Friday, 4 November 2016
Battery - Vanadium Redox Flow
http://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2609&context=utk_chanhonoproj
"Conclusions
Appendix D represents the conclusions of the economic analysis. After the inclusion of all capital costs, the 12 MW vanadium redox flow battery cannot be recommended for economic benefit currently. The massive capital costs associated with the project (table 16) are the major contributions to the annualized expense. Specifically the cost of Vanadium oxide causes the project to rapidly become unfeasible. The annualized expense of Vanadium is over $2 million. Also, the PCS equipment for power conversion contributes to the massive capital costs with over $6 million in capital. Thus, if the cost of these two capital expenses were lessoned then the project would likely be feasible economically.
Perhaps a used PCS system from a decommissioned power source could provide a cheaper alternative to the massive capital of a new system. However, the cost of vanadium shows no great alternatives. The only hope is that the cost of vanadium will continue to decrease with time. Vanadium still currently represents essentially the cheapest metal for use in a redox battery. However, $14.33/ kg is far from feasible because of the over $7 million in capital this price represents. As demand for vanadium increases across the world, additional mines could be constructed, increasing the availability and lowering the cost. Thus, only time could help make this project feasible due to the massive amounts of vanadium required for a 12 MW plant.
In the current scenario, though, VRFBs may become a necessary component of the grid due to the implementation of green power sources. Thus, under the most ideal scenario with 100% cycle availability the battery will lose $664,153.07 annually. In fact, even under the most ideal scenario, the price of the sold electricity would need to be raised approximately $.03/kWh (from the value of $.1576/kWh) simply to break even over the year."
May 2013
Economic Report on Vanadium Redox Flow Battery with Optimization of Flow Rate
Kevin Spellman University of Tennessee - Knoxville, kspellma@utk.edu
"Conclusions
Appendix D represents the conclusions of the economic analysis. After the inclusion of all capital costs, the 12 MW vanadium redox flow battery cannot be recommended for economic benefit currently. The massive capital costs associated with the project (table 16) are the major contributions to the annualized expense. Specifically the cost of Vanadium oxide causes the project to rapidly become unfeasible. The annualized expense of Vanadium is over $2 million. Also, the PCS equipment for power conversion contributes to the massive capital costs with over $6 million in capital. Thus, if the cost of these two capital expenses were lessoned then the project would likely be feasible economically.
Perhaps a used PCS system from a decommissioned power source could provide a cheaper alternative to the massive capital of a new system. However, the cost of vanadium shows no great alternatives. The only hope is that the cost of vanadium will continue to decrease with time. Vanadium still currently represents essentially the cheapest metal for use in a redox battery. However, $14.33/ kg is far from feasible because of the over $7 million in capital this price represents. As demand for vanadium increases across the world, additional mines could be constructed, increasing the availability and lowering the cost. Thus, only time could help make this project feasible due to the massive amounts of vanadium required for a 12 MW plant.
In the current scenario, though, VRFBs may become a necessary component of the grid due to the implementation of green power sources. Thus, under the most ideal scenario with 100% cycle availability the battery will lose $664,153.07 annually. In fact, even under the most ideal scenario, the price of the sold electricity would need to be raised approximately $.03/kWh (from the value of $.1576/kWh) simply to break even over the year."
Thursday, 3 November 2016
Funding Tertiary Education
21st August 2016
There have been renewed threats of closing down our Universities in support of the #FeesMustFall campaign. With this in mind, Peter Bruce's said the following in the Sunday Times today (21st August 2016): " What I do know is that the JSE All Share indes rose 1.3% on Thursday. That is an increase in wealth , in a day of almost R100 billion, a fraction of which, if it were somehow pooled, would solve the fees problem and a host of others. But business is the devil, isn't it? Why bother talking to capitalists? What do they know?"
It turns out that Peter's figures are rather accurate. At a market capitalization of R7317 billion, a 1.3% increase amounts to R95.121 billion which is indeed "almost R100 billion"
In the National Treasury's 2016 Budget Review we were told (on page 77) that "The number of students enrolled in higher education institutions is projected to increase from 1 million in 2015/16 to 1.1 million in 2018/19, and the number of postgraduates and doctoral graduates from 48 300 and 2 060 to 56 600 and 2 500, respectively, over the same period." At a cost of R50k per undergraduate student per annum, 1.1 million students translates to 55 billion rand: well within the R95 billion with which the JSE capitalization increased on Thursday. This makes the R16.3 billion for short-term funding for higher education look small in comparison.
This figure for the The Market capitalisation of the JSE is R7317 billion as of the 29 July 2016 according to http://www.ftse.com/Analytics/FactSheets/Home/DownloadSingleIssue?issueName=J203
Just to provide the context, The South African GDP for 2015 was about R4,073,000,000,000 or R4073 billion (page 42 of the Full Review) and the total budget was R1463.3 billion for the 2016/2017 financial year. Full Review
There have been renewed threats of closing down our Universities in support of the #FeesMustFall campaign. With this in mind, Peter Bruce's said the following in the Sunday Times today (21st August 2016): " What I do know is that the JSE All Share indes rose 1.3% on Thursday. That is an increase in wealth , in a day of almost R100 billion, a fraction of which, if it were somehow pooled, would solve the fees problem and a host of others. But business is the devil, isn't it? Why bother talking to capitalists? What do they know?"
It turns out that Peter's figures are rather accurate. At a market capitalization of R7317 billion, a 1.3% increase amounts to R95.121 billion which is indeed "almost R100 billion"
In the National Treasury's 2016 Budget Review we were told (on page 77) that "The number of students enrolled in higher education institutions is projected to increase from 1 million in 2015/16 to 1.1 million in 2018/19, and the number of postgraduates and doctoral graduates from 48 300 and 2 060 to 56 600 and 2 500, respectively, over the same period." At a cost of R50k per undergraduate student per annum, 1.1 million students translates to 55 billion rand: well within the R95 billion with which the JSE capitalization increased on Thursday. This makes the R16.3 billion for short-term funding for higher education look small in comparison.
This figure for the The Market capitalisation of the JSE is R7317 billion as of the 29 July 2016 according to http://www.ftse.com/Analytics/FactSheets/Home/DownloadSingleIssue?issueName=J203
Just to provide the context, The South African GDP for 2015 was about R4,073,000,000,000 or R4073 billion (page 42 of the Full Review) and the total budget was R1463.3 billion for the 2016/2017 financial year. Full Review
Energy
The debates about appropriate energy sources for South Africa become very heated mainly because of vested interests and hidden agendas. We have seen how the Gupta's have bought Uranium mines in anticipation of a nuclear new build. A well known columnist in the Engineering News worked for the old AEC and for ARMSCOR in the 1980s and now runs an organisation called "Nuclear Africa". He makes some of his money holding annual conferences jointly with Necsa to push the Nuclear option hard. As such he will use every argument under our Sun ( which does indeed send us energy produced by nuclear fusion) to not use solar energy to power our human needs on earth. On the other hand many people in the so called "green" environmental groups neglect the limited life time of solar installations and the limited availability of power from solar or wind installations. Very roughly speaking if a nuclear plant lasts 40 years and a solar plant only 20 years then the capital cost of the solar installation must be less than half that of the nuclear installation to be economically competitive. Furthermore if the nuclear installation only provides power for 80% of the hours in the year, given the need for refuelling an maintenance, and the solar or wind plant only provides power for 20% of the time for obvious reasons, then another factor of 20/80 which is one quarter comes in to play. So the solar installation must be one half times one quarter cheaper to be economically competitive. Hence only when solar and wind installation costs go down to below one eighth that of the nuclear installations can we say that their capital cost is competitive. Now these figures of 20 years, 40 years, 80% and 20% are not fixed and depending on what position you want to take in the debate, you will alter them up or down accordingly to justify your own view. This article by K. Branker a , M.J.M. Pathak a , J.M. Pearce entitled "A review of solar photovoltaic levelized cost of electricity" provides a useful perspective on how financing options effect the relative cost of energy. In its Table 4 on page 8 it compares the Effect of degradation rate and performance requirement on system life. It shows that at a degradation rate of 0.2% a solar installation could last 80 years while at a 1.0% degradation rate the installation may only last 20 years. The technical challenge then is to reduce the degradation rate. It is these technical nuances which make it imperative that participants in energy debates listen carefully and make scrupulously honest comments in order to make the debate useful. We do not need our energy debates to descend to the level of Nkandla swimming pools being used as fire extinguishers.
Tuesday, 1 November 2016
Eskom seems compromised in nuclear deal while research demonstrates that SA’s state-owned entities fall short of their constitutional obligations in terms of oversight, writes Neil Overy
01 November 2016 - 07:50 AM Neil Overy
https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2016-11-01-eskom-seems-compromised-in-nuclear-deal/
Nuclear costly and outdated, says US expert, Angelina Galiteva
The peak of California’s electricity consumption is about 60,000MW, just about double SA’s 32,000MW.
"Flexibility is what counts, not base load. Nobody cares about base load any more," Galiteva said. "Renewables can provide enough. You need to have very flexible resources.
https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/companies/energy/2016-11-01-nuclear-costly-and-outdated-says-us-expert/
https://nuclear-news.net/category/africa/south-africa/
01 November 2016 - 07:50 AM Neil Overy
https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2016-11-01-eskom-seems-compromised-in-nuclear-deal/
Nuclear costly and outdated, says US expert, Angelina Galiteva
The peak of California’s electricity consumption is about 60,000MW, just about double SA’s 32,000MW.
"Flexibility is what counts, not base load. Nobody cares about base load any more," Galiteva said. "Renewables can provide enough. You need to have very flexible resources.
https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/companies/energy/2016-11-01-nuclear-costly-and-outdated-says-us-expert/
https://nuclear-news.net/category/africa/south-africa/
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