[KaiserJeep]

In the UK as in the Americas, there are adequate wind and solar resources to run the countries they are in and even to sell power to others. The key factor in whether or not any country can succeed in transitioning from the current mix of FF energy and renewable energy lies in two things.

Firstly one has to stabilize the population so that energy demands, material demands, and food demands also stabilize. Unfortunately for the soft-headed liberals among you, that also means closing the borders to immigration. We should not be building houses, vehicles, or growing food beyond that needed to meet the replacement needs of a stable population. That is a profound difference, because it means that we shift our thinking from "growing the business and becoming a success" to a very different goal which is "increasing efficiencies to produce the same quantities using less energy and fewer materials". That new goal implicitly requires that we increase both material recycling and regularly renew the infrastructure of production.

Secondly, we have to close the borders and start this transition to renewables NOW, while we have excess labor and available FF energy supplies. In a sense we have started, but every one of you here who argues against renewables and in favor of further FF exploits is frankly the real problem we need to overcome. As I have said on more than one occasion, oil, gas, and coal are simply too precious to burn for power. We need the chemicals made from oil and coal and we need all the gas to make the fertilizers to grow food.

Look, I am simply NOT INTERESTED in hearing about present economics and how cheap FF's are compared to renewable energies. That is a temporary situation that will abruptly end when we run short of those same FF's. YES, that is some decades from now, but nobody should really care whether "some" is two or twenty - it's a probability approaching unity that the big power down will occur within those bounds. I would like to transition to 100% renewables before we exhaust the relatively easily-exploited FF's. I believe that we are already there for petroleum - the shales and the tar sands and the fracked wells are deperation measures to stave off the end of the age of oil.

It's not as if I were asking you to stop producing FF's. I just want to stop foolishly burning those precious resources that we need to keep our civilization running.

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote(' KaiserJeep', 'K')ub, here's the cost of power generation from 2016: http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/t ... tion-cost/

But what purpose is served by comparing last year's measured costs to a projected cost 5 years in the future? Such projected figures are not real, especially since they were generated in April of this year, before Trump/Pruitt announced the repeal of Obama's CPP. Coal and nuclear today are the two cheapest energy sources, and I don't believe that will change in a mere 5 years.

[kublikhan]

Here was an article debunking that IER propaganda BS. I'll highlight a few sections:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') new attack piece by a Koch front group, Institute for Energy Research, recycles their familiar attack playbook of starting with an inflated cost for wind energy and then mischaracterizing how the power system functions to argue that the real cost of wind is even higher.

Like the three other Koch-funded attack pieces before them, Thomas F. Stacy and George S. Taylor’s first trick in their paper “The Levelized Cost of Electricity from Existing Generation Sources” is using obsolete wind cost assumptions. Stacy and Taylor use an old government estimate to claim that the cost of wind energy is $80.30/MWh, or 8 cents per kWh, while more recent market data indicates actual wind energy costs are less than half that amount. Specifically, market data indicate the actual average purchase price for wind energy was $25.59/MWh in 2013, or well under $50/MWh if the impact of the Production Tax Credit (PTC) on long-term wind purchase prices is removed. As explained below, this cost is significantly lower than the benefits provided by wind energy, indicating that wind energy provides significant net benefits.

Stacy and Taylor’s cost estimate is even higher than the most recent government estimate, which puts the national average cost of wind at $73.60/MWh. Notably, this government estimate overstates actual wind costs because it assumes wind plants will be built evenly in all regions when in reality most wind plants are built in regions with wind resources that are far above average, and because it uses installed wind costs that are about 20 percent higher than the latest market data. As we’ve noted previously, it is strange that a group that claims to support free market principles relies on government cost estimates instead of price information provided by actual market data.

It adds a few new, seriously flawed attacks
With this already high, obsolete estimate of wind costs, the report then uses flawed assumptions and arguments to increase it with various cost multipliers and adders.

The EIA has already developed a quantitative method that accounts for all of the costs that Stacy and Taylor attempt to add to wind’s costs, and it comes up with a result that is a factor of 4 lower. EIA’s method accounts for differing levels of dispatchability (ability to change generation output) and capacity value (ability to meet peak electricity demand) among power plants. EIA’s calculation found that there is only a 10 percent difference, or a difference of about $7/MWh, between the value provided by a wind plant and a more dispatchable gas plant. This is much lower than the more than 40 percent cost adder that Stacy and Taylor attempt to add to their already inflated wind cost, and far less than the 100+ percent cost adder the other Koch reports have attempted to add to their inflated estimates of wind costs.

Most critically, EIA’s method shows that a MWh of wind energy has an average economic value of $64.60/MWh, much higher than the current cost of wind energy of under $50/MWh, indicating wind energy provides net benefits for consumers. Of course, this calculation ignores the many other benefits that wind energy provides relative to other energy sources, such as wind plants’ lack of fuel cost and fuel price risk, wind plants’ lack of air emissions, wind plants’ lack of water consumption and withdrawals, and others.

“Imposed costs” are actually “sunk costs”
While most of Stacy and Taylor’s attack on wind is based on rehashing previously debunked Koch pieces, they do try to introduce the novel concept of “imposed cost.” However, the likely reason no one has previously made this argument is that it runs afoul of basic economic principles and realities of power system operations. First, the concept of “imposed costs,” as put forward by Stacy and Taylor, runs afoul of economics principles. The addition of wind does not require the addition of new capacity, and almost all regions of the U.S. have more than enough generating capacity, so in almost all cases wind is primarily displacing the output of existing power plants. As a result, Stacy and Taylor’s “imposed cost” is what an economist would refer to as a “sunk cost.” Sunk costs are exactly that – sunk – meaning that they have already been spent and cannot be recovered and therefore should not be factored into rational decision-making for the future. Said another way, there is no cost to society for building a power plant that is already built.

Stacy and Taylor fail to apply an “imposed cost” on existing coal and nuclear generators, which “impose” a many times greater impact on the dispatch of other generators than wind (as does electricity demand variability). As national laboratory experts have explained, the presence of an inflexible baseload generator on a power system’s fleet is a primary factor forcing other generators to cycle their output and run at reduced capacity factors. In fact, one can see the same phenomenon in a nearly identical chart that appears on page 8 of Stacy and Taylor’s paper – if fewer baseload plants were present in their example, the mid-merit units could run at far higher capacity factors. Similarly, should “imposed costs” have been assigned to gas generators in 2012 when the fuel cost of many natural gas power plants dropped below that of many coal plants, forcing the coal plants to operate at reduced output? Stacy and Taylor’s argument that power plants that provide low-cost energy should be penalized for being too cheap while the more expensive power plants that are being displaced should be rewarded for being too costly is strangely perverse for a group that pretends to advocate for a “free market.”

[KaiserJeep]

Kub, I don't think you are grasping the true nature of reality here. Those with their noses pointing constantly at video screens never really do.

I was aware of the problems with the IER data and I warned everybody. You try to debunk it using a blog entry on AWER - American Wind Energy Association. Both places have agendas, none of the figures reflect reality.

You see, there is a real world out there, where real things happen and get written down in unchanging paper texts. Then there is an online version of the world, reflected in an information network that never was an accurate, true reflection of the real world, and where the information is constantly being edited by multiple parties, all with agendas.

Wind energy is one of those industries that just has not made it yet. A decade ago ago I "invested" $7500 in the Cape Wind IPO, being reassured by Barack Obama, who was certainly going to be POTUS, that it was a "shovel ready" project. Three dozen lawsuits later, all the investers money is gone, all accounts of the financial wrongdoing have disappeared from the web, and they are still collecting money to start construction.

Many people would do a web search, and call me a liar because the information is not online, and even think they were correct. But my reality is not based on what I read online. Besides that, my ass still hurts, a reminder not to invest in Green Dreams.

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'K')ub, I don't think you are grasping the true nature of reality here. Those with their noses pointing constantly at video screens never really do.

You see, there is a real world out there, where real things happen and get written down in unchanging paper texts. Then there is an online version of the world, reflected in an information network that never was an accurate, true reflection of the real world, and where the information is constantly being edited by multiple parties, all with agendas.

[KaiserJeep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kublikhan', '-')snip-
I would not call you a liar just because you said something I could not find online. But if you are so grounded in reality, why were you quoting such an obviously biased source as the IER?

[KaiserJeep]

Kub, I'll add the fact that I am pro-solar and pro-wind. I have had a grid-connected solar PV roof since 2010, in production over 7 years. I have done all the research for wind power on the Nantucket home we inherited from the wife's parents this year. Nantucket is one of the most favorable wind power sites in the entire continental USA.

We are talking about residential scale renewables with heavy government subsidies. But even with such subsidies, the renewable energy costs more - lots more. I do these things because I believe in the peak effects on petroleum and coal, both of which have slowly increased in cost since 2010. I am also a retired EE and I know how to figure power costs. I intend to own two residences that are both power self-sufficient.

I just do not believe that we will have cost parity for renewables and FF's for a decade at least. The cost argument is not a winner for our common cause. The peak oil effect is widely disregarded. It is indeed a conumdrum, but we cannot help matters by deluding ourselves. There simply is not a present economic case for renewables in the USA.

[ROCKMAN]

Here's a thought: instead of arguing about the cost of electricity produced by wind power why don't we just look at the ACTUAL RATES charged in an area where 100% of electricity is generated by wind turbines... sometimes: Scotland. Here's a start:

The UK is split into 14 different energy regions. Each region has what’s known as an ‘incumbent’ gas and electricity supplier. These incumbent suppliers are basically the default energy supplier for the region.

Scotland has two electricity regions. For Southern Scotland, including Edinburgh and Glasgow, Scottish Power are the incumbent electricity supplier. For northern Scotland (approximately anywhere north of Dundee) the incumbent supplier is SSE.

Of course there's no simple answer. From Jan 2017:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environmen ... 17066.html

Scotland’s wind turbines have generated more electricity than the country used for a record four days in a row. The total amount of wind energy produced on Christmas Eve was also the highest ever, with more than 74,000MWh sent to the National Grid – equivalent to the average daily electricity needs of 6.09 million homes. And, as energy use fell on Christmas Day, wind turbines provided 153 per cent of Scotland’s electricity needs."

And then there's this from 2016:

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpre ... le-energy/

The Real Cost Of Scotland’s Obsession With Renewable Energy

"Yesterday I looked at just how little wind power is being produced in England. The other side of the coin, of course, is Scotland, where the situation is reversed. There, wind power accounts for more than a quarter of total generation. The SNP like to brag about this fact, and are committed to going much further. But how much does all of this cost in subsidies?"

I've yet to find an unbiased report that lays out the facts clearly. And one big complication is that all electricity is run thru the NATIONAL GRID that can charge high "connection tariffs" that's unrelated to the actual generation source be it wind or coal.

So many biased propaganda pieces coming from all sides I gave up. No wonder you guys are arguing: even with major wind production in Scotland (at times) it's still difficult to come up with a straight forward answer.

[KaiserJeep]

One thing is for certain, California has so many "Green Dreams" that they can buy quite reasonably priced electricity from Texas and Oregon and Washingto state - but by the time they are done marking it up and applying tariffs and fees, we are paying about 150% of the US retail average.

Then Nantucket - newly cheap coal power from the mainland cable, and yet we are paying $0.28/kWh. It's like they want us to pay for both the new cable and the cleanup of decades of diesel power plant operations, really quickly. Well, some of us are not wealthy Summer residents.

[kublikhan]

Rockman - EIA publishes existing rates for the US. They are also a nice middle ground between the fluff of IER and AWEA.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ind energy continues to be sold at attractive prices through power purchase agreements, making this renewable energy source cost-competitive with traditional power sources such as natural gas in many parts of the U.S.

[Subjectivist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')oal emerged as the surprise winner from two weeks of international climate talks in Germany, with leaders of the host country and neighboring Poland joining Donald Trump in support of the dirtiest fossil fuel.

While more than 20 nations, led by Britain and Canada, pledged to stop burning coal, German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended her country’s use of the fuel and the need to preserve jobs in the industry. Meanwhile Poland’s continued and extensive use of coal raised concerns that the next meeting, to be held in the nation’s mining heartland of Katowice, could thwart progress.

“People don’t have total confidence that Poland wants to increase ambition, to put it plainly,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group. “They’re 80 percent dependent on coal, they’ve been pushing back against European Union proposals to increase ambition.”

[GHung]

Ambition? Is that another slick name for growth based on foisting consequences on future generations?

[ROCKMAN]

GAS/k/sub - When you dump all the factors into a tub of water what always floats to the top is a country's, every country's, top priority: supplying its economy with the lowest cost energy. How it achieves that goal varies over time. It was easy for England to turn from coal with affordable NG from the N Sea. But that declined. And can continue ignoring coal as NG and electricity are imported at acceptable volumes and prices. And when that process becomes unacceptable and alts are insufficient? Does it continue to ignore coal to the detriment of its citizens in favor of the global climate? Would the citizens allow their politicians to do so?

Turning away from coal was easy for the US and other countries because acceptable alternatives were available. And when those relatively painless options disappear? Sacrificing is easy...when you're not sacrificing much. Not so much when a grunt throws himself on a grenade.

[Subjectivist]

As long as people want cheap energy and they know coal exists they will keep exploiting it. All this noise about a war on coal in the EU and North America is nothing but a political smoke screen while hundreds of large facilities in these regions continue to burn millions of combined tons a day. That sn’t even counting eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, plus there is a lot of interest in building new power plans in South America because they have about maxed out their hydroelectric potential in many place.

[Tanada]

The only industrialized country that engaged on a real war against coal was perversely enough the UK. I write it was perverse because the UK is one of the very first places where coal was consumed on an industrial scale and it remains one of the places with a large not too hard to access coal resource in place.

The thing is the North Sea fields were discovered in 1969 and the UK portion of the field turned out to produce both abundant Natural Gas and Petroleum. During the rocky 1970's and early 1980's the true scale of these resources became clear while at the same time the coal industry, which had been nationalized decades earlier, remained a thorn in the side of the Parliament because the miners not only wanted decent pay they consumed a lot of healthcare after many years of working in poorly equipped conditions.

Rather than upgrading the working conditions of the miners it was easy for the UK parliament to use the vast natural gas resources to displace coal use to a great extent in the UK. Miners giving you political trouble? Eliminate mining jobs and you no longer have to worry about future miners continuing to give you trouble. It all seemed simple, easy and logical in the early 1980's when the Brent and other segments of the North Sea were producing ever increasing quantities of cheap Natural Gas.

The issue is, as always, the politicians got too greedy in exploiting their vast new resource. Instead of limiting drilling rates to internal consumption needs they went for the short term gain of producing as much as they could as fast as they could and selling what they did not consume internally. As a result they helped flood the world oil markets in 1986 which crashed the price of the very crude oil they were selling by over 50%, and they built a whole fleet of natural gas burning power stations and passed anti-coal legislation to exploit the cheap natural gas while simultaneously selling as much as they could to Northern Europe at low prices.

The result of all these mistakes is that here we are at the end of 2017 and the UK is not only once again becoming an ever larger importer of crude oil, they have also squandered their natural gas resources to the point that they are now being forced to start importing ever more expensive foreign natural gas or face shortfalls in the local supply. One cold winter and they will be facing serious hardships and even if this winter is mild that doesn't mean all winters in the future will remain mild. At the same time depletion relentlessly shrinks their natural gas and petroleum resource day in and day out so when that next really cold winter happens they will have an ever tighter supply to deal with.

Inevitably the people living in the UK will come to realize as those of Germany and Asia have already come to conclude that survival and comfort from burning coal today is more important than potential global warming in the future. Before long they will be convincing themselves that Global Warming is not a threat, but a promise of a warmer future world where things will be just grand, and if Global Warming is not a threat they would be silly to not exploit the Coal resource they have in such abundance.

Humans have a near infinite capacity to rationalize decisions they think benefit themselves. We will burn all that is burnable, at the fastest rate we can conveniently do so. Believing otherwise is simply self deception.

[MickN]

Thank you Tanada and Gasmon for such clear explanations of the historic and ongoing catastrophe that has been the UK's energy policy.
I had a conversation with our gas boiler service man some time ago. He was told when he joined that North Sea gas would easily see him out
till retirement - 30 years later and a very sprightly 50 it seems unlikely. I asked him what he thought of the recent dash for gas (ie gas for electricity as well as the more traditional home heating and cooking for 20 million homes). He said the thought of the Domestic Gas grid running empty should keep every politician awake at night as it would be a multi year task to get it recharged.

Gasmon-any thoughts on whether undersea gasification of the North East coast is worthwhile or even possible?

[asg70]

Yay for black lung!

https://www.salon.com/2017/12/15/the-co ... g.facebook