Australian (ASX) Stock Market Forum

The future of energy generation and storage

More discussion on the capacity allowance.


Surely an appropriate formula could be found that incentivises renewables while still paying for availability ?

Something like

Capacity_payment = Base_Rate + Capacity_Available /(Price + Emissions) .

Base_Rate is what everyone gets, the other variables reward higher capacity but punish high prices and high emissions.

Hydro would come out pretty well, having a low price (relatively) and zero emissions, while the other sources would sort themselves out accordingly.
 
Surely an appropriate formula could be found that incentivises renewables while still paying for availability ?
I thought about writing a lot but in short, the big problem is politics.

It's as simple as that. Doesn't matter what option anyone comes up with, someone will want to tear it down for purely political reasons.

Anything less than 100% renewable and that puts one group offside.

Go to 100% and that puts another group offside.

Then there's those who've ideological desires to build nuclear, dam every last creek or build new coal.

Then there's the deniers. Those who deny that oil and gas reserves are relatively limited. Those who deny that nuclear is expensive. Those who deny this that and everything else if it suits whatever thing they want to build.

My view personally is that winter 2023 will kill the politics off. :2twocents
 
I thought about writing a lot but in short, the big problem is politics.

It's as simple as that. Doesn't matter what option anyone comes up with, someone will want to tear it down for purely political reasons.

Anything less than 100% renewable and that puts one group offside.

Go to 100% and that puts another group offside.

Then there's those who've ideological desires to build nuclear, dam every last creek or build new coal.

Then there's the deniers. Those who deny that oil and gas reserves are relatively limited. Those who deny that nuclear is expensive. Those who deny this that and everything else if it suits whatever thing they want to build.

My view personally is that winter 2023 will kill the politics off. :2twocents
I'd like to hear the long version some time if you have the time and motivation, as to what you would do from an engineering perspective if politics wasn't an issue.

Is a capacity allowance a good idea ? What form should it take ?
 
I thought about writing a lot but in short, the big problem is politics.

It's as simple as that. Doesn't matter what option anyone comes up with, someone will want to tear it down for purely political reasons.

Anything less than 100% renewable and that puts one group offside.

Go to 100% and that puts another group offside.

Then there's those who've ideological desires to build nuclear, dam every last creek or build new coal.

Then there's the deniers. Those who deny that oil and gas reserves are relatively limited. Those who deny that nuclear is expensive. Those who deny this that and everything else if it suits whatever thing they want to build.

My view personally is that winter 2023 will kill the politics off. :2twocents
Nuclear is expensive and not that safe but Bill Gates backed Terra power is developing the future modern reactor that will be cheaper and safer and produces less waste. My attitude is countries like Germany would benefit greatly from removing their reliance on coal and gas. Australia has less of of a need.
 
A thread on the nuclear waste question that came across my timeline fwiw.

 
Time to talk about Germany yet?
Saw a chart showing that electricity are up 6x. Is it true?
What happened to the renewable utopia from a few years ago?
 
I'm shocked I tell ya, shocked! </sarc>

 
I'm shocked I tell ya, shocked! </sarc>

Another issue will be, when the panels are removed will people bother replacing them, if they aren't subsidised? The labour cost alone these days will be high, the only person I know who has had any problems was the guy over the road his inverter broke and he wasn't going to bother fixing it until I suggested he check if it is still covered by warranty, which it was.
Next time it goes, or the panels fail, I'm sure it won't be repaired.
In W.A there is no more feed in tariff for new domestic solar installations , so I doubt there will be the same uptake as earlier, when feed in tariffs were reasonable.
 
Time to talk about Germany yet?
Saw a chart showing that electricity are up 6x. Is it true?
What happened to the renewable utopia from a few years ago?
The problem in Germany is much like the problem elsewhere including Australia.

Too much attention has been given to fuzzy words and not enough attention has been given to hard numbers.

Or in practical terms too much politics and ideologies of various sorts without sufficient attention paid to the hard facts no matter how inconvenient they might happen to be.

Getting straight to the point on the facts:

Oil and gas are problematic in terms of resources and geography. That does not mean we're about to run out of either, to be clear there's quite a bit of them on earth, but bottom line is the majority of reserves are in non-Western countries and that's the issue. Non-Western governments directly control most of it and that brings supply and price risk due to politics, bearing in mind it's not just producers versus the West but it wouldn't be the first time one producer fired missiles at another.

Yes wind and solar most certainly do work. They generate electricity and they're also rather cheap, indeed they're considerably cheaper than coal, oil or gas at present international prices. Problem is they don't work constantly, they're intermittent, which means they're useful either as a supplement to some other power source, to save fuel, or in conjunction with storage in which case they do become a real alternative as such.

On the subject of storage well again more brutal reality. Batteries have plenty of supporters and yes they sure do work indeed for the record I've got one at home so I'm sure not saying they're a bad idea. As a source of short duration peak power, frequency control and so on they're now the best available technology to the point that even hydro operators are seriously looking at them.

For bulk energy storage though the reality is batteries are orders of magnitude too costly and that's unlikely to change in the medium term at least. There's also the physical side with the reality that global battery capacity is still rather small compared to individual hydro projects. There's an order of magnitude difference there which even the optimists aren't expecting to change this decade.

Electricity must be produced in real time as it is consumed. Regardless of the source that aspect remains true. Yes we can store coal in a heap on the ground, we can store oil in a tank, water behind a dam or we can have a reversible chemical reaction in a battery but none of those are storing AC power directly. What they're doing is storing something that can be used to make AC power but AC power as such is not stored, it's still made in real time as it's used and that being so, the ability to produce it must at all times at least match the actual rate of consumption, preferably with at least a bit to spare to cope with the inevitable mishaps.

The other hard fact of relevance is that no individual generation source has 100% reliability. Not wind, not solar, not coal, not nuclear, not hydro, gas or anything else. They all have significant periods of unavailability - around 20% of the time as a ballpark figure for coal in the real world, closer to 10% if it's in top shape and all possible efforts are made to address any issues quickly. For an "old clunker" it'll be significantly higher. Nuclear not much different to coal. Hydro, oil and gas generally lower outage rates but they still have outages as such, they don't work constantly.

Put all that together and what's required is a system that:

1. Can withstand individual components being taken out of service for maintenance or failing without impacting supply.

2. Does not rely on oil or gas to major extent. Exception of places which have an abundance of supply not exposed to international trade.

3. If intermittent generation is used, it's backed by adequate storage, non-intermittent generation backup or a combination of the two.

4. If storage is used, it has been sized to the task based on thorough analysis. If backup generation is used then it must have available sufficient fuel.

5. It needs to actually be operated in accordance with technical requirements.

EU countries and the UK have run into trouble primarily on account of points 2, 4 and 5. That is, yes they have wind, solar, coal, nuclear, hydro but they're nonetheless reliant on gas to significant extent.

Plus they seemingly didn't allow for an extended period of low wind yield and resultant high reliance on that gas-fired backup generation with associated fuel consumption.

Plus due to the issues with Russia haven't operated gas facilities in accordance with technical requirements. Gas storage was being drained out well before the war started.

Put the above together and there's a crisis.

It's not that wind and solar couldn't have worked indeed they have worked and continue to do so. It's just that humans didn't make allowance for technical reality and in due course the inevitable happened. It's a bit like the tailgating driver or the share trader who's only ever seen a bull market, failing to have plans in place to deal with natural variability works just fine until suddenly it ends really badly.

Most failures globally are much the same. Humans being humans, they tend to push it to the absolute limit until it breaks. Run it at 85% and it's extremely reliable, run it at 100% and you've got an unacceptably high probability of failure now. Run it beyond 100% and failure's a given. Look at real failures and I've yet to see one that wasn't preceded by running beyond firm capabilities, usually for quite some time before the inevitable happened.

On the engineering side it's all really just a number crunching exercise. So long as it's designed such that it works reliably and is built and operated to that design then it works. Everything else is then about which of the available options are most acceptable from other perspectives - economics, environment and anything else. Other things of relevance being, for example, regional development that might bias toward a particular approach or, in the specific case of hydro, if there's some other reason to want a dam built (eg water supply) then that may make it the best option even if it otherwise wouldn't be.

The problem isn't wind and solar and nor is it any other particular source. The problem is humans taking shortcuts combined with a trigger, in this case politics, blowing it up. :2twocents
 
I'm "puzzled" (nah..) at the horrors expressed over millions of solar panels finally needing to be recycled. Obviously nothing lasts forever . Solar panels are no different. Interestingly enough new generations of PV have every opportunity of being less resource intensive but in the meantime there are a number of industries being developed to recycle solar panels and extract the valuable resources.

There’s big money in recycling materials from solar panels

Recycling solar panels keeps them out of landfills, but also provides much-needed raw materials with Rystad Energy projecting a value approaching $80 billion by 2050.
July 18, 2022 Anne Fischer
ustrial-Roof-Top-Solar-Panels-1536x1024-1-1200x800.jpg

Image: LaBella Associates

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From pv magazine USA
The question about what to do with solar panels at the end of their useful life is about to become moot as Rystad Energy analysis shows the incredible value of materials that can be extracted in the recycling process. Rystad estimates that recyclable materials from PV panels at the end of their lifespan will be worth more than $2.7 billion in 2030, up from only $170 million this year, and the value will approach $80 billion by 2050.

PV recycling is still in early stages, but it has been successfully implemented in Europe where the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive requires 85% collection and 80% recycling of the materials used in solar panels. In the US, California-based Solarcycle recently raised $6.6 million in growth funding to advance its solar recycling platform. Investors include some solar veterans such as SolarCity founders Peter and Lyndon Rive, and former CEO/CTO of Sunpower, Tom Dinwoodie.



 
I'm "puzzled" (nah..) at the horrors expressed over millions of solar panels finally needing to be recycled. Obviously nothing lasts forever . Solar panels are no different. Interestingly enough new generations of PV have every opportunity of being less resource intensive but in the meantime there are a number of industries being developed to recycle solar panels and extract the valuable resources.

There’s big money in recycling materials from solar panels

Recycling solar panels keeps them out of landfills, but also provides much-needed raw materials with Rystad Energy projecting a value approaching $80 billion by 2050.
July 18, 2022 Anne Fischer
View attachment 144498
Image: LaBella Associates

Share​

View attachment 144499 View attachment 144500 View attachment 144501 View attachment 144502 View attachment 144503
From pv magazine USA
The question about what to do with solar panels at the end of their useful life is about to become moot as Rystad Energy analysis shows the incredible value of materials that can be extracted in the recycling process. Rystad estimates that recyclable materials from PV panels at the end of their lifespan will be worth more than $2.7 billion in 2030, up from only $170 million this year, and the value will approach $80 billion by 2050.

PV recycling is still in early stages, but it has been successfully implemented in Europe where the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive requires 85% collection and 80% recycling of the materials used in solar panels. In the US, California-based Solarcycle recently raised $6.6 million in growth funding to advance its solar recycling platform. Investors include some solar veterans such as SolarCity founders Peter and Lyndon Rive, and former CEO/CTO of Sunpower, Tom Dinwoodie.



The above links are good for Aus, but problem is, in the USA, its generally a disposable throwaway society, so landfill is much easier for them.
And they have big numbers as well.
Mick
 
The above links are good for Aus, but problem is, in the USA, its generally a disposable throwaway society, so landfill is much easier for them.
And they have big numbers as well.
Mick
If you noticed one of the early players in recycling PV cells is a US company.
The recycling will happen because there are valuable resources in the PV panels. And as also noted Governments will develop policy to encourage/ensure effective recycling.

In the US, California-based Solarcycle recently raised $6.6 million in growth funding to advance its solar recycling platform. Investors include some solar veterans such as SolarCity founders Peter and Lyndon Rive, and former CEO/CTO of Sunpower, Tom Dinwoodie.
 
I am aware that not everyone sees any good at all in the Evil Murdoch press, but Robert Gotliebson creates a most interesting narrative which, if it has any skerrick of truth, would be a game changer for Victoria and Australia..
From the article
I have obtained access to one of the most secret, but nation-changing documents in Australia – the Exxon estimates of Victoria’s massive low-cost, onshore, likely carbon neutral gas reserves that do not require fracking.
They are near the Longford, Gippsland, treatment plant and the east coast pipeline network. The best-case Exxon estimate is that the reserves total 4.996 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas or some 60 per cent of the last 50 years of Bass Strait production.

But there is a “high” estimate of reserves at 12.6234 TCF that makes the Victorian reserves second only to the North West Shelf.

The “secret” report titled ‘Onshore natural gas from lignite’ was prepared in 2014 by Gippsland Gas (then chaired by John White who was the chief executive of the company that won the contract to build the ANZUS frigates) and Exxon.

It was based on Exxon’s Houston researchers’ extensive technical review of the Gippsland Basin.

Houston studied oil exploration wells that been drilled in the 1950s and 1960s (some by Woodside) plus drilling conducted in earlier decades to map brown coal reserves.

Exxon found that many of these wells had encountered gas dissolved in water deep below the normal aquifers.
At the time, the drillers did not value the gas.
Exxon then took their Houston research to world-renowned gas and oil reserve estimator MHA Petroleum Consultants, now part of the giant Sproule group.

The MHA estimated a potential gas reserve bonanza, which now could replace the requirement to develop more expensive gas in Bass Strait.
The Gippsland Gas/Exxon revelations were first disclosed to the Denis Napthine Coalition government before the 2014 Victorian election.

Scared of Green votes, Napthine kept the lid on the discovery.

The ALP’s Daniel Andrews became premier after the election and banned further exploration and development of the gas, again for green reasons.

To conceal its existence, he spent large sums on an “expert” committee commissioned to check whether there was any likelihood of discovering onshore gas in Victoria.

The committee was forbidden to look at the area covering the massive Exxon discovery and other promising gas areas and dutifully reported that there was unlikely to be onshore gas in Victoria.

The local press, often with deep green views, did not disclose the obvious community deceit.

The Gippsland Gas and Exxon report told the government that water produced from the lignite could be used in agricultural activities to help grow carbon-absorbing plants “to a promote zero net emissions framework”.
Woodside, which is now a joint venture partner with Exxon, last week called for more exploration in Victoria, presumably knowing that the required gas has already been found by its Bass Strait partner and the reserves estimated by MHA.

Woodside say that if Victoria cannot explore for gas, then the only alternative is, what I regard as one of the most ludicrous proposals ever conceived in Australia – that gas-rich Victoria import high-cost liquefied natural gas.

The Victorian government itself wants gas being exported from Queensland to be sent to Victoria and NSW in the full knowledge that, subject to the tests, the state’s abundant low-cost gas can supply domestic demand on the East Coast of Australia.

And the Victorian gas, unlike Queensland, does not require fracking.

However I emphasise that the Gippsland Gas/Exxon report reveals that further work needs to be done, not to determine the reserves, but to make sure that production and permeability will duplicate the first test wells.

But they were so confident that they planned to spend $200m (in 2014) on the project, arranged for BlueScope and other major gas users to pencil intent contracts and signed six agreements with local landholders who would benefit from the development.
Those Gippsland farms would have become droughtproof had the gas development proceeded.

The report sets out that Exxon planned to drill six holes to test for gas saturation and coal permeability.

Each well would have taken between two and four weeks and a detailed drilling plan been established.

But faced with the antics of the Victorian government, Gippsland Gas and Exxon concluded that developing the gas was just too hard and they had better things to do.

As result, the leases are now owned by the Victorian Government.

Australia-wide the Greens do not want any more gas development and there will be similar sentiments in the inner suburbs of Melbourne.

But subject to the saturation and permeability tests, Australia has gas reserves with production costs at a small fraction of the current price.

Release of this gas would save large numbers of Australian industrial companies and slash the cost of gas to consumers on the east coast, reducing Australia’s inflation.

Snowy Hydro has now been forced to restrict using its gas-fired power stations.

These could be resumed and provide valuable back-up to make renewable energy more reliable.

And although it’s heretical to mention it, a new gas-fired power station that can be turned on when renewables are interrupted would enable massive reductions in carbon because Yallourn brown coal would be shut down much faster that is currently likely.
So, if even a modicum of what he writes, the Napthine Liberal government can take as much, if not morte than the existing Labour government for the problems Victorians now face.
The problem is, even if Andrews is defeated in the November election, there is no guarantee that the replacement power brokers will ever let this report see the light of day, as they are just as complicit.
Politics guaranteed to screw anything up.
Mick
 
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