 | The UK Energy White Paper: An Academic Critique | The Oil Drum: Europe | ODAC Newsletter, Monday 08 October |  |
39 comments on Even CATO libertarians say energy deregulation does not work
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
User login
Personnel
Editors
Contributors
Peak Oil Primers
Archives
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
Vital Trivia
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
Another perverse example with spot markets: sell peak hydro expensive and repurchase baseload cheap lignite power. Illustrative prices $1 vs 3c per kwh.
On a hot day everybody turns on their AC. No problem because sight unseen the extra power is coming from the fast falling dams. If it doesn't rain again for months that's no problem either because we can pump some water back up to the higher dams. The result is nobody thinks twice about reducing peak demand or whether there is a water cycle feedback via extra CO2 emissions. Maybe an annual carbon cap could change that but at the moment business people think in terms of quick dollars.
Does this really happen anywhere? I've heard the idea kicked around by engineers 'blue skying' when I was working, but....once the water has gone over the dam it is pretty much gone. Sure there is pumped storage but this is a totally different thing from a dam. And, in fact, the power used to operate the pumped storage may be coming from nuclear baseload.
Only a price feedback would make anyone notice this. And, even then, well-heeled lake front property owners will not notice but will protest loudly if their personal boat dock is sitting high and dry in August. Meaning that the power consumed when they crank up the AC is likely coming directly from some other source than hydro.
Well in this case when accused by the local media the company concerned admitted it. They gave as their excuse the fact they had to make profits on the spot market in order to cover the line rental cost (around $A100m pa) of a high voltage direct current cable. I know some posters on TOD think HVDC will solve all but strange things can happen.
A number of pairs of dams do do this. They must be directly below each other and the lower dam's reservoir needs to be full. Several Swiss dams do this. Another form of pumped storage.
Alan