This was an interesting pod because it gets a bit more into the realities of grid cleanup at the municipal level--where the rubber hits the road-- but offers tons of hope for reproducing this model elsewhere. It also covers a lot of the ground of what are available technologies and their pitfalls. I like the cagey discussions around coal. I am also always impressed by how a pod recorded live in front of an audience retains the same relaxed but focused qualities of the studio pods.
I imagine that it's difficult to have a municipality controlled power utility in Texas, and your guests are clearly dedicated public servants. However, it seems the overall response from your guests is "it's really complicated and difficult that's why we still use coal, we are building gas peakers, and no time of use pricing." How have other utilities in the US and globally been able to close their coal production and not build new gas peakers? David I wish you pushed back a bit on the, throwing the arms up and we have no better options, attitude. Your question about the state taking them back appears to motivate how creative and aggressive they want to be in the options they consider.
I wish them all the best with exit and replacement in these times and think they have great ideas my hometown public utility could apply.
"And the last and final bookend of it is furthering the culture of innovation to make sure that we're adopting the evolving and maturing technologies that are going to continue to emerge that help us reach those clean energy goals."
I'd love to hear about Mainspring linear generators on the pod as one of the emergent technologies. They developed a utility generator design that can use a variety of fuels like natural gas, biogas from landfills or wastewater plants, hydrogen, ammonia or potentially alcohols, as an alternative to diesel gensets.
This was an interesting pod because it gets a bit more into the realities of grid cleanup at the municipal level--where the rubber hits the road-- but offers tons of hope for reproducing this model elsewhere. It also covers a lot of the ground of what are available technologies and their pitfalls. I like the cagey discussions around coal. I am also always impressed by how a pod recorded live in front of an audience retains the same relaxed but focused qualities of the studio pods.
I imagine that it's difficult to have a municipality controlled power utility in Texas, and your guests are clearly dedicated public servants. However, it seems the overall response from your guests is "it's really complicated and difficult that's why we still use coal, we are building gas peakers, and no time of use pricing." How have other utilities in the US and globally been able to close their coal production and not build new gas peakers? David I wish you pushed back a bit on the, throwing the arms up and we have no better options, attitude. Your question about the state taking them back appears to motivate how creative and aggressive they want to be in the options they consider.
Kudos to Austin Energy. Good to hear how they're solving the pollution problem. I like how this animation of CO2 concentration illustrates why decarbonizing is so important; it's fascinating that it zooms in to see in such detail the individual power plants emitting CO2 in Texas and the eastern states. https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a005100/a005196/dyamondPointCloud_3-29-2023a_dyamond_co2_anim_globe_zoom_1080p30.mp4
I wish them all the best with exit and replacement in these times and think they have great ideas my hometown public utility could apply.
"And the last and final bookend of it is furthering the culture of innovation to make sure that we're adopting the evolving and maturing technologies that are going to continue to emerge that help us reach those clean energy goals."
I'd love to hear about Mainspring linear generators on the pod as one of the emergent technologies. They developed a utility generator design that can use a variety of fuels like natural gas, biogas from landfills or wastewater plants, hydrogen, ammonia or potentially alcohols, as an alternative to diesel gensets.
The conversations around coal were interesting but there was no mention of cost comparisons.