• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: No Public Finance for East Coast LNG Projects, Wilkinson Says July 4, 2022
‘Climate Math Gets Harder’ as Radicalized Supreme Court Upends U.S. Carbon Regulation July 4, 2022
Dire Living Conditions, Climate-Driven Heat Wave Produce Deadliest Human Smuggling Event in U.S. History July 4, 2022
Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta June 29, 2022
London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty June 29, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Climate & Society Energy / Carbon Pricing & Economics

EXCLUSIVE: Canadian Wind, Biomass Beat Natural Gas for Most Affordable Carbon Reductions

February 16, 2018
Reading time: 4 minutes
Primary Author: Mitchell Beer @mitchellbeer

Drenaline/Wikimedia Commons

Drenaline/Wikimedia Commons

 

Provincial utilities in Canada could save between $17 and $110 per tonne on their greenhouse gas emission reductions by replacing combined cycle natural gas plants with wind, wind plus hydroelectricity, wind with natural gas backup, or bioenergy where it’s available, the Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI) concludes in a modelling report released this week.

The savings per tonne range from $17 in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, to $20 in Alberta, to $88 in Quebec, $93 in Ontario, and $110 in Nova Scotia.

Combined with persistent concerns about methane releases from natural gas fracking and distribution (not to mention methane deregulation south of the Canada-U.S. border), the CERI analysis undercuts the long-held dogma that positions natural gas as a cost-effective bridge to a post-carbon future.

The report landed in the same week that U.S. media reported on the growing number of renewables plus storage projects that are out-competing natural gas “peaker” plants on price.

“In all cases, the selection of these options leads to a decrease in emissions at a lower cost than the base case option” of natural gas combined cycle (NGCC), CERI concludes. The analysis consistently cites wind as the most affordable option for intermittent power, at province-by-province rates ranging from 5.6 to 7.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. For firm power, the report points to biomass as the least-cost option in Quebec and points west, at prices between 4.3 and 5.2¢/kWh, although “the amount of electricity that can be generated is limited” due to resource availability. It identifies wind+gas is the cheapest base load option in the three Maritime provinces, wind+hydro in Newfoundland and Labrador.

CERI also looked at the cost of coal with CCS, solar, geothermal, and small modular nuclear reactors. “These options may have other characteristics that would promote their use, for example, in off-grid locations,” the report states. “However, from a cost perspective in terms of both retail prices and reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, they are more expensive.”

CERI President and CEO Allan Fogwill said he was surprised by the results of the analysis.

“There’s been a lot of debate about what the actual costs are for wind and solar, in particular,” he told The Energy Mix. “Our report was an objective assessment in the context of how the power would be used.” Power grids need a combination of baseload and peak electricity, and Fogwill said more general cost analyses for different supply options sometimes leave out the cost of firming up the power, or providing transmission to link often-remote renewable generation sources to the grid.

CERI weighed that fully-loaded cost against combined-cycle natural gas, “which is reasonably inexpensive, has a reasonable amount of access to its fuel supply, and therefore provides reliability, base load, frequency management, voltage control, all the things a grid needs,” he said. “When you compare that to the other options that we identified, they’re all within the 5¢ to 11 or 12¢ (per kilowatt-hour) range, which was a bit surprising to me. But it’s quite encouraging. We still have some ways to go to prove up some of the new technologies, but on the other hand we can see great opportunities to decarbonize the electricity system.”

Beyond the actual study results, veteran climate and energy consultant Ralph Torrie of Torrie Smith Associates said it was encouraging to see this level of low-carbon modeling break out beyond the established climate and energy community.

“As experience and understanding of these new technologies grows, so does the consensus that they can provide the carbon-free power we need, and do it economically,” he said. “We are catching a major break here—these cost reductions for carbon-free electricity are showing up just as we’re realizing how expensive climate change will be if we don’t get it under control.”

Torrie added that CERI “has made a valuable contribution by factoring in the full cost of each option—storage and new transmission for renewables, CCS and carbon pricing for fossils, long-term waste storage for nuclear—and their conclusion ought to be a wake-up call for anyone who still thinks the status quo is going to survive in the power sector.”

While bioenergy emerged as the most affordable carbon reduction option for all but the four eastern provinces, the report points to several challenges, including fuel quality, efficient conversion of that fuel to electricity, and the cost of transporting a dispersed energy source to a power plant. Without bioenergy plantations or some other dedicated source of supply, “the amount of energy that can be produced is limited by the operations of other industrial systems that produce biomass residue,” the report states.

Fogwill said the low cost of low- or zero-carbon electricity generation also sets a challenging new benchmark for factoring energy efficiency into utilities’ supply and demand plans. “It means people have to be careful about how much money they invest in energy efficiency compared to new generation if they’re concerned about using an economic test,” he said. “If they’re concerned about other things, for example job creation, energy efficiency definitely has a role. But if they’re concerned about the price of power, or even the cost of reducing carbon or other greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency needs to be carefully considered so that we don’t over-invest in one area and under-invest in very cheap power.”

Although CERI set out to dig deeper into the different ways utilities use electricity, Fogwill said the analysis left out broader supply chain issues like methane emissions from natural gas production, competing or contradictory demands on forest and agriculture waste that might become bioenergy feedstock, or the precious metals required to produce renewable electricity equipment.

“We tried to ring-fence where we are,” he explained. “Those issues come up once you get into upstream manufacturing of a product,” but including them in the cost analysis “would have diluted the message we were trying to get across.”

The core of that message, he added, is that “it’s not a one-size-fits-all answer, and that means the complexity of the debate becomes even greater.” (h/t to The Energy Mix subscriber Ralph Torrie for first pointing us to this story)



in Energy / Carbon Pricing & Economics

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Seci/wikimedia commons
Climate Denial & Greenwashing

Saudi Aramco Talks Net-Zero, Plans to Boost Production Through 2035

July 4, 2022
11
David/flickr
United States

U.S. Supreme Court Expected to Gut Emission Controls as Climate Scientists Petition for Plan B

June 26, 2022
1.2k
Graco/Facebook
Food Security

Soaring Fertilizer Prices Could Deliver ‘Silver Lining’ for Emissions, But Farmers Struggle to Limit Use

July 2, 2022
217

Comments 2

  1. Leodegardo Pruna says:
    4 years ago

    I think that depending on location a critical mix could be attained for a much reduced for a satisfactory greenhouse reduction. The use and supply of electricity by the people in the community would dictate the mix.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

opinion polling gender green recovery climate action

Conservative Women Far More Likely Than Men to Support Green Transition, EcoAnalytics Research Finds

July 4, 2022
46
U.S. Navy/picryl

Montreal to Host New NATO Climate Centre as Military Analyst Confronts Global ‘Hyperthreat’

July 4, 2022
45
Wikimedia Commons

BREAKING: No Public Finance for East Coast LNG Projects, Wilkinson Says

July 4, 2022
43
angela n./flickr

‘Climate Math Gets Harder’ as Radicalized Supreme Court Upends U.S. Carbon Regulation

July 4, 2022
40
Maurits90/Wikimedia Commons

San Francisco Commuter Train Derailed by Scorching Track Temperatures, Extreme Heat

July 4, 2022
30
Keith Hirsche

Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta

July 3, 2022
457

Recent Posts

EdmondMeinfelder/flickr

Dire Living Conditions, Climate-Driven Heat Wave Produce Deadliest Human Smuggling Event in U.S. History

July 4, 2022
17
Adrian Grycuk/Wikimedia Commons

Youth Climate Case Moves to Top Tribunal in European Court

July 4, 2022
20
Seci/wikimedia commons

Saudi Aramco Talks Net-Zero, Plans to Boost Production Through 2035

July 4, 2022
11
Keith Weller/Wikimedia Commons

U.S. Methane Plan Gives Big Ag a Free Pass

July 4, 2022
13
Fadi Hage/wikimedia commons

Indoor Farming Revolution Comes with Significant Carbon Cost

July 4, 2022
16
Mont SUTTON snow terrain

Southern Quebec Towns Scramble for Solutions as Water Sources Dwindle

July 4, 2022
21
Next Post
Sustainability? Enough for everyone’s needs

Fairer world may mean more modest dreams

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}