As suggested
in my
earlier article, consider this article to be a comment under David's
article: The Eastern US could get a third of its power from renewables within 10years. Theoretically, which has no comment field.
Because David is a self-labeled climate hawk,
I'm going to start by addressing (what should be but isn't) the overarching
concern of climate hawks with regard to energy production--carbon emissions. Had
the study also replaced all remaining coal with nuclear, which technically, is
certainly possible as France proved long ago, there would have been a 30% + 33% (see Figure 2) = 63% reduction in emissions. Even more
simply, they could have replaced all coal with nuclear from the start and added
no renewable energy for an emissions reduction of 46%. But because this study
was done by the National Renewable Energy Lab, that possibility was not
considered.
Why did they stop at 30% penetration? Why was
no attempt made to show what it would cost to implement? We do
know what it has cost Germany to get to this approximate level of renewables, as
I have pointed out uncounted times before:
I
don’t know any other economy that can bear this burden [$30billion a year]...We
have to make sure that we connect the energy switch to economic success, or at
least not endanger it. Germany must focus on the cheapest clean-energy sources
as well as efficient fossil-fuel-fired plants to stop spiraling power prices.
While
renewable aid costs are at the “limit” of what the economy can bear, Germany
will keep pushing wind and solar power, the most cost-effective renewable
sources, Gabriel said. Biomass energy is too expensive and its cost structure
hasn’t improved, he said.
Germany is
demonstrating the real world cost of trying to reduce emissions with only
renewables; $30 billion a year,
according to Germany's
economics ministry. $30 billion a year would pay for forty custom built $7.5
billion Generation III AP1000 reactors over ten years ($30B/year x 10years = $300B, $300B/$7.5B = 40 AP1000 reactors).
Add those to existing reactors and they could supply about 97% of Germany's
electricity by 2025.
The Eastern US could get a third of its power from
renewables within 10 years. Theoretically.
That word
David stuck on the end of his title is all important and should be in the
preface of any of these studies. But what does theoretically mean? David takes
a stab at it below:
Prior
to the question of how that might be accomplished socially or politically
is the simple question of whether it’s technically possible.
... the basic conclusion of the study can be summed up in four words: It can be done.
...anyone who says that the densely populated eastern US can’t do it without threatening service and reliability is, according to the best available research, simply wrong.
... the basic conclusion of the study can be summed up in four words: It can be done.
...anyone who says that the densely populated eastern US can’t do it without threatening service and reliability is, according to the best available research, simply wrong.
He got the
social and political part right but technical feasibility ("it can be
done") ...not so much. Let me give you an example. 2 + 3 = 5. That's not a
theoretical answer. If the value of two or three are assumed rather than being factual,
the answer becomes theoretical. The more assumptions in a study, the more
theoretical are the answers. This study relies on several hundred assumptions.
Both the amount of wind and solar that can technically be integrated as well as
the time frame for it have wide error bands. And there is no mention of cost.
- Socially
- Politically
- Technologically
- Economically
So, I agree that the study does not solve social or political problems, but it also does not prove economic viability (may not be the lowest cost solution) and technical viability in this case is largely a matter of money. Germany certainly had similar studies before they launched their energy transition.
And of
course, this is just one study. We should never base policy on a single study. Our
cars would be powered entirely by food crop-based biofuels (instead of today's mere
10%) if fuel policy were dictated by a single study from the corn growers
association. A single study has limited value.
The
study is a remarkable technical achievement, marrying enormous datasets with
enormous computing power to produce incredibly rich scenarios (one reason it
stretches to 220 pages, with six appendices).
Doesn't sound
all that impressive considering that a few years ago they produced a four-volume study (where
the first volume alone was 280 pages) suggesting that 80% of our grid could be
renewable by 2050.
Simulating the behavior of that machine under different
resource scenarios involves running millions of equations, for every one of
those nodes, at every interval, ranging over gigantic datasets. It wasn’t even
possible until recently, which is why analysis has relied so heavily on
assumptions and educated guesses.
Which is a
big improvement over their four-volume study I mentioned earlier suggesting 80%
renewables and maybe that explains why the estimate has dropped to 30%, but
still, this study required many assumptions, in large part because the future
can't be predicted with certainty.
Interestingly, NREL modeled nuclear plants
as entirely inflexible, unable to ramp, though there’s some evidence
that’s not true.
Below I show
you the graph that David (knowing that nobody follows links) only linked to:
This is how
the NREL put it:
This
is a conservative assumption, as nuclear plants in several countries and the
Pacific Northwest have decades of successful flexible plant operation
By conservative they mean that flexible use of nuclear power would likely have
reduced use of natural gas and increased the penetration of wind and solar. My
guess is that they don't want to show nuclear power having any benefit.
These
kinds of things — the political, social, and institutional changes — are more
difficult than the technological challenge. And unfortunately, there is no
model, no simulation, and no supercomputer that can show us how to induce
today’s socioeconomic institutions and their leaders to behave in a more
clueful fashion.
He's right
about the political, social, and institutional hurdles. But because David is at
heart, not "pro-nuclear," it didn't dawn on him that those hurdles are also standing
in the way of using more nuclear in the mix.
It’s
probably worth at least mentioning that increasing VG penetration to 30 percent
would also reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the EI by 30 percent. That’s a
lot.
Although
David commends the authors for providing full disclosure, I wish you luck
finding the data behind the bar charts provided in the summary. Figure 93 shows
a >30% reduction in emissions but appears to contradict what is shown in Figure 2 below, which would suggest something more like a 20% reduction on the "system."
I'd love to know why. It's partly because the study states that "approximately"
30% wind and solar was installed (didn't quite make it to 30%) and
partly because much of the power replaced was gas, which, assuming that it
produces roughly half the emissions of coal, will have less impact on emissions
reductions on the system than reducing power from coal. 30% or 19% is better
than nothing, but it's also not as good as 30% + 33% = 63%.
Figure 2: Adapted from Figure 43 of the study |
I suspect
that the study stops at 30% wind and solar because according
to another study done by the NREL penetrations much beyond that "could
test the economic carrying capacity of the U.S. power grid":
"Still
higher levels of variable renewable energy generation [wind and solar above
30%] is technically feasible but could test the economic carrying capacity of
the U.S. power grid."
Note that the
study uses the acronym VG (variable generation) for wind and solar. Why they didn't
simply say "wind and solar" is beyond me.
From the
study:
Nuclear
units were assumed to operate at their maximum capacity at all times that they
were not on a planned or forced outage.
Why did they
assume there would be no closure of nuclear like that in California? I think
the answer is that replacing nuclear with wind and solar would make their emissions
numbers look worse. Assuming a decision was made to let all nuclear close
instead of fossil fuels (as Germany did) all of this effort would result in a
3% increase in emissions. Closing
half of nuclear would have resulted in only an 8.8% reduction and so it goes.
Moral of the story? Don't close nuclear power stations.
David
continues:
NREL
did not model a substantial role for emerging technologies and practices like
grid-connected battery storage and demand response. If thost techs flourish —
and signs are good —it's likely the grid could accommodate much more than 30
percent in 10 years.
Never mind
that the study didn't make it all the way to 30%, they didn't model a
substantial role for storage and demand response specifically because the signs
are not good for them making
significant headway in that timeframe.
Let’s
pause a moment and give thanks for America’s extraordinary national
laboratories, which continue pumping out high-quality research at a pace I can
barely keep up with. (Special shout out to Aaron Bloom, NREL’s project leader
on this study.)
Let's pause a moment and give thanks for America's ...? The NREL does a
fine job publishing theoretical studies. However, the value of these studies is
unknown. Do they lead us in the right direction or not? A few years back they
published a four-volume study suggesting that 80% of the United States grid
could, in theory, be renewable by 2050. What were the ramifications of that
study other than to convince the citizens of California that it was OK to close
nuclear power (with an attendant rise in emissions)?
One piece of
their work that I have personally found valuable is their website to help you
calculate the value of solar panels on your roof. I used it for my house and
found that I would be $30,000 poorer over the life of the panels if I installed
them. The website is just a little deceptive in that they stop short of
calculating your total gain or loss for you. You have to be smart enough to
figure that out for yourself. All it does is estimate what your panel energy
would be worth in cents per kWh. You have to understand what this means,
multiply it times the kWh you would use over the life of the panels and compare
it to what you would have spent without the panels.
Now why would
they stop short like that if they were not trying to prevent sticker shock?
As I
said in
an earlier article, being "renewable" is irrelevant to fighting
climate change. Our energy sources need two qualities:
1) Low
emission
2)
Affordable at scale
Renewability
is a sufficient but not necessary condition for reducing carbon emissions
except in cases where renewable sources are not low carbon (some biofuels).
The best bet
for future low carbon grids will be a mix of nuclear and renewables with just
enough natural gas to stitch them all together.
Credit puzzle graphic: David Goehring via Flickr Creative Commons
Credit puzzle graphic: David Goehring via Flickr Creative Commons
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