-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Prediction: Coal has fallen. Nuclear is next then Oil.
- Thread starter nwdiver
- Start date
-
- Tags
- Energy Environment Policy
mspohr
Well-Known Member
He seems to think the only thing that matters is cost but then goes on to omit a lot of costs from his figures.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Renewable energy production beat fossil fuels in Europe
Renewable energy became the biggest source of electricity in the European Union in 2020, beating fossil fuels for the first time. Germany and Spain also hit that milestone individually last year — so did the UK, which officially left the EU in January 2020.
Renewables powered 38 percent of electricity in the EU last year, according to a report released today by energy think tanks Ember and Agora Energiewende. That gives renewable energy a narrow lead over fossil fuel-fired generation, which accounted for 37 percent of Europe’s electricity. The remaining quarter comes from nuclear energy.
Renewable energy became the biggest source of electricity in the European Union in 2020, beating fossil fuels for the first time. Germany and Spain also hit that milestone individually last year — so did the UK, which officially left the EU in January 2020.
Renewables powered 38 percent of electricity in the EU last year, according to a report released today by energy think tanks Ember and Agora Energiewende. That gives renewable energy a narrow lead over fossil fuel-fired generation, which accounted for 37 percent of Europe’s electricity. The remaining quarter comes from nuclear energy.
His LCOE numbers for solar are WAY too high (probably based on older PV prices), and his coal, nuclear, and nat gas LCOE numbers are too low, as those prices most definitely wouldn't have factored in construction (new nat gas plants are in the $B range) and decommissioning costs (two core factors in LCOE numbers, besides fuel costs). Which is why he brought up LACE, which I get he did it for simplicity, but it really should've been rolled into the LCOE of coal and nat gas.
As far as the energy storage requirement, there are ways to meet this requirement without requiring more than 4-hrs of battery storage, but it does require co-opting nat gas peakers (much like how plug-in hybrids co-opt a range extending engine to run a year on just a tank of gas).
Thanks, when his numbers for nuclear where remotely competitive that triggered some alarms. I guess if you use the cost of building a nuke plant in the 60s & 70s as opposed to what it costs today.
One of the biggest problems with comparing LCOE of nuclear, wind and solar is that it's generally an average taken over time. Well... if you took the average cost of a Tesla over the past 5 years you're going to get a very inaccurate estimate of how much a Tesla costs today... and an even less accurate estimate of how much one will cost next year. Solar and wind are similar. The costs are falling so quickly that you can't really gauge what the LCOE is by looking at how much the average cost was over the past 5 years. Nuclear is the same in the opposite direction.
You sorta need to have a double standard. You can't take projected nuclear costs at face value because they're almost always low by ~3x. Vogtle was supposed to cost ~$7B for 2GW and be finished 3 years ago. It's now almost $30B and won't be online probably for 2 more years. So when NuScale says they can build 1GW of nuclear for $5B.... well.... we'll see.... BUT... when a wind farm pitches 150MW for $140M... there's good reason to accept that number since their other projects were completed on budget.
Clean Coal refers to coal generation with the latest pollution reduction technologies for toxic pollutants, and has nothing to do with CCS.
He says natural gas is used for peakers, but that has shifted where cost is low, with CCGT taking over from coal. There's been a lot of conversion.
Offshore wind is not "built in the middle of the ocean". It's built in seas, on continental shelf. For deeper shelf "floating turbines" (tethered, rather than fixed to the sea bed) are being developed.
I think his "I was disappointed" talk at the start was just sandbagging. He presented LCoEs for wind and solar as high , and then said "but they're falling". In the 2020 EIA Outlook* they had unweighted _unsubsidized_ LCoEs for projects going live in 2022 as:
- (Onshore) Wind: $38.33/MWh (41% cf)
- PV: $38.57/MWh (29% cf)
- CCGT: $36.27/MWh (80% cf)
- CT: $62.81/MWh (30% cf)
Power plants take 2 years or more to build, so the 2022 prices are for that started last year.
(CCGT at 80% is baseload, CT at 30% is heavy peaker.)
He also talked about the need for storage, and that is correct, but primary storage use would be competing against expensive peak time.
Ironically although he mentioned LACE at the start he used the LCoEs to suggest that fossil will be around a long time, but really it's LACE that will keep a lot of it around, while the marginal capacity will remain because of the non-dispatchable nature of PV.
He talked about efficiencies of solar PV, but didn't go anywhere with it. We're really not near the efficiency limits he talked about, because it's cheaper to use lower efficiencies.
* 2021 Outlook will be released in February, and I think the LCoE/LACE document gets published a bit later.. I'm interested to see how much the numbers will have shifted from last year.
He says natural gas is used for peakers, but that has shifted where cost is low, with CCGT taking over from coal. There's been a lot of conversion.
Offshore wind is not "built in the middle of the ocean". It's built in seas, on continental shelf. For deeper shelf "floating turbines" (tethered, rather than fixed to the sea bed) are being developed.
I think his "I was disappointed" talk at the start was just sandbagging. He presented LCoEs for wind and solar as high , and then said "but they're falling". In the 2020 EIA Outlook* they had unweighted _unsubsidized_ LCoEs for projects going live in 2022 as:
- (Onshore) Wind: $38.33/MWh (41% cf)
- PV: $38.57/MWh (29% cf)
- CCGT: $36.27/MWh (80% cf)
- CT: $62.81/MWh (30% cf)
Power plants take 2 years or more to build, so the 2022 prices are for that started last year.
(CCGT at 80% is baseload, CT at 30% is heavy peaker.)
He also talked about the need for storage, and that is correct, but primary storage use would be competing against expensive peak time.
Ironically although he mentioned LACE at the start he used the LCoEs to suggest that fossil will be around a long time, but really it's LACE that will keep a lot of it around, while the marginal capacity will remain because of the non-dispatchable nature of PV.
He talked about efficiencies of solar PV, but didn't go anywhere with it. We're really not near the efficiency limits he talked about, because it's cheaper to use lower efficiencies.
* 2021 Outlook will be released in February, and I think the LCoE/LACE document gets published a bit later.. I'm interested to see how much the numbers will have shifted from last year.
Last edited:
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
If that CF for on-shore wind is correct, it is a tremendous improvement from just a few short years ago.
Electric Power Monthly - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
Electric Power Monthly - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
We should expect new projects to be above the current national average, but still they all look high.
I think the EIA has the problem of dealing with developer numbers.
41% for wind is the average for the best month. National average is 34.n%.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
Ahh... too bad. Sounds like wind is about the same
Time to move to 120 meters
Electric Power Monthly!
January edition, for capacity changes and generation November 2020.
Coal rolling 12 month generation fell further behind nuclear.
November continued coal's generation decline.
The continued fall in coal generation and growth in renewable generation means that rolling utility-scale renewable generation is now greater than coal generation. (Including estimated small-scale solar, renewable generation exceeded coal in September 2020).
Coal capacity was reduced by 391.5MW in November 2020, to 220,860.1MW. Forecast capacity reductions increased by 533.5MW to -3,788.4MW.
Coal's rolling 12 month share dropped another 0.29% to 18.98%, a drop of 4.85% from 12 months ago. Coal was 48.21% of generation in 2008. November 2020 generation was 61.3TWh compared to 75.6TWh in 2019, and rolling 12 month generation falling to 767.4TWh compared to 992.7TWh a year ago.
Nuclear capacity was unchanged in November 2020, at 96,559.5MW. Planned capacity reductions increased by 697.0MW to -4,034.9MW.
Nuclear generation was down in Novermber 2020 (61.8TWh v 64.1TWh), with rolling generation at 793.1TWh compared with 808.0TWh to October 2019.
Coal generation in October is a moderate month. as demand has fallen from the summer peak but is not yet fully rising for winter. October generation was lower than every month in 2019.
Rolling 12 month coal generation has fallen 225.3TWh in 12 months. Coal generation during that period was 25.8TWh less than nuclear. While we might expect an uptick in capacity factors compared to last year's mild winter, coal capacity has reduced 8.3GW in the past 12 months, and 7.8GW year to date, with another 1.7GW of closures planned for December 2020. With November widening the gap, nuclear reductions being much less, and none planned for the remainder of 2020, it's looking more likely that rolling nuclear generation will remain above that of coal through the next 12 months.
Coal generation capacity factors fell to 39.0%, down from 46.0% in November 2020, and much lower than 53.2% in 2018.
Coal:
Capacity (MW):
Capacity Factor (MW):
Generation (GWh):
Nuclear:
Capacity (MW):
Capacity Factor (MW):
Generation (GWh):
January edition, for capacity changes and generation November 2020.
Coal rolling 12 month generation fell further behind nuclear.
November continued coal's generation decline.
The continued fall in coal generation and growth in renewable generation means that rolling utility-scale renewable generation is now greater than coal generation. (Including estimated small-scale solar, renewable generation exceeded coal in September 2020).
Coal capacity was reduced by 391.5MW in November 2020, to 220,860.1MW. Forecast capacity reductions increased by 533.5MW to -3,788.4MW.
Coal's rolling 12 month share dropped another 0.29% to 18.98%, a drop of 4.85% from 12 months ago. Coal was 48.21% of generation in 2008. November 2020 generation was 61.3TWh compared to 75.6TWh in 2019, and rolling 12 month generation falling to 767.4TWh compared to 992.7TWh a year ago.
Nuclear capacity was unchanged in November 2020, at 96,559.5MW. Planned capacity reductions increased by 697.0MW to -4,034.9MW.
Nuclear generation was down in Novermber 2020 (61.8TWh v 64.1TWh), with rolling generation at 793.1TWh compared with 808.0TWh to October 2019.
Coal generation in October is a moderate month. as demand has fallen from the summer peak but is not yet fully rising for winter. October generation was lower than every month in 2019.
Rolling 12 month coal generation has fallen 225.3TWh in 12 months. Coal generation during that period was 25.8TWh less than nuclear. While we might expect an uptick in capacity factors compared to last year's mild winter, coal capacity has reduced 8.3GW in the past 12 months, and 7.8GW year to date, with another 1.7GW of closures planned for December 2020. With November widening the gap, nuclear reductions being much less, and none planned for the remainder of 2020, it's looking more likely that rolling nuclear generation will remain above that of coal through the next 12 months.
Coal generation capacity factors fell to 39.0%, down from 46.0% in November 2020, and much lower than 53.2% in 2018.
Coal:
Capacity (MW):
| Period | Prior | Change | New | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | 221,251.6 | -391.5 | 220,860.1 | -0.18% |
| YTD | 228,657.4 | -7,797.3 | 220,860.1 | -3.41% |
| Rolling | 229,164.4 | -8,304.3 | 220,860.1 | -3.62% |
| Plan +12mo | -3,646.4 | -533.5 | -3,788.4 | -1.72% |
Capacity Factor (MW):
| Value | Prior | Change | New | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month Capacity | 229,772.7 | -8,912.6 | 220,860.1 | -3.88% |
| Month Factor | 46.0% | -7.0% | 39.0% | -15.22% |
| Rolling 12mo Factor | 48.5% | -8.9% | 39.7% | -18.29% |
Generation (GWh):
| Year | Month | YTD | Rolling | Month % | YTD% | Rolling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 75,630 | 892,376 | 992,695 | 23.70% | 23.35% | 23.83% |
| 2020 | 61,291 | 694,777 | 767,358 | 20.13% | 18.77% | 18.98% |
| Difference | -14,339 | -197,599 | -225,337 | -3.58% | -4.58% | -4.85% |
Nuclear:
Capacity (MW):
| Period | Prior | Change | New | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | 96,559.5 | 0.0 | 96,559.5 | 0.00% |
| YTD | 98,119.0 | -1,559.5 | 96,559.5 | -1.59% |
| Rolling | 98,119.0 | -1,559.5 | 96,559.5 | -1.59% |
| Plan +12mo | -3,337.9 | -697.0 | -4,034.9 | -4.18% |
Capacity Factor (MW):
| Value | Prior | Change | New | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month Capacity | 98,070.2 | -1,510.7 | 96,559.5 | -1.54% |
| Month Factor | 90.8% | -2.0% | 88.8% | -2.20% |
| Rolling 12mo Factor | 93.1% | -0.4% | 92.7% | -0.45% |
Generation (GWh):
| Year | Month | YTD | Rolling | Month % | YTD% | Rolling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 64,125 | 736,336 | 807,993 | 20.10% | 19.27% | 19.40% |
| 2020 | 61,760 | 720,048 | 793,121 | 20.28% | 19.45% | 19.62% |
| Difference | -2,365 | -16,288 | -14,872 | 0.18% | 0.18% | 0.22% |
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Joe Biden's 'climate day' of executive actions signals clean break with Trump
Biden is to instruct the US government to pause and review all oil and gas drilling on federal land, eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and transform the government’s vast fleet of cars and trucks into electric vehicles, in a sweeping new set of climate executive orders. Biden’s new set of executive orders, dubbed “climate day” by environmental campaigners, adds up to one of the most wide-ranging efforts ever taken by a US president to tackle the climate crisis, building upon his decision last week to re-enter the Paris climate agreement.
Biden is to instruct the US government to pause and review all oil and gas drilling on federal land, eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and transform the government’s vast fleet of cars and trucks into electric vehicles, in a sweeping new set of climate executive orders. Biden’s new set of executive orders, dubbed “climate day” by environmental campaigners, adds up to one of the most wide-ranging efforts ever taken by a US president to tackle the climate crisis, building upon his decision last week to re-enter the Paris climate agreement.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
Go Joe, Go !
Off-shore wind is next up.
As an aside, I find it interesting that Biden would end up being the most environment pres of them all. Perhaps it is just a sign of the times
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Denouncing 'Handouts to Big Oil,' Biden Calls on Congress to End $40 Billion in Taxpayer Subsidies for Fossil Fuels
In a speech Wednesday outlining his new executive actions aimed at confronting the "existential threat" of the climate crisis, President Joe Biden said he plans to ask the Democrat-controlled Congress to pass legislation eliminating the tens of billions in taxpayer subsidies the federal government continues to hand Big Oil even as the planetary emergency wreaks havoc in the U.S. and across the globe.
"Unlike previous administrations, I don't think the federal government should give handouts to Big Oil to the tune of $40 billion in fossil fuel subsidies," said Biden. "I'm gonna be going to the Congress and asking them to eliminate those subsidies."
In a speech Wednesday outlining his new executive actions aimed at confronting the "existential threat" of the climate crisis, President Joe Biden said he plans to ask the Democrat-controlled Congress to pass legislation eliminating the tens of billions in taxpayer subsidies the federal government continues to hand Big Oil even as the planetary emergency wreaks havoc in the U.S. and across the globe.
"Unlike previous administrations, I don't think the federal government should give handouts to Big Oil to the tune of $40 billion in fossil fuel subsidies," said Biden. "I'm gonna be going to the Congress and asking them to eliminate those subsidies."
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
Easier said than done, but I appreciate the sentiment.
A realistic social cost of carbon is a much lower handing fruit
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
^^
Easier said than done, but I appreciate the sentiment.
A realistic social cost of carbon is a much lower handing fruit
It just occurred to me that I have not read a 'AGW is fake news' troll post for weeks now. Are they all in my null bucket, or have they gone underground ?
Easier said than done, but I appreciate the sentiment.
A realistic social cost of carbon is a much lower handing fruit
It just occurred to me that I have not read a 'AGW is fake news' troll post for weeks now. Are they all in my null bucket, or have they gone underground ?
mspohr
Well-Known Member
There's a "Climate Change Denial" thread... I don't recommed you go there. Just a rehash of old arguments.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
A carbon tax has been difficult. Removing fossil subsidies will also be difficult.
It all needs to be done.
mblakele
FSD Beta (99)
Poland’s coal-fired home heating creates widespread pollution
[...] Poland is the only country in Europe to use more coal-derived energy for heating today than it did in 1990. [...]
Similar threads
