World's Cheapest Energy Source Will Be Renewables Within Three Years (qz.com) 474
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.
Bye bye, Middle East (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bye bye, Middle East (Score:5, Insightful)
A huge amount of foreign oil money got donated to both parties to stop that sort of energy independence so now we spend a far larger amount giving free military support to the Saudis.
Re:Bye bye, Middle East (Score:4, Interesting)
Funny thing is that was Nixon's plan way back, and then Carter's after the oil shock.
A huge amount of foreign oil money got donated to both parties to stop that sort of energy independence so now we spend a far larger amount giving free military support to the Saudis.
The Daily Show did a segment called "8 Presidents" years ago on POTUSes promising energy independence by year X, where X varied from 1980 - 2025. Both funny & sad.
Re:Bye bye, Middle East (Score:4, Interesting)
Presidents are politicians, so their opinions on energy independence are largely worthless. They sell pipe dreams for votes. Same on both sides, regardless of who has done it the worst lately.
But now we have both academics and industry speaking favorably of renewables. Now I'm listening.
Traditional oil companies investing in renewable technologies? OK, the market is moving itself instead of being bullied by government incentives and regulations.
It's a long way from being a done deal, but it's actually happening as we speak.
Re:Bye bye, Middle East (Score:4, Informative)
You can get it from here - http://www.cc.com/video-clips/... [cc.com]
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I miss Jon Stewart , he was on the left but he was balanced.
Balanced, but not fair? :-)
Re: Bye bye, Middle East (Score:2)
Eventually yes, but not for a while. Oil-based fuels will still be the most energy-dense solutions many years, so the need for oil will continue, sadly. But if the demand for oil decreases, the flood of income into that part of the world will also decrease. Which seems like a fine idea to me.
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If electricity is cheap enough you can generate 'oil-based' fuels out of air and water.
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The economics is already headed in this direction. California generates so much electricity with their solar power that we in Arizona are paid to take it during the day which is great for us!
Arizona has also steadily been solving the power dip but even if we only power ourselves during the day on renewables we are heading in the right direction. Plus we have solutions to this already deployed. [wikipedia.org] We just need to keep going and the cost of AC in this state won't need to hurt so bad in the summer.
Re: Bye bye, Middle East (Score:4, Interesting)
But if the demand for oil decreases, the flood of income into that part of the world will also decrease. Which seems like a fine idea to me.
Ya, but as Slater said on Archer, "If you think the Middle East is messed up now, just wait until nobody needs their oil.".
Re: Bye bye, Middle East (Score:5, Insightful)
No, actually it's the abundance of oil that makes the middle east a mess. Just as the abundance of natural resources have fueled so many wars in Africa. It's called the paradox of plenty [wikipedia.org].
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Most of those countries are investing heavily in other areas now, often tourism. Tourism is actually really good for them to invest in, because it means they have to be moderate and modernize in order to attract people to the region.
The end of large scale oil production in that region can only be a good thing.
Probably not (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Three of the most hate-driven religions on Earth have their origin in the Middle East. They've been slaughtering each other for millennia, so I have to whether anything sensible people can do will pry these people away from each others' throats.
Might just as well buy popcorn and watch the show.
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Three of the most hate-driven religions on Earth have their origin in the Middle East.
Christianity, Judaism and Islam?
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Re:Probably not (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Probably not (Score:5, Informative)
Turning the region into a resourceless dump of poverty is unlikely to improve things for anyone.
Lifting the Resource Curse [wikipedia.org] probably will improve things in the long run.
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“Outdated jobs” because the decline of the coal industry has come from the rise of cheaper and better alternatives.
“Effortlessly swing” because, in the last presidential election, counties where there had been massive losses of coal mining jobs have overwhelmingly (over 80% in some places, one could say “extremely”) voted for Trump.
“Radical extreme” (relatively speaking) because, relatively to predecessor and more mainstream alternatives, the particular team t
Re: Bye bye, Middle East (Score:2)
No. Because they are moving out of there.
It make them a bigger problem. For us. The pepole. Maybe not for US supremacy.
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Fracking therefore has caused a glut in the crude oil market. As long as crude sells for around $70 a barrel, there is a break even costs. However, at these low prices w
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Re:Bye bye, Middle East (Score:5, Insightful)
In transportation sector, (kerosene for jets, furnace oil for ships, diesel for trucks and most trains, gasoline for cars) there is no alternative in three or even 10 years. Electric trains are the only thing in transportation sector that could benefit by renewables.
Iceland has geothermal electricity so cheap that 15% of the world aluminum is made there. (Aluminum can not be separated from the ore, bauxite, by melting, you need electrolysis, no electricity no aluminum). Despite that cheap electricity, there is smog and pollution in Reykjavik, because of all the cars and trucks.
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Well, at least they won't be wealthy anymore.
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Re:Bye bye, Middle East (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that is bulshit
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs... [eia.gov]
In the USA in 2016, 48% for motor gasoline aka what goes in cars, 20% was distillate fuel aka heating oil and diesel fuel, and 8% was jet fuel. That makes at least 74% being burnt for fuel.
Only about 5% of oil is used to produce petrochemicals. Stop using oil for transportation and domestic production more than covers usage in both North America and Europe (even excluding all the ex USSR states). At that point the middle east is largely fucked.
Remember, in Supply and Demand, Supply comes first (Score:3, Funny)
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?
Re: Remember, in Supply and Demand, Supply comes f (Score:2)
A bold move! But it makes sense. The most expensive electrons are usually the best electrons! That's just logic, my friend.
Re: Remember, in Supply and Demand, Supply comes f (Score:4, Funny)
degree in Animal Science
Might be quite useful in the Republican Party.
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One small problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One small problem (Score:5, Informative)
Utilities are already adding storage it became cost effective about a year ago. Cheaper then adding peaker plants.
Re:Not really (Score:4, Informative)
How exactly is a solar farm supposed to black out in 100 msec? Do clouds move at orbital velocities over solar farms? Or if we're talking solar farms spread across large geographic areas, then relativistic velocities?
Most grid battery buffers have traditionally been used to stabilize frequencies on long lines, having nothing to do with supply constraints. The new, large-scale grid batteries are designed to function as peakers. Tesla's Australia battery, for example, is cited at 100MW with a cost estimate of $62M ($0.62/W), By contrast, a NG peaker usually costs $1/W or more. The former's batteries have an expected lifespan of about 15 years, with a current replacement cost of around $40M (presumably well lower 15 years in the future); otherwise they're largely maintenance free (unlike NG peakers).
At present, NG peakers are still the go-to solution for pairing with renewables. But the numbers on batteries are looking impressive, and they'll probably take over at some point in the future.
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We can store the energy from the sun in plants.
It's fairly cheap.
Although strictly speaking the sun is not a renewable source of energy. Life on Earth has already lived through most of the Sun's life span.
Re:One small problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Plants are an incredibly inefficient means to capture light energy. At best you're looking at capturing a couple percent of the energy - more typical is a fraction of a percent. Then you throw half to three quarters of it away due to processing/conversion losses and Carnot losses in combustion. And they use large amounts of water, don't function for half the year in most locations, require pesticides and fertilizers, and on and on.
Pump and dump (Score:2)
Meh. I think they're secretly trying to create another bubble so they can short the market.
externalized costs made it cheaper a while back (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
That is a three times improvement. (Score:3, Funny)
Free market destroys them. They blame EPA. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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First off, it won't take 300 million years. We can compost the waste and have your 'coal' ready in less than a year.
Second, it's we humans...
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Try living in a town or city filled with coal stoves. No reason to go back to that.
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LOL. That's just priceless.
Re: Coal Is Already Cheap (Score:2, Informative)
Somewhat uniquely in the US, Pennsylvania has an abundance of cleaner burning anthracite coal, though it's more expensive than bituminous. Google coal anthracite vs bituminous.
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Coal Mining can be mostly automated. We don't need to send old time miners down into the hole anymore. Modern robotics and all that.
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That's good, because most of the poor assholes who would otherwise mine coal are dying from either cancer, lung disease or opiate addiction.
And you can thank the coal industry for all three. Coal destroys communities.
Re:Coal Is Already Cheap (Score:5, Informative)
That's good, because most of the poor assholes who would otherwise mine coal are dying from either cancer, lung disease or opiate addiction. And you can thank the coal industry for all three.
Coal destroys communities.
All of what you said and literally. I give you the Centralia, Pennsylvania mine fire [wikipedia.org]:
The Centralia mine fire is a coal seam fire that has been burning underneath the borough of Centralia, Pennsylvania, United States, since at least May 27, 1962.
The fire is burning in underground coal mines at depths of up to 300 feet over an eight-mile stretch of 3,700 acres.[1] At its current rate, it could burn for over 250 more years.[2]
The blaze has resulted in most of the town being abandoned. The population dwindled from 2,761 in 1890 to only 7 in 2013, and most of the buildings have been leveled.
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They probably have well developed civic infastructure as well as the means to afford more expensive heating options. Coal seems primitive like something the Clampetts would use in their back woods cabin but it's rough equivalent is what people in "Scandanavian Utopias" are forced to deal with.
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>> "upgrading to coal from electric"
>
> Making America Great Again
Electric heating systems have always been terribly inefficient. This has historically driven up consumer cost. Even if "renewables are cheaper", it may be a wash in the end because of stuff like this.
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Electric heating systems have always been terribly inefficient.
Huh? They're close to 100% effective. Except for what little may escape as photons (lights, radio noise), all the electricity you use becomes heat. Can't get more effective than that.
Electric light systems have been terribly inefficient, as what they predominantly produce is heat. LED lights improve on that, but it's still not efficient.
But electric heating is so close to 100% effective as it can get, unlike coal/oil/gas, where a 100% redox rate is not achieved, even in the best systems.
Re:Free market FTW. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, technology, science, and engineering FTW. "free market" parasites show up after the fact and guilt us into giving THEM credit.
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Um, you do know what finances technology, science, and engineering, right?
Re: Free market FTW. (Score:3, Insightful)
All those money you claim unfair taxation has boost the renewable industry with by paying more than what is was worth?
Not free market. Rather discriminating.
Re: Free market FTW. (Score:3, Informative)
If you're talking about cutting edge stuff. It's mostly the Government. There's a good reason lots of STEM professors carry/carried some level of clearance.
Also see transistors (gov contract to Bell Labs to develop components for radar improvement, general purpose computers for ballistics calculations, ARPAnet, GPS, EPIPEN, etc....). Free market can't be bothered to see things veyond a fiscal quarter.
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They don't realize it because it's not true. Slavery exists; it's not the free market.
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Proton emitters like Cobalt-53 are rather rare, and we'd need a lot to generate enough hydrogen to restart the Sun.
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True.
Hawking radiation is renewable, but a tad outside our reach right now, in any quantities that's useful, at least.
Vacuum energy is so renewable that it can only be borrowed, so it's not a good source.
Re: End of subsidies (Score:3, Informative)
Net metering at the residential scale. Forcing energy companies to pay retail instead of wholesale is a direct subsidy to residential solar. Requiring some fraction of renewable generation forces the power companies to pay wind even when Nuclear is cheaper. That's a direct subsidy. California, in particular, requires power companies to,buy all available renewable power, whether or not they need it. That subsidizes renewables by ensuring that they never have idle capacity. The EPA Andrew other federal and st
Re: End of subsidies (Score:5, Interesting)
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: [wikipedia.org]
"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.
Re: End of subsidies (Score:4, Interesting)
Chinese solar panels face anti-dumping tarriffs upon import to the US to combat this [ictsd.org], 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 [smithsonianmag.com]. 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.
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Panels price per watt, yes they have come down more then I expected. Inverters not so much. Inverters are the expensive part now.
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In case of going for solar exclusively (same accounts for wind, another intermittent renewable that has to rely on battery storage) it makes more sense of converting most of your household electronics to DC power. Laptops, phone chargers, TVs, even LED lights: they all take AC and convert it to DC to power the device itself. So why use an inverter in the first place? Power everything on 24V instead, directly off the batteries. You'll still need a converter to go from the 24V to the actual voltage they need
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You have 3 phase power in your house? Many 3 phase elements can be rewired to single phase.
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Yes. Real three phase power.
Three 32A fuses just for that one device (and three 64A fuses downstairs where some really thick wires connect the block to the grid). It probably can be rewired to a single phase but it's rated power is 21 kW so that'd be about 88A at a single phase, 240V, instead of 3x 19A at 380V.
Just in case you're wondering: it's an instant on type, without reservoir.
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Some guy is selling them discounted of a pickup truck, slightly used. Cash only please.
Re:bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [walmart.ca].
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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.
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This is a much better deal.
https://www.amazon.com/HQST-Wa... [amazon.com]
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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 [www.ieso.ca], 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."
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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... [amazon.com]
That should actually work out a little better. I don't know how much it's subsidized or anything like that though.
Re:bullshit (Score:4, Funny)
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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 in
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More comic relief from argStyopa (Score:2)
[slashdot.org]https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
Capital vs Costs (Score:2, Informative)
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 motivate
Re:bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Coal is half that price... my wholesale cost of coal power is about 3.5 cents per KWh
Re:bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
tax deducations (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Re:tax deducations (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing to understand, is that while you CALL them oil companies, THEY think of themselves as energy companies and have been morphing themselves as rapidly as they can... Inventing and building renewables farms.
Re:tax deducations (Score:5, Informative)
This! It is quite telling that several oil companies were critical of Trump for pulling out of the Paris accords. But it's quite obvious when you look at it. E.g. BP own and operate 2.4GW worth of wind farms in the USA (14 farms) and many more internationally. Total is the second largest solar generator in the world, and even late comers like Shell just invested close to $2bn in a green energy division.
The writing is on the wall for oil, and the oil companies and preparing.
Re:tax deducations (Score:5, Interesting)
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).
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Tax breaks for oil industry does not cost the tax payer any money, if it is the difference between putting up a 100 rigs in a state or none at all.... there is no logical reason NOT to give the oil industry a cat break since it costs the state nothing and tons to gain.
Wind/Solar on the other hand is a subsidy, and that is taking money from one person to give to another. This adds to the debt. Take away the subsidy for Solar/Wind and the cost is much higher then oil/coal.
If you want all things equal. Take ou
Re:tax deducations (Score:4, Insightful)
"I doubt article took all costs into consideration." - why don't you read it and find out?
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Also a bit older event in a different part of the country: http://www.mlive.com/news/inde... [mlive.com]
Re:tax deducations (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a tax attorney for an oil company. It's a lot more complicated than that. Overall, the oil industry actually bears one of the highest effective global tax rates- much higher than tech companies. Many countries where we do business have extremely high taxes specifically targeted at the oil industry. We don't have a ton of intellectual property that can be easily shifted between jurisdictions with the stroke of a pen so there are fewer aggressive planning opportunities.
The biggest "tax break" in the U.S. for the upstream oil industry (exploration and production of oil as opposed to transport and refining) is the expensing of intangible drilling costs ("IDC"). These costs would lead to a deduction in almost any income tax regime, but allowing such costs to be expensed accelerates the deduction. The industry would argue that expensing better matches the underlying economics of the transaction than having to capitalize the costs (deducting a portion over time). Many companies are actually capitalizing IDC voluntarily because they've been operating at a loss for the past few years. You don't pay any tax at all if you don't make any money.
Long story short, tax breaks are not what is driving profitability in the oil industry. It's commodity prices first, second, and third that drive profitability. Right now, they are in the tank. I'd also note that renewable sources also have considerable tax benefits- arguably more aggressive than those available for the oil industry, it's unlikely that tax makes a big difference on a comparative basis.
Re:tax deducations (Score:4, Insightful)
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Similarly, several measures to aid oil companies passed in the early 1900s remain of key importance to the industry, Healey notes. These include one provision passed in 1916 to speed up depreciation of drilling costs. A second one, the oil depletion allowance, which became law in 1926, gives oil companies a tax break for depleting an oil reservoir. President Obama has sought to end these breaks but has been overwhelmed by the opposition from industry and its congressional allies.
http://insideenergy.org/2016/1... [insideenergy.org] Is maybe a better read, and details some of the same things... a bit easier to read, depending on the person. Also, almost at the end is a chart showing the historic totals, right before again talking about "first 15 years" or each.
Happy 100th birthday to the “expensing of intangible drilling costs (IDCs) and dry hole costs” exemption! (Born in 1916.) This tax break allows companies to expense the entire costs related to site improvement and drilling of a well in the year that the costs are incurred.
The 90 year old “Percentage over cost depletion deferral” (born in 1926) allows drilling companies to deduct a fixed percentage – 15 percent – of the revenue from each drill site, with some limitations. This exemption is also used by coal, timber and other mineral industries.
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Really. I've owned my own businesses. (Yes. I've been a partner in more than one LLC. Been an officer in more than one S corp.) While I'm not an accountant I do have a basic understanding of this part.
So. Stop it. Answer the point raised - how is a writing off building a road and clearing timber a tax break - or even worse - a subsidy?
It's not. Building the road is part of the cost of business. Therefore it's not a subsidy.
So, let me test you now. Do you consider accelerated depreciat
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Yes, but no one cares if it is 1,000 years...
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Re:Very interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Nope. It will create increased demand for high capacity, high worklife battery technologies, which will then finally force automakers to go full-electric.
Currently, there are several novel battery designs out there that could conceivably satisfy this need in the power generation infrastructure, which are lacking the necessary R&D funding. The unreliability issue can be solved by calculating average load baselines, comparing to typical peak use curves, and factoring in the losses incurred by using the ba