Chinese pay toxic price for a green world

djpbarry

robtri wrote: »

this is a report from 2004, about Denmark and renewable energy, it does deal witht he selling at low prices...

In fact, in recent years close relationships have existed between the amount of wind power produced and net exports of electricity (see Nissen, 2004; and Sharman, 2004).

Which tells us what exactly?

djpbarry

Chloe Pink wrote: »

Could you supply the link to the full report that this chart belongs to: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/archive/...igure63-lg.jpg - it may help put it into context.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/archive/aeo10/pdf/0383%282010%29.pdf

Chloe Pink wrote: »

When asked about "all the time", I responded that I believed so; this was not an assertion and I think indicates a level of openess to the case being otherwise. The evidence I provided certainly suggested most of the time, for example the use of the word 'invariably'.

Just to clarify, you're now saying that most of the time, Denmark exports power at a loss?

Chloe Pink wrote: »

Perhaps djpbarry, you could provide evidence to show wind generated electricity exported by Denmark (or any country for that matter) at a profit.

I can’t, because it’s impossible to do so. How can it be demonstrated that the electrons produced from a particular turbine are “sold” for more than it cost to produce them?

Chloe Pink wrote: »

Please see Lord Reay's informed speech, it's at "4.40pm" (just before "11 Jan 2011 : Column GC131") at this link: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldhansrd/text/110111-gc0001.htm

And Lord Lawson of Blaby at 4:25pm on 2 Nov 2010 around Column 1584:
http://www.publications.parliament.u...10110262000457

Why? What’s your point?

djpbarry

ei.sdraob wrote: »

ah will you stop :rolleyes: the above figure is plain wrong and does not account for all the costs...

It’s based on figures that you endorsed:

djpbarry wrote: »

ei.sdraob wrote: »

here is some horrific math

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

We have capacity for 1379MW from wind and a 5MW wind farm would expect to cost in the region of €7-10 million and all the cost is upfront. So our current wind capacity cost us between €1.9 and €2.8billion.

Quick back-of-an-envelope calculation:

Let’s say that the installed wind capacity produces, on average, 413 MW. Let’s say the lifespan of a turbine is 20 years. If the total cost of installation is €2.8 billion, that works out at about €338 per kW per annum over a turbine’s lifetime, or just under 4 cents per kWh.

ei.sdraob

djpbarry wrote: »

It’s based on figures that you endorsed:

To use SEAIs own wording > "ballpark figures".

Eirgrids on the other hand are after releasing detailed study on generation in Ireland and future energy mix options. Their figures in the graphs are higher and include both capital and operational costs, but exclude other costs such:
* new lines
* externalised/outsourced/exported pollution in places like china
* hidden costs passed onto consumers who are subsidising guaranteed prices


If you plug in Eirgrids cost figures into PC post then things are even bleaker for wind

But dont despair their estimate for nuclear is high too, they based the costs on the experience of Finland building a large PWR but talk about an AP1000 reactor which are being build for much cheaper than their report uses, but yeh


The conclusions are interesting; gas (even with rises in cost), nuclear (if accepted by people, only 2GW of nuclear explored in their scenario) and carbon captured coal are the cheapest options and can be used to meet carbon targets. Renewables will not lower costs to end users, while tidal, wave, pumped storage and offshore are crazy expensive

ei.sdraob

Oh and we have 1900 MW at end of 2010 connected according to Eirgrids latest document, using their data in Dec 2010 only 15% of this was being generated on average at any time. What a waste of money.

djpbarry

ei.sdraob wrote: »

If you plug in Eirgrids cost figures into PC post then things are even bleaker for wind

Are you referring to the figures you linked to above? The ones that show the lifetime generation costs associated with wind to be among the cheapest available options?

ei.sdraob

djpbarry wrote: »

Are you referring to the figures you linked to above? The ones that show the lifetime generation costs associated with wind to be among the cheapest available options?

So now as well as ignoring the environmental costs (the OP) which you already admited if accounted for would make wind more expensive, you are going to ignore the capital costs? And that's only for onshore wind, theres only so much of that that can be build, offshore is one of the more expensive options.

The documents explores several possible energy mix scenarios for the future in ireland , and is quite impartial, wind is neither the cheapest option nor provides much independence. Its all there a very interesting read.

Capt'n Midnight

We could reduce our human rights footprints by insisting that workers employed in providing goods and services to the EU have the minimum health and safety that EU workers have.

Yes you can use cheaper workers, but no you can't reduce their life expectancy.

It would also mean that EU businesses would not be penalised for having to treat employees like people and so compete on a level playing with the foreign imports.

ei.sdraob

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

We could reduce our human rights footprints by insisting that workers employed in providing goods and services to the EU have the minimum health and safety that EU workers have.

Yes you can use cheaper workers, but no you can't reduce their life expectancy.

It would also mean that EU businesses would not be penalised for having to treat employees like people and so compete on a level playing with the foreign imports.

Thats what Krugman proposes over in US, import tariffs on any country which: {doesnt follow carbon targets / bad on human rights / or manipulates currency / or whatever Krugman has a problem with this week that cant be resolved with money printing }

Of course the irony of an american making such claims is ... interesting :P
Oh and US hasnt signed up to any carbon targets, does the EU and Ireland close shop to one of the largest trading partners for ideological reasons? cutting nose to spite face?? yeh trade wars are fun and led to shooting wars in past.


Anyways imposing tariffs would be a way of solving the problem (tho that means someone impartial actually verifying that the conditions are being followed) but they would create a new problem, "green" technologies become much more expensive overnight or worse China cuts of rare earth supplies to rest of the world, then the real fun begins

djpbarry

ei.sdraob wrote: »

So now as well as ignoring the environmental costs (the OP) which you already admited if accounted for would make wind more expensive, you are going to ignore the capital costs?

Figure 10 above does not include capital costs? I’m pretty sure it does.

ei.sdraob

djpbarry wrote: »

Figure 10 above does not include capital costs? I’m pretty sure it does.

It does include capital costs your correct (apologies), but does not account for all subsidies nor external costs (such as what this thread is about). Accounting for rare earth mining/production pollution alone could push wind into more expensive territory

Over the lifetime of a power generation project the capital costs are amortised over the
generation output and the initial hierarchy above changes significantly. When due
consideration of an appropriate economic lifetime (i.e. the number of years that the
investor evaluates the project financially), output and other operating costs such as fuel
are also taken into account we are able to compare the ‘total’ generation costs of the
various technologies.
Figure 10 shows our calculations of the lifetime generation costs for different generating
technologies. A picture emerges of a significant range: from CCGTs, onshore wind and
conventional coal to wave power at the higher end.
However there are some important nuances in this picture too. Figure 10 also shows the
proportions the main cost elements: initial capital outlay, annual variable costs and fixed
costs based on typical lifetime outputs. These proportions are very important to investors
when they consider such issues as the time it takes to get back the money initially
invested in the project (so-called capital intensity) and the exposure to fuel prices.
OCGTs and CCGTs have amongst the lowest capital intensity, but high exposure to gas
prices. In contrast to this, the majority of onshore wind costs are incurred in the initial
capital investment and the remainder through fixed costs not dependent on generation.
Nuclear generation has many parallels with the wind economics: a high proportion of
capital costs and high fixed costs, which are not affected to a large degree by the
generation levels.
Coal-based technologies have lower fuel costs than gas fired plants, though they have a
much higher capital element (particularly for CCS coal) or higher carbon costs (e.g. for
non-CCS coal).

Joey the lips

Very interesting. My first reaction would be to say that if you dont agree with chinese policy then dont buy there goods.

I cant see that happening.

Now "Ah right... Well its not in my back yard" now i can see that one.

I imagine as we head long term into the future the biggest dangers are not the rare elements but those produced in abundance

Apperently something ghana can attest to.

Capt'n Midnight

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Thats what Krugman proposes over in US, import tariffs on any country which: {doesnt follow carbon targets / bad on human rights / or manipulates currency / or whatever Krugman has a problem with this week that cant be resolved with money printing }.
...

Anyways imposing tariffs would be a way of solving the problem (tho that means someone impartial actually verifying that the conditions are being followed) but they would create a new problem, "green" technologies become much more expensive overnight or worse China cuts of rare earth supplies to rest of the world, then the real fun begins

It would just be limited to health and safety with a ban rather than tarrifs. We are talking about a level playing field here. Vendors would have to follow this down the supply chain, they should already be doing most of this for ISO 9000 etc.

The purpose is to reduce human rights footprint, the benefit is that legit organisations everywhere would be able to justify overheads and better treatment of staf.


If you think of a generator as having a moving coil in a stationary magnetic field (or visa versa) then the purpose of the rare earth magnets is to provide the magnetic field without using electricity. It makes generators and motors a few % more efficient than the best ones available in the 1890's. Don't get me wrong it's handy stuff and for things like the voice coils in hard drives there are few replacements, but for bulk usage we could live without.

bonkey

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Accounting for rare earth mining/production pollution alone could push wind into more expensive territory

The same/comparable accounting would have to be applied to the alternatives as well, though, right?

So, for example, coal would have to include the pollution cost of mining coal, as well as the pollution cost of burning coal...

Gas...ditto...it might be cleaner then coal, but we still don't account for the pollution costs today...

Nuclear...mining, refining, and waste-disposal.

And so on and so forth.

Its not the case that wind is given some sort of "free pass" here that's already being factored into the other costs....so while the cost of wind would rise if we factored everything in, so too would the cost of all other generation methodologies.

AFAIK, there's no generally-accepted "total cost" figures to begin with.

The real cost of putting CO2 into the air isn't even agreed on, meaning its impossible to get agreement on the figure for the cost of any combustion-based generation. There's no agreement on the real cost of dealing with nuclear waste. Thats before we start trying to factor in fuel-sourcing costs.

robtri

djpbarry wrote: »

Which tells us what exactly?

so why just quote one line out of the full quote??? did u read it??

full quote from my post... i have highlighted the and underlined the part just for you... about selling renewable energy at a loss

It is evident that exports currently play a key role in balancing and protecting the West Danish
grid against big surges in power generation. More than 60% of all electricity produced in the
region is sold on The Nordic Power Exchange (NordPool). In fact, in recent years close
relationships have existed between the amount of wind power produced and net exports of
electricity (see Nissen, 2004; and Sharman, 2004). These exports have often been sold at low
or give-away prices, and have recently been costing Danish consumers about DKK 1 billion a
year (Sharman, 2004). The power is exported via inter-connectors (c. 2,760 MW; i.e. capacity
equivalent to 73% of peak load in 2003), these being large enough to accommodate most of
the total output of the region’s current wind carpet. Both Norway and Sweden can absorb
Danish wind power by rapidly reducing their output of hydro electricity or using imported
power to pump water to elevated reservoirs for the later generation of electricity (White,

2004).

robtri

djpbarry wrote: »

I can’t, because it’s impossible to do so. How can it be demonstrated that the electrons produced from a particular turbine are “sold” for more than it cost to produce them?

so what you are saying here is that if you build a wind farm, like many people/companies have, it is impossible for them to tell if they make a profit on selling their electricity or not....

Chloe Pink

djpbarry wrote: »

Please do not discuss moderation in-thread. If you have an issue with a moderator’s actions, PM the moderator in question.
They’re not personal – I asked you to stop doing something. If you consider them personal, use the report post function.

Thank you for your suggestion, I have taken it up.

Chloe Pink

Chloe Pink wrote:

Perhaps djpbarry, you could provide evidence to show wind generated electricity exported by Denmark (or any country for that matter) at a profit.

djpbarry wrote: »

I can’t, because it’s impossible to do so. How can it be demonstrated that the electrons produced from a particular turbine are “sold” for more than it cost to produce them?

No you can't because, when all factors are taken into account, the cost of generating electricity from wind is, overall, more than the wholesale price of electricity.

ei.sdraob

bonkey wrote: »

The same/comparable accounting would have to be applied to the alternatives as well, though, right?

Wrong rare earths require huge mines and plenty of processing, hence the name rare,
for some of them even more processing than gold ore (where they literary digup house size amounts of ore for few grams), of course this mining and processing is powered by dirty Chinese coal generation to add insult to injury

bonkey wrote: »

Nuclear...mining, refining, and waste-disposal.

and this is reflected in the the price of running a nuclear plant

anyways there is thorium which can be used as fuel which doesnt produce as much waste nor needs as much to be mined (1 ton of thorium produces equivalent energy to 200 tons of uranium) and a 1GW plant produces 100 grams (yes grams) of radioactive waste in a year, the world went down uranium path for political reasons to help make nuclear weapons...
more here

see the linked Eirgird document it has cost breakdown listed (graph posted earlier), even with them taking an unrealistically high building costs based on Finnish experience that they used in their paper, the overall costs are comparable to onshore wind and much less than offshore, wave, tidal, biomass options

Ghost Estate

Why is the presence of neodymium magnets in wind turbine being used to turn this into some grand argument against the mere concept of extracting energy from the wind?

There are plenty of ways to make a wind turbine without using magnets, it might be a bit more complicated to do but if neodymium extraction stopped tomorrow it's not like we'll never see another new wind turbine being made.

also the magnets used are not exposed to the elements, don't wear down by friction. they can be easily recovered from a decommissioned wind turbine, recycled, re-magnetised far easier than recovering the lithium from a lithium ion battery.

if you are so concerned about the pollution caused by extracting some neodymium you might as well stop buying electronics because some of the stuff in that is far worse (someone mentioned lithium mining) and might only last a few years before it is 'recycled'.

the permanent magnet generator is used in wind turbines because its convenient and economic, for now. not because its the only way.


gas might be cheaper for now but it's already running out in places. wind wont get more expensive, although with the impending property tax we might as well consider that we are paying for the wind because site ownership cost goes up.

what you'd earn from installing a domestic wind turbine would be swiped away just as easily by the government just because they can get it and they'll give nothing in return. maybe a few subsidies that demand professional installation by some highly taxed worker. so its really a case of give with one hand and take a good bit more with the other.

ei.sdraob

Ghost Estate wrote: »

Why is the presence of neodymium magnets in wind turbine

Its not just neodymium but a whole range of rare earths required in other "green" technologies such as photovoltaics and more importantly for Ireland electric cars.

Ghost Estate wrote: »

gas might be cheaper for now but it's already running out in places.

Gas is far from running out, after recent advances in gas extracting we easily have a century or two to power using gas. At this moment most of electricity generated here is from gas.
Eirgrid knowledge that gas is one of the cheapest option for Ireland in the earlier linked paper, even with price rises, and is fairly clean.
Gas can also be converted into liquid fuel.

edit: And that before getting into exploiting frozen sea methane deposits (which Ireland could be potential very rich in)

Capt'n Midnight

ei.sdraob wrote: »

anyways there is thorium which can be used as fuel which doesnt produce as much waste nor needs as much to be mined (1 ton of thorium produces equivalent energy to 200 tons of uranium) and a 1GW plant produces 100 grams (yes grams) of radioactive waste in a year, the world went down uranium path for political reasons to help make nuclear weapons...

India is looking into this, for a long time now.

The other advantage is that there is a lot less low level waste. But the 100g figure only applies if you burn up the waste and the reprocessing is very efficient. IIRC the problem is how to get unity conversion from thorium to uranium , if you get appreciably more than unity then there is the problem of atomic weapons proliferation.

ei.sdraob

Macha wrote: »

Tell me you're joking.

Not at all, burn it and use the energy before this stuff ends up in the atmosphere

Researchers have found alarming evidence that the frozen Arctic floor has started to thaw and release long-stored methane gas. The results could be a catastrophic warming of the earth, since methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. But can the methane also be used as fuel?

putting Green blinkers on is not going to make the problem go away, methane is something like 40x times more potent greenhouse gas, if there is any danger of massive releases into the atmosphere capturing and burning it is a much better option for the environment and for the world which needs energy.

Ghost Estate

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Its not just neodymium but a whole range of rare earths required in other "green" technologies such as photovoltaics and more importantly for Ireland electric cars.

Solar panels don't use much of rare earth metals, except CdTe cells which are almost a thing of the past at this stage.

Their use in electric cars is similar to that in wind turbines - DC motors and generators. again it's something that can be worked around. although i'd be inclined to say Lithium ion batteries are the worst kind out there due to how short they last its probably a good stepping stone to get electric cars into production now until different kinds of batteries become more widely available

Ghost Estate

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Gas is far from running out, after recent advances in gas extracting we easily have a century or two to power using gas. At this moment most of electricity generated here is from gas.
Eirgrid knowledge that gas is one of the cheapest option for Ireland in the earlier linked paper, even with price rises, and is fairly clean.
Gas can also be converted into liquid fuel.

edit: And that before getting into exploiting frozen sea methane deposits (which Ireland could be potential very rich in)

how much of it is actually worth extracting? total volume and commercially exploitable reserves are a completely different thing. there's plenty of oil too that will never be extracted.

even if you do manage to find an economical way of extracting it you're still pumping more co2 into the atmosphere which we have been told is a bad thing

djpbarry

robtri wrote: »

so why just quote one line out of the full quote??? did u read it??

The author claimed that there is a direct correlation between wind generation and electricity exports from Denmark. The conclusion is reached that Denmark is therefore exporting large amounts of wind energy. But such a conclusion seems rather simplistic. How often does Denmark produce enough wind energy to meet its entire demand and have enough left over to export? I’m guessing never? So what’s really being exported? Is it the electricity derived from wind? Or is it the thermally-generated electricity sourced from plants that can’t knock down quick enough when wind generation increases, resulting in supply exceeding demand and electricity needing to be exported?

robtri wrote: »

so what you are saying here is that if you build a wind farm, like many people/companies have, it is impossible for them to tell if they make a profit on selling their electricity or not....

Nope, that’s not what I’m saying. If I own a single turbine feeding into the grid, then it’s obviously fairly easy for me to determine whether or not I’m making a profit, based on how much I’m being paid to supply the grid. However, when electricity is subsequently exported from the national grid, the situation becomes more complicated – is it “my” electricity that’s been exported?

djpbarry

Chloe Pink wrote: »

No you can't because, when all factors are taken into account, the cost of generating electricity from wind is, overall, more than the wholesale price of electricity.

Every piece of evidence presented on this thread thus far (such as the charts produced by ei.sdraob) indicate that onshore wind is one of the cheapest available means of electricity generation.

djpbarry

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Its not just neodymium but a whole range of rare earths required in other "green" technologies such as photovoltaics and more importantly for Ireland electric cars.

Thermal/Nuclear power stations don’t use rare earths?

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Not at all, burn it and use the energy before this stuff ends up in the atmosphere

So you’re suggesting we burn all the available methane and release masses of CO2 into the atmosphere just in case the methane ends up in the atmosphere? Sound logic.

bonkey

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Wrong rare earths require huge mines and plenty of processing, hence the name rare,

The point I was making is that if you're going to include the indirect cost(s) in one setup, you have to do it in all of them.

So far, you're arguing that one option (wind) needs to be seen as dirtier then it is because there are indirects not factored in. I'm not disagreeing with that...I'm merely pointing out that to take this approach correctly, one has to see all options as dirtier then they are today, as they all have indirects not factored in.

I'm also pointing out that those indirects are of varying difficulty to calculate, and you'll rarely (if ever) get agreement across the board on them.

and this is reflected in the the price of running a nuclear plant

Not entirely.

The cost of waste-disposal isn't included in the running of a nuclear plant...because no-one has a long-term waste-disposal system up and running.

From that perspective, the end-cost of waste disposal is no more part of the running costs of nuclear then pollution from rare-earth mining is a cost in wind....because in both cases, they are costs that no-one is paying today.

Similarly, the cost of mining and refining fuel is passed on in the same manner as the cost of rare-earth magnets is. The mines may be run to a cleaner standard, but there's still environmental costs of mining not being paid. It may not be as bad as with the rare-earths (which are far more common then uranium, lets remember), but that doesn't mean its not there.

anyways there is thorium which can be used as fuel which doesnt produce as much waste nor needs as much to be mined

And for which there are no proven, scalable reactor designs that would be considered acceptable in todays world. Lets also bear in mind that the main source of thorium is as a byproduct of rare-earth element mining.

Thorium has great potential, but its not something that any nation can simply decide to implement tomorrow instead of one of the established options....and it also has its own indirect costs.

see the linked Eirgird document it has cost breakdown listed (graph posted earlier), even with them taking an unrealistically high building costs based on Finnish experience that they used in their paper, the overall costs are comparable to onshore wind and much less than offshore, wave, tidal, biomass options

This graph that you keep referring back to shows wind as one of the most competitive options, which is a position that you categorically disagree with. Your argument is that it doesn't include some costs. Yet when I point out that there are other costs also not on there, you seem to argue that they don't or shouldn't apply or aren't significant.

There's also no clear explanation as to how they've calculated the "carbon cost" that they're applying. How, exactly, does one calculate the emissions costs?

Chloe Pink

djpbarry wrote: »

Every piece of evidence presented on this thread thus far (such as the charts produced by ei.sdraob) indicate that onshore wind is one of the cheapest available means of electricity generation.

They also exclude the "incentivisation" payments.

And strangely when you take these away, the generating companies don't seem so interested in building wind turbines.

But I'm fairly sure you know all of this already