Editor's Commentary - California Proposition 7

[Desertdog]

Editor's Commentary
California Proposition 7
http://ecoworld.com/blog/2008/08/18/californias-proposition-7/

California Proposition 7
Posted on: August 18th, 2008 by Ed Ring
There is nothing wrong with encouraging clean, renewable, domestically produced energy.  But Californias proposition 7 would, if approved, require California utilities to procure half of their power from renewable resources by 2025″ (ref. Ballotpedia).  Currently Californias public utilities are mandated to generate 25% of their electricity by 2025, and this is an ambitious goal.  Just getting to 25% renewable electricity by 2025 would require more than doubling renewable power generation in California.  Getting to 50% by that time would require renewable power generation in California to nearly quintuple.

To understand why accomplishing such an ambitious goal is not necessarily practical, you dont have to be an economist or a renewable power expert.  You simply need to take a look at the current cost for renewable power technology.  While youre at it, write off hydropower, which constitutes most of the renewable energy in California.  The chances any significant new hydropower generation ever gets built in California are slim and none - despite whatever sentiments you may hold for or against hydro.  This leaves geothermal, solar and wind.

While geothermal holds exceptional long term potential, ala enhanced geothermal drilling, today there isnt a single operating example of a power station employing enhanced geothermal technology.  And most of Californias conventional geothermal power resources have already been developed.  So now you are down to wind and solar energy.  And since Californians by 2025 are going to be consuming about 1,000 gigawatt-hours per day, if proposition 7 is enacted, 500 gWh per day will have to come from wind and solar power.

Solar power, installed - not including transmission or storage infrastructure - costs about $7.0 million per megawatt of output; this equates to $7.0 billion per gigawatt.  If this sounds expensive, it is, but to get a truly accurate price you have to also take into account yield.  Even in sunny California, solar energy (in terms of full-sun-equivalent hours), can only be harvested on average for 4.5 hours per day, which means to get 500 gWh of solar generated electricity each day in California, you would need to install 111 gigawatts of solar arrays (500/4.5), which would cost $777 billion dollars.

Wind power, installed - is a better deal currently than solar - insofar as you can probably get costs down to around $2.5 million per megawatt of output, or $2.5 billion per gigawatt.  But the yield figures are also not promising.  In California there is widespread disagreement on the yield for wind power - credible estimates range from 10% (2.4 hours per day) to 25% (6.0 hours per day).  Given the magnitude of what is being proposed, it would be prudent to project wind yields in California somewhere in the middle of this range, say 17.5%, or 4.2 hours per day.  This means to get 500 gWh of wind generated electricity in California you would need to install 119 gigawatts of solar arrays (55/4.2), which would cost $297 billion dollars.

It is tempting, and not entirely implausible, to expect prices for solar power to drop significantly over the next several years.  But given the cost of balance of plant and installation labor, it is unlikely solar electricity is going to get measurably cheaper than wind power no matter how inexpensive the actual collector materials become.  Moreover, the costs for new transmission lines and grid upgrades, the costs for massive energy storage units (since the sun and wind are only producing power during small portions of the day), and the costs for land aquisition, permitting and fighting environmentalist lawsuits will be substantial.  For these reasons, estimating the total cost for California to deliver 50% renewable electricity at $300 billion is probably the very best case, if not fantastically optimistic.  This is $20 billion per year for the next 15 years.  Readers are encouraged to critique these projections.

California has already mandated utilities to accomplish a 25% RPS (renewable portfolio standard) by 2025.  It would make sense to see how this already ambitious process unfolds, giving solar and wind technology - along with future technologies such as enhanced geothermal - time to mature, before leaping to a 50% RPS mandate.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 11:19 am and is filed under Electricity, Geothermal, Investment, Photovoltaic, Politics, Solar, Thermal, Wind. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Tags: california proposition 7, california renewable portfolio standard

[ilbob]

It doesn't really matter whether it is possible or not, do it anyway because some idiot got enough ballot initiative signatures.

I am betting this will shift a lot of electrical energy to natural gas if the state is stupid enough to actually do this. NG powered refrigerators and A/C may become common. No doubt those that can afford it will just buy NG generators and run their homes on them to deal with the inevitable brownouts and blackouts. That will lead to higher NG prices. CA will lead the way in high utility bills.

[HankB]

It doesn't really matter whether it is possible or not, do it anyway because some idiot got enough ballot initiative signatures.

I am betting this will shift a lot of electrical energy to natural gas if the state is stupid enough to actually do this. NG powered refrigerators and A/C may become common. No doubt those that can afford it will just buy NG generators and run their homes on them to deal with the inevitable brownouts and blackouts. That will lead to higher NG prices. CA will lead the way in high utility bills.

Let's see . . . I read (but haven't confirmed) that T. Boone Pickins, who's pushing CNG for transportation, started a company that Nancy Pelosi bought a bunch of stock in . . . IF this is true, I wonder what rising NG prices would do to Nancy's portfolio . . .

[Desertdog]

NG powered refrigerators and A/C may become common.

They have been on the market seemingly for ever.  The refrigs are in most camper and travel trailers.  The original cost of home size refrigerators is high, extremely heavy, and finding somebody that really knows how to work on them is probably hard.
They are great and worth the expense and effort if you are off the grid. 

Let's see . . . I read (but haven't confirmed) that T. Boone Pickins, who's pushing CNG for transportation...

I really don't care to have a N/G powered vehicle.  Fully charged they are at 2500/3000 PSI.  No Thanks. And I have worked with propane and NG most of my adult life.  Propane is 250 PSI@100 degree F.  Liquid under pressure. 

[Antibubba]

If we could prove the abiotic theory of oil, that would make it a renewable, right?   

[Matthew Carberry]

LNG fueled vehicles are stupidly inefficient, NG fuel celled electrics are a much better option.

Or so I read.

[Desertdog]

NG at normal line pressure is good for stationary engines for generation of electricity/heating/hotwater cogeneration plants.

I read an article a number of years ago that Disney World in FL only has a gasline into it.  They generate all of their own electricity, and use the heat from the generators for heating all of their hot water and all of the refrigeration and AC for DW.

[Firethorn]

I read an article a number of years ago that Disney World in FL only has a gasline into it.  They generate all of their own electricity, and use the heat from the generators for heating all of their hot water and all of the refrigeration and AC for DW.

It would be called a 'trigeneration' plant.  Efficiency can be up in the 80-90% ranges.  Mainly because 'waste' heat, isn't.

I've proposed building new nuclear plants this way.  Provide heat to run some sort of plant, such as ethanol*, or even heat the town/city it's in.  Cooling for offices/factories/whatever.  And, of course, lots and lots of electricity.

*Cheap carbon free heat would make the process much more efficient and reduce carbon costs.  Most plants today are fired from NG or even coal.

[ilbob]

LNG fueled vehicles are stupidly inefficient, NG fuel celled electrics are a much better option.

Or so I read.

LNG fueled vehicles tend to be slightly more efficient than gas or diesel vehicles on a BTU basis, but not by a whole lot (maybe a percent or two). 100,000 BTUs of NG is about $1. 100,000 BTUs of diesel is about $4.

[hardwarehacker]

Lots of good numbers in the original post, and they look real. If California actually held everyone to the bill as written, things would probably go badly.  The only thing I might point out is that you speak almost entirely about energy sources, not much about ways to cut demand.  That said....
 
Industries have always complained that higher energy efficiencies, reduced pollution output, etc. were flatly impossible, or would price them out of existence.  Our auto makers have resisted higher mileage standards for decades, but now that customers are demanding better fuel economy they are proudly telling us that they can do it.  Solar and wind generators were long dismissed as impossibly expensive, but now you can buy one out of a catalog to power your off-grid cabin for less than the cost of stringing a power line.

We are very capable of doing the R&D, and once someone invents the better mousetrap we quickly figure out how to make it affordable.  Historically, this happens only when there is a carrot (money) or a stick (laws) for motivation.  The carrot is the recent jump in gas prices.  Think of this law as a big stick.

I won't be surprised (as an ex-Californian) if this law actually passes.  I will be very surprised if it doesn't wind up being softened before it actually turns into the end of the world as we know it.