except he's not in kentucky he's in california where the price per kwh is much higher.. his COP is barely above 1 so probably it would have been cheaper to heat with gas as-is often the case in extreme cold
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Prediction: Coal has fallen. Nuclear is next then Oil.
- Thread starter nwdiver
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- Energy Environment Policy
Read the Bloomberg article that was linked. This is about the collapse of the market price of oil not the 100% elimination of the need for oil. Looks like I did misquote the article. Should have read 'as soon as 2023' not 'by 2022'.
Oil is trading at ~$80/bbl. That's far from inflation adjusted highs. And OPEC has largely lost the ability to control the price by constricting demand.
We have infrastructure designed for ~90Mbbl/day. It doesn't take much of a demand reduction to crater the price. We saw that during COVID. Higher deployment of EVs will ensure there won't be a following recovery.
That's fine if they crater the price to 10 a barrel. I'll buy a gas car then...lol
The average lifting price of oil is ~$60/bbl. So it's not going lower than that long term. Then there's refining costs and taxes. Cheap oil won't mean cheap gas. The 'collapse' of oil will likely be like the collapse of coal. An endless string of bankruptcies and mergers.
Many people think gasoline just flows down from the mountaintop, like water, so it must have a floor price of $0. LOL What I've learned in the age of internet is that even if something is free, it may not be worth your trouble (cost) to get it - see case of natural gas. The great thing with renewables is that it's getting cheaper to get it while fossil fuel is well refined and don't have much room for cost improvement.
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A lot of the improvements that would make sense is being held back by private land ownership. It is too bad Detroit was not just taken over by the government to be bulldozed and rebuilt from scratch, with all the modern and futuristic infrastructure like geothermal heating and other such 'socialist' ideals (AKA: Infrastructure). LOL
Of course, a corporation could have gone through and bought up all the land and rebuild it as a corporate city like in Robocop. haha
Of course, a corporation could have gone through and bought up all the land and rebuild it as a corporate city like in Robocop. haha
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mspohr
Well-Known Member
Energy Efficiency: Why Are We Wasting Two-Thirds Of The Energy In Fossil Fuels? - CleanTechnica
Energy efficiency is the subject of a recent study by RMI, which finds two-thirds of fossil fuel energy is wasted each year.
cleantechnica.com
To start this lesson on energy efficiency, we need to get you out of your comfort zone and take a look around with fresh eyes. Let’s say you invite a few friends to come watch the Super Bowl at your house. One brings a case of beer to the celebration, but before the game begins, you open 16 of the bottles of beer and pour them down the drain. Another friend brings a large meat lovers pizza with extra cheese cut into 12 slices. While you are pouring beer down the sink, you open the pizza box and toss 8 slices into the garbage. Pretty stupid, huh? but that is exactly what we do with the energy from the fuels we extract every year. Using the beer and pizza analogy, that is pretty stupid, too, wouldn’t you agree?
In financial terms, the loss of 379 EJ per year means we waste some $1 trillion per year in energy spending on the supply side, and another $3.6 trillion on the demand side. That adds up to $4.6 trillion per year, which averages out to about $600 wasted annually per person globally. This represents 40% of total global spending on energy, or about 5% of global GDP, which is roughly double the annual investments into the energy system every year.
RMI believes 3 new energy transformation changes will have a significant impact on the energy system this decade. They are:
Renewables — Wind and solar energy can be generated almost entirely without losses, as they require effectively no extraction or processing energy, nor suffer major thermal losses like fossil fuels
. Localization — Locally generated renewables eliminate the need to transport fuels around the world. Generating electricity at the point of demand, such as with rooftop solar, avoids the need to transport energy altogether.
Electrification — Technologies such as heat pumps and electric vehicles eliminate most wasted energy and are two to four times more efficient than natural gas boilers or conventional cars respectively.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
dhrivnak
Active Member
So true. We purchased an inverter driven HP and after it was first installed our HVAC power jumped some 25%. I did some investigating and when they set the system up the programmed night to be 3F cooler at night vs day. AND they had the emergency heat differential set to 1 degree. So at 6 each morning the temp jumped from 68 to 71 and the strip heaters came on as the Set Point was more than 1F from the set point. I reversed the settings 1 degree set back with a 3F dead band and strip heaters now only come on in rare situations below 10F. AND the 25% increase soon dropped to a 40% decrease. And now I am well pleased.
What do you think the 'Advance Act' does? It's more than just streamlining the NRC. It also includes ~$1B for SMRs and ~$3B for nuclear fuels.
Nuclear power is wholly incompatible with 'free market capitalism'. Remove Price Anderson and make NPPs seek insurance on the private markets. ~100% of nuclear plants would be closed in months. In a free market there would be no nuclear power. None.
There are two examples of 'successful' nuclear programs. EDF in France and Kepco in Korea. You know what they have in common? The objective was nuclear power not profit because they're both state-owned. No one builds nuclear plants to make money. The only time private industries get involved is when governments offer a blank check.
100% of nuclear fuel still comes from government owned companies. The US attempted to privatize USEC. It failed within months of going public. It's almost comical how toxic exposure to 'free markets' is to nuclear power. The UK has been trying to offload its share of URENCO to private investors for ~15 years. Still no takers.
The FAA was also 'streamlined' by deferring a lot of regulation to Boeing. How did that work out?
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Seems like you'd like nuclear if it is anti capitalist, right?
Every utility is subsidized especially wind and solar that's a poor reason to be against a technology
Hell I wouldn't have solar panels if the government didn't pay for a 3rd of it
What's wrong with simple pragmatism? Economics still matters. Even with subsidies capital isn't unlimited. Why invest $15B in nuclear to reduce fools fuel by ~8TWh/yr in ~15 years when you can invest $15B in wind or solar and reduce it by ~40TWh/yr in ~3 years. I prefer 40TWh/yr in 3 years instead of 8TWh/yr in 15 years because 'time' and 'numbers'.
Even without subsidies solar is still cost effective. Today with subsides the ROI of solar is ~6 years. Without it's 9. Solar is still cheaper than the alternative. Nuclear isn't. I've never understood why people that want less government intervention have such a fetish for the one form of generation that would cease to exist without government intervention.
I used to work in nuclear but when trump got elected over Hillary in 2016 I figured the future of nuclear was over and that seems to be the trend
Without government intervention we'd be burning nothing but coal and gas
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... there was never a 'war on nuclear'. It's just physics. Heat is simply a very expensive source of electricity. Subsidies can only do so much. Economics matters.
That was a typo.. future of nuclear was over I meant
Of course economics matters that's why gas and coal are so great it's very cheap
Gas turbines produce electricity at a lower cost per kw than solar and have a higher capacity factor and a longer lifespan they are thermally very efficient economics matters
Gas turbines are better than steam turbines but solar is cheaper than both now and getting cheaper. I thought you worked in nuclear. You never had to run your turbines at a lower capacity because you lost a blade? We sure did. The lifetime O&M cost of refurbishment is A LOT higher per kWh than solar.
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