As the duck curve grows steeper there is less and less of a market for baseload power. 🦆 ⚛ 🏭

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As the duck curve grows steeper there is less and less of a market for baseload power. 🦆 ⚛ 🏭

Coal traditionally had one advantage – cheap power at a constant output. But electricity is virtually worthless or even a waste product in some cases in Germany in the early morning hours due to a surplus of generation. But coal and nuclear keep cranking out the megawatt hours that virtually nobody wants while folks are sleeping.

The future is very cheap renewables. But the profit is all in the head of the duck – that is midload and peaking gas plants, along with batteries, flywheels and pump storage hydroelectric. Or any consumer that can shift their load.

February 8, 2021 Morning

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Good morning! Monday’s come back around again. Next Monday is Presidents Day 👴 . Unless of course you are a federal employee, then it’s Geo. Washington’s Birthday, a fact not loss by partisans who hate Biden and Trump and cute kittens 😺. Partly sunny and 19 degrees  in Delmar, NY. 🌅 There is a west-northwest breeze at 7 mph. 🍃. The current wind chill is 9. There are 8 inches of snow on the ground. ☃ ️Cold but sunny and it’s warming up a bit although hardly a warm spring day with temperatures running about ten degrees below normal for February.

I was noticing that sun is definitely rising earlier now. 🌅 Picking up more daylight each day. I’m getting ready for my morning walk 🚶🏻. While I don’t typically like so much sugar, I decided to have banana 🍌 muffins for breakfast today. They were good with the coffee. ☕ I decided I didn’t want a particularly heavy breakfast after having burritos 🌯 that I made up with the remaining ground beef I had in the fridge and didn’t want to go bad.

Today will be  mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 25 degrees at 3pm.  Eight degrees below normal.  Northwest wind 5 to 8 mph becoming calm  in the afternoon. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning, which became cloudy by afternoon. The high last year was 24 degrees. The record high of 52 was set in 1925. 14 inches of snow fell back in 1895.❄

Cold but sunny today. 🌅 It certainly could be a lot more unpleasant and the sun adds a lot more cheer. The sun angle continues to increase and will feel fairly warm with the modest breeze. I am thinking about going to the car wash 🚘 midday and working down at the library 📚 in the afternoon. With the sun ☀ through the glass shouldn’t be too cold working there and I’m trying to stretch my hot spot data after my mishap over the weekend where I accidentally burned up a bunch more data then planned.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:10 pm with sun having an altitude of 32.5° from the due south horizon (-38.3° vs. 6/21).  A six foot person will cast a 9.4 foot shadow today compared to  2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 4:38 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (244°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (251°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 5:19 pm  after setting for 3 minutes and 5 seconds with dusk around 5:47 pm, which is one minute and 19 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 6:21 pm.  At sunset, look for partly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 23 degrees.   There will be a calm wind. Tomorrow will have 10 hours and 20 minutes of daytime,  an increase of 2 minutes and 35 seconds over today.

Tonight will have  a chance of snow, mainly after 2am.   Increasing clouds 🌨, with a low of 15 degrees at 9pm.  One degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around February 5th. Maximum wind chill around 15 at 9pm;  Calm wind.   Chance of precipitation is 40%.  New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. In 2020, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 10 degrees. The record low of -20 occurred back in 1934.

Sunny but cold this weekend. 🌞 Saturday, partly sunny, with a high near 20. Sunday, mostly cloudy, with a high near 19. Typical average high for the weekend is 34 degrees. I think it might be a bit too cold to go up to the Adirondacks this weekend for camping 🏕 as figure it’s like ten degrees colder there then here.

🌹🌻🌼Only 40 days remain until the first day of calendar spring!🌹🌻🌼 That’s good. Something for sure to look forward to today. I was thinking with the muffins and coffee ☕ this morning how much I miss a crisp morning out in the wilderness.

As previously noted, next Monday is Presidents Day 👴 when the sun will be setting at 5:27 pm with dusk at 5:56 pm. Those longer days are nice, especially with dusk 🌆 around six. On that day in 2020, we had cold, mostly sunny and temperatures between 28 and 4 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 35 degrees. We hit a record high of 55 back in 2006.

NPR this Morning

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Listening to NPR this morning the reporter was very clear that she thought the GOP’s claim that the many liberals encouraged on the Black Lives Matter protests that sometimes boiled over into property destruction was a false equivalence to former president Trump’s rally where his rhetoric and his public denying of the reality of his loss boiled over into violence.

I am a believer in free speech and the ability of the public (including the president) to speak their minds, cause a little ruckus in halls of power, make it a bit inconvenient for legislators and staff. I know I certainly didn’t like it when Occupy Albany blocked State Street and made me sit on the bus hungry for dinner. Or those times I’ve wanted to go for a walk in the Concourse but stayed away due to numerous anti-frack or healthcare cuts protestors. But that’s part of democracy. It’s obnoxious when property or glass is damaged but it can be repaired.

To be clear, I’ve always thought that the former president’s claims over election fraud were completely asinine. Election results are the results and if you don’t like them, well move on and look towards a future election or work in the private sector or retirement. You can’t deny facts on the ground. Elections take place under agreed upon rules, and as the most powerful person in the country, the president certainly had his opportunity to make his mark on the electoral process as he sought fit.

The public has the right to be heard, to peaceful assemble and speak out. Just because the people who are speaking are asinine doesn’t deny them protection under the constitution. Just because a rally gets out of control and angry people engage in vandalism or worse, doesn’t mean that voices shouldn’t be heard.