Wednesday, September 4, 2024

Restoring US Electric Grid 9-4-24

The US needs to reactivate the 1000 natural gas power plants in order to restore the US electric grid to be able to produce electricity that is required to prevent brownouts. California and Texas are vulnerable. Wind and Solar costs 14 cents per kwh to produce, because they are expensive and unreliable. Natural Gas costs 3 cents per kwh. Nuclear costs 3 cents per kwh, because everybody forgot how to build Nuclear Power Plants. 

The current US electric grid is barely capable of providing electricity at current levels of use. The grid needs more robust protection from hacking and sabotage. It also needs 1000 more natural gas power plants and more nuclear plants and expansions to accommodate the doubling of use by AI use to improve US productivity and efficiency. The electric grid is powered by multiple US private sector Power Utilities. Wind turbines only work when the wind is blowing and Solar panels only work when the sun is shining.

Trump supports all methods of electric power generation, but will emphasize natural gas as the primary means of generating our US requirements. Trump’s election would result in ending the Biden mandates to build wind, solar and EVs in the US.

Wind turbines: Wind turbines can convert between 60% and 90% of the energy they harness from wind into usable electrical energy. A single wind turbine can generate the same amount of electricity in kWh compared to thousands of solar panels. Wind power is more efficient, but it is not easy to capitalize on wind power, whereas utilizing solar power is much easier. 

Solar panels: The most efficient residential solar panel can convert 20% of energy harnessed from the sun. Typical solar panel efficiencies ranges from 15% to 23% for residential systems while more costly solar panel systems can be as high as 40% to 50%. Monocrystalline solar panels are the most common type and considered to be the best option available, followed by polycrystalline and thin-film solar panels. 

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+efficiently+is+electricity+stored+from+wind+and+solar+panels

The doubling of US electric power generation needed for AI is for the “Cloud”. The US companies who offer the “Cloud” and their market share are Amazon 31%, Microsoft 24% and Google 11%. AI users will need to pay for this service and the price will include the cost of energy. It will likely be it’s own service category and the rate per kwh will be established by the Power companies.

The timeline for expanding the electric grid is not immediate. It will take time to add back the natural gas power plants and it will take time to sort through the problems with AI.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

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