Y2Kyoto: Not Dark Enough!

I believe that should read January 13, 2010.

thanks, fixed.

meanwhile his buddy thinks he just say "stop the blackouts" and electricity will magically course through the wires . . .

"CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez indefinitely suspended rolling blackouts in Venezuela's capital just a day after they began, and sacked his electricity minister saying he was responsible for mistakes in the way the rationing plan was applied.

Chavez's announcements late Wednesday were a significant strategic shift in his attempts to prevent a widespread power collapse in the coming months through rolling blackouts of up to four hours a day across the country.

"I've ordered the electrical outages to be suspended, only in Caracas," Chavez said on state television. "Because this government has to be capable of recognizing mistakes made and fixing them in time."

Chavez said that since the outages began in Caracas at midnight Tuesday, authorities had cut power to the wrong sectors of the city. "I think in one area they repeated the outage a few hours later," he said.

He added that some stoplights were left without power.

"Enough. I said if that's what is going on, there was an error there," Chavez said.

Chavez said he asked Electricity Minister Angel Rodriguez to resign and that "he has taken it like a soldier."

He made the announcement shortly before some parts of Caracas were set to begin four-hour outages at midnight. "

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9D7BHRG1&show_article=1

Fred...
http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2010/01/cornered-regime-bereft-of-ideas-and.html
other sites have reported on people shouting in Caracas, "welcome to Cuba" while the lights were out.

Many years ago I went with my parents of visit some farmer friends. As we were about to leave the farmer released the brake and the windcharger started to turn. My folks explained that the farmer was charging his batteries so if the wind stopped blowing he would still have power.

Of course the major problem with present electrical generation is that what is not consumed immediately is wasted. Thus wind and solar are bound for failure since there is still demand for power when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow. We don't have realistic ways of storing the power generated and not consumed when the sun does shine and the wind does blow.

I'm not sure I get the point of this juxtaposition. Of course solar power (and wind) are a joke, but the power system in Florida failed because of the cold weather, not because solar power was involved. And, if the article is correct, the outage was localized, not widespread. More to the point - the outage was restricted to Palm Beach and Broward counties, which are just up the east coast from Miami, and the solar plant is in Desoto county, near the west side of Florida. I fail to see how the two issues are connected.

Venezuela is going to need some arms imports.
The fat faced roach has to be dusted out.

Joe:

Re: Jan 14, 2:18 PM.

Your friend's system did not have to power electric stoves, dryers and electric hearters. The batteries were used only only for lighting. No battery(ies) exist to this day that would store enough energy to supply our ever growing demands. You brought back good memories!

It would seem that solar power is really only potentially feasible in areas of constant availability, such as the American southwest, the Aussie outback, the Sahara, etc. Tidal power, as another powerful constant, may also be feasible, and at more locations, although I don't know anything about the economics of either.

Any good links on these two sources, folks?

Kevin - the juxtapose is "not dark enough".

The billions being poured into fragile energy sources to "replace" the robust ones we currently enjoy - vs - the public's expectation of reliability.

Just signs of things to come.

Do you think it might occur to these people that *this* is why Canada uses so much energy?

Kate -

Not to belabour the point, but the article about the outage blamed frozen transformers and other transmission equipment, and there wasn't a word about generating problems anywhere.

If your point is that the money wasted on the solar plant would have been better spent upgrading the grid, I don't disagree, but it certainly didn't come through in your post.

Solar batteries are good for calculators but not for running businesses with. Common sense would tell you that.

Kevin...could we take it one step further , slightly in a different direction, not to belabour the point.

Why invest so much money into a system that is not dependable?
Nuclear energy is dependable.
Fossil fuels are dependable.
Oh but nuke and fossil fuels are dirty words for the AGW crowd.

Does that help?

One of the systemic problems in North America is 110V. Still kills, but costs more.

Alex Baldwin has published an article in the Huffington Post entitled "Put a Major Oil Company Out of Business":

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/put-a-major-oil-company-o_b_421021.html

I posted a response, but since the HP often to screens out replies they don't agree with (despite claiming they don't), here it is:

"Great idea.Let's bankrupt a major company. Heck, why stop there? Let's bankrupt an entire industry, or maybe a suite of industries! We don't like the oil industry, or big financial institutions, or big pharmaceuticals, or major retailers? Out they go, like last week's garbage.

And the Huffington Post can run even more articles about unemployment and debt and the collapse of the middle class and the fall of America, and blame it all on capitalism and corporate greed. And ask themselves, what really went wrong?"

Haiti 'Quake + AGW + Al Gore's Weather = Voodoo.

Haiti 'Quake linked to AGW.
...-

"Danny Glover on Haiti and Climate Change: We Have to Act Now

With thoughtful insight into the devastation that struck Haiti yesterday, Link TV board member Danny Glover spoke with our friends at GRITtv today to discuss steps forward for the Haitian capital. Glover points out that in this great moment of internationalism, the U.S. has the opportunity to rebuild its relationship with Haiti, and he voices a warning that disasters like this will inevitably strike again as climate change continues.

(Excerpt) Read more at linktv.org"
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2428396/posts

bluetech:

When Kate puts two articles side by each (as we say in Quebec), one normally assumes that the two are connected in some way. The Florida solar plant could have been nuclear or coal and the blackout still would have happened. The two issues are just not connected in any meaningful way.

Sure I think solar and wind plants are a waste of time, money, and energy. Dullton would be much better off tearing down Nanticoke and building a new nuclear plant than following his ridiculous plans for windmills. But to imply - which is what the juxtaposition does - that Florida's blackout was in any way, shape, or form due to the existence of the solar plant is disingenuous at best.

It gets worse.

Read the next article in the series:

http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2010/jan/14/state-rejects-most-florida-power-light-rate-hike-f/

TALLAHASSEE — State regulators under pressure from politicians and consumer advocates Wednesday rejected more than 99 percent of Florida Power & Light Co.'s request to raise base rates by $1 billion this year and all of a $247 million proposal for 2011.

In response, FPL said it will immediately suspend projects representing about $10 billion of investment over the next five years in Florida's energy infrastructure.

Can someone with accounting skills please explain the constant rate hikes by utilities, in light of the following:

- constantly falling equipment prices (everything made in China)
- falling or constant salaries (economic downturn)

How is it possible to justify rate hikes, specially in Toronto Area, where population is constantly increasing in density, so more people are paying for the same infrastructure???

Something that comes up repeatedly in these discussions about electricity/utilities is the bafflement from some quarters at the concept of companies passing on development costs to the customers. Where do these people think the money is going to come from? Mars?
Of course, in a regulated market, the company is going to pass on its' costs to the customer.
If they aren't allowed to do so, they are being regulated at a mandatory loss, which will automatically and quickly lead to disruption and loss of the service. Another description of regulated market is guaranteed profit.
The only way that you will have non-guaranteed profit is in an unregulated market, where the customer is the final arbiter of the value of the product/service provided. If the utility runs the rate up too high, the customer has the right to buy less (or none) of the product- it's called turning off excess lights or turning down the heat, in this case- which reduces the sales volume.
Unfortunately, the very same people who rail against the utlity companies passing their costs on to customers, are the exact same people who oppose the opening of utility markets in the first place.

Aaron, another reason for rate hikes is energy efficiency. It causes revenues to decrease but not the cost of production. You can't lay off workers or shutdown baseload plants because the system still needs to handle peak loads. So utilities need to raise prices to cover costs (and in the case of crown corps, dividends to government).

Expensive but trendy alternative energy also increases rates.

KevinB - the second link isn't about a power failure, it's about a class action lawsuit over a power failure.

I say leave the politicians and the NGO's out of how and where electricity is produced.

Leave the problem to the Electrical Engineers who without interference from the NGO's and Politicians would contend with and deal with the ever growing demand from all of us for more electricity, to ensure that it is delivered to every household so that we are able to turn on our lights, heat our homes when it is -30C, cook on our stoves, watch TV, call on our Cell phones , operate our computers, wash and dry our clothes, toast our bread, make our coffee, cook meals, drive our cars, and just about everything else we touch in our lives that requires electricity such as food (safeway), automobiles, Hospitals/Charity organizations and all Social agencies which require electricity to power their shops, coffee machines and equipment),etc...

I could add lots of other industries and social agencies that consume Electricity but my EMAIl would go on for ever.

As a additive to my last comment, what I am saying is leave the practical problem to the Engineers and scientists and leave the social scientists and NGO's out of the equation as they have no idea what they are talking about.

Even though they think and are acting in the best interest of the public. When the Physical system crashes as in Florida and when the power is not delivered to the home, no explanation is acceptable to the general public.

If the system was left totally in the hand of engineers, they would have designed and updated the system that could've handled a little cold snap.

RL, there seems to be a big movement going on (certain Hollywood and media types) to convince the population that "wishing so" and making laws will fix problems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b240PGCMwV0&feature=player_embedded

I'm probably late to the party, but I've been reading Feynman lately.