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Solar power will lead globally- says Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI)

‘Solar will very shortly overtake every other type of electricity generation and together with batteries, will electrify everything, everywhere’ says the Colorado-based Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI)  in a new report on the cleantech revolution. Certainly renewables generation is now very cheap and solar PV deployment is doubling every 2-3 years, while battery storage, for backup, is doubling every year.  Wind is also doing well around the world, with offshore wind leading in some locations, as I reported in an earlier post, and some new major projects going ahead.   

Overall, RMI say that ‘clean technologies will continue to follow S-curves, cascading across sectors and geographies,’ with China, the world’s largest energy consumer, in the lead.  It explains that ‘China, lacks oil and gas, and cleantech is a path to leadership, clean air, and zero emissions’. And so it will ‘continue to deploy cleantech rapidly’. So it sees China as ‘the pivot nation in the transition away from fossil fuels, and most areas of demand have clearly peaked there’. Also ‘peaks are showing up across the Global South, from S. America to South Africa & Thailand’.

It’s very optimistic stuff, reflecting the approach of  RMI’s founder Dr Amory Lovins. Away with the old, in with the new- and fast. It says ‘S-curves imply that by 2030 solar and wind generation will triple to over 12,000 TWh and EVs will be two-thirds of car sales,’ pushing fossil use even further out. Taking a broad view , RMI claims that ‘New fossil electricity capacity peaked in 2010, oil and gas capex in 2014, and internal combustion engine car sales in 2017. Fossil demand peaked for industry in 2014, for buildings in 2018, most likely for electricity in 2023, and will shortly peak in transport’, and it says that this will continue,  since ‘the drivers of growth are more powerful than the barriers. Falling cleantech costs, the energy security of eternal renewables, Chinese leadership, and a race to the top will continue to overwhelm a fragile fossil fuel system which wastes two-thirds of its primary energy and fails to pay for its externality costs’.

Well maybe, and China does have some very large solar PV projects, but it is not exactly a bastion of freedom! And in the short term at least there is still a lot of fossil fuel being used there, and elsewhere, as a new study from the UK  Energy Institute (EI) and co-authors KPMG and Kearney notes. But it also notes that global renewable generation, excluding hydro, was up 13% to a record global high of 4,748TWh in 2023, due almost entirely by wind and solar expansion, led by China, which added 55% of all renewable generation additions in 2023. 

Meantime, nuclear is still in the game, including in China. Indeed, the US Energy Information Administration says that  ‘China continues rapid growth of nuclear power capacity’, although the chart it uses to support this assertion says it shows ‘annual installed’ net  capacity, whereas, in fact it shows total capacity and growth in that has actually been slowing.

It’s 58GW now, only making a small overall power contribution in China- EIA says 5% in 2023. By contrast, as noted above, renewables are roaring ahead in China- growing 4 times faster than in the G7 countries overall, with wind and solar adding almost 300GW last year. And  it is on track reach 1,200GW of wind and solar total capacity by end of 2024 – 6 years ahead of target. 

Ever hopeful though, the nuclear lobby globally still looks to new technology, like Small Modular Reactors, to improve things, even if so far that doesn’t look too promising, with, as a Reuters article reports, there being  project failures and high costs.  But, SMR apologists say, it is early days yet- first designs often have problems and it takes time to get costs down. However, it would require some very radical cost reductions to compete with renewables, now at all time low costs, especially since they are likely to continue to getting cheaper.  ………………………………………………………………………………..

Good thing we still have the free fusion reactor in the sky….with Ember reporting that global use of solar PV has expanded by 23% last year, and wind power by 10%, with renewables overall now supplying around 30% of global power and wind and solar projected to supply nearly 70% of global electricity by 2050. Moreover, some studies have suggested that renewables overall could supply around 100% of all power, or even all energy, by then, with solar playing a major role. https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2024/07/solar-power-will-lead-globally-says-rmi.html

July 15, 2024 Posted by | renewable | Leave a comment

U.S. Solar and Wind Power Generation Tops Nuclear for First Time

By Charles Kennedy – Jul 11, 2024,  https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/US-Solar-and-Wind-Power-Generation-Tops-Nuclear-for-First-Time.html?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR36aY_qZHusiBuonQ8wnoYKA4biHRxGFjpdJPHNpgny-jFyIN5ZFM3NUL8_aem_2gvOQUW4tXrqTe8rUaH-xw

For the first time ever, U.S. electricity generation from utility-scale solar and wind exceeded nuclear power plants’ power output in the first half of 2024, according to data from energy think tank Ember quoted by Reuters columnist Gavin Maguire.

Electricity generation from solar and wind hit a record-high of 401.4 terawatt hours (TWh) between January and June 2024, surpassing the 390.5 TWh of power generated from nuclear power plants, Ember’s data showed.

Solar power generation jumped by 30% and electricity output from wind power rose by 10% in the first half of 2024, compared to the same period of last year.

In 2023, nuclear power accounted for 18.6% of U.S. electricity generation, while wind power output had a 10.2% share and solar accounted for 3.9% of total U.S. electricity output, according to data for 2023 from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Ember has estimated that the share of wind and solar grew to 16% in 2023, when nuclear was still the largest source of low-carbon electricity in the U.S.

However, expanding renewable energy capacity and record solar and wind power generation helped solar and wind combined to top nuclear as the biggest low-carbon electricity source during the first half of this year.  

Early in 2024, the EIA said that wind and solar energy would lead growth in U.S. power generation for the next two years.  

As a result of new solar projects coming on line this year, the administration forecast that U.S. solar power generation will surge by 75%, from 163 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2023 to 286 billion kWh in 2025. The EIA also expects that wind power generation will grow by 11% from 430 billion kWh in 2023 to 476 billion kWh in 2025.

In 2023, all renewable sources—wind, solar, hydro, biomass, and geothermal—accounted for 22% of total U.S. power generation.

July 13, 2024 Posted by | renewable, USA | Leave a comment

“The Sun has won”: exponentially growing solar destroys nuclear, fossil fuels on price

Given Dutton’s claims about solar power costing more than nuclear are made ridiculous by the fact that solar’s break-even price has fallen by a factor of more than 1000 and the trend is continuing.

Meanwhile cost overruns in nuclear are endemic and SMR’s only exist in Dutton’s imagination.

By Noel Turnbull, Jul 11, 2024,  https://johnmenadue.com/the-sun-has-won-exponentially-growing-solar-destroys-nuclear-fossil-fuels-on-price/—

It’s not known if Peter Dutton [ Australia’s pro-nuclear Opposition leader] reads The Economist but if he does, he must probably think from time to time that it is sometimes dangerously left wing.

In the 22 June issue, it had a special essay on solar power – headlined ‘The Sun Machine’. The sub-head was “An energy source which gets cheaper the more you use it marks a turning-point in industrial history’.

The essay is a total contradiction of almost everything Dutton is claiming about nuclear and renewable energy.

“What makes solar energy revolutionary is the rate of growth which brought it to this just-beyond the marginal state”, the essay says.

They cite a veteran energy analyst, Michael Liebreich, who shows that in 2004 it took a year to install a gigawatt of solar power capacity; in 2010 it took a month; in 2016 a week; and in single days in 2023 there were a gigawatt of installation worldwide.

Current projections are that solar will generate more electricity than all the world’s nuclear plants in 2026; than wind turbines in 2027; dams in 2028; gas-fired plants in 2026; and coal-fired ones in 2032.

All that well before Dutton’s nuclear plants – if at all – start generating power. Moreover, unlike nuclear power which notoriously always takes longer to build than predicted, predictions about the rate of solar power roll-out are consistently under-estimates.

The Economist points out that in in 2009 The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicted solar would increase from 23GW to 244GW by 2030. It hit that milestone in 2016 – less than a third of the predicted time. The world capacity was 1419GW by 2023.

Ironically, one of the few organisations which got their predictions roughly right was Greenpeace – yet even their prediction was an under-estimate.

Given Dutton’s claims about solar power costing more than nuclear are made ridiculous by the fact that solar’s break-even price has fallen by a factor of more than 1000 and the trend is continuing. Meanwhile cost overruns in nuclear are endemic and SMR’s only exist in Dutton’s imagination.

Dutton is stronger on ideology and outrageous claims than economics, but the manufacture of photovoltaics is a classic example of the benefits of mass production – benefits which have always eluded the nuclear power industry.

As The Economist points out solar cells are standardised products all made in basically the same way and “they have no moving parts at all, let alone the fiendish complexity of a modern turbine.”

“Manufacturers compete on cost, by either making cells that make fractionally more electricity, by either making cells that make fractionally out of a given amount of sunshine or which cost less.”

Economics 101 teaches us that a commoditised product does not lead to more and more aggressive competition on the supply side – simply in this case by getting more electricity out of any given amount of sunshine or by costing less.

Rob Carlson, a technology investor, told The Economist: “There is no other energy-generation tech where you can install one million or one of the same thing depending on your application.”

“The Sun has won” he says.

The Economist said: “From the mid-1970 to the early 2020s cumulative shipments of photovoltaics increased by a factor of a million which is 20 doublings. At the same time prices dropped by a factor of 500. That is a 27% decrease in cost of doubling of installed capacity, which means a halving of costs every time installed capacity increases by 360%.

Adair Turner, an eminent economist and financial services executive, was Chair of Britian’s Climate Change Committee which was set up to help transition to zero emissions.

He told The Economist: “We totally failed to see that solar would come down so much.”

BloombergNEF estimated, in 2015, that the cost for solar on a global basis was $122 per MWH – higher than on shore wind and coal.  Today both solar and onshore wind are almost half the cost of coal.

Meanwhile, Dutton has welcomed Keir Starmer’s election win by pointing to his support for nuclear power. Which, given that the UK has already installed nuclear power, the cautious Starmer is unlikely to announce that he is closing it down.

Moreover, Starmer’s major problem with nuclear is managing the spiralling delays in, and cost of, nuclear plants being constructed following typical Tory blunders.

The question which Dutton needs to answer is why he knows more about nuclear and solar power than The Economist reporters, Bloomberg, Adair Turner, Rob Carlson, many major investment funds and the overwhelming majority of Australian scientists?

He might ponder all that while the Murdoch media is becoming a tad critical of him – criticising his policy on supermarket divestment and speculating on who might be the Liberal Party leader if Dutton loses the next election.

Meanwhile, notwithstanding their doubts about Dutton’s chances and policies (other than nuclear) The Australian never totally loses its manic opposition to anything progressive. The inimitable Greg Sheridan opined on The Australian front page (6/7) that Labour had not won but the Tories had lost. Partly true obviously, but his piece was enough to prompt the subs to headline the piece with “Self-described socialist is set to drag Britain far to the left”.

Sheridan also rehearsed his regular hates and speculated how it would all come undone.

Jeremy Corbyn would love that to be the case but Starmer not so.

Perhaps the funniest lines in Sheridan’s’ piece were: “Starmer is brainy and works hard. Too deep immersion in the law has rendered it impossible for Starmer to write felicitous prose or create memorable images.”

From a journalist who year after year simply reproduces the same old opinions on the same old subjects that is, to say the least, a bit much.

July 11, 2024 Posted by | renewable | Leave a comment

The nuclear and renewable myths that mainstream media can’t be bothered challenging

Mark Diesendorf, Jul 4, 2024,  https://reneweconomy.com.au/the-nuclear-and-renewable-myths-that-mainstream-media-cant-be-bothered-challenging/
Nuclear energy proponents are attempting to discredit renewable energy and promote nuclear energy and fossil gas in its place. This article refutes several myths they are disseminating that are receiving little or no challenge in the mainstream media.

Myth: Renewables cannot supply 100% electricity 

Denmark, South Australia and Scotland already obtain 88, 74 and 62 per cent of their respective annual electricity generations from renewables, mostly wind. Scotland actually supplies 113 per cent of its electricity consumption from renewables; the difference between its generation and consumption is exported by transmission line.

All three jurisdictions have achieved this with relatively small amounts of hydroelectricity, zero in South Australia. Given the political will, all three could reach 100% net renewables generation by 2030, as indeed two northern states of Germany have already done. The ‘net’ means that they trade some electricity with neighbours but on average will be at 100% renewables.

Computer simulations by several research groups – using real hourly wind, solar and demand data spanning several years – show that the Australian electricity system could be run entirely on renewable energy, with the main contributions coming from solar and wind. System reliability for 100% renewables will be maintained by a combination of storage, building excess generating capacity for wind and solar (which is cheap), key transmission links, and demand management encouraged by transparent pricing.

Storage to fill infrequent troughs in generation from the variable renewable sources will comprise existing hydro, pumped hydro (mostly small-scale and off-river), and batteries. Geographic dispersion of renewables will also assist managing the variability of wind and solar. For the possibility of rare, extended periods of Dunkelflaute (literally ‘dark doldrums’), gas turbines with stores of biofuels or green hydrogen could be kept in reserve as insurance.

Myth: Gas can fill the gap until nuclear is constructed

As a fuel for electricity generation, fossil gas in eastern Australia is many times more expensive per kilowatt-hour than coal. It is only used for fuelling gas turbines for meeting the peaks in demand and helping to fill troughs. For this purpose, it contributes about 5% of Australia’s annual electricity generation. But, as storage expands, fossil gas will become redundant in the electricity system.

The fact that baseload gas-fired electricity continues temporarily in Western Australia and South Australia is the result of peculiar histories that will not be repeated. Unlike the eastern states, WA has a Domestic Gas Reservation Policy that insulates customers from the high export prices of gas.

However, most new gas supplies would have to come from high-cost unconventional sources. South Australia’s ancient, struggling, baseload, gas-fired power station, Torrens Island, produces expensive electricity. It will be closed in 2026 and replaced with renewables and batteries.

Myth: Nuclear energy can co-exist with large contributions from renewables

This myth has two refutations:

  1. Nuclear is too inflexible in operation to be a good partner for variable wind and solar. Its very high capital cost necessitates running it constantly, not just during periods of low sun or wind. Its output can only be ramped up and down slowly, and it’s expensive to do that.
  3. On current growth trends of renewables, there will be no room for nuclear energy in South Australia, Victoria or NSW. The 2022 shares of renewables in total electricity generation in each of these states were 74%, 37% and 33% respectively.

  1. Rapid growth from these levels is likely. It’s already too late for nuclear in SA. Provided the growth of renewables is not deliberately suppressed in NSW and Victoria, these states too could reach 100% renewables before the first nuclear power station comes online.

As transportation and combustion heating will be electrified, demand for electricity could double by 2050. This might offer generating space for nuclear in the 2040s in Queensland (23% renewables in 2022) and Western Australia (20% renewables in 2022). However, the cost barrier would remain.

Myth: There is insufficient land for wind and solar

The claim by nuclear proponents that wind and solar have “vast land footprints” is misleading. Although a wind farm can span a large area, its turbines, access road and substation occupy a tiny fraction of that area, typically about 2%.

Most wind farms are built on land that was previously cleared for agriculture and are compatible with all forms of agriculture. Off-shore wind occupies no land.

Solar farms are increasingly being built sufficiently high off the ground to allow sheep to graze beneath them, providing welcome shade. This practice, known as agrivoltaics, provides additional farm revenue, which is especially valuable during droughts. Rooftop solar occupies no land.

Myth: The longer lifetime of nuclear reactors hasn’t been taken into account

The levelised cost of energy method – used by CSIRO, AEMO, Lazard and others –  is the standard way of comparing electricity generation technologies that perform similar functions.

It permits the comparison of coal, nuclear and firmed renewables. It takes account automatically of the different lifetimes of different technologies.

Myth: We need baseload power stations

The recent claim that nuclear energy is not very expensive “when we consider value” is just a variant of the old, discredited claim that we need baseload power stations, i.e. those that operate 24/7 at maximum power output for most of the time.

The renewable system, including storage, delivers the same reliability, and hence the same value, as the traditional system based on a mix of baseload and peak-load power stations.

When a nuclear power reactor breaks down, it can be useless for weeks or months. For a conventional large reactor rated at 1000 to 1600 megawatts, the impact of breakdown on electricity supply can be disastrous.

Big nuclear needs big back-up, which is expensive. Small modular reactors do not exist––not one is commercially available or likely to be in the foreseeable future.

Concluding remarks

We do not need expensive, dangerous nuclear power, or expensive, polluting fossil gas. A nuclear scenario would inevitably involve the irrational suppression of renewables.

The ban on nuclear power should be maintained because nuclear never competes in a so-called ‘free market’. Renewables – solar, wind and existing hydro – together with energy efficiency, can supply all Australia’s electricity.

Mark Diesendorf is Honorary Associate Professor at the Environment & Society Group in the School of Humanities & Languages and Faculty of Arts, Design & Architecture at UNSW. First published in Pearls and Irritations. Republished with permission of the author.

July 5, 2024 Posted by | renewable, spinbuster | Leave a comment

When it comes to power, solar is about to leave nuclear and everything else in the shade

In Australia, solar is pushing down prices

Australia’s energy market operator says record generation from grid-scale renewables and rooftop solar is pushing down wholesale electricity prices.

Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University July 2, 2024  https://theconversation.com/when-it-comes-to-power-solar-is-about-to-leave-nuclear-and-everything-else-in-the-shade-233644

Opposition leader Peter Dutton might have been hoping for an endorsement from economists for his plan to take Australian nuclear.

He shouldn’t expect one from The Economist.

The Economist is a British weekly news magazine that has reported on economic thinking and served as a place for economists to exchange views since 1843.

By chance, just three days after Dutton announced plans for seven nuclear reactors he said would usher in a new era of economic prosperity for Australia, The Economist produced a special issue, titled Dawn of the Solar Age.

Whereas nuclear power is barely growing, and is shrinking as a proportion of global power output, The Economist reported solar power is growing so quickly it is set to become the biggest source of electricity on the planet by the mid-2030s.

By the 2040s – within this next generation – it could be the world’s largest source of energy of any kind, overtaking fossil fuels like coal and oil.

Solar’s off-the-charts global growth

Installed solar capacity is doubling every three years, meaning it has grown tenfold in the past ten years. The Economist says the next tenfold increase will be the equivalent of multiplying the world’s entire fleet of nuclear reactors by eight, in less time than it usually takes to build one of them.

To give an idea of the standing start the industry has grown from, The Economist reports that in 2004 it took the world an entire year to install one gigawatt of solar capacity (about enough to power a small city). This year, that’s expected to happen every day.

Energy experts didn’t see it coming. The Economist includes a chart showing that every single forecast the International Energy Agency has made for the growth of the growth of solar since 2009 has been wrong. What the agency said would take 20 years happened in only six.

The forecasts closest to the mark were made by Greenpeace – “environmentalists poo-pooed for zealotry and economic illiteracy” – but even those forecasts turned out to be woefully short of what actually happened.

And the cost of solar cells has been plunging in the way that costs usually do when emerging technologies become mainstream.

The Economist describes the process this way:

As the cumulative production of a manufactured good increases, costs go down. As costs go down, demand goes up. As demand goes up, production increases – and costs go down further.

Normally, this can’t continue. In earlier energy transitions – from wood to coal, coal to oil, and oil to gas – it became increasingly expensive to find fuel.

But the main ingredient in solar cells (apart from energy) is sand, for the silicon and the glass. This is not only the case in China, which makes the bulk of the world’s solar cells, but also in India, which is short of power, blessed by sun and sand, and which is manufacturing and installing solar cells at a prodigious rate.

Solar easy, batteries more difficult

Batteries are more difficult. They are needed to make solar useful after dark and they require so-called critical minerals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt (which Australia has in abundance).

But the efficiency of batteries is soaring and the price is plummeting, meaning that on one estimate the cost of a kilowatt-hour of battery storage has fallen by 99% over the past 30 years.

In the United States, plans are being drawn up to use batteries to transport solar energy as well as store it. Why build high-voltage transmission cables when you can use train carriages full of batteries to move power from the remote sunny places that collect it to the cities that need it?

Solar’s step change

The International Energy Agency is suddenly optimistic. Its latest assessment released in January says last year saw a “step change” in renewable power, driven by China’s adoption of solar. In 2023, China installed as much solar capacity as the entire world did in 2022.

The world is on track to install more renewable capacity over the next five years than has ever been installed over the past 100 years, something the agency says still won’t be enough to get to net-zero emissions by 2050.

That would need renewables capacity to triple over the next five years, instead of more than doubling.

Oxford University energy specialist Rupert Way has modelled a “fast transition” scenario, in which the costs of solar and other new technologies keep falling as they have been rather than as the International Energy Agency expects.

He finds that by 2060, solar will be by far the world’s biggest source of energy, exceeding wind and green hydrogen and leaving nuclear with an infinitesimally tiny role.

In Australia, solar is pushing down prices

Australia’s energy market operator says record generation from grid-scale renewables and rooftop solar is pushing down wholesale electricity prices.

South Australia and Tasmania are the states that rely on renewables the most. They are the two states with the lowest wholesale electricity prices outside Victoria, whose prices are very low because of its reliance on brown coal.

It is price – rather than the environment – that most interests The Economist. It says when the price of something gets low people use much, much more of it.

As energy gets really copious and all but free, it will be used for things we can’t even imagine today. The Economist said to bet against that is to bet against capitalism.

July 4, 2024 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, renewable | Leave a comment

“They just fit in with what we do:” Australian farmers reap rewards as they play host to wind and solar

ReNewEconomy Liv Casben, Jun 29, 2024

Renewables in agriculture are gaining momentum across the nation as Australia pushes to reach its net-zero emissions target by 2050.

Australia’s energy market operator has declared renewables as the most cost-effective way of reaching net-zero targets in the grid, but just how much of the load will be carried by the farming sector remains unclear.

Across pockets of the nation, farmers are already doing their bit to reduce their carbon footprint.

“Anecdotally, we have seen a huge increase in farmers seeking renewables projects as farmers seek to increase the productivity of their farms,” Farmers for Climate Action’s Natalie Collard told AAP.

“Renewables offer drought-proof income, and drought-proof income keeps farms going through the toughest of times.”

The Lee family has farmed at Glenrowan West for 150 years, but for the past three years they’ve also added solar to the mix.

A German-based company leases the land from the Lees and maintains the solar panels, which run alongside the sheep farming operation.

“The lessee basically runs it just as another paddock, the sheep go in just as they would under any other farming operation,” Gayle Lee said. “We haven’t found there to be any noticeable loss of production.”

……………………………………………………. Karin Stark, who will host the annual Renewables in Agriculture conference in Toowoomba next week, says consultation is key to farmers playing a “critical role” in the renewables transition and keeping everyone happy…………… more https://reneweconomy.com.au/they-just-fit-in-with-what-we-do-farmers-reap-rewards-as-they-play-host-to-wind-and-solar/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0qML5s3XgsQ3EZd5pJl15CdGXQ60-BC3TLkIVpcaWkgLsBSarHkHoPUYI_aem_OC5kzgz0cTiwWtnLVva56A

July 3, 2024 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, renewable | Leave a comment

Big Tech is turning to nuclear power because it needs more energy for AI

Amazon Web Services is reportedly making a deal for electricity from a nuclear power plant

By Britney Nguyen,  https://qz.com/big-tech-nuclear-power-plants-ai-energy-electricity-1851569796 2 July 24

The generative artificial intelligence boom has led to a massive demand for electricity — and tech companies are turning to nuclear power to feed it.

A third of nuclear power plants in the U.S. are discussing deals with tech companies to supply electricity for data centers powering leading AI models, The Wall Street Journal reports. The Journal, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, reports that Amazon Web Services is closing in on a deal for electricity from Constellation Energy, the largest owner of nuclear power plants in the country. The Amazon subsidiary bought a nuclear-powered data center from Talen Energy in March for $650 million. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As tech companies race to develop larger, more powerful AI models, the overwhelming demand for electricity to power the technology could eventually slow down the race. In April, Ami Badani, chief marketing officer of the chip design firm Arm, said data centers currently make up 2% of global energy consumption. With the rapid growth of AI, Badani predicted that energy consumption from the industry could make up a fourth of all power use in the U.S. by the end of the decade.

“We won’t be able to continue the advancements of AI without addressing power,” Badani said. “ChatGPT requires 15 times more energy than a traditional web search.”

By 2030, data centers could consume up to 9% of electricity in the U.S. — more than double what is being used now, according to the Electric Power Research Institute.

In April, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman was among investors in Exowatt, a startup developing modules that store energy as heat and produce electricity for AI data centers. The startup raised $20 million in a round that also included venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

July 3, 2024 Posted by | ENERGY | Leave a comment

Why we are heading for a globally connected electricity system based on renewable energy

renewable globalism is coming, so home-sited renewables are needed to protect British energy security

DAVID TOKE, JUN 21, 2024,  https://davidtoke.substack.com/p/why-we-are-heading-for-a-globally

Slowly but surely the world is creeping towards global interconnection. That could make a global 100 per cent renewable energy system work a lot better. There would be reductions in the amount of storage needed and consequent reductions in cost. That is what academics are saying, including work done by electrical engineers based at the University of Birmingham (UK). Put simply, different parts of the world could power each other at different times of the day and night.

Solar power will become the dominant energy source. As Professor Christian Breyer says: ‘yes, solar & battery will be the central backbone of global energy supply, even more so in the sunbelt where two-third of world population live’. ‘Globalism’ will rule the electricity delivery system. Globalism already exists in the form of the international oil, and increasingly, natural gas industry. However, now with the development of HVDC transmission systems which minimise grid-based power losses, electricity can be transported efficiently over very great distances.

But the incremental march of international electricity interconnections is gradually pushing us in the direction of a global electricity system. It is happening incrementally. A new globalism based on renewable energy has great advantages, according to academics who have modelled the concept.

Of course, we should strive for energy security in the UK. This means wind power especially in the UK, supplemented by as much solar power as we can generate. Other renewable energy resources are potentially substantial in the UK. This includes geothermal energy, tidal stream energy and wave power, all of which are in greater or lesser stages of development. Of course the more renewables are deployed in the UK, the more we shall be able to profit from international trading in renewable energy.

As I say in my recently published book ‘Energy Revolutions’ (pages 36-37):

‘One interesting approach is to imagine providing 100 per cent of energy from renewables in the context of a globally interconnected electricity system. This would have the advantage of connecting areas where it is daytime with areas where it is night, as well as more and less windy zones. In recent decades, new engineering solutions for interconnection involving high-voltage direct current have emerged. These allow the possibility of (economically) transmitting electricity across thousands of miles while minimising electricity losses. A group of researchers has modelled the possibilities for a global system to provide 100%RE. They concluded that, compared to systems that are not globally interconnected, a globally interconnected system would reduce storage costs for 100%RE by 50 per cent and reduce the costs by 20 per cent.’

Incremental progress towards global interconnection is happening. I’m not necessarily talking about much-publicised plans to connect up the UK directly with solar pv from North Africa – that may or may not happen in some form or other sometime in the future – and perhaps never at all in a direct sense. Really, discussion of plans like that trivialises discussion about increasing international links in electricity supply.

What I am rather talking about, for the moment are the plans, which have begun to be implemented, to connect up North Africa and with southern Europe. Developments like that could lead to greater linkage of British electricity systems. On the one hand, British international electricity interconnection with the continent of Europe is expanding and on the other hand, African interconnection with European states is also occurring. But this will be indirect, rather than direct, connections between the UK and Africa.

The latest incremental change in the progress towards completion of the interconnector between Crete and Attica. Meanwhile, the European Commission is offering financial backing to interconnector projects between Italy and Tunisia, one between Egypt and Greece, and another between Greece, Cyprus and Israel. This programme runs parallel with the European Commission target that member states should have interconnections worth at least 15 per cent of their national electricity consumption by 2015.

The UK, if anything, is expanding rather faster than this, with the bulk of our current (9.8 GW) of international interconnector capacity having been commissioned since 2010. According to OFGEM new international interconnectors are set to increase this capacity by over 50 per cent by 2030. These are all projects with our neighbours: Norway, Ireland, Denmark, France, Germany and Belgium.

Of course we are still some way off having a globally interconnected system. However the spread of renewable energy which is building up to an astonishingly rapid rate is turbocharging the growth of interconnectors. This is because the variable nature of renewable energy encourages greater interconnection.

Globalism is slowly happening in electricity interconnection, perhaps not through dramatic direct projects, but gradually. Britain has a stake in this in that it can export renewable energy production, thus reducing excess renewable energy production. We should continue our practice of issuing fixed price contracts for renewable energy to enure that UK consumers get a good deal. But a global system of interconnection will reduce the need to store so much energy because it can import excess renewable energy from other places – perhaps places which are thousands of miles away.

June 22, 2024 Posted by | renewable | Leave a comment

We’ve barely scratched the surface of how energy efficiency can help the energy transition

SWITCHEDON Anne Delaney, SwitchedOn Editor, June 24

Amory Lovins, ‘the Einstein of energy efficiency,’ says energy efficiency is a continuous spectrum that keeps rapidly evolving, and better design is twice as efficient as the gains from just dropping fossil fuels.

Amory Lovins has been writing and talking about energy efficiency for over 50 years but he says the need to use energy more productively and efficiently is now more acute than ever.

At the same time, the scope for saving energy is also bigger than ever.

Lovins’ views have been crucial to our understanding of energy efficiency. He’s advised major firms and numerous governments, authored hundreds of papers and books, and taught at several universities most recently Stanford. Time magazine named him one of the world’s most influential people.

“We’ve barely scratched the surface of how much efficiency is available,” Lovins told the SwitchedOn podcast. “It’s about two to four times what I thought in the 70s, and as we learn more about it, especially what we can do with design, the potential just keeps getting bigger and cheaper.”

Whilst enormous gains have been made in energy efficiency through better operational practices and technical improvements – turning off appliances, insulating, plugging cracks and gaps, etc – Lovins says that energy efficiency is a continuous spectrum that keeps rapidly evolving.

He believes the key to better efficiency now is better design.

“What we haven’t yet really tackled is how to design buildings, factories, processes, equipment, vehicles, as whole systems for multiple benefits. That’s what we call integrative design,” says Lovins. “That is twice as powerful as the factor two or three efficiency gains that we can get just by switching from burning fossil fuels.”

In 1976 Lovins predicted that over the next 50 years, the US could nearly quadruple overall energy efficiency, but by 2010 in a study he called ‘Reinventing Fire,’ he found the savings were twice what he’d previously thought, but at a third of the cost.

“That’s now looking conservative as we learn more about integrative design…. the current evidence shows you could about quintuple end use efficiency by about 2060, or treble it by about 2040.”

A passive solar house in the middle of Colorado

Lovins has been walking the talk on integrative design for decades. In the 1980s he built a passive solar house, and banana farm, from where he spoke to the SwitchedOn podcast.

“It’s 2,200 metres up in the Rocky Mountains near Aspen, Colorado, where temperatures used to dip to minus 44 Celsius … and yet in the middle of the house, we’ve harvested so far 81 passive solar banana crops with no heating system.”

Lovins says it was cheaper to build his passive solar house, even 40 years ago, rather than a standard American home, because they saved on construction costs by not building a heating system.

“We optimised the building as a system, not the insulation as a component.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Making energy efficiency great again

Energy efficiency has been regarded as the poor cousin of renewable technology, which is more likely to grab the headlines in stories about the energy transition.

“Energy is invisible and the energy you don’t use is almost unimaginable,” says Lovins. “So even though in the US the energy savings since 1975 add up to 25 times more than the increase in renewable supply, the renewables get practically all the headlines, because you can see them there on the rooftop and the skyline.”

Thinking about energy efficiency is also hampered by a belief that we can’t get more efficient, that “we must already have wrung out all the work from our energy that’s worth doing.”


The growing electrification movement is however enabling many more people to realise the importance of efficiency gains – it’s unlocking people’s understanding that what makes these electrification technologies superior is their greater energy efficiency.

“We see it with electric vehicles that are two to four times more efficient than the internal combustion engine, and the heat pump that is three to four times more efficient,” Daan Walter, Principle of Strategy at RMI (the Rocky Mountain Institute), told the SwitchedOn podcast.

Walter argues that electrification is the gateway into efficiency thinking – by encouraging us to move away from just thinking about the upfront costs of appliances, it provides an opportunity to change the narrative about efficiency……………………………………………………………………………………..

You can hear the full interview with Amory Lovins and Daan Walter on the SwitchedOn podcast here.  https://switchedon.reneweconomy.com.au/content/weve-barely-scratched-the-surface-of-how-energy-efficiency-can-help-the-energy-transition

June 18, 2024 Posted by | ENERGY | Leave a comment

Surging Renewables Push French Energy Prices Negative, Shutting Down Nuclear Plants

by Rahul Kumar, June 15, 2024, in Business and Finance,  https://theubj.com/business/surging-renewables-push-french-energy-prices-negative-shutting-down-nuclear-plants/

French energy prices recently plunged into negative territory, reaching a four-year low of -€5.76 per megawatt-hour in an Epex Spot auction, Bloomberg reported. This unusual occurrence was driven by an excess of renewable energy production combined with reduced demand, particularly over the weekend. The surplus in renewable power led to some French nuclear plants going offline.

Renewable Energy Surge and Market Impact

The drop in day-ahead energy prices underscores the profound impact that renewable energy, particularly wind and solar power, is having on the European energy market. As renewable energy production surged, especially during periods of low demand, it created an oversupply that forced prices down. This imbalance pressured Electricité de France (EDF), the state-owned utility company, to temporarily shut down several nuclear reactors to avoid generating excess power that could not be sold profitably. Initially, three nuclear plants were halted, with plans to take three more offline.

A Pan-European Issue

This phenomenon is not isolated to France. Other European countries, including Spain and those in the Scandinavian region, also experience similar shutdowns of nuclear reactors due to excess renewable energy generation. The continent’s push to decarbonize energy grids has accelerated the deployment of renewable infrastructure. However, the lack of adequate battery technology and investment to store surplus energy has created pricing inefficiencies, leading to occurrences of negative prices.

Germany’s Experience

Germany, a leader in renewable energy adoption, has also faced negative energy prices. SEB Research reported in May that solar power generation in Germany had outpaced demand, leading to similar pricing challenges. Despite these issues, Germany has been more aggressive in its rollout of renewable energy compared to France. This aggressive approach has helped Germany mitigate some of the market inefficiencies seen in France.

France’s Renewable Energy Rollout

In contrast, France’s rollout of renewable energy has been slower. Paris has installed around 45 gigawatts of wind and solar capacity, which is behind the targets set by the European Commission. The slower adoption rate has contributed to the country’s struggle to balance its energy supply and demand efficiently.

Political and Economic Implications

The political landscape in France could further impact the renewable energy sector. The far-right National Rally party, which is poised to make significant gains in upcoming domestic elections, has pledged to slash renewable subsidies and halt the expansion of the wind power industry. Such political developments could slow down the already modest pace of France’s renewable energy rollout, potentially leading to more significant market inefficiencies and continued reliance on traditional energy sources.

Broader Challenges

The situation in France highlights the broader challenges associated with transitioning to renewable energy. While the shift towards cleaner energy is essential for reducing carbon emissions and combating climate change, it also necessitates advancements in energy storage solutions and a more balanced energy mix to ensure market stability and efficiency. Without these advancements, countries may continue to experience negative pricing and the associated operational challenges.

Conclusion

The recent plunge into negative energy prices in France due to an oversupply of renewable energy underscores the complex dynamics of the modern energy market. As Europe continues to push towards decarbonization, the need for robust energy storage solutions and strategic market management becomes increasingly critical. The experiences of France and other European countries serve as a reminder of the growing pains associated with the global shift towards sustainable energy.

June 17, 2024 Posted by | EUROPE, renewable | Leave a comment

Farmers who graze sheep under solar panels say it improves productivity. So why don’t we do it more?

Guardian, by Aston Brown, 14 June 24

Allowing livestock to graze under renewable developments gives farmers a separate income stream, but solar developers have been slow to catch on.As a flock of about 2,000 sheep graze between rows of solar panels, grazier Tony Inder wonders what all the fuss is about. “I’m not going to suggest it’s everyone’s cup of tea,” he says. “But as far as sheep grazing goes, solar is really good.”

Inder is talking about concerns over the encroachment of prime agricultural land by ever-expanding solar and windfarms, a well-trodden talking point for the loudest opponents to Australia’s energy transition.

But on Inder’s New South Wales property, a solar farm has increased wool production. It is a symbiotic relationship that the director of the National Renewables in Agriculture Conference, Karin Stark, wants to see replicated across as many solar farms as possible as Australia’s energy grid transitions away from fossil fuels.

“It’s all about farm diversification,” Stark says. “At the moment a lot of us farmers are reliant on when it’s going to rain, having solar and wind provides this secondary income.”

In exchange, the panels provide shelter for the sheep, encourage healthier pasture growth under the shade of the panels and create “drip lines” from condensation rolling off the face of the panels.

“We had strips of green grass right through the drought,” Dubbo sheep grazier Tom Warren says. Warren has seen a 15% rise in wool production due to a solar farm installed on his property more than seven years ago.

Despite these success stories, a 2023 Agrivoltaic Resource Centre report authored by Stark found that solar grazing is under utilised in Australia because developers, despite saying they intend to host livestock, make few planning adjustments to ensure that happens……………………………………………………………………………….

According to an analysis by the Clean Energy Council, less than 0.027% of land used for agriculture production would be needed to power the east coast states with solar projects – far less than the one-third of all prime agricultural land that the rightwing thinktank the Institute of Public Affairs has claimed will be “taken over” by renewables. That argument, which has been heavily refuted by experts, has been taken up by the National party, whose leader, David Littleproud, said regional Australia had reached saturation point with renewable energy developments.

Queensland grazier and the chair of the Future Farmers Network, Caitlin McConnel, has sold electricity to the grid from a dozen custom-built solar arrays on her farm’s cattle pastures for more than a decade.

“Trial and error” and years of modifications have made them structurally sound around cattle and financially viable in the long-term, she says.

“As far as I know, we are the only farm to do solar with cattle,” McConnel says. “It’s good land, so why would we just lock it up just for solar panels?”  https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jun/13/farmers-who-graze-sheep-under-solar-panels-say-it-improves-productivity-so-why-dont-we-do-it-more

June 15, 2024 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, renewable | Leave a comment

Are the prospects for Small Modular Reactors being exaggerated? Five key characteristics examined

June 11, 2024 by Ed Lyman, Ed Lyman is Director, Nuclear Power Safety, at the Union of Concerned Scientists

Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are being presented as the next generation of nuclear technology. While traditional plants face cost overruns and safety issues, SMRs are seen by their champions as cheaper, safer, and faster to deploy. But Ed Lyman at UCS cites evidence that cast these claims into doubt.

In five sections of this article, he lists the reasons why. SMRs are not more economical than large reactors. SMRs are not generally safer or more secure than traditional large light-water reactors. SMRs will not reduce the problem of disposal of radioactive waste. SMRs cannot be counted on to provide reliable and resilient off-the-grid power (for facilities like data centres, bitcoin mining, hydrogen or petrochemical production). SMRs do not use fuel more efficiently than large reactors.

And where problems might be ironed out over time, the learning cycle of such technology is measured in decades during which costs will remain very high. SMRs may have a role to play in our energy future, says Lyman, but only if they are sufficiently safe and secure, along with a realistic understanding of their costs and risks.

Even casual followers of energy and climate issues have probably heard about the alleged wonders of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). This is due in no small part to the “nuclear bros”: an active and seemingly tireless group of nuclear power advocates who dominate social media discussions on energy by promoting SMRs and other “advanced” nuclear technologies as the only real solution for the climate crisis. But as I showed in my 2013 and 2021 reports, the hype surrounding SMRs is way overblown, and my conclusions remain valid today.

Unfortunately, much of this SMR happy talk is rooted in misinformation, which always brings me back to the same question: if the nuclear bros have such a great SMR story to tell, why do they have to exaggerate so much?

What are SMRs?

SMRs are nuclear reactors that are “small” (defined as 300 megawatts of electrical power or less), can be largely assembled in a centralised facility, and would be installed in a modular fashion at power generation sites. Some proposed SMRs are so tiny (20 megawatts or less) that they are called “micro” reactors. SMRs are distinct from today’s conventional nuclear plants, which are typically around 1,000 megawatts and were largely custom-built. Some SMR designs, such as NuScale, are modified versions of operating water-cooled reactors, while others are radically different designs that use coolants other than water, such as liquid sodium, helium gas, or even molten salts.

To date, however, theoretical interest in SMRs has not translated into many actual reactor orders. The only SMR currently under construction is in China. And in the United States, only one company — TerraPower, founded by Microsoft’s Bill Gates — has applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a permit to build a power reactor (but at 345 megawatts, it technically isn’t even an SMR).

The nuclear industry has pinned its hopes on SMRs primarily because some recent large reactor projects, including Vogtle units 3 and 4 in the state of Georgia, have taken far longer to build and cost far more than originally projected. The failure of these projects to come in on time and under budget undermines arguments that modern nuclear power plants can overcome the problems that have plagued the nuclear industry in the past.

Developers in the industry and the US Department of Energy say that SMRs can be less costly and quicker to build than large reactors and that their modular nature makes it easier to balance power supply and demand. They also argue that reactors in a variety of sizes would be useful for a range of applications beyond grid-scale electrical power, including providing process heat to industrial plants and power to data centres, cryptocurrency mining operations, petrochemical production, and even electrical vehicle charging station

Here are five facts about SMRs that the nuclear industry and the “nuclear bros” who push its message don’t want you, the public, to know.

1. SMRs are not more economical than large reactors. 2. SMRs are not generally safer or more secure than large light-water reactors. 3. SMRs will not reduce the problem of what to do with radioactive waste. 4. SMRs cannot be counted on to provide reliable and resilient off-the-grid power for facilities, such as data centers, bitcoin mining, hydrogen or petrochemical production. 5. SMRs do not use fuel more efficiently than large reactors

Continue reading →

June 12, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, ENERGY, Reference, safety, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, wastes | Leave a comment

Nuclear power is ‘overblown’ as an energy source for data centers, power company CEO says

CNBC Spencer Kimball, MON, JUN 10

KEY POINTS

  • AES Corporation CEO Andrés Gluski said the “euphoria” over nuclear power has been a “little overblown.”
  • AES is a major power provider for large tech companies building out data centers, with more than 40% of its backlog coming from customers including Amazon, Microsoft and Google.
  • Gluski said renewables are the future, though natural gas will be needed as a transition fuel.

The euphoria over nuclear energy as a power source for data centers is “overblown,” the CEO of a major power provider for large tech companies told CNBC in an interview Monday.

AES Corporation CEO Andrés Gluski said renewable energy is the future, though natural gas will also play a role as a transition fuel. Nuclear power, on the other hand, faces challenges in meeting the growing power demand from data centers, Gluski said.

AES is a major power provider for large tech companies building out data centers, with more than 40% of its 12.7 gigawatt backlog coming from customers including Amazon, Microsoft and Google, according to its most recent earnings presentation to investors.

……………………Gluski said the “euphoria” over nuclear power is a “little overblown.” There is only so much existing nuclear energy that merchant power providers can re-contract to sites such as data centers, the CEO said.

“The question is, going forward, what’s the price of new nuclear,” Gluski said, adding that only one new nuclear plant has been built in the U.S. in decades and it came in far above budget.

‘The future is going to be renewable’

The second of two new nuclear reactors at Vogtle Plant in Georgia came online in April, but the project was seven years behind schedule and cost double the original projections, according to the Energy Information Administration. The reactors, operated by Georgia Power, are the first newly-constructed nuclear units built in the U.S. in more than 30 years, according to the Department of Energy.

……………………..Gluski pointed to the recent agreement between Microsoft and Brookfield Asset Management for 10.5 gigawatts of renewable energy between 2026 and 2030 as a sign of the future. Microsoft and Brookfield described the agreement as the largest renewable purchase ever between two corporate partners.

“It tells you that’s where most of the energy is going to be coming from,” Gluski said. “They are cheaper, they are clean and quite frankly easier to site, so the future is going to be renewable energy.”…………………………….

Solar, storage and wind represented about 95% of the power capacity in line waiting for connection to the grid at the end of 2023, while gas was just 3% and a grab bag made up the rest, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Renewables and storage in line for connection is nearly twice the installed capacity of the U.S. power plant fleet.

AES has already signed long-term contracts with data centers to provide them hourly matched renewable energy 24/7, Gluski said. “We’ve done that already for two years. So we can do that today,” he said.

AES signed an agreement with Google in 2021 to power its Virginia data center campus with 90% carbon-free energy on an hourly basis using a combination of wind, solar, hydro and battery storage resources.

The power company recently signed an agreement with Amazon for an additional gigawatt of solar and storage at a site in Kern County, California, bringing the project to a total of two gigawatts in a 15-year contract that is expected to come online in 2025 to 2026. AES has described the agreement as the largest solar and storage project in the U.S.

All told, the power company has signed agreements to provide Amazon with 3.1 gigawatts of power, Microsoft with 1.7 gigawatts, and Google with 800 megawatts, according to its first quarter earnings presentation.

“All of them want to be part of an energy transition,” Gluski said. “I don’t see anybody saying build me gas and coal plants to power my data centers, unless it’s a temporary situation, give me power from your gas plant until the renewables are available.”

AES stock is up 26% over the past three months and 6% year to date. Some 67% of Wall Street analysts rate AES the equivalent of a buy, 25% have a hold on the company’s stock and 8% rate it the equivalent of a sell.  https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/10/nuclear-is-overblown-as-energy-source-for-data-centers-aes-ceo-says.html

June 12, 2024 Posted by | ENERGY, USA | Leave a comment

Energy buffs give small modular reactors a gigantic reality check

John Ketchum, CEO of nuclear power firm NextEra, has even said SMRs were nothing but “an opportunity to lose money in smaller batches”

Before signing any contract for an SMR, just get a fixed price in writing. If a developer won’t agree to it, they probably don’t have faith in their own estimates.

Too expensive, slow, and risky for investors, and they’re taking focus off renewables, say IEEFA experts

Brandon Vigliarolo, Mon 3 Jun 2024 ,  https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/03/small_modular_reactor_criticism/
Miniature nuclear reactors promise a future filled with local, clean, safe zero-carbon energy, but those promises quickly melt when confronted with reality, say a pair of researchers.

Known as small modular reactors, or SMRs, miniaturized atomic power plants have been touted as a way to ensure the world meets climate change mitigation goals as fossil fuels are phased out in favor of renewables and nuclear sources.

With a few SMR projects built and operational at this point, and more plants under development, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) concludes in a report that SMRs are “still too expensive, too slow to build, and too risky to play a significant role in transitioning away from fossil fuels.”

IEEFA doesn’t have many data points to pull from, with only three SMRs actually online around the world – one in China and two in Russia. A fourth, in Argentina, is still under construction and perfectly illustrates the point IEEFA researchers try to make: It’s running far over cost and is facing budget constraints that could affect its future.

The other three SMRs have run into similar issues. They’ve all been way more expensive than initially agreed upon, and proposals for SMRs in the US face related issues, the report finds.

Per-kilowatt hour costs for SMRs proposed in the US by NuScale, the first company to receive US regulatory approval for SMRs, have more than doubled since 2015. Costs projected by X-Energy and GE-Hitachi for their SMRs have similarly risen since initial proposals.

In most cases, these costs are rising before the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has even given its approval, IEEFA notes.

Pick none: Fast, good, low risk

If the cost of an SMR were high but the risk low, or if construction were quick, it might be worth considering further development. The report finds that SMRs are neither cheap, quick, nor reliable.

Along with those costs, IEEFA research points out that none of the SMRs built so far have come anywhere close to meeting proposed construction timelines. The two Russian units were supposed to be built in three years, but both took 13. The Shidao Bay SMR in China was estimated as a four-year project but took 12, while the ongoing CAREM 25 in Argentina was also proposed as a four-year development but has so far taken 13.

Similarly optimistic construction estimates have consistently shown up in US SMR project development presentations,” the report notes. Without speed or value to rely on, one would hope that an SMR project was at least low risk, but that doesn’t appear to be the case either. 

Leaders at two nuclear power companies whose quotes are carried in the report “endorsed nuclear power in the abstract” as a way to transition away from fossil fuels, but both expressed concern over the investment risk.

John Ketchum, CEO of nuclear power firm NextEra, has even said SMRs were nothing but “an opportunity to lose money in smaller batches” at this point in time, which was cited in the report. Chris Womack, CEO at Southern Company, which recently finished building the first new US nuclear reactor this century, similarly expressed concerns about expanding his company’s nuclear portfolio.

Quit hogging the energy transition spotlight

The report’s data makes it seem like there’s not a lot going for SMRs, but “loud and persistent” advocates for the technology have managed to capture the spotlight anyway, say report authors David Schlissel, IEEFA director of resource planning analysis, and Dennis Wamsted, IEEFA energy analyst.

“A key argument from SMR proponents is that the new reactors will be economically competitive,” said Schlissel. “But the on-the-ground experience with the initial SMRs that have been built or that are currently under construction shows that this simply is not true.”

Meanwhile, all the time, energy, and money spent constructing SMRs is taking resources away from renewables that work, and would work now, the duo said. It’s also likely that, even though SMR operators intend their reactors to be complementary to other power sources on the grid, they’re far more likely to do the opposite, the report concludes – especially given the rise in construction costs and the need to break even.

“Developers bringing multibillion-dollar SMRs onto the electric grid would have every incentive to run them as much as possible,” the report surmises. “The less they run, the more their per megawatt-hour costs rise and the harder it will be for them to compete in the market.”

“Having invested billions, it is unlikely developers will willingly cycle their plants to accommodate renewables,” the report adds.

While some have predicted it might take a decade to get SMR technology to the point where it’s reliable, Schlissel and Wamsted believe the mini-reactors will continue to be too expensive, slow, and risky to play a reliable role in fossil fuel transition in the next 15 years. That said, developers are still going to push for the projects, so the pair reckon there’s a few things prospective buyers and investors should ensure – like crafting restrictions into contracts that prevent delays and risking costs from being pushed onto ratepayers.

Schlissel and Wamsted make several more recommendations for how to keep SMR projects from becoming too costly or blocking renewables, but the best one is the simplest: Before signing any contract for an SMR, just get a fixed price in writing. If a developer won’t agree to it, they probably don’t have faith in their own estimates.

Wamsted appears to have little faith SMR developers would agree to those terms.

“The comparison between building new SMRs and building renewable energy couldn’t be clearer,” Wamsted said of the pair’s recommendations. “Regulators, utilities, investors, and government officials should acknowledge this and embrace the available reality: Renewables are the near-term solution.”

June 5, 2024 Posted by | ENERGY, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

The ugly truth behind ChatGPT: AI is guzzling resources at planet-eating rates

Mariana Mazzucato, Mariana Mazzucato is professor of economics at UCL, and director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose,  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/30/ugly-truth-ai-chatgpt-guzzling-resources-environment

Big tech is playing its part in reaching net zero targets, but its vast new datacentres are run at huge cost to the environment.


hen you picture the tech industry, you probably think of things that don’t exist in physical space, such as the apps and internet browser on your phone. But the infrastructure required to store all this information – the physical datacentres housed in business parks and city outskirts – consume massive amounts of energy. Despite its name, the infrastructure used by the “cloud” accounts for more global greenhouse emissions than commercial flights. In 2018, for instance, the 5bn YouTube hits for the viral song Despacito used the same amount of energy it would take to heat 40,000 US homes annually.

This is a hugely environmentally destructive side to the tech industry. While it has played a big role in reaching net zero, giving us smart meters and efficient solar, it’s critical that we turn the spotlight on its environmental footprint. Large language models such as ChatGPT are some of the most energy-guzzling technologies of all. Research suggests, for instance, that about 700,000 litres of water could have been used to cool the machines that trained ChatGPT-3 at Microsoft’s data facilities. It is hardly news that the tech bubble’s self-glorification has obscured the uglier sides of this industry, from its proclivity for tax avoidance to its invasion of privacy and exploitation of our attention span. The industry’s environmental impact is a key issue, yet the companies that produce such models have stayed remarkably quiet about the amount of energy they consume – probably because they don’t want to spark our concern.

Google’s global datacentre and Meta’s ambitious plans for a new AI Research SuperCluster (RSC) further underscore the industry’s energy-intensive nature, raising concerns that these facilities could significantly increase energy consumption. Additionally, as these companies aim to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, they may opt to base their datacentres in regions with cheaper electricity, such as the southern US, potentially exacerbating water consumption issues in drier parts of the world. Before making big announcements, tech companies should be transparent about the resource use required for their expansion plans.

Furthermore, while minerals such as lithium and cobalt are most commonly associated with batteries in the motor sector, they are also crucial for the batteries used in datacentres. The extraction process often involves significant water usage and can lead to pollution, undermining water security. The extraction of these minerals are also often linked to human rights violations and poor labour standards. Trying to achieve one climate goal of limiting our dependence on fossil fuels can compromise another goal, of ensuring everyone has a safe and accessible water supply.

Moreover, when significant energy resources are allocated to tech-related endeavours, it can lead to energy shortages for essential needs such as residential power supply. Recent data from the UK shows that the country’s outdated electricity network is holding back affordable housing projects. This will only get worse as households move away from using fossil fuels and rely more on electricity, putting even more pressure on the National Grid. In Bicester, for instance, plans to build 7,000 new homes were paused because the electricity network didn’t have enough capacity.

In an era where we expect businesses to do more than just make profits for their shareholders, governments need to evaluate the organisations they fund and partner with, based on whether their actions will result in concrete successes for people and the planet. In other words, policy needs to be designed not to pick sectors or technologies as “winners”, but to pick the willing by providing support that is conditional on companies moving in the right direction. Making disclosure of environmental practices and impacts a condition for government support could ensure greater transparency and accountability. Similar measures could promote corporate accountability in global mineral supply chains, enforcing greater human rights compliance.

In navigating the intersection of technological advancement and environmental sustainability, policymakers are facing the challenge of cultivating less extractive business models. This is not just about adopting a piecemeal approach; it’s about taking a comprehensive systematic view, empowering governments to build the needed planning and implementation capacity. Such an approach should eschew outdated top-down methods in favour of flexible strategies that integrate knowledge at all levels, from local to global. Only by adopting a holistic perspective can we effectively mitigate the significant environmental impacts of the tech industry.

Ultimately, despite the unprecedented wave of innovation since the 1990s, we have consistently overlooked the repercussions of these advances on the climate crisis. As climate scientists anticipate that global heating will exceed the 1.5C target, it’s time we approach today’s grand challenges systemically, so that the solution to one problem does not exacerbate another.

June 4, 2024 Posted by | ENERGY, technology | Leave a comment

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