"This is nuts:" European power prices go negative as springtime renewables soar

[Caribbeans]

“This is nuts:” European power prices go negative as springtime renewables soar

RenewEconomy.com.au | Joshua S Hill | 31 May 2023

Balmy springtime weather across Europe and growing renewable energy capacity has led to multiple days of negative wholesale power prices across the continent, highlighting the need for increased energy storage capacity.

A number of factors have led to consistent negative wholesale power prices across Europe over the last few weeks.

Energy analyst Gerard Reid has been highlighting these trends stemming not only from increased renewables and favourable weather conditions, but also the impediment to stable generation levels caused by nuclear power.

For example, according to Reid, Denmark “consistently meets 85% of its weekly energy needs from renewables. However, on particularly windy days … Denmark’s strong interconnections with neighbouring countries enable it to export up to 50% of excess power...more
https://reneweconomy.com.au/this-is-nuts-european-power-prices-go-negative-as-springtime-renewables-soar/

"Worthless" ?

What could possibly be done with "free" energy?

YOU Decide...

It will take more than one Tech to wean the globe off of fossil fuels. It's as simple as that.

If "The Biggest Nuclear Plant EVER" was to be built starting tomorrow, what is to be done for the ~10 years or so before it spits out its first electron?

Easy! - complain about other "Worthless" tech while driving to work on Saudi Oil!

[James48]

1. Simple solutions.

Store the excess energy by pumping water into a man-made lake. When there is high demand, let the water run out. Hydroelectric damns like this one can work to store energy much cheaper than batteries.

This one cost $325 million, and maintains the flow of electricity during high demand. It runs for 9 hours.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power_Plant

[CentralMass]

3. There are other gravity storage systems that are being built

&feature=share7

[NNadir]

2. ...which drives up the cost of reliable energy...

...if one likes living in the dark because during an extreme heat wave because reliable power plants can't cover their O&M experiences because of clowns involved in selective attention, this is fine, I guess.

I'm not a fan of selective attention however. I tracked cost of energy when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining.

Some people experienced energy poverty because power couldn't be obtained at any price.

Because the fans of this crap don't give a rat's ass about climate change, extreme heat will be killing people in vast numbers when the wind isn't blowing.

We're over 424 ppm of the dangerous fossil fuel waste and we still have these clown shows.

It's disgusting.

[Mopar151]

4. Disgusting? Disgust is a matter of perspective, apparently.

Accusing advocates of renewable energy technologies of "not giving a rat's ass about climate change", and dismissing them as "fans of this crap" seems not very Democratic to me.

CONSERVATION remains our best, most cost effective option. Distributed storage (Green Mountain Power is installing Tesla "Powerwalls" all over VT) and a smarter grid will do a lot to maintain power in rapidly changing weather (or market) conditions. Efficient storage will allow all sources to contribute at their times of peak efficency, to a system where peak demands can be largely met from storage.
Northfield Mountain Project was built to create a steady load for the Vermont Yankee plant in Vernon, VT. Why was storage right then, and is wrong now?

[ZZenith]

5. As old Upton Sinclair said -

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

[Brenda]

23. Good one! nt

[NNadir]

6. I don't need to be instructed on what it means to a Democrat, thank you.

Let's be clear on something, OK?

One of the many reasons that I'm a Democrat is because I abhor poverty, not just in the United States, but everywhere. This would include the cobalt slaves who dig cobalt for our batteries.

It's fine for clueless bourgeois Americans to sit around and claim that "conservation is the answer" because they are hardly among the four billion people who live on less than $7.00/day, never mind the cobalt slaves.

They're living in energy poverty, and they can't "conserve" anything because they have almost nothing. I note with, yes, disgust, the number of people who come here to complain about the Chinese not agreeing to remain impoverished so rich Americans could sit around the Christmas dinner table talking about how wonderful it is to conserve, with little plastic Christmas doilies made in China for 25 cents and sold at Walmart for $2.99 each. They decided to advance their life style, and they don't want to hear complaints about fossil fuels from the people who got rich by burning them themselves and now think the Chinese should conserve, although they don't quite get to doing so themselves.

I have a standard answer that I've already posted once today to this bullshit fantasy that all this trashed wilderness industrialized for wind industrial parks, all the mines to support this filthy fossil fuel dependent crap is "green" and "cheap."

People who don't give a rat's ass about climate change, who just want to gaze admiringly at marketing videos of prototypes of consumer junk, don't look at numbers. I expect that they are incompetent to understand them, but at the end of the day, I really don't care what they think. I work at my ideas. I'm not admiringly gazing at cartoons.

This "wind and solar will save us" fantasy will not matter to the more than 2 billion people on this planet who lack access to decent water. They're already lost.

Now as it happens, people who blindly and foolishly worship the wind and solar junk that has done nothing to address climate change love to cite their fellow scientific illiterates, journalists in our "but her emails" media often claiming, despite oodles of data, that solar and wind are "cheap."

Since they do not take time to read at a deep level, a level beyond comic books, they may not have a clue on how much money was spent on solar and wind junk in this century.

Since I do read on a deep level, I have that referenced data at my fingertips:

In the 21st century, we spent, invested on this reactionary fantasy, more than 3.3319 trillion dollars on solar and wind junk, almost all of which will be landfill in about 25 years. (The number 3.3319 trillion dollars refers to the period between 2004 and 2019 inclusive.)

Source: Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2020 (Figure 42, page 62).

Fifteen years, more than 3 trillion dollars spent on comic book level wishful thinking and delusion, this on a planet where 2 billion people don't have clean water, people who couldn't give a rat's ass about marketing videos of Potemkin hydrogen stations in China for cute demo hydrogen trucks, and here's where we are: In 2004, when we were convinced to embrace this trillion dollar reactionary scheme to return to the early 19th century, the mean average concentration of dangerous fossil fuel waste was 377.30 ppm.

How do I define worthless? I have no apologies for stating clearly, unambiguously, without reservation that for energy systems, those which fail to address human needs, which fail to protect the environment, that do nothing more than soak up money to satisfy the tiresome reactionary daydreams of the poorly educated bourgeoisie are, just that, worthless.

The data is in for 2021 on how much energy this worthless junk produced after soaking up trillions of dollars, not even counting the cost, environmental, economic and health of the required redundancies.



Source: 2022 IEA World Energy Outlook Table A 1a, page 435

After 50 years, half a century, of mindless cheering, the entire combined solar and wind industry at 12 Exajoules built at these trillion dollar rates, was not even able to cover the increase in the use of dangerous natural gas, coal and oil - the source of the bulk of the world's hydrogen by the way - from 2020 to 2021, an 11 Exajoule increase for dangerous oil, a 7 Exajoule increase for dangerous natural gas, and an 8 Exajoule increase in the use of dangerous coal.

Now dumb journalists and the people who cite them like to pretend like to pretend that the solar and wind industries are about dangerous fossil fuels, but clearly they aren't. Journalists in the "but her emails" media can lie all they want - and they do lie all they want - but numbers don't lie.

Twelve Exajoules of energy per year at a cost of over three trillion dollars spent on consumer junk that will need replacement every twenty years has nothing to do with my Democratic values. For me the Democratic Party that I have supported for over half a century was never about endorsing dogmatic cult thinking, even when it's popular but pernicious, particularly consumer cult thinking, "Look at my car! Look at my truck," bullshit.

The planet is on fire. Clearly there are people who don't give a shit about that, and like Repukes, they feel that they have the right to criticize those who do care, and care a great deal.

Let's be clear. This fucking wind and solar fantasy was never about climate change. It was about attacking the last best hope of humanity, nuclear power. The Germans in their coal burning hellhole didn't phase out coal. They embraced it.

So I have no use for a line of shit that the Germans or any of the wind and solar worshipping crowd gives a rat's ass about climate change. The cliché that "Actions speak louder than words" like all clichés, became a cliché by being true.

The kind of Democrat I am doesn't spew endless reactionary bullshit about returning to the early 19th century, when all energy supplies were a function of the weather. The kind of Democrat I am is not a reactionary.

I don't want to hear about this battery shit. It's morally appalling and if nothing else it demonstrates the callous indifference of the bourgeoise to human decency. There isn't enough cobalt, nor enough cobalt slaves to dig it, on this planet to back up the useless 12 exajoules of wind and solar energy that there is now, never mind the 624 Exajoules that were consumed in 2021.

I covered what the scale of this idiotic immoral fantasy would mean in Germany here:

The Number of Tesla Powerwalls Required That Would Address the Current German Dunkleflaute Event.

As I noted today, we set a new record at Mauna Loa this week for the concentrations of the dangerous fossil fuel waste, much of which issues from the necessary redundant plants built because we expended = wasted = trillions of dollars on temporary wind and solar garbage that will be a liability for today's toddlers just around the time they start their profession career.

New Weekly CO2 Concentration Record (Provisional) Set at the Mauna Loa Observatory, 424.63 ppm.

In that post I noted, using data that things are getting worse faster than ever.

Why are they getting worse faster than ever?

Because people just chant the same dogmatic mantras over and over and over and over without ever stopping to look at the consequences of what their chanting does.

People lie, and people lie to themselves, but numbers don't lie.

Have a pleasant Sunday.

[Mopar151]

9. "All must pay, who disagree with me!"

from Don't Step On The Grass, Sam (John Kay/Steppenwolf)

Strategic materials like cobalt and nickel come from corrupted nations because they are mined by huge vertically integrated companies, who seem to have a corrupting effect
on local economies everywhere. They are handy stuff for several technologies, not just storage batteries. Perhaps working directly on the slavery angle would be a better way.

[NNadir]

16. I'm certainly not looking for anyone to pay me anything.

I just want to stop people from exploiting other people with oblivious ruthlessness. Of course, Elon Musk isn't oblivious so much as ruthless.

The fact is, however, as air pollution is killing 7 million people per year, that the specious claim that "batteries are the answer" to address exactly how useless wind and solar is - an unworkable bandaid for an already unworkable system - is merely a glib toleration of these deaths.

Now, I'm sure their are provinical battery systems built for provinicials who buy little greeting cards for one another certifying that the cobalt in their batteries was sustainably mined.

I understand how provinicials think. I used to be one after all, and like to hold myself forth as an example of how a provincial can become worldly.

There is not enough cobalt on this planet to back up even the worthless 12 Exajoules that wind and solar produced combined in 2021, after at 3.331 trillion dollar investment in this soon to rot garbage over a period of just 15 years.

I made this point, citing data on Apartheid Boy Musk's Tesla Powerwalls as grid power here:

The Number of Tesla Powerwalls Required That Would Address the Current German Dunkleflaute Event.

Some text:

The Last 30 Days of German Electricity Production, Carbon Intensity and "Percent Talk" Sources.

For the calculations in this post, I will rely on the 30 day results found on the Electricity Map for Germany for the period from November 15, 2022 to December 14, 2022, during which the average continuous carbon dioxide intensity for Germany was 693 g CO2/kWh.

By contrast, over the same period, the carbon intensity of France, even though its once magnificent nuclear infrastructure is damaged by a dubious decision to defer maintenance and upgrades in order to fund the useless "solar and wind will save us" fantasy, still had a was 137 g CO2/kWh, roughly, in "percent talk" 19.8% that of Germany, or put it another way, German electricity is 505% dirtier than that of France.

Continuing with the calculation:

... Here are the specifications of Tesla Powerwalls®: Specifications of Powerwalls®.

It is claimed they have a useable capacity of 13.5 kWh after being charged with 14 kWh of electricity, presumably at 25°C, with a putative thermodynamic efficiency - should you choose to believe it - of 96%. The maximum continuous power output is said to be 5 kW. The power requirements to match the combined coal and gas average continuous power of combined German coal and gas over the last 30 days, 44.4 GW would require 8,880,000 million Powerwalls®, to cover each day of Dunkelflaute; for 30 days, given that the wind wasn't blowing that much over that period, 266,400,000 Powerwalls®.

The specifications say that each Powerwall® weighs 114 kg, meaning that 30,369,600,000 kg of Powerwalls® would be required just for Germany.

According to Forbes, 15% of the weight of a Tesla Powerwall is cobalt, mined by Elon's happy Congolese slaves, meaning that the happy Congolese cobalt slaves would be required to mine and isolate 4,555,400 metric tons of cobalt to make Powerwalls® to cover this instance of Dunkleflaute with batteries.

This is 31.63 times as large as the world production of cobalt in 2021 according to the US Geological Survey

I'm sorry!!! I forgot to use "percent talk!" The demand for cobalt to cover month long Dunkleflaute in Germany observed in Nov-Dec 2022 would be 3163% the demand for all the world cobalt supply in 2021...

Batteries are unsustainable with or without Musk's cobalt slaves.

Unfortunately we have people arguing for disastrous policies that they have not made any kind of serious effort or even a lazy effort to understand resources.

Provincials forced into their way of life by a lack of opportunity and/or a lack of resources deserve our attention and care. All of humanity should work to lift them up by giving the resources they need to become fully realized human beings.

On the other hand bourgeois provincials who have access to ways of finding things out but can't be bothered to do so inspire nothing other than a sense of disapproprobation.

We're at 424 ppm of the dangerous fossil fuel waste in the planetary atmosphere, after 50 years of bullshit excuses for the failure of so called "renewable energy" to either address poverty, prevent climate change, and to provide for future generations.

This reactionary exercise has lots of people chanting dogma which has now taken on the quality of religion; no amount of information can move the dogma.

It's appalling. History will not forgive us, nor should it.

[Finishline42]

11. Let's talk about last year in France...

By mid-August 2022, more than half of the 56 nuclear reactors in France were offline. The reasons for this were safety-relevant damage in the safety injection system, heat or drought, and scheduled shutdowns. As a result, France, a traditional electricity exporter, imported significantly more electricity in 2022 (72.9 TWh) than it exported (56.5 TWh) (figures from "Energy Charts&quot . For comparison: in 2021, exports were still 44 TWh higher than imports. The main reason for this is the longer-term unavailability of part of the reactor fleet.

https://www.grs.de/en/news/situation-nuclear-power-plants-france-how-has-situation-evolved-our-neighbouring-country#:~:text=By%20mid%2DAugust%202022%2C%20more,or%20drought%2C%20and%20scheduled%20shutdowns.

[NNadir]

15. I have already described that the Hollande and first Macron administration defunded nuclear..,

...maintainence to build useless wind turbines and useless solar cells.

This was because the antinuke squad in Germany got some very stupid people to drink the Koolaid and thus damage important infrastructure.

The French have in the second Macron administration have recognized and are working to correct their mistake, but considerable damage has been done.

A discussion of this exercise wherein, here, we have an arsonist complaining about a forest fire, was described here:

Something's Rotten In the French Nuclear Industry.

Another analogy presents itself. An antinuke complaining about system reliability is the equivalent of Ron DeSantis complaining about people hating gay people.

I note that we never hear from I'm not an antinukes complaining about oil, coal and gas, but at every opportunity, these awful people working so hard to drive climate change and energy poverty together, never fail to choose an opportunity to scream about a minor nuclear glitch in what has been the world's largest, by far, scalable carbon free energy.

These people lack education, sense, decency and reasoning ability.

[VMA131Marine]

7. What's fantasy are new build nuclear fission plants in the USA

Not going to happen. The last attempt ended in disaster and bankrupted the company building them. The US has the capacity to capture far more energy from wind and solar than it needs and could replace legacy power generation.

https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/solar-futures-study#:~:text=Almost%20200%20GW%20of%20rooftop,deployment%20beyond%20the%20modeled%20level.

[Duppers]

8. Fantastic! 👍

[Think. Again.]

10. Great post!

Thanks for posting this. There is so much progress happening but it all stays out of our daily conversations and certainly out of American mainstream media.

Maybe that's why the U.S. is falling so far behind other nations on scaling up and building out the new energy techs we so desperately need?

So WE need to keep sharing all of the positive progress being made away from fossil fuels.

Hopefully, someday soon, the Biden administration will be ready to start the "big push" of the transition in a loud, long term, public engagement and information campaign as was done for the WW2 war effort, the moon landing, invasion of Iraq, etc.

We will need that public buy-in and excitement to really get the private investment ball rolling.

[NickB79]

12. No hydrogen facility currently planned would ONLY operate on the days of excess power

The only way they make a profit is to produce H2 constantly, 24/7. After all, you're the one posting articles about using hydrogen as a steady stream source to power vehicles, heat homes and generate green ammonia, not just as an intermediate energy storage medium to back up the grid in times of need.

Only a fool would fall for that bait-and-switch.

Would you be confident telling us all that the electrolyzers would just shut down at times of low renewable output, like happened a couple years ago when winds died all summer long?

[Finishline42]

13. If the winds aren't blowing

Wouldn't the sun be shinning?

Edited to add the following...

Link to tweet

?s=20

[NNadir]

14. Wow. Antinukes must not get out much.

I have the distinct impression that the sun going down doesn't imply that the wind suddenly kicks up.

I actually follow something called data. I actually wrote a piece about Dunkelflaute, which lasted a month around November 2022 where the sun didn't shine and the wind didn't blow.

It would seem that meterology is yet another science about which antinukes are clueless.

[NickB79]

17. The sun was shining in 2021

But since wind makes up such a big part of Europe's renewable fleet, the lull in wind caused a significant generation problem.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/weak-winds-worsened-europes-power-crunch-utilities-need-better-storage-2021-12-22/

Mind you, I'm not opposed to more renewable storage, at all. I just think hydrogen is the worst possible form of storage, that widespread hydrogen use would make climate change worse, that it will worsen freshwater resource availability, and that it's a backdoor approach for fossil fuels companies to stay relevant in the 21st century as a market for reformulated natural gas.

[Finishline42]

18. Main problem with renewables - IMO

Is that when the sun is shinning or the wind is blowing they over produce what the market needs which drives down prices. Cheap energy is what got us into this predicament. When cost goes up innovation follows.

If I'm in the energy business and have multiple wind and solar assets I would also want multiple energy storage options - battery, hydro storage and maybe even H. Don't flood the market, store the excess for when demand increases.

[NNadir]

19. Redundant systems in use during rare events are both environmental and...

...economic disasters.

We're at 424 ppm. How much longer are we supposed to wait for magic innovations to fix reactionary fantasies that don't work?

Another 50 ppm?

Two hundred million air pollution deaths?

There is a reason that handwavers shouldn't work in the energy industry. Their ignorance wastes money, but more importantly time and human lives.

From the oblivious nature of these useless bandaids for a clearly failed reactionary fantasy, given the last two effects, ethics training should precede any technical training, not that any amount of information can change the ideology of dogmatic wishful thinking.

[Finishline42]

20. The fantasy here is the one you espouse

Although I must admit that the idea of SMR's does hold promise. I just know how the profit motive works and question a future when
somebody with a bonus at stake shortcuts safety standards and we end up with a major accident that people will pay for with their health and maybe even their lives (Deep Water Horizon is one example).

There's a reason for the exponential growth in wind, solar and energy storage - it's because the pros that look at the problems of energy generation and grid dynamics have decided that's one of the best ways forward. And it's not just one person or organization, it's a widespread conclusion in many places on our planet.

And of course the advantage of wind, solar and energy storage is that nobody owns the fuel, nobody can corner the market, no group of corporations can decide to withhold a major portion of the fuel from the market place to jack up the price. You don't have to destroy the environment to get it, it's there when the wind blows and when the sun shines.

[NNadir]

22. The world, apparently, has come to the reasonable conclusion that all the antinuke scare stories...

...all based on "if" pale based on the reality of climate change and air pollution deaths.

I fully realize that the antinuke community has relied on scare stories to sell their reactionary fantasy and to continue on the course of embedding dangerous fossil fuels.

I changed my mind about nuclear energy after Chernobyl, when the consequences of the the worst reactor failure possible paled in comparison to the dangerous fossil fuels that antinukes like the antinuke nation of Germany are actively embracing albeit coupled with lame excuses and soothsaying

Of course, I not only have an scientific education, and can compare numbers like seven million deaths per year from air pollution while assholes advocate for more cobalt slaves, but I also have made sure that I have an ethical education.

How many people have died from nuclear accidents in the 70 year history of commercial nuclear power again? Any of the "OH MY GOD NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS!!!!!!!!" people have an answer to that question? At a rate of 19,000 people per day from air pollution how many hours of fossil fuel deaths would it take to match all the nuclear energy related deaths over the last 70 years of commercial nuclear power?

Can they rationalize why they couldn't care less about the more than 250 million people who died since the Chernobyl event from air pollution and why they think that "nuclear energy is too dangerous" and climate change isn't?

No, they can't, and they don't. They just chant their tiresome dogma about a grand renewable energy nirvana that did not come, is not here and won't come. They elevate mysticism over reality. They don't give a rat's ass about how many people die while they chant. They lack not only scientific educations but moral educations as well.

The reality is, again, that 19,000 people will die today from air pollution and untold more people will die from climate change in the form of extreme heat and other extreme weather while they fiddle with lint in their navels in Neroesque indifference to reality.

I am very pleased to check out the World Nuclear News daily to see what new countries are embracing nuclear energy, including countries in Africa, where Apartheid Elon gets his cobalt for his powerwalls that all our antinukes here hype.

Now I fully recognize that bourgeois antinukes do not now, and never have, given a rat's ass about poverty any more than they give a rat's ass about who fossil fuels kill or about climate change, but the Africans are looking to not follow China and India's path to providing a decent lifestyle to their citizens:

... The report says that 600 million people in Africa have no reliable source of electricity, with the World Bank reporting that in sub-Saharan Africa 80% of businesses suffer from power outages. It also notes that the demand for energy in Africa is growing twice as fast as the global average.

Egypt recently started construction of its first nuclear power plant - it plans four 1200 MWe reactors at El-Dabaa. “Egypt opted for nuclear power because it provides a steady source of energy that lasts for decades,” said Mohamed H. El Molla, Egypt’s Resident Representative to the IAEA.

South Africa, the only existing nuclear operator on the continent is considering long-term operation of the Koeberg nuclear power plant as well as expanding its nuclear power programme. Ghana hosted an IAEA-led Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review mission in 2017 and Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation Kwaku Afriyie said: "Ghana is looking to introduce nuclear power to provide the necessary diversity of baseload to ensure energy security for our future demands."

At the event, IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi said that African countries considering nuclear power solutions could be assured "the IAEA will be with you every step of the way".

He said: "Everywhere I am hearing this global conversation about energy security, climate change and nuclear power, and whether by virtue of changes in circumstance, climate or security needs, it is quite clear that nuclear now has a place at the table. What I like about this discussion, is that there is no discussion without Africa. The Africans have said themselves ... ‘we need to contribute, and we need our own specific analysis of how this nuclear jewel is going to be used for African economies.’.."

Nuclear 'gaining traction' as option in many African countries, says IAEA

They don't care at all what bourgeois battery worshippers think about "accidents." They're not screaming about bizarre selective attention and indifference to their every day plight."

They care about climate change because it affects them and every citizen on this planet. They don't want to be killing people with coal fumes like the Germans. They want to live decently.

They know as I know that fossil fuel deaths are not accidents. On the contrary they're deliberate murder by omission. Every educated person on the planet, with the obvious exception of the German government and the Greenpeace assholes in it, although one wonders if they have any kind of technical or moral education, knows that fossil fuel plants kill people whenever they operate normally.

It doesn't matter to them that people worshipping Apartheid Elon come up with lame excuses that kill people. Like many human beings, Africans want a sustainable world.

They don't care that American antinukes - who have no complaints about fossil fuels - don't care how many people die while they wait for their energy Godot.

I suspect that Africans, like me, think ethical paucity of this position is stunning, grotesquely so, but stunning all the same.

Have a wonderful day tomorrow.

[NickB79]

21. Hydrogen will worsen climate change, not slow it

When H2 escapes into the atmosphere, it slows the decomposition of methane. The longer any given molecule of methane survives, the more heat it can trap. Large-scale use of H2 will more than you offset the carbon reduction from the renewable energy used to make it. And H2 WILL escape, in large quantities, given it's physical properties.

Of course, if you're in the energy business, you'll use every option you can. Because business is about making a profit, not saving the planet. So businessmen are chasing stupid options, like hydrogen.

[Finishline42]

24. Totals for May in Europe

Link to tweet

?s=20