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Yeah, it’s nice how he just glosses over the impact of subsidies for wind and solar. We could power the whole grid with wood stoves and steam turbines with big

Yeah, it’s nice how he just glosses over the impact of subsidies for wind and solar. We could power the whole grid with wood stoves and steam turbines with big enough subsidies. The fact that a heavily subsidized energy production method outperforms a heavily regulated and unsubsidized one shouldn’t be surprising to anyone.

pfdietz 4y ago
Globally solar and wind are blowing away the competition. Is that ALL subsidized? Of course not. They have really gotten cheaper.
- mcronce 4y ago
  If you ignore the fact that wind and solar work when they want to, you're absolutely right.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    That problem inflates the cost of solar and wind a bit, but it's not enough to save nuclear.
    - mcronce 4y ago
      Quantify "a bit" for me.
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        That depends on the location: https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/
    - m2fkxy 4y ago
      But... it's not about cost. It's about having energy available. If weather reports show overcast and low winds, and your grid runs on wind/solar power only, who cares about their electricity bill? There won't be any kWh available to consume.
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        The cost goes up a bit when you augment solar/wind with enough storage to make it always available. But it's not enough to save nuclear. Of course it's about cost, the cost of achieving that availability. Oh, I see. You are somehow imagining that storage cannot exist. Please stop.
        mcronce 4y ago
        Oh, I see. You are handwaving away the nonexistent storage tech required to stand up a power grid. Please stop. The fact is that without inventing new storage tech, which might or might not be possible, the only options for powering the world are nuclear or burning more carbon. Personally, I'd rather humans still have a viable habitat in a century.
        pfdietz 4y ago
        Batteries don't exist? Pumped hydro doesn't exist? Hydrogen doesn't exist? All these storage technologies exist. The churn right now is to figure out what flavor of storage is going to win, and how much they will end up costing after they go down their experience curves. But if some aliens held a gun to our heads and insisted we build storage now, it could be done. The weirdness from you guys, thinking that obviously existent things don't exist.
        m2fkxy 4y ago
        Hydrogen storage exists on PowerPoint slides that usually slightly understate the overhead required to build new, or adapt current gas infrastructure. Spoiler: those problems are not trivial to overcome. That's why they're mostly PowerPoint projects. Hydro storage works, and along with hydro power, it is usually well exploited in countries that can benefit from it (e.g. alpine). Problem is you tend to run out of valleys and villages to flood after a certain point. Why chase paper or limited impact solutions when massively available and clean ones already exist?
        4y ago
nl 4y ago
The unsubsidized cost of renewables is (way) below the cost of any other source other than gas fired plants (which they are now competitive with)[1]. Subsidies are now mostly about solar vs wind. See for example the discussion in [2] about the tax credits and their effects on solar vs wind builds in the US (note that tariffs on solar panels from China offset some of these subsidies). Also note that they are tax credits, so somewhat different to a direct subsidy payment. Most (non-coal) power generation has tax credits as a subsidy. [3] outlines the tax credit subsidies for the new nuclear plants in Georgia, as well as other subsidies including loan guarantees. [1] https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-... [2] https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/electricity.php https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/electricity.php [3] https://www.georgiapower.com/company/plant-vogtle/vogtle-news/2018-articles/us-congress-to-extend-production-tax-credits.html https://www.georgiapower.com/company/plant-vogtle/vogtle-new...
cycomanic 4y ago
It glosses over that because nuclear has received much more subsidies than wind and solar combined. This is only direct subsidies, so ignoring the cost for the covering the risk of an accident (no insurance is willing to cover that risk) for Fukushima the government covered the cleanup and evacuation bill.

pfdietz 4y ago

Globally solar and wind are blowing away the competition. Is that ALL subsidized? Of course not. They have really gotten cheaper.

mcronce 4y ago
If you ignore the fact that wind and solar work when they want to, you're absolutely right.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  That problem inflates the cost of solar and wind a bit, but it's not enough to save nuclear.
  - mcronce 4y ago
    Quantify "a bit" for me.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      That depends on the location: https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/
  - m2fkxy 4y ago
    But... it's not about cost. It's about having energy available. If weather reports show overcast and low winds, and your grid runs on wind/solar power only, who cares about their electricity bill? There won't be any kWh available to consume.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      The cost goes up a bit when you augment solar/wind with enough storage to make it always available. But it's not enough to save nuclear. Of course it's about cost, the cost of achieving that availability. Oh, I see. You are somehow imagining that storage cannot exist. Please stop.
      - mcronce 4y ago
        Oh, I see. You are handwaving away the nonexistent storage tech required to stand up a power grid. Please stop. The fact is that without inventing new storage tech, which might or might not be possible, the only options for powering the world are nuclear or burning more carbon. Personally, I'd rather humans still have a viable habitat in a century.
        pfdietz 4y ago
        Batteries don't exist? Pumped hydro doesn't exist? Hydrogen doesn't exist? All these storage technologies exist. The churn right now is to figure out what flavor of storage is going to win, and how much they will end up costing after they go down their experience curves. But if some aliens held a gun to our heads and insisted we build storage now, it could be done. The weirdness from you guys, thinking that obviously existent things don't exist.
        m2fkxy 4y ago
        Hydrogen storage exists on PowerPoint slides that usually slightly understate the overhead required to build new, or adapt current gas infrastructure. Spoiler: those problems are not trivial to overcome. That's why they're mostly PowerPoint projects. Hydro storage works, and along with hydro power, it is usually well exploited in countries that can benefit from it (e.g. alpine). Problem is you tend to run out of valleys and villages to flood after a certain point. Why chase paper or limited impact solutions when massively available and clean ones already exist?
        4y ago

nl 4y ago

The unsubsidized cost of renewables is (way) below the cost of any other source other than gas fired plants (which they are now competitive with)[1]. Subsidies are now mostly about solar vs wind. See for example the discussion in [2] about the tax credits and their effects on solar vs wind builds in the US (note that tariffs on solar panels from China offset some of these subsidies). Also note that they are tax credits, so somewhat different to a direct subsidy payment. Most (non-coal) power generation has tax credits as a subsidy. [3] outlines the tax credit subsidies for the new nuclear plants in Georgia, as well as other subsidies including loan guarantees. [1] https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-... [2] https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/electricity.php https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/electricity.php [3] https://www.georgiapower.com/company/plant-vogtle/vogtle-news/2018-articles/us-congress-to-extend-production-tax-credits.html https://www.georgiapower.com/company/plant-vogtle/vogtle-new...

cycomanic 4y ago

It glosses over that because nuclear has received much more subsidies than wind and solar combined. This is only direct subsidies, so ignoring the cost for the covering the risk of an accident (no insurance is willing to cover that risk) for Fukushima the government covered the cleanup and evacuation bill.