4 ms·

Solar Power Is Now the World's Cheapest Energy

5 points by ph0rque 10y ago

dang 10y ago
This is blogspam of a Bloomberg article that was extensively discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13189743 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13189743. The HN guidelines ask you not to submit articles like this, but instead, to submit the original source. In this case, of course, it turned out to be a dupe.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
teilo 10y ago
In addition to being a dupe, the Popular Mechanics title is false. Natural Gas is still the cheapest form of energy production for large scale production. The cheapest overall is Geothermal. The only thing that makes wind and solar cheaper in certain scenarios is the heavy government subsidies. http://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf http://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.p...
- bmh_ca 10y ago
  I think the important element is the inflection. Resources go up in price as they are used. Manufacturing goes down in price as capital is recouped. The article you link shows wind and solar being cheaper than natural gas in several scenarios, unless I misread it. However over time natural gas - as a resource - will get more expensive as it becomes more scarce and harder to extract and demand goes up. In contrast, solar will get cheaper over time as capital expenditure is recouped, economies of scale kick in, and technological improvements are discovered and implemented. Solar may not have crossed the cost of natural gas yet, but it is all but inevitable now, with eg China having a very mature manufacturing industry for solar and the Middle East expressing ever growing demand for it. The writing is on the panel. Edit: it's worth noting that at least in the US it looks like natural gas has been heavily subsidized by naive investors and ultra low interest rates since 2009 - see eg http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-18/us-shale-gas-industry-countdown-disaster http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-18/us-shale-gas-indust... -- but that's probably coming to a head soon.
- xbmcuser 10y ago
  In places where natural gas is available. For the other countries they will have to buy natural gas so solar will be cheaper.

5 points by ph0rque 10y ago

dang 10y ago

This is blogspam of a Bloomberg article that was extensively discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13189743 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13189743. The HN guidelines ask you not to submit articles like this, but instead, to submit the original source. In this case, of course, it turned out to be a dupe.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

teilo 10y ago

In addition to being a dupe, the Popular Mechanics title is false. Natural Gas is still the cheapest form of energy production for large scale production. The cheapest overall is Geothermal. The only thing that makes wind and solar cheaper in certain scenarios is the heavy government subsidies. http://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf http://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.p...

bmh_ca 10y ago
I think the important element is the inflection. Resources go up in price as they are used. Manufacturing goes down in price as capital is recouped. The article you link shows wind and solar being cheaper than natural gas in several scenarios, unless I misread it. However over time natural gas - as a resource - will get more expensive as it becomes more scarce and harder to extract and demand goes up. In contrast, solar will get cheaper over time as capital expenditure is recouped, economies of scale kick in, and technological improvements are discovered and implemented. Solar may not have crossed the cost of natural gas yet, but it is all but inevitable now, with eg China having a very mature manufacturing industry for solar and the Middle East expressing ever growing demand for it. The writing is on the panel. Edit: it's worth noting that at least in the US it looks like natural gas has been heavily subsidized by naive investors and ultra low interest rates since 2009 - see eg http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-18/us-shale-gas-industry-countdown-disaster http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-18/us-shale-gas-indust... -- but that's probably coming to a head soon.
xbmcuser 10y ago
In places where natural gas is available. For the other countries they will have to buy natural gas so solar will be cheaper.