274 comments on Ten Fundamental Principles of Net Energy
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
274 comments on Ten Fundamental Principles of Net Energy
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
Search The Oil Drum with Google
Support The Oil Drum
Recently on TOD:World
TOD:Campfire
TOD:Europe
- Peak Gold, Easier to Model than Peak Oil? - Part I
- Carbon Capture and Storage
- Oilwatch Monthly November 2009
TOD:Canada
- In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
- The Round-Up: October 24, 2008
- Compressed Air Energy Storage - How viable is it?
TOD:Australia/NZ
- International Energy Agency calls 'Peak' on OECD Oil Demand
- Australian Senate: Peak Oil motion defeated 31:6
- The Bullroarer - Friday 20th November 2009
TOD:Net Energy
Blogroll
Energy Sites
- The Coming Global Oil Crisis
- Die Off
- Dry Dipstick
- Energy Bulletin
- From the Wilderness
- Life After the Oil Crash
- Peak Oil Crisis
- Peak Oil News and Message Boards
- Powerswitch
- Rigzone
- Matthew Simmons
- Wolf at the Door
Environment & Sustainability Sites
- The Daily Green
- EcoGeek
- Eco Street
- Green Car Congress
- Green Options
- green.alltop.com
- Gristmill
- RealClimate
- Sustainablog
- Treehugger
- WorldChanging
Blogs
- Casaubon's Book
- Cleantech Blog
- Clusterf
k Nation (Jim Kunstler) - The Cost of Energy
- David Strahan
- Early Warning
- The Energy Blog
- European Tribune
- GraphOilology
- Health After Oil
- jeffvail.net
- Mobjectivist
- Peak Energy (Australia)
- Peak Energy (USA)
- R-Squared
- Resource Insights
Finance & Economics Blogs
- The Big Picture
- Calculated Risk
- The Crash Course
- Ecological Economics
- Econbrowser
- Environmental Economics
- Infectious Greed
- The Mess That Greenspan Made
- Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Organizations
Peak Oil Primers
Beware email scams!
Beware email scams claiming to be from this site. We do not have any job openings. If anyone contacts you about a job at The Oil Drum, do not reply to them, and definitely do not give them any personal information or send them money. Read more here.
“It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.”
—Theodore Roosevelt
User login
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
Personnel
- Editors: Nate Hagens, Gail the Actuary, Prof. Goose
- DrumBeat Editor: Leanan
- Contributors: ace, Engineer-Poet, Heading Out, jeffvail, JoulesBurn, Sam Foucher, Robert Rapier
- TOD:Campfire: Glenn, Jason Bradford
- TOD:Europe: Chris Vernon, Euan Mearns, Francois Cellier, Jerome a Paris, Luís de Sousa, Rembrandt, Rune Likvern, Ugo Bardi
- TOD:Canada: benk, Libelle
- TOD:ANZ: Big Gav, Phil Hart, aeldric
- Emeritus: Stuart Staniford
- Technician: Super G
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
practical - two questions:
1) if you cover the earth with PV panels or capture solar energy with agriculture, there is a cost associated with concentrating and delivering this energy. Do you know what that cost is? In dollar or energy terms?
2) did you actually read Dr. Clevelands post? he addresses many of the concerns in your short winded rant.
1) Today: 25 cents/kWh residential PV, 12-15 cents/kWh industrial PV and 8 cents/kWh thermal solar on the GW scale. Ten years from now: 30% less. 25 years from now: 60% less. I bet you can afford that.
2) No, he didn't. But he fooled you quite well with language that is fluffy and sweet, like cotton candy. And like cotton candy the article contained little that is actually nourishing.
1) You've neglected the cost for new (non-waste)silicon, additional storage, transmission lines, maintenence and labor of pv systems. The boundries for eroei analysis are greater than those for energy efficiency studies
2)Your analogy is lacking. Cotton candy is light and contains little caloric content but is full of embodied energy. She spinning machine and labor use a lot of energy
1) What I quoted was total cost of ownership divided by total energy produced. That is usually what you do for all other electrical sources, too. Transmission cost of PV is lower than that of conventional power sources because the generator can be on your roof rather than three hundred miles away. There is even an over-unity net gain because local generation causes smaller peak loads in summer and the reduction of I2R losses from the coal fired or nuclear or whatever power plant will show up as a greater than unity transmission efficiency for PV (all other things being equal). There is never a free lunch, but sometimes there is a win-win.
2) I meant to say that cotton candy has a lot of calories but you couldn't survive on it. A pure cotton candy diet leads to avitaminosis and lack of essential amino acids and fatty acids. Please don't ever try. No matter how much of that stuff you will eat, you will always get sick and ultimately die.
What we need here are essential facts, not BA kind of fluff!
Then you will have to incalculate that: either the panels are on the roofs, where people live, or they are in a place where there is more sunlight in a better angle, where they can be more efficient.
IP
I agree that an article should ultimately be judged by the quality of the data and argument, but when did good writing become a character flaw? Most scientific writing suffers from a terrible form of prose that follws the following sentence structure ad nauseum: preposition...preposistion...linking verb...preposition...preposition.
E.g.
The cost OF installation OF solar panels WITH the new technology invented BY our company IS less than the cost OF operating the older system WITH the inefficiencies inherit In the system.
or
The effect OF the medication ON systolic blood pressure IN the experimental group WAS greater than the effect ON the placebo group IN this study.
This latter sentence could be rendered:
The medication effectively reduced the experimental group's systolic blood pressure more than the placebo group's.
By avoiding all the prepositions and allowing an action verb to create some of the sentence's meaning, the point is made more clearly and is easier to read.
If you read a lot of scientific writing, like I do, pay attention as you read. You'll become aware of how repetitive and redundant this lazy form of writing is and how it detracts from the writing and makes the point less clear. And then you'll realise how refreshing it is to read something like Mr. Cleveland's essay.
Oh, and yes, the "repetitive and redundant" phrase was intentional.
While a lot of prepositions is possibly harder to read, it may ease the task of expressing a complex sentence/idea as exactly as possible.
A bit of nitpicking here, Your rendition of the medical phrase differs from the original (it seems to me that the "effect" in the original phrase is not quantified, it could be positive or negative, or chaotic?).
Yea, you're right. "effectively" is superfluous. I shouldn't criticize poor writing without taking the time to avoid other writing pitfalls!
I agree Nate. Various people have quoted figures like $0.25/kWH cost for PV energy, but my own real-world analysis puts it a closer to $0.40/kWH for the median insolation case. This is 'real-world' in the sense of getting an actual amortized cost of a system of a given size for residential installation. An additional point to note in this kind of amortization cost is that one is paying for this electricity whether or not one is using it. If, ideally, surplus is sold back to the utility at retail (they often pay only wholesale) even then, in my location I would be paying ~$0.32/kWH net for what I was selling back to the utility. Clearly, to me at least, unrealistic numbers are being used to make PV look better than it really is.
For large-scale centralized PV power generation, seldom have I seen a realistic assessment of the grid-penetration/storage problems. Usually you just get an arm-waving, 'we will simply use pumped water storage.' without any further analysis of the infrastructure and maintenance costs and how they would affect the EROI of an energy source that is already marginal.
In the section '5. Energy quality matters' the downside of PV energy is clearly that one gets essentially a trickle of power for the amount of capital investment.
I'm definitely in favor of intensive research on 'renewable' energy sources as well as research on how to change our lifestyles. But I'm really tired of rants like 'practical' makes or arm-waving claims of powering industrial civilization on the arm-waver's favorite pet energy source.
Many thanks to Dr. Cleveland for an excellent summary. I should read up more about the earlier work he cites on net-energy studies. So should others, especially the know-it-alls.
ET,
Could you give the details of the PV costs you found, so that I can reconcile them with the estimates I've seen?
If you could, I'd appreciate: total cost; installation cost; peak rated capacity; and projected # of kwhr's. I believe you used an interest rate of 6%.
A few thoughts: your rate of 8 cents is cheaper than average, and is much less than the actual cost of providing the peak power that solar provides: the fact that your power rates are averaged over the whole day subsidizes peak electrical consumption. Average cost in the US is about 10 cents, and peak power ranges very, very roughly from 15 to 35 cents.
Pumped storage is an old, proven and cost-effective method of storing electricity, not a vague hand waving kind of thing. It hasn't been used more because nat gas peaker plants have been so cheap. Nevertheless, there are many existing examples such as the Luddington MI installation that was paired with nuclear roughly 30 years ago, and is still in use. AlanFBE gives cost figures that amount to less than 1 penny per kwh stored, and of course only a fraction of the energy would require storage.
I have seen quoted:
~$33,000 for a grid-tied system that would deliver estimated average of 541/kWH/mo in a median case insolation zone, half way between worst and best cases. This price does not include installation, but I could possibly get a better price, so for the sake of being generous, assume it does include installation.
$33,000 @ 6% for 30 yrs = ~$197/mo payments
on top of this, my grid hookup basic maintenance cost is $12/mo.
I would conservatively estimate other routine maintenance at $5/mo
giving a total monthly outlay of ~ $214
($214/mo)/(541/kWH/mo) = ~$0.40/kWH
I'm just going by the insolation chart and I'm sure results will vary. As I pointed out, this $214/mo would be laid out regardless of electricity production or usage. I could use a smaller system, of course. It would be relatively easy to downsize my consumption to ~300kWH/mo but the cost per kWH would remain the same. For ~540kWH/mo my bill for grid power runs about $55/mo. and goes down if I use less.
To me, this is the 'reality check' that tells me the true story of cost as it is right now. Hopefully things will improve.
"Hopefully things will improve."
I would look pretty silly if I 'invested' in such a system today and paid $0.40/kWH for the next 30 years when PV proponents are telling me that costs are going to come down to $0.20kWH or less in the next 5 to 10 years.
Sure, it's probably a very good idea to wait for costs to go down. A lot of people are doing that - in effect they've been priced out by price supports in Germany.
And of course, if there are no subsidy programs to reimburse you for the external benefits (direct pollution, GW, security, etc) I wouldn't expect you to invest in something that doesn't pay for itself.
Funny you should mention that. I was just considering the fact that the electricity on the grid here is a larger percent hydro than anything else. A PV system would likely have come from a coal-fired electricity driven factory in Taiwan or ROC, putting plenty of crap into the biosphere.
And could you tell me how a grid-tied system helps security?
This was all basically a cheap shot.
Hydro is your cheapest source. PV will displace other things first.
Security: please note that I was discussing externalities, not direct user benefits. Increasing renewables will displace natural gas first, as it's most expensive. On the margin it's imported, and this will increasingly be from places like qatar, where the security of supply is very low. You may have noticed that we're currently spending $1.2T (and 10's of thousands of american casualties and Iraqi lives) on access for oil in that region.
I of course see cost as relevant to people deciding whether or not to buy a system, but I don't see how it relates to how good or bad PV is as a piece of the energy solution. For one thing, the PV system should be producing for 30-40 yrs or more, and to be fair one would have to compare the PV system to the alternatives available and their cost each year down the line while the PV is producing, not the cost today of suddenly burning a barrel of oil out of the ground, which is then gone forever.
The question really is whether the energy investment will pay off, not the dollar investment. I think there are added benefits - no greenhouse emissions, less stress on grid transmission, and for us, the knowledge that our PV system will supply almost all our annual electrical needs as long as we live in our home - price security in other words, and the option for us to put in battery backup in the future if we want.
Do you have the peak power rating? That's the traditional way of costing out the capital cost of PV. Of course, your capacity factor determines your cost/kwh, and the two are directly related.
I would suggest you get started with a much smaller system. How much are you willing to invest in going a little more carbon neutral this year? $3000? Why not buy two panels and an inverter? Next year you can buy another couple of panels, but hopefully cheaper (if the silicon crisis can be resolved). Ten years from now you can get the same capacity for maybe close to half the price. By hedging your investment you will have done yourself and the environment a great favor.
For a proper financial calculation of solar energy cost one has to do hedging, anyway. Since the solar industry is growing rapidly, the majority of the investment will be done late in the game, at the lowest price of the mature market. On average solar energy will cost close to the market price 25 years from now, not what it costs now.
And, like I said in another post... solar is growing as fast as it possibly can due to technical limits. Now we have to wait and see how long it will continue to grow and how much that buys us.
Alternatively, you can always buy green energy from your utility. It will cost something like $20/month and they will build a wind farm somewhere or give CFLs to people. The results are just the same, probably even better than if you try to go solar yourself. They get a price advantage of almost a factor of two which you don't. How do I know? I did inquire for quantities of concentrator solar cells a while ago. They company was happy to sell 500kW+ to me for $3.50/Watt but wouldn't budge to ask for $6 at the 1kW level. Needless to say... I had neither $1.75 million nor a place to put up the concentrators.
Even at 40cents/kWh you have a viable energy source. Once the oil wells are dry, you can't say that for oil. The argument "But it's too expensive!" does not hold much water on that background. Neither does it do much for you in comparison with nuclear, unless your county puts up a sign "Please build the next nuclear power plant HERE!".
"An additional point to note in this kind of amortization cost is that one is paying for this electricity whether or not one is using it."
Since your solar panels are connected to the grid, any energy you aren't using is being used by someone else. They happen to be paying for it.
"For large-scale centralized PV power generation, seldom have I seen a realistic assessment of the grid-penetration/storage problems."
There is no storage problem as long as you don't have to shut down ALL your other power plants, which won't happen for at least another 30-40 years in case of solar energy. You simply have net savings in coal/natural gas. I bet with you that ten years down the road you would love to have more cheap NG in winter to heat your living room! You will ask yourself... why, oh, why did we have to waste 60% of the BTUs in NG in our electrical plants? Couldn't we have put some more wind turbines and solar panels up back in the days when there still was NG?
And as for the power grid... I am already paying for the grid on my current electricity bill. It is a fraction of generation cost. With stronger grids that cost will go up. Is that a problem? The grid argument falls into the category... "But it is too expensive!".
"Clearly, to me at least, unrealistic numbers are being used to make PV look better than it really is."
You can discuss that with the 10+ billion dollar industry that is growing at 30% per year. I am sure all these people are just wasting their time. They will thank you for your advice not to invest in the world's next great growth industry.
For what it is worth, in Southern Connecticut where I live, given the state and federal rebates and the renewable energy certificates, solar power is cheaper than buying from CL&P, the local utility. Return on investment is between 5 and 10%. Current power costs are now $.18/kwh.