[KaiserJeep]

The investment to build railway tracks is huge, and the time required is also considerable. The Edgewater Alliant Energy Center I mentioned in my message above was decades old, originally fuelled by Eastern hard coals from barges that traversed the Great Lakes via the St. Lawrence Seaway system, before railway tracks were built for Western coals. Then additional decades passed before the natural gas main was constructed, in response to a "Clean Power Plan" from Obama. (Too bad that the totally inept politician Obama mandated the CPP via Executive Order, something that Trump could change with the stroke of a pen.)

Major capital investments such as railways and gas mains often exceed the cost of the power plant itself, which is one reason that the cost of power is complex and not correctly analyzed by relatively simple fuel cost vs. power pricing analysis. The same economics apply to other types of power plants including nuclear and renewables. However, nuclear power generation produces huge amounts of power for small amounts of fuel, which can be easily transported by road vehicles. Renewable plants still suffer from large capital costs to build, even more so if you want to use batteries to match intermittent sources such as wind and solar to baseline power requirements.

The figures are not good. When you compare renewable enegy generation including batteries to FF power generation, the renewable energy costs 12X to 15X as much as FF's.

It absolutely is possible to do, but the expense is prohibitive. Nor are the cost calculations simple to make. Which is why you see silly statements such as "renewable energy generation is cost competitive with FF's". Even if the generating cost is comparable, the total capital investment including batteries is prohibitive for renewable energy.

Hydropower is renewable, but does not suffer from intermittency issues that mandate batteries. In fact when you consider pumped storage, hydropower represents an energy storage battery on a massive scale suitable for a power grid. Which is why that unlike other renewables, hydropower is approaching 100% of the economical buildout - even though the environmental sacrifices for hydropower construction are huge, and the dangers of living below dams are also great.

Here is a simple litmus test for renewable energy in your area. Look at your monthly power bill. WHEN exactly would YOU prefer to see that bill in the range of 1200% to 1500% of the present total, to save the carbon emissions? What would that change do to your budget?

Obviously, with the number of AGW and CC fanboys we have here at peakoil.com, there will be some takers to the question I just asked. Equally obviously, if you believe that we MUST transition to renewable energy generation to save ourselves, the "infrastructure renewal" I have been talking about, where the cost of energy alone incents you to replace your house, replace your vehicles, and make lifestyle changes, makes more sense.

I have decided that it (long term) makes more sense to build a residence and to buy vehicles that do not depend on FF's to function. I am basing my decisions on the simple peak effects which will (eventually) result in very expensive FF's. How many of you AGW and CC fanboys are willing to sacrifice that much of your income even sooner than me because you believe that carbon emissions are that harmful?

The litmus test for that one is also simple. True believers in AGW/CC would have already changed their lifestyles and eliminated their dependance upon FF energy. Certainly we ALREADY HAVE the renewable generation and the lithium batteries to run your vehicles and residences from renewables, the only thing stopping you is the cost plus your willingness to voluntarily roll back on your lifestyle to match your beliefs.

[jawagord]

Another really bad week for German solar power, generating almost nothing for the entire week. Wind started out like gangbusters supplying almost 50% of German demand (82+ GW) but then dewindled to a low of 3GW towards end of the week. As usual Coal, Oil, Gas, Nuclear saved the day and night.

https://www.energy-charts.de/power.htm

[cephalotus]

France will shut down 15 of its nuclear reactors until 2035. Share of nuclear power will fall from todays 70% to 50%.

They promiessed to shut down the reactors at Fessenheim till 2020. I hope this old shit will not explode until then...

[cephalotus]

Another really bad week for German solar power, generating almost nothing for the entire week. Wind started out like gangbusters supplying almost 50% of German demand (82+ GW) but then dewindled to a low of 3GW towards end of the week. As usual Coal, Oil, Gas, Nuclear saved the day and night.

https://www.energy-charts.de/power.htm

...and despite all this fluctuations renewables are already at 40% and will be at 60-65% in 2030.

Nuclear is only 15% and will soon be at 0%

[cephalotus]

The figures are not good. When you compare renewable enegy generation including batteries to FF power generation, the renewable energy costs 12X to 15X as much as FF's.

I fail to understand your calculation.

New nuclear costs 13ct/kWh. You can make a mix of 70% nuclear, 5% storage and 25% rest (lets say natural gas at 8ct/kWh) as France has demonstrated.

New solar and new wind costs 7ct/kWh (or less).

It's very possible to make a mix of 80% solar+wind, 10% storage and 30% rest (lets say natural gas at 8ct/kWh)

If you build the sum you realize that this is 110%, this is because you throw away 10% of solar and wind (or use them for heating, cooling or electric cars)

Let's say storage costs 10ct/kWh.

So the average cost is 0,7*13ct/kWh + 0,25*8ct/kWh + 0,05*10ct/kWh = 11,6ct/kWh for the "new nuclear" scenario.

The average cost is 0,8*7ct/kWh + 0,3*8ct/kWh + 0,1*10ct/kWh = 9,0ct/kWh for the "new solar+wind" scenario
Additional you get some "free electricity" in times of overproduction from solar or wind. Use it or not.

This is a rather simple but quite realistic calculation with prices based on real new storage, solar, wind and nuclear power plants. For example fed in tariffs for new solar and wind in Germany and new nuclear in UK. It also includes a CO2 price for new flexible natural gas power plants.

You may add or subtract a cent here or there, it doesn't change the calculation significantly.

Now please show your calculation.

I do not beleive that a new fossil fuel scenario is a realistic Scenario, neither in face of global warming nor in a Peak oil message board.
Even if you want to introduce that scenario I doubt that you could produce below 1ct/kWh. Just 50€ for 1t of CO2 adds ca. 5ct to each kWh of electricity from coal (depending on hard coal or lignite and the efficiency of the power plant)

[jawagord]

Another really bad week for German solar power, generating almost nothing for the entire week. Wind started out like gangbusters supplying almost 50% of German demand (82+ GW) but then dewindled to a low of 3GW towards end of the week. As usual Coal, Oil, Gas, Nuclear saved the day and night.

https://www.energy-charts.de/power.htm

...and despite all this fluctuations renewables are already at 40% and will be at 60-65% in 2030.

Nuclear is only 15% and will soon be at 0%

Ceph, 40% of what? Not 40% of German power NEEDS. We all know the wind blows and the sun shines out of synch with German power demand. The excess power when produced is dumped into other European states (at least for as long as they will still take it). And when Germans NEED power they ramp up the coal and gas power plants and imports. German wind power subsidies start unwinding in 2020, good luck making 60% target once the turbine decommissioning starts in earnest.

[GHung]

jawabone; "...... We all know the wind blows and the sun shines out of synch with German power demand...."

We all know that jaw doesn't really know what we all know, and are pretty sure that jaw is a shill for burning stuff.

[jawagord]

"Ceph, 40% of what? Not 40% of German power NEEDS."

I am guessing he meant 40% of capacity. So wind and solar installed in a region (germany, world?) would at any given moment be theoretically capable of producing 40% of said entities energy needs. Because theoretically the wind and sun could theoretically shine and blow on all solar devices at maximum efficiency.

No, Germany already has more than 100 GW of installed renewable generation (see my earlier post summary), that's easily 120% of German peak power needs.
When the subsidies start coming off in 2020 it will all go pear shaped.

[GHung]

That is the flip side of this dilemma that the fan boys have always totally ignored.

Not true, but unlike you detractors, we also don't ignore that there are huge opportunities to replace many fossil fuel energy sources with much lower carbon sources. Binary, all-or-nothing, solutions are much more rare than binary, all-or-nothing, people.

[asg70]

Perfect is always the enemy of good for a doomer such as Pstarr.

[KaiserJeep]

cephalotus, I live in sunny Southern California, and I have 2.8kVA of solar panels on my roof. These would produce:

2.8k x 24 x 365.25 = 24,545 kVA-hr of power if they COULD produce 24X7 like a FF generator running on gasoline or diesel fuel.

What they actually have averaged over the 8 years I have owned them is 4,660 kVA-hr per year, or 18.9% of rated capacity, because the sun does not shine 24x7, and weather exists.

I do not own batteries. But if I did own batteries, the costs would have been doubled, using the Tesla PowerWall 2.

Here in California, I pay a variable rate for power, with net metering. I produce enough electricity to offset my total consumption and then a small surplus. The average rate at my meter is $0.138 kVA-hr, due to various taxes which DO NOT include any form of carbon tax. However, California does burden all power grid customers to pay rebates to those (like me) which install renewable distributed power generation.

As you can see, the rules are different and this renders comparisons between Germany and California difficult. Our California solar PV installations are largely distributed, on residences and mall parking lots and so forth, small and medium scale, relatively few utility scale solar installations exist. We consider the medium-scale PV installations to be anything that supports 500 homes or less, but typically (because of the state-mandated "net metering") those do not have battery storage either.

The advantages of the distributed solar generation are that because you are generating at the same location you consume the power, the distribution costs are more than zero'd out, the California power grid is actually undersized versus the all-central-power-plant approach. Finally because we have built such massive amounts of renewable power plants (hydropower, wind, solar) in this state, we are actually presently generating 56% of average needs (2017 annual average) from carbon-free sources (nuclear, renewables) versus the goal of 50% by 2030, and 100% by 2045.

But it all comes at a cost, and of all the carbon-free forms of power, distributed solar PV costs the most, the 12X to 15X I mentioned before, with batteries and if you oversize your PV array to meet your average needs plus 5 days of battery storage. But those figures are for the "doomstead" type of single-user, distributed system.

Your figures appear to be for utility-scale solar power generation, which we do not have very much of here, in the form of large mirror arrays and steam/molten salt thermal generators that total well under 0.1% of our power generation.

This is what I meant by complex calculations. The large coal plant (Edgewater Generating Station Sheboygan, WI) I mentioned above has been in use since the 1930s, and multiple sets of generators have been retired and replaced over the decades on a regular capital equipment renewal schedule. But in order of the expenses generated by the power plant: the most expensive was the railway tracks, followed by 50% of a large gas main (the city of Sheboygan paid the other 50%), followed by coal/gas fuel cost, followed by the multiple sets of capital equipment for high pressure steam generation from 1930-2018.

Of course,the value of money has changed a lot in the 88 years that they have been generating power. Using gas for fuel also costs more than coal, but right up until Trump cancelled Obama's "Clean Power Plan", was mandated by the executive order from the office of the president. But the present generating cost using soft coals transported by train from the Western US is about $0.021/kVA-hr, and using natural gas something like $0.072/kVA-hr.

My estimate for residential-scale solar PV would be $0.860/kVA-hr and for residential-scale wind energy would be S0.560/kVA-hr, because the state of Wisconsin is presently subsidizing wind but not solar via tax rebates. (Figures are from research I did two years ago for the budget for a standalone off-grid home.) Funding is also available in Wisconsin for medium-scale and utility-scale wind farm projects, many of which have been built, and which deliver energy in the range of $0.117/kVA-hr to $0.211/kVA-hr (figures are from IEEE and include Wisonsin and US Federal tax rebates). But Trump is ending those Federal tax rebates soon.

If I were to net out this entire discussion I would say that the figures in Germany are not comparable to the USA, because of the differing laws and regulations, especially taxes and tax rebates. Germany obviously has a regulatory environment which is incenting new carbon-free power generation. California (my present home) also has that, but Wisconsin (where I intend to move early next year) has many fewer such incentives in place, and Trump is pretty well dismantling the US Federal incentives dating from the Obama administration.

[cephalotus]

"Ceph, 40% of what? Not 40% of German power NEEDS."

I am guessing he meant 40% of capacity. So wind and solar installed in a region (germany, world?) would at any given moment be theoretically capable of producing 40% of said entities energy needs. Because theoretically the wind and sun could theoretically shine and blow on all solar devices simultaneously at maximum efficiency.

Germany 2017:

Electricity consumption: 598TWh

Wind onshore: 88TWh
Wind offshore: 18TWh
PV: 39TWh
biomass: 45TWh
water: 20TWh
biomass from waste: 6TWh

(for comparison nuclear: 73TWh)

In 2018 renewables will reach 40%, depending on wind during december (usually a windy month)

For 2030 renewables will be at 60-65% and this with less electricity from biomass than today. All agree on that, all political parties (except one), the electricity producers, the grid operators, the industry and a majority of the population.

And still people keep telling me that this is impossible. As they told us that 40% are impossible just 10 years ago.

[asg70]

Perfect is always the enemy of good for a doomer such as Pstarr.

How does an imperfect electric container ship operate? Yet to see a Prius Airbus 720? No wind-powered skateboard for the weenies.

...and you just continue portraying perfect being the enemy good.

How much longer would container ships cruise and Airbus 720s fly if all other places where electrification is possible are maxed out? The answer is quite a long time. Hence...good.

[asg70]

When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation

Tesla Semi

[cephalotus]

Your figures appear to be for utility-scale solar power generation,...

Yes. Production cost for rooftop solar is around 7-10ct/kWh in cloudy Germany calculating with 20 yaers lifetime (30-40 years is more realistic).

Of course building a offgrid solar-battery system is super expensive and next to useless for the transition of the energy system, so I do not calculate with such stupid ideas. Building offgrid systems in my country this is more a hobby thing of a few preppers.

My estimate for residential-scale solar PV would be $0.860/kVA-hr

Yaeh, that's ultra expensive, espeicially for a sunny country. Why is residential solar so ultra expensive in your region?

and for residential-scale wind energy would be S0.560/kVA-hr,

Similar or even more expensive over here. Small wind is super ineffective.

If I were to net out this entire discussion I would say that the figures in Germany are not comparable to the USA, because of the differing laws and regulations, especially taxes and tax rebates. Germany obviously has a regulatory environment which is incenting new carbon-free power generation.

There is zero tax cuts or subsidies for PV in Germany. There is only the law that allows you to feed it to the grid and a feed in tariff if you want to sell it to the grid. Okay, you do not pay VAT for the system if you build solar PV and feed it to the grid.

So in the end you pay the true costs of a PV system which is around 1000-1200€/kWp for a small home system, maybe 800€/kW for a larger 100kWp system and something around 600€/kWp for a utility PV power plant.
That's with German wages for installation.

Lets say the cost is 1100€/kWp, you pay 3% interest over 20 years and you pay 25€/kWp and year for insurance, maintenance, repairing the DC-AC converter...

This is a anual cost of 99 Euro.

At 1000kWh/kWp production this translates to 9,9€ct/kWh.

If you calculate with 30 years it would be 8,1€ct/kWh.

Feed in tarif is around 12ct/kWh

If you replace electricity from the grid you save around 24ct/kWh (you may not count VAT in that case)

so it's avery good idea to insatll a PV system and still it produces qute cheap energy.

In 2021 the first PV systems which got 50ct/kWh at those times willget out of the feed in tarrif system. i do not know if the will get any tariff. My guess and advice for small systems would be to pay them 0 (zero) ct/kWh but allow them to feed to the grid as long as the grid needs any power production.

People would do just fine using most of he energy for themselves (electricuty, electric car, battery storage, heating, cooling,...) and this will very easily cover all maintenance costs and if they produce any surplus just give it away for free (or keep it if you feel better that way)
For those with larger systems that produce an excess of 10.000nds of kWh a small feed in tarrif could be a solution, let's say 3ct/kwh.

So we would rplace solar at 50ct/kWh with solar at 0-3ct/kWh, whcih would reduce our trasnitaion costs greatly in the comming years and gives financial room to go to 60-65% and beyond...

California (my present home) also has that, but Wisconsin (where I intend to move early next year) has many fewer such incentives in place, and Trump is pretty well dismantling the US Federal incentives dating from the Obama administration.

I believe a FIT is the best system. It's costly for some time (everyone seeing the real costs on the electricity bill), but it offers a path to do it cheaply in the end...