Friday, December 29, 2017

Record cold in Minnesota

It's very cold in Minnesota.  In fact it's record cold.  Does that mean that there's no such thing as global warming?

Well,  no.  Because that's just one part of the world.  The rest of the world (including where I live) is warmer than average, as this graphic shows:

Source:Climate denial Crock of the week

It's the global or perhaps the regional averages which matter, and their average over time.  The chart below shows a 60 month moving average of the global average anomaly.  A 5 year average helps remove a lot of the random year-to-year variation.  Short term cycles remain.  And so does the longer term trend, which is glaringly obvious.

Source: NOAA
 

Thursday, December 28, 2017

Scotland to try universal basic income




A cartoon by John Darkow


I talked about the universal basic income here.  To recap, UBI is a monthly payment by the state to everyone, aimed at replacing the dole (unemployment benefit), family income support, the old age pension, and disability pensions.  Typically, all income earned outside the UBI is then subject to tax, with the minimum rate set at 25%-33.3%.  This means that anyone whose income is less than 4 times (at 25%) or 3 times (at 33.3%) the level of the UBI is better off.  This low "clawback" rate sharply reduces the disincentives implicit in existing unemployment benefit schemes, where the "clawback" rate is often 50% or more and can exceed 100%.  It also greatly simplifies the rules needed to access welfare, and eliminates the need for a large bureaucracy to administer the rules. 

Both left and right like it, for different reasons.   Like the universal aged pension it should be a powerful tool for reducing and alleviating poverty.  But it will also reduce disincentives to work, and will probably cost about the same as all existing anti-poverty schemes combined, especially if you can reduce or eliminate the huge bureaucracy needed to administer them. 


Universal basic income is, according to its many and various supporters, an idea whose time has come. The deceptively simple notion of offering every citizen a regular payment without means testing or requiring them to work for it has backers as disparate as Mark Zuckerberg, Stephen Hawking, Caroline Lucas and Richard Branson. Ed Miliband chose the concept to launch his ideas podcast Reasons to be Cheerful in the autumn.

But it is in Scotland that four councils face the task of turning basic income from a utopian fantasy to contemporary reality as they build the first pilot schemes in the UK, with the support of a £250,000 grant announced by the Scottish government last month and the explicit support of Nicola Sturgeon.

The concept of a universal basic income revolves around the idea of offering every individual, regardless of their existing benefit entitlement or earned income, a non-conditional flat-rate payment, with any income earned above that taxed progressively. The intention is to replace the welfare safety net with a platform on which people can build their lives, whether they choose to earn, learn, care or set up a business.

[Read more here]

Pay rise?

A cartoon by Ben Jennings of The Guardian

Source: The Guardian

Peanuts on Christmas


Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Germany: Renewables reach record high percentage

The share of renewables in German electricity generation grew from 29 percent in 2016 to a record 33 percent this year, according to preliminary calculations by the Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW). “The gap between coal and renewables in Germany’s power production fell from 11 to under 4 percentage points in just one year”, BDEW head Stefan Kapferer said, stressing that the country’s power sector was “decarbonising itself with big steps”. As a share of gross electricity consumed, renewables rose to more than 36 percent, as Germany is a net power exporter.

[Read more here]

I've taken the image from BDEW's press release.  It's in German so I've provided a key below.

Source
Steinkohle=black coal; BraunKohle = Brown coal/lignite; Erdgas= natural gas
Sonstige=various/others; Kernenergie=nuclear; Erneuerbare=renewables
Wasser=water; photovoltaik=solar; Biomasse=biomass
Siedlungsabfaelle=sewage

Total wind went up 4 percentage points, solar up 0.2 percentage points.  Nuclear and coal declines.  Unfortunately most of the decline in coal was in black coal nor brown.  Brown coal is far more polluting than black.

At this rate, German electricity generation will be 100% green within 20 years.  That's electricity generation, not total energy use.  But the imminent electrification of transport will push it the percentage.

Volcanic vs human CO2 emissions

From Bradley Pitcher, vulcanologist.





CleanTechnica

A few years ago, I started to get seriously concerned about global warming.  It was obvious that global temperatures were in a strong uptrend, and it was equally obvious that the MSM didn't really know anything about it.  We needed clarity and facts to fight the lies and the influence of fossil fuel operatives.

But there weren't any easy sources of data or in-depth opinion, and I spent a lot of time digging, and trying to separate the wheat from the chaff.  Then I discovered CleanTechnica, which was and is well-informed, and full of data and articles about the green revolution.  If you want to keep up with the rapid transformation now underway in energy and transport, their e-zine is a very good place to start. If you're an obsessive like me, of course there are a hundred sources you need to follow.  But CleanTechnica is a really good place to start.

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Race against time


% in the graphic above should be degrees C


Regular readers will know that I've pointed out again and again that renewables (wind, solar and CSP) costs keep on falling, and that they are already below the cost of electricity from new coal power stations, will soon be below the cost of existing fully depreciated and paid off coal power stations, and are catching up fast with gas.  Battery costs will halve or more than halve over the next 5 years: this will make battery storage cheaper than peaking power gas or gas "firming".  Electric cars will have a sticker price equal to or below petrol driven cars by 2022--they are already cheaper to run.  So what's going to happen is that by the mid 2020s, carbon emissions are likely to be falling fast, just because power generation and transport produce something like 70% of world CO2 emissions.

But the problem is this:  world temperatures are rising by 0.2 degrees C per decade, and will go on doing so until emissions fall by 90% or more.  Remember, it's not enough to have emissions peak, because the level of CO2 in the atmosphere will continue rising until emissions fall below the natural processes which slowly remove CO2 from the atmosphere.  And that means that temperatures will go on rising too--until CO2 emissions have fallen enough that the level in the atmosphere starts to fall as well.

Also, there is the terribly frightening risk that methane clathrates melt.  This is methane frozen on the sea bed or in the tundra, which may start to melt and be released into the atmosphere as temperatures rise.  Eventually methane decays to CO2, but over its first 20 years in the atmosphere, it is 84 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.

We have at least 2 decades where, even though CO2 emissions will be falling, they won't have fallen  by enough for the accumulated CO2 in the atmosphere to level off and start declining.  So global temperatures will rise by at least another 0.4 degrees C.  Even if we get to 100% green electricity generation and 100% green land transport, important CO2 emissions sources will remain: iron and steel, cement, shipping, air transport, land and forest clearing and burning.  There are solutions here too, but nowhere near enough is being done to get them activated.

Some accuse me of being an optimist.  They say I will stop the political and community efforts to reduce CO2 emissions because I am very optimistic about the take up of green electricity generation and transport over the next 20 years.  But transitioning those sectors to a carbon-free state won't be enough, even assuming the transition isn't delayed by greedy billionaires keen to keep their oil and coal businesses going until the planet roasts.   There is no place for complacency.  We have to reduce CO2 emissions by 95% or more by 2050, preferably by 2040.  The sooner the better.  And our elected representatives will only start feeling the urgency if we make them, if we push them to encourage moves away from fossil fuels in every industrial and agricultural process in our economy. 

Believe me, the consequences we have already seen from the 1.2 degrees rise since before industrialisation will be an order of magnitude smaller that the consequences we will see at 2 degrees or higher.  So in 2017, spread the word, show that it's doable, but that we have to keep on pushing, and remind politicians that infantile day-to-day food throwing and tantrums is all very well, but we expect them to enact policies which encourage a shift to 100% carbon-free economies, not in some my-little-pony far off future, but now.

Source: NOAA


Discussions about EVs


A Peugeot Ion.  Source: EV Obsession




From EV Obsession

The writer owns an EV and gets lots of questions.  Here are some typical questions and his answers:

Charging Time

“How long does it take to charge up”?

I usually answer this one with a question of my own.-

“How long are you staying for”?

“Oh, about 20 min, or half an hour, I suppose, just to have a break and a cup of tea”.

“Well, that is about how long it takes to charge up. As soon as I get here, I just plug my car into the charger, here, go for a break for about 20 min, or so, and when I get back, it’s charged-up, and ready to go”.

Charging Cost

“And how much does it cost to charge-up, then?”.

“You would be lucky on the motorway to get more than 50 mpg, and, as a gallon is about 5L, and a litre is about £1.20 on average, to do 50 miles will cost you at least £6. For me to charge up to add 50 miles of range, costs me only £1”.

While I am on the subject of costs, I usually choose this moment to mention other cost advantages, just to drive home the point.

“As for servicing,” (pregnant pause here), “I have to have the motor coolant changed every 20 years, and every year, I have to get the pollen filter changed. Because of regenerative braking, the brake-pads last for ever. There is no oil and filter, no air filter, clutch, exhaust, spark plugs, timing belt, etc etc, to replace, and no expensive engine and gearbox to wear out.”

Battery Replacement

“Um, very cheap then, but I’ve heard the batteries don’t last long, and cost a fortune to replace.”

“Well, they last a lot longer than people expected, because now we have some EVs that have actually done big mileages, the estimates have been revised, a lot. For example there is a Nissan Leaf taxi, in the UK, that has done over 100,000 miles, with no significant loss of battery performance. The batteries don’t go “dud”, in any case, but just very gradually reduce in capacity. A battery is said to be “spent” when the capacity has fallen to 80% or less, but whether the owner considers it “spent” depends on how much they are bothered by having 80% of the original range.

As for the price of replacement, batteries are less than half of the original price, now, and could fall even more, so by the time you need a replacement, it might be very cheap. Also, your ‘spent’ battery, having 80% capacity, has a resale value, typically being used for grid storage, or home power storage.”



There are lots of other good answers in the article, but maybe you should hop across there and read the whole piece.


SA's big battery does its job

The Hornsdale Power Reserve, alias the Big battery, in South Australia


When Elon Musk's big battery in South Australia was announced, right-wing anti-renewable commentators and politicians has a field day, mocking the battery and comparing it to other Ozzie icons like the big banana and the big pineapple.  It will only power SA for 3 minutes, they crowed gleefully.  Bring back coal, they cried.  Only coal is reliable, they chanted.  Useless leftist rubbish, they implied.

The big battery was never meant to provide all the load shifting needed in a grid which is 2/3rd powered by renewables.  What is was targeted to do was to fill a gap temporarily while gas backup plants were fired up.  It was intended to provide FCAS (frequency control and auxiliary services).  What happens when a big generator "trips" (goes off line) or a power line is blown down is that it causes a "jerk" in the voltage and frequency in the grid.  If frequency or voltage remains too low for too long, other generators disconnect themselves from the grid for safety reasons, creating a cascading failure leading to large scale blackouts.

The big battery passed its first big test with flying colours:

State Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis says the investment in the battery has already proved its worth, exceeding expectations in its first test.

Last week, when the coal-fired Loy Yang power plant in Victoria tripped and went offline, the Tesla battery delivered 100 megawatts into the national electricity grid in 140 milliseconds.

"That's a record," Koutsantonis told 5AA radio.

"The national operators were shocked at how quickly and efficiently the battery was able to deliver this type of energy into the market."

By comparison, South Australia's Torrens Island power station would take half an hour to an hour to energise and synchronise into the market, according to Koutsantonis.

[Read more here]

Now note that the power stations which tripped (Loy Yang) were coal power stations, supposedly much more reliable than wind.  This was the fourth major outage of a coal generating unit in a couple of weeks.  So much for coal's "reliability".  And the Torrens Island power station is a gas peaker plant.  Which also failed in the last "system black" in South Australia.

The rabid-right commentators and pollies have been conspicuously silent about the big battery's record-breaking success.

What would it cost to provide large-scale time-shifting storage in South Australia, so that the State would be protected against extremely high wholesale electricity prices?

Demand in the afternoon and evening (2.30 to 8.30) peaks at anywhere between 1500 and 2000 MW, except on extremely hot days with the wind off the desert centre of Australia when demand can peak at 2500 to 3000 MW.  So ten percent of a more normal afternoon demand profile would be 200 MW, for about 6 hours or 1200 MWh.  The big battery cost US$50 million for 129 MWh of storage.  So 1200 MWh of storage would cost US$470 million.  And it would probably pay for itself from the arbitrage between low or negative wholesale prices at night, when the wind blows but demand is low, and the afternoon peak when wholesale prices can be extremely high.  Of course, you might want to wait a little--battery costs will halve over the net 5 years.  Plus the new CSP plant will be coming on line in 2020 or '21.  That will provide 150 MW for 10 hours into the night.  And there  is likely also to be a salt-water pumped-hydro facility at Cultana in SA which will provide 225 MW for 8 hours.

Moral of the story: the battery is already showing its value, even as coal power stations keep on tripping.  Expanding it (or building other banks at key grid nodes) to provide 200 MW 6 hours into the night would cost just $470 million, now, and much less in years to come.  And with diversified storage coming from CSP as well as  pumped hydro will mean South Australia will easily be able to reach 100% renewables.

Here's RenewEconomy's piece which provides a bit more info.


Sunday, December 24, 2017

November 3rd hottest on record despite La Niña

Source: RobertScribbler

The chart doesn't show the absolute temperature, it shows the anomaly.  Temperature anomalies are calculated by taking the temperatures for a place for each month  and then subtracting the average temperature for each month.  The base period for which the average is calculated differs for each authority, but the shape of the resulting charts is pretty similar.   V shows a significant volcanic eruption, m shows the sunspot minima and M the sunspot maxima.  There is some evidence that eruptions reduce temperatures (1911, 1982) but very little evidence a priori that the solar cycle has any impact.  One would expect sunspot minima to correspond to lower anomalies and vice versa with maxima, and there seems to be no relationship.

The lowest anomalies (the coolest periods) are at the beginning of the chart, the highest at the end, a clear sign of the rising temperature trend.  Because of random fluctuations, it's not a smooth transition from dark blue through yellow to pink.  March 1900, for example, was relatively warmer than the other months in 1900.  That doesn't mean it was warm, just that it was warmer than March is on average.

With data available for January through November this year it seems 98% likely that 2017 will edge out 2015 to be the second hottest year since the 1880s, despite a La Niña, which should cool the global atmosphere.  After the previous strong El Niño in 1998, global temepartures dropped significantly.  See how the long sequence of red squares in 1998 didn't happen again until 2005.  This time, despite a La Niña, temperatures have dropped only a little.  This is not good.

Big declines in CO2 emissions won't start for another decade, which means that global temperatures will keep on rising for at least that long.  The trend increase has been 0.2 degrees C per decade--they'll need one more colour on this chart.  The eruption of Mt Agung in Indonesia may lower temperatures for a while, as has happened with previous volcanic eruptions, but it won't last.  Look for lots more pink and black on this chart as it is updated over the next 10 years.  And keep the pressure up on your elected representatives.  If we had started reducing emissions 2 decades earlier we wouldn't be in the fix we are now.  We don't want another 2 decades of delay and denial.

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Why the Right likes individualism

From The Guardian.  It's about the situation in the UK, but it is widely applicable.

Source: Individualism--is it just a consolation prize?
There are several reasons why rampant individualism sits at the core of the Tory project. Individualism promotes the idea that our successes in life are purely down to our own efforts. That rationalises inequality, because it perpetuates the myth that the wealthiest are the brightest and hardest working while the poorest are the stupidest and the laziest. Inequality simply becomes just deserts, rather than the sign of a society rigged in favour of a lucky minority. Tax becomes a punishment for success rather than a contribution to the collective kitty.

Individualism transforms social problems such as poverty and unemployment into personality defects, rather than the ills of a poorly constructed society – to be cured by a change in an individual’s attitude rather than by collective solutions, such as a welfare state. It erodes a sense that the majority have shared interests and aspirations, which are not only different from those of the elite, but on a collision course with them. It is fatal to the logical conclusion of this sentiment: that the majority should deploy their collective strength to challenge the concentrated wealth and power of the few.

As a dogma, this form of individualism is a formidable obstacle to socialism. But in practice it has increasingly resulted in insecurity: no wonder, then, that solidarity is so hankered after by so many.

Economic hardship, after all, imposes stultifying constraints on human freedom. Is an individual saddled with debt, who lives in fear of energy bills landing on their doormat, and who has to choose between a hot meal for themselves or their children, truly free? The private tenant whose income is devoured by rent, and who can be evicted at the whim of their landlord, lacks freedom, as does the child with nowhere to study in an overcrowded home. So does the worker on a zero-hours contract who cannot plan a month or even a week ahead because they don’t know when they’ll be working or how much they’ll be paid. By robbing individuals of security, neoliberalism has robbed them of freedom too.

And that’s why the dichotomy between collectivism and individualism is a false one, because all individuals flourish only by standing on the shoulders of others. The provision of secure, decently paid jobs; a properly funded education system that unlocks individual potential; the building of comfortable and affordable homes; the elimination of student debt: all these will allow the individual to prosper and thrive. But that requires a collective approach – or socialism, as it is commonly called.

[Read more here]

Malcolm Turnbull's climate gap

Turnbull is the head of the right-wing L/NP coalition which currently holds office at the federal level in Australia.  Its climate policy is dominated by a cabal of far-right MPs, who are all in favour of coal and receive "donations" from coal companies and their billionaire owners.  Australia promised at Paris to cut emissions by 26-28% from 2005 levels by 2030.  As you can see, this is not going to happen.

Source




The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the global average

Source

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Here's a forecast I believe

This is a chart from a chap called Wills, reported in RenewEconomy.  It shows demand for ICEVs (petrol/diesel/gasoline cars and lorries), for EVs and PHEVs (plug in hybrids).  Note that demand for ICEVs doesn't decline in a nice, safe linear trend.  It plunges.  It collapses.  It's a massive disruption. Now, it's possible some die-hards will still be buying ICEVs in 2026 and 2027, but they will be like those people who insist that vinyl is better than digital.  Except governments want to stop air pollution, so . . . .

Source

In the US, a car's average life is 11 or 12 years; globally it's higher (18 to 20) .  But EVs are so vastly superior to ICEVs that only the very poor will keep their old ICEVs as EVs flood the market.  Average life for aging ICEVs is likely to be 10 or 12 years or less, maybe much less, once EVs become the norm.  Which implies (see chart below) that total global oil demand (and CO2 emissions from oil) will start to fall by 5 or 5.5% per annum from 2026 onwards, and that rate of decline will accelerate as the global car and lorry fleet is modernised.  Even by 2024, it will be falling by 2 or 3% per annum.  This will be disastrous for oil companies and for those economies (Russia, Saudi, Kuwait, etc.) which have benefited so much from producing oil.  This has major military/political implications.



Prof Wills has other forecasts, about the peak in gas demand, for example, which I agree with.

Once again, it's truly excellent news for global CO2 emissions and global warming.  But this new technology will create losers, bigly.  Come to think of it, it will impoverish oil and coal billionaires and dry up their funding for reactionary right-wing parties.  Sad!

The problems with the Right

Source



Back in the 1950s, a Republican president, Eisenhower, could see how a interstate freeway network would be good for the country, so he started to build one, using borrowed money funded by a petrol (gasoline) tax.  A Republican! In fact, in retrospect the post war decades in the United States were a golden age of high growth and low unemployment, of progress and equality (Eisenhower, again, at Little Rock.)  What's gone wrong since?

The Right believes that poverty is a personality defect.  Billionaires with practically uncountable wealth, who control press and TV stations, are greedy for even more wealth.  And the Right has spent millions funding "think" tanks which spread lies about global warming and its causes.  What's changed from the 1950s?  Well, back then, there was the alternative offered by communism and socialism.  But after the fall of the Soviet Union and China's conversion to state capitalism, the Right stopped worrying.  They have come to believe that their policies can be as far right as they want (witness Donald Trump), because the Left no longer presents a threat.  Indeed, in Anglo countries, the Left has feebly trailed behind the Right to adopt more and more neo-liberal policies.  But neo-liberalism has failed: economic growth no longer delivers greater prosperity for everyone, but only for the top 10% and the top 1%.  The Left is helpless in the face of right-wing triumphs because it has deserted its own base: the poor and the lower-middle class.  It thinks it can win by identity politics, but the Right is far better at that because it is far more unscrupulous and dishonest.  The Right has no problem with dog-whistling and racism, while we on the Left think that sort of  behaviour immoral.  Because we won't stoop to the sort of unprincipled politics of the Right, we will continue to struggle to win unless we start lifting the living standards of the bottom 50%.

In each US economic recovery since WW2, the percentage of the increase in real GDP going towards the top decile of income earners has risen. In the most recent recovery (since the GFC) 110% of the rise in real GDP accrued to the top 10%. The remaining 90% were worse off, even as real GDP rose. In the UK, real incomes have fallen even as real GDP per capita has risen. In Australia, the same pattern is emerging.

The Republicans in the US, the so-called "Liberals" in Australia and the Conservative Party in the UK want to cut taxes (for the rich and companies, naturally), and welfare for the poor (of course). They want to cut the minimum wage, they want to eviscerate public health provision, they want to destroy decent public schooling, they want to offshore production, they want to destroy the whole post-war consensus which helped lift millions out of poverty and deprivation. Just so their mates can buy a bigger yacht or another house or another $2000 suit. Income inequality is now worse than it was in the "gilded" age before WW1.

And to distract ordinary ppl from what is happening, they confect enemies: Mexicans, immigrants, Muslims, the EU, gays, "leftists", environmentalists, you name it, anybody but them and their policies.

I have no compunction about blaming the Right for what they are doing to our society.  But the Left is to blame too: the Right will go on winning elections until we start helping those who have lost out because of neo-liberalism and globalisation.   The Left must ask itself why working class Americans, Brits, or Australians vote for for right-wing parties which will only make them worse off.  And the answer is because once they had an alternative, because the Left represented their interests.  Now it no longer does.

See also:

Neo-Liberalism
The Rich Get Richer
Happy Days are here again
The "S" word
Trickle-down economics is a nightmare
Lessons from history
America is rotting at the core
What would Keynes do?
The failure of American capitalism

Donald Trump Christmas songs

Source

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Continued plunge in cost of solar

Over the last 3 years, the costs of unsubsidised industrial-scale solar have plummeted.

Source: IEEFA

The cost of onshore wind is also falling rapidly:

It is clear also that the same factors driving rapid deflation in solar costs are driving down the cost of both onshore and offshore wind. Greater policy certainty, lower capital costs, ongoing technology improvements, learning by doing and economies of scale are all supporting this trend. Last week saw the cost of onshore wind in Alberta, Canada, drop 55 percent to $37/MWh relative to 2016 prices.  Declines of some 50 percent in onshore wind tariffs have been seen also in India and Mexico, and in the offshore wind market in Germany and the United Kingdom. 

[Read more here]

At low levels of renewables penetration, very little storage is needed.   The existing grid copes with the variability inherent in wind and solar without difficulty.  As the percentage rises, more storage is required.  But as the amount of storage needed rises over time, its cost is simultaneously falling.

Let's assume that 12 hours of storage is needed at 100% renewable penetration.   Today, using the Tesla Powerpack, that would cost $53/MWh.  Assume solar costs $20/MWh (the average of the last three data points in the chart above), then the total cost of solar plus storage would be $73/MWh.  But in three years, that same storage will cost half of $53 (assuming a sustained 20% per year decline) and solar will cost 70% of its cost today (assuming a sustained 10% per year decline).  12 hours of storage with 100% solar will cost $41/MWh.  In six years' time, costs for the storage/solar package could be down to $25/MWh.  And these projected cost declines are probably conservative. 

Whichever way you slice and dice the data, it's abundantly clear that thermal coal mines and coal-fired power stations are on borrowed time.  Over the next six years, the cost of solar plus generous amounts of storage will first fall below the total cost of new coal power stations, meaning no more will be built, and then below the cost just of fuel used, leading to the rapid closing down of existing coal power stations.  By 2030, it is unlikely that there will be any coal power stations left. 

Sunday, December 17, 2017

EVs cheaper than petrol cars by 2022

I've plotted BNEF's battery prices on a log scale.  Log scale is a better way to show rates of growth or rates of decline, because a straight line over time shows a constant rate of growth or decline, whereas the same data on an arithmetic scale will show an apparently steepening rate of ascent or slowing rate of decline.  The grey bars show BNEF's survey results, the red line shows estimates of Tesla's battery back costs as estimated by EV Obsession.



Couple of points to note:


  1. The rate of decline in battery prices clearly increased from 2015 onwards.  If that rate of decline continues, the average battery pack cost will reach $100 in 2020 or 2021.  This is widely reckoned to be the tipping point where even cheap EVs will have a sticker price comparable petrol-driven cars (ICEVs)
  2. Tesla's battery costs are lower than the industry's.   The 2019 estimate is derived by EV Obsession from the implied cost of the Tesla's semi price.
  3. The cost of battery cells is less, but this is the cost of the whole pack.  I don't know, but the ratio of cell cost to pack cost may fall as the size of the pack increases.  
EV Obsession has this to say, in a most interesting article:

The bottom line is this: EVs will be better and cheaper than ICEVs at the value end of the biggest volume segments (small SUV and compact car) by 2022. At the higher-priced end of these segments EVs will already be at parity by 2019. By 2024–25 EVs will out compete on both features and price in pretty much every vehicle segment.

We know that in 2017 a premium sedan like the model S outsells its ICEV counterparts at a price which already gives enough margin to cover battery costs (of even a 330 mile range battery). But premium sedans are at most 2–3% of the global auto market. The real disruption will occur when EVs out-compete in the much higher volume ‘compact SUV’ and ‘compact car’ segments that make up at least 35% of the market.

By 2019 an EV C-segment vehicle costing $40,000 with a 55kWh battery pack (at $109/kWh) will reach sticker price parity with its ICEV counterparts. At the value-end, a $23,550 vehicle with a 55kWh battery pack (at $65/kWh) will be achieved by 2022.

[Read more here]

It's hard not to believe that by 2025 EV sales will dominate total car sales.  EVs are cheaper to run than, quieter than, faster than, handle better than, and are longer lasting than their ICEV counterparts.  With EV sticker prices equal to ICEV prices, these other factors will make EVs very attractive.  Meanwhile, city and national governments everywhere will be penalising ICEVs as they try to reduce air pollution.  When EVs will reach 90% or 95% or 100% of total vehicle sales I don't know, but it's surely going to be long before the consensus view of 2040 or 2050 or later.  

The plunge in battery prices also has very important implications for the role of renewables in electricity generation.  Even with 12 hours of storage, renewables are now cheaper than coal, and close to gas in the US (where gas is cheap).  As battery costs continue to decline  by 15% per annum, fossil fuels for electricity generation will be priced out of the market sooner rather than later.

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

EV charging uses less energy than water heating

Charging an electric vehicle consumes less energy than several common household appliances. Annual energy consumption for a typical household shows that home heating consumes by far the most energy (11,300 kW-hrs) followed by water heating (4,700 kW-hrs) and charging an electric car (2,800 kW-hrs). Based on average driving habits and consumption rates for the Nissan Leaf, charging an electric car consumes just over twice as much energy as a refrigerator which consumes about 1,300 kW-hrs annually. While an electric vehicle adds to household electricity usage, it eliminates the need to purchase gasoline for that vehicle which would cost considerably more based on national average gasoline and residential electricity prices.
[Source]

Source
Note:

  • This isn't an average for all US households, only for those which had a Nissan Leaf.    
  • Given the Leaf's relatively short range at that time (the new Leaf has a much longer range), it was prolly mostly for urban driving.  If the car they owned had been a Tesla, the electricity consumption for their EV might have been a little higher because of Tesla's greater range, which would allow it to be used for intercity driving.  
  • The method of calculation includes the electricity used at charge stations outside the home.
  • On these data, if everyone had an EV, total electricity demand would rise 15%.

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Update on costs of SpaceX's BFR

Slide from Elon Musk's BFR presentation at the IAC conference in Adelaide 2017
Costs increase from left to right -- should prolly be a log scale.  Click to enlarge. 


In his presentation to the International Aeronautical Conference in Adelaide, Musk said something significant which I didn't get, first time round.  He said that the cost per launch of the BFR/BFS combo, because the BFR and BFS will be fully reusable, would be cheaper than the cost per launch of the Falcon 1.  The published cost of a Falcon 1 launch was $8.5 million. 

Let's assume $1 million for fuel and another $1 mill for refurbishment every launch, which leaves $6.5 million to cover capital costs/depreciation and profit.  The booster (BFR) will be used again and again, perhaps 100 times (Musk thinks it could be 1000 times), but it's more complicated with the ship (the BFS) because it will be used for different purposes.  As a spaceship used only to reach Mars, its likely total number of uses will be limited, because Mars and Earth are only in opposition every 26 months.  On the other hand, it could be used far more often on the moon run (only 3 days away) and for point-to-point fights on Earth.  SpaceX would prolly use a Mars spaceship for moon missions and point-to-point flights in the 20 months between Mars missions, provided it could be unloaded it quickly enough on Mars for it to return to Earth before Mars and Earth moved too far apart.  So it's feasible that you could use the BFS almost as often as the BFR.

Let's use Sam Dinkin's capital cost from my earlier stab at estimating costings, $185 million for the BFR and $150 million for the BFS.  Let's assume just 50 launches for the BFS to allow for time taken to and from Mars (6 months) and some period spent on Mars loading and refuelling.  That means the capital cost per launch of the combo would be ($185/100)+($150/50) or roughly $5 million per launch.  Add our assumptions for fuel and maintenance and you get $7 million.

So how much would it cost to send one mission to Mars?  $7 million for the BFR/BFS combo, plus 5 refuelling launches which would each cost about $4  million ($7 million just takes the BFS to LEO -- low Earth orbit)  That's a total cost of $27 million.  Add in additional costs for the first mission, such as the two cargo ships containing equipment the first settlers will need, plus a cargo ship to accompany the spaceship, and that totals $100 million or so, still 3 orders of magnitude less than any competing proposal.  NASA's estimated cost for a mere handful of astronauts is $100 billion.

It all hinges on re-usability.  If the BFR and BFS are re-usable even just 100 times, space travel becomes cheap.  Satellites launches, trips to the ISS, trips to the moon to start a moon base, colonising Mars, mining the asteroid belt: all become economically feasible.  When Musk first said that he would make his rockets re-usable everybody fell about laughing.  No one else has managed it, they chortled.  Now SpaceX routinely lands the Falcon 9 first stage and re-uses it.  He now says he will be able to re-use his rockets 1000 times, and we all doubt him, even me.  Perhaps we shouldn't.

Update 2/June/2020:  The new stainless steel Starship will be much cheaper.  Musk has stated that each launch will cost $2 million, and the capital cost of the Starship part of the combo will cost $5 million.

US solar output up 47% in '17

In the year to September, the electricity generated from solar panels was 47% more than the same period of the previous year.  New investment in solar was prolly pushed up by the likelihood of a big rise in tariffs on imported panels next year.

It's tempting to say, "so what?", because solar produced just 1.9% of total electricity generated in that period.  But consider.   Let's suppose the rate at which the percentage of solar rises as new solar farms are built is just 23% per annum rather than 47%, slowing next year (see chart) because the prices of solar panels go up after tariffs are imposed.   This takes the percentage from solar to 5.5% by 2022, which is what   GreenTech Media and SEIA (Solar Energy Industries Association) forecast.

Source: GTM/SEIA
Note: the left axis shows new capacity not cumulative capacity
 Assuming that growth rate continues--and it might accelerate, because the cost of solar will resume its falls after next year's increase, and meanwhile, storage will more than halve its cost over just the next 5 years--that implies 15.5% of all electricity generated will be from solar  by 2027, and 44% by 2032.  In practice I think solar will be a bigger part of electricity generated by then because its cost will have declined so much it will easily edge out gas and what is left of coal.  But even 44% implies that soon after, more than 50% of the USA's electricity will come from solar.   Since wind will also be growing, though more slowly, its current 5.6% will have risen to 20% or more, and hydropower will be 5 or 6%, its current level.  By 2040, easily 100% of US electricity generation will be from renewables.

Record highs far outpacing record lows

In a time series which has no trend, the number of record highs should be equal to the number of record lows.  Let's say you start measuring temperatures in 1950.  In 1950, the record high is, say, 25 degrees C, the record low 0 degrees C.  For a new record high to be registered, it's got to be higher than 25, and for a new low, it's got to be lower than 0.  Let's say, the next year, the high is 25.5, and the low -0.5.  These become the new record highs and lows.  But each new record makes the next record harder to reach.  If the underlying trend in the data is sideways, new record highs and record lows will become rarer, because they will be more likely to have been achieved before.  (Reminder: popular use of "record high" or "record low" as meaning "very high" or "very low" is incorrect.  The terms mean the highest high or lowest low since records began.)

So if you do see a pattern of ever higher highs, or ever lower lows, whether it's in market indices, or share prices, or climate records, it means there is a trend.  A trend doesn't mean it's higher/lower every year, it means that over time new highs/lows keep on being attained.  One year may be lower than the previous year without meaning that an upward trend has changed.  On the other hand, if successive observations do show a new pattern of falling highs and lower lows, then it becomes more and more likely that a new trend is in place.

Source: Climate Central



Daily record highs are vastly outpacing daily record lows in the U.S. We will always have warm years and cold years, but in a world without global warming, those warm and cold years would balance over time. However, that’s not what we are seeing. According to the 2017 U.S. Climate Science Special Report, after a rigorous reanalysis of GHCN stations back to 1930, 15 of the last 20 years had more daily record highs than daily record lows. The number of daily record highs outpaced daily record lows more than 4 to 1 in 1998, 2012, and 2016.

A first look at the data from NOAA/NCEI indicates that 2017 continues the warming trend, as daily record highs are beating daily record lows by a 3.5-to-1 margin so far. Below are some preliminary 2017 stats through the end of November. Visit the NOAA Daily Weather Records tool to get the daily updates on these numbers:
  • Monthly record highs have outnumbered monthly record lows at a rate of 9.7 to 1
  • All-time record highs have outnumbered all-time record lows 8.7 to 1
  • Record high minimum temperatures have outnumbered record low minimums 4.6 to 1

As the concentration of greenhouse gases increases in the atmosphere, the ratio of record highs to record lows will likely increase even further. With no change in current emissions trends, model projections indicate that record highs could outpace record lows by 15 to 1 by the end of the century.

[Read more here]

The evidence that climate change is happening right now, and that we don't have to wait for decades to see its effects, is mounting.  Records aren't just falling for temperatures, but also for severity and length of droughts, rainfall events, and hurricanes.  Almost everybody, even if they are concerned about global warming, thinks it's something which will only affect our grandchildren.  But it's happening right now.  By the time our grandchildren are adult, it will be incomparably worse, unless we move aggressively and rapidly to de-carbonise our economies.  Fortunately,  technology and the costs of renewables are helping facilitate this transformation, but we need to speed the process up, and also address areas where such technological progress is not being made: air travel, cement, iron & steel, land clearing, shipping.

Monday, December 11, 2017

Plunging battery costs

Storage is key to our transition to a carbon-free economy.  Even if we have a grid with a good mixture of wind and solar, there will still be periods when the two together don't provide enough electricity and other periods when they provide too much.  And though we can provide electricity to trains or trams via an overhead cable or an additional rail, we can't do that for cars or lorries.  For them, we will need stored energy.  Now, that's provided by petrol or diesel, but in future it will have to come from electricity stored in batteries.  So it's really important that batteries get cheap.

The chart below comes from BNEF via Climate Denial Crock of the Week.

Source

The cost of storing 1 kWh has fallen from  $1000 in 2010 to just over $200 in 2017, an 80% decline, which works out to a cumulative/compound annual rate of decline of 20%.  The rate of decline of the last 3 years, though, has been much faster.  From 2014 to 2017, the rate of decline has been 29% per annum.  This faster rate of decline has coincided with the development of Tesla's first battery gigafactory in Nevada.  Right now, Tesla needs all the batteries it can produce for the ramp up in Model 3 production. So it's unlikely Tesla will be cutting the price of its batteries for public sale yet.  But in 6 months' time, as the gigafactory itself moves towards completion, and Model 3 production beds down, I have no doubt Tesla will be cutting the prices of its Powerwall and Powerpack products. 

Let's be conservative and project a continued rate of decline in battery prices of 20% per annum, though it's far more likely that with 12 battery gigafactories opening round the world, prices will decline faster than that.  At 20% per annum continued rate of decline, by end 2020, the cost per kWh will be down to $100/kWh of storage, half what it is now.

Currently the cost of the Powerpack, Tesla's utility-scale storage solution, is $387/kWh, but that includes the inverter/transformer.  Inverter costs are also falling, so it seems entirely plausible that by the end of 2020, Powerpack costs will have been at least halved.  Currently, the cost of power from the Powerpack is 10.5 cents/kWh delivered ($387/365 days/10 years).  A 50% price cut will take it down to 5 cents/kWh delivered, or $50/MWh.  Currently, gas peaking costs more than $150/MWh.  So it's probable that by 2020, no new gas baseload plants will be built.  Instead, utilities will start using battery storage to firm and balance electricity output.  Also, the cost of wind/solar with 10 hours of storage will be $70 or below, comparable to gas baseload in the US (where gas is cheap), and cheaper than gas baseload in the rest of the world.  Just as coal demand has peaked, so will gas demand peak not long after 2020.

The fall in battery costs will also drive down the sticker prices of EVs to the same as ICEVs.  $100/kWh for storage is where this will happen, but battery costs won't stop falling when they've reached $100/kWh.  They will halve again, making EVs and grid/household battery storage irresistibly cheap.

This is only 3 years away, the end of 2020.  In 3 years' time, EVs will be as cheap as ICEVs, and sales will be exploding.  In 3 years' time, renewables with storage will be even cheaper than they are now relative to coal, and starting to compete head-to-head with gas.  Frankly, those corporations and countries (legacy car manufacturers, oil companies, Saudi Arabia/Kuwait, utilities, etc.) which do not start to plan now for the deluge of profound change that is coming will be wiped out.  The good news for everybody else is that carbon emissions will start to fall really fast in the 2020s, giving us a fighting chance that emissions will be close to zero by 2050, which is what we have to achieve to limit global warming to 2 degrees C.

Transportation now biggest US emissions source

Source: Climate Central

Emissions from electricity generation have fallen sharply because gas and renewables have replaced coal.

The rapid growth in EVs is coming just in time.

Sunday, December 10, 2017

Donald will fix it

by Cathy Wilcox

Model 3 deliveries

It's no secret that Model 2 production has been way behind target.  In the chart below, which compares GM's Bolt sales to Tesla's Model 3 sales, you can see how behind schedule Tesla is--Bolt sales in Novemnber are where Model 3 sales were planned to be by now.  Tesla had been hoping for 1000 deliveries of the Model 3 per week in December.  The Model 3 is a far superior car to the Bolt, but sells at roughly the same price.  If Model 3s were properly available, their sales would surely greatly exceed the Bolt's.

Source of data: InsideEVs.com

So, should we give up hope that Model 3 production will never pick up and that Tesla is finished?    Well, no.  The chart below shows Model 3  VINs as seen by the public (source Teslarati).  The first Model 3 built had a VIN of 1 (or close to; the relationship isn't exact)  Note that recent VINs are running above 2000.  Note also that the curve is exponential, as Tesla said it would be.

I also use Musk's behaviour as a guide.  At the International Aeronautical Congress in September, he was puzzingly distracted, even depressed.  Then there was the tweet of him camping on the roof of the gigafactory while he fixed the problems delaying production of the batteries used in the Model 3, camping because it would take too long to drive to the nearest town to spend the night at a motel.  What other chief exec would do that?  Then came the launch of the Tesla semi and the new Roadster, where he was very upbeat, even ebullient.

From the chart above, I estimate that production of the Model 3 has already reached 300 per week.   Their new target of 1000 per week by the end of March seems achievable.  But production actually has to be much higher than that.  Over 400,000 people have reserved a Model 3.  Production of 1000 a week equals just 52,000 a year. It would take 8 years to satisfy the pent up demand.   From 1000 a week, production will have to rise to 2000 and then to 4000 by the end of 2018.  The exponential curve will have to continue to steepen.  Can Tesla do it?  Yes, I think so.  The first few months were the hard bit. 

What happens when Tesla "uses up" all the reservations?  Nothing.  Tesla Model 3s will be ubiquitous.  Everybody will know someone who has one, someone who will give their family or friends test drives in their new car, someone who will extol the pleasures of owning and driving a Tesla.  And if that isn't enough, Tesla can start advertising.

This production schedule will double US EV/PHEV  sales by end 2018.  And that's without the new longer-range Nissan Leaf or the Bolt., and there could easily be a 50%+ increase from those heights in 2019.  Which is vital.  We must cut carbon emissions as rapidly as possible.

Saturday, December 9, 2017

Amazing image of California fires

This extraordinary photo from one of NASA's satellites shows the smoke plumes from the California fires.

Source: EcoWatch


2017, a year of unprecedented hurricanes, floods, droughts, and bushfires in mid-winter in southern California.  Who seriously still thinks that global warming is a problem for future generations, not for us right now?

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Exponential growth in world EV sales continues

Inside EVs have published their latest estimates of US  and world EV/PHEV sales.  (Their basic data; my seasonal adjustment, my trend estimates and my estimate for global car sales in 2017) For the first time I've plotted the chart on a log scale.  A log scale is better for showing things that are growing exponentially.  In this case it shows (roughly) a rising straight line, implying that in absolute terms, the rise in the percentage of EVs sold is accelerating.


The year-on-year growth rate continues to pick up.  This is before Tesla 3 or Nissan Leaf sales have got going.  At the current growth rate (65%), EVs/PHEVs will make up 3.6% of all new car sales this time next year.  With Leaf and Model 3 sales likely to explode in 2018, my guess is that that percentage could be even higher.  From 0.4% of the world market at the beginning of 2014, to 4% at the end of 2018 .... if the growth rate (i.e., the straight line in the chart above) continues, EVs and PHEVs will be 40% of the world car market by the end of 2023, and close to 100% not long after.  What price oil?


Iconic Vespa scooter goes electric

Source: Green Car Reports

One of the great pleasures of visiting an Asian or a southern European city is lying in your hotel bed early in the morning (awake because you're jetlagged) listening to the different sounds of the city, and the biggest difference is the noisy buzz of scooters.   (Linguists might note that vespa means wasp, and the Italian/Latin word is cognate with the English one)  That's going to be a thing of the past, soon.

The Vespa scooter is undeniably an icon on European streets.

For 70 years, Vespas have buzzed about roadways, but the buzz will soon give way to an all-but-silent hum in the company's latest scooter.

Earlier this month at the Milan Motorcycle Show, Vespa announced its first all-electric scooter, dubbed the Elettrica.

The Elettrica trades a petrol and tank small combustion engine for a lithium-ion battery pack and electric motor rated at 2 kilowatts of continuous power and peak power of 4 kilowatts.

The electric Vespa offers better acceleration than a traditional scooter, with more power than typical 50-cc scooters.

For Europeans, the idea of a silent scooter may come as a relief; the buzz and howl of mopeds and scooters is a common sound and often adds to urban noise pollution.

However, Vespa will also introduce an Elettrica X model with a range-extending generator—so not all Elettricas will be entirely silent.

All-electric Vespas will travel up to 100 kilometers (62 miles) on a single charge, but the X model doubles that range to 200 kilometers (124 miles).

Riders can plug the electric scooter into a standard outlet and charge it fully within four hours, and public charging stations will work as well.

[Read more here]

In third-world countries, the only vehicle a person or a family may own will be a scooter.  Electrifying scooters, especially if they can be charged from an ordinary electric socket could have as big an impact as electrifying the car fleet on carbon emissions and air pollution.