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Prediction: Coal has fallen. Nuclear is next then Oil.
- Thread starter nwdiver
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- Energy Environment Policy
mspohr
Well-Known Member
A Texas city had a bold new climate plan – until a gas company got involved
Like many cities across the US, the rapidly expanding and gentrifying Texas city is looking to shrink its climate footprint. So its initial plan was to virtually eliminate gas use in new buildings by 2030 and existing ones by 2040. Homes and businesses would have to run on electricity and stop using gas for heat, hot water and stoves.
In its suggested edits, the company struck references to “electrification”, and replaced them with “decarbonization”– a policy that wouldn’t rule out gas. It replaced “electric vehicles” with “alternative fuel vehicles”, which could run on compressed natural gas. It offered to help the city to plant more trees to absorb climate pollution and to explore technologies to pull carbon dioxide out of the air – both of which might help it to keep burning gas.
Greg Harman, a clean energy advocate with the Sierra Club who served on one of the climate plan committees, said Texas’s reputation as hostile to climate action is both earned and imposed on the state by the energy industry. Like the rest of the US, surveys show a majority of Texans believe that climate change is real and a cause for concern.
Like many cities across the US, the rapidly expanding and gentrifying Texas city is looking to shrink its climate footprint. So its initial plan was to virtually eliminate gas use in new buildings by 2030 and existing ones by 2040. Homes and businesses would have to run on electricity and stop using gas for heat, hot water and stoves.
In its suggested edits, the company struck references to “electrification”, and replaced them with “decarbonization”– a policy that wouldn’t rule out gas. It replaced “electric vehicles” with “alternative fuel vehicles”, which could run on compressed natural gas. It offered to help the city to plant more trees to absorb climate pollution and to explore technologies to pull carbon dioxide out of the air – both of which might help it to keep burning gas.
Greg Harman, a clean energy advocate with the Sierra Club who served on one of the climate plan committees, said Texas’s reputation as hostile to climate action is both earned and imposed on the state by the energy industry. Like the rest of the US, surveys show a majority of Texans believe that climate change is real and a cause for concern.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
It's unavoidable: we must ban fossil fuels to save our planet. Here's how we do it | Roland Geyer
Twice before, humanity has mitigated severe global environmental threats. In both cases we did this not with ‘cap and trade’ systems, taxes, or offsets, but with bans
The good news is that the substitutes for fossil fuels not only exist, but are also cost-competitive. Utility-scale solar and wind power is now officially the cheapest source of electricity, even without subsidies. The cost of battery storage has fallen by 90% over ten years and continues to decline. The lifetime cost of battery electric vehicles is already lower than that of internal combustion vehicles. Compared to gas furnaces, heat pumps frequently reduce the cost of heating. In other words, we already have cost-effective technologies to implement a fossil fuel phase-out and ban.
These are important steps towards avoiding the worst effects of climate change, but the next one must be to ban fossil fuels overall. In fact, we can’t afford not to.
Twice before, humanity has mitigated severe global environmental threats. In both cases we did this not with ‘cap and trade’ systems, taxes, or offsets, but with bans
The good news is that the substitutes for fossil fuels not only exist, but are also cost-competitive. Utility-scale solar and wind power is now officially the cheapest source of electricity, even without subsidies. The cost of battery storage has fallen by 90% over ten years and continues to decline. The lifetime cost of battery electric vehicles is already lower than that of internal combustion vehicles. Compared to gas furnaces, heat pumps frequently reduce the cost of heating. In other words, we already have cost-effective technologies to implement a fossil fuel phase-out and ban.
These are important steps towards avoiding the worst effects of climate change, but the next one must be to ban fossil fuels overall. In fact, we can’t afford not to.
SummerlinChiro
Member
Keep in mind that the popular idea that there is a limited supply of oil is not true
More People, More Ideas, More Innovations, More Value Created - HumanProgress
More People, More Ideas, More Innovations, More Value Created - HumanProgress
SummerlinChiro
Member
I know everyone seems to be talking about TX, but it’s interesting that 35 GW of solar and wind, as well as a lot of batteries, are in the development pipeline. That will massively change the economics of fossil fueled power plants. Sure hope that the new ones are winterized.Hmmm, maybe that’s why the older gas generators never bothered to winterize: they knew that they would be obsolete in 5-10 years.
Texas to Add 35 Gigawatts of Wind & Solar in Next 3 Years — Boosting Grid Resilience
Unfortunately, wind and solar does not allow decommissioning of other plants because of the intermittency problem
This is why looking at raw installed cost of wind and solar is misleading
When you install solar & wind you don’t get the cost savings of shutting down other plants
Johan
Ex got M3 in the divorce, waiting for EU Model Y!
I read the article you linked. It doesn't anywhere say that, or how, there is a non-finite supply of oil. It does say though: "Historically speaking, the oil market was partly shielded from competitive forces by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), a cartel of oil-producing countries. The OPEC nations frequently colluded to restrict production of oil in order to keep its price artificially high. The extent to which OPEC was able to achieve its goal in the past is subject to much debate, but many experts have come to believe that OPEC’s ability to affect the future price of oil is in decline. That’s partly because of fracking of previously inaccessible oil reserves in non-OPEC countries, such as the United States, and partly because of technological developments, such as the accelerating move away from combustion engine vehicles." This paragraph clearly seems to imply that there is in fact a limit to the supply of oil.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
I noticed you selectively ignored the batteries part of the quote. That solves the intermittency problem you complain about. But of course you know that.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
This is kinda sorta true, and is deceptive as stated.
Reserve costs vary by plant and fuel. Keeping peaker plants for unusual days is cheap; keeping nuclear for unusual days is expensive.
Moreover (as an example), reserve capacity is already available to cover nuclear going off-line. That reserve is mostly not changed just because nuclear is replaced by e.g. wind/solar.
I have read other posts by you. You are a good example of how a little knowledge (but not enough) is bad and leads to FUD
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That would only be a problem if the LCOE was more than the cost of fuel... which it's not. 500MW of wind was recently built in NM... not because that would allow them to retire any gas plants... but because the cost of fuel is ~$30/MWh and the LCOE of wind is <$20/MWh. Solar is roughly the same.
Only costs ~$20/kW/yr to maintain a gas plant. Nothing wrong with keeping them incase you need them AND building GWs of solar and wind so you don't have to waste $$$ on fools fuel.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
I knew that peaker maintenance was cheap (from you, I think) but thanks for the reminder of the actual numbers.
Arithmetic time
If we start from 33% capacity factor (combined wind and PV), 3.3 kW clean energy produces ~ 8.8 MWh a year and is backed up by 1 kW gas peaker that costs $20 a year. The 3.3 kW clean energy saves $88 in fuel ... and the social costs of carbon. That is an upper limit on costs, since the peaker may already exist as reserve for other sources that would be replaced by clean energy. And it ignores the downward price trend of PV/wind and the upward price trend of NG fuel.
And those are 'hot standby' - 'be ready in 5 minutes' prices. Not sure if they do this yet but they could put gas plants through a similar process they do with mothballed airplanes. If they think they might need it for a once in a decade ice storm but don't want to pay $20M/yr for a 1GW gas plant. We knew a week before we would probably need additional generation. So as long as we can get the plant ready in a few days....
SmartElectric
Active Member
Others have pointed out that gas plants (aka "peaker") can be available when renewables and batteries aren't enough to power the entire grid.
Example : Ontario Canada. 12 GW of Nuclear power undergoing refit. Ontario put 7 GW of gas plants under construction to cover the outages to the Nuclear fleet. You would require Ontario to record that cost as the background cost of going Nuclear, what's fair for renewables is fair for supposed "base load" right? That cost was $9B, on top of the $20B to pay for refurbished "baseload". The publically owned utility was not allowed to compete or deploy renewables, by law, to "encourage" private companies, which resulted in renewable deployments of 36-80c/kWh for solar and 17c/kWh for wind...
Result? Power costs 2x for supposed "base load" in a span of 10 years, and renewables were demonized incorrectly for the new higher cost of electricity.
Ontario is the perfect case of governments focusing on job creation programs for private enterprise, and of course the gas and nuclear lobby vs allowing our publically owned utility to deploy renewable power at a low price.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
Hmmm. I read it as saying that market supply limits have been market manipulations. That really does not say anything about the extent of the resource. And frankly, resource amount is very much determined by how much the consumer is willing to pay and the cost of extraction. If the consumer will pay $100 a barrel and could not care less how much pollution is caused and how lousy a product is being bought (shale, *cough* *cough*), the reserves are enormous. If 'liquified coal' is included, I seem to remember hundreds of years of reserves.
So I would say SiC is right for once -- oil is not running out, but thankfully it cannot compete against cheaper wind & solar in the electricity sector, and hopefully soon not in transport.
Dang.... 80.3%. Be even higher if it wasn't for those obsolete nuke and coal thermal plants that can't cutback their output....
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Shale Giants Proving OPEC Right
Saudi Arabia's bet that the golden age of U.S. shale is over appears to be a safe one - for now, at least.
www.rigzone.com
(Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabia’s bet that the golden age of U.S. shale is over appears to be a safe one -- for now, at least.
A round-up of data on shale drillers shows they’re sticking to their pledge to cut costs, return money to shareholders and reduce debt. If they stay the course, it would validate the OPEC+ alliance’s high-stakes wager that it can curb output and drive crude prices higher without unleashing an onslaught of supply from U.S. rivals.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
The better question is whether OPEC can push prices much past $60 a barrel post Covid without awakening the shale frackers. I doubt it.Shale Giants Proving OPEC Right
Saudi Arabia's bet that the golden age of U.S. shale is over appears to be a safe one - for now, at least.
(Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabia’s bet that the golden age of U.S. shale is over appears to be a safe one -- for now, at least.
A round-up of data on shale drillers shows they’re sticking to their pledge to cut costs, return money to shareholders and reduce debt. If they stay the course, it would validate the OPEC+ alliance’s high-stakes wager that it can curb output and drive crude prices higher without unleashing an onslaught of supply from U.S. rivals.
Maybe. But shale was largely subsidized by speculators. It's unlikely they're going to be eager to lose more money. I don't think anyone really knows how high oil needs to get for shale to turn a profit.
.... I just hope they stop giving away methane. It's completely screwed up the energy markets.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Common Dreams: US Probe Underway Over Euphemistic 'Clean Coal' That Actually Increased Pollution. US Probe Underway Over Euphemistic 'Clean Coal' That Actually Increased Pollution
We subsidize coal?
We subsidize coal?
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
No subsidy (at least in the narrow use of the word) involved, but I think you are right that speculators capitalized a large fraction of the shale ventures. The thing is though, a large fraction of the investment needed up to the point of extracting shale has been performed and is a sunk cost. So now the money question is whether the cost of extraction is lower than the market price. That is not a high bar.
If I didn't have an ideological opposition to shale, I would invest (or loan money at a high interest rate) in those companies that are not bankrupt or are post BK right around now.
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It's the Refined Coal Tax Credit. It's a subsidy paid to coal "refiners", who treat coal in a way that is intended to reduce pollution from the burning of coal.
Refined coal use has increased. Article from February 2019:
The subsidy is $7.301/ton.
There is a cost to refining, but a report on Refined Coal by Resources For the Future says that the subsidy effectively decreases the cost of coal to the power plants
RFF said:
As the report notes, the law is such that the power plant can't take the credit, it has to be an independent refiner.
2019 average heat rates in BTU/kWh: SAS Output
That's 10551BTU/kWh for coal.
EIA recent price data Coal Markets:
BTU rating is per pound, so multiply by 2,000 for BTU/ton.
Since the subsidy is per ton, the largest benefit comes to the lowest grade coal. Using the average heat rate, unless the refining helps output, per MWh generated, the kickback discount benefit for Powder River Basin coal would range from $0.45/MWh to $1.20/MWh. Relatively speaking it's not a large subsidy (subsidies for solar and wind are _much_ higher), but given the competitive pressures those subsidies could certainly be decisive.
Note that the use of "Clean Coal" as mentioned in the headline and article isn't "Clean Coal" in the EPA sense, which refers more broadly to the use of pollution control technologies on coal generation. Refined coal isn't "clean coal", it's an example of a "clean coal" technology.)
* Resources For the Future is an organization (they don't call themselves a lobby group
) founded in 1952 with funding from the Ford Foundation whose Mission is ".. to improve environmental, energy, and natural resource decisions through impartial economic research and policy engagement."The President/CEO is Richard G. Newell, who was the EIA Administrator from 2009 to 2011.
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