Wind power
Deep in the Saturday Courier mail was an article plugging coal seam gas and interviewing the author of a “new report”, one Matt Ridley. The report was easily run down. It can be downloaded from here.
If you noticed a graph on the header that was giving you a certain message, it could be because The Global Warming Policy Foundation has an academic board with luminaries such as Professors Carter, Lindzen and Plimer. I don’t know whether Matt Ridley as a science writer has committed any crimes against science, but I was interested in the following table, which was derived from a US Government source:
Levelised costs of new generation resources
The table gives levelised costs of new generation resources in the US in terms dollars per megawatt-hour.
The document also contains this quote from Robert F Kennedy Jr:
Surprisingly, America has more gas generation capacity – 450 gigawatts – than it does for coal. However, public regulators generally require utilities to dispatch coal-generated power in preference to gas. For that reason, high-efficiency gas plants are in operation only 36 per cent of the time. By changing the dispatch rule nationally to require that whenever coal and gas plants are competing head-to-head, gas generation must be utilised first, we could quickly reduce coal generation and achieve massive emissions reductions. — Robert F. Kennedy, Financial Times, 19 July 2009. (Emphasis mine)
Shame, Obama, shame!
Meanwhile here’s a selection of items on renewable energy, many from Climate Spectator.
Give and take as US clean energy feels the pinch
It seems that subsidies for renewable energy and biofuels will come under increasing pressure as the budget deficit is reigned in. Currently there is a tax credit of 45 US cents per gallon on biofuel and a tariff on imported ethanol of 54 cents a gallon. But
the US Department of Energy issued more than $US2.2 billion loan guarantees to solar plants, clearly signalling that the Obama administration remains keen on building up the country’s renewable power capacity.
And Connecticut passed legislation to set up the first development bank in the US for clean energy and efficiency projects.
Electric vehicles are coming to Canberra
Better Place plans to bring the first switchable battery vehicle, the Renault Fluence ZE, to Canberra in early 2012. The medium-sized car should sell for around $30,000. In addition
Better Place will then offer a battery leasing arrangement that will include the cost of the battery, access to charging stations at home and in public areas, and the cost of the electricity, as well as navigation services, 24-hour customer service and support.
Researchers report a new solar cell based on colloidal quantum dots (CQD). The technology harnesses both the visible and the infrared rays, achieving in principle up to 42% efficiency, compared with 14 to 18% in solar cells currently used on the roofs of houses and in consumer products.
California-based start-up Alta Devices has achieved a record solar-cell efficiency of 28.2%, a mark, nearing the “theoretical maximum” of 33.5%.
More work needs to be done before it becomes commercial.
Australian Clean Technologies Ideas Competition
From the same post (scroll down to Wanted: Eureka moments) the federal government last week launched its Australian Clean Technologies Ideas Competition – a national competition aimed at helping to make local innovation a global success.
“Australian clean technologies businesses were worth $22 billion in 2010 and the sector employs over 25,000 people nationally. The government’s goal is to develop a sector that helps Australia meet the growing needs of a low carbon economy,” innovation minister Kim Carr said at the launch. “The Australian competition will promote a uniquely Australian take on developing this high-tech, high-skill sector and, I hope, result in some ‘Eureka’ moments.”
Challenge to Productivity Commission solar costs
The Australian PV Association (APVA) reckons that solar PV could be between four and 11 times more effective as a way to cut greenhouse pollution than the Productivity Commission has calculated.
The Commission claims that the cost of emissions reduction achieved via solar PV is $432-$1043/tonne CO2. According to the APVA, the true figure is $90-$95/t CO2, depending on the installation location.
The article says that crossover with grid prices will be reached in four years and cites reports of similar developments in other countries.
Barack Obama’s Energy Secretary Steven Chu is in charge of the government’s “SunShot” Initiative which aims to get baseload solar cheaper than grid electricity by 2020.
Lane Crockett, local General Manager at Pacific Hydro, believes that the renewable energy industry has been subject to increasing venomous attacks in the media.
These attacks range from being poorly informed, to outright misinformation, and all are orchestrated in a way that leads you to believe that a series of well-funded, politically-motivated campaigns are underway.
The 100% Renewable Energy campaign conducted 14,000 conversations confirming that over 90% of Australians want more renewable energy and that 75% want to see a price on carbon.
in June 2010 Pacific Hydro commissioned research into attitudes towards our future energy supply focusing on a number of Victorian regions where wind farms were either operating or were proposed. This research revealed that people living in these areas overwhelmingly supported wind energy over gas and coal. 81% were supportive of wind energy being built in their region.
Similar results came from a Climate Institute poll, conducted nationally by Auspoll in June 2010, that showed 86 per cent of respondents wanted to see more renewable energy such as solar, wind and geothermal power.
in April 2011, the Clean Energy Council engaged Newspoll to conduct a nation-wide poll which found that over 80 per cent of respondents wanted to see more renewable energy.
This is the same Matt Ridley that Janet Abrechtson praised last week for being a ‘Rational Optimist’. Both she and the Global Warming Policy Foundation neglect to mention his background as the Chairman of ‘Northern Rock’ – the bank that had to be nationalised by the British government because its ‘high risk, reckless business strategy’ was leading to financial collapse. It was the earliest GFC event.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/jun/18/matt-ridley-rational-optimist-errors
Ridley does seem to have chops as a general science writer, however as an investment advisor he should be approached with caution.
The Matt Ridley/Des Houghton (Courier Mail) effort is just a puff piece…nuff said. Lane Crockett of Pacific Hydro complaining about negative media on renewables is also a bit of a dummy spit. As a commercial partner in the just announced $900 million solar power plants at Moree (NSW) and Chinchilla (Queensland) Pacific Hydro are being very precious. With so much tax-payers money going into these show piece efforts PH have been getting a dream run in the mainstream media when for example LP post criticisms of the projects’ worth are taken into account. As an example, check the ABC Bush Telegraph (June 28) transcript.
Those Greens who oppose CSM extraction and it’s use in Combined Cycle Gas Turbines are totally stupid, uninformed and as culpable in the CO2 generation as the worst of the coal miners.
CSM is mostly hydrogen (No CO2 from H2 -wankers) and it’s combustion efficiency in the CCGT is twice as efficient as conventional coal plant.
Extraction methods need improvement but this is achievable. Noo those moronic Greens want the whole technology shut down because a few cowboys are doing the wrong thing.
Get this Green wankers- convert the entire generation system over to CSM and it,s game set and match for CO2 emissions in the electric generation sector, even nuclear cannot match it.
Well we will know who to blame when the waves wash through our CBDs.
The Greens.
FFS Huggybunny, learn to use friggin’ apostrophes before calling others ‘totally stupid’ and ‘wankers’.
It’s not difficult and you come across as well…a wanker who can’t even use the basics of the English language properly.
It should be noted that gas is the most fuel price sensitive of all electricity generation technologies. The further one projects into the future, the more uncertain the LCOE becomes.
Here’s a quote from Ridley’s Wikipedia page to give you an idea of his politics:
He first gained notoriety for writing on neoliberal genetics, er, I mean “evolutionary psychology”. The journey to the Northern Rock board seems apt.
Huggy
It’s possible to make a point about the intellectual or ethical integrity of a claim without using terms such as “wanker” or “moronic”. While I regard the broad brush “no coal seam gas” slogan adopted by The Greens as somewhat misleading — really the campaign is principally concerned with the impacts on local and regional environments of fracking and to some extent, the fact that coal seam gas is a new source of fossil hydrocarbon energy — it’s very difficult to get a comprehensible slogan onto a placard or a bumper sticker. Perhaps the slogan should be “Coal Seam Gas? No Fracking Way!” Still — this is one for the initiates since I doubt that even now, a grasp of fracking has reached many of those beyond environmental activist groups and their fringes.
Most Greens I speak to would have no problem making use of coal seam gas from brownfields sites, especially where these are fuigitive emissions from gassy mines, which would either be vented or flared. Neither would most oppose the roll out of CCGT as a transitional technology in replacement of coal-fired power. Most of us accept that gas (using some combination of OCGT and CCGT) could play an important role in underpinning wind and other intermittent renewables.
Extravagant claims about us being responsible for waves washing through our CBDs really are most unreasonable. I disagree strongly, as you know, with the current official position of The Greens on nuclear power, but the fact remains that The Greens remain much the closest thing we have in the parliaments of this country to ethical politics and ill-deserve your abuse.
The problem with BetterPlace’s model, as I see it, is that electricity is way way cheaper than petrol, but their model basically means they eat the difference and the consumer sees none of it, paying instead on par, + extra for the car.
Aside from a few ideologues like myself – sans carbon trading that will make a noticeable difference – why would the average Australian choose a more expensive, heavier car to run, with their fears about running out of juice etc and a questionable resale value? Seems like a big ask to me.
I’m with Fran in opposition to coal seam gas (CSG). It seems obvious that none of you watched the program on SBS1 last night at 10.05 pm. You can see the trailer here.
I guess that some of you think that having the ability to set light to your drinking water is a great party trick! That having your livestock, drinking the water on the farm, suddenly lose their hair is amusing too. Would you consume the milk from such animals or eat their meat? Would you tolerate doing both of those without knowing you were doing it because the farmer doesn’t care either?
Just take care when you watch the whole video, you might get sick from just comprehending the size of the problem.
Do you want people to be living next to condensate recovery tanks? Do any of you supporters of CSG know what condensate is?
That SBS program was just a beat up. Sure, if you don’t do it right, there will be problems. I think that applies to every field of human endeavour.
Fact: Burning methane is a good idea, it is in itself a potent greenhouse gas – 25 times worse than CO2; does not hang around for very long, 50 years or so vs 200 years for CO2, but we don’t have 50 years.
Emits 45% less CO2 than coal on a straight fuel oxidisation basis but can have thermal efficiency of twice that of coal in a CCGT plant – because you can first burn it in a gas turbine and then extract the rest of the energy in a steam turbine. This is not some future music bullshit technology such as “GenIV” nukes, you can buy as many units as you want right now.
In 1750 (Pre-Industrial) Methane was 700 nmol/mol in the atmosphere – now it is 1850 nmol/mol. Over twice as high and it accounts for about 20% of the radiative forcing we are getting now. Much of the methane leaks from coal mines, we would do better to “mine” the methane from such places.
Problem at the moment is return on investment, “fracking” increases the return on investment for a given site, water displacement is another but again a more modest extraction rate can fix this.
Those of the green disposition would do better to place controls on the industry rather than to ban it outright in a fit of blind self righteous panic.
Oh they really make me angry, the ignorant dopes.
Huggy
Huggy, I thought you had a lot to add to the debate on LP. This kind of language makes me lose respect big time. Perhaps a funnel could be attached to your mouth and from there to a turbine to capture some of that heat. Further, the deleterious effects of fracking as it’s currently done are quite well known and it is not clever to poison our water table and food-growing land.
Huggy said:
This is misleading. When combusted, CH4 produces CO2. CO2 does not disappear from the flux in 200 years. The long tail of CO2 means that about 7% of the CO2 being emitted as I type these lines will still be moving between the various atmospheric, marine and terrestrial sinks 50kyr from now. Silicate weathering and other processes will eventually remove it, but these are very slow indeed. That’s the main reason that atmospheric and marine inventories are increasing.
The sinks themselves are not yet saturated of course, and that’s a good thing but they are a finite resource and we aren’t exactly clear how long they will continue to absorb at their current rate. In the meantime, as is widely known, the seas are becoming less basic and this is having consequences for phytoplankton, coccolithophores etc … not good.
It is true that combusting methane as an alternative to harvesting and combusting coal is relatively rational. That’s not the same as saying that it is adequate in the long run — especially if this methane is methane that would have remained (or could have remained) in the ground if we hadn’t dug it up and burned it.
So combusting methane from landfills or gassy mines (that we are determined must operate anyway) or other decomposing matter — great. Methane from fracking? Horrible.
patrig @8: You are arguing the case for plug in hybrid. Suitable for travelling long distances. No special infrastructure. Much smaller batteries. Household electricity and the prospect of encouraging the development of better electric drives and power storage.
one word: “…GEMASOLAR!”
Helen,
Sorry for the bad talk.
My only excuse is that am so over the lack of analysis that some of those who claim to be Green exhibit.
If we wish to maximize the input from wind and solar we must-repeat must- have a source of energy that is able to respond very quickly to load and generation shifts. Gas generation should be seen as an enabling technology for wind and solar. This is why the nuke dupes are opposed to it. Without rapid response generation technology or a huge energy storage capacity wind and solar are soon to reach the limits of network penetration.
Continue on the present path and the grid will become unusable.
Then the nuke dupes will win.
Welcome to Fukishima land.
Huggy.
Yebbut, Huggy, that is all very well, but if we have no drinking water or affordable food, we’re fucked anyway, aren’t we?
Just imagine, for a moment, if a Western government had the political will to put the same amount of work into renewables as they have with the Manhattan project or the space project. Or even a couple of medium-sized wars.
Brian,
I have never heard of such a rule. Do you have any reference for that, apart from some greenie writing in the FT?
It is so vague, it sounds made up. Which “public regulators” (FERC, State Regulators)? Why “generally”? In what circumstances?
Notwithstanding regulations, you can’t just snap your fingers and change the dispatch order. Where would all of the extra gas come from? Where would all of the surplus coal go? What would that do to the relative prices of these fuels?
An interesting snippet about the author of that FT article, RFK jr, from wikipedia:
Helen,
Agreed, however the cowboys in the CSM business will be disposed of eventually.
I doubt if the relatively small amount of damage already caused by CSM will make a lot of difference to our water or food supplies.
Of course you could leave it sit there leaking away.
Huggy@19, the way things are, those who have and will have water and gas pipelines crisscrossing their land, with extraction bores and pits blighting what was once unpolluted country have little power to obtain compensation for damage caused.
Then there is the threat of damage to water tables polluted long after the gas is gone with little compensation to those affected.
The point is that those affected rightly feel powerless to prevent what could obviously turn into an ecological and social disaster. Their only defence is to invoke food security.
Huggy: I wish that Gillard would forget all this carbon price bullshit and drive the replacement of coal fired with CCGT ASAP. Most of this could be done by 2015 if the government had a sense of urgency. This would be sufficient on its own for the government to have met its 2020 emission reduction target 5 years ahead of time. Between now and 2030 investment in clean power could be used to satisfy increased demand for electricity. After 2030 the replacement of CCGT with clean power could be started with the aim of reaching 100% clean power by 2050. At some point between 2030 and 2050 it would start to become necessary to include power storage to provide reliability unless hot rocks or some other reliable source of clean power is developed.
John D
Honestly JohnD, can you really not see why that would be politically fatal? She’d have flip-flopped again, and in practice, Gillard does not control the operation of the assortment of coal-fired power stations. These fall within the jurisdiction of the states. She’d require new spending programs too, and it would not be done by 2015. By her own reckoning, she’d stand condemned as having achieved nothing at all on climate change.
Given that in NSW, the generators are owned by … NSW … there’s a more obvious agency to implement such a program ….
I&U, I can’t answer your questions, I’m afraid. However, I’m not sure you can dismiss Robert F Kennedy Jnr, “attorney specializing in environmental law”, as “some greenie writing in the FT”.
Salient Green @ 20 mentions some of the very real problems with the coal seam gas industry in Australia. I have sympathy with the farmers and have concerns that the weight of money is leading us down a path that may end in tears.
To be fair, though, I understand that the industry is far better regulated than in the US. Also fracking will be used ultimately in about 14% of wells, about double what is happening now according to information a few months old.
In the US the gas is located in shale seams rather than coal. Fracking is far more common there, but I can’t recall the exact percentage.
Brian, I&R didn’t dismiss Kennedy as “some greenie”, but pointed to the fact that he supports the Wakefield theory of vaccinations causing autism, which means you can pretty much rule him out as a source on any scientific subject.
A few facts might help the debate –
Huggybunny@3 – no, CSM is not mostly hydrogen – as its name suggests (Coal Seam Methane) it is almost entirely methane. It is a very clean burning fuel.
Linmhall @9 – CSM is very dry gas – there is virtually no condensate. Condensate is heavier hydrocarbons that are liquid at ambient temperatures and pressures (c6+)
All – CSM/CSG is not shale gas. Coal Seam Methane/Gas is very different to Shale gas – completely different production methods. All coal has gas in it – the trick is to reduce the hydrostatic pressure by pumping water out from around the coal seam and then the gas will flow – it is virtually all methane. Shale gas is similar to natural gas but is contained in shale rock rather than conventional sandstone reservoirs. The trick here is to ‘fracc’ the rock to allow the gas to escape. There is usually no fraccing for coal seams.
Coal seam gas is one of the most environmentally friendly energy soureces we have got – replacing coal fired power generation with coal seam gas fired power would go a long way to Australia meeting its greehouse gas abatement objectives – it might even go all the way!
Andrew said:
Methane: CH4 — 1 carbon atom, 4 hydrogen atoms … that’s what he’d have been referring to.
All the way would be zero emissions. Turnbull spoke of this for the energy sector by 2050. By definition, it can’t do that since it is roughly 50% as CO2 intensive as anthracite coal combustion.
Helen @ 25, somehow I completely missed I&U’s post @ 18.
Sorry!
There’s some chatter that The Greens are about to cut a compromise deal on the carbon price involving the yielding of compensation to EITEs in order to “protect” a higher starting carbon price and to ensure direct investment in renewables. Let me decalre that if this is substantially the case, I’d be disappointed.
If I were forced to compromise anywhere, I’d sooner concede a substantially lower starting carbon price than that bandied about ($26tCO2) in exchange for
a) much less generous compensation for EITEs
b) much broader scheme scope
c) a more aggressive escalator in the price
d) removal of fossil fuel subsidies such as the diesel fuel rebate, salary packaging of cars not meeting an 80g/kCO2 standard
e) scheduled phase out of fossil hydrocarbon tax deductions by 2020
f) a substantially more proportionately generous household compensation package still targeted at those on or below AFTWE
g) no off-shore credits to any jurisdiction that has not had a comparable scheme running for at least three years and meets ISO14000 accounting tests
h) creation of a fund for soft loans to schemes meeting cost abatement at the explicit carbon price
Depending on how far each of these went, I’d be OK with a much lower starting price.
Fran yes, methane is of course CH4. Now I understand that considerable work is afoot to sequester the CO2 due to the carbon fraction back into the coal field from which the methane has been extracted. If this works then CSM will be entirely CO2 free (However the Greens will probably find some way to stop this) In any event CSM causes less CO2 and methane based forcing than if we simply burned the coal and let the methane escape – this is the present situation.
Huggy
@HuggyBunny
The IPCC AR4 assessment of emissions from gas with CCS is over 200 grams CO2-eq / kWh
http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/ar4-wg3/jpg/fig-4-18.jpg
I’ll remain extremely sceptical of claims of zero emissions from coal seam gas until somebody actually demonstrates it on a commercial scale.
Brian @28,
To be honest, I was pretty dubious about RFK jnr’s claim on generation dispatch even before I delved into wikipedia. In fact, I only did that because his father was a giant, obviously, and I gave him the benefit of the doubt. But it just confirmed my initial impression that he had a weak grasp on truth and evidence.
The “greenie” tag might be a bit unfair, but it is fairly common to find claims from environmental campaigners which are counter-intuitive and yet are not explained or referenced. In my experience, that usually means that they are false or exaggerated.
I’m still happy to be proven wrong in this case, though.
I&U, you’ve done me a favour. Once a few years ago I relied on him. Now he’s shown as someone who, as you say, has “a weak grasp on truth and evidence”.
I agree with the rest of your comment. I think part of the problem is that green issues cover many disciplines and people expert in one often don’t use the same discipline when they wander into others.
Prior to the introduction of large scale energy storage in the electricity supply network we need distributed sources of low carbon emission spinning reserve. This will enable the deeper penetration of non wind and solar sources, without it they will be locked out. The real problem with coal and nukes for example is that they have long response times and cannot be deployed in the smaller sizes that are needed throughout the network – where the spinning reserve is required.
Most of the solar enthusiasts have no idea of the limitations of the present PV installation model; voltage perturbations, the sudden loss of supply due to insolation loss (Clouds) and the need for bi-directional power flows in a network that was never designed to accommodate them are just a few of the difficulties.
The need for low carbon generation source has become instead a source of middle class welfare. Greed wins.
Huggy
Economies-of-scale change everything… this is why the Libs press the pause button!
Demand renewables and they will be supplied…….
Huggybunny,
Spinning reserve is not necessarily an optimal technique for managing grid stability. Equally useful and certainly more energy efficient is latent load management via smart grid communication. One of the future trends will be towards solar water heating. At the extreme end of this if all water is heated by solar energy, the grid 24 hour energy consumption returns to a far more sinusoidal pattern. Solar PV electricity at this stage will become a grid smoothing influence rather than a destabilising one.
Tony Windsor, towards the end of this segment, showed he had a good grasp on the issues relating to the intrusion of mining and coal seam gas extraction onto productive land.
He reckons he’s got the Government working on it. Part of the deal, he says.
BiLB
The smart grid will certainly help,however to be really useful it needs to extend into the consumer premises to control discretionary loads and loads that have energy storage (air conditioners, fridges, freezers, hot water systems,). That is on the way here but it will never happen in the US where they cannot even get ripple control going because “no-one is going to turn my hot water on and off – that would be communism”
Peaking generation that can be despatched on command help even out the load in the meantime.
Green Power Islands……………. Morgan Solar Inc.’s Sun Simba High Concentration Photovoltaic (HCPV) …………….. How can we demand change if we don’t even believe it’s possible???
The problem is Keithy that most people have trouble doing even basic maths, let alone understand the implications of the results until they are “on sale” at Woolworths.