Three Energy Stories to Watch
Posted by Gail the Actuary on April 13, 2009 - 1:10pm
There are three different stories that I think we should be watching. All relate in some way to the Obama administration's attempt to reduce global warming gasses in the short term. I think it is easy to overstep what is reasonable, and this may be the direction the administration is headed.
Change is likely to be difficult at best. The amount of funds available to make major changes is not likely to be very high (except for "printed money"). Substitutes such as wind and solar are not very scalable quickly, and as we know, the big three auto makers are already near bankruptcy. The three stories I discuss below the fold are
U.S. Takes a Gamble With Test of Carbon Caps on Car Makers, about possible EPA regulation of carbon emissions
Opinion: 'Renewable energy certificates' are a feel-good scam
EPA Regulation of Auto Emissions
Whether or not any Climate Change legislation is enacted, the Obama administration has the power to affect what the EPA does in regulating green house gasses. The Wall Street Journal had an article this morning about the EPA possibly imposing carbon limits on automobiles, even as major players in the industry are not far from filing for bankruptcy.
U.S. Takes a Gamble With Test of Carbon Caps on Car Makers
The Obama administration is preparing to test whether capping greenhouse gas emissions will push the economy into higher gear, or deeper into a rut. The likely subject of the experiment is the ailing auto industry.
Later this month, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson is expected to declare that carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles endanger health and welfare because of their impact on the climate.
That finding will be a trigger for the EPA to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions under the 1970 Clean Air Act -- independent of any congressional action on broader climate-change measures. A senior administration official familiar with the EPA's plans says the agency will likely confine its rule-making efforts on greenhouse gases this year to autos.The Obama administration is preparing to test whether capping greenhouse gas emissions will push the economy into higher gear, or deeper into a rut. The likely subject of the experiment is the ailing auto industry.
Later this month, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson is expected to declare that carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles endanger health and welfare because of their impact on the climate.
That finding will be a trigger for the EPA to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions under the 1970 Clean Air Act -- independent of any congressional action on broader climate-change measures. A senior administration official familiar with the EPA's plans says the agency will likely confine its rule-making efforts on greenhouse gases this year to autos.
At this point, the auto makers are ailing, and already have requirements to increase mileage to at least 35 miles per gallon by 2020, a 40% increase from the roughly 25 mpg standard for the current fleet. If California standards were adopted, this would imply a more stringent standard--approximately 35 mpg by 2017, and would remove the current (silly) credit for flex fuel vehicles, unless companies can show that cars are actually purchasing E85 to operate these vehicles. All of this, if implemented, would be a big change. While all of these things would be good, from a point of view of reducing CO2, there is a question of whether they are really doable, in the short term.
Appointment of Ned Farquhar as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management
Ned Farquahar is a controversial appointee. According to this article, he is former employee of the most aggressive of all the anti-energy lawsuit groups, the Natural Resources Defense Council. The position to which he was appointed did not require congressional approval.
According to the Coal & Energy Price Report 4-9-09 (subscription):
He’s no stranger to the coal industry. “I know this guy and this unbelievably bad for coal,” a source said. “He’s the most extreme of the lunatic fringe.”
A onetime advisor to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Farquhar’s recently was a senior advocate on Mountain West energy and climate issues with the Natural Resources Defense Council. He’s been one of the driving forces behind the Western Climate Initiative which opposes almost all new coal, natural gas, nuclear or hydropower development in the West. Farquhar’s blog posts can be read at www.NRDC.org.
Farquhar’s views on all forms of fossil fuels and their future development – coal, oil, natural gas, oil shale – are significantly to the left of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and almost certainly President Obama, according to some analysts. He’s also not the first senior appointment to the administration from the NRDC, one of the most aggressive and left-leaning of all environmental groups on the energy issues.
“This guy is seen as an extremist,” the source said. “Even within his own enviro communities.”
One doesn't like to put too much weight on one unnamed source, but this story looks like something we should be watching.
Opinion: 'Renewable energy certificates' are a feel-good scam
I wouldn't be inclined to pay any attention to one op-ed piece, but this one is written by Daniel Press, professor and chair of the Environmental Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. With those credentials, I would be inclined to listen to what he has to say. He indicates that the certificates don't really do much, beyond paying the salaries of those selling the certificates.
According to Professor Press
Today, hundreds of universities and companies enthusiastically purchase billions of credible-sounding "Renewable Energy Certificates" in the belief that their investments are developing alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar power. They are doing no such thing. Instead of unwittingly buying empty bragging rights, these schools and corporate players should pay for real energy projects with measurable impacts, like rooftop solar panels and improvements in energy efficiency. . .
My students thought they were subsidizing wind power. What they actually got was a lot of hot air.
To understand why, consider the economics of renewable-energy production. Wind farms in California and Texas sell electricity on the wholesale market, with a significant boost from federal production tax credits for renewable energy. But prices for renewable-energy certificates, as negotiated by brokers and power producers, are very low — 10 percent of the difference between the cost of producing nonrenewable and renewable energy, and far too little to actually spur production.
By harnessing the power of the word "renewable" for spin and gimmickry, certificate brokers have persuaded hundreds of colleges to buy the "environmental attributes" of wind, landfill gas and solar energy — but not the electricity itself. "Environmental attributes" is the sort of mumbo-jumbo that's hard to explain in news releases and on Web sites, so thousands of certificate buyers simply say that 100 percent of their power is green. . .
It would be great if the purchase of certificates made up the difference between conventional and renewable power, but at best this is a token subsidy for renewable energy. Most sales don't do much beyond paying the salaries — of people selling certificates.
Renewable energy certificates are already being sold, and are part of the Waxman Markey Draft Energy Legislation now being discussed. That legislation includes a Renewable Energy Standard that would require 6% of electricity come from renewable fuels by 2012, and 25% by 2025, but this obligation can be met by buying Renewable Energy Credits.
If someone has information showing that Professor Press is wrong, I would be interested in hearing it. Are there studies being done showing this program is actually doing what it is intended to do? This has become a big business, and one would like to think that some governmental organization is watching to make sure that it really makes sense.
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I think it is easy to overstep what is reasonable, and this may be the direction the administration is headed.
What do you think is "reasonable" and why? What timeframe did Robert Hirsch give for serious PO mitigations? What level of change did he recommend if PO would occur within 10 years?
Should dinosaur industries (still releasing new Cross-over models with greater horsepower while more forward-thinking companies are making genuine progress) be saved so that BAU continues in a slightly tweaked manner and everyone can breath a sigh of relief that those peak-oil nuts are delegated to the lunatic fringe?
Substitutes such as wind and solar are not very scalable quickly
This is a vague generality without any support whatsoever.
former employee of the most aggressive of all the anti-energy lawsuit groups
"Anti-energy"? "Aggressive"? "Lawsuit groups"? Gail, if I didn't know better (and I suppose I don't), I'd think you were working for coal/oil/gas interests. Why the extremist labeling? Is it a bad thing to reduce one's energy consumption?
One doesn't like to put too much weight on one unnamed source...
I'm very surprised TOD would highlight such biased, one-sided opinions from a vested interest. It would be similar to publishing CERA press releases as lead articles.
If someone has information showing that Professor Press is wrong
I'd be very interested in seeing information that shows that Professor Press is right, especially in light of the association with the Waxman Markey Draft Energy Legislation.
Here's something written recently by Ned Farquhar: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/nfarquhar/transmission_dont_play_with_... - sounds to me like a reasonable man, and apparently, Salazar himself appointed him - maybe there is a need to stand firm against the conventional coal and drill anywhere lobby.
I'm afraid the auto industry needs crashing if any economic recovery is to occur without (re)increasing oil consumption (which is what needs to happen unless you want oil prices to skyrocket again).
The Waxman Markey draft only has a small note under ERCOT (Texas portion of the grid) that says;
And nothing about renewable energy certifications.
approximately 35 mpg by 2017...there is a question of whether they are really doable, in the short term.
Honda has released the $19k 5 seater 2009 Honda Insight, which achieves 40 mpg today. Even the Ford Escape hybrid achieves 35 mpg today. The new Prius achieves 49 mpg. The 2-seater 2010 Aptera will achieve over 100 mpg (averaged). The 2+2 Loremo will achieve over 140 mpg. 35mpg doable by 2017? Absolutely, unless our automakers are completely braindead. If they are, they've broken their trust with US citizens and automotive workers, and they don't deserve to be in business.
We can't use the present BAU as our yardstick for plodding, incremental changes, we have to look to the available liquid fuel resources and emissions reduction needs of the future to determine our incremental goals. After all, where do you expect our grandchildren to live?
Actually, if you look at cars sold in countries that tax gasoline heavily, like the European countries, you'll find lots and lots of them already meet the 35 mpg standard. I did a small search in a Swedish guide on gasoline only cars and came up with the following alternatives, WHEN I EXCLUDED SMALL CARS (< 1100 kg):
Audi A3,
BMW 1-series, *
BMW 3-series, *
BMW 5-series,
Citroen C2,
Citroen C3,
Fiat Bravo,
Fiat Grande Punto, *
Ford C-max
Ford Fiesta,
Ford Fusion,
Honda Civic, *
Honda Jazz, *
Hyundai Getz, *
Hyundai I30,
Kia Cee'd,
Kia Rio,
Mazda 3-series,
Mazda 6-series,
Mercedes A-class,
Mercedes B-class,
Mini Cooper, *
Mitsubishi Colt,
Mitsubishi Lancer,
Nissan Micra,
Nissan Note,
Nissan Quashqai,
Opel Astra,
Opel Corsa, *
Opel Meriva,
Opel Tigra,
Peugeot 2-series,
Peugeot 3-series,
Renault Clio, *
Seat Cordoba,
Seat Ibiza,
Skoda Fabia, *
Skoda Octavia,
Skoda Roomster,
Suzuki SX4,
Toyota Auris,
Toyota Corolla,
Toyota Yaris, *
Wolkswagen Polo,
Volvo C30.
All these models have gasoline engine configurations which give them 35 mpg or better. Those marked with asterisks have configurations that gives them more than 40 mpg. And remember, SMALL CARS are excluded, and so are the more frugal diesel cars which are quite common here. (Sure, even the cars on the list above are probably "clown cars" by American standards, but in much of the rest of the world, they are perfectly normal.)
The average fuel economy of the USA fleet is 22.4 miles/US gallon.
And for the UK it is 38.0 miles/US gallon, i.e. 70% better!!
UK gallon is 4,5 l, US gallon is 3.8 l.
The USA-UK comparison is based on the same
US gallon of 3.785412 litres.
But, do the UK figures include all the pickup trucks (or equivalent in UK) and full size business vans which are included in the USA figures?
I think this list should act as a big fat wake-up call to all the pro-SUV lobbying US carmakers....
They make these Gas Guzzlers simply to maximise their own profits because they can use yesterdays technologies -and yet they are still on the edge of bankruptcy. This has placed the US in a very bad position when at one time they led the world in automobile technology.
Nick.
Yes it's true that they make big gas guzzlers to maximize profits. Not because of yesterday's technologies, but because of high UAW and legacy retirement costs. The big 3 cannot produce small fuel efficient cars only without getting rid of the UAW and retirement obligations.
Also, the comparison with European cars is not fair because many small fuel efficient models sold in Europe would not meet US crash impact standards.
Well, if you are going to set up these standards, then you better see that pickup trucks and vans are removed from the mix. These heavy duty work vehicles for farm, business and personal use have a need for a level of power that can only be achieved with fuel consumption exceeding your proposed standards.
Examples:
I have to haul wood pellets out to my farm for home & shop heating. I can not pull a trailer with a loaded weight of 7000+ pounds with a little 40+ MPG car.
Science dictates that it takes a certain amount of energy to move a certain amount of mass (weight).
The person that services my furnace/AC has a full size van that is generally loaded to near max weight to have all the tools, parts and supplies they need to do their job.
When I am hauling water softener salt, livestock feed and other farm supplies I usually have 600 to 1000 pounds or more in the truck bed.
Most of the rest of the people living in rural America and small & big businesses have similar needs.
All of the local truck gardeners have to haul their produce to market using a full size pickup to handle the weight and volume.
To include these vehicles in the corporate average fuel mileage figures is a mistake in my opinion.
you better see that pickup trucks and vans are removed from the mix.
What is to stop every non-farmer from buying one then? We'd be back in the same mire as before. Those people who are buying them to bubba-ize their image are the same ones that are giving middle east terrorist pay raises, and increasing our dependence on foreign oil. What would you do to prevent those people from buying farm vehicles? Or should anyone who shows up saying, "I need a V-10 to haul my large powerboat" or "a guy simply has to have a truck" get a vehicle that has a free pass from fuel economy standards? Or the lawyers/etc who classify their Hummers/SUVs as 'business vehicles'?
You mention hauling wood pellets; you could have them delivered. I set aside a small amount of land to grow trees for firewood, and harvest, cut, stack, and burn it myself. The same could go for hauling feed, etc. My small farm livestock approach does not use much feed, relying almost exclusively upon pasture rotation (exceptions during late gestation and early lactation, and hay cut from my farm in the winter once the stockpiled pasture is exhausted) and a local farmer drops off a grain mix as I need it. I do have a farm truck; a used 1989 Ford Ranger that is driven a couple of hundred miles a year at most.
People in suburbia or urban areas who want to use a truck on a somewhat regular basis can do so through ZipCar (rent by the hour). I can now rent a truck by the hour at Home Depot, not needing to drive a hulk around the other 99% of the time I don't need it.
Businesses that truly need such work trucks should be able to get them, and under the policy being communicated by this Administration will be able to get them. Unless the bubbas and bubba-wannabes get ahead of them in line and buy them up first....
Wouldn't it require more energy for one to drive a Zip truck, or have a company drive their delivery truck to your farm than to have a vehicle already on location? I would have a small car or bike if I needed to leave the farm, and a truck to use around the farm. Plus most trucks are vastly overpowered.... do the math, 100 hp can do ALOT of work by human terms, but how many trucks today offer 100 hp engines?
Not sure I follow you here. A Zipcar truck would be used infrequently by a suburbanite, say once a month. All other times a vehicle is needed (besides a bike), a fuel efficient vehicle is used. Plus, the Zipcar truck allows another dozen or so families to be free from 'needing' a truck, so their fuel consumption drops as well.
If on a farm, what is the difference in fuel costs if I have to go drive somewhere to pick something up and bring it back, vice a delivery truck bringing something to my place (and likely delivering to a neighbor as well)?
I agree many trucks are vastly overpowered for the uses they find themselves in.
You can't tell people what to buy just because you think it is a dumb choice for them. What you can do however is to impose very heavy sales taxes on fuel and large passenger vehicles on a weight per seat basis. A truck or van will only have space for two or three people at the most and therefore does not get taxed so highly. As soon as you add seats to it, it becomes a passenger vehicle and gets taxed accordingly. No science, no techno fixes required and the market will sort itself out.
They manage in Europe; we can manage here. Most cars on the road have one passenger and aren't carrying 7000 pounds of wood pellets.
http://onlyinnewmexico.blogspot.com/2007/03/neds-tool-shed.html
From this post, sounds like Ned is peak oil aware:
There's some pics there. I browsed some other stories of Ned and I have to say that the energy folks (via the links in the post) are rather harsh on him. Sounds to me like a lot of sour grapes. Maybe they're bummed because there likely won't be any more drug and sex parties with MMS staff?
Update: video of Ned giving a talk last year:
http://www.law.utah.edu/media/show-media.asp?MediaID=379&TypeID=4
I'm 20 minutes into the video and Ned sounds like a key poster at TOD. Worth listening to, but a bit dry in delivery.
True; moreover, I would argue that the available evidence does not support the claim.
The US installed 8.3GW of wind power last year. At a capacity factor of about 30%, the wind turbines added in 2008 will generate about 22TWh in 2009.
The US had planned installations of 9.8GW gas turbines and 1.1GW coal plants in 2008, with actual installation likely to be less (the same page lists 9.8GW of planned wind installations). Coal plants average capacity factors of 74%, so assuming all 1.1GW were added would result in 7TWh of generation in 2009. Natural gas plants averaged 23% capacity factor in 2007 (900TWh from 450GW nameplate), so assuming all 9.8GW were added would result in 20TWh of generation in 2009.
Wind will be the largest source of new kWh in the US this year, at almost half of all new kWh, just as it has been in the EU for the past two years. Wind is no longer small.
***
Worldwide, 24GW of wind were added in 2008, or about 53TWh of generation. Based on the last few years of data, that's roughly 10% of the new generation added last year. Not "nameplate capacity", but actual kWh.
Wind has grown at a 30% annual pace for the last decade, and best estimates are that capacity additions for 2013 will be about 56GW, or about 20% of new generation worldwide, under an unhurried, business-as-usual scenario.
Not only is wind already a major player in new generation world-wide, but it's growing shockingly quickly: wind capacity doubled in the US in the last two years, and doubled in the world in the last three. How can this be interpreted as "not scaling quickly", unless the definition of "scaling quickly" was purposefully impossible to meet?
I agree. Wind can be scaled quickly, as the current trend of 30% year-on-year growth show. Problem is that you won't be able to integrate more wind than about 20% of total electricity - b/c it will then sometimes give 0% of demand and sometimes 100%. Denmark has actually reached "peak wind" for this reason.
If current growth figures continue, wind power will therefore hit the ceiling with a bang in about 10 years from now. The questions will then become whether the rest should be nuclear or coal, and why we were fooled that frantically littering our countrysides with wind towers would somehow relieve us of that choice.
Well in the meantime we (USA) will, like it or not, be making gains in conservation, bringing down the total demand ceiling for electricity. Given the size and varied weather across the nation, I don't think a comparison to Denmark is apt. We DO have transmission issues to work out, but they aren't completely beyond reach. You are right that a choice will still be needed, but between smaller demand and more wind, geothermal, and solar (all forms), the choice will not be as dire as it is today.
Right, plus with Demand Side Management, consumers can choose how much electricity they want to consume during any low generation points (which are reflected in higher spot pricing) with the settings they select on their smart appliances or the smart adapters their legacy appliances are plugged into. This will allow the penetration of wind and solar to levels much higher than 20%. Integration across wide geographical areas reduces (but does not always eliminate) ramping (up or down).
V.Hamidi, F. Li, F. Robinson, Responsive Demand in Networks with High Penetration of Wind Power, IEEEXplore 978-1-4244-1904-3/08
Frans Van Hulle, Opportunities and challenges of large-scale integration of wind power, IEA-RETD, 2008
I think demand side management is really overrated. People just don't like to do that stuff. It is more likely wind expansion will be hampered by low spot prices when the wind generation is high.
Integration across wide areas, sure, perhaps you get 25% or 30%, but that requires enormous investments in the grid. And then you still have 60% fossil or nuclear.
Larger scale wind may have a chance if stranded wind is used to produce hydrogen after PO, but I wouldn't bet on it.
I think demand side management is really overrated. People just don't like to do that stuff.
Perhaps if you provided us with something substantial to evaluate, we might have a reason to consider the above statement.
Integration across wide areas, sure, perhaps you get 25% or 30%, but that requires enormous investments in the grid. And then you still have 60% fossil or nuclear.
The references I provided below are estimating between 42% and 50% just for wind (not including solar) based on the implementation of Demand Side Management and enhanced storage via additional hydro, CAES, flywheels, etc. Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) represent yet another baseload generation outside of fossil or nuclear.
Pitt's done an impressive job of marshalling numbers against Gail's assertion there. But those numbers are utterly off the trail. They are numbers comparing rate of implementation with other rates of electricity implementation. But what is more to the point is how much impact wind and solar could have in compensating for, ahem, I hesitate to mention it on this site!, declining production of, you know.... oil.
While I'm not up to quoting any figures here, it's been claimed by numerous of the poshest names in this business that the absolute max contribution of wind/solar/etc all put together is going to be at best a small fraction of the energy from 80+ million bpd. So not scaleable enough at all, let alone quickly. And without continuation of a functioning oil-based economy, the production of those hi-tech "renewables" looks decidedly questionable too.
While I'm not up to quoting any figures here, it's been claimed by numerous of the poshest names in this business that the absolute max contribution of wind/solar/etc all put together is going to be at best a small fraction of the energy from 80+ million bpd. So not scaleable enough at all, let alone quickly.
Again, in the context of Gail's comment concerning electrical generation and carbon caps, this is a vague generality without any support whatsoever.
If you want to change the topic to "can wind/solar completely replace current oil production?" the answer can certainly be a technical "yes", though we would have to decide if we would want to spend enormous amounts of money and resources perpetuating a grossly wasteful lifestyle; I would say "no". YMMV.
Is it scaleable enough? That would depend on what the target is. Passivhaus or AIA 2030 standards for new homes and renovations/replacements for aging housing stock? Greater use of mass transit and 80-150 mpg vehicles (PNGV-like, Loremo, Aptera, etc) for much reduced personal transportation? Localization of goods and services? I don't automatically assume BAU going forward and the "poshest names" you allude to don't either.
My biggest concern is the lack of preparation for PO at all levels, along with the impediments to do so due to the current fiscal crisis.
First, that's not true. The estimated available energy from wind alone (72 TW worldwide) is several times current human energy consumption from ALL sources; solar has several times the potential of wind. Second, we don't have to replace the raw energy of oil, just the energy which actually makes it through the conversion losses. That's as little as 12% of the energy at the wellhead.
Respectfully disagree. The move to residential TOU rates and real-time pricing, combined with smart grid technology will have a dramatic impact on current consumption patterns.
Consider, for example, the load response in this SDG&E trial of critical peak pricing and smart thermostats on August 15th, 2003. The control group is the top line and it shows average peak demand reaching 4.5 kW within the critical peak period (central CACs). The centre line shows the load profile for the test group with smart thermostats and flat rates, and the bottom line those homes equipped with smart thermostats and critical peak pricing. Note that the critical peak begins at 14h15 and ends at 19h15.
Much of this can be completely transparent to the end user and fully painless. For example, GE is developing refrigerators that will delay defrosting if this defrosting cycle falls within a critical or on-peak period -- moving this function to off-peak/low demand periods will eliminate some 600-watts of on-peak demand. Doesn't sound like a whole lot, but when you multiple it by a few million refrigerators, the numbers quickly add up.
Cheers,
Paul
While end user appliances I'm sure will contribute to effective demand side management, I feel the biggest gains are potentially from industrial customers who have a more intimate view of the bottom line. They can install ice bear style air conditioning and make a huge savings by selecting when to make ice, pump water, run boilers, etc.
Absolutely. To date, Nova Scotia Power has over 400 MW of demand response and real-time pricing in place with respect to its largest industrial customers -- that's roughly 20 per cent of the province's annual peak.
For a quick overview of NSP's RTP tariff, see: http://www.nspower.ca/about_nspi/rates_regs/regulatory_initiatives/defin..., and for anyone interested in the deep down and dirty, see: http://www.nsuarb.ca/images/stories/pdf/electricity/121554-v1-decision_p...
On the residential front, NSP has been actively promoting ETS (electric thermal storage) in combination with TOU.
As a side bar, I received an automated call from NSP earlier this afternoon asking if I would be interested in participating on their Customer Advisory Panel (presumably I was randomly selected). I was instructed to register at http://www.nspowerpanel.ca/join.php which I did, so it will be interesting to see what transpires. NSP has held customer energy forums in the past (see: http://www.nspower.ca/energy_efficiency/customer_energy_forum_2005/video... and http://cdd.stanford.edu/polls/energy/2004/ns-results-summary.pdf) and this isn't your standard feel-good window dressing. There's a very high level commitment to listen to customers, respond to their concerns and needs and improve business practices.
Cheers,
Paul
With high wind power penetration, I guess refrigerators would need to be connected to Internet and poll real-time production data to make really smart choices? Certainly not impossible, but the question is cost and how much electricity consumption you can move around in time.
Some residential and heating use can be moved, sure, but there are obvious limits. You don't want too big temperature fluctuations - neither in your living quarters nor in your fridge. You want to watch that plasma screen when you have time, you need light when it's dark outside, you want to get done with the laundry and not wait until the grid decides to run the washing machine. And so on.
Then there are industrial and commercial use. Sure, some of that can be moved too, but at a cost. As I said, if stranded electricity production becomes economically viable for fuel production, as in a hydrogen economy or the like, then wind may make more sense. Otherwise, I remain sceptical.
The potential could be a little greater than you think. Roughly half of all residential water heaters in this province are electric and these tanks are equipped with 3,000 to 5,500-watt elements. Put them under load control (and this technology has been around for 50 years or more) and you have the ability to shed a good chunk of load very quickly. Add more intelligent controllers and these tanks could "absorb" excess wind energy as and when required; e.g., raise the cylinder temperature 3C to 5C (possibly more if equipped with a mixing value) and let the tank coast through the peak.
Cheers,
Paul
I agree. Demand is demand. It takes X amount of kWhr to cool my apartment to 80 degrees. Sure, you can play a game with when I can use energy (cycling was suggested in 12min blocks) but then when I get the chance I will draw more energy to make up for when I didn't have access to it. You guys are arguing about another point; load factor. Personally, I'm happy the IEEE is taking so long writing the spec's for a smart grid. I've talked with some senior utility people in the area and they say 1 kWhr at 3 on a summer day here is worth $5.
"Smart" appliances can HELP improve load factor, but only to a point. If you really want to level out demand you must be able to store energy. Unfortunately, storing large amounts of energy is not something we humans are very good at..... Give it a decade.....
when I get the chance I will draw more energy to make up for when I didn't have access to it.
Look at the graph of actual data above, which is in direct opposition to what you just stated.
Sorry, you are off base. First, your electricity consumption will continue rising. Second, the comparison with Denmark is apt since it is integrated into the European grid - otherwise even the 20% they have would be very difficult. Third, the "smaller demand" you dream about won't make geothermal and solar able to balance wind. You need to load follow and you need lots of base power, hence coal, gas or nuclear.
your electricity consumption will continue rising
EIA: Electricity Consumption Expected to Drop in 2009
Do you feel 2009 is a representative year?
Yeah, probably not. It's gonna take some power to turn off and decommission so many factories. That power use won't be present in 2010 data.
California has managed to maintain per-capita electric consumption flat in face of massive new draws on power (hot tubs, flatscreens, server farms, etc.). The rest of the nation can/should/will follow suit (see, for reference, the geographic source of many of Obama's key energy people). My comparison to Denmark had to do with the nation's weather. At any given time, it is unlikely that the same wind conditions will simultaneously prevail in ND, TX, CO, CA, NV, WI, Lake Michigan, New England coast, etc. I did not say that renewable sources would make up all the difference, I was just noting that the base power decisions need not depend on today's figures nor on forecasts of demand growth.
Re: demand management- some people DO like doing such things, especially if it saves them money. I save, on average, $30 per month through a basic time-of-use residential billing plan. Creating more advanced financial incentives for temporal management of power use will be important and I suspect many smart people are working on it today.
Let's not argue about whether electricity consumption will rise or not - although I believe it will, especially in a PO environment, it's not really relevant to my argument: that wind and solar's intermittance ensures the continued dominance of coal, NG and nuclear.
I hear what you and others say about distributed wind and load management, but I believe such solutions will be found too expensive and difficult to push wind penetration above 20-25%. What is technically possible is seldom what is economically feasible.
So, the big problem with wind is that it serves as an rationalization not to fast-track breeder and thorium research and deployment. We might lose another decade or two due to this.
wind and solar's intermittance ensures the continued dominance of coal, NG and nuclear.
We've presented data and studies that show that this is by no means ensured (and you keep leaving out new hydro and EGS); what do you have to present but your opinion?
difficult to push wind penetration above 20-25%. What is technically possible is seldom what is economically feasible..., the big problem with wind is that it serves as an rationalization not to fast-track breeder and thorium research and deployment.
So, you believe wind and DSM are too expensive, but fast breeder nuclear and several dozen new nuclear reactors are not too expensive (and not too late)? How do you arrive at this conclusion in the context of where the nuclear industry is now, the permitting cycle of the NRC, and the current permitting problems with the 'standardized designs'? Note: if you explain in enough detail with appropriate references, we'll have something to go on besides your hunch. You provided a list of cars earlier that achieved 35mpg (kudos), so it's clear that you value such information yourself.
Well, Will, I just now googled the broken link you provided, and the powerpoint slides I found did give some optimistic assessments of balancing costs at different penetrations of wind power, but the graph at page 8 only show penetrations of up to 20%, and the costs won't grow linearly. Then I guess one should add grid reinforcement costs from page 11.
Denmark has the goal of 50% wind, yet they have stood still at 20% for five years now.
You are correct in that I don't have much to offer but my opinion. I've read a lot and think I have a feel for energy proportions and potential that most people lack, but I haven't hoarded links, sadly. But I'll try to improve.
Talking about proportions, new hydro potential isn't very big, really, especially considering environmental concerns and a global outlook (I feel discussions here is often too US-centric).
Regarding nuclear costs, the US seem to have decided to make reactors expensive. That is a choice, not a necessity. Even if the world would crank wind to 50% (which I believe is not feasible) at that time (2030 or so), we still have 15,000 TWh/year to produce from coal, NG or nuclear, and then we might need some extra electricity to mitigate PO too. As coal is really bad for you, nuclear is really the only large scale alternative. (AFAIK, geothermal electricity generation isn't really a contender at all. Iceland has rather easy-to-get geothermal, yet they have opted for enormous and controversial hydro projects to power aluminium smelters and have paltry geothermal electrical plants.)
Regarding time frames, I don't think continent-wide extreme grid makeovers will get implemented very soon either, nor will significant DSM.
jeppen,
Do you realize how small Denmark(43,000 km^2) is, say compared with Iowa (145,000km^2). Both generate about the same amount of wind power, about 20% of electricity consumption. Of interest Iowa canceled a 630MW coal-fired plant in March 2009 , but added 1500MW wind capacity last year( about 500MWa). I also noticed that 3 "reliable" coal fired plants has to be shut down due to flooding a few weeks ago, a reminder that no power source is 100% reliable.
Denmark may only have a maximum of 20% wind, but US can have much more and has access to much more hydro electricity than Europe.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5216#more
Neil, do you realize that Denmark can have 20% wind only b/c it exports half of it to Norway, which can balance this with their plentiful hydro? This way Denmark has "access" to proportionally much more hydro than US.
Sweden is 450,000 km^2 (about 1500 km long and at most 500 km wide), and our own wind energy's contribution vary wildly too.
More wind is quite possible when buffered by pumped hydro, as the two together can effectively generate baseload power.
Pumped hydro is mature and widely-used technology, and is less sensitive to climate change than regular hydro (since it shuttles water back and forth between two reservoirs, rather than relying in regular precipitation).
Given sufficient pumped hydro (or other storage), there is no real limit on how much power can come from wind.
Pumped hydro is great, where available. But if we look at proportions here - the US electricity production averages about 460 GW. If you were to replace that with wind, you'd need a nameplate wind generator capacity of about 1400 GW.
How much pumped hydro storage capacity would you need to balance 1400 GW wind capacity? The Three Gorges Dam in China has a capacity of 22 GW. So I can't really see how it would be feasible to balance large scale wind with pumped hydro.
You are falling into the trap of assuming one renewable resource, leaving out solar and geothermal, for starters. And then you seem to be implying the wind in all of the US is either all up or down at the same time. Neither is accurate. Wind power approximations can be predicted at least 48 hours into the future, with progressive refinements closer to the actual load time. Solar power from the SW is close to 100% predictable. Tidal is 100% predictable. Geothermal is baseload and can be dispatched as needed. And DSM will reduce the total amount of power needed.
While much more is feasible, the US should be able to add at least 45 GW of hydropower. CAES is another storage technology that can be applied.
Except for hydro, only wind is close to being competitive among your alternatives. While predictability is nice, dispatchability is far better. As I said, I don't really believe in continent-wide dispatch of wind power.
Hydro is nice, in a way, but nuclear power have less associated risks and less environmental impact. But sure, with aggressive wind and hydro projects, extreme grid strengthening and some load balancing with NG, you may get very far in coal power reduction, no doubt about that. Question is, can you see it happening?
Arguable, but kind of irrelevant: this isn't an either/or choice.
Wind, hydro, and nuclear are all effective means to lower our dependence on fossil fuels, and if need be we can and probably will use all of them.
Well, say that we will end up with 20% wind and 20% hydro and 60% nuclear, if we prefer wind and hydro over nuclear. Then one must ask what we gained by littering the countrysides with wind mills and destroying our rivers, compared with just going 100% nuclear. This is not clear to me.
Wind mills are fairly easy to dismantle and make no lasting harm to the environment, but this is not the case with hydro dams, unfortunately. Repairing river eco-systems will not be easy, and the dams themselves will be hard to remove, especially since there is a tendency to build houses and so on close to the river, relying on the fact that it is no longer flowing freely and so won't flood.
Nuclear can't change fast enough to follow demand. No matter how much you like it, 100% nuclear is not remotely viable with existing technology.
It is a far smaller problem than balancing wind - France is about 80% nuclear. Then there are designs, especially liquid thorium, that can load follow. Btw, 100% nuclear, world wide, isn't really possible with generation III tech anyway - we need to utilize more than a few percent of the fuel. But we can build conventional nuclear while fast-tracking development of generation IV designs.
No doubt, but it's not clear why a huge buildout of existing + future technology is preferable to a huge buildout of existing + existing technology.
That being said, a mix of all kinds of generation sources is likely to be preferable. Even 30% nuclear baseload - run at full for maximum efficiency - cuts the storage requirement for wind/hydro by 60%, and a 70% nuclear baseload allows wind+hydro to top up with less than two days of storage. (Based on hourly 2007 Ontario data. For context, nuclear requires 130% of average power use to avoid storage requirements, and needs about 1.2 days of storage at 110%.)
Well, assuming nuclear baseload can't load follow, nuclear actually worsen the grid's ability to integrate wind. 50% nuclear just removes 50% load, and then the rest of the power must be twice as good at load following, in a sense. Wind ain't.
What you want depends on your goals, obviously. I want to get rid of fossil fuels with as low environmental and economic impact as possible. Thus nuclear.
The last sentence does not make sense to me given the cost of nuclear power plants over the full system lifecycle.
The various Gen IV schemes deal with the costs of the Gen II-III systems by consuming most of their "wastes" (remaining U plus transuranics) as fuel, which eliminates most of the costs you appear to be worried about.
(Most fission products are quite short-lived compared to transuranics, and the nastier long-lived ones can be separated and transmuted if desired.)
Strange, why? Construction and installation costs is about 70% of life cycle costs. O&M is most of the rest. Fuel, waste handling and decommissioning costs are tiny.
What would be better from an economical and enviromental perspective? What is the generation mix you would aim for, worldwide, and how much generation capacity would you like for 2030 and 2050?
What are your examples for decommissioning costs? Waste handling costs (in the US, these have not been tiny by any stretch of the imagination).
Wind and solar thermal are better from an economical and environmental perspective. I do, however, support all three technologies, as a mix is much preferable to reliance on just one (or two). I'll assume you have the background to understand why.
Overall mix targets would ideally be in the ranges of ~30% wind, ~30% solar, ~20% geothermal, and ~20% nuclear. Solar thermal along with AIA2030 implementation can account for significant displacement of fossil fuel heating for buildings and hot water, in addition to lowering A/C loads.
Examples can be found at a wikipedia near you. Nuclear construction is somewhat expensive due to discount rates. The same discount rates make decommissioning cheap, since decommissioning is done from perhaps year 60 to year 120 from first power.
Btw, reasonable industrialized countries use about one kilowatt of electric power per capita. This means one million people need to construct and decommission just one reactor every 60 years to cover their needs. This is not really a problem.
Waste handling costs in the US - isn't a tenth of a cent per kWh taxed to take care of this? A similar amount is taxed in Sweden, and it is thought to suffice. And this is even though the deep repository method have been developed with usual government economic "efficiency" and with the usual ridiculously rigorous requirements.
Your proposed mix seems extremely expensive in relation to a 100% nuclear alternative. (Or really 10% hydro, 10% NG and 80% nuclear.)
I think we could run US electricity on wind alone with a large enough build-out(3TW).
A typical wind turbine produces 100% of nameplate 20% of the time , 50% of the nameplate 20% of the time and the rest of the time--60% the electricity produced is negligible.
So the overall windpower capacity factor is (.2 + .2 x.5 +.6x 0) = 30%.
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/5356/turbinepower.png
Wind power is a distributed source of energy so a national grid is necessary. This has the advantage of increasing the number of hours of producing electricity.
Assume three independent 'regions' of wind productions, say Southern Plains(S), Northern Plains(N) and East Cost(E) each at 1 TW feeding into a national grid.
If these areas operate independently weatherwise, the probability that all three regions are producing full out is only .8%--.2x.2x.2, but the probability than all three regions are dead is only 21.6%--.6x.6x.6 down from 60% for a single typical wind turbine. The probability that at least 1/2 TW is being produced would be 21.6%( one of the three running at half power-3x.2x.6x.6=21.6%) and the probability that more than 1/2TW would be produced would be 56.8% or almost 5000 hours per year or 2500 TWh/yr. Enough to totally eliminate the need for ALL coal based electricity at 2000 Twh, but it would require 3TW of wind energy nameplate and a 1/2 TW (probably HVDC-765 kV) grid.
Some amount excess energy would be 'lost' when more than 1/2 TW of energy is being generated( 2.5 TW 'excess' when all regions are windy(70 hours per year), 2 TW excess when 2 of the 3 regions are windy(210 hours per year),1 TW excess (840 hours per year) and 1/2 TW excess(1331 hours per year).
One solution would be use that excess electricity to make ammonia or hydrogen gas.
Natural gas spinning generation all ready in place could make up the 21.6% of the time(1892 hours per year) when the national(wind only) grid would be producing less than 1/2 TW. This happens to be about the same TWh as natural gas backup generators produce now; 1892 hours x .5TW=946 TWh (870 TWh from 450GW of NG generation in 2008 per EIA).
One way to reduce the natural gas usage is to use 'excess' wind grid energy to compress air(CAES) for the gas turbines( which would reduce natural gas by 25% in some cases.
But what about the 1892 hours when there is no wind anywhere?
In order to keep 1/2 TW (500 GW) grid energized we need a spinning reserve of ~1000 Twh.
The US has 20 GW of pumped hydro and 80 GW of conventional hydro.
It is unlikely that 'stored hydro' will increase much.
In the DISTANT future +100 years when natural gas( and coal synthesied natural gas) is exhausted, the 1000 Twh could be supplied by fuel cells using hydrogen produced during the 56% of the time when more than 1/2 Tw of wind is being generated or large flow batteries. A 3 TW wind/national grid system would deliver 1/2 TW for 6867 hours per year plus up to 4450 Twh of 'excess' electricity for remaining 1892 hours; 1000Twh out/4450 Twh input = 22.4% efficiency which is well below the efficiency of flow batteries(75%) or hydrogen fuel cells(30-50%) or hydrogen gas turbines.
The cost of 3TW of wind is around $3 trillion dollars. The cost of an 8000 mile 1/2 TW HVDC grid would be about $6 trillion dollars.
http://www.awea.org/GreenPowerSuperhighways.pdf
With waste that's $10 trillion dollars
and you'd ELIMINATE coal (and nuclear). If we had a 10 cent
per kwh increase across the board, that would raise $400 billion dollars per year which would pay this all off in 25 years.
Another nice use for that stranded wind would be to top up our new gas-electric cars. They could also be cycled, just like water heaters, AC units, and other big electricity users to only pull power during off-peak periods. If everybody charged up during off-peak periods, it would reduce demand on the grid as well as using electricity that otherwise would go to waste.
We need far less than that, as the hours without wind don't all happen back-to-back.
Based on hourly wind generation data for 2007, Ontario alone would need just 200 hours of storage to provide full, uninterrupted wind power for the entire year. A more widely-dispersed generating base - geographically as well as dispersed among more resources - would lower the storage needs even further. 100 hours - 50TWh - is a reasonable guess.
For context, 1 TWh is about 1km^3 of water @ 350m head height, so 50TWh is 50km^3. Lake Mead alone holds 35km^3, meaning this is by no means an unreasonable amount of storage.
For those occasional hours of zero output(1892 hours per year) we need 500 GW for back up available at all times.
All the hydro in the US is only 70 GW nameplate(we also have 20GW in pumped hydro). Hoover Dam is 2 GW.
Right now we have 445 GW in gas generators so we're really there now except we need to back up the national grid rather than local ones.
One 'problem' is that we don't use just use a continuous 500GW
8760 hours a year but rather we use a constant 250 TW 8760 hours a year plus +2000 Twh spread in a more or less triangular distribution, so stored energy would more important than baseload supplied by the national grid, but not a whole lot more.
There are other possible problems with a national HVDC grid like solar flares and EMP(improbable?).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse
http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0307/0307127.pdf
The biggest problem is getting people to cooperate on the widest geographic scale as that increases the probability of operation at a minimum threshold.
The whole project should resemble the TVA in my view. A good book is TVA: Democracy on the March by its director David Lilienthal( also first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lilienthal
For those occasional hours of zero output(1892 hours per year) we need 500 GW for back up available at all times.
You still are missing the point on geographically dispersed wind farms. If three wind farms had 100GW capacity each and needed to satisfy a 100GW load, all it would take to satisfy that load would be if the wind were blowing at one particular site and not at the others. So since the Great Lakes wind patterns are different from the Mid Atlantic, which are different from Texas, which are different from CA, which is different from the Pacific Northwest, etc., there is no 1892 hours per year of aggregate grid-connected outage. Are there times that the aggregate from just wind might not meet the load? Sure, that's when pumped storage steps in, along with other approaches as needed (peaker turbines, CAES, etc).
Eh hem...I'm not missing the point at all.
I am applying the law of probability of independent events. It is unlikely that the wind speeds of points 1000 miles apart are dependent, but 200 miles apart they may be.
But lets assume we have SIX statistically independent wind regions at .5 TW for 20% of the time and .25TW for 20% of the time, with a .5TW grid.
The probability that you will produce .5TW for six independent regions according to the binomial theorem(BINOMDIST in Excel) is 72.5% (6351 hours a year) plus 1628 Twh of excess electricity.
1804 hours would need .25 TW of back up generation and 602 hours would need .5TW of back up to produce a total of 752 Twh.
This is slightly less(78%) than 962 Twh of back up energy in the three region scenario. The question is how many very large (.5 TW)independent wind regions are there?
Pumped storage at 20 Gw and conventional hydro at 70 Gw is still too small for 250 Gw.
Solar is a very predictable source but requires lots of back up as it is only good for about 8 hours. There is really only one or two solar regions( Southeast US is too cloudy) so its connection to the national grid wouldn't help much IMO.
It probably should just be used for producing hydrogen or charging megabatteries.
Yes; and?
Are you claiming that we're not able to build that many hydro turbines? If so, please provide evidence that hydro turbines are much more complicated than gas turbines, of which 220GW have been built in the last 10 years.
"Gee, it seems big" isn't a reason for something to be impossible. Not when we've been completing similarly-large projects for decades already.
Sheesh!
We already have 450 GW of gas turbine generation!
We don't have 500 GW worth of hydro in North America. Besides, hydro is NOT reliable as dedicated back up. What about droughts? What about the need people have for fresh water for agriculture, cities, etc.
And that's likely what will handle the majority of peaking generation for decades to come.
I'm not saying the US must, will, or even should build a 100% wind-and-hydro system; I'm just saying that the available evidence appears to suggest that it is technically possible.
And neither do you have 500GW of pumped storage, but there has been no indication that such could not be built over the course of a few decades.
Pumped storage is not a net power generator, so it does not rely on favourable hydrological conditions to nearly the extent that hydro does. In principle, pumped hydro just needs a hole, a deeper hole, an initial amount of water, and enough water to account for losses. Using salt mine caverns would effectively remove evaporation-based water loss, and sealing the caverns (as mines are sealed during use) would limit loss through the caverns. (Indeed, keeping too much water from filtering into the lower reservoir might be a larger problem than replacing water losses.)
Pumped storage doesn't consume enormous amounts of water, as it just recycles the same water up and down through the turbines. The only significant source of losses is evaporation, which just recycles the water back into the atmosphere (although it may fall next somewhere else).
Moreover, pumped storage doesn't even need to be fresh water; seawater pumped storage stations already exist, and pumping saturated brine or other undesirable water back and forth between underground caverns would bypass fresh water concerns entirely.
Pitt,
While pumped storage is useful it is only 85-89% efficient( round trip). Better solution is to add more hydro capacity to existing dams with a low level of reversible turbines where a lower reservoir is available. This allows short term peak or fast ramping needed for wind and the ability to restore some of the water to be used again if needed, for example if dam levels are low. Many dams actually have space for additional turbines that were planned but never installed.
Periods of low wind on a geographically large area are of short duration (1-2hours) so the excess capacity doesn't have to run very long. A lot of the time those low wind events will not be at peak demand. In China(0.3) and Australia(0.3), hydro is used like this at much lower capacity factors than in US(0.42) and Canada(0.75).
What I've read has suggested 75-80%. (I personally use 75% for modelling purposes.)
That is probably the cheapest and faster way to add extra pumped storage capacity.
That's intuitive, but I prefer to only rely on what can be shown from the data I have available. The largest geographic region I have year-long hourly data for is Ontario Hydro's wind installations (which isn't a very big area), for which it can be shown that 5-10 days of storage is sufficient for an entire year (without having too high of capacity installation).
You're undoubtedly right that a continent-wide wind system would have much better characteristics, and I'd love to find a source of year-long hourly data from a wide geographic region to work from. Until then, though, I don't want to make claims I can't back up with data.
Pitt,
You could be righ about 75-85% efficiency I thought I saw that the Snowy mountains pumped hydro operated at 89%( cannot find now).
This study done in Australia by Davy and Coppin, 9 sites over a 3 state ( 1500km distance); not actual recorded data but based on wind data.
http://www.environment.gov.au/settlements/renewable/publications/pubs/wi...
If you look at figure 10, less than 10% capacity max of 3hours, <5% about 2hours duration. It should be possible to do simulations from US data( say CA, TX, IO, QC).
That depends in large part on your energy mix. There are going to be natural gas, nuclear, and coal plants in the US for decades to come, meaning that there's going to be a long time to ramp up to zero-fossil-fuel power generation. Until then, there are going to be large numbers of peaking plants that can do much of the work of buffering wind.
All of those plants will be replaced eventually, which makes the correct question "what types of generation do we want to replace them with, and what will that do to the price and availability of electricity?" There's no fundamental limitation to the amount of pumped hydro - it can be built anywhere, although some locations are more naturally suited - and it's not actually tremendously expensive as power generation systems go.
Yes, it would take a great deal of pumped hydro turbines to allow the US to use 100% wind-and-solar power generation; however, such a scenario is decades away, which allows a great deal of time to build. China alone has added 40GW of hydro capacity in the last 4 years, suggesting that large amounts of pumped storage can be added relatively quickly.
Evidence suggests that wind can scale quickly and extensively.
Evidence suggests that pumped storage can scale quickly and extensively.
Evidence suggests that wind and pumped storage together can give reliable power.
What, precisely, are the difficulties you see?
Well, regarding evidence, I just made a small graph from data of the top 20 wind producing countries. It depicts wind power growth between 2007 and 2008 as a function of penetration in 2007.
I can see a trend here, but of course, it can probably be dismissed as "too few data points for significance" or with any other arbitrary excuse. However, as wind capacity grows fast in many countries, we'll see more clearly in a few years whether countries pile up between 10% and 20%, or if some countries goes toward 40% with ease.
The greater the penetration, the slower the percentage growth for a given GW capacity. For example, if a country only has 2% penetration with a 5GW farm and adds another 5GW farm, thats 100% growth. After a few years of adding more wind farms at 5GW every year, they may be up to 15% penetration. However, adding another 5GW of wind would result in a low percentage of growth, since with a 25GW existing capacity that only represents 20% growth.
Fairly obvious, but it is not clear why this would be relevant. Global wind capacity has increased by 30% per year for many, many years now, and if it were only a matter of turbine availability and installation capacity, industrialised countries bent on carbon reduction should be able to easily keep up with such growth well past the paltry 20% penetration mark. And as I understood it, this was precisely your argument. But in reality this hasn't happened - instead growth slows with penetration and seems to stop entirely at about 20%.
Straw man argument.
Exactly one country is anywhere near the 20% mark, so the question "have countries been able to increase rapidly past 20% wind?" is in reality nothing more than the question "what has Denmark chosen to do?"
Trying to extrapolate a global trend from a single data point - Denmark - is rather disengenuous.
More importantly, available evidence does not agree with your theory. Spain is getting 11% of their power from wind, well above Germany's 7%, yet growth in the last two years has been 50% in Spain but only 15% in Germany. That means, roughly speaking, that Spain grew from 7% to 11% while Germany grew from 6% to 7%.
Existing level of wind is clearly not the determining factor for growth rate.
What is disengenious is your characterisation of my arguments. I'm not extrapolating from one data point, I'm interpolating among 20 points.
YOUR use of one data point, on the other hand (Spain) supports my argument on a closer inspection. Spain's wind grew by 30% in 2007 and 11% in 2008.
I'm sorry that you do not see the obvious, but please state the evidence you'd need to admit that penetration is a determining factor in growth and that 20% is a barrier of sorts. As I said, more evidence will mount as time goes by.
My apologies if I've misinterpreted your argument; however, you keep fixating on 20% wind penetration, a figure only Denmark is anywhere near, so perhaps that's why you appeared to be over-relying on that country.
There does not seem to be nearly enough data to make the claims you're making, though. In particular, generation/growth/penetration data for the top ten countries is available from this table (UK can be estimated at 1.5% penetration based on 28% capacity factor):
Plotting this data gives an exponential with an enormous 95% confidence interval, predicting anything from 0% growth at 7% penetration to 20% growth at 20% penetration. The available data wouldn't support making the bold conclusion you're making even if it was relevant.
Which, of course, it's not.
You're making a claim about what is technically possible, but the data you're using has a very strong component of political choice in it. Wind installation still relies heavily on the particular regulatory and subsidy structure of the country in question; witness, for example, the US lurching between high growth and no growth depending on whether the tax credit was renewed for that year.
As it stands, we have little or no real-world data regarding the upper limit of what is technically possible.
I would need to see evidence that a number of major, modern countries or regions had actively attempted to exceed 20% wind penetration and had failed to do so due to technical problems rather than due to regulatory or political considerations.
For a question about technical feasibility, I would expect evidence regarding technical feasibility.
Well then, you could have used 90% confidence and my 20 points. That would probably have narrowed it down a little.
I do not argue about what is "technically possible" - rather about what is economically feasible. The cost of subsidies, grid enhancements, reserve and/or storage rises with penetration. Above 20%, you will also, increasingly, have to just let turbines stand still when wind is optimal and demand is low. (At 20% penetration you may get 70% of mean local demand at optimal winds. At 40% penetration, you may get 140% of mean local demand.) Also, of course, spot prices for electricity will fall towards zero when wind is good.
Above 20%, you will also, increasingly, have to just let turbines stand still when wind is optimal and demand is low.
Excess wind production can be used to produce ammonia, a fuel, which can also be used to create nitrogen fertilizer. So no turbines need stand still.
Also, of course, spot prices for electricity will fall towards zero when wind is good.
Not when ammonia can be produced.
Ok, I can agree about that. The price of hydrogen sets a floor for the price of electricity. (Whether the hydrogen is used to make ammonia or not.)
"Statistical significance" is not arbitrary; "I see a trend" is what's arbitrary.
What's the R^2 on that curve? Why an exponential rather than linear? How heavily does that one, outlying data point from Denmark skew the curve, and why is it reasonable to put so much emphasis on the current choices of a single, small country? Why is it reasonable to weight tiny Denmark as strongly as massive China or USA? How many of these data points are in the EU, a region geographically much smaller than either of those?
There's more to compelling evidence than throwing some numbers into Excel.
Standard deviation will always be high, as wind depend heavily on state's subsidies, which can change suddenly. Linear would not improve things much, and Denmark isn't that important in the interpolation. Sorry, we do not have perfect info on either side, but as I said, evidence will continue to mount.
Then it remains to be seen whether US can agree on upgrading the national grid to capitalize on size. Your ability to do that when it comes to other infrastructure, such as rail, doesn't really impress.
Jeppen,
You need to compare somewhat self contained regions for example Denmark( allowing for energy trading) Quebec, California, Texas , Iowa, all larger than most European countries. What we are seeing is that some of these regions are adding wind power very rapidly, for example Iowa 100% growth now about 20%, South Australia similar situation about 23% wind. Sure these regions trade power, but they did this before wind came along, you thesis that wind cannot grow past 20% is really based on Denmark a VERY small region and just next door to N Germany's wind also a small region and both competing for the same grid space.
If nuclear power was growing at 30-50% per year I would be saying go with nuclear, but also the same problems of providing peak power.
The US and Canada have what no other region has; very good widely dispersed wind, solar and hydro resources( 19 million sq km).
Western Europe covers a much smaller region and has a lot less hydro capacity.
Please feel free to make a similar graph with "somewhat self-contained regions". I only had the time and resources to do it with countries. I maintain that the 20% soft limit is not inferred from Denmark - if it were, I would say much less were possible since Denmark only use half of their wind themselves.
The Europeans are really trying to do multiple region super-grids also but the politics is difficult. US-Canada-Mexico would seem to be a cakewalk by comparison.
http://www.iset.uni-kassel.de/abt/w3-w/projekte/LowCostEuropElSup_revise...
http://www.claverton-energy.com/european-super-grid-2.html
The only way the nukers do peaking is with high temperature hydrogen gas synthesis(sulfur iodine cycle).
http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/review08/3_production_nuclear_energy...
In my view, a nuclear plant that makes hydrogen is like gas lights in an oil refinery.
Three Mile Island almost exploded due to hydrogen build up.
One interesting thought is to use CO2 cycle mini nuclear reactors to provide heat to cook oil out of shale in-situ or steam to direct inject into deep tar sands. The EROI would be phenomenal. I wonder why nobody is doing it?
Very speculative. Using nuclear as the reheat for CAES could increase instantaneous heat conversion from 44-48% (supercritical CO2 turbines) to ~80%, and the use of off-peak power for air compression increases the ratio between minimum and peak net output.
Not only would this require a long design and certification process, I doubt that the oil companies want to subsidize their competition's R&D.
jeppen,
Of the 460GW(average) power, already 9GWa is from wind, 30-35GWa is from hydro and >90GWa from nuclear. That leaves 326GWa to be replaced by wind.
How much extra pumped storage would be needed( above the 18GW presently in place) to replace that 326GW generated by coal and NG?
Probably more than can be built in next 30 years because NG provides 440GW peak power, and coal provides an additional 90GW peak in addition to 230GW base-load( ie would need 530 GW peak plus reserve for wind).
But why do we want to dismantle all NG and coal peak power capacity?.
We can keep what we have but only use at a very low capacity factor, to provide ALL of the wind back-up together with hydro. That way we prevent >90% of CO2 emissions, we have peak power on hand where it is needed, our NG and coal reserves last 500 years instead of 50-100years.
I prefer a wind & nuke (+ geothermal in West + solar at lower latitudes) for 90% non-GHG generation.
Costs begin to escalate when one moves from 90% non-GHG to 100%. And nuke is useful to keep transmission costs under control.
IMHO, over 15% (<22%) of total GWh will have to go through pumped storage to balance such a grid. Scheduling hydro, using geothermal between 20% & 100% load (perhaps hours to ramp up) and biomass will reduce need for pumped storage. Still massive build-out.
Alan
I also find it hard to move too quickly on weaning from fossil fuels.
And I also consider the NRDC to be a pretty middle of the road, big, DC-based environmental group. Hardly radical. More of a BAU-lite sort of environmentalism.
I definitely agree that the "REC trade" is almost entirely a scam. In what circumstances is a tree planted an addition to the trees that nature would heve nurtured itself? I unfortunately have no references immediately at hand, will get back.
eg. this website at Business24-7 http//www.business24-7.ae/articles/2009/1/pages/01123009-413f8b9481fc4f40990046fd145f8fb0.aspx indicates that Dubai and other new trading bourses in the ME expect to gain perhaps up to $5B in the near future selling REC for CO2 capture and sequestration from their electricity generation systems. The problem is that the method they plan to use for sequestration is pumping the CO2 into existing oil fields for use in Enhanced Oil Recovery, which is something they would have done regardless of the REC market. Therefore the $5B REC money transfered to the ME traders does RELATIVELY very little or nothing to reduce CO2 emissions, because the "sequestration" would have happened in any case, since supplying CO2 to EOR projects is a long-standing ongoing business which would happen with or without REC's. CO2 "captured" from N American ethanol plants and used in enhanced oil recovery projects is another example of FAKE REC generation.
Many other examples.
Instead of buying renewable energy credits, you could donate to projects at ourjoules.com. This is my website and I'm just trying to get it off the ground, so if anyone has any ideas please let me know!!
I think that there is widespread denial (even on TOD?) about the future of the auto companies. If we junk 5% of existing automobiles each year and the amount of available petroleum declines by 5%, how many new cars do we need? The truth is that we already have enough cars to burn all of the gasoline we are likely to get.
Even with herculean efforts to improve fuel economy it is difficult to imagine that any automobile built today will have fuel at the end of its life in 20 years.
Whatever the EPA does or does not regulate the automobile companies, and not just the American companies are in terminal decline.
I agree with you on that one. It is hard to see we need many new cars.
We desperately need to get a new higher mpg auto fleet. This is ABSOLUTELY necessary if a bit counterintuitive. Notice that Europe is getting almost 40 mpg today.
http://www.autoblog.com/2009/04/08/group-sues-obama-administration-over-...
The German stimulus pays people to buy new cars to replace cars older than 9 years.
http://tiny.cc/Oxbrk
The median age of US auto fleet is 9 years old.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/02/us_vehicle_flee.html
We desperately need to get a new higher mpg auto fleet. This is ABSOLUTELY necessary if a bit counterintuitive.
Aggressively higher MPG can be achieved via a Vehicle Efficiency Market.
Do the same thing, with far less "churning" by raising CAFE.
Alan
I agree, the whole article was just the right wing (FOX) using its tool (WSJ) to undermine the credibility of the Obama administration. CO2 emissions HAVE ALREADY been regulated through CAFE for a long time...
We desperately need to get a new higher mpg auto fleet.
So you can do waht? Continue BAU? How many trillions will that cost and who exactly is going to pay for it?
What is needed is a new way of thinking about transport and either eliminating unecessary trips (100% fuel savings), minimising the essential and shifting to differnt modes such as trains for freight and passenger services. Sustained high oil prices will bring that about anyway. If you change the behaviour of the masses it is possible to achieve lower overall oil consumption without the need for a massive capital investment (which nobody has anyway) to replace a perfectly good fleet.
The transition may need to be pretty slow, because all of the old cars which still have value, both to the owner, and to the lender. If there is any requirement that people must buy higher mileage cars, then the old cars suddenly lose trade in value, and people start defaulting on loans. Fleet operators have a problem as well.
These are all BAU arguments for not taking necessary mitigation. Older cars (especially those with poor fuel efficiency) are going to lose value regardless, so that is no reason to hold off making a transition. When SUVs lost tremendous amounts of value last year, did anyone think that keeping CAFE at its present level or only making minor tweaks would improve the situation? Should we risk deeper economic disaster later so that we give only the appearance of helping those who chose image-conscious gashogs? Let's look at some key Hirsch Report phrases;
I would argue that CAFE needs to be at least 80mpg by 2020, though I'm not sure the auto companies are going to make it that long under any circumstance.
The loss on any car will only be crystalised if you sell it, trade it in or default on a loan and have it repossessed. Otherwise it still has utility value as long as you are able to buy some fuel for it. Peak oil doesn't mean no oil and it just doesn't make sense for an individual or family, having made one poor decision to buy a gas hogging SUV, to ditch it and buy another car which will cost as much to buy as the fuel for the SUV. And it doesn't make any sense for a government to subsidise the same transaction either.
The best mitigations are to reduce dependence on car travel period and let natural attrition take care of the current fleet. I'm not sure what you are arguing for Will. High mileage cars are only good if you plan for BAU to continue. I'm afraid that happy motoring is over and no amount of tweaking with government regulations on CAFE standards or any other damn thing is going to bring it back. Your 80mpg target is a techno wish that mitigates nothing.
Exactly what kind of non-car lifestyle are you proposing?
Only 10% of US households have no car. Only 5% of US households use mass transit and only 3% walk to work.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ctpp/jtw/jtw1.htm
Most non-car people are extremely poor, mainly retired women living in densely populated urban areas. Is this the lifestyle you are advocating for everyone?
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/womens/chap24.pdf
What arguments will you use to persuade your fellow citizen to give up his car to live like that?
The fact is people love cars. You couldn't get most people to ride even at the point of a gun.
We need to vastly improve our mpg, period.
http://www.demographia.com/db-gerondeau.htm
I disagree about "loving cars".
The reality is people HATE cars, (and SUVs and 18 wheel trucks) those OTHER people's cars. They do not like to be near auto sewers (highways, congested roads, mass parking lots) unless encased in their own car; and even then it is not pleasant.
"Freedom of the Road" means me and MY car; not millions of other cars, SUVs and 18 wheelers competing with me.
Alan
Report: 98 Percent Of U.S. Commuters Favor Public Transportation For Others
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/report_98_percent_of_u_s_commuters
In French provincial cities and the Paris suburbs, the only ones who use public transport are those who don't have another option.<
BS !!
And the rich Swiss. 1,000 trains/week day into Zurich, no doubt filled with Swiss who cannot afford a car.
Alan
Alan,
Nice looking cars in the picture. But one has to wonder about the lack of parking for the diner in the lower right hand side of the photo?
Just kidding! Happy April 14th?
People dislike auto sewers (aka highways and heavily traveled roads). Note those that circle parking lots for many minutes so as to spend teh least amount of time in another type of auto sewer, a mass parking lot.
Magazine Street is 4+ miles of small retail, HORRIBLE to drive (25 mph speed limit and one is more likely to get to that speed on a bicycle than in a car), difficult to park and a wonderfully active retail merchants strip.
PS: I meet New Orleans only billionaire several times on the streetcar.
Best Hopes,
Alan
That's just it. I'm not proposing a non-car lifestyle, just a better use of the existing fleet rather than junking all that sunk capital to replace it with a new fleet which performs exactly the same function.IMO that is advocating BAU when we are clearly going to have to think differently about how we operate the economy.
The fuel efficiency of any vehicle is only of relevance to the amount of work it does for a given amount of fuel. Number of passenger miles or freight ton miles is a better measure than mpg. For example of the 92% that drive to work, how many empty seats do they cart along with them? There is much efficiency to be gained by utilising the existing fleet better before you try to replace 200 million cars.
Everyone will have different circumstances and make different decisions about their transport needs. In my own case it made more sense financially to own a very common 6 cylinder sedan and a bicycle than it did to buy a micro car that got better mileage. My family has changed its habits, uses PT more and rides the bikes where we can. As a result we have a high quality car in the garage that will last at least 15-20 years.
What arguments will you use to persuade your fellow citizen to give up his car to live like that?
How about $10/gallon for starters and move up from there. I won't have to do anything to persuade them, the market will do that. What does require a conscious effort is the education of city planners and developers in adjusting their thinking when building the infrastructure of the future. Infrastructure can have a lot longer lifetime than than the turnover of the car fleet so it is much more important to put our persuasive efforts there.
I agree ... if one is really into conservation , then stop building new cars and use the existing ones less often and at a lower speed etc.
as far as "Substitutes such as wind and solar are not very scalable quickly"
Just offer a $7 / watt rebate and it will take off
California proposed such an initiative recently for low income residences
And what about all the energy and other resources to build new cars, even if they have better fuel efficiency, when the oil age has such a short remaining life?
Plus the existing car fleet does not just go to the recycle bin. Many of them wind up in different hands only to remain on the road, so the energy system is multiply strained; once for the original car which remains on the road, once to build the new car, and once to run the new car.
I see no problem if people see it in their own best interest to replace their existing cars, but it seems that is not going to solve the oil problem; it does look good to voters to see politicians come to the rescue, however, even if it is all just pretend.
While I agree somewhat, society will still be better off if more of the new cars sold, are far more economical. New car sales are still greater than half of the previous BAU volume, and will probably continue at that rate for at least several more years. Once PO scarcity pricing hits, the higher the percentage of efficient vehicles in the fleet the better. We will still likely need lifestyle changes such as widespread car pooling using whatever higher efficiency vehicles are available. So while any PO mitigation possible via pushing high efficiency vehicles into the market will surely be too little too late, it is still the case that higher numbers of them will give better partial mitigation than fewer.
I'm not sure about this. At least as I see it, US oil glut gives the world economy and the oil prices a certain amount of cushion, as waste will be curbed when prices skyrocket. If you guys were as efficient as we Europeans are, I think PO could be a bigger problem.
In Germany, in order to qualify for the new car rebate (€2500,-) you must scrap your old car. So the old cars do not end up in different hands. They are recycled.
Perhaps we should be looking at approaches that have worked in Europe. A new car rebate program would help get rid of the problem with all of the old cars.
That approach has worked in the US, too. A very similar program was piloted in Los Angeles to improve air quality, with the oldest and most polluting cars being bought and scrapped. I've read about government programs for doing so, but apparently there was also a Unocal program doing or proposed to do the same.
Would be lots of vehicle bodies available for NEV conversions too. Plenty of steel to recycle into wind turbine towers and railway tracks.
But quite how has the scrappage rebate "worked" in Europe or America? It merely gives subsidy to more resource consumption (compared to merely being paid to scrap (and optionally promise not to own a replacement car).
What is (or rather was, as the whole system is now doomed anyway) needed is higher taxes on new things (in general) to properly pay for the externalities of resource depletion and subsequent waste generation. Steel available for recycling? It would be available anyway, especially if just left as a car for the remaining few years/months of the auto-ocracy.
Banning cars until proven safe would get rid of the problem of cars old and new!
The notion of an REC seems to have two possible settings
1) as an offset in a carbon cap scheme
2) towards a renewable energy quota.
These are quite different. For example replacing coal fired electricity with gas fired may lower the CO2 but it is not renewable. The observation that offset type RECs cost 10% or so of actual carbon cuts is an indicator as to what they are really worth. Generally speaking they are one or all of exaggerated, mistimed, irrelevant or would have been done anyway.
Notice that with tree planting offsets there is never a refund if the trees succumb to drought, fire or disease. The product being sold is the feelgood factor, not sustained measurable CO2 capture. That way green high fliers get to jetset all over the place guilt free because 'they offset'. The rest of us take the bus.
With renewable energy targets there is also an energy quality problem. For example 9000 kilowatt hours per year could be either 1 kilowatt continuous or 9000 kw for one hour and nothing the rest of the time. Without better specifications it could end up that wind and solar are built in the wrong places just to get the REC and other dirty or expensive energy forms have to carry the load much of the time.
link to the renewable energy credit story in post is broken
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_12049267
DP
WSJ says Iowa has replaced California as number two in wind electricity production which is news to me. Texas still leads and California is now third.
It is mentioned in passing as most of the article is spent picking on California environmentalists who they claim are holding back clean renewable energy.
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/04/13/wind-power-everythi...
The local Crystal Lake wind farm is slowly getting its Clipper turbine blades fixed and back up again. Some turbines with repaired/new blades are still not running.
"While all of these things would be good, from a point of view of reducing CO2, there is a question of whether they are really doable, in the short term."
True story showing the auto companies to be full of it ... in 1958 I bought a 1955 Morris Minor Convertable. Gas was 35 cents per gal and I got 35 miles per gal. At the time we had two children and everyone had a seat. We got along fine with it.
Let's see ... that car was made 54 years ago. I would hope there has been some milage improvment since then. It is really simple; just don't make 5L 4000 pound cars. The argument is the little cars are not safe but they would be if all the cars were little. It is the Chevy Tahoe or big Hummer on that same frame that is not safe for the rest of us.
Robert,
The water demands may well vary from place to place, being much higher than previously thought.
See
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090413102225.htm
Sorry, this comment belongs under Robert's latest post.
This is what happens when you've got the lunatics in charge of the nuthouse:
http://redgreenandblue.org/2009/04/10/so-sue-me-waxman-markey-might-make...
The next 2 years should be quite entertaining.
Yep, those lunatics at the Washington Times (which this entry was based on) are trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill. Good catch. Waxman Markey was intentionally vague to allow room for give and take.
A minor request - in the future when you plot such things, could you have each power source plotted individually using a semi-log scale? Some of the sources are at fairly low levels and really don't even show up on the plot. But what is more interesting are the rates of growth.
If you want to do this as a 2nd plot, that would be fine with me.
The reason I plotted the amounts together is because people tend to lose perspective of the total and how far we really have to move. Most of the news articles that are done relate to just one piece of the total, and how fast it is growing. No one puts the pieces together in perspective.
I'll keep your request in mind for another post, though.
Gail,
That's of great value to see how far we have to go to at least replace coal, up to date figures are probably more important( or estimates for last year). Look how nuclear ramped up in 1970's, a few years out-of -date figures in 1975 would give a very different picture. That's where we are with wind now.
Wind is following nuke growth curve fairly closely. Hopefully no wind TMI.
Alan