Interesting Graphic on Worldwide Source of Power

[peakbagger]

https://www.powermag.com/the-big-picture-power-around-the-world/

A lot of good info at glance on worldwide current fuel sources of power and in the future. I don't think this is anywhere near the required goals to get AGW under control.

 

[begreen]

Everything there points to increased production and consumption.

 

[peakbagger]

The only possible bright light would be a major shift from fossil transportation fuel to electric which would increase overall electric demand but reduce overall carbon. .It may happen in more developed economies but expect in 3rd world economies its just plain more consumption

 

[SpaceBus]

The only possible bright light would be a major shift from fossil transportation fuel to electric which would increase overall electric demand but reduce overall carbon. .It may happen in more developed economies but expect in 3rd world economies its just plain more consumption

China has been investing heavily into the third world in order to create more consumers. They are also investing heavily into renewable energy, but I don't think that tech is going to the third world either. This is the process of industrialization, hopefully it ends with renewable power.

 

[begreen]

Unfortunately, at this current pace it's more likely to end with mass migration and extinction events.

 

[peakbagger]

Or some of the outlandish geoengineering projects get put in place iwith their unplanned side effects.

 

[woodgeek]

Like the EIA the IEA has a very poor record or forecasting the (past) exponential growth in green energy. They are not allowed to use exponential or economic forecasting methods, and tend to project linear growth forward in time, and then to plateau those sources when future hypothetical 'limits' are reached. IOW, super-conservative.

If we look at the NREL and EIA historical data in wikipedia...we see that Utility Scale Solar continues its remarkable growth, likely to be close to 2% of electrical energy (not BS capacity) on an entire US basis. Distributed (i.e. rooftop) is up to about 1%.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_the_United_States

So, while all the doomsayers are doomsaying, solar's exponential growth in the US continues unabated, having doubled in the last couple years, and is now up to 3% of US electricity.

In comparison, our green friends in Germany are cruising at 7% solar electricity in 2018, with a slow linear growth rate.
Source: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/solar-power-germany-output-business-perspectives

I predict the US will pass Germany in solar % production within three years. 2021. We will hit 10% before they do.

BTW, my bro on Cape Cod just did a big install on his retirement home. His computed simple payback time...3 years.

Of course, we can wonder what the California numbers look like....
in 2017 CA was at 11.2% Solar energy (50% higher than Germany), extrapolation suggests it is 12-13% in 2018.
The current cost of a 4kW PV system in CA is just $12.5k before incentives.
And all new homes have a PV installation mandate.
(Source: https://news.energysage.com/compare-solar-panel-prices-california/)

In case you think the US figure is driven by those nutty Californians...the share of US solar power in CA has dropped to about 40%, so a back of the envelope would suggest that the US -ex CA would also be over 1.5% solar energy production!

Rock on dudes. Watch this space.

Meanwhile....wind power is cruising at 7%, more than hydro.

 

[DBoon]

The EIA estimates are laughably inaccurate. This is from the 2007 EIA Electricity Data report (note that "Renewables" is basically just Hydropower - they didn't start measuring solar or wind until many years later). Looks like that coal-dominated electricity world may not happen after all, or perhaps they just mislabeled the coal and natural gas curves. And look at that linear electricity demand growth out to 2030 - that didn't turn out to happen either, with basically 0% electricity growth since 2008.

I added in the 2018 report chart for quick comparison

 

[SpaceBus]

Those data collections are encouraging. Maybe green energy can outpace global industrialization

 

[woodgeek]

FWIW, two more 2018 stats:

The share of US electricity from Coal...is down to 28% in 2018.
(source: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/electricity.php)

In Germany in 2018, its 36%.
(source: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts)

In the UK, coal use is down to 6% of electricity in 2018.
(source: https://www.theguardian.com/busines...ours-without-coal-as-energy-shift-accelerates)

US carbon intensity per kWh produced is still higher than in Germany, bc we have fewer renewables (US electricity is 17% renewable in 2018, including hydro and bio).
And we use 2X more oil and electricity per capita than Germany and UK, to boot.

And while I think natgas leakage obviates most of the GHG forcing gains in displacing coal (in the US and UK)...that CH4 will be gone in 50 years, unlike the CO2, half of which will still be there 300 years from now.

 

[SpaceBus]

I'm learning so much on this forum.

 

[Doug MacIVER]

is this the NIMBY excuse or ecological correctness?https://www.latimes.com/business/la...html?outputType=amp&__twitter_impression=true

 

[FTG-05]

Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors:

 

[begreen]

Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors:

Are there any active, energy producing LFTRs yet?

 

[peakbagger]

Lat thing I knew they were right ahead in line with fusion reactors always 20 years out although Oak Ridge did a lot of the preliminary work years ago. Northern New England is loaded with Thorium in the granite, its the primary source of radon in the region. VT was blasting ledge from the Interstate years ago and the resulting ledge was "hot" enough that they had to entomb it in the median strip in concrete.

 

[Pellettec]

I’m surprised the US hasn’t converted there coal stations over to wood pellet like in the UK

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.pri...e-away-coal-means-they-re-burning-wood-us?amp

 

[peakbagger]

One of my jobs over the years was supporting biomass electric power generating plants. I even was project manager for converting an old coal power plant to in NC to 100% biomass. There were numerous plants built around the country where wood was available when the government passed a law called PURPA that encouraged private companies to build power plants and forced the utilities to buy renewable power at a very generous rate. It was a great investment and companies rushed to build them. Unfortunately the Reagan revolution came in and the generous rates went away and the industry has been in a decline overall in the US. Incentives popped up several years ago and there was a big building boom of new plants. These were bigger than the older ones but the reason for the size was more due to tax write offs than long term economics. The former pulp mill I worked at in NH had been closed but a fairly recent chemical recovery boiler had been left in place and it was converted to a 70 MW biomass boiler. The investors spent over 300 million dollars (some say closer to 350). The going rate for a natural gas fired plant from scratch is $2,500 per KW so an equivalent plant burning natural gas would have cost $175 million. Wood chips arent free even if they are waste from logging cuts, they need to be shipped and that requires diesel. The economics are usually that any wood within a fifty miles radius is worth trucking but if it get more than 50 miles the cost of the diesel to truck it exceeds the Btu value of the wood. The thermal efficiency of these plants are not great, far lower than natural gas fired plants and even lower than coal fired plants. The 70 MW plant near me is bringing in wood at double the distance. So why would someone spend twice as much to build a plant that effectively is burning a fuel that uses more diesel to haul the wood than its worth to burn?. It comes down to the state passed a law to encourage the project to help the local economy of the region and effectively guaranteed the owners a long term profit by having the electric power ratepayers subsidize the plant. In about 5 years the plant has sucked in 100 million in subsidies and that subsidy was recently extended.

The economics of making wood pellets in the southeast and shipping them to England have the same issues, the only reason it works is someone is paying a subsidy for the Drax plant to burn wood pellets and since England doesn't want industrial logging in their backyard they export that demand to the southeast US. The Germans were also importing wood pellets to co fire in power plants to meet carbon goals but eventually they figured out it was cheaper to buy credits on the open market and stick to burning coal. The claim is wood pellets are fed from tree farms and there are a lot of tree farms in the southeast but the reality is if someone is paying a premium for wood to run a pellet plant wood is going to flow from where ever its growing. Short rotation tree farms are like any farm, the nutrients get dragged out of soil and are not replaced as the ash is not reintroduced back to the land. Eventually the lands fertility is impacted.

By the way, the plant I converted to biomass in NC only ran about 3 years. It had been awarded generous "long term" subsidies to generate renewable power by the state of NC. Sounded good at the time but NC had a bunch of old dirty coal fired plants located near the coast where rich folks didnt want to see them. NC took the "long term" subsidies directed at renewable power plants and handed them to a utility to shut down the coal plants and replace them with natural gas fired power plants. Once the subsides went away the place was mothballed and everyone laid off. I know of several plants in my area of new england that have been mothballed for over 10 years and some have been stripped for scrap or moved offshore. Most of the remaining ones are owned by off shore owners that run on a shoestring and are usually a couple of months from shutting down as they aren't making money.

The entire world wide power industry is so wrapped up in politics and finance that common sense really does not factor in.

 

[Pellettec]

This forum is a wealth of information

Learn something new everyday

My background was in electrical engineering I worked for e-on for many years in there metering/smart metering in the uk before moving to Canada in 2010 and yes the whole power industry is all about making money off us the end user.

 

[Doug MacIVER]

That is quite the statement, Peak! The last says it all. So much today seems only a reaction, not sound reasoning.

"The entire world wide power industry is so wrapped up in politics and finance that common sense really does not factor in.

Reminds me to never let ,"a crisis be wasted"

 

[peakbagger]

By the way, wood pellets were supposed to be a transitional fuel until torrified wood pellets were readily available. This company made a splash a few years ago. http://zilkha.com/zilkha-black-pellets. They actually use a very old process that was used to make Masonite board instead of true torrification as there hasn't been a lot of success in building a commercial production process for true torrified wood. True torrified wood had a higher btu content than wood pellets and don't absorb moisture so they can be handled like coal using outdoor storage and bulk handling equipment. They also are easier to blend in with coal. The Zilkha product is somewhere in between a standard wood pellet and a torrified pellet, Masonite can absorb moisture but they can add an extra step to surface coat the pellets so they do not absorb moisture as long as they as they are not beat up in transit. There was plans for a very large plant in Millinocket Maine by the same firm as the one that built the biomass plant in Berlin but sadly for the locals in Millinocket the investment firm was a far better at working tax dodges than in actually building the plant and left the town with large industrial property that is most likely a superfund site and a large IRS tax lien that prevents it from being redeveloped. The plan was to make the pellets in Millinocket, put them in railcar and ship them to deepwater port in Searsport Maine and then directly to Europe where plenty of utilities would sign long term contracts.

I have no doubt that if the US puts in carbon trading market that wood is going factor in and new schemes/scams will reappear. One of the tricks is gasify the raw wood (or any agricultural product) and burn the gas for some power production but take the char from the gasifier and reintroduce it into the soil. Char is basically pure carbon with some mineral content and its form is quite similar to activated carbon. The carbon is effectively sequestered underground in the soil for hundreds if not thousands of years and if someone is willing to pay to sequester carbon then someone will figure out a way to make a buck on it. The alternative is for a rich region like California to pay a poor region to sequester carbon in native forests by letting them grow and never harvest them. Sounds like a good idea but the local natives dont get a dime off it so they starve to make the carbon books balance in California.

 

[Brian26]

I lived in Burlington Vermont for a few years awhile back. The city has a wood fired power plant and used trains to bring in the fuel. They also had a wood/leaf pile on site you could drive up and dump it yourself. I remember reading they burned soo many Christmas trees after Christmas it powered the city for a day or too.

They also sent the excess steam/heat to the university of vermont for heat.

The electricity was also pretty cheap as well.

 

[Brian26]

Here is an aerial view. You can see the rail spur and pile to the west and the scrap pile to the North.

 

[FTG-05]

Are there any active, energy producing LFTRs yet?

None that I'm aware of. There might be research reactor in Europe or Asia (China or Japan).