5 ms·

Solar and wind are much cheaper. That's why.

by beat 7y ago

macspoofing 7y ago
They aren't, but let's say for argument that they are. So what? If they can't actually replace coal and natural gas, then what's the point? And they can't. Solar and wind are intermittent power sources, meaning that there are times when you aren't generating any energy because the sun ain't shining and the wind ain't blowing. There is also no battery technology that can scale to the level of cities or nations for a period of hours, days or weeks (and we would need around 8 to 16 weeks of storage to bridge seasonal intermittency). Instead what we're seeing are those regions that heavily invest in solar and wind need to make a comparable investment in natural gas to make them viable.
- kragen 7y ago
  None of this is correct, except that solar and wind are intermittent, and there are a lot of new gas stations being built, but mostly not because of renewables. Well, and in Antarctica you actually do need to bridge seasonal intermittency; McMurdo isn't going solar anytime soon.
  - macspoofing 7y ago
    Which part is incorrect? Can you elaborate?
    - kragen 7y ago
      Yes, but I think I'll do it in Dercuano instead of the comment section here; it'll be a lot more readable that way. I've started a “vulgar misconceptions” category in it, and you've given me a lot of great material here, since it appears you're sincerely misinformed, not trolling.
      - macspoofing 7y ago
        I have no idea what a 'dercuano' is. Can you make a little effort here? Just something that would demonstrate to me that I'm incorrect. I want to be wrong. Right now it sounds like you feel like I'm wrong but you can't actually explain in what way. So instead you've decided to tell me I'm wrong (but not why). And now you've decided to insult me as well. Here's what I see: - We don't have a battery technology that can store enough energy to power an economy for even minutes. In solar/wind deployments we would need batteries to store energy for up to weeks. If there is, please tell me what it is. Lithium Ion doesn't work at that scale and cannot be relied upon to hold weeks of storage. Pumped storage is expensive but more importantly need particular geography to work. There are no examples of this large scale energy storage in practice. - Because we don't have such a battery technology, solar and wind deployments require burning some fossil-fuel (coal, natural gas garbage, corn etc.). We see this in regions that decide to double-down on solar and wind. A perfect example is Germany. As they increase their solar/wind footprint, they are increasing their natural gas dependency by spending billions on NEW pipelines to Russia to ship their natural gas for decades. What do they know that you don't? - There are also NO regions that power their economy wholly on renewables that don't involve nuclear, geothermal and hydro. No regions have plans in the immediate future (e.g. within 10 years) to do so either. - There are a lot of other major issues with solar/wind, such as the huge land area requirements, and the need for large quantities of rare earth materials and lack of recycling. All these issues will be magnified as more and more regions invest in large-scale solar/wind deployments. I shudder at the thought of 100x or 1000x increase in solar cell production and what that would do to the environment, especially as these cells reach the end of their 20-25 year life. I don't think any of those statements are wrong or controversial. I'm not happy that this is the case. I would like solar and wind to be viable, but nobody will ever tell me how they could be without arguing that we will invent some new technology (like a better battery) to make it all work. To me it looks like nuclear, hydro and geothermal are the only real answers (with solar/wind having niche applications). This is a live view of the energy mix of my home province (pop:14m): http://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html http://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html - depending on when you look you may see 98% carbon-free energy generation. Don't need to wait until 2060 (the time that Germany is expected to be carbon-free) To me this looks like the future.
- beat 7y ago
  Coal is being replaced as fast as they can build new capacity with cheaper sources. Coal costs around $100/Mwh. So does current nuclear (fantasy future tech doesn't count). Fracked natural gas costs around $40/Mwh, new onshore wind costs slightly ore ($42 or so), PV solar costs less than $60/Mwh, but its costs have dropped over 80% in a single decade so it's hard to say where it'll be in even a year, much less another decade or two. Existing coal and nuclear plants are shutting down before end-of-life because they're losing customers to cheaper competition. Intermittency for wind/solar are well understood problems, with a growing body of performance logs, which makes them very predictable (and "wind ain't blowing" is much less of a problem than you probably think). That makes cost modeling for storage predictable as well, and storage technology costs are improving as fast as production costs. This isn't magic. The math is very straightforward. As long as renewable + storage + gas is significantly cheaper than coal/nuclear - and it already is - we're going to see the industry shift rapidly in that direction. Is this a perfect, carbon-free solution? No. Is it radically better carbon-wise than the old coal plants? Yes. Is it significantly cheaper than the old coal and nuclear plants? Yes. I'll take two wins and a draw over three losses.
  - celeritascelery 7y ago
    From your analysis sounds like natural gas is the way to go. Consistent, cheap power.
    - beat 7y ago
      Except natural gas is still contributing to global warming, and someday we'll run out of it.
  - manfredo 7y ago
    Your cost estimates are contradicted by a variety of sources. Almost everyone puts coal at a cheaper price than gas. That's why emerging economies like India are so heavily dependent on coal. Furthermore your estimates for nuclear are contradicted by real world performance. How is it that France's electricity is 20-25% cheaper than the EU average despite 70% of it coming from the purportedly more expensive nuclear power?
manfredo 7y ago
Cheaper, but intermittent. Factor in the cost of massive energy storage and the cost is no longer competitive. This is largely academic anyway, the technology to store energy at the capacities necessary to power whole nations on wind and solar hasn't moved off the drawing boards.

Solar and wind are much cheaper. That's why.

by beat 7y ago

Solar and wind are much cheaper. That's why.

They aren't, but let's say for argument that they are. So what? If they can't actually replace coal and natural gas, then what's the point? And they can't. Solar and wind are intermittent power sources, meaning that there are times when you aren't generating any energy because the sun ain't shining and the wind ain't blowing. There is also no battery technology that can scale to the level of cities or nations for a period of hours, days or weeks (and we would need around 8 to 16 weeks of storage to bridge seasonal intermittency). Instead what we're seeing are those regions that heavily invest in solar and wind need to make a comparable investment in natural gas to make them viable.

kragen 7y ago
None of this is correct, except that solar and wind are intermittent, and there are a lot of new gas stations being built, but mostly not because of renewables. Well, and in Antarctica you actually do need to bridge seasonal intermittency; McMurdo isn't going solar anytime soon.
- macspoofing 7y ago
  Which part is incorrect? Can you elaborate?
  - kragen 7y ago
    Yes, but I think I'll do it in Dercuano instead of the comment section here; it'll be a lot more readable that way. I've started a “vulgar misconceptions” category in it, and you've given me a lot of great material here, since it appears you're sincerely misinformed, not trolling.
    - macspoofing 7y ago
      I have no idea what a 'dercuano' is. Can you make a little effort here? Just something that would demonstrate to me that I'm incorrect. I want to be wrong. Right now it sounds like you feel like I'm wrong but you can't actually explain in what way. So instead you've decided to tell me I'm wrong (but not why). And now you've decided to insult me as well. Here's what I see: - We don't have a battery technology that can store enough energy to power an economy for even minutes. In solar/wind deployments we would need batteries to store energy for up to weeks. If there is, please tell me what it is. Lithium Ion doesn't work at that scale and cannot be relied upon to hold weeks of storage. Pumped storage is expensive but more importantly need particular geography to work. There are no examples of this large scale energy storage in practice. - Because we don't have such a battery technology, solar and wind deployments require burning some fossil-fuel (coal, natural gas garbage, corn etc.). We see this in regions that decide to double-down on solar and wind. A perfect example is Germany. As they increase their solar/wind footprint, they are increasing their natural gas dependency by spending billions on NEW pipelines to Russia to ship their natural gas for decades. What do they know that you don't? - There are also NO regions that power their economy wholly on renewables that don't involve nuclear, geothermal and hydro. No regions have plans in the immediate future (e.g. within 10 years) to do so either. - There are a lot of other major issues with solar/wind, such as the huge land area requirements, and the need for large quantities of rare earth materials and lack of recycling. All these issues will be magnified as more and more regions invest in large-scale solar/wind deployments. I shudder at the thought of 100x or 1000x increase in solar cell production and what that would do to the environment, especially as these cells reach the end of their 20-25 year life. I don't think any of those statements are wrong or controversial. I'm not happy that this is the case. I would like solar and wind to be viable, but nobody will ever tell me how they could be without arguing that we will invent some new technology (like a better battery) to make it all work. To me it looks like nuclear, hydro and geothermal are the only real answers (with solar/wind having niche applications). This is a live view of the energy mix of my home province (pop:14m): http://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html http://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html - depending on when you look you may see 98% carbon-free energy generation. Don't need to wait until 2060 (the time that Germany is expected to be carbon-free) To me this looks like the future.
beat 7y ago
Coal is being replaced as fast as they can build new capacity with cheaper sources. Coal costs around $100/Mwh. So does current nuclear (fantasy future tech doesn't count). Fracked natural gas costs around $40/Mwh, new onshore wind costs slightly ore ($42 or so), PV solar costs less than $60/Mwh, but its costs have dropped over 80% in a single decade so it's hard to say where it'll be in even a year, much less another decade or two. Existing coal and nuclear plants are shutting down before end-of-life because they're losing customers to cheaper competition. Intermittency for wind/solar are well understood problems, with a growing body of performance logs, which makes them very predictable (and "wind ain't blowing" is much less of a problem than you probably think). That makes cost modeling for storage predictable as well, and storage technology costs are improving as fast as production costs. This isn't magic. The math is very straightforward. As long as renewable + storage + gas is significantly cheaper than coal/nuclear - and it already is - we're going to see the industry shift rapidly in that direction. Is this a perfect, carbon-free solution? No. Is it radically better carbon-wise than the old coal plants? Yes. Is it significantly cheaper than the old coal and nuclear plants? Yes. I'll take two wins and a draw over three losses.
- celeritascelery 7y ago
  From your analysis sounds like natural gas is the way to go. Consistent, cheap power.
  - beat 7y ago
    Except natural gas is still contributing to global warming, and someday we'll run out of it.
- manfredo 7y ago
  Your cost estimates are contradicted by a variety of sources. Almost everyone puts coal at a cheaper price than gas. That's why emerging economies like India are so heavily dependent on coal. Furthermore your estimates for nuclear are contradicted by real world performance. How is it that France's electricity is 20-25% cheaper than the EU average despite 70% of it coming from the purportedly more expensive nuclear power?

manfredo 7y ago

Cheaper, but intermittent. Factor in the cost of massive energy storage and the cost is no longer competitive. This is largely academic anyway, the technology to store energy at the capacities necessary to power whole nations on wind and solar hasn't moved off the drawing boards.