Forget EROEI, is ESOEI the real enemy of wind?

[Eclipse]

Hi all,
I’ve been really happy about wind and solar developments announced in Australia recently. But then I remembered this Weissbach paper which measures EROEI - the Energy Return on Energy Invested. This isn’t about money profit, but energy profit. Renewables EROEI can already be pretty low compared to the heyday of fossil fuels. But then when you add the energy cost to build all the Storage (like off-river pumped hydro dams) and you have another concept called ESOEI. This is Energy Stored Over Energy Invested. Basically the paper wonders what kind of civilisation we can run with renewable ESOEI being so low!

I'm just hoping improvements in wind size and performance and efficiencies in solar are improving energy paybacks. Also, maybe the author limited solar lifetimes to their 25 year warranty period - but what if an energy provider just left them there, getting less energy as they got older - but at least some energy for years and years for 'free' from an EROEI perspective?

[Potemkin Villager]

Yes very large sale energy storage is the elephant in the room for intermittent renewables. People still keep wondering why the number of fossil fueled power stations is not decreasing as the amount of renewable generation increases! The much vaunted low cost of renewables ignores the external costs that must be incurred elsewhere.

[kenneal - lagger]

But then the environmental cost of fossil fuels isn't factored in either.

If you included the energy costs of all the amelioration of climate damage into the EROI or ESOEI of fossil fuels you would probably find them to be below one.

And welcome back Eclipse.

[Eclipse]

Thanks for the welcome back!

Hmmm, I've been reconsidering this. Weissbach is known to be pessimistic on renewable energy EROEI's anyway - measuring older wind and solar tech from Germany is a bit unrepresentative of the massive solar gains from lower latitudes. After all, most of the population of the world lives within 35 degrees of the equator. Above there can have enough renewables, especially if some gets brought in via HVDC from sunnier locations. I mean, HVDC only loses 3% energy per 1000km so that opens up a LOT of terrain.

Back in the day I was a fan of nuclear breeder reactors and an extreme renewables sceptic because I sensed how much Overbuild renewables would require. But last year I had to admit to myself that renewables were now SO cheap we could economically Overbuild. Here's how I understand it - an full disclaimer I'm interested in this from a Social Sciences perspective. I'm not very technical but I get the broad concepts, and am especially interested in the broader historical STORY of peak oil.

But here we go. From what I've seen various renewables experts doing, I see them analyse weather data for the worst weeks of winter. Winter might cut production of all those solar and wind farms back to half. For weeks at a time! That’s vastly too expensive to build storage for. What’s the answer? It sounds trite - but peer-reviewed energy engineers have calculated that if your wind and solar are cut back to half during winter - then DOUBLE THEM! Cut it from WEEKS of expensive storage down to a few DAYS. We can afford mere days with off-river pumped hydro. http://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/anu ... -australia

How can we afford to overbuild renewables by 2 or 3 times (for some nations), build extra transmission AND storage? Because they are 1/4 the LCOE of nuclear.

Here’s a model of Australia’s freak rainy La Nina weather in 2022 that concludes just a 70% overbuild would get us through winter. So don’t build 100% renewables - build 170%!
http://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-p ... e-storage/

Griffith Uni says “overbuilding” the renewable energy fleet (that is, allowing for some spilled energy over time) is also likely to be an efficient source of energy firming.”

Andrew Blaker’s ANU 100% electricity system excludes transport and industry, focussing just on the electricity sector. But it concludes that transport would only add another 35% - (because electric transport is so much more efficient than internal combustion engines).

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 4217309568

Looking at other industrial uses of energy, such as heat pumps for domestic and business heating, hydrogen for industry, synthetic fuel for airlines and shipping and some hydrogen for industrial process) will bump up demand further. http://www.iea.org/reports/electrification

Conclusion? Overbuild is a way off as we keep finding new ways to use electricity. But when it comes it will help us get through winter, and supply super-cheap ‘Super-power’ the rest of the year. What businesses could basically FREE electricity do basically for 10 or 11 months of the year? As long as it can shut down for the worst weeks in winter, it can make extra hydrogen, run various carbon Direct Air Capture systems, or desalinate water in desert countries. What about running Gasifiers to convert all our landfill waste into useful syngas and rock-wool building materials - so half our next house is actually built from household waste? http://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/gasification/ Who knows? But it seems the ‘problem’ of intermittency requires a solution that may just solve many other problems at the same time! No wonder Tony Seba calls it ‘Super-Power’.
http://youtu.be/fsnkPLkf1ao

[BritDownUnder]

Taking New South Wales as an example there is still a long way to go. Wind provided only 7.5% of total electricity last week which is somewhat understandable in the less windy Summer. Renewables provided 35% of total NSW electrical demand yesterday. So to provide all demand will need a tripling of NSW renewables by 2030 or 2035 as required by the target. One NSW coal station will close in May 2023 and one will close in 2025. No wind farms were commissioned in NSW in 2022. Delays in Snowy 2.0 with a 2026 completion date at the earliest.

There needs to be a serious attempt in the next 7 years to rectify this. Having worked on a NSW wind farm project and a lot of other Australian electrical projects I doubt this. Take safety rules as an example. Not being able to drive your road vehicle to the site office from the public road system (about a 2km drive not going past any wind turbines) as you don't have a flag or lights on the roof of the vehicle.

[Eclipse]

“In Australia, renewable energy is growing at a per capita rate ten times faster than the world average. Between 2018 and 2020, Australia will install more than 16 gigawatts of wind and solar, an average rate of 220 watts per person per year.

This is nearly three times faster than the next fastest country, Germany. Australia is demonstrating to the world how rapidly an industrialised country with a fossil-fuel-dominated electricity system can transition towards low-carbon, renewable power generation.”

http://theconversation.com/australia-is ... rgy-123694

Also, this fact blows my mind! Australia was so recalcitrant politically on climate change until recently - but the market has another thing in mind. Cost!
* In March 2022 the world hit one terawatt of solar PV. By 2025 they’ll do this EVERY YEAR.
* With growth in wind and pumped hydro and other green tech, we can hit global net zero well before 2050.
* Australia will hit 80% to 90% renewables in 7 years - by 2030 - as our deployment rate has doubled every 4 years for the last decade. Solar and wind are now the cheapest electricity source period. As scale increases there are even more learning curves still to be applied which will bring the price down further. They are being built 3 times faster than everything else combined.

http://theconversation.com/theres-a-hug ... -it-190241