Science/Environment The Carbon Debate, pt III

[SaintsSeptember]

All that says is that you have no idea how generation is currently dispatched. Solar is already dispatched outside the bidstack, as is wind (subject to network constraints). All your suggestion would do is force hydro to generate when it didn't want to.

In any case, we've already got a formula which combines price with emissions. It's a $23 / tonne carbon price which is supposed to make lower greenhouse emissions technology cost-competitive with fossil fuels. It doesn't, but that's another story.

If it gets to the point where this type of energy is even approaching mainstream, surely mandated fixed feed in tarrifs cannot work.

If you build a wind turbine providing intermittant power for $X and acme energy build a gas turbine for $Y dollars. Acme may sell less power because of the wind turbine, but they will still want to recover their capitol. So you will have 2 organisations wanting to recover $X+$Y in the same time frame. Perhaps the $X would be better spent making the gas station more efficient.

 

[DivideandMultiply]

Because GTs are the lowest cost peakers going around and make up the bulk of installed capacity in Australia in the last 5 years.



I got my estimates of capital costs of coal from ACIL's study for AEMO. They quote figures just over $2,000 per kW for coal. Is your figure of $3,900 per kW arrived at by taking the costs of the original build and adjusting for inflation? If so, that's the wrong way to go about it. Way back when governments built power stations, they did so in a hopelessly inefficient manner, which is part of the reason they got out of doing it.

The most recent coal fired generation built in Australia was Kogan Creek (black coal, 2007) in Queensland, which cost $1.2 billion for it's 750MW, $1600 per kW.



Happy to go with exaggerated.

Throw in the fact that, unlike solar, coal is baseload with a much higher capacity factor, and solar just can't compete on either a reliability or cost basis. That's why government policy has had to prop up the industry over the years.

I got mine from synapse energy. Which also quotes that the widely predicted construction cost per kW, for coal fired plants, has in fact turned out to be inaccurate and capital costs are generally far higher than predicted ($3500).

Also how much do you actually know about current CSP technology? It is more than capable of providing baseload power. Yes it often has a lower capacity factor than coal, roughly 30% vs 50%, but is capable of providing constant power over the day night cycle.

Some current projections also have capital costs falling as low as 1-2$ per watt before the end of the decade, so again accusations of exaggeration are inaccurate.

Why are you also using the term "solar" as some kind of blanket term? Solar thermal has little to do with PV.

 

[Norwegian Blue]

I got mine from synapse energy. Which also quotes that the widely predicted construction cost per kW, for coal fired plants, has in fact turned out to be inaccurate and capital costs are generally far higher than predicted ($3500).

And yet Kogan Creek was built for $1,600 per kW. Go figure.

Also how much do you actually know about current CSP technology?

A fair bit actually. I've worked in the industry for years and I try to keep reasonably up to date with emerging tech.

It is more than capable of providing baseload power.

No it isn't. It happened for the first time in 2011 as a demonstration. To leap from there to baseload power on a nationwide scale is wishful thinking.

Yes it often has a lower capacity factor than coal, roughly 30% vs 50%, but is capable of providing constant power over the day night cycle.

Baseload coal is usually 70-80% cf, more for brown coal. AND it can run when you want it to.

Some current projections also have capital costs falling as low as 1-2$ per watt before the end of the decade, so again accusations of exaggeration are inaccurate.

I generally take with a grain of salt industry projections of falling costs, particularly when they rely on future technological advances and more particularly when said projections are used to attract government funding into 'imminent' breakthroughs. Yes, I'm aware of the way costs have come down in the last 5 years. What isn't widely trumpeted is that much of the advances have been low hanging fruit, easy stuff that wasn't worth while doing until recently. The next advances will be tougher and more expensive.

$1-2 per watt is pipedream stuff and there's no way it'll be even close to that by then end of the decade.

Why are you also using the term "solar" as some kind of blanket term? Solar thermal has little to do with PV.

Fair point. Incidentally, in case anyone misunderstands, I'm not opposed to solar from an ideological POV, it's the economics that don't stack up. To be honest, I think the greens are mad to attach so much of their agenda to solar. There are better alternatives. As the RET has shown, wind and hydro are the alternative energy sources of choice when investment decisions are made.

 

[DivideandMultiply]

And yet Kogan Creek was built for $1,600 per kW. Go figure.



A fair bit actually. I've worked in the industry for years and I try to keep reasonably up to date with emerging tech.



No it isn't. It happened for the first time in 2011 as a demonstration. To leap from there to baseload power on a nationwide scale is wishful thinking.



Baseload coal is usually 70-80% cf, more for brown coal. AND it can run when you want it to.



I generally take with a grain of salt industry projections of falling costs, particularly when they rely on future technological advances and more particularly when said projections are used to attract government funding into 'imminent' breakthroughs. Yes, I'm aware of the way costs have come down in the last 5 years. What isn't widely trumpeted is that much of the advances have been low hanging fruit, easy stuff that wasn't worth while doing until recently. The next advances will be tougher and more expensive.

$1-2 per watt is pipedream stuff and there's no way it'll be even close to that by then end of the decade.



Fair point. Incidentally, in case anyone misunderstands, I'm not opposed to solar from an ideological POV, it's the economics that don't stack up. To be honest, I think the greens are mad to attach so much of their agenda to solar. There are better alternatives. As the RET has shown, wind and hydro are the alternative energy sources of choice when investment decisions are made.

I see you are intent continually adjusting your responses to claims I never made. Kogan Creek is one example, not an industry wide average, do you dispute the figure I quoted, do you have a source that refutes the claim?

I also never claimed, "baseload power on a national scale". The current technology is capable of providing baseload power and will in various locals soon. This is a fact.

The figures often reported for coal by the industry are have on many occasions been wildly inaccurate, a recent UK government study placed the average capacity factor yearly for coal fired plants in the UK at little over 40% year to year. http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/...kes/5955-dukes-2012-chapter-5-electricity.pdf

You are also grossly incorrect about the $1-2 watt supposition. Also about what has been driving cost reductions. For example larger scale manufacturing of components and implementations of current design improvements to reflectors, is expected to drive down costs associated with the solar fields by some 40%. There is broad room for cost reductions associated with CSP construction, that has little to do with pie in the sky technological improvements.

 

[Norwegian Blue]

The current technology is capable of providing baseload power and will in various locals soon. This is a fact.

Keep believing that if it makes you feel better. Unfortunately for you, those with their own money to spend don't believe it. Current technology CSP will be nothing more than niche peaking power. Even the plant capable of storing energy for 24 hour operation won't bother, because commercially it will make zero sense to take energy from the middle of the day and generate power at 2am.

 

[Norwegian Blue]

I see you are intent continually adjusting your responses to claims I never made. Kogan Creek is one example, not an industry wide average, do you dispute the figure I quoted, do you have a source that refutes the claim?

Forgot to add, the previous two coal power statuions built in Australia - Callide C and Millmerran - were built at comparable costs to Kogan Creek on a per MW basis. So you're proposing that somehow, everyone else in the world pays too much for their kit? Riiiight.

But hey, I've no doubt you can produce any number of reports, all projecting vastly inflated costs for coal fired plant because that'll suit your agenda. Won't make it true though.

As for a source, try this one. It comes from that shill for the power industry, Ross Garnaut. He puts the figures at $2,000/kW in figure 1 on p5.

http://www.garnautreview.org.au/update-2011/commissioned-work/new-power-cost-comparisons.pdf

The figures often reported for coal by the industry are have on many occasions been wildly inaccurate, a recent UK government study placed the average capacity factor yearly for coal fired plants in the UK at little over 40% year to year. http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/...kes/5955-dukes-2012-chapter-5-electricity.pdf

Duh! Coal is expensive in the UK, so they use it less often than we do, which makes for a lower capacity factor. In other news, the cost of refrigeration in Alaska is cheaper than in Saudi Arabia.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

There are also "hybrid" power stations, basically a solar station with a gas turbine out the back.
It costs as much as a solar power station and a gas power stations. For energy requirments we only need the gas power station.

Forget about getting a return for it. If you want Solar the government will need to build it.
Like the stupid broadband, just build it, then auction it off to a suitable operator.

 

[DivideandMultiply]

Forgot to add, the previous two coal power statuions built in Australia - Callide C and Millmerran - were built at comparable costs to Kogan Creek on a per MW basis. So you're proposing that somehow, everyone else in the world pays too much for their kit? Riiiight.

But hey, I've no doubt you can produce any number of reports, all projecting vastly inflated costs for coal fired plant because that'll suit your agenda. Won't make it true though.

As for a source, try this one. It comes from that shill for the power industry, Ross Garnaut. He puts the figures at $2,000/kW in figure 1 on p5.

http://www.garnautreview.org.au/update-2011/commissioned-work/new-power-cost-comparisons.pdf


Duh! Coal is expensive in the UK, so they use it less often than we do, which makes for a lower capacity factor. In other news, the cost of refrigeration in Alaska is cheaper than in Saudi Arabia.

Ah they do not agree with your POV, so I have agenda? Interesting coming from a person who seems fond of using red herrings and ignoring contradictory evidence.

Are you so idiotic that you believe what is true for Australia (in a couple of cases), is true for everywhere else on the globe?

The recent US experience completely contradicts your position, with a number of recent high profile cost blowouts for coal fired stations putting to lie the < or = to $2000 figure.
http://www.synapse-energy.com/Downl...-07.0.Coal-Plant-Construction-Costs.A0021.pdf

Have you also considered the vast costs associated with use of carbon capture technology for coal?

If we are interested in reducing emissions from power generation, then coal fired plants using carbon sequestration technology loom as a ludicrously expensive solution.

 

[Upton Sinclair]

Upton, the world end according mayan calendar next month, spend your last weeks with a smile, some cheer and a joke.

Stop worrying, just appreciate what time we have left.

Sadly for everyone involved AGW is eminently real. Its not something that will happen in the distant future, its happening now all around us. The next week or so should get everybody thinking about the issue again, with a rolling heatwave across two thirds of the country, reminding people that two wet years doesn't mean that Andrew Bolt was right and AGW is over because Flannery supposedly said it would never rain again. Statistically, people are less likely to be swayed by denier beliefs when the weather is hot than when its cold.

 

[DivideandMultiply]

Keep believing that if it makes you feel better. Unfortunately for you, those with their own money to spend don't believe it. Current technology CSP will be nothing more than niche peaking power. Even the plant capable of storing energy for 24 hour operation won't bother, because commercially it will make zero sense to take energy from the middle of the day and generate power at 2am.

Ah so now it can, but it won't happen?

Commercially, you mean robbing Peter to pay Paul at times of peak demand? This is completely untrue. Heat storage is a passive part of the process, it is steam generation that is modulated. Heat is stored over the whole daily cycle, depending on the capacity for heat capture/storage of the plant (determined by factors such as tower design, volume of liquid salts storage, size of solar field etc.), not just in the middle of the day. These are considerations which are planned for when determining the desired capacity of a station.

The US is pursuing base load capable CSP generation, likewise a number of private consortium's operating in the US, with over a dozen projects both under construction and planned, not all of which rely on government funding (excluding loans).

 

[Norwegian Blue]

Ah they do not agree with your POV, so I have agenda?

No, it's when you ignore facts that I think you have an agenda. Or maybe it's stupidity, it's hard to tell sometimes.

 

[Upton Sinclair]

Is there a model with just the methane from the northern hemisphere tundra thawing?

Good piece on SkS today

http://www.skepticalscience.com/crycapone.html

Also see Ben Cubby's SMH piece above, things could be much more grim than we realise

 

[fishardansin]

Good piece on SkS today

http://www.skepticalscience.com/crycapone.html

Also see Ben Cubby's SMH piece above, things could be much more grim than we realise

This is sort of what I mean. However, they talk about what methane is there and what organic processes could take place. What I'm wondering is if anyone has added these into a climate model for the next century. I don't want to be too "alarmist" but we could be seeing out and out disaster. I honestly believe if the mean temp rises 5 deg this century then I believe the industrial farming that with a population of 9 billion we know rely on will no longer provide a secure supply of food.

I'd say it is almost certain that the human race would not die out, however, a situation similar to large parts of east Africa occurring on a global scale is not out of the realms of reality.

My kids have a Warlpiri background, through their mother, and I'm doing my best to keep in contact with them. I'm making them train to state level athletics standard of fitness and getting them to learn BJJ. Once 18 my boys will be highly encouraged to join Norforce and I'd like them to learn small scale horticulture, so that my genes can carry on!!!

I really hate apocalyptic prophets because 99.999999% of them are basing their "vision" on some sort of religious delusion or some unscientific prediction about the "aligning of planets" or approach of some "unseen celestial body". However, right now on earth due to our interactions with the biosphere their really is an impending doom.

This of course goes on top of the rate of extinctions that humans have caused. When, the now, indigenous Australian's ancestors arrived here it was just a geological instant before nearly all large fauna was extinct, similarly in the Americas and on the arrival of agriculture in Europe. The last two centuries have seen an acceleration of that. On top of the extinctions we see that all eco-systems free of human management are shrinking.. I go on and on, but needless to say people need to get their head out of the sand.

 

[fishardansin]

Anyhow Upton Sinclair, what I'm asking is that are there any models that give region specific warming and the expected feed back loops of that? This is hard for modelling because we're probably looking at a long memory time series over a 3 dimensional space. Unfortunately long memory makes modelling difficult, this is what I'm doing at the moment (limit theorems), and there aren't any proper models where a time series is modelled over anything other than a zero dimension point.

My long term career aim is to find a model where we can model any dimensions through time. I believe this will be a revolutionary tool for climate science if we can get it up to 3 dimensions and I also think for cosmology if we can get it up to 11 dimensions.

 

[fishardansin]

Sweating away today so brain isn't working. What I'm trying to say is that climate models predict that a 3 deg world wide warming will probably see a 10-14 deg arctic warming. How does that effect methane/Co2 feedback loops and how do that feedbacks effect world wide warming?

 

[bomberfan11]

How are these models supposed to be accurate?

Do we know how much more plant growth there is when more CO2 is available? This could be a huge factor

and if this is happening how is this certain doom?

What about areas where food will grow better?

And if there was no food available the population wouldn't expand to 9 billion.

And humanity won't be wiped out, do you know how quick, adaptable and intelligent our species is. I believe we will live for about 10^20 more years

Sadly for everyone involved AGW is eminently real. Its not something that will happen in the distant future, its happening now all around us. The next week or so should get everybody thinking about the issue again, with a rolling heatwave across two thirds of the country, reminding people that two wet years doesn't mean that Andrew Bolt was right and AGW is over because Flannery supposedly said it would never rain again. Statistically, people are less likely to be swayed by denier beliefs when the weather is hot than when its cold.

so 1 heatwave trumps 2 years of wet

 

[Upton Sinclair]

How are these models supposed to be accurate?

They replicate well understood physical processes.

Do we know how much more plant growth there is when more CO2 is available? This could be a huge factor

We do. Its already accounted for by the models. And, sadly for us, plants need more than just carbon, they also need water and nitrogen for instance, both of which will be effected in a warming climate.

and if this is happening how is this certain doom?

Your original assumption is flawed so, no.

What about areas where food will grow better?

What areas are those?

And if there was no food available the population wouldn't expand to 9 billion.

Thanks for that cheery thought, Malthus. Not sure what your point us though.

And humanity won't be wiped out, do you know how quick, adaptable and intelligent our species is. I believe we will live for about 10^20 more years

Its nice to believe in things.

so 1 heatwave trumps 2 years of wet

Way to miss the point - two wet years don't trump decades of increasing hot, drought years.

 

[fishardansin]

How are these models supposed to be accurate?

Do we know how much more plant growth there is when more CO2 is available? This could be a huge factor

and if this is happening how is this certain doom?

What about areas where food will grow better?

And if there was no food available the population wouldn't expand to 9 billion.

And humanity won't be wiped out, do you know how quick, adaptable and intelligent our species is. I believe we will live for about 10^20 more years



so 1 heatwave trumps 2 years of wet

The amount of record breaking heat each summer in all areas of the world is consistent with the models, as the mean goes up things that were once ridiculously low probability become much higher in probability. This is consistent with the models.

Two years of wet is explained by the double dip la nina. What is of more concern is what will our rain patterns be like when the Pacific oscillation is not in la nina phase. We don't know if no la nina implies definite drought. Also the reason the last drought was so terrible in Victoria was because 2002 was a la nina year and the wettest on record for all of Australia combined. However, for some reason the air moisture that brought the rains to most of the country didn't come to the most southern parts of the main land.

I also don't believe humanity will be wiped out. I think climate change and the inability for all humans to work together on curbing our influence on this, along with the underling economic structure of exponential growth driving by private money lenders creating debt collapsing, will combine to see an end of the political order of the last half a millenia and possibly a situation similar to what East Africa is in will spread around the world. Those who can feed themselves will survive. 70,000 years ago the human population dropped to a figure between 1,000 and 10,000. It rebounded!

Humans will not live for 10^20 more years. The sun will leave earth potentially habitable for another 5 billion years = 5*10^9 =(10^10)/2 = (10^20)/((10^10)*2)

which means that under the highly likely assumption that interstellar transport will require energy we can not produce,in the best case scenario that humans never go extinct like 99.999% of all species so far in reality humans can last for 0.0000000002% of what you said.

 

[rayven]

There was a Whyalla wipe out right there on my TV the other day and Mr Emerson was nowhere to be seen. Yes it had to do with carbon, but not the tax but the emission of it. They got hail stones and floods and gale force winds on thursday/friday.Tony was partially right, just had the wrong protagonist.

Beautiful 3 pronged attack, one tropical low off the the Indian, met up with one of the south west pacific and a cold low off the southern ocean. All 3 sucked eachother in eachones path and unleashed on the upper Spencer gulf, mostly on Whyalla, before fizzing out and moving on. We get this most early summers since the climate got erratic,they seem to take a new dimension every 6 or so years. Mainly only 1 tropical low sucking up a normal low from the southern ocean. You can see that sometime in a decade one of these storms are going to off, that'll just be warning. I love watching these thing evolve on the radar then watching and experiencing the thunderstorms and tropical rain.

The old blacks tell you, they smirk actually, the old fisherman who were around when the mother country exploded nukes not far nth west of here rekon the weathers weirder now than when effected by that program.

I been up this way nearly 3 decades, you can see the change, you ask the old buggers and they know, some of the farmers are stubborn, but i guess that is a personality trait developed as a result of the lifestyle. The angry sea stands out a mile. you can see the increase cost to councils dealing with all this (especially the sea side ones in low lying areas). its ironic they not only have to deal with the weathers effect on infrastructure but they gotta pay the same rise in utilities we do, which is like a triple whammy to our rates.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

The amount of record breaking heat each summer in all areas of the world is consistent with the models, as the mean goes up things that were once ridiculously low probability become much higher in probability. This is consistent with the models.

Two years of wet is explained by the double dip la nina. What is of more concern is what will our rain patterns be like when the Pacific oscillation is not in la nina phase. We don't know if no la nina implies definite drought. Also the reason the last drought was so terrible in Victoria was because 2002 was a la nina year and the wettest on record for all of Australia combined. However, for some reason the air moisture that brought the rains to most of the country didn't come to the most southern parts of the main land.

I also don't believe humanity will be wiped out. I think climate change and the inability for all humans to work together on curbing our influence on this, along with the underling economic structure of exponential growth driving by private money lenders creating debt collapsing, will combine to see an end of the political order of the last half a millenia and possibly a situation similar to what East Africa is in will spread around the world. Those who can feed themselves will survive. 70,000 years ago the human population dropped to a figure between 1,000 and 10,000. It rebounded!

Humans will not live for 10^20 more years. The sun will leave earth potentially habitable for another 5 billion years = 5*10^9 =(10^10)/2 = (10^20)/((10^10)*2)

which means that under the highly likely assumption that interstellar transport will require energy we can not produce,in the best case scenario that humans never go extinct like 99.999% of all species so far in reality humans can last for 0.0000000002% of what you said.

Most civilisatons rise and fall, but its not likely to happen any more.
This is likely to be the last great civilisation.
If there is ever a cataclysm to cause widespread loss of technology we cant rebuild.
There are no handy ridges of metal poking out of the ground.
There are no fossel fuels readily available.

 

[fishardansin]

Much of civilisation can be lost without it totally being lost. Everything that provides nourishment to the masses could colapse and the political, economic and scientific elite could combine to use the military to keep enough going to keep themselves nourished and major centers of information intact. After a few decades of mayhem they could rebuild.

However, I agree with SaintsSeptember that if things totally collapsed that the use of nearly all the readily available minerals and energy sources that if this civilisation was to totally collapse there would not be the building blocks to go through the process of the previous few thousand years. Luckily for the reasons in the first paragraph I don't think that would happen. However, for the main I do not want my off spring to live through decades of what is happening in East Africa, especially seeing their wont even be rich parts of the world able to give us aid!!

 

[SaintsSeptember]

Much of civilisation can be lost without it totally being lost. Everything that provides nourishment to the masses could colapse and the political, economic and scientific elite could combine to use the military to keep enough going to keep themselves nourished and major centers of information intact. After a few decades of mayhem they could rebuild.

However, I agree with SaintsSeptember that if things totally collapsed that the use of nearly all the readily available minerals and energy sources that if this civilisation was to totally collapse there would not be the building blocks to go through the process of the previous few thousand years. Luckily for the reasons in the first paragraph I don't think that would happen. However, for the main I do not want my off spring to live through decades of what is happening in East Africa, especially seeing their wont even be rich parts of the world able to give us aid!!

I guess Issac Asimov in the signature was a dead giveaway.

 

[fishardansin]

I guess Issac Asimov in the signature was a dead giveaway.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

I'm still pissed off about the Robot movie with Will Smith.

I'm not sure the whole rebuilding thing from a small pocket would be that easy though.

 

[rayven]

http://share.banoosh.com/2012/12/08...ational-carbon-taxes-will-fix-global-economy/

Insurance corporations like PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) in a recent report, are developing plans to sell to clients that are focusing on integrating climate change into their policies to assess enterprise risk. Last month PWC held a webcast conference wherein they elaborated on the “landscape of rapid change, extreme weather events, global operations, and resource scarcity. We will examine the business impacts of environmental and social risks, and share steps for thinking proactively with a broader view of risk.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is pushing for $100 billion per year from developed nations such as the US, Russia and China to pay for the fight against global Warming. Ban explains: “This is a matter of credibility for member states. This will be crucially important in facilitating the promotion of a legally-binding agreement by 2015.”
Ban threatens that our dependence on energy, food, water and modern conveniences will be destroyed unless the governments of the world contribute monetarily to sustainable development. Regional and national strategies must be adhered to in order for the world to work together to combat global warming.

If abbott wins the next election and does stop carbon pricing, forgetting the implications to our budget that will create, how will the rest of the world view us considering we are one of the heaviest contributors on a pound for pound basis?

Those who vote for him over this issue, who do so based on ignorance have themselves to blame for what happens, but what about the rest of us who are not ignorant?