Days

My take on why Tesla Motors is not going anywhere medium / long term and thus on why its current market capitalization is unsustainable. Designing / manufacturing an electric vehicle is not that difficult. Thus, the barriers to entry from current high volume manufacturers are not high. Actually many are already joining the fray. What is difficult respecting electric vehicles is to sell them above cost. Currently governments all over the place are subsidizing their purchase but this is an unsustainable policy and thus won't last forever. High volume vehicle manufacturers can subsidize losses on their EV line with the profits from the internal combustion engine vehicles. "Pure" EV players obviously cannot. Once government subsidies are removed they will have a difficult time. If Tesla tries to move down market to produce cheaper, higher volume cars, it would be eaten alive by the high volume car companies that enjoy substantial economies of scale. So, essenti...

Some people insist that solar PV has achieved "grid parity" but to claim this they obviously have to consider grid connected PV. The real cost of solar PV is masked when grid connected. In order to better understand the real cost of solar PV, let's make a simplified exercise here. What would be needed to go off grid? The following: Obviously, the solar PV panels. Storage batteries A gasoline electric generator (unless you plan to store heroic amounts of electricity, you would need the backup generator). We'll consider the following parameters in our installation (feel free to substitute your own numbers): Annual solar capacity factor: 18%. Cost of the PV installation (including inverters, installation, etc.): $3 per Watt. We'll use Tesla storage batteries (the 7kW version) at a cost of $6,000 including installation. Solar panel useful life: 20 years. Batteries useful life: 10 years. Annual electricity usage: 8,400 kWh. So, this ho...

Note: this article is a team effort between Susan Chapelle and myself. I am sometimes too harsh, Susan is more diplomatic. We hope our collaboration will continue in the future and be fruitful. Thank you, Susan ! There is a misconception that in order to solve a problem, the most important step is "finding a quick solution." In our current political climate, this seems most evident with global climate change. For example, in this subject people may present any or several of the following "solutions:" Implement heavy carbon taxes. Subsidize renewables. Ban Arctic drilling. Aggressively ramp up nuclear power plant construction. Offer generous tax incentives in the purchase of EVs. Divest from fossil fuels At times, these approaches do not work as intended, and may even be counterproductive.  Why? The world is infinitely more complex than a bunch of bureaucrats working on spreadsheets in a government office, and the climate is infi...

The real war is not between renewables and fossil fuels , no, the real war is between renewables and nuclear . This is somewhat ironic, because nuclear is one of the lowest CO2 emitting energies we have and so, in theory, renewable promoters should be fully on board with nuclear, but this is obviously not the case. The reasons are very simple:  1. Renewables need  pairing fossil fuel power plants since solar and wind energy are intermittent and unreliable. 2. Even though, in theory, nuclear could be paired with renewables, it would make no sense whatsoever. Nuclear is better suited to produce 24/7 and besides adding renewables to a nuclear grid would increase CO2 emissions so it would be a lose-lose proposition (more expensive and higher emissions). On the other hand, nuclear doesn't need renewables at all, what is more, they siphon funds that could have been better spent in additional nuclear capacity (if the objective is to reduce the CO2 intensity o...

As long as we have persons concocting "solutions" to world problems from the comfort of their air conditioned offices we will continue to see completely impractical or even absurd proposals. My request to them is: come to the real world! Get your hands dirty. Speak with the people that are desperately poor. Ask persons all over which are their real priorities. Try to understand economics and get a modicum of knowledge respecting engineering. If these reality insulated persons came to the real world, they would realize that climate change is hardly a priority for anybody. Right. Their priorities are feeding, and educating their families. Increasing their standard of living. And yes, maybe even be better prepared for violent weather. How do you achieve all of the above? By, among other things, having access to abundant, reliable, affordable energy. Today, for the most part, energy with the above mentioned characteristics are mainly fossil fuels. Yes, eventually ...

Why are many renewable energy promoters more anti-nuclear than anti-fossil fuels when in reality nuclear is one of the lowest CO2 emitting technologies we have? Good question. The reason is that renewables need a pairing fossil fueled power plant since on an annual basis, they produce only 10 to 20% (solar PV) or around 25% (wind) on average of their plate capacity. The marriage made in heaven is that of renewables with pairing natural gas power plants. The natural gas plants can be easily modulated and thus are perfect for compensating for the fluctuating / unreliable output of renewables. If a country commits to renewables what they are actually doing is locking in fossil fuel generating capacity for the long haul. Renewables do not reduce the need for fossil fuel installed capacity as at any particular moment their output will be zero. Here a renewable promoter clearly states that wind and solar plants are really natural gas plants: https://www.youtube.co...

These are some of the main reasons why the AGW debate is endless: 1. CO2 is indispensable for life. We'll all die of starvation and cold without a sufficient amount of it in the atmosphere. I don't think there is a single reasonable person that questions this. So far, so good. 2. Yes, it is indispensable but, how much is too much? Here the arguments begin. Some want to return to the "primeval" 280 ppm CO2 concentration. Others arbitrarily state that the target should be 350. At the other extreme, we have people comfortable with 1,500 ppm. Since we have already exceeded 400 ppm and our global emissions are not being curtailed, the 350 ppm seems like an impossible objective. Should a more achievable objective such as 550 ppm be established and focus on trying to adapt to that world (that is almost certainly coming)? Would a 550 ppm world be worse in every sense or would it also have positive consequences? The latter is probably the right answer....

We are launching an alternate organization to 350.org because we believe that just wishing for something to happen (in other words for the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere to go back to 350 ppm) is absurd in the light that we break a new CO2 emissions record every year. So, it makes no sense to invest time, effort and money in pursuing an impossible objective.  Let's state here in what we firmly believe: nobody alive today will ever see again 350 ppm. So, if not 350, where are we headed?  We are "easily" headed for 550 ppm, thus the name of our non-profit. Before we proceed further, let us state why we believe our non-profit will be more attractive than 350.org: We will not, ever, under any circumstances ask for donations. Hell, we won't even accept them even if somebody volunteers some money. We won't be dogmatic. We won't believe blindly in models, organizations (e.g. IPCC) or the Pope. We will strive to actually list...

Today, in the energy discourse it is very difficult to find relatively unbiased opinions. Most people seem to be lobbying for one cause, or the opposite one, or for an ideology. When somebody tells you that something is all good, or all bad, immediately distrust them. They are not being truthful.  Thus, this book by Robert. W. Kolb is like a breath of fresh air because it treats fracking as what it really is: a way of extracting natural gas that creates all sorts of benefits but also causes environmental problems. However, and at least for me, the most important insight from this book is that the "easy" success of shale gas in the USA will not be massively replicated soon elsewhere. The USA has several key characteristics that have allowed this fracking revolution. Other countries lack some or even most of them. For example, apparently the shale gas reserves of China are even greater than those of the USA, however as of today their shale production is...

Several weeks ago we wrote an article underlining what would be required to install a one GWe solar baseload power plant using storage batteries to achieve a reliable output (from an unreliable solar input). http://daysgt.blogspot.mx/2015/05/baseload-solar.html The conclusion was that the approach was too expensive and not environmentally friendly. Today, we'll analyze another option: make solar PV output reliable by pairing it with a natural gas power plant. Again, there will be some simplifications here, but bear with us. The objective is to deliver 1 GWe of reliable electricity, thus we'll install a 1 GWe natural gas power plant plus 1 GWe of solar PV. Let's consider the annual solar capacity factor at the selected location is 20%. The natural gas plant will be dispatchable to be able to produce 100% of the required power at any particular moment, zero when solar PV is at peak production and all the intermediate values throughout ot...

The talk of the town these past few days has been Pope Francis' encyclical letter Laudato Si'. So let's start by asking what would happen if we massively followed one of its key recommendations. "Replace consumption with sacrifice."  Let's leave aside the sacrifice part for a moment but, imagine if say, people heeded this message and world automobile production dropped by 50%. We would have in our hands the mother of all layoffs.  The reduction in auto production would have a cascading effect all through the network of suppliers, dealers, independent mechanics, government revenue, what have you. Almost certainly the weaker automobile companies would go bankrupt. All luxury brands would be history (remember, replace consumption with sacrifice). This would in itself generate another wave of bankruptcies among suppliers, dealers, etc.  Think also about the textile industry. If people replaced consumption... we would use our clot...

Many, maybe even most of the alternatives to fossil fuels that have been or are now being proposed are for the most part technically feasible. Is hydrogen as a fuel feasible? Yes. Are electric vehicles feasible? Absolutely. You can run now to the dealer and buy a LEAF or a Tesla. Could we generate, say, 30% of our electricity with solar and wind? Don't even doubt it. Will fusion power become a reality? You can take that to the bank. What about tidal power? Yes, it works, in France, Canada and elsewhere. Compressed air cars? Also, fully feasible and the "battery," in other words the air tank, can be recharged forever. Geothermal? Just ask Iceland.  So, if we have all these feasible and wonderful alternatives to fossil fuels, how come they barely make a dent in the global energy market? Ah, the reason is that to compete and win technical feasibility is not enough. To displace fossil fuels the alternatives need to be cheaper. If, for example, the kWh ...

The energy / climate discourse has reached such advanced levels of absurdity that a group of reasonable persons has decided to present "achievement" awards mirrored on the Academy Awards. The categories that we will be recognizing are listed below. Please add to the conversation in Twitter using the following hashtag: #GreenieAwards Feel free to:    a) Propose more categories and    b) Nominate whom you think should win in each category Yes, all this is somewhat tongue in cheek but it is time to have some fun at the expense of the doom and gloomers. Enjoy! Categories: "So called scientist of the year." Most anti-scientific hashtag. Most egregious death threat. Best supporting logical fallacy. Worst example of "professed" beliefs. Silliest consensus claim. Most tilted temperature chart. Worst activist commercial. Most egregiously tortured statistic. Most unserious meme. Worst publicity stunt. Most destru...

The AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) discourse is getting more and more pointless by the day. The two camps are more entrenched than ever and the continuous heavy information bombardment serves no purpose. By "the two camps" we mean, on the one side the warmists (together with the alarmists) and on the other the skeptics (together with the "deniers"). The first camp showers the second with models, anecdotes, all the latest weather news (no matter what happens, they insist it is caused by AGW), etc. The second camp fights back with more comprehensive historical climate trends and satellite data. Interestingly, the warmists seem to be "satellite deniers." The end result is that nobody moves an inch and thus all the efforts are wasted. For the warmists, AGW has become a religion of sorts and the skeptics... well, are skeptics. Can we all agree that there has to be a better way forward? Here is a proposal: stop arguing about AGW for good and...

Yes, scientists are in their area of expertise when they study the climate, make models about it and volunteer projections for its behavior in future decades. All this is fine and it is the way it should be. Scientists (climate scientists in particular) should be listened to regarding their area of expertise. On the other hand, under no circumstances should scientists define the energy policy of a country, let alone that of the whole planet. Scientists should only be advisors. No president or leader of a global organization like the UN should delegate their responsibility to a body of scientists. Doing this could imply economic catastrophe for little, if any environmental improvement. Today, Germany is the poster boy of environmentalists and it is precisely an example of what a country should not do.  After 100 billion euros or so of investment in "renewable" energy (mainly wind and solar) they still have CO2 emissions well north of 400 grams per kWh, coa...

Dear Greenpeace: we've heard the news Kumi Naidoo is leaving the organization and here I present my humble input respecting the selection of your next leader. I believe Greenpeace needs a transformational leader because, in my opinion, you are almost becoming irrelevant in the energy / climate discourse. What should that leader bring to the equation? Pragmatism.  Greenpeace has become too ideological and thus more and more disconnected from reality. Today, by far, the low CO2 energy sources in the world's energy market are hydro and nuclear. By far.  Please Enable Javascript for this Oilprice.com widget to work Nothing else comes even close to them, thus the new Greenpeace should remove the "ban" on nuclear energy.  Also, we need to think hard if natural gas should be embraced. For the same kWh produced, natural gas emits half the CO2 of coal fired power plants. Half! This is not a rounding error but a game changer. Nuclear cann...

Most of the solar PV installed capacity in the world is grid connected and is not baseload. In other words, when it produces power, other power plants have to be modulated, idled, stopped and then when later in the day solar power begins to drop, those same power plants need to ramp-up production again. This creates inefficiencies, "hidden" costs and additional CO2 emissions.  The above obviously means that solar PV does not replace any conventional (usually fossil fuel) electrical generating capacity. So, the question is: can solar PV become a baseload power supplier? The answer is yes (sort of). Let's make the numbers. The first disclaimer is that we are going to make some simplifications . Things in real life are obviously more complex, but bear with us. The project is to install a 1 GW baseload solar PV power plant. Here are the numbers: Constant required output: 1 GW. Annual capacity factor for solar PV (in a specific location th...