I turned on my Furnace

[william8]

Knowledge.

15% is optimistic and not enough. That number will drop further when everything becomes all electric.

Solar and wind is exceptionally, prohibitively expensive on a mass scale for the power and reliability given.

Where do you get your (lack of) knowledge? Solar and wind are well known to be the cheapest. Nuclear the MOST expensive.

https://decarbonization.visualcapitalist.com/the-cheapest-sources-of-electricity-in-the-us/

And reliability? With 83% renewable/carbon free power generation, my electric company has an uptime of 99.989%. I haven't had a power outage in years.

https://cherrylandelectric.coop/2025/03/keeping-score/

No offense, but how old are you? I'm 61, and a lot of people my age and older seem to fight change and progress. Aren't you a lot younger than I?

I've always been for progress, and not letting China kill us on every single technology that's out there. They're going to take this over as well. GO USA!

 

[Chetlaham]

Upfront.

Nuclear also has the smallest footprint, the most longevity, the most reliability and the most dependability.

In the long run it is cheap.

The uptime you speak of is the byproduct of fossil fuel.

 

[wayupnorth]

Like I had said earlier and William 8 said. Canada is blowing us away with Hydro Power. We used to have that but environmentalist said they stop fish going up a river. I say I dont care, put the dams back and give us cheap, reliable, renewable power

 

[Chetlaham]

Yes, because Canada has rivers. Not every place is that fortunate. For that, there is nuclear.

 

[william8]

Upfront.

Nuclear also has the smallest footprint, the most longevity, the most reliability and the most dependability.

In the long run it is cheap.

The uptime you speak of is the byproduct of fossil fuel.

Nonsense. The uptime is because they are a non-profit coop that actually reinvests in maintaining their grid. They don't run out of power. It's 83% renewable, carbon free. If they had to keep switching back to fossil fuels the number would be lower.

Like I said, I'm not against nuclear, it's just not realistic. 6-12 years to get a new plant online. Even longer when the protests start. And by cheaper over time, you're talking decades more. We'll be dead long before it's cheaper.

As of June 2025, 41 plants in the US have been decommissioned. The only two new reactors built in the U.S. in the last 30 years are at the Plant Vogtle in Georgia, and there are plans to start building 10 more by 2030. That will put us at 29 plant less than we used to have. That's the reality, or will be 11 to 17 years from now.

 

[phillymatt53]

Oh, a cult member. Sorry, I didn't know. And you called me gullible...

They don't harm aquatic life. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66928305

All alternative energy, even if it's just solar on one house, reduces the load on the grid. But let's avoid progress at any cost.

I didn't call you gullible, or anything.
I don't belong to ahy cult, either.
I also don't believe everything posted online, as you link might suggest.
And yes, solar on my friend's house did reduce the load on the griid, once it burned to the ground.

Try again, it's not working.

 

[william8]

I didn't call you gullible, or anything.
I don't belong to ahy cult, either.
I also don't believe everything posted online, as you link might suggest.
And yes, solar on my friend's house did reduce the load on the griid, once it burned to the ground.

Try again, it's not working.

You called everyone that believes in clean energy gullible:

You keep up the rhetoric of how those so-called fabulous sources of power are worthy
But I highly doubt you'll win over many people. - likely the gullible ones at best.

I've only heard one person besides you claim that wind mills kill whales. I can't find one scientist that believes that's true. You didn't have anything to back up solar problems either, except an anecdotal story. There are plenty of fires caused by electrical panels on regular electricity each year too.

I had a neighbor's house blow up and burn to the ground from a gas leak when I was a kid. But I'm not going to use some odd edge case to claim gas is not safe

Even left-wingers have complained.

Yeah, it's clear you are a member of the cult.

You can try again if you like. But use real facts.

 

[vacerator]

I can verify that as of this year alone, our power blink outs, and short outages have increased. A large new multi unit housing complex is under construction less than a mile away. There is at least three very large data centers within 5 miles. Most of the car charging is at dealerships in this city, Stellantis Ram plant, and the GM tech center. No they do not have their own full time power generators.

 

[Chetlaham]

Nonsense. The uptime is because they are a non-profit coop that actually reinvests in maintaining their grid. They don't run out of power. It's 83% renewable, carbon free. If they had to keep switching back to fossil fuels the number would be lower.

Like I said, I'm not against nuclear, it's just not realistic. 6-12 years to get a new plant online. Even longer when the protests start. And by cheaper over time, you're talking decades more. We'll be dead long before it's cheaper.

As of June 2025, 41 plants in the US have been decommissioned. The only two new reactors built in the U.S. in the last 30 years are at the Plant Vogtle in Georgia, and there are plans to start building 10 more by 2030. That will put us at 29 plant less than we used to have. That's the reality, or will be 11 to 17 years from now.

Cherry Land has nothing to do with their supplier or the broader transmission system:



Cherry Land is only responsible for the distribution system- not other parties, not the generation owners, not the transmission system, not Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO):



Wolverine still relies on the rest of the Eastern interconnection for supplemental power and stability. They are still bound by MISO. The reason why the transmission system does not go down or require load shedding comes from gas turbines, coal plants and nuclear facilities when their is not enough solar and wind.

The 83% number is financial, not technical or actual. All the electrical generation on the Eastern interconnection is interconnected together. When there is not enough of one type, others generation type increase its mega watt output to make up for it.

For example right now at this instant the bulk of your power being consumed by your home is coming from nuclear and natural gas energy. Wind only 6%, Solar only 3.7%:

https://www.misoenergy.org/




In fact if all the nuclear 16.4% power tripped of line at this exact instant in the mid US, upwards of 1 out of 10 customers may have a forced black-out until gas and coal generation can ramp up.


I think you mentioned the issue- protests. People don't understand nuclear power and have left it 80 years in the past.

 

[DADoES]

Fuel Mix graphs for the TX grid. Individual fuel types can be highlighted/isolated on the Previous Day and Current Day graphs by (carefully) placing a mouse pointer on the legend. Solar for the current Previous Day (9/13/2025) apparently was the primary source for part of the day. Wind is a reasonably substantial source throughout the day.

Signed: Goofy Glenn

 

[vacerator]

Ok, then it could just be due to more frequent generator switch over for maintenance. A very large coal plant ion Trenton is gone. Murrysville in St. Clair county closed. A line hung across the St. Clair river to Canada. I don't know how far out any juice from Fermi II in Monroe goes. DTE in Detroit might be pulling double duty now. The towers for my area travel up from there.

 

[vacerator]

We know someone in San Antonio. Her summer bills 5 years ago were ridiculously high. Over $400 a month for her 2.400 sq. ft. home.

 

[Chetlaham]

Ok, then it could just be due to more frequent generator switch over for maintenance. A very large coal plant ion Trenton is gone. Murrysville in St. Clair county closed. A line hung across the St. Clair river to Canada. I don't know how far out any juice from Fermi II in Monroe goes. DTE in Detroit might be pulling double duty now. The towers for my area travel up from there.

Most likely what you're seeing are transient faults from squirrels bridging insulators or a tree branch laying across open wire flashing over.

Substation breakers and pole mounted distribution reclosers are typically programmed for this exact reason to re-energize the line between one and four times following a short circuit trip before finally giving up and locking open.


Transient faults tend to happen most often on overhead residential circuits in wooded areas. So much so they are now offering reclosing devices that fit into standard fused cut outs:



https://www.sandc.com/en/products--...MIpaKBs7XYjwMVUmxHAR3DtijbEAAYASAAEgKjwPD_BwE

Quote pasted from the above website:






Generation at the utility level is typically paralleled together. There is no open transition of load when when utility scale generation switching takes place as it would with a stand alone emergency power system on a customer's premises. It is either synchronized and connected to the grid mesh or disconnected from it. The rest remains connected so customers do not see blinks from generation switching.

 

[phillymatt53]

You called everyone that believes in clean energy gullible:
I've only heard one person besides you claim that wind mills kill whales. I can't find one scientist that believes that's true. You didn't have anything to back up solar problems either, except an anecdotal story. There are plenty of fires caused by electrical panels on regular electricity each year too.
I had a neighbor's house blow up and burn to the ground from a gas leak when I was a kid. But I'm not going to use some odd edge case to claim gas is not safe
Yeah, it's clear you are a member of the cult.
You can try again if you like. But use real facts.

I can clearly see, like looking through a freshly-washed window, what you're all about.
Your claims and arguments have a ringing sound like some stubborn, insistent, lefty hypocrite with numerous assumptions about me or facts.
LOL.... cults!
Comparing my friend's tragedy to your neighbors - comparing apples to oranges.
Listen, you can preach your beliefs all you want, push on, I don't need to hear your babble, I get enough on the news that makes me hit the mute button.

 

[vacerator]

Makes sense Chet. Blink outs also occur now more frequently during storms and wind gusts. The infrastructure is aging. There have been more residents losing one leg too. The DTE crew at a neighbor's said it was an animal that chewed the line below ground near the pole. That was the exact spot though where a sidewalk replacement crew saw cut the TV cable last year though.

 

[Chetlaham]

Makes sense Chet. Blink outs also occur now more frequently during storms and wind gusts. The infrastructure is aging. There have been more residents losing one leg too. The DTE crew at a neighbor's said it was an animal that chewed the line below ground near the pole. That was the exact spot though where a sidewalk replacement crew saw cut the TV cable last year though.

No offense, but Michigan, particularly Deteriot, is in need of major distribution upgrades.

 

[vacerator]

We know it Chet. DTE got it's rate hike though.

 

[Chetlaham]

We know it Chet. DTE got it's rate hike though.

Sadly, thats the way it tends to be. Rate hikes but questionable investment in comparison.

 

[DADoES]

We know someone in San Antonio. Her summer bills 5 years ago were ridiculously high. Over $400 a month for her 2.400 sq. ft. home.

Depends on usage habits and other details. My house is 2,350 sq ft. Considering summer being May to September ... 2020: $149.37, $187.09, $176.31, $113.05 (inclusive of $75.88 capital credit applied), $222.88. My bill average for 2020 was $143.14.

Signed: Goofy Glenn

 

[circlew]

I can verify that as of this year alone, our power blink outs, and short outages have increased. A large new multi unit housing complex is under construction less than a mile away. There is at least three very large data centers within 5 miles. Most of the car charging is at dealerships in this city, Stellantis Ram plant, and the GM tech center. No they do not have their own full time power generators.

If there's a lot of new construction in your area, the power co. is probably installing new lines and equipment. This is likely the reason you've been having short term outages lately, as they have to disconnect power to switch things over and make connections. Mine was going out often in the Spring and early Summer while lines were being reconfigured.

 

[pstehle]

Where do you get this from? That was just an example, in total it's over 15% of US energy production. Even better in my area.

https://cherrylandelectric.coop/energy/#:~:text=They then transmit that power across a,of which 19% is from renewable resources.

If we need so much energy (we do) then we should use everything available, and the cleaner the better.

Sadly another area where we are now letting China beat us in technology:
https://globalenergymonitor.org/rep...nstruction-as-the-rest-of-the-world-combined/

And Canada blowing us away with hydro power for decades.

Hydro can be a terrific source of power, I grew up in PA, the rivers there are working for us every day. There's one station south of Harrisburg that's been producing power since the early 20th century, and it's "run of river", meaning it doesn't completely dam the flow... fish can bypass it easily. Unfortunately, damming rivers and streams often involves inundating nature, settlements, etc, and has an effect upon fish migration. I can understand the backlash, but when compared to coal, oil, gas, even waste-to-energy, it's pretty clean. Nuclear is probably the best source for power, but has the potential to cause big problems as we've seen over the past half century. Not often, but when it happens, a big deal. There's also the issue of disposing of the "spent" fuel, and the environmental impacts of sourcing it in the first place. Nothing we have ever done or ever will do is without effect upon the earth... Solar and wind have their place, but until we have grid scale storage, there's no point in installing more. Each has a service life of maybe 20 years, it may be that long before storage is figured out. We have a tiny amount of grid storage, Mud Run in SE PA pumps river water up a hillside into a reservoir at night, then releases it during peak load. That project ruined a popular scenic gorge, which can never be put back. I'm old enough to have enjoyed hiking through it before construction began. The method only works in a few locations, so will never be a large contributor...

Maybe one solution could be to require that those enormous data farms AI needs be powered by on-site renewable, not grid tied. They would need to frame their consumption to occur whenever that power is available. Yes, it's complicated and expensive, but they're already spending ridiculous amounts of money building something that will hasten job losses and amp up big brother's ability to watch every move every person and every penny makes all over the planet. Another boon for corporate elite, another nail in the coffin of the commoner.

 

[william8]

I can clearly see, like looking through a freshly-washed window, what you're all about.
Your claims and arguments have a ringing sound like some stubborn, insistent, lefty hypocrite with numerous assumptions about me or facts.
LOL.... cults!
Comparing my friend's tragedy to your neighbors - comparing apples to oranges.
Listen, you can preach your beliefs all you want, push on, I don't need to hear your babble, I get enough on the news that makes me hit the mute button.

Lefty hypocrite? Yeah, I know exactly what you are. Blame it on the left. And it's killing the whales!
Preach my beliefs? Your the one preaching beliefs, still no data to back up your "beliefs". All I'm saying is that ALL sources of energy are needed.

https://www.esfi.org/home-electrical-fires/

And it was supposed to be apples to oranges. Both are edge cases. Only one in 10,000 residential electrical fires is caused from faulty solar installs.

 

[william8]

I think you mentioned the issue- protests. People don't understand nuclear power and have left it 80 years in the past.

That's what I've been saying. It's great source of energy, but reality is, it ain't happening.

And thanks for telling me what a co-op is? I know they don't produce their own energy. It's a co-op.

 

[Chetlaham]

That's what I've been saying. It's great source of energy, but reality is, it ain't happening.

And thanks for telling me what a co-op is? I know they don't produce their own energy. It's a co-op.

Right, but my point was they are not the only entity in that 99.989% uptime. A lot of it comes from nuclear, coal and gas fired generation.

It may not happen now, but as time goes on it will have to happen. Carbon is carbon and we don't have enough fossil fuel to last forever.

 

[phillymatt53]

Lefty hypocrite? Yeah, I know exactly what you are. Blame it on the left. And it's killing the whales!
Preach my beliefs? Your the one preaching beliefs, still no data to back up your "beliefs". All I'm saying is that ALL sources of energy are needed.

Your accusations and assumptions yet again are worthless, annoying, and tiresome babble.
You keep insisting that others trust your propoganda-fed views without question.
That, is for all intents and purposes, is just another form of taking away one's individual freedoms, certainly not what America was built upon.
Anybody that really knows me knows that I base things on facts, and research deeply into potential conflicts and possible consequences.

Please do not respond to my posts, including this one, because I've already had enough of this shit.

 

[william8]

Anybody that really knows me knows that I base things on facts, and research deeply into potential conflicts and possible consequences.

Please do not respond to my posts, including this one, because I've already had enough of this shit.

What facts, you haven't supplied even one for your claims.
Propaganda fed views? Show me where the whales are dying by windmill.

Why you so mad?

 

[william8]

Right, but my point was they are not the only entity in that 99.989% uptime. A lot of it comes from nuclear, coal and gas fired generation.

It may not happen now, but as time goes on it will have to happen. Carbon is carbon and we don't have enough fossil fuel to last forever.

Maybe, but we will be long gone by then, at least I will. And you keep missing the point that there are other sources than fossil fuels. We need them all. That's all I've been saying.

And there are plenty of rivers in the US. I live within 40 miles of three hydro electric damns in Michigan, owned by Consumers. But I think they are selling them off. They hate to spend any profits maintaining anything.

That's who we have in the city 9 miles from my house, power goes out constantly. Not enough tree trimming. Cherryland has buried everything since the 70's. That's the main reason for their uptime.

 

[Chetlaham]

Maybe, but we will be long gone by then, at least I will. And you keep missing the point that there are other sources than fossil fuels. We need them all. That's all I've been saying.

And there are plenty of rivers in the US. I live within 40 miles of three hydro electric damns in Michigan, owned by Consumers. But I think they are selling them off. They hate to spend any profits maintaining anything.

That's who we have in the city 9 miles from my house, power goes out constantly. Not enough tree trimming. Cherryland has buried everything since the 70's. That's the main reason for their uptime.

I get the point, and no amount of solar, wind or hydro will help. Only thing that will work is nuclear energy.