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There's a major flaw in the argument of this article. They calculate what Germany has payed in the past decades, including the very early phase of solar+wind de
by hannob 7y ago
There's a major flaw in the argument of this article.
They calculate what Germany has payed in the past decades, including the very early phase of solar+wind development.
You can of course compare any number of things, whether it makes sense or not.
But for the question how to proceed with future energy it's completely irrelevant what solar+wind costed in 2005. We only care what it costs now and in the future. "Solar was super expensive in 2005, so we shouldn't build cheap solar in 2019" is not a useful or logical argument.
The key thing about the german renewable subsidies (and a few other countries, but particularly for solar it was mostly germany) is that they brought wind+solar from being overly expensive exotic technologies to cheap mass technologies.
- _0ffh 7y ago>They calculate what Germany has payed in the past decades, including the very early phase of solar+wind development Yeah, while also ignoring the untold Billions in subsidies from the early stages of nuclear power. It's rather hypocritical.
- a2800276 7y agoOr the untold gazillions in indirect subsidies from not requiring nuclear power plants to be insured for damages arising from catastrophic incidents...
- whalebird 7y agoThe issue is that you won't find an insurance company willing to insure a risk that they can't calculate. There's too little data to find a price here. In the end, the government always bears the cost, because any catastrophic event will likely bankrupt the operator involved. I think it's fair to count these catastrophic costs as subsidies, but they're not "untold gazillions". Estimates for the Fukushima disaster go up to about a trillion[1]. At the other side, the costs for Germany's "Energiewende" will run up over half a trillion[2], with relatively little to show for it[3]. [1] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/how-much-does-germanys-energy-transition-cost https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/how-much-does-ger... [2] https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/16/fukushimas-final-costs-will-approach-one-trillion-dollars-just-for-nuclear-disaster/ https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/16/fukushimas-final-costs-... [3] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/energiewende-scores-mixed-results-mckinsey-index https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/energiewende-scores-mix...
- ThomPete 7y agoHowever nuclear is calculated at true cost, solar and wind is not. And nuclear is also calculated in the past plus its been underdeveloped the last 30 years. Backup energy for wind and solar is not included wich have to be either coal, gas, oil or nuclear to compensate for the low capacity factor wind and solar which is at 20-40 compared to nuclear which is at 90. So even if wind and solar were cheaper it only provides at the will of the weather. I would love to se a proper non-partisan calculation where everything gets calculated in.
- atq2119 7y ago> However nuclear is calculated at true cost That seems highly doubtful. The amount of explicit and implicit subsidies to nuclear power via government programs is massive. And then add the fact that nuclear power is exempt from having to pay for adequate insurance...
- ZeroGravitas 7y agoThere's lots of these in existence, basically every government has run them while deciding what policies to adopt. Here's a nice readable one that's fact checking a right-wing former Prime Minister who claimed that renewables plus storage was cheaper than coal or nuclear: https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-12/is-renewable-power-cheaper-than-coal-nuclear-malcolm-turnbull/11495558 https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-12/is-renewable-power...
- the_why_of_y 7y agoHow exactly is the insurance that nuclear gets for catastrophic events priced in? You know, the insurance that no private insurer is willing to offer, so what's going to happen is the nuclear operating company declares bankruptcy and the tax payer pays for the cleanup.
- ThomPete 7y agoThe operating company is insured and pays for the cleanup.
- 7y ago
- thiht 7y agoYou do realize the exact same argument applies to nuclear as well, right?
- emsign 7y agoYup, we would never had gotten nuclear power if it wasn't for the massive subsidies from the governments, the electric companies didn't want it. I wonder if Mr. Wang has added those subsidies into the equation.
- belorn 7y agoThis sound very similar to David Hume theory of "problem of induction", as any assumption that the past predicts the future can be wrong. Personally I think there is value in looking at past decision and seeing what the outcomes were. We can compare two nations like France and Germany and objectively say who has contributed more to global warming. We can also calculate how much they paid for it. The cost side is less relevant as I don't live in either country, but the global warming does impact me so I have some stake in the outcome. Ban globally the act of burning fossil fuels in power plants. That fixes the outcome I want. The cost questions can be address politically within each country.
- ZeroGravitas 7y agoYou might assume this is just some techno-weenie blogger that's getting too excited about one of his hobbies, but if you look at the official submissions from companies aiming to build nuclear in Australia you'll see that this worrying lack of interest in objective truth is endemic to the industry. Everything else apart, trusting someone with Billions of dollars after they try to pass off obviously out of date info on their competitor in order to con you into supporting them seems unwise. Even being able to come up with vaguely convincing false information would give you more confidence in their abilities to successfully deliver such a project.
- whalebird 7y ago> You might assume this is just some techno-weenie blogger that's getting too excited about one of his hobbies, but if you look at the official submissions from companies aiming to build nuclear in Australia you'll see that this worrying lack of interest in objective truth is endemic to the industry. It is endemic to human nature. There's no reason to believe that any industry is being particularly honest about their own raison d'être.
- sunstone 7y agoYup, this is a classic example of cherry picking your data.