The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[Cheerful Charlie]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...tself-in-seven-years-study-finds?srnd=premium

Going 100% Green Will Pay For Itself in Seven Years, Study Finds

A Stanford University professor whose research helped underpin the U.S. Democrats’ Green New Deal says phasing out fossil fuels and running the entire world on clean energy would pay for itself in under seven years.
It would cost $73 trillion to revamp power grids, transportation, manufacturing and other systems to run on wind, solar and hydro power, including enough storage capacity to keep the lights on overnight, Mark Jacobson said in a study published Friday in the journal One Earth. But that would be offset by annual savings of almost $11 trillion, the report found.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...tself-in-seven-years-study-finds?srnd=premium

Going 100% Green Will Pay For Itself in Seven Years, Study Finds

A Stanford University professor whose research helped underpin the U.S. Democrats’ Green New Deal says phasing out fossil fuels and running the entire world on clean energy would pay for itself in under seven years.
It would cost $73 trillion to revamp power grids, transportation, manufacturing and other systems to run on wind, solar and hydro power, including enough storage capacity to keep the lights on overnight, Mark Jacobson said in a study published Friday in the journal One Earth. But that would be offset by annual savings of almost $11 trillion, the report found.

And why should I think they weren't on LSD? Where's the storage technology?

And note that even the author knows the guy is suspect:

Some of Jacobson’s past findings have been questioned, notably a 2017 journal article that criticized his methodology on measuring the cost of phasing out fossil fuels.

As for the study itself, turns out it's open access: https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(19)30225-8

Note that he's saying it saves money by including into the costs of existing power the health and climate change costs (and how is he getting good numbers for either of these?) Even given his nonsense numbers he's still actually having the cost of electricity go up about 10x.

Also, he's saying the total cost of green power is 8.96 cents/kwh compared to the 9.99 cents/kwh just for the private costs of fossil fuel. This is nothing remotely like reality--I think it's too low in general but the big flaw is there are no storage costs in his calculation--and storage is the big problem with the green new deal.

He's also assuming that electricity is more efficient than heat and thus power consumption will be more than halved. It's a lot more efficient if your objective is motion, there's little advantage if you need heat.

This appears to be a peer reviewed journal, how did they miss this?

 

[fromderinside]

Maybe they got the aha that motion is heat?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Maybe they got the aha that motion is heat?

 

[fromderinside]

Simple Experiments Show How Motion Is Equivalent to Heat https://www.wired.com/story/simple-experiments-show-how-motion-is-equivalent-to-heat/

thatsa..Q
anda....E
anda....D

 

[lpetrich]

Kauai was 100% renewably powered for 32 hours over the last month – pv magazine USA

For five beautiful hours on Tuesday, December 10, the Hawaiian island of Kauai achieved total electrical generation from renewable sources. This marks a total of 32 cumulative hours over 11 days since November 22 that the island has run on 100% clean energy.

The generation came entirely from the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative’s (KIUC) renewable portfolio, which is comprised of a combination of distributed and utility-scale solar, a biomass plant and a number of relatively small hydro generation facilities. The grid supports an estimated 100,000 people, including visitors, roughly the same size as a large college football stadium.

Kauai thus joins California, Denmark, Portugal, and Costa Rica as being able to generate all of their electricity with renewable sources for at least a little bit of time.

Clean Energy Loses Out in Congress’s Last-Minute Budget Deal | InsideClimate News - "Tax breaks for solar, electric vehicles and energy storage were jettisoned. Retired and sick coal miners, meanwhile, got some of the support they had fought for."

It's politically good, but it will slow down adoption of renewable energy. We need faster, not slower, to reduce the CO2 and CH4 being spewed into the atmosphere.

‘You can’t go wrong with solar’ – pv magazine International - in Papua New Guinea's New Ireland province

Chan said that three ground-mounted solar plants with a combined capacity of 2.5 MW will be built in the towns of Konos and Namatanai and Kavieng, the provincial capital. The three plants will be constructed by Australia-based Zenith Ltd., which will operate the projects for a period of five years, after which the facilities will be handed over to a newly created state-run company, Nisolar.

 

[lpetrich]

La COP25 acuerda una alianza global por desalinización de agua con energía limpia – pv magazine Latin America

La COP25 acuerda una alianza global por desalinización de agua con energía limpia

La GCWDA por sus siglas en inglés, está compuesta por más de 200 organizaciones a nivel mundial de los sectores público, privado y académico, y su objetivo es promover y desarrollar políticas consistentes y marcos regulatorios para la promoción de una desalinización con energías limpias a nivel global.

...
En el mundo actualmente existen más de 20.250 plantas desaladoras instaladas en 150 países con una capacidad diaria de 100 millones de metros cúbicos, cifra que debería duplicarse en la próxima década.

Los expertos mundiales pertenecientes a la GCWDA concordaron que la desalinización puede ser movida por energías limpias y que las tecnologías para su desarrollo deben ser más accesibles.

Google Translate:

COP25 agrees to a global alliance for desalination of water with clean energy

The GCWDA for its acronym in English, is composed of more than 200 organizations worldwide from the public, private and academic sectors, and its objective is to promote and develop consistent policies and regulatory frameworks for the promotion of desalination with clean energy at the level global.

...
In the world there are currently more than 20,250 desalination plants installed in 150 countries with a daily capacity of 100 million cubic meters, a figure that should double in the next decade.

World experts belonging to the GCWDA agreed that desalination can be driven by clean energy and that technologies for its development should be more accessible.

Then discussing a solar-powered desalination facility in the Atacama Desert near the Pacific Ocean in Chile:

ENAPAC consiste en la construcción de una planta desaladora de gran escala, con capacidad de producción de 2.630 l/s (227.000 m3/d), junto a una planta fotovoltaica de 100 MW de potencia y a un reservorio de agua de 600.000 m3, todo en un sólo proyecto.

(Google Translate)
ENAPAC consists of the construction of a large-scale desalination plant, with a production capacity of 2,630 l / s (227,000 m3 / d), together with a 100 MW photovoltaic plant and a 600,000 m3 water reservoir, all in one project.

 

[lpetrich]

I mentioned Zina Spezakis here because of her expertise in the nitty-gritty of energy sources. She noted that it takes 1 year to build a wind turbine vs. 10 years to build a nuclear reactor.

Our pathetically slow shift to clean energy, in five charts - MIT Technology Review

The cost of large wind and solar farms dropped by 70% and nearly 90%, respectively. Meanwhile, renewable-power plants around the world are producing four times more electricity than they did 10 years ago.

Similarly, electric vehicles were barely a blip at the outset of the 2010s. But automakers were on track to sell 1.8 million EVs this year, as range increased, prices fell, and companies introduced a variety of models.

But that hasn't been enough.

For electricity generation, over 2008 - 2018:

• Fossil fuels: 67.4% - 64.2%
• Hydroelectricity: 15.9% - 15.8%
• Nuclear: 13.4% - 10.2%
• Non-hydro renewables: 2.7% - 9.3%

Fossil fuels are currently 59% coal, 36% natural gas 5% oil.

Sales of electric cars are growing rapidly, but electric cars are currently only 2% of total cars, and plug-in hybrid-electric ones 1%.

So renewable-energy adoption needs to be speeded up. But it has now reached the point where it is economically competitive with fossil fuels. That, I think, will make it easier to justify a massive push for their adoption. If it's going to eventually save money, then its main problem is the initial investment required for its adoption.

 

[lpetrich]

India set to cross 100GW renewable energy capacity mark in 2020 - The Economic Times

India is all set to cross the 100GW renewable energy capacity mark in 2020 and can make rapid strides towards the ambitious 175GW clean energy target by 2022 provided the government keeps a close eye on key issues and deals with those well in time.

The government however needs to promote storage to ensure 24X7 clean energy supply as coal fired thermal power still remains the base load in the country.

India looks like it's doing rather well, and India is open to activism, unlike China. I note that because China is the biggest emitter of CO2 and is hostile to independent activism.

Scottish Power plans to build solar panels beside windfarms | Business | The Guardian

Scottish Power plans to squeeze more renewable electricity from its onshore windfarms by covering the ground beside the turbines with photovoltaic panels and batteries.

...
Scottish Power says it hopes to include solar panels in the vast majority of its future onshore windfarms across Scotland and Ireland, depending on whether the ground conditions are suitable for panels.

Keith Anderson, Scottish Power’s chief executive, said: “Every green megawatt of electricity will be crucial if we stand any chance of hitting net zero in 2050. This means squeezing the absolute maximum potential out of every clean energy project that we consider.”

 

[bilby]

I mentioned Zina Spezakis here because of her expertise in the nitty-gritty of energy sources. She noted that it takes 1 year to build a wind turbine vs. 10 years to build a nuclear reactor.

Our pathetically slow shift to clean energy, in five charts - MIT Technology Review

The cost of large wind and solar farms dropped by 70% and nearly 90%, respectively. Meanwhile, renewable-power plants around the world are producing four times more electricity than they did 10 years ago.

Similarly, electric vehicles were barely a blip at the outset of the 2010s. But automakers were on track to sell 1.8 million EVs this year, as range increased, prices fell, and companies introduced a variety of models.

But that hasn't been enough.

For electricity generation, over 2008 - 2018:

• Fossil fuels: 67.4% - 64.2%
• Hydroelectricity: 15.9% - 15.8%
• Nuclear: 13.4% - 10.2%
• Non-hydro renewables: 2.7% - 9.3%

Fossil fuels are currently 59% coal, 36% natural gas 5% oil.

Sales of electric cars are growing rapidly, but electric cars are currently only 2% of total cars, and plug-in hybrid-electric ones 1%.

So renewable-energy adoption needs to be speeded up. But it has now reached the point where it is economically competitive with fossil fuels. That, I think, will make it easier to justify a massive push for their adoption. If it's going to eventually save money, then its main problem is the initial investment required for its adoption.

A modern Gen III+ PWR can be built in less than three years. The average construction time of ten years is from the 1970s, when the public panicked about Three Mile Island. Some plants that were under construction in the mid '70s didn't open until the 1990s as a result of this panic. But they didn't take that long to build - for most of the 'construction time' the sites were idle, while parades of hippies lodged protest after protest - incidentally doing more to advance global warming than the coal industry could have dreamed possible.

A nuclear reactor can easily be built in three years, and that's despite the incredibly painful regulatory environment.

France replaced 90% of her entire national generation capacity - practically every power plant in the country, not just 'a nuclear reactor' - in ten years.

And 'a wind turbine' is not in any way close to being equivalent to 'a nuclear reactor'. The statement "it takes 1 year to build a wind turbine vs. 10 years to build a nuclear reactor" is meaningless propagandist drivel, and would remain so even if it were not factually wrong. It pains me to see intelligent people repeating it as though it were somehow relevant to reality.

If you want to decarbonise a power grid fast, then nuclear power is demonstrably better than wind and/or solar.

 

[fromderinside]

Bad graph. Apple and oranges all around. Largest nation has least per capita metric yet produces 10s of times wind based electricity than highest per capita nation for instance. Similar weird results for other categories. France produces many times the power of Sweden yet has per capita about levels 2/3 that of Sweden. No real information there. US generally south of Denmark has lower per capita solar capacity while producing several dozen times the solar power of Denmark.

Hell China isn't even in the nuclear club apparently yet Taiwan, part of China, is listed midway up the nuclear club. Oh yeah, and before you bring up the fact that the date ranges are different among nations as explanations, the date ranges among the nations are different among the nations. Finally who the hell cares about peak scale up intervals unless they can be compared on other elements used to generate the numbers or even to an argument about commitment to thus and so power.

I'll give you that you don't make things up but geez, why open yourself to attacks on things like numbers and trends. From my POV it's GIGO (yeah, I watched Jeopardy tonite).

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

https://www.barrons.com/articles/wa...megawatt-51577995149?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo


...
Warren Buffett is betting on solar power, with one of Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRK.B) companies behind a project to build the largest solar power plant in the U.S.
Berkshire subsidiary NV Energy will be using the electricity generated by a 690-megawatt solar-energy plant to be built on federal land in Nevada. The current record for a solar plant is 579 megawatts.
...
The so-called Gemini project, which will generate power for NV Energy companies but will be developed by third parties, will be 25 miles from Las Vegas. That project and two others will create 1.19 gigawatts of new power for NV, enough to provide electricity to 230,000 homes. The projects also come with 590 megawatts of battery storage, meaning the power generated by solar panels can be stored for times when the sun isn’t shining.
...
Regardless of the environmental debates, Berkshire’s embrace of solar energy makes it clear that the technology is becoming progressively more cost-competitive with fossil-fuel-driven power. The Gemini project will cost $38.44 per megawatt hour under a 25-year contract, the L.A. Times reported, while Lazard has calculated that the average national cost of a new natural-gas plant ranges from $44 to $68.
...

-------

Three cheers for Warren Buffett.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/denmark-sources-record-47-power-093459131.html

....
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Denmark sourced almost half its electricity consumption from wind power last year, a new record boosted by steep cost reductions and improved offshore technology.
Wind accounted for 47% of Denmark's power usage in 2019, the country's grid operator Energinet said on Thursday citing preliminary data, up from 41% in 2018 and topping the previous record of 43% in 2017.
European countries are global leaders in utilising wind power but Denmark is far in front of nearest rival Ireland, which sourced 28% of its power from wind in 2018 according to data from industry group WindEurope.
Across the European Union, wind accounted for 14% of consumption last year, the group says.
...

-----

It is nice to read some good news now and again.

 

[bilby]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/denmark-sources-record-47-power-093459131.html

....
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Denmark sourced almost half its electricity consumption from wind power last year, a new record boosted by steep cost reductions and improved offshore technology.
Wind accounted for 47% of Denmark's power usage in 2019, the country's grid operator Energinet said on Thursday citing preliminary data, up from 41% in 2018 and topping the previous record of 43% in 2017.
European countries are global leaders in utilising wind power but Denmark is far in front of nearest rival Ireland, which sourced 28% of its power from wind in 2018 according to data from industry group WindEurope.
Across the European Union, wind accounted for 14% of consumption last year, the group says.
...

-----

It is nice to read some good news now and again.

The problem with wind power is particularly noticeable in Denmark's CO₂ emissions data though. Sure, they generate a lot of low emissions power from wind; But they also emit a lot of CO₂ - because when the wind isn't blowing, they have to burn fossil fuels.



The problem with good news is that a lot of it is spin. What matters (ALL that matters) is CO₂ emissions. Not days of 100% wind; Not MW of installed solar capacity; Not even profitability for shareholders and investors. What we MUST do is reduce emissions. And as that graphic shows, there's only one technology that is truly effective at that goal.

More data visualisations on CO₂ emissions, along with commentary explaining what they illustrate, can be found at https://medium.com/@grantchalmers/electricitymap-visualisations-in-r-368781baaaf2, which is the source of the above graph.

 

[fromderinside]

Hopefully Australia will recover it's primary carbon removal system, it's forests, toot sweet? No?

Point being the best CO₂ removal systems are plants, preferably trees and carbon fixing plants on land and algae and diatoms in water.

A huge problem with natural systems is they also react to heat by releasing, land release of methane - CH₄ much worse than CO₂ for global warming - and absorbing, water carbon carrying capacity, asymmetrically while it drives animal populations - the bad guys in this tale - upward. For verification check proportion of life found between equator and tropics of capricorn and cancer and that north and south of those markers.

Seriously. I hope there comes some good from what's happening in Australia right now. Makes California look like a good place to be which is very hard to accomplish by anything anywhere.

 

[lpetrich]

America's Coal Consumption Entered Free Fall in 2019 - The Atlantic - "Coal fell 18 percent last year, the largest drop ever recorded. But carbon emissions across the rest of the economy barely budged."

Here’s the good news, such as it is, for the climate: American coal consumption plunged last year, reaching its lowest level since 1975, as electrical utilities switched to cheaper natural gas and renewables. Over the past decade and a half, coal’s collapse has saved tens of thousands of lives nationwide, according to new research, and cut national greenhouse-gas emissions by more than 10 percent.

The bad news is almost everything else. Outside of the power sector, the country’s planet-warming pollution continued to grow last year. Almost three decades after climate change first became a political issue, the American economy remains a continent-sized machine that guzzles fossil fuels and excretes money.

U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions 2019 Fell As Coal Plans Close - Bloomberg

“Coal plants are closing down and nobody is building new ones,” said Trevor Houser, a partner with Rhodium Group, an independent research firm and leading voice on emissions.

Annual emissions have fluctuated in recent years, including a sharp uptick in 2018. But the general trend has been down, Houser said. U.S. emissions have declined about 13% since 2007.

Electricity generation accounts for about 30% of total U.S. emissions. Greenhouse gases from cars, trucks and the rest of the transportation sector were flat in 2019. Emissions from agriculture and industry increased slightly.

“The good news is that we’re making a lot of progress on electricity,” Houser said “There’s a lot more work to do in other sectors of the economy.”

It's a little bit of progress. Good that wind energy and solar energy are making their mark.

 

[lpetrich]

I didn't want to fly – so I took a cargo ship from Germany to Canada | Travel | The Guardian

As the ship’s immense hull came into view, I entered a world where everything was larger, louder and more dangerous than my life on land. The 300-metre, 100,000-tonne vessel before me was to be my home for the next 15 days.

Since 2017, I’d emitted over 14 tonnes of carbon from flights alone. I realised that all my efforts to reduce my carbon footprint at home in Milan – I cycle to work, limit food waste and seldom buy new clothes – are wiped out by just one flight between Canada and Europe.

The only steam engines still in use for water vehicles are those that are powered by nuclear reactors. Everything else that's bigger than a motorboat is powered by diesel engines, and for big ships, big diesel engines. Ships usually use bunker fuel or heavy fuel oil, what's left after everything distillable has been distilled off from crude oil. It's a bottom-of-the-barrel fuel in a very literal sense.

I anticipated a long and tiresome journey (I packed dozens of books and downloaded films) and had visions of gruelling nights spent with my face in a barf bag, but my experience on board could not have been more enjoyable. The two other passengers, Tony from the Netherlands and Janos from Germany, were hitching a ride for the same environmental reasons and their company made time fly by. Our cabins were simple and comfortable, each with private toilet and shower, two single beds, a desk and vast ocean views. The 25 crew members, a mix of Filipino and eastern European men, were warm and friendly. I was in all-male company for my transatlantic voyage but Isabel Hagen, a Swedish student I met through a friend, made the voyage earlier this year, and said she’d had a positive experience as a solo female traveller: “The crew was welcoming, respectful, and polite from the moment I stepped on board.”

The ship started off in Hamburg, Germany, then docked in Antwerp, Belgium, and Liverpool, UK, spending a day at each place.

It had some 4,000 shipping containers and six "roll on, roll off" decks for vehicles. Thus acting like a car ferry.

From Halifax, the author went by overnight train to Montreal, spending a night there, then Toronto, spending another night there, then a train called The Canadian to Vancouver BC.

As on the ship I was immediately struck by the hospitality of the crew – servers and attendants who seemed genuinely happy to be there despite being thousands of kilometres from home. The food was impressive as well, like the brunches of fluffy buttermilk pancakes drowning in the maple syrup that I’d missed so much in Europe. Dinners of hemp-crusted trout, roast veal chops and fresh vegetables were equally delicious. The atmosphere among passengers was jovial, with communal mealtimes and a rowdy bar where we swapped travel stories.

As on the ship, the vast expanses passing by my window made the journey special: the endless boreal forests of northern Ontario, the icy, placid prairies and the magnificent Rockies in the west, every landscape shimmering under mid-December snow. Sitting in the dome car watching a blazing sun set over white Quebec forests and waking to whiteout blizzards in Manitoba deepened my connection to the land I call home, and reaffirmed my commitment to protecting this natural beauty.

The journey was about 13,000 km, breaking down as 7,000 km by ship and 6,000 km by train. The ship part cost about EUR 100 per day.

Carbon emissions (according to weight of passenger)

Flight Frankfurt-Vancouver: 1.3 tonnes*
Cargo ship Hamburg-Halifax (via Antwerp & Liverpool): 5.3kg**
Trains Halifax-Vancouver: 204.2kg***
Total CO2 Hamburg to Vancouver: 209.5kg
* myclimate Foundation
**International Council on Clean Transportation
***Via Rail

It's all fossil fuel, but this trip shows how to use less of it. Go by surface vehicle instead of by air.

The best for being renewable-powred is electric trains, and all the rest will need cost-competitive synfuels to be feasible. There is a lot of work on those, but they are still not there yet. But when they are, they will make possible zero-carbon aviation as well as zero-carbon shipping and zero-carbon diesel trains and buses and trucks.

 

[fromderinside]

Now if we could only get zero carbon life ..... although I've been thinking - dangerous - that with all the silicon on beaches life probably only comes in carbon form.

 

[bilby]

Now if we could only get zero carbon life .....

It already is, on average (which is all that matters in the context of climate).

The amount of carbon actively cycling is unimportant; What matters is how much is being released from ultra long term storage as coal, gas, oil, clathrates and geological structures, vs how much is being returned to those ultra long term stores. The amount returning is tiny; So unless we either massively increase that amount, or massively reduce the amount we release, we are fucked.

Anything with a cycle time of less than a century is irrelevant, so biological effects are negligible unless they are measured on timescales of millions of years - such as the formation of new coal or oil deposits, for example.

That's why burning coal is disastrous, but having eight billion humans exhaling carbon dioxide isn't. What we exhale was already part of atmospheric carbon dioxide until very recently, and so it's adding net zero to the short term average amount in the atmosphere.

 

[lpetrich]

A $1 Billion Solar Plant Was Obsolete Before It Ever Went Online - Bloomberg

The Crescent Dunes solar plant looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. Ten thousand mirrors form a spiral almost 2 miles wide that winds around a skyscraper rising above the desert between Las Vegas and Reno. The operation soaks up enough heat from the sun’s rays to spin steam turbines and store energy in the form of molten salt.

In 2011 the $1 billion project was to be the biggest solar plant of its kind, and it looked like the future of renewable power.

But was it? There wasn't much follow-up, not many imitations of it built.

SolarReserve may have done its part, but today the company doesn’t rank among the winners. Instead, it’s mired in litigation and accusations of mismanagement at Crescent Dunes, where taxpayers remain on the hook for $737 million in loan guarantees. Late last year, Crescent Dunes lost its only customer, NV Energy Inc., which cited the plant’s lack of reliability.

It was done in by another solar-energy technology: photovoltaic cells. They have become much cheaper, and they need much less maintenance.

Crescent Dunes has been shut down since April, and the Energy Department took control of it in August, according to a lawsuit SolarReserve filed in Delaware Chancery Court seeking to reverse the takeover.

Its electricity costed $135/MW, and recent photovoltaic cells can do better than $30/MW.

"Almost no one associated with Crescent Dunes will talk about it anymore." Though a co-founder of the company that owns it blames a contratctor: "It was a tragedy of mismanagement."


I have a confession to make. A decade ago, I thought that concentrated solar-power facilities like this one were the way to go. I knew how photovoltaic cells are made. They are made in computer-chip fashion, and I knew that that technology is very expensive. But PV-cell makers could make shortcuts that computer-chip makers couldn't, and that's why PV cells are now so cheap.