Sorry, Andrew, but if that were true, why on earth would PG&E be spending millions and millions of dollars on batteries? And why would California be suffering brownouts and blackouts?
Here's perplexity on the subject … in total and complete contradiction to your false claims, utilities worldwide are adding peaker plants.
w.
===
Several utilities in the United States have added fossil fuel backup to renewable electricity systems to address high energy demand and grid reliability concerns. Here are some examples:
1. **Georgia Power**: The utility has proposed adding three new fossil fuel turbines powered by oil and natural gas to meet rising electricity demand. While their plan includes solar power with battery storage, it relies heavily on fossil fuels for peak demand periods, citing reliability concerns[1].
2. **California**: Despite being a leader in renewable energy adoption, California has kept gas plants operational and delayed the shutdown of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant due to grid instability and blackouts caused by the intermittency of renewables. Wealthier residents and businesses have also resorted to diesel generators as backups[4].
3. **General Trend Across Utilities**: Many utilities across the U.S. are turning to "peaker plants," which are fossil fuel plants designed to operate during peak demand hours. These plants provide quick, dispatchable power when renewable energy sources like wind and solar are insufficient due to weather or time of day[1][8].
While alternatives like large-scale batteries, virtual power plants, and demand response programs exist, many utilities continue to rely on fossil fuels for their perceived reliability and ease of use during peak demand periods[1][6][8].
Shhh, don’t tell anyone, but since 2005, the Texas Electric Power Industry has increased their annual generation from 397 million MWh to 547 million MWh while reducing their CO2 emissions from 261 million metric tons to 213 million metric tons, i.e., their carbon intensity went from 659 kg/MWh to 389 kg/MWh, a 41% reduction. Ref. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/ .
Oh, and BTW, before anyone tries to caveat that by saying that is because natural gas displaced coal, just note that Texas has added 144 million MWh of wind and solar vs 84 million MWh of natural gas from 2005 to 2023. OTOH, seeing as how they shutdown 76 million MWh of coal, I guess you might say they traded gas for coal. In which case, all the new generation they added was basically renewable.
I think that tells you that Texas is very good location for wind and solar. It would be a mistake to think that those results would be reproducible everywhere else.
I would argue that your example does not show that renewables do not need backup. It shows that if you already have enough fossil fuel sources to cover any demand, you can add wind/solar at low cost. That’s not the same thing. If you want to increase the capacity of your system, then any wind/solar you add MUST have backup. That might be importing, or it might be batteries, but it has to be something.
There is a meme running throughout these comments that energy systems with high penetrations of solar and wind are almost fundamentally impossible, as if they are going to violate some fundamental law of physics. As evidence contrary to that I offer the example of South Australia, that has gone from 100% fossil fuels in 2007 to a system that is utilizes 70 - 80% W&S today. Their goal is to get to 100% by 2027. Here is a website that monitors their real time energy production, https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=7d&interval=30m&view=discrete-time&group=Detailed . I encourage you to check it out. They are doing this without any nuclear or other firm dispatchable sources, like hydro, geothermal, hydrogen or natural gas with CCS.
“What about when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow?” is such a dumbass questions that you didn’t answer it.
Wind and solar are cheap, expensive energy. Nuclear power is expensive, cheap energy.
I love solar power as part of a diverse energy mix. However, no amount of computer manipulation by ex-scientists such as Marc Jacobson can make grids with over 1/3 variable renewables work in a cost-effective and reliable way. Show me one…
Solar panels are cheap to bolt together but expensive to integrate into a grid.
As the penetration increases so do the costs. The Lazard LCOE for California solar in 2023 is almost as expensive as nuclear.
US plants are providing power right now for $30 per MWH.
New York State just contracted offshore wind at $150 per MWH after decommissioning its last nuclear plant.
Texas is handling a large solar buildout because they have an abundance of gas and coal.
If those reliable firm sources are forced off the grid, as you celebrate, there is no existing technology to fill the void.
I will await your solution which has eluded very smart scientists so far…
The answer is apparent in your identification of the natural gas price as determining the cost of electricity in Texas. This is because the "costly" generation is being pushed out. But those "costly" generators are costly because they cannot swing up and down in response to the varying renewables. They are the cheapest when they run 24/7 but they buckle when they have to stay idle for hours and come back for a short while but go back to idling again.
I hate to be one of those who comments on someone else's post with a link to his own but in July 2024 ( https://halimgur.substack.com/p/nuclear-power-no-fix-for-our-broken ) I tried to explain how difficult problem. Then I was trying to assess the feasibility of the Australian opposition proposal to build seven large nuclear power generators to reduce the electricity prices. My assessment was negative.
In a nutshell, the culprit for higher prices is the confluence of the Tatcherite grid deregulation that took over most of the Western countries in 1990s and the phenomenal reduction in the cost of solar and wind but especially solar. When electricity prices are set by auction, the renewable power generators with zero marginal costs always triumph over the fuel-burning generators.
Unfortunately, at the moment, we are relying on fossil-fired generation to produce electricity when solar and/or wind are not available because long-term storage is expensive. This is a devilish dilemma. Admittedly, the dilemma will disappear when we develop cheap storage, be it mechanical (like compressed air or hydro), or chemical (like hydrogen) or electrochemical (like batteries). But until then, we need to be able to optimise our generation offers to minimise the cost of electricity. Such optimisation is not possible in a market-driven system.
I respect your credentials as a climate scientist.
This article is truly appalling in its false condescension and indifference to facts. The first graph shows the exact opposite to the claim, with growth in renewable share since 2019 matching a massive price spike. It mentions nothing about the real problem that long periods of still cloudy weather create a need for expensive backup using fossil fuels, and that this is part of the real consumer pricing for renewable energy.
Nice writeup - I'll take your explanation of Texas as the whole truth.
But, by focusing on retail prices without acknowledging the role of subsidies in making solar and wind viable, you give the false impression that wind and solar provide less expensive electricity than fossil fuel plants. Texans pay for part of their electricity through state and federal taxes.
But your basic claim that today's renewables don't need backup is wrong. California and Germany (among others) generate enough energy from wind and solar to cover enough of their needs for some hours to cause wholesale electricity prices to go negative. Obviously, this doesn't continue long enough to claim an "all renewable" energy system, but any reasonable reading would say that these renewables need reliable backup.
In California's case, the need for backup is not fully met. California relies on other states for its backup. When the temperature is very high, demand for air conditioning in Arizona and Oregon means those states don't have enough surplus capacity to cover California's need, so California experiences rolling blackouts. California definitely needs backup generation, but has refused to allow it to be built.
Great article, but you're still using fossil fuels. My question is, how do renewables completely replace fossil fuels, and what's the cost of that compared to using FF supplements or peakers, for example?
I appreciate your drive. But the only “clean” power is nuclear. Wind/solar…requires so much metals/minerals that we do not have sufficient supply or mines.
So far after say 15years (give or take) of massive expansion of W&S in many places(trilions of money units)- there is no country which got rid of coal and gas with it. While France got rid of coal/Oil/gas from electricity (almost as good as possible) already 40years ago and for good (no large batteries, no large hydro-storage, affordable power with good "old and boring" PWRs). Not a paper exercise, not wishful thinking but real environmental championship(with plenty of benefits for citizens of France).
Solutions might include immense storage (by our current standards, though it would just be normal storage if we had started out that way), more non-intermittent supply (geothermal? could be), very big interconnection (a super-grid), or supposedly, carbon capture, which seems like the least good plan for many reasons. The UK is one of the most limited regions so it's good to see their plans laid out:
The U.K.’a plan are untenable. The simple fact is that they’d face blackouts without imports.
Even though they’ve added over 24GW of VRE over hundreds of miles in the last 7 years, their MINIMUM generation changed not a whit.
During Dunkelflaute they can go a week with almost zero VRE generation. If Norway decides to not export power they’re sunk.
They have placed themselves in a horrible position. Even though their emissions are so low as to never be able to influence climate, they have the highest power costs in the region, have rapidly deindustrialized…and are dependent on thtt et if neighbors to keep their lights on.
I agree with what you propose, including that CCS is a false solution. Are you aware of any modeling that’s been done of an entire FF free power generation system using available options such as battery storage, enhanced geothermal, etc. ?
A critique that has been made of that - the hydro storage is unrealistic.
My own critique of the NY State part of Jacobson's plan - an enormous number of wind turbines and no recognition that you need wind turbine installation ships. In this post if you scroll down to 'Resources to grasp the scale necessary' --
Dr. Chris Clack and Vibrant CE did a plan for New York State, for the group Vote Solar, emphasizing solar, with long duration storage (undefined but likely at this point to be hydrogen) and some nuclear.
Tom Murphy's energy textbook, from his energy class at UCSD, is pretty good and doesn't require the reader to agree with his personal position (which is more about renunciation at this point).
But Net Zero America relies on assumed large-scale carbon capture and sequestration, a technology that the NZA report acknowledges does not yet exist, and the cost can therfor not be estimated.
Thanks for writing these. A caveat is that saying intermittency is flat earth thinking is that once you try to actually remove fossil fuels, it's not flat earth thinking. For the 100% RE plan this is a good report to work backwards from:
Note the 570 TWh/year projected supply, for a population in the UK of approximately 70 million, which is less than 1000 watts per capita.
I guess the unlikeliness of the UK reducing demand by that amount is why almost all the other published plans for the UK continue to burn fossil fuels, and balance that out with imaginary carbon capture of some sort.
Texas is way better situated! And interconnections help both systems.
But my main point is: we have to end fossil fuels *anyway.*
Saying it's easy isn't necessarily the full story, but that doesn't matter. We have to stop emitting carbon. We have to stop burning things. There is no "we keep burning things" option, because climate destabilization will stop the economy anyway if we keep burning things.
Yes, the situation for 100% climate-safe energy is different than right now. My point was mainly that, in today's world, renewables are saving us money.
I'd say this wasn't that clear in this post and it sounded a bit more out of tone than I think you wanted to. For example, I'd say I'm one of those that says that just renewable is not that easy and you need backups either with batteries or with energy production systems you can turn on and off as you want. But in the other hand I understand that ofc we are not yet at that point in most places and that until then more renewable is win-win.
I'd say in this post is a bit like if you are put in the same bag people like me and flat earthers or anti renewable people, which I'd say is not the best way of promoting renewables.
Either way nice post, just saying that it could be better
I think the best way to commit this to paper is to say that no matter how much VRE might be brought online at a utility, thermal generation of some ilk is still required.
My best example is the U.K., a country, mind you, emitting less than 1% of global human CO2 contributions.
After two decades and £bazillions, they still cannot retire a single MW of firm capacity and are literally dependent upon their neighbors to keep their lights on.
Now, in the last seven years they've added an impressive 24GW of VRE - and over hundreds of miles.
But despite these additions (I believe they have ~33GW VRE total) their MINIMUM generation changed not one whit.
Since VRE capacity factor sometimes nears zero for extended periods during Dunkelflaute conditions, it matters not how much VRE they add.
And storage is not the answer; even for a tiny country such as Britain, week+ storage is multi-GDP level moneywise.
Did I mention that they have the highest cost power in Europe due to all this “cheap” wind & solar?
Now, the U.K. from inside their asylum like to claim they’re providing an example to the world. And they are; but the exact opposite of intention.
They’ve demonstrated that even a tiny country can’t achieve NetZero after decades and trillions spent.
How the hell could a larger version find success?
One final thing: the U.K. and Germany, having purposely diminished their own firm capacity to the CO2 Gods, only keep their lights on due to importing power from Norway.
But Norway is tiring of their own power costs skyrocketing due to bailing out the others.
They may soon limit exports. If that occurs…it will all be VERY interesting.
While Germany I believe has the ability to reopen their purposely shuttered zero-carbon nuclear power plants, the U.K. literally blew up some of their firm capacity to prevent its use ever again.
Maybe this works some places but not in New Zealand. Here the electricity has been fragmented and privatized. 85% is renewable, mostly hydro and in fact that should act a a strong battery: save water behind a dam. But it is controlled by just a few companies and many can not deal with intermittency at all. They discourage solar. There is no net metering. Instead a company pays $0.08 per KWh and sells it back at $0.30 or more.
A system that has built in batteries: the best are pumped hydro: about 85% efficient and last 80 years or regular hydro is desirable. Regular batteries can help and may be more efficient in short term but do not last
The other option is to use the excess power for other purposes such as generating hydrogen, but that is very inefficient
I didn’t initially consider that, during a transition phase, our fossil fuel infrastructure could serve as a backup system—thank you for this great and informative post. However, I am concerned about the notion that the green transition must be economically beneficial to be considered. I believe climate change will make it nearly impossible to sustain our current level of economic activity, leading to economic contraction. If the transition must make economic sense, it will be more a question of losing less money rather than making a profit.
I agree with other commenters that without battery storage you will always need gas plants for backup. I tried to follow your logic but it left me flat.
The article is about the 202x Texas grid, which has a particular mix of fossil and renewable sources. PG&E is in a different market, which has a different mix of energy sources. That there is the opportunity for energy storage to make a contribution to the California grid doesn't challenge this analysis of today's Texan grid.
Sorry, Andrew, but if that were true, why on earth would PG&E be spending millions and millions of dollars on batteries? And why would California be suffering brownouts and blackouts?
Here's perplexity on the subject … in total and complete contradiction to your false claims, utilities worldwide are adding peaker plants.
w.
===
Several utilities in the United States have added fossil fuel backup to renewable electricity systems to address high energy demand and grid reliability concerns. Here are some examples:
1. **Georgia Power**: The utility has proposed adding three new fossil fuel turbines powered by oil and natural gas to meet rising electricity demand. While their plan includes solar power with battery storage, it relies heavily on fossil fuels for peak demand periods, citing reliability concerns[1].
2. **California**: Despite being a leader in renewable energy adoption, California has kept gas plants operational and delayed the shutdown of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant due to grid instability and blackouts caused by the intermittency of renewables. Wealthier residents and businesses have also resorted to diesel generators as backups[4].
3. **General Trend Across Utilities**: Many utilities across the U.S. are turning to "peaker plants," which are fossil fuel plants designed to operate during peak demand hours. These plants provide quick, dispatchable power when renewable energy sources like wind and solar are insufficient due to weather or time of day[1][8].
While alternatives like large-scale batteries, virtual power plants, and demand response programs exist, many utilities continue to rely on fossil fuels for their perceived reliability and ease of use during peak demand periods[1][6][8].
Citations:
[1] https://grist.org/energy/high-power-demand-utilities-see-fossil-fuels-solution/
[2] https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/as-fossil-fuel-pipelines-fall-to-opposition-can-clean-energy-replace-them
[3] https://www.wri.org/insights/setting-record-straight-about-renewable-energy
[4] https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/why-renewables-cannot-replace-fossil-fuels/
[5] https://www.pnnl.gov/explainer-articles/renewable-integration
[6] https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/interactive/2024/flow-batteries-renewable-energy-storage/
[7] https://www.iwf.org/2021/11/08/renewable-energy-needs-fossil-fuel-as-a-backup/
[8] https://theconversation.com/utilities-rely-on-dirty-peaker-plants-when-power-demand-surges-but-there-are-alternatives-231232
---
Answer from Perplexity: pplx.ai/share
Shhh, don’t tell anyone, but since 2005, the Texas Electric Power Industry has increased their annual generation from 397 million MWh to 547 million MWh while reducing their CO2 emissions from 261 million metric tons to 213 million metric tons, i.e., their carbon intensity went from 659 kg/MWh to 389 kg/MWh, a 41% reduction. Ref. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/ .
Oh, and BTW, before anyone tries to caveat that by saying that is because natural gas displaced coal, just note that Texas has added 144 million MWh of wind and solar vs 84 million MWh of natural gas from 2005 to 2023. OTOH, seeing as how they shutdown 76 million MWh of coal, I guess you might say they traded gas for coal. In which case, all the new generation they added was basically renewable.
I think that tells you that Texas is very good location for wind and solar. It would be a mistake to think that those results would be reproducible everywhere else.
So you send it where they need it, https://patternenergy.com/projects/sunzia/ .
Sure, if you have the grid connections. As I understand it, TX is almost stand-alone.
I would argue that your example does not show that renewables do not need backup. It shows that if you already have enough fossil fuel sources to cover any demand, you can add wind/solar at low cost. That’s not the same thing. If you want to increase the capacity of your system, then any wind/solar you add MUST have backup. That might be importing, or it might be batteries, but it has to be something.
Thanks, Professor. A couple observations.
1. Batteries are a perfect fit to shave off the late afternoon to early evening peak.
2. The original load curve is amazingly smooth and relatively flat, i.e., Max load / Min load ~ 1. 45. Compare this to an our main utility in NM, PNM. Their Max to Min is more like 1.8. See page 15 for July 26, 2023. https://www.pnm.com/documents/28767612/40780649/PNM+Energy+Efficiency+Program+2023+Annual+Report.pdf/fb1f264f-d972-e754-5fbb-fb4da32478b7?t=1713544667094
There is a meme running throughout these comments that energy systems with high penetrations of solar and wind are almost fundamentally impossible, as if they are going to violate some fundamental law of physics. As evidence contrary to that I offer the example of South Australia, that has gone from 100% fossil fuels in 2007 to a system that is utilizes 70 - 80% W&S today. Their goal is to get to 100% by 2027. Here is a website that monitors their real time energy production, https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=7d&interval=30m&view=discrete-time&group=Detailed . I encourage you to check it out. They are doing this without any nuclear or other firm dispatchable sources, like hydro, geothermal, hydrogen or natural gas with CCS.
There also seem to be skeptics here that believe that the U.S. cannot get to net zero by 2050 even though team after team of energy system experts offer plans to the contrary, e.g., https://www.gti.energy/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Meta-Analysis-of-U.S.-Economy-Wide-Decarbonization-Studies_Feb2024.pdf . All of these plans have the advantage over South Australia of including the firm dispatchable sources listed above.
“What about when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow?” is such a dumbass questions that you didn’t answer it.
Wind and solar are cheap, expensive energy. Nuclear power is expensive, cheap energy.
I love solar power as part of a diverse energy mix. However, no amount of computer manipulation by ex-scientists such as Marc Jacobson can make grids with over 1/3 variable renewables work in a cost-effective and reliable way. Show me one…
Solar panels are cheap to bolt together but expensive to integrate into a grid.
As the penetration increases so do the costs. The Lazard LCOE for California solar in 2023 is almost as expensive as nuclear.
US plants are providing power right now for $30 per MWH.
New York State just contracted offshore wind at $150 per MWH after decommissioning its last nuclear plant.
Texas is handling a large solar buildout because they have an abundance of gas and coal.
If those reliable firm sources are forced off the grid, as you celebrate, there is no existing technology to fill the void.
I will await your solution which has eluded very smart scientists so far…
This is 99% correct and 100% wrong. Why?
The answer is apparent in your identification of the natural gas price as determining the cost of electricity in Texas. This is because the "costly" generation is being pushed out. But those "costly" generators are costly because they cannot swing up and down in response to the varying renewables. They are the cheapest when they run 24/7 but they buckle when they have to stay idle for hours and come back for a short while but go back to idling again.
I hate to be one of those who comments on someone else's post with a link to his own but in July 2024 ( https://halimgur.substack.com/p/nuclear-power-no-fix-for-our-broken ) I tried to explain how difficult problem. Then I was trying to assess the feasibility of the Australian opposition proposal to build seven large nuclear power generators to reduce the electricity prices. My assessment was negative.
In a nutshell, the culprit for higher prices is the confluence of the Tatcherite grid deregulation that took over most of the Western countries in 1990s and the phenomenal reduction in the cost of solar and wind but especially solar. When electricity prices are set by auction, the renewable power generators with zero marginal costs always triumph over the fuel-burning generators.
Unfortunately, at the moment, we are relying on fossil-fired generation to produce electricity when solar and/or wind are not available because long-term storage is expensive. This is a devilish dilemma. Admittedly, the dilemma will disappear when we develop cheap storage, be it mechanical (like compressed air or hydro), or chemical (like hydrogen) or electrochemical (like batteries). But until then, we need to be able to optimise our generation offers to minimise the cost of electricity. Such optimisation is not possible in a market-driven system.
I respect your credentials as a climate scientist.
This article is truly appalling in its false condescension and indifference to facts. The first graph shows the exact opposite to the claim, with growth in renewable share since 2019 matching a massive price spike. It mentions nothing about the real problem that long periods of still cloudy weather create a need for expensive backup using fossil fuels, and that this is part of the real consumer pricing for renewable energy.
Nice writeup - I'll take your explanation of Texas as the whole truth.
But, by focusing on retail prices without acknowledging the role of subsidies in making solar and wind viable, you give the false impression that wind and solar provide less expensive electricity than fossil fuel plants. Texans pay for part of their electricity through state and federal taxes.
But your basic claim that today's renewables don't need backup is wrong. California and Germany (among others) generate enough energy from wind and solar to cover enough of their needs for some hours to cause wholesale electricity prices to go negative. Obviously, this doesn't continue long enough to claim an "all renewable" energy system, but any reasonable reading would say that these renewables need reliable backup.
In California's case, the need for backup is not fully met. California relies on other states for its backup. When the temperature is very high, demand for air conditioning in Arizona and Oregon means those states don't have enough surplus capacity to cover California's need, so California experiences rolling blackouts. California definitely needs backup generation, but has refused to allow it to be built.
Great article, but you're still using fossil fuels. My question is, how do renewables completely replace fossil fuels, and what's the cost of that compared to using FF supplements or peakers, for example?
I'm actually writing a textbook chapter on that and will do a post on how to get to 100% clean energy at some point in the future.
I appreciate your drive. But the only “clean” power is nuclear. Wind/solar…requires so much metals/minerals that we do not have sufficient supply or mines.
But I’d love to see your numbers.
So far after say 15years (give or take) of massive expansion of W&S in many places(trilions of money units)- there is no country which got rid of coal and gas with it. While France got rid of coal/Oil/gas from electricity (almost as good as possible) already 40years ago and for good (no large batteries, no large hydro-storage, affordable power with good "old and boring" PWRs). Not a paper exercise, not wishful thinking but real environmental championship(with plenty of benefits for citizens of France).
Solutions might include immense storage (by our current standards, though it would just be normal storage if we had started out that way), more non-intermittent supply (geothermal? could be), very big interconnection (a super-grid), or supposedly, carbon capture, which seems like the least good plan for many reasons. The UK is one of the most limited regions so it's good to see their plans laid out:
https://ukfires.org/is-absolute-zero-pessimistic-about-uk-energy-supplies/
The U.K.’a plan are untenable. The simple fact is that they’d face blackouts without imports.
Even though they’ve added over 24GW of VRE over hundreds of miles in the last 7 years, their MINIMUM generation changed not a whit.
During Dunkelflaute they can go a week with almost zero VRE generation. If Norway decides to not export power they’re sunk.
They have placed themselves in a horrible position. Even though their emissions are so low as to never be able to influence climate, they have the highest power costs in the region, have rapidly deindustrialized…and are dependent on thtt et if neighbors to keep their lights on.
A dangerous situation.
I agree with what you propose, including that CCS is a false solution. Are you aware of any modeling that’s been done of an entire FF free power generation system using available options such as battery storage, enhanced geothermal, etc. ?
Here are some examples. Mark Jacobson:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542435117300120
A critique that has been made of that - the hydro storage is unrealistic.
My own critique of the NY State part of Jacobson's plan - an enormous number of wind turbines and no recognition that you need wind turbine installation ships. In this post if you scroll down to 'Resources to grasp the scale necessary' --
https://newyork.thecityatlas.org/lifestyle/energetic-teachers-and-students-2/
Geothermal might help many different plans.
Dr. Chris Clack and Vibrant CE did a plan for New York State, for the group Vote Solar, emphasizing solar, with long duration storage (undefined but likely at this point to be hydrogen) and some nuclear.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ubprigr6tzn_47oouPq9EpdpySUaZSuG/view?usp=sharing
Richard Heinberg and David Fridley wrote a book that should be better known:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200804114635/https://ourrenewablefuture.org/chapter-11/
Tom Murphy's energy textbook, from his energy class at UCSD, is pretty good and doesn't require the reader to agree with his personal position (which is more about renunciation at this point).
https://escholarship.org/uc/energy_ambitions
https://tmurphy.physics.ucsd.edu/energy-text/energy-murphy.html
Also, Net Zero America: netzeroamerica.princeton.edu
But Net Zero America relies on assumed large-scale carbon capture and sequestration, a technology that the NZA report acknowledges does not yet exist, and the cost can therfor not be estimated.
Yes! E+RE+ 100% RE plan, which doesn't need CCS -- I forget they did that option
From page 10 of the final report summary of the Net Zero America study: "All pathways rely on large-scale CO2 capture and utilization and storage."
Thanks for writing these. A caveat is that saying intermittency is flat earth thinking is that once you try to actually remove fossil fuels, it's not flat earth thinking. For the 100% RE plan this is a good report to work backwards from:
https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/large-scale-electricity-storage/Large-scale-electricity-storage-report.pdf
Note the 570 TWh/year projected supply, for a population in the UK of approximately 70 million, which is less than 1000 watts per capita.
I guess the unlikeliness of the UK reducing demand by that amount is why almost all the other published plans for the UK continue to burn fossil fuels, and balance that out with imaginary carbon capture of some sort.
https://ukfires.org/is-absolute-zero-pessimistic-about-uk-energy-supplies/
Texas is way better situated! And interconnections help both systems.
But my main point is: we have to end fossil fuels *anyway.*
Saying it's easy isn't necessarily the full story, but that doesn't matter. We have to stop emitting carbon. We have to stop burning things. There is no "we keep burning things" option, because climate destabilization will stop the economy anyway if we keep burning things.
Yes, the situation for 100% climate-safe energy is different than right now. My point was mainly that, in today's world, renewables are saving us money.
[edit] I did touch on costs of fully renewable systems here: https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/is-renewable-energy-cheaper-than
I'd say this wasn't that clear in this post and it sounded a bit more out of tone than I think you wanted to. For example, I'd say I'm one of those that says that just renewable is not that easy and you need backups either with batteries or with energy production systems you can turn on and off as you want. But in the other hand I understand that ofc we are not yet at that point in most places and that until then more renewable is win-win.
I'd say in this post is a bit like if you are put in the same bag people like me and flat earthers or anti renewable people, which I'd say is not the best way of promoting renewables.
Either way nice post, just saying that it could be better
Thanks for the feedback
I think the best way to commit this to paper is to say that no matter how much VRE might be brought online at a utility, thermal generation of some ilk is still required.
My best example is the U.K., a country, mind you, emitting less than 1% of global human CO2 contributions.
After two decades and £bazillions, they still cannot retire a single MW of firm capacity and are literally dependent upon their neighbors to keep their lights on.
Now, in the last seven years they've added an impressive 24GW of VRE - and over hundreds of miles.
But despite these additions (I believe they have ~33GW VRE total) their MINIMUM generation changed not one whit.
Since VRE capacity factor sometimes nears zero for extended periods during Dunkelflaute conditions, it matters not how much VRE they add.
And storage is not the answer; even for a tiny country such as Britain, week+ storage is multi-GDP level moneywise.
Did I mention that they have the highest cost power in Europe due to all this “cheap” wind & solar?
Now, the U.K. from inside their asylum like to claim they’re providing an example to the world. And they are; but the exact opposite of intention.
They’ve demonstrated that even a tiny country can’t achieve NetZero after decades and trillions spent.
How the hell could a larger version find success?
One final thing: the U.K. and Germany, having purposely diminished their own firm capacity to the CO2 Gods, only keep their lights on due to importing power from Norway.
But Norway is tiring of their own power costs skyrocketing due to bailing out the others.
They may soon limit exports. If that occurs…it will all be VERY interesting.
While Germany I believe has the ability to reopen their purposely shuttered zero-carbon nuclear power plants, the U.K. literally blew up some of their firm capacity to prevent its use ever again.
They may rue that decision!
Hi Andrew
Maybe this works some places but not in New Zealand. Here the electricity has been fragmented and privatized. 85% is renewable, mostly hydro and in fact that should act a a strong battery: save water behind a dam. But it is controlled by just a few companies and many can not deal with intermittency at all. They discourage solar. There is no net metering. Instead a company pays $0.08 per KWh and sells it back at $0.30 or more.
A system that has built in batteries: the best are pumped hydro: about 85% efficient and last 80 years or regular hydro is desirable. Regular batteries can help and may be more efficient in short term but do not last
The other option is to use the excess power for other purposes such as generating hydrogen, but that is very inefficient
Best. Kevin
Thanks for the comment, Kevin. Obviously, bad policy can wreck a grid, particularly if the incentives are not well aligned.
I didn’t initially consider that, during a transition phase, our fossil fuel infrastructure could serve as a backup system—thank you for this great and informative post. However, I am concerned about the notion that the green transition must be economically beneficial to be considered. I believe climate change will make it nearly impossible to sustain our current level of economic activity, leading to economic contraction. If the transition must make economic sense, it will be more a question of losing less money rather than making a profit.
I agree with other commenters that without battery storage you will always need gas plants for backup. I tried to follow your logic but it left me flat.
The article is about the 202x Texas grid, which has a particular mix of fossil and renewable sources. PG&E is in a different market, which has a different mix of energy sources. That there is the opportunity for energy storage to make a contribution to the California grid doesn't challenge this analysis of today's Texan grid.