HAVING FUN WATCHING WIND AND SOLAR FAILING TO STEP UP TO POWER THE WORLD ECONOMY

Europe is seeing major increases in the SPOT prices of gas/1000 m3, coal/metric ton, and oil/barrel.

The EU SPOT price surge was entirely the fault of EU bureaucrats in Brussels, which have urged EU countries NOT to sign long-term gas supply contracts with Russia, because it would send a “the wrong signal regarding the seriousness of EU fighting climate change”.

Serbia, Hungary and Turkey had recently signed long-term contracts with Russia at about $3/million Btu.

Subsequently, SPOT prices of gas started to increase, and the three countries are smiling.

US SPOT prices increased to about $4/million Btu, 15 times less than Europe, due to an abundance of domestic gas. See table.

Gazprom expects to export between 175 and 183 bcm of gas to Europe, in 2021, at prices of about $200/1000 m3; long-term contracts.

A below-ground gas storage reservoir has to a total gas volume and a working gas volume, WGV; as gas is withdrawn, the gas pressure decreases.

European gas storage was at 95.65% of WGV, on October 1, 2020, and at 74.14% on October 1, 2021, i.e., significantly below normal in 2021.

If Europe were to have a long and cold winter, economies would stagnate, prices would increase, and people would be suffering.

1) EU bureaucrats had urged EU countries not to sign long-term gas supply contracts with Russia, because electricity from wind, solar, etc., would increase, and signing long-term contracts would “send the wrong signal”, plus it would give “evil” Russia more clout in EU energy markets.

2) However, EU bureaucrats did not take into account the vagaries of wind and solar. In that regard, they are far from unique.

From April, 2020, to the present, there has been significantly less wind than in prior years.

Even though more onshore and offshore wind turbine capacity, MW, was installed in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, that build-out did not result in as much of an increase in wind electricity as predicted, due to less than average winds.

3) As a result, the shortfall of wind electricity had to be made up by burning more gas and coal, which rapidly increased SPOT prices of gas to $40/million Btu, (US prices were $4/million Btu) and also increased the SPOT prices of coal.

4) Then, people became aware, the EU winter storage of gas was very low, compared to prior years, which meant energy markets began to bid up the SPOT prices of gas for future, i.e., winter, delivery.

5) At first, EU bureaucrats tried to hide their lack of planning ability, and blame the shortfalls on market manipulation by Russia.

However, Russia proved, with gas system operating data, it had been transmitting gas to the EU, IN EXCESS of long-term contract requirements; in case of Ukraine, the excess transmission was 10%.

EU pipeline engineers agreed with Russia: EU countries had received their contracted supply of low-cost gas from Russia.

Ukraine: At present, Ukraine does not buy gas directly from Russia. Instead, the gas flows through a transmission line, and Ukraine takes some of that gas for its own use. Ukraine calls that gas “a reverse-flow supply”, as if it came from EU countries, i.e., a charade.

Impoverished Ukraine pays these EU countries about 20 to 30 percent more, than if Ukraine had bought the gas directly from Russia.

Russia requires Ukraine to pay for a year of gas supply, up front, in cash, because impoverished, corrupt Ukraine, during prior years:

1) Stole gas from transmission lines (the gas had been bought by EU countries from Russia)

In case Ukraine would have a gas supply contract with Russia, and the flow had been any quantity less than per contract, Ukraine would have cried “Russia is using gas as a weapon” to its EU, US, and NATO protectors.

NOTE: After Ukraine applied to be a member of the EU, Ukraine could not be such a bad commercial actor with regard to the EU, as otherwise, it would never be admitted to NATO and the EU.

Germany: Several decades ago, when Germany started its ENERGIEWENDE towards wind, and solar, and tree burning, and closing nuclear plants, I thought they were of-the-charts nuts. The chickens are finally coming home to roost, aided and abetted by RE-idiot bureaucrats in Brussels, who know not their belly buttons from a hole in the ground; I am trying to stay polite.

The Biden administration announced on October 13, 2021, it will subsidize the development of up to seven offshore wind systems (never call them farms) on the US East and West coasts, and in the Gulf of Mexico; a total of about 30,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.

Biden's offshore wind systems would have an adverse, long-term impact on US electricity wholesale prices, and the prices of all other goods and services, because their expensive electricity would permeate into all economic activities.

The wind turbines would be at least 800-ft-tall, which would need to be located at least 30 miles from shores, to ensure minimal disturbance from night-time strobe lights.

Any commercial fishing areas would be significantly impacted by below-water infrastructures and cables. The low-frequency noise (less than 20 cycles per second, aka infrasound) of the wind turbines would adversely affect marine life, and productivity of fishing areas.

Production: Annual production would be about 30,000 x 8766 h/y x 0.45, capacity factor = 118,341,000 MWh, or 118.3 TWh of variable, intermittent, wind/weather/season-dependent electricity.

The additional wind production would be about 100 x 118.3/4000 = 2.96% of the annual electricity loaded onto US grids.

That US load would increase, due to tens of millions of future electric vehicles and heat pumps.

This would require a large capacity of combined-cycle, gas-turbine plants, CCGTs, to cost-effectively:

Such lulls occur at random throughout the year, and may last 5 to 7 days in the New England area.

Turnkey Capital Cost: The turnkey capital cost for wind systems and offshore/onshore grid extension/augmentation would be about 30,000 MW x $5,000,000/MW = $150 BILLION, excluding financing costs.

Biden’s excessive inflation rates, about 7% at present, surely would increase that cost.

Based on the real-world European operating experience, such systems would last about 20 to 25 years.

Area Requirements: The 8-MW wind turbines would be arranged on a grid, spaced at least one mile apart (8 rotor diameters), about 1 sq mile per wind turbine. The minimum sea area requirement for 30,000/8 = 3,750 wind turbines would be 3,750 sq miles, or 2,400,000 acres

Electricity Cost/kWh: The all-in wholesale price of the offshore electricity would be about 18 c/kWh, without cost shifting and subsidies, and about 9 c/kWh, with cost shifting and subsidies. See Appendix

NOTE: This compares with the average New England wholesale price of 5 c/kWh, during the 2009 - 2022 period, 13 years, courtesy of:

1) Abundant, domestic, natural gas-fueled CCGT plants, that have: 1) low-cost/kWh, low-CO2/kWh, extremely-low particulate/kWh

2) Domestic, uranium-fueled nuclear plants, that have low-cost/kWh, near-zero CO2/kWh, zero particulate/kWh

3) Long-lasting hydro plants, that have low-cost/kWh, near-zero-CO2/kWh, zero particulate/kWh

NOTE: Cost shifting and subsidies have not yet affected NE wholesale prices, because the percent of new RE (mostly wind and solar) on the NE grid is very small, after 20 years of subsidies. However, they have affected the German and Danish wholesale rates, because the percent of new wind and solar has become significant after 20 years of subsidies. The political allocating of their costs has greatly increased household electric rates. See URL

Almost the entire physical supply and installation of the 30,000 MW of offshore wind systems would be provided by EU companies, because they have the required expertise and the domestic onshore facilities and seagoing facilities, due to building at least 25,014 MW (end 2020) of offshore systems, during the past 39 years.

Currently, EU companies have capacity to install 8 to 10 MW, offshore wind turbines, at a rate of about 1,500 MW/y

It would take years to convert existing sites for producing offshore wind turbines.

It would take years to build the sea-going ships and specialized cranes to transport, and assemble, and service the wind turbines.

Duplicating the EU onshore and seagoing facilities in the US, PLUS implementing 30,000 MW of offshore wind systems in less than 8 years, 2022 to 2030, at a rate of 30,000/8 = 3,750 MW/y, would be physically impossible. See Note

The Biden 30,000 MW of wind systems merely is a disingenuous, political ploy, to fool the American people, and technology-ignorant RE folks, into believing something big is being done about global warming.

In the real world, any independent energy systems analyst would deem Biden’s offshore wind scheme a total fantasy.

NOTE: Maine dreaming about building thousands of MW of off-shore FLOATING wind turbines would be hugely expensive, because, at present, there are no major wind companies in the world with any experience, other than minor experience by Norway.

About 15,000 MW of nuclear plants would produce 15000 x 8766 x 0.90 = 118,341,000 MWh of STEADY electricity, which would not require any CCGTs to perform counteracting and fill-in services.

The turnkey capital cost would be 15,000 MW x $8,000,000/MW = $120 billion, much less than wind system, plus these plants would last at least 60 years.

Six, standard-design, 2,500 MW plants would require a total of about 6,000 acres

Russia plans to build a fleet of floating nuclear power plants and on-shore installations, based on Russian-made small modular reactors (SMRs). These units will be available for deployment to hard-to-reach areas of Russia's North and Far-East, as well as for export. Such power plants could be used all over the world, instead of CO2-emitting fossil plants.

A Russian-built floating nuclear power plant is equipped with two KLT-40S reactor systems, each with a capacity of 35 MW, similar to those used on icebreakers. It is 144 m long and 30 m wide, and has a displacement of 21,000 metric ton.

The project was started in May 2009. Reactors were installed in 2013. Since December 2019, the ship has been anchored at a dock in the City of Pevek, in northern Siberia, to provide electricity to power the ship and the entire town.

Low-pressure steam exiting the low-pressure end of the steam turbine is used to produce hot water for domestic hot water and for building heating. The hot water is pumped, via underground piping, to a large number of nearby buildings, i.e., a near-zero-CO2, highly efficient (about 65%), DHW/district heating system.

The EU gas storage reservoirs are way below where they should be at this time of the year.

Filling storage for high levels of winter use, at SPOT prices, would be VERY EXPENSIVE.

In 2020, gas storage levels were at 90% in January and 55% in April, the low point.

In 2021, gas storage levels were at 74% in January and 30% in April, the low point.

It is already too late to adequately fill the EU storage, because there is not enough available gas, no matter what the price!!

After NORD-STREAM-2, capacity 55 bcm/y, gets final approval by the German government, only one of the two lines would be DELIVERING gas by the end of 2021; the second line would be ready to deliver gas by about March 2022.

But wait, EU bureaucrats have concocted an EU THIRD ENERGY PACKAGE, which effectively states, Russia can use only one of the two NORD-STREAM-2 lines, because the capacity of other line has to be reserved for other gas delivering companies, as part of EU policy of “fostering competition”!

Whereas, there ARE such gas delivering companies, none of them have any gas to ACTUALLY USE those lines, and if they HAD gas, they still could not use them, because the lines, which run under the bottom of the Baltic Sea, connect Russia directly to Germany, with no in/out connections for others.

Now, you can see the level of nuttiness EU bureaucrats engage in just to “protect” the EU from “evil” Russia..

Tens of millions of Europeans will have to put on extra layers of clothes, because it will be COLD in the EU this winter.

Also see LEGAL FIGHT OVER NORD STREAM 2, AS EUROPE ENERGY COSTS SOAR AHEAD OF COLD WINTER

Also see LEGAL FIGHT OVER NORD STREAM 2, AS EUROPE ENERGY COSTS SOAR AHEAD OF COLD WINTER

This article, by Francis Menton, first appeared on the site of the "Manhattan Contrarian"

You don’t have to be any kind of a genius to figure out that wind and solar generation are never going to supplant fossil fuels in powering the world economy. The main reason is that the wind and sun only work part time, indeed well less than half of the time at best.

With wind, you never know when it might work, and over a year a given facility might on average produce about 30-35% ..., with long and random periods of nothing, about 0.30 in New England.

With the sun, you know from the get-go that you will get nothing fully half the time (i.e., night); and cloudy days wipe out half and more of the remaining half, again at random times. Averaged over the year, you’ll be lucky to get 15% of rated capacity from a solar facility in New England.

With the world economy finally bouncing back (hopefully) from the year-and-a-half of pandemic, this is the moment for wind and solar to step up and show what they can do.

All the advanced economies (Europe, UK, US, Canada, Australia) have been pushing wind and solar for a couple of decades, with tens of billions of dollars of various subsidies and tax breaks. There are now wind turbines and solar panels all over the place.

Simultaneously the same countries have shuttered coal plants, reduced nuclear, banned fracking in many places (Europe, the UK, and much of the US), and discouraged fossil fuels of every sort in a hundred different ways. Now there is a surge in demand for manufactured goods of every sort. That will take some energy. Let’s see what the wind and the sun can do!

The answer is that when they are needed by users, they are often not ABSENT.

Which brings me to two front page articles in the Wall Street Journal the past two days. Yesterday it was “Coal Shortages Weigh on global Economies.”

Excerpt:

Coal supply shortages are pushing prices for the fuel to record highs and laying bare the challenges to weaning the global economy off one of its most important—and polluting—energy sources. The crunch has many causes—from the post-pandemic boom to supply-chain strains and ambitious targets for reducing carbon emissions. And it is expected to last at least through the winter, raising fears in many countries of fuel shortfalls in the months ahead.

How much have prices increased?

COAL: Australia’s Newcastle thermal coal, a global benchmark, is trading at $202 a metric ton, three times higher than at the end of 2019.

GAS: From today, we have “Natural Gas Shortage Sets Off a Scramble.”

It’s basically the same story as for coal:

Buyers in Europe, Asia and Latin America are competing for limited supplies of gas, racing to fill tanks and caverns with the fuel before winter hits the Northern Hemisphere. Natural gas stocks are alarmingly low around the world, and prices in most places have never been higher after surging to new records in Europe and Asia this week. Demand has jumped as economies have bounced back from pandemic shutdowns, and the squeeze has caught traders, shipowners and energy executives off guard.

How about a few details on the price? They helpfully give us this chart:

Screen Shot 2021-10-08 at 10.17.02 PM.png

Thankfully, the US, home of fracking, has mostly been spared the huge natural gas price spikes that have befallen Europe and Asia. If the dopes occupying the White House and leading the Congress had their way, we would be suffering the fate of those places and worse.

OIL: It’s suddenly trading at $80 and more per barrel, the highest prices since 2014. Expect that fact to show up in gas prices at the pump over the course of the next few weeks or days.

But what are we missing? Shouldn’t wind and solar just step up to fill in the gaps? After all, they are clean, and they are green, there are lots of brand-new systems, and the “fuel” is abundant and free. The question is of course facetious.

Wind and solar are completely useless to step in when supplies of fossil fuels are tight. You can cover the landscape with them, but on a calm night you will have nothing. Absolutely nothing. Essentially you need the same fossil fuel power plant capacity, MW, as if you had never built any wind or solar facilities at all.
Remember, that power plant capacity has to be staffed, fueled, ready to operate, 24/7/365, year after year, the counteract the shortcomings of wind and solar.

While we’re at this, we might as well look over to the big energy story on the front page of today’s New York Times.

That would be “World Wants Action as China Gushes Emissions.” It’s a big three-column extravaganza, continued to all of page A-12 in the interior.

The bottom line:

China is producing a huge percentage of the world’s manufactured goods, and it currently has a shortage of electricity to do the job, and it’s going to build more fossil fuel power plants, whether the RE pooh-bahs of the rest of the world like it or not.

Some excerpts:

On the northern edge of a vast Chinese factory city, welding torches gleam as workers finish construction on a gas-fired power plant to replace one that burned coal and blanketed the surrounding neighborhood in a sooty pall. It’s one of several huge gas-fired plants being built to pump more electricity throughout this sprawling industrial city of about 10 million, where rising demand for power has led to rationing and blackouts that are now rippling across eastern China and threaten international supply chains. This archipelago of power plants underlines an unsettling reality in the global fight to slow climate change. China burns more fossil fuels than any other nation, making it the planet’s top source of the greenhouse gases that are warming the Earth. And its voracious appetite for electricity is only growing.

But hasn’t China built all kinds of wind and solar facilities, and for that matter hydropower?

-The Times calls them the “world leader” in all three categories:

China is the world leader in hydroelectric power, in solar power and in wind power. While China has mostly run out of rivers to dam for hydroelectric power, it has been building solar power and wind power faster than any other country in recent years.

Why don’t they just use these sources to provide the power they need and forget about the coal and the natural gas? The Times will never say it, but the fact is that all the wind and solar are completely for show. They produce some small amounts of power at random times, and then when you really need to use them they can’t be counted on.

China continues to build natural gas and coal plants, while mouthing empty promises about maybe someday slowing that process down.

As to the reality on the ground:

China still plans to build 247,000 MW of new coal-fired power plants. That is nearly six times Germany’s entire coal power capacity. China’s plan “would actually undo the ability of the rest of the world” to restrain global warming to a relatively safe level, [John Kerry] said.

But Kerry and his ilk have no idea of where 24/7365, steady, low-cost electricity would come from to make all this manufactured stuff.

For example:

The biggest driver of China’s emissions, however, is its insatiable appetite for steel and cement, key ingredients for apartment towers, bullet train lines, subways and other large construction projects. Producing these two materials accounts for about a quarter of China’s carbon emissions.

Make vast amounts of steel and cement and pave the roads, and make clothes, etc., with solar and wind power? Good luck with that.

Anyway, we’re little by little seeing the inevitable consequences of trying to replace real energy, i.e., fossil fuels with tooth-fairy dust.

This will continue until the low- and middle-income people of the world figure this out and throw the climate cultists out of power.

Meanwhile, those of us who pay attention can have some fun watching the inevitable crash of the wind and solar fantasy.

Comment by Long Islander on October 23, 2021 at 12:14am: Electric Vehicles Aren’t Taking Over Our Roads as Fast as Hype Artists Claim Both the rate of EV adoption and the environmental benefits the vehicles will produce have been oversold
Vaclav Smil
20 Nov 2017
https://spectrum.ieee.org/electric-vehicles-arent-taking-over-our-r...

US	EU	EU
$/million Btu	$/1000m3	Euro/1000m3
3	106	91
4	141	122
5	177	153
6	212	183
7	247	213
8	283	244
9	318	274
10	353	304

HAVING FUN WATCHING WIND AND SOLAR FAILING TO STEP UP TO POWER THE WORLD ECONOMY

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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law