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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.
Nice shilling.
Gods but that Dino sludge and other fuels in the ground for us. If he didn't want us to use them, they wouldn't be there.
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.
It's not anything that needs to be pushed for because the benefits to each person are so large and obvious.
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? How many real problems could we solve with money being wasted on fear-mongering or redundant promotion?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
for just about everything.
So while I don't trust Bloomberg on anything political, if this is so, then Trump was right to dump the authoritarian Paris power and money grab and to let the market choose.
I'd love to go off the grid with good, affordable power storage devices.
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).
All of these alternative systems like solar, wind, and battery technology face a large foe. That is, the oil barons. They will continue to do what they have always done and that is bring the price of oil down far enough that it puts most alternative energy commercial and research entities out of business. Then once they're out of business, jack the prices back up and make unimaginable profit. Eventually many alternative energy things will begin anew, only to be put out of business when the price of oil "unexpectedly" goes down massively.
This alone is what has held back alternative energy sources for decades.
We don't need any "Climate Accords." This will happen natural.
"The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones."
https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2010/08/04/the-stone-age-didnt-end-because-we-ran-out-of-stones/
Tesla has already installed several grid scale lithium battery sites. One in S. California where they had that large methane storage leak. Others on some islands.
Lithium battery grid storage can be installed and provide energy for about 1.5 cents/kWh
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
...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.
There are other ways to store energy than batteries. For instance, there are several facilities already that simply pump water to a higher altitude during low demand to produce hydroelectric power during high demand.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Pumping water uphill? That would technically be a flow battery right?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
There are also some cool designs using molten salt. This plant "...has achieved continuous production, operating 24 hours per day for 36 consecutive days, a result which no other solar plant has attained so far." Pretty neat! And one advantage of molten salt (and perhaps flow batteries, too?) is that unlike, say, lithium ion, the energy can't really come out all at once explosively -- you'd get essentially a lava flow rather than an explosion, AFAIK.
Bloomberg. There's your first hint that it's a load of horseshit.
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.
There is way to much gibberish in the clean energy advocacy world. And people can't reintroduce reality without being charged as a heretic.
Development in flow batteries seems to be slowing, precisely because they are stationary. Long term though, I do think they make the most sense as well. Once wind farms need enough local storage to support production contracts I imagine we will see more of a grid scale growth in flow batteries.
Tesla somehow manages to be competitive now, but it really is the wrong tool for the job.
There was absolutely no mention of nuclear power in this article. Is not China and India investing in that technology too?
It would be great if solar could in fact be cheaper than coal in 20 years or so but I've already been told for 20 years that solar will be cheaper than coal in 20 years. I stopped believing these claims a long time ago. Solar has a lot of issues that merely lowering the price of the panels will not solve.
I do believe that wind can get their prices down to where it could compete with other energy sources. Like solar though it has problems of being intermittent. I hear claims that batteries and other storage systems can address this but I ask, what stops people from charging these batteries with cheap and reliable coal or nuclear? Batteries can follow load changes better then coal or nuclear can, so use those for peak load and forget about wind or natural gas.
One thing that puts a limit on the costs between wind and nuclear, wind takes ten times the steel and concrete of nuclear per megawatt of installed capacity. People ask, where is all that concrete? All I you are steel towers and a three big blades turning about. The answer is that the concrete is in the anchor that holds up that tower. If we can assume that the concrete anchors fatigue in 50 years or so, just like it would in a nuclear reactor, then we will need a continuous recycling of concrete to keep up with even an unchanging demand for electricity. If you need X tons of concrete for a gigawatt nuclear power plant then you will need 10X tons for a gigawatt of wind power.
Making concrete has a carbon footprint associated with it. That means that nuclear not only can have a smaller carbon footprint than wind but already does. Future nuclear reactors will likely require less concrete and steel than it does now with advancements in technology. So wind is already behind and the competition is not standing still.
So, it's great that we can look forward to cheap wind and solar in a decade or three. What should we do until then? We can keep burning coal. We can shutdown large sectors of our economy, which would likely delay this new wind and solar advancement. Or we can use nuclear power.
I believe that nuclear power is the only logical choice today. When or if wind and solar catch up then we can switch to that.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Nuclear already collapsed. Notwithstanding the technical merits, humans cannot be trusted to manage it effectively.
Troy Roberts,
This rather nice documentary deals nicely with grid batteries.
Michael Bloomberg is a payed whore of the UN and pays his own way into the Greed Climate Fund Fraud Scheme.
> Nuclear already collapsed. Notwithstanding the technical merits,
Pretty much on target, I'd say. Denying that after the accidents we keep having over and over is delusion.
> humans cannot be trusted to manage it effectively.
This^ Or rather, I'd say humans can be trusted to fsck up anything at some point in the future.
*A.N.Y.T.H.I.N.G* !
The only significant wind power we'll ever see is the smoke blowing out your ass.
Bow before the altar of Gaia and all your make-believe alien friends.
I agree that we should be doing more nuclear.
But for my state anyway, wind production in Texas, not counting government subsidies, runs from $36 to $51 per megawatt-hour while an average national cost for coal-fired electricity ranges from $65 to $150 per MWh and for gas, depending on the type of plant, from $52/MWh to $218/MWh.
That's great if you have a hill to pump the water up to. Out here on the Great Plains we don't have many hills.
An odd thing happened some time in my youth. We call this area the "wind corridor" now. Before that we called it "tornado alley". I don't think that change in nomenclature was because there was any real change in the weather patterns around here. It's hard to sell windmills in "tornado alley" but they sound great for a place called the "wind corridor". Too bad we don't have any hills so we have a place to pump some water to the top and store that wind energy.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Where are you seeing prices of 1.5 cents a KW/hr.
At the price with a storage cost of $15 a MW/hr I would expect people to be jumping at the opportunity to smooth the high low demand curve and profit on the arbitrage.
I've not seen that happening at scale.
Molten salt energy storage? Could we use something else to heat this salt? Something "green"? Molten salt nuclear reactors sound like a great idea to do just that.
I like solar thermal. Not because I think that they'd ever be viable but because they'll do the research in materials and such that would be directly applicable to molten salt reactors. Solar might work for quite a large band of area at the equator, perhaps between 30 or 45 degrees north and south, but outside that area solar does not work so well. Nuclear power would work though.
That might work great for China and India but for large populations in the Americas, Asia, and Europe they don't have the same access to the sun.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Agreed, nuclear should be in the mix.
Also another point: strip mines _should be_ going up in price as the land they are using becomes more valuable for other purposes (even wildlife preservation.) Eventually we should hit the tipping point where coal just doesn't make economic sense.
http://inhabitat.com/solar-panels-work-at-night/
Like these? Or these?
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
The coal market is already collapsing. Just look at the diminishing cost of coal and the stock prices of coal companies.
Man, you're like a one man walking fallacy factory.
36 days?!? That there is absolutely viable and we should do it everywhere.
Sorry, I am kinda stoned. But that is nothing to write home about. I got better uptime with Windows ME.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Pumping air into a cavern. Giant flywheels. Even super capacitors. The interesting thing though isn't that we're using solar or wind, but how fast everything developed. Well within one generation.
I still call B.S. on the current incarnations of green energy. Wind and solar haven't been around long enough to reach their inherent lifespan which means nobody has come to grips with the replacement costs. Lots of people are seeing line items on their electric bill for decommissioning coal and nuke plants. That line item will be changed to wind/solar disposal and replacement fees. They aren't going to get more efficient either.
Why is Texas so windy? Oklahoma sucks
Do you have a more trustworthy source?
All of the models showing the increases as I said, assume that the input of CO2 to the climate continues to increase for the next hundred years.
But the opposite is true. The rate of CO2 output from civilization will slow. What few people here seems to understand is that the Earth itself is VERY VERY good at scrubbing CO2 over time - so if we simply aren't outputting CO2 at the same rate, the earth will simply take care of the CO2 eventually as out out[ut rate slows, and the temperature increases we will have will not matter.
The truth of this will be quite evident I think within ten years, at which point the fears-mongering will all but dissipate.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The area called "tornado alley" and the area called the "wind corridor" do have a lot of area in common but don't completely overlap. Not counting "dixie alley" as part of tornado alley (as the two areas are active in different parts of the year), tornado alley covers areas around NE Texas, and (according to the official demarcation) doesn't cover Iowa, extreme Western Nebraska, Western SD, North Dakota, most of Montana or Eastern Wyoming. All of those areas are a part of the Wind corridor (and in many cases are some of the best for wind generation), with the absence of NE Texas. Feel free to compare: http://www.nrel.gov/gis/pdfs/windsmodel4pub1-1-9base200904enh.pdf with https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/climate-information/extreme-events/us-tornado-climatology/tornado-alley
Molten salt energy storage? Could we use something else to heat this salt? Something "green"? Molten salt nuclear reactors sound like a great idea to do just that.
Nope. Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors are entirely different, and so far, nobody has gotten them to work anywhere near effectively. They've been almost as much of a failure as the Fusion designs.
I like solar thermal. Not because I think that they'd ever be viable but because they'll do the research in materials and such that would be directly applicable to molten salt reactors.
Nope, not really. Different salts, different materials, different temperatures.
Also, you should look up how Tornado Alley is a misnomer. It seems informative and descriptive, but it lacks truth.
Solar might work for quite a large band of area at the equator, perhaps between 30 or 45 degrees north and south, but outside that area solar does not work so well. Nuclear power would work though.
That might work great for China and India but for large populations in the Americas, Asia, and Europe they don't have the same access to the sun.
This may surprise you, but there are large populations in the Americas, Asias, and Europe that are as far south as China and India. Beijing is at 39 degrees N, Washington DC is around 38 degrees N, and I believe the center of the US's population is a bit south of that. Plus they use a lot of power in those areas.
Besides, Tornado alley? It's a bit of an misnomer,
https://weather.com/storms/tornado/video/busting-the-tornado-alley-myth
And as for nuclear power, since you seem to have a fetish for it, the failure of the plants that Bush promised us in 2005 would be built, as well as in the UK, and China, should show you that mistake. It's been a money pit. And that's not even counting Fusion. An even worse siphon.
How do we continually become deadlocked and aggravated over a post from BullcrapHD? Any post from this twat should be met with the speculation of an unverified post on Web MD or Facebook. BullcrapHD is reposting another person's post about the possibility of what might happen in 23+ years. Why do we give this more consideration than the current weather reports for rain in your area... or the possibility of a hurricane in the next 10+ weeks?
This is sad. Ouija boards might be more accurate but we're all "panties in a bunch" over a prediction that hasn't been reliably verified by the quatrains of Nostradamus (yes.. this is a comedic reference)
Peace.
No - burning gas in a boiler is extremely wasteful compared with gas turbines.
The only things you can reuse are the switchyard and the building - even the stacks are unsuitable due to the very large difference in exhaust temperature.
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.
Oklahoma definitely sucks, and Texarse blows..... it's kind of like inbreeding rednecks, with the results being Kansas.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Problem with nuclear is that it is getting too expensive. It can, maybe, do 5 cents per kWh for new installations, but uncertainties are huge. Solar can now, as today, do it at 20 cents, and it is rapidly declining. If it is cheaper than nuclear withing twenty years, building a nuclear plant today is "negative" investment.
And there will not be any "future" nuclear reactors, nobody can invest that amount of money to unknwon technology (unknown as "will it be cheap enough").
See Olkiluoto 3, see Tokamak ("future"?), see *any* current nuclear reactor being build (Toshiba announced $6 billion losses in USA this year), they all are too expensive to make sense.
Nuclear is passé.
And that's what's happening CO2 wise
That is a completely absurd way to represent CO2 levels as they are now, and the rise of them given historical levels. It's not like a tsunami, it's like there's a leak that's tapering off as the pressure diminishes from inside.
Where the CO2 is going now is into the oceans.
Oh that's where it hiding is it? Where it will do absolutely no harm to anyone because unlike you I understand what is actually happening..
That scare point was debunked way back in 2014, shame you don't understand any of the real science involved, and just want to spread fear to please your high priests.
Also if CO2 is being absorbed why are we supposed to be scared about warming again since ocean absorbed CO2 can no longer participate in warming? Your Warming Masters are not going to be very happy with you spreading that message!
And again since output is declining that means less going into the ocean, so again my original point stands that the WHATEVER absurd claim you make about CO2 is not as bad as you are scaring people into believing, because over the next several decades there simply will not be nearly so much CO2 going into the system as has been forecast.
I'll let you have the last word since if you are still spreading lies debunked two years ago, there's no rational part left to actually debate with - I just wanted to point out to others how all that is left of you is nonsense and fear. Sad.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So the fact that there's maintenance causing downtime in coal plants and nuke stations means that they're unviable and should never be used.
Got it.
Tesla is a mega manufacturer of a single battery technology. They will continue to tell you that their battery can do everything and is ideal in every circumstance. The existence of their product at grid scale doesn't necessarily mean it's the best one. Kind of like my nextdoor neighbour who owns a Dodge Ram (I live in a dense European city) who drives around for 15min after he gets home looking for two parking spots next to each other because he doesn't fit in a single spot. He has this car which is great for the purpose it's built, but not so good as a daily commuter.
Flow batteries are larger than Lithium by a factor of 2 currently. This is not relevant in grid scale applications. What is relevant:
- 100% depth of discharge.
- Hugely increased cycle count.
- End of cycle count means one cheap component needs to be replaced: the membrane.
- Estimated 20yr life span is much higher than lithium.
- No cooling required.
- Non-flammable, non-toxic.
- Expansion is as simple as dropping a container of liquid next to the existing battery and connecting a hose.
Lithium battery grid storage can be installed and provide energy for about 1.5 cents/kWh
The most conservative estimate for Tesla's grid storage solution which is the cheapest on the market includes daily cycling over 15 yrs is $0.15/kWh for wholesale cost of a Powerwall (double for retail), and $0.08/kWh for grid scale solution.
Vanadium flow batteries had that cost several years ago already due to their much longer life times and much deeper cycle capability. UET estimates they'll have grid storage available for under $0.05/kWh by the end of the year.
Speaking of because someone has something available it must be good: Redflow ZCell is a lovely little flow cell you can buy for your home. You can replace the Tesla Powerwall with it in a couple of years when the Powerwall is dead. The ZCell costs about 1.5x more and lasts nearly 3 times longer.
Development in flow batteries seems to be slowing, precisely because they are stationary.
Nonsense. Flow battery development hasn't been this active in many years. There are companies producing alternatives to Tesla's Powerwall for the home, more and more interest in flow batteries for grid development and they seem to be outpacing the Lithium movement in the same part of the industry. Not to mention we only ran an article on Flow battery development here on Slashdot a little while ago.
No they have not.
Just because it is attached to the grid it is now "grid scale".
I expect form a storage that is "grid scale" to deliver some MWs of power and have at least a few 100 MW/h as storage.
No one is building or installing Li ion batteries that big. Why would they? Makes no sense!
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
A hill is easy made. ...
Facepalm
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
It would be great if solar could in fact be cheaper than coal in 20 years or so but I've already been told for 20 years that solar will be cheaper than coal in 20 years. I stopped believing these claims a long time ago.
Wind and solar is cheaper than coal since 5 years or more.
No idea what there is to believe, just look at a newspaper.
Solar has a lot of issues
Care to point out such an issue?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Nuclear has already been priced out by renewables + storage.
China has cancelled most of its new nuclear, its just finishing stuff that was already in the pipeline.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Lithium is gaining traction because production is ramping up fast and used cells are plentiful.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I'd be interested in seeing your citation for "much past climate alarmism was not justified."
The 2007 IPCC Report contains numerous wildly inaccurate statements.
My question-- the part you failed to quote--said "who said it, when, what exactly did they say, and in what way was it shown not to be justified?"
You didn't answer my question. You asserted that the IPCC synthesis report was "alarmism" with "numerous inaccurate statements," but didn't point out a single inaccurate statement.
So, I repeat: what specifically was inaccurate, and how and when was it shown not to be justified?
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Lithium is gaining traction because production is ramping up fast and used cells are plentiful.
I'd be surprised though if it catches on for grid scale stuff. The batteries are kinda subtle and quick to anger, though with temperature controlled storage and good charging circuitry they're reasonably solid. But for stationary things, you don'y need the super high power and energy density that lithium batteries give.
You can go for more robust designs with cheaper components as well as designs that aren't really suited to portability like liquid aqueous electrolytes or molten salts.
Of course the massive R&D and production efforts for Li batteries for portble use may end up outweighing that.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
humans cannot be trusted to manage it effectively.
Actually, I'd say that humans can't be trusted to htink about risks effectively. Even the ineffective management makes it by far the safest form of power generation currently as measured in terms of death per kWh, yet it has the reputation for being the most dangerous.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
That's great if you have a hill to pump the water up to. Out here on the Great Plains we don't have many hills.
New plan: use excess electricity to power robots to make some hills. Then pump water up hills.
Tesla built the largest grid scale battery in existence. Everything else is just hype.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Grid scale batters have to handle the power of a grid scale power source. Sunlight isn't replacing coal until they can store GWhs enough to replace a several hundred MW coal plant overnight. We ain't grid scale yet.
There is no way solar or wind would provide enough power to fuel our autos. Coal and nuclear would thrive!
Faith: Belief in Truth. Superstition: Belief in Falsehood.
36 days?!? That there is absolutely viable and we should do it everywhere.
36 days, in 2011.
This plant along with others have far higher run times when you don't look at a 7 year old example of the first ever plant of its kind.
Crescent Dunes had 100% availability and continuous generation from Feb 2016 - Feb 2017 (and probably longer), and even in Jan 2016 they only took the plant down because they needed to for final commissioning steps before full handover.
I don't know where you live, and that has a huge effect on how efficient a PV solar setup would be for a residence. But I thought solar was a great idea too, and decided to purchase a system for our home in Maryland, a few years ago. (I wasn't willing to take a chance on any of these solar lease arrangements. Too many horror stories from realtors about issues transferring those contracts if the homeowner wants to sell the house, etc.)
I spent the extra money for more costly SunPower branded panels after we ran the numbers using several cost calculators. (I only had a limited amount of roof space facing south or east that made sense to put panels on, so the extra 20% or so efficiency of the SunPower panels over the cheaper brands was like having 20% more roof space to put them on.)
Since then? I'd have to say the whole thing will probably come out to little more than a wash. The initial calculations of how much savings I'd get over time were made using some incorrect assumptions, for starters. The biggest one was a false promise by the solar installer that special low rate loans were available to finance the purchase. There was, indeed, a "bridge loan" that financed the first $10,000 of the installation cost at 0% interest for a year. The point of taking advantage of that was the theory that it allowed paying for the project immediately, but letting you pay the loan off using the Federal tax rebate you'd receive the next tax season for going solar. (The Federal refund was supposed to be 1/3rd. of the total cost of your installation.) The problem is, I didn't receive my whole rebate back at tax time. It was split in half, so I could only claim the second half of it the following tax year. So then I had to scramble to try to pay off the bridge loan before I was hit with interest charges on it.
The remainder of the installation was paid for with a solar loan -- but not one with nearly as good of interest rates as the installer promised. They told me to go through a specific lender they had special arrangements with, but those arrangements were considerably different than what the salesperson claimed. When I tried to shop around elsewhere, I quickly found most banks consider solar panel installation something you have to cover using a personal loan, at an interest rate of at least 7.9%. A few lenders even pretend they offer special loans for solar, but the rates are the same as personal loans elsewhere.
So .... any savings my panels give me on power are eaten into by loan interest, until that 10 year loan is paid off.
Now, I understand this won't be everyone's situation. If you have the money sitting around to just buy something like this straight out, great. No loans to worry about. And others may have owned a home long enough to be able to use a home equity line of credit, with better terms. BUT, you still have other factors to consider. For starters, they talk about the panels lasting 25-30 years, but be more worried about the inverters. My home has 2 of them -- one for an array of panels on the separate garage roof, and one on the house itself. Those things aren't cheap, and they have an expected lifespan of little more than 10 years. I believe the warranty on mine only lasts 5.
And it's not necessarily a HUGE issue, but it's worth factoring in the fact that you'll get stuck paying an electrician to take the panels off your roof and reinstall them if you ever need the roof re-shingled or repaired. Over 20-30 years, this is probably going to happen at least once.
And beyond that, you just don't know what electrical rates will be 20 years into the future. The solar salespeople love to create spreadsheets or charts indicating a gradual increase in those rates due to inflation -- but those don't reflect reality that well. In reality, I've seen rates fluctuate but occasionally drop or hold steady due to such things as finding new natural gas deposits in the U.S. and power companies putting more natural gas powered generators online. If "Green" alternatives become
Is confusing danger and risk your way of proving your point?
Energy usage is not constant. We use about 50% more power during waking hours, which correlates with the best generating times for renewables. Including about 33% solar and wind in the mix is likely the sweet spot for minimizing daytime the peak problem. The world generates about 14% by renewable today, so we do have quite a way to go before we need to focus on energy storage to minimize a newfound nighttime peak.
Of course, your mileage may vary as Africa, India and Brazil are already at 33%.
I believe that nuclear power is the only logical choice today. When or if wind and solar catch up then we can switch to that.
My believe is that a variety of sources is the only logical choice . If I were running the world's power supply, I would use...
1. Wind whenever available.
2. Solar to reduce daytime peaks.
3. Hydro and Geothermal to reduce nighttime usage.
4. Natural Gas to level out the minute-by minute load.
5. Coal and Nuclear to cover the continuous base load.
Oh, and just to throw a rock, Solar is the ultimate form of Nuclear power :-).
Maybe you don't have hills, but any elevation difference works. Maybe there's some underground caverns you can use instead. An exhausted oil reservoir perhaps.
Clearly you understand nothing about metallurgy, or science in general. Coal is still a very valuable and necessary hydrocarbon. (You kinda have to have it to make steel for your wind-turbines, dumbA$$), not everything can be made with plastics derived from unicorn turds comprised of hemp residue. Shill harder
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
Problem with nuclear is that it is getting too expensive. It can, maybe, do 5 cents per kWh for new installations, but uncertainties are huge. Solar can now, as today, do it at 20 cents, and it is rapidly declining. If it is cheaper than nuclear withing twenty years, building a nuclear plant today is "negative" investment.
That doesn't make sense. If I build a new nuclear power plant and a new solar farm, today, I'll need the loans for those and pay them off for something like that same 20 years it would take for solar to catch up. If the nuclear costs 5 cents per kWh today and the solar costs 20 cents per kWh today then in 20 years those two energy sources will still cost the same, because the cost for both is largely in stable costs like that loan for initial construction, labor, taxes, land, and so on. That same nuclear power plant will still be there in 20 years as will that same solar farm. For that solar farm to be profitable the price of energy would have to be above 20 cents per kWh for the next 20 years. If energy can be sold at that price then that nuclear power plant will make me a pile of money after those 20 years since my costs are 1/4 of what the solar cost.
If the costs of solar is dropping as quickly as you claim then investing in it today is the negative investment. It would be better to invest in nuclear today and then invest in solar when or if it gets cheaper. That rapid decline in solar pricing is in itself an uncertainty, which as you point out is something investors want to avoid.
And there will not be any "future" nuclear reactors, nobody can invest that amount of money to unknwon technology (unknown as "will it be cheap enough").
This next generation solar is also unknown. For new photovoltaic cells no one will know if it can last for 20 years in the weather for precisely 20 years. For new thermal solar technologies like molten salts people will not know the wear life of the piping for 20 years. Solar is as much an unknown as nuclear. You can claim solar will get cheaper all you like but we cannot know for sure until it actually happens. As it is right now nuclear is less of an unknown if we use current designs that are very safe and profitable. Nuclear is cheaper than solar today, you admitted this already. We can make it cheaper in the future just like we can make solar cheaper in the future.
I might have believed you ten years ago that no private entity has the kind of money needed to fund a nuclear power plant. Today we have private companies investing in a lot of huge projects that even governments ten years ago could not afford. The next ten years will be very interesting.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Wind and solar is cheaper than coal since 5 years or more.
Sure, in places like Hawaii and Arizona. Once all that cheap land in sunny places is "used up" then where can they go? There's a lot of that land so "used up" does not mean covered in solar panels, it means close enough to demand that it is profitable. Running wires to far off places costs money. Wind has a similar problem. It's cheap to put some windmills outside Chicago, St. Louis, and Dallas on some ranch and let the cattle graze underneath but at some point the windy places aren't so close to demand any more.
Solar has a lot of issues
Care to point out such an issue?
Sure. First is the well known issue of being available for about 8 hours per day. I hear people say that solar is cheaper than whatever in cost of new build capacity. This may in fact be true but solar capacity is not the same as coal capacity, or even wind. Solar has a capacity factor of about 30% while coal and nuclear have a capacity factor of 90%. If I build 10 nuclear power plants I can be assured that I'll get something like 80% of that maximum capacity at any time, day or night. To get that same assurance from solar I'd need 3 times the installed capacity with storage, and storage is not free. If I have a mix of wind, solar, and hydro, then maybe I can get away with not needing the storage (hydro is effectively the storage) but I'd still need 3 times the installed capacity over if I had a mix of coal, nuclear, and natural gas. This reliability problem translates into costs for materials, land, and just plain more money.
Second is the fragility of solar. For solar panels (and wind mills too) to work they need to be out in the weather. That means being exposed to things like hail, wind, and lightning. I remember a few hail storms around here and insurance companies had to bring in people from all over to handle the claims of broken windows, dented cars, and damaged roofs. What would a solar farm look like after that? How long would it take to repair? I'm sure with thick enough glass it could take quite a beating but that adds to the cost and reduces efficiency. Coal, nuclear, and natural gas don't have that problem. It's cheap insurance to put them in big concrete bunkers to hold up to even a direct hit by an F4 tornado. A nuclear power plant can likely take an even bigger beating since they've been tested against things like airplane collisions.
Land area. Solar power needs area and there is no way to get around that. Not only a lot of area but area free of obstructions. Solar can be put on rooftops but that adds to maintenance costs since now lifting up the panels involves cranes and more time than if on the ground. This land cannot be used for crops, grazing, hunting, or much of anything really. This land is going to be as lifeless as an asphalt parking lot. So you can park underneath the panels, which is nice I suppose but we need only so many parking lots. Nuclear power can be done anywhere, including under those solar panels, parking lots, and green spaces. We're not there just yet but we're close. The problem isn't so much the technology, we have nuclear power running under water in submarines, but more of the politics and logistics. Ignoring that we still can have a nuclear power plant in the middle of a green space where we can grow trees, crops, or whatever. It can be done on a frozen tundra in the Arctic circle, or in the shadow of a mountain.
Waste. Many people will make a big deal about the waste created by a nuclear or coal power plant. Not many people think of the waste from a solar plant. Those panels will wear out and break but we don't know yet how to recycle that. There's also the concrete pads they sit on and/or the steel and aluminum structures to hold them up. We know how to recycle steel, aluminum, and to some extent concrete too, but that is going to be a lot to handle. To keep up with demand and wear on solar we'd have to
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
- in 2016, the earth will be a frying pan (http://www.climatedepot.com/2016/01/26/jan-26-2016-is-al-gores-global-warming-doomsday/)
- in 1985, half the sunlight will be gone 'Life Magazine in 1970 reported that “by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half.” '
- by 2000, the world is going to collapse from over population (various sources, pick one)
- by 1975, most of the world will be starving (Peter Gunter, a professor at North Texas State University, in a 1970)
- by 2000, no more oil - UC Davis ecology professor Kenneth Watt: By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a ratethat there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, ‘Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, ‘I am very sorry, there isn’t any.'”'
So many more, but I'll stop. Point is, why would you believe anything they say?
As far as renewable...one hopes it will solve something..but right now, the only reason it even survives is due to subsidies (when it survives...how about all those failed Obama funded solar companies?) For every 'green' source out there, there are some large issues with it. None of them are as 'green' as they seem.
SCNR
Speaking of because someone has something available it must be good: Redflow ZCell is a lovely little flow cell you can buy for your home. You can replace the Tesla Powerwall with it in a couple of years when the Powerwall is dead. The ZCell costs about 1.5x more and lasts nearly 3 times longer.
Your numbers appear to be obsolete. And also specific to Australia. ZCell's cost ~$17,000AUD installed for 10 kWh with a 10 year warranty and isn't available in the US. Telsa Powerwall 2's now cost $8,200USD installed for 13.5 kWh with the same 10 year warranty. Both products support 100% discharge of their nameplate capacity. The Tesla does it by overprovisioning cells. The ZCell does it inherently to the tech.
ZCell depended on a longevity advantage for their cost competitiveness with lithium. That advantage has evaporated. Tesla many-cell powerpacks are holding up far better than anyone anticipated. Even Tesla.
Is that no one posting here has any idea how power is actually generated and what it takes to build a plant. The fact is coal and natural gas will be with us a long time. Renewables will increase but costs will prevent it overtaking fossil fuels for decades. You will not see the end of fossil fuel power generation in your lifetimes. Get used to climate change and adapting to this reality and forget the fantasy of zero combustion.
And it's not necessarily a HUGE issue, but it's worth factoring in the fact that you'll get stuck paying an electrician to take the panels off your roof and reinstall them if you ever need the roof re-shingled or repaired.
Around here, the primary reason for roof replacement is hail damage. Covering your roof in solar panels shields it from hail damage, so the need for roof replacement is much reduced.
Maybe it will become foolish to try to generate your own power at home vs. the savings they're giving you due to economies of scale?
I don't want it for the savings. I want it for the independence. The grid around here is more stable now than it's been in years, but it's tornado alley; wind damage is unavoidable, even if tree damage is now much less likely since they went on a rampage and leveled every tree to the ground that was within 20 feet of the power lines. That helped with the reliability tremendously, and looks better too. No mangled trees by the side of the road. Still, depending on somebody else's power is annoying, and I have a 1456 day uptime to protect.
Now, I understand this won't be everyone's situation. If you have the money sitting around to just buy something like this straight out, great. No loans to worry about.
This is the reason I haven't pulled the trigger yet. I'll be paying off my mortgage first, then paying cash for solar. Electricity rates in my region are so low that there basically aren't any loan terms that are acceptable, and I even have access to a very cheap home equity line of credit. Another two, maybe three years. I'll get there.
I smell bullshit
In the question I asked, the word "it" is meant to mean "nuclear power".
Please try again.
That's for heat production, but when the aim is actually generating electricity you lose with each additional step. You cannot squeeze every last bit of energy out of the steam so the gas turbines with their single step win by quite a margin.
LOL Then why'd you cite 36 days, instead of a greater number of consecutive days.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Thought experiment: How much energy could you store by lifting very large concrete blocks, and then lowering them through a resistance when you need the energy back? Maybe having them push screws down that would spin generators on their way down. Or maybe use the energy to pump water up past a dam, and recover it through turbines when you need it. How efficient would that be, and what would the energy density be, compared to batteries?
Holes in the ground could work too.
For the amount of money and in the amount of time it takes you to construct a new nuclear plant, you can roll out wind and solar power across an entire region, completely with hydrostatic batteries (reservoirs and water towers). Creating far more jobs in the process in far less time.
And that's ignoring the costs of security, disaster preparedness, plant decommission, and storing the waste for hundreds to thousands of years for nuclear power. Disagree? Fell free to link to a statement from a nuclear power company, showing the fees charged up front to pay for those cradle-to-grave costs.
Uh huh. So how many humans have died from the failure of solar panels again? Wind farms? We're talking failures here, not industrial accidents.
ZCell depended on a longevity advantage for their cost competitiveness with lithium. That advantage has evaporated.
I wouldn't suggest anything has evaporated anywhere in an industry which is a battle of R&D to out-do each other. Lithium's cost effectiveness came from ramped up production. What makes you think that flow batteries aren't capable of the same?
But it goes back into what I was saying: I was talking about grid storage. I was just using an example of just because something is available doesn't make it the only and definitely not the "ideal" solution. Lithium for the home and for the car. Redox for the grid. If for no other reason than by keeping the grid guys away from consumer products the price won't be affected by strange supply and demand swings :-)
I didn't. I just looked into the 36days cited by the OP rather than simply posting crap on Slashdot. And here I am now to share my new found knowledge :-)
Changes little. You can still have your artificial reservoir, and use excess energy to pump water into it, then let water flow out through a turbine to generate electricity. Or failing that, water towers. And there are hydroelectric dams and water towers that have been in service for over a century. And the whole point of your phancy pants nuclear power plants is to heat water, to push a turbine to generate electricity.
You forget that building a nuclear is extremely expensive, running it is relatively cheap.
So in order to get the investment back, you need to get revenue for over fifty years. For solar you only need ten to twenty years.
Uh huh. So how many humans have died from the failure of solar panels again? Wind farms? We're talking failures here, not industrial accidents.
Right, so if you ignore the vast majority of deaths involved in solar power, you can conclude that solar power is the safest form of power. Well, that's a fun trick, but what's the point?
See this is why nuclear power is so problematic: people won't think straight when discussing it. For example, you've effectively declared that you believe the lives of people involved in merely building a solar plant are of no value.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Why do you insist to play an idiot?
Wind and Solar power is cheaper than coal all over the world.
Those panels will wear out and break but we don't know yet how to recycle that
Wow, you are indeed an idiot.
There is nothing to recycle, you simply put them again into a silicon plant, how retarded are you?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Boilers lose a lot of heat, especially old ones, so no, that very lossy extra step means nowhere near as efficient as burning in the gas turbine even if you have a very large boiler and a turbines covering a very wide pressure range allowing quite a few passes with the same steam.
I should have mentioned that earlier but the proposed power station refurbishment where I thought about these things in depth was in 1994 so I'd forgotten all the details.
You forget that building a nuclear is extremely expensive, running it is relatively cheap.
No, I did not. The material expense is nearly identical to that of a coal plant, I've seen an engineering analysis of this. The regulatory expense is high right now but that is merely a matter of politics and politics can change. Other one time costs like design and engineering can be spread over multiple reactors.
Material costs for wind is higher than nuclear, many times higher. They can save on things like assembly line production but nuclear reactors can be built assembly line style too. Finding real world numbers on the costs of solar is nearly impossible. Everyone likes to talk about how much solar will cost in 10 or 20 years but few will give actual numbers for today.
So in order to get the investment back, you need to get revenue for over fifty years. For solar you only need ten to twenty years.
Which will supposedly happen 20 years from now. In that 20 years we could also have small modular reactors built on an assembly line. The engineering and licensing costs would be minimal, a lot like how commercial aircraft are built and licensed. As of right now, today, solar still costs more than nuclear so investing in solar right now, today, is not a good bet.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
That's great if you have a hill to pump the water up to. Out here on the Great Plains we don't have many hills.
With high voltage DC power lines (a technology that has been in commercial use for 80 years) you do not have to have the hill nearby. Transmission losses for 800 KV lines is a only a 8% percent loss going from San Diego to Portland Maine, the longest possible CONUS distance. Going from the Midwest to a location with pumped storage is probably going to be 1/3 that distance with losses of 2-3%.
The actual losses in using pumped storage (energy in-energy out) ranges over 14-25%. Battery losses (depending on technology) range over 5-35%
This these two efficiencies reveal something very important that almost everyone on /. ignores. The principal means to deal with power load mismatches with a renewable grid is having a better grid: one that can ship electricity from where it is being produced to where it is needed. Long-distance transmission is more efficient than any storage technology. This grid should include Canada and Mexico too, for even greater advantages. Canada can build and sell pumped storage capacity, Mexico can generate solar power.
Once you create a continent-wide power grid load balancing gets a lot easier and the need for storage shrinks dramatically. When the is a high evening load in the East where most Americans live, the sun is shining out west, and the wind is blowing somewhere in the Midwest.
Currently pumped storage in the U.S. is 2.2% of total grid capacity, and plans exist to increase that to 6.2% in the years ahead. That provides a lot of load shifting capacity.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
Wind and Solar power is cheaper than coal all over the world.
I don't live all over the world, I live in the American Midwest. Solar and wind is not cheaper here, therefore it is not cheaper all over the world. If it was cheaper than coal then my electric utility would not have mailed me an offer to increase my electric rate to fund more windmills. Instead they'd be mailing me a letter that they've reduced my rates because of all the windmills they built.
There is nothing to recycle, you simply put them again into a silicon plant, how retarded are you?
Citation needed. I've searched the internet for how PV cells are recycled and all I've found are articles that say that PV cells contain heavy metals and therefore must be disposed of as hazardous waste, and people that claim they can recycle PV cells real soon now.
This has been a problem for electronics for a long time now. No one has figured out how to recycle silicon once it's been doped. After that all they can do is leach out as many heavy metals as they can and dump the remains in a hole.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Once you create a continent-wide power grid load balancing gets a lot easier and the need for storage shrinks dramatically.
How much is this continent wide power grid going to cost to build and maintain? I know we already have some very large electric grids but there is a reason that they are still separate.
Then there is still the issue of wind and solar having capacity factors somewhere around 30%. Meaning that for every gigawatt of capacity built the grid sees only 1/3 of a gigawatt-year annually. Coal, nuclear, and natural gas have capacity factors of about 90%, which means 9/10 of a gigawatt-year annually for every gigawatt of capacity.
People get all excited when there's a news article on how solar is cheaper than coal when they really mean the cost of the new install of solar capacity is lower than that of coal capacity. That's nothing to get excited about. When it gets to be 1/3rd the price then we can get excited. Until that happens solar is not going to replace coal in any real way. All the solar power we have now are government subsidized money pits or privately funded greenwash advertising.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
You must be an idiot indeed. ...
We are talking about new installations and the cost of production energy with them.
At your place setting up a new solar plant is cheaper than setting up a new coal plant.
And it will produce energy for a cheaper price.
No idea why you refer to old contracts that obviously don't change
Citation needed.
Citiation needed for a no brainer?
What is next? If I put shit on a field it works as fertilizer? Citation needed?
You are an idiot, how dumb do you think I am?
PV cells are recycled and all I've found are articles that say that PV cells contain heavy metals
PV cells don't contain heavy metals, hence you never searched the internet and hence you never found an article claiming they can not be recycled.
How do you think a silicon cell is made? They melt SAND, and then purify it to an absurd amount of purity. ... WTF, get a damn clue.
It does not matter if I melt an old solar cell or simple sand from a desert or the sea
Recycling a silicon based PV cell is probably the simplest thing in the world. And completely pointless as you can deposite them safely as nothing of its ingridients can easiely get out.
Stop contributing to that 'can not be recycled myth'.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Would you care to try that again, without the willful obtuseness this time? If Billy Bob trips over his shoe laces, falls down the stairs and breaks his neck at his local nuclear power plant, obviously that is a workplace death. But just as obviously, his death had nothing to do with nuclear power.
Same thing if Bob trips and falls down the stairs at Solar City as opposed to the nuclear power plant. So, again, just how many deaths have there been from the failure of wind and solar power.
What ever will they fill the cars with if the workers in Siberia can't fill the train cars with coal? Wind?
Actually no, you are mistaken.
Solar and wind are diffuse sources of power. As a result you need an awful lot of it, physically.
Nuclear power tends to to be concentrated in a small number of "large" power plants. But they're not that bit. Compare the size of a 3.2GWe (Hinkley Point C) nuclear power plant to 3.2GWe of solar or wind. After of course accounting for the capacity factor of both.
If you think Hinkley Point C is large, you might be pretty surprised how big the wind or solar plant comes out at.
You will find they are many many times larger. That means a consequently larger construction effort, a much larger effort in mining the materials (and coal and oil required in the processing) and not only that but a much larger programme of ongoing maintenance which particularly in the case of industrial wind is somewhat dangerous since it's up high towers. Also, rooftop solar has a startlingly high accident rate because dicking around on a roof is dangerous.
You can do the calculations for nuclear too, including mining the yellowcake.
The thing is that the rather compact nature of the plants and extremely energy dense fuel means that overall less effort goes into generating the power than just about any other source. That means few fatal accidents. And the regulation means that the place where nuclear can really go wrong are very, very rare, to the point where it's the safest form of power in the only reasonable way of measuring it.
The thing is, if you only account deaths due to failure of the plant while it's running, you can also conclude that coal power is extremely safe, because you fail to account for the thousands who die in mining accidents and the millions who die early due to respiratory problems.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Collectively, we aren't much better than we are as individuals. ;-)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
So, you can't be bothered to find a citation so you shout the lie louder.
My citations:
http://www.greenmatch.co.uk/bl...
Silicon powder is useful in cast iron foundries but it cannot be reused for the construction of new photovoltaic cells as it still contains a certain percentage of glass.
http://earth911.com/eco-tech/r...
Panels contain metals, such as lead, copper, gallium and cadmium; an aluminum frame
I'm pretty sure that lead and cadmium are heavy metal that people don't want in their drinking water.
These are recent articles so you can try to tell me someone figured it out since then but I won't believe you unless you give a citation.
how dumb do you think I am?
Do you really want an answer?
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Panels dont contain an aluminium frame.
It is a frame.
Panels don't contain lead or cadmium. They use copper as conductors and that is outside of the panel, on top of it. Gallium is not a heavy metal. Gallium is mainly only used in the most expensive PV cells used in space crafts.
PV cells can not be recycled because they continue to much glass?
How retarded is that? PV cells are glass. Glass is silicium, molten sand, or more precisely, silicium oxide. PV cells are made from pure silicium.
I suggest to google for some stuff that gives you an education instead of googling for stuff you fear and get fake answers.
Silicium based PV cells are probably the most easiest thing to recycle on the planet, just behind glass bottles.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
More shouting and still no citations. You obviously do not know how photovoltaic cells are made.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.