The Fake Fire Brigade Revisited #4 - Delivering Stable Electricity

Below the fold is the 4th in a series of follow up posts providing analysis on the difficulties of maintaining our current energy paradigm with renewable energy. The main authors are Hannes Kunz, President of Institute for Integrated Economic Research (IIER) and Stephen Balogh, a PhD student at SUNY-ESF and Senior Research Associate at IIER. IIER is a non-profit organization that integrates research from the financial/economic system, energy and natural resources, and human behavior with an objective of developing/initiating strategies that result in more benign trajectories after global growth ends. The authors have written an extensive follow-up to the questions raised in the original posting and I've broken into 5 pieces for readability - the 4th installment, with a focus on the ability of renewable resources to support our energy delivery expectations, is below the fold.

The entire list of posts in this series can be accessed by clicking on the tag fake fire brigade. Individual prior posts are as follows:

The Fake Fire Brigade: How We Cheat Ourselves about our Energy Future
Revisiting the Fake Fire Brigade - Part 1 - General Issues
Revisiting the Fake Fire Brigade Part 2: Biomass - A Panacea?
The Fake Fire Brigade Revisited #3 - The Biggest Part of Business As Usual - Electricity


The Fake Fire Brigade - How Can Renewable Sources Support Our Current Energy Delivery Expectations?

In the last post, we covered some general concepts concerning electricity, and today, we want to go into more detail regarding the key questions of "How can renewable sources support our current energy delivery expectations?“

In this post, we try to develop a systemic picture of electricity, using some of our European models.  We will put a specific emphasis on wind power, as wind is seen as the single most relevant renewable source, and many plans involve a share of approximately 20%-30% of total power consumption within the next 10-20 years, and even higher in the longer term.

In the last and final post, which can be expected to follow approximately next week, we will cover all technologies we consider relevant one by one – in all fields like electricity generation, storage, distribution and demand management. But before diving into this week’s post, we would like to answer a few questions that came up 10 days ago.

Industrial energy prices in Europe

One of the arguments we heard when looking at “bearable” electricity prices was that in Europe those prices are much higher. This is not correct for industrial energy uses. The data available is grossly misleading, as it posts public rates for relatively small users (for industrial customers). All the countries that still have a significant heavy industrial electricity use provide energy at prices for large industries that are relatively comparable to the United States.

Let us use Germany, the largest European economy, as an example. According to the German statistics authorities, the pretax electricity cost in 2007 was at 10.9 Euro cents per kWh on average (this is the latest data available, but only in German). There have been no significant changes in electricity price in Germany since, except for higher contributions towards feed-in tariffs for renewables, which were partly offset by to lower prices due to excess capacity – a product of the recession. For industrial and commercial customers, cost per kWh was 8.6 € cents on average. Large industrial users, of which the most energy-hungry are exempt from supporting feed-in-tariffs for renewable energy, paid between 5-7 € cents (see: Bedeutung des Strompreises für den Erhalt und die Entwicklung stromintensiver Industrien in Deutschland).

When applying purchasing power parity exchange rates (which is what really matters and fluctuates much less than average exchange rates in markets) of approximately 1.15 dollar cents per Euro, this translates to 12.5 $ cents per kWh on average for all customers, with a slightly different distribution between private households and industrial customers when compared to the U.S.

At the same time, what you see in Germany for example is that more and more heavy industrial electricity users disappear from the country with rising cost of electricity. Primary aluminum and secondary steel production are mostly gone by now, and automobile manufacturers import a larger and larger share of their components from low wage and low energy cost countries. This is a relatively clear consequence of higher energy cost.  So even in Europe, industrial users still pay electricity prices that are within the “green” to “yellow” range of our table, but already there is huge pressure to avoid that cost.

Table 1 – electricity cost limits (with U.S. and German prices)

So overall, industrial prices are very comparable between Europe and the U.S., but in both places they are already high compared to China, for example.

The cost share of energy – societal EROI

Another aspect that is being discussed repeatedly is that energy currently has a share of “only” 5-10% depending on country for OECD countries) of total GDP, and if that share grows or even doubles, this wouldn’t affect things so much. Unfortunately, this view is based on a significant misconception, as it ignores the special role energy plays in our human ecosystem. The cost share for generating, distributing and enhancing energy is a very good proxy for societal EROI, i.e. tells us how much we can get out from our energy extraction efforts. We will not go into too much detail here, as this would justify another 10,000 words, but a brief introduction might be advised.

In a society where energy cost is 5% of GDP, this means that for each “unit” of effort that goes into the generation of energy, 19 units of “benefits” in the form of consumption and investment can be extracted for society. If that share doubles to 10% of GDP, we suddenly can only extract 9 units of benefits per unit of used energy. We can look at this in two ways: first, in the production system, then in the consumption system for individuals.

Important: the role of humans in advanced (and parts of emerging) economies is no longer the one applying physical work, but it is directed at the management of energy extraction and its application towards a use that is considered beneficial – ranging from food to buildings to plastic toys and cruises in the Caribbean.

If we analyze the manufacturing of goods, with the exception of a few novelty and luxury items, their price is very much driven by energy cost, either the cost of human labor (expensive to very expensive energy) or the cost of other energy applied. This energy includes not just the energy used to produce a good, but equally the energy used in the extraction, refining and manufacturing of raw and intermediate materials, in transportation, and in buildings and infrastructure used. The latter is “past energy” that might have come at a different price, but since we theoretically have to rebuild the infrastructure over time to maintain our ability to continue into the future, this is only marginally important.

Food is a very good example of the importance of energy costs required in production: producing and processing today’s food consumes much more (fossil) energy than it generates in the form of calories that get consumed in the final meal. From 2000 to 2010, the food price index (World Food Situation) has grown by a factor of almost two (it even went above that in 2008), which is very much in line with the development of average energy prices (oil and natural gas were the key price drivers). Commodities show an almost identical pattern (Table 1a. Indices of Primary Commodity Prices, 1999-2010).

So if we look at a society where energy cost increases from 5 to 10% of total, it is likely that very soon, the share of food costs will grow comparably. And the same is true for almost everything we consume that contains significant amounts of embodied energy, but consequences often aren’t visible so quickly if, as – for example – factories built with lower cost energy are still producing most of the output. But when a new factory has to be built, this will immediately be reflected in the price of the final good.

Energy conservation – the biggest resource (?)

We have been repeatedly called out for not including energy conversation in our posts, so we decided to include a brief “why” at this point. The first and most important reason is that energy conservation doesn’t significantly change the dynamics of electricity delivery systems. Irrespective of total level of consumption, overall usage patterns don’t change significantly, and so neither do the problems and issues of generating reliable electricity for a society.

Conservation will happen anyway with higher energy prices, as we can see in Europe, where energy prices on average are approximately 1.5 to 2 times higher than in the United States. From there, we see that rising prices drive consumption down, influenced by three factors:

  • Countries give up on highly energy intensive activities and (as long as they can find places like China or Norway with cheap energy) outsource them
  • More energy-saving technology gets introduced and used, for example fuel-efficient cars. My own German car gets 40 mpg (on Diesel, equivalent to about 35mpg on gasoline). A significant portion of those energy savings come from higher cost of equipment, and also slightly higher energy consumption in its production (often from cheaper energy sources)
  • Less overall consumption

In industrialized Europe, this has led to a reduction of an economy’s energy intensity by about 20% over the course of the past 20 years, but our models estimate that total energy efficiency gains that factor in “energy used elsewhere” (particularly in China) reduces this gain to about 5-10% - or in other words: net energy savings are far lower than actual local consumption data suggests.

Equally, total conservation benefits are often overstated. Light bulbs are a very good example. While modern fluorescent energy saving lights consume only about 1/3 of the energy a traditional bulb uses, that isn’t the full picture. First of all, more energy is used to design, manufacture, transport and recycle the modern bulb, which essentially is a little computer. This might not matter for bulbs that get heavily used, but for the not too few instances where the bulb gets thrown away (often with the lamp) before its now extremely long life has expired (6000 hours totals to 33 years for lights that are on ½ hour a day on average), it does. What matters more is that all those benefits only apply to the most expensive of CFL lamps, the cheaper ones purchased for 2-5 dollars are often much less efficient or last much less long.

Then, when looking at the traditional indoor use in moderate climates, at least 65-75% of the use of light bulbs occurs during heating periods, when heating is required. During these times, the “loss” from traditional bulbs in the form of heat gets fully added to the ambient temperature of that room, thus reducing the need of additional space heat. When all these aspects are factored in, the theoretical 65-70% advantage of new lighting technologies is reduced significantly less (see for example Benchmarking of energy savings associated with energy efficient lighting in houses).

This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t try to conserve energy – we should – but in the picture we are trying to draw, it doesn’t make that much of a difference as long as we don’t reduce our standard of living, and – most importantly: the level of energy consumption, as mentioned above, doesn’t matter too much when it comes to securing a stable electricity delivery pattern, unless we go so low that we can use reliable reservoir/dam based hydropower as the main source. That would clearly be Utopia.

A model case to work with – wind power in Europe

Throughout this post, we would like to stick to a simulation of future energy systems to explain some of the problems we see coming our way. The data introduced below will accompany us throughout the entire post, so it might make sense to spend some time explaining it.

To understand a future energy delivery system with large inputs of renewables, we use significantly sized wind power, in an integrated model grid of three powerful wind locations, Spain, Britain and Denmark.

Figure 1 – Simulated European wind delivery system with connections

Spain (blue in Fig 2 and 3) data is taken from actual production numbers available in 20 minute intervals (Detalle de la estructura de generación en tiempo real). The country currently produces about 14.5% of its total electricity with wind (The status of wind energy in 2009 By GWEC). Most importantly, Spain is a very favorable place for high wind power penetration, as it is surrounded by oceans and – thanks to its location, exposed to two different weather systems, one influenced by Atlantic, the other by Mediterranean winds. This makes its total wind output profile the most balanced one we know of.

The green line shows the simulated wind output for England Scotland and Wales (calculated from hourly weather data across the country). To make things comparable, Britain’s output is normalized to match the Spanish total annual output. This represents a wind market share of approximately 11.5% in Britain.

The green curve uses real wind output data from Denmark, which we have equally normalized to the same size of the Spanish output. This should quite well represent the entire geographical area (including Northern Germany, for which no hourly data is available).

In our model, all three “systems” produce the same amount of electricity per annum, about 36.2 TWh. The red line represents the average hourly output of all three areas, and the horizontal light blue line the standard average output required all year long to match demand. Note: We used a straight line to simplify the picture, we could equally have included the normalized consumption of all areas. As we have tested all our models against both this straight line and against real consumption without significant differences for wind power, we use the simpler model here.

Figure 2 – wind simulation for Europe: July 2009

Figure 3 – wind simulation for Europe: January 2009

Above, we have selected two typical months for the year 2009 – but others show the exact same patterns. The only visible difference is that on average, wind output in winter is slightly higher than it is in summer. But in both months, the average output of those three areas ranges from very low to a multiple of the expected target, and each area by itself shows even stronger fluctuations, as would be expected.

Below, we want to see what this translates to. Note: We use Europe as an example because we have so far found no reliable data for the U.S., but preliminary research confirms that the difference between the two continents is not significant. We are happy to re-run our models if someone is able to provide us with real (not modified) U.S. wind data for all the key regions suitable for wind power in the U.S.

Myth #1: The wind always blows somewhere

This is one of the common hypotheses stated by proponents of long range super-grids. A number of studies have looked at this issue. Among them is one that gets cited in almost every paper about Europe (Equalizing Effects of the Wind Energy Production in Northern Europe Determined from Reanalysis Data). It has a methodological flaw in that it doesn’t differentiate between areas suitable for wind and others where wind doesn’t blow strong enough, but this detail doesn’t matter. It shows a correlation coefficient of wind patterns across all of Europe is between -0.2 and 1, with most correlation coefficients being between 0 and 1.

We now have to get a little mathematical. A correlation coefficient of 1 says that things are strictly in synch, e.g. for wind it would tell us that when it blows in one place, it also blows in the other with the same or with proportional strength (please see the first example in Table 2 for this).

A correlation coefficient of -1 tells us that two values are strictly inversely related, so when the wind blows in one place, it doesn’t blow in the other, and vice versa (example 2 in Table 2). A correlation coefficient of 0 simply says that there is NO correlation between the two sets of values, or in other words: if the wind doesn’t blow in one area, it might or might not blow in the other (example three in Table 2).

Table 2 – samples for correlation coefficients

So obviously, if wind is correlated, it isn’t good for sharing. Ideally, wind outputs in regions sharing wind power would be negatively correlated (-1 or close).  If correlation coefficients are around 0, we simply can’t tell, i.e. there will be days when the wind blows strongly in both places, days where it doesn’t blow in both and days where they complement each other (the set of random values in the third column of Table 2 shows exactly that).

Going back to our initial example: the total hourly outputs for Spain, Britain and Denmark show correlation coefficients of 0.08 (Spain and DK), 0.09 (Spain and the UK), and 0.32 (UK and Denmark). This is pretty much in the lower range of the previously quoted study, so our three areas are probably good ones to realistically try the concept of sharing across large areas.

This mathematical reality, combined with Fig 2 and 3 very quickly discourages the belief that “the wind always blows somewhere.” Well, we don’t want to say that there isn’t a tiny bit of wind that always blows somewhere, but not to an appreciable degree.

Figure 4 – First week of July – 3 Sites with correlation coefficients of 0.08, 0.09 and 0.32

The above week in July shows, how wrong that assumption can go. The lowest average electricity output in all three sites in 2009 is 173 MW (4.1% of target) in one hour. Throughout the year, this situation comes back repeatedly, while equally, there are hours where the maximum output amounts to 11.6 GW (280% of target output).

This translates to a simple reality: during those hours of low output, power has to come from other available capacity, demand has to be drastically reduced, or the grid will break down.

The characteristics of generation technologies

In order to not get bogged down in mixing everything with everything and ending up with hundreds of possibly unrealistic assumptions, we have to look at individual technologies separately in order to judge their ability to contribute to a stable electricity delivery system and to see whether they – as combinations, will be helpful.

Figure 5 – uncontrolled variability of multiple sources (aggregate view)

Figure 5 shows a problem we will analyze in more depth further down. For an aggregate of stock driven generation tech­nologies (like all natural gas, coal and nuclear in any given country), unplanned variability is close to zero (fluctuations come from unexpected outages of single plants), while for solar and wind, all outputs between 0% and 100% of nameplate capacity are possible and realistic. Additionally, these sources have a very low average output relative to their maximum capacity, probably between 11-16% for solar in aggregate for a country, and about 15-26% for wind (in aggregate, not for individual turbines). This is one of the biggest challenges with renewable technologies, that they only produce a low average of their maximum capacity. This means two things: a lot of generating capacity is required to get the same average output when compared to other sources, and inversely, when production is good, a lot of power becomes available at once.

In our first post, we quickly reviewed the fact that renewable energy sources are growing at a slower pace than traditional fossil fuels. Often, this gets countered with the impressive growth rates of renewable technologies, which then get extrapolated into the future. Unfortunately, not everything continues to grow exponentially, particularly if the integration into current delivery systems is so difficult.

But one other thing that is often misleading is the fact that “installed capacity” is counted. This has nothing to do with produced electricity, but with the peak output a technology can accomplish. While fossil fuel driven power plants can be run close to 100% of capacity based on human decisions, renewable sources are typically operating at much lower rates. On a global level, total achieved outputs of wind are around 20% of possible output per annum, for solar around 12%. So while we may count on natural gas or coal with an availability of more than 90% of capacity (even if we don’t use it all the time), renewables can only be accounted for at a fraction of their official nameplate capacity.

Table 3 – capacity factors and controllability of sources

Now in order to understand what can be combined and what not, we have conducted an analysis of what energy sources are “compatible” with one another to understand which combinations can ultimately be beneficial.  Our summarized results:

Combinations only make sense to be reviewed when they have a generally complementary profile. Let’s use an example: Solar and Wind. While we have some positive correlation – often sunny days are less windy, we also see the opposite – very sunny days where strong winds blow - which further improves PV output (panel temperature is negatively correlated with electricity production, so a cooling breeze increases PV efficiency). Equally, we can expect that during snowy wintery late afternoons with cold temperatures both wind and sun don’t deliver much output. That makes those two technologies not truly suitable to supplement each other, because we can predict with 100% certainty that they will create dangerous situations for grid stability on a regular basis.

In Table 4 below, we provide an overview of the characteristics of each energy source and its suitability with others. This will be further analyzed in more detail in individual paragraphs for each source, but this should give a first overview of what is compatible and what isn’t. The first row shows their key characteristics (load type, predictability), the cross matrix looks at their compatibility. This is a brief overview, in our review of individual technologies, we will look at this in more detail.

Table 4 – Characteristics and cross-compatibility of generation sources: Legend: S=stochastic relative to demand, B=Base, C=Load Following, P=Peak, Predictability: + good, o=average, -=low

Ultimately, the best way to understand energy sources is to review their ability to fit the human demand system, which is – and always will be – relatively steady over long periods, and with specific fluctuations related to days, weekdays/weekends and seasons. In the end, we will try to analyze each source and each possible combination in order to understand its capabilities to work together with others, but first, we want to look at a number of large scale “solutions”.

Myth #2: Long range HVDC transmission solves problems

One of the cornerstones of future energy concepts is the introduction of long range transmission for multiple purposes. First, this should help share renewable outputs when they differ between multiple regions, and second, provide access to flexible resources (like hydropower). We would like to analyze the sharing across regions a little more closely.

Unfortunately, since there aren’t any negatively correlated sources within reach, there might be some benefit from sharing, but that isn’t as big as one might expect. Let’s look at the three wind locations (Spain, England, Denmark) a little more carefully for that. Upon closer analysis, it becomes clear that sharing excess renewable energy only makes sense under very specific circumstances. We conducted an analysis as to how often this positive effect would be seen, and how much (or how little) could be shared in those situations. Important: sharing only works when one location has too much and another one has too little – if all have too little or too much, it makes no more sense to transport energy. As Table 5 shows, a “sharing” situation occurs in 42.2% of the cases. With this, about 10% of total wind output can be shared across the three regions, filling about one third of the (mostly smaller) gaps.

Table 5 – sharing situations

Unfortunately, the hours where sharing is possible mostly relate to relatively “uncritical” situations in the “middle”. The largest amount shared in any one direction is slightly above 4.2 GW. So in order to build the necessary “power highways”, three HVDC connections (see Fig 1) with 4.2 GW capacity would be required to explore the benefit, with a triangle connecting Denmark and Northern Germany, Britain and Spain. Due to the fact that sharing only happens a fraction of the time and often for much smaller amounts, the capacity of these three lines would be utilized at only 10%, which makes establishing these HVDC lines quite uneconomical.

As shown below in Figure 6 for July 2009, this approach doesn’t do much for the most critical situations, neither where wind produces too little output in all three areas, nor in those moments where it is too strong everywhere.

Figure 6 – Long range HVDC potential in 3-region analysis

An estimate for the cost of three 4 GW cables forming a triangle with segments of 700, 1000 and 2000 each between Britain, Spain and Denmark/Northern Germany (Figure 1) arrives at a ballpark of roughly $10-12bn. If we assume an investment of $10bn, a life expectancy of 30 years, an interest rate of 6% (which is rather low and only slightly above 30 year bond interest rates) and maintenance cost of 1% per annum, the cost for each wind kWh usefully transmitted between the three countries would be more than 7 cents, not including line losses and operating energy for the heavily underutilized HVDC equipment (as stated above, utilization would be at approximately 10% of capacity). And, which is important, we haven’t really solved the most relevant problems yet – underperforming wind farms and high surpluses in all three locations simultaneously.

So for a very large investment, we ultimately get very little in return; and in all those situations (almost 50% of the time) when all three regions don’t have enough wind, it doesn’t help at all. For those, we need other solutions, once again.

Note: As stated before, in this model we used demand as a steady line to make it easier to understand and compare. When using demand patterns instead, the end result is almost exactly the same. Critics of our approach will now say that we have to introduce storage to deal with the other, uncovered parts. Let’s see how that works.

Myth #3: Storage will fill the gap

Now that we have seen that long range sharing via supergrids likely won’t deal with situations when all locations produce way too little or way too much, we have to look at storage. The above example, where 3 regions have about 12-15% wind power in their energy mix, might serve as a good example.  If we start in early January, the cumulative gap that builds up from January 1 to January 6 (across all three areas) is approximately 740 GWh. Within those six days, all three regions underperform most of the time. So during this short period of time, the 50 GWe (nameplate capacity) of installed wind capacity would accumulate a deficit worth almost 15 hours of operation at full power, and 60 hours at the expected average load factor (25%)

That was just for starters. Even when sharing across all three areas, the highest cumulative gap (compared to average output) amounts to 6.75 TWh in 2009, equal to 22.5 days of average wind output. Without sharing, the maximum cumulative gap was 34.5 days in Spain, 24 days in the UK and 20 days in Denmark. This result again shows how little the supergrid can actually contribute.

In our first post, we have shown this exact same problem for a simulation for the UK, we include the same graph again as a reminder:

Figure 7 – Britain long term surpluses and gaps against power demand

The reason for this lies in seasonality and heavy arbitrary month-to-month fluctuations. Below is a graph that shows the average daily production in the three European regions we analyzed.

Figure 8 – Monthly fluctuations.

November 2009, for example, forms an extreme case. In this month, all three sites ON AVERAGE produced 159% of October and 142% of December wind output. Seasonally, things look even worse; November 2009 produced 228% of June output. Average daily output during the strongest three months in 2009 (November to January) was 70% above that of the weakest three months (June to August).

Some people have dismissed this approach of looking at long term gaps, but the problem is grave: of the expected outputs, a significant portion has to be shifted in time, intra-seasonally, or across seasons. This requires either other sources that are flexible enough (see the paragraph below) – or storage. In this section, we want to think about using storage to make up for those large amounts of surpluses and gaps.

For a mental exercise, let’s assume that we only have wind power and a storage technology: in order to match one MW of wind nameplate capacity with enough storage to not lose too much of the excess production at high wind time and to be able to bridge all the gaps, we would have to provide capacity worth approximately 20 days of average wind output, which – with a capacity factor of 25% - totals to 120 MWh of storage capacity for each MW of wind power production (6 MWh per day x 20 days). In the comments to our last post, someone pointed out a solution for pumped storage in oceans (Large-scale electricity storage) with a capacity of 20 GWh. We will look at this type of storage in the next post when reviewing individual technologies, but for now, let’s assume this solution is feasible. This huge (10x6 km/6x4 miles) artificial island which will cost at least $4-5bn to build according to our estimates (derived from the amount of material required and other sources on building artificial islands like it was done in Dubai) would support not more than 167MW of wind nameplate capacity, which is the size of one average offshore wind park costing about $650m. This simply doesn’t work – the storage technology costs 8 times what the generation technology costs. Another example: pumped storage in favorable geographical locations (not the power island mentioned above), costs about $100m per GWh of storage capacity. One GWh would be able to support a mere 8.3 MWe of installed wind capacity, which costs approximately $20m to install. So for each dollar spent on wind, 5 dollars would have to be spent on pumped storage. So even if we only tried to store 20% of it, doubling the investment cost doesn’t sound like a good deal. And – as we will see later, pumped storage – when available - is among the cheaper and most durable options.

The reason for this cost problem has to do with the characteristics of current fuels: all successful uses of energy “stocks” – with the exception of hydropower, which instead uses large natural water bodies and gravity – are based on the irreversible destruction or reduction of complex molecules or atoms, where the energy is stored in the form of intra-atomic or molecular particle bonds and then released. Mostly, they burn (coal, oil, gas, but equally wood), and in the case of nuclear power, the kinetic energy from the release of neutrons and photons that get split off. All these processes increase entropy and convert a high quality molecule or atom into something simpler and more abundant.

Storage instead operates with a reversible process. In many cases it is simply physical, like in heat, cold, pressure or altitude difference, or – with batteries – by chemical reactions that are based on moving molecules between anode and cathode. Other than that there are a number of chemical batteries based on relatively single molecule oxidations, a principle used in single-use batteries or with hydrogen, where H and oxygen atoms react to water, releasing energy. Unfortunately, these oxidation processes have a relatively low round-trip efficiency.

Most “efficient” storage technologies suffer from another significant problem: one of energy density. While our mainstream chemical “destructive” processes release large amounts of energy per volumetric/weight unit, none of the physical or simple chemical processes can ever come close, and never will, despite all improvements in their technology development.

Table 6 shows an overview of “storage” technologies, including those where nature did the storing for us through millions of years using pressure and heat. It also shows the price per “kWh” of storage capacity. For all “natural” resources, we don’t have to pay that price, we only pay the cost of extraction.

Table 6 – “storage” solutions (*non-active energy storage) – preliminary, still under research

Figure 9 shows this very illustratively – the energy density of all storage technologies is a fraction of the content per volume or weight unit in fossil fuel stocks. And the only option with halfway meaningful weight density (hydrogen) has a very low round-trip efficiency and an unfavorable volumetric profile.

Figure 9 – Energy density of primary energy sources and storage

So ultimately, storage isn’t capable of dealing with the big shifts. It is capable of handling intra-day imbalances, maybe weekends and holidays and – for example with pumped hydro - works great to help balance nights and days with less flexible sources like coal or nuclear, but not in those longer term situations we will experience with large scale wind or solar power.

Myth #4: Demand management (smart grids) can solve the problem

We discussed demand management in earlier posts, and in response to our previous installment (#3), we had a number of comments indicating that more actively managing demand could be a good way of dealing with ups and downs in electricity supply.

Unfortunately, this offers the same challenges as storage does. In a world with renewables having a high share, we no longer talk about regular patterns of supply and demand where nights and days show a certain mismatch, but we talk about over- and underproduction for days, weeks and months. Dimming the lights in office buildings, or storing heat and cold no longer work in this case. Only a small fraction of surpluses and deficits can be shifted within 24 hours. The problem basically is the same as with storage – we are talking about long term gaps. Only if a technology were capable of moving a significant amount of demand – for example – from October to November (in 2009), would it create benefits to solve the problem we are discussing here.

Still, we briefly want to look into “smart grids” and what they are supposed to do. There are multiple forms of what is considered “smart”. Here is a brief overview:

In a passive, simple form, so called “smart meters” are supposed to provide information and feedback to customers, mostly about the current price of electricity. That way, market incentives should be created to use less electricity during peak times and shift some demand to times with higher availability. This already happens today with night/weekend and day tariffs, and with industrial and commercial customers, where large devices mostly get turned on during low cost times (entire operations plans in industrial companies get organized around lower electricity rates). On an industrial and commercial level, a significant amount has already been accomplished when it comes to smoothing out day and night peaks and lows based on demand management, but households have not really been explored so far, except for different day and night/weekend rates.

With smart meters, there is a hope that customers might receive sufficient information about their energy options and thus change their usage patterns. A number of pilot projects have been undertaken so far to understand the implications of this approach, mainly in Germany and the Netherlands. Results are disappointing. We are happy to share some links (all in German) that point to recent studies, but there are two outcomes, in general. First of all, for average households, the expected savings are not sufficient to recover the additional cost of the technology (two-way communications between utility and end user, new meters, software, operations). For Germany, savings are estimated at around 10-40 Euros per annum and household, with an initial setup cost of around 50-100 Euros and annual operations costs of at least 50 Euros. Second, a Dutch study shows that very conscious users participating in a study might accomplish up to 8% savings in their electricity consumption initially, but that this effect wears off quickly. Other studies confirm those results. The reason seems relatively clear: with the tight time schedules most people have, monitoring electricity to find the best times to run their laundry might only be something for very conscious citizens, but not something for the average person. And large consumers, commercial and industrial users, are already participating in those schemes.

This becomes even more challenging as the key difference compared to today would be that with renewables, these patterns become absolutely unpredictable. It is possible that suddenly, during the night, there isn’t enough power, and it is equally feasible that there is way too much during previous daytime peak hours. This would constantly ask for a change of life routines, something humans are notoriously bad at.

So if we are not ready and able to “manually” steer electricity demand, this asks for those more advanced forms of smart grids, which are capable of – without user intervention – turning devices on and off. Laundry could be postponed automatically until low cost electricity is available; a freezer could be turned off for a while and still hold its temperature; and so could heating and cooling appliances, or lights (in office buildings) could be dimmed down. In this case, routines of users might not really be affected, as long as we don’t turn off the TV set during that important baseball game.

Now, there are two caveats: first, again the fact that we might have a “low supply” situation for much more than just a few hours, but instead for days or weeks. Or conversely, there might be the same issue with oversupply - it might last much longer than any use could consume. So while we might be able to turn an air conditioner off for a few minutes, or even for a few hours if it operates with ice storage, we can’t do that for a couple of days without making life unbearable in Texas, Nevada or Southern California, for example. The second problem is equally large: this approach does require a lot of investment into new devices, as it will be impossible to retrofit most household appliances, particularly those with electronics, which don’t take a simple power cut very well. So a large amount of investment into new appliances would be required, exactly at a time when recessions and other limits make it hard for people to pay their normal bills. On top of that, replacing still working equipment with new, “smarter” devices also incurs significant energy consumption, which first has to be recovered, both economically and energetically.

The last aspect of smart grids is the idea of introducing electric light vehicles (ELVs) into the grid and using connected vehicles as an “extended storage device” for surplus electricity, and as buffer for power gaps. As we mentioned in our initial “fake fire brigade” post, gaps and surpluses are so grossly disproportional compared to what an ELV fleet could offer, that using expensive Li-Ion batteries which only survive half a car’s life span for storing regular energy seems like a very silly thing to do, as it further shortens the life expectancy of this expensive piece of equipment, without making a significant dent into the imbalances in the grid. A preliminary calculation we performed shows that it would cost approximately 70-80 cents to store one kWh of electricity in a high-tech ELV battery. Not exactly a bargain.

So again here – as with the other things – smart grids and other demand management efforts don’t really seem to offer what is required to manage the instability of future energy sources. They mostly add cost and complexity.

Myth #5: Together everything will work out

After introducing supergrids, storage and demand management, the vast majority of gaps and surpluses from wind farms still aren’t dealt with, because their impact is just too small to significantly influence the situation. If suddenly all wind farms in a country produce 3 or 4 times as much as their expected average, how will anything be able to pick up that much power? In a world with 30% wind, this easily amounts to more than 100% of total consumption – even with 20-25% wind coverage, wind sometimes produces more than total demand during low times. And in the situation where all of them decrease production to almost zero for a week or more, how will any of the three solutions be able to fill a 30% gap in production?

To better understand this situation, let’s look at some specific days in 2009, for example January 1-6 in our model of Spain, Britain and Denmark. By January 6, all meaningfully available storage will be empty - sharing doesn’t provide any benefits, but wind power output is still 8 TW short of what is expected. On July 1st, we have the exact same situation, but almost 12 TW are missing, while all storage has long been emptied. The only thing that helps to fill that gap is flexible generation capacity that has to sit idle until that day arrives.

Today, this is done mostly by hydropower (from storage behind dams) and natural gas, which can be turned on when such a situation occurs, and there is no reason to believe that these wouldn’t be the sources of choice for the future. However, there is a caveat – availability for a world with 20, 30 or even 50% of renewable power.

Hydropower can only support a fraction of what is required and has only limited expansion potential (please see equally detailed technology reviews in the next and final post), plus it is equally seasonal – strong in winter and spring, but rather weak in summer and fall (in the northern hemisphere). So unless a country has a beneficial topography, hydropower potential is simply limited.

So ultimately, we are stuck with natural gas. Modern natural gas power plants have a life expectancy of approximately 100,000 hours (11 years at full time operations) OR 3000 starts (one start puts stress on the equipment worth 333 hours of operations, please see Lifetime Extension for SIEMENS Gas Turbines). With maintenance, this can be extended by about 50-60%. If we were to support large wind power with natural gas, we would see a much lower capacity utilization of a much larger required fleet of standby gas power plants, but many starts and stops. So in the future, we can’t just plan to continue using already existing power plants. Instead, that capacity has to be specifically (re)built for the type of situation that keeps coming back regularly, month after month, year after year.

Thus storage and sharing won’t allow us to have secure stable electricity, but instead would leave us with large fluctuations (and thus blackouts, if unmanaged) as soon as we introduce wind at a significant share (which might be as low as roughly 10% across entire larger grid areas, not just in small isolated situations like Denmark). With hydro not truly scalable, the only remaining technologies are fossil fuels, mainly natural gas, which for its flexibility and relatively low price work best. Or in other words: in a world without abundant natural gas (or an equivalent flexible stock), large market shares of wind simply won’t work.

A simple conclusion can be drawn from this analysis: combining all three options – using stocks, sharing across geographical areas and large size storage – doesn’t create more benefit than balancing with natural gas alone does, and without those stocks, it definitely doesn’t solve the problem of variability in outputs. The contrary is true: a combination adds cost to the system, and creates complexity. At a certain point, because all those extra technologies use fossil fuels in their production, installation and maintenance, their use might not even reduce overall carbon emissions. Even when combining all of it, it  doesn’t mean that we need fewer gas power plants - it simply reduces utilization of those plants, because they still have to be kept available for those unpredictable but absolutely unavoidable events when everything else fails to deliver.

To quantify this risk of failure: even across all three regions (England, Spain, Denmark), there were 77 scattered events in 2009 where SHARED wind produced less than 20% of expected average output, and 9 events where it produced less than 10% of what was expected. For all these situations, stock based capacity needed to be available (sitting mostly idle during other times).

Why do other studies come to different conclusions?

Our assumption when we started our research was that everything had been resolved and clarified regarding the intermittence of wind power and the risks associated to it. Numerous studies and concept papers seemingly had answered the questions we asked ourselves, coming to the conclusion that there will be no insurmountable hurdle to establishing a large (30-50%) share of wind power in electricity systems. Over time, we found out that there were a number of flaws in all those papers:

  • Not enough analysis of the detail: by simply using statistical methods, the risk arising from RARE BUT CERTAIN supply situations in electricity grids often get overlooked. Only full simulations looking at exactly those situations reveal the true problem. And if those “rare” events occur 60 times every year, it means that there will be an unavoidable blackout more than once a week on average.
  • Focus on short term fluctuations instead of longer-term variability: one of the most important mistakes of most studies is to look at “unpredicted” variability of wind power alone. This deals with the question of how much reserve capacity has to be held available to manage unexpected gaps in wind production. Given the improvement in weather predictions, this problem has become smaller over the past years, i.e. reserve requirements to match short-term shortfalls in wind output have become smaller despite growing capacity. However, what these studies do not deal with is the shortfall relative to demand, which can mean that – in a situation with a 30% wind market share – there will be times where 30% of expected supply has to come from other sources, and equally distressing, that wind power plants occasionally produce more than 100% of demand.
  • Belief in combinations: often, analysis of certain technologies does not carefully study other technologies they consider relevant as supplements in sufficient detail, which gets authors to the (false) conclusions that their problems will be solved by someone else. This is true when an author assumes that suddenly biomass or waste burning will make up for gaps in production, or pumped storage will be scaled up to solve the problem. Only a careful analysis of all participating systems would reveal this misunderstanding, but specialization in one field often makes recognition impossible.

Truth #1: There is no stable electricity without stocks

We have now used sharing via supergrids, storage, and demand management, and still haven’t even gotten close to balancing the variability of wind power. Our readers will now say – and correctly so – that it makes no sense to try to manage those long-term fluctuations with storage, but that we should instead use other generation technologies to make things work. That makes perfect sense, and is what happens today – fluctuations in wind power get balanced out by cranking other sources up or down. All those “balancers” are stock-driven sources (see our previous post for more detail on this). As we will see later, the best ones currently available, after fuel oil has become too expensive, are hydropower (from reservoirs behind dams) and natural gas, which are flexible and economical to compensate situations with high fluctuations. But why, if those offer a meaningful solution, are we spending so much time and money on storage and supergrids?

So the bottom line is as simple as that: wind and other stochastic resources are unable to deliver electricity 24/7 on 365 days of the year without scalable stock based generation technologies that are able to match almost 100% of expected power outputs from those renewables. Storage, sharing or demand management won’t significantly help to manage either surpluses or gaps.

Of all flexible stocks, natural gas is the only one that is currently available, affordable and scalable, and there is no reason to believe that this will change anytime soon. All other sources are not flexible, not scalable, or too expensive to play the same role. But even if it won’t be natural gas in the future, it will have to be a high energy density stock, and its generation capacity needs to sit idle and wait for gaps to be filled. What this approach still doesn’t solve is the significant amount of surpluses that are produced during peak output times. If storage won’t be economical to deal with most of them, the only thing we can do is crank down flexible power sources. In any case, a significant amount of wind or solar power will be lost in times of over production.

Testing a model for the future

A comment to our last Oil Drum post suggested a model where power would be produced with the following mix: 20% wind, 20% solar, 15% nuclear, 20% gas, 10% geothermal, and 15% hydro.

To model this possibility accurately, we have to further break down those individual technologies, because some that were thrown into one bucket have slightly different properties: For example, hydropower comes from storage (dams) and run-of the river plants. The former are relatively flexible, while the latter are rather inflexible, unless they again include some dams (or run dry), they run continuously at more or less the same power rating. The same is true for solar, where PV has different characteristics than concentrated solar, which – particularly if it includes storage using molten salt or other technologies – has certain short term balancing capability. Below is a model where we introduce this energy mix and show what societies would have to deal with under those circumstances.

We assume a relatively moderate peak/off-peak profile of 150%, i.e. one where daytime consumption is approximately 50% higher than night and weekend use. For simplicity, we assume that peak and low time have a time share of 50% each. This pattern assumes some significant improvement from current patterns resulting from demand management. (Often, we see low-high fluctuations with a factor of as much as 200%.) For the model, we use a 100 GW society, where total consumption on average is 100 GW, with lows at 80 GW and peaks of 120 GW. The capacity factor determines the total required nameplate capacity to accomplish that share. Variability shows predictable and unpredictable variability of sources (* marks manageable sources, ** partly manageable sources). Demand simulations look at the minimum and maximum power available during low and peak times, simulating a situation where all unpredictable sources produce either at their low or their highs, while manageable sources are used to compensate for this situation.

A “low” (min) situation would be when most renewables produce little or no output, which then gets compensated for by flexible sources. A “high” (max) simulates a situation where all renewables produce at their peak, and all flexible sources get turned down. This defines the range of total available energy to be expected at peak and off-peak times and shows what we would have to deal with.

Table 7 – Supply situations with new energy mix

First, in the above model, we see a problem with capacity. Given the low capacity factor of many renewable sources, a large amount of nameplate capacity is required for that electricity mix. Today, nameplate capacity in the U.S. is 2.2 times that of average demand. In the future depicted above, it will be 3.3 times that of average power demand (100GW), or – if peak power risks are to be mitigated, even 3.7 times average power demand. This incurs significant extra cost and produces a lot of idle equipment. Overall, a safe power future with this energy mix demands that 76 GWe (63% of peak demand) of natural gas power production capacity sit mostly idle (with a capacity factor of 26% instead of today’s approximately 40% for modern fuel-efficient combined-cycle natural gas plants in the United States and in most other places). The large additional investment which must sit mostly idle confirms the first truth mentioned above: there is no future for electricity without significant amounts of stocks.

What makes things more difficult is the fact that there is also a problem with overproduction. At times, we expect to see overproduction by a factor of as much as 2.3 times of demand, even if we crank everything down that can be cranked down economically. There is no way that we can store even half of the amount of excess electricity a windy Sunday afternoon could produce in terms of solar and wind power, so we will simply lose those outputs in a situation with high penetration of renewable technologies. This, in turn, makes the price of one USEFUL kWh from those already expensive technologies even more expensive, as unused electricity doesn’t generate any benefits, but actually incurs cost because it needs to be turned into heat by some kind of approach.

A rough estimate of what the above scenario would yield in terms of average electricity price got us to about 22-25 cents per kWh (including distribution cost), with a low end for industrial uses around 18 cents, and commercial customers paying about 27 cents. The biggest jump comes from generation cost, which affects all users almost equally, but distribution and management will equally become more expensive, given the much more complex nature of delivery situations.

Table 8 – expected cost of production for model scenario in the U.S.

The reason behind this lies in the higher cost of all generation technology, but equally in the underutilization of equipment (for example with natural gas generation capacity). Here is the rough calculation we made for the above scenario:

Table 9 – expected generation cost in future scenario

What all this shows so far is that even when utilizing the lowest cost option for compensating for the intermittency of renewable energy – natural gas – the cost of power becomes likely unbearable for a society as a whole. And with this, we haven’t even solved the problem of depleting natural gas resources, which is something that might well affect the above business model within our lifetimes. After that point, there is – at least based on knowledge today – no feasible answer for an electricity delivery model that reminds us even faintly of what we are used to today in terms of availability and reliability.

A preliminary conclusion and recommendation

We find it very difficult to ignore the fact that all promoted renewable sources currently face and pose significant challenges to the stability of future electricity. So far, many of the planned additions seem almost irrelevant as they add high cost for very little benefit. This problem, however, is currently papered over with increasing use of flexible sources, so it will only really become a problem once we get to the point where fossil fuels, and mainly natural gas, become scarce, or simply too expensive.

For all those who – after all this information – still think that there is a future with smart and super grids, with large shares of renewables and new storage technologies, we are happy to engage in real-life discussions where we go through all the real-life data available. We are talking about a serious problem here and not one of belief.

And, obviously, we are happy to look at new data and new technologies, because we actually hope that something convincing might be found, but so far to no avail. It is not our objective to “kill” any particular solution or invention, but we are deeply worried about the fact that we are currently using our scarce resources (including money) on things that cannot work.

Based on what we know today, we see only the following possibilities for the future that keep delivery systems halfway intact without creating too much stress for societal systems (and government budgets):

  • Stop or reshape large scale investment funding and feed-in support for many renewables and enabling technologies (solar, wave, biomass, smart grids, super grids, and most storage technologies), and instead finance research until proof of concept (including decent EROI and fossil fuel dependence data) has been established for each new technology.
  • Focus investment support on the build-out of wind power up to a share of 10-15% of total consumption (or more if ample all-year-round hydropower from reservoirs is available) and match 100% of it (minus the hydropower capacity reliably available all year around) with natural gas generation capacity as backup.
  • Couple feed-in tariffs with the ability to deliver steady energy services, encouraging the coupling of either multiple sources by providers and/or supply and demand – before approval for funding. For example, large solar energy producers would be required to match their contribution with air conditioning and water heating equipment that automatically gets turned on and off as supply levels change.
  • Send everyone back to the drawing board to think about a) how a future without steady electricity services should and could look like or b) how we could possibly solve our problem of stocks once fossil fuels run out to maintain stable electricity at a meaningful price.

In our next and final post, we will provide individual technology reviews to show what each generation, storage and demand management technology can provide to future energy systems based on current knowledge.

The entire list of posts in this series can be accessed by clicking on the tag fake fire brigade.

Nate, Hannes and Stephen, thanks for an excellent analysis with a wealth of data and very insightful graphics and explanation of your results. My starting point in this theme is completely opposite of your conclusions, so I will be reading this in detail once more to see if there are any weak points in your analysis that might suggest a further dialogue.

Hydropower is still, after 100 years, worthy of implementation as much as feasible. North American Water & Power Alliance (NAWAPA) is a mid-century compendium of water delivery and electrical energy engineering features. McKenzie River watershed and Columbia River outflow are elements of supply. A matrix of delivery systems, much using enroute river channels & existing reservoirs, brings water as far east as the Great Lakes, south into northern Mexico. Recharging Central Valley & Ogallala aquifers results in massive amounts of electricity NOT REQUIRED to pump from aquifers raised substantially.

Pumped storage of water is probably the best of all "storage batteries". Peak hours water runs through turbines and downstream.. During off hours, unsold portion of electric generation is used to pump water back into the primary reservoir. These types of engineering features have a smaller reservoir just below and downstream of the main body of water. Water is pumped from the smaller reservoir back up to the main reservoir, stored for next peak period.

Sustainability in local oriented economies is important as we continue through the "Oil Interregnum". This shall be a period of political turmoil, man made disruption (along with usual natural disasters) requires significant local ability to maintain organized society including electricity. A book, "ELECTRIC WATER" (New Society Press, 2007) offers compendium of off-the shelf tech for local economies with initiative and some nuts & bolts effort.

This poster, "tahoevalleylines" and "alanfrombigeasy" offer some comments on transport, particularly rail component in the coming chapters of the energy emergency.

It took me a bit a bit of time to actually understand what was actually wrong with the way the authors of this study were explaining/justifying their conlusions.
(I generally agree with the points and questions being raised throughout this series, of posts, I do however question some of the interpretations and especially the conclusions that the authors seem to arrive at.)
The current installment of this series made the issue plain and obvious: Mixing static analysis, dynamic analysis and anecdotal evidence in an arbitary fashion can get one to any desired conclusion.
Let´s just take the most obvious example:
A)
- ..."The latter is “past energy” that might have come at a different price, but since we theoretically have to rebuild the infrastructure over time to maintain our ability to continue into the future, this is only marginally important."
- But is it really only marginally important? Part of the general argument in this series of articles would seem to be, that we undervalue the now existent (essentially) free energy in the short to medium term.
Given the fact that current installations of renewable energy will have been(or will have been) installed, prior to any energy crisis, shouldn´t the existing systems be treated as free energy in terms of EROEI? This is obviously a wrong argument from a static point of view: These systems will have to be renewed at some point. But given the fact, that most of the scary bits of the prognosis play out in a time frame considerably shorter than that of a solar panel, shouldn´t a dynamic analysis be held to the standard of at least valuing existing installations at their true cost. Which would lead to the conclusion mentioned above in the long run, however if ones argument is to say, that serious problems will appear due to rapidly rising energy costs it might be a good idea to recognize, that the EROEI for a solar panel(/windmill) installed is close to infinity(bar maintenance) in the short to medium term.

B) "Industrial energy prices in Europe

One of the arguments we heard when looking at “bearable” electricity prices was that in Europe those prices are much higher. This is not correct for industrial energy uses. The data available is grossly misleading, as it posts public rates for relatively small users (for industrial customers). All the countries that still have a significant heavy industrial electricity use provide energy at prices for large industries that are relatively comparable to the United States. "
- Why could that possibly be??? Maybe some people in Europe have actually wised up to the fact, that it may very well be a good idea to reduce energy use where there is no real gain in net effiency&considerable scope for more efficiency(i.e. private consumption), whilst not being ideologically stupid enough to no longer supply industries that would not be able to produce their outputs. Obviously one could just average that out, as is done in the article. A different perspective would be to treat the situation as a recognition of the fact, that some industries producing necessary items do require larger amounts of energy input. So instead of saying that the price of energy in the US is in line with Germany, the real argument may very well be, that the government and consumers have realized, that the real cost of energy is a lot higher and whilst it may not make sense to lift the cost for companies competing internationally, it does make sense to reduce overall consumption by raising prices for consumers.
How would a possible scenario work that provides energy to basic uses whilst at the same time reducing overall consumption???
Look before you leap!

C)"Energy conservation – the biggest resource (?)", "Conservation will happen anyway with higher energy prices, as we can see in Europe"
The statements in this part are again based on past data(i.e. a slight increase in oil prices in 2008; and yes, an increase from 10,50 or 70$ to 140 is fairly insignificant to most European consumers given the way taxes are structured)
Given the general incentives to conserve energy in Europe, it is not all to astonoshing, that some of the potential savings have already been realized. Deducting from this, that the potential for substantial savings is exhausted, however does seem like a bit of a stretch! From what I have done and seen, I would say, that the prices of 2008 have,at best, been an educational experience. I live in Europe and I used to drive to work every day, I started biking during that time, more for health purposes, than anything else; though I have to admit, that the increased cost made it a win-win at the time! Having kept it up despite the reversal.(clearly anecdotal evidence on my part!)
In general, a temporary shift of 10-20% in after tax prices(at the high point in 2008 in Germany, compared to current levels) can hardly be used as an honest example of what would happen in terms of consumption given a substantial and secular rise.
Most of Europe (i.e. urban and semi-rural areas) could function quite well with just mass transit systems(i.e. excluding all private automotive transport), I´m not saying, that the necessity of moving to such a system might not involve some inconvenience(minor in cities, more pronouced in semi-rural areas[when assuming the lack of any responding adjustment]), but nothing that would impact productivity! It worked quite well during the oil crisisof the 70s and a lot of investment has occured since then! Adding in, easily achievable energy savings via heating, a reduction in private fossil fuel consumption of 30-50%, without any major disruptions seems entirely conceivable in Europe, without impacting anything but the rather high level of comfort we enjoy right now.

In summary: whilst I broadly agree with the issues mentioned, I do believe, that it is important to keep it intelectually honest. Relying on assumptions of dynamic developments, whilst contrasting them with extrapolations based on static analysis(and even worse, averaging out dynamic developments(i.e. divergence of energy costs faced by different sectors) to fit a line of argument) does seem to be rather convenient way of advancing a point of view. Which reminds me all to much of the Wall Street opinion(prior to 2007), that house prices never fall in the US on a national level(just as well argued btw., using a similar mix of justifications).
I completely agree, that there are serious problems to be solved. But how about not devaluing your arguments from the start by mixing static analysis(including extrapolation thereof), dynamic analysis and purely anecdotal evidence?
If you want to argue on a EROEI basis, why not keep it that way for investments made? If your argument is, that the cost of investment in new energy sources will seriously outstrip costs and lead to a break down in the short run, due to the fact that there was no honest accounting for fossile sources and these just simply arent available at assumed prices, why not take into consideration, that installations of renewable energy in the past, provide free energy, when considered over the same time frame.
Why not take into consideration, that there are vastly different levels of energy efficiency worldwide and that it seems highly unlikely, that seeing the most energy inefficient parts of the world (i.e. the US) go up in flames, under your scenario, would not lead to any adjustment in the rest of the world, prior to the break down of supply chains.
I guess my point is: keep your analysis honest: If you want to do an analysis on current data(+linear extrapolation), do it that way, if you want to make it dynamic, make it dynamic including potential reactions, clearly point out the uncertainties. If you want to write an opinion article based on anecdotal evidence, go ahead, but clearly mark it as such.
Your current analysis however mixes these three approaches and is about as valuable as the long run economic outlook presented by any investment bank or PR joint.

Ok I have thought about this for a few hours and my conclusion is that although you apply the right methods, tools and questions, your results are nonetheless fatally flawed by the too narrow scope of only including UK, Denmark and Spain and only wind. If you expand your analysis to include wind resources of greater Europe and to the stability of a more integrated European grid, and solar and geothermal, you will likely come to a much more positive conclusion on the benefits of a large penetration of wind turbines in the overall electrical system. And finally, natural gas resources in the form of shale gas and offshore fields in the Barents Sea are likely much, much larger in Europe than what your analysis covers.
1. Wind patterns and statistics for greater Europe (include France, Germany, Portugal, Benelux, Poland, Sweden, and offshore Norway in this) will show much smoother overall wind production than looking at UK, Denmark and Spain alone.
2. Solar production peaks in the summer season when electricity demand peaks and when winds are seasonally weakest. I.e. wind and solar are highly complementary viewed through the whole calendar year. This also implies a high penetration of solar works well with a high penetration of wind, integrated in a grid that includes greater Europe.
3. If you include geothermal, then the overall reliability of wind-solar-geothermal will be even better. Even low-enthalpy geothermal, which is only useful for district heating, will vastly reduce the power load currently used in the heating season where electricity is a major energy carrier for space heating. For those areas where the geothermal resource is good enough to produce electricity, this will be dispatchable base-load power.
4. New natural gas peaking power plants will likely be brought online across Europse as significant shale gas resources in Poland and other parts of Europe are developed, keeping natural gas prices low in Europe for the next 20 years. Add to that natural gas resources in the Barents sea that will be quickly explored in the region of Norwegian-Russian waters recently allocated by bilateral treaty.

Again I complement the authors on this comprehensive piece of work and I hope they continue to explore these questions, and to conclude prematurely based on this inadequate scope of this first look.

a few responses now, some more details later (in the next post):

1) Wind patterns for the Netherlands, France, Benelux and the rest of Scandinavia don't differ significantly from those in the three countries. The correlation coefficients between those three are already very low. So an even "greater Europe" won't offer better numbers for wind sharing, but even higher cost for supergrids.

2) Solar unfortunately offers only partial relief. If you look at Figure 8, October to December 2009 would look a) exactly the same across your larger region and offer no significant help from solar. On top of that, solar is and will likely be too expensive to make any meaningful contribution

3) geothermal isn't truly a load-balancing source, but rather something relatively steady (high fixed and permanent operations cost), so it is only marginally able to support fluctuations.

4) Shale gas will certainly provide an option, but the idea that shale gas will be "low cost" is likely too optimistic. If one looks at the economics of most shale plays in the U.S., none of them is profitable at current natural gas prices.

"The correlation coefficients between those three are already very low. So an even "greater Europe" won't offer better numbers".

Adding more uncorrelated random variables together will reduce the variance of the mean as 1/n or the standard deviation of 1/sqrt(n). So moving to "greater Europe" in an uncorrelated setting will definitely help. If it is sufficient is a different matter, as the tails are kind of important in this calculation which can only be determined by more precise calculations or simulations. (The numbers are probably too small and correlated, especially in time, to effectively apply the central limit theorem)

Given overall weather systems in Europe, wind outputs for areas between the three regions will always be highly correlated with one of the three regions themselves. France is right in between Spain and the U.K., Belgium and the Netherlands right behind the UK, Germany between the UK and Denmark, Portugal right next to Spain.

According to the EU map of wind potential in this thread, French wind is best along the Mediterranean coast.

This implies sea breezes to me (a twice daily cycle driven by the fact that land heats & cools faster than water).

Texas has a comparable area south of Corpus Christi and ERCOT wants more wind from there to balance the West Texas wind patterns.

Sea breezes work nicely with solar BTW in their time of day curves.

Alan

This implies sea breezes to me

Where I live (within site of Altamont pass wind turbines), sea breezes are important, but they are highly modulated by weather systems. Generally with favorable weather (west wind aloft), the wind speed is hogher (maybe twice average), but when the general synoptic wind pattern is unfavorable they all but stop. So I don't think sea breezes help all that much.

OTOH, ocean flows, mainly tides and waves would go a long way towards reducing renewables variations. The tides have little variation beyond the 12hour cycle, a bit of a 2week and monthly cycle, but that is predicable decades in advance. Waves depend on storms often thousands of miles (and days) away, so they would also help reduce net renewables variance. Whether these sources can be economically developed is a different matter.

The general conclusion, that once the fossil fuels are gone, absent a large nuclear component, the steady or on demand availability of essentially unlimited power will be a thing of the past is not in serious dispute. Society will adapt to the changed circumstances. There will be no choice but to do so. The time for the transition is likely longer than the typical lifetime of a given piece of generating equipment (so 25 years for say a WT, and 50-60 years to transition to a high level of flow based systems). We should have plenty of time for the technology, and especially the society to adapt to the new normal. In the old days, farmers worked really hard during the summer, and harvest season, but not so much during the winter. I also knew a few people who did forest service jobs during the warm season, but had to find other work (or unemployment) during the cold season. Work that is not guaranteed to be steady throughout the year may become more important than at present. It may well be that some energy intensive industry will eventually have to adapt to the rythym of the seasons as well. That is a differenr style of life than we had in the twentieth century. But, it need not mean the end of advanced civilization.

Adding more uncorrelated random variables together will increase the total variability - just not as fast as the mean output increases. So if ten independent feeds have a mean output of 300MW and a standard deviation of 160MW, then adding another such ten independent feeds will result in a mean output of 600MW and a standard deviation of 225MW, roughly. The variance of each feed is just as big as it ever was, of course.

So, the ratio of Std Dev to mean output becomes smaller as the system gets larger.

So, the variance becomes much easier to manage.

IOW, 20 wind farms in 6 countries is easier to manage than 10 windfarms in 3 countries.

If wind turbines produced independently, they'd be incredibly reliable baseload in aggregate. Unfortunately, they do not, and neither does farms, and neither does countries, at least not neighboring countries in Europe.

But farms and countries are partially independent: Look at the UK and Denmark, which are not very far apart, but have a very low level of inter-dependence.

As more countries are added, especially on the perimeter, the problem gets smaller.

The problem isn't likely to get smaller by geographical dispersion faster than it gets larger by increased wind penetration.

Ah, but the problem is more than manageable right now, so if the problem just stays the same size, we're fine.

we're fine.

We'll have to disagree on that. In my estimation, we are most definitely not fine. There is a reason why various entities are warning on everything from social discord to threatened democracies as fossil fuels decline. You choose to gloss over their warnings but I hope that others don't.

I was talking about the narrow issue of managing wind variation.

You choose to gloss over their warnings but I hope that others don't.

Not at all. I think our addiction to oil carries many large costs, as well as large risks (some likely, others less so), and that we should transition away from oil (and all FF) ASAP. I probably should say that more often, in the midst of trying to tone down the tendency to apocalyticism.

The problem here: look at the summary of the original post again. They're arguing for a slowdown in wind and solar!!!!

The authors of this post are arguing for FF BAU.

The problem doesn't stay the same size. With increased wind, the problems associated with intermittence grows larger. There will be counter-measures, such as improved grids, but that will only go so far, and probably those costs will be taken externally, unfortunately.

True. I wouldn't suggest that wind would make sense for more than, say, 60% of kWhs for the grid. I don't think anyone is suggesting otherwise.

Congrats, 60% is the highest bid I've seen yet. As you know, I think it'll stop around 20%.

Well, it's all a matter of tradeoffs and policy choices.

If we don't like nuclear and solar, then wind has to be larger. If nuclear and solar come down in price, and nuclear installation time improves, then there will be less need for wind.

If we put a high price on CO2, then we'll want to install a lot of wind despite it's intermittency, because solar prices won't come down quickly enough, and nuclear won't ramp up quickly enough.

Choices...

Obviously, but wind will get so expensive after 20% that it isn't likely to get built anyway. But sure, with subsidies anything is possible.

wind will get so expensive after 20%

Only if we handle it very, very badly. If we build lots of expensive dedicated backup, or large central batteries, that would be expensive. OTOH, if we use DSM, and other sensible systemic strategies, it will rise in cost very slowly above 20%.

It will rise quite rapidly after 20%. DSM might be cheap on the margin now, because you buy the cheapest negawatts first, but with larger volumes, it'll be much more expensive.

Also, the added expense at higher penetrations will be very much due to low revenue. If you already have 20% penetration, any added wind will produce the most at times when the spot price of electricity is low or zero, since the grid is saturated with all other nearby wind. Of course, this new wind will hurt the profitability of already installed wind too. This is true of all energy sources, but three to four times as bad for wind and solar because of co-variation.

. DSM might be cheap on the margin now, because you buy the cheapest negawatts first, but with larger volumes, it'll be much more expensive.

Do you have any info behind that estimate? It looks to me like there's quite a lot of demand that can be used in DSM (in the long run at least 25%, and probably 50% with the right pricing), which means that marginal costs would rise quite slowly. For instance, in the long run about 20% of demand would be for EVs, which work very nicely with DSM.

. If you already have 20% penetration, any added wind will produce the most at times when the spot price of electricity is low or zero, since the grid is saturated with all other nearby wind.

That's only at night, and that depends on a lack of flexible demand. In fact, in the long run there will be a lot of flexible demand, as discussed above.

To the extent to which it is a problem it's a regulatory/financial problem (as opposed to a physical energy problem), which we'll simply have to figure out how to solve. IOW, I'm not so concerned about temporary idiosyncratic market/regulation problems as the fundamentals.

For each percentage point it gets more costly, and it all adds up: Grid costs, smart grid costs, increasing DSM marginal costs, lower and lower spot prices. I think it will be too time consuming and ultimately futile for me to try to convince you quantitatively. But let me point out that economics IS the "fundamentals" here. Nobody argues that it is technically impossible.

Also, you may want to note that wind is squeezed by nuclear, which is another almost-zero marginal cost producer. At 20% nuclear, which may well rise in the coming decades, at most 80% is left for wind to profitably fill out when the wind blows really well. It is a problem that the two coal competitors, nuclear and wind, are so badly matched. But it is a fact that wind is even more badly matched to itself than it is to nuclear, so wind will be the big loser as these alternatives ramp.

Pumped storage is the friend of nukes, wind and solar.

One hypothetical grid where wind is poor and no geothermal (Southeast USA for example) is a nuke + solar + pumped storage grid (with bio-mass & FF back-up).

From, say 11 PM to 5:30 AM a surplus of nuke pumps water up. Down in the early morning. Then a surplus of solar PV pumps water up for 3 hours before solar noon to 2 hours after solar noon.

Water down in the evening till 11 PM.

Add a small amount of wind when available.

Turn some nukes off in the spring and fall (like the French do).

Works well with a summer peaking utility.

Alan

increasing DSM marginal costs

What do you have in mind?

lower and lower spot prices

That's an interesting question - I'd like to see someone analyze that.

economics IS the "fundamentals" here.

There is analysis of costs (engineering economics) and there's analysis of market pricing dynamics. They're pretty different.

it is a fact that wind is even more badly matched to itself than it is to nuclear, so wind will be the big loser as these alternatives ramp.

That partly depends on how creative consumers are at chasing cheap power. I think we'll be surprised.

As I said, DSM is cheap if you want to shave off a percent, because you buy the cheapest negawatt available. But each negawatt you buy will be more expensive.

Consumers being creative in chasing cheap power? Only to the extent that it can be automated and unnoticeable to the consumer. So I think we'll be disappointed.

each negawatt you buy will be more expensive.

Remember, we're not talking about investing in efficiency, we're talking about shifting demand around. I don't really see any significant out of pocket costs. What do you have in mind?

Consumers being creative in chasing cheap power?

"Consumers" includes industrial/commercial, who will be mighty creative. It also includes manufacturers, looking for a way to entice people to buy that new washer/dryer. Both areas will be mighty creative.

Only to the extent that it can be automated and unnoticeable to the consumer.

That can be done to avery great extent. Keep in mind that we have decades to complete the shift, which gives more than enough time to replace appliances and vehicles seamlessly.

I think we'll be disappointed.

Only if we choose to be. Remember, people respond to prices. Price things correctly, and people will respond.

we're talking about shifting demand around. I don't really see any significant out of pocket costs. What do you have in mind?

What do YOU have in mind? Computers, light, ACs, cooking and so on is just-in-time and won't be shifted. Heating might be shifted a bit, but not much until uncomfortable. Some industry may shift a bit without problem - but most won't be able to shift at all or will be shifting at great expense. As I said, shifting some might be easy and cheap, but the more you shift, the more expensive it will become.

Both areas will be mighty creative.

Do you recognise that this creativeness comes at a cost - a cost that is external to the renewables in question?

Keep in mind that we have decades to complete the shift, which gives more than enough time to replace appliances and vehicles seamlessly.

Decades, hmm? Then you agree that wind's exceptional growth will have to slow down considerably in just a few years, as going past 15-20% will be undoable until enough accomodations are made?

Price things correctly, and people will respond.

If you price things correctly, wind won't get built much and PV will hardly get built at all.

Computers, light, ACs, cooking and so on is just-in-time and won't be shifted.

A little bit of computing can be shifted. The move to "cloud computing" creates opportunities for this kind of finetuning.

Light has a fair amount of potential. Light levels can be reduced by 30% without most people noticing.

A/C has a fair amount of potential. Thermostats can be set back by 2 degrees, or A/C units can be turned off for 15 minutes without people noticing a difference. Commercial A/C and refrigeration has more leeway. Much more can be done with some investment - Icebear, and so on.

---------------------------------

EVs are likely to represent about 20% of demand, and they provide a great deal of potential. Roughly 50% of wind production will be when needed, so in theory a fully dynamically adjustable load that represents 20% of demand would by itself allow a 40% market share for wind.

this creativeness comes at a cost?

Sure, but if it's done over a long time, that cost is very small. Design improvements, if amortized over large production volume, are extremely cheap.

Decades, hmm? Then you agree that wind's exceptional growth will have to slow down considerably in just a few years, as going past 15-20% will be undoable until enough accomodations are made?

No, because I don't agree with the 15-20% limit. I say we push wind much farther than that, and turn down the coal plants and keep them for backup.

If you price things correctly, wind won't get built much and PV will hardly get built at all.

I thought we'd settled this: if we include the external costs of fossil fuels, they can't compete with wind, and PV costs are falling fast.

Light has a fair amount of potential. Light levels can be reduced by 30% without most people noticing.

Light also has massive efficiency slack, with newer lighting technologies able
to free up many GW; the effect is already seen in flattening power profiles.

A/C has a fair amount of potential. Thermostats can be set back by 2 degrees, or A/C units can be turned off for 15 minutes without people noticing a difference.

One of my pet peeves, is the lazy/simplistic controls on thermostats.
There is no current scope for a cost-defined profile, nor for a comfort defined one. All they have is a flat-Temperature, with some time-zone choices.

Given most new models have remote controls, a relatively simple standardize effort there, could allow after market addition of much smarter control profiles.

Computers have a great possibility for being made efficient. My big machine uses 200W,my laptop 20W. If technology available today was put into practice you could replace desktops/laptops with machines using 2-10W without much effort. The big problem is the Microsoft/Intel duality that ties up a market. You could have home computers that come with solar cells and battery that would never need to be a drain on the mains supply.

A/C, if it is off for 15 mins it will need to make up for that. Instead better insulation of homes and de-humidification instead of A/C would be of great benefit. The replacement of old, very inefficient systems too. Reduce the need for power and you reduce the A/C need too.

Lighting? Perfect target for PV and also passive illumination.

NAOM

PS Icebear - interesting

My Mac Mini uses 14 watts. The latest version uses 10 watts. And it is on a UPS (see battery).

I have a humidistat attached to my central a/c. When humidity is >50%, it slows down the fan and more water is removed from the air and less sensible cooling. It should be MUCH more common !

Best Hopes folr Better Efficiency,

Alan

Is your humidistat fan control something you designed and built, or can it be bought off the shelf?

The leads are standard on the high end Carrier evaporator and just about every brand with a variable speed evaporator fan (ICM ?).

However, few installations actually hook up the humidistat. There are some expensive controls that combine thermostat with humidistat, but I went separate (MUCH cheaper if one fails).

Alan

For de-humidification the answer is not A/C but a unit that recovers the cold from the outgoing air so that the air leaves at the same temperature it entered,far more efficient. One recent day here the thermometer was at 26C and I was hot and sweating, humidity way up. Other days 28-30C can feel cold when the humidity is down. 90% of the time I need A/C just pulling the humidity down to 60% would be all that is needed with no chilling at all.

NAOM

EDIT: Forgot about the MiniMac, we haven't had many Macs around here and I have not seen any 2nd hand or I might think of bagging one. Although they are low power you still have to add in all the other kit such as screens etc. I am thinking more in line of the whole system, screens modems and all.

At this moment, 6:25 AM on September 24, 2010, it is 25.8 C with a dewpoint of 24 C, a relative humidity of 87%. With a forecast high of 32 C and thunderstorms.

the UK may not need a/c but it is a blessing here.

And it is a waste to throw away the cooling from dehumidifiers.

Alan

BTW I am ex-pat UK in Mexico. 25.8C RH 87% would feel uncomfortable.get the RH down to 60% and it will feel cool. An efficient dehumidifier would be adequate. OTOH 32C, I would agree with the use of A/C along with the dehumidifier. The last 2 days here 30/31C 66% comfy, 26C 100% horrible. At the lower temperatures you wouldn't be throwing away the cooling but recycling it. At the higher temperatures add some cooling to the mix by all means. The point is that A?C is the wrong solution for the low temperature/high humidity discomfort which should be dealt with by dehumidification at a much lower energy cost as you are not reducing temperature. As temperatures rise then, by all means, add in cooling to the mix. It is pointless trying to use A/C to cool a room from 26C to 22C to make it comfortable when the RH is way high, get the humidity down first (also better for your household goods, less mildew).

NAOM

Climates vary. And so does my a/c.

High inside humidity (>50% RH) and the balance shifts to removing humidity with less cooling. A slower fan means a colder coil and greater condensation from the air. Humidity drops faster than the temperature inside my home.

As noted, a small percent of air conditioners are equipped with a humidistat. Mine is one of the few.

Dehumidifiers are typically inefficient energy hogs for what they do. One reason is less engineering for optimal efficiency.

The type you describe are heaters. They use electricity and expel that waste heat into the room. I would discourage their use when cooling is needed.

Alan

A/C, if it is off for 15 mins it will need to make up for that.

Some, perhaps most will, but it gives the utility some time to maneuver to deal with changes in power supply.

Your suggestions are great, but keep in mind I'm talking about DSM, not negawatts/efficiency.

A little bit of computing can be shifted.

Very little.

Light has a fair amount of potential. Light levels can be reduced by 30% without most people noticing.

Light has little potential. We'll use it when we feel we need it. And PV is out, since artificial light is more important when the sun doesn't shine. LEDs are likely to increase electricity use by means of Jevons.

A/C has a fair amount of potential.

No, it has not. I don't think variations over tens of minutes is the problem. It's the hours and days.

EVs are likely to represent about 20% of demand, and they provide a great deal of potential.

The EV penetration remains to be seen, and most won't be shiftable.

No, because I don't agree with the 15-20% limit. I say we push wind much farther than that, and turn down the coal plants and keep them for backup.

Load following coal plants won't help the problem with added wind being worth little due to low spot prices above that level.

I thought we'd settled this: if we include the external costs of fossil fuels, they can't compete with wind, and PV costs are falling fast.

PV is non-viable either way. Yes, fossils with internalised costs can't compete with wind AT LOW PENETRATIONS. At high wind penetrations, as I've mentioned, spot prices will go to zero in the event of high wind production, while fossils would get good spot prices at other times. Also, nuclear would get a big boost, which would also squeeze wind.

Light has little potential. We'll use it when we feel we need it.

That's a pretty bald assertion. I though you were a free-market enthusiast. Don't you believe people respond to price signals?

PV is out, since artificial light is more important when the sun doesn't shine.

Some. OTOH, A/C needs will fall much faster than lighting needs will increase. Even in winter, what I said is true: most home and work areas get much more light than the minimum needed.

LEDs are likely to increase electricity use by means of Jevons.

We're talking about DSM here, not overall demand levels.

A/C has a fair amount of potential. - No, it has not. I don't think variations over tens of minutes is the problem. It's the hours and days.

A/C can be shifted over hours. A lot of the evening demand is due to A/C that's off during the day. Well, better to price power higher in the evening, and shift that A/C demand earlier.

The EV penetration remains to be seen, and most won't be shiftable.

I expect EREVs to dominate for quite some time. And, again, this depends on price signals.

Load following coal plants won't help the problem with added wind being worth little due to low spot prices above that level.

True - I wouldn't expect it would. That's what DSM is for.

At high wind penetrations, as I've mentioned, spot prices will go to zero in the event of high wind production, while fossils would get good spot prices at other times.

Why wouldn't wind get good spot prices at other times as well? I think you're overestimating the "bunchiness" of wind output. Finally, DSM would help shift demand to high wind output periods.

I think your glass is extremely half-full.

I though you were a free-market enthusiast. Don't you believe people respond to price signals?

I do, but I'm skeptical about people following electricity prices on an hourly basis to adjust their level of light, and I'm skeptical about people wanting to install equipment to automatically dim their lights in the event of high prices and flood the rooms with extra light when there are good winds.

"LEDs are likely to increase electricity use by means of Jevons."

We're talking about DSM here, not overall demand levels.

But as I said, lightning is ill suited to DSM.

Well, better to price power higher in the evening, and shift that A/C demand earlier.

Cool earlier? The you introduce a temperature differential for a longer time and so increase the total load. Also, won't prices naturally be higher during the day than in the evening?`

I expect EREVs to dominate for quite some time. And, again, this depends on price signals.

The US seems very reluctant to introduce artificial price signals.

True - I wouldn't expect it would. That's what DSM is for.

I think it won't help much, price-wise.

Why wouldn't wind get good spot prices at other times as well?

Oh, it will, but what good is high prices at times you don't produce very much?

I'm skeptical about people following electricity prices on an hourly basis to adjust their level of light

Yes, this would have to be automated, and that would happen mostly in industrial/commercial settings.

Cool earlier? The you introduce a temperature differential for a longer time and so increase the total load.

True. Power, ultimately, is pretty cheap, and a large increase of DSM would be worth a small increase in total load.

Also, won't prices naturally be higher during the day than in the evening?

We're talking about the late afternoon/early evening demand peak, very roughly 2pm to 7pm depending on location. This load needs to be flattened: shifted either earlier or later.

The US seems very reluctant to introduce artificial price signals.

Actually, time-of-day pricing is available from every utility in the US, as mandated by the 2005 Energy Act. It's the utilities who don't publicize it much, as they're not really eager to reduce sales.

what good is high prices at times you don't produce very much?

I think you're overestimating this effect. It would be interesting to see a quantitative analysis. Partly, the price variation of wind power will depend on demand shifting. EVs will help with that.

Yes, this would have to be automated, and that would happen mostly in industrial/commercial settings.

So industrial and commercial actors would research how low light conditions affect productivity or sales, and dim their lights based on that curve and the electricity price?

Power, ultimately, is pretty cheap, and a large increase of DSM would be worth a small increase in total load.

This would likely be a relatively low increase in DSM for a large increase in total load.

very roughly 2pm to 7pm depending on location. This load needs to be flattened: shifted either earlier or later.

Five hours. That's a lot.

Actually, time-of-day pricing is available from every utility in the US,

That's not artificial. The requirement may be artificial, but I guess the prices are not.

I think you're overestimating this effect. It would be interesting to see a quantitative analysis. Partly, the price variation of wind power will depend on demand shifting. EVs will help with that.

I think you're overestimating the EV help and underestimating the spot-price problems of wind. Some of what you'd like regarding analysis you can find here and here. Of course, you could always argue that the substantial price effects in Denmarks system (in spite of liberal connections to Swedish and Norse hydro) are due to immature DSM? But Denmark has had 20% wind for many years now.

So industrial and commercial actors would research how low light conditions affect productivity or sales

Sure. There's a large body of ergonomic research and data on this: it's an old, old question. It's a standard thing for corporate energy managers to run around measuring light levels with a meter, comparing levels to standards for various kinds of work and room types.

This would likely be a relatively low increase in DSM for a large increase in total load.

Not really. Pull A/C earlier by two hours, and you might increase the temp difference between inside and outside slightly, but you'll flatten the peak quite a bit.

Five hours. That's a lot.

The specific peak window is smaller - that's a range for various regions.

underestimating the spot-price problems of wind.

Oh, I know that wind has an impact. The question: how much does wind variance reduce the average price per kWh versus the impact of wind on prices without variance?

In the links I gave there is a nice diagram with spot prices for a windy day and a not-so-windy day. It's clear that wind gets real low prices, and that's for relatively low penetrations.

That tells us that wind power reduces spot prices, but still doesn't answer the question: how much effect does output variation have on the merit order effect which reduces the average price per kWh of wind power (and nuclear)? IOW, how much would wind power reduce spot prices, if it had no variance, and how does that compare to wind with variance?

Why is that question relevant? It has variance. Nuclear has not, so nuclear will get a much higher spot price. The higher the wind penetration, the worse the average wind electricity price. And the effect is very, very significant already at 20%.

Nuclear and wind will get the same price at the same production levels, right? If we add another GW of power onto the market (say, 3GW of wind nameplate @33% production level or 1GW of nuclear at 100%), the effect on prices will be the same (except for the very unusual case of negative prices).

If production rises to 1.5GW (50% production), prices might fall from, say, 6 cents, by a cent per kWh. If they fall to .5GW, they might rise by the same. Average out 3 equal periods like this, and we get a weighted average of 5.5 cents.

That's a reduction, but it's not the end of the world.

First, there is no guarantee at all for symmetry.

A more reasonable estimate: wind gets half the price for 2/3 of its production, gained in 1/3 of the time. Thus nuclear gets half the price for 1/3 of its production.

Wind: P*1/3+0.5P*2/3 = 2P/3
Nuclear: P*2/3+0.5P*1/3 = 5P/6

Nuclear average price is (5P/6)/(2P/3) = 5/4 = 125% of wind's average price. That's for a low penetration of 20%. At 30% or perhaps 40%, the price for wind is zero for 2/3 of wind production and 1/3 of nuclear production. Then nuclear will get, on average, fully 200% of wind's price.

You missed that in a mixed grid, outages by nukes, particularly forced outages, will create windfall profits for wind. The global average for nukes was 80.0%. Refueling is about 5% of that, the rest being forced outages.

Earlier this year, France had to import power from UK, Germany, etc. for an extended period because of excessive outages by their nukes. If EdF had 10 GW of wind installed, with their 4 GW of pumped storage, this would likely have not been needed.

Alan

Only if we choose to be. Remember, people respond to prices. Price things correctly, and people will respond.

Yes, but you need to be very careful extrapolating that.

That 'logic' is behind carbon tax ideas, yet the recent fuel price spike shows very well, how LITTLE change in consumption really resulted, from a LARGE hike in prices.

As pure consumption control, price alone is lousy, and has a lot of collateral damage.
Huge wealth transfers occur, for scant changes.

You have to keep in mind lag effects. Short term demand elasticity is very different from long-term, because 1) people take a while to decide whether a price change is temporary, and 2) some investments take a while. Also, oil and gasoline prices were historically low before the 2003-2008 price runup, so it took a while for prices to rise above the "noise" level.

As for wealth transfers, I think the best way to handle that is to rebate revenues back. For instance, rebating gasoline tax revenues to the population on a per-capita basis.

You have to keep in mind lag effects. Short term demand elasticity is very different from long-term, because 1) people take a while to decide whether a price change is temporary, and 2) some investments take a while. Also, oil and gasoline prices were historically low before the 2003-2008 price runup, so it took a while for prices to rise above the "noise" level.

Sure, but that's another argument AGAINST price as a control mechanism.

As for wealth transfers, I think the best way to handle that is to rebate revenues back. For instance, rebating gasoline tax revenues to the population on a per-capita basis.

Politicians are eager to deflect the fallout, but if you hike prices and then pay them all back, all you have is very costly churn. (along with the usual collection of winners and losers found in the fringes of any blanket policy)

The illusion of action trap.

That's why I believe a focused excise charge makes far more sense : With that, you are NOT trying to use a inefficient, time-delayed, wasteful blunt instrument as your control mechanism : it is there merely as a revenue raiser.

What you SPEND the money on becomes critically important. FIT are but one example, and that is proven to shift supply.

One need only look at the EU & Japanese vs. USA & Canada auto/SUV fleets to see the long term difference that high fuel taxes make.

A MAJOR difference ! Roughly triple the price and double the efficiency seems to be the long term effect.

My proposal is a long term phased in, very high gas tax.

Such as, no increase for the first 9 months, then 3 cents/gallon/month for 15 years, with quarterly inflation adjustments. (.03 x 12 x 15 = $5.40/gallon)

Time and warning enough to make adjustments (savings out of concern over future tax increases) but minimize teh actual bite out of peoples budgets.

Of course, Peak Oil will overtake the tax, but people believe in tax increases.

Alan

A MAJOR difference ! Roughly triple the price and double the efficiency seems to be the long term effect.

Europeans use 18% as much oil for personal transportation, per capita. I don't know how much of that is due to infrastructure that won't accomodate cars (parking, street-width, etc) and how much is high fuel prices, but I think we can assume that the effect is larger than just double the efficiency. I'd say that we can assume that the effect is roughly triple the efficiency.

That's why I believe a focused excise charge makes far more sense : With that, you are NOT trying to use a inefficient, time-delayed, wasteful blunt instrument as your control mechanism

A carbon tax is great as a control mechanism. It is not inefficient, rather it is optimal. Time delays are precisely what they should be and waste is minimized. If the money is given back to the population by labor tax reductions, you increase the amount of labor and so the amount of wealth, while you suppress carbon emissions.

What you SPEND the money on becomes critically important. FIT are but one example, and that is proven to shift supply.

FITs are typically very wasteful. They tend to subsidize some production more than others - unrelated to emissions to boot. This distorts the market, and it subsidize and thus increase overall electricity consumption unnecessarily. The carbon tax is much, much better as it creates a combination of shifted supply and destroyed demand that is optimal.

Very true.

The problem: legacy industries fight taxes that will reduce their production. It's politically easier to subsidize everyone to level the playing field.

A carbon tax is great as a control mechanism. It is not inefficient, rather it is optimal. Time delays are precisely what they should be and waste is minimized. If the money is given back to the population by labor tax reductions, you increase the amount of labor and so the amount of wealth, while you suppress carbon emissions

?? but price is PROVEN to be a lousy consumption control, so this is pure wishful thinking. HOW much tax were you planning ?

All that happens with a Tax alone, is the price hikes are passed on (yes, just like fuel prices, examples abound), and that penalizes EVERYONE, whilst giving those actually emitting NO REASON to change. Indeed, you have just handed them a gold plated excuse to do nothing. They can claim they are 'doing something' as they are paying a tax.
(actually., their customer are paying the tax...)

Hand the money back, and guess what, those carbon emissions are unchanged, and worse, now there are NO PLANS to change!

You have fallen into the illusion of action trap.

The industries showing real changes in consumption and emissions, are those where BUILDING SOMETHING NEW gets done.
Otherwise, you get BAU in a greensmoke wrapper.

The carbon tax is much, much better as it creates a combination of shifted supply and destroyed demand that is optimal.

How ? Nothing NEW is actually built!!.
Also, Windfall profits go to all the wrong places, as those NOT paying the carbon impost, simply price-match those who are.

It is churn. Price is proven a lousy means to destroy demand, and taxes alone, are a lazy politicians dream.

It's great to hear nuclear being recommended on TOD. A recent MIT study has shown concerns over 'peak uranium' to be greatly exaggerated, and that's not even including GenIV breeder reactors!

http://web.mit.edu/mitei/news/spotlights/nuclear-cycle.html

So I agree with all of the concerns listed above around intermittent renewables. We would need truly startling new energy storage devices to make renewables competitive with nuclear. I would encourage the more technically minded amongst us to watch the 'water-balloon' storage system being developed in the UK.

* A new approach for wind: these wind turbines will float far off the coast and not be visible from land.
* They will compress air, not generate electricity.
* The compressed air is stored in large rubber balloons deep under water. The balloons are about the size of your house.
* These balloons use the pressure of deeper sea water to maximise the pressure that the air is stored at, making the rubber materials cheaper than trying to store all that air in steel strong enough to take compressed air on land.
* With good wind, the turbines blow the compressed air straight into generating electricity. When the wind is low, the balloons take over supplying the compressed air to move the turbines.
* It’s cheaper than any storage so far: Batteries are at about $500 thousand per mWh, Pumped hydro is about $80 thousand per mWh of storage, but these compressed balloons are only about $1 thousand per mWh!
* Claims that the whole UK could run on wind without Brits even seeing the turbines because they are all so far off-shore!
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2010/2952227.htm

* The compressed air is stored in large rubber balloons deep under water. The balloons are about the size of your house.

There was a good analysis of Compressed Air storage here :

http://canada.theoildrum.com/node/3473

Turns out, the higher the pressure, the worse the round-trip losses.
At the 600m depth, that's ~60 atmospheres.
(100 atmospheres was 27% Ideal efficieny, 10 atmosphere was 52% Ideal efficieny)
- and those balloons will need house-sized anchors, to hold them down...

His ideal of a blade-pump, means the compressed air needs to cross two rotating-seal boundaries.

So the idea is simple but is it viable ?

At least as described the whole idea is nuts - why on earth would you build air compressing wind turbines and then use the air to generate electricity when you could use conventional electricity generating turbines instead?

The result would be all the time there is not a need to store the electricity you still get the awful round trip efficiency of the storage system (on the numbers above no better then 30% real word would seem likely) compared to a shaft power to electricity efficiency that is likely to be in the 80% region. Add to that that you can in this system only store what the wind farm itself produces while a system with an electric compressor could store energy from anywhere you also get a very poor usability of your capital equipment. The result would be that you would end up needing far more kit to do the same job.

If you consider a system that uses 100% wind @ 1/3 capacity factor then with perfect storage you need 300% nameplate capacity. With the proposed storage system there is little difference if you store the energy or not so you need at least another 3 times multiplier to cover the extra efficiency losses making 900%+ nameplate. Alternatively you could use a more rational storage system where you use say half the electricity directly and need to store half at 25% round trip efficiency. For this you need 50% x 3 = 150% nameplate for the energy used directly and 50% x 3 x 4 = 600% nameplate for the stored portion making 750% nameplate overall.

In the real world it may of course work out cheaper to overbuild more and spill some wind rather than providing maximum storage. It also appears that compressed air storage works out about the same efficiency as synthetic fuel storage without CHP and probably less efficient than synthetic fuel with CHP. Synthetic fuel also has the advantage that existing thermal power stations can be used for the initial phase reducing the capital cost, the amount of new technology to go wrong and allowing the whole system to be fossil fuel backed.

why on earth would you build air compressing wind turbines and then use the air to generate electricity

The energy efficiency of compressed air is of course a poor one because compression creates waste heat (PV=nRT)

On the other hand, if we have high wind during a minimum demand period, why not try to store some of the excess energy, say in a pressurizable underground chamber/cave?

Maybe some of the waste heat energy could be used to drive a low temp rankine engine and generate electricity from that?

Something to think about.

I think the upper level for nuke is about 60% and wind around 50-55% (depends on area).

Alan

I've read the original post again, and I must be missing something here. If it's not windy enough in the UK, Spain and Denmark at the same time, there must be some hellish weather about to make enough covering wind generation from the countries between them. It's certainly not uncommon for a weather pattern to stall over France, give massive heatwaves to the whole of Europe and produce barely enough wind to worry a dandilion.

I'd bet that we would need to turn the whole Med into a pumped storage device to cover an outage like that.

Just like the rest of the posts in this series, it seems to be a sensible exploration of the peripheral implications around a central theme. It doesn't leave me with the feeling that that it isn't worth trying, but that if we go down that route don't expect to come out the other end with BAU. We'll just have to get used to "Near Enough'.

+10 to Todd's follow-up

This predominantly reflects my thoughts. I see progress made since the first set of articles, though I sense a tendency to focus only on that material that supports the very early conclusions by the authors. I am quite supportive of scientific studies where the authors say "the results were quite a bit different that we had presupposed..."

I'd also suggest a re-examination of the modeling approach, with perhaps a focus on more discrete methods (this topic alone could take up an article series).

I sense a tendency to focus only on that material that supports the very early conclusions by the authors.

I don't like to say it (maybe its unfair), but maybe the IIER's funding sources might theathen to cut funding if the result is seen as too hosile to their business intersts, which may well include fossil fuel interests? Perhaps they can only push so hard against their directives?

I was hoping there would be a clear thesis statement about the focus of this article series. I was heartened to see "How Can Renewable Sources Support Our Current Energy Delivery Expectations?". However, the body of the text went on to address future scenarios that had no resemblence to our current energy delivery expectations (i.e, large scale DSM, etc).

There are also what I would consider slanted presentations, which have been brought to the attention of the author in the past, such as where to draw the actual capacity line in a wind power output chart (that only addresses UK wind production, not even DK and Spain). The version shown above attempts to force a 90% actual capacity value on wind, where in reality is should be closer to ~33% (to include older turbines). The author was shown another version of the same diagram with a different capacity line that gave a completely different perspective;

On top of that, a study recently came out that completely undercuts this article;

NREL study says 35 percent of electricity could come from solar and wind--without expensive new backup power plants.

"The studies are showing the costs are a lot lower than what people thought they were going to be," says Daniel Brooks, project manager for power delivery and utilization at the Electric Power Research Institute. Even if wind farms had to pay for the necessary grid upgrades and backup power themselves, they could still sell electricity at competitive rates, he says.

After an initial read of the body of this latest Fire Bridge article, there are a number of assumptions I would clearly challenge. On top of that, there are unusual statements that are used as premises that are not really even points (i.e., " In the future depicted above, it will be 3.3 times that of average power demand (100GW), or – when the peak power risks should be mitigated, even 3.7 times average power demand. This incurs significant extra cost and produces a lot of idle equipment." Solar and wind are expected to be idle at time, the actual capacity is the number to use.)

And it is unclear if a stochastic model (without regard to time of day, seasonal demand, season output, and daily output [especially for solar] ) was used to generate the model, which would give only the roughest order of magnitude and have very high error bars for confidence.

If we were to support large wind power with natural gas, we would see a much lower capacity utilization of a much larger required fleet of standby gas power plants

Natural gas turbines are at a fairly low level of utilization right now, predominantly for summer time peaking in the US. Arguably, they could have fewer start/stops and a higher capacity utilization if responding to seasonal wind profiles.

Ultimately, the best way to understand energy sources is to review their ability to fit the human demand system, which is – and always will be – relatively steady over long periods, and with specific fluctuations related to days, weekdays/weekends and seasons.

This is self-contradictory - if there are daily/weekly/seasonal fluctuations, then the demand is not steady. And again, this ignores DSM.

And if those “rare” events occur 60 times every year, it means that there will be an unavoidable blackout more than once a week on average.

Only if DSM, storage, and dispatchable supplies (e.g. hydro, gas) are ignored, though the article says they are considered.

I would suggest that IIER either hire energy modelers, or become such themselves if they want to expand their expertise into this area.

I have a very busy day, though, so will not be able to get to a detailed reply on this anytime soon.

Here is the NREL study for people to examine closely, because the devil is always in the details and there is more than a fair share of studies that miss important elements and thus come out with rosy conclusions for our future (almost any energy outlook by almost any public agency comes to mind).

http://www.nrel.gov/wind/systemsintegration/wwsis.html

I'm not so ready to accept your assertion that it "completely undercuts" the analysis above.

Note that Portugal now gets 45% of it's electricity from renewables. Portugal’s next goal is 60% by 2020.

I understand that.

It's likely to stall there in the next few years, in my view, and most countries will never get anywhere close to that number until their economies dramatically shrink.

IMHO, PO will be a catalyst in the shrinking of economies in the near future (and as it likely is to some degree now).

Portugal is a very special case. First of all, it doesn't produce 45% of its energy with renewables, but only about 35-36%. In their energy reporting, they unfortunately report a significant part of natural gas power production as part of the pie with the label "PRE Outros", which has a share of 15% or 17% respectively. The vast majority in this category, which stands for "regimen especial" (another word for feed-in tariffs) comes from natural gas powered CHP plants, so between 50-60% of those 15-17% isn't renewable at all, but highly flexible gas power. The rest is everything else, like biogas, a little bit of solar, wave, waste, etc.). Please see: http://www.erse.pt/pt/electricidade/factosenumeros/Documents/SIPRESet10i.... Wind itself stands at around 17%.

What Portugal did, and successfully given its topography, is to build hydropower, which helps to deal with the increasing market share of wind. However, over time, Portugal shows the pattern of every small country with a lot of wind. The fluctuations get compensated by heavy use of hydro, natural gas and foreign inputs. If we had hourly data like with Denmark, we would see a similar pattern of extremely high fluctuations from stocks, but even the ever-increasing share of the flexible compensators shows that this is a problem. Wouldn't it be for heavy imports providing the buffer, Portugal might already now have some trouble (see page 9 in this document, showing data for 2009, 2010 was nowhere to be found: http://www.erse.pt/pt/imprensa/noticias/2010/Documents/Debate%20Energia%...

For 2010, the pattern is as described in our paper. In the first 7 months, it produced 18% of its electricity from wind, but only 13% in July. Together with hydropower this creates another problem, as Portugal shows very well. In most countries, this is equally a seasonal source. Towards the summer, both rivers and reservoirs go empty (see page 7 on the above document, where the part of hydro that gets feed-in tariffs (mostly recently built, small-scale run-of-river) goes from almost zero in summer to 20% of PRE in winter and spring and then back to almost zero in July 2010. This is equally reflected in 2010 data, where the hydropower sources were down from 35% (Jan-Jul 2010) to 16% (July only) of total consumption. Unfortunately, summer is also the worst time of year for wind power (wind only provided 13% instead of 18% in the first 7 months together). This is also exactly why storage doesn't work. We don't talk about a few days of shifts with renewables, but instead we have extreme seasonal shifts. A country with an 18% average share of wind in one year is likely to have one half year where this wind capacity provides 22% of demand, and another six months where it provides 14%. There is no way for storage to fill that gap.

This by the way is a very good example for the long term fluctuations from renewables, here a drop in hydro coincides with a drop in wind (for July), which gets heavily compensated by a lot of natural gas being burnt (about 37% of total production), plus imports suddenly making up 13% of total production. Without those two very flexible sources, Portugal would have been dark in July.

So Portugal (and other small countries like Denmark) are already now fully dependent on larger neighbors to deal with their current share of wind power. The model they employ is unfortunately not scalable for larger countries, like the UK, France or Germany (where even half of Portugal's share of wind power is causing serious headaches), or the U.S. If a country isn't naturally lucky to have a lot of hydropower or neighbors that are ready to buffer 13% of consumption (like with Portugal in July), or both, there is no way to maintain 15 or 20% wind power without matching everything with natural gas generation capacity.

However, add lots of solar PV and the 1.6 GW of pumped storage that they are building, and Portugal need not go dark in July. Add better grid connections to Spain (also in process) and beyond to France et al.

As a general rule, wind peaks in the winter and minimizes in the summer. Solar peaks in the summer and minimizes in the winter.

Yes, further price declines in solar PV will be nice, as would a pair of nuclear plants.

Alan

Of course, summer is also the best time for solar power generation; the capacity is seasonally driven, a key parameter not brought out in your modeling.

The model they employ is unfortunately not scalable for larger countries, like the UK, France or Germany, or the U.S... there is no way to maintain 15 or 20% wind power without matching everything with natural gas generation capacity.

Please provide the context of this statement in light of the NREL report that states 35% of the US western grid could be supplies by wind (30%) and solar (5%) without expensive new backup power plants.

Of course as countries get larger they are more likely to contain both un-correlated renewable generation (due to geographical expanse which is why NREL concluded 35% was practical) and good storage locations , so extrapolating from small countries does not make sense.

We think that the model region of Scandinavia, the UK and Spain (the three best regions for wind in Europe) should be big enough to also look at larger areas. NREL simply doesn't look at the things we discuss in our approach.

Solar, to cover this once more, probably wouldn't help much between October and December 2009 (see Figure 8)

What specifically does NREL not look at in their energy modeling? What aspects of their approach do you find that obviates their findings?

We think that the model region of Scandinavia, the UK and Spain (the three best regions for wind in Europe)

France, Germany, Netherland, Belgium, and Greece also have very good wind resources (even better than Spain);

I also did not find PRE Outres in the link you referred. What page were you referring to?

Can you also respond to the other questions I have above?

I assume that you are talking about the two key studies published by NREL, the Eastern Grid integration study and the Western grid integration study (http://www.nrel.gov/wind/systemsintegration/pdfs/2010/wwsis_final_report...). The latter, for example, mostly looks at a spot price based forecast, and at the short term fluctuations on output prediction errors (leading to need for spinning or short term reserves). The fundamental (seasonal and long term) issues covered in our analysis unfortunately did not make it into the NREL reports.

The entire second report deals with "PRE", one part is wind, the rest is "Outres".

Spain is not such a "strong" wind region, but the best of all for stability (as described in the paper). All other Atlantic coast countries in between would have very similar wind to the UK, so the variability would simply go down, causing even more problems.

The fundamental (seasonal and long term) issues covered in our analysis unfortunately did not make it into the NREL reports.

Please be more specific. The NREL report covers a number of years of data, going down to the levels of;

- Seasonal, Monthly, and Daily Trends
- Hourly Variability and Day-Ahead Predictability
- Sub-hourly Operational Analysis

It appears to me (not seeing the specifics of your modeling, only the conclusions) that the NREL report covers a number of years of data all the way down to the sub-hourly level, going to a much more detailed level than your modeling. I'd like to be shown otherwise with modeling details. Do you have a report that is as comprehensive as NREL's?

I will also note that you did not seem to include demand profiles in your calculation. Spring, summer, and fall demand is lower that winter demand in the UK's National Grid. After obtaining their 2009 demand data, the trend shows a curious similarity to wind power availability;

Hence, the 'gaps' you claim where wind is not supplying enough of the demand needs to be completely recalculated. Can you do that with the tools you are currently using? If not, see the GE tool further below.

(Update) Still waiting for a response to these questions, Hannes. I've been spending a few hours going over the 538 page NREL report, and I must confess, it is extremely thorough, uses multiple energy engineering modeling approaches, and backs the results up with voluminous designs of multiple alternative approaches;

You might be interested to know the study used GE's Multi-Area Production Simulation modeling tool, which provides;

• Determinations of unit revenues based on MW output and bus spot prices.

• Computations of hourly emission quantities and removal and trading costs.

• Identification of companies and generators responsible for power flows on lines.

• Calculations of hour-by-hour, nodal or bus spot prices of energy.

• Calculations of hourly line flows and congestion costs.

• Determinations of unit revenues based on MW output and bus spot prices.

• Computations of hourly emission quantities and removal and trading costs.

• Identification of companies and generators responsible for power flows on lines.

• The attributes of different proposed market structures and the development of pricing algorithms.

• The possibility of one or more market participant exerting market power.

• The value of a generation portfolio operating in a deregulated market.

• The location of transmission bottlenecks and associated congestion costs as well as transmission congestion contract (TCC) valuation.

• The impact on total system emissions that result from the addition of new generation.

And it has interfaces to other power simulation software;

• MAPS ties to Positive Sequence Load Flow software (PSLF) to analyze the dispatch for a given hour for an accurate picture of voltage profile, reactive power requirements,
and system and area losses.

• MAPS ties to Multi Area Reliability Simulation software (MARS) to determine adequacy of installed capacity via
Multi-Area Reliability Simulation.

Please note that summer peak demand (air conditioning) is subject to great reductions in demand, more than any other major load I can think of.

Insulation, shading (shade cloth or shutters in windows & trees/vines) and white roofs reduce cooling demand. As do CFLs and more efficient refrigerators.

Beyond that, SEER 25+ a/c units are available today. Quite a few SEER 10s are still in operation and the current required minimum for new units is 13 SEER. So dramatic improvements in equipment efficiency are very possible.

So the cooling demand can be cut more than the heating demand and that reduced cooling demand can be meet with half the electricity of today.

Looking forward, I see most utilities becoming winter peaking instead of summer peaking. All good for wind.

Best Hopes,

Alan

"So the cooling demand can be cut more than the heating demand and that reduced cooling demand can be meet with half the electricity of today." Not true

Since a good deal of the cooling load is from building occupancy and use, in fact heating load CAN be cut more. we already have the example of the Passive House that can theoretically be heated 'with a hair drier' As practice and technology improves, we will be able to construct buildings that use very small amounts of energy to heat. Darn it, we should be doing so now.

A point that is often missed is that right now electrical load is higher for cooling because only electricity can be used for that. the more that renewables come on line, the more that the major transmission of all energy will (Probably) be by electricity. Right now the bad match between PV and demand profiles is to an extent masked for most casual observers and armchair analysts.

Your first paragraph makes sense. Your second doesn't parse well to me, so could you rephrase it in a different way?

How is electrical load for cooling going to get higher because of more renewables, especially if changes are underway to get to the accomplishments stated in your first paragraph?

You have to be clear if you're also challenging the second part of his statement.

His main point, of course, was that A/C and cooling demand can be cut by great amounts.

This comparison to the amount of heating demand that can also be reduced was a bit of an aside, it seems, as it had been initially a response to the maps outlining demand analysis in the Southwest.

This supposes that the existing housing stock will be replaced by PassivHauses.

But even then the low energy required to heat will be matched with the low cooling load. R-60 walls are there summer and winter. The strategies to reduce solar gain that I mentioned can increase winter heating if not removed.

Assuming ASHRAE required minimum air exchanges plus a bit more (doors opening, bathroom ventilation) and highest efficiency appliances, I suspect that heating will take more energy than cooling in most of the USA and EU. And I am even more certain that most utilities will still shift to winter peak.

More light (CFL) is required in the winter than in the summer.

The waste heat from a/c can be used to heat water, while winter water heating will require extra energy (even with solar, in the winter back-up heating is still sometimes required. An extra load if electrical back-up heating is used).

Best Hopes for Minimal Energy Use,

Alan

For residential and smaller scale applications there is a simple solution now. Nobody mentions heat pumps (not geothermal), but they work at 4 or better efficiency (here defined as ratio of heat extracted/electricity used. So if electricity is non-carbon, things can be good.

An average house needs a few inch pipe drilled 700-1500 ft into the ground, depending on cicrcumstances, and hardware. It is quite expensive as retrofit, but new instalations will be more expensive than high efficiency furnaces and air conditioners but not by that much. With dirt cheap gas in North America they will not fly for quite some time. But as soon as both gas and electricity go up, it will become economical.

Heating and cooling can be done carbon-free, without much trouble. There is even a brownstone in Manhattan heated with heat pump, so you do not need much space.

CC, if you have ever seen any of the posts by Here in Halifax, he talks about heat pumps all the time (he is the energy conservation guy for NOva Scotia power so he does this for a living).

Geothermal, as a general rule, is not cost efficient, and drilling 1000 ft into the ground is no simple exercise, and can have unintended side effects (e.g cross connection of aquifers).
If you have shallow groundwater, then a shallow geothermal system can be worthwhile.

A far cheaper, and almost as energy efficient way to go is air source heat pumps. They are indeed a great technology in fact, I think that the latest generation of ductless mini splits are what will finally crack the nut and get them into widespread use, because they are the easiest to retrofit to existing houses. If you have baseboard on an external wall, you can replace it with a mini split without major reno work.

Problem is, it is still $2500k to replace about $200 worth of baseboard, and most people just keep on paying the bill.

Personally, I think, for electricity conservation programs, the utilities should just put all their eggs in that basket and ONLY subsidise heat pump programs - other things may get better value for $, but these save the most kW per house, right at the winter peak times.

Imagine the savings in Quebec of all that electric heat went to heatpumps - they could probably power all of New Brunswick and not bother with that nuke station. they are having so much trouble rebuilding.

Yes, it is not efficient at 11 cent electricity and 19 cents per m^3 gas. With the promised glut of gas it will look even worse.
I considered heat pump for myself, but exactly, not cost effective.

I always thought that air source was too inefficient but if new technology is better...

As far as saving kW per house, winter heat comes from gas, so the utilities worry about July heat wave peak. Heat pump in Ontario would be a 50-50 deal: reduce electricity in summer and reduce natural gas in winter. And they need a nuke to run carbon free :-)

Just to be clear, I don;t think geothermal is worth it (except in special situations) but air source certainly is.
You put in one kWh of elec and get four back as heat - fantastic EROEI.
Your effective cost is then 2.65c/kWh.
Natural gas, at 85% heating eff, needs to be less than $6/GJ to compete. At your price, you are at $5.40/GJ, so cheaper, just.
The heat pumps are also more effective at part load/cycling applications, that is why their SEER ratings are so good - up to 26 now.
And when time of day rates for electricity are available, the heat pumps will be an even better bet.

For my, my only alternative to gas is firewood, which I enjoy cutting, but some parts of my house (the downstairs) it can;t heat, and the heat pump is tailer made for that - will be going in there this fall.

A point that is often missed is that right now electrical load is higher for cooling because only electricity can be used for that. the more that renewables come on line, the more that the major transmission of all energy will (Probably) be by electricity.

That is is just plain wrong!

Disclaimer: I do not sell nor have I tested this particular brand but I do sell similar products and have real world feedback on efficiency in South Florida, trust me we do a lot of cooling around here... This is a type of product that is relatively inexpensive, can really make a significant difference and doesn't need any grid!

The Solar Powered Attic Fan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c7bzeUmqcc

Will,

after carefully revisiting the NREL report we discuss, let's shed some light on the flaws we consider:

a) The report operates under the basic assumption that the current capacity and capacity mix is kept, so that investment in traditional generation technology continues on top of the 35% renewables. Under these circumstances, there obviously never is a risk for uncovered demand, but cost is going to be painfully high (page ES-3): "The balance of generation was not optimized for renewables. Rather, a business-as-usual capacity expansion met projected load growth in 2017. Renewable energy capacity was added to this mix, so the system analyzed is overbuilt by the amount of capacity value of the renewable plants.

b) Thus, this introduction of wind and solar reduces the capacity factors for other generation capacity significantly (obviously by the 35% assumed for solar)

c) The report sees certain issues with handling fluctuations - even with 100% traditional capacity (page 162) "There appears to be minimal stress on system operations at up to 20% wind penetration. Beyond that point, the system’s operational flexibility is stretched, particularly if the rest of WECC is also aggressively pursuing renewables. Minimum operating points on coal plants and the cycling capabilities
of hydro generation become more important"

d) The report sees decreasing value of additional wind power with higher penetration, a sign for unused outputs (page 111)

Under these circumstances, by simply lowering capacity utilization of conventional equipment, it is always possible to introduce additional renewable sources. But that's not exactly the point we are arguing, because in this scenario not only cost goes up significantly, but equally, the benefit for the overall carbon footprint is much less, because of the embodied energy in underutilized equipment.

These 'flaws' are really one minor assumption with micro hair-splitting; indeed, this was addressed just a few sentences prior to the ones you referenced;

If 20-35% variable generation were to be planned in WECC, more flexible generation would be likely planned as well, reducing the challenge that wind and solar place on
operation in this study.

So the assumption stated above is not really a flaw, and pales in comparison to the errors pointed out previously (and not yet addressed) about the IIER analysis (including the most recent one about yearly demand profiles not included in your analysis, which highly skews the results).

Will,

I think we stated IN BOLD in our post that we have run the same analysis with demand related profiles and with a flat demand line, with no significant outcomes. We are happy to post the results of that model as well, but there are always certain issues that make things more complicated, like the fact that CHP plants make sense in winter and HAVE to be operated.

Now for this "hair-splitting" regarding the NREL report. Planning renewables without reducing traditional fossil fuel based generation capacity is not just a flaw, it confirms exactly what we say: We can't run renewables without keeping traditional stock based generation capacity as if there was no renewable capacity

we have run the same analysis with demand related profiles and with a flat demand line, with no significant outcomes.

Seeing that there is significant difference between flat line and true demand profiles (which wind more closely follows), there must be some serious deficiency in your modeling approach. Did the increase in solar insolation in summer also make it into your model? Please make sure to include how you incorporated it.

We are happy to post the results of that model as well

Yes, do post that, along with more of your modeling specifics.

We can't run renewables without keeping traditional stock based generation capacity as if there was no renewable capacity

?? Hydro is renewable, yet is also 'traditional generation'. If by renewables you mean only wind and solar, then it would still be a false statement, as high capacity coal burning plants (medium capital cost, low fuel cost) would be largely replaced by dispatchable gas turbines (very low capital cost, medium fuel cost) that would only be used as needed (unless also in use via CHP).

One of the several questions still outstanding;

The fundamental (seasonal and long term) issues covered in our analysis unfortunately did not make it into the NREL reports.

Please be more specific, seeing as you have not yet reported on even the yearly demand profile. The NREL report covers a number of years of data, going down to the levels of;

- Seasonal, Monthly, and Daily Trends
- Hourly Variability and Day-Ahead Predictability
- Sub-hourly Operational Analysis

It appears to me (not seeing the specifics of your modeling, only the conclusions) that the NREL report covers a number of years of data all the way down to the sub-hourly level, going to a much more detailed level than your modeling. I'd like to be shown otherwise with modeling details. Do you have a report that is as comprehensive as NREL's?

Note that your use of bold letters does not give your words more weight.

A complete non-issue if conservation and efficiency kept peak demand (in MW) from growing (see my post on how susceptible a/c demand is to reduction).

Of course, more aggressive DSM and more efficient factory electric motors, refrigerators, CFLs, computers & TVs, reduced phantom loads, etc. also reduce peak demand as well (and most also reduce a/c demand as a secondary benefit).

Building just 2 GW of pumped storage in that area (not covered in NREL report) adds 2 GW to peak generation and also allows for substantially HIGHER than 35% penetration by renewables.

Best Hopes for Synergistic Solutions,

Alan

Why leave Africa off the map? I don't know the exact wind profile, but they have gobs of solar potential.

If a country isn't naturally lucky to have a lot of hydropower or neighbors that are ready to buffer 13% of consumption (like with Portugal in July), or both, there is no way to maintain 15 or 20% wind power without matching everything with natural gas generation capacity.

I would disagree with the "no way". Here is Colorado, several coal plants are being decommissioned this year. Meanwhile huge amounts of wood are being removed from beetle-kill forests for fire prevention with no economic use. Repowering these existing coal plants with wood or other biomass would require little capital investment, and wood or other biomass could easily be used as peaking power, rather than adding new natural gas generation capacity with both additional capital costs and fuel costs.

Repowering these existing coal plants with wood or other biomass would require little capital investment, and wood or other biomass could easily be used as peaking power

Maybe yes, maybe no. Xcel is decommissioning coal-fired plants over the next few years in order to help the Front Range get its NOx emission levels down, so that's where you'd have to get the wood.

Transport is probably the hardest problem to solve. Much of the beetle kill is in rugged terrain far from a facility where it could be loaded for rail transport. Dry seasoned pine has about 45% of the energy content per unit volume as bituminous coal, so twice as much rail capacity would be needed to move the wood as to move coal. Much of the beetle kill is on the west side of the Continental Divide. There are only two rail routes across the Divide, unless you're able to route across Wyoming, and it appears most of the traffic would have to be via the UP and the Moffat Tunnel. The Moffat Tunnel would be a limiting factor on how many trains could run per day -- transit time is about 15 minutes, then at least 15 minutes are required to ventilate the tunnel before another train can go through.

Certain power plant burner types -- eg, fluidized bed -- could almost certainly burn a certain amount of wood. IIRC, Tri-State does that at one of its plants in SW Colorado. For pulverized coal burners, probably not. At least fuel prep systems and burners would need to be replaced. To use biomass for peaking power would probably require the use of a gasifier whose output could be run through a turbine; certainly feasible, but a very sizable capital investment would be required.

Xcel is, of course, taking the easy way out on this. New gas turbines, which are the lowest capital cost. And they have tariffs in Colorado that allow them to pass any price spikes in NG on to the customers.

If you convert rail to electric with regenerative braking, hauling the wood down from the mountains to Front Range burners would just give you additional kWh (being a little pollyana here) plus venting the Moffat tunnel would no longer be necessary. Over time I think all rail systems will convert to electric propulsion, especially in mountains where regenerative braking offers big energy savings.

"Co-fired wood in pulverized coal plants" gives about 20,000 results on google, most positive and realistic, like from NREL
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/33811.pdf
"Using this time-tested fuel-switching technique in existing federal boilers
helps to reduce operating costs, increase the use of renewable energy,
and enhance our energy security..."

Bottom line is there are alternatives to gas peakers, all of which have advantages and disadvantages but their existence is not in doubt.

Wood and biomass are very bad peaking (and even load following) power solutions, as their low heat content per volume unit doesn't make firing up and cooling down efficient. Further, overall efficiency is equally limited by the lower temperatures possible in re-heating cycles compared to coal and natural gas.

And there is - as already discussed - a significant quantity limit to biomass.

If used only to cover the extremely rare extremes of renewable generation's variability, the quantity limits of biomass should be a much smaller issue.

But more importantly, if there is sufficient hydro to modulate or storage to use for covering the ramp-up and ramp-down times of biomass and bio-mass co-fired coal plants then biomass can work fine to cover system variability over longer time periods. Clearly biomass would not be used to cover system variations on a time scale of minutes, but that scale is cheaper and easier to handle with pumped-storage and demand response, but since boilers can be ramped up and down easily on a time scale of hours, they can be used to handle diurnal and longer scale variability in generation and consumption, exactly the situation where the authors claim that pumped-storage would be too expensive.

The bottom line is that if the system includes a couple of hours worth of storage matching a biomass plant capacity, then that biomass plant can be used to balance the system for much longer scale variability (seasonal, week/weekend, holiday, weather patterns,etc.) Also predictive capability for wind and solar now has a longer time horizon than biomass plant startup time.

Build lots of wind and pumped storage, a fair amount of solar PV, install more insulation and higher efficiency a/c units.

Then turn on the wood fired (formerly coal) plants (staged) from June 15th till July 5th, run them more or less constantly (go low or off at night or during a windy/sunny period) and turn then off in late August & September in Colorado. Keep them on stand-by during the winter "just in case".

Alan

Together with hydropower this creates another problem, as Portugal shows very well. In most countries, this is equally a seasonal source. Towards the summer, both rivers and reservoirs go empty (see page 7 on the above document, where the part of hydro that gets feed-in tariffs (mostly recently built, small-scale run-of-river) goes from almost zero in summer to 20% of PRE in winter and spring and then back to almost zero in July 2010.

Again, you miss the importance of area under the curves, and phase delays.

Of course summer has lowest inflows, but what wind has done, is allowed smaller OUTFLOWS (and so gives either smaller lakes, or more total GWh - suppliers can choose)

Wind used with hydro, banks power. (you get virtual pumped storage, by using wind instead of hydro, in the right conditions).

Result is more GWh of reliable delivery, than the given hydro resource alone would achieve.

You can expect anyone with hydro to balance that to hit summer minimums, in order to give lowest overall Gas requirements, but that is precisely why gas is peaking only, not baseload.

I found this very interesting and scary.

My take on this is that technically one could build a system with a large (20% or so) percentage of electricity produced by wind and solar, but the capital requirements would be so high the system would collapse. It appears to me that a lot of capital is being spent especially on wind without a real understanding of the overall system.

My first thought for the periods of excess power production was to channel the power into energy intense industries such as induction furnaces, electric arc furnaces in the steel business or aluminum production. Then I thought about the difficulties of starting them for uncertain lenghts of time. On reflection I suspect the excess power may be a more serious problem than your paper implies. Excess power diversion is likely to involve very substantial capital costs.

Do we as a society have the excess capital to support wind and solar electrical generation?

The excess capital?

Meh.

Why not ask - did "we" build out based on cheap power and now that the cheap power is gone, the excesses of the past will have to go away?

For the last few decades the USA has put everything into consumption (2% into infrastructure).

That is where our cheap energy went (see SUVs), McMansions, etc.)

Reduce consumption faster than "nature" forces it and invest the delta into good infrastructure.

Alan

So many errors, bad assumptions and "forced" analysis, so little time to rebut.

So I will start with one.

One example. in private correspondence, I refuted his claim that Pumped Storage (hydro) relied on (his words) "one in a million" locations and was not economic elsewhere.

Of course, the best locations will be built first. But that does not mean that less prime sites are not potentially economic.

I pointed out that TBM drives (cost of tunnels) are declining by -3%/year (better technology & experience) and cheaper tunnels make longer distances between upper & lower reservoirs economic, and make pumped storage in general more economic (larger tunnels > less friction > higher cycle efficiency).

I pointed out that China plans to build 41 GW by 2020 (about all they could economically use by then) as evidence that it is not that hard to build large amounts of pumped storage if an economic need for it exists. Hannes claimed that was ALL that China could build (with no supporting links or data) and that supported his position. I see it as Phase II of several phases of pumped storage expansion in China (perhaps 90 GW by 2030 ??).

Note: I think 41 GW is more pumped storage than the rest of the world has operational today.

I pointed out that the US moved mountains around (mountain top removal) just for a one time use of a meter or two thick coal seam. Ruined the land for other uses, etc.

Why not use the same technology for shoving dirt around to make pumped storage projects that will last for centuries ? Far less land disturbed, compared to strip mining,as well.

I then pointed out Taum Sauk (in Missouri) where the upper dam failed on a mid-size pumped storage project (440 MW). The value of pumped storage was high enough and the value of the "balance of plant" (turbines, penstocks, transmission lines, etc.) was large enough to justify a massive investment in a new upper reservoir, since the rest was already in place.

Taum Sauk used just 300,000 fewer cubic yards of concrete than the Hoover Dam, ... The dam is made of roller-compacted concrete, which is stronger and more durable than traditional poured concrete.

http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2010/04/19/focus4.html

In other words, for a modest uptick in price, a pumped storage project can be built just about anywhere with enough elevation delta and water. Pumped storage projects do *NOT* require "one in a million' sites and are not severely limited by nature as claimed by the author.

These facts did not alter his analysis. He refused to accept physical and economic facts in this case.

More later (perhaps tomorrow) when I have time.

Alan

From the article:

One GWh (1000 Mwh) would be able to support a mere 8.3 MWe

An incorrect (and falsely precise) correlation in the real world.

1000/8.3 = 120.5 hours of MAXIMUM (nameplate) storage (say 333 hours average generation, almost half a month) is required to support wind.

So wind, per the author, is not useful without a half month's of production worth of storage. That is enough storage to wholely replace a wind turbine (zero output) for two weeks.

In the real world, for the next century at least, enough FF or other "stock fuels" will exist for occasional use. Occasional use of the most efficient generation burning natural gas, coal, bio-mass or synthesized fuel (from when renewable energy exceeds demand and all storage is full).

My own goal is an 88% to 90% non-carbon grid (and less demand/capita) in 30 or so years. Let future generations and future technology take care of the last tenth.

Hannes appears to be saying "100% renewable or it is worthless, a waste of money, a false fire brigade".
(I am trying to not set up a straw man, this is my honest opinion of his overall perspective).

My counter-point is that a "Rush to Wind", HV DC and pumped storage (plus efficiency/conservation), geothermal, coupled with a slightly slower build-out of solar and an economic build-out of nukes can lead to a 90% non-carbon grid in three decades. This will allow time for both adaptation in demand and new technologies to develop.

Depletion of resources will be MUCH less of an issue and Climate Change will be driven at a much slower pace. By reducing demand for FF today, we can stretch them out for over a century and leave some of them unburned.

I assume that 1 MW (as opposed to MWh) of pumped storage will support 6 to 8 MW of wind (nameplate) plus some solar & nuke. I am willing to "spill" 1% to 4% of wind MWh as part of the economic balance.

In addition, society can function and prosper even with occasional rolling blackouts#.

# Rich societies can afford to buy the luxury of a very reliable grid today, but an extremely reliable grid is not required to prosper, another error of analysis by the author.

Alan

Alan,

it's possible that the U.S. is in a slightly better situation than Europe, but not having done the detailed work, I wouldn't be the one to give an opinion on that.

Currently I'm looking at papers with deanfa that examine the Granger-causality of economic growth (GDP) vs. energy consumption (EC). Papers that focus on developing countries show a definite "cause" from EC -> GDP while for so-called "advanced" economies the "cause" is from GDP -> EC.

In my conversations with Nick this always comes up. He asserts "that it's not proven" that energy consumption is required for GDP growth and uses evidence from narrow time periods for advanced economies to back it up. I counter that he is cherry-picking his data and for the world as a whole it clearly is true that energy is required for economic growth (not least of which because the advanced countries have outsourced much of their manufacturing making the advanced country data even more selective).

The same thing could be going on here. Some regions of the world (i.e. Denmark situated where it is) will be able to employ renewable energy sources, various storage schemes and distributed generation across large geographies to make it all work. Other regions will have great difficulty for various reasons ranging from the inability to muster the financial means to geography.

Plus, many observers make the mistake of failing to point out that certain responses may not be feasible for 100% of today's economy but may work once we have contracted to 10% or 15% of today's size. In the case of Hannes and his team I believe they are demonstrating that the European economy specifically and very probably the world as a whole will not be able to maintain their current size running completely on renewable energy. At some point in the series they may have already pointed out that a smaller economy may be workable on renewable energy but I haven't checked. No matter: after all the work they've done, I'm prepared to take that as a self-evident conclusion that derives from their analysis.

Elsewhere you assert that we can "prosper" even with an unreliable energy delivery system. I happen to think that's true but it's a different point than what Hannes is really addressing, which is whether a flow-based renewable energy system can match the properties of a stock-based fossil fuel system.

All that is to say that what you are pointing out in my view doesn't negate their conclusion at all. The burden is still to demonstrate that moving from the current fossil fuel-based system that generates a certain amount of economic activity first to a hybrid model then to a completely renewable system will maintain both the quantity and quality of delivered energy. I don't think that case has been made by anyone yet. At best the NREL study shows that a hybrid model may work — but they don't analyze for how long. Until the point they believe fossil fuels will decline? Is that the next 50 years? 150 years? They just aren't even considering the possibility that the economy will shrink and thus their analysis has, to me, limited usefulness.

In a related note, I opted not to go to a climate change update last night that I was sure was going to be an accurate portrayal of the future given the assumption of fossil fuel availability in the IPCC Special Emission Scenarios. However, since 11 of the 40 scenarios don't even have oil declining before 2100 the conclusions these honest climate change people draw are extremely suspect to me. Climate change will be a big deal — don't get me wrong — but until that community starts including more accurate fossil fuel assessments, many of their conclusions will be off the mark.

Back to the renewable energy-economy relationship.

The only question in my mind is where do we land on the blue curve below, point A or point B? To me, it's is an impossibility that the world economy will stay at its current size and I think Hannes' work is a valuable piece of work that helps demonstrate that.

Economy vs Renewable Energy

-André

I am doing some early work on ESoEI (energy saved on energy invested), derived from ERoEI.

Fiberglass insulation has very high ESoEI #'s for the "minimum recommended levels" in long lived housing. But still good #s when one goes to PassivHaus levels of insulation.

BNSF's double tracking of the Transcon line (LA to Chicago) that got the bulk of the container market appears to have an ESoEI approaching 1,000. (transfer containers from truck to train).

3% of the energy used for transportation in Switzerland is used by their electrified railroad (SBB). Yet they transport 1/3rd of the freight tonne-km and 1/6th of the passenger-km. Clearly expanded use of electrified rail will significantly reduce the energy content of GDP.

The EU has a better quality of life and half the energy use; and much more can be done in the EU.

Just on the conservation/efficiency side, I can see significant chunks of energy use that can see order of magnitude improvements in efficiency. And larger chunks that can see energy use halved or better. So I can see how Energy Consumption can be decoupled from GDP.

Sorting through the real world and finding this data is difficult. Perhaps one way is to look at the Persian Gulf. Massive increases in energy use and more modest increases in GDP.

Alan

Yes, but all that is still "detail."

Unless you are asserting that renewables will ramp up in time to keep the world economy at its current size the only rational conclusion is that we are going to land somewhere on the blue curve at some point in time.

This will be after the economy has shrunk, the social turmoil has dissipated to some degree and we've re-established a world economy that can resume the renewable energy buildout.

Between then and now we will witness all the customary facets of our species' history: starvation in most of the world, diseases and wars. I should have been more precise above: some areas of the world can prosper if they have a unique set of conditions going for them. The rest of the world will fight over declining resources like cats in a sack.

It "depends".

IMVHO, they is there is still just barely enough time for efficiency and renewables to take the rough edges off (still problems & adjustments).

eMail me for a draft to review.

Best Hopes !

Alan

PS: The most important factor in avoiding disaster is wisdom, foresight and the discipline to implement a good plan.

eMail me for a draft to review.

Will do.

But I should be fair and point out that I've come to the place that I believe the work that really needs to be done is how to contract gracefully. If your paper is missing that premise, it will — like the other papers — provide limited insight.

Given my hoped for audience, I take an agnostic approach to contraction in the article. It can work under BAU or not.

Privately, I think the best that we can hope for is declining income and consumption coupled with rising wealth.

We can do this by reducing consumption faster than resource depletion will reduce it "by force of nature" and investing the savings in long lived energy producing and energy efficient infrastructure.

Best Hopes,

Alan

It can work under BAU or not.

I doubt that very, very much. That you are asserting that is likely a good indicator that you have not factored in how a contracting economy modifies investment decisions.

Read it.

All of the investment incentives work under BAU, but others can be found. I have thought about how one might induce investment with, say, hyperinflation and there are ways.

Best Hopes,

Alan

...the only rational conclusion is that we are going to land somewhere on the blue curve at some point in time.

This is what I call the shape of the tail - ie the transition from finite fuels, to a more sustainable energy GDP balance.

However, just as there is NOT a single renewable curve, there also is not a single GDP curve.

Recent history shows GDP can grow, with reduced energy/electricity, especially if given time to do so.

It also shows that a recession can drop both GDP and energy/electricity (but most already knew that)

I think it IS correct to reality check all the dollars spent, on any new power generation, to avoid miss-steps.

Here, as one example, massive HVDC grids, may indeed prove to be a poor use of dollars.
They are Giga-dollar spends, that have exposed point failure modes, and also depend on member countries ability to continue to co-operate and pay.
That's a lot of variables to pin ones hopes on... notice cost is merely one.

It is ALSO important to ensure plans like FIT are checked/managed to ensure they do what they intend : To seed early adopters, and so drive down total costs.

But those HVDC lines, like today's Gas network from Russia (with conditions) will be something ALL of those countries might be very devoted to ensuring the continuance of.

Tough pill to swallow, but what are the alternatives?

But those HVDC lines, like today's Gas network from Russia (with conditions) will be something ALL of those countries might be very devoted to ensuring the continuance of.

It depends on what they are being used for.

If it is merely load balancing, then simple economics should decide if the investment is worthwhile. Personally, I think that will move it down the queue.

Where a 'HVDC megagrid' might make sense, is bringing a new source of power into the area, like for example, from CST projects in Africa to the EU.

http://www.desertec.org/en/

I see they claim high line-utilize :
The TRANS-CSP scenario describes power line utilization at an initial 60% in 2020, rising to 80% by 2050.

Recent history shows GDP can grow, with reduced energy/electricity, especially if given time to do so.

Another example of cherry picking. Yes, at this particular point in time it's possible to find a few advanced economies out of a worldwide set of economies that grow in the current BAU context while energy usage is decreasing for those countries.

When we fall off the oil production plateau we are currently on, I think we will see world economic growth turn to contraction for every country — no exceptions.

Another example of cherry picking. Yes, at this particular point in time it's possible to find a few advanced economies out of a worldwide set of economies that grow in the current BAU context while energy usage is decreasing for those countries.

Of course it is cherry picking - I used it to prove GDP does not HAVE to Track Oil Usage. Clearly, it does not.

When we fall off the oil production plateau we are currently on, I think we will see world economic growth turn to contraction for every country — no exceptions.

Yes, if the tail becomes a cliff, then all bets are off, and it is a free-for-all.

Even in an extreme case, contraction for every country is a bold claim, I would rather say contraction for most countries.

You see, war economies do have some winners ;)

That is why I continue to say, that the shape of the tail matters (a lot!).

However, since 11 of the 40 scenarios don't even have oil declining before 2100 the conclusions these honest climate change people draw are extremely suspect to me. Climate change will be a big deal — don't get me wrong — but until that community starts including more accurate fossil fuel assessments, many of their conclusions will be off the mark.

I think you need to review the IPCC's forecast.
Remember CO2 is not the sole driver of climate change.
The burning of fossil fuels is responsible for only 50% of the temperature rise.

Will global fossil depletion not accelerate desertification, burning inefficient fuels, just using less efficient technologies
as in the A2?
The IPCC scenario A1T, substituting nukes or renewables for fossil alone aren't that much different from A1 (BAU) or A2 regionalized BAU.

Do you think peak oil alone will end consumerism and put us on
a different low use lifestyle?

What I don't see is people moving to a different lifestyle and things will probably look more like BAU than different.

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf

I'm extremely familiar with the IPCC report.

Do you think peak oil alone will end consumerism and put us on a different low use lifestyle?

No, and I never asserted that. The converging crises that begin to bite very hard this decade (and have already started) will force us to live differently. I don't believe in single causes. In my experience it's always a combination of factors that "cause" some outcome.

Aangel,

I can't say how glad it makes me to see somebody with credentials point out something that has been a sore point with me for a long time-the cheerful willingness of the entire environmental movement's to go along with bau assumptions and data when it suits THIER AGENDA.

But as soon as thier agenda is out of danger,well, the people involved are as rigorous as anybody else in evaluating data and theory.

Anybody who refuses to recognize this human element in the scientific establishment in general and the environmental community in particular is either a lying cynic of a priest keeping the laymen in line, or somewhat limited in his understanding of human nature.

Of course I can understand such people having the best of motives for consciously bending the truth into somewhat of a pretzel;but it's either that, or come to the conclusion that inspite of thier advanced degrees and distinguished careers, they are incompetent and/or fools.

For those who reply that science works that way in dividing up responsibilities and problems and research money-all I can say, is "Exactly".The WHOLE system is guilty, not any individual.

I do a little of the same kind of lying myself occasionally;no longer ago than last week I made sure that a little boy crying his heart out , who lost his Grandmother, who was the linchpin of his world, felt better by assuring him that if he is a good man, doesn't lie, cheat, steal murder, honors his father and mother, etc, that he will see his Granny again in Heaven.He felt better, and he may actually live a more honorable life as a result.On another day, when he is older, I will discuss going off to a good university with him, if I'm still around.If I have any money, I will help pay his way.

I will also strongly encourage him to take the full bore core courses of chemistry and biology as a freshman, regardless of whatever his interests are.

Regulars will understand that I do believe in ACC , overshoot, etc,

Hi, ofm.

I know a lot of these people and I don't believe for a second that they are bending the truth.

Mostly they are woefully unaware of the recent fossil fuel assessments and are drawing conclusions based on bad data.

I am willing to go a little further and say that the people I've spent time educating (months, not just one or two conversations) on fossil fuel depletion seem to be avoiding incorporating it into their thinking but I have no evidence that indicates they are doing that in ratios higher than the general population.

Except for the willfully blind (well, and economists, most business people and pretty much everyone in the high-tech industry), it's self-evident that declining oil production will contract the economy and throw millions more people out of work.

After a bit more conversation they can see that the various systems we have put in place like pensions, water distribution, air travel, highway transport and so on will not exist in their present form for much longer.

Not many people can handle this onslaught and the human brain has simple but effective defense mechanisms that prevent it from having to consider them.

Hi Again, Aangel,

I don't think very many of them are either lying or cynical priests myself.I know dozens of people that I consider to be personal idiots myself-competent enough within thier field, but clueless outside of it.

I think they are simply incompetent or criminally careless , considering that they are theoritically scientists and engineers.

I doubt if more than a very damned few of them would sign off on the load bearing ability of a given soil for instance because somebody else-a stinking economist without a single semester hour of science to his name- said it was ok before they built a bridge or skyscraper on said soil;they would hire thier own testing done, or do it personally.

We have lots of people here who think it is absurd and a disgrace to the human species that a lot of people believe in God;people who mostly don't by the way have the benefit fine educations.They believe in God of course because somebody they considered to be trustworthy told them God is real.

Yet they give the scientific community a pass in this case-which is basicallya very very similar case..

The ONLY conclusion I can draw is that the researchers have either abandoned the basic conventions of good research out of human stupidity and collective partisan interest, or that they are guilty of incompetence-having failed to check the reliability of the data on which thier forecasts -and thier salaries-are dependent.

My point-scientists COLLECTIVELY are only moderately smarter and not much more honest, when thier own interests are at stake, than the rest of us apes.

FORTUNATELY THERE ARE GENERALLY ENOUGH on the outside of the power structure looking in to keep the majority more or less straight-except when the money is all coming from the same few sources.

I count you one of the outsiders based on some things you post here.

If I were a successful politician, I would offer you a plum job on my staff.

As a matter of fact, the thing that attracts me here more than anything else is the level of outside the box thinking exhibited by the regulars.

Even the ones who hold university professorships are mostly outsiders to my way of thinking .

The ONLY conclusion I can draw is that the researchers have either abandoned the basic conventions of good research out of human stupidity and collective partisan interest, or that they are guilty of incompetence-having failed to check the reliability of the data on which thier forecasts -and thier salaries-are dependent.

It's unfortunate that you have come to that conclusion because I believe the primary mechanism that is operating at this point in time is the simple lag between the discovery of knowledge and its dissemination. I always look there first before going where you go. Most people aren't stupid just because they don't happen to share your view of the world.

It takes time for something to become commonly known. Peak oil is where climate change was 20 years ago. It has a lot of catching up to do.

Aangel,

...the simple lag between the discovery of knowledge and its dissemination.

For what it's worth I think you're correct. It's only been 2 years since Kharecha/Hansen's paper and PO, whilst gaining general acceptance in Europe is still a new idea to many. Scientists are notoriously slow to fully accept new ideas.

I gave a poster at a climate change conference on peak oil back in 2004 (and gave several public talks on the subject too). My research colleagues wouldn't touch the topic and I lost the gumption to do it myself (and it would have been a stretch for me alone). Then some years later Kharecha/Hansen basically wrote the paper I was advocating.

Hansen is far braver than most. He likely has reached a position in his career where he can do this sort of stuff. Otherwise, scientists are afraid to touch anything outside of their specific discipline and none of my collaborators where geologists or natural resource economists.

Look at the actual paper.

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2008/2008_Kharecha_Hansen.pdf

IPCC estimates LESS conventional oil(320 GtC=900Gb) and gas(170GtC=11,700Tcf) than official 'proven reserves'(see Fig.1).

What is not counted is unconventional oil/gas and methane hydrates
which is 1200GtC in Fig 1.
Half of that unconventional oil would be ~1200 Gb (tar sands=550 Gb, Colorado oil shale=400 Gb, Orinoco bitumen=250 Gb.

Methane hydrates could be a huge resource in 50 years.

Determined to keep Japan's lights burning despite scarce natural resources and uncertain energy security, the country's government says it is to begin commercial test drilling of methane hydrates as early as the first half of next year.

The coastal waters around Japan contain an estimated 7.4 trillion cubic metres of methane, which equates to around 100 years' worth of natural gas at today's rate of usage. But it is only recently that an economically feasible way to extract the stuff has been developed.

The gas is locked beneath the ocean bed in methane hydrates, a sorbet-like substance consisting of methane trapped in ice. In 2002, a team of geologists from Japan and Canada investigated whether it was possible to release the gas using hot water to melt the ice. The demonstration was successful, but used too much energy to be practical.

Further experiments by the team in 2008 found a more economical approach. Holes were drilled into the methane deposits, decreasing the pressure on the ice and so raising its melting temperature. This allows the methane to separate out from the ice-like material and flow up to the wellhead.

It is this approach which will now be further tested in Japan's coastal waters by a consortium led by the government and the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation. According to a government statement, the main area of study is the coastal region stretching 400 kilometres from Tokyo to the western tip of Honshu Island – a region thought to hold enough reserves to supply Japan with natural gas for nearly 14 years.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19433-japan-to-begin-drilling-for-...

How much shale gas, coal bed methane,etc. is out there?
World Energy Council 2010 indicates 15751 Tcf in shale gas(228 GtC) this was NOT included in the 2008 Kharecha-Hansen paper.
Right now almost half of US natural gas comes from unconventional gas.

http://www.worldenergy.org/documents/shalegasreport.pdf

The difference is coal where IPCC uses reserves(1200 GtC = 2.1 Gt trillion tons of coal) which are double World Energy Council estimates(1 trillion tons?).

There are trillions of tons of unmined coal in remote Alaska(2.9 trillion tons) and Russia's Far East according to Patzek and there are known deposits in Antarctica.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-077/dds77text.html#heading155012304

The question is, do you think that the world is going to leave all this coal, oil shale, shale gas, oil sands, bitumen ENERGY buried because somebody on TOD says the EROI of extraction is too low?

The fact is, previous estimates of fossil fuel reserves were too low because recovery technology was ignored.

IPCC estimates of carbon are more reasonable than the expert underestimators of TOD.

Running out of fossil fuels before GW overheats the plant is a fantasy sure to please Big Fossil corporations.

We need to address GW and Peak Energy at the same time.

Right now almost half of US natural gas comes from unconventional gas.

*Ponders* So, when that flips over 50%, do they change places, and unconventional gas, becomes conventional gas ? ;)

Running out of fossil fuels before GW overheats the plant is a fantasy sure to please Big Fossil corporations.

We need to address GW and Peak Energy at the same time.

Running out of all, is not that relevant : Running out of affordable finite fuel is more likely.

If you pretend it is infinitely affordable, then you delay the effort to move away to more sustainable alternatives.

Control of the tail, is going to be important.

I'm not sure what to make of this,

If you pretend it is infinitely affordable, then you delay the effort to move away to more sustainable alternatives.

Unconventional oil is already economic to produce.

Prolonged high prices will stimulate unconventional oil, not discourage it because the marginal cost to produce will fall.

The initial production of oil shale would be economic at $54 per barrel world price(2006). Today the price of oil is $73.
Tar sands dropped from $35 in 1980 to $5 in 2005.
Deepwater crude costs run at $45 per barrel.
Ultradeep at $60 per barrel.

http://www.hubbertpeak.com/reynolds/MineralEconomy.htm

http://fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/npr/Oil_Shale_Economics_Fact_...

If Estonia can afford to make electricity and gasoline of oil shale anybody can.

"By 2025,production from Canadian oil sands is expected to rise from about 1.3 million barrels per day to about 3.3 million
barrels per day." API

http://www.api.org/aboutoilgas/oilsands/upload/oil_sands_primer.pdf

If you pretend that unconventional oil, gas or stranded coal
won't be developed because it is too remote or too capital/energy intensive

I'm not sure what to make of this,

If you pretend it is infinitely affordable, then you delay the effort to move away to more sustainable alternatives.

Unconventional oil is already economic to produce.

Prolonged high prices will stimulate unconventional oil, not discourage it because the marginal cost to produce will fall.

The initial production of oil shale would be economic at $54 per barrel world price(2006). Today the price of oil is $73.
Tar sands dropped from $35 in 1980 to $5 in 2005.
Deepwater crude costs run at $45 per barrel.
Ultradeep at $60 per barrel.

You underline my point - now, take what you have stated, and extrapolate a decade or two. That 3.3Mbpd, is about 4% of the present demand, and what you are harvesting is still finite, no matter what $$$ are thrown at it.

If the Worlds Economies 'lock in' consumption levels, that assume ever harder oil, is infinitely affordable, they WILL fail to properly manage the tail, which is the transition from FF (finite fuels), because their long term plans will be to merely assume someone else will find a solution....

The Oil Price spike, and the present recession, have given a good wake-up call, and shown the fallacies of many models.

But Majorian's main point is still well-taken.

There are plenty of fossil fuels available to cook the planet. While making oil from oil-shale may be financially impractical, burning it directly in thermal generation plants is eminently practical and already widely practiced. There is more than enough coal to cook the Earth too, so relying on the scarcity of oil and gas to limit climate change is doomed to failure.

There are plenty of fossil fuels available to cook the planet.

Yes and I should have been more detailed when I said that many conclusions of the climate change community are suspect until they start working with better fossil fuel estimates and incorporate declining oil production.

I don't have a problem with most of the concern over the impacts of climate change, but some things look different when viewed through the depleting fossil-fuel lens:

  • the chance of runaway climate change is now lessened (but by no means has the chance gone to zero)
  • their mitigation plans are not very useful because they assume a BAU economy

The reason Hannes' work is so important is because the lack of a thorough understanding of the physics of our energy systems has already lead us down several dead ends.

For instance, the environmental community advocated biofuels as a way to keep the current system going. It wasn't just the politicians who wanted biofuels for the farmers, the environmental community was gaga over them. The same thing happened with hydrogen.

And I will go so far as to say this: the same thing is happening with renewables. Trying to shoehorn them into a stock-based system a) can't be done in time and b) probably won't work anyway.

As others have pointed out, we need to re-think the system. Trying to "fix" the current one won't work.

However, Hannes policy prescriptions are epically disastrous.

Hannes appears to say "Lets just stop now (OK, wind can just wind down), debate and figure out and R&D (which rarely works) what renewables will work best" and after a decade or two, "we can restart and be sure that we will not waste ANY money on renewables that may be sub-optimal".

Of course, we will waste money on other stuff and boil the planet a little harder while IIER figures out what is best for us.

See what happened to nukes when we stopped building them. Restarting is not easy and takes decades. I would expect the same with wind, solar PV, bio-mass and geothermal. If we removed all subsidies for renewables on 1-1-2011 and restarted with "better" incentives, centralized plans and whatever gov't funded research comes up with (I am *NOT* optimistic about that R&D) on 1-1-2018, it would be around 2030 before we regained the expertise, infrastructure, diffuse knowledge base and all else needed that we have today.

Good for the oil and coal companies but no one else !

Alan

(I am *NOT* optimistic about that R&D). This is we part company; I am optimistic about R&D.

What Hannes (IIER) is saying in a nutshell is that current renewable technology is not yet ready for prime time.

Instead of dumping lots of money into building and industry around a flawed technology, spend that money on R&D to prefect a workable and optimized technology.

I favor direct heat to electricity conversion with verified and proof of principle demonstrated efficiency at 92%. It does not suffer from intermittency and can be cheap with very good return on investment.

While looking for the paper you are referring too I found another by the same authors with many collaborators:

http://earth.geology.yale.edu/~mp364/data/2008%20Hansen.pdf

This one is just plain scary. It suggests we have to LOWER CO2 level from current, not just restrict the increase. Otherwise a hell can break loose.

Hello Majorian,

I have read the Kharecha/Hansen's paper, I read climate science as a hobby and was formerly a regular commenter at Realclimate.

I note that Kharecha's "Coal Phase Out" scenario still produces another 40 ppm, still a cause for concern especially given the Arctic's current position (sea-ice and methane). But also a cause for concern globally especially given the long residence time of CO2 in the Atmosphere/Ocean system. So even with the smallest conceivable emissions profile, AGW is not dismissed. And I agree with you, emissions will probably be higher, Coal Phase Out just addresses the most pessimistic takes on the outcome of Peak Oil (e.g. Olduvai Theory).

For what it's worth I think the outcome of P.O. will be humanity's burning of anything to hand for energy, from tar-sands and shale-oil to any available forests.

Yes, we do not have the luxury of deciding which is our biggest priority, PO or AGW, both are our biggest priority and both are intrinsically interlinked.

My old ag teacher all the way back in high school wrote ass-u-me on the blackboard frequently and made me repeat that assumptions would make asses of us both if we didn't examine them carefully before we put them into a business plan.

The lesson was repeated on several occasions in different classrooms in college.

But there is of course more truth in what you are saying than in what I'm saying;I 'm just if a foul cynical mood today.

Sorry folks. ;)

But my point needed to be made-in the words of the estimable Mr Mobious, we should "Question Everything".

ESPECIALLY THE INTELLECTUAL HONESTY of any person or organization or institution comfortably latched onto the public teat, or protected by some special arrangement such as professional liscensure.

How many of us for instance believe we, or our children, will ever see a commercial fusion power plant up and running?

How many people involved in selling or manufacturing renewables ever publicly acknowledge ( without being prodded in a sensitive spot with a sharp stick) that in nearly every case, thier customer would be FAR BETTER OFF to invest in conservation and efficiency?

This is what I mean by intellectual honesty;it seems to fall outside the code of ethics of all politicians, nearly all businessmen, and the large majority of scientists looking for govt funded jobs.

How many of us for instance believe we, or our children, will ever see a commercial fusion power plant up and running?

Interesting question. I believe software and modeling will be key elements in Fusion, as building and testing are so costly. In that aspect, software and modeling are steadily improving.

Here, I would personally favour NIF pathways, over ITER. NIF software looks solid, and they can converge on a result from below.

Cold fusion also refuses to die, it seems we do have 'excess heat' in the lab, but as yet no hint at productive energy; that too may come down to software and modeling.
Perhaps very special fuel may be needed ?

As to the commercial fusion question, there I guess having young children helps!!

The ONLY conclusion I can draw is that the researchers have either abandoned the basic conventions of good research out of human stupidity and collective partisan interest, or that they are guilty of incompetence-having failed to check the reliability of the data on which [their] forecasts -and thier salaries-are dependent.

I think you are being unrealistic about whether a group like the IPCC could claim peak-oil/peak-coal will make certain scenarios unlikely. I've seen a lot of studies whose direction is, for X only consider this (the rest is outside our charter). In this case the supposed experts like EIA, Cera, and USGS, would be used. Meanwhile the climate researchers have a 60hour per week job just keeping up with their own specialities. I've always read the emissions scenarios as illustrative only. The think that matters for ACC is really just the net slug of emissions only. There job is to narrow down the question, what will the world be like after X billion tons of carbon have been added to the atmosphere.

I haven't claimed that "a group like the IPCC could claim peakoil/peak coal will make certain scenarios unlikely" or anything to that effect at all.

What I have STATED is that to the best of my knowledge, the entire environmental establishment has, WHEN IT SUITS THE ENVIRONMERNTAL ESTABLISHMENTS AGENDA, merrily and happily and cynically accepted the utterly ridiculous claims of the cornucopians(namely CERA, USGS, etc) as holy writ.

Now this is not to say all agendas are bad, or that the establishment environmental agenda, considered in its entirity, isn't a wonderful thing for the earth and for us.

(I do hereby swear and attest that I do verily believe that the aforesaid environmentalist agenda is indeed a wonderful thing.)

It is simply that EITHER the worlds leading environmental organizations for purposes of tactical advantage CYNICALLY misled the public in order to build up the numbers and make the scare tactics work better(not that we don't NEED TO BE SCARED!) or ELSE the scientific environmental establishment failed to soberly and carefully examine all the evidence available to it, before embarking on the ships and heading off to the battle field.

I believe in business and some other fields the term most relevant to what I'm talking about is "due diligence".

I am not a scientist, but I have taken quite a few courses in the sciences and read many , many books dealing with science oriented subjects;unless I'm an idiot or farther along the senility curve than I think I am,it is a generally accepted , set in stone , cast in brass, and mounted over the temple doors of science PRINCIPLE
that

"Thou shalt not defile and debase thy work by basing it on any but peer reviewed data sanctified by the brotherhood of scientific researchers".

The data used fails the sniff test in this respect.

Now I do believe the projections made by the IPCC are good, and perhaps not scary enough;personally,I think warming may be showing up faster than projected.

But such projections, based on faulty data,can cause us to come to some very poor conclusions and adopt even worse policies.

Right now for instance, we appear to be basing a lot of hope and policy on ccs, even though this toddler technology promises to be incredibly expensive IF it does prove to work on the grand scale.As a practical matter, one, the Chinese and Indians and the rest of the world, excepting the US AND western Europe mainly, aren't going to pay for it;and we westerners PROBABLY won't be able to pay for it.By the time the technology matures and is fully deployed, coal consumption will probably be falling off on its own hook due to depletion, conservation and efficiency, falling incomes, and a post peak population.

Hence we would very possibly (likely?) be far better off spending our money and talent on insulation factories, wind farms, basic research in energy effficiency, and so forth.

The law does not accept ignorance as an excuse.

I myself stand almost alone in this forum as a person who treats religion and religious people in an impartial way, recognizing that they are simply doing what comes naturally to them as a matter of culture and personal environment.Lots of people here condemn folks such as my elderly Daddy for accepting what he has been told since he was a toddler about God and so forth as the truth.Well, he hasnt the advantage of much education.

Yet not a single one of these folks has ever had a word to say about the scientific environmental movement accepting the word of the bau crowd when it has been handy to do so.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

We need a Mark Twain to get my point across;the high holy church of environmental science huffing and puffing mightily ThIS Sunday about resource depletion;LAST Sunday about the evils of exponential growth in a finite environment;NEXT Sunday basing its own theology on the untested and highly suspect claims/propaganda of the sworn enemy-the bau establishment;while all the while comfortably and safely assuming that nobody will notice the logical inconsistencies piling up from week to week.

I'm simply sorry that I'm not a good enough writer to get the irony and the comedy of this affair across to the reader.

Of course I understand that some who do get it will find it necessary to say that they don't because "there is no 'there' there" in order to maintain the morale of the foot soldiers /cannon fodder.

Perhaps I myself should refrain from pointing out such things;Rush Limbaugh may have somebody monitoring this forum looking for juicy commentary that can be twisted into a pretzel suited to HIS agenda. ;)

Everybody please note that I have in a comment up thread already admitted that there is a lot more truth in Aangel's explaination based on the slow spread of information than in my comments.

Sometimes grouchy old men just like to flap thier jaws to see what they can stir up in terms of an argument.;)

In some respects, I take the moral position of agnostism.

Sometimes (most Wednesday afternoons) I am unsure that I, and I alone, have a complete and total understanding of THE TRUTH and others may have larger or smaller subsets of the truth (as they see it). The degree to which they agree with me accurately reflects just how much truth they understand.

At all other times, I am more sure :-P

But since I, and I alone, have complete knowledge of THE TRUTH, what should I do with this ?

I know (see above) that the vast majority of the people will simply not accept THE TRUTH and I will die before I can convince them. I also know that accepting truth, or even bits & pieces of it, is not usually motivated (or catalyzed) by logical arguments outside the confines of The Oil Drum.

And how many people truly need the entirety of the THE TRUTH ? Will they make better decisions, lead happier and better lives, prevent a massive Die-off of our species ?

Since most people lack my optimistic character and willingness to work VERY hard just to make a terrible future situation just slightly better, they would misuse THE TRUTH and likely make things worse for everyone.

So I release and use just subsets of THE TRUTH as it suits my beneficent purposes. And I only use those subsets of truth that do not make me uncomfortable on midweek afternoons when I am afflicted with doubts.

I can foresee a possible, but unlikely, future where mass death is avoided in most of the world (Bangla Desh 2042, India 2053, etc. not so good regardless), the quality of life improves for large numbers of people, Climate Change is significantly slowed down, wealth increases as incomes decrease, population growth stalls and then reverses (slightly).

Some of the building blocks are conservation & efficiency, electrified railroads & Urban Rail, bicycles, renewable energy, HV DC transmission and pumped storage. I know that even if I fail, all of the above will make things SLIGHTLY better under any of the probable outcomes.

In Liberia & Cambodia, when societies collapsed, people still pushed carts on rail lines. I can see one partial failure where most of society has collapsed, bit by bit, except the organization of the railroads, whom assume lots of control & power.

A wind turbine may be abandoned 17 years after it was completed due to a general social and economic collapse. I know that it and others will have delayed the collapse a bit (2.8 years to be precise) and reduced CO2 in the atmosphere for the next 1,000+ years. A FAR better use of the last social resources of our dying civilization than still more consumption !

About half of the numerous pumped storage projects will be revived and reused as humanity climbs out of the Darker Ages in 2 to 3 centuries (depending on where). Same for hydro. Future engineers will work out the details of how to build wind turbines from the fragments left. The remaining solar PV, about 1/3rd will still work and put out 1/4th of original nameplate in 250 years. *VERY* useful !

The railroads will be the last to fail (and never stopped in the island of civilization in Scandinavia) and will be revived with the help of our Swedish colonial masters.

I should stop now, truth is far too potent !

I selectively use truth, and do not lie about what I do not say. I just stay quiet and "agnostic". My goal is a low probability one, but failing that (probably) what I do impact will make the Darker Ages slightly less dark.

Best Hopes for the Future,

Alan

ofm, what I'm about to say is totally off topic (others may want to skip this comment and return to the regularly scheduled thread).

There is value in much of what you say and I can tell you have a massive commitment that we operate with integrity and objectivity.

However, if I may be bold and say so, I think you suffer needlessly, in my view.

In our courses, we try to give people some freedom from the trap people often find themselves in, namely, that endless circle of asking oneself "why didn't our predecessors do this or that?" or "why aren't we doing this now?" and especially, "Why didn't I do this?"

We go out of our way to point out to people that the human species is doing what all species do when they find a jackpot of energy/food: multiply like crazy with no regard for tomorrow. Are we smarter than that? No, we aren't. So?

This blame game saps energy and robs people of the possibility of enjoying life in the moment. It also makes it more difficult to take the actions necessary to prepare for GEC (Global Economic Contraction1).

The people in the scientific field are just being people and as far as I can tell are exhibiting completely human traits and foibles.

You could, for instance, answer the question:

"Why do humans act the way they do?"

with:

"Because that's the way humans act."

They really can't any other way than they do, right?

The experience of freedom is the direct result of this sort of acceptance. Many people will jump on this and say, "You are accepting that billions of people will die. You may be able to accept that but I cannot!" (I think Alex Steffen said that in response to one of my points on his blog.)

Yes, I am accepting the possibility of that outcome rather than resisting the notion and using up valuable brain energy. (Some people would say the "certainty of that outcome" but since it hasn't happened yet that can't be true: until it happens it is still just a possibility and we can hold it in our minds that way.)

Instead, the experience of freedom comes with acceptance. Now I can move much more easily in the world and direct my energy wherever I want to, including attempting to prevent the billions from dying, if I wanted to.

True, some people use their lack of acceptance as a motivator to get things done and much has occurred in the world by people who are driven this way. But what if the same goals could be accomplished without all the suffering and burnout? What would the world be like if we could all learn to operate that way?

In so many ways, it's when we resist how the world is that worsens our experience of life and robs us of fulfillment.

After all, the universe is just doing its universe thing and I get to borrow these molecules for but a brief spell before I give them back.

——————————
1 I'm looking for a new term to replace Energy Descent that encompasses all of what's happening so I'm trying out this one.

Thanks Allan ,Aangel, and any others, for you thoughtful replies.

They are words of wisdom indeed, and I do appreciate where you are coming from, and when I get down off of my hobby horse /soapbox,and calm down a bit, I know that you are holding to very realistic and thoroughly well intentioned positions.

But I did accomplish my goal;which was to provoke some discussion of the possible consequences of rushing off to battle on the basis of unsound and or incomplete intelligence in respect to who and what the enemy/problem /issue actually is, and what the most successful strategies for "winning" the upcoming "energy battle" might be.

I have of course in the past posted many comments to the effect that we are only evolved apes running a jury rigged operating system and beta programming which evolution created at random by selective survival to enable us to compete in small groups against the natural environment, and then for the last few thoudand years against each other in larger groups, since we more or less won our fight with the snakes and the lions and other predators.

We are of course doing PRECISELY what a well informed Darwinian would expect us to do, given our evolutionary heritage.

It's just that being a very common sort of guy,I tend to get sort of hot under the collar when anybody starts playing the holier than thou game.

But of course we better hope that the environmentalists win , by any means necessary, had we not?

And in this case,if the means employed by environmentalists include a few slightly less than snow white tactics /techniques, well the other side plays a far , far dirtier game, does it not?

Just a couple of days ago, I myself said that sometimes you need to fight fire with fire during the discussion of small windpower-recognizing of course that honesty cannot compete with hype, advertising , and salesmanship under many prevailing conditions.

He asserts "that it's not proven" that energy consumption is required for GDP growth and uses evidence from narrow time periods for advanced economies to back it up.

Narrow time periods? 1979 to 2009 for the US is a narrow time period??

Ayres shows that changes in primary energy corresponded to only 13% of GDP growth from 1900 to 1980 - that's narrow??

I counter that he is cherry-picking his data and for the world as a whole it clearly is true that energy is required for economic growth

From 2004 to 2008 was the first time in history that oil may have been in short supply. During that time world growth barely noticed.

(not least of which because the advanced countries have outsourced much of their manufacturing making the advanced country data even more selective).

That's just not true. First, world growth barely noticed the 2004-2008 price runup - did we outsource to Mars?

2nd, US manufacturing grew from 1979 to 2009 by 50%. I'm sure the same was true for Germany and Japan, and very likely for the OECD as a whole.

I expect that there are hundreds if not thousands of spots suitable for medium scale pumped hydro in the mountians of the southeast where cheaper earthern berm dams would be perfectly satisfactory-they would not after all be much subject to flooding due to not having any substantial watershed if located properly, and they could easily be drained down fast in advance of a rain heavy hurricane.

Any given dam could bealso be drained safely, quickly, and easily if it is dteremined it is in danger of failure.That is afterall what the big capacity tunnels are for-getting the water down off of the hilltop!

Alan is right-the environmental costs would be modest in comparision to strip mining.

In lots of cases, a wind farm could be located on the rigdes enclosing such a built reservoir.

We will cover pumped storage in much more detail in the next post, but I would like to answer some of the questions raised here.

First of all (see table 6) - water has such a horribly small energy content per volume unit that we need HUGE water bodies to make even a small impact. That is already difficult for normal hydropower (reservoirs behind dams), but for pumped hydro, two things need to come together: a very large lower and upper basin of decent size, with (ideally) between 600 and 1000 feet of head in between. This is a very rare constellation and even countries with a lot of hydropower (like Switzerland) only have a very small portion of pumped hydro storage, just because of that.

Equally, pumped hydro storage is - even if those two water bodies are available or can be created easily by adding a dam or two, very expensive. If those natural prerequisites are met, 1 GWh of storage capacity costs approximately US$ 100m to build. Building it without natural basins raises the cost to 400-500 million per GWh of storage capacity - at least.

We will dive deeper into that problem in the next post in our pumped storage review, but the bottom line is very simple: If it was easy to build it, it would already have been done. Switzerland, to use this example again, scrambles to even add 1-2 GWh over a decade or so, and only manages because it can deal with the high cost (serving as a buffer for French nuclear power).

If it was easy to build it, it would already have been done

Simply wrong.

There has been no significant economic need or demand for pumped storage in most of the world, so little of it was built.

When massive hydro projects created too much base load power, pumped storage was built at both Niagara and Grand Coulee.

When China needs 41 GW of pumped storage they simply build it.

And all Switzerland needs to do to get more pumped storage is hire our "mountain top removal" strip mining experts and remove some of your Alps :-)

Alan

This, in my opinion, is by far the most important take home point from your conclusions:

Send everybody back to the drawing board to think about a) how a future without steady electricity services should and could look like

Isn't it time that we accept once and for all the fact that BAU has passed away and any attempt to reconstruct it based on renewables is just simply an exercise in futility?

Perhaps if we start brainstorming about what a future without steady electricity services should and could look like, we might even discover that it doesn't necessarily have to mean the end of the world and that it could even lead to a higher overall quality of life for a large portion of the world's population. Spoiled little whiny Americans distorted expectations notwithstanding.

I agree-it is time we started thinking about how we are going to get by with intermittent electricity.

We also must start seriously thinking about how we are going to pay for imports of energy intensive products manufactured where renewable power IS available.Ammonia can probably be transported far more easily than electricity fron North Africa, for instance, if csp works out cost wise.

One thing that does seem to be overlooked as a practical matter is that fuel costs may go so high that it is cheaper to build enough ng plants to cover the short production periods and simply let them sit unused, thus conserving gas which CAN be put into storage, although at great expense of course, so that wind and solar can be utilized to the max.

The authors think this will simply be too expensive to be a practical solution, but I am not so sure they are correct in this respect.There is an aspect to this facet of the problem that may not have been considered, as follows:

Anything that lowers the usage of coal , oil, or natural gas puts downward pressure on the price and the rate of production of these fuels, extending the life of reserves.

I haven't seen any good numbers dealing with this issue, but my wag is that if we can get up to ten percent wind and solar we will be saving up to twenty percent or more of the gas that would have otherwise been burnt to supply that ten percent, since gas supplies substantially less electricity than coal.

Maybe we will see something written up along these lines by someone with the necessary expertise to do a proper job of it.

As ever, the chosen titles and abstracts that start this conversation are acting as if they are challenging Renewables, which to my ear is simply the fallacy of picking an easy target ("Because Renewables are Intermittent and Weak"), when what really is under the gun is BAU. But that's tantamount to taking on The Bully in the schoolyard instead of the Nerd who has challenged him, and will fail if noone steps into his court.

"How Can Renewable Sources Support Our Current Energy Delivery Expectations?"

Whose Expectations? What's this we, Kimosabe?

Bob

Precisely.

The structure of much of the conversation in this series is of the following form:

Hannes: we assert x

Someone else: that's stupid/silly/you must have an agenda because clearly y is possible

Hannes: yes, it's possible and we looked at that but it's not sufficient to reach BAU

Someone else again: you're still stupid or have an agenda because you don't agree with me

When in reality probably both parties would agree with the assumption that BAU is not possible and that the worthwhile conversation is where we end up on the blue curve in my graph. There is much noise and angst for no reason, in my view, and it comes from not be crystal clear about the exact proposition at hand, namely:

"Can a renewable energy system be built out enough and in time to provide energy services that would prevent significant contraction of the world economy?"

Hannes, is that an accurate portrayal of the question your team is attempting to answer?

I appreciate the interpretation, Andre';

I would add 'Is there a good reason NOT to be building what renewables we can in the meantime?'

I understand some of Gail's concerns about the bigger WindTurbines, and perhaps they're wired and controlled such that they can't be run independent of the grid.. but that's not an irreversible design. I know that we can come up with WT's and Systems that will use the power when it's there, whether it's a start-stop MFG process, or creating some form of stored power. But I don't believe the systems we want to build are dead ends, even if the Grid starts fracturing into smaller sections..

Anyway, it's worth putting our concerns into a language everyone can contribute with.

Thx,
Bob

Your question is an excellent followup question!

And it's devilishly difficult to answer. On the one hand I think I'd like as much build out as possible while the world economy can do it. On the other hand, once contraction hits really hard, much of that build out could turn out to be ineffective because it was designed for a context that no longer exists or largely no longer exists.

Contraction changes the priorities of almost everything, in my view.

And the amount and nature of the contraction will determine how effective any buildout can be. I'll note that the latter will undoubtedly also influence the depth and direction of the former.

Agreed.

The nature of a panic response is to cling to whatever is available and "make do".

Best Hopes for logs and not straw to cling to,

Alan

Sure, both assertions are true.

And the amount and nature of the contraction will determine how effective any buildout can be.

And conversely, the extent of the buildout will effect the nature of the contraction. A key factor is whether the industries that support renewables will be large and robust enough that some portion of them will be able to survive contraction. (Hint: One way to increase their size and robustness is to install renewables.)

Well, while I'm admittedly 'punting' on what can be done to re-purpose a 3 MW Windturbine for different electrical 'environments' than the 365/24 grid, I don't feel it's difficult at all to choose today to build out a simply ungodly amount of Solar Heating equipment while we've got the power (and the essentially healthy, but unemployed population) to do so. Same goes (IMO) for Rooftop PV, and give me a minute and I'll find five more.

Part of the disconnect is this generalization about 'Can RENEWABLES...?' It's an unfairly broad-swipe, and I will continue to contend that it's far too close to the kind of Doubt-mongering that keeps meaningful action immobilized as the Public is torn by more 'Deer in the Headlights' of an unnecessary piece of a critical debate.

This is why it's not just some pedantic bit of discovery to fine-tune the very Bold-faced Framing of this topic. Not to forget that we've gotten this 'FALSE' in five major Keyposts now, and just weathered an all-too similar one about how 'Fraudulent Efficiency Measures might be..'

Is it an attack on anything that carries hopeful actions with it? (Oh no, don't be beguiled by your need for positive, meaningful steps to take! That's the road to hell, and the Devil's in the details..) Or are we too timid to really take a full-frontal stab at the real problems of Consumption and Clearcut-Extraction for perpetuating an OWNERSHIP Society and good, honest PROFIT.

Naw, let's take it out on the Hippies. They never fight back.. bloody pink pacifists!

A major impediment to meaningfully moving a conversation forward is when one party interprets questioning and doubt as "attacks." It's an unfortunate and all-to-common human response when a world view one currently holds is challenged by another person.

There is a reason why our friends usually share our prejudices and biases.

Hannes and his team, just like the Limits to Growth team, are, in my view, authentically and honestly analyzing the situation to the best of their ability. They have bad news, just like the LTG team, and bad news is often derided and the messengers' integrity impugned.

I would note that assertions in this article that are not well-supported are rightly questioned, especially when modeling from a recognized energy modeling organization (NREL) comes to very different conclusions. We should really be asking the question, "how reliable are energy modeling conclusions from economists?"

Now, if an complete 'open the kimono' view of all energy modeling algorithms, assumptions, and raw data were performed, then we would have a greater understanding of the quality and completeness of the modeling effort. Right now, it's basically "trust us".

I apologize for the last couple sentences. I got riled.. but even though I don't believe this is an intentional 'Attack', I do believe the angling of this discussion is tilted by exactly those impulses I described. It's easier to say the fire got us because the buckets were too small, than to tell all those comfortable people that they have to get out and take all the fancy, colorful oiled rags off their walls.

Do renewables work? Sure, no argument.

Is BAU sustainable? No.

What about with Renewables? No.

Oil? No.

Nuclear? Gentlemen, place your bets.. but No.

Biomass? No..

So what's Renewables' problem? Why do people love it if it can't keep the party going?

-- It's like all those Conservatives who keep telling us Obama isn't the Messiah. If someone said he was, they were wrong, and even Barack would tell them so. So why is this the core of the discussion?

Is BAU sustainable? No.

Just about sums it up. It seems to me everything else is rhetoric.
The words say we should, will, can build and convert to renewables. The investment always appears to be with other peoples money or simply an abstract concept.

While we have a free market and not a dictator to force buildouts no matter the cost, there will always be an expectation of a profit by shareholders.

So I ask, where are the profits coming from? (If BAU is not sustainable) Who is going to buy the power (at ever increasing rates).
I tell you what, even with what little I know, if I was a billionaire or whatever, (admittedly there are still believers in growth out there though) I certainly would not be investing my money in hydro, windmills or solar farms, there is absolutely no way for me to get a decent return, or any within a lifetime.

So to convince me that renewable energy will be a major player in any mitigation you will need to convince me that it's a good investment, (financially).

So you believe BAU is dead-ending.. that there have to be some other ways people ('the survivors', if you will) are going to construct a lifestyle, a societal context, etc..

.. and yet you will insist on a 'reasonable financial explanation' for Renewables?

I'm not worried about convincing you that it will be a major player at all.. but I think it had better be. As another poster said, it's really not about the cost. We're talking about building a Life-Support system.. and whether someone hears that and doesn't WANT to keep people alive at this pop level.. well don't worry. It won't.

There won't be enough lifeboats. So do we still build lifeboats while we can? Or just forget it, and go back to swimming nekkid, like Grampa did? Do you need a price first? (Reminder, Lifeboats will NOT keep the ship from sinking, so don't ask.)

deleted

There a number of faults in both the assumptions and the logical chain of analysis.

Alan

Isn't it time that we accept once and for all the fact that BAU has passed away and any attempt to reconstruct it based on renewables is just simply an exercise in futility?

BAU can cover quite a range. I agree that two SUVs in every McMansion for everyone is not possible. But Europe and Japan don't have that. As of a couple of years ago, France, Germany, Japan, and the UK all produced nearly the same per-capita output of goods and services as the US, and did it using 40-50% less total energy. These countries have some natural geographic advantages compared to the US, but there seem to be a couple of lessons.

One is that drastic energy reductions are possible (compared to the US) while still maintaining a high level of technology. I would argue that, with the possible exception of Japan, those countries have not been fanatic about energy efficiency. If you assume that the US could reduce energy usage by 60% if it were ambitious, while still maintaining the technology level, that's a vision that could be sold to the public. You can't sell "Mad Max" or "World Made by Hand" to the general population.

The other is asking questions about whether the geographic advantages enjoyed by those other countries could somehow be applied in the US. Regionalization can go a long ways towards that, I think. A region consisting of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia has enormous hydroelectricity resources, some tapped but much of it not (especially in BC). Intermittent electric service for that area, unless imposed by a requirement that they ship large amounts to the outside, seems like a silly notion. I suspect there are many regions that can have steady reliable electric power if they can keep it to themselves. There's a real question as to whether they will be able to do so.

Perhaps if we start brainstorming about what a future without steady electricity services should and could look like, we might even discover that it doesn't necessarily have to mean the end of the world and that it could even lead to a higher overall quality of life for a large portion of the world's population. Spoiled little whiny Americans distorted expectations notwithstanding.

Excellent comment Fred.

And in the meantime, we can simply continue to build out renewables.

The old expression "Make hay when the sun shines" comes to mind.

My motto as well.

Until then, it's ..
"Smoke 'em if you got 'em!"

FMagyar, that's my take also. Trying to force renewables into the Procrustean bed of an energy grid that was designed to make use of the very distinctive properties of fossil fuel energy may be favored by the psychology of previous investment, but that doesn't make it smart. Let's start instead from the question of what renewables do well, given their own very distinctive properties (such as stochastic availability), and think about what a technostructure designed to take advantage of those properties -- instead of simply finding some way to nullify them -- might look like.

Hannes' analyses are useful, IMO, but they seem to start from the assumption that the only way to use a wind turbine is to have it powering a grid that puts energy into sockets on every wall 24/7. There are end uses of energy that don't require that. Why not cut the grid out of the loop, apply wind power and the like to uses where stochastic availability isn't a problem, free up electrical generating capacity for uses that have to be 24/7, and reap the benefits of economies of scale in wind turbine manufacture for uses where they'll be economical right off the bat?

Maybe one important note, once again: This series of posts doesn't cater to people who have long ago given up on "BAU". The population of the Western hemisphere can be largely divided into three groups (that number is not a typo):

"no clue about energy and resource issues" (the largest)
"we have enough oil and everything else, and I like/don't mind about global warming" (pretty large)
"we will have to switch to renewable energies and that will work just fine" (also quite large)
"BAU doesn't work anymore once fossil fuels becomes more expensive/scarcer" (tiny, almost negligible)

In order to make our case that something won't really work out, we have to analyze what is considered and promoted as technologies that "secure BAU with renewables".

BAU in this case is, as promised: "stable electricity everywhere which doesn't demand significant lifestyle changes". Talking about "safe energy pockets" in the Northeast of the US/Canada doesn't fall into that category, nor does a self-sufficient off-grid lifestyle in the Mid-West, nor does the individual operation of a wind turbine, which, by the way won't make much sense without VERY expensive storage.

Currently, societies are spending a few trillion US dollars each year on technologies that likely won't stabilize our grids, but instead destabilize them. Additionally, we pay them with money we don't have (largely coming from government deficits). All the while, we complacently think that we have solutions, but we actually don't, and no investments go into research that could tell us:
a) what could really work to keep BAU (and be honest about its consequences)
b) what could still work to support a good enough life for everybody if we don't find an acceptable solution to go ahead as planned

I, like probably most on this site, have long given up on BAU. This does not mean that I object to extending BAU (or something close to it) for a few years, and renewables (combined with conservation) do give the potential for this extension.

The population of the Western hemisphere can be largely divided into three groups (that number is not a typo):

Despite your elaborate distinctions, as far as I can see, you are describing only TWO distinct groups. Those that get it and those that don't.

Two Categories B

Almost everybody on this site recognizes that BAU will not continue unmodified, and I have heard no one argue "that will work just fine".
But supporting continued investment in renewables, storage, and distribution should not be falsely conflated with assuming BAU unmodified.

And recognizing the cost and availability issues with renewables does not equate to de-funding them and personally I don't think the article above made a logical arguement for ending subsidies to other renewables except wind. As a long time mechanical engineer I am confident that Concentrating Solar Thermal (in the right regions) will continue to reduce levelized costs as economies of scale and build experience increase, and that CST and energy storage will also get cheaper and better integrated. Killing the subsidy to CST right now would also kill this technology evolution (and no I have no commercial connection to CST, I work in energy efficiency).

Hannes, the problem as I see it is that your analysis simply feeds into the quarrel between the "we can maintain BAU with fossil fuels and nukes" and the "we can maintain BAU with renewables" camps; though I know this isn't what you intend, Alan's right that your work in its current form will be treated as fodder for the coal and nuclear lobbies. That's why I'm suggesting that you need to give some space to the things that wind and other renewables can do -- for example, provide offgrid power to a very large range of uses for which grid power is currently used, but which can live with stochastic availability -- thus freeing up grid power for other uses.

You don't need to launch into a detailed analysis of what an energy system built around intermittent power would look like, though that would be a good project for another time. My suggestion is simply that after saying "windpower isn't a good source of electricity for the grid," it would be useful to add the next clause, "on the other hand, it is good for..." and fill in the blanks with at least a few examples.

Maybe one important note, once again: This series of posts doesn't cater to people who have long ago given up on "BAU".

Then why post it on TOD, where 99% of readers (judging by comments) have long ago given up on BAU? Know your audience.

Please try to be a little generous with the fellow who has been kind enough to share his work with us and go through the TOD grinder.

The posts are derived from work intended to explore the feasibility of a renewable energy energy system, a very interesting and very common exploration even here.

I admit I have lost my patience, and perhaps should simply be keeping my mouth shut. However, this entire "Fake Fire Brigade" series has a polemical and un-objective tone which has put me in an ungenerous mood.

I don't believe its quite right that this work is intended to explore the feasibility of a renewable energy system, which indeed would be something quite different from the energy system we currently have, and something worth talking about. Rather it seems to be intended to discourage the adoption of renewables because they cannot fit into the energy system we have. It is one big straw man of an argument against renewable energy, in my opinion. I do not believe it is the conversation we need to be having, or a particularly useful conversation at all, whether the audience is particularly aware of peak oil or not.

I think the series is great. It gets closer to what I want to see discussed than anything else on TOD; namely it prompts discussion on the statistical considerations behind renewables. The only thing better is to have statistical discussions on FFs (which are few and far between). Hannes may not have reached any meaningful conclusions, but to even have the discussion is important.

The discussion is worthwhile, but unnecessarily tense.

I think it's unfortunate that for Five major keyposts, they kept that rilesome language up at the top.

I suppose it's an embarrassment for Nate and the Eds to have a hardworking guest barked at and grilled in such a tempramental way, but is it really a surprise with the tone that such a title clearly provokes? What does one call it, to try the same thing over and over again, as if expecting different results?

To have such clear signals of the mismatch in the theme they are trying to share, and what has been inferred from not just this title, but from countless examples throughout the text, and yet to be essentially tonedeaf to these responses feels like one does with a government that 'lets you talk', but makes it clear that they're not really listening.

Thanks, well put.

Complaining about the title Fake Fire Brigade?
How mild.

Humans get testy when their worldview is challenged because people collapse their ego with their opinion, as though their opinion is somehow "them." Thus when the opinion is challenged, they feel threatened. It unfortunately happens all the time.

In any case, as I point out elsewhere, the exact question "can the current fossil-fueled energy system be replaced entirely by renewables and still maintain its major properties i.e. total power output plus energy quality plus energy availability?" is very worth answering. We collectively are in the bargaining stage and we've already gone down at least two dead ends (hydrogen and biofuels) with some others not quite dead but should be dead (fusion) and likely some others.

Right now the prevailing thinking is most definitely that the current system will continue if we just get off our butts and build out renewables. I think that's a deeply incorrect worldview.

Thus, we need people like Hannes' team to demonstrate that:
a) it can't get done in time before contraction hits full-force
b) it can't ever replace the current system anyway i.e. our species will have to create a new relationship with energy

Once we get everyone to that place we can move the conversation to the next question, which should probably be something like: how do we contract gracefully? We will make very different decisions if we a) accept contraction and b) re-examine our relationship to energy.

Perhaps the language in the post is a little inflammatory but not by much. I think the people most invested in their "renewables will save the day" worldview are just being testy because they feel threatened.

Aandre'

I'M testy about this whole series as have been several other posters here whose contributions I feel are consistently reasonable and mature, while I'm sure "RENEWABLES WILL SAVE THE DAY" is NO bumper sticker any of us would put on our cars.. it hasn't 'challenged my dearly held worldview', it has used broad terminology like 'Renewables' in a context that makes all of 'Them' bear the burden for Failing to hold together a rotten ship.. while in the meantime, these are some of the best tools we have to keep anything afloat.

I agree that the language is not actually that inflammatory.. it's simply officious. And you can see from the comments how it snowballs.

Bob

"can the current fossil-fueled energy system be replaced entirely by renewables and still maintain its major properties i.e. total power output plus energy quality plus energy availability?" is very worth answering

Not really. Just a theoretical exercise of limited real world importance. If we go to a 90% or so non-carbon grid in 30 years (an aggressive but quite possible goal), we will have enough "stock" FF fuels to last for well over a century for the residual demand.

And failing such a move towards renewables, FF will still be available in limited volume for well over a century, baring a complete social collapse. Answering a question for the 23rd Century using today's technology is simply not a question worth asking.

And we can use those 3 decades to work on DSM, variable output geothermal, synthesis of stock fuels for use later, load following nukes, storing solar heat, batteries, etc.

I am testy becasue of the low quality of the work in several areas, and unsupported logical leaps.

Specifically, Hannes advocated policy that we immediately stop installing renewables except for a wind down on new wind installations (stopping at a low upper limit), and just go back to the laboratories because we might waste some money is ... words fail me to adequately describe how stupid and destructive that is. And how disconnected to reality and logic it is, even if you accept his analysis.

A paid shill for the coal industry could do no better.

Hannes COULD have made a significant contribution with a valid skeptical eye towards the limitations of renewables and the problems they will create with high % penetration. But he went far beyond that and "forced" clearly incorrect (as proved by real world examples) analysis; such as if the price of energy doubles the overall economy will have to shrink by half.

Alan

The idea that renewables cannot save the day in the sense of letting us continue our profligate lifestyle is nothing new. People like Al Gore have helped perpetuate the myth that only a few minor lifestyle changes are required. I love him dearly, but he has decided to use the strategy that we can save the planet and have our 10,000 square foot houses too. He also walks the talk in terms of having an extravagant lifestyle.

I was a bit taken aback first by this analysis, but I don't think it necessarily shows that we might as well forget renewables. It shows that a renewable plus nuclear plus some natural gas strategy is expensive from the author's perspective. I don't see it as being prohibitely expensive.

The most useful takeaway is that a great deal more thought must be applied to what can be done in a world where power will be out much of the time. Even in this case, individuals have options in terms of backup generators or backup batteries if they are willing and able to pay the price.

Recently, China has chosen to simply cut the power off to meet renewable goals. Well, that's one approach but I guess that would not go over so well in the U.S.A. where we have the "freedom" to have all the power we want when we want it at low,low prices.

Title : Delivering Stable Electricity

I'd agree it is about 'ask a a better question'

"can the current fossil-fueled energy system be replaced entirely by renewables and still maintain its major properties i.e. total power output plus energy quality plus energy availability?"

yes, that's a better question than the op; smarter still would be a question that does not fully exclude Nuclear, as there is no sign of that collapsing faster than FF. (nor should Nuclear be allowed to fall too quickly)

and an even smarter question realizes that 'replaced entirely' is not needed, so we then get an even better question :

"can the current fossil-fueled energy Electricity systems be displaced almost entirely by alternatives and still maintain its major properties i.e. total power output plus energy quality plus energy availability?"

After all, many grids are already substantially renewables, and use FF for rare-event coverage. (often under legislated backup supply)

Then, given many countries are already in this space, perhaps we add another question

How many Countries will be able to displace their current fossil-fueled energy Electricity systems almost entirely by alternatives and still maintain the major properties i.e. total power output plus energy quality plus energy availability?"

It's not alternatives that get me testy, it is school-boy level errors in miss-understanding/poor writing of the fundamentals of how Grids and Electricity generations work NOW.

Humans get testy when their worldview is challenged because people collapse their ego with their opinion, as though their opinion is somehow "them." Thus when the opinion is challenged, they feel threatened. It unfortunately happens all the time.

Andre, this basically an ad hominem argument. You're suggesting that those who are disagreeing are doing so because of personal irrationality. Actually, I would argue that it's because they're correct, the Original Post is badly incorrect, and the OP is so inaccurate that it's actually contributing to BAU.

People get upset because they feel the topic is important. This series could have been written by a coal company.

we've already gone down at least two dead ends (hydrogen and biofuels)

No, we haven't. Hydrogen for personal transportation was a red herring to avoid CAFE regs; biofuels are primarily an ag subsidy.

Thanks, Nick.
I had been chewing on how to make that point myself today. I thought it was fairly condescending to put it the way he did.. I just think this whole conversation was started off on the wrong foot.

Bob

You're very welcome.

As best I can tell, IIER comes from a badly flawed set of basic assumptions, which leads them to consistently assume the worst. It's baffling how they can be so consistently wrong.

I'd like to see their work put to better ends. Of course, it appears they're working on a shoestring: their "Senior Research Associate" is a PhD student, so maybe that helps explain why they haven't produced much that is helpful.

When I was inquiring of Charlie Hall about ESOEI with greater rigor, he recommended the same graduate student at $50/hour or whatever we agreed to.

A reasonably thick shoestring from grad student days.

Alan

Wow. I wonder how much of that goes to the student, and how much goes to intermediaries/sponsors/school. I bet grad students still are lucky to be paid minimum wage.

You're suggesting that those who are disagreeing are doing so because of personal irrationality.

No, you are reading that completely incorrectly.

What I am saying is that people get emotional when discussing opinions that disagree with their own. That's a simple observation. Otherwise people would not get angry during any discussion any time, would they? We would all have the patience of the Buddha and could calmly discuss any topic at all. That, however, is a rare trait and I certainly don't have it (though I make a great effort not to get testy — in my experience it usually makes things go south).

That is not the same thing that you said, though there is quite a bit of evidence that what you are saying is also generally true in many other conversations (though I did not assert that that is occurring here and have no desire to explore that).

Humans get angry when discussing opinions that differ from their own and I suggested a reason for why that phenomenon occurs, that's all I was asserting.

Are you suggesting that all emotional content is irrational? That all of us, in all of our communication, should present a completely bland and neutral tone? I see no reason why people shouldn't express mild, assertive emotion, and communicate that these are important issues. Heck, if we had no feelings about anything, we wouldn't get out of bed.

If not, then you're suggesting that the very mild expression of emotion here is especially irrational. I see no evidence of that: there has been no personal criticism that I can see - the closest has been pointed questions about possible conflicts of interest (questions that seem reasonable to me, given the remarkable similarity to coal industry disinformation). I see no evidence that anyone's prefrontal cortex has been inappropriately dominated by their irrational amygdala - far from it.

The authors express at least as emotion in their articles: "fake fireman" is strongly loaded with emotion. There are many points where they indicate that they feel these are important issues, and not blandly academic questions.

Finally, the suggestion that people have confused their ego with their ideas carries a clear implication that their ideas were formed in an irrational fashion, and that their owners are not open to rational consideration of alternatives.

No, you continue to read more into what I am saying than what I actually said.

I did not say what is being said is irrational — anywhere. You keep trying to introduce that idea.

Go back and read more closely, please, and do your best not to add more to what I said than what I actually said.

The idea that people have confused their ideas with their ego suggests that people aren't considering the ideas rationally (there are good alternative explanations for emotion...). That's why Jokuhl found it condescending.

Probably I should let you off the hook, and allow you to gracefully back away from the statement. I hope I'm not taking it too far. It's just that you have said somewhat similar things several times in the past, and it has always come off as...unfortunate.

Again, no.

A worldview is distinct from the ego (to whatever extend that is possible, as Step Back points out) and is arrived at with varying levels of evidence gathering and rational thought. All the thoughts presented here have seemed to me very well thought out and backed by evidence — on both sides of the debate.

THEN the worldview gets associated with the ego. The consequence of that is a person feels that they must defend the view and often becomes emotional about it. When emotions come into play, often the worldview becomes "locked in." That's the nature of an argument: an argument is when world views have become rigid and both parties solely defend their views.

An alternate conversational methodology is the inquiry. Exploration is the main property of the inquiry and it usually is a much more pleasant conversation because both parties haven't internalized their world views. They have freedom to turn the ideas over in their mind and question fundamental assumptions. That freedom is, by definition, not present in an argument.

I'm sorry Bob felt it was condescending but I assert that is because he was thinking I said something different than what I actually said.

That's a plausible set of definitions. I'm not sure they're universal, but they seem reasonable to me.

So - I was objecting to the suggestion that those who disagreed with the Original Post were "arguing", rather than engaging in flexible (if slightly emotional) debate.

I'd note that you later said "We collectively are in the bargaining stage ", which certainly suggests that those who disagree with the authors are deeply in irrational denial.

Well, I don't want to argue over whether we were arguing ;-).

My reference to "we" in "we collectively are in the bargaining stage" is the populace at large. I think all of the regular posters here would accept the graph I posted elsewhere: it's really just a matter of determining which point on the contraction curve we end up. Contraction is unavoidable. But that is far from a commonly held view in the world.

Of course, that's assuming that we will have much control over the contraction phase at all. As Greer often points out to me, it is likely that once the financial system implosion really picks up steam, all we will be able to do is react, and not very well, either. 99% of the renewable build out will cease.

My reference to "we" in "we collectively are in the bargaining stage" is the populace at large.

Well, I think that's a mistake that will lead one down the wrong path. I'd say that most of the resistance to change comes from a relatively small minority of people who are most affected: people who will lose careers or investments. For instance:

"The billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch are waging a war against Obama. He and his brother are lifelong libertarians and have quietly given more than a hundred million dollars to right-wing causes."

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?curren...

Unfortunately, articles like the Original Post only help such people.

I think all of the regular posters here would accept the graph I posted elsewhere

Not all. And, unfortunately, many people who would present a more balance view have left, such as Stuart Saniford. TOD has, sadly, self-selected for people with an unrealistically pessimistic view.

Now, one might argue that we will face economics problems unrelated to energy. But, physics and economics (even from PO aware economicsts like Hamilton, or energy-savvy ones like Ayres) tells us that energy will not force a contraction.

Not all.

You're right, not all. There are some people, like yourself, who have a completely unrealistic view that we won't contract as fossil fuels decline.

As you know, I have no interest in discussing your novel point of view:

But, physics and economics ... tells us that energy will not force a contraction.

so I won't.

As you know, I have no interest in discussing your novel point of view

And yet, it's the heart of the Original Post: whether renewable energy can replace FF. You're refusing to discuss the basics.

I see no evidence that anyone's prefrontal cortex has been inappropriately dominated by their irrational amygdala - far from it.

So tell me more.
How long have you had these repressed feelings about your parents?

Just kidding of course.

On the other hand, there is no way to fully separate the neo-cortical brain shell from the limbic and the reptilian (assuming here a crude triune model of the brain). So any talk about making a clean and neat separation is itself irrational. ;-)

Exactly - we're emotional beings. To suppress all emotions would be unhealthy.

We collectively are in the bargaining stage and we've already gone down at least two dead ends (hydrogen and biofuels) with some others not quite dead but should be dead (fusion) and likely some others.

I'm not sure hydrogen and biofuels are strictly dead ends.

It is important to define the operational aspects of all alternatives, and hydrogen may yet have niche applications, and biofuels ? - well that is a VERY wide area, and already viable in some countries.

Fusion ? I'm not sure should be dead; Sure, it is horizon stuff, but we are collectively getting much better at software and modeling, and fusion is going to need that.
Even Cold fusion refuses to die, and should receive R&D.

Good point - just because fuel cells aren't right for personal transportation doesn't mean they won't be very for other things, and just because biomass has scalability limits doesn't mean it isn't very, very useful in it's place.

Humans get testy when their worldview is challenged because people collapse their ego with their opinion, as though their opinion is somehow "them

Andre, I think the real reason people are getting testy in this conversation is that there is a HUGE issue at stake, namely whether people should be installing more renewable power or not. Hannes essentially draws the conclusion that we should stop right now, or at least drastically slow down, including by curtailing policies that have encouraged the adoption of renewables. The testiness ensues because (a) this question is very high stakes, and (b) a number of us feel that Hannes analysis is too narrow to justifiably draw the conclusions that he draws, and that he makes up for this by using polemical and dishonest rhetorical strategies.

That those of us who are upset have a different world-view is no co-incidence, but we would probably not be so upset if this series didn't have the severe problems that it has.

I think the people most invested in their "renewables will save the day" worldview are just being testy because they feel threatened.

I think that what Hannes is threatening, quite explicitly, is not the belief "that renewables will save the day", but the belief "that renewables essentially do way more good than harm", and even the belief "that there is any possibility that renewables will have a significant effect of any kind". It is the far-reaching nature of his rhetoric that precipitates the responses.

That's the same message I'm getting, especially after lumping in DSM, smartgrid, conservation, etc, and saying all of those combined won't work. That's FAR outside the scope of BAU, though frankly he doesn't have the generation/transmission/distribution/smartgrid or modeling understanding to give a complete picture, he only looks at one side of the story (the coal/gas/nuclear PR stance).

Boy, you guys sure saved me a lot of typing today, thanks!

No, I may have let it go.. but well, here I am, one more time, eh?

"I think the people most invested in their "renewables will save the day" worldview are just being testy because they feel threatened."

Yeah, that was the capper. I don't know what you thought you were trying to get across, Andre', but what that said to me was 'Anybody here who has been objecting to the OP and voicing some kind of support for Renewables (you said "BEING Testy".. that's present-indicative, right?) these folks surely believe that Renewables will save the day, and we have the sad duty to disabuse them of their magical illusions...' It's simply obtuse to ignore the countless times I and others have to make blatant disclaimers about BB's and 'Best Hopes', in order to avoid the constant accusations that any mention of useful actions and helpful tools means we are promising 'BAU through Technology'.

Frankly, I think your statement about challenged worldviews is one I occasionally accuse the most devoted doomers of hollering from, anytime someone less sullen suggests anything with a tinge of 'Hope' attached to it. It seems that this attitude is simply unbearable, and must be disassembled as soon as it rears its head. (Because, perhaps, the idea of Hope is taken automatically as 'Hope for BAU'.. not just Hope for Surviving, etc)

I, for one, need constant reminders to keep my primate brain from going back into denial. Also, you can send the link to your "friends" and see if they still want to talk to you after.

This paper is much appreciated, Hannes, thank you!

DD

The fake fire brigade analysis seems to be a competent sketch of the boundaries of the energy problem and one that reveals what an incredible resource we have developed since "sea coales" began to be harvested for combustion about a thousand years ago. The conclusion from this preliminary analysis (that we are headed (at best) for intermittent renewable power systems) seems readily apparent, but that can happen only if we are fortunate enough to wisely craft and construct such massive alternatives in a stable culture. One part of that task not mentioned, that we will be forced to create in parallel, non-centralised sources of clean water, sewage management and food production, in addition to returning to simpler housing arrangements without the many current degrees of technical sophistication (central heat and plumbing(?), exotic, imported building materials). We have accumulated an encyclopedia of regional building, agricultural and water management methods from across human history which might be combined with modern building science to yield simple low cost building solutions that are comfortable, produce food and water with very low energy consumption and simple materials. One question in my mind is which manufactured goods will be available in the long run (past 2050) most notably, sheet window glass, metal roofing with appropriate life-extension coatings. Starting much simpler arrangements now frees up energy and time and makes our societies more resilient. For example, the installation of roof rain catchments, on-site storage, and slow sand filters could provide drinking quality water in short order (water pumping is one of the largest municipal energy draws). But ALL of these speculations are moot if unchecked population growth continues to fuel the Great Extinction of massive numbers of Earth's animal and plant species. Our greatest problems are social and psychological, not technical and I see many efforts to exacerbate these and not solve them.

Our greatest problems are social and psychological, not technical and I see many efforts to exacerbate these and not solve them.

And I see the authors as being VERY much part of and exacerbating that problem.

After four or so decades of strenuous effort, we appear to have reached a social consensus that "renewable energy sources are a good thing". This social consensus has allowed us to both improve renewable technology and to start to ramp up the implementation of renewable generation.

And then the authors, with a mixture of poor and apparently forced analysis, founded on unrealistic assumptions, say that investing in renewables is a waste of money, a bad thing, a "false fire brigade".

A position, that if it gains any traction, will be embraced and supported by API and the coal industry. And not because they seek a better way, only better profits.

And the hard fought for victory in social consensus will be endangered.

Best Hopes for Few Readers of TOD this week,

Alan

Alan,

it is probably now about time that I respond to you openly in this place, because I think readers should know about. We have exchanged numerous emails where I tried to understand your models and assumptions and have tried to - as scientifically as possible - respond with facts. Unfortunately, i was not successful.

Your statement that stating what we state would help the "coal industry" might even be true, however this is not the purpose. We only want to point out a few realities that people in their enthusiasm for technology seem to ignore. If we continue down that path, we are afraid that the consequences would be far worse when compared to a few happy fossil fuel people.

Alan: I hope that this discussion continues, and in the open, not in emails that then get quoted in public out of context. If you agree, we can publish our entire email conversation in public as a TOD post, otherwise I suggest you stay away from your communication approach.

Thanks

Hannes

I suggest you stay away from your communication approach.

Ok, no more private eMails, which you solicited originally.

Publish what you like.

I found your positions unsupported. "Forced" analysis is what it seems to me. A failure to look at reality and the reasonable expected markets/society various reactions to a changing world.

At times, in some ways "an economist does engineering" and comes up with faulty answers.

Alan

I notice that they have barely scratched the surface in analyzing the statistical distribution of wind speeds.

I think Fiures 2 and 3 don't say anything. What they ought to do is show rank histograms of wind speed and autocorrelations of wind in various locations. I have done some of this and come up with good models, but some industrious person with a background in statistical signal processing will clean up on this and provide a definitive model.

Here is an autocorrelation model that predicts how long it would take to reach a certain energy. The real curve was constructed from data provided out of Canada.

I am not sure what an autocorrelation model would do that our analysis that is based on extracting the most critical situation from actual data and looking at mitigation options doesn't do. Autocorrelation analysis very quickly turns a real problem into statistical noise, IMHO.

And yes: Figures 2 and 3 only graphically depict the problem and have no statistical relevance.

Well then someone else will do it, eventually. We don't have a lot of other options.

"If we continue down that path, we are afraid that the consequences would be far worse when compared to a few happy fossil fuel people."

I honestly have no idea what you mean by this sentence. Could you clarify?

Let me try to rephrase it: Contrary to frequent allegations from some readers we neither have affiliations with ANY type of energy provider, nor do we receive funds from special interests. Our by-laws (please see http://www.iier.ch/content/our-organization) are pretty strict in that respect.

But yes, it may be that some of our statements will help to argue against renewables (in this case, as suggested by Alan, the coal industry). This is not the intention, but we don't see why this should stop us from conducting unbiased science. Ultimately, we don't work because we want to prove or disprove something, but because we want to find out what the future will bring. If the result of this analysis is then used by someone with special interest: So be it.

I also have to repeat once more: Our posts make no argument for fossil fuels, which, as most TOD readers know, are finite (we wrote about that in our first post) and will inevitably become more expensive to extract relative to human work power (which matters, not absolute price). What most people try to sell us is that even when that happens (or if we force it in order to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions) that there is a stable Business-As-Usual case with renewable energy sources. These "fake" claims lead to investments that are currently costing societies billions and billions of unavailable dollars (i.e. debt that needs to be paid back in the future), but won't accomplish the promised objective.

Hannes, who are IIER's top dozen individuals and/or organizations in terms of monetary contributions?

Will, we don't disclose individual donor names, as we often accept donations under the condition of anonymity. But our website clearly states under what circumstances we accept funds, describes our work approach and if you look at our overall research focus you will find it hard to believe that any corporate interests might be happy with what we're looking at. Maybe the names of people working with or supporting us might give you a further idea about the probability that IIER could be a PR effort.

Who funded the Fake Fire Brigade series? Simply saying "anonymous" is a deflection; who would care if their support were made known, unless there was a reason for keeping that information from the general public?

you will find it hard to believe that any corporate interests might be happy with what we're looking at.

From your website:

"Currently, IIER has a number of research projects underway trying to understand this larger picture of delivering reliable electricity anytime."

This sounds VERY much like a corporate position. All coal and nuclear electricity vested interests have "reliable electricity" as their propaganda public relation themes.

UPDATE: Still waiting, Hannes.

Will, I think you're getting to the level of badgering here, which ultimately only casts all of us on the critical side of this discussion with the taint of "Cranks"..

I hope I'm not doing the same. It's been a very frustrating series to follow, but I hope we can keep our cool, cause it makes us 'justifiably ignorable..' It's like having to practise 'EXTREME Nonviolence' at protest rallies, even tho' you're being slammed by the other side. One slip and it all becomes Your Fault.

"unbiased science"

Great, but you might want to reconsider your choice of title (and some other wording) if you want to be perceived as presenting "unbiased science." Calling a whole section of the energy production industry a "fake fire brigade" does not strike me, or apparently many others here, as a very vigorous attempt at being impartial and unbiased.

By the way, your clarification did not seem to have much to do with the wording of the passage I asked about. So let me be a bit more specific--what did you mean by "a few happy fossil fuel people" (or something like that) in the earlier comment?

That your article may make a few people in the ff industry happy?

Or that rather than going to alternatives, we should reduce world population down so much that "a few happy ff people" can use ff's for an indefinitely long time without worries of serious shortages for hundreds or more years and without worries of accelerating GW much?

The latter, somewhat creepy reading was my first impression, but now I'm thinking you meant the former.

+10

That your article may make a few people in the ff industry happy?

Just for balance then could you quantify any FF's which have not been burnt of have been deliberately left in the ground due to renewable energy devices?
Fracing shale, deepwater oil drilling, tar sands, Arctic exploration, you have got to be absolutely naive.

Could you even have a flying guess as to what amount of usable FF's will remain unused due to the use of renewable energy devices. If you don't, then get off your high horse and get honest with yourself and everyone here.

Quite a few NG wells that would have stayed in production at higher prices have been plugged & abandoned.

Less FF are burned each year due to renewables. This puts back the production till "later" and slows, by a bit the speed of Climate Change.

Alan

Less FF are burned each year due to renewables.

We are burning at peak for pity's sake. Why do you think so much oil, coal and gas is exported? Are we exporting less due to renewables, are the exporting countries using less because of renewables?

All the trend lines are up. They will come down because there is less to burn and the economy shrinks, because of the reduced amount of energy and the reduced quality and effectiveness of the substitutions.

We could burn more coal and NG, and would were it not for renewables.

Alan

So you say.
And in the previous post you say the cost of FF's has risen because of renewables.
Anyway I give up, have it your way. I'm wasting my time voicing my opinion on the matter.

And in the previous post you say the cost of FF's has risen because of renewables.

What he suggested (but did not actually say) what precisely the opposite: that FF prices have gone down because of renewables, and therefore some production has been stopped because it's less profitable.

..

I actually agree that renewable energy (by itself, at least) won't get us to where we have to go.

What do you see as the most important things to do (or not do) in the short and long term?

I actually agree that renewable energy (by itself, at least) won't get us to where we have to go.

If you're willing to indulge me...

Ask yourself "Is renewable energy sufficient to get us where we have to go?"
Then ask yourself: "Is renewable energy necessary to get us where we have to go?"

My answer to the first question is 'no', but my answer to the second question is 'yes.'

My answer is no and no.

Because, IIRC, you think nuclear breeders are going to take care of it all?

You answered "yes" to the question of renewables' necessity. I think nuclear breeders CAN take care of it. Ergo renewables aren't necessary. Whether nuclear breeders actually WILL take care of it, that's a different question.

Not ergo.

Widespread use of breeders is multiple decades in the future (my guess, 5) and it is less than 3 years from a financial OK to generation for a green field wind farm.

Yes, I support MORE EXPENSIVE nukes today becasue I see their very long term (20+ years) potential in the later stages of our looming crisis.

But you want to discard our best short term, medium term and nearer long term (next 15 years) solution !

Alan

I'd like to point out that breeders aren't needed yet due to abundant uranium, and that with breeding ratios higher than one, all reactors need not be breeders even in a plutonium economy.

While I agree there are bottlenecks in scaling nuclear, and that breeders could use some more R&D before widespread deployment, I think nuclear can be scaled fast enough for renewables not being a "necessity".

In this particular sub-thread, I've not expressed a "want" to discard anything. I've talked about what is possible.

The multiple attempts at breeders with, perhaps, one incomplete success of a sodium cooled reactor means that breeder reactors are not a solved problem.

Sodium reacts explosively with water and is simply not a generally acceptable coolant.

from Wikipedia

There have been incidents involving sodium/water interactions from tube breaks in the steam generators, a sodium fire from a leak in an auxiliary system, and a sodium fire from a leak in a secondary coolant loop while shut down.

Add to this the very limited success of reprocessing spent fuel and I think 50 years till widespread use of breeder reactors is a reasonable SWAG. More likely longer than shorter.

Alan

I wouldn't rule out sodium-cooling, but as you probably know, there are several other designs being actively researched in experiment reactors. For instance, India's AHWR fueled by thorium, the gas cooled fast reactors, lead or lead-bismuth-cooled reactors and so on. I think the hunger of China and India will make them scale breeders in about 20 years.

And again, whether it will be done is a different question. The question was if renewables were needed, and I answered "no", as nuclear could do the trick. It's an open question what will be chosen in the end, but as my belief is that nuclear is necessary long-term and intrinsically cheaper, I believe wind and solar, if ramped further, will be mostly decommissioned eventually and replaced with nuclear.

I would rule out sodium cooling. If a sodium cooled reactor would be proposed next to the closest nuke to me (Waterford, ~ 20 km), I would lie down in front of the trucks, etc. to stop it.

Solar will stay there for a century or so. Once installed, ongoing costs are just TOO low (and replacement inverters will improve in both durability & cost).

OTOH, the 20 to 25 year lifespan of wind turbines fits nicely into a reasonable nuke build-out. And the pumped storage built for wind will interface nicely with the needs of nukes and the grid.

Best Hopes for a Rush to Wind and an economic build-out of nukes,

Alan

I hope you'd do a bit of research before you lie down in front of trucks. You might be surprised at the solutions provided.

Depends on your definition of -where we have to go-...

Instead of a theoretical scenario why wind energy might not work in Spain/Britain/Denmark, I would have liked to see the following:

How Denmark managed to make wind energy work

Obviously, the danish grid has not collapsed, they always have electricity, and their economy has not broken down from the cost of all this.

And how Portugal now gets 45% of it's electricity from renewables. Portugal’s next goal is 60% by 2020.

Danish energy works because it is coupled with scandinavian hydro. wind does not blow, swedes and norsmen open gates. Wind blows, danes consume their electricity, or sell to Germany.

Spain achieved a peak penetration of wind of 45% on a certain windy day when there was very little demand for electricity. It must have been windy and in the whole country: They were running at 80% capacity. Usual wind turbine rating is given for 10-13 m/s wind, so for 80% aggregate capacity there must have been blowing solid 20-25knots over whole country. November 4am.

Great! This means that 20% wind energy works even in a business as usual situation. The next challenge is to increase this to 30%. Then to 40%. For Spain, they can add solar (peak in July, wind peaks in November). Sweden will add biomass. France will add solar and nuclear. And on it goes...

France is adding 5 GW of wind (Phase I) to help with their winter peak.

Alan

More fake analysis.

Our current grid is based on the energy storage of the fossil fakes, coal, gas and nukes.
So how can we replace our storage based fakes with renewable electricity..hum..
..maybe we should add storage once our storage fuels run out!
Eureka! (Well, duh.)

Take Europe.
http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/europes-onshore-and-offshore-wind-...

The offshore technical potential in 2030 is estimated at 30 000 TWh for all EEA countries (Figure 3.5). This figure is two-thirds of the onshore (unrestricted) technical potential (45 000 TWh). [page 22]

Consider Ulf Bossel's analysis that electricity from hydrogen produced by wind is 25% efficient.
http://www.pluginamerica.org/images/Bossel_E13.pdf

30000 Twh x 25% =7500 Twh.
IEA Europe produced 3600 Twh of electricity in 2007.

'Ah, but we can't afford a wind-hydrogen based grid.'

Cost of offshore wind goes for less than 20 cents per kwh.
Maintenance costs are about 1 cent per kwh so let's assume that wind prices drop to 3.8 cents per kwh once capital costs are paid down.
Cost of wind electricity to hydrogen based on 3.8 per kwh, $4.8/therm ($5.5/kg 2006 technology)
Cost of fuel cell electricity(Bloom) 5.9 cents per kwh based on gas at $1.2 per therm.
If we put in the offshore wind now, paying 20 cents per kwh for the buildout by the time we reach the end of natural gas/backup
availability the price of hydrogen generated electricity from 3.8 cents per kwh wind(capital costs being paid down) would be 23.6 per kwh; 4.8 x 5.9 cents/1.2 =23.6 cents per kwh.
No real increase in price.

German consumers pay an average of 16 cents per kwh.

Yes, electricity will become more expensive in the future, but it will be clean and inexhaustible.

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy06osti/39534.pdf
http://gigaom.com/cleantech/bloom-energy-by-the-numbers/

Europe has plenty of time to build the hydrogen storage infrastructure as natural gas can act as wind storage for at least 50 years but there is no reason not to build out the
wind infrastructure now.

Another big disappointment from IIER.

Why not NH3 instead of hydrogen? Much easier to store and transport via pipeline etc, usable in ICE's, usable as feedstock for fertilizer etc. & clean burning too (yielding water and nitrogen gas, no CO2).
Nukes supply baseload & run ammonia plants - ammonia burning power plants supply peak power & power when the wind does not blow. ICE fuel is created, nitrogen is fixed, all without natural gas.

Here are the methanol prices as a function of electrical costs using the Green Freedom synthetic fuel process that uses atmospheric CO2 and water.

Electricity(¢/kWh)......Methanol($/gal)

3.0.......$1.09
6.0.......$1.53
10.0......$2.11

The latest ICIS Chemical Business gives the spot methanol price of $0.89 - 0.91/gal and the contract methanol price as $1.05 - 1.07/gal.

Interesting.
Is there any recent work on this process?

Thank you for all your work on this report. It clearly points out that defining all the details in a systems approach is of great importance. Our society is very good at failing to anticipate how the connection between the details create "unintended consequences". I liked your example of Compact Fluorescent Lamps. As another addition to this, CFL's contain mercury and concentrated phosphorus. In most locations in the U.S., it is now illegal to dispose of CFL's in the regular garbage pickup provided by municipalities because of fears for ecological contamination. Instead, there are a limited number of designated "drop off" locations which is the consumers responsibility to take the used lamps to. I don't know of anyone currently who would bother to ride a bicycle to a disposal site. So on any given day you may have dozens of people in a metropolitan area driving their SUVs miles just to drop off their old "energy saving" bulbs. Almost any trip in a multi thousand pound vehicle to transport the bulbs would entirely wipe out the total system energy value of the bulbs. The hypocrisy never ends because we aren't smart enough to connect the dots. We will be needing much more work like yours that does, not to keep BAU going, but just to survive the consequences of our past ignorance.

Actually, this last weekend I went to a twice yearly "drop off" for materials that are no longer accepted at landfills (i.e., batteries, old pesticides I no longer use anyway, and CFL bulbs). I collect these items in a cardboard box in the garage, until I need to take them in. In 12 years time, I've only had to go twice. And both times were simple stop-offs on other family outings.

That whole system is run by fossil fuels. I believe we will so soon a massive scaling back of the various systems we have put into place recently (like my curbside compost pickup and so on). The program you participated in (i.e. receiving and specially processing difficult waste) may or may not be available in 10 year's time.

I agree that life will be very different in many ways 10 years from now...

Almost any trip in a multi thousand pound vehicle to transport the bulbs would entirely wipe out the total system energy value of the bulbs.

12 incandescent bulbs x 100 watts x 750 hours = 900 kWh

One CFL 23 watts x 9,000 hours = 207 kWh

Savings 693 kWh, about $75 worth of energy in most areas.

If a homeowner waits till they have 2 or 3 CFLs to dispose of, that trip = $150 or $225 worth of energy savings.

One can play around with other #s. But I think the point is made.

Alan

Beyond which is the fact that the Mercury that is well-enough contained in an intact CFL is still far less than what is spilled into the atmosphere by lighting with the equivalent Incandescent bulb, under present mixes of Coal Powered Electricity.

Even burning that CFL bulb after use would produce less airborne Hg.

Bob

Hannes's daft arguments against CFLs really don't help his credibility much - I actually agree that BAU electricity is not possible with renewables for at least the UK's present population but if the standard of his comment

Then, when looking at the traditional indoor use in moderate climates, at least 65-75% of the use of light bulbs occurs during heating periods, when heating is required. During these times, the “loss” from traditional bulbs in the form of heat gets fully added to the ambient temperature of that room, thus reducing the need of additional space heat. When all these aspects are factored in, the theoretical 65-70% advantage of new lighting technologies is reduced significantly less

is anything to go by then I don't trust his analysis. There is undoubtedly some contribution to space heating from poorly efficient lighting but

1. The heat is usually delivered near the ceiling where it is of little use.

2. The heat only directly replaces fuel used for heating if the building is using electric resistance heat, if any other heating method is used you are using a ~30-40% efficient fuel to heat source to replace an 80-90% one if oil or gas or as high as 120% if a heat pump (maybe 60% if burning solid fuel in a stove).

3. If there is a need to light when there is also a need to use air-con then any savings in winter heat may well be more than offset by extra summer cooling.

All this is very well known so why waste effort trying to argue otherwise?, and that ignores that in my house at least much of the heat from inefficient lighting would be delivered at the wrong time to be useful (lights are on from return from work until I go to bed but heat starts earlier and stops earlier due to the thermal mass of the building).

The Canadian study we quote very clearly analyzes the benefit exchange between heat and light. Other studies come to the same conclusion.

And yes, for areas with air conditioning, this effect gets reduced in summer, but usually, due to longer days, light use in summer is about 10-20% of what it is in winter.

Savings 693 kWh, about $75 worth of energy in most areas. If a homeowner waits till they have 2 or 3 CFLs to dispose of, that trip = $150 or $225 worth of energy savings.

Also, an electric car could travel to a disposal site some 50 miles away on 20 or 30 kWh. So gyurash's comment about the energy is probably false on that measure as well.

This analysis suffers from a brain lock that is pervasive in energy systems planning that I just don’t understand. Nuclear power can be more than just a base load energy provider. Many types of nuclear systems are capable of both base load and load leveling. These nuclear systems designs are well beyond the proof of concept stage and have been demonstrated to work.

I am familiar with two of them, the pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR) and the molten salt reactor. There is even a combined molten salt cooled pebble bed reactor called the PB-AHTR that can load follow.

Furthermore, the PBMR is currently being deployed in China.

I will be interested in the final installment of this analysis that purports to describe all the various available deployable energy systems. I wonder if the Brain Lock (aka Only Light Water Reactors) associated with nuclear power will continue.

Yes, let me say it clearly. Nuclear power can do it all if only it is so permitted.

The precise energy generation mix is only slightly relevant.

The bottom line doesn't change: we will still end up somewhere on the blue curve I've drawn. The only question is exactly where. Further, I'd wager that as the world financial system continues to fall apart, investment horizons will shrink (they always do during periods of economic stress) and most high-cost, long-payback projects will not materialize.

Governments may pick up a very small portion of the slack but they won't match what private industry was able to accomplish over the past century of energy system buildout. Besides, mostly they will fight a losing battle to keep the existing infrastructure going as the existing systems deteriorate. They won't have the cash to do much if any buildout.

China is in a unique period in which it is building out infrastructure that will presumably last it the next forty or so years. Western infrastructure is already due for a massive overhaul and mostly that overhaul just won't occur as the credit contraction continues.

Soon a critical number of researchers will realize this and begin work on understanding how to allocate declining financial resources to keep as much infrastructure going as long as possible. We're not there yet. We may start to see these sorts of analyses in the next five years, though.

Here is another brain lock about nuclear power that is almost universal; a nuclear power system must be deployed as a high-cost, long-payback project.

A short time back, Rod Adams posted here about small format modular nuclear power reactors.

These reactors can be deployed in increments as capital is made available. Each nuclear module adds capacity to a system that can grow as large in size as current nuclear systems.

This pay as you go mentality is gaining favor in the nuclear industry (regulators - NRC). Unfortunately, it is not accepted yet by the electric utilities. My guess is that when the natural gas prices begin its climb that negative attitude will change.

We haven't spent much time on nuclear but will in the technology review (next post). Some inputs on that one.

The problem with nuclear is (beyond political and waste storage reasons) threefold:
- nuclear suffers heavily from the "receding horizons" problem. Almost 70% of the inputs are in capital, i.e. mostly fossil-fuel driven (concrete, steel, others). If the cost of fossil fuels and natural resources go up, building nuclear will equally become more expensive
- nuclear, for the same reason as above, is very badly suited to provide load following capacity, despite the fact that new Type III+ reactors have that option built in. The fact that fuel cost is only about 10% of total expense (approximately 70% is investment, 20% is fixed operations) makes it uneconomic to reduce output, because that simply makes each kWh more expensive. This is why nuclear is mainly providing base load capacity and doesn't make much sense for other things
- The price of nuclear is quickly approaching 6-10 cents per kWh for large new reactors, and those small reactors are projected to produce at 12-14 cents per kWh. This is a very high price for base load.

"France's nuclear reactors comprise 90% of EdF's capacity and hence are used in load-following mode and are even sometimes closed over weekends, so their capacity factor is low by world standards, at 77.3%. However, availability is almost 84% and increasing." ( http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf40.html )

77.3% is still fairly high compared to other load following power-plants from my understanding though.

EdF turns off reactors in the spring and fall.

I have demonstrated here, using EdF hourly data, that French nukes do *NOT* load on an hour by hour basis.

The world wide average for nuke availability was 80.0% in 2008.

Alan

Total return on nuclear energy investment is primarily driven by a valid estimate of capacity factors and the actual lifetimes of nuclear reactors.

These lifetime estimates have been proven to be substantially underestimated.

Most of today's nuclear plants were originally designed for 30 or 40-year operating lives. However, with major investments in systems, structures and components lives can be extended, and in several countries there are active programs to extend operating lives. In the USA most of the more than one hundred reactors are expected to be granted license extensions from 40 to 60 and may eventually reach 80 years. This justifies significant capital expenditure in upgrading systems and components, including building in extra performance margins.

The cost of extending the operational lifetimes of reactors is part of the operations and maintenance budget and is a pay as you go item supported by the power rate structure.

Furthermore, continuing increases in fuel burn up levels are continuing to reduce fuel costs.

Since you haven’t done much thinking about nuclear power, take a look at this:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf11.html

Summary of Energy Analysis of Power Systems

(July 2009)

Life Cycle Analysis, focused on energy, is useful for comparing net energy yields from different methods of electricity generation.

Nuclear power shows up very well as a net provider of energy, and with centrifuge enrichment, only hydro electricity is closely comparable.

External costs, evaluated as part of life cycle assessment, strongly favor nuclear over coal-fired generation.

Under Net Present Value calculations, life times beyond 25 years add little to the NPV.

As noted elsewhere, if wind turbines could last 50% longer but cost 10% more, the market would not buy them.

And for lifetime of nukes, check out Trojan, Ft. St. Vrain, TMI and Zimmer. And this list

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_canceled_nuclear_plants_in_the_Unit...

Alan

These lifetime estimates have been proven to be substantially underestimated.

Most of today's nuclear plants were originally designed for 30 or 40-year operating lives. However, with major investments in systems, structures and components lives can be extended, and in several countries there are active programs to extend operating lives. In the USA most of the more than one hundred reactors are expected to be granted license extensions from 40 to 60 and may eventually reach 80 years.

This is correct, but note you also say "major investments in systems, structures and components", so it's rather like the story of "Yup, this is Grandpa's axe, I've just replaced the handle 3 times, and the head twice ".

Also note, that 80 years is still a finite number.

By then, maybe something better will be available ?

The price of nuclear is quickly approaching 6-10 cents per kWh for large new reactors, and those small reactors are projected to produce at 12-14 cents per kWh. This is a very high price for base load.[

So Sorry, that is not an acceptable OilDrum verified fact as per the following:

Is Nuclear Power a Viable Option for Our Energy Needs?
Posted by Prof. Goose on March 1, 2007 - 11:30am

Since 1987 the cost of producing electricity from(sic) has decreased from 3.63 cents per KW-Hr to 1.68 cents per KW-Hour in 2004 and plant availability has increased from 67% to over 90%. The operating cost includes a charge of 0.15 cents per KW-Hr to fund the disposal of radioactive waste and for decommissioning the reactor.

PS: Please correct your future presentation regarding nuclear power to reflect that cost number.

Those figures do NOT include all the costs. Besides waste management & decommissioning (just SWAGs ATM) they do not include the capital costs of the half built & abandoned nukes, the early retired nukes, Browns Ferry 1,2 & 3 nukes and they are nearly meaningless for the price of new nukes (just ask the Finns).

He said "new nukes" and I think the prices he quoted are likely to be too low for the two new Georgia Power nukes on order.

I think we ought to pay the MASSIVE subsidies required to build a half dozen new nukes by 2020, but they will be significantly more expensive than wind.

Alan

Allen, the problems you list caused by the American anti-nukes that have substantially increased costs for American nuclear are about be manifest for Danish wind power.

An ill wind blows for Denmark's green energy revolution

Denmark has long been a role model for green activists, but now it has become one of the first countries to turn against the turbines.

By Andrew Gilligan
Published: 8:00AM BST 12 Sep 2010

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/denmark/7996606/An-ill-...

To green campaigners, it is windfarm heaven, generating a claimed fifth of its power from wind and praised by British ministers as the model to follow. But amid a growing public backlash, Denmark, the world's most windfarm-intensive country, is turning against the turbines.

Last month, unnoticed in the UK, Denmark's giant state-owned power company, Dong Energy, announced that it would abandon future onshore wind farms in the country. "Every time we were building onshore, the public reacts in a negative way and we had a lot of criticism from neighbours," said a spokesman for the company. "Now we are putting all our efforts into offshore windfarms."

Now that's funny, a classic case of inept headlines!!.

Given that on-shore is quite mature in Denmark, and off-shore now makes good sense from a yield basis, and the stated intention actually is this :

"Now we are putting all our efforts into offshore windfarms."

then to call that 'turning against the turbines' is pure waffle.

the problems you list caused by the American anti-nukes

No the problems were caused by the US nuke building industry. It committed hari kari.

Too fast expansion meant too few experienced managers, engineers, techniocans and bottlenecks in the supply base. Result, multi-year delays and MASSIVE cost over-runs.

Zimmer was 99% completed (after multi-year delays & 100+% cost overruns) but refused an operating license becasue of low quality. Rumor was Bellefonte had the same warning from the NRC.

That is why we need to give US nuke builders MASSIVE subsidies to build 6 or 7 new US nukes by 2020. Create an experienced work force and restart a supplier base.

Your attitude will just create a repeat of the past.

Alan

BTW, Browns Ferry was badly wired. Independent control wires were all routed in the same conduit (OOPS !) A fire and badly installed fire stops failed and BF #1 was almost operating @ 100% power WITH NO CONTROL WHAT SO EVER ! #2 and #3 had the same problems. #1 was down from 1985 till 2007. #2 and #3 for shorter times but still a decade off-line. Not so economic.

How massive is those subsidies? Is it loan guarantees you are talking about or real money? How much?

How much of a nuclear reactor's construction work is specific to nuclear power, rather than just part of any construction project?

I'm good with a trial of 6-7 AP-1000 nukes by 2020 - that's like 0.12 nukes per state. But then what - how fast can the US ramp this design in the first half of the twenties? 0.3 nukes per state?

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said on Wednesday that the Energy Department would need an additional $13 billion in authority from Congress to provide loan guarantees for building three new nuclear plants.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2812997120100428

a planned $54.5 billion program to kickstart a nuclear revival using government-backed loans.

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/02/chu-not-aware-nuclear-default...

The first new nukes also get cost over-run insurance (limit 100% from memory).

All safety related work is to the nuclear standard. Over 90% of total costs.

The access roads and parking lot, the administration building and cafeteria, the warehouse for parts and such are not held to that high standard.

The "per state" metric is meaningless.

And to avoid a common design flaw, and to promote competition, I would like to see at least three designs being built, with no more than 50% to any one type. AP-1000, EPR and Mitsubishi seem likely.

Watts Bar 2 and Bellefonte 1 will be old Gen II designs that will be completed several decades after they were started.

Alan

So, the massive subsidies is not real money, but guarantees? It will only be real money in the event of new epic failures?

All safety related work is to the nuclear standard. Over 90% of total costs.

It doesn't matter much if construction blueprints is to nuclear standard, as long as they can be followed by good generic construction workers. What I'm asking is how much of the work requires training and experience that can only be ramped slowly.

The "per state" metric is meaningless.

Perhaps. But you live in a federation. Your states are similar to countries in many respects - size, population, economy and so on. Small countries like my own Sweden has built nukes in parallel - I guess your states could too, after a ramping period. So I'm asking you how fast you think you could successfully ramp.

And to avoid a common design flaw, and to promote competition, I would like to see at least three designs being built, with no more than 50% to any one type. AP-1000, EPR and Mitsubishi seem likely.

I guess it won't hurt that much if you start ramping AP-1000 first, and then follow with others when their specifications are approved? You do have a base of 100 nukes that aren't AP-1000, after all. Btw, how much experience and training is nuke-generic? Would you need equally slow ramping for each design?

Watts Bar 2 and Bellefonte 1 will be old Gen II designs that will be completed several decades after they were started.

Yes, but that was failures. You don't plan to fail new projects, do you? If you commit to ramp nuclear, I guess the waves should be about five years apart?

Let me explain one of the easier to expand workforces, electricians.

We would hire, say, 12 nuke rated electricians for maintenance during a refueling outage. And 14 master electricians with either experience in high voltage or control wiring at petrochemical plants and refineries. Two of the 14 would fail the psychological screening.

The dozen non-nuke electricians would work as journeymen (apprentices) under the nuke rated electricians after several days of briefing about what is different in nukes.

All workers are limited to 70 hours/week (chemical plants will work them 90 & 100 hours/week in a turnaround) and false paperwork will send them to prison. So some prefer not to work in nukes.

After X thousand hours (I forgot #, like 2 years), the otherwise qualified master electricians get nuke ratings.

We do NOT take young people straight off the street and put them to work in nuclear plants. And master electricians that have only done homes and light commercial work are rarely hired (and they cannot do controls or high voltage in a nuke plant).

There is a pool of workers with years of high voltage or (sometimes and) control wiring experience. Fully qualified to work on a $2 billion chemical plant where a mistake can easily kill several people and cause $100s of millions in damage. That fairly small pool were the ones we wanted to hire as apprentices for nuclear power plants.

Nuke qualified weld inspectors are a very hard to expand group. Much harder than electricians.

The workforce that is finishing Watts Bar 2 will generate a workforce that can then complete Bellefonte 1 AND provide a core of experienced people for Vogtle 1 & 2 (Georgia Power AP-1000s).

Watts Bar, Bellefonte and Vogtle are all within 200 miles (320 km) of each other and can share quite a bit. Several operating nukes as well in the area, which adds to the nuke supporting infrastructure.

At the engineer and manager level the type of nuke can make a difference, but not at the weld inspector and electrician level.

Alan

Thanks, interesting. That sounds like a real problem. If you start building two-three nukes now and another four in 2015 to reach your 6-7 nukes to 2020, and then expand construction 50% each five-year-period... Is that reasonable?

Then you'd start constructing 6 in 2020, 9 in 2025, 14 in 2030 and 21 in 2035. So, about 25 years from now, you could be almost where China is now in terms of construction. Do you think you could do that, or is it too ambitious?

It's even worse than New Construction ramping, you have to ALSO find 19,600 more, in the next three years!!.

That's because large numbers are going to be retiring.

Mar 2008: ["Looking ahead, the nuclear industry views itself as especially vulnerable to the skilled-labor shortage. It hasn't had to recruit for decades. Not only were no nuke plants getting built, but workers in the 104 atomic facilities already in operation tended to stay in their well-paid jobs for years. But in the next five years, just as the industry hopes to launch a renaissance, up to 19,600 nuclear workers—35 percent of the workforce—will reach retirement age."]

Hard to see the USA managing that.

You may be right, perhaps you can't. As a famous nuclear worker once said: "Trying is the first step towards failure."

I think that is doable, even for critical bottlenecks.

One issue is how quickly we can finish new nukes. And if Shaw Group sets up a central AP1000 module assembly plant in Lake Charles, Louisiana like they are talking about.

Portions of the AP1000 units will be assembled at a 600,000-square-foot module assembly fabrication that Shaw previously announced it will build in Lake Charles, La. The facility, which is being constructed on a 300-acre site at the Port of Lake Charles, will primarily produce structural, piping and equipment modules for AP1000 nuclear power plants.

http://ir.shawgrp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=61066&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=124026...

That factory could be a game changer. However, I will not conclude that it will be successful till I see the first partial success.

Alan

hannes said:

nuclear, for the same reason as above, is very badly suited to provide load following capacity, despite the fact that new Type III+ reactors have that option built in. The fact that fuel cost is only about 10% of total expense (approximately 70% is investment, 20% is fixed operations) makes it uneconomic to reduce output, because that simply makes each kWh more expensive. This is why nuclear is mainly providing base load capacity and doesn't make much sense for other things

What you say is true for a typical light water reactors but a type of reactor called a “very high temperature reactor” can do more than one thing at a time; it can produce electricity, and/or hydrogen, and/or high temperature gas (i.e. CO2) for industrial applications. It can do these functions all at the same time and smoothly switch between them quickly.

A fixed amount of nuclear heat carried by the molten salt or liquid metal coolant can be redirected as needed in proportion to the power requirements of each function on a minute by minute basis by priority as required.

For example, through co-generation high priority heat (say 5 gigawatts thermal) transfer can be given to electric power production, middle priority can be given to hydrogen production, and low priority can be giving to industrial heat production involved in the in sue heating of underground shale oil, concrete making, steel making and like industrial applications; Oil refinery, olefine production, reforming of natural gas, refinement of coal & lignite, district heat and sea water desalination are also possible.

The price of nuclear is quickly approaching 6-10 cents per kWh for large new reactors

http://djysrv.blogspot.com/2009/07/is-aecl-down-for-count.html

"First, $26 billion is an aggregate number that includes two reactors, turbines, transmission and distribution infrastructure (power lines or T&D), plant infrastructure, and nuclear fuel for 60 years as well as decommissioning costs. The most important number in the whole controversy has gone largely without notice and that is the delivered cost of electricity from the plants is in the range of five cents per kilowatt hour."

Thanks very much for this long summary, Hannes et al.!

In your final section, you recommend continuing to build out wind to 10% -15% of total consumption. Are you sure that you have looked at enough details that even this makes sense?

Onshore, close offshore, distant offshore. Wind is an area where there seems to be a big difference between offshore wind and onshore wind, in terms of cost, and probably in terms of long-term servicing capability. Within offshore wind, there are further differences between close-in offshore wind, and wind which is far from shore. In my mind, the latter is still in an experimental stage. We don't really know how maintenance costs will work out for the long term, for example. The wind costs you showed in an early slide to my mind did not really reflect the full variability of costs. In Part 3, you show a cost of 12 to 14 cents per kWh for offshore wind, but my impression is that this cost range would only hold for very close in off-shore wind, and more distant wind would be much more expensive. My impression is that for a significant ramp up in wind capacity near Britain or near the US East Coast, we would be talking about distant offshore wind.

Transmission cable support and other costs. Do your costs really include transmission cable support needed for a 10% to 15% build-out of wind? If you are suggesting 10% to 15% of wind capacity for the US grid, that will mean that quite a few states will have to be at 25% or 30% of capacity, because wind availability is low in some parts of the US. Perhaps this could be balanced out with a lot of long distance transmission, but as you pointed out earlier, this is expensive.

Profit needs of natural gas operators. I have some questions about your estimate of US natural gas operating at a capacity factor of 40%. The number I have been using is that the capacity factor averages under 25% now (and this average includes many plants operating at much higher capacity factors), and would decrease from there. All of these natural gas plants would need to pay at least a small staff, and presumably need to retire their debt over a reasonable period, even if the plants would theoretically last for 100 years or more (omitting the detail that natural gas is not likely to be available for that long).

Timing. Suppose one sets out to do what you propose. How long would all of this all take, include putting in the necessary long distance transmission lines? How many years could we reasonably expect to use natural gas, after the end of this period? Would this give a reasonably long lifetime for the investment? If oil supplies are very limited, how would we maintain all of the infrastructure, including the gas backup plants, and the roads for access to the transmission lines, for the number of years required? We would also need to be able to produce replacement parts for all of the systems (wind, gas, and transmission) and ship them long distances. How long could we reasonably expect to be able to do this?

I think with all of this, the devil is in the details. As long as one only looks at one piece of the puzzle, it looks quite doable. But the more details one looks at, the more problems one finds.

We know of one backup that will work (although probably not on the scale needed)--going back to doing things the way we did them before we started using fossil fuels. Shouldn't this be considered as at least as a partial back-up? Otherwise, we will find ourselves without any factories to make clothing, or any mills to grind grain, or even without the right seeds for the right locations. We forget that there was a fairly high level of technology developed before fossil fuels, including wind-mills made out of wood powering factories. Even going backward would take a lot of time and investment, but it seems like it should be considered as an alternative.

We know of one backup that will work (although probably not on the scale needed)--going back to doing things the way we did them before we started using fossil fuels.

The "way we did them before' was usually so inefficient that it will be impossible to recreate them for 6+ billion humans. But already today there are many hybrids of traditional and modern methods that make environmental and economic sense.

Wood heat and cooking for uninsulated, leaky buildings with inefficient stoves was unsustainable for even the small numbers of US settlers, which is partly why New England was deforested. But wood heat as a supplement for well-insulated, passive solar homes is practical and sustainable. As energy prices increase, economics will drive many to find solutions that consume less.

And of course, some of the "old ways" are completely sustainable and economic today. Walking or biking to grocery store instead of driving a 2 ton SUV is cheaper and healthier, and consumes orders of magnitude less energy.

I agree that the old ways won't work for everyone. It is likely the world can't support 6.8 billion people without a lot of fossil fuel use.

The question is what is the best Plan B, even if it doesn't work for today's population. That may be the best we can do.

I am still not convinced we are talking about higher prices for fossil fuels. I think more we are talking about loss of jobs and spending power. So they will be unaffordable, as will be food, for many people. This will be a problem.

Except for nostalgia, what possible reason could there be not to combine the best and most appropriate of old and new technologies (as everybody already does, under a different set of economic constraints)??

Insulation (depending on the thickness and installation climate) has an EROI which can be 500:1 over its' useful life. I cannot realistically imagine a scenario where heating an uninsulated house will be more economic than insulation (except for free energy which is pretty unlikely).

Although I agree that the transition to scarce fossil fuels will likely cause economic disruption, which will likely include fluctuating prices and unemployment, I don't think there is a single example in economic history where low supply and high demand resulted in long-term low prices. There is a near-infinite number of counter-examples with high demand, low supply, and high prices.

Proposing a scenario that has no historical antecedents demands a high standard of proof.

Similarly, if energy supplies remain low enough long enough, humans will be employed to replace all the labor-saving and energy-consuming devices. High unemployment was not common before fossil fuels, so why should it be common after (of course poverty has been common before and during the fossil fuel era, so I expect it to continue, but the average person pre-fossil fuels was employed as a poor peasant but not umemployed)

Gail,

Let me try to answer some of your questions.

Type of wind/transmission: Given the cost situation, we consider onshore wind a better choice. The downside is that it has a lower capacity factor, but often also lower fluctuation between lows and highs, which makes grid integration easier. In this case, transmission cost isn't such a big problem, but it adds to cost.

Natural Gas profits: The 40% of current utilization of gas plants in the U.S. is an official EIA number, but we equally checked with the total list of all gas power plants (http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/capacity/capacity.html), so that seems feasible. What lower utilization does: it raises the price per kWh, but in deregulated markets, that usually works fine, because demand drives price. So if a large gap comes up - even today, prices are going up way above the production cost of natural gas electricity at those low utilization rate. Thus, we are not too worried about this problem.

Timing: Building 10-15% wind is something that many countries did within less than 10 years. Currently, it is about 2% in the U.S., so adding 8% would get to the minimum, which is probably about what the U.S. can take given its rather low share of hydropower on its total electricity mix. Will we have natural gas for this time? Probably yes.

Alternative uses: Sure, the big problem of wind electricity goes away as soon as you use the mechanical power directly like in the old days: However, this is a very different society nobody who promotes wind power currently wants to envision. If we don't watch out, we might arrive there...

"If we don't watch out, we might arrive there..."

Again, I fail to understand your point.

Is there something inherently evil or unsavory about directly using the rotational mechanical energy from wind mills to do mechanical processes?

Gail,
Your question seems to assume that older approaches are NOT being remembered here. I think it's clear, including within the older Oil Drum post that you linked, that we are very well aware that we can run a factory directly from Run-of-River Hydro, or Windpower, or other types of Oil, Tidal Barrages (once very common on the Maine Coast, in fact) ..

But since we have gone farther with our understanding of the potentials and flexibility of electric power, of the options brought to us through materials sciences, manufacturing processes that have improved massively since those days, that it will be Mr. Gutenberg's very established technology that will keep a range of options on the table around the world now, and that will allow us to even reapply many lost 19th century approaches with a broader toolkit of more recent improvements.

The use of Nylon and Kiting Controls, for example, will make Sail-powered shipping possible again, while it won't look much like a fleet of Yankee Clippers any more, and will involve parallel drive systems to offer a vessel mobility when 'becalmed' as well.

Bob

We know of one backup that will work (although probably not on the scale needed)--going back to doing things the way we did them before we started using fossil fuels. Shouldn't this be considered as at least as a partial back-up? Otherwise, we will find ourselves without any factories to make clothing, or any mills to grind grain, or even without the right seeds for the right locations. We forget that there was a fairly high level of technology developed before fossil fuels, including wind-mills made out of wood powering factories. Even going backward would take a lot of time and investment, but it seems like it should be considered as an alternative.

This is a good point, and it is already happening, in numerous local ways.

* More companies are moving to their own power supplies, and as Grids get flakier, this will accelerate.
Grids already isolate failure areas, this may become less random, and more
deliberate.
* Bike sales are increasing, and especially Electric Bikes :)
* Energy Intensity is lowering, in some countries, even if slowly.
* There is considerable elasticity in some areas. Tourism is one that is quite largely discretionary (of course, nett destinations will suffer in a decline)
* The internet makes personal international or even interstate travel less 'necessary'.

The section on energy storage was particularly weak.

Figure 9 shows this very illustratively – the energy density of all storage technologies is a fraction of the content per volume or weight unit in fossil fuel stocks. And the only option with halfway meaningful weight density (hydrogen) has a very low round-trip efficiency and an unfavorable volumetric profile.
So ultimately, storage isn’t capable of dealing with the big shifts. It is capable of handling intra-day imbalances, maybe weekends and holidays and – for example with pumped hydro - works great to help balance nights and days with less flexible sources like coal or nuclear, but not in those longer term situations we will experience with large scale wind or solar power.

In a discussion of "stable electricity" why would we care at all about the "content per volume or weight unit" of energy storage?
Answer is, we do not! It is not as if we will carry pumped-storage around on our backs or in trucks, so the weight or volume of a pumped storage is of little concern, while the round-trip efficiency, and cost per kwh capacity are very important metrics.

Seasonal mismatches in energy usage in UK or elsewhere can be dealt with by seasonal energy storage with ground-source heat pumps, but more simply if the wind does not blow in the summer in the UK, then energy should be shipped in via the grid from the many nearby solar locations (Spain, Morocco,etc.). Storing this energy for half a year is a ridiculous strawman, when renewable sources with a matching seasonal profile are available and an HVDC cable is certainly cheaper than 6 months worth of energy storage.

As Alan noted, both round trip efficiency and cost per kwh work in our favor as pumped storage scales up (just what we want, of course). Solar thermal storage also gets more efficient and more economic as the scale increases (since volume increases faster than surface area in any thermal storage reservoir, if the reservoir is big enough insulation becomes unimportant or even un-necessary).

One test of the "conclusions" of the study is to think about what the consequences would be if they had already been applied in 1990, for example. Wind technology has advanced tremendously in cost per kw capacity as a result of the large-scale implementations around the planet. As a product development engineer with many years of experience, I am completely confident that those technological advances would never have occurred as a result of R&D by laboratories and universities, but that the crucible of actual installations that can fail or succeed was required to evolve the technology. Similarly, PV and solar thermal would never have achieved the technological advances of the last decades without the actual large-scale installations that subsidies allowed. If the author's short-sighted and counter-productive suggestions to

"Stop or reshape large scale investment funding and feed-in support for many renewables and enabling technologies (solar, wave, biomass, smart grids, super grids, and most storage technologies), and instead finance research until proof of concept (including decent EROI and fossil fuel dependence data) has been established for each new technology."

are followed we can reasonably expect technological evolution of those technologies to stall, with the predictable and undesireable effect that when fossil fuels shortage and climate change really start to bite humanity that the alternatives will be much less developed due to the elimination of subsidies.

What are the alternative uses to which those funds will be devoted instead? Buying SUVs, McMansions, jet travel, frivolities for the rich, etc? There is no investment with higher returns to society available than farther development of renewable energy and energy efficiency.

In a discussion of "stable electricity" why would we care at all about the "content per volume or weight unit" of energy storage?
Answer is, we do not! It is not as if we will carry pumped-storage around on our backs or in trucks, so the weight or volume of a pumped storage is of little concern, while the round-trip efficiency, and cost per kwh capacity are very important metrics.

+1

HEAR ! HEAR !!

Wind technology has advanced tremendously in cost per kw capacity as a result of the large-scale implementations around the planet. As a product development engineer with many years of experience, I am completely confident that those technological advances would never have occurred as a result of R&D by laboratories and universities, but that the crucible of actual installations that can fail or succeed was required to evolve the technology.

I think this is the best point made in this thread.

I have followed the development of wind turbines since the "California Wind Rush" on the 1970s.

If we had followed Hannes' foolish advice since then

Stop or reshape large scale investment funding and feed-in support for many renewables and enabling technologies (solar, wave, biomass, smart grids, super grids, and most storage technologies), and instead finance research until proof of concept (including decent EROI and fossil fuel dependence data) has been established for each new technology.

All we would have for wind turbines today would be a bizarre collection of weird looking R & D prototypes, none of whom would work very well and certainly none would be economic. In other words, we would be screwed.

What was needed was NOT government R&D "investment"# (Hannes' potentially fatal prescription) but the interaction of real world experience of large numbers of wind turbines with the manufacturers, and the competition between manufacturers.

On the last point, the Kingdom of Denmark made a crucial, even decisive, contribution. They collected and published performance information (generation & maintenance costs) by make and model. This aided the good makes and shut down the bad manufacturers.

This bit of policy advice by Hannes illustrates just how far removed he is from the real world. His advocated policies will simply kill all other renewables as they would have killed wind if implemented 40 years ago.

Best Hopes for Better Public Policies,

Alan

# Note: Today's wind turbines have not "benefited" from government funded research. I know of not one feature that gov't R&D has added in the last 40 years. Development has been 100% commercial, driven by a market supported by Feed in Tariffs, tax credits per kWh, etc.

This response is not only slightly misleading. We know of no place on this planet (except for some windy tourist islands) where wind or solar power have gained any market shares without one or more of the following things:
- research grants
- direct investment subsidies
- feed-in guarantees
- guaranteed prices for produced power
- direct government investments

That came from either government money or then government-mandated cross-transfers. And as you might have seen above, we're not suggesting to stop investments into wind up to a certain point.

The electrical island of Texas, ERCOT.

Soon 10 GW installed. None of the above, just the small 1.5 cents/kWh (1993 $, adjusted for inflation) production tax credit. A reasonable offset for a zero carbon tax. There was a small "renewable portfolio" required in Texas, but it was always over subscribed, i.e. demand was greater than the requirement.

Also some isolated areas of Alaska, Antarctic bases, military bases (yes, a branch of Gov't but a different one) etc..

Alan

Hm... (Texas, ERCOT):

- production tax credit of currently 1.9 cents
- state renewable credit program (https://www.texasrenewables.com/recprogram.asp)
- investment tax exemption (http://www.seco.cpa.state.tx.us/re_incentives-taxcode-statutes.htm)
- grid extension to winds locations paid for by the state

And that led to 9.1 GW of installed wind (http://www.ercot.com/news/press_releases/2010/nr-04-23-10), producing about 6% of Texan total production.

- 1.5 cents (1993 $ inflation adjusted) Production Tax Credit = 1.9 cents 2010 $

- As I stated, the renewable portfolio required is MUCH less than what was installed. To quote the link

2,280 megawatts (MW) by January 1, 2007, 3,272 MW by January 1, 2009, 4,264 MW by January 1, 2011, 5,256 MW by January 1, 2013, and 5,880 MW by January 1, 2015

Texas is well past the 2015 requirements today. So no effect.

- The valuable part of this is a property tax exemption for WT, solar PV, etc.

The "Investment tax credit" is a small reduction (10%) in the basis of state franchise tax (0.25% of capital and "The tax rate on earned surplus is 4.5 percent") so 0.1 x 0.25% = 0.025% savings from the ITC on capital OR (not "and") 0.1% x 4.5% = 0.45% on current income.

http://www.window.state.tx.us/taxinfo/franchise/franfaq.html

Hardly significant incentives.

- The grid extensions are paid for by the ratepayers, not the state, and include a number of upgrades/ weaknesses fixed that will give Texas a quite strong and robust grid (something Gail is quite worried about).

So Texas wind has had some, but quite minimal governmental aid. Certainly not a "False Fire Brigade".

Alan

I have seen hundreds of small scale PV installations in rural Nepal, usually running 1 or 2 CFLs with a small battery and a single panel. These systems are all Chinese manufactured and purchased by very poor people at market rates because they replace expensive kerosene.
I have seen many similar market-purchased systems in rural off-grid areas in Latin America, so the claim "We know of no place on this planet" seems ignorant of wide-spread reality.

Un-subsidized passive solar houses are extremely common and I have lived in one for the last 20 years. We built my brother's passive solar house in Northern Maine in 1976 with zero items from the subsidies you list above. So please do not say "We know of no place on this planet" any longer because I can point you to more than 30 passive solar houses in Boulder, Colorado alone that were built with none of the subsidies you list.

To cure your ignorance on this subject, please google "unsubsidized solar installations developing countries"
and get 4000 results.

http://users.humboldt.edu/arne/Jacobson_ConnectivePowerKenya_Jan07.pdf

"Summary. — Market-based rural electrification with solar energy is increasingly common in developing
countries. This article revolves around three main claims about solar electrification in Kenya’s
unsubsidized market: (1) The benefits of solar electrification are captured primarily by the rural
middle class. (2) Solar electricity plays a modest role in supporting economically productive and
education-related activities, but ‘‘connective’’ applications such as television, radio, and cellular
telephone charging often receive a higher priority. (3) Solar electrification is more closely tied to
increased television use, the expansion of markets, more rural–urban communication, and other
processes that increase rural–urban connectivity than to poverty alleviation, sustainable development,
or the appropriate technology movement.
 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved."

Of course in all fairness, Hannes did tie his statement in to it's relevance in Market Shares.. and yet how well does market share show us efficacy, applicability or success?

Do Neilsen's ratings help us understand which TV shows are really the best ones?

All we would have for wind turbines today would be a bizarre collection of weird looking R & D prototypes, none of whom would work very well and certainly none would be economic. In other words, we would be screwed.

Do you think we are not screwed now?
How much coal, oil and gas has just one single windmill allowed not to be burnt?
How much has every hydro, tide, geothermal or solar installation allowed not to be burnt?
Can you put a figure on an amount of FF's that will go unburnt because we have and use renewables.

Unless it is mandated that each renewable devise must offset an amount of carbon equivalent to the energy generated, then the only point to renewable energy devises is the perceived continuance of BAU, and all which that entails.

BAU means more people and more pollution and and further degradation of the biosphere.
While we are burning at peak, from the smallest home renewable power generation devise to hybrid vehicles and atomic power plants, unless we have a "leave it in the ground" approach to FF's all is moot. We are simply trying to save our asses for the near term and condemning future generations to fend for themselves with the scraps of what remains.

Engineering is what got the world into this mess, to now expect that same engineering can prevent the worst of our excesses, seems to me to be plain ludicrous.

I look at this and wonder if you confuse BAU with merely Being Alive?

Back to the top, though, I suggest you're using the wrong metric by looking at Renewables simply with the condition that they can claim XX amount of fuel 'wasn't burned' as a result of these alternates being here.

The point is that they can do work without further burning. They are part of building a life where you aren't still burning (as much) fuel.

Your extrapolation of that back into a BAU scenario is your own choice of where it goes, as is the desperate scrapping. Mostly a Movie Fantasy. It will happen here and there, and has already been happening for decades.. but you don't know how universal it will be.

And Engineering did not on its own, cause all this. No gun ever held up a store.

"including Northern Germany, for which no hourly data is available"

http://www.transparency.eex.com/de/daten_uebertragungsnetzbetreiber/stro...

This isn't for northern Germany alone, but does give the information of how much Wind energy has been produced in all of germany on an hourly granularity. That sight also give the same data for Solar PV ( http://www.transparency.eex.com/de/daten_uebertragungsnetzbetreiber/stro... ) as well as for the fossile fuel power ( http://www.transparency.eex.com/de/freiwillige-veroeffentlichungen-markt... ) (broken out by generating type). So it gives a very rich dataset for this kind of modelling.

http://www.sma.de/en/news-information/pv-electricity-produced-in-germany...

is another site that gives very detailed information about produced solar PV electricity on a reasonably high spacial scale and a granularity of 15 minutes.

By the looks of it, Solar and Wind do have a resonable anti-corrolation, although I haven't calculated the coefficient, which should help balance out the different sources. But yes, a considerable amount of "thermal power production" such as bio mass or bio gas will likely be required to cover the longer timescale fluctuations that can't be covered by short term storage. More detailed modelling would be required though.

Unfortunately, we haven't managed to download sufficient data from Germany yet (it operates with a captcha mechanism), which is why we haven't tried that.

As for solar, we will further review that in our next technology review. There is negative correlation, but unfortunately not in a way one would need it to solve the problem. If you for example have a look at the data in Figure 8, you see that between October and December 2009, all three observed regions had huge fluctuation in average daily wind output, at a time of year where solar doesn't contribute much.

Equally, solar is still way too expensive (and likely always will be given the "receding horizon" problem) to make up for those gaps and still keep electricity cost low.

Solar PV is the only energy technology that has demonstrated falling production costs the last two years, and it is very highly expected to continue to SIGNIFICANTLY fall in production cost for at least the next 5 years. This is not a "receding horizon". Solar PV will likely reach grid parity in most if not all sunny markets in the next 5 years, especially where there is a price for CO2 emissions.

The word "grid parity" isn't one we're truly happy about. It says that producing 1 kWh of electricity from solar costs about the same as what people pay for a kWh of electricity delivered to their home. We are still quite far away from that in most places and not sure we will ever get there.

But even if that becomes reality, this is comparing apples to oranges. Having 1 kWh of intermittent solar electricity input compared to something that comes steadily from a power outlet any time isn't truly helpful.

The word "grid parity" isn't one we're truly happy about. It says that producing 1 kWh of electricity from solar costs about the same as what people pay for a kWh of electricity delivered to their home. We are still quite far away from that in most places and not sure we will ever get there.

I don't know what counts as "far away", but in California the real cost of solar PV is about 150% of average residential rates.

But even if that becomes reality, this is comparing apples to oranges. Having 1 kWh of intermittent solar electricity input compared to something that comes steadily from a power outlet any time isn't truly helpful.

Why do you even bother with such exaggerated statements? There are a multitude of uses (notably, irrigation and other water pumping needs) that can be done whenever the power is there.

For everyone's information, I did the analysis on the Germany data. http://mobjectivist.blogspot.com/2010/06/wind-variability-in-germany.html

I think the statistics is purely entropic. Lots of other interesting predictive analysis you can do, but bottom-line it is all probabilistic. We just have to get used to thinking in that way. I call this analysis an exercise in managing predictable unpredictability. It definitely requires a different mindset.

In seeking a better way to model power, from measurements for a given site, could you use this, with a better fit modifier ?

[Given other threads, where it is clear wind speed alone, is a poor indicator]

I see here
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_csV48ElUsZQ/S-NqzuhaNFI/AAAAAAAAASU/Gn_1J46R7I...

You give Data Mean 168 MWh and a MaxEnt mean of 178MWh, which are quite close, but it is clear the red line will over-estimate, so would 0.944 * (MaxEnt mean) give better predictions ?

Then, the question is how many data points, and time, are needed to find a MaxEnt line ?

The question is not on how accurate a fit that you can get but how well the model compares to the way that the world actually works. A Maximum Entropy model is the least biased estimation that you can make based on the constraints available. Really the only constraint we have is that there is some mean energy in the stable system. This alone gives us a system whereby the wind energy will fluctuate according to maximum entropy or completely mixed disorder. (BTW, you can also use this principle to predict atmospheric pressure decrease with altitude)

Now that we know that, you can start thinking about the system in a different way.

BTW, the break in that line is due to the turbine deliberately disabling above a certain windspeed to prevent damage. That generates the discrepancy in the mean energy estimate.

Having 1 kWh of intermittent solar electricity input compared to something that comes steadily from a power outlet any time isn't truly helpful.

My laptop, my cell phone, my flashlights, a whole bunch of my power tools work just fine when I need them despite the fact that they all depend on their batteries being sufficiently charged.

Disclaimer: Among other things I design and sell solar generators that charge a large battery or battery bank that I can then use to charge all of the above mentioned items plus run AC appliances through an inverter...

I'm convinced it's more about paradigm shift.

The word "grid parity" isn't one we're truly happy about. It says that producing 1 kWh of electricity from solar costs about the same as what people pay for a kWh of electricity delivered to their home. We are still quite far away from that in most places and not sure we will ever get there.

Err no, in reality, "grid parity" is not a single number, tho some use it as such.

There are actually many grid parity thresholds, and some have already been reached.

A Grid supply has many constraints, it needs Peak Capacity (transmission and generation) and also a sustained average. These constraints ALL have costs.

To expand lets look at some grid parity numbers, I'll also expand their names :

* Consumer Grid parity: Occurs when a consumer can get nett income, from their own power. (ie it pays them to install)
From a consumer perspective, this has already been reached.
From a macro perspective, it is often via an artificial way, by moving money.

* Peak Grid parity : The incremental costs of adding New Transmission, and New generation can be massive. So if (say) 10% of users can apply local peak power, you can save a lot more than the cost of removing that peak.
Here, Solar PV balancing peak AirCon, to offset New Transmission, is already occurring.
This makes even more sense, if you are less certain that extra transmission will eventually be loaded. ie on a flat/decline power profile.

* Retail Grid parity : When local PV can compete with Grid, on c/kWh.
This side-steps Power Distribution margin, and can get some assists from state rebates. By using the grid as storage, the differential tariff rates can shift this point.

* Emissions/Resource Parity: When local PV, costs less than the replacement + emission costs of a finite fuel. This point buys-time, by extending the half-life of finite fuels. This is often not well costed, as it is an area under a future curve effect.

* Wholesale Grid parity : When a utility company can generate PV power cheaper than their buy-in price from an alternative.
Obviously Location dependent, and first reached in large AirCon type profiles.

For utility scale power, Solar Thermal may be a better target, mainly due to the lower incremental cost of adding storage. ( and even finite fuels )

Some states may have policies to drive Wholesale Grid parity, with an eye on the Emissions/Resource Parity ball.

With Inverter costs under 40c/W, and panel factory costs of now well under $1/W, and both of these falling, Solar PV IS going to pass more of these multiple 'Grid Parity' thresholds, over time.

The price range of these multiple 'Grid parity' points, is broad, probably over 5:1.

Of course, as with ALL cyclic power, this firstly only displaces finite fuel (or allows smaller hydro lakes).

Some more comments on various types of 'grid parity':

Suntech Power in Wuxi has just broken the world record for capturing photovoltaic solar energy, achieving a 15.6pc conversion rate with a commercial-grade module.
Trina Solar is neck-and-neck with America's First Solar, the low-cost star that has already broken the cost barrier of $1 (61p) per watt with thin film based on cadmium telluride. The Chinese trio of Suntech, Trina and Yingling all expect to be below 70 cents per watt by 2012, bringing the magical goal of "grid parity" with fossil fuels into grasp.
The concept of grid parity is subject to fierce debate, mostly revolving around which form of fuel – nuclear, oil, coal, or renewables – enjoys the biggest implicit subsidy, and what the future price of crude is likely to be. Parity has already been achieved in hot spots. First Solar's 10-megawatt plant in Nevada can produce electricity without subsidies for 7.5 cents per kilowatt hour compared to 9 cents for fossil-based power.

and even the UK
Jeremy Leggett, founder of Britain's Solar Century, says that even this cloudy island can achieve grid parity for households by 2013, seven years sooner than expected.

It's extremely helpful, Hannes.

First, it's not there to be an Either/Or.. if you have a KW on your roof these days, it's generally a grid tie, and the shift from Day to Night simply pulls you from 'Sell to Buy'.. but you also have a source (if you chose the right inverter, which is also easy to do) when the grid is dark, too.

If you're seeing challenges ahead from resources and the economy, how would it not be a stabilizing factor to have in a few dozen or a few hundred places around a community with a guaranteed daily shot of a few KWH of juice? And before that eventuality even was to happen, it offers today a very real support to the 'last miles' of that grid as well.

Even if we never do get to grid parity, the costs are a little more reachable now.. and we might have to find out what electric current is going to be valued at outside of the sheltered view of today. It's going to look a whole lot more important than money if we start seeing long times without it.

At that point, Radios and Telephones might as well be magic.

Wind and concentrating solar thermal have also demonstrated falling prices..
http://earthandindustry.com/2010/09/wind-turbine-prices-continue-to-fall/

For solar thermal, from
http://lauder.wharton.upenn.edu/pages/pdf/John_Chien_Final_Thesis.pdf

"Figure 36 shows the relationship between LEC and the cumulative installed CST
capacity. As the historical experience curve (in blue) shows, the LEC of CST plants
started around 30 cents per kWh and steadily decreased to around 13 cents per kWh
- 72 -
once 400MWe capacity was installed. The decreasing cost trend represents the
maturation of the technology as more CST capacity is built and comes online. In addition,
the extrapolated new learning curve (in red) suggests the LEC will continue to decrease
as CST capacity continues to expand. For example, the next CST project is expected to
have a LEC of 10 cents per kWh. At about the 4,000 MWe of capacity, the curve
suggests that the LEC for CST will be around 5 cents per kWh which would be
competitive on a nominal basis with the cost of coal-fired electricity in Xinjiang. The law
of diminishing return is evident in the new curve as it takes significantly more installed
capacity to lower the same amount of LEC. This can be explained by the notion that the
“low hanging fruits” have been picked early on and the remaining obstacles are the
toughest ones to tackle. However, it is important to note that there could be step
functions in the curves if major technology improvements are attained.
While SEGS experts readily admit that the new experience curve currently lacks the
support of empirical evidence,122 the trend, nonetheless, suggests that there is a huge
potential for CST cost reduction. If the IEA outlook of 20,150 MWe of installed CST in
2020 is correct, then based on this curve, a very competitive LEC of around 4 cents per
kWh can be realized. Thus, the CST technology will be able to compete with traditional
peak and base load, fossil fuel based electric power within ten years...

There is quite recent information about the cost of solar thermal electricity from the United States: Only a few days ago, Blythe Solar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blythe_Solar_Power_Project) received Federal approval.

It is a 968 MW power plant with an estimated (current) price tag of US$ 6 billion (of which the Federal government picks up 30%).

When calculating with the planner's own capacity factor of 24.7% (they estimate 2.1 TWh of output per annum), which might be slightly optimistic, but nonetheless (http://www.energy.ca.gov/sitingcases/solar_millennium_blythe/documents/a...), we arrive at the following calculation:

unsubsidized price per installed kWp: $ 6,196
capacity factor: 24.7%
life expectancy of plant: 25 years (or 30 years)
maintenance cost p.a. 1%
interest rate on investment: 5%
cost per kWh: 24.3 cents (30 years: 19.3 cents)

The above doesn't yet take into account the significant construction time (3 years for the first 250 MW), which further adds cost of capital without yielding returns.

Nor the salvage value of the aluminum & steel.

I would have expected 50+ years production life. How did you get 25 & 30 years ? What would a 60 year life do to the #'s ?

And maintenance of 0.5%/year ? (1% seems a bit high at first glance)

Alan

50 years for solar in the desert? I am not sure this is a realistic assumption. I haven't seen anybody making that claim before. We're talking about mirrors and pipes here, so maintenance is definitely higher than with PV, and even there, 1% isn't an exaggeration. But here we go:

25 years (with 0.5% maintenance): 22.8 cents
30 years (with 0.5% maintenance): 17.8 cents

And please don't forget that we used a number of already favorable assumptions:
- no failure or maintenance down time
- we did not include the three year construction time upfront (costs a lot of upfront interest)
- we accepted the capacity factor of 24.7% (high for thermal solar) without asking further questions.
- no cost overruns during construction
- very low interest rates

And, what we forgot in the above calculation is that we only applied a 10% degradation over the plant's lifetime, which is also fairly generous for mirrors in the sand....

25 years (with 0.5% maintenance): 22.8 cents
30 years (with 0.5% maintenance): 17.8 cents

Hannes, where do you get your cost projections?

CSP Overview - Sandia Labs

• Current cost of CSP systems is $3000 to $4000 per kW Levelized Energy Costs (LEC) ~ 13 to 16 ¢/kWhr
• Cost Reductions are projected to reduce the LEC to 10 ¢/kWh
or below with as little as 4 GW of deployment.

The cost projections are taken from the data published on the Blythe Solar Project. Nothing made up, not adjusted anything down for risk that they might not make their projected returns. Applied a very low interest rate of 5%. Not added the interest for three years of construction before the first kWh gets delivered. And still we get to 20 cents per kWh with a 30 year operation period.

It concerns me that you are picking one data point that fits your early conclusions. When presented with better data that covers a much broader base, you choose to ignore it. Hence, that should be sufficient reason for you to understand why we have no confidence in your model at this time.

Are you suggesting that those technologies somehow negate everything we have been discussing here? If not, why did you choose that comment?

IIER has taken upon itself to let the air out those false firemen (renewables).
I merely remind you and the author that...

"There are more things in heaven and earth, H[annes], Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Hamlet, scene v.

Reminder noted.

I have looked, but have been unable to find, cost figures for Stirling engine based solar collectors. Any suggestions?

Maricopa 25 kw suncatchers at $75000 each.

http://www.cleantick.com/users/anandk/blogs/89

Interesting, and good to see they have contracts.

SunCatcher dishes also hold the world record for solar-to-grid conversion efficiency at 31.25%, usually converting around 25-26% of solar energy into electricity, says Sean Gallagher, vice president of market strategy and regulatory affairs at SES. Parabolic trough and power towers have peak efficiencies of around 20% and 19-23% respectively.

I'm sure that 25-31.25% will be carefully based on image-area, not ground area,
and the lack of easy storage shifts them from usual CSP, to competing with SolarPV.

So, I expect they will not like this word, from the labs :

Germany (Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research, ZSW) have demonstrated a CIGS solar cell conversion efficiency of 20.3%. The area of the world record cell is 0.5 square centimetres and surpasses their previous record of 20.1%, established in April 2010.

Well, $3000 per kW is a pretty good figure.

$3k/kW is not that great when you consider the capacity factor,at 25%, at best, you then have $12k per effective kW. Wind, at $1.5 and 30% is about $5k, which is in the upper range for hydro, and well above the costs for coal/NG, even if you up front the fuel costs.
In fact, this system is no cheaper than PV, though it is definitely sexier.

Although I meant it was a good for figure for solar (we all know solar is generally still expensive compared to most other sources), it's actually a fairly competitive cost regardless. A 25% capacity factor is excellent for solar. If the system lasts 25 years then the levelized cost of electricity would be $.055/kWh, before accounting for financing and maintenance. Peak summer retail rates in California are $.30/kWh, leaving quite a bit of room for those costs, and distribution.

You don't know the solar industry very well at all if you think installed costs for PV are as cheap as $3/watt. $6/watt is a very competitive figure for installed PV systems over 100kW, and generally not possible for smaller systems. The same for other CSP technologies, as in Hannes calculations above.

even if you up front the fuel costs.

That of course assumes the fuel costs won't rise.

Jagged,

I was giving the PV industry the benefit of lots of doubt here. Even though we hear reports of panels $1/W, the fact is, by the time things are installed, you are indeed around $6/W, though I understand some of the newer utility scale installations are getting lower.
Still, I wish these guys well - they have been at it for a long time.

The peak retail rates in Ca can even spike into the 40's on some specified days (a declared "event" of some sort, IIRC). That doesn't mean the generator will get anything like this of course, there is a lot of transmission constraint there.
But, still, solar in Ca coincides with the peak demand and peak prices, so good for them.

I will be interested to follow these dish systems, because I would not be surprised to see some non- Stirling ones start to show up. Specifically, using an ORC system. The efficiency is lower - best is Turboden at 24%, at 300C (maximum allowed) - that temp is easy to achieve, and handle. ORC equipment is about $1000-1500/kW, and I'm guessing the Stirling is much more expensive than the dish it sits on. ORC also allows you to store, but I doubt that would be worthwhile.
However, if you install a NG turbine for backup (assuming NG is available at the site) you do then have the ORC as a combined cycle component keep the NG efficiency up there.

Also then you equipment is on the ground, not at the end of long cantilever, so an expensive structure is downsized. Maintenance would be easier too, though minimal amounts would be need for either system.

With the coal and NG plants I meant if even if you take out a futures contract to lock in your fuel price for years, you are still cheaper You can buy a lot of coal or NG in the ground very cheaply, right now.

Some interesting thoughts there...

I'm guessing the Stirling is much more expensive than the dish it sits on.

hmmm, I wonder...I might have guessed the opposite, or half and half.

I don't normally like to argue for what's possible based on unproven technologies, but I think there's also possibilities for concentrating PV. Have you heard of Solfocus? Look them up, they have some very high efficiencies they hope to reach. Doesn't have that long cantilever thing you mentioned either.

if the ORC stuff is $1000-1500kW, I find it hard to believe the Stirling could possibly be cheaper. There are lots of high temp, high pressure, low tolerance, moving parts there.

But $75k for the whole show IS impressive assuming that is the real price.

Hadn;t seen Solfocus before - interesting approach, and does solve a few problems, though still looks expensive, and also like a good dustcatcher.

There will be a shakeout in the CPV and CSP just as there has been in PV. Then the winners of this tech race can be announced. Whether they are cheap enough t compete with other techs remains to be seen.

Solar has promised lots, spent lots and delivered relatively little, to date.

50 years for solar in the desert? I am not sure this is a realistic assumption.

If 25 years were the limit, then SEGS I and II would be already shut down, but they're not. I think its relatively safe to say that all the SEGS will beat 30 years. The Blythe plant is minimally different technology wise.

Unfortunately, we haven't managed to download sufficient data from Germany yet (it operates with a captcha mechanism), which is why we haven't tried that.

I think you are right about this, as it requires piecing together a bunch of downloads. I grabbed all the data a few months ago, did some detailed analysis, and right now it is sitting in a spreadsheet.

We have taken the liberty over night to include available hourly (actually 15-minute-interval) data from transpower, one of the largest grid operators in Germany (http://www.transpower.de/pages/tso_de/Transparenz/Veroeffentlichungen/Ne...) into our data model and compute it - replacing the highly extrapolated Denmark numbers. This covers a large area in former Western Germany, but with a high focus on the strong wind regions in the Northwest.

Here are the results:

Correlation coefficients are almost unchanged: DE/DK - Britain: 0.38, DE/DK - Spain: 0.08
HVDC supergrids: Sharing potential (table 5) actually goes down to 3450 hours (and 9.1% of total wind)
Monthly variability (Figure 8) is mostly unaltered, with a trend to even stronger summer-/winter seasonality.

Conculsion: As suspected, adding more countries "in between" doesn't change the picture.

And adding the French Mediterranean wind province ?

I suspect these winds are based on sea breezes, which have a clear, twice a day peak and are very unlike North Sea weather.

I know that the comparable in South Texas is dearly desired by ERCOT to balance West Texas winds. And the sea breeze winds are summer peaking wind in South Texas (they are driven by the diurnal heating & cooling of land by the sun vs. a stable temperature of the sea).

Alan

if we can find the data, that is no problem to add it to the calculation - however, I don't see how that wind profile should significantly differ from the high wind zones on the Spanish Mediterranean cost where a large portion of Spain's wind farms are located.

high wind zones on the Spanish Mediterranean cost where a large portion of Spain's wind farms are located.

Not correct.

I checked the EU map in this thread and confirmed with Wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Spain

And almost none of the Spanish wind is sited on the Mediterranean coast. Only Andalusia (southern tip, with both Atlantic & Mediterranean coasts) has any Med coast in the top 5 provinces and Andalusia has only 1.8 GW of wind installed. Valencia has 0.7 GW of wind.

The EU map showed 6+ m/s (purple) off the French Mediterranean coats but not the Spanish Med coast. Other purple areas are a small part of inland Spain (Aragon), most of Scotland, the western coast of Ireland, Jutland in Denmark, etc.

Since France is installing 5 GW of wind, and their only purple is off their southern coast, it should be of interest.

A problem for EdF is that they are a winter peaking utility and they want wind to supplement that, and sea breezes are summer peaking. So French wind may not be installed in their windiest spot, and the spot most useful for the rest of Europe.

Alan

I think perhaps what we should do is more of a true correlation approach, where you take the lags into account.

Do an autocorrelation with a curve against itself
∫f(τ-t)f(τ)dτ
and then do a cross-correlation of curves with each other.
∫f(τ-t)g(τ)dτ

This gives an idea of the lags in the data and tells you more what is caused by randomness versus what is caused by real coupling. Very rare to boil it down to a single correlation coefficient.

The correlation coefficient doesn't really matter in our models, it is just an explanation of how close or how far apart outputs are (and compares to the previous research). Our models use real-time data (time adjusted for different time zones and daylight savings time).

A single number is meaningless when you can actually do real correlations. Correlation coefficients are very limited in their utility.

Our models use real-time data (time adjusted for different time zones and daylight savings time).

So what lag are you using?

In this respect, a very interesting study is available at the German Federal Environment agency (Umweltbundesamt, UBA) on
http://www.uba.de/uba-info-medien/3997.html (German, with English summary, which unfortunately does not have any detail).

They analyzed the possibility to feed Germany with Energy from
renewables by 2050. It would be mainly wind, PV and biomass.
85TWh of grid energy storage (more than 1000x the existing capacity) would be necessary to smooth out the fluctuations from renewables. This was calculated based on real weather data from 2006-2009. For storage, they ruled out new pumped storage almost completely as they are nearly no sites available. They favorize two options for storage:

a) hydrogen from electrolysis, to be burned in gas turbines when
recovered from storage - one would need to create a completely new infrastructure though

b) "wind methane" - add CO2 to hydrogen and create methane by
the Sabatier reaction. We could start with the existing gas infrastructure
then, which already now is able to store energy in the order of magnitude
demanded (need a 4x increase) in salt caverns and depleted gas fields.

I have many issues with that (in a similar manner like hannes), but
it is not a discussion based on nameplate capacity and they offer a solution to the storage problem.

-- exk

Thanks for the reference, exk. It always helps to bring clarity with other modeling done in this area, especially from those who understand energy modeling.

The amount of energy from biomass is limited only by the rate of plant growth. Over the long term using the best management techniques biomass is an unlimited energy source. One estimate concluded that the US could provide 1 billion tons per year, year after year, century after century. This is enough to replace about half our coal use in a single cycle system. In an IGCC system we could replace all our current coal use. Biomass if kept dry can be stored for centuries as is demonstrated by centuries old wooden buildings. It is essentially one way to store solar energy over long periods of time at low cost. The drawbacks are mostly logistical.

Enhanced geothermal has a big potential as a baseload power supply if the rate of extraction is properly managed. This is mostly an extension of oil and gas drilling which now includes hydrofracking.

The ocean currents are an enormous untapped resource which could be a baseload supply. It is mostly a matter of applying marine engineering principles in particular those related to submarines.

Don’t you remember a previous “Fake Fire Brigade Revisited” stated that biomass for fuel is unsustainable because it depletes the soil of phosphate?

One potential elephant in the biomass room – Phosphorus

Phosphorus is one of the key macronutrients required for plant growth. Unlike other limiting nutrients, phosphorus may be the most difficult to replace. It cannot, irrespective of crop, be fixated locally, and is relatively rare. To maintain or increase yields, we must replenish the soil with phosphates whenever we extract biomass. Phosphates are required by almost all species – not just plants – to build DNA, and if it’s absent, yields shrink relatively quickly.

Unfortunately, of all the ingredients needed for plant growth, phosphate rock is the one with the smallest amount of known reserves globally, which are geographically concentrated to just a few places on earth. Currently, phosphorus, which is mined in the form of phosphate-bearing rock, has known reserves of about 16 billion metric tons worldwide (USGS) , which represents about 100 years of current use. However, already now, the “half-empty glass” problem becomes increasingly visible, as phosphorus content of mined phosphate rock is decreasing rapidly, and prices are going up accordingly. Some people are talking about “peak phosphorus” within less than 30 years, but again, this is a moving target, depending on exploration and effort. But what is clear is that phosphorus, once it becomes scarce, will become more, and potentially very expensive to extract. 2008 provided a brief glimpse of what a world of limited phosphorus could look like. Shortly before the economic crisis hit, phosphate rock prices rose from $30-40 to 400$/metric ton within less than one year. With the crisis, they came back down to about 70-80$, still twice as much as before the increase .

The planet has had plants for 100s of millions of years with very little mined phosphates for most of that time. According to your phosphate depletion theory the land surfaces of earth should be only dead sand for quite a while now. Where does that phosphorus go when the biomass is burned. It either goes up the chimney or down into the ashes. Either way the phosphorus is returned to the soil.

Dissipation matters.

True. To put the genie back in to the bottle -- i.e. to transform the phosphates or phosphorus back in to a concentrated form for it to be used as an efficient fertilizer -- takes a lot of energy.

Into caskets?

(ie, how much phosphorus is in the bones of 7 billion humans and all the human remains? How much of that is returned to the biosphere?)

Why does net generation exceed gross generation in Table 9? (Your labels are probably just reversed, but I thought I might as well mention it.)

gross generation cost is in ct/kWh for each kWh produced
net generation cost is in ct/kWh for each kWh that is usable

Thanks to Hannes Kunz & Stephen Balogh for their considered and robust argument, and thanks to TOD for posting.

I had previously been persuaded by many of the techno-optimists that comment here at TOD. This series of posts, and the outcome of associated discussions, have challenged that viewpoint. I am left feeling rather uncomfortable; but more in touch with the grave reality of resource depletion.

Agreed, the authors may not have PROVEN THIER POINTS according to mathematical standards, but I am convinced they have made thier case in real world terms.

I hope somebody will eventually take up the case of the savings involved that result from reducing the use of coal and ng in monetary terms as well as environmental terms;it seems to me that the money saved will be leveraged as the result of depressing ff prices over the course of time;the effect might get lost in the noise of rising prices- it probably will be in fact-but nevertheless it would appear to be very large in terms of total purchased fuel costs over a period of years.

It seems that with a lot of the commenters on this thread reality is a constantly receding horizon.

Wind and solar are good technologies in their place.That place is not generating base load power for all the reasons mentioned in this article.

Gas can be used to back up renewables but it is still a polluting and depleting resource.Bio fuels of any sort are environmentally damaging and the more they are used the worse the damage.

Wave,tidal and ocean current generation have a limited application, are extremely expensive and potentially unreliable because of the extreme conditions they have to work in.

Conventional geothermal has limited available sites while deep,hot rock geothermal is still in the development stage and also suffers from limited site availability.

Run of river hydro has limited sites and do we really want more confounded dams for storage hydro?

Pumped storage suffers from high cost and limited site availability.Commenters here who think this is a viable way to go obviously haven't counted the environmental costs of building dams.Molten salt,batteries,compressed air,hydrogen etc have a limited application but cost and the inability to scale up are where the proponents become caught between a rock and a hard place.

Most of the debate about renewables is like the one about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin or how to get a camel through the eye of a needle.Meanwhile,time is awasting as we furiously pump more GHGs into our atmosphere and the oceans.

Lets get real.We already have a proven and improving technology to produce electricity without pollution.That technology is,hold your breath,boys and girls,NUCLEAR.Oh gasp,horror,we can't have that for blah,blah,blah reasons.

Get over it,get on with it and quit wasting time.

Bottom line: energy density. One atom of U can potentially delivery the same as 50,000,000 atoms of carbon. As we know, mining, transporting, refining, fabricating, all take energy. Extreme energy density and extremely high power density = lowest possible infrastructure / embedded energy requirements and net "environmental footprint". Its called physics. Period. End of argument.

Liquid metal fast reactors or molten salt reactors have core power densities in the 100s kW/L of 24x7 power, on demand. A lifetime of energy consumption can be represented by a ping-pong ball sized bit of U or Thorium. The arguments should be HOW do we make nuclear power designs fit our needs, meeting safety / proliferation, cost, etc. requirements, as quickly as possible NOT HOW WE SHOVE IT ASIDE AND PRETEND ITS NOT AN OPTION based on circumstances and engineering from 30-40 years ago! Fossil fuels have killed more people this year alone than Chernobyl did - and Chernobyl can NEVER happen again if intrinsic safety based on physical principals are designed into the system vs. engineered safety that depends on control systems and human operators. Coal and acid rain, smog and the long term destruction CO2 represents are REAL. The dangers of nuclear are imagined, hypothetical and even the real-world accidents THAT HAVENT BEEN REPEATED IN 30 F!ING YEARS pale in comparison to what happen every year with fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are the true enemy but we can't quite grasp the true extent of it. The influence of fossil fuel interests runs so deep we can't wholly grasp the very concept that the means EXIST to *dismiss* fossil fuels from this world, and, yeah the trillions in profits to the establishment interests.

It is insanity to be talking about energy and the survival of humanity, or at least Western Civilization, and ignore the biggest f!ing elephant in the g'dam room! What is WRONG here? I'm trained in science and engineering and have studied nuclear physics and I don't get the arguments against it in principle. Sure there are the details, like bad reactor designs can cause f'ups... like d'uh. Like bad oil and gas engineering or industrial chemical accidents are immune to this. We can manage the risks, and the nuclear track record has been exemplary for decades.

So, lets talk about smart reactor designs that meet our needs SAFELY and lets go on with it. The solution is THERE, for f! sakes, under our noses with Gen III+ reactors, fast-spectrum (IFR), molten salt reactors under a factory-built "model-T" small/modular production paradigm. Lets move on it and deploy the same engineering talent that put man on the moon "before this decade is out."

If only we had such courage today. Take a few percentage points off the pentagon budget and instead give teams of thousands of scientists and engineers the money and a decade to make it happen. Use multiple design threads in parallel, including proof of concept demonstrations of design options and make cost of production targets key metrics for winning designs. The history of the world yet to be written could be changed in an instant with such a commitment.

A friend of mine in the electric power industry says the same thing. He was a student of mine as well. Only nuclear offers 100% availability. Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant can run at 105% of "nameplate" capacity. Me? I'm old enough to remember the "homogeneous reactor" concept.
Very clever... The reactor vessel is big enough in diameter to allow the neutrons to intercept another atom in their flight through the reactant-plus-moderator slurry. The reactor vessel is also surrounded by the reflector component of a nuclear reactor. This returns escaping neutrons back on a path through the reactants. If control is lost, the contents of the vessel are dumped into a six-inch diameter pipe. The small pipe does not have enough cross-section to allow the nuclear reaction to continue. A one meter sphere produced one hundred and fifty kiloWatts (150 K.W.) with gusts to five megaWatts (5 M.W.).
http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/2007/12/aqueous-homogeneous-reactor.html
http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/reactors/cs137homogeneous.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqueous_homogeneous_reactor
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=231...
When working with high energies contained in ultra high voltages, powerful microwaves, x-rays, or simple explosives, remember:
Distance is your friend.

Lots of facts, figures and heated discussions - why do people get so worked up about wind power? It's surely quite obvious that:
1 A reliable BAU electricity supply cannot be maintained solely by wind power.
2 However, windpower can meet part of the electricity demand, given other power sources to balance the Grid.

The limiting percentage of windpower varies from nation to nation, depending on hydro availability. The high percentage of windpower in Denmark is only made possible by interconnection with the huge hydroelectric capacity of Norway.

Why do both the advocates and the denigrators seem to think wind power can only be used for electricity?? Once upon a time windmills ground grain into flour and windpumps lifted surplus water from agricultural drains: both of these processes can tolerate a few days power outage, and when ultra-cheap fossil fuels are gone, there's no reason why wind power shouldn't make a comeback. Indeed, windpumps are still in use even in the cheap fossil fuel era - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windpump.

By the way, Hannes, using the term England twice as a synonym for Britain does not go down well with Scottish readers...

My apologies. We'll fix it. The confusion comes from the fact that we calculated wind power including Scotland, but consumption only for England (data availability, but favorable for wind, as Scotland is a fine region for heavy winds)

As for your conclusion - this is about exactly what we state: Wind capacity is dependent on reliable hydro availability.

And yes: wind power is a wonderful source, as our ancestors figured long time ago. The problem is that it is very easy to deal with intermittent sources if you're not connected to a grid that goes down with only very small variations between supply and demand.

to a grid that goes down with only very small variations between supply and demand.

Not true.

The standard response to demand > supply is load shedding. First those industries with interruptibile contracts, then rolling black-outs through low priority customers.

Worst case, 30 to 45 minutes out in a suburb.

The grid does *NOT* go down because of small gaps in supply & demand.

Alan

What makes things more difficult is the fact that there is also a problem with overproduction. At times, we expect to see overproduction by a factor of as much as 2.3 times of demand, even if we crank everything down that can be cranked down economically....... as unused electricity doesn’t generate any benefits, but actually incurs cost because it needs to be turned into heat by some kind of approach.

Say What ?

Germany right now, has an over capacity of ~2.5:1, and they are not turning that into heat.

The Authors OWN data shows the widely scalable range of generation, yet they somehow think excess power has to be shipped to a heat-diffusion system ?

For example, Do they have ANY links for where Germany is doing that right now ?

It is quite natural for all sectors to 'talk up' their economic minimums, as of course, they prefer someone else plant to be idle - but already the data shows LOW averages, for what can be high delivery systems, so idling is inbuilt, and widespread.

Wind, for example, allows smaller hydro lakes, which then get approvals more easily.

Germany, right now, only produces about 6.5% of its electricity with wind power. That doesn't even get close to the point where it can cause true problems. Despite that, there were already now times where Northern European spot market prices turned negative because too much power was available. At that point, utilities paid for electricity to be turned into heat.

Germany, right now, only produces about 6.5% of its electricity with wind power. That doesn't even get close to the point where it can cause true problems. Despite that, there were already now times where Northern European spot market prices turned negative because too much power was available. At that point, utilities paid for electricity to be turned into heat.

That does not answer my question, and is an many-orders-of-magnitude shift, from your original claim of this :

At times, we expect to see overproduction by a factor of as much as 2.3 times of demand, even if we crank everything down that can be cranked down economically...

Here, you have stated there is a situation where 2.3 times power cannot be avoided....

I still wait any examples coming close to this HUGE heat loss...

Here is a better question: What percentage of delivered GWh, does any present negative price represent ?

I am having trouble understanding this question - maybe it's getting too late. But the 2.3 times was related to a hypothetical power mix that is far away from today's (one that was suggested by a comment to a previous post). There are no real-life examples for this, as this power mix hasn't been implemented anywhere.

Maybe there is a slight misconception here:
- one thing is "capacity" - which is the nameplate capacity of all installed power. If that is controllable, it can be as high as ever possible without affecting total output negatively
- the other thing is maximum "real" output, which in the above model might result in 2.3 times of what is required

But the 2.3 times was related to a hypothetical power mix that is far away from today's

Err, then perhaps you need to expand that - because right now, a 2.3 times oversupply is routine, I believe Germany has gone past 2.5x already.

And no, it does NOT result in large resistive waste loads....

- the other thing is maximum "real" output, which in the above model might result in 2.3 times of what is required

This is making even less sense, did you mean to say minimum "real" output ?

I'm wondering if you even understand how power generation works ?

You seem to believe there is some technical floor, below which you cannot go, and so are forced to dump GW, but grids operating NOW, and your own numbers, show that is not true.

All right, a fresh start in the morning.

Currently, no country has a 2.3 point "oversupply". 2.3 reflects the relatively standard CAPACITY availability relative to average electricity demand. This has nothing to do with oversupply, but with a theoretical maximum output capacity from all those power stations. Most of today's generation capacity is halfway controllable, i.e. can be cranked up and down, some more easily, and some with more trouble. Usually, the mix of capacity is such that inflexible sources provide base load and stay on all the time, while more flexible sources only get turned on when a need arises. In such a situation, we could build 10 times average demand and wouldn't run into oversupply situations.

By adding sources that no longer can be controlled and that operate at low capacity factors (like wind and solar) by design and not by choice we naturally end up with much more nameplate (maximum) capacity that is available than today. If we want to cover 20% of our energy demand with wind in our average country, we will have to install nameplate capacity worth close to 100% of average demand (because the capacity factor on aggregate is between 15-25% in all the countries we have data for). Since it is absolutely possible that on a good wind day these wind turbines actually produce 80 or 90% of their nameplate output, we will have heavy oversupply situations on those days - which in turn leads to REAL oversupply.

Maybe this now provides more clarity.

By adding sources that no longer can be controlled ...

The above makes no sense to me at all.

The technology to take wind power offline when there is an oversupply is very simple, so there is no need for it ever to cause REAL oversupply.

ps. I think the post is great and deals with a lot of issues that are often ignored by optimists.

Technically, it is simple to take wind power offline. It just increases the average cost on the usable kWh.

Practically, in many European countries, wind power has a "right of way" by means of feed-in-guarantees, which mean that they can always sell their power at a preferred rate. Given this regulatory situation, wind power is actually always fed into grids, with the grid operators having to deal with the problem.

But ultimately, it is an ECONOMIC problem. No matter where you get rid of the extra energy, it increases overall system cost without adding benefit but instead adding management cost.

I have no problem with "added management cost", as algorithms for handling intra-control area balancing and interconnection balancing are easily automated (and that is the direction we're going to anyway). And yes, that includes storing excess energy via hydro, CAES, etc, or servicing delayed DSM loads.

http://smartgrid.ieee.org/nist-smartgrid-framework

Since it is absolutely possible that on a good wind day these wind turbines actually produce 80 or 90% of their nameplate output, we will have heavy oversupply situations on those days - which in turn leads to REAL oversupply.

Maybe this now provides more clarity.

Yes, it does clarify that you are totally confused.

I have no idea WHERE you get this idea of a 'REAL oversupply' from, given it is already routine for only partial of a total GW capacity to be used.

Indeed most countries have significant oversupply and CHOOSE which power-sources-mix they will use. France turn off whole Nukes, in the low season.
In some countries, such oversupply is mandated by law, and it often varies seasonally, especially with source like Hydro.
Typically, Hydro is the first choice, but low lake levels, can dictate some other (usually idle) source, is brought online.

Yes, that does mean their capacity factors are lower than they might be, but they are smart enough to avoid the mirage of 'REAL oversupply' you seem fixated on.
Grids work like this now, it is not some new, or emerging problem.

Perhaps you should find someone who can explain how power generators work ?

I'm amazed someone who claims to be an expert, can make such a fundamental error.

I've re-read this many times, and I see you claim
By adding sources that no longer can be controlled and that operate at low capacity factors (like wind and solar)....

Maybe that is your blindspot ? - WHO is it telling you Wind and Solar cannot be output controlled ?

There sometimes seem to be misunderstandings that cannot be eliminated easily. I try to re-frame the argument:

a) solar and wind can only be "output controlled" in one direction, down, by not using=wasting produced energy. This doesn't extend their life expectancy, so the cost of each kWh produced goes up, and the capacity factor goes down further. A wind turbine that produces an average kWh at 8 cents will - in that case - maybe produce only 70% of its output in a useful way: that increases the price per useful kWh to 11.4 cents.

b) if there is no wind, and/or no sun, these sources CANNOT be output controlled. No wind=no power

c) As mentioned above, in countries with specific feed-in regulations (most of Europe), there is a problem that (currently) renewable input CANNOT be capped, and other sources have to be balanced.

But again, as stated above, we are talking about an economic argument. If a country's wind turbines overproduce and there is no place to use that extra production, the value of this surplus energy is lost forever, raising the average price of electricity and reducing the economics of that particular source. That's all we are saying.

But again, as stated above, we are talking about an economic argument. If a country's wind turbines overproduce and there is no place to use that extra production, the value of this surplus energy is lost forever, raising the average price of electricity and reducing the economics of that particular source. That's all we are saying.

Now you have significantly modified your stance, that makes more sense.
There is no technical barrier.

To make claims, as you were before, about supposedly uncontrolled sources needing waste heat handling as a sink for that excess, uncontrolled, capacity, is clearly befuddled.

Grids already have to manage this Energy Spill scenario now; it is not some new or novel problem - it is many decades old.

Also, suppliers already 'jockey for position' now, in cases where supply exceeds demand. That too, is routine.

There was never a claim about a technical barrier of not using energy outputs from solar or wind. The only barriers are economic or institutional ("right-of-way" legislation)

Hannes

you did write "This, in turn,....., but actually incurs cost because it needs to be turned into heat by some kind of approach."

That I understand, too, as you first meant that electricity at oversupply needed to be turned into heat losses. So your defense above is "plumpt", right?

Where do we misunderstand each other more? I appreciate your analysis, and we might even agree about some things, but sorry,
it IS difficult to understand your paper at times, and much criticism in this thread comes solely from that.
Please think of your reader when you write so that we can understand your thoughts... (instead of getting annoyed on misunderstandings).

There was never a claim about a technical barrier of not using energy outputs from solar or wind. The only barriers are economic or institutional ("right-of-way" legislation)

If that was what you intended to convey, you need to go back and rewrite it, so that is what you actually say.

Otherwise, such school-boy errors, detract from the whole document.

( eg I agree with you that HVDC grids need reality checking; Some will be viable, some will not - but I also think the industry 'gets that' already)

Notice that your new term of "right of way" is not economic, but political, which is why you used the term legislation in ("right-of-way" legislation)

Such agreements can very easily change, and are the result of political lobbying and incentives.
Feed-In-Tariffs are quite similar, and yes, they DO need care, to ensure they operate as intended. (as I've stated elsewhere).

I continue to get the impression you really do not understand the finer aspects of how electricity generation, and grids work now.

You also need to grasp that Spill (effective waste of excess capacity, and the term comes from Hydro, where it quite literally is spill) is NOT some new issue, and is many decades old.

Indeed, you should included Spill in wind models, as a perfectly viable operation model, as that is how it will be used. Spill can be used to increase revenue.

This is an area under the curve effect, that many lose sight of, if they focus on peaks. If your models are good enough, they will show this.

This doesn't extend their life expectancy,

Another technical error. Simply stopping a wind turbine whose output is not needed(easily done with modern WTs) does increase their life expectancy. Less stress on the blades, less wear on the gearbox. And most maintenance, such as oil changes, is done on an hours of generation basis. So some savings there.

If spill of, say excess solar PV becomes as issue, (i.e. more than say, 5% of generation), it is very likely that an economic use will be found, Such as electrolysis of water, dual fuel (electric & gas) hot water heaters, etc.

Alan

Excess wind or solar should not be a problem.

Switching off excess wind can not be that difficult. That's what the windmill does on its own when there is too much wind. Change in angle of attack of the blade...Can't take too much time.

Can you switch of a PV panel? I guess you can flip the switch..

Isn't the problem with all thermal/"rotating generator" problem that if you can't get rid of electricity, then you have to get rid of the heat that would have been turned into electricity You can stop generator. You can't stop the heat generation. In wind and solar, flip, it's off, flip it's on?

PS. The posts are so deeply indented that I misses hannes' explanation of FIT program requirements (that input may not be restricted), quite a bit above.

You need to sort out your terminology when referring to the UK, Britain and England. They are not the same thing! And Great Britain is not the same as the UK. All very confusing. For an explanation see

http://www.projectbritain.com/britain/britain.htm

Here in Scotland there's a surge in wind capacity being installed (2.2 GW at present) alongside 1.4 GW or so of installed hydro. There's also considerable pumped storage with Scottish and Southern Energy proposing more in the Great Glen. The Scottish Government target for marine renewables is between 1 GW and 2 GW of installed capacity by 2020. The Pentland Firth concentrates the tidal flows between the Atlantic Ocean and North Sea and is starting to being developed for energy production.

How do you consider the addition of significant amounts of tidal energy might affect the picture you paint?

As I said before - there is a little bit of confusion because we have to mix things in our calculations (we used England's demand due to data availability and Britain's wind potential, because that is much more attractive given Scotland's exposed position).

Tital energy doesn't provide any additional value (please also see next post). It provides regular intermittent power inputs into a system, which occasionally can support other sources, but equally create a problem for them. Only controllable sources provide benefits combined with intermittent technologies like wind and solar.

Current generation nuclear is evidently not optimal for load following. However I wonder if it may work out cheaper to store some excess nuclear energy than all the hassles associated with wind and solar. The storage method could be hydrogen via reversible fuel cells. Suppose real time nuclear was 10c a kwh and recovered stored energy was 40c a kwh. If the average energy mix was 60% realtime and 40% ex storage a weighted average cost would be 6 + 16 = 22c per kwh.

This saves new transmission to remote locations and the search for pumped hydro sites. It also covers the eventual depletion of natural gas though I'm assuming nuclear fuel is not a problem. The key difference is that the average cost of the hydrogen would be cheaper using nuclear than renewables.

Which hassles with wind and solar?

The part where it's delivered to your generating equipment for free, or the part where you have to come up with a storage solution, no different than coming up with one for Nuclear, as you're proposing?

I'm just not seeing your point.

How efficient is the reverse fuel-cell process? This I didn't know was a proven technology at this point..

I've got 2kw of PV myself plus I use other forms of near-free biofuels. Works for me but I don't see too many city folks getting by on it. I don't know how cheap reversible fuel cell storage is but I imagine it needs a lot of platinum and precision engineering. IIR upthread somebody quoted Ulf Bussel saying wind-hydrogen storage was 25% efficient.

I put it this way; suppose nuclear fuel longevity is not an issue but you had 10c per kwh nuclear electricity and 15c wind power, both plentiful. The nuclear electricity is constant output but the windpower is variable. There is only one storage facility - battery bank, pumped hydro, compressed air, whatever. I suggest it might be best to use that limited storage to retrieve excess nuclear, not excess windpower.

Below the fold is the 4th in a series of follow up posts providing analysis on the difficulties of maintaining our current energy paradigm with renewable energy.

Let's suppose that the goal is not to maintain the current energy paradigm, but rather to envision an energy paradigm that makes the best use of renewable energy sources that won't either run out or cook the planet on historical time scales. It's increasingly boring to me to read about the current paradigm. We all know it's going to change.

This is one of the biggest challenges with renewable technologies, that they only produce a low average of their maximum capacity. This means two things: a lot of generating capacity is required to get the same average output when compared to other sources, and inversely, when production is good, a lot of power becomes available at once.

Yes, this is old news, blah blah blah. We all know that it's levelized cost of electricity that matters. I would take more of my time to read this series carefully all the way through if the word 'levelized' appeared anywhere in the text of the various posts. (I searched to make sure: it doesn't.) As it is, my eyes start to glaze over when the authors talk about costs for electricity, because if they are not explaining the concept of levelized cost to readers, and making comparisons in those terms, then I take that as evidence that they either are not so knowledgeable on the subject, or that their goal is not to enlighten the public. Please forgive me for thinking that, but I like to read things that I feel are worth my time to read.

Incidentally, we know that currently the levelized costs of wind are in the same ballpark as fossil fuels, and the levelized costs of solar are in the same ballpark as that of peaking power. (Also, incidentally, my parents PV system in foggy San Francisco is clocking a capacity factor of 17.5%, which is higher than the range the authors list for PV in Table 3. Forgive me also if I don't find that capacity range all that relevant.)

Also, the RTE for fossil fuels in table 6 are a joke. I don't even have time to explain, but you can probably figure it out.

...

Regarding "Myth #3: Storage will fill the gap"

For a mental exercise, let’s assume that we only have wind power and a storage technology

Um, I'd say let's not bother with this mental exercise, since it probably isn't what's going to happen in the real world.

It's very noteworthy that the worst months for wind energy production in Figure 7 are the best months for solar production.

This would constantly ask for a change of life routines, something humans are notoriously bad at.

That's why the idea of a 'smart grid' is that devices do it for us!!! The authors evidently don't even know what the proposed "solution" is that they are arguing against!

I'm not putting up smart grids as a guaranteed solution, but if you want to see a serious discussion of issues involving smart grids, I suggest the Q&A session of this video. (Skip to about 54 minutes in, there's some nice fireworks to watch there, too.)

Incidentally, we know that currently the levelized costs of wind are in the same ballpark as fossil fuels, and the levelized costs of solar are in the same ballpark as that of peaking power. (Also, incidentally, my parents PV system in foggy San Francisco is clocking a capacity factor of 17.5%, which is higher than the range the authors list for PV in Table 3. Forgive me also if I don't find that capacity range all that relevant.)

The capacity factors we look at are aggregates on country level, not for individual installations. In Southern climates, up to 25% (for PV) and up to 20% for CSP are reported on an individual basis, but somehow this is never reached for all installations in aggregate. The same is true for wind.

Also, the RTE for fossil fuels in table 6 are a joke. I don't even have time to explain, but you can probably figure it out.

The extraction (not round-trip) efficiency numbers in table 6 relate to very common combined heat and power uses.

That's why the idea of a 'smart grid' is that devices do it for us!!! The authors evidently don't even know what the proposed "solution" is that they are arguing against!

Our post talks about smart grids right after the sentence you mention.

The capacity factors we look at are aggregates on country level, not for individual installations.

I know. My point is that since my parents system is in foggy San Francisco, I know that better capacity factors can be reached even in less than ideal locations. Moreover, the more attention is paid to factors that affect the cap factor, the better aggregates will be over time.

up to 25% (for PV) and up to 20% for CSP are reported on an individual basis, but somehow this is never reached for all installations in aggregate. The same is true for wind.

Where are you getting your aggregate numbers, btw? I think my point is that I don't find them very plausible. Especially not for the future, as opposed to the present. (Are they for European countries? Because the Western US and northern Africa are very different.)

The extraction (not round-trip) efficiency numbers in table 6 relate to very common combined heat and power uses.

It doesn't say extraction efficiency. It says release, whatever that means. If you are comparing efficiency of extraction of stocks to round trip efficiency of storage under the same column heading, then that really is a joke. Not only that, but the numbers are comparable and that completely undermines your contention that we need traditional stocks.

Great post,

Thank you for all the hard work in defining the problem. You have just performed a nice piece of epistemology, and the upside of having done so is that the work you've done is USEFUL. It asks all sorts of interesting questions: at what part of the total system does technology X face substantive constraints? What are the nature of those constraints? Can they be overcome by brute force? (a surprising number of problems have in fact been overcome by just brute force). Oh and of course the largest one: HOW EXPENSIVE ARE THE PROBLEMS THEREBY ENGENDERED TO OVERCOME?

Thanks again.

But I want to suggest that your way of phrasing and attacking the last question is the primary source of the vitriol these posts seem to engender.

The mater of total expense is actually not very important. The long run nature of the additional expense is incredibly important. I am hesitant to wade into this foray as your work on a stand alone basis is so appreciated, but here it goes nonetheless.

Lets imagine three scenarios.

In the First Scenario, there is a fixed quantity of 80 million barrels a day of crude oil equivalent that can be extracted at 25 dollars a barrel average price. There is an incredibly convex marginal cost of production curve from 80 million to some pie in the sky number. There is a relatively elastic demand curve, but much more inelastic that the marginal supply curves in the range of equilibrium. And, there are all sorts of feedback loops. So for example because its pretty easy to see that an increase in the oil price from 25 dollars at 80 million barrels to 500 dollars at 90 million barrels is primarily a transfer of wealth from oil consumers to oil producers, it is not a priori necessary that the world needs to collapse in this scenario. The oil producers could consume more themselves, lend money to the old consumers, invest in things that employ resources profitably based on the expectation of future high prices. Now of course real economic prosperity probably will go down in the world as well because the scarce resources employed to go from 80 to 90 million barrels are substantial and truly do diminish the worlds real consuming power. Its perfectly possible however, that what this looks like is relatively full employment, high investment rates, etc...What is much more likely to occur is that the system buckles because our means of intermediating savings and investment are not possessed of sufficient prepossession to allow for the prescient use of the pool of savings in search of a home (coming form the dramatic increase in the terms of trade in the petro states). Eventually the borrower goes caput, even if his creditor tries to keep him on life support.

In the Second Scenario, the average cost of production is exactly equal to the marginal cost of production which is in turn exactly equal to the spot price. In this scenario there is a relatively inelastic supply curve and a demand curve that is all over the map depending on price regime. I find this scenario very difficult to imagine but it is that which most closely models a net energy view of the interaction between energy costs and GDP. Here a four fold increase in oil prices really is a commensurate decrease in the real long term consuming power of the world.

The Third Scenario is one where the the change in the cost of energy is not primarily driven by the marginal cost of extraction but by the distribution of costs embedded in the marginal substitution between forms of extraction/production. It seems to me that whatever one thinks of peak oil; the production of electricity is almost certainly in this category.

Hannes, I think you make a substantive error not to address this difference. What if we determined that we would need to build 10 times as much wind capacity as peak demand to supply all of entity X's electric needs. And that to do so would make the total cost to society 50 cents per KwH. But that 80 percent of this cost was up-front (and this matters very significantly whether the up-front cost is capital, which should immediately be thrown out for your purposes, or other scarce resources, or other not particularly scarce resources, etc...and this by the way I think is a very useful set of question to explore in detail). It might be true that society cant afford 50 cent per kwh power, but this is a particular definition of cant afford. What it really means is society is UNWILLING to suck that amount of resources out of it current factors of production in order to produce power that in the long run costs 10 cents per kwh in my example.

I need to reiterate this to stress its importance. The composition of the change in prices in the present is PARAMOUNT to understanding what society can and cant afford. Society can AFFORD any capital technology that has a lifetime return (on energy, capital, etc...) greater than one, ANY. It just means deferring consumption today. I see this as the major flaw in you analysis, because at the time the infrastructure is built out, the present cost of power is nowhere near the cost that is used to make the argument that society cant bear it. Society only need bear the coercion one time (or as many times as they choose to increase the penetration of a given technology). In no way is this equivalent to making society poorer; it is along classic definition exactly equal to making society richer.

I think the present oil problem is some combination of scenario 1 and 2: the world is getting explicitly poorer as extraction costs go up and the consumers are getting relatively poorer as their terms of trade deteriorate. Peak Oil is clearly a problem of scenario 2 (depletion I would think is almost exactly to scenario 2 in the minds of economists). The electricity problem is much more like scenario 3. In this instance it is simply not relevant to ask "what electricity price can society bear?". That depends on its time preferences, on its ability to coerce resources, etc... but in the long run decidedly not on depletion dynamics.

Now I know the response to this from peak energy minds will be to say that the EROEI is likewise declining and that there is all sorts of embedded fossil fuel that would prevent one from manufacturing enough turbines given the on-going decline in crude, etc...And this may very well be true, but it has nothing to do with being unaffordable to a society in which the major determinant of affordability or the lack thereof is primarily a function of the up-front costs, stipulated that present energy is a decided minority in turn of those costs.

What is in short supply in the will to coerce the resources in the present, not its economic affordability. Case in point, under what scenario would building a wind-farm with zero cost of capital make society objectively poorer? If the answer to that question is a small enough subset of opportunities to make it irrelevant, then the cost of long term cost of electricity from wind is likewise irrelevant.

thanks again, much food for thought.

tyler.

vitriol these posts seem to engender.

I don't see vitriol in posts above, but simple disagreement with a conclusion ("don't fund renewables") that does not logically follow from the supposedly supporting arguments, plus many of the supporting arguments are either incorrect, incomplete, or have no referenced factual basis like the following...

"If a country isn't naturally lucky to have a lot of hydropower or neighbors that are ready to buffer 13% of consumption (like with Portugal in July), or both, there is no way to maintain 15 or 20% wind power without matching everything with natural gas generation capacity."

Nothing in their data substantiates the above "there is no way", and indeed their data directly contradicts that statement by listing many technically feasible energy storage systems, a defensible statement might say "there is no affordable way to maintain..." but the definition of "affordable" is also very much up for discussion, given that much of the US is currently able to "afford" empty 5000 square foot McMansions and 3 ton SUVs.

I don't think it is vitriol either.

In my case it is a frustration in that no one has done the definitive analysis of something as fundamentally simple as wind speed statistics. Its like a replay of the sad state of oil depletion modeling (all heuristics!) that we have become accustomed to, I hold out hope that this will change as more people get involved, we have thousands more eyeballs looking at the problem, and new ideas will come out of it.

My bold added

In a society where energy cost is 5% of GDP, this means that for each “unit” of effort that goes into the generation of energy, 19 units of “benefits” in the form of consumption and investment can be extracted for society. If that share doubles to 10% of GDP, we suddenly can only extract 9 units of benefits per unit of used energy.

Demonstrably false !

I moved to Austin, Texas in 1974, shortly after energy costs had doubled to quadrupled. OPEC had quadrupled oil prices in 1973. Intra-Texas natural gas prices (unregulated) had tripled, industrial electrical rates had more than doubled (residential almost doubled) since the City of Austin and most Texas utilities were 99+% NG and <1% oil fired generation.

Texas had a few % of generation (<5%) from coal in 1974. A trickle of hydro (<1%), no wind or solar. Energy was oil and natural gas which had respectively quadrupled and tripled.

The net result was an economic boom for Texas, but various sectors (such as residential) suffered. US Steel closed a plant with natural gas fired furnaces after NG tripled in price.

The balance of the argument for bearable electricity costs is false as well.

An extreme example is Lithuania, which went from no capital cost nuclear (just fuel & operating) for a higher % nuke than France to zero nuke on 1-1-10 and mostly imported electricity with some imported gas fired generation.

Not an economic plus, but hardly the devastating disaster that your analysis proclaims.

Alan

In a society where energy cost is 5% of GDP, this means that for each “unit” of effort that goes into the generation of energy, 19 units of “benefits” in the form of consumption and investment can be extracted for society. If that share doubles to 10% of GDP, we suddenly can only extract 9 units of benefits per unit of used energy.

GDP is a flawed measure of well being so to use it in this way is sloppy economics IMHO. GDP caluclations count everything as a benefit and nothing ever appears as cost, many of which would fall due to lower energy availability. Plenty of substitution would take place if energy costs doubled but this doesn't mean that society would be suddenly worse off by more than half.

Whether does the energy regenerate is relating our life, specially the gasoline, we every day go out go by car, the gasoline rises in prices because the energy reduces , Then we sit after the car was no money, it is hard to imagine.

Great article and synthesis, thanks for that, looking for the next one!

Maybe solar is a better complement to wind than "wind in another region" to wind in Europe, if solar had a good EROEI in the first place that is

@Arthur75, At least two commercial suppliers of thin-film PV panels claim that their panels will produce more energy in a sunny site in less than ONE YEAR than what was used to make the panels. The panels are rated to last 25 years, but even though they may have degraded to 85% of their original output, they are not worn out. They may very well last 50-80 years unless a natural disaster destroys them. Your grandchildren could inherit the panels from your children and they would still work, although by that time something vastly better will likely make them redundant. As a first approximation they produce 30*0.85/0.9 or about 30 times more gross energy than used to produce them. This is definitely good enough EROEI for all practical purposes, and beats most if not all unconventional oil and marginal coal (deep, thin coalbeds).

Solar thin film panels definitely have a lower cost/energy footprint per kWp than normal PV panels. Given a little more pessimistic data from other sources, the boundaries for making the payback period below one year were probably set a little too narrowly, but they definitely look better than regular PV or solar thermal generation plants.

Unfortunately, this advantage comes at the price of 2-3 times less solar conversion efficiency per surface area, with two consequences:
- the space required to install them is 2-3 times bigger for the same output, often normal roofs don't offer enough south-facing space to turn them into a useful thin-film site
- all other cost (and energy consumption) for transportation, installation material and mounting services is the same per surface area - for only one third to half of the output. This offsets part of the other benefits.

And then, they share the same problem of solar: high cost, and - despite an overall inverse correlation to seasonal wind patterns - no guarantee that it covers the gaps (see Figure 8 - monthly fluctuations - in the October to December 2009 timeframe). The expectation that cost will come down much further is - so we think - grossly exaggerated:
- production efficiency was increased significantly over the past years
- 50% of manufacturing is now in China, in large factories using low-cost energy (coal-based) and labor
- with growing PV panel production, less and less scrap silicon from producing integrated circuits can be used, and instead, wafers have to be manufactured from Silicon purified specifically for PV panels
- most of the energy inputs into PV cells are fossil fuels, if they become more expensive, PV cell prices are likely to go up.
- Installation efforts don't change significantly in the future, which is - by now - a significant portion of total PV cost, and done at local prices in the place of installation

Hi Hannes, thanks for the thoughtful reply. Qualitatively your are correct, but the efficiency gap between thin film PV and multi-crystalline silicon (mcr-Si) PV is much smaller than you indicate. First Solar has published that its production modules achieve 10% sunlight-to-DC electric conversion efficiency. mcr-Si PV modules typically achieve 14-18%. So the space factor for thin film versus mcr-Si PV is not 2-3 times, it is 1.4-1.8 times. Furthermore, I checked the First Solar data again and the claim is that the ENTIRE thin film PV system (panels AND balance-of-system) achieves energy payback in 0.8 years. In this perspective fossil fuel input to their production is not critical.
The cost of installation labor should stay low if we can re-train enough unemployed tradesmen fast enough. If the most likely option is to pay them unemployment benefits, I say subsidize their training and employment (sure beats bailing out banks!).
You could compare thin film PV with single-crystal Si PV. SunPower delivers scr-PV modules now that are 22% efficient. The have higher unit panel costs, but this is partially compensated for by the reduced balance of system and installation, since fewer panels would be needed. Now you can talk about 2 times area factor, but certainly not 2-3.
All types of PV are lowering their unit costs applying one or more of the following strategies:
1. Increase conversion efficiency
2. Decrease unit manufacturing costs by improving production techniques
3. Extract ever larger increasing economies of scale by increasing factory size and number
I do not see any silicon resource shortage coming into play here. Thin film PV is certainly not affected, they use either no silicon (CdTe modules) or a very small fraction. The silicon PV industry has started making its own feedstock many years ago and no longer lives of the scraps of the electronics industry.

Thanks again for sharing your results with us in TOD.

- with growing PV panel production, less and less scrap silicon from producing integrated circuits can be used, and instead, wafers have to be manufactured from Silicon purified specifically for PV panels

Wow, now there IS a blast from the past...

That was true, some time ago : This is now late 2010.

Firstly, it was way back in 2006, that PV polysilicon overtook other uses,
and even earlier that it was considered a 'scrap feeder'.

2006 * Polysilicon use in photovoltaics exceeds all other polysilicon use for the first time.

Also, much of the new factory spending, is on large area Solar PV, and so the share of sawn wafers is expected to decline.

Another strong trend, is to thinner stock, greatly increasing the area/kg.
(one example is 170um to 40um moves)

and this claim is also quickly changing, (as one expects, as there is strong R&D spending on NEW PV technologies)

Unfortunately, this advantage comes at the price of 2-3 times less solar conversion efficiency per surface area, with two consequences:

meanwhile, we have :

http://www.pv-tech.org/news/_a/zsw_sets_another_new_cigs_997_solar_cell_...

Germany (Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research, ZSW) have demonstrated a CIGS solar cell conversion efficiency of 20.3%. The area of the world record cell is 0.5 square centimetres and surpasses their previous record of 20.1%, established in April 2010.

and this from china, scrambled by translation, but they seem to claim to have passed their 1 Yuan/kWh psychological barrier.

280 MW, 25-year concession period. August 10, after the official opening, a total of 50 companies submitted 135 bids. From the disclosure of the situation, the lowest in Hami, Xinjiang, 20 MW project, the price is about 0.73 yuan / kWh. The 13 projects of the lowest bid no more than 1 yuan, means that the industry had long aspired by the Chinese PV dollar ahead of time finally arrived

[ 0.73 Chinese yuan/kWh = US$0.108/kWh ]

{and yes, this is cyclic generation, so needs additional flattening }

Yes the purity issue is very odd considering yield is not part of the equation.

Hannes on thin film solar;

- the space required to install them is 2-3 times bigger for the same output, often normal roofs don't offer enough south-facing space to turn them into a useful thin-film site

There is so much unused roof space that it would take an extremely high penetration of rooftop solar (far in excess of 25% actual capacity) to even begin to approach this concern. And then there are other locations that are going to waste right now, such as parking lots, roadways, etc that would be far in excess of the space needed to reach over 50% actual capacity. So this point is a none starter.

- all other cost (and energy consumption) for transportation, installation material and mounting services is the same per surface area - for only one third to half of the output. This offsets part of the other benefits.

Thin film panels are far lighter (less weight to transport) and need much less mounting hardware (which is often integral to thin film panels now).

It is clear that you do not have experience in or knowledge of the solar PV market at this time. Even older thin film panels were made as discussed above, such as Solarex's MSX series over a decade ago.

- most of the energy inputs into PV cells are fossil fuels, if they become more expensive, PV cell prices are likely to go up.

Since wind costs are competitive with coal in many areas, this statement doesn't ring true in many cases. And if energy prices were to rise anyway, PV panel costs would rise proportionally, so the statement doesn't make sense to begin with.

- Installation efforts don't change significantly in the future, which is - by now - a significant portion of total PV cost, and done at local prices in the place of installation

With more installers comes more competition, better business practices, and improved installation processes/tools/procedures.

- with growing PV panel production, less and less scrap silicon from producing integrated circuits can be used, and instead, wafers have to be manufactured from Silicon purified specifically for PV panels

You are way behind the times. Purified silicon hasn't been required for PV production for a number of years now.

You are making far too many uninformed and incorrect assumptions.

With more installers comes more competition, better business practices, and improved installation processes/tools/procedures.

Right now there are too many localities that simply don't have local contractors who do solar. If we can assume that will change then there will be big savings in transportation energy and cost. From some data I've kept on my own movements in the installation business, my educated guess is that getting individual crew members to job sites may in some cases consume as much primary energy as the entire rest of the PV panel manufacturing and distribution process!

Will,

Plenty of roof space there may be, but if YOUR roof is not large enough for a workable thin film system, then you won't install one on YOUR roof.

This is the point Hannes is making , as I read the article.

Actually, OFM, I didn't see what you said as a point that Hannes was trying make.

If a roof is not big enough to satisfy ALL of a home's electricity needs in a net-metering arrangement, most would still be able to generate SOME percentage. The aggregate number is what is important, especially on a Control Area basis.

Lots of positive talk about PV here. I agree it has become cheaper; Germany is lowering its feed-in tariff to reflect that fact. But the FIT is now 39 euro cents per kWh for small roof-top and 28 euro cents for free-standing facilities. This shows that solar PV is still expensive in the extreme, and frankly it isn't very likely to ever be feasible from an economic point of view. Onshore wind gets only 9 euro cents the first five years and 5 thereafter.

Germany is hardly an ideal place for solar PV, and using economics for solar from Germany and applying it everywhere is the type of analysis that the author has been criticized severely for.

I live at 29.7 degrees latitude. The economics of solar PV for me will likely be better than those in Germany. One of my brothers lives in the desert (Phoenix AZ) at about 33 degrees latitude. His economics are likely to be better than mine.

Alan

Actually, I hadn't thought about how far north Germany really is compared to the US. (To me, Germany is south.) So, German insolation range from 1000 to 1400 kWh/m^2 and year. US insolation seems to range from 1400-2400. 1400/2400 = 58%. So I guess you could build lots of solar with a FIT of 39 euro cents * 58% * 1.3 $/€ = $0.29/kWh?

A FIT of $0.29/kWh would result in MANY GW of solar PV being installed in the USA.

Alan

Yes, and it would result in MANY dollars wasted. (Vermont pays a PV FIT of 30 cents/kWh, Google tells me.)

Vermont is not much better than Germany. Perhaps less cloudy (Germany is quite cloudy, VT I do not know).

Now offer 30 cents/kWh in Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and southern California, and things would change.

Alan

Yes, it would change - they may need considerably less. But to offer even half of 30 cents would be an irresponsible waste.

Everyone knows that solar is currently too expensive. Current overpayments for solar are an investment in the future, to reduce costs and prices.

It seems like the "investment" is failing. Why do wasteful large-scale deployments when you could have the same effect by spending a fraction on R&D until the technology is mature enough to stand a theoretical chance?

It seems like the "investment" is failing.

Not at all - they're working exactly as planned: costs are falling very quickly.

R&D is great, but you have to get it out of the lab. Tech only matures outside the lab.

No, costs are hardly falling at all. Panel production costs are falling, but not installed costs. I'm sure you remember the figures from a recent TOD post?

You shouldn't get it out of the lab very much if it isn't ready to compete even when economies of scale have kicked in.

Don't confuse prices with costs. Prices vary according to the vagaries of supply and demand, but costs have been falling consistently, and that decline has accelerated lately.

Now, I agree that installation costs haven't been falling as quickly - that's an area where the industry will have to put more focus. I'm sure that it will, as falling panel and inverter costs are eventually going to leave installation costs naked and high & dry as the remaining problem.

How do we know costs have been falling? Because they say so, or because they are enormously profitable? They should be, if costs are low and prices high. So, when will investments catch up with demand so that prices fall? We'd need some $1/kW in total installed costs to be in parity with wind, right?

Because they say so, or because they are enormously profitable?

Both - First Solar is printing money. They're publicly owned, so we have accounting.

when will investments catch up with demand so that prices fall?

That started last year, and we'll probably get more next year.

We'd need some $1/kW in total installed costs to be in parity with wind, right?

Yes, except that most PV competes with peak retail pricing. In S Cal that can rise to $.35/kWh, which would would support $7. I think $.15 peak pricing is more common, which would put grid parity at $3.

That started last year, and we'll probably get more next year.

We live in interesting times. PV increase by about 60% per year, and wind by about 30%, and overall electricity production by 2.5%. If these trends hold, solar and wind will each be at 41% of total electricity production in 2021. To me, that's an impossibility, of course. But anyway, at the end of this decade, things will be much, much clearer to all.

Here, you are mostly right.
The expansion rates are so fast, than in just a few years, we need to flip-modes, into deciding what is a sensible/practical build-out rate.

Right now, these alternatives are on the bottom part of the 'S' curve; before 2020, they will pass peak-growth, and start to trend to some maximum build rate.
Note that the area under the curve, will continue to grow.

Those planning factory starts, will need to have an eye on this.

No, costs are hardly falling at all. Panel production costs are falling, but not installed costs.

That's just incorrect. Falling panel costs are bringing down installed costs. If you meant that installation costs are not falling, that might be correct. Or not.

As I mentioned, a recent TOD post showed total costs that were quite flat.

That was prices, not costs. IIRC, prices have also been falling in the last year or two, after a several year period in which they did a Wiley E. Coyote levitation.

I look forward to updated numbers, then. Prices being flat for several years at more than five times that of wind is not very encouraging. I can hope for improvements together with you, but I'll believe solar is economically and environmentally viable when I see it.

Also, I'd like to point out that besides being ridiculously expensive, PV is environmentally worse than natural gas in most respects. For instance, have a look at this report.

I can't really tell where that report got it's data, but at the least it appears about 5 years out of date: polysilicon consumption (the biggest pollution source, AFAIK), in particular, has been falling sharply.

most of the energy inputs into PV cells are fossil fuels, if they become more expensive, PV cell prices are likely to go up.

Most of the energy inputs into PV cells are electricity, which means that if PV cells can be installed en masse, they will insulate themselves against price rises in fossil fuels. There is already enough PV installed worldwide to provide the electricity currently used by PV manufacturing plants. With some introduction of electrific vehicles, there is probably enough energy already produced by PV cells to sustain the current size of the PV industry, including installation.

There is something that is inherently risky about staking your energy and economic future on the whether. Farmers have known this since the dawn of civilization.

Wind and solar energy production may be dramatically affected by climate change. When the north and south Polar Regions heat up and all the polar ice melts, then the thermal differences between the polar and temperate zones will become more equalized and the ocean currents will decline. The winds that now equalize these regional temperatures will becalm and the skies more cloudy.

Wouldn’t it be a kick in the butt if the world installed 10,000,000 wind mills and the winds stop blowing?

Three Iowa State researchers contributed their expertise in modeling North America's climate to a study to be published in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres. The study – led by Sara C. Pryor, a professor of atmospheric science at Indiana University Bloomington – found that wind speeds across the country have decreased by an average of .5 percent to 1 percent per year since 1973.
"The study found that across the country wind speeds were decreasing – more in the East than in the West, and more in the Northeast and the Great Lakes," said Gene Takle, an Iowa State professor of geological and atmospheric sciences and agronomy.

In Iowa, a state that ranks second in the country for installed wind power capacity, Takle said the study found annual wind speed declines that matched the average for the rest of the country.

The study's findings made headlines across the country. Most of those stories focused on the potential implications for the wind power industry.

Read more….
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090625202010.htm

I don't want to tease you for a language slip if you're not a Native English Speaker, but that was a great typo!!

'....staking your energy and economic future on the whether.'

Of course, you meant Weather, and while we are, in fact entirely dependent upon the stability of the weather, even if it seems unpredictable sometimes.. I liked your first version better, as in:

"Whether we are at Peak Oil.."

"Whether there is Climate Change afoot.."

and "Whether renewables will continue to be the whipping-boy, when BAU deserves the sentence.."

Whether, indeed!

Thank you for the post. While I was fully aware that wind power is no "magic bullet", the situation seems to be much worse than what I had anticipated.

Still, I do believe wind power will be a valuable contributor to the power mix for the next decades, and I do invest some of my savings into windmills. I think it will still take long time until we come anywhere close to covering 15-20% of the total electric consumption through wind power. Secondly, I believe power prices will rise quite much in the future - and for the third thing, I'm not that pessimistic on the demand-side of the equation.

On the domestic side, humans are good at adapting - when we have time to adapt, and when we have no choice other than adapting. If the differences in electricity price is really big, if the electricity cost eats up a significant part of the household income, and if people get enough time to learn, we will adapt, learn to "waste" at times of plenty and save every watt when it's needed. The very most of electric power consumption is used not for survival, but for keeping us comfortable ... and who can truly enjoy comfort unless experiencing discomfort?

I never investigated it, but I believe the industrial power consumption is much higher than the domestic power consumption. If the major cost is the staff cost, it's probably profitable to run the factory 8-16. If the major cost is the capital cost, it's probably profitable to run the factory 24/7. It the major cost is the electricity cost and the electricity price varies a lot from season to season and from one day to another, then it's profitable to keep the factory running when the electricity cost is low.

My conclusion is that even if wind power was our only power source, I'm pretty sure that in the long term, we would both survive, live civilized lives, and even be able to utilize most of the excess power on windy days. Yay, we lived without electricity and with factories mechanically connected to windmills not so long ago, and even today there are happy, healthy people living their lives off the grid.

So my homes water heater is now 31 years old. It is natural gas. It will die in the near term. It is a matter of time. It is a terribly inefficient unit.

|rant starts here: nothing personal|

So after reading this analysis, what on earth should I do? I am confused. This analysis says I should replace my current inefficient appliance with an even less efficient appliance -- go back to Nixon era perhaps. Perhaps I should burn oil instead and skip the use of natural gas. Get a gasoline powered water heater. I should not use a domestic solar hot water system even though I live is a heavily insolated part of the US (California). This article tells me that change is futile. Don't bother with solar. Just burn gas. Maybe even talk to your neighbors and convince them of the same. "Dear neighbor, solar is a waste of money and time. By all means, just rip those panels off of your home. Maybe we should even start a local campaign against renewable energy too." Why not? Spend your energy on holding tight to the past. Wow. You dont mean that too do you?

I find this type of article interesting but hardly reflective of good sound investment in my home's future or my neighborhood. Is the price of natural gas stable? Will it be for a long time? How much money do I need to spend on solar heated water?

From my math, I get to a break even point 7 years down the road and no where did I use funny math or assumptions. I have a decrepit water heater.

The light bulb analogy is wrong as well. Incandescents waste energy as heat -- 90% is waste (try to get around it as a heat source -- sorry I am laughing to myself) -- that is a strict thermodynamic definition. The heat produced is not useful in a recessed lighting fixture -- on outside lights -- on lights in my garage -- on lights in my kitchen. what about the embodied energy to make the glass and metal in the 10 incandescents for each CFL bulb -- lol. Maybe the heat at the refractory is useful too -- people can heat their coffees on the furnaces -- I hear they get hot. Hardly worth the waste in all my other lighting -- and the 10 or so bulbs you need to replace, go to the store, and throw in the trash can. Taking an old CLF to the recycler as an example of a waste of gasoline energy is a joke right? Who makes a separate trip for each bulb? Who is that stupid? Sorry but I am not impressed generally with these arguments that say -- dont bother -- "be lazy and fat and stupid." "Coal and natural gas are here to the bitter end." It is nonsense and it is against all logic and reasoning.

We all need to consume less. Throw away less food. Drive our cars smarter. High prices cause this to occur inevitably.

Renewables are the only replacement. So what again is your point?

Enlighten me. I am listening.

Buy solar with a tankless gas (not electric) back-up. I plan to use a Takagi (that can sense incoming water temperatures). Perhaps the T-K3-Pro (extra long durability) but some ? still remain.

Do you per chance have a Monel metal water heater ?

Thanks,

Alan

Spend your energy on holding tight to the past. Wow. You dont mean that too do you?

No he didn't mean that — you've missed the main point of the series. The discussion is examining the specific question of providing grid-available electricity. This analysis does not apply to an individual homeowner.

An interesting situation occurred this spring summer in Ontario. On April 8 the govt announced 184 Feed-in Tariff Contracts for 2,421 MW of Renewable Energy. The mix is roughly 500 MW PV, 1300 wind on shore, 300 wind offshore and the rest bio and hydro. The cost will be roughly $9B. So far so good. The subsidies are sizeable, a producers will be paid PV $0.44, wind $0.13, wind offshore $0.19. The price is fixed for 20 years. The total subsidy will be about $20B. In the meantime government rejected results of a competition for several GW of nuclear - all bids came at $7B/GW.

Just weeks later electricity went up by a cent per kWh. and then additional 8% tax was added (in reality existing provincial tax has been extended to energy. At the same time the FIT program has been halted, with new applications accepted only every six months and only after grid issues are evaluated, project by project.

Summer peak power use is 26,000 MW, low is 16,000 if I recall. So they got 10% share and realized that the grid will squeak.

On top of that, at the cost of 1-2 $B smart metering has been introduced: 9.9 cents peak (which is surprisingly 9am-5pm), evening a bit cheaper, and night at 5.3 cents. This one does not work, people pay significantly increased bills (extra cent, 8%, but unchanged use habits).

On top of that gov't wants to close all coal plants by 2014 (4GW). So they admit to huge generation gaps 15 years down the road.

So it is a mess now and in the near future renewables are going only to contribut to it, at least with good intentions.

That was Ontario. Liberal Mess

Now Quebec. They have almost 30GW hydro installed and that solves the problem. Icing on a cake is one of the most skewed contracts in the history of mankind. Quebec buys 4000MW rom Newfoundland at 0.2 cents per kWh until 2041. Not a typo, two tenths of a cent.

Then they are building 4GW of wind by 2015.

A side question:

How the price of electricity is reported. In Ontario electricity (5.3, 8 and 9.9 cents) is separate from delivery (extra 6 cents per kWh) for all sorts of delivery charges. So total is between 11 and 17 cents now. Are all these prices is studies above prices "at the plug" or excluding transmission costs. Maybe it was written up but I missed it.

Now Quebec. ... Icing on a cake is one of the most skewed contracts in the history of mankind. Quebec buys 4000MW from Newfoundland at 0.2 cents per kWh until 2041. Not a typo, two tenths of a cent.

Wow, when was that signed ?

1972.

But it is 0.23xx cents Canadien from now into the future (A bit over $0.25xx at first and then stair stepped down).

5,428 MW.

Alan

Gee, that's somewhere north of $3B in equivalent windfall income for someone in the chain... every year!!
One hopes that is being spend on finite fuel migration, and not going into someone's pockets...

It has been calculated that 75% of HydroQuebec's profits come from the Churchill Falls project/contract.

Financing for the James Bay project (over 5 GW) would have been difficult to get w/o that windfall.

Likely much higher rates inside Quebec w/o the deal with the Nuffies.

And HydroQuebec owns about 35% of the project directly, so even after the 65 years ends, they will do well.

Some resentment in Newfoundland.

Alan

I don't know if this has been brought up before in any of the many coments on these articles, but I wonder about one thing. When I discuss renewables in other forums there is one thing that keeps coming up; turning electricity into liquid fuel.

If this could be done with an acceptable enery loss due to thermodynamics, we have an excelent energy storage. Log term, we can store it in a bottle, burn it when we need it.

Now, this utopia gets repeated every time the issue is bought up by the technology-will-save-us camp. I would love for it to work, but have no idea if it will. What do you guys think?

At fairly low efficiency, yes.

Surplus electricity (otherwise spilled) used for hydrolysis of water into hydrogen & oxygen.

Hydrogen plus CO or CO2 > Methanol (CO is more favorable#)

Hydrogen + Nitrogen > Ammonia

Both liquid fuels.

Alan

# A potential source of CO (carbon monoxide) is from creating either charcoal or biochar. Incomplete combustion results in some % of carbon monoxide. It is relatively cheap & easy to separate CO from CO2.

what you see in Germany for example is that more and more heavy industrial electricity users disappear from the country with rising cost of electricity.

This is unproven or misleading.

We need actual numbers showing how much of overall industrial production has really left - the authors, for instance, have previously made broad assumptions that industrial production in OECD countries has declined due to national outsourcing, which is not the case.

Primary aluminum and secondary steel production are mostly gone by now

Is that really true? What about Japan, where power costs are higher due to oil-generation, but where steel production has not left in significant numbers?

and automobile manufacturers import a larger and larger share of their components from low wage and low energy cost countries. This is a relatively clear consequence of higher energy cost.

Not really. Wages and currency issues are much more important than electricity. What about the effect of East Germany, where much production was badly out of date? We also have the counter-example of Japan.

Finally, this is a discussion of the effects of energy cost on inter-company competitiveness, not industry survival. Competitiveness can hinge on very small differences in cost, but they tell us almost nothing at all about the importance of industry-wide cost increases.

In a society where energy cost is 5% of GDP, this means that for each “unit” of effort that goes into the generation of energy, 19 units of “benefits” in the form of consumption and investment can be extracted for society. If that share doubles to 10% of GDP, we suddenly can only extract 9 units of benefits per unit of used energy.

This is highly misleading. The ratio is not important, only the share of overall production necessary. If the share of GDP necessary to procure energy goes from 5% to 10%, then the GDP left over for other things goes from 95% to 90%, or a reduction of 5.5%. This is very different from the 50% reduction suggested by this discussion.

Further, this is static and reductionist. If industry were to experience a doubling of their energy costs, they would increase efficiency and use substitutes. In a kind of reverse Jevon's effect, it's very likely that this would create new industries and techniques that would achieve economies of scale that were not available to them previously, and eventually reduce energy costs back close to or even below 5%. For instance, EVs will be slightly more costly than ICEs temporarily, but will be less expensive in the long-run

For instance, EVs will be slightly more costly than ICEs temporarily, but will be less expensive in the long-run
Now that statement (the cheaper in the long run) is *far* from proven.

If an industry's cost for X go up, they do, of course, try to use X more efficiently, but sometimes the better business decision is to go where X is cheaper. Where X is labour, it is easy to see that relocation has occurred instead of efficiency - what proportion of shoes and clothing are made here compared to 50yrs ago? How about Electronics? Cars?

With energy, energy intensive industries like aluminium absolutely go where it is cheap. That is why there smelter in Wa state closed. That is why the smelter in Kitimat, BC is not going ahead with an expansion -it is better value just to sell the now valuable electricity they get from their own hydro scheme than use it make aluminium. That is also why the smelters in Quebec are still there - they are guaranteed cheap electricity.

When you have an old facility in need of major refit, that is when the companies look at the energy future, and often concluded it is better to build new in cheap energy location, many of which also have cheap labour, though labour is not a big component in metal making anymore.

Steelmaking still happens in Japan because metallurgical coal is a world traded commodity, just like oil, so that form of energy is no cheaper than anywhere else. But in china, they have their own sources of such coal, and for them, it is cheaper, same for India

We should also keep in mind that the environmental and safety rules are not nearly as stringent in China and India as OECD - there are many factors at play, and energy is one of them. It is not often the deciding one, but for an industry like aluminium (which I used to work in), it is priority #1.

Now that statement (the cheaper in the long run) is *far* from proven.

Actually, it's pretty easy: Consumer Reports tell us that a partial-electric, the Prius, saves money over a comparable ICE vehicle. That gets us 60% of the way to where we want to go.

A Leaf is priced roughly the same as a Prius (net the rebate), and saves about $18,000 over 10 years vs the average US light vehicle. That gets us the rest of the way.

Now, if you might object that the rebate obscures the real costs. Aha! I would say, then you want to look at costs - well, then you have to include all costs, like external costs like security and pollution. That roughly doubles the cost of the gas, and the 10-year savings.

More later, when I have the time...

Well Nick,
You are comparing a full electric to the Prius, the next most electric and expensive car, when you should of course, be comparing to the Nissan Versa, which is a similarly sized car from the same manufacturer (no "brand value" difference).
And then, you have a $20k gap to make up, which the $18k still won;t close. And your $18k is over the "average US light vehicle" which the Prius is definitely NOT. You are cherry picking your yardsticks here ad you know it.

As for the rebate, well, we have been down that path before. Suffice to say, what you are really talking about is the cost of imported oil, and you may be right. BUT it is not $7k/car, it is only $7k when it is spread over a minscule amount of electric cars. If everyone wants electrics and abandons ICE's that subsidy will dissappear and they will pay the true cost.
And, btw, we will be very dependent on imported lithium - swap one dependence for another, which is even less readily available, in mineable quantities.

You are comparing a full electric to the Prius, the next most electric and expensive car, when you should of course, be comparing to the Nissan Versa, which is a similarly sized car from the same manufacturer (no "brand value" difference).

Driving a Leaf will not be comparable to driving a Versa. Size and brand are very far from the only things that are important. The Leaf will have a different feel, have a different status, etc.

And then, you have a $20k gap to make up

If the Versa costs 13K, then there is a 12k price differential to make up. If the Versa gets 33 MPG, then the savings over 10 years will be 12K. If you don't want to include the rebate, then you you're looking at "costs", which includes the external costs for security & pollution, and the savings are 24K.

And your $18k is over the "average US light vehicle" which the Prius is definitely NOT. You are cherry picking your yardsticks here ad you know it.

It depends on the purpose of one's analysis: if we're evaluating the ability of the average driver to afford an EV, then the average car is the appropriate yardstick. If we're evaluating the ability of Prius driver to afford an EV, then the Leaf only has to save $1k to be cost effective.

it is only $7k when it is spread over a minscule amount of electric cars.

The rebate allows for 250K cars per manufacturer. At that production level, economies of scale will kick in, and reduce costs by very roughly that much (perhaps more).

we will be very dependent on imported lithium

Maybe - the US has quite a bit, though it's not being mined at the moment (due to Chinese low-cost competition). OTOH, the price of lithium would have to rise by several orders of magnitude to be a problem, and at that point both US mines and many, many more would become competitive.

Where X is labour, it is easy to see that relocation has occurred instead of efficiency - what proportion of shoes and clothing are made here compared to 50yrs ago? How about Electronics? Cars?

I'd be curious to see an analysis of overall US manufacturing. The absolute level of output (though not employment!) is 50% higher than it was 30 years ago, and I believe it peaked about 10 years ago, just before China joined the WTO.

With energy, energy intensive industries like aluminium absolutely go where it is cheap.

I agree. That doesn't tell us much about the claims in the Original Post, which were that whole global industries would be in trouble.

Steelmaking still happens in Japan because metallurgical coal is a world traded commodity, just like oil, so that form of energy is no cheaper than anywhere else.

So we see that wealthy countries like Japan have not outsourced all of their heavy manufacturing, contrary to the Original Post. It also contradicts the popular idea that Japan could only be reducing it's oil consumption dramatically by outsourcing industry. Do we know overall stats for Japan? I suspect we won't see a significant decline in domestic manufacturing.

If we analyze the manufacturing of goods, with the exception of a few novelty and luxury items, their price is very much driven by energy cost, either the cost of human labor (expensive to very expensive energy) or the cost of other energy applied.

This is inaccurate or misleading.

Direct or embodied energy costs are a small % of manufacturing costs. To include human labor as an energy cost is misguided: human energy is not fungible with extra-somatic energy (i.e., oil or electricity).

Human energy is not fungible with extra-somatic energy (i.e., oil or electricity).

Now this statement is both inaccurate and misleading - there are many places where they are fungible.
Once upon a time, lifting of goods was done by animal or human powered cranes (http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/cranes-lifting-devices/)
In many countries, the primary means of earthmoving/mining is still pick and shovel - easily and often replaced by equipment.
Weaving of cloth by hand was replaced with equipment (thing called the indust. revolution)
Making of processed food, like pasta, bread, etc is now done by equipment - look in a commercial bakery and see if anyone is hand kneading the bread dough.
Electronic (printed circut boards) used to be hand soldered and are now done by a solder bath
Wedgewood pottery in Britain famously went from hand made cups plates etc to machine made. They still hand decorate them, for now, but that can easily be done by machine.
Making of furniture in large factories is hugely automated - 1/100th the manhours than to build a table yourself.
The last generation of cargo sailing ships had steam winches to operate the sails instead of people. By not having so many crew, it freed up more cargo space (and was a good deal safer)

Usually people were replaced because doing it with energy was cheaper, once the equipment is paid off, or it allowed production to be increased. Once production is flat, and energy costs start to increase, the bottom line suffers. It is (usually, but not always) feasible to go back to people, so if energy volume can;t be reduced then profitability will suffer.

You can take almost any physical task that someone is doing, and automate it. You are thus replacing human energy with other energy. Other energy is usually, but not always, cheaper, though using energy has issues of its own, especially supply security.

there are many places where they are fungible.

Sure, but not in modern manufacturing, and that's what the Original Post is talking about.

Thanks for the historical info - it's very interesting.

Food is a very good example of the importance of energy costs required in production: producing and processing today’s food consumes much more (fossil) energy than it generates in the form of calories that get consumed in the final meal.

This is inaccurate: energy costs are perhaps 5-10% of farming costs. The major cost that such studies are talking about are post-production, especially transportation from the store to the consumer's home, and refrigeration in the home.

It also makes me wonder how it applies to the changing attitudes towards food in Western Society.

There are still a vast quantity of highly processed foods, but they are increasingly under the gun for the health issues tied to 'Immortal Foods', stuff that's so MFR'd that it doesn't go bad, and starts becoming suspect of not even being food anymore.

Not that everyone follows Pollan (hardly), but even 'Whole Wheat' was a totally wacky idea in the 70's.. and the latest advice increases the calls for getting food as close to the source and unprocessed as possible.. and also encouraging minimal packaging/advertising/transport.

Yes, I'm hopeful people are going to move to less processed foods, slowly, but surely.

Actually Nick, this statement IS accurate. There is more energy used to make, store, transport and process food than is contained within it. The energy cost is only a small part of the food cost, but the energy balance (calories eaten-calories used to get it to you) is definitely negative.

The least energy intensive are the grains, but by the time it is transported, made into bread/biscuit/corn syrup/whatever, and allowing for spoilage, etc, even that goes negative.
Things that possibly stay net positive might be pasta, rice, oats - basically minimally processed grains, that can be dry stored without refrigeration, and that's about it.

Since, unlike wild animals, we do not personally have to expend the energy, we have fuels to do that, we can survive a net negative food energy, as long as we have external energy input.

That is why, in a peak oil crunch, agriculture will be up there with the military for getting oil priority.

Well, the Original Post conflated 2 things: cost and E-ROI.

I agree with your discussion, but it doesn't support the argument of the OP, which is that "Food is a very good example of the importance of energy costs required in production".

I wanted to point out that the E-ROI discussion was misleading, but you're right that part of it is correct. It just doesn't support the OP's main argument.

From 2000 to 2010, the food price index (World Food Situation) has grown by a factor of almost two (it even went above that in 2008), which is very much in line with the development of average energy prices (oil and natural gas were the key price drivers). Commodities show an almost identical pattern (Table 1a. Indices of Primary Commodity Prices, 1999-2010).

This is misleading. Oil and food are both commodities, and commodity prices in general rose during this time period. Perhaps more importantly, food prices rose primarily because of increased demand, especially for ethanol, not because of cost-push.

First of all, more energy is used to design, manufacture, transport and recycle the modern bulb, which essentially is a little computer.

This appears very misleading. Design doesn't take significant energy (pizza and 100W for a laptop?). Transport doesn't take any more than conventional bulbs. Manufacturing (either from new or recycled resources) of a 700 lumen CFL might require 2kWh, which would be saved in perhaps 30 hours of operation.

More importantly, EVs will eliminate liquid fuels, and create a highly flexible source of demand for power, perfect for Demand Side Management and highly supportive of renewable power.

I guess we will have to see what part 5 of the series has to say. But for starters the comment that wind is the front runner in renewables is a shaded view. CSP (concentrated solar power) is by far the most robust future energy source suitable to solve 85% of future energy needs. The Nukies hang their CSP critical hat of "potential" (they would call it certain) intermittancy. The built in solution to intermittecy is gas power backup (ie the hybride CSP system). That is the future for baseload.

My local technology group is working on what we have dubbed GEN II PV (not our market name). This is essentially a PV CSP distributed energy integrated solution that has the potential to provide free energy for all of household, personal transport, and small business. The system seasonally self compensating is based on existing technologies along with our own ultrahigh efficiency electronic energy management. This system on its own has the potential to provide 50% of all of Australia's energy needs when installed over 30 years into 6 million buildings, all installed at no additional cost above existing user/owner energy costs to existing, and with an amortisation period of 3 to 8 years. This is a totally solid solution based on proven technologies.

It should be observed that such a distributed system once developed will reduce the size of the required grid renewable energy system by up to 40% for countries with Australia's solar placement.

I can only hope that the authors of #5 of the series have the ability to draw intuitive conclusions from the pletohora of energy technology solutions now available in their determinations. And my daughter (12) has just commented on what I mean by intuitive as she has just exhuberated about the phonomenal disparity in performance between ipods and every other mp3 player. Unimpassioned cold analysis versus applied imagination. The corporate business plan versus intuitive entrepreneurialism.

essentially a PV CSP distributed energy integrated solution

Can you elaborate, on the PV, CSP, and storage aspects of this ?

I am not going to over elaborate, JG, other than to say that our system, due to the nature of it, still produces electricity efficiently on cloudy days. Albeit at a lower level. As the system produces way more energy than the average family needs normally it is always contributing energy to the grid. So minimal houshold energy needs are available on all but the blackest of days. Where storage is required recycled electrical vehicle battery packs, which have up to 36kwh capacity per pack, will provide additional energy security.

I am really excited for the future. The combination of distributed energy systems such as ours and the truly excellent electric vehicles about to start to emerge, mean that living and getting around are going to be more pleasant and cheaper than today. The down side will be if we take our energy savings and our CO2 savings and squnder them purchasing carbon emission intensive goods as portrayed here http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6951

If you stop to contemplate the huge number of minimal CO2 emitting activities that we have available to us today, you will see that our future can be thoroughly fulfilling as well as green. Non ethanol fuelled Nascar racing excluded.

I am not going to over elaborate, JG, other than to say that our system, due to the nature of it, still produces electricity efficiently on cloudy days. Albeit at a lower level. As the system produces way more energy than the average family needs normally it is always contributing energy to the grid. So minimal houshold energy needs are available on all but the blackest of days.

So this is still a theoretical exercise, without proven multiple seasons of working systems, in real locations ?
When do you expect it to be commercially released ?

Testing some of the electronics now in existing non solar products. The core concepts are all well proven and available in a variety of individual products. It is the combination that makes this work. Commercial release? several years. It has to work on my factory roof before we will venture to sell anything.

A building block to this system (total system) is to acquire a suitable electric vehicle when opportunity permits. The vehicle I am conceptualising into this product is the VW Milano (2013 release), or any other vehicle with equal specification. ie 300 klm range, 45kwh charge, PT Cruiser size. In order to pay off the system in the shortest time fuel expenditure averted by charging from the system is diverted to the payments. Once the system is paid off it supplies all household needs as well as charging a Milano formula vehicle 3 times a week completely for free. It is a beautiful concept.

This is not so true, Nick, the cause of food price increases came from new food demand from China who have an icreasing need to feed their burgeoning city populations as their domestic food production plummets due to changed land use and land degradation. This was reported at the time by a number of high profile sources including the head of CNN.

I think your comment may be attached to the wrong comment.

I think what you're saying is consistent with what I was saying, which was that rising food prices were demand-pull, not cost-push.

I did a quick google, and couldn't find any info about China increasing it's imports. Do you happen to have a source for that?

It doesn't work quite that way, Nick. China is buying up land throughout the near Asian region. My business partner who spent some years living in China and looked for land in Vietnam found that China owns large chunks of farmland there. Google back for an interview of the CEO of CNN on the subject, back at the time when the argument was being made that biofuels were pushing prices food prices up, perhaps 2 of 3 years ago.

China may buy farmland in Vietnam, but the products will still be exports from Vietnam to China, so it should show up in trade statistics.

It's an interesting question: is China becoming dependent on food imports?

This post hits a nerve and makes you think. Thank you for that!

Something about renewable energy concerns me. I do not know the field well enough to offer data or conclusions myself, so I will ask a question and hopefully someone here will have some feedback.

Given the inefficiencies of the various renewables and the need for storage on top of them, how much will the human environmental footprint increase due to renewable energy collection and storage?

Obviously our biggest problem with fossil fuels is that they fill up our pollution sinks. Renewable energy does not (at least not directly). But the law of thermodynamics will not be denied! What is our trade-off? Is it in the environmental footprint? With renewables are we saving our sinks but at the same time paying with environmental capital?

I hear people talk about setting up massive amounts of pumped storage and I get worried about what that sort of thing may do to our wildlife and ecosystems. In our desperation for solutions we may not understand the problems we could cause.

DD

The environmental impact of pumped storage will be minimal.

In most cases the lower reservoir will be an existing reservoir or lake (Lake Superior has a lot of hills around it and is a prime site) and the upper reservoir will be a man made dimple on a mountain top or ridge.

Some environmental impact during construction, but once built, they will last for centuries.

A SWAG would be around a 1,000 square miles of new reservoirs in the USA. Not that much impact, IMO. Less than one year's strip mining I suspect.

Alan

While, admittedly, I need to further study this analysis, let's stipulate that the projected cost for your "model scenario" is accurate. Whether this takes into account further breakthroughs in the cost of technologies like thin film solar, I don't know. But, anyway, consider the following Calfornia PG&E rates, effective 1 June, 2010.

Total Energy Rates ($ per kWh)
Baseline Usage $0.11877 ( )
101% - 130% of Baseline $0.13502 ( )
131% - 200% of Baseline $0.29062 (I)
201% - 300% of Baseline $0.40029 (R)
Over 300% of Baseline $0.40029 (R)
Total Minimum Charge Rate ($ per meter per day) $0.14784 ( )

The number of kwh applied to each tier vary depending upon what region of the state in which one lives. In the summer, for example, the top tier will kick in at a higher rates of usage for someone in Fresno versus someone in San Francisco. The highest usage scenario would be in region W which establishes the baseline usage at 19.4 kwh per day. Therefore, the 40 plus cent rate would kick in at 38.8 kwh per day or 1164 kwh per month for a 30 day month. This scenario would apply to the hottest region served by PG&E. The higher rate would kick in at a much lower usage rate for those who live along the cost.

You say that under your scenario the cost of electricity becomes unbearable. Your projected average cost is 13.5 cents per kwh. Having lived in Northern California recently, I can say that the rates are shocking but are bearable. The degree of bearability depends upon one's ability and willingness to respond by finding way's to cut back on one's electricity use. Also, consider that if one's usage is at or near the top tier because of, for example, the need for air conditioning, there is a clear incentive to install solar to bring the bill within the range of a lower tier level.

I do not follow your statement that under the model scenario that electricity costs would become unbearable, especially considering mitigating actions that the individual consumer can take. For example, I lived in hot Sacramento during the early 70s. Global warming has probably increased the temps since then, but even then the temp would often get as high as 105 degrees and I lived in a home without AC or particularly good insulation. However, I did live on a very shady street from trees and my only source of cooling was a squirrel cage fan in the basement. My house never got above 80 degrees. Some might find that "unbearable" but maybe not, considering the cost of AC under current electricity rates.

There is still the issue of stability and, certainly, it would be useful and interesting to evaluate what options would be available to the consumer and business when faced with erratic electricity availability.

Further, I would say that we need to start from the premise that reliance on fossil fuels, especially coal, is simply not an acceptable option. As far as "stress on government budgets", I think we should look elsewhere like the Defense budgets to reduce this stress.

If I understand you correctly, you advocate eliminating all direct subsidies for solar,etc. This would simply stifle progress in this area and kill the industry.

We are at a crossroads. We can choose certain doom or highly probable doom. Let us choose wisely.

I apologize before hand if I have misunderstood this part of the analysis. I just present these views as a way of getting clarification.

...the total hourly outputs for Spain, Britain and Denmark show correlation coefficients of 0.08 (Spain and DK), 0.09 (Spain and the UK), and 0.32 (UK and Denmark). This is pretty much in the lower range of the previously quoted study, so our three areas are probably good ones to realistically try the concept of sharing across large areas.

This is actually very, very good news. This tells us that a modest separation (UK and Denmark) gives good independence, and a reasonable separation (Spain and DK&UK) gives almost complete independence.

This mathematical reality, combined with Fig 2 and 3 very quickly discourages the belief that “the wind always blows somewhere.”

No, it really doesn't. It tells us that as we add more countries, and connect wind resources at greater distances, that the ratio of variance to mean output will continue to fall dramatically - the Law of Large Numbers.

The above week in July shows, how wrong that assumption can go.

No, it really doesn't. It would not be hard to cope with such weeks if they were infrequent. Instead of isolated examples, we need overall statistics telling us how often extended periods of low production occur. A fair analysis would show how the frequency declines as we make our grid bigger - i.e., as we move from one country to 2 or 3 countries, etc.

Figure 5 shows a problem we will analyze in more depth further down. For an aggregate of stock driven generation tech­nologies (like all natural gas, coal and nuclear in any given country), unplanned variability is close to zero (fluctuations come from unexpected outages of single plants),

This is misleading. A single nuclear or coal plant outage can cause enormous unplanned variability. OTOH, solar has large variability, but most of it is entirely predictable. Similarly, most wind variability is predictable, albeit in much shorter timeframes.

while for solar and wind, all outputs between 0% and 100% of nameplate capacity are possible and realistic. Additionally, these sources have a very low average output relative to their maximum capacity, probably between 11-16% for solar in aggregate for a country, and about 15-26% for wind (in aggregate, not for individual turbines).

This, of course, depends on location. The US has much higher rates for wind, and the best locations for solar do rather better. Germany and Denmark are not very good locations for either, which is a testament to German persistence and dedication to long-term investment.

Combinations only make sense to be reviewed when they have a generally complementary profile. Let’s use an example: Solar and Wind. While we have some positive correlation – often sunny days are less windy

A quibble: I believe what is meant here is negative correlation: one thing rises, and the other falls.

we also see the opposite – very sunny days where strong winds blow - which further improves PV output (panel temperature is negatively correlated with electricity production, so a cooling breeze increases PV efficiency). Equally, we can expect that during snowy wintery late afternoons with cold temperatures both wind and sun don’t deliver much output. That makes those two technologies not truly suitable to supplement each other, because we can predict with 100% certainty that they will create dangerous situations for grid stability on a regular basis.

We see here a basic, continuing flaw in this analysis: the failure to think statistically. If two energy sources are negatively correlated overall, that's a good thing. If they produce occasional large shortfalls in production, but those shortfalls are very rare, then that's not hard for a moderately well managed grid to deal with.

Let me say that again:

Infrequent large shortfalls are not a problem for a moderately well managed grid to deal with.

If they are infrequent, they can be handled with a wide variety of inexpensive measures: biomass in cheap peaker generators; relatively small quantities of expensive synthetic fuel in cheap peaker generators; and Demand Side Management, where large consumers accept curtailment.

Thus, this is a statistical problem: how to minimize (not eliminate!) the frequency and size of large shortfalls.

"during snowy wintery late afternoons with cold temperatures both wind and sun don’t deliver much output."

One note about winter weather, at least where I live, is that the clear, sunny days in Jan/Feb are when it's the coldest, but also very good for PV and Solar Heat production. Cloudy weather will generally have warmer temps with that blanket of cloud insulating you.

I don't know the wind correlation exactly, but those bitter cold, clear sunny days can often bring some good wind as well.

the cost for each wind kWh usefully transmitted between the three countries would be more than 7 cents

Assuming the calculations are correct (a risky assumption), that's pretty cheap, given that the power in question is surplus in the country of origin, and therefore presumably will go unused.

Myth #3: Storage will fill the gap...Now that we have seen that long range sharing via supergrids likely won’t deal with situations when all locations produce way too little or way too much, we have to look at storage.

This is probably incorrect. The next cheapest solution probably is overbuilding.

The US, for accidental historical reasons, has chosen to handle peak demand by expensive overbuilding, rather than rational time-of-day pricing: it has about 1,100GW of capacity, for average demand of about 450GW. There's no reason we couldn't do the same with wind power. If we overbuilt wind by, say, 33%, that would only cost about 2 cents per kWh for wind overall. How would that change the cumulative shortfall analysis?

Table 6 shows an overview of “storage” technologies, including those where nature did the storing for us through millions of years using pressure and heat. It also shows the price per “kWh” of storage capacity

This table does not include hydrogen that has been converted into a denser form, such as methanol, that would solve the storage density problem.

the only option with halfway meaningful weight density (hydrogen) has a very low round-trip efficiency and an unfavorable volumetric profile.

If we were to use the surplus electricity from over-built wind, the round-trip conversion efficiency would be relatively unimportant, as the resource would be effectively free (or, we could choose to allocate the cost of overbuilding 50% to primary variance mitigation, and 50% to this storage - either way, it's highly cost-effective).

For all “natural” resources, we don’t have to pay that price, we only pay the cost of extraction.

Sure, we do. We have to store oil, or coal, etc. If we were to convert hydrogen into a denser form, storage would be cheap.

In a world with renewables having a high share, we no longer talk about regular patterns of supply and demand where nights and days show a certain mismatch, but we talk about over- and underproduction for days, weeks and months. Dimming the lights in office buildings, or storing heat and cold no longer work in this case.

Again, this is incorrect. Infrequent large shortfalls are not a problem for a moderately well managed grid to deal with.

If they are infrequent, they can be handled with a wide variety of inexpensive measures: biomass in cheap peaker generators; relatively small quantities of expensive synthetic fuel in cheap peaker generators; and Demand Side Management, where large consumers accept curtailment.

Thus, this is a statistical problem: how to minimize (not eliminate!) the frequency and size of large shortfalls.

first, again the fact that we might have a “low supply” situation for much more than just a few hours, but instead for days or weeks.

Again, this ignores the important of frequency.

The second problem is equally large: this approach does require a lot of investment into new devices

This is highly unrealistic: this analysis assumes that we use wind for a very large % of our consumption, and have no fossil fuels available for backup. Such a situation won't happen for 50-100 years. What's the big deal about using coal for 5% of our kWh consumption?

using expensive Li-Ion batteries which only survive half a car’s life span for storing regular energy seems like a very silly thing to do, as it further shortens the life expectancy of this expensive piece of equipment

That's not likely for the latest generation of li-ion. More importantly, we're mostly talking about charge management, not Vehicle to Grid. By the time V2G is needed, batteries will be much cheaper and longer-lived.

A preliminary calculation we performed shows that it would cost approximately 70-80 cents to store one kWh of electricity in a high-tech ELV battery.

First, that's for V2G, which isn't needed soon. 2nd, that's unrealistic: battery costs are already at $350/kWh, and falling fast, and battery life is at 5,000 cycles (at 80% Depth of Discharge).

If suddenly all wind farms in a country produce 3 or 4 times as much as their expected average, how will anything be able to pick up that much power?

That's not especially important.

First, many creative uses for that cheap power will arise. Imagine in the US 230M EVs, all with 50kWh of storage: that's about 12TWh of storage.

2nd, if we infrequently have to curtail wind production, that's not a big deal. Again, we have to think statistically.

I think in the interests of intellectual honesty - it would have been worthwhile to point out that both Barcelona (Spain) and Copenhagen (Denmark) are in the same time zone. They are separated by 14.5 degrees of longitude about 500miles. So while I appreciate you are limited by the data you have - in fact your analysis doesn't support your conclusions regarding the debunking of certain myths. All that it supports is the view that wind energy can not be effectively shared within a 500 mile wide area when they are all on the same time zone.

I think when people are talking about sharing wind energy via modern grids those are not the distances they are contemplating. Nor when they talk about the wind blowing somewhere those are not the distances. It would be interesting to see (when and if you can get your hands on the data) whether the same conclusions can be drawn if applied to Portland Maine and Portland Oregon.

First, in the above model, we see a problem with capacity. Given the low capacity factor of many renewable sources, a large amount of nameplate capacity is required for that electricity mix. Today, nameplate capacity in the U.S. is 2.2 times that of average demand. In the future depicted above, it will be 3.3 times that of average power demand (100GW), or – if peak power risks are to be mitigated, even 3.7 times average power demand. This incurs significant extra cost and produces a lot of idle equipment.

This borders on the dishonest. Everyone knows that wind and solar have lower capacity factors than coal, NG and nuclear. That's just part of the design. To suggest that this is a problem, or that was discovered by this analysis is redundant at best, give the appearance of deceptive spin.

What makes things more difficult is the fact that there is also a problem with overproduction. At times, we expect to see overproduction by a factor of as much as 2.3 times of demand, even if we crank everything down that can be cranked down economically. There is no way that we can store even half of the amount of excess electricity a windy Sunday afternoon could produce in terms of solar and wind power, so we will simply lose those outputs in a situation with high penetration of renewable technologies.

Again,
First, many creative uses for that cheap power will arise. Imagine in the US 230M EVs, all with 50kWh of storage: that's about 12TWh of storage.

2nd, if we infrequently have to curtail wind production, that's not a big deal. Again, we have to think statistically.

This, in turn, makes the price of one USEFUL kWh from those already expensive technologies even more expensive, as unused electricity doesn’t generate any benefits, but actually incurs cost because it needs to be turned into heat by some kind of approach.

It's easy to curtail wind production, just by adjusting the pitch or orientation of the turbines.

A rough estimate of what the above scenario would yield in terms of average electricity price got us to about 22-25 cents per kWh (including distribution cost)

Stipulating the analysis (which isn't really a good idea - it has a lot of flaws), we see immediately that it isn't optimized by source. Given the cost of solar PV (3x as high as wind!), clearly there should be more wind and less PV: we could overbuild wind by a factor of 4, throw away 75% of the wind output, and have it still be cheaper than PV.

That brings us to one of the major flaws of this analysis: the cost assumptions are way too high. Remember, this is a world at least 30 years in the future, and probably 60 years in the most likely scenario. Costs for wind and solar will have fallen dramatically by then (they've fallen by 10x in the last 30 years). Costs for nuclear can be almost whatever we want them to be, based on the level of modularization, and level of production and economies of scale we achieve.

t distribution and management will equally become more expensive, given the much more complex nature of delivery situations.

This appears way out of the ballpark. We need to see calculations.

we see only the following possibilities for the future that keep delivery systems halfway intact without creating too much stress for societal systems (and government budgets):

These are astonishing. They appear to have been written by coal company executives.

* Stop or reshape large scale investment funding and feed-in support for many renewables...and instead finance research.

This is absurd: the purpose of renewable generation is to reduce co2 emissions. We have plenty of coal for decades.

* Focus investment support on the build-out of wind power up to a share of 10-15% of total consumption (or more if ample all-year-round hydropower from reservoirs is available) and match 100% of it (minus the hydropower capacity reliably available all year around) with natural gas generation capacity as backup.

We have plenty of coal generation now: how does the analysis above point to this???

* Couple feed-in tariffs with the ability to deliver steady energy services, encouraging the coupling of either multiple sources by providers and/or supply and demand – before approval for funding.

This is far more expensive than solutions that use the whole grid, like DSM.

* Send everyone back to the drawing board to think about a) how a future without steady electricity services should and could look like or b) how we could possibly solve our problem of stocks once fossil fuels run out to maintain stable electricity at a meaningful price.

We have plenty of time to do this - in the meantime we need to build as much wind power as possible, ASAP.

This is absurd: the purpose of renewable generation is to reduce co2 emissions. We have plenty of coal for decades.

How long have we had hydro, windmills, solar and so on. You see Nick that's why you are so very dishonest and dangerous. You might say the purpose of renewables is to reduce co2 emissions but that's all, just words.

Could you give me a figure on the amount of co2 emissions that have been "reduced" by the use of renewable energy devices? Have you seen a graph of the continual rising co2 atmospheric content. I suppose as we come off the peak burn, you will claim renewables enabled it.

This is what I think. Renewables allow us to burn MORE FF's and for longer than we would have been capable of without them. We need renewables because the cheap low hanging fruit of FF's have been picked. Without renewables taking up the slack we would be unable to extract the remaining expensive FF's. They allow people like you who champion BAU to be dishonest.

We think we need renewable energy because people like you tell us they can save our sorry asses and they probably do and will for a short time. Is it the next generation's problem to deal with our actions?

We really need to be honest about what renewable energy is for. Unless we can sequester an amount of carbon equivalent to that which we would have burned we are getting nowhere. The alternative to that is to leave the carbon in the ground. Are we working towards that, is it a goal, is it even considered?

This post self contradicts, and uses circular logic.

Unless we can sequester an amount of carbon equivalent to that which we would have burned we are getting nowhere. The alternative to that is to leave the carbon in the ground.

and yet you rail against renewables, which certainly DO lower CO2 emissions (and more besides) ?!.

So this is a push for a Zero Energy economy : No CO2, and no reneweables.

Wow, that's never going to get traction, except in the far fringes.

Renewable energy has worked for decades, and does a lot more than just CO2 reductions - it ALSO lowers exposure to Finite Fuels.
( which, rather strangely, you seem to also think is a bad thing ? )

Fortunately, few debate that, and the discussion is mostly over the best return on the money spent. Good progress is being made, and R&D is solid.

CO2 emissions are widely variable, so if you are serious about lowering Co2, you go after the most strongly growing emitters, not the ones falling.

Given that those growing Co2 mostly have get-out-of-Co2-free cards, good luck with that. It is those get-out-of-Co2-free cards, that are FAR more damaging, than renewable energy action!!.

and yet you rail against renewables, which certainly DO lower CO2 emissions (and more besides) ?!.

How do renewables lower co2 emissions when we are burning at peak? You must be thinking of your own little world. A renewable energy economy should have been implemented 60 years ago so we could get off FF's. That has not happened. The world's population has doubled, still growing fast and is ever more reliant on burning carbon.

The main thing now is getting honest. Everyone needs to understand what renewables do and what they are for and they are most certainly NOT for reducing co2 emissions. Governments, corporations and individuals could then make honest decisions and understand that when they put solar panels on their roof they are hedging, not causing less carbon to go into the atmosphere, because Joe down the road is burning what you don't.

Reduced co2 emissions will come about because of a collapsing economy and the reduced need to burn them, renewables will have extended the burn period not reduced it.

We are left now with just one way out and it's to attempt a power down and try and leave some accessible FF's unburnt.

How do renewables lower co2 emissions when we are burning at peak?

Sorry, We are not burning at peak, as all grids have considerable reserve.

As for lowering CO2, that's simple: Look at the area under the curve.

Reduced co2 emissions will come about because of a collapsing economy and the reduced need to burn them, renewables will have extended the burn period not reduced it.

Again a logic-fail. If you claim CO2 is fuel-constrained (& renewable agnostic), then the total amount emitted does not change at all - a longer burn time does not mean more CO2 in your scenario, just a little longer to release it.

What the renewable means for those smart enough to have it, is much less collapse.

A renewable energy economy should have been implemented 60 years ago so we could get off FF's. That has not happened.

Some countries did, at least for electricity.

Going back 60 years for a 'should have', is a little pointless tho ?

What you say is rationalization and not a word of truth, your ideals and agenda cloud your vision.
Nothing I say could change your outlook, it's like arguing with a religious redneck about the impossibility of god.

Search for the nearest mirror.

Alan

Bandits, I understand where you are coming from, but I think you've got it exactly backwards. As we come off 'peak burn' of fossil fuels, unless people have other options, what people will do is burn biomass (wood, mostly) to cook and keep themselves warm. Deforestation has historically been a threat to civilization (see Jared Diamond's Collapse if you haven't already), and it will return, and make it's own contribution to rising CO2 concentrations. Unless we humans can remove our extrasomatic energy use from carbon cycle, I see us burning every spare scrap of carbon on the surface of the planet.

Renewables allow us to burn MORE FF's and for longer than we would have been capable of without them.

Before I accept that claim, I'd like to see some statistical analysis to back it up. My intuition tells me that jg_ is right, that renewables slow down the burn rate and thus reduce CO2 concentrations, however marginally at current levels.