Guest table-turning by David Middleton
I actually wrote the title to this thread before I looked up the facts…
Offshore Wind Power Is Crushing Carbon Capture Dreams
Tina Casey
OCT 17, 2019Fossil fuel stakeholders are leaning on carbon capture to keep coal and other fossil fuels relevant, but the technology has yet to prove itself commercially. Meanwhile, renewables are…
[blah, blah, blah]
Over four years later, the U.S. still has only one utility-scale carbon capture project in operation, located at the Petra Nova coal power plant in Texas.
[blah, blah, blah]
For some perspective on the opportunities for offshore wind growth in the U.S., consider that the nation’s first offshore wind farm, Block Island, began operations in 2016 in the waters of Rhode Island, with only five turbines and a combined capacity of 30 megawatts.
[blah, blah, blah]
Tina writes frequently for TriplePundit and other websites, with a focus on military, government and corporate sustainability, clean tech research and emerging energy technologies. She is a former Deputy Director of Public Affairs of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, and author of books and articles on recycling and other conservation themes. She is currently Deputy Director of Public Information for the County of Union, New Jersey. Views expressed here are her own and do not necessarily reflect agency policy.
Triple Pundit
Ms. Casey has a BA in philosophy, is a career bureaucrat. and has held several part time jobs with enviro-nitwit websites. Hence, she’s an energy expert.
Whatever offshore wind power may or may not do in the future, is irrelevant to the fact that it’s currently only “crushing” the budgets of energy consumers.
Offshore Wind vs. Carbon Capture: Who’s Crushing Whom?
The US currently has one of each up and running. The energy math is decidedly one-sided.
Block Island Wind Farm
The Block Island Wind Farm generates much less energy than an average single Marcellus gas well.
In it’s first year of operation the Block Island Wind Farm managed a 39% capacity factor.
| MWh | 100% Output | Capacity Factor | |
| Dec-16 | 6,313 | 21,799 | 29% |
| Jan-17 | 8,898 | 21,799 | 41% |
| Feb-17 | 7,801 | 19,690 | 40% |
| Mar-17 | 10,514 | 21,799 | 48% |
| Apr-17 | 6,904 | 21,096 | 33% |
| May-17 | 9,162 | 21,799 | 42% |
| Jun-17 | 9,932 | 21,096 | 47% |
| Jul-17 | 6,724 | 21,799 | 31% |
| Aug-17 | 5,712 | 21,799 | 26% |
| Sep-17 | 5,698 | 21,096 | 27% |
| Oct-17 | 10,195 | 21,799 | 47% |
| Nov-17 | 10,985 | 21,096 | 52% |
| 1-yr Total | 98,838 | 256,668 | 39% |
That’s an average daily rate of 271 MWh/d… That’s 924 million British Thermal Units per day (mmBtu/d).
In light of the journalistic malpractice of assuming that wind and fossil fuels are both interchangeable and mutually incompatible:
- A typical Marcellus natural gas well produces 5,000 mmBtu/d.
- A typical deepwater oil well in the Gulf of Mexico produces 5,000 bbl/d, nearly 30,000 mmBtu/d.
- The Block Island Wind Farm produces 924 mmBtu/d.
Whats that? It’s unfair to directly compare wellhead natural gas production to electricity output from a power plant… OK…
| Natural Gas | Btu/kWh | 7,870 |
| Well Production | Btu/d | 5,000,000,000 |
| Electricity Ouput | kWh/d | 635,324 |
| Electricity Ouput | MWh/d | 635 |
| Electricity Output | Block Islands worth | 2.3 |
A single typical Marcellus gas well yields 2.3 Block Islands worth of electricity-equivalent energy per day.
Petra Nova
Billion Dollar Petra Nova Coal Carbon Capture Project a Financial Success But Unclear If It Can Be Replicated
NRG Energy and JX Nippon’s joint venture Petra Nova project, the world’s largest operating post-combustion carbon dioxide (CO2) capture system, is set to receive another big boost from ongoing bipartisan enthusiasm for “clean coal.” The U.S. budget bill passed by Congress in early February included the FUTURE Act (S.1535) that extends tax credits for carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) projects and raises the credit from $10 to $35 per ton used for enhanced oil recovery. This certainly raises the prospects for further investment in an expensive and nascent technology.
The Petra Nova system has been operating since January 2017 on the retrofitted coal-fired Unit #8 at W.A. Parish Generating Station southwest of Houston, Texas. The 610 MW unit produces about 25% of the plant’s total output and CO2 emissions. A portion of the emissions, equivalent to that of a 240 MW unit, are routed to the carbon capture system that cools the gas, binds the CO2 with a solvent, vents the remaining nitrogen gas, and then reheats the mixture to break the CO2 bonds. The CO2 is cooled and compressed to a supercritical liquid that then enters an 81-mile pipeline to the West Ranch Oil Field where it is pumped 5,000 feet underground into the Frio Formation and combines with the oil, lowering its density. Extracted oil is processed through a CO2 separator that returns the gas back to the formation. An industry rule of thumb estimates an extra two barrels of oil is extracted for every ton of CO2 injected, which has so far increased production from 300 barrels to more than 4,000 barrels per day and may reach as high as 15,000.
[…]
ScottMadden, Inc.
If carbon emissions truly were an existential threat, almost as severe as the economic threat of the Green New Deal Cultural Revolution, then we need to find a way to economically capture and sequester the maximum volume of carbon dioxide. And there is only one way to do this. Capture carbon emissions from coal and natural gas fired power plants and use it for enhanced recovery projects in old oil fields.
OCTOBER 31, 2017
Petra Nova is one of two carbon capture and sequestration power plants in the world
The Petra Nova facility, a coal-fired power plant located near Houston, Texas, is one of only two operating power plants with carbon capture and storage (CCS) in the world, and it is the only such facility in the United States. The 110 megawatt (MW) Boundary Dam plant in Saskatchewan, Canada, near the border with North Dakota, is the other electric utility facility using a CCS system.[…]
Petra Nova’s post-combustion CO2 capture system began operations in January 2017. The 240-megawatt (MW) carbon capture system that was added to Unit 8 (654 MW capacity) of the existing W.A. Parish pulverized coal-fired generating plant receives about 37% of Unit 8’s emissions, which are diverted through a flue gas slipstream. Petra Nova’s carbon-capture system is designed to capture about 90% of the carbon dioxide ( CO2) emitted from the flue gas slipstream, or about 33% of the total emissions from Unit 8. The post-combustion process is energy intensive and requires a dedicated natural gas unit to accommodate the energy requirements of the carbon-capture process.
The carbon dioxide captured by Petra Nova’s system is then used in enhanced oil recovery at nearby oil fields. Enhanced oil recovery involves injecting water, chemicals, or gases (such as carbon dioxide) into oil reservoirs to increase the ability of oil to flow to a well.
By comparison, Kemper had been designed to capture about 65% of the plant’s CO2 using a pre-combustion system. The capital costs associated with the Kemper project were initially estimated at $2.4 billion, or about $4,100 per kilowatt (kW), but cost overruns led to construction costs in excess of $7.5 billion (nearly $13,000/kW). Petra Nova CCS retrofit costs were reported to be $1 billion, or $4,200/kW, and the project was completed on budget and on time.
Principal contributor: Kenneth Dubin
US EIA
When the capital costs of the Kemper facility became untenable, it was replaced with natural gas-fired units. Had it been an offshore wind farm, it would have just been more heavily subsidized.
PetraNova “has so far increased production from 300 barrels to more than 4,000 barrels per day” in the West Ranch Oil Field “and may reach as high as 15,000” bbl/d. There’s at least one other similar project in the pipeline.
About a year after Petra Nova went into service, I downloaded some of the Texas Railroad Commission production data for one of the producing units in the West Ranch Oil Field.
The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that 85 billion barrels of oil could be recovered from old oil fields through CO2 EOR. While, for most fields, CO2 EOR is uneconomic with oil prices below $85/bbl, if a drastic reduction of CO2 was really a matter of urgency, a little bit of taxpayer money spent on subsidizing carbon capture storage and utilization (CCSU) would have a much greater impact on carbon emissions than all of the taxpayers’ money p!$$ed away on wind and solar boondoggles.
Regarding the future of crushing…
IEEFA August 23, 2019
Eastern U.S. states have plans for 19.3GW of offshore wind capacityStates along the U.S. East Coast are seeking to procure more than 19,300 MW of offshore wind capacity through 2035, according to an analysis from S&P Global Market Intelligence and S&P Global Platts.
Legislation, regulation and, now, approved power purchase agreements are encouraging the development of the new capacity, though only 30 MW of offshore wind resources are operating in the U.S. Grid operators may have to modify their procedures to accommodate the additional resources.
[…]
IEEFA
Assuming that the Petra Nova/West Ranch project reaches its planned goal of 16,000 bbl/d of enhanced crude oil production and assuming all 19.3 GW of offshore wind capacity are actually built and deliver a 40% capacity factor…
- 16,000 bbl/d = 92,800 mmBtu/d
- 19.3 GW @40% = 632,202 mmBtu/d
If all of the legislatively planned projects were built delivered a 40% capacity factor, all of the offshore wind power in the US would yield 7 times the energy as the only currently operating CCSU project in the US. Kind of difficult to view that as “crushing” anything. Particularly since about 350,000 bbl/d of current US oil production is from CO2 EOR. Most of the CO2 is from natural reservoirs. If that was converted to coal fired CCS power plant sources, the math would be a bit different.
- 350,000 bbl/d = 2,030,000 mmBtu/d
- 19.3 GW @40% = 632,202 mmBtu/d
“If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all get unicorn ponies for Christmas.” Ifs and buts can cut either way.
However, this is the current reality:
- 16,000 bbl/d = 92,800 mmBtu/d
- 30 MW @39% = 924 mmBtu/d
Can you say “crushing”?
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David Middleton
“About a year Petra Nova it went into service,” ??? huh ?
Carbon capture is simply not economically viable.
It matters not what is the capacity factor, as long as a generator saves money. That’s what wind farms are good at.
Gas, being a fossil fuel also needs to go, but is enjoying demand in some countries, but it remains expensive form of heat compared to heat pumps for hot water & space heating applications.
Offshore wind is the most expensive electricity generating source on the planet. Natural gas is the least expensive.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/07/18/a-funny-thing-happened-on-the-way-to-renewables-crushing-natural-gas/
Yes even if wind and solar were cheaper, comparing them to anything that can run 24/7/ 300 plus days a year make both wind and solar uneconomical since then need to be a back system in place so when the wind does blow and the sun does not shine, one has power. Figure in the cost of install backup of wind and solar and you have a power provider that cannot pay for it self to begin with, let alone its backup. Lastly add in it looks like if you contribute the last fifty years of warming 100% to CO2 you get a sensitivity of CO2 doubling of less that 2 C per doubling making the so called climate emergency a moot point, a non existent problem. So why do we bother with wind a fifteenth century technology that was discarded early in the twenty century, ass in a solar cell that can hardly return the energy it took to make them. Well as Ron White puts id “you can’t fix stupid!”
Do you have figures that include battery/storage/peaking backup for the solar and wind? I wonder if it would double the cost.
Battery storage all by itself generally doubles the cost.
I find many of these discussions like an argument over which leg bone is the most important for walking to the store. You need them all, see?
It also doesn’t matter which one costs the least _on average_. When you’re freezing in the dark you will pay almost anything not to be. Unless the cheap storage batteries I’ve been hearing about since the September, 1975 issue of Popular Science are *finally* ready, daytime solar + occasional wind + 1.5 degrees of warming won’t keep Albertans warm in January.
We bought solar PV for our house because we don’t want to be relying *solely* on natural gas for heat and power, especially once the planned LNG terminals let the big guys move it out fast and cheap for China and the local utilities run the home heating price jackscrew up to $13 / GJ for us locals. Again.
Ian,
wind generation is not good at supplying grids. Apart from intermitency it has various technical drawbacks, it is asynchronous so cannot support frequency under fault conditions. Often referred to as inertia, which large steam turbo alternators have and wind turbines do not. Similarly, short circuit levels drop as wind’s proportion of the load increases making the system protection devices less effective. Wind’s output is extremely variable as the output is a cube law to wind speed. This makes the work of the balancing generating stations much harder and increases their CO2 emissions. (Imagine driving your car at steady speed versus on and off the throttle.)
Heat pumps are not a great source of domestic heating and hot water as the output drops as ambient outside temperature drops, the exact opposite of what is needed. This is, generally, as few properties, in the U.K. at least, have sufficient land for ground source heat pumps so the less efficient air source is the usual choice. That efficiency gain is lost as the fuel cost is about three times the cost of using the more effective domestic gas boiler system.
David love your articles. Not withstanding the increased oil recovery a 81 mile pipeline and the equipment for the entire process is rather costly. Could you provide install cost, ROI and operating statistics that would support your economics.
PS When is my XOM stock going to rebound to $79/share price?
PSS Can you stifle your marketing types to eliminate the virtual signaling of pond scum and CO2 commercials.
I don’t have all of the economic details. That would be NRG and Hilcorp proprietary information. The total cost has been about $1 billion. NRG says the project is economic at or above $50/bbl.
Oil industry stocks won’t fully recover until the market fully gets over the 2014-16 crash. The shale players also weigh the market down. They have largely dulled geopolitical risk perceptions.
That’s Big Oil… I work in Little to Medium Oil. We don’t have TV commercials. That said, the word “sustainable” appears in just about every investor presentation we have. That’s what the market expects.
How do the economics and efficiency of the Dakota Gasification Company’s lignite operation (pure oxygen coal gasification with full CO2 capture) compare to that of the Boundary Dam and other addon projects? (partial amine CO2 capture post combustion.)
It seems simpler and more reliable to distill the oxygen first, rather than attempting to adsorb the CO2 last.
And there’s the added value of the other air components, etc but maybe the gases market is too small in Alberta? (And certainly the methane market isn’t very
exciting)
I haven’t looked at those in detail. The gasification technology is very promising, but it’s really only for new generating units. With existing units, only post combustion is practical.
Dakota’s been supplying CNRL for ages, reliably. Boundary Dam breached their contract due to technical issues and breakdowns, but last I heard CNRL is still taking some CO2 and the plant is still working.
It would seem the pure oxygen combustion tech is better, but maybe the amine or other adsorb systems will become more practical with development.
More EOR would really perk up the non-oilsands production in Alberta.
The attractive part of the Petra Nova operation is that the pipeline was already there but not currently used.
Hilcorp and NRG constructed the pipeline specifically for the Petra Nova project…
https://www.nrg.com/case-studies/petra-nova.html
It does not make a huge difference(~15%) but your Block Island numbers are slightly cherry picked.
Dec 2016 was a partial month. 2017 CF 40.64%, 2018 CF 45.8%. IF I did my math right!
This does NOT make a huge difference but is an easy nit pick to degrade your efforts.
T2M
Data:
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/plant/58035/?freq=M&pin=
My spreadsheet not really worth much:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/9v7yn7mb0x3c90f/Block_Island_Wind_Farm_post.xlsx/file
I did the math when Block Island was a year old. I didn’t re-do it for this post. At a 100% capacity factor, it would still get crushed by Petra Nova/West Ranch Oil Field.
Why are we looking at offshore wind? That is the most expensive source according to the eia.
Offshore wind: 106.5 $/MWh
Onshore wind: 36.6 $/MWh
Table 1a. Estimated levelized cost of electricity (capacity-weighted average1) for new generation resources entering service in 2023 (2018 $/MWh)
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf
page 7
Because in the heavily populated Eastern US nobody wants a giant turbine in their backyard.
Off shore installations on the US east coast are being proposed then for 3 reasons,
1) that’s where the wind is steady and more reliable.
2) the continental shelf edge is 30-50 miles out from the shoreline so that turbines can be placed far enough out not to mar “chamber of commerce” views.
3) the marine bird fratrocide may be reduced, or at least out of sight.
That distance though greatly extends the underwater power transmission cable lengths, increases exposure to storm strength, and increases logistics costs to send crews on boats to the wind farm field.
New England and Mid-Atlantic Democrats are particularly stupid… One of the main reasons I moved from Connecticut to Texas in 1981. However, the offshore wind resource is superior to the onshore resource in that part of the country.
Superior in every way except cost/price. Which in the real world makes it inferior.
So you think that using carbon capture is better for reducing carbon than not burning carbon?
It’s better for reducing carbon emissions while still producing affordable, reliable energy.
David M – Thanks for yet another interesting article. The argument in favour of using CO2 to produce more cheap energy, instead of it being just a cost, is compelling. Now I know that predicting anything is dodgy, but I suspect that if this process gets underway and if it works then the greens will oppose it, even though it does everything they said they wanted. My reason is that the greens said they wanted it because they thought it could never work (or rather, never be economic). As soon as it is shown to work (and/or be economic) they will find a way to oppose it. IOW the greens were never about global warming or CO2 reduction; those were just a means to an end – bringing down the western democracies.
I had often wondered why development of CO2 capture capability was so difficult, and just assumed that it reduced the net electric power production to the point where it was no longer economically competitive with, say, nuclear. After all, amine towers have been used for decades to clean up sour gas, and are really good at it. Pipeline transmission of gas wouldn’t be possible otherwise. In my abortive attempt to turn California green waste into methane, back in the 1999-2000 time frame, I learned a lot about the technology, and even did some independent experimental development. Glad to see that it actually works out, and thanks for another wonderfully informative article Mr. Middleton!
Most recent UK offshore wind costs: ‘The average winning price was about $51 per MWh’
https://www.enr.com/articles/47838-uk-plans-bigger-projects-as-worlds-largest-offshore-wind-farm-finishes
That does not include the cost of curtailment, which is near 200/MWh for power NOT produced. Hornsea, for instance, received 100k pounds, the day AFTER crashing the grid.
The old business model included ROC and other subsidies. The new model uses Curtailment costs. Quite clever, as the more wind in the grid, the more the time they will be curtailed.
Doubly clever, as the curtailment cost is not included in the Bid Evaluation. So jacking it up to 4 times wholesale, does not affect the chances of winning the bids.
Also not well known, is that the UK pays the 4th LOWEST bid, to the 4 lowest bidders. What is bid, is not what is paid.
That does not include the cost of curtailment, which is near 200/MWh for power NOT produced. Hornsea, for instance, received 100k pounds, the day AFTER crashing the grid.
The old business model included ROC and other subsidies. The new model uses Curtailment costs. Quite clever, as the more wind in the grid, the more the time they will be curtailed.
Doubly clever, as the curtailment cost is not included in the Bid Evaluation. So jacking it up to 4 times wholesale, does not affect the chances of winning the bids.
Also not well known, is that the UK pays the 4th LOWEST bid, to the 4 lowest bidders. What is bid, is not what is paid.
Enhanced oil recovery using CO2 is not carbon capture, It’s enhanced oil recovery. Carbon capture for sequestration is not economic, it’s a cost in money and energy, worse than wind and solar.
For every molecule of carbon dioxide buried, there is one atom of carbon but two atoms of oxygen … and humans and animals breathe oxygen. How smart is that ?
Calcium carbonate, or any of the common carbonates found in limestone, etc. are represented by the chemical formula CaCO₃. That’s three atoms of oxygen buried with carbon.
What’s your point,On the outer Barcoo?
And animal life ‘breathes’ the oxygen to ‘burn’ hydrocarbon compounds (sugars) thereby creating that very same molecule.
That is the purpose of oxygen in the aerobic respiration cycle.
Humans don’t breathe oxygen or carbon dioxide. We breathe air, which is usually only about 20% oxygen. Our lungs deliver the oxygen to our blood. Our lungs can’t extract oxygen from CO2, H2O or any other oxygen compound.
The CO2 in automobile exhaust already took 25 oxygen atoms out of the air for every 2 molecules of octane oxidized.
2[C8H18] + 25[O2] → 16[CO2] + 18[H2O]
While the various methods of estimating Phanerozoic atmospheric O2 yield somewhat different results (Berner 1999, 2006, 2009), they generally depict a rapid rise from about 15% to 25-30% during the Carboniferous, an Early Permian peak of 30-35%, about 25% from the Triassic through mid-Cretaceous, punctuated by drops to 15-20% associated with anoxic events.
The atmospheric oxygen level has been slowly declining over time. O2/N2 ratios from Greenland and Antarctic ice cores indicate that atmospheric oxygen has declined by 0.7% over the past 800,000 years (Stolper et al., 2018).
Decline in atmospheric oxygen over past 800,000 years (Stolper et al., 2018).
The modern decline in atmospheric oxygen is also reflected in recent instrumental records.
While the atmosphere is still well-within the “fire window,” the trend in atmospheric oxygen content has been steadily moving in the opposite direction of increased fire risk since the Late Cretaceous.
Wind energy fails because of intermittency and diffusivity.
Wind energy is uneconomic nonsense.
CO2 capture fails because atmospheric CO2 is not too high, it is too low. Increased atmospheric CO2 causes improved plant and crop yields and may cause minor, beneficial global warming.
In the longer term, all terrestrial life on Earth will cease because of CO2 starvation.
CO2 capture is scientific and economic nonsense.
Enhanced Oil Recovery using CO2 injection into oil reservoirs makes sense when the economics work. It’s been done at Weyburn Saskatchewan, Texas and elsewhere for decades.
This is a new large CO2 project:
https://www.arcenergyinstitute.com/alberta-is-starting-up-the-worlds-largest-co2-pipeline/
When you source the CO2 from anthropogenic sources, as with Petra Nova, it’s both EOR and CCSU.
“If carbon emissions truly were an existential threat”….they would be blaming China and the developing world
…and not us
Most important point.
Latitude.
Latitude, don’t blame China and the developing world for producing energy intensive products like steel for pipelines and turbine towers that the West requires. Just because we’re too stupid to capture the economic gain and protect the jobs and tax base that the manufacturing provides doesn’t make the developing nations “bad guys”.
don’
I’m not blaming China, etc at all…
…I’m blaming the people pushing this $c@m that “we” are causing it…and “we” are responsible…and “we” have to do something about it
Per capita CO2 emissions by US in 2017 was 15.9 tonnes, in China 8.4. As Dennis notes above, products from some of China’s emissions are exported, for what that’s worth. For what any of it’s worth in relation to climate for that matter.
I wouldn’t expect those with lower emissions per capita to accept a lower standard of living than those with higher emissions while making similar huge capital investments in expensive renewables. Hence the failure of Paris.
Per Capita is a poor comparison. 1.2 billion people, most of whom are poor peasants with little to no carbon footprint but they get counted in the per capita numbers. This greatly skews the numbers in China’s favor. Just for fun, if 1/3 China’s population is mainly responsible for their carbon foot print, not an unreasonable assumption from some of the reading I’ve done but certainly not a studied number. That population would be larger than the entire US population and inflate their per capita carbon emission to ~24 tonnes. Now how does that sound?
The fact is China spews out more pollution and carbon than any other country in the world and their numbers are growing. That’s why the Paris accord is a failure. A country like China is making a lot of money of the west’s climate guilt that causes them to offshore their emissions for virtue signaling.
Thanks David for your insightful exploratory / comparative reviews.
Re “While, for most fields, CO2 EOR is uneconomic with oil prices below $85/bbl”
I find 2019 Vanessa Núñez-López and Emily Moskal Potential of CO2-EOR for Near-Term Decarbonization
Any other suggestions on references to dive into that particular $85/bbl value for CO2-EOR breakeven?
Thanks David
Interesting analysis. But, it didn’t have much on the actual economics.
My $85/bbl number was a SWAG and not necessarily a breakeven price. Companies don’t set out to break even. NRG says that the Petra Nova/West Ranch project is economic at >$50/bbl. West Ranch is a big oil field. The W.A. Parrish Generating Station has some very large coal-fired generating units. And they were only about 80 miles apart. This was an ideal candidate for CCUS. Most other candidates would probably require higher oil prices to be attractive. A sustained oil price above $85/bbl would probably get more projects like this off the ground.
Apart from Petra Nova, most of the existing CO2 EOR operations source the CO2 from natural subsurface reservoirs. This is considerably less expensive than post combustion capture from power plants. The proposed CCUS project in New Mexico, would deliver the CO2 to the nearby Cortez pipeline, which supplies the Permian Basin with CO2 from McElmo Dome in SW Colorado.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/08/23/farmington-nm-fights-to-save-coal-fired-power-plant-and-mine/
https://www.kindermorgan.com/pages/business/co2/supply/supply_mcelmo.aspx
Before the Block Island wind farm turbines were installed, the island generated electricity with diesel, all of which had to be transported from the mainland 14 miles away. IIRC the cost was around 50 cents per Khr. I’ve yet to see a comparison of costs before and after.
Block Island wind farm construction was/is heavily subsidized in tax credits in both construction and production.
When you are using OPM it is easy to make confusing, misleading comparisons if you ignore where the OPM originated.
CCS is also heavily subsidized with OPM of a different flavor, making comparisons even more fraught with opportunity to mislead/manipulate comparisons.
Good comments Joel.
It is fair to state that grid-connected wind and solar power generation are heavily subsidized uneconomic nonsense, due to fatal flaws of intermittency and diffusivity.
CCS is similar uneconomic nonsense, unless it is used for economic EOR projects – without subsidies.
The reality is that atmospheric CO2 is not too high – in fact, increased atmospheric CO2 is hugely beneficial for humanity and the environment, since it will cause major increases in plant and crop yields, reduced desertification and possibly some minor, beneficial global warming.
Furthermore, atmospheric CO2 is not too high, it is dangerously low for the long-term survival of terrestrial life on Earth, which will probably cease due to CO2 starvation.
Regards, Allan
References:
“(Plant) Food for Thought”
by Allan MacRae, 2009 and 2014
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/co2-temperatures-and-ice-ages/#comment-70691
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/new-and-cool/plant_food_for_thought2/
“Should We Celebrate Carbon Dioxide?”
by Patrick Moore, October 15, 2015
https://www.thegwpf.org/patrick-moore-should-we-celebrate-carbon-dioxide/
Ouput?
The Long Island power company brags on the radio about their “innovation” relying on offshore wind. They apparently have no idea how stupid this makes them look. Empty virtue-signaling to the ignoranti.
From the article: “States along the U.S. East Coast are seeking to procure more than 19,300 MW of offshore wind capacity through 2035, according to an analysis from S&P Global Market Intelligence and S&P Global Platts.”
What a horrible thought-picture this creates! Blighting the world with windmills for no good reason! There is no evidence that humans need to restrict their CO2 production and windmills are not the way to do it even if it was necessary.
The Fishing Industry is not happy about the prospect of these off-shore windmills which will disrupt their fishing businesses.
It is very problematic being governed by Fools and Dupes. Windmills are one of the worst ideas in the world, yet we have fools and dupes who are eager to implement these travesties of nature.
Maybe the fishermen can raise enough hell to get them cancelled.
Tom Abbott: “Windmills are one of the worst ideas in the world, “
In the 1600s and for a while thereafter, they were pretty high tech for the times and were a great idea. Ask the Dutch :o)
But now? I can only quibble as windmills are still pretty useful for filling remote stock tanks and a few other specific local uses. Oh, and I have a small one in my garden with 6″ blades that scares off the deer and birds. It generates fear. That one turned out to be a great idea ;o)
Maybe offshore wind turbines could disropt the warm, moist layer of air that hurricanes feed on. Or start hurricanes…
Nice article, but I do not find it pictures the full reality:
You cannot compare kWh prices from wind with kWh prices from coal and NG power plants, because wind is only helping to reduce a varying amount of coal and NG at times.
You would have to subtract some part of the saved coal and gas from the total budget of wind over a time span of about 15 years. It is a very complicated calculation that is far beyond my capabilities and resources, but it is a calculation that needs to be done and presented to the public and to be peer-reviewed. When you know the real world cost, then you can dwell over whether you think it is viable or not.
It’s not even possible to directly compare oil and wind power. I don’t think there is a way to convey the “full reality.”
Electricity demands in the short term are inelastic. People and businesses are going to run what they need when they need it. As long as regulators allow grid/operators to fully pass thru the costs of these Rube Goldberg (RG)schemes to the customers, the operators don’t care because they still make money.
And for the promoters of the RG schemes (the GreenSlime billionaires), they buy politicians to block competition that would bring lower cost entrants (generation) to the market. Hence guys like Cuomo block natural gas projects that could deliver lower energy costs and higher reliability to customers because it is in his political interest to do so. And because the voters are even more ignorant than the politicians, both of whom have been drinking the liberal koolaide so long they can’t tell Red from green, their pockets are being steadily picked and their economic futures decimated.
It’s not that demand is inelastic, it’s that tge signalling mechanism is weak to nonexistant.
If meters could communicate, customers could set limits that they would be willing to pay for power to run an appliance, then prices could not spike because demand would fall off and switch to backup.
That’s called the “Smart Grid”, AKA Big Brother’s Remote Off Switch.
Enhanced oil recovery using CO2 injection has been around for decades, and does not really reduce CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, since the recovered oil is likely to be refined and burned, producing more CO2.
CO2 has been favored for enhanced oil recovery because it can be fairly easily separated from recovered oil and natural gas (methane), and is not toxic if some escapes to the atmosphere.
Recovery of CO2 from a flue gas stream is not very difficult, because the alkaline amine solvents typically used for removal of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) from desulfurization plants also react with CO2. Amine solvents which absorb H2S and CO2 (and allow nitrogen and oxygen to pass into the atmosphere) at high pressures and low temperatures can then be regenerated at high temperature and low pressure to release a concentrated CO2 gas stream, while the regenerated amine solvent is cooled and pumped to the absorber.
Carbon dioxide used for either enhanced oil recovery or sequestration must be compressed. For enhanced oil recovery, the required pressure is slightly higher than the underground pressure of the oil to be recovered, but the cost of compression can be recovered by selling the recovered oil.
Sequestration, or simple burial, of CO2 is much more costly, since there is no revenue to offset the cost of compression. In order to prevent the CO2 from occupying too much volume, CO2 must be compressed above its critical pressure of about 1100 psi (about 75 times atmospheric pressure). The critical temperature of CO2 (above which it cannot be liquefied) is about 82 F, and unless the pressure exceeds the critical pressure, buried CO2 could expand violently if it is heated (by geothermal heat) above the critical temperature, essentially causing man-made earthquakes.
Engineering studies of CO2 sequestration have shown that if it is attempted for a coal-fired power plant, the energy consumed by compression of CO2 is more than 30% of the power produced, meaning that a plant with sequestration will consume 43% more coal for the same net power output as a plant without sequestration–in other words, a tremendous waste of coal for little benefit. For a natural-gas-fired power plant, the energy consumed by CO2 compression is about 18 to 20% of the power generated. This is why most CO2 sequestration projects have been abandoned as too costly.
Petra Nova powers the CO2 separation and compression with a natural gas-fired generator. NRG paid for the Petra Nova system, including the pipeline, in exchange for a working interest in the West Ranch Oil Field. The economics are challenging, but not insurmountable.
Regarding the net emissions, the same volume of oil would be consumed without CO2 EOR. We would just be importing 350,000 bbl/d instead of producing it here.
Regarding CCS without utilization, it only makes sense if the government requires it.
Capturing carbon creates famine!
EOR should NOT be subsidized. There is no benefit whatsoever to doing it, other than for the oil and gas companies. If that makes it uneconomic, then tough noogies.
Nothing should be subsidized. But the real world doesn’t work that way.
The 45Q tax credit “pays” oil companies $35/ton to sequester CO2 in EOR operations. It “pays” $50/ton for companies to CO2 for no beneficial purpose.
“Nothing should be subsidized.” That’s being disingenuous. Some things, if there is an actual societal benefit to them probably deserve to be subsidized. I get that they are simply taking advantage of an existing tax benefit, however that makes does make them complicit in the Greenie fraud. Plus, they will fight to keep that benefit, even though it is based on fraud.
In a “should be” world, we would have a laissez-faire economy. In the real world, our government has decided that the benefits of CO2 sequestration justify subsidizing it. We should be thankful that there still isn’t a working majority that thinks benefits of a carbon tax outweigh the costs.
In a logical “real world” CO2 sequestration for EOR would be more heavily subsidized than just burying it. If you tax something, you get less of it. If you subsidize something, you get more of it. If the government was logical, it would subsidize things that work and tax things that don’t. However, in the actual “real world” our government does this…
It’s not totally based on fraud. While there’s no urgency to reducing CO2; but it is a smart long-term goal. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, we are causing the atmospheric concentration to rise, it has caused some of the warming since 1978, it will cause some additional warming and if the concentration gets above 1,000 ppm, it might have some unpredictable affects on marine geochemistry.
https://www.thegwpf.com/putting-climate-change-claims-to-the-test/
1.1 +/-0.26 °C is nowhere close to a climate “crisis,” but it’s more than zero-point-zero.
Wha? Now you are grasping at straws. Hang it up, Dave. You’ve lost this one. Usually, though, I like what you have to say.
Abject nonsense.
At the RoT of two bbl/tonCO2, then the subsidy is $17.50/bbl of EOR oil.
Hides the cost of the oil and distorts the market against frackers.
The price of oil would be the same with or without the 45Q tax credit.
CO2 EOR probably costs $30-$40/bbl. Royalty payments to the mineral owner are currently in the $6-9 range (1/8-1/6 royalty at $53/bbl). Those costs don’t go away. The tax credit is applied to the taxes the company pays on their net earnings. At the higher cost range, they aren’t likely to have much in the way of net earnings or taxes. However, the tax credit is transferable. So it can be used to obtain financing for projects, like solar power plant operators do.
Regarding the “shale” players, it really doesn’t make much of a dent. While the tax credit probably played some role in the growth of CO2 EOR production from 250,000 to 350,000 bbl/d, that’s a drop in the bucket compared to tight oil production (6.5 million bbl/d).
David,
You might want to clarify that m means thousand in oil field units and mm stands for a million.
I thought I did explain mcf. If I didn’t, I will.
I did explain it…
Carbon capture is not going anywhere for power plants. Seems to still be some interest in cement, chemicals…
But offshore wind: getting cheaper, masses of it being rolled out. Another 7GW bloc up for bidding just this last month in the UK
Well of course there’s interest in Cement and Chemicals.
Cement is the universal building substance utilized in everything from Renewable Hydroelectric Dams to Wind Turbine foundations to solar panel foundations.
And Petrochemicals are necessary for everything from plastic parts in the wind turbine Nacelles to wire insulation in Solar PV panels.
Getting cheaper. Maybe.
Still dozens of times more expensive though. Especially when you factor in the cost of alternative sources for when the wind isn’t blowing.
What were the respective levels of public support required for the respective projects?
Petra Nova was supported by the Department of Energy…
https://www.energy.gov/fe/petra-nova-wa-parish-project
The total project cost was about $1 billion.
The Block Island Wind Farm benefits from the Production Tax Credit and gouging electricity customers…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-nations-first-offshore-wind-farm-is-ready-to-go-despite-critics-blow-back/2016/08/27/7a43c6d6-693f-11e6-99bf-f0cf3a6449a6_story.html?noredirect=on
The total project cost was about $240 million.
Thanks.
Tina started with “Fossil fuel stakeholders are leaning on carbon capture …”
“leaning on” must be a technical term learned in philosophy class, of which I don’t remember much.
Note the phrase: “Unclear If It Can Be Replicated …”
And David wrote:
” if a drastic reduction of CO2 was really a matter of urgency, a little bit of taxpayer money spent on subsidizing carbon capture storage ”
So it seems the Carbon-based fuel folks know how, and know the costs. Just waiting for seriousness on the part of the climate activists.
Not that I think CO2 is in need of capture but some advice for Tina’s next article:
Produce an estimate of the subsidy needed for off shore wind with storage/backup and transmission lines, enough to power the NY-metro region (21,000,000+ people) 24/7 for a year.
[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_metropolitan_area ]
Several questions will come up while producing the estimate. Tina should list the top 10, and answer them all.
A single typical Marcellus gas well yields 2.3 Block Islands worth of electricity-equivalent energy per day.
However, the wind electricity could not exist on the grid without the other generators, mostly gas fired, performing the peaking, filling in and balancing 24/7/365, in the event wind is insufficient.
Sometimes there is very little wind 5 to 7 days in a row. in New England.
Those lulls can happen any time of the year, and are particularly stressful during colder days in winter.
That crippled wind electricity is sold at 9 c/kWh, wholesale, whereas the gas turbine electricity is NOT VARIABLE, AND NOT INTERMITTENT, AND IS NOT A CRIPPLE, and costs about 5 c/kWh, wholesale.
Maine, Mass, etc., going for wind is an economic disaster in the making.
Maine, Mass, etc., should concentrate on ENERGY EFFICIENCY OF BUILDINGS AND VEHICLES
David,
One small point. The Kemper County combined cycle unit was built to use the syngas made from the local coal. It ran for quite some time on natural gas while they were trying to work out the kinks in the gasifier, which was ultimately abandoned. So the IGCC wasn’t “replaced with natural gas-fired units,” it was already there.
Thanks!
Good point.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/high-costs-and-errors-of-german-transition-to-renewable-energy-a-920288.html
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-26/sometimes-a-greener-grid-means-a-40-000-spike-in-power-prices
So successful carbon capture = greater fossil fuel extraction. Ironic.
I live for irony.
How did Block Island Wind Farm do in July? I believe that is the least windy month of the year for that area. How many days did it produce nothing, and more important, how many consecutive days did it produce nothing. The most important statistic for wind farms isn’t what their capacity is or what their average production is, it’s how long does it produce nothing and what generator(s) was started up to fill in the gap and what is the cost of that generator to build, maintain and occasionally run? Block Island could have a 1,000 MW wind farm at sea or ashore, but when the wind doesn’t blow or blows too hard, both the current 30 MW farm and the hypothetical 1,000 MW farm will produce the same amount of electricity.