BBC on Oil - are low prices here to stay

IveSeenTheLight

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Not at all. I was listening to a guy from the Wood Group speaking. Said that employment costs in particular had risen dramatically in recent years .

Certainly there has been a dramatic increase in the number of contractors in the sector.

Partly as Operators viewed it as easier to cull and reduce their organisation headcount, with no holidays, pensions, shares etc to worry about.

That said, IIRC, the average earner in Aberdeen / Aberdeenshire was not dramatically higher than other positive employement areas in the UK

IronWolf

Generali wrote: »

The big saving in Aus however is that we have very expensive power infrastructure for two reasons:

1. Electricity is moved across huge distances as we are a large, sparsely populated country
2. Regulated utilities in Aus are allowed to price using a formula based on investment which encourages them to over-invest.

The fact is that in Aus, on a cash basis you can make a small amount of money by having solar panels on your roof even after financing costs. I've seen it tested and it works at a household level.

The problem is clearly that it doesn't make power at night. If only someone could come up with a way of storing electricity.

http://www.duracell.com/

Apparently Elon Musk has his sights set on batteries for the home, if anyone can do it, it's him

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-12-05/musk-battery-works-fill-utilities-with-fear-and-promise

IveSeenTheLight

antrobus wrote: »

The cost of panels keep falling, and people are trying to develop new cheaper materials to make panels even more effective. And of course, a lot of money is being thrown at the storage problem as well.

Human ingenuity usually finds a way of solving any given problem.

I'm fitting Solar panels and of course you have to factor in they will need replaced at some point also.

We asked about battery storage option, but as yet it not economically worth it if you can manage your big burning electricity usage during daylight hours i.e. Washing machine through the day, than at night.

The more usage that occurs in the day, the better economically the return

Generali

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

The more usage that occurs in the day, the better economically the return

Yup.

I live in a country where people turn on the air con at 4pm when the kids get home from school. That's a pretty awesome combination. Sunny day = more demand for power.:money:

You live in a country where people put the heating on because it's dark and cold. Damn. Maybe tidal power would work better for the UK. Maybe we accept that the extremities of the world have to burn stuff to stay warm while the more temperate zones can use solar to provide most of their fuel.

Let's face it, fossil fuel is just pre-stored solar energy.

cells

Generali wrote: »

The big saving in Aus however is that we have very expensive power infrastructure for two reasons:

1. Electricity is moved across huge distances as we are a large, sparsely populated country
2. Regulated utilities in Aus are allowed to price using a formula based on investment which encourages them to over-invest.

The fact is that in Aus, on a cash basis you can make a small amount of money by having solar panels on your roof even after financing costs. I've seen it tested and it works at a household level.

The problem is clearly that it doesn't make power at night. If only someone could come up with a way of storing electricity.

http://www.duracell.com/

it does not matter if the panels are in Australia or china or Zimbabwe the output is worth only the saved fuel not the full system cost. As such the value of solar PV oitput is very low in the order of 3cents per kwh.

Even in Australia a 1kwp system operating at 25% CF is worth just 45 dollars a year in true value. 2200kwh generated at a true value of 2cents/kwh. It doesn't matter if retail prices are 20 cents the true value to society is 2cents as thats the only true gain.

as such even if you assume a 30 year life 30 x $45 = $1350 or $1.35/watt. However you need to do a net present value of that money over 30 years and also factor into the annual degrade of the equipment which woild get you a figure below $1/watt in a very sunny country.


And once more rooftop is some 2x more expensive than large ground mounted so if it is successful it will be large pv farms not rooftop same way as large oil fired plants exist in some nations rather than everyone owning theirnown small diesel generators (which are affordable)

Jonbvn

Given that the US is now considered the "swing" producer, it is interesting to note that US production is declining far quicker than was anticipated.

This could point to a possible increase in oil price, but is certainly no prediction - seen it too many times....

http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/137335/US_Shale_Oils_Crash_Diet_Likely_To_Bring_Forward_Output_Dip/?all=HG2

Martyn1981

cells wrote: »

it does not matter if the panels are in Australia or china or Zimbabwe the output is worth only the saved fuel not the full system cost. As such the value of solar PV oitput is very low in the order of 3cents per kwh.

And once more rooftop is some 2x more expensive than large ground mounted so if it is successful it will be large pv farms not rooftop same way as large oil fired plants exist in some nations rather than everyone owning theirnown small diesel generators (which are affordable)

Apologies if you've already done this, but could you explain where you're getting that 3cents/kWh figure from?

Also, on what costs are you basing the claim that roof mounted is 2x more than large ground mounted? Are you only comparing CapEx, since roof mounted has little to no OpEx, unlike large 'farm' PV where there will be annual land, insurance and security costs.

Mart.

cells

Jis_consnbvn wrote: »

Given that the US is now considered the "swing" producer, it is interesting to note that US production is declining far quicker than was anticipated.

This could point to a possible increase in oil price, but is certainly no prediction - seen it too many times....

http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/137335/US_Shale_Oils_Crash_Diet_Likely_To_Bring_Forward_Output_Dip/?all=HG2

The EIA is considered best soirce for the USA and they show production went up last month and its expected to go up again next month

cells

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Apologies if you've already done this, but could you explain where you're getting that 3cents/kWh figure from?

Also, on what costs are you basing the claim that roof mounted is 2x more than large ground mounted? Are you only comparing CapEx, since roof mounted has little to no OpEx, unlike large 'farm' PV where there will be annual land, insurance and security costs.

Mart.

The value of solar output (or the output of any source you cannot control) is worth only the unit of energy saved not the whole system cost.

The unit of energy saved will vary by location, eg in the USA nat gas is some 1 cent a unit and to turn that into electricity in a CCGT at 50% equates to just 2cents


From memory I remember the EIA released a paper showing OV costs now and projected into the future for ground abd residential rooftop and it was roughly half the price for large scale ground which makes sense from economies of scale and the fact you don't need as much labor to install ground vs scaffolding and roof works


The opex as you say can't be lower for a thousand units dispersed aroind the country on top of roofs vs a farmer field all in ome place. If something goes wrong and it will then fixing it is easier on ground and all in one place. Also ground mount allows over sizing the oanels vs tje inverters which helps lower cost.

antrobus

cells wrote: »

.....Fortunately for the world the dangers of claimit change is nowhere near as bad as the hippies like to portray and even the dire IPCC believes a warmer world will be a positive for some 70 years before it becomes a slight negative

Well, there you go folks!

There might well be whole global effort out there to reduce Co2 emissions with a big showdown scheduled in Paris for the end of the year, but now we know that all "this stupid green nonsense" is just a waste of time, as we are all going to carry on burning up fossil fuels as per usual.