My energy economist friend Ric has a good new article last week in Impact4all.
In an eerily
familiar narrative, solar power is taking centre stage today in much the same
way as nuclear energy was the 1970s. “Too cheap to measure” ushered in an age
of energy abundance of limitless possibilities.
Meanwhile, a recent paper by Pierre Gosselin in NTZ:
Why Green Energy
Experts May Have It All Wrong
By Dr. Ricardo G Barcelona August 20, 2018
Three years into
solar power’s volume surge, prices from reverse auctions have reached record
lows, with 2018 volumes expected to fall by 25 per cent.
But beyond the rosy
headlines, two underlying realities are being missed by policy and investors:
Gas remains a viable bridge to achieving secure, affordable and low-carbon
energy futures. Renewables’ futures lie with hydro, geothermal and wind, with
substantially reconfigured solar and storage a later stage addition….
Today’s policy
makers are looking for the silver bullet, where none exists; policy’s
well-intentioned benevolence could turn its aspirations into unfulfilled
promises. The remedy? A portfolio of supplies should be drawn from available
resources in respective markets.
Good article from Ric, as usual. I would add though that globally, hydro is good but seasonal.
High capacity factor during the rainy season (tropics) and summer (N and S. Hemisphere), low during the dry season (tropics) and winter.
Geothermal is geography specific, good for some countries in the “pacific ring
of fire”. Wind is industry-killer nearby (no houses, resorts, hotels,
industries, near those giant wind towers as those wind blades, turbines can get
burned, fall down, towers can collapse). Solar is anti-green, ALL trees in and
near a solar farm should be cut and murdered because solar hates shades, from
clouds, rains and tall trees.
Natgas is viable like Singapore is about 98% reliant on gas, Brunei about 100% gas. In Europe and N. America, gas is transported via long and huge gas pipes stretching for thousands of kilometers. This removes the need to liquify then regassify it later.
For some countries far away from gas-exporters like the Philippines, imported LNG and related facilities can be costly: gas to liquid, transport by huge ships, store as liquid then re-gassify when used to fuel a power plant.
Nuke power should be the most viable, very high energy density but many people are
paranoid of nuke. That leaves coal power the most optimal source. Easy to
transport and store because it is solid, unlike gas.
German Professor
Slams Go-It-Alone Energiewende: “Gigantic Effort, Ridiculously Low Returns”
By P Gosselin on 21. August 2018
A commentary by
Prof. Dr. Joachim Weimann on Germany’s renewable energies flop appearing in
German flagship daily the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) underscores how
wind and sun are delivering nothing of what was originally promised.
Weimann describes
how politicians and proponents like boasting that “much has been accomplished
so far”, but points out that CO2 emissions have not fallen in close to a
decade, despite the whopping 25 billion euros that are poured in through
feed-in tariffs each year.
Weimann calls the
claim that one third of the country’s electric power is being supplied by green
energies misleading, and reminds readers that wind and sun in fact supply only
3.1 percent of Germany’s primary energy needs, which he characterizes as:
“Gigantic effort, ridiculously low returns – that is the reality of German
climate policy.”
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See also:
Energy 109, Sudden decline in world oil prices, May 29, 2018
Energy 111, Coal demand about to soar, July 09, 2018
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