As Santayana is credited with saying “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” So let's learn from Stanford's "100% Green energy" experiment and the impact the nearby Emerald Hills fire has had on the campus. With new construction happening all over Buildingame that must be all-electric because we have a "reach code", Santayana is in play here. The bottom line is many B'gamers will be reaching for back-up generators. The Chronicle is chronicling the mess down on the Farm:
In normal times, Stanford powers its campus with 100% renewable energy — a milestone it achieved this year. Most of it is solar power. But only a small portion of the solar — less than 10%, according to Stanford civil and environmental engineering Professor Mark Jacobson — is on campus, on building roofs. The rest comes from two massive solar plants in Kern and Kings counties. Because the power is not produced right on campus, Stanford relies on the state power grid to transport the electricity.
Stanford has been able to turn on some power. It’s using a few hundred diesel generators for key services, Jacobson said.
Wow. I bet every Home Depot in the Bay Area is sold out of Hondas and Generacs. That has to be really good for the environment, but there's more
Fixing a transmission line is “delicate work,” noted Michael Wara, an energy expert with Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment. “The standards are very precise for how things have to be done, so it takes time.” Wara said he would have been even more concerned had damage to the PG&E substation on the edge of the fire occurred, since substation parts can be hard to replace.
Translation: If a substation is badly damaged, expect it to be down for weeks to months. But how will we get the horse back in front of the cart?
Wara said that the era of wildfires shows the importance of new thinking about the grid — especially how to get power to somewhere via multiple routes, and also self-sufficiency, though that can be expensive. Jacobson said that the prolonged outage shows the need for more batteries to store power — and microgrids that can stay powered using the batteries when the main grid is not functioning.
This week Elon Musk was blunt about Tesla's battery problems as they transition from the 2170 lithium-ion battery cells to the new 4680 cells and different packaging. That is with billions of dollars per month on the line, so don't expect the less-in-demand microgrid batteries to be fast-tracked through design, manufacture, deployment to utilities and finally energized. I figure we are on at least a ten-year forced march through unreliable grid performance; if PG&E doesn't go bankrupt first. But at least the Stanford students got a stipend
“Emergency Funds available! Resident students who have been impacted by the power outage may apply for support,” a tweet from Stanford’s vice provost for graduate education said. “$100 stipends will be provided to help with expenses related to food spoilage and eating out.”
Who will issue the B'gamers' stipends? Those of us with grandfathered gas ranges and barbeques can cook the meat and seafood before it spoils. C'mon over.
7/3 Update: Who'd a thunk it? The Examiner accepted an advertisement for a stinky, polluting, global warming generator. You get a 7 year warranty by which time they will be illegal.
