Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
There is a generator-by-generator analysis of the US power supply for 2012, called “eGrid”, available here as an Excel file. I’ve aggregated the data by fuel type.
Discuss.
Best of a lovely February night to all, Orion refulgent in ebon sky, Castor and Pollux looking on …
w.
Always MUST express numbers as actual output, not “nameplate capacity”. Nuclear is consistently over 90% of capacity, solar about 18 to 20%, wind varies from around 20% to 30%.
As per my post above, re: Ontario, Canada’s power supply:
NUCLEAR Effeciency 99.9%
GAS Effeciency 14.1%
HYDRO Effeciency 65.9%
WIND Effeciency 49.2%
WIND Output Effeciency 47.9%
SOLAR Effeciency 14.1%
SOLAR Output Effeciency 14.1%
BIOFUEL Effeciency 9.0%
I have no idea what you mean by efficiency or where you got those numbers from, but they are utterly wrong misleading and meaningless.
There is no figure associated with nuclear power that is 99.9%.
Nor are there any figures for wind that correspond to 47.9% or 49,2%.
Nor 9.0% for biofuel.
Ontario residents are already paying for the excess Ontario supply of electricity which is being supplied at low cost or free to Michigan and New York and sending many in Ontario into energy poverty.
Americans are not to blame for this as they just don’t know what is happening.
Leo Smith February 10, 2016 at 9:02 am
Source:
http://reports.ieso.ca/public/GenOutputCapability/PUB_GenOutputCapability_20160209_v25.xml
Pardon my math, but I divided output by capability.
Output: total hourly telemetered generation for all generation facilities with similar fuel type and maximum output capability of 20MW or greater
Capability: total hourly generation capability for all generation facilities with similar fuel type and maximum output capability of 20MW or greater
At 1PM, nukes in Ontario produced an output of 10,730 MW. They were capable of producing 10,742. That’s 99.9%.
You are right, I had the wrong formula for biofuel, but according to the website, again at 1PM, there was a 229 MW capability for biofuel, and 78 MW output. That’s 34.1%.
I fully admit that I might be mistaken about what “efficiency” is supposed to mean here. My formulae may be wrong. The power company might be telling porkies. I stand to be corrected either way.
That’s what makes coming to WUWT so fun for me: instant and transparent peer review!
Barbara February 10, 2016 at 11:41 am
“Ontario residents are already paying for the excess Ontario supply of electricity which is being supplied at low cost or free to Michigan and New York and sending many in Ontario into energy poverty.”
Yep. As one manufacturer in North Bay has said, he is paying more for energy than ever, yet the government allows excess supply to be sent to his competitors. Its a double-whammy, but the politicians would rather pat themselves on the back for going “green”.
@ur momisugly CaligulaJones,
The table in your link is the 24 hr instantaneous outputs, from which you have calculated that days ‘Capacity Factor’ (Production Factor);
it has absolutely nothing to do with ‘efficiency’.
1saveenergy
February 10, 2016 at 3:29 pm
Thank you. I was a bit hasty in posting that, should have read a bit more.
Still, it shows how much that “capacity factor” has a bit of a gap for new technology vs. tried and true. That, and that Ontario’s nukes don’t have much to work with.
Using the same EIA (U.S. Energy Information Administration) numbers I looked at the rate of growth from 2013 to 2015. Solar had explosive growth compared to the other sectors at a 211% increase in contribution. Second and third respectively was natural gas at 18% and Petroleum and wind both increasing by 9%.
Coal took a hit at -11%.
While 211% increase is good for solar propaganda, the growth from 2014-2015 is half of what it was from 2013-2014; the growth is slowing significantly. When starting from close to zero the net contribution still ends up being insignificant.
The federal government has demonized coal and federal and state governments are practically paying people to use solar. Coal was hurt by this government intervention along with cheap gas and petroleum. Solar with massive government spending (which is fading) and promotion, solar barely moved the needle in actual contribution.
Also appreciate Alnilam, center star of Orion’s belt, that shines w/the luminosity of hundreds of thousands of suns:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alnilam
Orion refulgent in ebon sky,
You have been reading Kenneth Patchen again.
Never read him as far as I know, although it might be so long ago that I’ve now forgotten it. Generally, I just make it up as I go along.
w.
This simple thread (what could be simpler than asking How much energy is produced by the various sources?) reminds me of the doublespeak, the talking past one another, and the complete lack of interest in trying to understand within the CAGW controversy: No one can agree on definitions. No one can agree on methodology. No one can agree on data sources.
You have to consider the rate of change in capacity additions and retirements in the industry.
http://www.pv-tech.org/news/us-installed-more-solar-power-than-gas-in-2015
So old nuclear is really a perpetual motion machine? That is what is implied by this amateurish assessment.
The mix shown here is about where the UK was around 5 years ago.
Since then we have had more renewable rubbish, shut down a nuke or tow and lost a lot of coal, and are in very bad shape.
Quote from the Greenpeace website (if you can stomach it):
“Climate Leadership Means Keeping ALL Fossil Fuels in the Ground!
Coal Train
The science is clear: the path to a sustainable future for people, wildlife and the climate does not include fossil fuels.
In fact, a recent study published in the journal Nature specifies that we need we cannot afford to burn a majority of the world’s known fossil fuel reserves — including more than 80 percent of U.S. coal, oil and gas — if we hope to avoid catastrophic climate change.
By ending all new leasing of publicly owned oil, coal, and gas, the Obama administration could keep more than 450 billion tons of carbon pollution in the ground.
This is a time when we need to be prioritizing the transition to a clean energy economy. We need true climate leadership.
Ask President Obama to keep all federal oil, gas, coal in the ground.”
Tell you what all of you Greenpeace fanatics; given that wind, solar and biomass only collectivelly provide about 7% of our electrical energy needs according to the EIA (see Alx’s graph above), I will make a deal with you: When all of you Greenpeace fanatics show me solid evidence that you have ALL COMPLETELY divested your lives of ALL dependency on fossil fuel and nuclear energy, I will consider showing you some respect. After all, it will demonstrate that you are actually willing to put your actions where your mouths, your keyboards and your climate change beliefs are. It is easy to state what you believe, but not always so easy to actually act on it.
While I certainly do not expect this to actually happen, it would be fun to see your response if I actually had the opportunity to take you to task on the above challenge. The only thing I would need is the popcorn. It might make a great documentary too. Where is Michael Moore when you need him?
P.S. If I had the money and the documentary film-making talent of Michael Moore, you can bet your bottom dollar that I would make a beeline to Greenpeace and its cult membership whenever and wherever they show up in public to stage a demonstation. I would take them to task to divest their lives of fossil fuels and nucelar energy in the flim. It would be interesting methinks.
“When all of you Greenpeace fanatics show me solid evidence that you have ALL COMPLETELY divested your lives of ALL dependency on fossil fuel and nuclear energy, I will consider showing you some respect”
Here in Ontario, we shut down all out coal-fired generation, and added natural gas plants. Engineers decided where they should go, but wouldn’t you know it, the NIMBYs decided that they couldn’t go there, corrupt politicians agreed, so the plants were moved at a cost of a mere billion dollars or so.
I wish there was a way to route brown- and blackouts through the places who didn’t want the plants.
Where I grew up there are plans for a hydro dam, but the NIMBYs say “no”, even though its the kind of clean energy they beg for. They Hypocrisy Meter keeps getting reset with a higher limit.
I am posting this as a related read. It refers to Calgary Alberta but applies to all. Rex Murphy is one of a very few and dying breed of journalists in Canada with any reason.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/rex-murphy-calgary-at-a-crossroads-city-allies-1.3440346?cmp=rss
Nice article! Plenty of money and resources were used to attack Canadian produced oil not only in Alberta but around the world.
Canada bashing has been non-stop.
I´ve downloaded Excel Viewer from Microsoft, and was able to view the excel file w. used. Tab US12 column CT says 6.7030 percent for Hydro. Also W. says 0.9 percent for Biomass and the excel file says 1.44. Wind 3.4476 W. says 3.9 Geotherma1 0.3842 W. says 0.1 etc.
There are inconsistencies in the posted pie chart versus the Excel spread sheet; i.e., wind and hydro most notably. Suggest looking at this generation and energy flow chart from Lawrence Livermore National Labs. I have carefully validated it: http://fusion4freedom.us/graphics/USEnergy.png
As others have noted, the posted graphic has significantly different numbers than quoted from other sours. It also differs from the summary charts provided by the referenced EIA “eGrid” document. From: http://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-10/documents/egrid2012_summarytables_0.pdf, chart 11 – “eGRID2012 State Resource Mix” the summary information for the US for 2012 was:
coal: 37.4%
oil: 0.7%
gas: 30.3%
nuclear: 19%
hydro: 6.7%
biomass: 1.4%
wind: 3.4%
solar: 0.1%
geothermal: 0.4%
One really interesting oddity from the eGrid source for me was the breakdown by state. Vermont, home of Ben&Jerry’s ice cream and Presidential candidate socialist Bernie Sanders, gets their electricity from:
coal: 0.0%
nuclear: 75.9%
hydro: 16.9%
biomass: 5.4%
wind: 1.6%
solar: 0.1%
So under the most common definition of “renewable” power sources, Vermont has only 7.1%, while depending on evil nuclear for over 75%.
And after the nuclear closings in that region, there will be more natural gas from increased pipeline capacity there and wholesale power purchases from Canada and from surrounding states.
Gov. Hassan on oil pipelines:
http://clf.org/wp-content-uploads/2014/07/071014-Gov-Hassan-Response-to-CLF.pdf
Canadians have to pay for the wholesale power New England wants!
Correction:
http://clf.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/071014-Gov-Hassan-Response-to-CLF.pdf
The matching letter June 13, 2014 to Gov. Hassan:
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/eshope/NEG-ECP%20tar%20sands%20letter%206.13.14.pdf
Note the parties that signed this letter.
There two kinds of two kinds of people. Those who make electricity for a living and those who have an opinion about making it. This is why I changed the subject of what I did for a living at social gatherings. The EPA is comprised of the later. Clueless and useless.
The first and only important rule of making power is supplying power when and where it is needed.
Location, location, location.
I first ran a steam turbine/generator in 1971 on a WWII vintage USN oil fired ship. We failed, lost power, and had to be towed back to port but it was a nice day. Epic failure is failing during a typhoon. The last time I made power was Sunday after making modifications to the fuel system on the 7000 kwe Onan generator in the motor home.
The debate changes when the power is not available.
The second rule is you can not store electricity. Supply equals demand. You can store potential energy but that is inherently dangerous. Dams break, coal dust explode, gas pipelines ruptures and hydrogen detonates.
This brings us to the useless EPA graphic. It takes equipment to convert potential energy into useful power. Location, location, location. If there is no potential energy at the time you need power, the equipment is useless.
The people who sell equipment generally have never made electricity. The target market are people who have an opinion about it. I have been asked many times since we have been living in our motor home about solar by people who are thinking about it. RVs and sail boats have larger battery capacity. The downside to running an engine to charge batteries is noise. The reality is that there is always an hour a day when things like washing dishes where noise does not matter. Aside from cost of solar, solar takes lots of scarce storage space and do not work very well.
“The first and only important rule of making power is supplying power when and where it is needed.
Location, location, location.”
Yes, that’s what we did in Ontario, Canada: located new gas plants to replace the retired coal plants where the need was greatest, i.e., near our expanding suburbs of Toronto.
Can you guess what happened?
http://www.auditor.on.ca/en/reports_en/en15/2015AR_en_final.pdf
“The Ministry directed the OPA to cancel contracts for two gas plants planned for the southwest Greater Toronto Area, where the need for them was greatest, and relocate them to Napanee and Lambton. Our 2013 special reports on the Oakville and Mississauga power plants set cancellation costs at $950 million.”
Napannee and Lambton are hundreds of miles away from the Greater Toronto Area…
Old coal were supplied with coal from the US. Since then Canada found lots of natural gas. New gas plants would be located near existing transmission lines.
Toronto also is near several large nukes.
So I would just be guessing on the important factors in Canada although solar would not be a good resource.
Yeah, “faulty analysis”; the US is comprised of THREE separate ‘grids’ so a composite of a so-called US electricity supply for any purpose eg ‘generation mix’ is bogus. For instance, Texas has no real hydro …
Actually there are seven grids. Easy enough to Google a map.
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=electric+power+grid+map&view=detailv2&qpvt=electric+power+grid+map&id=D1AA91CD7493E3583A3CAF27778B75938B02A6D9&selectedIndex=10&ccid=sW1b66V5&simid=607986015010555347&thid=OIP.Mb16d5beba5791dfd433e6ad35e87e9d0H0&ajaxhist=0
Where is Willis to defend his graph?
Good question. Willis if we´re wrong please tell us where and how, if you´re wrong admit it and move on, even the sun has its spots /(svalgaard in one, two, three….)
Right now, on a cold day, all of the UK’s bird mashers are producing just 700 MW while our fossil fuel power stations are generating around 70% of total.
In January, during the cold snap, wind power fell to 76 MW.
What a joke. In the 19th century we abandoned wind power for the obvious reasons. We don’t seem to have evolved much since then, in fact we seem to be going backwards….
http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm
Chris
As of the end of 2015 (still an estimate as data for Nov. and Dec. are not yet final), nationwide, 34% of our electricity was produced from coal, 32.5% from natural gas, 19.4% from nuclear, 5.9% from hydro, 7.1% from non-hydro renewables (dominated by wind), 0.7% from oil and 0.5% from other fuels.
As several posters have noted, you have to make sure you are comparing apples to oranges with any data. When it comes to the data used to describe where our electricity comes from, some pie charts display capacity, which refers to steel in the ground and its potential maximum generation and other charts display generation, which is actual megawatt hours produced from a certain fuel.
For example, in 2015, natural gas units represented 42% of the installed capacity but only 32.5% of the generation and, conversely, coal units represented 26% of the installed capacity but provided 34% of the generation and nuclear, which represented 9% of the installed capacity but almost 20% of the generation. This difference between capacity and generation reflects how certain electricity generating units (EGUs) are normally operated . Historically, nuclear and coal EGUs were considered baseload – units that run 24/7/365 at conistently high capacity factors. Natural gas EGUs, historically, have run at lower capacity factors due to their ability to ramp up and down quickly to respond to the needs of the grid (e.g., sudden increase in demand, sudden decrease in MWhs from wind, etc.). Nowadays, we have some coal EGUs that no longer run as baseload but ramp up and down while some natural gas units are increasing their output and becoming baseload. This is due to many factors, including the current low cost of natural gas – cheaper fuel costs mean cheaper electricity prices.
Hope this helps!
“7.1% from non-hydro renewables (dominated by wind),” The data is well hidden, obfuscated, homogenized and modified to the point it is nearly impossible to find the TRUE numbers. Thus I would check that number and find where the “Biomass” is included. North-west states are big on burning trees. GB is also big on burning trees – AKA “Biomass” Biomass also includes the generators burning the Methane off-gas produced by landfills. My energy supplier has two facilities running 24/7, however it is difficult to find out how much they generate and I work for the utility!
Further, essentially every form of generating electricity needs electricity to make electricity. It needs electricity to control the equipment, cool the equipment, keep the equipment warm in the winter, etc., etc., Typical values are between 10 and 15 percent of the NAME PLATE generating capacity 24/7/365. However when a generating facility claims they are generating X.X Megawatts they are providing the output of the generator at the terminals of the generator. That is delivered to the “Grid” through a meter and that is the number they use. THEN, they “buy back” electricity through another connection and measure it with a different meter.
Thus, for a Nuclear power plant generating 1,000 Megawatts actually only 850 megawatts are effectively provided to the grid. With Wind Turbines you still have the same problem but they still use that power when not producing power. That means that a 1 Megawatt Wind Turbine burns up 100 to 150 Kilowatts each and every hour it exists – 24/7/365 regardless of whether it is generating electricity or not. So a wind turbine that has a 30% capacity factor (delivers 30 percent of its Name Plate rating) over the year actually only delivers 15 to 20% of the predicted power to the grid averaged over the entire year.
France electricity production.. rounded up. (Source: my EDF electricity bill)
82% nuclear
14% soi-disant renewable, of which about 9% hydro, rest geothermal, wind, solar, wave
4 % fossil fuels of which 1% oil, the remainder about even gas and coal.
This means France has the lowest CO2 emissions for electricity production among developed Countries and is a net exporter of electricity as its nuclear stations produce more than demand.
So the question is…
Why is the Government of an economy that is on the verge of collapse subsidising the contruction of 620 miles of roadway surfaced with solar panels?
Why is it subsidising wind, solar and wood burning?
It cannot be for any scientific or practical/economic reason, so it must be entirely political.
Why anyone still imagines the Climate Dragon is real and not just political posturing defies reason.
Gouvernemental craziness in France is record high, out of scale, never-seen-before, exponential, and unsustainable; the new government includes:
– Emmanuelle Cosse (green) as the new Sinistry of (lack of) home – after the huge success of another green sinistry of lack of home (destroying the home construction sector: mission f*cking accomplished!)
– Jean-Vincent Placé (green), a guy mostly known for not paying his tickets (18161 € for parking and over speeding tickets); of course, greens are anti-cars so I guess they prefer badly parked cars than cars on roads, and moving cars should be parked ASAP so they need to move as fast as possible! (I guess)
– Barbara Pompili (green) : I had to look her up, she hasn’t done much
As most people are, I too am subjected daily to the mass media reports that stress the need to build renewable, clean energy sources. In those articles and talks the sources are usually identified by the words “wind, solar and others.” Then follows a hint at their ever increasing energy output that reaches over 40 % of some vague, total energy. Suspicious of wishful thinking, I looked up the list of renewables and their annual output as compiled by the Department of Energy of the US Government (doe.eia.org).
I started with listing all the “other” sources and plotted their historical yields. The upper chart in the attachment shows the result; the names of the sources are placed along the lines.
It is immediately apparent that, contrary to the claim, there is no worthwhile growth. Worse yet, the combined output is lower today than it was in the decades past, and three of the four sources provide a minuscule amount of energy in comparison to the fourth – hydro.
Two of the three weak ones, wood and waste, while renewable, are not classified as clean sources for they do emit CO2 along with other “bad” gasses and residues. Thus we legitimately gain only the 1.8 GW from this group, the geothermal yield.
The fourth source – hydro – provides 30 GW which is 94 % of the yield from this group of clean, renewable sources. Neither of the four sources grows appreciably and their sum has been declining as said. (Hydro used be 34 GW decades ago.) To increase hydro, it would have to either rain more or we would have to cut on irrigation. The rain is beyond our control and the irrigation – are we willing to cut down on fresh veggies?
It should be pointed out that these “Other” sources have been around long before the term “clean energy” and “climate change” were in common parlance. Because they all existed prior to the present “green” movement and financing, they should not be advertised as a result of the recent environmental and climate change policies. Including hydro and the other three sources in the renewable energy portfolio, as the media have been doing, is misleading and immoral. Including them as if they were the result of the renewable, clean, non-polluting, climate-change, energy effort reminds one of the allegory (analogy?) of having a cake and eat it too. Cannot have it.
That brings us to the realization that the claimed growth and the very existence of the modern renewable effort originates from just two of the six sources: wind and solar (W&S). Their output is shown in the lower chart; it amounted to about 25 GW in 2015. Wind growth is shown slowing down while solar, the smaller of the two, is booming. The wind growth is slowing most likely because the best sites for windmills have already been exploited, the subsidies are declining, and also because the enthusiasm for windmills departed with Dr. Chu’s leaving his DOE Secretary position; the new Secretary, Dr. Muniz, believes in solar.
Understanding now that only W&S will be providing the upcoming demand for electric power, let’s survey the status. The US electricity usage climbed to 500 GW, and the overall energy to 3400 GW. That is the scale on which to compare the W&S output: a neat 5 % of electricity and 0.7 % of energy overall. These numbers are in stark contrast to the commonly claimed percentages. And remember that that yield was reached after 40 years of subsidized financing measured in billions of dollars annually. (The wind subsidies were to expire in 2005!)
Besides the horrendous cost, one has to wonder how much positive impact the W&S yield has on the dreaded climate change, pollution, and overall energy supply. Besides, there is no chance that we will meet the frequent predictions for the 20, 50 or 100 percent of energy derived “from renewable, clean sources” in the usual 5, 10 or 20 years commitments repeatedly proclaimed by the facts-ignorant politicians and prejudiced media. And how much energy do we get for the many billion dollars spent on developing W&S? Somebody more qualified than I am will perhaps come up with a number of dollars per watt.