Green New Deal

[juliusa]

Coal goes away regardless.
NG replacement by wind is trickier due to dispatch-ability. And it will be (in my opinion) quite tricky to avoid some degree of the Australia experience wherein relatively small amounts of NG are expensive on the spot market.

I agree with all of that, though I think the scale and diversity of the US NG market will help mitigate the Australia experience.

Part of the renewables solution (and cost) is storage in the long term - NG is an interim crutch because it is less expensive than storage (or a cheap form of storage, depending on how you look at it).

Our problem is NG is too cheap to make this possible here.
Tesla’s massive Powerpack battery in Australia cost $66 million and already made up to ~$17 million

 

[SageBrush]

I think the scale and diversity of the US NG

For now, sure. But what happens when NG plants close due to low utilization ? The low electricity price of an NG plant is predicated on >50% capacity factor. Australia was an outlier due to market manipulation by monopolies but it is hard to envision how gaps in PV/wind generation will not be a sellers market for the remaining market participants. Batteries can play in the < 4 hour game, but not much more. Hydro and pumped hydro maybe ? I'm just not sure.

 

[nwdiver]

I agree with all of that, though I think the scale and diversity of the US NG market will help mitigate the Australia experience.

Part of the renewables solution (and cost) is storage in the long term - NG is an interim crutch because it is less expensive than storage (or a cheap form of storage, depending on how you look at it).

Our problem is NG is too cheap to make this possible here.
Tesla’s massive Powerpack battery in Australia cost $66 million and already made up to ~$17 million

Storage only makes sense when it's 'value-stacked'. Absorbing energy that would have been curtailed so it's essentially free, reducing transmission bottlenecks so costly upgrades are avoided AND displacing generation.

If you have a robust transmission grid and very limited curtailment investing capital in storage doesn't make any sense. Why spend $66M to reduce curtailment by 2GWh/yr when you can spend $66M and generate 4GWh/yr more from additional wind or solar?

NG isn't any more of a crutch for wind and solar than it is for 'base-load' like coal and nuclear. It's just part of the system. Even when we have a ton of storage we'll likely maintain several GW possibly 100s of GW of NG turbines in standby so if there isn't enough wind, solar and storage available the lights stay on. That's the great thing about a gas turbine. Unlike coal it can be ready to support the grid at a moments notice with zero emissions and unlike nuclear it costs next to nothing to do so.

 

[SageBrush]

NG isn't any more of a crutch for wind and solar than it is for 'base-load' like coal and nuclear. It's just part of the system. Even when we have a ton of storage we'll likely maintain several GW possible 100s of GW of NG turbines in standby so if there isn't enough wind, solar and storage available the lights stay on. That's the great thing about a gas turbine. Unlike coal it can be ready to support the grid at a moments notice with zero emissions and unlike nuclear it costs next to nothing to do so.

What will be the mechanism (market or otherwise) that keeps these plants in reserve ?

 

[nwdiver]

What will be the mechanism (market or otherwise) that keeps these plants in reserve ?

Probably the ISOs (Independent System Operators). That's were regulation comes in. The cost of maintaining these plants is passed on to rate payers similar to other costs like transmission lines.

There's a gas plant near where I live that hasn't produced a singe kWh in >2 years. SPS is just now trying to get approval from the PRC to abandon it. AND they have ~20% more capacity than they need beyond the 12% buffer required by SPP.

 

[SageBrush]

Probably the ISOs (Independent System Operators). That's were regulation comes in. The cost of maintaining these plants is passed on to rate payers similar to other costs like transmission lines.

There's a gas plant near where I live that hasn't produced a singe kWh in >2 years. SPS is just now trying to get approval from the PRC to abandon it. AND they have ~20% more capacity than they need beyond the 12% buffer required by SPP.

In a future world without coal or nuclear and say 80% of routine consumption provided by wind/PV, how much NG capacity would the regulators require ? Could it be 80% * 1.12 ?

I'm not arguing or even making a point. I'm just trying to wrap my head around this aspect of extensive fossil replacement.

 

[nwdiver]

In a future world without coal or nuclear and say 80% of routine consumption provided by wind/PV, how much NG capacity would the regulators require ? Could it be 80% * 1.12 ?

I'm not arguing or even making a point. I'm just trying to wrap my head around this aspect of extensive fossil replacement.

That's a little too complicated. There are a lot of technologies still maturing like demand response so I think it's too early to have a good idea of how much standby we'll really need.

Even it it's 112%. Enough to backup 100% of demand plus a 12% buffer it's really not costly. It's been a while since I've seen the cost to keep the Carlsbad plant in Standby that SPS is abandoning but I don't recall it being a significant cost.

The amount of standby capacity we keep will be a compromise between cost and reliability. Should we have generation sources available for a 1:5 year event or just suck up the occasional power outage? It's not like power outages are 100% avoidable anyway.

Another real possibility is that NG BECOMES storage. CH4 is pretty easy to store. If we can cost effectively convert Electrons + CO2 + H2O into CH4 that will be our battery.

 

[mspohr]

The Green New Deal Rises Again Opinion | The Green New Deal Rises Again

Thomas Friedman raised the concept of the Green New Deal 10 years ago.
He revisits it again.
...
To keep it simple, my goals would be what energy innovator Hal Harvey has dubbed “the four zeros.” 1. Zero-net energy buildings: buildings that can produce as much energy as they consume. 2. Zero-waste manufacturing: stimulating manufacturers to design and build products that use fewer raw materials and that are easily disassembled and recycled. 3. A zero-carbon grid: If we can combine renewable power generation at a utility scale with some consumers putting up their own solar panels and windmills that are integrated with the grid, and with large-scale storage batteries, we really could, one day, electrify everything carbon-free. 4. Zero-emissions transportation: a result of combining electric vehicles and electric public transportation with a zero-carbon grid.

That’s my Green New Deal circa 2019. It basically says: Forget the Space Race. We don’t need a man, or woman, on Mars. We need an Earth Race — a free-market competition to ensure that mankind can continue to thrive on Earth. A Green New Deal is the strategy for that. It can make America healthier, wealthier, more innovative, more energy secure, more respected — and weaken petro-dictators across the globe.

 

[nwdiver]

That’s my Green New Deal circa 2019. It basically says: Forget the Space Race. We don’t need a man, or woman, on Mars. We need an Earth Race — a free-market competition to ensure that mankind can continue to thrive on Earth.

I don't think there's any reason to think that shifting focus from Mars to renewables will accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels. In fact; IMO there's far MORE reason to think it would be detrimental as counter-intuitive as that may seem. It's innovation for one. Who knows what we'll create to make life possible on Mars that could be helpful in healing our planet. Off the top of my head an efficient method of pulling CO2 from the air and combining it with H2O to make rocket fuel aka methane aka CH4. That could be very useful.

Also... Apollo 8 is largely credited with kicking off the modern environmental movement. So the Apollo program may in fact be the grandfather of the EPA. Or at least the friend that introduced its parents...

"the most influential environmental photograph ever taken" - Galen Rowell (100 photographs that changed the world)

"We set out to explore the moon and instead discovered the Earth." - William Anders (Apollo 8)

'Earth Rise'

 

[mspohr]

I don't think there's any reason to think that shifting focus from Mars to renewables will accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels. In fact; IMO there's far MORE reason to think it would be detrimental as counter-intuitive as that may seem. It's innovation for one. Who knows what we'll create to make life possible on Mars that could be helpful in healing our planet. Off the top of my head an efficient method of pulling CO2 from the air and combining it with H2O to make rocket fuel aka methane aka CH4. That could be very useful.

Also... Apollo 8 is largely credited with kicking off the modern environmental movement. So the Apollo program may in fact be the grandfather of the EPA. Or at least the friend that introduced its parents...

"the most influential environmental photograph ever taken" - Galen Rowell (100 photographs that changed the world)

"We set out to explore the moon and instead discovered the Earth." - William Anders (Apollo 8)

'Earth Rise'

I think he was writing metaphorically. The Space Race of the 60s mobilized resources and focused attention. We were successful.
What we need now is the same focus and investment of resources in addressing the problem of climate change.

I am also in favor on continuing investment in reaching Mars (and, indeed, in all investment in science) but the level of resources required is much less than that which will be necessary to replace fossil fuels.

 

[voyager]

Time to come up with an EV 3.0? Particularly since subsidizing electric cars is debated or even terminated...

 

[juliusa]

Batteries can play in the < 4 hour game, but not much more. Hydro and pumped hydro maybe ? I'm just not sure.

Neither do I. But in the post-NG world, we will have to figure it out.

Maybe with enough excess solar and wind capacity, and some battery, there will be enough generation somewhere in each NERC region? Across North America?

 

[juliusa]

Storage only makes sense when it's 'value-stacked'. Absorbing energy that would have been curtailed so it's essentially free, reducing transmission bottlenecks so costly upgrades are avoided AND displacing generation.

Yep. But in a post-NG world I think there will be significant overbuild of wind (2x?) so that there is almost always excess, and some pump storage (almost always "full") and some battery to handle some variability.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

For now, sure. But what happens when NG plants close due to low utilization ? The low electricity price of an NG plant is predicated on >50% capacity factor. Australia was an outlier due to market manipulation by monopolies but it is hard to envision how gaps in PV/wind generation will not be a sellers market for the remaining market participants. Batteries can play in the < 4 hour game, but not much more. Hydro and pumped hydro maybe ? I'm just not sure.

I don't think we'll see NG plants sitting idle 10 years from now, the reality then will be completely different by then. With ubiquitous battery and other types of storage we can run NG plants not as baseload, peaker or anything tied to actual usage, but just when it makes sense for additional charging. Pop on for half a day when we think it's going to be cloudy for the next few days and not particularly windy. Or maybe we just have too much methane sitting around.

 

[SageBrush]

Neither do I. But in the post-NG world, we will have to figure it out.

Maybe with enough excess solar and wind capacity, and some battery, there will be enough generation somewhere in each NERC region? Across North America?

Are you going to invest in a wind farm that mostly sits idle ? Judging by your earlier posts I think not.

Part of the answer is a better grid that allows sharing -- no doubt about that. And if the Fed gov were not such bozos they would recognize their role. Beyond that though, it seems like we need a technology that is cheap to build, cheap to leave unused, and reliable when called on. I don't know what that is, but it is NOT wind or PV.

NWDiver thinks it is NG. NG has the advantage of already being built so we kind kinda sorta call the plants sunk costs ... that have not yet been amortized. And then there are maintenance costs and a profit motive. It is all above my head and it is years off. But it is coming if we want a decarbonized economy.

 

[juliusa]

Are you going to invest in a wind farm that mostly sits idle ? Judging by your earlier posts I think not.

Not sure we have a choice. We invest in power plants now that sit idle. Just part of the cost of renewable energy when we can't control the wind and sun.

NWDiver thinks it is NG.

That is fine in the short term, although it does have GHG emissions. NG is a finite resource.

we need a technology that is cheap to build, cheap to leave unused, and reliable when called on.

That would be nice! When you discover/invent it, count me in.

Nuclear fusion may be the solution - I don't think it will be cheap to build though. Everything else (including wind, PV) is simply interim.

 

[mspohr]

A rigorous model predicts batteries will be cheapest storage
Model predicts lithium-ion batteries most competitive for storage applications by 2030
...
Deciding how we're going to invest in clean energy storage requires a similar analysis, say researchers at Imperial College London. They developed a model to determine the lifetime costs of 9 electricity storage technologies for 12 different applications between 2015 and 2050. The model, which predicts lithium-ion batteries to be the cheapest technology in the coming decades, appears January 9 in the journal Joule, and is available open access

 

[SDRick]

I always thought that fusion would be the holy Grail. Unfortunately, fusion historically has always been "30 years away". At this point, it looks like we are closer to commercializing a combination of rooftop solar and improved on-site storage. Additionally, some believe that fusion will not be able to compete on "household" economics as transmission costs will be higher than those of improved on-site production and storage.

 

[SageBrush]

Not sure we have a choice.

Who is "we" ? I am asking about YOU.

 

[mspohr]

California set a goal of 100% clean energy, and now other states may follow its lead

Looks like the idea of 100% renewable energy is catching on.

The concept didn’t originate in California. Hawaii became the first state to pass a 100% clean energy mandate in 2015, and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, introduced federal legislation to that effect in 2017. More than 100 cities have endorsed the concept, according to the Sierra Club, as have 150 major corporations that are part of the RE100 coalition.

But in the months since California passed its 100% clean energy mandate, the idea has gained significant political momentum.

Voters in Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin elected new governors in November who signed a pledge from the League of Conservation Voters to support 100% clean energy by 2050. In several states, the new governors mark a dramatic shift from their predecessors.

...
But whatever standards they endorse, the effects of simply setting the goal could be felt immediately, even with a target date 20 to 30 years in the future. Wade Schauer, a research director at the energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie, said investors might hesitate to invest in gas-fired power plants in states looking to eliminate fossil fuels in the next few decades.

“Why would you want to go into New York and build a power plant that by 2035 would barely be running, and by 2040 wouldn’t be running at all?” Schauer asked. The adoption of 100% clean energy targets, he said, “could completely change the game” for natural gas.