5 ms·

Renewables remain cheapest, but cost reductions on hold

25 points by stubish 4y ago

ginko 4y ago
* in Australia
pydry 4y ago
>The status of nuclear SMR has not changed. Following extensive consultation with the Australian electricity industry, report findings do not see any prospect of domestic projects this decade, given the technology’s commercial immaturity and high cost. Similar to Germany's assessment.
- dispat0r 4y ago
  Yeah, the 400 billion which Germany invested in renewables really paid off. I'm pretty sure for the same sum you would get a nuclear reactor or two.
jakewins 4y ago
While this is for Australia, the same is true in 1H2022 for every country Bloomberg NEF tracks except Russia (where NG is cheapest) and Japan, Malaysia and the Philippines (where Coal is cheapest): https://about.bnef.com/blog/cost-of-new-renewables-temporarily-rises-as-inflation-starts-to-bite/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/cost-of-new-renewables-temporari...
sendfoods 4y ago
* Does this study only look at generation costs? What about storage costs? * Does this study look at the fact that the "traditional" grid and energy production technologies will always be necessary, because renewable energy production can drop to zero? This is what increases energy prices in countries that have both renewable and fossil fuel energy production. You are paying for two grids, so to speak
- pydry 4y ago
  Did you read down to the 4th paragraph? It absolutely does. I'd be curious to know if it also includes a "true" nuclear catastrophe insurance price or (as is more common) if theyre assuming the taxpayer will fund 99.5% of a Fukushima-type $800 billion cleanup bill like in US/Europe.
  - yodelshady 4y ago
    I read the original report, which still includes figures of >$100 per kWh for storage, projected for multiple decades (if not in this report, in others). For a higher-latitude nation, we need TWh, probably tens of, for even a small nation. Be assured I have crunched these numbers and confirmed against our current best wind+PV resource data. In other words, if we run a nuclear plant and deliberately induce a, as you say, "Fukushima-style cleaup", we are about comparable. That's how expensive proper storage is. "Storage will save us", is frankly, an irresponsible lie that has killed.
    - pydry 4y ago
      Australia is already building a lot of pumped storage. E.g. snowy 2 alone has 350 GWh of storage. Im skeptical of the idea that this + solar + wind costs more than nuclear + this even without free catastrophe insurance but id be curious to see your numbers. (Obviously some form of storage would also be necessary for nuclear power which cant adjust output to match variable demand). It is pretty cheap to build pumped storage, relatively. Pumping water uphill isnt too complicated. Until a few months ago though the cheapest "battery" was still natural gas. Pumped storage is an unsexy 100 year old technology and it doesnt have a huge lobby doing public relations like the nuke industry so when big projects go ahead we tend not to hear about it but there are tons in the pipeline all over.
      - breadloaf 4y ago
        That's all is valid only if you have geography and water for such stunt.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Future cost reductions predicted to possibly be on hold for 12 months, before resuming. Actual real factual prices still reduced in the last 12 months.
- Brometheus 4y ago
  I don't know who you are, but you brighten my day whenever I stumble upon your posts :D
- dzhiurgis 4y ago
  > Actual real factual prices still reduced in the last 12 month Ahhh the bright side of housing and cost of living doubling up!
baybal2 4y ago
oldgradstudent 4y ago
Great, we can stop all incentives for renewable energy now that it is the cheapest way to generate energy. More seriously, where's the catch?
- pydry 4y ago
  We still need to build quicker and build more. This just demonstrates which forms of power would make effective use of taxpayer subsidies.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago
  We can definitely stop incentivize renewables when operators of fossil fuel plants pay for their externalities (including consequences of climate change). Spoiler: that's impossible because they would immediately go bankrupt.
  - gregwebs 4y ago
    No need to get into climate change. The externality of pollution alone is much greater than any subsidy. Natural gas wouldn’t go bankrupt and it’s necessary to have natural gas peaker plants when you have renewables. In this report they state that the cost of fossil fuels is 2.9 trillion in the US alone (this number is higher than the IRENA report and some other analyses). https://energyandcleanair.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Cost-of-fossil-fuels-briefing.pdf https://energyandcleanair.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/... But we should look at each fuel individually. According to one study, air pollution costs of coal are 32 cents/kWh, 13 cents/kWh for oil, and 2 cents/kWh for natural gas. Other studies have come up with lower amounts. https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/hidden-costs-fossil-fuels https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/hidden-costs-fossil-fuels
- kaon123 4y ago
  The catch is that other forms of energy are also greatly incentivised. Arguably even more than renewables (sorry can't be bothered to find a source). I live in a European country, and the first reaction by most governments here to rising gas prises was to subsidise gas [insert captain Picard facepalm here].
londons_explore 4y ago
I want to see a "solar dispenser" that can drive very slowly across open land, leaving behind a trail of solar panels. Installation costs are a big part of current solar farms, and a big part of that is the labour to assemble frames, do up all the bolts, connect all the wires, etc. If we could make a single truck drive along at 0.5 mph leaving a trail of installed panels, it would really make installation far cheaper. The truck could take as 'input' a container of solar panels with the necessary legs and supports, maybe even concrete bases, all ready to go, shipped direct from the factory. Other components could be combined to save costs too - for example, the inverter could be built into the panels. The panel frame and the mounting frame could be combined to save weight and assembly time. In a big line of panels, only the end ones have high mechanical wind loads, so middle ones could use far more lightweight plastic supports. Then creation of a 1 acre solar farm could be as little as a couple of days work for 2 people driving the truck.
- i5heu 4y ago
  Yes! this would be amazing! Since I've seen these Images, I am kinda amazed by the potential of this idea. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/dOkXJ1 https://www.artstation.com/artwork/dOkXJ1
  - cinntaile 4y ago
    It reminds me a little of those large coal excavators, but the similarity is probably just because these are big machines.
- algo_trader 4y ago
  > I want to see a "solar dispenser" that can drive very slowly across open land We gotta you covered (ha! pun!) [1]. [1] https://5b.co/web/image/website/1/social_default_image https://5b.co/web/image/website/1/social_default_image
- helloguillecl 4y ago
  I’d want the same but to place them on top of unused rail tracks. This way we would have a solid base to have them installed and possibly a lot of land available. The machine would need to support different gaugages.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
asdefghyk 4y ago
However I say the amount of storage would need to be capable of supply several days in a row (because of no renewable energy ) We have just come out of a rainy period where it rained or overcast every day for a few weeks in SE QLD region I'm skeptical that the amount of storage and transmission capacity has been included to handle such extended periods of no renewable generation.
- mepiethree 4y ago
  Form Energy is a unicorn company that exists specifically to solve this problem with their multi-day iron air battery. I’m sure there are other companies working on this as well..
  - scythe 4y ago
    Oh no, it's another pie-in-the-sky battery company with no papers. I'm serious: running a search for their Chief Science Officer, Yet-Ming Chiang, with 'iron battery' provides no relevant results: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C47&q=yet+ming+chiang+iron+battery&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C47&q=yet... And of course YM Chiang is the only remotely chemistry-related official on their Team page: https://formenergy.com/team/ https://formenergy.com/team/ There's a serious plausibility problem with an "iron-air battery": the electrolytic reduction of iron oxide has been a holy grail of steelmaking roughly since we learned what electricity is. If you could reduce iron oxide at room temperature with electricity, you would revolutionize the steel industry and rapidly eliminate ~4% of global GHG emissions. See e.g.: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30348046 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30348046 Oddly, this is the second scammy iron battery company I've heard about in less than two months: https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=scythe&comments=t https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=scythe&comments=t Meanwhile, real companies with real technology like Gelion [1] and EOS [2] are making real batteries and not getting attention they deserve. Gelion's lead researcher actually worked on the technology they're selling [3] and EOS mentions 21 patents on their technology page, and they're willing to tell you which ones [4]. This is what real science looks like: they want to show you how it works. 1: https://gelion.com/gelion-endure-battery/ https://gelion.com/gelion-endure-battery/ 2: https://eosenergystorage.com/products-technology/ https://eosenergystorage.com/products-technology/ 3: https://www.sydney.edu.au/nano/industry-partners/case-studies/gelion-technologies.html https://www.sydney.edu.au/nano/industry-partners/case-studie... 4: https://eosenergystorage.com/patents/ https://eosenergystorage.com/patents/

25 points by stubish 4y ago

* in Australia

>The status of nuclear SMR has not changed. Following extensive consultation with the Australian electricity industry, report findings do not see any prospect of domestic projects this decade, given the technology’s commercial immaturity and high cost. Similar to Germany's assessment.

dispat0r 4y ago
Yeah, the 400 billion which Germany invested in renewables really paid off. I'm pretty sure for the same sum you would get a nuclear reactor or two.

jakewins 4y ago

While this is for Australia, the same is true in 1H2022 for every country Bloomberg NEF tracks except Russia (where NG is cheapest) and Japan, Malaysia and the Philippines (where Coal is cheapest): https://about.bnef.com/blog/cost-of-new-renewables-temporarily-rises-as-inflation-starts-to-bite/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/cost-of-new-renewables-temporari...

sendfoods 4y ago

* Does this study only look at generation costs? What about storage costs? * Does this study look at the fact that the "traditional" grid and energy production technologies will always be necessary, because renewable energy production can drop to zero? This is what increases energy prices in countries that have both renewable and fossil fuel energy production. You are paying for two grids, so to speak

pydry 4y ago
Did you read down to the 4th paragraph? It absolutely does. I'd be curious to know if it also includes a "true" nuclear catastrophe insurance price or (as is more common) if theyre assuming the taxpayer will fund 99.5% of a Fukushima-type $800 billion cleanup bill like in US/Europe.
- yodelshady 4y ago
  I read the original report, which still includes figures of >$100 per kWh for storage, projected for multiple decades (if not in this report, in others). For a higher-latitude nation, we need TWh, probably tens of, for even a small nation. Be assured I have crunched these numbers and confirmed against our current best wind+PV resource data. In other words, if we run a nuclear plant and deliberately induce a, as you say, "Fukushima-style cleaup", we are about comparable. That's how expensive proper storage is. "Storage will save us", is frankly, an irresponsible lie that has killed.
  - pydry 4y ago
    Australia is already building a lot of pumped storage. E.g. snowy 2 alone has 350 GWh of storage. Im skeptical of the idea that this + solar + wind costs more than nuclear + this even without free catastrophe insurance but id be curious to see your numbers. (Obviously some form of storage would also be necessary for nuclear power which cant adjust output to match variable demand). It is pretty cheap to build pumped storage, relatively. Pumping water uphill isnt too complicated. Until a few months ago though the cheapest "battery" was still natural gas. Pumped storage is an unsexy 100 year old technology and it doesnt have a huge lobby doing public relations like the nuke industry so when big projects go ahead we tend not to hear about it but there are tons in the pipeline all over.
    - breadloaf 4y ago
      That's all is valid only if you have geography and water for such stunt.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

Future cost reductions predicted to possibly be on hold for 12 months, before resuming. Actual real factual prices still reduced in the last 12 months.

Brometheus 4y ago
I don't know who you are, but you brighten my day whenever I stumble upon your posts :D
dzhiurgis 4y ago
> Actual real factual prices still reduced in the last 12 month Ahhh the bright side of housing and cost of living doubling up!

baybal2 4y ago

oldgradstudent 4y ago

Great, we can stop all incentives for renewable energy now that it is the cheapest way to generate energy. More seriously, where's the catch?

pydry 4y ago
We still need to build quicker and build more. This just demonstrates which forms of power would make effective use of taxpayer subsidies.
rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago
We can definitely stop incentivize renewables when operators of fossil fuel plants pay for their externalities (including consequences of climate change). Spoiler: that's impossible because they would immediately go bankrupt.
- gregwebs 4y ago
  No need to get into climate change. The externality of pollution alone is much greater than any subsidy. Natural gas wouldn’t go bankrupt and it’s necessary to have natural gas peaker plants when you have renewables. In this report they state that the cost of fossil fuels is 2.9 trillion in the US alone (this number is higher than the IRENA report and some other analyses). https://energyandcleanair.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Cost-of-fossil-fuels-briefing.pdf https://energyandcleanair.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/... But we should look at each fuel individually. According to one study, air pollution costs of coal are 32 cents/kWh, 13 cents/kWh for oil, and 2 cents/kWh for natural gas. Other studies have come up with lower amounts. https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/hidden-costs-fossil-fuels https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/hidden-costs-fossil-fuels
kaon123 4y ago
The catch is that other forms of energy are also greatly incentivised. Arguably even more than renewables (sorry can't be bothered to find a source). I live in a European country, and the first reaction by most governments here to rising gas prises was to subsidise gas [insert captain Picard facepalm here].

londons_explore 4y ago

I want to see a "solar dispenser" that can drive very slowly across open land, leaving behind a trail of solar panels. Installation costs are a big part of current solar farms, and a big part of that is the labour to assemble frames, do up all the bolts, connect all the wires, etc. If we could make a single truck drive along at 0.5 mph leaving a trail of installed panels, it would really make installation far cheaper. The truck could take as 'input' a container of solar panels with the necessary legs and supports, maybe even concrete bases, all ready to go, shipped direct from the factory. Other components could be combined to save costs too - for example, the inverter could be built into the panels. The panel frame and the mounting frame could be combined to save weight and assembly time. In a big line of panels, only the end ones have high mechanical wind loads, so middle ones could use far more lightweight plastic supports. Then creation of a 1 acre solar farm could be as little as a couple of days work for 2 people driving the truck.

i5heu 4y ago
Yes! this would be amazing! Since I've seen these Images, I am kinda amazed by the potential of this idea. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/dOkXJ1 https://www.artstation.com/artwork/dOkXJ1
- cinntaile 4y ago
  It reminds me a little of those large coal excavators, but the similarity is probably just because these are big machines.
algo_trader 4y ago
> I want to see a "solar dispenser" that can drive very slowly across open land We gotta you covered (ha! pun!) [1]. [1] https://5b.co/web/image/website/1/social_default_image https://5b.co/web/image/website/1/social_default_image
helloguillecl 4y ago
I’d want the same but to place them on top of unused rail tracks. This way we would have a solid base to have them installed and possibly a lot of land available. The machine would need to support different gaugages.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

asdefghyk 4y ago

However I say the amount of storage would need to be capable of supply several days in a row (because of no renewable energy ) We have just come out of a rainy period where it rained or overcast every day for a few weeks in SE QLD region I'm skeptical that the amount of storage and transmission capacity has been included to handle such extended periods of no renewable generation.

mepiethree 4y ago
Form Energy is a unicorn company that exists specifically to solve this problem with their multi-day iron air battery. I’m sure there are other companies working on this as well..
- scythe 4y ago
  Oh no, it's another pie-in-the-sky battery company with no papers. I'm serious: running a search for their Chief Science Officer, Yet-Ming Chiang, with 'iron battery' provides no relevant results: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C47&q=yet+ming+chiang+iron+battery&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C47&q=yet... And of course YM Chiang is the only remotely chemistry-related official on their Team page: https://formenergy.com/team/ https://formenergy.com/team/ There's a serious plausibility problem with an "iron-air battery": the electrolytic reduction of iron oxide has been a holy grail of steelmaking roughly since we learned what electricity is. If you could reduce iron oxide at room temperature with electricity, you would revolutionize the steel industry and rapidly eliminate ~4% of global GHG emissions. See e.g.: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30348046 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30348046 Oddly, this is the second scammy iron battery company I've heard about in less than two months: https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=scythe&comments=t https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=scythe&comments=t Meanwhile, real companies with real technology like Gelion [1] and EOS [2] are making real batteries and not getting attention they deserve. Gelion's lead researcher actually worked on the technology they're selling [3] and EOS mentions 21 patents on their technology page, and they're willing to tell you which ones [4]. This is what real science looks like: they want to show you how it works. 1: https://gelion.com/gelion-endure-battery/ https://gelion.com/gelion-endure-battery/ 2: https://eosenergystorage.com/products-technology/ https://eosenergystorage.com/products-technology/ 3: https://www.sydney.edu.au/nano/industry-partners/case-studies/gelion-technologies.html https://www.sydney.edu.au/nano/industry-partners/case-studie... 4: https://eosenergystorage.com/patents/ https://eosenergystorage.com/patents/