Green Energy, and the German Grid, from: Kiev Is Burning

[glenn239]

15 hours ago, Josh said:

I think Putin's major mistake in that regard was not closing all the spigots immediately so there was no opportunity to build up until more LNG terminals were available. 

I don't think the Russians cared whether Europe did or did not buy their gas elsewhere, Europe had to pay in Rubles is all.  

 

[BansheeOne]

At any rate, reading back through this thread, few predictions made last year held up well.

[rmgill]

In the words of Bernie Sanders, "that's a good thing!"


Now, are you going to increase your nation's supply of energy sources or go back to doing what St Greta of How Dare You wants you to do? 
 

[Ssnake]

Seems like we're quite happy burning more and more lignite ... so the electric cars can load faster. I mean, sometimes the dishonesty in media reporting makes me want to retch. Exhibit A, yesterday evening's news reporting about the inefficiency of synthetic fuels where only 15% of the entire energy balance will be used to propel a car. Fair enough, breaking up a very stable CO2 molecule costs a lot of energy, that's 10th grade chemistry 101. Next they say, only 30% of Diesel or gasoline energy will be used to drive the car. Again, probably not really a lie. Internal combustion engines cannot possibly convert more than 50% of a fuel's energy into useful torque, and then you still have friction in the drivetrain, the wheels, etc.

Oh, but behold the electric car! 75% Efficiency!

Yeah, if you discard how the electricity was made ... in a coal powerplant's internal combustion engine at 46% efficiency, with 5% loss due to grid distribution, so 75% of 41% = 30% ... so, WTF are they trying to sell here?

 

Well, we all know the answer.

[Colin]

2 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Seems like we're quite happy burning more and more lignite ... so the electric cars can load faster. I mean, sometimes the dishonesty in media reporting makes me want to retch. Exhibit A, yesterday evening's news reporting about the inefficiency of synthetic fuels where only 15% of the entire energy balance will be used to propel a car. Fair enough, breaking up a very stable CO2 molecule costs a lot of energy, that's 10th grade chemistry 101. Next they say, only 30% of Diesel or gasoline energy will be used to drive the car. Again, probably not really a lie. Internal combustion engines cannot possibly convert more than 50% of a fuel's energy into useful torque, and then you still have friction in the drivetrain, the wheels, etc.

Oh, but behold the electric car! 75% Efficiency!

Yeah, if you discard how the electricity was made ... in a coal powerplant's internal combustion engine at 46% efficiency, with 5% loss due to grid distribution, so 75% of 41% = 30% ... so, WTF are they trying to sell here?

 

Well, we all know the answer.

Traditional coal plants in the US average 33% efficiency, not sure if that applies to European ones as well? I did do a review for a powerline for one of these plants, but it was never built as coal became politically toxic https://www.ge.com/power/transform/article.transform.articles.2018.mar.come-hele-or-high-water

[Ssnake]

Any modern furnace chamber can extract between 44 and 46% of the energy stored in coal dust (50% being the never-attainable theoretical maximum permitted by thermodynamics). Of course, you then still have conversion losses until you come out of the steam turbine's generator. So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if a battery-powered car is even worse than 30% overall efficiency. The only way how they can possibly make sense at all is by using non CO2-emitting power sources.

And even then, remodeling the entire energy infrastructure concept of a whole country/continent/the world is not only hideously expensive (as in, bordering on the crimiminally insane level), it will also result in even more CO2 emissions as we have to extract more copper, lithium, rare earths, and other natural resources. I haven't heard yet of solar-powered mines.

[jmsaari]

Well the furnace can extract pretty much 99+ % of the energy in coal in combustion, and put around 90% of that into the steam cycle... how much you can convert of that to electricity vs dumping out in the condenser depends on how hot you can get the steam, which is a material issue in the boiler superheater surfaces basically: how much you can pay for them, and how often replacing. The higher the temperature, the more of that you can convert to power, and the less has to be dumped to the environment in condenser.

Modern plants are now at around 650 °C and you could have 2 reheats, which should put the Carnot efficiency (thermodynamic max) at well over 60%... Turbine flow losses slice off bit over 10% from theoretical max, plant auxiliaries take several percent, and a few are lost in generator and transformer, so we're left below 50 still. 

The steam temperatures used to go up fairly fast and there were prediction's of over 700°C by now but that rate of increase has slowed to a snail's pace for several decades already so we prob won't ever see a 50% plant unless there's a major breakthrough in the material science for high-temperature affordable pressure vessel materials. 

33% is very low though, probably a lot of very old plants that haven't been modernized if that's the case... cheap coal killing invest in efficiency perhaps?

[sunday]

56 minutes ago, jmsaari said:

The steam temperatures used to go up fairly fast and there were prediction's of over 700°C by now but that rate of increase has slowed to a snail's pace for several decades already so we prob won't ever see a 50% plant unless there's a major breakthrough in the material science for high-temperature affordable pressure vessel materials. 

Temperatures of 374°C and above, with pressures of 220bar and above define the realm of supercritical steam, more or less.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Benson_(engineer)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercritical_steam_generator

Also, a quite recent power plant in Arkansas:

Quote

American Electric Power/SWEPCO estimates the plant's ultra-supercritical combustion achieves between 39 and 40 percent efficiency. To overcome material stress from the plant's high pressure and temperature, engineers used new nickel and chrome alloys in the boiler and its components.

The thermal efficiency record holder is a German power station

Quote

RDK8 (Germany): The world’s most efficient coal power plant

EnBW, a German electricity company, needed more power generation capacity to replace existing older fossil-fired power plants and nuclear power plants that are scheduled to be shut down in the coming years. To provide the best value to its customers and minimize the environmental impact of its activity, EnBW needed the most efficient solution, and that is exactly what GE delivered. The RDK8 steam power plant at the Rheinhafen-Dampfkraftwerk electrical generation facility in Karlsruhe, Germany, has achieved a 47.5% net thermal efficiency while producing 919 MW of electricity. Today, RDK8 is the world’s most efficient coal-fired steam power plant.

Official link

Then, there is Commie China. Note the cost of the plant.

Edited March 4, 2023 by sunday

[jmsaari]

Just realized I forgot the bloody obvious: European plants report efficiencies on fuel lower heating value basis, those of Sam on higher heating value...not much difference with anthracite, but big difference with brown coal.

[sunday]

Type of fuel should not have any effect on thermal efficiency, as one compares electrical power output with thermal power input. (Mega)Watt with (Mega)Watt.

That if some kind of artificial metric is not involved, of course. There was that "Indicated Horsepower" thing in the times of alternative steam engines, a purely geometric metric that was merely indicative of the power a steam engine could output.

[Stuart Galbraith]

There was a British Transport Commission report in the 1950s on calorific value of different kinds of coal. They found a big difference between coal from different pits, even just within the United Kingdom.

 

[seahawk]

On 3/4/2023 at 10:34 AM, Ssnake said:

Any modern furnace chamber can extract between 44 and 46% of the energy stored in coal dust (50% being the never-attainable theoretical maximum permitted by thermodynamics). Of course, you then still have conversion losses until you come out of the steam turbine's generator. So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if a battery-powered car is even worse than 30% overall efficiency. The only way how they can possibly make sense at all is by using non CO2-emitting power sources.

And even then, remodeling the entire energy infrastructure concept of a whole country/continent/the world is not only hideously expensive (as in, bordering on the crimiminally insane level), it will also result in even more CO2 emissions as we have to extract more copper, lithium, rare earths, and other natural resources. I haven't heard yet of solar-powered mines.

The stupidity is that it also ignores things like war or natural disaster. Tell people to sleep in their cars after an earthquake or a big black-out in winter, when they have electric cars. Or just ask them to evacuate an area, when electricity is down.

[rmgill]

On 3/3/2023 at 8:15 PM, Ssnake said:

 

Yeah, if you discard how the electricity was made ... in a coal powerplant's internal combustion engine at 46% efficiency, with 5% loss due to grid distribution, so 75% of 41% = 30% ... so, WTF are they trying to sell here?

 

Yep. There's a commercial touting their electric car and how electricity as a _source_ of energy is very clean. 

It's an energy TRANSFER mechanism. Not a source. 

[rmgill]

20 hours ago, sunday said:

Type of fuel should not have any effect on thermal efficiency, as one compares electrical power output with thermal power input. (Mega)Watt with (Mega)Watt.

That if some kind of artificial metric is not involved, of course. There was that "Indicated Horsepower" thing in the times of alternative steam engines, a purely geometric metric that was merely indicative of the power a steam engine could output.

If the fuel has lower calorific value, isn't there a loss in the heating cycle where the extra trash has to be dealt with, decomposed by the heating, ejected as ash, etc? 

[sunday]

1 hour ago, rmgill said:

If the fuel has lower calorific value, isn't there a loss in the heating cycle where the extra trash has to be dealt with, decomposed by the heating, ejected as ash, etc? 

It should not be significant. For instance, in most steam turbine thermal cycles, or Rankine cycles, one could calculate  thermal efficiency pretty well without considering the energy consumed by the pump that injects water into the boiler.

[rmgill]

Hmm. 
 

Coal Grade	Heating Value
	(Btu/lb)	(kJ/kg)
Anthracite	12910	30080
Semi-Anthracite	13770	32084
Low-volatile bituminous	14340	33412
Medium-volatile bituminous	13840	32247
High-volatile bituminous A	13090	30499
High-volatile bituminous B	12130	28262
High-volatile bituminous C	10750	25047
Sub-bituminous B	9150	21319
Sub-bituminous C	8940	20830
Lignite	6900	16077

[sunday]

Irrelevant. Thermal efficiency calculation is mechanical power out over thermal energy in. Not electrical power out over mass of fuel in.

Edited March 5, 2023 by sunday

[rmgill]

21 hours ago, sunday said:

Irrelevant. Thermal efficiency calculation is mechanical power out over thermal energy in. Not electrical power out over mass of fuel in.

Ahh. ok. I was thinking mechanical or electrical power out for mass of fuel. As we usually speak of fuel efficiency in terms of miles per gallon, or liters per decimeter or something. In that frame of reference a given mass (or volume) of fuel per calories out is going to be more efficient for a more energy dense fuel. 

I can play with this in real world by running my M35A2 on gasoline or diesel. I can even see a MPG difference in Summer blends down south vs winter blends up north. 

 

[sunday]

36 minutes ago, rmgill said:

Ahh. ok. I was thinking mechanical or electrical power out for mass of fuel. As we usually speak of fuel efficiency in terms of miles per gallon, or liters per decimeter or something. In that frame of reference a given mass (or volume) of fuel per calories out is going to be more efficient for a more energy dense fuel. 

I can play with this in real world by running my M35A2 on gasoline or diesel. I can even see a MPG difference in Summer blends down south vs winter blends up north. 

 

Not a big deal, thermal efficiency and fuel efficiency are different things. The former is dimensionless and could be expressed as a percentage, the later is not.

Edited March 6, 2023 by sunday

[jmsaari]

Talking of various efficiencies is easily confusing. In power plant engineering textbooks everything is nicely defined but already in the industry you hear operators having their own definitions for things like electrical, thermal, auxiliary efficiency etc. And in newspapers and such, you're lucky if they get the difference between energy and power right...

[Strannik]

https://www.ft.com/content/cde8696f-3c48-4f40-8599-79626b903591

The gas war did cost Europe hundreds of billions of euros in increased gas bills. Some European industries, such as fertiliser manufacturing, struggled and shut down, but the combination of a mild winter and suppressed Chinese demand restored the balance on the global gas market, while the European economy proved highly adaptable.

On the other side, there was a belief that Russia was heavily dependent on western technologies to keep its oil and gas flowing, western markets for its revenues and western financial systems to facilitate its energy exports. It was hoped that, if cut off from these, Russia would face rapid economic collapse that would limit its ability to wage war. Following the invasion, amid boycotts by western buyers and Moscow’s attempts to keep supply chains alive and payments going through, Russian oil production decreased by 10 per cent between February and April, but later recovered. Now, a year after the war began, Russian oil production is at prewar levels.

The European oil and oil products embargo and price cap did result in higher costs for Russian operators, but do not appear to have significantly damaged the Russian oil trade. Russia’s tax levy on its oil industry had decreased substantially by the end of 2022 — not because its oil companies were making less money, but due to government errors currently being rectified through modifications in the tax system.

Both sides appear to have exhausted their immediate offensive capacity and switched to a war of attrition, hoping that time will be on their side. 

 

[DB]

It's all going just fine...

https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/government-budget-value

Presumably these numbers are adjusted somewhat down to try to reduce the effects of the lies from the previous year, or maybe they're still lies and it's even worse.

[BansheeOne]

On 3/1/2023 at 4:07 PM, BansheeOne said:

Damn, here I was thinking the mandated 40 percent minimum of national gas storage capacity in the new year was to be met on 1 April. In truth it was for 1 February - it went completely unnoticed because actual number on that date was nearly twice this at 78 percent. Currently just above 70, with the low point to be expected somewhere in late March.

Well, cold spells might still happen of course - typically there are a couple frost nights in mid-May - but looks like we bottomed out last week at a little under 64 percent capacity. As an artefact of the warmer weather, the consumption indicator on the national regulator's website is ironically on "critical" all the time now since it gets harder to save the advised 15-20 percent corrected for temperature the less you need to heat. 😁 The reserve capacity of the last three remaining nuclear power plants doesn't seem to have been needed for power generation either, though that's less good news if you think nuclear should make a comeback in Germany.

And now a moment of silence for all the predictions of rolling blackouts, people freezing in their homes, entire branches of industry shutting down, mass unemployment, hyperinflation, assless chaps etc., please.

[DB]

Hold whilst I finish cooking my grey squirrel over a tea candle stove. I may be some time.

[Josh]

9 hours ago, DB said:

Hold whilst I finish cooking my grey squirrel over a tea candle stove. I may be some time.

*Grey* squirrel? How bougie.