Posted: 8/31/2005 6:36:35 PM EDT
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- Coal - Hydro - Natural Gas - Nuclear Although solar and wind farms can provide power, they are usually add ons, and are the cheapest way to placate environmentalists constantly nipping at the heels of the generation industry. Coal here... For you natural gas folks, you have my sympathies. |
| You obviously have no idea how the "grid" is wired do you? Our company was one of the few who off lined fast enough to limit damage to very isolated areas a few years back. Besides, if another area paid more for the juice in the free market electricity biz, they'd flip you faster then a burnt hotcake to make a extra buck. |
Coal primarily, but Wolf Creek nuke is on the grid, too. Many small-to-medium towns are building their own combined-cycle plants to run off natural gas. Those plants are on the grid as well. The central plains are blessed with a fantastic transmission and distribution network. That's what happens when you have a lot of power-industry engineers in one city! 
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Well...... Given the expansion of Independent System Operators (ISO's) in North America it doesn't mean that much of a difference anymore. And...there are not that many separated "grids" so to speak, nor has there ever been except in terms of economics. You have the Western Interconnect (west of the Rockies) the Eastern Interconnect, Texas (aka ERCOT) and then some penninsular areas like Florida which kinda acts as its own animal due to transmission constraints. I really don't feel like going into details on how it all works, but the jist of it is that energy management across the country has been largely socialized in a privatized manner. This means that the price of energy consumption across broad geographic areas is leveled out. Areas of cheap generation will pay more, and areas of expensive generation will pay less. To quote Full Metal Jacket.... "It's a big shit sandwhich, and we're all gonna have to take a bite." |
