TW: Quelle horreur...
From Economist:
"HERE'S something I didn't know yesterday, courtesy of Kate Gordon, Julian L. Wong, and J.T. McLain.
'China boasts the most installed renewable electricity capacity of any country in the world. At the end of 2008, its 76 GW of installed capacity of renewable electricity—which excludes large hydropower for environmental impact reasons—was nearly twice the amount installed in the United States.'
Also, they have the world's most advanced ultra-high-voltage electric transmission lines; they sank $100 billion of stimulus money last year into high-speed rail and transmission capacity; they beat their 2010 targets for installed wind capacity by 100%; and they already get 16% of their electricity from hydropower and wind, and expect to get 30% by 2020.
Oh, and back in 2001 when Beijing won the bid for the 2008 Olympics they realised they didn't have enough subway capacity, so they built five more subway lines. The system now has nine lines and 228km of track. Today. By the end of 2012 it'll be 420km—after the Olympics they just kept building. By 2020 they're figuring on 19 lines and 561km. I would chalk these kinds of numbers up to Communist statistical exaggeration, except that I was in Beijing in 2004 when those subway lines were all on the drawing boards, and then 2008 rolled around and, hey, there they all were, up and running. By 2015 they expect to have over 2,000km of urban rail in 11 cities, the most in the world.
This is what the Israelis like to call "facts on the ground". As of ten years ago, the idea was that the Chinese would never go along with reducing greenhouse-gas emissions because that would impose unacceptable limits on their growth. They're now building the infrastructure such that reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions would not impose limits on their growth.
Meanwhile, remind me what we did in America over the past ten years (besides building a lot of empty McMansions in Florida)? It's time to get to work."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/03/china_and_renewable_energy
Showing posts with label Alternative energy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alternative energy. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
We Teabag Whilst the Chinese Reach For the Future
TW: So the new Fox/TeaBagger/Republican (FTR)party does not like Obama or the rest of Dems, I get that. What I do not get is exactly what they would propose to do in the face of the world changing and making our industrial policy look absolutely archaic. I know "less government", "security at any cost (both financially or in liberty)" will fix everything. But how come so many of these FTRs are afraid that China is going to run us over, given that China is all about centrally driven government power. Read the article. Sucking our thumbs pining for those alleged good, old days ain't going to get it done.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/business/energy-environment/31renew.html?scp=1&sq=chinese%20alternative%20energy&st=cse
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/business/energy-environment/31renew.html?scp=1&sq=chinese%20alternative%20energy&st=cse
Monday, February 8, 2010
When Markets Fail
From Economist:
...That's real coal prices over time (source, PDF). There's no real magic going on here; coal is just a simple technology, and firms have gotten very good at blasting the stuff out of the ground. As a result, real coal prices have fallen, which means that it hasn't been enough for alternative energy technologies to get cheaper (and they have gotten much cheaper); they would have needed to have gotten cheaper faster than coal in order to take a lot of market share from coal technologies.
Of course, what you're not seeing in the above chart are many of the other costs associated with coal energy generation. The practice of blowing the top off of mountains to mine coal produces cheap power, but causes a lot of damage to local environments and a lot of health problems for people near mining operations. Similarly, people living in close to coal power stations suffer deleterious health effects. And of course, there is the cost of carbon emissions associated with coal power.
In other words, coal dependence has continued largely because coal has remained so cheap, and coal has remained cheap because society has not forced mining operations and power companies to internalise the costs of the environmental, economic, and health damage associated with coal into the price. Coal continues to dominate simply because the market doesn't reflect social costs. That's not a problem with renewables. That's a problem of economics and of governance."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/02/energy_transition
TW: Folks can debate what the negative externalities with coal are and how much they should be priced. But that modern economics and hence the market price does not reflect many of them is not really debatable. My stance on energy is figure out how to integrate the cost of negative externalities then compare the prices. Those who oppose climate legislation due to their "costs" are missing "costs" (i.e. via the negative externalities) that are already there but just not so transparent because they are not reflected in current market pricing. Economics and markets are imperfect to assume otherwise leads to bad decision making.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Go Green Or Eat Dust
TW: Have hit this before and will keep hitting it. The world will go "green", industries to reduce reliance on carbon energy will emerge. We can either sit back with our collectives thumbs up our backsides listening to Fox News extol the virtues of denialists like the Inhofes and Palins of the world or we can act. The U.S. is turning so defensive and reactionary that it risks missing out on the next great ECONOMIC trends of the 21st century.
Status quo works okay if you are the top dog (with improving demographics) competing against the commies like the Soviets who were economically clueless but we are competing against capitalists now.
From Tom Friedman:
"Over the past decade, whenever I went to China and engaged Chinese on their pollution and energy problems, inevitably some young Chinese would say: “Hey, you Americans got to grow dirty for 150 years, using cheap coal and oil. Now it is our turn.”
It’s a hard argument to refute. Eventually, I decided that the only way to respond was with some variation of the following: “You’re right. It’s your turn. Grow as dirty as you want. Take your time. Because I think America just needs five years to invent all the clean-power technologies you Chinese are going to need as you choke to death on pollution. Then we’re going to come over here and sell them all to you, and we are going to clean your clock — how do you say ‘clean your clock’ in Chinese? — in the next great global industry: clean power technologies. So if you all want to give us a five-year lead, that would be great. I’d prefer 10. So take your time. Grow as dirty as you want.”
Whenever you frame it that way, Chinese are quizzical at first, and then they totally get it: Wow, this energy thing isn’t just about global warming! In a world that is adding one billion people every 15 years or so — more and more of whom will be able to live high-energy-consuming lifestyles — the demands for energy and natural resources are going to go through the roof.
Therefore, E.T. — energy technologies that produce clean power and energy efficiency — is going to be the next great global industry, and China needs to be on board.
Well, China has gotten on board — big-time. Now I am worried that China will, dare I say, “clean our clock” in E.T.
Yes, you might think that China is only interested in polluting its way to prosperity. That was once true, but it isn’t anymore. China is increasingly finding that it has to go green out of necessity because in too many places, its people can’t breathe, fish, swim, drive or even see because of pollution and climate change. Well, there is one thing we know about necessity: it is the mother of invention.
And that is what China is doing, innovating more and more energy efficiency and clean power systems. And when China starts to do that in a big way — when it starts to develop solar, wind, batteries, nuclear and energy efficiency technologies on its low-cost platform — watch out. You won’t just be buying your toys from China. You’ll be buying your energy future from China.
“China is moving,” says Hal Harvey, the chief executive of ClimateWorks, which shares clean energy ideas around the world. “They want to be leaders in green technology. China has already adopted the most aggressive energy efficiency program in the world..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/opinion/05friedman.html?_r=2
Status quo works okay if you are the top dog (with improving demographics) competing against the commies like the Soviets who were economically clueless but we are competing against capitalists now.
From Tom Friedman:
"Over the past decade, whenever I went to China and engaged Chinese on their pollution and energy problems, inevitably some young Chinese would say: “Hey, you Americans got to grow dirty for 150 years, using cheap coal and oil. Now it is our turn.”
It’s a hard argument to refute. Eventually, I decided that the only way to respond was with some variation of the following: “You’re right. It’s your turn. Grow as dirty as you want. Take your time. Because I think America just needs five years to invent all the clean-power technologies you Chinese are going to need as you choke to death on pollution. Then we’re going to come over here and sell them all to you, and we are going to clean your clock — how do you say ‘clean your clock’ in Chinese? — in the next great global industry: clean power technologies. So if you all want to give us a five-year lead, that would be great. I’d prefer 10. So take your time. Grow as dirty as you want.”
Whenever you frame it that way, Chinese are quizzical at first, and then they totally get it: Wow, this energy thing isn’t just about global warming! In a world that is adding one billion people every 15 years or so — more and more of whom will be able to live high-energy-consuming lifestyles — the demands for energy and natural resources are going to go through the roof.
Therefore, E.T. — energy technologies that produce clean power and energy efficiency — is going to be the next great global industry, and China needs to be on board.
Well, China has gotten on board — big-time. Now I am worried that China will, dare I say, “clean our clock” in E.T.
Yes, you might think that China is only interested in polluting its way to prosperity. That was once true, but it isn’t anymore. China is increasingly finding that it has to go green out of necessity because in too many places, its people can’t breathe, fish, swim, drive or even see because of pollution and climate change. Well, there is one thing we know about necessity: it is the mother of invention.
And that is what China is doing, innovating more and more energy efficiency and clean power systems. And when China starts to do that in a big way — when it starts to develop solar, wind, batteries, nuclear and energy efficiency technologies on its low-cost platform — watch out. You won’t just be buying your toys from China. You’ll be buying your energy future from China.
“China is moving,” says Hal Harvey, the chief executive of ClimateWorks, which shares clean energy ideas around the world. “They want to be leaders in green technology. China has already adopted the most aggressive energy efficiency program in the world..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/opinion/05friedman.html?_r=2
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Innovation We Need: Smart Grids (final segment)
TW: Final segment on smart grids (obviously I like the idea). This segment focuses on the implications for utilities and overall implementation challenges.
The notion of distributed power storage via things like V2G (see below) is exciting. As you likely know, typical power generation is most efficient when done in predictable steady flows, but demand peaks and troughs (hot days v. really cold days, weekends v. working hours etc.). Alternative energy generation has the opposite problem as wind and sun generate power in sync with the weather conditions. Power storage limitations preclude optimizing the generation and consumption dynamic. Distributed storage could help bridge that chasm
Smart meters cost roughly $500 per to buy and install. That is not chump change and likely requires a 3+ year payback. Obama has stepped in with some limited funding through the stimulus package but more will be needed. There are many competing incentives and stakeholders with varying agendas. But we need smart grids!!
From Economist:
"...The advantage from the utility’s point of view is that it becomes easier to balance supply and demand by reducing consumption at times of peak demand, such as during very hot or cold spells, when people crank up their air-conditioners or heaters. As well as improving the stability of the system, it could also enable utilities to postpone the construction of new power stations, or even do without them altogether, by reducing the peak level of demand that they have to meet.
Moreover a smart grid will make it easier to co-ordinate the intermittent and dispersed sources of power, from rooftop solar panels or backyard wind-turbines, for example. And, of course, a smart grid could also help manage the charging of electric vehicles. The best time to charge vehicles is at night, when lots of cheap electricity is available. “If we don’t do that, then we will add to peak loads and we’ll have to build huge amounts of infrastructure to handle our vehicles,” says Robert Pratt of PNNL.
The flow of energy between the grid and electric cars need not be one-way. With millions of electric cars plugged in at any one time, they could act as an enormous energy-storage system, absorbing excess power from wind turbines on windy nights, for example, but also feeding power back into the grid if necessary (an approach called “vehicle to grid”, or V2G) if the wind suddenly drops.
....Implementing all this will not be cheap. A smart meter costs about $125, and can cost several hundred dollars more to install, once the necessary communications network and data-management software at the utility are taken into account.
....The American government is spending some $4 billion from its economic-stimulus package on smart-grid initiatives, but providing a smart meter for every American home would cost far more: California’s investor-owned utilities alone are spending about $4.5 billion on deploying smart meters over the next few years. That implies that a nationwide implementation could cost around $50 billion.
But PNNL estimates that $450 billion would have to be poured into conventional grid infrastructure to meet America’s expected growth over the next decade anyway...One problem is that power companies are understandably reluctant to invest in technologies that will reduce consumption of the product they sell, even if there are other benefits. One way to realign the public interest with that of the utilities is through a process called “decoupling” which breaks the direct relationship between electricity sales and profits, a measure that has been successfully employed in California. Energy use per person has remained largely flat over the past 30 years in California, but it has increased by roughly 50% for the rest of America.
But in some instances the business case is straightforward. Enel spent around €2.1 billion ($3 billion) installing its 30m smart meters in Italy, but now saves around €500m a year as a result, so its investment paid for itself within five years.
...Reducing peak demand in America by a mere 5% would yield savings of about $66 billion over 20 years, according to Ahmad Faruqui of the Brattle Group, a consultancy that has worked with utilities on designing and evaluating smart-meter pilot programmes. Moreover, studies have shown that the best in-home smart-grid technologies can achieve reductions in peak demand of up to 25%, which would result in savings of more than $325 billion over that period, calculates Dr Faruqui...“
The notion of distributed power storage via things like V2G (see below) is exciting. As you likely know, typical power generation is most efficient when done in predictable steady flows, but demand peaks and troughs (hot days v. really cold days, weekends v. working hours etc.). Alternative energy generation has the opposite problem as wind and sun generate power in sync with the weather conditions. Power storage limitations preclude optimizing the generation and consumption dynamic. Distributed storage could help bridge that chasm
Smart meters cost roughly $500 per to buy and install. That is not chump change and likely requires a 3+ year payback. Obama has stepped in with some limited funding through the stimulus package but more will be needed. There are many competing incentives and stakeholders with varying agendas. But we need smart grids!!
From Economist:
"...The advantage from the utility’s point of view is that it becomes easier to balance supply and demand by reducing consumption at times of peak demand, such as during very hot or cold spells, when people crank up their air-conditioners or heaters. As well as improving the stability of the system, it could also enable utilities to postpone the construction of new power stations, or even do without them altogether, by reducing the peak level of demand that they have to meet.
Moreover a smart grid will make it easier to co-ordinate the intermittent and dispersed sources of power, from rooftop solar panels or backyard wind-turbines, for example. And, of course, a smart grid could also help manage the charging of electric vehicles. The best time to charge vehicles is at night, when lots of cheap electricity is available. “If we don’t do that, then we will add to peak loads and we’ll have to build huge amounts of infrastructure to handle our vehicles,” says Robert Pratt of PNNL.
The flow of energy between the grid and electric cars need not be one-way. With millions of electric cars plugged in at any one time, they could act as an enormous energy-storage system, absorbing excess power from wind turbines on windy nights, for example, but also feeding power back into the grid if necessary (an approach called “vehicle to grid”, or V2G) if the wind suddenly drops.
....Implementing all this will not be cheap. A smart meter costs about $125, and can cost several hundred dollars more to install, once the necessary communications network and data-management software at the utility are taken into account.
....The American government is spending some $4 billion from its economic-stimulus package on smart-grid initiatives, but providing a smart meter for every American home would cost far more: California’s investor-owned utilities alone are spending about $4.5 billion on deploying smart meters over the next few years. That implies that a nationwide implementation could cost around $50 billion.
But PNNL estimates that $450 billion would have to be poured into conventional grid infrastructure to meet America’s expected growth over the next decade anyway...One problem is that power companies are understandably reluctant to invest in technologies that will reduce consumption of the product they sell, even if there are other benefits. One way to realign the public interest with that of the utilities is through a process called “decoupling” which breaks the direct relationship between electricity sales and profits, a measure that has been successfully employed in California. Energy use per person has remained largely flat over the past 30 years in California, but it has increased by roughly 50% for the rest of America.
But in some instances the business case is straightforward. Enel spent around €2.1 billion ($3 billion) installing its 30m smart meters in Italy, but now saves around €500m a year as a result, so its investment paid for itself within five years.
...Reducing peak demand in America by a mere 5% would yield savings of about $66 billion over 20 years, according to Ahmad Faruqui of the Brattle Group, a consultancy that has worked with utilities on designing and evaluating smart-meter pilot programmes. Moreover, studies have shown that the best in-home smart-grid technologies can achieve reductions in peak demand of up to 25%, which would result in savings of more than $325 billion over that period, calculates Dr Faruqui...“
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Innovation We Need: Smart Grids (cont.)
TW: Posted from this same piece ten days ago here. This segment focuses on how smart sensor technology will facilitate two-way communication with utilities making energy consumption visible to consumers. The consumption visibility combined with appliance timers and web-based controls should provide consumers the opportunity to curb energy usage by 10% or more. Utilities will also be able to introduce tiered pricing to reflect higher or lower demand periods during the day, nights or weekends.
From Economist:
"...most important would be the introduction of smart meters, which track electricity use in real-time and can transmit that information back to the power company. Smart meters have been used by commercial and industrial customers for decades, says Eric Miller of Trilliant, an American company that installs communications networks and software to implement smart meters. But in recent years they have become cheap enough for wider deployment.
Smart meters establish a two-way data connection between the customer and the power company, by sending information over a communications network that may include power-line, radio or cellular-network connections. Once smart meters are installed, power companies can determine the location of outages more easily, and no longer need to send staff to read meters, or to turn the power on or off at a particular property...Smart meters also help to curtail the theft of electricity.
...But the smart meter is only the first step. Eventually smart meters will communicate with smart thermostats, appliances and other devices, giving people a much clearer view of how much electricity they are consuming. Customers will be able to access that information via read-outs in their homes or web-based portals, through which they will be able to set temperature preferences for their thermostats, for example, or opt in or out of programmes that let them use cleaner energy sources, such as solar or wind power.
As well as giving utilities more control, smart meters also give them more flexibility. In particular, they can vary the price of electricity throughout the day in response to demand. Telling people that electricity is more expensive when demand is high will encourage them to do their laundry when demand has fallen and electricity is cheaper...This could be done by showing real-time price and usage information on a display so that consumers can decide whether to turn on the washing machine. Studies have found that when people are made aware of how much power they are using, they reduce their use by about 7%. With added incentives, people curtail their electricity use during peaks in demand by 15% or more.
But eventually it should be possible to do it automatically, so that the dishwasher waits for the price to fall below a certain level before switching on, for example, or the air-conditioner turns itself down when the price goes up. This is more complex than today’s pricing, of course, but customers will be able to save money if they are prepared to put up with a bit more complexity. “If you don’t want to participate, then you’re going to pay a much higher rate per kilowatt-hour,” says Peter Corsell of GridPoint, a company that has developed a web-based portal that lets people respond to price changes from utilities. “And if you want to opt in, you may save a whole lot of money.” During a one-year pilot study carried out by PNNL, for example, consumers reduced their electricity bills by an average of 10% compared with the previous year."
From Economist:
"...most important would be the introduction of smart meters, which track electricity use in real-time and can transmit that information back to the power company. Smart meters have been used by commercial and industrial customers for decades, says Eric Miller of Trilliant, an American company that installs communications networks and software to implement smart meters. But in recent years they have become cheap enough for wider deployment.
Smart meters establish a two-way data connection between the customer and the power company, by sending information over a communications network that may include power-line, radio or cellular-network connections. Once smart meters are installed, power companies can determine the location of outages more easily, and no longer need to send staff to read meters, or to turn the power on or off at a particular property...Smart meters also help to curtail the theft of electricity.
...But the smart meter is only the first step. Eventually smart meters will communicate with smart thermostats, appliances and other devices, giving people a much clearer view of how much electricity they are consuming. Customers will be able to access that information via read-outs in their homes or web-based portals, through which they will be able to set temperature preferences for their thermostats, for example, or opt in or out of programmes that let them use cleaner energy sources, such as solar or wind power.
As well as giving utilities more control, smart meters also give them more flexibility. In particular, they can vary the price of electricity throughout the day in response to demand. Telling people that electricity is more expensive when demand is high will encourage them to do their laundry when demand has fallen and electricity is cheaper...This could be done by showing real-time price and usage information on a display so that consumers can decide whether to turn on the washing machine. Studies have found that when people are made aware of how much power they are using, they reduce their use by about 7%. With added incentives, people curtail their electricity use during peaks in demand by 15% or more.
But eventually it should be possible to do it automatically, so that the dishwasher waits for the price to fall below a certain level before switching on, for example, or the air-conditioner turns itself down when the price goes up. This is more complex than today’s pricing, of course, but customers will be able to save money if they are prepared to put up with a bit more complexity. “If you don’t want to participate, then you’re going to pay a much higher rate per kilowatt-hour,” says Peter Corsell of GridPoint, a company that has developed a web-based portal that lets people respond to price changes from utilities. “And if you want to opt in, you may save a whole lot of money.” During a one-year pilot study carried out by PNNL, for example, consumers reduced their electricity bills by an average of 10% compared with the previous year."
Friday, June 12, 2009
The Joys Of Regulatory Capture
TW: The Federal government is subsidizing "renewable energy". I would think most folks when thinking of "renewable" energy would bring to mind solar, wind, and maybe hydro. But thanks to our ever powerful energy lobbyists (who are merely agents for citizenry of various ilks), that definition is being broadened...greatly. This is a typical phenomenon known as regulatory capture. The government initially attempts to do one thing with a regulation and ends up doing something very different as legislation gets overtaken by powerful interest groups.
Every industry of any size and many of limited size spend millions to bend governance away from the common good towards their own unique interests. Is it socialism or free-market lobbying?
To paraphrase an old quote:
Democracy the worst form of government ever invented, except compared to all others"
From NYT:
"The definition of renewable energy seems clear cut: The sun continues to shine, so solar energy is renewable. The wind continues to blow, so wind turbines churn out renewable power.
But industries are now pushing to have a growing number of other technologies categorized as renewable — or at least as environmentally advantageous. They include nuclear power plants and the burning of garbage and even the waste from mines.
The lure of the renewable label is understandable. Federal tax breaks for renewable energy have been reauthorized, and quotas for renewable energy production have been set in 28 states, accompanied by extensive new grants, loans and other economic advantages.
...In some states, the definition of “renewable” or “alternative” has already expanded. In Pennsylvania, waste coal and methane from coal mines receive the same treatment as solar panels and wind turbines. In Nevada, old tires can count as a renewable fuel, provided microwaves are used to break down their chemical structure.
About half of the 28 states with renewable mandates include electricity generated by burning garbage (the District of Columbia also has a quota for renewable energy). In Florida, the nuclear power industry is lobbying to be included but has not yet succeeded.
Government incentives for renewable energy were intended to give an economic boost to technologies like wind and solar power that were not yet economically competitive with coal and natural gas, which together provide more than two-thirds of the country’s electricity.
...If a source of electricity already widely used by some utilities — hydropower or nuclear power, for example — is deemed renewable, it allows utilities to meet the new renewable-energy requirements while doing little to add wind or solar power to the electrical grid. House Republicans tried unsuccessfully last week to have nuclear energy included under the climate bill passed by the House committee.
...But some of the industries that have claimed the renewable mantle argue that they deserve it.
“A banana is renewable — you can grow them forever,” said Bob Eisenbud, a vice president for government affairs at Waste Management, which receives about 10 percent of its annual revenues of $13.3 billion from waste and landfill energy generation. “A banana that goes into garbage and gets burned,” he added, is “a renewable resource and producing renewable energy.”
...Graham Mathews, a lobbyist representing Covanta Energy, another waste-to-energy company, said the political horse-trading on renewable energy legislation was typical of all energy measures. “Energy policy is balkanized by region, and that dictates the debate. The politics become incredibly complicated,” he said.
“Stepping back and looking at it,” Mr. Mathews added, “it sometimes doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/25/business/energy-environment/25renew.html?_r=1&scp=9&sq=felicity%20barringer%20renewables&st=cse
Every industry of any size and many of limited size spend millions to bend governance away from the common good towards their own unique interests. Is it socialism or free-market lobbying?
To paraphrase an old quote:
Democracy the worst form of government ever invented, except compared to all others"
From NYT:
"The definition of renewable energy seems clear cut: The sun continues to shine, so solar energy is renewable. The wind continues to blow, so wind turbines churn out renewable power.
But industries are now pushing to have a growing number of other technologies categorized as renewable — or at least as environmentally advantageous. They include nuclear power plants and the burning of garbage and even the waste from mines.
The lure of the renewable label is understandable. Federal tax breaks for renewable energy have been reauthorized, and quotas for renewable energy production have been set in 28 states, accompanied by extensive new grants, loans and other economic advantages.
...In some states, the definition of “renewable” or “alternative” has already expanded. In Pennsylvania, waste coal and methane from coal mines receive the same treatment as solar panels and wind turbines. In Nevada, old tires can count as a renewable fuel, provided microwaves are used to break down their chemical structure.
About half of the 28 states with renewable mandates include electricity generated by burning garbage (the District of Columbia also has a quota for renewable energy). In Florida, the nuclear power industry is lobbying to be included but has not yet succeeded.
Government incentives for renewable energy were intended to give an economic boost to technologies like wind and solar power that were not yet economically competitive with coal and natural gas, which together provide more than two-thirds of the country’s electricity.
...If a source of electricity already widely used by some utilities — hydropower or nuclear power, for example — is deemed renewable, it allows utilities to meet the new renewable-energy requirements while doing little to add wind or solar power to the electrical grid. House Republicans tried unsuccessfully last week to have nuclear energy included under the climate bill passed by the House committee.
...But some of the industries that have claimed the renewable mantle argue that they deserve it.
“A banana is renewable — you can grow them forever,” said Bob Eisenbud, a vice president for government affairs at Waste Management, which receives about 10 percent of its annual revenues of $13.3 billion from waste and landfill energy generation. “A banana that goes into garbage and gets burned,” he added, is “a renewable resource and producing renewable energy.”
...Graham Mathews, a lobbyist representing Covanta Energy, another waste-to-energy company, said the political horse-trading on renewable energy legislation was typical of all energy measures. “Energy policy is balkanized by region, and that dictates the debate. The politics become incredibly complicated,” he said.
“Stepping back and looking at it,” Mr. Mathews added, “it sometimes doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/25/business/energy-environment/25renew.html?_r=1&scp=9&sq=felicity%20barringer%20renewables&st=cse
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Innovation We Need Badly: Smart Grids
TW: Economist wrote a long piece on what is hugely important energy initiative- smart grids. We tend to think of energy mostly as a supply problem but like many other products, its distribution network is also very important. The electrical grid by which electricity reaches consumers is not very different structurally than the grid of the 50's and 60's, this is about to change and needs to change.
Improving the grid will reduce transmission leakage, increase capacity to enable new alternative power sources (i.e. wind and solar) and perhaps most importantly create two-way communication between users and suppliers to facilitate much higher efficiencies. I will have additional posts from this piece soon.
From Economist:
"AROUND the world billions of dollars are being invested in clean-energy technologies of one sort or another, from solar arrays and wind turbines to electric cars. But there is a problem lurking in the power grid that links them together. Green sources of power tend to be distributed and intermittent, which makes them difficult to integrate into the existing grid. And when it comes to electric cars, a study by America’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) found that there is already enough generating capacity to replace as much as 73% of America’s conventional fleet with electric vehicles—but only if the charging of those vehicles is carefully managed. In order to accommodate the flow of energy between new sources of supply and new forms of demand, the world’s electrical grids are going to have to become a lot smarter.
Even though the demands being placed on national electricity grids are changing rapidly, the grids themselves have changed very little since they were first developed more than a century ago......Most people have little idea how much electricity they are using until they are presented with a bill.
...Adding digital sensors and remote controls to the transmission and distribution system would make it smarter, greener and more efficient. Such a “smart grid” or “energy internet” would be far more responsive, interactive and transparent than today’s grid. It would be able to cope with new sources of renewable power, enable the co-ordinated charging of electric cars, provide information to consumers about their usage and allow utilities to monitor and control their networks more effectively.
...What exactly would a smart grid look like? Many of the changes would be invisible. On the transmission and distribution side, sensors and digital relays installed on power lines will enable utilities to operate systems with greater efficiency and reliability...Devices called synchrophasors can sample voltage and current 30 times a second or faster—giving utilities and system operators a far more accurate view of the health of the grid. A broad deployment of synchrophasors could be used as an early warning system to help halt or prevent power surges before they develop into massive blackouts, says Jeff Dagle of PNNL... "
Friday, June 5, 2009
If We Don't Go Green Others Will
TW: I may create a new tag theme- Sucking Our Thumb- for when I feel we as a nation instead of pushing forward are too constrained by legacy policies to act and innovate. Our Cuba policy would be a prime example. Our slow embrace of alternative energy would be another.
Americans are used to driving the agenda on most international and economic issues. As our relative power declines, other nations are not going to wait around while our head in the sand politicians and large segments of our populace snark away climate change and the need for alternative energy. Alternative energy may ultimately be about climate change, but operationally it is about economic development. I do not believe the Chinese and others in the developing world are pushing alternatives to lead the charge on climate change. They are doing so because they understand reliance on carbon based energy is a 2oth century mindset.
If we wake up in ten years still using coal and oil while others have moved on to wind, solar and other alternatives we will not only have missed the next great industries we will have become the future cro-magnons. We can suck our thumbs while others charge ahead or we can get of our collective asses and get with the program.
From Bloomberg:
"China, the world’s second-biggest energy consumer, will invest about 100 billion yuan ($14.6 billion) to more than double its wind power capacity by 2010 from last year, a government official said.
The country’s wind power capacity will rise to 30,000 megawatts from 12,000 megawatts...China’s wind power capacity was the fourth-largest in the world last year, according to Shi.
Investment in alternative energy may exceed 2 trillion yuan by 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planner, said in 2007. Wind power is “vital” as it is the cheapest form of renewable energy, Shi said. About 80 percent of the country’s power is produced from coal.
“The on-grid price for wind power is about 0.5 to 0.6 yuan per kilowatt-hour compared with about 0.2 to 0.4 yuan per kilowatt-hour for coal,” Shi told reporters.
...The government has allocated 210 billion yuan for energy- saving and carbon-reduction projects under its 4 trillion-yuan economic stimulus package, the planning commission said in May...China is separately drafting a long-term plan to develop renewable energy to replace coal and oil with cleaner-burning fuels.
...The Asian nation became the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels in 2006, followed by the U.S., Russia, India and Japan, according to U.S. Department of Energy data on Bloomberg.
...The world’s third-largest economy will increase its wind power capacity by fivefold to 100,000 megawatts by 2020 from at least 20,000 megawatts next year to help fight climate change, Zhang Guobao, director of the energy administration, said May 26.
...China could pass Europe, Japan and the U.S. to become the world’s biggest renewable energy consumer by 2010, Washington- based researcher WorldWatch Institute said in November 2007. "
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a5rJC7MtnBpc&refer=home
Americans are used to driving the agenda on most international and economic issues. As our relative power declines, other nations are not going to wait around while our head in the sand politicians and large segments of our populace snark away climate change and the need for alternative energy. Alternative energy may ultimately be about climate change, but operationally it is about economic development. I do not believe the Chinese and others in the developing world are pushing alternatives to lead the charge on climate change. They are doing so because they understand reliance on carbon based energy is a 2oth century mindset.
If we wake up in ten years still using coal and oil while others have moved on to wind, solar and other alternatives we will not only have missed the next great industries we will have become the future cro-magnons. We can suck our thumbs while others charge ahead or we can get of our collective asses and get with the program.
From Bloomberg:
"China, the world’s second-biggest energy consumer, will invest about 100 billion yuan ($14.6 billion) to more than double its wind power capacity by 2010 from last year, a government official said.
The country’s wind power capacity will rise to 30,000 megawatts from 12,000 megawatts...China’s wind power capacity was the fourth-largest in the world last year, according to Shi.
Investment in alternative energy may exceed 2 trillion yuan by 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planner, said in 2007. Wind power is “vital” as it is the cheapest form of renewable energy, Shi said. About 80 percent of the country’s power is produced from coal.
“The on-grid price for wind power is about 0.5 to 0.6 yuan per kilowatt-hour compared with about 0.2 to 0.4 yuan per kilowatt-hour for coal,” Shi told reporters.
...The government has allocated 210 billion yuan for energy- saving and carbon-reduction projects under its 4 trillion-yuan economic stimulus package, the planning commission said in May...China is separately drafting a long-term plan to develop renewable energy to replace coal and oil with cleaner-burning fuels.
...The Asian nation became the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels in 2006, followed by the U.S., Russia, India and Japan, according to U.S. Department of Energy data on Bloomberg.
...The world’s third-largest economy will increase its wind power capacity by fivefold to 100,000 megawatts by 2020 from at least 20,000 megawatts next year to help fight climate change, Zhang Guobao, director of the energy administration, said May 26.
...China could pass Europe, Japan and the U.S. to become the world’s biggest renewable energy consumer by 2010, Washington- based researcher WorldWatch Institute said in November 2007. "
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a5rJC7MtnBpc&refer=home
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Where Is the Wind?
(click on image to enlarge)
TW: The image portrays wind speeds at various points across the U.S. Certainly the U.S. possesses considerable geography which could support viable wind power facilities. Unfortunately many of them are either offshore or far from the urban centers which use the most power. If the U.S. is to reach its potential with this very important alternative power source, distribution infrastructure will play as important a role as the actual wind towers capturing the initial energy. Given these infrastructures cross numerous state boundries (the usual regulator) much cooperation and a fair amount of federal intervention will be necessary.
Friday, May 22, 2009
If You Cannot Measure It, You Cannot Manage It (cont.)
TW: Posted on this a couple of weeks ago. This is follow-up. As measurement technology improves and becomes more economical, energy usage can be managed and reduced without sacrificing quality of life, in other words productivity and efficiency improves.
From Felix Salmon at Reuters:
"Google PowerMeter announced its first partnerships today, with energy companies from Kentucky to Canada participating in the program. I spoke to Hal Snyder, who works for one of them, San Diego Gas & Electric, which has recently started installing what it calls “smart meters” in 1.4 million homes in southern California. It’s up to 10,000 now, hopes to get more than 200,000 by the end of the year, and have everybody installed by 2011.
Any of SDG&E’s customers can get their electricity-usage information from the utility’s own website, but now they’ll have the option of getting it straight from Google instead, embedding it on their iGoogle home page, that kind of thing. And the more they see how much energy they’re using, the less they’ll use — a 5%-10% reduction up-front, with more down the road when they start replacing appliances and light bulbs and the like.
None of this comes cheap: SDG&E is spending $500 million on this scheme, or about $350 per installed meter, but reckons it’s worth it in terms of hitting conservation goals, improving system reliability (they don’t need to wait for phone calls any more to know that power’s down in a certain area), and even obviating the need for new sources of power if and when variable pricing is introduced and moves consumption away from peak time and into the night time and evening.
The question is what happens for those of us who don’t have such an enlightened energy utility. Will we pay $350 to Google for a gizmo which does something similar? Since it’s Google.org, the philanthropic arm of the company, will they subsidize it somehow? Or should we just start lobbying our legislators to make smart metering happen nationwide? (I’m unclear on the degree to which such things are part of the stimulus plan.) In any event, the quicker this happens, and the more people that get this information, the better off we’ll all be."
From Felix Salmon at Reuters:
"Google PowerMeter announced its first partnerships today, with energy companies from Kentucky to Canada participating in the program. I spoke to Hal Snyder, who works for one of them, San Diego Gas & Electric, which has recently started installing what it calls “smart meters” in 1.4 million homes in southern California. It’s up to 10,000 now, hopes to get more than 200,000 by the end of the year, and have everybody installed by 2011.
Any of SDG&E’s customers can get their electricity-usage information from the utility’s own website, but now they’ll have the option of getting it straight from Google instead, embedding it on their iGoogle home page, that kind of thing. And the more they see how much energy they’re using, the less they’ll use — a 5%-10% reduction up-front, with more down the road when they start replacing appliances and light bulbs and the like.
None of this comes cheap: SDG&E is spending $500 million on this scheme, or about $350 per installed meter, but reckons it’s worth it in terms of hitting conservation goals, improving system reliability (they don’t need to wait for phone calls any more to know that power’s down in a certain area), and even obviating the need for new sources of power if and when variable pricing is introduced and moves consumption away from peak time and into the night time and evening.
The question is what happens for those of us who don’t have such an enlightened energy utility. Will we pay $350 to Google for a gizmo which does something similar? Since it’s Google.org, the philanthropic arm of the company, will they subsidize it somehow? Or should we just start lobbying our legislators to make smart metering happen nationwide? (I’m unclear on the degree to which such things are part of the stimulus plan.) In any event, the quicker this happens, and the more people that get this information, the better off we’ll all be."
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Electric Cars With Shai Agassi (an Update)
TW: See our prior post on Agassi here. Here is an update. He is plugging along. I will say it seems the auto companies are really starting to head down the path of integrating electric powered vehicles (at least hybrids) into their core offerings. These things take a long time to ramp up but then when the tipping point is reached the transition can happen very quickly. We shall see.
From Economist:
"...his start-up, called Better Place. Its goal is to build a global network of charging points and battery-exchange stations to make electric cars a mass-market proposition.
...Mr Agassi has not yet fully proved that he can deliver the goods. The test will come in the next few months, as Mr Agassi’s ambitious scheme begins in earnest. Even as he prepares to unveil his firm’s first battery-swapping station in Japan this month, sceptics have started to speak up, casting doubt on Better Place’s elaborate business model after months of adulatory media coverage.
...Mr Agassi’s firm does not make cars. Instead, his novel approach is to look at electric transport as a system in which cars, batteries, recharging points, electrical utilities and billing systems must all work together. It is, in other words, a systems-integration problem of the kind he used to deal with at SAP.
Better Place’s business model involves selling electric cars (provided by its partner, Renault-Nissan) using a scheme borrowed from the mobile-telecoms industry—charging not by the minute, but by the kilometre. Customers will be able to pay as they go or sign up for a contract that includes a certain number of kilometres. They will even get a subsidised car if they subscribe to big enough packages, just as mobile operators subsidise handsets for their highest-paying customers. Better Place will build networks of recharging points, plus battery-swapping stations along motorways that will, in effect, enable customers to recharge their cars in minutes in order to travel further than the 160km (100-mile) range of their cars’ battery packs.
All this will be a highly profitable business, says Mr Agassi: the low cost of electricity compared with fossil fuels will leave Better Place plenty of room for arbitrage, and customers will still end up paying less per kilometre. Clever software will enable utilities to use the batteries in Better Place’s fleet of cars to cope with fluctuations in supply and demand, recharging them at night when demand is low and feeding power back into the grid at peak times.
...Some sceptics say consumers will prefer to buy electric cars that plug into ordinary electric sockets than to be “locked in” to an operator of recharging points. Even if Better Place can build its networks, say others, it will not be profitable for years because the infrastructure is so expensive (its battery-swapping stations cost $500,000 each).
...The company has developed a robot that can swap a car battery in 40 seconds. It is already installing recharging points in Israel, where it hopes to have 100,000 in place by 2010 and 500,000 by 2011, along with 100 battery-swapping stations.
Electric cars’ inherent drawbacks, says Mr Agassi, will not vanish soon: batteries are expensive, and they cannot be charged in the time it takes to fill a tank unless there is a power station next to each charging point. Only when the battery is physically and economically separate from the vehicle, he insists, will electric cars be cheap and convenient enough for the mass market..."
http://www.economist.com/people/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13570470
From Economist:
"...his start-up, called Better Place. Its goal is to build a global network of charging points and battery-exchange stations to make electric cars a mass-market proposition.
...Mr Agassi has not yet fully proved that he can deliver the goods. The test will come in the next few months, as Mr Agassi’s ambitious scheme begins in earnest. Even as he prepares to unveil his firm’s first battery-swapping station in Japan this month, sceptics have started to speak up, casting doubt on Better Place’s elaborate business model after months of adulatory media coverage.
...Mr Agassi’s firm does not make cars. Instead, his novel approach is to look at electric transport as a system in which cars, batteries, recharging points, electrical utilities and billing systems must all work together. It is, in other words, a systems-integration problem of the kind he used to deal with at SAP.
Better Place’s business model involves selling electric cars (provided by its partner, Renault-Nissan) using a scheme borrowed from the mobile-telecoms industry—charging not by the minute, but by the kilometre. Customers will be able to pay as they go or sign up for a contract that includes a certain number of kilometres. They will even get a subsidised car if they subscribe to big enough packages, just as mobile operators subsidise handsets for their highest-paying customers. Better Place will build networks of recharging points, plus battery-swapping stations along motorways that will, in effect, enable customers to recharge their cars in minutes in order to travel further than the 160km (100-mile) range of their cars’ battery packs.
All this will be a highly profitable business, says Mr Agassi: the low cost of electricity compared with fossil fuels will leave Better Place plenty of room for arbitrage, and customers will still end up paying less per kilometre. Clever software will enable utilities to use the batteries in Better Place’s fleet of cars to cope with fluctuations in supply and demand, recharging them at night when demand is low and feeding power back into the grid at peak times.
...Some sceptics say consumers will prefer to buy electric cars that plug into ordinary electric sockets than to be “locked in” to an operator of recharging points. Even if Better Place can build its networks, say others, it will not be profitable for years because the infrastructure is so expensive (its battery-swapping stations cost $500,000 each).
...The company has developed a robot that can swap a car battery in 40 seconds. It is already installing recharging points in Israel, where it hopes to have 100,000 in place by 2010 and 500,000 by 2011, along with 100 battery-swapping stations.
Electric cars’ inherent drawbacks, says Mr Agassi, will not vanish soon: batteries are expensive, and they cannot be charged in the time it takes to fill a tank unless there is a power station next to each charging point. Only when the battery is physically and economically separate from the vehicle, he insists, will electric cars be cheap and convenient enough for the mass market..."
http://www.economist.com/people/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13570470
Sunday, May 10, 2009
If You Cannot Measure It, You Cannot Manage It
TW: Following up on yesterday's post about improving society by filling in information gaps, here is news that Google is moving to expand its reach by creating a means by which to easily and cheaply track energy usage. Daily life is filled with inefficiencies simply because we cannot accurately and/or cost effectively track data. There is an old management axiom, "if you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it". These type initiatives are the means by which societies grow their economies whilst working around resource constraints.
From Felix Salmon at Reuters:
"The behavioral sociology of measuring energy usage is simple: the more you know about how much energy you’re using, the less you use. Just getting the information cuts most people’s energy usage by somewhere between 5% and 15%, while people with high electricity bills (like me) find it much easier to isolate exactly what is causing those bills and can then work out how best to reduce them through upgrading appliances or replacing incandescent bulbs with CFLs or any number of other routes to energy efficiency.
The problem is in the measurement...Enter Google, which has now announced plans to release free PowerMeter software which will map any individual’s energy use on their phone, home computer, or iGoogle homepage. The little gizmo which plugs in to your fusebox is going to be very cheap, and with any luck will somehow be available for free to anybody who might have difficulty paying for it. (This is part of Google’s philanthropic google.org arm, after all.)
...I anticipate it’ll save me a few hundred dollars a year. His colleagues have already installed it — one of them discovered he was paying for all the washers and dryers in his building. When will I be able to get mine?"
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/05/05/awaiting-powermeter/
From Felix Salmon at Reuters:
"The behavioral sociology of measuring energy usage is simple: the more you know about how much energy you’re using, the less you use. Just getting the information cuts most people’s energy usage by somewhere between 5% and 15%, while people with high electricity bills (like me) find it much easier to isolate exactly what is causing those bills and can then work out how best to reduce them through upgrading appliances or replacing incandescent bulbs with CFLs or any number of other routes to energy efficiency.
The problem is in the measurement...Enter Google, which has now announced plans to release free PowerMeter software which will map any individual’s energy use on their phone, home computer, or iGoogle homepage. The little gizmo which plugs in to your fusebox is going to be very cheap, and with any luck will somehow be available for free to anybody who might have difficulty paying for it. (This is part of Google’s philanthropic google.org arm, after all.)
...I anticipate it’ll save me a few hundred dollars a year. His colleagues have already installed it — one of them discovered he was paying for all the washers and dryers in his building. When will I be able to get mine?"
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/05/05/awaiting-powermeter/
Thursday, April 23, 2009
More "Energy" Policy From the Republicans
TW: Boehner took a shot at an energy policy on Stephanopoulo's show and missed, here Newt Gingrich takes a swing in a Newsweek article. I will parse it as well:
From Gingrich in Newsweek:
"For the past 30 years, America has grown increasingly dependent upon foreign sources of energy, sending American dollars to countries that are hostile to American interests and leaving us vulnerable to wild fluctuations in energy prices.
Let's be clear: our energy crisis is not due to a lack of American energy resources. We have more coal than any other country in the world. There are 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas lying undeveloped offshore. Shale-oil reservoirs in parts of Colorado and Utah could hold upwards of 1 trillion barrels of oil—more than three times the proven reserves in Saudi Arabia. Nuclear power is a clean source of energy that produces zero carbon emissions. It generates 20 percent of America's electric power today, and with the right investment could generate far more.
TW: Newt's estimates are on the high side of even estimates I have ever seen. Regardless it is not like the oil is just lying there just below the surface waiting for limp-wristed Dems to let the Repubs tap some wells. The oil and gas is either mostly in deep water or in shale both of which would require oil somewhere north of $80/bbl to become economically recoverable (and that ignores the not inconsiderable environmental impacts). As for coal we have lots of it, I suggest you send in your applications to construct a coal fired plant near you. And nukes, he forgets the usual omissions, yes it does not emit carbon but the plants do create waste that no one wants and again no one wants those plants in their backyards either.
...And now, in 2009, instead of making energy cheaper—which would help create jobs and save Americans money—President Obama wants to impose a cap-and-trade regime. Such a plan would have the effect of an across-the-board energy tax on every American. That will make our artificial energy crisis even worse—and raising taxes during a deep economic recession will only accelerate American job losses.
The Obama administration's own budget director is on record predicting an increase of about $1,300 in the price of energy for the average American from this type of energy tax. "
TW: Okay so Newt does not like carbon related taxes, fine BUT then he must inherently believes climate change is a chimera and that little or no negative externalities exist related to fossil fuels (e.g. pollution, sending troops to secure oil, sending US$ to support the Putins, Chavez etc. of the world). Please refer back to the initial paragraph above from Newt. He actually does believe there are negative externalities but his solution is for us to pump harder domestically. It starts to get circular unless you actually believe that the U.S. can suddenly become oil self sufficient despite not having been able to do so for fifty years.
"What America needs is a rational energy policy that utilizes all our homegrown energy resources while protecting the environment. For instance, in addition to opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve and the shale-oil deposits in Colorado and Utah for drilling, we should change our federal law to give all states with offshore oil and gas the same share of federal royalties that other states get for land-based resources. Revenue generated from these royalties could help many cash-strapped states address their budget problems, in addition to funding alternative- and renewable-energy research. In addition, we should allow companies to write off 100 percent of their expenses in the first year if their refineries considerably expand America's oil-refining capacity.
TW: Perhaps my favorite paragraph. Newt wants to "protect the environment" but then proceeds to take every action possible to pressure the environment- open ANWR, scrape shale out of the western states, while providing some good old tax credits (can NEVER have too many of those for oil and gas producers).
The federal government should also develop a package of incentives to encourage clean-energy innovation. This should include a series of tax-free prizes to accelerate innovation in developing clean-coal technologies, as well as a $1 billion tax-free prize for the first hydrogen car that can be mass-produced at a reasonable price. We should make the wind- and solar-power tax credits permanent to provide long-term stability to these growing industries and develop long-distance transmission lines to move the massive amounts of wind power in the Great Plains to urban areas. We should also pass an open-fuel standard for 95 percent of the new cars sold in the United States, allowing the construction of flex-fuel vehicles (FFVs) that can run on a variety of fuels, including ethanol. Finally, America should implement a loser-pays rule for lawsuits against any energy company. This would guarantee that any lawsuit brought against an energy developer was not done solely to slow down the process through the courts.
TW: A billion smacker for the first person to develop a hydrogen car, don't you think if somebody figures out a hydrogen car the last freakin' thing they would care about is a billion smackers from Newt. Billions have been spent chasing that goal and billions more will regardless of any "prize". This is mere BS to sound "green". The loser pays rule is nice, it would put the kibosh on any future lawsuits against those little multi-national oil companies who might just litigate any future plaintiff to death knowing that if they should happen to lose the plaintiff out millions in legal costs. The day you want all plaintiff activity (which is to say all legal activity) ended is the day you should support loser pay rules.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/192480
From Gingrich in Newsweek:
"For the past 30 years, America has grown increasingly dependent upon foreign sources of energy, sending American dollars to countries that are hostile to American interests and leaving us vulnerable to wild fluctuations in energy prices.
Let's be clear: our energy crisis is not due to a lack of American energy resources. We have more coal than any other country in the world. There are 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas lying undeveloped offshore. Shale-oil reservoirs in parts of Colorado and Utah could hold upwards of 1 trillion barrels of oil—more than three times the proven reserves in Saudi Arabia. Nuclear power is a clean source of energy that produces zero carbon emissions. It generates 20 percent of America's electric power today, and with the right investment could generate far more.
TW: Newt's estimates are on the high side of even estimates I have ever seen. Regardless it is not like the oil is just lying there just below the surface waiting for limp-wristed Dems to let the Repubs tap some wells. The oil and gas is either mostly in deep water or in shale both of which would require oil somewhere north of $80/bbl to become economically recoverable (and that ignores the not inconsiderable environmental impacts). As for coal we have lots of it, I suggest you send in your applications to construct a coal fired plant near you. And nukes, he forgets the usual omissions, yes it does not emit carbon but the plants do create waste that no one wants and again no one wants those plants in their backyards either.
...And now, in 2009, instead of making energy cheaper—which would help create jobs and save Americans money—President Obama wants to impose a cap-and-trade regime. Such a plan would have the effect of an across-the-board energy tax on every American. That will make our artificial energy crisis even worse—and raising taxes during a deep economic recession will only accelerate American job losses.
The Obama administration's own budget director is on record predicting an increase of about $1,300 in the price of energy for the average American from this type of energy tax. "
TW: Okay so Newt does not like carbon related taxes, fine BUT then he must inherently believes climate change is a chimera and that little or no negative externalities exist related to fossil fuels (e.g. pollution, sending troops to secure oil, sending US$ to support the Putins, Chavez etc. of the world). Please refer back to the initial paragraph above from Newt. He actually does believe there are negative externalities but his solution is for us to pump harder domestically. It starts to get circular unless you actually believe that the U.S. can suddenly become oil self sufficient despite not having been able to do so for fifty years.
"What America needs is a rational energy policy that utilizes all our homegrown energy resources while protecting the environment. For instance, in addition to opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve and the shale-oil deposits in Colorado and Utah for drilling, we should change our federal law to give all states with offshore oil and gas the same share of federal royalties that other states get for land-based resources. Revenue generated from these royalties could help many cash-strapped states address their budget problems, in addition to funding alternative- and renewable-energy research. In addition, we should allow companies to write off 100 percent of their expenses in the first year if their refineries considerably expand America's oil-refining capacity.
TW: Perhaps my favorite paragraph. Newt wants to "protect the environment" but then proceeds to take every action possible to pressure the environment- open ANWR, scrape shale out of the western states, while providing some good old tax credits (can NEVER have too many of those for oil and gas producers).
The federal government should also develop a package of incentives to encourage clean-energy innovation. This should include a series of tax-free prizes to accelerate innovation in developing clean-coal technologies, as well as a $1 billion tax-free prize for the first hydrogen car that can be mass-produced at a reasonable price. We should make the wind- and solar-power tax credits permanent to provide long-term stability to these growing industries and develop long-distance transmission lines to move the massive amounts of wind power in the Great Plains to urban areas. We should also pass an open-fuel standard for 95 percent of the new cars sold in the United States, allowing the construction of flex-fuel vehicles (FFVs) that can run on a variety of fuels, including ethanol. Finally, America should implement a loser-pays rule for lawsuits against any energy company. This would guarantee that any lawsuit brought against an energy developer was not done solely to slow down the process through the courts.
TW: A billion smacker for the first person to develop a hydrogen car, don't you think if somebody figures out a hydrogen car the last freakin' thing they would care about is a billion smackers from Newt. Billions have been spent chasing that goal and billions more will regardless of any "prize". This is mere BS to sound "green". The loser pays rule is nice, it would put the kibosh on any future lawsuits against those little multi-national oil companies who might just litigate any future plaintiff to death knowing that if they should happen to lose the plaintiff out millions in legal costs. The day you want all plaintiff activity (which is to say all legal activity) ended is the day you should support loser pay rules.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/192480
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Alternative Energy: Not So Fast
TW: The more I read and hear about the viability of alternative energies the less confident I am in them. Correspondingly I am very much convinced the skyrocketing prices for current favored energy sources (i.e. oil, nat gas, coal) we saw in 2006-2008 will return with a vengeance when demand resumes (and if it does not then well that is a much different and worse problem).
When one peels the onion on the various alternatives they typically do not stack up well technically. Overlay the technical issues with the entrenched interests in fossil fuels and the equation becomes exceedingly tricky. And understand while I believe global warming is real, I believe scarcity of resources will trump warming to the extent that preventing economic trauma will be the focus rather than reducing carbon emissions. My concern is not carbon as much as it is having fossil fuels with economically and politically viable means.
The piece below looks at the issue from the perspective of carbon reduction but the issues raised are relevant in terms of finding economically viable alternatives to what will become very expensive fossil fuels.
From Begley at Newsweek:
"...As the world gets closer to a consensus that we need to slash CO2 emissions, a debate is raging over whether we can achieve the required cuts by scaling up existing technologies or whether we need "transformational" scientific breakthroughs.
...the Department of Energy...concluded that we need breakthroughs in physics and chemistry that are "beyond our present reach" to, for instance, triple the efficiency of solar panels; DOE secretary Steven Chu has said we need Nobel caliber breakthroughs.
That is also the view of energy chemist Nate Lewis of the California Institute of Technology. "It's not true that all the technologies are available and we just need the political will to deploy them," he says. "My concern, and that of most scientists working on energy, is that we are not anywhere close to where we need to be. We are too focused on cutting emissions 20 percent by 2020—but you can always shave 20 percent off" through, say, efficiency and conservation. By focusing on easy, near-term cuts, we may miss the boat on what's needed by 2050, when CO2 emissions will have to be 80 percent below today's to keep atmospheric levels no higher than 450 parts per million.
...Lewis's numbers show the enormous challenge we face. The world used 14 trillion watts (14 terawatts) of power in 2006. Assuming minimal population growth (to 9 billion people), slow economic growth (1.6 percent a year, practically recession level) and—this is key—unprecedented energy efficiency (improvements of 500 percent relative to current U.S. levels, worldwide), it will use 28 terawatts in 2050. (In a business-as-usual scenario, we would need 45 terawatts.)
Simple physics shows that in order to keep CO2 to 450 ppm, 26.5 of those terawatts must be zero-carbon. That's a lot of solar, wind, hydro, biofuels and nuclear, especially since renewables kicked in a measly 0.2 terawatts in 2006 and nuclear provided 0.9 terawatts. Are you a fan of nuclear? To get 10 terawatts, less than half of what we'll need in 2050, Lewis calculates, we'd have to build 10,000 reactors, or one every other day starting now. Do you like wind? If you use every single breeze that blows on land, you'll get 10 or 15 terawatts. Since it's impossible to capture all the wind, a more realistic number is 3 terawatts, or 1 million state-of-the art turbines, and even that requires storing the energy—something we don't know how to do—for when the wind doesn't blow. Solar? To get 10 terawatts by 2050, Lewis calculates, we'd need to cover 1 million roofs with panels every day from now until then. "It would take an army," he says. Obama promised green jobs, but still.
Hence the need for Nobel-caliber discoveries. Lewis's research is on artificial photosynthesis, in which a material (to be determined, thus the research) absorbs sunlight and water and produces hydrogen for fuel but zero CO2. "If we could figure out how to make and deploy such a system, the capacity would be essentially infinite," he says. Another need is for transmission lines that don't leak 80 percent of what they carry, says physicist David Pines of the University of California, Davis. "The technology is not remotely there," he says. "We're going to have to discover yet another family of superconductors [which do not lose current] that are easily made into wires" and that work at the temperature of liquid nitrogen, a coolant.
Prospects stink for discovering what we need to discover, especially when you consider that to get the right energy mix in 2050, given how long it takes to capitalize and deploy new technologies, we need breakthroughs soon, not in 2049. Yet despite the pressing need, DOE spent a pitiful $2 billion to $3 billion on nondefense, basic energy R&D last year, less than one fifth what we spent in the 1970s and 1980s. A new report from the Brookings Institution calls for $20 billion to $30 billion a year and—to improve the odds of success—revamping the nation's energy labs, which today are "too far removed from the marketplace to produce the kind of transformational research we need for new energy technologies," says Brookings's Mark Muro. The clock is ticking."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/189293
When one peels the onion on the various alternatives they typically do not stack up well technically. Overlay the technical issues with the entrenched interests in fossil fuels and the equation becomes exceedingly tricky. And understand while I believe global warming is real, I believe scarcity of resources will trump warming to the extent that preventing economic trauma will be the focus rather than reducing carbon emissions. My concern is not carbon as much as it is having fossil fuels with economically and politically viable means.
The piece below looks at the issue from the perspective of carbon reduction but the issues raised are relevant in terms of finding economically viable alternatives to what will become very expensive fossil fuels.
From Begley at Newsweek:
"...As the world gets closer to a consensus that we need to slash CO2 emissions, a debate is raging over whether we can achieve the required cuts by scaling up existing technologies or whether we need "transformational" scientific breakthroughs.
...the Department of Energy...concluded that we need breakthroughs in physics and chemistry that are "beyond our present reach" to, for instance, triple the efficiency of solar panels; DOE secretary Steven Chu has said we need Nobel caliber breakthroughs.
That is also the view of energy chemist Nate Lewis of the California Institute of Technology. "It's not true that all the technologies are available and we just need the political will to deploy them," he says. "My concern, and that of most scientists working on energy, is that we are not anywhere close to where we need to be. We are too focused on cutting emissions 20 percent by 2020—but you can always shave 20 percent off" through, say, efficiency and conservation. By focusing on easy, near-term cuts, we may miss the boat on what's needed by 2050, when CO2 emissions will have to be 80 percent below today's to keep atmospheric levels no higher than 450 parts per million.
...Lewis's numbers show the enormous challenge we face. The world used 14 trillion watts (14 terawatts) of power in 2006. Assuming minimal population growth (to 9 billion people), slow economic growth (1.6 percent a year, practically recession level) and—this is key—unprecedented energy efficiency (improvements of 500 percent relative to current U.S. levels, worldwide), it will use 28 terawatts in 2050. (In a business-as-usual scenario, we would need 45 terawatts.)
Simple physics shows that in order to keep CO2 to 450 ppm, 26.5 of those terawatts must be zero-carbon. That's a lot of solar, wind, hydro, biofuels and nuclear, especially since renewables kicked in a measly 0.2 terawatts in 2006 and nuclear provided 0.9 terawatts. Are you a fan of nuclear? To get 10 terawatts, less than half of what we'll need in 2050, Lewis calculates, we'd have to build 10,000 reactors, or one every other day starting now. Do you like wind? If you use every single breeze that blows on land, you'll get 10 or 15 terawatts. Since it's impossible to capture all the wind, a more realistic number is 3 terawatts, or 1 million state-of-the art turbines, and even that requires storing the energy—something we don't know how to do—for when the wind doesn't blow. Solar? To get 10 terawatts by 2050, Lewis calculates, we'd need to cover 1 million roofs with panels every day from now until then. "It would take an army," he says. Obama promised green jobs, but still.
Hence the need for Nobel-caliber discoveries. Lewis's research is on artificial photosynthesis, in which a material (to be determined, thus the research) absorbs sunlight and water and produces hydrogen for fuel but zero CO2. "If we could figure out how to make and deploy such a system, the capacity would be essentially infinite," he says. Another need is for transmission lines that don't leak 80 percent of what they carry, says physicist David Pines of the University of California, Davis. "The technology is not remotely there," he says. "We're going to have to discover yet another family of superconductors [which do not lose current] that are easily made into wires" and that work at the temperature of liquid nitrogen, a coolant.
Prospects stink for discovering what we need to discover, especially when you consider that to get the right energy mix in 2050, given how long it takes to capitalize and deploy new technologies, we need breakthroughs soon, not in 2049. Yet despite the pressing need, DOE spent a pitiful $2 billion to $3 billion on nondefense, basic energy R&D last year, less than one fifth what we spent in the 1970s and 1980s. A new report from the Brookings Institution calls for $20 billion to $30 billion a year and—to improve the odds of success—revamping the nation's energy labs, which today are "too far removed from the marketplace to produce the kind of transformational research we need for new energy technologies," says Brookings's Mark Muro. The clock is ticking."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/189293
Friday, February 13, 2009
Energy Crunch Will Not Just Disappear
TW: We saw energy prices go up nearly parabolically in 2005-2007 and then collapse. The collapse was not due to profound new supplies or alternatives but related to the global contraction which has created historic drops in demand. Most of those supply expansion projects (for fossil fuels and alternative fuels) put into motion during the 0'05-'08 period are coming to an abrupt halt.
This applies to the refining capacity addressed below as well as exploration and production throughout the world. When and if demand resumes its growth, prices should rock and roll up. The free market at work, rather messy I would say, there are things like energy taxes which could smooth things out but that would be socialist...better that we panic into a drill, drill, drill mode later.
From Robert Rapier's blog:
"...the conditions are setting up for a gasoline supply crunch - and the price rise that goes along with that. As I pointed out, refiners are cut back, but they can turn that around pretty quickly. The low utilization numbers could lead to a short-term supply crunch, but as prices recover refiners can bring capacity up quickly.What they can't do quickly is implement new capacity additions. Due to the collapse in oil and gas prices, projects are being delayed, both in upstream oil production and in downstream refining. This is setting up for another run on prices as demand begins to recover.
...This isn't something that will play out short term, but if your strategy for investing is more long term...these project postponements will come home to roost in the next 2-3 years"
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2009/02/impending-gasoline-supply-crunch.html
This applies to the refining capacity addressed below as well as exploration and production throughout the world. When and if demand resumes its growth, prices should rock and roll up. The free market at work, rather messy I would say, there are things like energy taxes which could smooth things out but that would be socialist...better that we panic into a drill, drill, drill mode later.
From Robert Rapier's blog:
"...the conditions are setting up for a gasoline supply crunch - and the price rise that goes along with that. As I pointed out, refiners are cut back, but they can turn that around pretty quickly. The low utilization numbers could lead to a short-term supply crunch, but as prices recover refiners can bring capacity up quickly.What they can't do quickly is implement new capacity additions. Due to the collapse in oil and gas prices, projects are being delayed, both in upstream oil production and in downstream refining. This is setting up for another run on prices as demand begins to recover.
...This isn't something that will play out short term, but if your strategy for investing is more long term...these project postponements will come home to roost in the next 2-3 years"
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2009/02/impending-gasoline-supply-crunch.html
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Big Oil Buys Big Alternative Energy
TW: Classic behavior for better or worse. The legacy firms of any industry have the existing infrastructure, steady and large cash flows and balance sheets that start-up firms do not. If the start-ups are not able to shatter a business model (e.g. Microsoft, Apple etc.) the legacy will eventually get them. This process has been repeated over and over with the oil and car industries.
From Robert Rapier's blog:
"Some people think that the oil industry is hostile toward the ethanol industry because they consider them a real threat. But I always point out that the oil industry dwarfs the ethanol industry by such a large amount that it could easily buy up all the available assets of the ethanol industry - if they thought there was a good business opportunity. My speculation has turned into reality as an announcement was just released that major oil refiner Valero is buying up the assets of bankrupt ethanol producer VeraSun:
VeraSun Energy to sell assets to Valero Energy
Ethanol producer VeraSun Energy Corp. said Friday it is selling assets to Valero Energy Corp. for $280 million amid difficult industry conditions and tight credit markets. The assets include certain VeraSun production facilities in South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, and Indiana. The company will sell all production facilities and operations in separate or combined transactions."Given current difficult industry conditions and continued constrained credit markets, we believe that commencing a sale process is in the best interest of Company stakeholders," said Don Endres, VeraSun's chief executive.
For a pure refiner like Valero, this seems to be a decent fit with their business model. They buy oil and turn it into gasoline. Now they will buy corn and turn it into ethanol which will then be blended into gasoline. Their risk of course is that we see a return to the high commodity prices of last summer, which is what put ethanol producers into such dire straits in the first place.I don't expect that this is the last we will see of this. Despite the recent write-downs of assets, the oil industry will continue to generate cash (just not as much). They may be the only viable option for some of these distressed ethanol producers. And I know for a fact that there are companies that are keeping a close eye on some of the other troubled ethanol producers."
From Robert Rapier's blog:
"Some people think that the oil industry is hostile toward the ethanol industry because they consider them a real threat. But I always point out that the oil industry dwarfs the ethanol industry by such a large amount that it could easily buy up all the available assets of the ethanol industry - if they thought there was a good business opportunity. My speculation has turned into reality as an announcement was just released that major oil refiner Valero is buying up the assets of bankrupt ethanol producer VeraSun:
VeraSun Energy to sell assets to Valero Energy
Ethanol producer VeraSun Energy Corp. said Friday it is selling assets to Valero Energy Corp. for $280 million amid difficult industry conditions and tight credit markets. The assets include certain VeraSun production facilities in South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, and Indiana. The company will sell all production facilities and operations in separate or combined transactions."Given current difficult industry conditions and continued constrained credit markets, we believe that commencing a sale process is in the best interest of Company stakeholders," said Don Endres, VeraSun's chief executive.
For a pure refiner like Valero, this seems to be a decent fit with their business model. They buy oil and turn it into gasoline. Now they will buy corn and turn it into ethanol which will then be blended into gasoline. Their risk of course is that we see a return to the high commodity prices of last summer, which is what put ethanol producers into such dire straits in the first place.I don't expect that this is the last we will see of this. Despite the recent write-downs of assets, the oil industry will continue to generate cash (just not as much). They may be the only viable option for some of these distressed ethanol producers. And I know for a fact that there are companies that are keeping a close eye on some of the other troubled ethanol producers."
Sunday, January 25, 2009
It Is the Power Grid, Not Only the Power Generation
TW: Everything I read about alternative energy ends up circling back to the power grid to actually deliver that alternative energy. When we discuss stimulus spending, power grid upgrades are probably some of the most relevant and needed components of national spending. Especially as it is the sort of investment with chicken and the egg and regulatory aspects which need governmental prodding in order to accelerate. Not to mention vested interests probably trying to keep the infrastructure status quo in order to slow down alternatives.
From Newsweek:
"A clean-energy economy will require lots of new hardware—sleeker wind turbines, more efficient solar panels, recharging stations for electric vehicles. It'll also require smarter software, to efficiently guide energy to where it's most needed. Always ambitious, Google hopes to be the architect of this software.
...The electric grid is in many ways the backbone of our economy. Beginning in Thomas Edison's time, we've built a massive system to both generate and move electricity around the country, from nuclear-power plants and coal-fired generating facilities, across a huge infrastructure of wires and into people's homes. However ... in many ways [the grid] isn't up to the task that we're asking it to take on in the next couple of decades … If we're really going to take advantage of renewable energy, we have to build substantially more transmission capacity to move wind-generated electricity from the Dakotas to Chicago or solar-generated power from the Southwest to L.A.
...We've also got to build a more intelligent grid. Electricity generally flows in one direction, from where it's generated to where it's used, but increasingly we want to be able to send electricity in multiple directions. For example, if we have a fleet of millions of plug-in vehicles, we've got to have a grid that not only knows how to fill up the batteries with electricity, but one where the same vehicles can send electricity back to the grid when it needs it. They can serve as a large storage capacity for the grid.
...we need what are called smart meters. These are meters that record real-time information and can send it over the Internet to utilities, and then get it directly to consumers. You wouldn't expect to go into a grocery store and do your shopping and not know what the prices for anything were and only get a bill at the end of the month. We need to get to a point where people have a lot more sense about what we're paying for energy at any given point, and more choice about where it comes from and how green it is."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/169165
From Newsweek:
"A clean-energy economy will require lots of new hardware—sleeker wind turbines, more efficient solar panels, recharging stations for electric vehicles. It'll also require smarter software, to efficiently guide energy to where it's most needed. Always ambitious, Google hopes to be the architect of this software.
...The electric grid is in many ways the backbone of our economy. Beginning in Thomas Edison's time, we've built a massive system to both generate and move electricity around the country, from nuclear-power plants and coal-fired generating facilities, across a huge infrastructure of wires and into people's homes. However ... in many ways [the grid] isn't up to the task that we're asking it to take on in the next couple of decades … If we're really going to take advantage of renewable energy, we have to build substantially more transmission capacity to move wind-generated electricity from the Dakotas to Chicago or solar-generated power from the Southwest to L.A.
...We've also got to build a more intelligent grid. Electricity generally flows in one direction, from where it's generated to where it's used, but increasingly we want to be able to send electricity in multiple directions. For example, if we have a fleet of millions of plug-in vehicles, we've got to have a grid that not only knows how to fill up the batteries with electricity, but one where the same vehicles can send electricity back to the grid when it needs it. They can serve as a large storage capacity for the grid.
...we need what are called smart meters. These are meters that record real-time information and can send it over the Internet to utilities, and then get it directly to consumers. You wouldn't expect to go into a grocery store and do your shopping and not know what the prices for anything were and only get a bill at the end of the month. We need to get to a point where people have a lot more sense about what we're paying for energy at any given point, and more choice about where it comes from and how green it is."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/169165
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Electric Cars With Shai Agassi
TW: Agassi has been receiving a fair amount of publicity with his plan to create an integrated network of battery powered vehicles. His plan's core vision is to create a ubiquitous network of battery delivery points whereby users could rapidly swap out batteries whilst traveling at sites similar to gas stations. Users would not own the batteries merely a contract to use the generic batteries obtainable at the stations. With ranges of roughly 200 miles, the concept would seemingly work well amidst metro areas and/or interstate networks.
There is a chicken and egg issue as without the network users will struggle to have convenient access to batteries, without users the network will be difficult to fund. He has test networks going up, we shall see.
From Newsweek:
"...he plans to jump-start the fledgling electric-auto industry by building an entire infrastructure—cars, recharge stations and more—from scratch. Governments in Israel, Denmark, northern California and elsewhere have signed on.
...the infrastructure is a combination of a massive amount of charge spots and the ability to switch batteries in less time than it takes you to fill up with gasoline.
...Our model is not predicated on government subsidies. What governments can do is they can accelerate adoption
...The cost of the battery [averaged out over its lifetime] roughly translates to about four to six cents per mile. The cost of clean electricity translates to about one to two cents per mile. So [our costs are] somewhere between six and eight cents per mile. If you look at the average miles per gallon a car gets in the U.S., [those costs are in line with oil at] $25 a barrel.
...If you look at the North American continent, you actually have about 50 urban centers, which are, on the East Coast, so dense that at least half of them overlap another center. If you look at California, the California area is actually covered with four of these dense circles. Imagine a hundred-mile circle around San Francisco, and another hundred-mile circle around Sacramento, and again the same thing in Los Angeles and San Diego. In between those you have three freeways connecting [northern and southern California]. On these freeways, if you put switch stations at a distance of about 30 miles from one another, you would have full coverage across the entire state"
http://www.newsweek.com/id/178851
There is a chicken and egg issue as without the network users will struggle to have convenient access to batteries, without users the network will be difficult to fund. He has test networks going up, we shall see.
From Newsweek:
"...he plans to jump-start the fledgling electric-auto industry by building an entire infrastructure—cars, recharge stations and more—from scratch. Governments in Israel, Denmark, northern California and elsewhere have signed on.
...the infrastructure is a combination of a massive amount of charge spots and the ability to switch batteries in less time than it takes you to fill up with gasoline.
...Our model is not predicated on government subsidies. What governments can do is they can accelerate adoption
...The cost of the battery [averaged out over its lifetime] roughly translates to about four to six cents per mile. The cost of clean electricity translates to about one to two cents per mile. So [our costs are] somewhere between six and eight cents per mile. If you look at the average miles per gallon a car gets in the U.S., [those costs are in line with oil at] $25 a barrel.
...If you look at the North American continent, you actually have about 50 urban centers, which are, on the East Coast, so dense that at least half of them overlap another center. If you look at California, the California area is actually covered with four of these dense circles. Imagine a hundred-mile circle around San Francisco, and another hundred-mile circle around Sacramento, and again the same thing in Los Angeles and San Diego. In between those you have three freeways connecting [northern and southern California]. On these freeways, if you put switch stations at a distance of about 30 miles from one another, you would have full coverage across the entire state"
http://www.newsweek.com/id/178851
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