Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!

[racemaniac]

Fifth: Therefore, and here's the crux of the matter: the electricity that the City of Chicago actually receives and uses for its municipal buildings consists of ~14% electricity from renewable sources, and the rest from non-renewable sources.

1)Agree? 2)disagree?

Therefore, in summary: Since it has been established that the City of Chicago actually receives and uses a mix of electricity that contains only ~14% electricity from renewable sources, it is incorrect to state--as the article clearly says at the start--that "Chicago is now powering all its municipal buildings with 100% renewable energy".

1)Agree? 2)disagree?

Are you reading our replies? Because i think it's pretty clear by now that this is the point where we disagree.

Do you know what the word fungible means? NFT became famous a while ago and is about Non Fungible Tokens, meaning each token is unique. But for electricity, we've now been saying each electron is the same as the other (though, i'm sure someone on this site would correct us since that's not how AC works, but it's an easy way to discuss this).

You're applying the rules we use on non fungible items on something fungible, and then you come to results that for most people don't make sense.

If we act as if this, for example, is about paintings, your argument makes perfect sense. Say they want nature paintings, and buy paintings from someone that just makes nature paintings. Then those paintings go into the "painting grid", where they're mixed up with paintings of office buildings, and they end up receiving 14% paintings of nature, and 86% paintings of office buildings from said grid. Even though they're paying for paintings of nature, they're obviously not receiving them, and using a "painting grid" that mingles them all makes no sense for non fungible items.

Now we have the bank analogy. I need to get 100$ to you, and you live on the other side of the country. So i transfer 100$ to you, and you get 100$ from an atm. The bill(s) you got from the ATM are obviously not the same bills i started with. And the money you got from the bank came from the big "money grid" inside the bank that contains money from all kinds of people and businesses and... Yet when someone would aks where you got the money, you'd say you got it from me.

So let's take your fifth item there: "Fifth: Therefore, and here's the crux of the matter: the electricity that the City of Chicago actually receives and uses for its municipal buildings consists of ~14% electricity from renewable sources, and the rest from non-renewable sources.". Yeah, for non fungible items it works that way. But i really love the money example here. When someone asks "where did you get the money", will you say "racemaniac gave it to me" or would you go to the banks website and say "looking at the banks figures, 14% is from the saving funds of people, 86% is from companies". Obviously the first, because for fungible things different rules apply, them getting mixed up in the process of transferring them to someone else is irrelevant, that's the entire point of money. Each dollar has the exact same value, if it didn't it wouldn't work as a currency and our economic system collapses.

And so for power it's the same, if i pay someone for power, and they put that power in the "electricity bank", and i withdraw it from there, it's normal to say i got the electricity from them. Yes, it got mixed around with other electricity on the way to me, but we do it that way not to deceive people, but because for fungible things that's by far the most efficient way of doing this, and would yield the same result as not working with a shared grid (well, not exactly the same result, both sources can cover for eachother when the other has issues, making it a better experience for everyone).

So unless you can give examples of other fungible things that follow the non fungible rules you're trying to apply here, you don't have much of an argument. And unless you start to specifically address this point rather than just making the same statement over and over again without acknowledging this crucial point, the discussion will end here. It can be interesting, but not if you don't address the difference between fungible and non fungible things.

[m k]

Why only general source is accepted, that's not balanced.

Feed of more than one source is not homogeneous.
What if one part is constantly feeding the grid a bit lower voltage than the other?
One destination is also closer to the source than the other.

How do you know from what direction a destination is sourced?

[Tation]

But for electricity, we've now been saying each electron is the same as the other

Even if we were able to "tag" each electron and trace their movements individually, we will find than electrons moving at home wiring neither reach nor pass thru any generating facility connected to the grid, as electrons do not pass thru transformers, energy does.

So we are not talking about electrons or electricity moving from here to there, but about energy, a genuinely fungible thing. The concepts of green or fossil energy are not physical concepts, but artificial ones and, IMHO, saying that somebody buys green energy is perfectly compatible with saying that the energy it consumes is green as it comes from green sources because it was bought to a green producer.

[Analog Kid]

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes: I know that electricity is completely fungible.

That's the whole fucking point!

You have not addressed the point of my problem with the NPR article. (Notice I have no problem with the idea of fungibility.)

They (NPR) are claiming that "Chicago is now powering all its municipal buildings with 100% renewable energy".

Do you not see the problem with that statement?

Do you believe that "Chicago is now powering all its municipal buildings with 100% renewable energy". No, of course you don't. Because electricity is fungible, and the renewable electricity that they're paying for is mixed in with the ~86% of electricity that is not renewable.

Right?

So my problem is definitely not with the idea of fungibility; in fact, that's the underlying concept that renders their (NPR's) statement so invalid.

Do you see the problem now?

Again, just to be crystal-clear here: the statement is that "Chicago is now powering all its municipal buildings with 100% renewable energy". Which means (are you with me here?) that ALL the electricity that Chicago is using to power its municipal buildings--100% of it--comes from renewable sources.

Do you agree with that statement? Can you possibly defend it?
No, because we know--because electricity is fungible--that their paid-for renewable electricity is mixed in with lots of non-renewable electricity.

Sheesh.

[Analog Kid]

So, @racemaniac, I do accept your explanation of the way that fungible things are normally looked at and described. Nothing to argue with there.

But the fact still remains that NPR chose to describe a fungible item--electricity--in an incorrect and deceptive way when they claimed that Chicago was receiving and using 100% renewable energy in their buildings. A statement that you must admit is just wrong, wrong, wrong. (We know it's wrong because we know how electricity is fungible.) Despite the conventions we use for fungible things (money, etc.): this flies in the face of those conventions.

You see that?

[SteveThackery]

Therefore, in summary: Since it has been established that the City of Chicago actually receives and uses a mix of electricity that contains only ~14% electricity from renewable sources, it is incorrect to state--as the article clearly says at the start--that "Chicago is now powering all its municipal buildings with 100% renewable energy".

1)Agree? 2)disagree?

Disagree, because your argument misses the point. Agree, in a literal (but irrelevant) sense.

I think money is the closest analogy we've come up with so far. My pension provider (Acme Pensions PLC) pumps £1000 into my bank every month. Provided I extract no more than £1000 every month, I can legitimately say that all the money I spend comes from Acme Pensions.

Yes, the bank receives loads of other money from other sources, and disburses money to loads of other sinks, so in one sense my money is mixed in with everyone else's. But nevertheless, it is reasonable and legitimate for me to claim that 100% of my money comes from Acme Pensions PLC.

We can all understand and accept the main premise of your argument: that only 14% of the electricity pumped into Chicago's grid is "green", therefore only 14% of the electricity taken out of the grid is green. In that sense your argument is obviously valid. But it misses the point that the grid is not the source of the electricity. For every kWh taken out, someone must put a kWh in.  The person taking out that kWh pays a supplier to put a matching kWh into the grid. So there is a direct provider/customer relationship. The customer can legitimately claim that the kWh they extracted came from their chosen supplier.

As I said, we all understand your argument - it's not difficult. But can you not, in turn, understand and acknowledge the other argument: that for every kWh I extract from the grid, I have paid Green Energy PLC to pump a kWh into the grid. Therefore I can reasonably claim that all the electricity I use comes from a green provider, because I have paid them to pump the same amount of energy into the grid.

I think you do understand it perfectly well, but you've got your heels so dug in you can't admit it. It's obvious to any observer that both arguments are legitimate, and can comfortably co-exist, because they are addressing two different concepts. Your argument does not undermine or illegitimise the other argument - they are both true.

[Analog Kid]

As I said, we all understand your argument - it's not difficult. But can you not, in turn, understand and acknowledge the other argument: that for every kWh I extract from the grid, I have paid Green Energy PLC to pump a kWh into the grid. Therefore I can reasonably claim that all the electricity I use comes from a green provider, because I have paid them to pump the same amount of energy into the grid.

Hmm, that actually makes sense. Let me chew on that for a while.
Still not convinced that "Green Energy PLC" actually provides all of their electrical load, but maybe ...

[Analog Kid]

OK, I guess I can't argue with your conclusion: if Chicago pays Green Energy LLC $X for Y kWh of electricity, generated from renewable sources, and if Green actually puts that renewable energy into the grid, and if Green is the only party that Chicago pays for electricity, then it doesn't matter that Green's electricity is mixed in with Brown Energy LLC's electrons, nor that the city is actually only receiving 14% of Greens' electricity at any given moment.

It still smells of a certain amount of sophistry to me, and I'm not sure that the average Joe is going to be able to wrap their head around it. I have to say that you deserve credit for an explanation that actually makes sense; nobody else in this thread had as convincing an argument, and I'm not even sure that they thought of the problem in the way that you did.

And of course there's the issue of whether Green Energy LLC is honest, and that they're actually putting Y kWh of electricity into the grid--from 100% renewables, natch--into the grid on Chicago's behalf. Makes me think of all the dishonesty and shenanigans around "cap & trade" schemes that rendered that scheme untenable. But that's a separate issue.

[tooki]

So you're saying that you would, indeed, feel it was misleading if the bank paid you out in banknotes that aren't the same ones you deposited? Because that's the equivalent situation.

Goddamnit, you're thick-headed.

Look: it's one thing to pay for "green" electricity, by engaging a third-party provider, even if  you don't actually receive that electricity as the totality of the electricity that you actually use, as a way of promoting the use of renewables. (I've actually done this myself.) I think by now we all understand that. (Which fits your money example; your renewable electrons get mixed in with the bad natural gas/coal/nuclear-generated ones.)

It's quite another thing for someone--anyone--to claim "since we (the City of Chicago) are now paying for "green" electricity, our buildings are now 100% powered by this renewable electricity". To the exclusion of any non-renewable sources of electricity. Because that's what that article outright stated.

As if there's a special branch of the utility grid that only feeds that special, 100% renewable electricity to the wall outlets in their municipal buildings. No natural gas, coal or nuclear-generated electricity.

When in fact, the electricity that they receive and use is exactly the same as the electricity that every other utility customer in the city of Chicago uses.

Which means that the claim made in that article is bullshit.

Why can't you see that? To me, it's blindingly obvious.
Am I that bad at explaining things? If so, please let me know so I can try to rectify that.

I think the issue is less me being “thick-headed” and more that you have a fundamental misunderstanding about how electricity works. Despite the fact that the “water analogy” of electricity works to illustrate a lot of things, it isn’t 100%, and electricity does not behave like water.

Suppose we were talking about water instead, and that our hypothetical bottled water supplier let us purchase three different types of water: one comes from natural springs on a mountain, one is ground water, and the last is treated sewage plant effluent. In this case the three waters aren’t fungible, due to different compositions and provenances of the water itself. You would rightfully be upset if you paid for mountain spring water and they instead delivered you bottled of cleaned sewer water.

But electricity isn’t water. 

Electricity isn’t a bulk material product you pull from the outlet. No matter where the power is generated, the electrons that move in and out of your socket are not the same electrons that were physically set in motion at the power plant. The drift speed of electrons is only about 1mm per second, and in AC, they are oscillating back and forth. The electricity we use is basically electron “pressure waves” within conductive materials. It’s basically a gigantic Newton’s Cradle where each electron never actually travels anywhere, it just moves around one spot.

Consequently, the green power one buys from the grid is no less original than the ordinary power bought by a non-green-buying customer, since none of the power we use is electrons that actually traveled to us from the plant. We use the force imparted onto the Newton’s Cradle of electrons by the power plant.

OK, I guess I can't argue with your conclusion: if Chicago pays Green Energy LLC $X for Y kWh of electricity, generated from renewable sources, and if Green actually puts that renewable energy into the grid, and if Green is the only party that Chicago pays for electricity, then it doesn't matter that Green's electricity is mixed in with Brown Energy LLC's electrons, nor that the city is actually only receiving 14% of Greens' electricity at any given moment.

You’re never getting any of the electrons generated at the power plant. There’s no such thing as “Green Energy’s electrons” and “Brown Energy LLC’s electrons” in terms of what comes out of your outlet.

[Analog Kid]

You’re never getting any of the electrons generated at the power plant. There’s no such thing as “Green Energy’s electrons” and “Brown Energy LLC’s electrons” in terms of what comes out of your outlet.

OK, I guess you can be forgiven for coming a bit late to the game here.
But let's just forget about that whole "how fast do electrons move due to electrical current" thing. It is of no relevance here, and just serves to muddy the waters further.
The whole point here is what the City of Chicago is paying for, and what they're receiving in terms of electrical power*.
I think this has been pretty well resolved, with the result that I've been convinced (by Steve Thackery) to adopt a different view of things. I'm willing to admit that by paying for 100% renewable energy, the city can then claim that they're powering their buildings with 100% "green" energy, even though they are not doing that physically at any moment in time. I still have some discomfort over the claim made in the NPR article, but I guess at this point that's just my problem.

* And puleeze, let's don't get into the weeds over the technical differences between power, energy, force, etc. The term is being used in it's commonly-accepted layperson meaning.

[tooki]

You’re never getting any of the electrons generated at the power plant. There’s no such thing as “Green Energy’s electrons” and “Brown Energy LLC’s electrons” in terms of what comes out of your outlet.

OK, I guess you can be forgiven for coming a bit late to the game here.
But let's just forget about that whole "how fast do electrons move due to electrical current" thing. It is of no relevance here, and just serves to muddy the waters further.
The whole point here is what the City of Chicago is paying for, and what they're receiving in terms of electrical power*.
I think this has been pretty well resolved, with the result that I've been convinced (by Steve Thackery) to adopt a different view of things. I'm willing to admit that by paying for 100% renewable energy, the city can then claim that they're powering their buildings with 100% "green" energy, even though they are not doing that physically at any moment in time. I still have some discomfort over the claim made in the NPR article, but I guess at this point that's just my problem.

* And puleeze, let's don't get into the weeds over the technical differences between power, energy, force, etc. The term is being used in it's commonly-accepted layperson meaning.

It’s taken you ten days to understand what everyone has been telling you, and you have the gall to accuse me of being “late to the game” (after calling me “thick” earlier)?!? I’ve explained to you the exact same things everyone else has (including SteveThackery, whose post just reiterates what several people said before). If anyone here is slow and thick, it’s you.

The whole point here is what the City of Chicago is paying for, and what they're receiving in terms of electrical power*.
…
* And puleeze, let's don't get into the weeds over the technical differences between power, energy, force, etc. The term is being used in its commonly-accepted layperson meaning.

Um, did you even read my post you were replying to? I refer to “electrical power” throughout. Not sure why you thought it’d be necessary to try and lecture me on this.

[Analog Kid]

* And puleeze, let's don't get into the weeds over the technical differences between power, energy, force, etc. The term is being used in its commonly-accepted layperson meaning.

Um, did you even read my post you were replying to? I refer to “electrical power” throughout. Not sure why you thought it’d be necessary to try and lecture me on this.

Wasn't aimed at you but as preemptive protection against possible pedantry from others.

[forrestc]

One other thing that can be considered is that part of the way the energy grid works is odd.   I know this is just another way of explaining. However, when I saw this thread was still going, I figured I'd add my explanation even though it seems like the thought process has finally reached an understanding of how fungible energy is.

Energy providers are paid to keep adding energy to the grid to keep the voltage at a certain level and maintain the frequency (as frequency tends to drift lower when the load exceeds supply due to traditional 'spinning' generators being much of the grid).

Energy consumers try to drag the voltage and frequency down by removing energy from the grid.

As a consumer,  you're paying your provider to add enough energy to the grid to overcome your draw from the grid and keep the whole thing at the correct voltage and frequency.   If the company you're paying to overcome your draw on the grid is using 100% clean energy, I don't have a problem saying that I'm using 100% clean energy.   

It doesn't matter WHERE on the grid the energy to replace the energy you remove is added. If an energy provider three states over but on the same grid doesn't put enough on, the voltage and frequency will droop at your house and, of course, everyone else's.

I'd also grant that if you want to get pedantic, it's hard to ensure that your provider always puts enough power on the grid at any second to overcome your load. The grid is designed to avoid droops by taking minute-by-minute variations from sources that can quickly change their output (Ironically, solar battery storage is rapidly becoming the preferred source here).  But in the big picture, your provider puts enough energy on the grid to overcome your load.  And, if your provider has committed to putting enough clean energy on the grid to overcome your load, there's no question in my mind that you can say that you're getting all your energy from that provider, since they're providing the service of overcoming your draw from the grid.

[Analog Kid]

Good explanation.

However, sorry to bring in another fly in the ointment, but what about nighttime?

If the third-party supplier is supplying solar-generated electricity (as seems to be the case here), what if 1) it's nighttime and 2) the supplier either has no or insufficient energy storage (battery, pumped water, etc.) to supply their part of the load?

I would say that in this situation, if someone in one of the City of Chicago's municipal buildings flips on a light switch, the power to those lights is definitely not going to be coming from their 100% renewable source. In which case NPR's statement about using 100% renewable energy will be demonstrably false.

What do you say about that?

[themadhippy]

What do you say about that?

simples,whatever you used during the night is put into the grid during the day ,at the end of the 24 hr period you use 37Kw the supplier pumps 37kw in

[Someone]

What do you say about that?

simples,whatever you used during the night is put into the grid during the day ,at the end of the 24 hr period you use 37Kw the supplier pumps 37kw in

As more people buy renewable energy at some point the rising expenses of storage will start to impact the price, right now its "just" using lower duty cycle on the (generally already depreciated) fossil generators. All the alternatives are more expensive.

[Analog Kid]

What do you say about that?

simples,whatever you used during the night is put into the grid during the day ,at the end of the 24 hr period you use 37Kw the supplier pumps 37kw in

I think I was able to answer my own question here.
Since the billing cycle is probably (I'm guessing) monthly, what matters is that for each kWh the city pulls out of the grid during that period, the 3rd-party utility supplier puts that much power into the grid.
So I guess nighttime doesn't really matter.

[TimFox]

I don't know the mix that Chicago's supplier uses, but the Midwest is now full of wind farms--many in Illinois and Iowa.

[Ranayna]

All this discussion would be moot, if the unique german innovation of the "Atomstromfilter" (nuklear power filter) could be adjusted to be a "non-renewable filter"
http://www.nucleostop.de/

[Yes, i am aware that this is a hoax, i just find it funny that no one here as thrown it in yet]

By the way, someone mentioned that paying more for renewable energy is common. Here in germany it is actually not that unusual to get renewable energt tarrifs that are cheaper than normal energy tarrifs.

[TimFox]

I remember a news photo from decades ago about an anti-nuclear demonstration in Germany, showing a food vendor selling to the crowd.  His sign read (if memory serves me) “Kernkraft? Nein danke. Unser Wurst ist Atomfrei.”

[tszaboo]

By the way, someone mentioned that paying more for renewable energy is common. Here in germany it is actually not that unusual to get renewable energt tarrifs that are cheaper than normal energy tarrifs.

As I said before, green electricity is purchased in units of MWh, and they come with a certificate that it was produced green. You pay a bit of extra to make sure of this. The extra money goes to the electricity generators.
For example in Belgium, this was 60 EUR per MWh a few years ago, which was artificially inflated because it was a subsidy. These green certificates are a tradable commodity. You can buy it, sell it, consume it or generate it. The point isn't to actually make the electron green. The point is to incentivize green electricity generation, which is objectively good*. You can complain that the electrons aren't painted green, but this is just complete misunderstanding of the energy market. The price of certificate is also dropping, depending on how many sources are connected to the network over time, and it's going to completely disappear in the future. Especially since green generation has lower levelized costs nowadays than other sources.
The energy market has it's issues, but this is not one of them.

[Ranayna]

I know how these renewalble tarrifs work.
Of course they don't ensure that only renewable power is routed to my home.

But still, they can be cheaper than normal tarrifs, even with the same energy company.

[tszaboo]

I know how these renewalble tarrifs work.
Of course they don't ensure that only renewable power is routed to my home.

But still, they can be cheaper than normal tarrifs, even with the same energy company.

Don't take it that way, It wasn't partially addressed at you.

[RJSV]

Yeah but this (see last few posts),
This at least DOES have the appearance of a common (lame) argument technique.
Sneaky, because the last post'er feels they have to defend, or explain some mis-quoted thing.
 Like here:  Claim that 'Electrons aren't Green'.

   Uh no.  That makes it sound like it's necessary to debunk something EVERYONE knows was not the real,  literal situation.
(The post simply meant, 
   'GREEN SOURCE'. )

   No need to make the critic look stupid, ey ?
They meant green sourced,  but we're not expecting near-ridiculed distorted meaning.
 
 I might be wrong,  but that's a common Immature verbal tactic.  Maybe common in any discussion around energy use .



..like a political topic,  these days.

[RJSV]

...or,  another way to distill the issue:
   Commenter simply meant (I think),  that he didn't instantly trust,  some 'certificate' at least not blindly trust.

   A person could counter,  my statement,  by saying:   "Cap and trade works that way."

   Sooooo,  then we don't need any FRAUD laws or protections,  for certificate based 'green identified' or 'true GOLD' Cert.
Man,  I'd hate to have a Cert. for a huge BAR of Gold,...and later find out it is bogus Certificate !

These things happen.   I never asked any Doctor to show credentials,  (although bad analogy because Doctors often DO display certifications,  sure.

   I seem to recall things about 'Cap and Trade' being bogus...  It's just that I trust that real,  Gold Bar,  (in hand).
Green Programs generally don't smell right, somehow,...but it's more the people that seem on a scam,  somehow.

   O.K. now,  make me defend :
   "...(Rick-Jack). "He thinks it's for gold colored electrons !"


(didn't say that....oh wait;  I DID...
)