Friday
Oct312014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Quote of the day, waste of money edition
Oct 31, 2014 Energy: nuclear Energy: other Energy: wind It is important to recall that well over $1,700,000,000,000 ($1.7 trillion) has been spent on installing wind and solar devices in recent years with the sole objective of reducing global CO2 emissions. It transpires that since 1995 low carbon energy sources (nuclear, hydro and other renewables) share of global energy consumption has not changed at all.
Euan Mearns, whose latest post on the subject is a must-read.
Reader Comments (65)
Raff,
I am not picking any numbers, I use a German graph published by AGEB called "Bruttostromerzeugung nach Energieträgern". This is a similar to Eirgrid's "All Island wind and fuel mix report". These graphs are about electricity generation by source, not about fuel burn. The German graph shows clearly the decrease of nuclear generation vs. the increase of renewables in the period from 2000 - 2013.
There is no way you can get numbers about fuel burn vs. electricity output for specific generator plants or even plant types, not in Germany, not in the UK, nowhere. Too competition-sensitive. We don't need these numbers anyway.
The German statistical authority does give a number on the total electricity-related fuel use and CO2 emissions. The emission increases over the past three years have been published widely. That is all we need to know, to see whether the German renewables have been any use. They have not.
Simple.
Albert, the per-fuel electricity numbers here: http://snag.gy/tN9Vr.jpg
Coal is increasing with gas decreasing. Coal produces more CO2. Or go to the source https://www.bdew.de/internet.nsf/id/DE_Energiedaten# and select "9. Strom: Erzeugung und Verbrauch"
BDEW.de graph 9.1 shows exactly what I described in my previous posts.
From 2000 - 2013 nuclear generation decreased by about the same amount as the renewables increased. Coal stayed about the same, gas generation increased a little. Renewable generation displaced nuclear energy. CO2 emissions in Germany increased from 2011.
Renewable energy generation has not done any good, on the contrary. QED.
Albert, ah you are talking about the period 2000-2013? I thought you said in the last few years. You are ignoring the 10% increase in production.
Electricity production in 2000 was around 577 TWh
Electricity production in 2013 was around 634 TWh
So a 10% rise in production.
CO2 emissions are down since 2000 and as you say, coal use is much the same, gas up a bit.
So a 10% rise in production has been achieved without changing the coal balance and with a decrease in CO2 emissions.
Raff, you are acting like a troll.
Earlier I wrote that CO2 emissions rose during the last three years, that nuclear generation decreased and renewables increased by the same amounts or in other words that renewables displaced nuclear energy. The fact that not much happened to fossil fuel generation since 2000 has nothing to do with that.
During the early years the renewables fraction was small, so that intermittency of wind and solar did not have much influence. But since 2010 this has changed, with contributions increasing from 10 to 15 percent (leaving biomass out of the renewables fraction).
I do not know or care that CO2 emissions are down since 2000, in any case they are up since 2010. The major recent increase of renewable generation did not do Germany any good. If you do not want to see that, that is up to you. I cannot change a believer.
Here are the figures for the last 4 years (brown coal, black coal, gas and electricity generation in TWh except CO2 which is in million tonnes):
Year Brn Blk Gas Elc CO2
2010 146 117 89 633 305
2011 150 112 86 613 305
2012 161 116 76 630 317
2013 162 124 67 634 319
You seem to be claiming that because electricity production was the same in 2010 and 2013 yet CO2 emissions increased by 5% that renewables must be responsible. The mechanism you seem to suggest is that variable renewables were being balanced by increased fuel use. That is a plausible proposition, but is it right? Do you have the necessary data to prove it?
There were changes in the fuel mix, with brown coal up 11% and black up 6% and gas down 25%. Such changes could clearly cause CO2 emissions to change (burning brown coal produces much more CO2 than hard coal which in turn produces more than gas). To know whether the CO2 actual increase in emissions was due to extra balancing you would need the actual amount of coal and gas burned to produce the electricity - figures that are not available.
So your proposition is not proven as you claim but just a hypothesis.
It is not possible to really prove anything with these CO2 figures, as I wrote before. They are obtained by calculation based on the caloric value of fuel used. As such they have some relation to the actual emissions, but it is certainly not the whole truth. There are no figures of the actual efficiency of the modern coal and gas plants that have been built recently, due to fear of misuse for competitive advantage.
Most probably the changes as you describe them yourself have a total net output of "no difference". It is nice, isn't it, that nothing can be really proven. That way you can continue to believe what you want, which appears to be that the large variations of wind and solar energy – sometimes more than 26 GW in 4 hours – have no influence on the balancing fossil fuelled generating fleet.
Sleep well.
Changes of 26GW in 4 hours are not so great. Grids often experience this sort of rate and extent of change, every morning in many cases. They are designed to cope with that. It is obviously true that renewables need backup and balancing; but so does demand (which varies constantly) and conventional. A 500MW plant can fail and disappear in seconds - that's a rate of change far greater than what you quote. Reserves have to be kept spinning (e.g. running at half load) all the time for that eventuality.
The standard anti-renewable claim is that of course demand can be forecast accurately but solar and wind cannot. You probably believe that too.
A spinning reserve for.5 GW is totally different from a spinning reserve for 26 GW.
The fact that grid management can deal with 20GW changes does not make a second change of more than 20 GW a day something of no account.
Grid managers have always tried as much as possible to minimize the difference between day and night demand, because it creates inefficency. Inefficency means more fuel consumption and more wear and tear. The renewables' variations are much less predictable than the day-night demand cycle, so the ensuing inefficency is always greater than coping with the day-night cycle. In Germany the inefficiencies caused by renewables are now more than twice what they used to be.
The example of 26 GW change comes from Germany around 2012 when the net contribution of wind and solar was about 12 % of electricity over the year. Since the EU and their slaves in the countries want more wind and solar the inefficiencies caused by renewable intermittency will increase.
The green dream future of a "carbon-free" economy is laughable, because when transport and heating have to be made electric, ten times more electricity is required than current. There is no way this can be realised with wind- and solar energy, there is no land or sea space available.
Better work hard on something different to wind- and solar energy and start now.
Albert, you said"The fact that grid management can deal with 20GW changes does not make a second change of more than 20 GW a day something of no account."
That is true, but grids have been cranking up and down every day for many decades. In the (say) 30 year lifetime of a (non-baseload) gas plant, it would crank up and down maybe 10,000 times if it was 100% available and it did so once a day. But demand changes through the day and so these plants must be continuously ramping up/down during each day, even without renewables. Is it unreasonable to expect designs to have been optimised in some way to reduce wear and tear and to economise on fuel use during this process? Is it only now apparent that all this demand following costs fuel and wear? And if the wind is blowing or the sun shining doesn't this mean that some gas plant can take a rest?
When you say, "In Germany the inefficiencies caused by renewables are now more than twice what they used to be", do you have a link? I've been trying to find something that goes into that.
It is not that I don't believe there are costs associated with backing up renewables, there clearly are. I just don't buy the line that renewables have no utility because they are variable, when the whole grid is variable.
It is quite wrong to say that the grid is variable. Without wind or solar the only thing that varies is demand. Demand is very well-known and variations are predictable, much more predictable than wind or solar energy. All changes to cope with demand are dispatched by grid management in such a way that inefficiencies are minimized. Grid management have become very experienced in this.
Now that contributions of wind and solar on the grid are more significant, like in Germany, an extra variation is introduced in the grid. Solar + wind energy installed base in Germany is about 60 GW, about equal to demand, with capacity factors of 10% for solar and 18% for wind. The capacity factors show how much the energy varies, between 0 and 100% with the capacity factor as average over the year. These variations are much larger than demand variations.
With solar varying every sunny day between zero and about 26 GW in 2012 (it will be a little more now) an extra variation is increased that is larger than demand variation and more unpredictable. On top of that comes the wind intermittency. The conclusion is that inefficiencies are currently more than twice the inefficiencies without wind and solar energy on the grid. I don't need a link to see that. Perhaps you do. It is corroborated by the fact that emissions in Germany have been increasing during the past three years.
With increasing contribution on the grid there will be increasing inefficencies due to variation and in addition, because the sum of wind and solar in Germany is about the same as demand, there will be inefficiencies caused by curtailment.
With increasing capacity the fuel savings from wind and solar will become negative. They already are when lifecycle energy costs are taken into account, but the increasing emissions already show that the turning point has been reached.
And as I wrote, there is no way that wind and solar will ever be able to provide all the energy required to "decarbonize" the economy. It is better to give up this waste of money and invest in research for a much better option. For the coming 200 years the fossil fuels are not going to dry up.
Albert, how can you say the grid is not variable? Supply = Demand and one demand varies constantly. The supply side has to vary to match it - always has and always will. It is the very essence of variability. Even the supposedly un-varying conventional plant drop off the grid at not so infrequent intervals. Yes, we can predict demand by watching TV schedules, temperatures, etc. But we can also predict wind and solar output. I've seen no studies of prediction accuracy for either demand or supply. If you have seen such studies, please link to them. If not, your proposition lacks any evidence, just like your proposition that renewables have increased CO2 emissions, above.
Your suggestion that inefficiencies are "more than twice the inefficiencies without wind and solar energy on the grid" is no more than a hunch if you have no evidence. And the variation you see with solar or wind seems to be very slow. The graphs I've seen of solar/wind over the day look relatively smooth to me, especially solar. And that means that they don't usually change rapidly but slowly and predictably. It might be that I'm not seeing the fine detail - if so, please show me the data. There is a website somewhere that plots German grid production (along the lines of GridWatch in the UK), but I cannot find it.
"It is corroborated by the fact that emissions in Germany have been increasing during the past three years."
We've been through that already. You have proved no connection. If you have proof then show it, else, give up that argument.
I can say quite easily that the normal grid - without renewables - is not variable. Variations on the grid have not been a major problem until wind and solar cotributions reached a noticeable level.
Solar variation on the grid in Germany is currently up to 7 GW/hr up and 7GW/hr down, in a single day. In the first four hours that means shutting down some 15 fossil fuelled generating plants and switching them on again the next 4 hours. Wind variation rate can be similar, but usually not up and down in a single day. These variations are not as predictable as demand variation.
I do not need to provide you with any proof of CO2 emissions increasing during the last couple of years. This has been all over the major German newspapers. Bloomberg also reported on it. If you do not want to accept it, I do not care very much. But the argument will certainly not be removed, it will become increasingly clear in the near future.
Albert, I'd say anything that goes up and down 50% or more daily is variable. You can call it whatever you like.
I didn't say that emissions haven't gone up, just that we have already discussed the conclusions you draw from the rise in emissions (that renewables are the cause) and that you have no evidence to support your case.
@ Oct 31, 2014 at 11:54 AM | Euan Mearns ,
Euan,
I apologize for tthe delayed response. You make an excellent and interesting observation.
It is as if once a person becomes climate obsessed they are in a sense a self-starting excuse machine. In other words, no matter the obvious holes in the climate catastrophe argument, they invent an excuse to still believe. No matter how many predictions fail, the climate obsessed person will invent an excuse to explain away the failures, if not ignore them completely. No matter how many times a Solyandra or other climate driven scheme is found to be a complete waste of money, the climate obsessed person will invent an excuse to justify the wasted money and effort.
Your naming this "inventive" reasoning is spot on target: The climate obsessed community will invent a reason to go forward.