-surface and basically leveraging the annual average air temperature while geothermal resources are leveraging higher temperatures much deeper in the earth.

Pretty much. He also authored an opinion today against the EPA's good neighbor rule. Directly continuing the work of his mother, who was head of the EPA during the early Reagan years until she was forced to resign as even within that administration she was flagrantly unwilling to do her job of enforcing regs to prevent pollution while also illegally utilizing the power of the office for personal politics.

Always strikes me as weird that the clear through line from her time in power to his own jurisprudence on environmental issues doesn't come up more.

Heyo everyone, cool to see this here. I'm a co-founder and head of product at Grid Status if anyone has specific questions about the site. I see some energy market questions here about CAISO and natural gas, net load, etc., so here's a link to a blog we wrote last year that covers some of these topics, might be helpful[0]. The market has been setting a bunch of records recently, which you can see here[1].

Also, as a bonus, if you click this link[2] while logged in it will enable a preview of our nodal price map app which people tend to enjoy playing around with.

[0] https://blog.gridstatus.io/balancing-act/ [1] https://www.gridstatus.io/records/caiso [2] https://www.gridstatus.io/map?nodalMapPreview

Folks here seemed to like the last eclipse dashboard, so I thought I'd post our pre-cursor blog here for the upcoming one as well. There's also a link to a new eclipse page[0] that will start filling in with data as we get closer to Monday and more forecasts become available.

Since the last eclipse in October we've done quite a bit of new engineering on the site, including a complete refresh on our charting library and a bunch of new features (custom dashboards, alerts, etc.). There's also a national nodal price map coming soon. We have a preview link in the blog post, but I'll also post it here[1] (click on it while logged in and the preview will be enabled). Happy to answer any questions or tag team in our CEO/engineering lead @kmax12

[0] https://www.gridstatus.io/total-solar-eclipse?ref=blog.grids... [1] https://www.gridstatus.io/map?nodalMapPreview

It’s even a bit funnier than you put it since on net they consume electricity due to round trip efficiency losses.

This also can provide something of an interesting discussion with local authorities when trying to site a battery somewhere that has banned new “generating” technologies (typically targeted at wind and solar), since batteries are consuming electricity and can be likened to transmission infrastructure (or physical trade assets which I think some people are enjoying playing with).

Those early reg-d PJM batteries also got absolutely physically wrecked, so it wasn’t the best outcome.

ERCOT is quite different from PJM when it comes to AS - the market is very deep and the operational needs are increasing in a way they aren’t in PJM (yet). Couple that with a vastly easier permitting regime and hugely faster interconnection process for a facility (batteries) that require relatively little land compared to conventional generators, and Texas has enabled ERCOT’s queue to become absolutely stuffed full of battery applications.

PJM was ahead of the ball on market design, but that was a (relatively) long time ago. Now they’re in the midst of their massive backlog queue transition and also revamping (for the nth time) facets of their capacity market.

That’s not why it is done, it’s because this is reporting in capacity and that is the physical capacity being installed. That phrasing makes it sound nefarious, then you end with a fairly low solar range (which varies substantially and exceeds that in sunnier parts of the US).

Bit of an odd take. You could say the same, or lower, of capacity factors on peaking oil or gas plants in some areas that run for only a couple percent of the year. Nameplate and utilization are just different things.

Maybe worth noting that despite lower capacity factors and despite it being mid-winter, Texas (ERCOT) keeps setting solar output records because they’re installing so much nameplate[1]. It’s not like it does nothing.

[1] https://www.gridstatus.io/records/ercot?record=Maximum%20Sol...

Boy, been quite a week for US weather (winter finally hitting) and it looks like the grid is going to get quite stressed early next week. ERCOT's current supply and demand forecast widget in particular[1] is looking pretty challenging for next week.

I run my own little twitter bot[2] covering ERCOT and it's been interesting to see how much demand has been served recently by renewables even during the winter. Such that ERCOT even hit a solar output record at the end of the year[3]. Interesting and challenging times.

[1]https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards/supplyanddemand

[2]https://twitter.com/ERCOT_Status

[3]https://x.com/grid_status/status/1741876943161606417?s=20

Everything in that fuel mix is grid scale on the transmission network, not the distribution system that residential batteries are on. Looking at the records[0] page, maximum battery charging is approaching 4.5 GW in CAISO, so they're really trucking along in adding them to the grid. Wouldn't be surprised if they get passed by ERCOT over the next couple of years though, just tremendously easier to interconnect and build a facility in Texas.

[0] https://www.gridstatus.io/records/caiso?record=Maximum%20Bat...

Like someone else said, 2024 has a "total eclipse", but its path is more central, largely avoiding the solar-heavy west. It will still hit Texas (ERCOT), but since the date is early April the grid conditions should be relaxed enough that it will be another event where some planning should mitigate potential issues.

The next eclipse that would hit in the summer (which would have tighter conditions and more reliance on solar to serve demand) won't be until August 2044. Who knows exactly what the grid will look like by then, but you will certainly see a massive dip in solar generation.

Well, I appreciate your dedication to responding after I kicked off this thread. Given the first response I didn’t feel it was worth the time to continue engaging, but you hit pretty much every point I would have.

Actually, over nearly the past two decades, in the US, it has been the opposite of a “consistent trend of dropping energy security.” Considered like a trade balance, since 2019 the net energy balance in the US is positive.

Curious to listen to this podcast[0], but it seems that that is not true.

[0] https://twitter.com/aaronstein1/status/1606762318397784064?s...

I dunno, I think Chicago is certainly more walkable and less car-dependent than SF. Then you have DC, which probably is (substantially more public transit at least) as well, and even cities like Minneapolis which are probably more amenable to walking over a larger area than the actual core, downtown SF area.

SF has ok public transit for the west coast I suppose. But overall it’s quite poor compared to the east coast from DC north, or a city like Chicago.

Strong recommendation for Mastering Grain Markets[0] if the discussion in this thread around why spring wheat is up interests you. Global ag commodities like this are keyed off of so many events, it’s really interesting to dive into the history and mechanisms that exist in the space to deal with volatility. I read this book when interviewing with a geospatial intelligence company in this space and I learned way more than I expected (having some previous mix of academic training in the Midwest that frequently touched on ag).

Also the podcast Escaping 1980[1] if you want an example of a global event that drastically altered US ag production, leading to a decline/crisis that plenty of farmers still have as a pivotal event in their memory.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/15891377-mastering-th...

[1] https://aei.ag/escaping1980/ (not that AEI)

That’s why you hedge though. Quite a lot of exposure should already be handled well before we get to this point in the season. Ag commodities can be brutal and few people know that more personally than farmers.

A lot of ERCOT heat these days. I work in energy and it’s both intriguing (because some things move faster there than other markets so there are more opportunities to advocate on the regulatory side of things) and just a mess (over RUC-ing costing consumers an extra ~$2B by the end of the year probably, extreme political spin on grid ops).

Two weeks ago I even threw together a simple Twitter bot[0] because I was annoyed with some of their communications there. This datadog dashboard has been around for a while - it shows up on energy Twitter somewhat frequently when the Texas grid is having issues.

[0] https://mobile.twitter.com/ERCOT_Status

Perhaps because nearly all car trips are those in which they are mostly acting as an appliance as central to (presuming here) American life as AC is in most of the country.

Personally, I’ve never driven a Camry and thought, “this is awful”, but rather “this is totally fine and wow, great mileage!” In a similar vein, its status as an abundant vehicle with many parts out there and being generally reliable are all similar and useful things I’d consider before buying a new washing machine or whatever.

I would have done it all in GIS software (QGIS most likely) myself using shapefiles from the County/State/Town, but I suppose that depends on your preexisting knowledge of GIS software and access to high quality data. I

In order to look good, it would probably also require some substantial design work in the symbology of the layers you're using.

EDIT: Another commenter suggests OSM, and yeah, that would be way easier than starting with shapefiles for various features.

A lot of people here asking "Why is the fine so low, how does this happen!" I recommend reading "The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives"[0] which is obviously a bit broader than just fines, but does touch on the history and current state of things with respect to corporate malfeasance.

One thing that I did not know (too young to be paying close enough attention at the time), but was interesting to me was the backlash from Arthur Andersen collapsing and the resulting loss of jobs as part of the whole Enron scandal. This was at least somewhat blamed on government overreach in going after Enron, even if that wasn't exactly the case, and helped to set the table for quite a slide in standards over time.

[0]https://www.npr.org/2017/07/30/535799735/corporate-bungling-...

A potential disconnect is the timeframes, I would guess they went to school there decades ago? I have limited direct experience with the tutoring market here, having moved to the area as an adult without kids, but do have a family member and a colleague who did it for some extra cash and the costs I was hearing then (~4-5 years ago) were more like thousands. If I think about folks with kids on my block - again, limited to my direct experience (although within a fairly dense and lower income neighborhood), people are working as movers, maids, day laborers, random car fixing and odd jobs, etc. I wouldn't doubt that the next step up of folks like construction workers or mechanics employed full-time could cover a cheaper tutor, but these costs are simply not negligible. It's not a cheap place to live in to begin with.

> But it’s a few thousand dollars if that (as low as under $1,000) which is reachable to all but destitute families.

I live in Arlington, so not Fairfax, but in a neighborhood that borders Fairfax (and not really that far away from TJ either). The median household income for our census tract was about a 3rd of the county's average, ~$40k vs ~$120k when I looked into it a few years back. Which is also indicative of the Fairfax areas around me. It's not like America has much in the way of generic social support to make it easier for folks like that to spend a couple thousand on some extra tutoring, plus the cost here is higher because there are so many affluent folks to drive up the price of a tutor. This also isn't a small number of people, it's a really dense area down here relative to other parts of Northern Virginia (including parts with substantially better transit access and more walkable communities).

Northern Virginia has some pretty unique pockets, my zip code is one of the most diverse in the entire country[0], and a bit south of me in Fairfax is the only other one Virginia has in the top 100, but also quite a bit of poverty in those same unique areas. Idk, I just wouldn't paint with such a broad brush, when I know very few folks on my block with kids could just spend a few thousand on extra tutoring.

[0]https://medium.com/@waldoch/measuring-neighborhood-diversity...

ctrl+f "missing money" no hits.

A lot of this is actually a very well explored problem in electricity markets, particularly at the wholesale level, and part of why, e.g., capacity markets exist in most deregulated market sin the US (outside of Texas). I know this post is focused on retail, and net metering, but this concept extends pretty broadly across electricity generation and sales.

For a little more explanation on the capacity market side of things I'll quote from the Independent Market Monitor for NYISO, ERCOT, MISO, and ISO-NE in a FERC filing from last year (disclaimer, I used to work there)[0]:

The purpose of the capacity market is to satisfy resource adequacy requirements. Because an efficient energy-only market would generally sustain a long-term capacity level far below the planning requirements of the Eastern RTOs, additional revenues are needed to sustain capacity levels to satisfy these requirements. The capacity markets, therefore, set prices that reflect the marginal cost of satisfying these planning requirements and provide the “missing money”. This marginal cost or “missing money” in the long-run is equal to the cost of investment minus the operating revenues from the sale of energy, ancillary services, etc.

If resources are under-compensated for energy and ancillary services, it will tend to increase the missing money and raise capacity prices. Importantly, if flexible resources are systematically under-compensated, it will inefficiently shift revenues into the capacity market and shift incentives in favor of investment with less flexible characteristics. For this reason, we have repeatedly sought to promote energy and ancillary services market reforms that will reduce the need for out-of-market actions to maintain reliability, which while necessary in the short-term, are particularly harmful to incentives for investment in flexible resources.

[0] https://www.potomaceconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/...

This is related to why I bought a concept2 erg recently. Hurt my achilles and needed to switch to a low impact exercise, which I prefer to be able to do at home rather than going somewhere else (so swimming is out).

Looked at Peloton, but it's about twice as much as an erg up front, has running costs each month, and what seemed to be many more points of failure (which includes the electronics). The Concept2[0] is a tank that should last me a very long time. Space is an issue (I had to shove my dining table to the side), but the workout is amazing and I have a lot of faith in the machine to last. Plus it has a pretty straightforward bluetooth connection if I want to get data out and multiple USB and ethernet ports on the very simple monitor it came with.

[0] https://www.roguefitness.com/black-concept-2-rowerg-rower-pm...

Ah, I meant in New jersey specifically as its climate feels like more of an outlier to me in that list.

Perhaps similar, the US doesn't harvest a ton of eggplants, but of eggplant producing states New Jersey is #1 in terms of acreage. About 20% more acres than the #2 state of California. I've idly wondered in the past if it's a cultural artifact as the distribution of acreage in the US is New jersey, then CA, then FL/GA, so some pretty different climates, so this article is interesting!

"From the WSJ" means something quite different when it's reporting (like the article here), and the opinion page, like what you're linking to. That opinion piece reminds me of nothing more than this comic[0]

[0] https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

Separate things. Black Panther activity in California led to Reagan passing some restrictions in that state. I'm referring to jurisprudence at the higher court levels, which generally did not support the very strong individual rights to gun ownership that you see stated as "basic" rights now. The popular (and largely in practice) understanding of what 2A means for an individual is pretty different today, and very expansive.

Only insane in the context of recent decades. The vast bulk of jurisprudence (centuries) supported a much more restrictive reading of 2A, and changing that was a concerted effort of conservative groups (starting in the ~1980s), particularly out of more conservative law schools such as those in Tennessee.

This was pretty well documented at the time if you would like to read about it[0].

[0]https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/09/21/to-keep-and-bear...

Not quite. For a power plant the rate is ~0.059 tons CO2 per MMBtu of natural gas, coal is ~0.105 tons per MMBtu (different for bit, sub, etc.), and oil is around ~0.081 (although, like coal, it varies).

Now, in a power plant context, modern gas plants are going to be more efficient and have better heat rates than their coal and oil equivalents, so you do generally need less total MMBtu input to get an equivalent amount of generation out. But if you’re burning the same amount in terms of energy content, the difference when it comes to only CO2 is not as large as you’re saying.