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Post by Barry Brook on May 2, 2013 17:10:17 GMT 9.5
A new guest post by Martin Nicholson has been published on BraveNewClimate. Link here: bravenewclimate.com/100pc-renew-study-needs-makeoverThe Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has released its draft report titled 100 Per Cent Renewables Study – Draft Modelling Outcomes. The study was commissioned by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency (DCCEE) to explore future scenarios for the National Electricity Market (NEM) fuelled entirely by renewable resources. What are the principal conclusions we can draw from this work? How feasible is the 'all renewables' dream for Australia, and how much will it cost? This BNC Discussion Forum thread is for the comments related to this BNC post.
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Post by sod on May 3, 2013 0:22:59 GMT 9.5
The links to the full paper and executive summary are on this page: www.climatechange.gov.au/en/government/initiatives/aemo-100-per-cent-renewables.aspxhere are the main results: 1. The results indicate that a 100 per cent renew a ble system is likely to requir e much higher capacity reserve s than a conventional power system . It is anticipated that generation with a nameplate capacity of over twice the maximum cust omer demand could be required. This results from the prevalence of intermittent technologies such as photovoltaic (PV), wind and wave , which operate at lower capacity factors than other technol o gies l ess dominant in the forecast generation mix .
2. The modelling suggest s that considerable bioenergy could be required in all four cases modelled , however this may present some challenges . M uch of the included biomass ha s competing uses, and th is study assumes that this resource can be managed to provide the energy required. In addition, w hile CSIRO believe that biomass is a feasible renewable fuel 3 , e xpert opinion on th is issue is divided . 4 , 5
3. The costs presented are hypothetical ; they are based on technology c ost s projected well into the future, and do not consider transitional factors to arrive at the anticipated cost reductions . Under the assumptions modelled , and recognising the limitations of the modelling, t he hypothetical cost of a 100 per cent renewable power system is estimated to be at least $2 19 to $332 billion , depending on scenario. In practice, the final figure woul d be higher, as transition to a renewable power system would occur gradually, with the system being constructed progressively . It would not be entirely built using costs which assum e the full learning technology curves , but at the costs applicable at th e time i think that a cost discussion 40 years into the future is futile.
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Post by singletonengineer on May 3, 2013 7:37:47 GMT 9.5
After reading the Exec Summary, I can see that to read the full report would be a complete waste of time.
Key quote: "the hypothetical cost of a 100 per cent renewable power system is estimated to be at least $219 to $332 billion, depending on scenario. In practice, the final figure would be higher, as transition to a renewable power system would occur gradually, with the system being constructed progressively. It would not be entirely built using costs which assume the full learning technology curves, but at the costs applicable at the time."
The report's authors have admitted that their work is inadequate. These are certainly not real world costs.
Not only do the authors admit ignoring the non-so-minor issues of costs associated with distribution network augmentation, stranded assets, land aquisition (only 5,000 sq.km, folks - the equal of a strip several km wide the whole length of the NEM), but they have based the whole thing on heroic and optimistic guesses re advances in engineering and reductions in construction costs.
To list a few, any assumption that hot rocks, wave energy, other geothermal, biogas and bagasse will provide about one third of the NEM's energy in 40 years and that another third will come from domestic PV, commercial PV and CST is simply dreaming unless backed up with answers to the obvious question: How can this be, when most of these have zero commercial capacity at present and investigation (eg re hot rocks) is going nowhere or backwards? Where is the crystal ball which the number-crunchers used?
Lastly, the paper explains that they have assumed that full anticipated benefit from technological advances and the experience gained from the initial 4 or 5 builds of each new technology will apply to the whole of the project. In other words, they have predicted that they will run before they learn to crawl or to walk. This is transparent BS.
If this paper can toss around numbers like $300B, then I feel justified in adding a bugger factor of another couple of hundred billion to make up for the admitted omissions - say $500B all up.
Pipe dreams, the lot of it, but hey, there's at least some good in reports such as these. They keep dangerously deluded individuals in paid employment and off the streets, where they may otherwise become dangerous!
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Post by quokka on May 3, 2013 8:48:39 GMT 9.5
Martin's figure of $91 billion to replace all the coal capacity with nuclear is very interesting. It would imply an average yearly spend comparable to that for the NBN. Very achievable and very affordable.
The prospect of sitting through another decade of agonizing about "energy solutions" when a viable and very affordable solution is available now to anybody who cares to open their eyes, is more than a little frustrating.
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Post by edireland on May 3, 2013 11:04:22 GMT 9.5
I also question his land use figures..... you can push the land use per square kilometre far lower than that if you want.
See Gravelines Nuclear Power plant for reference. It fits 6 900MWe reactors onto half a square kilometre, generating the rather insane figure of 10.8GWe per square kilometre.... or something like 3 square kilometres for 26GWe of nuclear.... not 100 square kilometres.
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Post by jagdish on May 3, 2013 19:10:04 GMT 9.5
Such studies are conducted by learned people and I wonder why vastly different cases are lumped together. Cities and industrial/commercial centers require a lot of energy which cannot be adequately supplied by diffuse renewable means. The generation for such use has to graduate from coal/gas to nuclear. Isolated farms/TV/telephone relay towers are uneconomical to supply by grid or even diesel generators and must use stored power from PV panels or windmills. 100% of one or the other does not stand to reason
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Post by huon on May 4, 2013 15:59:18 GMT 9.5
One would suspect that if nuclear costs less than half as much to build as renewables, and both have low operating costs, then nuclear power should have a great advantage in the cost of the energy produced.
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Post by sod on May 5, 2013 17:21:50 GMT 9.5
One would suspect that if nuclear costs less than half as much to build as renewables, and both have low operating costs, then nuclear power should have a great advantage in the cost of the energy produced. The problem is, nuclear does not cost less. www.thestreet.com/story/11911544/1/solar-scores-a-big-win-over-nuclear.htmlInvestors are making their choice: "The debate over costs is over. Solar power won. Nuclear power lost. If your utility wants to own a new power plant, a utility-grade solar farm is a better deal than a new nuclear power plant. Perhaps that's why Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) is building the world's largest solar farm and not a new nuclear power plant. "While nuclear is trying to win absurd 40 years contracts: www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/may/01/nuclear-power-soviet-eu-energy-commissioner
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Post by Roger Clifton on May 5, 2013 18:38:09 GMT 9.5
huon - did you mean "half" or "twice" ? I think most would agree with -- Even if nuclear capacity cost twice as much to build as renewable capacity, and both have low operating costs, then nuclear power would break even in the no-storage twice-capacity scenario. But it would still have a great cost advantage over the energy produced from contingency storage.
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Post by engineerpoet on May 5, 2013 18:41:31 GMT 9.5
You beg the question, why does solar require subsidies while nuclear is taxed and regulated out of entire nations?
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Post by quokka on May 5, 2013 19:55:31 GMT 9.5
Sod, As you mentioned UK costs, DECC's estimates of 2012 LCOE for various electricity generation technologies: Nuclear (FOAK EPR): 0.081 p/kWh Solar (PV): 0.161 p/kWh The strike price eventually agreed to by the UK government for the first EPR will probably be higher than 0.081 but probably no higher than 0.10. Furthermore strike price is LCOE + profit. Nuclear wins comfortably, even before grid costs are mentioned. www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/65713/6883-electricity-generation-costs.pdfAs for the Street piece, it beggers belief that anybody still writes such drivel. The evidence for their claims - Nuclear: capex, $6 million per megawatt; production costs, $22 per megawatt-hour.Solar: capex, $4 million per megawatt; production costs, $0 per megawatt-hour.Even if the cited project is tracking technology, a 30% capacity factor would be the most optimistic figure, yielding a capex per unit of average twice that of nuclear . Furthermore, zero production costs is nonsense. There are operations and maintenance costs though they will be less than for nuclear. The Street's piece is either designed to deceive, or completely incompetent. From a climate perspective, PV doesn't rid us of baseload coal. Nuclear does.
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Post by grlcowan on May 6, 2013 2:44:04 GMT 9.5
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Post by sod on May 6, 2013 3:26:23 GMT 9.5
Sod, As you mentioned UK costs, DECC's estimates of 2012 LCOE for various electricity generation technologies: Nuclear (FOAK EPR): 0.081 p/kWh Solar (PV): 0.161 p/kWh The strike price eventually agreed to by the UK government for the first EPR will probably be higher than 0.081 but probably no higher than 0.10. Furthermore strike price is LCOE + profit. This is bad news for nuclear. So in rainy Britain it can still (barely) beat the price of PV solar? Very bad news for nuclear! (and remember, it is in Britain, where they want that 40 years contract!) i actually agree with you. The numbers presented in the piece i linked are very badly presented. you are just plain out right on that! I strongly disagree with the way capacity factor is used here. You have to factor in, that PV produces power while it is needed, while nuclear is producing 50% of its power at a time with low demand. The real difference in capacity factor is much smaller than you folks think it is! i disagree. baseload coal will die fast in a heavy PV solar scenario. it can t sell power at prime time, but must waste coal to keep running.
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Post by edireland on May 6, 2013 5:02:55 GMT 9.5
Sod, As you mentioned UK costs, DECC's estimates of 2012 LCOE for various electricity generation technologies: Nuclear (FOAK EPR): 0.081 p/kWh Solar (PV): 0.161 p/kWh The strike price eventually agreed to by the UK government for the first EPR will probably be higher than 0.081 but probably no higher than 0.10. Furthermore strike price is LCOE + profit. This is bad news for nuclear. So in rainy Britain it can still (barely) beat the price of PV solar? Very bad news for nuclear! (and remember, it is in Britain, where they want that 40 years contract!) Considering that the UK's solar subsidies are still around 16p/kWh alone, I doubt the veracity of those figures. Which is still rather large. Also EDF has effectively got a monopoly on newbuild nuclear in the United Kingdom at the present time, which means it can charge what it likes. It is also building EPRs, which are a disaster. And LCOE doesn't tell the whole story, those costs are almost certainly predicated on PV being must-take, which makes no sense in a PV Heavy Scenario. Additionally it doesn't account for the fact seasonal demand peaks are opposite PV production peaks.
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Post by engineerpoet on May 6, 2013 10:20:35 GMT 9.5
This is bad news for nuclear. So in rainy Britain it can still (barely) beat the price of PV solar? Very bad news for nuclear! In rainy Britain, the demand for e.g. home heating is very low when it is sunny... which is when PV would be producing. It's when it's rainy and days are short (and nights are long!) that lots of power is needed. Why would you propose PV instead of nuclear when its seasonal supply curve is almost opposite of demand, and requires lots of storage that's not included in its cost figures?
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Post by huon on May 6, 2013 16:29:06 GMT 9.5
When I said, in Reply #6, "...if nuclear costs less than half as much to build as renewables," I was referring to this statement in the post:
"What's more important, based on the same BREE costing source used by the AEMO for its study, replacing all the coal plants with nuclear power will cost only $91 billion. Less than half the lowest cost scenario for the 100 per cent renewable system. The savings come largely from reducing the need for additional capacity reserves demanded by the prevalence of intermittent technologies." (Paragraph 9)
So I was a little surprised to read, at the end of the next paragraph, "...wholesale prices are likely to be similar with or without nuclear."
Well, if that's true, maybe people who oppose nuclear have a point. Why not just skip it, at least in Australia.
But Mr. Nicholson goes on to present a few more facts arguing for nuclear; and in Replies #1&2 above, sod and singletonengineer present others.
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Post by sod on May 6, 2013 21:54:07 GMT 9.5
Such studies are conducted by learned people and I wonder why vastly different cases are lumped together. Cities and industrial/commercial centers require a lot of energy which cannot be adequately supplied by diffuse renewable means. The generation for such use has to graduate from coal/gas to nuclear. Isolated farms/TV/telephone relay towers are uneconomical to supply by grid or even diesel generators and must use stored power from PV panels or windmills. 100% of one or the other does not stand to reason I simply think that this approach is totally wrong and i also think that there is proof against it. Small amounts of solar improve the grid in warm countries. They eliminate summer afternoon peaks, which strain the system. reneweconomy.com.au/2013/rooftop-solar-reshapes-energy-market-in-south-australia-18272But the second part of your approach is also false. Solar would not help rural and off-grid power users, if it is not use at other places. It is the massive use of solar, which drove down the prices. That is, what makes it affordable today. Even in Third world countries. www.news24.com/Columnists/AndreasSpath/Solar-power-isnt-just-for-the-rich-anymore-20130506
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Post by anonposter on May 7, 2013 3:50:04 GMT 9.5
Small amounts of solar improve the grid in warm countries. They eliminate summer afternoon peaks, which strain the system. How many times do we have to go over this? PV does not reduce the need for generating and distribution capacity since it only reduces peak demand on some days. But the second part of your approach is also false. Solar would not help rural and off-grid power users, if it is not use at other places. It is the massive use of solar, which drove down the prices. That is, what makes it affordable today. Even in Third world countries. Probably be cheaper to just give free panels to those who are off-grid even if the panels were the ultra-expensive ones NASA uses than to waste money using solar where it doesn't work very well.
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Post by sod on May 7, 2013 4:45:11 GMT 9.5
Small amounts of solar improve the grid in warm countries. They eliminate summer afternoon peaks, which strain the system. How many times do we have to go over this? PV does not reduce the need for generating and distribution capacity since it only reduces peak demand on some days Sorry, but you have not shown anything like that. Data shows the opposite: www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/5/4/1406/pdfOn page 8 of the paper written by Graham Palmer (it was posted on this blog!) he shows the effect of solar on peak demand. There are days, with a small reduction. (10th Feb), but the peak drops from 9858 to around 9000, depending on the orientation of the panels. On average, the drop is massive, at least 20%, but even the real day peak is reduced by 5 to 10%. The post by jagdish made a different claim. He believes that solar should be more economic at off-grid places. Your plan will not work, because such free give-aways do not happen. (nobody will fund them) What is happening at the moment is perfect synergy: poor people profit, because the rich world is investing in solar to get clean power. It is a good thing for everyone!
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Post by edireland on May 7, 2013 22:41:25 GMT 9.5
How many times do we have to go over this? PV does not reduce the need for generating and distribution capacity since it only reduces peak demand on some days Sorry, but you have not shown anything like that. Data shows the opposite: No it doesn't..... you post the same links over and over and we break them down over and over. Have you actually read this paper properly? www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/5/4/1406/pdfOn page 8 of the paper written by Graham Palmer (it was posted on this blog!) he shows the effect of solar on peak demand. There are days, with a small reduction. (10th Feb), but the peak drops from 9858 to around 9000, depending on the orientation of the panels. So you build 2000MWe of PV panels to get a maximum peak reduction from 9858 to 9051MWe.... or a saving of 807MWe. On average, the drop is massive, at least 20%, but even the real day peak is reduced by 5 to 10%. So the price of 2000MWe solar buys you an 8.1% reduction in generating capacity, and only after the solar panels are deoptimised to produce less total power. While generates an effective capacity factor rather higher than the normal ten percent this does not really improve the economics of the installation that much. Even at the lowest known installation costs for PV solar, which happen to be for large installations of the kind you constantly rail against, this means you have paid something like $4.5bn (US dollars). Are you seriously suggesting you could not get a ~900MWe class reactor less than that? That is the projected price for those PRISMs GE is raving about? (and remember it will infact be rather more expensive than that since you want distributed installations). And while the solar plant supposedly has near zero operating costs, the nuclear plant would have had its capital cost defrayed by the peaking role, which means its operating cost can be defrayed by its other job. During the 90% of the day it is not needed to peak-shave, it can be used to produce very cheap electricity (as it is generating only at marginal cost as its capital cost has already been defrayed) for desalination or similar processes. And before anyone asks, the price of desalination is heavily influenced by electricity prices, so producing for 90% of the day at ~2 US cents/kWh is going to end up a lot chaeper than 100% of the day at 5 US cents/kWh. So yeah, you have proved nothing with this paper, if nothing else it undermines your position.
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Post by John Quiggin on May 8, 2013 11:24:42 GMT 9.5
I'm impressed that so many here all still engaging in the same amateur arguments about intermittency when AEMO, who actually manage the grid on a minute-to-minute basis have done the work and shown that 100 per cent renewables are feasible. And the post here shows that adding nuclear to the mix wouldn't reduce costs.
Given the urgency of the problem, the fact that we already have a substantial capacity to add renewables, and that setting up a nuclear industry from scratch would take at least a decade, anyone genuinely concerned about climate would be pushing hard for renewables (and energy efficiency, which is neglected in the AEMO report). But no, wherever you started from, you're now more concerned about pushing the nuclear barrow than about saving the planet.
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Post by Martin Nicholson on May 8, 2013 16:27:50 GMT 9.5
John Quiggin, I think you may be confusing the anticipated wholesale cost of electricity with the capital cost of building the system. Using nuclear power significantly reduces the capital cost but based on AEMO’s estimate for wholesale electricity cost they are not significantly different to the ones I calculated using a mix of nuclear and renewables. The LCOEs and capital costs used are the ones prepared by BREE.
Although I didn’t mention it in this paper, nuclear also avoids the uncertainties about things like the biomass component and anticipated land use. If we are not to use gas (not possible if claiming 100% renewable) then significant quantities of biomass are needed. Many have argued that the quantity of biomass energy anticipated is probably unrealistic but it is not an area that I have examined. I’m hoping that others will do that work.
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Post by anonposter on May 8, 2013 18:43:28 GMT 9.5
I'm impressed that so many here all still engaging in the same amateur arguments about intermittency when AEMO, who actually manage the grid on a minute-to-minute basis have done the work and shown that 100 per cent renewables are feasible. Actually they haven't, except for a few countries like Norway and Iceland that have a lot of good hydro sites no one has shown that it's possible to have a first world standard of living using only renewable energy. And the post here shows that adding nuclear to the mix wouldn't reduce costs. I'm not sure I want to know what you're smoking but when life cycle costs for nuclear are lower than for any other low emissions source right now and even optimistic assessments of renewable energy cost don't project it ever being much more expensive than the cheapest renewable we could deploy (without taking into account the need to back it up) there is basically no way that a nuclear grid could not be cheaper than a grid based on non-hydro renewables. Given the urgency of the problem, the fact that we already have a substantial capacity to add renewables, and that setting up a nuclear industry from scratch would take at least a decade, anyone genuinely concerned about climate would be pushing hard for renewables (and energy efficiency, which is neglected in the AEMO report). How about I state it another way: Given the urgency of the problem, the fact that we know nuclear can do the job if we let it and the fact that we do not know if renewable energy can do what we need, anyone genuinely concerned about climate would be pushing hard for nuclear (and ignoring energy efficiency due to the potential for Jevons paradox to come along, along with energy conservation being immoral). But no, wherever you started from, you're now more concerned about pushing the nuclear barrow than about saving the planet. No, it is you who is more concerned about feeling good than saving the planet.
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Post by sod on May 10, 2013 6:57:50 GMT 9.5
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Post by anonposter on May 10, 2013 12:24:04 GMT 9.5
Yet another study: more wind power saves more money. Then why does Denmark have such expensive electricity and high per capital CO 2 emissions?
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Post by edireland on May 16, 2013 9:14:24 GMT 9.5
Denmark has the advantage that it has essentially unlimited hydro on-demand from Norway and a huge capacity sink to its south (Germany).
You can't use it to model a large scale system because such a system would be unable to muster that much spare capacity.
EDIT:
This 'study' also assumes ~39% capacity factor for wind..... (page 14 of the PDF)
I don't think such a capacity factor has been obtained commercially anywhere, let alone on the several-gigawatt scale. Unless ofcourse you are deliberately derating turbines to get into lower nameplate bands for the purposes of calculating subsidies.
It also assumes that supply-side management will reduce demand rather a lot when the grid wants... which has unpleasant social side effects.
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Post by anonposter on May 16, 2013 12:34:42 GMT 9.5
The best wind farms can get around 40%, but they are very rare.
30% would be more realistic for Australia.
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Post by edireland on May 16, 2013 17:46:06 GMT 9.5
The best wind farms can get around 40%, but they are very rare. 30% would be more realistic for Australia. Average across all wind farm types and the like, the UK tends to average ~20-25%.
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Post by jagdish on May 16, 2013 18:46:26 GMT 9.5
it is undeniable that renewables are intermittent and require storage on a larger scale. The answer lies in reducing the transmission costs by avoiding bigger grids and finding niches in places away from grids. Bulk of power use, in cities and industries will have to come from coal, gas and nuclear. In hydro-electric power, the storage is in dams besides concentration by nature in rivers. You could consider using ocean currents which are much bigger rivers.
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Post by sod on May 21, 2013 1:23:19 GMT 9.5
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