from Hacker News

The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

by stevenleeg on 11/1/21, 6:43 PM with 80 comments

• by jplr8922 on 11/2/21, 7:09 PM

  Note : I am an ex quantitative and algorithmic power trader in the NYISO market

  I totally agree with the analysis and conclusion of this article. The power grid is is a complex legal, economic and engineering system where our usual political narratives cannot produce a valid analogy for our common understanding. Right now, most green power sources (except non run-of-the-mill hydro) have non-controlable and hardly predictable outputs. Wind is much harder to forecast than temperature, and not every market are equiped to deal with the new variability. This create price distortions and other unintended consequences. Pushing against nuclear when there are still coal power plants running is nonsense, and in my opinion proves that twitter beats sound policy in terms of political priorities.

  What I do not like in this article is the tendency to regroup all fuels type together and call them 'dirty'. Coal, natural gas and gasoline are not equals, and play different roles in electricity production...

• by zdragnar on 11/2/21, 5:21 PM

  I appreciate the analysis, though I am not sure that any of the results should surprise anyone.

  - NY is moving away from nuclear (counted under "clean")

  - none of the "clean" sources can easily scale on demand. Sun, wind, hydro and nuclear have either fixed or random output

  - all peaker plants and less-desirable and so less-fully-maximized sources fall under the dirty category. Sun not providing enough juice? Ramp up nat gas peaker plants

  No surprises here. We need batteries, more reliable clean base generation if we want to use less dirty peak generation.

• by q1w2 on 11/2/21, 5:17 PM

  > With no more carbon-free energy coming from Indian Point [nuclear plant], we see that natural gas and dual-fuel generation has filled the void and caused our grid to become more reliant on fossil fuels than it was two years ago. For all of the tough talk from New York’s politicians about tackling climate change, this is not the trajectory we should expect.

  This is the talking point that needs to make the rounds in the media. Shutting down nuclear plants is beyond idiotic. Environmental groups need to do a 180 on nuclear, and politicians supporting this need to lose all "green" support.

• by Shalomboy on 11/2/21, 8:14 PM

  I really don't get the whining about categorizing Natural Gas and Coal as dirty. Hydrocarbons make CO2 as a byproduct of each molecular reaction. That isn't debatable!

  The thing I do want to debate is the classification of Hydro as Clean Energy. The meager power generation that hydroelectric dams produce isn't nearly enough to offset the environmental damage necessary to produce a hydroelectric reservoir.

• by ZeroGravitas on 11/2/21, 5:22 PM

  The post is at least up front that it's got an agenda that it's setting out to prove.

  A more standard measure of progress would be carbon intensity (carbon emitted per kWh generated) I have a hunch that it doesn't support this argument as the decision to bucket everything into "clean" or "dirty" is otherwise bizarre.

  It's also misses things like greater electrification which might be graded poorly on this, e.g. every car running on gas powered electricity is an improvement but will show up here as a bad thing.