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Power Failures! In the year 2020 !!
cdev:
Now that we're exporting it, expect the price of natural gas to go up a LOT the next cold winter we get after the coronavirus thing is over. It may take a few years but it will likely be soon enough to make it quite substantially more expensive. Electricity will likely go up a lot too. This is why they are trying to bring back coal. LNG fetches a LOT more money in Asia than here.
Lots of businesses may close and especially, multiunit apartment buildings too, because its no longer economical to operate without cheap electricity or gas.
They have been trying to do this for a very long time, now they are.
NiHaoMike:
--- Quote from: cdev on May 10, 2020, 03:01:04 pm ---Now that we're exporting it, expect the price of natural gas to go up a LOT the next cold winter we get after the coronavirus thing is over. It may take a few years but it will likely be soon enough to make it quite substantially more expensive. Electricity will likely go up a lot too. This is why they are trying to bring back coal. LNG fetches a LOT more money in Asia than here.
--- End quote ---
Things are going to get interesting when solar is already cheap and getting even cheaper. The PG&E crisis in California is already pushing a lot for energy independence at home.
cdev:
When the sun is out thats definitely a good option. The worst case scenario is a year where there is a volcanic eruption that puts a lot of ash in the air. Like "The Year Without a Summer" that Ben Franklin wrote about. No crops, no wind, no rain, no heat. I think "The Scream" was painted in such a year.
IDEngineer:
--- Quote from: NiHaoMike on May 10, 2020, 05:44:00 pm ---Things are going to get interesting when solar is already cheap and getting even cheaper. The PG&E crisis in California is already pushing a lot for energy independence at home.
--- End quote ---
There's another hilarious side to that. We have close friends on the main island of Hawaii. Roof installs of solar panels have become quite the fashion there, since they get a lot of sun and the state government mandates that excess power must be purchased by the local power company. The result is that the power company, at least on Hawaii, is losing money and cannot afford to maintain their infrastructure. So much solar power is coming into the grid, for which they are compelled to pay, that they are not selling enough of their own generated power to cover their expenses. They have increased their rates, but that just drives more residents to install solar on their roofs because the breakeven timeframe just gets shorter.
It's hilarious when folks insist on corrupting the free market. Inevitably, they force people to re-learn that the road to he!! is paved with good intentions. Nobody knows how this is going to end up. Who will pay to maintain the electrical grid? Will they continue to have centralized power stations at all, and if so who will pay for those? Does the state government dare rescind the mandated power-buy, destroying the business case for (and the political support from) all those homeowners who paid $10's of K up front to install solar? :popcorn:
Berni:
--- Quote from: IDEngineer on May 11, 2020, 03:12:19 am ---
--- Quote from: NiHaoMike on May 10, 2020, 05:44:00 pm ---Things are going to get interesting when solar is already cheap and getting even cheaper. The PG&E crisis in California is already pushing a lot for energy independence at home.
--- End quote ---
There's another hilarious side to that. We have close friends on the main island of Hawaii. Roof installs of solar panels have become quite the fashion there, since they get a lot of sun and the state government mandates that excess power must be purchased by the local power company. The result is that the power company, at least on Hawaii, is losing money and cannot afford to maintain their infrastructure. So much solar power is coming into the grid, for which they are compelled to pay, that they are not selling enough of their own generated power to cover their expenses. They have increased their rates, but that just drives more residents to install solar on their roofs because the breakeven timeframe just gets shorter.
It's hilarious when folks insist on corrupting the free market. Inevitably, they force people to re-learn that the road to he!! is paved with good intentions. Nobody knows how this is going to end up. Who will pay to maintain the electrical grid? Will they continue to have centralized power stations at all, and if so who will pay for those? Does the state government dare rescind the mandated power-buy, destroying the business case for (and the political support from) all those homeowners who paid $10's of K up front to install solar? :popcorn:
--- End quote ---
That does sound like a recipe for disaster.
We have a 12kW solar array but the way it works with the particular power company we use is that you only pay for the difference in kWh between the generated and used power. But if you generate more than you use they won't pay you for it and you give them the power for free. So you can't actually make money from the solar power, but it does grantee a 1:1 buy/sell rate for you. To be able to actually sell power here, then you need some extra paperwork cause you need to be a company to do that.
But it does work out pretty well overall. Its similar to having a off grid setup except that the power company instead provides you with a "battery array" with infinite capacity and zero maintenance in the form of the power grid. Real battery arrays big enough to cover the daily usage of a typical full sized house are not cheap so its a pretty good deal. But you don't get any of the battery backup functionality since if the grid is down so is your solar setup. But the grid appears pretty reliable here apart from a few extreme cases here or there, i only have one UPS and its a dinky little one that i got a few years ago to gently shut down my NAS server in a potential power failure. Nothing else is on UPS cause power failures are so rare.
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