Electricity and The Grid Back to PHYS 310 Main Website
Monday’s Class : The Electrical Grid
Before Class
- “The Grid” is the interconnected electricity generating facilities that carries this electrical power to all the consumers. The internet is to information as the grid is to electrical power. Read about it on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission
- Please know what the Independent System Operator is: http://www.caiso.com/
- Check out today’s anticipated electrical load for California, and in particular, take a look at the net load at the bottom (net load = electrical load – renewable electricity = electrical power necessary from conventional electrical generation)
- Please watch Electrical Grid video and see Grid Slides.
- Learn about how electricity is purchased with the video Electricity Markets and see slides from first part of Markets/Crisis/Smart Grid
- Read about the EPA’s struggles with the Trump Administration
- Slides from Lecture 9 on Grid and Electricity Markets
- On your project website, please describe your group, the demographics of the people, and define a problem statement … that is a challenge that you have begun addressing. Provide any additional information you would like. You can find demographic information on Gapminder.org as demonstrated in this popular video by the recently deceased Hans Rosling.
- I’ve posted comments for the midterm on the main class webpage.
During Class
After Class
Wednesday’s Class
Before Class
- I’ve posted comments on the main class website.
- See video: California Energy Crisis and the Smart Grid with slides from grid video.
- What is “the internet of things”, and what might it have to do with “smart grid”?
- Take a look at these articles… you can read them briefly or intensely as you like, but certainly make sure you understand the California Duck Curve and what we are doing to mitigate the challenges to stabilize the grid with increasing renewable energy. Read The Duck Has Landed. Here’s a more recent article April 24, 2017… the Duck is Underwater! Consider the question, “what is the marginal electricity at 9 PM? in the middle of the day? Is it ever nuclear?
- Read about our **New Invention** and consider how introducing a dispatchable load would help the California ISO (Independent Systems Operator) meet demand, or meet load.
- What we will learn is that California has not been acting as a regular state. On some levels, California has lead or been in direct opposition to Washington DC. Jerry Brown has brought this to a head with respect to Climate Change and Immigration: read CNN.
- This is not new. As recently as REPUBLICAN Arnold Schwarzenegger initiated “international” climate change mitigation talks with UK’s Tony Blair saying that President George W. Bush was “late to the after party party”
- Please read about the interesting legal struggles in our near future regarding states’ rights and climate change
During Class
- Discuss all this stuff and prepare for Midterm.
After Class
- Prepare
Friday: Peak Oil
Before Class
- Please see Peak Oil and the Peak Oil Slides
- Read in the Text: 355-356
- Please see Getting Tight Oil and Gas and the Tight Oil Slides
- Please read Fracking and Earthquakes NPR
- NPR new reserve found Haas publication of fracking and learn by doing
- US Gasoline Consumption Back Up Again
- I augmented problem #2 in PS #4 to have you answer the question of if we’re running out of atmosphere more than we’re running out of oil
- Political Tension? What happens when the world’s most powerful country tells Saudi Arabia to increase oil production and they respond, “no, the problem is your budgetary mismanagement.” Take a look here.
During Class
After Class