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so when CO ditches coal fired plants.....
are we gonna be doin the texas two step when the turbines freez up to keep warm? or what is the energy companies plan out here? coal to what is the next source?
Good question.
The Martin Drake plant on Colorado Springs is now scheduled to shutdown the coal generation by 2023, 12 years earlier than originally planned. The coal generation will temporarily be replaced by Nat Gas with plans to go full green in another 20 years or so (wind, solar, battery). Not sure how that's going to happen. The Ray Nixon plant south of the Springs will shutdown by 2030.
The Rawhide plant up north is going to shutdown all coal by 2030, 16 years earlier than they planned. It's 55% coal currently. They plan to be full green at the same time they shutdown coal generation in 2030 somehow.
Nobody has really laid out any plans about how the coal/nat gas generation is going to be replaced by wind/solar, but they're chugging along with the "plan" anyway.
Edit: wanted to add some context but had to look up the numbers.
Rawhide coal = 280MW
Rawhide Nat gas = 260MW. (They also have another nat has unit that has an additional 128MW of backup capacity).
Rawhide solar = 30MW. (Takes up 185 acres...the same space the coal unit takes up). 117K panels. Enough energy for only 2% of their customers. Another 22MW on 150 acres coming soon. They only have 2MW of battery storage.
Wind = 230MW intermittent on over 20,000 acres.
Not sure how they will replace the coal unit with enough reliable generation in 9 short years with what they have now. They won't be anywhere close. (They have only 2MW of storage!) And imagine what the increased demand will be in 9 years. Yikes.
Edit #2 -
Because they are intermittent sources, wind generation is assumed to only produce 22% of it's capacity and solar 42%. What that means is in the wind farm CAN produce 230MW, in reality, it only provides 50MW. So to make up for losing 280MW of coal with wind, you'd need 1,272MW of wind generation or roughly 110,000 acres of wind farms.
Last edited by hollohas; 02-17-2021 at 21:16.
The diesel generator that you'll need in your back yardOriginally Posted by saltydecimator
I sure wish they'd just go to nuclear. I really like solar, but I don't like the idea of solar farms. That's just dead land at that point. Might as well have a strip mine.
Texas does not use turbines that are specd for cold weather like northern latitudes. So the ice build up on the turbines became a safety issue
They also have limited contingency in place for this type of storm that is a 20-30 year storm.
Oklahoma was able to use its neighbors power to supplement instead of being solely dependent on one company to meet a surge in demand. That was vastly under estimated. Roll in the fact that most southern Texas infrastructure have little heating provisions it’s a perfect storm
Renewables are going to augment petroleum use increasingly in the future even with the growing pains and push back it will come with.
You sir, are a specialist in the art of discovering a welcoming outcome of a particular situation....not a mechanic.
My feedback add 11-12 ish before the great servpocaylpse of 2012
Didn't that chart hollohaus posted show that wind was already on par with traditional fossil fuel usage? I was either surprised to see that, or read the graph wrong.
In Texas average is 13% with up to 24-25 total renewable
You sir, are a specialist in the art of discovering a welcoming outcome of a particular situation....not a mechanic.
My feedback add 11-12 ish before the great servpocaylpse of 2012
This. Nuclear is the obvious choice and has been for decades but the greenies want nirvana, not reality. Nothing is perfect. Just have to pick the best option available at the time and keep on developing new tech until it's reasonable.
And all of these "deadlines" are just vote-grabbing tools. If the politicians believe their own bullshit I'd really be surprised.
lets not forget that the real problem with tx is that their grid is not connected to the other ones... A "Texas sized" weather event was never planned for, and the only emergency backup they have through Oklahoma could not be activated. Some heads are going to roll at Ercot.
"The French soldiers are grand. They are grand. There is no other word to express it."
- Arthur Conan Doyle, A visit to three fronts (1916)
Let's go back to the Bronze Age and see how "green" things become. I reckon it wouldn't take long before those opposing fossil fuels either changed their minds or were eaten by the others.
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