{"id":834,"date":"2012-05-14T11:09:34","date_gmt":"2012-05-14T15:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/05\/powering-north-carolina-with-wind-sun-and-water.html"},"modified":"2012-05-14T11:09:34","modified_gmt":"2012-05-14T15:09:34","slug":"powering-north-carolina-with-wind-sun-and-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/05\/powering-north-carolina-with-wind-sun-and-water.html","title":{"rendered":"Powering North Carolina with wind, sun, and water"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nHere's some hard evidence of\n\nFERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff's assertion back in 2009<\/a>\nthat baseload is outdated, we don't need any new nukes or coal,\nbecause we can get all the new power we need from sun and wind.\nThis study from North Carolina goes further:\nwe don't need coal or nukes at all.\n<\/p>\n

\nJohn Blackburn, Ph.D. wrote a report March 2010,\n\nMatching Utility Loads with Solar and Wind Power in North Carolina:\nDealing with Intermittent Electricity Sources<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nTakoma Park, Maryland, and Durham, North Carolina, March 4, 2010:\nSolar and wind power can supply the vast majority of North\nCarolina's electricity needs, according to a major report released\ntoday. Combined with generation from hydroelectric and other\nrenewable sources, such as landfill gas, only six percent of\nelectricity would have to be purchased from outside the system or\nproduced at conventional plants.\n<\/p>\n

\n\n<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nHourly Power Generation and Load for a sample day in July\n<\/p>\n

\n"Even though the wind does not blow nor the sun shine all the time,\ncareful management, readily available storage and other renewable\nsources, can produce nearly all the electricity North Carolinians\nconsume," explained Dr. John Blackburn, the study's author. Dr.\nBlackburn is Professor Emeritus of Economics and former Chancellor\nat Duke University.\n<\/p>\n

\n"Critics of renewable power point out that solar and wind sources\nare intermittent," Dr. Blackburn continued. "The truth is that solar\nand wind are complementary in North Carolina. Wind speeds are\nusually higher at night than in the daytime. They also blow faster\nin winter than summer. Solar generation, on the other hand, takes\nplace in the daytime. Sunlight is only half as strong in winter as\nin summertime. Drawing wind power from different areas \u2014 the\ncoast, mountains, the sounds or the ocean \u2014 reduces variations\nin generation. Using wind and solar in tandem is even more reliable.\nTogether, they can generate three-fourths of the state's\nelectricity. When hydroelectric and other renewable sources are\nadded, the gap to be filled is surprisingly small. Only six percent\nof North Carolina's electricity would have to come from conventional\npower plants or from other systems."\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nSix percent is a small number.\nThat means most coal plants could be shut down,\nand no nukes are needed.\n<\/p>\n\n\n

\n\n<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nHourly Power Generation and Load for a Sample Day in January\n<\/p>\n

\nThere's no need to be alarmed by the mention of biomass:\nthe study seems to be referring to biomass gas generated from landfills.\n<\/p>\n

\nWe've already seen such projections for\n\nthe entire U.S.<\/a> from\n\nMark Z. Jacobsen<\/a>,\nwithout any need for\n\ncoal, nuclear, or biomass energy.<\/a>\nThis North Carolina report is a specific application to one state.\nApplication to Georgia would no doubt be different (fewer mountains,\nmore sun).\nIt's also years later already, which means solar is even less expensive.\nHow about\n\nwe do the study and find out?<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe\n\nactual report<\/a> considers various methods of load balancing already in use.\nClever, that one of making ice off-peak and using it for air conditioning\nduring the day.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nNorth Carolina has several means of evening out differences between\nvariable generation and load from hour to hour within days, but very\nlimited ability to carry stored energy forward from day to day. The\nhydroelectric system is already used as a means to meet peak demands\nwith a generation system heavily oriented toward baseload\ngeneration. In addition, there is pumped storage capacity in the\nDuke Energy system amounting to 2,100 MW, of which 1,360 MW has up\nto 24 hours of storage. In the summer, hourly storage is\nsupplemented by the capacity of some large commercial customers to\nmake ice in off-peak times and then run air conditioning systems\nwithout running the chillers at peak times in the afternoon and\nevening. In addition, the two largest utilities now have some 2,000\nMW of load control arrangements.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThen the report looks at actual hour-by-hour data from various sites,\nand runs the numbers, including for expanding all three of the above\nmethods of storage, plus\nload control,\n\nprice-induced demand shifts,<\/a> and vehicle batteries.\nOne conclusion they reach is:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nThey permit the utility systems to operate with a complement of\nbackup generation capacity which is smaller than the backup\nfacilities commonly used in the present systems and their huge\ncentralized coal or nuclear baseload plants.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nWe've heard from Dr. Blackburn before, about\n\nthe price of solar now being less than the price of nuclear,<\/a>\nespecially when you factor in construction costs.\n<\/p>\n

\nSome auxiliary non-renewable power would still be needed.\nHowever:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nIn these simulations, purchased power is limited to 5% of system\ndemand and auxiliary power is minimized, based on a probability of\nneed given the other parameters of the system. 2,700 MW, used at a\n22% capacity factor, appears to be sufficient. This is,\nincidentally, much less than the existing gas-fired capacity in\nNorth Carolina (over 6900 MW).\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nI'd bet the natural gas auxiliary power needs for Georgia would also\nbe less than the existing gas-fired capacity in Georgia,\nespecially after all the natural capacity Oglethorpe Power and Georgia Power\nhave added in recent year.\nAnd that bet is for even after all<\/em> the coal plants in Georgia\nwere shut down.\nAs the report indicates, baseload is an anachronism whose time has already\npassed:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n…with these characteristics of flexible grids, the absence of huge\nquantities of baseload power (none of which is included in this\nscenario) is of little consequence.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nWho wants\n\nto do the study<\/a> to find out how we can power Georgia\nprimarily with sun and wind?\n<\/p>\n

\nThe scenarios in\n\nthis report<\/a>\nonly begin to tap the true potential of solar power:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nSolar radiation falling on North Carolina each day is more than 400\ntimes larger than annual energy use in the State.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nAnd Georgia, especially south Georgia, is south of North Carolina,\nand has more sun.\n<\/p>\n

\nWe'll get to widescale use of clean renewable wind and solar energy\nfaster once we get past this problem:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nJim Warren, Executive Director of the North Carolina Waste Awareness\nand Reduction Network (NC WARN), added, "Utilities and their allies\nare pressing policy-makers to allow construction of expensive and\nproblem-ridden nuclear reactors\u2014with ratepayers and taxpayers\nabsorbing enormous financial risks.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nWe don't need expensive nuke boondoggles.\n<\/p>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nSouthern Company and Georgia power need to spend that CWIP money on\nfast-deployed, clean, and renewable wind and solar power.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt’s time for them to do what Austin Energy and Cobb EMC have already done:\n\n<\/a>\nturn away from dirty energy sources like coal and get on with\ninstalling solar and wind power generation:\nfor jobs, for energy independence, and for profit.\n<\/p>\n

\n-jsq\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here's some hard evidence of FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff's assertion back in 2009 that baseload is outdated, we don't need any new nukes or coal, because we can get all the new power we need from sun and wind. This study from North Carolina goes further: we don't need coal or nukes at all. John […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,216,14,264,265,18,104,559,21,22,32,23,73,289,74,24,449,55,36],"tags":[8736,8753,2483,8704,8754,8755,8701,8708,2482,2481,2478,2479,8702,2476,12,7,2480,158,8737,8782,8711,8712,8715,1879,8713,8731,8758,8732,8714,2484,8767,2477,6,8727,8716],"class_list":["post-834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-coal","category-economy","category-energy-conservation","category-energy-efficiency","category-georgia-power","category-nuclear","category-oil","category-planning","category-politics","category-pollution","category-renewable-energy","category-safety","category-science","category-security","category-solar","category-transportation","category-water","category-wind","tag-activism","tag-coal","tag-demand","tag-economy","tag-energy-conservation","tag-energy-efficiency","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-httpwww-ieer-orgreportsnc-wind-solar-html","tag-iier","tag-intermittent-electricity-sources","tag-john-blackburn","tag-lake","tag-load-balancing","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-march-2010","tag-north-carolina","tag-nuclear","tag-oil","tag-planning","tag-politics","tag-pollution","tag-power","tag-renewable-energy","tag-safety","tag-science","tag-security","tag-solar","tag-supply","tag-transportation","tag-utility-loads","tag-valdosta","tag-water","tag-wind"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-ds","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}