California: Mar 21, 2021
Who turned out the lights? It’s dark in here. Don’t they pay their electricity? — Roger Rabbit
Ivo Welch
2023-02-23
Quoted numbers in these slides are ca 2021.
Current Ukraine war effects.
Not completely clear what future will hold
Clean!
High-quality
Jack of all Trades:
Fossil fuels are one-trick ponies,
→ perfect economics only for heat.
Already know e-tech will improve greatly.
No moonshots necessary but welcome.
PS: Read up on primary vs. nameplate power.
Electrons are electrons, but
Time and location matter
Noon vs 8pm
Nevada vs. New York
Allocation problems are tremendous:
uncertainty (supply and demand);
short-term (which plants to switch on);
long-term (which plants to build where);
how to move e around (transmission).
Even more heterogeneous than USA.
Discuss US / California first:
Illustrative only, and
good to explain basic workings.
It is not enough to decarbonize US!
| U.S. | NatGas | Coal | Wind |
|---|---|---|---|
| Power | 45% | 20% | 10% |
| Energy | 40% | 20% | 9% |
| U.S. | Nuclear | Hydro | Solar |
|---|---|---|---|
| Power | 10% | 10% | 5% |
| Energy | 20% | 7% | 2% |
Plants are built primarily when
demand grows, and/or
old plants age out.
US demand is mostly stable:
For many years now, only Wind and Solar;
A few new NatGas plants on East Coast.
32GW (out of 500GW) in dvlpmnt pipeline, though.
existing NatGas plants are beginning to install solar panels to save variable cost.
Very rare nuclear plant here and there (Terapower).
No new coal plants, few new dams, etc.
China, India, etc.:
Large new building programs.
Lots of new Wind and Solar plants.
Some nuclear plants, some others.
But huge coal plant building programs:
270 GW in China
And new world record in 2021;
And coal employs millions of people!
Transmission grid is expensive.
Distance matters!
→ Supply is cheaper close to demand.
Low current transmission cost only because of generation proximity.
Complex regulation, tying in, etc.:
Regulators “captured” by > 3,000 utility companies,
with some good reason,
and a lot of lobbyists and lawyers,
and big hurdles for competitive clean engineering innovators inexperienced in politics.
and NIMBY
Complex problems abound.
Only known good allocation system:
But free market must be shepherded!
alternative free-for-all cannot work either;
needs regulation, but is still somewhat manipulatable and indeed manipulated.
Compromises between scylla and charybdis.
Details are fascinating stuff.
In California (not elsewhere):
Capacity auctions for new plants (3 years);
Power auctions for delivery (daily).
Baseload Power.
Intermittent Power.
Storage (Dispatchable Power).
| Nuke | GeoT | Coal | Gas | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calif | 9% | 5% | 3% | 34% |
| USA | 20% | 1% | 19% | 40% |
| World | 10% | 0% | 37% | 24% |
| Hydro | Wind | Solar | Other | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calif | 18% | 10% | 12% | 9% |
| USA | 7% | 9% | 2% | 2% |
| World | 16% | 5% | 3% | 5% |
Electricity’s biggest cost is typically upfront plant building cost:
Construction / capital.
Plant scalability varies:
biggest scale needed for nuclear,
most flexible scale for Wind and Solar.
Cost of grid tie-in is high, too,
incl. regulatory costs,
… and does not scale linearly.
Idle (Standby) Minimum Running Cost:
Active Generation Cost:
Fuel and Extra Wear:
Tries to take all costs into account.
Projected over lifetime of plant:
disagreement over lifetime → different LCOEs.
If you got it wrong, …
… you may lose a lot of money.
Following are ballpark inflation-adjusted figures, differ by location, regulation, etc.
| Type | Today | est 2050 |
|---|---|---|
| Solar Panels, Roof | $100 | $30 |
| Solar Panels, Utility | $35 | $15 |
| Wind, onshore | $35 | $20 |
| — | — | — |
| Geothermal | $35 | |
| Nuclear | $70 | $60 |
| Gas, Always On | $40 | $45 |
| Coal | $75 | $65 |
| — | — | — |
| Hydro | $55 | |
| Gas, Dispatch | $200 |
Wind and Solar are the cheapest large-scale sources of energy that civilization has ever seen!
… and they will become even cheaper!
Unbelievably cheap, too cheap to meter!
≈ computers
… but they do not always work. ☹️
“Clean intermittent generation for cheap” is a basically a solved science problem:
$15/MWh or $5/MWh is relatively unimportant.
The silicon solar cell component will soon be negligible part of solar plant cost.
Costs will be primarily connections / running / maintenance.
Often best to colocate Solar, Wind, Batteries to share connection and operation costs.
NatGas is cheapest on-demand source of power in the USA:
Turn off, turn on.
Nearly infinite capacity,
but not as abundant everywhere else.
$40-$200/MWh — cheap, tough to beat.
on demand: $80-
Maybe should add $20/MWh for pollution.
NatGas often leaks on pipes and at EOL.
Makes NatGas look cleaner than it is.
Think $100-$250/MWh
Requires large scale:
Environmental opposition to hydro.
PS: small-scale geothermal works well for home heating cooling and is economical!
Cheap running cost.
Very limited supply of good locations
PS: Also consider compressed air in caverns.
Primary nuclear problem today:
Fixed cost ($20 billion/plant).
10 years: potentially obsolete before open.
Honest Disagreements:
Put your money where your mouth is?
Gates, France, China are bullish.
UnionCScientists, Germany are bearish.
Hated and obsolete.
But kept alive by:
Abundant availability and e-needs now.
Fossil fuel subsidies and lobbies.
Large employment bases, pivotal voters.
Still, fortunately, plants are aging out now,
USA, 250 plants + 0 uc (construction)
Coal is still hated and obsolete.
But growing countries need power now.
Coal consumption and coal plants set new records in 2021!
The World’s Real Problem:
China, 1000 + 200uc .
India, 250 + 50uc .
World, 2,000 + 500uc .
Once built, sunk-cost equation changes:
30-50-year lasting impact!!
Any good ideas? Now is the time!
If demand is reasonably constant, choose
either basepower;
or intermittent + storage;
basepower + storage is not so great.
Power connection infrastructure is expensive,
more so for intermittent power.
Optimal solutions are often messy mixes.
One size ``no fit all.’’
In sum:
Problem is No Longer Cheap Generation!
Problem Now is Cheap Energy Storage!
Solve it, and wind/solar will take over.
Think $200/MWh.
Li comes in small manufactured cells.
Cells are finicky and small.
Not easily scalable:
Expensive packaging into small cells.
Twice the capacity is approx twice the cost.
Lots of mundane improvements, but
will likely always be finicky small-scale.
Problem: Wear out after 1,000 cycles.
Anode and cathode expand and contract.
But very soon 3,000 - 5,000 cycles!
→ Much cheaper for long-run use.
→ Very big deal for utility-scale storage.
→ Use your EV car for storage?
PS: No scientific reason why not 50,000 cycles, either.
2 GW power out of 450 GW total.
10 GWh energy out of 4,000,000 GWh.
Problem is capacity, not power.
Batteries rapidly expanding, but still tiny:
Many specialty uses (e.g. 6-10pm).
Still too expensive for overnight,
…much less for multi-day storage.
World Need:
Giant house-sized tubs with person-sized electrodes that scale according to whim,
with quad storage → only double cost,
with cheap chemistries, $50/MWh,
and then it will be lights-out for most power plants other than wind and solar in 20-30 years!
at $150/MWh, we could make it to 95%!
Possible, even likely.
But not here yet.
Better to spend lots of $$$s now on research and development than on deployment now.
I am optimistic. (10 years?)
But what if I am overoptimistic?
Think $250/MWh.
Categories: Flow, Dammed, Pumped.
Limited Potential (but still 2x today’s).
High capacity, lower efficiency than batteries:
Still cheaper for big energy needs.
Here now and can supply 8-12 hours!
Some even multi-day (Hoover).
Few suitable locations.
Large scale only.
Extremely high upfront fixed cost.
What if battery power becomes cheaper more quickly than expected?
Maybe not crazy at all?:
Maybe $100-$200/MWh ?
Perhaps not great long-run solutions,
but temporarily not uncompetitive either (for now)?
Polar vortex-like wind/solar outages?!
Seasonal elec-storage?
Long-term elec-storage needs higher capacity at very low scaling cost, but lossier is ok.
Underground heat reservoirs?
Underground compressed air reservoirs?
Hydrogen?? (not as battery substitute!)
Seems always like a bad idea.
Ignore talking heads
OK, may take a little bit to reliably go to industrial high heat, 2200C.
IMHO, don’t store electricity for heat later.
Instead store heat in insulated containers.
Heat storage can work on any scale:
Wind is always somewhere. Yet:
Grid transmission lines are expensive.
Transmission is lossy over long distance.
Transmission has other issues:
Power line breaks,
causing fires,
or even cyber attacks.
Very complex engineering and political problems:
It evolved naturally for local industrial needs.
Total regulatory mess in USA now.
Needs to allow more intermittent energy:
Intermittent adds potential wires overload.
→ Sometimes prices turn negative!
Even in California, often in Germany.
Secondarily, transmission grid
Feasibility/cost remain location-specific and complex.
Solar energy will cost $15/MWh. Wow!
If we could store and release for another $15/MWh (heck, $50/MWh),
we could built 200+ GWh of storage,
plus electrify most fossil-fuel uses,
and it would be lights out for fossil fuels (for 2/3 of uses)!
But storage costs ca 2020 more like $200/MWh.
Reliability is hugely important.
When electricity goes out, the world stops.
All industry and jobs depend on it.
Inefficient to have too many decentralized backup generators everywhere.
Lebanon or South Africa today.
France and Germany barely escaped in 2022-2023.
| Coal | NatGas | Nuke | Hydro | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USA | 1,410 | 1,317 | 797 | 249 |
| China | 3,860 | 148 | 161 | 1,103 |
| World | 9,621 | 5,585 | 2,440 | 3,843 |
| Wind | Solar | (Oth) | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USA | 191 | 39 | (2.2%) | 4,092 |
| China | 186 | 45 | (1.1%) | 5,562 |
| World | 828 | 263 | (2.6%) | 23,171 |
| Coal | NatGas | Nuke | Hydro | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USA | 593 | 1,953 | 594 | 294 |
| China | 3,556 | 803 | 1,002 | 1,448 |
| World | 8,115 | 7,306 | 3,025 | 5,548 |
| Wind | Solar | (Oth) | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USA | 790 | 1,071 | (3.0%) | 5,458 |
| China | 1,001 | 3,379 | (0.4%) | 11,230 |
| World | 6,833 | 10,152 | (2.3%) | 41,953 |
Generation is basically a solved problem.
Storage is the unsolved problem.
Wish nuclear plants were a lesser conundrum.
NatGas is economic challenge for c.e.
Coal plants outside OECD remain vexing.