Every watt is not equal

[eldan]

Having spent the past few months working at renewable energy organisation, I've learned more than most people probably want to know about the workings of power grids. I find the whole thing quite fascinating, and I'll try to explain a few issues that really matter for pollution reduction from electricity generation. All the specifics will be with

Comments

[steamingturd]

A very good read. Thanks for writing it :)

[eldan]

Thanks! Having spent entirely too long writing it, it's nice to know that at least a couple of people are interested.

[maarten]

I appreciated it as well; I've wondered before about the marginal consumption effects and what conclusion to draw from the fact that most of our power is hydro generated. I always assumed that even if we locally have excess hydro power, that's no reason to squander it, as we could be selling it to a neighboring region that's currently burning natural gas or even coal.

Re: random notes

[eldan]

Thanks for these. I was hoping you'd have something to add, because I think you're the person on my friends list who knows the most about such things.

I didn't realise the peak load thing was legally mandated, but that makes sense - building capacity to deal with 100% of the highest peak in the year is not cost-effective, but it's very important to the customer.

Do you know where to find numbers for percentage loss over n miles of transmission line? I wasn't sure where to dig those up, but it would be interesting to see.

You're right - any electrical device the point of which is to generate lots of heat would have been a better example than a washing machine.

I think people linking electric cars to global warming are confusing local vs global impacts in the same way as the city's misguided advice about lawnmowers. That said, I'm still fairly pro-electric car because of the local impacts. Not only would I be breathing cleaner air here in the city, but I'm very impressed with how quiet a Prius is when it runs in all-electric

Re: random notes

[maarten]

And electric cars have the advantage that you can switch generation technologies without having to change all the cars out there on the road--a big change from our current situation with gasoline.

Re: random notes

[eldan]

Yes, this is true. But then generation technologies are pretty entrenched because so much of the cost [both in $$$ and CO2 emissions] of electricity is really the cost of building the generators in the first place.

A secondary reason I like electric cars is that I think over the long term we are going to end up with progressively less polluting electricity generation, but it's a slow process. This is why the most stringent Renewable Portfolio Standards going through in US states call for no more than a quarter of the fuel mix to be renewable no sooner than a decade from now - to push for a much quicker change would wreak economic havoc.

[eldan]

Thanks!

The power plant might not have the information you want, because they probably sell to multiple customers, and your utility probably buys from multiple sources. Even if it's utility-owned, a lot of such plants are co-owned by several utilities. In fact, going by glasseye's point above the utility must have contracts with at least two power plants, one to provide base load cheaply and one to provide peaking power when needed.

Anyway, if you have an electricity bill I think the fuel mix disclosure has to be in there. Otherwise, your best bet is to either phone the utility or look at their website. If you're a Madison Gas & Electric customer, they give more than the minimum required information here, though the size of the "unknown fuel" section is a bit worrying.

MGE does some quite cool things: as well as offering the usual opt-in green power program, they are in the process of converting an old coal plant to burn a mixture of non-recyclable solid waste and natural gasOh, and if you're interested in general green power issues in