2250-MW Navajo coal-fired plant shut down, under demolition

[drcampbell]

A victim of shifting economics; coal became much more expensive than gas or renewables.
No longer will it consume 22,500 tons (three trainloads) of coal every day, nor produce 4000 tons of coal ash and 60,000 tons of carbon dioxide.

Demolition work resumes at SRP's retired 2,250-MW Navajo coal-fired plant - Power Engineering

Decommissioning and demolition at the retired Navajo coal-fired power plant in Arizona has resumed, nearly four months after suspending the work due to COVID-19 concerns. Utility owner Salt River Project […]

www.power-eng.com

 

[gadfly56]

A victim of shifting economics; coal became much more expensive than gas or renewables.
No longer will it consume 22,500 tons (three trainloads) of coal every day, nor produce 4000 tons of coal ash and 60,000 tons of carbon dioxide.

Demolition work resumes at SRP's retired 2,250-MW Navajo coal-fired plant - Power Engineering

Decommissioning and demolition at the retired Navajo coal-fired power plant in Arizona has resumed, nearly four months after suspending the work due to COVID-19 concerns. Utility owner Salt River Project […]

www.power-eng.com

There. Fixed it for you. Unreliables get their back up for free from other power producers. If they had to pony up the difference in the middle of the day when the wind dies or the clouds moved in, and pay the standby charges, they'd be even worse an economic white elephant than they already are.

 

[wwhitney]

Seems like a blend of gas (for dispatchability) and renewables (for lower cost and lower emissions) beats coal on all counts.

Cheers, Wayne

 

[retirede]

Coal plant closed down in central Illinois earlier this year. I had a relative who was an operator there move to another state.
If he wants to remain a coal plant operator, it’s probably not his last move.

 

[gadfly56]

Seems like a blend of gas (for dispatchability) and renewables (for lower outrageous cost and lower emissions) beats coal on all counts.

Cheers, Wayne

There you go, much better. Let's take NJ as an example. NJ's program requires the load-serving providers to procure a certain number of solar renewable energy certificates (SREC's) to comply with the states renewable portfolio standard (RPS). Joe Homeowner puts solar panels on the roof of his house and gets a watt-hr for watt-hr credit for the power produced. The solar scam artist installer strips the SREC (that's how Joe Homeowner gets such a great deal on his installation, that and tax credits) and sells it on the installer's behalf. Now, this isn't an outright purchase by the load-serving provider, it's more like a futures market. So the holding company says to PSEG or JCPL that they'll deliver so many watt-hrs of solar (SREC's are in increments of 1 MW-hr). So, jolly time for all? Wellllll, maybe not. What is the current cost of SREC's? That would be $230/MW-hr. It's been as high as $680/MW-hr. The value of the power actually produced? Somewhere between $50 and $180/MW-hr. Yeah, lower cost my left foot. And suppose you were a load-serving provider and decided to tell NJ to stuff it? There's a penalty of $691/MW-hr. Are we having fun yet?

 

[electrofelon]

="gadfly56, post: 2632825, member: Are we having fun yet?

No, hearing you rant against renewables is not particularly enjoyable

What I find amazing is a giant plant like this can just shut down and there is enough other energy to fill the gap. The scale of this stuff is amazing.

 

[wwhitney]

So apparently it's hard to design a government economic incentive program to address the market failure of unpriced emissions that doesn't have the possibility of getting out of whack. Complain to the NJ legislature, not us.

I'm pretty sure that at this point in time, if you were in charge of a large campus/city/state with its own independent power grid, and inside a basin so you rapidly felt the effects of your own atmospheric emissions, renewables plus dispatchable gas plants or battery storage would be the winning solution on cost and emissions.

Cheers, Wayne

 

[gadfly56]

No, hearing you rant against renewables is not particularly enjoyable

What I find amazing is a giant plant like this can just shut down and there is enough other energy to fill the gap. The scale of this stuff is amazing.

"rant <n> speak or shout at length in a wild, impassioned way."

Yeah, I'm going to put that back on you. I gave you facts and figures, and you have no rational reply.

It's not surprising that the capacity has already been replaced, since gas-fired generators have been popping up like mushrooms and their lower cost has put a lot of pressure on coal operators nation-wide. If there had been a handy source of NG, no doubt the owners would have considered conversion. I'm not saying the plant should have been kept open at any cost, but unreliables were not the giant-killer here, gas was.

 

[augie47]

I'm sure putting a plant this large in "mothballs" is not feasible and an expense no one wants but I sure hate to see it demolished never knowing what the future holds.
There is a side of me that misses "heavy industry". Guess I was born too late.

 

[gadfly56]

So apparently it's hard to design a government economic incentive program to address the market failure of unpriced emissions that doesn't have the possibility of getting out of whack. Complain to the NJ legislature, not us.

I'm pretty sure that at this point in time, if you were in charge of a large campus/city/state with its own independent power grid, and inside a basin so you rapidly felt the effects of your own atmospheric emissions, renewables plus dispatchable gas plants or battery storage would be the winning solution on cost and emissions.

Cheers, Wayne

"Unpriced emissions" is newspeak for "any totally made up number that will advance our thesis".

There are already emission standards that are designed to protect the public health and well-being, and if you think they don't, petition to have the levels reduced. Please come armed with facts. Oh, and as a matter of interest, Navajo was well below the permissible limits for SOx, NOx, and PM2.5.

As for battery storage, I will leave you with the spec for one (1) Tesla Powerwall 2: $9,250, 13.5 kW-hr of storage, sustained discharge rate of 5 kw. The 100 MW battery Tesla put up in Hornsdale, Australia was just a boatload of Powerwall 2's all hooked together. I leave it as an exercise for the student to calculate the cost, in batteries alone, to keep, say, the LA basin operating for a day on nothing but battery power. Extra credit for how many combined cycle gas plants you could build for the same amount of money that don't have to be replaced in 10 years or so. Hint: the city of LA consumes approximately 22,000 GW-hrs per year.

 

[drcampbell]

All these rants have one flaw in common: You're stuck in old-school thinking, neglecting smart grids and interruptible/dispatchable consumption.
HVAC loads can be interrupted for several minutes at a time without any noticeable effect. With storage, HVAC loads can be shifted by several hours or or several days. And as more & more of the total load is battery charging, it can be interrupted when renewable energy is interrupted and dispatched when renewables are abundant.

And when there are a lot of renewable "generators" in a lot of different places, they won't all be interrupted at the same time.

 

[synchro]

It's not surprising that the capacity has already been replaced, since gas-fired generators have been popping up like mushrooms and their lower cost has put a lot of pressure on coal operators nation-wide. If there had been a handy source of NG, no doubt the owners would have considered conversion. I'm not saying the plant should have been kept open at any cost, but unreliables were not the giant-killer here, gas was.

Hydraulic fracturing "fracking" has markedly increased the supply of natural gas and it now amounts to more that 2/3 of the total US production. I'm sure that has been a major factor in its adoption vs. coal because it has kept NG prices from rising significantly with the increased demand.

 

[gadfly56]

All these rants have one flaw in common: You're stuck in old-school thinking, neglecting smart grids and interruptible/dispatchable consumption.
HVAC loads can be interrupted for several minutes at a time without any noticeable effect. With storage, HVAC loads can be shifted by several hours or or several days. And as more & more of the total load is battery charging, it can be interrupted when renewable energy is interrupted and dispatched when renewables are abundant.

And when there are a lot of renewable "generators" in a lot of different places, they won't all be interrupted at the same time.

Show numbers. You make a lot of claims, now put up. I showed you mine, now show me yours.

 

[gadfly56]

Hydraulic fracturing "fracking" has markedly increased the supply of natural gas and it now amounts to more that 2/3 of the total US production. I'm sure that has been a major factor in its adoption vs. coal because it has kept NG prices from rising significantly with the increased demand.

This is almost unquestionably true. The only reason I say "almost" is that like any cautious engineer, I acknowledge I may not have all the facts. One of the ironies of the Keystone Pipeline derailment is that because there is no Gulf outlet for the gas being fracked in the Dakotas and surrounding areas, the internal price of gas in the US has been kept lower than it might otherwise have been. US gas is around $2.50/MMBtu, while the rest of the world it between $5-10. Canada has been as low as a ridiculous $1.55 or so.

 

[winnie]

I heard a quote sometime back along the lines of "Recent advances in financial services technology have all been about hiding transaction costs from consumers." (Think credit card 'rewards', etc.)

It is clear to me that renewables are the future of energy production. When you consider than human energy consumption (electricity and fuel burning) amounts to something like 0.02% of the solar energy hitting the Earth's surface, it is pretty clear that using solar power (Wind is indirect solar) is the way things will go _eventually_.

It is also clear that the true costs of energy production are pretty damn well hidden in a tangled web of different subsidies and ignored externalities.

If you don't believe that CO2 emissions are an environmental safety problem, then gas fired plants actually look quite good environmentally.

I believe that net CO2 emissions are in fact a problem. However when you compare human emissions to biosphere exchange, it seems clear to me that we would be far better off increasing biosphere sequestration of CO2 than reducing human emission of CO2.

I believe we would be far better off with direct charges or mandates vs identified 'externalities', and then let the different technologies fight it out, then the raft of confusing subsidies we currently have.

See: https://www.forbes.com/sites/energy...m-unstoppable-solar-and-wind/?sh=7cffa6fe2c84

The 'levelized cost of energy' from wind and solar is _cheaper_ than natural gas if you ignore the energy storage issue. If you use wind and solar to power _dispatchable_ loads, and use conventional energy to power non-dispatchable loads, then we would have a reasonably stable grid, and people will quickly learn how to make more loads dispatchable since that gets you access to cheaper energy.

-Jon

 

[wwhitney]

"Unpriced emissions" is newspeak for "any totally made up number that will advance our thesis".

No, it means any emission for which the polluter does not pay any marginal cost. Under the current regulatory scheme, that means any emission, as far as I can tell. The polluter has to meet a limit for SOx, NOx and PM2.5, but the polluter get no economic benefit from reductions below the limits. That's an economically inefficient market intervention. [Edit: or are there some cap and trade markets for those pollutants in parts of the US?] Not to mention CO2.

As to batteries, your condescending tone is a barrier to informed discussion.

Cheers, Wayne

 

[gadfly56]

I heard a quote sometime back along the lines of "Recent advances in financial services technology have all been about hiding transaction costs from consumers." (Think credit card 'rewards', etc.)

It is clear to me that renewables are the future of energy production. When you consider than human energy consumption (electricity and fuel burning) amounts to something like 0.02% of the solar energy hitting the Earth's surface, it is pretty clear that using solar power (Wind is indirect solar) is the way things will go _eventually_.

It is also clear that the true costs of energy production are pretty damn well hidden in a tangled web of different subsidies and ignored externalities.

If you don't believe that CO2 emissions are an environmental safety problem, then gas fired plants actually look quite good environmentally.

I believe that net CO2 emissions are in fact a problem. However when you compare human emissions to biosphere exchange, it seems clear to me that we would be far better off increasing biosphere sequestration of CO2 than reducing human emission of CO2.

I believe we would be far better off with direct charges or mandates vs identified 'externalities', and then let the different technologies fight it out, then the raft of confusing subsidies we currently have.

See: https://www.forbes.com/sites/energy...m-unstoppable-solar-and-wind/?sh=7cffa6fe2c84

The 'levelized cost of energy' from wind and solar is _cheaper_ than natural gas if you ignore the energy storage issue. If you use wind and solar to power _dispatchable_ loads, and use conventional energy to power non-dispatchable loads, then we would have a reasonably stable grid, and people will quickly learn how to make more loads dispatchable since that gets you access to cheaper energy.

-Jon

The atmosphere exchange in CO2 is about 750 Gigatons per year. Man-made emissions are about 36 Gigatons per year. Yeah, 5% is not exactly a game changer, and over the last 20 years or so there has been a huge "greening up" of the biosphere. NASA article here. Keep in mind that no one really knows what the true bioexchange rate is. Keep in mind also that the oceans contain another 55,000 Gigatons of CO2.

The problem is, the electrons don't care if the load they serve is dispatchable or not. How do you tell "wind" electrons to go to the dispatchable load? Do you intend to construct an entire parallel grid?

I can't find anywhere in the LCOE calculations that they accounted for the different life spans of the capital assets. And you can't ignore storage costs. Run the exercise in my post #10.

 

[gadfly56]

No, it means any emission for which the polluter does not pay any marginal cost. Under the current regulatory scheme, that means any emission, as far as I can tell. The polluter has to meet a limit for SOx, NOx and PM2.5, but the polluter get no economic benefit from reductions below the limits. That's an economically inefficient market intervention. Not to mention CO2.

As to batteries, your condescending tone is a barrier to informed discussion.

Cheers, Wayne

I take that to mean, "I have no idea how to answer this." And it's amazing you can figure out my tone when you can't hear my voice or see my body language. Truly astonishing.

 

[wwhitney]

The atmosphere exchange in CO2 is about 750 Gigatons per year. Man-made emissions are about 36 Gigatons per year.

That comparison has little bearing on the fact of anthropogenic global warming due to CO2 production. This system was in equilibrium, and a small perturbation to one of the inputs can easily change the equilibrium point.

Cheers, Wayne

 

[wwhitney]

And it's amazing you can figure out my tone when you can't hear my voice or see my body language. Truly astonishing.

Your condescension is conveyed with phrases such as "exercise for the student," "extra credit," and "hint". That language suggests you are the master of the subject matter, and we are the students. If that is not your intention, then I suggest alternate language.

Cheers, Wayne