Cold Air from Wordpress

This is a 2012 post from Barry Brook's Brave New Climate , which was a tremendous blog but one that is no longer maintained - and was left with a presentation scheme that is illegible. I’m currently in Dubai at the  2012 World Energy Forum , as part of a delegation from the  Science Council for Global Initiatives . Tomorrow (24 Oct) we will run symposium on “New Nuclear”, which will be chaired by Tom Blees and feature talks from Dr Eric Loewen (GE), Dr Alexander Bychkov (IAEA), Dr Evgeny Velikhov (Kurchatov Institute) and me (Dr Barry Brook, University of Adelaide). I will also chair a session later in the afternoon on “Vision for a Sustainable Future”, just before the closing address. Tom and Nicole Blees of SCGI stand in front of the World Trade Centre in Dubai, during the World Energy Forum, Oct 2012. The sign behind them makes for some interesting reading… In preparation for this meeting and as a result of a focussed conference at University of California Berkeley in early Oct...

"I personally hope those of you who read this will forgive my rants and start ranting with me and the others who do the same!" I particularly enjoyed Parker's first point, and the last two sections.

I saw a tweet the other day that seemed like the Ontario Energy Industry would be addressing an issue of interest to me: #ELECTRICITY RATES: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? Join us as Vince Brescia presents findings by the #OEA & @IFSD_IFPD on how to reduce rates by 12%. This research will be useful for Ontarians to consider as we grapple with this challenge ahead. More info: https://t.co/G9wNyYL0UI pic.twitter.com/PqpmWR08aK — Ontario Energy Association (OEA) (@energyontario) April 23, 2020 Turns out it was a lot less interesting than I thought. My quick scan of the OEA's "Help those who need help" paper finds little I agree with presented from a perspective that is foreign to me - and yet I agree with the action option they steer people to agree with: OPTION 3: PHASE OUT ELECTRICITY COST REFINANCING SUBSIDIES This option is the lowest cost option for provincial taxpayers. It would see bills remain stable, increasing by about 1.5% more than inflation each year until s...

The Ontario Energy Board's Market Surveillance Panel (MSP) released a report on December 19th which attracted some attention: "Over the 11- month period in question, the estimated impact on the HOEP and transmission loss uplift combined could have ranged as high as between $450 million to $560 million, although a simulation accounting for additional potential variables could yield lower estimates." Some big numbers, but upon investigating I initially generated a thread on Twitter which concluded, "the impact of this mostly-grey money forensic investigation is an imperceptible lessening of the cost shift from class B to class A consumers." My position was supported when the system operator (IESO) responded to the MSP report:" IESO analysis shows a net market impact across all customer groups of less than $10 million." And that's sort of the end of that hysteria, but since I looked I can't shake the feeling something is very wrong with the ana...

An interim report is out from National Grid on the "Low Frequency Demand Disconnection" (LFDD) experienced in the UK on August 8th. There were a number of contributors to the LFDD. Instead of looking for a single culprit it would be better to list the contributors, because it's the interaction that resulted in the event. I'll review the failures in the UK to highlight a recent report from Ontario's system operator (IESO) that has received too little attention. Many suspected wind as the primary factor on August 9th, and the Hornsea offshore wind facility was heavily involved. So far that involvement has simply been identified as its failure to ride through a voltage dip caused by a lightening strike to transmission wires elsewhere. From a useful infographic accompanying the report: "There was a lightning strike on a transmission circuit north of London ..." "There was a small loss of embedded generation (c.500MW) due to the lightning strike. ...

Today the government of Canada approved a pipeline, which some see as contrasting with it declaring a climate emergency yesterday. To assuage the concern the government has promised to do blindingly good things with profits from the pipeline, including promising "every dollar the federal government earns from this project will be invested in Canada’s clean energy transition," and launching, "the next phase of engagement with Indigenous groups on ways they could share in the benefits of the expansion, including through equity ownership or revenue sharing." When the Prime Minister was elected he brought two veterans of Ontario's Liberal government to Ottawa as his top advisors, so this seems an opportune time to examine one "clean energy" initiative geared to invest in Aboriginal communities. The $2.6 billion expansion on hydroelectric generating stations on the Lower Mattagami river. Ontario's nominally public generator says of a hydro project comp...

I saw an opportunity for presenting Ontario electricity data in trying out the free public version of the Tab|eau business intelligence tool. I'm not sure I have the patience, or the smarts, to learn how to do all I've learned with Microsoft's Power BI, but maybe I should. I'm astonished with the power of this map in filtering the data table! (afraid the attempt at embedding on wordpress was a failure - but the link works!)   https://public.tableau.com/views/MonthlyGeneration/Story1?:embed=y&:display_count=yes