Badger Crossroads

Engineering Studies, Careers, and Transitions

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The Grand Alliance

December 7, 2020 /

After the conclusion of World War II, Winston Churchill penned a multi-volume set describing the events from his perspective. The books contain incredible levels of detail given his access to diplomatic matters and a clear love of military equipment, strategy and statecraft. The third volume in this set, The Grand Alliance, might have some lessons for the World in 2020 and beyond, as well as our individual pursuits in the field of renewable energy, climate change and our part in the whole. Let’s step through these volumes with a focus on the third and describe some parallels with current events.

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Powerplant Technology: IRENA’s 2019 Renewable Power Generation Costs

July 26, 2020 /
We’re coming for you, fossil!

A tool you may find useful in your discussions with friends, relatives and coworkers about your careers might be the updated International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) projections for levelized costs of electricity (LCOE) from various sources. A lot of people are running around with numbers in their heads that might have been true a decade ago, but things are changing swiftly, and if we don’t keep up with current metrics, we can look dumber than usual.

First let’s open with a little story. There is good news across the spectrum, but these numbers also come laden with some new challenges and considerations for people considering entering these fields.

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What’s in the Cup? Reviewing Practices

April 20, 2020 /

Times of transition or crises are a good opportunity to revisit one’s habits, patterns and processes. Graduations, job gain/loss, moving, other setbacks or level ups. All mark a time to reflect, and the world in Spring 2020 brings no exceptions. Figure out what has been working, what aspects that may have been temporarily shelved and that should be reintroduced later, or what might be permanently discarded. We only have so much we can carry in these human vessels, might as well be the right things.

Everyone has their own lists that ideally would be constantly under review. Here are some of my practices with some thoughts on how some patterns have not really changed (shameless back-patting), some that have, and others that are in the “yet to do” program.

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N+1: Spinning Reserves and Napoleon

March 23, 2020 /

Let’s use power plants and some strained metaphors to make broader points about various societal, corporate and personal challenges underway at the moment (March 2020). What is spinning reserve? Does it truly have to spin? Why should you care? What in the world would this term have to do with Napoleon and Frederick the Great?

A general definition of spinning reserve might be: generation capacity (MW) that is on-line (connected to the grid) but unloaded (or partially loaded) and capable to respond to outages elsewhere in the system. An appropriate quantity of spinning reserve would need to be determined by the system operator but often is considered to be enough to make up for the loss of the single largest generator in the system. If N is the number of generators of the same size online, N+1 is a simple way to express a system with a certain quantity of reserves. So how does this play out in various scenarios?

Tale of Two Systems
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