Re: (ReacTor) Five SFF Books Featuring Frigid, Icy Worlds

On 7/19/2024 11:38 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:

Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:

On 7/18/2024 7:49 PM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

 

>
We (ERCOT) were pulling 600 MW off the eastern grid today after the
solar power plants stopped making power between 6pm and 8pm.

 In california, we export (and store in batteries) energy during the
day, then draw down the batteries (and import a bit) during the evening
hours.  During the day, about half of our electricity comes from solar.
 It's been great - during the 9 day heat wave (100teens every day
in much of the state) last week, we still had
a surplus generation capacity of about 11Gw every day.  Much
of what we import at night comes from northwest hydro.
 As I type this, the state demand is 32,007 mw, solar provides
18,309 mw, CH4 provides 8,024mw, and 4,851 mw is being used to
charge batteries for this evening and we're importing 2028 mw.
 Current capacity is 55,514mw and today's forecast peak is 41,467mw.
 Valley temperatures will be in the 100's today from the grapevine
to Mt. Shasta.

Texas is about 3X all of that.  Peak load is over 100,000 MW when you count the refineries and chemical plants who make their own power and sell the excess to the grid (ERCOT).  ERCOT current capacity is over 150,000 MW and will be over 160,000 MW by the end of this year.
And Texas has 7,849 MW of batteries and will be 10,000 MW by the end of the year.  People are buying cheap wind turbine power from midnight to 6 am and reselling it to the grid at 6pm when the solar fails and people are getting home from work.
Lynn