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Global electricity, carbon efficiency, and per capita website

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by tochatihu, Apr 26, 2019.

  1. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Rather than pollute nearby "EV pollution" thread I begin another.

    My goal here is to kick around ideas for a website that goes deep into data on these factors, but is visually appealing on the outside. I really don't see anything like this at present. If someone else does, you could save me a lot of trouble :)

    Some initial work. In that other thread, fuzzy1 said "At least U.S. 'fossil' is more natural gas than coal" @10. This was not (yet) the case in 2018. Coal was ~12 thousand trillion Btu and nat gas was ~11 thousand. One would expect crossover to occur within a few years.

    Also there also fuzzy@19 posted Euro carbon efficiency to have fallen from >500 to ~300 grams CO2 per kwh. Such analyses would be central but perhaps it should be called carbon inefficiency?

    Stimulated by JimboPalmer@14, I worked through US EIA data and found US carbon inefficiency to have ranged from ~215 to ~180 grams CO2 per kwh since 1975.

    In separate data mining I found India's recent carbon inefficiency to have varied little around 280 grams CO2 per kwh..

    Those last three taken together suggest to me that data 'in the wild' need heavy curation for purpose I propose.

    ==
    But more broadly, what might readers hope to see in such a website?
     
    #1 tochatihu, Apr 26, 2019
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  2. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    It's getting complicated...

    Derivation from US EIA about coal is thus through time and I have no idea why:

    coal carbon US EIA.png

    Their data tables include energy and CO2 produced. There is no reason to doubt the former. Later must be based on some conversion factor.
     
    #2 tochatihu, Apr 26, 2019
  3. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    Here was my source:

    What is U.S. electricity generation by energy source?

    upload_2019-4-25_23-15-10.png

    I'll bet you are right on this. But I'd certainly like to see the results, if a reasonable untangling is possible.
     
    #3 fuzzy1, Apr 26, 2019
  4. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    The btu to kWh difference highlights how more efficient direct fired turbines are to steam driven ones.
     
    #4 Trollbait, Apr 26, 2019
  5. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    "I'll bet you are right" @3 The heck of it is that we are both citing US EIA sources that are themselves inconsistent.

    Here's another odd-looking analysis based on US EIA 2019 March monthly report:

    petroleum carbon US EIA.png

    Only a few days ago this seemed to be a dandy project. Now I'm bogged down in data and analyses from what should be (probably is) the best data compilation for any country.
     
    #5 tochatihu, Apr 26, 2019
  6. iplug

    iplug Senior Member

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    #6 iplug, Apr 26, 2019
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  7. iplug

    iplug Senior Member

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    @tochatihu, nice maps there, but also great charts. If you go to chart view, you can run countries over time by fossil fuel source, even cement is included for CO2 emissions.
     
    #7 iplug, Apr 26, 2019
  8. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Yes. Each country as a black bubble is a good first step. Resolving CO2 to electrical production, transportation and 'other' is another. CO2 per kwh (call it intensity or inefficiency) is another.

    Later steps would improve spatial resolution. This was anticipated in their 2014 presentation at European Geophysical Union but not yet implemented. I've not asked them what barriers they face. Possibly entirely different from what I encounter with US EIA data.

    Then move on to per capita mapping. Country level would just be 'divide by a number'. Global population density map at 10(?) km resolution exists.
     
    #8 tochatihu, Apr 26, 2019
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  9. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Yes again@7. Clearly they had these ideas earlier and are en route to implementation.

    One ought not re-invent the wheel, but making it roll better seems OK.

    ==
    Deriving local CO2 sources from atmospheric inversions is a bit of a black art, so we'd better set that aside for now.
     
    #9 tochatihu, Apr 26, 2019
  10. iplug

    iplug Senior Member

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    Yes, lots more that can be built in here with the right motivation and data collection.

    They do have per capita mapping at country level (tCO2/person) and energy productivity efficiency (kgCO2/GDP).
     
    #10 iplug, Apr 26, 2019
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  11. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

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    Regarding presentation and display for the user-

    Have you considered the idea of offering a timeline control that allows the user to scrub forward and backward through some history and some future?

    For the history there is data; for the future there are at least some plans known. Example: planned and announced shut-downs of certain power plants, new production capacity due to come online in the future etc.

    I offer windy as an example of a site that looks good, is easy to drive, illustrates a lot of real data in a beautiful way and uses a timeline controller as primary user input.
     
    #11 Leadfoot J. McCoalroller, Apr 26, 2019
  12. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    What interests me is comparing states, but correcting for factors like climate, imports, business use, etc.
    For example, the environmentalists in Virginia say Virgina is very bad carbon polluter compared to other Northeast staes. But actually according EPA, Virginia uses much less energy for household uses. So the problem is Virginia uses heat pumps vs. in-home natural gas for say New Jesrey. So it's an apples and oranges comparison. If we look at energy consumed or CO2 including home heat burning, then Virginia is quite efficient.

    Another thing you notice is New York state is out-of-this-world low CO2. But apparently that is because a huge city like New York City does emit much CO2 per capita.. So if we separate NYC from the rest of NY, we get a different story, I think. But the EPA/EIA data does not give all the data for all the states, so I would need to see if there is way to get all the states, separate out NYC etc.
     
    #12 wjtracy, Apr 26, 2019
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  13. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Fine-grained data would be excellent. At state scale we need to know if a one is a net exporter (as I assume Washington is). For importing states, inflowing electrons would need to be known as to source.

    It will not be simple.
     
    #13 tochatihu, Apr 26, 2019
  14. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    I was thinking the same as Trollbait, that this likely comes from the thermal efficiency differences between old coal-fired steam vs new combined cycle natural gas. When the two sources are close, the coal could well have a greater thermal power input, at the same time that natural gas has the greater electrical output.

    But looking at the size of the differences shown here, plus remembering that the best installed base of the most efficient NG plants is in China, not the U.S., I wasn't so sure of that explanation.
     
    #14 fuzzy1, Apr 26, 2019
  15. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    No that's not the reason. Both link@3

    What is U.S. electricity generation by energy source? - FAQ - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

    and what I used, Monthly energy report 2019 March are US EIA data for electricity generation (not thermal output) for year 2018. In terms of kwh these two data sources disagree violently.

    I may rattle some cages in EIA about this, and they may reply to an email from Asia :)

    The energy -> CO2 conversions varying through time are a whole 'nother problem.
     
    #15 tochatihu, Apr 26, 2019
  16. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    If I am looking at the same table in the 2019 April report(p.55) as in the March, the reported btu values are for amount of fuel consumed, and not net electric production as the kWh figures are.
    https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/mer.pdf

    The only electric power plants that burn stuff and are over 90% efficient are cogen ones that also supply heat directly.

    You are underestimating how inefficient an old steam plant can be. The reported consumption values includes fuel burned to keep the boilers hot during periods of low to no demand. Companies will minimize this, but coal is cheaper than the start up period(electric generation isn't instant on for this plants) and potential damage of letting the system go cold.
     
    #16 Trollbait, Apr 27, 2019
  17. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    #17 tochatihu, May 7, 2019
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  18. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    As CO2 molecules are (almost entirely) indifferent to their sources, one would want to have geospatial data layers related to wildfire. Those have actually existed for quite some time, as fire has an obvious infrared signature:

    Global Fire Monitoring

    There are many such data products available. For the effort being considered here, they should be merged. To my knowledge no one has ever done such a thing.
     
    #18 tochatihu, May 7, 2019
  19. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    #19 tochatihu, May 30, 2019
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  20. noonm

    noonm Senior Member

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    #20 noonm, May 30, 2019
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