Monday, May 15, 2023
Oxford University's "Our World in Data" falls for renewables industry spin
Campaigning group Net Zero Watch has called on Oxford University’s Our World in Data (OWID) site to withdraw its webpage on the cost of renewable energy.
In a letter to OWID’s director Max Roser, NZW’s Andrew Montford explains that the site is putting its reputation at risk by ignoring the highly transparent UK data in favour of numbers that are not replicable, and most likely to be based on “hearsay”.
Mr Montford said:
"The UK is almost unique in having a high penetration of renewable energy and freely available financial accounts data. A series of reviews of this information confirms that the cost of offshore wind power is high, and hardly coming down at all. It is hard to comprehend why Our World in Data would ignore this hard data in favour of unsubstantiated spin from the renewables industry. Their page on the subject should be revised before anyone else is misled.”
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From: Andrew Montford
To: Dr Max Roser
11 May 2023
Dear Dr Roser
Our World in Data (OWID) is usually a rather reliable source of information, so I wanted to draw your attention to what I believe is an uncharacteristically flawed article on your website. This is ‘Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?’, which examines the levelised cost of renewable energy.
Firstly, I should point out that the levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) isn’t actually data at all. In simple terms, LCOE divides the lifetime costs of a generator by its lifetime output, but neither of those figures are known until the generator closes down at the end of its life. So while the Capital Expenditures (capex) element of lifetime cost is knowable at the start, the lifetime Operational Expenditure (opex) and the output have to be modelled. So whether a site called Our World in Data should be discussing LCOE at all is worthy of consideration.
Where LCOE is discussed, the data used as input needs to be grounded in reality, the modelling assumptions need to be made clear, and caveats spelled out. This is not the case for the sources you cite. For example, while widely cited, the assumptions used by Lazard are demonstrably false. For example, for offshore wind, the version of the report you cite (version 13) claims a capital cost of £2.3-$3.5m/MW, roughly half the cost of offshore windfarms in the UK, and a third of the cost of the only (admittedly experimental) offshore windfarm in the US. As I have pointed out elsewhere, the assumptions for capacity factor and opex are similarly divorced from reality.
You also cite the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), whose figures are similarly problematic, notably because they convert all their numbers into US dollars, giving them a large and entirely spurious downwards trend as a result of the appreciation of the dollar against most other currencies.
It’s not clear where Lazard and IRENA are getting their input figures from, but it’s unlikely to be anything that could reasonably be called ‘data’. IRENA is supposed to be global in nature, and Lazard are vague about whether their estimates are for the US or for the world. Either way, the majority of the financial inputs cannot be data because such information is not available for most of the world: word of mouth and/or developer announcements seem the most likely sources. In the UK, developer announcements are typically 15-20% lower than outturn cost.
The clear exception to this rule is the UK, where financial data is freely available for all offshore windfarms and many large onshore ones (as well as a few solar parks). This then is the only reliable data for estimating the levelised cost of renewable energy. I refer you to the paper by Aldersey-Williams et al. (2019) on the LCOE of offshore wind, which presents a very different story to the one in your article, and which has been replicated by others.
By basing your article on figures that can only be based on hearsay, rather than on empirical data, you are risking your hard-won reputation as a reliable source. I would advise you to revise the article accordingly.
With best regards
Andrew Montford
Director, Net Zero Watch
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The wind and solar power myth has finally been exposed
Many governments in the Western world have committed to “net zero” emissions of carbon in the near future. The US and UK both say they will deliver by 2050. It's widely believed that wind and solar power can achieve this. This belief has led the US and British governments, among others, to promote and heavily subsidise wind and solar.
These plans have a single, fatal flaw: they are reliant on the pipe-dream that there is some affordable way to store surplus electricity at scale.
In the real world a wind farm’s output often drops below 10 per cent of its rated “capacity” for days at a time. Solar power disappears completely every night and drops by 50 per cent or more during cloudy days. “Capacity” being a largely meaningless figure for a wind or solar plant, about 3000 megawatts (MW) of wind and solar capacity is needed to replace a 1000 MW conventional power station in terms of energy over time: and in fact, as we shall see, the conventional power station or something very like it will still be needed frequently once the wind and solar are online.
The governments of countries with a considerable amount of wind and solar generation have developed an expectation that they can simply continue to build more until net zero is achieved. The reality is that many of them have kept the lights on only by using existing fossil fired stations as backup for periods of low wind and sun. This brings with it a new operating regime where stations that were designed to operate continuously have to follow unpredictable fluctuations in wind and solar power. As a result operating and maintenance costs have increased and many stations have had to be shut down.
In fact it's already common to see efficient combined-cycle gas turbines replaced by open-cycle ones because they can be throttled up and down easily to back up the rapidly changing output of wind and solar farms. But open-cycle gas turbines burn about twice as much gas as combined cycle gas turbines. Switching to high-emissions machinery as part of an effort to reduce emissions is, frankly, madness!
Certain countries are helped because their power systems are supported by major inter-connectors to adjacent regions that have surplus power available. The increasingly troubled French nuclear fleet, which formerly had plenty of spare energy on tap, for a long time helped to make renewables plans look practical across Western Europe.
But this situation is not sustainable in the long term. Under net-zero plans, all nations will need to generate many times more electricity than they now can, as the large majority of our energy use today is delivered by burning fossil fuels directly. Neighbouring regions will be unable to provide the backup power needed; emissions from open cycle gas turbines (or new coal powerplants, as in the case of Germany at the moment) will become unacceptable; more existing base load stations will be forced to shut down by surges in renewables; more and more wind and solar power will have to be expensively dumped when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing.
Power prices will soar, making more or less everything more expensive, and there will be frequent blackouts.
None of this is difficult to work out. Building even more renewables capacity will not help: even ten or 100 times the nominally-necessary “capacity” could never do the job on a cold, windless evening.
Only one thing can save the day for the renewables plan. Reasonable cost, large scale energy storage, sufficient to keep the lights on for several days at a minimum, would solve the problem.
What are the options?
First we need to consider the scale of the issue. Relatively simple calculations show that that California would need over 200 megawatt-hours (MWh) of storage per installed MW of wind and solar power. Germany could probably manage with 150 MWh per MW. Perhaps this could be provided in the form of batteries?
The current cost of battery storage is about US$600,000 per MWh. For every MW of wind or solar power in California, $120 million would need to be spent on storage. In Germany it would be $90 million. Wind farms cost about $1.5 million per MW so the cost of battery storage would be astronomical: 80 times greater than the cost of the wind farm! A major additional constraint would be that such quantities of batteries are simply not available. Not enough lithium and cobalt and other rare minerals are being mined at the moment. If prices get high enough supply will expand, but prices are already ridiculously, unfeasibly high.
Some countries are gambling on hydro pumped storage. Here the idea is to use electricity to pump water uphill into a high reservoir using surplus renewables on sunny, windy days: then let it flow back down through generating turbines as in a normal hydropower plant when it’s dark and windless.
Many pumped systems have been built in China, Japan and United States but they have storage sufficient for only 6 to 10 hours operation. This is tiny compared with the several days storage that is needed to back up wind and solar power through routine sunless calm periods. Much larger lakes at the top and bottom of the scheme are needed. There are very few locations where two large lakes can be formed with one located 400-700 m above the other and separated by less than 5-10 km horizontally. Such a location must also have an adequate supply of make-up water to cope with evaporation losses from the two lakes. Another problem is that at least 25 per cent of the energy is lost while pumping and then generating.
Hydro pumped storage will seldom be a feasible option. It cannot solve the problem on a national scale even in countries like the USA which have a lot of mountains.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) for fossil fuel stations is also touted as way of avoiding the problems of wind and solar power. But this is not a technology, just a case of wishful thinking. In spite of many years of work and enormous amounts of money spent, nobody has yet devised a technology that can provide large scale, low cost CCS. Even if capture worked and didn't consume most or all the energy generated, storing the carbon dioxide is a huge problem because three tonnes of carbon dioxide are produced for every tonne of coal burned.
Hydrogen is another technology which is often suggested for energy storage: but its problems are legion. At the moment hydrogen is made using natural gas (so-called “blue” hydrogen). This, however, will have to stop in a net-zero world as the process emits large amounts of carbon: you might as well just burn the natural gas. Proper emissions-free “green” hydrogen is made from water using huge amounts of electrical energy, 60 per cent of which is lost in the process. Storing and handling the hydrogen is extremely difficult because hydrogen is a very small molecule and it leaks through almost anything. At best this means that a lot of your stored hydrogen will be gone by the time you want to use it: at worst it means devastating fires and explosions. The extremely low density of hydrogen also means that huge volumes of it would have to be stored and it would often have to be stored and handled cryogenically, creating even more losses, costs and risks.
The conclusion is simple. Barring some sort of miracle, there is no possibility that a suitable storage technology will be developed in the needed time frame. The present policies of just forcing wind and solar into the market and hoping for a miracle have been memorably and correctly likened to “jumping out of an aeroplane without a parachute and hoping that the parachute will be invented, delivered and strapped on in mid air in time to save you before you hit the ground.”
Wind and solar need to be backed up, close to 100 per cent, by some other means of power generation. If that backup is provided by open-cycle gas or worse, coal, net zero will never be achieved: nor anything very close to it.
There is one technology that can provide a cheap and reliable supply of low-emissions electricity: nuclear power. Interest in nuclear power is increasing as more and more people realise that it is safe and reliable. If regulators and the public could be persuaded that modern stations are inherently safe and that low levels of nuclear radiation are not dangerous, nuclear power could provide all the low cost, low emissions electricity the world needs for hundreds or thousands of years.
But if we had 100 per cent nuclear backup for solar and wind, we wouldn't need the wind and solar plants at all.
Wind and solar are, in fact, completely pointless.
Bryan Leyland MSc, DistFEngNZ, FIMechE, FIEE(rtd) is a power systems engineer with more than 60 years experience on projects around the world. He is a member of the GWPF's Academic Advisory Council
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Alarming drop in mining derails drive for Net Zero
Green transition will take six times the mineral output world is producing now
The latest key Canadian and global mining production numbers are out, and they’re grim. The International Energy Agency says that to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, we need to be producing six times the current global output of mineral inputs just to build the turbines, transmission lines, batteries and other items essential for low-carbon energy infrastructure. Instead, we are mining less than we did in 2019. While policy-makers constrain new investments in fossil fuels, the raw materials we need in order to develop alternative forms of energy are not coming along quickly enough. The result seems likely to be an energy crunch.
The 38th edition of the World Mining Data report, published annually by the Austrian government, finds that mining production is not meeting the hopes of governments working to increase their own domestic and friendly sources of minerals. Rather, production has roughly plateaued, with the sector yet to match the peak production of 18 billion metric tons achieved in 2019. Far from growing our outputs, we’re struggling to maintain them.
Even more troubling: more than a third of global mining production remains controlled by our two biggest geopolitical adversaries. China is still responsible for over a quarter of the total and Russia another 9.2 per cent on top of that. China is the world’s largest producer of 29 different commodities and dominates the processing and refining of many others.
Global mining financing is barely a third what it was a decade ago
In Canada, meantime, we are punching below our weight, ranking only eighth in world production, well behind our peers, the U.S. (second) and Australia (fourth). We do lead the pack in new exploration spending but our actual production of critical minerals is falling, despite renewed attention from the federal government and bilateral agreements with most of our closest allies to increase supply.
Natural Resources Canada released its annual mining production results in mid-April, confirming that in 2022 we produced fewer critical minerals — the copper, cobalt, nickel, zinc, uranium and platinum-group metals that are essential to the energy transition — than in 2019. Output of gold, which is a hedge against inflation and economic uncertainty, did increase, as did output of silver, iron and potash, a key ingredient in fertilizer. But they won’t help us hit our climate goals, and output of metals that would won’t be taking off any time soon, according to the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada.
Mining investment is anemic around the world, having plummeted 35 per cent between 2021 and 2022, a victim of high interest rates and price volatility. Overall global mining financing is barely a third what it was a decade ago, falling from US$119 billion at the peak of the last commodity cycle in 2013, to a dismal US$42 billion last year. Far from growing mineral production for a future net-zero world, we are living off investments made in the past.
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Australia: Federal Minister approvess Hunter coal mine expansion
The Environmental Defenders Office sought to overturn an approval allowing the expansion of Mt Pleasant mine. The Independent Planning Commision approved and application to extend the mine's life by 22 years to the end of 2048.
Environment groups have slammed federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek's refusal to stop the approvals of four coal projects, including the Mt Pleasant mine expansion near Muswellbrook.
The NSW Independent Planning Commission conditionally approved MACH Energy's expansion plans late last year.
The approval will extend the mine's life by 22 years to the end of 2048, a result that opponents argue would result in more than 800 million tonnes of carbon emissions.
Mt Pleasant was among 19 coal and gas projects Environment Justice Australia, acting on behalf of Environment Council of Central Queensland, applied under federal laws to have thrown out before they had completed their full environmental assessments.
The group argued that the potential emissions from the projects should rule them out of any further consideration.
But in order to stop a project from proceeding, federal laws require proof that its emissions would be a substantial cause of climate change effects on the Australian environment.
Ms Plibersek's department said on Thursday night that this had not been proven in regard to Mount Pleasant, the Narrabri Coal mine expansion, the Ensham coal mine extension and the Isaac River coal mine, both of which are located in Queensland's Bowen Basin
"The Albanese government has to make decisions in accordance with the facts and the national environment law - that's what happens on every project, and that's what's happened here. Since the election we've doubled renewable energy approvals to a record high. The government will continue to consider each project on a case-by-case basis, under the law," federal Department of Environment spokeswoman said.
The Environment Council of Central Queensland said it was considering all legal options including a Federal Court challenge and any injunctions needed.
"Today's decision means Minister Plibersek joins a long line of federal environment ministers who have said it's not their job to consider the climate risk of new coal and gas mines," President Christine Carlisle said.
"We're already dealing with floods, bushfires, and droughts and the evidence shows these new coal and gas proposals will make the devastation much, much worse.
"This is the real test for the minster. Australians who voted in favour of climate action have a right to feel betrayed by these decisions. We want our kids and our grandkids to be able to experience our natural wonders."
In giving its conditional approval for the expansion last year, the planning commission said the project would provide up to 447 direct and indirect jobs in the Muswellbrook and Upper Hunter, 643 jobs in the wider region, and 444 jobs elsewhere in NSW.
Mt Pleasant is also one of the few known habitats of the Hunter Valley Delma. The Delma is a species of legless lizard endemic to the Hunter Valley and Liverpool plains and was found on the mine site by researchers from the Australian Museum in 2022.
The Climate Council said Ms Plibersek's ruling was 'reckless' and 'out of line with the science'.
"This decision takes us in entirely the wrong direction to protect Australians from the worsening effects of dangerous climate change," Climate Council head of advocacy Jennifer Rayner said.
"The environment minister has a responsibility to scrutinise all risks of harm to the environment, and it is irresponsible that she has refused to look at the immense and indisputable climate harm that all new coal and gas projects pose.
"We cannot have new, highly polluting coal as we're living through the age of climate consequences. What we need is far more action to boost clean energy sources which can replace coal altogether, like the renewable hydrogen investments the government started in this week's budget."
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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