Get Rich in Commodities Superboom, thanx environmentalists

[nattybumppo]

I get that it's easy to read headlines and get jaded. There are some things we know as facts though. For example, we know that CO2 levels before the industrial revolution where 280 ppm, they are now 409 ppm. We know that an increase of that level in that short of a time period is an unprecedented experiment with our global climate. There's two ways to look at that. My way is to ask anyone willing to conduct such an experiment to show there's convincing evidence it won't cause major changes that will impact all of us and if they can't we should do our best to mitigate it. You seem to advocate that we have to prove it causes changes beyond a reasonable doubt and until then should do nothing. Kind of like if a factory set up next door to your house and started blowing out a chemical that hadn't been produced before. I would insist that they show it was safe before they started releasing it, you're saying to just wait until I get cancer before deciding if we should control the release of that chemical. But its even worse because climate change deniers are actively attempting to stop any research into climate change. That's saying not only to wait until the chemical plant gives you cancer, but actively prevent anyone from studying if it causes cancer in the interim!

That ignore it and stop everyone from even asking the question approach seems, unwise, at best. It seems especially foolish when we've come so rapidly down the cost curve that unsubsidized solar plus storage is now coming in on 20 year arms length PPAs at costs cheaper than fossil fuel. Forget climate change, do you actually like to pay more money than you have to for sulfur dioxide in the air just to stick it to the environmentalists?

I grew up in the PNW in a logging community in the 1980s and my father was a forester, so I know more than your random guy about the spotted owl controversy. You're seem to be conflating concerns about climate change with the very narrow goal of environmentalist at that time and place to stop a very specific type of logging (old growth forests) on federal lands, for wood that we didn't actually even need, where the government was effectively giving this wood away to logging companies. The two had nothing to do with one another. And guess what, we did stop logging in federal old growth forests, it had zero impact on the U.S. lumber and paper markets, the spotted owl is doing much better as a result, and we still have millions of acres of beautiful PNW are spectacular old growth forests that would take hundreds of years to reproduce rather than ugly 30 year old clear cuts. And all my classmates from high school who seemed to think the only job in the world was logging old growth forests? All doing just fine. It's absolutely baffling to me how anyone could not only be against that outcome, but actually angry about it? It's especially baffling to me that you're one of those people. I get it if you're an ignorant redneck whose worldview consists of Fox and now OAN and Newsmax. But you're none of those things. It's like you had some kind of trauma in this area as a kid and it makes you irrationally angry and just plain irrational, but just about this one narrow thing. Any other subject I may not agree with you but I have no doubt that you're being intelligent, thoughtful, and well meaning. The juxtaposition is just strange.

"We know that an increase of that level in that short of a time period is an unprecedented experiment with our global climate." -- No, it's not. The RATE of increase in CO2 is irrelevant. Only the the absolute level of CO2 matters, and that level, although higher than before the industrial revolution, is still unusually low in the full history of life on earth.

Also, CO2 does not drive climate change. Here is something I posted recently on a another site about this matter:

CO2 is an unmitigated good. It is not the driver of climate change. Why do you think the correlation between CO2 growth and temperature change is not appreciably different from zero? (Correlation may not always exist due to causation, but causation does always create correlation, so absence of correlation is absence of causation.) And since the wavelength of light that is captured by CO2 is already saturated at current levels (astronomers with sophisticated telescopes can observe this), where will additional CO2 find more light of that wavelength to capture? Yes, I know there is a weak correlation of CO2 with temperature is you look at *geologic* time scales, BUT the direction of causation is "wrong." That is, temperature clearly changed first (as in the Vostock ice core), and CO2 levels followed with a time lag of centuries. Please don't be another link in the chain of the blind following the blind. Look up these names and see what they have to say about the real causes of climate change: Henrik Svensmark, Jan Veizer, and Nir Shaviv. I also highly recommend Svensmark's 2012 popular science book (co-authored with the late science journalist Nigel Calder), _The Chilling Stars_.

 

[nattybumppo]

Anyone who knows the first thing about wind energy knows their expected capacity factors. The only "expectations" that are in error are your own which you arrived at from a point of profound ignorance. That's your problem, own it instead of whining about it. Wind is an intermittent resource, no one in the industry ever claimed otherwise. Even with today's technology you can use inexpensive and relatively clean gas peaked plants along with demand response to integrate wind and solar penetrations well in excess of 50% of the grid, and create a significant portion of your MWH (vice MW capacity) out of wind or solar which at today's renewables prices is cheaper and has always been significantly cleaner. We're now reaching renewables and storage prices where that is winning arm's length unsubsidized power procurements, which means when fully deployed the gas plants will seldom if ever need to run. We're already well beyond the point where any coal plants need to be part of the mix over anything but the near term transition.

What's baffling to me is why you're against a cheaper, cleaner alternative, that by the way also creates far more jobs? You're literally arguing for more expensive power that pollutes more and provides fewer jobs. The question you have to ask yourself is why you're reflexively doing that?

"Even with today's technology you can use inexpensive and relatively clean gas peaked plants along with demand response to integrate wind and solar penetrations well in excess of 50% of the grid,"

LOL! No, you can't. The engineers have repeatedly told us you can't get over about 25 to 30 percent from intermittent sources. German politicians ignored them and found out the hard way that they were correct. The grid can't get to 50% from intermittent power sources. You will start getting black outs and brown outs before you get there. Not just theoretical. Germany proved the engineers were right.

Now, there are ways to get around the intermittency or compensate for it, but then the energy returned on energy invested plummets.

 

[Sig]

"Even with today's technology you can use inexpensive and relatively clean gas peaked plants along with demand response to integrate wind and solar penetrations well in excess of 50% of the grid,"

LOL! No, you can't. The engineers have repeatedly told us you can't get over about 25 to 30 percent from intermittent sources. German politicians ignored them and found out the hard way that they were correct. The grid can't get to 50% from intermittent power sources. You will start getting black outs and brown outs before you get there. Not just theoretical. Germany proved the engineers were right.

Now, there are ways to get around the intermittency or compensate for it, but then the energy returned on energy invested plummets.

I'm one of "those engineers", certainly that 25% number is news to those of us who actually do this for a living. Germany, in fact, is a great example of a place where renewables generate nearly 50% of the power and where in 2019, for example, the average German had 12 minutes of outage. That's the lowest in Europe and compares pretty well to the U.S. 2019 average of 4.7 hours. And that's before any widespread application of grid level storage.

Perhaps you're not actually an electrical engineer or reading actual papers written by electrical engineers in the past few years? Perhaps instead you're getting this fifth hand from Tucker Carlson, who doesn't even have a college degree of any kind? Again, I have to ask you if you've thought about why you have this reflexive hostility to something you've decided is bad before you actually learned anything about it? Something that if you have researched at all, has all been research in an attempt to confirm your biased original viewpoint that came from a place of profound ignorance? Perhaps you'd like to share which electricity industry news sources and which specific studies you have regularly read up to now to come to these conclusions? And no, googling "renewable blackouts in Germany" right now to find confirming information on something you otherwise know nothing about isn't intellectual honesty, so don't bother.

Renewable penetration over 50% has definite challenges. I'm not blind to them and am happy to engage in an intellectually honest discussion about them. It appears that unfortunately you're ready for that level of discussion at this point in time, however.

 

[Sig]

"We know that an increase of that level in that short of a time period is an unprecedented experiment with our global climate." -- No, it's not. The RATE of increase in CO2 is irrelevant. Only the the absolute level of CO2 matters, and that level, although higher than before the industrial revolution, is still unusually low in the full history of life on earth.

Also, CO2 does not drive climate change. Here is something I posted recently on a another site about this matter:

CO2 is an unmitigated good. It is not the driver of climate change. Why do you think the correlation between CO2 growth and temperature change is not appreciably different from zero? (Correlation may not always exist due to causation, but causation does always create correlation, so absence of correlation is absence of causation.) And since the wavelength of light that is captured by CO2 is already saturated at current levels (astronomers with sophisticated telescopes can observe this), where will additional CO2 find more light of that wavelength to capture? Yes, I know there is a weak correlation of CO2 with temperature is you look at *geologic* time scales, BUT the direction of causation is "wrong." That is, temperature clearly changed first (as in the Vostock ice core), and CO2 levels followed with a time lag of centuries. Please don't be another link in the chain of the blind following the blind. Look up these names and see what they have to say about the real causes of climate change: Henrik Svensmark, Jan Veizer, and Nir Shaviv. I also highly recommend Svensmark's 2012 popular science book (co-authored with the late science journalist Nigel Calder), _The Chilling Stars_.

Nigel Calder, the lifetime climate change denier who in the 80's said that by 2030 "the much-advertised heating of the earth by the man-made carbon-dioxide 'greenhouse' [will fail] to occur; instead, there [will be] renewed concern about cooling and an impending ice age"? Sure.

Literally everything you said is either demonstrably false ("the wavelength of light that is captured by CO2 is already saturated at current levels?" Seriously?) or is vastly misrepresented or misunderstood in your retelling.

Most importantly you completely ignore my point because it's clearly pretty inconvenient for you. Neither you or anyone else has the first idea of if the RATE of increase in CO2 is relevant or not. It's a massive experiment on a global scale that's never been done before, there's no way you could know. And your response is not to investigate if it might be an issue, it's to first deny its an issue based on the fact that you don't want it to be an issue, then try to shut down any investigation of if it is. If you're old enough you've seen this movie before. "Don't worry about second hand cigarette smoke, clearly it's not dangerous, because I said so. And don't actually investigate if it is dangerous, that's not necessary and in fact tramples on liberty and freedom. In fact, you can't do anything to stop second hand smoke until you PROVE it's dangerous, not the other way around."

That was monumentally stupid and it only killed a few million people. Why, again, are you proposing we take the same attitude here?

 

[nattybumppo]

"Nigel Calder, the lifetime climate change denier who in the 80's said that by 2030 "the much-advertised heating of the earth by the man-made carbon-dioxide 'greenhouse' [will fail] to occur; instead, there [will be] renewed concern about cooling and an impending ice age"? Sure."

It has already failed to occur! That is why True Believing scientists are scratching their heads over "the pause" as they call it. If you don't believe that global warmed stopped ("paused") starting about 20 years ago, then you are denying the consensus even of scientists who are your fellow True Believers.

But at any rate, Calder was a good and respected science journalist who helped the Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark explain his discoveries in English.

"Literally everything you said is either demonstrably false ("the wavelength of light that is captured by CO2 is already saturated at current levels?" Seriously?)"

An astronomer who commented on the world's most widely followed climate blog stated that he had personally observed it. I have run across this info in other sources too.

"Neither you or anyone else has the first idea of if the RATE of increase in CO2 is relevant or not."

Sure we do. We can very rapidly increase the level of CO2 in greenhouses to levels that we will never be able to achieve globally by burning fossil fuels (and also at a speed that we cannot duplicate globally), and neither plants nor the humans who tend them exhibit any signs of distress whatsoever. The high CO2 greenhouses do not overheat either. By comparison, having increased CO2 by a third in about 250 years is trivial.

"It's a massive experiment on a global scale that's never been done before, there's no way you could know."

Sure we can know, because it has indeed been done--by nature! For the vast majority of life on earth, CO2 has been much higher than today, and life thrived.

"And your response is not to investigate if it might be an issue"

I have already investigated. I have forgotten more than you have learned.

"Don't worry about second hand cigarette smoke, clearly it's not dangerous, because I said so. And don't actually investigate if it is dangerous, that's not necessary and in fact tramples on liberty and freedom. In fact, you can't do anything to stop second hand smoke until you PROVE it's dangerous, not the other way around."

That was monumentally stupid and it only killed a few million people. Why, again, are you proposing we take the same attitude here?[/QUOTE]

You are ignorant of the facts, which tells me most of your science knowledge comes from the popular media (reported by scientifically illiterate journalists in most cases). There are no good reasons for thinking that second hand smoke has killed "mllions of people" (indeed, even first hand smoke only takes 6 years off of your life expectancy on average), and the vast majority of research found either no statistically significant effect, or trivial effects. Politicians just wait for the few outlier studies that inevitably crop up and base their laws and regs on those rather than following the weight of the evidence. (Big pharma companies are often said to use the same trick.)

Ditto for silicon breast implants. No evidence they cause cancer, but evidently people with law degrees have difficulty understanding the science.

 

[nattybumppo]

I'm one of "those engineers", certainly that 25% number is news to those of us who actually do this for a living. Germany, in fact, is a great example of a place where renewables generate nearly 50% of the power and where in 2019, for example, the average German had 12 minutes of outage. That's the lowest in Europe and compares pretty well to the U.S. 2019 average of 4.7 hours. And that's before any widespread application of grid level storage.

Perhaps you're not actually an electrical engineer or reading actual papers written by electrical engineers in the past few years? Perhaps instead you're getting this fifth hand from Tucker Carlson, who doesn't even have a college degree of any kind? Again, I have to ask you if you've thought about why you have this reflexive hostility to something you've decided is bad before you actually learned anything about it? Something that if you have researched at all, has all been research in an attempt to confirm your biased original viewpoint that came from a place of profound ignorance? Perhaps you'd like to share which electricity industry news sources and which specific studies you have regularly read up to now to come to these conclusions? And no, googling "renewable blackouts in Germany" right now to find confirming information on something you otherwise know nothing about isn't intellectual honesty, so don't bother.

Renewable penetration over 50% has definite challenges. I'm not blind to them and am happy to engage in an intellectually honest discussion about them. It appears that unfortunately you're ready for that level of discussion at this point in time, however.

I googled this, and there are a number of sources that back up your 50% "renewables" (which might include more than just wind and solar) claim, so I will not fault you too hard for repeating apparent "common knowledge." Indeed, a recent source even claims that the renewables share in Germany has risen to 65% (a big jump from 50% in a suspiciously short time). But I would also say that one should always be skeptical of rosy claims that have a powerful political impetus behind them.

Using google, I found a claim that Germany gets 17% of its electric power from wind. Another source cited 46Tw from solar and 96Tw from wind, so that would be about 8% from solar for a grand total of 25% of electricity from wind and solar combined. ("Renewables" also includes biomass and hydro, which are not intermittent--however, hydro is not really renewable because the dams will silt up at some point, but it still gets classified, inaccurately, as a "renewable.")

Electric power costs in Germany have also skyrocketed since undertaking its renewables program.

Here is information from a German source in 2018:

The idea of meeting our country's [Germany's] energy needs with wind power and solar energy has proven to be an illusion. At present, around 29,000 wind turbines and 1.6 million photovoltaic systems together account for just 3.1 % of our energy requirements [I assume that means total energy, not just electricity; a lot of non-electric energy is used for transportation and winter heating].
SNIP
Tax consultant Daldorf, analyzed over 1600 annual financial statements of wind energy projects between 2005 and 2013. They found that the vast majority of wind farms in Germany operate at a loss. With many local wind farms, investors are lucky to get their original investment back at all. Daldorf gives the following reasons for the poor performance of windfarms
http://energyskeptic.com/2019/germa...gram-energiewende-is-a-big-expensive-failure/

Germany’s Maxed-Out Grid Is Causing Trouble Across Europe
The growing mismatch between Germany’s renewables capacity and the strength of its electricity network is leading to curtailment, crazy pricing and challenges for neighboring nations.

Although Germany is generating record amounts of clean energy in the north, its grid is too weak to transport all the power down to load centers in the south — a longstanding challenge for the country that is only getting worse.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/germanys-stressed-grid-is-causing-trouble-across-europe

Renewables Threaten German Economy & Energy Supply, McKinsey Warns In New Report
A new report by consulting giant McKinsey finds that Germany's Energiewende, or energy transition to renewables, poses a significant threat to the nation's economy and energy supply.

One of Germany's largest newspapers, Die Welt, summarized the findings of the McKinsey report in a single word: "disastrous."

"Problems are manifesting in all three dimensions of the energy industry triangle: climate protection, the security of supply and economic efficiency," writes McKinsey.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michae...mckinsey-warns-in-new-report/?sh=40e5e0e58e48

Germany’s green energy shift is more fizzle than sizzle
Despite spending billions, it is falling behind other European countries.

Germany's enormously expensive Energiewende green energy transformation is sputtering. The numbers tell the story.

Despite spending about €150 billion and years of political effort to scrap nuclear and fossil fuels and switch to renewables like wind and solar, Germany is expected to fall short on pretty much all its national and EU emission reduction and clean energy targets for 2020.
SNIP
Renewable power [which is broader than just solar and wind] last year surged to 36 percent of the country's electricity use, according to the Agora Energiewende think tank. But while renewables grew in the power sector, they didn't make major strides in transport or heating, so they account for just over 13 percent of energy use.

"Germany as a pioneering country is on the brink of failure," Patrick Graichen, the head of Agora Energiewende, said in a January assessment.

 

[Sig]

"Nigel Calder, the lifetime climate change denier who in the 80's said that by 2030 "the much-advertised heating of the earth by the man-made carbon-dioxide 'greenhouse' [will fail] to occur; instead, there [will be] renewed concern about cooling and an impending ice age"? Sure."

It has already failed to occur! That is why True Believing scientists are scratching their heads over "the pause" as they call it. If you don't believe that global warmed stopped ("paused") starting about 20 years ago, then you are denying the consensus even of scientists who are your fellow True Believers.

But at any rate, Calder was a good and respected science journalist who helped the Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark explain his discoveries in English.

"Literally everything you said is either demonstrably false ("the wavelength of light that is captured by CO2 is already saturated at current levels?" Seriously?)"

An astronomer who commented on the world's most widely followed climate blog stated that he had personally observed it. I have run across this info in other sources too.

"Neither you or anyone else has the first idea of if the RATE of increase in CO2 is relevant or not."

Sure we do. We can very rapidly increase the level of CO2 in greenhouses to levels that we will never be able to achieve globally by burning fossil fuels (and also at a speed that we cannot duplicate globally), and neither plants nor the humans who tend them exhibit any signs of distress whatsoever. The high CO2 greenhouses do not overheat either. By comparison, having increased CO2 by a third in about 250 years is trivial.

"It's a massive experiment on a global scale that's never been done before, there's no way you could know."

Sure we can know, because it has indeed been done--by nature! For the vast majority of life on earth, CO2 has been much higher than today, and life thrived.

"And your response is not to investigate if it might be an issue"

I have already investigated. I have forgotten more than you have learned.

"Don't worry about second hand cigarette smoke, clearly it's not dangerous, because I said so. And don't actually investigate if it is dangerous, that's not necessary and in fact tramples on liberty and freedom. In fact, you can't do anything to stop second hand smoke until you PROVE it's dangerous, not the other way around."

That was monumentally stupid and it only killed a few million people. Why, again, are you proposing we take the same attitude here?

You are ignorant of the facts, which tells me most of your science knowledge comes from the popular media (reported by scientifically illiterate journalists in most cases). There are no good reasons for thinking that second hand smoke has killed "mllions of people" (indeed, even first hand smoke only takes 6 years off of your life expectancy on average), and the vast majority of research found either no statistically significant effect, or trivial effects. Politicians just wait for the few outlier studies that inevitably crop up and base their laws and regs on those rather than following the weight of the evidence. (Big pharma companies are often said to use the same trick.)

Ditto for silicon breast implants. No evidence they cause cancer, but evidently people with law degrees have difficulty understanding the science.

You're actually arguing that second hand cigarette smoke doesn't really cause cancer! I could go through and point out the facile nature of each of your points, again. But that pretty much says it all, so no need.

 

[Sig]

I googled this, and there are a number of sources that back up your 50% "renewables" (which might include more than just wind and solar) claim, so I will not fault you too hard for repeating apparent "common knowledge." Indeed, a recent source even claims that the renewables share in Germany has risen to 65% (a big jump from 50% in a suspiciously short time). But I would also say that one should always be skeptical of rosy claims that have a powerful political impetus behind them.

Using google, I found a claim that Germany gets 17% of its electric power from wind. Another source cited 46Tw from solar and 96Tw from wind, so that would be about 8% from solar for a grand total of 25% of electricity from wind and solar combined. ("Renewables" also includes biomass and hydro, which are not intermittent--however, hydro is not really renewable because the dams will silt up at some point, but it still gets classified, inaccurately, as a "renewable.")

Electric power costs in Germany have also skyrocketed since undertaking its renewables program.

Here is information from a German source in 2018:

The idea of meeting our country's [Germany's] energy needs with wind power and solar energy has proven to be an illusion. At present, around 29,000 wind turbines and 1.6 million photovoltaic systems together account for just 3.1 % of our energy requirements [I assume that means total energy, not just electricity; a lot of non-electric energy is used for transportation and winter heating].
SNIP
Tax consultant Daldorf, analyzed over 1600 annual financial statements of wind energy projects between 2005 and 2013. They found that the vast majority of wind farms in Germany operate at a loss. With many local wind farms, investors are lucky to get their original investment back at all. Daldorf gives the following reasons for the poor performance of windfarms
http://energyskeptic.com/2019/germa...gram-energiewende-is-a-big-expensive-failure/

Germany’s Maxed-Out Grid Is Causing Trouble Across Europe
The growing mismatch between Germany’s renewables capacity and the strength of its electricity network is leading to curtailment, crazy pricing and challenges for neighboring nations.

Although Germany is generating record amounts of clean energy in the north, its grid is too weak to transport all the power down to load centers in the south — a longstanding challenge for the country that is only getting worse.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/germanys-stressed-grid-is-causing-trouble-across-europe

Renewables Threaten German Economy & Energy Supply, McKinsey Warns In New Report
A new report by consulting giant McKinsey finds that Germany's Energiewende, or energy transition to renewables, poses a significant threat to the nation's economy and energy supply.

One of Germany's largest newspapers, Die Welt, summarized the findings of the McKinsey report in a single word: "disastrous."

"Problems are manifesting in all three dimensions of the energy industry triangle: climate protection, the security of supply and economic efficiency," writes McKinsey.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michae...mckinsey-warns-in-new-report/?sh=40e5e0e58e48

Germany’s green energy shift is more fizzle than sizzle
Despite spending billions, it is falling behind other European countries.

Germany's enormously expensive Energiewende green energy transformation is sputtering. The numbers tell the story.

Despite spending about €150 billion and years of political effort to scrap nuclear and fossil fuels and switch to renewables like wind and solar, Germany is expected to fall short on pretty much all its national and EU emission reduction and clean energy targets for 2020.
SNIP
Renewable power [which is broader than just solar and wind] last year surged to 36 percent of the country's electricity use, according to the Agora Energiewende think tank. But while renewables grew in the power sector, they didn't make major strides in transport or heating, so they account for just over 13 percent of energy use.

"Germany as a pioneering country is on the brink of failure," Patrick Graichen, the head of Agora Energiewende, said in a January assessment.

Funny, you did exactly as I predicted you would, googled for things that reinforced your bias. But you ran into a surprise when you did. You found out that your original assertion that electrical engineers all agreed renewable penetration over 25% caused grid instability because...Germany, was actually wrong.

An intelligent and intellectually honest person would at that point realize that perhaps they should actually take some time to learn about something they had formed a strong opinion on based on no facts or domain expertise.

Or you could pretend you never said that and completely shift your argument to completely different assertions about how much power was actually being generated by renewables and how much it costs. Just doggedly pursue this "renewables bad" argument because damn it you just know they're bad and you'll continue to shift your arguments until you can actually figure out why, amiright?

Again, if you were capable of introspection and nuanced discussion you could admit you were wrong, and then we could have a discussion about what the historical and future price drivers of renewables are, as well as what an electrical system operator is and how you can obtain raw data to any level of detail you like. But you've shown you don't yet have the maturity for that level of discussion. Let me know when you grow up a bit, and happy to engage in that intellectually honest discussion some day.

 

[HeSaidSheSaid]

I think green energy is here to stay. it's proven it could be a complementary "free" source of energy.
Germany didn't achieve the electricity independence (from nuclear energy) yet when they made the switch to the green energy. Crying out loud, the decision was made at the time when the green technology hasn't achieved the status of reliable source of energy yet. they went ahead shut down 8 of 16 nuclear power plants. They could bring few of the nuclear plants back to stabilize the system.

Texas power grid CEO fired after deadly February blackouts during winter storm
PUBLISHED WED, MAR 3 202111:49 PM EST
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/04/texas-power-grid-ceo-fired-after-deadly-february-blackouts.html

I think electricity shouldn't trade as a commodity; when billions of dollars on the line, Wall Street would pull any stunt to rip big profit from joe public.

 

[bone]

From what I've seen, Wall Street has been on the shitty side when it comes to trading power and transmission. The dedicated proprietary trading firms (that's you, Houston) and the energy trading desks at utilities are far more adept at it.

I've seen (and confirmed through OTC brokers) some big name Wall Street Banks and Hedge Funds get absolutely smoked in the Inc/Dec markets.

To be really good at trading power, you need to be trading around generating assets. Otherwise you are dead meat on the table. This is why proprietary trading firms try to enter into firm power agreements and call options with generating companies. And that can be tough to do these days; was much more common in the 1990's.

I think electricity shouldn't trade as a commodity; when billions of dollars on the line, Wall Street would pull any stunt to rip big profit from joe public.