Comment box Scope: summary, personal analysis Tone: neutral Opinion: yes, at the end Sarcasm/humor: none Ben James argues that, despite popular "wisdom," we are technologically and politically...
Comment box
Scope: summary, personal analysis
Tone: neutral
Opinion: yes, at the end
Sarcasm/humor: none
Ben James argues that, despite popular "wisdom," we are technologically and politically capable of building new kinds of energy infrastructure extremely quickly.
He discusses "domestic" energy transitions like historical switches from coal to natural gas for household heating in the past, such as in England.
Many people protested moving from coal to new-fangled gas. Their arguments sound very similar to those who resist electrification today.
And national electrification:
In 1936, FDR signed the ambitious Rural Electrification Act (REA), to connect all of America to the grid. It was extraordinarily successful. The proportion of rural homes with electricity jumped from 10% to 90% in just 14 years.
They had electric railroads in the 1930s. They built all that infrastructure because they knew it was the best thing to do.
James also mentions Indonesia's switch from kerosene to liquid petroleum for cooking, which reduced CO2 emissions in half.
The program distributed 57 million LPG starter kits. Each contained a 3kg LPG cylinder, stove, and regulator. The rollout was intense; at its peak, 180,000 packages were being distributed daily.
France built dozens of nuclear reactors in less than two decades:
In 1974, France had just 8 operating nuclear reactors, and only one was French-designed.
By 1990, France had built 56 new reactors.
Between 1980-85, France was connecting a new reactor to the grid every 2-3 months.
Between 1970 and 1990, France took nuclear power generation from 4% of electricity generation to over 70%.
James also provides an interesting set of correlations between these successful projects:
Some clear patterns emerge from the examples above. In all cases:
The technology was well established. Technical risk was not a concern.
Policy was extraordinarily strong. Even though the state did not usually install the new infrastructure, they created a cast iron framework of incentives, loans, and support.
A huge workforce was needed, and training up tens of thousands of people was a core requirement (and economic benefit)
In most cases, the state did not own the final infrastructure. Local communities did.
Deployed technology was ruthlessly standardised.
National priorities were placed above NIMBYism, but locals often benefited from the technology too.
This thesis also aligns with proven data indicating the extremely rapid expansion of the EV charging network, which increases by about 5% in number of chargers every quarter in the United States.
Electricity is well-understood and we already have an extremely extensive national electrical grid. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law signed by Joe Biden, and the Inflation Reduction Act signed by Joe Biden, contribute trillions of dollars to funding infrastructure and energy transitions across the country. The policy is whole-heartedly behind the transition. The workforce is behind it too, constructing these new stations and building the new vehicles, and there are lots of economic benefits to individuals and organizations.
Charging infrastructure in the US is also becoming much more standardized: the NACS SAE J3400 connector is now used by all EV manufacturers. You can consistently find stations along state and interstate highways and in many other locations. Where I think EV infrastructure fails is a lack of software standardization: there are too many different apps and services, and the user experience for each can vary significantly. The process could be improved with a standardized front-end interface (and only one account for the user), probably maintained by the government, regardless of who owns the physical charging stations.
It is a good reminder indeed that we are capable of change on a large scale rather quickly when we perceive the need for it. The biggest issue by large seems to be, to me anyway, the political...
It is a good reminder indeed that we are capable of change on a large scale rather quickly when we perceive the need for it.
we are technologically and politically capable of building new kinds of energy infrastructure extremely quickly.
The biggest issue by large seems to be, to me anyway, the political willingness to both invest and see through transitions like this. As well as reaching an agreement on how that transition is supposed to look like. In fact, I think there are very few people who actually disagree on it being technically possible to switch. It is more often than not that people object based on costs attached to certain paths.
At the same time, I think we are already further along a transition than a lot of people realize. I mean, the fact that we are getting news stories about strained grids because of an overproduction of renewable energy sources already tells you that part of the infrastructure is already transitioning.
There are many great points in this article. There are other issues, where there are huge emissions, that cannot be solved quickly. I'll give a couple short examples: Right now if I were to try to...
There are many great points in this article.
There are other issues, where there are huge emissions, that cannot be solved quickly. I'll give a couple short examples:
Right now if I were to try to get a seabed cable to electrify say an offshore oil platform, I'd be lucky to get delivery in the early 2030s. The world's production capacity is spent.
This is a big deal. These places have inefficient gas turbines so emissions per energy is much, much higher here than if the gas were transported to a modern, highly efficient plant on land.
But these cables are also extremely important if we are to build offshore wind power! If that technology takes off, I'd be willing to bet quite a lot of money on these cables being a significant bottleneck for offshore wind in areas with less conflict (farther out to sea).
The speed at which we require energy transitions away from fossil fuels require that we do a lot of things very quickly without years of planning.
A second example of a significant bottleneck is building more electricity grid.
This grid is needed for the tremendous increase we need in electric power to go away from fossil cars, fossil heating, fossil transport, fossil-run trains and so on.
But at the same time we need to electrify things like industrial production, mining, agriculture and so on.
The amount of electrical grid that needs to be planned and built is tremendous, and it needs to come before investment in green power production can realistically happen.
Yes, we can make the changes in people's homes and with nuclear and all sorts of other great improvements that will make a real difference. We also need to do the hard things that should have been planned and implemented the last 20 years at the same time too!
That's where things get tough. But if politicians just say yes, some improvements can happen really quickly.
I also see the grid as a bottleneck. Yes, it’s being upgraded, but people are also going to use energy storage to maximize its use and sometimes go around it.
I also see the grid as a bottleneck. Yes, it’s being upgraded, but people are also going to use energy storage to maximize its use and sometimes go around it.
The writer does not outright say this, but it feels like the implication of the piece is that we are poised for a rapid energy transition and the only thing holding us back is a lack of political...
Some clear patterns emerge from the examples above. In all cases:
The technology was well established. Technical risk was not a concern.
The writer does not outright say this, but it feels like the implication of the piece is that we are poised for a rapid energy transition and the only thing holding us back is a lack of political will or institutional support, because the technologies of solar and wind power are well established at this point.
However I think there is still technical risk that is a concern.
This was discussed in comments on the recent post about negative electricity prices. It is important to maintain a balance of generators putting power on the grid and loads pulling power off the grid. There is never a perfect match, but thanks to the physics of how electricity and magnetism work, there is a kind of buffer to account for short term imbalances in the form of the grid frequency. Net energy going into the grid makes the frequency go up and net energy going out makes the frequency go down. Regulators try to balance things out to keep the frequency stable.
What we need to consider then, in mathematical terms, is the derivative of grid frequency with respect to energy. For every X megawatt-hours of energy mismatch there will be a Y change in frequency. This rate comes from the "inertia" of the grid, which comes from the inertia of all the generators and loads.
Turbines like those in a coal, gas, or nuclear plant have a big heavy spinning metal rotor which has a lot of rotational inertia that is electromagnetically coupled to the electricity coming out of it, and provides a big chunk of inertia centered at one known spot. Asynchronous AC power like conventional wind turbines or DC power from solar panels do not provide this same inertia, because the electricity goes through an inverter which doesnt maintain that coupling.
This means that as renewable penetration increases, grid planners and regulators need to do increasingly more planning and analysis to make sure that they can guarantee stability over a range of potential edge cases. While batteries or other fast demand response capabilities can account for the general loss of inertia, there is still an increasing risk of large shocks to the system being problematic. For example a power line going down and a major power plant loses connectivity, resulting in rapid spike in energy mismatch.
There are a number of potential solutions to this, but its not entirely clear to me whether some of them will be viable. One option Ive seen is that certain renewable companies are marketing so called "virtual" or "synthetic" inertia that can be handled by wind turbines or inverters. This is a pretty nebulous term though, and some of the examples I have seen are really more like primary regulation than true inertia. This might not matter for the general grid drift but become significant for those edge case shocks.
All of which is to say that while we definitely know a lot about how engineering the grid works, this is still somewhat uncharted territory for us.
I don’t know how well “virtual inertia” works either. It seems like, worst case, they could have giant flywheels that are connected to the grid with an electric motor/generator? But that’s...
I don’t know how well “virtual inertia” works either. It seems like, worst case, they could have giant flywheels that are connected to the grid with an electric motor/generator? But that’s probably less efficient than other schemes.
Comment box
Ben James argues that, despite popular "wisdom," we are technologically and politically capable of building new kinds of energy infrastructure extremely quickly.
He discusses "domestic" energy transitions like historical switches from coal to natural gas for household heating in the past, such as in England.
And national electrification:
They had electric railroads in the 1930s. They built all that infrastructure because they knew it was the best thing to do.
James also mentions Indonesia's switch from kerosene to liquid petroleum for cooking, which reduced CO2 emissions in half.
France built dozens of nuclear reactors in less than two decades:
James also provides an interesting set of correlations between these successful projects:
This thesis also aligns with proven data indicating the extremely rapid expansion of the EV charging network, which increases by about 5% in number of chargers every quarter in the United States.
Electricity is well-understood and we already have an extremely extensive national electrical grid. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law signed by Joe Biden, and the Inflation Reduction Act signed by Joe Biden, contribute trillions of dollars to funding infrastructure and energy transitions across the country. The policy is whole-heartedly behind the transition. The workforce is behind it too, constructing these new stations and building the new vehicles, and there are lots of economic benefits to individuals and organizations.
Charging infrastructure in the US is also becoming much more standardized: the NACS SAE J3400 connector is now used by all EV manufacturers. You can consistently find stations along state and interstate highways and in many other locations. Where I think EV infrastructure fails is a lack of software standardization: there are too many different apps and services, and the user experience for each can vary significantly. The process could be improved with a standardized front-end interface (and only one account for the user), probably maintained by the government, regardless of who owns the physical charging stations.
It is a good reminder indeed that we are capable of change on a large scale rather quickly when we perceive the need for it.
The biggest issue by large seems to be, to me anyway, the political willingness to both invest and see through transitions like this. As well as reaching an agreement on how that transition is supposed to look like. In fact, I think there are very few people who actually disagree on it being technically possible to switch. It is more often than not that people object based on costs attached to certain paths.
At the same time, I think we are already further along a transition than a lot of people realize. I mean, the fact that we are getting news stories about strained grids because of an overproduction of renewable energy sources already tells you that part of the infrastructure is already transitioning.
There are many great points in this article.
There are other issues, where there are huge emissions, that cannot be solved quickly. I'll give a couple short examples:
This is a big deal. These places have inefficient gas turbines so emissions per energy is much, much higher here than if the gas were transported to a modern, highly efficient plant on land.
But these cables are also extremely important if we are to build offshore wind power! If that technology takes off, I'd be willing to bet quite a lot of money on these cables being a significant bottleneck for offshore wind in areas with less conflict (farther out to sea).
The speed at which we require energy transitions away from fossil fuels require that we do a lot of things very quickly without years of planning.
This grid is needed for the tremendous increase we need in electric power to go away from fossil cars, fossil heating, fossil transport, fossil-run trains and so on.
But at the same time we need to electrify things like industrial production, mining, agriculture and so on.
The amount of electrical grid that needs to be planned and built is tremendous, and it needs to come before investment in green power production can realistically happen.
Yes, we can make the changes in people's homes and with nuclear and all sorts of other great improvements that will make a real difference. We also need to do the hard things that should have been planned and implemented the last 20 years at the same time too!
That's where things get tough. But if politicians just say yes, some improvements can happen really quickly.
I also see the grid as a bottleneck. Yes, it’s being upgraded, but people are also going to use energy storage to maximize its use and sometimes go around it.
The writer does not outright say this, but it feels like the implication of the piece is that we are poised for a rapid energy transition and the only thing holding us back is a lack of political will or institutional support, because the technologies of solar and wind power are well established at this point.
However I think there is still technical risk that is a concern.
This was discussed in comments on the recent post about negative electricity prices. It is important to maintain a balance of generators putting power on the grid and loads pulling power off the grid. There is never a perfect match, but thanks to the physics of how electricity and magnetism work, there is a kind of buffer to account for short term imbalances in the form of the grid frequency. Net energy going into the grid makes the frequency go up and net energy going out makes the frequency go down. Regulators try to balance things out to keep the frequency stable.
What we need to consider then, in mathematical terms, is the derivative of grid frequency with respect to energy. For every X megawatt-hours of energy mismatch there will be a Y change in frequency. This rate comes from the "inertia" of the grid, which comes from the inertia of all the generators and loads.
Turbines like those in a coal, gas, or nuclear plant have a big heavy spinning metal rotor which has a lot of rotational inertia that is electromagnetically coupled to the electricity coming out of it, and provides a big chunk of inertia centered at one known spot. Asynchronous AC power like conventional wind turbines or DC power from solar panels do not provide this same inertia, because the electricity goes through an inverter which doesnt maintain that coupling.
This means that as renewable penetration increases, grid planners and regulators need to do increasingly more planning and analysis to make sure that they can guarantee stability over a range of potential edge cases. While batteries or other fast demand response capabilities can account for the general loss of inertia, there is still an increasing risk of large shocks to the system being problematic. For example a power line going down and a major power plant loses connectivity, resulting in rapid spike in energy mismatch.
There are a number of potential solutions to this, but its not entirely clear to me whether some of them will be viable. One option Ive seen is that certain renewable companies are marketing so called "virtual" or "synthetic" inertia that can be handled by wind turbines or inverters. This is a pretty nebulous term though, and some of the examples I have seen are really more like primary regulation than true inertia. This might not matter for the general grid drift but become significant for those edge case shocks.
All of which is to say that while we definitely know a lot about how engineering the grid works, this is still somewhat uncharted territory for us.
I don’t know how well “virtual inertia” works either. It seems like, worst case, they could have giant flywheels that are connected to the grid with an electric motor/generator? But that’s probably less efficient than other schemes.