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Most of these plants already exist. We just have to pay their upkeep and see how the future unfolds. It isn't necessary to build many additional plants. Cost e

by oezi 3y ago

Most of these plants already exist. We just have to pay their upkeep and see how the future unfolds. It isn't necessary to build many additional plants. Cost estimates of attaining net zero are on the order of 100-200% of global GDP. To get this done by 2050 we would need to spend 3-6% of global GDP on the energy transition. This includes all these contingency costs.

XorNot 3y ago
No, you have to buy them. They have owners - they're private infrastructure. The owners intend to sell power from them. If they can't do that, then they're going to either try to sell the asset, or demolish the asset and use the land for something else. The only way to stop gas plants from running would be to ban them from doing so, or charge them a carbon price which means they can't. But, in both cases, the owners then have no reason to hold onto that infrastructure - that's all capital they can't make money off of anymore. So you are talking about an expensive nationalization of a huge amount of existing infrastructure...or a pretty serious correction to the price of power in the national markets to make it plausible to run these plants in "mostly shutdown" condition while still being ready to go. Which seems unlikely: if I can make money selling renewable energy, why would I leave cash locked up in an asset which I can't?
- oezi 3y ago
  Since the writing is on the wall that these power plants are mostly worthless in the foreseeable future most energy companies had to reduce the asset worth of the power plants already considerably. Who would want to buy such legacy tech? Rather, the price to keep those power plants available as a contingency reserve will have to be negotiated and the price will be somewhere which is more than the cost of keeping them operational but less than building new plants and keeping them operational. I guess it is a good way for existing operators to squeeze some little bit from a doomed tech but it won't cost society very much.
  - XorNot 3y ago
    Doesn't sound very doomed if your entire energy strategy is completely dependent on it. Oh and you know... They're a lot cheaper per reliable kWh then any other option (green methane would require solar power to be an order of magnitude cheaper then it currently is - not impossible but it also hasn't happened yet and may not).
- Gasp0de 3y ago
  They will be paid not for the energy they produce but for the ability to produce energy on demand. It's a grid operation cost and is already financed as such in Europe. Companies can sell the guarantee to produce a certain amount of energy within X seconds and they are compensated for that. In combination with the low LCOE of renewables, it is way cheaper than nuclear power for example.
  - XorNot 3y ago
    The current bid for demand response though is still higher then for conventional operation, and piggybacks off the infrastructure for gas supply which runs constantly If you don't have regularly operating gas power stations any more, then the cost for underproduction protection is going to be a lot higher - because rather then running an extra turbine or increasing fuel burn, you have to justify the whole powerplant and it's sort infrastructure existing.
brutusborn 3y ago
Do you have a source for the world cost estimate? The only ones I can find have pretty absurd assumptions about expected future costs and expected savings.
- oezi 3y ago
  Those figures came up in various reports/studies. The one I studied in most detail was from Fraunhofer on the German energy transition. One good book regarding napkin math was the following (in German unfortunately): https://www.amazon.de/Erneuerbare-Energien-zum-Verstehen-Mitreden/dp/3570104583/ https://www.amazon.de/Erneuerbare-Energien-zum-Verstehen-Mit...

by oezi 3y ago

XorNot 3y ago

No, you have to buy them. They have owners - they're private infrastructure. The owners intend to sell power from them. If they can't do that, then they're going to either try to sell the asset, or demolish the asset and use the land for something else. The only way to stop gas plants from running would be to ban them from doing so, or charge them a carbon price which means they can't. But, in both cases, the owners then have no reason to hold onto that infrastructure - that's all capital they can't make money off of anymore. So you are talking about an expensive nationalization of a huge amount of existing infrastructure...or a pretty serious correction to the price of power in the national markets to make it plausible to run these plants in "mostly shutdown" condition while still being ready to go. Which seems unlikely: if I can make money selling renewable energy, why would I leave cash locked up in an asset which I can't?

oezi 3y ago
Since the writing is on the wall that these power plants are mostly worthless in the foreseeable future most energy companies had to reduce the asset worth of the power plants already considerably. Who would want to buy such legacy tech? Rather, the price to keep those power plants available as a contingency reserve will have to be negotiated and the price will be somewhere which is more than the cost of keeping them operational but less than building new plants and keeping them operational. I guess it is a good way for existing operators to squeeze some little bit from a doomed tech but it won't cost society very much.
- XorNot 3y ago
  Doesn't sound very doomed if your entire energy strategy is completely dependent on it. Oh and you know... They're a lot cheaper per reliable kWh then any other option (green methane would require solar power to be an order of magnitude cheaper then it currently is - not impossible but it also hasn't happened yet and may not).
Gasp0de 3y ago
They will be paid not for the energy they produce but for the ability to produce energy on demand. It's a grid operation cost and is already financed as such in Europe. Companies can sell the guarantee to produce a certain amount of energy within X seconds and they are compensated for that. In combination with the low LCOE of renewables, it is way cheaper than nuclear power for example.
- XorNot 3y ago
  The current bid for demand response though is still higher then for conventional operation, and piggybacks off the infrastructure for gas supply which runs constantly If you don't have regularly operating gas power stations any more, then the cost for underproduction protection is going to be a lot higher - because rather then running an extra turbine or increasing fuel burn, you have to justify the whole powerplant and it's sort infrastructure existing.

brutusborn 3y ago

Do you have a source for the world cost estimate? The only ones I can find have pretty absurd assumptions about expected future costs and expected savings.

oezi 3y ago
Those figures came up in various reports/studies. The one I studied in most detail was from Fraunhofer on the German energy transition. One good book regarding napkin math was the following (in German unfortunately): https://www.amazon.de/Erneuerbare-Energien-zum-Verstehen-Mitreden/dp/3570104583/ https://www.amazon.de/Erneuerbare-Energien-zum-Verstehen-Mit...