I live in Virginia and thanks to the Virginia Clean Energy Act we are facing the same issues. Virginia does not have good wind resources, so growth of renewables is based on building 24 GW of solar. Virginia is proud of its rural countryside but no one has thought through the impact of 24 GW of utility solar farms. At 5 - 10 acres per MW of nameplate capacity these solar farms would cover 120,000 to 240,000 acres of land. That's one to two counties of Virginia completely covered in solar farms, feeder grids and long distance power lines from rural Virginia to Northern Virginia where the power is needed.
Of course nuclear is capped, and the dispatchable power of coal and NaturalGas, which generates two thirds of Virginia’s power has to be shut down.
Of course 24 GW of solar doesn’t meet Virginia’s need for power, so it is planning to import 11 GW of coal fired power from West Virginia- until that gets shut down by the Inflation Reduction Act.
Eventually you run out of other people’s electricity.
And as you say all this comes at a cost, with prices planning to rise by 66% by 2030 and double by 2035.
Sounds like a certain state on the West coast. When we modeled the VCEA in 2022 we found it would need 51 GW of solar and over 33 GW of battery storage to manage the intermittency. As you said, this would be disastrous in a number of ways.
Was this for a one year demand and generation profile. When the UK modeled 37 years of historical weather data they found a huge increase in energy storage requirements due to back to back low generation years. For a 60 GW renewable grid, with EVs and electrification of cooking and heating they needed 100 TWh of storage. 100 TWh of storage can't be met with batteries or pumped hydroelectric power so they are recommending hydrogen stored in salt mines.
100 TWh of hydrogen is the energy equivalent of 90 Megatons of TNT!
Insane. If we had included electrification and EVs (like our Colorado report), and had more years of data, I don't doubt our numbers would've grown substantially.
How dumb is that ? Boris’s wife was running the country ! DOWN. And what happens when H and Sodium Chloride mix at high or low pressure. I would hate to think. Rust in the pipes. Leakage. Low pressure or high pressure. Hydrogen bomb. Socialists. Communists. Doomsday’s. Sierra Club. Davos. Soros. This is not a good mix. !!
Thanks for the clarification. As you may know, in the most recent IRPs we are seeing include some amount of "long duration" which amounts to 100 hours, but the amounts are still paltry. When I looked at just PacifiCorp East I figure we would have needed somewhere around 1.6TWhr to get through 2023 (Nov 2022 to Nov. 2023)without issue. Without any new demands, BTW.
Got to love the euphemisms in the PJM 2024 reliability report...Overall, the amount of generation retirements appears to be more certain than the timely arrival of replacement generation resources and demand response, given that the quantity of retirements is codified in various policy objectives, while the impacts to the pace of new entry of the Inflation Reduction Act, post-pandemic supply chain issues, and other externalities are still not fully understood. Should these trends continue, PJM could face decreasing reserve margins for the first time in its history.
Specifically, the analysis shows that 40 GW of existing generation are at risk of retirement by 2030. This figure is composed of: 6 GW of 2022 deactivations, 6 GW of announced retirements, 25 GW of potential policy-driven retirements and 3 GW of potential economic retirements. Combined, this represents 21% of PJM’s current installed capacity.
On the other side of the balance sheet, PJM’s New Services Queue consists primarily of renewables (94%) and gas (6%). Despite the sizable nameplate capacity of renewables in the interconnection queue (290 GW), the historical rate of completion for renewable projects has been approximately 5%.
So, confidence that 40 GW (21%) of dispatchable power is going away. Maybe, 15 GW of nameplate renewables will turn up - but not when you need it 🤔
A Dirty Harry strategy when you go to flip the light switch...Do you feel lucky, punk!
First you subsidise renewables, then you subsidise dispatchable power to keep the lights on...
The UK will continue to subsidize fossil-fueled power plants into the second half of this decade with operators paid a record fee to stay open. The capacity auction, that ensures Britain has sufficient back-up power, cleared at an all-time high of £65 per kilowatt per year for 2027-28.
EIA forecasts 36 GW of solar installed in 2024. At 5 - 10 acres per MW, that is 180,000 to 360,000 acres of land.
With prices of solar panels decreasing expect the rate of installation to only go up. The only constraint is likely to be the building of feeder grid and long distance High Voltage transmission to get this power where it is needed.
Joining that California/Hawaii club are a few fridgid weather states, Minnesota, Michigan, New York, and possibly Massachusetts. Winter blackouts in these states is not simply an inconvenience. No one in California or Hawaii is freezing to death without power. These far North states are a different matter.
Interestingly about 90% of temperature stress deaths are from extended cold weather. And more so in warmer climates where people are unprepared to handle cold temperatures
As a result expensive electricity is much more dangerous than temperature changes in any direction. More people have died in both Germany and Japan from cold stress due to energy poverty caused by shutting down their nuclear fleets than did from the Fukushima evacuation (which itself was unnecessary)
Crazy that solar subsidies are that much higher than wind. Do you have any idea why that is? Eg what programs are available to it that aren’t available to wind
I think it is a product of a few things. Solar facilities have lower capacity factors so they produce less power, the wind PTC rolls off after 10 years, and the tax credits can be deferred so they’re not always realized when they are generators.
Nice piece guys. I think that anyone with sixth grade math skills could have figured this out 15 years ago, but still it persists. It is great to see this kind of quality work in support of the obvious.
Here’s what bugging me today. We are currently looking at new solar/wind/battery projects for grid connection. All of these projects are limited liability corporations, owned by other LLCs, owned by other LLCs, owned by some unrecognizable off shore entity. Why? They are set up to be abandoned as soon as things get less financially attractive. We are seeing solar panel replacement at 10 years rather than the 25 yeas they told the banks, wind turbines face similar financial challenges. We are probably locked into ever increasing subsidies to keep these worthless facilities on line. The other option is unthinkable, that the LLC abandons the project and disappears. The LLC has no other assets to seize, and the ownership is such that there is no one to sue, and no obligation to serve. With 30-40% of generation in renewables the operators are in perfect position to blackmail the grid for higher prices richer subsidies or they default on their PPAs and disappear. Now what?
Most if not all of the Wind and Solar Easements and Leases I have reviewed place the decommissioning burden on the Landowner if the developer fails. The financial assurances required for developers by Wisconsin Law are laughable. Developers are allowed to leave hundreds of yards of concrete in the ground, along with all of the electrical cables. These are real externalities compared to the imaginary ones assigned to gas, oil, and coal.
First, in our field, parties in certain circumstances have to post financial assurance for a variety of environmental-related obligations relating to remediation or reclamation. Common examples include:
a) Closure/Post-Closure obligations for landfills (municipal solid waste - RCRA Subtitle D, and hazardous waste RCRA Subtitle C
b) Superfund (CERCLA) - certain remediation projects
c) Mining - reclamation bonds
d) O&G decommissioning obligations
There are others, no need to list all here.
The parties, generally, have three options:
1) bond
2) insurance (complex, manuscript niche product acting like a bond, with policy language tied to state or federal regulations, like the bond option)
3) net worth test - this is how all the O&G majors meet their financial assurance obligations (if a corporation's balance sheet is large enough, it may avoid the bond or insurance option, which have substantial friction costs and could require collateral)
Second, financial accounting standards impose obligations on public companies for asset retirement obligations (AROs). FASB's FIN 47 deals with these obligations. Think coal-fired power plant and its ash ponds. Or decommissioning of a pulp/paper mill full of asbestos, with a regulated landfill on site, etc. The situation may not be perfectly analogous (we are not accountants/FASB experts) as there are no federal or state obligations to remove and dispose of Rube Goldberg machines or their components. But, there's an angle there somewhere.
(A state or federal obligation where a landowner could be left holding the bag?)
Guys, your essays are so darned rational that I have begun sending links to many other folks who need to read them. Thus, I am upgrading today!
You mentioned "all of the above". This is, of course, no more than a slogan. It is difficult to pin down what it means, but it appears to contain many contradictions that will have to be addressed -- three of which you mention in this essay. Among others the two important ones are 1) the destruction of viewsheds and wildlife by renewables and their associated transmission lines, and 2) the displacement of tax revenue paying thermal generation with tax expenditure absorbing renewables.
I think that the issue of cost/price may be better approached by using EROEI calculations rather than LCOE anyway. LCOE as inferred include many “soft” components that can be altered/impacted by politics, economics and even social inputs. The bottom line is if a power generation/distribution system’s overall cost (in energy) is less than what it actually reliably supplies to support society, it is a failed system. Period. One only needs to look at nature, where species with higher EROEI’s out-compete and displace lower EROI species - it’s called natural selection. Solar and wind clearly fall into this category with EROEI’s less than 10 (even with backups) while we need energy system EROEI’s of 15 or more for an advanced and growing society. Nuclear clearly provides this, and at potentially an order of magnitude more than most fossil fuels types. Unreliables don’t.
Wind and solar do not exist on a utility scale level without subsidy of some kind or the other. (PTC, ITC, governmental funding of some sort) As example, as wind and solar were receiving federal subsidies of one kind or the other, in New York State, NYSERDA (The New York State Research and Development Authority, quaint little acronym) was busy handing out funding to all sorts of small projects that would go nowhere, while failing to support existing natural gas projects and small hydro that were going out of business, because the real time and day ahead market prices of the NYISO were so low or negative that they couldn’t stay in business. Further, to add insult to injury, all across the country hydroelectric projects are being removed at enormous costs which is (wait for it) subsidized by federal and state taxpayer dollars. None of the genius’ running the federal, state and local authorities know a thing about the subject, but wind and solar make them “feel good” as they support the save the environment grifters. Small local hydro with an electrical distribution circuit can be very valuable to a community, but that requires forethought and knowledge about how to make it work. All the small hydro projects in NY State and New England both pre and post PURPA were very good sources of LOCAL load support. The best generated kilowatt is one that is closest to the load, and better still if it has a cogeneration component. Qualifying Facilities anyone? District heating? Hmmm. So here we are again, regulate to deregulate to re-regulate and each time it gets more expensive. As the pressure on the transmission and distribution grid system increase, distributed generation using some form of fossil fuel is going to be necessary to keep unity in the lines at 60 Hz. Or, rolling or otherwise blackouts are on offer and they won’t be so cheap that the meter spins backwards.
Perhaps the most important aspect of the efficiency of solar power generation is the extent to which the sky is sprayed by airplanes every day and the sun is obscured by man-made clouds. In the last 10 years, solar radiation has decreased by 30 %.
So much to say but this will be short-or short as can be. The folly of the green renewable dream is laid on a fossil fuel foundation that is hard to escape. Case in point all that is happen in a rejigging of the periodic tables taken fossils fuels-aside from uranium-the most dense from of energy using them directly & indirectly to create, back-up, & make a lot of the renewables. Solar panels are made with plastics and Polysilicon-which is basically coal since it's made in China. Wind turbines used gallons of lubricates, batteries-again made in China hence coal. Instead of using fossil fuels the most efficient way possible to generate power, they are being used indirect-either as a feedstock or as fuel used for extraction or mining-or directly in the processing of materials needed to make the tech. by way of China-remember, China using COAL for it's grid and is responsible for processing & refining. Or as a back up to the intermittency of renewables via natural gas.
These truths can not be avoided but are often ignored. Pushing the inefficient use of fossil fuels have had the results of environmental degradation, the reverse of what was promised. The shifting of the periodic tables does not negates the trade offs.
I passed a wind farm under construction recently. They cleared out acers and acers of forested land to install them. Seems as though the loss of all those CO2 munchers should be accounted for as a cost as well.
Subsidies, wrong decisions, energy consuming products, energy generation and missed opportunities you will find no end to what you can write on the thrashings oh humanity’s plight to feed, keep warm and shelter themselves. There was a time when humanity just needed to do two things (a) drastically cut back on its use of FREE FINITE Flammable Fossils, and (b) restrict propagating itself, sadly that time has passed.
Humanity finds itself in the position of a drowning person clutching at straws.
Human was having a great time lying in an inflatable plastic ring (Oil Products), eyes closed, sun’s warmth gently caressing his face, bathed in tranquility, drifting in the warm shallows of the sea, but unnoticed gradually drifting to the wider ocean assisted by a rip tide (Environmental Destruction). Human eventually opened its eyes from being tossed about, now aware of larger and stronger waves, Human couldn’t believe how far it had drifted, it was then that Human realised the plastic inflatable was its only real life support but it had developed a leak (Depleting Flammable Fossils). He could just see the shore but frighteningly strange all Human could see was smoke and flames. Human tried to swim whilst clutching the deflating inflatable ring but the tide was just too strong, Human was getting hotter with the effort, and human’s head and back were burning from the sun. Human decided to hold onto the ring for as long as it provided support, it was still helping Human to tread water (Renewables). Human drifted into an oil slick it was littered with every conceivable piece of plastic detritus humans have produced, tooth brushes, ear buds, straws, children’s and adult sanitary products, nurdles, plastic ducks, paint and agrochemical containers, Human lost count in naming them all. Human drifted along hoping the inflatable would last until someone or something came to the rescue. Sadly that didn’t happen, Human along with memories of human’s world died🤔
There's also another point they miss. If it weren't for carveouts from states that demand a certain percentage of electricity comes from renewable sources, no one would even consider building such an unreliable energy source. But the state governments have created an artificial demand that utilities feel obligated to fill to avoid stroking a massive check for the difference.
“This is because utility companies earn a rate of return on every dollar they spend on building new power plants. Once fully depreciated, utilities no longer earn this rate of return but are only allowed to close and replace them with other sources if allowed by the state. The so-called “energy transition” has given them this excuse.”
My understanding is that the above statement only applies to vertically integrated utilities, not to generators in restructured markets. I went looking for a source that talked about this and this is something that I found.
“In restructured jurisdictions, the generation component is not included in the rate base calculation, and legacy utility generation plants have either been divested to a merchant generation company or transferred to an affiliate of the utility, and the plants are no longer
economically regulated.
Rate base is the net asset base from which the utility provides electric, gas or water service, and upon which the utility is allowed to earn a rate of return, usually the company's weighted average cost of capital.”
I live in Virginia and thanks to the Virginia Clean Energy Act we are facing the same issues. Virginia does not have good wind resources, so growth of renewables is based on building 24 GW of solar. Virginia is proud of its rural countryside but no one has thought through the impact of 24 GW of utility solar farms. At 5 - 10 acres per MW of nameplate capacity these solar farms would cover 120,000 to 240,000 acres of land. That's one to two counties of Virginia completely covered in solar farms, feeder grids and long distance power lines from rural Virginia to Northern Virginia where the power is needed.
Of course nuclear is capped, and the dispatchable power of coal and NaturalGas, which generates two thirds of Virginia’s power has to be shut down.
Of course 24 GW of solar doesn’t meet Virginia’s need for power, so it is planning to import 11 GW of coal fired power from West Virginia- until that gets shut down by the Inflation Reduction Act.
Eventually you run out of other people’s electricity.
And as you say all this comes at a cost, with prices planning to rise by 66% by 2030 and double by 2035.
When will this nonsense stop.?
Sounds like a certain state on the West coast. When we modeled the VCEA in 2022 we found it would need 51 GW of solar and over 33 GW of battery storage to manage the intermittency. As you said, this would be disastrous in a number of ways.
Was this for a one year demand and generation profile. When the UK modeled 37 years of historical weather data they found a huge increase in energy storage requirements due to back to back low generation years. For a 60 GW renewable grid, with EVs and electrification of cooking and heating they needed 100 TWh of storage. 100 TWh of storage can't be met with batteries or pumped hydroelectric power so they are recommending hydrogen stored in salt mines.
100 TWh of hydrogen is the energy equivalent of 90 Megatons of TNT!
.https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/low-carbon-energy-programme/large-scale-electricity-storage/
Insane. If we had included electrification and EVs (like our Colorado report), and had more years of data, I don't doubt our numbers would've grown substantially.
How dumb is that ? Boris’s wife was running the country ! DOWN. And what happens when H and Sodium Chloride mix at high or low pressure. I would hate to think. Rust in the pipes. Leakage. Low pressure or high pressure. Hydrogen bomb. Socialists. Communists. Doomsday’s. Sierra Club. Davos. Soros. This is not a good mix. !!
Do you mean GWhr? If so I can believe it, but 33GW for a few minutes wouldn't do at all.
Hi Kevin. It was 33GW of four hour storage.
Thanks for the clarification. As you may know, in the most recent IRPs we are seeing include some amount of "long duration" which amounts to 100 hours, but the amounts are still paltry. When I looked at just PacifiCorp East I figure we would have needed somewhere around 1.6TWhr to get through 2023 (Nov 2022 to Nov. 2023)without issue. Without any new demands, BTW.
Got to love the euphemisms in the PJM 2024 reliability report...Overall, the amount of generation retirements appears to be more certain than the timely arrival of replacement generation resources and demand response, given that the quantity of retirements is codified in various policy objectives, while the impacts to the pace of new entry of the Inflation Reduction Act, post-pandemic supply chain issues, and other externalities are still not fully understood. Should these trends continue, PJM could face decreasing reserve margins for the first time in its history.
Specifically, the analysis shows that 40 GW of existing generation are at risk of retirement by 2030. This figure is composed of: 6 GW of 2022 deactivations, 6 GW of announced retirements, 25 GW of potential policy-driven retirements and 3 GW of potential economic retirements. Combined, this represents 21% of PJM’s current installed capacity.
On the other side of the balance sheet, PJM’s New Services Queue consists primarily of renewables (94%) and gas (6%). Despite the sizable nameplate capacity of renewables in the interconnection queue (290 GW), the historical rate of completion for renewable projects has been approximately 5%.
So, confidence that 40 GW (21%) of dispatchable power is going away. Maybe, 15 GW of nameplate renewables will turn up - but not when you need it 🤔
A Dirty Harry strategy when you go to flip the light switch...Do you feel lucky, punk!
First you subsidise renewables, then you subsidise dispatchable power to keep the lights on...
The UK will continue to subsidize fossil-fueled power plants into the second half of this decade with operators paid a record fee to stay open. The capacity auction, that ensures Britain has sufficient back-up power, cleared at an all-time high of £65 per kilowatt per year for 2027-28.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-28/uk-subsidies-for-fossil-fuel-power-plants-swell-to-record?embedded-checkout=true
Thanks. Agree.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61424#:~:text=We%20expect%20solar%20to%20account,are%20added%20to%20the%20grid.
EIA forecasts 36 GW of solar installed in 2024. At 5 - 10 acres per MW, that is 180,000 to 360,000 acres of land.
With prices of solar panels decreasing expect the rate of installation to only go up. The only constraint is likely to be the building of feeder grid and long distance High Voltage transmission to get this power where it is needed.
Joining that California/Hawaii club are a few fridgid weather states, Minnesota, Michigan, New York, and possibly Massachusetts. Winter blackouts in these states is not simply an inconvenience. No one in California or Hawaii is freezing to death without power. These far North states are a different matter.
Exactly. Similar blackouts in the states you mentioned would be devastating.
Interestingly about 90% of temperature stress deaths are from extended cold weather. And more so in warmer climates where people are unprepared to handle cold temperatures
As a result expensive electricity is much more dangerous than temperature changes in any direction. More people have died in both Germany and Japan from cold stress due to energy poverty caused by shutting down their nuclear fleets than did from the Fukushima evacuation (which itself was unnecessary)
I would say the death toll around Buffalo New York from Elliott refutes that claim.
The tight interconnection of one balancing authority area to another is likely to spread the problems widely and unexpectedly.
Kevin if you have not seen it, go read the FERC/NERC final report on the Northeast Blackout It is very educational.
That’s great reading. Second that recommendation.
Crazy that solar subsidies are that much higher than wind. Do you have any idea why that is? Eg what programs are available to it that aren’t available to wind
I think it is a product of a few things. Solar facilities have lower capacity factors so they produce less power, the wind PTC rolls off after 10 years, and the tax credits can be deferred so they’re not always realized when they are generators.
Nice piece guys. I think that anyone with sixth grade math skills could have figured this out 15 years ago, but still it persists. It is great to see this kind of quality work in support of the obvious.
Here’s what bugging me today. We are currently looking at new solar/wind/battery projects for grid connection. All of these projects are limited liability corporations, owned by other LLCs, owned by other LLCs, owned by some unrecognizable off shore entity. Why? They are set up to be abandoned as soon as things get less financially attractive. We are seeing solar panel replacement at 10 years rather than the 25 yeas they told the banks, wind turbines face similar financial challenges. We are probably locked into ever increasing subsidies to keep these worthless facilities on line. The other option is unthinkable, that the LLC abandons the project and disappears. The LLC has no other assets to seize, and the ownership is such that there is no one to sue, and no obligation to serve. With 30-40% of generation in renewables the operators are in perfect position to blackmail the grid for higher prices richer subsidies or they default on their PPAs and disappear. Now what?
We must preemptively decommission them by any means necessary or require a cash bond for decommissioning up front.
Most if not all of the Wind and Solar Easements and Leases I have reviewed place the decommissioning burden on the Landowner if the developer fails. The financial assurances required for developers by Wisconsin Law are laughable. Developers are allowed to leave hundreds of yards of concrete in the ground, along with all of the electrical cables. These are real externalities compared to the imaginary ones assigned to gas, oil, and coal.
Interesting. Two additional thoughts:
First, in our field, parties in certain circumstances have to post financial assurance for a variety of environmental-related obligations relating to remediation or reclamation. Common examples include:
a) Closure/Post-Closure obligations for landfills (municipal solid waste - RCRA Subtitle D, and hazardous waste RCRA Subtitle C
b) Superfund (CERCLA) - certain remediation projects
c) Mining - reclamation bonds
d) O&G decommissioning obligations
There are others, no need to list all here.
The parties, generally, have three options:
1) bond
2) insurance (complex, manuscript niche product acting like a bond, with policy language tied to state or federal regulations, like the bond option)
3) net worth test - this is how all the O&G majors meet their financial assurance obligations (if a corporation's balance sheet is large enough, it may avoid the bond or insurance option, which have substantial friction costs and could require collateral)
Second, financial accounting standards impose obligations on public companies for asset retirement obligations (AROs). FASB's FIN 47 deals with these obligations. Think coal-fired power plant and its ash ponds. Or decommissioning of a pulp/paper mill full of asbestos, with a regulated landfill on site, etc. The situation may not be perfectly analogous (we are not accountants/FASB experts) as there are no federal or state obligations to remove and dispose of Rube Goldberg machines or their components. But, there's an angle there somewhere.
(A state or federal obligation where a landowner could be left holding the bag?)
Guys, your essays are so darned rational that I have begun sending links to many other folks who need to read them. Thus, I am upgrading today!
You mentioned "all of the above". This is, of course, no more than a slogan. It is difficult to pin down what it means, but it appears to contain many contradictions that will have to be addressed -- three of which you mention in this essay. Among others the two important ones are 1) the destruction of viewsheds and wildlife by renewables and their associated transmission lines, and 2) the displacement of tax revenue paying thermal generation with tax expenditure absorbing renewables.
Keep up the good fight.
Thank you Kevin! All of the above is everybody gets a trophy energy policy
You've got a well informed readership too.
I think that the issue of cost/price may be better approached by using EROEI calculations rather than LCOE anyway. LCOE as inferred include many “soft” components that can be altered/impacted by politics, economics and even social inputs. The bottom line is if a power generation/distribution system’s overall cost (in energy) is less than what it actually reliably supplies to support society, it is a failed system. Period. One only needs to look at nature, where species with higher EROEI’s out-compete and displace lower EROI species - it’s called natural selection. Solar and wind clearly fall into this category with EROEI’s less than 10 (even with backups) while we need energy system EROEI’s of 15 or more for an advanced and growing society. Nuclear clearly provides this, and at potentially an order of magnitude more than most fossil fuels types. Unreliables don’t.
Wind and solar do not exist on a utility scale level without subsidy of some kind or the other. (PTC, ITC, governmental funding of some sort) As example, as wind and solar were receiving federal subsidies of one kind or the other, in New York State, NYSERDA (The New York State Research and Development Authority, quaint little acronym) was busy handing out funding to all sorts of small projects that would go nowhere, while failing to support existing natural gas projects and small hydro that were going out of business, because the real time and day ahead market prices of the NYISO were so low or negative that they couldn’t stay in business. Further, to add insult to injury, all across the country hydroelectric projects are being removed at enormous costs which is (wait for it) subsidized by federal and state taxpayer dollars. None of the genius’ running the federal, state and local authorities know a thing about the subject, but wind and solar make them “feel good” as they support the save the environment grifters. Small local hydro with an electrical distribution circuit can be very valuable to a community, but that requires forethought and knowledge about how to make it work. All the small hydro projects in NY State and New England both pre and post PURPA were very good sources of LOCAL load support. The best generated kilowatt is one that is closest to the load, and better still if it has a cogeneration component. Qualifying Facilities anyone? District heating? Hmmm. So here we are again, regulate to deregulate to re-regulate and each time it gets more expensive. As the pressure on the transmission and distribution grid system increase, distributed generation using some form of fossil fuel is going to be necessary to keep unity in the lines at 60 Hz. Or, rolling or otherwise blackouts are on offer and they won’t be so cheap that the meter spins backwards.
This is an excellent post, gentlemen. Thank you.
Thanks, Barry!
Great piece, guys.
(check possible typos on NERC and RTO)
Thank you! There are always a couple haha
We know, right?!
Perhaps the most important aspect of the efficiency of solar power generation is the extent to which the sky is sprayed by airplanes every day and the sun is obscured by man-made clouds. In the last 10 years, solar radiation has decreased by 30 %.
Do the per MWh numbers include excess energy produced (that isn't used or stored anywhere)? Or just the energy that actually gets used?
So much to say but this will be short-or short as can be. The folly of the green renewable dream is laid on a fossil fuel foundation that is hard to escape. Case in point all that is happen in a rejigging of the periodic tables taken fossils fuels-aside from uranium-the most dense from of energy using them directly & indirectly to create, back-up, & make a lot of the renewables. Solar panels are made with plastics and Polysilicon-which is basically coal since it's made in China. Wind turbines used gallons of lubricates, batteries-again made in China hence coal. Instead of using fossil fuels the most efficient way possible to generate power, they are being used indirect-either as a feedstock or as fuel used for extraction or mining-or directly in the processing of materials needed to make the tech. by way of China-remember, China using COAL for it's grid and is responsible for processing & refining. Or as a back up to the intermittency of renewables via natural gas.
These truths can not be avoided but are often ignored. Pushing the inefficient use of fossil fuels have had the results of environmental degradation, the reverse of what was promised. The shifting of the periodic tables does not negates the trade offs.
I passed a wind farm under construction recently. They cleared out acers and acers of forested land to install them. Seems as though the loss of all those CO2 munchers should be accounted for as a cost as well.
Subsidies, wrong decisions, energy consuming products, energy generation and missed opportunities you will find no end to what you can write on the thrashings oh humanity’s plight to feed, keep warm and shelter themselves. There was a time when humanity just needed to do two things (a) drastically cut back on its use of FREE FINITE Flammable Fossils, and (b) restrict propagating itself, sadly that time has passed.
Humanity finds itself in the position of a drowning person clutching at straws.
Human was having a great time lying in an inflatable plastic ring (Oil Products), eyes closed, sun’s warmth gently caressing his face, bathed in tranquility, drifting in the warm shallows of the sea, but unnoticed gradually drifting to the wider ocean assisted by a rip tide (Environmental Destruction). Human eventually opened its eyes from being tossed about, now aware of larger and stronger waves, Human couldn’t believe how far it had drifted, it was then that Human realised the plastic inflatable was its only real life support but it had developed a leak (Depleting Flammable Fossils). He could just see the shore but frighteningly strange all Human could see was smoke and flames. Human tried to swim whilst clutching the deflating inflatable ring but the tide was just too strong, Human was getting hotter with the effort, and human’s head and back were burning from the sun. Human decided to hold onto the ring for as long as it provided support, it was still helping Human to tread water (Renewables). Human drifted into an oil slick it was littered with every conceivable piece of plastic detritus humans have produced, tooth brushes, ear buds, straws, children’s and adult sanitary products, nurdles, plastic ducks, paint and agrochemical containers, Human lost count in naming them all. Human drifted along hoping the inflatable would last until someone or something came to the rescue. Sadly that didn’t happen, Human along with memories of human’s world died🤔
There's also another point they miss. If it weren't for carveouts from states that demand a certain percentage of electricity comes from renewable sources, no one would even consider building such an unreliable energy source. But the state governments have created an artificial demand that utilities feel obligated to fill to avoid stroking a massive check for the difference.
I don’t understand the following statement:
“This is because utility companies earn a rate of return on every dollar they spend on building new power plants. Once fully depreciated, utilities no longer earn this rate of return but are only allowed to close and replace them with other sources if allowed by the state. The so-called “energy transition” has given them this excuse.”
My understanding is that the above statement only applies to vertically integrated utilities, not to generators in restructured markets. I went looking for a source that talked about this and this is something that I found.
US Utilities Sector Primer
S&P Global Market Intelligence
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/pages/us-utilities-sector-primer#sec2a
“In restructured jurisdictions, the generation component is not included in the rate base calculation, and legacy utility generation plants have either been divested to a merchant generation company or transferred to an affiliate of the utility, and the plants are no longer
economically regulated.
Rate base is the net asset base from which the utility provides electric, gas or water service, and upon which the utility is allowed to earn a rate of return, usually the company's weighted average cost of capital.”