4 ms·

War and subsidies have turbocharged the LNG transition. There, I fixed the title.

by whatever1 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
uoaei 4y ago
The misdirection is so bald-faced and shameless.
toomuchtodo 4y ago
Natural gas compliments renewables until battery storage and renewables overproduction pushes out natural gas. It also produces smaller amounts of CO2 per unit of electricity produced versus coal. Recently, there was an HN thread about large amounts of UK wind curtailment. The largest battery storage system in Europe just went live to provide grid services that’ll negate the need for natural gas to provide those services, while reducing wind curtailment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34358795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34358795 https://www.energy-storage.news/europes-largest-transmission-connected-bess-begins-world-first-reactive-power-services-contract/ https://www.energy-storage.news/europes-largest-transmission...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pjc50 4y ago
  That looks .. disappointingly small? 100MW for one hour, made up of what looks like 24 containers in a yard? I guess there's a very long way to go.
- jillesvangurp 4y ago
  In Germany, the main function of LNG long term will be to smooth the transition of households from burning gas for heating to using heat pumps. As LNG is expensive, people who can will switch sooner than later. Also, rolling out heat pumps is going to take a long time and some people will be dependent on gas for as long as that is going to take. A secondary role for LNG is to power gas peaker plants when renewables fall short. Mainly this can be done with existing gas plants. There's very little need for building more of those. Also, coal plants remain popular for this. Before the war the plan was replacing coal with gas plants. With current gas prices, that plan is out of the window and we're now looking at increased speed of the rollout of wind, solar, and batteries instead.
  - voqv 4y ago
    Germany's steel and chemistry sector require large amounts of natural gas. In general, natural gas (currently LNG) was also to smooth a transition towards green hydrogen, the plan being to build infrastructure that can burn/store/use both, as explicitly stated by Federal ministries/agencies. > that plan is out of the window There hasn't been officially confirmed, soon there will be a report called "Power plant strategy 2026" that will give a better outlook as to what is gonna happen this decade.
    - jillesvangurp 4y ago
      > There hasn't been officially confirmed, soon there will be a report called "Power plant strategy 2026" that will give a better outlook as to what is gonna happen this decade. It's a highly political topic. Blue hydrogen from LNG is more of a research topic / aspirational thing for the fossil fuel industry than it is an actual thing. This seems to be more of a talking point than something that is being done at scale with any decent capture of carbon. LNG in the industry is of course a thing. Heating things is done with gas and coal mostly. A lot of that will have to be transitioned away to something else. Hydrogen might be an option. But some industries might also switch to other forms of heating. E.g. there are some ways to use electricity directly for this via things like induction or plasma heating. Historically, using fossil fuels was cheap. But when you are going to use vast amounts of electricity to generate green hydrogen for industrial heating use cases, this changes. Using the electricity directly might be more efficient in some cases.
- throwaway4aday 4y ago
  > 100MW/107MWh Oh good, only 3,000 more of these and things should be peachy.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    It’s a good thing then that Tesla is building 40GWh/year of storage at their new Megapack factory in Lathrop, CA, although the more utility scale storage manufacturing capacity built, the better. We’re going to need a lot as you mentioned, and they’re currently sold out for the next two and a half years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvSmMUdC_nA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvSmMUdC_nA
cinntaile 4y ago
I think it is more accurate to include both. War and subsidies have turbocharged the LNG and green transition.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> War and subsidies have turbocharged the LNG transition The IEA projects "renewables are set to account for 90% of the increase in global generation capacity" between 2022 and 2027, "almost 30% higher than the agency’s forecast in 2021."
- HPsquared 4y ago
  That's nameplate capacity; what about production?
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > nameplate capacity; what about production You want actual production figures for 2027?
    - HPsquared 4y ago
      Forecasts would be nice I guess. It was more to point out that renewable generation equipment generally has quite a low utilization factor compared to the existing infrastructure, so a given increase in "capacity" does not reflect the same increase in actual production.
  - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
    for a rough estimate, divide wind and solar by 3, nat gas by 2 and leave nuclear untouched. this suggests that the actual figure will be closer to 80%.
- stuaxo 4y ago
  Has the IEA got any better at predicting renewables than it has been over the last 20+ years when it grossly underestimated them ?
pjc50 4y ago
.. in which direction?

War and subsidies have turbocharged the LNG transition. There, I fixed the title.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

uoaei 4y ago

The misdirection is so bald-faced and shameless.

toomuchtodo 4y ago

Natural gas compliments renewables until battery storage and renewables overproduction pushes out natural gas. It also produces smaller amounts of CO2 per unit of electricity produced versus coal. Recently, there was an HN thread about large amounts of UK wind curtailment. The largest battery storage system in Europe just went live to provide grid services that’ll negate the need for natural gas to provide those services, while reducing wind curtailment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34358795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34358795 https://www.energy-storage.news/europes-largest-transmission-connected-bess-begins-world-first-reactive-power-services-contract/ https://www.energy-storage.news/europes-largest-transmission...

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pjc50 4y ago
That looks .. disappointingly small? 100MW for one hour, made up of what looks like 24 containers in a yard? I guess there's a very long way to go.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
In Germany, the main function of LNG long term will be to smooth the transition of households from burning gas for heating to using heat pumps. As LNG is expensive, people who can will switch sooner than later. Also, rolling out heat pumps is going to take a long time and some people will be dependent on gas for as long as that is going to take. A secondary role for LNG is to power gas peaker plants when renewables fall short. Mainly this can be done with existing gas plants. There's very little need for building more of those. Also, coal plants remain popular for this. Before the war the plan was replacing coal with gas plants. With current gas prices, that plan is out of the window and we're now looking at increased speed of the rollout of wind, solar, and batteries instead.
- voqv 4y ago
  Germany's steel and chemistry sector require large amounts of natural gas. In general, natural gas (currently LNG) was also to smooth a transition towards green hydrogen, the plan being to build infrastructure that can burn/store/use both, as explicitly stated by Federal ministries/agencies. > that plan is out of the window There hasn't been officially confirmed, soon there will be a report called "Power plant strategy 2026" that will give a better outlook as to what is gonna happen this decade.
  - jillesvangurp 4y ago
    > There hasn't been officially confirmed, soon there will be a report called "Power plant strategy 2026" that will give a better outlook as to what is gonna happen this decade. It's a highly political topic. Blue hydrogen from LNG is more of a research topic / aspirational thing for the fossil fuel industry than it is an actual thing. This seems to be more of a talking point than something that is being done at scale with any decent capture of carbon. LNG in the industry is of course a thing. Heating things is done with gas and coal mostly. A lot of that will have to be transitioned away to something else. Hydrogen might be an option. But some industries might also switch to other forms of heating. E.g. there are some ways to use electricity directly for this via things like induction or plasma heating. Historically, using fossil fuels was cheap. But when you are going to use vast amounts of electricity to generate green hydrogen for industrial heating use cases, this changes. Using the electricity directly might be more efficient in some cases.
throwaway4aday 4y ago
> 100MW/107MWh Oh good, only 3,000 more of these and things should be peachy.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  It’s a good thing then that Tesla is building 40GWh/year of storage at their new Megapack factory in Lathrop, CA, although the more utility scale storage manufacturing capacity built, the better. We’re going to need a lot as you mentioned, and they’re currently sold out for the next two and a half years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvSmMUdC_nA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvSmMUdC_nA

cinntaile 4y ago

I think it is more accurate to include both. War and subsidies have turbocharged the LNG and green transition.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> War and subsidies have turbocharged the LNG transition The IEA projects "renewables are set to account for 90% of the increase in global generation capacity" between 2022 and 2027, "almost 30% higher than the agency’s forecast in 2021."

HPsquared 4y ago
That's nameplate capacity; what about production?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > nameplate capacity; what about production You want actual production figures for 2027?
  - HPsquared 4y ago
    Forecasts would be nice I guess. It was more to point out that renewable generation equipment generally has quite a low utilization factor compared to the existing infrastructure, so a given increase in "capacity" does not reflect the same increase in actual production.
- adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
  for a rough estimate, divide wind and solar by 3, nat gas by 2 and leave nuclear untouched. this suggests that the actual figure will be closer to 80%.
stuaxo 4y ago
Has the IEA got any better at predicting renewables than it has been over the last 20+ years when it grossly underestimated them ?

pjc50 4y ago

.. in which direction?