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Having trouble loading first article, as it just shows a headline [edit typo] but thank you for the citation, I'll take it with a grain of salt. You're being m

Having trouble loading first article, as it just shows a headline [edit typo] but thank you for the citation, I'll take it with a grain of salt. You're being misleading with your second article, however. > If you removed the ITC (a federal tax credit for solar), the cost would probably be about 8¢/kWh. Still, that’s not bad. It's a good start, but still not nearly "grid scale cost", and you're only getting electricity at that price when the sun is out. Not suitable for base-load generation, but for peaking. Useful, but not 100% availability useful. Re: Natural gas - it depends. Prices fluctuate, so it goes both ways. There have been times where gas was much cheaper than many options, only to become a very expensive choice because prices went up. Imagine how the plant owners feel when they build a facility while prices are at one level, only to have to operate it at a higher price later! The flexibility that combustion turbine plants bring to the grid, however, make them good choices as they have short startup times, work well as spinning reserves, and these days aren't too expensive to operate. When the fuel comes from within our borders, it is good for national security, too. A bigger thing hurting greener competitors is bad information and idealistic proposals that do not have practical engineering foundations. I'm still making my way through the paper, but I'm incredibly skeptical these guys really understand the grid (grid grid grid) and how it's really put together. Remember, the goal behind the grid is to provide very reliable power to customers at a decent price, and operate the utility at a profit. Consumers don't usually care where their energy comes from, but obviously "feel better" if it's from environmentally friendly sources. The "early adopters" among us might go for higher prices for cleaner energy, but no "mass market" consumer is going to accept lower grid reliability in exchange for a greener power supply or comparatively higher prices for a "greener" one.

glomph 12y ago
You have just asserted your view that Solar/ Wind are only useful sources for peaking but the linked article contains an argument that they could plausibly be used for base load (with a linked sources). It seems reasonable to consider it your turn to argue against that rather than just reassert. In light of your comment on the goals of the grid do you not think we have a moral responsibility to disregard what people appear to want to a certain extent and start doing what is sustainable? Even if it does have some cost some short term stability and price. Profit surly shouldn't be the only consideration. It may not be the people right now that pay the cost of fucking up the planet but some people will. Do you not think everyone has a responsibility to consider the externalities?
- schainks 12y ago
  This is my opinion, not fact - I personally don't think, even with over-provisioning, we can build enough wind/solar to make it our base load at a reasonable price unless we can make solar + wind much more efficient at generating (at least 2x more efficient than it is today). But even then there are technical challenges to a wind/solar grid that randomly changes at all times that not likely not cheap or easy to overcome. I do agree with you - we must act in a sustainable way especially for the world of tomorrow. But, the mass market in the first world will likely not sacrifice stability for sustainability. Maybe they'll budge on price, but likely not on convenience. I also agree we shouldn't be purely profit motivated, but that's a complicated situation - companies like GE have incentive to suppress more "efficient" technology adoption because it affects their bottom line unless it's their IP. When I say efficient, I mean technologies that could be used to enhance the efficiency of current machines in our infrastructure. So, yes, they will advance tech when they can own it, but not when they cannot acquire it. They'll only play defensively, which isn't always going to be in line with "moral responsibility" To me, that is a more sane and likely cheaper starting point today, so that we can more safely take risks like this paper proposes tomorrow.
- msandford 12y ago
  > Profit surly shouldn't be the only consideration. If you've figured out a way to motivate a large number of people to do something other than pure profit (where to the layman profit = employment = paying his bills) then I'm all ears. Shit, EVERYONE is all ears. But thus far in the history of the world profit has been the best source of motivation we've discovered. When I say "profit" you can't say "ahh rapacious capitalism that's evil blah!" but rather you have to look at it as "the ability to stay alive and perhaps get ahead" Very few people willingly take a pay-cut. Most of the time the way a person figures out that they need to accept less money for their work is that they get fired from a job and they start looking for a new one. They can't get hired at $x per year anymore so eventually they accept some percentage of $x in order to again have SOME income rather than NO income. $x dollars per year is HIGHLY correlated with standard of living, so we can reasonably assume that people are not willing to accept a lower standard of living willingly either. They tend to accept a lower one only because they have to. This isn't a hard rule, but it's useful. As a result it is easy to see that people probably won't willingly take their standard of living down because it's the right thing to do for the environment. I agree that it would be better to do things for reasons which aren't purely profit-motivated. But I can't blame the world for not working that way because I haven't come up with a better system.
crdoconnor 12y ago
>A bigger thing hurting greener competitors is bad information and idealistic proposals that do not have practical engineering foundations. This is absurd and speaks to your lack of knowledge of the industry itself. Their biggest enemy is the oil/gas/utility industry who are explicitly out to destroy them (it's not a secret). This is why the feed in tariff is being chipped away state by state by ALEC, how subsidies (though they shouldn't really be called subsidies) for 'not polluting' get removed, how subsidies for natural gas get ADDED and how 30% tariffs on solar panels get added. All these things are designed to artificially shift the market landscape in favor of non-renewable, polluting, environmentally damaging technologies. And it's working. >Remember, the goal behind the grid is to provide very reliable power to customers at a decent price, and operate the utility at a profit. Remember that the goal behind the privatized grid is to make a profit. That's IT. That creates all sorts of absurd incentives and is the reason why California's electricity became very UNRELIABLE at one point. It's also the reason why grids HATE rooftop solar with a seething passion and are desperately trying to destroy it. They can't make a profit out of electricity that you generate for yourself, can they? They can make a profit out of unreliable, expensively generated electricity though.

glomph 12y ago

You have just asserted your view that Solar/ Wind are only useful sources for peaking but the linked article contains an argument that they could plausibly be used for base load (with a linked sources). It seems reasonable to consider it your turn to argue against that rather than just reassert. In light of your comment on the goals of the grid do you not think we have a moral responsibility to disregard what people appear to want to a certain extent and start doing what is sustainable? Even if it does have some cost some short term stability and price. Profit surly shouldn't be the only consideration. It may not be the people right now that pay the cost of fucking up the planet but some people will. Do you not think everyone has a responsibility to consider the externalities?

schainks 12y ago
This is my opinion, not fact - I personally don't think, even with over-provisioning, we can build enough wind/solar to make it our base load at a reasonable price unless we can make solar + wind much more efficient at generating (at least 2x more efficient than it is today). But even then there are technical challenges to a wind/solar grid that randomly changes at all times that not likely not cheap or easy to overcome. I do agree with you - we must act in a sustainable way especially for the world of tomorrow. But, the mass market in the first world will likely not sacrifice stability for sustainability. Maybe they'll budge on price, but likely not on convenience. I also agree we shouldn't be purely profit motivated, but that's a complicated situation - companies like GE have incentive to suppress more "efficient" technology adoption because it affects their bottom line unless it's their IP. When I say efficient, I mean technologies that could be used to enhance the efficiency of current machines in our infrastructure. So, yes, they will advance tech when they can own it, but not when they cannot acquire it. They'll only play defensively, which isn't always going to be in line with "moral responsibility" To me, that is a more sane and likely cheaper starting point today, so that we can more safely take risks like this paper proposes tomorrow.
msandford 12y ago
> Profit surly shouldn't be the only consideration. If you've figured out a way to motivate a large number of people to do something other than pure profit (where to the layman profit = employment = paying his bills) then I'm all ears. Shit, EVERYONE is all ears. But thus far in the history of the world profit has been the best source of motivation we've discovered. When I say "profit" you can't say "ahh rapacious capitalism that's evil blah!" but rather you have to look at it as "the ability to stay alive and perhaps get ahead" Very few people willingly take a pay-cut. Most of the time the way a person figures out that they need to accept less money for their work is that they get fired from a job and they start looking for a new one. They can't get hired at $x per year anymore so eventually they accept some percentage of $x in order to again have SOME income rather than NO income. $x dollars per year is HIGHLY correlated with standard of living, so we can reasonably assume that people are not willing to accept a lower standard of living willingly either. They tend to accept a lower one only because they have to. This isn't a hard rule, but it's useful. As a result it is easy to see that people probably won't willingly take their standard of living down because it's the right thing to do for the environment. I agree that it would be better to do things for reasons which aren't purely profit-motivated. But I can't blame the world for not working that way because I haven't come up with a better system.

crdoconnor 12y ago

>A bigger thing hurting greener competitors is bad information and idealistic proposals that do not have practical engineering foundations. This is absurd and speaks to your lack of knowledge of the industry itself. Their biggest enemy is the oil/gas/utility industry who are explicitly out to destroy them (it's not a secret). This is why the feed in tariff is being chipped away state by state by ALEC, how subsidies (though they shouldn't really be called subsidies) for 'not polluting' get removed, how subsidies for natural gas get ADDED and how 30% tariffs on solar panels get added. All these things are designed to artificially shift the market landscape in favor of non-renewable, polluting, environmentally damaging technologies. And it's working. >Remember, the goal behind the grid is to provide very reliable power to customers at a decent price, and operate the utility at a profit. Remember that the goal behind the privatized grid is to make a profit. That's IT. That creates all sorts of absurd incentives and is the reason why California's electricity became very UNRELIABLE at one point. It's also the reason why grids HATE rooftop solar with a seething passion and are desperately trying to destroy it. They can't make a profit out of electricity that you generate for yourself, can they? They can make a profit out of unreliable, expensively generated electricity though.