Energy Storage Replace Gas Plants

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

Southern California Edison Contracts Mammoth 770MW Energy Storage Portfolio to Replace California Gas Plants

One of the world’s largest single battery storage procurements will race to meet an August 2021 deadline.

JEFF ST. JOHN MAY 01, 2020

NextEra will add two 115-megawatt battery systems to its Blythe Solar Center as part of SCE's massive storage procurement. (Credit: NextEraEnergy Resources)

Southern California Edison has signed seven contracts for a combined 770 megawatts of battery energy storage projects, one of the biggest single procurements of its kind. The utility also wants to turn them on by August 2021, which would be a record-fast turnaround for projects of that magnitude.  

The seven projects, which still need approval from the California Public Utilities Commission, will help meet a fall CPUC order for 3.3 gigawatts of carbon-free resources to help meet the state’s grid reliability needs. Half of that solicitation is due online by August 2021, and SCE must deliver the largest share among the state’s utilities and community choice aggregators (CCAs). 

Most of the winning projects will be co-located with existing solar farms that will charge the batteries, making them useful for integrating and smoothing the intermittency of the state’s growing share of renewable generation, as well as providing resource adequacy (RA) for times of peak demand in the late afternoons and evenings. That’s needed to replace grid capacity provided by four natural gas-fired power plants on the Southern California coast that use seawater for cooling, and have been ordered to close as soon as possible to reduce their environmental impact. 

SCE's single 770-megawatt procurement "tops the entire 2019 US storage market by more than 200 megawatts," said Daniel Finn-Foley, head of energy storage for Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables. The consultancy expects the U.S. storage market to grow by more than 7 times from 2019 to 2021.

"The storage market is approaching a deployment acceleration over the next two years that will be unprecedented in recent U.S. electricity history," Finn-Foley said. 

NextEra Energy Resources will build three of the SCE projects, which are also the largest of the seven selected by the utility. Those include a 230 megawatt/920 megawatt-hours project connected to NextEra’s 250-megawatt McCoy solar farm, and two projects of 115 megawatts/460 megawatt-hours apiece adjacent to NextEra’s two Blythe Solar Energy Center solar farms. All are located in Riverside County.  

The McCoy storage project is among the largest being developed by NextEra, just behind its 250-megawatt/1 gigawatt-hour system connected to its 250-megawatt Sonoran Energy Center in Arizona.  It’s also the second-largest being built in California, behind the 300-megawatt/1.2 gigawatt-hour Moss Landing project to be built by Vistra Energy for Pacific Gas & Electric. NextEra, North America’s leading wind and solar generator, has been seeking opportunities to add storage to its existing renewables fleet to take advantage of the falling battery costs. 

Southern Power, a subsidiary of U.S. utility Southern Company, will develop two projects in California’s Central Valley connected to solar farms owned by Canadian Solar subsidiary Recurrent Energy: the 88-megawat/352 megawatt-hour Garland project connected to a 200-megawatt solar farm in Kern County, and the 72 megawatt/288 megawatt-hour Tranquility project connected to a 200-megawatt solar farm in Fresno County. 

The final project is TerraGen Power’s 50-megawatt/200 megawatt-hour Sanborn project in the Mojave Desert. That project will be interconnected with a solar project now in development by Sanborn Solar, meant to provide 300 megawatts of solar generation and up to 3 gigawatt-hours of storage capacity. 

The sole project that won’t be interconnected with existing solar is LS Power’s 100-megawatt/400 megawatt-hour Gateway 1-2 battery system in San Diego County. LS Power has also developed the 40-megawatt Vista battery project in Southern California, and is developing plans for up to 250 megawatts of energy storage at the Gateway site.

The unprecedented projects are facing a tight deadline to line up financing, order batteries and other specialized equipment, complete construction and start providing capacity to the grid by SCE’s stated completion date of August 1, 2021. The California Energy Storage Association (CESA) and storage companies are asking the CPUC for permission to expedite the process for reviewing and approving the projects, warning they might fail to secure financing without it.

Massive battery farms are expected to become an increasingly central asset for California’s grid as the state pushes toward its goal of getting 100 percent of its energy from carbon-free resources by 2045. SCE’s “Pathway 2045” roadmap for hitting that goal envisions about $170 billion of investment in clean energy generation and energy storage by 2045, and up to $75 billion more for grid upgrades to accommodate the shift to electrifying power transportation, heating and other sectors now reliant on fossil fuels. 

Other large-scale projects announced in California in the past year include the 100-megawatt/400 megawatt-hour system being built by sPower for Clean Power Alliance, a community choice aggregator serving the greater Los Angeles area, and up to 300 megawatts/1.2 gigawatt-hours of storage being built alongside 400 megawatts of solar power being built by 8Minute Energy for municipal utility Los Angeles Department of Water & Power. 

Finn-Foley noted that these projects represent "a perfect lesson in the flexibility of energy storage’s value. PG&E’s Moss Landing procurement plans to use stand-alone storage to target a transmission-constrained area," while LADWP and SCE are both seeking storage to allow for the possibilty of closing the coastal natural gas plants, he said. 

Still, "the SCE procurement is unique so far in California — both massive in scale and scattered throughout four counties across SCE’s sprawling territory to target local system needs." 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

Dude who wrote this has no clue the difference between MW and MWh.  Why is every so called "journalist" an IDIOT of epic proportions?😂  Its like they are paid to be stupid. 

The Solar array by nameplate capacity when brand spanking new of all 7 projects is 770MW, CA has ~8GW

Battery capacity is.... well, let you add it up.  It would appear roughly ~4X the hourly output  of the new PV array.  ~3GWh total. 

TESLA makes all of 100GWh of battery capacity and it is ALL spoken for already so... 

CA load demand is ~50GW, Solar has 8GW already installed and ~15% of yearly load. 

Seems CA needs fewer PV panels and more energy storage to meet their ideals.  And this in a region blessed with 6+ hours of sun a day on average(sourthern Eastern CA anyways), the ones in central valley, up north get significantly less so..... Good luck

PS: California is to solar what Scotland/Ireland are to wind.  Geography blessed and no one else in the world is. Or very few can duplicate other than small regions such as N. Mexico, SW USA, Middle East/Sahara desert, Australia, Patagonia, S. Africa.  Not exactly mega cities, heavy industry dotting those areas of the world...   Oh right, forgot the industrial power house: Somalia...

Edited May 4, 2020 by footeab@yahoo.com
punctuation for proper sarcasm

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

7 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Dude who wrote this has no clue the difference between MW and MWh.  Why is every so called "journalist" an IDIOT of epic proportions?😂  Its like they are paid to be stupid. 

The Solar array by nameplate capacity when brand spanking new of all 7 projects is 770MW, CA has ~8GW

Battery capacity is.... well, let you add it up.  It would appear roughly ~4X the hourly output  of the new PV array.  ~3GWh total. 

TESLA makes all of 100GWh of battery capacity and it is ALL spoken for already so... 

CA load demand is ~50GW, Solar has 8GW already installed and ~15% of yearly load. 

Seems CA needs fewer PV panels and more energy storage to meet their ideals.  And this in a region blessed with 6+ hours of sun a day on average(sourthern Eastern CA anyways), the ones in central valley, up north get significantly less so..... Good luck

PS: California is to solar what Scotland/Ireland are to wind.  Geography blessed and no one else in the world is. Or very few can duplicate other than small regions such as N. Mexico, SW USA, Middle East/Sahara desert, Australia, Patagonia, S. Africa.  Not exactly mega cities, heavy industry dotting those areas of the world...   Oh right, forgot the industrial power house: Somalia...

Before you start calling people IDIOT you might want to pay a little more attention to what you are reading. The 770MW is the storage purchase not a new solar array. What does Tesla have to do with it? None of the new batteries are being purchased from them. The article does however mention the Moss Landing project in NorCal, not part of the 770MW, that is being built by Tesla. You say CA needs more storage, well I agree, that is what the whole article is about. We are adding a tremendous amount of new storage in the next couple years. 

Southern Power, a subsidiary of U.S. utility Southern Company, was awarded two projects, both coupled with PV plants owned by Canadian Solar’s Recurrent Energy.

• 88 MW/352 MWh Garland Project
• 72 MW/288 MWh Tranquility Project

NextEra was awarded:

• 115 MW/460 MWh Blythe 2
• 115 MW/460 MWh Blythe 3
• 230 MW/920 MWh  McCoy project connected to NextEra’s 250 MW McCoy solar farm

TerraGen was awarded the 50 MW/200 MWh Sanborn project and LS Power won a stand-alone 100 MW/400 MWh storage project.

Edited May 4, 2020 by Jay McKinsey

[NickW + 2,714]

27 minutes ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Before you start calling people IDIOT you might want to pay a little more attention to what you are reading. The 770MW is the storage purchase not a new solar array. What does Tesla have to do with it? None of the new batteries are being purchased from them. The article does however mention the Moss Landing project in NorCal, not part of the 770MW, that is being built by Tesla. You say CA needs more storage, well I agree, that is what the whole article is about. We are adding a tremendous amount of new storage in the next couple years. 

If 770MW is the  rated output the key question is for how long.

For example the UK's largest pump storage facility Dinorwic is rated at 1860MW (for 8 hours) 

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

3 minutes ago, NickW said:

If 770MW is the  rated output the key question is for how long.

For example the UK's largest pump storage facility Dinorwic is rated at 1860MW (for 8 hours) 

3,080 MWh

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

33 minutes ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Before you start calling people IDIOT you might want to pay a little more attention to what you are reading. The 770MW is the storage purchase not a new solar array.

Take your own advice, and learn how to read. 

Cheers. 

[NickW + 2,714]

3 minutes ago, Jay McKinsey said:

3,080 MWh

There is the answer for Footie. 770MW of rated capacity with 3080 MWh of storage or in other words 4 hours. 

[surrept33 + 609]

7 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

PS: California is to solar what Scotland/Ireland are to wind.  Geography blessed and no one else in the world is. Or very few can duplicate other than small regions such as N. Mexico, SW USA, Middle East/Sahara desert, Australia, Patagonia, S. Africa.  Not exactly mega cities, heavy industry dotting those areas of the world...   Oh right, forgot the industrial power house: Somalia...

California is blessed by the sun to be sure, but where it makes sense to use it is driven entirely by the learning curves of the entire solar/storage/grid improvement system.

So maybe the better question to ask is where on the earth will it likely never be usable in places that need a lot of energy?

That looks like Northern Europe, Southern China, etc.

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

4 minutes ago, surrept33 said:

California is blessed by the sun to be sure, but where it makes sense to use it is driven entirely by the learning curves of the entire solar/storage/grid improvement system.

So maybe the better question to ask is where on the earth will it likely never be usable in places that need a lot of energy?

That looks like Northern Europe, Southern China, etc.

Northern Europe has a lot of wind instead and solar power can be sourced from the south, particularly Africa. They also have great access to pumped storage suitable geography in Norway. China is installing its solar in the sunny western part of the country.

[NickW + 2,714]

4 minutes ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Northern Europe has a lot of wind instead and solar power can be sourced from the south, particularly Africa. They also have great access to pumped storage suitable geography in Norway. China is installing its solar in the sunny western part of the country.

That high altitude region of Tibet is going to be very good solar country. Less atmosphere, clean air and cool. Downside is going to be transporting it to the East. 

[NickW + 2,714]

28 minutes ago, surrept33 said:

California is blessed by the sun to be sure, but where it makes sense to use it is driven entirely by the learning curves of the entire solar/storage/grid improvement system.

So maybe the better question to ask is where on the earth will it likely never be usable in places that need a lot of energy?

That looks like Northern Europe, Southern China, etc.

Take a look at this and put 200 metre in. Northern Europe is awash with wind as jay says. - just look at the UK and Ireland. 

https://globalwindatlas.info/

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

How much cash per installed Megawatt hour? Earnings are calculated purely from the amount of recaptured value. I'm not familiar with the initial costs. 

[Gregory Purcell + 94]

The largest battery in the world has sat quietly in George Washington National Forest along the Virginia-West Virginia border for nearly 30 years. A five-hour drive from the nation’s capital, it sits in the middle of the Appalachians, tucked behind the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Very few people in the urban areas that benefit from its power know of its existence, let alone its purpose. Talk to people that live and work a few miles away in Warm Springs, Virginia, and some will have a vague awareness but will readily admit that they don’t spare a thought for how electricity gets to their outlets. Dan Gessler, who works for Dominion Power, the company that operates the facility, put it simply: “I think the vast majority of the public doesn’t even know it exists, it’s up here in the middle of nowhere out in the mountains.”

The Bath County Hydro Pumped Storage Facility is not really a battery in the common sense of the term, but it is the largest pumped storage facility in the world. It stores a lot of energy, which helps 60 million people in 13 states (and DC) served by the regional transmission organization, PJM Interconnection. Quite often when someone in that huge area comes home from work and turns on the lights or switches on the TV, some of those electrons flowing down the power lines are coming from two lakes on a mountain in rural Virginia.

When Sean Fridley, the facility’s Station Manager, looks at the Upper Reservoir perched a thousand feet above his office, he doesn’t see drops of water. He sees a thousands-of-megawatts-deep block of power, a huge amount of stored potential energy — with more output than the Hoover Dam — that he can turn on with a flick of a switch. .......

https://archive.thinkprogress.org/the-inside-story-of-the-worlds-biggest-battery-and-the-future-of-renewable-energy-8984e81283c/

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

1 hour ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

How much cash per installed Megawatt hour? Earnings are calculated purely from the amount of recaptured value. I'm not familiar with the initial costs. 

SCE is an investor owned utility and doesn't release financial terms. LA Water Power is the largest municipal utility in CA, here is a PPA they did last year for solar plus storage, though still doesn't answer your question:

Edited May 4, 2020 by Jay McKinsey

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

.

Edited May 4, 2020 by Jay McKinsey

[surrept33 + 609]

44 minutes ago, Gregory Purcell said:

The largest battery in the world has sat quietly in George Washington National Forest along the Virginia-West Virginia border for nearly 30 years. A five-hour drive from the nation’s capital, it sits in the middle of the Appalachians, tucked behind the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Very few people in the urban areas that benefit from its power know of its existence, let alone its purpose. Talk to people that live and work a few miles away in Warm Springs, Virginia, and some will have a vague awareness but will readily admit that they don’t spare a thought for how electricity gets to their outlets. Dan Gessler, who works for Dominion Power, the company that operates the facility, put it simply: “I think the vast majority of the public doesn’t even know it exists, it’s up here in the middle of nowhere out in the mountains.”

The Bath County Hydro Pumped Storage Facility is not really a battery in the common sense of the term, but it is the largest pumped storage facility in the world. It stores a lot of energy, which helps 60 million people in 13 states (and DC) served by the regional transmission organization, PJM Interconnection. Quite often when someone in that huge area comes home from work and turns on the lights or switches on the TV, some of those electrons flowing down the power lines are coming from two lakes on a mountain in rural Virginia.

When Sean Fridley, the facility’s Station Manager, looks at the Upper Reservoir perched a thousand feet above his office, he doesn’t see drops of water. He sees a thousands-of-megawatts-deep block of power, a huge amount of stored potential energy — with more output than the Hoover Dam — that he can turn on with a flick of a switch. .......

https://archive.thinkprogress.org/the-inside-story-of-the-worlds-biggest-battery-and-the-future-of-renewable-energy-8984e81283c/

Pumped Hydro is great (it makes up 96% of grid-scale storage at the moment): http://css.umich.edu/sites/default/files/US Grid Energy Storage_CSS15-17_e2019.pdf

There is also a potential to build out a lot more pumped hydro - most of the current pumped hydro capacity is very old.

Unfortunately, large new projects like this: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/los-angeles-considers-3b-pumped-storage-project-at-hoover-dam/528699/

tend to go through all sorts of permitting and environmental reviews before developers tend to give up.

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

2 hours ago, NickW said:

Take a look at this and put 200 metre in. Northern Europe is awash with wind as jay says. - just look at the UK and Ireland. 

https://globalwindatlas.info/

Yes, if anywhere in the world can make wind power work, it is N. Europe.  Shallow seas, Awesome wind quality, consistency.  Everyone else has other problems with either wind consistency, quality of the wind, ice, or all 3.  N. Europe only has to worry about ice, but with all those shallow seas... not really.  Sight with problems: Patagonia comes to mind.  Best wind in the world on paper, but often it is low or blowing Hurricane force with either rugged land features, deep seas, and the enjoyment of icing problems.  The other places like the plains of Asia or N. America have much larger seasonal variations than N. Europe.  I never studied Aussie or Africa so could be wrong about their wind, but I would be shocked if they did not also have great seasonal variability.  N. Europe is blessed with both the standard westerly winds due to earths rotation, but also has the gulf current creating extra wind out of the Caribbean over nice shallow seas for zero rugged terrain. 

I have often wondered about the Great Lakes, but the wind consistency from my brief look was just not there and rich NIMBY's own waterfront property...

*** Common man, you know 200m is BS.  Biggest baddest brand new turbine under development is 150m. 

[Gregory Purcell + 94]

17 minutes ago, surrept33 said:

permitting and environmental

Using Solar & Wind to refill the Hoover Basin would strain all down stream water levels,  I have a crazy idea, global warming means the dry areas become dryer  and the wet areas get wetter, hence we see less water in the Colorado river  and more frequent flooding on the Mississippi... so why not run a pipeline in between  to refill the upper basins of the Colorado River.

 

[NickW + 2,714]

27 minutes ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Yes, if anywhere in the world can make wind power work, it is N. Europe.  Shallow seas, Awesome wind quality, consistency.  Everyone else has other problems with either wind consistency, quality of the wind, ice, or all 3.  N. Europe only has to worry about ice, but with all those shallow seas... not really.  Sight with problems: Patagonia comes to mind.  Best wind in the world on paper, but often it is low or blowing Hurricane force with either rugged land features, deep seas, and the enjoyment of icing problems.  The other places like the plains of Asia or N. America have much larger seasonal variations than N. Europe.  I never studied Aussie or Africa so could be wrong about their wind, but I would be shocked if they did not also have great seasonal variability.  N. Europe is blessed with both the standard westerly winds due to earths rotation, but also has the gulf current creating extra wind out of the Caribbean over nice shallow seas for zero rugged terrain. 

I have often wondered about the Great Lakes, but the wind consistency from my brief look was just not there and rich NIMBY's own waterfront property...

*** Common man, you know 200m is BS.  Biggest baddest brand new turbine under development is 150m. 

200m is where offshore turbine hub height is heading and remember 50% of the swept area is always above hub height. 

In Oz Western Australia (up to Exmouth) and Victoria have superb wind resources. Main issue there is the cost of getting anything done. 

great lakes in USA look good and close to many big population centres

[NickW + 2,714]

26 minutes ago, Gregory Purcell said:

Using Solar & Wind to refill the Hoover Basin would strain all down stream water levels,  I have a crazy idea, global warming means the dry areas become dryer  and the wet areas get wetter, hence we see less water in the Colorado river  and more frequent flooding on the Mississippi... so why not run a pipeline in between  to refill the upper basins of the Colorado River.

 

Another potential outlet for the pipeline industry

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

1 hour ago, Jay McKinsey said:

SCE is an investor owned utility and doesn't release financial terms. LA Water Power is the largest municipal utility in CA, here is a PPA they did last year for solar plus storage, though still doesn't answer your question:

Would it be fair to assume that Tesla's power wall is an accurate representation of battery storage costs? 

 

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

33 minutes ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

Would it be fair to assume that Tesla's power wall is an accurate representation of battery storage costs? 

 

Yes, Tesla is using Megapack for the Moss Landing project https://electrek.co/2020/02/27/tesla-1gwh-megapack-battery-project-pge-approved/

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

2 hours ago, Gregory Purcell said:

Using Solar & Wind to refill the Hoover Basin would strain all down stream water levels,  I have a crazy idea, global warming means the dry areas become dryer  and the wet areas get wetter, hence we see less water in the Colorado river  and more frequent flooding on the Mississippi... so why not run a pipeline in between  to refill the upper basins of the Colorado River.

 

It sounds kind of gross but pumping partially treated sewage into the Hoover basin may make sense.

You get huge dilution effects -and natural decontamination- before it is used for drinking again.  It is already done in a few places.

However, using downstream freshwater isn't that bad as it is re-released to the stream when the pumped storage energy is needed.  There would, of course, be some water losses due to leakage and increased evaporation (as the water level rises in a natural reservoir more water surface area is exposed to the air).

We should put floating solar panels on the reservoir to cut down on evaporation.  Heck, put a fish farm underneath the floating panel too...

 

 

Edited May 4, 2020 by Enthalpic

[ricardo2000 + 1]

It says a lot for renewables and storage that this project due online in less than 2 years, considering it is a massive increase in capacity. The permitting process for a fossil fuel plant would be longer than this time frame.

Please google ' Lazard LCOE ' for an authoritative analysis of energy sources and storage by the world's largest, and most venerable investment bank. Their analysis shows it is becoming cheaper to build new renewable energy sources than operate old coal plants. Gas combined cycle plants will be next. 

Solar cells look set to break through 40% efficiency in the next 5 years after which all other energy sources will go bankrupt. This will make the current COVID-19 OPEC+ price war a piece of cake as demand destruction will begin for the 30% transportation market. This was the point of the ARAMCO IPO and the price war: the Saudis know they must sell their oil now, or never sell it at all. The Russians made the same calculation, plus the desire to compete with the US in European energy markets, and pay NATO back for all the sanctions. The Russians carefully planned this crash in crude prices and the stock market to occur during an election year. They know that no incumbent President has been re-elected after a stock market crash, a recession, or crude panic/gas price upheaval. Now the USA is going to get all three, plus a COVID-19 slaughter of the elderly, and 'freedom-loving' Trumpanzees.

It has begun in Canada's Tar Sands with Teck Resources Ltd., shutting down the Fort Hills project that formally opened in September 2018. Provincial reports show that Koch and CNOOC (the Chinese at Long Lake) haven't produced a barrel since before 2016. As of 2018, Government financial spreadsheets, submitted by the operators, show accumulated losses exceeding $122 billion for 120 projects. Of 24 operating companies only Syncrude is in the black. Those days are over as the CME Western Canada Select futures are below NEGATIVE $10/barrel through to April 2021. Alberta's AER ST98 (2019) report lists WTI breakeven prices of $80/barrel for mining operations, and $50/barrel for thermal SAGD operations. This price gap just can't be closed.

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

4 minutes ago, ricardo2000 said:

It says a lot for renewables and storage that this project due online in less than 2 years, considering it is a massive increase in capacity. The permitting process for a fossil fuel plant would be longer than this time frame.

Please google ' Lazard LCOE ' for an authoritative analysis of energy sources and storage by the world's largest, and most venerable investment bank. Their analysis shows it is becoming cheaper to build new renewable energy sources than operate old coal plants. Gas combined cycle plants will be next. 

Solar cells look set to break through 40% efficiency in the next 5 years after which all other energy sources will go bankrupt. This will make the current COVID-19 OPEC+ price war a piece of cake as demand destruction will begin for the 30% transportation market. This was the point of the ARAMCO IPO and the price war: the Saudis know they must sell their oil now, or never sell it at all. The Russians made the same calculation, plus the desire to compete with the US in European energy markets, and pay NATO back for all the sanctions. The Russians carefully planned this crash in crude prices and the stock market to occur during an election year. They know that no incumbent President has been re-elected after a stock market crash, a recession, or crude panic/gas price upheaval. Now the USA is going to get all three, plus a COVID-19 slaughter of the elderly, and 'freedom-loving' Trumpanzees.

It has begun in Canada's Tar Sands with Teck Resources Ltd., shutting down the Fort Hills project that formally opened in September 2018. Provincial reports show that Koch and CNOOC (the Chinese at Long Lake) haven't produced a barrel since before 2016. As of 2018, Government financial spreadsheets, submitted by the operators, show accumulated losses exceeding $122 billion for 120 projects. Of 24 operating companies only Syncrude is in the black. Those days are over as the CME Western Canada Select futures are below NEGATIVE $10/barrel through to April 2021. Alberta's AER ST98 (2019) report lists WTI breakeven prices of $80/barrel for mining operations, and $50/barrel for thermal SAGD operations. This price gap just can't be closed.

Sycrude can still make money from downstream operations (gas and diesel)