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World Trending To Hit 50% Renewables, 11% Coal By 2050: Report (arstechnica.com)
Bloomberg New Energy Finance released a new report this week that estimates how electricity generation will change out to 2050. ArsTechnica: The clean energy analysis firm estimates that in a mere 33 years, the world will generate almost 50 percent of its electricity from renewable energy, and coal will make up just 11 percent of the total electricity mix. Add in hydroelectric power and nuclear energy, and greenhouse-gas-free electricity sources climb to 71 percent of the world's total electricity generation. The report doesn't offer a terribly bright future for nuclear, however, and after a period of contraction, the nuclear industry's contribution to electricity generation is expected to level off. Instead, falling photovoltaic (PV), wind, and battery costs will cause the dramatic shift in investment, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) notes. "PV and wind are already cheaper than building new large-scale coal or gas plants," the 2018 report says. In addition, BNEF expects that more than $500 billion will be invested in batteries by 2050, with two-thirds of that investment going to installations on the grid and one-third of that investment happening at a residential level.
I'm guessing we will hit 50% much sooner than 33 years based on the improving economics. I wonder what state the grid will be in at that point though; will de-centralized energy take over, will we see interconnected microgrids, or will it be largely the same as today.
I think the only real question is if SMR's will provide a nuclear renaissance, or if that is still "20 years out." From what I read it doesn't seem like the SMR economics are any better on a $/kW basis than traditional reactors on a construction cost basis, although legal risk and financing costs should (theoretically) be reduced.
As has often been the case in the past our problems are mostly solved by advances in technology and not by politicians or the short term needs of company chairmen. It is arguable that science and technology has given the bulk of society all of the gains in the last 150 years and not our elected or business leaders. You can debate just how much freedom the academic world should have but you can be sure that our problems would be far worse if they did not have any.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
This is just electricity. Industrialization is still increasing globally and I'm not sure CO2 generation has gone down overall. Coal is burned directly for smelting and there is still a lot of oil and natural gas powering cars and heating homes directly.
This inevitable increase in use of alternative energy is never taken into account by climate models that assume an ever increasing generation of CO2.
No that's yoyu making shit up to fit your agenda.
Look at the future extrapolation bit:
https://xkcd.com/1732/
yes, it is sourced.
but sadly that is not how the world works any longer, no one wants real data,
At least you're honest!
SJW n. One who posts facts.
You know of some way to make a parallel Earth that behaves exactly the same way as ours except for the one thing you want to test?
This inevitable increase in use of alternative energy is never taken into account by climate models that assume an ever increasing generation of CO2.
This is just false. For example, the IPCC reports have a variety of different scenarios each based on different levels of CO2 https://ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/spm/sres-en.pdf is a good place to start. Unfortunately, even given these emissions levels, the damage is going to be severe. We need to do a lot more than we're doing.
I read the source rather than opinionated drivel on ars technica.
https://about.bnef.com/new-ene...
#1 and #2 are fudged to the extreme to get the outcome they're gunning for. #4 is equally fudged and is in direct contradiction with #1 and #2. #5 is also in direct contradiction with #1 and #2. #3 is likely true in the assumption on coal, but it's highly unlikely to be replaced with what study claims.
First of all, if you are to try to deploy lithium batteries on world scale as spinning reserve replacement, lithium prices will not just go through the roof - they'll go into outer space. The reason we have cheap lithium now is because we get lithium by literally vaporising water in the driest desert on the planet. If you want to increase production by orders of magnitude, as this kind of project would require, you'd have to go for less economic ways of making lithium. And that means orders of magnitude higher costs. So much for #1 and #2. Not to even mention that solar doesn't scale all that well, because there are too many regions where there isn't enough sun, and energy requirements are at their highest when sunny periods are at their lowest. So linear scaling of low hanging fruit adoption for decades on is literally the infamous xkcd level of "you're getting married tomorrow, so you'll lots of wedding cakes for next year at a linear rate of one a day".
As for the #4, UK makes for a great example here. CCGTs replacing coal, because to meet CO2 targets, you can get roughly twice the energy from natgas that you would get from coal for the same emission of CO2. It's also mutually exclusive with their claims in #1 and #2, showing that whatever model they're using, it appears to contradict itself.
The only things to take away are #3 and #5. #3 will likely be sorta, kinda correct in that we'll probably switch from goal mostly to CCGTs, and #5 is likely correct that as long as "lithium prices go to outer space" scenario of #1 and #2 doesn't happen (another internal contradiction in the model), a significant portion of locomotion will go electric.
Yes, that's why Trump is announcing the Whale Oil Initiative. To insure diversity of supply. The peat fuel lobby just bought EPA Secretary Scott Pruitt a townhouse in DC, so I expect to hear about the new Peat Fuel Initiative any day now.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This 'report' comes from BNEF, who stand to make money as advisors and funneling investments. So there is reason to be skeptical in the motivation space. That said, it doesn't mean they are wrong, but need to compare with other projections.
Batteries are not likely to see the steep cost reduction curves that solar has. Primarily because solar panel costs lowered due to mass production. We have already been mass producing batteries for decades and are already approaching the baseline for LI technology.
Funny thing about predictions, they're easily able to be BS'ed and in 33 years time, no one is going to remember if they were right or not.
For all we know, there may be an even better technology that comes out that is cheaper and even better than solar energy or wind.
Other than 2.5X the power than all renewables (solar, wind, geothermal, tidal) combined, and at a lower cost. Not to mention it's basically 100% uptime. But yeah, other than massive amounts of highly reliable, affordable power, nuclear has done nothing!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
"From Existing Generation Resources"
It's a pity, then, than we can't build more "existing generation resources". Because the new nukes are expensive as fuck.
Ezekiel 23:20
Unfortunately, even given these emissions levels, the damage is going to be severe. We need to do a lot more than we're doing.
Exactly. Even with the massively optimistic wind and solar projections laid out, with super cheap batteries, we will still need a shitload of coal and gas production UNLESS we also build up nuclear. But too many morons will prevent success with there idealistic tunnel-vision that it must be all solar and wind. Until they get smart, we are doomed to failure.
of energy production and use throughout sectors of economy to get us to global temperature only rising 1.5 degrees Celcius.
We need to be substantially off carbon at or shortly after mid-century, for everything. A little bit of remaining petrochemicals is fine, but other than that, off of the fossil carbon.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
I hate to break it to you, but silicon manufacturing is heavily skewed towards direct electricity use (e.g., the Siemens process).
Ezekiel 23:20
Lithium is ideal for portable devices because of high energy density, but for a building sized battery permanently connected to the grid size and weight is no longer critical...that means a more abundant element (sodium for example) is a practical, cheaper alternative despite lower energy density.
Blank until
That may be true for wind turbines, but it's not true for photovoltaic cells. By far the largest energy input for the manufacture of solar cells is electricity. That electricity would increasingly come from other solar cells (and from wind turbines) as the share of coal-fired power in the energy mix declines, albeit gradually.
Wind turbines require large quantities of cement (for their foundations) and steel, and those are produced using gas and coal. However, wind turbines produce at least 20x more energy than was required to construct them over their lifetimes, and the output is electricity (obviously), not thermal energy. Assuming 33% thermal efficiency of the steam turbines in coal power plants, it is clear that we obtain approximately 60x as much electricity by using the coal to build wind turbines than by burning the coal in a pulverized coal power plant.
Well, it's not from the levelized cost of energy, as nuclear is better than most renewables, and the always-available nature is highly attractive. But it is extremely expensive, especially because of activist intervention delaying development for 5 to 10 years, or more...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
So what they are actually saying is the renewables, only on 2050, will only comprise 50% of the power.
Moving from 13% to 50% over 32 years in your mind is "only"? Power generation is a major part of the national and global economy, with a tremendous amount of existing (yet outdated) infrastructure, and there are many forces making a great deal of money on existing cheap, dirty energy sources that are trying to keep their hands in the pie. They are spending a great deal of money, for example on "public relations" attempts to do things like smear their opponents by calling them names like "envirowackos" or whatever other stupid term they come up with, hoping that they can get enough unintelligent or uneducated people to buy their bullshit. If we achieve 50% renewable generation in my lifetime in the face of their resistance then that's a major win.
they want to/are tearing down dams left and right
Can you cite a source for that? I'm looking to my left and my right and I don't see a lot of torn down dams. Assuming, of course, you don't count the recently publicized failures of new dams under construction.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
This inevitable increase in use of alternative energy is never taken into account by climate models that assume an ever increasing generation of CO2.
Do you understand that part of this move towards renewable energy sources is because of the danger of climate change? This is in response to it, and many of the models are there to show what would happen if we kept doing what we were doing. So, naturally, if we change how we do things, then we're going to change the outcome, aren't we?
You remember back when there was a big blowback against any aerosol product that contained CFCs, with all the nerds talking about how if we kept doing that then the ozone layer was going to be severely damaged or even destroyed? You remember that? So, why do we still have an ozone layer? Is it because we fucking took action to avoid the danger despite any random idiot who thought the nerds might not be right?
Anyway, a while back in a story about some stupid shit that Apple was doing, we were having a conversation and I made a couple points and then you just dropped out, no more replies. I was worried about you, thought that if you just ditched the conversation like that then you must have gotten hurt or sick. Glad to see you feeling better again, sport.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
For stationary power, you can't beat the extremely robust nickel–iron battery.
A "Whale Oil Initiative" from a "High Roller"?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Except that you don't need 100% uptime from a nuclear plant when you already are 50% renewable ... what would you do with the extra power?
Sell it to your neighbours like Germany ... ooops, you don't have the grid for that in your backyard country.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Assuming 33% thermal efficiency of the steam turbines in coal power plants, ... efficiency for memory sake is 42%, if you want to be a pro, it is around 44%.
Why do you assume stuff that can easy be googled and easy be remembered
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Seriously, we need to stop building fossil fuel plants, esp. coal. These are going to kill this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Hmmm... So what's the duty cycle of renewables? They're typically rated at 20% to 30%. So you'd still need something there. Or do you propose TW-level batteries?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
This is just electricity. Industrialization is still increasing globally and I'm not sure CO2 generation has gone down overall
CO2 generation has gone down in the U.S., but you are right it's not gone down overall.. yet.
But the thing is, in the future everything is electricity. Manufacturing is especially is electricity. But automotive is just at the start of turning that way, the Chinese already have a. ton of small transport things (like practical scooters with storage) in cities, and soon trucking... plane flight is just starting to go that way as well.
So while CO2 generation is still going up overall from increased industrialization, within a decade that trend will start an irreversible decline with a massive and rapid uptake of electricity in things that did not use it, along with the cost of solar power finally overtaking other generation costs on a practical scale (except for nuclear of course, but that has very little CO2 component as well).
Electricity just makes way too much sense in almost every application as does solar power in areas that are just starting to industrialize. If you are designing a real power infrastructure from scratch the redundancy of a grid making heavy use of batteries and solar panels just makes way too much sense...
Wind power is of course just a fad and will mostly die off once the running costs become re-apparent (they were already known from previous attempts at large scale use, but people forget easily). Solar is however here to stay and is just going to get cheaper and cheaper....
It's kind of funny how people would moderate optimism in the future as trolling, but the truth of what I am saying will be glaringly evident within ten years.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Imported at a port or along a pipeline :)
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I said this was a starting point to show that the basic claim that scenarios don't look at it is false. In fact, many individual papers have looked at other situations. However, many of those are behind paywalls. I do agree though that the scenarios given in that document do in general appear to be overly pessimistic.
nuclear is better than most renewables [world-nuclear.org]
Are you referring to the passage reading
Comparing the economics of different forms of electricity generation
In 2017 the US EIA published figures for the average levelised costs per unit of output (LCOE) for generating technologies to be brought online in 2022, as modelled for its Annual Energy Outlook. These show: advanced nuclear, 9.9 c/kWh; natural gas, 5.7-10.9 c/kWh (depending on technology); and coal with 90% carbon sequestration, 12.3 c/kWh (rising to 14 c/kWh at 30%). Among the non-dispatchable technologies, LCOE estimates vary widely: wind onshore, 5.2 c/kWh; solar PV, 6.7 c/kWh; offshore wind, 14.6 c/kWh; and solar thermal, 18.4 c/kWh.
? Since "most renewables" in terms of capacity installed actually means "solar PV, onshore wind, and hydro" (the last of which isn't quantified in that list but is usually very cheap), I don't see how your claim is supported by your source, especially in a view ~20 years into the future where even these figures will be considered hilarious.
Ezekiel 23:20
So don't use lithium for the batteries. It's not like you need to drive them around or carry them in your pockets. These will be batteries that just sit somewhere, it won't make any difference how heavy they are.
this is the image that says it all:
https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp...
Look at the line drawn to signify the "present"... that is where we are now.
Everything beyond that is speculation. You can say "but we have people talking about building X or Y"... sure. And I've seen enough of these projection graphs created for other things to know they're not worth much. They tend to be wildly inaccurate.
I'd throw out a few examples but I can already hear the politicos Reeeing over how embarrassing it is to show predictions at time T and then what actually happened at T+5.
There's a lot of politics involved in these things. The people making predictions have a track record of not having a good mental filter between what they want and what they're seeing.
If anyone finds that "triggering"... leave it at this, at time T... "now"... the argument is not credible. At crystal ball gazing future time T+30 years you can predict anything you like. Aliens invading, everyone integrating with personal AIs, Scientology being the dominant global religion. Its all just tea leaves and animal entrails.
Predict whatever you want. But the wise know the secret of prophesy is not in the ability to predict the future but to manipulate the present by getting people to believe in your prediction.
I am too much goat to be folded into that flock of sheep.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
We all know fusion power is only 10 years away now after being 25 years away for the past 80, so limitless cheap, clean nuclear fusion power will dominate by 2050 for sure.
There should be outright international policy that subsidising old fossil fuel operations is outlawed, subsidising renewables encouraged.
If not outright banning installing anything but sustainable.
Would it be bad economically. Yes. But I don't think it would actually be a total crash Wipeout. Within 5 years the costs wood drop very much, tech improvements realised faster.
Could benefit all of us.
We're all too short sighted.
Did you mean 5020 ?
Heh, charge/discharge efficiency of nickel-iron battery is only 65% / 85%. Pumped hydro does better with its full cycle efficiency of 70% - 80%.
Pumped hydro has also bigger volumetric energy density if the reservoir height difference is bigger than 22 m (asymptotically with big enough reservoirs).
The batteries are also expensive. They cost around $4.5 - $20 per one litre. I guess you can build pumped storage cheaper per 1 litre.
It does not look good for batteries. Looks like the only good thing about them is the response time.
Actually batteries have seen massive decreases in price and massive increases in capacity.
In fact, in 2014, the curve got steeper. Recently battery prices have been dropping faster and capacity is rising faster than it did from 2010 to 2014. From 2010, price per kWh dropped over 77% with half that occurring from 2014 to 2017.
Battery packs that were $1000 per kWh in 2010, are $227 today and projected to be $127 by 2025, less than 7 years from now.
As research dollars explode in this area, I expect many new battery materials and higher capacity.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
You know what's more expensive than new nukes?
Old Nukes. With decommissioning costs about 25 times more expensive than projected.
(and that's not including $8 million a year being spent to store and *guard* spent nuclear material. You can't just leave it lying around with bad people in the world.)
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Wow. I don't remember or recognize anyone on Slashdot.
You and I could have a massive conversation and next week, you'd be another anonymous stranger.
I do better on boards with avatar pictures.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I don't understand this bit:
> A waste, as the nuclear industry delivered nothing for all the money spent.
One suspects the electricity itself was in fact some of value delivered.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Having you battery right next to the generator or the source of demand instead of hundreds of km away at a dam dramatically reduces line loss, which can be 10%-20%.
IIRC pumped hydro has a few drawbacks though.
It tends to require ideal geographical features: aka a steep hill with a large reservoir up top to pump the water to, and streams to replenish the water in the reservoirs that gets lost to evaporation.
It can cause impact on local wildlife (but, I suppose the same it true for most anything)
But it also has a lag in it's ability to provide power on demand. The big one in Bath County Virginia that gets mentioned when the subject comes up still has a five to ten minute lag time https://thinkprogress.org/the-...
This is still advantageous over traditional 20-30 minutes of coal/natural gas, but nothing compared to the Tesla Australia battery, which can respond is as little as 4 seconds. https://www.washingtonpost.com...
A mixing of the two solutions (when and where possible) might be the most ideal approach. Pumped Hydro for capacity and cost, with a large enough battery capacity that can respond to outages quickly and last long enough until the hydro manages to spin up.
That is true but technology for scrubbers that prevent CO2 emissions from processes like that is also improving... you would think any such process would be greatly interesting in re-capturing carbon for further industrial use.
"Recapture carbon for further industrial use"? We dump the stuff by the megaton right now and we can literally dig carbon it out of the ground for WAY less money than it costs to capture and reuse carbon. There simply isn't that much demand for carbon even if we had a way to process it economically.
Over time other materials will take the place of steel though, I'm not sure how much longer steel has as a primary material but I'm thinking less than 20 years.
Based on what? Steel is going to remain a vital and first choice metal for the foreseeable future. Certainly for the lifetime of anyone reading this. I don't see any circumstances where this would change. It's simply too useful and cost effective and there is no plausible material or group of materials that could plausibly displace it.
No, I'd rather just run the nuclear as needed to maintain the base/constant use, and then use peakers (natural gas) to fill in the peaks that wind and solar can't provide when they are not available.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Heh, charge/discharge efficiency of nickel-iron battery is only 65% / 85%. Pumped hydro does better with its full cycle efficiency of 70% - 80%.
Pumped hydro is geographically restricted and thus not a useful comparison for many/most places. Where I live it is literally impossible to use on any sort of meaningful scale because we don't have large dams anywhere nearby. If you live somewhere near a large dam then yeah, you might find pumped hydro to be a good idea. For most of us it isn't so helpful. Hydro is great except where you cannot get it. (oh and that pesky little problem of screwing up local ecosystems too)
The batteries are also expensive. They cost around $4.5 - $20 per one litre. I guess you can build pumped storage cheaper per 1 litre.
"Per litre"? What does a volume measurement have to do with a static chemical battery? Anyway pumped hydro is only cheap in places where hydro power is already available. In places like where I live it is FAR more expensive because we'd have to build a massive man-made reservoir first which would be immediately uneconomical.
It does not look good for batteries. Looks like the only good thing about them is the response time.
Bullshit. Chemical batteries have a lot of good features besides response time.
1) Not geographically restricted
2) Can be placed at or near point of use
3) Can be consolidated for grid power or distributed for off-grid use
4) Are economical compared to alternatives not blessed with special local geography.
5) Are (relatively) easy to maintain
6) Can be recycled and reused and relocated
7) Steady improvement in technology and chemistry
8) Easy to expand battery banks as needed
9) Relatively high efficiencies for certain battery types
What do you mean with "duty cycle"? The dreaded capacity factor?
Solar power follows more or less the demand curve. No real need for anything, unless you overproduce and want to store it for the night. On the other hand you most likely soon have enough wind power that you can power the grid at night with wind power alone (Germany can do that now occasionally).
Batteries are an option, e.g. flow batteries, but Germany mostly uses pumped storage, and to a lesser extend hydrolysis and feeds the H2 into the gas grid.
Hint: a power plant is in the low GW range and a turbine around 500MW. So TW storage is a bit exaggerated, and you would need TWh anyway :D not TW.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
So you are saying that the tangerine overlord is actually from Dunwall?
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
They even covered it in the summary. Nuclear is expected to drop off. So what is the prediction based on? I sure hope it's not historic trends given:
% coal used in energy generation in 1997: 38.5%
% coal used in energy generation in 2017: 38.5%
Worse still the percentage of coal in the energy mix along with it's consumption actually rose last year (thanks India).
https://www.bloomberg.com/view...
Time to buy a new car I think: http://madmax.wikia.com/wiki/T...
Would it surprise you to learn that he frequents the Golden Cat?
You are welcome on my lawn.
> This 'report' comes from BNEF, who stand to make money as advisors and funneling investments
BS. They are a news organization. I'm guessing you're the same know-nothing as on Ars?
> Primarily because solar panel costs lowered due to mass production.
> We have already been mass producing batteries for decades and are already approaching the baseline for LI technology
Pfft, and a techno-illiterate too.
Bell released the first PV cells commercially in 1954.
The first commercial li-ion was sold in 1991. NMC did not exist until 2001.
We're not even close to the bottom of batteries yet, *especially* in price:
https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy2017125/figures/1
> Agreed, but how much of the cost is wrapped up in legal/regulatory costs? I
About 15%. Look at the price breakdowns on the WNA web site, they have it all detailed.
> solar PV, 6.7 c/kWh
Plus the actual number for 2017 in the US was closer to 5 cents, and the outside low-end was 2.99. That makes it, inflation adjusted, the cheapest form of electricity in history.
Its worth pointing out the EIA numbers are two-years trailing, meaning their predictions for 2017 are based on numbers from 2015. They are something of a running joke:
https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/03/13/renewable-energy-growth-again-blows-eia-forecasts-out-water
Because of the rapidly falling costs, the market continually beats their estimates by about 4 to five years.
If you see any story that is even remotely critical of Apple, you can be reliably assured to find several comments from people like SuperKendall or macs4all trying to defend Apple's position at any cost. They'll stop replying when someone makes a point that isn't covered in their How To Defend Apple handbook. Once I see their names enough I just kind of associate their names with blind brand loyalty.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Fair enough but I don't recognize folks who religously defend the last jedi or president trump.
I might recognize you if you are the original New York City Lawyer. But you may not be.
Slashdot is so 1990s in capability and format.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Probably for whiskey and cigars.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
I'm not, just a fan of his work.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black