Chile Becomes The Latest Country To Commit To 100% Renewables

[Petar + 76]

Chile sets sights on 100% renewables by 2040. The country elected conservative businessman Sebsatián Piñera as president in December. According to Acera, Pinera's renewable energy and climate change policies has many common points with that of the association. Speaking at an Acera press conference, the association's president, José Ignacio Escobar – who is also general manager of Acciona Energia's Chile and Latin American unit – backed the new president.
"We are looking forward to the new government, which has very ambitious goals, which we hope to actively support to find the necessary mechanisms to meet the goal of 100% renewable energy by 2040.

[franco + 96]

It seems Chile’s 100% renewable energy by 2040 goal is aspirational only. This goal appears to be a hopeful idea of the major national energy company in Chile.
 

[Pavel + 384]

More than perhaps anything else in the world, I hope that more countries commit to 100% renewable energy. But, I'm not sure Chile can finish that job by 2040.... 

[rainman + 263]

It's really easy for a country like Chile with no hydrocarbon resources to push renewables.

[Guillaume Albasini + 851]

Chile is also one of the major lithium producers and the country will benefit from an increasing demand from batteries producers (surge in EV's and energy storage for renewables).

[NickW + 2,714]

Chile has excellent wind and solar resources plus widespread hydro resources in the south. 

[markslawson + 1,057]

Only activists would have been fooled by Chile's declaration. A glance at the actual figures for energy supply show that in 2014 about a third maybe of the country's electrical power came from Hydro, with the rest from coal, gas and diesel. Just 2 per cent came from wind. That was four years ago of course, but the country would need a lot more hydro to have any realistic chance of shifting to fully renewable any time in the next few decades, let alone in 22 years. The only countries which have been/will be able to shift to fully renewable already have heaps of hydro. Otherwise the technology just isn't there. Even small regions rich in renewable energy have had trouble getting to 40 per cent - King Island in Australia's Bass Strait is one, another is the Spanish Canary Islands - despite many millions of dollars of investment. The government announcement is just smoke to please Western interests. They may build more wind farms - and a few wind farms combined with existing hydro for storage may be of some benefit. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

5 minutes ago, markslawson said:

 The government announcement is just smoke to please Western interests. They may build more wind farms - and a few wind farms combined with existing hydro for storage may be of some benefit. 

All true, Mark, except that using hydro for storage, by which I understand you mean pumping uphill into a storage pond using excess windmill power, has been demonstrated to be enormously damaging to fish in the river at the area of the pump intakes.  There is such an installation on the Connecticut River in Northern Massachusetts, at the town of Northfield - Mr. Hermon, and it has created these massive fish kills.  To slaughter the sport fish and the sportfishing industry for a little bit of stored power hardly seems sensible, Better off to forego pumped storage using rivers.  Cheers.

[markslawson + 1,057]

17 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

All true, Mark, except that using hydro for storage, by which I understand you mean pumping uphill into a storage pond using excess windmill power, has been demonstrated to be enormously damaging to fish in the river at the area of the pump intakes.  There is such an installation on the Connecticut River in Northern Massachusetts, at the town of Northfield - Mr. Hermon, and it has created these massive fish kills.  To slaughter the sport fish and the sportfishing industry for a little bit of stored power hardly seems sensible, Better off to forego pumped storage using rivers.  Cheers.

First I've heard of that but I won't argue the point - another blow to the viability of renewable energy.. 

[NickW + 2,714]

21 hours ago, markslawson said:

First I've heard of that but I won't argue the point - another blow to the viability of renewable energy.. 

Which is why the preferred methodology is to use two artificial  reservoirs rather than draw from a river. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station (the Arctic Char were removed before operations commenced)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kruonis_Pumped_Storage_Plant

For comparison though have you ever considered how many fish and fish eggs get cooked in Thermal power stations cooling water? 

[Sebastian Meana + 278]

The last time Chile had a plan for renewable energy, the project of Hydroaysen between other stuff everybody did get mad and that chile should use only solar and wind

I don't say that's impossible but wanting to thrash hydropower in favour of solar and wind is removing a dam to have wind power and a pumped storage dam somewhere else to use the energy when is necessary so you are replacing dams with dams.

[Sebastian Meana + 278]

On 7/17/2018 at 3:37 AM, Jan van Eck said:

All true, Mark, except that using hydro for storage, by which I understand you mean pumping uphill into a storage pond using excess windmill power, has been demonstrated to be enormously damaging to fish in the river at the area of the pump intakes.  There is such an installation on the Connecticut River in Northern Massachusetts, at the town of Northfield - Mr. Hermon, and it has created these massive fish kills.  To slaughter the sport fish and the sportfishing industry for a little bit of stored power hardly seems sensible, Better off to forego pumped storage using rivers.  Cheers.

Is not what you would call an essential problem, most of those problems can be solved in various ways with lower rpm spinning turbines, fish ladders, sediment tunnels and so on.

Edited July 18, 2018 by Sebastian Meana

[NickW + 2,714]

11 minutes ago, Sebastian Meana said:

The last time Chile had a plan for renewable energy, the project of Hydroaysen between other stuff everybody did get mad and that chile should use only solar and wind

I don't say that's impossible but wanting to thrash hydropower in favour of solar and wind is removing a dam to have wind power and a pumped storage dam somewhere else to use the energy when is necessary so you are replacing dams with dams.

Thats the usual story of people looking at it too simplistically and then saying you can't run off just wind or just solar

In Chiles case its got superb solar resources - some of the best in the World ie  a high altitude plateau desert. Superb wind resources - slap bang in the middle of the roaring forties with the entire pacific on its door step. 

A huge mountain range runs the entire length of the Country - plenty of opportunity for Hydro and pump storage in the South. In the North you could build rail line storage as an alternative.

Other resources that can be utilised

Biomass / Biogas

Waste to Energy

Geothermal - there must be loads of potential as the Andes are Volcanic

Tidal and Wave if the technologies develop. 

 

[markslawson + 1,057]

4 hours ago, NickW said:

Which is why the preferred methodology is to use two artificial  reservoirs rather than draw from a river. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station (the Arctic Char were removed before operations commenced)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kruonis_Pumped_Storage_Plant

For comparison though have you ever considered how many fish and fish eggs get cooked in Thermal power stations cooling water? 

NickW - again with the fantasies. Now we have to have two artificial reservoirs for these pumped hydro systems - an immensely costly addition, all to ensure that "cheap grean" power fails less frequently than it would otherwise. I don't have anything to say about the effect of pumped hydro or thermal power on fish in a river. But if they don't want to use rivers then the cost for these facilities increases from stupendous to horrific. Maybe it time to return to earth and admit that renewables just aren't going to cut it? Leave it with you.

 

[NickW + 2,714]

6 hours ago, markslawson said:

NickW - again with the fantasies. Now we have to have two artificial reservoirs for these pumped hydro systems - an immensely costly addition, all to ensure that "cheap grean" power fails less frequently than it would otherwise. I don't have anything to say about the effect of pumped hydro or thermal power on fish in a river. But if they don't want to use rivers then the cost for these facilities increases from stupendous to horrific. Maybe it time to return to earth and admit that renewables just aren't going to cut it? Leave it with you.

 

🙄

Dinorwig paid for itself in less than 10 years (it cost about 430 million in the 1970's to built a facility which will effectively last forever) because it was able to take the night time power from 2 large nuclear stations and deliver on demand throughout the day. The station offset the need to build 2GW of capacity to deliver peak load generation  which wouldn't have the same ramp rate. Dinorwig can go from 0 to 1900MW in 2 minutes. 

The cost of building artificial reservoirs is not that high because normally natural lakes are converted as in the case of Dinorwig. The fish are removed and used to restock other lakes. There is a cost but its not an insurmountable barrier. 

 

I will pose the question again - have you considered how many fish and fish eggs get cooked by Thermal power plant?

[HermitMunster + 146]

lol...I love these 20 year out predictions. They are hilarious to me.

[NickW + 2,714]

1 hour ago, HermitMunster said:

lol...I love these 20 year out predictions. They are hilarious to me.

Like in the early 1990's when it was predicted that wind would be a major source of electricity by the 2020's?

[HermitMunster + 146]

On 7/19/2018 at 12:30 PM, NickW said:

Like in the early 1990's when it was predicted that wind would be a major source of electricity by the 2020's?

T. Boone Pickens went from a billionaire to a millionaire practically overnight trying to get it to come to fruition in the U.S.

[NickW + 2,714]

2 hours ago, HermitMunster said:

T. Boone Pickens went from a billionaire to a millionaire practically overnight trying to get it to come to fruition in the U.S.

Irrelevant point really - I don't think he ever actually built any wind farms - maybe poor planning. . His entire business has been based around oil and gas so perhaps that explains why he is down to his last $500m?

Or more likely this explains the drop in his wealth

'Pickens has given more than $700 million away to charity,^[37] of which nearly $500 million has been donated to Oklahoma State University.'

Back on topic: 

US installed Windpower :

Year 2000 - 2.5GW

Year 2016 - 82 GW

3200% growth over 16 years. 

 

[HermitMunster + 146]

13 minutes ago, NickW said:

Irrelevant point really - I don't think he ever actually built any wind farms - maybe poor planning. . His entire business has been based around oil and gas so perhaps that explains why he is down to his last $500m?

Or more likely this explains the drop in his wealth

'Pickens has given more than $700 million away to charity,^[37] of which nearly $500 million has been donated to Oklahoma State University.'

Back on topic: 

US installed Windpower :

Year 2000 - 2.5GW

Year 2016 - 82 GW

3200% growth over 16 years. 

 

Actually, since when is money irrelevant?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAVARYFA4Fw

The percentage of global electricity supplied by wind power is less than five percent I believe.

[NickW + 2,714]

9 minutes ago, HermitMunster said:

Actually, since when is money irrelevant?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAVARYFA4Fw

The percentage of global electricity supplied by wind power is less than five percent I believe.

That Youtube explains that his business timing was poor - slap bang in the middle of a massive price slump in gas prices when there were no export routes for natural gas. Once them LNG plants get commissioned the US prices will be joining the global west of Suez average gas price 😉 

In 2015 global wind power produced 830 twh from 480 GW of capacity so approximately 5%. So what. Installed capacity is predicted to grow to 1500 - 2000 GW by 2030 so thats another 300-400% growth over 15 years. 

[NickW + 2,714]

18 minutes ago, HermitMunster said:

Actually, since when is money irrelevant?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAVARYFA4Fw

The percentage of global electricity supplied by wind power is less than five percent I believe.

The reason I stated it was an irrelevant point was because it flies in the face of whats happening in the real world. US wind power grew by 3200% in 16 years. It will grow another 300-400% out to 2030. 

Anyway; 

He states he lost $200m from his wind farm proposals which never actually got off the ground

He gave away $700m to Charity

The cause of him going from Billionaire to Millionaire is his charitable contributions so your statement;

T. Boone Pickens went from a billionaire to a millionaire practically overnight trying to get it to come to fruition in the U.S.

Is incorrect.

[HermitMunster + 146]

2 minutes ago, NickW said:

That Youtube explains that his business timing was poor - slap bang in the middle of a massive price slump in gas prices when there were no export routes for natural gas. Once them LNG plants get commissioned the US prices will be joining the global west of Suez average gas price 😉 

In 2015 global wind power produced 830 twh from 480 GW of capacity so approximately 5%. So what. Installed capacity is predicted to grow to 1500 - 2000 GW by 2030 so thats another 300-400% growth over 15 years. 

I'm not saying I don't like wind, I'm just saying that getting off fossil fuels is a growing pains kind of process. Look at Solyndra. Look at Solar City. And look at what happened to Pickens. 

I love U.S. LNG potential, but, so far Poland has only taken one shipment last I checked. I like that we are delivering to Taiwan though. I think the potential is there but the trade war Trump is launching scares the shit out of me. 

Tariff costs will likely be passed down to the consumer and we already have income tax. You can't have both. Would I love a type of Statoil project in the Atlantic? Absolutely. I just don't see it happening. We have to figure out how we're going to be competitive with natural gas.

[NickW + 2,714]

Just now, HermitMunster said:

I'm not saying I don't like wind, I'm just saying that getting off fossil fuels is a growing pains kind of process. Look at Solyndra. Look at Solar City. And look at what happened to Pickens. 

I love U.S. LNG potential, but, so far Poland has only taken one shipment last I checked. I like that we are delivering to Taiwan though. I think the potential is there but the trade war Trump is launching scares the shit out of me. 

Tariff costs will likely be passed down to the consumer and we already have income tax. You can't have both. Would I love a type of Statoil project in the Atlantic? Absolutely. I just don't see it happening. We have to figure out how we're going to be competitive with natural gas.

If you go back to the early days of oil there were thousands of firms and hundreds of busts - thats just the course of nature for newly developing industries as they consolidate, weed out the chaff, and build economy of scale.