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Articles by Charles Bayless
Crossover Technologies- From Boeing 787’s to Electric Transmission Lines. The Journey of Carbon Fiber.
Engineering Associate II Lower Colorado River Authority La Grange, Texas Executive Director Redwood Coast Energy Authority Humboldt County, California Director, Division of Revenue & Rates New Jersey Board of Public Utilities Trenton, New Jersey Transmission Line Engineer: Operations and Maintenance (Civil/Structural) LCRA Austin, Texas Power Management Control Engineer City of Tallahassee Tallahassee, Florida Assistant General Manager for the Electric & Gas Utility City of Tallahassee...
Crossover Technologies- From Boeing 787’s to Electric Transmission Lines. The Journey of Carbon Fiber.
image credit: Auther Picture Retired CEO, Tucson Electric Power Mr. Bayless is a retired Utility Executive and a lecturer on Energy Policy, Climate Change and Ocean Acidification. Until June 30, 2008 Mr. Bayless was President and Provost of the West Virginia...
Big Breakthrough in Transmission Transfer Capacity
Deck: Jason Huang is the CEO of TS Conductor. Charles Bayless is a retired utility CEO. Byline: Jason Huang, Charles Bayless This full article is only accessible by current license holders. Please login to view the full content. Don't have a license yet? Click here to sign up for Public Utilities Fortnightly, and gain access to the entire Fortnightly article database online.
Nuclear Power-an Indispensable Option
Units on the grid are dispatched in “Merit Order.” The cheapest plant is dispatched first, then the next cheapest plant, and so forth. It makes no sense to run a 5 cent/kwh plant if a 2 cent/kwh plant is available unless reliability or transmission constraints are present. If a 1,000 MW nuclear plant shuts down, all available renewable units will already be running as renewables generally dispatch first due to their low costs.
“51 Billion to Zero”
Fossil fuels account for approximately 60% of electricity generation in North America,according to the U.S. Energy Information Adminstration. In their “Statistical Review of World Energy 2020” report, BP says that 84% of global energy consumption was comprised of coal, oil, and natural gas generation. CO2 emissions from energy production declined slightly to 31.5 gigatons in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the International Energy Agency.
Texas and the Missing Markets
WARNING: SIGN-IN You need to be a member of Energy Central to access some features and content. Please sign-in or register to continue. Externalities, the Texas Blackout and the Missing Markets. The Texas Blackout exposed widespread vulnerabilities in the ERCOT Area. Power Generators of all types tripped offline. Gas, Nuclear, Coal, Wind, and Solar Units all had problems. But none of these were the fundamental cause of the Blackout.
Climate Change - Physics 101
WARNING: SIGN-IN You need to be a member of Energy Central to access some features and content. Please sign-in or register to continue. Global Warming will Increase the Earth’s Temperature over 600F Degrees.
Entropy, the Second Law and Power Plant Efficiency (with no math)
WARNING: SIGN-IN You need to be a member of Energy Central to access some features and content. Please sign-in or register to continue. Entropy, Efficiency and Mr. Spock “... there is an art to flying", said Ford, "or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” Douglas Adams’ “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” Many point out that power plants are inefficient, converting only 40-60 percent of the input energy to electricity. Why can’t we do better?
No Disconnect Orders - Another Coronavirus Problem
WARNING: SIGN-IN You need to be a member of Energy Central to access some features and content. Please sign-in or register to continue. Coronavirus, No Disconnect Policies and a Large Shadow. Between the idea and the reality… falls the shadow. T.S. Elliott “The Hollow Men” The Coronavirus is one of the greatest threats the world has faced in modern times. It has brought sickness and death, favoring neither rich nor poor.
Utility Management Roundup: Recent Must-Read Posts From Fellow Community Members
WARNING: SIGN-IN You need to be a member of Energy Central to access some features and content. Please sign-in or register to continue. Greetings Utility Management Group members. The COVID-19 pandemic is on everyone’s mind and your fellow community members are here to help you manage your utility effectively through this crisis.
Roundtable on FERC's Minimum Offer Price Rule
Deck: Byline: Tony Campbell, Denise Foster, Marcus Harris, Charles Bayless, and Pat O’Loughlin Author Bio: Tony Campbell is the CEO and Denise Foster is the Vice President of East Kentucky Power Cooperative. Marcus Harris is the CEO of Old Dominion Electric Cooperative. Charles Bayless is the Vice President of North Carolina Electric Membership Corp. Pat O’Loughlin is the CEO of Ohio’s Electric Cooperatives. This full article is only accessible by current license holders.
Leaving the Airlines Behind
WARNING: SIGN-IN You need to be a member of Energy Central to access some features and content. Please sign-in or register to continue. Leaving the Airlines Behind Several have predicted the fate of the utilities industry by comparing it to other deregulated industries, such as the airline industry. While relevant, that comparison doesn't go far enough. The airline industry is about to be left far behind by the utilities industry on its one-way ticket to the competitive future.
How do we keep the bucket full (but not overflowing)
"We must realize that the thirty to forty percent renewable targets that many have set are totally inadequate to halt our steady descent into a “hellish future.” To avoid this future will require renewable levels of eighty to ninety percent, and international cooperation." Charles, I'm mystified by your acquiesence to the inevitability of a renewabes-dominated electricity grid, with all of its issues of intermittency, of frequency irregularity, of voltage irregularity, of land use, of limited...
VARS 101 | Energy Central
WARNING: SIGN-IN You need to be a member of Energy Central to access some features and content. Please sign-in or register to continue. Author photo VARS may be the most misunderstood concept in the utility industry but they pay a very important role in grid operations.
Nuclear Energy - Our best weapon against Climate Change
Energy Central contributors share their experience and insights for the benefit of other Members (like you). Please show them your appreciation by leaving a comment, 'liking' this post, or following this Member. Here is a link to my Public Utilities Fortnightly Interview on Nuclear Energy. As a Climate Fanatic (I took Freshman Physics so I have no choice but to be a Climate Fanatic ) I believe Nuclear Energy is an indispensable component in our battle against Climate Change in the near-term.
Ocean Acidification- The Evil Twin
The Evil Twin By Charles E. Bayless “Men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” Climate Change is increasingly recognized as catastrophic but, unfortunately is only half of the story. The other half, Ocean Acidification, is a tragedy written underwater, unseen by most but equal in terms of ecosystem disruption adding even more urgency to the necessity of reducing CO2.
Climate Change - Physics 101
Energy Central contributors share their experience and insights for the benefit of other Members (like you). Please show them your appreciation by leaving a comment, 'liking' this post, or following this Member. As a retired utility CEO and Co-Chair of the Climate Institute I often find that even people that believe in Climate Change don't understand the underlying Physics. This paper attempts to correct that. Please forward to all of your denier friends.
Upgrade America’s 19th-Century Electric Grid
By and June 4, 2018 6:52 pm ET The U.S. electrical system is inefficient and vulnerable to natural and man-made threats—from severe weather and solar storms to cyber and electromagnetic attacks. To stay competitive in the 21st century, the U.S. should upgrade its system before it’s too late. What is commonly known as “the grid”—consisting mostly of aboveground transmission wires—is actually a patchwork of three regional networks that share few interconnections.
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