Modern power plants are highly efficient at producing electricity.
There are certain losses in the power grid to hysteresis and heat.
Interesting factoid:
1/3 of the electricity produced in OK is renewable. Wind, solar, hydroelectric.
Another factoid:
Oklahoma has one pumped storage facility that pumps water uphill and then releases it later to produce electricity at a more opportune time.
In this particular case they buy cheap electricity from the grid, like at night, to pump water uphill.
Then they release the water to produce electrical power and sell it back to the grid during times of peak usage at higher rates.
The difference between the 2 rates is their net revenue.
In some other states wind and solar are used for the same purpose.
I don't think an EV would be good for you tho woody.
What if the grid failed and none of the gas stations had power to pump fuel in to your gas burner?
Nope, a horse that lives on pasture grass is just right for you.
Things to consider, like fuel shortages...... or what happens if one of our finite, aging, refineries goes down?
One refinery going down doesn't mean they all will go down with it. The power grid on the other hand ...(Just yanking your chain!)
Back in the fifties (Hurricane Carol in 1954 to be precise), our local gas station guy hooked his lawnmower up to his pump with a fan belt. Can't do that nowadays. (That was the year a splintered 2X4 skewered the phone pole in front of our house.)
Woody
Modern power plants are not efficient producers of electricity.
The coal fired power plant I retired from had two GE steam turbines generating 550 megawatts each at full capacity.
From the maximum output of 1100 megawatts the plant itself took the first 30 megawatts just to power itself. Enough to power a medium sized city in Ok.
Actually that would be a pause in our perception.... which is the point. The sun is still there.
I read a news report this morning on one of my feeds reporting GM officials were saying they weren’t going any deeper into EV’s than where they currently are until battery technology is improved.
They said the customer won’t buy into EV’s until they can equal the performance of Dino fueled vehicles. When they can get 500-600 miles out of a battery they would look at it further.
If I can’t see it, it’s not shining. [emoji12]
But I did have to agree with Shadowrider. We get lots of sunny days here in Ok but also have extended periods of inclement weather where solar power would be useless.
Other parts of the country have periods where one sunny day in the entire month is cause for celebration.
I had to attend an ABB Automation programming school in Cleveland Ohio for 4 weeks in January two years in a row. In that entire period we saw the sun one afternoon. The rest of the time it was cloudy, and heavily overcast as an example.
There is typically zero to little wind in large parts of the country and what wind they do get isn’t reliable so wind turbines aren’t placed there for that faux green power.
Those folks are going to need coal or Gas plant generation to charge those batteries.
Must be an older power plant.
Modern HELE coal plants are 37%-44% efficient.
NG plants can exceed 50% efficiency.
Both are far above the 15%-20% efficiency of ICE automobiles.
How long does a refinery continue to run without pumps, compressors, and controls when the grid goes down?
Seconds or minutes?
