Solar Power Is Now As Inexpensive As Grid Electricity In China (ieee.org) 195
An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: Solar power now costs the same as, or less than, electricity from the grid in many of China's cities, a new study finds. This research may encourage broader adoption of industrial and commercial solar power there. Advances in solar technology have helped bring solar within reach of grid parity sooner than expected in China. Whereas the cost of solar photovoltaic electricity there was up to 15.1 Chinese yuan per kilowatt-hour in 2000, it was only up to 0.79 Chinese yuan per kilowatt-hour in 2018. In addition, in 2018, the Chinese government dramatically cut subsidies to the solar photovoltaic industry to drive it to compete with coal without government aid.
To see where Chinese solar energy stood now, scientists in Sweden and China analyzed the net costs and profits associated with building and operating industrial and commercial solar energy projects in 344 prefecture-level cities in China. They found in all 344 cities, solar photovoltaic systems were capable of generating and selling electricity at lower prices than the grid without subsidies, and in 22 percent of those cities, they could also produce electricity at lower prices than coal. The scientists detailed their findings in the 12 August edition of the journal Nature Energy.
To see where Chinese solar energy stood now, scientists in Sweden and China analyzed the net costs and profits associated with building and operating industrial and commercial solar energy projects in 344 prefecture-level cities in China. They found in all 344 cities, solar photovoltaic systems were capable of generating and selling electricity at lower prices than the grid without subsidies, and in 22 percent of those cities, they could also produce electricity at lower prices than coal. The scientists detailed their findings in the 12 August edition of the journal Nature Energy.
Great, now where is news of coal plants destroyed? (Score:3, Insightful)
This sounds like great news as China is both a huge polluter and huge user of coal plants.
So if solar energy is really as cheap as grid electricity, then even now shouldn't we be hearing news of halting the construction of new coal power plants there, and plans for existing power plants to be shut down?
If nothing else they would have huge motivation to do this to help clean up the air.
it seems like if coal plants are not being shut down, there has to be some hidden cost not uncovered by this report.
Re:Great, now where is news of coal plants destroy (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm, no.
China is still trying to industrialize in a big way. Which means they won't be shutting down existing power plants until they have been replaced. Nor are they going to build a power plant halfway, then stop in mid-construction.
What you should be looking for is all new construction started in the future should be solar. If, as you say, there are no hidden costs (like, lack of 24/7 utility from solar)....
Storage is also a solved problem. (Score:3, Interesting)
What you should be looking for is all new construction started in the future should be solar. If, as you say, there are no hidden costs (like, lack of 24/7 utility from solar)....
Storage - day to night and sunny to several cloudy days - at utility scale is also a solved problem.
One solution is vanadium redox flow batteries. (Power limited by size of cell stack, energy storage limited by size of tankage.) That's achieved some utility-scale deployment in New Zeeland. As I understand it the reason it isn't
Re: Storage is also a solved problem. (Score:2, Informative)
It's the cost of battery storage causing it not to be deployed. It has nothing to do with patents.
When solar attaches a battery to go 24/7, it becomes more expensive than coal or gas.
Re: Storage is also a solved problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
When solar attaches a battery to go 24/7, it becomes more expensive than coal or gas.
Not only that but the energy required to create these batteries, and with the losses in charging and discharging the batteries, it is quite possible that there is a net loss of energy. It's quite possible for this to be energy positive but the energy gain would be so small that it cannot support a modern economy.
Here's an explanation of the problem.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j... [forbes.com]
If someone wants to argue about the numbers in the article then that's fine. What is quite clear is that the gap between solar + batteries and just about anything else we can come up with is far too wide for some tweaks in the technology to close. We need to leave solar power to pocket calculators and communication satellites. For grid power we should use onshore wind, hydroelectric dams, and nuclear fission.
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So as far as your concerned all it takes is one pro nuke blogger to invalidate the potential for solar power...
It's obvious solar produces more energy than it takes to make them.*(links follow) And it's just been shown to you to be more profitable than coal in a lot of places. People making solar panels aren't stopping you from doing whatever your pet energy project is.
Even if you weren't completely wrong. Not everything needs to have the energy return of coal to be useful.
It takes a lot more effort an
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So as far as your concerned all it takes is one pro nuke blogger to invalidate the potential for solar power...
No, it takes only one person with good data.
Your links on the EROI of solar PV are irrelevant to my claim. I pointed out that the EROI of solar with batteries is too low to bother. There's far better ways to get reliable energy than solar PV panels and batteries.
Even if you weren't completely wrong. Not everything needs to have the energy return of coal to be useful.
That's true, but if something is going to replace coal then it should should have a better EROI than coal. There's certainly other factors to consider but if the EROI of solar with batteries is 2, and the EROI of coal is over 20, then it's going
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Anyone reading Forbes, is most likely intentionally looking for false information to promote an agenda. What is yours?
He has no agenda.
He is simply an idiot.
If he was a paid troll he would post in other forums (/. is to small) and would be very much smarter.
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Not only that but the energy required to create these batteries, and with the losses in charging and discharging the batteries, it is quite possible that there is a net loss of energy. It's quite possible for this to be energy positive but the energy gain would be so small that it cannot support a modern economy.
Obviously, any time when there is 100% storage efficiency, there's net loss in energy. If 100 joules go in and 90 joules go out, you have net loss of energy. What a discovery you've made! Except that means diddly-squat for whether the storage system is useful or not. Phone batteries already do that in almost everyone's pocket. Does this mean that batteries can't support modern telecommunications?
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You mean 100 Joules of electricity going in and 90 Joules of electricity coming out with 10 Joules leaving as heat energy. Energy cannot be destroyed or created, just converted.
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and with the losses in charging and discharging the batteries,
Both are 99% efficient, so in total 98%.
I mentioned to you already several times: if you have no clue, stay out of discussion.
Ah, no, I don't provide links for basic physics you should have learned in school, google yourself or try wikipedia.
And the only link you again provide is from a news site which is known to be biased, rofl.
Re: Storage is also a solved problem. (Score:4)
No there is no net loss. JFC.
And it's 2019 and I really shouldn't have to point this out . . .:
EROI doesn't include the costs generated by using petroleum products such as coal.
The health care cost of the US alone fro disease cause by pollution fro the source are between 240 Billion, to 780 Billion.
50% of medicare cost is do to pollution caused illness, mostly from cars and coal byproducts.
Hmm, why do the take cost for the PV creation into account for solar, But don't take the cost of getting fuel for coal et. al.?
Could it be because solar fuel is free? naw, that can't be it in that Forbes POS biased article.
Which reminds me: Forbes stopped being a good source over a decade ago.
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There's a lot of things people don't want. They are just going to have to decide which they want least, nuclear power, global warming, or the lights going out. Those are our choices today. Maybe in the future we will have some other choice but as of right now those are the choices we have. If you don't want nuclear power then you must choose between the lights going out or global warming. It seems that given the actions of many nations they are choosing global warming.
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Solar/wind + battery is still cheaper per MWh than nuclear.
Also all countries need electricity, so unless you also want all countries have nuclear plants then it's not a solution. I expect some people may object to e.g. Iran having nuclear power. Many countries don't even want it, considering the huge overheads in terms of legal frameworks, regulatory bodies, security and being reliant on foreign fuel supplies.
Why do you keep pushing nuclear? Do you not believe the numbers (the cost) or do you just really,
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The big advantage of nuclear power is the amount of fuel needed per GW is tiny in comparison with coal and natural gas. You don't see fuel tankers, or daily trains or a natural gas pipeline going to a nuclear power plant. A nuclear power plant can run for months with the same fuel before refuelling is needed.
Also a single nuclear power plant can generate 1 or 2 GW continuously for 24 hours a day in a small area of land. Where as other forms of power generation need more land or sea area to reach an equivale
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Nuclear fuel is clearly inferior to needing no fuel at all. While you might not need much of it, what you do have is extremely problematic to deal with.
Don't forget to include the land used to get, process and store nuclear fuel. Also remember that that land is degraded and can take a very long time to return to a condition where it can be used for other stuff. Solar has some impact due to shading, although wind is very low impact.
For base load wind is ideal, especially off-shore. With a moderate amount of
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Well, a small piece of land, unless something goes wrong.
Guess what? human are invoiced with nuclear, as well as corporation that are only concerned about the next quarter.
So there will be more accidents.
"Nuclear power is ideal to supply a continuous baseload "
My ideal power supply doesn't destroy land and the environment when some corporation decides to ignore regulations.
Just so you know where you I am coming from:
I studied to be a nuclear engineer.
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For base load wind is ideal, especially off-shore. With a moderate amount of geographic distribution and small amount of smoothing storage it provides a predictable amount of energy 24/7.
How much does that cost?
This web page took US Department of Energy data and put it in a nice chart, off shore wind is very costly.
http://www.renewable-energysou... [renewable-...ources.com]
If you add the costs of distribution and storage this plan of yours could easily be double that of what a plan with nuclear power would cost.
What is so wrong with nuclear power that we must raise our energy costs so much to avoid it?
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Now compare those cost against the cost of nuclear accidents.
That web page took DOE information and used it misleadingly.
"If you add the costs of distribution and storage this plan of yours could easily be double that of what a plan with nuclear power would cost."
absolutely not.
FYI: I pay 12 cent peek,m 4 cents off peak and all my source re renewable.
Oh, I just read your sig. Apparent'y you're a small minded idiot who cant thing beyond nonsensical platitude.
I should have known.
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Only the idiots. A nuclear power plant designed to make electricity is pretty much useless for making nuclear weapons. And a nuclear plant designed to produce Pu-239 is pretty much useless for making electricity.
In other words, I have absolutely no problem with every country in the world having nuclear reactors, provided
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How would you enforce any of that? Note that Iran says it wants nuclear power for civilian purposes.
Seems like it would be easier to push for renewables.
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It's not about cost. Solar has problems with things called 'night', 'cloud' and 'winter'. A high pressure system can reduce wind output to zero over thousands of square miles, and turbines can't be run in a storm.
It may well be more expensive but nuclear can run 24/7 without having to worry about balancing the grid.
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No wind over thousands of square miles? When and where as that ever, in the history of the Earth, ever happened?
In any case, it would still make more sense to have some standby gas plants for those rare once-in-a-millennium situations.
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"It may well be more expensive but nuclear can run 24/7 without having to worry about balancing the grid."
Ignoring the fact you don't seem to know what "balancing the grid" means.
Renewable can run 24/7.
It's literally being done in parts of the world right fucking now.
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Oh to your surprise the choice is easy:
nuclear power, global warming, or the lights going out.
a) nuclear power: nay
b) global warming: nay
c) or the lights going out: nay
I voted nay on all three. If you would be my Chancellor I hope you take my vote serious and plot a course avoiding a), b) and c).
If you can't, you are not educated enough to be Chancellor.
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If you don't want nuclear power then you must choose between the lights going out or global warming.
This seems to not only be a false premise, it is also looks like FUD.
The internal inconsistency in your argument is the iterations and rate at which solar technology can evolve vs nuclear. Solar can go through multiple iterations for PV *and* solar thermal technology. Such advancements can only be achieved in nuclear during the design phase and, as a result, means iterations for nuclear technology is 40+ years - the accepted service life for a nuclear reactor.
For context, this article from Prince
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The GP trolls any article about power of any sort with "nuclear is the only way" on a regular basis. Evidence to the contrarily is ignored. You may safely ignore him. Don't feel the trolls.
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Here is a concept.
The Government should dump as much money into battery, solar, and wind development as they did into nuclear power.
Amazingly we would be a leader in the world for development of these technologies.
These costs would drop for both creating and implementing.
Nope would rather have old tech instead of looking to the future for a better way. This is the new America. No longer a leader in anything but consuming. Waiting for another country to lead the way so we can follow like sheep.
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Grid battery storage with solar is designed for time displacement of a few hours to effectively move the peak solar time into evening time were peak electricity demand is. This scenario does not need the batteries to supply power for 24 hours, more like 2 to 3 hours of peak electricity demand.
If you want to store electricity for days, weeks or even months for summer to winter time displacement then batteries are not the solution due to self-discharging.
Medium to long term storage of electricity would need a
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"When solar attaches a battery to go 24/7, it becomes more expensive than coal or gas."
That is blatantly false. Please stop lying.
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As for patents, patents on vanadium flow batteries have long since expired.
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Nice. You talk to your mother with that mouth?
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This sounds like great news as China is both a huge polluter and huge user of coal plants.
So if solar energy is really as cheap as grid electricity, then even now shouldn't we be hearing news of halting the construction of new coal power plants there, and plans for existing power plants to be shut down?
If nothing else they would have huge motivation to do this to help clean up the air.
it seems like if coal plants are not being shut down, there has to be some hidden cost not uncovered by this report.
1) "China is both a huge polluter and huge user of coal plants." -redundant
2) "So if solar energy is really as cheap as grid electricity, then even now shouldn't we be hearing news of halting the construction of new coal power plants there, and plans for existing power plants to be shut down?" - The massive ship is slow to steer, be patient, 4 seconds have passed.
3) "If nothing else they would have huge motivation to do this to help clean up the air." - Yes. in fact is a big part of the reason ( not all of
Ship should have started turning quite a while ago (Score:4, Insightful)
The massive ship is slow to steer, be patient, 4 seconds have passed.
Here's the thing though, the drop in solar costs has actually been pretty predictable for some time, as were construction costs for current and future power plants.
Now I agree with others that it doesn't make sense nessecarily to stat shutting down existing plants, but it seems like they had a lot planned and I've not heard of them being dropped yet. The long term calculations the Chinese have done probably have put the true break even point a bit more out, maybe 3-5 years...
But there is enough knowledge of all the factors that they should be turning the ship way in advance of a third party report like this.
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Politics and power companies wanting to keep generation centralised are both issues too.
The same issues that mean even in the US there is still a lot of coal and gas used, even though wind is cheaper [lbl.gov].
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-Again the ship, remember how the titanic couldn't evade the iceberg? Well large governmental bureaucracies turn even slower. Hell no one even realizes that literally ALL of the financial gains the American economy has been experiencing for the last 2 years is still the "steering" of the Obama administration.
That, plus a huge round of tax cuts which added a trillion $$$ per year to the economy.
(but which will have to paid back soon)
But it's gonna wear off and we'll start seeing the "trump" magic at work very soon.
Six bankruptcies so far, now heading for the seventh.
If I was a Democrat in the USA I'd be voting Republican in the next couple of elections, just so the GOP gets to be fully responsible for the disaster.
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Yep. Everybody, and I mean everybody needs to vote Republican for a while. Make them deal with the fallout.
Re:Great, now where is news of coal plants destroy (Score:5, Informative)
it seems like if coal plants are not being shut down, there has to be some hidden cost not uncovered by this report.
The "hidden" cost is sunk capital. Except it is not hidden.
A big part of the cost of coal power is paying for the capital cost of constructing the plant, and the interest on that expense. That cost does not go away when you shut down the generators.
Solar is now cheaper than building and running new coal plants. It needs to get MUCH cheaper before it is cheaper than just the operating cost of existing coal plants.
There is also the "sunset problem": the sun doesn't shine at night. Panels are cheap. Batteries are not.
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It needs to get MUCH cheaper before it is cheaper than just the operating cost of existing coal plants.
Like what's happening with wind?
"There are some scenarios, in some parts of the U.S., where it is cheaper to build and operate wind and solar than keep a coal plant running," said a Lazard banker who was involved in the report. "You have seen coal plants shutting down because of this."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/i... [cbsnews.com]
Re:Great, now where is news of coal plants destroy (Score:5, Insightful)
The main hidden cost is that you need backup power plants or massive power storage to supply power when the sun is not shining. And these power plants have to be able quickly scale up/down the power production leaving out nuclear plants. This means that even with 100% solar (or wind) power coverage you still have to pay the capital costs for the coal plants. For a fair comparison of costs these costs should actually be put on top of the solar costs.
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If you have a large enough grid, the sun is always shining, or the wind is always blowing.
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If you have a large enough grid, the sun is always shining, or the wind is always blowing.
At midnight, the closest place with sunshine is 10,000 km away.
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Well fortunately wind is also cheaper than coal and natural gas [lbl.gov] so you can have a mix, which with a country the size of China greatly reduces the amount of storage and backup you need.
Europe really needs to ramp up battery production. At the moment we are reliant on Chinese and Korean batteries mostly, and we really should get a piece of that pie for economic and security reasons. Grid scale is a great way to create more demand to get those factories off the ground.
Re:Great, now where is news of coal plants destroy (Score:5, Interesting)
If you look at the UK coal fired power stations, they are being closed down one by one. They were used for so-called "backup" but "backup" from coal is no longer needed due to:
1. Increase in the number of solar and wind farms that have been deployed so capacity has increased.
2. Increase in the number of natural gas fired power fired power stations deployed
3. UK is increasing the capacity of the inter-connect power cables between the UK and France, Norway and Ireland so more renewable (hydro from Norway) and Nuclear from France can be imported.
Coal power in the UK will be totally gone by 2023. UK coal power is dead, the biggest UK coal power station called Drax got converted into a biomass burning power station a few years ago.
The UK will use natural gas fired power plants for baseload, peak time demand and for backup.
Supergrid (Score:2)
Not saying you're wrong, though China also has a different way to help addressing the issue -- building extremely long ultra high voltage power grid [ieee.org] known as "supergrid". Like every other infrastructure projects in China, the supergrids are giantic, carrying electricity from solar and wind rich western regions to highly industrialized (but cloudy) eastern regions over thousands of kilometers.
The sheer scale of the new line and the advanced grid technology that’s been developed to support it dwarf anything going on in pretty much any other country. And yet, here in China, it’s just one of 22 such ultrahigh-voltage megaprojects that grid operators have built over the past decade.
[State Grid engineers] argue that the country must move far more energy via UHV DC to maximize the use of renewable energy while slashing reliance on coal.
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Newly installed solar panels were cheaper than new coal power in 2008, solar went cheaper than old paid for coal plants in about 2016-2017 when installed in utility scale when installed panel prices fell below $1 a watt (actual panel prices are less than $0.30 a watt even with 30% tariffs.
Each year solar/wind drops about 20% in cost, it's currently so cheap that between solar, wind and gas they are closing coal plants as fast as they can. Since 2010 Coal has gone from almost 50% of US generation to less tha
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Reference for wind prices being lower than gas now: https://emp.lbl.gov/sites/defa... [lbl.gov]
It's amazing how fast this has happened. I remember a comment here on Slashdot from about 10 years ago, which sadly I can't find now but the gist of it was a prediction that electricity would become something that was only intermittently available when conditions were favourable, and extremely expensive. In a decade we have gone from "it's impossible" to "it's inevitable".
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Each year solar/wind drops about 20% in cost...
And as stupid as this is, it's what's keeping me from installing solar panels. Looking at the ROI, waiting another year to buy panels is close to the same savings as buying them now and getting the free power over that year, with no need for me to pay out of pocket or go into debt. No risk.
I'll probably wait until 2021, as that's the last year of the big federal tax incentive. They're sunsetting that tax credit by dropping it a few percent a year, but that's slower than panel costs are coming down. In 2022
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Don't worry about the sunset problem! People can charge their laptops and small batteries to watch TV in the evening. You put on the air conditioner and do your washing, vacuuming through the day. There is a l
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China is a big country and won't turn on a dime. Plus, there is all the sunk costs of the existing coal infrastructure. The creditors will want to realize some profit on their investment. And the state owned enterprises have a stake in the coal economy. The U.S. has a leg up in this regard with no state owned coal enterprises...although the alleged administration would like to have them.
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So if solar energy is really as cheap as grid electricity, then even now shouldn't we be hearing news of halting the construction of new coal power plants there, and plans for existing power plants to be shut down?
Not insightful, but stupid.
A new power plant would cost in the US something like $10billion. It is already constructed to the point of $8billion, who in the world would throw away that investment?
it seems like if coal plants are not being shut down, there has to be some hidden cost not uncovered b
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It's just that they are transition AND dealing with an industrialization boom.
The increase in coal plants turned out to be an unintended consequence of handing that decision making to the prefecture itself.
There is no magic switch, just issues dealing with transitioning.
Re: Great, now where is news of coal plants destro (Score:5, Informative)
Why was this moderated down?
Dont also forget that the US is converting some coal plants to natural gas. And the US has done more to reduce its CO2 output than any other country.
My guess is because that is an inconvenient truth.
We cannot support our modern economy and standard of living without nuclear power or fossil fuels. I don't care what this article says, solar power is expensive. I say that because there is another inconvenient truth about solar power, the sun will set. This means there must be some kind of backup source of energy, and that will cost money.
When the cost of solar power, including the storage needed to make it reliable, gets below the cost of nuclear power then we can get excited. That will never happen though, because solar power with batteries will take far more land, raw materials, labor, and energy, than a fleet of nuclear power plants capable of providing the same power output.
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Why was this moderated down?
Because it's about as relevant for solar power as was Chernobyl for nuclear power? Well, actually even less?
When the cost of solar power, including the storage needed to make it reliable, gets below the cost of nuclear power then we can get excited. That will never happen though, because solar power with batteries will take far more land, raw materials, labor, and energy, than a fleet of nuclear power plants capable of providing the same power output.
"Never" is a strong word, especially when there's actually people capable of doing cost optimizations (which would largely exclude batteries in favor of other forms of storage plus curtailment).
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...solar power with batteries will take far more land, raw materials, labor, and energy, than a fleet of nuclear power plants capable of providing the same power output.
"Never" is a strong word...
What our nuclear troll ignores is that we already have that land available. It's called rooftops. And distributing power generation geographically is a major step towards smoothing out the uneven generation by renewables.
He also ignores how much space nuclear plants take up, as the exclusion zones are quite large. And when you also take into account mining and spent fuel storage, and ultimately the burial space for the reactor components when it's decommissioned, that space grows tremendously. All of that i
Re: Great, now where is news of coal plants destr (Score:2)
Partly, I think, because it was an unintended side effect. Nobody set out to lower emissions using fracked natural gas, it just so happens that there was a lot of gas, the price was extremely depressed (in no small part because the availability of credit was so high, many small oil and gas companies have been extremely over-leveraged, so nobody could afford not to sell the stuff they were making so the price would recover) and now coal is dying a deserved death.
You aren't wrong about nuclear, but energy sto
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Solar power doesn't need to store all that energy until it gets to be over 30%. I think this graph might be representative; https://www.eia.gov/todayinene... [eia.gov]
I think we can go back and forth all day comparing "true costs" of nuclear versus solar. But this is a moot point; few nuclear reactors are getting built. In the USA, plant Vogel is the last one -- and it's three times over budget and climbing and may end up taking three times the projected time to build. If corporations crunched the numbers and thought
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We cannot support our modern economy and standard of living without nuclear power or fossil fuels. I don't care what this article says, solar power is expensive.
More expensive than nuclear/fossil though? Even including battery backup, solar is cheaper than nuclear. Fossil is cheaper but only if you discount the effects of using fossil fuels (i.e. pollution and global warming).
Nuclear is going away by itself. By the time we need storage to replace more fossil fuel the cost of storage will have come down too. All the subsidy for renewable energy turned out to be justified - it wasn't just corporate welfare like the nuclear and fossil subsidies. It actually did develo
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More expensive than nuclear/fossil though? Even including battery backup, solar is cheaper than nuclear.
Here's someone that disagrees with you.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/20... [wattsupwiththat.com]
Nuclear is going away by itself. By the time we need storage to replace more fossil fuel the cost of storage will have come down too.
Yes, nuclear is going away. That is old nuclear is going away. You assume that the cost of storage will come down. That may be true. Then why can't we also assume the cost of nuclear power to go down?
It will take a few years before this real cost of solar power is felt. The tax subsidies that solar power has received is hiding the cost to society in creative bookkeeping. Once this becomes apparent then nuclear power will look ver
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I don't care what this article says, solar power is expensive.
And we don't really care - besides being amused - what you say. As you are simply wrong. You sound like a fat little child that wants more ice cream but can not have it: because it is to fat already.
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And the US has done more to reduce its CO2 output than any other country.
It's not hard to reduce more when you were producing so much more in the first place.
How do countries whose total CO2 is less than your reduction supposed to compare? Go negative?
Great News! (Score:3, Interesting)
Looking at my last electric bill, 25% was overhead and 75% was the electricity used. Once the cost per KWH of solar is on par with what I'm paying for straight electricity, it starts to make real sense to spend that other 25% on storage.
Looking at Google Project Sunroof, it looks like I can generate 1.3x the amount of power we use annually with rooftop solar. The major issue is that we will have an excess in the summer and a deficit in the winter. For the near future, we'll need a grid connection. But man, are we close to being able to almost skip that.
A decade ago, I would have laughed at anyone saying this. Now? From about March through October we could probably get away with just solar and a good sized battery pack. And while the battery is expensive, we're close to being able to come out even vs the monthly power bill. Another generation of battery tech and solar tech, and I could legitimately consider disconnecting from the grid. In suburbia. In the Northern US.
I'm not surprised that China is closer, given a lower cost of living and proximity to the plants making both the panels and batteries.
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Summon blindseer (Score:2, Insightful)
Nuclear is obviously still way better, I mean they are likely using coal to feed the grid am I right? Don't even get me started on coal, it's the devil, today, obviously i mean in today's day and age coal is barbaric and unnecessary. It got the job done for a good stretch, but now it's about time to retire. Nuclear is where it's at am i right? ,Until something better comes along right? We aren't going to stick with one technology even if there is something better like they did with coal right? I mean w
Market distortions (Score:3)
As energy use escalates, it gets more expensive... this provides the impetus to either use less energy, or, implement more efficient forms of energy delivery.
Even in mostly communist China, it is a self correcting system... unless market distortions are implemented, such as lobbied subsidies for existing generation methods or legislation to forbid new energy generation technology.
Re:Market distortions (Score:5, Interesting)
Despite the rhetoric, China is not a Communist state, and certainly not a communist one. It's a totalitarian oligarchy. The "party" certainly runs things, but the name is not the reality, and they aren't even attempting to be Communist. (This is reasonable, as any such attempt would fail.)
FWIW, communism, as opposed to Communism, works fine at a small enough scale...say 20 people. I don't know of a scale at which Communism works, as I've never seen a working example.
P.S.: The US doesn't seem to be a democracy, either. Perhaps a republic, in the Roman sense of the term. And I really have my doubts that an actual democracy would scale to nation size. It can certainly work well in groups of around 1000 people, or perhaps a few less. When you start needing mass media to communicate, however, I suspect you've gone beyond the tipping point for a classic democracy. Democracy depends on the voters actually knowing the candidates, not just what their PR flacks put out.
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Despite the rhetoric, China is not a Communist state, and certainly not a communist one. It's a totalitarian oligarchy. The "party" certainly runs things, but the name is not the reality, and they aren't even attempting to be Communist. (This is reasonable, as any such attempt would fail.)
FWIW, communism, as opposed to Communism, works fine at a small enough scale...say 20 people. I don't know of a scale at which Communism works, as I've never seen a working example.
P.S.: The US doesn't seem to be a democracy, either. Perhaps a republic, in the Roman sense of the term. And I really have my doubts that an actual democracy would scale to nation size. It can certainly work well in groups of around 1000 people, or perhaps a few less. When you start needing mass media to communicate, however, I suspect you've gone beyond the tipping point for a classic democracy. Democracy depends on the voters actually knowing the candidates, not just what their PR flacks put out.
It is fairly well known that the United States is a Democratic Republic, not a true democracy. The results of such are as apparent today as they have ever been.
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It is fairly well known that the United States is a Democratic Republic, not a true democracy.
No, the US is a money aristocracy. One where a "dynasty" is feared and the first one probably able to found one was assassinated but the first dynasty in action was tolerated and probably put into office by election fraud (at least that is how we europeans see it). On top of that only people who run a money intensive campaign have a chance to win. A money oligarchy. Obama was probably the purest man in history bei
Re:Market distortions (Score:5, Insightful)
>"P.S.: The US doesn't seem to be a democracy, either. Perhaps a republic"
The USA is a constitutional republic/representative democracy. So yes, it is a democracy (a representative one, not a direct democracy, which would NEVER scale well beyond a small group) and yes it is also a republic.
Re: Market distortions (Score:2)
Re: Market distortions (Score:4, Interesting)
Because you've got to know the person you're voting for rather than only knowing their publicity.
OTOH, a hierarchically embedded democracy might work, with each level actually knowing those in the level above that they voted for.
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In a democracy you don't vote for the person you know or don't know, you vote for the topic. ...
E.g. You want nuclear power: yes or no
Look at Switzerland e.g.
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In a democracy you don't vote for the person you know or don't know, you vote for the topic. E.g. You want nuclear power: yes or no ...
Look at Switzerland e.g.
Switzerland is a small country with a homogeneous relatively rich population with extremely strict immigration controls. If you think the US can be made more like Switzerland I'd love to hear more.
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Technology does not create intelligence needed to understand the topic being voted on. That was the idea of representational democracy. Outsourcing the job to someone who full time can dedicate their life to getting informed opinions from their electorate, compare it to expert statements, and then bring benefit to you.
None of that actually happens but that was the idea.
Want to see direct democracy in action, look no further than the UK who willingly voted itself off an economic cliff. May I also suggest a h
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it isn't that none of that actually happens, it happens quite a bit. However, it also relies on Federal Agencies being relatively stable and staffed with experts who actually get policies and science, and are not dipshit hacks like the current crew.
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>"Why couldn't direct democracy scale with modern technology?"
Because there are too many issues and they are too complicated. The masses do not have the time, motivation, desire, or expertise to do what would be necessary for responsible voting. It would result in "emotional" voting- just casting votes on how something sounds or makes them feel. That is bad enough with a representative democracy, it would be disastrous for a direct democracy.
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US states are representative democracies, but the federal government doesn't really qualify. 1/2 of one of the 3 branches of federal government in the USA is representative democracy (namely the house of representatives) -- so essentially 1/6th. The rest of the government involves votes in one way or another, but isn't a majority popular vote rule, so if you call that representative democracy you may have to call countries like Russia representative democracies.
Re: Market distortions (Score:2)
It's a plutocracy. Insufficiently regulated capitalism poisons any attempt at truly representative democracy. Mix in Mango Mussolini and it starts to morph into fascism.
Re:Market distortions (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Market distortions (Score:2, Insightful)
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communism fails because its a horrible ideology.
History is clear on this. Crystal clear.
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communism fails because its a horrible ideology.
Which part: "everyone by his needs and everyone by his means" is horrible for you?
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Slogans, do not an ideology make.
1. For communism to function, it requires force;
2. It ignores effort and ambition;
3. It is counter to freedom.
Solar is a scam (Score:4, Interesting)
If you have the land to waste, then go for it!
>Tengger Desert Solar Park [China]
43 KM^2 [Largest Photovoltaic Power Station in the World]
Capacity: 1,547 MW
Annual Net Output: ???
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
>Laguna Verde Power Station [Mexico]
2 Boiling Water Reactors built by General Electric
Capacity: 1,620 MW
Annual Net Output: 4.782 TWh x 2
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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If your building's roof is shared by only one household then yes, you aren't using land as efficiently as you could.
If property taxes were proportional to land area rather than floor area, it would help provide the proper incentive not to waste land.
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If you have the land to waste, then go for it!
I have land to waste. On my roof. You do too.
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Solar Star (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Star) has a net otuput of 1.6TWh/year for 13 sq km.
The U.S. needs 4,090 TWh a year (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Summary) for Electricity.
That's 33,228 sq km at the same density of Solar Star
The Mojave Desert alone is 124,000 sq km.
The world's energy requirements (elecricty and non-electricity) is around 150,000 TWh, or 1.3m sq km.
The Sahara Desert is 9.2m sq km.
I watched a Tony Seba video a few years back... (Score:2)
When looking at renewables... (Score:4, Interesting)
Make sure they include the cost of storage or other generators to allow 24/7/365 power. In my off grid house I have 1500$ of panels, and $1800 of batteries, which would give me about 36 hours of backup, if we had 2 days with essentially 10% sun, which happens in winter. I could install even more batteries or a little generator. I went the generator route.
It's easy to work things out if you have a simple isolated system, it is much harder with real systems, and these silly puff pieces always gloss over the practicalities.
Dissenting opinion (Score:2)
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Re: Great news. (Score:4, Interesting)
Wouldn't the labor component lean more expensive on the solar side than on coal? Child, slave, or hillbilly labor or not... they are talking about within country so the labor component would wash out from both sides.
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When you have millions of slave labor to build up the solar panels, who have to work at the end of a gun barrel.
Even US production, without slave labor, is now able to produce panels at prices that beat grid power for decent solar sites.
The breakeven, without subsidies, is about a dollar per watt for the panels. (Before the US/China "trade war") when Chinese panels were selling for thirty cents per watt, two US manufacturers got an anti-dumping tariff imposed to bump that up to their prices of sixty to six
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Panels are semiconductor technology and have their own version of Moore's Law going for them.
Nope.
Unless you call the amount of fabs build a part of Moore's law.