Phoenix is a sprawling city with a population of 1.6 million. The daily high temperature there has exceeded 43° C (110° F) for 25 consecutive days. For two weeks, the low has exceeded 32° C (90° F).
So, Phoenix is a glimpse into the hellish future we are sleep-walking into.
Like most American cities, Phoenix is addicted to cars. They've tried to make a lot of the highways concrete, which is whiter. But still, there's a lot of black asphalt. Now this asphalt routinely reaches 82° C (180° F), so it can burn the bottom of your feet - even when you're wearing shoes.
Outdoor jobs like construction work are no good when it gets this hot. So Phoenix is starting to try container storage housing, which can be built indoors in air-conditioned environments and then installed on site using a crane.
The mayor there says:
"Well, our priority is to get people into indoor shelter. Thanks to our partnership with the Biden administration, we now have hundreds of millions of dollars that we can put towards indoor, air-conditioned shelter. So that is our top priority."
Air conditioning. Lots of air conditioning! So lots of electricity. Last year 42% of the electric power in Arizona came from natural gas, 29% from nuclear power, 12% from coal, and 10% from solar, 5% from hydroelectric and 1% from wind.
I'm glad there's a lot of nuclear power. All of this comes from just one plant southwest of Phoenix, with three reactors and a capacity of 4 gigawatts. Imagine tripling this, and boosting solar too. This wouldn't save Arizona from global warming, but it would be a step in the right direction.
@knud - Arizona uses about 8,600,00,000m³ of water each year, so I don't think it's outrageous to use 1.1% of that for generating 29% of their total electricity.
As this is basically an area with constant sun during daylight hours causing massive power use during daylight hours, why is solar not the choice of power? No need to store it as it is in immediate demand whenever it is produced.
Not adverse to talking about nuclear power, but isn't this the more obvious?
As it is obvious I presume there is a reason it can't be solar?
@donty@johncarlosbaez@knud Solar could displace some of the fossil production but is counter-intuitivelly not the solution.
Google California duck curve to understand why.
The right move is to build solar AND nuclear right now.
Sure, that makes sense on a general consumption flow. I was more linking this more specifically to the load peaks for aircon and solar production peaks being almost identical.
Maybe taking 20% energy out of solar radiation for electricity might also have some benefit to thermal behaviour too, although less when the siphoned energy goes to such warming processes as cooling.
@donty@Leuenberg@knud - I hadn't heard of the "duck curve". The idea is that solar power production peaks at noon while power usage peaks later in the day, so the net demand peaks around 8 or 9 pm. The graph shows how this effect got stronger during COVID. It's strongest when it's cool (like March in California), but still present when it's hot.
"High solar adoption creates a challenge for utilities to balance supply and demand on the grid. This is due to the increased need for electricity generators to quickly ramp up energy production when the sun sets and the contribution from PV falls. Another challenge with high solar adoption is the potential for PV to produce more energy than can be used at one time, called over-generation. This leads system operators to curtail PV generation, reducing its economic and environmental benefits. While curtailment does not have a major impact on the benefits of PV when it occurs occasionally throughout the year, it could have a potentially significant impact at greater PV penetration levels."
@johncarlosbaez@donty@Leuenberg@knud midday curtailment is very annoying if you have a grid connected battery or self-use you own solar to charge a car or heat a HWS. It reduces your available PV output on you own circuit. Meaning that if you want to charge you must import it from the grid.
Add comment