By Andy May
Key question: Can renewables ever replace fossil fuels and nuclear?
Understanding the value of renewables, vis-à-vis fossil fuels and nuclear power, requires that we consider that all energy is not equal in value. In fact, the quantity we call energy can be misleading and many experts prefer the quantity called “exergy,” which is defined in economics as (source Exergy Economics):
“The maximum useful work which can be extracted from a system as it reversibly comes into equilibrium with its environment.”
Or it can be thought of as the measure of potential work embodied in a material or device. As Ayres, et al. (1998) argue exergy is a more natural choice as a measure of resource quantity than either mass or energy. Even today it seems BTU’s, a measure of heat of combustion, or MToe, million tonnes of oil equivalent, are commonly used and mislabeled energy (see the Exxon Outlook, 2017 or the BP Energy Outlook, 2017). In a previous post (here) I discussed EROI, or energy returned from energy invested. I complained in that post about the inconsistency and inaccuracy in current EROI and LCOE (Levelized cost of electricity) calculations. The problems mostly stemmed from comparing energy or electricity output from different sources (solar, wind, natural gas, coal, nuclear) as if all produced energy was equally valuable, which it isn’t. While comparing the heat of combustion or million tonnes of oil equivalent is clearly incorrect, Rud Istvan and Planning Engineer show that comparing the cost of producing megawatts of electricity, like the IEA and EIA do, is also incorrect, see here and here. Since exergy is a measure of useful work, it helps get around that problem. In a comment to that post, Captain Ike Kiefer posted a reference to Weißbach, et al. (2013) which has a much more valid EROI comparison (see figure 2) of conventional and renewable electricity sources in Germany. Since Germany is, in many ways, a testbed of renewable energy sources for the world; this is very helpful.
EROI is computed in many ways that make it difficult to compare different energy sources. Weißbach, et al. (2013) improve the calculation by using the system input and output exergy in the calculation rather than energy. Thus, now EROI becomes the ratio of the exergy returned and the exergy expended. Put another way, the ratio of the work we get out of a source of energy divided by the work that went into making it. In Weiβbach, et al., they take exergy delivered as equivalent to electricity delivered. Thus, how the electricity is used by the customer is not considered. One other important concept is that the study must include the full life cycle of the power plant, from the very beginning to the end, this is called “LCA.” LCA and exergy are discussed in full by Ayres, et al. (1998).
We will not get into all the ways that EROI has been misused in the past, but the reader can go to Giampietro and Sorman for more on this topic. However, one EROI misuse is worth mentioning as an example. EMROI is the money returned on invested energy, excluding labor and carrying costs. It is not a measure of EROI, but is sometimes presented as EROI which can be very confusing, to see the difference compare figures 1 and 2 and notice the scale change. Our economy runs on energy of different qualities, thermal energy and electrical energy. Currently, thermal energy power plants have an efficiency of 33%, meaning that they are one third as efficient as sources that produce electricity directly, like solar PV (photovoltaic) panels. We are comparing apples and oranges, thermal and electrical; and exergy and LCA can help do this in a valid way.
A modern economy needs electricity on demand, 24 hours a day, without fail. A period without electrical power is called a disaster for a reason. Because demand for electrical power rises and falls constantly there is a need to store energy so power generation can rise to meet increased demand. Fossil fuels, biofuels and nuclear are their own storage, so they have this capability naturally. Wind and solar do not have built-in storage, so it needs to be provided, and this is a cost that must be accounted for. Inexplicably, both the IEA and the EIA (see my previous post here) ignore this cost in their LCOE (levelized cost of electricity) calculations. For example, from the IEA guidelines for LCA (life cycle analysis) assessments (page 10):
“Back-up systems are considered to be outside the system boundary of PV LCA [photovoltaic solar life cycle assessments]; if a back-up system is included, it should be explicitly mentioned.”
This makes no sense, in a modern economy electricity must be available on demand or chaos ensues. Demand cannot be adjusted to cloudiness, so for solar (or wind) to work at all, it must be backed up. The backup (batteries, molten salt storage, fossil fuel, pumped hydro, whatever) must be part of the system. We will not discuss the other problems with IEA assessments here, but will mention that Giampietro and Sorman do a very good (and often hilarious) job of detailing the problems with the IEA assessments in their jewel of a paper entitled “Are energy statistics useful for making energy scenarios?”
Using fossil fuel power plants as a backup creates a conundrum, if the fossil fuel plants must run all the time, but they are not selling power when the solar and wind facilities are providing power, who pays for the fully staffed and idling plants? It turns out the government must subsidize them with “capacity payments” to keep them from going out of business and closing down due to lack of revenue. If they did close, the grid would quickly become unstable as third world grids often are.
In figure 1 we see a Weißbach, et al. (2013) histogram of their exergy calculated EMROI by energy source. The yellow bars include the cost of backup (“buffered”) and the blue bars do not (“unbuffered”). The data used to compute the values shown in the figures can be downloaded as a spreadsheet here.
Figure 1, German EMROI of various energy sources. Source Weißbach, et al. (2013), data: source
Figure 2 uses the same data as figure 1, but EROI is plotted. The scale is reduced for figure 2 due to the smaller numbers. To compute EMROI a weighting factor of three is used in this case, see the spreadsheet for the details. The weighting factor is based on the production cost ratio of electricity to thermal energy. The economic threshold of 7:1, for Germany, is shown in gray. The biomass plotted is corn, the wind generation location is in Germany, coal transportation costs are not included and the type of coal is the German mix (roughly 42% hard coal and 58% lignite). Nuclear is based on 83% centrifuge and 17% diffusion refining. The solar PV values are all rooftop solar values. The commercial solar values are computed as if from the Sahara Desert, but the grid connection to Europe is not included in the cost.
Figure 2, German EROI of various energy sources) source: Weißbach, et al. (2013) , data: source
How is an energy source “buffered” or “backed-up”
Fossil fuel, biofuel and nuclear power plants backup themselves, one simply stores the fuel itself. Hydro power plants can increase the amount water behind the dam to a certain extent to provide some backup, but more is needed. Solar and wind power plants require a separate facility to store power or they require another source of power at the ready. The data plotted in figures 1 and 2 comes from Germany, a country with many contiguous countries that can supply it with emergency power (from fossil fuels, biofuels or nuclear sources) when wind and/or solar fail. They are very dependent upon German coal and lignite power plants for emergency power, currently 45% or so of Germany’s power comes from coal and lignite. In some cases, they have had to return paid taxes to coal power plants to keep them from going bankrupt.
But, this post is not about using fossil fuels to backup wind and solar power plants. Fossil fuel backup is the cheapest backup today and for the foreseeable future. The question we ask is can renewables replace fossil fuels? That requires non-fossil fuel storage of energy. Our charts and figures in this post only apply to Germany today, so does the rest of the discussion. As Weißbach, et al. (2013) write:
“No direct LCA [power plant life cycle assessments] studies could be found for storage systems but pump storage systems are very similar to hydroelectricity plants with storage capabilities. Alternative storage techniques like hydrogen electrolysis and gas storage are much more uneconomic anyway. Here, the Australian Benmore station with an energy demand … of 24,000 TJ has been selected and slightly scaled up (30,000 TJ) in order to fit the planned German Atdorf pump storage system with a projected lifetime of … 100 years. The material and working demands are similar, strongly dominated by the dam’s energy input. Atdorf’s storage capacity is about … 52 TJ … It should, however, be kept in mind that if no favorable topology is available the necessary geo-engineering elevates the energy investment substantially.”
Thus, the authors chose the most economical energy storage system (except for fossil fuel backup) to use for their calculation of the EROI of wind and solar. They chose to store 10 full load days of power for rooftop solar and 2 days for the desert commercial solar facility. They decided only two days would be required for the Sahara Desert facility based on weather history. We should add that topology is not the only problem with pumped hydro storage, land is also an issue. This storage method uses a lot of land, which is not a small cost and it displaces people, never an easy thing to accomplish.
Lifetimes
According to Weißbach, et al., a common mistake in EROI comparisons between electricity sources is using inaccurate power plant lifetimes, this problem is discussed by Planning Engineer and Rud Istvan also. Wind and solar energy sources are reported to have a lifetime of 20 to 30 years, although much shorter lifetimes have also been observed. In the case of wind, rotor and bearing fatigue limit the life and in the case of solar it is silicon degradation. However, it is common for combined cycle gas turbines to last more than 40 years and for coal power plants to last more than 50 years. Nuclear plants often last more than 60 years (the current US planned life) and hydroelectric facilities can last more than 100 years. It is very important for the plant lifetime to be accurate because the EROI (or levelized cost) scales directly with it. Consider then the US EIA statement (page 3) quoted below about lifetime and LCOE (levelized cost of energy). See also 2018 Levelized Costs AEO 2013, page 2:
“The levelized cost shown for each utility-scale generation technology in the tables in this discussion are calculated based on a 30-year cost recovery period, using a real after tax weighted average cost of capital (WACC) of 6.6 percent. In reality, the cost recovery period and cost of capital can vary by technology and project type.”
So, they know the various plant lifetimes are different. Presumably they know that the levelized cost of a 60-year nuclear plant could be as low as one half the cost of their assumed 30-year plant, yet they use 30 years anyway.
Conclusions
For the most part this post is a summary of Weißbach, et al. and I refer the reader to that excellent paper and their supplementary spreadsheet for more details. Here we only hit the highlights. They note that only a uniform mathematical procedure based on exergy makes it possible to compare all power generating systems accurately. They have done this using mostly data from Germany, the numbers will be different for different locations.
Solar PV, the most efficient rooftop solar, is not economic in this study. Wind energy is only economic when not backed up or “buffered.” Biofuels require no buffering, but it makes no difference, the huge cost of producing the fuels make them uneconomic. Commercial solar is economic in deserts, so if transmission lines can be built and if suitable backup storage is built, this is a renewable possibility. Unfortunately, the best backup is pumped hydro and this is often not possible in deserts. Weißbach, et al. do mention that, in their opinion, molten salt energy storage is not economic.
The most egregious flaws in previous EROI studies are:
- Upgrading the output inappropriately for solar and wind generation because their output is electricity. That is renewable EMROI is computed, then compared with the EROI of conventional plants. Apples and oranges again! See also Giampietro and Sorman on this topic, page 10.
- Using inappropriate power plant lifetimes.
- Counting all output, that is using wind and solar capacity for calculations and ignoring the need for “buffering” or backup. Virtually all other assessments do this and the difference is huge.
Weißbach, et al. have corrected the errors in previous studies and seem to have computed the most robust set of numbers I’ve seen to date. So, what is the answer to the question at the top of the post? It seems that Germany is very unlikely to replace fossil fuels and nuclear with renewables. Weißbach, et al. have shown that, in Germany, all renewables, except commercial solar installed in the Sahara Desert, are currently uneconomic. This means that renewables must be subsidized indefinitely, unless a major technical breakthrough in energy storage appears. Currently, the cheapest form of “buffering” are the existing German coal and natural gas power plants. Other buffers, like pumped hydro and molten salt are uneconomic. However, since renewable fuels must be purchased by the grid, by German law, fossil fuel plants will probably not sell enough electricity to break even. Thus, fossil fuel plants will also need to be subsidized for grid stability. The alternative is for Germany to import all their emergency power from neighboring countries. But, in the latter case, they may need to subsidize the added necessary, and presumably fossil fuel, power surplus their neighbors will need. Germany is apparently burning Euro notes for power and, fairly large denomination Euro notes at that.
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Why is it that people who shout “It’s simple physics” about global warming immediately shout “It doesn’t matter about the physics” when it comes to renewable energy?
+10
I’d give you a +10 too Sheri if you hadn’t just made that up.
Face it, tony, renewables are only being pushed for ideological reasons.
The physics always matters, it cannot be overcome. However, renewable energy is all about the economics, which are improving rapidly year over year. Wind power in the US is now profitable at US $0.043 per kWh, of which $0.02 is paid by the utility, and $0.023 is by the government as a tax credit. Note: the wind power producer must have profits from somewhere to take advantage of the tax credit. The proof of this (profitability) is the rapid growth of wind power installations in the US, both onshore and now offshore.
Solar PV at grid-scale is not far behind.
From the US Dept of Energy, “2015 Wind Technologies Market Report”: link is https://energy.gov/eere/wind/downloads/2015-wind-technologies-market-report
o Installed cost in the windy Great Plains is $1,640 / kW, continuing the downward trend of the past several years.
o Also, wind power is sold at very low prices under a Purchase Power Agreement, for $20 / MWh. The federal tax credit continues at $23 per MWh.
o Finally, capacity factors for 2015 are higher than ever, at 41.2 percent among projects built in 2014.
More about renewable economics: California residential prices have not increased due to renewable power installations and production. Wind is a minor player in California, with almost all the available sites already built out. Solar PV has substantial future growth potential.
Installed generating capacity in California is about 70,000 MW, of which 40 percent is renewable (24 percent solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, and 12 percent large hydroelectric). We don’t have grid instabilities, nor blackouts, nor huge price increases from renewables. On an annual basis, total kWh supplied to the grid by renewables in 2016 was approximately 27 percent (excluding large hydroelectric). Large hydroelectric supplied approximately 5-6 percent in a drought year. In average rainfall years, large hydroelectric contributes 15 percent.
Now that the California drought is over, 2017 is expected to have 45 percent combined renewables plus large hydroelectric power (approximately 30 percent solar, wind, etc, and 15 percent large hydroelectric.)
Your cost figures are wrong, you have not included the cost of backup or buffering. You’re making the same mistake the IEA and EIA made in their numbers. If you leave out necessary costs, of course you can get a low price/kw. The costs you quote assume a free fossil fuel backup, then you use it to justify getting rid of fossil fuels. Sorry, not buying it.
Mr May, as others have already informed you, EVERYthing requires 100 percent backup. To suggest otherwise is simply not true.
Your comment re backup requirements suggest you don’t truly understand how a modern power grid is designed and operated. A grid operator must at all times have sufficient reserves ready for any unplanned outage, no matter how great. When a nuclear plant of 1100 MW is online, there must therefore be 1100 MW of backup ready to take over.
The key is to make calculated, manageable risks. With wind power, as anti-renewable folk like to point out, wind output varies hour by hour and day to day. However, as they refuse to point out, grid operators have substantial knowledge of what the wind will be doing, with wind forecast algorithms in wide use. The same is true for solar. It is therefore not necessary to have 100 percent spinning reserve, when one can dispatch modern gas-fired plants to operate within a few minutes.
So, my question to you is, how much does the cost to install a nuclear plant include for backup? Your answer must, if it is honest, include the cost to build and operate many pumped storage hydroelectric facilities such as the Ludington Plant in Michigan.
Furthermore, if you truly believe that any power generating system operates at 100 percent capacity, online 100 percent, you must take a look at the actual figures.
One such article (my own) uses monthly capacity factors from EIA.
link here: http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2016/06/us-monthly-power-generation-capacity.html
or if you prefer the EIA article: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=14611#
And what per cent of power does California import? Same for natural gas?
Roger Sowell:
You cannot lump base load power, peaking power and intermittent power together, they are different. Your chart is very misleading, you are conflating all three. Capacity factors, as the EIA and IEA rather misleadingly define it, vary for different reasons. The reason is important. Typical reasons, power is curtailed because it is not needed, this applies mostly to base load generation. Base load power plants do not require 100% backup and they do not have it, other than fuel inventory. Base load plants are hydro, coal and nuclear mostly. Peaking plants also do not require 100% backup, these are plants that can increase output on demand quickly, mostly natural gas plants, but they are only used at peak demand. Your natural gas capacity factor is low (in your post) because the plants are only on during peak periods.
Wind and solar have low capacity factors, not due to operator choice, but because the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing, they do require 100% backup. Plus, their power is highly variable (wind speed, cloudiness, etc.) and other more controllable sources (coal, natural gas, nuclear) have to provide most of the power so they can “smooth out” the uncontrollable solar and wind. Supply has to exactly meet demand in fractions of a second. Your comment about 100% capacity is correct, but not to the point. Base load is usually curtailed by the operator due to it not being needed. Dispatchable is a good thing and not to be confused with uncontrolled intermittency.
I just switched my (UK) gas & elecricity supplier, to EDF (Électricité de France, oh the irony), who run the UK’s nuclear power plants. For the next 12 months I’ll be paying 13.6 p/kWh for electricity instead of the 16.4 SSE were going to try and charge me. So I pay less, AND the money I do pay goes to help maintain reliable low CO2 (if you think that matters) generation. A win-win situation.
Why do people living outside of Germany care about the Energiewende? One, we enjoy comedy. Two, Germans insist that we care by leeching their mania into the world financial system. BMW, Siemens, Mercedes, AXA, reMunich, and many other German companies flex their economic muscle locally in pursuit of their banker of last resorts (German government) strategic political agenda. Deals made with the Greens in Berlin find their way into the city council meetings of Cleveland, Tennessee.
I understand that as an American I have little room to talk this way. I accept our responsibility under several administrations for playing a key role in advocating bad science and policy on others. We wear a dirty shirt. Knowing that we are working diligently to reverse course leading us out of the climate change morass.
Love the sausages, beer, and leather pants. You can keep the politics.
The entire supply chain for the manufacture of so-called “renewable” energy production equipment (windmills, solar panels, etc.) is entirely dependent on oil. Mining and transportation don’t happen without oil. The foundries that melt metal and silicon are the most energy intensive and, therefore, energy price sensitive of all industries operating. And then to pretend, as leftists do, that the total environmental footprint for renewables doesn’t exists has gone from tragedy to farce.
Andy May – good review of Weissbach.
Note: Solar needs three breakthroughs: $/m2, conversion efficiency, and storage.
PS Our society is far more dependent on long term transport fuel or transport energy, as coal / nuclear can supply electricity for the interim.
All that is needed is a solar panel that works in the dark. Problem solved.
Simples. Kerosene or diesel-powered lights shining on solar panels.
You’re welcome.
n order to maximize the life expectancy of your solar panels, you need to keep them out of direct sunlight.
Or a solar panel that produces oil?
FYI, the link to Giampietro and Sorman was broken. I fixed it, so it should work now.
From time to time both coal-, gas- and nuclear power plants need to shut down because of planned or unplanned maintenance.
Why is the buffering then set to zero for those plants?
/Jan
That maintenance is planned in advance and during times when demand is low like spring or fall.
There are also unplanned shutdowns. Incidents happens and the production need to be stopped immediately.
Anderson, of course, catastrophes occur and will always occur. But with solar and wind the unplanned is a daily event, even hourly in the case of solar. This why they are not economic.
Much of the thoughts and comments on here miss the mark, completely.
Grid-scale storage is already practical and economic under the right conditions.
As some correctly note, the marginal power prices on a grid vary from time to time, depending on factors such as time of day, weather conditions, and what is actually generating. These combine to provide high incentive to install battery-based grid-scale storage. California already has such battery storage and is building more. The batteries are charged with what is called solar PV power in the day, and discharged in the peak demand period that occurs between 16:00 and 19:00 hours. What really happens is solar PV runs as usual, then one or more gas-fired plants are not reduced quite as much. Also, a high-cost peaking power plant is not run to meet the late afternoon / early evening demand.
Such installations provide a market for the grid-scale battery industry. As that market matures, costs will decline and the next tier of high-cost production will be replaced with batteries. It is noted – wryly – that no special topography is required for grid-scale batteries, and no geoengineering either.
Second point is underwater grid-scale pumped storage, such as the ocean-land system in Okinawa, Japan.
The ocean serves as the lower reservoir, and an artificial, lined lake in the hills serve as the upper reservoir.
The day is here where solar PV, wind, and battery grid-scale storage provides reliable, dispatchable, baseload-emulating power. The California Independent System Operator, CAISO, has demonstrated exactly that already.
State of Hawaii already has the design and economics worked out for 100 percent renewable power to the islands, with full attention to safety, reliability, and low cost. The low cost is not hard to achieve, given their present high-price power of $350/MWh. That is 35 cents per kWh for residential customers.
This, then, is how the renewables and storage will increase to provide grid power. The most expensive places first, or the low-hanging fruit. As technology matures, costs decline, and more will be installed.
This has already happened with solar PV and land-based wind power. Battery-based storage has already met the requirements for the high-cost areas and will also decline in cost with time.
The legacy paradigm of nuclear plants that refuse to decrease load (note that CAISO cites PG&E statement of “unsafe” to do so), large base-load coal plants, are obsolete.
One last comment, regarding nuclear, coal, and presumably natural gas not requiring backup: utterly false. See for example what happened in Southern California in 2012 when the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) was taken off-line suddenly due to unexpected tube wear on essentially brand-new steam generators. More than 2,000 MW of power had to be found immediately. Luckily, there was plenty of spare capacity in the gas-fired power stations.
Thank you for a very good point Roger.
I can just mention that the largest “battery” in my country is 7.8 TWh. It is a combined hydropower reservoir with both natural downstream water and pumped storage.
Link (Norwegian): http://www.statkraft.no/media/Nyheter/Nyhetsarkiv/2013/statkrafts-5-storste-batterier/
However, I think just as important as storage, is high capacity transmission lines
A game changer here is the usage of new ultra-high voltage DC lines, which makes it possible to transmit power over much longer distances without too much loss. China make huge investments in such llines:
/jan
So, you admit to 35 cents/kwh for renewables to work in Hawaii. Maybe it would work at that price, maybe not. Even if it did, it would be devastating to the poor in most parts of the world and would keep many millions in poverty. Thanks for making my point.
Mr. May, I don’t know you nor your background, so I must assume you are doing the best you know how to do. Or, perhaps you have a sinister agenda that you are pushing hard on those without the experience to realize that.
I read your earlier post on EROI, now this one. Both are completely misleading where they are not outright wrong.
The point I made above is that Hawaii already is in a perfect position to install 100 percent renewables with grid-scale storage. That is simply because the fossil-fuel industry provides them with 35 cent/kWh power (residential), despite their best efforts over decades to reduce that price. Hawaii has been eligible for wind and solar power for many years due to their high electricity grid price. Now, the time is right for the move to renewables with grid-scale storage, because battery-storage is much improved in cost and performance.
Nobody is going to be in poverty due to renewable energy systems. Almost every region, state, or country makes power system decisions based on several criteria (as I stated earlier: safety, reliability, low cost, and environmental). In California, all of those four criteria are required by law. Renewables are required under the environmental umbrella, but they must also be safe and not compromise the grid’s reliability, nor present unreasonable high costs.
Read again what I wrote above:
“This, then, is how the renewables and storage will increase to provide grid power. The most expensive places first, or the low-hanging fruit. As technology matures, costs decline, and more will be installed.
This has already happened with solar PV and land-based wind power. Battery-based storage has already met the requirements for the high-cost areas and will also decline in cost with time.
Why is it devastating to the poor?
The poor are not grid connected anyway, nor for the most part is anyone shelling out to connect them to a conventional grid.
Yet tens of thousands are getting light from solar PV schemes and millions from soalr LED lights.
Our prosperity is the result of industrialization. Steel, chemical, ceramics, glas…. This industry does not run on solar and wind. Focussing solely on households is activism.
Roger, Throwing personal insults and innuendo is not helpful in a discussion of economics, science and engineering and is usually a sure sign you are losing the argument. I suggest you try harder to argue dispassionately, people are more likely to take you seriously if you do.
In any case, Hawaii’s electricity rate is so outrageously high (3x mainland cost) because they burn fuel oil to generate electricity for some foolish reason. They have one coal plant on Ohau which is much cheaper. Fuel oil is about the only source of electricity that is as expensive as renewables.
I seriously doubt they can absorb much solar power, the variability of solar output, due to varying cloudiness, would destroy their grid. Their lack of usable space will preclude much wind power, although they do have some.
Griff, as I and others have shown, energy consumption is the main determinant of wealth and standard of living. The poor get out of poverty and move up in standard of living in proportion to their energy use. If energy is too expensive, they have no out. The industrialization of the world over the last couple of decades has move billions of people out of poverty. This is reversed if energy becomes too expensive. See this post and the links in it for more details: https://andymaypetrophysicist.com/2017/01/05/energy-and-society-from-now-until-2040/
Mr. May, my tone is one that conveys an utter disbelief that you would write such things, as if they were true.
My clients and colleagues take me seriously because they know I use verifiable facts and sound logic.
I’ll be sure to convey your expert opinion on Hawaii grid power to the Hawaiian planners and engineers, plus elected officials, who already have the system in the works. Stand by for proof that you are wrong. It may take a couple of years yet, but 100 percent renewables is coming to Hawaii. Or, you could deny the obvious.
And by the way, every engineer knows that Exergy is merely a fancy word to indicate energy usefulness, or energy density. We use that (seldom, if ever) to indicate the fact that steam at high pressure and high temperature has more value than does steam at low pressure at saturation temperature. One can obtain more useful work in a steam turbine when the inlet steam has higher pressure and higher temperature.
To suggest, as you have, that exergy has any relation to wind or solar power is, in short, ridiculous.
Your article on EROI was equally short of merit.
so now the poor will be actually getting the energy which allows them to move up the ladder… from renewables
an African school child who now has light good enough to study at night moves up the ladder.
The world bank financed programme in Kenya to connect every Kenyan to electricity, which relies on renewables including geothermal as well as conventional will move the nation up the ladder.
The Moroccan initiatives on cheap solar CSP built locally provides jobs and power and reduces the nation’s fossil fuel import bill and moves them up the ladder.
(see also India)
Roger, exergy is not energy density. Exergy is the useful work. It seems clear you do not understand this concept from your comments and your post. My post hit the highlights of the topic. For more detail, see planning engineer and Rud Istvan here: https://judithcurry.com/2015/05/12/true-costs-of-wind-electricity/
And especially: https://judithcurry.com/2014/12/11/all-megawatts-are-not-equal/
You clearly do not understand the power generation business.
Roger, have you considered writing an article to submit for publication here at WUWT? It would be great to have an article from someone with real practical experience in the industry covering these issues.
As interesting as it is reading your comments here, it would be great to have a summation of the situation as you understand it in one spot for everyone to read.
Roger has written several articles for WUWT, do try to keep up. There’s also the search box.
On grid scale storage.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out in South Australia, although there are so many other problems, largely political, affecting power generation and distribution in Australia the experience will not be wholly applicable elsewhere. One problem that seems to me to be endemic in any public project in Australia and has been at least since WW2, is a seemingly chronic inability of Australian organisations to work effectively together.
But wherever, the introduction of ‘green energy’ is driven by a political agenda, it is almost guaranteed that costs will be hidden, planning will be inadequate, risks will not be effectively managed, not even identified, the promises will far exceed reasonable expectations and the outcome fall well short of reasonable expectations. Thus South Australia needs another A$500M for battery storage which wasn’t in the original plan. What will they need the next A$500M for. Where will it come from? Since Australia changes governments rather frequently, Australian politicians have the luxury of betting safely they won’t have to answer that question.
There must be parts of the world, and I don’t think sparsely populated Australia is one of them, where an experimental set-up of majority green energy could be used to test the limits of its viability on a sufficient scale, yet without major risk to those dependent on reliable power. It would be a sensible engineering approach.
In real science and technology new developments are always tested, small scale first. Also, problems are analysed and most attention is given to the hardest parts, to be solved first. Not so in green energy. There hardly is any research for these more difficult parts: the industry (steel, chemical, concrete…) transportation (synthetic motor fuels) and other ways of energy storage. Billions are spent without any proof or promise which is pure ideological blindness. We have to admit that we do not know the future and our ancestors never could either. Progress is improving the present. We have no idea about the technology we may apply in 2050. Instead od regressing to nostalgic technology and austerity we need research, mainly nuclear. We never lived in a sustainable way but innovation came to the rescue: this is the real human spirit !
I was thinking specifically about a rebuttal to this article by Andy May. Roger objects to it, and I’d like to see the thoroughly laid out and explained explanation as to exactly what he thinks is wrong, and his version of how to look at it right.
Anthony said:
“do try to keep up.”
Anthony, I’m well aware of Roger’s articles published here. One of the brighter moments in an otherwise highly partisan web publication.
See here’s the thing, you seem to have no problem websites like RealClimate and the incorrectly named Skeptical Science, or even the angry/crazy/vindictive cat lady of Australia Miriam O’Brien (aka Hotwhopper) and their “highly partisan” websites that won’t allow comments from me and many others. They are so intolerant that such things aren’t allowed, and ALL of those websites proactively delete comments. “Skeptical Science” even has gone so far to retroactively modify user comments to fit their narrative. We caught them at it. That’s why they have their own sidebar entry under links of “unreliable”.
We have links to websites that disagree with what we do here. I challenge you to find similar links back to WUWT, Climate Audit, or any other climate website that doesn’t toe the line of consensus.
Plus, you get to comment here most of the time, via moderation, yet somehow I’m supposed to be more “open” if I read your intent.
See here’s the thing, and there’s really no way of getting around this. I don’t give a shit what you think about what I should or should not be doing, or who should be writing articles at WUWT, or what I should or should not be writing about. I’m not interested in your viewpoint about “partisanship” here in light of the other websites and their lack of tolerance for any other ideas.
No reply is needed, just bug off.
See here’s the thing, you seem to have no problem websites like RealClimate and the incorrectly named Skeptical Science, or even the angry/crazy/vindictive cat lady of Australia Miriam O’Brien (aka Hotwhopper) and their “highly partisan” websites that won’t allow comments from me and many others. They are so intolerant that such things aren’t allowed, and ALL of those websites proactively delete comments. “Skeptical Science” even has gone so far to retroactively modify user comments to fit their narrative. We caught them at it. That’s why they have their own sidebar entry under links of “unreliable”.
Wonderful, Anthony. KBO.
David
you can run industry on renewables too.
The UK has 7 car plants with solar panels supplying a proportion of their power…
The steel industry in S Wales is supporting tidal lagoons to provide its power…
There are numerous other examples.
Griffikins,
Can you really be this slow on the uptake?
There is no industry that runs solely on so-called “renewables”, which are neither economical nor physically capable of meeting the needs of manufacturing.
Thank God that the UK has at last wised up and is ending subsidies for its bird and bat-massacring engines of mass death and environmental destruction:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britains-renewable-energy-industry-is-about-to-fall-off-a-cliff-says-new-research-a6818186.html
yes, some industries keep up a green front. That’s all.
Electric power companies picture windmills on their magazins.
The Duth (Tata) steel mills herald that their rooftops will be covered by solar panels. All emotion.
Another problem with EROI is that it doesn’t include the energy consumed by an industry’s workers, landowners, and dependents. If these are included, the EROI for wind and solar power are negative. That’s why they always lose money without subsidies and set-asides. With current technologies, wind and solar power will always be economic parasites. In addition, they are environmental disasters that slaughter birds and bats, destroy natural habitat, despoil the landscape, pollute groundwater with toxic rare-earth metal mining wastes, and cause severe health problems for anyone unfortunate enough to live close to one of their installations.
What is the conversion formula of exergy to Hiroshima bombs?
I have no idea, but the spreadsheet linked in the post can help you convert nuclear power to exergy.
..IF I have calculated this correctly, 60,000 “Hiroshima Bombs”, as per “Glo.Bull Warming”, is kind of, sorta, maybe, equal to, approximately, 1,364,598,419 Unicorn Farts…..give or take 1,000,000 unicorn Farts (due to liberally weak Unicorns in some cases) …! Gotta love “Climate Change Seance” ! It can do anything !!!
Zero. Exergy only has meaning in a system that produces useful work. The exergy/available energy/availability in a bomb is zero since you cannot build a device that uses the energy to produce work.