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The US can reach 90% clean electricity by 2035 without increasing consumer bills

gspp.berkeley.edu

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Re: The US can reach 90% clean electricity by 2035 without increasing consumer bills

#21

Post by hairytrog »

Exciting. But here are some problems.

- Unfortunately, they are averaging the entire US, which is made of several grids, so the bad days are not that bad in their analysis. To fix those bad days, you'd need hella more storage, hella more capacity. e.g. 3-4x the renewables capacity than the normal need.

- Such a system has a very low resiliency because it depends on national grid. If Covid has taught us anything, it is the need for resiliency in the face of rare events. In this case unfavorable weather, broken transmission, etc.

- Cost projection is rosy... The panels, batteries, and storage are already very close to the material cost. Need some pretty fundamental tech transitions to improve further.

- If there is no policy change, nukes and nat gas will not be competitive 99% of the time because solar/wind are nearly free electricity and bid extremely low power prices that nuke/gas can't compete with. So even though they will provide the backbone and dispatchibility needed for on-demand power, they do not currently have the financial incentive to do so. We need resiliency and dispatchibility payments.

Report is Berkeley and GridLab, mostly policy wonks

A much better report from MIT: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S25424... or http://energy.mit.edu/research/utility-future-study/

Both are harder to read and give worse news, so probably won't be part of the policy discussion...

The report itself: http://www.2035report.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2035-Re...

And the data explorer: https://www.2035report.com/data-explorer/?hsCtaTracking=aefa...

Re: The US can reach 90% clean electricity by 2035 without increasing consumer bills

#22

Post by killjoywashere »

ctdonath wrote: post #5

Not convinced. I’m using utility solar for about 20% of my electricity needs, precisely to experience what’s claimed. Average cost is 50% above regular sourcing, and rising significantly. https://twitter.com/ctdonath/status/1274157769889918978?s=21

We did a PPA for full replacement at a time in our life when we were probably at max usage (2 teenagers at home, all electric appliances) and haven't looked back. Our monthly bill immediately dropped and stayed down. As far as I can tell, the only thing I need to worry about is the risk of deflation, and there's not much I can do about that.

Re: The US can reach 90% clean electricity by 2035 without increasing consumer bills

#24

Post by killjoywashere »

hairytrog wrote: post #13
H8crilA wrote: post #3

People are so focused on $$ when it comes to (green or other) energy. The real problem is not $$ but Joules. Building any type of a power plant costs energy itself, and unfortunately unlike capital, which is just a concept that you can argue with and win, there is absolutely no arguing with physics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment#ER... The energy amortisation time of green power generators…

Well noted. Here's a paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03605... The energy returned on invested, EROI, has been evaluated for typical power plants representing wind energy, photovoltaics, solar thermal, hydro, natural gas, biogas, coal and nuclear power. The strict exergy concept with no " primary energy weighting" , updated material databases, and updated technical procedures make it poss…

Even if we assume that's correct, those sources have massive impacts under other categories. In contrast, anaerobic bacteria are terribly inefficient with their energy use, yet vastly outperform all animals in terms of biomass. So it's unclear to me that the EROI metric actually matters all that much. If I can produce solar panels with a solar-powered factory at a profit, I don't care about the price of coal or its EROI. I'm printing free money.

Of the 4 options you mention, I'm entirely a fan of hydro and nuclear. Especially nuclear. But FUD makes nuclear hard politically, so while I wouldn't campaign against it, I wouldn't waste my rep campaigning hard for it.

Re: The US can reach 90% clean electricity by 2035 without increasing consumer bills

#25

Post by est31 »

H8crilA wrote: post #15
MattGaiser wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the significance of this?

Well you can do the maths. Let's assume it takes 1 year to pay back the energy usage, on average, for the green projects (look up that Wikipedia link). Let's also assume that we can dedicate 5% of the world's energy budget towards new power plants and that the world stops growing. So: 5% energy recession and zero global energy demand growth. How long would that take to roll out? 1/5% = 20 years, all of those years wi…

That's some weird kind of fear mongering. You assume instant replacement of fossil fuel plants. If you don't do this, but keep them running, and add renewables on top, it looks different.

Using your numbers to demonstrate it of 1 year EROEI. Let's say we make a starting investment for one year where we take 5% of the world's energy output to invest into new renewable power. After that year is over, we have capacity to generate 5% of the world's energy output per year, but we don't replace any of the existing fossil plants, but put it to work for new energy plants. So the second year we spend that energy on another 5% of renewable energy. Now we have capacity of 10% of the world's energy budget at start of year 1. If we continue doing this, we have 20% after the third year, 40% after the fourth, and 80% after the fifth. By the end of the sixth year, we can generate 160% of the energy demand of the world at start of year 1. We can now turn off the fossil fuel plants and enjoy a 60% increase in energy output, most likely more than the world has grown in that time.

Now you wonder, won't it cost tons of money to use all of this energy to build new plants? Sure it will, but that's already priced into things. That's what we have banks for.

Your fears are unfounded.

Re: The US can reach 90% clean electricity by 2035 without increasing consumer bills

#26

Post by H8crilA »

est31 wrote: post #25
H8crilA wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you can do the maths. Let's assume it takes 1 year to pay back the energy usage, on average, for the green projects (look up that Wikipedia link). Let's also assume that we can dedicate 5% of the world's energy budget towards new power plants and that the world stops growing. So: 5% energy recession and zero global energy demand growth. How long would that take to roll out? 1/5% = 20 years, all of those years wi…

That's some weird kind of fear mongering. You assume instant replacement of fossil fuel plants. If you don't do this, but keep them running, and add renewables on top, it looks different. Using your numbers to demonstrate it of 1 year EROEI. Let's say we make a starting investment for one year where we take 5% of the world's energy output to invest into new renewable power. After that year is over, we have capacity t…

You're right, I did not compound the green energy (or, as you say, assumed parallel termination of dirty plants). It would work if the world could collectively put aside 5% of the energy budget. Not sure if that's realistic, and also will there be enough commodities (though those are at multi decade lows in prices right now), but if so it should work.

Let's see how the world looks like post covid, as we're very likely to experience a huge "energy recession". Something that would be similar to that 5% energy austerity rule.

Re: The US can reach 90% clean electricity by 2035 without increasing consumer bills

#28

Post by csours »

H8crilA wrote: post #20
csours wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting chart, but it does not seem to consider the cost of the installation, just the fuel, or it seems to assume a very long amortization period for nuclear/fossil fuel generation plants. With wind and solar, all you have is the plant. There's no EROEI on the fuel because there is no energy investment in the fuel for wind and solar.

For a very long time solar panels would cost more energy to manufacture than they would output through their lifetime. This is no longer the case, but the amortization period is still large. Fuel is not the problem. The power plants are the problem.

They show the payoff period Germany and in Southern Europe. I wonder what the payoff period is in Texas.

Re: The US can reach 90% clean electricity by 2035 without increasing consumer bills

#29

Post by hairytrog »

killjoywashere wrote: post #24
hairytrog wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well noted. Here's a paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03605... The energy returned on invested, EROI, has been evaluated for typical power plants representing wind energy, photovoltaics, solar thermal, hydro, natural gas, biogas, coal and nuclear power. The strict exergy concept with no " primary energy weighting" , updated material databases, and updated technical procedures make it poss…

Even if we assume that's correct, those sources have massive impacts under other categories. In contrast, anaerobic bacteria are terribly inefficient with their energy use, yet vastly outperform all animals in terms of biomass. So it's unclear to me that the EROI metric actually matters all that much. If I can produce solar panels with a solar-powered factory at a profit, I don't care about the price of coal or its E…

You can make while society falls around you. You want to make the most efficient use of time, energy, land, and materials. Why? So you can do more with it, give more people more time to think about things unrelated to survival, so you can support more people, whatever. Efficiency is key to civilization and progress. Solar takes 10X the land and 15x the material with no plan to deal with it after it has reached the end of life. Wind is worse.

Re: The US can reach 90% clean electricity by 2035 without increasing consumer bills

#30

Post by hairytrog »

MattGaiser wrote: post #10
godzillabrennus wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is the answer.

You could start planning now and you would be lucky to get shovels in the ground by 2035.

too true for most nuclear projects out there.
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