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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (78058)	7/6/2017 12:33:37 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 86356

New Study Concludes Europe Will Always Require 100% Back-Up By Conventional Energy By P Gosselin on 5. July 2017 This post is one for the wind-energy-clingers, who refuse to admit how bad it really is. A new German paper assesses wind energy in Europe . The results are devastating. It concludes that wind energy requires almost 100% backup and that the more capacity that gets installed, the greater the volatility. The paper appearing at the VGB, authored by Thomas Linnemann and Guido Vallana, finds that “the total wind fleet output of 18 European countries extending over several thousand kilometers in north-south and east-west direction is highly volatile and exhibits a strong intermittent character.” In other words the power supply across the European grid fluctuates wildly and thus cannot work well. The paper’s abstract continues: An intuitively expectable smoothing of this wind fleet output to an amount, which allows a reduction of backup wind power capacity, however, does not occur. In contract a highly intermittent wind fleet power output showing significant peaks and minima is observed not only for a single country, but also for the whole of the 18 European countries. Wind energy therefore requires practically 100% back-up. As the (also combined) capacities of all known storage technologies are (and increasingly will be) insignificant compared to the required demand, backup must be provided by conventional power plants, with their business cases fundamentally being impaired in the absence of capacity markets.” Extreme volatility The paper then provides a solid analysis, and charts showing why this is the case. Below their Figure 1 illustrates the extreme volatility of onshore and offshore German wind energy over the year 2016: Germany’s wind energy output ranges from over 30,000 MW to almost zero. Source: ENTSO Germany’s wind parks have produced only a fraction of their rated installed capacity, rarely ever reaching 20% annually with an average of 17% since 1990: The capacity utilization of German Windparks from 1990 to 2016. Source: BMWi The paper concludes: The available (secured) permanent electrical output of the German wind parks thus remains always below 1% of the installed rated capacity, or expressed in other words: Every year there was at least a quarter hour in which 99% of the rated capacity of the German wind parks was not available and where practically 100% of plannable backup energy dominated.” Moreover an anylsis of weak wind phases over the 2010 to 2016 period shows that “there were at least 160 phases 5 days long or more where the output from German wind parks fell below 5000 megawatts and a 10-14 day phase of weak wind days occurred every year. notrickszone

To: Brumar89 who wrote (78058)	7/6/2017 1:30:50 PM
From: Eric	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86356

Energy infrastructure matters more. In China, electricity production still relies quite heavily on high-carbon sources including coal. Yup That's why China will eventually phase of all coal fired generation. They are gagging on the pollution caused by that generation. Photons to electrons directly win absolutely in the end... Elementary physics and chemistry.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (78058)	7/6/2017 2:13:03 PM
From: Eric	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86356

Electric Cars Will Total More Than 50% Of All New Car Sales By 2040, BNEF Forecasts July 6th, 2017 by Steve Hanley Bloomberg New Energy Finance has a new prediction about electric cars — they will account for more than half of all new car sales globally by 2040 and account for a third of all light duty vehicles on the road. The latest report was put together by an advanced team of BNEF analysts and takes several factors into account. Its predictions are significantly more optimistic than the last BNEF report just one year ago, which projected sales of electric cars would reach 35% of the market by 2040. It’s The Economics, Stupid First and foremost, the experts expect the price of batteries, electric motors, and other components for electric cars to continue falling as volumes increase. By contrast, tougher emissions rules may actually result in higher prices for internal combustion engines as they struggle to remain relevant in a changing world. Another factor is that electric cars have lower lifetime operating costs than conventional cars. Yet another matter is the number of mainstream manufacturers who are rushing new electric cars to market. Just this week, Volvo announced that all its new cars will have a battery and electric motor by 2019. Mercedes, Audi, and Volkswagen are hot on the electric cars trail as well. Chevrolet will have the new Chevy Bolt on sale in all 50 states within a few weeks and has a backlog of orders in Norway and South Korea. Don’t discount the Chinese auto companies. They sell few cars in the US at present (and may sell none if President Tweet has his way) but they have every intention of exporting to global markets in coming years. If the BNEF prediction is correct, the world will use 8 billion fewer barrels of oil in 2040 for the transportation sector while global demand for electricity will grow by 5% from today’s level. A Momentous Inflection Point Colin McKerracher, is the leader of the advanced transport analysis team at BNEF. He says, “We see a momentous inflection point for the global auto industry in the second half of the 2020s. Consumers will find that upfront selling prices for EVs are comparable or lower than those for average ICE vehicles in almost all big markets by 2029.” That inflection point will be similar to the stunning drop in prices for renewable energy in the past several years. Renewables are now less expensive than coal, oil, natural gas, or nuclear power in many parts of the world and getting cheaper almost by the hour. The BNEF forecast predicts EV sales worldwide will grow steadily in the next few years, from 700,000 in 2016 to 3 million by 2021. At that point, they will account for nearly 5% of light duty vehicle sales in Europe, up from a little over 1% now, and around 4% in both the US and China. While that is good news, the analysts expect big changes will begin near the end of the next decade when the purchase price of electric cars falls below that of conventional cars. Countries that have made early progress in the sale of electric cars, such as Norway, France, the Netherlands, and the UK, are expected to be among the leaders in 2040. Emerging economies such as India are not expected to see significant EV sales until late in the next decade, despite that country’s pledge that all new cars sold there will be electric by 2030. Jon Moore, chief executive of BNEF, said that the growth in EV market share “will come about during a time when the power system is also undergoing a revolution, towards cleaner, more distributed generation. This means that not only do EVs surge, but their emissions profile improves over time.” BNEF’s forecast is based on analyzing the relative economics of electric cars and conventional cars. It assumes that current incentives will continue until their scheduled expiration date but does not assume the introduction of any new incentives. BNEF analyzed the automobile market not just by country but also by market segment, including everything from small sedans to SUVs and large family cars. Infrastructure Lags Salim Morsy, senior analyst on BNEF’s advanced transport team and lead author of the report, commented, “There is a credible path forward for strong EV growth, but much more investment in charging infrastructure is needed globally. The inability to charge at home in many local and regional markets is part of the reason why we forecast EVs making up just over a third of the global car fleet in 2040, and not a much higher figure.” The team included the rise in autonomous vehicles and ridesharing in their calculations. It believes the impact of autonomous driving will be limited in the next 10 years but will play an increasing role in the market after 2030. By 2040, it forecasts 80% of all autonomous vehicles being used in ridesharing service will by electrics due to lower operating costs. Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance about.bnef.com