Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

Gotta love that hillhater dude. Always with the negative vibes. While he is beating out the constant refrain of how it can't be done, we are here doing it. Closing 3 out of 4 coal plants (2 this year and one in 2030) and increasing renewables (almost entirely wind and solar) to 50 percent of the portfolio seems like a pretty significant step in the right direction. Yes, they will continue to rely on power purchases, but a lot of that in Texas will be from private wind farms, which are all over the state.

The biggest question mark is what will make up what they are calling "flexible generation." It says clearly in the presentation that the "technology to beat" is small combined cycle gas units for the flex gen portion. I think small modular nuclear reactors may be the technology to fill this gap, but that probably won't happen until 2030 or later.

And Bill Von is correct regarding the demand management side of things: we have a program where thousands of households volunteer to get free programmable thermostats (I have them in my house) that allow the city to shut off your A/C, heat, or water heater for up to 15 minutes at a time on a rolling basis. There are also several limestone quarries here that use a huge amount of power for cement production, and have agreements to cut back power use during peak demand times, which are seldom more than a couple of hours on a few days of the year.

All in all, the plan is feasible and will result in cutting CO2 emissions in half by 2040 while at the same time growing the local population by over 1 million people.

France’s "Fake News" Law Will Be Used To Silence Critics, Win Elections
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-05/frances-fake-news-law-will-be-used-silence-critics-win-elections
https://www.yahoo.com/news/frances-fake-news-law-leaves-media-experts-uneasy-145712000.html

As I kind of ranted in my last post, what is the difference between Alex Jones talking about politics and calls for him to be banned and the Climate Council of Australia claiming the world is now running on 26% renewables? If this dangerous road of the banning of free-speech continues around the world I would at least expect the people behind the Climate Council to be going to jail or at least facing hefty fines.
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=89002&start=2000#p1385070
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dez_qaaX0AEqQ7u.jpg

Qld approves $1b wind farm as part of energy infrastructure boom
https://www.afr.com/news/politics/qld-approves-1b-wind-farm-as-part-of-energy-infrastructure-boom-20180604-h10xjj

"Once operational, this wind farm will generate approximately 2000 gigawatt hours of renewable electricity each year. That is equivalent to approximately 3 per cent of Queensland's current electricity demand," he said.

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Its installed capacity is "800MW" and 2000GWh is expected, so its about 228MW average power output over a year, for a 28% capacity factor, is what they are obviously estimating.
The thing about Queensland is the powerful cyclones, will be interesting to see if a large wind-farm holds up over time.

Wind power increases dependence on fossil fuel power plants
http://www.speroforum.com/a/LNDAYNUKFR51/83334-Wind-power-increases-dependence-on-fossil-fuel-power-plants#.WxeySJ8zaCr

The study found that increasing the number of power plants (whether wind or fossil-fuel) has also increased the idled power plant capacity, thus making the entire energy system less efficient and costly. This comes when wind turbines are idle because of insufficient wind speed or when fossil fuel plants are idle because the wind is blowing.

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jimw1960 said:

Gotta love that hillhater dude. Always with the negative vibes. While he is beating out the constant refrain of how it can't be done, we are here doing it. Closing 3 out of 4 coal plants (2 this year and one in 2030) and increasing renewables (almost entirely wind and solar) to 50 percent of the portfolio seems like a pretty significant step in the right direction. Yes, they will continue to rely on power purchases, but a lot of that in Texas will be from private wind farms, which are all over the state.

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Im just the messenger...pointing out that you are not learning from the examples of those that have gone down this path before you into the realms of high % of RE and decommissionig coal capacity, such as Germany, Spain, S Australia, and your own Cal State.
..But i guess you just want to learn your own lessons !

jimw1960 said:

. regarding the demand management side of things: we have a program where thousands of households volunteer to get free programmable thermostats (I have them in my house) that allow the city to shut off your A/C, heat, or water heater for up to 15 minutes at a time on a rolling basis. There are also several limestone quarries here that use a huge amount of power for cement production, and have agreements to cut back power use during peak demand times, which are seldom more than a couple of hours on a few days of the year.

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Why would you be happy to let someone else decide when and if you can have heating or cooling ?
Why can you not have power when ever you need it ?
Why cannot they install sufficient capacity to cope with all demands....it has always been possible in the past ?

Hillhater said:

Why would you be happy to let someone else decide when and if you can have heating or cooling ?

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Alternatively, why does it make sense for millions of customers to turn their heaters on at the exact same moment?

It makes much more sense to control these loads in a smart way so that everyone can still have heating and cooling, but the peak loads are spread out more evenly.

It is possible- if YOU are prepared to pay for it

Hillhater said:

Why would you be happy to let someone else decide when and if you can have heating or cooling ?
Why can you not have power when ever you need it ?
Why cannot they install sufficient capacity to cope with all demands....it has always been possible in the past ?

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I have had these type of thermostats for over 10 years now, and I can only think of a single time that I ever even noticed that they were cycling my A/C off. And if they happen to cycle it off when I don't want it to be off, all I have to do is tap a button on the thermostat to override it.

You keep trying to say it can't be done, but we are doing it. Put a price on carbon and it will happen even faster. Our utility already closed one coal plant this year and the second one is about to be closed. Yesterday, we set a record for peak demand at 67,000 MW and that record is expected to be broken again today and tomorrow due to the record heat we are having along with increasing population. That record demand was met without a hitch and included 25% from renewable energy. If they cycled off my thermostat, I didn't notice. They will have no problem meeting the 50% renewable goal by 2040 and hopefully they will greatly exceed that goal.

You come off as thinking you are entitled to have what you want when you want it, no matter what the effect on the rest of society. I know you are deeply entrenched in climate change denial, but the fact remains that it is a real threat that MUST be addressed by society by starting NOW to drastically reduce fossil CO2 emissions to prevent the rendering of large portions of the planet uninhabitable over the next couple hundred years. But, hey, you'll be dead by then, so why should you care. To you it's all a giant conspiracy by thousands of us scientist who are somehow getting filthy rich off of grant money, while all those poor oil executives go begging.

Hillhater said:

Im just the messenger...pointing out that you are not learning from the examples of those that have gone down this path before you . . . .

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I think you've got that backwards. The industry IS learning from Germany (and Australia, and Hawaii) and figuring out how to integrate more and more renewables into the grid while avoiding the problems that intermittent generation poses. That's why the grid is getting more reliable even as the percentage of unreliable generation increases.

Why would you be happy to let someone else decide when and if you can have heating or cooling ?

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Because you save money.

If someone came to your door and said "I'll give you $5 if you turn off your A/C for 15 minutes" would you do it?

Why can you not have power when ever you need it ?

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You can. You can just say no. Your choice.

Why cannot they install sufficient capacity to cope with all demands....it has always been possible in the past ?

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The first time that a demand response program was offered in San Diego was back when a "new, clean, cheap source of power" - "too cheap to meter" - became available (nuclear.) The San Onofre units 2 and 3, once they came on line, promised cheap power, enough to cope with all demands.

Problem was that nuclear reactors are remarkably uncontrollable. Those plants want to be producing at 100% all the time. So they started several programs. First came time-of-use metering, to try to encourage people to not use so much power during the day and use more at night, when they were having trouble throttling the reactors back far enough. The second was the first "flex your power" program, which did the same. (Early demand response)

So those programs are already here, thanks to the problems that one of your favorite generation methods brought.

(BTW that reactor failed about five years ago; fortunately it was shut down before the leak got too large. We are now stuck with the $10 billion construction cost and the $4 billion decommissioning cost, which is the primary reason power prices are so high right now.)

Seems that some common sense is creeping into the solar market..

.........China surprised everyone by announcing it will not issue approvals for any new solar power installations this year and will also cut the feed-in tariff subsidy that has been a major driver of the solar business in the country that accounts for as much as 50 percent of capacity.

Reuters reports that companies including IHS Markit and Wood Mackenzie have already revised their solar additions forecasts for the year. IHS analysts slashed their projections by between 5 and 10 GW of new additions, although in China alone, they saw a potential reduction in new solar capacity of up to 17 GW. Earlier this year, the firm had forecast Chinese solar capacity additions of 53 GW.
Wood Mackenzie, for its part, expects new Chinese solar capacity to be 20 GW lower than earlier forecast, which was 50 GW.......
......Although surprising, the Chinese planning commission’s move makes sense: subsidy costs have been swelling at a fast rate and have become difficult to manage. Greentech media reports that in 2017, these hit US$15.6 billion (100 billion yuan) and the government has still not paid these in full. At the rate of new solar capacity approvals from the last few years, subsidy costs would have reached US$39 billion by 2020, according to Wood Mac estimates...

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https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/China-Deals-Shocking-Blow-To-Solar-Industry.html

billvon said:

..... The industry IS learning from Germany (and Australia, and Hawaii) and figuring out how to integrate more and more renewables into the grid while avoiding the problems that intermittent generation poses. That's why the grid is getting more reliable even as the percentage of unreliable generation increases....

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?? Sorry ?... Which grid is becomming more reliable ?

?...If someone came to your door and said "I'll give you $5 if you turn off your A/C for 15 minutes" would you do it?

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A) that would depend on several things,..such as the weather at the time, who was in the house, cost of power , etc
..BUT, that is a simplistic example, and not the same as giving the power company the ability to remotely Control your power usage at will , whenever and for any duration the care to decide .
Also you might just consider where that $5 they give you comes from ?
Its certainly not from the saving of costs from 15 mins of power, no, it will have to come from revenue which basicly means they will be factoring those "savings" into the average cost of power over the year.

billvon said:

....
The first time that a demand response program was offered in San Diego was back when a "new, clean, cheap source of power" - "too cheap to meter" - became available (nuclear.) ....
...... So they started several programs. First came time-of-use metering, to try to encourage people to not use so much power during the day and use more at night, when they were having trouble throttling the reactors back far enough. The second was the first "flex your power" program, which did the same. (Early demand response)
So those programs are already here, thanks to the problems that one of your favorite generation methods brought.

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"Time of use", "Off Peak" , shoulder rates" , etc , etc ... programs have been around (in Europe/UK at least) since before Nuclear became a factor... ( and its still not a significant supply % in most countries),. to deal with the variations in demand.
BUT.. Those are not the same as "Demand Management". (or any other name you want to call it) ....where the control of the supply is remotely managed by the provider.
Its a completely different level of control

Addy said:

Alternatively, why does it make sense for millions of customers to turn their heaters on at the exact same moment?

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.Maybe because that is when folk get up and want breakfast or a hot shower, ..
...or its the half time break in the football and everyone wants a hot drink..
...or its dinner time and all the ovens get switched on
...or that weather cold front sweeps across the city, dropping the temerature 15 deg.
...or it gets dark and most folk want to swith on the lights ?

Hillhater said:

Maybe because that is when folk get up and want breakfast or a hot shower, ..
...or its the half time break in the football and everyone wants a hot drink..
...or its dinner time and all the ovens get switched on
...or that weather cold front sweeps across the city, dropping the temerature 15 deg.
...or it gets dark and most folk want to swith on the lights ?

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Funny-- those all look way more compelling as arguments for grid battery buffering than for any generation method.

Chalo said:

Funny-- those all look way more compelling as arguments for grid battery buffering than for any generation method.

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Yes, grid storage could solve the issue, but at what cost ?

https://www.afr.com/business/mining/tesla-leads-electric-vehicle-race-to-cut-cobalt-dependency-20180607-h113bi
We have constantly seen these statements about reducing cobalt in lithium cells for years now. But looks like they are really stepping up this promise, not because of all the child exploitation miners for Cobalt in the DRC as its been alarmingly well proven now that no one gives a stuff about them.

But a new amount of commitment to reduce cobalt usage is instead coming from a new wave of the sky-rocketing price of Cobalt which is now set to double rocket to levels never seen before because the DRC government have come out with new proposed taxes on cobalt miners.

Most concerning right now for the cobalt supply chain, however, is the stand-off between the government and some of its largest mine operators over a proposed new mining code.

The code scrubs out a previous stability clause, imposes a new windfall profits tax and allows the government to raise royalties on minerals deemed "strategic".

Elon Musk/Tesla came a good month ago saying they were going to reduce cobalt usage but along with the new CNN video of child exploitation in the DRC ( https://youtu.be/GvBiVqKHPPg ) it was back then kind of suggested it was about fighting the evils of cobalt mining but it now seems clear they knew cobalt was going to get priced to all new high levels once these new DRC mining taxes come through.
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=70349&start=350#p1377774

To me what the DRC government is doing makes sense, if they own 60% of the supply and is such an incredibly poor country, why not try and stretch as much money as possible out of it to see how hard the market will beg for it especially when all the underlining battery technology signals say that no matter what a decent lithium cell still needs cobalt even if there's less of it inside each cell.

Obviously with all this effort to reduce cobalt but still requiring it after all these years, and these quite fair looking estimates of wind/solar backed by lithium batteries at 200g co2e/kwh, which I still assumes means merely dumping the cells at the end of its cycle, it looks like cheap lithium-based battery renewable storage is getting harder to achieve than originally hoped.

Within 10 years, there’s little prospect of cobalt-bearing batteries being usurped by other technologies
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-04/tesla-s-battery-tweaks-won-t-solve-auto-world-s-cobalt-conundrum

I was wondering about the possibility of with having battery-backed wind/solar would allow such grid energy suppliers not require subsidies because they would be able to supply power on demand instead of being at the whim of unpredictable weather which is one of the reasons why wind/solar generators receive subsidies because without a true "supply on demand ability" their business model is impossible to be viable in a real-world privatized electricity market.
But it looks like this possibility is stretching further away.

On another subject, its amazing to see the price of electricity quietly push up the price of everything. The big obvious one was shutting down rubbish recyclers because of $100k a month power bills, but of course its filtering into everything.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/guy-declares-energy-crisis-as-bayside-bar-takes-potshot-at-soaring-bills-20180606-p4zjv5.html
One of Melbourne’s landmark bayside pubs has been forced to ration its heating and cooling and cut down on staff as it faces power bills that have soared to $24,000 a month.

And on another subject, Electricitymap have said something on their blog about releasing "Carbon intensity" annual comparisons between countries..
Which will be interesting to see, so we can see France emitting 10 to 20 times less CO2 than just about any other country in the world in incredible clarity and convenience, Doing this can't be done enough, if this chart could be drilled into the skull of even the most hardcore renewables folk, I would say it still wouldn't be enough, obviously because its all about political bias and other reasons other than actual co2. The facts about France vs any other country in the world prove that co2 and renewables is almost purely all about politics and political power and money, the actual environment isn't even on the map.

Germany Vs France. The crazy fact is Germany still get a significant amount of its power still from low co2 Nuclear so when its nuclear does shut down, its co2 levels on a chart vs France will be simply indisputable from any other country in the world, despite its incredibly large investment in wind/solar.
https://data.electricitymap.org/


Final subject in the news.. New Nuclear..
When you read these two newly published articles, you get the feeling SMR nuclear is going up everywhere around the world, but still nowhere near you..
http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2018/06/06/is-this-the-breakthrough-for-smrs/#sthash.311jwSG0.Jgw24rQi.dpbs
https://phys.org/news/2018-06-nuclear-industry-big-small-power.html

New Martinson essay.
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https://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/114097/facing-horrible-future?utm_campaign=weekly_newsletter_340&utm_source=newsletter_2018-06-09&utm_medium=email_newsletter&utm_content=node_photo_114097
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Hillhater said:

?? Sorry ?... Which grid is becomming more reliable ?

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The US grid, for one. Pro-coal groups were pushing the DOE to do a study that showed renewables will decrease grid reliability, because climate change deniers, coal power plant operators and many other groups wanted badly to believe that. The study was commissioned, the work was done - and not only did it conclude that the grid is getting more reliable with time, they also concluded that “numerous technical studies for most regions of the nation indicate that significantly higher levels of renewable energy can be integrated without any compromise of system reliability.”

?...If someone came to your door and said "I'll give you $5 if you turn off your A/C for 15 minutes" would you do it?

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A) that would depend on several things,..such as the weather at the time, who was in the house, cost of power , etc

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Ah, so you might take advantage of it, you might not. Why not let people make similar decisions on their own, then, rather than trying to ram your agenda down their throats?

billvon said:

....
The first time that a demand response program was offered in San Diego was back when a "new, clean, cheap source of power" - "too cheap to meter" - became available (nuclear.) ..

Click to expand...

"Time of use", "Off Peak" , shoulder rates" , etc , etc ... programs have been around (in Europe/UK at least) since before Nuclear became a factor... ( and its still not a significant supply % in most countries),. to deal with the variations in demand. BUT.. Those are not the same as "Demand Management". (or any other name you want to call it) ....where the control of the supply is remotely managed by the provider.

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Correct. Demand management was started to handle the problems with nuclear power.

Addy said:

Alternatively, why does it make sense for millions of customers to turn their heaters on at the exact same moment?

Click to expand...

.Maybe because that is when folk get up and want breakfast or a hot shower, ..
...or its the half time break in the football and everyone wants a hot drink..
...or its dinner time and all the ovens get switched on
...or that weather cold front sweeps across the city, dropping the temerature 15 deg.
...or it gets dark and most folk want to swith on the lights ?

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Nope. Doesn't happen. That's the same reason that any telephony system that has 2 million users isn't designed to handle 1 million simultaneous calls. Look up "Erlang."

TheBeastie said:

Final subject in the news.. New Nuclear..
When you read these two newly published articles, you get the feeling SMR nuclear is going up everywhere around the world, but still nowhere near you..

Click to expand...

Nuclear power! It is the power source of the future - and it always will be.

billvon said:

Correct. Demand management was started to handle the problems with nuclear power.

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You may believe that , but it was never introduced to Australia (which has never had any Nuclear power) , until a significant % of RE and RT Solar started upsetting the demand profile.
Maybe it should be called by a more descriptive title, like ..."Proxy Supply Restriction "...PSR for short. !

Addy said:

Alternatively, why does it make sense for millions of customers to turn their heaters on at the exact same moment?

Click to expand...

.Maybe because that is when folk get up and want breakfast or a hot shower, ..
...or its the half time break in the football and everyone wants a hot drink..
...or its dinner time and all the ovens get switched on
...or that weather cold front sweeps across the city, dropping the temerature 15 deg.
...or it gets dark and most folk want to swith on the lights ?

Nope. Doesn't happen. That's the same reason that any telephony system that has 2 million users isn't designed to handle 1 million simultaneous calls. Look up "Erlang."

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What doesnt happen ?....power peaks ? Of course they do , thats the whole point of any form of demand managent.

Hillhater said:

You may believe that , but it was never introduced to Australia (which has never had any Nuclear power)

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Fortunate for you, then.

until a significant % of RE and RT Solar started upsetting the demand profile. Maybe it should be called by a more descriptive title, like ..."Proxy Supply Restriction "...PSR for short. !

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Yep. That would certainly advance your political agenda. Careful, though - you might then see utilities break out the cancer-causing kilowatts from coal plants vs the clean kilowatts from renewables, and putting it on the front page of every bill. Maybe also have an estimate for how many people you killed with your usage of said coal power.

What doesnt happen ?....power peaks ? Of course they do , thats the whole point of any form of demand managent.

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Everyone in the country doesn't turn their heaters on at once, the same way everyone in the country doesn't make a phone call at the same time. Again, look up Erlang for more info. (Warning - more information may make it harder to maintain your current worldview.)

You do yourself no credit by picking at trivial details , bill.
I didnt say "everyone" turned on the power at the same moment, but we all know the causes of the "duck curve " peaks, and how RE..solar in particular ...makes them much worse, such that now more radical methods of "Demand Management" are needed to compensate for the inconsisrwnt and unpredictable sources of generation.
The only agenda i have is to help people understand the economic folly of a high commitment to wind and solar for primary grid generation.
Its also becoming apparent the a high deployment of rooftop solar, whilst fine for those that have it, could ultimately lead to the demise of a functional grid supply, which would be a social disaster for everyone.
Some Australia regeons have the highest % distribution of RT solar installs, and are learning the hard way.

Interesting to note that four of the five big coal fired power stations in NSW tripped out this weekend. You can see they've been using hydro to fill the gap.

Also it looks like Tassie has got the Basslink interconnector re-established.

I think Snowy 2.0 and Tasmania's pumped hydro proposals really should get going soon.

jonescg said:

Interesting to note that four of the five big coal fired power stations in NSW tripped out this weekend.

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No doubt Hillhater will be along shortly to try and claim it was somehow caused by unreliable wind generators.

Hillhater said:

Seems that some common sense is creeping into the solar market...China surprised everyone by announcing it will not issue approvals for any new solar power installations this year and will also cut the feed-in tariff subsidy that has been a major driver of the solar business in the country

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Sounds like solar has become so popular the incentive scheme has gone over-budget and is being cut back, not some kind of failure of solar to work, as you are trying to suggest. Reduction and eventual phasing-out of incentives as a new technology becomes established and self-supporting in the market is common practice.


Read a good article on 100% renewable energy earlier: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23831810-100-how-to-keep-the-lights-on-without-burning-the-planet/

Renewables currently account for 25% of global electricity. Most countries are committed to at least 50% by 2050. Many are being more ambitious, with a few targeting 80-100%. The article covers increasing electrification to shift industries away from fossil fuels (gas, diesel) to renewable electricity. The solutions to the variability in solar & wind power for countries not blessed with hydro & geothermal are the same common-sense ones already suggested in this thread:

* Long distance HVDC transmissions lines forming a continental or global grids ("the sun is always shining/wind blowing somewhere")
* Demand management
* Battery storage for short peaks
* Electricity-to-gas (hydrogen or methane) for weeks/months supply stored in spent natural gas wells (These can also fuel industrial vehicles where necessary).
* Pumped hydro

TBH the nay-saying is getting boring. How do you maintain it while all around the world countries keep achieving what you have repeatedly claimed is impossible. The predictions of social collapse or a global apocalypse are laughably doom-mongering.

Maybe not so funny. Depends on if you want to believe some magazine article that cuts you off from reading halfway through, or a reputable source such as the EIA.
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https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/exec_summ.php
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I would like to see the discussion separate "renewable" into hydro and wind/ solar. The areas that are using a very high percentage of "renewable" electricity Costa Rica, Ontario, ect, are actually getting a vast majority from natural hydro. But the implication in these feel good articles is that it is from a high build out of solar and wind.
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Some reality to get us thinking back on track.
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Increases in "renewables" and nuclear electricity are barely gaining faster than growth over the next 20 years. Which will have only a fractional impact on total energy. Much of which is liquid fuel that our food and mining systems cannot replace at the scale to which our population/ monetary system is now commited.
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Our finite supply of liquid fuel is being rapidly depleted to reach what will be a skyrocketing price/ demand plateu within 20-30 years. Whatever we think we can do to bring this high flying society in for a softer landing needs to be in large part completed by then. The growth/ debt based social system we have seen as normal over the last hundred years will no longer function as fossil fuel slips away from us.
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Not laughable at all.

Punx0r said:

No doubt Hillhater will be along shortly to try and claim it was somehow caused by unreliable wind generators.

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That's for Hillhater to comment on, but the observation is that while almost 5 GW of coal fired generation went offline, the shortfall was being met by generators elsewhere in the grid - primarily gas and hydro. This period has been particularly cloudy and not very windy in South Eastern Australia, so the usual renewables weren't there to back it up.

To me it says two things -
1. Coal is not the reliable trooper it's made out to be. It's capable of shitting itself at the worst time, just like any other machine.
2a. The shortfall was made up thanks to our contiguous electricity grid. Insufficient solar and wind generation meant gas and hydro was heavily leaned on from elsewhere. SA was even providing some wind power to NSW.

And if I might through in another point - If we had grid scale energy storage in the form of pumped hydro, we could have banked the miserable windy (southern) and sunny (northern) conditions last week and turned the taps on this week. If every second home had batteries installed with their PV, they would have reduced the demand on the generators who are trying to keep up.

Hillhater said:

You do yourself no credit by picking at trivial details , bill.
I didnt say "everyone" turned on the power at the same moment

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Yes, you did. Another poster asked "why does it make sense for millions of customers to turn their heaters on at the exact same moment?" You then said "Maybe because that is when . . . ." and gave several reasons that it made "sense" for them to turn everything on at the exact same moment.

Your thinking on this may have "evolved." But perhaps think about what you are posting before posting?

Its also becoming apparent the a high deployment of rooftop solar, whilst fine for those that have it, could ultimately lead to the demise of a functional grid supply, which would be a social disaster for everyone.

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And as we saw with the DOE study, that sort of propaganda is unfounded fearmongering.

sendler2112 said:

Much of which is liquid fuel that our food and mining systems cannot replace at the scale to which our population/ monetary system is now commited.
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Our finite supply of liquid fuel is being rapidly depleted to reach what will be a skyrocketing price/ demand plateu within 20-30 years. Whatever we think we can do to bring this high flying society in for a softer landing needs to be in large part completed by then. The growth/ debt based social system we have seen as normal over the last hundred years will no longer function as fossil fuel slips away from us.
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Not laughable at all.

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"We're all doomed!", "The end is nigh!"

Better kill yourself now then and spare yourself the certainty of a life of pain and suffering in the inevitable dystopian future...

Really interesting article here, basically says despite the incredible spot price for South Australian electricity the big Tesla battery has barely made any money. Also interesting to note that the round-trip efficiency of loading in AC power, to DC battery storage and then back out to the AC grid again is 82% efficiency. Tesla grid power-pack specs claimed it would be 88% but this hasn't shown to be true in the real-world data analysis.
Four months in, SA Tesla battery is showing mixed results in energy arbitrage
https://energysynapse.com.au/south-australia-tesla-battery-energy-market/
From Dec 2017 to Mar 2018, the Tesla battery consumed an average of 116 MWh per day for charging. In contrast, it delivered an average of 94 MWh per day back into the grid. From this we can work out that the average efficiency of the battery has been 82%. As expected, the efficiency of the battery is lower under real world conditions than the spec sheet efficiency of 88%, which is calculated at 25°C.

Tesla battery made $1.4 million in the energy market, but is losing money 47% of the time
Figure 2 shows our estimate of the value that the Tesla battery received from selling electricity into the energy market versus the cost of buying electricity to charge the battery. We estimate the total net revenue from the energy market to be just under $1.4 million. The overwhelming majority of this came in January 2018 when the energy market experienced the highest volatility. In contrast, the Tesla battery barely made any money in December and March.

When arbitraging the spot market, the aim of the game is the same as trading stocks: buy low, sell high. A crucial difference is that you not only have to sell at a price which is higher than your buy price, but you also have to cover the cost of the extra energy that is needed to charge the battery (because energy efficiency is less than 100%). Therefore, the days with the most volatile pricing offer the biggest opportunities for arbitrage. Figure 3 shows that the Tesla battery made 95% of its net revenue in just five (very volatile) days.

Made most of its money just in 5 days of very volatile shaky hot summer days.


On the subject of coal, sure with coal you can have a bad week in Australia, but with renewables, a good entire week is incredibly rare and most of the time every week is a bad week, thats what capacity factor shows everywhere in the world with wind.
I snapped shotted this last week which is 3.2 days of almost no wind, but it was almost windless for nearly 5 days.

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Natural_gas_transmission_leakage_rates#Leakage_Rates_Worldwide_and_in_the_United_States
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/gas-power-plants-methane-emissions-120-times-more-study-purdue-edf-greenhouse-global-warming-climate-a7641471.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential#Values