France has issued a radical ban on the exploitation of shale gas. Yet French companies ENGIE, in which the State has a large share, and EDF, which is 75% state-owned, will soon import and handsomely profit from shale gas imported from the United States, notes UK-based shale gas expert Nick Grealy. This is like banning sweatshops but importing cheap clothes made by child labour, says Grealy.
At the end of January during a demonstration in France against shale gas, one of the key slogans was Ni ici, ni ailleurs. Ni aujourd’hui, ni demain.
Like most things, it sounds better in French, but the translation is simple enough that the message reverberates not only around Europe but to Algeria, Quebec and even among shale opponents in the US: Not here, not anywhere. Not today, not tomorrow.
France today has oil but it no longer possesses ideas
The total lack of any nuance in the French shale debate poisons the shale debate worldwide. How many times do we hear in Lancashire or New York State or even in Denton, Texas that France has banned shale gas so why can’t we follow their example. Before antis dismiss me as right-wing Euro-sceptic French basher, let me out myself as would be left-wing Bernie Sanders (except shale) voter in the US and a Remain (in the EU) and Sadiq Khan (Labour candidate) for Mayor voter in London. I’m also a Francophile and French speaker who has been consistently mystified by the French blind spot about shale.
Rationality
A famous saying in France from the 1970’s was “We don’t have oil, but we do have ideas”.. Back then, that led to a sudden nuclearisation of the French power system, which replaced oil with nuclear. French power generation was thus almost 100% decarbonised via nuclear and hydro even before renewables entered the picture. French nuclear exports help Germany, the UK, Italy and Spain accelerate their renewable uptake.
France, more than anything is a country built on rationality. This is the country of Descartes after all, but is also one founded on great scientists like Lavoisier, the father of modern chemistry, Ampère in electricity, the Curies, etc. But bizarrely, paradoxically, and to Anglo-Saxon eyes, hypocritically, France today has oil but it no longer possesses ideas.
France has a long history in oil. Total, Schlumberger and Technip are only three huge companies which signify how ideas about energy don’t need to come from Texas or the UK or Russia where resources may actually be located.
Tax revenue
I won’t go too much into France’s problem with fracking. I’ve written extensively about it over the years. The simple answer is that France’s politics combined in 2011 to produce a situation where all political parties suddenly found themselves aligned against shale, which led to a ban on shale exploitation, although it left a loophole for experimental drilling or research. The current Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, Ségolène Royal, has recently said the new Mining Code legislation will include a formal specific ban against hydraulic fracturing. (http://www.franceinfo.fr/fil-info/article/l-interdiction-d-exploiter-le-gaz-de-schiste-bientot-inscrite-au-code-minier-771157), which would close this last loophole.
“In English, France’s shale policy sounds like hypocrisy. In French, we call it a paradox”
The size of French shale resources is uncertain. The US Energy Information believes there may be over a hundred years of shale resources in France, while the US Geological Survey states there may be only 18 months worth. Even the lower estimate would mean several billions of French tax revenue lost due to imported gas. Equally important, both LNG and long distance Russian pipeline gas have a CO2 cost far above the CO2 impact of locally sourced supply. What is certain is that with no exploration, there can be no way of ever settling the question.
Josh Fox
We’re now at a strange conjunction. A few months ago a senior French (Socialist) politician I won’t name told me something very telling: “In English, France’s shale policy sounds like hypocrisy. In French, we call it a paradox”.
It’s only 13 months to the next Presidential Election. Until the Paris terror attacks, President Hollande was considered unlikely to run thanks to his failure on employment. The attack changed that and he may run again empowered by the terror issue. But in the interim, the government is threatening to enshrine a ban of even research into fracking in the new mining law that is only a few months away. Ségolène Royal sounds increasingly like Josh Fox without the banjo and beard when she describes shale as poisoning the water and completely unacceptable.
So in some ways, France shale sounds as if it’s completely buried. But is it?
Shale gas is so damaging a technique that production of it must be banned in France, as an example to the world. Yet, it’s fine for it to be consumed in France. Does something stink here?
Consider this. Last year, Engie SA agreed to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Cheniere Energy Inc., increasing the importance of France as a market for U.S. fuel.
The Houston-based company will ship as many as 12 LNG cargoes a year to France’s Montoir-de-Bretagne regasification terminal under a five-year contract. The deliveries, on an ex-ship basis, will start in 2018 at prices linked to northern European markets. The LNG can alternatively be shipped to other European terminals.
U.S. LNG will help diversify the origin of gas consumed in Europe, according to Engie. A third of European gas demand is met by Russian gas delivered by pipeline from Siberian fields. Norway, domestic production and LNG from existing suppliers such as Qatar and Algeria account for the rest.
“Importing U.S. LNG will [help] to strengthen the security of supply of Europe,” Pierre Chareyre, Engie executive vice president in charge of global gas and LNG, said in the statement.
Sweatshops
If you don’t think this is a paradox, where Engie, the former Gaz de France in which the state still has a large share and a seat on the board is importing US shale LNG, here is another one. France’s leading utility company, EDF, 75% owned by the government which thinks shale is poisonous, is even more invested in shale LNG. US LNG exporter Cheniere Energy last year made a deal to sell up to 24 cargoes to EDF from 2017 through 2018.
Let’s get this straight: Shale gas is so damaging a technique that production of it must be banned in France, as an example to the world. Yet, it’s fine for it to be consumed in France. Does something stink here?
This is like banning sweatshops but importing cheap clothes. It’s no different from banning GMO food and then eating it. To Ségolène Royal it’s an illegal substance yet one the government profits from.
If France’s virulent anti-shale opponents can demonstrate against shale in deepest France they should demonstrate against it in their space heating, hot water taps and at restaurant kitchens
If France’s virulent anti-shale opponents can demonstrate against shale in deepest France they should demonstrate against it in their space heating, hot water taps and at restaurant kitchens. They probably won’t. After all, with so many of them retired in the country, and EDF and Engie making up so much of their pensions, they may decide that while they don’t want shale gas near them, they will allow it into their wallet.
I say the French oil industry shouldn’t let the new mining code through Parliament without making the EDF/Engie shale paradox key to the debate.
France has to come to terms with a new paradox where they have both shale and ideas. Unfortunately when ideas are wrong-headed and out of date, legislating a ban on shale is something the French, and especially the jobless among them, will have to live with.
Editor’s Note
Nick Grealy is director of the energy consultancy No Hot Air, specialising in public perception and acceptance issues of shale energy worldwide. This article was first published on his website and is republished here with permission.
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S. Herb says
My perception: I do not understand the fuss and hurry about shale gas drilling in England, Germany, and France. There will be an world market oversupply for some time to come. If the situation is different in 15 years the shale gas will still be there (if it is there). For now the drilling looks to me to be more relevant to commercial than to national interests. In the meantime, how many thousands or tens of thousands of fracking wells would be required to supply say half of national gas usage? There is something to be said for avoiding this in densely populated Europe. But these are all minor worries compared to the issues involving how the gas is to be used over the next 40 years.
Nick Grealy says
I think you missed the two fundamental points: Firstly, the entire transportation cycle of LNG, from either the US Gulf Coast or Qatar or wherever is far more CO2 intense than using gas from closer to home. France imports gas from Norway, Russia and the Netherlands by pipe and the closer gas is only marginally different from any produced in France (already done at the Lacq field, and France isn’t keeping that in the ground until its worth more either). So on carbon terms, it’s the logical choice.
Secondly, the entire value chain, including a healthy tax take, is exported with the imported gas. An obvious use for the money would be to further accelerate wind and solar, but that’s up to France’s Finance Ministry.
Finally, the fundamental and very outdated fear in Europe is that there will be thousands or tens of thousands of wells. France is not going to look like the pictures the anti sites use of Wyoming conventional vertical wells.
The true revolution of modern gas is not fracking, which is a well known technology, but horizontal drilling and multi well drilling from single pads that with a total size of just 2 hectares. The wells themselves can extend over 10KM. The UK has an example at Europe’s largest onshore oil field in Wytch Farm Dorset, which produced over 100,000 barrels a day at it’s peak from only two well pads. This is in an area of both outstanding natural beauty and the most expensive real estate outside of London. Use Google maps or Street View , and put in Sandbanks Road Poole Dorset. You will have a huge amount of difficulty finding the two pads however far our zoom out (3K includes them).
Another trip to see an oil field is to go to 5700 W Pico Blvd Los Angeles. That’s an oil field that has been operating for over 40 years as part of the Beverly Hills Oil Field.
I give a tour of the neighbourhood here.http://www.nohotair.co.uk/index.php/shale-gas-2014/215-shale-gas/3226-shale-gas-fracking-and-house-prices-part-two
That is what France will look like. It’s not too scary is it. Especially when France’s oil is likely to be under the suburbs of Paris. I was at COP 21 by Le Bourget Airport, another place to check the maps. 2 hectares every 30 sq Km or so would be very easy to do. Urban drilling is the way forward, cutting gas consumption even more.
French gas use is concentrated in domestic use where there is no current alternative to replace heat or hot water with a low carbon alternative, or at least not with existing housing stock. France is in a lucky position with a zero carbon power grid. But it will be impossible to decarbonise heat and hot water in existing housing, so the logical alternative is to use the lowest carbon resource instead of importing it and exporting money.
energiecritique says
Same hypocrisy for Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Italie who banned nuclear but consume nuclear power imported from France
Clifford Goudey says
It’s not about aesthetics, Nick. The concerns stem from concern about groundwater contamination, surface-water contamination, earthquakes, fugitive methane, increased dependence on fossil energy, CO2 emissions, and misdirected energy investments.
Your logic could equally suggests there is nothing wrong with the mining and combustion of coal.
Nick Grealy says
You’re correct on the other topics, but the aesthetics were mentioned by S. Herb first and are often something that anti fracking groups exaggerate on a local level, perhaps because they are unsure that the general public find what I consider the real issue, that of climate change, will interest them. The most effective political campaigns are unfortunately about fear, not hope.
Your concerns are valid, and addressable, topics. But on methane especially, the studies pointing towards high leakage (obviously far higher on LNG than domestic by the way) are outliers. We don’t accept cherry picking on climate science, and we shouldn’t accept it from anti frackers either: for every study that says methane is an issue, there are 10 that say the opposite.
You missed my main point: If we are to cut CO2 emissions, then importing high CO2 gas when alternatives are under our feet doesn’t make sense. Green energy investments can be funded with domestic tax revenue created from domestic gas. Importing gas equals exporting money.
Onshore gas investment doesn’t equal misdirected energy investment, it’s far more efficient. Firstly the gas grid already exists and has been long paid for. But the Dunquerque LNG terminal alone is over a billion Euros. Spending a billion Euro to import high carbon LNG that costs the Finance Ministry lost taxes is an especially misdirected energy investment. Add in the cost of the ships and the far more expensive export terminals and the cost on a global scale is tremendous. Cheniere’s Terminal cost $11. 5 Billion for example and Gorgon LNG in Australia is the most expensive project ever made at over $50 billion.
Clifford Goudey says
But you see, Nick, it’s not all about money and getting the lowest cost power while ignoring the consequences. Natural gas is very much a fossil fuel and while it can be burned without the particulate emissions of coal, it spews only 44% less CO2 per BTU than burning coal. If only 2.8% of the natural gas is leaked along its supply chain, then that CO2 advantage is negated because of the GHG potency of methane. The most recent data indicates the methane leakage rate to be 3.8%, so the whole idea of there being a climate advantage to switching to gas is a lie. (see: http://tinyurl.com/hr99y8m) Furthermore, within the NG sector we know that fracked gas is the worst in this respect because of high leakage at the drill site.
You and other natural gas advocates are free to ignore the data but the rest of us are not so obliged.
Nick Grealy says
I certainly don’t ignore the data, but I don’t cherry pick one study to prove my point. I choose the majority of studies, not just the outliers. Firstly, there are many methane studies: https://www.edf.org/sites/default/files/methane_studies_fact_sheet.pdf
The EDF highlight that the issues are addressable and solvable. After all, the industry has an incentive: We go to lot of trouble, and needlessly antagonise people to throw away our own product? What possible economic sense would it make to deliberately do so? After all, each methane molecule is also 100% extra profit.
The reality is the there are super emitters in the natural gas production cycle which are outliers. So we solve them first instead of shutting down the entire chain. There is nothing intrinsic in natural gas production, supply or transport which would lead to needlessly waste the core product.
The Sustainable Gas Institute at Imperial College London discusses the issue in detail here: http://www.sustainablegasinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/SGI_White_Paper_methane-and-CO2-emissions_WEB-FINAL.pdf?noredirect=1
What they agree upon is that natural gas from LNG or piped gas from very long distances (Russia to Europe) has far higher CO2 cost, and methane leakage, than domestic onshore gas. Page 43 shows that LNG has 50% higher GWP (CO2 plus Methane) than onshore gas.
So, again, if you’re going to use natural gas, using LNG instead of local doesn’t only lock you into natural gas. It locks you into far higher global warming than is possible.
One can argue the figures, but the main point, that LNG is very high CO2 (and methane) while at the same time completely losing the economic benefit to users.
We all know that the effect of CO2 is cumulative; that is the more we put into the atmosphere today, the harder the task will be in coming years and decades. So why make it harder?
I would suggest to France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands that it makes more sense to use the tax from domestic production for renewable insertion. It makes no sense at all to give the money to other governments while actually making the problem worse here in Europe.
Finally, unlike many here at Energy Post, I don’t have a particular pet technology. I like gas. But I’m happy with nuclear, tidal, wind, solar, CCS and first and foremost, efficiency. The reality is we need everything. Except coal, which is outdated technology, the VHS cassette of energy.
Here in the UK today, over 40% of power comes from gas. And 91% of home heating and hot water is gas powered, and so is 60% of home cooking. So why on earth use high carbon and low tax gas?
Grace Adams says
World has been burning coal commercially since about 1750, much is much longer than VHS cassettes have existed. The rest of what you said I agree with. We do NEED to put our foot down about methane leaks. Methane burned to CO2 is much better than coal, maybe not as good as waste to energy. Eventually we need to get well over 90% of our energy from renewable sources. For the next 20 years at least we can live with natural gas as long as we deal promptly with leaks. I really believe we will also need to deal with methane from livestock and from anaerobic digestion of organic wastes. US weather/earth-observation satellites already track methane emissions. US government ought to use such info to notify gas owners owners of leaks. I also wish US would tax domestic emissions and carbon exports.
Grace Adams says
I agree that climate change is most important and most urgent issue facing either US or world. I also agree that I would rather government tax emissions than neglect the problem, even if it uses all revenue to bail out fossil fuel firms. I hope if they use it for that, they will urge those being bailed out to divest from fossil fuel and invest in something else preferably renewable energy. As for aesthetics, I have no taste in anything anyhow, so why worry about that.
Karel Beckman says
Good point!
Aloysius Fekete says
Good point on hypocrisy, but be carefully what you wish for if you seek greater rationality and consistency in the French position. I suspect they would sooner ban shale imports than initiate fracking.
At the end of the day, it is a democratic country with immense pride in their countryside (rightfully so). Changing public perception would be a huge obstacle. Furthermore, one cannot underestimate the regulatory, legal and environmental challenges with fracking in a region with such a high population density, all of which would stack further costs on an already expensive technology.
Grace Adams says
Is it really necessary to tear down and replace housing in order to install a heavy=duty enough electric power system to handle cooking, hot water, and heating? Wouldn’t rewiring the house be enough?
Mike Parr says
I know for a fact that the French state buys its hypocrisy wholesale & ensures that it is sustainable! On a related note one wonders:
a) penetration of condensing boilers into France
b) state of household insulation
Probably low/poor on both counts & thus bravo to the French – solve the symptoms (need for low cost gas) as opposed to the causes (the need for (more) gas). I used to think the French as a nation/gov’ were pretty bright I wonder what happened.
James Rust says
Carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels makes plants grow. It has an insignificant influence on global warming (climate change). When Europe recognizes they have an insignificant influence on generation of carbon dioxide, they can develop profitable energy policies that will not send them back to poverty.
Clifford Goudey says
James, never have I seen such a concentration of misinformation and absence of logic in but three sentences. On the other hand, I appreciate your concision in presenting to us where your head is at.
Grace Adams says
So we need more plants to help us catch up on recycling CO2 to carbon. And I am sure our food processing firms can do wonders in preparing tasty dishes from common green pond scum algae and packing them to keep very well. So we can store some surplus carbon in yummy meal replacement bars and shakes that USDA can store well for decades.
Mike Parr says
It’s boring, Mr Rust, seeing the same old stuff from you, time after time. You come out with tropes (carbon, plants growing) and out & out lies (CO2 has no impact on climate change). If you are unable to contribute in a meaningfull way I think you should be moderated out, if only because you never say anything different, or original or true. And by the way, energy policies in Europe are not “sending people back into poverty” – lack of jobs sends people into poverty.
Grace Adams says
Our CO2 concentration has gotten higher than ideal. We should have our food processing giants raise algae for a base to make yummy high protein meal replacement bars and shakes enriched with vitamins and minerals to supply all nutrients humans need. Then government can buy extra bars and shakes packed well for long storage and keep an inventory of them to store carbon.
Hans Hyde says
Although I agree with the hypocrisy argument, stripping it down to a denominator of wellhead footprints is way too simplistic. I also agree with the carbon/energy intensity argument with regards to long distance pipelines & LNG, but that too becomes too simplistic.
Regardless the level of hypocrisy in France (or the UK or Germany) with regards to exploiting shale gas reserves, it pales in comparison to the hypocrisy present in US energy policy & developments.
The reality is, the resilience of US natural gas to hit bottom on a price basis and stay there is we have no answers or solutions to increase the price to a level that can sustainably develop the resources.
LNG export, increased power gen, increased petrochem manufacturing, the list goes on & NG prices remain low & the flaring continues.
There is no, “oh we’ll just do enough drilling for natural gas to meet our needs”. It doesn’t work that way.
And let’s not forget, EDF & Engie are doing just fine with their wind farms in the US, so the idea that purchasing US LNG is a one way drain on French coffers related to energy are very misleading.
Honestly, I’d rather see US, Aussie & African LNG go to stabilizing electric grids in the emerging world as backup for renewables to achieve much more cost effective carbon reductions, but there appears to be a very high social premium to displacing all Russian gas with any other source possible.
Kent Doering says
Nonsense in a thousand ways The need for natural gas in heating is being displaced in Germany and France by deep geothermal, shallow geothermic- heat pumps combined with concentrated solar, and sewage sludge and manure methane recapture systems.
French Total for example, leads the way in having farmers in Britanny and Normandy – set up manure methane recapture systems for power and heat. Add gas storage and 12 hour a day limited production, not generating at night, and as a back up for wind and solar- each farm can produce up to 266 kilowatts of power, and 400 kilowatts of village district per hour , optimized. i.e.- when all 400.000 German and French farms upgrade by 2040, that means an extra 106.4 gw of power, the equivalent of 106 nuclear reactors, and 160 gw of village district heat. The shale gas can stay in the ground as Europe economically decarbonizes.
Germany also leads in deep and shallow drilling for building heat. Munich utilities have a program of building out district heat from its waste to power and heat systems and is supplementing with deep geothermal. Other parts of the German renewable energy act also subsidize the retrofitting of shallow geothermic heat pumps and solar heat to buildings. The most efficient system there is a ground heat pump system which then runs the heat pick up line through a concentrated solar vacuum system- which provides 90 to 100% of a buildings hea an hot water. Why drill for gas when we can drill for heat and do away with the carbon emissions altogether?
The combination of waste to power and heat, bio-gas power and heat, and deep geothermal and shallow geothermal-solar- increasingly make natural gas redundant for building heat and power in Europe every day.
You are so into advocating shale (i.e. reading”energy and capital” reports about the developments out of the Bakken Field”) that you miss very significant developments on the continent.
You state there is no alternative to fossil fuels for housing heat hot water- which demonstrates profound ignorance. District heat and bio-gas systems go a long way in displacing them. I myself have worked on massive conversions of existing German housing stock using shallow geothermal heat pumps- with the heat pick up lines then going through- vacuum tube, concentrated solar heat pick up.
There is an accellerating build out of sewage sludge bio-gas and farm septic tank and manure methane recapture systems. These have enormous potentials to also displace natural gas. Check out the figures. The average German farm bio-gas system putting out 24/7 has an output of 166 kw of power, and 250 kw of heat per hour. Smart grid coordinate, and store gas, and double production to 12 hours a day, you get 332 kw of power, and 500 kw of heat. There are 400.000 farms in Germany and France which can be upgraded this way- using septic tank and manure methane gas. Do all 400.000 by 2040- and you have an extra-132.8 gw of power, the equivalent of 132 nuclear reactors, and 200 gw of heat for village and town heat and hot water.
Back to deep geothermal. Pad drilling and horizontal drilling can and will be applied to deep geothermal for power and district heat. Munich already has Europe´s longest and most intensively connected district heat system of over 800 km, saving over 6 million barrels of heating oil annually. That will be expanded to1600 km by 2030, and shifted to deep geothermal. for buildings not connecting to district heat, the shift for building heat and hot water will be to-shallow geothermal heat pump- solar. There is not a building in France or Germany that cannot be converted to one of the two systems. They amortize inside of ten years
Aloysius Fekete says
And let’s not forget efficient technologies like passivhaus that are dramatically reducing the demand for heat energy.
Nick Grealy says
Passivhaus is great: For new build. For my local example in London, we have an existing base of 3.5 million separate meter points using 9BCM of gas per year. There is minimal demand from this for generation or industry, we estimate over 90% of London gas demand is heat and hot water. New building regulations are much tougher and will contribute to better carbon efficiency as the 180 thousand new residents per year in London can be housed in new build.
But my house is fairly typical. Built in 1880’s, tiny garden (no heat pump) and uses gas heat and hot water that would have replaced open coal fires. With no viable alternative on the horizon, local energy instead of imported makes carbon sense in the short term. Local energy from UK goes into the existing gas grid paid for long ago, minimal investment needed in gathering it or transporting it.
I propose an Earth Day instead of the Earth Hour where everyone was encouraged to switch off their lights for one hour on March 19. How about on Wednesday December 21 everyone switch off their heat and hot water all day. Electric heating would still be allowed, but no gas cooking either. That will inform the debate and get people asking about the alternatives they have to gas. Keep it in the ground will only work when people keep gas out of their homes.
Nick Grealy says
That may be all true, but with Germany using 80BCM this year and France importing 40BCM, they must be using it for something. Heat pumps are great for new build, but somewhat problematic for new build.
Geo thermal is great too. But it also requires lots of drilling and often fracking using the same chemical.s
Grace Adams says
In Connecticut, USA, they are advertising ductless mini-split heat pumps, installed on a maybe 4 feet by 6 feet (more than one meter by less than 2 meters) concrete foundation, sitting just thickness of concrete foundation above ground, for the retro-fit market. I like the idea of geothermal, but there isn’t any under Connecticut within 10 kilometers of surface. In Europe, it might be worth looking under Alps, Pyrenees, and Urals for geothermal. In Asia, there should be geothermal under Himalayas.
Hans Hyde says
Grace, I looked into those for an all electric ductless house in Colorado after seeing them all over Europe & Southern Africa. The US seems to be living in the caveman days on the tech, the inerta of HVAC ducted furnaces seems to be quite strong here.
Grace Adams says
Ductless mini-split heat pumps were advertised last year in Connecticut. Since they cost somewhat more than gas heat and economy here is slow, not many takers. Some claim that that shallow geothermal for HVAC only is good only for new construction. A few years ago, Generations Family Healthcare moved into a brand new building about a block from me with that shallow geothermal for HVAC. Their HVAC does a great job of cleaning the air. My allergies clear up from sitting an hour or two in their waiting room, then start right up again when I go back outdoors.
Grace Adams says
Actually I saw a few of those “ductless” HVAC units. They run the duct up the outside of the house and then put the last foot or so of the duct through the outside wall into the room where the heat and/or cool is to be delivered. And the compressor sits on a small concrete slab next to the house, rather than being under the surface of the ground.
Kent Doering says
To Grace Adams. The Vancouver “Sonic Drilling” company can drive a heat pump well very quickly. One three man unit can drive 48 – vertical ground heat pump wells a week. We are bringing that technolgy to Europe. Using that and passing the heat pick up line throught vacuum tube, concentrated solar on the roof- we achieve high heat concentrations that suffice to provide heating- throughout the year, even in North Germany. There are tax write offs for that in Germany.
3/4 of Germany are over deep geothermal hot rock systems about 3 to 4 thousand meters down. Munich is driving heat wells like crazy for its ever expanding district heat system- which is already over 800 km long, and is the largest in Europe. My home and workplace are supplied by “waste to power” and deep geothermal “district heat”.
I have responded below about the new hybrid “shallow geothermic – solar heat” heat pump system for providing heat and hot water to buildings not near a district heat line. In the area served by Munich Utilities, about 50 single or multiple family dwellings a week, are being converted to shallow – geothermic- concentrated solar heat.
The immediate goal is to expand conversion up to 200 building units a week by bringing in four sonic drilling units- which run dual shifts.
The goal is all buildings in Bavaria heated by shallow geothermic-solar, deep geothermal, distict heat systems, or “aqueous fuel” fired micro-or mini combined heat power units – literally running off rooftop runoff rainwater as fuel for heat and power.
Germany has two hot rock fields- the North German field- stretching all across the country, and the South German field below the Main River which also stretches across the country. These are increasingly being utilized for district heat and and power.
Even where deep geothermal is not available, shallow geothermal- supplemented by solar- is enough to cover the needs of a well insulated building. In Connecticut, where you live, shallow geothermic well using the ultra efficient “sonic drilling system” which can drill 48 heat wells in a five day week, plus concentrated solar heat suffices to provide the heat needs of any well insulated home or buiding.
57.000 large residential, factory, commercial and office buildings are hooked up to the ever expanding district heat system.
Hans Hyde says
Kent, wow I feel like I’ve read something out of a SciFi novel. That’s pretty amazing!
I worked for a solar thermal company in the US 7 years ago. The technology has been declared ‘dead’ in the US, because, well you know we have solar [pv] that is going to save us all.
Kent Doering says
Concentrated solar thermal in conjunction with grpund heat pumps resultsfrom Germam laws that mandate both heat pump round heat and solar thermal in new buildings, so combing the two was a”no brainer”.
Hans Hyde says
Kent & Grace,
I’ll preface my comments that I spent 4 months in Europe (Belgium Turkiye) in 2014/5, with 2 months in Bulgaria… so I was able to experience CHP in Soviet era housing blocks quite well.
In Belgium, my host family had a PV system, so given batteries were just starting to gain their “buzz” in the US, I asked them if they would ever get a battery. They looked at me semi-incredulously and said “why would we, we save some money and don’t have to worry about anything as the grid is the [virtual] battery.” They also said, they never understood movies from the US where the lights were always on even if no one was at home. And they always knew their guests were from America as they would never turn off the lights when leaving a room.
Right, so come end of 2014’s numbers, Germany was at 32 GW of solar installed, the US roughly around 18 GW. Germany’s grid is around 70-80 GW (about the size of Texas) and the US is 700-900GW. Germany had 750k PV systems (meter counts) while the US had just shy of 1.5 million. The average system sizes (not including utility scale) was about 4.5kW for Germany vs about 2.2kW for the US. Germany somehow (must have been “magic”) achieved this without batteries, but we were already hearing how batteries were the “gamechanger” the US needed to incorporate variable renewables.
Absolute hogwash, as even in Texas they reduced wind curtailment to 0.5% at the end of 2014 against 17GW of capacity & a transmission system build out. It prompted me to write this… https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/home-solar-tesla-battery-insanity-hans-hyde
So, I have to ask you (Kent) what is the electric meter “intelligence” and integration style in Germany? We have the solar companies and “cheerleaders” fighting TOU (time of use) rate plans and smart meters, smarter distribution systems in favor of “dumb” net meters because they know they can pay off the systems faster under NEM pricing & rate structures. California & NY are leading these charges because yes, there is some IOU (Investor Owned Utility) push back (but there is over 2000 “utilities” in the US with half the US served by Member Owned or CoOperative Utilities).
You might have heard of a “small” solar company called SunEdison? They’d be doing just fine (like EDF, Ibedrola or Nextera) right now, had they not gone into the “US residential solar insanity” with trying to acquire Vivint and tap into that profit potential of incentives & NEM.
http://www.solarcity.com/newsroom/press/solarcity-statement-california-public-utilities-commission-proposed-decision-solar
So when you mention “no brainer” decisions going with geo/solarthermal systems in Germany, it’s like salt to a wound knowing we don’t much care about reducing our carbon intensity, but “being green” sure does sell a lot of products! 😐
If we can save 5c by spending a dollar, instead of spending a nickel to save 95cents… we will!
Grace Adams says
So German national government did the thinking to decide on combining solar thermal and shallow geothermic heat for hot water and space heating.
Grace Adams says
Any technology beyond our understanding does seem like magic.
Kent Doering says
To Hans Hyde and Grace:
First, the “no-brainers” like insulation programs, re-windowing with insulation windows- have been in place for decades. The law mandating both ground heat, heat pumps, and solar heat- on all new buidings has been in place since about 2004.
There have also been extensive decades old programs for facade and rooftop building insulation, and rewindowing with sealed
one, inch wide, insulation windows. (nearly all buildings in Munich have been re-windowed in the last 20 years. The building I live in was rewindowed and received facade and rooftop insulation wth a new paint job ten years after that. It has been on district heat since it was built in the 50s, but the district heat for our area comes from 2 waste to power plants and deep geothermal these days.
As for “net metering” with the “feed in tariff”program, the rates have lowered according to improved efficiencies, and the dropping of “racked and installed” price rates. Older units get a high F.I.T. while more recent installations get lower F.I.T.s. The F.I.T. program will expire when 52 GW of solar p.v. is installed. The power prices will start to drop when the F.I.T.s for older solar p.v.starts to expire in 2020. All guaranteed F.I.T.s for solar will expire when 52 gw of solar are installed, when smart metering will pay average monthly rates according to the average daytime power costs on the Leipzig power exchange.
However as panel efficiencies are doubling, and prices are dropping, the lack of F.I.T.s after then will not negatively effect the German industry
As for “smart metering”, it will get even smarter as these will be hooked up to SMART grid monitoring. I.E. when the f.i.t. programs expire, people feeding into the grid – will be remunerated on the daily price basis set at the Leipzig power market.
Kent Doering says
To Grace Adams:
In response to your April 11 comment- it is not quite right. The Federal German government mandated both – solar heat and ground heat pumps on new buildings along with micro-combined heat power vack up in case the building is not being hooked up to a district heat system.
T
Grace Adams says
I followed your link to home solar Tesla battery insanity.
I am sorry I hurt your feelings. You have a point about energy storage especially with molten salt being better done on a large scale rather in bits and pieces. I wonder, if a homeowner wanted shallow geothermic heat energy storage to go with rooftop solar, would it make sense to have two storage pits, one just north of house to store winter cold to save a little on summer cooling and one just south to store summer heat to save on winter heating?
Hans Hyde says
Grace, no you didn’t “hurt” my feelings. It was just a common greeting to both yourself & Kent and that I read your comments, and providing some contextual ideas to the discussion.
I cringe often, every time I see how far we (in the US) are behind Germany, not because we don’t have the technology (Hello, Silicon Valley anybody), but because we don’t have the will power to do so.
Kent’s “no brainer” example plays out over and over again in Germany and nordic countries as they are not so adverse to collective investment with collective returns/benefits.
Not so the case in the US. Oh gosh, imagine if in order to make smart grid & distributed generation to actually work, the private consumer would have to open up their basic energy use and production data to a centralized system that could best manage these millions of data inputs on a real time basis. Wow, everyone would be screaming about invasion of privacy & Big Brother conspiracies, yet we’ll post our every action & whereabouts on Facebook (SMedia) without a care in the world.
Smart grid and lower carbon intensity is not dragging along because it is technologically impossible. It’s dragging because we have strongly held values that result in us accomplishing little, but making a lot of noise in the process.
Do you know Ontario has reached a 96% reduction of its carbon emissions target in the electricity generation sector against the 1990 metric (or maybe it’s 2005). That’s huge, but any additional low carbon gen they add (wind or solar) does not help them decarbonise, and they end up paying a FIT (say 12-15c kWhr) only to export it to New York or Michigan grids at wholesale rates (3-5c kWHr). That’s great for NY/Michigan…. Canadian ratepayers subsidizing US consumers, but Ontario ratepayers are not very happy their rates are going up specifically because of each new RE wind or solar farm they put it).
But to your point about “shallow pit”… I’d look up “ice cooling” but, like all things you could probably do better in other ways.
For example, if your hot water heater is 30% of your energy consumption (whether electric or gas/propane), evacuated tubes (if you can find them) could likely decrease that to about 5% even in CT. The conversion factor of sunlight for solar thermal is anywhere from 40-70% as opposed to PV’s 15-22% to electricity. And here’s how…
For simplicity… we bath/shower at 40C, we store/heat our water to 50-60C, but mix it with groundwater temps of 10C to get us 40C at the tap. We have to pay/consume NG/electricity to get that delta 50 (60-10) for every liter of water that sits in the tank until we mix it down again to 40C. You could turn down your thermostat to 45C, but then come 5 minutes into your shower you’re out of 40C and screaming it’s too cold! 😀
Solar thermal works, because you take a 400 liter (maybe add a second tank) and heat it to 90C by the sun, using a low volume pump to move fluid in a closed loop up to the solar thermal collector and get a large delta to heat your tank. The closed loop, low volume, high delta means the pump uses very little energy. Geothermal works off high volume, low delta & closed loop for shallow or open loop for deep… basically your pump energy costs are high.
Back to solar thermal… all day, long or short, cloudy or sunny… you are adding heat to your tank and taking heat away (showers/dishes/etc)… come the end of the day, if your tank is 70-90C, come morning, even with nighttime showers/laundry, coming morning if you’re still at 50C, you have more than enough energy to shower/dishes at 40C…. say you hit 35C, well your thermostat tells the NG unit to fire or the electric element to turn on…. but only to heat to 40C… and wait for the sun to come out and start collecting solar thermal heat again.
The heat/energy capacity in our water tanks is enormous…. it’s long been known to be an energy “battery”, but when we’ve had cheap nat gas, propane or electricity for decades… we’ve built all our hot water tanks around the idea that heating water above 60C is “wasteful” and “not safe”. Europe, the Meditterrean countries, Southern Africa, China… all recognize there is a lot of usable energy in the sun for local use and generation…. 300 GW of solar thermal capacity deployed in the world (120 in China alone), not much in the US… and this is not big CSP projects.
Sorry, not trying to self promote… but this is how distributed solar ***DID NOT*** happen in the US.. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/origins-tsunami-called-natural-gas-hans-hyde
One part due to the excitement of PV and one part the natural gas boom.
Cheers
Grace Adams says
Your most recent post lacks a reply button. How I wish we could have a carbon tax–capture at least some externalized cost fossil fuel imposes on rest of society. There is one restaurant in Willimantic CT with both a little thermal solar for hot water for dish washing and some PV on its roof. Even if we gave all the revenue to our too big to fail fossil fuel firms to pay them to keep it in the ground, it would at least help save us from catastrophic climate change.
Kent Doering says
Thanks for the details Hans.
Grace Adams says
Health care industry manages to separate information on health care records into categories and divulge it on a need to know basis.
Why can’t utilities separate information needed for billing (keep a running total in $) and that needed for smart meter response (real time and it would help for utility to own a battery to store energy from time of abundance to time of scarcity).
Hans Hyde says
They can, but the cost of entry to develop that capability is not cheap, and unlike medical records management, electricity is a time sensitive dynamic entity from both the supply and demand sides of the equations.
And when there is the push-pull of regulatory mandates, “virtual” providers, customers demanding “choice” and general inertia of utilities who we entrusted for decades to deliver our energy at low cost with no questions asked, well then it boils down to who would want to do it when few are willing to pay for a service that by most accounts happened “magically” all this time???
Example right here, one side claims Duke is an “evil” monopoly, however they are decarbonising rapidly, were the first to demonstrate/deploy battery storage at their NoTrees wind farm in Texas, and here are moving forward the “Internet of Energy”.
http://www.engerati.com/article/duke-energy-microgrid-proves-interoperability
Cheers
http://www.engerati.com/article/duke-energy-microgrid-proves-interoperability
Kent Doering says
In response to Grace Adams April11 comments. Bot quote correct, Grace. The Federal German Government mandated both heat pump shallow geothermic heat, and solar heat systems on new buildings. The concept of combining both is my “intellectual property” which was sold on to Siemens “sustainable cities” sector.
Grace Adams says
In some ways Germany and EU are way ahead of USA. You don’t have that much of a fossil fuel industry lobbying for government to give renewable energy a hard time so it can’t compete much against fossil fuel. Connecticut is a blue state and a little left of center. Every once in a while our government decides to stir up a little hoopla to promote some new technology. A little New England thrift causes them to take a good look at anything claiming to pay for itself in ten years or sometimes even thirty years.
Kent Doering says
To Nick Greely: The 80 billion cubic meters of imported gas in Germany go to industrial uses such as making silicon fot solat cells, power generation in very efficient, combibed cycle power generation combined with district heat, building heat and hot water.
Shifts to expanding bio gas capacities and expanding energy efficiency systems already see a drop of gas consumption by over 5% per annum.
For example in silicon manufacturing, waste heat from phase one gas smelting of stone and tree ash- for 90% pure silicon, will be used to generate steam- drive power generation-in plant upgrades- and that is enmore than sufficient to drive phase two electro-catalytic refining to
99.9% pure silicon and then put excess power onto the grid.
The steam generated will then go through a new German development- magnetic resononace dissociated steam breakdown to hydrogen and oxygen- which then powers the plant after warm up.
MRISD – Magnetic Resonance Ionized Steam Dissociation utilizes the heat energy in steam to dissociate it into inflammable “hho” browns gas, which then goes through “bubbler units”- and flashback inhibitors where it is then injected to- the incinineration process.
In Munich`s two fast ramping, combined cycle gas and steam power and district heat systems- are ultra – efficient making 99% use of the incinerated gas i.e. 60% efficiencies in power generation, 39% efficiencies going into the extensive district heat supplemented by deep geothermal.
Steam dissociates to an inflammable mix of hydrogen and oxygen when it os passed through a strong magnetic field on a magnetic north south basis. The Munich system utilizes permanent-magnet – electro-magnetic piping supplemented by piezo ultra-sonoc sound waves When steam lines are passed through that, it dissociates to oxygen hydrogen mix. It looks like a violation of the 19th century “laws” of thermodynamics, but the system enables power plants to literally run off their own steam as fuel.
Munich´s one remaining anthracite fired- power and district heat plant will also be upgraded with two 200 mw- Siemen´s Gas Turbines- doubling plant capacity- and utilize “MRISI” magnetic resonance ionized steam dissociation- for “steam as fuel” as well. All thtee plants will be conberted by the end of 2022 at the latest, malong ot 100% fossol fuel free for power and district heat.