5 ms·

Wind and solar power are even more expensive than is commonly thought

33 points by mblakele 12y ago

lotsofmangos 12y ago
For solar and wind to make sense it is all about the storage in the short term and global interconnects in the long term, rather than the current system of trying to balance against a baseload. And nuclear is great in many ways, but you cannot have a global energy solution that you couldn't happily give to your enemies, whatever the price per watt is.
- crdoconnor 12y ago
  Until the nuclear energy liability cap gets pushed into at LEAST the hundreds of billions range rather than the paltry $375 million per plant it is now, I'm not gonna believe all of the claims that it's completely safe either. If the risk of disaster/need for cleanup truly is infinitesimal as the industry and its cheerleaders keep saying, why is the taxpayer still shouldering basically all of the insurance costs?
  - fauigerzigerk 12y ago
    I think it's because insurance models stop working once the probability of an accident gets extremely small and the possible damages of any accident get extremely large. An insurance claim of hundereds of billions would wipe out any and all insurance companies instantly. Insurance companies have to make statistics based rational decisions, but society as a whole is always forced to make decisions that cannot be statistically proven to be rational in an economic sense. There is no way to take out insurance against some virus strain escaping a lab and killing 90% of the world's population. There is no way to insure against the effects of a worldwide bank run. There is simply a point where insurance stops working and politics has to kick in.
    - crdoconnor 12y ago
      This is the reason there has to be a cap for nuclear power to exist, but not the reason the cap has to be so small. $375 mil is nothing in the context of cleanup costs. On the whole I would find the advocates of nuclear energy safety a lot more convincing if they put their entire fortunes on the line. I would like to see guaranteed financial ruin for any of the executives involved in a potential Fukushima and shareholders totally wiped out. That still wouldn't put much of a dent in cleanup costs, but it would prevent moral hazard somewhat. This subsidy also never shows up on any models comparing solar, coal and nuclear. Similarly neither does global warming induced environmental catastrophe. BECAUSE you simply can't put a $ price on the likelihood of these events occurring or their cost they (the OP modelers) just ignore the tail risk. Anybody who remembers the events of the financial crisis should find that pattern disturbingly familiar. But, doing so is useful if you're shilling for natural gas/nuclear energy - just as assuming away financial tail risk was useful for executives at AIG.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
crdoconnor 12y ago
When looking at these graphs, it pays to take a peek at who exactly is behind them. Modeling the costs and benefits of different forms of energy (especially environmental costs) is extremely easy to fudge. There are all sorts of assumptions you have to plug in to the model where you could covertly insert a policy bias. If the 'measurer' had an agenda, it wouldn't be hard for them to push the figures one way or another and still keep the model looking clean-ish from the outset. Bearing that in mind, it's worth pointing out that Exxon-Mobil is a major donor to the brookings institute - they're also part of the group ALEC that has been leading a massive attack on rooftop solar in the last 18 months. One of those attacks, for instance, has been to increase the price by slapping up to 35% tariffs on Chinese panels through (mostly false) accusations of dumping. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if this were counted in the cost model, but subsidies were discounted. Another thing they've been doing recently is to try to 'greenwash' natural gas - to make it look like the cleaner alternative to coal to capitalize on the fracking boom. One of the assumptions I can virtually guarantee that they've made here, for instance, is that global warming effect of methane leakage (which is very significant) has been entirely discounted.
- testrun 12y ago
  Can you give a citation of how much methane leakage occurs?
  - crdoconnor 12y ago
    Exactly how much? No, because unlike CO2, methane leakage is not being continuously measured. The fracking industry is not interested in measuring (duh) and the government is not forcing them to do so. Here's a study that tries to hazard an estimate in leakage from one source though: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/20/fracking-wells-pennsylvania-leaking-methane http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/20/fracking-...
- ZeroGravitas 12y ago
  One of the comments points to this response from the American Wind Energy Association: http://aweablog.org/blog/post/fact-check-wind-power-is-a-costeffective-way-to-reduce-emissions http://aweablog.org/blog/post/fact-check-wind-power-is-a-cos... They suggest his biggest distortions are using a) a historical figure for wind costs averaged over a decade even though it's got much cheaper over that time span and b) counting each year in that decade equally even though the amount of wind energy produced grew rapidly, c) using a figure from a press release for gas capacity rather than actual figures which would be 50% lower.
spingsprong 12y ago
"Wind power is not generated on a calm day, nor solar power at night, so conventional power plants must be kept on standby—but are not included in the levelised cost of renewables." Solar not generating power at night is a good thing. Demand for electricity is lower at night, and turning on and off conventional power stations is not ideal. Solar helps level things out, meaning you need fewer conventional power stations to be built and kept in standby.
- tomjen3 12y ago
  One a really stormy day I want to be able to hide under my electric blanket, with a cup of tea, in front of the tv/computer. That requires electricity, but those solar panels aren't going to be very effective when it is overcast and rainy. Why not just go for getting a thorium reactor to work and then use them instead?
  - crdoconnor 12y ago
    Solar panels still generate power when it is overcast. Not as much as on sunny days, obviously, but a lot more than most people give them credit for. On stormy days, also, wind generators will be generating a lot more power than usual. They are more than likely capable of heating your blanket. Although less efficient, power on days when intermittency is high can also be transferred from pumped water storage and from hundreds of miles away where it might be sunny and windy.
    - Guthur 12y ago
      Depends on how stormy, Many wind turbines have a max wind speed rating, above which they will be shutdown in some way.
      - crdoconnor 12y ago
        Are there figures on the actual effects of this? How often it happens/the level by which electricity output is reduced?
ghouse 12y ago
Wind and solar power are commonly thought to be very expensive -- more expensive than conventional thermal fuel sources for generating electricity. And that's true in areas where there is little sun, or little wind. Though, in windy areas (the US great plains) or sunny areas (Atacama Desert in Chile, much of Africa, Australia (outside the coasts), and Southwestern US), these are the least expensive source of new capacity and that's reflected in the free market -- what is getting built. Until governments quit subsidizing _all_ source of energy at _all) points in the value chain, the market can't really respond efficiently.
hristov 12y ago
The research is provided by the Brookings institution which is more public relations agency than a research institution. The only thing you can take away from this "research" is that someone paid to get this result.
Klapaucius 12y ago
The issue of intermittency is in my opinion vastly undercommunicated in public debate about renewable energy, at least in Europe. A diagram like this [1] can be used to illustrate the issue. Although this diagram is from a hypothetical UK modeling exercise for 2020, the broader point it makes is valid. On the diagram we see how daily electricity demand follow a predictable daily curve, and the different sources of electricity that are used to meet that demand. We see that electricity from nuclear and coal provide the most stable component, whereas power from wind (green) varies hugely in time. Gas power, which can be turned on and off quickly, is used to fill the gaps in demand. At times, there is almost enough wind that no generation from fossil fuels is necessary, but at other times most of the electricity has to come from burning gas (I've seen similar scenario graphs where wind occasionally fills more than 100% of the demand, but still gas power will be needed for a large component of the energy mix when integrating over time). The point is that without some incredible advance in energy storage capability on a scale that is not on the radar today, we are stuck with an energy system where a significant component needs to be non-solar and non-wind. From a climate perspective, the best options would then be nuclear electricity or electricity from fossil fuel plans equipped with CCS technology (which is now belatedly emerging). (Disclaimer: I work with CCS-related technology development). [1] http://www.timera-energy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Hourly-Renewables-Penetration.jpg http://www.timera-energy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Hour... (link to page from which picture is taken: http://www.timera-energy.com/uk-power/getting-to-grips-with-intermittency/ http://www.timera-energy.com/uk-power/getting-to-grips-with-...
- seanflyon 12y ago
  It is worth noting that demand is highest during the day and higher still on bright sunny days. This means that solar can provide a significant portion of our power before intermittency becomes a problem. Your point is still correct that without massive grid storage we will still need some other (not solar or wind) power source.
GoodGuy 12y ago
You can be 100% assured that if anybody wants to talk to you about "the costs of solar power" then it is a rep of the Neandertalers-Industry in full smokescreen operation mode. These discussions are a great example for how propaganda works. It does not make sense to calculate the "costs" of freedom, independence and the health of your family. Also the real costs of unresolved nuclear waste problems, huge wars for securing oil supply and the contamination of our ground water by primitive fracking techniques are... titanic. We need more young people in the US to take over the general political and economic discussion. Old and greedy neandertalers are destroying the living environment of young people, not ok, must change. Homo sapiens, sapiens (!), take over please...
- ende 12y ago
  ad hominid attack?
tomohawk 12y ago
I have enough photovoltaic solar on my roof to provide all the electricity I need over the course of a year. I remain grid connected because the power from the roof rarely matches the demand during any given hour. Intermittency is a real issue that any realistic grid will need to take into account. Rather than the political posturing driven approach we seem to have today, what we really need is sober, clear eyed engineering and financing to solve this. It was heartening to read about the VC funded fusion projects the other day.
codexjourneys 12y ago
I'm not sure why wind and solar power are always mentioned together, other than they both are forms of "alt energy." From a U.S. perspective, solar power is less productive in the eastern half of the U.S., so I'm not sure why we haven't just concentrated on blanketing stretches of desert in the U.S. West with solar farms. This is the highest-reward area, not attaching solar panels to someone's roof in Wisconsin. I think that focusing on high-yield areas with lots of sunlight might be one way to make costs fall. Done right, it might fairly well take care of much of our energy needs. Source: http://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html http://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html Conversely, I don't think wind power can come close to taking care of large percentages of our energy needs. It's subsidized, so it happens, but it's not The Answer (imho).
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  Solar and wind are the two most abundant, additionally scalable, and efficiently utilizeable forms of renewable/sustainable energy available. Solar is the most abundant, but on a density/device basis is somewhat less cost-effective than wind, which is preferable locations (not all) provides a high return for investment. Overall, wind energy is less abundant than solar (it's effectively a byproduct of solar insolation). Other renewables: geothermal, hydro, biomass, tidal, and wave power generally have issues with scalability, costs, or both. Geo, hydro, and biomass actually do already contribute significantly to energy budgets, and costs are fairly good, but their growth potential is limited. Tidal and wave power are limited and require large capital and operational expenses to be effectively utilized. Nuclear's a wildcard, though I'm generally skeptical. There are a number of sources which give detailed breakouts of renewable energy potential or possible scenarios. David MacKay's Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air, and Jacobson & Delucchi's "Providing all global energy with wind, water, and solar power" give a pretty good overview. Turns out that with solar + wind and some form(s) of storage, you can approach a pretty good overall budget.

33 points by mblakele 12y ago

For solar and wind to make sense it is all about the storage in the short term and global interconnects in the long term, rather than the current system of trying to balance against a baseload. And nuclear is great in many ways, but you cannot have a global energy solution that you couldn't happily give to your enemies, whatever the price per watt is.

crdoconnor 12y ago
Until the nuclear energy liability cap gets pushed into at LEAST the hundreds of billions range rather than the paltry $375 million per plant it is now, I'm not gonna believe all of the claims that it's completely safe either. If the risk of disaster/need for cleanup truly is infinitesimal as the industry and its cheerleaders keep saying, why is the taxpayer still shouldering basically all of the insurance costs?
- fauigerzigerk 12y ago
  I think it's because insurance models stop working once the probability of an accident gets extremely small and the possible damages of any accident get extremely large. An insurance claim of hundereds of billions would wipe out any and all insurance companies instantly. Insurance companies have to make statistics based rational decisions, but society as a whole is always forced to make decisions that cannot be statistically proven to be rational in an economic sense. There is no way to take out insurance against some virus strain escaping a lab and killing 90% of the world's population. There is no way to insure against the effects of a worldwide bank run. There is simply a point where insurance stops working and politics has to kick in.
  - crdoconnor 12y ago
    This is the reason there has to be a cap for nuclear power to exist, but not the reason the cap has to be so small. $375 mil is nothing in the context of cleanup costs. On the whole I would find the advocates of nuclear energy safety a lot more convincing if they put their entire fortunes on the line. I would like to see guaranteed financial ruin for any of the executives involved in a potential Fukushima and shareholders totally wiped out. That still wouldn't put much of a dent in cleanup costs, but it would prevent moral hazard somewhat. This subsidy also never shows up on any models comparing solar, coal and nuclear. Similarly neither does global warming induced environmental catastrophe. BECAUSE you simply can't put a $ price on the likelihood of these events occurring or their cost they (the OP modelers) just ignore the tail risk. Anybody who remembers the events of the financial crisis should find that pattern disturbingly familiar. But, doing so is useful if you're shilling for natural gas/nuclear energy - just as assuming away financial tail risk was useful for executives at AIG.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

crdoconnor 12y ago

When looking at these graphs, it pays to take a peek at who exactly is behind them. Modeling the costs and benefits of different forms of energy (especially environmental costs) is extremely easy to fudge. There are all sorts of assumptions you have to plug in to the model where you could covertly insert a policy bias. If the 'measurer' had an agenda, it wouldn't be hard for them to push the figures one way or another and still keep the model looking clean-ish from the outset. Bearing that in mind, it's worth pointing out that Exxon-Mobil is a major donor to the brookings institute - they're also part of the group ALEC that has been leading a massive attack on rooftop solar in the last 18 months. One of those attacks, for instance, has been to increase the price by slapping up to 35% tariffs on Chinese panels through (mostly false) accusations of dumping. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if this were counted in the cost model, but subsidies were discounted. Another thing they've been doing recently is to try to 'greenwash' natural gas - to make it look like the cleaner alternative to coal to capitalize on the fracking boom. One of the assumptions I can virtually guarantee that they've made here, for instance, is that global warming effect of methane leakage (which is very significant) has been entirely discounted.

testrun 12y ago
Can you give a citation of how much methane leakage occurs?
- crdoconnor 12y ago
  Exactly how much? No, because unlike CO2, methane leakage is not being continuously measured. The fracking industry is not interested in measuring (duh) and the government is not forcing them to do so. Here's a study that tries to hazard an estimate in leakage from one source though: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/20/fracking-wells-pennsylvania-leaking-methane http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/20/fracking-...
ZeroGravitas 12y ago
One of the comments points to this response from the American Wind Energy Association: http://aweablog.org/blog/post/fact-check-wind-power-is-a-costeffective-way-to-reduce-emissions http://aweablog.org/blog/post/fact-check-wind-power-is-a-cos... They suggest his biggest distortions are using a) a historical figure for wind costs averaged over a decade even though it's got much cheaper over that time span and b) counting each year in that decade equally even though the amount of wind energy produced grew rapidly, c) using a figure from a press release for gas capacity rather than actual figures which would be 50% lower.

spingsprong 12y ago

"Wind power is not generated on a calm day, nor solar power at night, so conventional power plants must be kept on standby—but are not included in the levelised cost of renewables." Solar not generating power at night is a good thing. Demand for electricity is lower at night, and turning on and off conventional power stations is not ideal. Solar helps level things out, meaning you need fewer conventional power stations to be built and kept in standby.

tomjen3 12y ago
One a really stormy day I want to be able to hide under my electric blanket, with a cup of tea, in front of the tv/computer. That requires electricity, but those solar panels aren't going to be very effective when it is overcast and rainy. Why not just go for getting a thorium reactor to work and then use them instead?
- crdoconnor 12y ago
  Solar panels still generate power when it is overcast. Not as much as on sunny days, obviously, but a lot more than most people give them credit for. On stormy days, also, wind generators will be generating a lot more power than usual. They are more than likely capable of heating your blanket. Although less efficient, power on days when intermittency is high can also be transferred from pumped water storage and from hundreds of miles away where it might be sunny and windy.
  - Guthur 12y ago
    Depends on how stormy, Many wind turbines have a max wind speed rating, above which they will be shutdown in some way.
    - crdoconnor 12y ago
      Are there figures on the actual effects of this? How often it happens/the level by which electricity output is reduced?

ghouse 12y ago

Wind and solar power are commonly thought to be very expensive -- more expensive than conventional thermal fuel sources for generating electricity. And that's true in areas where there is little sun, or little wind. Though, in windy areas (the US great plains) or sunny areas (Atacama Desert in Chile, much of Africa, Australia (outside the coasts), and Southwestern US), these are the least expensive source of new capacity and that's reflected in the free market -- what is getting built. Until governments quit subsidizing _all_ source of energy at _all) points in the value chain, the market can't really respond efficiently.

hristov 12y ago

The research is provided by the Brookings institution which is more public relations agency than a research institution. The only thing you can take away from this "research" is that someone paid to get this result.

Klapaucius 12y ago

The issue of intermittency is in my opinion vastly undercommunicated in public debate about renewable energy, at least in Europe. A diagram like this [1] can be used to illustrate the issue. Although this diagram is from a hypothetical UK modeling exercise for 2020, the broader point it makes is valid. On the diagram we see how daily electricity demand follow a predictable daily curve, and the different sources of electricity that are used to meet that demand. We see that electricity from nuclear and coal provide the most stable component, whereas power from wind (green) varies hugely in time. Gas power, which can be turned on and off quickly, is used to fill the gaps in demand. At times, there is almost enough wind that no generation from fossil fuels is necessary, but at other times most of the electricity has to come from burning gas (I've seen similar scenario graphs where wind occasionally fills more than 100% of the demand, but still gas power will be needed for a large component of the energy mix when integrating over time). The point is that without some incredible advance in energy storage capability on a scale that is not on the radar today, we are stuck with an energy system where a significant component needs to be non-solar and non-wind. From a climate perspective, the best options would then be nuclear electricity or electricity from fossil fuel plans equipped with CCS technology (which is now belatedly emerging). (Disclaimer: I work with CCS-related technology development). [1] http://www.timera-energy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Hourly-Renewables-Penetration.jpg http://www.timera-energy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Hour... (link to page from which picture is taken: http://www.timera-energy.com/uk-power/getting-to-grips-with-intermittency/ http://www.timera-energy.com/uk-power/getting-to-grips-with-...

seanflyon 12y ago
It is worth noting that demand is highest during the day and higher still on bright sunny days. This means that solar can provide a significant portion of our power before intermittency becomes a problem. Your point is still correct that without massive grid storage we will still need some other (not solar or wind) power source.

GoodGuy 12y ago

You can be 100% assured that if anybody wants to talk to you about "the costs of solar power" then it is a rep of the Neandertalers-Industry in full smokescreen operation mode. These discussions are a great example for how propaganda works. It does not make sense to calculate the "costs" of freedom, independence and the health of your family. Also the real costs of unresolved nuclear waste problems, huge wars for securing oil supply and the contamination of our ground water by primitive fracking techniques are... titanic. We need more young people in the US to take over the general political and economic discussion. Old and greedy neandertalers are destroying the living environment of young people, not ok, must change. Homo sapiens, sapiens (!), take over please...

ende 12y ago
ad hominid attack?

tomohawk 12y ago

I have enough photovoltaic solar on my roof to provide all the electricity I need over the course of a year. I remain grid connected because the power from the roof rarely matches the demand during any given hour. Intermittency is a real issue that any realistic grid will need to take into account. Rather than the political posturing driven approach we seem to have today, what we really need is sober, clear eyed engineering and financing to solve this. It was heartening to read about the VC funded fusion projects the other day.

codexjourneys 12y ago

I'm not sure why wind and solar power are always mentioned together, other than they both are forms of "alt energy." From a U.S. perspective, solar power is less productive in the eastern half of the U.S., so I'm not sure why we haven't just concentrated on blanketing stretches of desert in the U.S. West with solar farms. This is the highest-reward area, not attaching solar panels to someone's roof in Wisconsin. I think that focusing on high-yield areas with lots of sunlight might be one way to make costs fall. Done right, it might fairly well take care of much of our energy needs. Source: http://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html http://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html Conversely, I don't think wind power can come close to taking care of large percentages of our energy needs. It's subsidized, so it happens, but it's not The Answer (imho).

dredmorbius 12y ago
Solar and wind are the two most abundant, additionally scalable, and efficiently utilizeable forms of renewable/sustainable energy available. Solar is the most abundant, but on a density/device basis is somewhat less cost-effective than wind, which is preferable locations (not all) provides a high return for investment. Overall, wind energy is less abundant than solar (it's effectively a byproduct of solar insolation). Other renewables: geothermal, hydro, biomass, tidal, and wave power generally have issues with scalability, costs, or both. Geo, hydro, and biomass actually do already contribute significantly to energy budgets, and costs are fairly good, but their growth potential is limited. Tidal and wave power are limited and require large capital and operational expenses to be effectively utilized. Nuclear's a wildcard, though I'm generally skeptical. There are a number of sources which give detailed breakouts of renewable energy potential or possible scenarios. David MacKay's Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air, and Jacobson & Delucchi's "Providing all global energy with wind, water, and solar power" give a pretty good overview. Turns out that with solar + wind and some form(s) of storage, you can approach a pretty good overall budget.