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You're incorrect on the cost of gas, you can not spin up any natural gas turbine "whenever, wherever" for $40/MWh. As another comment has stated, there are mult

You're incorrect on the cost of gas, you can not spin up any natural gas turbine "whenever, wherever" for $40/MWh. As another comment has stated, there are multiple kinds of turbines with different and more expensive costs than $40 ranging up to $200+/MWh. Behind the scenes, there is the task of actually getting the LNG to the turbine, which is a variable cost commodity and transportation is tricky. This fluctuation may be damaging to utilities, who would prefer stable prices over time to balance their books. Compare these variables in the cost of natural gas electricity to the price stability of batteries+renewables over time, and you've neglected some of the main reasons batteries+renewables will become increasingly attractive over time, especially vs the much more expensive+dirty coal sources in the 2020's, and even to the cheaper but still dirty natural gas in the 2030's and 2040's. Be careful with your errors and oversights. With the climate on the line for 1000's of years, we can not afford sloppy argumentation, even on HN comments. We need to accurately assess the strengths and weaknesses of the energy sources so we can best navigate towards a healthy society and planet.

acidburnNSA 8y ago
My comment was motivated by my desire for us to avoid oversights for the same reason you list. If everyone thinks that batteries are competing with natural gas on the whole, then they are being grossly, grossly misled. CCGTs are by far the most common "gas" out there, and they're getting built today, as we speak, and they are the ones that are the price I quoted. You're right that wherever, whenever is an overstatement, but I disagree that it's overly sloppy in this context. A revised statement may be "CCGTs can be very flexibly sighted and can ramp up and down relatively quickly" Stability of renewable cost may not be so solid when hurricanes come by and rip panels off roofs, or polar vortices ice up all your turbines. Even natural gas had pressure lows in the last polar vortex, my mom was asked via emergency alert to turn down her heat so the system pressure could keep up. Most of the heavily-armored nukes powered through, but one of them had ice in the intake and had to clear that out. Everything will see fairly unpredictable variability in the carbon-constrained future. Diversity is probably our safest bet. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34172 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34172 https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation....
- deleted 8y ago
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tinus_hn 8y ago
This also considers the cost of polluting the environment to be $0.
- acidburnNSA 8y ago
  The comment was referring to current markets, which is the topic of the OP article at hand. No fossil fuel generators pay for their carbon waste, they just dumps it out the stack. US (but not worldwide) coal pays a bit to scrub its waste of the supernasties, saving thousands of lives thanks to the clean air act. Wind/solar/battery recycling/disposal costs are also not currently factored into the market. The only energy system that specifically puts a fraction of its revenue aside for the back-end that I'm aware of is nuclear via the decommissioning funds and the nuclear waste fund.

acidburnNSA 8y ago

My comment was motivated by my desire for us to avoid oversights for the same reason you list. If everyone thinks that batteries are competing with natural gas on the whole, then they are being grossly, grossly misled. CCGTs are by far the most common "gas" out there, and they're getting built today, as we speak, and they are the ones that are the price I quoted. You're right that wherever, whenever is an overstatement, but I disagree that it's overly sloppy in this context. A revised statement may be "CCGTs can be very flexibly sighted and can ramp up and down relatively quickly" Stability of renewable cost may not be so solid when hurricanes come by and rip panels off roofs, or polar vortices ice up all your turbines. Even natural gas had pressure lows in the last polar vortex, my mom was asked via emergency alert to turn down her heat so the system pressure could keep up. Most of the heavily-armored nukes powered through, but one of them had ice in the intake and had to clear that out. Everything will see fairly unpredictable variability in the carbon-constrained future. Diversity is probably our safest bet. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34172 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34172 https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation....

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

tinus_hn 8y ago

This also considers the cost of polluting the environment to be $0.

acidburnNSA 8y ago
The comment was referring to current markets, which is the topic of the OP article at hand. No fossil fuel generators pay for their carbon waste, they just dumps it out the stack. US (but not worldwide) coal pays a bit to scrub its waste of the supernasties, saving thousands of lives thanks to the clean air act. Wind/solar/battery recycling/disposal costs are also not currently factored into the market. The only energy system that specifically puts a fraction of its revenue aside for the back-end that I'm aware of is nuclear via the decommissioning funds and the nuclear waste fund.