Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Cold Snap; Road To New England, New York; China? No Problem -- Just Build More Coal Plants -- February 3, 2021

ISO New England:

  • spiked to and remained at $250/MWh for sustained period of time today;
  • never got below $100 except for 15 minutes at 3:00 - 4:00 hour
  • hydroelectricity with two surges; unable to keep up;
  • coal and oil necessary
  • late evening: coal (4%); hydro (6%); and, renewable at 7%

Just think what this will look like in 2035. 

 

ISO New York:

  • at 10:32 p.m. ET, when things have really slow, AOC's constituents still paying $70 for electricity

Road to China:

A joint report released Wednesday by the U.S.-based Global Energy Monitor (GEM) and Helsinki-based Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) found China built over three times as much coal-fired electrical power capacity in 2020 as the rest of the world combined.

As Voice of American News (VOA) delicately observed, this tremendous surge of coal-burning power plants, which are ostensibly one of the worst sources of global warming emissions, would seem to “undermine” China’s loudly declared “short-term climate goals” and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping’s promises to make his country “carbon-neutral” by 2060.

At least VOA addresses it. The NY Times ignores it. 

More from above:

The GEM/CREA report found China’s coal power capacity grew by a net 28.8 gigawatts. China built coal plants at such a frantic pace, to provide cheap power for its swelling industrial capacity, that some of its coal plants might never repay their construction and maintenance costs.

China approved the construction of a further 36.9 GW of coal-fired capacity last year, three times more than a year earlier, bringing the total under construction to 88.1 GW.

China now has 247 GW of coal power under development, enough to supply the whole of Germany. [This is just "under development; not all that it has.]

A team of central government environmental inspectors delivered a scathing assessment of China’s energy regulator last Friday, accusing officials of planning failures and focusing too much on guaranteeing energy supply.

1 comment:

  1. The flux capacitor. My hunch: Elon Musk announces the "flux capacitor" next week.

    ReplyDelete

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