Concerning coal, some numbers and a thought
Posted by Heading Out on September 5, 2007 - 10:00am
When I started posting to this site, one of the last things that I intended was to become an apologist for either the mining or petroleum industries. I worry however, sometimes, that if there is only one side of a debate being given visibility, then, by default, a public picture is painted that may not reflect reality, and which may in the future have unfortunate consequences. The immediate cause of the comment was the Jeff Goodell’s editorial in the Post last weekend. And while I recognize that editorials have different rules, nevertheless the choice of adjectives in describing the various participants and activities leaves little doubt as to which side of the line the story falls.
Over this past week the editorial has continued to ferment in the back of my mind. I very much agree with the opening comments about the invisibility that is usually the miners’ lot, and the neglect that mining issues usually get in the Congress. But from that point on it takes an unmistakable tack against the industry. Why should this be of concern? Well consider, for a second, these costs, which I got from the Energy Insider this week.
Solar costs about 25 cents a kilowatt hour. That's compared to about 9 cents a kilowatt hour for natural gas and 5 cents a kilowatt hour for modern coal-burning plants, as well as 6 cents a kilowatt hour for wind energy if tax considerations are included. The good news is that the cost of solar power is falling all the time. It once stood at $1 a kilowatt hour and advocates say that it could soon cost 12-16 cents a kilowatt hour.
To put those numbers in perspective a little, the NYT had an article in January on power costs around the nation, noting that costs in Chicago in 2006 varied from $0.01 to $0.365 per kWh with an average around $0.0825, and in New York from down around $0.01, to up around $0.50, with an average of around $0.14 (estimating from the graph). (The cost varies with season and time of day). (Oh and, for Gail, it takes around 12 kWh per ton to mine coal, if you want a baseline average number).
In the WaPo article, Jeff comments that
Politically, the war in Iraq has been a boon for coal, allowing coal-friendly politicians to tout America's 250-year supply as a substitute for our addiction to Middle Eastern oil -- even though, in the real world, there is no overlap between coal (used to generate electricity) and oil (used for transportation fuels, among other things).
And while this is superficially true (less than 2% of oil goes toward major power generation in the United States – more perhaps in other countries), it perhaps skips a fuel of concern – natural gas.
There has been a considerable discussion in these pages about the coming problems in the supply of natural gas, and since it has been used increasingly in electricity generation in recent years, while concurrently it plays a significant role in oil production – whether in the Canadian oil sands or the production of oil in Iran. And as natural gas becomes in increasingly short supply on this continent, the impact that this has on both industries is likely to make that evident.
And, with his indulgence, it is appropriate to include a comment from Westexas near the bottom of Euan's post last week.
I just got off the phone with an acquaintance of mine, in a diplomatic service, who has considerable knowledge of Saudi Arabia. He actually leans toward the mostly voluntary decline scenario, but in any case, he said that because of severe shortfalls in natural gas production, about 500,000 bpd of liquids production over the next two years will be diverted to power plants and desalination plants. This is why the Saudis are talking about importing coal.
In electricity generation coal, like nuclear power, is more commonly used for baseload generation, while natural gas is more for times of high demand, since it can be more easily brought on line and, later, turned off. However, as natural gas supply becomes more in question, then something will have to replace those generators. It is a debate that is facing an increasing number of communities around the country as increasing electricity demand begins to strain existing resources. (Anecdotal story - in discussing load shedding with a group of students this week, suggesting that it would be a future concern as they graduated and moved to manage industries that would see this in years ahead, several commented that they had seen it required by the utility several times, in the places that they worked this summer – suggesting that we are closer to a power generation problem than I thought, given that this is a form of demand destruction).
The cheapest alternative would appear to be coal. The price differential between it and competing sources would still appear to be sufficiently large as to accommodate the cost increases that would be required for flue gas treatment and carbon sequestration (which as I noted in the past, could likely double the energy cost per kWh). Yet, while there is a lot of talk about doing something, there has been little action. This is, perhaps understandable. Politicians are not going to be wildly enthusiastic about imposing laws that their opponents can then wave on TV as being responsible for a doubling of power costs. You have only to see the current waves of outrage from existing increases in power costs to understand that.
Unfortunately this is not the only consequence. The cost of new mines, power stations and transmission lines continues to increase significantly. If there is a question as to whether the major investments that companies are going to have to make to create those facilities will not be rewarded, then the investments will not be made. The energy industry has been burned before (remember the investments made in oil shale as an example). Thus they seek some guarantee that the investments that they make will at least have some return. It is a matter of perception as to whether this is just prudent management or, as Jeff puts it:
This is not to say that the coal industry would not dearly love to get into America's gas tank. In recent months, it has pushed hard for subsidies and tax breaks that would accelerate the construction of coal-to-liquid plants, a technology developed by the Nazis during the 1930s that can transform coal into liquid fuels such as diesel
As the NRC study noted, for an industry that is fundamental to the current life-style of the country, the research investment whether for mine safety, better mining technologies, or better use technologies is sadly lacking. This is in part, because the industry itself is quite small (in physical numbers of people) and for the past couple of decades has been more concerned with keeping costs down so that it can compete with other fuels, than it has been on focusing on better technologies, which usually have a longer-time payback.
And sadly comments such as
But we've been mining coal in this country for 150 years -- all the simple, high-quality, easy-to-get stuff is gone. What's left is buried beneath towns and national parks, or places that are difficult, expensive and dangerous to mine.
get accepted, even when they are obviously untrue (Wyoming coal as a simple example). They set a tone for public perception, and when the light switch no longer works, somehow it won’t be their fault.
I had just put this post aside as being done, when the Washington Post ran another story on Tuesday about the impacts that the debate is having on plans for coal plants.
In early August, Mayor John Engen (D) won city council support to buy electricity from a new coal-fired plant scheduled to begin operation in 2011. He said the city government would save money on its electric bills.
But three weeks later, Engen pulled out of the deal after receiving hundreds of e-mails and phone calls from constituents upset that Missoula would contribute to the creation of a coal plant and concerned about what the town would do if the plant never got built.
The debate is, therefore already having consequences. And while I am sure that there are a fair number of folk that are glad to see this, one of the issues that concerns us here is the rate at which the energy supply to the world is going to change. The relative size of the problem and the large gap between the reality of what solar and wind power can currently achieve, and that needed (look for example at the numbers at the top of this post) gets neglected in a rosy view of the future that might be better reviewed by going back and looking at what happened the last time we had a problem with fuel in the winter, in the North-East.
I will however, apologize to Senator Reid, since I did comment just up-page that no politician would force a rise in utility prices, giving his opponent ammunition for a debate. The Senator has just done that
Last month, after a speech in Reno, Reid said he was opposed to new coal-fired plants anywhere.
"There's not a coal-fired plant in America that's clean. They're all dirty," Reid told reporters after speaking at a conference on renewable energy. He said that the United States should turn to wind, solar and geothermal power in an effort to slow climate change. "Unless we do something quickly about global warming, we're in trouble," he said.
Reid's opposition to coal plants is the latest in a series of new obstacles for power companies seeking to use the fuel to generate electricity. A combination of rising construction costs, state mandates for the use of renewable energy and lawsuits by environmental organizations have forced many utilities to drop or postpone coal projects this summer.
We are thus not going to get as well prepared as we perhaps need to be, and since there is a foreseeable consequence if natural gas supplies fade as they seem fated to, it may press the reality of the debate a little earlier than might otherwise be the case.
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Solar Power is good!
Big Problem that greenies never tell you: We can't make enough solar cells to save us.
New solar technologies use lots of rare earth minerals that soon will be gone. Gone.
So this is just another pipe dream, although the rich will certainly get the benefit from it.
There are a wide range of potential solar technologies some requiring rare earth minerals and some not. It is not correct to write off solar technology due to such resource limitations.
For example see our article on Concentrating Solar Power which doesn’t need anything fancy, just large amounts of direct sunlight as is found in the US’s southern deserts or North Africa.
I think this would be a great story theme to be followed up here.
I have been listening to all the "gush" about thin film solar, but from my almost completly uniformed position it really seems unlikly to me that some of these technologies can scale up to utility sized projects that are sustainable.
The wide scale deployment of LCD monitors has driven up the price of Indium > an order of magnitude in only a few years, its about as common in nature as Silver, and the best efficiency seems to be with Tellurium compounds, the rarest solid element on the planet (except for some radioactive things that decay). Its price has risen, I belive from $US4 per pound in 2000 to over $100 now.
Does anyone know how much deployment it would take before we could expect the current price gap between these designs and the silicon based technologies to be erased?
This is blatantly uninformative.
Also Palladium, Platinum, and Gold cost more than 400$USD a kg
A reduction in the quanitity of junction materials, as well as directed production of PV targeted cell materials will likely have huge economy of scale effects, lowering the $/Watt price down. This in turn will allow for the economy to grow in a more sustainable fashion.
To address rarity, Wiki says 0.001ppm on average (1e-9) concentration, so going by typical concentrations required from the NREL website (http://www.nrel.gov/pv/cdte/) which states less than 0.1% by mass is required(about 7g/m^2 from the NREL pdf on the same page.).
Therefore a meter square of panel will require 7E9 g of marginal mining (7e6 kg, or 7000 Tons). This is the marginal requirement, obviously currently exploited ores are much easier, considering that the Tellurium for 1 sq m of PV only costs 400$USD*7/1000 = 2.80$USD
Pretty cheap for something which will produce 200W of power for 30-40 years. (200W*35*365*24*60*60= 2.2E11Joules)
Current module prices for silicon based modules are at www.solarbuzz.com, and it would seem these modules cannot ever close the gap(simply based upon the price of Te), unless concentrators are used.
more to come.
WOW! You just invented a solar panel that produces power at night! Now if you divide your result by 10 you may get a better picture of what you'll get.
2.2E10J = 6111 kwth. * 10c/kwth = $611
So you pay as a minimum $1000 for a 200W panel only to get $611 worth of electricity in 35 years. Impressive!
Average insolation is what the sun puts out onto the panels on average, year after year. It is mainly affected by latitude, yearly cloud cover, and panel angle.
Sooo, at 21.39 c/kwth (average) we get a nice return in 35 years of ~1307$USD at 4.84 a watt the initial investment would have been 968 bucks. For an ROI of >1% in monetary terms.
please don't move the goal posts here. May I suggest working from average numbers rather than your cherry picked ones. (however you did estimate the cost of a 200 Watt installation very well.) Good Job.
It is also prudent to add that with larger installations the cost will fall due to purchasing power and economies of scale, it is unlikely that PV will see diseconomies of scale for quite some time or volume of manufacture.
Gil.
(note: I seem unable to remove all the dumb space above the table, my apologies)
OK, I apologize - it is not 5-6$/Wp but $4.87-$6.5/Wp (4.78 euro).
I also apologize for thinking that the average electricity price is ~10c instead of your 21.39 c/kwth:
Source:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/brochure/electricity/electricity.html
I'm sorry, next time I promise I'll trust you, not my eyes. So, who did you say has goal posts?
In California, obviously a large PV market, average residential cost to customer is 16.3 c/kwh (ranges depending on use from 11.4 to 36.4 c/kwh). Average for commercial use is 16.7 c/kwh.
Clearly, for a residential customer paying at the high end over 30 c/kwh, the PV systems can pay off pretty rapidly.
We have a 2.5 kw system on our roof, but rarely or never paid over baseline to start with, so it is a slow payback. However, our cost is now paid, while I am pretty confident electrical rates will be climbing significantly. Our system will provide for our entire annual usage for 20-30 yrs or more. Part of a retirement plan.
California has been blessed with deregulation and Enron. It is a shame that the most affluent state in the country does not get affordable and reliable electricity service.
But also CA subsidizes PV panels to the tune of 2/3s of the cost. This is still payed by the customers but is just split between all of them so it is not as visible. The 3000MW program will raise prices even further so you were right - for you personally you made the correct decision in the right time. But you have to admit that most of your costs were covered by the other consumers. In addition you are not paying for the use of the grid as a backup; this is also a subsidy payed by the other users.
Looking at the bigger picture, contribution from PV in CA is negligible - just 0.2% in 2006
Source:
http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricity/gross_system_power.html
Actually, the subsidy was a little less than half the cost and has been declining. That said, it is still a big chunk. We do pay a $4 monthly meter fee for being grid-connected, and any oversupply goes to pge at the end of the year without reimbursemnt to us. We will probably wind up giving 300-500 kwh to pge this year. I know it doesn't apply to all. Of course the contibution is low, but growing. And what is put in is additive through time without further money for fuel or maintenance, etc. It does reduce the need for new generation but has a long ways to go and isn't for everyone. The subsidies - well I think they are necessary right now. People without schools subsidize schools for others, same goes for roads, health & mental health services, etc. It's not a question of PV saving society, there is no single answer and reducing consumption is far more important overall. But I believe, with my experience, that PV has a lot to offer as a portion of the solution. What alternatives are you proposing that have no negatives? As your link shows, natl gas is the largest contributor - but what happens as that goes away?
peakearl... your fee of $4 x 12 plus 300-500 kwth would amount to ~$100 / annum. With these $100 your utility has to be able to sustain all the fixed costs of the enormous transmission and generation infrastructure that serves you as a backup. If you needed to use a battery pack instead it would have costed you almost as much as the PV system, maybe to the tune of $2-3000 a year (considering you would have to replace the batteries in several years).
Having said that I am all for PV and what the CA is doing about it. I just think it is a bit premature to try to push starting it on a larger scale that the technology is ready to. Having taken look at the numbers, the 3000MW program is a bit too much of taxpayers money thrown for a too small benefit. In the end of the day these PV panels will produce as much energy as an average NG generator.
I suspect that a single person living alone in an apartment without A/C is not paying much more than $100/yr in infrastructure costs either. Is that a subsidy? What is a reasonable amount to pay? PG&E isn't supplying much more than infastructure these days, they buy all of their power.
Well, that makes it even easier to figure out.
If PG&E buys its power they are paying industry prices for it, adding some costs to maintain their infrastructure plus profit and reselling it to you at retail price. Their problem is that they are buying from you retail prices - foregoing any fixed costs and profits they would have otherwise taken. Here is a small calculation:
Spot electricity prices are usualy in the 50-70$/Mwth, if we take the higher end this is 7c/kwth, and the difference to 16c is 9c.
9c times 12000 kwth (annual consumption) is $1080. So you end up tricking the utility by $980. Of course the utility managers are not stupid and it is certain that they pass these costs to the other consumers.
Actually, no. The utilities are finding that they can get more out of existing infrastructure and do not need to spend so much on upgrades, so net metering is saving them money. The problem they face is they lose some customer base. So far it looks like net income stays neutral, especially since they get power at a lower price than wholesale at peak, but going to a much higher fraction of net generation provided by solar could pose a problem as the spinning reserve kept for peak becomes less needed and so less expensive. But, if they won't net meter, folks will start getting off the grid and then their infrastructure won't even get supported with the connection fee.
Don't worry though. Uilities are very very good at making the stranded cost argument, so they'll make money one way or another.
Chris
The utilities are finding that they can get more out of existing infrastructure and do not need to spend so much on upgrades, so net metering is saving them money
Frankly I think you are making this up. If a house has 2.5kW solar panels and its peak power it uses is 10kw, the line to this house, the transformers that serve it etc.etc. must be calculated for... 10kW. There will be times of the day that PV does not produce anything and the infrastructure is calculated based on the maximum load, not the average one. It's a common sense.
There might be some benefits in reduced average load and wear, but with 0.2% of electricity produced I would suspect these to be hardly noticable if any. Power equipment hardly gets damaged by normal use, it is sudden surges/drops of power that usually cause problems.
You are not thinking like a utility. Consider a development large enough to require a substation. If the development were built with solar, much of the energy use will be produced within the development and so it can be larger with the same size substation. Put another way, you need fewer substations for the same number of customers. A growing town that grows with solar does not need a new transmission line as soon as one that grows without solar. The last half mile does not change much, but everything getting there does.
Chris
Again you are not making sense - like I said there are times of the day solar will produce nothing over the whole area served, and the whole country actually. The transmission infrastructure and the number of substations and transmission lines would have to cover for that time period - as though solar does not exist.
The effect you described may have some credibility in the scenario when solar reduces the midday load peak in summer. Well, guess what - there is a secondary peak between 6 and 7pm (when people go back from work) and at that time solar panels will be producing virtually zero. And what about winter, when solar is producing almost nothing while more and more people go to resistive heating and heat pumps?
Anyway if there are some savings I expect them to be minuscule compared to the revenues foregone by utilities. You need to link some industry report to prove your point, otherwise your assertions are largely theoretical.
Now you are beginning to think like a utility a little. Take the delta between the main peak and the secondary and there is your savings.
You have forgotten that non-time-of-use rate net metering customers are providing power to the utilities when the wholesale power price is above the retail price.
Chris
It was your point that solar makes some savings and I agreed there might be some small savings. It's up to you to show how large are they and do they cover the subsidy to PV customers. If we are talking a $1 of savings per $100 costs for PV panels we are obviously not doing anything meaningful.
For these $100 every house could be equipped with CFC bulbs and more efficient A/Cs - potentially saving hundreds of MWs of peak load. One very cheap but not present everywhere appliance - a scheduler for the A/C would likely save more than all the PV combined at a small fraction of the price.
"It's up to you to show how large are they and do they cover the subsidy to PV customers."
It's always helpful for boths sides of a debate to offer data, sources & calculations, rather than for either (or both) to just ask for the other side to bear the burden of the proof.
"For these $100 every house could be equipped with CFC bulbs and more efficient A/Cs - potentially saving hundreds of MWs of peak load. One very cheap but not present everywhere appliance - a scheduler for the A/C would likely save more than all the PV combined at a small fraction of the price."
I think we all agree that efficiency and demand management are the cheapest alternatives and should be given a very high priority, but at any level of demand we'll still need some generation, and non-carbon emitting forms should be developed ASAP.
It's worth mentioning that demand management will also help reduce that seconday peak you mentioned earlier, when people arrive home.
It was mdsolar's point that PV is bringing some savings in utility costs, my point was that any savings would be insignificant compared to PV costs, and asked him what he has to prove his point.
If we both can not find any numbers I guess the question will remain open.
In fact, no, you objected that utilities get nothing out of net metering but they do. If you shift ground now and say that what they get should cover the state subsidy you are mischaracterizing the discussion. The utilities don't own the PV, they only get to take advantage of the generation. One wants to look at the benefit to the owner and the state rather than the utility to examine the benefits of the subsidy.
Chris
By your logic each time I switch off my A/C I should get a subsidy for not loading the grid.
Your point was ridiculous from the very begining and I'm expecting you to provide your sources proving it.
"By your logic each time I switch off my A/C I should get a subsidy for not loading the grid."
And a lot of utilities do that, with peak demand management, and they consider it quite cost effective. Of course, that's for selected maximum peaks, but the principle is there.
DOE, for example says the same thing. You can probably find a few things here.
I have to say that you a quite rude as you hold untenable positions. Words like ridiculous do not describe what I have been saying and certainly do not do so in a polite manner. If you look at net metering from the utilities' point of view it is beneficial up to a certain capacity, probably about 25% depending on demand growth. Higher if they need RECs and can get them at a low cost from the net meterers. Industrial and commercial customers are more likely to sell their RECs at market price. We are certainly considering plans to give connected utilities discounts. Perhaps the best benefit of net metering is the sense of working together to make things better. When there is an outage, and someone goes outside to flip the switch to disconnect from the grid, they'll be thinking of the linesmen they are protecting by keeping power out of the mains. That kind of thing makes a difference even if you can't count it in money. To paraphrase MLK, net metering is going to really happen in the TVA first.
BTW, if you have tiered rates, you do get a subsidy by turning off your AC.
Chris
PG&E has a cap of 0.1% for net metering. Obviously they don't share your view that up to 25% it will not hurt them. Both articles talk about theoretical benefits to utilities, but none are calculating them. I think it is self-evident that the grid operators can not benefit from net metering. They still have to maintain the transmission lines and substations to the houses despite them being with a lower load. But at least their losses could be offset partially by what you said.
IMO the fair thing to in this case would be to charge PV customers higher fixed fees for using the grid as a backup while keeping their electricity (up to the produced by PV) for free.
And please don't consider me rude - you are the one who made the claim and you were supposed to back it up. Otherwise it was just a hollow argument.
Better note the age of the study. California's cap is 2.5% now. This one I think you can look up yourself. It will be raised again.
Chris
"PG&E has a cap of 0.1% for net metering. Obviously they don't share your view that up to 25% it will not hurt them. "
It is in PG&E's interest to maximize production, consumption & revenue. This isn't in the community's best interest.
Sure there's a subsidy here, but as we've agreed in the past, it's perfectly reasonable to consider this a countervailing subsidy to those enjoyed by fossil fuels. Is this perfect? No. Would a carbon tax, and an end to all other subsidies be a perfect world? Sure, but this isn't too bad, and it's better than no net-metering.
And to answer your question - yes, it is a subsidy, paid by non-solar consumer. No operators in their right minds would made such contracts with their customers if they were not forced to by the state legislation. In effect the state is forcing non PV-customers to subsidize PV customers.
It would have been realtively OK if the PV share was kept small, but it is obviously set to rise. Prepare for price hikes.
"yes, it is a subsidy, paid by non-solar consumer."
Sure, you can think of it that way. OTOH, coal is heavily subsidized by the right to emit (CO2, pollutants) without cost. This can be thought of levelling the playing field.
Fair enough. But what has to happen in this case is either price the carbon or force CPPs to eliminate the polution.
This should truly level the playing field and then the competition should determine which one is the best.
My guess is that the winner would still be nuclear as it is almost on par with coal. But if solar brings down costs a some more it maybe the ultimate winner. Personally I'd be happy see nukes providing baseload and PV and NG providing for the peaks... but unfortunately with PV we are not there yet.
"what has to happen in this case is either price the carbon or force CPPs to eliminate the polution. "
That would be best. We seem to be doomed to spread around additional subsidies forever, rather than reduce them. Easier politically, it seems.
"My guess is that the winner would still be nuclear "
If nuclear can move fast enough. Wind & solar are likely to move much faster, and cut off nuclear's window of opportunity. Wind was 20% of new generation last year, is doubling every 2 years, and could easily provide all new generation in 5 years. Solar is about 8 years behind, and growing just as fast.
Oh, and multiply that subsidy by millions of potential users and see how quickly california is bankrupt.
Something is very weird with the CA PV number. I looked at your link and the previous reports to see how PV has changed, here's what you find:
Year Gwh
2006 616
2005 660
2004 741
2003 758
2002 864
According to these numbers, PV has been shrinking in CA in recent years when we know it has actually been taking off rapidly. I'll have to try to figure this out!
Their figure did not include residential PV systems, just commercial scale ones. It could be that some of the commercial systems installed in the 80s are retiring or reducing output as they age... just a guess.
If you take a look at the small script below, they are estimating residential PV contribution to ~200GWh for 2006.
It still makes no sense. Even added together you don't get an increase -- when all reports I have seen report multiple large and small new installations during that period. Very little was put in in the 80's, so I can't imagine that accounting for it. I don't have time now but may try to track this down this weekend. I know several very busy people in the PV industry. I read the report script below and also don't understand it. They don't actually reference home vs commercial, e.g., our small installation is actually treated as though it were commercial. I thought they meant off-the-grid vs grid-tied installations. There are many of these in the hills, for well pumping operations and other uses large and small.
We can get 21.5% efficiency from silicon, see http://www.sunpowercorp.com/pdf/SPR-210-WHT.pdf
Sunpower have achieved 23% with silicon using a fine diffused pattern of back connectors but this technique is too expensive for domestic use.
Silicon the second most abundant element on the planet. It is not lack of materials that will prevent us making all the solar cells the world needs.
Nor is silicon at the end of the road in development. The thickness of silicon in single crystal cells has been falling with no loss in performance. It will soon be under 100µm and the difference between material usage in single crystal and thin film silicon is becoming less.
Edge defined crystal growth can reduce the wastage in slicing cylindrical Czochralski grown crystals. Polysilicon raw material produced expressly for photovoltaic use could be much cheaper and use less energy to produce than the electronic grades that are used now.
Other more efficient materials may overtake silicon if they are competitive but it will depend on the costs of rare materials. The Spectrolab triple junction cells have achieved 40.7% efficiency at concentration factors of several hundred. http://www.spectrolab.com/com/news/news-detail.asp?id=172
The great advantage being able to operate at such high concentration factors is the enormous reduction in the area of semiconductor needed. Working at 400 times concentration and twice the efficiency of silicon 50 cells 5mm x 5mm, each behind a 100m x 100mm Fresnel lens, a total of 0.00125 m² will produce the same as 1m² of best silicon. This reduction in area of semiconductors at present compensates for the use of exotic materials, Aluminium Gallium Indium Phosphide, Gallium Arsenide and Germanium.
These technologies may, or may not become victims of their own success if they push up the cost of rare materials but we will always have silicon to fall back on and it is sufficient if fossil fuel prices rise a lot.
As Chris Vernon points out there are other, thermal ways of converting solar energy, the troughs he mentions, the Stiling engine dishes, the solar towers and the solar chimney idea. Ground sourced heat pumps are also getting the energy gain over the electrical input from solar energy re-heating the cooled ground.
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Solar and wind are moving targets so it is very difficult to anticipate prices. On the other hand coal has lead times of four years or so (table 39) compared to 3 years for wind and about 18 months for solar. Nanosolar is coming on line this year with a wholesale price of about $1/Watt, compared to coal plant construction with scubbers only at about $1.30/Watt (same table).
With a growth rate of 45% annually, solar replaces current net generation in about 22 years, while the gaps you identify seem to be in peak demand rather than base load so that industries that become leary of load shifting will likely go with solar as Alcoa is starting to do.
New coal thus needs to anticipate prices 4 years out to see if increased demand for base load justifies investment and then 20 years out to see if the cost of the plant can be payed back if it is only meeting night time demand at reduced efficiency. It's other option is to obtian long term power purchase agreements, but owing to the possiblity of increasing fuel prices and the potential for CO2 emissions pricing, it is at a competitive disadvantage compared to wind and solar, which can offer long term agreements at a fixed rate. The US passed peak energy production in coal a few years back owing to substitution of lower grade coal, so rising fuel prices are pretty likely.
The market uncertainty caused by the growth of renewables makes it difficult to justify long lead time projects such as new coal plants. Gas probably has an advantage despite price because it can promise delivery of new capacity on the same kind of time scale as wind or solar.
Chris
If all fuel supplies continued to be available then I would be less concerned. However, since we are already seeing Saudi Arabia look to coal to replace disappearing natural gas supplies (see the Westexas quote above) I cannot see the US or other countries being better off for long term supply. Put together with the price differentials that I began the post with, and the scenario that we won't have enough power starts to appear more likely. Hence the worry!
I agree that gas supply is a worry, but what I'm saying is that the question of long term supply appears to be addressed by renewbles. Will, the hesitancy to build coal plants lead to higher night time prices owing to the use of gas? Possibly. California's experience with conservation suggests that no new capacity is actually needed, but that does not mean that California's lead will be broadly adopted. Switching from oil to electricity for transportation may increase demand for new generating capacity but that would tend to favor increased solar capacity since storage is built in. Accelerating the rate of growth of solar is also possible and on a fairly short time-scales.
Chris
A couple of my posts over on Drumbeat, shown below, seem appropriate.
FYI--my “diplomatic source” for the 500,000 bpd number (liquids production shifted to Saudi power plants and desalination plants, over the next two years) is very credible. And the possibility of Saudi Arabia importing coal has been widely reported. Also, Saudi Arabia has started a research program to look into renewable energy.
My Drumbeat posts:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20586764/
Financial Times: Gazprom pushes Exxon to drop China export plans
The Russian government is trying to restrict some natural gas exports to China, they have raised the oil export duty to the highest level in history, and I have seen some reports of planned reductions in fourth quarter oil exports. There are also reports of plans to restrict Russian grain exports.
It sounds to me like Russia is trying to reduce food and energy exports, in order to make sure that they have sufficient food and energy for the Russian winter, which makes one wonder what kind of winter that the EU might have.
With all that ample sunshine it's an odd choice for Saudi Arabia to build coal plants instead of Solar.
They are actually looking at doing both.
"Nanosolar is coming on line this year with a wholesale price of about $1/Watt"
Where is a link to where I can purchase these THIS YEAR ?
I think they have presold their production but if you are a large commercial, industrial or utility customer you might be able to get in the queue. This is their web site.
Hello Chris,
What is your source for the claim "Nanosolar is coming on line this year with a wholesale price of about $1/watt'? Currently, last I checked, solar systems were costing around $3/watt, with actually a rising trend in this price, because of the high cost of sillicon. I would be very interested to know where your $1/watt expectation comes from.
Regards,
Cuchulainn
"with actually a rising trend in this price, because of the high cost of sillicon."
Prices, not costs, are rising due to a scarcity premium, both for silicon & for modules.
Both premiums are highly likely be temporary, as supply is rising very quickly.
Of course, demand is more than doubling every two years, so it may take a little while for supplies to catch up, but they will, especially due to the rising market share for thinfilm PV.
Cuchulainn,
That figure came from a interview with Nanosolar CEO Martin Roscheisen linked here at the oil drum.
Regards,
Chris
Nanosolars technology isn't silicon based, it's created from a compound of Indium.
Nanosolar is coming on line this year with a wholesale price of about $1/Watt
This is a bit misleading. Solar panels have typical utilization rate of 10 to 15% of their rated capacity. You can not compare a Watt of solar to a Watt of coal (typical availability 70-80%), even ignoring solar power's non-dispatchable nature.
Being 6-7 times less available, $1/Watt is in fact $6-7/Watt in comparable terms. BTW I'll be happy to see that $1/Watt come true. It has been coming for about 5 years now, while in the meantime PV prices actually rose from a low of $4/Watt in 2002-2003 to $5-$6 now.
"Nanosolar is coming on line this year with a wholesale price of about $1/Watt" - This is a bit misleading."
True, though the difference is smaller when you remember that new coal plants are to a great extent intended to provide additional peak capacity, which is where solar shines (pun intended).
"Solar panels have typical utilization rate of 10 to 15% of their rated capacity."
15-25% is a better figure - see: http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/redbook/atlas/serve.cgi
"solar power's non-dispatchable nature. "
Solar is dispatchable in the way nuclear is dispatchable: you can turn it down and then up. As a practical matter you'd never want to, given the zero marginal cost of generation, hence the rule of thumb that it's "not dispatchable".
You can not turn up solar panels at night, if is cloudy or during the shorter and dimmer winter days. That's the hole difference with nuclear or coal - the grid users are expecting electricity on-demand, not on sun-shine or on wind-blowing.
Your figures about capacity utilization are a little off the top. Check out real world figures here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaics
62 MW** Moura, Portugal -> 88 GWh -> 10 MW continuous -> 16%
40 MW* Muldentalkreis, Germany -> 40 GWh -> 4.6 MW cont. -> 11.4%
9.5 MW Milagro, Spain -> 14 GWh -> 1.6 MW -> 16.8%
Obviously Germany achieves lower utilisation because of its lower solar insulation, but Spain and Portugal should have been better.
I suspect that in the real world 20% would be the maximum you can hope for, but 15% would be a good guess as an average.
Sure, solar is variable, but variability (or lack therof) is different from dispatchability. OTOH, certainly solar would need to be a part of a system, not the only source.
What did you think of the NREL data? I'll look at the Wikipedia data, but don't forget, as a user-compiled source it's always good to check further to more primary sources.
http://www.cmpco.com/about/system/glossary.html
Since solar can not be trusted to provide output at any certain moment it has a limited dispatchability. I think there is some measurement for this, but I don't remember what was it.
Having said that, solar is much more stable and dispatchable than wind, which can vary in minutes.
P.S. I could not open your link to take a look
"The ability of a generating unit or other source of electric power to vary output. "
IOW, the ability to turn it up or down. And yes, just like nuclear, you can turn solar up or down. As I noted, you'd never want to.
"solar can not be trusted to provide output at any certain moment it has a limited dispatchability. "
You're talking about variance, aka intermittency, which is slightly different. Yes, solar has variability. OTOH, so does any source: generators break down, nuclear reactors trip, etc. Plus, that variability is predictable (even weather), so you can work around it. Finally, solar is nicely correlated with demand, so that it's KWH's are worth more than average.
"wind, which can vary in minutes"
It doesn't vary quite that quickly: you're talking about weather systems, and distributed wind farms. Also, wind is fairly well forecastable.
For the NREL data, use this, and choose Average, Annual and "Flat Plate Tilted South at Latitude - 15 Degrees".
I'm sorry but you are talking does not make sense:
How exactly are you going to turn solar UP at night? Clearly you can rely on it being up only part of the time and even then it is not exactly certain. It is simply unreliable, which for the operator is equal to less dispatchable. OTOH, like a said solar is much more reliable and predictable than wind which indeed can change precipitously in a matter of minutes. Check out this graph:
Source: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmenvaud/584/...
You are right that the same is true for any other energy source, but the difference is the level of unreliability. In most cases you can rely on a conventional source being up 99% of the time.
Looks like change on a scale of a hour or more, not minutes.
BTW, having looked at data and graphs on the job for the last 25 years, this looks clearly drawn by hand. Look carefully, the 'output' is going backwards in time at various points. Unsteady hands, to be sure.
The source is a UK parliament publication which refers to E.ON Power document... if I couldn't trust these then I'm cancelling Google altogether.
I can see the graph goes back by 1-2 pixels but it might be some technical problem when creating/publishing it on the net.
And the sudden power drop indeed is in minutes. The thick black line up there represents a period of 6 hours.
Ah you revised while I was posting.
Maybe after googling or wiki-ing, you'd follow up to the original source, and cite that. Don't cancel Google, just be more careful on citations, and representation of others' work.
The thick black line up there is a thick black line. Not a six-hour interval. Look at the graph scale. The source doesn't call this a six hour interval, it's two lines for the arrows to line up to. BTW, the report goes on to point out this as a rare event.
Finally, looking at the source graph, I am convinced the graph you posted (from some written testimony to the UK parliament) was handdrawn, not a artifact of compression.
Source http://www.eon-netz.com/Ressources/downloads/pdf_EON_Netz_Windreport_eng...
You are nitpicking and losing point at the same time.
Checkout graph 5 on page 7 of the PDF paper you link to. The original graph is identical to this one - I don't know if that one was handwritten or copied on a Xerox, but basically graph 5 shows the same thing - how wind power is decreasing from ~4200MW to ~500MW in the evening of 11.19.03
Now take a look at the orange lines with the arrow between them. The text above them says: "Decreasing wind: ~3640MW in 6 hours (18:00 - 24:00). Therefore the line represents the six hours - it's an easy deduction. Then check out the cliff the power is falling from - 4000 to 1000MW - comparing it to the 6 hour scale, it is obvious that it takes less then an hour.
I have examined the figure in the pdf and I see that there are breaks in the horizontal grid so that there are seven line segements apparently coresponding to the 7 days plotted. The lengths of these line segements are slightly shorter than 24 hours. The length of the orange lines is larger than half of these line segements. Their lengths are therefore greater than 12 hours. The notation on the graph appears to be correct and the orange horizontal lines appear to the indicate vertical positions of the maximum and minimum used. I too have seen the wind die out quickly, leaving me becalmed in the middle of a lake, but this graph is not an example of that.
Chris
LevinK, I wouldn't do this for just anybody.
No need to deduce what the orange line is. I've added the timescale for you below.
I always nitpick over data. I don't think it is me losing point.
I'm sorry I was wrong, you were right. I misinterpreted the meaning of this line. But this changes the original point only slightly.
IMO it changes the original point by a lot.
Nobody disagrees with you that wind can be intermittent, heck, demand can be intermittent. The issue is forecasting demand and supply, and having enough lead time to bring additional power on line, be it from another region, from a local gas-fired unit, or from storage of one sort or another (presently pumped storage, future NaS batteries, PHEVs, compressed air, etc).
Hours vs minutes makes all the difference.
For my 2 cents on your nuclear debate, it's proliferation that is the greatest danger. But let's take that up in a new thread one of these days, this one probably doesn't have many eyes on it by now and I feel it is important.
Let me just add that real-time and perhaps time-of-use pricing, properly set and not necessarily linearly, would curb demand in times of low supply (a week of no wind or bright solar in some large region of the country). We really do have to let go of the notion that energy can always be available to anyone at all times. Critical services first, HBO last.
I do agree with you on the efficacy of energy efficiency measures, but negawatts is not a substitute for kwatts in critical need situations. We have to do this now, so that 20 yrs from now sufficient capacity of renewables is installed.
Core reliability is being there when you absolutely need it. Distributed solar has this more than even generator backup since it does not require infrastructure to deliver fuel. During hurricane recovery, for example, a house with solar can keep the neighbor's medicine refrigerated as well as perserving perishables. Power tools will work, allowing repairs that preserve property.
Solar power also boosts grid reliability during heat waves by producing when AC demand is highest. This means lives saved. Some power sources, like nuclear, can go off line under heat stress.
Availability and reliability are connected, but different issues.
Chris
During hurricane recovery, for example, a house with solar can keep the neighbor's medicine refrigerated...
After a bloody hurricane there won't be any solar panels on the roof! Jesus Christ people...
Panel and their mountings are typically rated to wind speeds of 120 mph. You can go higher though. If there is a lose of structural integrity of the house then your wiring won't be working. I've been through several hurricanes. Generally the food spoils despite efforts to distribute ice or dry ice.
Chris
Chris, What decency. As Korg flails, you patiently answer him. You're a better man than I.
Hmmm...
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/betterman-live-at-msg/506910284
No, wait this is better, man...
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/pearl-jam-betterman-live/2603765405
Additionally, the number of houses that loose power due to an extreme storm greatly exceed the number of houses that loose their roofs.
Here on the North Coast it's common for power to go out several times each winter as trees fall and cars skid into power poles. We never loose roofs.
During hurricane recovery, for example, a house with solar can keep the neighbor's medicine refrigerated as well as preserving perishables. Power tools will work, allowing repairs that preserve property.
Only if you have a battery bank, which is an expensive high maintenance investment which has to be replaced every 3 to 4 years.
"Only if you have a battery bank, which is an expensive high maintenance investment which has to be replaced every 3 to 4 years."
We can hope that this will change with PHEV's. Already people are using Prius's as whole-house UPS backups: with PHEV's this can go both ways.
A bit pessimistic.
Lead acid deep cycles last 4-6 years in constant 'off the grid usage. Battery life is a function of charge/discharge cycles.
(I've been getting 6-7 years.)
One could have 2-4 golf carts hooked to their grid inter-tie system as a 'blackout' security system. Keep them trickle charged and they will last a long, long time. They would be there when the grid goes down. That would be enough to keep ones basic stuff going while everyone else lights a candle.
Maintenance is about zip. Check every few months to see if the water need topping up.
I've always seen beautiful weather after hurricanes. Your fridge only need daily doses of electricty to keep it working if you are careful. No need for batteries. If you can run a circular saw to cut a cover for a blown out window, you'll keep the inside dry in the next rain and save yourself a bit. Again, working in daylight, there is no need for batteries.
Chris
mdsolar, do you have solar panels or you are just talking by heart?
If you do, try disconnecting them from the grid, don't put any batteries and then tell me for how long were you able to run your fridge, A/C or whatever you have.
Disclaimer: I'm not assuming responsibility about all the damaged equipment you would have to replace.
The system I'm getting will have built in delays to avoid short cycling. Have you forgotten we are talking about hurricane recovery?
Chris
It simply won't work without the grid or batteries. Try it if you don't trust me.
The system I am getting is designed to work as source of power if the grid is down. It is not meant to work that way at night and it will be important to look at load management. But, if, as has happened before, the power is out for several days, it will cover certain uses. For me, hot and cold running water, refrigeration, a working stove and the use of some tools sounds much better than what I experienced before. It is nice to be able to wash off after running a chain saw for hours. It is nice to have the use of a skill saw if a neighbor needs a roof patch. I notice a bit further down that you are talking about winter days. It would be a rare huricane that would occur then. I trust that you will amend your views as you learn more.
Chris
You've got a good point, but I'm not sure that it's totally valid.
If someone has a few kWs of panels on their roof (or racks) it probably would be possible to do a direct feed to a "reasonable" load.
(3 kW of panels would give one 25 amps of 120 vac.)
Potential damage could be avoided via a low voltage dropout.
The prudent person would most likely have a small battery bank for nighttime power.
Every time a cloud covers the sun all your equipment will have to shut down. When you try to switch on something over the current production you'll get a brownout. Over time you will damage all you have.
You need to have some kind of storage, you can not get away around it. I doubt that a "small" battery pack will work. Don't expect to get any juice after 6 pm or before 10am, so you need to have something to cover at least 5-6 hours of consumption - I would suggest that no smaller than 10kw battery pack would do the job. In addition you will have to significantly oversize your PV panels to cover for the small and dim winter days... it is still a losing proposition each way, except maybe in remote areas.
"How exactly are you going to turn solar UP at night? "
First, no one is proposing solar as a primary power source at night. I would estimate that solar is likely to provide about 1/3 of our power in the very, very long term.
2nd, you turn up solar by turning it down first :)
Seriously, that's what the nuclear industry does in France. They don't need power at night, so they turn down output at night, and when they need it during the day, they turn it back up. It's wasteful overbuilding, but it's doable if you really want to overemphasize one source of power, as do the French. In the US we run nuclear flat out, and we can do that because nuclear is only 20% of production. We call nuclear dispatchable, but it has the same characteristics as solar, and realistically you wouldn’t want to turn either down, and waste essentially free power.
So, that's what dispatchability is: the ability to turn it up and down. You can do it for solar, wind & nuclear by overbuilding. Again, not optimal, but certainly doable.
"It is simply unreliable"
Reliability and variability are different things. Solar in Nevada certainly varies by time of day, but it's extremely reliable. Solar elsewhere is more variable, but it’s very workable. Keep in mind that solar insolation is the cause of A/C loads, so solar generation will be nicely correlated with A/C demand.
On the wind chart, John Macklin has made some good points, but let me add others:
The horizontal scale is pretty compressed, so that a 6 hour period looks short. In fact, a drop of 3GW in 6 hours isn't that much. It’s very comparable to the normal varation in demand that utilities deal with all the time.
More importantly, as John Macklin points out, this was a somewhat unusual event. In fact, Eon.Netz has been flogging this event for years. They are the ISO for a relatively small German province which has a relatively large amount of wind and they're clearly not happy about having to manage it. They have some real problems, including not much long distance transmission, and a low quality wind resource (a capacity factor of only 18%), but they've been exaggerating their problems for years.
I give up. You are talking the same nonsense over and over again. Now please read carefully:
Solar does not have the same characteristics as nuclear. Solar can not be switched on WHENEVER YOU WANT IT TO, only some 20-30% of the time. Even when you turn it on you don't know exactly the amount of power you will get and it can drop any time or minute.
Now please read these three extremely simple sentences. Read them again and try to remember, because I'm already tired of this.
You can give up because you're right and others don't understand.
Or you can give up because you're wrong and won't understand.
Both, IMHO, are viable explanations.... ;o)
Obviously solar cannot be switched on at will. But there is a certain predictability about it. One designs an integrated system around that predictability.
Just as one designs a power system around the knowledge that nuclear or coal plants will go down from time to time.
One does know how much power will be generated from solar under specific conditions. None at night. Maximum at noon on a sunny day.
That's no different than figuring in the output of a coal plant. It's just that the coal plant is somewhat more controllable.
I think your "third" sentence is that "...it can drop any time or minute". If so, that's incorrect.
The sun does not suddenly turn off. Clouds can block sun from the panels and decrease their output but those blockages occur over time, are predictable (we can see them coming) and seldom block all of the grid at once.
Again, PV solar is not the ultimate power source that will meet all our needs. But can be a critical part of the mix.
I suppose we could go all PV solar if we develop adequate storage and a robust enough grid. But other power sources will most likely be more affordable and we won't go down that road.
You started OK but with the sentence that "clouds are predictable" lost all credibility. Have you watch a cloud shadow?
Nuclear and coal can be trusted and or scheduled 99% of the time. Only an outage can bring them down. Solar can be relied on maybe 80-90% of the time it is known to be able to operate at all. In terms of dispatchability it is 10-20 times more unreliable.
"Have you watch a cloud shadow?"
Cloud cover really can be predicted, especially widespread cloud cover. Besides, clouds don't reduce PV production by 100%, and CSP isn't going to be built in Seattle.
"Nuclear and coal can be trusted and or scheduled 99% of the time. Only an outage can bring them down. "
hmmm. Nuclear outages were a significant contributor to California's problems several years ago. Until we get a national grid, the loss of 1 or 2 1+GW plants makes a big difference. Nuclear may have a 1% rate of unplanned outage nationally, but nuclear comes in big units and outage happen suddenly and last a matter of days (or more), which makes their outages much more difficult to deal with. For instance, Ireland has, for the moment ruled out nuclear due to this integer problem.
Don't forget those pesky fuel, catastrophic risk, long construction time & CO2 problems.
fuel: some utilities this last year had to reduce coal generation due to unreliable coal delivery.
catastrophic risk: a lot of nuclear production was lost after TMI.
long construction time: nuclear takes 4-15 years to build, PV & wind can be installed in months.
CO2, mercury, etc: a lot of plants aren't going to be built because of this, and a few may actually be shut down.
I can click on my computer, take a look at the weather page, and see whether there are clouds coming or not. I get a good heads up to check the generator fuel.
Someone managing the grid is going to have even better tools that I do.
As for trusting nuclear, remember last week or so when Brown's Ferry nuclear went off-line due to inadequate cooling water?
All systems have their quirks. Good system/grid management will take them into consideration so that you won't have to worry about missing the soaps. ;o)
(Again. No one is talking about a 100% PV solar utility system. We're talking about a realistic role for solar in the greater mix.)
We certainly are having a hard time communicating.
You keep saying the same thing, but I provided a detailed, fresh explanation. I don't know what else to say, but I'll give it a shot with different language.
Please read carefully: dispatchability isn't the same as reliability. Again: dispatchability isn't the same as reliability.
If you build solar in Nevada, it will be 99% reliable at noontime: if you build more than you need, and demand is less, you can turn it down. You never would (it would make more sense to sell it out of state, or store it, or not overbuild, or something...), but you could. Similarly, in the US we never, ever turn down nuclear power plants. So, we never turn them up, so we never dispatch them.
Again: we never, ever, dispatch nuclear, just like solar. Do you get what I'm saying??
Now, as to reliability, sure, solar has some variance, and some unpredictibility. I think you're exaggerating it a bit, and giving the impression that it's an insuperable problem when it's not, but basically we agree on that.
Again: we never, ever, dispatch nuclear, just like solar.
Bullcrap. In France they are turning off the nukes when they don't they need them and turning them on when they do. This is a perfect dispatchability IMO.
Yes, in Nevada, around noon you may compare solar to nuke. But that's about it.
The whole point is that a fully dispatchable energy source should be able to do that irrelevant of location or time or weather conditions. People need electricity whether they live in Nevada or Alaska and they need it both at noon and at night, sun or rain.
The bottom line is just like with wind, you can not have solar only. You have to have a backup which is both reliable and dispatchable - but you know this already.
"In France they are turning off the nukes when they don't they need them and turning them on when they do."
Yes, I said that above. I was talking about the US, which I made clear. uhh, are you reading what I write carefully?
"Yes, in Nevada, around noon you may compare solar to nuke. But that's about it. "
Well, there's a pretty big area of the southwest which has very reliable insolation.
"a fully dispatchable energy source should be able to do that irrelevant of location or time or weather conditions. "
Not really. Sure, it's desirable, but it's not necessary. We're looking at a combination of sources, just like now: we use nuclear for one thing, gas peaker plants for another. No one source has to do it all.
Again, think about nuclear. You can think of it as fully dispatchable, but in fact you can only use it that way if you overbuild it, like the French. In the US, nuclear is never dispatched. Solar will be the same way, just more variable.
"they need it both at noon and at night,"
A lot less at night. Wind & nuclear can do those.
"You have to have a backup which is both reliable and dispatchable - but you know this already"
Sure, but don't exaggerate how much you'd have to use it. Long distance transmission, demand management, cross-source synergy, storage (PHEV's, pumped, flow, etc) can do most of the job. I would estimate that the backup would be used for 10% of total demand or less, over the whole year - this could be FF's, or biomass, which is much, much more efficient for generation than for liquid fuels.
Sure, but don't exaggerate how much you'd have to use it
I don't think I do. Wind is already destabilizing the grids in Germany and Denmark. It is so variable that I have met estimates that it can displace FF capacity only to the tune of 7% of wind rated capacity. The rest needs to stay there as spinning reserve and work inefficiently to compensate.
I would expect solar to be significantly better and predictable, but the day/night cycle alone will pose problems. The grid will need baseload + peaking plants for the secondary peak after 6pm for example. And we will have to address the winter problem - especially after NG and oil for heating are abandoned in the coming decades.
Overall it comes down to which sources should receive priorities; if I needed to make my perfect low-polluting grid would be something like:
50% nuke
10% hydro (pumped and other storage of 10%)
15% NG
15% solar
10% wind
Hydro and NG should be able to cover for solar and wind.
I don't think "clean coal" will ever fly.
“Wind is already destabilizing the grids in Germany and Denmark. “
Not really. There have been a few isolated problems, apparently due to a regulatory requirement that the ISO’s accept all wind power, even if it’s not needed. This is a regulatorary problem, as it’s obvious that occasionally you’ll have excess power, as the French do with nuclear.
“ It is so variable that I have met estimates that it can displace FF capacity only to the tune of 7% of wind rated capacity. “
Well, that’s what Eon.netz says, but keep in mind that their geographical area is small, they have little long distance transmission, and their capacity factor is only 18% (making the capacity contribution about 40% of average capacity factor). In the US, capacity factor estimates range from 10 to 90% of average capacity factor, depending on the interconnectedness of the grid (ERCOT is a bit isolated, for instance, so their capacity factor estimate is at the low end of the range) and other factors.
This is, in fact, an example of Eon.netz’s tendency to exaggerate the problems of wind: a roughly ideal capacity contribution from wind would be 100% of average capacity factor, or about 30% of peak “nameplate” rating (in the US). To compare the capacity contribution to the peak “nameplate” rating is misleading.
“The rest needs to stay there as spinning reserve and work inefficiently to compensate.”
As discussed above, you don’t need 100% of wind “nameplate” rating as backup, rather you need between 3% and 27%. In fact, you likely only need about 3%, after the contributions of long distance transmission, demand management, cross-source synergy, storage (PHEV's, pumped, flow, etc) are included.
“I would expect solar to be significantly better and predictable, but the day/night cycle alone will pose problems. “
Sure, but we would perceive it as a “problem” only if we expect solar to do more than is optimal, like the French do with nuclear.
“ The grid will need baseload + peaking plants for the secondary peak after 6pm for example. “
The secondary peak is an artifact of our current arbitrary flat pricing for residential customers. Time of day pricing would do away with it.
“we will have to address the winter problem “
Wind is a little stronger in winter, on average. Solar only partly goes away.
my perfect low-polluting grid would be something like (assuming demand the same as today, keeping in mind that the current capacity is about 1,000GW, and current avg demand 450GW):
source capacity KWH contribution
wind 500GW 30%
solar 600GW 30%
nuke 110GW 20%
hydro 200GW 10%
storage 800GW 20% PHEV, pumped and other
NG/biomass 400GW 10%
“I don't think "clean coal" will ever fly.”
I agree.
Your storage number is mildly said unrealistic. Already US has ~20GW of pumped storage and the most suitable sites are utilized. Consider a 40-ty fold increase... I won't hold my breath. And PHEVs will arrive much later than the first nukes, not to speak about vehicle-to-grid.
I won't even comment on the biomass... if you do the calc you'll figure you would have to burn all the primary production of US biosphere or at least most of it.
Your wind numbers are 40 times increase, and solar is about a 1000 times increase... maybe you should scale down a bit on dreaming. But thanks for the good discussion.
"Your storage number is mildly said unrealistic."
I was assuming PHEV's. Please review my earlier numbers, and keep in mind that this is a grid perhaps 25-50 years from now.
"PHEVs will arrive much later than the first nukes"
PHEV's will be here in 2 years. They're likely to be 10% of the vehicle market in 5. That may seem surprising, but consider: hybrids are already 2.3%, and doubling every 2 years. Hybrids are likely to seamlessly become PHEV's in the next 2-4 years.
"I won't even comment on the biomass... if you do the calc you'll figure you would have to burn all the primary production of US biosphere or at least most of it."
No, you're thinking of ethanol calculations. Biomass for electrical production is probably 10x as efficient. Keep in mind that end of 2007 ethanol capacity is likely to be about 10% of the gasoline market by volume, that biomass is already quietly 1% of US electrical generation; and I was assuming only 10% electrical generation. That would be really quite easy.
"Your wind numbers are 40 times increase, and solar is about a 1000 times increase... "
Actually, about 30x for wind, and 300x for solar, and in the long term that's really no big deal. Both are doubling every 2 years currently. Wind was 20% of new generation last year. Wind is here, and solar's coming.
Both are doubling every 2 years currently. Wind was 20% of new generation last year. Wind is here, and solar's coming.
You will be surprised how quicly these growth rates will drop over time. It is simply unsustainable; if I had 1000 dolar in the bank last year and 2000 dolars now it does not mean I will have 1,024,000 dolars in 10 years.
But I admire your optimism, keep it going.
BTW installed solar capacity in US is 619MW by the end of 2006. This makes your expansion indeed 1000 fold. What is your source?
"You will be surprised how quicly these growth rates will drop over time."
Well, at the moment they're accelerating, held back only by manufacturing capex lag. Of course, there's a limit to how much new capacity can be absorbed, but that depends on public policy on CO2, coal, etc.
"solar capacity in US is 619MW by the end of 2006. This makes your expansion indeed 1000 fold. What is your source?
"
Well, 1st I'm including CSP. OTOH, I have to admit that was an estimate from memory, and I would estimate more than .6GW of PV alone. Global PV sales & installed capacity are much easier to track than by nation. EIA stats are suspect, as they tend to not include small installations. IIRC, world PV capacity is roughly 8-10GW: I know we've long ago lost the lead to Germany & Japan, but still, it's hard to believe US capacity is only .6GW...
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Rated capacities for solar are typically given as a solid 20-25%, half the day is night, and it takes half the day to get up to full output at noon, and then go down. Clouds detract a bit from that.
the likely reason for solar's price increase is the bull market it raw materials, not any sort of technological decline.
I think that there is a fair comparison to be made in terms of capital cost. We were discussing coal, but gas costs about $0.36/Watt capacity. Now, gas and solar have the same use profile, but a gas turbine sees fuel prices. But, if you just want capacity, gas gets you in cheaper. It does not get you cheaper electricity though. Solar does even at FirstSolar's wholesale price above $2/Watt. We may expect solar to grow pretty rapidly because of this.
Chris
With solar selling for $3 per watt why would Nanosolar sell out all their production at $1 per watt? Couldn't they sell out at $2.50 per watt?
They pretty much have to beat Firstsolar to get market share and Firstsolar is selling below $3/Watt. Firstsolar's production cost is $1.19/Watt so if you want to be sure to take away their ability to reinvest, you set your price below their cost so they can't get as high a margin. Firstsolar is working pretty closely with NREL and has plans to get costs lower while also addressing the durability issue with thin film, so they may not be all that worried until it is better known what kind of lifetime the Nanosolar product has.
In the commercial/industrial market, a bit of planned obsolesence is not a bad thing. Labor costs are low and power purchase contracts are usually about a decade. If you can swap in something better in ten years, it will help competitiveness. So, thin film is doing well there because it is cheap and saves money in the short run despite lower efficiency.
In the residential market, you want to pay attention to the 30 year reroofing time-scale so silicon does well there because its durability is well tested and its efficiency fits with the avaiable roof area. You don't really want to swap in something better, you want to start with something that is good enough for the long haul. Its production cost will also be getting below $1/Watt owing to a nice new silicon purification process together with scale, but it will be competing with other silicon so your thinking about price matching applies more there.
Chris
Heading Out: I'm afraid I disagree with your approach. I read the editorial and then I read your analysis of it. You then conclude that coal is still the cheapest option and you make a "straw man" out of solar with comments such as...
Here is my reaction: In defending the coal industry, you end up playing by their rules and the playing field is NOT level: Coal is cheap because we don't account for the real cost of coal. Here's a fairer way to evaluate how much coal costs relative to thermal solar (not photovoltaics, which are a techological dead end for large scale electricity generation IMO). Let's pretend that a new coal power plant has to capture/sequester/dispose of ALL of its sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxides, carbon dioxide, arsenic, lead and mercury. Estimate how much $$ per kWh your electricity would cost then. (I definitely don't have time to attempt this.) Compare against solar. If coal is still cheaper, I'll buy your argument.
Secondly, not all of solar advocates are stupid enough to say that solar energy will provide a rosy future. (Unfortunately too many are.) Anyone who has taken time out to research the numbers knows that any transition away from fossil fuels requires 1) a total change in the way we live and conduct our business, 2) a substantial reduction in world population. (I remember an article here at TOD that pegged the number at 5 billion if we are willing to live like Cubans.)
I'm all for debate, but I think it should be done scientifically on a level playing field.
Look, as mentioned many many times onn this site and others, there is NOTHING that can replace FF energy in terms of concentrated power, EROI, etc. Maybe if you cover ALL of Arizona with thermal solar you might power a few cities during the day,(what about nite?, cloudy stormy days) but this is a long long way off. Solar will not power our society as currently configured. Options??? All bad. We are headed for the energy wall at top speed with our foot mashing down the gas pedal. Kunstler IS and optimist.
"as mentioned many many times onn this site and others, there is NOTHING that can replace FF energy in terms of concentrated power, EROI, etc. "
Not really. Occasionally people claim that, and others dispute it, as I am now.
"Maybe if you cover ALL of Arizona with thermal solar you might power a few cities during the day,(what about nite?, cloudy stormy days) but this is a long long way off."
Residential roof space alone is enough to handle 100% of our electricity needs. A small fraction of Arizona dedicated to CSP would also do it (in theory, though in practice no one source is likely to be able to competitively provide more than about 1/3 of our power).
Is solar cost-competitive with unsequestered coal? No, but it's getting there, and wind can fill the gap in the meantime.
Hi Nick,
I think that we can say that residential roof space can do about 46% of our net generation though this will depend on the regulatory environment. In Vermont, for example, where they are having so much trouble with their nuclear power plant, solar power under net metering is only allowed to provide 1% of peak demand, and energy produced over annual use is confiscated by the utility.
Chris
No, NO, Nick states that residential and ONLY residential roof space can handle ALL of our electricity needs.
I'll bet he can't prove it or show how it can be done in a realistic world. (No magic)
You can do 46% with a system efficiency of 17%. Obviously at a system efficiency of 40%, planned for production in 2010, you could do 100%. In my opinion, doing 40% with solar is OK just relying on available storage and shutting coal, nuclear gas and hydro down during the day. We have about 24 GW of pump storage hydro now, and using regular hydro at night counts as effective storage. Going beyond 40% solar will require more storage. Fortunately, batteries for transportation can provide about 12 hours of storage after they have been retired from vehicles if transportation goes electric, so together with wind, which has a head start on solar, a completely renewable and less expensive grid kind of falls out of where we are likely heading. This makes quite a lot of sense. You would not expect, after rather a lot of research, that the grid cost would go up. We are at the point of benefitting from the research and development effort that has been going on since the seventies. You see it first with wind, which is now the least expensive form of generation, next with solar, and finally with practical low cost batteries. In transportation and electrical generation costs should be falling for the next couple of centuries. Recycling makes solar progressively cheaper because less input energy is needed since the silicon is already purified.
Chris
It depends on your assumptions. Mdsolar uses 17% efficiency, and 50% of roof as usable (take a look at his link). Those are reasonable assumptions, but given that we're talking about systems 50 years from now, when Fossil Fuels have been discontinued, we can make more aggressive assumptions, such as either higher efficiency, or more roof space used.
It all depends on your timeline: the combination of wind, coal & nuclear will take us for several decades. OTOH, solar is doubling every 2 years, so it will catch up pretty quickly.
Residential roof space???? HAHAHAHA??? ROTFLMAO!
Lets see....a solar system for a typical roof now costs about $20,000, installed. It will generate most power a few hours during the middle of the day. Not much use though in the Paciffic Northwest where it is cloudy and rainy most of the time. Same with the coast areas with cloudcover (SF, LA coast, San Diego) How about during a snow storm?? And at 20k a roof times how many roofs???? 50 million? 100 million? So we're talking a couple TRILLION dollars in a crumbling economy. But, you say, the costs will come down,down,down...Nonsense. They haven't yet and with PO making EVERYTHING cost more they will cost more. You can't make more solar cells with solar cells. It takes FF energy to mine, process, transport, etc... And what about the hours in the day that are not good for solar power???
Do the math again genius...
If solar was SOO GOOD then every utility would invest. Imagine, a one time upfront cost, then it just sits there producing loads of power for 40 yrs and we don't have to raise a finger to do it. Think of the money we'd save on employees, etc.. keep imagining, it ain't gonna happen.
" It will generate most power a few hours during the middle of the day."
Solar will be one part of a system.
Not much use though in the Paciffic Northwest where it is cloudy and rainy most of the time. Same with the coast areas with cloudcover (SF, LA coast, San Diego) "
Take a look at http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/redbook/atlas/serve.cgi
"you say, the costs will come down,down,down...Nonsense. They haven't yet "
Costs have gone down, just not prices, due to due to a scarcity premium, both for silicon & for modules.
Both premiums are highly likely be temporary, as supply is rising very quickly.
Of course, demand is more than doubling every two years, so it may take a little while for supplies to catch up, but they will, especially due to the rising market share for thinfilm PV.
"You can't make more solar cells with solar cells."
Sure you can. Solar has a high E-ROI.
"It takes FF energy to mine, process, transport, etc"
No, it doesn't. Mining & transport equipment can be electric.
"Do the math again genius..."
Disrespect reduces your credibility.
"If solar was SOO GOOD then every utility would invest."
They are investing in CSP. OTOH, PV is largely a retail technology.
As usual, the cornucopians will not use common sense. I will help them:
" It will generate most power a few hours during the middle of the day."
Solar will be one part of a system.
[no response to my assertion here, just wishful thinking. Part of WHAT system? There is no system.]
Not much use though in the Paciffic Northwest where it is cloudy and rainy most of the time. Same with the coast areas with cloudcover (SF, LA coast, San Diego) "
Take a look at http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/redbook/atlas/serve.cgi
[Again ,no response to my assertion here. I've lived in areas where the sun doesn't come out for weeks, what then? Oh yeah, its part of the system.....that magical systme again.]
"you say, the costs will come down,down,down...Nonsense. They haven't yet "
Costs have gone down, just not prices, due to due to a scarcity premium, both for silicon & for modules.
Both premiums are highly likely be temporary, as supply is rising very quickly.
Of course, demand is more than doubling every two years, so it may take a little while for supplies to catch up, but they will, especially due to the rising market share for thinfilm PV.
[What can I say? Just wait and prices will come down? I've heard that all my life on Solar and it never happens. But its just around the corner right? Like Fusion perhaps??
"You can't make more solar cells with solar cells."
Sure you can. Solar has a high E-ROI.
[so what? so do atomic bombs. How about we use real math on this one? I buy my new solar systme for my house and it cost me 20k. Suppose it generates enough power that I don't neeed the utilities. Now also suppose that the Govt gives me an interest free loan on the thing or my uncle dies and leaves me 20k so I don't have to pay finance charges. So 20k. Now my electric bill is maybe $150/month. So I will have payed off this contraption in about 11yrs. Most people will have to finance it so their EROI will be about 15yrs. Also the massive inverter you need for said system will need to be replaced by 11-15yrs at $5000 so add another 3 yrs to that. And you think that every house in America is going to do this?????
"It takes FF energy to mine, process, transport, etc"
No, it doesn't. Mining & transport equipment can be electric.
[Right, I just had an electic 18-wheeler pass me on the freeway. And those electric trains really run on batteries not diesel. C'mon, get real.]
"Do the math again genius..."
Disrespect reduces your credibility.
[magical thinking reduces yours]
"If solar was SOO GOOD then every utility would invest."
They are investing in CSP. OTOH, PV is largely a retail technology.
[Yeah, retail. And for reasons above it will never be affordable to the average person]
"[Yeah, retail. And for reasons above it will never be affordable to the average person]"
Korg - Sorry you feel that way. As a member of the audience today, IMO, it's pretty apparent you don't know what you're talking about. But do go on.
Really?? So every homeowner has 20k to plunk down on Solar, the right roof, angle to sun, no trees, etc...
And we are going to do this on EVERY home in the next 2o yrs???
Do you really believe that in 10-20yrs we will run this country on sun and wind??? Now that's dreaming.
i suppose China will make all these millions of solar cells for us and then instead of using them for their own needs they will graciously send them to us.
1. A number of solar companies are addressing high upfront costs by making available power-purchasing agreements.
2.When solar electricity without subsidies is competitive with the retail price of utility electricity from conventional sources, many homeowers and businesses and farms and greenhouses and parking lots will put in solar. The DOE's Solar America Initiative, with buy-in from leading solar companies, targets 2015 for grid parity.
3. I'd say more like 20-30 years at the rate we're going.
4. Actually Germany, USofA, Japan, etc etc. Quality of Chinese products may be an issue.
BTW, I recommend you download NREL's Solar Advisor Model program. It's pretty user-friendly, and you could then actually see how costs shake out, accross residential, commercial, and utility solar electric.
"Part of WHAT system? There is no system"
It's called the grid. It deals with enormous variations in demand daily, using gas peakers, demand management, and storage - take a look at the pumped storage at Ludington MI.
" I've heard that all my life on Solar and it never happens"
Sure it has. Solar cells used to cost $30/watt, now it's roughly 10% of that. If you followed the details of the industry, you'd know costs continue to plummet, though prices have been stuck on a plateau for several years due to capex lags for silicon production.
"Most people will have to finance it so their EROI will be about 15yrs"
That's financial ROI, not energy ROI. No question about it, solar PV isn't competitive yet with average utility pricing, though it can do pretty well against peak pricing.
"I just had an electic 18-wheeler pass me on the freeway. And those electric trains really run on batteries not diesel"
There's plenty of electrical mining equipment, and electrified trains. There's likely to be a great deal more.
I'm in the Pacific NW; NorCal, 15 miles to the coast. 7x200W panels. I make more electricity in a year than I use.
Didn't even have to put it on the roof. Had about 20 acres of open ground to chose from.
Google dwarfs me, but they used their roof.
http://www.google.com/corporate/solarpanels/home
'
Rat and I are "neighbors" as the boondocks go. In any case, I put my system in late 1999 and it consists of 48x75W panels (3.6kW) on four racks with 12 each. I turn the racks manually throughout the day. Depending upon the time of year, I produce essentailly full output from around 9:30AM to 6-7PM.
I installed a watt-hour meter when I installed the system to measure my actual PV usage. As of today, it's just about 2MwH. I am also on the grid but not grid-tied.
I've posted about the system before so I won't go into details other then to note that I do run our 40 gallon HWH on the PV and this coupled with our solar HW system provides all of our hot water.
Todd
Todd: you may want to check your numbers (or units?) above, they don't make sense. There are 8760 hours in a 365-day year, thus each KW of average power yields 8.76 MWH in one year. And you say you got 2 MWH over 8 years from a 3.6 KW manual-tracking setup that should give at least 1 KW average? Should be more like 70 MWH by now?
WTFBBQ! Have we just been hit by a hysterical american teen?
These are the kind of brilliant comments that completely baffles me. But I'll bite it.
Let's see, "genius". Let's make some maths. You say a trillion bucks is too much money for us. Okay...
Now, imagine 20 million barrels. That's what USA consumes per day for one of the cheapest energy sources. Times 70 bucks, that'll be, hmmm, like, hmmm, 1.4 billion dollars a day. In a year, USA has spent more than 500 billion dollars. That's a year. Correct my maths if I'm wrong, child, but that's half a trillion right there. And if you multiply it by 30 years (lifespan of a PV), you get 15 trillion dollars. I'm not making a substitute comparison, just a scale comparison.
So I guess a couple trillion dollars to see every roof with a solar panel, that'd be great.
Let's make another math. Imagine 4 billion KWh per year. That's how much USA produces. Now Imagine that a solar panel will cost $0.26 per KWh, if you do the maths to 20 years, which is what it currently costs (see above post). That would cost a billion dollars per year (times twenty years). Yes, that's billions, not trillions. If the money that went sucked to the war of iraq went to make solar pvs and wind traps, we would be in a much better place now.
How about that, genius?
Why didn't I think of that? We can just not buy oil for a couple of years and put up 100 million pv systems. And they will magically power the US at night to boot!
Never going to happen.
Also you haven't figured the energy, resources, and time it takes to make PV panels. Oh, and don't forget that the Earth is almost out of all those fancy minerals you need to make 'em.
But keep on fantasizing, why I can almost see a grassroots movement to install PV panels now........
I was making a scale comparison. I've stated that, so I don't know what you're complaining about. "Never going to happen". Fuck, you think you're god? Or some kind of a prophet? It's already happening. Industry is growing nuts. Do you know any other industry that makes 30/40% growth a year every year? I don't either.
Of course I haven't. But others did. Get this, solar panels cost, for consumers, 21 cents per KWh, if you make the maths in 20 years, 1% rate. That's almost twice you spend on usual electricity, but despite this, DEMAND IS BOOMING. Why, are people stupid or what? No, they just happen to have a little more vision than you.
And before you complain 21 cents is too much, remember, that's because demand is soaring. Many solar panels factories are coming online every year, and why is such? It's called big fucking money, and I haven't seen anything like it since the microchip boom in the seventies.
Solar panels is winning the industry, and is not definitely a "grassroots movement" stuff. That's the last thing it is.
How about all off you who are giving me crap for bringing reality up to you tell me about your PV system? Does it power your house?? Are you still on the grid?Why? How much did you pay for it??
Hypocrites.
Korg I agree with much of what you say. Especially regards the dreamy: we are saved life will go on as usual and it will be just a tad more expensive with solar. All the while plugged into a FF grid not to mention transportation.
It upsets people because you are, raw, angry, in your face and may I add correct.
Sorry guys we just have to acknowledge that a powerdown and significant reduction in economic activity is inevitable.
Sheesh, Korg. You've been busy today.
My turn.
What is the hypocrisy? These panels work, quietly and reliably for a long time. They actually do pay for themselves, in actual dollars, not in the 'I like it and it's worth it to me' that people use to justify their Cable Bills or their new Dining Room Sets. If they use these rare materials, they both use them well, and the materials, it has been shown, are retrievable when that panel has reached the end of it's useful life. So your Barking of 'Gone! Gone!' is overblown at best. We also have a few generations of other electronic goods which can give back some of the indium, gallium, Silicon and copper, etc that went into them. Landfills might be valuable cottage-industry mining sites before long.
It is frequently said here that Solar is certainly only a partial solution, while yes, there are also statements about the Theoretical energy that is available if we only were to use our rooftops to capture Solar Energy. This is usually in comparison with statements about dedicating some hundreds of miles of Desertland for the job, when it can and should be done as close to the end users as possible. Less line-loss, less dependence on miles of cabling and grid connections to keep your power up and running. Of course, Solar Heating is far less sexy and so easily overlooked, but between that and PV, and maybe attic Gardens.. our rooftops should be covered with glass, not Asphalt, and we'd be getting a few birds with the same stone.
There are people who use Solar for all their power, and those who use it for a portion, and stay on the grid for another part of it. I've never heard any of them make their case as much in the extreme as you have today. They can keep some stuff running regardless of what happens past their service box, and it benefits them as both a partial utility supply AND an emergency preparation.. so the cost-benefit has to consider more than just the daily KWH price to really reflect the advantages and the resiliency that such households can count on.. as well as their immediate neighbors. After an ice-storm in Maine in '96 (?), a family friend was able to offer his frozen neighbors hot showers that next afternoon, as soon as his water panels had melted clear. They didn't even have to point their Uzi's at him or anything. It was all nice and neighborly!
Is Korg the opposite of Grok, or are you an ElectricOrgan fan?
If you have neigbors with solar, you might want to strike up a friendship.. I won't show them this thread.
Bob
As I said above, 7x200 W panels. Made about 50 KW more than I used over the year. Grid intertie, cuz I don't need batteries, and I was on the grid to begin with. Would actually cost me money to totally disconnect. Paid 9K out of pocket; still have 400 bucks in federal tax credit for this year. 4-5 year payback. I unfortunately got stung by the panel shortage last year,and the price went up about $2 K between the time I started the paperwork and the time the system went in.
If PGE every begins to pay homeowners, I'll switch to a time-of-use meter, & get paid 3x for juice I make during peak hours, (1000-1800), which is when I am making most my electricity. And using the least.
I have 2 neigbors who built their homes in the last few years. Cost more for them to hook up to the grid than to put in a system.
Rat
"Look, as mentioned many many times on this site and others, there is NOTHING that can replace FF energy in terms of concentrated power, EROI, etc."
Yeah, if we just pretend nuclear does not exist.
Seems to me nuclear power is crumbling.
Chris
A picture is worth a ...you know.
Nice catch, Chris. 'But no radiation was released...'
A picture is worth a nothing. Should I put in here the flames of pipelines in iraq? The deaths of saudis that were attacked in their pumps? The explosion of oil refineries?
How many were killed in the oil industry?
Bah, this stuff is only rethorics. No content.
Actually, Forbes is reporting that operators were forced to intervene during a recent SCRAM:
"In its formal report on the incident, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission said a third glitch cropped up during Thursday's shutdown: An automatic system designed to control pressure levels in the reactor failed to kick in as the plant shut down, forcing control room operators to do the work."
In boiling water reactors controlling pressure is pretty critical, so I'd think that this is a penetration of defense-in-depth. If it turns out that this system, as well, is a victim of deferred maintenance, then I think we can say that the chance of a major accident is likely increasing as the infrastructure fails.
While an accident at Vermont Yankee might not make the federal government insolvent, Entergy runs other plants where an accident could do this given the government's acceptance of liability and the size of our national debt.
It seems to me that requiring the nuclear industry to post a bond to cover the liability for a nuclear accident would only add 4 to 10 cents per kWh over 40 years, depending on the size of the casualty payout and this would seem to be increasingly necessary as our debt-to-GDP ratio moves towards the 1946 historical high when we had no such unfunded risk of this magnitude. The nuclear industry is sufficently mature that it should cover its own risk and not continue receiving a production subsidy. With a bond at risk, perhaps deferred maintenance would be less habitual.
Chris
"Anyone who has taken time out to research the numbers knows that any transition away from fossil fuels requires 1) a total change in the way we live and conduct our business, 2) a substantial reduction in world population."
Actually, that sort of claim usually is made by someone who hasn't researched the numbers.
Wind & solar are scalable, have high E-ROI, and are cheap enough.
More than that, money is not wasted in mansions that are as big as small countries, in ME.
dtbks,
We definitely don't have the true costs figured into our energy calculations. Beyond just CO2, which may end up being incalculably expensive, we don't seem to count the costs of permanent habitat change by strip mining and mountaintop removal. The people who are concerend about modern wind turbines killing a few birds a month aren't considering the permanent loss of breeding habitat because of these changes and climate change moving nesting areas.
The atoms in nuclear fuel are still going to decay when they are spread out in the ores, but what we do when we mine them is concentrate them to where they can be dangerous and then take the preposterous position that they can't be stored or guarded past our lifetimes, and that's all any of us are granted The future will have its own responsabilities and its own problems.
Further, there's something wrong with the system if we can't make rules that certain types of business have to end after a reasonable time. Its OK to do this with whaling vessels and patent medicines with heroin, but not OK to tell mines and power plants no more in 10 years, you have to go in the wind turbine business or tell Detroit its hybrids and electric cars only in five years, its a matter of national security.
Its a specious argument that solar won't work because it ony works for a few hours a day in the middle of the day. That's when peak demand occurs, according to the rates i'm charged on my electric bill, when we need it the most.
But the truth of the matter is we need it all and we need to start now. We are out of time and our political leadership is playing ostrich. We're going bankrupt because of a $300 billion dollar crude import bill and an unfunded war while we refuse to tax people who have the money to pay taxes.Its not liberal or conservative, its just common sense. Bob Ebersole
An article in Science (August 24, 2001 and refs therein) claims that the true cost of using coal is more like $0.055 to $0.083 per kWh when one adds in costs of envioronmental and health degradation. This is upwards of 2x over that for the costs of a new coal power plant (their numbers of $0.035 to $0.04 /kWh). (I assumed that these were 2001 figures.)
If the indirect costs of coal are accounted for then it makes wind cheaper than coal and at least narrows the gap for solar.
Thanks for the reference! Going straight there to check it out.
Not to mention the fact that these areas are 'high ground' when sea levels are rising and also are the watersheds for some of our major rivers (think public water sources). If you live in a city downstream from a mountaintop removal project you probably need to be concerned about your future water supply, both quantity and quality.
The information on doubling of cost came from a paper given in Santa Barbara and which is referenced in the post. It was followed at the Conference by a paper pointing out that the use of ammonia can strip the remaining pollutants (including carbon dioxide) from the flue gas. There is data out there, and I try and give you the sources for it.
Thank you, dtbks:
for making the first comment about the absence of the externalized costs from these $/kWh computations. I'd submit that the atmospheric pollutants you mention are only one of many negative impacts of coal utilization.
Not that solar is clean, of course: Some of the processes used for conventional Si PV are nasty, and consume huge amounts of water. I don't know about CIGS, but I'll bet it consumes less of everything, simply because the substrate is so much thinner.
Another feature of solar, both PV and concentrators, is that the costs are almost all up-front: There's no large recurring expense to mine and deliver anything, so the Law of Receding Horizons works in solar's favor.
Not that any of this rationale matters - When the lights start going out, the coal will be burned, period.
I agree that we need to be realistic about coal, and not demonize it.
That said, I think wind is being neglected here. Wind in the US costs 4-8 cents even without tax considerations (the PTC is only worth about a penny per KWH, given it's short life (10 years) and necessity for complicated schemes to capture it's tax value). That's not that much more coal.
It's hard for me to see coal with sequestration being cheaper than wind.
On a less important sidenote, load shedding isn't demand destruction, it's demand management, and it's simply a prudent, cost effective method for managing peak loads.
About Peak Coal: Imminent?
Curious to hear what people think about the Kjell Aleklett post from May:
Interesting to note that 25% of the recoverable reserves in the US are in Montana. Making use of those reserves will require construction of either major new rail capacity or major new generating and grid capacity. The US appears to be reaching a point where coal consumption is limited by the ability to transport it. A year or so ago there were stories in the papers about San Antonio importing South American coal, and moving it from the coast with a fleet of trucks, because they were unable to arrange timely rail delivery of Wyoming coal.
Disagree. Coal is not "easy to get" in Wyoming. If it were, they wouldn't be using machines like this:
The Discovery Channel runs a documentary occasionally on "mega-machines." The biggest excavators in the world cost millions and are used to mine coal. They asked a coal company exec why the machines were so big, and he replied that they have to, because "all the easy to get stuff is gone."
Leanan:
I think it depends on your perception. You could give a man a shovel, a mule and a cart and they could mine the coal. They use larger equipment because of the economies of scale and the volumes that they have to move. But it is still just dig it out, move it to the rail line, load the train and wave goodbye. (Later they regrade the land so that it is restored to a contour - though that part is rarely mentioned in the discussion).
I'm going to record that episode the next time it airs.
It claimed that coal excavators are the largest machines ever build on land. They take years to build and can cost $100 million dollars or more.
They were developed in the '60s, when we used up all the coal in easy reach and had to develop ways to get at the coal too deep to mine by the old methods. One of the talking heads said it would take 200,000 men to do the work of one of these machines.
So could a man with a shovel do it? Yes. As my boss likes to say, give me enough men with wheelbarrows, and I can build anything.
But the question is "How fast?" Coal is mined using diesel-powered machines and a hell of a lot of explosives. Both of which may be in short supply (or at least a lot more expensive) in the future.
Will we be mining coal a hundred years from now? Probably. Will we be running our civilization on it? I wouldn't bet on it. I think we'll have trouble maintaining production, let alone ramping it up to replace oil.
You may be talking about bucket wheel excavators, which they also used to operate up in the oil sands of Alberta, but which have been discontinued up there. I suspect we have a different definition of difficult. The technology they are using is relatively simple, it's just that it is more technically challenging to make the shovels bigger (they are still called shovels even if they pick up 100 tons of material in a bite). I tend to think of think of things being difficult when they are technically challenging.
IMO, it doesn't matter whether the difficulty is because of technological challenges or high costs. Either way, it's going to be a roadblock to ramping up production. We've struggled to keep existing coal-fired plants supplied. And this without the logistical issues that peak oil may bring.
Though I've no doubt we'll try. Look at Africa and Asia. They're finding fuel oil and natural gas in short supply, so are building coal-fired plants.
Grin:
actually from what I hear there is a greater problem with getting the tires for these size machines, since the demand has been exceeding supply. There are short-term limits to production, but with the new scrubbers there is a move back to mining coal in the mid-west that was stopped when it became cheaper to haul lower energy coal from Wyoming, but coal that was cheaper to burn. This will distribute production a bit more than the current concentration in the Powder River Basin and ease some of the problems of rail traffic.
Actually the biggest reason that utilities switched to Power River Basin coal was because it had lower sulfur content. It was 'cheaper to burn' only because it allowed us to avoid both fines and scrubbers for a while. You are right that the addition of scrubbers is allowing a move back to Eastern coal which incidentally has a much higher BTU content and less transportation costs.
You work for Bob? :-)
jbunt
Leanan -
First time I ever replied to a message of yours. But, I have to, because that is the dumbest thing you ever said. I mean, a large truck means that it is difficult?
That is like a caveman with a one fishing line and a hook, looking at a 500 foot fishing vessel, costing millions of $'s, with nets that can drift for miles picking up tons of fish and saying - "they went to that because all of the easy stuff is gone."
Sorry
You entirely missed the point.
HO did not. We're talking different definitions of "difficult" and "easy."
Leanan is right.
Examples: the recent Crandall Canyon Mine disaster would probably not have happpened if the easy stuff had not already been gotten out by the former owner; the stuff that Murray was after was the dregs; 'saleable', with VERY low cost to him; but VERY risky to get; cost? sadly = 9 lives.
The Alton Coal Mine in Southern Utah is another case: mined long ago; basically mined out. Now being re-opened with coal trucks soon to be running ~120 miles from mine mouth to rail loadout West of Cedar City. And, it is on the very edge of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument - for which a special exemption was granted by the Executive Branch.
Why do this? Someone must believe there is a NEED, and a market.
And the coal in ND is low quality lignite.
The good stuff IS gone, and they ARE taking the dregs from underneath towns and from National Monuments!
Perry
I don't know if you noticed this recent news item from China:
It looks like China is pushing the use of coal, to prevent depletion of natural gas. Global warming is not very high on their list of concerns.
Chinese inflation grew to 5.6% based on higher food prices.
The average Chinese worker's income has been growing at double digit rates. The savings growth was higher than 17% a year. The Chinese were net lenders. The U.S. were heavy debtors.
http://www.swissamerica.com/article.php?art=12-2006/200612221039f.txt
Methanol and ethanol are counter productive. In the U.S. ethanol is another subsidized industry that could not make it in a "free market" economy.
This policy is not really related to depletion issues: it's to manage the soaring demand for natural gas that is outstripping the country's ability to produce. Gas production has been rising at double-digits for years, reaching 59 bcm last year. But demand has been rising just as fast, creating supply problems, particularly to gas-fired power plants. Although China has 13 GW of gas-fired generation capacity--out of 622 GW total system capacity--less than 5 GW has been online because of a lack of gas. But this is an economic shortage in essence: gas prices to power plants are much lower than the price to residential users (because electricity prices are controlled), so the main companies, Sinopec, CNPC, and CNOOC, prefer to sell to city gas companies for residential use (where they pay $8/MMBTU) instead of to power plants. Also, China's LNG import plans are faltering. After getting sweetheart deals for $3.50 and $4.00/MMBTU at their first two terminals, they were shocked by the $8/MMBTU offered for the supply contract to the Shanghai terminal. As a result, imports are not rising as planned, and the price issue has essentially stalled all import pipeline projects as well. This policy basically recognizes that this supply/demand imbalance will not be soon resolved, and that financially, the oil companies benefit most by selling to the residential sector.
Heading Out, I see no mention of CO2 in your article or in your comments. Is this because you believe it is a non-issue?
To me that is the 800 pound gorilla in the room on the question of coal. Coal on paper looks cheaper, but only because the externalities aren't priced in.
Regarding HO's opinions, I believe I have seem him express skepticism in the past regarding CO2 and climate change.
Well no, gentle folk it is there as in
(The actual bit in the post also takes you to the reference).
In regard to climate change until I learn to properly pronounce Dansgaard-Oeschger I was being a little more circumspect. But I do read, and check out, data on both sides of the argument.
Apologies, HO, I searched for CO2 and not carbon; my mistake. A doubling of cost per kWh puts a different perspective on things, making wind/solar much more attractive.
I agree that coal fired electricity generation may hit a brick wall earlier than people think. There will be dilemmas both for domestic electricity production and coal exports. The building of new plant may be held back until there is a shift in public opinion calling for the project to go ahead. This seems to be the case for a proposed 1000 MW plant to serve Sydney where climate change is being discussed by GWB & co. as we speak. I’m tipping that by week’s end we’ll have a statement saying everything is OK because clean coal is on the way and we’ll just plant more forests.
As yet the public doesn’t think of coal as a finite resource like oil but a news item on Saudi Arabia importing coal might do it. Then if as predicted China’s coal peaks early http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2007/5/13/105158/220 and they want increased exports that will create another political headache i.e. we refrain they emit. We need a way to ease the pain of electricity price increases from coal generation while giving concentrating solar et al the chance to show it can deliver. Soft start carbon caps combined with firm targets and capital assistance for renewables could be the best next step.
We need a way to ease the pain of electricity price increases from coal generation while giving concentrating solar et al the chance to show it can deliver.
I have an idea.....Suppose, hypothetically, we could split the atom?
mbk I've learnt not to use the N-word as it upsets people. I have relatives (frequent flyer greenies) living near to large uranium deposits and both the mine and the general population urgently need a new energy source. That is for water desalination, mine vehicle electrification and the State grid. 'We'll be OK' they insist.
I've posted this link before, but it's been awhile, so I'm posting it again. It's written by a coal industry insider.
This Diary Could Cost Me My Job
It's a fascinating glimpse of the coal mining business. And a fairly balanced point of view, IMO. However, he didn't take peak oil into account. One thing that struck me, reading it, is how petroleum-dependent coal mining is.
Thanks for this link Leanan; I had not seen it before. I spent 15+ years working with coal procurement for power plants. And yes, coal mines and plants do use a lot of petroleum products. Besides all the equipment to just move the coal around, oil is even required during the startup process after a shut-down.
It depends on the mine, some use equipment that is almost all diesel driven, other mines may use electric powered equipment almost universally. And there are many that have some of both.
I totally concur with much of what he says, and that the industry needs strong regulation and enforcement. (As i think I also said one time before when you led us to the reference). Given what will likely be its pivotal role in providing a significant chunk of energy into the future, there is less reason to demure at paying those costs.
The Oil Drum and Peak Oil websites have been brought to the attention of PNM IRP folks.
They appear to be THINKING.
So are we.
To me, the evidence for global warming is incontrovertible. The latest data on the Northern Sea-Ice extent is strong evidence for a positive feedback effect in action.
On the other hand a rapid decline in availability of oil would be very bad for human civilization.
So I'm both encouraged and frightened by the progress in Underground Coal Gasification that has the potential to effectively utilize vast amounts of fossilized energy as either gas or liquid hydrocarbons.
Coal burning power plants can be replaced in most cases by Nuclear power production. We should restrict hydrocarbon use to where it is really, really needed. We have other technologies for making electricity.
cheers
I've been reading TOD for about six months and let me tell you I'm getting worried about the future.
This is my first post and question, What is the cost of concentrated thermal solar? I've seen pictures of small(25ft dia.) collectors with Sterling engines, but most are the very large fields of mirrors pointing to a central collector.
http://www.stirlingenergy.com/images.asp?Type=solar
The electricity generation side of these would be almost the same as coal, only the fuel/BTU source would be different. What area would be necessary to equal your normal dirty coal plant?
It seems to me the technology and amount of exotic materials for these is fairly low.
Johnny
Hi Jonnymac,
Welcome to The Oil Drum. My sense from talking to people making bids for solar thermal to California utlities is that they are in range of 12 cents per kilowatt hour.
Running Nevada Solar One
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Solar_One
for fifty years is equivalent to mining a five-foot coal seam over the area of the plant. The good thing is that you can do it again for the next fifty years, and you do not have to look for another place to mine coal.
The major material is glass for the mirrors. There is a nice white paper from Schott at
http://www.us.schott.com/solarthermal/english/download/schott_white_pape...
that gives the energy payback for concentrating solar thermal as about a half year.
I would be interested if anyone has good information on the reliability of the Stirling engines for solar generation. I get mixed signals.
Concentrating Solar PV has also been making lots of progress.
This plant due for construction in Australia, is expected to generate 154 MW peak and 270,000 MWh annually. With a capital cost of $AUD 420 million I guess it produces electricity at around $AUD 150 per MWHr, so AUD 15 cents (USD 12 cents) per KWhr.
This is about 3-4 times the price of coal generated electricity in Australia.
I get AUD 5 cents/kWh (US 4 cents/kWh), assuming a 30-year life and without including O&M costs. My error?
Did you assume 154 MW continuous for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year?
That 154 MW is "peak power", in doing the calculation look at annual production of 270,000 MWHr, not 1,300,000 MWHr you'd get if the device was in space and could use sunlight 24 hours a day.
Actually if nanosolar succeed in producing their panels at a wholesale price of $1 per peak watt, they'll blow everything out of the water, including this system and solar will be pretty damn competitive until energy storage costs get figured into the equation.
There seems to be a tendency for some people to discuss solar and wind generated electricity as if the near/mid future might be *all* solar or *all* wind.
At this point in time our grids are filled by a mix of coal, natural gas, petroleum, and hydro. (And a bit of 'green'.) The grid of the nearer future is also likely to be a mix.
Solar at $1 per watt will be extremely competitive for that part of the day (and part of the globe) where intense sunlight causes a need for more electricity for air conditioning.
If we look at the timing of current brownouts they are basically hot summer afternoons. One dollar solar would clearly be the best solution to fix that problem. It really doesn't matter that the sun doesn't shine at night. We've got way more power available than we need at midnight.
I agree. What I meant to imply was that at some level of market penetration, I guess above 10% of total generation, there are diminishing rates of return without energy storage.
Getting to 10% in the USA will require around 250 - 500 GW of peak PV capacity, which at $1 per watt is 250-500 Billion dollars. There is lots of money for nanosolar and others at the $1 per Peak Watt price point.
I can't give a factual argument on the feasibility of PV solar above the 10% level, but can question that ceiling based on what is currently happening with electricity costs.
Power prices are quite high during the day as opposed to night. Might that not suggest that there is a lot of room for direct sun to grid power?
No storage required....
"at some level of market penetration, I guess above 10% of total generation, there are diminishing rates of return without energy storage. "
I would put it a bit higher, as noontime demand is pretty reliable, and the rate of return is won't start to diminish until your production is higher than peak (minus nuclear & hydro, your other sources with very low marginal costs). That would suggest at least 400GW of solar, which would produce about 80GW average, or about 18% of total KWH's. Even the rate of return would diminish pretty slowly.
Don't forget that PHEV's will provide very, very cheap storage, as the contribution to the utility will be a bonus to the consumer, who will pay for the storage for their transportation needs.
I think the ultimate optimal contribution of solar to a non-carbon grid is very roughly 35%.
I took the numbers you quoted, 270,000 MWh/year, and the cost, AUD 420M, and a lifetime of 30 yrs.
(AUD 420 M) / (270,000 MWh/yr times 30 years)
= AUD 5 cents/kWh. What am I missing?
"(AUD 420 M) / (270,000 MWh/yr times 30 years) = AUD 5 cents/kWh. What am I missing?"
The time value of money.
Think of it as an loan for 420M, and calculate the payments for 30 years. Then divide the annual payment by annual KWh, to get cost/KWh.
You get (at 9% interest) 40.9M/270,000MWh = 15 cents/kwh, or, at 7%, you get 3,385M/270,000 = 12.5 cents/kwh.
Yes, you're of course right. I also didn't include fixed and variable O&M costs. Finally, I just took a stab at plant lifetime = 30 yrs. Could be 20 yrs or could be 40.
I am surprised there has been so little talk here of the demand side, other than the brief mention of "load shedding". I thought Nick came close when he said that rooftop PV could supply all the electricity we "need". As opposed to "want", I imagined. But his later comments make it clear he thinks we can switch to PV and maintain our "lifestyle". I disagree.
But is a lower-energy lifestyle necessarily miserable? What makes a kilowatt per household (the American average, and that's only counting residential use) a sacred amount? In my experience, it is rather easy to cut that by 50%, even 75%, without much inconvenience. Of course, that means hanging clothes on a line, and doing without air conditioning. (Or at least installing quality insulation and getting the most efficient model heat pumps, as recently discussed on Drumbeat.) It means replacing incandescent bulbs with CFLs, which not only saves one a lot of money, it is even negative work, since the CFLs don't need to be changed as often. It means buying a front-loading washing machine (1/3 the water use - and the energy for heating the water). And perhaps using other fuels for heating water and cooking. (And certainly for house heating, unless it's an efficient heat pump.) And most of all it means the amazing invention: the "off" switch. How many rooms in the USA at any moment have lights and a TV turned on - and are empty of people?
Industrial electricity use is just as bloated. We don't "need" all that crap, such as "disposable" aluminum cans. And so much more of it could be recycled. (Making aluminum from its ores requires a huge amount of electricity.) Many other materials can be recycled. But just as importantly we can keep on using (and repairing) old equipment, thus less need for manufacturing of new. Yes I know that means some people's jobs will disappear. I don't think that's avoidable, and one of the real challenges of Peak Everything is to reorganize the political economy so as to spread the work and the money around in a steady-state economy.
Finally, we will be forced to abandon the notion that we can have any amount of electricity whenever we wish to have it. Instead, we'll use it when we got it. E.g., living with "load shedding", a reality for a large portion of humanity at present. E.g., doing the energy-intensive jobs at off-peak times, guided by time-of-day metering and "smart meters" that display the current rate. E.g., putting off doing the laundry for a sunny day. (In order to hang it on the line, but also in case you use solar hot water...)
VT Peak;
"Finally, we will be forced to abandon the notion that we can have any amount of electricity whenever we wish to have it."
Yes! It reminds me of the adage about how you never have 'extra' cabinet/closet space. You can usually fill all the storage until you run out of it. Then you 'need' more. A version of that is said about vacuum cleaners, and how they didn't save you housework-time, they just raised the bar on how dust-free our houses were expected to be, so our vacuuming hours just replaced sweeping hours.
As far as the jobs disappearing, this is always the great disincentive to action on energy or ecology issues, but there's so much work we can replace it with, particularly the work of reestablishing mfr-ing of durable goods in North America, once the cheap shipping can no longer undercut the advantage of local production, and the dire need for a local Mfr economy makes it have to form again.
Bob
Hi VTpeaknick,
I'm constantly looking for ways to reduce my reliance on conventional energy sources and although some of my ideas are admittedly "hair-brain" and most involve extra effort on my part, I find the challenge personally rewarding. For example, I schedule laundry on sunny days so that I can heat my wash water with a garden hose (what I refer to as my "poor man's solar collector"). About an hour or so before I begin, I roll out the hose on the back patio where it is exposed to direct sun; within a remarkably short time, the water inside this hose reaches 40C or more. By the time my front loader has finished its first load, the hose is fully recharged and ready to go again. When done, I roll it up and put it away. Yes, there's some extra work involved but certainly nothing onerous, and the energy savings are small (perhaps no more than 0.2 litres of fuel oil per load), but it feels great to be just that little more self-reliant.
There are many other examples I could cite, but I'm too embarrassed to share them in public. :-)
Cheers,
Paul
ThereInHalifax;
You might appreciate this one. We have our laundry in the basement, and with the layout of the place, getting wet stuff out to a line to dry is fairly prohibitive. My brilliant notion is to use Solar Hot Air panels that I am building simply for winter home-heat, and route/duct them into the electric dryer, disconnecting the Heater Elements. This way, the HotAir boxes would be useful all year round, and some of the current conveniences of Laundry equipment would not be subverted.
edit..
(Clearly, the heat supplied would be less this way, so a dryer cycle would still run the motor longer, in all likelihood, and would have to be done on Bright or Sunny Days 'for best results')
Bob
Hi Bob,
That seems like a terrific idea. I use to hang my clothes out on a line, but for the past four years or so I've reverted back to using the dryer. A big part of it is sheer laziness, but I also suffer from seasonal allergies and the pollen was causing me grief.
To help reduce drying time, I run my front loader through a second final, high-speed spin. Most loads take less than 40 minutes to dry and the last 10 minutes are part of the "cool down" cycle, in which no propane is consumed. The dryer is rated at 20,000 BTUs/hr and the heater cycles on roughly 50 per cent of the time so, in rough terms, each load consumes less than half a litre of propane, which works out to be about 50 to 60 litres per year. [This doesn't account for any conditioned air that is exhausted outside the home during the winter months, so my true energy costs would be somewhat higher.] All in all, I'm willing to live with this compromise.
Cheers,
Paul
Just so you know how much I've thought about this, here's one more variation for the exceptionally lazy (Efficient) homemakers..
Our clothes closet is just beneath the part of the roof where my Hot Air panels will be placed. I also have considered hanging the WET clothes in this closet, with the Panels routed by a simple valve-lever, to blow through there, and either outside (Summer) or into the House (Cold, Dry winter house air) or some mix of the two exhausts. This way, your clothes are already stored, and they will dry over the next sunny days. It may be necessary to opt to blow a space-heater into the input for a damp/dark weather load, but Portland is a sunny town, I think it would be rare. Some closet mods would be important here. ie, Cedar walls, drip-pan flooring, don't store guns in there..
Bob
Hi Bob,
Portland, ME is a jewel of a town and I always enjoy my time spent there.
I don't know if you have a front loader, but when clothes spin at 1,200 RPM, everything comes out virtually dry -- well, compared to a conventional top loader. I often hear folks claim drying time is cut in half, and my own experience suggests that's not far off the mark. As mentioned, I run my clothes through a second final spin and this does seem to cut drying time further.
My parents live in the U.K. and they have something called a "back boiler" which is a combination gas fireplace and boiler (a Baxi, I believe). In addition to providing space heating and DHW, it supplies a small amount of heat to a "drying cupboard" by way of standby losses from the storage cylinder. Clothes are taken directly from the washer and hung up to dry. It's decidedly low-tech, but it works surprising well.
Guns? You're talking to a Cannuck here. The only thing we're ever likely to hold in our hands is a "stubby"(*) or a Tim's. :-)
Cheers,
Paul
* Just so there's no confusion, a "stubby" is not slang for some part of the male anatomy.
While my arsenal is limited to Makitas and Archers (Screw, Glue and Staple Guns) .. ahh well!
" he thinks we can switch to PV and maintain our "lifestyle""
If we want to.
"But is a lower-energy lifestyle necessarily miserable? "
No, I agree that we can and should become much more efficient, without sacrificing quality of life.
"we will be forced to abandon the notion that we can have any amount of electricity whenever we wish to have it."
Sure, but realistically we can do that without sacrificing quality of life. Demand management can be as simple as setting a timer (or having a smart meter time it for us) to charge our PHEV when wind power peaks, or cycle the A/C during peak demand, or when wind power drops.
Or by buying more efficient appliances/gadgets.
My current desktop pulls 75 watts plus another 35 for the LCD monitor.
A good Dell laptop will do the same work while using only 15 watts.
That's a savings of a half kW per day (based on a 5 hour day) and ~175 kW per year. I can save that money/energy without any change in lifestyle.
Well, I can walk from room to room with the laptop. Don't have to be tethered to the desk. I suppose that's a change in lifestyle.... ;o)
"A good Dell laptop will do the same work while using only 15 watts."
this message brought to you by "a good dell laptop (insperon 640m, t7200 processor)"
I've found that the maximum lifetime for my 85wh battery is a little under 5 hours. This is with the screen turned down, the wireless turned off, and doing nothing more than typing in a word document, or reading a pdf.
If i do something that is cpu intensive, the battery lasts about 1.5 hours. Also this laptop does not have a graphics card, so that reduces the power consumption some what.
5 hours from a 85 wh battery is 17w, 1.5 hours is about 60w.
and yes, the ability to walk around almost anywhere with internet access is nice :) (wireless network at home, and around uni)
Andrew
This might interest you.
Dell Vostro doing 'internet' type stuff. About 16 watts.
Flat out gaming about 36 watts.
And this one had a ATI Radeon® Xpress 1150 with 256MB HyperMemory.
http://vostro.homeip.net/page?benchmarks
Looks like power draw at peak use might have been improved.
Well you guys have certainly convinced me allright!
Jesus Christ LeAnn! What is this site for anyway? Forget Peak OIl! Solar will save us! Why didn't we see this before?
MY god we are stupid for missing this. And all of the great contributors to the site like Stuart Standiford, Euan Means, etc. have all been SOOOO wrong to worry about PO. Solar is the answer!! Jeysus be praised!
All we need to do is cover every rrof on the planet with PV panels and god himself will come down to thank us!
Well, hopefully tommorrow we can have some Adult reasoning on this site. About Oil, not solar PV which is derived from said Oil...
keeps swinging...keeps missing.
Gosh, Korg, weren't you the first to post here today, and on solar?
But yes, let's return to oil, and have adult reasoning. Hmmm...that sounds like code...
Who's LeAnn? And this Standiford person?
"Well, hopefully tommorrow we can have some Adult reasoning on this site."
Gonna take the day off, eh?
Oh, by the way, if you want to look at the future check this out.
http://washingtontimes.com/article/20070813/FOREIGN/108130031/home.html
Power 24/hrs a day. Lots of it. Proven technology. Stuff we know how to do like drilling, steam turbines, centralized power...
Not millions of PV systems with millions of failure points...
So I guess Geothermal is THE answer to all of our problems...
.... it is still too expensive. And not really really renewable. Don't get me wrong. I love geothermal. I'm actually defending the usage of a tiny geothermal solution in a neighborhood I'm designing with a team. I really think it should also come as part of the solution. But it is very expensive. Also, all of your critiques of solar beg the questions: have you wondered how much will it take to make such an infrastructure? Just in research, billions.
It's a shame, though, that dubya decided to cut the funds to it.
And last but not least, this millenia energy all too well reminds me of the promisses of shale oil and tar sands inside US territory. Trillions of barrels, hu? Where are them? Right.
Zetajoules of geothermal energy? Sure. How much it costs? Oh.
I notice that no-one has made reference to solar thermal systems using molten salt to store energy at night or other periods of low insolation. There has been some problems with it though, I'd imagine rock would store temperatures higher than molten salt would. Just an idea...
That's not the first time I've seen that idea. I'd love to learn more from that molten salt thing.
Rock has a lot of thermal inertia, so its widely used in architecture as a thermal storage when against the sun. (Trombe walls) Water is great too.
My observation on PV is that it works great when you don’t really need it, also noting that few people have enough panels to run central aircond, plug-in cars or whatever. The killer is the week of fog, coincidentally when the wind turbines may be calm.
Let’s divide the world into a 2 billion frugal middle class and the rest who can live in caves and eat raw meat. Suppose the middle class can get by on 12 kwh per day, a third of which (8 hours) is 500w realtime and the other two thirds drawn from free but say 50% efficient storage. That is draw 4 kwh during the day then save 16 to retrieve 8kwh at night. Each person needs 2.5 kw of panels = 20 kwh/8hrs. At $3000 per kw (as if) that’s $7500 each. Total capital requirement 2bn X $7500 = $15 trillion at least.
We’ll be using coal until we have to dig it out with teaspoons.
Your reasoning sounds like Korg's but at least you seem intelligent and respectful. You say 7500$ for each person. And that's like, you spend it and you're off for twenty years. (Beautiful dream, where do I sign?)
May I ask you a question? How much money is a car worth?
15000$?
20000$?
30000$?
And a house?
400k$?
800k$?
1200k$?
hmmmmm 7500k for my electricity bills for twenty years suddenly don't seem reasonable.
They seem wonderful.
"Suppose the middle class can get by on 12 kwh per day, a third of which (8 hours)is 500w realtime"
Eight hours is an unrealistic 'solar day'. Somewhere between 3 (winter) and 6 (summer) is what I get. So how about we use a 4 hour day and do the math from there?
12 kWh / 4 hours means that one would need 3 kW of production.
"and the other two thirds drawn from free but say 50% efficient storage."
Storage using low tech solutions such as deep cycle lead acid batteries is a lot more efficient than 50%. I think a 10% number might be more realistic.
Based on that we would need an additional 10% for the 20 non-solar hours of the day. Let's just bump everything up 10% for other inefficiencies in the system. That takes us to 3.3 kW of panels.
OK, now we use 'current best prices' of $1.40 per watt. I get $4,587. A bit lower than your $7,500.
Accepting your 12 kWh figure then one would need to spend well under $10k (including storage, etc.) for all their power. For the next many years.
How much do you spend per year for electricity and vehical gas? $400 a month? $4,800 a year?
Spend $10k, get it back in two years, continue to save $5k a year for the next many years.
Making that decision wouldn't a be rocket scientist level problem would it?
As for the "trillions" number. What does the middle class spend on power per year right now?
All fair points. However my home PV cost me more than $10 per watt. If you are going to use battery storage rather than say pumped hydro there are major extra costs which need to be factored in. My electricity bill consists of a $6pw connection fee. I'm trying to be largely self sufficient in electricity, vehicle fuel, cooking fuel and food and it's much harder than people realise. I think those posters who think it will be easy should firstly try it then explain how it will all work on a grand scale.
And mine cost a bit less. Something under $10k for 1.2 kW of panels, controllers, racks, inverter, meters and a diesel backup generator. That includes enough battery storage to run three days with no additional power input.
I don't have wind or hydro potential where I live. Will probably boost panels capacity and battery bank a bit later. When fuel was under $2 per gallon it didn't pencil out to totally avoid burning some diesel.
Going off grid was not a hard decision for me. Running the grid to where I live would have cost more than $300k.
For my first solar setup (on a sailboat in the late '80s) I paid about $9 per watt. My second setup (early '90s house) I paid around $8 per watt. By the time I started building the current house prices had dropped to just under $4 per watt. (They've now moved up a bit over $5 per....)
We won't be seeing the $1 per watt at the retail level, but marketing wholesale at $1/$1.39 marks a watershed in the affordability of solar. Retail prices will come down a lot from where they presently are.
"I'm trying to be largely self sufficient in electricity, vehicle fuel, cooking fuel and food and it's much harder than people realise."
Absolutely. I think most people, like me, who are thinking about these things assume we'll stay on-grid, as off-grid is much more expensive.
OTOH, We can hope that this will change somewhat with PHEV's. Already people are using Prius's as whole-house UPS backups: with PHEV's you can charge from your home PV, and run the house off the PHEV batteries at other times.
Many comments here confidently make assumptions that are erroneous. The scientific truth is that fossil fuels are not a survival option. The developing crisis in world agriculture will make that inescapable in a few years. Have a look at Australia, Alabama etc if you want to read the runes. Coal is the first, last & dirtiest option among the fossil fuels. People will prioritize food over energy waste when the facts emerge fully about climate destruction and world food supply: watch the Australian election.
The pie diagram showing the current share of US energy supply coming from coal is instructive. However it does not lead to the conclusion that coal is a necessity for normal life because energy end-use efficiency could abolish 50 - 60% of that demand. This ['negawatts'] is known to be the fastest cheapest way finding new power. It is only AFTER THOSE EASY PICKINGS that we are need to talk Renewable Energy. Here we only have to look at Europe to understand that dramatic gains are possible without coal. Germany currently gets 20000MW from Wind, Denmark 22% of total power & Scotland will get 50% by 2015. Futhermore, the recent development of the wind turbine-compressor by General Compression has made dispatchable wind power possible, abolishing the wind-variability factor. And why the obsession with PV solar? Large-scale solar power for the grid will come from SOLAR THERMAL systems that can inherently store energy as heat. These use a gas expansion engine heated by a Stirling dish.. for example, there's an 850MW example planned for the desert NE of Los Angeles.
"... why the obsession with PV solar?"
The only "obsession" with PV solar that I can see comes from those who are anti-solar.
PV solar is an excellent choice for part of our energy needs. It produces on hot sunny days when we need power *right now* to run air conditioning. If, as reported in this thread, we're seeing $1 per watt PV in the immediate future then PV solar solves the hot sunny day brownout/nuclear plant hot water shutdown problem.
PV solar is not likely to become the only source of electricity for the world. No one argues this. (Some of the anti-solar people argue as if this is what is being considered. I suppose they studied at the Rush Limbaugh School of Asocial Discourse. ;o)
Cheap petroleum isn't going to be around all that much longer. Neither is cheap coal (if all the costs are included). Nuclear, while somewhat cheap, has an entirely different set of problems (starting with NIMBY).
Whether the pro-oil/pro-coal folks like it or not, we're moving toward a grid mix of electricity from a variety of new sources. PV solar is one of the components. Solar thermal can be an excellent way to provide cloudy/dark time power. Add wind, tidal, and affordable storage and we can quit worrying about when oil will run out.
Installed solar PV costs are not going to be $1/watt any time soon. I have a friend here in California who just had a solar PV system installed and even after receiving a large rebate from the governator the system cost him $10/watt. A large fraction of this cost is labor which is going to get more expensive rather than less so as oil prices rise. Some people argue that building integrated PV will essentially eliminate PV installation labor costs, but this argument only applies in long term equilibrium when roof replacements and solar panel replacements have a one to one correspondance. If we want to rapidly grow solar PV in the short to intermediate therm then installation costs will remain high. The solar resource is diffuse and the capacity factor is maybe ¼ or 1/5 that of fossil fuel plants so that there is always going to be, relatively speaking, high labor cost involved in installation.
There are also significant costs associated with the variable nature of the solar resource. I once went through a calculation which shows that every kWh which comes out of a lead acid battery cost $0.26 independent of the cost of the primary generation system. The variation in insolation from summer to winter is also a concern. If you attempt to use fossil fuel to compensate for this variation then the capacity factor of your fossil fuel plants drops substantially increasing the capital costs associated with such plants. You can attempt to compensate with wind energy, although I have never seen detailed data showing how well wind and solar really complement each other. In the San Francisco bay area where I live wind and insolation are both at their maximum during the summer so that this convenient complementarity does not exist here. Also the variability of wind is much higher than that of solar so that the costs of compensating for this variation to regulate the grid voltage within required limits is higher. For those who think that integrating wind energy into the grid is a trivial matter should take a look at this link to a paper by a Danish independent grid operator describing their experience with wind power:
http://www.iea.org/textbase/work/2004/nea/bach.pdf
None of which is to say that I am promoting increased reliance on coal. I am just expressing sceptisism that solar PV can support the same material standard of living that we now enjoy.
Of course the problem with our current economic system is that maintaining standards of living does not produce economic ‘health’. If our standard of living does not constantly increase then the stock market and the money system will collapse. The most critical problem we face is not the purely technical problem of how to physically survive without fossil fuels, but the organisational and political problem of how to socially survive without constant economic growth.
"Installed solar PV costs are not going to be $1/watt any time soon."
No, of course not.
That's the wholesale cost of new solar. Retail will always be higher and installation will cost more.
I do wonder about the $10 per watt *after rebate* figure you quote. Current retail panel prices are around $5 per watt.
Did the installer charge a bundle? (I suppose one could pay $500 for a $20 faucet if you called the right/wrong plumber....)
And your battery cost...
A 220 amp hour golf cart battery can be safely discharged to about 20% of its rated value. That's 176 amp hours at 6 volts or 1056 watt hours (~1 kWh). At $200(?) per battery one can do the in/out routine for 4-6 years. That's $0.09 - $0.14 per kWh.
And no commercial system would use golf cart batteries....
www.solarbuzz.com quotes PV module prices as being typically half of the total installed cost of a PV system. I do not believe my friend was cheated though of course labor costs are high in the Bay Area. My friend is a technically astute cost conscious consumer.
I used a price of $1/Ah for 12V deep cycle lead acid batteries (from infinitepower.org). This comes to $83/KWhr of capacity. I assumed a cycle life of 1500 cycles (This number is not randomly chosen. I can give you a reference if you are interested.) I assumed 20% depth of discharge. The cost is:
$83/1500*.2 = $0.27/kWh
This calculation does not follow standard practices of discount economics which would include interests cost for borrowing money and so is an underestimate.
$83/KHW seems a bit high, 1,500 cycles at 20% DOD seems a bit low.
I've seen Trojan deep-cycle batteries at $65/kwh, and 500 cycles at 80% DOD.
That gives about $.16 per kwh. If you cycle daily your calendar life is only a bit more than a year, so the time value of money isn't so important.
"even after receiving a large rebate from the governator the system cost him $10/watt."
Then he was charged too much. $10/watt would be high for a system before rebate.
“is labor which is going to get more expensive rather than less so as oil prices rise”
You lost me there.
“ Some people argue that building integrated PV will essentially eliminate PV installation labor costs, but this argument only applies in long term equilibrium when roof replacements and solar panel replacements have a one to one correspondance. “
There are very roughly .9M new houses per year, and 4M new roofs. If the average system is 3.5KW, and half of these include PV, we’re talking about roughly 18GW of new solar capacity. That’s not bad, and enough to cover the need for new peak capacity.
“The solar resource is diffuse “
A KW per square meter doesn’t seem diffuse to me.
“ every kWh which comes out of a lead acid battery cost $0.26 “
Sure. No one is proposing lead acid utility scale storage. Pumped storage, or flow batteries, are much cheaper. More importantly, buffering from PHEV charging will handle wind/solar variability for quite a while. By that time we’re likely to have large-scale deployment of new-gen li-ion batteries for PHEVs with very long cycle life.
“If you attempt to use fossil fuel to compensate for this variation then the capacity factor of your fossil fuel plants drops substantially increasing the capital costs associated with such plants. ‘
The capital cost will stay the same, and fuel costs will drop. The production base will fall, so the capital cost factor per KWH from fossil fuels will rise. That may raise overall cost/kwh a bit, but that’s unavoidable: after all, we’re going to have to reduce FF useage in any case.
“ I am just expressing sceptisism that solar PV can support the same material standard of living that we now enjoy.”
The average cost of power in the US is $.10. The average cost of power in California is what, 50% higher? That’s no more than the range of increase one might expect from a move to renewables. California seems to be doing ok.
“If our standard of living does not constantly increase then the stock market and the money system will collapse.”
Do you have any backup for this? I’ve questioned several people who have posted this idea, and read this in the writings of peak oil authors, and never seen a source for this. Please keep in mind that peak oil authors are not authorities on economics.
Nick,
There are very roughly .9M new houses per year, and 4M new roofs. If the average system is 3.5KW, and half of these include PV, we’re talking about roughly 18GW of new solar capacity. That’s not bad, and enough to cover the need for new peak capacity.
If the new buildings you are talking about were simply replacing old decrepit buildings which were so run down that maintenance was no longer practical, then the argument about no excess installation costs would be valid. If on the other hand newer bigger nicer houses are springing up all over the place as they are in Silicon Valley then the energy and other resource costs of this new construction are high. I know you will probably contradict me as you seem to claim that every statement I make is false, but I do not believe that the energy and other resource costs of materials extraction, processing, transport, and assembly associated with all this new construction will be payed for by the solar cells on the roof. If this is the case then sharply increasing oil prices over the next decade are likely to put a damper on new construction. Furthermore if the generation capacity associated with all his new construction is excess generation capacity then excess dispatchable generation capacity (either storage or new fossil plants) will have to be constructed as well to compensate for this new intermittent capacity. You seem to be putting a lot of economic burden on PHEVs. Do you have some concrete numbers on how much effective storage capacity you expect to get from this technology?
A KW per square meter doesn’t seem diffuse to me.
1KW/M2 is at noon on a cloudless day (I am not sure at what time of year.). According to the Union of Concerned Scientists the global average over 24hours/day 365day per year is 0.175KW/M2. However, diffuse is a relative term. My point of reference is the land footprint of a typical fossil fuel power plant. According to Vaclav Smil in Energy at the Crossroads there are two orders of magnitude difference in the foot print of a fossil fuel plant and solar PV plants per Watt. When you add another factor of four or five for the different capacity factors the difference is quite large.
Do you have any backup for this? I’ve questioned several people who have posted this idea, and read this in the writings of peak oil authors, and never seen a source for this. Please keep in mind that peak oil authors are not authorities on economics.
The source for this idea is simple arithmetic.
There are two cases to consider. One is a true zero growth economy in which one part of the economy grows only if another part gives up resources and shrinks. In such a case if a class of investors exists who are constantly increasing their net worth by financing such resource reallocations then the rest of society must be getting poorer. If this is not the case then you and I understand something different by the term ‘constant output’. Such an investment system cannot be the basis of a stable economy.
The second case to consider would be a case in which the population is increasing but the standard of living remains constant. The first thing to be noted about this case is that to plan the long term health of our economy on the assumption of a constantly increasing population is a bad idea. However, leaving this issue aside let us assume that the group of investors consistently increasing their net worth are a constant percentage of the total population. Then the exact same considerations apply as to the true zero growth case. That is if X% of the population are consistently increasing their net worth by financing capital investment then the rest of the population must be getting poorer since the output per person is constant.
"I do not believe that the energy and other resource costs of materials extraction, processing, transport, and assembly associated with all this new construction will be payed for by the solar cells on the roof."
I'm not sure why they have to. We never expected homes to produce oil, to compensate for their costs of construction during the era of oil.
"sharply increasing oil prices over the next decade are likely to put a damper on new construction. "
They may. Peak Oil induced recession will undoubtedly make the transition to renewables harder, but their high E-ROI will direct large investment to them in any case. OTOH, I did that calculation to give an idea of the scale of opportunity for BIPV, which is undeniably large. On the 3rd hand, installation costs will fall for retrofits, as they leave the era of cottage industry, and become a professional mass-market, and CSP will also grow.
" excess dispatchable generation capacity (either storage or new fossil plants) will have to be constructed as well to compensate for this new intermittent capacity."
No, we have sufficient overall capacity currently to act as a backup to renewable intermittency. As you noted, the production over which the sunk capital costs of current capacity are amortized may shrink, thus increasing cost per KWH, but that's different. Another way of saying it is that a cost of mitigating climate change is accelerated obsolescence of current generation capacity.
"Do you have some concrete numbers on how much effective storage capacity you expect to get from this technology? "
Sure. If 50% of the current fleet of 210 light vehicles were PHEV-40's, at 15KWH (50% DOD), you'd have storage capacity of 7.5KWHx105M, or about 800gwh. At 6 hours of discharge that's about 130GW charging demand (30% of current average US consumption), ready to soak up excess wind or solar generation. OTOH, it could provide the same length of backup capacity to the system with V2G.
"My point of reference is the land footprint of a typical fossil fuel power plant. According to Vaclav Smil in Energy at the Crossroads there are two orders of magnitude difference in the foot print of a fossil fuel plant and solar PV plants per Watt. "
That's a very, very bad comparison, although I see it all the time. Solar insolation, or raw wind power, is comparable to oil-soaked rock, or coal deep in the ground, not a FF plant. There are 500,000 oil wells in the US, supplying only 40% of our oil. 500,000 wind turbines could supply 100% of our electricity, and roof-top solar has no footprint at all, because the roofs would exist anyway. Wind turbines actually only consume about 1/4 acre of land, because the land around them is untouched.
" One is a true zero growth economy in which one part of the economy grows only if another part gives up resources and shrinks. In such a case if a class of investors exists who are constantly increasing their net worth by financing such resource reallocations then the rest of society must be getting poorer. "
Why would one part give up resources to another, if there's no net gain? If technological change makes one part of the economy more productive, constant output in that sector would free up labor resources for growth in another. If another part is more valuable, than shifting resources makes overall income/wealth increase.
I think you're mistaking a zero-resource consumption growth society with a zero economic growth economy. The two aren't the same, in any way. Please note that much of the effect on economic growth in the US of rising oil prices isn't a reduction in available energy, it's the transfer of wealth to the ME. Consider this: the US could reduce it's energy consumption by 10% in 6 months with mandatory car-pooling, and not reduce economic growth in any way (though some people would feel mighty inconvenienced).
That's assuming, of course, that peak FF = peak energy, which isn't the case.
To summarize: peak oil does not equal peak FF, peak FF does not equal peak energy, peak energy would not equal a peak economy, and peak economy would not equal a collapsing economy.
I'm not sure why they have to. We never expected homes to produce oil, to compensate for their costs of construction during the era of oil.
Construction costs have risen dramatically over the last decade. I have a brother in law who built a house ten years ago who says that he could not come remotely close to affording to build the same house today. Oil and natural gas prices are likely to rise substantially over the next few years. If we are going to get new energy in this time period by constructing lots new buildings without constructions costs going into the stratosphere then the energy produced is going to have do a lot more the provide the energy used by the inhabitants of those buildings.
On the 3rd hand, installation costs will fall for retrofits, as they leave the era of cottage industry, and become a professional mass-market, and CSP will also grow.
I do not believe in this ‘cottage industry’ argument with respect to retrofits. Repair of houses (plumbing, wiring, roofing, etc) is not a cottage industry. What aspect of attaching solar panels and wiring them up is going to change that reduces the labor costs?
No, we have sufficient overall capacity currently to act as a backup to renewable intermittency. As you noted, the production over which the sunk capital costs of current capacity are amortized may shrink, thus increasing cost per KWH, but that's different. Another way of saying it is that a cost of mitigating climate change is accelerated obsolescence of current generation capacity.
This mean that we are effectively retiring fossil fuel capacity. Thus to get 1 MWh of renewable capacity more than 1 MWh of new renewable capacity will have to be installed thus increasing costs.
That's a very, very bad comparison, although I see it all the time. Solar insolation, or raw wind power, is comparable to oil-soaked rock, or coal deep in the ground, not a FF plant. There are 500,000 oil wells in the US, supplying only 40% of our oil. 500,000 wind turbines could supply 100% of our electricity, and roof-top solar has no footprint at all, because the roofs would exist anyway. Wind turbines actually only consume about 1/4 acre of land, because the land around them is untouched.
Solar insolation may be comparable to oil soaked rock but solar panels which have to be manufactured and installed are not. With respect to construction costs the comparison is relevant. If you have to cover 800 times more land area then labor costs will be high. This gets us back to our argument about BIPV. If we are going to try to finesse the construction cost issue by putting PV only on new buildings then the issue of rising construction costs is important.
I think you're mistaking a zero-resource consumption growth society with a zero economic growth economy.
No I am not. I recognize that the efficiency with which energy and other resources can be turned into economic output has increased in the past and may increase in the future. However, I also know that efficiency improvements cannot increase exponentially forever. If the real underlying growth rate of the economy is 2.5% then in 1000 years time the earth’s economic output will be 53 billion times its current size. In 2000 years it will be 2.8 billion trillion times its current size. These kind if increases are not going to happen no matter how great our technological prowess. I am presuming that you do not really believe in everlasting exponential growth but merely believe that any real limit to growth is at least many decades distant and perhaps even centuries. I do not share this confidence.
On the 3rd hand, installation costs will fall for retrofits, as they leave the era of cottage industry, and become a professional mass-market, and CSP will also grow.
I do not believe in this ‘cottage industry’ argument with respect to retrofits. Repair of houses (plumbing, wiring, roofing, etc) is not a cottage industry. What aspect of attaching solar panels and wiring them up is going to change that reduces the labor costs?
--
Home Depot is selling/installing solar. You know that they aren't going to be paying top dollar to their installers.
They're going to Walmart the installation business.
Or at least they'll sell cheap until the local competition goes under....
Taking economic comfort in the fact that all labor will be eventually performed at Wallmar rates does not seem like a wise idea.
I'm taking no "economic comfort" from what is likely to happen. Just recognizing the obvious/most likely to happen.
Costs will decrease as competition increases.
Labor costs will drop as the skills needed are lessened and more widely held. More of the installation steps will be automated. Installation will become more 'plug and play'.
That's not good for people making a nice buck out of installation today, but we're not likely to freeze others out of that labor market. We don't have strong unions any longer.
--
A bit of my world...
I'm moving my panels from their temporary position to permanent space. I spent several hours day before yesterday cutting 12-2 w/ground wire to length, stripping off the outer insulation, trimming the individual wires to length, stripping the ends, running the wires through water tight clamps, bending and sticking the ends into screw terminals, etc.
I could have done the job in minutes if the the panels were fitted with simple outlets and I could buy connector wires with plugs. Think hooking something to your computer with a USB cord.
You are probably right that competition will drive down costs, but I am somewhat skeptical of the plug and play analogy. Interior lighting fixtures are a well estabished business, but I do not have the impression that they are installed in plug and play manner. If your USB cable pulls loose its a minor inconvience. Eletrical connections need to remain solid for years.
Wiring and plumbing is a lot more 'plug and play' that it was a few years ago.
I grew up in the family hardware. I used to cut and thread steel pipe. We sold cast iron drain pipes, along with oakum and lead to seal the joints and lead melting pots.
Now plumbing is basically tinker toy work. Cut and glue light weight stuff. And it's getting simpler with flexible water lines.
Electrical connections use to be difficult. Now there are wire nuts and easy to use strippers. Plug and play connections can be made as 'solid' as needed for the job at hand. Take a look at how your monitor or printer are (perhaps) connected. Screws and/or clamps. Those aren't coming loose on their own.
And let's make one more jump forward. Putting racks on your roof? That's a lot of trips up and down the ladder.
Start doing it larger scale and a cherry picker becomes feasible. Custom design it so that it can be remotely operated to raise and hold the panels in place while they are bolted down.
There are lots of ways to minimize labor and to minimize the skills needed.
A number of people are surprised that we can do installations in under a day (4 kWp) but it really is true that modular design and labor saving equipment speed things up quite a bit.
You should be able to see an installation on the Living With Ed show this season. It was done in a day even with retakes for filming.
Chris
"Construction costs have risen dramatically over the last decade. I have a brother in law who built a house ten years ago who says that he could not come remotely close to affording to build the same house today. "
How much would he estimate they've risen? Inflation in that period has been about 30%. How much have they risen above that? Might put a different perspective to those people who say rising home prices are nothing but a bubble.
"If we are going to get new energy in this time period by constructing lots new buildings without constructions costs going into the stratosphere then the energy produced is going to have do a lot more the provide the energy used by the inhabitants of those buildings."
Well, I think it makes sense for solar on new construction to be just part of the whole picture. OTOH, let's estimate their maximum contribution, say by mandate of code, just at current levels of construction. I'd estimate about 700M sq meters of new & replaced residential & I/C roof annually, as a very rough estimate (anyone have data?). At 20% efficiency that's 140GW of potential, per year, or about 14% of total generation capacity, and about 25% of average peak. That seems sufficient.
"What aspect of attaching solar panels and wiring them up is going to change that reduces the labor costs?"
Bob Wallace notes that panel connections could be standardized, and that union electricians will be needed less as procedures are simplified and standardized. Permitting and electrical installation should be further standardized. As efficiencies rise, panel sizes for a certain capacity will fall - the DOD is planning to develop 50% efficiency at $2/watt, in about 3 years.
"This mean that we are effectively retiring fossil fuel capacity. Thus to get 1 MWh of renewable capacity more than 1 MWh of new renewable capacity will have to be installed thus increasing costs. "
No, not retiring, just utilizing less, and using more as a backup. No new capacity will have to be installed just to replace old capacity.
"Solar insolation may be comparable to oil soaked rock but solar panels which have to be manufactured and installed are not. With respect to construction costs the comparison is relevant. "
Not really. You have to include not just the power plant, but all of the supporting infrastructure: the mines, the transportation, the refining, etc. Don't forget those 500,000 oil wells, and the 70,000 coal mines.
"If you have to cover 800 times more land area then labor costs will be high. "
But you don't. For instance, there is a nuclear plant in Illinois, Clinton IIRC, whose campus is reported to cover 10 square miles. The fact that the reactor itself is dense doesn't help so much.
"However, I also know that efficiency improvements cannot increase exponentially forever. "
How do you know that? Actually, that's probably one of the few examples of exponential change that theoretically really can happen. As a practical matter, they don't have to. When, for instance, vehicles are efficient enough to be powered by ambient light, that will be efficient enough.
"I am presuming that you do not really believe in everlasting exponential growth but merely believe that any real limit to growth is at least many decades distant and perhaps even centuries. "
Well, there are a number of things mixed in here. I think FF consumption will peak pretty soon, and decline reasonably quickly. I think BTU growth will plateau for quite a while, due to the much greater efficiency per BTU of electricity. I think effective energy use will grow for about a century, than level off as poorer countries catch up on the basics of a modern economy. I suspect economic growth will continue for about 2 centuries, then level off as all of the important problems are solved (health, education, housing, etc) worldwide, and we turn increasingly to leisure.
How much would he estimate they've risen? Inflation in that period has been about 30%. How much have they risen above that? Might put a different perspective to those people who say rising home prices are nothing but a bubble.
What difference does it make whether or not you call it inflation? My brother in law, who is a hardworking, competent, electrical engineer, can no longer build the same house he did ten year ago. That represents a real increase in cost.
No, not retiring, just utilizing less, and using more as a backup. No new capacity will have to be installed just to replace old capacity.
The words I used were effectively retiring. If you install new PV capacity and therefore use less FF capacity in the summer then part of your new capacity is simply replacing FF capacity and is therefore not really ‘new’ even though it is cleaner.
How do you know that? Actually, that's probably one of the few examples of exponential change that theoretically really can happen.
What ‘theory’ are we talking about here?
I suspect economic growth will continue for about 2 centuries, then level off as all of the important problems are solved (health, education, housing, etc) worldwide, and we turn increasingly to leisure.
I suspect not.
uhhmm. Are you interested in figuring stuff out here, or just leaving snarky comments??
"What difference does it make whether or not you call it inflation?"
The source of the increase in costs is important. I really am curious: what % increase has he seen?
" If you install new PV capacity and therefore use less FF capacity in the summer then part of your new capacity is simply replacing FF capacity and is therefore not really ‘new’ even though it is cleaner."
Ok, but I don't see a problem with that. We know there will be a cost to prematurely retiring CO2 emitting plants.
"What ‘theory’ are we talking about here? "
A simple theory, in which you asymptotically approach but never reach the goal.
"I suspect not."
uhmm, ok. If you don't want to talk about that further, that's ok...
I apologize if I sounded ‘snarky’, but it is pretty hard to know how to approach a conversation with someone who claims to believe that endless exponential growth in economic output is theoretically possible.
You can asymptotically approach a perfect Carnot cycle but as you get closer to the goal your return on effort for each step of improvement gets smaller and smaller. In exponential growth your return on effort gets larger and larger without limit. If you claim that your intuition tells you such infinite improvement in efficiency is possible, there is not much to do but to assert that my intuition tells me something different.
I do not have specific numbers on the increased cost of building materials. I am just repeating qualitative statements that I have heard made by my brother-in-law and by a number of other people as well.
"it is pretty hard to know how to approach a conversation with someone who claims to believe that endless exponential growth in economic output is theoretically possible."
Ah. That's not what I meant. What I meant was that endless exponential growth in energy efficiency is at least theoretically possible.
Now, on a practical level that's unlikely and unneeded, but I couldn't resist pointing it out. People are always repeating Bartlett's comments about endless exponential growth, as if it means anything. Obviously endless exponential growth in resource consumption isn't possible, but it's really a strawman: no serious economist claims that it's possible or desirable.
"You can asymptotically approach a perfect Carnot cycle but as you get closer to the goal your return on effort for each step of improvement gets smaller and smaller. "
Not really, on a % basis. As you approach perfect efficiency the amounts decrease on an absolute basis, but that's not important. Let's say a vehicle now uses 200 watt-hours per mile. I can go 10% farther on the same energy if I reduce that to 180. If we get down to 100 wh/mile, I can get the same increase by going from 100 to 90. And so on.
It's worth pointing out that sometimes just leaving the dominant paradigm can break through in surprising ways. For instance, you can do better than Carnot ideal efficiency by going to energy conversion that isn't heat engine based, like a fuel cell, or just by going to a double cycle to recover "waste" heat.
Now, on a practical level, improvement doesn't need to continue forever. For instance, right now US light vehicles use on average the equivalent of 1.5 KWH's per mile. Now, PHEV/EV's use in the range of .2 to 45 per mile. That's an enormous improvement, and together with the move to renewable sources of energy it's enough to solve our transportation problems.
"I do not have specific numbers on the increased cost of building materials. "
Ah, it's building materials, not the whole cost, including labor. That makes more sense: it appears that the Chinese building booms is making things more expensive the whole globe over.
Our PV panels are rated at total of 2970 watts, considered a 2.5 kW system after accounting for inverter, etc. Actual output max is something over 2.3 kW. I mounted the panels, rest done by a contractor. Our cost after rebate & state credit about 2 years 9 months ago was under 10,000. This was before the federal tax credit. Right about $4.00 per watt. Has produced about 12100 kWh so far, more than we've used. We're in Auburn CA.
It sounds like my friend did get over charged although he did not install the panels himself and he payed bay area labor rates. Maybe he was telling me the price before rebates, tax credits etc.
How about "PV solar" - 24/7/365? Rain, fog, darkness of night....
Not an entirely new idea, but the Japanese seem to moving forward with it.
Park satellites in orbit that capture sunlight and convert it to laser beams (~40% effecient). Target those beams onto solar panels on the earth to be converted to electricity.
I would guess that since the wavelength for a laser is controllable the panels could be very efficient (> the current 40% level).
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/09/orbiting_space.php
Just watch out for that back-reflection :)