Very good for the layman, it is complex and having operated a nuclear plant we had a saying
"every day's a school day" it was that complex, you ended up finding out something new you didn't know every day.
So a good contribution for the layman, and thankfully I never did see a grid blackout.
As an anecdote, I remember a newly trained reactor desk engineer who, when asked what he was thinking when he had his first reactor trip he said and I quote "75% of my brain power went to keeping my arsehole shut"
Correct, and if this green transition is handled by idiots there will be absolute hell to pay. I don't think politicians realise what they are playing with here, its the backbone of everything, take that backbone out and everything else collapses.
You ask me, we'll transition from "use everything including the kitchen sink" to "use everything including the kitchen sink, but more of the glowing green stuff".
Hydrocarbons are too precious to burn for electricity - we need those for chemical and plastic feedstocks, plus transport applications where batteries/electrification don't work.
Great start! It so often is the 'unqualified' who is able to bring clarity on complex stuff. Specialists seem unable to convey their own field to outsiders.
As a writer of fiction I have tried to read into the electric grid and how it would behave in unusual circumstances. I am especially interested in what happens when we go into energy descent, into downsizing for example the European grid. What happens in a warzone? Not easy to find answers....
By the way, I've come back to this comment and I think it's inevitable that it's the 'unqualified' that can clarify complex things.
First - you can only clarify something to other unqualifieds, because everyone qualified presumably gets it.
Second - When a qualified person tries to explain, they explain it the way the profession understands it, not based on what outsiders encounter. With not enough common points of reference, the explanation naturally fails. Think of a house with not enough columns - not long for this world.
This is part of what I call Communication Overhead, linked here, which naturally leads to the Thumbtack Model of Knowledge, also linked below.
It doesn't take a lot to cause big problems, which is why grid operators are often super prepared. The guy who went around taking potshots at transformers was destroying thousands of USD worth of equipment with a rifle.
Never mind downsizing, just have some guerrilla Irish Troubles-style fighting, hit the place with a big storm or a coordinated attack that fails at some substations, and you've got the space for a month or two of no-power/spotty-power operations.
Set a thriller in that city while an important politician is visiting. One side the extraction team, one side the assassins. Switch perspectives between the two as they race against time and the ambivalent nation on the border, who can always put their hand on the scale any time they wish...
Very good for the layman, it is complex and having operated a nuclear plant we had a saying
"every day's a school day" it was that complex, you ended up finding out something new you didn't know every day.
So a good contribution for the layman, and thankfully I never did see a grid blackout.
As an anecdote, I remember a newly trained reactor desk engineer who, when asked what he was thinking when he had his first reactor trip he said and I quote "75% of my brain power went to keeping my arsehole shut"
That was my biggest motivation here. We take this whole system for granted, despite it being so complex, wild, and yet crucial to our lives.
Correct, and if this green transition is handled by idiots there will be absolute hell to pay. I don't think politicians realise what they are playing with here, its the backbone of everything, take that backbone out and everything else collapses.
You ask me, we'll transition from "use everything including the kitchen sink" to "use everything including the kitchen sink, but more of the glowing green stuff".
Hydrocarbons are too precious to burn for electricity - we need those for chemical and plastic feedstocks, plus transport applications where batteries/electrification don't work.
Great start! It so often is the 'unqualified' who is able to bring clarity on complex stuff. Specialists seem unable to convey their own field to outsiders.
As a writer of fiction I have tried to read into the electric grid and how it would behave in unusual circumstances. I am especially interested in what happens when we go into energy descent, into downsizing for example the European grid. What happens in a warzone? Not easy to find answers....
Looking forward to read more....
By the way, I've come back to this comment and I think it's inevitable that it's the 'unqualified' that can clarify complex things.
First - you can only clarify something to other unqualifieds, because everyone qualified presumably gets it.
Second - When a qualified person tries to explain, they explain it the way the profession understands it, not based on what outsiders encounter. With not enough common points of reference, the explanation naturally fails. Think of a house with not enough columns - not long for this world.
This is part of what I call Communication Overhead, linked here, which naturally leads to the Thumbtack Model of Knowledge, also linked below.
https://open.substack.com/pub/argomend/p/communication-overhead?r=28g8km&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
https://whynotthink.substack.com/i/140641964/the-thumbtack-model-of-knowledge
It doesn't take a lot to cause big problems, which is why grid operators are often super prepared. The guy who went around taking potshots at transformers was destroying thousands of USD worth of equipment with a rifle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack
Never mind downsizing, just have some guerrilla Irish Troubles-style fighting, hit the place with a big storm or a coordinated attack that fails at some substations, and you've got the space for a month or two of no-power/spotty-power operations.
Set a thriller in that city while an important politician is visiting. One side the extraction team, one side the assassins. Switch perspectives between the two as they race against time and the ambivalent nation on the border, who can always put their hand on the scale any time they wish...