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Renewable + conventional trends

TheMotorcycleBoy
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Re: Renewable + conventional trends

#214071

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » April 10th, 2019, 9:41 am

Some good information there Dave, thanks!

Matt

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Re: Renewable + conventional trends

#219033

Postby dspp » May 2nd, 2019, 5:50 pm

UK net zero reports

The UK should set and vigorously pursue an ambitious target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) to 'net-zero' by 2050, ending the UK's contribution to global warming within 30 years. Reflecting their respective circumstances, Scotland should set a net-zero GHG target for 2045 and Wales should target a 95% reduction by 2050 relative to 1990.

A net-zero GHG target for 2050 will deliver on the commitment that the UK made by signing the Paris Agreement. It is achievable with known technologies, alongside improvements in people's lives, and within the expected economic cost that Parliament accepted when it legislated the existing 2050 target for an 80% reduction from 1990.

However, this is only possible if clear, stable and well-designed policies to reduce emissions further are introduced across the economy without delay. Current policy is insufficient for even the existing targets. A net-zero GHG target for 2050 would respond to the latest climate science and fully meet the UK's obligations under the Paris Agreement:

etc


https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/up ... arming.pdf
https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/up ... rt-CCC.pdf

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Re: Renewable + conventional trends

#227939

Postby dspp » June 8th, 2019, 11:43 am

"General Electric’s profitability collapse over the past few years can be largely attributed to the company’s inability to judge the accelerating pace of the global energy transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewables, a new study claims.

The analysis comes from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), which says that “GE made a massive bet on the future of natural gas and thermal coal, and lost,” concluding:

GE destroyed an almost unprecedented US$193 billion (bn)1 or 74% of its market capitalization over 2016-2018."


etc, dspp

https://electrek.co/2019/06/06/ge-renew ... more-94471
http://ieefa.org/ieefa-report-ge-made-a ... -and-lost/

Image

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Re: Renewable + conventional trends

#237462

Postby dspp » July 18th, 2019, 10:35 am

"Over the next 10 years, coal-fired and nuclear power plants with a total capacity of around 100 GW will be shut down in Europe, equivalent to Germany’s thermal power capacity alone, according to grid operator data.

To counter this, hundreds of gigawatts of offshore wind are planned to line European coastlines by the end of next decade, according to the EU’s green expansion plans."

" environmental campaigners who say some energy producers were playing up the threat of blackouts to protect their own interests."


expect a lot more stories like this ......

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-euro ... SKCN1UD0GZ

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Re: Renewable + conventional trends

#237702

Postby Nocton » July 19th, 2019, 8:32 am

Extraordinary that Germany is still operating aluminium plants. Expect those to be closed.

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Re: Renewable + conventional trends

#237704

Postby EssDeeAitch » July 19th, 2019, 8:47 am

Nocton wrote:Extraordinary that Germany is still operating aluminium plants. Expect those to be closed.


The problem with plant closure in advanced countries like Germany is that the plant in question would probably be transferred to a country which has less strict pollution control laws. There is also the potential (likelihood?) for the power that drives the plant itself to be generated by more polluting sources (coal).
The demand for aluminium wont go away but it would not surprise me if the environmental lobby shoots us all in the foot by insisting on plant closures and subsequent plant transfer.

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Re: Renewable + conventional trends

#237708

Postby Urbandreamer » July 19th, 2019, 9:34 am

Nocton wrote:Extraordinary that Germany is still operating aluminium plants. Expect those to be closed.


Err... you did notice the name of the company didn't you?
Hydro Aluminum Rolled Products.

A brief bit of history. Electricity is such an important part of Aluminium smelting that it was one of the earliest users of the stuff. The most reliable supply was hydro-power. Indeed that's the main reason that Scottland has so much hydro.

https://www.ice.org.uk/what-is-civil-en ... r-scotland

According to Rio tinto 80% of power for their Aluminium smelting comes from renewable sources, 55% of which they generate themselves. They are not the only producer (just the first that I thought to check).

I suspect that EssDeeAitch is right about the posibility of production moving. However arguably that could reduce polution rather than increase it.

Processes like cement and steel manufacture HAVE to produce large quantities of CO2, Aluminium doesn't. For enviromental reasons it could be argued that Aluminium should be produced in Norway (because if its abundant hydro resources*) rather than some parts of Germany, or worse the Netherlands.

If you re-read the original article, and read between the lines, it's more about the concept of replacing nuclear power with wind, than anything else.

*For any who may not know Denmark and Norway have a good thing going. In times of low wind Denmark imports hydro-power from Norway. When the wind blows well Norway imports power from Denmark and lets the lakes and dams fill.

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Re: Renewable + conventional trends

#239230

Postby dspp » July 25th, 2019, 2:28 pm

• Electricity generated from renewable sources in the UK in 2018 reached a record 33.0 per cent of total UK electricity generation, 3.8 percentage points higher than the previous year, also a record. This increase reflected a 10 per cent rise in
renewable generation capacity to 44.3 GW.
• Low carbon electricity’s share of generation [in 2018] increased from 50.0 per cent to a record 52.6 per cent, driven by the increase in renewables generation.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... GOV.UK.pdf
https://www.gov.uk/government/collectio ... dukes#2019

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Re: Renewable + conventional trends

#289431

Postby dspp » March 9th, 2020, 4:13 pm

US EIA - A supplemental report to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Annual Energy Outlook 2020 (AEO2020) describes two simple measures of cost and value that, when used together, largely explain the economic competitiveness of electricity generating technologies and, in turn, the types of power plants most likely to be built in EIA’s long-term model for the U.S. energy sector.

bottom line : imho even gas power plants look increasingly unattractive within a few more years, after 2025 you'd want bribing to build one

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=43095

dspp

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Re: Renewable + conventional trends

#304762

Postby dspp » May 1st, 2020, 11:46 am


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Re: Renewable + conventional trends

#311316

Postby dspp » May 23rd, 2020, 10:01 am

Looks like BloombergNEF is coming up with 1mln bbls/day of avoided oil consumption in transportation due to existing EV use, growing to 17.6 by 2040. High point for oil use in transport in 2031. To put that in context global oil use is about 100 mln bbls/d. Use has been growing at about 1%/year and on top of that there are field declines of about 4-7% / year to replace.

The renewables wedge is driving deeper and deeper into fossil use.

----

EVs across all segments are already displacing 1 million barrels of oil demand per day. Oil demand from passenger vehicles is hit hard by COVID-19 and never recovers to 2019 levels, but growth in heavy commercial vehicles keeps overall road transport oil demand growing until 2031. 17.6 nmn bbls/d oil demand displaced by electric vehicles in 2040

https://about.bnef.com/electric-vehicle-outlook/

- dspp

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Re: Renewable + conventional trends

#313395

Postby dspp » May 29th, 2020, 4:00 pm

US renewables > coal

In 2019, U.S. annual energy consumption from renewable sources exceeded coal consumption for the first time since before 1885, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA)

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=43895

(this is 2019, not a covid effect)

- dspp

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Re: Renewable + conventional trends

#314750

Postby dspp » June 3rd, 2020, 10:16 am

"U.K.'s National Grid Energizes First-of-its-Kind STATCOM Scheme
Project represents largest utility-grade STATCOM scheme in Europe, delivering a 975-MVAR power range."

"According to GE, this is a first-of-its-kind voltage compensation scheme that will help National Grid provide a reliable electricity supply to its customers, even when network faults occur. This latest generation STATCOM solution is a voltage source converter (VSC) technology based on MMC architecture. The design provides stable output power generation, helping customer grids handle faults and fault recovery.

"Working with GE, National Grid has now implemented the largest voltage compensation scheme in Europe,"


https://www.tdworld.com/digital-innovat ... 6625890F1B

The reason for some of the weasel words is that larger ones exist outside Europe, I think there are others that are larger in China. This is the sort of detailed engineering thingies that makes deeper renewables penetration into grids possible (and makes things that have nothing to do with renewables possible as well). Amongst other things, it was failure to handle these sorts of fluctuations quickly that contributed to the big power cut several months ago.

(I am pretty sure that some of the stuff I/we make is inside this and the others. We don't ask GE to tell us everything, nor do we tell them everything !)

regards, dspp

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Re: Renewable + conventional trends

#315034

Postby dspp » June 4th, 2020, 9:35 am

ReallyVeryFoolish wrote:
dspp wrote:Looks like BloombergNEF is coming up with 1mln bbls/day of avoided oil consumption in transportation due to existing EV use, growing to 17.6 by 2040. High point for oil use in transport in 2031. To put that in context global oil use is about 100 mln bbls/d. Use has been growing at about 1%/year and on top of that there are field declines of about 4-7% / year to replace.

The renewables wedge is driving deeper and deeper into fossil use.

----

EVs across all segments are already displacing 1 million barrels of oil demand per day. Oil demand from passenger vehicles is hit hard by COVID-19 and never recovers to 2019 levels, but growth in heavy commercial vehicles keeps overall road transport oil demand growing until 2031. 17.6 nmn bbls/d oil demand displaced by electric vehicles in 2040

https://about.bnef.com/electric-vehicle-outlook/

- dspp

My emphasis. That's why I see upside in the medium term for energy businesses. And given the recent very severe shock to the industry combined with very little new supply coming on line any time soon - I am optimistic. But this maybe the last conventional energy business cycle of note before we enter a tobacco-esque managed decline in energy sctors as we know them today.

RVF


RVF, etc,

The worry for those of us who are taking this "one last profit cycle" approach is that we could get caught out by a faster than expected fossil collapse. Some of my own modelling shows that to be perfectly possible (and from an environmental perspective it is to be hoped for), so care is needed.

Here is an external note in the same vein https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... els-demand

"The coronavirus outbreak could trigger a $25tn (£20tn) collapse in the fossil fuel industry by accelerating a terminal decline for the world’s most polluting companies.

A study has found that the value of the world’s fossil fuel reserves could fall by two-thirds, sooner than the industry expects, because the Covid-19 crisis has hastened the peak for oil, gas and coal demand.

The looming fossil fuel collapse could pose “a significant threat to global financial stability” by wiping out the market value of fossil fuel companies, according to financial thinktank Carbon Tracker."


It is a big risk on the risk list.

actual report here https://carbontracker.org/reports/decline-and-fall/

regards, dspp

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Re: Renewable + conventional trends

#315134

Postby dspp » June 4th, 2020, 12:45 pm

"A 1,000-Mile Long Clean Energy Artery Is Completed in China x $3.17bn"
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... r-uhv-line

"China completed construction of a 22.6 billion yuan ($3.17 billion) ultra-high voltage electricity line that for the first time will transport only clean energy. It’s the first UHV line in the world built to transmit only carbon-free electricity, its developer, State Grid Corp. of China, said in a statement. It will allow more renewables to be developed in Qinghai and Gansu provinces and deliver the electricity all the way to Henan in central China.

Prior to this latest addition, State Grid operated 19 UHV lines covering 27,570 kilometers (17,131 miles), and the utility was building another four of the links as of June last year, according to its website. The power networks are usually source-agnostic so they can transmit power from any type of generation, including coal and renewables.

The company expects to put the 1,587-kilometer line from Qinghai to Henan into full operation in December. The project is designed to transport 40 billion kilowatt-hours of clean power a year, it said."


I can absolutely be sure that quite a lot of our stuff is in this. Anyone who thinks that China is a technology copier has not been inside a top tier factory / design office in China.

regards, dspp

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Re: Renewable + conventional trends

#315424

Postby Nocton » June 5th, 2020, 8:56 am

ReallyVeryFoolish wrote:
built to transmit only carbon-free electricity

Utter nonsense. The electrons don't give a hoot how or why they're being pushed along an electrical conductor. Nor do they care.

Absolutely correct. There is no way of knowing how the electricity/electrons that go down a wire or enter my house (or a Chinese cable) have been generated in a coal-fired power station, wind turbine, or rubbing two sticks together.
Good hype, I'm not knocking it, but all this statement means is that the Chinese Grid has built more capacity. Until there is enough renewable generation to use it, it will take power from the largest coal-fired generation system in the world.

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Re: Renewable + conventional trends

#315433

Postby dspp » June 5th, 2020, 9:58 am

Nocton wrote:
ReallyVeryFoolish wrote:
built to transmit only carbon-free electricity

Utter nonsense. The electrons don't give a hoot how or why they're being pushed along an electrical conductor. Nor do they care.

Absolutely correct. There is no way of knowing how the electricity/electrons that go down a wire or enter my house (or a Chinese cable) have been generated in a coal-fired power station, wind turbine, or rubbing two sticks together.
Good hype, I'm not knocking it, but all this statement means is that the Chinese Grid has built more capacity. Until there is enough renewable generation to use it, it will take power from the largest coal-fired generation system in the world.


Not exactly.

When you build a long transmission link you are designing it to join a set of sources to a set of loads. If the set of sources is a coal-basin & associated power stations then it will be entirely fossil-fuel power that flows along that transmission link. And that transmission link was designed to join those fossil power stations with that set of loads (cities). You only have to look at the HV links from the Midlands coal basins down to London area to see one of the earlier examples of this. Similarly when you build from a dense zone of wind/hydro to the loads it will be predominantly renewables that goes along that link. In both cases the link is pretty much intended as a uni-directional connector.

In this particular case the Chinese very specifically built this to connect a set of renewable sources to their loads. The electrons might not care, but the planners most certainly did.

regards, dspp

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Re: Renewable + conventional trends

#315611

Postby Nocton » June 5th, 2020, 4:59 pm

OK, dspp, but that would suggest that the Chinese do not have a National or even a large regional grid and this transmission link will be stand-alone. The transmission links that were built in the UK for coal-fired power stations are surely now carrying electricity from wind turbines, gas-fired power stations and solar panels? And when electricity arrives at my house there is no way I could tell where the electrons came from, even I had paid for a green tariff, unless there were a dedicated line from a wind turbine, say, to my house which was not not connected to the grid.
Perhaps the answer is given when you say "it will be predominantly renewables that goes along that link." (my italics)

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Re: Renewable + conventional trends

#315625

Postby dspp » June 5th, 2020, 6:00 pm

Nocton wrote:OK, dspp, but that would suggest that the Chinese do not have a National or even a large regional grid and this transmission link will be stand-alone. The transmission links that were built in the UK for coal-fired power stations are surely now carrying electricity from wind turbines, gas-fired power stations and solar panels? And when electricity arrives at my house there is no way I could tell where the electrons came from, even I had paid for a green tariff, unless there were a dedicated line from a wind turbine, say, to my house which was not not connected to the grid.
Perhaps the answer is given when you say "it will be predominantly renewables that goes along that link." (my italics)


The UK is quite a compact little country, but even ours is not quite the 'grid' that the name evokes. Redundant links maybe, full grid not. That's why a lot of the Scottish wind-renewables keeps getting transmission-constrained.

In China their grid is larger than ours, much larger, but again it is not a full 'grid'. I don't think any country has a full grid that can switch stuff any-old-way around unthinkingly. These new links are definitely being built to carry the renewables. Yes, they may carry some coal, just as the older (weaker) coal links will now carry some of the renewables. But they are being built to carry the renewables and wouldn't have been built for the coal.

Take a look at this for Qinghai: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_m ... i_province
In particular look at how much hydro there already is, they will now build even more, plus wind & solar.

Then look at Gansu : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_m ... s_in_Gansu which is at the midway point (ish). More coal I grant you, but these links are being built to enable the added wind, solar, hydro.

I visit China to meet my clients who are building this stuff, and planning even more. They are fixated on wiping out the coal. They know that more coal plants are being built continually (though that is tapering), but their very clear intention is to make them uneconomic to operate. So yes there is marketing nonsense in the ChinaPowerEtc press release, but these links genuinely are all about renewables. The pollution is a real internal political problem for the CPC so they will solve it, and solving it also solves a major external strategic threat to China (dependency on imported oil/coal/gas) so they are highly motivated.

(I'm sorry I cannot post a map - imgur seems to be down - anyone know why ?)

regards, dspp

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Re: Renewable + conventional trends

#315698

Postby Nocton » June 6th, 2020, 8:14 am

Thank you for this information about the Chinese electricity generation and your explanation about grids. I was surprised to see how much hydro the Chinese have.
I think the discussion started by ReallyVeryFoolish is the difference between how a physicist sees electrons (as quantum objects with a probability of being anywhere) and how an engineer does (as a flow of current) :D


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