Germany’s overdose of renewable energy

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

3 hours ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

I'm not arguing that point. I'm arguing against the idea that super batteries are possible. Chemically, they are NOT. 

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

Flow batteries can be scaled up easily (add more tanks).  They are just not portable.

 

[NickW + 2,714]

1 minute ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

Then the next logical step is to calculate economic advantage of the following:

Syngas and a standard Brayton Cycle

Or a battery farm.

Cost? Overall efficiency? I'm not going to do the math. Durability is another concern. 

 a significant driver for EV's is getting the publics (esp in cities)  respiratory systems away from the point source of pollution. EV's win against ICE hands down every time. 

Durability is fine providing on a day to day basis you keep the battery in a state of charge between 20 and 80%. Its the daily deep cyclers who wear out the batteries quickly. 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

6 hours ago, Tom Kirkman said:

You are entitled to your own opinion.  Until you can provide independently verifiable facts that support your assertion, it remains just a hopeful opinion.

For example, I have a collection of Flat Earth memes, which I collect for amusement.  If I post these (obviously incorrect) Flat Earth memes as fact, the burden of proof falls on me to prove my assertion that the Earth is flat.  It is a fallacy for other to try to prove this is not true (i.e. trying to prove a negative).

While your hopeful opinion is indeed hopeful, I have not seen sufficient evidence to support your assertion.

This the part where you are free to step in to offer evidence that supports your hopeful opinion.

In the absence of you offering evidence, I remain free to dismiss your hopeful assertion out of hand, in much the same way as I laugh at Flat Earth memes which falsely claim to be factual and true.

Another example - I can claim that CO2 levels will drop by 50% by 2050 because government taxes will fund scientific research to reduce CO2 levels.  If I don't provide any evidence whatsoever to support my assertion, many people will simply dismiss my hopeful claim out of hand.  The ones who actually believe me - with zero evidence provided - would be the type of person I generally try to avoid, unless I am trying to sell them a bridge in Brooklyn.

Back over to you.

You should patent that response (or at least keep a copy you can roll out every other day for these types) 😁

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

6 hours ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Currently "renewable" energy can generally augment, but not replace, fossil fuel energy.

 

"Any system needs redundancy"

Um, what fossil fuel system requires redundancy?  Not quite sure I understand here.  Clearly, wind and solar will require fossil fuel backup (redundancy) for when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine.  But I fail to see the same redundancy can be required for fossil fuel systems, which are generally not impacted when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine.

Smash!  Pow!  Oomph!  Ouch!  😀

[0R0 + 6,251]

On 1/31/2020 at 3:27 PM, SERWIN said:

Because they;

1) Don't have a national defense cost, that has been provided by the horrible Imperialistic USA for decades...

2) the politicians that have done this are idiots and/or have investments in the companies that made and installed these systems so they could make a bunch of retirement money...

3) Do not as of yet have enough money invested in backup/storage systems so they won't be willing to put the money into that until they get their portfolios updated...

4) No one bothered to explain to them that they are in a bad area to be trying to use "renewables" 

It is an attempt to assuage the Greens, their position is that you go all renewable, that is the target. Economic costs are "inconveniences".

The entire thing in Germany is a political contrivance to quiet the Green hysterics. The fact is that Germany has to remain on nuclear energy and there are costs to every step away from it towards renewables. Bottom line is that it forces Germany to import Southern solar energy and Western wind energy from the Norse countries and Nat Gas from Russia and US LNG, all vs. domestic coal and nukes.

The damage to the current account would be horrific. The drop in living standards can be garnered from the California experiment where CA coastal city cost of living index is 3.3-3.9 (San Francisco highest) and poverty rates are in the mid 30% range. I doubt that would be socially acceptable in Germany and I expect that getting a whiff of that coming would skew the nationalist vote up and end the EU. 

At the defacto 17% operating rate of renewables in Germany, add storage and it is has a higher carbon footprint than Nat Gas.

 

 

[0R0 + 6,251]

21 hours ago, Wombat said:

That is precisely why Australia is investing heavily in batteries and pumped hydro Tom! Much cheaper than natural gas.

 

But in Australia, there is every reason to use solar, there is a huge supply. Given a willingness to invest in the storage and transmission, Australia can go all renewable electricity in short order, and it is cheaper. Similar to the US S.West. And go all EV while their at it. And eventually make electrogas (methane and methanol) cheaper than NG. 

Germany is another matter entirely. They don't have the sunshine, the clear days nor the wind. It is really one of the worst places to use renewables. I would hazard a guess that Germans are not going to be happy to invest in transmission lines down to Southern Italy to get their solar fix. .But it would do wonders for Italy's current accounts. 

[0R0 + 6,251]

20 hours ago, Wombat said:

Not always. In Western Australia, major wind/solar/electrolysis plant being built to supply H2 into Asia using ammonia with conversion method developed by CSIRO. Govt expects it to be $100bn industry by 2050 so Australia is good place to start your job search in a few years. We simply have the best solar and wind resources on the planet and will also be exporting renewable electricity directly to Asia before long via DC cable.

Is there enough copper supply to make that happen? 

My expectation was that electrogas produced at peak solar and wind hours would be shipped around the world rather than stretch rather expensive copper cable everywhere to get a rather lossy transmission. It would cost about $3 MMcft as LNG once capital is paid down. The savings is on the user end where you simply use NG legacy electric production. 

[Otis11 + 551]

5 hours ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

No need to include the motor output, we're focusing on the energy density of batteries. It's as simple as this: Fluorine and Lithium have the highest potential voltage of any other combination on the periodic table. If you made a battery that had strictly these elements occupying all of the space (with no electrodes or any equipment) you get energy density on par with hydrocarbons. The problem? First of all, making a battery with fluorine is a nightmare because of its reactivity. Next, find out how much space your electrodes and other equipment take up, and consequently reduce the volume for fuel to occupy. Finally, these electrodes won't operate at 100% efficiency. (that's technically a motor output argument so maybe just ignore it)

Put all of these factors together, and the best possible battery doesn't come very close to hydrocarbons. A fuel cell (if these will ever be viable) burning synthetic hydrocarbons is a much better idea since you cancel the inefficiency of either ICE or the Brayton Cycle. 

This is why I hold the opinion that synthetic hydrocarbons should be the storage medium. At peak demand, they can be burned in a small peak facility. The combustion products would go back through the cycle during times of low demand. (though it would be easier to just use new water each time, there's only value in collecting the C02)

To verify my stance as well, I hold the opinion that solar and wind are totally unreliable. Hydroelectric, geothermal, and nuclear energy are much more capable of running this chemical process, and we should focus on how to be efficient with THAT energy instead of these worthless alternatives. 

From a purely theoretical standpoint you are correct, but from an investor, business, and consumer standpoint, I dont really care a out the energy itself, I care about doing something useful with it. So if it has half the density but 3x the efficiency at converting into motion, that's what I want.

And synthetic hydrocarbons are great for applications where batteries don't work (all this assuming conventional hydrocarbons are out of the question for some reason) - but their round trip efficiency is awful.  You'll have to produce electricity, turn that electricity into nitrogen, hydrogen, and carbon, by splitting some feedstock, recombine as desired, transport the liquid fuel, and then only get < 30% of that energy out as useful energy when you burn it. That has a round trip efficiency of 6-10% from the numbers I've seen. Batteries and electric motors are in the 80-97% efficiency range. That may not matter for some applications, but it lowers your energy input cost by almost an order of magnitude.

3 hours ago, NickW said:

According to this the global annual production of Ammonia through the HB process is 450 million tonnes. That's about 80 million tonnes of Hydrogen . 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process#Large-scale_technical_implementation

It sees to me that if we have situations with large supplies of intermittent electricity then processes like these are the obvious ones to soak up the surplus as the atmosphere distillation units / HB reactors can be ramped up and down accordingly with supply of electricity. In many locations (WA included) desalination plants are run like this. 

This then frees up large quantities of natural gas to use as back up for solar and wind. 

Yep - the only question here is what's the capital cost? Things that can ramp up/down quickly, have high electric costs, and low capital costs are great sinks for excess energy... but not worth it for most industrial processes I'm familiar with because of the capital cost of the production facilities.

The free market will fix this all though... investors are good ad seizing opportunity (as long as the government doesnt distort markets too much!)

[0R0 + 6,251]

10 hours ago, Wombat said:

Trust me Otis, I won the Australian Mathematics competition and have degrees in Physics and Business. The NPV and doubling of life-time are two separate issues. The doubling of the lifetime immediately reduces the cost per annum by 50% AND inflation helps by 10-20% over life-time, depending on real interest rate. In other words, real reduction in price over 20 years more like 70%! I think we need someone to adjudicate:)

 

Good point. Negative real base rates are going to remain from Europe, China (if they survive their crisis intact) and Korea and Japan, and soon even Thailand and Vietnam are headed that way. The US is in the midst of transitioning from negative real rates to possibly higher rates, depending on how much investment flows temper them downwards. It is a direct result of large savings demographic bumps relative to younger consuming demographics. The population ratio of consumer age vs. savings age is a large factor in setting real global base interest rates.It is what drives central bank policies these days, not the other way round.. It is also why ECB BOJ and Fed are becoming obsessed with generating inflation, since without it, the negative real rates mean negative nominal rates, which destroy banking and are highly deflationary. 

I like to point out this chart from Jim Bianco research

 

[NickW + 2,714]

28 minutes ago, 0R0 said:

But in Australia, there is every reason to use solar, there is a huge supply. Given a willingness to invest in the storage and transmission, Australia can go all renewable electricity in short order, and it is cheaper. Similar to the US S.West. And go all EV while their at it. And eventually make electrogas (methane and methanol) cheaper than NG. 

Germany is another matter entirely. They don't have the sunshine, the clear days nor the wind. It is really one of the worst places to use renewables. I would hazard a guess that Germans are not going to be happy to invest in transmission lines down to Southern Italy to get their solar fix. .But it would do wonders for Italy's current accounts. 

The Germans realise this and know they won't be able to go 100% home grown renewable. They will need to import via interconnectors. The North Sea wind farms / Scandinavian Hydro and perhaps italian Solar. 

[NickW + 2,714]

26 minutes ago, 0R0 said:

Is there enough copper supply to make that happen? 

My expectation was that electrogas produced at peak solar and wind hours would be shipped around the world rather than stretch rather expensive copper cable everywhere to get a rather lossy transmission. It would cost about $3 MMcft as LNG once capital is paid down. The savings is on the user end where you simply use NG legacy electric production. 

The 2 GW Greece, Cyprus, Israel interconnector which is comparable because it is being laid in deep water is costing about 2 million Euros a KM.

You can bet your bottom AUD that building such infrastructure in OZ is going to be double / triple the price. 

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

8 hours ago, Tom Kirkman said:

 

 

"Any system needs redundancy"

Um, what fossil fuel system requires redundancy? 

All of them.  Most coal plants have built in redundancy so they can clean out filth and maintain parts.

Then of course it's not like there is only one plant per country.  My local area has 2-3 plants (sometimes one is shut down) for about a million people.

This is one low-population province:

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

Edited February 1, 2020 by Enthalpic

[0R0 + 6,251]

31 minutes ago, NickW said:

The 2 GW Greece, Cyprus, Israel interconnector which is comparable because it is being laid in deep water is costing about 2 million Euros a KM.

You can bet your bottom AUD that building such infrastructure in OZ is going to be double / triple the price. 

So at the same cost, the Aussie 20GW cable for 2000 miles to Singapore would be a $75 billion project?

You can build a small country from scratch with that kind of money. 

[Wombat + 1,028]

1 hour ago, 0R0 said:

Good point. Negative real base rates are going to remain from Europe, China (if they survive their crisis intact) and Korea and Japan, and soon even Thailand and Vietnam are headed that way. The US is in the midst of transitioning from negative real rates to possibly higher rates, depending on how much investment flows temper them downwards. It is a direct result of large savings demographic bumps relative to younger consuming demographics. The population ratio of consumer age vs. savings age is a large factor in setting real global base interest rates.It is what drives central bank policies these days, not the other way round.. It is also why ECB BOJ and Fed are becoming obsessed with generating inflation, since without it, the negative real rates mean negative nominal rates, which destroy banking and are highly deflationary. 

I like to point out this chart from Jim Bianco research

 

Thank you for the graph and table, but may I beg to differ on US rates? I believe whole world on cusp of new financial crises and EVERY CB is gonna be printing like crazy soon

[Wombat + 1,028]

11 hours ago, NickW said:

Yes - I lived in Perth for 5 years. Right upto Exmouth the wind resource is superb. 

The next target for offshore wind turbines are the 15-20MW mark. Ive no idea what the eventual upper limit is going to be? Will be limited by the practicality of ship and crane size. I assume these turbines will be in Floating options as I think these will be better for offshore WA. 

Onshore turbines getting bigger too - typically 4-5MW. 

Bigger obstacle in WA is the cost of getting anything done and wading through layers and layers of local, state, and Federal Govt Admin. 

Why Batteries though? 

Partly for stabilising output, but mainly for storage in order to "time-shift" max output for Indian evening peak.

[Wombat + 1,028]

2 hours ago, NickW said:

The 2 GW Greece, Cyprus, Israel interconnector which is comparable because it is being laid in deep water is costing about 2 million Euros a KM.

You can bet your bottom AUD that building such infrastructure in OZ is going to be double / triple the price. 

Not necessarily. Whilst it true that most infrastructure hideously expensive in OZ due to CFMEU, the cable would be laid by foreign operator (probably from Europe). The other factor to consider is that if we have new "GFC 2", then OZ dollar will go back to parity with USD due to our AAA rating.

[Wombat + 1,028]

2 hours ago, 0R0 said:

Is there enough copper supply to make that happen? 

My expectation was that electrogas produced at peak solar and wind hours would be shipped around the world rather than stretch rather expensive copper cable everywhere to get a rather lossy transmission. It would cost about $3 MMcft as LNG once capital is paid down. The savings is on the user end where you simply use NG legacy electric production. 

Actually, we are doing both! Copper getting cheaper all the time.

[0R0 + 6,251]

3 hours ago, Wombat said:

Thank you for the graph and table, but may I beg to differ on US rates? I believe whole world on cusp of new financial crises and EVERY CB is gonna be printing like crazy soon

They have to.because the ratio of debt to money supply is unsustainable and deflationary outside China, while money supply is far in excess in China and is inflationary. It stems from a perpetual error by the ECB and the Fed thinking the appropriate response to China's externalized money/credit bubble was to raise rates to restrain demand. It obviously didn't have the slightest effect on China demand (which was causing the commodity bubble) but it did crush small business and manufacturing that had financial hardship of unnaturally high rates to contend with in addition to having their margins compressed by competing Chinese products. The Chinese recycling of credit and money through the Eurodollar and commodity markets created a huge wave of liquidity overwhelming the West, such that the CB's rate hikes of mid- late 2000s seemed only to accelerate the global mortgage binge.

That is how we ended up with so much credit and so little cash. Yet policy remains deflationary, thus forcing money printing in perpetuity. It is much easier to reintroduce credible uncapped deposit insurance at the central bank level in the US and EMU and let the banks re-expand their books and money supply along with it as they put themselves back into intermediation of large cash balances. . 

'

[markslawson + 1,058]

On 1/31/2020 at 12:07 AM, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

You are so biased that you cannot see the forest for the trees. The above situation is real; the money invested in renewables in Germany is a sunk cost. This mean they will double down on storage... 

Sunk cost? Nope - wind turbines last maybe 15-20 years - PVs maybe about the same if they are well made, less if they are not. The connections/approvals and bits of infrastructure for renewable plants mostly don't have to be renewed. However, coal plants can be made to last 80 years or so, again depending but you still have to build conventional plants to back up the renewable stuff and the bulk of the cost is the capital investment required to build these things. So I dunno if sunk cost is really an arguement to use in these circumstances.. 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

5 hours ago, Wombat said:

Actually, we are doing both! Copper getting cheaper all the time.

😆https://www.macrotrends.net/1476/copper-prices-historical-chart-data

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

1 hour ago, markslawson said:

Sunk cost? Nope - wind turbines last maybe 15-20 years -

115,000 turbines studied: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171106005106/en/Aging-Wind-Energy-Fleet-Driving-Surge-Operating

"Our study found that one-quarter of all turbines’ gearboxes need replacement during just the first decade of operations."  ERGO my previous comment about turbines sited too close together and turbulence.  Turbulence be it the wind itself, or turbulence off other wind turbines is absolutely brutal on the gear boxes. 

Per year MW maintenance = $50,000-->$60,000/yr @ 10-15yrs of age...

Unlike Wind turbines, NG power plants last half a century or longer

Edited February 2, 2020 by footeab@yahoo.com

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

5 hours ago, markslawson said:

Sunk cost? Nope - wind turbines last maybe 15-20 years - PVs maybe about the same if they are well made, less if they are not. The connections/approvals and bits of infrastructure for renewable plants mostly don't have to be renewed. However, coal plants can be made to last 80 years or so, again depending but you still have to build conventional plants to back up the renewable stuff and the bulk of the cost is the capital investment required to build these things. So I dunno if sunk cost is really an arguement to use in these circumstances.. 

People, please stop with this crap - the conventional plants are already built!  The F'ing computer you are reading this is running off those plants.

 

Edited February 2, 2020 by Enthalpic

[NickW + 2,714]

6 hours ago, markslawson said:

Sunk cost? Nope - wind turbines last maybe 15-20 years - PVs maybe about the same if they are well made, less if they are not. The connections/approvals and bits of infrastructure for renewable plants mostly don't have to be renewed. However, coal plants can be made to last 80 years or so, again depending but you still have to build conventional plants to back up the renewable stuff and the bulk of the cost is the capital investment required to build these things. So I dunno if sunk cost is really an arguement to use in these circumstances.. 

Here we go again - its like whack a mole here. 🙄

They last a lot longer than that. The reason most smaller ones are taken down after 15-20 years is that the sites can be used for much larger and more efficient turbines. Its easier to get planning consent on existing sites. The older smaller units are then redeployed to industrial estates / farms etc where they get another 10-15 years life. 

One example

https://dutchwind.com/products/

Likewise with PV - the panels will still be functional in 40-50 years time. Often 2nd hand panels from commercial development are resold on the 2nd hand market. In the UK Bimble Solar often market second hand panels. These often go on farm building roof spaces or DIY solar projects. 

https://www.bimblesolar.com/solar/used-solar-panels

Edited February 2, 2020 by NickW

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

41 minutes ago, Enthalpic said:

People, please stop with this crap - the conventional plants are already built!  The F'ing computer you are reading this is running off those plants.

 

Right, they do not require staffing, maintenance, and replacement... They are magic machines...

[NickW + 2,714]

10 hours ago, Wombat said:

Not necessarily. Whilst it true that most infrastructure hideously expensive in OZ due to CFMEU, the cable would be laid by foreign operator (probably from Europe). The other factor to consider is that if we have new "GFC 2", then OZ dollar will go back to parity with USD due to our AAA rating.

A 2GW cable assuming it can be run 24/7 will deliver 17.5Twh a year . Its 3000km straight line to Singapore so the cost on parity with the European project is going to twice the price at  5 Bn Euros equivalent. (5.5bn USD)

17.5 Twh at a purchase price of 5c/kwh is $875 million. 

Then you have to build the wind farms / solar farms and batteries if you want to stablise the supply on a 24/7 basis.