Energy Modeling: the Good, the Bad, and the Misleading
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- čas přidán 10. 09. 2024
- Mark Nelson, managing director of the Radiant Energy Group, joins me for a deep dive of the uses and abuses of energy modelling.
Intro and outro music: Malagueña by Ernesto Lecuona performed by Mark Nelson immediately prior to the interview.
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Mark always bringing those super villain vibes with the dramatic piano intro and his steely mustachio'd face. Love his talks on the podcast.
As an Australian, I found that all very interesting, and about the modelling by AEMO. My argument against it still lies in the principle of the long term sustainability of wind and solar. Surely keeping systems simple, and built to last for up 10 decades is far better for both Green principles and affordable power. We know the lifespans of wind and solar is only a couple of decades and I can never get my head around that we would invest in a system that we have to keep replacing over and over again - forever.
As a European, i can feel your pain about rebuilding over and over again. Whatever you build, it has to be replaced in a few decades.
We have a dozen or so buildings from roman times left. They look not quite fresh, but solid to last another 2000 years. When archeologists looked into the ground, they found millions of similar solid built structures - all gone now. If you look around here, only few structures can be expected to last a century or so.
It's not only attrition, decay, and ageing. But also change of needs, change of preferences, opportunities, or just ad hoc solutions that add up to the grinding down of those structures.
AEMO supports greenwashing investors, not the consumer.
Another great episode. Couple things... DR stands for David Roberts, he's not a doctor!
And Mark Z. Jacobson's lawsuit lasted a little longer than a week. It was closer to a year if memory serves. We had a "Don't sue science" petition that gathered close to 5k signatures at the time.
The modelling of Mark Z. Jacobson is similar to the logic of most IT project managers.
"If it takes 9 month for a woman to deliver a baby,
Then 9 women can deliver it in one month." 😁
The Mythical Megawatt Model.
And I appreciate the icing of the piano playing.
I listened to the podcast episode, and I just came here to say it's always such a joy to listen to Mark Nelson.
Hi Mark. I’ve been loving your talks and enjoyed meeting you at teac 11. I’m the guy with the green guitar slowly shooting a rock video on thorium. I enjoyed your piano playing. I’ve been playing all my life too and picked up guitar in 2019. 🤓
You must start with the presumption that all models are flawed, but some are useful.
Andrew Bolt on Australia's Sky News has delivered a blast at numerous follies in the attempt at an efficient energy transition.
Plans for a pumped hydro project will flood a lovely valley in a North Queensland rainforest area.
Places with low population density are invariably selected for green energy environmental harm.
A lot of energy modelling is done using TIMES and it will give you a pretty detailed model for a country’s energy system, so it is not complete BS. However, one thing we tend to forget to introduce in these models are variables such us self-cannilbalization of supply chain (due to rapid growth of a certain technology, see offshore wind), dependancies of marginal fuel sources on renewable penetration (natural gas in EU after the Russian invasion).
Mark and Jesse, enjoyed this episode. Well balanced discussion but as an Australian I disagree that we are a shining light or example in the renewables space. Much of what is technically being considered or 'modelled' is actually quite fanciful e.g., a very large country so transmission costs from solar and wind sites to our major cities are horrendous and are always underestimated. I have an engineering background so understand some but not all of the technical details. And although Australia is extremely resource rich we have some of the most expensive energy and electricity prices in the world (partly or mostly due to renewable grid penetration although you can't say this in public or in the mainstream media!). Take a look at South Australia's sky high electricity prices, a state that is virtually 100% renewable (although still linked to the national grid). Note that when there is high demand on our Eastern seaboard they are forced to turn on their diesel generators to keep the lights on! The ridiculous anti-nuclear stance in this country is heart breaking, particularly as we are blessed with uranium. If we managed to combine a number of larger nuclear plants (sited at existing coal power stations once they are shut down with transmission infrastructure already on hand) as base load, complemented with solar and wind, Australia would be the envy of the world. But alas, as an Australian author once quipped, "Australia is a lucky country run by second rate people who share its luck." And I have little time for Simon Holmes a Court. He might have some interesting perspectives but they are skewed by his ideology and faith in renewables, and gauging from his opinions published in the local media, he has very little understanding of engineering, the technical difficulties of running a grid with high penetration of renewables, or physics for that matter (well he initially studied arts/ law so...). I take whatever he says with a mountain of salt. Keep up the great work...
The media always ignores the fact that renewables must have an energy storage method in order to supply the grid without fossil fuels or nuclear. Their modeling can't take this into account because it makes renewables totally the poorest choice of all.
You should look harder at the data.
@@arcusmc I'm way past that. I have been using wind/solar/EV's for more than 40 years.
3:05 *_"Tallinn,_* the capital of Estonia, is part of the economically stable Nordic area, situated on a busy trading route between East and West with excellent ports and access to 50 million consumers within 24 hours. A city of ca. 445,000 people sits on the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, just 83 km south of Helsinki. A ferry trip between the cities takes about 2 hours. Tallinn shares a geographical latitude nearly identical to Stockholm."
Chris makes reference to a podacast by Dr Volz (?) with Jesse Jenkins. Anyone have a link or can direct me to that podcast? Thanks!
BRILLIANT !!!
Some modelling convinced Gore to predict ice cap gone by 2013. That worked out well.
Not 'cohost'... TWIN!
Great discussion.
The 2 biggest names in the sector thank you
With only renewables, what storage systems? Where are the materials going to come from? Fossil fuels will be well into depletion before adequate low emissions energy production can be built.
One common way the Greenies lie on their renewable modeling is using rated output of wind and solar as a comparison to fossil fuels or nuclear.
Whereas fossil fuel and nuclear plants can consistently achieve their rated output 24/7 (minus outages and maintenance), wind and solar can never achieve their rated output, their size must be typically quadrupled to meet the same rated capacity of fossil fuels or nuclear facilities.
Wow, they piss on Marc Jacobsen and then piss on Stanford. Funny but in Wyoming we also talked about energy in 1980, and we had a big nuclear department. And the petroleum engineers were rooting for solar and wind, and talked about storage, and they didn't want to see fracking and tar sands. And they laughed at the nuclear engineers.
Mark, I totally agree with your analysis of the problems of modeling. But in past videos Ive seen, you seem to accept the climate model results that say we need to reduce natural gas, because of the CO2 contribution to climate change.
While I strongly believe that nuclear is the answer for the worlds energy, I have zero faith in the climate models, and I don’t believe that there is a CO2 crisis.
It doesn't matter if CO2 is a pollutant or not. There are other reasons to reduce combustion fuels the two primary ones are
1: A lot of countries don't have domestic fossil fuels
2: In some parts of the world fossil fuels are very expensove eg in Europe Natural Gas costs 4x more than in the USA
3: Local air pollution
I don't personally think fossil fuels should be prematurely ended but there are good reasons why you'd want to reduce your reliance on fossil fuels and we will primarily achieve these not by nuclear or wind but by efficency
I lost all faith in modelling during the covid debacle, where they made the models say whatever was enough to back up the lockdowns.
That use of modelling will forever be a despot on what the technology could actually do for us. 😮
Keep it up
Mark don't be fooled by AEMO's ISP, it's a great example of utilising a flashy complex model to distract from erroneous model assumptions. Engineering instinct led me to question the findings and when I looked in detail it turns out that the "sophisticated model" assumes free use of a massive expansion of residential batteries and excludes any costs of distribution network upgrades. All models are wrong, this one isn't useful.
Modelling not Modeling ?
If there's one thing worse than a mustache, it's a two'stache.
So we should be highly skeptical of energy models but accept climate models that have hundreds more variables. got it.
...and that's not to mention the Coronavirus models that unaccountable epidemiologists had so much faith in!
...or perpetually erroneous economic models. I could go on.
Modelling is only useful for prediction if the model fits real world past data and and the model includes antagonistic trends.
The second law of thermodynamics is a model for the utility of heat. If the more fundamental model that energy is conserved without gain or loss but may be changed in form is followed the world energy situation becomes much better. Civilization can then be powered by break-even perpetual motion.
Aloha
Talon Estonia is beautiful. I hope you got into the old city. I was there with my family right after they took all the old Soviet monuments down. The Russian population was not happy at that time 2007 -2008-ish.
20 minutes in and too much gossipy type content, so I gave up. Someone please let me know if this episode ever gets into solutions or science.
The most important point of the episode was near the end. If there are NO negative consequences for individuals or companies that are creating and "selling" these models then decision makers should be very skeptical of said model for making massive decisions
It gives me a really bad feeling that Mark Nelson, an energy 'Guru', and a pro-nuclear one at that, doesn't appreciate that greenH2 is as fundamental to decarbonisation as low-carbon electricity: "hydrogen is a mess..........hydrogen is just an ugly thing..." Hydrogen is currently a 70 million tonnes per year industry where all of the problems have been 'engineered out'.
We do not decarbonise transport, industry, synfuels and all of the products manufactured from hydrocarbons, that we rely on in our everyday lives (not the least of which is ammonia/fertilisers to feed the world) without greenH2. Following Mark P. Mills' 'The energy transition delusion' and the work of Simon Michaux, BEVs and FCEVs are ruled out of the transport sector and batteries ruled out of energy storage.
This leaves the road clear (excuse the pun) for greenh2-powered icevs, where many $millions are already invested - Toyota; Cummins; JCB; etc.. It retains the iron/steel materials demand; a vehicle cost no different to FF-fueled icevs ( a super-criticised issue with BEVs and FCEVs); a thriving second hand market; a whole of life (recycling) infrastructure. GreenH2 can be applied across all sectors of transport, including aviation.
We are at the cusp of the small modular reactor (SMR) era. The Occam's Razor/Silver Bullet solution to maximising decarbonisation presents itself to 'lovers' of nuclear power. Energy 'Gurus' like Mark Nelson and high-flying pro-nukers like yourself should take this notion into the corridors of power to 'educate' the energy-inept, rule-making politicians on the inevitability of this solution which, in economical terms, is at least an order of magnitude better than a zero-sum-game.
It's Occam's Razor simple: SMRs for all zero FF electricity; SMRs combined with PEM electrolysers for millisecond load following of diurnal demand and greenH2 manufacture (seasonal demand from planned refuelling and maintenance outages); dedicated (LWR) SMRs suppling steam at 850°C to high temperature steam electrolysers (HTSEs) to get 900 kWh of greenH2 energy out for every 1,000 kWh of [equivalent] electrical energy in - to provide the vast quantities of all the greenH2 needed to displace FFs; carbon capture to manufacture all of the hydrocarbon-based products we need (including some synfuels and lubricants) from all of the low-hanging fruit first - cement manufacture; waste to power; justifiable power from biofuels; other CO2 emitting sectors; etc., then DAC and CO2 from seawater.
SMRs manufacturing greenH2 are situated where the greenH2 is distributed/stored in a gas network (50,000 km planned in the European Hydrogen Backbone). Any form of transport other than through a gas network is unviable and needs to be minimal. For transport, the compression to 700 bar takes place at the point of use. GreenH2 would not be used for heating and hot water as heat pumps are so much more energy efficient.
It can be demonstrated that in the USA, replacing FF burning in the electricity generation sector alone, by SMRs + PEM electrolysers can put $6,750 - per year (forever) - back into the budgets of every USA household. Instead of paying for the polluting damage to the health of every citizen, the environmental pollution, the premature deaths, the lost days of work, etc., that $6,750 per household per year would circulate through the economy of the USA through the selection of goods and services of choice.
It's at least a win, win, win solution.
Hydrogen is an important industrial chemical, but I'm not crazy about it as a fuel or means of moving energy. The density is so low, whether it's compressed or liquified.
I'd rather see it used to produce more manageable hydrocarbons, like methanol or dimethyl ether.
@@wwoods66H2 is also significantly less efficient in electrical power -> wheels spinning sense that a -> batteries -> wheels scenario, so BEVs will be a primary method for personal transport.
Hydrogen is wasteful and impractical. Making it on the current grid, or worse, current energy mix, is a climate crime.
Forgot to mention the most pro nuclear model @i_sodope_
The best model there is