By Andy May
French President Macron has implemented a new fuel tax to discourage drivers from burning fossil fuels in their cars. The resulting higher fuel prices have caused more than 250,000 people to protest, with some rioting. Polls indicate that 62 percent of the population think that prioritizing man-made climate change over fuel prices is wrong. The rioting has led to two deaths and over 600 injured. Almost 100 police officers have been hurt.
Macron’s popularity has sunk to 21 percent in a warning to other leaders who try to fight climate change with higher fossil fuel taxes. While Macron is unpopular for many reasons, the increase in gasoline taxes was the spark that ignited the protests and rioting.
Figure 1. Riot police facing the “yellow jacket” demonstrators in front of a burning barricade in Paris on November 24, 2018. Source: News.com.au.
Figure 2. Riot police and a yellow jacket protestor on the Champs Elysees in Paris. Source: News.com.au.
Moral of the story? Rant all you want about possible man-made climate change, but don’t you dare touch my fossil fuels! The latest word is that Macron is going make his “energy transition” easier. Code for caving in, no doubt.
[Un]Scientific American claims that eliminating fossil fuels is easy, citing an article by Mark Jacobson and Mark Delucci, and will create more jobs than would be lost. They also claim that a plan to eliminate fossil fuels in New York would save $33 billion. If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I can sell you for half price.
The replacement of fossil fuels with renewables is an incredibly complex problem. I’ve tried to explain some of the difficulties here. I’ve also discussed the costs of renewable energy here. A more technical and complete discussion of replacing fossil fuels with renewables in Texas, by Peter Davies, can be seen in two parts on Judith Curry’s website, here and here.
Davies found that converting the state of Texas from fossil fuels to 100% renewables should be technically feasible, but very expensive. He used Texas to do his study because the state has very good data on energy consumption and abundant wind and sunshine. Further, the Texas grid is largely isolated from the rest of the country, making it easier to analyze. Basically, as Davies writes: “If a 100% renewable grid won’t work for Texas then it won’t work anywhere else.”
Texas solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity factors average around 32 percent, which is much higher than the U.S. average (probably around 20 percent), coincidentally the Texas average wind power capacity factor is also about 32 percent and in some areas, it is almost 50%. Davies concludes that a mix of solar PV and Wind, plus enough storage for windless nights, can supply Texas with adequate power. There is also enough land available for the installations which will cover 11,600 square kilometers or 4,500 square miles.
From a technical standpoint, Texas could be powered entirely from solar and wind, with backup from batteries and renewable gas storage (both methane and hydrogen). What about the cost? Davies estimates a 2030 wholesale electricity cost of 6.1 to 9.2 cents per kWh (kilowatt-hour). However, this is clearly a very low estimate as he does not include all capital costs. He assumes zero infrastructure costs, such as roads, permitting and regulatory costs. He does include the cost of equipment but ignores transportation and installation. Further, his cost of renewable methane seems unreasonably low. Finally, he ignores the cost of the required land and does not deal with the transition from gasoline and diesel to electric vehicles.
The current wholesale price of electricity in Texas is about 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. At the peak of the recent fossil fuel boom, between 2005 and 2008, it was between 5.5 cents and 7.5 cents due to the high cost of fossil fuels then. From 2002 to the present, it has averaged about 4.3 cents. Thus, the cost of Texas moving to 100% renewables, is between 40% and 210% higher than we are used to paying. This is much lower than the differential observed in Germany with their energiewende program. In figure 3 we can see the surcharge (in cents per kWh) that German consumers must pay to support the program.
Figure 3. The surcharge on electricity prices (in U.S. cents per kWh) to support the energiewende program in Germany. Source: (Andor, Frondel and Vance 2017).
Even with the enormous renewable surcharges on German power consumers, they are still at only 36% renewable power in 2017. Texas has much more available wind and sunshine than Germany (Germany’s sun intensity is comparable to Alaska), thus one might expect the cost in Germany to be higher, but even so, Davies figures for the Texas transition to 100% renewables appear to be too low. But, even accepting Davies figures, an increase in electricity costs of 40 to 200 percent in Texas might still cause demonstrations and rioting. The transition is technically possible, but economically implausible. The political leaders in Texas and in the U.S. should pay close attention to what is happening in France today.
As (Andor, Frondel and Vance 2017) point out, if you keep raising the price of “clean” energy, you eventually reach a point where the public is unwilling to pay. This has apparently happened in France.
References
Andor, Mark, Manuel Frondel, and Colin Vance. 2017. “Germany’s Energiewende: A Tale of Increasing Costs and Decreasing Willingness-to-Pay.” 30. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2928760.
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“Even with the enormous renewable surcharges on German power consumers, they are still at only 36% renewable power in 2017”
Important to remember that this is including biomass and hydro, sun and wind only constitute 19,25% of the total (2015).
Production for 2015:
Lignite: 24,0%
Hard coal: 18,2%
Nuclear: 14,1%
Natural gas: 8,8%
Wind: 13,3%
Biomass: 7,7%
Solar PV: 5,9%
Hydro: 3,0%
Other: 4,9%
With the decision to outphase nuclear in the next few years, it is likely that coal will be even more important, though of course we in Norway hope they will buy more of our expensive natural gas.
http://strom-report.de/_2hr
Henning, thanks! Here is your chart.
All at 6 x the cost here in the USA!
Henning Nielsen:
How much money does Norway make by taking excess wind/solar production from Germany and Holland and then selling it back to them when renewable production falls below demand?
From what I’ve read, Norway is functioning as Europe’s battery due to almost total hydro power.
“coincidentally the Texas average wind power capacity factor is also about 32 percent”
Which is similar to South Australia the driest State in the driest continent but with around 50% renewables now and a lot of that wind we share the highest power prices in the world with places like Norway. The previous State Labor Govt worried about summer blackouts before the last election did rush out a $90mill Tesla 100MW battery for the Hornsdale wind farm plus another $690.5mill for 9 diesel generators that could consume 80,000 litres an hour of refined fossil fuels just in case. Currently we also rely on an Interconnector to Victorian brown coal power so you can see you really need to do your homework on what it would cost Texas to go down the dispatchable 100% renewables road.
Still, Norway is far below the electricity price level of countries like Denmark or the Netherlands. All of Norway’s power generation is renewable (95% hydro, the rest from wind power).
Price levels electricity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_pricing
Yes I think you’re right it was Denmark but you’ll have to forgive me being so far away and confusing the two 😉
https://www.buzzfeed.com/simoncrerar/mind-boggling-australian-maps
“All of Norway’s power generation is renewable”
From Wikipedia: “Electricity generation in Norway is almost entirely from hydroelectric power plants. Of the total production in 2005 of 137.8 TWh, 136 TWh was from hydroelectric plants, 0.86 TWh was from thermal power, and 0.5 TWh was wind generated. In 2005 the total consumption was 125.8 TWh.”
But what they did with oil is more interesting. Norway was a poor country of farmers. The famous Norwegian novel by Knut Hamsun is called “Hunger”. More like Starvation in 1890.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32585.Hunger
Then they discovered oil and became super rich. Norway formed its own oil company (‘Statoil’, now called ‘Equinor’) and gave itself ownership of the resource and a huge share of the profits from selling that oil.
“The petroleum industry is Norway’s largest industry. Today Norway is the 8th largest producer of oil and the 3rd largest producer of gas in the world.” The natural gas is sold to Europe.
Not bad for a country which leans red-green and against climate change.
Wind power cost estimates typically omit decommissioning and site remediation costs as well.
Peter Davies’ claim that the area required for Texas to go 100% renewables is only 4,500 square miles is hogwash. That is only the actual footprint of the equipment. Assuming that wind power alone, and using National Renewable Energy Lab figures for average wind project area, it takes 87 acres per MW of nameplate capacity in order to get adequate project spacing. For 100% wind in Texas with a capacity credit of 15% for inland wind (according to Electric Reliability Council of Texas [ERCOT]) and peak demand of 72,000 MW, those wind farms would cover about 65,000 square miles. That is about 1/4 of the land area of the state. There are numerous ways to calculate this value, but they all come to a far larger area than Mr. Davies claims.
Looking at it another way, the Nuclear Energy Institute says that a 1,000 MW nuclear plant requires 1.3 square miles, while the equivalent wind project would require 900 square miles. Plus, the nuclear plant is reliable base load that can be located close to the urban areas who demand the electricity. In Texas, wind does not blow where the people live, requiring tremendous transmission to urban areas with the concomitant line losses.
Driving through large wind project areas, the landscape is in relentless, sickening motion in all directions. Gone are pure vistas, not to mention ecological damages.
Thanks Flash Gordon, I found that number suspect as well. There are a number of problems with Davies estimates, they all tend to make his estimate of the cost of renewable energy too low, as both Germany and Australia have discovered on their own.
“Driving through large wind project areas, the landscape is in relentless, sickening motion in all directions. Gone are pure vistas, not to mention ecological damages.”
Can you imagine suddenly being forced to live within a dense array of industrial scale wind turbines?
“They also claim that a plan to eliminate fossil fuels in New York would save $33 billion. If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I can sell you for half price.”
Yeah, sorta like that $2000 in savings we all got under OBAMACARE from that lying big-eared marxist dope.
Does it matter what generates the energy we use? There are just 2 conditions. For society to go forward it should become less expensive and more extensive.
If it brings more poverty it’s the wrong kind of energy.
Which means Peter Davies ignores how expensive, even impossible, it is to thoroughly condition and control electricity’s quality and consistency!
Heavy industry through major computer centers and even to hospitals, all require high quality extremely consistent electricity.
Even those centers receiving electricity from nuclear or hydro power plants, install equipment that monitors and attempts to correct amperage, voltage and frequency of electricity driving equipment.
Variable consistency and quality directly affects equipment in service and the products they support.
This equipment is not cheap! Even when installed in consistent high quality electrical grids, business spends big dollars to condition electricity fed to every piece of equipment.
Drastically dropping the quality and consistency of a grid’s electrical supply means businesses and services must increase their line control expenditures.
It is not a problem that can be resolved by a grid’s backup power generation, it is a problem where every microsecond of electricity quality or consistency variation directly affects the end products or services.
As JoNova recently discussed, bad electricity quality and consistency also affects and damages all electric motors that are built to operate within certain specifications.
Peter Davies ignores all of the costs that burden customers.
The question wouldn’t be whether Texas or N.Y. can go to 100% renewables, but why? No need to.
Politicians take note. Talk is safe amd cheap but action wakes the voters.
The false assumption of simply replacing fossil fuel with renewables 1 for 1 will get you to zero emissions surrounds transportation’s almost 100% current use of fossil fuels.
Today, the electric grid does not supply the energy that would be needed to charge all the trucks, trains, planes, and automobiles that moves the economy in Texas. Sure, there are a few Bolts, Teslas, and other EVs running around in Texas, but their current demand is tiny, tiny trivial when put up against Texas’s current electric grid supply. Even ignoring the immense capital costs of replacing all the gasoline and diesel light duty trucks with battery EV’s versions, the grid capacity would have to be dramatically increased for nighttime charging of those millions of vehicles. So simply replacing current coal and gas-fired generating plants 1Kwh for 1Kwh would not not come close to allowing transportation to shift to EVs. And no one has come close to solving the replacement of jet fuel for commercial aircraft with anything that is even remotely affordable. The US Navy and Air Force toyed around with biofuel diesels for jet fuel (since abandoned), but it was going to cost something like $27/gallon, about 10 times what they pay in bulk for today’s jet fuel. So it’s no wonder China wants the US to commit to the IPCC fraud.
Andy,
I am surprised that the “Texas solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity factors average around 32 percent.” Over the last 3 years of operation, my rooftop PV system capacity factor has averaged roughly 15%. This is in California’s Central Coast at a latitude of 35.28 or 2.5 degrees north of Dallas, TX.
Brooks, are your solar panels mounted on two-axis mounts that follow the Sun, or are they fixed, meaning they only directly point at the Sun once a day? I suspect the latter since you are at 15%, which is about right for a fixed mount. I assume they are south facing? That would make the most sense.
I see Davies’ report is light on operating costs. The capital costs of adding new grid connections, associated infrastructure for new wind and solar farms, and back up fossil fuel generation for when the wind doesnt blow and the sun doesnt shine, are not fully calculated, and certainly not depreciated over their working life as a capital charge to consumers. What generating utility doesnt fully charge for these costs? The true cost to consumers of these sorts of proposals needs to be rigorously estimated.
And then you have the issue being experienced in Australia that when renewables (mainly wind) rise to +25% of total grid supply, stability effects start to appear in the AC power frequency, resulting in the grid operator having to periodically shut out renewable supply to stabilise the grid. Without a high-inertia spinning baseload supply as a large percentage of total supply, frequency stability is a problem. That affects a myriad of electrical appliances and instruments, many with highly damaging results. The feeling here is that greater than 30% renewables in any supply mix cannot guarantee grid frequency stability.
I work for Ausgrid now and they will disconnect people with solar on their roofs if the risk of instability is too great for the grid.
Here in PA (USA) we have had a fairly nasty ice storm and the usual spate of people using generators and backfeeding into power line system. Had lots of extra linemen in our area and was talking to some as they waited for lunch orders to be finish in the local bar, solar panels came up and the crew leader rolled his eyes and proclaimed he hates dealing with them, other guys all laughed and agreed. They came up from Alabama where they have a lot of them.
I ask myself, why?
I don’t see that he is counting the cost of adequate battery storage.
That should at least triple the capital cost as well as increase the total amount of wind/solar that is needed. In order to charge all those batteries.
So, what little “good” France’s climate saving efforts had have been erased by all the cars and tires being burned in these riots. Leftist ideology at its best!
Macron & Trudeau will soon both be frozen out of office.
I will believe that solar PV and wind power are effective sources of energy when someone reports on a solar cell or wind turbine manufacturer using their products to power their production operation. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
I am going to have a foot of snow in the driveway tomorrow, and it is still fall. It has been consistently below average temperatures this month, and it is a month when you notice highs 15*F below average for weeks on end. I don’t recall seeing the sun in over a month, because of the short days and cloudy sky’s.
I just want access to gasoline, natural gas, and electricity at market prices. There has got to be millions more like me that want nothing to do with renewable energy. Why am I constantly being sold something I don’t want and have never asked for?
This is just another scheme where the public pays more, and gets less. And the politicians have another tool to reward their supporters and punish those voters they find deplorable.
I get my electric power from Tucson’s community solar project, called Bright Tucson Community Solar. This project already has power storage built into the solar system. I recommend studying this “actual here and now” power supply – instead of a hypothetical “future Texas” power supply.
Every month my billing statement shows power generation cost (alone) at 5c/kWh for solar power. For comparison, the conventional power generation (alone) is priced at 3.5c/kWh.
But then many other costs add into the consumer’s total bill. For example, my monthly “service fee”, for sending me a bill and then depositing my payment, is nearly half as expensive as the (generation alone) cost of my electric power. And I am charged 6c/kWh for delivering the power to my house.
As horrible as it sounds, did anyone else start humming the Les Miserables soundtrack while reading about these protests?
That mantra about creating jobs? Canadian PM Trudeau had this to say today about the GM plant closure in Ontario:
“The best way to secure jobs for the future is to take genuine action on climate change and help our economy and our families to thrive through the transition to a lower carbon economy,” he said during question period.
Break on through to the other side. Sort of assumes that there is another side, as you tunnel into that mountain…