The Death Of Fossil Fuels

[IvanV]

It would be interesting to see the economics (and explore the behavioural changes) if Great Britain Energy installed PV panels on all newbuild homes, with the option of a home battery being installed if the developer or first time owner thinks it's worth it.
Ownership of the panels/inverters etc. would remain with GBE, and there probably wouldn't be a feed in tariff (or maybe a reduced one). Battery owners would see the biggest benefit, but their load smoothing could be one of the biggest benefits for the grid.

An somewhat alternative version would be for planning to require that PV be installed (and houses shaped to maximize the use of it - roof slope direction is largely optional in the planning phase, and incentivising steeper roof pitches could increase the effective area of panels in winter), with GBE being the owner of last resort, if the new home purchaser didn't want to buy it with the new house.

The PV installation could be paid for by either the developer or GBE.

A question might be what is the minimum scale you would do this at. When fitting PV to an existing house, 10 x 400W panels is generally seen as about the minimum size you'd bother with. I suspect you might do it at a smaller scale when its new build and so the additional costs of retrofit are avoided.

Then there's an issue with buildings with several housing units inside. The fitment space might not be large enough for each housing unit to have its own, but might be (plenty) large enough for some fitment. So maybe that's another case when GB Energy might own it, and give an income to the occupants for rent of roof space. Or might there be ways to have shared ownership?

There was a learning point from the Netherlands where panels had been fitted to terraced houses. There was a long line of panels with no gaps between them. This contributed to a fire spreading to the whole block, when it started at one end.

When I applied for my loft conversion, I first proposed a design which would have provided a large S-facing roof-space, interrupted only by a small number of windows in it. In particular, I would have raised a pitched roof over my older flat roof extension. This could have had a large array on it. But I was turned down. They didn't allow me to raise a pitched roof over the flat roof, and made me turn the pitched roof to face E & W. This only provided usable living space in conjunction with several dormer windows, which left little suitable sloped roof for fitting panels. I only have 4 panels on the sloped roof, the other 6 are on the flat roof, on sloping supports. I sometimes wonder if I should have pointed out the value for PV of the original design. The irony is that they turned down the original proposal on grounds of loss of amenity to a neighbour, but the neighbour preferred the design they turned down to the one they allowed...

[dyqik]

It would be interesting to see the economics (and explore the behavioural changes) if Great Britain Energy installed PV panels on all newbuild homes, with the option of a home battery being installed if the developer or first time owner thinks it's worth it.
Ownership of the panels/inverters etc. would remain with GBE, and there probably wouldn't be a feed in tariff (or maybe a reduced one). Battery owners would see the biggest benefit, but their load smoothing could be one of the biggest benefits for the grid.

An somewhat alternative version would be for planning to require that PV be installed (and houses shaped to maximize the use of it - roof slope direction is largely optional in the planning phase, and incentivising steeper roof pitches could increase the effective area of panels in winter), with GBE being the owner of last resort, if the new home purchaser didn't want to buy it with the new house.

The PV installation could be paid for by either the developer or GBE.

A question might be what is the minimum scale you would do this at. When fitting PV to an existing house, 10 x 400W panels is generally seen as about the minimum size you'd bother with. I suspect you might do it at a smaller scale when its new build and so the additional costs of retrofit are avoided.

Then there's an issue with buildings with several housing units inside. The fitment space might not be large enough for each housing unit to have its own, but might be (plenty) large enough for some fitment. So maybe that's another case when GB Energy might own it, and give an income to the occupants for rent of roof space. Or might there be ways to have shared ownership?

Usually there's already shared ownership in terms of paying for roof repairs and other building level maintenance. Having panels pay into the maintenance fund would be a cost saver for everyone.

[jimbob]

It would be interesting to see the economics (and explore the behavioural changes) if Great Britain Energy installed PV panels on all newbuild homes, with the option of a home battery being installed if the developer or first time owner thinks it's worth it.
Ownership of the panels/inverters etc. would remain with GBE, and there probably wouldn't be a feed in tariff (or maybe a reduced one). Battery owners would see the biggest benefit, but their load smoothing could be one of the biggest benefits for the grid.

Some years ago I was at a pub celebrating a friend's 40th and ended up talking to someone who works for the National Grid. We discussed the rather impressive uninterruptible power supply that my employer installed, which is a big flywheel in a vacuum housed in a 20m cube, which now sits between the external supply and the site's grid and that stores enough energy for half an hour, backed up by 2 marine diesels that should kick in within 30 seconds. (And some time after this conversation, with a CHP plant for the site).

The bloke told me that when the flywheel was commissioned, they saw the improvement for the whole of Stockport's power supply. Even before the CHP plant, we would drop off the grid at times of peak demand.

[dyqik]

This article contains one suggestion for dealing with the lack of high capacity power grid links for solar in the American west: freight trains loaded with cheap heavy batteries, that can carry about 2.3 GWh of energy from places with land for solar arrays to places with grid connections and energy demand.

[Woodchopper]

This article contains one suggestion for dealing with the lack of high capacity power grid links for solar in the American west: freight trains loaded with cheap heavy batteries, that can carry about 2.3 GWh of energy from places with land for solar arrays to places with grid connections and energy demand.

Reminds me of the time in the 90s when we estimated the bandwidth of a truck load of CDs travelling from London to Birmingham.

[bjn]

This year, wind and solar generation have overtaken coal generation in the US. Given the rapid build out renewables and the shuttering of US coal plants, coal is dead in the USA.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-wind-and-solar-are-on-track-to-overtake-coal-this-year/

[bjn]

This article contains one suggestion for dealing with the lack of high capacity power grid links for solar in the American west: freight trains loaded with cheap heavy batteries, that can carry about 2.3 GWh of energy from places with land for solar arrays to places with grid connections and energy demand.

Another approach to transmission constraints is reconductoring (duck-duck-go it, there are enough links, plus an entire volts podcast). Keep the current towers but replace the wires with modern wires that are capable of carrying more power. Depending on what you had there before, you can get up to 3X the capacity.

[nekomatic]

German car industry proposes ending the sale of fossil transport fuels in 2045 (in German)

[Grumble]

German car industry proposes ending the sale of fossil transport fuels in 2045 (in German)

But they seem to think they will be switching to e-fuels. I’m not sure. Maybe, but fundamentally they would need to be manufactured not extracted so will always be more expensive.

[bjn]

German car industry proposes ending the sale of fossil transport fuels in 2045 (in German)

The price point for batteries where the cost of BEVs break even with ICEs is meant to be around US$100/kWh. In China this year you could get batteries for under $50/kWh wholesale (yes, partly due to over supply). Battery prices still have a way to go before they get anywhere near whatever their asymptote might be.

Sticking to petroleum powered cars will just kill the German car industry.

[IvanV]

German car industry proposes ending the sale of fossil transport fuels in 2045 (in German)

But they seem to think they will be switching to e-fuels. I’m not sure. Maybe, but fundamentally they would need to be manufactured not extracted so will always be more expensive.

E-fuels seem to me to be a silly solution. When you burn them, they release CO2. They are considered low-carbon because they are made out of sequestered CO2. So if you are sequestering the CO2 anyway, you may as well burn fossil fuels, which are cheaper and have much less energy requirement in their manufacture. But clearly, it needs to be linked to the sequestering.

[Martin Y]

Sticking to petroleum powered cars will just kill the German car industry.

Probably so. If they bet on e-fuels then they're gambling on customer resistance to battery cars being sustained long term. If that resistance evaporates in some years it may well happen faster than they can turn their metaphorical (or indeed real) oil tanker around and they'll collapse. E-fuels might be the future for aviation but it seems unlikely for cars.

[bjn]

Low carbon generation will dwarf all forms of fossil fuel generation being added to the US grid in 2024, making up 96%. Solar at 20GW is 60% of the total so far, batteries 20%. Batteries count as generation under US rules as they are dispatchable.



https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/08 ... f-of-2024/

[Imrael]

Sticking to petroleum powered cars will just kill the German car industry.

Probably so. If they bet on e-fuels then they're gambling on customer resistance to battery cars being sustained long term. If that resistance evaporates in some years it may well happen faster than they can turn their metaphorical (or indeed real) oil tanker around and they'll collapse. E-fuels might be the future for aviation but it seems unlikely for cars.

Could this be interpreted the "other" way - that they believe by 2045 the majority of private transport will be EV, thus reducing the demand for petrol/diesel to a level sustainable with efuels.

A bit of an aside, but classic car enthusiasts I know worry about mass closures of garage forecourts as EV's take off, making it hard to get the fuel for their 300 miles a year of summer motoring. Understandable, although supply networks for light aircraft and boats seem to work OK.

[Martin Y]

It seems implausible that a present day industrial giant would be planning its future as the market leader in a shrinking niche market.

They might think that market will be worth having as well as the EV market, but not instead of it.

[nekomatic]

Yes, from where I’m sitting the German automotive industry fully expects EVs to take over, but is interested in strapping as many cushions as they can underneath their ICE business before it crash-lands on its arse.

[bjn]

Sticking to petroleum powered cars will just kill the German car industry.

Probably so. If they bet on e-fuels then they're gambling on customer resistance to battery cars being sustained long term. If that resistance evaporates in some years it may well happen faster than they can turn their metaphorical (or indeed real) oil tanker around and they'll collapse. E-fuels might be the future for aviation but it seems unlikely for cars.

E-fuels are energy storage systems that are effectively un burning hydrocarbons then burning them again in a combustion engine. A stupidly inefficient way of turning electricity into motion. My rough guess is that it would be at most 10% efficient, so necessarily at least 10x the cost of electricity that went into it. Outside corner cases, they will simply be uneconomical. So I’m not too worried about the German car industry clutching at straws because no one will be buying E-fueled cars.

[IvanV]

E-fuels are energy storage systems that are effectively un burning hydrocarbons then burning them again in a combustion engine. A stupidly inefficient way of turning electricity into motion. My rough guess is that it would be at most 10% efficient, so necessarily at least 10x the cost of electricity that went into it. Outside corner cases, they will simply be uneconomical. So I’m not too worried about the German car industry clutching at straws because no one will be buying E-fueled cars.

The usual efficiency figure you see quoted is 20-25% relative efficiency, which is relative in comparison to the amount of electricity you'd need to run a battery car. Clearly there will be some adjustments to turn this into a total efficiency figure. But for most purposes, probably a useful number.

Synthetic fuel is much less attractive as energy storage even than hydrogen. So synthetic fuelled vehicles have to out-compete hydrogen vehicles, not just electric vehicles. We have already seen how the market has given up on using hydrogen power for smaller vehicles. So that tends to suggest that synth fuel is even more pie in the sky. There will be a niche for chemical fuels where electric power is impractical.

I still think the practical way to deal with systems that are impractical or excessively costly to electrify is, once we are are supposed to be decarbonised, to let people buy carbon-based fuel provided they pay to have the carbon sequestered. There would be a system whereby the money from the sequestering charge actually paid for atmospheric carbon to be sequestered. So not just a carbon tax which the government pockets.

[bjn]

I believe FCEVs as being about 33% relatively efficient compared to a BEV, with fuel cells being between 50 and 60% efficient at turning H2 into electricity on a good day.

I’m curious as to where you got your 20% relative efficiency for e-fuels? ICE engines are between 20% to 30% efficient at turning heat into motion (yes some diesel engines running at constant RPM can do better, but who does that in a car). Then you have to unburn hydrocarbons to make e-fuel, which is a process with more stages than making H2 alone. Thus my guesstimate of 10%.

[Martin_B]

Then you have to unburn hydrocarbons to make e-fuel, which is a process with more stages than making H2 alone. Thus my guesstimate of 10%.

But that isn't how e-fuels are being made. I can't go into too much detail because I've signed an NDA (yes, the site's resident oil and gas engineer is now looking at e-fuels!) but the process I'm looking into isn't starting from the base molecules of carbon dioxide and water and making a e-fuel. There's already a very efficient process which does that called photosynthesis, and it's solar powered! We are taking biomass and using another biochemical process to make aviation fuel.

I know the process to make normal aviation fuel, and the cost of exploring, drilling, extracting, transporting and processing the raw reservoir fluids into a useable product is itself extremely expensive and part of the reason petrol, diesel and kerosene are so cheap is because they are largely a by-product of the process to make gas for power generation. But if we take away the very costly upstream infrastructure and can make sites which process biomass into kerosene on an industrial scale we may be able to make kerosene to a comparable price.

[The industrial scale part is the difficult bit because it can be very dependent on the quality of the feedstock and that can affect the operating temperature, and variations of that can be disastrous!]

[Grumble]

Then you have to unburn hydrocarbons to make e-fuel, which is a process with more stages than making H2 alone. Thus my guesstimate of 10%.

But that isn't how e-fuels are being made. I can't go into too much detail because I've signed an NDA (yes, the site's resident oil and gas engineer is now looking at e-fuels!) but the process I'm looking into isn't starting from the base molecules of carbon dioxide and water and making a e-fuel. There's already a very efficient process which does that called photosynthesis, and it's solar powered! We are taking biomass and using another biochemical process to make aviation fuel.

I know the process to make normal aviation fuel, and the cost of exploring, drilling, extracting, transporting and processing the raw reservoir fluids into a useable product is itself extremely expensive and part of the reason petrol, diesel and kerosene are so cheap is because they are largely a by-product of the process to make gas for power generation. But if we take away the very costly upstream infrastructure and can make sites which process biomass into kerosene on an industrial scale we may be able to make kerosene to a comparable price.

[The industrial scale part is the difficult bit because it can be very dependent on the quality of the feedstock and that can affect the operating temperature, and variations of that can be disastrous!]

Doesn’t that fall under what most people call a bio-fuel rather than an e-fuel?

[dyqik]

Doesn’t that fall under what most people call a bio-fuel rather than an e-fuel?

I don't think that really matters, given that the output is the same. There's just the plant step in this method.

[bjn]

Doesn’t that fall under what most people call a bio-fuel rather than an e-fuel?

I don't think that really matters, given that the output is the same. There's just the plant step in this method.

The output may be the same, however if Martin B’s people have a found a viable scalable way to make liquid hydrocarbons from plants, it’s a biofuel and not an efuel. Needs different inputs and so has different advantages and disadvantages.

Most current biofuels are dreadful (looking at you corn based ethanol and wood pellets), so I’m curious about what Martin B knows. At best, photosynthesis is 6% efficient at turning light into biomass, which will then need extra steps to be turned into fuel. You’ll also have to use land you could grow other things on, like food. For comparison, solar panels are now available at 22% efficiency, and the electricity is immediately useful. However, given all the losses involved in turning electricity into e-fuels, it may make more sense to devote land to bio mass rather than solar panels to make hydrocarbons.

So, back of the enveloping here…

Assuming 6% photosynthetic efficiency and a 35% jet engine efficiency, Martin B’s tech would be about 2% efficient at best for turning available sunlight into aircraft motion. For an ICE car, that would be about 1.8%. For a BEV, with a 22% efficient solar panel and 75% “generator to wheel” efficiency, you at getting about 16% of the sunlight being turned into motion. You can also use wind to power a BEV; and geothermal, and hydro and nukes if you must.

No idea how the turn that into monetary costs though, I’d imagine the opex of the biomass process would be higher than solar or wind, though the capital costs may be lower (it would be heavily dependent on the cost of land needed). So, Martin B’s thing could be both economically viable and the environmentally sanest way to make hydrocarbons for cases where we have no alternatives, but I can’t see it working for when electricity with a battery will do.

[dyqik]

At best, photosynthesis is 6% efficient at turning light into biomass,

That's the wrong calculation until we get into a Dyson sphere type situation. Biomass grows by itself, and needs minimal energy input from sources that are otherwise useful to humans. That's different to solar arrays, which cost energy and other critical resources to build.

The opportunity cost for biomass inputs to the fuel production process is low.

Calculating the solar to biomass efficiency is like including the conversion of solar flux into wind in the efficiency of wind power.

[monkey]

At best, photosynthesis is 6% efficient at turning light into biomass,

That's the wrong calculation until we get into a Dyson sphere type situation. Biomass grows by itself, and needs minimal energy input from sources that are otherwise useful to humans. That's different to solar arrays, which cost energy to build.

The opportunity cost for biomass inputs to the fuel production process is low.

Calculating the solar to biomass efficiency is like including the conversion of solar flux into wind in the efficiency of wind power.

I get your point, but I think your overselling it. It's not like farmers sit on their arses for 10/12 months a year never using water, fertiliser, etc.

And I always thought that the trouble with biofuels was the opportunity cost! Just fuel vs food, not fuel vs fuel.