[lvmensch]

Originally Posted by PacoMartin

I would worry about being told you can't use natural gas anymore to generate electricity. It has replaced coal as the primary fuel for electric plants. Looking at the Western Interconnect:

% electricity generated by natural gas

1. 66.1% Nevada
2. 48.1% California
3. 46.4% Arizona
4. 35.7% New Mexico
5. 34.0% Colorado
   ...
6. 28.9% Oregon
7. 25.4% Utah
8. 20.7% Idaho
9. 12.4% Washington
10. 4.3% Wyoming
11. 1.7% Montana

% electricity generated by coal

1. 80.0% Wyoming
2. 61.5% Utah
3. 37.2% New Mexico
4. 36.0% Montana
5. 35.9% Colorado
   ...
6. 12.5% Arizona
7. 4.8% Nevada
8. 4.5% Washington
9. 2.5% Oregon
10. 0.1% California
11. 0.1% Idaho

NV and CA can meet all their needs with renewables. In fact virtually all utilities will likely set up a redundant renewable system able to carry the whole load...simply because fully loaded renewable is a good bit cheaper than then the incremental cost of gas.

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by lvmensch

NV and CA can meet all their needs with renewables. In fact virtually all utilities will likely set up a redundant renewable system able to carry the whole load...simply because fully loaded renewable is a good bit cheaper than then the incremental cost of gas.

I remain skeptical, but possibly that is true with the present day extremely low electricity usage in California per connection. However, once California switches to an entire fleet of EVs their consumption will increase.

Average kWh per month

1. 639 California
2. 905 Colorado
3. 1,034 New Mexico
4. 1,068 Utah
5. 1,237 Oregon
6. 1,242 Montana
7. 1,281 Washington
8. 1,383 Wyoming
9. 1,388 Arizona
10. 1,401 Nevada
11. 1,458 Idaho

It also remains to be seen if someone will spend a trillion dollars to put in HVDC lines to connect East and West.

[JonathanLB]

Yeah the summers here are brutal for usage. I can be around 900 per month for a 3,600 square foot house for the winter, late fall, early spring might be close like 1,100 at most. But summer lately not joking we are looking at 4,000 Kw per month! It’s well over 100 per day. My solar can cover around 2,000 of that but we can’t even come close to all of it. I keep the upstairs cool all day, 70, because of sleeping and the home gym is there too which is convenient. I keep downstairs 75-77 and use ceiling fans a lot. Upstairs the AC runs 17-21 hours per day! Versus downstairs just 2-5. Cold air sinks, after all, so it’s benefitting from some overflow I believe.

[PacoMartin]

Coal plants are almost entirely gone from ID, CA and NV
Argus Cogen Plant - California (1978) - privately owned
Amalgamated Sugar Plant - Idaho (1948) - privately owned
North Valmy - Nevada (1981 & 1985) planned to be closed in 2023
TS Power Plant - Nevada - converting to gas in 2022

Argus Cogen Plant is privately owned by Searles Valley Minerals Inc. which produces borax, boric acid, soda ash, salt cake, and salt. It has major operations in the Searles Valley (Mojave desert CA) and in Trona, California where it is the town's largest employer. The government of California cannot shut it down, and it is very small anyway.

These are the US coal plants in the Western Interconnect (biggest to smallest)

1. WY Jim Bridger
2. WY Laramie River Station
3. UT Hunter
4. MT Colstrip
5. AZ Springerville
6. NM Four Corners
7. CO Craig (CO)
8. UT Intermountain Power Project
   -------------------------- Above plants produce > 50% of coal power in Western Interconnect
9. WA Transalta Centralia Generation
10. NM San Juan
11. UT Huntington
12. WY Dave Johnston
13. CO Comanche (CO)
14. UT Bonanza
15. WY Dry Fork Station
16. AZ Cholla
17. CO Pawnee
18. AZ Coronado
19. WY Naughton
20. CO Hayden
    -------------------------- Above plants produce > 90% of coal power in Western Interconnect
21. CO Rawhide
22. WY Wyodak
23. OR Boardman
24. CO Ray D Nixon
25. NV TS Power Plant
26. NV North Valmy
27. WY Wygen 2
28. WY Wygen 1
29. NM Escalante
30. AZ Apache Station
31. CO Martin Drake
32. CA Argus Cogen Plant
33. WY General Chemical
34. WA Nippon Dynawave Packaging Longview WA
35. ID Amalgamated Sugar Twin Falls
36. MT Western Sugar Cooperative - Billings

Originally Posted by lvmensch

NV and CA can meet all their needs with renewables. In fact virtually all utilities will likely set up a redundant renewable system able to carry the whole load...simply because fully loaded renewable is a good bit cheaper than then the incremental cost of gas.

I fail to see how you can jump from my comment about the use of natural gas to your comment.
% electricity generated by natural gas
66.1% Nevada
48.1% California

[lvmensch]

Originally Posted by PacoMartin

Coal plants are almost entirely gone from CA and NV
Argus Cogen Plant - California (1978)
North Valmy - Nevada (1981 & 1985) planned to be closed in 2023
TS Power Plant - Nevada - converting to gas in 2022

Argus Cogen Plant is privately owned by Searles Valley Minerals Inc. which produces borax, boric acid, soda ash, salt cake, and salt. It has major operations in the Searles Valley (Mojave desert CA) and in Trona, California where it is the town's largest employer. The government of California cannot shut it down, and it is very small anyway.

These are the US coal plants in the Western Interconnect (biggest to smallest)

1. WY Jim Bridger
2. WY Laramie River Station
3. UT Hunter
4. MT Colstrip
5. AZ Springerville
6. NM Four Corners
7. CO Craig (CO)
8. UT Intermountain Power Project
   -------------------------- Above plants produce > 50% of coal power in Western Interconnect
9. WA Transalta Centralia Generation
10. NM San Juan
11. UT Huntington
12. WY Dave Johnston
13. CO Comanche (CO)
14. UT Bonanza
15. WY Dry Fork Station
16. AZ Cholla
17. CO Pawnee
18. AZ Coronado
19. WY Naughton
20. CO Hayden
    -------------------------- Above plants produce > 90% of coal power in Western Interconnect
21. CO Rawhide
22. WY Wyodak
23. OR Boardman
24. CO Ray D Nixon
25. NV TS Power Plant
26. NV North Valmy
27. WY Wygen 2
28. WY Wygen 1
29. NM Escalante
30. AZ Apache Station
31. CO Martin Drake
32. CA Argus Cogen Plant
33. WY General Chemical
34. WA Nippon Dynawave Packaging Longview WA
35. ID Amalgamated Sugar Twin Falls
36. MT Western Sugar Cooperative - Billings

I fail to see how you can jump from my comment about the use of natural gas to your comment.
% electricity generated by natural gas
66.1% Nevada
48.1% California

And going to 0.0 over the next 20 years. Again the economics will cause duplication of full capacity with renewables while maintaining gas to fill when the renewables are not available. Then over the next years the storage capability will develop and the gas goes away mostly.

I suspect 10 years out it will be very clear.

[PacoMartin]

Production of electricity in Western Interconnect (US states only excluding Canada and northern Baja MX)
33.67% NG Natural Gas
22.57% HYC Hydroelectric Conventional
16.36% COL Coal
8.94% WND Wind
7.99% NUC Nuclear
6.62% SUN Solar PV and thermal
2.21% GEO Geothermal

Originally Posted by lvmensch

And going to 0.0 over the next 20 years.

I can easily see the coal plants vanishing over the next two decades as they are mostly old and public opinion in the West is fairly strong. In 2 years the public coal plants will be gone from CA, NV, OR and ID. The governor of Washington has signed a bill to close the last one in Washington state in four years. Arizona and New Mexico may follow within a decade. I am not sure how quickly MT and CO will follow.

27% of the electricity from Coal in the Western Interconnect comes from Wyoming
46% of the electricity from Coal in the Western Interconnect comes from Wyoming and Utah

Originally Posted by lvmensch

Again the economics will cause duplication of full capacity with renewables while maintaining gas to fill when the renewables are not available. Then over the next years the storage capability will develop and the gas goes away mostly. I suspect 10 years out it will be very clear.

That seems like fantasy to me. Natural gas is the number one source in the WECC right now, many of the plants are very newI. NGis the biggest source in CA, NV, and AZ.

In 20 years the last 3 nuclear power plants in the West will probably be closed because of old age.

Wind, Solar, and Geothermal are 17.8% as of 2020, and they all have very low capacity factors. Somehow they are going to expand to become the major sources of power when the demand for electiricity is going to be expanding!!!

[lvmensch]

Originally Posted by PacoMartin

Production of electricity in Western Interconnect (US states only excluding Canada and northern Baja MX)
33.67% NG Natural Gas
22.57% HYC Hydroelectric Conventional
16.36% COL Coal
8.94% WND Wind
7.99% NUC Nuclear
6.62% SUN Solar PV and thermal
2.21% GEO Geothermal


I can easily see the coal plants vanishing over the next two decades as they are mostly old and public opinion in the West is fairly strong. In 2 years the public coal plants will be gone from CA, NV, and ID. The governor of Washington has signed a bill to close the last one in Washington state in four years. Arizona and New Mexico may follow within a decade.

27% of the electricity from Coal in the Western Interconnect comes from Wyoming
46% of the electricity from Coal in the Western Interconnect comes from Wyoming and Utah





That seems like fantasy to me. Natural gas is the number one source right now, many of the plants are very new. In 20 years the last 3 nuclear power plants in the West will probably be closed because of old age.

Wind, Solar, and Geothermal are 17.8% as of 2020, and they all have very low capacity factors. Somehow they are going to expand to become the major sources of power when the demand for electiricity is going to be expanding!!!

You are missing the obvious. The utilities are not going to convert to renewables. They re simply going to develop Renewables to equal their demand. The reason being that renewables fully loaded cost half as much as natural gas variable cost.. So as long a the sun shines the utilities get their energy for less than the cost of natural gas.