Tag Archives: energy price crisis

The crippling problem of renewable green energy cannot be solved

More oil and gas production would help the current situation somewhat—but also generate jobs and government revenue over the long run. Renewables are not well designed for responding to energy crises because they have no surge capacity.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t George Heraghty

From the Telegraph:

In a Net Zero world, what will we do when the wind isn’t blowing? Environmentalists like to point out that we will have solar power as well, but of course the sun doesn’t shine at night, so windless nights are a big problem.

Next, it is suggested that we can store electricity. But in winter we frequently get long wind lulls, and with the sun low in the sky, there will be little or no solar power either. These so-called “dunkelflautes” mean little or no electricity supply from the renewables fleet.

A dunkelflaute can last for weeks. That means you need huge, unfeasible quantities of electricity storage. The Royal Society recently concluded we’d need enough to cover more than two months’ demand, and, whatever storage technology is adopted, this isn’t going to be affordable or probably even possible. The Royal Society’s numbers suggest we’d need to deliver a project equivalent in size to HS2 every year, forever. Worse, that number is likely to be hugely understated, because the report’s authors used extraordinarily optimistic projections of what might happen to costs and efficiencies in the next 25 years. Using assumptions grounded in the technologies and costs prevalent today, we’d conclude that we’d need six months’ storage, and would have to settle ongoing annual bills equivalent to five HS2 projects per year.

It’s a huge problem, which makes the idea of Net Zero a hard sell. One of the wheezes dreamt up by the greens to make the costs look a bit smaller is to assume that we will get a significant proportion of our electricity down the “interconnectors” – the big cables that connect the UK grid to our European neighbours, or which would stitch together the various grids of North America. There are already several international interconnections in operation – from the UK to Norway, France, Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands – as well as others bringing power from region to region. More are on the way.

However, as with so much of the energy “transition”, there is a lot of wishful thinking going on.

Firstly, it is glibly assumed that the electricity delivered down interconnectors is zero-emission. Remarkably, this is the case, no matter how many coal-fired power stations are in operation on the continental grid at the time. In other words, replacing an idle wind farm in the UK with a coal-fired power station in Belgium would be assumed to represent an emissions-reducing move.

Secondly, it is assumed (in equally glib fashion) that the continental grid will always have power to spare for the UK, and that there will always be power to spare somewhere in the USA. This is simply not the case. Firstly, if it is midnight in the UK, it is dark across the whole of Europe. If it is two AM in New York it is midnight in Los Angeles, so nobody is going to be generating any solar power.

Secondly, although we are frequently told that “the wind is always blowing somewhere”, weather systems are extremely large things and they frequently affect whole continents. As a result, wind speeds are highly correlated across any continent; if there’s no wind in the UK, the chances are high that it’s not windy anywhere nearby either.

Even if the continent is windy when it’s calm in the UK, or if it’s windy in Texas when it’s calm in California, the ability to send power where it’s needed depends on there being surplus generating capacity in the precise place where the wind is blowing.

If, say, it’s windy in Scandinavia but the rest of Europe is experiencing a lull, you need enough spare windfarms in the Baltic and Nordic seas to meet demand from almost half a billion people. That’s a huge amount of windfarms. Then again, the windy spot might be in the Atlantic, off the coast of Iberia. So you’d need to build the same enormous number windfarms again, this time off the coast of Portugal. The again, and again – basically every local neighbourhood would have to have enough capacity to supply the entire continent. Hopefully this shows that the idea is rather ridiculous.

The same arguments apply to the idea of getting power from further afield. There is a currently a proposal to build an interconnector to Morocco, where the stiff breezes found in the seas off the Atlantic seaboard and deserts full of solar panels will, it is claimed, deliver an electricity bonanza. Unfortunately, as I write, wind speeds are rather low across most of Europe, while off the Western seaboard of Morocco they are … even lower. It’s gusty off Portugal though.

A lack of generating capacity in the right place is only one of the problems with interconnectors. They also turn out to be rather unreliable. For example, the Western Link, one of the interconnectors from England to the South of Scotland has failed regularly in its short lifetime, going down for months at a time, causing nightmares for grid managers tasked with making up the difference. Similarly, the IFA1 interconnector to France was hit by a fire in 2021, losing half of its capacity for a period of more than a year. Of course, any part of the electricity grid can suffer an outage, but the loss of an interconnector can take out a significant proportion of supply for long periods.

Worse still, interconnectors represent a risk to security of supply in other ways. Those long cables, hidden deep beneath the waves, are an inviting target for hostile powers. Just last week, a small flotilla from the navies of several European nations was scrambled to an area adjacent to the East Anglia One windfarm, after a Russian vessel was seen to be hanging around the area. We can’t know if it was sizing up the windfarm’s grid connection or the adjacent gas pipeline, but the point is the same; it is very hard to protect subsea infrastructure from sabotage (and impossible when it is a thousand-mile cable from here to Morocco).

The problem of what to do when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining is all but insurmountable. In technological terms, the only feasible solution is a vast fleet of windfarms and a gigantic store of green hydrogen, along the lines envisaged by the Royal Society. However, barring a series of dramatic technological breakthroughs, the costs would make the recent energy price crisis look like nothing.

It’s high time to put a stop to the wishful thinking on Net Zero.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/31/green-energy-solar-wind-renewable-energy-interconnector/

Michael Kelly is Emeritus Professor of Engineering at the University of Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, of the Royal Academy of Engineering, of the Royal Society of New Zealand, of the Institute of Physics and of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, as well as Senior Member of the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineering in the USA

Fritz Vahrenholt: After the heat pump disaster, the insulation hammer

From  KlimaNachrichten Redakteur

By Fritz Vahrenholt

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

In May 2023, the deviation of the global temperature from the 30-year average of satellite-based measurements from the University of Alabama (UAH) rose to 0.37 degrees Celsius as a result of the El Niño approaching in the Pacific (see chart above). The average temperature increase per decade since 1979 is only 0.13 degrees Celsius.

After the heat pump disaster comes the insulation hammer 

On March 9, 2023, the world was still in order for Robert Habeck. His state secretary was still called Graichen and the anger of the citizens over the minister’s encroachments on German boiler rooms was not yet noticeable. At that time, he announced the second attack on the German homes and houses. In his workshop report “Renewing prosperity in a climate-neutral way”, he announced that “the EU Buildings Directive, in particular the minimum efficiency standards contained therein, will be implemented quickly”. What is it all about? The European Parliament has decided by a majority that from 1 January 2030 all buildings must achieve energy performance class E and from 2033 efficiency class D.

This means that there is an obligation to renovate 6 million houses in Germany by 2033, as MEP Pieper (CDU) reported. “The savings in energy bills do not even come close to compensating for the renovation costs,” says Axel Gedaschko, President of the Federal Association of German Housing and Real Estate Companies (GdW): “The investments due would amount to at least 125 billion euros annually.” One thing is undeniable: this would once again make housing considerably more expensive, but also make investments in new housing less economical.

One really wonders what moves the political forces involved: in a blatant energy price crisis, in a dramatic housing shortage with persistently high uncontrolled immigration pressure, to massively increase the price of home ownership under the banner of climate protection – this can only be explained by an incredibly wide distance from the problems of the citizens of one’s own country.

Habeck and the EU do not even take note of the fact that Germany has one of the best energy efficiency standards of the housing stock in Europe. But the standards are different. What corresponds to an efficiency standard G in Germany is a C in the Netherlands and a D in France. So Germany would have to do more than other countries, even though it has the better standard. But German CO2 – as we have learned in the meantime – is much worse from a green point of view than CO2 from other countries, be it from the Netherlands or from China.

The justification for regulating the CO2 emissions of apartments through drastic bans and commandments comes from the Green side with the following hypocritical argument: they want to protect consumers through insulation and heat pump regulations, as CO2 prices will rise sharply. Costs of € 16,000 for gas heating of a 4-person household are painted on the wall by the Green parliamentary group. In fact, the EU is also planning CO2 emissions trading for buildings and transport from 2027. However, the EU has taken precautions to ensure that the levy will not rise above €45 per tonne of CO2.

So far, only a few countries have their own CO2 levies for buildings and transport, including Germany and Austria. The CO2 levy is currently capped at €30 and is expected to rise to €2025/tCO45 by 2. It is hard to imagine that Germany wants to demand more from its citizens in the future than the European standard prescribes for 2027. The levy currently charges natural gas at €0.54ct/kWh. In the long term, this will be more like €0.8ct/kWh – annoying enough, but not even an additional burden of 10% of today’s gas price. So there is no reason to frighten citizens and threaten them with gas bills of €16,000 per year, especially since the CO2 price is in the hands of the federal government. What is such political communication called? Sanctimonious? Or rather, sneaky? In any case, I have ordered a brand new gas condensing boiler for my house in the past few weeks and thus avoid more CO2 in winter than the CO2-polluted heat pump from Robert Habeck.

RWE’s best-kept secret

In my last newsletter I wrote about the fact that with a fraction of the costs that citizens have to pay for Robert Habeck’s heat pump disaster, many times more CO2 could be achieved by CO2 capture in the still existing lignite-fired power plants. With one-twentieth of the costs, five times as much CO2 would be avoided. I wrote about the miracle of Hohenmölsen, where I was informed by a representative of LEAG that the CO2 capture plant in Schwarze Pumpe is still standing.

Now I received another letter – from an RWE employee. I wonder if I had forgotten that RWE has been operating a fully functional pilot plant for capturing CO2009 in a partial flow of the lignite-fired power plant in Niederaussem since the time of Jürgen Grossmann in 2 (I was his managing director for renewable energies at the time). And it is still running successfully. Frankly, I had repressed it. With great fanfare, the Chairman of the Board of Management, Dr. Markus Krebber, had contractually assured Minister Habeck without necessity that the lignite-fired power plants in the Rhenish mining area would be shut down as early as 2030. Every CEO would have taken the opportunity to point out the fantastic development of RWE, BASF and Linde, which makes CO2 neutrality possible for coal-fired power plants, wouldn’t he? The ex-colleague from RWE sent me the impressive picture of the plant. (Source: BASF)

RWE plans CO2 capture – but not in Germany

The development of RWE, BASF and Linde can now be regarded as state of the art : The capture of more than 90 % of CO2 from a partial flow of the exhaust gas has been proven in the long term, the costs amount to an incredible 30 €/t CO2 ( P.Moser, G Wiechers, S.Schmidt, K.Stahl, G.Vorberg, T Stoffregen, VGB Powertech 1/2 , 2018, S43) . The efficiency loss is less than 10 % (i.e. instead of 43 % efficiency: 39 %). Niederaussem is therefore to be shut down in 2030, including the separation plant. The technology could massively reduce the emissions and CO2 costs of lignite-fired electricity ( 30 €/t CO2 instead of 100 €/t CO2 certificates), even if 50 €/t CO2 were still to be applied for injection. Incidentally, the captured CO2 from Niederaussem is so pure that it is used in the beverage industry for soda bottles.
The technology of BASF’s OASE amine scrubbing in Niederaussem has what it takes to become the world’s leading capture technology for solving the CO2 problem – also in coal-fired power plants.

And even RWE wants to apply it – but only in England for the group’s gas-fired power plants there. “In the future, CCS projects could secure electricity generation capacities of up to 4.7 gigawatts and avoid 11 million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year,” it proudly states on RWE’s website. We are talking about the Pembroke, Wales and Staythorpe gas-fired power stations. RWE speaks of “green gas-fired power plant projects”. (Image source: RWE)

RWE also wants to use CCS in the Netherlands. According to the press release, biomass power plants are to be operated there with OASE-CCS technology, so that there are even negative CO2 emissions. In fact, however, the power plants in question in Eemshaven and Amer have so far been mixed coal-fired and biomass power plants. But E.ON also relies on CCS. The company recently acquired a stake in the Norwegian company Horisont Energie to take on a leadership role in the field of CCS, as E.ON CEO Leo Birnbaum explained. Apart from the regional newspapers such as Westfälische Rundschau or Westfalenpost, there was no coverage of this sensational development in FAZ, Spiegel, SZ, ARD or ZDF. It’s not interesting for the mainstream media. Our media landscape is terribly party-green.

But there is even better news: Heidelberg-Zement’s cement production facility in Lengfurt is to be equipped with a CO2 capture plant based on OASE technology. 70,000 tonnes of CO2 are to be separated and purified there and, like Niederaussem’s exhaust gases, will be sold in the beverage industry for carbonated beverages.
Who says it to Olaf Scholz, Prime Minister Wüst and the East German Prime Ministers of Brandenburg, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt ?

Al Gore’s prognosis – Arctic sea ice is disappearing

Last but not least, some good news. In 2007, AL Gore predicted that by 2015 the Arctic sea ice would have disappeared in the summer minimum (thick blue line). The sea ice did not comply. Since 2007, it has been surprisingly stable. You could draw a horizontal straight line from 2007 to 2023. Antarctic sea ice is also stable. Since 1979, it has even risen slightly in area.

With best wishes
,
Fritz Vahrenholt

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Read also Fritz Vahrenholt’s new book “The Great Energy Crisis – and How We Can Overcome It”:

Blurb:

Never before in the history of the industrial age has energy in Europe been as scarce and expensive as it is today. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is only acting as a catalyst, as price explosions on the gas and electricity markets had already indicated the failure of the energy transition and the European “Green Deal”. A wrong energy policy endangers the daily, secure supply of energy, leads to a loss of prosperity for private households and destroys industrial jobs that are in international competition. The answer to the pressing energy issues of our time must be a technological energy offensive in Germany that includes all alternatives, from shale gas extraction to the CO2-free use of domestic lignite to the development of a new generation of safer nuclear power plants.