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Prediction: Coal has fallen. Nuclear is next then Oil.
- Thread starter nwdiver
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- Energy Environment Policy
mblakele
FSD Beta (99)
I think this thread has already touched on the latest IEA data, but the charts may help understand it.
Energy consumption increased at a record rate in 2018: That bodes ill for climate change
Energy consumption increased at a record rate in 2018: That bodes ill for climate change
Electric Power Monthly. March 2019 for January 2019.
Coal:
January 2019: 101,019GWh, 28.09% (2018: 118,939GWh, 31.64%)
YTD 2019: 101,019GWh, 28.09% (2018: 118,939GWh, 31.64%)
12mo Rolling: 1,128,472 GWh, 26.93% (-12mo: 1,209,441GWh, 29.57%)
January Capacity change: +632.1MW total 244,105.9MW
(Don't know what (re?)opened.)
(Nuclear had little change.)
Coal:
January 2019: 101,019GWh, 28.09% (2018: 118,939GWh, 31.64%)
YTD 2019: 101,019GWh, 28.09% (2018: 118,939GWh, 31.64%)
12mo Rolling: 1,128,472 GWh, 26.93% (-12mo: 1,209,441GWh, 29.57%)
January Capacity change: +632.1MW total 244,105.9MW
(Don't know what (re?)opened.)
(Nuclear had little change.)
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Global 'collapse' in number of new coal-fired power plants
Global 'collapse' in number of new coal-fired power plants
Good news, mostly. Still some building in China and India.
Global 'collapse' in number of new coal-fired power plants
Good news, mostly. Still some building in China and India.
seattlite2004
Active Member
Bill Gates likes Nukes: Bill Gates casts his vote for Senate bill to speed up nuclear research – GeekWire
mspohr
Well-Known Member
seattlite2004
Active Member
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Koch owns and believes in fossil fuels (and really likes them) and thinks they should continue to receive lots of government subsidies.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Three Mile Island nuclear reactor dismantling could take six decades, more than $1 billion
Exelon Generation, which plans to shut down Three Mile Island Unit 1 nuclear reactor in September unless Pennsylvania lawmakers come to its rescue, says it would take nearly 60 years and $1.2 billion to completely decommission the Dauphin County site.
Exelon Generation, which plans to shut down Three Mile Island Unit 1 nuclear reactor in September unless Pennsylvania lawmakers come to its rescue, says it would take nearly 60 years and $1.2 billion to completely decommission the Dauphin County site.
I saw a few dots connect recently WRT California electricity consumption. I have been tracking the CAISO solar, renewable and total electricity use for about 5 years now. Here is a chart showing total electric power consumed in Normalized MWh/day rolling 12 month average. This of course could be due to many things, yearly variation in the weather being a pretty big component I would imagine. But one thing that is contributing to this is that they do not account for solar self generation by homeowners. This is basically measuring the power generated by the utilities in CAISO (system demand).
The Total Power numbers come from the daily statistics that they put up on this page, total power is circled:
There looks to be a trend showing that the amount of power being consumed is decreasing, slowly, but decreasing.
So then I looked up the next agenda for the Pasadena Municipal Services committee meeting. I went to my first one a month ago when they were discussing the upcoming Tesla Supercharger that will be installed in the City. This is from the pre-meeting information packet available on the site. You can find the entire thing linked below, I'll just provide an excerpt:
https://www.cityofpasadena.net/comm...04-09-Municipal-Services-Committee-Agenda.pdf
A prior slide notes that one of the contributing factors is increasing electric generation by customers. Later slides then go on to discuss when and by how much they will need to raise their electricity rates to make up for the decreasing revenue.
It sure seems like this could be the beginning of a nice death spiral. More people putting in solar panels cause electricity costs so much ($0.26 KWh), then the utility needing to raise prices even further due to lower sales. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I would think that other utilities have to be experiencing this to some degree or other too?
And the LA Times had an article today called: Gas vs. Electric in climate fight. Basically, we have to start converting residences with gas to be fully electric to meet the 100% renewable goal. Many new homes now are being built without gas. And starting next year all new homes must have solar panels installed.
RT
The Total Power numbers come from the daily statistics that they put up on this page, total power is circled:
There looks to be a trend showing that the amount of power being consumed is decreasing, slowly, but decreasing.
So then I looked up the next agenda for the Pasadena Municipal Services committee meeting. I went to my first one a month ago when they were discussing the upcoming Tesla Supercharger that will be installed in the City. This is from the pre-meeting information packet available on the site. You can find the entire thing linked below, I'll just provide an excerpt:
https://www.cityofpasadena.net/comm...04-09-Municipal-Services-Committee-Agenda.pdf
A prior slide notes that one of the contributing factors is increasing electric generation by customers. Later slides then go on to discuss when and by how much they will need to raise their electricity rates to make up for the decreasing revenue.
It sure seems like this could be the beginning of a nice death spiral. More people putting in solar panels cause electricity costs so much ($0.26 KWh), then the utility needing to raise prices even further due to lower sales. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I would think that other utilities have to be experiencing this to some degree or other too?
And the LA Times had an article today called: Gas vs. Electric in climate fight. Basically, we have to start converting residences with gas to be fully electric to meet the 100% renewable goal. Many new homes now are being built without gas. And starting next year all new homes must have solar panels installed.
RT
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mblakele
FSD Beta (99)
Yes, from what I hear that's true. It's a problem for utilities statewide, and probably in other states. It's made worse because the customers who are adding solar are generally their best customers. That is, they're the ones who used to pay a lot, pay in full, and pay on time. Statistically the remaining customers are less profitable, and more likely to be on subsidized rates or to have accounts in arrears.
First comes some schadenfreude: this couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of monopolists. But on reflection it worries me a bit. If the utilities can't keep going, what happens to their less well-off customers? They can't afford solar and storage. Some homes and many MUDs/MDUs lack enough roof space for self-sufficient solar. Then there are offices and other business users. For that matter what happens to me? I have solar, but storage isn't practical and even if I had it I'd have trouble generating enough kWh to go off-grid completely. So I rely on the grid.
If I understand correctly, NEM2 tried to address this by tweaking net metering and adding NBCs. I'm not sure how well that's working out. Is it incentivizing some homeowners to add storage and go completely off-grid?
In the long run maybe see this problem will be addressed by more widespread utility-scale solar and storage, plus a smarter grid. Those could bring down the price of electricity to the point where net metering no longer makes sense, and then retail solar might look uneconomical to most homeowners. That could mean going back to business as usual for utilities, but at least the power would be from renewable sources.
I think the real question is how much does it cost to keep the grid maintained and running without net electricity sales. Then, how do you divide up that cost equitably among the grid users, assuming they are all net zero consumers.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
First you have to figure out how to downsize these companies to that needed for O+M only.
No advertising
No lobbying
No bloated bureaucracies
You also have to get rid of perverse profit motives from these investor owned utilities where they are motivated to propose huge transmission projects so that they can earn their guaranteed percentage return on those projects. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) recently turned down a major natural gas pipeline project in Southern California that they deemed unnecessary, partially because of the transition away from natural gas peaker plants.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Coal is dying...
“We are declining faster,” he said. “We don’t know what the new normal is anymore. We thought we knew it. Now we’re not sure.”
Wyoming coal is likely declining faster than expected
“We are declining faster,” he said. “We don’t know what the new normal is anymore. We thought we knew it. Now we’re not sure.”
Wyoming coal is likely declining faster than expected
mspohr
Well-Known Member
I think grid services should be unbundled from electricity price. You would have a separate grid connection charge (based on your service connection... 100 amp, 200 amp, etc.) then they pay for electricity metered separately. The utilities should be able to calculate the grid cost and bill for this separately.
I think demand based metering is probably more equitable than service size based monthly service charges.
For example, I have a 1" water meter. This costs more than $46/mo before any usage charges. This size of meter is only necessary for a house with fire sprinklers. My house does not have fire sprinklers, but I have to pay the higher service fee anyway. By the same token, I have 400A electrical service to my house. I only draw more than 2.4kW (10A) during Off-Peak hours. Should I pay the same monthly service fee for my connection as someone who regularly uses 40A during peak hours for their air conditioners?
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Looks like you have oversized water and electricity service. Was this to meet future demand? (My fire sprinkler systems have separate water connections which do not have meters but I am charged a monthly fee. They have never, fortunately, drawn any water but there is a cost to the water company for maintaining the ability to service the demand if required.)
The problem is that people with solar might have zero net demand even though they are pumping lots of electricity into and out of the grid and the grid needs to be sized and managed to handle those loads.
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