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It is important to note that utility scale Solar+Storage is still more expensive than combined cycle gas, at $60/MWh versus $45/MWh. This is close enough on a

It is important to note that utility scale Solar+Storage is still more expensive than combined cycle gas, at $60/MWh versus $45/MWh. This is close enough on a purely economic aspect that a carbon tax to allocate costs for the externalities of carbon or more stringent emissions requirements may make it cheaper overall for Solar + Storage!

zdragnar 2y ago
I'm curious how those numbers are calculated. My brother works for a company that installs and supports operations for microgrids and renewable power generation. At the moment, solar is slowing down, because private equity is turning to cobbling together quotes from residential installers as a bargaining tactic to get lower quotes from my brothers company. It's a profoundly bad idea, but if they can get something together and flip it to naive buyers in a few years, they can get away with it. All of that is to say, there's lots of bad cost estimation out there for commercial solar, and I know it'll happen sooner or later, but I'm still skeptical that solar+storage is going to beat carbon in the "sooner" range.
jkic47 2y ago
I am not familiar enough with the topic to comment on the numbers, but do the costs you quoted for renewables factor in externalities associated with reaponsibly recycling dead solar panels?
- mattmaroon 2y ago
  That’s an unnecessary task because the externality is near 0. Modern landfills are cheap, plentiful, and relatively benign to the environment. CO2 emissions are a real problem, landfills are largely an imaginary one. If solar panels are dumpstered at the end of their life cycle but save CO2 emissions, it’s a non-factor. And in any case, they’re made largely of aluminum which is profitable to recycle (which means it will actually happen if its own accord) and a solved problem. Any real negative externalities come in manufacture or installation.
- dalyons 2y ago
  this is such a strange talking point. Do we factor in recycling all the materials a gas plant is made out of? Who cares about panel recycling? bury them if we have to, they're non toxic, and would be an infinitesimally small % of total annual landfill. Such an irrelevant "gotcha" i wonder why people keep repeating it?
  - mattmaroon 2y ago
    It’s a really common environmental red herring that came from oil companies promoting recycling so you’d feel less bad about plastic.
  - jkic47 2y ago
    It wasn't a talking point, but a genuine question. This link from the EPA suggested that EoL solar panels could be considered hazardous waste under RCRA due to heavy metal leaching, which is an "externality" like CO2, and the very reason I asked the question. So, if you believe the EPA, they are not "non-toxic" and could add up to "up to 10 million tonnes" of panels that need to be safely disposed. https://www.epa.gov/hw/end-life-solar-panels-regulations-and-management https://www.epa.gov/hw/end-life-solar-panels-regulations-and... So perhaps you should care about panel recycling?
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  Obviously not, because if you include externalities the fossil fuel costs would be well north of $100.
- kccqzy 2y ago
  Solar panels have such a long service life that recycling them is the next generation's issue. You can't really predict costs for things 20 or 30 years down the road, given how fast the technology is evolving. In fact if some calculation claims they take into account the costs of recycling solar panels, that would make me extremely suspicious of their results because I do not trust their prediction of recycling costs. You can also look at predictions of solar panel manufacturing costs from 20 years ago and see how wildly wrong these predictions were. To illustrate how fast this field is, just this month there have been some new results in recycling them: https://interestingengineering.com/energy/solar-panel-recycling-etching-method https://interestingengineering.com/energy/solar-panel-recycl...
- icehawk 2y ago
  Does the cost of a natural gas electricity factor in externalities associated with responsibly recycling plant?
declan_roberts 2y ago
This is something people are (intentionally?) ignoring. It's very easy to simplify things down to $/kwh and say "look how much cheaper solar is!" A lot of research is going into storage. I would say energy storage is THE challenge of our lifetime.
- tux3 2y ago
  We could also do more to connect grids across timezones You don't need storage if you can sell your afternoon solar to your neighbor who is at night Sun's always shining somewhere else
  - delecti 2y ago
    But people are fairly localized to places where there's land. To pick a somewhat extreme example, the pacific ocean doesn't have a lot of places to put solar panels to sell energy to Europe at night.
  - wakawaka28 2y ago
    That is likely to be very expensive.
  - snapplebobapple 2y ago
    How many megatons of copper would be needed to be mined to make that happen? What would the line loseses look like? where on the planet are there six to eight tine zones next to each other with equal enough demand to make the excess build out work?There is a good reason we dont have this yet
zer00eyz 2y ago
We're still flaring off gas at the well. The cost of gas is as close to zero as it will get. Force storage and usage of that gas (and burning it at the well is better than letting it be a greenhouse gas on its own). Curtailing the waste will change the costs and economics drastically.
- boring-alterego 2y ago
  That's not a rave in rural North Dakota when looking at the night map from space.
pfdietz 2y ago
CC with CO2 emitted will have to go, so the CO2 cost will be set high enough to force that. The question is whether the replacement will be renewables or natural gas with CO2 sequestration (like Allam cycle).
monero-xmr 2y ago
We wouldn’t have a single new gas plant if solar was so overwhelmingly better. There are tradeoffs. On some aspects it’s cheaper, on others more expensive. You can’t have solar when the sun isn’t shining so now you need grid scale storage or some sort of backup power plant.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

zdragnar 2y ago

I'm curious how those numbers are calculated. My brother works for a company that installs and supports operations for microgrids and renewable power generation. At the moment, solar is slowing down, because private equity is turning to cobbling together quotes from residential installers as a bargaining tactic to get lower quotes from my brothers company. It's a profoundly bad idea, but if they can get something together and flip it to naive buyers in a few years, they can get away with it. All of that is to say, there's lots of bad cost estimation out there for commercial solar, and I know it'll happen sooner or later, but I'm still skeptical that solar+storage is going to beat carbon in the "sooner" range.

jkic47 2y ago

I am not familiar enough with the topic to comment on the numbers, but do the costs you quoted for renewables factor in externalities associated with reaponsibly recycling dead solar panels?

mattmaroon 2y ago
That’s an unnecessary task because the externality is near 0. Modern landfills are cheap, plentiful, and relatively benign to the environment. CO2 emissions are a real problem, landfills are largely an imaginary one. If solar panels are dumpstered at the end of their life cycle but save CO2 emissions, it’s a non-factor. And in any case, they’re made largely of aluminum which is profitable to recycle (which means it will actually happen if its own accord) and a solved problem. Any real negative externalities come in manufacture or installation.
dalyons 2y ago
this is such a strange talking point. Do we factor in recycling all the materials a gas plant is made out of? Who cares about panel recycling? bury them if we have to, they're non toxic, and would be an infinitesimally small % of total annual landfill. Such an irrelevant "gotcha" i wonder why people keep repeating it?
- mattmaroon 2y ago
  It’s a really common environmental red herring that came from oil companies promoting recycling so you’d feel less bad about plastic.
- jkic47 2y ago
  It wasn't a talking point, but a genuine question. This link from the EPA suggested that EoL solar panels could be considered hazardous waste under RCRA due to heavy metal leaching, which is an "externality" like CO2, and the very reason I asked the question. So, if you believe the EPA, they are not "non-toxic" and could add up to "up to 10 million tonnes" of panels that need to be safely disposed. https://www.epa.gov/hw/end-life-solar-panels-regulations-and-management https://www.epa.gov/hw/end-life-solar-panels-regulations-and... So perhaps you should care about panel recycling?
bryanlarsen 2y ago
Obviously not, because if you include externalities the fossil fuel costs would be well north of $100.
kccqzy 2y ago
Solar panels have such a long service life that recycling them is the next generation's issue. You can't really predict costs for things 20 or 30 years down the road, given how fast the technology is evolving. In fact if some calculation claims they take into account the costs of recycling solar panels, that would make me extremely suspicious of their results because I do not trust their prediction of recycling costs. You can also look at predictions of solar panel manufacturing costs from 20 years ago and see how wildly wrong these predictions were. To illustrate how fast this field is, just this month there have been some new results in recycling them: https://interestingengineering.com/energy/solar-panel-recycling-etching-method https://interestingengineering.com/energy/solar-panel-recycl...
icehawk 2y ago
Does the cost of a natural gas electricity factor in externalities associated with responsibly recycling plant?

declan_roberts 2y ago

This is something people are (intentionally?) ignoring. It's very easy to simplify things down to $/kwh and say "look how much cheaper solar is!" A lot of research is going into storage. I would say energy storage is THE challenge of our lifetime.

tux3 2y ago
We could also do more to connect grids across timezones You don't need storage if you can sell your afternoon solar to your neighbor who is at night Sun's always shining somewhere else
- delecti 2y ago
  But people are fairly localized to places where there's land. To pick a somewhat extreme example, the pacific ocean doesn't have a lot of places to put solar panels to sell energy to Europe at night.
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  That is likely to be very expensive.
- snapplebobapple 2y ago
  How many megatons of copper would be needed to be mined to make that happen? What would the line loseses look like? where on the planet are there six to eight tine zones next to each other with equal enough demand to make the excess build out work?There is a good reason we dont have this yet

zer00eyz 2y ago

We're still flaring off gas at the well. The cost of gas is as close to zero as it will get. Force storage and usage of that gas (and burning it at the well is better than letting it be a greenhouse gas on its own). Curtailing the waste will change the costs and economics drastically.

boring-alterego 2y ago
That's not a rave in rural North Dakota when looking at the night map from space.

pfdietz 2y ago

CC with CO2 emitted will have to go, so the CO2 cost will be set high enough to force that. The question is whether the replacement will be renewables or natural gas with CO2 sequestration (like Allam cycle).

monero-xmr 2y ago

We wouldn’t have a single new gas plant if solar was so overwhelmingly better. There are tradeoffs. On some aspects it’s cheaper, on others more expensive. You can’t have solar when the sun isn’t shining so now you need grid scale storage or some sort of backup power plant.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]