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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.
The latest bid prices for wind and solar in the US included solar and were cheaper than old and already paid for power plant coal power. (approx 3 cents a kwh). These bids included storage.
Storage + renewable prices have already reached parity or cheaper than coal in most of the US. This paper indicates the remaining rest of the continental US will reach parity in a few years. Battery prices have fallen precipitously over the last 5 years and storage is competitive with generation.
Oil is rarely used for electricity generation. In 15 out of the top 20 energy generating countries, it is less than 5% of the electricity fuel mix.
And they left out 2 trillion dollars for a war in iraq over oil.
And they left out 4,000 dead for a war over oil.
And they left out ongoing military capability required to fight a war in that region plus the cost of stationing thousands of troops.
And they left out the nearly trillion dollar subsidy to coal by allowing it to dig up coal for below market rates on federal lands.
And so on.
The subsidies for fossil fuel are woven so deep they don't even look like subsidies any more (like special accounting laws only used by the fossil fuel industry that save them billions of dollars per year).
And the ongoing incalculable health care and productivity costs for everyone who grew up inhaling lead from gasoline.
Alternative enegy isn't pollution free. But the pollution tends to be concentrated geographically instead of spread all over everywhere.
The point is that alternative energy subsidies are a drop in the bucket compared to fossil fuel subsidies.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Not awful logic, but it overlooks quite a few rather important factors
1. Pumped hydro can be cheap, but only if you use it a lot. Today, it is used to store energy generated during periods of low demand (wee hours of the morning) to store energy to be sold back during periods of high demand. That works because such periods occur predictably every day. Try that with things like wind and solar which are intermittent, with seasonal or 3-4 day supply peaks. The pumped storage costs -- which are mostly capital and maintenance --will be higher.
2. You need to pump a lot of water to do pumped storage. Very roughly, you need to lift 1 cubic meter (1 metric tonne) 100 meters to store 1Kwh. There aren't a lot of sites available that have both abundant water and terrain that will support both an upper and a lower pool.
3. Practical pumped storage efficiencies are typically 70% give or take a bit. That's put 4kwh in to get 3kwh back. That can work, but only when the differential between low demand and peak demand is substantial.
4. Capital costs for pumped storage are very high. Investment recovery time is probably decades. Battery technology IS improving, albeit slowly. It could make your facility obsolete before you've pocketed wealth beyond belief ... or even paid off your loans. Likewise, widespread adoption of electric vehicles charged at off hours could reduce the peak load differential that your economics depend on.
Think of pumped storage as a huge battery that comes only in sizes humongous and even bigger. It has a very long lifetime -- decades, maybe centuries. Its self discharge rate (leaks,evaporation) is low.. No memory effects. Can discharge safely to zero (Don't try THAt with say Lion). . But it has rather low charging efficiency (70% give or take). And it can fail catastrophically (dam failure) which will likely be VERY costly.
Oh yes, and it's not all that great environmentally because of constantly varying pool levels -- plan on being sued ... probably repeatedly -- once radical environmentalists figure that out.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Uh not even close. The bid prices in the US for solar are around 0.188kWh around 0.30kWh for solar. Coal however does come in at around 0.032kWh however. If you use batteries for load balancing? Double that. Triple it if it's a combined solar/wind battery balancing system. Those prices are still half of what we pay in Canada. It still is cheaper to build a coal power plant, it is still cheaper to flood thousands of KM of land and build a dam. Kinda like what they're doing out in BC, where there are no lack of passes for wind. And it's *still* cheaper to build a brand new hydroelectric dam.
Om, nomnomnom...