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Natural gas energy can be transported much more easily than solar or wind. As more export capacity comes online in the US I would expect natural gas projects i

Natural gas energy can be transported much more easily than solar or wind. As more export capacity comes online in the US I would expect natural gas projects in the US to continue apace even if domestic consumption stays flat or declines.

toomuchtodo 9y ago
There are multiple transmission line projects in progress in the US to drag wind energy to major load centers. Solar can be produced anywhere of course. Natgas exports may increase, but it appears everyone is getting off of fossil asap. You cannot compete against an energy source with no fuel cost.
- majewsky 9y ago
  > Solar can be produced anywhere of course. I take issue with "of course". It will be always be wildly more economic to produce solar power in places with a lot of sun. And without checking, my ballpark guess would be that you get at least 10 times more solar energy out of a panel in Texas than a panel in, say, Canada. Our eyes are just so good at adapting to different light levels that we don't notice the different energy densities that much.
  - schiffern 9y ago
    >And without checking, my ballpark guess would be that you get at least 10 times more solar energy out of a panel in Texas than a panel in, say, Canada. Our eyes are just so good at adapting to different light levels that we don't notice the different energy densities that much. Should have checked. "Canada" is pretty vague, but if you mean the southern part where people live you're waaay off. It's only a factor of 2. http://solargis.com/assets/graphic/free-map/GHI/Solargis-World-GHI-solar-resource-map-en.png http://solargis.com/assets/graphic/free-map/GHI/Solargis-Wor...
  - e2e8 9y ago
    According to the Solar Energy Potential site [1], the difference between the best and worst areas in the US is a factor of 2 or 3. I assume they average over the whole year and take cloud cover into account. [1] https://energy.gov/maps/solar-energy-potential https://energy.gov/maps/solar-energy-potential
  - alphydan 9y ago
    >> my ballpark guess would be that you get at least 10 times That's the problem with not checking and using your intuition. The difference between Florida and Toronto is only x2. Not x10.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
    It would also be pretty difficult to use solar in Murmansk, Russia, for about a quarter of the year (it's within the arctic circle, so the sun is below the horizon for most (or all near the solstice) of the day during the winter. And it can actually be less efficient if there's too much sun, solar panel efficiency decreases with temperature. Solar thermal also depends on temperature differential, so if the environment around the plant is too hot the efficiency drops.
    - bdauvergne 9y ago
      Noboby wants to live in Murmansk.
      - SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
        True, but I'm being pedantic about the use of "anywhere". Also it's a pretty important port for Russia, though of course the population is small at only 300k people.
      - mac01021 9y ago
        But some people do live there. Either they want to or they're trapped.
    - zeckalpha 9y ago
      During a separate quarter of the year, the sun is above the horizon for most of the day.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > You cannot compete against an energy source with no fuel cost Of course you can. The technology to turn photons into useful energy is heavy, complex and reliant on rare elements. In any case, one could flip the analogy by branding coal as photons freely stockpiled by dead trees and algae.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    When you install solar panels or wind turbines, you've prepaid for whatever power they'll produce for the next 30+ years. When you generate using a fuel, your margins are dictated by power market spot prices (prices occasionally go negative; do you continue to generate and pay for someone to take your power while you're also paying someone for a fuel? In some scenarios, you must), depreciation, and your fuel costs/contracts. The cost of wind and solar never fluctuates.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      > you've prepaid for whatever power they'll produce for the next 30+ years Assuming they don't degrade completely in those 30 years. Also, I still wonder what's their EROI if you count in their manufacturing, transport and installation costs?
      - toomuchtodo 9y ago
        Solar panels degrade about 0.7 percent a year based on historical data for the last two decades; after 20 years they're still generating at 80+% of total output. This doesn't take into account the ridiculous cost decline curve we're seeing in solar, and that'll be a fraction of the cost to replace degraded capacity decades from now. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/51664.pdf http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/51664.pdf EROI has been positive for quite some time.
        Guthur 9y ago
        It's positive but still no where near the scale of fossil fuels. If you consider the likely energy need growth of society, exponential maybe, it is really hard to see how solar and wind will cut it. Personally i think a full embracement of gen 4 or better nuclear power generation is the only way truly bring energy security.
- skybrian 9y ago
  On the other hand, apparently [1] natural gas exports can be shifted to different markets faster than new solar power can come online? Not a bad thing if it replaces coal. [1] U.S. LNG exports shift to Europe from Asia http://www.reuters.com/article/usa-asia-lng-idUSL1N1FE4BG http://www.reuters.com/article/usa-asia-lng-idUSL1N1FE4BG
  - saryant 9y ago
    This is exactly what I was referring to. LNG can be shifted across markets in a matter of days. Solar and wind don't have that flexibility.
    - batbomb 9y ago
      It typically takes months and years to retrofit a coal plant for gas. That said, it's wildly more economic because you have to rebuild coal power plants every 12 years or so due to ware and tear
- Rylinks 9y ago
  People have been competing against solar and wind for years
- gozur88 9y ago
  >There are multiple transmission line projects in progress in the US to drag wind energy to major load centers. Sure, but not to Europe and Asia. http://www.reuters.com/article/usa-asia-lng-idUSL1N1FE4BG http://www.reuters.com/article/usa-asia-lng-idUSL1N1FE4BG
  - crdoconnor 9y ago
    That sounds like a way to lose a lot of money. Fracking in the US is heavily leveraged and often running at a loss: http://wolfstreet.com/2015/07/21/its-happening-debt-is-tearing-up-the-fracking-revolution/ http://wolfstreet.com/2015/07/21/its-happening-debt-is-teari... ...and that's before you take into account the massive cost of shipping it across an ocean. By contrast Russian gas is already very profitable and shipped through a pre-existing network of pipelines to Italy. Even if the numbers work now it clearly doesn't take into account the fact that Russia can undercut them forever. It reeks a little of desperation.
    - saryant 9y ago
      Leveraging to the hilt and operating at a loss is par for the course in the oil industry. It's very common, especially when new plays open up, either from technological or political advances. In the case of fracking, everyone was scrambling to get extraction rights on any piece of land that looked promising. Often that involved massive speculation and debt. Inevitably the downturn comes and shakes out the players who don't have the capital or discipline to survive. The industry consolidates and production continues. The cost of fracking has continued to decline as frackers learn how to be more efficient in order to be profitable with crude prices at their current low levels. Even if the current players went bankrupt, others will pop up once prices rise again. American frackers have effectively replaced Saudi Arabia as the world's swing producer. Unfortunately for them that means learning how to withstand wild boom-and-bust cycles.
- opo 9y ago
  >...There are multiple transmission line projects in progress in the US to drag wind energy to major load centers. If so, this cost should be considered to be part of the cost of wind energy. >...Solar can be produced anywhere of course. Well sunlight does fall everywhere, but in lots of places it wouldn't make sense to depend on solar for much power. >...Natgas exports may increase, but it appears everyone is getting off of fossil asap. asap? From the article: >...By 2040, renewable resources such as wind and solar power will supply just as much of America’s electricity demand as gas, according to a Bloomberg New Energy Finance outlook. The reality is that without some major advance in grid storage, we will, unfortunately, be very dependent on natural gas for a very long time. >...You cannot compete against an energy source with no fuel cost. That is kind of a silly thing to say - there is more to the expense of a power source than that of course.
- djrogers 9y ago
  > Solar can be produced anywhere of course. That’s not a very realistic view of the globe. There are plenty of populous places with only 8-9 hours of total sunlight during winter months, assuming a clear day. Growing up in Vancouver, it wasn’t uncommon to go a week without seeing sunlight...
  - zeckalpha 9y ago
    However, Vancouver had over 16 hours of sunlight _today_, but Quito only had 12.
- acchow 9y ago
  Elon Musk has said that to fight climate change, we need to implement emissions cap and trade globally. But it seems that solar and wind is an unstoppable force now even without internalizing the external costs of fossil fuels. So is Elon Musk saying this just because it's convenient for him and Tesla? Or do we really need emissions penalties?
  - nikdaheratik 9y ago
    The issue isn't that transition to renewables isn't going to win out economically, it's that the transition may not happen quickly enough to avoid the 2C warming threshold that triggers alot of negative effects.
breatheoften 9y ago
Isn't this exactly what the Paris Climate Accord was for?
_delirium 9y ago
Gas is easy to transport, but only really by pipeline. LNG is a lot more expensive and capital-intensive. And there is only one place with rising demand where it's easy to transport U.S. natural gas: Mexico. Pipeline gas exports to Mexico did nearly triple between 2011 and 2016 [1]. Exports to Canada over the same period fell, however. Anywhere besides Canada and Mexico requires liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, which are very expensive and have low capacity compared to a pipeline. You'd need a lot of them to make up for the lost demand from even a relatively small percentage of American natural-gas power plants shutting down. So if production is really going to continue apace, it depends almost entirely on Mexico's demand continuing to increase. [1] https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_move_expc_s1_a.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_move_expc_s1_a.htm
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Investments in LNG are already sunk, however. Japan and China are already big importers.
  - sunbuntu 9y ago
    Australia invested over $200 Billion on LNG export facilities. All based on long-term contracts, now none of the countries require anything like the quantity agreed to. They are selling the Australian gas at lower prices than their contracts, so they lose money but less than they could. One interesting thing is the Australian domestic gas prices are much high than the same gas purchased in Japan despite the $5 per GJ processing and shipping costs.
  - _delirium 9y ago
    About 1/3 of the UK's gas imports are as LNG also (the other 2/3 is via pipelines, mainly from Norway). But the LNG comes exclusively from Qatar [1], which has a huge LNG export terminal (and not much domestic demand). The US doesn't have all that much export capacity, though it does seem that more is under construction. From what I can find, current US LNG terminal capacity is around 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcfpd), equal to a bit under 3% of domestic production. But projects under construction will raise that to about 6 Bcfpd in the next few years. That's more than I would've guessed, and at ~8% of domestic production that's starting to get into a serious potential outlet for gas. Although still not enough to absorb a huge downturn in domestic demand, if there were one. (Side note: The abbreviation Bcfpd sounds like a parody of US customary units, but it does really seem to be in common use.) [1] http://visual.ons.gov.uk/uk-energy-how-much-what-type-and-where-from/ http://visual.ons.gov.uk/uk-energy-how-much-what-type-and-wh...
codecamper 9y ago
Put some solar panels on your roof, run wire to home. There, you have transported your power. Bigger issue is winter time energy, aka heating. That one will be hard with current tech (storing energy for once per year use), though solar is getting cheap enough you may be able to use use solar generated electricity to heat -- you would need overcapacity of panels in northern climates -- but that's probably cheaper than moving the world's coastal cities.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  Investing in highly insulated buildings is the way to heat with solar. Modestly more expensive up front, cheaper over the lifetime of the building.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Spot on. In Canada I visited a building that was being constructed as an experimental home using very thick walls (12", R35 or thereabouts) using several vertical chambers and reflective mylar for insulation and a solar trap. Mid winter, -20 outside, the house had not been heated at all and a bucket of water was left in one of the rooms, it had not frozen. Body heat would be enough to get it to 10 Celsius or so, solar would easily do the rest.
davedx 9y ago
Tell that to Qatar. The UK is one sea blockade away from losing a huge chunk of electricity generation.
- philipkglass 9y ago
  The UK is also one sea blockade away from losing a huge chunk of the food its population eats. The merits of renewable energy don't include permitting the UK to endure another World War-style blockade attempt, because either the blockaders are swiftly destroyed at sea or have their land based supply and command chains destroyed, by nuclear means if necessary.
  - sqeaky 9y ago
    I believe the UK would nuke a blockading fleet in its water starving it of food. I do not believe it would do so to a fleet starving it of oil from the waters of Qatar.
jacquesm 9y ago
> Natural gas energy can be transported much more easily than solar or wind. Yes, but not easier than it is to transport electrons. And solar and wind energy can be converted into electrons and then transported across vast distances using existing infrastructure.
- sremani 9y ago
  The bottleneck is the grid. The Grid has to match the production and demand, and at times that is why CA gives away electricity to AZ and pay for AZ for consuming its electricity. In turn, AZ turns off some of its production. A tanker with LNG is much more flexible and denser form of energy than photons to electrons.. Once electrons out they need to be consumed asap!
  - thechao 9y ago
    Texas is investing billions into new voltage lines---many of which are designed to pull power from west & coastal Texas power to central & near-East Texas. (This leaves East Texas power generation to East Texas.)
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    > The bottleneck is the grid. Sure the grid is a bottle neck, but it is a bottle neck that can be fixed. Aging infrastructure is the problem, not the grid per-se, it just happens to have older and less well maintained segments. > The Grid has to match the production and demand No, the grid transports power from places where it is generated to places where it is consumed. Whether the consumer is local or remote is not that important other than that you'll incur some more losses. Demand matching is the job of powerplants that can change their output power quickly. > and at times that is why CA gives away electricity to AZ and pay for AZ for consuming its electricity. That's because there simply is an excess of power in CA and shedding it to AZ is cheaper than shunting it locally. > A tanker with LNG is much more flexible and denser form of energy than photons to electrons.. Of course it isn't. That LNG tanker needs a port and it needs a plant to convert the LNG to electricity. LNG is hamburger, electricity is steak. > Once electrons out they need to be consumed asap! There also exist load leveling measures using superconducting loops, these are used for windfarms whose output can change very rapidly especially when they're on the end of anemic grid infrastructure (remote location), these can be used for solar as well.
PeterisP 9y ago
"Natural gas energy can be transported much more easily than solar or wind." makes me think - is it really cheaper to build and maintain a natural gas pipeline than a large high-voltage line capable of transmitting as much power?
- bb88 9y ago
  That question actually has an answer. I suspect they may be right in that an underground pipe is better than high voltage wires being carried over land. But I've long thought that underground high voltage power transmission built underneath interstates would fare much better than overhead poles.
  - krallja 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undergrounding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undergrounding has a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages.
- ndonnellan 9y ago
  One of the holy grails of solar is syngas: using solar thermal power to convert CO2/water to a mix of hydrogen and methane. If you can do it efficiently enough, the gas is the energy storage and you can either pipe it or use it to fuel a NG turbine/combined-cycle plant which will be more thermodynamically efficient than a simpler solar->steam cycle plant. The reason it's a holy grail is because there are some major materials science breakthroughs that need to happen before it's feasible. Since the sun's energy cycles rapidly on the minute/second timescale, whatever receiver you're using to convert inputs to syngas needs to not be destroyed by that periodic, rapid temperature (and thus stress) cycling.
  - petre 9y ago
    Syngas can be easily converted to DME (dimethyl ether), which is a cleaner diesel replacement. It's stored just like LNG, in pressurized containers at 0.5 MPa - typical roadbike tyre pressure.
Animats 9y ago
A LNG terminal is going up in Brownsville, TX, closer to SpaceX's launch site than one might like.

toomuchtodo 9y ago

There are multiple transmission line projects in progress in the US to drag wind energy to major load centers. Solar can be produced anywhere of course. Natgas exports may increase, but it appears everyone is getting off of fossil asap. You cannot compete against an energy source with no fuel cost.

majewsky 9y ago
> Solar can be produced anywhere of course. I take issue with "of course". It will be always be wildly more economic to produce solar power in places with a lot of sun. And without checking, my ballpark guess would be that you get at least 10 times more solar energy out of a panel in Texas than a panel in, say, Canada. Our eyes are just so good at adapting to different light levels that we don't notice the different energy densities that much.
- schiffern 9y ago
  >And without checking, my ballpark guess would be that you get at least 10 times more solar energy out of a panel in Texas than a panel in, say, Canada. Our eyes are just so good at adapting to different light levels that we don't notice the different energy densities that much. Should have checked. "Canada" is pretty vague, but if you mean the southern part where people live you're waaay off. It's only a factor of 2. http://solargis.com/assets/graphic/free-map/GHI/Solargis-World-GHI-solar-resource-map-en.png http://solargis.com/assets/graphic/free-map/GHI/Solargis-Wor...
- e2e8 9y ago
  According to the Solar Energy Potential site [1], the difference between the best and worst areas in the US is a factor of 2 or 3. I assume they average over the whole year and take cloud cover into account. [1] https://energy.gov/maps/solar-energy-potential https://energy.gov/maps/solar-energy-potential
- alphydan 9y ago
  >> my ballpark guess would be that you get at least 10 times That's the problem with not checking and using your intuition. The difference between Florida and Toronto is only x2. Not x10.
- SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
  It would also be pretty difficult to use solar in Murmansk, Russia, for about a quarter of the year (it's within the arctic circle, so the sun is below the horizon for most (or all near the solstice) of the day during the winter. And it can actually be less efficient if there's too much sun, solar panel efficiency decreases with temperature. Solar thermal also depends on temperature differential, so if the environment around the plant is too hot the efficiency drops.
  - bdauvergne 9y ago
    Noboby wants to live in Murmansk.
    - SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
      True, but I'm being pedantic about the use of "anywhere". Also it's a pretty important port for Russia, though of course the population is small at only 300k people.
    - mac01021 9y ago
      But some people do live there. Either they want to or they're trapped.
  - zeckalpha 9y ago
    During a separate quarter of the year, the sun is above the horizon for most of the day.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> You cannot compete against an energy source with no fuel cost Of course you can. The technology to turn photons into useful energy is heavy, complex and reliant on rare elements. In any case, one could flip the analogy by branding coal as photons freely stockpiled by dead trees and algae.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  When you install solar panels or wind turbines, you've prepaid for whatever power they'll produce for the next 30+ years. When you generate using a fuel, your margins are dictated by power market spot prices (prices occasionally go negative; do you continue to generate and pay for someone to take your power while you're also paying someone for a fuel? In some scenarios, you must), depreciation, and your fuel costs/contracts. The cost of wind and solar never fluctuates.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    > you've prepaid for whatever power they'll produce for the next 30+ years Assuming they don't degrade completely in those 30 years. Also, I still wonder what's their EROI if you count in their manufacturing, transport and installation costs?
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      Solar panels degrade about 0.7 percent a year based on historical data for the last two decades; after 20 years they're still generating at 80+% of total output. This doesn't take into account the ridiculous cost decline curve we're seeing in solar, and that'll be a fraction of the cost to replace degraded capacity decades from now. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/51664.pdf http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/51664.pdf EROI has been positive for quite some time.
      - Guthur 9y ago
        It's positive but still no where near the scale of fossil fuels. If you consider the likely energy need growth of society, exponential maybe, it is really hard to see how solar and wind will cut it. Personally i think a full embracement of gen 4 or better nuclear power generation is the only way truly bring energy security.
skybrian 9y ago
On the other hand, apparently [1] natural gas exports can be shifted to different markets faster than new solar power can come online? Not a bad thing if it replaces coal. [1] U.S. LNG exports shift to Europe from Asia http://www.reuters.com/article/usa-asia-lng-idUSL1N1FE4BG http://www.reuters.com/article/usa-asia-lng-idUSL1N1FE4BG
- saryant 9y ago
  This is exactly what I was referring to. LNG can be shifted across markets in a matter of days. Solar and wind don't have that flexibility.
  - batbomb 9y ago
    It typically takes months and years to retrofit a coal plant for gas. That said, it's wildly more economic because you have to rebuild coal power plants every 12 years or so due to ware and tear
Rylinks 9y ago
People have been competing against solar and wind for years
gozur88 9y ago
>There are multiple transmission line projects in progress in the US to drag wind energy to major load centers. Sure, but not to Europe and Asia. http://www.reuters.com/article/usa-asia-lng-idUSL1N1FE4BG http://www.reuters.com/article/usa-asia-lng-idUSL1N1FE4BG
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  That sounds like a way to lose a lot of money. Fracking in the US is heavily leveraged and often running at a loss: http://wolfstreet.com/2015/07/21/its-happening-debt-is-tearing-up-the-fracking-revolution/ http://wolfstreet.com/2015/07/21/its-happening-debt-is-teari... ...and that's before you take into account the massive cost of shipping it across an ocean. By contrast Russian gas is already very profitable and shipped through a pre-existing network of pipelines to Italy. Even if the numbers work now it clearly doesn't take into account the fact that Russia can undercut them forever. It reeks a little of desperation.
  - saryant 9y ago
    Leveraging to the hilt and operating at a loss is par for the course in the oil industry. It's very common, especially when new plays open up, either from technological or political advances. In the case of fracking, everyone was scrambling to get extraction rights on any piece of land that looked promising. Often that involved massive speculation and debt. Inevitably the downturn comes and shakes out the players who don't have the capital or discipline to survive. The industry consolidates and production continues. The cost of fracking has continued to decline as frackers learn how to be more efficient in order to be profitable with crude prices at their current low levels. Even if the current players went bankrupt, others will pop up once prices rise again. American frackers have effectively replaced Saudi Arabia as the world's swing producer. Unfortunately for them that means learning how to withstand wild boom-and-bust cycles.
opo 9y ago
>...There are multiple transmission line projects in progress in the US to drag wind energy to major load centers. If so, this cost should be considered to be part of the cost of wind energy. >...Solar can be produced anywhere of course. Well sunlight does fall everywhere, but in lots of places it wouldn't make sense to depend on solar for much power. >...Natgas exports may increase, but it appears everyone is getting off of fossil asap. asap? From the article: >...By 2040, renewable resources such as wind and solar power will supply just as much of America’s electricity demand as gas, according to a Bloomberg New Energy Finance outlook. The reality is that without some major advance in grid storage, we will, unfortunately, be very dependent on natural gas for a very long time. >...You cannot compete against an energy source with no fuel cost. That is kind of a silly thing to say - there is more to the expense of a power source than that of course.
djrogers 9y ago
> Solar can be produced anywhere of course. That’s not a very realistic view of the globe. There are plenty of populous places with only 8-9 hours of total sunlight during winter months, assuming a clear day. Growing up in Vancouver, it wasn’t uncommon to go a week without seeing sunlight...
- zeckalpha 9y ago
  However, Vancouver had over 16 hours of sunlight _today_, but Quito only had 12.
acchow 9y ago
Elon Musk has said that to fight climate change, we need to implement emissions cap and trade globally. But it seems that solar and wind is an unstoppable force now even without internalizing the external costs of fossil fuels. So is Elon Musk saying this just because it's convenient for him and Tesla? Or do we really need emissions penalties?
- nikdaheratik 9y ago
  The issue isn't that transition to renewables isn't going to win out economically, it's that the transition may not happen quickly enough to avoid the 2C warming threshold that triggers alot of negative effects.

breatheoften 9y ago

Isn't this exactly what the Paris Climate Accord was for?

_delirium 9y ago

Gas is easy to transport, but only really by pipeline. LNG is a lot more expensive and capital-intensive. And there is only one place with rising demand where it's easy to transport U.S. natural gas: Mexico. Pipeline gas exports to Mexico did nearly triple between 2011 and 2016 [1]. Exports to Canada over the same period fell, however. Anywhere besides Canada and Mexico requires liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, which are very expensive and have low capacity compared to a pipeline. You'd need a lot of them to make up for the lost demand from even a relatively small percentage of American natural-gas power plants shutting down. So if production is really going to continue apace, it depends almost entirely on Mexico's demand continuing to increase. [1] https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_move_expc_s1_a.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_move_expc_s1_a.htm

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
Investments in LNG are already sunk, however. Japan and China are already big importers.
- sunbuntu 9y ago
  Australia invested over $200 Billion on LNG export facilities. All based on long-term contracts, now none of the countries require anything like the quantity agreed to. They are selling the Australian gas at lower prices than their contracts, so they lose money but less than they could. One interesting thing is the Australian domestic gas prices are much high than the same gas purchased in Japan despite the $5 per GJ processing and shipping costs.
- _delirium 9y ago
  About 1/3 of the UK's gas imports are as LNG also (the other 2/3 is via pipelines, mainly from Norway). But the LNG comes exclusively from Qatar [1], which has a huge LNG export terminal (and not much domestic demand). The US doesn't have all that much export capacity, though it does seem that more is under construction. From what I can find, current US LNG terminal capacity is around 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcfpd), equal to a bit under 3% of domestic production. But projects under construction will raise that to about 6 Bcfpd in the next few years. That's more than I would've guessed, and at ~8% of domestic production that's starting to get into a serious potential outlet for gas. Although still not enough to absorb a huge downturn in domestic demand, if there were one. (Side note: The abbreviation Bcfpd sounds like a parody of US customary units, but it does really seem to be in common use.) [1] http://visual.ons.gov.uk/uk-energy-how-much-what-type-and-where-from/ http://visual.ons.gov.uk/uk-energy-how-much-what-type-and-wh...

codecamper 9y ago

Put some solar panels on your roof, run wire to home. There, you have transported your power. Bigger issue is winter time energy, aka heating. That one will be hard with current tech (storing energy for once per year use), though solar is getting cheap enough you may be able to use use solar generated electricity to heat -- you would need overcapacity of panels in northern climates -- but that's probably cheaper than moving the world's coastal cities.

maxerickson 9y ago
Investing in highly insulated buildings is the way to heat with solar. Modestly more expensive up front, cheaper over the lifetime of the building.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Spot on. In Canada I visited a building that was being constructed as an experimental home using very thick walls (12", R35 or thereabouts) using several vertical chambers and reflective mylar for insulation and a solar trap. Mid winter, -20 outside, the house had not been heated at all and a bucket of water was left in one of the rooms, it had not frozen. Body heat would be enough to get it to 10 Celsius or so, solar would easily do the rest.

davedx 9y ago

Tell that to Qatar. The UK is one sea blockade away from losing a huge chunk of electricity generation.

philipkglass 9y ago
The UK is also one sea blockade away from losing a huge chunk of the food its population eats. The merits of renewable energy don't include permitting the UK to endure another World War-style blockade attempt, because either the blockaders are swiftly destroyed at sea or have their land based supply and command chains destroyed, by nuclear means if necessary.
- sqeaky 9y ago
  I believe the UK would nuke a blockading fleet in its water starving it of food. I do not believe it would do so to a fleet starving it of oil from the waters of Qatar.

jacquesm 9y ago

> Natural gas energy can be transported much more easily than solar or wind. Yes, but not easier than it is to transport electrons. And solar and wind energy can be converted into electrons and then transported across vast distances using existing infrastructure.

sremani 9y ago
The bottleneck is the grid. The Grid has to match the production and demand, and at times that is why CA gives away electricity to AZ and pay for AZ for consuming its electricity. In turn, AZ turns off some of its production. A tanker with LNG is much more flexible and denser form of energy than photons to electrons.. Once electrons out they need to be consumed asap!
- thechao 9y ago
  Texas is investing billions into new voltage lines---many of which are designed to pull power from west & coastal Texas power to central & near-East Texas. (This leaves East Texas power generation to East Texas.)
- jacquesm 9y ago
  > The bottleneck is the grid. Sure the grid is a bottle neck, but it is a bottle neck that can be fixed. Aging infrastructure is the problem, not the grid per-se, it just happens to have older and less well maintained segments. > The Grid has to match the production and demand No, the grid transports power from places where it is generated to places where it is consumed. Whether the consumer is local or remote is not that important other than that you'll incur some more losses. Demand matching is the job of powerplants that can change their output power quickly. > and at times that is why CA gives away electricity to AZ and pay for AZ for consuming its electricity. That's because there simply is an excess of power in CA and shedding it to AZ is cheaper than shunting it locally. > A tanker with LNG is much more flexible and denser form of energy than photons to electrons.. Of course it isn't. That LNG tanker needs a port and it needs a plant to convert the LNG to electricity. LNG is hamburger, electricity is steak. > Once electrons out they need to be consumed asap! There also exist load leveling measures using superconducting loops, these are used for windfarms whose output can change very rapidly especially when they're on the end of anemic grid infrastructure (remote location), these can be used for solar as well.

PeterisP 9y ago

"Natural gas energy can be transported much more easily than solar or wind." makes me think - is it really cheaper to build and maintain a natural gas pipeline than a large high-voltage line capable of transmitting as much power?

bb88 9y ago
That question actually has an answer. I suspect they may be right in that an underground pipe is better than high voltage wires being carried over land. But I've long thought that underground high voltage power transmission built underneath interstates would fare much better than overhead poles.
- krallja 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undergrounding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undergrounding has a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages.
ndonnellan 9y ago
One of the holy grails of solar is syngas: using solar thermal power to convert CO2/water to a mix of hydrogen and methane. If you can do it efficiently enough, the gas is the energy storage and you can either pipe it or use it to fuel a NG turbine/combined-cycle plant which will be more thermodynamically efficient than a simpler solar->steam cycle plant. The reason it's a holy grail is because there are some major materials science breakthroughs that need to happen before it's feasible. Since the sun's energy cycles rapidly on the minute/second timescale, whatever receiver you're using to convert inputs to syngas needs to not be destroyed by that periodic, rapid temperature (and thus stress) cycling.
- petre 9y ago
  Syngas can be easily converted to DME (dimethyl ether), which is a cleaner diesel replacement. It's stored just like LNG, in pressurized containers at 0.5 MPa - typical roadbike tyre pressure.

Animats 9y ago

A LNG terminal is going up in Brownsville, TX, closer to SpaceX's launch site than one might like.