One of my hopes as the years go on is that as autonomous EVs take over, cities will turn old parking lots and garages into beautiful landscapes. This will allow more nature in urban lives and make it less of a contrast between rural and city living.
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N3045US2m.pdf
Here's a nice little chart about natural gas in the US power market. While volume has been going up, the price of gas delivered to power generators has been declining. The net result is that the size of this market (vol * price) has been declining and seems to be range bound between $30B and $40B per year. Clearly, this market was much more valuable in 2005-2008. You can also see that growth in consumption is pretty strongly related to declining prices.
Here's a nice little chart about natural gas in the US power market. While volume has been going up, the price of gas delivered to power generators has been declining. The net result is that the size of this market (vol * price) has been declining and seems to be range bound between $30B and $40B per year. Clearly, this market was much more valuable in 2005-2008. You can also see that growth in consumption is pretty strongly related to declining prices.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but it will never happen. 15 years experience in shopping for real estate says urban land values are too high to be devoted to landscape. Only eminent domain can make that happen, but not sure if there are enough tax payers willing to vote that in ... especially since the monied land owners (who else could afford land in the cities?) would be the prime beneficiaries.
mblakele
FSD Beta (99)
Here’s the original article: it’s a little better formatted.
Here's how a 100% renewable energy future can create jobs and even save the gas industry
adiggs
Well-Known Member
I've got a list of people that are going to get that link
I've been talking about the coming disruption and (the way I see it) economic bonanza of the energy transition, but putting so many different ideas together into a single conversation mostly doesn't work.And I want that book!
mspohr
Well-Known Member
I found this part particularly interesting:
Natural gas will be increasingly replaced by hydrogen and/or renewable methane produced by solar power and wind turbines. While most scenarios rely on batteries and pumped hydro as main storage technologies, these renewable forms of gas can also play a significant role in the energy mix.
In our scenario, the conversion of gas infrastructure from natural gas to hydrogen and synthetic fuels will start slowly between 2020 and 2030, with the conversion of power plants with annual capacities of around 2 gigawatts. However, after 2030, this transition will accelerate significantly, with the conversion of a total of 197GW gas power plants and gas co-generation facilities each year.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Here's an interesting take:
An All-Renewable Grid Is Economically Superior To Mixed Generation | CleanTechnica
Jobs
Right now in the USA, there are more people employed in the solar industry alone than in the entire fossil fuel industry. Add in wind generation and the necessary transmission and distribution of electricity. Add in Tesla’s employees and all of the businesses working on the transition to electrified transportation. There’s a big jobs gain to be had in the transition.
Rejected Energy
If you expand that in your browser and look at it for a while, you’ll notice all of the gray flows converging on a box in the upper right labeled Rejected Energy. That term is for energy which is in the primary energy source which is not used for effective economic benefit. It’s mostly waste heat from fossil fuels and the management of that waste heat.
The modern internal combustion engine is a marvelous piece of engineering, but it runs up against hard limits of the Carnot cycle and the requirement to put a lot of energy into crude oil to turn it into gasoline and distribute the bulky product around. The well-to-wheel efficiency of an internal combustion car (ICEV) is around 16% while a battery electric vehicle is around 80%.
Cost
You’ll note that utility-scale wind and solar generation are the cheapest forms of new-build generation in the world on a level-playing field. In fact, they are so cheap right now that in many jurisdictions it’s cheaper to build new wind and solar generation than to keep operating existing gas and nuclear generation, which along with cheap fracked natural gas is causing bankruptcies and shutdowns in those sectors. Natural gas is just slower to arrive at the problem the coal industry is facing, but it’s already starting to see this issue as well.
Intermittency is a faux-problem
Getting energy to where it is needed is a moderately trivial exercise, although one that people keep bringing up as if a tiny town in Alaska or an isolated island is where everyone lives. The current reality is continent-scale grids bringing electricity from near the Arctic Circle in Canada and Scandinavia into New York and Paris, wind generation from the Prairies and offshore to the populated coasts and solar generation from the south to the north. High voltage direct current (HVDC) is going from strength to strength, with China just unveiling a massive new 1.1 KV HVDC transmission line using ABB transformers. China is even proposing seriously, at a very high level, a global polar HVDC continental backbone to share electricity around the more populous northern hemisphere.
An All-Renewable Grid Is Economically Superior To Mixed Generation | CleanTechnica
Jobs
Right now in the USA, there are more people employed in the solar industry alone than in the entire fossil fuel industry. Add in wind generation and the necessary transmission and distribution of electricity. Add in Tesla’s employees and all of the businesses working on the transition to electrified transportation. There’s a big jobs gain to be had in the transition.
Rejected Energy
If you expand that in your browser and look at it for a while, you’ll notice all of the gray flows converging on a box in the upper right labeled Rejected Energy. That term is for energy which is in the primary energy source which is not used for effective economic benefit. It’s mostly waste heat from fossil fuels and the management of that waste heat.
The modern internal combustion engine is a marvelous piece of engineering, but it runs up against hard limits of the Carnot cycle and the requirement to put a lot of energy into crude oil to turn it into gasoline and distribute the bulky product around. The well-to-wheel efficiency of an internal combustion car (ICEV) is around 16% while a battery electric vehicle is around 80%.
Cost
You’ll note that utility-scale wind and solar generation are the cheapest forms of new-build generation in the world on a level-playing field. In fact, they are so cheap right now that in many jurisdictions it’s cheaper to build new wind and solar generation than to keep operating existing gas and nuclear generation, which along with cheap fracked natural gas is causing bankruptcies and shutdowns in those sectors. Natural gas is just slower to arrive at the problem the coal industry is facing, but it’s already starting to see this issue as well.
Intermittency is a faux-problem
Getting energy to where it is needed is a moderately trivial exercise, although one that people keep bringing up as if a tiny town in Alaska or an isolated island is where everyone lives. The current reality is continent-scale grids bringing electricity from near the Arctic Circle in Canada and Scandinavia into New York and Paris, wind generation from the Prairies and offshore to the populated coasts and solar generation from the south to the north. High voltage direct current (HVDC) is going from strength to strength, with China just unveiling a massive new 1.1 KV HVDC transmission line using ABB transformers. China is even proposing seriously, at a very high level, a global polar HVDC continental backbone to share electricity around the more populous northern hemisphere.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Ha! Yes, it appears that this should be 1.1 MV (Most HV AC lines operate at 765 kV)
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
Commercial crude inventories back up to 445M barrels, distillates/gasoline glut build is even worse.
Without the targeted Saudi to US export slowdown from mid-2017 to mid-2018 designed to artificially inflate global pricing, this would be far far worse. Commercial crude stockpiles since 2000....
Without the targeted Saudi to US export slowdown from mid-2017 to mid-2018 designed to artificially inflate global pricing, this would be far far worse. Commercial crude stockpiles since 2000....
roblab
Active Member
It's a nice hope, but in my mind they won't do anything unless they are paid. In other words, why would a city make a park if they already have a park. Unless the people who pay them taxes push them, they won't do it. And a green area doesn't generate revenue like a twenty story hotel.
FWIW
Xin Guobin said that in 2018, ternary and lithium iron phosphate batteries are the mainstream product types in the market. The specific energy continues to increase and the cost continues to decline. Among them, the ternary battery technology has made remarkable progress, and the monomer energy density of the scale application product has increased to 265Wh/kg, and the cost has dropped below 1 yuan/Wh. Compared to 2012, the energy density increased by 2.2 times, while the cost dropped by 75%. The technology of lithium iron phosphate battery tends to be mature, the specific energy of the monomer reaches 160Wh/kg, and the cost is reduced to 0.7 yuan/Wh.
roughly thats $150 USD for ternary (NMC, NCA etc) and $100 USD for Li FePO4
Xin Guobin said that in 2018, ternary and lithium iron phosphate batteries are the mainstream product types in the market. The specific energy continues to increase and the cost continues to decline. Among them, the ternary battery technology has made remarkable progress, and the monomer energy density of the scale application product has increased to 265Wh/kg, and the cost has dropped below 1 yuan/Wh. Compared to 2012, the energy density increased by 2.2 times, while the cost dropped by 75%. The technology of lithium iron phosphate battery tends to be mature, the specific energy of the monomer reaches 160Wh/kg, and the cost is reduced to 0.7 yuan/Wh.
roughly thats $150 USD for ternary (NMC, NCA etc) and $100 USD for Li FePO4
SolarEdge Adds EV Tech to Its Portfolio With Majority Stake in Italy’s SMRE
Is anyone else watching what SolarEdge is doing? I'm a shareholder, but don't watch it closely. I think they have pretty smart management, plus they've got a good profit stream to work with. So I think with this acquisition of SMRE, they could be a nice low profile play in EV space. As the market for EVs heat up, if SolarEdge is well positioned with EV tech, they could see some dynamic growth as auto OEMs try to get their hands on the tech.
Any thoughts on this play?
Is anyone else watching what SolarEdge is doing? I'm a shareholder, but don't watch it closely. I think they have pretty smart management, plus they've got a good profit stream to work with. So I think with this acquisition of SMRE, they could be a nice low profile play in EV space. As the market for EVs heat up, if SolarEdge is well positioned with EV tech, they could see some dynamic growth as auto OEMs try to get their hands on the tech.
Any thoughts on this play?
3 Things SolarEdge Technologies Investors Should Watch in 2019 -- The Motley Fool
Another take on SolarEdge. This fast growing company has a 14.9 PE ratio.
Another take on SolarEdge. This fast growing company has a 14.9 PE ratio.
I'm not sure I quite understand the logic of SolarEdge playing in the EV powertrain market, though maybe there are some synergies with their existing expertise in high power electronics (inverters). On the other hand, as a clean energy investor with a modest SEDG position, I appreciate being able to buy into EV powertrains without simultaneously investing in ICE. Obviously, TSLA does that, but it's good to diversify.
It does make sense for SolarEdge to continue to forge into the EV charging space. Last year, we had a solar PV system installed at a family property. I was offered the option, for an additional $400, of upgrading to a SolarEdge inverter with an integrated J-1772 EV charging station. This was tempting, as it would have been a very easy and cost effective way to tack a charging station onto the project. I didn't go for it because (a) it would not integrate as desired with a potential, future Powerwall installation, something that SolarEdge may address in future products, and (b) we were receiving a "free" Tesla Wall Connector through Tesla's referral program and preferred a Tesla plug. Still, $400 was a temptingly low premium to add a charging station, inclusive of permitting and installation!
I think SolarEdge is trying to be positioned as an EV component supplier. They have been innovative with inverter design and PV power optimizers. I suspect they may have some concepts about how to optimize inverters for EVs and would want to integrate that with other parts of the EV drivetrain and battery management. Auto OEMs for the most part want to let other companies engineer these solutions for them, so I do think there is an open door for innovative power component makers. I don't think SolarEdge needs to design full EVs to get into this space.
Nice to hear that they are getting charging products out to market. It does not surprise me that Tesla is so integrated here that it is hard for them to cut into the Tesla chargers. But with other EV makers this might be an open market for them.
SolarEdge has tried to work closely with Tesla, but the ecosystem has not really given them much of an opening. So instead I think they will mostly be a competitor to Tesla in certain component markets. They are strong innovators, which is needed among Tesla competitors. So I kinda like this as a complementary investment to my outsized Tesla investment. The more rapidly Tesla forces competitors to compete in the EV space, the more these reluctant EV makers will lean on new EV tech suppliers.
I agree, though it's worth noting that Tesla frequently bids solar PV systems with SolarEdge inverters. That was the case with our most recent solar job. Our bid from Tesla incorporated a SolarEdge inverter because of the home's partial shading. (FWIW, as I've mentioned before, we didn't go with Tesla on that job because they wouldn't include a main service panel upgrade in the bid; I didn't want to pay a Tesla premium and simultaneously have to deal with two separate contractors. Perhaps things have changed since late last summer.)
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