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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.
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.
Try living in a town or city filled with coal stoves. No reason to go back to that.
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 If coal country here in the U.S. can effortlessly swing to radical extremes because their outdated jobs have gone away, think of what’s likely to happen in the Middle-East when it’s their turn.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.
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.
You are still thinking of the 1980s there AC.
Many of the current solar panel designs do not use arsenic in the panel doping process. Much of the research has been in the development and use of inexpensive organic molecules, and even plastics instead.
This is one of the reasons why the price has declined so precipitously; It is not just China flooding the market with cheap (artificially price lowered) panels-- It is also ACTUALLY LESS EXPENSIVE manufacturing processes that do not incorporate toxic metaloids, like arsenic, which have costly refinement processes with expensive waste materials-- instead favoring organic molecules deposited with a simple chemical reaction onto pure crystalline silicon, or onto a suitable plastic substrate. In some cases, the photon collecting capabilities come from nanostructures generated inside the silicon using laser assisted vapor deposition, and other novel techniques.
If you had actually been following the research and science in emerging panel designs and technologies, you would know that-- but you were clearly too busy poopooing it instead.
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.
They're not stupid. Their entire business is built on long-term analysis (a new deepwater well may take over a decade to start producing, and then last for decades; you have to predict the market very long in advance before sinking such huge amounts of capital). The supermajors will sink their money wherever their analysis tells them to.
It's a bit harder for the service providers. If you have a tanker and oil is predicted to decline or stay low for long periods, you might want to have plans for conversion options, or scrapping if it's showing its age. If you make / work with deepsea platforms, deep offshore wind may be a market to move into. Etc. But not everyone would find such a transition that simple.
All of that said, when you're talking wind and solar, you're not so much directly competing with oil. In most of the world, oil is rarely burned for power. In some regions it is, like the Middle East, and they are working to transition away from it (it's very expensive per joule compared to other sources), but even taking out all oil-fired power would not be devastating to the market. When it comes to oil, you have to hit transportation. I'm incredibly encouraged by the EV market; how quickly people put down orders for the Model 3, for example, and this despite how many people are waiting for the used market and second-generation vehicles, and how there's still great potential for major battery cost reductions as the market grows. But even still, a couple hundred thousand cars per year is just a blip. Even millions per year would butt up against a world with 1.2 billion vehicles on the road. Even if production scaleups occur at a lightning pace, the average car on US roads is a decade old, meaning an expected life of around two decades; in the developing world it's much greater. So oil is going nowhere fast.
All of that said, EVs are another factor among many that makes the long-term future of oil prices look bleak. The tight oil revolution for example has just crushed the market. Bitumen producers have been getting their prices down. Oil markets are this weak even with sanctions on Russia, the world's largest oil producer (note that they have relatively little affect on their current production, but are factored into futures forecasts as they slow Russia's ability to develop new resources).
Dear Diary...today I was pompous and my sister was crazy.
It can also be the other way around. Solar production tends to correspond with peak demand, and peaking power costs an arm and a leg. A solar user importing power at night and exporting power during the day is doing operators a favour.
That said, I think it would be fair to do what we do in Iceland with power bills, that is separate the infrastructure cost on your bill (aka, what it costs them to provide you with a power connection, amortized) from the generation cost. So if you want a grid connection, you always pay the infrastructure bill - but your generation bill could be net metered, even negative, ideally wholesale** both ways with time-of-use taken into account.
** Wholesale because you're already paying the overhead cost separately.
Citation needed for specifics showing that this is some sort of widespread practice, or even that it occurs at all. The feds generally have no say in "coal construction" excepting where it touches upon the EPA, which is obligated by law to respond to all permit actions. Coal-producing states are generally extremely coal friendly.
Again, "Citation needed showing that this is some sort of widespread practice, or even that it occurs at all." What you're describing is eminent domain - quite common with roads, oil pipelines, power lines, etc, but can you name a single example of it being used for building "renewable" power plants in "the desert southwest"?
Pure nonsense. Name a single nuclear power plant that has had its cost "increased ten-fold" due to "regulatory and judicial delays". One can easily take a look at power plants that have gone way over budget - for example, here's one of the most extreme cases in modern times. Planned for 2010, but now probably not operational until as late as 2020, and coming in at three times its initial budget. Why? NIMBYs? Red tape? Hardly:
"The delays have been due to various problems with planning, supervision, and workmanship"
"The first problems that surfaced were irregularities in the foundation concrete, "
"Later, it was found that subcontractors had provided heavy forgings that were not up to project standards and which had to be re-cast"
"An apparent problem constructing the reactor's unique double-containment structure also caused delays, as the welders had not been given proper instructions"
"... told the BBC that it was difficult to deliver nuclear power plant projects on schedule because builders were not used to working to the exacting standards required on nuclear construction"
"...are in bitter dispute over who will bear the cost overruns and there is a real risk now that the utility will default."
Tell me, when was the last time that you welded a large-diameter zirconium-alloy pipe and X-rayed it for defects, with any possible sign of imperfection meaning having to cut it off and start from scratch? How many people in the world do you think have that skillset? Because that's what's involved in nuclear power plant construction - it is extremely exacting. And if you think it'd be just jolly to cut corners, by all means hold that view, but understand that I most definitely will not be joining you in that.
Dear Diary...today I was pompous and my sister was crazy.
Chinese solar panels face anti-dumping tarriffs upon import to the US to combat this, in some cases as high as 239%, due to the low-interest loans the Chinese government gives solar manufacturers. And they've faced these tarriffs since 2012. China, for its part, denies that its dumping, and says that the loans are simply an investment in clean power and an attempt to improve the environment. Of the top 10 manufacturers, 4 are from China, 2 from the USA, 2 from Taiwan, one from Canada and one from South Korea.
China not only produces extensively to export, but also has a huge domestic solar consumption as well. For example, China just completed the world's largest floating solar farm. China is the world's largest market for photovoltaics and is the world's largest producer of solar power. They're on track to have over 100 GW installed solar power by 2018 (up from 77GW in 2016). They also use 70% of the world's total installed solar water heating.
Dear Diary...today I was pompous and my sister was crazy.