"Lower For Longer" -- Maybe Goldman Sachs Was Correct -- June 19, 2018; But For Australia, "Higher For Longer" -- Electricity Surged To $14,000/MWH Late Last Week

ExxonMobil Sees An Opportunity
Coals To Newcastle 

This is pretty coincidental. Three things:

• weather forecasters forecasting one of the colder winters ever for Australia this year; winter has just begun (that was about a week ago; I did not post)
• grid "crisis" in Australia; could not handle heating demand for cold snap; link here;
• today, oilprice.com reports that ExxonMobil plans to build LNG import terminal off Australia's east coast

Other notes:

• Australia sits on some of the world's largest coal reserves
• Australia is saying "no" to coal to save the world from global warming; trying to "make do" with renewable energy; obviously not working

Australia's cold snap yesterday (from the linked article above):

• energy prices surge 160x normal; up to $14,000 / MWH (US average: about $100/MWH)
• several major electricity power stations went down, unprepared for spike in demand caused by cold snap along Australia's east coast
• one of Australia's largest aluminium shelters forced to shut down
• on three separate occasions, Tomago, the state's largest single energy user, was forced to halt production as spot prices soared to a staggering $14,000 per megawatt hour
• Tesla's battery: the largest battery in the world would power the smelter plant for all of eight minutes

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$64.78↓↓	6/19/2018	06/19/2017	06/19/2016	06/19/2015	06/19/2014
Active Rigs	61	56	28	77	189

RBN Energy: Enterprises fractionators and other NGL-related assets at Mont Belvieu.

The fractionation and NGL storage complex in Mont Belvieu, TX, would surely qualify as one of the Seven Wonders of the Energy World, if there were such a list. With more than 250 million barrels of NGL storage carved — by water! — out of an enormous subterranean salt dome formation, and nearly two dozen fractionation plants with a combined capacity of more than 2 MMb/d, Mont Belvieu not only serves as the largest receipt point for mixed NGL streams on the planet, it is also the key hub of distribution for the ethane, propane, normal butane and other NGL purity products that are either consumed by Gulf Coast steam crackers and refineries or exported to foreign end-users. But unlike wonders of the ancient world like the Great Pyramids at Giza, Mont Belvieu is still very much a work in progress, with new storage caverns and new fractionators now under development to try to keep up with the breakneck pace of U.S. NGL production growth. Today, we begin a company-by-company review of fractionation capacity and other key infrastructure there.

Enterprise owns all or part of nine fractionation plants in Mont Belvieu (see photo below), the newest of which (Frac IX) is an 85-Mb/d facility that has been ramping to full operation this month (June 2018). The nine fractionators’ total capacity is 755 Mb/d, or 36% of the total existing fractionation capacity at the NGL hub. Enterprise — its holdings in Mont Belvieu  — has been a major fractionator there for many years. By 2010, it had 245 Mb/d of capacity up and running in Mont Belvieu, and this decade it’s added six 85-Mb/d plants: one each in 2010, 2011 and 2012; two in 2013 and — as we said above — another this month. The seventh and eighth fractionation units at Enterprise’s Mont Belvieu complex (the ones that came online in 2013) were joint projects with Western Gas Partners (WGP), a master limited partnership formed by Anadarko; Enterprise owns 75% of the two units and WGP owns 25%. Enterprise owns about 130 MMbbl of existing salt dome storage capacity at Mont Belvieu and is in the process of developing 38 MMbbl of additional storage capacity there. The company’s Mont Belvieu assets also including a propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plant, isobutene dehydrogenation (iBDH) capacity, propylene splitters, and an octane-enhancement unit that produces methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) for the export market.

Back On The Road Again -- On The Road To Australia -- June 9, 2018

Screenshot of concern:

Some time ago we were following the "electric grid" in Australia pretty closely. I haven't thought about Australia in some time. I assume it's autumn and the "electric grid" should be doing quite well. But apparently I was wrong.

Before getting in that, I'm bringing myself up to date by clicking on the tag at the bottom of the blog, "Road to Australia."

To keep this in perspective, the average price of electricity in the US is about $100 / MWH.

In New South Wales, Australia, recently, the average price of electricity is about $300 / MWH and in the last few weeks has been spiking to $14,000 / MWH. NSW is the most populous state in Australia -- with two-thirds of the country's population; its capital is Sydney.

It is also the home of a number of coal-fired utility plants and aluminum smelters.

The link regarding the $14,000 / MWH spike comes from a site that has followed this closely. I was curious if perhaps the site was "crying wolf." A quick google search brought me to this article, from June 8, 2018, yesterday: Australia's largest aluminum (sic) smelter warns of "energy crisis" as power supply falters.

Tomago Aluminium, Australia's biggest smelter of the metal, warned on Friday that it faced curtailing operations for a third time this week because of power shortages across the national electricity market.

As of Friday afternoon, NSW plants reporting outages or reduced output included the gas-fired Tullawarra power station, Mt Piper coal-fired power plant - both owned by EnergyAustralia.

Also reporting coal-fired power units offline were Sunset Power's Vales Point and AGL's two Hunter Valley stations, Bayswater and Liddell.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) issued an actual lack of reserve alert at 5.44 pm only to cancel it 23 minutes later after the market responded with extra supply - and demand eased back ahead of the long weekend.

There are at least three issues here:

• the role coal will (or won't) continue to play in a land where faux environmentalists are in control
• the mix of renewable energy vs fossil-fuel energy for generating electricity
• the lack of understanding, apparently, that renewable energy is not dispatchable; and, storage technology is yet a long way off (and/or very, very expensive in itself)

A fourth issue:

• the Australian grid issue sounds very much like the "oil issue" in Venezuela
• Venezuela sits on the world's largest reserve of oil (and the right kind of oil) and failed this past week to meet its contractual obligations due to central government policies
• Australia sits on some of the world's greatest coal reserves, and  cannot meet electricity demands due to central government policies

A fifth issue:

• if large utility plants fail (for whatever reason) and if aluminum smelters and steel plants fail (for whatever reason) they are unlikely to ever come back -- if they do come back, they won't come back for years -- others may disagree, but it's a huge gamble

Even worse news for the Australians, or at least two-thirds of Australians and their heavy industry  is the fact that politicians appear not ready to solve the problem, but rather are looking at whom to blame. The fact that politicians are looking to blame rather than solve, one suspects this problem will only get worse.

There would be nothing better that Canada would like to see than US aluminum and steel plants get shut down. Along with China, the two countries would have incredible pricing power, affecting everything from the US military to Boeing to American automobile manufacturers.

I don't know the statistics but my hunch is that it is not without good cause Presendent Trump has suggested that a robust steel and aluminum industry in the US is a national security issue.

Not mentioned is the quality and/or specifications of the required steel and aluminum.

In the short term, the viability of the US steel and aluminum industry is at risk if unfair trade practices continue. The big question, of course: if we want "free" trade, why are their any tariffs at all among the G7 countries, China, India, Australia, and so on?

In the long term, even if President Trump is able to save the US steel and aluminum industry by creating a level (or a more level) playing field, if the US takes the Road to Australia with renewable energy, it may not matter at all.

Joke of the day:

Some in Australia want to "fix" the "dispatchable" problem of renewable energy with more non-dispatchable renewable energy:

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A Reminder And Another Inconvenient Truth 

Today (20th century) it is completely impossible, even for a nuclear-powered icebreaker, to circumnavigate Greenland, for the seas surrounding the far north are frozen solid all year around.

However, there is direct evidence that conditions in the early fifteenth century were markedly different from those existing today, suggesting that Greenland could have been circumnavigated by the Vikings. -- 1421: The Year China Discovered America, Gavin Menzies, 2002, pp. 349 - 350.

Australia, As Predicted, Experiencing Brownouts And Blackouts Because Consumers Are Using Too Much Electricity -- January 28, 2018

So, here it is, as predicted by a reader of the blog: brownouts and blackouts in Australia. From the article:

Mr Armstrong from Ausnet Services (another power company) blamed unreported air conditioners:

“There are a lot fuses blowing in the hot weather and a significant power pull with people having put in air-conditioners they didn’t tell us about,” Mr Armstrong said. 

Who knew you needed to tell your power company when you put in an air conditioner?

I assume Elon Musk is watching closely.

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The Australian Grid

"ISO Australia": Spot prices for Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania -- note the spot price for electricity earlier in the day, in excess of $3,000/MWh --

There is no question in any sentient American that we would have been headed down the same path had Hillary been elected president.

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From A Reader 

(Electricity Consultant and Expert)

First:

If power prices hadn't spiked I would accept the "official" explanation that it was a local distribution system problem... transformers/conductors too small resulting in overheating and open fuses. Doesn't sound right does it? My hunch is low voltage from lack of on line capacity caused current to increase and open fuses. Sure, once these fuses opened they had sufficient power on the grid (load shedding).

Second:

Bull feathers...the junk power coming from all those wind turbines would make any system "blow fuses". It must be nearly impossible to maintain a stable electrical grid with a major component of wind power.

It's not just the varying wind speed that makes the output power nasty...see below: IEEE lists seven (7) power "disturbances". All seven of these are more of an issue with a variable, intermittent, on again off again wind generator than a conventional coal or gas generator. Example: Compare 500 wind turbines at two MW each vs. a coal-fired 1000 MW generation station...7x500 potential "disturbances" for the wind mills vs 7x1 for the coal-fired unit!!!

The reader quotes this from the news article:

The variable nature of wind energy sources (in terms of the real power, reactive power, output voltage, and frequency) is a major challenging issue.

The conversion of an input AC power at a given frequency and voltage to an output power at different frequency and voltage can be obtained with static circuits called power converters, containing controllable power electronic devices.

Note 1: These power converters use diodes and filters to convert the AC from the generator attached to the turbine to DC. This is necessary to smooth the constantly changing generated current. Then the DC current must be inverted to AC to be compatible with the electrical grid.

Note 2: See below item 5 (for example). Waveform distortion...some of this DC from the converter/inverter will certainly leak into the AC output as the diodes age and fail...believe me I've seen diode leakage/failure problems for 30 plus years maintaining AC to DC rectifiers on pipeline cathodic protection systems.

IEEE: ... power quality disturbances... have been organized into seven categories based on wave shape: 1. Transients 2. Interruptions 3. Sag / Undervoltage 4. Swell / Overvoltage 5. Waveform distortion 6. Voltage fluctuations 7. Frequency variations

Wind? The gift that keeps on giving. 

Morning In America? December 27, 2017

First things first, football: today is the day that college football playoffs and bowl games reach their stride with three to four bowl games / day. Today there are four games. Whoo-hoo. I may go over to Applebee's and simply hang out. LOL I  hate the names of the bowl games, but some of the match ups should be pretty good:

• Southern Miss vs Florida State, must watch, 12:30 p.m. CT
• Iowa vs Boston College, must watch 4:15 p.m. CT
• Purdue vs Arizona, no interest, but someone must want it, prime time, 7:30 p.m. CT
• Missouri vs Texas, no interest, but someone must want it, prime time, 8:30 p.m. CT

So, Applebee's this afternoon; couch potato this evening. What a great country!

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ISO New England 

After posting, a reader made these observations:

The NE power situation this moment ...
Couple of observations ...
The nuke, coal and GAS fuel percentage has been 'flatlined' all day, potentially indicating the fuel/facilities are maxxed out.
Oil is currently providing 19% of the juice - approaching gas' contribution
Forecast calls for next ten days remaining below freezing (32) all day and night.
Those folks are not only facing catastrophic costs just as winter begins, I'm wondering how secure/reliable their oil supplies are if they are burning through it a such a high rate.

There is a fairly large oil burning plant in Maine that was one of the most vociferous critics to gas pipeline build out.
Easy, in these circumstances, to see why. 

Looks like it's time to turn on the wind and solar farms. Link here.

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The Market

Tesla: And more trouble for Tesla, at least that’s what analysts at KeyBanc are predicting. After conversations with Tesla salespeople across the the country, analysts believe the electric car maker will report 70% fewer Model 3 deliveries for the current quarter than previously expected. Elon Musk said he would deliver 15,000 Model 3 vehicles in December, 2017. Early this morning, CNBC talking head said the number was more likely to be 5,000. Thirty percent of 15,000 is 4,500. Thirty percent of 5,000 is 1,500. If it's 5,000 vehicles, the believers will still believe. If it is less than 2,000 ... watch out....

Bull market: earlier this mornig a talking head on CNBC reminded us that the secular bull market that began in 1949 lasted until 1966. The "great recession" ended in 2012. 2029 is seventeen years from now.

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Where E-Media Shines

The Wall Street Journal has an excellent article on the defeat of ISIS. The dynamic maps are incredible and really bring the story to life. If caught behind a paywall try googling how islamic state's caliphate crumbled wsj. See also this post.

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Energy

Later today: the calendar suggests that API will release its weekly US crude oil inventories later today, but unlike previous weeks, no forecast is provided. Update: the forecast was for a drawdown of 3.8 million bbls; in fact, API shows actual drawdown of 6 million bbls. I use EIA data to follow re-balancing. EIA data should be released tomorrow, unless holiday Monday delays EIA data for one day.

Putting miners back to work: not only will the Trump EPA "repeal" the Clean Power Plan but it looks like Rick Perry, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, has found a way to subsidize coal. LOL.

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Shell Game

Shell confusion. I'm hearing conflicting stories on how the new tax bill will affect Royal Dutch Shell. For the past 36 hours -- including minutes ago (8:03 a.m. CT) on CNBC that RDS will incur a $3 billion charge in the fourth quarter. But now this "breaking story," at 5:33 a.m ET, from thefly.com:

Royal Dutch Shell expects U.S. tax reform to be favorable to Shell.

Royal Dutch Shell plc expects the potential economic impact of the recently enacted U.S. tax reform legislation to be favorable to Shell and to its U.S. operations, primarily due to the future reduction in the U.S. corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21%.

This change in U.S. tax legislation, effective January 1, 2018, will impact Shell's Q4 results but the analysis of the actual impact is not yet complete.

Shell intends to determine and announce the actual impact including any Q4 movements, and balance sheet adjustments, as part of its Q4 results.

However, on the basis of the Q3 financial statements, Shell would have incurred an estimated charge to earnings of $2B-$2.5B primarily driven by a re-measurement of its deferred tax position to reflect the lower corporate income tax rate. This charge represents a non-cash adjustment and will be reflected as an identified item.

How will the average investor know where the truth lies? Follow the share price of RDS-A or RDS-B. By the way, in 2019, the difference between RDS-A and RDS-B will no longer exist, which begs the question: do the "B" shares go away?

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For Those Who Love The Smell Of Diesel 

Diesel? Yup, diesel is the new green!

Welcome to a clean green Australia where they gave up coal to move to diesel. Fear of blackouts means diesel generator sales up 400%. Over at JoanneNova.

You can "believe" that story or you can go with Elon Musk: Tesla's enormous battery in Australia, just weeks old, is already responding to outages in "record" time, from The Washington Post. 

Less than a month after Tesla unveiled a new backup power system in South Australia, the world's largest lithium-ion battery is already being put to the test. And it appears to be far exceeding expectations: In the past three weeks alone, the Hornsdale Power Reserve has smoothed out at least two major energy outages, responding even more quickly than the coal-fired backups that were supposed to provide emergency power. Tesla's battery last week kicked in just 0.14 seconds after one of Australia's biggest plants, the Loy Yang facility in the neighboring state of Victoria, suffered a sudden, unexplained drop in output.

But this is the real story:

Fed by wind turbines at the nearby Hornsdale wind farm, the battery stores excess energy that is produced when the demand for electricity isn't peaking. It can power up to 30,000 homes, though only for short periods — meaning that the battery must still be supported by traditional power plants in the event of a long outage. 

Astute readers will know why Australia needed batteries in the first place and why their spot electricity prices are surging.

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$59.44→	12/27/2017	12/27/2016	12/27/2015	12/27/2014	12/27/2013
Active Rigs	53	41	62	173	187

RBN Energy: Alberta gas production tests takeaway capacity.

Western Canadian natural gas producers are increasingly facing oversupply conditions and price volatility. While competition and pushback from growing U.S. shale gas supply continues to be a factor, producers are now also contending with fresh problems closer to home — namely transportation constraints right where production is growing the most, in central Alberta.

This fall, the Alberta market experienced extreme bottlenecks that left production stranded and sent area gas prices reeling. The ramp-up of winter heating demand has since helped ease the constraints, but the problems are likely to return in the spring when demand is lower, leaving producers exposed to the risk of severe price weakness again in 2018 and limited in their ability to grow supply. Today, we continue our look at what’s behind the local constraints and the implications for production growth and prices in Western Canada.

Enbridge: growth portfolio is underappreciated -- Morningstar.

Enbridge is positioned to benefit from growing oil sands supply dynamics with its Mainline system and regional oil sands pipelines. The regulated Mainline system generates attractive tolls and represents approximately 70% of Canada’s pipeline takeaway capacity. The system offers refinery access to various markets, adding to the network’s attractiveness.

While crude pipelines are Enbridge’s bread and butter, the company operates a diverse energy portfolio. Gas distribution operations benefit from regulated returns and provide the company with reliable cash flows. Enbridge also operates natural gas pipelines and processing assets that supplement its crude pipeline network. Future natural gas pipeline projects benefit from long-term contracts that are tied into emerging projects.

Recently, Enbridge finalized its acquisition of Spectra Energy. The deal positions Enbridge to diversify its operations toward natural gas. The company intends to increase its annual dividend and has maintained an average distributable cash coverage ratio of approximately 3 times over the past three years.

Overall, Enbridge is in a strong position to benefit from the growing oil sands supply, which we expect to outstrip pipeline takeaway capacity in the near term. We expect the Line 3 Replacement to help; we project it to be in service by the end of 2019 and fuel tremendous growth for the company. We believe the stock is undervalued based on the company’s vast growth portfolio, highlighted by the lucrative natural gas projects associated with the Spectra acquisition and the Line 3 Replacement.

Enbridge Energy Partners: 10% dividend just got safer -- Motley Fool.

Not only that, but management expects the payout to grow at around 3% per year through 2020. Investors were rightly shocked by the news, sending shares up by as much as 10%. Enbridge Energy Partners and its parent, Enbridge, Inc. (NYSE: ENB), have made multiple moves in recent years that would leave anyone's head spinning. But the ship seems to have been righted, and the stock's sky-high yield appears safe for the foreseeable future in light of the outlook's key details. In fact, for venturesome investors, EEP is a great high-yield stock to consider heading into the new year. 

COP: did COP's earning growth outperform the industry? -- Simply Wall St.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, travel, job, or relationship decisions based on anything you read here or think you may have read here.

Link Of The Day -- How To Spot Santa This Year -- November 21, 2017

Here's the link.

Guess what it is.

When you get to the link, push down and hold on your track pad / hold down clicker on the mouse while "moving" the cursor.

Also, in most views, there is a little target which might be easy to miss. If you click on the little target, additional information will pop up.

Again the link: https://www.google.com/maps/@29.5602853,-95.0853914,2a,75y,208.19h,93.04t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1szChzPIAn4RIAAAQvxgbyEg!2e0!7i10000!8i5000.

I don't know yet, if the link is dynamic.

Thank you to Don for sending me this link. It will be great to share with grandchildren.

And it's very possible one might be lucky enough to spot a sleigh and eight tiny reindeer on December 24 - 25. But you will have to look closely. Before then, google "North Pole video."

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Global Warming 2017
Australia

For the archives, link here.  Australia becomes the poster child for idiotic green energy policies.

Global warming hysteria has wrecked the supply of electricity in Australia, causing widespread blackouts. That is quite an accomplishment, considering the abundant resources available in that nation-continent. It takes a special brand of idiocy on a national scale to accomplish such a feat.

It was already "unacceptable" that we banned nuclear power here, despite exporting uranium for some of the 449 nuclear plants overseas that safely produce more than 10 per cent of the world's electricity.

It is also "unacceptable" that we've now banned fracking for gas in Victoria, Northern Territory, Western Australia and much of NSW, also thanks to unscientific green scares.

Our Chief Scientist says this technology is "completely safe" when well regulated and it's been used in the United States to unlock such vast new supplies of cheap gas that it's driven down prices and made the US self-reliant on energy.

So for no sane reason we've banned two major sources of electricity. But even more "unacceptable" is that we've decided that coal – our biggest source of all – should also be banned.

Coal-fired stations produce 73 per cent of our electricity and the cheapest and most reliable. Yet activists convinced politicians these stations were heating the world dangerously by releasing lots of carbon dioxide, the gas which feeds plants. Never mind that the world has, in fact, barely warmed over the past two decades.

And then this:

Wind power is so expensive and unreliable that South Australia has since suffered two huge blackouts and has the world’s most expensive electricity.

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Global Warming 2017
Norway

This is a difficult article to access. The best way to do it, is to google it, simply putting the entire title of the article and the author into the google search box. Clicking on the link will download a pdf on your desktop. But again, it's difficult and you may have to play around a bit. 

Article: Carbon cycle modelling and the residence time of natural and anthropogenic atmospheric CO2: on the construction of the “Greenhouse Effect Global Warming” dogma.

by Tom V. Segalstad, Mineralogical-Geological Museum, University of Oslo, Norway

Abstract

The three evidences of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that the apparent contemporary atmospheric CO2 increase is anthropogenic, is discussed and rejected: CO2 measurements from ice cores; CO2 measurements in air; and carbon isotope data in conjunction with carbon cycle modelling.

It is shown why the ice core method and its results must be rejected; and that current air CO2 measurements are not validated and their results subjectively “edited”.

Further it is shown that carbon cycle modelling based on non-equilibrium models, remote from observed reality and chemical laws, made to fit non-representative data through the use of non-linear ocean evasion “buffer” correction factors constructed from a pre-conceived idea, constitute a circular argument and with no scientific validity.

Both radioactive and stable carbon isotopes show that the real atmospheric CO2 residence time (lifetime) is only about 5 years, and that the amount of fossil-fuel CO2 in the atmosphere is maximum 4%. Any CO2 level rise beyond this can only come from a much larger, but natural, carbon reservoir with much higher 13-C/12-C isotope ratio than that of the fossil fuel pool, namely from the ocean, and/or the lithosphere, and/or the Earth’s interior.

This is very difficult to read, but if one tries, I'm sure one can understand it. 

South Australia: 40% Renewable Energy -- Experiences Energy Failure -- An Inconvenient Truth -- The Meaning Of "Dispatchable" -- February 8, 2017

Updates

February 24, 2017: in Australia, the rich can afford solar panels, and because they are rich, they don't worry about the cost of electricity, and because they are rich and don't worry about the cost of electricity, they don't turn off their air conditioning to save money, and the result is that folks with solar panels use more electricity from the grid -- and driving prices up.

There are probably more solar panels in QLD than anywhere else in the world. Back in February last year, the boss of the Queensland state power company announced the awkward result that households with solar panels were using more electricity than those without. Apparently people without solar were turning off the air conditioner because electricity cost too much, but the solar users didn’t have to worry about the cost so much.

Later, 11:35 a.m. Central Time: this was posted on the net last July, well before this week's announcement of rolling blackouts in South Australia.

Renewable energy has been a remarkable success story in South Australia (SA), and now delivers more than 40 per cent of the state's power, with no drop in reliability.

SA has received nearly $7 billion of investment in renewable energy, meaning jobs and growth for the state, in energy sources that help to put downward pressure on the rising costs from gas-fired power.

Tom Butler
Clean Energy Council
Melbourne, Vic 

I hope, along with "rolling blackouts," Tom's head rolls.

I'm beginning to think President Trump's phone call to Australia was "spot on." Idiots all over the world.

Original Post

 
I've learned a lot from my readers due to the blog -- a huge "thank you."

I doubt I would have paid much attention to the phenomenon of "dispatchable" when it comes to renewable energy. But readers introduced me to that concept.

I don't think folks take "rolling blackouts" seriously, but had New England ordered "rolling blackouts" during the Super Bowl, my hunch is that we would have seen "rolling heads" the next day.

South Australia has ordered "rolling blackabouts": Adelaide is sweltering -- wind energy failed:

• South Australia: 40% renewable energy
• lucky this has been a mild summer
• overnight: 30 minutes of inadequate electricity supply
• demand: 3,000 MW
• price spiked to $13,440 / MWh
• expected to repeat "tomorrow"
• at 6:00 p.m. wind power was producing less than 100 MW (about 7% of its rated capacity

Ah, Yes, The Insanity Of Wind Energy -- October 4, 2016

Normally I don't devote a single stand-alone post on a non-Bakken story, but this is too good to pass up.

This is a story about the recent blackout in one of Australia's six states due to:

• over-reliance on wind energy;
• sudden volatility in wind energy production; and,
• resulting grid chaos.

It is also a great lesson for those who do not understand macro-electricity grids.

This was sent to me be a reader, which is much appreciated. One can google the issue and find numerous examples of this craziness. For example: another statewide blackout -- South Australia's wind power disaster continues.

The state of South Australia is more dependent on wind and solar than any other state in Australia. It has about 1,580 MW installed wind capacity. Shortly after 1500 (local time) on September 28, wind energy production went to zero and South Australia suffered from a state-wide black out. The finger-pointing continues. As Paul Homewood (based in England) relates:

“SA’s 18 wind farms have a combined (notional) capacity of 1,580MW.

On 28 September (aka ‘Black Wednesday’), as the wind picked up, output surges by around 900MW, from a trifling 300MW (or 19% of installed capacity) to around 1,200MW.

As we explain below, electricity grids were never designed to tolerate that kind of chaos, but it’s what occurs in the hour before the collapse that matters.

From a peak near 1,200MW, there are drops and surges in output of around 250-300MW (equivalent to having the Pelican Point Combined Cycle Gas plant switched on and off in an instant).

At about 2:30pm there is an almost instantaneous drop of 150MW (1,050 to 900MW), followed by a rapid surge of around 250MW, to hit a momentary peak of about 1,150MW.

Then, in the instant before the blackout, wind power output plummets to around 890MW: a grid killing collapse of 260MW, that occurs in a matter of minutes (it’s all happened before, as we detail below). That 260MW collapse was the deliberate result of an automatic shutdown of the wind farms based in SA’s mid-North, located in the path of the storm front: the final and total collapse in SA’s power supply follows immediately thereafter.”

Will those who advocated wind production stand up?

South Australia's population is about 1.7 million (wiki); it's capital is Adelaide. With about 400,000 square miles, the population density of this state is 4.5 people / square mile. (Compare to North Dakota: 10.7 people per square mile -- this does not include the ever-growing population at Standing Rock Reservation now living in teepees). With only 4.5 people per square mile this state-wide blackout -- if it included Adelaide -- was, at most, I assume, a nuisance, similar to the earthquakes in Oklahoma. 

The interesting thing is that if this occurred during a natural and a national emergency, this is when electricity might be needed most -- like recharging cell phones for emergency personnel responders, and electricity needs for hospitals handling the casualties. If you are on vacation and camping, maybe you don't need electricity, but during natural and national emergencies, in the 21st century, it would be nice to have dependable electricity.

[I did not realize it, but I have a tag for "wind-Australia" suggesting we've covered the Australian wind experience before. LOL.]

Off The Net For Awhile -- July 14, 2015; Australia Slams Door On Wind Energy

The granddaughters have another full week and a few days remaining in their southern California vacation. However, for a number of reasons (all good), I am getting into the minivan in a few minutes -- after completing this note -- and making some sandwiches -- and starting a leisurely trip east.

I plan to head towards Grapevine, but could change plans and head north to the Bakken (unlikely). More than likely I will get back to Grapevine before returning to the Bakken later this autumn.

From southern California, the granddaughters will fly to Kentucky to see their other grandparents, so I won't be seeing them for another three weeks or so. That will really be tough on me, but something tells me they will really enjoy their days with their grandmother -- they just left to visit Little Tokyo for the rest of the day. May is half Japanese and the granddaughters love Little Tokyo.

I hope readers continue to send me articles while I'm on the road; I will eventually get to all the e-mail. I generally respond to all e-mail, but when traveling, perhaps a bit less often.

The biggest delay will be in posting comments/replies over at the Discussion Group.

Breaking news, tweeting now: Saudi-backed forces seize Aden airport in sudden advance against Houthi fighters - @Reuter.

Gas prices for least expensive regular grade, San Pedro: $4.49 / gallon.

Market closes up.

WTI up slightly.

CSX beats forecasts.

Active rigs:

	7/14/2015	07/14/2014	07/14/2013	07/14/2012	07/14/2011
Active Rigs	73	193	186	215	178

Top story in Los Angeles Times: deal may strengthen Iran. Well, duh.

Los Angeles Times: NAACP wants Confederate carving removed from Georgia's Stone Mountain.

And we will end with this, smartest man in the room:

Australia has slammed the door shut on any new government-funded investment in renewable energy schemes as Prime Minister Tony Abbott extends his “war on wind power”. The new directive banning investing in existing wind technology will also apply to small-scale solar projects. In doing so Mr Abbott has sent a clear message to the mendicant green renewable energy sector that there will be no more cheap state-supplied financing for its projects. The funding ban is just the latest salvo in the government’s attacks on the renewable energy sector which also includes small-scale solar projects.

He's gonna be re-elected by a wide, wide margin.

Australian Road Trains

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At Least It's Hard To Catch 

This is very concerning: it's baaacck! Reuters is reporting:

A Liberian woman has died of Ebola in a hospital in Monrovia shortly after being admitted, becoming the sixth confirmed case of the virus since it resurfaced last month after a seven-week lull.

Her detection raised fears that the infection may be spreading in a new area of the country.

A health report sent to officials in the anti-Ebola response said that the woman died a few hours after admission, indicating that surveillance of known contacts from the earlier cases had not been rigorous enough.

More than 11,200 people have died from Ebola since the epidemic began in December 2013. Liberia was declared Ebola-free on May 9 but reported a new case nearly two months later.

Health officials say the virus probably remained latent in the country during that period and could have been reactivated by a survivor, via sexual transmission.