Omperlodge said:

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This is the Jackalope project that has been delayed by Trump:



They have spent $729 million working towards building 213 wind turbines to be operational in June of 2027. There isn't one in place. Unless they are all sitting somewhere waiting to be constructed, there was no way they were going to meet their target and I have no idea where all the money went or how much more was needed to complete the project.

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I believe the $729M is their cumulative investment in Wyoming so far - including Cedar Springs and Roundhouse which are already operational. Jackalope is still in permitting.

GAC06 said:

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Neat?

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What powers the batteries?

The cheapest electricity available, typically at periods of low load on the grid.

shiftyandquick said:

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Right now 45.4% of the Texas grid is being powered by solar.

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A suicidal number

shiftyandquick said:

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Right now 45.4% of the Texas grid is being powered by solar.

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Wow. Tell us what happens at 6pm.

GAC06 said:

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The cheapest electricity available, typically at periods of low load on the grid.

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No way.

richardag said:

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GAC06 said:

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Rapier108 said:

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Another big swing and a miss by you.

Wind and Solar are not reliable base load power generation.

The only reliable sources to power data centers running 24/7 are either fossil fuels or nuclear.

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You're mostly right about the need for gas/nuclear/coal but things are changing somewhat with power storage. Right now 75% of electricity in Texas is being generated by wind and solar. Storage has more capacity than coal.

https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards

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Because 75% of Texas electrical needs come from wind and solar is not an argument for its use.False argument.

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The problem with having 75% come from those kinds of sources is that they are unreliable. From day to do, they may output anywhere from 0-100% of what you expect from them. So you can't afford to rely on them without paying for other more reliable plants using coal or natural gas to back them up. When you are expecting 40 GW from solar every day and it is cloudy and rainy for 3 days, you need to have 40 GW worth of nat gas fired plants available and operational to take up the slack. If you have to build and maintain those other plants anyway, why not just operate them and leave the windmills and solar on the scrap heap?

bobbranco said:

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shiftyandquick said:

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Right now 45.4% of the Texas grid is being powered by solar.

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Wow. Tell us what happens at 6pm.

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when the sun goes down, the solar power on the grid goes down. Because sunlight is what drives solar power, and when the solar panels are within the shadow of earth without direct sunlight, the amount of power generated from the solar panels is essentially zero.

But you have batteries that you charged up during the day that can then release electricity at night, which effectively in tandem allows for solar power to help with night-time grid needs.

bobbranco said:

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GAC06 said:

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The cheapest electricity available, typically at periods of low load on the grid.

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No way.

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That is accurate. It is similar to the push pull plants like the Mt Elbert push-pull pumped storage plant in Colorado ( Mount Elbert Pumped Storage Plant | The Center for Land Use Interpretation ). They have a small reservoir that sits a few thousand feet above Twin Lakes. During peak power demand, they open the turbines and let the water flow from the reservoir down to the lake and sell the power at peak rates. During the night, when demand is very low, they buy cheap electricity back from the grid and use it to pump the water back up to the reservoir.

Batteries accomplish the same thing by buying cheap when demand is low and storing it until demand is high and the wholesale price is higher.

shiftyandquick said:

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Right now 45.4% of the Texas grid is being powered by solar.

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Warm sunny day, little AC use... Why build ANY solar if it can't handle much of the load midday of temperatures that need little/no HVAC?

Now do 8PM tonight...

ESR discharging all day

shiftyandquick said:

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Right now 45.4% of the Texas grid is being powered by solar.

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Posts this at noon on a sunny day. Legit science.

txags92 said:

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bobbranco said:

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GAC06 said:

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The cheapest electricity available, typically at periods of low load on the grid.

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No way.

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That is accurate. It is similar to the push pull plants like the Mt Elbert push-pull pumped storage plant in Colorado ( Mount Elbert Pumped Storage Plant | The Center for Land Use Interpretation ). They have a small reservoir that sits a few thousand feet above Twin Lakes. During peak power demand, they open the turbines and let the water flow from the reservoir down to the lake and sell the power at peak rates. During the night, when demand is very low, they buy cheap electricity back from the grid and use it to pump the water back up to the reservoir.

Batteries accomplish the same thing by buying cheap when demand is low and storing it until demand is high and the wholesale price is higher.

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Nice conceptual fun stuff and all but the batteries are used to transition between the less reliable power sources and the reliable sources.

Yesterday's battery usage for example is shaping up to be quite different than today's. It's not the solution, it's a tool for reliable power.

shiftyandquick said:

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bobbranco said:

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shiftyandquick said:

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Right now 45.4% of the Texas grid is being powered by solar.

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Wow. Tell us what happens at 6pm.

---

when the sun goes down, the solar power on the grid goes down. Because sunlight is what drives solar power, and when the solar panels are within the shadow of earth without direct sunlight, the amount of power generated from the solar panels is essentially zero.

But you have batteries that you charged up during the day that can then release electricity at night, which effectively in tandem allows for solar power to help with night-time grid needs.

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Right now, our battery capacity is dwarfed my the solar production and does not come close to replacing it when the sun goes down. And when you have cloudy rainy conditions, you not only don't have the solar generation, you also don't have the extra power to charge the batteries during peak solar generation.

shiftyandquick said:

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bobbranco said:

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shiftyandquick said:

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Right now 45.4% of the Texas grid is being powered by solar.

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Wow. Tell us what happens at 6pm.

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when the sun goes down, the solar power on the grid goes down. Because sunlight is what drives solar power, and when the solar panels are within the shadow of earth without direct sunlight, the amount of power generated from the solar panels is essentially zero.

But you have batteries that you charged up during the day that can then release electricity at night, which effectively in tandem allows for solar power to help with night-time grid needs.

---

Again, you are either an accomplished troll or just not thinking.

If solar is being used to service the grid during the day, there's not going to be all that much to load the batteries, and what there is will not be reliable. So... back to nuc/coal/gas to load the batteries.

And the argument you've not answered... Since 100% of the capacity of solar/wind has to be duplicated in a reliable form, why build them in the first place?

cecil77 said:

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shiftyandquick said:

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bobbranco said:

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shiftyandquick said:

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Right now 45.4% of the Texas grid is being powered by solar.

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Wow. Tell us what happens at 6pm.

---

when the sun goes down, the solar power on the grid goes down. Because sunlight is what drives solar power, and when the solar panels are within the shadow of earth without direct sunlight, the amount of power generated from the solar panels is essentially zero.

But you have batteries that you charged up during the day that can then release electricity at night, which effectively in tandem allows for solar power to help with night-time grid needs.

---

Again, you are either an accomplished troll or just not thinking.

If solar is being used to service the grid during the day, there's not going to be all that much to load the batteries, and what there is will not be reliable. So... back to nuc/coal/gas to load the batteries.

And the argument you've not answered... Since 100% of the capacity of solar/wind has to be duplicated in a reliable form, why build them in the first place?

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I'm not sure the second part is attainable.

Illustrious Potentate said:

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I'm not sure the second part is attainable.

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Maybe the question is for cecil77?

shiftyandquick said:

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Right now 45.4% of the Texas grid is being powered by solar.

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How much from 1830 yesterday to 0630 this morning?

txags92 said:

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richardag said:

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GAC06 said:

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Rapier108 said:

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Another big swing and a miss by you.

Wind and Solar are not reliable base load power generation.

The only reliable sources to power data centers running 24/7 are either fossil fuels or nuclear.

---

You're mostly right about the need for gas/nuclear/coal but things are changing somewhat with power storage. Right now 75% of electricity in Texas is being generated by wind and solar. Storage has more capacity than coal.

https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards

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Because 75% of Texas electrical needs come from wind and solar is not an argument for its use.False argument.

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The problem with having 75% come from those kinds of sources is that they are unreliable. From day to do, they may output anywhere from 0-100% of what you expect from them. So you can't afford to rely on them without paying for other more reliable plants using coal or natural gas to back them up. When you are expecting 40 GW from solar every day and it is cloudy and rainy for 3 days, you need to have 40 GW worth of nat gas fired plants available and operational to take up the slack. If you have to build and maintain those other plants anyway, why not just operate them and leave the windmills and solar on the scrap heap?

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Agree completely. I was pointing out that because something is being used is not, nor ever has been, an argument that it should be used.

bobbranco said:

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ESR discharging all day

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No, discharging in the morning, charging now. Whoa seems to match the prices pretty close, just like I said.

https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards/systemwideprices

cecil77 said:

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shiftyandquick said:

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bobbranco said:

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shiftyandquick said:

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Right now 45.4% of the Texas grid is being powered by solar.

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Wow. Tell us what happens at 6pm.

---

when the sun goes down, the solar power on the grid goes down. Because sunlight is what drives solar power, and when the solar panels are within the shadow of earth without direct sunlight, the amount of power generated from the solar panels is essentially zero.

But you have batteries that you charged up during the day that can then release electricity at night, which effectively in tandem allows for solar power to help with night-time grid needs.

---

Again, you are either an accomplished troll or just not thinking.

If solar is being used to service the grid during the day, there's not going to be all that much to load the batteries, and what there is will not be reliable. So... back to nuc/coal/gas to load the batteries.

And the argument you've not answered... Since 100% of the capacity of solar/wind has to be duplicated in a reliable form, why build them in the first place?

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It gets even worse if we do build all the batteries needed to fully power the grid when solar or wind are not available. If we did that and also partially or fully retired all natural gas and nuclear plants on the grid, we would be extremely prone to blackouts caused by malfunctions with the inverters that are the interface between the batteries/solar/wind with the grid. Malfunctions like this are what caused the recent major Spain blackouts.

Also, the protection of the electric grid through relays becomes more and more difficult with large amounts of inverter based generation on the grid. These inverter based renewables do not contribute real/enough fault current that relays need to see to protect the grid from faults.

Signs could be misconstrued...

shiftyandquick said:

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from hundreds of wind and solar projects already in progress.

Quote:

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More than 60 large wind and solar farms under development on federal lands, such as Jackalope Wind, are being stymied. But the administration is also holding up hundreds of wind and solar projects on private land that require federal consultations. Many projects are facing potentially fatal delays, according to interviews with more than a dozen energy companies, industry groups and analysts.

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The electricity apocalypse because of AI is arriving soon. We need all the power we can get. But Trump is blocking this kind of power generation because he has it in his mind that he gets to pick the winners and losers. And he is picking coal.

So when you are gaping at your power bill. And the democrats control the house/Senate/White House, just remember that was one of the reasons.

Instead of unleashing American ingenuity, Trump is holding it back.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/climate/wind-solar-projects.html

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Just a helpful suggestion for you. Learn to think things thru. Do some critical thinking. For example: How much AI can windmills support? Are there other technologies and sources of energy that are more abundant and affordable where we should be spending our resources? There's coal, natural gas and small nuclear technology that's coming on board. That's exciting stuff. Do we really need to litter hundreds of thousands of acres with windmills/solar panels that tend to get destroyed in turbulent weather? Think about it.

bobbranco said:

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Signs could be misconstrued...

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"No way"

Teslag said:

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A liberal whining about power generation after decades of forcing the closing of coal plants and endlessly delaying and bloating the expense of nuke plants is wild.

But "Reagan Republican" of course…

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Bingo
Bring back coal
And more coal
It burns hotter and lasts longer than anything else

The thing you leftists forget, it's not a power problem it's a transmission problem.

Plus outside of nuclear, renewables are non linear, which doesn't help with AI growth. Datacenters also have to be moved where the renewables are. Hence the boom in west texas.

Are you trying to imply this is a bad thing? Because it's a very good thing.

shiftyandquick said:

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Right now 45.4% of the Texas grid is being powered by solar.

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Well, right now 0.0% of the Texas grid is being powered by solar

IslanderAg04 said:

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The thing you leftists forget, it's not a power problem it's a transmission problem.

Plus outside of nuclear, renewables are non linear, which doesn't help with AI growth. Datacenters also have to be moved where the renewables are. Hence the boom in west texas.

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They don't have to be near renewables, and I'm not sure why they would want to be near an intermittent power source. The main reasons you see them in west Texas is cheaper land and lots of space, and easier access to high voltage transmission lines.

Omperlodge said:

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This is the Jackalope project that has been delayed by Trump:



They have spent $729 million working towards building 213 wind turbines to be operational in June of 2027. There isn't one in place. Unless they are all sitting somewhere waiting to be constructed, there was no way they were going to meet their target and I have no idea where all the money went or how much more was needed to complete the project.

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Looks like we are burying the lead here....I see right here on this map where Trump plans to round up blacks and put them in camps.

Says right there in the lower left with that "Rock Springs BLM Corrals" pin on the map.

He's going to literally put them in corrals. Literally f'ing Hitler.

If we still had Sandow, Big Brown, Monticello, and Gibbons Creek online, we wouldn't have a problem. Obama and his war on coal caused the Ice Apocalypse power outage in the first place.

Thunderstruck xx said:

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IslanderAg04 said:

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The thing you leftists forget, it's not a power problem it's a transmission problem.

Plus outside of nuclear, renewables are non linear, which doesn't help with AI growth. Datacenters also have to be moved where the renewables are. Hence the boom in west texas.

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They don't have to be near renewables, and I'm not sure why they would want to be near an intermittent power source. The main reasons you see them in west Texas is cheaper land and lots of space, and easier access to high voltage transmission lines.

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Also they are not "renewable" by the way. I hate that term.

samurai_science said:

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If we still had Sandow, Big Brown, Monticello, and Gibbons Creek online, we wouldn't have a problem. Obama and his war on coal caused the Ice Apocalypse power outage in the first place.

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Thunderstruck xx said:

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cecil77 said:

---

shiftyandquick said:

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bobbranco said:

---

shiftyandquick said:

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Right now 45.4% of the Texas grid is being powered by solar.

---

Wow. Tell us what happens at 6pm.

---

when the sun goes down, the solar power on the grid goes down. Because sunlight is what drives solar power, and when the solar panels are within the shadow of earth without direct sunlight, the amount of power generated from the solar panels is essentially zero.

But you have batteries that you charged up during the day that can then release electricity at night, which effectively in tandem allows for solar power to help with night-time grid needs.

---

Again, you are either an accomplished troll or just not thinking.

If solar is being used to service the grid during the day, there's not going to be all that much to load the batteries, and what there is will not be reliable. So... back to nuc/coal/gas to load the batteries.

And the argument you've not answered... Since 100% of the capacity of solar/wind has to be duplicated in a reliable form, why build them in the first place?

---

It gets even worse if we do build all the batteries needed to fully power the grid when solar or wind are not available. If we did that and also partially or fully retired all natural gas and nuclear plants on the grid, we would be extremely prone to blackouts caused by malfunctions with the inverters that are the interface between the batteries/solar/wind with the grid. Malfunctions like this are what caused the recent major Spain blackouts.

Also, the protection of the electric grid through relays becomes more and more difficult with large amounts of inverter based generation on the grid. These inverter based renewables do not contribute real/enough fault current that relays need to see to protect the grid from faults.

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Not that AI is the gospel, but just for kicks I posted all of the above into it and asked for its opinion. It agrees that wind and solar cannot replace nuclear, gas and coal for the reasons you cited.

Technology may change one day to solve the battery and inverter problem. Maybe not. Right now, we have to have nuclear, gas and coal for national security and to have a reliable grid. Until that changes, why invest heavily in wind and solar? We already have to have the sunk costs in nuclear, gas and coal. Also, technology has made these more environmentally friendly. Why not invest more in that?

Solar is still good for off-grid use.