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World's Cheapest Energy Source Will Be Renewables Within Three Years (qz.com)
Morgan Stanley researchers predict renewable energy will become the world's cheapest form of power within three years. An anonymous reader quotes Qz:
Renewable energy is simply becoming the cheapest option, fast... "We project that by 2020, renewables will be the cheapest form of new-power generation across the globe," with the exception of a few countries in Southeast Asia, the Morgan Stanley analysts said in a report published Thursday... Globally, the price of solar panels has fallen 50% between 2016 and 2017, they write. And in countries with favorable wind conditions, the costs associated with wind power "can be as low as one-half to one-third that of coal- or natural gas-fired power plants." Innovations in wind-turbine design are allowing for ever-longer wind blades; that boost in efficiency will also increase power output from the wind sector, according to Morgan Stanley.
The researchers also predict America will reach its Paris Climate Accord targets in 2020 -- five years early -- simply because renewables are already becoming the cheapest option for power.
The researchers also predict America will reach its Paris Climate Accord targets in 2020 -- five years early -- simply because renewables are already becoming the cheapest option for power.
And renewable. Once us humans kill oirselves off, we'll have a whole new batch of coal in another 300 million years.
The researchers also predict America will reach its Paris Climate Accord targets in 2020 -- five years early -- simply because renewables are already becoming the cheapest option for power.
Free market FTW.
If this pans out, the Middle East problems will become largely irrelevant, outside the Middle East. And Saudi Arabia will revert to what it always was.
Good, this will mean they can stand on their own feet as opposed to being artificially propped up by subsidies...
if u disagree ur racist
Sure, we can hook up all those politicians and trolls to the new wind turbines, but do we really want to have to keep them around?
Rick Perry says if we put the coal out there, the demand for it will follow.
(What do you want from a guy who got his degree in Animal Science?)
Never mind that Natural Gas is cheaper. I have a choice when I buy my electricity. Up to now I've been buying from a utility that produces more from renewables – just because it's more expensive, not because it comes from renewables. Now that coal is the more expensive option I'll switch to that. It costs more, it's got to be better, right?
Is your degree in OffTopic?
Did you see that article on how many people have purchased iPhone 10 phones already?
What about the cost of energy storage? Producing it is not enough if you can't use it at-will.
I installed creimer panels on my house; they convert bullshit to electricity. I'm set for life!
As long as they will continue the government subsidies to implement renewables and tax the crud out of all the rest. Then, yes they are right.
I guess the truth hurts when it conflicts with their reality.
Perry was the President of Texas, so he knows a lot about oil and energy.
Aww, poor trump snowflake. Do you need a safe space like Pence?
The Sun is not renewable.
Sure its going to keep turning hydrogen into helium for a few more billion yeats bit its not renewable.
They need to use another term
LOL
A bold move! But it makes sense. The most expensive electrons are usually the best electrons! That's just logic, my friend.
Animal Science
You saying there's another kind?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Another name for this is "blowing smoke out your ass".
MAGA, baby! MAGA!
If this pans out, the Middle East problems will become largely irrelevant, outside the Middle East. And Saudi Arabia will revert to what it always was.
I’m not so sure about that. There is more at stake in the region than just oil revenue, like competing regional influence (with military benefits), mass migrations, exportable terrorism and, of course, the Israel-Arab conflict in which the U.S. has always been knee deep. Turning the region into a resourceless dump of poverty is unlikely to improve things for anyone. If coal country here in the U.S. can effortlessly swing to radical extremes because their outdated jobs have gone away, think of what’s likely to happen in the Middle-East when it’s their turn. It would probably be smart to help them to a soft landing and rebound to better opportunities.
My local utility is legally required to buy renewable energy credits and my cost per kW/hr has increased. They certainly passed the savings on to the customer, I look forward to saving more in the future!
...maybe not. The cross over is probably pretty soon either way though.
And that's good news on reaching those pesky Paris numbers without having to waste all that money. Smart man.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Animal Science
You saying there's another kind?
Animal Science from Texas A&M no less. Apparently he had quite the struggle finishing too.
That whole M thing in A&M is really overrated.
He was Lt. Governor when Shrub was elected. Boy, Texas sure likes having the Best and the Brightest, don't they?
the cheapest fluctuating, unreliable energy sources the subsidized market has to offer!
Meh. I think they're secretly trying to create another bubble so they can short the market.
...it's Fash the Nation!
How are Texas presidents elected and how long do they serve? I'm unaware of this position.
degree in Animal Science
Might be quite useful in the Republican Party.
Look up power production and use in TX. It's full of wind farms
The improvement to the environment in terms of less particulate and chemical contamination made it cost effective a while ago.
the fact that this fact was always ignored as a cost means we're still debating whether renewables are "cost effective".
meanwhile, if only China would manufacture solar cells properly and stop dumping the by-products into the environment.
pollution is, and has been for quite some time, a global problem.
Absolute statements are never true
>Globally, the price of solar panels has fallen 50% between 2016 and 2017
really? I'm highly interested in buying these dirt cheap panels they are talking about. where do I start? do they have 50% off on their inverters too?
You couldn't find anything with whale oil subsidies? It would be about a relevant to the current economics.
Does it work the other way around too?
I can buy a 20 watt solar panel at walmart for a hundred bucks. Standard solar output is way less than the max though, because of clouds, night, sunlight that isn't at the right angle, etc. Usually you figure 20% of max production. So that's 4 watts 24 hours per day. Say it lasts 20 years, which is conservative IMO. 4 watts * 365 * 20 = 29.2 megawatt-hours over the course of its lifetime.
If your ideas are correct, that's a subsidy of $230 per megawatt hour, or $6,716 total subsidy for that solar panel.
Let's think about that for a second. Do you really think the government is shelling out $6,716 every time someone buys $100 worth of solar panel from Walmart? And that there's a giant conspiracy to hide that fact from consumers? Does that seem like a sane explanation to you? Or maybe that website should not be trusted without double checking elsewhere on the web.
Here's my link.
The oil industry becomes less profitable as the tax breaks they have had in the past began to close. All things being equal, expect renewables to get cheaper and fossil fuels to get more expensive just on the tax benefits.
(tax deductions are not a subsidy in the strictest sense of the word)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
when you factor in the environmental damage coal causes that must be remediated and is paid for by the government because the company responsible declared bankruptcy and reorganized into a new company free to do it again, i hazard a guess that the subsidy for coal is much greater.
Sorry to do this to you, but you've miscalculated a bit.
The output over 20 years is 4 * 24 * 365 * 20 ~= 700 kilowatt-hours...
which is about $161 worth of electricity at a rate of $0.23/kwh
(... just to stop anybody dashing out to buy 20 watt solar panels in the hope of making a fortune.)
KOL (Global ETF), URA (Global ETF), UNG (US Nat. Gas), SQM (Lithium miner south america), F (Ford, good dividend) and GM (good dividend).
Coal has a shit ton of externalities that are not subsidies of the kind that would be captured in that article. Also FWIW, the Daily Caller (blech) says the subsidies are only 326 times Coal's subsidies. That number should continue to drop as technology advances. But, if renewable turns out to be unsustainable, then the coal will still be there, and 5000 guys with the right equipment will be able to mine enough to satisfy the energy needs of the country, including the underwater gardens of Maralago.
One good thing that Perry did is limit state regulation that could have stopped renewables from takin over. Now that Perry is gone, and the true radicals have taken over Texas, there are regulations that protect legacy interests.
But those regulations will not stop what is already happening. Natural gas is taking over coal plants, so Texas is producing less pollution not due to regulation, but due to the free market. Likewise wind is predicting an increasing percentage of the energy, and more cities are depending more on wind energy and less on fossil fuels. This, again, is not regulation but the fact that wind energy is so cheap there are occasional times that overnight spot prices are negative.
This, of course, means that wind will become increasingly popular. And, of course, Texas does not care about killing birds any more than it cares about killing children with the pollution from coal fired plants.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
In the long term, renewables have to be cheaper, for the simple reason that the supply of expendables, though enormous, will eventually be so depleted that they'll be very expensive to unearth. Whether it's 3 years or 1000 years, the principle stands.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Well it was on a website and it mentioned Washington Times. I don't think GP's critical thinking went much further than that.
$0.23 / kwh? Jesus, power is expensive there, I get it for around $0.08 here in MN.
Yes, if you agree you're also a racist.
USD 100 for 20W? That's ridiculously expensive. You can buy the same in China - where they're made - for about USD 10-15. Even with battery and charge controller you're at no more than half that price.
Larger panels are cheaper per watt - a 20W panel is really small.
He has this sort of flaccid response to any green technology. He also predicts that less than 50K of the Tesla Model 3 reservations will turn into real orders.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
I think 20 watt panel is a waste of time. Here's a 100 watt one at Amazon for about 100 dollars shipped free with prime. https://www.amazon.com/HQST-Wa...
That should actually work out a little better. I don't know how much it's subsidized or anything like that though.
This is a much better deal.
https://www.amazon.com/HQST-Wa...
Lets verify that for a moment.
You linked to a blog, that quoted a chart from the Washington Times, so lets Google that article:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/9/hillary-clintons-solar-energy-baloney/
Which cites a chart made from EIA numbers, specifically naming this article.
https://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/
Which cites LOAN guarantees, and R&D costs among the biggest costs, i.e. the CAPITAL costs.
"That idea that renewables will be cheaper than coal is simply politically motivated bullshit."
No, you're the victim of someone deliberately trying to mislead you by mixing in capital costs subsidies in and comparing them to ongoing costs.
You expect a huge capital investment when switching to renewables and thus a large capital cost.
For example Musk has rolled out the latest car from his factory, car 1, if I calculated the capital cost per electric car it would be about $2 billion for that one car!
That whole M thing in A&M is really overrated.
FYI: If you ask anyone in Austin, we'll tell you that the M in A&M stands for manure.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/05/30/why-do-federal-subsidies-make-renewable-energy-so-costly/#52ba304e128c
Utility scale solar is already at 6-7 cents per KwH before subsides in the South West USA, so the federal subsidy would amount to 2 cents a KwH. The indirect of pollution is at least 10 cents a KwH, so when you consider total costs, fossil fuels sources are much more expensive.
Yes, but no one cares if it is 1,000 years...
The Republic of Texas (now defunct) had presidents that served for 2 or 3 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Texas
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Sorry to do this to you, but you've miscalculated a bit.
The output over 20 years is 4 * 24 * 365 * 20 ~= 700 kilowatt-hours...
which is about $161 worth of electricity at a rate of $0.23/kwh
(... just to stop anybody dashing out to buy 20 watt solar panels in the hope of making a fortune.)
The current wholesale price per KW of solar panels is 33 cents. Also, the life expectancy of solar panels is 30 years plus. so redoing the calculation
5*365*30 = 54.75 KwH
so price per KwH = .33/54.75 = $.006/KwH
Only $0.08? I'm guessing it doesn't come from renewables!
Due to the lack of funding from oil rich countries, terrorism has all but vanished as no one is bothering to buy their oil any longer.
Although he does look like a shill, do not attribute to malice what could be stupidity. He may geniuniely have been misled by the Washington times article, or by the paid for pieces that Hannity did on this.
There is some serious coal money going around to produce these graphs and these claims, and people are genuinely fooled when Fox News and the other paid outlets present it as investigative news.
In this case a staffer at Washington Times, made a graph of capital costs divided by annual current production and cited it as an EOA government source. When in fact it's two sets of EOA numbers divided.
So for example, the Chinese have just rolled out solar farm on a lake. It produces 40 megawatts, the panels need replacing every 25 years, it cost $40 million (production only for the middle of the day, say 6 hours * 40 * 365 * 25 = 32 cents per megawatt hour. )
That's about 1/500th of the cost of the electricity you buy OVER THE LIFE of the farm. But so far it's only made a few test runs for a few hours, so currently that number would be, say $1 million per megawatt hour! This is what Washington Times did, they try to mislead, capital costs over current production. Both number were from the government, but their graph makes no sense.
Of course that's not the full costs of that Chinese plant, they plan a storage facility, a higher lake, where they can pump spare electricity and turn it into hydro. That will increase the costs, but here too, the shills try to mislead. Citing "Base costs", as if for every watt hour of renewables, they need to keep producing 1 watt hour of coal power in case the clouds come, or the wind stops.
Let's think about that for a second. Do you really think the government is shelling out $6,716 every time someone buys $100 worth of solar panel from Walmart? And that there's a giant conspiracy to hide that fact from consumers? Does that seem like a sane explanation to you? Or maybe that website should not be trusted without double checking elsewhere on the web.
Not quite that much but according to Fit and Microfit prices here in Ontario, but it's pretty damn close, or roughly 2/3's the price. And people wonder why Ontario has gone from people loving "green energy" to "fuck this, we're grabbing pitch forks."
Om, nomnomnom...
That's actualy 29.2 kWh from that single panel, which comes out to a $6.71 subsidy. That's actually a lot more in line with reasonable, but it's probably irrelevant because that particular panel is unlikely to be subsidized. The subsidies would go to manufacturers (to get them off the ground) or solar plants (to help them get built).
dom
How come that was not the title of the article?
Fwiw - Washington Times (not to be confused with the Washington Post) is a Unification Church publication and right wing leaning.
29.2 megawatts is 29200 kilowatts at 16 cents a kilowatt for electricity, thats $4672 worth of electricity, for the cost of that $100 panel.
You can see why the coal industry is desperate to kill renewables + energy storage.
Barring battery storage that most of us don't have the room for.. if you have solar panels helping you with your power needs the Sun isn't available 24x7. I can't imagine how the power industry will handle only needing to provide most of its power overnight while soaking up over-production from local solar array during the day.
Peace out.
If you think that the US or international economy is a free market based on real costs then you are a fool. The game is rigged, and it has always been rigged. Pointing to a study funded by entrenched special interests is, to use your phrase, "bullshit."
If you are so in love with coal power then move to Beijing. You will be coughing most of the time and you life expectancy will decrease by a few years, but it will get you away from that evil subsidized renewable energy.
Choke on that, Mr. Free Marketeer.
Why is Snark Required?
The price of solar cell production (and subsequent panels for use) has fallen dramatically in recent years. The cost of coal/oil/gas fired power plants is simply not going to change because they are all large scale engineering projects. The cost of solar cell production will continue to fall. A similar fall in price for lithium ion batteries for cars is happening right now as car companies transition to electric cars. Market economics will ultimately end the oil industry as we know it today.
Solar is already widely used in California. From the LA Times: "The California Legislature has mandated that one-half of the state’s electricity come from renewable sources by 2030; today it’s about one-fourth. That goal once was considered wildly optimistic. But solar panels have become much more efficient and less expensive. So solar power is now often the same price or cheaper than most other types of electricity, and production has soared so much that the target now looks laughably easy to achieve." http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-solar/
Coal is half that price... my wholesale cost of coal power is about 3.5 cents per KWh
I live outside of the US and I can get a 100W panel for less than $100 so I guess the US is subsidizing solar in other countries too.
As others have pointed out your "megawatt" should be a kilowatt, but also you have not factored in full costs such as any battery storage or electrical starter unit, etc. over the 20 year period
Solar power is nice to see improved, but ain't going to make all the cool things from science fiction a reality (like wireless power and the like). It has long been a matter of personal opinion of where we should go as humans with consumption of resources such as power, either towards a more "sustainable" society which uses less and is "able to live within its means" or using more power and hoping that new technologies make life better for future generations. I would personally like to see much greater power generation and take some solace in that both approaches will likely be tried at the same time if history is anything to go on.
That website uses out of date data to make a point about the future. It also refers to more biased sites.
Biased website is biased. Film at 11.
Seriously, the Koch brothers are spending a lot of money right now to convince people that coal has a viable future.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
That's why Germany and Denmark, which have the highest wind+solar energy investments, have such affordable electricity. Oh, wait...
http://www.euanmearns.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/europeelectricprice.png
In Germany, where they now get 20% of their electricity from wind & solar, the extraordinarily high cost has driven the price of electricity there up to three times what I pay here in North Carolina. (Well, it also doesn't help that Merkel is shutting down their perfectly good nuclear plants.)
The truth is that the intermittency problem with wind and solar is so severe that when you get more than a few percent tied into the grid it actually has negative value. It is only "crony capitalism" (government mandates, tax incentives, etc.) which make wind & solar competitive with coal and gas except in very special circumstances.
Diverting resources to wind and solar boondoggles impoverishes people, not just in West Virginia, where huge numbers of them are now out of work, but also everywhere that it inflates the cost of energy. It causes people living "on the edge" to sometimes have to choose between eating and staying warm.
Either choice can be deadly. In Europe, where there have been enormous price hikes for energy because of "renewables" scams, "energy poverty" is killing tens of thousands of mostly-elderly people:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/fuel-poverty-killed-15000-people-last-winter-10217215.html
What's more, most of the energy used to PRODUCE solar panels, and much of the energy used to produce wind turbines, comes from soot-belching, coal-fired power plants in China, and most of the energy REPLACED BY these devices would have been produced in clean power plants with state-of-the-art "scrubbers" in North America, Europe & Australia.
So, Chinese workers get emphysema, American workers get to collect unemployment (until it runs out), and American & European environmentalists get to feel self-righteous.
Such a deal.
Innovations in wind-turbine design are allowing for ever-longer wind blades
Eventually we'll have wind blades long enough to reach to the top of the atmosphere. They'll also double as space elevators! /hope
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Yeah. Here in NC, the legislature has been mandating wind+solar, so our electricity prices have been going up. We're around $.11 / kw-hr, retail, now. So in 20 years that 20W panel would produce about $77 worth of electricity, valued at current retail price.
But, of course, the true value of intermittently supplied electricity is actually much LESS than the WHOLESALE value of reliable electricity.
Also, the panels diminish in output over their lifetime, AND they probably won't last 20 years, AND they don't include installation costs, AND they don't include the expensive inverter (which also won't last 20 years), NOR the extra expense when it comes time to replace your roof (if you mount the darn things on your roof), etc., etc.
The bottom line is that solar is nowhere near as cost effective as wind, which is nowhere near as cost effective as gas and coal fuels.
Is it just politics? That they want to make people somehow believe that they are not consuming anything? Call them "abundant" instead and you will no longer be liars.
unfortunately the poorly maintained pipelines in my home state are leaking and have contaminated surface water and ground water in some areas.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
They're not adding storage for because it's cheaper than peaker plants. They're adding storage because peaker plants cant correct the stupid fast supply transients (100 msec-5 sec) caused by large PV farms. Those are all about grrid stability inside 10 seconds, and have nothing to do with the pipe dream of overnight storage for renewables. All of the current large scale storage projects are straight up graft.
Why would you buy a 20 watt solar panel from Walmart for a hundred bucks when you can get a 150 watt solar panel from Amazon for $175?
Your math is wrong. 0.7 not 29.2. subsidy is thus $161 assuming the same subsidy over 20 years (which is unlikely)
For 100 bucks I can get a 50 watt panel. But that's still ridiculously expensive. The first hit on Google Shopping goes for $0.60 per watt. Your example is... not a good exapmle.
0x or or snor perron?!
They do not have to pay dictators and cronies from the "underdeveloped nations" money for nothing. (that's all the Paris Accord is about).
All these renewables have always been just one decade away from the market. Now a days they are just three years out. Great improvement. In just 50 years they will be 1 year away.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Intel has a fab in Israel, and an assembly factory, plus various R&D facilities.
I'll believe it once all subsidies and penalties are accounted for.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
For me "sustainable" means "we can go on like this virtually forever without problems accumulating" but there is another principle I'd like us to adhere to and that is "no unreasonable waste".
If we do not control, or don't care about, our energy "leakage", then a much greater power generation would mean cooking up the world, just through inefficiencies. So, with greater power generation comes greater responsibility, and responsibility is best taught through frugality.
If we learn how to get by with less, then when we get the more, we will be able to achieve much more with it.
The researchers also predict America will reach its Paris Climate Accord targets in 2020 -- five years early -- simply because renewables are already becoming the cheapest option for power.
And the coal miners will be blaming EPA, regulation and government conspiracy for their loss of jobs. Their "drill baby drill" chants crashed the natural gas prices and made coal unviable economically. People who tell this stark truth unvarnished are pilloried by them.
In fact EPA is what has kept most coal jobs alive till now. All the old coal powered power stations were grand-fathered from most EPA regulations. So even when natural gas becomes cheaper than coal, the new plants have to comply with the latest standards. So the cost of gas plants were high and gas has to become significantly cheaper to make retiring old coal plants viable economically. This was the reason why the old coal plants continued to survive, at least maintaining some level of demand for coal.
Cost of new generation of renewables is within striking distance now, but gas prices can keep falling and stretch the transition period.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
So much bollocks. When you use oil to produce electricity you have no more oil to produce electricity. It's not renewable. When you use the sun to produce electricity, YOU DO NOT USE UP THE SUN. Unless you're considering going there and scooping up Deuterium and Tritium from the sun, the sun is not used up.
Fossilised microbes is to oil as sun is to photon. And there are no new sources of fossilised microbes.What's there now is what's there for our forseeable future as a species. There is no more. But the sun is still there and not used up.
Asinine cries of "But nothing is renewable!!!" is just the clarion call of the Frequently Spotted Loudmouth Moron. A call of sound and fury signifying nothing. It merely cries to be heard and to inflate its own ego.
Remove subsidies and solar or wind will get cheaper slower.
FTFY
Ezekiel 23:20
Because it doesn't have to pay for externalities. People die from the generation of that coal power you buy so cheap, that is why it's so cheap.
The oil industry has been getting subsidies from the government for over 100 years now... so what's your point?
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Rick Perry says if we put the coal out there, the demand for it will follow.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Because the truth hurts their position and I am surprised they did not mod you down as -1 Flamebait like they have others.
People always complain about the subsidies that renewables get. They forget that oil companies don't pay for the oil they are pumping out of the ground. The oil isn't theirs. And not only that they get a tax break for the amount of oil they pump out called a "oil depletion allowance".
Your calculations are off by a factor of one thousand.
No, but I do think it's entirely possible that the company that is building the panels is getting billions in subsidies, that equates to thousands per panel, sure. (Or other billions are being dumped into other firms that are part of the production chain upstream of your retail purchase.)
Don't think government would be that stupid? I do, particularly in pursuit of politically-motivated eco goals like:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/2... cash for clunkers, where the U.S.government spent $24000 per car to give people $4500 rebates
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... - a half-billion dollar dunno into renewables for fuck-all result.
And before you go after the source of the information in the original item about subsidies, understand that the data came from the Washington Times...an organization quite a bit more credible than...well, you.
In your specific example, it's made in China...one might further calculate the astonishingly low pay rates in China as a subsidy, knowing the Chinese government is more about keeping people employed than making a capitalist-style profit. Hell, Sunforce might be owned by the PLA as far as we know.
-Styopa
Due do effects of mass production and demand-supply prices don't actually reflect how efficient an energy source is. While there is no standardized way to measure energy returned on energy invested, I have not yet seen a single research that would put solar or wind above coal or hydro or nuclear. Yet in general that ratio is linked to economic growth, demographics. And while hydro is renewable there is a strange lack of focus on it. Which leads to beliefs that climate debate is actually an anti-growth debate.
Why do you say that? Is it because knowledge of the behaviors of sheep and cattle would help them relate with Democrats?
Seriously though, do you even know what courses one must take to major in animal science? Sure, there's a couple silly sounding class names but then every major has a few. I went to an agricultural and engineering school like Texas A&M and knew students that studied Animal Science. About half were headed to go on to graduate school and get their DVM, the other half were planning on going into ranching and farming.
Make jokes if you like but it's the animal science majors that keep meat cheap and safe to eat. Taking a course called "Meats" is an important part of knowing how to do that.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
The one small detail that seems to be escaping these discussions is that 'renewable' energy is in fact a bet on the stability of the weather. Think about it... solar panels need clear days to generate their power over the hundreds of acres of farmland now covered. Wind turbines generate power by slowing the air circulation at the boundary layer between earth and sky -- air circulation powered by large scale temperature difference.
That is how it works. And these massive installations are all bets that the climate will stay like it is over the next few decades so power generation can continue. Here in eastern Ontario one can see wind plants in every direction -- and one is going in across the street. And farmers fields are covered with solar panels (which no one bothers to clear of snow... but I digress). Funny thing... the climate has its own ideas. This past winter was unusually cloudy -- as an amateur astronomer I pay attention. And this summer is no better -- with lots of cloudy, calm days. A good thing because locally there is a gross overproduction of this stuff and with declining usage due to soaring power prices -- we pay to dump it elsewhere.
No, there was a reason why our ancestors were so eager to embrace steam and water power and walk away from their dependence on weather driven power sources. One which it seems in our eagerness to embrace this newly rebranded 'renewable' power source we will be learning again.
From your link: "Perfect for charging 12 volt batteries of boats, trucks, RVs, tractors, cars and more"
It's not even designed for connecting to an inverter, it's designed for mobile DC charging. Even so, I bought a similar one with the charge circuit and a chassis for about $30 a few years ago. Walmart are taking the piss a bit there.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Do the math on what it takes to have a solar system large enough for your house. They have a LONG way to go.
I feel like people like you should be required to get a facial tattoo that says "I believe anything on the internet" just so the rest of us can easily identify you.
Yeah, I realized after I lay down and closed my eyes, content with the mis-information I had corrected.
Then I woke up my wife with the sound of "Aww SHIT.".
You realise that the US subsidises fossil fuels by more than renewables, right? There's $6.8bn of government money given to coal producers, another $1.5bn to other fossil fuels, and $7.8bn to renewables.
What if I'm non-answer binary and I don't identify with either answer?
In this place called reality, here is what really happened.
In 2007, the OPEC countries decided that the price of oil was too low (remember, gas was a dollar something at that point) and colluded to raise the cost of oil. Within the span of a year, the price doubled. This caused the recession that the we all have been enjoying for the last decade or so.
As the price per gallon reached an absurd $4/gallon, this spurred a great deal of innovation in the energy sector, since engineering solutions that were not feasible at $50/barrel suddenly become feasible at close to $100 barrel. Suddenly, one could talk about expensive option like Solar with a straight face as a real cost effective alternative.
Along with new economic viability of renewable energy sources , the oil recovery technique which is known as fracking became feasible. The oil reserves found in the Middle East are simply easy to get at, so the cost per barrel is lower. However, there are actually greater oil reserves found in Canada and the U.S. trapped in rock. Normally, this oil was considered to be untouchable, since it was so much harder to get out of the ground compared to the Mid East Oil. But at an inflated $100?B cost, these North American reserves become viable
The rate that fracking technology was implemented and improved stunned the OPEC nations. In the typical sleeping giant fashion of the U.S., once it awoke, it started solving technical problems very quickly. Not only was the U.S. suddenly able to counter the ridiculously artificially high oil costs, it was in danger of being able to be competitive in oil production cost in general. Since the North American reserves are actually greater than those of Middle East, this would mean they could no longer dictate world policy.
To combat the situation, the OPEC nations flooded the market with oil. They committed economic warfare by selling oil at below cost, just to shut down the Fracking threat. So, in response, we did what we typically do. Instead of adopting a long term strategy to ensure the growth of our industry, achieve economic independence, and break Middle East power, we decided to implement no protections on oil import and went for the quick, easy solution.
This is why you are enjoying very cheap gas today. You are enjoying the benefits of the destruction of the U.S. Energy sector. The warfare sent a very big message to the Petroleum companies. If you invest in developing this technology, we will make sure that you lose this investment. Once enough damage is done, expect to see the price at the pump go up again, for no reason. This time, fracking will not quickly come online to counter it.
This may sound like a godsend to the Burney Sanders crowd, but this does not mean a renewable resource paradise. Under the current below market oil prices, renewable won't really be able to compete either. If you read the article, they make a lot of assumptions and also carefully select their words to equivocate about certain markets. The article does not say for wide spread domination, which is what is being assumed in these forums. The economic pressure by the below market oil will further suppress the development and implementation of renewable. How long do you think these companies can sell at a loss before they have to give in?
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
Why would you go to walmart when you can go elsewhere and buy a 200w solar panel for $100?
We make fun of Rick Perry because he is an idiot in the GWB sense. He barely got his degree and was known for his cheerleading. And now he's the current Secretary of Energy.
Link to a copy of his transcript here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/05/rick-perry-college-transcript_n_919357.html
I would have guessed the cheapest electricity now comes from hydro-electric dams that have already paid for themselves three times over, and might continue to operate for another 100 years.
(I tried to determine the expected lifespan of Robert-Bourassa not long ago, but the reality is that no-one really knows, depending of subtleties of surface water chemistry over timespans barely investigated. They pencil in "100 years" at time of construction, probably more for the bankers than the engineers. To a banker, 100 years is aleph two, the last countable infinity.)
Oh, you meant the cheapest marginal new construction, as viewed from the second margin of cherry-picked bank loan shovel-ready favourability.
And once you exhaust hot, sunny, and dry and California's low coefficient of tropical fungus, then what?
I know, I know.
Have the entire Amazon rainforest collect rainwater, aggregate it all into a single large flow, and run it through a BIG honking generator.
I'm just sure it would work. And who even knows just how long those puppies would spin? Why, fifty years from now, if the climate becomes wetter than ever, it might almost be practically free.
Sorry, bud, but you're wrong.
Coal doesn't cause environmental damage. Coal is natural, organic, and part of the environment.
Maybe your promise of 250 degree surface temps like on Venus (All Donald Trump's fault!) won't necessarily come true?
We will also have Fusion in 20 years.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
SHHHH!. Don't talk about subsidies in terms of per MWh. We don't want to know cost per actual unit production. We want misleading numbers for headlines.
Now they have. I'm -1 Troll. :)
It's like a badge of honor, here.
-Styopa
I thought a teacher degree would be enough or worst case being a preacher?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Math?
4W * 365 days/year * 20 years * 24 hours/day *0.000001MW/ W = 0.7 Megawatt-hours over the panels lifetime. A subsidy of $161.
Really? Where are you?
NPR says about 11cents for MN average.
http://www.npr.org/sections/mo...
(ok that was 2011)
According to Xcel energy themselves: https://www.xcelenergy.com/sta...
Energy charge per kWh:
On-peak time
June through September $0.20077
October through May $0.16454
October through May with electric space heating $0.10912
Off-peak time:
All months $0.03015
-Styopa
Give me a break.
It's inevitable that the combustion economy will eventually be replaced with renewables. Most estimates are this will happen over the next 10-25 years as renewables become more efficient, energy storage at large scale becomes more possible and attitudes about fossil fuels change. Resistance is futile..
The researchers also predict America will reach its Paris Climate Accord targets in 2020 -- five years early --
Yay! We're saved!
Whoops, what's that? The permafrost is melting? Did I say "saved"? I'm sorry. I meant boned. We are totally boned.
Arctic permafrost contains 1.8 trillion tons of carbon, more than twice as much as is currently suspended in the Earth’s atmosphere. When it thaws and is released, that carbon may evaporate as methane, which is 34 times as powerful a greenhouse-gas warming blanket as carbon dioxide when judged on the timescale of a century; when judged on the timescale of two decades, it is 86 times as powerful. In other words, we have, trapped in Arctic permafrost, twice as much carbon as is currently wrecking the atmosphere of the planet, all of it scheduled to be released at a date that keeps getting moved up, partially in the form of a gas that multiplies its warming power 86 times over
This is like that false salvation moment near the end of the movie, right before the giant bad thing stands up behind the heroes and smiles at them. It ain't gonna be that easy.
What you call subsidies are no such thing, the Fed shave never cut a check to the oil industry.
What you refer to as a subsidy is simply the Feds saying "we won't FUCK YOU OVER" while you explore for oil here".
With Solar, the Taxpayer is cutting a check made out to Solar Boondoggle, Inc.
...are not synonymous.
Natural gas is only cheaper because of fracking, which you hate if you are a snowflake. NG is ok under Trump, it would have been unclear under Clinton.
SoCal power rates. The "first tier" is usually set well below what a normal household would use (for example, I have no AC, no pool/hot tub, all LED lighting, natural gas for heating and clothes drying, and I'm only home for 15-18 days a month - and I still use 110-120% of my typical allowance). Of course, we also get to have the highest gas prices in the lower 48 - even though we are the 3rd largest producer of oil in the US.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
According to sim city 2000, 2020 is the year we get microwave power plant
Same with solar, except it's people in China dying, using energy from brown coal plants to make our solar panels.
Bu llsh it. And the oceans were going to flood California and New York by 2016 according to Algore.
"In January 2006, former Vice President Al Gore predicted, when his first film “An Inconvenient Truth” was first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, that earth would be in “a true planetary emergency” within the next ten years. According to CBS News, Gore warned in January 2006 that “unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return.”"
http://www.climatedepot.com/2017/01/22/inconvenient-question-gore-asked-about-failed-10-year-tipping-point-refuses-to-answer-enters-suv-in-snow/
Solar panels are cheap today. I'm looking at putting some on my roof and the panels are not the most expensive part any more. It's the man hours that cost the most.
To see an example of real time renewable electricity generation go to http://www.caiso.com/Pages/TodaysOutlook.aspx to see how much solar, wind and other contribute. As I write this the total demand is 35.9GW and the renewable portion is 10.1GW. Yes renewables are currently supplying 28% of the states electricity.
There are a lot of solar projects still being built. Now we just need ways to store that power...
Oh look. Another Republitard tries to insinuate (that's a big word, you might have to look it up.) that Democrats are like sheep and cattle. How droll.
Did you miss the lesson in Sunday School about two wrongs not making a right? Just because GP was a troll, doesn't mean you have to follow suit.
Now go crawl back under your rock until you learn how adults carry on polite conversation without being offensive to people who have different political leanings. Being a Democrat isn't wrong, any more than being a Republican is. (But being a RINO because your NRA or Nazi agenda is somehow a better fit is Wrong, with a capital W.)
Those who can, do.
Those who can't, teach*.
Those who can't teach become Secretary of Energy under Twitler.
*Apologies to teachers. There are lots of great teachers who are quite capable, but love teaching. More power to them.
Someone,
Please tell the Orange One that this is coming around the corner.
Thanks.
Everyone.
> Might be quite useful in the Republican Party.
Fake Government!
Oh look. Another Republitard tries to insinuate (that's a big word, you might have to look it up.) that Democrats are like sheep and cattle. How droll.
Blindseer? More like butthurt seer.
The truth is that the intermittency problem with wind and solar is so severe that when you get more than a few percent tied into the grid it actually has negative value.
Only if you do it stupidly. California is already seeing days where renewable make up 50% of their electric usage and their problems with negative value are relatively small, manageable and are in the process of being mitigated. BTW, the term for what you call intermittancy is the duck curve.
The smart way to do it is:
What you can't do is rely on baseload power (like nukes and coal) which get tons of subsidies in the form of guaranteed returns.
What's more, most of the energy used to PRODUCE solar panels, and much of the energy used to produce wind turbines, comes from soot-belching, coal-fired power plants in China, and most of the energy REPLACED BY these devices would have been produced in clean power plants with state-of-the-art "scrubbers" in North America, Europe & Australia.
That's all bullshit of the highest degree.
The energy required to manufacture wind turbines is recouped within about 6 months of operation.
And, in case anyone is interested:
The energy required to manufacture solar panels is a tiny fraction of how much they will generate over their lifetime.
In Middle Europe, where irradiance is about equal to that of Alaska, PV panels built with 10 year old manufacturing technology reached a net energy cost of zero within 3 years. In Southern Europe it was between 0.5 and 1.5 years.
Furthermore for every doubling in solar manufacturing capacity energy used to produce solar panels decreased by 12-13 percent, and greenhouse gas emissions dropped by 17-24 percent. Over the last decade, solar manufacturing capacity has increased 10x.
As for "scrubbers" and coal, China is way ahead of the US.
China recently cancelled construction of 104 new coal plants equal to one third of the US's total installed coal capacity. Even then, China's coal regulations are so much cleaner than the US's that by 2020 not one single US coal plant would be clean enough to legally operate if it were in China.
Also, the panels diminish in output over their lifetime,
Empirical results are that they have been degrading less rapidly than expected.
Expected was 20% capacity loss at 20 years (1% per year).
The actual measured capacity loss is 10% for panels manufactured before 2000, and due to quality improvements since then, its just 8% for newer panels (0.4% per year).
AND they probably won't last 20 years,
Empirical results are that solar panels are lasting far longer than 20 years.
Utility scale solar is already at 6-7 cents per KwH before subsides in the South West USA,
FWIW, in India utility scale solar is at 3.8 cents per kWh (2.44 rupees).
All things being equal, expect renewables to get cheaper and fossil fuels to get more expensive just on the tax benefits.
Actually... its the reverse.
Oil subsidies are externalities (armies in the middle-east, cancer, etc). There are monetary ones too like tax breaks for oil exploration, etc. But they aren't as much as the tax breaks for solar and wind.
But, and here is the real kicker, "peak oil" is coming but it isn't peak production its peak consumption. We are going to have an over-supply of petroleum. That's going to cause the price of oil to come down even more than it has over the last couple of years. As electric cars 'steal' gasoline customers there will be excess gasoline capacity and so gas prices will go down. Its not going to be a smooth and consistent decent, but the trend is going to be downwards.
I didn't criticize Animal Science or anyone who studies it, not even Rick Perry. That blindseeing isn't going too well - why don't you open your eyes?
Check your math.
4 watts per hour * 24 hrs a day * 365 days * 20 years .. and then get your 20% of max production = 140,160 watts. I'm not impressed, really. I could probably do better with a hamster wheel.
Some people here are vegans and some are vegetarians, dude... not all people eat meat. Even in Texas.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
The oil companies have all the renewables CEOs shot
The only way, in the foreseeable future, for Renewable Energy to be the cheapest energy in the USA is to Outlaw the so-called "Non-renewable Energy". And that will not happen. Plus, the ecological damage from certain forms of Renewable Energy is worse than Non-renewable Energy -- per a /. story.
Is that "cheap" as in able to compete in the market cheap or "cheap" as in must have government subsidies cheap?
It's the same as Russia-Gate. Every day, we are breathlessly told THIS IS IT! THIS IS THE SMOKING GUN! WE HAVE HIM!
With the renewable crowd it's exactly the same. We'll all be driving electric cars in ______! We'll be on all renewable by ________! We won't need oil by ________! We're at PEAK OIL!
Same with the environmentalists. By ______ we'll be dead! The Earth will be superheated in __________ years. The oceans will be devoid of life by _______.
After years and years and years of these of claims none of them have happened. Which is proof that these groups of people here have no memory and oh so desperately WANT TO BELIEVE. Now it seems Morgan Stanley wants you to INVEST. Their motives are pure.
Kill all the subsidies for all of this crap and see what happens...
Murphy was an optimist