Phase out electricity emissions in a decade!
We don’t need to keep burning coal, oil , and gas for electricity 37
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Posted 12:51 PM on 12 Mar 2007
by Gar Lipow -
Posted in
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Gar Lipow, a long time environmental activist and journalist with a strong technical background has spent years immersed in the subject of efficiency and renewable energy. He has written extensively on the economics of solving the global warming, and why pricing externalities (though important) cannot be the main driver of such solutions.
His on-line reference book compiling information on technology available today, “No Hair Shirt Solutions to Global Warming”, is available at http://www.nohairshirts.com.
His articles on the economics and politics of solving the climate crisis have been published in Z magazine and a number of small journals.
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GreyFlcn Posted 6:25 am
12 Mar 2007
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Delay And Deny Posted 6:42 am
12 Mar 2007
I like the Wind to Hydrogen systems, but I understand your grid design makes that less necessary....the hydrogen could be used locally at each generating station to make up for low wind.
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services.
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Nucbuddy Posted 6:51 am
12 Mar 2007
images.google.com/images?q=broken%20wind%20turbine
What were your overall costs per kWh? Denmark is experiencing windpower costs of over $2/kWh. In contrast, US retail electricity costs to the customer, including delivery, are typically around $0.10/kWh. If we adopt Denmark's strategy of heavy windpower-investment combined with pumped-storage, how could our electricity costs drop? If windpower is less-expensive than any other non-hydro power source, why is it subsidized in the US?
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GreyFlcn Posted 7:04 am
12 Mar 2007
In general, just think of hydrogen as an electric storage device. And compare it to other electric storage devices.
On that basis, Hydrogen is rather silly when compared to other energy storage devices.
While a great education tool to lure people out of their existing paradigmn. Is itself rather silly.
Mainly because it's actually rather bad at energy conversion, infrastructure, and storage.
But if you are really sweet on fuel cells
Or things like fuel cells
You might want to take a look at Flow Batteries.
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2006/01/about_f ...
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There's also other types of industrial storage to look at.
Oddly, compressed air has been benefitting from the super high pressure systems originally developed for hydrogen.
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GreyFlcn Posted 7:07 am
12 Mar 2007
If Nuclear is so amazing, then why should it get a thin dime from the public?
Much less more money than all renewable energy programs combined.
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Nucbuddy Posted 7:09 am
12 Mar 2007
The subject is windpower.
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GreyFlcn Posted 7:16 am
12 Mar 2007
The reason it's subsidized is because all other sources of energy are subsidized.
Except of course Renewable Hydro which actually did lose all of it's subsidy.
Which is a shame, since offshore hydro has a lot of potential due to new HighVoltage DC cables.
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Furthermore, the Europe in general pays much more for energy than the US. Regardless of it's source.
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Nucbuddy Posted 7:27 am
12 Mar 2007
The subject is windpower.
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GreyFlcn Posted 7:39 am
12 Mar 2007
That subsidy is only approved for 1 year at a time.
The simple change of approving the very same subsidy for 10 years in advance would drastically lower the cost of production.
Making it so that investors could make longer term investments would make it less costly to secure funding.
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They could even limit it to the next 6000MW of new capacity.
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SoggyInSeattle Posted 7:55 am
12 Mar 2007
Also, there's no way we could role out such a huge system in 10 years. If we asked GE, Vestas et al to increase production as fast as they could, they still couldn't build enough turbines to fill this model.
But let me make a few suggestions:
The new HVDC grid is a federally owned and operated system using the BPA/TVA model.
The construction of this grid is paid for with a carbon tax to all electricity producers.
To connect to the grid you need to be carbon neutral.
Carbon neutral storage facilities can also connect and their maximum sale price would be regulated (e.g. < 3 times the average wholesale cost over the last month).
The goal is meet all growth and replacement of old plants.
By 2050 our electricity is carbon neutral.
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Gar Lipow Posted 8:45 am
12 Mar 2007
I'd want to see documentation for that. Denmark does have the highest electricity costs around, but that applies to all Danish electricity not just wind. And it is around 20-25 cents per kWh regardless of whether the electricity from wind, coal, oil or natural gas.
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Gar Lipow Posted 9:01 am
12 Mar 2007
It takes 6 Months from approval to create a wind farm - put in roads, put up towers, put turbines -everything. Including approval process it takes 18 months. Assume time to scout and find site, let us say 2 years from conception to electricity.
So the question is, could we really not roll out factories to make wind turbines in a reasonable amount of time? We are talking 607,000 2.5 Meg turbines over ten years 61,000 turbines per year (or say 100,000 turbines a year to allow time to get up to speed) A blade factor produces 1,200 blades annualy. So 100 new factories could more than produce the turbines needed. Presumably you would need addition factories for towers and other components as well, so perhaps 500 new factories total. How this unfeasible.
I'm kind of laughing at having to defend the feasibility of this: Again we ought to be phasing in massive amounts of efficiency gains so as not to need this much electricity. Wind is not the only carbon neutral source. We ought to be using solar, geothermal, wave, major ocean currents as well. (And of course we could use solar to provide most of our low temperature heat too.) But it is still more feasible than what we are doing today.
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SoggyInSeattle Posted 9:09 am
12 Mar 2007
Here are the sources of revenue
1) The federal subsidy is less than $0.02 a kW/hr
2)the wholesale price of electricity is about $0.05 kW/hr
3) PSE charges an extra $0.02 kW/hr to get your power from wind, so let's use that as the extra the a windfarm owner can get by selling power at a premium as green.
Total revenue is less than 10 cents a kW/hr. So all costs, including construction, M&O and profit, must be less than 10 cents a kW/hr or these companies are losing money.
These are just estimates, but $2 kW/hr doesn't pass the laugh test.
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SoggyInSeattle Posted 9:15 am
12 Mar 2007
Five years ago Zilkha energy started working on the Kittitas Wind farm (http://www.horizonwind.com/projects/whatweredoing/kittita ...)
They are still working on getting a permit. It's amazing how much NIMBYs can separate what we should be able to do and what we can do.
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David Roberts Posted 9:16 am
12 Mar 2007
www.grist.org
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Nucbuddy Posted 10:19 am
12 Mar 2007
I'd want to see documentation for that.
I am assuming that Danish electricity costs $0.30/kWh (as reported on Energy Blog), and that 20 cents of that is "taxes" (also as reported on Energy Blog) -- a euphemism for windpower subsidies. This article in the Copenhagen Post...
cphpost.dk/get/100287.html
...reports that windpower accounts for 8.3% of Danish electrical energy (e.g., 8.3% of total yearly kWh-delivered are sourced from wind). $0.20/kWh / 0.083 share of total electrical energy = $2.41/kWh.
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Gar Lipow wrote: Denmark does have the highest electricity costs around
And France, with 80% nuclear saturation, has the lowest electricity production costs at EUR 3 cents/kWh. Is there a pattern here?
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Gar Lipow wrote: but that applies to all Danish electricity not just wind. And it is around 20-25 cents per kWh regardless of whether the electricity from wind, coal, oil or natural gas.
That's how a subsidy works, Gar. You don't actually tell your customers they are paying $2.41/kWh for windpower. You charge $0.30/kWh for all electrical energy, and when that energy is inexpensively sourced from nuclear generating stations in Germany, Sweden and France, you use the difference in price to pay $2.41/kWh for the 8.3% of electricity that is sourced from wind.
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I admit, however, that windpower in Denmark could actually be higher than $2.41/kWh -- with further subsidies coming from other tax-sources such as income, property, etc. For example, the reality of that very other-subsidies scenario seems to be hinted at here (same Copenhagen Post link as above):
cphpost.dk/get/100287.html
the green ambitions could prove costly, with some calculations putting the economic costs of the package at DKK 5.2 billion annually.
During the presentation of the plan earlier this month Energy Minister Flemming Hansen said the price was one the government was willing to pay: "We don't know how much this is going to add up to, but we are willing to pay it, no matter the cost.".
The take-home point is that analyses can be twisted -- and significant costs "accidentally" overlooked -- by industry propaganda agencies such as the AWEA (and some of the most-important figures in your Google spreadsheet were sourced from the AWEA), so it is helpful to compare their claims against the real-world experiences of nations that have already attempted to do as the AWEA advocates the United States do.
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Gar Lipow Posted 10:47 am
12 Mar 2007
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Nucbuddy Posted 10:54 am
12 Mar 2007
Where are the electricity taxes going? Are there other tax revenues being funnelled into windpower, as Danish Energy Minister Flemming Hansen seems to be admitting?
cphpost.dk/get/100287.html
"We don't know how much this is going to add up to, but we are willing to pay it, no matter the cost."
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GreyFlcn Posted 11:10 am
12 Mar 2007
Wind is nice, but I doubt it will end up being the backbone of any infrastructure, unless it's a small nation near the coast, with a nice shelf, and no ocean currents.
Which is kinda rare.
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Nucbuddy Posted 2:40 pm
12 Mar 2007
As we can read in Danish newspapers, the cost of windpower is the energy issue in Denmark. Where else would the money be going?
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cphpost.dk/get/100287.html
The government's plan to increase the nation's reliance on green power could expand a black hole that already sucks two billion kroner out of consumers' pockets annually.
cphpost.dk/get/100188.html
Energinet.dk expects to invest DKK 3.4 billion to connect new wind turbines to the power grid, with consumers again likely to foot the bill.
"Right now it's difficult to put a price tag on this, but it will be something electricity users will notice," said Energinet.dk chief executive Peder Ø Andreasen.
cphpost.dk/get/100170.html
"Wind energy can't solve the energy problem in the near future because it's too unstable and possibly too expensive," said Anders Eldrup, chief executive of DONG.
cphpost.dk/get/95702.html
International observers say the Liberal-Conservative government's energy policy has hampered the growth of new renewable energy technologies.
The nation's 20-year headstart in the development of renewable energy technologies is in danger of evaporating, international experts warn. They say reduced government funding has left Denmark standing still at a time when power hungry nations are surging ahead in their search for ways to wean themselves off fossil fuels.
[...]
Government subsidies helped Denmark charge to the forefront in the race to develop technologies that used wind [...] to create power. The subsidies helped companies such as Vestas, the world's largest producer of wind turbines, to use the domestic market as a development lab.
cphpost.dk/get/93602.html
Since 1999, the wind has only delivered about 80 to 95 percent of its expected energy.
Weaker winds mean weaker earnings for the country's wind turbine owners.
[...]
Decreases in wind strength come at a particularly inopportune time for owners, as subsidies for operating wind turbines have been reduced in recent years.
'If it is a permanent change or just part of a cycle is difficult to tell. But this shows that you have to be cautious when forecasting budgets for new projects,' said Bjerre.
cphpost.dk/get/91793.html
According to Jensen, domestic politics have undermined the ability of the industry to expand. The current government has reduced funding for research and changed the rules for subsidies granted to wind turbine owners. "The home market, necessary for developing and testing new technology, disappeared," Jensen said. Last year, for example, only four wind turbines were installed in the country.
cphpost.dk/get/91348.html
Despite the government's pledge to prioritise sustainable energy sources, Minister of Transport and Energy Flemming Hansen said on Monday that due to 'significant levels of overcapacity', there were no plans to make use of more sustainable energy.
[...]
'For me, it is quite clear that there is no need for increased subsidies or to give permits for creating more offshore wind turbines or similar projects right now,' said Hansen.
cphpost.dk/get/88253.html
"It's just absurd to claim that a donation of one of our shareholders to a political party is a direct means to have our rotor blades installed in Britain," he said. "I can't see how we could benefit from it in any way, and find it difficult to see any connection to LM Glasfiber."
Christensen, however, admitted that the British energy market presented enormous opportunities to the company.
"There's big potential, but it's nonsense to say we are trying to buy our way to advantages," he said.
cphpost.dk/get/80032.html
Despite the promises of wind technology, making turbines capable of covering Denmark's entire energy consumption will demand huge investments in electrical hardware capable of storing and supplying energy during low-wind periods, as well as broader energy exchanges with other countries.
cphpost.dk/get/77083.html
The government has launched a major new offensive for wind power in Denmark, with a view to creating thousands of jobs.
[...]
The initiative contains more windmill construction subsidies than have ever before been granted in Denmark in a single year.
cphpost.dk/get/76102.html
An extra 50 to 100 kroner per electricity bill for environmentally sound energy is too much for most Danes. Power companies say just a few hundred Danes nationwide are willing to pay extra for green energy.
While many Danes readily voice their support for wind energy, solar cells, and oppose nuclear power, their support is less enthusiastic for sustainable energy initiatives that may take a bite out of their pocketbooks.
[...]
Energy figures for Eastern Denmark indicate that roughly one percent of the region's electricity comes from nuclear power. This percentage is expected to increase dramatically this year, due to a rise in nuclear power imports from Sweden.
cphpost.dk/get/67286.html
Critics said massive savings on energy research budgets, instigated by the new government in the past two years, threatened the nation's position as a world frontrunner in alternative energy.
[...]
After the 1990s, when the Social Democrat administration actively encouraged alternative energy projects, such as installation of solar panels in private homes and investment in wind turbine parks, the new government slashed expenditures on such projects by millions in its first state budget for 2002.
cphpost.dk/get/65119.html
Besides its quandary with the American market, Vestas has had major headaches with delays in connection with the completion of its offshore wind farm project on Horns Rev, in Jutland: delays which have upped expenses by 15-17 million euros.
cphpost.dk/get/58303.html
Inhabitants of Fyn and Jutland will have to pay DKK 500 million extra in electricity bills due to the government's removal last month of the subsidy on renewable energy electricity production.
Recent changes made to the government's electricity reform policy mean that subsidies for renewable electricity generation will be gradually decreased. This means that consumers will be forced to pay the artificially inflated price of renewable energy - six times more expensive than conventional electricity - fixed by the government to encourage alternative energy producers.
[...]
windmill owners receive about 60 øre per kilowatt-hour while electricity from the nordic Nordpool electricity network costs only 10 øre. The high prices were put in place to encourage expansion of alternative energy forms, such as wind power.
Half of the extra cost for wind generated electricity was subsidised by the state with a massive contribution of DKK 625 million.
cphpost.dk/get/57573.html
The problem, however, is that the reform will also reduce the subsidy for windmill generated electricity from the current 60 øre per kWh to a minimum of 43 øre per kWh.
"The establishment of new windmills will not be exploited with a subsidy of only 43 øre," predicts Madsen.
Director for the windmill industry in Denmark, Karl Gustav Nielsen from Vestas Wind System has admitted to being worried that the move to limit subsidies may effect the establishment of Danish windmills.
cphpost.dk/get/57541.html
Tax breaks will be offered to companies making greater use of so-called "green" energy sources such as wind and wave power, and a quota system will be introduced in which 20 percent of all of the nation's energy will be attained from environmentally friendly power sources by the year 2003..
It seems that the question on every Dane's lips is, "Where are we going to find the money to pay for expansion of windpower?" Where else would the electricity tax revenues be going; why would it be that no other european nation has electricity costs that are nearly as high; and why would it be that european national electricity costs rise with increasing wind market-penetration, and fall with decreasing wind market-penetration?
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Gar Lipow wrote: Come on - you just assume it.
The principle of economy in logic demands that we not seek weird explanations for things, when non-weird explanations suffice.
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Gar Lipow wrote: the main place I used AWEA was for capital costs - total expenditures on wind and total capacity added - not exactly something where they have an incentive to lie.
Gar, the AWEA is an advocacy organization. Advocacy organizations are in the business of making things they are advocating look good. Wind looks better when its capital costs look lower. How did you come to the conclusion that the AWEA, a windpower advocacy organization, does not have an incentive to lie about the true capital costs of windpower?
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Gar Lipow wrote: if they wanted to lie they would be better off to downplay.
Yes. Windpower looks good when it looks cost-competitive. Has someone here suggested the opposite?
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Gar Lipow wrote: my second source in the spread sheet was the DOE who confirmed that capital costs run from $1,300 to $1,700.
Did the DOE get its numbers from the AWEA? Did its estimate include roads, helicopters, and other capital costs? If Denmark considers its $0.30/kWh electricity cheap compared to what it would cost if wind market-penetration were increased there at all beyond its present 8.3%, the AWEA's numbers would seem to be fraudulent.
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Gar Lipow Posted 3:05 pm
12 Mar 2007
Denmark applies a 25% VAT tax to electricity - which goes to general revenue, and probably costs a lot more than wind generators. Denmark also has an "efficiency" tax which subsidizes conservation measures and thus can't be used for wind. Denmark has a carbon tax - some of which is spent on wind, but by no means all. I'm guessing Denmark spends more subsidizing combined heat and power than wind, but you are welcome to post figures showing otherwise.
Denmark is not comparable anyway to U.S anyway - because it is a small country: you would get better results with an EU wide wind grid
GreyFic:
>Wind is nice, but I doubt it will end up being the backbone of any infrastructure, unless it's a small nation near the coast, with a nice shelf, and no ocean currents.
You have a reason for saying this other than bare assertion. The great plains of the U.S. alone could provide many times our current demand. Offshore wind resources alone could provide many times our current demand. The Rocky mountains, and various other regions could supply a substantial portion of current demand again. So we have plenty of wind resources. We need to upgrade our grid anyway: deregulation of generation has resulted in perverse incentives, a neglect of transmission and distribution system, and generally a grid that really sucks. Storage is useful for any system; for dispatchable power it saves capital by letting the system run at optimum capacity and storing offpeak for production for peak use. For non-dispatchable power, it provides shaping, and turns it into dispatchable capacity. Given that why not add wind to those two components.
As to incidental expenses - O&M for wind plants, maintenance (for example broken turbines) - well O&M is rising for the conventional electricty industry as well. The long term trend in fuel costs seems to be up. A lot of our existing plants are aging, and will either require more maintenance or replacement (and the capital costs of new fossil fuel plants have been rising too.)
In short, wind still looks cheaper than continued fossil fuel.
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:04 pm
12 Mar 2007
However only in places where the wind blows reliably.
Offshore can be good, however if you're dealing with offshore, why not go the extra mile and do ocean current energy, which runs 24/7.
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Now wind could be good given a good storage mechanism.
Luckily it looks like UltraCapacitors weren't all hype.
http://uanews.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/UANews.woa/wa/MainSt ...
But then again, that'd probably play more favorably for solar than wind.
Since if you can generate electricity at any time of the day, then generating it with soon-to-be inexpensive solar would be your best bet.
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Way I see it, mechanical energy systems aren't going to get much better. Sure you can streamline, and you can use cheaper materials.
But in the end it's not going to get any easier to make them, and as mentioned, they are rather high maintenence.
Solar on the other hand has 2 big breakthroughs coming through, which we've already made, and are just waiting for commercialization.
1 is drastically cheaper materials and manufacturing
2 is double triple or higher energy conversion effeciency by altering light via the use of quantum dots.
And for more industrial applications, thermal solar, like Stirling Solar Dishes can compete with nuclear.
Wind will have it's place. But it will be where it's most convenient, not the mainstream.
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:11 pm
12 Mar 2007
Since you can put it in the middle of a field of crops, and it doesn't block much sunshine, or eat up much space.
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Nucbuddy Posted 4:53 pm
12 Mar 2007
O&M (and pollution, and risk) is intrinsically-high for diffuse energy sources such as wind. This follows from the essential governing principle of energy exploitation, Gar. You cannot hope to compete if you are putting your money on a diffuse energy source. Instead of one heat-engine in one location, windpower involves ~10,000 polluting and risky mining-machines spread out over large distances. There is no way to change this intrinsic liability of windpower. Nothing about this situation can evolve in windpower's favor.
Contrary to your assertion, O&M costs for dense energy sources are dropping.
nei.org/index.asp?catnum=4&catid=1014
Record-Low Production Costs, Near-Record Output Mark Stellar Year for U.S. Nuclear Power Plants.
Gar Lipow wrote: The long term trend in fuel costs seems to be up.
That is also incorrect.
nei.org/documents/U.S._Nuclear_Industry_Fuel_Costs.pdf
US heavy-metal-fission fuel costs have been almost-continuously dropping from 1995 ($0.73/kWh) to 2005 ($0.45/kWh). This trend has continued even of late, while raw uranium costs have skyrocketed.
world-nuclear.org/info/inf22.html
Note that at the prices which utilities are likely to be paying for current delivery, only one quarter of the cost of the fuel loaded into a nuclear reactor is the actual ex-mine (or other) supply. The balance is mostly the cost of enrichment and fuel fabrication..
world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html
From the outset the basic attraction of nuclear energy has been its low fuel costs compared with coal, oil and gas fired plants. Uranium, however, has to be processed, enriched and fabricated into fuel elements, and about half of the cost is due to enrichment and fabrication. Allowances must also be made for the management of radioactive spent fuel and the ultimate disposal of this spent fuel or the wastes separated from it.
If assuming a higher uranium price, say two thirds of current spot price: 8.9 kg x 108 = 961, giving a total of $2286, or 0.635 c/kWh.
But even with these included, the total fuel costs of a nuclear power plant in the OECD are typically about a third of those for a coal-fired plant and between a quarter and a fifth of those for a gas combined-cycle plant.
Fuel costs are one area of steadily increasing efficiency and cost reduction. For instance, in Spain nuclear electricity cost was reduced by 29% over 1995-2001. This involved boosting enrichment levels and burn-up to achieve 40% fuel cost reduction. Prospectively, a further 8% increase in burn-up will give another 5% reduction in fuel cost..
Importance of fuel-cost to overall energy-cost is inversely-proportional to energy density. High-density energy sources such as fissionable heavy-metal have intrinsically-low fuel costs. Medium-density energy sources such as oxidizable coal have intrinsically-medium fuel costs. Low-density energy sources such as draggable-wind have intrinsically-high fuel costs.
Nothing anyone does or says can change these characteristics, because they stem from the most-basic energy-source property -- density. High-density energy sources such as fissionable heavy-metal are inherently low-risk. Low-density energy sources such as draggable-wind are inherently high-risk. It will never -- because it can never -- be any other way.
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:23 pm
12 Mar 2007
The one thing nuclear over renewables,
is that most most renewables cannot provide reliable baseload power.
Given high density storage.
That, -- can -- change.
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I suggest ya read up on UltraCapacitors.
Since if they deliver what they claim.
You can kiss nuclear goodbye.
Oddly, this Arizona State article, makes me wonder "Why didn't they think up this sooner?"
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Nucbuddy Posted 5:49 pm
12 Mar 2007
Intermittency is irrelevant. Solve the intermittency "problem", and you have solved nothing.
Do you think dense energy cannot benefit from storage?
phyast.pitt.edu/~blc
phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book
phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter14.html
Of course, if electricity storage should become really cheap, nuclear power would be in a position to compete for peak and intermediate load service..
Storing diffuse energy doesn't solve the problems of its being inherently expensive, risky, polluting, unscalable, and unsustainable.
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GreyFlcn Posted 6:22 pm
12 Mar 2007
Expensive (Hugely subsidized by DOE and DOD)
Risky (Nuclear winter, an apocalypse second only to global warming. And as the New Yorker comments, we can't do jack about dealing with nuclear proliferation safety in America. Assuming we can't micromanage the world, thats a hell of a lot of risk.)
Polluting (#1 source of US CFCs is yellowcake processing)
Unscalable (10 year buildup for just 1 facility? You want scalability, look no further than thinfilm solar. Can place em near anywhere, and produce em as easily as making T-Shirts or Newspapers)
Without plutonium reactors, nuclear can't even begin to call itself sustainable. (And with them, it can't begin to call itself safe)
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:44 am
13 Mar 2007
In some applications, fuel cost is inversely proportional to energy density, but you are wrong to insist that this is an intrinsic property. What you describe is a trend not an intrinsic property. Trends by definition change with time, intrinsic properties do not. Using coal or oil to heat homes is not intrinsically more cost effective than using natural gas and the energy density by volume of the natural gas that feeds my furnace is orders of magnitude less dense by volume than home heating oil. You are also confusing the issues of centralized energy generation and energy density. The issues are related but the economics are much more complicated than what you are proposing.
You cannot hope to compete if you are putting your money on a diffuse energy source. Instead of one heat-engine in one location, windpower involves ~10,000 polluting and risky mining-machines spread out over large distances. There is no way to change this intrinsic liability of windpower. Nothing about this situation can evolve in windpower's favor.
Your arguments tend to be inconsistent from thread to thread. In another comment, on another thread titled "Biodiesel powerplants are more-efficient than coal" you argue that generators are more efficient than coal. In a very narrow sense, this is true, but you change hats as needed to suit your arguments. Instead of one heat engine in one location, diesel generators would involve placing 10,000 polluting and risky machines spread out over large distances (which was the gist of that article). Now I realize that you would agree with that on this thread, but that didn't stop you from defending diesel generators over coal on another. The main variable in this case is cost of fuel. We could not use generators as an analogy for wind turbines because the fuel for one presently costs about $4.00 a gallon and the fuel for the other is free. An interplay between other factors over time will now determine the feasibility, but that feasibility is not locked into place by imaginary intrinsic laws of physics.
Trends change. If everybody and his brother started building nuclear power plants, the cost of nuclear fuel would fluctuate with supply and demand as the costs of other fuels do. The cost of oil is not going to go down as more and more of it is used, and neither will nuclear fuel. The costs of cleaning up waste products as with coal and nuclear also have to be accounted for. The big advantage of wind and solar as everyone knows is the stability and extremely low cost ($0) of the fuel used to drive the electrical generation machines. Time will tell.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Gar Lipow Posted 7:34 am
13 Mar 2007
For costs, as I pointed out, right in my model there is a second source(WORD File) - the Northwest Power Council - part of the Bonneville Power administration.
As far as value - someone complained because I calculated the value of generation as a percent of retail price.
OK: here is an alternate way to calculate the value of replacing generating capacity:
Generating costs for stockholder owned utilities in 2005 were $126.672 billion dollars(large PDF).
For profit utilities (which are mostly stockholder owned) represented about 63% (large PDF) of revenues from electricity.
So dividing 126.672 billion dollars by 63%, you end up with generating costs at 201 billion dollars, higher than my previous estimate. If you want to lower that fractional denominator further by subtracting any non-stockholder owned private investors (assuming you can find that statistic) you will end up with even higher generating costs.
So, the 197 billion dollar generation cost I used appears to be conservative.
I'm pretty sure any reasonable cost estimate for electricity generation nationwide (as opposed to transmission or distribution) by our current system will be in the 195-205 billion dollar range.
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Nucbuddy Posted 5:58 pm
21 Mar 2007
Now it is $19 per MW. It does not constitute a major portion of American windpower subsidies. That and the other windpower subsidies are detailed and referenced here:
aweo.org/Schleede.html
5. American Bar Association, in mid-2004, established a "Renewable Energy Resources Committee." During a December 15, 2004, teleconference, Ed Feo of Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy, LLP pointed out that 2/3 of the economic value of wind projects come from tax breaks.
Windpower functions essentially as a money-losing tax shelter.
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GreyFlcn wrote: That subsidy is only approved for 1 year at a time.
The tax credit covers the first ten years of production. The law needs to be renewed every two years, but that does not affect installations already receiving the credit.
google.com/search?q=windpower+production+tax+credit+%22ten+years%22+%22two+years%22
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amazingdrx Posted 11:07 pm
21 Mar 2007
And then there is distributed generation from biogas digestion used in solid oxide fuel cell/turbines for backup power. The methane release prevented, waste water recycled, and organic fertilizer produced with systems like this are all great byproduct benefits.
And the fuel cells also run on natural gas. The ultimate fossil fuel backup energy supply. There is enough of this source for many decades converted underground from coal and oil.
And I think the cost of wind power will drop signifigantly with mass production and a switch to wind machines three times the size of the current largest multi-megawatt machines.
Mounted on the nearly deserted northern great plains and offshore on floating wind/wave power platforms. 50,000 of these larger scale machines could take over 25% of baseload power generation.
Conservation and distributed solar, small to medium wind, and biogas to fuel cell generation could take care of the rest, even with a massive shift to plugin vehicles.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 11:48 pm
27 Mar 2007
Great development. Non-polluting and cost effective flow battery storage.
Could it backup the 500 kilovolt DC grid? yep, no reason why not. Except fossil and nuclear industry lobbyist opposition.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Engineer Posted 3:36 am
28 Mar 2007
Now it is $19 per MW. It does not constitute a major portion of American windpower subsidies. That and the other windpower subsidies are detailed and referenced here:
aweo.org/Schleede.html
5. American Bar Association, in mid-2004, established a "Renewable Energy Resources Committee." During a December 15, 2004, teleconference, Ed Feo of Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy, LLP pointed out that 2/3 of the economic value of wind projects come from tax breaks.
Windpower functions essentially as a money-losing tax shelter.
Interesting that in the first report, when calculating the benefits of wind production, they use a "generous" (their term) capacity factor of 27%, yet in calculating the tax subsidies, they use a capacity factor of 40%...
Perhaps someone is trying to skew the results???
Common sense is an oxymoron...
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:09 am
28 Mar 2007
We got plenty of cow poops
Plenty municipal yard trimmings
And worst comes to worst, you can capture carbon from power plants, and combine it with electrically generated hydrogen, and presto.
Baseload natural gas from solar panels.
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Gar Lipow Posted 9:56 am
05 Apr 2007
In terms of fuel cells. If they can really make a fuel cell that can use methane with 50% efficiency for less than $250 per KW of capacity I agree that will be a great back up to a renewable grid, and would constitute a about 1% of kWh produced though a great deal more than that of capacity. I doubt landfill, sewage and animal husbandry waste plus mine emissions alone can supply that 1%, but even if most of it was mostly natural gas providing 1% of electricity from natural gas converted at 50% efficiency would not be an intolerable global warming burden.
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SustainableGreen Posted 2:05 am
26 Jun 2007
Hey, Gar: You wrote: "Wind farms last twenty years or more."
Don't you actually mean the components of installed equipment have a useful lifespan of ~20 years, requiring replacement or overhaul after that time?
Otherwise I completely agree with your position--add PV distributed to every rooftop possible and practical and you have the best solution!
David
Sustainability For Life
Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!
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BILL HANNAHAN Posted 5:10 am
14 Nov 2007
1 It is based on annual averages and ignores the fact that wind power is very low in the summer when electrical demand peaks, and high spring and fall when demand is lowest. Huge amounts of energy will be wasted during the spring and fall and there will be chronic shortages in the summer.
http://rredc.nrel.gov/wind/pubs/atlas/maps/chap2/2-03m.ht ...
http://rredc.nrel.gov/wind/pubs/atlas/maps/chap2/2-04m.ht ...
The 2006 North American heat wave spread throughout most of the United States and Canada beginning on July 15, 2006, killing at least 225 people.
From July 15 to July 22 very high temperatures spread across most all of the United States and Canada. On Monday, July 17, every state except Alaska, Minnesota, and North Dakota recorded temperatures of 90°F (32°C) or greater. North Dakota had recorded a temperature of 104°F (40°C) the previous day.[4]
From July 23 to July 29 the abnormal heat was concentrated in the West coast and South West deserts. 164 fatalities were reported in California during this period.
From July 29 to August 4 the heat wave moved eastwards, causing further fatalities as it progressed.
From August 4 to August 27, high temperatures persisted in the South and Southeast United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_North_American_heat_wav ...
In California wind peak capacity dropped to 4% for seven days during the heat wave while the demand peak rose almost 20% above average.
http://www.ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/Wind- ...
Over the entire U.S., average windmill capacity factor dropped to 24% during July and August of 2006. Assuming the average annual capacity factor was 30% that is a 6% drop, which does not sound to bad. But 6% of 30% is equal to 20% of 100%. Wind output was down 20%.
Electricity consumption for the nation jumped 20% above average during july and august.
Nuclear plants run at 100% rated power all the time because of their low fuel cost, yet nuclear power production was 10% above average during july and august because utilities schedule refueling outages for spring and fall when loads are low. The rest of the shortfall was largely picked up by natural gas plants.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table1_1_a.h ...
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table1_1.htm ...
If the U.S. was using the proposed system in 2006 and we started july with all the pump storage units charged to 100%, they would have been empty in 2 days, and remained so for the rest of the summer. We would have had nationwide blackouts during a massive record heat wave and they would continue till fall. I believe the death toll would have numbered several hundred thousand.
2 This proposal calls for increasing wind capacity to 130 times the present level, to a data plate rating of 3.2 times the average U.S. consumption. Existing windmills achieve a 30.5% capacity factor because they are built in prime locations and are connected directly to the grid, so all the energy they can produce goes directly onto the grid.
Building 130 times existing capacity means most windmills will not be in prime locations. A substantial portion will be east of the Mississippi where wind conditions are much less favorable than what most existing windmills see today.
More importantly, when wind conditions are good over a large area, available wind power may be more than three times demand, particularly at night and in spring and fall when demand is below average.
Most windmills will have to be shutdown or throttled way back when wind conditions are good over a large area.
These effects will dramatically reduce the average capacity factor. To compensate requires that a much greater number of windmills be built than specified in the analysis, which will jack up the cost, and that just makes the problems listed above worse.
3. The analysis assumes that 2/3 of the power goes directly to the consumer and only 1/3 passes through storage.
Given the fact that wind varies widely, including the possibility of multiple days with little wind, the required storage capacity will be much greater than assumed here. The fraction of energy going through storage will be larger than assumed, so storage losses will be greater than assumed, requiring more windmills.
The report assumes the use of pumped storage because it is much cheaper and more efficient than other options. It is not clear if land cost is included. See page 22.
http://www.prod.sandia.gov/cgi-bin/techlib/access-control ...
With pumped storage so cheap, why haven't entrepreneurs built pumped storage facilities all over the country, buying cheap power at night and selling it at high prices during the day?
The author assumes a height differential of 875 ft. The most likely locations are where mountains and lowlands intersect. These are locations people find attractive to live and play. Such sites are already occupied by people or designated as national forests or national parks.
Pump storage installations are ugly industrial facilities. Water level can change 30 feet in 12 hours. They are dangerous to humans and wildlife, and must be fenced off. The NIMBY resistance is tremendous.
5 The U.S. consumes an average of 1,600 watts per person. The proposed storage system is sized for 12 hours with a 1.5 safety factor, 18 hours of energy storage, priced at $10 / KWh. However the author did not include the capital cost of the energy conversion equipment and balance of plant, $602 / KW.
This is a $431,000,000,000 error.
6 The author claims that when the wind lulls and the pumped storage runs out hydroelectric plants will pick up the load. This is not possible because hydro plants are not distributed in proportion to population, and their maximum output is a small fraction of average demand.
7 The author proposes building 62,000 miles of new experimental ultra high voltage DC 6 GW power line at a cost of $805,000 per mile. Keep this in mind when you read comments saying that distributed wind and solar are great because they do not require a strong grid. Think of the fun terrorists could have with such a massive grid.
Figure 1 of the authors reference indicates a cost of $2.7 billion per 2000 KM ($2,200,000 per mile) of 500 KV transmission line.
http://uaelp.pennnet.com/display_article/281953/22/ARTCL/ ...
The author uses a cost of $1.0 billion per 2000 KM in his spread sheet. He has eliminated the cost of conversion stations to boost the AC to HVDC and back to AC at the other end of each line. He has also eliminated the cost of line losses.
This is an $85,000,000,000 error.
It appears that this price does not include the cost of land for right of way.
Correcting for the two errors total system cost is $3,000,000,000,000.
The NIMBY uproar over these lines will probably be even greater than for the pumped storage. I doubt that you could purchase the land and acquire permits to build the specified windmills, pumped storage facilities and power lines, in 100 years.
8 The author claims his design is 98% reliable. That is a dream, however if we built a more substantial system that could achieve 98%, we would still endure over seven days of blackout per year, mostly during extreme heat waves and cold snaps. It would still be deadly.
9 The biggest flaw of all is that this analysis presents wind as the primary source of electricity, with all other sources as backup.
In reality the primary sources are the plants that make huge flows of electricity reliably and predictably. They are hydro, nuclear and fossil plants. The only savings from intermittent sources like wind and solar are from the fuel not burned. Fuel costs are;
GAS 5.2 CENTS / KWH
COAL 2.3 CENTS / KWH
NUCLEAR 0.49 CENTS / KWH
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat8p2.html ...
These are the real break even prices for wind and solar.
The author claims this analysis proves that;
We could replace every non-hydro power plant in the U.S. with wind generators and electricity storage and lower our electricity bill.
I believe he has proven that this statement is not true.
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