I wonder if the areas where the wind projects are killing the bats are located near cell phone towers or power lines or some other source of EMR?

Let’s hope the US congress can get out of the way and not block Shell (and others) from developing the oil shale deposits (plus lift off-shore drilling ban).

Oil shale is projected to be very profitable at $60/barrel, so gasoline prices could come down.

Combine this with developing more fuel-efficient automobiles and this would give the USA a secure supply source of oil for the next 100+years, without the need for major imports.

Long before this starts to run out there will be new developments that will enable the long-term shift away from oil. These innovations will be driven by industry (oil companies plus others) and will not require massive government intervention.

Regards,

Max

Note that oil companies’ profits are around 9%, and the gov’t’s tax grab is much higher than what oil companies earn.

The free market always solves any shortages before they become critical, to the constant astonishment and dismay of the Luddite Malthusians. The only reason we are so dependent on foreign oil is due directly to Congress, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the enviro lobby. They are solely responsible for high gas prices. That unholy alliance is totally responsible for the fix we’re in now; they are 100% to blame, not CO2, not the Arabs, not American workers. It is a conspiracy, pure and simple. Anyone with eyes and a brain can see it.

Unleash American industry and know-how, and watch $1.60/gal gas come back [it's happened before. In 1998 oil was close to $10/bbl].

The Nanosolar thin film solar panel concept for building medium-size power units (2-10MW) sounds good. Thanks for link.

They mention getting costs for the panels themselves down to $1,000 per nameplate KW.

A 11MW solar plant being built in Seville, Spain is scheduled to cost $53 million or $4,800 per nameplate KW, almost 5 times the Nanosolar figure.

The much smaller domestic solar panels of 5KW cost around $35,000 today (installed) or $7,000 per nameplate KW. This should come down as more are produced.

So if the $1,000 per nameplate KW is really a correct figure for the entire installation (not just the delivered panels), this is a major improvement.

At 25% on-line factor it still leaves solar much less economical than gas-fired stations, at $770 per nameplate KW with a 92% on-line factor, but it brings it closer, particularly for smaller scale plants.

But if you can get a 5KW home system installed for $5,000, this would be a fantastic deal. Depending on where you live, you might even get the government to pick up a big piece of the tab.

Regards,

Max

So let’s let companies try to develop these new fields, maybe even with some taxpayer R+D support, at the same time let the utility companies construct new plants based on proven nuclear technology and coal-fired plus gas-fired plants.

And (for motor fuels) let’s explore all avenues that make sense to break away from reliance on oil imports. More US offshore drilling, development of the vast oil shale reserves, syn-fuels from coal, bio-fuels, etc. No taxpayer money required here. Just let the energy companies do their thing without strangling them with bueaucratic federal regulations.

Extremely well said, Max. I couldn’t agree more.

http://www.nanosolar.com/

If they can get installation costs down to $1 per watt, I’ll take a serious look at installing it on my house.

Will still need something for the night.

Back to your query, “One more sort of nitpicky thing… you suggested that a combined cycle gas/steam turbine plant has an on-line factor of 92% while also being flexible enough to provide “peak power”. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the on-line capacity factor represents the percentage of the nameplate capacity that the facility could produce if it runs at maximum production all the time. In which case it wouldn’t be very flexible, correct?”

No, Ricorun, you’re wrong on that assumption.

A gas-fired plant can produce power at an on-line factor of 92% (if that is what the grid requires), or it can be used as a “peak demand” generator, since it can be turned on and off fairly easily. So it is extremely flexible.

A solar plant does not have this advantage. It has an on-line factor of maximum 25%, not based on the demand of the grid, but on the availability of the sun.

Wind plants have the same problem based on availability of the wind, although somewhat higher on-line factors approaching 40% have been mentioned here, for isolated cases such as West Texas or certain locations in Hawaii.

Neither wind nor solar are competitive today on a large scale, although each can make sense for certain niche areas, particularly with some taxpayer subsidies.

Regards,

Max

Sorry, the numbers still show that wind farms, and to a much greater extent, solar energy, still have a very long way to go to become truly competitive with nuclear, natural gas or coal. These are the facts of life today, despite rosy articles about these renewables becoming “almost competitive”.

I am not arguing that they might not some day do so.

They just have not yet done so. By a long shot.

So let’s let companies try to develop these new fields, maybe even with some taxpayer R+D support, at the same time let the utility companies construct new plants based on proven nuclear technology and coal-fired plus gas-fired plants.

And (for motor fuels) let’s explore all avenues that make sense to break away from reliance on oil imports. More US offshore drilling, development of the vast oil shale reserves, syn-fuels from coal, bio-fuels, etc. No taxpayer money required here. Just let the energy companies do their thing without strangling them with bueaucratic federal regulations.

Regards,

Max

That’s what makes sense.

Regards,

Max

Smokey, do you have the link to the Forbes article that figure was taken from?

It’s here: click

Here’s another interesting Forbes article that shines some needed daylight on the pop-opinion, error-prone site Wikipedia: click

It might be worth mentioning that that’s pretty much what they said about nuclear back in the 80s, too. It wasn’t as much “greenies” that killed nuclear power (not to mention wind, solar thermal, and solar PV) as it was economics. The cost of fossil fuels tanked, and every indication at the time was that they would stay tanked. And they did — until fairly recently. And no one gave it much of a thought — until very recently. At least in the US. Other places (Iceland, France, Brazil, Denmark, etc.) weren’t so easily suckered. They got into various technologies while the getting was good. Who woulda thought back in 2003 that anything French woulda smelled sweet? Lol!

Be that as it may, since costs today are primarily driven by demand, not artificial supply manipulation, prices aren’t likely to tank again. It’s more likely that costs of fossil fuels will continue to rise. Likewise, it’s also likely that costs of wind, solar thermal and (especially) solar PV will continue to fall (relatively speaking) — but only if one of two things happen: (a) they are assisted (while fossil fuel prices remain relatively low) until they sufficiently penetrate the market, or; (b) we can wait until fossil fuel prices go through the roof and we start scrambling around. Hmmm… which to choose.

Going back to Forbes again, this article mentions that “Over the last two decades, the cost of manufacturing and installing a photovoltaic solar-power system has decreased by about 20% with every doubling of installed capacity.” … and… “As a result, solar power has been creeping toward cost-competitiveness in some areas. California, for example, combines abundant sunshine with retail electricity prices that, partly as a result of the state’s policies, are among the highest in the country–up to 36 cents per kilowatt-hour for residential users. Unsubsidized solar power also costs 36 cents per kilowatt-hour, but support from the California Solar Initiative cuts the price customers pay to 27 cents.”

In terms of solar thermal, in the southwestern United States, the cost of electricity from CSP plants (including the federal ITC) is roughly 13-17cents per kilowatt-hour, meaning that CSP with thermal storage is competitive today with simple-cycle natural gas-fired power plants. The U.S. Department of Energy aims to reduce CSP costs to 7-10 cents per kilowatt-hour by 2015 and to 5-7 cents per kilowatt-hour by 2020, making CSP competitive with fossil-fuel-based power sources.

But of course, none of that would happen if current costs were allowed to be the only thing driving the market. And I suppose you could say therein lies the dilemma. Pure free market types insist that there be no drivers except unfettered supply and demand, and any attempt to manipulate either is a big no-no. On the other hand, there are others who recognize that that whole notion is a fantasy unto itself for any industry with significant impacts beyond (i.e., external to) the transaction itself. And perhaps with the exception of national defense, in no industry are those externalities more obvious than in the energy sector. Under those circumstances,
if the free market is left alone it often leads to entrenchment of vested interests, not innovation. Manipulation is often necessary to change the nature of the equation and drive innovation. If you think about it seriously, if it weren’t for government investment in the biomedical industry, pharmaceuticals, transportation… heck, just about any major industry you can think of — even oil and gas (and nuclear, of course), the world would be a very different place. And the US (along with Europe, Asia, and any other advanced country) would not be technology leaders. Governments that don’t invest in RD&D (research, development and deployment) aren’t technology leaders for long.

Getting back to your original point… yes, the cost of utility scale solar PV is high. But five years ago, anyone even contemplating a utility scale solar PV plant would have been considered nuts. I suspect that five years from now it will look like a wise investment. As the costs of these technologies approach grid parity all kinds of good things happen — patents obtained along the way become more valuable, jobs are created, manufacturing opportunities open up, energy prices become essentially locked in, exports increase, imports decrease, energy security improves. And eventually we can tell the Saudis, and others of their ilk, to go pound sand. Wouldn’t that be nice?

One more sort of nitpicky thing… you suggested that a combined cycle gas/steam turbine plant has an on-line factor of 92% while also being flexible enough to provide “peak power”. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the on-line capacity factor represents the percentage of the nameplate capacity that the facility could produce if it runs at maximum production all the time. In which case it wouldn’t be very flexible, correct?

LPG as a motor fuel has been going on for some time in many parts of the world. The Dutch were among the first to start this back in the 1980s.
http://www.envirogas.co.uk/faqs.htm

Quoting from the article, “LPG is used to power about 4 million cars and vans around the world [2001 statistics]. Larger markets include Italy with 1.1 m vehicles, Australia with 490,000 and The Netherlands with 360,000 -the highest percentage of the total number of vehicles of any country.”

These statistics are from 2001, and the numbers are significantly higher today. I have seen the figure for 2008 of “over 9 million vehicles world-wide” running on LPG.

Nearly all the taxis in Japan run on LPG, and India, Brazil, Turkey and the USA all have significant numbers of gas-fuelled cars. Hong Kong has been replacing diesel driven taxicabs with LPG taxis since 2000 and completed the process in 2006. This was done in order to reduce real smog pollution from CO, unburned hydrocarbons, NOx and soot from the diesels (not “greenhouse” CO2 emissions, which were of no concern).

The article states, “Buses, light vans and heavy duty trucks can be converted to run on the fuel, as can diesel-engined boats, fork lift trucks and generators.”

Here is a link to a June 2007 writeup from Perth, which describes a more recent move to natural gas vehicles:
http://www.pakcng.com/cng-news/International/news-intl-main-05.asp

”West Australian based Advanced Engine Components Limited (AEC) has commenced a development and promotion strategy for Isuzu trucks, fuelled by liquefied natural gas (“LNG”), for the Australian market. The initiative will benefit significantly from the new LNG capacity and infrastructure becoming available in Western Australia. The first LNG refueling station, for the heavy duty vehicle market, is planned to be operational in Perth, Western Australia by the last quarter of calendar 2007. The site is to be the first of a planned refueling infrastructure, for heavy duty vehicles, throughout WA and into the Eastern States.”

So it looks like West Australia is already using LPG and may be going to LNG as well.

I’ve seen another report that states that there are apparently around 4 million vehicles worldwide running on natural gas today. Most of these run on compressed natural gas (CNG) and a few on liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Max

Prolly meant LNG.

No, LPG is a very common fuel for high mileage vehicles in Australia – particularly in Victoria. It’s considerably better as a vehicle fuel than natural gas, for a number of reasons. First, higher energy density. Second, it’s a liquid at room temperature and only fairly low pressure – meaning you can carry more fuel at the same pressure, which is much safer. In fact, it’s not uncommon to find see an LPG equipped vehicle that has caught fire and the LPG tank is intact and still containing fuel – it was the petrol (gasoline) that caused the fire! And third, because it requires very little engine modification to run a petrol (gasoline) engine on LPG (propane), it’s possible to run on both fuels, switching between them as required/desired.

It’s a very common and popular fuel, and is a favourite of high mileage drivers because, even though you consume about 10% more to cover the same distance compared to petrol, it’s only about about 50% the price per litre of petrol, making it extremely cost effective. It would be even more so, considering we (Australia) export it in bulk for less than 10c/L, yet retail pricing at the bowser is around 70c/L!

Further, because it’s delivered to the engine as a gas, and because of it’s lower carbon content, it’s a very low emissions fuel on *all* fronts – HC, NOx, CO and CO2. So low, in fact, that vehicles using purely LPG as fuel are not as severely tested for emissions, and one can register such a vehicle in NSW (strictest state for registration requirements) with only a basic CO check. So “green”, in fact, that there is a Govt. subsidy of $2000 to convert a vehicle to this fuel. You can even buy vehicles brand new with factory fitted LPG only engines.

Because it’s a mix of propane and butane, it also allows the refineries to get rid of significant amounts of butane that they would otherwise flare off as waste product.

I could not find a mention of the subsidies that make projects such CleanTech’s Fresno solar project possible. I did find a reference to the necessity of subsidies at: http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2004/jan/1023355.htm

Government Subsidies Vital in Making Solar Power Technology Price-Competitive

Frost & Sullivan Industry Analyst Patricia Seifert. “Subsidies will be necessary for another three to five years until solar power can compete with more common energy sources such as natural gas or oil.”

The consumer pays at both ends, as in the subsidizing of ethanol.

LPG is a propane/butane mix, not natural gas (methane).

Prolly meant LNG.

Seems odd, doesn’t it, for Shell to allow all the publicity to go forward on something they are not going to do?

I was quite surprised to see such a detailed report on their efforts, not only in the Forbes article, but in the Denver Post.

In any event, the decision needs to be based on the economics, not politics. Again, it is all on Shell’s nickel.

Waiting for further developments.

Almost all high mileage vehicles (taxis, buses, etc) and many private vehicles here in Perth Western Australia run on LPG (liquid natural gas), for the simple reason it is a third the price of petrol or diesel.

LPG is a propane/butane mix, not natural gas (methane).

This plant is expected to have an on-line factor of around 25% and is being justified on the basis that it will provide “peak power” during hot, sunny summer days for AC, etc., which appears to makes sense. Plus, it’s green and clean (and “sexy”).

I couldn’t find any investment cost figures, but the next largest solar plant is being built in Moura, Portugal, using essentially the same modular photovoltaic cell technology. This plant has a nameplate capacity of 62MW, and is also expected to have a 25% on-line factor. It is expected to cost $400 million.

So let’s assume the slightly larger PG+E plant at 80MW will cost $500 million (keep your fingers crossed).

For this same investment you could build a combined cycle gas/steam turbine plant of 650MW with an on-line factor of 92%. These plants are very flexible, and such a plant could also be used to provide “peak power”. But the main difference is that it could provide this power whenever needed, not just when the sun is shining.

Yes, the gas-fired plant would need natural gas while the solar plant could use “free” solar energy, but the difference in investment cost and on-line availability still makes solar power a “long shot”, which still has a long way to go to be truly competitive on a cost basis.

Wind power appears to be considerably more competitive than solar, but also suffers from the on-line availability problem, and cannot compete today with either conventional fossil-fuel or nuclear power. In addition, wind farms cannot be built near the largest demand centers and peak winds are usually at night, when power demand is lowest.

So it looks like the solar/wind proponents still have a lot of homework to do.

Max

I read the Forbes article on efficiency. High energy costs will do what he is proposing, probably already are. That’s the nature of free markets.

I wouldn’t count on that. Especially with Biomass, Wind, and Solar. There’s enough production now that any more advances in scale will be incremental at best.

Fully exploiting wherever practical the best available efficiency techniques throughout the U.S. economy could save half our oil and gas use, and three-fourths of our electricity, at about an eighth of their current price.

I’ll have to read the article, but seriously doubt those claims as well.

My understanding is that Shell doesn’t think they’re ready to do that. And as that GreenCarCongress article I cited earlier pointed out, “In 2007, Shell withdrew the application for a mining permit on one of its three oil-shale research and demonstration leases for economic reasons: costs for building the underground freeze wall of frozen water to contain melted shale had ’significantly escalated.’” That doesn’t bode well.