On Solar and Solyndra
This is great news for all energy users and the planet.
Solar has reached scale as a global industry, growing from its first gigawatt of annual installations in 2005 (enough to provide power for about 200,000 California homes) to over 28 gigawatts in 2011 (enough for almost 6 million homes), according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance projections. Cumulative installations will reach about 40 gigawatts by the end of 2011 -- power for 8 million homes.
Global solar power has grown an average of 68 percent each year over the last five years. This is a doubling literally every 1.3 years. So today's 40 gigawatts of capacity becomes, under the same growth rate, an astronomical 1.3 million gigawatts by 2030. Obviously, the recent rate of growth won't continue because, among other reasons, this is far more power than we need for the entire globe! But even if solar power's rate of growth drops in half to 35 percent over the next two decades, this produces a doubling every 2.3 years and we get 16,000 gigawatts (16 terawatts) by 2030 -- almost as much as the entire world will need by then.
Is this realistic? This rate of growth will surely slow, for a variety of reasons, but the interconnection queue data from an indicative microcosm of the global market, California, suggests that we will see very robust growth for years to come. California's interconnection queue has far more than 50 gigawatts of solar projects waiting for interconnection (studies take some time and then upgrades must be built so the interconnection process can take many years sometimes). Many of these projects won't be built, for various reasons, but even if 1/3 to ½ of them get built we will see a dramatic increase in solar power in our state.
What about cost? A large part of why solar growth has been so strong in recent years is because prices have been declining dramatically in recent years. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) issues a solar power market report on the US market each year. Their latest report, released this month, shows that behind-the-meter solar project prices dropped almost by half from 1998 to 2010. The first half of 2011 saw yet another 11% drop in averages in California, the biggest market in the US, from $6.4 per watt to $5.7 per watt.
Behind-the-meter solar is important but is dwarfed globally by utility-scale solar, and this emphasis on utility-scale solar will probably increase in coming years due to the dramatic price declines we've seen for solar. The public data for utility-scale solar is much less comprehensive but prices are far lower for this segment due to economies of scale. Utility-scale solar projects can be from one megawatt to many hundreds of megawatts, compared to a couple of kilowatts up to one or two megawatts for behind-the-meter projects. Average U.S. installed costs for utility-scale solar in 2010 were between $3.8 per watt and $4.4 per watt, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. LBNL data show slightly higher costs in its limited data set (figure 3). I have reliable anecdotal data that suggest pricing for new projects to be completed in 2012 will be below $3 per watt, reflecting panel prices as low as $1.15 per watt! Time will tell if these last figures are accurate but the established declining cost trends over the last ten years suggest they are.
What about grid parity? With all of these cost declines are we there yet? It depends. Grid parity depends, of course, on what grid is being considered. With federal tax benefits for solar (which apply also to nuclear, for those who think commercial solar gets a leg up), utility-scale solar projects may be at grid parity now in California. I write "may be" because we have public data from very few completed utility-scale projects in California, so we can't yet compare price forecasts to actual prices. Such data will be available in the coming year or so for a number of new projects.
Many utility-scale solar contracts have been approved by the California Public Utilities Commission at prices below grid parity (the "Market Price Referent"), when the federal tax benefits are included, but these projects haven't been built yet. Again, we'll have to wait and see if these contracts result in real projects.
The trend is very clear, however: we are, if not already there, well on our way to solar grid parity in California and other areas of the country that have high electricity rates. While tax benefits are a substantial factor in the viability of solar projects today, this will change quickly as prices diminish further. And this trend will expand geographically very quickly because solar production is ramping up so quickly around the world -- with the declining prices I've mentioned as the main benefit. My feeling is that by 2015-2020 solar projects in most western states, Hawaii and New England, will be at grid parity even without any subsidies.
The Solyndra debacle is unfortunate and I look forward to learning more about what went wrong, including whether there was any wrongdoing by Solyndra or the White House. But the Solyndra story is a small part of the global solar story, which is one of the few extremely encouraging trends in the U.S. and world today. Massive solar growth will grow domestic jobs, increase energy independence, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and, as we transition to electricity as a fuel for transportation, allow for the de-carbonization of our transportation sector also.
Comments
For further information, please see my blog post
http://www.jheversonconsulting.com/blog/2011/09/08/when-can-renewable-energy-subsidies-end/
Dr. Jeffrey Everson
If you want to shill your blog, you should at least take the time to add the link:
Everson blog
(assuming I got it right.....)
I strongly disagree they are more expensive, when externalities of oil (and even coal) are added in. Nuclear has its own issue w.r.t. public comfort and necessary economies of scale.
Oil is peaking or has peaked, and most reserves are held people largely hostile to Western interests. It really can't get much worse than that. The expense of weaning ourselves from fossil fuels is very high, but the alternative is even worse. Rome "outsourced" until it became a weakened shell and collapsed. Long term, a country as big as the U.S. can't outsource it's energy needs.
Here in Ontario some new home builders are already offering roof-top solar systems as an option when buying a new house. They still keep the grid connection to the house of course but when the day comes that in-home storage or a dual-generation in-home system like adding SOFCs become viable and practical, consumers who invest in rooftop solar today will be poised to unplug from the grid completely in the future.
Many farmers today have already invested in their own ground-based solar generation to power their own barn operations. Lighted highway signs with battery storage are slowly appearing everywhere. As electric vehicles appear in increasing numbers down the road, I can picture commercial and industrial businesses installing rooftop solar to give employees the option of recharging all day in the parking lot while they work.
Looking for a breakthrough in storage technology guys?
Check out today’s Product Development and Design news headlines at the link below. University of Singapore researchers have developed a new “energy-storage membrane” for super-capacitors - reported to have an order-of-magnitude lower cost of energy storage compared with typical liquid electrolytes used in normal super-caps, and can store 4 to 8 times the watt-hours of energy than Lithium batteries per dollar in cost.
here is your link
My, my, my, isn’t it wonderful what R&D can do when serious amounts of money is poured into it around the world. Like they say, more heads employed are better than one in solving tough problems.
I feel sorry for the nuclear industry in North American markets. Such talented engineering people and sophisticated technology behind large nuclear reactors are likely going to be faced with refurbishment jobs only of existing aging plants for near-term and mid-term future business. I doubt we'll see many if any new large central plants added to the existing fleet in North America before the long-term future in the face of all the emerging solar today, unless of course they somehow magically reduce their up-front capital costs and construction times, AND pacify the public w.r.t. comfort as Jim says.
Using the 20% solar capacity factor for the southwest desert. Solar would become more attractive than nat gas when gas moves above $12/mmbtu. Twelve dollar gas would be close to parity with solar unless you consider that the nat gas generation is dispatchable on an as needed basis and then ignore the cost of the money for investing another $2.40 per now compared spending the money on fuel over the next two decades.
I do not think there is a area in the US that when the 20% capacity factor is figured in that solar is at parity with $4.00 nat gas. Even if storage were free and available it takes 3 to 4 times the panel area to equal a nat gas plant with the same rating. Multiplying $3.80 by 3 yields $11.4/watt and is a more realistic comparison. Solar looks more comparable to Nuclear than Combined Cycle Natural Gas. SOCO says they can build a 1000 MW nuc for 11.4 billion and I believe them.
I find the skewing of information to support an agenda irritating but it appears to be the American way. One can wear a green coat if they want but adjusting or misrepresenting the numbers to fits one’s own interest seems ethically questionable. When it was discovered that Eron had cooked its books everyone was shocked but I guess it is ok for the solar folks.
I agree with Malcolm on NG - it will probably be a great transition fuel to get us off oil for use in cars as electric vehicles gradually take over, and potentially for small micro generation if SOFCs become practical to compliment residential solar rooftop systems.
The price for NG fuel has a history of volatility, and we're not even at peak NG like we are with oil. Investors usually prefer price stability and a long-term stable future supply, which solar fuel has in spades for instance. Furthermore, even if NG supply is vastly expanded with the emerging shale gas industry, there is strong opposition steadily growing from evidence of the environmental damage it leaves behind.
If you become dependent upon the weather to that extent please do expect the grid to shutdown or suffer from diminished availability on bad weather days - you know the very time when you really need it.
To expect solar electric to be anything but a fairweather contributor to the grid is bordering on stupidity in this climate and it really does not matter whether it is economic - only that it works.
To make such expensive investments that work only 20% of the time is foolish.
Bob, I would add a little bit of information to the business about gas plants in Ontario. There has been a massive expansion of gas plants in Ontario over the last 8 years or so. Take a look at the IESO website for a listing of them. Yes the one planned for Oakville was cancelled however the Halton Hills plant just up the road from there is operating extremely well and was built on time and on budget. Also it must be mentioned that there is a very large 500kV line being constructed as we speak to carry nuclear power from the Bruce site down to the Oakville area which is the REAL reason why Oakville could be canned. The grid to the west of Toronto needed beefing up due to the Ontario Governments planned closure of the coal burning plant at Nanticoke on Lake Erie. The additional 1500MW from the refurbished nuclear Units at Bruce will assist in stabilizing and reinforcing the grid in this area.
In order to replace a single nuclear unit thousands of acres of land would need to be covered in solar panels and (as noted above) in winter they just do not work - and that to anyone with an ounce of common sense should be the end of the debate.
Nuclear of course cannot and will not be replaced any time soon in Ontario or anywhere else in the world for that matter. The only viable alternative is natural gas or coal.
Malcolm
Solar could never “replace” a nuclear plant, I totally agree. The existing nuclear fleet will be kept running by refurbishing them over time, but sadly no new ones are likely to be added to the fleet for quite some time in North America. Instead, solar plants and more widespread distributed consumer roof-top systems will grow to help expand the grid's total capacity, and so too will wind farms, particularly in Ontario if the current deal with Samsung stays in place. Having said this, I don't envy the grid system operators if they don't build back-up generation for when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow.
In Ontario for backup generation, I think our government is counting on more capacity to come on line at the Bruce nuclear plant, and at Niagara Falls in light of the new water tunnel just built. I grant you there has been several more NG plants built in Ontario in recent years, but these and any new ones are being located more so in rural areas because city dwellers are filled with massive numbers of NIMBYs with lots of political influence.
Now, if there are significant breakthroughs in storage over time, then all that back-up generation won’t be needed as much to support solar and wind farms, even the ones that are already in place since storage could be added to them later. This has a very good chance of happening over the next ten years with the amount of storage R&D going on all over the world, and it’s growing.
It promises to be a fascinating future for the electric grid Malcolm. Personally I can hardly wait myself to see the day when you can add a dual generation system to your house with sufficient storage to unplug from the grid permanently. Virtually everyone I talk to has a keen personal interest in exploring this. Who would have thought that there is so much loathing of our utility companies out there. So in conclusion, the utility industry better get ready for big challenges to keep all their customers if technology advances a lot as it often historically has.
Cheers!
Bob
The first element is pretty obvious. Governments have borrowed themselves into a perilous state and will have to jettison superfluous and non-essential spending of all sorts. That includes subsidies for renewable energy.
The second element is perhaps more nuanced but is related to: (1) the public become more convinced the entire "global warming" theatrics are vastly over hyped; (2) ever increasing realization by the public that renewable energy has no meaningful impact on CO2 emissions; (3) ever increasing irritation with massive overspending by governments. These pieces will and are playing off each other and the net result is that folks are becoming ever more incensed. That leads to emotionally driven overreaction, with renewable energy being hammered more than it probably should be.
Please note, I do not believe renewable energy is going to disappear. However, events will cause it to nearly collapse, with the survivors being those who can deliver a product comparable in price to competing forms of electrical generation. That is exactly as it should be.
In a broader historical sense, the popping of the renewable bubble is just one of many "boom-and-bust" cycles that characterized the energy business.
PS Jerry Watson's analysis of solar cost is pretty much spot on. My firm's financial Pro Forma show similar results relative to the break-even price of natural gas. The long term duration of today's low-cost natural gas is clearly uncertain, but I think low-cost natural gas in the US will be around for many years. Also, one should note that if the cost of natural gas does rise significantly in the future, then solar can be installed at that time (not now), as installation is relatively quick, with the future panels being nothing more than commodities. Bottom line, it is just plain dumb to install solar in the US, as we have ample supplies of low-cost natural gas.
Let's use NREL's levelized cost of energy calculator, which you can access and use to confirm my numbers.
http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/tech_lcoe.html
At $3/watt (the figure I cited for today's prices approaching grid parity, not the $3.80 figure you used, which is from 2010), 25% capacity factor (with single-axis tracking, which adds about 25% to the capacity factor), 20 year facility life, and ignoring O&M cots for both solar and natural gas, 9.5 c/kWh wholesale natural gas power price, and 3% utility rate escalation due to other factors, solar can produce power for 11.9 c/kWh versus 12.4 cents, wholesale to wholesale.
The 9.5 c/kWh figure is from the 2011 Market Price Referent, which is going to be 15% below the currently active 2009 MPR.
My analysis assumes that the solar project is interconnected to the distribution grid rather than the transmission grid, saving significant costs to ratepayers because it's far more expensive to interconnect to the transmission grid. Moreover, distribution-interconnected solar has been found in a very recent analysis by E3 for the CA PUC to avoid distribution grid, transmission grid and line losses equivalent to 4-8 c/kWh, depending on location.
And of course solar is a reliable peak power provider, which benefit is not captured in the above comparison with a baseload natural gas power plant.
So the bottomline is that solar is arguably at grid parity today with baseload power sources and is already far cheaper than fossil fuel peak power resources.
As for integrating into the grid, many studies around the country have found that variable renewables like wind and solar can be integated up to 20% or more of the grid for a 10% or lower premium on top of the cost of power. This is the case for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that all grids now require a planning reserve margin to be maintained, as well as things like geographic dispersion and locating closer to load.
While I am familiar with the NREL's tool, I believe your analysis is overly optimistic. The actual incidence of solar energy over the year is not linear; using a simple average for “capacity” is not accurate. Given the typical desert location of solar fields, the transmission system must be used. Also, the time-varying seasonal nature of the wholesale price of power needs to be considered in any profitability analysis. Further, all subsides associated with solar should be scrubbed out so as to allow a good apples-to-apples comparison. With the "all-in" costs determined, then a comparison can be made to a simple-cycle peaking gas turbine using $4/mmBTU, including recognizing that the gas turbine can supply power at any and all parts of the peak demand period. The preceding is a relatively straightforward exercise and allows for an unvarnished honest investment comparison.
I would be hesitant to use the NREL tool, as it is not necessarily apparent what is actually inside the model. Drawing conclusions from such models can be misleading and risky; better to figure it out yourself and be certain. Personally, I do not believe anything the California PUC spews out because left-wing politics drive the agenda, not hard-nosed financials.
Solar does indeed avoid some or all of the line losses DEPENDING ON LOCATION as Tam pointed out. For example solar avoids them entirely for all practical purposes in rooftop systems powering the owners' own house, and similarly avoids a lot of it feeding into the local urban grid to power his nearby neighbors.
I agree with you the CA PUC's agenda is (likely) very much politically driven, but so what else is new about government influence over our electricity system. Right now there is a big political push here in Ontario also to get investors to buy into solar. Even if their advertised line-loss cost savings figures are exaggerated or inaccurate, it helps to sell it to new investors. It’s known as “salesman’s puffery” in other businesses. The actual savings numbers being talked about won't matter over time because the continued buy-in and adoption of solar will drive its capital costs lower, which is precisely what our politicians want to happen.
http://www.renewablesbiz.com/article/11/10/looking-solyndra-ii#comment-8007
Readers may be interested in
Enabling Large-scale Distributed Systems: SCADA as an Example
https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=registration.jsp&eventid=339266&sessionid=1&key=544BB56489C418AFB466DC88F2C6A5E9&partnerref=osm&sourcepage=register
Solyndra was about crony capitalism as is utility-scale solar. Billions of dollars in taxpayer stimulus loan guarantees given out by Obamabushca for industrial scale solar hot water heaters [solar-thermal] and utility scale PV purportedly to be built in the middle of no where on sacred Native American lands located in the Southern California desert are all just like Solyndra the wrong technology in the wrong location at the wrong time, because that's their plan to swindle us all. It's not about what you know but who you blow instead. I'm for breaking up these large monopoly utility holding companies and giving power back to the people instead. The way I give the power back is one roof at a time, starting with mine.
A nuclear plant might very well run at rated output for a couple years, that is, capacity factor of 100% until a planned shutdown.
It looks to me that as long as we have only a small percentage of solar supply its practical to have enough base load capacity to take up the slack from solar outages, but I see a large problem as solar generation increases. How much non-backed-up solar can we have without risk of cascading outages at peaking conditions?
As for the CPUC and its consultants' analyses being politically driven, check out E3's latest analysis yourself and tell me where you think they go wrong in calculating the locational benefits of commercial-scale distributed generation (including solar, wind and baseload renewables):
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCYQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cpuc.ca.gov%2FNR%2Frdonlyres%2F90AA83C6-1AAC-4D7E-966E-299436C4A6BD%2F0%2FE3FITAvoidedCosts9262011.pdf&rct=j&q=cpuc%20workshop%20sb%2032&ei=RvaLTvKpMqyqsAKF5vS7BA&usg=AFQjCNHXrGByBF-L_Vo1SWPiXjpCmYvQAw&sig2=8tm_VsjqYNOscDlAL09Sfw&cad=rja
You'll find it's rather rigorous, to say the least.
The bottomline is that we have now a very promising confluence of dramatic price reductions for solar and other renewables, increasing public awareness, and an increased awareness at the policy maker level of the significant benefits of wholesale distributed generation. This is the market I've long advocated for as being the most promising. Small-scale residential, etc., will always be far more expensive and not very scaleable. Mega-scale solar and wind can do a lot but they often have substantial impacts that may be avoided with minimal costs by looking to medium-scale ("community scale") DG, also known as "wholesale DG," which are generally defined as 20 MW and below, generally connected to the distribution grid rather than the transmission grid. This is the sweet spot that many jurisdictions are now starting to emphasize for the various reasons I've listed here.
If you're interested in learning more, see my many earlier columns here and at www.renewableenergyworld.com or see the Clean Coalition's website (one of my clients) at www.clean-coalition.org.
1)As solar equipment costs continue to come down, they come down for all types of installations, small or medium or large.
2)A residential site can power the owner's own house (when active) effectively at a zero energy billing rate for the owner.
3)A residential site usually can sell excess capacity back into the grid, which helps to pay over time for their higher up-front capital costs.
4)In large densely populated urban areas there are fewer sites available for the medium-scale utility-owned sites, but there are lots of residential rooftops available.
5)There will be increasing numbers of consumers wanting to unplug from the grid permanently when dual small-scale generation systems that include solar and storage systems become practical for residential
"Average" is ok as long as it is derived from the time varying curves that model solar output (really nothing more than a curve fit, and then calculate the "average" function for the curve - easy Excel spreadsheet exercise).
The general approach I'm suggesting is to see how close the options are to each, in terms of fundamental financials. If solar is within (or better than), the alternatives, then the investment may really have merit.
The problem I have with most information from government entities is that politically driven bias is often overtly (or covertly) introduced and such actions can badly skew subsequent conclusions. The CPUC is unquestionably introducing bias. Simple calculations serve as a sanity check.
While the cost of solar is clearly gong down, so is the cost of the primary competitor - simple-cycle and combined-cycle power plants using natural gas. With fuel for such plants roughly 70% of costs, the impact of $4/mmBTU fuel is very dramatic. The machine's efficiencies (as well as capital cost) also continue to get ever better. The machines can also supply power whenever needed. Will this huge advantage exist long-term? Hard to say, but in the near and mid term very likely. Does solar make sense now? Depends are where you put it. Will solar make more sense in the future? Yes, as long as costs continue downward, with more-and-more locations becoming economically viable.
Simply beating the competition on price always works.
9.29.11 I'm sure that there are places where solar fits in, and fits in well. The same is true with wind. But not to the extent that certain influential people think. Every intelligent person who deals with this issue understands that solar, wind, and all the rest favored by Angela and her flunkies cannot replace nuclear."--------
They seem to be doing quite well without your approval. Last I heard, about 1/3 is shut down now, and the rest are scheduled to be shut down by 2020, possibly by 2017.
------" Dr. Jeffrey Everson
9.29.11 Renewable energy technologies, such as wind and solar, are expensive compared to their fossil fuel counterparts, and are therefore supported out of necessity by numerous federal, state and local incentives."---------
To my knowledge, no one in history has ever had to fight a war to insure and protect the continued supply of wind or sunlight. The last three wars the US has become involved in have oil as a root cause. Wars are incredibly expensive. Not only in money, but in the lives and health of our military personnel as well.
Environmental damage is expensive too. $20 billion just for a down payment to cover environmental damage in the Gulf of Mexico on just one incident. I've never heard of a turtle or dolphin that died as a result of a sunlight spill that resulted from using solar energy.
As for the long-term price of natural gas I'll bet you $4 gas doesn't last that long and that we'll see over $10 as soon as the global economy starts to recover in a serious way.
http://eetd.lbl.gov/ea/emp/reports/lbnl-3716e-ppt.pdf.
And here's another good study on the variability of solar:
http://eetd.lbl.gov/ea/emp/reports/lbnl-2855e.pdf
10.5.11 Tam Hunt: On the contrary, I believe you completely missed my points. Actually I think you mucked up an issue that deserves much more study. While I don’t think 2% solar capacity would cause problems:. How about 10%, 20 %? Without a very great breakthrough in energy storage which might not ever come how high can this percentage be? Remember about 130 years of efforts to improve on the lead –acid battery have been disappointing if not failures. Your 2012 car will come with a lead-acid battery. We know how to convert sunlight to electricity – we don’t know how to store electricity."--------
Lead/acid batteries work just fine for me, and they have worked just fine for 170 years. The problem is, not trying to get better batteries---the problem is,trying to fit batteries into a role that batteries are not suited for. If batteries don't work, then use something else.
Gemasol has commenced operation of a 20Mw CSP(concentrating solar plant) in Spain that uses molten salt to store thermal energy which is used to generate steam and produce electricity. The plant has a 15 hour storage capacity and generates electricity 24/7 using only solar energy. The storage system is modular and additional storage units can be added later if need be. A 50Mw plant is also under construction and nearing completion. The same storage system can be used with wind to store energy from peak output periods and use during lower output periods without interruption.
Denmark is a coastal plain, not much resource for hydro electric power. Denmark sells power to Sweden and Norway where mountainous terrain provide ample hydro electric head and there are numerous dams and generators. Off peak power output that is not needed in Denmark is sold to Sweden and Norway---and pumped storage diverts flow back upstream into reservoirs where it is then reused increasing the generating capacity of smaller installations dramatically.
Sweden and Norway sell the power back to Denmark when needed. Denmark adds wind generation capacity without the need or expense of storage---Sweden and Norway use their storage capacity to make much more efficient use of smaller facilities to generate as much or more power than much larger projects at lower cost.
Make use of what you have and don't worry about what you don't have. If you can't get in the front door because it is locked----go around and check the back door instead of beating your head on the front door.
When I mentioned the lead/acid battery I was NOT talking about batteries – I WAS talking about the intractability of the problem of storing energy. And I was NOT talking about batteries being the only avenue to storage. I have never complained about the Lead/acid battery. The response spins me as sorta pigheaded or a Luddite.
Denmark, Sweden and Norway are very lucky. Blessed with the Gulf Stream, great hydro, and wind potential and small homogeneous populations. They don’t have to do much dirty work, rather buy stuff from those who do the mining, coking, etc. (“Dirty” in one sense. Curiously some years ago I saw that one of Denmark’s principle exports was pornography. I’m not picking on the Danes – my maternal grandparents were Danes.)
Denmark, Sweden and Norway together do not have the population of Mexico City. Let’s hear it, “If the Scandinavians can do it so can the people of Mexico City.” How many agree? There are literally dozens of cities in China with large populations that I must admit I have not even heard of! Yet we hear of Oslo, Copenhagen and Stockholm as if they were important.
When the Danes need electricity from Germany (at premium prices) they don’t balk at using electricity generated 45% from coal.
I have just looked up the percentages of world electricity generated by source. Coal 41%, gas 21%, hydro 16 %, nuclear 13%, oil 5%,” other” 3%. As world population is still growing at about 1.3 %, and there is a backlog of billions of people who do not have electric service today, the demand for electricity far exceeds the “other” category for as far as the eye can see. Electric service? - Hell, we can’t even supply food and good water for today’s 7 billion people. Next year a hundred million more.
Take a look at what others have successfully done and are capable of doing in America's high-tech industries, like for instance the late Steve Jobs and his company Apple. My message here is evident in my comments below that I posted on another website today in memory of him - solar and electricity storage could use a guy like Steve Jobs. His legacy is also a good lesson on the power of mass marketing and how it can shape technology and lower its costs.......
Icon of America High-Tech
It is a tragedy Steve has been cruelly taken from life during the prime of his career and of Apple's history. Steve was the ideal design engineer and product architect who intuitively knew how to marry technology design with consumer marketing and social trends, and sell it all at an affordable price. He was an expert on how to take existing technologies and perfect them in his products that were hit after hit in the marketplace, with each new one building on the design and marketing hooks from the previous one, very much like the Japanese did with their automobiles in the 80s and 90s. Steve was perhaps the model icon of America's high-technology industry who made the dream of every entrepreneur in that industry come true. Everyone in America's high-tech industry should take a long hard look at what he accomplished and hopefully learn from him. His legacy will live on for generations to come. Rest in peace Steve and condolences to his family and close friends.
Am puzzled why your analysis is based on a combined-cycle plant, which is normally used for intermediate load generation. The simple cycle gas turbine is a more accurate comparison, as it provides "peaking" power just like solar.
However, if the comparison is with a new heavy frame combined-cycle plant, then today's “all-in” price for power would be around $55/MWh (~60% capacity factor, $4/mmBTU gas). My work suggests solar is more like 3 or 4 times that price.
The cost of power from the simple-cycle machine would be much higher (as a peaker, the capacity factor would be something less than 20%). Best rough guess is the simple-cycle machine would deliver power at around $125/MWh. However, the simple-cycle machines are becoming ever more efficient with installed $/MW prices dropping due to economies of scale of the ever large aero-derivative designs.
As to the longer-range price of natural gas, based on financial future’s markets the price of natural gas is expected to be low for the next several years. I would not be overly concerned with the longer range price of natural gas prices as I believe technology and the markets can adequately deal with future perturbations in price here in the US. Other places not as blessed with fuel resources we have are another matter, however.
In closing, comparing installed costs of various types of plants is not proper as the hours of operation need to be considered as well.
Very good point Michael, at least it is today. The smart engineers who work on advances in state-of-the-art NG plant design also deserve recognition here. It's great to hear they continue to increase efficiencies and lower their costs through greater numbers of units sold, which will only help NG stay competitive even if NG prices spike unexpectedly in the distant future.
More economical large-scale storage, if it ever comes to fruition, however could diminish the importance of hours of operation. Another factor not considered in any of the above analyses is the environmental costs of operating any given type of plant. This is a prominent consideration today, and is likely to continue to grow in importance over time.
For example, here in Ontario our provincial government decided several years ago to shutter all of Ontario's coal plants entirely by 2014 or so because of their environmental footprint and associated health costs to people. The latter they estimated cost our publicly funded health-care system hundreds of millions of dollars each year from substantial numbers of respiratory illnesses and many premature deaths due to coal plant air pollution. Their cost estimates didn't even consider any effects of CO2 on global climate change back then either.
I will admit solar equipment manufacturing is not squeaky clean or green either, but once built their operating environmental footprint is far smaller than other types of plants.
It is already being done now.
And natural gas is methane. Methane is both a fossil fuel, and a biofuel.
We can make it easily and cheaply from any type of biomass at all, including sewage and landfills. The more people you have, the more sewage and landfills you have. And the final product of methane production is compost----the starting point for producing more food, energy and raw materials.
The problem here is that we have people here who persist in thinking in 18th and 19th centuries. That resources are something you either plunder or hoard. You are thinking with a caveman hunter/gatherer philosophy. Take everything and return nothing. It is plain to see that this way of doing things is doomed. Hunt the valley till the mammoths are gone, then move on to the next valley. Pump oil, gas or dig coal and burn it until the oil, gas and coal are gone, then move on to the next valley. Sooner or later, you run out of valleys. That is what is happening now with oil. We are running out of valleys. The timeline is a little different----but given enough time, that will happen with all resources.
21st century thought has to be circular. Use your resources, but protect your resources, because you use them over and over in an eternal moebius strip of one process providing the raw materials for the next process.
Bigger is not always better.
http://www.jheversonconsulting.com/blog/2011/09/01/national-perspective-on-anemic-solar-energy-growth/
Dr. Jeffrey Everson
www.jheversonconsullting.com
I think you need embrace a more practical viewpoint. We need to wisely use our resources and not go to extremes. That also means recognizing that "zero" impacts on the environment and health are simply not possible while spending massive amounts of money to achieve insignificant gains is unwise. Further, the extreme positions of large swaths of the “green” movement actually help impoverish the common man as reasonably priced energy is made unavailable.
I appreciate your sentiment, but unfortunately the human animal is not so rational to simply make wise choices all the time. For some reason, it's particularly true of energy. Given our current situation (yes, including the threat of climate change) it's not wise to steer away from nuclear power. But we are. It's not wise to not have a nuclear waste disposal plant. But we still don't have one. It's not wise to remain dependent on foreign oil, but we still are. It's probably not wise to waste the amount of precious oil that we do on personal transportation. But that's what we want to do.
So, given that we've been making some unwise decisions about energy quite a bit lately, the notion of a panel I can put on my own roof, and with a few electronic gizmos (inverters) allow it to perhaps run my fridge or some lights; that doesn't seem so bad to me. But that's somewhat beside the point; grid electricity will remain pretty cheap for awhile, as long as the economy is as depressed as it is right now. Overall demand is down.
Our singular unwise decision has been to avoid the reality of peak oil. In theory, PHEVs could mitigate that, but a more practical solution would be to use more NG in our vehicles. But we didn't want to do that, either. Remember ethanol? That was touted by lots of corporate folks (not just the greens) so you can accuse the green movement of having a monopoly on stupidity. Plenty of that to go around.
"can accuse" should've been CAN'T ACCUSE
As for new nuclear power plants, they're way too expensive to build in the US and we have much lower-cost options available in any case. The older "nukes" that have paid off their debt, however, provide very low-cost energy.
As for oil, there are several ways to break-up OPEC, including: (1) drill and use our own resources; get more oil from Canada (build pipelines); get rid of the EPA's dopey boutique fuel requirements (only one "regular" fuel used); use more hybrid vehicles; increase the efficiency of our vehicle fleet (as driven by the marketplace, as opposed to government edicts); zero out all tariffs on importing ethanol from off-shore. A common thread that thwarts these common sense approaches is the federal bureaucracy and their allies, the Democratic Party. That is where stupidity lies; the problem is not the “average man” who has remarkably high common sense.
10.7.11 Fred Linn, I think you need embrace a more practical viewpoint. We need to wisely use our resources and not go to extremes. That also means recognizing that "zero" impacts on the environment and health are simply not possible while spending massive amounts of money to achieve insignificant gains is unwise. Further, the extreme positions of large swaths of the “green” movement actually help impoverish the common man as reasonably priced energy is made unavailable."-------
Natural gas is the least expensive form of consumer available energy we have. It is also the cleanest and least environmentally destructive. It is also more abundant than coal and petroleum put together. Producing the same amount of energy with fossil natural gas cuts CO2 emissions 56% compared to the same amount of energy from coal, and 36% compared to petroleum. We can do anything that needs to be done with natural gas, including drive our vehicles. We even have vehicles available that can use multiple fuel sources, in manufacture, on sale and in use by consumers on the road now.
And, natural gas is methane, CH4,it is both a fossil fuel AND a biofuel. We can produce it low tech, cheaply and easily by anaerobic digestion from any type of biomass at all, including sewage and landfills. We've been doing it for centuries. And biomethane, mixed with fossil methane in as little as 6% proportion produces atmospheric warming neutral emissions. Anything greater than a 6% mixture has a reversing effect on atmospheric warming. This is the only means we have to do this.
Solar thermal heat is low tech, easy and inexpensive to capture, store and use. Even stone age societies made use of solar thermal heat. It has been in use since before the invention of writing. The same is true of wind power. Solar thermal energy can even provide air conditioning.
And we don't have to fight any wars or destroy the environment to get biofuels, solar or wind energy.
You want low taxes---stop fighting wars over petroleum. Wars are incredibly expensive. And the last three wars the US has become involved in have been over oil.
You want low consumer prices and full employment? Get rid of petroleum and get rid of the 1/2 to 3/4 trillion $$$ per year trade deficit it creates.
You want to get rid of EPA regulation and enforcement? Get rid of coal and petroleum and the pollution they cause----and there will be no need for EPA regulation. You don't need to regulate pollution if the pollution is not being created in the first place.
-----" That is where stupidity lies; the problem is not the “average man” who has remarkably high common sense."-------
Don't break your arm trying to pat yourself on the back. I don't believe you'd know wise use of resources if they bit you on the butt.
So, is it going to impoverish the common man if I were to tell you that we can be driving our vehicles for free using solar energy? No batteries required. It can be done with technology we have right now, in common use, and have had for a century.
But Listen, don't tell them about Sweden importing electricity from Denmark. That is a deep, dark secret - so secret that I dont know anything about it. Of course if I were told that this is true by every clergyman and economist between the North Pole and the Capetown Navy Yard I still wouldn't believe it, although it may be true.
Does anybody in this forum want to know in what country you can find the cheapest electric power. Well, the answer is Sweden if the export of electricity was forbidden. You see, in my new textbook I claim that energy should be regarded as a public good - like streetlights and police protection. This idea was also advanced in the book 'Security of Energy Supply in Europe: Natural gas, Nuclear and Hydrogen'. If all the electricity generated in Sweden stayed in Sweden, the utility executives who have become rich selling this country out could become even richer, and the prosperity of everybody else - on average - would increase.
Then why not forbit the export of electricity?. The Russians and the Chinese are almost certainly going to do this if they feel that it makes economic sense, because they don't want to be called stupid. Having a magnificent comparative advantage like intrinsically inespensive electricity, and giving it away to satisfy geniuses like Fred Linn makes a guy wonder what surprises will appear further down the line.
Siemens abandons the nuclear business to focus on renewables
http://gotpowered.com/2011/siemens-abandons-the-nuclear-business-to-focus-on-renewables/
--------------" Siemens today manufactures wind turbines and equipment for solar thermal energy. Renewables are the future, Siemens knows that.
The chairman of Siemens, Peter Löscher, announced in a statement to the weekly Der Spiegel total abandonment of nuclear energy business from its group. “That chapter is closed to us,” said Löscher, whose company has been involved for decades in building nuclear power plants around the world."--------------
The genius has other surprises coming down the line for you as well.
Like getting rid of centralized power generation and power transmission grids entirely. Large scale production production and transmission will no longer be needed and the same energy can be generated at point of use at about 2-3X the thermal efficiency of the current system.
Wind and solar energy plants that will be generating 24/7, storing energy during peak production for distribution during off peak periods.
It is all being done right now. In use in commercial, operating facilities.
As for current solar capacity versus future demand growth, my first chart shows the average 68% annual growth rate and the 1.3 year doubling time this rate of growth produces. Isn't it clear, as I discuss, that if solar continues to grow at even half this rate we'll have more solar power than we use very soon? Exponential growth is ... exponential.
As for levelized costs more generally, the CA Energy Commission puts out a good report every couple of years on this topic. Their most recent report is here:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CCsQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.energy.ca.gov%2F2009publications%2FCEC-200-2009-017%2FCEC-200-2009-017-SF.PDF&rct=j&q=central%20station%20costs%20energy%20commission%202010%20update&ei=NrmQTs2IDtLSiAKUx-HMCA&usg=AFQjCNFmFtAxYP46l9Md4d9nYrI7yXMp5A&sig2=9zbtA3_1MNX691RISWWJcw&cad=rja
Their figures are quite a bit higher than the new MPR: about 12 c/kWh for a new CCGT and 80 c/kWh for a peaker (largely due to the very low capacity factor of NG peakers in CA).
I addressed this point in my original analysis, however, stating that my analysis did not fully consider the peak power benefits of solar. It's a bit more complex, however, in CA, than this because of the "time of delivery" adjustment that power producers receive for wholesale power. This is supposed to represent the time value of power, including peak. But it arguably isn't fair b/c of the large disparity between costs of power from CCGT vs. peaker plants. And that's a longer discussion.
Siemens is NOT going out of the nuclear business. I wont even try to explain it because you and certain others wouldn't understand the explanation. By the way Tam, having more solar than we can use is not quite right: I think that you mean solar production capacity, because only a fool would try to make something important out of solar and wind in Sweden.
And Michael, nuclear is NOT too expensive to build in the US or anywhere else.
What is the issue here. The issue is making the right kind of calculation, and there are many people in this forum who can make that calculation. I'm not going to make it unless I'm paid to however. No sir and no mam.
I note that Tam has studiously avoided answering my post because his calculations only work in climates like Southern California and therefore are not applicable to most populated locations in the world. Of course there is a case for solar in climates where it is sunny for prolonged periods. The same is quite obviously not true for large areas of the Northern US where significant populations live and is ridiculously inappropriate for climates like Canada.
Solar is (of course) touted as the great Carbon Dioxide savior however while indeed the "fuel" may be carbon dioxide free the manufacturing process to produce the materials need to make them most certainly is not.
Simple calculations show that thousands of square miles of land would need to be covered in solar panels to replace even a small fraction of the base load capacity provided by nuclear. But there is little point in stating the obvious flaws in the deployment of this technology. As Fred notes above Fools will be Fooled so learn the hard way.
Nuclear power plants will be there to keep the lights on....whether the sun shines or it does not.
Malcolm
The latest number I can find tonight is that 0.06 % of the world’s actual generation (not to be confused with capacity) is from solar. At this range increasing doubling capacity doesn’t amount to much, it’s even small compared to one year’s increase in demand.
Tonight I also dug out my slide rule and my Keenan and Keys and made a simple but quite rigorous calculation assuming we would store sensible solar thermal energy during the day to keep generating electricity during 24 hours per day. I didn’t know what conditions so I so I chose storing liquid water at 544.37 F which requires 1000 psia at saturation conditions. And I chose a turbine operating at 600 psia. (liquid water has a high specific heat, 1 BTU/ degree F per pound, or 1 calorie per degree C per gram) and a very high latent heat of vaporization.)
A pound of saturated water at 1000 psia (544.37 F) expanded to 600 psia (486.21 F) would go to 0.09677 pounds of steam and 0.90323 pounds of water. The small steam flow would go to the turbine and the large water stream (together with the condensate from the turbine exhaust condenser) would go to get reheated by the sun, likely the next day.
But wait. To get reasonable efficiency we would need to condense the steam turbine exhaust at less than 100 F (.94 psia, .06 atmo, i.e. a vacuum) While this is a standard operation when there is a river or lake available for cooling the best solar locations frequently do not have quantities of cooling water.
Solar voltaic presents unique energy storage problems. The prospect of batteries and capacitors looks rather bleak. I live in the midst of dams. Pumping water back above power dams is a method of storing energy. But it gets complicated. The Army Corps of Engineers is tasked to release water to satisfy flood control considerations, electricity generation, oxygen content for trout and bass, levels for resorts and boating, tourism, water supply for agriculture, domestic water systems, and manufacturing is a daunting task usually not satisfying anyone. In fact enraging “environmentalists.”
Tam,
The price of power from a combined-cycle plant is unusually high so I took a look at the report you referenced. It appears the CEC lads are assuming pretty stiff escalations in the price of natural gas, starting at around $6/mmBTU. When that is included in the “levelized” model, the $/MWh becomes unusually high. IMO, the CEC is skewing the analysis. Putting $4/mmBTU gas in their model with little if any increases in price of gas yields entirely different results. They do show solar at somewhere north of $200 MWh, which is consistent with out Pro Formas.
Without a doubt, the CEC is guilty of deliberately skewing data for political purposes. They purport that the solar & wind options have the lowest cost, which is utter nonsense.
As for peaker natural gas plants, the 5% capacity factor is based on the actual capacity factor of plants in CA today. They're still operating so clearly they're making money.
As for solar at 20 c/kWh, AGAIN: solar prices have plummeted dramatically in the last couple of years. So CEC's analysis is out of date for both NG and solar.
Please look at the calculation I provided to you, using NREL's levelized cost calculator (or whatever calculator you prefer) and see what TODAY's solar prices bring you in terms of levelized costs for solar vs. natural gas.
I'll state again the conclusion from my essay: we are at or near grid parity for utility-scale solar in sunny parts of the country that have high electricity prices, like CA. Over the next few years this achevement will spread to other parts of the country as solar prices continue to fall and natural gas prices (most likely) rise higher. By 2015-2020 I anticipate solar will be at grid parity in many parts of the country even without any subsidies.
http://www.caiso.com/Documents/Testimony70111_FINAL.pdf
CAISO is following up on this work to ensure that it's not missing relevant data but what with the economy still in the tank, and thus electricity demand down, I don't anticipate that they'll change their conclusions.
And look again at the LBNL link I sent you (p. 55) showing the results of numerous similar studies around the country with respect to wind power. None of these studies assumed storage would be necessary. Rather, the typical back up power for solar is natural gas in most parts of the country, but as CA found recently, many parts of the country now have a surplus of NG power production capacity, making the transition to far higher levels of renewables like solar and wind much easier (and cheaper for ratepayers).
Don: No plant designers are planning to store thermal energy in 500 degF water. The most comon design is to use a salt solution at <500 degC which melts well below that temp, and perhaps including a cheap thermal mass (rock) in the hot tank. Current thermal oils don't quite operate stably to that temperature, limited to about 475 DegC, one reason that parabolic trough systems are limited to about 15% efficiency with research ongoing.
5% capacity works out to be around 430 hours of operation, which is pretty dismal. The peak price of power will never average anywhere near $800/MWH. Thus, the investment would never be profitable. The only way that can work is by bundling the cost with the rest of a firm's generation, while hoping the aggregate power price can cover the losing gas turbine. Would make more sense to just buy the peaking power from the grid, rather than put in such a monumental money loser.
Incidentally, California has a surplus of power generation; adding renewable energy is not necessary to cover the load. The only thing it does is raise costs, as folks are finding as the bill comes due. Point of fact, the impact of the significantly lower cost of natural gas is getting wiped out by the cost increases associated with California's renewable binge.
Also, if California included hydro as a renewable resource (which it obviously is) and nuclear, then you already meet your 30% target.
There is simply no question that California is "cooking" the books, with the hapless consumer getting financially screwed.
Adding injury to insult, renewable has no impact on global emissions, making the whole enterprises a nonsensical theatre of the absurd.
Len is right when he says that CA ratepayers are currently being overcharged b/c of our huge surplus of natural gas power (we have 40-50% surplus now). And since renewables like wind and solar are now coming in generally below the market price referent these resources are actually going to save ratepayers money. Keep in mind that CA's renewables mandate always had a cost-effectiveness requirement. Some contracts have been approved above the MPR, but most have been at or below so the actual impact to ratepayers has arguably been a net cost savings.
As for renewables impacting emissions, of course they impact emissions. The more renewables on the grid the lower the emissions from fossil fuels sources. And when we have solar doubling every 1.3 years in the US and about the same globally this adds up to VERY significant GHG reductions over the next couple of decades. (Again, doubling even at half the current rate of growth yields about 100% solar power globally by 2030; this won't happen, for various reasons, but i see no reason why solar won't reach 1/3 to 1/2 of the total power supply by then).
Didn't take 5 seconds once I found stronger glasses. Or, use a calculator: (1 + 0.35) ^ 19 = 299.46….
The problem is not the arithmetic; it’s multiplying solar output (with storage) by 300 times in 19 years whilst a whole host of other things are going on.
Alas, in 19 years world electricity demand could have doubled or tripled. World population will have increased by about a billion and I would guess there would still be about as many without electric service then as now..
EIA projects global electricity consumption in 2030 to be about 24% higher than today than in 2008 (the latest year for which global data is available), at an average annual growth rate of 2.2%. This takes us from 19,100 TWh in 2008 total annual global electricity consumption to 23,729 TWh.
Comparing 32,000 TWh with 24,000 TWh it is obvious that "even" at a 35% annual rate of growth for solar (half the recent five-year average), solar could easily provide all the world's power needs.
So we agree on that.
Now, as I've mentioned now multiple times MANY studies have found that variable renewables can get to 20% and above with less than a 10% premium above the cost of power, using non-energy storage means for mitigation. I don't know how to make this any more clear.
Once we start getting closer to this figure we will probably need to start considering storage such as molten salt thermal storage or batteries, compressed air storage, pumped hydro storage, etc.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/25/science/earth/25fossil.html?pagewanted=all
So now do I have to multiply 300 by 90/15 = 1800 times present capacity in your hypothetical case? I detect much “smart marketing” used by alternate energy and smart grid/meter/electronics proponents/promoters.
For example: For years we heard about the wonderful “hydrogen economy” Every day! California was going to lead the way – and actively promoted a program that was thermodynamically infeasible. The biggest disgrace was the silence of all those highly paid tenured professors. As far as I know not one told the Governor the scheme he was conned into promoting could not work. To me this was akin and as venal as to gleefully watch men drown. We committed large amounts of money to build and subsidize corn ethanol before it was even determined whether it had a ratio of energy out/ energy of1.0 or more. To this day I am not convinced the ratio is more than 1.0, and 1.1 doesn‘t do it... Now we are stuck with burning food for .fuel, increased herbicide, chemical use, fertilizer use, more erosion and continuingly lowering water tables
To be fair, any system should have a capacity in line with usage, which typical peaks at 100% at 4 pm, and drops to 60% capacity around 4 am. With perhaps 10% reserve.
I actually had the opportunity to bitch about the problems with hydrogen with a representative of the Calif. Governor's office. I spoke clearly and succinctly about the problems with it. He just stared at me like a deer in the headlights. I guess it's hard to clear out so much brain washing in 15 seconds.
Even some of the folks at GM didn't seem to understand the problems with hydrogen production; they tended to think of it as a storable alternative to electricity and effectively interchangeable with it. They didn't seem to understand that the roundtrip efficiency (60%x50%= 30%) of storing and then using hydrogen is a significant penalty, and only worth paying if you are going to store it for quite awhile. But if you are storing a long time, you might as well go a step further (Sabatier) and synthetic methane, which is easier to store and at least 3X denser energetically. Basically, hydrogen makes little sense because it's less efficient than batteries (which are getting more efficient and less costly) and less storable than methane (which is both getting more efficient in use and more dense in storage).
As for solar capacity factors, all of my figures use the appropriate solar capacity factor of about 20%. Fixed tilt solar is a bit less than 20% in sunny areas but single axis trackers are 25-30% and are increasiingly prevalent.
Again, the studies I sent you INCLUDE appropriate capacity factor considerations and compare apples to apples. What you seem to be missing is that you don't need 1 to 1 backup of variable renewables. In fact, you need a LOT less than than 1 to 1 by using smart grid reliability techniques, as the many studies I've referred you to discuss in detail.
http://eetd.lbl.gov/ea/emp/reports/lbnl-3716e-ppt.pdf
I think you and Tam are both thoughtful and interesting. I'd enjoy such a debate. While in Singapore, be careful with your chewing gum. You might get a fine (I guess no prison anymore).
On this issue of storage, I'd note that 3 big potential storage sources are PHEVs (ok, futuristic, but definitely a strong possibility), opportunistic A/C (some office buildings now make ice at night to cool the building during the day - which would obviously not mesh well with solar...), and opportunistic refrigeration. We probably should consider revamping the household fridge to have a bit more storage capacity for cold, so it can tolerate uneven power cycles. The cheap way to do this is to fill up much of the freezer with some cold mass, like a frozen turkey.
Since money is not likely to come from a big-hearted source nor a source a least bit inimical to the donor’s interests I’d kinda like to know the source of funding and the justification for anyone attending Singapore Energy Week.
I hope they report lots and lots of numbers and not just pompous pronouncements.
In summary, Ontario has
- not built a new nuclear plant since Darlington opened in 1988
- shuttered much of its coal fleet already, completely by 2014
- put every customer on smart metering, most on TOU billing
- the largest fleet of renewables rolling out in the world
- deployed several new NG plants in the last decade
- is adding capacity to Niagara Falls, due to come on-line yet
- has eliminated its nightmare peak-generation shortfall since 2003
- has moderated overall grid demand growth with widespread conservation and demand management programs
The last point above is partly attributable to the economic recession, but not most of it. The savings in conservation with consumers and industry alone has resulted in avoiding the need for hundreds of Megawatts of additional grid capacity. And it is targeting much more over the next decade anticipating a widespread culture change by the public to readily adopt more efficiency upgrades. Indeed some of this is being forced onto the public by government mandates for increased efficiency standards, expanding every year to include more things.
Ontario’s government has admitted that consumer rates are likely to rise by nearly 50% within 5 years to pay all this. But they feel this will be less painful than paying several billion upfront to build at least two new nuclear reactors, with their nuclear plans now on the shelf indefinitely.
But the energy problem is world wide. Ontario can shut down its coal burners but will Canada reduce its coal production and export less to where coal is in short supply, as in Korea, Japan, China and many countries. And how do we reconcile the tar sands production, a needed source of oil and Canadian income.
Germany is bloviating about shutting down its nuclear plants not because of economics but because of fear based on the Japanese disaster. For many years Germany has scolded the world about environmental problems but is still getting 44% of its electricity from coal. The reason coal is and always has been the largest source of electrical energy is strictly economic. Why else do perhaps two billion people in southern Asia and Africa lack even enough electricity to have lighting than that the cheapest plants and fuel have always been too expensive – for 100 years. (I was born into a world with likely less than 2 billion.)
China continues its expansive nuclear generation program. They are ten Germanys.
But these are where population already is challenging food supply and people are actually dying from starvation and malnutrician. Should food supply be reduced to finance generating plants – and wouldn’t any plants built in these vast locations be the cheapest - with little regard to CO2 or the environment? And where there is no base load capacity.
So what should the criteria be for the rest of us? Surely we will have to reduce the amount of oil used for transportation – almost surely by using rechargeable batteries. Recharging our cars from today’s “world grid” would increase rather than decrease CO2 emissions.
Today we might be in the most serious financial predicament ever. It is by no means certain that we can recover and pick up where we left off – as has always been the case.
It is so obvious. We have over-populated the planet and don’t know what to do.
The nuclear issue today is primarily economics, and not physics. That causes a lot of self-appointed geniuses to back up. I was in the US a month ago and went to a Barnes and Noble and asked about new energy economics books. The only books they could refer to were written by a certain Fred Banks. Now this is what I call pretty pathetic, because what I want is for other people to do the work of writing these books, and then I can steal the things in them that fit into my agenda.
And Don, this business of over population. Folks are just getting the message, which explains some of their odd behavior, because the message is nothing to write home about.
I already sent you a link re the very heartwarming developments in Africa with respect to solar panels, lighting and cell phone use. As I mentioned, solar power is far cheaper in these instances than extending the existing power grid. In fact, it's an opportunity to leap frog that phase in development for the preferred connected but non-grid power and communications networks that are already springing up.
As for nuclear, Lovins said it well: the current interest in nuclear power will have exactly the same effect as defibrilating a corpse: it will bounce but it won't come back to life. Nuclear simply doesn't make economic sense and we've had sixty years to try and make it work. We have far better alternatives in terms of conservation, improving energy efficiency, a large suite of renewable technologies and a natural gas skeleton to get us to the point where storage and baseload renewables can also replace natural gas (after they've already replaced coal).
As Bob points out, maintaining existing nuclear plants can make some economic sense when they're huge construction costs have already been paid for by ratepayers, but new plants just don't make sense under any realistic economic analysis I've seen to date.
Take one tiny measure. Tonight I noticed a TV program about bullying in US schools. What I saw bore absolutely no resemblance to my experience. None. I went to 13 years of public school. (No, I didn’t flunk first grade, I went to Kindergarten.) I never saw one case of the kind of serious bullying depicted on the program. Not once. If there was some inappropriate teasing other students would immediately come to the victim’s aid and that was the end of it. A bully would have been an outcast.
At no time was there “security” at any one of my schools. (The nearest police were about three miles from my High school of about 1600 and I don’t remember that they were ever needed.) There was essentially no hooky. The attendance office called every home (or place of employment) of every absent student by about 9 or 10 AM. Each unexcused (by parent or doctor) required the student to be readmitted to classes. A formal process. I understand current absentee rates are about 10%. In an age before antibiotics I doubt whether we ever had 10% absentees barring a major snow storm or measles or mumps or other guaranteed disease.
My experience is but one small bit of data. So let’s look at Africa. In Sub-Saharan Africa the crime rates are absolutely egregious. South Africa is the class of the 51 sub-Saharan African nations. In SA children are gang raped in astounding numbers coming home from school. Good statistics are impossible to find – and with good reason.
For many in the Christian world birth control is a mortal sin. Everlasting damnation for believers is hardly a walk in the park. For many of the billion Islamists Christians can be killed. As Christians are to not let a witch to live. (I worked in Franco Spain and know something about RC law.)
I wrote letters opposing blasphemy laws still used at the time in some German states. I wrote letters opposing the German practice of taxing all for either the Lutheran or RC churches. And I feel like crying when I saw that most Americans believe in fairies.
So when otherwise sane people say all we have e to do is recognize an improved energy policy I am disconsolate. When have we EVER had a world policy on ANYTHING? And who is WE.
Unless we BOTH improve people and reduce their numbers we are undone. It is a long shot. A very long shot.
Don, I attended the worst school in Chicago for two years, following which I attended a so-so school. I never saw any bullying. I was invited outside once for some fist-drill in the latter institution, but their was no bullying involved. The real hoodlums didn't permit it. The same was true in the army. And when I say that the real hoodlums didn't permit bullying I mean exactly that. I don't mean that outcasts were designated.
Of course things are different now. A president starts a war on the basis of a lie, and he is followed by a president who is completely and totally incompetent, and the latter bungler is harassed by something called the tea party. What is it going to be next? This isn't the US that we grew up in. Of course, there is a background to the bullying that you say exists: the background is porn and/or dope. Obama is too dumb to understand that, as are his foot soldiers. Seems to me that the only place that it is understood these days is in the US Marines, at least where the latter curse is concerned.
Since nuclear plant construction requires a lot of on-site assembly labor, there is little hope we'll ever see the low labor costs of the far east to build plants here. Expecting North American labor forces to somehow let foreigners come over here to build them for peanuts, or even attempt to compete themselves with their labor rates is dreaming.
So in spite of nuclear’s great economics once the plant is paid for (that Fred Banks is intimately knowledgeable about), no one in North America has the stomach to buy a Cadillac - nuclear - when Chevies - all the alternatives - are plentiful and much cheaper and hence far easier to get a loan for.
The interesting thing for me though is the US. Obviously, it is cheaper to construct a nuclear facility than an aircraft carrier, but Tam and his friends think that nuclear plants are too expensive. The aircraft carriers designed to carry planes that will fight in a war that will never take place are the really expensive things, but dont pass that idea around.
I believe you that many engineers and scientists are working overtime to figure out how to construct nuclear plants cheaper. It's called cost reduction in product design in many other fields of engineering. Those engineers and scientists in nuclear plant design know it's critical for their industry's survival in North America by working hard on this problem. Who knows, given enough resources they may make some breakthroughs in time.
As for aircraft carriers, it's a great example of what the US is capable of doing when they are strongly motivated to spend huge sums of money. It has happened before during WWII.
I was often led to believe that spending lots of money on the military (and on the space program at NASA) was good for the US because it habitually led to many industrial spin-offs and innovations for many other American industries. It also put lots of people to work in the military. Too bad they don't think of nuclear plants the same way today.
Fred, you should strongly consider giving one of your nuclear lectures in the US to a largely American audience. Who knows, maybe you could change their minds on nuclear.
US nuclear powered aircraft carriers have been engaged in fighting wars in the Middle East for many years, so I find your observation puzzling. We have a lot of enemies trying to kill us so the ability to take the bastards out using our mobile air bases has a lot of value.
With natural gas so cheap in the US, it's hard to make an economic argument for building new nuclear power plants. More to the point, is it better to let the consumer keep his money for his own pursuits or force him to invest in nuclear power (or solar power for that matter)? I believe we are better off deploying the lowest cost energy options, not the most expensive.
Some day solar power will be cost effective, but we are not there yet. I think nuclear power, however, has a fundamental problem. Conventional nuclear power is fundamentally a mature mid-twentieth century based steam plant. Technology inevitably produces quantum leaps past earlier solutions burdened by limited horizons.
As for military spending, I have no problem at all with that, but the US military budget is as large as all the military bodgets of the rest of the world - according to Jimmy Carter - and I find that just a little too much.
Where natural gas is concerned, I once wrote a book on that subject, but will admit that I dont know what I should know any longer, and anyhow have lost interest in the subject. I do know one thing however: the Finns had gas from Norway on one side of them, and gas from Russia on the other, and they still chose nuclear. I would have done the same thing for economic reasons that I cant go into here.
By the way, the fundamental problem that you think nuclear has is due to too many self appointed experts thinking about things that they are not qualified to think about, and I do NOT mean just Mr Obama and Mr Chu and Mr Tam
New nuclear power plants currently cost too much in the US, where we have much lower cost options. That is an economic reality likely to remain for several years. Longer range? Who knows, but in the final analysis: "Ya pays yer money and takes yer chances".
The situation is clearly different in other countries (e.g. Finland, France, etc.) that do not have the resources we have.
I remember once reading from a respected Indian chemical engineer who proclaimed that using natural gas for low level heating or even power generation was "insane". I think he was indicating it was too valuable a resource to be used for that purpose. While an NG powered automobile might not be completely practical, it is much more so than a coal-powered one.
But look at human rights, voting rights, basic needs, etc.. and we see a very positive arc to history. We're going in the right direction even as we regularly come across speed bumps and pitfalls.
In terms of population, here's one journalist's take that might give you some hope:
http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Population-Crash-Planets-Surprising/dp/0807001228/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318997621&sr=8-1
He projects that we'll peak at about 8 billion and start declining and will in fact witness a problem with declining populations, rather than the opposite. I don't know if he's right, but it does highlight some key uncertainties in the status quo overpopulation arguments.