Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

[sendler2112]

But what is the current combined share of solar photovoltaic energy and solar thermal energy, wind and tidal energy, and geothermal energy?...The figure is actually much smaller: a mere 1.5 per cent. That’s the net result of the last 45 years of progress on the energy transition

Yes, that's pretty pathetic if it represented 45 years of sustained effort to transition from fossil fuels. In reality, serious effort has only happened over the last ~5-10 years. 5 years for PV in particular, and that article neglects the best (latest) two of those years. 45 years ago PV panels were space technology.

See exponential growth in PV 2006-2018: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics

It's very interesting to me how different peoples biases affect how they understand information. I tend to see the "1.5% of total" as the salient pointand disreguard the "45 years of sustained effort".
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The Wiki page you linked includes 2017. I read the article and see this.
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By the end of 2017, cumulative photovoltaic capacity reached about 401 gigawatts (GW), estimated to be sufficient to supply 2.1% of global electricity demand
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World electricity is only 20% of primary energy
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You look at the article and see exponential growth
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But as it was stated in my article when you put it into a world energy scale, it is easy to double something when you start with next to nothing. This is one of the mechanisms the green press uses to intentionally mislead us toward a false hope. The other being the constant practice of stating the nameplate capacity with no consideration of capacity factor. Which will be less than 25% of the stated number.
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I hope everyone here believes me that I respect you all and appreciate all of the information that you have put forth. I am really not trying to be contrary. And I do support building out solar PV. It will be much better than nothing after fossil fuel. We should be emphasising 100 year panel construction over trying for the cheapest price. Solar farms can be built by muscle once you have the panels and wire. I am afraid that giant wind turbines will in the end be too large to take care of and will rot in the fields after their initial service life.
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I am not critical of solar PV. I am critical of the uniformed greenwashing media that has the general public convinced that we have it made. And that anyone that supports fossil energy is some kind of ignorant fiend.
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We do not have it made.

 

[billvon]

But , forcing the build out of huge ammounts of generation capacity over a couple of decades is a completely different game

Why do we have to do it "over a couple of decades?" Rich countries can perhaps do that in a few decades for electric power; the poorer countries will follow when the price of conventional fuels rise and the price of solar drops. It might take 150 years for the transition to happen worldwide.

 

[cricketo]

I am not critical of solar PV. I am critical of the uniformed greenwashing media that has the general public convinced that we have it made. And that anyone that supports fossil energy is some kind of ignorant fiend.
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We do not have it made.

Well, do you have solar panels on your house ?

 

[Hillhater]

Why do we have to do it "over a couple of decades?" ...
.... It might take 150 years for the transition to happen worldwide.

Well, for a start, the IPCC are saying we need a 50% CO2 reduction by 2030 and must be carbon free generation by 2050, and various other groups , Environmental and Political movements , Green Party, Get up, Etc, ....have even more immediate targets.
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/11/20/extinction-rebellion-eyes-global-climate-campaign-non-violence/
150 years wont cut it for the IPcC.....according to them, the earth will be just a scorched rock ball by then :lol:
You know these are not my targets, to me, it is misguided madness .
I am all for a more efficient, reliable, cheaper, distributed generation system, but i do not believe Solar or wind is the answer. This is just wasting money and resources on a false solution and transferring huge amounts of tax money to a few big players and the UN .
As one commentator stated recently..
" This is the wrong solution, to a problem that doesnt exist."

 

[cricketo]

" This is the wrong solution, to a problem that doesnt exist."

What are you doing personally ?

 

[sendler2112]

Well, do you have solar panels on your house ?

Many obstacles in my way. 110 year old house with three layers of shingles over cedar shakes. Never had a deck. Would require a new roof system first to the tune of $20,000. 235* South West facing heading is not ideal but would be ok to help in the afternoon peak, except for the giant tree in my neighbors yard. Very poor weather for solar panels in NY with an anual capacity factor of 13.6% and many days near 0% all winter due to snow which cannot be manually removed from rooftop systems on a two story house. Solar panels will one day be much better than nothing. But right now I have an uninterupted supply of electricity for $0.12/ kWh. I am also not making any improvements to the house since I am actively working toward a plan to sell and move out to a self sufficient homestead intentional community. Which would then feature offgrid solar.

 

[Punx0r]

By the end of 2017, cumulative photovoltaic capacity reached about 401 gigawatts (GW), estimated to be sufficient to supply 2.1% of global electricity demand
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World electricity is only 20% of primary energy
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You look at the article and see exponential growth
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But as it was stated in my article when you put it into a world energy scale, it is easy to double something when you start with next to nothing.

I really do understand the point you are making - despite the huge upswing in solar over the past few years, the total of world electricity supply is small and the total of energy is tiny. It is genuinely daunting and there need to be massive changes in how we do things if it were ever to become a significant chunk of energy supply.

However, I don't like to dwell on it, as it's like admitting defeat before you've even tried. The rapid growth in solar might be low as an absolute percentage, but it has been a sufficiently large relative percentage change to dramatically reduce it's cost. It has also become known and understood in the market. It's now one of the cheapest forms of generating electricity (depending on location/weather) on the utility scale. Hopefully this is the tipping point, the hurdle overcome and a much more massive rollout will flow naturally from here, as economics takes over, rather than just being driven by ideology and political targets.

FWIW, I recall that most buildings have enough roof-space for sufficient PV to meet their electricity needs for the day. That may be true for total energy as well (replacing gas heating with electric heat pump, ICE cars with BEV). I don't know.

Current electricity from RE sources worldwide (excluding hydro) is 6.7%. It's small, but double up a few times (many developed countries have demonstrated that 20-30% RE in their grid is relatively painless) and it starts looking more significant.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.RNWX.ZS?view=chart

We forget the enormous effort/cost/materials/disruption/habitat destruction that went into building the fossil fuel infrastructure. And I do not buy Hillhater's point about that being OK because the dollar amount in the 1800's was much less???

The other being the constant practice of stating the nameplate capacity with no consideration of capacity factor. Which will be less than 25% of the stated number.

I disagree here because it depends what you're trying to use it for. If baseload (with storage), then yes, total electrical energy is what counts and capacity factor is relevant. If using it as a peaker without storage for daytime demand then peak power output is more relevant - you accept it won't be useful at dawn/dusk/night and so don't average the energy output over those hours, just the hours when it is at significant output.

 

[Punx0r]

I am actively working toward a plan to sell and move out to a self sufficient homestead intentional community. Which would then feature offgrid solar.

That's a reasonable strategy IMO. If solar doesn't work where you live (and solar is all that's available and you can't import power from a sunny place) then move somewhere nicer. Humans have traditionally settled in areas with good natural resources and if your primary energy source is sunshine, it makes sense to live where there's lots of it. It's one example of changing how we live to suit a changing world. Same as abandoning costal areas inundated by rising sea levels. I see little point spending billions on short/medium term flood defences just because it's a fancy seafront development.

 

[sendler2112]

Why do we have to do it "over a couple of decades?" Rich countries can perhaps do that in a few decades for electric power; the poorer countries will follow when the price of conventional fuels rise and the price of solar drops. It might take 150 years for the transition to happen worldwide.

We do not have 150 years of affordable liquid fuel left. Maybe 30 at most. Could be 5 if countries wise up and start hoarding. Everything in the current socio-economic system must change. GDP will be forced back to half it's peak size after oil becomes expensive. Much less than this even in the long term of 50 years when oil is essential gone out of reach and gas is right behind it.
The market primarily responds to signals in realtime and has no intrinsic levers that function in the mid time of even decades. It also has very little intrinsic foresight as to wise allocations of our currently existing bonanza. It mainly just sloughs the human omebea along toward whatever new whimsical distraction will provide the greatest return in the shortest time.

 

[sendler2112]

I am actively working toward a plan to sell and move out to a self sufficient homestead intentional community. Which would then feature offgrid solar.

That's a reasonable strategy IMO. If solar doesn't work where you live (and solar is all that's available and you can't import power from a sunny place) then move somewhere nicer. Humans have traditionally settled in areas with good natural resources and if your primary energy source is sunshine, it makes sense to live where there's lots of it. It's one example of changing how we live to suit a changing world. Same as abandoning costal areas inundated by rising sea levels. I see little point spending billions on short/medium term flood defences just because it's a fancy seafront development.

The US still has plenty of open land. And old farms that are abondoning one by one since they cannot compete with huge industrial farms. I would dream of moving cross country to Tennesee where the snow is less extreme but family ties are strong.
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It is intersting on a world level that the East Central US is one of the only places on Earth that has not warmed in the last 30 years due most recently to the disruption of the Polar Vortex which now makes a big incursion of arctic air into the country every winter.
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12F/ -11C and overcast today and all of the panels are frozen from 10cm of snow yesterday.

 

[sendler2112]

Free viewing of the film "Economics Of Happiness" has been unlocked today.
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https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/the-economics-of-happiness/?fbclid=IwAR3aGVU1D8rOlknPX-BQewJAbo_iDfK_vl9wxKY-yl5nV_Cp3GL5KE_Qy-s

 

[Hillhater]

We forget the enormous effort/cost/materials/disruption/habitat destruction that went into building the fossil fuel infrastructure. And I do not buy Hillhater's point about that being OK because the dollar amount in the 1800's was much less???

Dollar amount was not the relavent point.
The simple fact is, the existing electrical infrastructure was progressively constructed over a long period (150 yrs?) as demand increased and GDP growth improved. It was an "organic" development of an essential service.
That is very different to trying to replace most of that existing system with current carbon free technology , over a decade or two as is being proposed.
That is totally impossible and will not happen, so why waste resources and valuable funding on an impossible outcome . Huge investment and social upheaval for no benifit.

 

[cricketo]

That is totally impossible and will not happen, so why waste resources and valuable funding on an impossible outcome . Huge investment and social upheaval for no benifit.

Why attempt to reuse rockets ? That is impractical and a huge waste of money. And those guys trying to do it, they're just nuts and don't understand how rocket science works. Blah, blah, blah

Another thing to consider, is the credibility and relevance of the skeptics. It is one thing when some fossil fuel industry exec is stating such opinion, trying to protect his cash cow. It is a different story when a random person on the Internet is trying to convince the public it is a waste of time / money to put effort into renewables. That is while many members of such public (including myself) are already doing renewables with great success, and are here to fill the technical gaps and discover ideas in order to do even more.

 

[Punx0r]

More 3 decades than 1-2 but yes, very difficult, but not impossible.

 

[Hillhater]

More 3 decades than 1-2 but yes, very difficult, but not impossible.

1) Activist groups are demanding much sooner 100% renewables ..2025 !...(ref previous link)
2) insufficient resources and funding.
3) No universal agreement. Cannot even get comittment to Paris stage !
4) the available technology is not capable of the desired result
In the next decade or two, there will be many changes in political, and Administration leaders, Scientific bodies, etc etc.
It doesnt take many individuals in positions of influence ,with different views (possibly even some common sense ?), ,.to throw a wrench into the cunning plan . In the way Trump has in the USA

 

[billvon]

We do not have 150 years of affordable liquid fuel left. Maybe 30 at most.

When I first started looking at peak oil back in 1970, predictions were that we would hit peak oil about 2000. As time went on, researchers nailed down the date - 2010, plus or minus five years. Beyond that point nothing we could do could increase - or even continue at the same level - oil production. It was just plain math, they said! Can't people do math?

1970 came and went and US oil production peaked. But consumption continued, and the Middle East took up the slack. 2000 came and went, and the original predictions were proven false. 2010 came and went, and then 2015. No peak oil. What they didn't count on was fracking and the recovery of tight oil. Those that discussed it said it would never be economically feasible, so it was impossible to keep producing.

But here in the US, oil production has gone up dramatically over the past 10 years, and it is approaching 1970's peaks. Note that conventional oil DID peak around 2006. The reason that all the predictions were wrong was not an ignorance in math, but a neglect in predicting technology improvement that gave us access to more oil reserves.

That will happen again. Tight oil will become harder to find, and the price of oil will rise. That increased price will make more of that "impossible" oil easier to recover. Eventually tar sands will become profitable to exploit and they will start in on that.

As this happens, oil prices will inexorably rise. (That's what is driving the profitability of tight oil right now.) They will exceed $200 a barrel and people will say the end is upon us. (Again.)

But at the same time, the market will be driven to find alternatives. EV's/PHEV's/hybrids already make up 10% of cars sold in CA. This increase will continue as gas prices rise. EV semis are now being ordered by major freight companies. EV and hybrid aircraft are now being sold. Bioplastics are becoming a bigger and bigger part of our plastics production.

The biggest risk to society was always a sudden loss of oil, as Hubbard predicted in 1956. There would be no time to develop alternatives. That didn't happen. And due to the very high price of recovery of some tight oil, the final end of oil will be a lot more elastic than anyone in the 1950's thought could be possible.

That's not to say that we have all the answers now. Even if oil begins a slow, linear rise in price, society will suffer. Air travel, shipping and driving will become more expensive. Tourism will be the first to go. Then as food prices rise (higher shipping costs, more demand for natural gas as a fuel alternative) discretionary spending will decline, and consumer electronics/entertainment will take a hit. This will tend to reduce oil demand further, as it did during the 2007 recession.

The market primarily responds to signals in realtime and has no intrinsic levers that function in the mid time of even decades. It also has very little intrinsic foresight as to wise allocations of our currently existing bonanza. It mainly just sloughs the human omebea along toward whatever new whimsical distraction will provide the greatest return in the shortest time.

Right, which is why a sudden loss of oil is deadly. We managed to dodge that bullet, and now it looks like the end of oil will be a long, drawn out affair, which the market _can_ react to.

(Also it is worth noting that government can sometimes work on problems that far out - given the impetus.)

 

[neptronix]

Ha, i remember all the peak oil fears.

Currently we have more oil than we can even consume.
Our government cut the pipe to various countries it doesn't like, and we still have a glut.

The only thing preventing the hummer from coming back is the CAFE regulations, otherwise i think the trend of buying bigger and heavier and more thirsty cars would just continue..

 

[Hillhater]

I dont see oil ever "running out" as such. There are so many unexplored areas of land and ocean bed that may well yeild unknown volumes of oil. Improvements in exploration and extraction can offer new oportunities at any time.
But i can imagine oil use being regulated buy political intervention, to ensure /extend availability for "strategic" use..IE! Aircraft, shipping, military etc etc. forcing other oil applications into new fuels..Gas or EV cars and trucks etc.
Liquid fuel substitutes are also well known, either from bio sources or fuel conversion (Sasoil), and then there is liquid hydrogen lurking on the sidelines. The only barrier to all this is of course , cost.

 

[Hillhater]

Here is a question for you all..
Below is the latest LCOE data for Australia from BloombergNEF
What is the most cost effective way of providing 1MW of power, continuously. (Utility scale for a 24 + hr period ?)
I suggest you use a mid range average for each technology.

 

[billvon]

1) Activist groups are demanding much sooner 100% renewables ..2025 !...(ref previous link)

Good for them. They will likely fail, but better to shoot for the best outcome and settle for something almost as good.

2) insufficient resources and funding.

We have the resources and funding to grow the solar/wind market by 30% a year, every year. We have for the past 10 years. All we have to do is continue that.

4) the available technology is not capable of the desired result

So far it has been. In my experience, it is a mistake to bet against progress.

In the next decade or two, there will be many changes in political, and Administration leaders, Scientific bodies, etc etc.
It doesnt take many individuals in positions of influence ,with different views (possibly even some common sense ?), ,.to throw a wrench into the cunning plan . In the way Trump has in the USA

If you are using Trump as an example of "common sense" then you're doomed to failure before you begin.

 

[sendler2112]

We are using 3 times more oil than we are finding and costs of extraction are up 400% in the last 15 years.
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Our modern economy was built on $20 oil not $200.
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[billvon]

Yep. I have a poster like that in my office. But it showed new discoveries ending in 2000, and peak oil happening in 2010.

Our modern economy was built on $20 oil not $200.

Yes. Just as it was once built on VERY cheap labor (slavery.) We moved on.

 

[Hillhater]

Those oil prices are “market “ prices, dictated by supply politics, and do not reflect the actual cost of extraction/production.

 

[Hillhater]

We have the resources and funding to grow the solar/wind market by 30% a year, every year. We have for the past 10 years. All we have to do is continue that.

You know it’s not possible to increase 30% yoy. ! It’s fine when you are at 5%, but when you get to 50%, and 30% increase is 200 GW, then you struggle !

If you are using Trump as an example of "common sense" then you're doomed to failure before you begin.

No, Trump is an example of a change of policy in a key position.

 

[Punx0r]

3) No universal agreement. Cannot even get comittment to Paris stage !

Every country in the World except the U.S. is signed up to the Paris climate agreement. Of those, all but 18 have so far ratified the agreement, making the agreements binding. That's not by the standards of international cooperation.

We are using 3 times more oil than we are finding and costs of extraction are up 400% in the last 15 years.

http://www.issuesmagazine.com.au/sites/default/files/articles/images/inline_images/08-Fig1.jpg

Does this chart denote all known reserves or ones considered economically recoverable? If the latter, as mentioned above, what's recoverable can change with time.

Below is the latest LCOE data for Australia from BloombergNEF
What is the most cost effective way of providing 1MW of power, continuously. (Utility scale for a 24 + hr period ?)
https://imageshack.com/a/img922/6258/Zfl7C3.jpg

That's an interesting chart and seems to back up the decisions being made in electricity supply in many countries as being driven at least partly by economics and not just ideology. "for use when it's available" power, solar and wind are the cheapest source of generation. Of the fossil fuels, I'm surprised to see how much cheaper combined cycle gas is compared to other fossil fuels (and nuclear) and justifies its popularity for both baseload (lower CO2 than coal) and as peakers (it's real charm), filling in around cheap-as-chips, but intermittent wind & solar.

The other genuine surprise is that both solar + storage and wind + storage are cheaper than coal.

Sorry Hillhater but I can't see how that chart makes any argument for coal use. Gas all the way with solar & wind when its available seems to be cheapest option. And the lowest CO2. And the lowest air pollution.