8 ms·

Solar power is now cheaper than nuclear

35 points by brkumar 16y ago

Daniel_Newby 16y ago
Base load.
- akira2501 16y ago
  Also W/m^2
rvcx 16y ago
No, it's not. The position paper (from an organization whose whole mission is to push solar and get rid of nuclear) simply makes up a bunch of number. http://v.cx/2010/07/lying-about-solar http://v.cx/2010/07/lying-about-solar
- kaitnieks 16y ago
  Also, this: http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2010/07/gullible-reporting-by-new-york-times-on.html http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2010/07/gullible-reportin...
  - sasvari 16y ago
    Pro-nuclear advocate as the first post is pro-solar, this one is just the opposite. both posts are nonobjective, there's still quite a lot of religion involved in the discussion.
    - rvcx 16y ago
      The top post is claiming something that is not true. The responses are pointing out that the claim is bullshit, but they are not making claims of their own. Suppose I were to claim that Sasvari owes me one trillion dollars, based on no reliable evidence whatsoever, and Sasvari were to deny it, pointing out the lack of evidence. Are both sides in this scenario equally "religious" in their stances?
lispm 16y ago
Here in Germany we add half of this years world's photovoltaic solar panel production. Much of that is installed by small consumers, houses, farms, factories. This gets us away from the huge expensive centralized energy production. Panel by panel. A new nuclear power plant has not been built in he last twenty years and is not planned. Thus we can concentrate on bringing the price of renewable energy down. The new reactors that are under construction in Finland and France are both much more expensive than planned and are coming years late. France also has to invest several hundred million Euros per reactor to keep them running. They haven't done much for those - a full fifty reactors. Here in Germany we need to spend some ten more more billion Euros on closing old East German reactors and for cleaning up an experimental storage site for nuclear waste. That experiment has failed. Spectacularly. Billions and billions that could have been invested in clean and renewable energy.
- motters 16y ago
  I really wish we had the same policy here in the UK. Here it's extremely rare to see a solar panel anywhere, and it seems highly likely that new nuclear (fission) reactors will be built in the near future.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    What, to capitalise on the eight days per year of British sunshine?
    - stcredzero 16y ago
      There's a British company that makes evacuated heat-pipe solar hot water elements. They work very well in England in the winter. http://www.thermomax.com/ http://www.thermomax.com/
    - motters 16y ago
      If there's enough sunshine to grow grass and trees, there's enough to make energy.
- berntb 16y ago
tocomment 16y ago
Is solar still coming down in price? What kind of bothers me is even if the panels were free it would still probably cost $10,000+ to have someone install them on my house, thus I'll probably never be able to do it :-(
- roel_v 16y ago
  10k for just the labor? Nah. It takes 2 persons 1 day to install PV panels on a 'regular' house, including the carpentering, electrical installation etc.. That's 1000$ or so in semi-skilled labor.
  - tocomment 16y ago
    I think a new roof costs like 20K. So I figured covering my roof with something would cost at least half of that. Is it really that fast?
    - roel_v 16y ago
      Panels are put on the roof, you can't use them as a roof (actually there are panels nowadays that can do that, but I'm talking about the 'mainstream' products). Assuming you have a good roof, what they do is open it up in a few places to anchor supports to your roof structure (the rafters) and then put the panel on those supports. The amount of work that the opening up and closing the seams takes will depend on your roofing; some types are easier to work with than others, but still that wouldn't make more than a day's work of difference. A typical installation has only about 10 or so panels. Once the supports are on there, you hoist the panels up, screw them to the supports and that's it.
    - roel_v 16y ago
      In addition (I'm on a roll now ;) ) a complete new roof including materials will cost let's say 20k. The actual work of that is, I'd estimate, only about 5k or so, the rest is materials But then you get a complete new roof with new joists and the whole shebang, which is quite a bit of work. (of course it's also going to make a difference if you cover a roof in Michigan or in Texas, or in NYC... )
pragmatic 16y ago
They sell solar panels in Menard's now, freakin' Menards (A mid-western version of Lowe's/Home Depot). I think they cost 300+ for 60 watts. I for one would love to put a bunch of solar panels up on my house, just for the cool factor. Not to mention, centralized power is vulnerable. Terrorists, grid failure, etc. Something so vital should be so centralized. I'm going to dub the coming DIY power generation "Cloud Power", remember you heard it here first.
- stcredzero 16y ago
  What the south needs now are cheap 12 volt AC units. Install some solar PV, and have regulation circuitry that turns it on when the panels are producing enough juice. This would still save a ton on summer AC power costs, but it would be (relatively) cheap. (No batteries! You'd have to have a hefty capacitor for startup surge power, though.)
- confuzatron 16y ago
  Here in the UK, you can also harm the environment and emit carbon by buying a windmill from the DIY store and sticking it on your roof. People are mostly doing it for the 'cool factor' since they tend not to generate much power at all. I'm going to dub the coming DIY power generation "Cloud Power", remember you heard it here first. You've got that the wrong way round. I already get my power from 'the cloud' rather than generating on premise :)
rbanffy 16y ago
That's easy - you just impose expensive environmental regulations on top of building nuclear reactors and, suddenly, solar power becomes cheaper. With a couple iterations, even hamsters in cages will surpass nuclear. How green is solar panel production, BTW?
- dmfdmf 16y ago
  > How green is solar panel production, BTW? The term "green" is probably too vague to answer that question. However, I once read (a long time ago, so no link) an article on some research that reported that EV solar was net-energy negative, i.e., if you add up all the energy that went into producing EV solar panels and subtracted the energy output over its expected lifetime it was negative. This is not true of hot-water type solar just EV solar panels. Of course the conclusion rested on numerous assumptions but they used conservative assumptions and argued that EV is not an energy source and would need some wild breakthroughs in reducing the energy costs to manufacture or a huge jump in energy output efficiency neither of which, as far as I know, has happened. Edit: I got that reversed, Energy Output - Energy to make < 0
  - Retric 16y ago
    Times change, 50,000Hz Computers used to be top of the line and cost thousands of dollars, but try selling such things today at those prices. The value of electricity produced over a modern solar cell’s lifetime > cost of that solar cell today so clearly they take less energy to produce than it takes to make. However, ROI is more than just getting more money back than something costs the payback time is important. PS: Granted, Ultra high efficiency solar cells built for the space program still cost a lot. However, they are producing energy in space so the incentives change.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      dmfdmf's point is that it takes more energy to make a solar cell than it will ever produce during its lifetime. I am not sure his numbers are current (he made the disclaimer), but it has nothing to do with energy pricing. My worry is not whether photo-voltaic is net-positive, but whether the production actually reduces pollution. For what I know, they are very close cousins of computer chips and those factories were not particularly "green".
nickpinkston 16y ago
As has been pointed out this study is filled with a lot of stats and little methodology. They assume that solar tech is getting cheaper and cheaper $/KwH (quite valid), however they seemingly think that nuclear is frozen and the tech costs are rising. I think it could be argued that the lobbies subsidizing both sides are causing each trend. Westinghouse wants subsidies so more plants are sold, however that also increases the tendency to over-build. A friend of mine in their nuke dept. said this very true. Compare western to foreign nuke prices. Also, the green movement has every interest to encourage increasingly strict nuclear regs that make it difficult to make new ones while they support solar subsidies. All of this leads to nuclear power going up in price while the tech remains underutilized. This report shows these price trends, but does little to elucidate the underlying causation in them.
csf_ceo 16y ago
In Australia, we have one of the cheapest electricity prices in the world. Wholesale(national pool price) is about USD 65 per MWh + Network charges. But Solar PV electricity is 1/3 cheaper than the Retail price of electricity WITHOUT ANY SUBSIDIES. The current Peak Retail price (Midday - 8.00pm)is circa USD 0.29 kWh (Aust$0.32kWh) and the 'real' unsubsidised cost of solar PV is about Aust $0.21 kWh. With the current subsidies the price is NEGATIVE $Aust 0.50 kWh (USD -0.45) Yes, we get paid to produce through grants and a Feed in Tariff
- stcredzero 16y ago
  If Australia is on the ball with infrastructure and government policy, your little private continent might end up a bastion of energy stability in the post peak-oil world! You have your own deserts with lots of potential for massive Solar Thermal. Add some high-tech distribution, and you're in a very enviable position.
mikelele 16y ago
This is a bunch of anti-nuke nonsense written by non-experts in the energy field.

35 points by brkumar 16y ago

Daniel_Newby 16y ago

Base load.

akira2501 16y ago
Also W/m^2

rvcx 16y ago

No, it's not. The position paper (from an organization whose whole mission is to push solar and get rid of nuclear) simply makes up a bunch of number. http://v.cx/2010/07/lying-about-solar http://v.cx/2010/07/lying-about-solar

kaitnieks 16y ago
Also, this: http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2010/07/gullible-reporting-by-new-york-times-on.html http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2010/07/gullible-reportin...
- sasvari 16y ago
  Pro-nuclear advocate as the first post is pro-solar, this one is just the opposite. both posts are nonobjective, there's still quite a lot of religion involved in the discussion.
  - rvcx 16y ago
    The top post is claiming something that is not true. The responses are pointing out that the claim is bullshit, but they are not making claims of their own. Suppose I were to claim that Sasvari owes me one trillion dollars, based on no reliable evidence whatsoever, and Sasvari were to deny it, pointing out the lack of evidence. Are both sides in this scenario equally "religious" in their stances?

lispm 16y ago

Here in Germany we add half of this years world's photovoltaic solar panel production. Much of that is installed by small consumers, houses, farms, factories. This gets us away from the huge expensive centralized energy production. Panel by panel. A new nuclear power plant has not been built in he last twenty years and is not planned. Thus we can concentrate on bringing the price of renewable energy down. The new reactors that are under construction in Finland and France are both much more expensive than planned and are coming years late. France also has to invest several hundred million Euros per reactor to keep them running. They haven't done much for those - a full fifty reactors. Here in Germany we need to spend some ten more more billion Euros on closing old East German reactors and for cleaning up an experimental storage site for nuclear waste. That experiment has failed. Spectacularly. Billions and billions that could have been invested in clean and renewable energy.

motters 16y ago
I really wish we had the same policy here in the UK. Here it's extremely rare to see a solar panel anywhere, and it seems highly likely that new nuclear (fission) reactors will be built in the near future.
- hugh3 16y ago
  What, to capitalise on the eight days per year of British sunshine?
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    There's a British company that makes evacuated heat-pipe solar hot water elements. They work very well in England in the winter. http://www.thermomax.com/ http://www.thermomax.com/
  - motters 16y ago
    If there's enough sunshine to grow grass and trees, there's enough to make energy.
berntb 16y ago

tocomment 16y ago

Is solar still coming down in price? What kind of bothers me is even if the panels were free it would still probably cost $10,000+ to have someone install them on my house, thus I'll probably never be able to do it :-(

roel_v 16y ago
10k for just the labor? Nah. It takes 2 persons 1 day to install PV panels on a 'regular' house, including the carpentering, electrical installation etc.. That's 1000$ or so in semi-skilled labor.
- tocomment 16y ago
  I think a new roof costs like 20K. So I figured covering my roof with something would cost at least half of that. Is it really that fast?
  - roel_v 16y ago
    Panels are put on the roof, you can't use them as a roof (actually there are panels nowadays that can do that, but I'm talking about the 'mainstream' products). Assuming you have a good roof, what they do is open it up in a few places to anchor supports to your roof structure (the rafters) and then put the panel on those supports. The amount of work that the opening up and closing the seams takes will depend on your roofing; some types are easier to work with than others, but still that wouldn't make more than a day's work of difference. A typical installation has only about 10 or so panels. Once the supports are on there, you hoist the panels up, screw them to the supports and that's it.
  - roel_v 16y ago
    In addition (I'm on a roll now ;) ) a complete new roof including materials will cost let's say 20k. The actual work of that is, I'd estimate, only about 5k or so, the rest is materials But then you get a complete new roof with new joists and the whole shebang, which is quite a bit of work. (of course it's also going to make a difference if you cover a roof in Michigan or in Texas, or in NYC... )

pragmatic 16y ago

They sell solar panels in Menard's now, freakin' Menards (A mid-western version of Lowe's/Home Depot). I think they cost 300+ for 60 watts. I for one would love to put a bunch of solar panels up on my house, just for the cool factor. Not to mention, centralized power is vulnerable. Terrorists, grid failure, etc. Something so vital should be so centralized. I'm going to dub the coming DIY power generation "Cloud Power", remember you heard it here first.

stcredzero 16y ago
What the south needs now are cheap 12 volt AC units. Install some solar PV, and have regulation circuitry that turns it on when the panels are producing enough juice. This would still save a ton on summer AC power costs, but it would be (relatively) cheap. (No batteries! You'd have to have a hefty capacitor for startup surge power, though.)
confuzatron 16y ago
Here in the UK, you can also harm the environment and emit carbon by buying a windmill from the DIY store and sticking it on your roof. People are mostly doing it for the 'cool factor' since they tend not to generate much power at all. I'm going to dub the coming DIY power generation "Cloud Power", remember you heard it here first. You've got that the wrong way round. I already get my power from 'the cloud' rather than generating on premise :)

rbanffy 16y ago

That's easy - you just impose expensive environmental regulations on top of building nuclear reactors and, suddenly, solar power becomes cheaper. With a couple iterations, even hamsters in cages will surpass nuclear. How green is solar panel production, BTW?

dmfdmf 16y ago
> How green is solar panel production, BTW? The term "green" is probably too vague to answer that question. However, I once read (a long time ago, so no link) an article on some research that reported that EV solar was net-energy negative, i.e., if you add up all the energy that went into producing EV solar panels and subtracted the energy output over its expected lifetime it was negative. This is not true of hot-water type solar just EV solar panels. Of course the conclusion rested on numerous assumptions but they used conservative assumptions and argued that EV is not an energy source and would need some wild breakthroughs in reducing the energy costs to manufacture or a huge jump in energy output efficiency neither of which, as far as I know, has happened. Edit: I got that reversed, Energy Output - Energy to make < 0
- Retric 16y ago
  Times change, 50,000Hz Computers used to be top of the line and cost thousands of dollars, but try selling such things today at those prices. The value of electricity produced over a modern solar cell’s lifetime > cost of that solar cell today so clearly they take less energy to produce than it takes to make. However, ROI is more than just getting more money back than something costs the payback time is important. PS: Granted, Ultra high efficiency solar cells built for the space program still cost a lot. However, they are producing energy in space so the incentives change.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    dmfdmf's point is that it takes more energy to make a solar cell than it will ever produce during its lifetime. I am not sure his numbers are current (he made the disclaimer), but it has nothing to do with energy pricing. My worry is not whether photo-voltaic is net-positive, but whether the production actually reduces pollution. For what I know, they are very close cousins of computer chips and those factories were not particularly "green".

nickpinkston 16y ago

As has been pointed out this study is filled with a lot of stats and little methodology. They assume that solar tech is getting cheaper and cheaper $/KwH (quite valid), however they seemingly think that nuclear is frozen and the tech costs are rising. I think it could be argued that the lobbies subsidizing both sides are causing each trend. Westinghouse wants subsidies so more plants are sold, however that also increases the tendency to over-build. A friend of mine in their nuke dept. said this very true. Compare western to foreign nuke prices. Also, the green movement has every interest to encourage increasingly strict nuclear regs that make it difficult to make new ones while they support solar subsidies. All of this leads to nuclear power going up in price while the tech remains underutilized. This report shows these price trends, but does little to elucidate the underlying causation in them.

csf_ceo 16y ago

In Australia, we have one of the cheapest electricity prices in the world. Wholesale(national pool price) is about USD 65 per MWh + Network charges. But Solar PV electricity is 1/3 cheaper than the Retail price of electricity WITHOUT ANY SUBSIDIES. The current Peak Retail price (Midday - 8.00pm)is circa USD 0.29 kWh (Aust$0.32kWh) and the 'real' unsubsidised cost of solar PV is about Aust $0.21 kWh. With the current subsidies the price is NEGATIVE $Aust 0.50 kWh (USD -0.45) Yes, we get paid to produce through grants and a Feed in Tariff

stcredzero 16y ago
If Australia is on the ball with infrastructure and government policy, your little private continent might end up a bastion of energy stability in the post peak-oil world! You have your own deserts with lots of potential for massive Solar Thermal. Add some high-tech distribution, and you're in a very enviable position.

mikelele 16y ago

This is a bunch of anti-nuke nonsense written by non-experts in the energy field.