The Energy Transition and technologies

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Electric vehicles now almost 11% of global sales in Q3 2021.

https://t.co/JXInmlsDdg




We are always so focused on our own surroundings I think the transition to EVs is being missed by most Canadians I talk to. We're likely less than 5 years away from the majority of new vehicles being electric globally and they're still treated here like a complete novelty.

We'll be dragged into it by Europe and Asia.

I'm surprised new apartment buildings are required to have the infrastructure to support this going forward.

[GGG]

EVs will always be adopted because they are better at serving a need rather than on ideals.

Europe’s higher gas prices and shorter travel distances push adoption sooner.

[#-3]

Well I added to that q2 total. They're very nice to have, but I don't think we could do it without having a charger in our attached garage given the current infrastructure. So right there your taking a big axe to the potential market.

Also given my last two electric bills to put two EVs in every house your really are talking about doubling the grid in residential areas. Our usage was 40% and 50% above the same periods in the prior two years. It was about $40 to charge it for the month. If we had 2 that would be a doubling of our usage.

[Fuzz]

http://ets.aeso.ca/ets_web/ip/Market...DReportServlet


Just a reminder what we are up against in Alberta. 6% solar production vs installed capacity. ~10% for wind. Coal still at 2000MW. Gas at 8000MW, so together they represent nearly all the power we generate, and we are short ~700MW that we get through imports. Swap that coal for gas, and add 20% for future growth and electric vehicles, and we NEED about 4000MW of new and replacement baseload,which looks to be gas by the end of the decade.

If you want to do that with solar and wind, we need to add either 10x more wind power, or, well, more solar than we probably have space or money for. Plus an unimaginable amount of batteries. And that's just for future growth.

Time to really get serious about nuclear if we want to even try to hold gas steady, and we better be getting go on it yesterday.

[DoubleK]

^^^ 100% agree.

Also, we damn near ran out of power on Monday night/Tuesday morning.

If Sheppard or Keep hills 3 had tripped it would not have been pretty.

[DoubleK]

Capital Power installing 210MW of BES @ Genesee.

Proposed ISD is Q3 of 2023.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

Capital Power installing 210MW of BES @ Genesee.

Proposed ISD is Q3 of 2023.

Exciting news. Anywhere that might give us expected costs?

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Exciting news. Anywhere that might give us expected costs?

Cost is not given in the Project brochure I am looking at.

Will have to see if I can find it elsewhere.

[burn_this_city]

I suspect we will be trapped on gas forever and build out carbon capture for existing stuff post 2030.

Edit: Other option is hydrogen conversions with blue hydrogen.

[Torture]

Good read from Blake Schaffer on AB's grid and the path to net zero. Also, down to 3 coal power plants in AB!


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...300606?cmp=rss

[Julio]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

http://ets.aeso.ca/ets_web/ip/Market...DReportServlet


Just a reminder what we are up against in Alberta. 6% solar production vs installed capacity. ~10% for wind. Coal still at 2000MW. Gas at 8000MW, so together they represent nearly all the power we generate, and we are short ~700MW that we get through imports. Swap that coal for gas, and add 20% for future growth and electric vehicles, and we NEED about 4000MW of new and replacement baseload,which looks to be gas by the end of the decade.

If you want to do that with solar and wind, we need to add either 10x more wind power, or, well, more solar than we probably have space or money for. Plus an unimaginable amount of batteries. And that's just for future growth.

Time to really get serious about nuclear if we want to even try to hold gas steady, and we better be getting go on it yesterday.

Agree about nuclear.
One note on solar, over half the generation on the AESO site (Travers) isn't up and running yet. So solar was at about 12% of installed generation. Wind of course is somewhat unpredictable (as I type this it's over 10% of generation)
In addition to nukes, a much larger inter tie with BC is needed for future growth/retiring fossil fuel production.
One thing I don't have knowledge of is if there are any future planes (or even the ability) to expand hydro production in Alberta. Hydro being at 1% is production is so much lower than any other province other than PEI.

[Brewmaster]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

Cost is not given in the Project brochure I am looking at.

Will have to see if I can find it elsewhere.

I believe Capital Power said the addition of the batteries at Genesee will cost about $200 million. It's actually quite interesting what they are doing there with the repowering of two units, conversion of the 3rd unit from coal to gas and the battery storage totaling about $1.2 billion and reducing GHG emissions by about 3.4 MT/yr.
Then there is potential CCS projects on Genesee 1 & 2 that would cost about $2.0 billion and reduce emissions by another 3 MT/yr by 2026.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Julio

One thing I don't have knowledge of is if there are any future planes (or even the ability) to expand hydro production in Alberta. Hydro being at 1% is production is so much lower than any other province other than PEI.

What river would you dam and where would you build it?

You might be able to find a spot for a reservoir on the Athabasca River but you are flooding a bunch of land that has other uses.

[Torture]

Say it with me folks, expand the intertie to BC.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Torture

Say it with me folks, expand the intertie to BC.

I'll say it differently, build a second one to BC.

Expanding the existing one is bad for reliability.

The problem is that the existing large generators will be spitting mad if you do this.

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

What river would you dam and where would you build it?

You might be able to find a spot for a reservoir on the Athabasca River but you are flooding a bunch of land that has other uses.

When I was growing up there was talk of run of the river dams on the Peace. Not sure there is an environmental appetite for a full blown dam but that river has tons of potential, only problem is distance from market.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Lubicon

When I was growing up there was talk of run of the river dams on the Peace. Not sure there is an environmental appetite for a full blown dam but that river has tons of potential, only problem is distance from market.

Run of river is classified as unfirm generation. Has a much better environmental footprint, but is far from the panacea that a large impoundment dam would provide.

Alberta simply doesn't have the hydro resource like BC, Manitoba or Quebec. Thus the push for interprovincial transmission.

Personally, I think it's criminal Alberta hasn't started on the process to hook into Site C.

The path to NetZero starts and ends with a project like that.

Just don't think society has the appetite to build new Candu reactors. SMR tech isn't here yet.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

I suspect we will be trapped on gas forever and build out carbon capture for existing stuff post 2030.

Edit: Other option is hydrogen conversions with blue hydrogen.

Or just working something out with BC to buy hydro power from them. Spending wild amounts of money because or a provincial border seems absurd.

[SeeGeeWhy]

More CANDUs should be built, but they only work for large, dense populations with big grids unless you’re talking CANDU6 or their SMR design. The SMRs that got selected for darlington might be able to work for coal plant repowering and remote mines but they do little for Alberta’s thermal energy demand - maybe Moltex or Terrestrial still make it through.

BC should not sell its excess hydro power to Alberta. They will need it for their own goals and would make better money selling it to the US west coast because California’s energy plans are even less coherent than AB’s.

If we build another intertie with BC, it will be to sell our own excess generation that way, not the other way around. This would be possible with a robust high enthalpy SMR roll out. All the cogen we have on grid goes away when steam demand from mature SAGD projects drops off. What will we do then?

If industry is serious about adopting SMRs in 2040ish, they need to organize a site license exercise now and get the ball rolling!

[Leeman4Gilmour]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Exciting news. Anywhere that might give us expected costs?

If it's the Genesee project listed here;

https://majorprojects.alberta.ca/#li...ine,Power_Wind

Then a total of $1.2B. Lots of solar projects on the books.