You posted a link to a file on your own computer. Seriously, you're hopeless!
Get Rich in Commodities Superboom, thanx environmentalists
- Thread starter nattybumppo
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"Actually demand increased and supply decreased, again just facts. The whole state was out of power. The shortfall was significantly greater than the total generated by wind. Since demand increased then wind, since it's a non-dispatched resource that always produced 100% of what it's capable of producing, would mathematically make up less of the power mix than usual. In which case, wind could never be responsible for more of the shortfall than it was capable of producing in the first place "
That assumes that total supply increased to meet demand (in which case there would be no shortfall), but you just admitted that "supply decreased." Could the share of the decrease or shortfall in supply accounted for by the failure of renewable electricity exceed renewables' share of installed capacity (or some other relevant measure) when total production is falling? Yes, absolutely.
In the case of wind specifically, it is merely necessary for wind's production to decline by a higher *percentage* than conventional sources of power. Let us take a simple example in a hypothetical locality where total energy production is a mathematically convenient 10,000 MW and wind turbines' share of this is 2000 MW or 20%. If severe weather immobilizes the turbines so that their production falls to zero, and the rest of the system's production falls by an additional 1000 MW, that is 3000 MW offline, or a 30% decrease in energy supply, and wind, which only accounted for 20% of total production before the crisis, now accounts for two thirds or 67% of the decline in power supply at a time when demand would be rising if that were possible.
We should measure supply rather than demand, because it is usually not possible to measure demand in excess of supply; mathematically, the market cannot purchase more than is produced and delivered (although in some cases it may order more in advance), so measurable demand cannot usually exceed supply even if the customers want more than is available.
"If demand want to 200 then not only could my factory could never be responsible for more than the 16 it was capable of making in the first place but it's now only responsible for 8% of the total even if it drops to 0."
Yes, if demand was for 200, then your 16 widget plant, when it burned down, would only take off line 8% of the total demand (my example talked about production, but we can use demand instead if you want, and ignore the fact that demand in excess of supply is usually hypothetical)--yet your defunct widget plant would still account for 100% of the 8%.
But if other plants also had production shortfalls, then your plant's total loss would account for less than 100% of the shortfall, but it might very well still account for a share of the shortfall that was greater than its share of the installed productive capacity (or its share of the hypothetical demand). There is no mathematical reason why it could not.
And keep in mind that there are other issues involved in measuring wind's contribution to the power shortfall. For example, if electrical supply disruptions caused by wind turbine failures contributed to the failure of the natural gas delivery system, then wind could account for an even larger share of the energy supply shortfall. The energy supply system is interdependent and complex with feedback loops that are not likely to be fully understood.
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I am not anti-environment, I am anti-excessively dumb and over-reactive.
(And I forgot to preface my post you quoted with the sarcasm-meter thing)...
The whole reason we are on the green-energy tear is because a few scientists decades ago showed that the ice caps were thinning out. Fine. But rather than acknowledge that this is a natural rotation of the earth's climate over it's billions of years history, they decided to politicize it, and make it a feel good story for their political base.
Anyone remember the Time magazine cover stories about global cooling in the 1970s? Anyone remember the other batch of scientists who tried to politicize THAT? No, didn't think so. That was swept under the rug. Hmm!
The story eventually evolved into how we, somehow, have caused the earth to warm up because of death to the ozone layer Anyone remember that one? *No, that's old news last heard about in the 1980s)*. And now it is the increase in "greenhouse gasses".
Last I heard, a greenhouse is basically an atrium that helps plants grow through enhanced and optimal photosynthesis. And photosynthesis CONSUMES CO2 and PRODUCES O2, IIRC my 3rd grade science class.
Eventually this climate challenge by the scientists became all about saving the endangered species of this planet, like the fucking spotted-owl. It was about nothing else but saving endangered species.
Now, here we are years later, and saying if we do not stop the man-made change to the environment, which the earth will shrug off in 1,000 years, we will kill off our children, like how we have killed off the spotted-owl. (Which is thriving).
We humans think we are so important in the grand schema.
The more we try to fix something we think is broken, the more we are going to break that which is not broken.
Guys, we're not going to break the earth unless we nuke it.
END OF LINE.
The most effective way we have to reduce the rate at which entropy is increasing on our planet is population control. And that's quite doable and extremely low cost relative to the benefits...but it's a very long term solution to the problems we create for our environment and we don't like to wait..
"Solutions" to the environmental problems we create may be internally contradictory if the net result is an increase in the consumption rate.* Population control decreases consumption rate, so it constitutes a real solution to the environmental problems we create for ourselves.
I wonder if the reason our big energy companies haven't started an advertising campaign championing the virtues of large families is they haven't thought of it yet!
*An interesting, and relevant, example was the law requiring ethyl alcohol be added to gasoline, promoted of course by our good Senators from our major corn producing states, i.e., Mr. Grassley from Iowa, "where the tall corn grows." There was convincing testimony that whereas ethanol from sugarcane made sense economically, ethanol from corn to be used in gasoline made no sense, either economically or environmentally, and resulted in an overall increase in consumption per mile driven. We adopted the new law anyway. Mr Grassley is a very effective Senator.
I wonder if the reason our big energy companies haven't started an advertising campaign championing the virtues of large families is they haven't thought of it yet!
*An interesting, and relevant, example was the law requiring ethyl alcohol be added to gasoline, promoted of course by our good Senators from our major corn producing states, i.e., Mr. Grassley from Iowa, "where the tall corn grows." There was convincing testimony that whereas ethanol from sugarcane made sense economically, ethanol from corn to be used in gasoline made no sense, either economically or environmentally, and resulted in an overall increase in consumption per mile driven. We adopted the new law anyway. Mr Grassley is a very effective Senator.