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@NTA said in Climate Change:
So, does the practice of renewables bidding first at a low price screw the market?
Not at all.
Of course it does when the influx of renewables causes the price make other providers uneconomic. So they only have two courses of action:
- Go out of business.
- Set a price when you can that makes you a going concern.
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@antipodean said in Climate Change:
What other inference should I take from this statement 'renewables bid in first, cover their margins, then wait on the market' ?
Your post:
@antipodean said in Climate Change:
Not really, because the electricity generated from renewable sources has priority access to the grid and the effect of the feed-in tariffs and grid access means consumers pay the price.
Inferred that consumers pay higher prices because of the presence of renewables.
Is that not what you meant?
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@NTA said in Climate Change:
@antipodean said in Climate Change:
What other inference should I take from this statement 'renewables bid in first, cover their margins, then wait on the market' ?
Your post:
@antipodean said in Climate Change:
Not really, because the electricity generated from renewable sources has priority access to the grid and the effect of the feed-in tariffs and grid access means consumers pay the price.
Inferred that consumers pay higher prices because of the presence of renewables.
Is that not what you meant?
Yes. So what other inference should I take?
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@antipodean said in Climate Change:
Yes. So what other inference should I take?
Explicitly: you're wrong to infer that the renewables drive higher prices.
Renewables bid in at something that covers their costs, in order to dispatch generation they have available. Their profits are based on provision of available volume.
Other generators could bid in a way that gives the market stability and ensures their viability. They aren't. They choose to create artificial scarcity in order to drive shareholder value.
The market mechanism - not renewables - is responsible for prices spiking.
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@NTA said in Climate Change:
@antipodean said in Climate Change:
Yes. So what other inference should I take?
Explicitly: you're wrong to infer that the renewables drive higher prices.
Read this to start with: https://epic.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Do-Renewable-Portfolio-Standards-Deliver.pdf
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@TeWaio said in Climate Change:
Anything metric that uses LCOE is effectively junk science, unfortunately.
Lazard themselves, who created it, now no longer use it, as to ignore intermittency renders most analysis pointless.
This is the second most annoying thing in the energy debate after Musk's solar panels gaffe above.
O.K. I just read all of that (interesting, thanks) as well as about Lazard, and my first thought was that I was glad that I put the disclaimer in, but the article really reinforces what I have been saying the whole way through, that it needs to be on site. Intermittency does not render it pointless in a specific locale. The article even says that. That graph that I put in doesn't need to show reliability of supply in my network, but it shows the trend of cost for me to install solar.
Your comment and the article are macro again of course. LCOE is flawed but relevant to everything that I said in the post directly above the graph regarding my own wind turbine to supplement the solar. It is gloomy here today but 12 knots of wind to charge a battery. One of the reasons for having the whole system is mentioned above as well and relates to the intermittency of our grid power...I was forced to buy a generator because of it. Very cheap backup for the rare events where we have absolutely no wind or sun for more than a couple of days. I will have 3 power sources for a battery, how much reliability and redundancy do you want?
I have had a weather station on my land for over a decade measuring solar radiation and wind data, so I'm not exactly going in blind. I can calculate how much power we use, how long we need storage for, etc. I have a breakeven of 12.7 years (without sellback to the grid income). That is for our current usage (highish with a hot tub) and generation from the solar with battery storage. I'll need an extra $10-15k for wind generator which blows that out a bit, but the reliability that it brings, being discussed here, is massively enhanced. That sort of data is available to make reasonable guesses for lots more localised networks. A large solar farm going in near Wellsford NZ which will power the town (people not happy about the solar farm, but beside the point here).
Storage is still the biggest issue, even for my system, it's expensive and why the LOCE graph blows out when reliability of generation is factored in. It might take a bit of thought but batteries don't have to be exactly how we recognise them now. They are simply potential energy stores.
I'm nowhere near trying this, but I have a sloping section of land and a 40,000l tank at the top (and a spring). I can use my existing water pump powered by solar to shift the 40,000l up to the top tank as required and use it as a battery with a micro hydro system generating power at night on the way down. Technically I should even be able to get a reversible pump, generators are just pumps after all. Just use diurnal variation to change its role.I only mention that because it emphasises the strengths of using the actual site. City folk are still in the shit. Sorry, but you are. Come up with your own ideas, I'm busy solving mine. (Actually, localised tidal may be the best hope for coastal cities - cost aside, mountain cities can have localised hydro usually, so there are options, but specific to site. Again!).
Love that the article mentions this:
"Direct burning is the only way to power many transport machines, and the cheapest way to power many heating machines."
That has been my second point mentioned on this thread. Supply is being discussed ad nauseum, but not much on the other side, demand. I've already banged on about transport, I won't repeat it and it's obvious anyway. As for heating, again reduce demand. We already know how.
People really are so hung up on macro. Sigh.
So while there are some good points in there it doesn't change anything that I have said or the shift in philosophy that is needed.
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@antipodean said in Climate Change:
@NTA said in Climate Change:
@antipodean said in Climate Change:
Yes. So what other inference should I take?
Explicitly: you're wrong to infer that the renewables drive higher prices.
Read this to start with: https://epic.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Do-Renewable-Portfolio-Standards-Deliver.pdf
That paper - beyond being 4 years old - kind of makes my point about market mechanisms: bad policy creates pricing issues for the consumer.
Implementation of some of RPS was used more as a stick than a carrot to move to renewables, and forced retailers into making changes they might not. As a result, and also given how parts of the US grid are structured, undue pressure was always going to result in some outcomes that weren't ideal.
At a high level, if we're comparing 29 states with RPS versus those without, again we're not drawing a causation line to renewables - the other states were not a control group, locking everything they had in place for the whole uptake of RPS elsewhere. Other factors come into play, and it isn't as binary as W&S versus anything else.
Here's a summary from the Energy Council (also 4 years old), which talks about the findings in that paper in terms of criticism of RPS.
It also summarises the benefits of RPS from a 2016 paper by NREL.
Overall it found the key benefits of the RPS to be:
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GHG emissions and climate change damage reduced – calculated at $2.2bn of global benefits when applying a central value of $37/tonne for the social cost of carbon, equivalent to 2.2 cents/kWh.
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Air pollution emissions and human health and environmental benefits – it estimated the benefits to be $5.2bn on average, equivalent to 5.3c/kWh
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Water use reduction – national water withdrawals and consumption was reduced by 830 billion gallons (3.1 trillion litres) and 27 billion gallons (102 billion litres), respectively.
Other impacts associated with new renewables included gross jobs and economic development. The NREL estimated nearly 200,000 jobs and $20 billion in GDP. Around 30,000 jobs were in ongoing operations and maintenance and the rest in construction (see Figure 1).
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@Snowy said in Climate Change:
I'll need an extra $10-15k for wind generator which blows that out a bit, but the reliability that it brings, being discussed here, is massively enhanced.
And that's the hard bit to put a price on.
Here some people are doing "lifestyle" blocks. To get a grid connection is $100k+ so the choice is easy: big solar + crapload of storage. Heck, even wiring your house up 12V like a caravan! They still keep a genny on standby tho
But as you say: the cheapest kWh is the one you don't use. I'm sitting in my modern build house on a 33C day and the HVAC is running to the tune of about $1.75 an hour. Better glazing would save a fair bit, but the capital cost?
I'm in the city. I don't need to worry about running out
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@NTA said in Climate Change:
@antipodean said in Climate Change:
@NTA said in Climate Change:
@antipodean said in Climate Change:
Yes. So what other inference should I take?
Explicitly: you're wrong to infer that the renewables drive higher prices.
Read this to start with: https://epic.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Do-Renewable-Portfolio-Standards-Deliver.pdf
That paper - beyond being 4 years old - kind of makes my point about market mechanisms: bad policy creates pricing issues for the consumer.
I'm not sure what your criticism of its age brings to the table. But I'm still confused as to how you can't acknowledge additional cost gets passed on to the consumer. Additional taxes or levies solely as a result of policy to increase renewable generation.
Here's a summary from the Energy Council (also 4 years old), which talks about the findings in that paper in terms of criticism of RPS.
It also summarises the benefits of RPS from a 2016 paper by NREL.
A paper that's seven years old? Ok. And that's better than a presumed additional three (at least) years of data?
I also dismiss findings based on 'we evaluate potential societal benefits' which is code for "pulled this out of our arses".
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@TeWaio said in Climate Change:
Wind/solar are fine in places they make sense, but can't really be more than 5% or 10% of a grid without drowning it.
Sorry I don't follow this, are you saying if wind and solar are 5-10% cheaper that is a bad thing because they would 'drown' the grid?! If more efficient, that isn't their fault!
SolarAlmost everything in particular is artificially cheap as its mostly made in China using coal fired energy and slave labor as inputsFIFY.
; it never has to earn its cost of capital in actual markets like other technologies.
Some have said that of costings for nuclear. Such as the power required for the plant itself, the location value of the location near a large enough population, the cost of the transition stage...
The mining ethics and supply issues with battery materials are well-documented
including solid state here? I think the potential of future batteries is quite impressive.
and imagining they can scale up to be most of the vehicles AND balance a mostly wind-and-solar grid is fanciful, to say the least.
Depending where you are a nuclear power plant from political debate to efficient use could be 15-30 years that is a lot of time for wind solar and battery technologies to improve within.
My reservation with (current) nuclear is mostly logistical and also: I don't trust the standards and quality control in the country I am in.
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@Winger said in Climate Change:
@NTA said in Climate Change:
Which is the common thread:
Renewables need(ed) subsidies
Fossil fuels have subsidies - massive subsidies
Nuclear needs subsidiesNo, they don't. But the only thing that keeps
global warmingclimate change and green energy afloat is untruths. These untruths, and the ugliness behind them (like slave labor), is becoming more and more obvious now.Here's an old article on this subject
The fact that the ODI have resorted to including items which plainly are not subsidies in any shape or form is an indication that their report has more to do with a political agenda, rather than a genuine attempt to assess fossil fuel subsidies.
Evidence of this lies in the fact that they have completely failed to mention the very real tax revenue which fossil fuels generate for the government.
I have already touched on North Sea oil revenue. But by far the biggest contribution comes from fuel duties, which generated £28bn last year.
The reality is that the ODI is yet another part of the green blob, funded largely by the UN, EU and taxpayer funded foreign aid money. (Last year, for instance, the DFID contributed an astonishing £16.8m).
Given their background, this grossly dishonest report is probably what you would expect to see. But why UK taxpayers have to pay millions to such a disreputable outfit is a mystery.
This is absolutely correct (I have disagreed with @Winger a lot in this thread, and here I am agreeing twice in 24hrs ); when considering all govt policy interventions globally, FFs are definitely net-taxed rather than net-subsidised. The "but fossil fuels get lots of subsidies" myth is unfortunately in the same category as Elon's solar exaggerations and LCOE.
By way of details, here is the third Alex Epstein substack I've posted in the thread - I know that seems a bit biased to cite the same guy 3 times, but his research is very very well referenced, and he sits outside the academia / govt grant / NGO ecosystem which effectively prohibits anything that runs counter to the wind+solar narrative. That said, he is clearly pro fossil fuels, so is far from a neutral source (who is?).
https://alexepstein.substack.com/p/the-myth-of-fossil-fuel-subsidies
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@nostrildamus said in Climate Change:
@TeWaio said in Climate Change:
Wind/solar are fine in places they make sense, but can't really be more than 5% or 10% of a grid without drowning it.
Sorry I don't follow this, are you saying if wind and solar are 5-10% cheaper that is a bad thing because they would 'drown' the grid?! If more efficient, that isn't their fault!
I meant 5-10% of the total generation capacity of a grid. Addendum: this is just my own impression and I could be wrong on this, as its the part of the energy system I know the least about. @NTA (and it seems @antipodean) know more about the details. Definitely there the correlation of more expensive electricity in any grid that has deployed loads of renewables. Could be correlation vs causation, as I intuitively understand its gas rather than renewables that set the marginal price, but that total cost vs renewables penetration relationship looks fairly horrible everywhere.
SolarAlmost everything in particular is artificially cheap as its mostly made in China using coal fired energy and slave labor as inputsFIFY.
Fair point, but wind and especially solar are probably the most energetically- and carbon-intensive things the Chinese make at scale
; it never has to earn its cost of capital in actual markets like other technologies.
Some have said that of costings for nuclear. Such as the power required for the plant itself, the location value of the location near a large enough population, the cost of the transition stage...
Yep true for nuclear as well, but wind/solar in China is much more distorted from free markets than nuclear in the West.
The mining ethics and supply issues with battery materials are well-documented
including solid state here? I think the potential of future batteries is quite impressive.
I really really want this to be true, but there is so much hype/vaporware in next-gen batteries, and there has been for decades. Having followed it for a long time, I don't think by 2030 mass manufactured batteries will be more than single-digit % better than todays. I would love to be wrong as in my current role I have decent investment exposure to battery companies.
and imagining they can scale up to be most of the vehicles AND balance a mostly wind-and-solar grid is fanciful, to say the least.
Depending where you are a nuclear power plant from political debate to efficient use could be 15-30 years that is a lot of time for wind solar and battery technologies to improve within.
Yes, but a lot of that is due to red tape/regs that were lobbied for by people who are anti-nuclear. Who then say "we can't do nuclear as it takes too long" - a fairly obvious sleight-of-hand IMO. The French built 56 reactors in about 20yrs from the early 1960s. The idea we don't have better tech/designs/construction six decades later is fanciful.
My reservation with (current) nuclear is mostly logistical and also: I don't trust the standards and quality control in the country I am in.
Not sure where you are, but certainly nuclear requires stringent safety regulations. The Soviets' built water-cooled reactors with a positive void coefficient because they were cheaper, which made the Chernobyl disaster possible. The Japanese put the diesel backup generators for Fukushima in the basement instead of on the roof. There are easy fixes to all this, but agree it is scary given the potential consequences.
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@TeWaio said in Climate Change:
@nostrildamus said in Climate Change:
@TeWaio said in Climate Change:
Wind/solar are fine in places they make sense, but can't really be more than 5% or 10% of a grid without drowning it.
Sorry I don't follow this, are you saying if wind and solar are 5-10% cheaper that is a bad thing because they would 'drown' the grid?! If more efficient, that isn't their fault!
I meant 5-10% of the total generation capacity of a grid.
SolarAlmost everything in particular is artificially cheap as its mostly made in China using coal fired energy and slave labor as inputsFIFY.
Fair point, but wind and especially solar are probably the most energetically- and carbon-intensive things the Chinese make at scale
; it never has to earn its cost of capital in actual markets like other technologies.
Some have said that of costings for nuclear. Such as the power required for the plant itself, the location value of the location near a large enough population, the cost of the transition stage...
Yep true for nuclear as well, but wind/solar in China is much more distorted from free markets than nuclear in the West.
The mining ethics and supply issues with battery materials are well-documented
including solid state here? I think the potential of future batteries is quite impressive.
I really really want this to be true, but there is so much hype/vaporware in next-gen batteries, and there has been for decades. Having followed it for a long time, I don't think by 2030 mass manufactured batteries will be more than single-digit % better than todays.
and imagining they can scale up to be most of the vehicles AND balance a mostly wind-and-solar grid is fanciful, to say the least.
Depending where you are a nuclear power plant from political debate to efficient use could be 15-30 years that is a lot of time for wind solar and battery technologies to improve within.
Yes, but a lot of that is due to red tape/regs that were lobbied for by people who are anti-nuclear. Who then say "we can't do nuclear as it takes too long" - a fairly obvious slight-of-hand IMO. The French built 56 reactors in about 20yrss from the early 1960s. The idea we don't have better tech/designs/construction 60yrs later is fanciful.
My reservation with (current) nuclear is mostly logistical and also: I don't trust the standards and quality control in the country I am in.
Not sure where you are, but certainly nuclear requires stringent safety regulations. The Soveits built water-cooled reactors with a positive void coefficient because they were cheaper, which made the Chernobyl disaster possible. The Japanese put the diesel backup generators for Fukushima in the basement instead of on the roof. There are easy fixes to all this, but agree it is scary given the potential consequences.
Thank you, I don't know enough here to offer a good debate (or know enough to fully agree/disagree, but I like the points you raised. Regards batteries there is so much hype, yes it might pay to be cautious with both promises and guessed timeframes. If one company gets it right at scale though, I think it will be dominoes...
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@Windows97 said in Climate Change:
In a fair world nothing would have subsidies then the the technology would be able to stand on it's merits.
I think that is very much a philosophical, ethical and political standpoint rather than one specific to technology.
How do you feel about public spending in general? Do you believe in some sort of social welfare system? Public healthcare?
We know that insulation works, improves people's lives, and reduces energy wastage. It isn't a gamble on new tech, should it be subsidised?
What about fair trade agreements? Import tariffs or subsidies for local production?
As has been said, it isn't a fair world, and I do know what you are saying, but the question is really whether anything should have support from government even if it enhances the lives of the greater populace?
I think that it is fair to say that an awful lot of people (pretty much everybody in some way) lives are going to be dramatically changed, so should we be assisting our fellow man with public funds?
Rhetorical questions to illustrate that it's not the tech specifically that is being funded.
I have had thoughts at times that I wouldn't mind seeing all of the empty multi million dollar "bachs" at Omaha disappear under a few feet of water (won't take much) given that we have a housing crisis and people living in cars, but I'm not really that mean spirited.
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@TeWaio said in Climate Change:
@nostrildamus said in Climate Change:
Depending where you are a nuclear power plant from political debate to efficient use could be 15-30 years that is a lot of time for wind solar and battery technologies to improve within.
Yes, but a lot of that is due to red tape/regs that were lobbied for by people who are anti-nuclear. Who then say "we can't do nuclear as it takes too long" - a fairly obvious sleight-of-hand IMO. The French built 56 reactors in about 20yrs from the early 1960s. The idea we don't have better tech/designs/construction six decades later is fanciful.
My reservation with (current) nuclear is mostly logistical and also: I don't trust the standards and quality control in the country I am in.
Not sure where you are, but certainly nuclear requires stringent safety regulations. The Soviets' built water-cooled reactors with a positive void coefficient because they were cheaper, which made the Chernobyl disaster possible. The Japanese put the diesel backup generators for Fukushima in the basement instead of on the roof. There are easy fixes to all this, but agree it is scary given the potential consequences.
Just as an example of the ridiculous regulatory impost nuclear is held to:
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@Snowy My response was to a point made by NTA in regards to the various subsides prevalent in the energy industry so we could determine which one actually was the cheapest as apparently green energy which is supposed to be cheap - isn't.
With subsidies in effect it's impossible to tell from a financial standpoint which is the cheapest purely from an economical point of view.
Anything read further than that is your own thoughts and feelings and nothing to do with mine
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@TeWaio said in Climate Change:
, I don't think by 2030 mass manufactured batteries will be more than single-digit % better than todays. I would love to be wrong as in my current role I have decent investment exposure to battery companies.
that's really interesting! Why is that - I'd assumed we'd continue to see incremental ongoing improvements; it's one of the things that has been a cause for future-optimism.
I googled a bit, and found this. Curious as to alternative views (genuinely so; I am not an expert in future batter prices, but assumed scale would continue to cut prices). And thoughts on the Toyota Solid State Vapourware batteries?
BNEF expects battery price to start dropping again in 2024, when lithium prices are expected to ease as more extraction and refining capacity comes online. Based on the updated observed learning rate, BNEF’s 2022 Battery Price Survey predicts that average pack prices should fall below $100/kWh by 2026. This is two years later than previously expected and will negatively impact the ability for automakers to produce and sell mass-market EVs in areas without subsidies or other forms of support. Higher battery prices could also hurt the economics of energy storage projects.
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@nzzp supply and demand, I guess? Suddenly everyone needs to ramp up their shit, and that means supply chain constraints come into play.
There are other options for stationary storage, but being less mature, they aren't ready to take the market by storm.
If the primary use for lithium was vehicles, and it was mandated that stationary had to move to an alternative (e.g. Zinc-Bromide or another type of salt), maybe that could shift the needle?
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@TeWaio said in Climate Change:
I meant 5-10% of the total generation capacity of a grid. Addendum: this is just my own impression and I could be wrong on this, as its the part of the energy system I know the least about. @NTA (and it seems @antipodean) know more about the details.
Have worked alongside some guys who were there when the NEM was figuring out the most robust way to connect SCART They acknowledge that a VRE grid will have challenges that they didn't have "back in the day", but then consumer patterns are the an equally complex problem to solve.
There are some good people to follow out there tho. I like to watch Dave Osmond's weekly update to his data modelling to see how things fluctuate due to local circumstances
Climate Change