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Next Texas Energy Boom: Solar
Layzej writes: The Wall Street Journal reports: "Solar power has gotten so cheap to produce—and so competitively priced in the electricity market—that it is taking hold even in a state that, unlike California, doesn't offer incentives to utilities to buy or build sun-powered generation." Falling cost is one factor driving investment. "Another reason for the boom: Texas recently wrapped up construction of $6.9 billion worth of new transmission lines, many connecting West Texas to the state's large cities. These massive power lines enabled Texas to become, by far, the largest U.S. wind producer. Solar developers plan to move electricity on the same lines, taking advantage of a lull in wind generation during the heat of the day when solar output is at its highest."
So when the economics make sense, investments follow, without the need for governments to step in and choose winners and losers. Who'd have guessed?
That's true. But it's ALSO true that government subsidies can accelerate the development of practical cost-effective technologies, by getting them scaled up earlier.
If I felt so inclined, I'm sure I could dig up post-upon-post from previous slashdot stories about how unlikely solar (and wind) power is to take off in any meaningful way, and how electric cars will never be a thing. We are just at the beginning, and the economic incentives took only a few year to become reality. I'm guessing that is due in no small part to subsidies paving the way for investment and growth that so many complained about. An industry, and really a way of life, is slowly being built from the ground-up. It's pretty exciting to watch!
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
And clearly the massive government investment in both R&D and incentives that let companies achieve economies of scale did nothing to create the current environment where, with the technology developed and economies of scale on hand, companies can make an unsubsidized profit even without subsidies - right? The two things are totally disconnected.
Stale pastry is hollow succor to one who is bereft of ostrich.
There's something I've never understood here.
if you have land for wind power, why would you not want solar spread around it in the safety zone of the tower? Same lines can carry all of the power. Lower real estate cost. Why is it that I only ever see or hear about a solar farm or a wind farm and never an energy farm?
Maybe someone here more familiar with the topic can help me out, or tell me that it's being done and just not talked about much.
Warning: Teh poster of this messaeg is lysdexic
But it's ALSO true that government subsidies can accelerate the development of practical cost-effective technologies
It's ALSO true that government subsidies can slow development by pushing inferior technologies into mass production before they are ready. Subsidies can occasionally be justified, but in the case of solar, the billions spent on subsidies would have been far better employed on R&D to find technology that made economic sense, rather than mass deployment of technology that did not.
Solyndra gets a lot of criticism, but it's important to note that the program as a whole made money for the public AND spurred energy growth. How is that not a win-win? There were dozens of companies involved, and a few of them didn't pan out, but it is unreasonable to expect a 100% success rate.
First off, what magical world do you live in where every investment in a higher-risk financial product pays off? What I couldn't give if I could invest in the world you envision ;) The program as a whole already broke even after just three years in play. All of the outstanding loans are now just profit for the government.
Is this the highest interest rate investment the government could have earned money with? Of course not. But that was never the point; it helped the companies that succeeded vastly scale up. While making money. And not only do they get the interest payments, but they also indirectly get the tax revenue from all of these much larger companies and all of the knock-on effects.
Stale pastry is hollow succor to one who is bereft of ostrich.
BINGO! The West Texas plains were a boon to wind prospectors. Every energy company with any renewable aspirations bought/leased a patch of land and threw up a wind farm. Just one problem...nobody lives in West Texas. It's open range for hundreds of miles. The very conditions that made wind possible left a very real problem. All that electricity needed to get to Dallas but the power line to Dallas was at capacity. All those wind turbines producing electricity and nowhere to send it. Storage tech was prohibitively expensive (If electricity is selling for $0.09 kWh storing it at $0.10 kWh doesn't make financial sense.) so into the earth all that electricity went. So ERCOT set out to build more capacity around 2008. Those lines went live in 2013. Combine that with technology making CSP even cheaper and you've got the next gold rush on your hands.
Full disclosure, I work for Nextera Energy. Parent company of Lone Star Transmission who operates a stretch of those transmission lines.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Can we all just start to admit that wind and solar farms have their own negative environmental implications just like everything else.
Straw man argument -- nobody ever claimed otherwise. Obviously, anything humans do has environmental implications.
The claim is that wind and solar farms have less environmental impact than the use of coal and other fossil fuels they intend to replace.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
governments to step in and choose winners and losers
I get so fucking tired of this "picking winners and losers" bullshit. Venture capitalists do this all the time. Do you think the people who do analysis for the Department of Energy are bunch of drooling morons? Backing technology development that is in the public interest is exactly what governments are for. Just like venture capital, some of it is going to pan out and some of it isn't.
They're working on it, but it's difficult.
Stale pastry is hollow succor to one who is bereft of ostrich.
Yeah, because there are no subsidies for fossil fuels.... oh, wait... about $5 trillion a year.
http://www.theguardian.com/env...
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
It is also true the private sector can block development of new technologies when it seems too risky or threatens an existing profit center. E.g. the way GM killed off the EV-1 electric car.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I don't think Solar could have gotten the critical mass without the incentives. Even with incentives, it took several decades to be a meaningful contributor. Quite honestly, the R&D incentive money is best spent on the challenge that follows, not the first-mover challenge: energy storage. By subsidizing the PV panels up front, you get the industry moving which will create its own R&D investment. By increasing non-dispatchable generation on the grid, you need to have improved energy storage and demand control solutions.
From the small view I have on where money was being spent, 6-12 years ago a tremendous amount of investment was being placed into these areas for technologies that are viable now.
Granted, not all $$ are spent with the same efficacy. That is the nature of R&D though.
Government and civilization go hand in hand. Can you name one civilization that has ever existed that didn't have some form of government? Can you name one civilization that has ever existed that didn't not have taxation in one form or another? Yes, governments change from time to time by internal or external force but that's usually accompanied by a lot of turmoil and change in the underlying civilization.
I don't get why americans always repeat such myth.
Just because your first government was the english king, there is no reason to distrust every government. Well, Nixxon might have been an exception.
Subsidies can occasionally be justified, but in the case of solar, the billions spent on subsidies would have been far better employed on R&D to find technology that made economic sense, rather than mass deployment of technology that did not.
First: which technology besides solar is "better"? Or makes economically more sense? When we clearly right now are at the point where solar makes economical sense?
Second: the billions spend where likely not the US american billions but the European, notable German, so why do you care?
I guess you had preferred to wait till the oil runs out, that might be in 20 years? The oil price right now is something like $45. The highest price the last 5 years was something like $135 (or was it $150?).
With current usage patterns the oil price in 20 years might be something like $5000 per barrel. Obviously that won't be the case as demand will drop rapidly the closer we come to the "empty wells".
Anyway, in 20 years every solar panel -- regardless how efficient or cheap -- will be cheaper than oil. Without any development at all.
So: what benefit would have from that?
None ... you had wasted 20 years paying "to much" for oil/energy.
I rather have a cheap competitive panel right now. And what I and my fellow europeans expect from a government is exactly that: lay the legal framework and funding for new futur technologies. Fuck your stupid brain dead idea of "the free market fixes all", it took Obama to give you affordable healthcare for every one. By crafting a law! There was no free market fixing your third world problems. And there will never be a free market building you the next Fighter Air Plane, Carrier or other thing where the development cost is 100ds of billions!
Can't be so hard to grasp that there is no company on the planet, no investor, no consortium that could have propelled the progress in solar technology we made in the last 30 years further than the government funding did.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Actually, the real problem is that we allowed China to dump on America. Had we not done that, then we would have a lot more manufacturing here and it would be even lower costs.
Thankfully, Solar City is doing it right. They got the infrastructure in place for putting up panels, got the costs down, and now, is focused on lowering the costs of panels by manufacturing their own. And yes, they will come down.
What is going to be a problem, is that China is going to manipulate the money again and dump on the west to revive their economy that is a total disaster.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.