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Solar is not cheaper as it requires backup energy sources such as coal, oil, nuclear etc. You can't just isolate the cost of solar or wind as they are only via

Solar is not cheaper as it requires backup energy sources such as coal, oil, nuclear etc. You can't just isolate the cost of solar or wind as they are only viable because they sit on top of a fossil or nuclear infrastructure. Solar and wind is always depending on backup energy, those backup energies are not depending on wind and solar. Wind and solar haven't factored in the cost of decommision and maintanance in their prices which is going to be much more given the huge areas they have to be spread out on. There is plenty speculation about how to solve the intermittency problem of wind and solar but we are not even close to a solution for that.

Retric 7y ago
Solar across large areas plus batteries does not have intermittency issues. Like all power sources you need to build out for the worst case, as power output can drop. But that’s true of Nuclear as well because power plants need refueling etc. So, let’s hypothetically say you need 2x redundancy with solar generation to hit 100% grid demand 99.99% of the time. 2x 2c + 1.3c only bumps you up to 5.3c/kWh. And note this is with vast overkill wasting 50% of electrify generation. Except that’s not a comparison to coal or Nuclear that’s a comparison with the grid including peaking power plants. Run the economics of 100% Nuclear and you need both excess capacity seasonally and vast amounts of grid storage daily. Thus vastly increasing the already high prices. PS: Remember if the sun goes out we all die anyway, it’s at worst local clouds we care about. Further, demand for AC is lower on cloudy days.
- ThomPete 7y ago
  Solar across ANY area has intermittency issues. It's not true for nuclear at all. The capacity factor of solar is 20-30, the capacity factor of nuclear is almost 100. They are not even in close competition. Wind and solar is currently less than 1% of the worlds energy and not expected to be more than 3-4% in 2040. There is no realistic version I know of (and believe me I have looked) where solar or wind become the base of societies energy needs. No one is talking about 100% nuclear. But currently nuclear already cover much more of our energy needs than wind and solar.
  - Retric 7y ago
    Nuclear’s capacity factor is a problem because you can’t save money turning them off. If a Nuclear power plant can’t get 90+% utilization that’s a non starter it fails because it’s to expensive. On the other hand you can adjust the time of day a solar power plant gives power by moving it east or west and that 2c/kWh is after taking capacity factor into account. Nuclear’s problem actually gets worse when operating alongside solar and wind which are dramatically cheaper and drive the spot price close to 0 regularly. Meaning Nuclear is unneeded for long periods. Thus the long term trend is ~0% Nuclear power due to economic issues. As to photovoltaic capacity factor, nobody expects it to run at night that’s what batteries are for. The only meaningful capacity factor is the delta between average and minimum daily output vs seasonal demand. PS: Solar thermal on the other hand is simply a boondoggle waste of money.
    - ThomPete 7y ago
      This is simply just factually wrong. Please show me one place that proves that high capacity factor is an issue. Just one. I am not sure where you are getting your information but it's simply factually wrong. Batteries can't solve this issue as it doesn't solve seasonality. And it would be extremely extremely huge batteries needed. The cost alone would make it impossible as peak demand only happens once in a while. And then you are back to backups.
      - Retric 7y ago
        It’s simple math, a Nuclear power plant that can produce power at 90% capacity factor at 10c/kWh can be used to produce power at a 45% capacity factor but at ~20c/kWh. In effect that high capacity factor is also a demand to maintain cost competitiveness. Granted, you can operate nuclear when the spot price is below your true cost to produce assuming it stays above your marginal price, but you now need to make up the difference. As to seasonality, demand is also seasonal, which again is bad for nuclear. Further, when sourcing wind you can locate it based on seasonal considerations. The high correlation between solar production and AC usage ends up being a useful feature not a bug.
mantap 7y ago
Why is it necessary to replace all fossil fuels? You can keep gas turbine power plants around. I support nuclear power but it's very very expensive, even in meteorologically inactive places such as UK. Maybe India and China can make it work, but in the west you can forget it. Hinkley Point C is a failure and it hasn't even been constructed yet.
- ThomPete 7y ago
  Nuclear power is expensive in no small part because of the bureaucracy and safety measures that are required but also because of the policial headwinds. Nuclear is expensive in the short run but much better in the long run. It's capacity factor is almost 100 compare that to wind and solar which is between 20-40 depending on season etc. Furthermore nuclear is expensive because we compare it with the non-true cost of ex. wind and solar which both need backup energy to be useful (not calculated), the decommission (not calculated). It's completely backwards that we are investing in making wind and solar cheaper not nuclear. Wind and solar are linear solutions to the exponential problem of energy. They don't point to the future but to the past. They are great for some things but never as a foundation for a modern society energy needs. I don't think it's necessary to replace fossil fuels as such but many people seem to think so and they have the problem I tried to outline in my previous post.
- acqq 7y ago
  > Why is it necessary to replace all fossil fuels? "Just" in order to avoid the uncontrolled warming up of the Earth's atmosphere. As long as we use them, there will be more CO2 in the atmosphere, more warming and the destruction of the environment in which the humanity grew up (the climate was extraordinary stable since the civilizations appeared... until the last 100 years). We still don't exactly know how fast that difference can hit us, and how big issue for us it can get (i.e. the worst case) but what we know already is enough to know that the resolute action is needed even if the worst case doesn't happen, "business as usual" will be a serious, long-time problem: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6459/eaaw6974 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6459/eaaw6974 "The human imperative of stabilizing global climate change at 1.5°C" "increasing GMST to 3°C above the pre-industrial period substantially increases the risk of tipping points such as permafrost collapse, Arctic sea ice habitat loss, major reductions in crop production in Africa as well as globally, and persistent heat stress that is driving sharp increases in human morbidity and mortality" "Our preliminary estimates suggest that the benefits of avoided damage by the year 2200 may greatly exceed energy sector investment costs to 2050. Current national voluntary emission reduction pledges for 2030 are insufficient to drive this even if followed by “very challenging increases in the scale and ambition of mitigation after 2030”" "The majority of pathways for achieving 1.5°C also require carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere. Delays in bringing CO2 emissions to net zero over the next 20 to 30 years will also increase the likelihood of pathways that exceed 1.5°C (i.e., overshoot scenarios) and hence a greater reliance on net negative emissions after mid-century if GMST is to return to 1.5°C" Simply put, it's safer to not the let the CO2 in the atmosphere at all than to try to remove it later and fail. But eventually we will have to remove more than we let. And the amounts in question are immense, and removal costs a lot of energy too. So we do need all the energy to be produced without fossil fuels. Wherever some fossil fuels are burned, we'll need even more energy to remove that.

Retric 7y ago

Solar across large areas plus batteries does not have intermittency issues. Like all power sources you need to build out for the worst case, as power output can drop. But that’s true of Nuclear as well because power plants need refueling etc. So, let’s hypothetically say you need 2x redundancy with solar generation to hit 100% grid demand 99.99% of the time. 2x 2c + 1.3c only bumps you up to 5.3c/kWh. And note this is with vast overkill wasting 50% of electrify generation. Except that’s not a comparison to coal or Nuclear that’s a comparison with the grid including peaking power plants. Run the economics of 100% Nuclear and you need both excess capacity seasonally and vast amounts of grid storage daily. Thus vastly increasing the already high prices. PS: Remember if the sun goes out we all die anyway, it’s at worst local clouds we care about. Further, demand for AC is lower on cloudy days.

ThomPete 7y ago
Solar across ANY area has intermittency issues. It's not true for nuclear at all. The capacity factor of solar is 20-30, the capacity factor of nuclear is almost 100. They are not even in close competition. Wind and solar is currently less than 1% of the worlds energy and not expected to be more than 3-4% in 2040. There is no realistic version I know of (and believe me I have looked) where solar or wind become the base of societies energy needs. No one is talking about 100% nuclear. But currently nuclear already cover much more of our energy needs than wind and solar.
- Retric 7y ago
  Nuclear’s capacity factor is a problem because you can’t save money turning them off. If a Nuclear power plant can’t get 90+% utilization that’s a non starter it fails because it’s to expensive. On the other hand you can adjust the time of day a solar power plant gives power by moving it east or west and that 2c/kWh is after taking capacity factor into account. Nuclear’s problem actually gets worse when operating alongside solar and wind which are dramatically cheaper and drive the spot price close to 0 regularly. Meaning Nuclear is unneeded for long periods. Thus the long term trend is ~0% Nuclear power due to economic issues. As to photovoltaic capacity factor, nobody expects it to run at night that’s what batteries are for. The only meaningful capacity factor is the delta between average and minimum daily output vs seasonal demand. PS: Solar thermal on the other hand is simply a boondoggle waste of money.
  - ThomPete 7y ago
    This is simply just factually wrong. Please show me one place that proves that high capacity factor is an issue. Just one. I am not sure where you are getting your information but it's simply factually wrong. Batteries can't solve this issue as it doesn't solve seasonality. And it would be extremely extremely huge batteries needed. The cost alone would make it impossible as peak demand only happens once in a while. And then you are back to backups.
    - Retric 7y ago
      It’s simple math, a Nuclear power plant that can produce power at 90% capacity factor at 10c/kWh can be used to produce power at a 45% capacity factor but at ~20c/kWh. In effect that high capacity factor is also a demand to maintain cost competitiveness. Granted, you can operate nuclear when the spot price is below your true cost to produce assuming it stays above your marginal price, but you now need to make up the difference. As to seasonality, demand is also seasonal, which again is bad for nuclear. Further, when sourcing wind you can locate it based on seasonal considerations. The high correlation between solar production and AC usage ends up being a useful feature not a bug.

mantap 7y ago

Why is it necessary to replace all fossil fuels? You can keep gas turbine power plants around. I support nuclear power but it's very very expensive, even in meteorologically inactive places such as UK. Maybe India and China can make it work, but in the west you can forget it. Hinkley Point C is a failure and it hasn't even been constructed yet.

ThomPete 7y ago
Nuclear power is expensive in no small part because of the bureaucracy and safety measures that are required but also because of the policial headwinds. Nuclear is expensive in the short run but much better in the long run. It's capacity factor is almost 100 compare that to wind and solar which is between 20-40 depending on season etc. Furthermore nuclear is expensive because we compare it with the non-true cost of ex. wind and solar which both need backup energy to be useful (not calculated), the decommission (not calculated). It's completely backwards that we are investing in making wind and solar cheaper not nuclear. Wind and solar are linear solutions to the exponential problem of energy. They don't point to the future but to the past. They are great for some things but never as a foundation for a modern society energy needs. I don't think it's necessary to replace fossil fuels as such but many people seem to think so and they have the problem I tried to outline in my previous post.
acqq 7y ago
> Why is it necessary to replace all fossil fuels? "Just" in order to avoid the uncontrolled warming up of the Earth's atmosphere. As long as we use them, there will be more CO2 in the atmosphere, more warming and the destruction of the environment in which the humanity grew up (the climate was extraordinary stable since the civilizations appeared... until the last 100 years). We still don't exactly know how fast that difference can hit us, and how big issue for us it can get (i.e. the worst case) but what we know already is enough to know that the resolute action is needed even if the worst case doesn't happen, "business as usual" will be a serious, long-time problem: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6459/eaaw6974 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6459/eaaw6974 "The human imperative of stabilizing global climate change at 1.5°C" "increasing GMST to 3°C above the pre-industrial period substantially increases the risk of tipping points such as permafrost collapse, Arctic sea ice habitat loss, major reductions in crop production in Africa as well as globally, and persistent heat stress that is driving sharp increases in human morbidity and mortality" "Our preliminary estimates suggest that the benefits of avoided damage by the year 2200 may greatly exceed energy sector investment costs to 2050. Current national voluntary emission reduction pledges for 2030 are insufficient to drive this even if followed by “very challenging increases in the scale and ambition of mitigation after 2030”" "The majority of pathways for achieving 1.5°C also require carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere. Delays in bringing CO2 emissions to net zero over the next 20 to 30 years will also increase the likelihood of pathways that exceed 1.5°C (i.e., overshoot scenarios) and hence a greater reliance on net negative emissions after mid-century if GMST is to return to 1.5°C" Simply put, it's safer to not the let the CO2 in the atmosphere at all than to try to remove it later and fail. But eventually we will have to remove more than we let. And the amounts in question are immense, and removal costs a lot of energy too. So we do need all the energy to be produced without fossil fuels. Wherever some fossil fuels are burned, we'll need even more energy to remove that.