Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

shinytop

Thanks Martyn, I understand the above.  I'm using a lot less electricity in my current house with an ASHP than I did when it had storage heaters.  But I'm using a lot more electricity than in my previous house, where I had gas CH.  And I'll be using even more if/when I get an EV. How much energy I'm using is a much more complicated question but my point is with the electricity demand increase.  I thought the article you quoted said the transitional electricity demand would double but the steady state would be 50-60% less. That's what I was questioning.

Coastalwatch

Thanks all for questioning and then explaining further my misunderstanding. Hope it hasn't caused too much anguish!

Martyn1981

shinytop said:

Thanks Martyn, I understand the above.  I'm using a lot less electricity in my current house with an ASHP than I did when it had storage heaters.  But I'm using a lot more electricity than in my previous house, where I had gas CH.  And I'll be using even more if/when I get an EV. How much energy I'm using is a much more complicated question but my point is with the electricity demand increase.  I thought the article you quoted said the transitional electricity demand would double but the steady state would be 50-60% less. That's what I was questioning.

Yeah no probs, it's a really interesting subject.

Basically 'end-use energy demand' for most of us will be made up of leccy, FF gas and petroleum/diesel, so it's possible for our leccy demand to go up (on average, not necessarily those of us on here who may have made some changes already), but our total end-use energy demand to go down.

As mentioned, transport is an easy one to demonstrate that. We seem to be using now about 2MWh's of leccy per annum, and if the car is ~75% efficient, then that's 1.5MWh of energy to movement, which for the petrol car at say 25% efficiency would have required us to buy and consume approx 6MWh's of energy. So leccy up 2MWh, but energy consumption down 4MWh.

Sorry for the waffle, but this subject, and also primary energy demand (mainly of FF's) get me really excited as to be frank we'd be totally screwed if we had to generate enough RE leccy to match primary energy demand. It's been pointed out before on here and other threads and forums, that 'we' are only really tackling the leccy part of energy consumption, and leccy is a small part of total energy consumption, so the task is hopeless! But the (half) hidden beauty is that we only have to match about a third of the other energy production, or perhaps even less, since most of the energy in FF's is wasted at final use, typically as heat, and also a huge amount of energy (from FF's, refined FF's and leccy) is consumed to extract, transport, refine and transport (again) that final product.

So if you ever feel the task is insurmountable, then take some hope from the fact that we only need to 'mount' a minority of it. Thank goodness!


Edit - Sorry can't shut up when I get started. This is why heat pumps are so important, especially for countries like the UK where the vast majority of heating is from GCH. If we simply moved from GCH which can now be 80-90% efficient, to resistive leccy heating, at say 100% efficiency, then again being a bit crude, but we're screwed, that's a staggering amount of additional generation that would be needed each year, and in end-use energy terms it dwarfs our current leccy consumption, and is also weighted towards half of the year.

So we have no choice, it has to be insulate, insulate, insulate ..... then move to heat pumps.

QrizB

Martyn1981 said:

As mentioned, transport is an easy one to demonstrate that. We seem to be using now about 2MWh's of leccy per annum, and if the car is ~75% efficient, then that's 1.5MWh of energy to movement, which for the petrol car at say 25% efficiency would have required us to buy and consume approx 6MWh's of energy. So leccy up 2MWh, but energy consumption down 4MWh.

Looking at this a slightly different way, a litre of petrol contains roughly 10kWh of energy and will take my Fiat Panda ten miles. That's one kWh per mile.

Martyn's TM3 uses only 250 Wh per mile, so his energy consumption is 1/4 of mine.

If Martyn and I both drive 10000 miles in a year, I'll have bought 1000 litres of petrol for £1400 and Martyn will have bought 2500kWh of electricity for £500 (or £125 on Go).

If we both use 2500kWh/yr domestically, Martyn's electricity use is double mine (5000 vs 2500) but his energy use is less than half (5000 vs 12500).

shinytop

QrizB said:

Martyn1981 said:

As mentioned, transport is an easy one to demonstrate that. We seem to be using now about 2MWh's of leccy per annum, and if the car is ~75% efficient, then that's 1.5MWh of energy to movement, which for the petrol car at say 25% efficiency would have required us to buy and consume approx 6MWh's of energy. So leccy up 2MWh, but energy consumption down 4MWh.

Looking at this a slightly different way, a litre of petrol contains roughly 10kWh of energy and will take my Fiat Panda ten miles. That's one kWh per mile.

Martyn's TM3 uses only 250 Wh per mile, so his energy consumption is 1/4 of mine.

If Martyn and I both drive 10000 miles in a year, I'll have bought 1000 litres of petrol for £1400 and Martyn will have bought 2500kWh of electricity for £500 (or £125 on Go).

If we both use 2500kWh/yr domestically, Martyn's electricity use is double mine (5000 vs 2500) but his energy use is less than half (5000 vs 12500).

I know/knew that but I thought the article was saying that electricity use would reduce, not primary energy use, and I didn't believe that. 

So what it's acually saying is that electricity use will double and primary use will be 57% less.  Fine, I understand that.

So do I believe we can double electricity use and get by with RE sans long term storage?  I don't know...  

michaels

shinytop said:

QrizB said:

Martyn1981 said:

As mentioned, transport is an easy one to demonstrate that. We seem to be using now about 2MWh's of leccy per annum, and if the car is ~75% efficient, then that's 1.5MWh of energy to movement, which for the petrol car at say 25% efficiency would have required us to buy and consume approx 6MWh's of energy. So leccy up 2MWh, but energy consumption down 4MWh.

Looking at this a slightly different way, a litre of petrol contains roughly 10kWh of energy and will take my Fiat Panda ten miles. That's one kWh per mile.

Martyn's TM3 uses only 250 Wh per mile, so his energy consumption is 1/4 of mine.

If Martyn and I both drive 10000 miles in a year, I'll have bought 1000 litres of petrol for £1400 and Martyn will have bought 2500kWh of electricity for £500 (or £125 on Go).

If we both use 2500kWh/yr domestically, Martyn's electricity use is double mine (5000 vs 2500) but his energy use is less than half (5000 vs 12500).

I know/knew that but I thought the article was saying that electricity use would reduce, not primary energy use, and I didn't believe that. 

So what it's acually saying is that electricity use will double and primary use will be 57% less.  Fine, I understand that.

So do I believe we can double electricity use and get by with RE sans long term storage?  I don't know...  

I guess the US being the size of a continent with 3 hours worth of time zones helps (assuming they build out a suitable grid), they also have a fair bit of hydro which I guess can be used as a giant battery.  However it does still seem far fetched that they won't suffer the 'November' problem - weeks on end of cold, dull, still weather...

Martyn1981

shinytop said:

QrizB said:

Martyn1981 said:

As mentioned, transport is an easy one to demonstrate that. We seem to be using now about 2MWh's of leccy per annum, and if the car is ~75% efficient, then that's 1.5MWh of energy to movement, which for the petrol car at say 25% efficiency would have required us to buy and consume approx 6MWh's of energy. So leccy up 2MWh, but energy consumption down 4MWh.

Looking at this a slightly different way, a litre of petrol contains roughly 10kWh of energy and will take my Fiat Panda ten miles. That's one kWh per mile.

Martyn's TM3 uses only 250 Wh per mile, so his energy consumption is 1/4 of mine.

If Martyn and I both drive 10000 miles in a year, I'll have bought 1000 litres of petrol for £1400 and Martyn will have bought 2500kWh of electricity for £500 (or £125 on Go).

If we both use 2500kWh/yr domestically, Martyn's electricity use is double mine (5000 vs 2500) but his energy use is less than half (5000 vs 12500).

I know/knew that but I thought the article was saying that electricity use would reduce, not primary energy use, and I didn't believe that. 

So what it's acually saying is that electricity use will double and primary use will be 57% less.  Fine, I understand that.

So do I believe we can double electricity use and get by with RE sans long term storage?  I don't know...  

Actually it's better than that, and reading back let me apologise for clouding the issue in my original reply to CW where I suggested some of that 57% would be from the reduced energy from not needing to extract, refine etc energy. That was wrong, and I shouldn't have raised the issue of primary use in this particular context. The 57% reduction is 'just' in relation to end-use energy consumption. The reduction in primary energy demand will be higher again as we'll also save all of the energy consumed in finding and getting the product out of the ground and to us in a useable form, for instance the US use of pump jacks that CW mentioned, or the UK's leccy consumption at oil refineries.

So a recap for anyone that's still not sure, and also for future discussions, so we are on the same page, in this example the 57% relates to end-use, so it's the amount of energy delivered to your house in a useable form. The vast bulk of this, for most of us will be in 3 forms, leccy, FF gas, and petroleum products. Over time the leccy demand will rise probably by 100%, but the other two will drop so much, perhaps 100%, to give a total for the 3 that's 57% less:-

EG, house buys:
W kWh's of leccy +
X kWh's of petrol +
Y kWh's of gas 
Total = Z kWh's

In the future the house buys:
A kWh's of leccy (possibly twice W) +
B kWh's of petrol (possibly zero X) +
C kWh's of gas (possibly zero Y)
Total = D kWh's

D will be ~57% less than Z

On top of this, the reduction in petroleum products, gas for heating, coal for leccy etc etc, will mean an even greater reduction in energy consumption v's primary energy, since these products consume a huge amount of energy to find, extract, transport and refine, before they reach us for end-use. So we have the energy in the ground, then a smaller amount of energy that reaches the end user, then a smaller amount of energy again that is actually useful to us.



Anyway enough of the waffle, and again apologies if I confused the issue mentioning primary energy. Onto the fun stuff and regarding your comment sans long term storage - I feel the same. I have massive respect for Professor Mark Jacobson and the models his team has been producing for nearly a decade now (I think) on the RE mix the World and individual countries will need, but I'm shocked that they think it's manageable without long term storage. They do have great PV resources, and some areas have incredibly consistent on-shore wind, and as Michaels points out the scale of the country means that peak demand is spread out, if the leccy can be moved efficiently ...... BUT no long term storage, that blows my mind, and is incredible news.

I suppose it does depend on what they mean by long term storage, I assume it means more than 24hrs, as batteries with 2-8hrs of storage are being rolled out, and what about bio-energy, particularly bio-mass, would storage buildings full of wood pellets be classed as long term storage? The article does suggest shorter term battery storage meeting longer term but smaller scale energy shortfalls, which may explain some of my confusion.

Just my opinion, but since we don't live in 'sunnier/warmer climes' I assume the UK will still need significant long term storage, or a massive overbuild of RE, or both?

Hope you or anybody, finds this fun and interesting, but it's probably just me.  

ed110220

michaels said:

shinytop said:

QrizB said:

Martyn1981 said:

As mentioned, transport is an easy one to demonstrate that. We seem to be using now about 2MWh's of leccy per annum, and if the car is ~75% efficient, then that's 1.5MWh of energy to movement, which for the petrol car at say 25% efficiency would have required us to buy and consume approx 6MWh's of energy. So leccy up 2MWh, but energy consumption down 4MWh.

Looking at this a slightly different way, a litre of petrol contains roughly 10kWh of energy and will take my Fiat Panda ten miles. That's one kWh per mile.

Martyn's TM3 uses only 250 Wh per mile, so his energy consumption is 1/4 of mine.

If Martyn and I both drive 10000 miles in a year, I'll have bought 1000 litres of petrol for £1400 and Martyn will have bought 2500kWh of electricity for £500 (or £125 on Go).

If we both use 2500kWh/yr domestically, Martyn's electricity use is double mine (5000 vs 2500) but his energy use is less than half (5000 vs 12500).

I know/knew that but I thought the article was saying that electricity use would reduce, not primary energy use, and I didn't believe that. 

So what it's acually saying is that electricity use will double and primary use will be 57% less.  Fine, I understand that.

So do I believe we can double electricity use and get by with RE sans long term storage?  I don't know...  

I guess the US being the size of a continent with 3 hours worth of time zones helps (assuming they build out a suitable grid), they also have a fair bit of hydro which I guess can be used as a giant battery.  However it does still seem far fetched that they won't suffer the 'November' problem - weeks on end of cold, dull, still weather...

Highly unlikely that there are going to be weeks of cold, dull weather in Arizona, New Mexico, S California, Florida etc. The SW US deserts have some of the sunniest climates in the world. And with coastlines on two oceans plus the Gulf of Mexico, the windy midwest plains etc, it's always going to be windy in quite a few places. 

Martyn1981

I think this can be filed under 'storage'? It's a H2 gas generation test facility in Germany, to burn H2 produced from offshore wind generation.

RWE to install hydrogen gas turbine

RWE and gas turbine maker Kawasaki are planning to build one of the world’s first 100% hydrogen-capable gas turbines on industrial scale in Lingen, Germany.

The aim is to test the conversion of hydrogen back into electricity at RWE's Emsland gas-fired power plant.

The plant, with an output of 34MW, could become operational in mid-2024 and will be supplied with green hydrogen from a 100MW electrolyser.

Lingen will play a key role in RWE's hydrogen strategy: as part of the GET H2 project, where the company plans to use offshore wind power to produce green hydrogen.

The Lingen electrolyser will be expanded to 300MW by 2026 and to 2GW by 2030.

michaels

ed110220 said:

michaels said:

shinytop said:

QrizB said:

Martyn1981 said:

As mentioned, transport is an easy one to demonstrate that. We seem to be using now about 2MWh's of leccy per annum, and if the car is ~75% efficient, then that's 1.5MWh of energy to movement, which for the petrol car at say 25% efficiency would have required us to buy and consume approx 6MWh's of energy. So leccy up 2MWh, but energy consumption down 4MWh.

Looking at this a slightly different way, a litre of petrol contains roughly 10kWh of energy and will take my Fiat Panda ten miles. That's one kWh per mile.

Martyn's TM3 uses only 250 Wh per mile, so his energy consumption is 1/4 of mine.

If Martyn and I both drive 10000 miles in a year, I'll have bought 1000 litres of petrol for £1400 and Martyn will have bought 2500kWh of electricity for £500 (or £125 on Go).

If we both use 2500kWh/yr domestically, Martyn's electricity use is double mine (5000 vs 2500) but his energy use is less than half (5000 vs 12500).

I know/knew that but I thought the article was saying that electricity use would reduce, not primary energy use, and I didn't believe that. 

So what it's acually saying is that electricity use will double and primary use will be 57% less.  Fine, I understand that.

So do I believe we can double electricity use and get by with RE sans long term storage?  I don't know...  

I guess the US being the size of a continent with 3 hours worth of time zones helps (assuming they build out a suitable grid), they also have a fair bit of hydro which I guess can be used as a giant battery.  However it does still seem far fetched that they won't suffer the 'November' problem - weeks on end of cold, dull, still weather...

Highly unlikely that there are going to be weeks of cold, dull weather in Arizona, New Mexico, S California, Florida etc. The SW US deserts have some of the sunniest climates in the world. And with coastlines on two oceans plus the Gulf of Mexico, the windy midwest plains etc, it's always going to be windy in quite a few places. 

I know Martyn was grappling with a definition but perhaps looking at whether 24 hour generation matches 24 hour consumption in every 24 hour period is a good definition of whether any particular electricity supply and storage mix can work without 'long term storage' - if you have to shift generation by more than 24 hours then that is long term storage?