Peak Oil And Peak Demand Have Entirely Different Outcomes

Following my previous article — Peak Demand? No, A New Gasoline Demand Record — I received some interesting feedback from readers. It quickly became apparent that some didn’t understand that the current discussions around “peak oil demand” are quite different than the “peak oil” arguments that were popular a few years ago.

Some interpreted my headline to mean that peak oil is a myth and that oil supplies will simply continue to grow. Actually, I was addressing the irrational exuberance around the near-term peak oil demand argument, which is something entirely different.

So let’s review.

Almost from the beginning of the U.S. oil industry, there have been those who suggested that it wouldn’t be long before oil production began to inevitably decline. The layman’s understanding of “peak oil” typically boiled down to “The world is running out of oil.”

But that was a misunderstanding of the actual peak oil argument. It wasn’t that the world was going to run out of oil, it was that oil production would begin a long decline and cause havoc in a world that is still highly dependent upon oil. A decade ago many prognosticators made dire predictions of the consequences of peak oil, pointing to events like the 1973 OPEC oil embargo or highlighting the fallout whenever oil shortages took place in an area.

Simply put, modern civilization can’t function without oil, so peak oil necessarily meant dire consequences. Books were written on the concept. In 2005 the late Matt Simmons published Twilight in the Desert, in which he argued that oil production in Saudi Arabia was nearing terminal decline.

For a while, it looked like Simmons could be right. Production in Saudi Arabia remained flat, global demand continued to grow, and oil prices skyrocketed above $100 a barrel (bbl). These were just the types of consequences predicted by the peak oil camp.

Fast forward a few years, and after falling for nearly 40 years, U.S. oil production began to surge as a result of the marriage between hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. It turns out that high prices can indeed enable a lot of new oil production, which was perhaps the biggest blind spot among the near-term peak oil adherents.

That’s the peak oil argument in a nutshell, but the peak demand argument is entirely different. In this case, oil production falls — not because of geological factors — but because the world turns its back on oil as cleaner, cheaper options become available. Electric vehicles and ride-sharing on a massive scale are envisioned as two of the key factors that will make oil obsolete.

Robert Rapier has over 20 years of experience in the energy industry as an engineer and an investor. Follow him on Twitter @rrapier or at The Energy Letter.

Forbes

81 Comments on "Peak Oil And Peak Demand Have Entirely Different Outcomes"

bobinget on Tue, 15th Aug 2017 6:43 pm 



By Alexandra Valencia
ESMERALDAS, Ecuador, Aug 15 (Reuters) – The situation at Ecuador’s state-run Esmeraldas refinery remains “critical,” including problems with the catalytic cracking unit, despite a $2 billion overhaul meant to modernize the facility, Carlos Perez, the country’s oil minister, said on Tuesday.
The gasoline-producing cat cracking unit is facing “serious problems” and will be closed for 45 days this year for maintenance, the minister told a news conference at the refinery. It was not clear yet when maintenance would begin.

“Although only a short amount of time has elapsed (since the overhaul), we already have problems in the operation of certain areas,” said Perez, referring to the project that ended in late 2015.
“The situation of the facilities of the Esmeraldas refinery is critical,” he said, adding that the authorities would review 10 contracts with foreign and domestic companies involved in the project.
South Korea’s SK Engineering and Construction in 2013 won a $230 million contract to modernize the Esmeraldas refinery that included increasing the capacity of the catalytic cracking unit, according to a statement on SK’s website. The company did not immediately respond to a telephone request for comment.

Australia’s WorleyParsons, which provides engineering design and project delivery services, said in a 2013 statement that it had won a contract to inspect and manage the Esmeraldas refinery revamp.
It did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Ecuador will still maintain crude output of 541,000 barrels per day, as per the country’s production agreement with OPEC, Perez said.

(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia, writing by Hugh Bronstein, editing by Diane Craft and Phil Berlowitz)

bobinget on Tue, 15th Aug 2017 6:56 pm 



Another massive draw due Wednesday, ninth in a row, will excite only old oil men with no money for Viagra.

WTI, stuck below $50 unless three hurricanes
bogart their way into GOM single file.

Only one thing certain. August 16th 2017 is not 2016 or 2015. The tighter elastic stretches the more energy stored, the more abrupt the return.

Anonymous on Tue, 15th Aug 2017 8:28 pm 



Interesting watching Rapier turn away from peak oil. He is willing to look at what really happened and change his views. I’d like a bit more “I wuz wrong” from him. But at least he changed his tune.

Oh…looking at old peaker stuff is a hoot. Check this out from 2014. The dude wonders what oil plays other than the Bakken or EF will contribute. Never thought about the Permian or Anadarko I guess!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xliyZMPJvjk

GregT on Tue, 15th Aug 2017 11:13 pm 



Total historical US federal debt alone, has doubled in less than nine years. Interest rates are at all time lows. The markets are in the largest bubbles ever before seen in history. The middle class is being wiped out. Pension funds, and even governments globally, are for all intents and purposes insolvent. Yet nony-mouse still doesn’t have the slightest clue as to why. Not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.

Makati1 on Wed, 16th Aug 2017 2:21 am 



GregT, maybe all of his brain cells have been burned out on some opiate indulgence? Pain killers have to be a necessity for all oily money grubbers these days. So many lies. So few facts. No real future.

As you pointed out, the US is a 3rd world country under the MSM ‘lipstick’. There is not one retirement fund that will survive the crash. Not one. Including, possibly, SS. It may survive in some very reduced form or maybe it will just be over, but when it and all of the other social safety nets go, there will be a revolt like there has never been seen in world history. Over half of the 326+ million Americans today, get some form of government money. Heads will roll on the National Mall in DC. Wait and see.

The only way the elite can save themselves is to start a really big, big war. Perhaps they are just gambling that they can live thru it and keep their heads. Who knows? I hope you are prepared. I am.

Antius on Wed, 16th Aug 2017 4:40 am 



“That’s the peak oil argument in a nutshell, but the peak demand argument is entirely different. In this case, oil production falls — not because of geological factors — but because the world turns its back on oil as cleaner, cheaper options become available. Electric vehicles and ride-sharing on a massive scale are envisioned as two of the key factors that will make oil obsolete.”

The other more likely driver behind peak demand (since world GDP is now flat or falling) is that demand peaks because the world cannot afford the new oil. Electric cars aren’t going work as a demand destruction tool if few people can afford them. That’s what will happen if the world hits another Great Depression. That looks to be what is happening right now.

Cloggie on Wed, 16th Aug 2017 4:56 am 



Rapier doesn’t mention “Paris”, that apart from Trump-America everybody has accepted, even Russia. This has set international business on a trail of oil demand destruction that could cause on avalanche of further oil demand destruction. In the short term in Europe, the demand for renewable energy will outstrip renewable supply, which will be an enormous boost for offshore developers to press ahead “full steam” (wrong choice of words).

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/08/16/schiphol-airport-to-run-on-100-renewable-energy-in-2018/

CEO gathering: what?! Your company still has no renewable energy policy? Jeez man,
what’s wrong with you folks!

Antius on Wed, 16th Aug 2017 5:13 am 



It seems to be popular these days to claim that the concept of peak oil was basically false, but we will see production decline anyway because demand will decline. What kind of sophistry is that?

Peak oil discussions in the early 2000s always assumed that there was some limit to what people were prepared or able to pay. If such a limit is not assumed, then presumably it would be possible to produce infinite supply through tar sands, shale oil and even synthetic oil made from electrolytic hydrogen and CO2 sucked out of the air. Men like Campbell assumed that these things would too expensive for real people to afford and hence that the geological limits of conventional oil would limit total production. They were right. Production of conventionals flattened out more or less exactly when they said they would. No one is making good money out of shale or tar sands even at low interest rates.

The idea that supply and demand are two separate things, that peak supply is not a problem but peak demand is; is folly. In the real economy, supply and demand always balance due to price signals. There is no near term evidence of peak demand, with global oil consumption growing robustly in 2016. Conventional production outside of OPEC has dropped considerably since 2005.

Cloggie on Wed, 16th Aug 2017 5:22 am 



Peak oil discussions in the early 2000s always assumed that there was some limit to what people were prepared or able to pay.

The peak-oil discussion in the early 2000s and dominated by the likes of ASPO2000 and Richard Heinberg very well assumed that conventional oil would decline for geophysical reasons and that financial aspects were secondary. Supply would not be enough to meet demand, which would cause price increases.

What the peakers didn’t see coming (c.q. didn’t want to see coming) was the enormous potential for non-conventional fossil, of which shale oil is merely a fraction. The real potential is endless amounts of coal, sufficient for millenia to come, that could be gasified under the ground… and turn the planet in a nice greenhouse, very suitable for Canadian tropical fruit production the year around.

We should of course leave the coal where it is and switch to renewables instead, enabled by a systematic demonization campaign against fossil fuel.

#ParisRules

Anonymous on Wed, 16th Aug 2017 6:00 am 



Price is $50/bbl. It’s not some massive price driving oil growth. It’s just that you all underestimated the potential supply.

Face it. You were wrong. TOD shut down for a reason.

JuanP on Wed, 16th Aug 2017 6:15 am 



Cloggie, I agree with Hansen that the Paris agreement is nothing more than a fraud. A voluntary agreement with no penalties? Give me a break!

““It’s a fraud really, a fake, It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.” James Hansen

Maybe you agree with Al Gore who claimed that Hansen was wrong. Gore Or Hansen? Who to believe? I know where I stand. Humans will destroy the biosphere one way or another sooner or later; it is who we are. Renewable energy will only allow us to destroy it a little bit more. The problem is human nature; we are an extremely destructive species.

Davy on Wed, 16th Aug 2017 6:29 am 



What peakers and anti-peakers get sloppy with is time frames. We are only talking a decade and a half that this whole discussion has been raging on both sides. Much has happened and much is just slowly happening and unfolding. The events humans crave don’t happen as we want. Processes confound human short termism. It is clear depletion is alive and well but we have adapted somewhat. You don’t make up for declining conventional “quality” oil with less economic liquid fuels.

The renewable revolution has just started and has light years to go with the hardest part ahead. If you look at renewables as a segment or a part the story is different. A significant and growing segment of power generation is going renewable. Renewables are reaching that economic sweet spot allowing truly economic applications. These economic applications are in a fossil fuel world. This is the inconvenient kicker for fake green techno optimist. A full energy transition is so far out as to be still theoretical. The time frames and the scale are enormous and combine that with an uncertain existential future for a late term civilization and you see excessive optimism is not warranted. Energy is only part of our civilizations foundation and that foundation is crumbling.

The bigger issues and one people generally leave as a constant is the economy. We are within early debt dysfunction and this is global. All economies are part of it. Dysfunction is everywhere but it is manageable with the moral hazards of extend and pretend policy. You know, “whatever it takes” policy. Ponzi economics plays out until it doesn’t. Sooner or later malinvestment in the macro will end this new normal. Ponzi schemes always end because it is their nature. Bubbles pop eventually. The major economies all have dysfunction now in their arrangements. How that debt dysfunction is dealt with will be a strong indicator of where demand goes. That may sound simple but try to tell that to someone who is only looking at energy and leaves the economic variable a constant. If demand falters dynamics will change from our current “slowing” growing growth. It is apparent growth is stalling but this is masked by growth elsewhere. This growth elsewhere is paraded as real growth in many cases when increasingly it is malinvestment. China is case in point. Bad debt as a component to total debt is dangerously high in china and Europe. Unfunded liabilities are dangerously high in the US. Debt is a promise and promises are going bad. What is not apparent is how much stalling will result.

Those who are honest see we appear to be in the undulating plateau with turbulence. Turbulence is random and cannot be measured as we see in other phase based occurrences. In other words we are in a zone of undefined change with multiple different forces acting on our civilization. These forces are colliding and some converging and supporting. It is clear many of the forces are negative and destructive. There are clearly fewer positives. Most of the positives are what has been driving civilization now for decades and that is techno development. These techno developments are stalling. The really strong and significant techno trends are past tense with few if any new ones.

We have problems that are multiplying and techno solutions that are not keeping up. What is the result of this is anyone’s guess. We have the propagandist telling us their visions but they are just visions. Our civilization is not in a clear direction short term but longer term it appears direr. Climate change and the eventual broad based depletion coupled with overpopulation is dire. What other word can you use for it but dire? Have you checked the definition of dire lately? Still, I would say we can have some hope maybe for a postponing of doom. I once thought doom was 3-5 years off and now I am not so sure. Yet, I am not childish like our board techno optimist who are proselytizing a budding age with nothing but visions to support it.

Cloggie on Wed, 16th Aug 2017 6:43 am 



we are an extremely destructive species.

Not intentional, but because of a production machine that enabled ever larger population numbers.

In Europe almost NOBODY challenges the need to change course and are the only ones who have embraced a program of getting rid of fossil fuel as soon as economically possible:

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/07/24/europe-leading-the-way-in-reducing-greenhouse-gases/

We are now at 77% compared with 1990 and will arrive at 0-10% by 2050. In case of black swan events like financial collapse or war we will achieve our aims earlier.lol

Furthermore the entire global elite (apart from Trump) has acknowledged the problem. You can denounce that as “mere words”, but that is short-sighted. It sends clear signals to municipalities, companies, states that something needs to be done. “Green” is very much en vogue. The brains are already NLP-ed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming

Some skeptics would say “brain-washed”.

Davy on Wed, 16th Aug 2017 7:40 am 



This is the economic moral hazard I have been talking about. It is the slippery slope of an altered reality. An altered reality with normalcy presented but when you dig deeper you see this is not normalcy but an altered reality parading as normal.

“Euro Turmoils After ECB Walks Back Draghi Jackson Hole Appearance”
http://tinyurl.com/y8mrgtho

“And in the most amusing twist, Reuters “reports” that Draghi “may have decided to skip the Jackson Hole opportunity as markets interpreted his speech at a similar conference in Sintra, Portugal very differently than the ECB hoped, sending markets on a rollercoaster and instilling an added sense of caution at the bank. Draghi then hoped to strike a balanced tone but noted that better growth would provide increased support to the economy, letting the ECB claw back its own stimulus to keep the overall level of accommodation broadly unchanged. That was seen as a hawkish message, paving the way to reducing and then ending asset purchases.”

“Uhm, what markets? The one where the ECB now owns 14% of Europe’s corporate bond market and 40% of Eurozone GDP in the form of public debt? That’s the market that Draghi is complaining about? Or is that the market where the ECB buy billions in Apple stock every quarter.”

If a crisis ensues how can this weak link not go bad? These risks are dispersed throughout the global economy. Both China and the US have similar altered economic reality. Yet, we have those here who discount and dismiss economics in the equation of future trends.

Davy on Wed, 16th Aug 2017 7:50 am 



“Austerity Isn’t Dead, It Will Come Back With A Vengeance”
http://tinyurl.com/y7cn5dro

“Austerity isn’t in favour and it could be a while yet before the consequences play out. The “magic” of false measurements, animal spirits and money printing are used to convince the gullible that there is an easy way out. Governments with loose fiscal and monetary policies can get away with it for a while, but in the long term they will exhaust their credibility with investors and lose control over their spending levels. At the exact time when standard economics would advocate governments running a deficit, these governments will be cut off from borrowing more. Austerity isn’t dead, it is just taking a break before it comes back with a vengeance.”

Antius on Wed, 16th Aug 2017 11:03 am 



Cloggie wrote: “We should of course leave the coal where it is and switch to renewables instead, enabled by a systematic demonization campaign against fossil fuel.”

The sort of renewable energy system that we would need to build to wean industrial society off of fossil fuels and nuclear power will never be built because of its inherently terrible energy economics. I decided to look into the options for powering Europe using offshore wind, using energy storage to counter daily and seasonal supply fluctuations.

From previous studies I was aware that a huge disparity exists between the amount of steel and concrete needed to build wind power plants, compared to nuclear and coal. Peterson et al estimated the following steel and concrete inputs to produce 1MWe average power using different generators: 1970s PWR ~40t steel & 90m3 concrete; Coal 98t steel & 160m3 concrete; Wind (onshore) 460t steel & 870m3 concrete; Natural gas combined cycle plants – 3.3t steel & 27m3 concrete. It’s easy to see why natural gas is so popular as an electricity fuel.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/519e/a5c55a312f3f45ccfcc4a093a941366c6658.pdf

The Walney Offshore wind farm in the UK, has capacity factor 43% and consists of SWT-3.6MW turbines built on steel monopiles at a water depth of 19-24m. I was able to glean the following information on component masses from technical specs provided by Siemens: Rotor = 100t; Nacelle = 140t; Tower (90m) = 210t; Monopile = 650t. That’s a total of 1100t of (mostly) steel per turbine. Each turbine produces average power of 1.55MWe, so each average MW requires 710t of (mostly) steel.

https://www.siemens.com/content/dam/internet/siemens-com/global/market-specific-solutions/wind/data_sheets/data-sheet-wind-turbine-swt-3-6-120.pdf
https://www.energy.siemens.com/br/pool/hq/power-generation/renewables/wind-power/E50001-W310-A135-V1-4A00_WS_Offshore%20References_US.pdf
https://www.energy.siemens.com/hq/pool/hq/power-generation/wind-power/E50001-W310-A169-X-4A00_WS_SWT_3-6_120_US.pdf

Unfortunately, that’s not the end of the story for wind. It doesn’t blow all the time and it experiences both daily and seasonal intermittency. Let’s assume that in a 100% wind based energy system, about one third of electricity goes direct to grid, one third comes from pumped storage (short-term intermittency) and another third comes from hydrogen burned in gas turbines (seasonal intermittency). Pumped storage is about 70% efficient overall, so to produce 1MWh, some 1.4MWe of wind power must be input. Hydrogen has a round trip efficiency of 25%, so for every MWh generated from CCGT burning hydrogen, some 4MWh must be produced by offshore wind (you lose 75%). Adding all of this together, we find that to produce 1MWh of dispatchable power using offshore wind, we must generate 2.13MWh of wind energy. This requires 1510.4t of steel by my estimation. But it gets worse. We also need 1MWe of gas turbine plant and 1MWe of hydro plant. For the CCGT that is 3.3t steel & 27m3 concrete, not including whatever we need for water electrolysis and hydrogen storage.

How much steel and concrete would be needed for 1MWe of pumped storage plant? Dinorwig (1,650 MW) took 10 years to build, consumed 1million tons of concrete and 4,500 tons of steel. That’s 606t concrete and 2.73t steel per MW.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

Adding it all up (not including any transmission needed) a MWe of dispatachable wind power would need 1516.4t steel and 666t concrete. That’s 460 times more steel than an equivalent CCGT burning natural gas; 37.9 times more than a 1970s PWR and 105 times more than an Advanced High Temperature Reactor (Gen 4).

Cloggie on Wed, 16th Aug 2017 4:40 pm 



@Antius

The sort of renewable energy system that we would need to build to wean industrial society off of fossil fuels and nuclear power will never be built because of its inherently terrible energy economics.

Terrible energy economics? Why? How do you explain that the largest share of new installed energy production capacity world-wide is renewable if it is “so terrible”? Doesn’t make sense.

From previous studies I was aware that a huge disparity exists between the amount of steel and concrete needed to build wind power plants, compared to nuclear and coal.

It is absolutely true that you need much more steel for wind then for other means of power generation. The good news is: the supply is virtually limitless and prices low, something like $600,-/ton for plate from which you can directly make monopiles and towers. You arrive at 710ton/MW for a relatively small turbine, I arrived at 3300 ton for 6 MW or 550 ton/MW. Not a big deal.

There is an aspect about steel that is never mentioned, namely that it is indestructible. Once you buy a ton of iron ore and you turn it into steel, you can recycle it virtually ad infinitum. And scrap metal is recycled with electricity, not fossil fuel! So your ton of steel, calculated for an economic lifetime of the windturbine of say 25-30 years, will not loose its value other than the energy required to upgrade it again in a smelter.

The first measure to combat intermittency is setting up an energy base on a continental scale (EU + Russia), as Dr Czisch has shown. It is basically a “statistical measure”:

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/08/12/renewable-intermittency-continental-scale-is-the-solution/

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/the-enormous-energy-potential-of-the-north-sea/

I have a figure in my head from an Australian study that claims that below 40% renewable share in the total energy mix, you do not need to worry much about intermittency.

So if we want to decarbonize our economy we can at least make a start and realize at least 30-40% renewable, even if no storage solution would be at hand.

Czisch claims that the North Sea potential for the 200,000 km2 with a water depth of less than 45 m is 1600 GW, or three times the current EU electricity consumption. But there another 400,000 km2 European waters that can be used for offshore. In other words there is more than enough potential. And than there is the Atlantic with strong winds that can be harvested with floating turbines (but you do not challenge potential, your argument is price).

[part 1]

Cloggie on Wed, 16th Aug 2017 4:41 pm 



Far more important in my view than the price of steel is indeed the storage aspect. The best storage to date is indeed pumped hydro. There is a lot of unexploited potential in Norway, some claim even enough for the entire EU:

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2013/06/13/norway-europes-green-battery/

But the main problem would probably be stiff resistence from the Norwegian population, regardless of how green these people are.

Not everything will be solar and wind though. Biofuels resulting as agrarian byproduct and nuclear will be part of the energy mix. This will contribute to the solution of the storage problem.

As peakyeast has already indicated, we do not need to recreate the current luxureous situation of meeting any demand with corresponding supply and regulate demand on price. You can encourage the public to watch the weather forcast, which now will include a renewable energy price forecast. You can plan to recharge your e-vehicle during a period of low prices, switching on your washing machine same story. This certainly applies for the industry, especially the energy intesive ones.

Regarding storage options, to name a few:

[part 2]

Cloggie on Wed, 16th Aug 2017 4:42 pm 



– H2

Not sure what your round trip efficiency for H2 of 25% signifies. According to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water#Efficiency

Theoretical max conversion efficiency is 94%. Efficiencies of up to 67% are to be expected by 2030 and then you have a high value fuel that can be compared with burning fossil fuels like gas and oil.

– Methanol

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/the-methanol-economy-with-george-olah/

– Ammonia NH3

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/04/08/ammonia-as-storage-medium/

– Formic Acid

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/07/08/formic-acid-as-car-fuel/

– Fluid Electrolyte

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/06/04/ifbattery-instantaneous-recharging-a-battery/

There are plenty of options more and all around the world teams are working on them and technology will further improve over the coming years and certainly decades.

Perhaps that from a price point of view your nuclear solution could compete, but the real terminal problem for nuclear is a terrible image. If things go wrong, they really go wrong. Chernobyl and Fukushima were the deathblow for nuclear. Renewable energy has currently clearly the momentum world-wide, apart from the US. 95% of the Germans support the Energiewende. Countries like France, Russia and to a lesser extent Britain will keep their nuclear programs alive, related as they are to their weapons program. But most other countries will bet on renewable energy. And no cost calculation can change that.

[part 3]

Energy Investor on Wed, 16th Aug 2017 5:01 pm 



RR is correct – or would be if he had factored in the impact of falling EROEI.
Falling EROEI is the alter ego of PEAK OIL. It will have a similar effect on the global economy….as arguably it already is.

Cloggie on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 3:37 am 



Storage latest: Hyundai hydrogen SUV with 800 km range:

https://www.autobahn.eu/5122/dit-is-hyundai-s-next-gen-waterstof-suv-met-800-km-bereik/

A lof of hydrogen-initiatives going on in the Netherlands:

Completed next year:

https://www.tankpro.nl/ondernemen/2017/06/22/holthausen-bouwt-futuristisch-waterstofstation-in-emmen/

Tanking in Helmond, 10 km from where I live:

https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/geld-en-werk/qbuzz-groningen-waterstof-tanken-in-helmond-is-logisch

There are currently two hydrogen buses in the northern province of Groningen that are transported on a trailer to Helmond to be filled! (test phase only)

Gasunie involved in a project to build a network of hydrogen stations in the north of the Netherlands:

https://www.tankpro.nl/brandstof/2017/07/03/plannen-voor-negen-waterstofstations-in-noord-nederland/

Eventually the hydrogen will come from renewable electricity from offshore wind on the North Sea.

Garbage truck driving on hydrogen in my town Eindhoven (fuel cell, EU project):

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/07/22/garbage-truck-on-hydrogen-in-eindhoven-the-netherlands/

Cloggie on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 5:08 am 



Hyundai has developed a hydrogen fuel cell car with a range of 800 km (make that 500 km in the real world). Most interesting detail: fuel cell efficiency (hydrogen to electricity conversion) meanwhile at 60%:

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/hyundai-fe-fuel-cell-concept/

Distributed worldwide as of 2018 in small numbers. Perhaps Shell CEO van Beurden would want one. He can probably afford it.

Antius on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 5:33 am 



Transmission efficiency = 0.95
Electricity AC to DC conversion efficiency = 0.95
Electrolysis efficiency = 0.7
Hydrogen compression energy cost (20% of stored energy), therefore efficiency = 0.8
Efficiency of recovering energy in combined cycle gas turbine plant = 0.5
Step up & transmission efficiency = 0.95
Total = 24%.

We could use high temperature thermal storage for grid balancing. Round trip efficiency might be as high as 40%. But the energy invested in the thermally insulated thermal store would be significant.

Don’t have time at the moment to go into the rest of the stuff. Suffice to say that real markets are complicated and are influenced by geopolitics, social attitudes and all sorts of other market distortions. But from a simple materials flow analysis, the case for offshore wind does not look good.

Cloggie on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 6:06 am 



Antius, I didn’t really challenge that conversion efficiency, only its significance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency

Passenger car diesel engines have energy efficiency of up to 41% but more typically 30%, and petrol engines of up to 37.3%, but more typically 20%.

Cloggie on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 7:02 am 



World’s first fuel cell hydrogen plane:

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/hy4-worlds-first-fuel-cell-hydrogen-plane/

Davy on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 7:10 am 



Good work Antius. Sobriety is hard for some

Davy on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 7:24 am 



“World’s first fuel cell hydrogen plane:”

What did it cost to design and build and further what would a hydrogen air transport system look like and cost? How many years until we are significantly hydrogen in mass air travel?

Cloggie on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 7:29 am 



Use Google Davy.

The doomers here always love to claim that shipping can’t run on renewables. WRONG. It very well can:

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/fuel-cells-in-shipping/

Cloggie on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 7:32 am 



Belgian van Hool hydrogen fuel cell buses driving all over the planet, incl. the US:

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/van-hool-hydrogen-buses/

Davy on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 7:40 am 



Ha, ha, ha, yea clog “in your mouth”, I talk about it all day long, yea sure. BS, clog, as usual you put words in people’s mouths and distort the conversation. Show me the economics of it clog. Sail boats are a great way to ship and one I am promoting albeit in an alternative way of life not some fake green techno-confusion you live in.

Cloggie on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 7:55 am 



The multi-trillion euro question.

The whole world seems to agree that e-vehicles are the future. If so, the remaining question is: what is going to power them? Batteries or fuel cells?

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/future-of-e-vehicles-batteries-or-fuel-cell/

onlooker on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 8:12 am 



If I may. CLOG you seem always focused on the trees but fail to see the entire forest. Let us say Renewable energy does solve the impending energy crisis, it does NOT solve the bigger overshoot crisis of humanity. In fact it makes it worse by allowing our current population to maintain if not increase its current levels. And that means we will be continuing to draw down non renewable resources and become even more out of balance with renewable ones. Resources like top soil, fresh water, minerals like phosphorus essential to our food supply. Not to mention continuing to pollute and contaminate the Earth.
So, business as usual with regards to our numbers and modern ways of living is degrading the very environment required to sustain us. Thus extending BAU will only make the planet ever more inhospitable to life including ourselves. How is that any kind of solution?

Antius on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 8:20 am 



Clogie wrote: “It is absolutely true that you need much more steel for wind then for other means of power generation. The good news is: the supply is virtually limitless and prices low, something like $600,-/ton for plate from which you can directly make monopiles and towers.

There is an aspect about steel that is never mentioned, namely that it is indestructible. Once you buy a ton of iron ore and you turn it into steel, you can recycle it virtually ad infinitum. And scrap metal is recycled with electricity, not fossil fuel!”

In the EU at present, some 59% of the content of new steel is recycled steel. You are correct that portion can and is recycled in an electric furnace, but using renewable electricity that isn’t going to be cheap. You can expect to maintain that ratio so long as total steel consumption in the EU remains constant. In that case, the embodied energy of raw steel, before subsequent rolling, drawing or other working, is about 20.1MJ/kg. For virgin steel, it is 35.4MJ/kg, according to the embodied energy database produced by the University of Bath.

http://www.circularecology.com/embodied-energy-and-carbon-footprint-database.html#.WZWG2suWzcs

A large part of the energy investment in steel manufacture comes from coal, to provide the heat to the blast furnace, to chemically reduce the iron oxide and as an alloying element in the metal. For that reason, each kg of new steel requires about the same weight of coal. It is difficult to get past this. Hydrogen could ultimately be used for metal ore reduction and electricity could provide heat, but substituting 1MJ of renewable electricity for 1MJ of coal is very expensive. 1 tonne of coal costs US$300 at present and contains 30GJ. The cost of the same amount of electricity at 0.3 Euro per kWh, is 2500Euro. About 10 times as much.

The sheer volume of material needed for a unit of offshore wind energy is problematic. 1510tonnes of normal EU steel per dispatchable MW means that raw steel energy cost is about 4.8% of the energy output of an ST-3.6MW in its lifetime. If virgin steel is used, that number goes up to 8.4%. That’s just the raw energy cost of steel before anything is done with it, before we consider the embodied energy of other materials and the energy consumed in manufacture, transport, installation, transmission and decommissioning. The actual embodied energy in complex manufactured parts, such as gears, electric motors, bearings, cabling, control systems, etc. is much greater than their basic material embodied energy would suggest.

What this tells us is that for offshore wind energy at least, the costs only remain affordable so long as the energy used to manufacture its components comes from low cost fossil fuels. When renewable electricity is used to make renewable infrastructure in its entirety, the resulting costs will go up massively. This is a direct result of low system power density and poor EROI.

Cloggie on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 9:13 am 



the embodied energy of raw steel, before subsequent rolling, drawing or other working, is about 20.1MJ/kg.

Yep, I used exactly that number for my offshore wind EROI calculation:

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/07/26/eroi-of-offshore-wind/

but substituting 1MJ of renewable electricity for 1MJ of coal is very expensive.

Not really.

In the North Sea a Siemens 6 MW wind turbine on average produces 144,000 kWh/day (see link). Payback time in energy terms therefore is: 18331500/144000 = 127 days

As you certainly will agree, this 20 GJ/ton is by far the largest energy input for our wind turbine. Add 60 days for shipping and installing (a few hours ramming) and you’re good. Together that is 180 days or half a year.

With an economic life span of 30 years I arrive with at an EROI for North Sea offshore wind of 60. OK, subtract some for maintenance. On the other hand, there is absolute no reason to assume why monopiles and the tower should suddenly fall over after 30 years. After all, the Eiffel tower is still standing upright for 130 years and will continue to do so for another 300 years. Assuming that our wind tower will remain upright for 100 years rather than 30, we all of a sudden have an EROI of 200. What’s not to like.

The cost of the same amount of electricity at 0.3 Euro per kWh, is 2500Euro. About 10 times as much.

Don’t exaggerate. The electricity price for industry is half that of households.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/yctpee3e

2015 EU-28 electricity price was 12 cent.
But then again, this is for ff electricity. With EROI up to 200 for offshore wind the price is irrelevant.

Cloggie on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 9:17 am 



Renewable energy, the options are endless. The challenge is to select the correct option.

Fuel cells for instance are by no means limited to hydrogen. There are several alternatives, like methanol and ethanol:

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/methanol-fuel-cell/

Cloggie on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 9:19 am 



Wrong link electricity prices:

http://tinyurl.com/yctpee3e

Davy on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 9:49 am 



but but you don’t answer the endless questions of fake green affordability.

Antius on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 10:55 am 



Cloggie wrote: ” In the North Sea a Siemens 6 MW wind turbine on average produces 144,000 kWh/day (see link). Payback time in energy terms therefore is: 18331500/144000 = 127 days
As you certainly will agree, this 20 GJ/ton is by far the largest energy input for our wind turbine. Add 60 days for shipping and installing (a few hours ramming) and you’re good. Together that is 180 days or half a year.”

Your numbers are misleading Cloggie. I have already calculated that the energy payback time is nearly a year just for the energy invested in raw steel. That’s assuming that 59% is recycled. Remember, the whole system must produce dispatchable power, so the calculation must be for the wind turbines, CCGT and pumped storage system needed to produce baseload power. It is still not in any way complete, as I cannot capture energy embedded due to manufacture of complex components, the cost of installation, maintenance, transmission, etc.

Cloggie wrote: ” With an economic life span of 30 years I arrive with at an EROI for North Sea offshore wind of 60.”

The energy invested in raw steel is 4.8% of lifetime electricity, assuming a turbine life of 20 years. So it is physically impossible for whole system EROI to be greater than 20. Where do you get a 30 year design life from? That is 50% more than commonly considered for a wind turbine. Seems especially fishy for something built in a marine environment.

Cloggie wrote: ” On the other hand, there is absolute no reason to assume why monopiles and the tower should suddenly fall over after 30 years. After all, the Eiffel tower is still standing upright for 130 years and will continue to do so for another 300 years.”

The Eiffel tower receives a lot of preventative maintenance as it is a national landmark. It is not built in a salt water environment, is not subject to the same bending stresses. Offshore platforms have design lives typically limited to 20 years due to sea water corrosion effects. Most ocean going ships have hull life of 20-30 years. A 30 year life for an offshore tower and monopile is not beyond achievability, but 300 years is cloud cuckoo land. Presumably, you will also need to remove the monopole from the sea bed to recycle it. I wonder how that will work?

Cloggie wrote: ” Don’t exaggerate. The electricity price for industry is half that of households.
2015 EU-28 electricity price was 12 cent.
But then again, this is for ff electricity. With EROI up to 200 for offshore wind the price is irrelevant.”

EROI cannot be greater than 20 because the energy investment in raw steel is 4.8% of whole turbine life-time power output, assuming no downtime for maintenance. It is likely a lot less than 10 when all other energy requirements are included.

You seriously expect electricity prices for EU industrial users to remain at 12c/kWh when your electricity is generated by assets requiring 1500t of steel per constant MW? To provide a constant power output of 1MW, you need 4.88MW of wind turbines installed, plus 1MW of CCGT plant and 1MW of hydro generation working as pumped storage. Expected electricity prices to remain the same under those circumstances is absurdly optimistic.

Cloggie on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 11:40 am 



Most ocean going ships have hull life of 20-30 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_India_(ship)

a full-rigged iron windjammer ship.

The ship is already 154 year floating in salt water and currently docked in San Diego and looks fine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_India_(ship)#/media/File:Starofindia.jpg

Why can’t a wind tower + monopile not survive 154 years (EROI 300) and the star of India can.

With all due respect for the British ship builders of 154 years ago, I would guestimate that present day steel + high tech coatings can top those 154 years.

Antius on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 11:42 am 



Here is a link to an Australian EROI assessment for a land based 3MW wind turbine.
https://www.witpress.com/Secure/elibrary/papers/ESUS07/ESUS07016FU1.pdf

Energy yield ratio was found to be 23, i.e. the turbine returned 23 times more energy than it took to manufacture and maintain. This aligns well with previous EROI analysis carried out by various authors. I have not interrogated the methodology used to calculate the energy yield ratio. Assuming it can be relied upon; it can be used to crudely estimate the EROI of offshore wind with back-up and storage.

Wind speeds are a little higher at sea, but a lot more steel must be embedded in the foundation plinth and transmission is more difficult. So I will assume, crudely I admit, that energy yield ratio is roughly the same as land based wind. I previously calculated that 1MWh of dispatchable wind energy requires 2.13MWh of wind electricity, due to storage losses. That immediately takes EROI down to 10.8. When energy invested in manufacturing pumped storage and CCGT are included, EROI would be somewhat less than 10. It is hard to be more exact without a very detailed study.

Antius on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 11:48 am 



“With all due respect for the British ship builders of 154 years ago, I would guestimate that present day steel + high tech coatings can top those 154 years.”

You would be wrong. Wrought iron is far more corrosion resistant than modern mild steel due to its fibrous nature.

Again I would contend that this is a museum piece. It is maintained and kept as a show piece, not a serious ocean going vessel. Few modern ships exceed hull life of 30 years and offshore platforms are designed for 20 years. What on Earth makes you think that your tower will survive 154 years when marine architects are designing for 20-30 year lifespans using the same materials?

Antius on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 11:59 am 



Oh dear. I have found a fatal flaw in the Australian analysis:

“As these initial output
figures were in delivered energy terms, they were then converted to primary
energy terms, using a factor of 3.4 to represent the substituted primary energy
supplied by the brown coal fired electricity network in Victoria, Australia.”
https://www.witpress.com/Secure/elibrary/papers/ESUS07/ESUS07016FU1.pdf

In other words, the energy yield ratio of 23 is really an energy yield ratio of 6.8.

Cloggie on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 12:00 pm 



Few modern ships exceed hull life of 30 years and offshore platforms are designed for 20 years. What on Earth makes you think that your tower will survive 154 years when marine architects are designing for 20-30 year lifespans using the same materials?

Design time and real life time have little to do with each other. The Eiffel Tower was designed to be taken down again, shortly after the end of World Exhibition, that is a few years. The Parisians despised the tower, initially. But they got used to it and now they love it.

This grain wind mill originates from ca. 1450 and still functions as a corn grinder (for tourists):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HwddedQTXc&t=36s

(it is older than European-America and could survive the US, but I digress)

But this topic is a good occasion to delve a little deeper in longevity of steel structures in seawater.

Cloggie on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 12:56 pm 



World’s first offshore windfarm decommissioned earlier this year after 26 years of service. Reason: end of economic life. None of the 11 windturbines of 450 kW each had fallen over:

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/worlds-first-offshore-windfarm-vindeby-decommissioned/

Here a video of the dismantling of a 4 * 500 kW little windfarm in Holland that had served for 24 years and had “reached end of economic life” (in reality a rotor blade had come off):

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/05/14/nuon-dismantles-offshore-wind-farm-in-the-netherlands/

You get to see the monopiles in good detail in the Dutch video and they look good and hardly corroded.

I don’t see why they would not survive 50 years.

Apneaman on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 1:17 pm 



26 years of service? Big whoop, I got work boots older than that.

Hello on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 1:40 pm 



“reached end of economic life”

Strange. If they are in such good shape, why not let’m run? Or replace the genset, if the poles are still good.

Maybe the whole lifetime of a piece of equipment is a tad more complicated than just a pole rusting away?

Cloggie on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 1:47 pm 



@hello, these were small turbines. A single new 5 MW offshore turbine has the same power as these 11 decommissioned 450 kW 26 year old turbines together. It is simply a matter of economy of scale. No selfrespecting company works with Apple-II computers these days.

https://goo.gl/images/BKuPVq

Antius on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 2:33 pm 



This reference puts the EROI of wind (onshore?) at 18.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421513003856/pdfft?md5=275487fa07da21eebab1509216e8720c&pid=1-s2.0-S0301421513003856-main.pdf

Weissbach predicted a value of 16 before backup and storage losses.

Lets take an intermediate value of 17. 1MWh of dispatchable wind energy requires 2.13MWh of wind electricity, due to storage losses. So an EROI of 17 is reduced to 8. When energy invested in the pumped storage plant and ccgt are accounted for, EROI is about 7.

Wind power is useless. Barring some big change in technology (kite turbines?) or some new unobtainium material that stronger and energy cheaper than steel; this technology will never achieve a good enough EROI to replace the energy we receive from fossil fuels.

Cloggie on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 4:49 pm 



This reference puts the EROI of wind (onshore?) at 18.

That value of 18 comes from a study from 2010 and 20 from 2012. They are obviously from onshore. Offshore is only taking off since a few years. As you know wind power is proportional with V^3. If you realize that on land you have on average V=6 m/s only in the best cases like coastal areas or mountain passes, where on the North Sea you have 10 m/s average, you will immediately understand why countries bordering the North Sea have all gigantic plans for offshore development, because it is so f* lucrative.

So, if you accept EROI=18 on land than you automatically must also accept offshore EROI=60 (c.q. values far higher than 18).

For the rest I repeat what you like to ignore: intermittency is irrelevant for a renewable share of under 40% of the total energy mix. If you couple continental areas like EU + Russia you get even higher values:

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/08/12/renewable-intermittency-continental-scale-is-the-solution/

Wind power is useless.

Yeah, sad. A pity that the rest of the world is not convinced and presses ahead with massive plans to combat climate change and achieve energy independence. Good luck with trying to convince the world that it should opt for a plutonium energy base. It is a rear guard fight and a waste of time and energy. You have a smart brain, there will be lots of opportunities for you in the world of renewable energy.

Cloggie on Thu, 17th Aug 2017 4:57 pm 



http://reneweconomy.com.au/csiro-says-australia-can-get-100-per-cent-renewable-energy-86624/

The Australian government’s chief scientific body says there is no apparent technical impediment to reaching 100 per cent renewables for the national electricity grid, and levels of up to 30 per cent renewable energy should be considered as just “trivial” in current energy systems…
Graham said the challenges could start to emerge when the penetration of wind and solar move above 40 per cent –as it has in South Australia, which explains why it is focusing on storage and is finally getting traction on its call for changes to energy market rules.

Let’s make sure we in Europe get at the 30-40% share first shall we? We can always decide what to do next from then on.

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/offshore-wind-40-cheaper-by-2023/

Offshore Wind 40% Cheaper By 2023

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2015/01/31/solar-costs-will-fall-another-40-in-3-years/

Solar Costs Will Fall Another 40% In 3 Years

The die is cast.