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299 comments on DrumBeat: September 26, 2006

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Nick on September 27, 2006 - 12:32pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I'm not quite sure what you're saying.

Are you asking whether I confused financial ROI with Energy Return On Energy Investment (E-ROI)?  The answer would be, no, I was talking about E-ROI.

Are you talking about the difference between a capital energy investment, versus an operating energy cost?  By that I mean that you might spend a certain amount of energy drilling a well, and then you have to spend a certain amount pumping the oil, transporting it, etc.  If so, you're certainly right that wind and solar are more capital intensive energy-wise - IOW, the energy investment is all up front, then you get essentially free energy for a long time.

OTOH, I don't see how that changes anything.  Wind turbines pay back their energy investment in much less than a year, and then you get essentially free, high quality, ready to use electricity for 25-30 years.  What's not to like?

How did you calculate a 90% reduction in energy consumption needed to rely on renewables? That doesn't fit with any calculation I've ever seen.

As I've posted elsewhere, a study by Stanford researchers for NASA found 72 terawatts of average electrical production potential for the world, which can be compared to total world electrical production currently of only about 1.7 TW.  Total world energy consumption equals the equivalent of only about 4 TW.

see http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/may25/wind-052505.html

The US has better wind resources than most of the rest of the world.

So, there's more than enough wind, and at a E-ROI of around 60 and a cost of about $.06/kwhr, it's energy and cost effective.

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ET on September 27, 2006 - 1:10pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I question the 60 figure for EROEI of wind. If wind is 60, then crude oil must be 600 or so. Doesn't compute. If wind is better than crude oil, why isn't the world in a stampede to use wind? Read some of the wind studies that show Denmark's situation. Their wind power is only viable because of the interconnection with the Scandinavian grid and the use of hydro as a backup. This neatly illustrates the grid-penetration percentage problem. Wind has lots of problems that are not erased by your casual flinging about of these figures.
Same is more true for PV. People cite the zillions of gigawatts of solar hitting the earth as though this automatically makes solar power our obvious savior. I've seen exchanges on energyresources by techie PV advocates where they simply could not grasp why PV was still so expensive. Simple answer, low EROEI compared to fossil fuel.
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AlanfromBigEasy on September 27, 2006 - 2:10pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
A presentation at HydroVision had a cold, frothy mug of beer served by a comely barmaid and a label "HydroPower".  The next slide had a warm, flat, plastic cup of beer on a metal bench and the label "Wind Power".

Both beer, but one has all the extras that one could want.

Combining the two is the key to high % wind in a grid.

VERY nice when storage hydro is available in quantity.  But we can build our own hydro with hydro pumped storage wherever mountains are nearby.  And then there is pumped air storage (say in exhausted NG fields).

Miami is problematic in a renewable grid, but most of the rest of the US has viable options.  Thus a handful of nukes in South Florida ??

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Nick on September 27, 2006 - 9:39pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"we can build our own hydro with hydro pumped storage wherever mountains are nearby."

And, as you have noted elsewhere, the Great Lakes work very well, as in Ludington, MI.

I would think that you could do the same thing on the coast of Florida, which I believe does have some very good off-shore wind resources, if you could find a way around the problem of pricey waterfront.

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Nick on September 27, 2006 - 3:07pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
" If wind is better than crude oil, why isn't the world in a stampede to use wind?"

Well, it is in a stampede to use wind.  The biggest barrier to even faster growth right now is that manufacturers can't build as fast as demand is rising.

To really answer your question: wind only became cost competitive recently, as turbines got cheaper, and nat gas rose in price.  It would be cheaper than any other source if all external costs were figured in (GW, other pollution, security, etc), but people have only started figuring out those costs recently.

Sure, intermittency is a problem for wind.  No one would suggest wind as our only power source, but it's perfectly clear that it could provide somewhere between 20% and 50% of our power.  The rest would have to come from solar, nuclear, ocean (wave & tidal), biomass, geothermal.

"Same is more true for PV."

PV has a higher E-ROI than oil.  PV is more expensive because of the expensive labor required at this point (same technology as computer chips).  Still, solar is about $.25 per kwhr and falling by 7-10% per year (that's cost - prices are staying high to ration supplies during phenomenal demand growth), which is cheap enough to be competitive in some areas even without figuring in external costs, which is why PV growth is exploding.

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Nick on September 27, 2006 - 3:09pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"The rest would have to come from solar, nuclear, ocean (wave & tidal), biomass, geothermal."

oops - forgot hydro.  Sorry Alan.

There are very likely other sources I've forgotten too.

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ET on September 27, 2006 - 10:44pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

PV has a higher E-ROI than oil

Amazing!!! You have figures to back this up???

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Nick on September 28, 2006 - 11:14am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Solar has a documented E-ROI of between 7:1 to 30:1, depending on technology (http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf or http://www.oja-services.nl/iea-pvps/faqs/index.htm ).  You should note that most of these studies are several years old, and since then due to the relative shortage of purified silicon (due to exploding PV growth) PV manufacturers have reduced the amount of silicon used by 20-40%, directly reducing the energy input even more.  Most input energy is process heat, which is either electrical, or gas.  If it's electrical it will be cheap electricity at night, much of it nuclear, and if it's gas then the actual E-ROI is actually multiplied by about 2.5, because electrical BTU's put out by PV are equivalent to about 2.5 gas  BTU's.

Robert Rapier (our resident source of the oil company employee perspective) estimates the E-ROI for oil as currently about 10 (if you include refining it's about 5).

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ET on September 28, 2006 - 12:40pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
IMO most of the babble about EROEI on the list doesn't take into account the complexity of the methodology. I've read some of Odum's writing on emergy analysis, what I consider to be a good basis for EROEI analysis. I think EROEI analysis must take into account both the rate of production factors and the storability/energy quality factors. But this is beside the main point of energy-return comparison of PV vs crude oil.

Take your average stripper oil well today, which produces an average of 10bbl/day and has long ago amortized out its capital expenses.
10bbl * 57700btu/bbl = ~570,000 btu/day from a well that costs very little to maintain and whose early returns quickly paid off the original capital expense.

Go to Mr Solar
http://www.mrsolar.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=MSOS&Affiliate=google

and see that a commercially available PV system that produces 12000 watts costs about $75000. You would need 2.3 of these systems in a ~6 hr solar day to equal the raw btu output of the stripper well with the PV system costing you around $175000.
I don't care how you work it, at an expected return rate of 6% for this money, the PV system will never pay for itself in comparison with FF generated electricity. I also don't care how you juggle the figures, there is no way in hell that a PV system is 1 to 6 times the Energy Return on Energy Invested as compared to crude oil. I think you are completely deluded.
At some point, high EROEI will be reflected in the commercially available price of this energy source. PV people have been saying for years that this will happen. IMO PV energy will never be substantially cheaper than it is today especially considering the heavy FF subsidy that PV is using for production.

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Nick on September 28, 2006 - 4:27pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
ET,

No one is arguing that PV is the cheapest form of energy right now, or that PV electricity can compete with coal, or even natural gas generated electricity on a simple cost basis.

PV is expensive because of expensive labor, not because of the energy it takes to make it.  Please remember that energy is only a small % of the cost of most manufactured items, and PV is no exception.  

Why do you believe there is a heavy FF subsidy for PV production?  I've heard such vague and general statements, and they seem to originate with writers like Kunstler who really know very little about renewables (and don't try to).  I've provided some specific statements on PV's high E-ROI from reputable sources, like the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the IEA (certainly a conservative, pro FF source).  Could you get some specific info, like what form this energy input is in, or what stage of production it is used in?

OTOH, PV may not be able to compete with coal or natural gas in most places, but it can compete with the cost of oil-generated electricity in Japan (at $.20+ per kwhr), where they tax electricity to capture some of the external costs of security of supply, pollution, etc, and where capital costs are low.  It can also compete in parts of California, where they have a regulatory structure which raises the cost of electricity (for similar reasons), and where they refuse to use coal.

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ET on September 28, 2006 - 6:40pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Why do you believe there is a heavy FF subsidy for PV production?

Nick,
I'm practically dumfounded at this question.
Go to any PV factory.
Where do they get their energy to operate?
Fossil fuels.
Go to the mines where the silicon comes from.
Where do they get their energy to operate?
Fossil fuels.
Go to the chemical factories that produce the chemicals necessary for the production process.
Where do they get their energy to operate?
Fossil fuels.
Aluminum, same thing.
Copper, same thing.
on and on and on.
You must live on a different planet.

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Nick on September 29, 2006 - 1:24am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"You must live on a different planet. "

Well, we certainly seem to be having difficulty speaking the same language.

When we talk about E-ROI, are we talking about the same thing?  Do you not believe the NREL, and the IEA, when they say that PV pays off, energywise by between 10 and 30 to 1?

How do you know they get their energy from fossil fuels?   A lot of aluminum is converted from bauxite with canadian hydro power.  A lot of steel is smelted with cheap nuclear electricity at night. A lot of silicon is melted with cheap nuclear electricity at night.

what do you mean by "heavy subsidy"?  Does 20 to 1 E-ROI seem heavy?

Sure, a lot of FF is used right now to operate industry.  So what?  That can change.

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ET on September 29, 2006 - 12:19pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Show me a net-energy study that directly compares crude oil with wind or pv using the same parameters and methodologies for both. I believe that this would show crude oil at least 5x better than wind and probably 10-20x better than pv. The problem with almost every net-energy study I've seen is that they take a given system by itself and come up with numbers like the ones you cite. These numbers are basically meaningless unless we compare apples to apples.

In one post you imply that wind is 6x better return than crude oil but then you say you realize wind and pv can't compete with fossil fuels. I'm not sure at all where you are coming from.

I believe the economics of a given energy source will ultimately reflect the energy return of the source. Right now our industrial infrastructure is mostly run on fossil fuels and it is difficult to get realistic figures on eroei for wind or pv because of what I'm calling a 'subsidy' of fossil fuels that build these renewable processes. The fact that hydro does some aluminum I don't see  as changing anything, just shifting the 'subsidy' to a locally cheaper source.

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Nick on September 30, 2006 - 1:41am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"I believe that this would show crude oil at least 5x better than wind and probably 10-20x better than pv."

I'd be surprised.  Remember, crude oil still needs refining, and the BTU's from electricity from wind & PV are worth 2-3 times the BTU's from oil.  Heck, electricity for transportation is about 7 times more powerful than liquid fuels.

I don't know why you think oil is so magical, or impossible to replace.  Perhaps you've been reading Barton's or Hubbert's writings.  IIRC most of their writings were in the 70's through 90's, when renewables were still inadequate.  It's understandable that nuclear was the only replacement that Hubbert could think of, though I think it was a bit of a failure of imagination not to see a possibility in renewables at that time.  Still, it's understandable.  But, things have changed.  Renewables are clearly up to the job now.

Remember, it doesn't matter if oil is better than renewables. It only matters if renewables are good enough.  And, I've given you a lot of concrete info as to why they are.  If you'd like more, please say so, I'll provide more.  Another way of putting this is: it doesn't matter if wind is 50:1, and oil is 200:1; it only matters that an energy source is above roughly 5 or 10 - above that, it's a viable energy source.

"you imply that wind is 6x better return than crude oil but then you say you realize wind and pv can't compete with fossil fuels. "

No.  I said wind is perfectly competitive (just not for 100% of the market), but that PV isn't economic in most places.

more later...

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Nick on September 30, 2006 - 6:31pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"the economics of a given energy source will ultimately reflect the energy return of the source. "

I wouldn't think so.  The economics of energy sources generally reflects their overall cost, and their energy input is only a small portion of that cost.

Now, if an energy source has a negative E-ROI, then that's different, but that's not what we're talking about here.

Turn E-ROI on it's head, and look at the % of input to output. An E-ROI of 15 means an input of 6.7% of output, and one of 50 means an input of 2% of output.  That's only a difference of 4.7%.  The energy input is only part of the cost of an energy source: of it's 66% then the difference in cost between the two sources is only 3.2%, which is nothing.

" Right now our industrial infrastructure is mostly run on fossil fuels and it is difficult to get realistic figures on eroei for wind or pv because of what I'm calling a 'subsidy' of fossil fuels that build these renewable processes. "

But what do you mean by the subsidy?  That suggests that there's something hidden.  What would the people who have studied E-ROI have missed?

Remember, we're not talking about pricing, we're talking about energy inputs and energy outputs: they're the same things, more or less, and the only differences I'm aware of favor renewables, as they put out electricity BTU's, which are more valuable than heat BTU's.

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ET on October 2, 2006 - 1:05am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
It looks to me like you are a true believer. I've heard the mantra that primary electricity is worth [pick a number]X refined crude product. This totally ignores the non-storability issue. To convert electricity into a storable form you either have to go down the hydrogen path or some other more ridiculously elaborate conversion such as electricity to nitrogen fertilizer to ethanol, OR you have to support a whole battery infrastructure.

I'm sure no URLs I can dredge up will sway you but I'd recomment reading Cutler Cleveland's work as he is one of the few who is doing reasonable comparative studies of energy sources. Ted Trainer is another. Try this one of Trainer's:

http://www.aie.org.au/material/trainer.htm

The total, absolute bottom line is, the 'renewables' are likely to always be several orders of magnitude more expensive than the 'easy to get' fossil fuels and this is simply because of much lower energy return on energy investment. Come back next year and the year after and tell me again that wind and PV are competitive.

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299 comments on DrumBeat: September 26, 2006

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