Not to mention the nuclear plants that are still working but anti-nuclear forces are trying to shut down, like Indian Point and Oyster Creek and Hydroelectric Dams like the ones on the Snake river that groups are trying to tear down.
Um no.
Then it was a silly thing for them to say in that context that has very little to do with EVs and is more a separate comment on the state of our current power generating infrastructure and on the the impossibility of using nuclear as the single replacement technology.
In short what they said (you are saying) is that we have lots of old plants that need to be replaced, that we have growing demand overall, that a “large” EV fleet (“large” apparently being more than 73% of the LDF) may require some marginal increase over that capacity as well, and that we do not have the capacity right now to build that much safely with nuclear (“many critical castings and forgings just can’t be made fast enough for that schedule, and the number of trained nuclear equipment-certified welders would need to increase by a factor of 50 … worried that US utilities would buy Chinese parts of “questionable” quality at a serious risk”).
Well that is exactly the point I have made in threads about nuclear on these boards in the past: nuclear can’t be built fast enough to even replace current plants so we need all of nuclear and renewables and less dirty coal to provide for our replacement and marginal increase in power generation needs; how much of each depending on the specifics of each market and the forces of market competition (pricing in the carbon by some means). But those are different discussions: that new and replacement power generation needs to happen with or without EVs.
EVs charging smart would actually help the utilities and make the investments in both nuclear and renewables more attractive. Nuclear is a big capital investment that is paid off best by being utilized nearly 24/7/365. With EVs there to buy up the power that they could be making at night but have no current market for, to valley fill, the cost per unit generated goes down as the plant is more fully utilized and less capacity wasted. Renewables could also benefit by having a buffer built into the system: vehicles plugged-in and post market use of those batteries for grid stabilization can help accomplish that task.
For the purposes of this discussion though it can be said that EVs at any reasonable level of growth and penetration of the market could be handled by a grid the size we currently have. And even with the same mix of power generation (not retiring any of the oldest dirtiest coal plants, no new nuclear or renewable or less dirty coal, etc.) switching to to a vast majority of vehicles as EVs would have huge net benefits. Any improvements to the grid over the years would be gravy and more EVs charging smart would help make those grid upgrades easier to accomplish.
Looks like you didn’t look at it in any detail at all, actually, you just Googled for a page.
The page actually says:
It INCREASED by 15.3 GW in one year. Anyone who knew anything about electrical generation and energy in the US (as opposed to just skimming technical papers and websites to cherry-pick factoids) could look at 15.3 GW and see it was obvious by inspection that it could not possibly be the peak generating capacity. And 6 GW per year of new nuclear is only a fraction of the total increase. For fuck’s sake, I’ve been to a single (non-nuclear) power plant that put out about 6 GW.
Since earlier you said this to me in another thread:
…I expect you’ll ignore my attempt to correct your misleading data here, but at least the others in this thread may benefit from this correction. It’s probably too “petty” for you to worry about, but you’re in my topical backyard now, and I’m not going to let you use faulty data or misrepresentations of real, basic energy data to try to play “gotcha!” with my posts.
Indeed I misread. My apologies. Thank you for catching the mistake.
As I have said previously, when it comes to knowledge about power generation I hold your knowledge base in high esteem, even if I sometimes disagree with your conclusions.
If I understand your correction they are therefore saying that we’d need to quadruple our current rate of new power generation increase to handle EVs (and replace out aging plants)? Is that a correct understanding?
Would you care to answer the questions I asked you upthread (post#359)?
Do you believe I have misled or misrepresented in my presentation of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory study or that their conclusions are flawed if I did not? If so please tell me how. If I have not, then what is your thought about their assessment of the demands that EVs at a reasonably “large” level of adoption will put on the grid? What is your reactionas an expert to my thought that EVs charging smart, valley filling, may help make new nuclear a more attractive investment by allowing their capacity to be more fully utilized round the clock? Do you have any comments about their ability to buffer various renewable sources, V2G, or the potential for the batteries to be used in a secondary market for grid stabilization?
Thank you for your thoughts.
Their conclusion was that due to possible accelerated retirements of coal plants from the (potential) ramifications of Utility MACT and GHG legislation, and due to pressure increasing on gas supplies again as a result of possible anti-frac legislation, was that the only way in which both the normal increase in power consumption and the extra load on the grid could be accommodated was by nuclear. A lot of the folks who were in the session with me gave it credence; I’m not entirely convinced myself, as I’m still working at coal plants right now which were “definitely going to be shut down now!” back in the 1990’s. And I think gas will not be subject to as much pressure as people think because of home heating pressure in the NE. And to be blunt, their conclusions were developed before a Republican sweep of the House and somewhat shortsighted, as I think it’s been fairly obvious since last spring that Obama would not get any new energy bill through for the rest of his term in office. That having been said, the EPA can move forward with both MACT and GHG legislation so long as Congress doesn’t stop them…
I’ve never seen a 220V plasma TV, and most refrigerators I’ve seen are 110V, but I suppose some may be 220V. But second, they gave few details on why these would be more dangerous. My impression of the speaker was that, like myself, they have a very, very dim view of the intelligence of the average American, so like myself they were probably biased in favor of “people are going to find innovative and exciting ways in which to kill themselves when presented with any 220V appliance.” That’s not something one can easily write a “scientific” paper on, but they did throw up some statistics of household electrical accidents and tried to extrapolate from that. They also had a survey of household electrical panels and wiring quality (focusing too much on 1970s/1980s-era aluminium wiring IMO) for trying to predict fires.
Grid stability was discussed in one session but to be honest I missed that session so I dare not speak about it and overextend myself.
Since I can’t cite the papers, as I said, I do not present them as fact, and their value as a third-hand reported item is questionable even from an “evidence” standpoint. But I thought the topics of safety when “EV meets Jane American” might be something to mull over when thinking about dramatic EV expansion.
I have not had time to look at it. PNNL normally does decent work, but as to this specific study perhaps I can look at it tonight.
Thank you for the answers, Una.
It seems that the demands of EVs are not really their big concern then, so much as they were an opportunity to make their larger point about their belief in the need for a great deal of new nuclear (with or without EVs as an additional demand) and the relative impossibility of building it safely unless new foundries are built and a new generation of nuclear workers is created extremely quickly. (And even then maybe.)
Yes, “charging stations” must be idiot proof. And while they are designed to be just that, idiots can be very clever in getting by that which is there to protect them. Sometimes for no reason other than to prove they can. Code must be enforced.
If you could read and comment on that paper it would be appreciated.
The main flaw I can find is only that assuming complete valley filling seems to be overly optimistic even with smart charging. But then reality is not having to handle 73% of the LDF as EVs overnight. Building to 20% over 15 years would be a very high end estimation. And while by then we may not have the amount of new nuclear that they are asking for, but we will have improved the grid some, including, I hope, some new nuclear, some less dirty coal, more renewables, and some improved transmission infrastructure as well.
You may find other issues though.
Oh, Magiver! Just so you know - I have disclosed my stock interest in the success of EVs already. I thought you’d be interested to know that our discussion has me planning on adding Amyris to my investments this week as well. I may disagree with you about the place of algae as a source, but I agree that biodiesel will be a very significant part of the future mix as well (as we have discussed, electricity is not attractive for all market niches and for those niches diesel excels), and Amyris’ approach seems to be the most promising - creating a value added diesel product, superior to the real thing in many ways, from an abundant renewable feedstock. So add that to my disclosures.
And Una, once upon a time you were kind enough to share with us your informed opinions about the use of biomass for bioelectricity rather than to produce biofuel. (You were less than sanguine as there were troubles with it clogging things up as I recall.) Do you have any updates on the status of the co-firing trials and any thoughts on algae from bioreactors being used as a co-firing source?
Again, thank you for your input.
I would like Una’s opinion of the current state of wind generation. The newest turbines have a 2.3Mw output. And there are plans to deploy them at sea on floating platforms.
Ok, that second link may not be perfectly accurate. But even when we are talking about increases of Gw of capacity, 2.3Mw per wind unit doesn’t seem insignificant. Is it?
Una, for reference here is an almost three year old post in which you helped educate me some (well, disabused me some, really) on the practicality of biomass in the real world (and were very correct about GreenFuel and FutureGen).
Three years later have things progressed in any meaningful way? If not do you see anything hopeful coming down the pike?
Have her define dramatic EV expansion. The Volt is slated for less than 16,000 the first year. That is no problem. At what point does it matter? Then of course the increased capacity of wind and solar can keep us from adding coal plants. They are improving too. It is a technology race.
Over the last 3 years (roughly) I have worked on 24 unique biomass projects**, meaning at unique locations. The total number of projects I’ve worked on is about 30 (in the US). Of those 30, 0 have resulted in any actual new biomass use. The main reasons have been supply and cost, but lately there has been a lot of confusion over the EPA’s stance on biomass co-firing and whether any of it will be considered carbon neutral.
Outside the US I have worked on 6 biomass projects in that time. Of those, all 6 were at plants which already burned biomass. As a result, no new generation was created, they just switched from one type of biomass to another.
One thing which really hurt biomass was the economy going to crap in that time. Four or five years ago I could hear CEOs and VPs of utility companies (sometimes when I sat in their office, even) say they were interested in all sorts of biomass projects for “good will” and “publicity”. When the economy died, so did any desire at all to buy a higher-cost fuel and sink potentially millions into biomass receipt, handling, storage, reclaim, blending, sizing, etc. systems, as well as the additional combustion controls needed.
A very quick review of the last calendar year shows I was supposed to be participating in no less than 8 test burns of biomass at coal power plants. In one case, I had bought the plane tickets. All 8 were canceled due to “the economy,” “not enough biomass supply to even test”, or lack of interest. That sucked.
That aside I’m on retainer now to three biomass fuel companies who think that they have the magic bullet for rolling out GW of biomass generation which does yield a carbon benefit. I’m not able to say anything about the accuracy of their enthusiasm, other than they should keep reaching for that rainbow.
I think the prospects for biomass co-firing are dimmer now than they were 3 years ago, which I think is a real shame. I really liked some of the biomass projects I worked on and I really wanted them to work. I also was hoping for a lot of $$$ from doing work in this area, and I have to admit that those economic projections on my behalf appear highly unpromising.
Does this address both your biomass posts, or were you asking something else which I’ve misunderstood? My summary view, my personal opinion, appealing to whatever quasi-authority I have, is that unfortunately I see large-scale power production from biomass at combustion fossil plants in the United States as being essentially dead until a) the economy improves, and b) there is a carbon tax or cap-and-trade. While some minor opportunistic biomass use may occur (1-3% through the pulverizers, for example), this will be limited to only a few power plants out of hundreds. It also will depend on the EPA and what their final stance on biomass co-firing use ends up as.
We can do better in this country. We can clean up our plants, we can improve efficiency, we can reduce GHG emissions (and individual consumers are one of the biggest problems). I’m tired of the culture of “can’t” or “won’t” which I work in every single fucking day. I’ve had some successes in convincing clients (power plants) to go the extra mile and do more to reduce emissions, above and beyond what’s legally required. I’ve put my career on the line arguing for folks to choose the greenest option as the best long-term strategy. But the industry in general seems, behind the scenes, filled with pessimism and malaise, rather than ignorance and fear. Sometimes I really wish I had retired two years ago.
**These values differ from other values I’ve posted because honestly it’s hard for me to track projects by start date unless I have my secretary run a report, so I’m estimating. And unlike me she doesn’t work on the weekends.
No, it doesn’t seem insignificant to me. I like wind, I think wind needs to be utilized as much as possible. However, and I’m not an expert on wind, I’ve been hearing some troubling things about frequency stabilization from two utilities I work with. Side conversations at one utility I visited last month had the CEO telling us that over the last 4 years they have had to add 1MW of gas turbine power for every MW of wind power they installed to keep the grid stable. I do not have the knowledge nor experience to confirm or refute that.
IIRC there are 5MW and 7.5MW designs which are potentially close to implementation. That’s a lot of damn wind power from one turbine.
Yes, it answered my question. Not the answer I was hoping for, I must admit, but answered it. Thank you. It was in context of the issue of liquid fuel vs electricity and the relative greater efficiency of burning the stuff for power to run electric vehicles vs using it as a feedstock to create a liquid fuel, be it ethanol or a diesel-like substance.
I hope that the economy does improve, that we do develop either a carbon tax or a cap and trade, and that the EPA recognizes that biomass should count as carbon neutral (or even mildly carbon negative in the case of grasses that leave root systems in the ground).
If those things did occur, do you think the values discussed as possible carbon taxes or as values for carbon credits would be sufficient to motivate those CEOs and VPs to scale up to the 5% mark? Or would even then it not be worth the difficulty of obtaining adequate biomass especially since it would be competing for product with growing biomass for fuel sources?
That’s…a difficult question to answer. I suspect it’s more efficient and more carbon-neutral to burn it at central generation to provide electricity. I suspect; I do not know, mainly because there are no additional inefficiencies of refining or ethanol production involved.
Outside of about 3 or 4 States (Iowa, Nebraska, um…Illinois, Kansas…maybe some more), I confess I rarely hear of biomass for power generation competing with biomass for ethanol production. By far the most common choice of biomass which power plants ask me to analyze is green wood, followed by engineered wood (dried, pelletized, and charcoal-type products, like torrefaction produces). I do not believe any of those are seriously considered for ethanol production. Now if the question is whether land used for wood would compete with things like corn and switchgrass…it may.
The previous discussion in this thread referenced this article in Science:
And on the other side of the firewall:
FWIW.
I had become interested in the subject of co-firing biomass for bioelectricity after reading about switchgrass projects, such as this one and this one(pdf). Growing it as an energy crop on otherwise non-arable land. Obviously that concept has not panned out, at least so far, anyway.
Back to EVs …
Meanwhile in China, Chery begins their EV line with a small commuter car, the Riich (aka Ruilin) M-1 series. Prices before government subsidies go from $22,000 to 35,000USD depending on the option package. There is an “up to” $9000USD subsidy per electric vehicle (presumably based on battery size) across China, and Shenzhen offers an additional $9000USD subsidy as well. Otherwise we know
Which I think means about a 20kWh battery that can give the car 93 miles on a charge. (I assume under ideal driving conditions.) Battery is made by my favorite Chinese battery maker - CBAK. I suspect that their first production runs will be even smaller than the Volts or the Leaf’s as home charging is less an established option there, but China has committed to building a substantial charging infrastructure over the next several years, and production volumes will pick up as that is implemented. According to some prognosticators China may become the world leader both in driving these cars and in making them. They want to be in control of their own energy as much as possible.
GM doesn’t want to be left out:
Nissan also wants in.
Heck so does BMW and Volkswagen.
And for the sake of both the planet’s health, and for your gas prices, we should all wish them good luck at getting the Chinese populus driving these cars.
Well, AFAIK the really big ones are only being built in Europe, and that (still rather effective) Siemens model is perhaps the largest in the US. In Europe, a new turbine is officially rated at 6 megawatts too, but will most likely produce 7+ megawatts (or 20 million kilowatt hours per year). Maybe we were thinking about the same thing?
Can we use municipal-scale batteries to remedy the stability problem? Aren’t they effectively the same thing as ‘gas turbine power’ in terms of stabilizing a load? I don’t have the knowledge to answer these questions. But check out these 500 Kwh batteries (pdf). Yeah, they weigh 40,000 lbs and are the size of a military cargo container, but never mind that, the turbine itself is already colossal. They claim to deliver 250 Kw steadily, and peak at 500Kw. Couldn’t a battery system associated with a giant turbine serve most or all of the function of gas turbine power for frequency stabilization?
Back to the giant wind turbine. The article claims just one of these suckers can generate 20 million kilowatt hours per year, or ~54795 Kw/h per day. A Chevrolet Volt only sucks about 8 Kwh per day, so just one of these turbines could charge ~6849 Volts. So the question is, can we keep turbine production (along with all other capacity construction) up with the rate of the introduction of evs? I really think we can, without resorting to a lot of nuclear power plants to boot. But I don’t have the expertise to professionally defend this position, which explains why I’d like your opinion.
I have no connection to any of these companies AFAIK
About half of the US deficit is due to oil imports. I don’t understand the right wing distance for alternative energy and electric cars. It seems to me that Republican Americans should be all gun-ho about anything, including electric vehicles, that could help to cut the US dependency on imported foreign oil.
ISTM the right distances itself from alt energy and electric cars because their actual priorities are their corporate clients first, everything else second. Among their biggest corporate clients are the extractive industries- oil, gas, coal. These guys feel threatened by alt energy and electric cars, and so the pubs will never support green tech (until the oil and gas guys run out of money). Their talk about deficits and smaller government (and everything else) is sheer marketing. I don’t think they are sincere about anything.
But I don’t think that is why Una isn’t responding to me. She said:
I suppose I don’t know for sure what she means when she talks about grid stability. The article I quoted mentions this about the 7Mw turbine:
So I assumed the ‘grid stability’ problem has to do with the variable output of wind turbines. But maybe I got the wrong idea, maybe I come across like I don’t know what I’m talking about and so she just didn’t bother.
I’d really like to know why the grid can’t be stabilized with batteries instead of more consumption of fossil fuels. Because frankly I am suspicious of any CEO who says gas turbine generation has to track increases in wind turbine generation 1 to 1. Really??