6 ms·

Texas, Arizona, and even Idaho (!!) are putting up fairly good numbers too, according to this map: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64586 https:

Texas, Arizona, and even Idaho (!!) are putting up fairly good numbers too, according to this map: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64586 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64586 Pretty much all new grid assets are solar, batteries, and wind, with a bit of natural gas. And that natural gas will likely be a stranded capital asset that won't be able to compete on price within a decade.

rogerrogerr 1y ago
Isn’t natgas basically a waste product? As in no one is setting out to produce it, it just shows up when you produce other hydrocarbons? So either it’s going to get released, flared off, or something useful will get done with it even if it goes to $0.
- detaro 1y ago
  Yes and no. It is a by-product of oil wells, but there are also pure gas fields only harvesting it.
- epistasis 1y ago
  You still have to move it to the generation turbines, store it, and maintain the turbines. Even if the price of extracting natural gas is zero or negative, it may not be economical to use it for electricity generation in the future. Solar, wind, and storage are a major disruption of our energy technology. They do not follow the same cost curves, and fuel-based generation is already a very mature technology. We are either at early ages or teenager years for solar and storage, we don't know where they will end up when mature, but it's going to be so much cheaper than it is now.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- njarboe 1y ago
  In the eastern US much of the fracking done is to extract natural gas. Not a waste product there.
- detourdog 1y ago
  In some cases it is a waste product but not in the USA we also have fracking which is a toxic waste producer. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracking https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracking
- Izikiel43 1y ago
  In Argentina there is a very large operation to get natural gas from fracking, and export it to other countries besides local usage.
- pfdietz 1y ago
  There's quite a lot of "dry" (non-byproduct) natural gas being produced.
- folmar 1y ago
  It's the LPG that is a byproduct (of both natural gas and crude oil distillation).
- bobthepanda 1y ago
  It's not just that; gas has to be transported, and your options are generally either pipelines or LNG, neither of which have a nonzero cost, and LNG is actually quite expensive.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  The assumption there is that hydrocarbon production isn't going to decline. The majority of oil production is for transportation, so what happens as electric cars and plug-in hybrids that can run in full electric mode 95% of the time become a higher percentage of the installed base?
ImaCake 1y ago
I am no expert on this, but my understanding was natural gas is useful for its flexibility and efficency to handle gaps in supply. The big batteries are amazing but they can't (yet) cover longer gaps the same way natural gas can.
- pfdietz 1y ago
  That's right. When natural gas becomes unavailable or banned, green hydrogen could be used for that instead.
  - analog31 1y ago
    How will green hydrogen be preferable to batteries?
    - pfdietz 1y ago
      Very much lower capex per unit of stored energy. This is balanced by a much lower round trip efficiency, so for short term storage batteries are superior.
dreghgh 1y ago
Natural gas is perfect for peaking as it can spin up quickly and costs little when not burning fuel. Natural gas especially newer more efficient installations will probably be profitable for a while because as renewables become a bigger proportion of generation there will be less GWh delivered from gas but at higher prices. Or to reverse that, if you need the natural gas to be available, you have to pay what it costs to keep it around, regardless if that's for 10%, 1%, or 0.1% of the time that it's actually generating. But as that number drops - because of storage and overcapacity of renewables - you reduce emissions even if you don't reduce cost. Fans of nuclear claim that sceptics are either radical leftists who want to reduce energy use, or anti-environmentalists don't care about emissions. But I see the pragmatic, diversified way of drastically cutting emissions being renewables + storage + gas turbines.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  The problem with operating a natural gas plant only 0.1% of the time is that you have to cover its fixed costs over whatever time it is run, and if that's only 0.1% of the time then the fixed contribution per kWh becomes enormous. Worse, people like to point out that a high proportion of the cost of a natural gas plant is fuel, but the fuel cost also includes fixed costs. If you're using only 0.1% as much natural gas at scale then you have to recover the costs of all the pipelines and other infrastructure over 0.1% as much sales volume. You end up paying a significant fraction of the cost of having the generating plants producing power 100% of the time, but only get power 0.1% of the time. The main advantage of not running them all the time is that then you're not emitting CO2, but nuclear plants have that advantage even when you do run them all the time.
  - notTooFarGone 1y ago
    How is "have to run nuclear all the time" a benefit with solar? If solar blasts through the day you are unprofitable and have to deal with extra excess power. Maintaining gas power plants is something that can be shared by the grid and is 100% cheaper than building new nuclear plants.
    - 1y ago

rogerrogerr 1y ago

Isn’t natgas basically a waste product? As in no one is setting out to produce it, it just shows up when you produce other hydrocarbons? So either it’s going to get released, flared off, or something useful will get done with it even if it goes to $0.

detaro 1y ago
Yes and no. It is a by-product of oil wells, but there are also pure gas fields only harvesting it.
epistasis 1y ago
You still have to move it to the generation turbines, store it, and maintain the turbines. Even if the price of extracting natural gas is zero or negative, it may not be economical to use it for electricity generation in the future. Solar, wind, and storage are a major disruption of our energy technology. They do not follow the same cost curves, and fuel-based generation is already a very mature technology. We are either at early ages or teenager years for solar and storage, we don't know where they will end up when mature, but it's going to be so much cheaper than it is now.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
njarboe 1y ago
In the eastern US much of the fracking done is to extract natural gas. Not a waste product there.
detourdog 1y ago
In some cases it is a waste product but not in the USA we also have fracking which is a toxic waste producer. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracking https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracking
Izikiel43 1y ago
In Argentina there is a very large operation to get natural gas from fracking, and export it to other countries besides local usage.
pfdietz 1y ago
There's quite a lot of "dry" (non-byproduct) natural gas being produced.
folmar 1y ago
It's the LPG that is a byproduct (of both natural gas and crude oil distillation).
bobthepanda 1y ago
It's not just that; gas has to be transported, and your options are generally either pipelines or LNG, neither of which have a nonzero cost, and LNG is actually quite expensive.
AnthonyMouse 1y ago
The assumption there is that hydrocarbon production isn't going to decline. The majority of oil production is for transportation, so what happens as electric cars and plug-in hybrids that can run in full electric mode 95% of the time become a higher percentage of the installed base?

ImaCake 1y ago

I am no expert on this, but my understanding was natural gas is useful for its flexibility and efficency to handle gaps in supply. The big batteries are amazing but they can't (yet) cover longer gaps the same way natural gas can.

pfdietz 1y ago
That's right. When natural gas becomes unavailable or banned, green hydrogen could be used for that instead.
- analog31 1y ago
  How will green hydrogen be preferable to batteries?
  - pfdietz 1y ago
    Very much lower capex per unit of stored energy. This is balanced by a much lower round trip efficiency, so for short term storage batteries are superior.

dreghgh 1y ago

Natural gas is perfect for peaking as it can spin up quickly and costs little when not burning fuel. Natural gas especially newer more efficient installations will probably be profitable for a while because as renewables become a bigger proportion of generation there will be less GWh delivered from gas but at higher prices. Or to reverse that, if you need the natural gas to be available, you have to pay what it costs to keep it around, regardless if that's for 10%, 1%, or 0.1% of the time that it's actually generating. But as that number drops - because of storage and overcapacity of renewables - you reduce emissions even if you don't reduce cost. Fans of nuclear claim that sceptics are either radical leftists who want to reduce energy use, or anti-environmentalists don't care about emissions. But I see the pragmatic, diversified way of drastically cutting emissions being renewables + storage + gas turbines.

AnthonyMouse 1y ago
The problem with operating a natural gas plant only 0.1% of the time is that you have to cover its fixed costs over whatever time it is run, and if that's only 0.1% of the time then the fixed contribution per kWh becomes enormous. Worse, people like to point out that a high proportion of the cost of a natural gas plant is fuel, but the fuel cost also includes fixed costs. If you're using only 0.1% as much natural gas at scale then you have to recover the costs of all the pipelines and other infrastructure over 0.1% as much sales volume. You end up paying a significant fraction of the cost of having the generating plants producing power 100% of the time, but only get power 0.1% of the time. The main advantage of not running them all the time is that then you're not emitting CO2, but nuclear plants have that advantage even when you do run them all the time.
- notTooFarGone 1y ago
  How is "have to run nuclear all the time" a benefit with solar? If solar blasts through the day you are unprofitable and have to deal with extra excess power. Maintaining gas power plants is something that can be shared by the grid and is 100% cheaper than building new nuclear plants.
  - 1y ago