[NCLUG] Re: "Green" power
S. Luke Jones
slukejones at gmail.com
Mon Sep 15 10:36:59 MDT 2008
On Sep 13, 2008, at 12:29 PM, danbob wrote:
> Just as a point of order, Sean, the average utility grid losses as
> heat
> in the USA are 9.5 percent, between the power plant and your electric
> meter. So "almost 100% efficient" is not correct, and that 9.5% is
> heating the great outdoors.
> DAN FINK
Do you know how much of that is due to "heating up the wires" at night
for lack of anything else to do with the power?
As I remember, many utilities offer power at negative cost for large
industries that can commit to using a lot of power at night. Another
solution is to use power to pump water upstream back up behind a dam
(treating a reservoir as a battery) (with attendant accelerated
erosion in the river downstream from the dam). This seems
counterintuitive, but is the result of generation in large plants like
Rawhide that take two weeks to spin up or down, but use in small
appliances like air conditioners, clothes driers, and ... energy-star
computers that people put to sleep when they're not in use.
Any discussion of electricity conservation is -- well, not
meaningless, but pretty shallow -- if it doesn't consider baseload
generation and time-of-day factors.
S. Luke Jones - slukejones at gmail.com
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