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Renewable Energy Set To Be Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels By 2020, Says Report (independent.co.uk)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Independent: Continuous technological improvements have led to a rapid fall in the cost of renewable energy in recent years, meaning some forms can already comfortably compete with fossil fuels. The report suggests this trend will continue, and that by 2020 "all the renewable power generation technologies that are now in commercial use are expected to fall within the fossil fuel-fired cost range." Of those technologies, most will either be at the lower end of the cost range or actually undercutting fossil fuels. "This new dynamic signals a significant shift in the energy paradigm," said Adnan Amin, director-general of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IREA), which published the report. "Turning to renewables for new power generation is not simply an environmentally conscious decision, it is now -- overwhelmingly -- a smart economic one." The report looked specifically at the relative cost of new energy projects being commissioned. As renewable energy becomes cheaper, consumers will benefit from investment in green infrastructure. The current cost for fossil fuel power generation ranges from around 4p to 12p per kilowatt hour across G20 countries. By 2020, IREA predicted renewables will cost between 2p and 7p, with the best onshore wind and solar photovoltaic projects expected to deliver electricity by 2p or less next year.
You just left out most of the costs of fossil fuels!
The motivations behind bringing on an unsurvivable greenhouse effect are not economic. They are religious. All three Abrahamic faiths believe that the sooner the human race is destroyed entirely the better, then they get to go to heaven and all those heathen scientists will go to hell.
Logic and economics have no meaning where faith is concerned.
That kind of news has liberals wetting their pants, but I'm sure OPEC will open the faucet on their oil wells to keep prices in check. Arabs ain't dumb, you know.
when the US and the rest of the world loses collective interest in the middle east? Saudi Arabia is just now trying to figure out how to modernize their country when the price of oil collapses. They're desperately trying to get women into the economy because their current social system isn't compatible with the kinds of two income families countries want/need to maintain the growth/profit margins they're used to.
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If you factor in the long-term effects of continued fossil fuel use on health and the environment in general then it's already far less expensive to use renewables.
Almost every problem in the world is caused by lack of or improperly implemented capitalism.
Go Dollar!!!
So while the rest of the world realizes renewables are the future, and realizes the rest of the costs of fossil fuels ... Trump the idiot is doubling down on oil, pulling out of climate treaties, and generally handing the fossil fuel companies what they want on a platter.
At some point, America is going to realize they're on the wrong side of history, and the rest of the world might decide they've had enough of your bullshit and slap "because you are fucking up the environment" tariffs on your products. OR because you're such assholes just stop buying from you.
American Exceptionalism is going to leave you isolated in your own shithole of a country, and the rest of the world will stop giving a fuck.
We can also get rid of giveaways like net metering while at it.
Instead of propping up the coal industry how about that money be spent educating and training displaced coal miners so they can work in the solar industry? They'll have jobs and I'm sure they'll be much happier every day working above ground instead of dark dangerous mines.
If renewables are actually cheaper, then e don't need subsidies, right?
we also don't need policies punishing other forms of generation, natural self-interest will move to use renewables.
Unless the renewables costs don't include de-rating them to account for the fact that they aren't always available, and so don't cover the cost of batteries or base-load generators to supply power when the wind isn't blowing 'right' and there isn't suitable sunlight (say in a sandstorm or blizzard when power usage is up, but windmills have to be stopped because the wind is too strong, and there isn't light for solar)
In that case, this is just more Fake News
The problem is the cost of storage. Renewables are intermittent meaning we need storage or baseload backup. 96% of our current storage is done thru pumped hydro. All of our current storage will last less then a hour. It is not feasible to scale that up to a 100% percent renewable grid. Batteries are even more expensive and less feasible for grid level storage.
Given the realities of climate change, it is immoral to oppose nuclear power
Time to devote more R&D to energy storage technology, and less to energy production technologies.
... by 2020 "all the renewable power generation technologies that are now in commercial use are expected to fall within the fossil fuel-fired cost range." [and will continue to drop below them] ... "Turning to renewables for new power generation is not simply an environmentally conscious decision, it is now -- overwhelmingly -- a smart economic one."
THIS is how The Invisible Hand eliminates greenhouse gas emissions. B-)
Cost of renewable energy collection drops as tech advances.
* Solar photovoltaic, in particular, benefits from semiconductor tech.
* Control and conversion IS semiconductor tech, with all the Moore's Law benefits.
* Storage rides the battery advances driven by things like laptops and electric cars.
Cost of grid generation may benefit some from tech, but it's mostly mature and advances slower.
Meanwhile, cost of fossil fuels continues to climb as the easy stuff gets used up - while renewables (if you already occupy a good site) pretty much don't HAVE ongoing fuel costs.
As the cost passes crossover in progressively more locations, renewables will first take up new loads, then (as the second crossover is passed similarly and it becomes cheaper to switch than not), displace existing fossil fuel generation.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
A lot of the nasty civil wars we see in the region are propped up by Saudi Arabia and or Iran for religious/political advantage, against each other for the most part. This kind of fight destroys all of the infrastructure needed to maintain an army, without a constant supply of money to buy food and so on they are too destructive to self-sustain. So if they start a super destructive civil war nasty when they lose their income then they will most likely fizzle into some kind of awful compromise that everyone hates because they don't have the time to think about bullets when thy can't even get food.
This makes sense. All technology trends continue indefinitely. Look at Moore's Law: it has been going strong for 30 years now and will never end!
You just left out most of the costs of fossil fuels!
Why worry about that?
When the DIRECT cost passes the crossovers, renewables first take up the new loads, then displace fossil fuels for old ones.
So you don't NEED government hacks to map the indirect costs into the market (and provide massive opportunities for graft and rent-seeking). The UN-hidden costs are enough to drive the market.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Net metering is no giveaway, anyone that claims as such has no idea about the matter.
>"Renewable Energy Set To Be Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels By 2020"
Or we figure out effective fusion, finally, and all our problems with energy and everything related to it just go "poof"! Energy related nation conflict, emissions, waste, land use, most of the danger, most of the cost, supply issues, many of the grid issues, could all quickly disappear.
OK, so I am living in a dream world. But it COULD happen.... based on how long it has already taken, probably not by 2020, unfortunately.
Remove fossil oil, and relation between nations change. Saudis will be obvious loosers. I wonder if Russia's economy is diverse enough to avoid collapse. And without oil, US interest for middle east vanish, will US Israel support too?
Solar is and will continue to be expensive due to the very low net capacity factor. Cheap renewable means wind and water. Cheap non-fossil means wind, water, and nuclear.
The people worried about carbon emissions are just not realizing the huge downturn in output we'll see over the next few decades. They are worried about what things might be lime in 100 years when within 50 we'll have a massive drop in CO2 output.
Instead they should be focusing on real pollution which has a far larger lifespan in the environment than CO2...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It looks bad for you when even a fake straw-man sadistic choice doesn't favour your argument.
You set up a supposed choice between dirty fossil fuels and someone else's (probably robot or just poorly paid)"slaves" suffering. But if you try to calculate actual suffering from CO2 alone it will cause poverty and mas starvation across multiple continents via ocean acidification(no fish), and desertification(no crops). Slaves in one country VS mas hunger isn't a choice were either side gets a easy moral high ground. All this is assuming that somehow China is engaging in mass enslavement rather than just dodgy underpaid work contracts with intermittent abuse in some companies (the two are not the same).
1000 watts of quality panels is 0.50/watt(half that for cheap stuff not available in USA) or $500
1000 Watts in Maine(worst+- sun in USA) is 2 sun hours day averaged through the year.
ie: 2KWh/day
In Maine the average cost of power is $0.16 per KWh.
2KWh*365days= 730Kwh/yr*0.16 = $116.8
$500 / 116.8 = 4.28 years ; and they have paid for themselves.
Likely less than 2 years where the sun is good(See 'sun hour map').
Then you've got 20-40 years of more useful output(diminishing to 80% after ~20).
Yes theres install costs(not for DIY in states without oppressive government), and grid-tie inverters. Or batteries/controller/inverters for off-grid. This still pays for itself and ultimately saves/returns money baring any bad luck.
The trick with off-grid solar is to reduce your consumption to make more affordable systems work. Myself I aim for 2KWh/day; and 2-3x that when there is excess sun(run power tools, Air conditioners, cookers only when the sun is out; after batteries are charged).
24/7 computer w/40" LCD(power efficient), security system(5 cameras router,switch,long range wireless internet), washing machine, lights, well pump, fridge/freezer(DC)
https://www.electricchoice.com...
When cost to extract per barrel is going up over time and "green" electricity is trending down they won't do more than slow the inevitable. Slowing the inevitable is indeed the sensible option, but only buys time for them to find other things to do/sell, so we will see.
Cost curves of fuel vs. electric just intersected roughly 10 weeks ago in late 2017. Note: That is cost for electric going down, like pretty steep. And that's with *todays* electric vehicles, with shitty batteries and no economics of scale. Experts expect ICEs to be basically gone in 10 years, simply by economics alone. Some say in roughly 5 years from now people will start paying for someone to take their ICEs, so bad will be their feasibility vs. EVs. The private owned ICE car industry is in for an equivalent of a long-running carpet bombing, late WW2 in Germany style. Prepare for incoming.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
You just left out most of the costs of fossil fuels!
You just left out most of the costs of fossil fuels!
http://lamrangthammy.vn/tay-tr...
Is this with or without subsidies?
Hopefully the subsidies can be ended for renewable energy soon. When it becomes just as cheap as other type of energy there is no reason to subsidize it.
Fossil fuels are most common in a few countries. That means odds are you have to go somewhere else to get them unless your country happens to be one of the lucky ones. There's a long history of nasty wars fought over oil. And those wars are _expensive_. The Iraq war's final bill is going to be around $7 trillion with a 'T'. Afghanistan is going to be around $3 trillion.
Then there's pollution. Even if you pretend climate change is a Chinese hoax smog isn't. Asthma, lung cancer, respiratory & heart disease are all exacerbated and in some cases outright caused by burning Fossil Fuels. And if you're using leaded gas you can add sever mental problems to that list.
Then there's the massive subsidies and tax breaks oil companies get. Yeah, yeah, renewables get them too. But it's still part of the cost of oil. Plus oil spills and their clean up. And the cost of shipping the stuff. The list goes on and on, but the first two I cited are the big ones because they're the ones that aren't part of the direct cost and therefor aren't obvious and/or counted.
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Renewable is PRE-PAID.
If I want to pre-pay for electricity for my home, I need $30K-$65K up front. Or I can pay monthly between $65 and $120.
Don't get me wrong, I'd like to never have a monthly bill again, but solar AND wind just don't work well were I live. We use coal, nuclear and a little hydro electric. And we have some of the lowest power costs in the USA.
None of this means wind and solar with battery banks don't/won't work lots and lots of other places.
cost of oil, coal and such is dictated at the moment by market factors - what kind of money can you get by selling it. basically what this means is that if demand goes down they can sell it for cheaper than they are selling it at now.. also for the same reason price of oil will never(in our life) double, since at that point making alternative liquid from coal would be profitable.
anyhow, if it's going to go so low in just two years what kind of an idiot would buy solar _now_ ?
anyhow coal is cheap for the chinese because they have it already. pretty fucking hard to compete with that on price alone.
aanyhow.. would maybe be interesting to read how they projected the costs, how long they assume the solar installation is running without replacing it, since you could tweak those projections to half the energy cost(over lifetime of the plant) quite easily, but then you get to things like interest rate on the invested money and so on.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Hence the focus on actual costs. Not nuts.
Just so long as there are no subsidies, I'm fine with that....whichever technology (coal, nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal) I'm good with that. We should actually have a variety of energy sources for the sake of competition and diversification.
Ferret
Even more important than "renewable" energy is diversity of energy sources. Every source of energy has its drawbacks:
- Hydroelectric dams are "renewable" and fossil-free. But they disrupt river life.
- Wind farms kill birds and (in some people's view) ruin landscapes.
- Nuclear energy creates waste products that are very, very hard to safely dispose of, and create risks of leaking in natural disasters.
- Solar energy farms require a lot of land, and endanger and displace wildlife.
- Tidal-powered turbines kill marine life.
Any energy source, if replicated at extremely large scales, will have major undesirable side effects. If instead we have a wide array of sources, each one's negative impacts won't be as widespread.
Just like with investing money...don't put all your eggs in one basket.
Fuel power varies by demand. The higher the demand the higher the price. Renewable power prices are fixed by financing cost. So renewable power is already cheaper than fossil fuel power for about half of the day. The other thing is that because the incremental cost of generating the next MW of renewable is zero it can be sold below the financing cost. This ability will eventually drive fossil fuel plants out of business.
Just when the fossil fuels are still getting national bonuses, removing renewable national bonuses and the fuels companies buying the technology of renewable companies closing... (All of this is actually happening in Spain right now)
Still the same shit with different wrapper.
Because historically, large subsidies have been the only way renewable energy has been cheaper than fossil fuels.
Says Mr. "I can't tell the difference between sea and land ice" :)
Since it is, you know, NOT renewable. Its just that there is a hell of a lot of it.
Renewable Energy Set To Be Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels By 2020, Says Report
There are two main sources of fossil fuel consumption, electricity and automobiles. This refers to electricity consumption, in essence replacing old fossil fuel burning power plants with clean, renewable energy. Hooray! Sign me up to get my house outfitted with highly efficient solar shingles. Unfortunately, this doesn't help fossil fuel consumption by automobiles but it's definitely progress in the right direction.
The challenge for climate change will be getting China to consider the alternative
We'll make great pets
Net metering is no giveaway, anyone that claims as such has no idea about the matter.
I suggest you try going to Fry's, a McDonalds or any other store and see if they are willing to offer you net metering.
keep hearing this shit.
Weirdly electric power bills keep going up quickly.
So something is broken.
or someones fucking lying.
If you recognize the reoccurring expense of the U.S. defense budget which subsidizes fossil fuel prices, renewable energy was competitive years ago.
It's a numbers game that's just getting harder to bluff.
With the exception of very few regions, and Alaska is not one of them, it's already cheaper in most parts of North America.
If it weren't for massive tax subsidies and tax exemptions for fossil fuels, the market would have already replaced the inefficient fossil fuels with cheaper renewables.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Fossil fuels always have a cost. Wind and solar have unlimited free fuel... forever.
Now that the capital cost of wind and solar have come down, the fact that they run on free fuel means they will take over.
I recently read that only half the coal power plants in the US are breaking even.
Economics will drive fossil fuels out of business. It's just not cost effective to build a fossil fuel plant (even with all the subsidies they receive and considering that they don't have to pay for all of the health and environmental damage they cause).
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
The 'dirty little secret' about Solar at least is that nobody has as a 'solution' to the waste produced in the manufacturing of Solar Panels or their disposal...yeah, I know '"We're working on it", "demand isn't great enough", "its not cost effective to recycel' (an argument I've read that has 0 to do with 'waste management'), "technologies will exist in the future to make it easier & cost effective"...
I have googled this multiple times, ignore the potentially (thought not provably) biased sites I still cannot find anything that indicates there is a solution TODAY to the 'solar waste problem'. And since one of the arguments against nuclear is that management of the waste is not a 'solved problem' (when in fact it is...other than NIMBY's stopping the solutions) what is 'good for the goose' is 'good for the gander'.
I'm not against the use of Solar power, far from it, IF it is cost effective AND it is made to play by the same rules as at least Nuclear (e.g. long term storage of wastes until they are 'safe'...or with Solar I'll even give them 'transmutation' of waste to a benign chemical form...though I will not 'give' them burning the solar cells...that releases toxic chemicals...).
Long story short, where is the solution TODAY for the management & safe disposal of the wastes used in producing solar panels & their disposal? Anyone? Anyone? (do not point me to a link that just says "a technology is being worked on to do ", I want a link that shows the actual implemented use of a proper technology by the industry to guarantee safe use & disposal...again the same bar used in expectations of Nuclear energy).
The cost of power distribution is about 16% (in the UK/London) of an electricity bill. Letâ(TM)s say we get to 2p per kWh in 2025 (or whenever) using roof-top solar panels. That should be the end of centralised power generation.
Even if power generation becomes free, distribution is still going to cost. Roof-top solar will under-cut that too.