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Coal Market Set To Collapse Worldwide By 2040 As Solar, Wind Dominate (bloomberg.com)
Jess Shankleman reports via Bloomberg: Solar power, once so costly it only made economic sense in spaceships, is becoming cheap enough that it will push coal and even natural-gas plants out of business faster than previously forecast. That's the conclusion of a Bloomberg New Energy Finance outlook for how fuel and electricity markets will evolve by 2040. The research group estimated solar already rivals the cost of new coal power plants in Germany and the U.S. and by 2021 will do so in quick-growing markets such as China and India. The scenario suggests green energy is taking root more quickly than most experts anticipate. It would mean that global carbon dioxide pollution from fossil fuels may decline after 2026, a contrast with the International Energy Agency's central forecast, which sees emissions rising steadily for decades to come.
The report also found that through 2040:
-China and India represent the biggest markets for new power generation, drawing $4 trillion, or about 39 percent all investment in the industry.
-The cost of offshore wind farms, until recently the most expensive mainstream renewable technology, will slide 71 percent, making turbines based at sea another competitive form of generation.
-At least $239 billion will be invested in lithium-ion batteries, making energy storage devices a practical way to keep homes and power grids supplied efficiently and spreading the use of electric cars.
-Natural gas will reap $804 billion, bringing 16 percent more generation capacity and making the fuel central to balancing a grid that's increasingly dependent on power flowing from intermittent sources, like wind and solar.
The report also found that through 2040:
-China and India represent the biggest markets for new power generation, drawing $4 trillion, or about 39 percent all investment in the industry.
-The cost of offshore wind farms, until recently the most expensive mainstream renewable technology, will slide 71 percent, making turbines based at sea another competitive form of generation.
-At least $239 billion will be invested in lithium-ion batteries, making energy storage devices a practical way to keep homes and power grids supplied efficiently and spreading the use of electric cars.
-Natural gas will reap $804 billion, bringing 16 percent more generation capacity and making the fuel central to balancing a grid that's increasingly dependent on power flowing from intermittent sources, like wind and solar.
Because the verified warming trend will suddenly stop because we're slightly ahead of schedule to stop producing as much CO2 and other gases as we thought. It's like watching movies about spacecraft who, when they cut off their engines, magically come to a stop in space.
Same principle.
I can understand lithium ion batteries for portables and maybe for a home, but grid scale batteries will likely be flow batteries or other such tech. Why because they are big and stationary. You don't need particularly compact or space efficient batteries on that scale. It is more important to be durable, low toxicity, and inexpensive (relatively).
The rate of increase for CO2 is in decline. CO2 is not in decline and it will take hundreds of years for it to decline.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Well, this is the first I have heard this. The things to be considered are that coal fired plants are generally operated for 40 or 50 years. So, is the cost of solar cheaper than continuing to use the coal plants that exist? No. What is going to happen if they are correct is the construction of new coal plants will slow and stop by 2026. The remaining coal plants will continue to operate for some time.
Further, even if the CO2 emissions are lower than was originally predicted, no where in the article did it suggest that will happen quick enough to prevent some of the bad side effects of all the carbon released into the atmosphere. You seem to assume, because coal use will slow down the that everything will be hunky dory. I suspect that is wishful thinking on your part.
All of the models that indicate signifincant warming are predicated on the continued rise of CO2 emissions.
Yet that is madness, The quickening rise in Solar power and electric cars mean that CO2 levels will be in decline by the end of this decade, never mind the ones after.
The push for renewables is precisely to avoid a climate catastrophe. The models are based on CO2 rise because, thus far, that's exactly what the trend has been.
Arguing that we don't need renewables because renewables will save us is circular reasoning.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
...by drawing a straightish line on a graph. Doesn't mean it'll actually happen. Also, I doubt that "nighttime solar" (and no, we won't have world-spanning transmission lines either) and "calm wind" power is going to become available any time soon, and storage is still a problem.
So why continue to scare people with a future that will never come to pass, in order to get them to behave in a way they would have done anyway had you simply left them alone?
Uh, because the carbon levels are already high enough to start affecting us negatively. It is already passing. The alarmists have been trying to get us to cut back for 20+ years, way back when it would have made the biggest difference. If the fossil fuel industries had not fought so hard (like the tobacco companies before them), we could have avoided the affects we're seeing now:
Effects that scientists had predicted in the past would result from global climate change are now occurring: loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves.
But it's more than that. The alarmists have been reacting to the scientific research that says it will get much worse. What we decided in the 90's - to ignore the alarmists - affects how bad it will be in 2050 and 2100. Yes, technology is going to push us anyway, but if we just let it happen naturally, it will not be fast enough to avoid real consequences. This is not partisan or alarmist, it's just the best prediction that can be made with the evidence we have. Nothing has been proven wrong about the predictions since the 90's, except the results and new predictions have become slightly worse.
How many real problems could we solve with money being wasted on fear-mongering or redundant promotion?
No. The money invested in developing renewables is well-spent (this is an understatement). We're talking about a technological ~revolution, meaning there's a lot of money to be made. The countries developing the technology will be rich, while those ignoring it will be poor (this is an overstatement, but hopefully it illustrates the point). Germany proved it already - back in the 90's, making solar panels, and they saw a big bump in their stock market and real estate market. It's been very successful for a long time, although China is stealing the market share now.
Solar and wind work in low % of overall generation. It doesn't work at high % of total generation. Same with net metering at home installs.
People will keep saying this until it does work in high % of total generation, and then they'll find something else to complain about.
Not that the problems with solar aren't real, but the people working to solve those problems are real also, and sooner or later (and more likely sooner, given the amount of effort being invested), they will solve them.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Nuclear already collapsed. Notwithstanding the technical merits, humans cannot be trusted to manage it effectively.
They've already got the vehicle to do it and the US has withdrawn from the group so if they go forward we won't even be able to negotiate or even attend the meetings. All they would need to do is reconvene the Paris working group and assess tariffs against non participating countries, as there's only 3 nonparticipating countries it would be trivial for the rest of the world to apply export tariffs to those countries.
And because we pulled out of the treaty we wouldn't even be able to attend the meeting. But that's what happens when you elect narcissistic ego maniacs whose entire decision process is dominated by how it can help him. He cares so little about this country it's astounding.
Um, ok. Well, anyway, no technological breakthrough is going to change the number of hours per day the sun shines or the wind blows. So that means storage. And that means huge losses storing and retrieving the energy. There is an obsession about wind and solar, and it's religious. People obsess over the technologies and then later come up with these justifications for how "the tech is gonna get there eventually!!!". This is backwards. Why swim upstream and use variable power generation for baseline power? It's stupid and expensive.
Market forces and simple exhaustion of supply will greatly reduce the use of coal to make electricity.
Bullcrap. There is no "exhaustion of supply". America, China, India, and Europe all have enough coal to last for centuries. Coal is dirt cheap and in many areas of the world it will continue to be the most cost effective source of power, as long as the emissions are ignored. Coal needs to die, and market forces alone are not going to accomplish that.
However, Ben Franklin's quote that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" did exist 30 years ago. Alas, large groups of humans have never been very good at learning things.
I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.
No.
In every part of the world where people still live in reality, there is an understanding that climate change is happening because that's where all our observations and data point.
In bumfuck stupid conservative 'merica, true fucking morons who are so fucking stupid they think smart people are bad, but that their worthless, uninformed, uneducated, inbred opinion is somehow good... well, there's a lot of loudmouth fucking idiots who continuie to have their heads up their ass and listen to the people who would lose money if we did something to prevent climate change from disrupting the world. They basically are too stupid to give a fuck about the human species. The fact that their head-up-ass anti-science position has spread is because we have a lot of people in 'merica who are fucking stupid, and prefer themselves to remain that way.
Just telling it like it is.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
India just scrapped plans for 15 coal plants and went with solar instead. The report is way behind on cost of solar power. Solar is already below cost of coal in India and China.
Just saying it like it are.
One can see that this report is complete bullshit, as it does not address the aspect of storage.
Nuclear power produces constant load. Coal and gas power plants can produce on demand. Together they require only a minimum storage capacity to balance daily consumption patterns. Solar and Wind power however are produced with enormous random fluctuations and can only exist if there is capacity to regulate and/or store electricity is large amounts.
This capacity does not exist, and considering how long does it take to plan and resolve all legal issues for large pump storage facilities, it will never be built in any significant amounts. The article does not calculate this cost at all, therefore it's ripe for garbage bin.