YOU: Fix the US Energy Crisis

[OmCheeto]

... but is there truly such a thing as a geographical circumscribed crisis when dealing with energy ?

Yes.

... isn't a US problem a global problem and vice-versa ?

Yes.

But things are already complicated enough, just considering the USA. We have 50 states. Each of them is unique. Some states are so large, that geographical circumstances change the the situation. Adding in the other ≈195 nations of the world, with their "side" problems, is going to turn this thread into an unmanageable mess, IMHO.

For instance, Anorlunda, a US citizen of Florida, powers his residence with 200 watts of solar panels.
I, being a resident of northwestern Oregon, would require about a bazillion dollars worth of solar panels, to do what he does.

This trend is in renewable energy interesting, and predictable:

Yes! As solar panels get cheaper, and people lose their fear of them, the growth rate seems to have, um...

Change in % of source of electrical energy in the USA. [ref]

Although solar still only accounts for less than 1/2 of 1% of the electrical generation in the USA, its growth rate seems to indicate that people are buying into the idea.

Map of US power generation and resource production.

http://www.eia.gov/state/maps.cfm

I was surprised to see so many solar power plants in North Carolina!

I must have spent 3 hours looking at those maps this morning.
Now I know where the "Coal is the source of all our electricity!" comes from.

I live on the Oregon-Washington border. The two states have a total of two coal fired electric plants. Both are slated for decommissioning in the next 10 years.
To my knowledge, I have never seen coal, except on TV, and on the internet.

 

[OmCheeto]

... but is there truly such a thing as a geographical circumscribed crisis when dealing with energy ?...

To expand on this a bit more, there are probably some people who have vested interests in keeping "coal" the primary source of energy:

Coal price $40.50 $/short ton [ref: just google it...]

Top 5 coal producers in 2014 [ref]
state____________millions of short tons_____value
Wyoming_______395.7_____________________$16,025,850,000
West Virginia___112.2______________________$4,544,100,000
Kentucky_________77.3______________________$3,130,650,000
Pennsylvania_____60.9_____________________$2,466,450,000
Illinois____________58.0_____________________$2,349,000,000

Not sure about where you live, but $16 billion is not an insignificant amount of cash, around where I live.

-----------

On another "statistical tomfoolery" side note, I was going over my calculations from the last few days, and decided to look into what energy costs.
From the top down, it looks like only an idiot would invest in solar energy.
But from the bottom up, I decided only an idiot would cling to the past.

Your call.

edit: [ref] to $/million BTU in the above chart. Look for some graph on the right.

 

[jim hardy]

I must have spent 3 hours looking at those maps this morning.

me too. Now i understand all those wind farms i drive past in Kansas.
Blue is good, brown is poor. Green i didn't find but i'd guess it's "dont even bother" .

And those along I-80 a little west of Laramie..
Trouble with wind is it's mostly where people aren't.
How small is our "excellent" territory . Rocky Mountain High !

 

[OmCheeto]

...
Trouble with wind is it's mostly where people aren't.
...

I thought there were people everywhere? hmmmm...

Anyways...
One thing I discovered about that map is, as I live in a periodically perpetually high wind area, is that you have to zoom in really close to find those "7 Superb On Shore Wind Potential" areas.

Is 50 miles a long way to transmit electricity?

 

[jim hardy]

Is that blue lakes or great wind spots ?

Is 50 miles a long way to transmit electricity?

No. It's almost a short haul anymore. What is difficult is to get right-of-way for new transmission lines.

Watch as the mountaintops west of Denver sprout wind turbines over next ten years, starting along existing 230kv power lines. Wind up there is great .

 

[OmCheeto]

Is that blue lakes or great wind spots ?
...

Wind spots!

 

[mheslep]

...Yes! As solar panels get cheaper, and people lose their fear of them, the growth rate seems to have, um...

Although solar still only accounts for less than 1/2 of 1% of the electrical generation in the USA, its growth rate seems to indicate that people are buying into the idea.

The graphs I posted reflect global data. Yes renewable usage is up, driven by the rich developed world where solar is cute, and at the same time renewables are being dwarfed by fossile fuel plants installed elsewhere. The "people" are now some 7 billion, with a couple billion with no electric power at all.

 

[mheslep]

Is that blue lakes or great wind spots ?No. It's almost a short haul anymore. What is difficult is to get right-of-way for new transmission lines.

Watch as the mountaintops west of Denver sprout wind turbines over next ten years, starting along existing 230kv power lines. Wind up there is great .

The most recently completed HVDC project in N America cost about $7 million per GW mile, or $350 million for a 50 mile GW link. That project BTW was in the plains of Canada where I suspect right of way is considerably cheaper than that incurred in the US.

 

[jim hardy]

Thanks OM - in all that looking i hadn't found the zoom !
All brown in my neighborhood(72482).
Are you near a hilltop ? I saw an old Delco windmill from 1930's in a junque-shop near Mason City Nebraska ...

 

[mheslep]

Map of US power generation and resource production.

http://www.eia.gov/state/maps.cfm

I was surprised to see so many solar power plants in North Carolina!

NC is by far the largest solar generator in the S Atlantic states for some reason, more than than doubling production from 2015. NC is now at 266 GWH for the month of February, almost entirely from utility scale facilties, though still a sliver of total state power production.

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_1_17_a

 

[OmCheeto]

NC is by far the largest solar generator in the S Atlantic states for some reason, more than than doubling production from 2015. NC is now at 266 GWH for the month of February, almost entirely from utility scale facilties, though still a sliver of total state power production.

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_1_17_a

Incredible year to year changes in some of those states:

New Hampshire   112.7%   
Georgia         225.4%
North Carolina  149.0%   
Oklahoma        260.1%
Texas           108.5%
Utah            950.0%

Way to go Utah!

 

[OmCheeto]

...
Are you near a hilltop ?
...

Nope.
But no need.
It's windy everywhere here in the fall.

 

[mheslep]

Big changes, but I'd not call them incredible. What usually happens is the state turns on a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), and *mandates* some amount of solar or wind. So, out goes the utility to buy up some land or big building rooftop.

Bangladesh, Nigeria, The Phillipines, they don't have RPS or big federal solar subsidies. They build fossile plants, as to use solar in a reliable way one first needs a fossile or hydro plant to turn off for a few hours.

 

[mheslep]

One (the only one that works) successful path to clean, long lasting power grid:

 

[jim hardy]

One (the only one that works) successful path to clean, long lasting power grid:

somebody is convincing TPTB over here we need to do this:
http://www3.dps.ny.gov/W/PSCWeb.nsf/All/CC4F2EFA3A23551585257DEA007DCFE2?OpenDocument

Next generation needs a lot of "Little Engine that Could" encouragement if they're going to make that. I enjoyed participating in "Big Nuke's" early decades. I sincerely hope it turns out to have been a good thing for mankind.

old jim

 

[mheslep]

somebody is convincing TPTB over here we need to do this:
http://www3.dps.ny.gov/W/PSCWeb.nsf/All/CC4F2EFA3A23551585257DEA007DCFE2?OpenDocument
View attachment 100781

Next generation needs a lot of "Little Engine that Could" encouragement if they're going to make that. I enjoyed participating in "Big Nuke's" early decades. I sincerely hope it turns out to have been a good thing for mankind.

old jim

If NY actually pursues the 50% renewable plan I suspect it will mean a default to i) burning more trees, ii) importing more Canadian hydro.

 

[johnbbahm]

If NY actually pursues the 50% renewable plan I suspect it will mean a default to i) burning more trees, ii) importing more Canadian hydro.

I suspect much of the answer would depend on when the majority of the power is needed.
In summers, NY state has very long days, and photo voltaic roofs could generate a lot of power.
The ability to store that surplus for winter heating, could change the way people view solar panels.
In most states, they need to change the laws to make home power more acceptable to the utilities,
but beyond that, home solar is priced right to be worthwhile.

 

[anorlunda]

somebody is convincing TPTB over here we need to do this:
http://www3.dps.ny.gov/W/PSCWeb.nsf/All/CC4F2EFA3A23551585257DEA007DCFE2?OpenDocument

Readers should follow the link Jim provided. It lists a bunch of goals in big print. (The ones shown in Jim's post). Then it lists a bunch of specific actions in small print. Nobody knowledgeable in the electric industry would say that those actions are anywhere near enough to obtain those goals. IMO, the whole New York REV initiative is a PR stunt that will accomplish nothing.

The reality is that the governor was infuriated when he learned that NYISO and the state's utility resource planners are regulated by the feds (FERC), and do not take orders from him. He ordered the NY DPS to do something to make it sound like Cuomo is in charge.

I sympathize in part. The feds have extended their authority, abusing the meaning of "interstate commerce" in a political power grab. The states are the victims. The irony is that rational energy planning should be neither national nor state-by-state, but rather on the scale of large regions, with 4-6 regions to cover the whole lower 48. That is what FERC has been pushing, so FERC is more correct than the states on that specific issue.

 

[mheslep]

The ability to store that surplus for winter heating, could change the way people view solar panels.

But there is no such ability, not an affordable one. Residential solar costs as much as 30 cents per kwh in the northeast.

 

[jim hardy]

The irony is that rational energy planning should be neither national nor state-by-state, but rather on the scale of large regions, with 4-6 regions to cover the whole lower 48. That is what FERC has been pushing, so FERC is more correct than the states on that specific issue.

I expect that politicians and regulators read reports like this one
http://www.gridwise.org/uploads/reports/GWA_16_3rdGMI_FINAL.pdf
it ranks the states as to how proactive they are in implementing
distributed generation, solar and renewables
load management through time of use rates and "smart" meters & appliances and electric vehicle chargers that actually are remote controllable
convincing the public those are good things to do.
California was ranked #1.

 

[OmCheeto]

I think we should fix our crisis, like the Germans did:

Germany Just Produced So Much Renewable Energy That It Had To Pay People To Use It [IFLS]
May 15, 2016 | by Robin Andrews

Around 1 p.m. on May 8, the nation’s renewable energy generating facilities were supplying around 55 gigawatts of the 63 gigawatts being consumed – about 87 percent of the total electricity consumption. With the addition of the country’s conventional power plants, the output actually exceeded the national demand. This energy surplus meant that, for a brief time, energy prices were actually negative, meaning consumers were effectively being paid to consume electricity.

A similar feat occurred in Denmark last year, when a terrifically windy day boosted their wind power sector so much that these turbines alone generated 140 percent of the nation’s electricity demand, with the excess energy being exported to Germany, Norway, and Sweden.
...

Actually, I've pointed out on several occasions that this type thing has happened here in the United States. Unfortunately, the grid capacity was not up to snuff, so the wind farms were told to shut down.

BPA projections earlier this year showed that curtailing wind power over a three-month period, in a worst-case scenario, could cost them as much as $50 million.
This shines the spotlight on the growing lack of long distance power transmission capacity. If more UHV long distance transmission capacity existed the power could be sent down to the California electricity market. ...[ref]​

 

[johnbbahm]

But there is no such ability, not an affordable one. Residential solar costs as much as 30 cents per kwh in the northeast.

The ability to store summer surplus is already happening,
https://www.audiusa.com/newsroom/ne...lant-helps-stabilize-german-public-power-grid
There are several ongoing projects to make liquid fuels, conversion efficiency are claimed to be up to 70%.
If you have not priced solar in a few years, it has come down quite a bit.
http://www.wholesalesolar.com/18909...-with-solaredge-and-15x-astronergy-315-panels

 

[mfb]

energy prices were actually negative, meaning consumers were effectively being paid to consume electricity.

Well, not really. The electricity market had negative prices, but consumers don't buy there. Consumers still paid for the electricity, and the country paid subsidies. Only those subsidies make negative prices possible - you can pay a bit to sell your electricity if you have an additional income source that depends on the power you deliver.

 

[anorlunda]

The ability to store summer surplus is already happening,
https://www.audiusa.com/newsroom/ne...lant-helps-stabilize-german-public-power-grid
There are several ongoing projects to make liquid fuels, conversion efficiency are claimed to be up to 70%.
If you have not priced solar in a few years, it has come down quite a bit.
http://www.wholesalesolar.com/18909...-with-solaredge-and-15x-astronergy-315-panels

Read the e-waste link carefully. They qualified as a demand response customer who helps balance the grid by drawing power from the grid when needed for balancing. There is nothing said about putting energy back into the grid ever. Demand response is something that we do here in the USA. Demand response was the subject of a recent Supreme Court case.

Liquid fuel projects claim 70% efficiency converting electric power to the heart content of liquid fuel. That ignores the efficiency of creating the electricity or converting the fuel back into electricity by burning it in a fossil fuel power plant.

Of course the fuel could be used in vehicles or in direct heating furnaces instead of electricity. But you make it sound like the 70% applies to storing and restoring electric energy like pumped hydro does at 75% efficiency. They are not comparable.

By the way, I'm very skeptical of that 70% claim. If that were true, it would be more profitable for Midwest wind farms to make and sell fuel than to sell power to the grid.

Ditto for North Sea wind power. It is economically attractive for Germans only because of government subsidies. The true cost of that energy must include a portion of the taxes paid by the workers.

 

[mheslep]

The ability to store summer surplus is already happening,
https://www.audiusa.com/newsroom/ne...lant-helps-stabilize-german-public-power-grid
There are several ongoing projects to make liquid fuels, conversion efficiency are claimed to be up to 70%.

Synthetic fuel pilots have been around since WWII. They're not yet economic. These programs can be subsidized in developed countries, but in the developing world where most of the world's energy will be consumed in the coming decades the cheapest source of energy always has been the majority source.
Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_to_gas
Detailed cost analysis
http://www.theenergycollective.com/...seeking-consensus-internalized-costs-synfuels

If you have not priced solar in a few years, it has come down quite a bit.
http://www.wholesalesolar.com/18909...-with-solaredge-and-15x-astronergy-315-panels

Residential rooftop solar power (un-subsidized) in the US northeast (as you referenced NY state) remains the most expensive form of electricity, as much as five times the cost of combined cycle gas-fired plants, not including the price of any backup for solar. The energy analyst Lazard seems to be authoritative on US LCOE, updated annually.
https://www.lazard.com/media/2390/lazards-levelized-cost-of-energy-analysis-90.pdf

 

[johnbbahm]

Read the e-waste link carefully. They qualified as a demand response customer who helps balance the grid by drawing power from the grid when needed for balancing. There is nothing said about putting energy back into the grid ever. Demand response is something that we do here in the USA. Demand response was the subject of a recent Supreme Court case.

Liquid fuel projects claim 70% efficiency converting electric power to the heart content of liquid fuel. That ignores the efficiency of creating the electricity or converting the fuel back into electricity by burning it in a fossil fuel power plant.

Of course the fuel could be used in vehicles or in direct heating furnaces instead of electricity. But you make it sound like the 70% applies to storing and restoring electric energy like pumped hydro does at 75% efficiency. They are not comparable.

By the way, I'm very skeptical of that 70% claim. If that were true, it would be more profitable for Midwest wind farms to make and sell fuel than to sell power to the grid.

Ditto for North Sea wind power. It is economically attractive for Germans only because of government subsidies. The true cost of that energy must include a portion of the taxes paid by the workers.

We do not have to consider the efficiency of the incoming electricity, only it's cost.
Carnot efficiency will still apply to any heat engine, but also applies to what the man made fuel would be taking the place of.
As to the providers making and selling their own fuel, I think it will need to be a large scale operation,
like a refinery.
I could easily see a country like Iceland making their own fuel, and fuel for export.
The first article I saw on this technology was from Fraunhofer University.
https://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/research-news/2010/04/green-electricity-storage-gas.html
They envisioned using the natural gas grid as an energy storage mechanism, it might work in Germany,
In the US natural gas is too inexpensive to make it viable.
Still the ability to store surplus energy, however inefficient, is better than discarding it entirely.

 

[johnbbahm]

Synthetic fuel pilots have been around since WWII. They're not yet economic. These programs can be subsidized in developed countries, but in the developing world where most of the world's energy will be consumed in the coming decades the cheapest source of energy always has been the majority source.
Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_to_gas
Detailed cost analysis
http://www.theenergycollective.com/...seeking-consensus-internalized-costs-synfuels

Residential rooftop solar power (un-subsidized) in the US northeast (as you referenced NY state) remains the most expensive form of electricity, as much as five times the cost of combined cycle gas-fired plants, not including the price of any backup for solar. The energy analyst Lazard seems to be authoritative on US LCOE, updated annually.
https://www.lazard.com/media/2390/lazards-levelized-cost-of-energy-analysis-90.pdf

Residential rooftop solar power will unlikely ever be less expensive than an energy plant,
but then that is not what it is competing with.
Rooftop solar is competing with what the consumer price for power, and in some cases that looks quite respectable.
If a $10k investment can save a homeowner $60 per month ($720 per year).

 

[mheslep]

I think we should fix our crisis, like the Germans did:

In the last couple dozen years the Germans have built an impressive 84 GW of solar and wind combined for several hundred billion euros, against an average load of ~65 GW, paid for by a tripling of residential electriticy rates. How did this impact the conventional German power fleet? How much conventional was closes down by wind and solar? In 2002, German conventional power capacity (nuclear,coal,gas,biomass and hydro; not solar, not wind) was 102.0 GW. In 2015, German conventional power capacity was ... 102.1 GW. German fossil fuel fired electric capacity (gas, coal) increased from 72 GW in 2002 to 77 GW in 2015. The average load (consumption) remained relatively flat during this period, so load growth does not explain ridiculous increase in coal and gas capacity. The explanation is that the German the entire solar and wind fleet has moments where it drops off to near nothing, on more days of the year than not. Also, the Germany closed some of its nuclear fleet, but this has largely be replaced GW for GW with reliable biomass plants (tripled capacity in 15 years), so that Germany now burns up half its timber harvest

https://www.energy-charts.de/power_inst.htm
Select "Installed Power in Germany" for capacity, select "Electricity production in Germany", week 01, 2015 for an example of days of insignificant wind and solar.

What the Germans actually did with respect to energy reads like it was crafted by The Onion. That's fine for a joke, but something I'd avoid back in reality.

 

[jim hardy]

We do not have to consider the efficiency of the incoming electricity, only it's cost.
Carnot efficiency will still apply to any heat engine, but also applies to what the man made fuel would be taking the place of.

I'm not sure i understand that logic.
It sounds like the parable of counterfeiters who bleach out $20 dollar bills to reprint as $5 's .
That can't be what you meant.

 

[mheslep]

Residential rooftop solar power will unlikely ever be less expensive than an energy plant,
but then that is not what it is competing with.
Rooftop solar is competing with what the consumer price for power, and in some cases that looks quite respectable.
If a $10k investment can save a homeowner $60 per month ($720 per year).

Only with a large subsidy. Without it, residential solar loses money. For the average electric utility bill, only a couple cents goes to the fuel consumed (or not). The rest goes to the grid and its maintenance, to include the capital cost of plants theoretically sitting idle for a few hours while solar power displaces them. At the moment, net metering rules allow residential solar users to avoid these costs, possibly driving their net utility bill to zero, while shifting the cost of the grid (which solar owners absolutely require) onto their neighbors. That avoided cost is growing large, and utilities are beginning to abandon net metering.

 

[johnbbahm]

I'm not sure i understand that logic.
It sounds like the parable of counterfeiters who bleach out $20 dollar bills to reprint as $5 's .
That can't be what you meant.

Sorry, If a refinery buys wholesale electricity for say $50 a megawatt hour, all the factors
going into the cost of goods sold for that megawatt hour, are contained in the $50.

On the consumer side, yes our heat engines have bad Carnot efficiency,
but the consumer is comparing a man made gallon of gasoline to a gallon of gasoline
refined from oil, the same inefficiencies apply.
What matters is what the cost would be to provide that gallon of gasoline at the pump for sale.

 

[mfb]

We do not have to consider the efficiency of the incoming electricity, only it's cost.
Carnot efficiency will still apply to any heat engine, but also applies to what the man made fuel would be taking the place of.

But you have more steps in the artificial fuel cycle. You want to use it as electricity storage? You lose 30% in converting electricity to fuel, and 50% of what is left by converting it back, leaving 35% of the initial electricity to go back to the grid. You want to use it in cars? Fine, you save oil, which then can be used in power plants to produce electricity - but you get only 35% of what you needed to make the fuel, as the same factors apply.
You want to replace the oil? Compared to electric cars, you lose 30% in the conversion to fuel and more than 50% in the car, so that efficiency is even worse.

Residential rooftop solar power will unlikely ever be less expensive than an energy plant,
but then that is not what it is competing with.
Rooftop solar is competing with what the consumer price for power, and in some cases that looks quite respectable.
If a $10k investment can save a homeowner $60 per month ($720 per year).

In the short run, yes, in the long run, no. A large part of what consumers pay for electricity goes to maintenance of the grid and to taxes. Taxes are just a redistribution of money, not actual costs. You still need the grid with rooftop solar - even worse, you need it more than before because electricity production in a region gets more variable. If you reduce demand, the costs per kWh for those things will go up. Rooftop solar should be compared to power plants, otherwise you are cheating with the accounting.

 

[johnbbahm]

Only with a large subsidy. Without it, residential solar loses money. For the average electric utility bill, only a couple cents goes to the fuel consumed (or not). The rest goes to the grid and its maintenance, to include the capital cost of plants theoretically sitting idle for a few hours while solar power displaces them. At the moment, net metering rules allow residential solar users to avoid these costs, possibly driving their net utility bill to zero, while shifting the cost of the grid (which solar owners absolutely require) onto their neighbors. That avoided cost is growing large, and utilities are beginning to abandon net metering.

I am not talking about net metering (which is a dead horse) or subsidies, just reducing the amount of power purchased.
If the amount of power purchased, decreases by $60 a month, based on a full price $10K system,
it is real savings.

 

[mheslep]

Still the ability to store surplus energy, however inefficient, is better than discarding it entirely.

As you indicated in the first sentence about efficiency, only the cost matters. If it is cheaper to discard than store, discard (curtailment) is better. At the moment, with subsidies for wind, utilities choose surplus wind that wind operators with a 23 cent/MWh subsidy pay them to use (negative cost). The utilities idle or blow steam from conventional power sources instead. If wind capacity were to increase so that a moments of full capacity output equaled the entire load, then wind is discarded. This is already http://nawindpower.com/online/issues/NAW1412/FEAT_04_Renewable-Energy-Faces-Daytime-Curtailment-In-California.html

 

[johnbbahm]

But you have more steps in the artificial fuel cycle. You want to use it as electricity storage? You lose 30% in converting electricity to fuel, and 50% of what is left by converting it back, leaving 35% of the initial electricity to go back to the grid. You want to use it in cars? Fine, you save oil, which then can be used in power plants to produce electricity - but you get only 35% of what you needed to make the fuel, as the same factors apply.
You want to replace the oil? Compared to electric cars, you lose 30% in the conversion to fuel and more than 50% in the car, so that efficiency is even worse.In the short run, yes, in the long run, no. A large part of what consumers pay for electricity goes to maintenance of the grid and to taxes. Taxes are just a redistribution of money, not actual costs. You still need the grid with rooftop solar - even worse, you need it more than before because electricity production in a region gets more variable. If you reduce demand, the costs per kWh for those things will go up. Rooftop solar should be compared to power plants, otherwise you are cheating with the accounting.

I agree, that the two way conversion would not be good, I was thinking of the storing the surplus as usable fuels.
For the solar, it really is just comparing what you pay, to what you reduce by.
If you do not sell any back to the grid, you only get the savings,
but those are a real one for one of the price per Kwh you pay.
The net metering laws must go away, as they will cause pushback from the utilities.
Surplus power could be sold, but the price would need to be the wholesale price.