283 replies to this topic

[Dingo]

eds, on 10 June 2013 - 07:08 AM, said:

EROI-USA chart date of 27 August 2011
Does NOT take into consideration, ROI of rising Utility rates.

And what has this got to do with the EROEI of any particular energy source?

[Phil]

It's the fact that if you put solar on your roof the decision gets better and better as rates increase.  I was paying $1200/yr before solar now it's $250.  If prices rise 10% that's $1320/yr vs. $275.  If I add even a little more solar I am totally immune to rate hikes, normal customers are not.

Affordable solar and wind are relatively new in the market, coal, gas, and nuclear are decades old to say the least.  Hydrogen as well as advanced battery technology are barely off the drawing boards.  Innovative advantage goes to the new technologies.  Mass production also goes to the new technologies like solar, hydrogen, and fuel cells.

While nukes have a CO2 and backup advantage, those are far outweighed by public sentiment.

[still learning]

Dingo, on 10 June 2013 - 06:16 AM, said:

.....One can see in this chart why coal and oil are hard to eliminate.....

I looked at the Wikipedia chart that you linked to and immediately wondered about a couple of things.  Firstly, did the entry for coal refer to the energy content of coal itself, or the energy coming from a coalfired powerplant?  Secondly, how current is the chart?  PV EROI could be improving fairly fast.

Found a fairly recent paper (2012) that helped answer my questions at: http://www.sciencedi...301421512002133

Might want to just scroll down to the section 4 and 5 and 6 (discussion, with outlook and conclusions later) of that paper after looking at the abstract.  Maybe then go back and look at details.  

Looks like the Wikipedia chart coal EROI is for the heat content of coal itself, not coal electricity.

Nuclear electricity EROI numbers are all over the place.  Found a discussion here: http://www.altdotene...he-web-part-iv/

[Dustoffer]

The gist of what has been posted is that Gen IV nuclear will not be built enough in time, and there is nothing then to replace all the energy of fossil fuels in most locations.  So emissions will increase past the tipping points, meaning ecocide is inevitable.
The anti-any-nuclear crowd are as guilty as the fossil fuel maggots in the extinction of our species and millions more.
Also those who refuse to believe there are tipping points in natural reaction to HGHGs, guilty, too.
I probably have sustainability as part of my religion, not continued time wasting arguments as time runs out to stop AETM.
"Replenish the Earth" from Genesis and these are big parts of my religion;
"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”
― Chief Seattle

[Dingo]

Phil, on 10 June 2013 - 09:49 AM, said:

It's the fact that if you put solar on your roof the decision gets better and better as rates increase.  I was paying $1200/yr before solar now it's $250.  If prices rise 10% that's $1320/yr vs. $275.  If I add even a little more solar I am totally immune to rate hikes, normal customers are not.

Dave Roberts of Grist has a whole interesting analysis of the growing independence of solar panel users and how that bums out the utilities - here and here. A lot of relevant links are included.

SL

Quote

Found a fairly recent paper (2012) that helped answer my questions at: http://www.sciencedi...301421512002133

Thanks. I took my graph to simply be a crude indicator of that moment and particularly assumed pvs would eventually improve in their EROI as well as more scarce fossil fuel go down. I just wanted to get the EROI analysis on the map and offer some sense of the relation of energy sources.

D

Quote

The gist of what has been posted is that Gen IV nuclear will not be built enough in time, and there is nothing then to replace all the energy of fossil fuels in most locations.  So emissions will increase past the tipping points, meaning ecocide is inevitable.
The anti-any-nuclear crowd are as guilty as the fossil fuel maggots in the extinction of our species and millions more.
Also those who refuse to believe there are tipping points in natural reaction to HGHGs, guilty, too.

The thing about nuclear is it really is not a viable major replacement for fossil fuel in any viable timeline that I can see from the numbers, but since fossil fuel is still on the upswing of development we should make nuclear the more acceptable replacement for further fossil fuel development until solar and company can come online - yeah, it's a long shot but who knows, maybe we'll switch to bicycling and working at home more. Nuclear as a stop gap to be later phased out is my perspective.

As far as tipping points, you might want to go to RealClimate to get their perspective on the supposed prospective methane runaway. They declare it to be highly unlikely and explain why. Apparently localized tipping points are possible but a whole earth one is probably not in the cards, just steadily increasing climate change which still could take us off the cliff.

[Phil]

Currently, of 30,000 customers our utility only has 120 net meters.  Just think if that turned into 10,000!  If I'm average they'd see $12 million revenue drop to $2.5 million.  The remaining $9.5 million or so would have to be made up by the remaining 20,000 customers, $475 each/yr. or about 40/mo. average.  Yikes!  That would definitely accelerate solar penetration in a snowball effect.

"The gist of what has been posted is that Gen IV nuclear will not be built enough in time, and there is nothing then to replace all the energy of fossil fuels in most locations.  So emissions will increase past the tipping points, meaning ecocide is inevitable.
The anti-any-nuclear crowd are as guilty as the fossil fuel maggots in the extinction of our species and millions more.
Also those who refuse to believe there are tipping points in natural reaction to HGHGs, guilty, too.
I probably have sustainability as part of my religion, not continued time wasting arguments as time runs out to stop AETM."

I agree we are going past what ever tipping points will come up in the next half century.  It is totally out of our control as long as coal is still the #1 growth energy source.  China, India, etc. will control our future, not us.  According to http://www.huffingto..._n_2166699.html, China and India alone comprise 76% of new coal plant construction.

The ONLY way to make them turn the corner is to make renewables cheaper, not artificially through taxes, etc., (China is already developing it's own coal resources), but bottom line cheaper.  We are at the stage in development where volume is a major determining factor in cost for solar, wind, BEV's, and soon FCV's and home hydrogen generation.  

The anti nuclear crowd is not as guilty if they fill their roofs with solar and drive a BEV, I'm half way there already! :<)  If anything the pro nuclear crowd is just as guilty, wasting their energy chasing after something that just won't happen rather than buying solar and BEV's or eventually FCV's.  That will increase volume, thus lowering prices, thus causing the developing world to go that route instead of the status quo.

If you truly believe the sky is falling your only option is to lead by example and buy solar panels and BEV's.  Personally I don't believe in extremes so I don't believe in hard tipping points or "the sky is falling" scenarios. Feel free to label me guilty if you like, I really don't mind.  ;<)

[eds]

California generated
. . . 2,071 megawatts (MW) worth of solar electricity system-wide, just under the
. . . 2,250MW of nuclear power removed from the state grid when the
. . . San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station was retired.

Source:  California

[Phil]

Interesting read.  I don't think most people are aware just how far solar prices have fallen and that trend is likely to continue well into the future as volume and innovations increase.  As I mentioned earlier, I can buy solar cheaper now without the federal subsidy than I could a year or two ago with the subsidy.

Another point is just how easy it is to install your own system, cutting costs in half by saving the contractor fee.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Nuclear waste tanks may be leaking into the soil.
That's why so many of us are against nuclear power.

Tom Carpenter, executive director of the Seattle-based advocacy group Hanford Challenge, said,
"This is really, really bad.
They are going to pollute the ground and the groundwater with some of the nastiest stuff,
and they don't have a solution for it."

"AY-102 is one of Hanford's 28 tanks with two walls, which were installed years ago when
single-shell :ohmy:tanks began leaking.
The tanks are now beyond their intended life span.

Today, it is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, with cleanup expected to last decades."
Source

[Dingo]

No question that solar principally is the long term tech. energy generator of choice along with hopefully much increased storage capacity, but in the mean time we have a looming climate change deadline that requires we head off fossil fuel at the pass in fairly short order. This article uses Germany as an example of why nuclear may be the better principal focus in the short term based on cost and ramp up speed. Citing 2030 as a target date this is what the writer comes up with.
http://www.dissentma...bust-in-germany

Quote

let’s see what a nuclear Energiewende could accomplish by 2030, with a total budget of €367 billion (€20.4 a year for eighteen years). At €8.5 billion a pop, Germany could buy forty-three EPRs, each with a nameplate capacity of 1.65 GW. Add the 20.3 GW Germany had in 2010 and that’s 91 GW of low-carbon nuclear power. Let’s assume a nuclear capacity factor of 75 percent. (Why so low? Because they will “load-follow”—raise and lower their output to follow electricity demand—instead of running at maximum power 24/7 in “baseload” as they do now.) That’s an average capacity of 68 GW, exactly equal to Germany’s average power consumption in 2012 (based on total consumption of 594 TWh), and a peak capacity of 91 GW, a comfortable margin over the peak electricity demand of 82 GW.

In other words, a dispatchable nuclear grid could supply all of Germany’s electricity in 2030, not just the 50 percent target for renewables in the Energiewende. By comparison, Altmaier’s latest prediction estimates a price tag for renewables of €1 trillion by the end of the 2030s, for a grid that would still be roughly 35 percent fossil-fueled. A nuclear build-out could completely decarbonize the German grid by 2030 at less than one-third the cost of a renewables Energiewende that would still produce massive greenhouse emissions.

[still learning]

Dingo, on 07 July 2013 - 01:25 PM, said:

....nuclear may be the better principal focus in the short term based on cost and ramp up speed....

Could they be built in time?  What is the current capacity to build new nuclear powerplants?  How quickly could capacity be ramped up?  
(Perhaps your linked article answered my questions, but my firewall package gave me an attack warning when I started to look, so I quit looking.)

"All the above", including some nuclear, in my opinion.  Else plan for lots of adaptation to a warmer world.

[Phil]

Reality check.  There is practically zero public support for nuclear in the west after Japan.  While it is hypothetical we could do a crash nuke build out program, it just won't happen.  People by and large would rather put up with more coal and natural gas than nuclear.

Therefore, while nuclear may be a technical solution, it is not a practical one.  (One of the reasons I mentioned in another thread that we can kiss 400ppm goodbye for decades to come.)

I think the only viable solution is either local or grid storage.  Grid batteries are being experimented with and hydrogen could also be a possibility.  This will also not be overnight, coal is the worlds leading energy growth sector and I expect that to continue for some time.

As Still Learning said, "Else plan for lots of adaptation to a warmer world."  That's what I'm doing. :<(

[Dingo]

I guess the critical point for me is when we are so committed to paying for the consequences of multiple cost equivalents of Sandy per year that we have little left over to do anything else. We're talking social break down. My guess is adapting to a warmer world will end up occurring in the tribal zone. At least things will be a lot more simple and basic.

[eds]

Nuclear Plants, Old and Uncompetitive, Are Closing Earlier Than Expected

This year, United States utilities have announced the retirement of 4 reactors,
. . . 3 had expensive mechanical problems,
. . . but one, Kewaunee in Wisconsin,
. . . was losing money, because of the low wholesale price of electricity.

Source:  Nuclear

[Eclipse]

eds, on 29 May 2013 - 10:15 AM, said:

Are you aware, that there are whole countries, going for 100% renewable energy?

99% of Iceland's electricity is generated by renewable power,
. . . most from hydro power and
. . . heating 89% of its building from geothermal.
Iceland also plans to become the world's first hydrogen economy
. . . converting its renewable resources to power
. . . cars, boats and public transport with hydrogen fuel.

Portugal reaches 70%

DENMARK WAS POWERED BY 100% RENEWABLES

100% Renewable Energy: Becoming the New Normal?

There are a number of other videos by Rifkin on Youtube you might want to look at.
. . I have posted most of them on this blog, I'm surprised that some of you haven't seen them.

Iceland? Like, we all have volcanoes under our doorstep, like, don't we? I'll let James Hansen handle that one.

///Can renewable energies provide all of society’s energy needs in the foreseeable future? It is conceivable in a few places, such as New Zealand and Norway. But suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.///
http://bravenewclima...nergy-kool-aid/

[Eclipse]

There have been a lot of comments about expense. Surely much of this comes from projects delayed by uninformed anti-nuclear activists drawing out expensive legal stays on the project? Otherwise, the technology itself is FAR cheaper than trying to make wind baseload.

AFFORDABLE AND ESSENTIAL
There are only a few places on earth like Iceland and Tasmania with enough geothermal or hydro to run reliable Renewables. The rest of the world has abundant wind and solar Renewables, but these should be called Unreliables because of their daily and seasonal variations. We need reliable base load power generation because *nothing* can store Unreliables cheaply enough!

Dr James Hansen, the grandfather of modern climate science, says nuclear power is the only way we'll solve climate change. He says believing in renewables alone is akin to "believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy."
http://bravenewclima...nergy-kool-aid/

If we listen to him on the problem of Global Warming, why not also on the solution?According to his peer-reviewed network 'The Science Council for Global Initiatives' (SCGI) the unreliable nature of renewable technology is not solved by any storage system as they are all far, far too expensive. They are hypothetically possible but economically impossible. Instead of Renewables they should be called Unreliables.
http://www.thescienc...mes-hansen.html

Tom Blees (President of the SCGI) has made his book freely available in PDF form.
http://www.thescienc...pdfs/P4TP4U.pdf

IF something better comes along we can shift to it then. But we have to act now to prevent a climate catastrophe. We cannot let wishful thinking daydream our way to disaster. Renewables are too expensive. They're only cheap if ignore the coal-fired grid backing our systems. EG: If you stick some Solar PV on your roof and over 30 years measure the cost / output, it's wonderful. But that ignores the fact that the Solar PV is only giving you a third of your power each day. The rest relies on a coal-fired power grid. Then there's seasonal fluctuations where the solar input is really low on dark wintery days. Read Professor Barry Brook on the cost of trying to make solar and wind 'base load', that is, reliable 24/7. Unreliables might be technically feasible but they are economically impossible. Dreams and good intentions with renewables are not going to solve the Global Warming crisis. Only hard nosed, tried and true engineering solutions can save us.
http://bravenewclima...newable-limits/

[Eclipse]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 22 June 2013 - 05:42 AM, said:

Nuclear waste tanks may be leaking into the soil.
That's why so many of us are against nuclear power.

This will not be happening in a GenIV world. Nuclear 'waste' will be worth more than gold... more than platinum. It will simply be too valuable to let 'leak'. When one considers that just today's nuclear waste could run the world for 500 years, you get the picture.

[Dingo]

Eclipse, on 08 July 2013 - 02:04 PM, said:

Dr James Hansen, the grandfather of modern climate science, says nuclear power is the only way we'll solve climate change. He says believing in renewables alone is akin to "believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy."
http://bravenewclima...nergy-kool-aid/

If we listen to him on the problem of Global Warming, why not also on the solution?

Perhaps because he has real expertise in the area of global warming but not in energy generation. That doesn't make him wrong, it just means he only really commands authority in one of those two areas.

I know I would take him a lot more seriously if he and his fellow buddies over at Brave New Climate would give some focus to overpopulation. You think over 7 billion folks and adding 200,000 a day to the planet doesn't have something to do with our global warming crisis? It's hard to imagine a nuclear power program that even keeps up with the increase, much less actually replaces most of our fossil fuel driven power plants.

[Eclipse]

Dingo, on 08 July 2013 - 05:35 PM, said:

Perhaps because he has real expertise in the area of global warming but not in energy generation. That doesn't make him wrong, it just means he only really commands authority in one of those two areas.

I know I would take him a lot more seriously if he and his fellow buddies over at Brave New Climate would give some focus to overpopulation. You think over 7 billion folks and adding 200,000 a day to the planet doesn't have something to do with our global warming crisis? It's hard to imagine a nuclear power program that even keeps up with the increase, much less actually replaces most of our fossil fuel driven power plants.

Yes population is also important, but that doesn't change what he said about renewables and how many energy experts are reviewing renewable energy proposals and plans.

The sad thing is the 2 don't have to be mutually exclusive! Solar PV, for those who can afford it, really does help ameliorate the afternoon peak demands. Nuclear power really can quickly and cheaply replace coal. France did it in 20 years, and they're profiting from being able to sell low Co2 electricity to other nations.

[Phil]

The point is the public will not support nuclear.  It doesn't matter what is physically possible, no politician will force the issue with that much resistance either here or abroad.  There was a story on MSNBC a couple of days ago which claimed nuclear is no longer economically viable, cheap coal, natural gas, and wind have made  new nuclear plants too expensive to undertake.  That does not bode well for the future of nukes.

We could cut our CO2 output almost in half just switching to BEV's and FCV's combined with solar.  That IS doable in a decade or two.

I also believe the storage problem can be solved if enough effort is put towards a solution, there are a number of pilot projects already going on.  If a home hydrogen station can be had for the projected advertised price of $4-6K and it's powered with rooftop solar that is a solution.  On this point I think Rifkin is right, democratization of energy is the future.  Local generation and storage will be what we'll eventually end up with.