Re: Destroy this argument....
- From: dave.walters@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: 30 Mar 2007 10:25:15 -0700
On Mar 30, 8:43 am, "R.H. Allen" <kka...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
nada wrote:
This is the problem with solar, it's simply TOO expensive. Alex
Nichols always makes a good rational case for alternatives to coal and
nuclear and he will forever have my attention because he's no dingbat
like others around this place (present company excluded, of course).
But it is TOO expensive right now.
Except that without effective storage, PV is *not* an alternative to
coal or nuclear. And that's okay, at least in the short term, as 20-30%
of our electricity consumption cannot be met inexpensively and reliably
by coal and nuclear. With PV currently at something like 0.02% of our
electricity consumption, there's plenty of time to worry about
transforming it into a useful base load technology and perhaps it will
never get there. But for the time being, at least, it is not one.
Alex supposed that a $26 Billion investment in solar would be
rational, why don't they do this for the whole of the country. Because
at best you'd get power only about 35% of the day...and BEFORE peak,
not at peak, like some contend. In California, the peak with ll be in
20 minutes from when I write this: 1800 hours. Thus sun is already an
hour away from setting. Yesterday, I think, the peak was at 1900. See
the problem?
No, that's not it at all. California has a good (for PV) combination of
high insolation and high electricity rates. Not only that, but customers
(residential and otherwise) through much of California are not charged
the same amount for every kWh they use. In many areas, the first few kWh
you use cost some $0.12-0.15/kWh, the next few go up to $0.20-0.25/kWh,
and so on. Some users are paying in excess of $0.35/kWh for some of
their electricity consumption, which is more than the cost of PV in most
parts of California. And rates are only going to go up, if only because
California needs both more generating capacity and more transmission
capacity (both of which will ultimately be financed by the ratepayers).
Not only can PV reduce the need for new generation capacity, but if it
is installed at the point of use it can also reduce the need for new
transmission capacity. California's subsidy program was actually
initiated by Republican lawmakers on fiscal grounds after studies showed
a high likelihood that ratepayers would collectively pay less over the
next 10 years by subsidizing PV systems than they would by not doing so.
(The factors that contributed to that conclusion were numerous and if
you want to know what they are I suggest you look the studies up at the
California Energy Commission web site.) And the subsidy is a ratepayer
subsidy, meaning that if you don't buy electricity in California you
don't pay into the subsidy program.
The reason we don't do it over the whole country (aside from the fact
that this is a program of the government of the state of California, and
not the federal government) is that most of the rest of the country
doesn't have the combination of sunlight and high electricity rates that
makes it work in California. It's actually the electricity rates that
make the biggest difference in this calculation -- the northeast is the
next place in the country likely to see growth in PV installations,
despite having much lower insolation than California. A recent study by
MIT indicated that a modest amount of PV installed in Massachusetts
would save ratepayers money (again collectively) by reducing demand for
electricity on the spot market, which tends to be very expensive in the
summer months. And New Jersey recently launched a rather large subsidy
program of its own, though its not nearly as large as California's.
If we took that $26 billion we could build probably 15,000 to 20,000
MWs of nuclear, that would run, be reliable, for 24/7. And, with zero
emissions of any sort. I know what I'd vote for if I could vote, in
Portugal or in California.
That's fine, but you're neglecting the fact that you can't build a
cheap, reliable power network without taking a portfolio approach. If
100% of our power came from nuclear reactors, we would have to choose
between cheap and reliable -- we couldn't have both. Likewise with any
technology, be it coal, gas, wind, PV, geothermal, or whatever. Some
would be better choices than others in that scenario, but none of them
would be better than a mix of technologies for both low cost and
reliability.
The point being that spending $26 billion on nuclear power plants in
California only makes sense if 15-20 GW of base load generation capacity
is what California needs. California probably needs *some* base load
capacity, but it is quite clear to anybody familiar with their
summertime rolling blackouts that what they most desperately need is
peak generating capacity. Nuclear is both expensive and unreliable in
that role.
R,
I think the $26 Billion had to do with Portugal, not California, at
least that is the way thread seemed to of trickled down. California
would do fine with about 6,000 MWs more of nuclear and then the rest
be taken up by existing geothml, NG, etc.
But you are right...solar is best when rates ARE high (like today, at
$77/MWhr down from $100 an hour ago, as it happents). But with a
larger base load from nuclear, I'd question if rates would get up that
high. It's an interesting economic question. Under a real regulated
system like we had perviously, you'd never get high rates, period. But
with this insane anarchy of the market, who knows?
The same holds true for a carbon tax. The big nuclear energy folks at
GE and Westhinhouse WANT a cabon tax because it boosts both their wind
turbine market AND their nuclear market.
On the contraints issue (transmission contraints). Yes, it's a big
deal. And, it's being address by PG&E and the ISO/CEC (california
energy commission). Big, big projects are under way (they just
completed one of them into San Francisco in fact) to upgrade existing
lines and add new ones. Ideally, as I've stated before, this upgrade
is being built/planned with new sources of generation in mind (in the
case of california, another 7,000 MWs of CGT plants).
On price. In PG&E's jurisdiction, the pricing is somewhat lower than
you wrote (and PG&E is the states biggest jurisdiction) runs something
like this:
11 cents kWh for the first 200 used (if you 'base line' is 200 kWh,
but that's average) and 14 cents kWh after this first 200. But, this
is only 17% of the state...residences are SMALL despite the building
of all the new housing here...it's actually gone down in the last 10
years as an overall % of usage. The big players are urban commercial,
suburban light industrial and industrial for 83% of usage. They pay
about 9 cents but lower rates have been negotiated.
So...at the end of the month, I'm paying $140 a megawatt hour! PG&E is
buying it and producing it at from $30 to $66 dollars a MW hr. Someone
is making a killing. At any rate, any source that comes in under $90/
MWhr is, theorectically, doable.
I see nuclear as the 60 to 80% doable base loading (with variable
loading for these plants) running then at 60% to 80% capacity with
everything else coming in for peak: gas turbines, wind, solar, hydro
(which actually is pretty big in California) and other forms of power
to make up the difference.
So you know, California has to weird peak power times. There is
actually a high load period from around 1100 hours through 1500 hours,
then it dips a few thousand MWs and back up again at 20 or 21 hours.
So, where solar can come in is during the first peak. But the bulk of
the 28,000 MWs (for today) can only really be provided economically be
cheap base load.
The curve could be seen here:
http://oasis.caiso.com/
Click on "sytem load" to see the rat-shaped curb the state's load.
Right now the 11,000 of the system's 28,000 load is being
'imported'...meaning cheap hydro from the Pacific Northwest and pirate
generators of the speculative sorts.
David
.
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