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Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2020 7:36 am
by bjn
bjn wrote:
Sun Nov 01, 2020 9:41 pm
Apologies, I misread the system cost break down for storage, and the capital cost for that CASIO system was $60 per MWh, not 60%. So the savings for cheaper batteries in a similar system won’t be as big. Note that the IRR for that system is 23%, they are coining it.

They have a range of other example systems, some being crazy high LCOSs (>$2000 in Nantucket), with residential storage microsystem costing about $400 in Hawaii.

Then there is the smaller Texas system that is paired to a solar farm has an LCOS of $81, IRR of 22%. That also had a capital cost of $60 per MWh. Drop the capital cost by up to 75% for a new system and it would be costing you $36 per MWh. Nuts.

There is a reason that Texas had multi multi GW of storage in the pipeline, with an estimate 1GW going in this year.
A bit further reading, the Nantucket system is being used only a few times a year, so it’s capital cost has to be spread over fewer kWhs. It’s purpose is to cover a few days per year of peak demand, they did this to avoid putting in an even more expensive upgrade of the power lines going into the island. The california and texas systems are being uses for grid stability and power arbitrage, so are being cycled frequently. So for simple time shifting of power, we now have cost effective solutions. For more more intermittent cases, not yet.

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2020 8:32 pm
by bjn
Ars has a review of a Nature article* that analyses the current costs of and impacts of integrating renewables into a grid. It’s not straight forward, and costs vary depending on a lot of factors, but in general, you can now get quite high penetrations which are cost competitive with fossil fuels.
But it is possible to make some generalizations. The first is that the variability of wind and solar power do make them more expensive to add to the grid, although the expense is pretty minimal if they're not already generating more than 10 percent of the power on the local grid. Above that, and they're only just becoming competitive with the price we pay for fossil fuel-generated power. But the price we pay for fossil fuels doesn't include the emissions they generate; accounting for that would probably bring wind and solar back in front. And anything's cheaper than nuclear right now.
One of the nice things is that demand for cooling correlates with insolation (funny that), so that adding solar generation in warmer climates actually drives down the price of electricity in those areas. Demand for heating, not so much.


*paywalled, hint, hint.

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2020 4:32 pm
by bjn
Ars has a review of paper going into the costs of making nuclear reactor and why costs have spiralled over time. It’s an analysis of the construction records of US nuclear plants over several decades, with most of the authors from the Department of Nuclear Engineering at MIT. The bulk of the cost inflation, 70% was just down to profound inefficiencies during construction. They examined 60 different aspects of construction and they nearly all went up over time.

R&D accounted for around 30% of the increase in costs, including adjusting to regulatory changes. That regulation was often in response to things like 3 Mile Island, so can't be dismissed as pointless over regulation.

The shocking thing was that there was no learning. Most time you make a first one, the second is a bit cheaper, the third a bit cheaper still and so on. Nukes didn’t do that, the learning rate was -115%, more than doubling with each subsequent reactor built in a series. Average cost overruns were 240%, which doesn’t include added financing costs due to delays during construction.

Seems to be a structural problem with the nuclear industry in the USA. While the report is US specific and one can’t generalise to the rest of the world, all other countries do see cost overruns and delays to their nuclear construction projects. (eg. the EPRs in China were 3 years late, Hinckley C is more than £2Bn over budget and delayed by at least 18 months, Flammanville 18 years in the making and counting).

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2020 8:19 pm
by Grumble
bjn wrote:
Sat Nov 21, 2020 4:32 pm
The shocking thing was that there was no learning. Most time you make a first one, the second is a bit cheaper, the third a bit cheaper still and so on. Nukes didn’t do that, the learning rate was -115%, more than doubling with each subsequent reactor built in a series. Average cost overruns were 240%, which doesn’t include added financing costs due to delays during construction.
The lack of standardisation is fundamental and incomprehensible to me. I worked somewhere once where I saw valves from power stations on a regular basis - heat treating them - and I never saw the same valve design twice.
This is part of the argument for SMRs from Rolls-Royce. They’ve been building reactors to a standard design for submarines for many years. Each generation of submarines has a new design of reactor but it’s iterative. SMRs will have a new design again, but again an iteration of what they know how to do.

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2020 9:26 pm
by bjn
Grumble wrote:
Sat Nov 21, 2020 8:19 pm
bjn wrote:
Sat Nov 21, 2020 4:32 pm
The shocking thing was that there was no learning. Most time you make a first one, the second is a bit cheaper, the third a bit cheaper still and so on. Nukes didn’t do that, the learning rate was -115%, more than doubling with each subsequent reactor built in a series. Average cost overruns were 240%, which doesn’t include added financing costs due to delays during construction.
The lack of standardisation is fundamental and incomprehensible to me. I worked somewhere once where I saw valves from power stations on a regular basis - heat treating them - and I never saw the same valve design twice.
This is part of the argument for SMRs from Rolls-Royce. They’ve been building reactors to a standard design for submarines for many years. Each generation of submarines has a new design of reactor but it’s iterative. SMRs will have a new design again, but again an iteration of what they know how to do.
Colour me sceptical about SMRs, nukes have always under delivered on the promises (even in France), I'm not expecting much, but may be pleasantly surprised. They are definitely having difficulty finding customers in the US willing to take the risk of investing in them, so that the DoE is now ready to throw $130M/year for a decade at the first 'cheap' SMR generating 60MW.

It will be a many years before they come on line, then require more years to refine the production process, by which time renewables, HVDC interconnects and storage will have improved by leaps and bounds.

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2020 8:49 pm
by Grumble
Just found out that Boris dropped a requirement to stop putting gas boilers in new houses from 2022 from the 10 point plan. FFS.

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2020 9:42 pm
by bjn
Grumble wrote:
Tue Nov 24, 2020 8:49 pm
Just found out that Boris dropped a requirement to stop putting gas boilers in new houses from 2022 from the 10 point plan. FFS.
i’m guessing pressure from home builders.

Craven and lacking ambitious goals beyond self interest.

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2020 11:57 pm
by Bird on a Fire
After Brexit, loads of my environmental friends were fairly sanguine about policy prospects: "Oh, it won't be that bad," they said, "Even the Conservatives are pushing progress on the environment. UK voters take it seriously. Michael Gove is interested in CAP reform."

I laughed in their naive little faces, and got drunk.

It's such a burden being right about everything all the time.

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 12:34 am
by nekomatic
I’d like to imagine it was because of fresh optimism for the prospects of hydrogen substitution for natural gas, but I’m not going to put money on that.

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 12:36 am
by Bird on a Fire
Probably just selection bias. I'm realising that about a decade is probably the lifespan of a pessimist at giving-a-sh.t-about-the-environment ;)

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 7:12 am
by Grumble
I am happy about the clear signal to the automotive manufacturers but home heating is such a big chunk of our CO2 output. It’s possible that there’s an argument about the capacity to supply enough heat pumps, but we’re only talking about new houses.

I would like to see a “no more gas boilers or stoves” policy, to pull a date out of the air let’s say 2030 as a deadline. But also a much simpler subsidy arrangement for them - currently there is a subsidy paid quarterly over a few years after purchase. This made the initial purchase unaffordable for me earlier this year. If the same subsidy was paid up front it would have made it possible for me to get a heat pump.

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 12:55 pm
by Grumble
Following a mention on Fully Charged I went to have a read of this think tank report: https://www.rethinkx.com/energy
They claim that we should be aiming to have electricity from 100% solar wind and batteries with excess power available most of the time. The biggest question I have over the economics are in the assumption that cost reductions seen over the last decade will continue over the next. At some point we may well see a slowing down of the price reductions, although I’m cautiously optimistic that they will continue for a while yet.

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 2:55 pm
by EACLucifer
Grumble wrote:
Wed Nov 25, 2020 12:55 pm
They claim that we should be aiming to have electricity from 100% solar wind...
I don't think there's any viable way of generating power from the solar wind at present ;)

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 3:15 pm
by Grumble
EACLucifer wrote:
Wed Nov 25, 2020 2:55 pm
Grumble wrote:
Wed Nov 25, 2020 12:55 pm
They claim that we should be aiming to have electricity from 100% solar wind...
I don't think there's any viable way of generating power from the solar wind at present ;)
Punctuation is o’verrated

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2020 9:01 pm
by Grumble
Opinion piece on the possible death of the German car industry.
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/11/26/th ... o-survive/

I think the U.K. commitment to full EV by 2030 is to be applauded - let’s not allow the car manufacturers to fanny about claiming that there isn’t a clear winner here. Offering choice is expensive. EVs are expensive to start with - the price of Teslas shows that - but offering a choice of power trains is only adding to the price of vehicles for other manufacturers. I hope another major economy, like France or Japan - or more likely California, commits to full EV by 2030. That would make the car manufacturers get their arses in gear. California is currently mandating BEVs by 2035, which is where we were a few weeks ago. It feels nice to be leading California in something that I agree with for once.

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2020 1:47 am
by bjn
Top 10 selling BEVs in europe last month didn’t include the Tesla, top spot went to the iD3, then the Zoe, then the Kona. Might be a pent up sales surge for the newly released VW, or an availability issue for the Tesla. Regardless, I wouldn’t write off VW. Or Porsche for that matter, the Taycan was designed to be a very different type of car to the Tesla, its drive train was designed to deliver continuous high power for long periods of time, the Tesla’s can’t do that.

27% of cars sold in Europe last month were BEVs or PHEVs, 26% diesel, 44% petrol. The year before it was 10%, 31%, and 57%. Not sure if that is a covid thing, or the BEV trend accelerating, be interesting to see if the trend keeps up.

https://insideevs.com/news/456798/europ ... ober-2020/

Edit to fix figure.

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2020 8:09 am
by Grumble
bjn wrote:
Sat Nov 28, 2020 1:47 am
Top 10 selling BEVs in europe last month didn’t include the Tesla, top spot went to the iD3, then the Zoe, then the Kona. Might be a pent up sales surge for the newly released VW, or an availability issue for the Tesla. Regardless, I wouldn’t write off VW. Or Porsche for that matter, the Taycan was designed to be a very different type of car to the Tesla, its drive train was designed to deliver continuous high power for long periods of time, the Tesla’s can’t do that.

27% of cars sold in Europe last month were BEVs or PHEVs, 26% diesel, 44% petrol. The year before it was 10%, 31%, and 57%. Not sure if that is a covid thing, or the BEV trend accelerating, be interesting to see if the trend keeps up.

https://insideevs.com/news/456798/europ ... ober-2020/

Edit to fix figure.
The article does credit VW with the best chance - and Porsche is linked to VW too. The Late Brake Show did a cool video on an electric Mercedes, we just have to hope Mercedes get more serious about it.

https://youtu.be/AwStZpTvr5E

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2020 9:01 am
by bjn
I think his criticism of the other German majors is justified, but is somewhat off with the critique of VW and Porsche. The cheapest ID.3 is £32,990 while the cheapest Tesla is £40,490, both having comparable range. It isn’t as quick as the Tesla, but not everyone is a boy racer. So VW’s first BEV is fine and would be the one Is consider buying right now.

The new battery packs coming from Tesla may throw that into contention though.

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2020 9:27 am
by Grumble
bjn wrote:
Sat Nov 28, 2020 9:01 am
I think his criticism of the other German majors is justified, but is somewhat off with the critique of VW and Porsche. The cheapest ID.3 is £32,990 while the cheapest Tesla is £40,490, both having comparable range. It isn’t as quick as the Tesla, but not everyone is a boy racer. So VW’s first BEV is fine and would be the one Is consider buying right now.

The new battery packs coming from Tesla may throw that into contention though.
I hope so, the price of Teslas puts them out of my reach. To be honest the price of the iD3 puts it out of my reach too. The MG5 is one I’m seriously looking at.

I think I’ll start a new thread about how to price compare buying a BEV and keeping my diesel, which has no money owing.

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2020 9:42 am
by bjn
Oh, and the ones to be worried about are the Chinese companies. BYD makes more electric vehicles than anyone else anywhere.

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2020 12:54 pm
by shpalman

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2020 1:44 pm
by dyqik
Seems like the biggest issue there was that they weren't prepared to queue anywhere.

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2020 1:51 pm
by Bird on a Fire
Chargers don't produce power anyway. I think the word they were looking for there is "providing".

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2020 3:00 pm
by Grumble
They do have a point though, the public charging network is fragmented, unreliable and sparse. Especially outside of London. It’s something that early adopters have often complained about and it is something that needs to improve. I’m happy with the idea of charging at home but it’s not possible for everyone.

Re: The Death Of Fossil Fuels

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2020 3:37 pm
by shpalman
Grumble wrote:
Sat Nov 28, 2020 9:27 am
bjn wrote:
Sat Nov 28, 2020 9:01 am
I think his criticism of the other German majors is justified, but is somewhat off with the critique of VW and Porsche. The cheapest ID.3 is £32,990 while the cheapest Tesla is £40,490, both having comparable range. It isn’t as quick as the Tesla, but not everyone is a boy racer. So VW’s first BEV is fine and would be the one Is consider buying right now.

The new battery packs coming from Tesla may throw that into contention though.
I hope so, the price of Teslas puts them out of my reach. To be honest the price of the iD3 puts it out of my reach too. The MG5 is one I’m seriously looking at.

I think I’ll start a new thread about how to price compare buying a BEV and keeping my diesel, which has no money owing.
Please do. I drive a 20-year-old car which cost €12,000 (it was five years old when I bought it) and spent €857 on petrol in 2019. In a couple of years' time I won't be able to drive into the city of Milan before half-past seven pm in the evening, which I never do anyway.