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Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

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Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#101

Post by cwal37 »

olegkikin wrote: post #96
_delirium wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas is easy to transport, but only really by pipeline. LNG is a lot more expensive and capital-intensive. And there is only one place with rising demand where it's easy to transport U.S. natural gas: Mexico. Pipeline gas exports to Mexico did nearly triple between 2011 and 2016 [1]. Exports to Canada over the same period fell, however. Anywhere besides Canada and Mexico requires liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals,…

Also Europe is trying to reduce its dependence on the russian natural gas, so they are building LNG terminals all over. LNG tankers are freaking scary though, they are like mini-nukes, approaching 1 megaton equivalent.

For some reason people have this idea that LNG tankers are a big bomb waiting to go up, but that's not really true. Vapor cloud detonation has never been considered particularly likely, and never documented as far as I know. Mostly it seems the vapors that hit the right mix of oxygen and such would burn pretty rapidly, while the warmer gas began to rise. It would certainly be a large fire for a while, but shouldn't have the lasting impact of an oil spill. Here's a paper[1].

[1] http://www.mhpa.co.uk/uploads/Marine_docs/lng_carriers.pdf

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#102

Post by davidf18 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #71
davidf18 wrote: post #10

I wonder what the economics would be without the federal tax incentives for wind and solar. Does anyone know? EDIT: Someone above provided a link that provides the figure I was looking for: "Between 2010 and 2016, subsidies for solar were between 10¢ and 88¢ per kWh and subsidies for wind were between 1.3¢ and 5.7¢ per kWh. Subsidies for coal, natural gas and nuclear are all between 0.05¢ and 0.2¢ per kWh over all ye…

It's a hard to say, but in your case every dollar of solar subsidy probably reduces ratepayer cost by $1.50 or more. Adding marginal capacity to the NYC grid costs a fortune to ratepayers, as siting a plant will take a decade and cost billions, and transmission capacity is already constrained -- nearly limitless hydropower is available from Quebec, but it requires massive infrastructure investment to move! That's why…

Our brilliant governor Cuomo has decided to remove Indian Point power plant from the grid. It generates electric with no greenhouse gas for 1/4 of NYC and Westchester County which in total is a population of about 10 million (8.5 + 1) meaning that the equivalent of a city of 2.5 million will go from no greenhouse gas back to carbon-based fuels. The power company that runs Indian Point wants to shut it down because it costs more to run than natural gas.

Are you certain that there is limitless hydropower in Quebec? I think we are using capacity and that more damns would have to be built? We already get a lot of power from Hydro Quebec, some of which runs our subway system.

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#103

Post by philipkglass »

davedx wrote: post #80
saryant wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Natural gas energy can be transported much more easily than solar or wind. As more export capacity comes online in the US I would expect natural gas projects in the US to continue apace even if domestic consumption stays flat or declines.

Tell that to Qatar. The UK is one sea blockade away from losing a huge chunk of electricity generation.

The UK is also one sea blockade away from losing a huge chunk of the food its population eats. The merits of renewable energy don't include permitting the UK to endure another World War-style blockade attempt, because either the blockaders are swiftly destroyed at sea or have their land based supply and command chains destroyed, by nuclear means if necessary.

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#104

Post by sunbuntu »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #77
_delirium wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas is easy to transport, but only really by pipeline. LNG is a lot more expensive and capital-intensive. And there is only one place with rising demand where it's easy to transport U.S. natural gas: Mexico. Pipeline gas exports to Mexico did nearly triple between 2011 and 2016 [1]. Exports to Canada over the same period fell, however. Anywhere besides Canada and Mexico requires liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals,…

Investments in LNG are already sunk, however. Japan and China are already big importers.

Australia invested over $200 Billion on LNG export facilities. All based on long-term contracts, now none of the countries require anything like the quantity agreed to. They are selling the Australian gas at lower prices than their contracts, so they lose money but less than they could.

One interesting thing is the Australian domestic gas prices are much high than the same gas purchased in Japan despite the $5 per GJ processing and shipping costs.

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#106

Post by crdoconnor »

sremani wrote: post #93
jacquesm wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Natural gas energy can be transported much more easily than solar or wind. Yes, but not easier than it is to transport electrons. And solar and wind energy can be converted into electrons and then transported across vast distances using existing infrastructure.

The bottleneck is the grid. The Grid has to match the production and demand, and at times that is why CA gives away electricity to AZ and pay for AZ for consuming its electricity. In turn, AZ turns off some of its production. A tanker with LNG is much more flexible and denser form of energy than photons to electrons.. Once electrons out they need to be consumed asap!

>The bottleneck is the grid. The Grid has to match the production and demand, and at times that is why CA gives away electricity to AZ and pay for AZ for consuming its electricity. In turn, AZ turns off some of its production.

Europe is handling it well: http://www.powermag.com/europe-rebuilds-grid-to-accommodate-...

America will probably lag significantly in this regard because too much of the grid is owned by companies that also own coal/natural gas, etc. and have a strong incentive not to upgrade.

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#107

Post by jt2190 »

hueving wrote: post #66
jostmey wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you trying to tell me that they won't build more windmills if that's what people are paying for?

Are you suggesting the transmission company would refuse the electricity from the wind mills if enough people aren't paying for the clean option? I'm curious how this works. What happens if you pay for clean and the wind isn't blowing at night? What happens if everyone paying for clean turns on their appliances and the demand outstrips the clean supply? I highly doubt there are blackouts in these occasions so it seem…

There is a secondary marketplace of "green energy futures".

edit: Going from memory... The fine print on your electric bill in Texas says something like: "If we, the electricity provider, don't have enough renewable energy to meet your current need, we promise to offset the amount of non-renewable energy we provide to you now with a future purchase of the same amount of renewable energy from an electricity generator." In other words, you get the electricity today, they get the money today, but they have to buy more renewable energy in the future.

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#108

Post by london888 »

olegkikin wrote: post #96
_delirium wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas is easy to transport, but only really by pipeline. LNG is a lot more expensive and capital-intensive. And there is only one place with rising demand where it's easy to transport U.S. natural gas: Mexico. Pipeline gas exports to Mexico did nearly triple between 2011 and 2016 [1]. Exports to Canada over the same period fell, however. Anywhere besides Canada and Mexico requires liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals,…

Also Europe is trying to reduce its dependence on the russian natural gas, so they are building LNG terminals all over. LNG tankers are freaking scary though, they are like mini-nukes, approaching 1 megaton equivalent.

UK Readers may find this page interesting giving info on our energy sources. I didn't realise we use less energy now than we did in 1998. http://visual.ons.gov.uk/uk-energy-how-much-what-type-and-wh...

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#109

Post by neolefty »

Guthur wrote: post #38
toomuchtodo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar panels degrade about 0.7 percent a year based on historical data for the last two decades; after 20 years they're still generating at 80+% of total output. This doesn't take into account the ridiculous cost decline curve we're seeing in solar, and that'll be a fraction of the cost to replace degraded capacity decades from now. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/51664.pdf EROI has been positive for quite some tim…

It's positive but still no where near the scale of fossil fuels. If you consider the likely energy need growth of society, exponential maybe, it is really hard to see how solar and wind will cut it. Personally i think a full embracement of gen 4 or better nuclear power generation is the only way truly bring energy security.

Energy intensity (watts per dollar of economic activity) is leveling off and decreasing in developed economies such as the US, China, and Europe, and I think also South America. I don't know about India and Africa. But the days of exponential increases in power needs have passed, I'm pretty sure.

And carbon intensity -- tons of CO2 per economic activity -- should show an even steeper decline, as energy generation becomes less CO2-intensive. We're going in the right direction, and it would be great to go there faster!

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#110

Post by philipkglass »

davedx wrote: post #82
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot compete against an energy source with no fuel cost Of course you can. The technology to turn photons into useful energy is heavy, complex and reliant on rare elements. In any case, one could flip the analogy by branding coal as photons freely stockpiled by dead trees and algae.

Which rare elements do mass produced PV panels need today?

For modules based on crystalline silicon cells, which have ~95% market share, the only rare element they presently use is silver. Silver is a component of screen-printed pastes used to form electrical contacts on cells. Silver can be replaced by base metals such as aluminum, copper, nickel, tin, and combinations thereof. So far most manufacturers find that the simplicity of processes using screen printed silver pastes outweighs the high material cost of silver. But that's an economic trade-off rather than a hard technical limit.

Beware of silver bulls proclaiming that silver consumption will "inevitably" grow alongside PV manufacturing volume. I think that the transition away from silver will be more like a ratchet than a floating level. If silver prices rise enough to spur high volume PV manufacturers to implement more complex metallization schemes using base metals, they're not going to switch back to silver pastes even after silver prices fall again.

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