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(((Alex Gilbert)))

@gilbeaq

15 Feb

@ERCOT_ISO

1. Extreme winter weather is causing rolling blackouts in Texas which may continue through Monday and potentially Tuesday.

@ERCOT_ISO declared an EEA 3. This is a very dangerous grid event, so please don’t rush to judgment about causes. It is complex

https://twitter.com/ERCOT_ISO/status/1361265260217446402

@MBazilian

2. When California suffered rolling blackouts last summer, @MBazilian and I cautioned that such events are complex.

Invoking pre-existing beliefs about energy market design, capacity markets, and fuel types are not necessarily correct (and insensitive) utilitydive.com/news/californi…

@joshdr83

3. The proximate cause for rolling outages is extreme winter weather, the worst winter storm in Texas in decades.

The energy system in Texas is built to meet summer peaks, not rare winter storms of this severity @joshdr83 @Caitlin0903 forbes.com/sites/joshuarh…

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(((Alex Gilbert)))

@gilbeaq

6 Oct 20

A new article by Sovacool et. al. in Nature Energy claims nuclear energy is not associated with lowering GHG emissions while renewables are.

The article's analysis does not support this contention but rather reflects the dynamics of global energy poverty nature.com/articles/s4156…

To start, the authors admit that their study is correlation and not indicative of causation.

However, they then base their analysis and conclusions on the inference of causation. Such logical leaps should not have made it past peer review. Here's why:

At the core the article just does a regression of non-transportation CO2 emissions per capita versus nuclear and renewable energy use.

This is immediately suspect as nuclear and renewables are primarily for the electric sector

Read 12 tweets

(((Alex Gilbert)))

@gilbeaq

12 Aug 20

Nuclear energy is really not a competitor with renewable energy.

It's primary competitor in most nations is coal and natural gas. In the US, it is increasingly natural gas.

Existing plants are not closing because of new renewables but because gas has driven prices down

And I really wish the nuclear industry would get it out of their head that renewables aren't reliable.

Reliability is a system-level characteristic. You can design systems with high levels predictable variable energy resources that are as reliable as high levels of dispatchable

If you want to build a nuclear plant in the future, you should primarily be concerned about how competitive you are with gas.

Right now it is cheaper, more flexible, and less risky.

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(((Alex Gilbert)))

@gilbeaq

21 Apr 20

We are straight up in black swan territory for oil markets. Negative pricing on an expiring contract is one thing, a 50% fall in the primary WTI contract is another.

Its really hard to emphasize how unprecedented the situation is. The harder the crash, the worse the rebound

Regulators and even the mercantile exchanges need to seriously consider halting trading. The physical market oversupply may require massive global shut-ins and current trading dynamics could cause unimagineable futures prices

There is an outside chance the USO, which owns ~1/3 of June oil contracts, might liquidate. Today's price action even suggests they are already. Imagine what happens to prices at $10/barrel when 1/3 of the futures contracts are forced out. Yesterday's -$37/bbl might not be a low

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(((Alex Gilbert)))

@gilbeaq

20 Apr 20

Oil is almost down to $1/barrel. Since many are not familiar with oil markets, its important to note why this is happening.

The May contract expires tomorrow. If you have a May contract at expiration, you must take physical delivery of 1,000 barrels of oil at Cushing in Oklahoma

Oil traders that still have contracts are selling at whatever price they can get because they do not (all) have the ability to take physical delivery.

Storage and refiners are not buying. The $1/barrel is a trading dynamic when there are many sellers and limited buyers

This is important: THE REST OF THE FORWARD CURVE HAS NOT CRASHED. The curve is down but the contract for June delivery is still at $22/barrel and July is at $27/barrel.

The $1/barrel May price may mean that storage is fully contracted but it is not clear yet

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(((Alex Gilbert)))

@gilbeaq

9 Mar 20

1. In the last two weeks, oil prices have almost halved due to Coronavirus’ threat to the global economy and the decision of OPEC+ to no longer control oil prices. Here’s a thread of resources and other threads explaining what’s what

2. As of this morning, WTI is trading around $32/barrel, >20% lower than Friday and the lowest price since 2016, as well near lows from the depths of the Great Recession and the early 2000’s.

Brent, the international benchmark, is not far off. (WTI, source EIA)

https://twitter.com/gbrew24/status/1236451791610490880

3. The short explanation is soaring US shale production challenged Russia and Saudi Arabia, who collaborated to constrain supply to keep prices high.

After years of losing market share, they stopped that collaboration. This thread goes into depth

https://twitter.com/gbrew24/status/1236451791610490880

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