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Page added on January 6, 2018
Why Germans Are Being Paid To Use Power
Germany’s drive to use renewable sources of energy seems to be bearing fruit. Beginning last weekend, prices for electricity in the country declined below zero.
That means consumers are being paid to use the power, rather than the other way around.
This isn’t even the first time this has happened. According to one of Europe’s largest electricity trading exchanges (the EPEX Spot), it has happened more than 100 times in 2017.
All of this would seem to bode well for German households, long regarded as operating under the highest energy prices on the continent.
Well, not quite.
But someone else is getting paid.
And the whole matter has crucial implications for where the energy industry is going next…
Given the heavy amount of taxes and fees charged for power, the wholesale cost factors in only about 20 percent of the real price charged to the average residence.
That means that, while the period of negative costs helps, prices are still going up for German households.
Meanwhile, bigger wholesale users – industry, factories, and other primary end users – do see a nice pop. According to EPEX Spot figures, for example on December 24, such major consumers were paid about €50 ($59.50 at current exchange rates) per megawatt-hour (MWh).
The price decline results from a combination of low demand, warmer than usual temperatures, and the prevalence of ample winds that provided an abundance of wind power generation.
All of this results in excess supply that needs to be moved along the grid.
Due to the lack of efficient or effective battery and storage systems, electricity that is produced must be used.
It has become a traditional tradeoff between peak and off-peak hour generation or usage. The recently emerging German largess in solar and wind power has just accentuated the situation.
Meanwhile, variations on the demand side tend to contribute to supply excesses during times of low usage, such as weekends, and holiday periods. Both of those, of course, hit this past Sunday.
With the price tag for Germany now well over €100 billion, it would appear that the move to renewable, cleaner, energy has been successful.
Well, not so fast…
What the Future of Energy Will Look Like
Negative prices notwithstanding, the move to increase the contribution made by solar and wind has created its own uncertainties. Both sources need backup energy sources for when sunlight and wind are not present.
And then there is the opposite extreme. Wind on average provides less than 14 percent of the daily power on the German grid.
But on very windy days it can easily provide many times that.
Unfortunately, traditional sources such as coal-fueled power plants and the nuclear reactors that are being phased out nationwide cannot be turned down rapidly enough when renewables dump additional power on the system.
The result is either negative prices or lack of immediate access to power during those spells in which the combination of sources don’t meet expectations.
Other European countries – France, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and even Great Britain – have also had their own experiences with negative pricing. France generates well over 70 percent of its power from nuclear, meaning the negative pricing phenomenon is hardly a result of only new renewable energy volume.
Nonetheless, German experiences have been more persistent, even when the country has been able to export excess power. The late December episode is the most recent.
But a similar bout in October resulted in payouts to consumers almost twice as high.
Experts are pointing toward the major revision both Germany and the wider European grid system must now undertake. Until this spasm of negative pricing, the older view of global power systems had been considered adequate.
Not any longer.
As one specialist noted this week, “we now have technology that cannot produce according to the demand, but is producing according to the weather.” This has become the main uncertain ingredient in the new age of rising renewable sourcing.
And one thing that’s becoming increasingly evident is that the new environment is providing a new stress on the wider power system.
This sets the stage for a range of possible changes in regulations and fee structures meant to encourage average households to tailor their energy use to periods of energy supply. That would seem to oblige some “carrot rather than stick” approaches.
Of course, that would mean benefits in lower costs moving directly down to the household level. That may take a bit more politics than just oddities in the energy grid.
Which means the push for renewables and energy storage will continue unabated in 2018.
53 Comments on "Why Germans Are Being Paid To Use Power"
Kenz300 on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 12:05 pm
Battery storage is a game changer making wind and solar base line power.
Clean energy production with solar panels / tiles and battery storage.
Clean energy consumption with electric vehicles. No emissions.
A new solar roof, battery storage, an electric car charger and an electric vehicle.
Solar panels are now being projected to have a much longer life and lower cost than just a few years ago.
Cloggie on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 12:55 pm
To make a long story short… Germany has arrived at a level where storage can no longer be postponed. Germany is a “victim” of its own renewable energy success.
Call in the Norwegians.
They have historically the most experience in producing hydrogen using electrolysis applied to water.
Watched last week the British-Norwegian flick “saboteurs on ice” on German television about the production of heavy water in occupied Norway for the German nuke program:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsDfH5muPP8
It is likely that this time the Norwegians will provide the equipment without occupation.
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/12/28/700-mw-renewable-hydrogen-plant-to-be-built-in-france/
Davy on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 1:06 pm
The Norwegians are not going to solve Germany’s storage problem, not even close. The needs are far too great and diverse. It is a long tough road from here on out.
Outcast_Searcher on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 2:25 pm
Davy, more likely that given a compelling economic incentive (as the situation is now beginning to provide), capitalists will figure out ways to improve things and make a boatload of money doing it.
Despite the improvements not providing a perfect solution, overall people will be better off, and doom re lack of energy is avoided yet again.
Seems more likely than the usual doomer claim of “It won’t work. Period.”
Davy on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 2:34 pm
Improve things is a wide open word. Your “make a boat load of money” is childish. I suspect overal people will not be better off. Those days are likely gone but we can hope for more good days along with the difficult. Saying it won’t work when something is out of scale is being reasonable. Or do you believe Norway will save Germany?
_______..... on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 3:59 pm
German power is so unreliable that it’s worthless. Use pressurized air underground or water reservoirs to store power you dumb antiwhite feminazis.
MASTERMIND on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 4:24 pm
UC Davis Study: It Will Take 131 Years to Replace Oil with Alternatives (Malyshkina, 2010)
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es100730q
University of Chicago Study: predicts world economy unlikely to stop relying on fossil fuels (Covert, 2016)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.30.1.117
Solar and Wind produced less than one percent of total world energy in 2016 – IEA WEO 2017
https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/KeyWorld2017.pdf
JH Wyoming on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 6:04 pm
And the debate goes on…Meanwhile we’re all at risk of cooking ourselves if we can’t come up with a different way than FF.
MASTERMIND on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 6:16 pm
Germans need to be paid because they are paying the second highest energy prices in the entire world thanks to their renewable s. And they just lost one of their BMW factories to America because of their high energy costs.
Kevin Cobley on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 6:32 pm
Europe’s hydroelectric resources are enormous but have suffered from lack of investment in pumped storage. A number of countries won’t invest in other countries pumped storage, the countries that have hydro reserves won’t invest because they have adequate power.
This allegedly common market is still highly fractured, remedies are needed.
MASTERMIND on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 6:43 pm
Kevin you look like a child molester
antaris on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 8:37 pm
If that is his face, at least he has the balls to post it.
Cloggie on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 9:03 pm
“Germans need to be paid because they are paying the second highest energy prices in the entire world thanks to their renewable s.”
Millimind has a reading disability:
“Given the heavy amount of taxes and fees charged for power, the wholesale cost factors in only about 20 percent of the real price charged to the average residence.”
Germans don’t have tent cities or the equivalent of 50 million on food stamps. They don’t have (yet) tens of millions of zombies who are about to use white American women as sex toys, as you love to gloat (thereby involuntary admitting to the immanent failure of your society, making a mockery of Davy’s Last Man Standing jodelling). They have a welfare state and that needs to be paid for with a high tax level, which among other comes from high taxes on energy, which distorts a real view on renewable energy prices.
The reality is that once a 6 MW offshore wind turbine is installed in the North Sea it will on average produce 88 barrel of oil equivalent per day, for at least 30 years and with proper maintenance probably much longer. Or ca. 1 million barrel during its lifetime. Guaranteed no dry holes as they say in the oil business.
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/gold-mine-north-sea/
Cloggie on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 9:15 pm
“German power is so unreliable that it’s worthless. ”
Yet they have in absolute terms the greatest export surpluss in the world, where the US, with one leg in the third world, has the greatest trade deficit. Strange that, with a “worthless grid”.
Or maybe you are misinformed?
Oops, you are:
https://www.energiekontor.de/presse-medien/newsletter/deutsches-stromnetz-aeussert-stabil.html
German grid “very stable”, despite 36% intermittent supply of renewable energy. Much more teliable than your fossil based grid:
https://youtu.be/XGmIDuraqNQ
Cloggie on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 9:24 pm
“The Norwegians are not going to solve Germany’s storage problem, not even close. The needs are far too great and diverse. It is a long tough road from here on out.”
Desperate Dave is certain: the world is going to collapse. Somehow. It has to. Davy has been broadcasting that message for more than a decade. If no collapse, he would look like a fool in the eyes of his family and friends. Can’t have that. Fortunately for Dave a collapse will indeed happen in the US as a consequence of decades of recklesss third world immigration. And leave it to Dave to mysteriously reinterpret that collapse to “peak oil”. Everybody happy.
Cloggie on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 9:37 pm
“UC Davis Study: It Will Take 131 Years to Replace Oil with Alternatives (Malyshkina, 2010)”
Millimind has posted this obsolete 2010 article 100 times now, in the hope it gets more true everytime he eoes.
Tell me millimind, does the UC Davis have an affirmative action program?
https://youtu.be/2CVA6Nw6VxM
MASTERMIND on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 9:55 pm
Why not attack the second study there clog? I notice you cherry picked? Sorry I post scholarly studies and you post blog entries…LOL You are so pathetic. Dude move out of your moms basement and get a girlfriend.
MASTERMIND on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 9:57 pm
UC Davis Study: It Will Take 131 Years to Replace Oil with Alternatives (Malyshkina, 2010)
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es100730q
University of Chicago Study: predicts world economy unlikely to stop relying on fossil fuels (Covert, 2016)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.30.1.117
Solar and Wind produced less than one percent of total world energy in 2016 – IEA WEO 2017
https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/KeyWorld2017.pdf
Sorry Clog not go back to your cave troll
MASTERMIND on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 9:58 pm
Here are five peer reviewed scientific studies authored by top experts that prove beyond any reasonable doubt that global civilization will collapse within the next decade.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800914000615
https://www.permaculture.org.au/files/Peak%20Oil_Study%20EN.pdf
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1754/20122845
http://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/MSSI-ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf
http://www.feasta.org/2012/06/17/trade-off-financial-system-supply-chain-cross-contagion-a-study-in-global-systemic-collapse/
MASTERMIND on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 10:01 pm
As M. King Hubbert (1962) shows, Peak Oil is about discovering less oil, and eventually producing less oil due to lack of discovery.
https://imgur.com/a/6dEDt
IEA Chief warns of world oil shortages by 2020 as discoveries fall to record lows
https://www.wsj.com/articles/iea-says-global-oil-discoveries-at-record-low-in-2016-1493244000
Saudi Aramco CEO sees oil shortage coming as investments, oil discoveries drop
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-aramco-oil/aramco-ceo-sees-oil-supply-shortage-as-investments-discoveries-drop-idUSKBN19V0KR
Peak Oil Vindicated by the IEA and Saudi Arabia
Cloggie on Sat, 6th Jan 2018 10:38 pm
“Solar and Wind produced less than one percent of total world energy in 2016 – IEA WEO 2017”
Finally give the page number.
Davy on Sun, 7th Jan 2018 5:08 am
“Desperate Dave is certain: the world is going to collapse.”
More like honest davy in regards to a collapse process. I am not sold on a violent quick collapse event even though it might happen. I am more about a systematic process of decline and decay interspaced with events that are crisis. Nedernazi believes a collapse process is highly unlikely which is strange because everywhere we look we see decline. There is growth too this is why this period is deceptive. It is like an undulating plateau of decline and growth. Aggregately it is hard to tell but denying a collapse process is truly delusional. Being honest about history and science would point to an eventual decline and collapse of civilizations but the nedernazi is a extremist techno optimist believing in a delusional European manifest destiny.
Nedernazi does clarify this with a European process of development and the rest of the world in multicultural decline. For the board Nazi it is all about race at the very foundation of this process. Nedernazi’s life meaning is based upon a new Gaullist empire of Paris Berlin Moscow built upon the destruction of the North American continent and the energy transition to 100% renewables of Europe. It will also require a final solution of the ethnic cleaning of Europe. I suppose he means the forced removal but I imagine he could be Hitleresque with genocide if given the opportunity. He would have no qualms with genocide in the name of a new Euro empire. Nedernazi thinks Europe can maintain a Byzantium existence within a rest of the world of chaos and decline.
The board Nazi is all about history revisions to justify the past that supports a future. For the nedernazi the future is here now. Europe has everything in place with this process. Europe is a beacon of civilization and development. It now all rests on the destruction of the US. He somehow wants to blame globalism and multiculturalism all on the US. Somehow he forgets how Europe became prosperous. He denies it was also created out of Europe’s internationalism. He blames all of Europe’s multiculturalism issues on the US as if it was the US that had hundreds of years of exploitive and destructive colonialism. He acts like the ills of globalism are American. Europe is blameless and a victim.
His Europe is not the economic powerhouse he wants everyone to think. His Europe is truly sick and to be fair little different than the other major global powers just with a Euro flavor. He fantasizes about a grand Euro Army that is not. It is many armies that make up a common defense but not a common army. He hates the Americans for the prosperity they have brought him because of his Euro pride. He hates the Americans because of his awful embarrassing 20th century past of failures the Americans help correct. He firmly places this defeat at the feet of the Americans and conveniently the ex-Soviet Union. The new Russia is fine for the Nazi. The Nazi hates the Americans because how strong they are both economically and militarily. Anything and anybody that hates the Americans is his friend.
The nedernazi is a phantasm of a world that is only bits and pieces. The bad pieces are with Europe’s enemies and all the good is with mother Europa. He is lost in illusions of grandeur. He is potentially a psychopathic murder like Hitler because of his genocidal tendencies but since he is a nobody he is harmless. Somehow the nedernazi thinks he himself is special and very smart. He is constantly bragging on himself. He is a blight on the integrity and honesty of this board. While he does deliver useful information on energy unlike his worthless counterpart mad kat, he destroys that usefulness by over hyping it. He destroys it with racism and hate. DISPICABLE
Kenz300 on Sun, 7th Jan 2018 11:20 am
Sustainable energy production keeps growing every year.
Two-thirds of world’s new energy capacity in 2016 was renewable: IEA
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1113115_two-thirds-of-worlds-new-energy-capacity-in-2016-was-renewable-iea
Cloggie on Sun, 7th Jan 2018 3:09 pm
Germany needs to invest in storage now that they are at 36% renewable electricity, exactly the conclusion an Australian research team arrived at:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/dont-worry-about-intermittency-under-30-40-renewable-energy-share/
““Don’t Worry About Intermittency Under 30-40% Renewable Energy Share”
Boat on Sun, 7th Jan 2018 3:41 pm
Clog,
Spend those dollars on storage. We will thank you 10 years when we need it.
MASTERMIND on Sun, 7th Jan 2018 3:44 pm
Clog
There are no major grid size batteries..You can’t run a countries power systems on batteries..Geez you have zero common sense.
Simon on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 1:53 am
MM
https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/01/f34/Deployment%20of%20Grid-Scale%20Batteries%20in%20the%20United%20States.pdf
this does not include Mr Musks latest 100Mw offering.
effectively you need to be more objective about your definition of Major
Davy on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 4:53 am
Storage is the holy grail of renewables now. If we could somehow combine storage efforts with behavior management then the costs and limitations of storage could be leveraged. If people really knew how fragile our foundational energy support system is they could maybe be talked into basic behavior management. The problem is the hype. You know peak oil is dead and coal is being phased out. All is good. All is not good because the issues are deeper and broader. If anywhere can make a storage and behavior management strategy work it will be Germany. I remember my days working there in the 80’s. The Germans are very orderly people and take well to mandates.
MASTERMIND on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 9:48 am
Davy
Battery storage will never replace fossil fuels because a lithium battery has 1/10 the energy density of fossil fuels. That is why Tesla batteries weigh 1200 lbs.
Davy on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 10:00 am
Where did I say replace? You are the one in the binary world of “either or”. Renewables with effective storage and backup generation are a strategy to augment our current energy system. We can do something now and let’s worry about the likelihood of dramatic transition to renewables or not as a question for the future. When a ship is sinking the first effort is to stop the leak and remove water. Completing the destination comes later if the ship is saved.
Cloggie on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 10:36 am
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/grosse-koalition-zu-klimaschutz-union-und-spd-wollen-ziel-2020-aufgeben-a-1186785.html
In Germany CDU/CSU and SPD are conduction “explorative talks” to see if they can form the next government.
They have already agreed that CO2-emission reduction of 40% as compared to 1990 will be impossible for 2020, as was the intention. They still want to achieve 55% by 2030 though.
To that effect the renewable energy transition is to be intensified and 65% renewable electricity is the new target for 2030 (36% now).
MASTERMIND on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 11:06 am
Clogg
One percent wind and solar! You are grasping at straws and parroting MSM propaganda! lol
MASTERMIND on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 11:07 am
Xlogg.Learn science you uneducated country bumpkin! LOL
UC Davis Study: It Will Take 131 Years to Replace Oil with Alternatives (Malyshkina, 2010)
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es100730q
University of Chicago Study: predicts world economy unlikely to stop relying on fossil fuels (Covert, 2016)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.30.1.117
Solar and Wind produced less than one percent of total world energy in 2016 – IEA WEO 2017
https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/KeyWorld2017.pdf
Cloggie on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 11:18 am
One percent wind and solar! You are grasping at straws and parroting MSM propaganda! lol
Millimind always refuses to indicate where in his IEA report it is said that solar + wind are less than 1% global primary energy share.
About the lying fraud that is the IEA:
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/09/05/iea-underreporting-solar-wind-3-4x-compared-fossil-fuels/
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/09/06/iea-gets-hilariously-slammed-continuously-pessimistic-renewable-energy-forecasts/
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/09/20/epic-wind-turbines-steroids-idiotic-clean-energy-forecasts-charts/
According to one of these articles the IEA claims the share to be 2%, not 1%.
Furthermore accounting practices are applied that effectively underestimate the real significance of solar and wind with a factor of 3.
All in all it would mean that the share of solar and wind is 6% and not less than 1% primary energy as millimind keeps peddling in every single thread ad nausea.
But what is far more important are growth rates. Even the IEA has to admit that the prospect of renewables are BRIGHT:
https://www.evwind.es/2017/10/05/iea-report-provides-a-bright-outlook-for-renewables/61293
https://tidalenergytoday.com/2017/10/05/iea-forecasts-strong-renewables-growth-by-2022/
But millimind has this typical modern hasty “can’t-wait, just-in-time” attitude, where patience for 3 decades or more are required.
MASTERMIND on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 11:32 am
Clogg
No its not 6 its less than 1 percent. And your fake news from cleantechie is laughable! You reject the evidence with your own eyes! LOL
MASTERMIND on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 11:33 am
Clogg.Learn science , we have studied how long a transition would take. And these are actual peer reviewed studies not some garbage fake news you just find anywhere on the internet like you do.
UC Davis Study: It Will Take 131 Years to Replace Oil with Alternatives (Malyshkina, 2010)
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es100730q
University of Chicago Study: predicts world economy unlikely to stop relying on fossil fuels (Covert, 2016)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.30.1.117
Solar and Wind produced less than one percent of total world energy in 2016 – IEA WEO 2017
https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/KeyWorld2017.pdf
MASTERMIND on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 11:35 am
Solar and wind are scams and the people who promote are fools or liars!
Antius on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 1:24 pm
Below is a link that gives the total output of all UK wind farms on a continuous basis.
https://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/energy-minerals-and-infrastructure/offshore-wind-energy/offshore-wind-electricity-map/
Notice the big lull period between 14th and 24th December. It is periodss like this that make an entirety renewable energy system so very problematic. If this were producing the bulk of Europe’s energy, we would need storage systems capable of producing at least 1 week of full power. That’s a tall order.
Cloggie has posted links that suggest that new wind farms (presumably due to higher hub height) can now achieve capacity factor of 50%. Does that means that lull periods are going to be shorter or shallower for these plants? One can only hope.
Other mitigation measures would be to (1) spread investment across a range of renewable energy sources, including wind, solar (PV and thermodynamic), wave, tide, tidal stream and (2) across the greater geographic area. It is then less likely that we would get deep lulls that cover such long periods of time. Lulls lasting 12-24 hours, are much easier to bridge with pumped storage and CAES systems than lulls of a week. The economics of storage are much better if it is used to bridge a lot of very short peaks and troughs, rather than a system that has to be scaled for very long generations cycles. Open cycle gas turbines can provide cover for shortfalls that exceed the capacity of pumped storage, so long as such events are relatively rare, otherwise fuel consumption becomes excessive.
There is a third part of the strategy that would be essential in a high penetration renewable scenario. It involves generally overbuilding renewable electricity sources relative to baseload electrical demand.
In the northern Europe we only consume about 20% of final energy as electricity. The rest is split evenly between transport and space heating. Heat is easy to store in hot water and insulation can be provided using cheap materials like straw and even earth berms if it is done on a big enough scale. Transport fuels could be provided by using renewable hydrogen to upgrade lower grade fossil fuels and biomass to provide storable methanol. In these applications, the variability of the supply is less important, because we can store large amounts of power in hot water and methanol cheaply for long periods.
If about half of all renewable electricity is used in these ways and another quarter goes into pumped storage, then only the lower quarter of the graph shown in my link would actually go onto the grid for direct consumption. If you draw a horizontal line on that graph at 25% capacity (1.5GW) you will note that the actual lull periods are much shorter – 2 days is about the longest. On this basis, a mixture of pumped storage and open cycle gas turbines burning methanol from biomass and fossil fuels, should be able to cover the worst foreseeable lull periods at a tolerable total cost.
This is the only way I can foresee a (close to) 100% renewable energy economy working at an affordable cost. We don’t have anything like the infrastructure we would need at present, but could have in the future.
I still do not believe that this scenario compares well with a French style mass-nuclear solution in terms of total cost. But in principle at least, it could be made to work at an affordable cost I think.
Cloggie on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 2:50 pm
“Notice the big lull period between 14th and 24th December. It is periodss like this that make an entirety renewable energy system so very problematic. If this were producing the bulk of Europe’s energy, we would need storage systems capable of producing at least 1 week of full power. That’s a tall order.”
Countries like the US have strategic reserves in the order of 6 months or so. Not sure why a country likewise can not have similar H2, NH3, methanol or pumped hydro-reserves.
Furthermore we should learn to get used to demand management. A country like Holland has 31.5 GW fossil max. production capacity, but the average consumption is merely 13 GW. Do large overcapacities also exist with fossil.
In 1970 we in Holland had only 33% of current electricity consumption levels but were happy then as well.
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/dutch-post-war-electricity-production/
The first cars began to appear on the roads around 1900. It took 60-80 years until almost everyone had one. The renewable energy transition will happen faster.
MASTERMIND on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 3:17 pm
Clogg facts dont change your mind one bit. You are so deluded! So unreasonable!
Cloggie on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 4:29 pm
The rest is split evenly between transport and space heating.
Huge gains can be made here in both fields.
When by 2030 autonomous driving will…
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/by-2030-you-wont-own-a-car/
(UK consultancy firm Rethinkx)
… be normal you can introduce legislation that forbids single persons to drive in a standard sedan alone.
Either you own a single seater car annex motor cycle…
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/09/08/lit-motors-still-alive/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK4wzBYmTIo
…or you travel in groups in small autonomous vans/buses…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dict8tvR_ZY
(but much faster than this one)
… and as such reduce fuel significantly as well as embedded energy of the vehicle.
Houses and apartments can be made much more energy efficient, certainly new ones.
According to new legislation by 2030 every home in the Netherlands needs to be “energy neutral” (over the entire year).
https://www.fluxenergie.nl/woningen-energie-neutraal-2050-2030/
https://www.milieucentraal.nl/energie-besparen/energiezuinig-huis/energieneutrale-woning/
That is to be achieved via:
– very good isolation (3 layer window panes, etc)
– heat pumps
– solar collectors
– highly efficient devices [*], lights
[*] The latest freezers, fridges, televisions, washing machines use 3 times less energy than 10 years ago. The good old light bulbs can no longer be bought.
MASTERMIND on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 4:33 pm
Clogg
Autonomous driving by 2030! LOL You will believe anything a corporation claims! LOL
Antius on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 5:19 pm
“Countries like the US have strategic reserves in the order of 6 months or so. Not sure why a country likewise can not have similar H2, NH3, methanol or pumped hydro-reserves”
You already know the answer. You cannot have been in the business you are in for as long as you have, without knowing it.
Oil and natural gas are energy dense fuels that nature gives us for free, provided we devise a means of getting them out of the ground. The synthetic fuels you are talking about must all be synthesized using a lot more high grade electricity than they contain.
It is a question of energy efficiency. We don’t pay for nature’s energy so we don’t have to care about how efficient is was for rotting dinosaurs to make fossil fuels. But we pay all the way to the bank for synthetic fuels made from basic elements. When power is expensive efficiency is all the more important. A smart man would come up with better ways of doing things.
My own suspicion is that it generally makes the most sense to store energy in the final form that we need it. If we want energy for heat, then use excess energy when it is available and store it as heat. If you need ammonia as a fertilizer or chemical feedstock, then you would make it under those conditions. Given the energy needed to first electrolyse water, separate nitrogen and then carry out the haber process, we would be crazy to burn ammonia that we had made in that way as some sort of fuel. But as a feedstock or fertilizer, it is valuable enough to justify it’s cost.
Likewise, hydrogen is valuable as a feedstock and reducing agent, but is inefficient as a storable fuel. Biomass and fossil fuel upgrading provide us with a means of storing hydrogen, without having to go through the awkward steps of compressing it to 200bar or cryogenic liquefaction. Likewise, hot hydrogen could be used to reduce metal ores. The reduced iron is the long-term energy store, the hydrogen only exists for a few seconds.
Antius on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 5:29 pm
Whether autonomous driving will work remains to be seen. The required reliability of the systems involved is not to be taken lightly when your life depends upon it. Building programmable electronic systems that achieve the sort of reliability and safety that people will expect is a tricky proposition. Remember, people are prepared to accept much greater risks if they think they have some control over them. This is why some idiots are afraid of flying but not of driving, and why some even greater idiots are frightened of nuclear accidents, but the thought of starving or freezing to death does not phase them.
Cloggie on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 5:30 pm
You cannot have been in the business you are in for as long as you have, without knowing it
Over the last 30 years I was in IT, still am. Nothing to do with (renewable) energy. That stopped in 1988.
The synthetic fuels you are talking about must all be synthesized using a lot more high grade electricity than they contain.
A “lot”?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water
If electrolysis is carried out at high temperature, this voltage reduces. This effectively allows the electrolyser to operate at more than 100% electrical efficiency.
Likewise, hydrogen is valuable as a feedstock and reducing agent, but is inefficient as a storable fuel.
They are going to build these all over Scandinavia:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/12/24/building-a-hydrogen-refueling-station-in-48-hours-time-lapse/
The last Hannover Messe (Fair) had a vast range of hydrogen topics, it is very much alive:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyPT9528i8TJgU1AAszuiBg
#HydrogenEconomy2.0
Antius on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 6:01 pm
“The latest freezers, fridges, televisions, washing machines use 3 times less energy than 10 years ago. The good old light bulbs can no longer be bought.”
That is good. With fridges and freezers, anything really that stores either hot or cold, there is the option of having the device respond to an intermittent power supply. Even the washing machine and dishwasher could do this by preheating the water they will use on a daily cycle and holding it in a silica aerogel insulated tank.
For industries that use bulk heat, there are excellent opportunities for energy storage, as heat is easy to store. Likewise, communities could build communal freezers, which could have enough thermal inertia to use power only at the cheapest times of the year.
Vacuum is an interesting option for energy storage. It’s energy density is too poor to provide long-term energy storage. But over a period of 24 hours, a vacuum tank in a building could store enough energy to operate the toilet system, the vacuum cleaning system, power assisted doors, etc.
Makati1 on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 6:09 pm
The collapse of the capitalist economies will end a lot of energy problems. There will be few who can afford it and a lot less available to consume. EROEI will govern our future, not any form of “renewables” other than sun shine.
Boat on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 7:34 pm
Mak
The trend line of energy growth has been showing the opposite. Thanks to tech and efficiency old men like you can survive on gov handouts. What a world we live in.
Makati1 on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 7:39 pm
Boat, I “survive” by resources I put aside long ago. I also collect the money OWED to me from my forced contributions for almost 50 years. I want it ALL back with interest.
Tech and ‘efficiency’ is not saving anything. It is causing the collapse to happen faster. Wait and see. Tech is the disease killing the West.
BTW: It is 84F and sunny here today. Not a bad way to “survive”. LMAO
Boat on Mon, 8th Jan 2018 8:04 pm
Mal,
There is some confusion. You predicted collapse years ago. How can collapse happen faster when collapse never happened.