Such is the case with Weeder Gander.
On 4/18 I posted a “memo” to “Mr. President” in which I urged him to declare an emergency and start drilling for oil in response to the high gasoline, diesel and other chemical prices that are killing our economy. I also suggested, somewhat in jest, but less so than more so, that he have some serious conversations with OPEC re our belief that they are attacking us.
Weeder responded with a snark about what Bush knew and when, and even managed to come up with a quote supposedly showing he didn’t know about the forecast of $4.00 gasoline from some reporter. I didn’t bother asking for links because it didn’t matter. My post was not about what Bush did, or didn’t know, but about taking action to solve the problem. I even asked Weeder for a solution.
To which he responded that:
Drilling for oil in America wouldn't do much for the present crisis. It's like a heroin junkie saying they'll quit using in two weeks.
Which, if you take only the long view, has some truth in it. Of course in the long view we will all be dead. And when pressed a bit he came up with solar power. More specifically, concentrated solar power, or CSP.
Solar power has been around for sometimes, and is attractive for many reasons. But it has its problems. Chief among them is how do we store heat to run the plant when the sun is not available and the size of the collection/heating areas relative to the required location for transmission. Weeder seemed to agree with these, but instead of offering a specific solution, he argued that the problems are solved. (See my “Solar Power?” post.)
The first commercial scale concentrating solar power (CSP) plant in Europe was inaugurated in the Southern Spanish city of Seville in March 2007. The 11 MW plant has been designed to produce 23 GWh of electricity a year, enough to supply a population of 10,000.
Let’s see, a population of 10,000? That would be a very small town. And given that the per capita energy usage in Spain is probably 60% or so of what it is in the US, the US number would be 6,000. A very small town.
And then we had this:
Ausra has said with new CSP technologies they expect to reach $0.08/kWh, and some within the company have said that with economies of scale and implementation of developing technologies the cost could be as low as $0.05/kWh. When you make these charts it is important to use expected costs rather than historical costs. The current costs of CSP is already only in the $0.14 range in the newest CSP facilities
Given that we are talking cost, the consumer price with NEW technologies is expected to reach 16 cents. Expected, of course, means “hope.” And developing technologies means “maybe.” In other words, your electric bill will be around three times what it is now. A $150 monthly bill becomes $450.
That buys 100 gallons of gas at $3.00 a gallon, or 2000 miles worth of driving. Said driving, of course is necessary to get to work, etc.
That is, the additional price of electrical power adds nothing to the economy. It is just a flat loss. So much for the green economy. It’s green alright. The color of the dollar coming out of your pocket.
Are all these numbers accurate? As a proponent wrote:
I just put together a couple graphs for a talk I’m giving on Monday to give people a visual feel of the various technologies for generating electricity. These come with a gigantic caveat: the numbers are far from precise
Ah yes. Yes indeed.
Given that we are talking cost, the consumer price with NEW technologies is expected to reach 16 cents.
ReplyDeleteCSP isn't a new technology, and I don't see how a price of 5 cents a KW would translate into 16 KW to the consumer.
Is that some sort of new math that I haven't heard of before?
That is, the additional price of electrical power adds nothing to the economy. It is just a flat loss. So much for the green economy. It’s green alright. The color of the dollar coming out of your pocket.
Except that there are no fuel costs necessary to keep a plant going, something you can't say for fossil fuel, U-235, PU-239,
Tritium or Deuterium, etc.
Oh, and you did the selective excerpt bit again, and missed this part that came after your bolded quote:
With changing technologies, it’s impossible to represent any of this with a single number anyway. I’m trying to show how the technologies compare to each other, and I used four parameters:
* Cost ($/MWh),
* Availability (better the closer the profile of the technology matches a normal demand curve (wind is bad, baseload is okay, dispatchable is best, solar),
* Emissions (and I count waste storage when it comes to nuclear),
* Bubble sizes represent the size and durability of the resource (I’ve tried to combine in one number how much power we can get from the resource, but also how long supplies of fuel will last.)
Here's an academic(but non-scientific) POV:
The results reveal significant economic benefits, in terms of GSP, new employment, and
personal income to the state of Nevada. As such, CSP generation is a potential source of
economic development throughout the state. Rural Nevada has been shedding high-
paying natural-resource-based jobs for the past decade. Solar power generation does not
contribute to global warming or diminish air quality, but provides opportunities for the
skilled labor force that has been left unemployed in rural Nevada. Thus, tallying the
economic and environmental benefits of solar-power generation, it is clear that it could be
an important contributor to sustainable economic development in rural Nevada.
Found this from CNET:
May 16, 2007 5:57 AM PDT
Start-up Ausra thinks big with solar storage
Posted by Martin LaMonica | 2 comments
AUSTIN, Texas--When most people think of solar energy they think of panels on people's homes. But if you follow the money, investors are betting that large-scale solar from companies like Ausra are the most cost-competitive.
Ausra, which presented at the Clean Energy Venture Summit here on Tuesday, is testing a system to generate power at centralized stations. These solar parks use concentrating solar power to create steam that turns a turbine to make electricity.
If constructed on a large enough scale,these solar thermal plants are already cost-effective when compared with fossil-fuel power generation, according to advocates of the approach. (See photo of another concentrating solar plant here.)
Ausra's twist is "thermal storage." In addition to generating steam from its array of special metal tubes, Ausra stores hot water that a power plant can draw on during times when the sun is not shining.
That thermal storage is key to competing on price even at peak demand times, said Robert Morgan, the chief development officer of Ausra, who spoke on Tuesday.
The company's system, which is now testing in Australia, can operate at 10 cents per kilowatt hour for plants between 100 and 200 megawatts. For plants between 100 and 500 megawatts, the cost goes down to 8 cents per kilowatt hour, said Morgan
That means they can compete with existing natural gas plants, which operate at 12 cents per kilowatt hour, he said.
"With thermal storage, we can compete with coal on price," he said. Coal-fueled plants are typically the cheapest sources of power.
Ausra, which has been relatively quiet about its plans until now, is backed by venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins and Khosla Ventures.
"Ausra has said with new CSP technologies they expect to reach $0.08/kWh, and some within the company have said that with economies of scale and implementation of developing technologies the cost could be as low as $0.05/kWh."
ReplyDeleteWhat you have here is a bunch of targets based on expectations of results from new technology. If the technology doesn't work out then the PRICE will be approximateky 2 x costs. I used 8 cents as a cost, giving the expectations a charitable 50% success rate.
As for "follow the investors," we should remember what happened to many start up telecom technolgy and telecom services companies. They tanked.
I am all for CSP, etc. But my point was, is and will be that we are now in a triage stage. First we must stop the bleeding. More oil will do that.
At the same time we should be looking at the new stuff IF it is actually competitive.... At present CSP is not.
CPSA isn't 'new technology', as it's been used in CA since the mid-80s', and in Spain since last year.
ReplyDeleteThe company's system, which is now testing in Australia, can operate at 10 cents per kilowatt hour for plants between 100 and 200 megawatts. For plants between 100 and 500 megawatts, the cost goes down to 8 cents per kilowatt hour, said Morgan.
That means they can compete with existing natural gas plants, which operate at 12 cents per kilowatt hour, he said.
So they have it already below the cost of power generated by a natural gas plant, but you're worried about the rate payers paying more when the production cost is cheaper for this 'unproven technology'.
That is quite risible, by the way.
As for "follow the investors," we should remember what happened to many start up telecom technolgy and telecom services companies. They tanked.
Power generation can be hardly compared to the telecom industry, but then you make all sorts of nonsense allegations when you have neither facts or common sense in your reasoning.
This is what's happening here in the Golden State in re: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/21/ED8Q107P18.DTL&hw=solar+power&sn=001&sc=1000Solar.
Indeed, in the debate on SB1, the solar industry asked that ratepayer-funded incentives decline over time as costs came down, eventually zeroing out as the market matures and the cost of solar electricity becomes competitive with utility power. The declining incentives pressure manufacturers and installers to reduce the costs of solar systems, and protect ratepayers from subsidizing an industry that can operate without support. What other industry has agreed up-front to sunset governmental support?
To date, the initiative has demonstrated impressive results. The commercial solar market in California is two years ahead of the program goals, and the residential market is in line with the initiative plan. Even the utilities are responding - in late March, Southern California Edison announced a plan to install 250 megawatts of solar panels on just a fraction of the millions of square feet of sunny commercial rooftops in Southern California. The utility projects declining solar costs over time.
Sorry to confuse you with the facts, in any case.