The Impact of Solar Feed-In Tariffs in Germany

[GliderGuider]

From the number-loving, solar-hating shills for Big Oil over at The Oil Drum:

The Impact of Solar Feed-In Tariffs in Germany

The purpose of this analysis is to show the impact of Photovoltaic (PV) Solar Feed-In-Tariffs (FITs) in Germany. It has the largest installed base of grid-connected PV solar systems in the world, and much data is available about it.

German solar PV in 2009 produced only 1.1% of total German electricity, but issues of grid stability are already being raised, as is the issue of excessive cost. Through the FIT, the electrical system paid an average $0.54 cents per kilowatt hour for the electrical power for the electricity it purchased. The cost of wholesale power has varied over the years, but has been much lower than this. In 2009, the cost of wholesale electricity averaged $0.075 at peak rates, or $0.058 at base load rates.

Even this cost comparison may give too much credit to solar. The only real savings from having the PV systems is the savings in fuel, since the generating units used for peaking would still need to be in place, and employees would still be needed to operate and maintain them. The cost of fuel would have been even lower than base load rates.

In this post, I explain these issues in more detail, and talk about some other issues, including the impact on employment, and whether other approaches might provide a better use for funds.

The "other approaches" assessment comes down to this: If the same money that has been put into solar power in Germany since 2000 had instead been invested in nuclear power, the CO2 reduction would have been over 10x as great over those 10 years. Way to think about the planet, Germany!

[jpak]

1. Those idiot Germans - what were they thinking?

:rofl:

[GliderGuider]

4. It all depends what problem we're trying to solve.

A lot of one's reaction to Germany's solar initiative depends on what problem one believes the world is trying to solve with alternative energy like solar and wind.

If the problem is to create a long-term technological/industrial base to ensure economic growth, provide poor countries with distributed local power options and as an eventual mitigation strategy for Peak Oil, initiatives like this make some sense.

If the problem we're trying to solve is excessive CO2 flowing into in the atmosphere from the global use of fossil fuels, this initiative is a grotesque waste of time, money, energy and resources.

I think CO2 is a problem right now, not 50 years from now. If we were pursuing effective CO2 reduction strategies in addition to playing with windmills and solar cells, I'd be a little more sanguine. We're not, so I'm not.

[kristopher]

11. You are a nuclear industry fan that ignores reality in favor of BUSINESS INTERESTS

Abstract here: http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Full article for download here: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm


Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c

Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

Abstract
This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[GliderGuider]

20. Yay, more Jacobson!

I'm a nuclear power fan that is against CO2 production.

[joshcryer]

22. I think GG is trolling the people here who are deluded about our ability to build out renewables.

The markets cannot do it. It requires something like 600 Apollo's or 50 WWII's of industrial production to pull this off. It is absurd to say the least.

[Confusious]

31. What reality would he be Ignoring?

Maybe that without affordable electricity, we might as well go live in caves? because ultimately, it's the consumer that's going to be paying for it? or if it's not, you're going to make the poor sit in the dark and cold? or heat, if you live in the south? Get out the cat food, because you won't be able to cook anything or keep anything in the fridge because the prices are so damn high?

oops, sorry, not him. maybe that was you.

[joshcryer]

23. They clearly were not thinking.

:rofl:

[Ian David]

2. Where will we bury all that spent sunlight waste? n/t

[GliderGuider]

3. Where are they burying all the CO2?

Right.

[jpak]

6. Where do nuclear plants - "bury the CO2"?

clue

they don't

[GliderGuider]

8. They keep it from being produced in the first place. In large amounts.

ETA: It's much easier to sequester nuclear waste than CO2.

[kristopher]

12. No, nuclear is ineffective and retards the transition away from fossil fuels.

"Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction...

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered.

The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security.

Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts."

You are simply making shit up.

[GliderGuider]

15. Wind is a red herring in this discussion.

Solar panels are even worse than wind as far as actual, real-world CO2 reduction goes. They may have some applications, but trying to run a modern industrial activity on solar panels is much like trying to run it on AA batteries.

[kristopher]

16. You have nothing - no logic, no proof, no basis in fact at all for your assertions

Nothing but false claims that are intended to support the nuclear industry. Proper accounting of the impacts and potential of the various technologies proves you are (plainly put) full of crap.

]"In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered.

The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security.

Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security
Mark Z. Jacobson
Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c

Abstract here: http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Full article for download here: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm

[GliderGuider]

19. Yeah, yeah.

Jacobson.

Whatever.

[joshcryer]

24. Nuclear releases nearly 5 times less CO2 over Coal-CCS, as per Jacobson.

[Confusious]

27. bullshit

Vattenfall finds that averaged over the entire lifecycle of their Nuclear Plant including Uranium mining, milling, enrichment, plant construction, operating, decommissioning and waste disposal, the total amount CO2 emitted per KW-Hr of electricity produced is 3.3 grams per KW-Hr of produced power. Vattenfall measures its CO2 output from Natural Gas to be 400 grams per KW-Hr and from coal to be 700 grams per KW-Hr. Thus nuclear power generated by Vattenfall, which may constitute World's best practice, emits less than one hundredth the CO2 of Fossil-Fuel based generation. In fact Vattenfall finds its Nuclear Plants to emit less CO2 than any of its other energy production mechanisms including Hydro, Wind, Solar and Biomass although all of these processes emit much less than fossil fuel generation of electricity.

[joshcryer]

28. That's an impressive number, but wind is certainly comparable to that.

Whether or not we can change out over 190k wind turbines every year is another discussion.

[Confusious]

30. Yes, it's comparable

But some around here seem to think it's none for wind.

No talk about the energy used to mine the materials or energy used to manufacture the turbines.

The only thing I've ever seen in a generator is copper, and it's not delivered by storks.

[hunter]

5. Solar power emits toxic electronic waste.

Many of these toxins have a half life of ... forever.

[jpak]

7. PV panels emit toxic waste? - WOW! - that's almost as good as the one about the molten salt breeder

:rofl:

[GliderGuider]

9. There are two points where toxic waste can enter the biosphere:

Production and disposal.

Waste produced during disposal (toxic materials and heavy metals) can be handled by regulating the recycling of end-of-life panels.

Production is a little more complex, as the Chinese experience showed:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/08/AR2008030802595.html

In China, a country buckling with the breakneck pace of its industrial growth, such stories of environmental pollution are not uncommon. But the Luoyang Zhonggui High-Technology Co., here in the central plains of Henan Province near the Yellow River, stands out for one reason: It's a green energy company, producing polysilicon destined for solar energy panels sold around the world. But the byproduct of polysilicon production -- silicon tetrachloride -- is a highly toxic substance that poses environmental hazards.

"The land where you dump or bury it will be infertile. No grass or trees will grow in the place. . . . It is like dynamite -- it is poisonous, it is polluting. Human beings can never touch it," said Ren Bingyan, a professor at the School of Material Sciences at Hebei Industrial University.

The situation in Li's village points to the environmental trade-offs the world is making as it races to head off a dwindling supply of fossil fuels.

As more and more solar cell production shifts to China due to low labor costs, problems like this will become more frequent.

I'm not ROFL...

[jpak]

10. Chinese environmental ethics? They put melamine in baby formula for profit

and lead/cadmium paint on toys

try again

[GliderGuider]

13. That was kind of my point.

As panel manufacturing shifts to China, the environmental problems of production will increase. Profit is the name of the game, baby.

[jpak]

14. So it is irrelevant to the US, Canadian, EU and Japanese solar industry

OK

[GliderGuider]

18. Yes, it's irrelevant. The only thing their solar industries share with the Chinese

is their smallness.

[kristopher]

17. Now apply your logic to nuclear power...

[GliderGuider]

21. Chinese nuclear plants give me the willies. French, Japanese and Korean ones not so much. nt

[joshcryer]

25. I highly doubt Germany could've built 5-10 plants in that time frame.

Such a project would've required significant Apollo-style investment.

[Iterate]

26. 18.9 vs 9.6: Sweep in front of your own door.

Way to think about the planet, USA!

Or if you prefer, the USA wins the Silver Medal with about 19.91% of global CO2 emissions. Cut it in half and you'll still beat the EU. Go USA! Race to the Bottom.

If 5,838,381 metric tons per year vs. 787,936 metric tons per year doesn't sink in, consider that Germans use about 56% of the electricity that Americans do per capita, and I would argue have a higher standard of living for their effort. Unplug you freezer. Tonight. Hell, unplug your neighbor's freezer too.

Number crunchers never seem to get why a nation would voluntarily pay more for electricity than they absolutely need to, so rather than try to understand it, they simply dismiss it as irrational. So the FIT was more popular (and therefore more expensive) than they have planned. So fucking what. They got the efficiency, an embryonic export industry, and some local production; that's what they wanted. Plus that, a good share (I'd like to know exactly how much) of the FIT money recirculates within the German economy for decades.

Likewise, never would it cross the numbs thinkpads to factor in why Germans would be hyperbolic about containment vessels or to factor in the drive time for two pissed off cowboys trucking 40 tons unmolested from the Afghan border. Neither do they have a handle on what it means to have 84 million people packed into an area the size of Minnesota and Iowa combined -no place to run to if things turn pear-shaped. Unless, that is, you happen to be relatively well-to-do Berliner, many of whom still keep the get-away spots they bought during the cold war, just in case. Otherwise, your French cousins will not let you move in with them.

I doubt as well that any of the calculators have tried to buy real estate here, because they would quickly learn a lesson that's guaranteed to melt a spreadsheet. Germans don't move and they don't sell. There's a good chance the family still owns Granny's place in Bavaria. And never mind fault, liability, and compensation laws. Remember the DU/EE story about the ongoing compensation expense of radioactive boar?

So the blithe American solution, the "other approach", doesn't even begin to translate. It sounds like putting sprinkles on a cupcake. Oh, 5-10 more, just add another dash. While you're still rebuilding the east, and funding the EU expansion, and fucking around trying to keep bush appeased. No need to give that cash to homeowners and local construction workers, just give it to GE and E.ON.

I could go on at length about the distribution of political power and its consequences (all of the most favored solutions here are smallish-scale and distributed), the nonsense of cut-and-paste construction cost projections, or the value of a majority "Atomkraft? Nein, Danke" in a democracy, or even reasons for the instilled mistrust of large corporations and directives from Berlin. What I can say is that no one needs to touch the numbers to understand why Germans do what they do.

I know Americans have the cultural and historical memory of a clownfish, but I don't think it's too much to ask that we realize that other cultures do remember, and that however much it hurts our feelings that they don't always accept our personally favorite technologies (they don't care for Foxnews on cable either, chased out Walmart, and seem to have little use for automatic bread-makers), they just might have a valid point about their own country and how they best want to live.

What they do seem to know somehow is that bad things will happen when you least expect it, even if it's 60 years from now, and it's best not to bet whole nation that it won't. I'm guessing they'd rather paper the roofs with inefficient solar panels than take that risk.

Atomkraft? Pfui Deibel!

[kristopher]

29. Thank you for a wonderful contribution to the discussion.

I look forward to more in the future.