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What does it take to succesfully transition to a green energy economy?
- Thread starter Marc v E
- Start date
The air to water heat pump that we will have will cost 23k euros, so not cheap. Prices are high at the moment, but our gas boiler is 17 years old, so we did not want to wait much longer. We will get a few thousand in subsidy, but even so. The good news is that we will save a lot on natural gas bills, and no longer pay a connection charge, but the electricity bill will go up. Right now we are hardly paying anything for electricity, given our PV panels. It is hard to predict how financially attractive the system will be. One of our neighbours with a somewhat similar house reports good results from exactly the same heat pump system.
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Marc v E
Major Contributor
- Thread Starter
- #83
In the newspaper Trouw I found an article on insulation costs.
Summarising :
Considering houses that are build before 1992. (After that insulation is quite good)
*taking into account costs for insulation amount to on average of €19000
*subsidising 30% of costs by the government
*assuming an extra mortgage with 4% interest for a period of 25 years
*25% savings on gas per year
*a gas price of 1.59 per cubic meter
Then 62% percentage of households would benefit. Max benefit is 5% in monthly netto income.
38% would have less netto disposable income with a minimum of -4%.
People with low income living in government supported housing would save €32 per month. It would basically cost the housing corporations 18 billion.
For people renting against market prices or house owners, about 50% has a benefit.
The lower incomes don't benefit at all.
Also for people living in relatively big freestanding houses there is no benefit.
Free market renting could go up by €150 per month. If your household has 2 incomes there is more disposable income and therefor easier to achieve a benefit. Although ROI is obviously long.
Summarising :
Considering houses that are build before 1992. (After that insulation is quite good)
*taking into account costs for insulation amount to on average of €19000
*subsidising 30% of costs by the government
*assuming an extra mortgage with 4% interest for a period of 25 years
*25% savings on gas per year
*a gas price of 1.59 per cubic meter
Then 62% percentage of households would benefit. Max benefit is 5% in monthly netto income.
38% would have less netto disposable income with a minimum of -4%.
People with low income living in government supported housing would save €32 per month. It would basically cost the housing corporations 18 billion.
For people renting against market prices or house owners, about 50% has a benefit.
The lower incomes don't benefit at all.
Also for people living in relatively big freestanding houses there is no benefit.
Free market renting could go up by €150 per month. If your household has 2 incomes there is more disposable income and therefor easier to achieve a benefit. Although ROI is obviously long.
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Frost line where I live is ~7 feet. I've dug down in late June to 3.5 feet and hit frost.
The cost of insulation has gone up with the shortage of materials and labour. I am convinced it will come down again. The most unpredictable variable is the price of gas and electricity. If gas becomes more expensive and sustainable electricity goes down in price, the equation immediately looks very different. I decided to take the very long view, but that was obviously helped by the need to replace our gas boiler anyway.
Galliardist
Major Contributor
From what I can make out, Australia is among the best parts of the planet to plan for a renewable future, although we have to allow for the governments' abilities (we have state governments and a national government) to stuff this up for decades to come. We have more sun, parts of the country have more wind, etc.etc.
There is a limited international capacity for building new nuclear generation, and it is very expensive (things like decommissioning never seem to be included in costs) as well as carrying high risk. I've been a lifelong opponent of nuclear power, but now I don't see how it can be avoided as part of the solution to the climate change issue: however, for me nuclear needs to be reserved for areas where there is a lot of energy intensive industry and very dense population. Australian uranium will be needed more elsewhere. Australia needs to use, and can easily use, brains and innovation in the renewables space instead: there is still scope for the country to gain a lead in renewable technology and its implementation.
The country has already lost a technology lead in solar panels, and as I write this important innovations in wave power developed here are to be implemented and produced overseas first.
But in every way regarding energy, Australia is just plain dumb. We even sell huge amounts of gas to other countries like China at low, low prices, with practically zero tax, while consumers and industry on the east coast are effectively paying international spot market price. Even the new fracking gas field supposed to supply locals, is immediately being connected to the export pipeline. And our emergency oil reserve? On another continent. We have massive rare earth production coming on stream. We could build and sell the required batteries, but again off the raw minerals go at low prices.
Also, prior to recent market changes arising from the Ukraine situation, for many years, it appears that the money from price increases in Australian electricity pretty much matched up to the profits of the now foreign owned producers from privatisation in most states. It's probably coincidental, though, because the machinations that got us there included other areas of government policy.
Let us not forget either that Australia in most years is the highest per capita producer of greenhouse gases, and that's not counting the pollution from our rather large fossil fuel exports. However we do this, we have a duty to the planet and can't cop out. If we don't get into gear on everything else, then your day of reckoning will come...
It is a classic free rider problem. "My country first" makes sense from the point of view of an individual country but dooms the planet. At a national level free riders can be held in check by government, but at a global level such authority is missing. So all we can fall back on is a common sense of moral responsibility, and cooperation. It helps if big countries set a good example, and exert some pressure on rogue players.
We’re remodelling our house, and as part of the project, we’ve transitioned entirely off of gas and are 100% electric. We live in a mild climate, which makes it easier of course. With that experience, I’ve come to see two major hurdles which I hadn’t expected:
- leaving aside cost, availability etc, it’s very difficult to find people who are aware of and competent with modern technologies. I’ve had to walk contractors through the entire thing, from concept to completion. Few people seem to understand that we are doing this for climate reasons. I have heard lots of ‘you’re doing this to save money right? Well this [gas option] is cheaper to buy!’. It's been a process of handholding the whole time. Obviously there are plenty of tradespeople out there who are up to date and know what needs to be done, but they're not the majority where I live.
- Heating water takes a lot of energy. Amperage requirements for electric tankless water heaters were so high that we ended up having to go with a tank water heater. You can't really get around amps, and so switching to electric, especially tankless, requires planning and knowledge (see previous point).
Combined with the obvious factors like cost, availability, etc, this means that currently you have to be pretty determined to transition off gas. There's a real need for education - both of the public and of professionals. And it needs to be combined with policy to ensure access to resources for people to use if they do want to switch - for example, providing knowledgeable people to discuss requirements, options and incentives at the start of any building project.
- leaving aside cost, availability etc, it’s very difficult to find people who are aware of and competent with modern technologies. I’ve had to walk contractors through the entire thing, from concept to completion. Few people seem to understand that we are doing this for climate reasons. I have heard lots of ‘you’re doing this to save money right? Well this [gas option] is cheaper to buy!’. It's been a process of handholding the whole time. Obviously there are plenty of tradespeople out there who are up to date and know what needs to be done, but they're not the majority where I live.
- Heating water takes a lot of energy. Amperage requirements for electric tankless water heaters were so high that we ended up having to go with a tank water heater. You can't really get around amps, and so switching to electric, especially tankless, requires planning and knowledge (see previous point).
Combined with the obvious factors like cost, availability, etc, this means that currently you have to be pretty determined to transition off gas. There's a real need for education - both of the public and of professionals. And it needs to be combined with policy to ensure access to resources for people to use if they do want to switch - for example, providing knowledgeable people to discuss requirements, options and incentives at the start of any building project.
SMRs or small nuclear reactors (2 main kinds differentiated by the fuel pellets or rods) are easily refueled, are modular and can be trucked to location and assembled and they output a fair amount of power. Some provinces in Canada are already planning to order the gear.
Good! Need to secure a steady supply and then market it to your buddies.
nudge nudge...Thanks for your observations as an architect and contractor I'm an EE working in the power industry, and I have worked for BPA.
The landmark efficiency law is the NW Power Act of 1980 governing Bonneville Power Administration, BPA, and all of its customers. A friend of mine wrote the law working for Republican Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson who was chair of the Senate Energy Committee. Jackson included in the law several new things:
1 The creation of a public Integrated Resource Plan for BPA every 5 years creating a 20 year forecast of generation and load
2 When considering new generation, efficiency (reducing load) would receive a 10% cost preference over building new generation.
3 The efficiency load saving would be studied scientifically by engineers.
4 It settled at the time the concerns about salmon fish maintenance under treaty
Generally, and in Washington State, the state public utility commission, PUC regulates privately-held investor-owned for-profit utilities, IOU. The PUC does not regulate nonprofit utilities. Some rural states in the US are primarily nonprofit. Of the over 3000 utilities in the US, only about 168 are IOU, covering I think about 80% of the US load. Many are remnants of the Gilded Age electric almost 100% utility ownership by JP Morgan. That was partially dismantled by President Roosevelt. He instructed his young and brilliant SEC chair appointment William O Douglas to do it. Roosevelt also crested the Rural Electrification Act which created nonprofit electric utilities which the IOUs deemed insufficiently profitable to electrify.
Therefore, in Washington the PUC only governs IOUs Avista around Spokane, PSE covering some areas East of Seattle and Pacificorp - Berkshire Energy (Warren Buffet). And the state mandates for "renewables, excluding new hydro" only apply to Avista, PSE, Pacificorp - Berkshire Energy. Practically no one is going to build new hydro in Washington. I would agree "renewables, excluding new hydro" is a bad designation, but it has little impact on new hydro development. I am also very disappointed in the tear down the dams movement, but that is a longer conversation.
BPA funds engineers to analyze efficiency measures and model their cost/savings/deployment scale out. Then BPA subsidizes the programs to do so by their member utilities. The PUC requires the IOUs to use the BPA funded data to implement their own programs and for the IOUs to fund nonprofits like the Energy Trust of Oregon to do it for IOU customers.
The point is that in Clark County your efficiency is governed by BPA, not the legislature or the PUC. However building code would be governed by the legislature.
You have a good point about the lifecycle of mechanical systems. That is influenced by the federal Energy Star program. Energy Star is entirely focused on year by year efficiency improvement of HVAC, refrigeration, water heating and some other items. Low price competition, Chinese manufacturing, coupled with Energy Star, has produced equipment with shorter lifetimes and more complexity. Working in commercial, you would have access to commercial conventional hot water heaters with over 2x the lifetime of consumer hot water heaters. Same with refrigeration. In the consumer space, the Wolf/Sub-Zero maker has longer warranties and attempts to maintain spare parts for 20 years from end of model manufacture. The equivalent LG or Samsung appliance is designed for a life of 3 years.
So the answer for that, which is coming, is to calculate the carbon footprint of appliance manufacturing (and really anything you buy) and label it. Then over time include it in the Energy Star program.
The Sub-Zero is built more like a commercial refrigerator, it costs 3x the price, and has 3x the weight. But if you have the money, your Sub-Zero running 30 years may be cheaper than buying 10 Samsungs over that time.
With your job you are deeper into this than I and no doubt have a lot of information on building mechanicals.
Under the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, much electricity/energy policy is up to the states, except federal roles defined in the Federal Power act of 1920, and subsequent Federal Power Acts.
The US lacks an industrial policy. Germany, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, and China have successful long running industrial policy based on exports. I would like to see the US and Europe focus an aggressive industrial policy on exports to the world of energy and water technology. The Biden program is not aggressive enough in my view and many US companies are focused on short term strategy and will fail in the long term. We can't control China, but we can compete with them and refuse to buy from them. The Chinese economy is a whole much longer discussion!
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I look at generation and energy policy this way. I will look up the social cost of carbon, then the conversion of that generation type to tons of CO2 per MWh. Then I create a production cost+carbon cost per MWh.
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Noske
Member
Yep, you're welcome; lots and lots of mining for lithium, and the environmental consequences which sometimes seem to be conveniently overlooked.Good! Need to secure a steady supply and then market it to your buddies.
In the meantime, there is also this. No comment. Link.
If you rewatch "An Inconvient Truth" many big cities along the coast and much of Florida should all ready be under water but they are not. Nothing wrong with transitioning to more green power but using "scare tactics" about impending doom and silly government policies that try to pick winners rather than let technologies compete so the best (most likely a mix) win, will end up being counter productive.
Colluding fossil fuel monopolies control energy prices and distribution there is no incentive for them to change as long as they keep their share holders happy. Electricity is in every structure in the modern world, there are plenty of ways to produce it and much easier to mitigate climate changing CO2 at a large stationary production source. Picking electricity as winner is a low risk high reward choice but it is low on storage options.
I don't think Gore was trying to "scare" people with far-fetched hyperboles. Given knowledge at the time, he only chose some worst-case scenarios.
IMO, the least "silly" government policy would be a high carbon tax that would raise fossil fuel prices to incorporate the "externality" of the societal cost of green house gas emissions. That would go a long way to incentivize technologies in the right direct direction at an appropriate pace.
Hmmz. Yes, Canada had major investment in oil and minerals reserves from the same source as Australia does although the federal gov has refused more and with President Biden wanting to be a leader in batteries and semiconductor/computer chips (Agreements and money has already flowed for ~132 billion dollar investments in semiconductor factory installations in the USA and Canada has stuff ongoing too.) to avoid any sort of supply issues like we have experienced and be independent we are part of that security and are investing in lithium production which Canada has muchO of and rare earths are as I mentioned in a previous post are mapped out and investment is flowing to extract and refine the stuff. Giga battery factories are now in the digging stage of construction in Canada. So things are in progress as they should be and in time the supply chain pressure will be reduced significantly.
I must say President Biden's speech in the Canadian House of Commons was good. He affirmed the objectives very clearly.The speech and the welcoming speeches are available on YouTube for anybody that is interested and President Biden's speech starts at ~21:50
(YouTube video title: President Biden Addresses the Canadian Parliament)
(If I crossed some sort of political line suggesting the video I'll delete the comment @ the MODs. I think maybe I danced the on the line?)
Green energy has plenty of externalities as well... so do we tax that to?
To me the biggest objective flaw in Western government policy, as has been pointed out previouly, is that even if Europe and North America cut green house emissions to zero it won't make much of any difference as China, India, Russia, Africa, and others are going to be massivly increasing their green house gas emissions. Since atmospheric cabon dioxode is going to be increasing regardless of what Europe and North America do what is the best way to allocate always scare resources? The current policy is to spend trillions to lower green house gas emissions even though though that can't solve the problem. I would argue that policies should be aimed both at reducing emissions in as cost effective way as possible as well as allocating reasouces toward learning to live with/ mediating any effects of the inevitable increase in atmospheric CO2 levels.
Until we stop buying their goods for said reason. China has some horrendous air polution but also many solar installations and produces many electrical and electronic devices. Aside from new infrastructure solar, wind and hydro are the among cheapest forms of producing energy. For that reason those countries will be on the bandwagon soon.
You may realize that the Dutch have a vested interest in making sure we don't get flooded, with some of the best research in the field. So it was not surprising that the Dutch government commissioned extensive research projects to work out various scenarios for my country. Depending on the various time frames, the outcome was pretty scary (and increasingly expensive) for the situation at the end of the century, let alone the next one (which is the time frame we tend to plan our flood defenses for, if not longer).
The best known engineering consultancy in the field, who helped redesign New Orleans flood defenses after Katrina, and advise all around the world, have become very pessimistic about the prospects of many sea board cities, particularly in Asia (e.g. Jakarta), but also New York. This is solid science and engineering, not scaremongering.
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The energy production and industries, except for utilities, are not monopolies. And most electric and gas utilities are deeply regulated. (Maybe not so much in Texas.) If anything, the so-called green energy industry is the most subsidized US industry I can think of.
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