Report: Plug-ins would increase CO2 emissions in England
It all keeps coming up dirty coalAre plug-in hybrids the key to global warming?
Absolutely not if coal is the source of plug-in electricity.
However, could coal-powered plug-in hybrids help reduce CO2 emissions as other clean technologies are added as power-generation sources?
That largely depends upon where one lives and a number of the factors, including whom you ask.
However, according to the UK's Environmental Transport Association, plug-in vehicles in England could actually "speed climate change" if coal is not replaced with alternative energy sources.
Labels: global warming, plug-in hybrids
posted by Dahcredyns at
12:00 PM
51 Comments:
Looks like another bullshit. No real figures, just we thing that ... Grid to wheel efficiency is really high. Though getting rid of coal stations is a good idea too.
It is all the matter of price. In my own country, we produce and consume about a trillion of 1kwh annually. Like US, about 50% comes from coal. It is possible to produce even twice as much using hydro, but the price will be higher. In addition, that would require huge upfront investments. So, we will continue burning coal for probably at least 50 years or so.
Thank you for keeping an eye out for these PHEV emissions studies.
I'm still trying to get a feel for where the balance of the evidence lies on the question of increasing or decreasing GHG emissions from PHEV's vs ICE.
I like this quote from another story on the EU report:
"The report argues that industry and policymakers have relied in the past on distant ‘dream’ technologies to solve environmental problems rather than setting targets for CO2 emissions and fuel efficiency. Hydrogen, biofuels, and earlier interest in electric cars all came to nothing for different reasons but what they have in common is that they all distracted policymakers from forcing carmakers to improve fuel efficiency across the board.
Jos Dings, director of Transport & Environment said: “The game for policymakers is cutting emissions and reducing our dependence on oil, not promoting electric cars. The EU must not take its eye off the ball again, and get distracted by technological hype. For electric cars to be a success for the environment, and for the industry, pressure on fuel efficiency and CO2 emissions for all cars must be kept up. Promoting electric cars without maintaining pressure on fuel efficiency standards, will kill any chance of success.”
The report also examines the implications of electric cars for the power sector. It argues that the EU needs to think hard about how it will ensure that the extra demand for electricity is met through renewable electricity and not more dirty coal. It notes that every car will need to be fitted with ‘smart meter’ technology to measure how much electricity is being consumed, and where that electricity came from."
That argues for the approach of mandating greater fuel efficiency and letting the car makers choose how to meet those standards.
Of course, CAFE in the US has been broken for a long time, so it is asking a lot to rely on CAFE to reduce our GHG emissions. But if we can fix the CAFE process it can really be a powerful tool.
So its a good thing that Britain is rapidly going nuclear!
Commenter #21 in the linked to thread, Good Cheer, has some really interesting numbers. In fact, he seems to almost exactly answer the question I've been thinking about:
Here's the thread:
http://green.autoblog.com/2009/11/11/eta-says-plug-in-cars-could-speed-climate-change-unless-we-get/2#comments
And here's his comment:
"#21
GoodCheer
11:30am (11/12/2009)
'Not to mention, BEVs plug-in at night and often utilize base load power that would otherwise be wasted completely.'
Power is not wasted, only generation capacity is wasted (ie, generation facilities sit idle).
For the rest of this thread, accurate and reliable answers to these question exist in data provided by the EIA. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/contents.html
In Table 8.2b of that document, the EIA gives the net electricity generation by fuel in the US. In Table 12.3 the CO2 production by industry and fuel is given (one of the industries is 'electrical sector'). From those two tables we can find that in the US. The generation of 1 kWh of electricity by...
coal releases 990 gCO2
natural gas releases 462 gCO2
petroleum releases 1071 gCO2 (that one surprised me.. worse than coal!)
US grid mix releases 585 gCO2
Transmission losses are given in Figure 8.0 (look for 'T&D Losses' vs. 'Net Generation', as about 8.5%.
EVs consume about 250 Wh(out of the battery)/mile.
If charging is 90% efficient (as ours is), then they consume about 278 Wh(out of the plug)/mile.
If T&D is 90% efficient, then they consume about 310 Wh(generated)/mile
So EVs 'emit' (via the 'long tailpipe')
306 gCO2/mile powered on coal
143 gCO2/mile powered on NG
181 gCO2/mile powered on the US grid mix.
In contrast, a gallon of gas releases about 9000 gCO2 when burned, so releases
360 gCO2/mile @ 25mpg
180 gCO2/mile @ 50mpg
So EVs charged on the US grid mix have about the same carbon footprint as the new Prius."
I also liked the next comment that talked a little about overnight charging capacity:
"#22
Turbofrog
11:41am (11/12/2009)
Good info, that basically corroborates the rest of the thread in a more quantitative fashion.
(For the record, depending on where you are, sometimes power - not just capacity - is wasted. Ontario has a grid-mix in which 3/4 of the total power comes from nuclear and hydro, with nearly half of it being nuclear. You don't turn nuclear power plants off at night, so there is often considerably more electricity available than is being used)"
good posts, alcatholic.
still, the comments you cite still raise issues, as they assume perfect world scenarios.
in a perfect world coal-powered plug-ins can be effective - at least in america, not china for instance - but there are many assumptions being made.
the real world always dictates that almost nothing ever goes as planned, and confounding variables inevitably arise. even something as crazy as civil war in bolivia, for instance, could have a big impact on plug-in production.
i think the point the report tries to make is to not throw all your eggs in one basket and one solution.
even if plug-ins are the perfect world solution in terms of CO2 emissions, there are still some very serious cost-issues, for instance, that need to be resolved, and which might take decades to resolve.
too often we've put off until tomorrow what can be done today in the name of some bigger, though unproven, technology. the us auto industry was able to keep update to cafe off the table for decades in the name of fuel cells.
certainly, plug-ins are different, but they do raise issues that should be taken seriously.
look at bob lutz's comments about the Volt, for instance. lutz doesn't believe for a second that plug-ins are taking over the market any time soon. in fact, not for decades.
in my opinion, 10 percent EV penetration shouldn't be an excuse to continue the production of other large gas-guzzlers, for instance.
there is no doubt that many automakers are touting EVs as a distraction from the reality of just how polluting and inefficient their entire fleets are.
we can do something about that as plug-ins are being developed.
you don't turn off Nukes but you can power them down...
I don't know if this is a dup but take a look here
http://gas2.org/2008/04/28/coal-power-cant-stop-plug-in-hybrids-from-beating-normal-cars/
looks like it sort of confirms that he power source for PHEVs is the issue.
so perhaps a defining question to ask folks is - if you had to choose - what is more important - less GHG or less dependence on foreign oil.
I know.. I'm sooooo bad for asking this question.
larry-
while i think the co2 emissions of plug-in hybrids are an important issue, a temporary increase wouldn't bother me that much if it meant ending foreign oil dependence.
minimally, just from OPEC shipping lane security costs - NO WAR costs - we'd save many billions every year that could be directed towards cleaning energy production.
still, all of that will, without any doubt, take decades.
thus, as the report seems to suggest, we should probably be more goal-focused in terms of policy and let industrial innovators figure out how to reach those goals.
letting the auto industry largely dictate to policy makers how the future must unfold seems very unreliable and not conducive to real out of the box thinking.
I'm not sure about the Mideast Oil / War costs.
We'll never abandon that area as long as we feel Israel is threatened.
I think it's not realistic to assume savings from not "warring" in general anyhow.
As long as we have a worldwide bluewater Navy ... and strategic interests... we're going to be spending money on DOD.
I'm not convinced that we are, in fact, spending a bunch of money on protecting our "oil" interests anyhow.
but even beyond that.. is it the money we spend ostensibly in protecting our oil interests - the issue?
Let's say for the same of argument that we decide to convert our cars to natural gas since we have a domestic supply - and that, in the process, we actually would save money by not having to have as much military "over there".
How would that money saving translate into less pollution?
I'm not sure I follow...
i'm not including any warring costs.
it costs about $10 billion a year, and that's probably a conservative estimate, just for the coast guard and navy to secure oil tanker shipping lanes out of the gulf according to my sources.
that's not the cost of maintaining a presence in the Gulf to protect Israel, something i'm sure the US would continue to do with or withou oil.
without oil, however, we could protect isreal for much less money.
still, in terms of that money, or via natural gas, etc., it doesn't translate into less CO2, although natural gas would reduce CO2 independently.
the point is, that money could be made available for such a purpose if we didn't have to fund oil tanker security.
thus, in response to your question, i'm suggesting that if the US made ending foreign oil dependency a national policy - a national goal - via plug-ins, for example, any pollution increases from coal-powered plug-ins could eventually be offset by the shipping lane cost savings.
add in the possibility of less warring, and the potential for even greater savings is possible.
" any pollution increases from coal-powered plug-ins could eventually be offset by the shipping lane cost savings."
okay.. this is the part I'm not getting
what would we be spending that saved money on that would reduce pollution?
solar, wind, carbon sequestration, co2 to fuel, etc. - whatever makes the grid cleaner.
Dahc,
I have looked through government figures. If we assume that all electricity produced by the grid is consumed, than this is definitely an increase in emissions. That is calculations seem to be correct: a plug-in connected to the grid have approximately the same emission levels as Toyota Prius. However, would the grid be powered ONLY BY coal emissions were higher.
On the positive side, we DO HAVE some excess electricity right now, and WE CAN easily increase production of renewable energy, which will certainly decrease overall emissions greatly.
You mean they'd spend that money instead of buying down the deficit?
You know this is a two step process.
1. - reduce DOD spending
2. - Congress decides to appropriate money for other things despite the deficit..
I dunno Dach.. this sounds like a stretch to me...
larry-
of course its a stretch, and we'll probably never have such a national goal. i'm simply claiming that such a national goal could make sense even if it meant a temporary bump up in co2 emissions.
and not only would we save money, but we'd create jobs and spend more in the US.
but, again, its a theory that almost assuredly will never be tested.
lb-
i agree with you.
ultimately, the grid is not a reason to slow the development of plug-ins.
still, i'd bet there will be far more problems with the grid than what most plug-in advocates want to admit to, but all can be overcome.
nonetheless, i think the report is a good reminder that policy makers should not be deciding that plug-ins are the solution to global warming, etc.
there is some tremendous research coming out of the alternative fuels segment, for instance, that demonstrates we might have multiple, clean and green solutions for fighting oil dependence and global warming.
by focusing more on goals and creating competition for achieving these goals, the better the chances we'll achieve our goals in a timely and efficient fashion.
Sure, the world is not ideal. However, the fact that coal -> wheel efficiency is actually lower than gasoline engine combined with electric motor is quite interesting. I always though that these coal turbines have well over 50% efficiency. In practice, they seem to be at most 60%!!! On average, probably, around 40-50. Which makes them equal to regular hybrids in terms of emissions.
unfortunately, there are other environmental problems with coal beyond CO2. still, there aren't going to be any perfect solutions for some time.
Well, it is true, but higher-then-expected emissions also mean that we cannot simply substitute something else, e.g. natural gas, for coal. We can, of course, but that will not help decrease CO2 emissions.
Sometimes I get confused reading here.
For instance, I probably misunderstand the impression I get that some feel that natural gas pollutes the same as coal and my knowledge says otherwise.
"Natural Gas vs Coal: Undoubtedly, high efficiency natural gas-fired power stations can produce up to 70% lower greenhouse gas emissions than existing brown coal-fired generators, and less than half the greenhouse gas emissions of the latest technology black coal-fired power stations. Notice the distinction between black and brown coal, however, exactly how much less CO2 also depends upon the type of gas-fired station."
http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/gas-vs-coal.html
so do we all agree here that natural gas is less polluting than coal?
Larry,
According to figures in http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2emiss.pdf your statement is correct.
For the most part I believe capitalism has served us well over the years but in this one instance we might just be considered slightly crazy by someone doing a cost benefit analysis.
This is the pollution from just ONE [1] coal burning power plant.
3,700,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary human cause of global warming; as much carbon dioxide as cutting down 161 million trees.
10,000 tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2), which causes acid rain that damages forests, lakes, and buildings, and forms small airborne particles that can penetrate deep into lungs.
500 tons of small airborne particles, which can cause chronic bronchitis, aggravated asthma, and premature death, as well as haze obstructing visibility.
10,200 tons of nitrogen oxide (NOX), as much as would be emitted by half a million late-model cars. NOX leads to formation of ozone (smog) which inflames the lungs, burning through lung tissue making people more susceptible to respiratory illness.
720 tons of carbon monoxide (CO), which causes headaches and place additional stress on people with heart disease.
220 tons of hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds (VOC), which form ozone.
170 pounds of mercury, where just 1/70th of a teaspoon deposited on a 25-acre lake can make the fish unsafe to eat.
225 pounds of arsenic, which will cause cancer in one out of 100 people who drink water containing 50 parts per billion.
114 pounds of lead, 4 pounds of cadmium, other toxic heavy metals, and trace amounts of uranium.
--------------------------------
Until we can find a ways to change the PROFIT MOTIVE it appears we will continue to live with coal as an energy source. What do you think? Does that make us the sharpest cheddar in the deli case?
Tom G.
I didn't really follow this thread, but I have been mulling over the implications of Good Cheers numbers.
1, it seems to me that CO2/mile is the bottom line number. It captures all upstream factors and is application to any type of transportation. It also gives a close approximation to all the pollution factors we want to look at. It doesn't look at foreign oil independence, but it can approximate that as well. Is that reasonable in everyone's eyes?
2, I think it is a very significant conclusion that the US grid mix produces electric car transportation with CO2/mile equivalent to 50 MPG cars like the Prius. Presumably the Volt has additional emissions to account for since it is not purely electric. Does this conclusion ring true?
Presumably the Volt has additional emissions to account for since it is not purely electric. Does this conclusion ring true
Well, assuming that Volt gasoline performance is in 40-50 mpg range, additional emissions will be also around 200 g per mile.
Good point, LB.
So, in terms of CO2, charge sustaining mode is about the same as pure electric mode. Interesting.
The only difference the two modes, then, would be foreign oil impact.
Funny, how the Volt numbers come out so improbably symmetrical.
Of course all this assumes the current US grid mix, and that Good Cheers numbers are good.
larry-
in terms of co2 emissions, there is no doubt that natural gas is better than coal. water contamination is probably the biggest worry with natural gas.
still, new technologies seem to suggest that most of that worry can be resolved. likewise, now that the sierra club has gotten behind natural gas, it really seems that issue has been contained.
nonetheless, i'd like to hear more of a well-rounded conversation on this topic. because if natural gas is as plentiful and clean as its supporters suggest, then it seems almost criminal not to take advantage of that resource.
that doesn't have to mean natural gas-guzzlers instead of plug-in vehicles, it could mean natural-gas powered plug-in vehicles.
it really bothers me that coal gets a free pass because most in the plug-in movement have already accepted it as a necessary evil to the end goal.
likewise, i've heard a lot of energy analysts claim that the obama admin made a lot of back door deals with the coal industry. certainly, natural gas isn't a long term solution, but it seems to offer a lot of potential when compared against coal. yet natural gas seems to be going nowhere fast.
that's why i believe this study is important.
if you listen to many plug-in advocates, they really believe that plug-ins and solar power are going to dominate in just another decade, maybe two at the most.
however, most analyst firms, university studies, etc, see between 20 and 30 percent hybrid and EV share by 2030, and that's mostly conventional hybrids, not plug-in hybrids and and EVs.
chances are, it's going to take decades for the plug-in revolution to fully take root.
yet, to me there seems to be a complete lack of realism in this conversation - not on this blog or conversation - but within the larger plug-in movement. if its not about plug-ins, then its not worth talking about to too many.
yet, where are the plug-in pickup trucks that have dominated US auto sales for the last 3 decades? how much will one of those cost? if a dual mode hybrid truck costs $50,000, the plug-in version will probably cost $70,000.
so why not think natural gas for these vehicles?
while there is no doubt that plug-ins will be an extremely important part of the mix, it is almost assuredly going to take decades to gain real traction in terms of cost-effectiveness and therefore production.
and once they gain traction we'll still have tens of millions of legacy gas-guzzlers to deal with.
plug-in potential is no excuse not to deal more aggressively with those issues today. and if natural gas can help along the way, i say put it on the table.
tom-
i'm with you on those coal worries. i kind of addressed them in my post to larry above.
profit margins. that is a key topic right there isn't it - not to sound like a bunch of socialists!? haha.
even worse, however, america too often seems driven by short term profit margins, even at the expense of long term profit margins.
how do you frame an issue that will take decades to unfold to a people than can't see more than a year or two ahead?
we don't care about how warm the planet is going to be in 2 decades, or how expensive fuel will be in ten years, we only care about the cost of fuel the next time we pay our bill.
alcatholic-
i agree that those are significant and important conclusions. and, even while i believe that the real world will confound these results to some extent - either a lot or a little - i still don't see grid issues, including power generation and C02, as a reason to slow plug-in development.
of course that doesn't mean we shouldn't perpetually focus on trying to clean our power generation as well.
nonetheless, my worry continues to revolve around the time it will take to make plug-ins cost-effective. sadly, probably the first decade of plug-ins alone will simply be cafe and CO2 hedgers.
likewise, i think there are many transportation scenarios that might not ever make sense for plug-in technology.
there is so much that can be done right now, but i worry ever more that the well-grounded, but probably long-term potential, of plug-ins is making policy makers and automakers a big complacent.
I'm more interested in the finding the right math than the right policy, because if I don't even know how to compare plugins vs hybrids in a clear way how can I know what policy is optimal. So, I won't engage on a policy debate, yet.
Is it fair to say that your concerns boil down to CO2/mile with that one number giving us the bottom line number when it comes to foreign oil dependence and GHG emissions? And if we can get that number for every vehicle, from ICE to BEV, we can start to easily calculate both gallons of gas saved and CO2 emission reductions for different scenarios, and maybe even make simple national goals against which we can evaluate different policies?
I believe this is essentially the approach the EU is taking by looking at CO2/km. And as the British study shows, this measure makes it very simple to evaluate plugins.
For myself, I see coal as a very necessary, but very bad option that we must gradually wean ourselves off of.
As Tom pointed out - it's not just the GHG. There are toxics and if you've ever seen what happens to the mountains and valleys where they get much it... you know it is truly - barely the least bad of the options - but we don't want to be increasing our use of it.
If you look at page 8 that LB provided....
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2emiss.pdf
you'll see that the west coast uses much less coal and much more natural gas to produce electricity.
I think this is the way we need to go ... more gas..
now..it's hard to keep straight all the various options....
for instance, is natural gas for the electricity for a plug-in ...more efficient, less polluting than using natural gas (or more likely propane - twice as energy dense and roughly equivalent to the cost of gasoline) ... to power a conventional plug-in?
Some of you guys are younger.. and more impatient... but change is coming.. never fear.
I just took a several hour trip and Priuses are becoming fairly common.
After working in the public utility sector for 20 years I have leaned to not sweat the small stuff so to speak. For example;
Trying to calculate the CO2 output of a combined energy system comprised of a VARIETY of power plant types, SEVERAL different types of vehicles like plug-in vs hybrids is like trying to measure the distance from the earth to the moon with a 25' tape measure LOL
Let's say I lived in San Clemente, CA near the nuclear plant, had a plug-in with a 40 mile range and worked in Mission Viejo just 10 miles from work. My carbon foot print would be almost zero right? Well only if I could somehow make sure my power came only from the nuclear plant.
Now let's say I lived in Ohio, drove a plug-in hybrid with a 10 miles range, charged it at night with power from a coal plant and then drove 25 miles each way to work. Of course this also would only be true if I was sure the power was coming from the coal plant and not from some wind turbine 20 miles away.
In each case you could probably do some calculations and a get relatively close answer to the CO2/miles driven question.
Ah yes, it would be nice is life were so simple but in the energy generation business nothing is ever simple LOL.
At 6:00 a.m. in the morning Southern California can be receiving hydro power from as far away as Washington state. By 10:00 a.m a cement factory in Riverside goes online and some natural gas turbine peakers start to carry the load. I am sure you all get the idea by now. By 4:00 p.m. everything is running and power is coming from Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and from wind, solar, geothermal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro - its all running.
It is possible to calculate the instantaneous CO2 emissions on a given day and time but everyone should understand that the values are only instantaneous values which can change significantly in just a few minutes time. It is like the difference between a kilowatt and a kilowatt hour. A kilowatt is 1000 watts or an instantaneous unit of measurement. Kilowatt hours on the other hand is 1000 watts measured for an hour.
I am a strong believer that EACH of us as individuals can make a significant difference in the type of energy sources we choose to leave to our children. We can leave them with lots of dirty carbon based fuels to fight over or decide to leave them with a society build on renewable energy.
We decide, we choose, we make a difference.
Tom G.
very informative Tom.
so a question for you.
We've had several discussions about "left over" electricity at night as if the generating plans cannot drop below a certain operational level so we have all this extra electricity with no where to go.
my question(s):
1. - is it true that we actually for "left over" electricity?
2. - if so..where does it go?
does it just go "poof" or do they just let it run turbines that are disconnected from the grid..so the turbines are just running like an auto engine does at idle?
another question for Tom -
from time to time, we hear that a plant generates X number of megawatts.. and that is enough to power Y number of houses...
but that number seems to vary..
is there a standard "approximate" average benchmark for megawatts?
Very good questions Larry
The first - "left over" electricity?
Not true - will ALMOST not true. Actually I should not complicate the discussion and just say no.
Anyway - go out to your kitchen and turn on your toaster. It gets hot right? Now unplug it and it gets cold. Is the toaster still using electricity? Boy I sure hope not since I am just trying to illustrate a point LOL.
With only minor exceptions [there is some small amount, <1% energy storage being done] utilities do not store electricity. Multiple generation sources are always running but never more than what is needed to feed the grid. As more power is needed, more generating capacity is added and the reverse is also true. In most cases power plants can be throttled just like your car to provide just the right amount of power needed to support grid requirements.
So what will happen when we get 5 million plug-in vehicles all charging at night? Well it will mean that the utilities will just be running a few more power plants at night to meet the demand. And a utility would LOVE to have enough plug-ins charging at night to keep each power plant operating at the same power level. Starting and stopping power plants is expensive and hard on the equipment.
In an IDEAL [smart-grid] world there would be enough plug-ins at night to meet the peak demand of the following day. Charging the plug-ins at night and then drawing from those that are still plugged in during the day to meet peak demand.
---------------------------------
To your second question: is there a standard "approximate" average benchmark for megawatts?
Afraid not Larry - to many variables involved. For example in California along the coast, homeowners use very little energy year around. Compare that to a home in Kansas where you need to heat it in the winter and air condition it in the summer. Two totally different conditions and energy consumption values.
Most utilities use an average of the consumers bills connected to their RESPECTIVE grids. That is why the numbers from say a utility in California are so different than the numbers from a utility in Ohio.
Best place to check YOUR utilities average would be to just call them or if they are like my utility, they publish their average on their website. That way when they say they are going to build a new 1000 MW power plant you will know about how many homes in THAT AREA will be served by the plant.
Hope this answers your questions.
Tom G.
Tom - my understanding is that when the grid goes beyond what the coal plants can provide - "peak" that they supplement with NG turbines because they can be brought online quickly.
so the question is - at night - when power demand is typically low - and you add PLEVs to the demand - how will the grid respond in terms of power source?
will they ramp up coal plants or would they fire up the NG plants?
My understanding is that the coal plants provide the base power and the NG plants are brought online as supplemental when the grid is encountering higher demand that the coal plants can provide.
I know there are different usage rates for houses in different parts of the country but there must be a general range...
If a utility company is expecting growth .. they probably would be looking at how many new rooftops they'll have to serve in 10-20 years and from that they'd have to have some kind of a basic multiplier function to know how many more plants to bring online to meet demand -right?
so ..one megawatt would serve between X and Y number of houses.
If that megawatt was in California, it would serve more houses than one in Ohio..
but there should be a low and a high number per megawatt.. I would think.
okay - so look at this chart:
http://www.swivel.com/data_sets/spreadsheet/1007218
let's take one state
like Utah - 10,039 Kwh/capita
so.. a megawatt of generation in Utah would serve only 100 people?
that's doesn't seem right
Larry:
Interesting chart[s] but maybe this article will help answer your question.
http://www.utilipoint.com/issuealert/print.asp?id=1728
If you still have questions please shot me a private e-mail.
Tom G.
oh this is excellent.. thanks for the link.
so when we add plug-ins to the nighttime demand.. what happens?
do the coal plant gin up and burn more coal to meet demand or do the power companies fire up the natural gas turbines to supply that demand?
( Assuming they have both options and could use either to generate the extra power).
Wouldn't the utilities that have coal plants just ramp them up ...burn more coal to meet the increased demand rather than firing up the "peaker" natural gas turbines - even though they're cleaner.. my understanding is they cost about 7 times as much to generate power than the coal plants.
thanks again for the link "what is a megawatt" it really does do a good explanation.
Larry G said...[in part] so when we add plug-ins to the nighttime demand.. what happens?
I am going to make some assumption; those are almost like assuming something and you know how I love the word assume, LOL
Here are my assumptions.
1. All the nuclear plants in your general surrounding area are up and running to meet base load demand [demand that is always there like hospitals, street lights, traffic signal, water treatment plants, etc.].
2. Your utility has shopped for all the cheap hydro power available and that is also online feeding the grid, and;
3. There are still about 3 or 4 other coal plants operating at 9:00 p.m. with 1 of them running at about 50% power.
Since coal is cheaper than natural gas peaking units to operate my guess [assumption] is that your utility would just dump a little more coal on the fire [bring the one plant up to let's say to the 70% power level. If that was not enough then my guess is that depending on the time of day and other scheduled loads they could do one of two or more things. Bring the plant up to 100% or they just might buy some excess power from someone else until 10:00 p.m. when most people go to bed. This power could come from almost any source.
Who knows, it could even be from some wind turbines in Texas. Utilities frequently buy and sell power throughout the day and transmitting power hundreds of miles occurs all the time.
However they just might not have to do anything because:
After everyone goes to bed; no one is watching TV, taking showers, building boats in their garages and the lights are turned out, the utility could probably even shut down one additional unit and just run the other unit at the 70% level until even later in the evening.
Let's make one more assumption. Let's assume everyone takes a shower or gives their kids a bath and the water is heated with an electric water heater. Most 40-50 gallon units run on 240 volt at 30 amps.
While there will be lots of variables from all the different manufacturers of PLUG-IN or ELECTRIC vehicles, MOST will probably charge in about 6-8 hours with the same amount of power needed to heat your hot water. So when your water heater shuts off that same amount of power can be shifted to charging your plug-in hybrid with zero [0] net difference in power levels going into your home, and;
this brings us to the part of the story where we realize why utilities want a smart grid. With a smart grid utilities will be able to 'control' some of the power consuming devices in your home like central air conditioners, electric water heaters and yes even when you can charge your electric vehicle. At 11:00 p.m. they could shut off your water heater and start charging your plug-in vehicle. Even if you did shower at 12:00 p.m there would still be plenty of hot water for a 20 minute shower.
Heck if you are retired like me they may even ask you if you are going to drive your vehicle tomorrow and if you say no they just might suck the power back out of your battery to help meet the peak demand of the grid at 2:00 p.m. the next day. The possibilities are almost endless.
Working for a public utility was a wonderful career for me and I looked forward to going to work everyday. The work was interesting, we had well trained supervisors and managers and the pay wasn't bad either LOL.
Hope this doesn't bore you Larry.
Have a great day my friend.
Tom G.
very informative and much appreciated.
one more question ... I promise!!!
All things being equal (and they never are) if a utility - let's say like Dominion Power in Virginia has coal plants and nukes and both are powered down and demand starts to increase - which ones are brought up quicker and which ones are brought up cheaper?
thanks, Tom
Larry D asked: [in part] "All things being equal ... coal plants and nukes ... are powered down and demand starts to increase - which ones are brought up quicker ...and cheaper?
Probably neither one Larry and here is why.
If you read the below summary of Dominion power you can see that they have a peak load of "approximately 27,000 megawatts". This means that at least 10-27 different power plants [or energy sources] are needed to meet customer needs during peak hours IF Dominion produces ALL of its own power and MOST utilities do not, in many cases it would be CHEAPER AND QUICKER TO JUST BUY someones excess for a short period of time. So the quick answer to your question is to:
Just buy the needed power because:
1. It can take about 24 hours to bring a nuclear plant from cold shutdown to power [much faster than this if you are at hot standby], and;
2. A coal plant at cold shutdown can be brought on-line more quickly but in any case it could still take 8-12 hours to reach full power.
Learning some of the complexities of the power generation business keeps our minds active doesn't it Larry?
Tom G.
p.s. looks like Dominion is also getting on the renewable energy band wagon with about 1,300 MW in operation or planned. Good for them. There will come a day in the not to distant future when we no longer need coal burning power plants.
--------------------------------
From Dominion website - "About Dominion: Dominion is one of the nation’s largest producers and transporters of energy, with a portfolio of approximately 27,000 megawatts of generation, 1.1 trillion cubic feet equivalent of proved natural gas and oil reserves, 14,000 miles of natural gas transmission, gathering and storage pipeline and 6,000 miles of electric transmission lines. Dominion operates the nation’s largest natural gas storage facility with 975 billion cubic feet of storage capacity and serves retail energy customers in 12 states.
Its renewable portfolio includes nearly 1,300 megawatts in various stages of development or in operation.
For more information about Dominion, visit the company’s Web site at http://www.dom.com.
About BP Wind Energy/BP America:
thanks Tom.
I mucked up my question.
It was not about peak loads but the opposite.
what plants are easier to modulate down and up so that when your normal load is at minimum what kind of plant generate electricity quicker - a powered-down nuke or a powered-down coal plant?
so.. it's 10pm.. and Dominion has powered down all it's normal daytime generation.. but then all these plug-ins start pulling when their delay timers expire.
What would Dominion to to respond to that demand.??
gin up the nukes or gin up the coal plants?
Larry - I think we have a failure to communicate, LOL. Dominion power would never get down to just one coal plant, one nuclear plant and one hydro and/or natural gas plant. If they are like most utilities they would have at least 10 different power plants or at least 4-6 different power sources available at all times to meet minimum system demands.
Even at 4:00 a.m. in the morning just to meet minimum system demands they would have at least this many plants running.
I broke your question into pieces and have some answers in the brackets.
Larry asked: "what plants are easier to modulate down and up [easiest is hydro.] so that when your normal load is at minimum what kind of plant generate electricity quicker - a powered-down nuke or a powered-down coal plant?"[coal is quicker than a nuclear plant.]
Larry nuclear plant are rarely every shut down because of a lack of system demand. They normally are started and run at full power until they need re-fueling or maintenance. If you have 4 units of nuclear at Dominion at 1000 MW each and the minimum system demand is 10,000 MW then even at night these units would still be operated at full power since the grid load never falls below the generation capacity of the 4 nuclear units. So shutting down or throttling nuclear plants is rarely done.
That leaves some coal units operating along with some hydro, renewables and/or maybe some gas combined cycle plants. My guess is that since Dominion is big into the gas business they would meet small jumps in system demand by bring some gas combined cycle plants online first before staring a coal plant.
At about the same time they started the gas plant they would also take a coal plant out of cold shutdown and bring it to hot standby [ready to start producing power]. If the load exceeded the power available from the gas plant then they would ramp up the coal plant to meet demand and shut down the gas plant.
It is impossible for me to tell you with any level of confidence what the power source will be that will charge your electric vehicle.
There is no simple or direct answer to your question. Hydro is quickest to ramp up and down, followed by some type of gas plant, followed by coal followed by nuclear which normally runs at full power.
Remember that there is NEVER just one power plant online at one time. Even small power companies like some private co-ops share the generation load between at least 2 or even 3 units even if one unit will carry the load. This is done to prevent system failures since the load can be quickly switched to the operating unit.
Tom G. over and out.
Hey Tom. Thanks again.
Va has no real hydro.. we have a few pump-storage facilities that "refill" at night.
and I did fail to communicate.
I knew that you would have a mix of multiple plants running at low load times... but then I was asking... when the time came to ADD to that load and you did have a choice between NUKE and COAL - which would be brought online...
but listening to you overall.. I can see where how they meet the load at any given time - is a very dynamic thing where you'd rush in the expensive gas option while waiting for the less expensive coal or nukes to ramp up to meet demand.
and I can see that it's even more complex than that because geography probably plays into it also.
let be relate something I found interesting...
if you go to this website:
http://www.epa.gov/RDEE/energy-and-you/how-clean.html
and put in your zip.. it will tell you the fuel mix used to generate your electricity.
Now mine says that 50% of my power is generated by goal - even though I am 10 miles from a Nuke....
Very good EPA website Larry - like you said very interesting. I am at about 46% coal where I live in Arizona. Wished is was lower :-(
"and I can see that it's even more complex than that because geography probably plays into it also."
So true Larry and well illustrated by your first referenced chart. It varies considerably; from 7,032 to 27,787 KW hours/capita.
Your summary is also very good.
"but listening to you overall.. I can see where how they meet the load at any given time - is a very dynamic thing where you'd rush in the expensive gas option while waiting for the less expensive coal or nukes to ramp up to meet demand."
Are we done here? I have really enjoyed the conversation Larry and I think we are the only two posting on this item, LOL.
Tom G.
we're done.. you can go now.
;-)
p.s. I always figure if there is something I don't know.. that there are surely others who also would like to know but are too polite to harangue to get it!!
;-)
Or simply not online at the time. Very interesting exchange. Thank you both for delving so well into the topic.
From the exchange I think one key point Tom made is that minimum load usually exceeds nuclear load so that nuclear doesn't needs to go offline and normally doesn't.
But the bottomline point that was most helpful is that electricity production can be and is throttled like an engine to meet demand. NO WASTED POWER AT NIGHT TO FEED OUR PLUGINS. Understood. It is interesting to learn how high overnight power loads are, I.e. minimum load is not that small. Greater than 50% peak load?
Let me see if I can approach Larry's question from a different angle. How does the grid mix change from day to night, from avg to minimum? I think I can safely guess that nuclear forms a greater % because it doesn't get shut down. Solar goes to zero. Does hydro get throttled down for some reason like recharging the dams? I imagine winds tend to die down during min load times.
Of course the direct question is comparing marginal production during the day and night, which is what Larry asked. But that is so fluid and the plugin numbers will be so small at first we can probably just look at the min load mix %'s as a first approximation.
But I was most intrigued by another comment you made, I.e. that we may replace coal in a relatively short time. What gives you that hope? Coal is roughly, what, 49% of the national grid. Has that % been decreasing rapidly? I have heard notions to the effect that new coal power plants have a tough time getting approval. Within utilities is future production understood to include a relatively small amount of coal, or do utilities expect to meet future demand with the same production mix we see now?
I for one am really enjoying your seminar on utility operations!
Back to the idea of CO2/mile.
Larry,
There are many options to consider and I think that is where CO2/mile helps. We simply calculate that number for an NG car or a propane car. That number probably already exists somewhere. It just seems to me that most of the questions we've been debating lend themselves to a basic analysis like CO2/mile.
And if we are interested in regional numbers I believe Good Cheers calculations simply uses the grid mix numbers. If there are regional grid mix numbers that can be used it's no more trouble to use those and get regional CO2/mile numbers for BEVs and Plugins.
I like CO2 per mile... it would be even better if it were a range for low to high speed...like the EPA city/hwy ratings.
One more thing I notice is that with Nukes they include the costs of waste processing and storage and ultimately decommissioning which is huge cost but they still end up in the same ballpark as coal costs - as long as you don['t include carbon sequestration.
and thanks again to Tom for sharing his knowledge on the subject.
check this out.. if the formatting mucks up just go to the doc and search for the table
A comparative study published in January 2008 for a Connecticut Integrated Resource Plan, USA, assumed that nuclear at $4038/kW was most expensive in overnight capital cost but even so it produced the least expensive electricity:
Overnight capital cost
(2008 $/kW)
Electricity cost
(c/kWh)
nuclear 4038 8.34
supercritical coal 2214 8.65
supercritical coal +CCS 4037 14.19
IGCC 2567 9.22
IGCC + CCS 3387 12.45
gas combined cycle 869 7.60
gas combined cycle + CCS 1558 10.31
CCS = carbon capture & storage
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html
look how much coal costs when you include carbon sequestration.
Larry G and alcatholic said.[in part] and also our President said"
"supercritical coal + CCS 4037" 14.19 cents per KW
"that we may replace coal in a relatively short time. What gives you that hope? Coal is roughly, what, 49% of the national grid ..."
Tom G. responds before he logs off and goes to the movies today.
As Larry points out; a coal fired power plant with CCS is going to become the high priced leader in the future. I will take it one step further - it will soon become just like nuclear; too expensive to build and use for 50% of our electricity generation. So that alone gives me hope that we will soon see an end to the planning and construction of new coal fired power plants.
I also see a massive shift in how people feel about renewable energy like solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, bio-fuels, etc. Over 75% of all people today when asked feel we need more renewable energy.
Here are just a couple of examples. The cost of a solar panel has dropped 40-50% in just the last two years and as the technology improves it will become even cheaper. Companies like First Solar and Nanosolar are now BELOW $1.00/watt in large scale utility applications. Large scale solar power stations are NOW CHEAPER than coal fired power plants when you add in CCS. And we are building 5 new solar plants within 100 miles of my home in Arizona. Storage is no longer an issue because we can store enough heat to run the plants for 4-10 hours after sunset by using molten salt.
In addition, we have wonderful wind resources on both the West and East coasts and through the Midwest from North Dakota to Texas. We are also blessed with many areas in the U.S. where geothermal power is not only possible but is being installed as I write this blog entry. Will we build more nuclear plants? I believe we will finish the construction of the ones we started 20 years ago but it is highly unlikely that we will ever build another 150 new nuclear plants. Very few utilities have $7 to $12 billion laying around to finance a new two unit plant. Also new breeder and Thorium reactors designs are still a generation away from approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
I guess the bottom line is this. We really don't have any excuse for continuing to plan, construct and use coal for 50% of our electricity production other than we choose to. But even this is changing. Just recently two [2] more planned and permitted coal plants by three utilities in Minnesota were canceled as uneconomical. I believe this trend will continue as more and more people and utilities see the handwriting on the wall.
If you DO NOT believe we are heading in this direction then you probably did not hear our President say: "under my vision of Cap and Trade the cost of electricity will necessarily skyrocket."
Now I don't know about everyone else on this blog but if the President is telling me he has this vision, I should probably pay attention LOL. When I replaced my roof this last year I installed two new roof jacks where my new solar hot water panel will be installed.
Did you know that today I can LEASE a 4KW solar PV electric system fully installed and maintained by a solar company and actually end up with a smaller electric bill than I currently have including the lease payment? I just want to own my system instead of leasing it. There really are fewer and fewer reasons left for not installing a solar electric system if you live in the southern half of the U.S.
Can we install enough renewable energy to eliminate coal? Probably not in my lifetime but I believe we are going to start making some significant progress in the next few years. I guess the $64,000 question is probably; will it be done? With that question for everyone to debate, I leave you for the day :-)
Tom G.
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