Hazy, Lazy Reporting
News stories about clean energy frequently announce, with fervor, that a new installation of wind or solar, or some other uneconomic method for generating electricity, can produce enough electricity to serve X number of homes.
This is supposed to establish that the new installation is economically sound, with the inference that these homes are now supplied with “clean energy”.
There are a few problems with this pronouncement.
First, it is frequently based on the nameplate rating of the installed generating facility.
As we know, all name plate ratings don’t generate the same amount of electricity.
Second, there is some assumption as to the average amount of electricity used by homes.
Here is an example from Bloomberg:
“Renewable-energy developer opened the 39 MW wind farm, which will generate enough power for 27,000 homes.”
This announcement relied on the frequently used assumption that an average home requires 1,500 watts of electricity.
This shorthand approach is misleading … and meaningless.
The key variable, not addressed in the Bloomberg story, is kilowatt hours (KWh), not KW or MW.
The nameplate rating is in Megawatts, which is 1,000 Kilowatts, but it’s the amount of electricity generated over a year, in KWh, that’s important.
A typical 1.5 MW wind turbine has the potential to generate 3.9 million KWh of electricity, but it doesn’t.
The wind doesn’t blow all the time, and it’s always changing its speed. Therefore, the output of a wind turbine is measured over one year to determine how much electricity is actually generated, and this is then compared with the amount that could theoretically be generated based on its nameplate rating, to arrive at a capacity factor. The average capacity factor for land based wind turbines is less than 30%, which means that a wind turbine actually produces less than one third of its nameplate rating.
This is why the nameplate rating shouldn’t be the basis for determining the number of homes a wind farm can supply.
The average US home uses around 10,000 KWh of electricity, so the 39 MW wind farm, mentioned above, can only supply electricity to around 9,600 homes … not 27,000.
This average may not apply to the area being served by the wind farm or solar power plant.
The same method can be used to determine the number of homes supplied by solar power installations, except capacity factor is usually between 16% and 22%. Obviously the sun doesn’t shine at night, so a solar installation can’t supply electricity for all twenty four hours.
Reporters aren’t engineers, so can be forgiven for using shorthand methods for determining the number of homes an installation can supply with electricity, but readers need to be alert to what is being reported.
Here’s an even more egregious quote from a news story in the Orange County Register, where the reporter accepted what he or she was told without questioning the source.
“Solar power generation on California’s electricity grid reached an all-time high Friday, totaling enough to power more than 1.5 million homes, state officials said Sunday.”
“The record of 2,071 megawatts hit at 12:59 p.m. Friday …”
“One megawatt will power about 750 homes, Greenlee said, meaning the state’s solar power generation was able to power more than 1.5 million homes at Friday’s record peak.”
In this case, not even the arithmetic works. The story, as written, is meaningless.
Energy is an area where people can be easily fooled, since most people aren’t engineers.
Every story about energy needs to be viewed with skepticism … especially if it seems to be about hype rather than facts.
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© Power For USA, 2010 – 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author, Donn Dears, LLC, is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Power For USA with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Exporting Natural Gas
Various forces are arrayed against permitting the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
A few industry sources, primarily DOW Chemical Company, oppose the export of LNG for fear that the price of natural gas will rise to the point where their business will be harmed.
Environmentalists, such as the Sierra Club, and their allies in Congress, including Representatives Markey and Waxman, oppose LNG exports because they believe it will increase methane emissions to the atmosphere. The Sierra Club, for example, has declared war against natural gas, i.e., methane.
In the view of environmentalists, and their allies, exporting LNG will merely increase the production of natural gas; something they believe should be avoided at all costs.
In this, they are partly correct; exporting LNG will increase the production of natural gas.
The real question, however, is, do we have enough natural gas to permit exporting LNG.
In the past few weeks, my articles have taken an objective look at our nation’s supply of natural gas.
The first article, Do We Have Enough Natural Gas?, examined the ways in which natural gas could be used, such as coal-to-gas switching for power generation, demonstrated that even with the largest probable use of natural gas we would still have around a sixty-year supply of natural gas.
Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) was also examined as an additional use of natural gas and it was shown that GTL would have a minimal effect on our supply of natural gas.
Finally, an article explored the probable future of mining natural gas from methane hydrates. See Natural Gas from Methane Hydrates.
All of this evidence clearly demonstrates that the government should allow the export of LNG, with market forces determining the quantity that is actually exported.
Other countries are gearing up to export LNG, including Australia and Canada.
Qatar, Algeria, Nigeria and Indonesia are already exporting large quantities of LNG. Shale gas in China is likely to reduce the market for LNG in China1.
All in all, it’s very likely that these competing sources of LNG will limit the amount of LNG the United States will actually export.
The article, Do We Have Enough Natural Gas?, estimated that 10.4 Tcf per year of natural gas could be exported if all 19 export terminals were authorized and built. The article also suggested it would be highly unlikely for all 19 terminals to be built.
The ICF Consulting firm’s highest export case is 5.8 Tcf, or approximately half my estimate.
ICF also projects that the price for natural gas at the Henry Hub will increase by $1.02 as the result of their maximum predicted exports of 5.8 Tcf, which should allay any fears that DOW Chemical or other manufacturers may have about natural gas prices rising precipitously.
Exporting LNG will also increase jobs and GDP.
Unfortunately, this administration may be siding with the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations, and their fear that green house gasses are causing global warming.
The facts strongly support the export of LNG. We can only hope that the fear of global warming doesn’t limit LNG exports and the many economic benefits that will ensue.
- The EIA’s latest report, June 10, 2013, estimates that China has the largest technically recoverable reserves of natural gas in the world.
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© Power For USA, 2010 – 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author, Donn Dears, LLC, is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Power For USA with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Clean Coal Needs Another Look
Some in the coal industry have been promoting Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power plants as the future for “clean coal”.
They should probably change their tune.
IGCC plants gasify coal, separating the CO2 from its combustible components, primarily hydrogen, and then burning the combustible components in a gas turbine, with the exhaust heat from the gas turbine used to produce steam for use in a turbine generator.
IGCC Schematic from DOE Report
This schematic illustrates the complexity of an IGCC power plant.
The primary reason for building IGCC plants is to capture the CO2 so it can be sequestered underground.
The coal industry has been hard hit by EPA regulations that effectively prevent constructing new coal-fired power plants unless they emit less than 1,000 pounds CO2 per MWh.
IGCC plants can meet this requirement if the CO2 is captured and sequestered underground.
Three IGCC plants have been, or are being, built in the United States.
The Southern Company recently announced that the IGCC plant being built in Kemper, Mississippi, is over budget by around $1 billion.
This brings its cost to $5,876 per KW, nearly the same as the cost of a new nuclear power plant.
The second IGCC plant, built in Edwardsport, Indiana, cost around $5,340 per KW.
The third plant, built by Tampa Electric Company in 1996, under an agreement with the Department of Energy (DOE), was the first IGCC plant built in the United States.
The Tampa plant was about half the size of the two newer plants and cost around $4,000 per KW, adjusted for inflation. Tampa Electric cancelled plans for a second IGCC power plant.
None of these plants have been equipped to capture CO2 once it’s been separated from the gas stream, so the cost of this additional equipment would have to be added to the costs mentioned here, for the plants to stop emitting CO2 into the atmosphere.
The best strategy for the coal industry is to educate the EPA and the public on ultra-supercritical (USC)1 coal-fired power plants that are nearly as clean as natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plants. USC plants can meet EPA regulations except for CO2 emissions.
The improved efficiency of USC plants means that less coal is burned per MWh generated. Referring to the schematic, only about six components would replace all of those shown in the schematic2.
This might be a workable approach for the coal industry since the EPA is on legal thin ice in the way it approached the 1,000 pounds CO2 per MWh standard. This is because the EPA lumped natural gas and coal-fired power plants into the same source category.
Ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plants are being built in Europe and China, and should be the type of plant that’s referred to as “clean coal”.
If the EPA is going to establish limits on CO2 emissions they should be such that USC plants can be built, and then allow market forces to determine whether natural gas, coal, nuclear or renewable power plants are built.
The EPA is so focused on attempting to cut CO2 emissions 80% to meet the UN’s mandate, that it’s doubtful it would acquiesce to allowing any coal-fired power plant to be built, even the most modern and efficient USC plants, unless forced to do so.
- Pulverized coal plants with USC parameters of 4350 psi, and 1112/1112°F can be realized today, resulting in efficiencies of 44% (HHV) and higher vs 32% for the existing fleet of coal-fired power plants. The key to this performance are metals that can withstand these temperatures and pressures.
- A USC power plant would consist of a steam turbine, a generator, a condenser with a condensate pump, and a boiler with a boiler feed water pump. Ancillary components not shown in the schematic or in this list include items such as the vacuum system for the condenser and pollution control equipment for the boiler.
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Omaha Beach and Freedom
It was my great privilege to visit Omaha Beach with a group from the Young America’s Foundation1, on the 66th anniversary of D-Day.
Standing on the cliff at Pointe du Hoc with shell holes, gun emplacements and pill boxes behind me, I could look over the precipice and marvel at how 225 Rangers scratched their way up the 180-foot cliff with grappling hooks and ropes while being shot at from above – and how, with incredible bravery, they achieved their objective.
Pointe du Hoc. Looking down to landing site. Photo by D. Dears
Pointe du Hoc. Gun emplacement and shell holes. Photo by D. Dears
Pointe du Hoc. Shell holes and destroyed concrete bunker. Photo by D. Dears
On Omaha Beach, I walked to the water’s edge and looked back at the seawall that was several hundred feet from where I stood. To the right of the seawall was a pill box that had an open view of the beach and could rake the beach with machine gun fire. I stood at the water’s edge shortly after low tide, which is when the Americans landed at Omaha Beach. It took incredible bravery for men with packs weighing 130 pounds to run across those several hundred feet of beach to reach the partial cover afforded by the seawall.
Omaha Beach from waters edge at low tide. Gun emplacement is on right, in distance, alongside sea wall. Photo by D. Dears
Omaha Beach. Close up of gun emplacement with complete coverage of beach. Photo by D. Dears
Many did not survive and they are buried at the American Cemetery at Colleville sur Mer. At first sight of the perfectly aligned rows of marble crosses gazing over Omaha Beach, you are caught-up short and take an extra breath to retain your composure. It is humbling to walk among those graves.
Entrance to American cemetery at Colleville sur Mer. Photo by D. Dears
Partial view of American Cemetery. Photo by D. Dears
Grave of General Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Quentin Roosevelt, killed in 1918, is a few feet to the left. Photo by D. Dears
We live our lives in freedom because of the gift these men gave to us.
Today, we have equally brave men and women fighting for our freedom in Afghanistan and standing guard at other locations, such as Korea, and on our ships around the world.
Now, on this weekend in June, 69 years after D-Day, it is appropriate to reflect on the words of Ronald Reagan:
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day, we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
Postscript:
D-Day and World War II are slipping into the mist of history.
Few alive today have a firsthand experience of World War II.
Soon, D-Day will be a date-tagged name, like Belleau Wood, Gettysburg, and Valley Forge.
Inexorably, D-Day and World War II will become irrelevant in the daily lives of each new generation.
Hopefully, a message will transcend the murky mist of history, a message of freedom and why it must be protected and nurtured.
- The Young America’s Foundation has purchased Reagan Ranch and is maintaining it for future generations.
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Gas to Liquids in US
Converting natural gas to liquids, essentially diesel fuel, has been used where natural gas was stranded, such as in Qatar.
The Fischer-Tropsch process was originally developed in Germany and, using gasified coal, produced the fuel on which German tanks ran during WWII.
SASOL used this process in South Africa when it was cut off from oil by sanctions, to produce diesel fuel from coal. After the sanctions were lifted, SASOl developed installations, such as in Qatar, to produce liquids from natural gas.
Shell also developed Gas-To-Liquid (GTL) plants, in Borneo and, the largest, in Qatar.
Now, SASOL is issuing contracts to build a $16 – $21 billion GTL plant in Louisiana. (The plant will also produce other chemicals such as ethane.) Initial output on completion of the first phase would be 48,000 barrels per day of diesel fuel, plus ethane.
There will now be two competing alternatives for displacing crude oil, i.e., diesel fuel, from the long haul trucking, transportation market.
- Using LNG to replace diesel fuel for long haul trucks.
- Using diesel fuel produced from the GTL process.
In my view, the most likely outcome will be that LNG captures the long haul trucking market because of cost savings.
The SASOL GTL plant in Louisiana will therefore produce diesel fuel for export, probably to Europe.
There are, however, intriguing possibilities for using GTL diesel fuel in the United States: GTL diesel has very low sulfur content, < 5 ppm, thereby meeting the EPA’s Ultra Low Sulfur content requirement for diesel fuel of less than15 ppm.
Two opportunities come to mind:
- Use GTL diesel in diesel powered locomotives.
- Use GTL diesel in off-highway equipment, such as large mining and earth moving equipment.
Interestingly, there is an effort underway to build mini-GTL plants requiring a fraction of the SASOL investment.
UK-based Oxford Catalysts Group is, for example, though its US subsidiary Velocys, pursuing this opportunity. Their proposal is to build plants that cost $100 million to produce 1,000 barrels of diesel fuel per day.
Another company involved with mini-GTL plants is Compact GTL, in the UK.
The motivation behind mini-GTL plants is that many natural gas sources around the world are too small to support a SASOL sized facility. There could, therefore, be opportunities in other countries for mini-GTL plants.
In the US, it has been suggested that the plants could take advantage of the gas currently being flared.
Flared gas, however, will likely be absorbed by LNG technology.
My article on the size of the United States natural gas supply under various scenarios, (see Do We Have Enough Natural Gas) did not include the use of natural gas for GTL.
For GTL, the required quantity of natural gas for this single facility, i.e., SASOL Louisiana, would be around 0.2 Tcf per year, and would, therefore, have little effect on our supply of natural gas … even if SASOL doubled its output, or several similar facilities were built.
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To find earlier articles, click on the name of the preceding month below the calendar to display a list of articles published in that month. Continue clicking on the name of the preceding month to display articles published in prior months.
© Power For USA, 2010 – 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author, Donn Dears, LLC, is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Power For USA with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Natural Gas Bonanza from Hydrates
The article, Do We Have Enough Natural Gas?, established that the United States has technically recoverable reserves that will last for decades, even with increased usage for coal to gas switching and some LNG exports.
The question remains whether LNG exports should proceed in earnest.
Perhaps the answer to that question resides on the sea floor … as methane hydrates.
Methane molecule trapped in water molecule cage.
The future of methane hydrates is speculative, though there may be sufficient information to indicate that natural gas can be produced from this resource.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)1 has recently completed an estimate of recoverable natural gas from methane hydrates on the Outer Continental Shelves (OCS) of the lower 48 states of the United States.
These estimates are without regard to technical recoverability.
|
Table 1 |
|
|
Region |
In-place Gas Hydrate Resources |
| Atlantic OCS | 21,702 Tcf |
| Gulf of Mexico OCS | 21,444 Tcf |
| West Coast OCS | 8,192 Tcf |
|
Total |
51,338 Tcf |
| Tcf = trillion cubic feet | |
These compare with the Potential Gas Committee’s (PGC) estimate of 2,384 Tcf of technically recoverable reserves of natural gas in the United States.
Clearly, methane hydrates hold out the promise of natural gas supplies far greater than currently forecast by the PGC.
For example, merely developing 10% of the methane hydrates found in the Gulf of Mexico would be equivalent to the PGCs estimate of total reserves in the United States.
It’s interesting to see how those who are against developing energy resources try to discourage their development.
In this instance, How Stuff Works2, sees the risk, but not the opportunity in developing methane hydrates. It cites possible underwater landslides and global warming as risks. It refers to tsunamis from landslides and catastrophic releases of methane to the atmosphere.
The Sierra Club has embarked on a war against natural gas.
Aside from unreasonable fears, the real issue is whether natural gas can be recovered from methane hydrates at a competitive cost.
Japan3 has a program for producing natural gas from methane hydrates located near its coast, and predicts it will be successful by 2019.
The cost target of $15 per million BTUs, the cost of importing LNG into Japan, is easier to meet than the $5 per million BTU target to compete with natural gas produced in the United States.
Most people believe that Japan’s objective is highly optimistic, but it does shed light on the efforts currently underway to develop the technology for extracting natural gas from methane hydrates.
When one considers the advances that have been made in developing sea floor, i.e., subsea, equipment used for producing oil at over 6,000 feet below the surface, it seems reasonable to conclude that these advances will continue and will be applicable to the extraction of natural gas from methane hydrates4.
It was only 35 years ago that we became aware that methane hydrates were widely abundant in nature. Before that, they were a laboratory phenomenon or a nuisance that blocked underwater pipes.
It’s inconceivable that the needed subsea equipment won’t be developed over the next forty years to produce natural gas from methane hydrates.
It’s also to America’s advantage to be a leader in this development.
With the potential supply of natural gas from methane hydrates looming on the horizon, it would seem logical to permit the export of LNG under free market conditions.
- BOEM assessment of methane hydrates. http://www.boem.gov/uploadedFiles/BOEM/Oil_and_Gas_Energy_Program/Resource_Evaluation/Gas_Hydrates/BOEM-FactSheetRED_2012-01.pdf
- The Risky Business of Mining Methane Hydrate http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-tech/energy-production/frozen-fuel4.htm
- Acceding to the May 23rd Oil & Gas Journal, “Baker Hughes Inc. designed the completion system under contract to Japan Drilling Co. Ltd., … where a specially designed electric submersible pump system was able to separate methane from water and move them to the drillship through separate production strings.”
- Subsea equipment companies include Baker Hughes, FMC Technologies, Cameron International, GE, One Subsea, Schlumberger and Aker.
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© Power For USA, 2010 – 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author, Donn Dears, LLC, is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Power For USA with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Putting the Grid at Risk
The grid may have been built in the last century, but it is still resilient and works well.
Yes, it could use some additions to increase capacity due to growth.
What it doesn’t need is tampering to make it accommodate distributed generation, largely the result of renewables.
The grid was designed to provide transmission and distribution from centralized power generation sources … not from a plethora of minuscule generation sources, such as PV mounted on rooftops.
The industry is being driven in that direction by having to comply with Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) also referred to as Renewable Energy Standards (RES).
These laws require utilities to supply a specific percentage of electricity from renewable sources, such as wind and solar. Hydro is usually excluded as a renewable source.
RPS laws start by initially requiring a very small percentage of electricity to come from renewable sources, and gradually increase the requirements until higher percentages must come from renewable sources. For example, California law dictates that utilities must provide 33% from renewable sources by 2020; Illinois 25% by 2025; Colorado 30% by 2020.
Approximately 26 states currently have RPS laws.
At present, the required amounts of renewables are small; typically 1% or 2%, and the impacts on consumers have been too small to be noticed. The impact on consumers will grow as the percentage of renewables increase.
The impact on utilities is already great, as they attempt to prepare for the greater impact of renewables on the grid.
Utilities have to turn cartwheels in an effort to accommodate renewable sources.
There are three incontrovertible facts about RPS:
- RPS increases the cost of electricity.
- RPS requires extensive manipulation of the grid, with each tweak making the grid weaker.
- The states are implementing RPS so as to cut CO2 emissions.
I recently attended a conference on energy storage, since storage is the holy grail of wind and solar.
The proposed methods for storing electricity include batteries, pumped storage, compressed air energy storage (CAES), hydrogen storage, plus a few other more fanciful methods.
Huntorf, Germany, CAES plant. Photo from DOE.
Batteries are very expensive and don’t have the capacity to meet the demands of the grid. They can be used to provide back-up electricity locally for short periods of time, depending on the size and number of batteries.
Pumped storage works and can be useful, however it requires storage of water behind dams where the terrain is suitable. It’s also expensive.
Electrolysis, using the excess electricity from wind farms, can produce hydrogen that can be burned in turbines to generate electricity when it’s needed … at an additional expense.
CAES was covered in detail at this conference. Two or three installations have been built at a cost of roughly $500 million each; one in Germany, another in the United States.
The compressed air in these installations is stored in underground salt caverns.
All of these methods are costly and will increase the cost of electricity to consumers.
None of them are included in the advertised cost or levelized cost (LOCE) of wind or solar.
What was fascinating, and at the same time tragic, was listening to the paroxysms that utilities had to go through to accommodate wind and solar.
The General Manager, who was demonstrably smart and capable, of an important utility, described how he developed a strategy of regional and local storage to maximize the amount of renewables that the transmission lines could accommodate. He dismissed batteries, for the reasons outlined above.
He explored salt domes with geologists for regional storage of compressed air. Salt domes require multimillion dollar investments, as much as $25 million just to determine whether the site is suitable. He was identifying ways to store compressed air locally to accommodate local interruptions to the distribution system.
He was anticipating that PV solar would become so large on his system, by around 2017, that it would hollow out his traditional power generation capability during the day, requiring him to shut it down or run it at reduced load, i.e., load following … the most expensive and damaging way to run his generating plant.
After he completed his hour-long talk, I asked him whether he would be taking any of these actions if it weren’t that the government was forcing him to meet its renewable portfolio standards.
His answer was quick, concise and significant.
He said … No.
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