The Failure Of Climate Change Denial

[Old Rocks]

Don't bother you little head about it, Pattycake, it is beyond your ken.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

We'll all drive electric cars -- Free Energy, MAN!

Free energy! Just plug it in!

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Don't bother you little head about it, Pattycake, it is beyond your ken.

^ Old Rocks Ken

 

[Old Rocks]

Batteries for Managing the Grid - ASME

Until now, large costs and limited manufacturing capacity of batteries for large-scale electrical storage have kept utilities from committing to the technology. Now, a Texas electric distribution utility is stepping out with a plan to spend up to $5.2 billion on batteries to back up its transmission and distribution grid and reduce power fluctuation from renewable power sources. In a study it performed to justify the plan, Oncor Electric Delivery claims the move would lower consumer electric bills and preclude costly construction of new power plants.

But there is a catch: In Texas, distribution utilities such as Oncornow are prohibited from owning power plants, and state lawmakers, who deregulated the industry 12 years ago, would have to amend a law defining batteries as a power producer. Oncor officials are pushing for legislation to be introduced for the change, but opposition is already brewing from power producers, including sister companies of Oncor.

Confidence
Still, the proposal shows a growing confidence in the viability of lithium-ion batteries for large-scale energy storage. A study done by Navigant Research shows grid energy storage jumping to 20,800 MW by 2024, from 538.4 MW this year. Revenue is expected to grow to $15.6 billion annually, from $675 million, projects the report.

So we have companies fighting the idea of grid storage, simply so they can go on creating asthma in children, and black lung in miners. Yes, there is a fight on right now. Fossil fuel companies are trying to preserve their profits at the expense of the rest of us. They don't care about what their product does to the health of the citizens of this nation. They don't care that they now have to lie about what produces electricity at the least cost to the consumer.

 

[Old Rocks]

Oncor s plan for batteries on its grid called a world-changing event - Dallas Business Journal

Imagine an airline that flies its entire fleet of planes every day even if they are half empty. The extra seats are there for the peak travel times, Thanksgiving and Christmas, for example, but most of the time they're empty.

This inefficiency would never fly in the airline industry, but that's an analogy for how the power generation industry works.

Bob Shapard, CEO of Oncor, and Michael Webber, co-director of the CleanEnergy Incubator at The University of Texas at Austin, talked about the future of the grid and the role batteries and Tesla Motors will play in this grid of the future at the North Dallas Chamber of Commerce breakfast Wednesday.
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Like anything else, there will be winners and losers in this new reality, and Oncor expects opposition when it goes to the Texas Legislature next year seeking to change the law to allow batteries on the grid.

"You have a lot of vested interest in the current approach of things," Shapard said. "It will be a challenge. Odds are always against you getting something through the first time through the legislature."
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"I think by '17, the benefits will become so transparent that it will be compelling and others will have already done so," Shapard said.

The losers in this will be the dirtiest, least efficient and most expensive coal plants, Webber said.

"Every positive trend hurts somebody," Webber said. "Those entities could evolve their outlook or evolve their business models. Or they could fight. And usually fighting is cheaper and more effective."

And fight it they will. Legislatively, buying all the pols that they can, in public, by seeing that there lies are continually before the public. A sad commentary on present business ethics, and a sad commentary on how these businessmen dislike capitalism, and use government to force the public to pay them more for a product, the production of which is damaging that very public's health.