Renewables Chuck

[chuckChuck]

Chuck2, just read an article in the National post you might find interesting. It is written by Philip Cross:"Statscan just exposed how worthless green industries are to Canada's economy". Basically it says green industries including hydro contribute 3.1% to Canada's economy and 1.6% of the jobs and that this hasn't changed much from 2007 to present. Enjoy your day.

I would hesitate saying green jobs are worthless because they only contribute 3.1% GDP to the economy.

Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing, Hunting only contributes 1.8% of GDP. Does that make them worthless?

I saw the anti green biased opinion piece in the NP and he didn't account for all the spinoff jobs just like 1.8% for agriculture doesn't account for all the spin off jobs from agriculture and forestry.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I would hesitate saying green jobs are worthless because they only contribute 3.1% GDP to the economy.

Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing, Hunting only contributes 1.8% of GDP. Does that make them worthless?

I saw the anti green biased opinion piece in the NP and he didn't account for all the spinoff jobs just like 1.8% for agriculture doesn't account for all the spin off jobs from agriculture and forestry.

Case where math skills would've come in handy for you Chuck. Here was all the evidence you needed to prove Your previous assertions about Renewable energy being cost-effective. In stead, you dismiss the article has green bashing and biased and missed the point completely.

[furrowtickler]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtHreJbr2WM

[furrowtickler]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtHreJbr2WM

Some viewing for the Christmas holidays .... enjoy the holidays chuck 👍😎

[recapped]

Enjoyed the video, thanks for posting.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Chuck, since you haven't been able to find a cut and paste that shows where electricity rates have declined after installing the much cheaper renewables, I thought I would share this:

It is mostly Europe with USA thrown in, perhaps that is cherry picking, and if you included the rest of the world, it would prove your point, but this does seem to indicate that renewables aren't quite free yet.

[fjlip]

I have not seen the video before today. WOW dozens of reasons/facts/graphs showing the EVIL of our leaders! Like many easy to grasp examples, like ICE in your glass! 268 feet of ice and snow in 50 years on top of those WW2 planes? 1000 year old Trees stumps under glaciers? Antarctic research stations on stilts to raise them before they get BURIED in snow like the old buildings! OOPS burning biofuels is carbon neutral? New Coal plants all over the planet, Renewable debacle in Germany and Denmark? 5000 stupid idea wind turbines in Denmark, equal ONE conventional power plant! Return only 82% of energy consumed to build them! USA has to be as Nigeria to equal the reduction in CO2 required. That will go over really well! Really hard to understand how smart, thinking people can swallow this stinking SHIT? Merry Christmas, thanks again.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

https://dailycaller.com/2018/12/18/texas-city-al-gore-inconvenient/ https://dailycaller.com/2018/12/18/texas-city-al-gore-inconvenient/

Or this article about how much green energy is costing this Texas town. Surely you must have multiple examples of where cheaper green energy is saving money?

[chuckChuck]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuarhodes/2018/04/30/no-wind-and-solar-do-not-inherently-increase-electricity-prices/#32a2e28b7b8b
No, Wind And Solar Do Not Inherently Increase Electricity Prices
Michael Shellenberger, a California gubernatorial candidate and president of the think tank Environmental Progress, recently published two pieces in Forbes in which he claimed that renewables, namely wind and solar, have caused higher electricity prices in the U.S. and abroad. His central allegation can be summed up in the title of his first piece is: If solar and wind are so cheap, why are they making electricity so expensive?

While Shellenberger raises some good points, the real story, like the grid itself, is more complicated.

Shellenberger argues that 1) the installation costs of wind and solar have fallen significantly in the past decade, 2) during that time we have added a lot of wind and solar to the grid, 3) wind and solar require backup power and transmission infrastructure, 4) electricity prices have increased in the past decade, and thus 5) wind and solar are responsible for raising electricity prices.

As shown in the charts below, the first two claims are true: as the costs of wind and solar have fallen precipitously over the past decade and, as a result, we have installed significant amounts of both.

The U.S. has installed significant amounts of wind and solar in the past decade. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34472Energy Information Administration.

Prices

In general, a greater supply of electricity should drive down wholesale costs of electricity, which it has. Go here for a more detailed explanation (complete with GIFS!) of how wholesale market prices for electricity work.
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Between the two pieces, Shellenberger lists off a number of locations that have higher retail electricity prices now than in the recent past. While that may be true, almost everything is more expensive now than it was in the past, too.

Shellenberger points to the Dakotas, Kansas, Iowa, and Oklahoma as examples of states in which prices have risen. But once again, this is misleading.

All of the EIA data used as evidence of price increases are nominal values, meaning the prices have not been adjusted for inflation. Look at the cost of cars, for example. If the average cost of a car in the U.S. was $3,215 in 1967, and $25,499 in 2016, does that mean the cost of a car increased 700%? No. Adjusted for inflation, the real value of cars has only increased by about 11% during that time (and, oh, BTW, we also got things like increased safety, power windows, and generally better cars).

Federal data show that in the past decade the overall inflation-adjusted price of electricity has fallen, though some parts of that cost have increased. The costs of generating electricity (namely from natural gas, wind and solar) have fallen, while the cost to deliver that power have generally increased. (Note: these data are for ISO-based utilities, which account for about 70% of the U.S. load.)

The underlying components of the cost of electricity are changing. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=32812Energy Information Administration

Generation (wholesale cost) is only part of the full retail cost of electricity. We also have to pay for the wires, poles, and the people that maintain them, and this portion of the cost has increased lately, but not outside of historical bounds.

Transmission, Distribution, and Administration (TD&A)

Long-term TD&A costs per customer for investor owned utilities have remained remarkably constant over the past six decades. TD&A costs have gone up and down over time, and most recent increases can be attributed to investment in transmission infrastructure.

Long-term TD&A costs per customer for investor owned utilities have remained remarkably constant over the past six decades. https://live-energy-institute.pantheonsite.io/sites/default/files/UTAustin_FCe_TDA_2016.pdfRobert L. Fares, PhD

So why are transmission and distribution costs trending up? Are renewables to blame? Probably for some of it, yes! For example, the CREZ lines in Texas have allowed significant amounts of low-cost wind to connect to the Texas grid, and there’s a cost associated with those lines.

But capital spending to deliver renewables is not the whole story. Much of our infrastructure was built decades ago and is in need of investment, so much so that the American Society of Civil Engineers gives our energy infrastructure a grade of D+. We have also been investing in a smarter, more reliable grid that can self-report disturbances and keep the lights on. In addition, super storms like Sandy and Harvey are also requiring investments in grid hardening.

What about the variability cost of wind and solar?

As for Shellenberger’s claim that the intermittency of solar and wind introduce variability into the grid, while true, has not been shown to result in higher prices. There are also concerns that the addition of more renewables would demand increased grid stability measures, or ancillary services. Once again, that has not been the case, at least not in ERCOT.

As more wind has been added to the Texas grid – a lot of wind – regulation-up (and down) requirements have not increased. In fact, more efficient market changes allowed regulation requirements to decrease significantly even with increasing wind penetration. The reason requirements have not changed is because the ancillary service requirement is set by the largest plant that could trip offline, in this case, the 2,700 MW South Texas Project nuclear plant.

As wind has increased, regulation-up (and down) requirements have not increased in ERCOT. https://live-energy-institute.pantheonsite.io/sites/default/files/UTAustin_FCe_Ancillary_2017.pdfJuan Andrade

What about locations with higher electricity prices?

There are locations where wind and solar have driven up the costs of electricity, but they have been early adopters who did not benefit from the rapid fall in prices.

Early on, some locations, like Germany and Spain, provided generous renewable energy incentive programs with no spending caps. Under their renewable capital cost projections, these incentive programs would have only resulted in a certain amount of spending, but renewable prices fell so fast that much more was deployed than projected. Germany and California were also shutting down nuclear plants in parallel, which could be just as easily blamed for the higher prices.

This aggressive early adoption lead to overbuilding and overpaying, but the subsequent increase in electricity prices was driven by policy, not some inherently physical reason. Prices and subsidies have since corrected and this type of over spending is not likely to continue.

Too simplistic

Other factors, such as the price of natural gas, are in play as well. The price of natural gas has fallen significantly in the past decade, lowering wholesale market prices for electricity. To further complicate things, for much of the U.S. electricity demand growth has stalled.

The grid has many moving parts, so claiming cause and effect between any two is likely problematic. The claim that wind and solar alone have driven up the cost of electricity is just too simplistic. To be fair, claiming that wind and solar are the cheapest option everywhere every time is also too simplistic. One thing is becoming more clear as time moves forward is that flexibility is going to be valuable, but remaining open to options among various generating technologies also will help ensure a more resilient and affordable electricity system.

I am a Research Fellow at the Energy Institute and the Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas at Austin. My current research is in the area of spatial system-level applications and impacts of energy efficiency, resource planning, distributed generation, and storage. ... MORE

Joshua D. Rhodes, PhD is a Research Fellow at the Energy Institute and the Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas at Austin. Follow me on Twitter: @joshdr83

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Can you possibly condense that down to the cliffs notes version please. What jurisdiction does it show having achieved cheaper energy with renewables?