Natural gas, a bridge to nowhere?

[mspohr]

Coal comeback could drive up UK energy emissions – report
Coal comeback could drive up UK energy emissions – report
Here's the kicker
Consumers are unlikely to benefit from coal being cheaper but coal operators would see their profits boosted this year, he said.

 

[GWord]

I

I'm with @SageBrush - just don't get it. Seems a very bad idea compared to other methods.

This water storage project is incredibly cheap compared to battery methods actually. If you assume you have access to the entire yearly consumed volume of Lake Meade for storage, you have approximately 4,000GWh of storage for $3Bn. At $100/kWh for batteries, $3Bn gets you 30GWh. Price per GWh:

Battery: $100,000,000 / GWh
Hoover Hydro: $750,000 / GWh

But the real winner is still natural gas storage. Using typical heat rates from a combined cycle plant (7500btu/kWh and a $200MM construction cost for a 10Bcf storage field), you get roughly 3,000GWh worth of storage.

Natural Gas Storage: $70,000 / GWh

You would have to spend $300Bn on batteries to get the same storage capacity as a small gas storage field (10Bcf). Batteries have a lot of promise but they are only practical for tactical use at this point, and remain very expensive for strategic storage.

 

[mspohr]

This water storage project is incredibly cheap compared to battery methods actually. If you assume you have access to the entire yearly consumed volume of Lake Meade for storage, you have approximately 4,000GWh of storage for $3Bn. At $100/kWh for batteries, $3Bn gets you 30GWh. Price per GWh:

Battery: $100,000,000 / GWh
Hoover Hydro: $750,000 / GWh

But the real winner is still natural gas storage. Using typical heat rates from a combined cycle plant (7500btu/kWh and a $200MM construction cost for a 10Bcf storage field), you get roughly 3,000GWh worth of storage.

Natural Gas Storage: $70,000 / GWh

You would have to spend $300Bn on batteries to get the same storage capacity as a small gas storage field (10Bcf). Batteries have a lot of promise but they are only practical for tactical use at this point, and remain very expensive for strategic storage.

Natural gas storage?
Are you talking about some way to generate natural gas, store it, then use it to generate electricity? I've never heard of that.
Or... are you simply saying that you can store natural gas in a tank or reservoir (like LA's infamous Porter Ranch leaky reservoir)? (But this is not what most people think of when they consider energy storage... there needs to be some way to regenerate the storage without digging up new fossil fuels.)

 

[Brando]

This water storage project is incredibly cheap compared to battery methods actually. If you assume you have access to the entire yearly consumed volume of Lake Meade for storage, you have approximately 4,000GWh of storage for $3Bn. At $100/kWh for batteries, $3Bn gets you 30GWh. Price per GWh:

Battery: $100,000,000 / GWh
Hoover Hydro: $750,000 / GWh

But the real winner is still natural gas storage. Using typical heat rates from a combined cycle plant (7500btu/kWh and a $200MM construction cost for a 10Bcf storage field), you get roughly 3,000GWh worth of storage.

Natural Gas Storage: $70,000 / GWh

You would have to spend $300Bn on batteries to get the same storage capacity as a small gas storage field (10Bcf). Batteries have a lot of promise but they are only practical for tactical use at this point, and remain very expensive for strategic storage.

4,000 GWh ? going to empty the entire lake? are you insane?
Or do you think you can re-cycle the entire lake annually? that is a lot of pumping
PS- you can recharge batteries, you do know that right?

Construction is how many years? (and of course government projects never have cost overruns ;-) </sarcasm>
Batteries could be done 100 MWh blocks and start storage in about 90 days. Add-on as needed. Suspect lower costs
Already batteries are cheaper than Natural Gas.

Your cost analysis makes no sense. 1 GWh battery recharge 1000 times = 1000 GWh worth of storage? Is that how you see it?

PS- already wind power is seen selling for less than Hydro power - so bpa.gov had to raise rates to break even.

 

[mspohr]

4,000 GWh ? going to empty the entire lake? are you insane?
Or do you think you can re-cycle the entire lake annually? that is a lot of pumping
PS- you can recharge batteries, you do know that right?

Construction is how many years? (and of course government projects never have cost overruns ;-) </sarcasm>
Batteries could be done 100 MWh blocks and start storage in about 90 days. Add-on as needed. Suspect lower costs
Already batteries are cheaper than Natural Gas.

Your cost analysis makes no sense. 1 GWh battery recharge 1000 times = 1000 GWh worth of storage? Is that how you see it?

PS- already wind power is seen selling for less than Hydro power - so bpa.gov had to raise rates to break even.

I think the idea is not to empty the lake but to use the top x number of feet of storage to pump water that has already drained from the lake back up into the lake at night when power is cheap and plentiful so it can be reused the next day when power is scarce or expensive.
This is a short term recycling of the water to meet daily energy needs.
Theoretically, many times the entire volume of the lake could be pumped up and down during a year... but only a little each day.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Coal comeback could drive up UK energy emissions – report
Coal comeback could drive up UK energy emissions – report
Here's the kicker
Consumers are unlikely to benefit from coal being cheaper but coal operators would see their profits boosted this year, he said.

Devil (angel?) is in the details:

The market intelligence firm ICIS said that it expected coal would account for 10.5% of electricity generation this winter, up from 10% last year.

Not really much of a "comeback" despite high natural gas prices.

 

[GWord]

4,000 GWh ? going to empty the entire lake? are you insane?
Or do you think you can re-cycle the entire lake annually? that is a lot of pumping
PS- you can recharge batteries, you do know that right?

Construction is how many years? (and of course government projects never have cost overruns ;-) </sarcasm>
Batteries could be done 100 MWh blocks and start storage in about 90 days. Add-on as needed. Suspect lower costs
Already batteries are cheaper than Natural Gas.

Your cost analysis makes no sense. 1 GWh battery recharge 1000 times = 1000 GWh worth of storage? Is that how you see it?

PS- already wind power is seen selling for less than Hydro power - so bpa.gov had to raise rates to break even.

Maybe math isn't your strong suit. It's just division. You might want to sit this one out.

 

[GWord]

Natural gas storage?
Are you talking about some way to generate natural gas, store it, then use it to generate electricity? I've never heard of that.
Or... are you simply saying that you can store natural gas in a tank or reservoir (like LA's infamous Porter Ranch leaky reservoir)? (But this is not what most people think of when they consider energy storage... there needs to be some way to regenerate the storage without digging up new fossil fuels.)

I'm simply comparing several options for energy storage. I'm assuming that by using renewables you lessen your need for gas consumption and so that sunk cost fuel could then be stored instead. If you assume that the fuel is not sunk cost then it would reduce cost disparity depending on your assumption of how much the storage was used but you could buy 14% of the global reserves of natural gas for the cost of 3GWh of batteries. ($300Bn @ $3 / Dth)

Actually, using compressed air energy storage might be more applicable since you don't have to also buy the fuel commodity. Construction costs would be similar but I think energy rates would be far less. My gut says that would place a bit more expensive than Hoover but probably not by much.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Devil (angel?) is in the details:



Not really much of a "comeback" despite high natural gas prices.

Also, I love the way they throw around "tonnes of CO2" as if they and everybody else knows what a tonne of CO2 implies.

 

[mspohr]

Also, I love the way they throw around "tonnes of CO2" as if they and everybody else knows what a tonne of CO2 implies.

The tonne, commonly referred to as the metric ton in the United States, is a non-SI metric unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms; or one megagram; it is equivalent to approximately 2,204.6 pounds, or 0.984 long tons. Although not part of the SI, the tonne is accepted for use with SI units and prefixes by the International Committee for Weights and Measures.

As for what it implies... GLOBAL WARMING!

 

[Brando]

Maybe math isn't your strong suit. It's just division. You might want to sit this one out.

actually arithmetic - do you know the difference?
Just doing arithmetic doesn't mean it is a good idea.
Batteries faster to construct in months vs years
Water better used as water rather than storage.
Batteries respond in ms. Turbines take many minutes to spin up and then sync.

Really is a stupid idea.

 

[Brando]

Comparing costs of storage isn't gut feeling or magic.
Start with some reasonable designs - do cost estimates and compare.
Clever ideas aren't necessarily cost effective. This project idea is just plain bad.

 

[GWord]

actually arithmetic - do you know the difference?
Just doing arithmetic doesn't mean it is a good idea.
Batteries faster to construct in months vs years
Water better used as water rather than storage.
Batteries respond in ms. Turbines take many minutes to spin up and then sync.

Really is a stupid idea.

Ok hero. Let us know when your 4,000GWh battery storage business opens up shop.

 

[mspohr]

Maybe The Good News For Natural Gas Isn't So Good | CleanTechnica

Looks like NG electricity can't compete with cheaper renewables. Leveraged fracking can't cover it's costs. May not end well.

 

[mspohr]

Terms of Service Violation

More on pumped storage from a site in Austria.

 

[mspohr]

Rush to gas risks hundreds of billions in stranded assets

Natural gas may go bust sooner rather than later.

 

[mspohr]

By 2035, the ‘great fuel switch’ will mark the end of the age of oil and gas, analysts expect

"Close to 20 percent of global power needs will be met by solar or wind energy by 2035, marking a shift from the age of oil and gas to the age of renewables, according to a new report from researchers at the consultancy Wood Mackenzie.
Energy transitions, similar to the ongoing shift to renewables, are nothing new, Wood Mackenzie researchers write in the report released Wednesday, entitled “Thinking Global Energy Transitions: The What, If, How and When.”
The transition to solar and wind energy will replace the equivalent of about 100 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas demand in the global power sector, the report says. For comparison, demand for natural gas in the United States — the world’s largest consumer of natural gas — averaged about 74 billion cubic per day for all purposes, or about 20 percent of global natural gas consumption, in 2017.

Earlier this year, Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported that prices for solar, wind, and battery storage are dropping so rapidly that renewables are increasingly squeezing out all forms of fossil fuel power, including natural gas.

 

[nwdiver]

Robert Llewellyn discusses the possibility that low natural gas prices are part of a fracking bubble that is about to burst. I've read more and more about this. Essentially a lot of fracking companies have taken on an unsustainable amount of debt to build wells. If this is true we can expect a huge spike in gas prices soon...

 

[mspohr]

Robert Llewellyn discusses the possibility that low natural gas prices are part of a fracking bubble that is about to burst. I've read more and more about this. Essentially a lot of fracking companies have taken on an unsustainable amount of debt to build wells. If this is true we can expect a huge spike in gas prices soon...

The risk here is financial collapse of the fracking companies and their funders who don't seem to be able to do basic math. It looks like a house of cards ready to collapse. Higher prices could help some of them hang on a bit longer but if the gas is really not there in the ground, there will be no return.

 

[EVCollies]

I live in fracking world (F*&$ing world). They have no idea their lives depend upon a house of cards, even though so many of the workers come from the other areas that has been played out. I see so much infrastructure (pipelines, processing stations, waste water injection) that I believe will be idled in 2-5 years. And then who will care for these wells?