The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[Loren Pechtel]

Anyway, your "Suppose you needed to supply the entire US with electricity from batteries for a single hour" is counterfactual.
In #1204 I mention the HUGE load-leveling capacity of hydroelectricity power (where available), as well as other storage systems and non-intermittent renewables coming on-line.

Hydro is not good at load-leveling. There are two problems:

First, a hydro plant can only produce as much as it's turbines can produce.

Second, wild swings in power production also translate to wild swings in water flow. A big ecological mess downstream.

 

[Hermit]

as Bilby keeps pointing out, electric power is a service, not a commodity.

Bilby is wrong, and so are you. From Wikipedia's article titled Commodity:

In such standard works as Alfred Marshall's Principles of Economics (1920)[6] and Léon Walras's Elements of Pure Economics ([1926] 1954)[7] 'commodity' serves as general term for an economic good or service.

Not that any of this matters. Electricity is a good like any other. Just like pork bellies, or whatever, electricity is traded on spot, futures and derivatives markets.

 

[Tigers!]

as Bilby keeps pointing out, electric power is a service, not a commodity.

Bilby is wrong, and so are you. From Wikipedia's article titled Commodity:

In such standard works as Alfred Marshall's Principles of Economics (1920)[6] and Léon Walras's Elements of Pure Economics ([1926] 1954)[7] 'commodity' serves as general term for an economic good or service.

Not that any of this matters. Electricity is a good like any other. Just like pork bellies, or whatever, electricity is traded on spot, futures and derivatives markets.

Surely though whilst electricity may be traded on those markets it is at the point of consumption or use that it is a service. When you plug in that lead or flick that switch you want the electricity right then, not some possibly unknown time in the future. In that sense Bilby is quite correct. He is using the 'common sense' definition, not some esoteric book definition.

 

[bilby]

as Bilby keeps pointing out, electric power is a service, not a commodity.

Bilby is wrong, and so are you. From Wikipedia's article titled Commodity:

In such standard works as Alfred Marshall's Principles of Economics (1920)[6] and Léon Walras's Elements of Pure Economics ([1926] 1954)[7] 'commodity' serves as general term for an economic good or service.

Not that any of this matters. Electricity is a good like any other. Just like pork bellies, or whatever, electricity is traded on spot, futures and derivatives markets.

My use of jargon isn't an actual problem for my argument; And it doesn't appear to be a problem for your understanding of my argument. So your argumentum ad dictionarium is as childish as it is fallacious.

Electricity supplies to a power grid are either used immediately, or wasted; As a result, electricity made in excess of immediate requirements is not available for later use.

In this it is similar to legal advice - you can't get representation at a trial this week and an appeal next week, by retaining two lawyers this week and none the next. It is dissimilar to pork bellies, where you can slaughter two pigs, eat one today, and freeze the other to eat at Christmas.

The use of the words 'commodity' and 'service' to specifically describe only this difference between different kinds of things being traded is quite common; That you are apparently unfamiliar with it doesn't make the more common meanings of these words the only ones that are valid.

Regardless, linguistic prescriptivism isn't an effective method for storing of grid scale electrical power.

 

[Hermit]

as Bilby keeps pointing out, electric power is a service, not a commodity.

Bilby is wrong, and so are you. From Wikipedia's article titled Commodity:

In such standard works as Alfred Marshall's Principles of Economics (1920)[6] and Léon Walras's Elements of Pure Economics ([1926] 1954)[7] 'commodity' serves as general term for an economic good or service.

Not that any of this matters. Electricity is a good like any other. Just like pork bellies, or whatever, electricity is traded on spot, futures and derivatives markets.

Surely though whilst electricity may be traded on those markets it is at the point of consumption or use that it is a service.

Yes, it is indeed. And a commodity.

 

[bilby]

as Bilby keeps pointing out, electric power is a service, not a commodity.

Bilby is wrong, and so are you. From Wikipedia's article titled Commodity:

In such standard works as Alfred Marshall's Principles of Economics (1920)[6] and Léon Walras's Elements of Pure Economics ([1926] 1954)[7] 'commodity' serves as general term for an economic good or service.

Not that any of this matters. Electricity is a good like any other. Just like pork bellies, or whatever, electricity is traded on spot, futures and derivatives markets.

Surely though whilst electricity may be traded on those markets it is at the point of consumption or use that it is a service.

Yes, it is indeed. And a commodity.

That cannot be stockpiled. Regardless of what you call it.

A rose by any other name...

 

[Hermit]

as Bilby keeps pointing out, electric power is a service, not a commodity.

Bilby is wrong, and so are you. From Wikipedia's article titled Commodity:

In such standard works as Alfred Marshall's Principles of Economics (1920)[6] and Léon Walras's Elements of Pure Economics ([1926] 1954)[7] 'commodity' serves as general term for an economic good or service.

Not that any of this matters. Electricity is a good like any other. Just like pork bellies, or whatever, electricity is traded on spot, futures and derivatives markets.

Surely though whilst electricity may be traded on those markets it is at the point of consumption or use that it is a service.

Yes, it is indeed. And a commodity.

That cannot be stockpiled. Regardless of what you call it.

A rose by any other name...

Let's get three things straight, bilby.

1) No matter how often you assert electric power is a service, not a commodity, you are wrong.

2) I have not ever claimed that electricity can be stockpiled to a commercially viable extent.

3) Like all other commodities, Electricity produced from renewable sources is traded like all other commodities. Like them, it is bought and sold on spot, derivative and futures markets. It is even shortsold, geared and speculated with in all the weird and wonderful ways other commodities are handled. There is nothing that differentiates it from the others from a commercial point of view.

 

[bilby]

as Bilby keeps pointing out, electric power is a service, not a commodity.

Bilby is wrong, and so are you. From Wikipedia's article titled Commodity:

In such standard works as Alfred Marshall's Principles of Economics (1920)[6] and Léon Walras's Elements of Pure Economics ([1926] 1954)[7] 'commodity' serves as general term for an economic good or service.

Not that any of this matters. Electricity is a good like any other. Just like pork bellies, or whatever, electricity is traded on spot, futures and derivatives markets.

Surely though whilst electricity may be traded on those markets it is at the point of consumption or use that it is a service.

Yes, it is indeed. And a commodity.

That cannot be stockpiled. Regardless of what you call it.

A rose by any other name...

Let's get three things straight, bilby.

1) No matter how often you assert electric power is a service, not a commodity, you are wrong.

Nope. You are not the sole arbiter of how people use the English language. I am right, but I'm using words in ways you don't like - stiff shit.

2) I have not ever claimed that electricity can be stockpiled to a commercially viable extent.

It can't. Which is why I say it's a service, not a commodity. That it cannot be stockpiled is what that phrase means - whether or not you understand or accept it.

3) Like all other commodities, Electricity produced from renewable sources is traded like all other commodities. Like them, it is bought and sold on spot, derivative and futures markets. It is even shortsold, geared and speculated with in all the weird and wonderful ways other commodities are handled. There is nothing that differentiates it from the others from a commercial point of view.

Sure there is; It cannot be stockpiled.

Linguistic prescriptivism is not an engineering or technical argument. You are just being pointlessly and deliberately obtuse. Presumably because I have had the temerity to publicly expose the factual flaws that underpin your religious faith in the ability of intermittent renewables to eliminate the burning of fossil fuels.

Wind and solar are actively counterproductive in this; They harm coal and nuclear, while promoting gas. Harming coal is great, but harming nuclear and promoting gas is more than bad enough to offset this minor benefit. Just ask Germany. They're not being put over a barrel by Russian gas because they enjoy it.

 

[lpetrich]

Germany Doubles Pace of Energy Transition - CleanTechnica

Thanks to a change of government that reflected the country’s move towards greater climate action, Germany has doubled the pace of its energy transition. However — “Coal is pretty much dead and buried across the rest of Western Europe, but in Germany it’s still a quarter of generation. With 12% of power coming from nuclear, which is going to be totally closed down this year, even the new Green coalition government can’t end coal until 2030 and gas will persist more than a decade further than that. In 2020, the country even built a new coal plant.”

Energy source	Now	2030 Target
Solar	59 GW	200 GW
Offshore Wind	8 GW	30 GW
H2-making electrolyzers	very small	10 GW
Onshore Wind	20 GW	100 GW
Coal	40 GW	0
Natural Gas	10%	?

“All suitable roof surfaces are to be used for solar energy.” Rooftop solar will be mandatory on new commercial buildings and near-mandatory on new residential buildings. German solar has been growing at less than the world average, but with annual deployments set to triple, the expectation is that by 2030, 50% of home heat and 80% of electricity will be green. Currently, the low feed-in tariff is a factor dragging on rooftop installation. It is hoped that the FiT will be increased to encourage greater deployment. Some carrot to go with the regulator’s stick?

No mention of nuclear energy, though beside that, it's commendably ambitious.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

No mention of nuclear energy, though beside that, it's commendably ambitious.

Cleantechnica regularly attacks nuclear energy.

 

[bilby]

Germany Doubles Pace of Energy Transition - CleanTechnica

Thanks to a change of government that reflected the country’s move towards greater climate action, Germany has doubled the pace of its energy transition. However — “Coal is pretty much dead and buried across the rest of Western Europe, but in Germany it’s still a quarter of generation. With 12% of power coming from nuclear, which is going to be totally closed down this year, even the new Green coalition government can’t end coal until 2030 and gas will persist more than a decade further than that. In 2020, the country even built a new coal plant.”

Energy source	Now	2030 Target
Solar	59 GW	200 GW
Offshore Wind	8 GW	30 GW
H2-making electrolyzers	very small	10 GW
Onshore Wind	20 GW	100 GW
Coal	40 GW	0
Natural Gas	10%	?

“All suitable roof surfaces are to be used for solar energy.” Rooftop solar will be mandatory on new commercial buildings and near-mandatory on new residential buildings. German solar has been growing at less than the world average, but with annual deployments set to triple, the expectation is that by 2030, 50% of home heat and 80% of electricity will be green. Currently, the low feed-in tariff is a factor dragging on rooftop installation. It is hoped that the FiT will be increased to encourage greater deployment. Some carrot to go with the regulator’s stick?

No mention of nuclear energy, though beside that, it's commendably ambitious.

Or laughably implausible, depending on your understanding of the importance of continuous electricity supply in a developed nation.

You can carpet every square centimetre of Germany in solar cells, and the result will still be 0kW of power generation for around sixteen hours in every twenty four.

A slow moving anti-cyclonic weather pattern (of the type that leads to low winds for a week or so at a time several times a year), and you will find that that ? against gas (a fossil fuel not hugely better than coal) has to represent ~95% of total demand for two thirds of every day, or they will need to run diesel generators almost everywhere to avoid total blackouts.

Meanwhile, they will still have spent enough on those idle wind turbines and benighted solar cells to have funded ten times the necessary capacity of nuclear power plants to ensure the lights stay on.

This is insanity on a level not usually seen outside religious cults.

 

[lpetrich]

What's The Construction Industry Blueprint To Cut Carbon? - CleanTechnica - "Considering a building’s entire lifecycle will be essential to reduce emissions to necessary levels."

"Of the total global emissions, building operations are responsible for 28% annually, while building materials and construction (typically referred to as embodied carbon) are responsible for an additional 11% annually."

Nebraska, Reality Check: Red-State Voters Want Clean Energy Too. Just Ask Nebraska - CleanTechnica

Nebraska turned more than a few heads recently when public officials there adopted net-zero carbon goals across the electricity sector. After all, clean energy has often been framed as a partisan issue, and solidly Republican Nebraska looks nothing like most of the other states that have staked out timelines for clean power, such as New York, California, and Washington State.

But the fact is that renewable energy enjoys support among voters across the political spectrum — even if those voters offer different reasons for their support. Polling has long shown that Americans overwhelmingly favor wind and solar development, and a majority of Republicans support expanding both wind energy and solar farms. Whereas Democratic support is primarily driven by climate concerns, Republican support is driven more by economic benefits, according to a 2020 study.

Shows how good wind turbines and photovoltaic cells have gotten, for them to be economically competitive with fossil fuels.

3 Huge Game-Changing Green Hydrogen Projects Launch

"Green hydrogen projects are stepping up in scale, as demonstrated by 3 projects impacting ground transportation, power generation, shipping, and aircraft."

Good. The more the better. Though hydrogen by itself is not enough to complete the renewable-energy picture, it is an essential part of doing so, since it can then be used to make many synthetic fuels and industrial-chemistry feedstocks.

Nuclear-energy advocates should appreciate this recent push for hydrogen as well as recent efforts to develop improved electricity storage. That is because nuclear reactors are much like most renewable-energy sources: optimized for production of electricity. That is also because nuclear reactors are like wind energy and solar energy in being poor at load following, though they are that way in opposite directions: nuclear reactors needing to be run at constant output and wind energy and solar energy being intermittent.

 

[bilby]

That is also because nuclear reactors are like wind energy and solar energy in being poor at load following

That was true in the 1980s. It's not true today; France does load following with nuclear reactors routinely.

And wind and solar aren't merely 'poor' at load following, they are as bad as it is possible to get - output is highly variable, and that variation is completely uncorellated with variations in demand.

 

[lpetrich]

(Germany's renewable-energy plans...)
No mention of nuclear energy, though beside that, it's commendably ambitious.

Or laughably implausible, depending on your understanding of the importance of continuous electricity supply in a developed nation.

You can carpet every square centimetre of Germany in solar cells, and the result will still be 0kW of power generation for around sixteen hours in every twenty four.

A slow moving anti-cyclonic weather pattern (of the type that leads to low winds for a week or so at a time several times a year), and you will find that that ? against gas (a fossil fuel not hugely better than coal) has to represent ~95% of total demand for two thirds of every day, or they will need to run diesel generators almost everywhere to avoid total blackouts.

One can make the same argument against nuclear reactors, saying that unless one greatly overbuilds them, one will have rolling blackouts in the daytime, when people want more electricity.

It *may* be possible to make nuclear reactors do some load following, but that does not seem to be a very common practice. Even if it was, nuclear reactors would only be as good at load following as coal powerplants, because of their using steam turbines.

 

[bilby]

(Germany's renewable-energy plans...)
No mention of nuclear energy, though beside that, it's commendably ambitious.

Or laughably implausible, depending on your understanding of the importance of continuous electricity supply in a developed nation.

You can carpet every square centimetre of Germany in solar cells, and the result will still be 0kW of power generation for around sixteen hours in every twenty four.

A slow moving anti-cyclonic weather pattern (of the type that leads to low winds for a week or so at a time several times a year), and you will find that that ? against gas (a fossil fuel not hugely better than coal) has to represent ~95% of total demand for two thirds of every day, or they will need to run diesel generators almost everywhere to avoid total blackouts.

One can make the same argument against nuclear reactors, saying that unless one greatly overbuilds them, one will have rolling blackouts in the daytime, when people want more electricity.

It *may* be possible to make nuclear reactors do some load following, but that does not seem to be a very common practice. Even if it was, nuclear reactors would only be as good at load following as coal powerplants, because of their using steam turbines.

The difference being that we have real world examples (France; Sweden; Ontario) of developed nations or states run almost entirely on nuclear power, with some hydroelectric; And no real world examples of developed nations run entirely or even mostly on intermittent renewables, despite a very clear example of a nation spending VAST sums for decades in the attempt (Germany).

 

[Swammerdami]

Here is some detailed analysis by a proponent of renewable energy. I suppose it is highly flawed, but it should be instructive to prepare and examine a detailed rebuttal.

The key claims of the article seem to be:

The author, who had some expertise in systems that include solar+storage (S+S), used actual costs for the Vogtle [nuclear[ reactors that are being built in Georgia. The two reactors, which have been under construction since 2013, are expected to come online in 2022 and 2023, at a cost of roughly $30 billion, including $3 billion in finance costs. Their capacities will be 1,117 megawatts each.

The PV Magazine article calculates the cost of a solar array big enough to provide the same output as the nuclear reactors in the winter in Georgia. It assumes battery storage to supply the output of the nuclear plants for 16 hours, increased by 10% to be safe.

The author shows that the cost of the S+S system designed to replace the two new Vogtle reactors would cost a little less than $17 billion. That would represent a saving of about $10 billion, not counting finance costs.

While that sounds impressive, the article fails in a number of respects. Here are some:

Output of the S+S system is calculated to be the same as nuclear in the dead of winter. The nuclear plant’s output will be constant year round, but the S+S system will produce far more electricity nearly all year than in the dead of winter. The value of the extra electricity from S+S is not accounted for.

The cost of the nuclear plant does not include the backup systems it requires, but the price calculated for S+S does.

The load-following and peaker plants used to work with nuclear power, are slow to react to demand changes. By comparison, battery backup can respond nearly instantly, making it far more valuable.

Nuclear waste is an unsolved problem that the U.S. government guarantees, at taxpayer expense. The same is true for insurance, which is covered by the Price-Anderson act. S+S systems do not have comparable costs.

The author does not take into account Wright’s Law, a recognized law of economics referred to as “the learning curve.” It suggests that construction of a battery system of the size envisioned would be sufficient to drive the cost of storage down quickly enough to reduce the cost of the S+S system itself.

 

[bilby]

Here is some detailed analysis by a proponent of renewable energy. I suppose it is highly flawed, but it should be instructive to prepare and examine a detailed rebuttal.

Nah, that would be a futile waste of time.

Anyone who can read:

Nuclear waste is an unsolved problem that the U.S. government guarantees, at taxpayer expense. The same is true for insurance, which is covered by the Price-Anderson act. S+S systems do not have comparable costs.

And not recognise that they are being comprehensively lied to isn't going to be persuaded by a detailed rebuttal.

Nuclear waste is a solved problem, and has been for six decades; The cost of decommissioning and safely handling solar PV waste would be huge and is usually avoided by dumping the toxic crap in the environment and pretending it's no longer an issue.

We need not worry about the fact that a nuclear plant has three times the serviceable life of a PV system and its associated storage, and that it therefore costs three times as much for an equal S+S system as is implied.

The whole article is written to appeal to the converted, and stands up to knowledgable criticism the way tissue paper stands up to anti-tank ordnance.

You should apologise for stinking up the thread with this utter crap.

 

[bigfield]

Germany Doubles Pace of Energy Transition - CleanTechnica

Thanks to a change of government that reflected the country’s move towards greater climate action, Germany has doubled the pace of its energy transition. However — “Coal is pretty much dead and buried across the rest of Western Europe, but in Germany it’s still a quarter of generation. With 12% of power coming from nuclear, which is going to be totally closed down this year, even the new Green coalition government can’t end coal until 2030 and gas will persist more than a decade further than that. In 2020, the country even built a new coal plant.”

"the new Green coalition government can’t end coal until 2030 and gas will persist more than a decade further than that."

In 2030, Germany will have a mix of solar, wind and gas.
In 2040, Germany will still have a mix of solar, wind and gas, plus maybe a few batteries.
In 2050, Germany will still have a mix of solar, wind and gas, plus maybe a few more batteries.

In order to even get close to net zero by 2050, Germany must wait for someone to develop a replacement for gas, then it needs to actually replace its entire inventory of gas turbines with that replacement technology, in the space of 28 years.

 

[bilby]

Germany Doubles Pace of Energy Transition - CleanTechnica

Thanks to a change of government that reflected the country’s move towards greater climate action, Germany has doubled the pace of its energy transition. However — “Coal is pretty much dead and buried across the rest of Western Europe, but in Germany it’s still a quarter of generation. With 12% of power coming from nuclear, which is going to be totally closed down this year, even the new Green coalition government can’t end coal until 2030 and gas will persist more than a decade further than that. In 2020, the country even built a new coal plant.”

"the new Green coalition government can’t end coal until 2030 and gas will persist more than a decade further than that."

In 2030, Germany will have a mix of solar, wind and gas.
In 2040, Germany will still have a mix of solar, wind and gas, plus maybe a few batteries.
In 2050, Germany will still have a mix of solar, wind and gas, plus maybe a few more batteries.

In order to even get close to net zero by 2050, Germany needs someone wait for someone to develop a replacement for gas, and then it needs to actually replace it's entire inventory of gas turbines with the replacement technology, in 28 years.

Nuclear has already not only been invented, but thoroughly tested and improved; It's currently on its fourth major version (oddly called Generation III+), with a large number of competing designs in use and/or under construction; And design and prototyping work is well advanced on Generation IV designs.

This isn't difficult.

Indeed, Germany could make a significant step towards their goal by simply reversing their irrational decision to close their existing perfectly good nuclear plants that are scheduled to be shut down this year.

 

[bigfield]

Here is some detailed analysis by a proponent of renewable energy. I suppose it is highly flawed, but it should be instructive to prepare and examine a detailed rebuttal.

Of course there is a statement, “The sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow,” which happens to fall into a range of unintentionally disingenuous to simply deceptive. The amount of electricity coming from a given solar array is really rather predictable and tends to come best in periods of light winds. And wind turbines do best when the sun is not shining brightest, so they compliment each other. But more to the point, while a single wind turbine can be idled in calm weather, the wind never stops blowing over wider geographical areas.

The implication here is that wind will reliably generate electricity at nighttime, given that the turbines are spread over a large geographical area yet connected to the same grid.

It doesn't play out that way in reality.

Here is wind generation over the last seven days across Australia:

OpenNEM: An Open Platform for National Electricity Market Data

An Open Platform for National Electricity Market Data

opennem.org.au

The dark vertical bands are nighttime. The peaks and troughs of wind output don't line up with the day-night cycle at all.

In the US, the peaks for wind power do coincide with nighttime, but the height, width and timing of the peaks and the troughs still vary considerably from day-to-day.

Real-time Operating Grid - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

www.eia.gov

But zoom out a bit and a greater problem become apparent:



In order to rely on wind power at nighttime, you would need to build enough turbines to handle the periods of relatively low output, such as shown around 24-26 Feb, which would leave you generating maybe 3-4 times as much power as you need at times such as 20-23 Feb.

The claim that "the wind never stops blowing over large areas" really doesn't mean that you can guarantee electricity supply by building wind turbines over a large area. Even over a large area, like an entire continent, the total amount of wind can drop far enough to reduce wind power generation to a fraction of its maximum capacity for days at a time.