The Energy Transition and technologies

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

Several companies I cannot name are even Piloting decarbonized steel pathways in Alberta right now. It wont be virgin because we don't have a good ore input, but there's plenty of reuse steel for pipe that can be done here.

That's awesome! I think in North America the majority of new steel is made from scrap. Locating new EAF steel plants can be difficult because you need to locate close to inputs, but also be able to connect to cheap energy. If Alberta ever decides to go ahead with more solar and wind it would be perfectly located

[DoubleK]

Concrete, specifically the cement component is going to be the challenging one to fully decarbonize for the reasons Street Pharm points out above. I recall reading about a different type of cement that uses fly ash in the place of limestone, but the drawback was it took longer to cure. I'm pretty confident that the materials engineers will figure that out and then it's down to becoming cost effective. Most of the fly ash came from coal plants, which are a dying breed. Here's hoping they buried it somewhere and it can be dug up and used.

Random aside: The number of EVs in the Seattle area is absolutely astounding. Not just Tesla either, Rivians and Polestars are quite common to see and I've even seen a bunch of Lucid Airs driving around.

[Mathgod]

Pretty exciting announcement. Hoping for the best! https://www.geothermalcanada.org/new...ng-accelerator

By the way, if you have an extra minute or two and don't mind poking around on that site, any feedback or suggestions are welcome.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

Several companies I cannot name are even Piloting decarbonized steel pathways in Alberta right now. It wont be virgin because we don't have a good ore input, but there's plenty of reuse steel for pipe that can be done here.

Yes, yes, but...can they lay it all night long and, will it satisfy that woman?

[Street Pharmacist]

I don't think most of us in North America are aware of just how rapid this change is happening with solar.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1835711497340702893

One of the biggest difficulties in assessing solar penetration is that if it's not grid tied it's almost impossible to see. Rooftop and factory installations are especially difficult to count in emerging economies because there's little to no paper trail. Look at Pakistan. The whole entire grid is only 50GW capacity and electricity is incredibly expensive as it's based on imported fossil fuels. In the first 6 months of 2024 alone, Pakistan imported 13 GW of panels and are buying up cheap lead acid batteries. For many of these consumers, they're simply skipping fossil fuel based grid electricity and creating their own electricity with solar panels.

In Africa, they skipped landlines and went straight to cell phones. Could Pakistan do the same with electricity?

Solar Panels hit a wholesale price of $0.095/Watt. My 11 kW system cost me $26,000 CAD all in back in 2023. That means the panels for those in China would cost less than $1,100 USD today. That's insane.

An interesting wrinkle is that we're now realizing that installed capacity is likely way underestimated and it can have a really big impact. We estimate GDP partially based on electricity consumption in many nations (including China). If much of the consumption is invisible, it becomes that much less reliable of a number

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Solar Panels hit a wholesale price of $0.95/Watt. My 11 kW system cost me $26,000 CAD all in back in 2023. That means the panels for those in China would cost less than $1,100 USD today. That's insane.

Unfortunately it seems like the installed costs are still going up not down.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Unfortunately it seems like the installed costs are still going up not down.

Yeah. It's bizzaro world. There's are a number of reasons working against cost reduction

1) Customer acquisition. Installers still pay big money for leads
2) Wage inflation. While unemployment may be edging up, skilled labour is still very tight
3) Tariffs. 150% Tariffs on the solar panels from chica which is where the cheap ones come from
4) Permitting. Things are getting worse, not better with permits virtually everywhere.
5) Bespoke nature of PV systems. The fact that every installation requires it's own engineering, sizing, and wiring work means that standardized pricing becomes very difficult which in turn makes competition harder

[DoubleK]

6) Net metering. Regulators are struggling with how to deal with cross-subsidization between different customer groups.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

Pretty exciting announcement. Hoping for the best! https://www.geothermalcanada.org/new...ng-accelerator

By the way, if you have an extra minute or two and don't mind poking around on that site, any feedback or suggestions are welcome.

Geothermal has unlimited potential.

Really just scraping the surface of what is possible for low carbon applications on both the residential, business and industrial side.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

6) Net metering. Regulators are struggling with how to deal with cross-subsidization between different customer groups.

That doesn't really raise installation costs. Just increases whineyness on the operator side.

In all seriousness, net metering is a good policy in low penetration to get things started, but it's inflationary once you start seeing daytime prices crash. Regulated utilities have a duty to carry some of the costs of the transition, but at high penetration it can get really expensive

[DoubleK]

We will agree to disagree. Net metering is like a farmer showing up to the supermarket expecting to be paid full retail price for his milk.

edit: I misread the original post, you were listing reasons against cost reduction. My bad.

[Faust]

@CleanProsperity

When it comes to the energy transition, Alberta could be a "Silicon Valley North, a real hub of innovation," says @jkenney in a new @TheHubCanada podcast:

https://x.com/cleanprosperity/status...918337750?s=61

“I know we are smart enough to walk and chew gum at the same time,” says @jkenney. “By which I mean develop our traditional resources, lead the way with technology, do it with lower carbon intensity, while also pursuing some of these new energy sources.”

https://x.com/cleanprosperity/status...725348045?s=61

[Faust]

Microsoft chooses infamous nuclear site for AI power:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx25v2d7zexo

[chedder]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Solar Panels hit a wholesale price of $0.95/Watt. My 11 kW system cost me $26,000 CAD all in back in 2023. That means the panels for those in China would cost less than $1,100 USD today. That's insane.

Shouldn't that be $11,000. Or did you mean to say wholesale prices are 95 cents/watt? They aren't that cheap are they?

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Faust

Microsoft chooses infamous nuclear site for AI power:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx25v2d7zexo

One of those under the radar but hugely impactful things happening in the world is the insane amount of energy we are going to need for everyone to be on the cloud, adopting IoT, and using AI (and AGI in the not too distant future). That isn't even mentioning the amount of energy needed for things like blockchains, quantum computing, EVs, and so forth.

The world is going to be getting more nuclear if for no other reason than to keep up with compounding demand.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by chedder

Shouldn't that be $11,000. Or did you mean to say wholesale prices are 95 cents/watt? They aren't that cheap are they?

They are that cheap ($0.095/watt, sorry)...

https://twitter.com/user/status/1831658311176851746

Again, that's the Chinese wholesale price. In Canada, we'd pay a higher foreign buyer price, plus 150+% Tariffs, shipping, etc

Also, the panels aren't the only material cost. Inverters, racking, etc are also expensive

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

It's easy to blame Ford for cutting their smaller vehicle offerings in North America, but it's more a symptom than a cause IMO

The recent Ford cars were absolute pieces of junk.

[Street Pharmacist]

But I was told that there was a business case for shipping LNG to Europe

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ger...ogen-1.7330043

She cited studies and projections showing that Germany is expected to reduce its gas imports by 30 per cent by 2030 and 96 per cent by 2050. She said Europe is also expected to reduce natural gas#imports by about 25 per cent by the end of this decade.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/de...%20consumption.

Consumption of natural gas in Europe consistently decreased since mid-2022, driven by a combination of mild winter weather and government policies aimed at reducing natural gas consumption. In 2023, natural gas consumption in the European Union’s 27 member countries (EU-27) declined 18% from the previous five-year (2017–21) average according to Eurostat#data. During the first five months of 2024 (January–May), consumption remained 19% below the 2017–21 average for the same months.

https://energyandcleanair.org/public...n-august-2023/

A new briefing from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air finds that in August 2023, the growth in solar and wind electricity generated across EU countries resulted in a displacement of 18 terawatt-hours (TWh) of fossil gas consumption, which is equivalent to 54% of the total fossil gas imports from Russia (33 TWh) via pipeline and LNG.

[calgarygeologist]

Germany's energy policies are completely out of whack and not very forward thinking. They don't really know what they are doing and are essentially a weather vane.

[Julio]

Don't know if it was a planned usage, or if it is because renewables are running a little low right now, but there is actually 'generation' from batteries in Alberta right now. 18 whole megs.