[diemos]

A cheaper option is to build out solar for daytime use and use the dam for dispatchable hydropower outside that time window.

Hoover doesn't have anywhere to store large amounts of water after the dam without a lot of expense.

[Pops]

That's a good idea initially.

Right now outflow is 800K /day, lake Mojave has 1,700k capacity or 4 nights worth of generation "fuel" although using that defeats the purpose of the system initially which was irrigation.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('baha', 'S')how me a plan where the usage in CA is lowered

[Cog]

LOL

[Newfie]

LOWERED not STABILIZED. Yes CA is doing some good, bully for them. But that doesn’t mean they had they fix. And clearly the rest of the country is doing pretty poorly. Baja is right.

Reduce
Reuse
Recycle

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('baha', 'I') told you before. Our biggest problem is not energy, it's the environment. You are treating the symptoms, not the cause.

[KaiserJeep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('baha', 'O')k, I give. Build the dam thing if you want. Just don't expect me to help pay for it.

I told you before. Our biggest problem is not energy, it's the environment. You are treating the symptoms, not the cause. It makes me think of a bunch of ants swarming around after Mother Nature kicked a hole in your anthill. You can build it back but she will just kick it again, harder.

Show me a plan where the usage in CA is lowered at the same time as the superconducting DC grid connection to NV is built. While you are refilling Lake Mead thru conservation upstream (shutting down irrigated farms) and building your pumping stations and desalination plants.

There is no plan. You are putting bandaids on the problem. You need surgery

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', '
')2) California has lowered enegy consumption all across the board already. CA has vehicle emissions limits and MPG standards that exceed Federal.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('baha', 'S')how me ... where the usage in CA is lowered

[Pops]

That was the point plant, CA increased per person efficiency 30 years ahead of the rest of the country. Hard to illustrate that with a total consumption plot doncha think?

[KaiserJeep]

Pops, I admit - coming from a background of MidWestern conservatism and growing up mostly on military bases - I found California to be annoying, due to the constant political rantings of the Left Wingnuts. In fact, they still annoy me more than ever, I look forward to moving East.

But one thing Californians have always gotten correct and continue to do right is the reductions in both energy consumption and pollution, and the application of technology to achieve these goals. In that respect, the other 49 states are sticks in the mud.

I'm carefully hiding my eagerness to move from the wife, who is wanting to work some more. However, her bosses are mistreating their few employees in a variety of ways, she may come home one day and tell me she gave the bosses a piece of her mind and we are moving soon.

[Pops]

KJ, I admit to being conflicted re; CA regulation. I'm no one's professional anything, kind of a DIY, jack of trades, glue it/ screw it/ ship it sort. Lots of regulations/codes/inspections are against my wing it nature, lol. Not that I'm arguing with the necessity, codes are welcome and needed by folks who specialize in in whatever to the exclusion of everything else in order to make lots of money (to pay professionals to do the everything else).

When I built my first house in the '80 I did the title 24 energy calcs myself – Gah! that's 20BG (Before Google) and I spent lots of time in the library, the analog one. It was basically a very straight forward logical scoring system, trade off fewer north windows for more to the south, 5/8" drywall instead of 1/2" for required thermal mass, blah, blah. Just took some research to find appropriate values and good tradeoffs.

Living in the Ozarks without a code official for 100 miles (sorta) and no state contractor licensing or bond requirements was fine with me, not so much other folks who, as above, are specialists and wouldn't know their well from a hole in the ground. Way too many newish homes seemed to me to catch fire and burn to the ground.

Thing is you gotta be a professional something or other to get by in CA nowadays, median household income is $75k +/-.... almost 50% higher than national avg.

[KaiserJeep]

It's not like I'm unfamiliar with the island, we visited over the years. Let's just say, you need to differentiate between residents and Summer people.

BTW, Hillary was a conservative MidWesterner who married a conservative Southerner. I've lived both in Arkansas and Chicago. Their effectations of Liberalism are almost exclusively on social issues, pandering to the Democratic base. Both HRC and Bubba are fiscal conservatives, for example.

But then, all candidates defy simplistic labels.

[GHung]

Seems most folks have become convinced that fiscal conservatism and liberal social policies can't coexist. Small minds can't grok two apparently opposing ideas at the same time, so cognitive dissonance has become an epidemic.

[Pops]

This is interesting, in Ca power is auctioned 24 hours in advance. When surplus renewables are going to have a good day the price for power in some hours is not only too cheap to meter, it actually goes negative. Seems like coal/nukes that aren't made to start/stop at the flip of a switch would actually be interested in backing grid storage just to keep their investment viable.
Power Worth Less Than Zero
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he result: power prices are slipping to zero or even below more often in more jurisdictions. That’s adding to headaches for generators from NRG Energy Inc. in California to RWE AG in Germany and Origin Energy Ltd. in Australia. Once confined to a curiosity for a few hours over windy Christmas holidays, sub-zero cost of electricity is becoming a reality for hundreds of hours in many markets, upending the economics of the business in the process.

[KaiserJeep]

Then again, it's also possible to do everything right. FF peaking plants that are based on natural gas turbines can be brought online in a matter of minutes, and throttled to match the grid load exactly. In fact you can SEE and HEAR this at the nearby Metcalf Energy Center about two miles from me. As a cloud passes over the S end of the Silly Valley and the rooftop PV fades, the turbines scream and the stack vapors soar into the air.

Hydro is an example of classic green baseline power that can be easily throttled. Nuclear & FF steam turbines, diesel generation, and cogeneration plants are examples of power plants that need to be at 100% output all the time, and cannot be throttled easily.

This is PEREGRINE, the HP water-cooled electrical grid simulator hardware installed at the NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory). The purpose is to advise utilities on the types of power generation to build based on the amounts of distributed green power coming online.

[GHung]

I spent the day fishing a 'Massive Grid Battery'. TVA Lake Hiwassee in far western NC feeds Lake Appalachia, below. Appalachia is being managed for trophy trout and Hiwassee is managed for other game fish including striped bass and walleye.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiwassee_Dam
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')uring the 1950s, TVA experimented with the idea of "pumped storage" at Hiwassee Dam. There it employed an energy-generating turbine that was run in reverse during low-demand hours to pump water below the dam into the upper reservoir. This integration of pump and turbine was the first of its kind in the United States; further, at the time it was the largest and most powerful in the world. The unit was built by Allis-Chalmers Company. The "pump-turbine" at Hiwassee is designated a "National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark" by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

[KaiserJeep]

Yes, I agree that reversible hydro storage is an important grid energy time shifter. The major problem with pumped hydro is the same as with simple hydropower dams - the necessary elevation change is relatively rare, and most of the good sites have already been constructed. We should build out the remaining hydro facilities for pumped storage as long as we don't compromise the other purposes that dams are constructed for, which are flood controls and crop irrigation.