The Energy Transition and technologies

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

In Alberta, generators pay for their connection, full freight.

Load customers pay for their connection, but there are provisions within the tariff for system investment that is funded by the AESO through the transmission charge.

Ancillary services (like what we are talking about) are 100% funded through the transmission charge.

System inertia from large spinny generators was effectively "free" before the proliferation of renewables.

Aaaaahhhhh. I haven't seen a power bill in Alberta since I was 20 years old. So you guys pay a separate transmission charge then and that's controlled by AESO? That makes sense then. I pay a basic charge (about $0.20/day) just to have a BC Hydro account, then 9.59¢/KWh up to 1350 KWh in a 2 month billing cycle, then 14.22¢/KWh after that. That's it. No other charges.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Aaaaahhhhh. I haven't seen a power bill in Alberta since I was 20 years old. So you guys pay a separate transmission charge then and that's controlled by AESO? That makes sense then. I pay a basic charge (about $0.20/day) just to have a BC Hydro account, then 9.59¢/KWh up to 1350 KWh in a 2 month billing cycle, then 14.22¢/KWh after that. That's it. No other charges.

Generation planning and retail is deregulated in Alberta. That means that the government doesn't do generation planning or regulates who gets to sell power to consumers.

Transmission and distribution charges are regulated through tariffs, either via cost of service or performance based regulations.

The Alberta Utilities Commission is the regulator. The AESO is the ISO.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Aaaaahhhhh. I haven't seen a power bill in Alberta since I was 20 years old. So you guys pay a separate transmission charge then and that's controlled by AESO? That makes sense then. I pay a basic charge (about $0.20/day) just to have a BC Hydro account, then 9.59¢/KWh up to 1350 KWh in a 2 month billing cycle, then 14.22¢/KWh after that. That's it. No other charges.

Check your DMs

[DoubleK]

We damn near ran out of power yesterday.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

We damn near ran out of power yesterday.

Evening peak?

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Evening peak?

Yes. Low wind and unplanned generator outage.

[Street Pharmacist]

So I read through the 2023 AESO Reliability Requirements Roadmap and it just continues to shock me how unprepared every grid operator seems to be for the future. Their own future scenarios they use to project what's needed are already out of date and we're 6 months into 2023. With intermittent generation growth as it is, why does everyone continue to assume exponential growth suddenly stops? The "Renewables and Storage Rush" scenario in the report accounts for an additional 2 GW of solar capacity by 2031. There's been more than that announced in the first half of this year. The plan correctly (to a complete layperson) identifies the risks, but just faceplants on the magnitude of the risk and the speed it will come.

It's just going to lead to more pain in the future if there isn't a reasonable plan now. Power generation has traditionally been a slow and steady large project industry and it seems no one can see what's coming now. It takes 4-8 years from announcement to generation for a coal or gas plant. Wind and solar can be months. In Nat Bullard's big slide deck on energy trends I posted earlier, he notes that cost overruns and time overruns happen in over 50% of larger cap generation projects. Wind and solar are only about 1%. This means it happens just so, so, so much faster. The world took 22 years to install the first terawatt of solar capacity. It'll only take about 5 or 6 years to triple that. Alberta is fairly unique in the world because it has little resources in winter beyond fossil fuels, yet has excellent summer generation resources, so storage is a much more important priority than many other places.

I'm not sure exactly what the answer is for Alberta, but to me AESO isn't prepared for what the deregulated grid is facing

[Fuzz]

You can't prepare for storage technology that doesn't exist. Seasonal storage is a great idea, until you actually have to do it. Then it becomes an unsolved problem. And I don't really see any tech that can solve it. So we should be building more gas plants, tie them into the CCS system.

[Azure]

I agree with Fuzz.

Its obvious that storage technology isn't ready to handle what is available with power generation capabilities.
If it were possible, it would be happening.

We can burn gas cleaner that we are. For some reason the entire world has decided to just believe that it isn't possible.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

You can't prepare for storage technology that doesn't exist. Seasonal storage is a great idea, until you actually have to do it. Then it becomes an unsolved problem. And I don't really see any tech that can solve it. So we should be building more gas plants, tie them into the CCS system.

Alberta is definitely an outlier when it comes to season variability. In a centrally planned economy you could just build gas plants. It's not just a physics/electrical problem though.

As I mentioned elsewhere, the Netherlands has a reality high penetration of rooftop solar to the point that power prices are very routinely negative. What happens to the gas generators when their profitability gets destroyed? No one is building a gas generation facility that runs maybe 30% capacity. PPAs will not slow down with more and more companies wanting to buy renewable generation even if they're nowhere near Alberta, so the solar plants are profitable without even really needing high energy prices.

This problem isn't unique to Alberta in terms of the transition requiring bigger market changes. At some point either regulation or price will force things a bit. It seems everyone wants to walk into it blindfolded and wait until it's a crisis.

[Monahammer]

Nuclear baseload with a few emergency/ peak Natural Gas plants with CCS, and a #### ton of solar are, IMO, the future of our grid here in Alberta. Nuclear is back on the table in a big way.

I also like to wonder about Fusion still. Anyone remember that Lockheed CEO boofing about the truckbed size fusion generator they could produce within 10 years?

I find it strange that everyone is leaping towards hydrogen so hard while it's been around for so long and no one has wanted to use it for heating or transportation. Coupled with the lithium that we're currently planning for batteries... Tinfoil hat me wants to believe we're establishing fuel sources for massive fusion generators. Deuterium and Tritium.

[Knut]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

Nuclear baseload with a few emergency/ peak Natural Gas plants with CCS, and a #### ton of solar are, IMO, the future of our grid here in Alberta. Nuclear is back on the table in a big way.

I also like to wonder about Fusion still. Anyone remember that Lockheed CEO boofing about the truckbed size fusion generator they could produce within 10 years?

I find it strange that everyone is leaping towards hydrogen so hard while it's been around for so long and no one has wanted to use it for heating or transportation. Coupled with the lithium that we're currently planning for batteries... Tinfoil hat me wants to believe we're establishing fuel sources for massive fusion generators. Deuterium and Tritium.

Fusion energy is not an option now or the foreseeable future. Too many hurdles to get over still. More Energy Out than In that you can scale up is the biggest one.

[Fuzz]

Fission doesn't even seem to be an option these days.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Azure

I agree with Fuzz.

Its obvious that storage technology isn't ready to handle what is available with power generation capabilities.
If it were possible, it would be happening.

We can burn gas cleaner that we are. For some reason the entire world has decided to just believe that it isn't possible.

It's not that the world doesn't believe it's possible, it's that no one will do it. There's absolutely zero barrier for anyone to do this. So why aren't they? What are there, 35-40 CCUS worldwide? Hundreds of billions have been allocated to it and so far very little tangible results.

[SeeGeeWhy]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

Nuclear baseload with a few emergency/ peak Natural Gas plants with CCS, and a #### ton of solar are, IMO, the future of our grid here in Alberta. Nuclear is back on the table in a big way.

I also like to wonder about Fusion still. Anyone remember that Lockheed CEO boofing about the truckbed size fusion generator they could produce within 10 years?

I find it strange that everyone is leaping towards hydrogen so hard while it's been around for so long and no one has wanted to use it for heating or transportation. Coupled with the lithium that we're currently planning for batteries... Tinfoil hat me wants to believe we're establishing fuel sources for massive fusion generators. Deuterium and Tritium.

Depressed gas prices will keep both hydrogen and fission off the table. Ironically, the best thing that Western Canada might be able to do would be to join the global nat gas trade (via LNG) or make nat gas consumption heavily penalized/illegal (which is something Guillbeaut is up to, Smith alluded to it in her victory speech). Either uplifts gas pricing, which makes alternatives more economically viable to invest in.

The rub, is no one really talks about the fraction of GDP that goes towards additional energy extraction and provision, or similarly, the amount of tax receipts generated by the same. The net effect being that the more GDP or tax receipts generated by “self dealing” we are fooling ourselves thinking that we have decoupled growth from excess power consumption.

Street, gas plants that run 30% of the time are routinely built. These are peakers. BES is similar in that you can pay a relatively low-moderate initial outlay and recover that quickly by pouncing on high price scenarios.

The June 7 event referred to earlier in this thread brought $1000/MWh pricing to the pool. You don’t need to sell very many kWh at that clearance to profit wildly. This is transparent in a deregulated grid. In a regulated grid, the erosion of value is obscured but still present. When net surplus energy drops, so do truly value add GDP transactions, and as a result net surplus tax receipts also drop. Curtailments, negative pricing, extremely high pricing, brownouts, blackouts, industry leaving - all signs that things are going the wrong direction.

[Ozy_Flame]

nm

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Fission doesn't even seem to be an option these days.

If somebody invented basic old nuclear-energy technology today, it would be seen as a miracle solution to our climate/energy problems, and championed by every politician and environmental organization.

And yet...

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

Depressed gas prices will keep both hydrogen and fission off the table. Ironically, the best thing that Western Canada might be able to do would be to join the global nat gas trade (via LNG) or make nat gas consumption heavily penalized/illegal (which is something Guillbeaut is up to, Smith alluded to it in her victory speech). Either uplifts gas pricing, which makes alternatives more economically viable to invest in.



The rub, is no one really talks about the fraction of GDP that goes towards additional energy extraction and provision, or similarly, the amount of tax receipts generated by the same. The net effect being that the more GDP or tax receipts generated by “self dealing” we are fooling ourselves thinking that we have decoupled growth from excess power consumption.



Street, gas plants that run 30% of the time are routinely built. These are peakers. BES is similar in that you can pay a relatively low-moderate initial outlay and recover that quickly by pouncing on high price scenarios.



The June 7 event referred to earlier in this thread brought $1000/MWh pricing to the pool. You don’t need to sell very many kWh at that clearance to profit wildly. This is transparent in a deregulated grid. In a regulated grid, the erosion of value is obscured but still present. When net surplus energy drops, so do truly value add GDP transactions, and as a result net surplus tax receipts also drop. Curtailments, negative pricing, extremely high pricing, brownouts, blackouts, industry leaving - all signs that things are going the wrong direction.

This was an insightful post. Thank you.


I wasn't very clear in my earlier post. When I said a gas turbine I was referring to a plant with CCS attached. The expense of adding CCS would require a lot more payback and therefore would need more than 30% utilization I'd imagine. I'm throwing a number it there and have no real idea where that would be, but it seems to me a capital intensive project would need a substantial payback.

The interesting thing I'm getting from your post is that it's likely that the cure for high prices will be the high prices. As in, as long as there's $1000/MWh events, there'll be an appetite for dispatchable generation or storage.

My concern I raise above, is that as Alberta is the only province you can basically plug and play renewables it's going to see hyper growth leading to a very difficult grid to balance. And it seems AESO's projections seem to be blind to it.

But maybe the almost free power at high renewable output will be good for industry and the high price events will sort themselves out with more gas/batteries?

[JohnnyB]

I am not very knowledgeable about this topic, but this seemed kind of cool and hopeful to me. The small-scale modular approach and opportunity to make the tech more accessible to developing/emerging markets seems like an appealing vision of making clean energy tech more prevalent in contexts where it might not otherwise make sense. Hopefully the testing period works out well and it becomes viable to scale.

China's nuclear safety watchdog has issued an operational permit for the nation's first thorium reactor, marking a significant milestone in the country's pursuit of advanced nuclear technologies.

The reactor, a two-megawatt liquid-fuelled thorium molten salt reactor (MSR), is located in the Gobi Desert city of Wuwei in Gansu province and is operated by the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The permit, issued by the National Nuclear Safety Administration on June 7, allows the Shanghai Institute to operate the reactor for 10 years and it will start by testing operations.

Developing and deploying new nuclear technologies, including thorium MSRs, can be expensive. The launch of the Shanghai Institute's small-scale modular thorium molten salt reactor project indicates China is interested in further reducing the cost of the technology, they said.

Thse reactors are typically built in a factory and then transported to the site for installation. They can be installed in many types of environments, including remote or off-grid areas. Their smaller size enables easier scalability, allowing for incremental capacity additions based on energy demand.

This modular approach to building and installation can potentially reduce construction costs and project timelines. The ability to manufacture components in a factory setting and transport them to the site can streamline the construction process and improve cost efficiency.

China reportedly plans to sell small thorium reactors to other countries as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing's global infrastructure plan.

They can provide a nuclear entry point for countries or regions with smaller energy demands or limited grid infrastructure. Their smaller capacity and modular nature makes them more accessible and financially viable for these markets.

https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other...rs/ar-AA1cAlBp

[Street Pharmacist]

Offshore wind is more expensive than on shore, but suffers from less land use concerns and has much more predictable production. Again, not a silver bullet alone but another great low carbon option for coastal centers

https://twitter.com/user/status/671886513528004608