Brookings Study Calls Solar, Wind Power the Most Expensive Fossil Alternatives

turkeydance (1266624) writes A new study [PDF] from the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, argues that using solar and wind energy may be the most expensive alternatives to carbon-based electricity generation, even though they require no expenditures for fuel.....Specifically, this means nuclear power offers a savings of more than $400,000 worth of carbon emissions per megawatt of capacity. Solar saves only $69,000 and wind saves $107,000. An anonymous reader points out that the Rocky Mountain Institute finds the Brookings study flawed in several ways, and offers a rebuttal.

Comments

Funny money

[oldhack]

"$400,000 worth of carbon emissions", it says. What, monopoly money?

Re:Funny money

[sumdumass]

How do you "flood the market" without economy of scale?

It is a process called dumping and China has been hit with tarrifs because of it by the EU. The US is investigating also.

In case you didn't know, dumping is where you sell a product in a particular market below costs usually with the intent of harming the players already in that market.

This is just protectionist propaganda from American companies interested in government enforced rent-seeking rather than competition.

No, it is a claim that has been made, investigated, and punished in some areas in Europe over a year ago and recently in the US.

Even the Chinese panels are way too expensive to make solar viable without subsidies, so they are hardly going to "kill solar" with low prices. Solar panels need to be much cheaper.

The problem is their prices to not cover their costs. If a normal company did that, they would become bankrupt and fail into historical reference. When the Chinese companies do this, they are being supported by the Chinese government and as long as their government is willing to funnel money into them, they can sell cheaper than anyone can acquire the raw materials for- let alone produce and sell something from it.

Re:Funny money

[ozmanjusri]

PV doesn't make sense at any scale.

I've just installed a 2.5 kW Solar system on my house in Western Australia, at a cost of just over $2500. Based on initial readings, output from the unit looks like being between 3,500 to 5,000 kWh/year. My electricity provider charges between 30 and 45c per kWh, and pays 8c per kWh for electricity fed back into the grid.

So my payback time for the initial investment is somwhere between 1 and three years if I consume mostly self-generated power. The panels and inverter I've installed have a 25 year warranty,

How does this not make sense?

And I'm not alone in this, Australia faces an unprecedented oversupply of energy, with no new energy generation needed for 10 years. Coal power stations are sutting down, and even new gas power stations are being mothballed as they are unable to compete.

http://www.aemo.com.au/Reports...

Re:Finally!!

[TWX]

We're looking into Solar right now, and I'm considering everything from a leased system that only provides daytime power offset, to a full system with battery bank and generator capable of intentional islanding off-grid for those few times that the power goes out. Trouble is trying to size the thing, one estimate suggested we only get 12.5kW, but with three HVAC units and two hot water heaters, plus the air compressor and other things down the road like a welder I don't think that the ~50A from such a system would really be enough given that the property is sized for 200A service and I have an outbuilding to support. I can buy a propane-powered 20kW generator for about $4000, so I'm wondering if I'd be better off sizing solar to be similar.

Even costing more than other non-fossil-fuel sources, solar appeals because it's something that I can do at home. I can't really do wind, there's probably not enough thermal gradient to do geothermal, there's no stream or river to do hydro, and obviously nuclear is out. That pretty much leaves me with solar.

I'm disappointed that codes for new construction haven't started mandating the installation of solar. Integrated into the design of a house it could probably fit aestetically better than a retrofit, and the cost to purchase such a system when rolled into the 30 year loan would probably make it more feasible for most to have it. On top of that, wider adoption would serve to drive costs down for everyone else, including possible retrofits like mine.

Re:Oddly nobody factors in risk and after costs

[reve_etrange]

Similarly, the amount of radioactive material released by burning coal is rarely mentioned.

Re:Finally!!

[ShanghaiBill]

We're looking into Solar right now

I looked into solar last year. In California, we have tiered pricing, where the first tier costs $0.10 per kwhr, the second tier $0.12, and if you go over that, the third tier is $0.30. I wanted to at least eliminate the top tier. But before I invested in solar, I decided to try to cut consumption as much as possible. I added insulation to the attic (saving gas in the winter, and electricity for A/C in the summer), installed an attic fan, and switched all our lighting to LEDs. LEDs are expensive at retail ($10 per bulb) but far cheaper on eBay ($2 per bulb). The result was that I was no longer using any top tier electricity, and the solar no longer made sense. I did all this for about 5% of what the solar would have cost.

The Brookings Institution?

[jeff13]

The Brookings Institution??? Why would anyone give a damn what some think tank, er, thinks?

By definition, a think tank's job is to simply rationalize their clients opinion.

Re:Finally!!

[TWX]

120V service is derived by adding a center-tapped-neutral to a 240V single-phase system. Residential power is calculated based on that 240V number. So, 240V at 200A is my max power capacity before tripping the main breaker.

I have to look at both while-running max load and have to consider startup demand. Breakers for individual circuits are supposed to be sized for startup demand (though apparently there's a tiny bit of room for fudge here, with slower-acting breakers so that a peak draw at startup could theoretically exceed a breaker rating for a very short time without either tripping the breaker or being especially dangerous) but by and large, that's what I have to do. I can rule-of-thumb the breakers for the 240V devices to figure out approximate max startup demand if everything kicked on at the same time.

If I add up the startup demand for the three HVAC units, the two hot water heaters, and probably 20A for all of the various residential 120V circuits for lighting and devices, I'm well over the 50A of a solar system, and I expect that with all of that running at the same time I'm probably over 50A there as well. That's the biggest concern, and I know that I've had all three HVAC units running at the same time before. The air compressor doesn't run very often, but it also draws 30A while it does.

We're probably going to put a couple inches of foam insulation on the outside of the house and have it stuccoed, and we're going to change the windows. Unfortunately there are a lot of windows to change, and it'll be close to five figures to change them all.