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The brutal cold gripping Minnesota made itself felt in tens of thousands of living rooms Wednesday as Xcel Energy resorted to asking customers to turn their thermostats down to 63 degrees to conserve natural gas.
About 150 homes in the Princeton area, about an hour north of Minneapolis, lost natural gas service about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday. In response, Xcel asked about 12,000 customers in nearby Becker, Big Lake, Chisago City, Lindstrom, Princeton, and Isanti to turn down their thermostats to 60.
Later in the day, the company expanded that request to all of its 460,000 gas customers in Minnesota
Utility asks customers to turn down thermostats in deep freeze - StarTribune.com
Wait a second, I thought Fossil Fuels were forever? I keep hearing that we can't go to solar and wind because sometimes the sun goes down and sometimes the wind doesn't blow, but you can always rely on coal and gas right? It sure would be nice to have an electrical furnace and some more wind farms right now. I bet the winds from the Alberta Clippers coming down from Canada would heat a lot of homes even when the gas runs out.
Utility asks customers to turn down thermostats in deep freeze - StarTribune.com
Wait a second, I thought Fossil Fuels were forever? I keep hearing that we can't go to solar and wind because sometimes the sun goes down and sometimes the wind doesn't blow, but you can always rely on coal and gas right? It sure would be nice to have an electrical furnace and some more wind farms right now. I bet the winds from the Alberta Clippers coming down from Canada would heat a lot of homes even when the gas runs out.
Extreme weather conditions are putting a significant strain on the natural gas system, and to make sure that service continues during this cold spell, Xcel Energy is asking all it's Minnesota natural gas customers to turn their thermostat's down to 63 degrees.
"It's giving everything a test here," said Mark Osendorf with Xcel Energy. "Much like the electric grid being completely interconnected, the gas grid in many respects is too. This voluntary contribution, while small on an individual part, is going to have an overall big impact on system integrity."
About 150 customers lost natural gas service near Princeton, although Xcel doesn't yet know what the source of the disruption was. Crews are on site this afternoon trying ot fix the problem.
Utility asks customers to turn down thermostats in deep freeze - StarTribune.com
Wait a second, I thought Fossil Fuels were forever? I keep hearing that we can't go to solar and wind because sometimes the sun goes down and sometimes the wind doesn't blow, but you can always rely on coal and gas right? It sure would be nice to have an electrical furnace and some more wind farms right now. I bet the winds from the Alberta Clippers coming down from Canada would heat a lot of homes even when the gas runs out.
You think solar and wind could keep up to the demand spike there right now?Utility asks customers to turn down thermostats in deep freeze - StarTribune.com
Wait a second, I thought Fossil Fuels were forever? I keep hearing that we can't go to solar and wind because sometimes the sun goes down and sometimes the wind doesn't blow, but you can always rely on coal and gas right? It sure would be nice to have an electrical furnace and some more wind farms right now. I bet the winds from the Alberta Clippers coming down from Canada would heat a lot of homes even when the gas runs out.
It's not the lack of fuel that is causing this request. It's the physical limits of power generation and distribution that's the problem. As it stands, wind and solar additions would face precisely the same limitation.
Utility asks customers to turn down thermostats in deep freeze - StarTribune.com
Wait a second, I thought Fossil Fuels were forever? I keep hearing that we can't go to solar and wind because sometimes the sun goes down and sometimes the wind doesn't blow, but you can always rely on coal and gas right? It sure would be nice to have an electrical furnace and some more wind farms right now. I bet the winds from the Alberta Clippers coming down from Canada would heat a lot of homes even when the gas runs out.
If the United States government would allow for the construction of more nuclear power plants, that would certainly help matters, but that is politically unviable right now as many on the non-scientific political left (not all on the political left) view nuclear energy as vampires view crucifixes.
It's not the lack of fuel that is causing this request. It's the physical limits of power generation and distribution that's the problem. As it stands, wind and solar additions would face precisely the same limitation.
:failpail: I'm from Minnesota.You have no experience, with severe artic level temps.
You know what batteries are right? Does the wind blow at night?Electric heating systems may certainly be of some benefit, but solar panels do not work at night
Utility asks customers to turn down thermostats in deep freeze - StarTribune.com
Wait a second, I thought Fossil Fuels were forever? I keep hearing that we can't go to solar and wind because sometimes the sun goes down and sometimes the wind doesn't blow, but you can always rely on coal and gas right? It sure would be nice to have an electrical furnace and some more wind farms right now. I bet the winds from the Alberta Clippers coming down from Canada would heat a lot of homes even when the gas runs out.
You know what batteries are right? Does the wind blow at night?
Germany had a good idea, that is still being developed.You raise what is the biggest problem with renewable energy, MrWonka, which is storage. Currently the technology does not exist (though there may be advances on the horizon) to hold vast quantities of previously-generated power in storage. The amount of energy that one can store in batteries is extremely minute compared to the amount of energy that is needed to power high-energy consumption devices like heaters and air conditioners. Have you ever heard of any town or cities relying on emergency batteries as a fuel source? Probably not. You have to use the power while it is being generated, or else it is lost. That is why hospitals have emergency power generators that run on petrol, rather than emergency batteries.
Germany had a good idea, that is still being developed.
The long summer days produce surplus solar power which does not have a high demand in areas that use little Air conditioning,
the idea was to store the surplus and man made natural gas.
https://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/research-news/2010/04/green-electricity-storage-gas.html
The gas grid would effectively become the energy storage device.
The Carbon neutral gas could then be used for winter heating.
You think solar and wind could keep up to the demand spike there right now?
Not to mention there are environmental problems associated with those alternate fuels
Have you ever heard of any town or cities relying on emergency batteries as a fuel source? Probably not.
I am not endorsing what Germany is doing, but was pointing out the concept of an energy storage device that is not a battery.Well, having large quantities of self-generated natural gas is very good, but it really seems to ad hoc to me. I think Germany is the worst example for the world to follow as they have become ensconced in unscientific anti-nuclear dogma and are closing down nuclear power plants left and right and leaving their energy security to the Russians.
Actually, that is one of the things that Tesla has been working on for a while now. A system where each home comes equipped with a large battery of its own that could be used to store power in off hours or during hours where the sun is brightest.
your simplistic excuse for no new nuke plants seems to overlook that republicans aren't afraid to stand up to climate change. And they were pretty brave when they weren't in power when it came to Obamacare and deficits. Oh, and your excuse is false. there is no federal restriction on new nuclear plants.
While there are plans for a number of new reactors (see section on Preparing for new build below), no more than two more new units will come online by 2021. Since about 2010 the prospect of low natural gas prices continuing for several years has dampened plans for new nuclear capacity.
Nuclear Power in the USA - World Nuclear Association
Electric heating systems may certainly be of some benefit, but solar panels do not work at night when everything is at its coldest, and wind is not constant. If the United States government would allow for the construction of more nuclear power plants, that would certainly help matters, but that is politically unviable right now as many on the non-scientific political left (not all on the political left) view nuclear energy as vampires view crucifixes.
It seems to only be people with natural gas furnaces that are having the issues. Electric furnaces are fine since they can draw power from a number of different sources including wind. The point here is that it's good to have a lot of backup options and alternative ways to generate power. We know we're going to eventually run low on gas and coal. Why burn up any more of our supply than we have to when we could be moving toward renewables faster?
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