75 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, March 6, 2021”

    1. Meanwhile,

      CHINA MAKES NO SHIFT AWAY FROM COAL IN FIVE-YEAR PLAN AS IT ‘CRAWLS’ TO CARBON NEUTRALITY

      “According to the International Energy Agency, a carbon-intensive recovery saw emissions in China rise 7% in December 2020 compared with the same time a year earlier. This was largely driven by a surge in coal consumption and steel and cement production in the second half of 2020.”

      https://www.climatechangenews.com/2021/03/05/china-makes-no-shift-away-coal-five-year-plan-crawls-carbon-neutrality/

    2. US coal production was the lowest in 55 years in 2020, thanks to the virus.

      The 9.3% increase the EIA is projecting won’t get production back up to the 2019 level.Production fell by nearly 30% in 2020 compared to 2019.

    3. “Coal is expected to make up 21.4% of US power generation in 2021 and 22.5% in 2022, compared with 19.9% generated from coal in 2020.”

      That is just pure, unadulterated fantasy! I just posted a couple of threads ago about record (336 GW) wind and solar capacity additions to the US grid in 2020 and there have been articles suggesting that 2021 will see more renewable capacity additions than 2020. I hope to put together an Electric Power Monthly post with the data for all of 2020 that should be quite interesting. My figure for the percentage of US electricity generated by coal for 2020 is 19.3% but, my figure for electricity generation includes 1% “Estimated Solar Photovoltaic” generation, that is the “behind the meter”, one third of solar generation not generated at utility scale facilities.

      The decline in coal consumption is largely due to the permanent closure of several large coal facilities over the past few yeas. One significant closure last year was the Navajo Generating Station, the largest coal fired generator west of the Mississippi. Someone here posted a link to a video of the demolition of the smokestacks. The NGS is not coming back, nor are any of the other permanently closed coal plants. More are scheduled to cease operations in 2021 and as coal becomes increasingly uncompetitive in the market we can expect that more will be added to the list.

      So, the question is, why would anybody even think that “generation from Coal” will rise?

      1. Since 2000, the world has doubled its coal-fired power capacity to around 2,045 gigawatts (GW) after explosive growth in China and India. A further 200GW is being built and 300GW is planned. The good news is that the oldest and least efficient subcritical units might turn less than 35% of the energy in coal into electricity. Newer subcritical plants raise this towards 40% and ultra-supercritical units to 45%. Coal may be struggling in the U.S., but it’s still king worldwide, and likely to remain so with Asia as its primary customer.

        https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants

      2. I’m not into crunching numbers personally, but coal generation could possibly rise this year due to some coal fired plants running closer to their actual capacity more of the time.

        It’s my understanding that some coal plants these days are often run at a minumum out put, or actually shut down for extended periods, due to gas being so much cheaper, plus wind and solar power being even cheaper than that.

        But during unusually hot or cold weather these otherwise idled back coal plants may be needed running at capacity this year more days than last year.

        But I do agree that the general trend of coal generation is down both in absolute and relative terms in the USA at least. Ditto some other reasonably prosperous countries with access to enough gas to cut back on the coal.

        1. OFM –
          Part of the downward spiral for coal fired plants (and traditional thermal gas plants) is that they produce cheapest energy when they run 24/7. Having to shut down to make way for cheaper intermittent energy sources actually increases the cost of these older less flexible plants, so it’s a vicious circle for them.

          Gas avoids this with combined cycle plants, which are both more efficient and more flexible than traditional thermal, but a similar solution for coal is more difficult. These plants were originally designed as peaker plants, switching on when demand was high. But they are now replacing coal as lower profit “baseload”, plants that switch off when renewables are available.

          The demand peaks are where all the profit is, as we saw in an extreme case Texas recently. Batteries can’t replace much of the total load, but they can flatten the normal peaks, draining a lot of the windfall profit out of the industry. This makes the future of low profit plants even bleaker.

          1. “Gas avoids this with combined cycle plants, which are both more efficient and more flexible than traditional thermal”

            Really? My understanding is that CC mode is NOT very flexible, if flexibility is needed the power plant does not operate in CC mode. And modern coal power plants are very flexible – that is one reason they survived with lower CF in Germany while CC NG died.

            1. Eulenspiegel —
              No, the inflexibility of thermal plants comes from the need to heat a lot of water to get started. Combined cycle plants generate electricity with gas turbines that burn gas internally, so hot water is not required to start them. The waste heat from the turbine is used to heat water for the steam turbine “cycle”.

              So it’s true that they don’t always operate in combined cycle, but they can operate in single cycle until the water heats up, which traditional thermal plants, even the fancy German coal plants — can’t.

              Gas plants failed in Germany thanks to cheap lignite and expensive gas, and the ability to import power to balance supply with demand. Also the low price of carbon emissions, though that has improved somewhat.

            2. Alim, you misunderstood my post.

              Yes coal power plants need to heat to water but in modern types it is possible to reduce capacity by 80% and bring it back in short time, not as fast as gas turbines but 60% of the rate. Therefore, coal was able to provide a high power gradient without any issues in Germany, it was cheaper than NG until 2019, now CO2 tax bites.

              The other issue is the combined cycle power plants are not flexible in CC-mode, they become open turbines if high flexibility is needed.

              In Europe a CCGT is only economically viable with high (>3500) FLH, that is the reason that these power plants died, open NG turbines are a better fit for high RE generation.

          2. I pretty much agree with you. All I’m saying is that if we have a lot of very hot or very cold weather, coal fired plants will be running more than usual, because there will be a sale for their production during high demand periods.

            The flip side of course is that if we have moderate weather for the year, compared to last year, they will run less.

  2. This could have been posted as a reply to Doug above but I think it should stand on it’s own:

    Rethinking Energy — 100% Solar, Wind and Batteries Is Just The Beginning (video)

    My favorite futurist (Tony Seba) is back with his latest on the disruption of energy and transportation industries. OFM will probably find it fascinating to see some of the ideas that he has put forward around here validated by Seba. It’s a must watch for him! For those who prefer a detailed read, the video is based on a paper, dated October 2020,
    published at Seba’s RethinkX web site (available for download at the following link: https://www.rethinkx.com/energy#energy-download )

    In this video presentation Seba introduces a new term, “Super Power” which he refers to as the essentially free electricity that will be produced by overbuilding renewable capacity to be able to cope with demand during times of low wind and solar availability. He introduces a chart that I have not seen from him before, “the clean energy u-curve” (pictured below from page 20 of the paper). The chart puts the sweet spot for total investment in a system based entirely on Solar, Wind and Batteries (SWB) at about 4x. The average demand in the US for July 2020 was about 575 GW compared to just over 1,204 GW according to this report from http://www.publicpower.org. It follows that the current system with 2x capacity in excess of average demand will need to be supplanted by a SWB system with roughly 4x capacity in excess of average demand.

    “Super Power” is the term the Seba report uses to describe the excess power that will be produced during times of high solar and/or wind availability. Unlike the excess capacity from FF powered generating plants which require that fuel be purchased to generate power, the excess power from Solar and Wind will just be there for the taking and be used or wasted, essentially free for the taking! In this context one can understand the opposition to renewable energy from some quarters. An earlier video presentation based on the report by Seba’s co-author Adam Dorr PhD. goes into a little more detail than does the Seba presentation.

    One aspect of these ideas that I find somewhat frightening is from the end of both presentations. From Seba:

    “And of course every time in history we’ve seen cheap and abundant clean energy energy, we have seen prosperity. Super Power, 100% SWB are the keys to a new prosperity, to developing new industries and to solving the world’s most intractable issues as defined by the United Nations sustainable development goals.”

    If we add the ideas from the RethinkX report of Food an Agriculture, these guys are projecting a raising of some of the limits to growth forecast based on the peaking of world oil supplies. The hidden message as I see it is “party on like it’s 1999”!

    If these projections are even remotely close to accurate, there are going to have to be major innovations in the area of waste management, both in the areas of solid waste and chemical waste!

    1. I loudly applaud the goal- 4X, and am glad some people are thinking about getting there.
      Heck, even 3x looks mighty pleasant.

      Currently, on a global basis, we are at less than 0.04X
      Yes- less than 4% of global energy consumption comes from wind and solar.
      Soon will be 5%.

      I bring this up not to disparage the idea/goal,
      Rather to point out that civilization will have to start taking this challenge seriously if we are to make it the point where collapse due to energy shortage is not the most likely scenario.
      How many take the issue seriously? Far less than 1% I guess. Just like carbon emissions, and habitat destruction.

      1. Meanwhile, electricity generated by natural gas has been by far the fastest-growing source of electricity in the U.S. since the 1990s. Natural gas became the second-largest source of US electricity in 2006, when it surpassed nuclear power. Then, in late 2015, natural gas surpassed coal as the largest source of electricity generated in the U.S. Of course, gas power plants are able to ramp up and down quickly, making them well suited to complement intermittent power sources such as wind and solar.

      2. I think you might be mixing up capacity with production. While production is at 4%, capacity is at 3.46% and 8.62% for solar and wind respectively. According to the Q3 market report from the SEIA

        The utility-scale market was the primary driver of Q3 installations with 2.7 GW of new capacity, representing 70% of all solar capacity brought online in Q3.

        Sun Belt states are leading the way on new capacity additions this year, with Texas and Florida both installing more than 2 GW through Q3 2020. For perspective, that is nearly the amount of solar that each of those states installed over 2018 and 2019 combined.

        The utility-scale project pipeline ballooned to a record 69.2 GW, and the U.S. is now forecast to reach 100 GW of cumulative installed solar capacity by mid-2021.

        That would take solar from 3.62% in early 2020 to more than 8% by “mid-2021”. It is difficult to imagine that rate of growth remaining at that high level or increasing but, going from 8% to 100% would take less than four doublings.

        For wind it’s even more challenging. For wind to double from 8.62% in early 2020 to 17% or thereabouts would need the current pace of installation to be maintained for the next five years. Assuming that were possible and assuming solar could double twice over the same period, wind and solar could represent more than 30% of installed capacity by 2025 and if they get preferential access to the grid they might generate more than 15% of the annual electricity.

        It is going to be really interesting to watch how this all plays out.

        1. IslandBoy, if you were addressing that comment to me, my statement-
          “Currently, on a global basis, we are at less than 0.04X
          Yes- less than 4% of global energy consumption comes from wind and solar.”

          is not based on capacity.
          It is based on global primary energy consumption data-2019
          Solar and Wind = 3.3% of total [or 0.033x]
          https://ourworldindata.org/energy-mix

          1. Hickory, are you aware that comparisons based on primary energy consumption are misleading because the majority of said energy consumption for fossil fuels is useless waste heat?

            1. Yes, and that is a good point.
              For example, electric vehicles use about 1/3rd of the energy/mile as an internal combustion vehicle.
              So perhaps our challenge is slightly less daunting.

              On the other hand, global air conditioning demand is on a rocket ship course upward as the globe warms. And digital blockchain financial mechanisms are becoming a massive electrical hog.

              Overall, I really think we will need to downsize population and overall economy at a considerable pace. I am not running for office, so I can say it.

            2. we will need to downsize population and overall economy at a considerable pace

              Thanos was dumb.

              Which is easier: killing a family member, or buying an EV? Having no children, or eating fake meat? Being unemployed, or replacing your NG furnace with a heat pump?

              Thanos could kill half the universe, but couldn’t implement a circular economy?

              He was really dumb.

            3. Nick G. I find your comments wearisome. Wish you luck with your accounting. Truely.
              Adios.

            4. Or…you could think about a different view. Rather than just make a negative general comment, figure out why you disagree, and say so specifically. It would be interesting: you’d clarify your ideas, and either communicate something to other people, or learn something your self.

              Don’t forget: there are a lot of people who read but don’t comment (‘lurkers”), who’d be interested to understand exactly why you disagree.

              In this case, I tried to use a little humor to make a point: actually fixing sustainability problems (especially reducing GHG emissions) would be a lot easier than more drastic solutions, like reducing population or the economy drastically.

              Did the humor not work? Should I have spelled the ideas out in more detail?

      3. Australia achieves record large solar energy output on Friday

        At its peak on Friday, large scale solar accounted for 13.3 per cent of total electricity production on the NEM. Rooftop solar panel from household and business rooftops were actually providing twice as much (6,909MW. or 26.6 per cent of demand), meaning that 40 per cent of total supply was coming from solar panels.

        This continues to put the lie to the claims that “too much renewables will destabilize the grid”. It is a lack of planning and preparation a la Texas that results in an unstable grid.

        Also from the discussion in the comments section, it would appear that Australians are beginning to have the conversation about how to take advantage of abundant cheap energy (“Super Power”) when it is available as outlined in the RethinkX report. Among the developed nations Australia seems to be furthest along to path to a grid dominated by renewables despite the curent dominance of coal on their grid. As Alimbiquated pointed out further up, renewables and batteries are going to suck the wind out of those sails very quickly. South Australia is a pretty good example. Grab your popcorn folks! The next few years are going to be a doozy!

        1. “it would appear that Australians are beginning to have the conversation about how to take advantage of abundant cheap energy”

          They are going for green hydrogen.

          New data released by the energy consultants Rystad Energy shows that 19.2GW of battery storage and hydrogen electrolysers (which can also offer storage capabilities) were added to the project pipeline in Australia last year.

          (The gigawatt hour number indicating the length is not included as most projects have not fully defined their market opportunity).

          This number beats utility scale solar, which added 17.5GW of new projects, and came in just behind wind energy (21GW). In total, there is a pipeline of 225GW or renewable and storage projects jockeying for a position on the grid, although it is clear that not all will get over the line.
          https://reneweconomy.com.au/australias-battery-and-hydrogen-storage-pipeline-jumped-by-massive-20gw-in-2020/

          Massive W.A. renewable hydrogen project signs up Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners

          The goal of the project is to use these premium solar and wind energy resources, along with desalinated sea water, to produce renewable hydrogen for export to Asian markets, with an eye to Japan and Korea.

          https://reneweconomy.com.au/massive-w-a-renewable-hydrogen-project-signs-up-copenhagen-infrastructure-partners-48907/

  4. Latest Daily CO2 numbers (not good)

    Mar. 7, 2021 — 418.17 ppm
    Mar. 7, 2020 — 414.30 ppm
    1 Year Change = 3.87 ppm (0.93%)

    2. I was hoping for a slow growth year for CO2 consider Covid.
      No such luck.

      And Capt Nakamura- your comment on trace gas shows just how well someone who can read and write, can also do a good job of failing to understand simple concepts (when they choose to).
      Just think, if you don’t take a trace amount of Vitamin C in your diet you will develop a fatal disease called scurvy.

      1. Meanwhile,

        GLOBAL HEATING PUSHES TROPICAL REGIONS TOWARDS LIMITS OF HUMAN LIVABILITY

        “The global number of potentially fatal humidity and heat events doubled between 1979 and 2017, research has determined, with the coming decades set to see as many as 3 billion people pushed beyond the historical range of temperature that humans have survived and prospered in over the past 6,000 years.”

        https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/08/global-heating-tropical-regions-human-livability

    3. There is quite some noise in the daily CO2 data. You should compare at least monthly averages to last year’s monthly averages.

      1. I agree.

        February CO2 numbers
        Feb. 2021 = 416.46 ppm
        Feb. 2020 = 414.02 ppm

          1. The most worrying trend is methane at the Barrow Station (Utqiagvik), which is showing rapid acceleration from a flattening about 20 years ago and really rapid acceleration in the last couple of years. The nitrous oxide is also accelerating but more noteworthy is the disappearance of the seasonal cycle with the low point catching up with the rest. Sulphur Hexafluoride trends around the world are ominous too.

            1. Unbiased climate scientists will know better than to pretend to have any deep understanding of what drives climate on the basis of trace gas measurements. Likewise for a deep understanding of climate to begin with. During the historic global cooling event a few weeks ago in the middle of February, a local newspaper ran a story about how it is impossible to predict global temperatures beyond about 10 days out, because it is too complex to accurately model–the same applies to measurements of random gases in the atmosphere.

            2. Yes, and a concise summary can be found here.

              GLOBAL METHANE EMISSIONS SOAR TO RECORD HIGH

              “In 2017, the last year when complete global methane data are available, Earth’s atmosphere absorbed nearly 600 million tons of the colorless, odorless gas that is 28 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat over a 100-year span. More than half of all methane emissions now come from human activities. Annual methane emissions are up 9 percent, or 50 million tons per year, from the early 2000s, when methane concentrations in the atmosphere were relatively stable…

              Methane emissions from agriculture rose to 227 million tons of methane in 2017, up nearly 11 percent from the 2000–2006 average. Methane from fossil fuel production and use reached 108 million tons in 2017, up nearly 15 percent from the earlier period.”

              https://earth.stanford.edu/news/global-methane-emissions-soar-record-high#gs.v7ku3h

            3. There was already 1 TexMex restaurant up in Barrow near the methane meter. Did another one open up nearby. 😉

  5. What about biologically produced hydrogen? Everyone, about hydrogen, is speaking of water electrolysis with industrial electrolysers fed by electricity (solar, wind, nuclear). But as the production of the worldly produced 70 millions tonnes of hydrogen would necessitate a production of electricity higher than the electricity production of Europe, this seems impractical. So we could envision the use of microorganisms able to produce hydrogen. But the problem is that the production rate is generally very low, making the use of these microorganisms impractical by now. Some laboratories are working in enhancing the production rate of hydrogen on specific organisms (mutants of Chlamydomonas Reinhardtii or mutants of the cyanobacteria Synechocystis PCC 6803, for example). In Europe, a collaboration, through a project financed by EU, of different teams did result in the development of a mutant of Synechocystis PCC 6803 producing a relatively high level of hydrogen (0,778 mL H2/h/L of bioreactor solution) but apparently, there are still improvements to bring to the process. See Lindblad et al Alg Res 2019, 41, 101510. In France, a team of scientists (Equipe Bioénergie et Microalgues) of the BIAM (CEA) are devoted to the goal of deciphering the biochemical mechanisms of biomass accumulation in microalgae or cyanobacteria with a stress on the biochemistry of Chlamydomonas Reinhardtii in order to enhance its biomass (starch and fat acids) accumulation to feed the production of hydrogen and enhance the flux of electrons toward the biochemical mechanism leading to the production of hydrogen. See https://biam.cea.fr/drf/biam/Pages/laboratoires/lb3m/themes-recherche.aspx and the publications. I think that more human and technical resources could be useful to speed up the research process. What about this topic in USA?

  6. Utilities are adding battery storage capacity at a record rate. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/utilities-are-installing-big-batteries-at-a-record-pace/

    In the last three months of 2020, nearly 2.2 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of energy storage systems were put into operation, according to the energy data firm Wood Mackenzie. That’s an increase of 182% from the previous record-setting quarter.

    The blockbuster fourth quarter capped a year that saw a total of 3.5 GWh installed—more than the 3.1 GWh that went into operation in the previous six years combined. That torrid growth has industry boosters and researchers feeling very bullish about the prospects for energy storage.

    “This is the hallmark of a market beginning to accelerate exponentially, and momentum will only increase over the coming years,” Dan Finn-Foley, Wood Mackenzie’s head of energy storage, said in a press release.

    1. Utilities have recognized the huge opportunity to buy cheap and sell expensive electricity using batteries. It’s just as well since this arbitrage is going to further decimate the profits from coal plants. Expect coal plant closures to accelerate.

  7. For interest to the reader here in the UK ;-

    The total investment in the Dogger Bank wind farms project is estimated to be £9bn

    3 x 1.2GW capacity farms covering 8,660km²

    9 /3.6 = £ 2.5 Billion per GW capacity

    delivery

    load factor of 0.42 so 3.6GW x 0.42 x 8760 hours = 13.24512 TWh ( annual)

    we use 260TWh* in 2019 so thats 5.1 % projected supply which is what the Dogger Bank project claim to deliver in news articles.

    * source Grid watch –
    29.653 GW x x 8760 hours per year = 259,760 GWh per year , say 260 TWh. (2019)

    22GW fleet is averaged 6.22 GW x 8760 hours per year = 54,487 GWh or 54.5 TWh

    current fleet I beleive is now 24GW and HMG has in planning/approved another 31/33GW capacity ( offshore I beleive ) .

    Later Wind farms are projected to get to 0.47 load factor.

    current Wind capacity is backed up by Nat Gas.

    I see no reason why the USA cannot follow the UK , not perfect but you have the resources.

  8. Small dose of reality.

    HALL OF SHAME: 9 COUNTRIES MISSING THE CHANCE OF A GREEN RECOVERY

    Just 18% of recovery spending globally is green, a UN report found. Despite pledges to ‘build back better’, governments have propped up fossil fuels, aviation and roads. It classified six countries as the ‘current leaders’: Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France and Poland. Countries that scored poorly, despite sizeable stimulus packages include three often mentioned here:

    China had the biggest recovery package of any developing country. Around a tenth of the measures were green. It extended tax exemptions on electric vehicles, funded anti-pollution measures and increased the budget for renewable energy subsidies. But it was generally a polluting recovery led by heavy industries like steel, cement and aluminium. The government supported coal mines in Wuju, Pinliang and Xinjiang and subsidised air freight and airports, rewarding flights which kept running through the pandemic.

    The UK, the Cop26 hosts, were the third biggest spenders as a proportion of GDP but only around one pound in ten was green. Much of the money went on measures to support peoples’ jobs, like a furlough scheme through which the government paid 80% of peoples’ wages. But £27bn ($37bn) went on new road projects and £1.8bn ($2.5bn) went to airlines with no green strings attached. This made the £4.6bn ($6.4bn) ten-point plan for a “green industrial revolution” look small by comparison.

    Finally Australia, which successfully contained the coronavirus through stringent lockdowns, has tried to sustain its economy through generous recovery spending of around a tenth of its GDP. Unfortunately, hardly any of this was green. There was A$61m ($47m) for environmental measures like rebuilding shellfish reefs damaged by overfishing and A$300m ($230m) for hydrogen research. But this was outweighed by A$53m ($41m) for the “gas-fired recovery”, over A$1bn ($0.77bn) for the aviation sector and A$2bn ($1.53bn) for roads.

    https://www.climatechangenews.com/2021/03/10/hall-shame-9-countries-missing-chance-green-recovery/

    1. “Lots of people, in fact, are hostile to the very notion that there exists an empirical reality.”

  9. Meanwhile:

    Australia’s big fossil fuel generators are being replaced by big batteries

    But what is clear is that there is a massive shift happening here. Coal is on the way out, as is “baseload” gas, and wind and solar and storage facilities, particularly battery storage, are on the way in. And many of the biggest batteries are being planned at the sites of coal and gas generators already closed or expected to close in coming years or decades.>/blockquote>

    1. Islandboy — Adding some balance to your comment.

      PASSING THE POLLUTION: AUSTRALIA BECOMES WORLD’S BIGGEST EXPORTER OF COAL AND GAS

      “Australia is now the biggest exporter of climate change, leading the world in selling coal and gas, a new report reveals. Emissions from nations which bought Australia’s gas, coal and oil increased by 4.4 per cent between 2018 and 2019, with Australia now the world’s biggest coal and gas producing country, the report from UNSW says.”

      https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2020/07/09/australia-export-fossil-fuels/#:~:text=Emissions from nations which bought,Canada, Turkey and the UK.

      Further, if exported emissions were to be included, Australia’s carbon footprint would be equivalent to the total emissions of Russia, reaching the fifth position in the ranking of biggest CO2 emitters globally. On a per capita basis, Australia’s carbon footprint would be the largest among top emitters, surpassing China by a factor of 9, the US by a factor of 4 and India by a factor of 37. This highlights the importance and responsibility Australia has for global mitigation efforts.

      https://climateanalytics.org/media/australia_carbon_footprint_report_july2019.pdf

      1. Australia; 70% uninhabitable due to desert, 30% uninhabitable due to Australians.

          1. Aussie Larrikins are the equivalent of American Rednecks. They are all over the blogosphere when it comes to climate change skepticism. Although I do wonder how the country did such a good job with the coronavirus given they have that Crocodile Dundee independence streak.

    2. The scoping report said that the Great Western Battery
      will have an estimated capital expenditure (CAPEX) cost of between AU$300 million
      and AU$400 million based on current plans

      The system would have a “generation capacity of about 500MW” (rated output)
      and up to 1,000MWh capacity,

      $400 million aus = £222 million pounds for 1GW storage rated at 500MW o/p

      maybe 2 hours support or smoothing?

      A Telsa powerwall has a efficency of 90% and is Lithium-Ion

      Given £74,500 per GWh strike price for Windpower in the uk

      £222m / £74500 = 3000 approx cycles to pay for it ( assumption).

      The typical estimated life of a Lithium-Ion battery is about two to three years
      or 300 to 500 charge cycles, whichever occurs first.

      Tesla data sheet has a garantee of 10 years for the power wall, it does not note what that
      covers but 10 years can it cover 3000 cycles? 10yrs x 150 cycles = 1500 cycles

      Will it need to that ?

      If the spot price is high enough ( est 10x UK wind strike price ) then it may not.

      facinating.

      1. Forbin: “The typical estimated life of a Lithium-Ion battery is about two to three years or 300 to 500 charge cycles, whichever occurs first.”

        According to Tesla, the battery has a minimum lifespan of 1,500 charge cycles which should translate to 300,000 miles (standard range/standard range plus) to 500,000 miles (long-range variants)

        More recently: “The newly patented Tesla battery has a capacity of 4000 charge cycles, at which point it reported a loss of only 10% in its energy capacity, according to CNET’

        It’s not clear whether these are full cycles or 20%-80% charge cycles.

        1. Tesla NCA batteries are not suitable for stationary energy storage. They are Traction Batteries. Powerwall is not warranted for offgrid and energy flow will exhaust the cells. It’s great for backup but it’s difficult to use pure solar power. Making hot water with echem is insane. LFP batteries have no heavy Metals and one we install is good for 6000 cycles at 80% when you limit the charging current to 100A. https://www.fortresspower.com/lithium-iron-phosphate-battery/
          The Current IOU Grid model can not monetize 3rd party non-dispatchable energy sources in most regions. Forget it. unfixable. The grid will be the 1st causality in depression or war. Read or listen to: The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future. The tech for grid exit has arrived, it’s called grid forming microgrids. example: http://www.sol-ark.com Wakeup to the hazards of interconnection. Are humans smarter than yeast?

          1. The Powerwall 2 uses a UL 1741 Grid Interactive AC inverter to charge. The PW2 is normally locked out from charging from the grid. Such devices are not independent generation sources. They require an energy source many times larger than it’s output by design. For anti-islanding function, A UL1741 Grid interactive feed must attempt to shove the grid off freq and they die for 300 seconds each time a load is switched on if the Grid is not present to mask the blink. The new DCtoAC Tesla inverter may or may not solve this issue. The main advantage of a Power wall is it’s installed price per kWh, but we have seen 2 price increases in last 40 days. A hybrid inverter takes a real DC solar that always makes juice no matter what. But TPTB are making that complex. Pls sign the petition to counter energy slavery. http://www.fixmlsd.com

    1. Good information to acknowledge and understand.
      Its one facet of a complex situation. The Texas grid failure last month is another.
      As they said near the end- “Abundant, inexpensive, zero-carbon electrons are in search of companies and business models to use them. Those could include electrolyzing hydrogen, performing energy-intensive computation in large data centers, charging electric vehicles, or—just as importantly—other electricity-intensive processes and businesses that do not yet exist.”

      As IslandBoy indicated up above, an electrical production system with wind/solar at 4 x’s current production capacity will become a goal (far off).
      Even now it is becoming obvious that some relatively inexpensive large scale mechanism will be needed for utilizing peak electricity production when the grid is not demanding it. Pumping water for hydro storage, making ammonia fertilizer, H2 for fuel cells are good examples.

      1. I could be wrong. There’s a redneck hillbilly joke that goes “Thought I was wrong once, but found out later I was mistaken.”

        I’m willing to go where my intellect, such as it is, leads me, as opposed to thinking within walls most of us build around our minds like medieval fortifications based on our own personal experiences and prejudices.

        But it’s hard sometimes. So I have trouble believing most or maybe nearly all fruit and veggie production can be moved indoors, for various reasons involving lower costs of outside production.

        But I don’t have any problem believing the cost of doing things new ways IN OTHER PEOPLE’S industries can and might very well fall dramatically….. meaning old ways or out and new ways are IN, across the board. Bottom line, my own prejudices and love of the way I do things myself tend to block my acceptance of the possibility of indoor agriculture on the grand scale.

        Now when it comes to all the OTHER basic industries, I’m ready to believe in technologies, as the great sci fi guy whoever it was , said about it, indistinguishable from magic.

        It’s not just mining itself that can be electrified and automated. Most of the steps involved in manufacturing the MACHINERY needed in mining are going to be automated, and the machines are going to run themselves, for the most part.
        Ditto the metals refining industries, the construction industries, a substantial part of the health care industries, as much as three quarters or more of the educational industries, and manufacturing and distribution industries in general.

        The last time I worked as an employee was from about twenty until ten years ago, part time, as a maintenance man in a nearby furniture factory, mostly just keeping an eye on things. Over that period of ten years, production was doubled without adding any new people……. by automating processes formerly done by hand.

        If industrial civilization survives thru the built in overshoot crash that’s headed our way, then within another couple of generations we will have the super power Island Boy and Seba are talking about, and machinery of all kinds will be cheaper and cheaper and cheaper, even as it gets to be more and more capable of running itself.

        The science fiction I read as a kid or young man posing a world where in you had to COMPETE for the privilege of having an opportunity to do meaningful work, as opposed to recreational work, is going to turn out to be prophetic to a substantial degree.

        I don’t have the foggiest idea what WILL actually happen to all the billions of people in the world, in specific terms, other than that a large portion, maybe most of them, will die hard in the built in crash.

        Beyond that…… I suppose it depends on who manages to seize the levers of political power.

        With super abundant dirt cheap industry, automation, recycling, etc, we can at least theoretically solve our depleting natural resource problems…….. if we solve the population problem.

        A quarter of an acre under glass, with more or less complete control of water supply, good control of temperature, the ability to isolate a given area and totally wipe out any pests present there using such a pesticide as a poison gas that breaks down very quickly, etc, is going to be enough to feed a person, or maybe even two, someday.

        Located just outside a major city ( the land condemned and seized for the purpose) a super farm can run mostly on the poop from the people IN that city, as far as nutrients are concerned, and there need be no more than trivial shipping and storage losses. Production of fruits and veggies can proceed year around, and probably eventually be CHEAPER than out of season production available in limited quantities after allowing for shipping and losses along the way.

        Staples produced this way such as grain will probably be possible too, eventually, because we will likely eventually have corn, soybeans, etc, that are perennials rather than annuals. It’s a big jump, true, but we already have tomatoes, etc, that produce all summer long…. rather than producing just one harvest that has to be brought in over a week or so.

        If you are willing to set your mind free, and let it roam, you will eventually discover that maybe most of what you think of as impossible is simply something “that takes a little longer”.

        Maybe some mad scientist will take his or her cue from the apocalypse novels where in ALMOST every body dies of a super contagious disease such as “Cap’n Trip ” or “Tube Throat” in one of Stephen Kings novels.

        It would probably be possible to create a virus that would infect virtually everybody while leaving most of us permanently sterile……. or one that renders a woman sterile after having one baby maybe. This is not to be sexist about it, but simply to acknowledge women are far more complicated than men, physically, and that it’s just about always easier to create a malfunction in a complicated device than a simple one, and many times more potential ways of doing so.

        You think it’s not coming?

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn3KWM1kuAw

        These machines are going to be in showrooms, fully functional in terms of many many jobs, in another ten years, maybe sooner.

        1. Just how much grid energy will the RIC allow the humans to use? Projections indicate that they will allow humans only to use about 10% of total capacity.
          RIC- Robots in Charge

          1. I suppose ten percent would be generous, considering the robots will be looking after themselves and merely tolerating us, lol.

            The Christian God himself seems to be satisfied with ten percent in general terms.

          1. Thanks Synapsid,
            My fast memory isn’t what it used to be, and on top of that, it’s been thirty or forty years since I mostly quit sci fi and took up other fields such as historical novels, nature, etc, as my primary reading fix.

            1. sci fi is defiantly in the rear view mirror.
              It is a past escape.

  11. Got this in my email yesterday:

    The Great Stranding: How Inaccurate Mainstream LCOE Estimates are Creating a Trillion-Dollar Bubble in Conventional Energy Assets

    Today we are releasing the second in a series of reports on the dramatic disruption taking place in the energy sector. Our analysis of historical data reveals that, at least since 2010, the leading analyst organizations, including the International Energy Agency (IEA), the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA), Wall Street analysts and others have issued inaccurate estimates of the levelized costs of electricity (LCOE) for coal, natural gas and hydro power plants which are used to direct trillions in investment, creating a growing global financial bubble around conventional power plants with dynamics that are similar to the subprime mortgage housing bubble that led to the Great Recession.

    Mainstream analysts have systematically overestimated how much electricity conventional power plants will be able to generate and sell in the future, and therefore reported levelized costs of electricity that are far too low, making those power plants appear to be much better investments than they turn out to be. The cause of this error can be traced to the false assumption that capacity factor (i.e. utilization rate) will remain high and constant for a conventional power plant’s entire lifetime. Treating capacity factor as a constant rather than as a variable is a fundamental methodological error. By presuming that a coal, gas, nuclear, or hydro power plant will always be able to sell just as much electricity in the future as it can today, mainstream analysts are essentially ignoring all competition and disruption from solar, wind, and batteries.

    More in the report that can be downloaded at the link. For those that like videos, a 19 minute presentation at the link below:

    The Great Stranding: How Inaccurate Mainstream LCOE Estimates are Creating a Trillion-Dollar Bubble

    For Doug, I think this will go some way to addressing your concerns about the build out of new coal plants. These guys are saying that the LCOE studies that have formed the basis for these projects over at least the last decade are faulty and basically that any plant built now or in the last ten years is doomed to become a stranded asset.

    1. Islandboy, you (seemingly) like to tout Australian energy projects, how about this dilly? From Chevron’s website:

      GORGON, THE LARGEST SINGLE-RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT IN AUSTRALIA’S HISTORY

      “The Gorgon Project is one of the world’s largest natural gas projects. With daily production averaging 2.3 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 6,000 barrels of condensate, this project will continue to be an important pillar of the Australian economy for decades to come. Unlocking this energy puts Australia in a prime position to meet future demand and provide a clean-burning fuel, both at home and overseas. Estimates have placed the volume of natural gas at 35.3 trillion cubic feet, that may have a lifespan of 60 years.”

  12. Dennis,
    We received a nice review in the exploration physics journal The Leading Edge for our book “Mathematical Geoenergy: Discovery, Depletion, and Renewal” published by Wiley in 2019

    https://library.seg.org/doi/full/10.1190/tle39090683.1

    “Mathematical Geoenergy is a hefty volume intended for researchers and practitioners in these fields.
    …
    In summary, this is a useful book for anyone working in the subject areas and a worthy addition to the distinguished American Geophysical Union Geophysical Monograph series.”

    1. Congrats, Paul & Dennis…

      A Letter From The Future

      “Ironically, perhaps, the indigenous people who were most persecuted by civilization are probably doing the best. They still retained a lot of knowledge of how to live simply on the land. In some places, people are dwelling together in makeshift rural communes; other folks are trying to survive in what’s left of the great urban centers, ripping up concrete and growing what they can as they recycle and trade all the old junk that was left behind when people fled the cities in the ‘twenties. As a historian, one of my biggest frustrations is the rapid disappearance of knowledge. You people had a mania for putting most of your important information on electronic storage media and acid-laden paper – which are disintegrating very quickly. For the most part, all we have are fading photographs, random books, and crumbling magazines.”

  14. What’s the opinion here of Rob’s UnDenial Blog/MORT advocacy? Any takers?
    Rob claims that if ones denial circuit is not switched on then one will most certainly become depressed and unable to function normally. Rob also claims he is not in denial, yet he seems to be suffering none of the associated signs and symptoms i.e. depressed and lying on the floor in a puddle of urine suffering never ending grief and torment. His own condition as an active and motivated writer/blogger seems kinda contradictory to the theory.

    1. I don’t know Rob personally but value his advocacy of a highly fascinating theory. I don’t think your portray of the MORT theory does it justice though.

      What the MORT (Mind Over Reality Transition: Evolution of Human Mortality Denial) theory tries to answer is why humans where able to get into a very unique position where there is no competition from the natural world. Why are we the only species with such a level of theory of mind and other animals like dolphins, elephants or crows are just short of breaking the barrier? If you look at evolution there are many occurrences where the same ‘invention’ happened many times, simply because it’s so effective. The eyes for example. Why not in the case of something we would colloquially call intelligence?

      https://youtu.be/dqgYqW2Kgkg?t=96 here is a good overview of the theory from Dr. Ajit Varki which I would encourage anyone to have a look at.

      If there are grammar or spelling errors in this text, excuse me, English is not my native language.

    2. I worked in a prison healthcare facility for a short time. Interesting times. For the most part I liked the inmates more than the guards, with exceptions of course.

    1. L.O.L. Given the scale governments around the world continue printing money to keep themselves relevant, fossil fuel investments might not be the only thing heading toward worthless. On the other hand, maybe we’ll soon all be living in perpetual bliss, paying for our stuff with Bitcoins — or some other cryptocurrency.

    1. And humans control almost all of the worlds “good” soil. Good meaning that capable of supporting the crops and animals we use for food and fiber.
      And humans control almost all the animals of the world- estimated over 96% by weight. Livestock and pets.

  17. DOE will spend billions on electric vehicle R&D in jobs fight with China, Granholm says

    Dive Insight:

    China has largely cornered the battery manufacturing market, Granholm said, making DOE’s commitment to EVs as much about economic growth and national security as it is about cleaner air.

    SAFE has estimated China controls nearly 70% of global EV battery manufacturing capacity, and North America has less than 10%. The group advocates for emissions-free transportation policies, and has published research showing the United States could create 647,000 jobs within the next five years by aggressively growing the EV market and securing the electric transportation supply chain.

    According to SAFE, 142 lithium-ion battery megafactories were under construction worldwide as of 2020; 107 were located in China — with just nine in the United States.

    “This could be a big problem. Because the auto and truck manufacturing sectors in the United States have been the key to our industrial base,” SAFE CEO Robbie Diamond said during the webinar.

    “Governments have to get in the game — at least the United States does, or we will be run over,” Granholm said. She called for the country to grow critical mining and processing capabilities, increase battery production, and scale up EV and related transportation technology manufacturing.

    All of those strategies will necessary to reach a net-zero carbon economy by 2050, with a zero-carbon electricity sector by 2035, as Biden has called for, said Granholm. “There is a huge sense of urgency in getting these solutions out the door,” she said.

    This Lady gets it! The playing field is not level. The US can either cling to dying industries and risk becoming irrelevant on the world stage or it can get with the program.

    1. Well, it doesn’t look like we can count on China doing much, in the short-medium term.

      CHINA’S CO2 EMISSIONS SURGED 4 PER CENT IN SECOND HALF OF 2020

      “China’s return to economic growth after its first Covid-19 lockdown has relied on stimulating polluting sectors, such as construction and heavy industry. This saw the country’s consumption of coal, oil and gas all growing dramatically in the second half of the year, despite the pandemic and the government’s new pledge to target carbon neutrality by 2060.”

      To be fair, although China has large countrywide emissions, its per capita carbon dioxide emissions are still lower than those of some other developed and developing countries. China’s per-capita emissions have been roughly 5.0 tons per person per year, compared to 19 in the U.S., 11 in Russia, and 8.6 in the EU 15.

      https://www.eco-business.com/news/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-surged-4-per-cent-in-second-half-of-2020/

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