Don't discount coal for a long while yet...

Status
Not open for further replies.
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: CT8
That is because?


NG is temporarily at a low price as per my link...

Here in Oz, 2 years ago NG was $4.50/GJ, and had been stable for ages...last week, I saw $34.50 for a few half hour periods, and sustained $10...with the number of coal plants shut down due to the disruptive power of wind, last week Oz companies were trying to balance the value of gas for home and industry versus the wholesale price of electricity being generated from that gas...it was a farce, watching both gas and wholesale electricity chasing each other to the moon.

It WILL displace coal, and then you won't be able to afford power.
Nat Gas is so plentiful in the US they have shut down for the most part any drilling for new wells.
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Nat Gas is so plentiful in the US they have shut down for the most part any drilling for new wells.


what would be your personal position if they called it "fossil gas", rather than "natural".

Why the hate on "natural coal" ?
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Nat Gas is so plentiful in the US they have shut down for the most part any drilling for new wells.


what would be your personal position if they called it "fossil gas", rather than "natural".

Why the hate on "natural coal" ?
You can go back and read my post if you want to know. No sense repeating myself.
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Originally Posted By: Shannow


Why the hate on "natural coal" ?
You can go back and read my post if you want to know. No sense repeating myself.


You don't have to repeat yourself, as "yourself" is only a reflection of the statements of others with an agenda, rather presenting a rationally researched and understood point of view...the sort of low level thinking that makes bitumen and used oil poured on a driveway the same thing.
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Originally Posted By: Shannow


Why the hate on "natural coal" ?
You can go back and read my post if you want to know. No sense repeating myself.


You don't have to repeat yourself, as "yourself" is only a reflection of the statements of others with an agenda, rather presenting a rationally researched and understood point of view...the sort of low level thinking that makes bitumen and used oil poured on a driveway the same thing.
What kind of agenda do you have Shannow?
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Originally Posted By: Shannow


Why the hate on "natural coal" ?
You can go back and read my post if you want to know. No sense repeating myself.


You don't have to repeat yourself, as "yourself" is only a reflection of the statements of others with an agenda, rather presenting a rationally researched and understood point of view...the sort of low level thinking that makes bitumen and used oil poured on a driveway the same thing.
What kind of agenda do you have Shannow?


Go back to the links that you have provided as "evidence" in this and other threads...you don't grasp the topic, but repeat factoids.

Bitumen doesn't equal used oil on the driveway, does it ?
 
Coal is dirty and so is nuclear. What more do you need to know if there are alternatives?
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Coal is dirty and so is nuclear. What more do you need to know if there are alternatives?


They are ALL dirty, once you get your head wrapped around that concept this discussion will go much smoother. There isn't a single source whose CTG lifecycle doesn't require the production of, at minimum, cement and/or steel, which in turn means mining. It is the amount of electricity produced after those environmental impacts are acknowledged that is what needs to be discussed.

- Nukes require fuel. This means mining uranium. This can be significantly offset via fuel reprocessing and recycling. It can be further offset using the advanced nuclear technology we have discussed extensively already. This is again even further offset by the rather insanely high rate at which they can produce and that rate's relative uptime. A typical Canadian nuke has an average output in the mid to high 90's, something no other source can touch.

- Coal plants also require fuel, are generally reasonably high output base-load providers (similar to natural gas) and while some of their waste can be recycled, you do have to recognize the pollution due to the burning of coal.

- Hydro electric doesn't require fuel, so one then has to consider the potential environmental impact of the dam itself. Hydro electric is also a proper base-load provider and has an extremely long life expectancy with minimal maintenance costs.

- GT's are similar to coal with less dirty emissions. They still emit however. Natural gas is currently extremely cheap and plentiful, making NGT's a very inexpensive and responsive choice for generation, which allows them to be a good compliment to generators that aren't, which brings us to:

- Wind turbines have low relative efficiency (30% roughly) and are poor in terms of energy density (footprint relative to output). They produce no pollution in operation directly, however since they are not base-load providers and their operation is sporadic, they are propped up by other generating sources, sometimes coal, more often NGT's, so that has to be factored into their operation. There is also concern in terms of their impact on birds, as their operation has resulted in many casualties.

- Solar farms are also low efficiency (lower than wind) and also provide poor energy density. They are yet another source that needs to be propped up with a base-load turbine, so that again needs to be factored into their operation. Solar farms are often deployed on land that could be used for farming, rather than the more logical option of placing them on top of warehouses and large buildings where they take up space that is otherwise useless and of course would be less expensive to tie into the grid.
 
As coal plants retire, natural gas fills the void, pushing down power prices

http://www.utilitydive.com/news/as-coal-...r-price/421938/

Quote:

Amid a flood of closing coal plants — almost 350 in total, according to Bloomberg — electricity prices have declined by about 40% in the PJM market as cheap natural gas and new capacity have cut costs.
And about 20,000 MW of gas-fired power is expected online in the Mid-Atlantic by 2019, buoyed by some of the cheapest gas in the country.
While coal has historically dominated the market, federal officials say this year natural gas plants will produce more electricity. Gas is expected to capture 33% of the market in 2016, with coal declining to 32%.

Dive Insight:

Critics warned years ago of blackouts and spikes in electricity prices if coal is phased out.

But now a flood of cheap natural gas has kept power prices low, even as new environmental regulations have forced 346 coal-fired plants offline in the last five years, according to Bloomberg.

“You’ve seen the coal come out of the market and then you’ve seen a response from industry to capitalize on that hole in the supply mix,” PA Consulting Group's Ethan Paterno told the news outlet . “The low gas prices are a big, big deal.”

Bloomberg also noted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s emissions rules are expected to cost almost $10 billion annually to implement, but could result in health benefits valued at up to nine times that amount, between $37 billion and $90 billion.

The United States share of electricity generation from coal hit a high point in the 1980s, when it almost reached 60% of the power supplied. Now, gas is poised to generate about a third of the country's mix, compared with roughly 10% about three decades ago.
 
Yes, NG is cheap, plentiful and easy to transport via pipeline, giving it a marked advantage over coal. The facilities are, at least many of them, new builds, a fact which brings with it advantages. This is reflected in the price of power for NG facilities.
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
As coal plants retire, natural gas fills the void, pushing down power prices

http://www.utilitydive.com/news/as-coal-...r-price/421938/


LOLing at the present point in time, as I'm looking at the Saturday morning real time energy market data here in Australia.

Two years ago, wholesale electricity rates were around 4c/KWh and wholesale NG prices $4.50/GJ...wasn't gas keeping the power prices low, it was wind intruding in to the market place, plus the drop in demand post GFC.

Anyway, it's Saturday morning, industry isn't as big, nor office heating and lighting, and all the other things that make Saturday morning's low demand.

And the wind isn't blowing.

South Australia, which lead the push for renewables has 1110MW of wind available, and with the way it's blowing, 268MW being generated. Brown Coal...1110MW available, but they've all closed down last month. 1144MW of oil fired plant, that's too expensive to run, and 1144MW of gas fired plant, 881MW running.

Result...
their 1,501MW of demand is costing 29.99c/KWh on the wholesale market, and NG in that state is sitting at $24/GJ.

And they are importing 334MW of brown coal fired electricity from a neighbouring state...if that line goes out, that "green" state gets blacked out.

What are they doing since their last coal plan t closed last month ?

They can't afford to turn (NOW) expensive gas into electricity, they are putting in another 500MW of wind...which would be generating 120MW at the current wind conditions.

IF they installed a modern (60% LOL...note 6-%) efficient CCGT, at this morning's gas prices the cost of generation at $24/MJ would be 144c/KWh, FOR FUEL ALONE, let alone paying off the construction costs...not to mention what THAT consumption would do to the wholesale gas prices. A simple cycle peaker, and their gas thermals, that's 233.5c/kw...again, only for fuel.

Rest of Oz's eastern seaboard (note again Saturday morning, and total demand is less than 80% of what it was on Monday/Tuesday) is in the high 200c range, but gas is a more reasonable $11-$15 (note 3 times the 2014 averages). Of the 14,567MW of wind installed, there's only 968MW of generation.

All this "cheap renewable" power flooding the market HAS resulted in coal plant closures, and increased my power bill by 8% this year.

Back to your original
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
As coal plants retire, natural gas fills the void, pushing down power prices


It's only cheap until it closes the coal down, then it gets very, very expensive.
 
I think the thing that irritates me the most about wind turbines is that they can't take high wind speeds. They unpitch and lock the blades in high winds.

Piece of garbage.
 
You should watch system frequency as wind gusts move across the Eastern Seaboard of Oz...full 0.1Hz up and down, up and down.

South Australia was islanded November last year, and the thermals/GTs were struggling with the power of wind, bounced them up to 50.57Hz, after pulling them down to 49.8
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
You should watch system frequency as wind gusts move across the Eastern Seaboard of Oz...full 0.1Hz up and down, up and down.

South Australia was islanded November last year, and the thermals/GTs were struggling with the power of wind, bounced them up to 50.57Hz, after pulling them down to 49.8


The new normal. Grids will be more loosey goosey. You got to totally reaccess your under frequency load shedding program. Probably build some sort of damping. Tap down and gen buck on UF, tap up and gen boost on OF.
 
Last edited:
Sounds like Australia has unique problems. The main problem in the US is the lack of interconnectivty through out the nation on the major grids. There is no reason for there to be any lack of power.
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Sounds like Australia has unique problems. The main problem in the US is the lack of interconnectivty through out the nation on the major grids. There is no reason for there to be any lack of power.


Yes, but interdependency/dependency brings with it the potential for added expense. We have sporadic excess generation up here in Ontario (thanks to Wynnebat and her predecessor McGuilty) and so we are often selling hydro to the northern states through our interconnects at a loss just to get rid of it. I'm talking 1/4 of a cent sort of pricing and this actually ends up COSTING us money, because that loss gets passed on to the consumer.

On the flip side, you have a country like Denmark that has gone full-bore on the renewables with a massive installed wind turbine base propped up by a couple of small GT's. They have enough wind power installed to more than power the entire country, which means that on windy days, they are a power exporter (I'm sure you've seen the facebook meme going around that talks about the day Denmark generated 125% of their energy usage via wind). Unfortunately, these are not a common occurrence, even though it gets paraded around like it is. The reality is that wind power, over the course of a year, actually only accounts for 38% of the country's hydro, the rest of it; the majority, they buy from their neighbours through the interconnects, which means it comes from coal (Germany), nukes (France) and all the other "dirty" base-load providers. The artifact of this is that they pay the highest hydro rates in Europe and possibly some of the highest in the world at $0.40/KWh!!!

Power usage is predictable and the grid is setup/managed to chase that predictable curve of usage through traditional generators, which can respond to the increase and decrease in demand. Shannow has spoken rather extensively on this topic in the past. What happens then when you augment that system with generators that are not responsive and cannot be managed in order to chase that curve? You end up with two things:

1. A situation where there is not enough generators and you are scrambling for power (there is where importing it from your neighbours via interconnects becomes important, but will have a cost). This happens when renewable dispatch is high enough that you start shutting down traditional base-load generators. This is the scenario Shannow spoke about above.

2. A situation where there is too much generating capacity happening and not enough demand. This is the situation in Ontario and likely many of the states as there is an increase in installed renewables, but also increased levels of conservation at the business and consumer level, driving down demand. You get a bright and sunny day and/or a windy day and all of a sudden those generators are dumping power on the grid that the grid has not called for. The approach in Canada has been to sell that power (at a loss) to just get rid of it, and we are even dumping steam at Bruce (our 7,000MW nuke) because it is cheaper to bin that generation than it is to sell the excess power from wind/solar to the USA.

As electric cars become more common, there will be an increase in load over the night, a time when solar cannot produce. Wind can't be relied on to reliably deal with that load so you are then obligated to have something that can; for when the wind isn't blowing. This means a GT, nuke or coal. Unfortunately these things can't just "fire up" at a moments notice to deal with a lull in the wind, so you are looking at either adding small, dispatchable generators (expensive, I believe Shannow mentioned diesel to deal with this in Tasmania?) or the cost of keeping a big boy warm (idle) for when he is needed. Hydro electric is probably the "cheapest" to do this with, as you can just bypass the turbines until they are needed, but that's of course not a viable solution for many locations, those that lack HE dams.

The push for "green" bring with it some significant challenges that we are only now seeing start to play out in places that have worked toward trying not only to augment their grid, but to replace traditional generators with them. How those challenges are ultimately dealt with, while pacifying the goal of shuttering the "burners" is what is left to be seen. As with many things that ride on agenda, the devil is in the details and those details are often overlooked because that would slow down "progress".
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
At night the demand decreases too.


Yes, which again means that if the wind starts blowing at night during this period of low demand, what do you do with that excess? We sell it at a loss.

Going forward, night demand is going to increase due to overnight charging of electric cars (see block 6 of my previous post). But this again will require support from traditional generators in some capacity due to the variability of wind (since solar cannot work during this period).
 
It's not like solar and wind are the only alternatives to coal. Most coal plants here are either being upgraded to NG or closed.
 
You might find this interesting as well, taken from here:
http://www.ieso.ca/Pages/Power-Data/Supply.aspx (which is merged with the Ontario Power Authority, the body that sets our rates):

Installed capacity (percentage):


Versus actual usage/output:


You will notice that despite Nuclear being 36% of our installed capacity, it accounts for ~60% of our annual generating capacity. In contrast wind power, whilst being 11% of our installed capacity has only ever contributed a maximum of 6% of our generating capacity.

Hydro electric is 24% of our installed capacity and contributes 24% of the annual generation. Oil/Gas is 28% of the installed capacity but only contributes around 10%.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top