Author Topic: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!  (Read 4415 times)

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Offline Analog KidTopic starter

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A little while ago I heard a report on NPR (National Public Radio in the US, one of the most incredibly biased outlets I've ever had the misfortune to listen to). It told us that the city of Chicago, in a bold move, was now going to power (or was powering) all of its municipal gov't. buildings with clean, green renewable energy:
Quote
More cities are looking to green projects to fight climate change. Chicago is now powering all its municipal buildings with 100% renewable energy and the city helped finance a major solar farm.

What a stinking pile of horseshit!

Never mind the good intentions of the city in doing this, and never mind their plan, which was to buy power from a supplier who had a good deal of renewable energy in their portfolio.

It seems that people actually believe this, that somehow the electricity that is supplying these buildings comes from 100% renewable sources (solar, wind, hydro).

This, or course, is impossible. Because, as I hardly have to point out to most people reading this here on this forum, it's not as if they ran alternate sets of power cables to these buildings. The buildings are still receiving their power from ComEd, the regional power company.

According to this page, here's the energy mix that all ComEd electrical customers receive:
Quote
As of 2023, Illinois generates 54.89% of electricity from nuclear power, 31.58% from fossil fuels (comprising of coal, natural gas, petroleum, and other gases), and 13.53% from renewables (comprising of wind, solar, hydropower, and biomass).

So whoop-te-do, they're using about 14% renewables to generate electricity. A Good Thing, to be sure. But far from 100%, which is the impression that this brain-dead piece of so-called "reporting" leaves.

So the city may now be paying for 100% renewable electricity through its supplier, but it certainly isn't actually receiving that power through the outlets in its buildings.

I swear, if the US becomes any more technologically ignorant, we richly deserve to be overrun by the likes of China, Russia and India.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2025, 05:25:11 am by Analog Kid »
 

Offline Analog KidTopic starter

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2025, 05:47:32 am »
Of course, buried down in about the 11th "graf" of the story is the real explanation:

Quote
Of course, the city is still connected to the regional grid, which in northern Illinois, relies heavily on nuclear power. Still, Chicago will effectively be paying for the renewable energy equivalent to what it uses every day.
(italics mine)

100% renewable energy my ass ...
 

Offline Haenk

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2025, 11:54:42 am »
I'm not sure if you are aware of interconnects in the electrical grid?
I.e. while they might receive no renewable energy at all; company X might, while paying for coal power. At the same time, both the coal plant and the solar plant are connected to the grid and pumping power into the grid.
So the term "powering" might be a bit misleading, "empowering" might be suited better, as they are paying for the generation of renewable energy. In the greater scheme of things, it is eventually pointless to be nitpicky about who is the actual provider and user of grid resources.
 
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Offline tszaboo

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2025, 01:08:41 pm »
It's not like that. The DSO needs to have a certificate, that the power was coming from renewable sources. This is usually comes for each unit of power, which is 1MWh. If the city buys 10GWh per year, then that needs to come from renewable sources and the same 10GWh cannot be sold to other customers. If more and more customers do this, they need to build new power plants.
It also creates jobs, that are not useless time wasters sitting at a government desk creating burocracy.
 

Offline Analog KidTopic starter

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2025, 07:16:20 pm »
I'm not sure if you are aware of interconnects in the electrical grid?
I.e. while they might receive no renewable energy at all; company X might, while paying for coal power. At the same time, both the coal plant and the solar plant are connected to the grid and pumping power into the grid.
So the term "powering" might be a bit misleading, "empowering" might be suited better, as they are paying for the generation of renewable energy. In the greater scheme of things, it is eventually pointless to be nitpicky about who is the actual provider and user of grid resources.

No.

The article leaves the definite impression that the municipal buildings in Chicago are going to be powered 100% by electricity from renewable sources. Not "empowered" but actually powered, i.e. the electrons come from solar, wind or hydro.

This is clearly impossible with the current infrastructure, where those buildings, indeed the entire city, channels power from the sources I described above (nuclear, fossil fuel and renewables). It's not as if they can divert the "green" electricity alone to their buildings; everyone receives the same mix of power through the transmission lines, transformers, etc. It's just that they are paying for a different mix.
 

Online Sorama

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #5 on: January 16, 2025, 07:22:53 pm »
It’s probably related to the energy contract that stipulates it’s energy is 100% green.
That does not mean that the delivered energy itself is green, but that they bought the same amount of certificates for green power.

It’s all about trading certificates.
 

Offline Analog KidTopic starter

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #6 on: January 16, 2025, 07:30:50 pm »
Yes, of course that's it. I once signed up for such a deal, where I paid a 3rd party instead of the local power company for electricity, and was assured that the electricity I paid for was a certain percentage (not 100%) "green".

It didn't affect in the least the power I was actually receiving at my house, at best only at the margins (the idea was to move the needle a little bit toward the renewables side of the equation). I knew that when I signed up.

The dunderheads at NPR, and possibly their listeners, seem to actually believe that the City of Chicago is actually receiving 100% renewable electricity at their buildings.
 

Online Sorama

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #7 on: January 16, 2025, 07:54:36 pm »
Well, not everybody is as smart as we are :-)
« Last Edit: January 16, 2025, 08:12:49 pm by Sorama »
 

Offline RJSV

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #8 on: January 19, 2025, 02:12:00 am »
   Its as easy (can be) as shooting fish in a barrel:
   I'm not employing any super-genious to analyze secret texts....you get your 'data' from their own mouths.  The city government there in Detroit will brag due to a technicality, that allows enough 'wiggle space', to make disingenuous claims.   Claims that are close enough (to an actual truth) by the buying of Green 'credits' to offset non-green power use (or call that 'UnGreen'.)
"Close enough..." they will declare, and then continue to make claims as if they are DIRECTLY acting green.

   See what I mean ?   This shit, they say, or spew, has just enough, to, vainly, hide behind.  But meanwhile any 8 th grade kid could track these things....just by way of LISTENING.
Not that hard, really, to track the slime.


....I'm remembering, that DETROIT has had some, err,  rather turbulent public meetings, I thing related to the public schools.
The speakers were not happy with the Mayor there.   (From the news, approx. Jan.8 .thanks.
 

Offline johnk0gcj@gmail.com

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #9 on: January 19, 2025, 02:37:07 am »

I am shocked,  shocked I say. I was led to believe that those electrons
were traceable to their source, maybe dyed appropriate colors. Especially the
ones from renewable sources, like, colored green, so those socially responsible
among us would know that our efforts were being useful.

 
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Offline RJSV

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #10 on: January 19, 2025, 02:48:10 am »
   One argument I see (here),  basically is annoyed that critics are 'nitpicking' by applying some obvious legitimate language...
Oh, yeah ? Like what:  by expecting statements to be true,  as in;
   'Credits were purchased, so that, in buying 'SOME' percentage, they can and should claim that it's for 100 % green generated,...not some 14 % as kinda, sorta, might be same thing.
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #11 on: January 19, 2025, 02:57:44 am »
A little while ago I heard a report on NPR (National Public Radio in the US, one of the most incredibly biased outlets I've ever had the misfortune to listen to). It told us that the city of Chicago, in a bold move, was now going to power (or was powering) all of its municipal gov't. buildings with clean, green renewable energy:
Quote
More cities are looking to green projects to fight climate change. Chicago is now powering all its municipal buildings with 100% renewable energy and the city helped finance a major solar farm.

What a stinking pile of horseshit!

Never mind the good intentions of the city in doing this, and never mind their plan, which was to buy power from a supplier who had a good deal of renewable energy in their portfolio.

It seems that people actually believe this, that somehow the electricity that is supplying these buildings comes from 100% renewable sources (solar, wind, hydro).

This, or course, is impossible. Because, as I hardly have to point out to most people reading this here on this forum, it's not as if they ran alternate sets of power cables to these buildings. The buildings are still receiving their power from ComEd, the regional power company.

According to this page, here's the energy mix that all ComEd electrical customers receive:
Quote
As of 2023, Illinois generates 54.89% of electricity from nuclear power, 31.58% from fossil fuels (comprising of coal, natural gas, petroleum, and other gases), and 13.53% from renewables (comprising of wind, solar, hydropower, and biomass).

So whoop-te-do, they're using about 14% renewables to generate electricity. A Good Thing, to be sure. But far from 100%, which is the impression that this brain-dead piece of so-called "reporting" leaves.

So the city may now be paying for 100% renewable electricity through its supplier, but it certainly isn't actually receiving that power through the outlets in its buildings.

I swear, if the US becomes any more technologically ignorant, we richly deserve to be overrun by the likes of China, Russia and India.
You do realize that the energy in the grid is 100% fungible, and that this is how all utilities sell green power? (I’m not aware of any that run parallel grids for different power sources.) The only way to actually guarantee your power came directly and exclusively from a particular source is to generate it on-site.

So basically you’re whining about Chicago doing things (and NPR accurately reporting about it) exactly the way the whole world does it.
 
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Offline RJSV

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #12 on: January 19, 2025, 03:21:29 am »
   Yes, partial 'whining' as I've now understood the point, about the electricity flow itself has no identification as to what source.
   OK but that then kills the whole dynamic, is flawed because 'credits' have no credible,  traceable foundation.  So it all gets thrown out, as not traceable by any official accountant or project management.

   The claim itself, that credits are what they say they are,  isn't practical for use...could as well been a claim that originated down in the 'mail room' (so to speak).

   In layperson's terms, the whole packaging and wording just STINKS.  I mean,  some city resident with, perhaps, high school and college degrees, to accept without much scrutiny the claims made by official (City of Detroit) acts.
They might have thought:
   "Good,  we need those 100 percent green deals.  Plus,  nevermind the green stuff,  we get private sector jobs, out of the deal, and 'cut' emissions too.  (Yeah,  that's right, it's an emissions related 'inaccuracy' as well.)

   Weasel words, these are called.
OR, 'fraud' ?
 

Offline Analog KidTopic starter

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #13 on: January 19, 2025, 03:40:09 am »
You do realize that the energy in the grid is 100% fungible, and that this is how all utilities sell green power? (I’m not aware of any that run parallel grids for different power sources.) The only way to actually guarantee your power came directly and exclusively from a particular source is to generate it on-site.

So basically you’re whining about Chicago doing things (and NPR accurately reporting about it) exactly the way the whole world does it.

Yes, of course I realize that the practice of fudging percentages of "green" electricity is practiced worldwide.
And I think almost all of us here, on this board, as well as some other folks out there, understand this as well.

But what gets my ire is how this particular news report is making a patently false claim, an easily disproven one, that the City of Chicago is actually receiving 100% renewable electricity. This is several steps beyond fudging and takes us well into the realm of outright falsehood and, basically, lying.
 

Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #14 on: January 19, 2025, 04:59:22 am »
Damn, politicians are lying. What a shock.
 

Offline RJSV

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #15 on: January 19, 2025, 05:05:46 am »
   Well, Analog Kid, I can see a portion of the other arguments against yours, but for the most part I agree with your assessment.  It just gets messy, in real world considerations:
   1.). Maybe the nuclear figure is getting mixed up / mixed in, with it being labeled or termed as a 'renewable' ?

   2.). Cityhood operators, these days, DON'T FOLLOW usual customary modes, of professionalism, honesty (yeah, really), and even outside, just of common sense culture, internally.
   One example, (petty),  a person had 'goods' to sell, personally, some low cost jewelry in Christmas season.  That was a clerk in the building permits dept.
A petty example, but in a more typical 'traditional' planning dept. office that sort of personal business wouldn't be happening.
(Besides being slightly 'off putting' or intimidating.)

   Could these sorts of 'credits' purchased be applied to CRIME ?
Say, make a payment to 'offset' a cold-blooded murder ?   That silly example helps to illustrate the indefinite qualities of evaluating such.
   I'm having difficulty in describing payments as being for PRODUCTS, or SERVICES ?
Hush money, to a Homicide Dept. ?
(Probably, you'd have to specify which murder you are re-imbursung funds for.
 

Offline Analog KidTopic starter

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #16 on: January 19, 2025, 05:11:08 am »
Damn, politicians are lying. What a shock.

In this case, the media is doing the lying.
 
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Online TimFox

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #17 on: January 19, 2025, 05:28:47 am »
Media are plural.
 

Offline Analog KidTopic starter

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #18 on: January 19, 2025, 07:18:33 am »
And pi are squared.
 

Online TimFox

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #19 on: January 19, 2025, 01:00:17 pm »
 Pi are round; cornbread are square.
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #20 on: January 19, 2025, 01:20:03 pm »
You do realize that the energy in the grid is 100% fungible, and that this is how all utilities sell green power? (I’m not aware of any that run parallel grids for different power sources.) The only way to actually guarantee your power came directly and exclusively from a particular source is to generate it on-site.

So basically you’re whining about Chicago doing things (and NPR accurately reporting about it) exactly the way the whole world does it.

Yes, of course I realize that the practice of fudging percentages of "green" electricity is practiced worldwide.
And I think almost all of us here, on this board, as well as some other folks out there, understand this as well.

But what gets my ire is how this particular news report is making a patently false claim, an easily disproven one, that the City of Chicago is actually receiving 100% renewable electricity. This is several steps beyond fudging and takes us well into the realm of outright falsehood and, basically, lying.
I don’t agree that any lying or misleading is happening here whatsoever.

Electricity isn’t a physical mass. It’s the flow of charge, and as we know, despite the fact that the charge moves at ~speed of light, electrons themselves move very slowly — and since this is AC, they just move back and forth. So the energy we pay for is not the actual electrons originally put into motion at the power plant. That’s true for every kind of power plant.

It’s not like, for example, a chemical that can be sourced from multiple processes, and despite being chemically indistinguishable, one might have an objection to one because it uses animal products or conflict minerals in its production, while the other does not.

Your objection is like being concerned that your bank doesn’t return to you the exact banknotes you deposited when you then make a withdrawal. The bank doesn’t do that. The money goes in a pool, and you are entitled to a portion of that pool.

So what matters is how the electricity gets produced. When you buy 100% renewable power, you’re paying for the production, and the right to extract an equivalent amount from the grid.
 
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Offline Analog KidTopic starter

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #21 on: January 19, 2025, 06:45:19 pm »
Media are plural.
Ackshooly, "media" can be treated as either singular or plural, depending on the context:

https://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/media_singular_or_plural.htm

This is now common usage. The old strict "media = plural" rule no longer applies. (At least to us non-academicians out here.)
 
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Offline Analog KidTopic starter

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #22 on: January 19, 2025, 06:47:43 pm »
So what matters is how the electricity gets produced. When you buy 100% renewable power, you’re paying for the production, and the right to extract an equivalent amount from the grid.

Yes, yes, yes; no argument.
We get it; electricity is fungible.
But what you cannot and should not say is that "my buildings are being powered by 100% renewable energy", because that is demonstrably false. Which is what that article outright stated, not just implied.
 
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Offline The Soulman

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #23 on: January 19, 2025, 07:18:11 pm »
So what matters is how the electricity gets produced. When you buy 100% renewable power, you’re paying for the production, and the right to extract an equivalent amount from the grid.

Yes, yes, yes; no argument.
We get it; electricity is fungible.
But what you cannot and should not say is that "my buildings are being powered by 100% renewable energy", because that is demonstrably false. Which is what that article outright stated, not just implied.

Yes, they should have a separate grid and outlets for different the different power sources, example below is regular power versus designer power.

 
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Offline RJSV

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Re: Chicago powering its municipal buildings with renewable energy NOT!
« Reply #24 on: January 19, 2025, 09:52:41 pm »
   Oh, whew, I didn't think, at first, that is a Power Plug...close call with that video image.

  But, (back to topic), it's all physic and electronic science argument,  but that's not appropriate, for general population:
   "...You see, electrons move very slowly..."

You'd be talking over their head, so to speak.

   I would think, that use of the term 'INDISTINGUISHABLE' might be a clue, that you cannot, uh, distinguish.  Not without some made up verification steps.
   You have to verify, that every watt goes to where they say it goes, firstly.  Then, you need to verify the generators aren't 'double-dipping' by claiming or selling to some extra party.
In other words, falsifying records, in order to sell the same green 'wattage' to two places.

   To do that, you would need to look for a 'lier' to back up your sales records.  Shouldn't be too difficult.
 


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