Guest Post by David Middleton
My apologies to the memories of the late Richard Llewellyn and late John Ford; but I just had to borrow their title for this post. This paragraph from a 2010 Telegraph article really says it all…
Its 500,000 photovoltaic panels will generate 30 megawatts of electricity, enough, in the popular measurement, to power 9,000 homes. It is costing about $250 million to build, significantly less than a gas, coal or nuclear power station, which can easily exceed $1 billion. And it represents a sea-change in America’s energy business.
America has been notoriously devoted to hydrocarbon fuels. Big Oil, Big Coal and big Texan hats in the White House were seen by the rest of the world to be keeping it so, whatever the global interest. Oil barons funnelled money to scientists ready to pour doubt on the science of climate change, and conservative Republicans led the charge to pour scorn on those such as the former Democrat vice-president Al Gore who were urging Americans to rethink where their energy was coming from.
The power plant described in the preceding passage is the Cimarron Solar Facility, built on Ted Turner’s 590,823 acre ranch in northern New Mexico. It is indeed true that most natural gas- and coal-fired power plants cost a lot more than $250 million to build. However, it’s also true that most natural gas- and coal-fired power plants have nameplate generating capacities a bit larger than 30 MW…
TVA to build natural gas power plant
By DUNCAN MANSFIELD, Associated Press
Posted June 4, 2009
KNOXVILLE — The Tennessee Valley Authority on Thursday decided to build an $820 million natural gas power plant in northeastern Tennessee to comply with a North Carolina lawsuit over air quality.
The 880-megawatt combined-cycle gas plant would be as large as the 1950s-era, coal-fired John Sevier plant in Rogersville that a federal judge has targeted for new pollution controls on North Carolina’s behalf.
[…]
- $820 million divided by 880 MW works out to $931,818 per MW.
- $250 million divided by 30 MW works out to $8,333,333 per MW.
Assuming that the gas-fired plant managed an 85% capacity factor and a 30-yr plant lifetime, the initial capital expenditure would work out to $0.004/kWh… A bit less than half-a-cent per kilowatt-hour. Assuming a 25% capacity factor and a 30-yr plant lifetime for the Cimarron Solar Facility, the initial capital expenditure works out to $0.127/kWh… Almost 13 cents per kilowatt-hour! The average residential electricity rate in the US is currently around 12 cents per kWh… That’s the retail price. As a consumer of electricity, I know which plan I would pick. I’m currently paying about 9 cents per kWh. I sure as heck wouldn’t seek out a provider who would have to raise my current rate by about 50% just to cover their plant construction costs.
Solar photovoltaic electricity is bankruptcy the green way writ large. Here in Texas, Austin Energy has agreed to a long-term purchase agreement to pay $10 million a year for 25 years, for the electricity generated by the Webberville Solar Farm. That works out to more than 15 cents per kWh.
In concert with his efforts to drive up the cost of coal- and natural gas-fired power plants, President Obama has aggressively pursued an agenda of financing expensive power plants with taxpayer dollars. Many of these taxpayer-guaranteed loans have gone to financially strapped companies, lacking the means to repay those loans. In most cases local utilities were coerced or enticed into signing long-term purchase agreements to buy electricity at nearly double the cost of coal- and natural gas-generated electricity. The sole justification for this “green” centralized industrial policy is the Lysenko-like junk science of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
The economics of this “green” centralized industrial policy are mind numbingly horrible.
The capex for solar power plants averages between $6- and $7-million per MW of installed capacity. Coal-fired plants generally run less than $2-million per MW and natural gas plants currently run less than $1-million per MW. The average retail residential electricity rate in the U.S. is currently less than 12¢ per kWh. The levelized generation cost for the plants being financed by the Obama administration is more than 20¢ per kWh. His “green” centralized industrial policy will drive the wholesale cost of electricity to nearly double the current retail rate.
One need not literally seize the assets of businesses and install gov’t bureaucrats into management position to effectively nationalize those businesses. All it takes is to make them dependent on gov’t and/or direct their activities through regulatory constraints.
@Magzan The OP compared costs for building the power stations and their outputs. The cost of the solar cells is therefore included. I don’t think that anyone is saying the panel cost is an issue as its already fallen to a point where its a relatively small part of the overall cost of the solar farm. It’s everything else that has to be built around the solar farm that makes the electricity expensive for the potential yield. This includes the gas power station required as backup 🙂
Although I am mathematically challenged, I think this works out to around 55 panels per household.
Our daily consumption is 12.5 KW/h, I have the latest bill in front of me ($ 0.30 ave per KW/h) no off peak , just immersion water heating, evaporative cooling as we get long hot summers, usually, fan all night all year round. Something doesn’t add up, 55 panels for just over 500watts per hour.
Double , triple it, still seems odd.
GlynnMhor says:
May 4, 2012 at 9:34 pm
At least they don’t frequently have the problem of snow covering the panels for weeks at a time…
This area gets quite a bit of snow actually.
Can the person upthread who thinks “green” solar energy devices don’t harm the environment just think about the damage making, maintaining, de-mantling the things does to the environment, and then compare that to their output?
And then tell us which system is more damaging? Guess what so-called “green” solutions are BAD for the planet. Rare earth refinement has RADIO-ACTIVE waste, where you gonna store that? But “green” solutions also wreck huge swathes of the planet … lose lose.
Stop solely blaming Obama. Most of this policy was introduced by the two Bushes, and if your boy Romney gets into office, he will expand it even more than Obama. Guaranteed.
Julian Braggins says:
May 5, 2012 at 2:57 am
“Although I am mathematically challenged, I think this works out to around 55 panels per household.
Our daily consumption is 12.5 KW/h,”
What they say is 55 panels or 3,300 Wattpeak per household. Now consider that they might have about 1,300 sunhours per year, out of a total of 8,000 hours. Let’s say 1/6th of the time. That’s the factor you’ve missed. 3,300W / 6 = 550W.
The journalists are very careful to avoid explaining that. That’s what they get their wage for.
Ian of Fremantle says May 4, 2012 at 9:54 pm
…, the development of non polluting forms of energy production surely is a plus for the environment. Isn’t it?
Look at that photo, Ian. How is covering the land with solar cells “good for the environment”?
Richard111 says:
May 4, 2012 at 11:04 pm
“I read somewhere that solar panels only produce their peak power when they are aligned to within seven degrees of normal of the the incoming sunlight. That means rigidly mounted solar panels only produce their peak power for about one hour per day (sun moves across sky at fifteen degrees an hour). Also the efficiency of the current solar panels is just 20%. Does the above UV panel field really produce 30 megawatts?”
I used a small 15 watt panel to try and keep a 12v battery charged. I fitted a simple digital meter to see how it was doing. On a clear July day in the UK (with the panel aimed directly at the sun), it never gave more than 12 watts, which dropped over the course of 5 years… A cumulus cloud passing between sun and panel would half the output. By the time winter was in full swing (even having re-aimed the panel lower), I would be lucky to get 10% output, and some days it was virtually unmeasurable.
Jonathan Smith says:
May 5, 2012 at 12:08 am
“If you plot graphs of the data you will find, particularly in winter, that PV provides very little when it is needed.”
Pierre Gosselin reports on a very expensive “energy-efficient home” which includes a graph of solar output vs demand:http://notrickszone.com/2012/05/03/germanys-3-million-energy-efficient-test-home-of-the-future-flops/
And another point, or question. Don’t solar panels decrease the albedo, i.e. absorb more incoming short wave energy than the desert? Wouldn’t this increase global warming?
Costs aside, does no one ever consider the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in the manufacture of these solar cells? The carbothermic reduction process for making silicon from lump quartz (not sand, as is common believed) emits a lot of carbon dioxide. On a per-weight basis it is much greater than the weight of the silicon in the solar cell. Given the degradation of the cells with time-in-service, I guestimate that the pay-back of the “carbon debt” of manufacturing the cells is approximately equal to the service live.
The carbon dioxide emissions of these cells is seldom if ever discussed. It is a huge problem.
@boydo3 N Albany,
Fracking has never polluted anything. It is physically impossible for a hydraulic fracturing operation to pollute a groundwater aquifer thousands (or even hundreds) of feet above the hydrocarbon reservoir.
@Magzan,
The solar plants being built today will be inflicting economic damage for 30 years or longer. Any improvements in the cost-effectiveness of solar panels over the last two or next thirty years are irrelevant. You can’t just replace the solar panels every year or two, like your smart phone.
Furthermore, the levelized costs in figure 1 are from the most recent EIA survey. It was published this year.
@Magzan & Timmo,
The levelized costs in figure 1 include fuel. The ballpark fuel consumption of a natural gas plant is 0.01 mcf/kWh. At the current US price of about $2.40/mcf, the fuel cost is ~$0.024/kWh. For the levelized generation cost of a gas-fired plant to approach that of solar PV, sustained natural gas prices would have to approach $20/mcf.
Furthermore, the gas plant operates 24/7/365. Even if you had an efficient battery storage system, you would have to build 3-4 MW of solar generating capacity to replace each 1 MW of gas, coal or nuclear capacity.
Combined cycle power plant full cost, $ 1.5 million per MWh.
Distributed power generators (DG) cost for small-scale generators, European Type 1 million dollars per MWh with (CHP). Hyundai of South Korea for $ 650 000 per MWh. Dual fuel system (Natural gas – Gas oil).
A power generating stations (DG, distributed generators) 25 MWh, is 16.38 million dollars. (Korean made- Hyundai).
SM Independent Power Plants, Ltd.
…you would have to build 3-4 mw of solar generating capacity to replace each 1 mw do gas, coal or nuclear capacity”.
That still doesn’t solve the problem. The earth’s rotation and declination FIXES the output of the solar panel to the time of day. With conventional sources, as long as one has fuel one has electricity, on demand, 24/7.
The next logical step for the greens will be rationing (read “time of day”).
Cheers!
David Jones says:
May 5, 2012 at 12:13 am
I think the issue is more complicated than that. Much of what passes for green energy initiative isn’t that at all. For example, in Ontario the government is upgrading several old power lines (in fact this seems to be where the bulk of their investment is going) so that feed in tarrif power can be supported. But when you look through the green energy banner these lines are being replaced because they are old and need replacing and their capacities are being upgraded so that they can carry electricity from more distant power sources to reduce the possibility of power outages. In other words, they had to do much of this work anyway.
If you look at the power rates through many American states, the poorer states tend to have lower power rates because power is a subsidized commodity. As governments run bigger deficits they are not able to absorb these lower power rate subsidies. Rather than tell you they are mismanaging your economy the green energy banner is stuck on.
We do have a responsibility to develop clean energy. But modern gas-fired plants and clean-burning coal plants are an integral part of that clean energy program, not just solar and wind.
In Middleton’s analysis it would have helped to quote the cost of natural gas per MW to better compare it solar which gets it energy “free” from the sun. Unfortunately for solar I suspect the maintenance costs are poorly known (due to the lack of track record for large installations).
I use to poke fun at Californians for their high electricity rates. Our rates in Ontario are now tipping $0.15 per kWh and are set to become the second highest in North America just below Alaska. Green government sure is costly. I’m going to have to keep the helicopter going twice as long just to break even.
Enter $3 nat gas, and the Green’s energy plan falls apart. So they must cram it down our throats by back-door restrictions on the generation of power with nat gas. The median household income in $52,026, so for every $1 million in waste, either from wealth destruction or higher prices, we destroy about 20 jobs. And we wonder why the labor force participation rate is falling out of the sky. The liberal secular utopia is really dangerous to our liberty and prosperity
boydo3 N Albany,
thanks for the review of lefty talking points.
If you actually believe them, then go review your points against the facts and see if you are amenable to facts. You imply you live in Albany NY. Would you be OK if we forced you guys in Albany to live off of solar power only? Please advise.
davidmhoffer says:
May 4, 2012 at 9:58 pm
Yes, there is a cost to the economy to support green energy, but look at all the jobs it creates!
True. And most of them are in China….
The view from space (Google Earth): 36°28’07.30″ N 104°37’59.77″ W
Others may have said the same above but I’m not going to read all of the comments right now.
“generate 30 megawatts of electricity” (… when the sun doth shine and brand new)
8.3 million per megawatt (… when the sun doth shine, with commercial dual gas/heating oil available at less than 1.0 million per megawatt ginning 24/7/365)
So where is all of this dumb money coming from? $250,000,000 in this case.
I think most realizes these are actually crooks and need to be jailed along with the elected representative and public servants involved for embezzling tax payers monies via collusion, unless this is totally private money invested without ties, once again, back through elected representative and public servants into tax money in like manner.
Makes you fume doesn’t it? Now who is going step forward and stop them? The DOJ? lol.
Harold Pierce Jr says:
May 5, 2012 at 1:57 am
Some types of desert dust are very fine, abrasive and corrosive. I just learned this today from a doc on the History channel about African desert dust.
And once talcum powder-type dust has settled on something, you can’t blow it off — you have to wash it off using a low-pressure hose.
If Ted gets his water from a well, the pipe better be sunk about fifty feet below the water level, or he’ll be sucking air during the dry season…
@Steve from Rockwood,
According to the EIA the levelized cost of natural gas (w/o CCS) is $60-65/MWh. Solar PV is ~$210/MWh.
Capital costs are ~$0.96 million per MW ($4/MWh) for gas and ~$6.5 million per MW ($127/MWh) for solar PV.
Fuel costs for gas run about $10/MWh per $1/mcf of gas.
My bank suddenly declared that it is “Going Green” and switching to renewable energy to meet ‘sustainability goals’. Of course that means they’ll be spending more for electricity can only mean they’ll have less to pay as interest on account balances. I don’t plan to be staying with them much longer, i.e voting with my wallet.
$127/MWh was based on my estimate for the Cimarron facility. The EIA puts the capital cost at just under $200/MWh.
dp, thanks for the headsup on the email notification. What is going on at wordpress?!
If we trust the genius of the invisible hand of an optimally regulated free market, we wouldn’t be stuck with Governments and their crony capitalist, socialist, and communist friends forcing “solutions” that are not yet ready for primetime.