For the naysayers-Germany sets solar power record

[Reality Check]

You are on a thread where what is being discussed is solar power plants replacing nuclear power plants.

I am in a thread where I am replying to what you wrote.

IA solar power plant has an impact analogous to an airport. The albedo change will be greater so the local area will get warmer than an airport of the same size.
Right, so they are not like airports.

(my emphasis added)
Right, so they are not like airports. That what analogous means.

I've never seen any in old airbases or in military training areas.

There is a thing called the Internet. It allows people to find out things like solar power plants are often built on old airbases and military training areas. See List of photovoltaic power stations, for example Waldpolenz Solar Park

Waldpolenz Solar Park, which was the world’s largest thin-film photovoltaic (PV) power system at that time, was built by German developer and operator Juwi at a former military air base to the east of Leipzig in Germany

A little research shows that the US military is interested in constructing solar power plants on existing bases to reduce operating costs.

 

[mhaze]

I am in a thread where I am replying to what you wrote.


(my emphasis added)
Right, so they are not like airports. That what analogous means.


There is a thing called the Internet. It allows people to find out things like solar power plants are often built on old airbases and military training areas. See List of photovoltaic power stations, for example Waldpolenz Solar Park



A little research shows that the US military is interested in constructing solar power plants on existing bases to reduce operating costs.

I stated my point of view, I have flown extensively over the USA. I have not seen any solar farms on "old airbases", and your presentation of evidence of one is not very convincing. Airbases of course, are quite noticeable from the air. Military training areas, unless they are routinely trafficked by tanks, are not. They look just like any other area of brush or desert or mountain, etc.

In any case, what you appeared to be asserting was that "old airbases or military training areas" were somehow not optimum utilization of those properties. That does not mean that solar farms would in fact be the optimum use of such property. Not in the least.

Of course, none of your arguments have much bearing in the economic realities of these solar installations, or the fact that as prices have gone down for such equipment (and will go down further) the sunk costs that must be written off make each and every one of them an economic failure.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

They have a useful life in excess of 50 years, so let's say half of that remains - on average. There are 8 currently idled. Using a average cost per plant of $4B, the lost to Germany's taxpayers of idling them is $16B.

Those 8 plants were all over 30 years old, so they didn't have that much time left anyway (for example the Obrigheim plant, which was decommissioned in 2005, only ran for 36 years). Idling them might be expensive, but decommissioning will cost a lot more. Unfortunately it's not that easy to get rid of a spent nuclear plant - you can't just put it up on ebay!

Most of Germany's remaining nuclear plants are also quite old. The youngest was built in 1989 and is scheduled to be shut down in 2022, giving an up time of 33 years.

The right way to figure the cost of electricity is not the price per kwh, but the price per kwh delivered to date, divided by the 70% of lost sunk costs (some $140B is what that amounts to). That'll put you up past several Euros per kwh.

So initially when no kwh had been delivered, the 'true' cost was Zero?

That's a FAIL.

Want to try again?

 

[mhaze]

Those 8 plants were all over 30 years old, so they didn't have that much time left anyway (for example the Obrigheim plant, which was decommissioned in 2005, only ran for 36 years). Idling them might be expensive, but decommissioning will cost a lot more. Unfortunately it's not that easy to get rid of a spent nuclear plant - you can't just put it up on ebay!

Most of Germany's remaining nuclear plants are also quite old. The youngest was built in 1989 and is scheduled to be shut down in 2022, giving an up time of 33 years.

So initially when no kwh had been delivered, the 'true' cost was Zero?

That's a FAIL.

Want to try again?

Huh? You've got your brain spinning perfectly... in reverse. Let's look at a concrete example, Shorham, built and ready for service when the Democratic governor Cuomo was influenced by left wing radicals to destroy it. So in 1989 he proceeded to drill holes in the reactor vessel so it could never be used. There is no "cost per kwh", and the customers in Long Island are, as I understand it, still paying the bill for this expensive facility built, and then destroyed. $6B in costs passed to Long Island residents.

Anyway, I'm not sure what your point is. Are you arguing the severity of the additional costs to the taxpayers due to the early closure? If so, you have mis stated the facts.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-Germany_hastens_first_reactor_closures-0606117.html

in September 2010 that Chancellor Angela Merkel announced policy changes that would enable Germany's nuclear power plants to operate beyond the average age limit of 34 years imposed by a Social Democratic Party and Green Party coalition government in 2001.

I assume that you meant to assert something like "the plants were almost ready to be closed so the cost was nominal". The governing party of Germany has already been told, that in the absence of a settlement, a lawsuit for several billion Euros will be forthcoming. My guess is they will settle, and the taxpayers will eat these costs. Therefore, in the absence of cheating the private sector, my prior comments on the high actual costs of closing productive energy facilities stand as written.

FAIL.

 

[quarky]

I remain optimistic about the end use of power generation. When we hone in on that, we'll discover how little fuel we actually need. Lots of jobs, too.

For me, this is where the action is.
Cheap fossil fuels has made us stupid.
Vast fission expansion would solve the carbon issue, maybe, but it wouldn't solve the stupid problem.

 

[BenBurch]

I remain optimistic about the end use of power generation. When we hone in on that, we'll discover how little fuel we actually need. Lots of jobs, too.

For me, this is where the action is.
Cheap fossil fuels has made us stupid.
Vast fission expansion would solve the carbon issue, maybe, but it wouldn't solve the stupid problem.

"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."

 

[shadron]

I remain optimistic about the end use of power generation. When we hone in on that, we'll discover how little fuel we actually need. Lots of jobs, too.

For me, this is where the action is.
Cheap fossil fuels has made us stupid.
Vast fission expansion would solve the carbon issue, maybe, but it wouldn't solve the stupid problem.

The argument that conservation (if that is indeed what Quarky is indicating) will solve our problems is just not factual. Consult the chart at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USEnergyFlow08-quads.png. The two energy sinks on the right are "energy providing services" (42.15 quads) and "rejected energy" (57.07 quads). The rejected energy is energy being converted into useless heat. Most of the wastage is in generation/transmission of electricity and in transportation. Only 2.29 quads (4%) is wasted in residential, and even less in commercial energy use. The only really easy large gain is in localization of power generation to users, to limit transmission losses. Better fossil fuel engines are another possibility; the rest, while good for the feelings, is not very useful.

I heard an interesting fact today: The average person in the US is responsible for the burning of a sphere of coal 10 meters (33 ft) in diameter in their lifetime. Buried within that sphere and dispersed throughout it, is a 37mm (1.5in) diameter sphere of thorium, were it separated out and collected together. Used in a molten fuel reactor, that thorium would provide more energy than the 10 meter sphere of coal.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

There is no "cost per kwh", and the customers in Long Island are, as I understand it, still paying the bill for this expensive facility built, and then destroyed. $6B in costs passed to Long Island residents.

So the 'true' cost per kWh is?

'price per kwh delivered to date' divided by 'lost sunk costs' = 0 / $6B = Zero!

Or did you mean something else?

The governing party of Germany has already been told, that in the absence of a settlement, a lawsuit for several billion Euros will be forthcoming. My guess is they will settle, and the taxpayers will eat these costs.

The taxpayers don't want nuclear power, and for sure they will have to pay for that. If power contracts must broken then presumably there will be penalties. But I bet a reasonable settlement will be reached, and the final 'cost per kwh' won't be nearly as high as you are suggesting.

Nuclear power is a dead duck in Germany because the people don't want it. They want to go green, and they are willing to pay more for it. My country is in a similar position. Currently we produce 79% of our power from renewables, and we are aiming for 90% by 2025 (luckily we never went nuclear, so we don't have that particular albatross around our necks). You may think it's foolish of us to 'waste' our money on such a goal, but if that makes us feel good then why not? In another country we all know, people have cheap energy but are killing themselves with fast food and drugs (as well as screwing up the environment for the rest of us).

 

[Christian Klippel]

Just so everyone is on the same sheet, Fukushima Daiichi has a combined generating power of 4.7 GWe with 6 reactors; F Daini, it's sister plant, is rated at 4.2 GWe with 4 reactors. Reactors commonly generate 1 to 1.6 GWe each. The amount of solar generated is about 4 Daichi stations.

The phrase "gigawatts of electricity per hour" is an error. A power reading (watts) is an instantaneous measurement. It would be impressive if they had been able to say "22 GWe for 8 hours". Very likely it made a peak power of 22 GWe.

Indeed the 22GW figure was just the peak for the timeframe of one hour. You can see the actual production volumes here:

http://www.transparency.eex.com/en/

So, the comparison, that people so love to give, about that being equal to 20 nukes is not just misleading, it's plain wrong. Because the nukes would continue to produce that amount of energy, all day long if needed, while the solar was just a peak.

There is another problem as well. If sun and wind energy work well, the prices for electricity on the EEX may even go negative. That is, if someone would "buy" energy then, he would get money on top of that. But usually the price goes down rather extremely if, as is often the case, no one really needs that electricity.

Here you can see the prices:

http://www.eex.com/en/Market%20Data

So, on top of heavy subsidizing solar and wind, on good days that energy is sold for a fraction of the value it would otherwise have. This is because there is no storage (and grid capacity to handle such storage). That leads to conventional plants making losses, which of course they want to get back, thus raising the prices way above the average on other days. All that while the private customers here pay really high prices in general.

And still, if you look at what solar and wind provides over one year, it's only a small fraction (especially for solar) that they contribute. To really get to 100% EE, they would have to massively build more wind and solar plants. Which will drive the prices up even more. And would require much, much more storage than what we would need now (but still don't have anyways).

Greetings,

Chris

 

[Christian Klippel]

Oh, and there is another issue with solar energy here in Germany. Now that the government finally decided to lower the feed-in tariffs for solar much quicker, people start to lose interest in installing PV systems. Another thing is that those tariffs are fixed for 20 years once the system goes online.

Check this section on a Wikipedia page about the EEG, and scroll down a bit to see the table:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz#Photovoltaik

A PV system that went online in 2004 will get over 50 Euro-Cent per kWh fed into the grid, up until 2024. Compare that not only to the current price per kWh in Germany for private customers of around 20 Euro-Cent per kWh, but also to the average cost for generating electricity of about 5 Euro-Cent per kWh for Germany, assuming conventional power plants.

So, even _if_ solar would become able to produce for roundabout the same price as conventional plants, we still have the huge burden of all the old installations with their fixed 20 year long feed-in tariffs...

Even with the planned cuts in the feed-in tariffs for solar, it still is 3 times the price of conventional energy. And that, mind you, fixed for 20 years. However, a lot of people think that this is not enough anymore, and don't want to install new PV systems, even though the Chinese sell really cheap panels nowdays.

To me that shows that for many people the "Hey, let's produce electricity with PV, it's sooooo good for the environment!" is just a hollow phrase, and instead they want to grab the huge profits. They don't really care about the environmental impact, they care about the profits. Which are going down massively, so they lose interest in it.

Oh, and more and more people start to wake up and realize that you can't switch to 100% EE just by installing more PV and windparks. They start to realize that massive amounts of storage are needed as well, and that the grid must be massively expanded. Both of which will cost a really big chunk of money. Oh, and which will drive up the cost per kWh for private customers even more.

Sad that they realize that only now, and that this fact was never really brought up in the previous 10 years. Until now it has been only "install more, install more, that's all we need!", which is just wrong.

Greetings,

Chris

 

[DC]

Oh, and there is another issue with solar energy here in Germany. Now that the government finally decided to lower the feed-in tariffs for solar much quicker, people start to lose interest in installing PV systems. Another thing is that those tariffs are fixed for 20 years once the system goes online.

Check this section on a Wikipedia page about the EEG, and scroll down a bit to see the table:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz#Photovoltaik

A PV system that went online in 2004 will get over 50 Euro-Cent per kWh fed into the grid, up until 2024. Compare that not only to the current price per kWh in Germany for private customers of around 20 Euro-Cent per kWh, but also to the average cost for generating electricity of about 5 Euro-Cent per kWh for Germany, assuming conventional power plants.

So, even _if_ solar would become able to produce for roundabout the same price as conventional plants, we still have the huge burden of all the old installations with their fixed 20 year long feed-in tariffs...

Even with the planned cuts in the feed-in tariffs for solar, it still is 3 times the price of conventional energy. And that, mind you, fixed for 20 years. However, a lot of people think that this is not enough anymore, and don't want to install new PV systems, even though the Chinese sell really cheap panels nowdays.

To me that shows that for many people the "Hey, let's produce electricity with PV, it's sooooo good for the environment!" is just a hollow phrase, and instead they want to grab the huge profits. They don't really care about the environmental impact, they care about the profits. Which are going down massively, so they lose interest in it.

Oh, and more and more people start to wake up and realize that you can't switch to 100% EE just by installing more PV and windparks. They start to realize that massive amounts of storage are needed as well, and that the grid must be massively expanded. Both of which will cost a really big chunk of money. Oh, and which will drive up the cost per kWh for private customers even more. Sad that they realize that only now, and that this fact was never really brought up in the previous 10 years. Until now it has been only "install more, install more, that's all we need!", which is just wrong. Greetings,

Chris

wich seems to be more a problem of your sources then and not really a problem as since more than ten years there are talks about storage and smart grids etc etc.
that isn't anything new.

 

[Christian Klippel]

wich seems to be more a problem of your sources then and not really a problem as since more than ten years there are talks about storage and smart grids etc etc.
that isn't anything new.

Is that so? Then were is all the needed storage? Where is the grid expansion? Do you have any information about where all that stuff is? Because i can't see it anywhere. That is, while more and more wind and solar parks are built, i see no storage built. And i don't see new grids built for EE's either.

All i see since a year or two is a huge increase in the "blame the big four electricity companies for not building that stuff" game. You know, blaming them for not building storage and grids for something they don't need, because their system does not require storage and that kind of grid expansion.

Why haven't those who get 50+ Euro-Cent per kWh started to build that needed infrastructure back then? Why do we pay the operators of windfarms their guaranteed feed-in tariffs, while they have to disconnect their plants from the grid in case there is "good wind"? Surely that wouldn't be the case if those wind farm operators would have spend some money on building storage and grid capacity, right? Same goes for solar.

Sorry, but you are wrong. Virtually nothing has been done to build storage and grid capacity over the last decade, compared to (and in relation to) the massive increase of electricity generating capacity from wind and solar. They simply grabbed their obscenely high feed-in tariffs and basically do not care about the supporting infrastructure that is required to make all that into a useful system. Instead they blame those who simply don't need that stuff for their own operations.

Tell me, do you complain to train operators that highways are so congested, and demand from them that they start building and extending those highways, just because "they do transportation too"?

And why only "since more than ten years there are talks about storage and smart grids"? All talk but no can do, or what? Don't you think that it is a bit stupid to only talk about those things for ten years, when it is clear that those things are needed and critical, while the only thing thats done is to expand production capacity?

Greetings,

Chris

 

[mhaze]

So the 'true' cost per kWh is?

'price per kwh delivered to date' divided by 'lost sunk costs' = 0 / $6B = Zero!

Or did you mean something else?.....

Well, you could argue against an entire calculus textbook with this brilliance (not). That's the reason integrals have limits, and the reason that boundary conditions are studied.

I'm curious, do you really not understand my argument (eg, are you that dense?) or are you just trying to pick a limit of the function and asserting the argument is invalidated because of a zero at one end?

If the former, I will be happy to explain it.

If the latter, that's A FAIL.

You see, the $6B argument above regarding Shoreham isn't one that I made. It's one that YOU MADE. That's called a strawman argument.

And the statements about actual cost per kwh I made are accurate with the numbers, premises and so forth. YOU decided to set forth a different argument with a zero to trumpet what, exactly?

Something that you then have to pounce on when I produce an example where the zero did exist - Shoreham. But why did I do that? You don't think it was as an example for your benefit?

Nawww....no way....



But since you seem a bit stubborn, here ya go. The true cost of power delivered to Long Island residents since the closure of Shoreham would simply be , for any household

C = ((total kwh * price per kwh) + (payment on Shoreham disaster))/total kwh

 

[Aepervius]

Christian Klippel, factual and spot on as always

 

[mhaze]

Indeed the 22GW figure was just the peak for the timeframe of one hour. You can see the actual production volumes here:

http://www.transparency.eex.com/en/

So, the comparison, that people so love to give, about that being equal to 20 nukes is not just misleading, it's plain wrong. Because the nukes would continue to produce that amount of energy, all day long if needed, while the solar was just a peak.....

Chris, would you happen to know if your country is maxed out on the natural gas pipeline from Russia? I would assume that was the case and thus the inevitable consequence of shutting the nuclear plants would be that that shortage would be made up with more coal imports.

 

[Christian Klippel]

Chris, would you happen to know if your country is maxed out on the natural gas pipeline from Russia? I would assume that was the case and thus the inevitable consequence of shutting the nuclear plants would be that that shortage would be made up with more coal imports.

Sorry, i don't really have much information about the gas situation here. All i can say is that our former chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, is in bed with Gazprom, so chances are good that gas is not really an issue here, at least from the perspective of availability. Feel free to have sinister thoughts as to why he is in bed with Gazprom, considering the fact that he was also involved in the "exit from nuclear power" strategy. I can find stuff mostly in german here (no surprise, since i am in Germany), but just search for "gerhard schröder gazprom" or "gerhard schroeder gazprom" to see what i mean.

One thing i know is that recently Russia has somewhat reduced the gas exports to Germany. On the other hand, end of last year they just finished Nord Stream, a dedicated pipeline from Russia to Germany.

With the exit from nuclear energy, and thus the rising demand in other fuels, it makes sense for Russia to reduce gas exports to Germany. The demand rises here, they shorten the supply a bit, thus the prices will go up = more profit for Gazprom and thus Schröder.

Greetings,

Chris

 

[DC]

Is that so? Then were is all the needed storage? Where is the grid expansion? Do you have any information about where all that stuff is? Because i can't see it anywhere. That is, while more and more wind and solar parks are built, i see no storage built. And i don't see new grids built for EE's either.

All i see since a year or two is a huge increase in the "blame the big four electricity companies for not building that stuff" game. You know, blaming them for not building storage and grids for something they don't need, because their system does not require storage and that kind of grid expansion.

Why haven't those who get 50+ Euro-Cent per kWh started to build that needed infrastructure back then? Why do we pay the operators of windfarms their guaranteed feed-in tariffs, while they have to disconnect their plants from the grid in case there is "good wind"? Surely that wouldn't be the case if those wind farm operators would have spend some money on building storage and grid capacity, right? Same goes for solar.

Sorry, but you are wrong. Virtually nothing has been done to build storage and grid capacity over the last decade, compared to (and in relation to) the massive increase of electricity generating capacity from wind and solar. They simply grabbed their obscenely high feed-in tariffs and basically do not care about the supporting infrastructure that is required to make all that into a useful system. Instead they blame those who simply don't need that stuff for their own operations.

Tell me, do you complain to train operators that highways are so congested, and demand from them that they start building and extending those highways, just because "they do transportation too"?

And why only "since more than ten years there are talks about storage and smart grids"? All talk but no can do, or what? Don't you think that it is a bit stupid to only talk about those things for ten years, when it is clear that those things are needed and critical, while the only thing thats done is to expand production capacity?

Greetings,

Chris

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpspeicherkraftwerk#Planungen

here for example.....

 

[Christian Klippel]

Christian Klippel, factual and spot on as always

Thanks.

Regarding storage, it's noteworthy to look at Goldisthal, the biggest pump storage we have in Germany.

Look at how long it took to finish it, and note who fought so hard to block that one. Then note how much it has cost. It's generator capacity is about the same as a regular power plant. It's overall storage capacity would be just enough to supply the demand from Germany for a few minutes (however, it actually can't do that, due to the limited generator capacity).

And that's the _biggest_ such storage that we currently have. Extrapolate that to what we would already need now, and what would be needed in the future. Extrapolate the amount of space needed, the time required to actually build that, and what that would cost.

Oh, and i can only repeat what i said a long time ago: Just having the generating capacity from EE that would fit the demand, plus storage to even out all that over time is not enough. Not by a long shot. Because the demand is always there, you have to install extra generating capacity to actually load/fill whatever storage system you have once you used energy from such storage. And you must be able to refill it faster than you can deplete it. Leading to the requirement of massive overcapacity just for that.

Having stand-by power plants doesn't really help either. Because such plants would be used only a small fraction of the time, but have to be in stand-by 24/7, would make them incredibly non-profitable to operate, so no one really wants to build those either.

I'm not against renewables. If they work, great. But please, no "renewables at all cost" as it is done now. If they are unable to compete with regular power plants, well, thats their problem then. If they can't survive on the free market, too bad for them. But the way all that is handled now here in Germany is just plain stupid.

Greetings,

Chris

 

[Christian Klippel]

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpspeicherkraftwerk#Planungen

here for example.....

Wow. Call me unimpressed. Is that all you can come up with? A bunch of mostly tiny to small pump storages, and only planned ones at that?

Please, take a few hours of spare time and a calculator. Then consult information sources that will tell you what the current demand is, what generating capacity there is, etc. Then go ahead and calculate what is required as storage _now_, and what is required since the EE frenzy started here.

Once you are done with that sit back and look at the numbers. Then ask yourself why those who profit from the guaranteed 20-year-fixed feed-in tariffs slowly move away from installing new capacity since these tariffs are going down. And then ask you why those same people have spent virtually nothing on that storage and grid.

But i can save you all that work. It is because it's unprofitable. Even with all these obscenely high subsidies for wind and solar. Every storage inbetween makes the final kWh's more and more expensive, since you have losses and the operators want to profit as well. Every new grid section only for EE's will make the kWh's even more expensive then, because most of that part of the grid is used only fractions of the time.

But really, don't trust me about that. Do your own math. Don't be afraid of big numbers. And keep in mind that 1GW generator capacity is the bog-standard-average that every new plant can do. Compare the land/space requirement of a pump storage with 1GW generator capacity to the land/space requirement of a regular plant of the same capacity.

Really, do it. You will be in for a surprise, i guarantee you that.

Greetings,

Chris

 

[mhaze]

...
But really, don't trust me about that. Do your own math. Don't be afraid of big numbers.....

Right on.