Non-Green Energy: Oil and Gas

[rmgill]

27%!

 

[Ssnake]

It's all nice and dandy. But I would argue that the fundamental problem of solar panels isn't so much the lack of efficiency. It's the fact that we do not have economical storage solutions for the daily cycle of solar power, let alone the seasonal variations. So for every kilowatt hour missing during cold winter nights a kilowatt hour needs to be installed in conventional electricity generation. So we double the installed capacity and use one of it only half of the time.

That shouldn't stop some people from researching better solar panels. But that research, as nice as it is, does not address the fundamental issue. We need cheap, safe, and scalable energy storage solutions to make renewables work at the grid level. We're not remotely there.

[lucklucky]

June 20 in my country GWh for electrical production.

Hydro 38-13 pumping

Wind 29

Solar 13

Biomass 9

----------

Natural gas 6

Other fossil 1

Imports 58

Not accounted private energy production, mostly solar.

 

Natural Gas consumption not for electrical production: 97

Will try to find other fossil consumption

 

 

Edited June 22, 2024 by lucklucky

[JWB]

[JWB]

2 hours ago, Ssnake said:

We need cheap, safe, and scalable energy storage solutions to make renewables work at the grid level. We're not remotely there.

IIRC the USA needs a terawatt:

[Ssnake]

So you may have 3% of the required capacity by the end of this year, to even out daily variations - Hooray!

Yeah, I figured that it would be in that order of magnitude. Batteries simply aren't the answer, especially since they can't cover seasonal variations. And as long as you can't even that out, a duplication of installed capacity remains indispensable, unless you give up on grid stability (especially on cold winter days).

[sunday]

4 hours ago, Ssnake said:

So you may have 3% of the required capacity by the end of this year, to even out daily variations - Hooray!

Yeah, I figured that it would be in that order of magnitude. Batteries simply aren't the answer, especially since they can't cover seasonal variations. And as long as you can't even that out, a duplication of installed capacity remains indispensable, unless you give up on grid stability (especially on cold winter days).

Then one could try to assess how much CO2, and sundry real polution, is needed to build all those solar cells, and their replacements, and how much the conventional power plants you need to build anyway need to generate all the energy produced by those solar cells.

Plus the extra hard cash needed too.

[Ivanhoe]

The dodge, of course, is to have solar, wind, and battery fab done in China, which ignores regs and restrictions.

The hard cash will come from taxpayers, as it always does.

 

[lucklucky]

3 hours ago, sunday said:

Then one could try to assess how much CO2, and sundry real polution, is needed to build all those solar cells, and their replacements, and how much the conventional power plants you need to build anyway need to generate all the energy produced by those solar cells.

Plus the extra hard cash needed too.

CO2 is irrelevant what is important is to have the solar cells build here in th west. But the extremism of so called centrist parties regarding this and much other stuff assures our decadence.

[rmgill]

You’ll need to moderate on the environmental regs. Same reason so many chip fabs are over seas. The green rules don’t allow the chemicals and the manufacturing waste let alone anyone to handle it. 

[urbanoid]

Ah, yes, the well known wasteland known as Taiwan...

[rmgill]

I think Taiwan's government is smaller and more practical. The US regulatory environment has gone quite beyond rational and reasonable as we have amply seen by cases like Sackett v EPA. 

[lucklucky]

Precisely,  luxury ideas of purity,  bureaucracy that is in constant expansion for more power so every little change can be a problem to regulate, analyse with concurrent increase in costs.

[urbanoid]

Out of curiosity I decided to check how EU oil and gas imports look like now.

US remains a largest LNG supplier, same as in 2023, amounting to almost a half of imports.

Russia remains at similar level as in 2023 when it comes to both LNG and pipelines gas, at around 15% each (it was 40ish % for pipeline gas in 2021).

The US remains a largest single supplier of oil, at 15%. Then again we have 'others' at 36%, some of it might be resold Russian oil.

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20240923-1

[rmgill]

We're right here and we have a LOT of it. Our Geology makes for easy extraction...The Applachain mountains being as old as they are with the ancient rock being glose to the surface west of the chain makes for easy access. 
 

Appalachian

[urbanoid]

More good news

Quote

Austria says Russia to cut off gas from Saturday

LONDON/VIENNA, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Russia told Austria on Friday it will suspend gas deliveries via Ukraine on Saturday, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow's last gas flows to Europe.

Russia's oldest gas-export route to Europe, a pipeline dating back to Soviet days via Ukraine, is set to shut at the end of this year.

Ukraine has said it will not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom (GAZP.MM), opens new tab in order to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it.

Moscow's suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia will now only supply significant gas volumes to Hungary and Slovakia, in Hungary's case via a pipeline running mostly through Turkey. In contrast, Russia met 40% of the European Union's gas needs before Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said Gazprom's notice of ending supplies was long expected and Austria has made preparations.

"No home will go cold ... gas-storage facilities are sufficiently full," he told reporters.

Gazprom declined to comment.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, writing on X, said Russia's action showed it "once again uses energy as a weapon". But Austria, he said, would find a way to ensure energy security and "reject blackmail".

"The era of Europe relying on Russian gas is over," he said. Time to fully cut Russian energy profits -- and war funding."

OMV (OMVV.VI), opens new tab, Austria's biggest energy supplier, said it has been preparing for the eventual cut-off of Russian gas and can deliver gas to its customers by importing via Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

Austria's gas imports from Russia will end following a contractual dispute between Gazprom and OMV.

In a notice published on the central European gas hub platform, OMV said Gazprom told it supply would stop on Saturday.

Gazprom's move may fan concerns in Austria about heating through the winter and served as Moscow's rebuke to its political class since the Russia-friendly Freedom Party was cut out of coalition talks after winning Austria's election in September, said Ulrich Schmid, a professor of Eastern European studies at the University of St. Gallen.

European and global gas prices spiked following a drop in Russian pipeline supplies in 2022 but some European countries found alternative sources, including liquefied natural gas from the United States. The U.S. has become the world's top gas producer and is expected to expand production.

Austria was one of the first western European countries to buy Russian gas when the Soviet Union signed a gas contract in 1968, months before the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Germany was also heavily reliant on Russian gas before the war, but shipments ceased when the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea were blown up in 2022.

Russia's notice of ending gas supplies to Austria came as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany held their first phone conversation since December 2022.

Russia was ready to look at energy deals if Berlin was interested, the Kremlin said.

"It was emphasized that Russia has always strictly fulfilled its treaty and contractual obligations in the energy sector and is ready for mutually beneficial cooperation if the German side shows interest in this," the Kremlin said.

Russia shipped some 15 billion cubic metres of gas via Ukraine in 2023, about 8% of peak Russian gas flows to Europe via various routes in 2018-2019, according to data compiled by Reuters.

In 2023, the Ukraine transit route met 65% of gas demand in Austria and its eastern neighbours Hungary and Slovakia, according to the International Energy Agency. Ukraine has said it doesn't plan to extend the transit agreement into 2025.

Hungary no longer receives much gas via Ukraine and imports volumes via the TurkStream pipeline that runs along the bed of the Black Sea. Slovakia still receives Russian gas via Ukraine.

Gazprom's move showed Russia flexing its muscles at the West as pressure builds for a ceasefire in Ukraine, said Schmid at the University of St. Gallen. Russia likely felt emboldened after Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency this month pledging to quickly end the Ukraine war, he added.

EU energy commissioner Kadri Simson told Reuters on the sidelines of a UN climate conference in Azerbaijan that all EU countries receiving gas via the Ukraine route have access to other supply sources that could fill the gap.

"We have been very clear that alternative supply is available and there is no need for the continuation of Russian gas transiting via Ukraine to Europe," Simson said.

The European benchmark price for gas edged down 0.63 euro to 45.72 euros per megawatt hour at the trading close.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/austrias-omv-informed-by-gazprom-that-deliveries-be-reduced-0-says-platform-2024-11-15/

[Stuart Galbraith]

Now blow it up, before they turn it back on again.

[urbanoid]

Slovakia is still getting their gas via this route (and Hungary maybe partially), but since Ukraine isn't prolonging the transit agreement for 2025, it will stop by the end of the year too.

Edited November 16, 2024 by urbanoid

[urbanoid]

A thread about Russian shadow fleet of tankers:

https://x.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1897274236731056648

 

[urbanoid]

Pretty much this. 

 

[sunday]

Indeed.

[TrustMe]

The UK is purely coal free nowadays, but if some sort of war happens and we have to have "UK energy security" again i'm sure the government will create new coal fire plants to fill the need.

Given that China and India are probably the most polluted places on Spaceship Earth you'd think their governments would do something about it.

 

 

[Ivanhoe]

3 hours ago, TrustMe said:

The UK is purely coal free nowadays, but if some sort of war happens and we have to have "UK energy security" again i'm sure the government will create new coal fire plants to fill the need.

That is the main reason I want to minimize coal use. Western civ may badly need it for some future scenario. Coal still in the ground but prepped for mining is the best long-term energy storage system known to man. 

 

3 hours ago, TrustMe said:

Given that China and India are probably the most polluted places on Spaceship Earth you'd think their governments would do something about it.

Why? If things get too bad, the party grandees will simply move to New Zealand or wherever. 

[urbanoid]

1 minute ago, Ivanhoe said:

That is the main reason I want to minimize coal use. Western civ may badly need it for some future scenario. Coal still in the ground but prepped for mining is the best long-term energy storage system known to man. 

Building a shitload of nuclear reactors AND making sure there's fuel for many, many years would also do the trick.

[rmgill]

And spare transformers. .