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.
Avfuktare vind says:
May 4, 2012 at 10:35 pm
One of the main benefits of solar energy is that it can be produced at the place of consumption….
_______________________________
No one is saying solar panels do not have their place if used with a bit of sense. Solar powered electric fence chargers for example are great for large ranches as are solar panels for providing some electric in third world countries that do not have the transmission capability. Wind mills for pumping water or grinding grain in third world countries are also decent on site applications.
@Mattew R Marler,
You totally missed the point. No one would drill an uneconomic well today because they thought the cost of drilling was going to decline in the near future. The concept is idiotic. A future reduction in the cost of solar panels doesn’t improve the economics of comercial solar power plants built in the present.
Obama’s war against fossil fuels may soon force the shut-in of “30 to 50 gigawatts of coal-fired generation” capacity.
What will it cost to replace that capacity?
If solar PV actually worked, the cost would be as much as $7 million per MW installed capacity… That’s $7 billion per GW… A total cost of $210 to $350 billion. Of course, solar PV plants only operate at an average of 25% of their name plate capacity – Because they don’t work when the Sun don’t shine.
Research and development of alternative energy sources is a wise use of capital allocated to R&D. However, Obama’s attempt to force a widespread build out of alternative energy infrastructure is proving to be disasterous in terms of increasing the costs and decreasing the relaibility of the nation’s energy supply. Govt mandated widespread and immediate build out of alternative energy infrastructure would be comparable to a gov’t mandated installation of a UNIVAC I in every American household in the 1950’s because gov’t officials foresaw the need for home computers by the 1990’s. On technological and economic scales, from UNIVAC I to modern PC’s & Mac’s, current solar and other “green” energy sources are the UNIVAC I. You wouldn’t have the money to upgrade if you had been forced to spend trillions of dollars installing UNIVAC’s in every American household in the 1950’s.
Forty-six UNIVAC’s were installed in the United States from 1951-1954. The initial unit cost was supposed to be $159,000. By the end of the production run, the unit cost was as much as $1.5 million.
There were about 50 million US households in the 1950’s. Even if the unit cost was held at $159,000… The cost to install a UNIVAC in every household would have been $7.5 trillion. The total US GDP from 1951-1960 was less than $4.3 trillion.
The handful of UNIVAC’s that were installed, were purchased by gov’t agencies and businesses that needed them at the time. The work on UNIVAC did lead to the development of better mainframes and eventually personal computers… But a gov’t-mandated nationwide build out of UNIVACs in the 1950’s would have deprived the private sector and the gov’t of the financial means to upgrade anything.
A gov’t mandated, nationwide build out of “green” energy infrastructure over the next few decades would have a similar effect on our financial means to conduct the R&D needed to actually build economically sound “green” energy infrastructure. In its present state “green” energy, particularly solar, is not economically viable. Tidal, wind and solar power sources are intermittent… And the initial real investment ($) is far higher than fossil fuels.
It would cost more than $6 trillion to replace the nation’s current coal and natural gas power plants with solar power plants… Which would leave you with no capital to expand generation capacity and 6-8 hours of electricity per day.
Building commercial solar plants now is exactly like building UNIVAC’s 60 years ago, with two big differences: There was no alternative to the UNIVAC back then and solar power plants will lose money and/or double or triple the consumers’ and/or taxpayers’ cost for decades.
The few companies that purchased UNIVAC’s back then, did so because it improved the profitability of their business. They didn’t invest in them because of gov’t coercion or taxpayer-funded bribes. When better technology came along, the UNIVAC’s were scrapped in favor of more cost-effective main frames. Today, some leading (or bleeding) edge companies replace their computer hardware almost annually.
You can’t scrap and/or replace power plants on less than a multi-decadal scale. A gov’t mandated full-scale build-out of solar infrastructure today would be exactly like a gov’t mandated home version of the UNIVAC in the 1950’s.
boydo3 N Albany says:
May 4, 2012 at 11:41 pm
At least they won’t have to look for a place to encapsulate and contain vast quantities of radioactive waste for thousands of years……We should be finding new ways to provide the energy our children and our children’s children will need. Gas and oil are highly concentrated and very valuable sources of energy. But they are limited indeed. They should be conserved. We’re gonna need them, big time.
Time to dump this silly propaganda from the oil and gas industry and start looking to future sources of energy, whatever they may be.
_______________________________
Then I hope you are supporting thorium. It is the only reasonable source of energy I have seen so far and can be used in conventional nuclear reactors. ( EM smith on thorium )
Change.Org: Get Nuclear’s ‘Clean’ Little Secret Off the Backburner
Other references:
http://energyfromthorium.com/faq/
http://energyfromthorium.com/history.html
http://www.txchnologist.com/2011/the-thorium-laser-the-completely-plausible-idea-for-nuclear-cars
http://www.resourceinvestor.com/2009/03/18/a-report-on-thorium-the-newest-of-the-technology-m
Physics Forums: http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=358038
World Nuclear.org: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html and mini-reactors -> http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf33.html
Eastern Germany Hit Hard by Decline of Solar
The global solar industry has entered a brutal phase of consolidation and nowhere are the effects as dramatic as in eastern Germany. Several companies have already declared bankruptcy, leaving towns and cities in the region struggling with job losses and tax revenue shortfalls. The future bodes ill.
The growing crisis in the solar industry has not chosen to exclusively victimize eastern Germany. Solarhybrid, Solar Millennium and Scheuten Solar, all based in western Germany, likewise found themselves making their way to bankruptcy court recently. The Sarasin report also stated that Freiburg-based firm Solar-Fabrik faces an uncertain future as well.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,830188,00.html
First they bankrupt the economy, and now they complain there is no money.No Money No Green Energy
Solar cells only work when the sun is shining. To have electricity flowing 24/7, there must be either a system for storage of excess electricity produced (batteries) or a back-up generating system (natural gas, coal, diesel or nuclear. Therefore, since consumers require electricity 24/7, the costs of the back-up generating system or the storage system must be added into the cost of the solar generating system. And since all the systems’ (solar, gas, coal, diesel and nuclear) outputs must be the same, there is no good reason for the solar anyway!
Jay Davis
David Middleton
Obama’s war against fossil fuels may soon force the shut-in of “30 to 50 gigawatts of coal-fired generation” capacity.
Just a nitpick. If you look at the ‘aging’ of the US coal fired fleet.
Slide 3 – http://web.mit.edu/mitei/docs/reports/simbeck-slides.pdf
Obama’s policy will force the shutting of 60+ year old coal fired plants in desperate need of expensive refurbishing.
/sarc
Draconian Regulation = asking the electric utilties which plants they plan on retiring in 10 years then making a regulation to ‘force’ the utilities to retire those plants AKA Leading from behind. AKA Finding a parade and getting in front of it.
What caught my eye in the gov’t documents depicted was the word “centralized”. What’s with the notion that electricity generation requires thousands of homes to be served from one generating plant? It’s not economical. Small natural gas fueled plants are quite efficient. What’s being centralized is POWER over people, evern since Insull got the bug in his hat to impose regulated monopoly.
William Astley says: It is odd that there are no public sources that summarize the engineering facts and economics of ‘green energy’…… ‘Green’ energy advocates are either part of the scam or are ignorant of the facts and support ‘green’ expenditures because it makes them ‘feel good’….. The cost estimated for a photovoltaic power system needs to include the cost for a single cycle natural gas plant to provide backup power for the times when the sun does not shine (i.e. night) or cloudy days. The problem is a single cycle natural gas plant is roughly 30% efficient. A combined cycle natural gas power plant is 60% efficient but costs roughly 4 times more. If one uses a single cycle natural gas plant to provide backup as compared to a combined cycle natural gas power plant there is minimal reduction in CO2 emissions over a combined cycle natural gas plant.
Your comment bears repeating. I mighty quibble with your number of 30% (probably closer to 40% if talking about peak efficiency) but overall, you are exactly right and have put your finger on what for me is the most aggravating aspect of what the ‘greenies’ are trying to pull over on the population. As oft stated, facts are stubborn things and because the engineering facts don’t support wind and solar as ‘electrical sources to a grid’….yes, complete ignorance or being part of the scam are the only two conclusions one can draw.
The problem is very simple and it revolves around the basic fact that wind and solar are both sporadic contributors to a grid where it is imperative that the demand can be met instantaneously to whatever extent is required. Now if we want to use electricity that is to be powered with wind and solar, their sporadic nature can be accommodated one of three ways…. 1. People only use electricity when it is available (how would you like to be scheduled for brain surgery under those conditions?). 2. The wind and solar are used in whole or in part to supply a charging mechanism such as giant raised reservoir where the down flowing water can power a turbine driven generator or 3. The wind and solar are used to supply a grid that has adequate other highly variable sources that can either rapidly reduce or increase depending on the availability of wind and solar. In almost all cases, solar and wind advocates are talking about choice #3 with gas driven turbines being the variable supply…. nuclear runs at essentially a constant load point which cannot be raised or lowered, hydro electric also runs at a constant load point (unless one wants to argue that ‘spilling’ the water to not generate power makes it a variable supply) and meanwhile, coal power plants have become equipment non grata due to their ‘carbon footprint’ (gas also burns carbon of course but has been deemed to be much cleaner than coal) which of course is no great new information to those who even remotely follow this stuff.
In order to make the option of solar/wind work as a grid component, the less efficient gas turbine (referred to as either single cycle or open loop) almost always has to be used as opposed to the more efficient combined cycle. Why is that? One of the features of open loop gas is that it goes from zero to 100% in about 10 to 20 minutes flat. Meanwhile, combined cycle takes at least 1 ½ hours which is not nearly fast enough. Since wind and solar can turn off and on very rapidly which makes the options very limited and realistically, the choice comes down to 1. Wind/solar as partnered and supplemented by inefficient open loop gas and 2. Efficient combined cycle gas all on its own. Kent Hawkins at MasterResource has done plenty of analysis on this very question and for those interested enough, you might want to at least check out this page that discusses the uselessness of wind as a component of the overall grid electrical supply…. http://www.masterresource.org/2009/11/wind-integration-incremental-emissions-from-back-up-generation-cycling-part-i-a-framework-and-calculator/comment-page-1/#comment-3244 You don’t have to read the whole article as here is one small paragraph near the bottom that clearly makes the point and if you want to dig into this more, there is plenty of information on this site….
In November 2009, Kent Hawkins, a Canadian electrical engineer, published a detailed analysis on the frequency with which gas-fired generators must be cycled on and off in order to back up wind power. Hawkins findings: the frequent switching on and off results in more gas consumption than if there were no wind turbines at all. His analysis suggests that it would be more efficient in terms of carbon dioxide emissions to simply run combined-cycle gas turbines on a continuous basis rather than use wind turbines backed up by gas-fired generators that are constantly being turned on and off. Hawkins concludes that wind power is not an “effective CO2 mitigation” strategy “because of inefficiencies introduced by fast-ramping (inefficient) operation of gas turbines.”
The fact that wind/solar don’t actually give a net gain in power supply over what combined cycle gas does on its own is only part of the problem and doesn’t touch on many many relevant issues…. the increased maintenance and reduced reliability of gas plants due to all the cycling, the poor economics of solar/wind and the fact that they both have their own very serious environmental problems far beyond the fact that they don’t actually reduce the consumption of gas. Years from now, people will look back at this era and shake their heads at how on earth could people have moved so quickly and readily into the scam of solar/wind before the odour of the scam of ENRON had a chance to leave the room.
Yep, quite the story!
I monitor my system automatically. Summer heat reduces PV voltage, winter cold increases it. Learn some engineering dude!
NM has elevations ranging from 3000+ feet to over 130000 feet. The air in places ranges from hazy humid to dry-as-a-bone clear, winter and summer.
I’m sure your father had good access to MPPT inverters back in the 80’s as well. If not, I’m sure he was outside adjusting his load point every few minutes to properly extract maximum power from his panels. He surely did some temperature compensation as well.
I don’t recall you giving me a dime.
You need to include fuel costs to compare solar and gas fired generation. That will drive up the cost of the gas fired electricity up to around $.05/kwh, which is still a hell of a lot cheaper than solar.
Also, unless you have better figures, add about 6% of the total capital costs per year for maintenance to both estimates.
Brewster,
I pay taxes. The solar panels you buy are subsidized by the Government. Ergo I am paying for your novelty projects in the desert.
The technology has not progressed that far at all since the 80’s. I hate to tell you this, but automatically tracking it with computers versus tracking it with tools he bought by hand is not all that different.
That being said, are you seriously arguing that somehow your solar panels are overcoming the laws of physics and extracting more power from the sun then the sun puts out? I mean, by golly I think you just came up with something that I will call perpetual motion or free energy from nothing!
As far as this comment goes:
NM has elevations ranging from 3000+ feet to over 130000 feet. The air in places ranges from hazy humid to dry-as-a-bone clear, winter and summer.
Well yes, of course it does, that is NM. we lived in central NM at an elevation of approx 5-6k. Where do you live that you bork the laws of physics and somehow the Earth does not tilt during the winter or summer at all? Come on, we all want to know this. Where in central NM do you live? In the winter I remember the cold winter days when it would snow at night and the snow would melt before noon because desert snow is fickle and does not stick around for long. The day-time temperatures often melt it and it was not uncommon at all to get snow at night and then get temperatures of up to 50-60 degrees F the next day in the middle of winter. That is at an elevation of 5-6k too mind you.
So if temperature does play such a “Super role” in your efficiency I really am curious on how this works in central NM because your location is critical in this. Yes, New Mexico ranges from deserts to high deserts to even forests and mountains. The state is rather varied and anyone who thinks for a second that the state is automatically a great place for solar panels needs to remember that the state is covered in mountains, has local weather conditions all across the state, and is one of the most varied states as far as topology goes.
This is why I read your post and was so sceptical to begin with. I used to live there as a very young kid and I remember the desert weather very well. The coldest days in the high desert were when it was cloudy, but when the sun is shining you would tend to get the hotter days.
Granted, maybe my memory is off since I was young, but I do recall the average high being around 50 or so in the winter…..so what is your experience since you live there?
Why am I pestering you about this? Because I want you to show us your actual data and to show us your actual information instead of making claims that do not make since for central NM. Show me the proof.
I have lived most of my life in Missouri, which is the show me state, and I want you to show me the proof. I might have lived my early years in New Mexico, but I grew up in Missouri and want to see your proof since your claims are rather far-fetched and I don’t tend to believe far-fetched claims without proof. Show us your data. Show us your proof that despite the Earth tilting away from the sun in the winter according to physics and science, your panels still produce the same power.
V Martin says: May 6, 2012 at 7:14 am
Dear Mr. Matin
Where Mr. Hawkins states:
Hawkins findings: the frequent switching on and off results in more gas consumption than if there were no wind turbines at all. His analysis suggests that it would be more efficient in terms of carbon dioxide emissions to simply run combined-cycle gas turbines on a continuous basis rather than use wind turbines backed up by gas-fired generators that are constantly being turned on and off.
Mr. Hawkins is absolutely correct. I would add that it is also more economically efficient to simply continuously run combined-cycle gas units, certain coal units, and combustions turbines (CTs).
There are at least two factors commonly overlooked in academic studies of wind/solar dispatch by the green community. These are: 1) high start-up cost for the fossil plants (over and above the start-up fuel cost), and 2) line-losses for getting power from sunny/winding parts of the country to populated areas.
In practical terms the actual cost of dispatching a wind/solar resource is roughly an order of magnitude higher than dispatching the next economical resource. Indeed these other factors make wind/solar less economical than the energy-inefficient high-variable-cost combustion turbines (CT). Consequently, wind/solar “assets” are almost always dispatched last. Meaning these units become the last units called upon to supply power to customers. This is true even in high-gas-price scenarios.
The only thing keeping wind/solar “resources” on most utilities dispatch lists are a combination of State renewable requirements, political pressure, and federal subsidy. Even then, wind/solar are called upon only if all other options have been exhausted.
Regards,
Kforestcat
That $.12/kWh figure is inflated when you take out high prices induced by California and other blue state stupidity. Most of the middle of the country enjoys ~$0.09/kWh.
As an aside I also have a problem with the EIA’s levelized costs for wind. I simply do not believe that a proper accounting of availability has been made for wind when it shows a lower levelized cost than nuclear.
@Mathew Marler
Quoting directly from your McKinsey source,
“Indeed, the cost of a typical commercial system could fall 40 percent by 2015 and an additional 30 percent by 2020…”
That is not a 40% annual decline. It is a 40% decline from 2012 to 2015 and an additional 30% decline in the following 5 years. Given that even the Chinese are realizing that they are subsidizing a boondoggle, I find the claim highly suspect. Furthermore, if you look at their comparison figure at the bottom of the posting you see that they claim solar is already competitive with existing grid-tied sources in “good sunlight, developed markets (e.g. California (where have I heard that one before?), Spain, Austrialia.” Even more absurd they claim that electricity costs in those markets are already $.20-.30/kWh. Well California can essentially buy the same power I access here in the Midwest at $.09/kWh, so those costs are completely distorted by other political agendas.
1. kforestcat says:
Consequently, wind/solar “assets” are almost always dispatched last. Meaning these units become the last units called upon to supply power to customers. This is true even in high-gas-price scenarios.
Thanks for your additional comments. I have one quick thought that comes to mind… you obviously don’t live in Ontario or for that matter, the UK. Effectively in these jurisdictions, solar/wind have priority access to the grid… these sources of supply have to be taken allowed access first and the rest of the grid adapts acordingly. Being dispatched last is enough of a horror story… now imagine them being first!
Regarding the economic side of the picture, an excellent resource that I encourage everyone to read is a document by Prof Gordon Hughes from the University of Edinburgh. It is entitled “Why is Wind Power so Expensive – An Economic Analysis”. http://www.templar.co.uk/downloads/hughes-windpower.pdf The following is from the Forward….. As Gordon Hughes’s report shows, meeting Britain’s target for renewable energy by 2020 would require a total investment of some £120 billion in wind turbines and back-up. The same amount of electricity could be generated by gas-fired power plants that would only cost £13 billion, that is an order of magnitude cheaper.
David Middleton: In its present state “green” energy, particularly solar, is not economically viable. Tidal, wind and solar power sources are intermittent… And the initial real investment ($) is far higher than fossil fuels.
It would cost more than $6 trillion to replace the nation’s current coal and natural gas power plants with solar power plants… Which would leave you with no capital to expand generation capacity and 6-8 hours of electricity per day.
Building commercial solar plants now is exactly like building UNIVAC’s 60 years ago, with two big differences:
At the present time, solar is economically viable in some places. As costs continue to decline (I can’t tell for sure whether you are stating outright that costs will NOT continue to decline, but you seem so), it will become economically viable in more places. I would not propose to replace the entire fossil fuel based electrical power generating capacity with solar power; building commercial solar power plants is only like installing UNIVAC’s in every home in your imagination, since no one is proposing anything like that.
Up above a price of $0.13/kwh for electricity from solar power was quoted, and compared to average costs of $0.09/kwh for a particular person, and $0.12/kwh for people nationwide. Of those, which do you expect to decline the most in the next 5 years? On recent trends, solar will decline about 80% or more over the next 5 years, but other sources will most likely increase in cost. Because my grandparents lived into their 80s and I am only 65, I expect to see electricity from solar power at under $0.01/kwh; PV factories powered completely by sunlight (following the example of the Boeing 787 assembly plant in South Carolina, which is 100% powered by solar and other renewables); and hydrogen and butanol from solar power cheaper than natural gas on an energy equivalent basis. I don’t expect that you and I can resume this discussion and compare notes when I am 85, but perhaps 5 years from now we’ll still be slogging away at WUWT, and we’ll be able to resume this discussion.
For what it’s worth, I favor more development of America’s coal, oil and natural gas resources, I just do not expect the price reductions to parallel the price reductions of solar. I would, of course, be happy if they did. I also favor diverse nuclear power technologies.
I linked to a cost analysis from McKinsey and associates forecasting 40% declines in the cost of solar power over the next 2 years. We’ll probably still be here in May 2014, and we can appraise their forecast.
oops, I wrote: since no one is proposing anything like that.
Actually, a few people are proposing that , but I am not one of them.
Gail Combs says:
May 6, 2012 at 5:34 am
And what about coal? We have plenty. The only ostensible reason for not burning all we need is the CO2 scare, and CAGW hysteria.
Matthew R Marler says:
May 5, 2012 at 1:47 pm
If solar prices decline 40% every 2 years, as expected in the review I posted, then the discussion will be much different in 5 years.
An unrealistic assumption. No manufacturer is going to sell a finished product for less than the cost of manufacturing it — ask any former Solyndra employee how that marketing strategy worked out for them…
jabre says:
May 5, 2012 at 6:27 am
Panel manufacturers provide 20 to 25 year 80% performance warranties.
Unless the climate on Turner Ranch is sunny and mild all year long, with no precipitation, no tumbleweeds, no pollen, and no wind to deposit talcum-powder dust on them, those panels won’t last half that long, let alone deliver 80% performance.
Steve P says:
May 6, 2012 at 9:50 am
Gail Combs says:
May 6, 2012 at 5:34 am
“Then I hope you are supporting thorium. It is the only reasonable source of energy I have seen so far and can be used in conventional nuclear reactors.”
And what about coal?
My guess would be that the reaction wouldn’t be energetic enough to make it worthwhile.
Sorry. I just *had* to say that…
Matthew R Marler says:
May 5, 2012 at 1:47 pm
If solar prices decline 40% every 2 years, as expected in the review I posted, then the discussion will be much different in 5 years.
If people expect that after 40 years that suddenly solar is going to jump down in prices due to anything other then increased subsidies, they are seriously deluded. If you increase subsidies and make things cheaper by Government intervention, well then of course the cost of solar goes down for the consumer!
But the consumer is still paying for it and the actual cost is still the same and its really just being delusional in the end or lying to say that costs are going down. The costs are the same as before, the only thing that is changing is that there is more Government financing going into solar.
That is great if you are some weird person who thinks Government money is “cost neutral” or some other nonsense like that, but that money does cost the economy and costs real jobs in the real world. Delusional, like I said.
Bill Tuttle says:
May 6, 2012 at 10:15 am
Funny – ain’t it? – when we get to the crux of the issue, it’s more important to be funny than relevant.
If the CO2 scare is a scam, then we can freely burn all the coal we need.
That is the issue.
benfrommo says:
May 6, 2012 at 10:31 am
“If people expect that after 40 years that suddenly solar is going to jump down in prices due to anything other then increased subsidies, they are seriously deluded. If you increase subsidies and make things cheaper by Government intervention, well then of course the cost of solar goes down for the consumer!”
Ben, there is a real phenomenon called the experience curve. For different industrial products, costs scale differently with volume, and in the past, with each doubling of the volume of produced PV modules, costs went down by 18%. (An extreme example is software where all the cost is in development so each volume doubling causes a drop of 50% in per unit costs)
The module prices don’t go down through subsidies, as most subsidies are Feed In Tariffs for the user of the PV module.
I looked at the cost curves, there was this optimistic assumption by Edenhofer in one of the PIK reports that costs of PV half each 5 years or so it looked like, it was this document
http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/srren-spm-fd4
BUT I found various other graphs that give a price of 7 USD per WattPeak in 1980 so I think Edenhofer is overly optimistic.
Oh,I see that Edenhofer paper was the infamous Renewables report by the IPCC and they have memory-holed it. Maybe their numbers were fake and they don’t want me to see them again. Stuff happens.
Well, anyhow, the experience curve effects are probably real.
Matthew R Marler says:
May 6, 2012 at 9:36 am
“On recent trends, solar will decline about 80% or more over the next 5 years, but other sources will most likely increase in cost. ”
That is probably an artefact caused by FIT cutbacks of broke European nations and especially Germany which was taking half the world’s output. So there’s massive oversupply in the market now. We see the first bankruptcies now so that falling trend will end quickly.
benfrommo: If people expect that after 40 years that suddenly solar is going to jump down in prices due to anything other then increased subsidies, they are seriously deluded.
No one is claiming “suddenly”. “Tipping point”, maybe.
Bill Tuttle: ask any former Solyndra employee how that marketing strategy worked out for them…
As you probably know, American Airlines has gone bust and been bought by a former competitor. For reliable news of the industry, I’d recommend you get the information from the purchaser, not AA. Same with solar. Look to the companies who sold 30+ GW of solar generating capacity last year, not the bankrupts.